by DGR Colorado Plateau | Oct 9, 2015 | Indigenous Autonomy, Lobbying, Mining & Drilling
By Hannibal Rhoades / Intercontinental Cry
After five years of legal contests and uncertainty, the Colombian Constitutional Court has confirmed that Yaigojé Apaporis, an indigenous resguardo (a legally recognized, collectively owned territory), also has legitimate status as a national park.
The decision is cause for celebration for Indigenous Peoples who call the region home. But it is less welcome news for Canadian multinational mining corporation Cosigo Resources, the company contesting the area’s national park status. The court’s ruling immediately and indefinitely suspends all mining activities in the park, including Cosigo’s license to mine gold from one of Yaigojé’s most sacred areas.
In the broader context of Colombia’s push to expand mining activities in the name of development, the court’s decision is seen as a significant precedent.
Since the 1980s, Colombia has protected more than 24 million hectares of the Amazon, placing an area the size of Britain back in the hands of its traditional owners. By choosing the rights of Indigenous Peoples and a new national park over multinational mining interests, the court’s decision safeguards Colombia’s achievements rather than undermining them.
THE BATTLE FOR YUISI’S GOLDEN LENS
Straddling Amazonas and Vaupés states, comprising a million hectares of the Northwestern Colombian Amazon, the pristine forest region of Yaigojé Apaporis is rich in both biological and cultural diversity.
The area hosts endangered mammals such as the giant anteater, jaguar, manatee and pink river dolphin. It is also home to the Makuna, Tanimuka, Letuama, Barasano, Cabiyari, Yahuna and Yujup-Maku Indigenous Peoples, who share a common cosmological system and rich shamanistic traditions. Together these populations act as Yaigojé’s guardians, a role that was strengthened in 1988 when, with the assistance of Colombian NGO Gaia Amazonas, they successfully established the Yaigojé Apaporis resguardo over their traditional territory. But this status has recently been tested.
Under Colombian law, a resguardo recognition grants its inhabitants collective ownership of and rights to the soil, but the subsoil remains in the control of the state and vulnerable to prospecting. With companies seeking to exploit this loophole, the Colombian Amazon has seen a tidal wave of mining interest since the mid-2000s, with the government declaring mining an “engine for development.”
Riding at the crest of this wave, in the late 2000s Canadian mining multinational Cosigo Resources made clear to local communities in Yaigojé its intention to mine for gold at a site within the resguardo known as La Libertad or Yuisi.
Local indigenous leaders say Cosigo became known to them when company representatives visited their malocas (traditional riverside houses). The indigenous leaders allege that officials offered them money in return for assurance of support the company to mine in Yuisi. These offers were rejected.
At Yuisi, a wide stretch of the Apaporis river cascades over rocks, forming roaring rapids. To the people of Yaigojé it is a vital sacred site, inextricably tied to their story of origin, identity and ability to care for the territory and the planet as a whole. Elders say “Yuisi is the crib of our way of thinking, of life and power. Everything is born here in thought: nature, the crops, trees, fruits, everything that exists, exists before in thought.”
Local shaman describe the gold and other minerals that form the bedrock of their territory as ‘lenses’ that allow them to see into the Earth, divine or diagnose any problems and correct them through rituals, prayer and thought. If gold were to be removed from Yuisi, they would lose their ability to cure and manage their territory as they have done for millennia. This is because an integral part of the territory itself would be lost. The notion that territory stops at the soil “as deep as the manioc’s root” is alien.
With negotiation with Cosigo out of the question, the traditional authorities in Yaigojé called an urgent congress of the Asociación de Capitanes Indígenas del Yaigojé Apaporis (ACIYA), an indigenous organization formed of groups living along the Apaporis River, in the area of Yaigojé that lies in Amazonas State. Having discussed the dangers posed by Cosigo’s presence and plans, ACIYA agreed that they must seek help from outside sources to further protect their territory.
“The best way to shield the territory was to call upon the state. In other words: Western disease is cured by Western medicine. If all mining licenses are given by the state, it is necessary to call on the state to defend the territory,” says Gerardo Macuna, a representative of ACIYA.
Advised that achieving national park status would extend protection to the subsoil, ACIYA and its supporters formally requested that the Colombian Government create a national park over their resguardo and traditional territory.
The people’s effort to add a third layer of protection for their territory was successful. In October 2009, Yaigojé Apaporis became Colombia’s 55th national protected area, but celebrations were short lived. Just two days after the area was awarded national park status, Cosigo Resources was granted a mining title for the Yuisi area, catalysing an epic struggle between Colombia’s will to protect the Amazon, with the help of indigenous inhabitants, or exploit it at their expense by prioritizing mining.
