Consultations, or municipal referendums in which the voting population asserts their preference on the issue. The first three Consultations took place in 2014 in San Jose Las Flores, San Isidro Labrador, and Nueva Trinidad in the northern department of Chalatenango, and now the fourth Consultation will take place in the municipality of Arcatao on November 8th.
By: Gloria Silvia Orellana - CoLatino / Translated by: Samy Beltaief
Xenia Marroquìn, coordinator of Foro del Agua, regrets the decision of the Constitutional Commission to refuse the proposal to reform article 69 of the Constitution, which proposes to recognize food s and the access to water as a human right.
This is deplorable. We, as organizations and social movements, are going to denounce it, and will be holding the members of parliament accountable. The problem is that they consider water as a merchandise and not as a fundamental human right.
By: Alejandra Martins - BBC Mundo / Translation: Marina Bonetti and Sigrun Pallesen
In an office in Washington, three arbitrators are about to decide on the lawsuit filed by the multinational mining company OceanaGold against El Salvador.
According to the government of the Central American country, what is at stake is nothing less than the health of its inhabitants.
Meanwhile, the mining company insists on the importance of the judicial security that investors anticipate in order to defend their interests.
By: Oscar López -CoLatino / Translated by: Marco Melloni
People of different communities in the San Isidro municipality, region of Cabañas, manifested their opposition to a metal mining project in the territory.
The inhabitants maintain that the proyect would contaminate the water resources of the area, and consequently aggravate the already existing problem of access to clean drinking water and other necessities. Additionally, locals explain that one of the main water resources that would affected by the contamination is the Titihuapa River, a tributary of the Lempa River. According to information provided by the inhabitants of San Isidro, the project site would stretch over a land portion of 48 square kilometres, land currently being explored, and would amount to over a third of the region of Cabañas total surface.
Robin Broad - Bretton Woods Project
This briefing focuses on the main venue for settlement of legal cases brought by corporations against governments: the World Bank’s International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID). It finds significant ICSID bias in favour of corporations and commercial interests by analysing ICSID overall and by looking at a specific case brought by a global mining corporation against El Salvador. READ MORE
Photos/translation: Marina Bonetti
Citizens of the communities of Cicachuite, Cerro Grande, Teosinte, Chavarria, El Sitio, Los Rivera, Los Guardado, El Portillo, Los Alas, Los Orellana, Los Merino, El Pepeto, Gualsimaca, Las Vegas, and the town itself, all belonging to the Municipality of Arcatao, in the Department of Chalatenango, presented a package of signatures collected in their communities in order to ask the Municipal Council for the call of a public referendum that could declare this Municipality a “Mining-Free Territory”.
Six years after the implementation of an administrative freeze on processes related to mining by the Salvadoran Government, social organizations opposed to the mining industry are intensifying their national campaign to demand a permanent ban on mining activities.
Faced with the failure of the Legislative Assembly to apply a definitive ban at the national level, social organizations such as CRIPDES, CORDES, CCR, members of the Mesa Nacional Frente a la Mineria Metàlica (National Roundtable Against Metallic Mining) based in the department of Chalatenango, are leading a campaign for public referenda. These are intended to determine whether communities agree with the establishment of mineral extraction projects in their territory.
OceanaGold