To live and die for gold: Metals mining returns to El Salvador
A new law ushers in the return of an industry that’s been prohibited since 2017, threatens to send workers back to the absolute control of foreign companies — and, environmentalists warn, comes at a high ecological costBryan Avelar
Víctor Peña
San Salvador - FEB 15, 2025 - 23:30 EST
Standing atop a hill, two men look closely at the white stones resting in their hands. They tilt them slightly, allowing the sunlight to glint off of the small golden sparkles that flicker on their surface. “No,” says Melvin, the youngest of the pair, regarding the rocks with disdain. “This isn’t real gold, it’s fool’s gold.” “Yes,” confirms Antonio, with the certainty of one who has spent a lifetime in the mountains. “It’s margaja. But that means there’s gold nearby.”
. . .
Ferocious extraction of gold left an indelible mark on San Sebastián — and it wasn’t prosperity. Today, its streets are still dirt roads and the majority of its inhabitants, very poor. After nearly 100 years of mining, the hill is full of cyanide, a toxic material the mines used in enormous quantities. A stream flows down the hill like a colossal snake with red and gold scales, exhaling a sulphureous breath that permeates the surrounding air. The San Sebastián River has become an undeniable symbol of the impact of mining-related pollution. Nobody can drink its water and, if a well is dug, its walls will be covered in sediment, its waters infused with a strange smell. Because of this, residents have to buy water from faraway towns, on which they spend 20% of their earnings, according to a study by the Salvadoran public prosecutor’s office. After the departure of the mining companies, the inhabitants of San Sebastián were left unemployed and living on polluted lands. Lacking fertile ground in which to plant and rivers that could supply livestock with drinking water, they set out to exploit the only thing they had left: the gold mines that had been left to oblivion.
Nowadays, the inhabitants of San Sebastián have one more thing to worry about: a few weeks ago, President Nayib Bukele announced that industrial metals mining would return to El Salvador and on his orders, the legislature approved a law to permit just that. The San Sebastián güiriseros believe that the hill and its gold will once again become the property of foreign corporations, leaving them empty-handed.
The return of the mining industry is the source of much polemic in El Salvador. On one hand, there are those who make their living from gold. On the other are the environmentalists who are opposed to mining based on the high levels of pollution that it causes. Fighting against the mines is nothing new for the latter group. A few years ago, they staged a historic battle to ban the industry that left four activists dead.
And then there’s the perspective of President Bukele, whose new proposal, in the eyes of many, is as Solomonic as it is misleading. The president has stated that 99% of the rivers in El Salvador are already contaminated. He is proposing the reactivation of “responsible” mining which, though it will further contaminate the waterways, he claims will provide enough funds to then clean them up.
. . .
Vidalina Morales uses her hands to brush away the dry leaves that cover the tomb of Marcelo Rivera, moving a bouquet of artificial flowers to read his epitaph: “Unbreakable defender of the environment.” Rivera disappeared on June 18, 2009. His tortured corpse was found 12 days later at the bottom of a well. Since then, the community of Santa Marta, in the department of Cabañas, has remembered him as the first environmental martyr in El Salvador. They say he was assassinated as part of a terror campaign against environmentalists that was carried out after complaints were made against the mining companies Pacific Rim/Oceana Gold. In the years that followed, another three activists met the same fate.
More:
https://english.elpais.com/international/2025-02-16/to-live-and-die-for-gold-metals-mining-returns-to-el-salvador.html
= new reply since forum marked as read
December 2, 2013 Posted by Alex Blair
Despite the acquisition, opposition to mining in El Salvador is widespread (and justified).
Pacific Rim Mining shareholders approved selling their company to Australia’s OceanaGold for $10.2 million on November 21st. The new owner will inherit legal and human rights troubles in El Salvador and all of Latin America. Since 2009, Pacific Rim has been suing El Salvador for not having granted it a mining permit since a presidential ban on mining was adopted, despite widespread opposition to mining across the country.
“Salvadorans ask that this project be stopped,” Archbishop José Luis Escobar Alas recently told CBC Radio. “Ask those transnational companies to stop committing terrible injustices and exploiting the people of El Salvador. We are not very happy about this judicial dispute; they are asking us to pay them millions.”
The deal would rescue a sinking Pacific Rim Mining, but for Salvadorans it’s raising fears. Prolonging the unjust arbitration process will cost El Salvador, which is the smallest and most densely populated country in Latin America, millions of dollars.
“If it comes down to it, I think it is better to pay the money, than to pay the consequences,” Archbishop Alas said.
He’s referring to the devastating environmental and health consequences of mining in a country where 90 percent of the surface water is heavily contaminated and 20 percent of its rural population lacks safe drinking water, according to the World Bank. With El Salvador experiencing a clean water crisis, reopening the country to mining would threaten two-thirds of the Salvadoran’s water supplies, affecting health, agriculture and livelihoods.
Back in 2008, Monseñor Fernando Saenz La Calle said, “It is not right to risk the health of the population so that a few who do not live here can take 97 percent of the juicy profits and leave us with 100 percent of the cyanide.”
More:
https://politicsofpoverty.oxfamamerica.org/oceanagold-bails-out-pacific-rim-mining-but-el-salvador-is-not-for-sale/
(How impressive, seeing Trump as he tries comically hard to appear god-like to Bukele.)