The cartoon below was sent by Candy González in Belize as a representation of hopes for the end of the Chalillo Dam and HEP project; but it also serves as a representation of the many conflicts caused by hydro-electric projects around Central America.

Sad state of our Belize rivers.  

Editorial Amandala— 31 August 2019

We are grateful to Amandala, in the form of editor Russell Vellos, for permission to reproduce this editorial piece here. Amandala is a Belizean tabloid newspaper; published twice weekly, it is considered the “most widely circulated newspaper in Belize”. https://www.amandala.com.bz 

On the environment and health fronts, it has not been a good year. We are a little past halfway through 2019 and we are in a drought that’s beginning to compare with 1975:  at least two of our rivers have never been this unhealthy, and we are in the middle of a frightening dengue outbreak. We are also in the midst of making final preparations for that time of year, our nervous annual storm watching season. We normally don’t look favourably at weather systems coming off the west coast of Africa, but this year we might welcome a storm, if it doesn’t reach Category 1, and if it throws some, not too much, water our way.

The big drought of 1975 drove a lot of small farmers backward because, at the encouragement of the Marketing Board and the Ministry of Agriculture, they had taken loans from the DFC to expand their farms using improved technology. Farmers in the Cayo District, especially, borrowed money to bulldoze small parcels, prepare the land with rubber wheel tractors, and purchase fertilizers and seeds. They ended up owing, and many of them never recovered. The interest on their loans ate them up. They would never venture past plantation (milpa) agriculture again.

Grain production has largely been taken over by the Mennonite group, and they have been hard hit by the lack of rain this year. The good news is that many in this group are not as vulnerable as were the small farmers in Cayo back in 1975. It has been a bad season, especially for farmers producing crops in the grass family.

For nearly three decades citizens living along or near the Macal River have been pointing out that the river was in danger. The Macal has been dammed three times, with the Mollejon in the 1990s, the Chalillo in the 2000s, and the Vaca, around 2010.

There were some questions asked when the Mollejon, a run-of-river dam with limited water storage capacity, was built, but when the talk began for the construction of the Chalillo dam, designed to store water to be released to the Mollejon in the dry season, there were major challenges.

Some experts knew that this second dam could seriously impact the Macal River, negatively, and some argued that the impacts would be catastrophic, that the beauty and the quality and the life of the river would be ruined. Many also expressed concerns about the site of the dam. It was argued, some say proven, that claims that the dam was being constructed on granite rock were false.

After successfully navigating through the courts – the challengers to the Chalillo dam took the matter all the way to the Privy Court – another dam to store more water, the Vaca, was constructed on the Macal. The experts might know if it is one, two, or all three that killed the river.

A very famous Belizean said, “Progress Brings Problems.” Many knew the dams would cause problems, and a few of them have never wavered from keeping their concerns in front of the authorities and the Belizean people.

For a long time the leaders for the protection of the Macal River have been George and Candy Gonzalez of BELPO (Belize Institute of Environmental Law and Policy). They were among those who challenged the construction of the Chalillo dam, and they were upfront with their views when the Vaca dam was proposed too.

The website, www.waterpowermagazine.com, in the story, “Vaca dam challenge goes to court”, said that BELPO had “gone to the court for an injunction, as well as a compliance order (or writ mandamus), ordering the Department of the Environment to enforce the country’s environmental laws. The plaintiffs maintain that there should be no talk about building a third dam at Vaca when the environmental compliance plan for the second dam, Chalillo, is not being complied with.”

In a March 29, 2019 letter to the Amandala, “20 Years of Misinformation”, one of many letters that BELPO has sent to this newspaper over the years, the organisation said, “Those who pushed for the deal to build the dams on the Macal River, three politicians and a senator, have no shame as to what their actions have cost the people along the Macal and Belize Rivers.

“The water in the Macal River is polluted and people shouldn’t drink it or swim in it. Many of the fish in the river have high levels of mercury, which affects the central nervous system and is most dangerous to children and pregnant women. There is still no workable dam break early warning system.”

A footnote to the letter pointed out that Dr. Candy Gonzalez was “one of two NGO representatives on the National Environmental Appraisal Committee (NEAC) for over 7 years and was the sole ‘no’ vote in the 10-1 decision to give environmental clearance for the Chalillo Reservoir/Dam.”

