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Category: Pacific Rim/OceanaGold
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Published: Monday, 30 April 2012 16:35
Pac Rim Announces Pending ICSID Decision, the Social Movement
Responds
Monday April 30, Pacific Rim announced in a press release on MarketWatch that the company had been informed by the ICSID that a decision in the jurisdiction round of their case would be released by May 31st.
The press released reiterated the company’s often criticized claim that “the El Dorado deposits are inherently environmentally clean and the state-of-the-art production and processing methods planned for El Dorado are expected to have a negligible impact on the local environment.”
The company yet again blamed environmentalists for lack of jobs around the proposed mining site: “PacRim drastically reduced its Salvadoran exploration expenditures in July 2008 when it became apparent that efforts to secure a mining permit for the El Dorado project were being stalled by the GOES, a situation capitalized on by various rogue anti-mining and anti-development organizations. As a result, over 300 Salvadorans lost their jobs in one of the poorest regions of the country - a region that sorely needs the economic benefits this operation can contribute - and future jobs in addition to the economic activity and social programs that would benefit the region and the nation were forestalled.”
Upon the publication of Pac Rim’s statement, the Council of Canadians immediately publicized a counter press release (below) highlighting the environmental and social problems that the proposed project has already created and would continue to create for the communities of Cabañas.
A media release issued by Vancouver-based Pacific Rim Mining Corp. today states, “PacRim recently received notification from the International Center for the Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) that a decision on the Jurisdiction Objection will be announced by May 31, 2012. The Jurisdiction Objection was filed by the Government of El Salvador (GOES) in relation to the arbitration action commenced by PacRim in April 2009 under the Dominican Republic-United States-Central America Free Trade Agreement and the Investment Law of El Salvador (the CAFTA/ILES action).”
Background
In 2007, the Ministry of Environment in El Salvador denied Pacific Rim the permits needed for their El Dorado mine. In retaliation, the company (through its US-based subsidiary) launched a $77 million US-Central America Free Trade Agreement challenge. A decision on this ‘investor-state’ case will be made by an ‘International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes’ panel, which is based at the World Bank in Washington, DC.
Water implication of the mine
The Inter Press Service has reported that, “Peasant farmers from the northern Salvadoran province of Cabañas fear that mining operations by Pacific Rim planned for the region will consume 30,000 litres of water a day, drawn from the same sources that currently provide local residents with water only once a week. Environmentalists and experts have also warned that if the operations begin…the cyanide that would be used by Pacific Rim to extract gold and silver could contaminate the area’s groundwater and soil.”
John Cavanagh and Robin Broad have written in The Nation, “Residents of (the northern Salvadoran community of Santa Marta in the northern department of Cabanas) are fighting US and Canadian mining companies eager to extract the rich veins of gold buried near the Lempa River, the water source for more than half of El Salvador’s 6.2 million people, (which also winds through Guatemala and Honduras). …The communities’ goal: to make El Salvador the first nation to ban gold mining.”
Mine opponents murdered
Over the past two years, at least nine anti-mining/ water justice activists who have expressed opposition to the mine have been murdered. In June 2009, Marcelo Rivera Moreno was found dead, he had been tortured. That December, Ramiro Rivera Gomez (the vice president of the Environmental Committee of Cabanas) was shot dead. Later that month, Dora ‘Alicia’ Recinos Sorto (also a member of the Environmental Committee) was killed. Felícita Echevarría, Esperanza Velasco, Darwin Serrano, Gerardo Abrego León were also killed. And most recently in June 2011, Juan Francisco Duran Ayala was found dead after putting up posters against the El Dorado mine. He had been shot in the head. The company denies any involvement in these murders.
Shout Out Against Mining Injustice
Both Washington-based Institute for Policy Studies Fellow John Canvanagh and Vidalina Morales De Gamez of La Mesa Nacional Frente a la Minería Metálica in El Salvador will be speaking at ‘Shout Out Against Mining Injustice’ this June 1-2 in Vancouver. To register for ‘Shout Out’, please go to http://www.canadians.org/shoutout
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Category: Background and reports
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Published: Friday, 27 April 2012 15:40
El Salvador Mining Update
Mitch Teich
LAKE EFFECT | APR 18, 2012
Jan Morrill is with the International Allies Against Metallic Mining in El Salvador. Steve Watrous lives in Milwaukee, and works with the Midwest Coalition Against Lethal Mining. You can find a link to our original interview about the future of a Wisconsin’s company’s Salvadoran gold mine here.
