In This Issue:

• New Strategies, New Challenges: The Struggle to Halt Mining Continues

• 25th Anniversary Update

• Words to Reflect Upon from Salvadoran Communities Affected by Mining

New Strategies, New Challenges:
The Struggle to Halt Mining Continues

By Danny Burridge

Grassroots Delegations and Tours Coordinator

On the heels of the encouraging July announcement by the Ministry of Environment in opposition to the mining process in El Salvador, the anti-mining movement has only accelerated its education and resistance efforts.  Correspondingly, the mining companies have only continued their exploration work (the first step in the mining process- before actual extraction/ "exploitation").

Santiago Serrano, Secretary of the CCR, a community organization and SHARE partner in Chalatenango, said, "The Minister's announcement was made to calm the waters.  We are not satisfied, because the President has not rejected mining- only the Ministry of Environment has.  We have continued working.  The movement is growing."

Santiago is indeed right.  SHARE just recently approved two new projects to assist the CCR and UCRES, the SHARE partner in Northern San Salvador and Northern La Libertad, in their education and advocacy projects around the mining issue.  In addition to such locally based efforts, the National Table Against Mining has also made impressive organizational and programmatic strides.  The group just recently finished a  conference in which it decided on a mission and vision statement.  It has become a consolidated, unified body with the capacity to resist mining on a national level through advocacy initiatives and popular demonstrations.

In an impressive show of strength, the National Table Against Mining, with collaboration from the FMLN, staged a unique demonstration at the end of July.  Thousands, including participants from CCR and UCRES communities, made a three-day journey on foot from the regions to the capital, picking up more supporters along the way.  On the morning of Monday, July 24, the march arrived at the door of the Ministry of Economy to deliver its demands that further exploitation projects be denied, and that the exploratory projects currently underway be terminated immediately. 

Additionally, the National Table Against Mining has increasingly focused on the crucial intellectual debate around the mining issue as well.  The Table named the week of August 28- September 1 "National Awareness Week" for mining, and as a highlight, sponsored a speaking tour by El Salvador native, Doctor Dino Larios of Ohio University, a professor of Geothermal and Hydrothermal Systems with 14 years of experience studying the impacts of acid leakage as a result of open pit mining.  In an interview with the Diario Co-Latino, she methodically presented how mining would contaminate the water table of the northern region of El Salvador, thereby putting at risk the water supply of the entire country.  She concluded that "Mining is not something to be taken lightly in a country as environmentally fragile and densely populated as El Salvador... It is not worth taking such a risk, only to regret it later."

In addition to the widespread popular movement against mining, more and more government organs and influential institutions are coming out against mining in El Salvador.  The National Commission for Development, has declared its opposition to the mining initiative, saying that such an endeavor would be the "principle obstacle to development in the northern regions of El Salvador."  The commission has maintained that if northern El Salvador is to be developed in a sustainable way, its natural resources, especially its water and trees, must be protected. 

The Office of the Procurator of Human Rights (a position that was created by the 1992 Peace Accords to ensure compliance with the Peace Accords and the defense of Human Rights), currently headed by Beatrice de Carrillo, has also voiced strong reservations about mining in El Salvador.  In an announcement about the issue the Procurator demanded that "before granting any permission for mineral exploitation, the government must undertake a profound study of the environmental and social impacts,  and must inform and permit the participation of civil society in a way that will assure the clear protection of the people"

Perhaps most notably, The Catholic Episcopal Conference, headed by the conservative Archbishop of  San Salvador, Archbishop Fernando Saenz Lacalle, has also come out against mining.  The highest religious authority in the country cited eventual harm to water resources as its biggest concern:  "The contamination of the water of the whole country makes us warn against the destructive effects that mining would have."

Although the National Table Against Mining, and the general popular movement against mining are consolidating their strength, gaining new allies, and expanding their influence, the mining companies are also innovating their tactics to pursue their goals of mineral exploitation in El Salvador.  The Canadian company formerly known as Au Martinique Silver Inc. recently changed its name to Aura Silver Resources Inc. Along with this announcement, its spokesperson made the worrying assertion that "the company's properties include its flagship project in El Salvador."

Referring to the name change, Santiago Serrano commented that "The mining companies are using new strategies.  They are extremely interested in mining in this region.  The land here is full of gold- a friend showed me a rock that was chock-full of it.  The companies are trying to buy off community leaders, and searching for land where the people aren't organized."  In response, the CCR has been expanding its educational efforts to the entire department of Chalatenango, even to communities where it is not normally active, to ensure that no one will sell their land to the mining companies.  To date, no one has.

In the most recent developments, The National Table Against Mining has been working with lawyers to develop a National Mining Law which would ban metallic mining in El Salvador. The law is set to be presented to the National Assembly in mid-October. 

The rural communities affected by the mining projects have continued to mobilize and voice their opposition to mining.  On Saturday Sept. 2, the organized communities of CCR lined the streets of Chalate City as the Legislative Assembly convened for its weekly session in that city instead of San Salvador.  They made it clear that they are not letting down their guard against the designs of the mining companies, and are still saying "No to mining, Yes to life."