May 5, 2006

GLAMIS GOLD Inc. HOLDS ANNUAL SHAREHOLDER’S MEETING IN TORONTO

BELOW:

- A statement read at the Glamis Gold annual shareholder’s meeting in Toronto (May 3) by community representatives from mining-affected regions of Honduras and Guatemala, on the last day of their two-week Canadian speaking tour with Rights Action;
- A letter to the CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation), written by Rights Action, concerning its May 4 coverage (http://www.cbc.ca/thecurrent) of the controversy surrounding Glamis Gold, a Canadian-American mining company with mines in Honduras and Guatemala [and elsewhere];

Please re-distribute this info far ‘n’ wide. If you want on-off this elist:
info@rightsaction.org.

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Toronto, Canada, May 3, 2006.

Glamis Gold Ltd Investors and Shareholders,

We, as inhabitants communities directly affected by Glamis Gold’s mining activities in Honduras and Guatemala, write this letter to you to inform you of the grave consequences your investments are having.

Glamis Gold arrived in our communities promising development and progress.
However, the experiences of our communities clearly demonstrate that the mining activity does not bring development neither to the local population, nor to the country.

Multinational companies such as Glamis Gold always state that they are respecting the laws of the countries in which they operate, but in Honduras and Guatemala they are operating within a corrupt system, profiting from systematic impunity and a lack of real democracy. Communities were never consulted and when we have organized our own consultation processes according to valid legal instruments and have expressed our rejection of mining activities, the government has responded with repression and militarization, defending the imposed mining projects.

In the Siria Valley in Honduras, the negative impacts of the San Martin mine are extensive. Environmental destruction, implicit in open pit mining, continues to damage the ecosystems in the region – forests, water sources, flora and fauna. Cyanide and heavy metal contamination of several water sources in the area has been confirmed, even by studies carried out by governmental institutions. There are communities that have drunk water with high concentrations of arsenic, mercury and lead for years, while other communities must travel to another municipality in order to obtain enough clean water for domestic use.

The water shortage caused by the enormous quantity of this vital resource required for the San Martin mine’s operations has destroyed the Siria Valley’s local economy, traditionally based on agriculture and cattle. In turn, this has caused a wave of immigration to the United States, separating and dividing families and community life.

Since the mine begun its operations, the local population has been living a health crisis in the region. Independent medical brigades have been documenting the ongoing rise in dermatological, respiratory, ophthalmologic, gastro-intestinal and other diseases. A significant percentage of the children and the adult population of the communities closest to the mine suffer from chronic illnesses, with no adequate diagnostic or treatment.

In the municipalities of Sipakapa and San Miguel Ixtahuacan, in San Marcos, Guatemala, where the Marlin mine operates, we know very well the problems that mining affected communities in Honduras are facing and as a result have continually expressed our worries about and opposition to mining activity.
We are already experiencing serious social, cultural and spiritual impacts, graver still considering that in the affected region the vast majority of the population is indigenous. Glamis Gold has sown conflict and insecurity in our communities, tearing apart the social and cultural fabric of our Maya Sipakapense and Mam indigenous peoples.

We have already seen two indigenous people murdered in relation to the Marlin mine: Raul Castro Bocel by police bullets in Sololá and Álvaro Benigno Sánchez by a private security agent from the Golan Group, contracted by Glamis Gold in San Marcos. Furthermore, militarization and repression at the local level has become part of everyday life since the arrival of the mining company, creating tension and a lack of trust. Armed men intimidate our communities and harass the women and girls. Several cases of rape by mining company workers have occurred, but go unreported because of the pervasive climate of fear. The increased competition for water has also generated conflict.

