SHARE Foundation

Chalatenango
20 of February, 2006

Communities of Chalatenango already seeing effects of CAFTA

CCR update

As the Saca Administration claims to have completed all requirements so that El Salvador may enter into CAFTA with the United States , and now only waits for President Bush to officially declare active the trade agreement between the two countries, the organized communities of the CCR are already seeing the affects of CAFTA. According to the Salvadoran Attorney General for Human Rights Beatrice de Carrillo, four mega-projects destined for Chalatenango in the next 2 years are direct consequences of CAFTA. For her, it is no coincidence that currently two Canadian based mining companies, Au Martinique Silver and Intrepid Minerals, jointly hold exploration licenses granted by the Central Government’s Ministry of the Economy for approximately 100 square kilometers in eastern Chalatenango.

Likewise, the Salvadoran Government, with the expected financial support of the Millennium Fund Grant from the US Government, is designing an east-west highway that would connect Metapán Santa Ana with El Amatillo in La Unión and serve as the Salvadoran link to a series of superhighways connecting the southern United States with the Panama Canal; an easy way to export precious metals from Chalatenango to the north.

In an effort to harness and commercialize the scant water resources available in the country, the Central Government is advocating the construction of the Hydrolectric Dam El Cimarrón in Las Palmas for use by the national hydroelectric company CEL. Currently a French consulting firm is carrying out a feasibility study, and foreign investors are already lining up to finance the project. Along the same lines, recently CEL announced it is considering diverting the Sumpul River from its basin in El Carrizal, above the communities of the CCR, to fill the Suchitlán Reservoir that feeds the biggest hydroelectric generating system in the country; this electricity would power the mining companies in the extraction and processing of their precious minerals.

In all these cases, the beneficiaries are not the people of Chalatenango. Under Salvadoran mining law, the mining companies will have the right to at least 98 percent of the profits, literally stripping the land of its mineral and ecological wealth and leaving only destruction, contamination, and social problems for the 20,000 people of the affected region. Likewise, the east-west highway will be nothing more than a heavy cargo corridor, like the new peripheral highway around San Salvador , which prohibits the transit of public buses. As in San Salvador , the highway will dislocate hundreds and leave the vast majority of Chalatecos who don’t own vehicles unable to use the highway, while goods are trucked freely between CAFTA countries. The diversion of the historic Sumpul River and the construction of the Cimarron Dam are part of the process of monopolization and eventual privatization of electric and hydrologic resources in Central America . These projects will deprive Chalatenango of what water it has, affecting all 190,000 plus inhabitants of the province, and most likely exporting from the province what energy the water creates.

Beatrice de Carrillo observed in an assembly in Guarjila Saturday the 11 th that, “all the problems that you have in Chalatenango are in no way addressed by the constitution, because no matter what the constitution might say, CAFTA is above all national laws.” Considering that the constitution was written during the war in 1983 and was designed to legitimize the persecution of insurgents, CAFTA is drastic. De Carrillo went on to say that under CAFTA, all resources of the State are essentially for industrialization and exploitation, leaving the rural poor as mere obstacles in this process. As such, this legitimizes the expropriation of private land for the public (and industrial) good, as served by public and private companies. With the exception of the mining initiatives, these projects planned for Chalatenango will all expropriate private land and subsequently dislocate hundreds of families without ever consulting local governments, the communities or even the landowners. In the case of the mining companies who are not providing any public service, they must receive permission from private landholders to explore and exploit the mineral resources of Chalatenango. This gives the organized communities a better foothold for resistance but also opens the door to manipulation and bribery by the mining companies, and leaders of organized communities of the CCR have already received both bribe offers and death threats from mining company employees.

Faced with this situation, without legal protection and once again ignored by the Central Government, the organized communities of the CCR are calling now more than ever for unity and organization. As former CCR president Felipe Tobar of San José Las Flores said on Saturday, “Since the government is one of the principal violators of the law, thus we as well have our right to resist these projects...this is an opportunity to expand and strengthen our organization.” United by the deaths of historic leaders Father Jon Cortina, internationally recognized Jesuit priest in the community of Guarjila, and Schafik Handal, leader of the FMLN party, the left in El Salvador and specifically in Chalatenango is stronger than ever. The organized communities of the CCR are already planning to expand the network of the social movement to encompass the entire province of Chalatenango , and if necessary send delegations from the communities to physically block the government and its allied foreign companies from constructing these projects.

Mejía, Francisco. “El 24 de febrero se proclama el TLC.” El Diario de Hoy 17 of February 2006. < http://www.elsalvador.com/noticias/2006/02/17/negocios/neg7.asp.>

Speach given at regional assembly organized by the CCR in the community building of Guarjila Jon Cortina. 11th of February, 2006.

Intrepid Minerals. “Au Martinique Silver Hits the Ground Running in El Salvador .” <http://www.intrepidminerals.com/press_releases/2006_pressreleases/AUU_february62006.pdf>

Au Martinique Silver. Pdf slide presentatation. <http://www.aumartinique.ca/El%20Salvador.pdf >

Saca, Tony. Conferencia de Prensa, Jiquilisco. 20 de Julio de 2005. <http://www.casapres.gob.sv/presidente/declaraciones/2005/07/dec2001.htm>

“Arranca estudio de la represa El Cimarrón.” Diario de Hoy http://www.construccion.com.sv/files/noticias/n04-0401a.htm

Barrera, José. “Desviarán el Sumpul.” Diario de Hoy 31 of January, 2006. http://www.elsalvador.com/noticias/2006/01/31/negocios/neg1.asp

Salvadoran Ministry of Economy. “Mining Law.” 21 of July 2001. <http://www.minec.gob.sv/leyes/Ley_de_mineria_y_sus_Reformas.pdf>