The Dominion - Canadian mining

Militarized Mining in Mexico

dawn — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 10:31:06 +0000

Canadian mining company makes good off the "drug war"

MADERA, MEXICO—On an August afternoon in 2008, Dante Valdez Jimenez was giving a teacher training class in an elementary school in Madera, a small town in the northern Mexican state of Chihuahua. But before he got through his lecture, he was interrupted by a group of 30 men, some of them armed.

In the minutes that followed, Valdez was savagely beaten in front of his students. While they beat him, his attackers yelled that he should keep his nose out of other people's business. Valdez was lucky to escape with his life.

Five days later, Amnesty International put out an alert expressing concern for the safety of Valdez, as well as members of a nearby community. The attack was political: Valdez is known for his work against Minefinders, a Vancouver-based company that operates an open-pit gold mine near Madera. Amnesty indicated that among the attackers were employees of the mining company.

“There isn’t a single authority in any of the three levels of government that is looking out for the people who are displaced, for people who have been mistreated or beaten,” said Valdez, his voice quiet and low. He pointed out that there was a classroom full of witnesses to the incident, but there was never an investigation.

The attack on Valdez wasn’t an isolated event, but a brazen reminder of the repression meted out to those who organized against Minefinders, which began operating in Mexico in 1994 on the heels of the North American Free Trade Agreement. The company started construction on a low-grade, cyanide-leaching gold and silver mine near Madera in 2007.

Madera, which means “wood” in Spanish, is situated high in the Sierra Madre mountain range and possesses the rugged air of a logging town. But the area is anything but tranquil: throughout the Sierra Madre, the Sinaloa Cartel, Mexico's most powerful drug cartel, is said to be battling with La Linea, the armed wing of the Juarez Cartel.

According to the official story, at stake are trafficking routes, as well as vast fields where marijuana and opium poppies are cultivated by peasant and Indigenous farmers.

The war in Mexico, often called a “war on drugs,” launched in late 2006, resulting in increased violence and militarization that has spread to municipalities and rural areas all over the country. The northern state of Chihuahua has been particularly hard hit. Since 2008, more than 9,000 people have been murdered in the city of Juarez alone, and massacres against unarmed civilians have taken place across the state.

But in some areas, like Madera, it appears the militarization that’s taken place on the pretext of the drug war has worked in favour of the extractive industries.

Before construction of the Minefinders mine could begin, the historic town of Dolores was relocated to make way for the project, affecting more than 60 families. Locals were not ardently anti-mining, but many felt that Ejido Huizopa, the body which represents communal landholders in the area, was not getting a fair shake.

By 2008, as construction gave way to gold production, tensions between the company and members of Ejido reached a breaking point. That May, after coming to a majority decision in an assembly, members of the Ejido erected a blockade at the mine access route, demanding meaningful negotiations and a better agreement with the company. People working for the mining company were prevented from passing, but soldiers were allowed through the barricades.

Minefinders soon found a way around the protesters, one which didn’t involve sitting at a negotiating table.

“At the blockade, there was always, permanently, soldiers travelling in the company trucks, dressed like civilians, [and] as many as eight company trucks watching the demonstrations, the blockade,” said Valdez. Not only were blockaders intimidated by the presence of soldiers, but the company continued to access the mine, passing through the blockade because they had soldiers in their trucks.

During and immediately following an attack by armed commandos that year on civilians in Creel, a neighbouring village, soldiers and police maintained a continuous presence at the blockade.

“There was an attack on the community of Creel, and 14 people were killed,” explained David de la Rosa, an environmentalist and peasant organizer based in Madera. “The authorities took three days to get to Creel, and the army was here accompanying a peaceful blockade, backing up a company, just two hours away from where this took place.”

The blockade lasted one year and five months, during which time residents say Minefinders co-opted members of Ejido Huizopa through financial incentives and intimidation.

“When the mining company saw that we had a majority of [communal land owners] supporting us, they began to manipulate in a certain way, using the same people from the Ejido to manipulate other companeros, to ensure that we didn’t have a majority in decision-making,” said Luis Pena Amaya, a member of Ejido Huizopa who helped organize the blockade.

As on the blockades, the militarization of the region factored into Minefinders’ ability to win support for their open-pit mine.

“The Federal Police had a presence and intimidated people on many occasions. In the decisive assembly, they took control and surrounded the inside of the salon where we held our assembly,” said Pena Amaya. The intrusion of police into communal decision-making is unconstitutional in Mexico. “When things turned against the other group, which was the group preferred by the mining company, [Federal Police] intervened to ensure that we didn’t exercise our rights.”

Eventually, the Ejido signed an agreement with Minefinders, but problems remain. Last year, a tear in the liner of a heap leach pad, which has yet to be fully repaired, caused leakage of contaminants near the mine site. Environmentalists and human rights organizations in the area confirmed that they fear travelling to the mine site, because the road to the mine is under the control of organized crime groups.

Dawn Paley is a journalist and co-founder of the Vancouver Media Co-op.

Questions? Comments? Drop us a line: info@mediacoop.ca.

