Category: Chapter 5

The Petaquilla Mine, Panama, and opposition to it

Chapter 5 / Panama

The controversial Petaquilla mining concession is located in the Donoso district in the north-central provinces of Coclé and Colón, covering an area of 13,600 hectares.

In 1997 the Panamanian government granted a concession for gold and copper mining to the company Minera Petaquilla, S.A. Two separate mining projects are being developed with Panamanian and Canadian investment – an open-pit gold mine, and one of the largest open-pit copper mines in the world.

The fierce opposition to the Petaquilla mining project from civil society groups and local communities stands in stark contrast to the company’s declarations of self-praise – see Below. The benefits in terms of a limited number of low-paid jobs seem scant, when compared to the environmental costs, including the contamination of their water supply, and the loss of land and forest cover. The anti-mining movement in Panama has been gaining momentum and there have been numerous protests against the Petaquilla mines. Protests in May 2009 blocked access to both mines for two weeks.

Conservationists point to the devastating and irreversible environmental impacts on the region, which is part of the Mesoamerican Biological Corridor. Concerns include the building of access roads in a remote area of high biodiversity, destruction of primary forest, and siltation and pollution of rivers.

In August 2008, the NGO Sustainable Harvest International declined funding from Petaquilla Copper Ltd to undertake sustainable development programs with communities in the region. The proposed collaboration was deemed irreconcilable with their commitment to conservation. Their president Florence Reed stated:

Even if Petaquilla were truly committed to full mitigation and remediation, this mining venture will result in a legacy of environmental and social disruption because of the immense area that will be deforested and the number of local indigenous communities that will be displaced.[1]

Sources:
MiningWatch Canada, November 2008, ‘Important information about the Petaquilla mining project in Panama’, http://www.miningwatch.ca/updir/Petaquilla_background.pdf (Accessed 5 August 2009).
MiningWatch Canada, January 2009, ‘Panamanian rainforest communities threatened by mining’, http://www.miningwatch.ca/index.php?/Panama/Petaquilla_alert (Accessed 5 August 2009).
[1] Sustainable Harvest International, August 2008 http://www.sustainableharvest.org/PR82008.cfm (accessed 5 August 2009)

Las Crucitas Mine, Costa Rica

Chapter 5 / Costa Rica

The Crucitas gold mine in northern Costa Rica offers another example of government determination to grant mineral exploration and exploitation concessions in the face of substantial local, national and international opposition, despite the low return to local and national government for the damages that may result from these operations. For nearly two decades the Crucitas mine has been a source of divisions in Costa Rican society and government.

The Crucitas open-cast mine is located in the province of Alajuela 3 miles from Costa Rica’s northern border with Nicaragua. The mine covers an area of 55 hectares, with a depth of approximately 60 meters. It is owned by Canadian mining company, Infinito Gold Ltd, which hoped to extract around 85,000 ounces of gold annually, believing that the mine holds up to 1.2 million ounces of gold.[1] An investment of US$66 million was required to begin the project, which was declared by ex-President Óscar Arias as a project of “public interest.”[2] Infinito Gold predicted that the mine would bring 300 direct jobs and 1,300 indirect jobs to an area with few other sources of employment.[3] Supporters of the project believe that it would bring “economic opportunity to an economically depressed corner of Costa Rica.”[4]

Although the Crucitas project was first proposed in 1993 and agreed in 2000, its construction has not yet been approved by the Costa Rican government.[5] In 2002, then-President Abel Pacheco announced a presidential decree prohibiting open-cast mining, stating that: “we have many reasons for rescinding these [gold mining] contracts, and if they sue us for compensation it will be cheaper than paying for the loss of the country and its environment.”[6] The ban was invalidated, however, in 2008 during Óscar Arias’ Presidency, prompting a new surge in opposition from environmental groups.

The construction of the Crucitas mine would result in the felling of 291 hectares of tropical forest in an area which is home to endangered species such as the great green macaw.[7] Further concerns revolved around the use of cyanide in the extraction process. According to Andrés Soto, a spokesman for Infinito Gold, the whole extraction process would work as “a closed circuit” in which the cyanide would eventually be destroyed without releasing chemicals into the environment.[8] Members of the Association for the Preservation of Wild Flora and Fauna claim that cyanide toxins would be present in airborne dust particles and rain runoff resulting in a decreased quality of air and water in northern Costa Rica.[9]

There have also been concerns from Nicaraguan environmental groups who believe that the chemicals used in the extraction process will pollute the San Juan River which forms a natural border between Nicaragua and Costa Rica. Jhonny Gutiérrez, mayor of San Carlos near the San Juan River in Nicaragua, believes that they are “surrounded by a system of neoliberal consumption that cares little for the environment and that prefers to turn natural resources into capital.”[10]

In October 2008, the Costa Rican Supreme Court ordered Infinito Gold to suspend all construction activity at the Crucitas mine after local environmental groups called for an injunction. Although construction was temporarily halted, in April 2010 Infinito Gold was granted permission by the Constitutional Court to continue with the construction of the mine. When Laura Chinchilla took office in May 2010, one of her first acts was to announce a ban on all new open-cast mining projects but this had little impact on the Crucitas project, as it had already been approved by previous governments and was not included in the new legislation.

