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Dear Friend,

On Sunday, June 18 th, San Jose Las Flores celebrated an auspicious day – the 20 th anniversary of their settlement since repopulating in 1986. They are one of the best organized communities, having led the repopulation movement by being one of the first communities to return. They mobilized national and international support to rebuild their homes as well as to provide electricity, pave the road, create a community center and bring many other benefits to the community.

 This day also marked the 18 th anniversary of the CCR and the end of an intense week of resistance to exploitative mining facing Chalatenango. In a joint effort, a regional forum was held on the special day to mark the end of resistance week, and to declare in an official ceremony Chalatenango’s stance in the face of potential mining projects in their area.

San Jose Las Flores was the first community to discover the mining threat. Since September 2005, when the very first steps of investigation into Chalatenango´s mineral wealth took place on the part of the mining company Martinique, Inc., the people of Chalate have stood firm in their belief that such exploration would lead to unacceptable exploitation of their land. Subsequent research and trips to Honduras and Guatemala, where both mining sites and communities destroyed as a result were visited, consolidated the fear that the nature of mining projects was too destructive to permit.

San Flores, later joined by the CCR, has since transformed this fear into resistance, articulating an opposition to mining projects and raising both regional and national consciousness. A six day fast in March, a rally held on June 1 st in reaction to the celebration of Tony Saca´s government, press conferences, regional and national forums and a great march held in the capital have all been opportunities to further voice the position of Chalatenango´s communities and increase awareness.

A national forum was held at the University of Central America (UCA) on June 13 th on the subject of mineral exploitation and its subsequent effects on environmental, human and economic development. Organized by a national committee made up of NGOs, the forum was attended by numerous representatives from Chalatenango and other departmental communities. The topic of mining invariably touches on the concept of development and was addressed by the following speakers.

Yanira Cortez, a human rights lawyer, declared that as an environment is gradually destroyed, already existing social problems are deepened and new ones are created, inhibiting the development and implementation of human rights. She also expressed the responsibility of the state to take human rights into consideration before making any decision and to promote economic development that respects the lives of all Salvadorians.

An Oxfam America representative claimed that after years of research all over the world on the effects of mining to a community or country’s progress, experience has shown that mineral exploitation does not lead to sustainable development. The World Bank has facilitated mining projects by reducing the taxes a company must pay to the country in which it wishes to operate. Mining companies in El Salvador will have to shell out no more than 2% of their profits to the government. Considering that an ounce of gold is currently worth around $700, it is no small wonder that international companies will try and imbue a political environment, through structures such as the World Bank or IMF, which can maximize profits and minimize social and humanitarian responsibility.

Don Hugo Barrera, Minister of the Environment, pointed out that there is no law in El Salvador that forbids mineral exploration and exploitation, though there is a legislative process that allows the Ministry of Environment to review any proposed environmental project before it goes ahead. Barrera declared that the State is in no capacity to challenge projects without legal backing and that El Salvador should look toward developed bodies such as the US or the EU, where mechanisms to extract mineral wealth from the earth have been refined and ameliorated over the years. Barrera was keen to overlook the fact that over the past century, the US has experienced a destruction of catastrophic proportions of its environment and many of its communities due to mining projects.

When I later asked Esperanza, a member of the CCR what she saw as development, she answered that mining projects are not development. “In this land [Chalatenango], it is densely populated, agriculturally used, and the source of our basic needs. How is [mining] development if it contaminates the land we use? We do not eat gold.” Her view on development is that before it can take place on a national scale, it must first start off within a person. An individual must develop his or her values and ability to analyze and criticize, so that when it comes to facing external forces, in this case the threat of the mining projects, one is not tricked or fooled.

The attitude of Barrera and others is painfully evident in El Salvador’s new reality as it tries to embrace and keep up with neo-liberal politics inspired by countries such as the US. This model views growth as development, and the faster El Salvador is urbanized, privatized and made consumer-friendly, the more and better developed it is. Mining projects carried out by foreign companies in developing countries are a tribute to a global and developed frame of mind, born from the creation of a frontier-less playground for commerce and business. But when a doctrine such as this is applauded by few and suffered by most, it is hard to view sense in this form of development.

The CCR and Chalatenango communities are walking in a direction that is uncomfortable or ill-fitting in the global model of development. They advocate grass-root organization, a form of development that is not generated from the top of the hierarchical structure of world economics, but one that grows with the people at ground level, which supports organic initiatives, and invests in its people. Mining projects do not conform to this vision. The national forum saw scientific, legislative and economic evidence put forward in the debate, but the message from the CCR was simple. It said, and says today more strongly than ever; “Our position is NO. No to mining and Yes to life”. And with that, the discussion was closed.

If the CCR celebrated anything at the Sunday Forum in Las Flores, it was the values of popular organization and people power. And now more than ever, these values need to be put into practice as the people of Chalatenango face their new battle. The importance of organization and solidarity could not have been stressed more fervently, especially when fruits of such values have brought so much over the past two decades. And certainly, past victories and achievements still shine through, but what is really exciting is that still today, the spirit remains and continues to form new organized bodies of resistance.

One such group is the Committee of Youth in Resistance against Mining (CJRCM). This young committee from Las Flores formed only three weeks ago in support of their community’s general movement of resistance. They helped prepare the Sunday Forum and also took part in the Friday march, but were surprised that so few from the city knew what it was about. The committee feels the responsibility to raise awareness among their peers on the issue and feel that the task of resistance cannot be left to the adults alone. Magdalena Menjivar, a member of the group, comments that “As young people, we must realize that we have the power to generate change, and that we too must take up the fight like our elders are doing”.

The closing of the Sunday Forum was the reading of an official document that declared the opposition of Chalate communities to mining projects. With the years of experience the CCR has behind them and the new and fresh committees joining the struggle such as the youth of CJRCM, it seems that Martinique, Inc. has a serious battle ahead.

In Solidarity,

Stephanie Kennedy