The water is behind the dams now, a done deal, and the Macal River has become a stagnant waterway, with the beauty gone, with fish with mercury levels that make them inedible, with water lilies growing in pools of dead water where once there was a vital, flowing stream. All that can be considered at this time are measures to mitigate the damage, as much as possible. This calls for honesty and urgency on the part of our environmental and agricultural scientists, and engineers.

The New River has been spitting up dead fish during the dry season for decades, and everyone knew that there were things going on in that river that were similar to what happens sometimes to the Crooked Tree Lagoon. Whenever rains are below normal, especially in periods that can be considered as drought conditions, there is oxygen starvation and this is evidenced by fish dying.

On the New River it goes a lot deeper than oxygen starvation. The story there is also about serious pollution. When the crocodiles have belly ache you know you have a very serious problem. Dr. Marisa Tellez, the Executive Director of the Crocodile Research Coalition, in a story reported on Channel Seven News, said she has been studying the crocodile population in Belize and what they found with the crocodiles in the New River was disturbing.

Dr. Tellez said, “We were finding crocodiles that were highly lethargic. Their skin was peeling off. Their skin was turning a whitish-bluish tone. We found many young crocodiles with no teeth.”

Most everyone knew there were things going on with the New River that were different from what was going on in the Crooked Tree Lagoon, and the lack of rain this year has forced these issues to the fore. The New River is being assaulted by factory effluent, human waste, and waste from agricultural developments. There is another task here for environmental and agricultural scientists, and engineers.

The problems on the Macal and New rivers are not the only environmental concerns for this country. There are other rivers/creeks that are under siege, there is concern for the quality of the sea in front of Belize’s largest population centre, Belize City, and there is concern that ships coming to our country might not be respecting our environmental laws.  Our authorities have their triumphs, one of them being a far more advanced system for solid waste disposal, but for the most part they seem overwhelmed, and failing.

Another huge problem for Belize at this time is a scary dengue epidemic that is already a horror story. Reports are that we have nearly 2,000 cases this year, far more than double any previous year, and the experts are saying that when the rains come, to help our farmers, we might see an increased incidence of dengue.

Dengue is a debilitating, sometimes fatal disease. The WHO (World Health Organization) says that in 1970, “when Latin America lived largely dengue-free, the region only had the DEN-2 serotype. Then DEN-1 entered the scene in 1977, followed by DEN-4 and a new strain of DEN-2 in 1981, this last virus triggering the Cuban epidemic. DEN-3 was the most recent virus to reappear, after many years absence.

“While infection by one dengue virus provides lifelong immunity to that serotype, it increases the risk of severe illness when an individual is later infected by any of the other dengue serotypes. As a result, hyperendemicity – the circulation of multiple serotypes – produces more DHF cases and more deaths.”

The problems with the Macal and New Rivers, and the dangerous dengue situation, are not going away by themselves. The response of our authorities is wanting.

https://amandala.com.bz/news/rain-stagnant-polluted-rivers-dengue/

The version of this ‘Sorry History’ that was given in the book was much abridged. This version is the full version as given by Probe International.