The change in government sparked many environmentalists back into action, and in July 2010 a group of protesters embarked upon a 170 km march from the presidential palace in San José to the Crucitas mine in an attempt to convince the government to put an end to the project.[11] Environmentalists, university groups and local community groups continued to file complaints and petitions to the Costa Rican courts.[12] In November 2011, the Costa Rican Supreme Court’s Civil and Administrative Law Branch annulled the mining concession issued to Industrias Infinito (the Costa Rican subsidiary of Infinito Gold) and dismissed the company’s appeals. In October 2012, the company submitted an appeal for the concession to be re-considered. In April 2013, the company claimed that the ban was in breach of the Canada-Costa Rica bilateral investment treaty and threatened the Costa Rican government with a US$1 billion lawsuit if the dispute could not be settled amicably within six months.[13]

[1] Infinito Gold Ltd. (2008) Company Highlights, www.infinitogold.com/s/Home.asp
[2] Tania Alvarez (2009) ‘Verde vs. dorado, bosques vs. minería, vida vs…’. Ecoportal, www.ecoportal.net/content/view/full/89961
[3] Ibid.
[4] Mike McDonald (5 July 2010) ‘Environmentalists to Crucitas gold mine: Take a hike’, Tico Times, San José.
[5] Ibid.
[6] Inside Costa Rica (2010) ‘President Chinchilla Signs Decree Banning Open Pit Mining’, www.insidecostarica.com/dailynews/2010/may/10/costarica10051003.htm
[7] Universidad Para la Paz (2009) Newsflash December 18, www.upeace.org/about/newsflash/2009/1218/crucitas%20information.pdf
[8] Cited in Mines and Communities (2008) ‘Costa Rica: Fears of environmental impact on the San Juan River’, The Miami Herald, www.minesandcommunities.org/article.php?a=8672
[9] Mike McDonald (23 April 2010) ‘Crucitas Gets Green Light’, Tico Times, San José.
[10] Cited in Tatiana Rothschuh (2010) ‘Grita de alcaldes a minería en Crucitas’, El Nuevo Diario, http://impreso.elnuevodiario.com.ni/2010/04/29/departamentales/123327
[11] Latin America Press (2010) ‘Costa Rica Government Considers Overturning Gold Mining Decree’, Eurasia Review, www.eurasiareview.com/201007286072/costa-rica-government-considers-overturning-gold-mining-decree.html
[12] Ibid.
[13] Kerry Hall (2013) ‘Canadian gold company threatens Costa Rica with $1bn lawsuit’, www.mining.com/canadian-gold-company-threatens-costa-rica-with-1bn-lawsuit

Costa Rica’s Supreme Court sends mining decision back to Executive and Legislature

Chapter 5 / Costa Rica

Costa Rica’s Supreme Court ruled last week that “environmental policies” are the province of the Executive and Legislative branches, not the judicial, in a 343 page judgment on whether to rescind a concession to the Canadian gold mining company, Infinito Gold, Ltd. for the Crucitas mine. The Court said that the Executive branch has the right to rescind or change the concession “in the public interest” and that the two branches “have the final word.” The Supreme Court wrote its decision as part of a dismissal of a suit brought by environmentalists against the mining concession.

The Crucitas mine of Industrias Infinito, a Costa Rican subsidiary of Infinito Gold, has been met with a storm of opposition by environmentalists in both Costa Rica and Nicaragua who fear that locating the gold mine just three kilometers from the San Juan River, is a recipe for environmental disaster. The southern bank of the San Juan River forms the border between the two countries. Ornithologists spoke up last week saying that the mine would threaten some of the 70 species of birds that populate the region including Nicaragua’s national bird, the Guardabarranco [Mot Mot or Momotus momota], which lives only in the territory from Mexico to Costa Rica along the Pacific. The endangered Lapa Verde [Great Green Macaw or Ara ambiguous] also lives in the area. Environmentalists see the mine as a threat to nature preserves along the river.