DEEP IN THE AMAZON, A SMOKING GUN
Despite having been granted a license, Yaigojé’s new status as a national park remained an obstacle to Cosigo. The national park status, and its accompanying legal protections for the subsoil, would need to be revoked before mining could begin.
Facing stiff opposition from both ACIYA and the Colombian National Parks authorities just as Cosigo appeared to be fighting an uphill battle, the company got what seemed an almost impossible stroke of luck. A few months after Yaigojé was declared a national park, members of indigenous organization ACITAVA from the region of Yaigojé lying in Vaupés State launched a legal challenge to Yaigojé’s status at the Colombian Constitutional Court. Led by a local settler named Benigno Perilla, the challengers said that they had not been fully or adequately consulted in the process of creating the national park and it therefore violated their right to Free Prior and Informed Consent.
With an apparently complex conflict unfolding between Yaigojé’s Indigenous Peoples and the area’s national park status–its ecological and social integrity held in the balance–a legal deadlock ensued. This situation persisted for three years, until January 2014, when in an unprecedented move, three judges from Colombia’s Constitutional Court made the decision to travel to the heart of the Colombian Amazon to hold a hearing and consult with communities first hand.
Jorge Iván Palacio, president of the court, explained the court’s decision to make the journey by stating that “there is no justice unless we know what they think in the communities.” The ensuing hearing thoroughly vindicated his observation.
Before 160 indigenous inhabitants from along the Apaporis River and the judges, Benigno Perilla publicly admitted that his and ACITAVA’s legal strategy was encouraged, organized and paid for by Cosigo Resources. In what would prove the critical turning point in the case, the indigenous members of ACITAVA who had supported the challenge made a public apology, said they had been misled and declared their support for the creation of the national park.
A NEW DAWN FOR INDIGENOUS-LED CONSERVATION
Although it has been more than another year coming, the Colombian Constitutional Court has ousted Cosigo and legitimized the declaration of Yaigojé Apaporis as a national park. The decision recognizes the authority of the area’s Indigenous Peoples and protects their fundamental rights to culture, identity and consultation.
The decision is regarded as a significantly positive precedent for future conflicts between mining operations, protected areas and their indigenous inhabitants, at a time when Colombia has declared mining to be in the national interest.
The judges found sufficient evidence of wrongdoing by Cosigo to ask Colombia’s Justice Minister to open an investigation into the company’s consultation processes and interactions with communities in the Yaigojé area. Recently published revisions to Colombia’s projects of national interest have seen Cosigo’s project removed from the list. The company is said to be reviewing its legal options.
Confirming the compatibility of indigenous resguardos and national parks, the court has also opened up the possibility for others to follow Yaigojé’s example and enhance the protection of their territories from destructive or unwanted “development.”
Since Yaigojé was declared a national park, and in spite of the legal wrangle over its future, ACIYA and local indigenous youths have been pioneering a powerful new conservation paradigm that values indigenous knowledge and places it at the root of national park management.
ACIYA’s work to find a method of conservation that both works for them and allows for close collaboration with Colombia’s national park authorities is the subject of a recent film and won the group the prestigious UNDP Equator Prize in 2014. Their approach stands in stark contrast to technocratic, neo-colonialist conservation norms founded on a misplaced belief in pristine, unmanaged wilderness. These have been criticized by Indigenous Peoples and rights groups for excluding and forcibly displacing indigenous communities, fencing them out of their own lands and so obstructing their right to practice their cultures.
As part of their program, 27 young indigenous leaders from nine communities in Yaigojé have engaged in a deep process of cultural research. Advised by their elders, they have documented, mapped and recorded their peoples’ traditional practices for safeguarding and conserving the forest. In the words of one researcher, the aim has been to “transmit traditional knowledge to the younger generations and protect our ancestral territory.” So far, they have succeeded in doing both.
The research produced by ACIYA will now be used to define the management of the Yaigojé Apaporis National Park, further legitimizing local indigenous knowledge systems that have protected the life-support capacities of this rainforest region for generation after generation.
“Indigenous people are the natural allies of the rainforest and the whole environmental movement,” says former director of Gaia Amazonas Martin Von Hildebrand. “They have the traditional knowledge, they are organized. We just need to support them with what they need to run their own territories.”
by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Jan 24, 2015 | Colonialism & Conquest, Mining & Drilling
Image Credit: Ryan Martinez Lewis
Deep Green Resistance (DGR) is dedicated to the fight against industrial civilization and its legacy of racism, patriarchy, and colonialism. For this reason, DGR would like to publicly state its support of the San Carlos Apache tribe and the residents of Superior, AZ in the fight to protect Oak Flat from the destructive and unethical practices of foreign mining giant Rio Tinto.