• The campaign to stop the Chalillo dam begins in 1999.Poster against the Chalillo Dam
• Environmentalists warn that Chalillo will destroy endangered species’ habitat and major Maya archeological sites, be technically compromised, and uneconomic. Fortis perseveres nonetheless.
• Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) secretly pays AMEC, a Montreal-based engineering firm, $250,000 to prepare a feasibility study of Chalillo justifying construction. U.S. author Bruce Barcott calls the report “a masterpiece of spin and obfuscation.”
• AMEC fails to record geological faults and fractures in the project area and says bedrock at the dam site is “granite.” In fact, it is sandstones interbedded with soft shales which have poor load-bearing capacity.
• London’s Natural History Museum hired by AMEC, predicts the demise of threatened species, and advises against construction of dam. Fortis ignores the warning.
• Probe International demands that CIDA recall AMEC’s report and notify the Belize authorities that its conclusions are invalid. CIDA denies responsibility.
• Environmentalists launch lawsuit in the Supreme Court of Belize which is then appealed to the Privy Council, Belize’s highest court of appeal, and loses by a slim margin.
• Fortis completes construction of the Chalillo dam in 2005 and impoundment begins.
• Fortis fails to fully comply with its legally required environmental compliance plan. In July 2007, Belizean environmentalists sue and win court case, ordering the government to monitor water quality in the Macal River, establish an emergency warning system to protect downstream residents in the event of a dam break, monitor levels of mercury in the fish and inform the public of findings.
• Macal River water quality declines. Swimmers and bathers complain of stomach problems, itchy skin, and skin rashes.
• Authorities warn people not to eat fish from the river because of possible contamination from methyl mercury, a toxin formed through bacterial synthesis in flooded soils and vegetation, which attacks the central nervous system in humans.
• Sharon Matola, Director of the Belize Zoo and Tropical Education Centre, reports that Scarlet Macaws still return to try and nest along the Macal River and its tributary, the Raspaculo, but their nesting trees are gone and the reservoir becomes “a big mud-hole” every dry season. Nesting boxes the government nailed to trees as a substitute are, says Ms. Matola, a “total failure.” BirdLife International predicts the Scarlet Macaw population will die out within a few years due to habitat loss and poaching by the recent influx of dam construction workers.
• Under Fortis’s monopoly, Belizeans now pay more for their electricity than consumers in other Central American countries.
• Summer 2009, shock sediment discharges begin to flow down the Macal River from the Chalillo dam, contaminating the river and marine systems downstream.
• Belize environmentalists seek an injunction in the Supreme Court of Belize to stop the release of sediments.
• September 2009, Belizean authorities discuss shutting down Chalillo’s operations to stop the sediment pollution

Written by Probe International, December 2009

www.probeinternational.org

Anyone interested in the story of the Chalillo Dam are referred to the interview with Candy Gónzalez, in the Belize set of interviews

Photos: River turbidity below the Chalillo Dam

In 2004, a petition against the construction of the Chalillo Dam in Belize was presented to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) on behalf of the Maya people and those living downstream of the dam by The Belize Institute of Environmental Law and Policy (BELPO). Since that time the dam has been built; but now the IACHR has declared that the petition has validity. In such cases we might ask if it acceptable that the IACHR should take eleven years to reach a decision regarding the validity of petitions. We include below the press statement recently released by BELPO.

 PRESS RELEASE: HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATIONS CAUSED BY THE CHALILLO DAM HAVE VALIDITY

June 21, 2016

 In an important decision, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) has opened a case against the Government of Belize (GOB) regarding the controversial Chalillo Dam built on Belize’s Macal River in 2005.

The decision is in response to a petition from The Belize Institute of Environmental Law and Policy (BELPO) filed in 2004 on behalf of the Maya People and those living downstream of the dams who say their rights − including their rights to life, liberty and personal security, religious freedom, benefits of culture, legal rights and the right to work − have been violated.

In their brief to the Commission, BELPO documents show how the riverine populations have been harmed: water quality has been so degraded that people can no longer bathe in or drink the water; fish have been poisoned by mercury leaving citizens without their vital source of protein; more than 300 Mayan archaeological sites have been lost under the reservoir eliminating a large body of knowledge to the Maya; changes to river flows and sediment deposition have destroyed farms and ecotourism businesses along the river and unemployment has risen.

Also, BELPO says the Government of Belize has, in defiance of its own institutions and legislation, refused to abide by the Orders of the Belize Supreme Court to enforce the Environmental Compliance Plan (ECP) for Chalillo, which is a contract between the Government and the owner of the dam to take measures to mitigate the damages caused by the dam.

The GOB has also failed to inform the people on the quality of the Macal River water, to disclose mercury levels in fish to the public on a timely basis and to provide a viable warning system to alert downstream populations of dam breaks including the failure to disclose that the dam is built in a seismically active area.

IACHR’s decision to admit our petition is recognition of the severity of the harms to health, safety and property rights, as well as indigenous rights by the destruction of over 300 major Mayan archaeological sites as well as recognition that the people have a right to know the extent and nature of the harm inflicted upon them by contracts made in their name with corporations.

