A subsidiary of the Canadian-owned mining company NewGold operates a destructive gold and silver mine in Cerro San Pedro, a community about 400 kilometres north of Mexico City. On November 28, 2010, Council of Canadians campaigner Andrea Harden-Donahue and I, along with the PSAC, the Polaris Institute and other friends and allies, visited this community. We later wrote, “We were welcomed in the town square—with music and kind words—by members of the community. They told us about how NewGold removed the top of their mountain to get at the gold and silver—a mountain which is tied intimately to their history and cultural identity. In the extraction process, NewGold uses cyanide to separate the minerals from the rock. We are told that this has polluted local water sources, which explains the chant of community members as we walked the kilometre in town: ‘Water yes, cyanide no’. The community has been challenging this mine for 14 years, including in the Mexican federal court where, as a result of the impacts it is having, it was found to be illegal. But the Mexican government allows the mine to continue, and so does the Canadian government. We expressed our solidarity and determination to stop this destruction of their land and water, and the resulting impact on their health.” Following our participation in a protest outside the May 2011 NewGold shareholders meeting in Toronto, http://canadians.org/blog/?p=8951, and our ‘Shout Out Against Mining Injustice’ conference in Vancouver this past June, which included Mexican groups concerned about this mine, the Council of Canadians continues to stand in solidarity with this community.