Background
For over a decade the San Carlos Apache tribe and supporters have been fighting against profit-driven attacks on their land by the Superior, AZ based company Resolution Copper (RC), a subsidiary of the international mining conglomerate Rio Tinto. The foreign Rio Tinto is an Anglo-Australian mining company with a shameful history of environmental degradation, human rights abuses, and consorting with oppressive regimes around the globe.
Resolution Copper plans a massive deep underground copper mine in the Oak Flat area using a technique called block caving, in which a shaft is drilled more than a mile deep into the earth and the material is excavated without any reinforcement of the extraction area. Block caving leaves the land above vulnerable to collapse.
Despite this, Resolution Copper is set to acquire 2,400 acres of the federally protected public land in the Tonto National Forest in southeast Arizona in exchange for 5,000 acres in parcels scattered around the state. The 2,400-acre land, part of San Carlos Apache’s aboriginal territory, includes Oak Flat, Devil’s Canyon, and nearby Apache Leap – a cliff where Apaches jumped to their death to avoid being killed by settlers in the late 19th century. The San Carlos Apaches and other Native people hold this land as sacred, where they conduct ceremonies, gather medicinal plants and foods, and continue to build connections with the land. The now public land is held in trust by the federal government and is also used by non-Native nature lovers for hiking, camping, bird watching and rock climbing, and is used for field trips by Boy Scout groups.
Recent Activity
On December 4, 2014 the House passed the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which included the Oak Flat Land exchange as an attachment to the annual must-pass defense bill. This particular version of the land exchange included in the NDAA (the “Southeast Arizona Land Exchange and Conservation Act of 2013”) is the 13th version since the bill was first introduced in Congress in 2005 by former Congressman, Rick Renzi (later convicted in 2013 of multiple counts of corruption, including extortion, racketeering and other federal charges). AZ Senators McCain and Flake, responsible for sneaking this unrelated attachment into the NDAA, subverted the will not only of Native American Tribes, conservation organizations, the Superior Town Council, and others, but the will of the United States Congress which has forcefully rejected the land exchange for nearly 10 years. Flake, who previously worked for Rio Tinto at their uranium mine (co-owned by the Iranian government) in Namibia, acknowledged the bill could not pass the US Congress on its own merits.
Shortly after passing through the House, the NDAA was signed into law by President Obama on December 19, 2014, exactly 5 years after he signed the “Native American Apology Resolution,” a little-noticed expression of regret over how the U.S. had abused its power in the past.
The Southeast Arizona Land Exchange and Conservation Act demonstrates a total disregard for Native American concerns. Resolution Copper has also openly admitted to the fact that their process of mining would create significant land cracking and eventually subsidence. Another grave concern is the permanent damage to surface and groundwater. This mine will deplete enormous quantities of water and pollute it, which will devastate local communities.
Oak Flat is also a rare desert riparian area. Less than 10% of this type of habitat remains in Arizona. The land exchange would allow mining companies to avoid following our nation’s environmental and cultural laws and would bypass the permitting process all other mines in the country have followed. Since this mining would, by design, lead to the complete destruction of the Oak Flat area and potentially impact both Apache Leap and Gaan Canyon, the San Carlos Apache Tribe (along with over 500 other tribes across the country) strongly opposes it and the illegal land exchange.
Call for Solidarity
Indigenous peoples have always been at the forefront of the struggle against the dominant culture’s ecocidal violence. Beneath the violations of US law lies the glaring threat of sacred Apache land being further harmed and colonized. If RC is allowed to follow through with its mining plan, not only would this land be stolen from the Apaches, but it would be rendered unrecognizable.
There is a monumental need for solidarity work to save Oak Flat. The only acceptable action on the part of Resolution Copper is immediate cessation of any and all plans to mine in the ancestral home of the Apache people; anything else will be met with resistance, and DGR will lend whatever support it can to those on the front lines. The time to act is now!
For more information or to lend support, please visit the Arizona Mining Reform Coalition.
**DGR recognizes that members of settler culture are living on stolen land in the midst of a current and ongoing genocide of indigenous people and culture. We encourage those who wish to be effective allies to indigenous people to read our Indigenous Solidarity Guidelines.
