Mexico:
Opposition to Blackfire mining operations ends in murder
A full 41% of the Sierra Madre
region in the Mexican state of Chiapas – 227,000 square
kilometres of land, equivalent to one half of the whole of Central
America – has been turned over to Mexican and foreign corporations
through mining concessions. Mining companies from Canada, the
United States and Australia extract gold and silver from this
mineral-rich region with the consent and protection of governments
and the backing of free trade agreements.
Mining companies have expanded
their operations throughout the country, invading cooperatively
and communally owned lands, subjugating local and state authorities,
and violating the rights of indigenous and peasant communities
on a daily basis, as well as regulations governing public land,
protected natural areas and areas with deep significance in terms
of religious traditions and cultural heritage. The environmental,
social and cultural consequences of open-pit mining are drastic.
The destruction of mountains permanently scars the once majestic
landscape, while the basins of the region’s most important
rivers are severely contaminated.
The high toxicity of metal
mining derives not only from the metals themselves, but also
the methods used to extract them (see WRM Bulletin Nº 71).
In the first place, the thousands of kilograms of dynamite used
daily to demolish the mountains result in large amounts of ammonium
nitrate and diesel fuel dust being spewed into the atmosphere.
In the meantime, sodium cyanide, used to “leach” or
dissolve metals from the rock containing them, washes into rivers
and aquifers, causing fatal diseases like leukaemia and other
forms of cancer.
The escalation in mining operations
and the resulting environmental impacts has also brought about
an escalation in opposition to these activities. In June of 2008,
hundreds of individuals representing social, indigenous, peasant,
community-based, human rights, education, communications, students’ and
academic organizations from 12 states throughout the country
joined together to form the Mexican Anti-Mining Network (REMA).
REMA works to expose and denounce
the consequences of mining: the displacement of millions of tons
of soil and rock with heavy machinery; the contamination of springs,
rivers and basins with toxic chemicals; and the destruction of
farmland and displacement of local communities. Wherever the
mining industry goes, it leaves in its wake a devastating legacy
of mountains of waste, barren land, contaminated water, disease
and desolation.
The militarization of the region,
stepped up in the framework of the so-called
“Merida Plan” – technically, a security initiative
for which the United States released millions of dollars in equipment,
computer technology and training in Mexico, Central America and
the Caribbean to fight drug trafficking and organized crime – has
proven highly beneficial to mining companies. Large contingents
of hooded and heavily armed soldiers and federal and state police
officers who set up roadblocks and force people out of their vehicles
for interrogation provide the mining companies with greater freedom
to seize land and keep protestors at bay. Ongoing surveillance
and control of local communities serve to uncover members of any
type of opposition organization.
Against this backdrop, the
Canadian mining company Blackfire Exploration, which holds 10
concessions for open-pit barite, gold and antimony mining in
the region, has been the target of fierce protests by the inhabitants
of the Grecia farming cooperative, who accuse it of polluting
the area and illegally seizing land. Numerous members of REMA,
including Mariano Abarca Roblero, staged a sit-in at the company’s
local headquarters, followed by another in front of the Canadian
embassy in Mexico City, to demand the transnational’s withdrawal
from the state of Chiapas. Following these protests, Mariano
Abarca began receiving threats, until finally, this past 27 November,
he was murdered, presumably by a hired killer.
REMA blames this crime on the
governor of Chiapas, for failing to take the necessary measures
to prevent Abarca’s murder. It also places responsibility
on “Blackfire, its general director Artemio Ávila
Cervera, its public relations manager Luis Antonio Flores Villatoro,
and the government of the state for the acts of violence against
those involved in the struggle to defend the water, land, territory
and environment.”
REMA further demands, in addition
to immediate justice and punishment for those who ordered and
carried out Abarca’s murder, the immediate withdrawal of
Blackfire and its mining concessions from Chiapas, under the
slogan:
“Canada and Canadian
transnationals out of Chiapas and Mexico!”
Based on the following sources:
Nace la Red Mexicana de Afectados por la Minería (REMA) http://www.otrosmundoschiapas.org/analisis/REMAI.pdf;
Asesinaron a Mariano Abarca Roblero, líder opositor contra
la minera canadiense Blackfire en Chiapas, http://rema.codigosur.net
