Guatemala

On Wednesday, July 7th, 2010 at 7:30 PM in the small community San José Nueva Esperanza in the village of Maquivil, municipality of San Miguel Ixtahuacán, Ms. Diodora Antonia Hernández Cinto was shot. Two unknown young men showed up at her house asking for a place to stay. When they were refused housing, they asked to buy a cup of coffee.

Joint news release with CIEL: (Ottawa and Washington, D.C., June 24, 2010) — Guatemalan President Alvaro Colom announced yesterday that he is suspending operations at the Marlin mine, operated by Vancouver-based Goldcorp, Inc. According to the Guatemalan government, the process to shut down the mine might take months. The Center for International Environmental Law and MiningWatch Canada are calling on the government to complete the administrative process in a timely fashion.

News Release from Klippensteins, Barristers and Solicitors: (Toronto, June 16, 2010) An Ontario judge has ruled that former Canadian Ambassador to Guatemala, Kenneth Cook, slandered Ph.D. student and videographer Steven Schnoor by making false statements about a documentary video that Schnoor made that was critical of the practices of a Canadian mining company.

Joint news release with the Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL) and Breaking the Silence: The Organization of American States' Human Rights Commission, the region's most respected human rights body, calls on the Guatemalan government and Goldcorp to halt mining. (Washington, D.C.) As evidence mounts of human rights violations and health impacts at Goldcorp's Marlin mine in the western highlands of Guatemala, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), an independent body of the Organization of American States (OAS), has called on the government of Guatemala to suspend mining activity at the Marlin mine and take steps to protect the health of the surrounding indigenous communities.

In early 2007, a 10-minute video began circulating online documenting the violent evictions of five Mayan Q'eqchi' communities from their ancestral land near El Estor, Guatemala -- land that they had recently reclaimed. The forcible evictions were carried out by hundreds of state police and military forces at the behest of Canadian mining company Skye Resources, which has since been purchased by Canadian mining company HudBay Minerals.

Joint news release with CIEL, the Center for International Environmental Law: A coalition of community groups from San Miguel Ixtahuacán, Guatemala, has filed an OECD complaint with the Canadian government requesting an investigation into human rights violations allegedly committed by Goldcorp Inc. at the company's Marlin gold mine. “The Marlin mine has divided our town, harassed protesters, and made us afraid for the health of our families,” said Sister Maudilia López Cardona with the San Miguel Ixtahuacán Catholic parish and coordinator of the FREDEMI coalition (the Front in Defence of San Miguel Ixtahuacán). “Is this economic development? Could Goldcorp do this in Canada?”

Today in Guatemala City, COPAE and UUSC present the results of an investigation, after two years of monitoring by a team of engineers: 'Cracked Houses Around the Marlin Mine: Preliminary Investigation and Analysis of Building Damage in the Villages of Agel, El Salitre, San José Ixcaniche and San José Nueva Esperanza, San Miguel Ixtahuacán y Sipacapa Municipalities, San Marcos Departament, Guatemala.'

This letter from MiningWatch Research Coordinator Catherine Coumans details serious concerns with the Human Rights Impact Assessment for Goldcorp's Marlin mine in Guatemala, announced April 24, 2008 as a response to pressure from shareholder groups (see announcement, below). Shareholder initiatives should be carefully constructed so as not to harm the groups and communities they are supposed to be supporting.

The World Conservation Union (IUCN), voted in its international assembly in Barcelona, October 5-14, 2008, that current mineral exploration and open pit metal mining permits be cancelled throughout Central America, and that strategic environmental assessments and other relevant instruments for environmental management be implemented and conducted in a rigorous manner, particularly in the Meso-American Biological Corridor. The measure would affect several proposed mines including the Petaquilla project in Panama and the Crucitas project in Costa Rica.

This summary review by Dawn Paley is based on Skye Resources Inc.’s Technical Report on an Update to the Fenix Project, Izabal Guatemala of September 15, 2007, posted online at www.sedar.com.