Voices from El Salvador reports, “Yesterday, officials found the body of disappeared anti-mining activist Juan Francisco Duran Ayala. …(On June 2) he had been hanging anti-mining flyers (against the Vancouver-based Pacific Rim Mining Corporation’s El Dorado gold and silver mine in Cabañas) in Ilobasco as a volunteer for the Environmental Committee of Cabañas in Defense of Water and Culture (CAC), when he was followed and harassed by members of the local police and mayor’s office. …The cause of death appears to be a single gunshot to the head.”
“If (this was a politically motivated crime), it would be the tenth homicide over the past two years related to civil society’s participation in the debate over mining and other controversial issues in Cabañas. In addition to the murders, civil society leaders have received a constant stream of threats and several have been assaulted.” Those killed include Ramiro Rivera, Felícita Echevarría, Horacio Menjívar, Esperanza Velasco, Marcelo Rivera, Darwin Serrano, Gerardo Abrego León, and Dora Alicia Sortos Recenos and her unborn child, whose murder we noted at http://canadians.org/campaignblog/?p=3746.
Many residents of Cabañas have been trying to stop the El Dorado gold mine. They are concerned the mine will threaten local water supplies and ruin their ability to grow crops. The Asociacion de Desarrollo Economico Social (ADES) has concluded that mining in the Canton San Francisco El Dorado “will provoke an unprecedented environmental catastrophe,” contaminating the land, the rivers, and the aquifers. Another organization, Caritas, says, “El Salvador is very small and all mining projects are near the Lempa River, which is the country’s main water source.” The Inter Press Service has reported, “Peasant farmers from the northern Salvadoran province of Cabañas fear that mining operations planned for the region will consume 30,000 litres of water a day, drawn from the same sources that currently provide local residents with water only once a week.”
In an action alert issued while Juan Francisco was missing, Voices from El Salvador demanded an investigation “into the possible ties between the violence and the mining company Pacific Rim…” They are still encouraging people to respond to that alert at http://voiceselsalvador.wordpress.com/2011/06/14/action-alert-disappearance-of-juan-francisco-duran-ayala-in-cabanas/. The president of Pacific Rim has denied that his company has had any involvement in the killings in Cabañas.
Our May 2008 action alert against the El Dorado mine can be read at http://canadians.org/action/2008/09-May-08.html.
