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Aug 2009 Pacific Rim Silent in Wake of Violence Against Anti-mining Protesters in Cabañas, El Salvador

A wave of violence targeted at anti-mining protesters has ripped through Cabañas in north-eastern El Salvador, and Pacific Rim Mining Corporation, the mid-size Canadian company which has lost millions in its effort to exploit the area's ample gold deposits has remained curiously silent on the attacks.

Last month, Marcelo Rivera, a prominent anti-mining activist, community leader and FMLN member was forcibly disappeared by unknown assailants. Though many organizations immediately denounced his disappearance, police failed to act quickly enough to alter his fate. Rivera's disfigured body was found dumped in a well two weeks after he was last seen alive.MORE

El Salvador: The Mysterious Death of Marcelo Rivera

"What occurred is that we were interviewing organizations such as Medicina Legal, a lawyer from Tutela Legal and local economists, and in our conversations what they each said 'what is happening right now is the disappearance of Marcelo Rivera,'" said Moffett.

The details around Rivera's case, his "disappearance" and torture, corresponds with the way death squads worked during that country's civil war.

"Its concerning that history may be repeating itself in El Salvador," said Moffett.

This led Moffett to make a short film on the murder, which he titled The Mysterious Death of Marcelo Rivera.

El Salvador's attorney general's office, along with local police, suggested Rivera was drinking with local gang members and was killed by them as a result of a fight that ensued. Rivera's family and friends were quick to point out that he didn't drink. The attorney general's story was largely rejected, not just by those close to Rivera, but by the rest of the country as well. In addition, the local police first reported that Rivera's death was due to two blows to the head, which a later autopsy revealed was untrue.MORE

Another Anti-mining Activist Shot in Cabañas El Salvador, Hitman Tied to Pacific Rim is Detained

Ramiro Rivera is President of the local Community Development Association (ADESCO) of Nueva Trinidad, a small community located in the unpaved highlands of Cabañas Department. In 2005, as exploration permits were offered to the US/Canadian Pacific Rim Mining Corporation, the community found that it was in the crosshairs of a proposed gold mine. As the company began to drill deep holes to estimate the quality of gold deposits, residents noticed their wells were drying up. Some wells were poisoned by unknown chemicals, leading in some cases to stillborn calves and dead livestock.

Rivera was reluctantly elected to lead the group after residents accused the previous ADESCO Board of receiving hush money from Pacific Rim representatives in exchange for their silence regarding the mine's potentially detrimental impacts. When Rivera took the helm, he organized three road blockades near Nueva Trinidad that prevented exploratory equipment from being transported into remote areas. Rivera has previously reported threats against his life that he said were based on his opposition to the goldmine.MORE

Dec 2009 El Salvador: Ramiro Rivera Shot to Death in Cabañas

[Note: UDW first reported on Ramiro Rivera in August, when he miraculously survived an attack where he was shot eight times in the legs and back. A Real News report released at the time aired footage of a Rivera interview. The attack occurred weeks after the assassination of Marcelo Rivera (no relation) in Cabañas, El Salvador and marked the beginning of an open season on activists opposed to mining in the area. Here we re-print the testimony of Hector Berríos of MUFRAS-32, an organization that has accompanied many of the anti-mining groups in their struggle for justice. A longer article on the assassination of R. Rivera and its significance in light of the ongoing struggle against Pacific Rim's mining efforts is forthcoming. --ed.]

December 20, 4:00pm - Hitmen gunned down and killed our compañero Ramiro Rivera Gomez, Vice president of the Comité Ambiental de Cabañas, [Cabañas Environmental Committee], in the Canton of Trinidad, city of Ilobasco, Cabañas. Rivera was a leader in the resistance against the Pacific Rim Mining CompanyMORE

Dec 2009 El Salvador - Hitmen Assassinate Prominent Woman Activist in Cabañas; Pro-Mining Violence Continues

Six days after heavily armed men took the life of a respected anti-mining activist in Cabañas, El Salvador, another prominent community leader has been assassinated. On December 26 at 3:30 pm Dora "Alicia" Sorto Rodriguez, 32, was killed as she returned from doing laundry at the river near her home in Cantón Trinidad, in the municipality of Sensuntepeque, Cabañas. "Alicia," as she was known to friends, was eight months pregnant and carried her 3-year-old son in her arms as she was shot dead. The child was shot in the foot and is receiving medical care.

Since 2005, many Cabañas residents like Sorto Rodriguez have been involved in a fierce battle over whether the US/Canadian Pacific Rim Mining Company can re-open the shuttered El Dorado gold mine. Late last year, outgoing President Tony Saca responded to local pressure and negated Pacific Rim's permit applications for gold extraction. Activists are concerned that re-starting the mine will threaten local water supplies and ruin their ability to grow crops. Supporters—mostly Pacific Rim employees and their families—see the revival of the mine as a source of job creation and economic development.MORE

The 2011 Goldman Prize for South America goes to Franciso Pineda.