References
by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Dec 7, 2014 | Colonialism & Conquest, Indigenous Autonomy, Mining & Drilling
By Jonathan Watts / The Guardian
The body of an indigenous leader who was opposed to a major mining project in Ecuador has been found bound and buried, days before he planned to take his campaign to climate talks in Lima.
The killing highlights the violence and harassment facing environmental activists in Ecuador, following the confiscation earlier this week of a bus carrying climate campaigners who planned to denounce president Rafael Correa at the United Nations conference.
The victim, José Isidro Tendetza Antún, a former vice-president of the Shuar Federation of Zamora, had been missing since 28 November, when he was last seen on his way to a meeting of protesters against the Mirador copper and gold mine. After a tip-off on Tuesday, his son Jorge unearthed the body from a grave marked “no name”. The arms and legs were trussed by a blue rope.
Other members of the community said Tendetza had been offered bribes and had his crops burned in an attempt to remove him from the area.
Domingo Ankuash, a Shuar leader, said there were signs Tendetza had been tortured, but the full facts had yet to come to light. He said the family were extremely unhappy with the investigation and what they said was the reluctance of the authorities to conduct a timely autopsy.
“His body was beaten, bones were broken,” said Ankuash. “He had been tortured and he was thrown in the river. The mere fact that they buried him before telling us, the family, is suspicious.”
Tendetza had been a prominent critic of Mirador, an open-cast pit that has been approved in an area of important biodiversity that is also home to the Shuar, Ecuador’s second-biggest indigenous group.
The project is operated by Ecuacorriente – originally a Canadian-owned firm that was brought by a Chinese conglomerate, CCRC-Tongguan Investment, in 2010. According to the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador, the project will devastate around 450,000 acres of forest.
“This is a camouflaged crime,” said Ankuash. “In Ecuador, multinational companies are invited by the government and get full state security from the police and the army. The army and police don’t provide protection for the people, they don’t defend the Shuar people. They’ve been bought by the company.
“The authorities are complicit in this crime,” Ankuash claimed. “They will never tell us the truth.” He added: “[Tendetza] was not just anyone. He was a powerful leader against the company. That’s why they knocked down his house and burnt his farm.
“The government will never give us a response, justice belongs to them. They will call us terrorists but that doesn’t mean we are not going to shut up.”
Several other Shuar opponents of Mirador have died as a result of the conflict in recent years, including Bosco Wisum in 2009 and Freddy Taish in 2013, according to Amazon Watch.
An initial autopsy said the circumstances of Tendetza’s death were unclear. Harold Burbano, of the human rights organisation INREDH, said there was a suspicion that the killing was related to his work as a land defender.
“There has been a rise of conflicts since the transnational mining company entered the area, significantly increasing the risks faced by community leaders,” he said.
Tendetza had planned to condemn the project at a Rights of Nature Tribunal organised by NGOs at the climate talks which are taking place this week in the Peruvian capital.
Luis Corral, an advisor to Ecuador’s Assembly of the People of the South, an umbrella group for indigenous federations in southern Ecuador, said that if Tendetza had been able to travel to the COP20 it would have put in “grave doubt the honorability and the image of the Ecuadorean government as a guarantor of the rights of nature”.
“We believe that this murder is part of a pattern of escalating violence against indigenous leaders which responds to the Ecuadorean government and the companies’ need to clear the opposition to a mega-mining project in the Cordillera del Condor,” he said.
“The state through the police and the judiciary is involved in hiding this violent crime because of the elemental irregularities in the proceedings. The body was buried without informing the family. They weren’t allowed to see the second autopsy.”
Tendetza’s killing highlights the risks facing environmental activists in Ecuador. Earlier this week, a group of campaigners travelling in a “climate caravan” were stopped six times by police on their way to Lima and eventually had their bus confiscated.
The activists said they were held back because president Correa wants to avoid potentially embarrassing protests at the climate conference over his plan to drill for oil in Yasuni, an Amazon reserve and one of the most biodiverse places on earth.
Once lauded for being the first nation to draw up a “green constitution”, enshrining the rights of nature, Ecuador’s environmental reputation has nosedived in recent years as Correa has put more emphasis on exploitation of oil, gas and minerals, partly to pay off debts owed to China.
From The Guardian: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/dec/06/ecuador-indigenous-leader-found-dead-lima-climate-talks
by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Jun 10, 2013 | Defensive Violence, Indigenous Autonomy, Mining & Drilling
By Jorge Barrera / APTN
A Colombia guerilla group is trying to draw Ottawa into its battle with a Toronto-based mining company which is quietly trying to secure the release of one of its executives who has been held hostage since January.
