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Category: Media Releases
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Published: Sunday, 22 September 2013 12:03
Because mining endangers life, the Salvadoran government must ban metallic mining.
In 2006 the National Roundtable against Metallic Mining in El Salvador introduced a bill to regulate mining activity in the country. Among other things, the bill proposed a ban on exploration and exploitation of metallic mining and sought to replace the Mining Promotion Act passed in 1995.
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Category: Pacific Rim/OceanaGold
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Published: Sunday, 22 September 2013 10:27
by Robin Broad
First published in: http://triplecrisis.com/buzzwords-responsible-mining/#more-8529
Buzzwords and Fuzzwords - terms that became popular but mean vastly different things to different people. We've had a long list: development, sustainability, good governance, civil society, accountability. "Corporate responsibility" should certainly be on that list. And the avalanche of new buzzwords and fuzzwords continues: emerging markets, inclusive growth, resilience.
But today's buzzword winner is: responsible mining. Meaning what exactly? Well, not surprisingly, as is the case with most buzzwords, it means whatever the user wants it to mean. So, let me try to distinguish among the top four uses of "responsible mining."
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Category: Pacific Rim/OceanaGold
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Published: Sunday, 22 September 2013 10:13
San Isidro, El Salvador. Walking through a sea of businessmen and information booths at a Toronto trade show, mining executive Tom Shrake saw gold.
The poster board that caught the eye of Mr. Shrake, president of Canada-based Pacific Rim, detailed core samples from a deposit in northern El Salvador – fittingly called El Dorado, or the golden one. It's a name that conjures up images of fabled lands brimming with riches that have lured European explorers to Latin America for centuries.
By Shrake's calculations, the geologist's company should have sampled deeper into the earth. "My gut, my geologic gut tells me there are over 5 million ounces [of gold] there," says Shrake, who immediately booked a flight to El Salvador to take a look for himself. He paced the property, gauging surface-level geologic formations that might give an indication of what lay thousands of feet beneath him. "By the second day, I was ready to acquire the district." (READ MORE)
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Category: Water Crisis El Salvador
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Published: Thursday, 22 August 2013 08:27
An estimated ten thousand people hailing from different parts of the country marched through the streets of San Salvador today to demand that the Environment and Climate Change commission of the Legislative Assembly resume discussions on a General Water Law for El Salvador.
The march is the culmination a series of direct actions that environmental organizations and communities affected by water scarcity in El Salvador have led since the beginning of July, after negotiations to approve the law reached a stalemate.
The deadlock is caused by fundamental ideological differences from the political parties that make up the commission claims Samuel Ventura, an activist with ACUA , an organization promoting the right to water in the department of La Libertad.
“One the one hand, the left leaning FMLN supports aspects of a bill proposed by social organizations which call for public administration and for prioritizing the public use of scarce water resources of the country”; on the other hand, the right wing ARENA party has opposed those principles and has “instead advocated for the involvement of the private sector in the administration and regulation of the water supply” explained Ventura in a community organizing meeting back in July.
The first attempt to legislate the use of water in El Salvador was introduced in 2006 by the Foro de Agua, a coalition of environmental and social organizations that submitted a draft bill to the National Legislative Assembly containing a legislative framework to publicly manage the scarce water resources in the country.
Government officials at the time dismissed the bill as unnecessary claiming the use of water use was already regulated by different government institutions including the Ministry of the Environment, MARN and the autonomous water administration agency ANDA.
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Category: Mining prohibition El Salvador
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Published: Tuesday, 20 August 2013 09:06
By Vladimir Pacheco (krupuk2000@gmail.com)
First published in http://www.mpi.org.au/australia-2/oceanagold-and-el-salvador/
Scars of civil war still fresh in the country’s social landscape. After years of civil war El Salvador remains a fragile country both politically and economically. With a geographical territory a third the size of Tasmania, a population of 6.2 million and scare water resources, the country struggles to provide a decent livelihood for all of its citizens. Since theend of the civil war in 1992, successive governments of this small Central American nation have sought to industrialise the country by opening up the economy and encouraging foreign investment.
“We give them jobs and they give us gold”
Even though mining has not featured strongly in El Salvador’s economic history, mining companies have taken advantage of the country’s relaxed foreign investment rules to start exploration activities. Since the early 2000 as many as 10 transnational mining corporations are prospecting for gold and other precious minerals buried under the northern mountains which provide the main source of clean water, fresh air and local agricultural production for the country.
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Category: Media Releases
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Published: Monday, 12 August 2013 08:26
Given its failure to pay its fees to ICSID, the tribunal rejected the extension request by the mining company Commerce Group in the trial against El Salvador
On August 9th the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) denied an extension request by the mining company Commerce Group Corp to continue its suit against the Salvadoran government. The ruling announced through its website makes reference to its finding that the company has not demonstrated that it has the financial resources to continue the process in this tribunal, which is part of the World Bank. It is a ruling that we favor despite being based on the non-payment of fees by the company and not on the recognition of the dangers of pollution and destructive mining. A similar resolution on this case had already been announced by ICSID in 2012, so it is not a victory for the Salvadoran state in its defense of its sovereign right to deny mining permits to the company.
In October 2010, Commerce Group, a mining company of American origin, initiated a lawsuit for USD $100 million against the Salvadoran state when it revoked the operating license for the San Sebastian mine. The mine is located in the province of La Union in the east of the country, where the mining company maintained operations intermittently for several decades of the last century. The permit was denied because of the pollution of the San Sebastian River and other irreversible ecosystem impacts. The San Sebastian River, located at the foot of the mine in the municipality of Santa Rosa de Lima, today suffers alarming levels of pollution from the mining of heavy metals by the same company. Experts and national and international organizations, the Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources and the Human Rights Ombudsman, have denounced the contamination at the site and pointed out that the serious environmental degradation is affecting the rights to life, water, food, health and the environment of communities in the area.
Despite the disaster, Commerce Group has continued attempting to blackmail the Salvadoran state, making use of international corporate tribunals while not responding to the proven pollution impacts and without respecting the refusal of the people who prefer to preserve the few natural resources they have left.
As in the case of the demand for USD $315 million that the Canadian company Pacific Rim is bringing against the Salvadoran government, this is an extortion that demonstrates the enormous privileges that our policy makers have given to multinational corporations.
The Salvadoran state, in particular the institutions that must protect it, instead of celebrating victories that do not belong to them, and if indeed it is their intention to ensure our national sovereignty, should review and stop promoting investment agreements, such as the free trade agreement with the United States, the Association Agreement with the European Union, the Partnership for Growth and the law for Private Public Partnerships, that give privileges and maximum protection to the investment rights of transnational corporations to the detriment and expense of our sovereignty and human rights. In addition, if its mandate is to promote and defend the rights of the Salvadoran population, the government should urgently promote a law that bans metal mining given the enormous risks that it entails to the country.
San Salvador, August 10, 2013
National Roundtable on Metallic Mining