To Listen to the Interview…
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Category: Commerce Group
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Published: Friday, 27 April 2012 15:31
Interview about Mining in El Salvador, Wisconsin and Beyond
WORT Community Radio Station
On A Public Affair-Hosted by Mike Moon
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Category: FTAs & ISDS
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Published: Friday, 27 April 2012 15:21
Salvadoran Mining Fights Spark International Lawsuits
By Roger Bybee
Friday April 13, 2012 1:20 PM
Activists struggle against free-trade provisions, as USW challenges mining industry goals
Despite pervasive poverty and unemployment in their tiny Central American nation of 6.9 million people, El Salvadorans are ignoring the siren songs of transnational mining companies that promise new jobs in mines billed as “environmentally safe.” The allure of gold and silver mining has been tarnished by the contaminated streams that are the legacy of mining in the country’s northern region. But broad popular opposition is now encountering provisions of the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) that effectively elevate corporations over elected governments.
As I reported last November, the Milwaukee-based firm The Commerce Group is suing El Salvador for $100 million over the denial of a permit to re-open a goldmine that has caused extensive water pollution. Similarly, Pacific Rim, a Canadian corporation seeking to start an “open-pit” gold mine, has launched a $77 million claim against El Salvador. Under the terms of CAFTA, such legal disputes are settled by secretive international arbitration panels composed of corporate executives and government trade officials. In effect, they have the power to override laws protecting water quality, workers' rights and endangered species.
Read the rest of the article here…
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Category: Commerce Group
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Published: Friday, 27 April 2012 15:06
Salvadoran Mining Struggles are Pertinent to Wisconsin
by A. David Dahmer,
April 25, 2012
Jan Morrill, of the National Roundtable Against Metallic Mining, is on a national tour talking about important mining issues.
The recent mining controversy in northern Wisconsin was far more complex than people would have you believe, says Jan Morrill as she stopped in Madison as part of a national tour she was embarking on. Morrill, who works for the National Roundtable Against Metallic Mining, is actively working to build international alliances on the issue of mining.
Morrill spoke from her own extensive experience on building U.S.-El Salvador ties in a talk called “Globalizing Mining Resistance” April 11 at Helen C. White Hall on the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus.
Morrill has been directly working with communities resisting mining in El Salvador for four years and is currently the representative of the International Allies against Metallic Mining in El Salvador, a coalition of organizations in the U.S. and Canada working to support the struggles of Salvadoran communities for sovereignty over their natural resources. In her work, she coordinates closely with the National Roundtable against Metallic Mining, national organizations in El Salvador, and the communities that have been and would be directly affected by gold mining.
“I've been talking about patterns in the international mining industry and how what happened here in Wisconsin is not unique to here,” she tells The Madison Times in an interview at Ground Zero Coffee shop. “That's what has been happening in El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, and South America, the Philippines.”
Mining companies have come to communities in El Salvador, and now in Wisconsin, touting jobs and "environmentally safe mining" which uses, they claim, new technology and new techniques. But what they say is very different from what Morrill says she has seen firsthand.
Read the rest of the article here….
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Category: Mining and Human Rights
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Published: Thursday, 26 April 2012 10:11
Salvadorans Pressure the Attorney General for Justice
On April 25th the civil society organizations and communities that make up the National Roundtable against Metallic Mining (the Mesa in Spanish) held a protest in front of the Attorney General of the Republic Office rejecting the recent sentences issued by the Specialized Sentencing Tribunal of El Salvador in the cases of environmentalists from the town of Trinidad who were murdered in 2009. The Mesa criticized the Attorney General’s Office’s lack of investigation into the intellectual authors of the crimes, who they claim may or may not be tied to Canadian mining company, Pacific Rim.
Besides the protest, the Mesa took out a paid ad in the newspaper (Spanish version) and held a press conference to denounce the sentencing.
As a sign of support, 35 organizations from across the U.S. and Canada signed on to a statement of solidarity with the Mesa’s calls for investigations and justice (Spanish version), which was read at the press conference and given to the Attorney General’s Office.
A commission of representatives from the Mesa and community radio station Radio Victoria was received by the secretary in charge of communications from the Attorney General’s Office, who claimed they were not being negligent in guaranteeing the access to justice, but that the process of investigating intellectual authors is slow. When the representative from Radio Victoria pressured him as to why there had not been results in their case, is almost over three years old, he said they are still investigating. He also said that the Mesa should pressure the Supreme Court and the Ombudsman for Human Rights Office instead of the Attorney General’s Office.
The protest was held on the heels of the announcement of the new Attorney General of the Republic. On the 24th the Legislative Assembly named Astor Escalante Attorney General. Escalante was interim Attorney General in El Salvador for a number of months in 2009, including during time between Marcelo Rivera’s murder and cases of violence in Trinidad. In their paid ad the Mesa stated: “As the National Roundtable we, also, expresses our complete rejection for the return of Astor Escalante as head of the Attorney General’s Office, and would like to point out that during his period as Attorney General in 2009, the current situation of impunity and ineffective judicial systems, in general continued.
More information about the protest in Spanish, including videos, press statements and some photos.
For more pictures of the event.