The Ejercito de Liberacion Nacional (ELN) kidnapped Gernot Wober, 47, on Jan. 18, during an attack on the Snow Mine camp in Bolivar state, which sits in the northern part of the country. The guerilla group kidnapped five other people, including three Colombians and two Peruvians, who have all since been released.
The guerilla group says that Wober, the vice-president of Toronto-based Braeval Mining Corp, won’t be released until the company gives up gold mining concessions in the San Lucas mountain range which the ELN claims were initially given to local miners who live in the area.
In a statement issued Wednesday and posted on the guerilla group’s website, the ELN took aim at the Canadian government.
“The Canadian government should at least be concerned about whether its anti-corruption laws are being followed by Canadian companies in their foreign operations,” said the ELN. “Neither the Colombian nor Canadian governments have bothered to investigate our accusations about the dispossession of four mining concessions held by communities in the southern part of Boliver (state) by the Northern American company Braeval Mining Corporation.”
The ELN claimed the Colombian government was increasing military operations against the group to secure Wober’s release.
The ELN is the smaller of Colombia’s main guerilla groups. It’s estimated the ELN has between 2,000 to 3,000 guerilla fighters.
A spokesperson for Braeval said the company has been advised not to comment on the kidnapping.
Foreign Affairs emailed a statement to APTN National News saying federal government “officials continue to work closely with our partners on the ground.” The statement said officials are also in contact with Wober’s family.
“The government of Canada will not comment on efforts to secure the hostage’s release,” said the statement. “Due to privacy considerations, we cannot provide additional information about the situation.”
The ELN has released no evidence to back its claims that Braeval wrongly obtained the mining concessions.
According to his on-line work history, Wober has extensive experience in the mining sector, including involvement in projects in the Yukon, the Northwest Territories, British Columbia and Manitoba.
The activities of foreign mining companies, including those based in Canada, have long been a point of contention among Indigenous and local communities in Colombia.
Under Canada’s free trade agreement with Colombia, Ottawa is required to present an annual report on human rights in Colombia every year. Last year’s report failed to report on human rights in the country.
The National Indigenous Organization of Colombia (NIOC) has called on Canada to pressure the Colombian government to respect Indigenous rights in its mining laws.
In a recent interview with Maria Patricia Tobon Yagari, a lawyer with the NIOC said that mining companies present a bigger threat than the armed groups because the firms fuel the violence.
“The presence of these miners have reinforced (the violence) because they have benefited from it. By using private security they have forced these Indigenous groups and Colombian campesinos to resist and it has increased the violence in the territories,” said Tobon Yagari.
Tobon Yagari was scheduled to appear on Parliament Hill on May 22 but her visa was initially denied by Ottawa.
Tobon Yagari said foreign mining firms have put pressure on the Colombian government to pass mining laws tailored in the interest of development.
“Of course Canadian miners have a large interest in getting legislation in their favour,” she said. “That is what is happening without our mining code and our situation in Colombia.”
Many Indigenous communities in Colombia are clinging precariously on the edge of extinction.
Of the 102 documented Indigenous nations in Colombia, 32 have populations under 500, 18 have populations of 200, while 10 have less than 100.
Tens of thousands of Indigenous people have been displaced from their territories which are often rich in minerals and hydrocarbons eyed by foreign mining firms.
Amnesty International has said it’s concerned about deepening ties between Canada and Colombia’s military as a result of the free trade deal.
“And recent changes to export controls in Canada to allow for the sale of automatic firearms to Colombia,” have added to list of problematic issues, said the international human rights organization.
The situation of Indigenous peoples in Colombia is so dire that the UN Special Rapporteur on Indigenous Peoples James Anaya has called for the UN special advisor on genocide to visit Colombia.
From APTN
by Deep Green Resistance News Service | May 4, 2013 | Defensive Violence, Mining & Drilling, Property & Material Destruction, Repression at Home
By Sandra Cuffe
This article was originally published by Upside Down World on May 2, 2013, and is republished here with permission from the author.
With the world’s attention focused on the on-again off-again genocide trial of former Guatemalan dictator Efraín Ríos Montt and his head of military intelligence in Guatemala City, there has been little international reporting on other events in the Central American nation. Meanwhile, as the trial continues, conflicts involving rural communities and Canadian mining companies are escalating, to the point that a State of Siege was declared last night.
