El Salvador

Joint news release with Council of Canadians and Common Frontiers: Yet another anti-mining activist has been murdered in El Salvador. Canadian civil society organizations are calling for a full investigation into the murder of Juan Francisco Durán Ayala, the fourth such death in two years that local organizations believe are linked to the presence of Vancouver-based Pacific Rim Mining in the department of Cabañas.

Forty-nine international civil society organizations express concern over a series of detentions and robberies against members of an El Salvadoran environmental organization (CEICOM) that have taken place during the last six months. They also note a disturbing tendency of increasing violence against environmental defenders in Mexico and Central America, too often in association with Canadian mining projects.

Our allies in the Cabañas environmental movement as well as the National Roundtable Against Metallic Mining (the Mesa) are very concerned about a recent wave of death threats and crimes against members of El Salvador’s anti-mining movement as well as other violent crimes recently committed in Cabañas.

Statement fromthe Communications Team of the National Roundtable Against Metal Mining: On September 22, 2010, the Specialized Sentencing Court "B" convicted the material assassins of Gustavo Marcelo Rivera Moreno, after concluding a two-day public hearing. After hearing some twenty testimonies and declarations from an accomplice under plea bargain, whose statements were corroborated by official evidence, the tribunal sentenced the perpetrators to 40 years in prison.