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ecominded_pocLiving under the constant threat of assassination, Francisco Pineda courageously led a citizens' movement that stopped a gold mine from destroying El Salvador's dwindling water resources and the livelihoods of rural communities throughout the country. Learn more at http://www.goldmanprize.org/2011/southcentralamerica.
This video is narrated by actor and environmentalist Robert Redford.
The Goldman Environmental Prize is the world's largest award for grassroots environmentalists.
Learn more at http://www.goldmanprize.org
Francisco Pineda
El Salvador Oil & Mining
Living under the constant threat of assassination, Francisco Pineda courageously led a citizens’ movement that stopped a gold mine from destroying El Salvador’s dwindling water resources and the livelihoods of rural communities throughout the country.
Mining and Water
For small farmers and communities in rural El Salvador, water is more valuable than gold. Without country-wide water delivery infrastructure, people in these areas must rely on the bodies of water nearby to feed their crops and sustain their personal needs. However, it is estimated that 90 percent of the country’s surface water bodies are contaminated. Nearly all municipal and industrial wastewater is discharged into rivers and creeks without treatment, reducing clean water availability for rural populations. Only three percent of the country’s natural flowing rivers remain pristine. The clean water that still flows in the Rio Lempa, El Salvador’s longest river with a watershed extending to nearly half of the country, is absolutely essential to the lives and livelihoods of the region’s rural people. A total of four million people rely on this water source.
Mining represents the greatest threat to El Salvador’s water supply. The US-Dominican Republic-Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) has made doing business in El Salvador easier for foreign companies, and thus exploration permits have been issued for a variety of development projects, including gold and silver mines. Gold mining is notoriously damaging to the environment. Mine operators often employ a process known as cyanide leeching, whereby cyanide, a highly toxic chemical, is mixed with water pulled from local supplies and applied to rock deposits to extract the gold within them. The toxic runoff then spreads to surrounding land and often ends up contaminating rivers, creeks and groundwater. MORE
Goldman Prize Winner Francisco Pineda Risks His Life to Battle Gold Mining Operation
he Goldman Environmental Prize for South America this year went to a man who has so far been able to stop a Canadian company from coming in to mine gold (a toxic, ecologically destructive process) in El Salvador. His battle is a tough one because, thanks to CAFTA, the foreign company is able to threaten El Salvador's sovereignty and ability to refuse the mining plans. Canada is not actually party to the CAFTA agreement, but Pacific Rim used an American subsidiary to file a $100 million lawsuit under CAFTA against El Salvador.
Francisco Pineda says the CAFTA lawsuit is like saying to a friend: "I'm going to steal everything from you. But if you don't let me steal everything, I'm going to sue you."
Pineda lives with constant police protection after several of his colleagues—and the pregnant wife of one who his assassins couldn't find—were killed and after more than one attempt has been made on his own life. I spoke with Pineda while he was in the U.S. to receive the prize. Here are the highlights of that conversation.MOREYou started mobilizing the community after realizing that officials' claims that the mine would create development opportunities were false. How did you come to realize that?
When we went to the Pacific Rim website, we saw they were saying that mining operations would last for 10 years, and that they were offering 848 jobs. But we saw that the type of work in this company is highly technical, and most people in the area where they were planning to develop the mining operation have a high school education at best.
THE ACTIVISTS WHO HAVE DIED:
Jan 2011 El Salvador: Fallen Anti-Mining Activists Honored with Vigil
Last week, family and friends of environmentalists killed in the town of San Isidro, Cabañas, gathered in solidarity with their fallen loved ones at a public ecumenical and artistic commemoration. Those gathered attributed the recent assassinations of three environmental activists to a generalized repression targeted at those opposed to the re-opening of the "El Dorado" gold mine by the Vancouver, BC-based Pacific Rim Mining Corporation. The company has denied any role in the murders.
On January 8 and 9, family and friends gathered at anecumenical and artistic commemoration in solidarity with environmentalists killed in the Trinidad community outside of San Isidro, Cabañas.