The opening of the case is, above all, a victory for the affected communities, the Maya people of Belize and local social movements, who have endured for all these years, and remain strong and determined in their search for justice and compensation.

As an organization representing the victims of the Chalillo Dam, BELPO remains committed to exposing the human rights violations directly caused by the dam’s construction.

BELPO acknowledges the integral role played by the Environmental Law Alliance (ELAW), the International Rivers Network (including a valiant fighter for the people, Berta Cáceres assassinated in Honduras earlier this year) and Probe International of Canada in the struggle to get these abuses into this international body.

Press Contacts:

George Gonzalez

Dr. Candy Gonzalez

The Belize Institute of Environmental Law and Policy (BELPO)

P.O. Box 105, San Ignacio Town, Cayo District, Belize

Phone: +501- 824-2476   | email: belpo.belize@gmail.com | candybz@gmail.com

 

Included here is a blog from Santa Clara Law’s International Human Rights Clinic.  They submitted a brief in support of BELPO’s Petition to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. I am grateful to Chloe Tomlinson for permission to reproduce the blog entry in The Violence of Development website.

By Santa Clara Law student Chloe Thomlinson and Prof. Francisco Rivera

On June 13th, 2018, Santa Clara Law’s International Human Rights Clinic submitted an amicus curiae brief before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights on behalf of communities affected by the construction of the Chalillo Dam in Belize. The brief addresses novel legal issues and provides the Commission with a unique opportunity to further develop the human rights obligations of States and businesses in the area of environmental harms caused by large development projects.

 

Fourteen years ago, the Belize Institute of Environmental Law and Policy (BELPO) submitted a petition before the Commission alleging human rights violations caused by the approval, construction, and operation of the Chalillo Dam in the Macal River basin. Construction on the Dam began in 2002 and was completed in 2005. The petitioners allege the dam was approved in violation of applicable regulations that required, among other things, further studies on mitigation of impacts to wildlife, archaeological ruins, and the environment, as well as publication of required water tests.

People living in the Macal River Basin depend on the river for drinking water, employment, bathing, fishing, and recreation. The dam’s construction has severely damaged the Macal River and caused major, irreversible, negative environmental impacts, destroyed unique and critical habitats, and submerged unexplored Mayan archaeological sites, which are of cultural importance to the Mayan communities in the region.

On October 27, 2015, the Commission declared this petition admissible and a decision is pending on its merits.

The Clinic’s brief supports the petitioners’ allegations and argues that:

(1) Belize violated the human rights to life, health, and water by contaminating the communities’ water and food supplies and by making clean water economically inaccessible to them;

(2) Belize violated the right of access to information by failing to comply with public awareness requirements under the dam’s environmental compliance plan, provide adequate responses to requests for information, and offer an effective mechanism to guarantee the right to access information;

(3) Belize violated the right to work by negatively impacting tourism, fishing and farming in the Macal River Valley, and

(4) Belize violated the right to access to justice and judicial protection by failing to provide an effective recourse to address violations of the dam’s environmental compliance plan.

 

Five Clinic students worked on the brief during a year-long process that included a fact-finding trip to talk to affected communities in the Macal River in Belize. “Interviewing the affected community members in Belize was an exceptional experience;” said clinic student Chloe Thomlinson, “it made the issues we were discussing all the more real and significant”. Students canoed down the Macal River with affected community members who described the negative effects the dam had on the river and on their livelihoods. Some community members, including children, developed skin rashes and stomach problems due to the contaminated water. For the community, the Macal was more than just a river; it was where they grew up, made memories, and worked, and it was a source of food and clean water.

The Clinic’s brief aims primarily to support and supplement the remarkable work that the petitioners and local NGOs have done to seek reparations for the damage done by the construction of the dam. Additionally, the Clinic expects the Commission to develop clear language on the relevant obligations States and businesses have in the area of economic, social, cultural, and environmental rights, particularly in the context of large development projects that contaminate rivers and cause harm to rural and indigenous peoples.