Juan Carlos Hernandez, representing Industrias Infinito, expressed confidence that the government will not rescind the concession which he said the company has spent 15 years preparing to exploit and from which it expects to make US$80 million. The company could sue Costa Rica for what it expects to make from the mine under neoliberal trade rules if the concession is rescinded. Hernandez denied that the mine will cause any environmental damage. Costa Rican President Laura Chinchilla and her government are studying the Supreme Court decision and were expected to make an official statement, but none has yet been released. (Radio La Primerisima, July 23, El Nuevo Diario, July 25)

Nicaragua News Service July 27 2010.

The Marlin Mine, Guatemala

Chapter 5 / Guatemala

This topic is referred to in the book in Chapter 5 (Page 88)

The Marlin Mine, Guatemala, is given in the book as a case study in Chapter 5. The following text boxes add supplementary detail to the case study given there, and the reader is also referred to the Guatemala sub-section of the Interviews page of the website for further testimony from local people affected by the mine.

Petaquilla Minerals’ own version of its mining operations

Chapter 5 / Panama

According to Petaquilla Minerals, the Canadian company undertaking the gold extraction, “the Petaquilla mine, the biggest gold-mining project in Central America, has proven, in less than a year of social work, to be the most successful model of sustainable mining in existence”.[1] The corporate social responsibility (CSR) page of its website describes its social programmes as main production modules which serve as:

mechanisms to foster community productivity by promoting a more varied economy and sustainability. This is achieved by assisting people with ventures that will provide for a livelihood beyond subsistence farming, identifying more effective and efficient manners of production, and transferring the use of new technology.[2]

It should be noted that, apart from these very few small-scale programmes, the CSR page of the company’s website says nothing of the many other aspects of responsibility – pollution, pollution clear-up, forced evictions, land clearances, deforestation, the lack of compensation payments, and more.

At the crux of the purportedly ‘sustainable’ mining model is the notion of social and environmental compensation. Another of Petaquilla Minerals’ websites states “we are committed to being aware of the environmental impact the working of a mine can cause, but above all we are sufficiently capable of counteracting this impact with our actions”[3] Underlying this notion of sustainability is the acknowledgment that the mining will cause significant damage, and thus counterbalancing measures must be taken to enable the project to pass necessary government legislation and to gain support of the local communities. Such measures include reforestation, development of infrastructure, and education and social projects.

[1] Gold Exploration in Panama, Petaquilla Minerals Ltd, www.goldexplorationinpanama.com/mineria.htm (accessed 5 August 2009)
[2] www.petaquilla.com/petaquilla_corp_soc_res.aspx?IdCsr=3 (Accessed 14 December 2010)
[3] Desarrollo Petaquilla, Petaquilla Minerals Ltd, www.desarrollopetaquilla.com/mineria%20sostenible%2001%20ingles.htm (accessed 5 August 2009)

Presidential approval of mining damage

Chapter 5 / Panama

The following extracts are taken from: Eric Jackson (13 December 2008) ‘ANAM approves Petaquilla gold mine, people downstream are flooded out’, The Panama News, www.thepanamanews.com/pn/v_14/issue_23/economy_05.html

On November 26, about a dozen families in Nueva Lucha de Petaquilla, a Ngobe village down the Petaquilla River from Richard Fifer’s Molejon strip mine, were coping as best they could, on their own since the village was flooded out three days over when the Petaquilla River overflowed its banks. These people moved into harm’s way when men from Richard Fifer’s Petaquilla Minerals came and burned their old houses on higher ground, and help became more remote when this same company destroyed the roads and trails of traditional access to the riverside village and put up a gate to exclude environmentalists, reporters and Liberation Theology religious folks from a vast section of northern Cocle and western Colon provinces.

When Nueva Lucha was flooded, the community sent Merardo Morales and Martín Rodríguez out on foot to summon help. Two days later, after fording several dangerously swollen streams, Morales reached Coclesito and Rodríguez arrived at La Pintada.

There would be no presidential visits, there was no Panamanian government request for US military help … President Torrijos has for years, even when Fifer was a fugitive from embezzlement charges, even when Fifer was openly defying the nation’s environmental laws, supported Fifer’s gold mine project. …

Meanwhile in Panama City, as the people of Nueva Lucha awaited help, … and a week after the National Environmental Authority (ANAM) had fined Fifer’s Petaquilla Gold $1 million for starting the Molejon gold mine without an environmental permit and assessed it $934,694 in damages for the deforestation caused by its road and strip mine site, ANAM director Ligia Castro had a political statement to make. She approved an environmental permit for the gold mine. …

The permit granted by ANAM’s acceptance of Petaquilla Gold’s environmental impact statement requires the company to post two bonds, in the amount of $14,374,000 to cover future environmental damage. It doesn’t appear that driving people in western Colon province from their homes, either directly by sending in goons to burn their houses or slightly less directly by ruining water supplies or fisheries upon which they depend or by increasing the risk of flooding by destroying the ability of ecosystems to retain water, are among the damages that the Torrijos administration would have the company cover.

