Rights Action - September 6, 2011
FACT-FINDING DELEGATION TO GOLDCORP INC'S "MARLIN" MINE IN GUATEMALA
CANADIAN IMPUNITY ON DISPLAY ... in Guatemala
FOR MORE INFORMATION in Guatemala:
Grahame Russell, co-director, info@rightsaction.org
Tel (In Guatemala): 011 [502] 4955-3634
Rights Action is pleased to be traveling with Maude Barlow, of the Council of Canadians, to visit Goldcorp Inc's open-pit, cyanide leaching gold mine in the Mayan Mam communities of San Miguel Ixtahuacan, in western Guatemala, on September 6-7.
Maude Barlow is in Guatemala participating in a public workshop Foro de Agua y Género (Forum on Water & Gender), organized by Asociación Agua Ríos y Pueblos, Movimiento de Mujeres Indígenas Tz´ununija´ and Alianza de Derecho Ambiental y Agua, ADA (www.aguariosypueblos.org). As part of the Forum, 16 the participants are visiting with mining harmed families and communities near Goldcorp's mine.
Our group will be hosted by ADISMI (Association for the Integral Development of San Miguel Ixtahuacan), an organization of mining-harmed communities and people, that, since 2004, has been at the forefront of denouncing and resisting the wide range of health and environmental harms and other human rights violations caused directly and indirectly by Goldcorp's mine.
(Photo: 2009. Near Goldcorp's "Marlin" mine, a Mayan Mam baby with skin infection due to blood poisoning caused by naturally occurring heavy metals (arsenic, lead, mercury) released in dangerous quantities into the air and water due to the massive use of explosives to blow up the mountains tops, then consumed by humans and animals.)
CANADIAN IMPUNITY ON DISPLAY, ... in Guatemala
(This is how the unjust global economic order works)
The impunity with which Canadian gold mining giant Goldcorp is operating in Guatemala is growing, with no end in sight. With the price of gold at record highs, this impunity is enabled and endorsed, effectively, by governments of Guatemala and Canada, by many public and private investment funds across Canada, and by Goldcorp shareholders and directors.
GOLDCORP's GOLD MINES IN GUATEMALA & HONDURAS
Over the past 8 years in Honduras and 7 years in Guatemala, Rights Action has been supporting community based struggles related to environmental and health harms and other human rights violations caused directly and directly by Goldcorp Inc's open-pit, cyanide leaching mines: the "San Martin" mine in Honduras, the "Marlin" mine in Guatemala.
WIDESPREAD HARMS & VIOLATIONS = UNJUST ENRICHMENT
Below, we set out a summary of harms and violations caused by Goldcorp's mines in Guatemala and Honduras, as documented by a range of Central and North American and European organizations (NGOs; church-based and solidarity groups; the International Labour Organization; the Inter-American Commission of Human Rights; universities; etc).
Were the Canadian government, investors and public to properly examine Goldcorp's mining record in Guatemala and Honduras, we believe they would conclude that Goldcorp's extraordinary profits come from what can only be called unjust enrichment.
In both Honduras and Guatemala, the harms and violations began with an initial lack of free, prior and informed consent from affected campesino and indigenous communities. This initial and prior violation of based political and civil rights was made possible by a fundamental lack of democracy and by a manipulated and corrupted administration of justice in both countries.
There followed a process of often-times illegal and/or forced evictions of families and communities; manipulated and sometimes pressured purchases of property from impoverished local communities. These problems include: not informing local communities about the mining prospects; undervaluing the land ("preying on the poverty" of the local population); forcing and threatening people to sell their land; paying different prices to community members, creating divisions and tensions at the local level, between family and community members.
A further way of sowing division in families and communities occurs when Goldcorp offered low-skilled, low-paid employment to poor, local men (and some women), preying on the poverty and generalized lack of employment. These further divisions have occurred in Guatemala and Honduras that have not recovered from the trauma and legacy of the State-sponsored terrorism and repression of the 1970s through to the early 1990s.