Read the amicus brief on Chalillo Dam in Belize.

http://law.scu.edu/ihrcblog/international-human-rights-clinic-submits-brief-addressing-environmental-and-human-rights-violations-in-belize/

Articles originally published by Inequality.org can be reproduced under a Creative Commons license, but we are grateful to Inequality.org for specific permission to reproduce here this article by Jen Moore. The original can be found at:

https://inequality.org/research/celebrating-resilient-water-defenders/

By Jen Moore, Inequality.org, March 2, 2022

Key words: Berta Caceres; Guatemala; Water Protectors; La Puya; International Centre for the Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID); Honduras; Guapinol Eight

 

An Attempted Assassination, Criminalization, And Violent Eviction In 2014 Didn’t Stop The Peaceful Resistance Of La Puya In Guatemala, Which Won Legal Action Suspending Harmful Mining Activities.

In Central America, as in many other parts of the world today, communities are being thrust into life and death struggles up against powerful interests to ensure clean water and health for their future generations. This is often the case where mining companies seek to dig up gold, silver, iron ore or other metals and minerals, disrupting or destroying precious water supplies in the process, and leaving behind massive quantities of toxic waste on the land.

With national and international laws designed to privilege such harmful activities in the name of so-called development and progress, it is vital to celebrate the milestones of people fighting against all odds to protect their lives and lands from such threats.

Today, March 2 [2022], many will honour the life of Berta Cáceres and reaffirm their commitment to the fight for justice for her brutal murder in her home six years ago. Her leadership in the resistance to megaprojects in Honduras, including a hydroelectric dam and mining concessions on Indigenous Lenca territory, continues to inspire many. Today also marks ten years of inspirational, peaceful resistance to gold mining at a place known as La Puya, just north of Guatemala City. The freedom of eight water defenders in Tocoa, Honduras [the Guapinol Eight] is also being celebrated this week where there are important signs that resistance to mining is gaining traction at the national level following the inauguration of President Xiomara Castro.

 

A Decade Of Water Defense In Guatemala

Celebrating ten years of resistance in Guatemala, the Peaceful Resistance ‘La Puya’ began on March 2, 2012 with a 24-hour protest camp in front of the entrance to a gold mine site operated by Nevada-based mining company Kappes, Cassiday & Associates (KCA) just north of Guatemala City. This week, over fifty Guatemalan and international organisations sent their congratulations to La Puya for its tenacious and ongoing struggle.

Over the course of the past decade, as a result of their resistance, members have suffered acts of intimidation, an attempted assassination, criminalization, as well as a violent eviction in May 2014 in order to enable the mine to start operating.

According to Guatemalan courts, KCA’s operations were always illegal. The company never had local support, lacked a construction license to build the mine, and violated environmental regulations. Legal action led to the mine suspension in 2016, upheld by the Constitutional Court in 2020, until which time a consultation has been undertaken with the community.

Despite having failed to respect Guatemalan law and much less the communities’ human rights, KCA is now suing the state of Guatemala for over $400 million dollars at the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) under the terms of the Dominican Republic-Central America Free Trade Agreement with the U.S. (DR-CAFTA). KCA’s case against the Guatemalan government is part of an increasingly common strategy used by transnational corporations to bully foreign governments into approving projects that lack community support or otherwise extract their profits through compensation.

In its arbitration defense, despite the Guatemalan government having backed the company to get the mine up and operating in 2014, it acknowledges the legitimate resistance of La Puya to protect already scarce water supplies from contamination and depletion. It also argues that the company’s environmental impact study was incomplete, failed to abide by Guatemalan standards, let alone international norms, and never should have been approved. Meanwhile, the Guatemalan government also claims that the company failed to abide by at least 50% of its environmental obligations according to national regulations.

The Guatemalan defense team even goes so far to recognize that the injustice of this case is further evidence of the injustice of the international arbitration system: “The people of Guatemala should not now be asked to pick up the tab for Claimants, if at all that they suffered any business losses. Otherwise, this Tribunal would be rewarding an imprudent investor at the expense of causing doubt on the fairness of the investor-state dispute settlement system.”

It is only the stalwart persistence of the Peaceful Resistance La Puya and their careful documentation of their struggle and the company’s violations that have kept mining out of their communities so far and brought these local and international injustices to light.

