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metal mining
'A Death Sentence': Legislature Overturns El Salvador's Metal Mining Ban
One group called it "the biggest attack on water, health, and life in El Salvador," highlighting "opposition from churches, universities, social organizations, and the majority of the population."
Dec 23, 2024
In a win for Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele, who has dubbed himself "the world's coolest dictator," the Legislative Assembly of El Salvador on Monday overturned the Central American country's 2017 ban on metal mining.
Bukele has fought to reverse the historic ban since taking office in 2019. Despite a prohibition in the Salvadoran Constitution, he ran for and won a second term in February, after his Nueva Ideas (New Ideas) party purged the judiciary.
Reporting on Monday's mining reversal, the Financial Timesnoted that "Bukele's party and its allies hold 57 of 60 seats in the legislature, and all 57 voted to overturn the ban while giving the Salvadoran government sole authority over mining activities."
As the British newspaper detailed:
He has claimed that El Salvador sits on gold reserves potentially worth $3 trillion, citing an undisclosed study, although that has been treated with skepticism by experts.
There has been limited exploration in El Salvador. El Dorado, the most advanced of more than two dozen exploration projects prior to the ban, was once estimated to hold 1.4 million ounces of gold, which would be worth roughly $3.6 billion today, without considering production expenses.
El Salvador's gold belt runs across its northern provinces and the watershed of the Lempa River, which is the small and densely populated country's main source of water.
In a statement earlier this month, the Washington, D.C.-based Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) warned that "El Salvador's 2017 prohibition against metallic mining is a widely popular measure and overturning it would be a death sentence for the small and densely populated country with its scarce water sources, many of which are already contaminated."
"The historic ban, passed in a unanimous 70-0 vote by El Salvador's Legislative Assembly in 2017, was the result of a decadelong campaign to value life over transnational mining corporations' pursuit of profits," IPS explained. "The campaign was ultimately supported by a wide coalition of civil society organizations, educational institutions, some business sectors, legislators and ministers from across the political spectrum, as well as two archbishops. They were all persuaded by substantial evidence of gold mining's destructive effects, and the deleterious impacts of cyanide used in gold mining."
"The struggle also cost the lives of several beloved water defender activists who stood up to the mining companies in Cabañas: Marcelo Rivera, Ramiro Rivera, student Juan Francisco Durán Ayala, and Dora Alicia Recinos Sorto, who was eight months pregnant when murdered, and whose 2-year-old child witnessed and was wounded in the attack," the group added.
The IPS statement came in response to a November 26 ruling that ordered a retrial for the Economic and Social Development Association of Santa Marta (ADES) "Santa Marta Five" water defenders—Miguel Ángel Gámez, Alejandro Laínez García, Pedro Antonio Rivas Laínez, Teodoro Antonio Pacheco, and Saúl Agustín Rivas Ortega—a development the group denounced.
ADES forcefully condemned the mining ban reversal on social media Monday, calling it "the biggest attack on water, health, and life in El Salvador," and pointing to "opposition from churches, universities, social organizations, and the majority of the population."
The Salvadoran group also shared images of opponents who gathered outside the Legislative Assembly on Monday.
Luis Gonzalez, one of the environmentalists outside the building,
toldReuters, "We oppose metals mining because it has been technically and scientifically proven that mining is not viable in the country."
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'We're Calling for Justice': Allies Slam Trial for El Salvador Water Defenders
Ahead of proceedings next week, an international coalition continues to back a call to "drop the baseless charges against the Santa Marta Five."
Mar 25, 2024
Nine organizations from around the world on Monday renewed calls for El Salvador's government to drop "politically motivated charges" against the "Santa Marta Five" as the well-known water defenders prepared to stand trial beginning April 3.
Miguel Ángel Gámez, Alejandro Laínez García, Pedro Antonio Rivas Laínez, Teodoro Antonio Pacheco, and Saúl Agustín Rivas Ortega were arrested in January 2023 and accused of murdering an alleged military informant during a civil war over three decades ago. Rights groups worldwide have repeatedly highlighted that not only has the Salvadoran government failed to produce any proof of their guilt, but also the five men should be covered under a 1992 amnesty law related to the war.
"In the spirit of Saint Óscar Romero, these community leaders have embodied the legacy of the preferential option for the poor in their fight for justice and for the well-being of their communities," Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) senior adviser John Cavanagh said Monday, a day after the 44th anniversary of Romero's assassination in San Salvador.
"Now, we're calling for justice for the Santa Marta Five as they face politically motivated charges and attempts to silence their movement," added Cavanagh, whose group gave its 2009 Letelier-Moffitt Human Rights Award to the National Roundtable on Metals Mining, a coalition the arrested water defenders helped build.
