The excellent work of Guatemala-based photojournalist James Rodriguez has been featured on BB a number of times before. The most recent photo-essay on his blog documents a protest march that took place a few days ago in the capital here, carried out by indigenous people from San Miguel Ixtahuacan, where the Canadian mining giant Goldcorp operates the Marlin Gold Mine. Background here on the mine, and Goldcorp's campaign of harassment and intimidation of indigenous residents. Snip:
The movement, made up almost in its entirety by indigenous local Mam Mayans, reiterated their intention to pursue a peaceful dialogue so as to bring to a close Montana's mining activities in the region. As of now, three people have died due to the toxic contamination in the local water sources and other natural resources.San Miguel Ixtahuacan is Waking Up: Guatemala City, Guatemala. (mimundo.org)
Gregoria Crisanta Perez, one of the 8 women accused by Goldcorp of sabotaging their electric supply (read more about the case here), declares: "We demand our rights because we do not want to be killed by the mining company. We ask the government to please listen to our demands, as we are the legitimate owners of the territories. We are indigenous people, we were born there, and we should die there. But our death should be decided by God, not by the mining company."
A few meters down the road from the Canadian Embassy, one of the many Goldcorp billboards that can be found in Guatemala City read: "We invest in the dreams of a developing country."
Some residents of San Miguel Ixtahuacan identified the billboard and felt it was inappropriate due to the damage they have suffered from the mine's presence in their communities. Gradually, protestors began tearing little pieces as an expression of discontent with the mining company that has incited grave social conflicts. Dozens of people suddenly charged the billboard euphorically in a festive mood.
RSS Feed
I'm not surprised, Canada under Harper has utterly lost her way. Imagine if Bush had a third term. The media in Canada seems to have become increasing silent and complacent in matters of social justice and it is beginning to look like Canada will have to be stimulated from the outside to remember herself.
“The movement, made up almost in its entirety by indigenous local Mam Mayans, reiterated their intention to pursue a peaceful dialogue so as to bring to a close Montana’s mining activities in the region."
So the protestors' position is that they're dedicated to peaceful dialogue... so long as it's about how to get the operation shut down. It would appear that their position is fixed.
What we have here is practically a case study in the failure of a mining operation to meet the needs of the local population.
Some got jobs, some didn't: wealth disparities arise and along with them comes bitterness. Land was purchased from people who didn't necessarily realize the kind of profit that was to be made from it: now they're upset that they didn't get what they realize, in retrospect, that it was worth.
The gainfully employed locals align themselves against those who feel they're slighted: violence and even death ensues as the two mobs engage in open conflict. Villagers try to disrupt the mine's operations; in response, local law enforcement behaves the way developing-world law enforcement tends to... Allegations are made that the mine is poisoning people, that the power lines are causing health problems (about as legitimate as the autism/vaccination connection)....
Basically, it's a classic mining industry clusterfuck. The mine is guilty of not doing enough to improve the lives of the local people; the villagers, for their part, are well past the point of listening to reason.
My point in typing this up was to bring light to the fact that these issues have two sides, and only one of them is being presented here. This isn't just a case of evil earth-raping heavy industry vs. the charming villagers.
ever heard of this?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008-09_British_Columbia_pipeline_bombings
or this?
http://www.tibet.ca/en/newsroom/news_releases/89
or this?
https://www.probeinternational.org/fortis-belize/belize-dam-pits-canadian-firm-against-environmentalists
or this?
http://us.oneworld.net/node/147237
Uh, Syncrotic, the mine has contaminated their drinking water with cyanide. And they're Mayans, whose culture does tend to make them charming.
So it really is an earth-raping mining giant versus charming villagers.
Xeni, cyanide contamination happens also in Argentina. Barrick Gold, another canadian mining company, has operations in many places in the country and a good relation with city and province governments, so they do as they wish.
The consequences of their actions will sadly be felt for many generations.
Takuan: I wasn't responding to you; we were in fact composing our posts in parallel and submitted them within two minutes of each other. Nothing I wrote was an attempt to refute anything you wrote.
And as far as I can tell, nothing you posted afterwards was an attempt to refute anything I wrote :) I mean, what exactly does the Harper government have to do with the actions of Canadian companies operating internationally? It's not as if it's a new phenomenon. Case in point: the Omai cyanide spill in 1995. And what's the common thread between the four scattershot links you dredged up?
My point was just that the mine's transgression here is failing to provide due compensation to the people it displaced and affected. In other words, it's about money, and the failure to adequately share the wealth is what's at the root of it all.
Mining in general, and gold mining in particular, is only profitable if you do great harm to the environment in which you are mining. If you look at the gold mines in Montana, USA, the cost of the clean-up from the cyanide residue that they left behind greatly exceeds the value of the gold they extracted. The only reason that it was cleaned up is because the US Federal Government designated it a super-fund cite and paid for the clean-up. The mining industry did not pay for the clean-up.
I would guess that the reasons that Goldcorp chose to mine in Guatemala is because they will not be held accountable for any clean-up that needs to happen when they are finished extracting gold. Even in the USA mining operators find ways to avoid cleaning up their mess, transferring any property or capital out of the corporation that is responsible for the clean-up, and then declaring bankruptcy because the now vacant shell company can't afford the environmental remediation that they agreed to.
My friend Malcolm made a documentary about a similar situation in Ecuador:
http://www.tiff08.ca/filmsandschedules/films/underrichearth
The problem with these mining companies is that they don't offer a realistic chance for development for the areas they exploit. They basically suck whatever mineral they want as fast as they can and leave just as fast and generally leaving an environmental mess.
This same company tried to go into Guatemala's neighbor country, El Salvador, which is where I'm from. The locals that had heard about the way they work, scared the crap out of them before they could even start a mine and they haven't tried to go back
sidebar to the criminality of the Harper Junta: now he is making it legal for people to be fingerprinted and photographed and irretrievably be filed in the criminal computer system - without charge. Must be sleeping with Jacqui Smith.
http://www.stopminingtibet.com/