Murder Claims the Lives of Two More Anti-Mining Activists in El Salvador

[Joanne98]

For many years the Democracy Center has joined with those fighting to protect natural resources and the environmental against takeover efforts by international corporations. This included our work in the campaign against Bechtel's post-Water Revolt case against the people of Cochabamba. More recently we have joined with other organizations across the Americas to build a new project to challenge the global trade courts where cases like Bechtel's are heard – the Network for Justice in Global Investment.

One of the most important cases we have been covering with this project is that of an obscure Canadian mining firm, Pacific Rim, which is suing the government of El Salvador for $77 million because the government refuses to license the company to mine for gold. As in the Bechtel case, Pacific Rim and its $278,000 per year CEO Thomas Shrake are trying to turn a small investment into a mammoth profit in the World Bank's trade court. Pacific Rim reports only $9 million in current assets, but is seeking more than $70 million from the Salvadoran people – the profits they supposedly would have made if allowed to operate the mine.

In essence Pacific Rim is mining for gold behind closed doors at the World Bank.

But while the case goes on between lawyers in Washington and Vancouver, on the ground in El Salvador, events have turned deadly. In the two weeks before New Years, two key activists from the movement fighting the Pacific Rim mine were brutally murdered.

With both sadness and anger, we bring you the brief report below on those murders, and we will continue to keep our readers updated as the battle for environmental justice in El Salvador continues. We'll be back with more Bolivia coverage shortly.

Jim Shultz


Murder Claims the Lives of Two More Anti-Mining Activists in El Salvador

The Christmas season in Trinidad, a small community in northern El Salvador, was marked by the murder of two activists in the community's effort to block an environmentally devastating gold mine in the area. On the day after Christmas 32-year old Dora “Alicia” Sorto Recinos (pictured above) was murdered was shot and killed on her way home from a local river where she was doing her laundry. She was eight months pregnant. Her baby died as well and her two-year-old son, who was accompanying her, was shot in the leg.

The murder of Sorto Recinos, an outspoken activist against the El Dorado Mine, came just six days after the murder of another key anti-mining activist in the department of Cabañas, Ramiro Rivera Gómez, vice-president of the Environmental Committee of Cabañas (CAC). He was shot to death on December 20th in front of his eight-year-old-daughter, according to some reports, with an M-16 rifle.

The December murders also follow the June torture and killing of another activist against the Pacific Rim mine, Marcelo Rivera.

Continued>>>
http://democracyctr.org/blog/2010/01/murder-claims-lives-of-two-more-anti.html

[Hannah Bell]

1. website

http://www.pacrim-mining.com/s/Home.asp


interesting. the chair's entire career has been in mining (precious metals/diamonds) & she's a grad of an evangelical college.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trinity_Western_University

i was interested in this story because of related canadian stories with interesting ties, e.g. barrick gold.

[Hannah Bell]

3. and here's connection w/ barrick: tony petrina & placer dome.

http://breakallchains.blogspot.com/2010/01/another-protester-against-pacific-rim.html


it's my opinion the "smaller" mining corps = the big players.

[ck4829]

2. K&R