Mining and Water
For small farmers and communities in rural El Salvador, water is more valuable than gold. Without country-wide water delivery infrastructure, people in these areas must rely on the bodies of water nearby to feed their crops and sustain their personal needs. However, it is estimated that 90 percent of the country’s surface water bodies are contaminated. Nearly all municipal and industrial wastewater is discharged into rivers and creeks without treatment, reducing clean water availability for rural populations. Only three percent of the country’s natural flowing rivers remain pristine. The clean water that still flows in the Rio Lempa, El Salvador’s longest river with a watershed extending to nearly half of the country, is absolutely essential to the lives and livelihoods of the region’s rural people. A total of four million people rely on this water source.

Mining represents the greatest threat to El Salvador’s water supply. The US-Dominican Republic-Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) has made doing business in El Salvador easier for foreign companies, and thus exploration permits have been issued for a variety of development projects, including gold and silver mines. Gold mining is notoriously damaging to the environment. Mine operators often employ a process known as cyanide leeching, whereby cyanide, a highly toxic chemical, is mixed with water pulled from local supplies and applied to rock deposits to extract the gold within them. The toxic runoff then spreads to surrounding land and often ends up contaminating rivers, creeks and groundwater.

Motivation
Francisco Pineda is a farmer with a degree in sustainable agriculture and is the founder and president of the Environmental Committee of Cabañas, a community volunteer association. In the process of organizing his community against a waste dump that would have polluted local water supplies, he taught himself about water ecology and became an environmental leader in his region.

In 2002, Canadian mining giant Pacific Rim began the exploration phase for a gold and silver mine in Cabañas. Growing concern over the environmental consequences for the region’s forests and the Rio Lempa was largely ignored by the government. That changed in 2004 when Pineda discovered that the creek supplying irrigation to his crops had completely stopped flowing. Pineda walked along the water’s edge and found Pacific Rim’s pumps siphoning the creek to its exploration area upstream. Recognizing the potentially devastating situation, he and his neighbors immediately approached local government officials with their concerns about the water supply, but were told that the mine was moving forward regardless of local protest. Officials claimed that the opportunities for development and employment outweighed potential problems, but upon closer inspection, Pineda and his colleagues realized that the local population was not qualified for the highly technical jobs Pacific Rim would create. They then set in motion a people’s movement that would succeed in halting the mine, but would have deadly consequences for many involved.A href="http://goldmanprize.org/2011/southcentralamerica">MORE

Protests halt gold mining in El Salvador

Canada's Pacific Rim mining company owns all the land around El Dorado in El Salvador - one of the most coveted gold mines in Central America.

But the company has been unable to dig in because of resistance from local environmentalists who say that cyanide used in gold mining will contaminate their rivers.

The mine is currently shut down because of protests.

And the recent murders and death threats against activists in the region have put the spotlight on the gold mining project there.

Aug 2011Water or Gold: A Deadly Debate

We are inside a greenhouse, gazing at row after row of hydroponic tomatoes and green peppers, learning why people in this community in northern El Salvador are receiving death threats. We have been sent byThe Nation magazine to chronicle the struggle by people here to protect their river from the toxic chemicals of global mining firms intent on realizing massive profits from El Salvador’s rich veins of gold.

Before going to the greenhouse, we spend the morning at the home of Carlos Bonilla, a farmer in his sixties whose handsome face is creased with the wisdom, suffering, and joy of decades of struggles for justice. Over a delicious meal of local tortillas, vegetables, and chicken, Carlos and a group of eight young people tell us their stories.

“We reject the image of us just as anti-mining. We are for water and a positive future. We want alternatives to feed us, to clothe us.”

These young people run a radio station, Radio Victoria, where they broadcast to a growing audience across this mountainous terrain. They tell us about giving air time to local leaders who, beginning seven years ago, found themselves facing a new threat: Mining firms, granted permits to explore for gold in the watershed of the great Lempa River (which supplies water to over half the country’s 6.2 million people), entered these communities with promises of jobs and prosperity.

Gold is now selling for more than $1500 an ounce. Local organizer Vidalina Morales tells us: “Initially, we thought mining was good and it was going to help us out of poverty…through jobs and development.”

But, then, a strange thing happened. A stream dried up near the exploration wells that a Canadian firm, Pacific Rim, was digging. Concerned, Vidalina and other activists traveled to nearby Honduras to meet with members of communities where large mining projects were already underway. They returned with grisly stories of cyanide poisoning the soil and water (cyanide is used to separate the gold from the surrounding rock), and people in mining areas suffering skin diseases and other ailments.
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