 

Hard Fought Freedom For Defenders In Honduras

In Honduras, late the night of February 24^th [2022], six water defenders were finally reunited with their families after being illegally held for two and a half years in pre-trial detention. Two other water defenders were released earlier in February.

Their crime? Having participated in peaceful protests against contamination of their rivers from an open-pit iron oxide project operating within a protected area upstream of the water they rely on. After two and a half years of legal work and campaigning to build support for the freedom of the water defenders, including from solidarity groups, faith, environmental and human rights organisations, as well as UN bodies, the men were finally released. They were received with fireworks, applause, and hugs from their family members, supporters and members of the Municipal Committee in Defense of the Commons and Public Goods of Tocoa, recipient of the 2019 Letelier-Moffitt International Human Rights award.

Honduran company Los Pinares Investments holds two mining concessions within the Carlos Escaleras National Park, the headwaters of 34 rivers. In 2013, the limits of the central area of the park were redrawn so that the project would remain within the buffer zone in which such mining is permitted. The company, owned by Honduran elite that enjoyed a cosy relationship with the now former dictatorship of Juan Orlando Hernández – recently arrested for his narcotrafficking ties – has received investment from the large US steel company Nucor. Nucor reported ending its investment in the project in 2019, but two of its executives still appear as directors of a Panamanian subsidiary that is part of the Honduran business group.

The Municipal Committee continues to challenge the illegality of the iron oxide project, which went into operation in 2021. It is possible that with the recent inauguration of Honduras’ first female President Xiomara Castro that their complaints seeking the project’s closure could gain traction.

Notably, prior to being ousted in a military backed coup in 2009, under Castro’s husband and former president Mel Zelaya, a proposed bill was awaiting debate that sought to prohibit open pit mining and put other constraints on this toxic activity. This bill came about as a result of the difficult struggles of movements and mining-affected communities in Honduras, such as in the Siria Valley where communities faced health harms from the San Martín gold mine, owned by Goldcorp (now Newmont).

In echo of this earlier proposal, on February 28, the Honduran Secretary of Energy, Natural Resources and Mines issued a communiqué stating that no further permits will be issued for extractive projects as a result of being a threat to public health, water and natural resources, declaring Honduras free of open pit mining. The statement further indicates that the authority will “proceed with the review, suspension and cancelation of environmental licenses, permits and concessions.”

While applying such measures to existing mining projects and permits in the country is sure to face a fight and require continued organising from Honduran water defenders and their allies, this declaration is potent evidence of the tremendous efforts that have already taken place by land and water defenders on the frontline.

Celebrating water defenders and their long-term struggles is part of learning from one another. While La Puya and many other communities in Guatemala continue to stave off precious metal mining, as Hondurans forge a path to be mining free, and as the Salvadoran people also fight to maintain their ban on metallic mining since March 2017, they remind us about how through collective efforts and tenacity important victories can be won for the health of people and the planet.

 

John Cavanagh’s article in Chapter 5 of this website (‘Is Mining Money Behind the Arrest of Salvadoran Water Defenders?’) was written in January this year. In August this year the five detained water defenders of Santa Marta and the Association of Economic and Social Development (ADES) celebrated a minor victory as they were released from jail into house arrest. This meant that they were free of the horrific conditions in the Salvadoran penitentiary system and that they were reunited with their families. The court order also required the detainees to be released into hospital for medical evaluation, but the General Directorate of Correctional Centres of El Salvador failed to comply with the order and released them directly into their homes instead.  

In June this year, before their release, Martin Mowforth received an email letter from a Salvadoran friend and a prominent member of the Roundtable Against Metal Mining in El Salvador tying together the links between the arrest of the ADES 5, the current repressive state of exception in El Salvador (reported in Chapter 10 of this website) and the threat of an end to the prohibition of metal mining in El Salvador. We are not using our friend’s name because of the high possibility of reprisals against him resulting from his information and opinions. His letter (below), translated for the TVOD website Jill Powis, is given below. (Thanks Jill.)

 

“Anyone who criticizes the state of emergency which has been imposed on an apparently permanent basis suffers police harassment and persecution.

