El Salvador on the eve of inauguration
In early May, the Canadian mining company Pacific Rim announced that it will sue El Salvador for the crime of not permitting it to open a gold and silver mine. This will be the first of such cases to be heard by a special international arbitration court established by the Central American Free Trade Agreement or CAFTA. This confirmation of legal action is real fucking alarming, especially when it coincides with the historic electoral victory for the people of El Salvador.
A little over a hundred days ago, Pacific Rim first filed its Notice of Intent to sue for damages, lost profits and lost investments, during which El Salvador had time to decide how to react. The mining company claims it has already spent $75 million “exploring,” which is the geological term for driving their industrial equipment into people’s communities and neighborhoods and punching enormous holes in the ground – a perfectly phallic illustration of capitalist exploitation. On top of the $75 million investment they’re going to sue for lost profits, which could be in the hundreds of millions. The country’s already broke – poverty that has only been exacerbated by CAFTA in the first place.
The disputed mine is planned for the town of San Isidro in the department of Cabañas, the name for the site is un-ironically El Dorado – the mythical city of gold. While mining proponents would claim that a country in which people are going hungry can’t afford to turn down such an opportunity for foreign investment and new jobs, Salvadoran civil society, the people, and therefore, the FMLN (the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front), El Salvador’s Leftist political party, are in staunch opposition.
Salvadoran taxes on the profits from the gold would only be about 2 percent. Potential jobs would number in the hundreds, and few would be long term, but the potential and guaranteed risks are immense.
Cyanide, the chemical used to extract gold from ore threatens to pollute the environment of El Salvador if the mining project begins. Cyanide a deadly poison by itself in addition to the other heavy metals freed by the leeching process – aluminum, zinc, mercury, arsenic – would pollute the soil as well as the largest water source in the country: the Rio Lempa. The Rio Lempa is a massive body of water that supplies drinking water to more than half of the residents of El Salvador. Pollution is guaranteed, accidents are commonplace, the history of mining in the rest of Latin America, is fucking tragic. (Go read Open Veins of Latin America by Eduardo Galeano, if you haven’t yet)
Resistance has been strong. In 2007, at the Central American alliance against Metallic Mining conference in Cabanas, more than one thousand protestors rallied at the Canadian Embassy to protest mining. The Catholic Church is even against mining, especially the current archbishop, who has been especially vocal. The FMLN has fought the mining process in the legislative assembly, going up against rightwing politicians, many of whom have been purchased by the mining company. Perhaps the strongest resistance however has been from those oriented towards direct action. There are numerous tories of communities organizing and mobilizing to keep anyone with a corporate or gringo appearance out of the town, and even dismantling of mining equipment. Other types of direct action include the re-ignition of El Salvador’s rich tradition of popular education, classes and workshops carried out by anti-mining activists, that serve to organize and raise awareness amongst the affected populace – the people of El Salvador.
Just a piece of the puzzle
Anti-Mining activists see the mine as part of an even larger attack on the country and all of Central America.
Plan Puebla Panama, or the “megaprojects,” are massive development schemes for highways amd dry canals (the Panama canal isn’t big enough anymore) to connect huge ports that serve to facilitate the ongoing robbery of El Salvador’s wealth – meaning more sweatshops, invasive mining, and huge hydroelectric dams. These “projects of death” already have and will continue to displace entire communities, and poison the land, water and people. These projects will be paid for directly by the people, or through international loans, but ownership will be private.
If government could have been a defense against these assaults, it was neutralized with the signing of DR-CAFTA, the Central American Free Trade Agreement.
The third part of the neocolonial assault is the way in which dissent has been criminalized. A proud member of Bush’s “coalition of the willing” El Salvador just recently brought its troops home from Iraq but continues to wage war on it’s own people with it’s own PATRIOT act or “Anti-Terrorist law” under which activists have already been charged with terrorism which is upwards of 60 years in prison. When the people stand up to these assaults on their homelands, an increasingly militaristic police force will repress protests with tear gas and rubber-coated metal bullets, arrest organizers and leaders, throw them into horrible prison conditions with charges of terrorism, or worse – political murders have hardly been relegated to El Salvador’s past.
Hope and change
We, CISPES are in solidarity with the people of El Salvador. On March 15th we watched The People of El Salvador overcome egregious electoral fraud, a massive fear campaign and US intervention to elect a leader that really represents them. On that day they said no to centuries of oppression and imperialism. On that day they began the construction of a dual power system wherein the state and the social movement will work together to create “a new El Salvador.”
In 1992, the FMLN and the government forces signed the Peace Accords ending twelve fratricidal years of declared war. We were in solidarity then. We will continue in solidarity to struggle with the people and against this current phase of war in the struggle towards real peace.
We hope to hold Obama accountable and remind him of the things he said before he became president. He voted no on CAFTA as a senator and is on record disapproving of the kinds of lawsuits discussed earlier.