On Sunday, representatives of the community of Carrizalillo, a community of 3,500 located roughly 500 metres from the cyanide leaching pad of Equinox Gold’s Los Filos mine in Guerrero, Mexico, sent a letter to CEO and President Greg Smith. The correspondence denounces a surprise visit to the community from top company leadership in Mexico as part of efforts to discredit Carrizalillo’s representatives while death threats have been escalating against their members.
Since late January, Carrizalillo has been calling for a reset in renegotiations over new land use and social cooperation agreements with Equinox Gold that are set to expire at the end of March. The company requires a land use agreement with Carrizalillo to operate Los Filos, given the majority of mine installations are currently located on their land. The company has also sought agreements with two other communities onto whose lands the mine is expanding.
The company has repeatedly issued an ultimatum over the negotiations in its public communications, stating that if it does not achieve the terms it seeks in the agreements with Carrizalillo - which amount to drastic cuts in current agreements - it will indefinitely close the mine. Carrizalillo, which has negotiated with successive owners of the Los Filos mine since 2007, has publicly indicated within the last month that it will accept a 64% cut in the current land rental agreement, but that it requires direct talks with the company independent of other communities and Guerrero state officials to work out outstanding issues. If the company decides to close the mine, the community also seeks talks over closure plans.
Carrizalillo’s recent letter questions the intentions of Equinox Gold’s top leadership in Mexico when they organized the last-minute visit to the community on Saturday, perceiving it as an act of provocation. Mr. André Souza de Amorim, Equinox Gold General Manager for Los Filos, and Mr. Armando Fausto Ortega, Senior Vice President for Equinox Gold in Mexico, gave a couple hours’ notice of their visit “to talk about the future of the mine” on Facebook, the mine’s radio station and other digital outlets.
With a megaphone in hand, Mr. Ortega arrived threatening that if Carrizalillo refused to sign a final agreement with the company that day that the mine would close. Presumably, they sought an outpouring of support from the general population. But only 15 to 18 people showed up. According to the letter, most complained about the company’s lack of respect for the community’s decision-making process with its surprise visit, as well as its own broken promises in current agreements, and lack of concern for the particular situation that the community faces as a result of living in such close vicinity to the mine.
The community has lost nearly all of its agricultural lands to the Los Filos mine operations since the mine was installed in 2007, along with multiple water sources and a corresponding rise in health harms. In the context of the extreme systemic violence that dominates in central Guerrero, Carrizalillo has also faced escalating violence since the installation of the Los Filos mine, including dozens of murders.
The letter further denounces company leadership for reinforcing the prominent discourse that company communications have generated, blaming Carrizalillo and especially community leadership for the threatened mine closure. The company ultimatum has been picked up regularly in local media, including to single out specific community representatives in at least once case. Further, the Los Filos mine hourly radio program has also been disseminating spots accusing Carrizalillo’s representatives of obstructing efforts to reach a new agreement, to the detriment of workers and children in the community. The community denounces that this has contributed to the rise in death threats against community leaders and their family members, which they believe is being directed by a company mine manager.
The community letter seeks to set the record straight stating that they are not opposed to negotiations, but that they won’t do so in the streets nor will they tolerate constant discrimination and stigmatization. Rather, they are calling for direct and respectful negotiations with Equinox, without the presence of Guerrero state officials or other community representatives, over the future of the mine that will take into consideration their specific context.