In response to this very real situation that we face every day in our communities, we have attempted to make our voices heard by every means possible. As all doors have been closed in our faces, as affected communities we have been forced to resort to community-initiated decision-making processes and direct actions, such as those that have been taking place continually over the past two weeks in the Siria Valley in Honduras. The recent news that Honduran Glamis Gold subsidiary Entre Mares’
property in the country has been mortgaged for a 30 million dollar loan from a bank in the Bahamas raises once again the threat that the company may simply declare bankruptcy in order to abandon the San Martin mine, without any mitigation or reparations and without fulfilling basic commitments, such as legally registering the land and houses of the community of San José de Palo Ralo, coerced into relocating in order to make way for the mine.

In the Siria Valley in Honduras, as affected communities and as the Siria Valley Regional Environmental Committee, we are demanding the immediate closure of the San Martin mine, along with integral reparations and mitigation. Even as you meet as shareholders, actions, investigations and media coverage continue in Honduras, concerning the devastating impacts of your investments.

In Sipakapa, Guatemala, we demand the respect of the results of our legitimate community consultation process. On June 18, 2005, based on municipal, national and international laws, the communities of Sipakapa and community authorities held consultations to determine whether the population wanted mining activity in their territory or not. In 11 of the 13 community sectors of Sipakapa, the people expressed their overwhelming rejection of mining activity. Thus, we demand that the Marlin mine be shut down immediately.

It is clearly impossible to explain the consequences of mining activity in the Siria Valley and San Marcos and our positions and demands regarding the San Martin and Marlin mines in such a short time and space. We feel that it is your responsibility as shareholders to inform yourselves of the devastating impacts of your investments in our communities and to take an appropriate course of action.

Thus, we invite you to a public presentation, discussion and documentary film screening on these issues tonight at 6pm at the University Club, 380 University Ave. We also urge you to request more information from Rights Action (info@rightsaction.org, 416-654-2074) and to coordinate with us to arrange a visit to the Siria Valley and Sipakapa to meet with communities and to learn firsthand about the wide range of negative impacts of your investments.

Sincerely,

Carlos Amador Juan Tema
El Porvenir, Sipakapa,
Francisco Morazan, San Marcos,
Honduras Guatemala

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May 4, 2006

CBC - The Current

We write concerning your report (May 4, 2006) on the Glamis Gold mining company, and on CPP (Canadian Pension Plan) investments in the global mining and military industries. While we appreciated that the CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) did this report, there are a few issues to address.

We are disappointed that the CBC chose to bring the company spokesperson into your studios for a live interview, after playing a few clips from a protest we helped organize, as well as some comments from Juan Tema – a Mayan community leader from the Glamis Gold affected region of Guatemala.
In this way, the CBC allowed the Glamis Gold Company to respond, unchallenged, to a few selected points.

In the interest of fairness and real dialogue, it would have been easy for the CBC to have us in your studio to debate the company representative on air.

A second point: Both the company official, in your studios, plus the Glamis Gold CEO (chief executive officer), in a clip you played from the CEO at the AG (annual general) meeting, said they tried to establish dialogue with Juan Tema, Carlos Amador (a community leader from the Glamis Gold affected regions of Honduras) and Rights Action, but that we had refused. This is false. Glamis Gold had invited us to a private meeting with no determined agenda. This does not constitute a fair and open dialogue, as is discussed below.

First of all, as stated, The Current could have provided a ‘dialogue’ if you had invited one of us to talk with the company official on air. Secondly, and more importantly, there was an obvious space and time for dialogue in the Glamis Gold AGM, that the company did not permit. After the CEO gave a glowing report of Glamis’ mining operations in Honduras and Guatemala, highlighting that they had ‘strong community support’ and that their profits were going steadily and steeply up, while their costs were going steadily and steeply down, the company invited questions from the assembled shareholders. There were no questions.

At that point, we were given 4 minutes to read a statement prepared by Carlos Amador and Juan Tema – included below in its entirety. Once their statement was read, the CEO then said, directly, that most of what Juan Tema and Carlos Amador said was false, but that there was not time to respond to the points at the meeting. The CEO invited other shareholders to ask questions about what they had just heard. No questions. No comments.
Neither Juan Tema and Carlos Amador, nor Rights Action members were asked to speak again.