Fifty miles southeast of the capital, private security guards working for Vancouver-based mining firm Tahoe Resources shot and wounded several local residents on Saturday in San Rafael Las Flores, on the road in front of Tahoe’s El Escobal silver mine. The mining company’s head of security was arrested while attempting to flee the country. A police officer and a campesino were killed during conflicts earlier this week. Through it all, demonstrations against the mining project have continued amid conflicting reports and government misinformation.
Following a Cabinet meeting late last night, Guatemalan President Otto Pérez Molina declared a 30-day State of Siege in four municipalities around the El Escobal mining project: San Rafael Las Flores and Casillas in the department of Santa Rosa, and Jalapa and Mataquescuintla in the department of Jalapa. The measure is in effect as of today. Initial reports indicated that the constitutional rights suspended include freedom of movement, freedom of assembly and protest, and certain rights of detainees and prisoners.
Even before the measure was declared, communities were denouncing army mobilization in the region last night. When he announced the State of Siege, Pérez Molina stated that security forces reported for duty at three military bases last night and that operatives would begin early this morning.
“We fear for the lives of our leaders,” stated a message circulated online by the Xinka People’s Parliament, denouncing the mobilization of armed forces in Jutiapa with the alleged intention of arresting Xinka leaders in Santa María Xalapán, Jalapa. “We’re returning to the 1980s, with the persecution of leaders, extrajudicial execution and forced disappearance.”
Two weeks ago, Guatemalan Minister of the Interior Mauricio López Bonilla announced that executive and judicial officials were analyzing the possibility of declaring a State of Emergency in at least 30 municipalities throughout the country, due to violence. The government, according to the April 16 announcement, had anticipated finalizing the details of its evaluation of “red zones” within two weeks and implementing the measures suspending constitutional rights, possibly within three weeks to a month. At the time, mining was not mentioned.
The suspension of constitutional rights did not come as a surprise to Moisés Divas, Coordinator of the Diocesan Commission in Defense of Nature (CODIDENA) in Santa Rosa.
“The extent of the reaction from both the company and the State has completely violated people’s constitutional right to protest,” Divas told Upside Down World in a telephone interview on Monday. At the time, he was in Guatemala City accompanying some of the wounded San Rafael Las Flores residents at the Office of the Public Prosecutor, where they were being seen by a medical examiner.
“They no longer even respect human life. The government officials who should be at the service of the population have now turned against the population to defend a transnational project,” said Divas.
Tahoe Resources owns the El Escobal mine, but Vancouver-based mining giant Goldcorp retained a 40 percent ownership interest in Tahoe when it sold the project in 2010. Still under construction, El Escobal was granted an exploitation license by the Guatemalan government on April 3 amid widespread protest and threats against opponents. Five days later, the community-based movement against mining in San Rafael Las Flores began an ongoing resistance camp on privately owned land less than 200 feet from the mine’s front gate. Despite a violent eviction on April 11, when 26 people were arrested and held for four days before being released without charges, the resistance maintained its presence at the camp.
On Saturday, April 27, a group of local residents left the resistance camp along the road that passes directly in front of the mine, heading towards the community of El Volcancito. When they passed the front gate, security guards opened fire on them from the other side.
“The mining company ordered the shooting against people there, injuring more than 10 people with gunshot wounds,” said Divas. “Six of them were taken to get medical assistance in Cuilapa and two to the Roosevelt Hospital in the capital, because they found evidence of serious injury.”
Wilmer Pérez, 17, Antonio Humberto Castillo, 48, Noé Aguilar Castillo, 27, and Érick Fernando Castillo, 27, were all released after medical treatment in Cuilapa. Adolfo García, 57, and his son Luis García, 18, were taken to Guatemala City. Adolfo García was later released, but his son Luis remained in hospital care. The 18-year-old was shot in the face, suffered extensive damage to his jaw, lip, and teeth, and requires maxillofacial surgery.
Alberto Rotondo, Tahoe’s Chilean head of security, was overheard giving the order to shoot, among other comments and insults, while some of the injured have stated that they saw him draw and fire a weapon as well. According to a Prensa Comunitaria article posted that same night, local witnesses said that Rotondo “ordered [the security guards] to shoot, saying that they are fed up with all this garbage, referring to our people. They insulted them, and then they loaded their rifles and began to shoot at them.”
Rotondo was later arrested at the airport attempting to flee the country on Tuesday morning, accused of attempted homicide for his role in the April 27 shooting. After his case was transferred from the capital to Santa Rosa, he was sent to the maximum security prison in Cuilapa. According to Prensa Libre coverage, a judge in Guatemala City also issued arrest warrants for three other individuals with regards to Saturday’s shooting.