(Dona Diodora with Javier de Leon, of ADISMI (Association for the Integral Development of San Miguel Ixtahuacan). On July 7, 2010, two men approached Dona Maria's home in the evening to ask for a cup of coffee. As Diodora came out of her small home, carrying the cups of coffee, walking behind her daughter Maria, one of the men came out from behind some bushes, leaned around her daughter, and shot her point blank in the head. The bullet entered her right eye, and exited by her right ear. But for a few millimeters, she would have died. After emergency operations and a long recovery in a hospital in Guatemala City, Diodora survived, miraculously, with a prosthetic eye. Seven months later, she still does not want to sell her land to Goldcorp Inc. In a letter to Rights Action, Goldcorp acknowledged that the two men that tried to kill her were local men, and current or ex-employees of their mine. It is widely acknowledged in the region that Diodora was attacked for her opposition to the mine. No justice has been done for this attempted assassination.)
Widespread de-forestation ensued, once the mining operation began, through the clear-cutting of the land, before the use of explosives to blow up and remove, level by level, entire hills and mountain tops.
Initial air and water contamination occured from thick dust due to the de-forestation, and the use of explosives and heavy machinery to break up the mountain-tops and rock.
Contamination of surface and underground water sources ensued, due to the release of naturally occurring heavy metals (mercury, arsenic, lead) in dangerous amounts due to the explosives and destruction of mountain-tops and to the use of huge amounts of cyanide (in the process to separate the gold from earth, rock and other metals).
(Cow that died - 2010 - near Goldcorp's "Marlin" mine, after drinking contaminated water just below the mine.)
Contamination of local water sources also occurred through the release and leak of waste products from the processing plant and tailings ponds.
Beyond contamination of water sources, depletion of surface and underground water sources occured due to use of huge quantities of water in the gold and silver processing plant. This water depletion and contamination occurs in regions of the two countries where the "subsistence economy" campesinos and indigenous communities barely survive the "dry" season, most years.
Due to the use of explosives, people's homes have been cracked.
(December 2008. Structural cracks to a home, due to explosives used at "Marlin" mine.)
Extensive health harms have and are occurring to local populations (from babies to the elderly), including: hair loss, skin rashes and diseases, blood contamination due to breathing in or consumption of dangerous levels of heavy metals, other more serious health problems (organ failure and complications) due to blood contaminants; eye irritations; respiratory complications.
And, to top it all off, when villagers and community members organize to denounce and try and put a stop to the harms and violations, repression is used against villagers (including illegal jailings and manipulated criminal charges, shootings, deaths and shootings).
IMPUNITY - LACK OF REMEDY & RECOURSE
The people suffering these harms and violations effectively have no legal remedy or recourse in any legal system, not only inside Guatemala and Honduras, but also at the international level, and in Canada.
IACHR ORDER
In May 2010 the Inter-American Commission of Human Rights (IACHR) - based on its investigations of these harms and violations - ordered the government of Guatemala to suspend Goldcorp's mine in Guatemala. Neither the government of Guatemala nor Goldcorp abided by this order. The government of Canada (a member of the Organization of American States) did nothing to ensure that Goldcorp - a Canadian company, existing due to and under Canadian laws - abided by this suspension order.
DOCUMENTATION
In April 2010, the Canadian television station CTV aired a W5 documentary "Lost Paradise", looking at Goldcorp's mining operation in Guatemala, and HudBay Mineral's nickel mining operation in Guatemala. It is recommended viewing: http://watch.ctv.ca/news/w5/paradise-lost/#clip290436.
In 2010, a documentary film about Goldcorp's mine in Guatemala was released: "The Business Of Gold In Guatemala". It is recommended viewing and available on request.
In 2009, a documentary film was released about Goldcorp's mine in Honduras: "All That Glitters Is Not Gold". It is recommended viewing and available on request.
On request, Rights Action can send many articles, urgent actions, reports & links to other doc-films about Goldcorp's mines in Guatemala and Honduras, going back over 8 years.
FOR MORE INFORMATION in Guatemala:
Grahame Russell, co-director, info@rightsaction.org
Tel: (In Guatemala): 011 [502] 4955-3634
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RIGHTS ACTION
Originally founded in 1983, Rights Action is a not-for-profit organization with tax charitable status in the US and Canada. The Canadian Rights Action Foundation, founded in 1999, is independent from and works in conjunction with Rights Action (USA). Since 1995, Rights Action has been funding and working to eliminate poverty and impunity and the underlying causes of poverty and impunity in Guatemala and Honduras, as well as in Chiapas (Mexico) and El Salvador. As part of our work Rights Action directly funds and works with community-based development, environmental and human rights organizations that are resisting and denouncing the harms and violations caused by global mining companies. Rights Action is also involved in education and activism work in Canada and the USA aimed at critically understanding and changing unjust north-south, global economic, military and political relationships.
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