The point is the company did not want to dialogue about these issues in front of their shareholders and investors. The issues that need to be discussed are extremely serious, as set out below, including two recent killings in Guatemala in incidents related to the Glamis Gold mine. Why did The Current not ask the company official about the deaths, let alone other serious points?

There is a further issue related to the ‘lack of dialogue’. In both Honduras and Guatemala, Glamis Gold initiated its mining operations without proper consultation with and permission of the locally affected communities, in violation of local, national and international laws. From the very beginning of Glamis’ mining in Honduras and Guatemala, there has been a resounding lack of willingness to dialogue, but not on behalf of the affected poor Mayan and campesino communities.

A further issue: We have little doubt that the Glamis Gold Company would sit with the community leaders and Rights Action, but they would do so behind closed doors, off the record. Why do we say this? We believe the company is quite happy to ‘dialogue’ as long they are mining and making huge profits.

The flip-side is that for the communities, the harms and violations are happening right now: people have been killed and wounded; many people have received death threats; chemical poisoning is happening [in Honduras]; water shortages are happening, even as the company uses [Guatemalan company figures] 250,000 liters of water/ hour; there is documented contamination of air, water and earth; local economies are being undermined and the number of young people from the Valle de Siria in Honduras traveling “illegally” – and dangerously – the USA has spiked.

What is there to dialogue about when the harms and violations are happening right now? If Lake Ontario were proposed as a nuclear waste dump site and the ‘project’ went ahead despite widespread opposition, would we accept to dialogue while toxic nuclear waste were being dumped in the lake? Of course company officials are open to talking circles around something, as long as the profits continue.

We agree with Carlos Amador and Juan Tema - both mining operations should be suspended immediately, to stop the immediate harms and violations, to then create the space in which real dialogue can take place, in which real investigation of the harms and violations could take place.

With its coverage of Glamis Gold, The Current is beginning to scratch the surface. The story of the harms and violations associated with Glamis Gold’s mining operations in Honduras and Guatemala is not an isolated case; across the globe, hundreds of North American companies are mining for resources, and contributing in many cases to similar harms and violations.

We appreciate The Current on the (albeit long overdue) interview covering the CPP investments in mining and the military industry complex. This is a very important story that needs much further follow-up, as much of the Canadian public is unknowingly investing in the construction of open pit mines, cluster bombs, nuclear weapons, etc.

We hope that Canadian and American awareness of and opposition to the harms and violations committed by Canadian/US mining companies in countries around the globe continues to grow; we hope North American shareholders and investors begin to assume responsibility for their investments and profits; we hope the Canadian/ US media will provide much broader and balanced coverage of this very serious issue.

Sandra Cuffe & Grahame Russell, Rights Action, 416-654-2074, info@rightsaction.org

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WHAT TO DO:

- The #1 line of work in favour of global justice and equality,
including community-controlled development, protection of the environment, justice and human rights in countries where we work (Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Haiti, Chiapas (Mexico), is to fund and directly support local organizations so that they can continue to lead their own struggles. Please make tax-charitable donations to Rights Action in Canada and the U.S.;

- Get involved in education and activism work in your home community
concerning the global mining industry, whose policies and actions are controlled by the “G8” governments, including Canada and the U.S.;

- Consider establishing long-term “partnerships” between your
community / organization with grassroots organizations / communities in these countries that are affected by North American mining companies;

- Consider coming to these counties on an educational-activist
delegation;

Rights Action is a development, enviro- and human rights organization, with its main office in Guatemala. We channel your tax-deductible donations to over 50 community development, environment and human rights organizations in Guatemala, Chiapas, Honduras, El Salvador, Haiti. We carry out education & activist work in the USA and Canada about global human rights, environment and development issues.

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