"We recognize the historic and heroic struggle of the community of Santa Marta to build a better future for the most marginalized populations."
The Santa Marta Five, who were released to house arrest in September, helped pass a 2017 legislative ban on metal mining in El Salvador. Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele, who was reelected last month, has reportedly been considering reversing the prohibition in response to economic issues resulting from his policies.
"The Santa Marta Five water defenders were part of an emblematic fight to protect their land and waters from Canadian gold mining and ban metal mining," declared Viviana Herrera, Latin America program coordinator at MiningWatch Canada. "However, as in other countries in the region, their environmental struggle has come at an immense cost for them and their communities."
Chris Aylward, national president of the Public Service Alliance of Canada, said that "we recognize the historic and heroic struggle of the community of Santa Marta to build a better future for the most marginalized populations, one where universal rights are guaranteed, including to health and water for all."
Acknowledging the global movement that has rallied behind the Santa Marta Five, the United Church of Canada's Christie Neufeldt vowed to keep pushing "for the charges to be dropped and to accompany their work to protect the ban on metals mining."
Along with the Canadian groups and IPS, the coalition supporting the five men includes the Central American Alliance on Mining, Pax Christi International, the SHARE Foundation, Sisters of Mercy of the Americas, and the Washington Ethical Society (WES).
“The Washington Ethical Society has a long history with the communities of El Rodeo and Santa Marta. We partnered with ADES in an eight-year process to build a potable water system for the community," noted Ross Wells, co-chair of WES's sister community program in El Salvador. "Antonio Pacheco, director of ADES and one of the arrested water defenders, was instrumental in making this project possible."
"WES members met with him every year for 12 years. Like the other members of the Santa Marta Five, Antonio was arrested and jailed for political reasons. These men fought hard to protect the waters of El Salvador from the ravages of metallic mining," he continued. "To help prop up an imploding economy, the current regime is making moves to reintroduce mining against the will of the people."
Wells also pointed out that the Santa Marta Five are among the tens of thousands of people arrested under El Salvador's state of exception, which began in March 2022 and has provoked intense condemnation from rights groups that have documented sweeping abuse by security forces, including arbitrary detention without due process.
"WES stands with the people of Santa Marta, in working for a just El Salvador, where human rights and the rule of law are respected," he said. "We pledge to continue fighting with others in the international community to protect the existing law against mining and drop the baseless charges against the Santa Marta Five."
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250+ Groups Call On El Salvador to Drop Charges Against Water Defenders
Critics warn that the Salvadoran government is "desperate for revenues" and trying to "demobilize potential grassroots opposition" to reversing a historic nationwide ban on environmentally destructive metal mining.
Jan 20, 2023
More than 250 organizations from 29 countries came together Friday to pressure the Salvadoran government to drop the charges against and release five water defenders who were instrumental in achieving a 2017 legislative ban on metal mining in El Salvador.
Global alarm has been building since Miguel Ángel Gámez, Alejandro Laínez García, Pedro Antonio Rivas Laínez, Teodoro Antonio Pacheco, and Saúl Agustín Rivas Ortega were detained in northern El Salvador on January 11. In a case that critics call politically motivated, they are accused of murdering an alleged military informant over three decades ago and of illicit association, which the government of Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele has used to detain tens of thousands of supposed gang members.
The groups' joint statement highlights that "thanks in part to its ill-advised embrace of Bitcoin, the Salvadoran government is under enormous pressure to find new revenues" and is reportedly considering reversing the historic mining ban—despite environmental concerns and the Central American country's ongoing water issues due to the climate emergency and pollution.
"Among El Salvador's greatest heroes of this century are the brave water defenders, including several of those arrested last week."
"The five are accused by El Salvador's attorney general of an alleged murder over 30 years ago during the brutal civil war in El Salvador that claimed the lives of 75,000," explained the organizations. "The victims of crimes from that war, which saw a U.S.-backed dictatorship and right-wing death squads kill tens of thousands, have, for decades, been calling for justice."
"The current government, however, has chosen to actively uphold decades of impunity," the groups continued. "Rather than investigate or prosecute those responsible for the dozens of cases of human rights violations and crimes against humanity that members of the Salvadoran military committed against the Santa Marta community (including the murders of the Lempa River massacre in 1980, where 30 people were assassinated and 189 were disappeared), the government is now re-victimizing the community by targeting their leaders, who have been outspoken against the policies of the current government."
"This further raises questions about whether the attorney general's true motivation is to attempt to silence these water defenders, especially in light of the current administration's crusade to criminalize, persecute, and demobilize its political opponents," adds the statement, spearheaded by the U.S.-based Institute for Policy Studies (IPS)—which in 2009 honored the National Roundtable on Metals Mining, a coalition the arrested men helped build, with its annual Letelier-Moffitt Human Rights Award.