On Monday morning, Minister of the Interior Mauricio López confirmed that El Escobal mine security guards had shot at local residents. But despite all evidence to the contrary, he also said that the residents had been attempting to forcibly enter the mine site at the time and stated that only rubber bullets were used.
Oscar Morales García, a member of the Committee in Defense of Life in San Rafael Las Flores that has been mobilizing against the mining project and organizing community consultations, says the statements are simply untrue.
“There are people who were shot with real bullets. One has a bullet lodged in his body and it was decided that it’s better if it stays there instead of taking it out. And the other youth, the son, whose face was disfigured when he was shot. Those aren’t rubber bullets,” he told Upside Down World in a telephone interview on Monday.
Morales García also says that there may have been less evidence had it not been for the actions of local community residents on Saturday.
“After the attack against those six people, the national police force and the mine guards came out, intending to remove evidence, to drive their vehicles over the crime scene, and to pick up the bullet casings. But some of the people who were there didn’t let that happen. They told the police to get back and then protected the crime scene,” he said. “After six, eight hours of waiting for representatives from the Office of the Public Prosecutor to arrive, yes, they found evidence. The evidence was there. The crime scene had been protected by civilians.”
López Bonilla’s assertion that rubber bullets were used wasn’t the only government statement to be called into question on Monday. Presiding over the signing of a new royalty agreement between Tahoe Resources and the Ministry of Energy and Mines, Guatemalan President Otto Pérez Molina said that there is community support for the mine.
According to the new voluntary contribution agreement, Tahoe will pay five percent in royalties instead of the one percent required by the country’s mining legislation. The additional funds will be distributed to several different municipal governments in the departments of Santa Rosa and Jalapa. The mayor of San Rafael Las Flores was present at the signing ceremony in the capital along with several other elected municipal leaders.
“I saw the statements made by President of the Republic Otto Pérez Molina, saying that the population of San Rafael supports the mining company,” said CODIDENA Coordinator Moisés Divas. That same day, he said, San Rafael Las Flores residents were out in the streets in huge numbers to protest the agreement. “I don’t know what argument or foundation he used to say that people support the mining company.”
Community consultations are underway in San Rafael Las Flores. Eight have been carried out in as many communities. More than 1,200 people have said no to mining and only eight individuals have voted in favor of mining, said both Divas and Morales García. The overwhelming majority of the thousands of people who participated in municipal-level consultations in other municipalities in Santa Rosa – Casillas, Nueva Santa Rosa and Vieja Santa Rosa – and Mataquescuintla in neighboring Jalapa have also rejected mining.
Morales García also rejected the allegation of local support. “The government just announced [on Monday] that we’re merely two or three people who don’t want mining in San Rafael, that everyone else agrees with it,” he said. Beyond just marginalizing the resistance, said Morales García, the government was acting in concert with the Minera San Rafael, Tahoe Resources’ Guatemalan subsidiary.
“What actually happens is one thing, and the version managed by the government and the mining company is something else. The best Minera San Rafael spokesperson here is Minister López Bonilla,” he added.
In 1982, then Second Lieutenant Mauricio López Bonilla was part of the “La Juntita” Young Officers Advisory Group working for the military junta led by Ríos Montt. He retired from the Army as a Lieutenant Colonel in 1997, shortly after the Peace Accords officially ended four decades of conflict in 1996. He later became the electoral campaign manager for current President Otto Pérez Molina, whose role in the brutal counterinsurgency campaign of the early 1980s in the Ixil region has again come into question during the genocide trial. López Bonillla was sworn into his Cabinet position when Pérez Molina began his term in January 2012.
A whole new set of statements made by López Bonilla came under fire on Tuesday, after a police officer was shot and killed in San Rafael Las Flores. The Minister of the Interior publicly accused Xinka leaders of orchestrating an operation to take 23 police officers hostage in Jalapa.
Community and regional leaders representing the non-Mayan Indigenous Xinka population in southeastern Guatemala have been outspoken opponents of El Escobal and mining in the region. Four Xinka community leaders were abducted by armed masked men on March 17 while on their way home to the neighboring department of Jalapa after observing the community consultation process in El Volcancito, San Rafael las Flores.
Rigoberto Aguilar and Roberto López, both local leaders of the Indigenous Xinka Community of Santa María Xalapán, managed to escape. Roberto González Ucelo, President of the Indigenous Xinka Community of Santa María Xalapán and of the Xinka Parliament, survived after a police operative was sent in. But Exaltación Marcos Ucelo, Secretary of the Xinka Parliament, was found dead. Now six weeks later, the Xinka Parliament has denounced that no progress has been made to bring those responsible to justice.