Ramiro Rivera Gómez was killed on 20 December 2009 in the Trinidad community, despite being under witness protection at the time. Two police stood guard in the back of his pick-up as he was shot. Ramiro was a friend of Marcelo Gustavo Rivera (no relation), who was killed June 28 in San Isidro, Cabañas.
A week after the murder of Ramiro, on December 26, Dora Alicia Recinos was killed, also in the Trinidad community. She was eight months pregnant with a son, who would have been Enmanuel Recinos.
"If we look at how these crimes have occurred, the resources used, they have mobilized logistics and communications, and weaponry that was used, no doubt for us this is the result of a deliberate process, properly planned, duly paid, "says Edgardo Mira of the Center for Research on Investment and Trade (CEICOM).
MORE
2009 Headlines:
The Story of MARCELO RIVERIA Pacific Rim Silent in Wake of Violence Against Anti-mining Protesters in Cabañas, El Salvador
A wave of violence targeted at anti-mining protesters has ripped through Cabañas in north-eastern El Salvador, and Pacific Rim Mining Corporation, the mid-size Canadian company which has lost millions in its effort to exploit the area's ample gold deposits has remained curiously silent on the attacks.
Last month, Marcelo Rivera, a prominent anti-mining activist, community leader and FMLN member was forcibly disappeared by unknown assailants. Though many organizations immediately denounced his disappearance, police failed to act quickly enough to alter his fate. Rivera's disfigured body was found dumped in a well two weeks after he was last seen alive.MORE
The Mysterious Death of Marcelo Riveria
But on June 18 Gustavo Marcelo Rivera, a community leader and anti-mining activist, whose most recent work targeted a controversial and widely unpopular gold mine project proposed by Canada's Pacific Rim, was disappeared. Less than two weeks later his corpse was found at the bottom of a 60-foot-well, while an autopsy later revealed he was strangled to death and tortured.
"What occurred is that we were interviewing organizations such as Medicina Legal, a lawyer from Tutela Legal and local economists, and in our conversations what they each said 'what is happening right now is the disappearance of Marcelo Rivera,'" said Moffett.
The details around Rivera's case, his "disappearance" and torture, corresponds with the way death squads worked during that country's civil war.
MORE
El Salvador: Ramiro Rivera Shot to Death in Cabañas
[Note: UDW first reported on Ramiro Rivera in August, when he miraculously survived an attack where he was shot eight times in the legs and back. A Real News report released at the time aired footage of a Rivera interview. The attack occurred weeks after the assassination of Marcelo Rivera (no relation) in Cabañas, El Salvador and marked the beginning of an open season on activists opposed to mining in the area. Here we re-print the testimony of Hector Berríos of MUFRAS-32, an organization that has accompanied many of the anti-mining groups in their struggle for justice. A longer article on the assassination of R. Rivera and its significance in light of the ongoing struggle against Pacific Rim's mining efforts is forthcoming. --ed.]December 20, 4:00pm - Hitmen gunned down and killed our compañero Ramiro Rivera Gomez, Vice president of the Comité Ambiental de Cabañas, [Cabañas Environmental Committee], in the Canton of Trinidad, city of Ilobasco, Cabañas. Rivera was a leader in the resistance against the Pacific Rim Mining Company.
MORE
El Salvador - Hitmen Assassinate Prominent Woman Activist in Cabañas; Pro-Mining Violence Continues
Six days after heavily armed men took the life of a respected anti-mining activist in Cabañas, El Salvador, another prominent community leader has been assassinated. On December 26 at 3:30 pm Dora "Alicia" Sorto Rodriguez, 32, was killed as she returned from doing laundry at the river near her home in Cantón Trinidad, in the municipality of Sensuntepeque, Cabañas. "Alicia," as she was known to friends, was eight months pregnant and carried her 3-year-old son in her arms as she was shot dead. The child was shot in the foot and is receiving medical care. MORE
They pay the price for our luxuries.
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Date: 2011-06-04 12:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-06-08 09:28 pm (UTC)