The collective demand that Bukele's government "drop the charges against the five water defenders and otherwise release them from prison to await their trial" came a day after a Salvadoran judge ruled that the case should proceed and the leaders of the Association of Economic and Social Development (ADES) Santa Marta should remain detained.
\u201c#SantaMartaNoEst\u00e1Sola| La comunidad Santa Marta es ejemplo de organizaci\u00f3n en defensa de los bienes naturales. El movimiento ambiental acompa\u00f1a sus resistencias y demanda que se respete los derechos de los l\u00edderes ambientalistas detenidos de @ades_sm y la comunidad.\u201d— ADES Santa Marta (@ADES Santa Marta) 1674151327
"Among El Salvador's greatest heroes of this century are the brave water defenders, including several of those arrested last week, who led the 13-year fight that culminated in El Salvador's legislature voting unanimously in 2017 to make that country the first in the world to ban all metals mining to save its rivers," IPS senior adviser John Cavanagh told Common Dreams.
Cavanagh, who co-authored with Robin Broad The Water Defenders: How Ordinary People Saved a Country from Corporate Greed, stressed that Bukele "is desperate for revenues" because he "has so mismanaged El Salvador's finances."
"So for Bukele's government, why not arrest key water defenders if you are exploring overturning the mining ban for the revenues that gold mining brings?" he said. "This is the great fear of water defenders in El Salvador. And, this is why there is now a global outcry over these arrests."
\u201c#SantaMarta | Diversos colectivos ambientalistas est\u00e1n afuera del Centro Judicial Isidro Men\u00e9ndez, exigiendo la libertad de los l\u00edderes comunitarios de Caba\u00f1as.\n\nVidalina Morales, presidenta de @ades_sm, habla de la lucha antiminera que han librado.\n\n\u270d\ud83c\udffb @GuerreroMarvin\u201d— MalaYerba (@MalaYerba) 1674140382
Pedro Cabezas of the Central American Alliance on Mining said in an email to Common Dreams that "different from previous presidents, the government of Nayib Bukele has shown no interest in implementing pending aspects of the mining prohibitions of 2017, like environmental remediation and reparation for the victims of the mining conflicts."
"On the contrary," he explained, "recent government actions signal an imminent reopening of the mining sector: El Salvador joined the Intergovernmental Forum on Mining in 2021, legislation to create a Directorate of Hydrocarbons, Energy, and Mines was passed at the legislature this year, there are rumors that the current secret negotiations of a Free Trade Agreement with China involve negotiations on mining, and there are testimonies from the communities that representatives of mining companies are visiting their territories to offer social programs and to lease large quantities of land."
"With that in mind," Cabezas concluded, "the only explanation for the arbitrary detention of five community leaders of Santa Marta, the community that led the anti-mining struggle for more than 12 years in order to protect the fragile water supply in El Salvador, is to demobilize potential grassroots opposition to the government's plans."
\u201c\ud83d\udea8 Last week, police arrested five prominent Water Defenders in El Salvador. Together with @CISPES & @stopESmining, we call on the Salvadoran government to drop the charges.\n\n251 groups from 29 countries around the world have joined in this urgent call: https://t.co/wkfeRe4MGB\u201d— Institute for Policy Studies (@Institute for Policy Studies) 1674230613
Given Bukele and Attorney General Rodolfo Delgado's track records as well as the state of exception that began in March—under which state security forces have been accused of widespread human rights abuses—advocates in El Salvador and around the world fear for the men's safety.
As Yesenia Portillo, program director at the Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador (CISPES), told Common Dreams: "Under ordinary circumstances, the arrests of internationally recognized water defenders would be major cause for concern. But in El Salvador today, where torture and deadly prison conditions reign under the current state of exception, this quickly becomes a matter of life and death."
While allies of the water defenders have pointed out that "the allegations against them have major holes and contradictions, President Bukele's near-total control over both the judiciary and the prosecution casts serious doubt on whether a fair trial is even possible," Portillo said. "Since Attorney General Delgado was illegally appointed last May, virtually all cases he has brought have been sent to trial—whether there is evidence or not—and even the most compelling petitions for alternative measures to avoid a lengthy pretrial detention get denied."
"We are deeply concerned for the well-being of these men and the dangerous precedent this sets in El Salvador," Portillo added. "With these arrests, the Bukele administration is indicating to the world that their idea of 'justice' is to allow the atrocities carried out by U.S.-backed state forces during the 1980s to remain in impunity, while punishing the leaders of communities, like Santa Marta, who bore the brunt of that very violence."
This post has been updated with comment from CISPES.
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