They are seeking compensation, at last, for being poisoned when one of the gold-mining company’s trucks overturned, spilling cyanide into the river...The government and the Canadian company involved in the joint gold mining venture, Cameco, promised compensation. It arrived in August 1998, just before the school year started, and consisted of notebooks, pencils, and some candy for the children...Cameco said it paid the Kyrgyz government money to compensate Barskoon area residents. But Tursunbek Akun, head of the human rights commission under current Kyrgyz President Kurmanbek Bakiev, told RFE/RL most of that money simply vanished. [The mine is now owned by Canadian company Centerra Gold (part of Cameco).]