Collecting orchids and conning the locals

Chapter 5 / Guatemala

The following are extracts from testimony taken in San José Ixcaniche, San Marcos department, Guatemala, in July 2009. The testimony relates to the introduction of gold mining activities to the area around the Marlin Mine which is owned and run by Montana Exploradora de Guatemala S.A., a wholly owned subsidiary of Canada’s Goldcorp.

“When the company came into San Miguel, all their personnel who arrived had the idea that they had to work smoothly with the people who live here. … Also they did many things such as making meals for the people to get them on their side. They also started games of football, buying the balls and getting all the neighbours around for lunch. They also held raffles for bicycles, radios and many other things to attract people. …

They said they were going to generate some work here collecting orchids from the trees. … A little more than a year later, they came and it wasn’t for collecting orchids, but for exploring, to collect samples of rock; but they didn’t say anything about gold or silver, only that we are going to do some work here. … Then suddenly there was something about minerals. …

This was 1996 when they came. A year after that they began to collect rocks. They talked to the locals about selling a part of the land. The local people were certainly excited by the money. Then more people started arriving, including gringos, and then the machinery. Seventeen people met to talk about if they could sell their land or not. They agreed that it would be better not to sell the land. It would be better to go first to the Mayor of San Miguel to make an agreement which would prevent the sale of the land. But the Mayor said ‘you are free to sell your land; if you want to sell, you can sell. Better to have a good job there [at the mine] and a source of work. …

The Mayor was going to get together with this group to value their land, but he didn’t turn up. So from that time the group got a bit downhearted, and each took their own decisions about giving up their land or not. Of the seventeen people, one by one they gave up their land.”

Source:
Testimony taken from Don Pedro (a pseudonym), a former worker in the Marlin Mine in San José Ixcaniche, San Marcos department, Guatemala, 24.07.09

Calgary based Infinito Gold suing Costa Rica at the World Bank’s ICSID

Chapter 5 / Costa Rica

From the LeadNow petitions site, 19.11.13

Infinito Gold is suing Costa Rica at the World Bank international arbitration court (ICSID) for $1 billion +. Infinito is holding its AGM at the Ranchmen’s Club in Calgary on November 21 [2013], and the idea is to deliver the message (to Infinito shareholders et al) now up on the LeadNow site backed by as many signatures as possible. We would then also be able to fashion a press release and likely get significant Canadian organisational buy-in.

A Spanish version of the text will be up on the LeadNow site soon – see below – which will open up the possibility for Costa Ricans to sign on to this campaign as well, making it a somewhat unique bi-national action.

Also please note that this Canadian mining company put two Costa Rican professors through six trials for having spoken out against the proposed open pit mine. Also the company attempted to intimidate the University of Costa Rica demanding they be given the curriculum of an upcoming course in the Biology department so that the company could vet its contents ahead of time.

http://you.leadnow.ca/petitions/costa-rica-said-no-to-this-canadian-mining-company-3-times-let-s-make-sure-it-listens-this-time

Case study: The San Martín Mine, Siria Valley, Honduras

Chapter 5 / Honduras

Another notorious Central American example of gangster-like behaviour on behalf of transnational mining companies comes from the Valle de Siria in Honduras which is featured in the items below. Carlos Danilo Amador, the General Secretary of the Regional Environmental Committee of the Valle de Siria, refers to Goldcorp, operators of the San Martín mine in the Valle de Siria as “these environmental assassins”[1]. In an interview with Todd Gordon and Jeffery R. Webber, two Canadian writers for The Bullet, Amador also supports this idea that the mining companies enter new areas with sweeteners and lies for the local population:

These companies create a false image of what they want to do in our territories – hiding the fact that they disrespect the dignity of our peoples, disrespect our human rights, impose cultures that are not ours, and rob our natural resources.[2]

[1] Carlos Danilo Amador, email communication with the author, 4 June 2009.
[2] Todd Gordon and Jeffery R. Webber (2010) ‘Canadian Mining and Popular Resistance in Honduras’, The Bullet, E-bulletin no.301, 29 January 2010.

