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A view of the Marlin mine, taken from the road from San Miguel Ixtahuacán to Sipacapa.
The price of gold once again increased considerably throughout the last few months, reaching a new record of $745 US dollars per ounce (31.1 grams) on the 1st of October. The graphic below shows the impressive rise of the price of gold from January 2000 until the month of October 2007:
A delegation of COPAE members and community leaders from the San Marcos highlands visited the World Bank offices in Guatemala on the 19th of September in order to meet with the Bank’s Director for Guatemala and to present her a copy of a document titled “The Marlin mine and the World Bank.” The main interests of the meeting were to discuss a number of impacts caused by the Marlin mine in San Marcos, as well as to emphasise the legitimate concerns regarding the mine of the people that live in its vicinity.
COPAE’s document is based on a World Bank Group (WBG) report about the development impacts of various extractive industry projects that received support of the WBG. One of the projects mentioned in the report is the Marlin mine, located in the north of the San Marcos department, which in 2004 received a $45 million dollar loan from the International Finance Corporation (IFC), a member of the WBG. Unfortunately, the chapter on the Marlin mine contains a large number of errors and false statements, provoking the erroneous conclusion that the people living close to the mine have actually benefited considerably since mining operations started almost two years ago. Our main concerns about the WBG report are listed below, but we invite you to revise our entire document, "The Marlin mine and the World Bank".
A video made by COPAE about Montana Exploradora's intimidation and threats to 7 campesinos from villages close to the Marlin mine.
These persons are currently being accused of various crimes, such as assault, menace and coercion. The video shows how these seven farmers are trying to prove
Between the 11th and 22nd of January, around 600 residents of various communities from San Miguel Ixtahuacán blocked the various access routes to Montana’s Marlin mine in order to reinforce their demands regarding the renegotiation of the price of land, the compensation for the cracks in their houses, and the realisation of independent monitoring of the rivers close to the mine (See ‘the Robust Oak’ #6). Throughout the blockade Montana’s employees were impeded to enter the mine, which lead to various confrontations between the people blocking the road and the mining company’s security forces. The people removed their blockade after having been guaranteed a meeting with the directors of Montana at which the above-mentioned issues would be dealt.
A study by COPAE of the various technical reports available on the construction of the Tailings Storage Facility (TSF) of the Marlin Mine, in the north of the San Marcos department, showed that Montana Exploradora de Guatemala S.A., the company operating the mine, intends to release water from the tailings impoundment area into the Cuilco and Quivichil rivers. This is rather worrisome news, because we don’t have any guarantee that this water isn’t contaminated with high concentrations of chemicals. Currently the water of these rivers is depended upon by thousands of people for drinking water as well as for irrigation and farming. It is worth mentioning that the Cuilco River is one of the main rivers of Western Guatemala and, after crossing the Huehuetenango department, enters into Mexico and merges some 500 further downstream into the Mexican Gulf.
History repeated itself on the 31st of July of the present year, when the Compañía Guatemalteca de Níquel (CGN) voluntarily renounced parts of the fiscal exoneration which it only received a month earlier. This renunciation shows similarities to the practices of the other mining company active in Guatemala, Montana Exploradora, and only intents to mislead the public opinion by making the public opinion believe that CGN has indeed a strong compromise to improve the well-being of the local population and increase the overall progress in the country.
On July 3rd, CGN, a subsidiary of Canadian transnacional mining company Skye Resources, made public that the MARN had granted them the permit to initiate the construction of the Fénix’ production plant in El Estor, Izabal, in the Easter part of Guatemala. This permit was the only licence CGN still required in order to start its mining operations. Just a few days earlier, the Guatemalan Ministry of Economy (MINECO) gave CGN the permission to operate under the Law to Promote and Develop Export and Maquila Activity (Decreto 29-89), by certifying CGN as an “exporting company” dedicating its activities to the “extraction, processing, production and export of nickel.” This certification meant that CGN, with its extraordinary profits, would be exempt to pay taxes like the Income Tax (ISR) and the Value Added Tax (IVA), as well as being allowed to import materials and equipment without custom tariffs.
A documentary made by the COPAE about the community consultations that have taken place in the eastern part of Guatemala, during which the local population showed its rejection of mining exploration and exploitation.