In an atmosphere of heightened tension after Saturday’s shooting by El Escobal security forces, communities mobilized in San Rafael Las Flores and Jalapa against the mining project on Monday, denouncing the agreement being signed in the capital between Tahoe and the government and the presence of municipal authorities at the event. Conflicts involving the national police force ensued in both locations. In San Rafael Las Flores, a police officer was shot and killed on Tuesday morning when police attempted to evict the community resistance. In Jalapa, 23 police officers were taken hostage and disarmed on Monday afternoon at a blockade between the town of Jalapa and Mataquescuintla. A massive police response involving some 2,000 officers was sent to rescue the first group. In the process, on Tuesday morning, several police officers were wounded and a campesino was killed. Police vehicles were also torched and destroyed in both locations.
On Tuesday, Vice Minister of the Interior Edy Juárez publicly stated that community leader Rudy Pivaral was responsible for inciting violence in San Rafael Las Flores, leading to the death of police officer Eduardo Demetrio Camacho Orozco. Minister of the Interior López Bonilla publicly accused Xinka leaders Roberto González Ucelo and Rigoberto Ucelo of orchestrating the conflict in Jalapa and said he would hold them responsible for any acts carried out with the weapons taken from the police officers when they were held hostage.
“They hold me responsible for all the problems that occurred,” Xinka leader Roberto González Ucelo told the Independent Media Center (CMI) on Wednesday. “I have proof that I went to Cuilapa, I was in Cuilapa, so I didn’t organize [anything] because I was on my way to Cuilapa.” There was evidence of the trip, he said, from various receipts and the registration of his visit in the municipal office in Cuilapa.
An outpouring of support for the Xinka Parliament, community leaders and the local resistance to mining came from Indigenous, campesino and human rights organizations following the government accusations.
“The atmosphere is really tense here,” González Ucelo said of Santa María Xalapán. “I don’t know what’s going to happen.”
On Wednesday, the Office of the Public Prosecutor requested the arrest of 18 people on charges related to the conflicts earlier this week in San Rafael Las Flores and Jalapa. However, the suspension of constitutional rights regarding legal detention and interrogation under the State of Siege leaves community leaders and outspoken mining opponents in the region vulnerable to unchecked repression.
Largely silent throughout most of the recent developments, Tahoe Resources issued a statement on Wednesday, May 1, “to clarify inaccurate media reports about violent incidents that have broken out in recent days.” In line with the company’s response after the murder of Xinka leader Exaltación Marcos Ucelo, Tahoe claimed the incident in Jalapa had nothing whatsoever to do with the mine.
Regarding protests against the mining project, Tahoe Resources CEO Kevin McArthur stated that, “while many of these activities have been peaceful and respectful, violence from outside influences has escalated in the past weeks since we received our operating permit,” according to the statement.
“Tahoe’s Guatemala security manager was detained by authorities on Tuesday,” the company confirmed, but alleges the arrest was simply “due to the highly charged atmosphere and inaccurate press reports about Saturday’s events.”
Tahoe is also sticking to López Bonilla’s initial claim that only rubber bullets were used, adding that the Escobal security force acted to repel a hostile protest of some “20 people armed with machetes” at the mine gate. “We regret any injuries caused by rubber bullets, but we take the protection of our employees and the mine seriously,” said McArthur, according to the statement.
“As a result of the incidents in recent days, work at the mine has slowed and construction and development is expected to return to normal by Thursday,” according to the company statement.
But if the past couple months are any indication, there is no real normal when it comes to El Escobal. Normal has been ongoing community-based resistance in the face of violent repression, which will likely escalate under the State of Siege.
For Oscar Morales García, the “violence from outside influences” has come from Tahoe Resources. “The truth here is that the social peace was shattered when the mining company came to San Rafael,” he told Upside Down World.
Morales García knows that Annual General Meetings are coming up this month for Goldcorp (today, May 2, in Toronto) and Tahoe (May 9 in Vancouver), and he has a message for the shareholders of both companies.
“Tahoe’s silver, minerals and gold in San Rafael are now stained with blood. It may be true that the government authorized an exploitation license, but what would be called a social license for Minera San Rafael doesn’t exist here. It doesn’t exist and it never will,” said Morales García.
“The message for the shareholders is loud and strong,” he continued. “You don’t have a social license. The resistance is just beginning. And we’re in it for the long haul.”
From Upside Down World: http://upsidedownworld.org/main/guatemala-archives-33/4270-state-of-siege-mining-conflict-escalates-in-guatemala