Assassinations and other human rights violations of anti-mining activists

Chapter 5 / El Salvador
June 2009 Marcelo Rivera tortured and murdered
June 2009 Radio Victoria received death threats
July 2009 Father Luis Quintanilla (after speaking on Radio Victoria) kidnapped but escaped
August 2009 Ramiro Rivera shot 8 times; survived
December 2009 Ramiro Rivera murdered
December 2009 Felícita Echeverría murdered
December 2009 Dora Alicia Sorto Recinos murdered
December 2010 1 youth involved in the murder of Marcelo Rivera was himself killed.
July 2010 CEICOM employees kidnapped, robbed and left tied up in Guatemala
January 2011 Abrego León, a witness in the trial of the murderers of Marcelo Rivera, killed
January 2011 Radio Victoria receives more death threats
January 2011 Hector Berrios receives death threats
June 2011 Juan Francisco Durán Ayala killed

Testimony against the Marlin Mine, Guatemala

Chapter 5 / Guatemala

The following testimony was given in interview by:

[1] A number of residents of Agel, a small village very close to the Marlin Mine in the municipality of San Miguel Ixtahuacán, department of San Marcos, Guatemala, 24 July 2009 – identities protected;

[2] Several residents of a number of other villages attending a meeting in The People’s House, San Miguel Ixtahuacán, 24 July 2009 – identities protected;

[3] Gregoria Crisanta Pérez, a single mother also from Agel who is the subject of an arrest order along with seven other local women, interviewed by James Rodríguez, 22 May 2009 – published in NACLA Report, vol.42, no.5, Sept/Oct 2009, pp.16-17.

[Sources identified as 1, 2 or 3, as above.]

On land purchase

[3] Montana is buying more land, extending its territory. … If these people [from the mining company] continue buying up our lands, where are we to go? As indigenous peoples, we live here. … We ask the government to please listen to our demands, because we are the legitimate owners of those territories. We are indigenous people, we were born there, and we should die there.

On water sources

[1] There are problems with the drying of the wells. There are eight wells that have dried up.

[2] They had installed the machinery close to the well, around 4 metres from the well. The water that they were using to wash the gold that they were extracting, they were dumping it near the well. There were two children who went to take water from the well … the workers told them, and the operator of the machine said, “you mustn’t carry water from this place because it’s contaminated.” … From where are the people going to drink water?

[2] One woman chatted to us; she has young sons who were bathing in that river, and now they are covered in spots, their hair is falling out.

On health problems

[2] … animals have died, cattle. I had a friend who lived here on this side; about two months ago he died. He worked for the company. They say that he was taken to the doctor [of the mining company] and the doctor told him ‘you don’t have anything wrong with you, you are fine’. So he turned to another private doctor, and they told him that he had a damaged liver and had only a few days left to live, that there was no cure, nothing. And he gave a testimony … where he spoke about how he had been contaminated by the mine; and he died.

[1] Also the problem with the skin – the people that live near the tailing pond, there we have seen children that have red swellings on the skin.

[2] … the presence of heavy metals in the blood is strong. If it is not treated in time, the person can die, because the heavy metals accumulate in the blood.

[2] Two years ago my nephew died at the age of 18. It just started with a cough, and he died. Four months ago my cousin died; he also worked there in the tailing pond. He vomited blood. His mother told me, ‘tell your husband not to carry on working there, because he’s going to die; you’re going to lose him’.

[3] … many people suffer from skin diseases, particularly welts, and some of the people who have worked for the company have died mysteriously.

On the state of their houses

[2] And all the houses, like 120 houses, are cracked. There’s one house, my daughter’s, which is totally cracked. It’s only three years old. When the explosions start, you feel the movement of the earth.

[3] Dozens of homes have large fissures along the walls due to the explosions from the mine.

On divisions within the communities

[3] Montana is a very big company and has paid off many community leaders, as well as local auxiliary mayors. Also, there are the few who work for the company; obviously they and their families support the company. Lately, Montana has also been paying off some key neighbours in order to divide us. In my community of Agel, I know for a fact that the company has paid them 35,000 quetzals [about $4,300] in exchange for supporting the company’s operations.

[2] We are few, not many, because in the community of Agel, nearly everyone is working for the company. We are divided. … But we are not here for the work. We are here to defend our life, our health, and the health of our children and our grandchildren.

[1] The people who work for the company say nothing because the company would then fire them. … they say that the company is going well, but this makes us very concerned.

[2] Here in San Miguel Ixtahuacán, that monster [the company] has been buying up good will; it’s been keeping the leaders of some communities quiet.

[2] More than ten communities have already carried out their consultation and gave a very round ‘No’ to mining.