A number of organisations (Institutions such as UCA, FESPAD and CRISTOSAL) have documented a range of human rights violations in El Salvador during this state of emergency. For example, they estimate that as many as 66,000 people suffered arbitrary detention without an investigation or arrest warrant, during which 170 have died.  According to personal testimony from the victims themselves, human rights abuses committed in the prisons include physical and psychological torture, beatings, electric shocks, suffocation, and malnutrition.

The Movement of Victims of the Regime in El Salvador (MOVIR) presented a letter to the offices of the Presidential Commissioner for Human Rights, Andrés Guzmán, asking him to review the cases of innocent people arrested under the state of emergency.

In public statements, the Presidential Commissioner has repeatedly claimed to be unaware of human rights violations in El Salvador and is therefore complicit in the current policy of terror. In El Salvador, people continue to be disappeared and, despite the fact that this has been reported to the authorities and a search association has even been set up in response, the State has shown itself to be indifferent to the issue.

In the case of the environmentalists [here he is referring to the water defenders, the Santa Marta 5], they have now been in arbitrary detention for seven months. On 16 May, the UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights Defenders requested their release, but the Salvadoran State has refused.

The Sensuntepeque Investigating Court (Juzgado de Instrucción) has twice refused to review their detention and has still not held the special hearing to review the measures handed down by the Criminal Chamber of Cojutepeque on 30 June.

Grassroots organisations have asked the Prosecutor’s Office to withdraw the charges against the environmental leaders of Santa Marta and ADES.

Their request is based on the lack of real evidence incriminating the leaders and environmentalists and on the provisions of the National Reconciliation Law of 1992. The organisations also point out that the criminalization of environmental defenders is an abuse of the judicial process motivated by plans to recommence metal mining.

If the Salvadoran government continues to ignore the calls of the Special Rapporteur, El Salvador could be considered to be in contempt of this body.

The President has now sent 7,000 soldiers and 1,000 police officers to Cabañas, further consolidating their presence in the municipality of San Isidro and the community of Santa Marta, both centres of resistance to mining companies.

This deployment of state forces, far from guaranteeing security, is instead intimidating and terrorizing the inhabitants, as innocent people are being detained, accused of being criminals.”

 

BY John CAVANAGH

JANUARY 26, 2023

The following article taken from inequality.org is by John Cavanagh, a Senior Advisor at the Institute for Policy Studies. We meant to include it in previous additions to The Violence of Development website, but it was missed for a variety of reasons – apologies. We are grateful to John for granting us permission to include the article in the TVOD website.

Key words: metal mining ban; El Salvador; detention of water defenders; mining-related assassinations; Association of Economic and Social Development (ADES); Pacific Rim / OceanaGold.

Human rights and environmental activists across the globe are mobilizing in support of five men detained in El Salvador on charges that appear aimed at silencing opposition to mining. The arrestees — Miguel Ángel Gámez, Alejandro Laínez García, Pedro Antonio Rivas Laínez, Antonio Pacheco, and Saúl Agustín Rivas Ortega — were among the leaders of a campaign to block mining activities in El Salvador that would have enriched a few while endangering the nation’s water supply.

In 2017, their campaign shook the rapacious global extractives industry to its core by winning the world’s first ban on metals mining. Robin Broad and I chronicled this thrilling victory in our book, The Water Defenders: How Ordinary People Saved a Country From Corporate Greed [published by Beacon Press, Boston, in 2021].

But now it’s clear this David versus Goliath struggle is not over. El Salvador’s Attorney General claims the January 11 arrests are related to an alleged murder over 30 years ago during El Salvador’s brutal civil war. These charges are beyond dubious.

As more than 250 organisations from 29 countries point out in a joint statement, the government has never bothered to prosecute members of the military responsible for dozens of civil war-era human rights violations. These include a 1981 massacre that left 30 dead and 189 disappeared in the arrestees’ community in northern El Salvador.

“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,” reads the international statement.

Through my 14 years of collaboration with the water defenders of El Salvador, I’ve got to know one of the five men arrested — Antonio Pacheco — particularly well. His story reflects the courage, creativity, and perseverance of a movement that has inspired fellow activists around the world.

For over two decades, Pacheco has led the Association of Economic and Social Development (ADES), the organisation that anchored the fight against mining in the northern province of Cabañas.