Second part of the video "The Voice of the people", a video made by a team of the San Marcos Diocese, Guatemala, which summerises the various community consultations that have taken place in Guatemala between 2005 and 2007.
Although the Guatemalan’s Constitutional Court (CC) resolution of past May on the consultation in Sipacapa clearly established the legitimacy of the community consultation (See: The Robust Oak #9), mining company Montana Exploradora de Guatemala decided to continue its campaign of disinformation towards the rural communities of San Marcos. Few days after the resolution, Montana Exploradora, the company extracting gold at Marlin mine in San Miguel Ixtahuacán and Sipacapa, distributed large amounts of flyers among the San Miguel communities located close to the Marlin mine.
Throughout June two new community consultations on chemical metal mining were held in the western part of Guatemala. Both Ixchiguán, in the San Marcos department, and Barillas, in the Huehuetenango department, joined the increasing list of municipalities that expressed their rejection of this industrial activity.
Ixchiguán is the highest municipality of Central America, located at approximately 3200 metres above sea-level. It is also the place where the three most important river basins in the western part of the country originate – those which convert into the Suchiate, Coatán and Cuilco rivers. Virtually the entire Ixchiguán territory is covered with reconnaissance and exploration licences, all of which have been granted to the transnational mining company Montana Exploradora de Guatemala, S.A., subsidiary of Canadian company Goldcorp Inc. Surf to the following website of the Guatemala Ministry of Energy and Mines to see all mining licences in San Marcos.
On May 16th the National Front against Chemical Metal Mining (FNCM, as is its acronym in Spanish) was presented to the general public in Guatemala City. This event was organised by members of communities affected by the mining activities, community associations, environmental groups, as well as indigenous and religious organisations, in order to reaffirm their shared rejection of chemical metal mining in Guatemala. The FNCM intends to be an open space for all organisations, communities and individuals that embrace its principles of resistance against metal mining and of supporting the protection of the natural resources, as well as the creation of alternative, sustainable development initiatives in the regions where the government is promoting this industrial activity. The goals of the FNCM are:
On the 8th of May 2007, the Judges of Guatemala’s Constitutional Court (CC) issued a resolution regarding the Act of Unconstitutionality of the “Community Consultation on mineral exploration and exploitation” in the municipality of Sipacapa, San Marcos, held on the 18th of June 2005 and organised by the Sipacapa Municipal Council. This Act of Unconstitutionality was presented by Rosa María Montenegro de Garoz, lawyer of a private consultant firm advising the mining company Montana Exploradora de Guatemala, operating the Marlin mine in San Miguel Ixtahuacán and Sipacapa.
After taking into account all nine points of unconstitutionality presented by Montenegro de Garoz, the CC confirmed the following:
The community consultation remains the favourite method for the indigenous communities to pronounce themselves about the central government’s promotion of mega-projects, like the mining and oil exploitation and the construction of hydroelectric plants. It is more than obvious that the wave of consultas, which was initiated in 2005 with Sipacapa and subsequently with six municipalities in Huehuetenango, has not lost any strength at all. To the contrary, after the consultation in the village of Concepción Tutuapa in February of this year (see the Robust Oak #7), San Pedro Necta was the next to pronounce itself publicly at the end of March about the possible initiation of mining activities within its territory. A total of 17.741 persons participated at the consultation, almost doubling the amount of people that participated at the presidential elections four years ago, and the result was the total rejection (100%) of mining exploration and exploitation. Regarding this result, the Board of Promotion the Community Consultation in San Pedro Necta commented the following:
At the end of March, mining company Montana Exploradora, property of the transnacional company Goldcorp Inc., announced its interest to construct another goldmine in Guatemala, in Asunción Mita, Jutiapa, in the east of the country on the border with Honduras. According to sources within the company, the latest examinations indicated the existence of approximately one million ounces of gold.
Goldcorp’s Executive Director for Central America, Eduardo Villacorta, announced that Montana invested a total of $15 million since initiating the feasibility studies in 2001. This latest information gives the green light for the elaboration of an Environmental Impact Study (EIS) in order to obtain the necessary permits to start the construction of the mine. The tentative name of the project is Cerro Blanco and the mine will be a little bit smaller than the Marlin mine, the other mine operated by Goldcorp in Guatemala.
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