[IPSM] GOLD & GREED of North American mining companies in Central America (March 22)

[la CLAC!]

GOLD & GREED OF NORTH AMERICAN MINING COMPANIES
versus
CENTRAL AMERICAN COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT NEEDS

A discussion with Sandra Cuffe, a global justice activist living in
Honduras.

With a screening of ³Open pit gold mining in Guatemala ².

Tuesday, March 22 2005
7pm to 9pm
Café Esperanza
(5490, boul. St-Laurent, Montreal)

Organized by Clac-Latin America Kommittee, the Social Justice Committee
and Rights Action


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Sandra Cuffe is an activist working with Rights Action in Honduras,
accompanying community-based organizations working on a variety of human
rights and global justice issues. She just finished a report on the
devastating impact of global mining activities in Honduras and Guatemala,
understood in the context of the so-called ³development² model imposed by
global actors (the World Bank, multinational corporations, foreign and
local governments, etc), at the expense of locally controlled development
and indigenous rights. The report also examines the abusive actions of US
and Canadian mining companies (including Glamis Gold) in both Honduras and
Guatemala, as well as the growing local resistance and the possibilities
for international solidarity.


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GUATEMALA & HONDURAS: THE GLOBAL INVESTOR'S OASIS

Central America is currently undergoing an aggressive phase of what some
call neo-colonialist expansion. On-going militarism in Latin America
accompanies mainly North American efforts to secure control over and
exploitation of the region's resources: minerals, land and water, not to
mention cheap labour.


CAFTA (Central American Free Trade Agreement) with the US will further
"liberalize" the region in the same way that NAFTA "liberalized" Mexico.
Trade negotiations with Canada are also underway.


A majority of impoverished Central Americans already live the destructive
consequences of a historically exploitative "development" model as well as
the more recent "structural adjustment policies" of the IMF.


MINING "DEVELOPMENT" FOR WHOM?

Mining projects offer a clear example of the type of 'development'
promoted by the U.S. and Canadian governments, global companies and the
International Financial Institutions. The World Bank, which invests
directly in mining companies and insures their investments, has supported
the 'modernization' of mining legislation in a number of countries from
the Global South, including Honduras and Guatemala; 'modernization' that
simply means favouring multinational mining companies at the expense of
the development and human rights needs of local communities.


GLAMIS GOLD in HONDURAS & GUATEMALA

Specific examples are the "Marlin project" in Guatemala and the disastrous
"San Martin mine" in Honduras, both owned by the Canadian/US company
Glamis Gold. In addition to mines and projects underway, huge portions of
national territory (over 30% in Honduras' case) have been granted in
mining concessions to mining corporations principally from Canada and the
United States.


Many of these concessions - hidden from the public eye and granted without
consultation - fall within indigenous territory, in direct violation of
the ILO Convention 169 that indigenous groups in Honduras and Guatemala
fought to have ratified.

INFO: clac at taktic.org