The mining corporation that had come to Cabañas was the Vancouver-based Pacific Rim. What they wanted was to extract the rich veins of gold buried near the Lempa River, the water source for more than half of El Salvador’s 6.2 million people.

Pacheco initially thought mining might be good for this economically poor province. But then he learned about the dangers for public health and agriculture from popular educator Marcelo Rivera. They and others, including tireless community leader Vidalina Morales, began informing their impoverished, rural community about the issue. They also raised funds to bring in outside experts, including a leading international hydrologist who issued a devastating critique of the mining company’s environmental impact statement.

In time, the activists built up a National Roundtable on Metals Mining that won over a strong majority of the public and rallied the Catholic Church, farmers, small businesses, and labour and environmental groups to oppose mining.

Then the company struck back. In 2009, Pacific Rim (a Canadian firm later bought by Australia-based OceanaGold) filed a lawsuit against the government of El Salvador, eventually demanding $250 million in compensation for the loss of profits they’d expected to make from their mining project there. For the cash-strapped country, that was the equivalent of 40 percent of the national public health budget.

This legal blackmail occurred amidst an explosion of violence against anti-mining activists, including the murder of Pacheco’s fellow campaign leader Marcelo Rivera. Several people have been convicted of Rivera’s killing, but to this day the “intellectual authors” have never been held accountable.

Pacheco also faced personal death threats. In the wake of Rivera’s assassination, one note read: “The hour has come…[Pacheco] for the bomb in your own house and of your pals, now is the hour you pay for what you did…[You are] the next like Marcelo Rivera.”

Pro-mining forces also tried to buy Pacheco off through offers of prostitutes and other bribes. He didn’t blink. Instead, Pacheco focused on broadening the campaign’s base, building relationships with the right-wing ARENA party’s environment minister, conservative bishops, and other unlikely allies.

He and Morales also encouraged my organisation, the Institute for Policy Studies and MiningWatch Canada, to create International Allies Against Mining in El Salvador, a coalition that has brought outside attention to the campaign and pressure on the mining company.

In 2016, the water defenders who had paid such a high price for their resistance won their first measure of justice: a three-person tribunal ruled unanimously against the mining company. This victory emboldened efforts behind a ban on metals mining, efforts that paid off in 2017 with a stunning, unanimous vote in the Salvadoran legislature.

Now, Pacheco and others who have inspired defenders of water and democracy around the world sit in jail cells.

Why would a government imprison heroes who have saved their country by saving its rivers? El Salvador’s president, Nayib Bukele, is an authoritarian populist who has demonized environmentalists and suspended a wide range of civil liberties, leading to widespread  arbitrary detentions.

His targeting of the water defenders could be linked to Bukele’s mismanagement of national finances, in part through his disastrous marriage of El Salvador’s currency to Bitcoin, which has created tremendous pressure to generate revenue from any source — even if it destroys the environment.

Before his arrest, Pacheco was one of several people who had reported suspicious appearances by unknown individuals offering to lease farmers’ land for exorbitant amounts of money and provide funding for municipal social programmes in the mining region of Cabañas. These appearances are just one sign that the Bukele government could be moving toward increased collaboration with transnational mining institutions and overturning the mining ban.

El Salvador-based environmentalist Pedro Cabezas and Canadian journalist Owen Schalk have also reported that two mayors from the Cabañas mining region say they met with officials of the Exports and Investment Promotion Agency of El Salvador who told them that mining will soon be reintroduced.

In their joint statement, the international organisations call on Bukele’s government to “drop the charges against the five water defenders and otherwise release them from prison to await their trial.”

Through incredible courage, backed up by strong international solidarity, these water defenders have won seemingly unwinnable battles against formidable economic and political forces. The fight must continue to gain their freedom and keep mining out of El Salvador.

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Notes:

• Robin Broad and John Cavanagh’s book is the definitive story behind the run-up to and the background of El Salvador’s metals mining ban, but the subject is also widely covered in a range of articles in Chapter 5 (‘Mining’) of The Violence of Development website.
• Robin Broad and John Cavanagh, 2021, The Water Defenders: How Ordinary People Saved a Country From Corporate Greed, Beacon Press, Boston.