Anti-Mining Activists Threatened, Kidnapped and Murdered in El Salvador

Since 2009, Salvadoran anti-mining activists have been threatened, robbed, kidnapped and murdered while attempting to halt Pacific Rim, a Canadian mining company, from excavating gold in the northern department of Cabañas.

This week, US-El Salvador Sister Cities, an international solidarity organization, reported that a disturbing wave of new death threats has hit activists opposed to Pacific Rim's gold mine. The organization is calling on the Salvadoran government to investigate the threats and the various violent crimes that have been perpetrated against the movement opposed to Pacific Rim's proposed mine.

Click here and tell government officials in El Salvador to investigate these crimes and protect members of the anti-mining movement

The struggle began in 2004, when Pacific Rim conducted its first gold explorations in Cabañas. Residents that had previously noticed the effects of other mines - dry wells, skin irritations and dead animals - were skeptical of a new, massive gold project. Local Salvadoran organizations responded by researching the environmental, social and economic impacts of mining.

What they found was shocking: Pacific Rim's proposed mine would use almost 900 million liters of water a day (more than a Salvadoran family uses in 20 years). The mine would also require around 2 tons of cyanide each day, yet even brief exposure to cyanide can cause serious brain damage or death. Other heavy metals released during mining could easily poison the water supply, a critical resource for families in the region.

Local residents began to organize against the project, successfully convincing residents of Cabañas and other municipalities and eventually bringing national attention to the mining industry. By the 2009 presidential elections, both candidates took public stances against mining. And when historic left-wing candidate Mauricio Funes was elected president, he promised to prevent mining operations in the country.

Pacific Rim was not pleased. The company filed a $100 million lawsuit against the Salvadoran government under the Central American Free Trade Agreement (DR-CAFTA) for lost investments and potential profits.

Outside the courtroom, the heat was also turned up on the highly organized anti-mining movement. Way up.

In June 2009, anti-mining activist Marcelo Rivera disappeared. His body was found in a well days later with clear signs of brutal torture.

Later that month, journalists at Radio Victoria who reported on the murder began receiving death threats, along with other prominent anti-mining activists. Soon after, a local priest who had publicly denounced the murder narrowly escaped kidnapping by four masked men after he leapt from his car into a nearby ravine.

In August, anti-mining activist Ramiro Rivera was shot eight times in the back and miraculously survived, only to be murdered four months later in Cabañas.

Less than a week afterwards, Dora Santos Sorto, the wife of another Cabañas anti-mining leader, was gunned down as she walked with her two year-old son.

And this month, US-El Salvador Sister Cities reported on the following recent death threats against the Cabañas anti-mining movement, a scary omen of renewed violence against activists:

• On January 11, the community radio station Radio Victoria recieved a written death threat. The authors claim to be an “extermination group” and offer large sums of money to the radio if they “stop making trouble,” including to stop reporting on mining. If they don’t, the group says they will murder the radio’s three “loudest mouths,” Elvis Zavala, Pablo Ayala, and Manuel Navarrete.

• On January 23, Mesa member Hector Berríos received threatening phone calls from an unidentified person who claimed to have been hired to kill Hector or a member of his family.

• This month, employees of CEICOM, a part of the [anti-mining movement], have been victims of two robberies in which a vehicle and important organizational documents were stolen. In 2010, while traveling to regional anti-mining conferences, CEICOM employees were kidnapped, robbed and left tied up in Guatemala.

• Two young people in Cabañas who were connected to the June 2009 Marcelo River murder trial were killed. Darwin Serrano, who participated in the murder but was released from prison because he was a minor, was attacked and killed on December 20. Gerardo Abrego León, who testified in the trial that convicted and sentenced to prison the material authors of Marcelo Rivera’s murder, was killed on January 2.

Such continued violence against communities that are simply fighting for continued access to clean water is appalling. Help stop the cycle of violence against Salvadoran anti-mining activists. Click here and tell government officials in El Salvador to investigate these crimes and protect members of the anti-mining movement.

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