Mining In Mexico

Showdown in Peru

dawn — Mon, 12 Sep 2011 08:55:19 +0000

Indigenous communities kick out Canadian mining company

BURLINGTON, VT—Earlier this spring, an anti-mining Indigenous movement in Peru successfully ousted a Canadian mining company from their territory.

“In spite of government repression, if the people decide to bring the fight to the bitter end, it is possible to resist the pressure of mining and oil companies,” Peruvian activist and journalist Yasser Gomez told The Dominion.

The David-and-Goliath scenario of this anti-mining uprising highlights the vast economic inequality that has beset Peru. The country’s economy has been booming for the past decade, with a seven per cent growth expected this year—one of the highest growth rates internationally. Sixty-five per cent of the country’s export income comes from the mining industry, and investors are expected to spend over $40 billion in the next 10 years on mining operations.

Yet this growth has not benefitted a large percentage of the population. The poverty rate in Peru is just over 31 per cent; in the countryside, two in three people live under the poverty line. Today, more than 200 communities across Peru are organized against mining.

On June 5, left-leaning presidential candidate Ollanta Humala defeated right-winger Keiko Fujimori, the daughter of ex-president and human rights violator Alberto Fujimori. Humala, who won resounding support in the poor countryside, promised to redistribute wealth by increasing taxes on the lucrative mining industry.

But another political force, from the grassroots, may end up being a powerful force of change under Humala.

In May and June of this year, hundreds of local residents in Puno organized road blockades, strikes and protests to demand the government rescind a concession to the Vancouver-based Bear Creek Mining Corporation. Activists also called for an end to future mining concessions in their area, due to the industry’s impact on the environment.

According to Bear Creek, at the time of the protests the company had already invested some $25 million in the mine. Company Director Andrew Swarthout said the mining would not impact Lake Titicaca (a massive freshwater lake shared by Bolivia and Peru) and would create approximately 1,000 jobs. But local residents were not convinced.

Walter Aduviri is the president of the Front for the Defense of Natural Resources in Southern Puno, and a leading organizer in protests against Bear Creek and mining in general in the area.

“It is as though we, the Aymaras, do not have any politicians or representatives in the congress,” Aduviri told a reporter from the Peruvian newspaper La Republica. He critiqued outgoing president Alan Garcia, who he says governed only for those who have money. "We do not ask for money, we ask for respect for our rights, our property and territory,” said Aduviri.

“The president [Alan Garcia] has sold off our territory without consulting us,” Paolo Castro, a farmer who joined the protests against Bear Creek told Al Jazeera. Farmer Alejandro Tucuuhami agreed, telling the news outlet, "We know that in European countries, for example, mining contaminates a lot, so that's why they want to send the mines to underdeveloped countries."

Indigenous campesinos on the Bolivian side of the border began road blockades in solidarity with the Peruvian activists. Overall, the blockades put a standstill to inter-country traffic, stopping hundreds of trucks, local passengers and tourists.

On June 24, following seven weeks of strikes, protests, road blockades and bloody police repression of activists, then-President Garcia broke with Peruvian political tradition and heeded the demands of the protesters by cancelling the Bear Creek contract, and putting a three-year hold on future mining deals for the region. In addition, recently inaugurated Ollanta Humala has pledged to move forward on legislation that will make community input necessary before mining operations anywhere in the country can proceed.

Just hours after Garcia overturned Bear Creek's concession, a conflict erupted at the airport in Juliaca, north of Puno. There, activists protesting other mining operations and a hydroelectric plant occupied the airport only to be attacked by police who shot and killed five of them. Major English media outlets inaccurately reported that Garcia’s decision against Bear Creek was linked to the massacre at the airport, when in fact the airport protest was linked to separate proposed mining and hydroelectric projects.

Jennifer Moore, the Latin America Program Coordinator of MiningWatch Canada, told The Dominion that Garcia’s decision to annul the concession “is an important indicator of the strength of local organizing that we have been seeing for a while in Peru.” Moore said Garcia has been “extraordinarily bent on handing out mining concessions without consulting with local communities first.”

In response to Garcia’s decision, Bear Creek has applied for a constitutional injunction against the Peruvian government. Swarthout contends that the cancellation of the concession is unconstitutional and in violation of foreign investment laws. Moore noted that it is plausible that Bear Creek could use the Canada-Peru Free Trade Agreement, signed in 2009, to challenge the loss of their concession.

The wave of strikes and conflicts that have swept across Peru in recent months, along with the election of Humala, are likely to have a long-standing impact on the regulation and taxation of the multinational extractive industry in Peru. On August 23, at the time of this writing, the Peruvian congress signed into law a bill that requires mining and oil companies to consult with Indigenous communities before constructing extractive projects. Humala now has to sign the bill into law for it go into effect.

The people’s victory in Puno against Bear Creek may set the stage for a new struggle in the country that will test the political will of Humala, and challenge social movements to pressure from below.

Ben Dangl is the editor of UpsideDownWorld.org, a website on activism and politics in Latin America. He is the author of the book, Dancing with Dynamite: Social Movements and States in Latin America.

Peru protests