Some articles say it so well. Here is a link an article published June 10, 2013 in the Guardian. The author is Meera Karunananthan, water specialist for the Council of Canadians. She sums up the situation of El Salvador and many countries of the world who feel another conquest is under way: the conquest of their resources: gold, silver, other metals and the fresh water resources required to mine them.
Her statement that El Salvador may be the first country in the world to prohibit mining is a possibility. The June 6th march for the environment in San Salvador brought workers, farmers, religious leaders, students, Indigenous Salvadorans and those working for water as a human right together for the event.
Without water,
there is no life,
With mines,
there is no water.
So how did the United Church of Canada become involved with mining in El Salvador?
And why is the UCC meeting this week to discuss this important issue?
The UC of Canada has had a partnership with ADES (Association for Development Education and Society) and the people of El Salvador for over 25 years. The relationship began with the civil war in the 1970’s: the war that resulted in the assassination of Archbishop Oscar Romero of San Salvador in 1980 while saying mass. Salvadoran citizens fled their homes in the Santa Marta area in the north, near the Honduran border, trying to escape death from their own army, crossing the Rio Lempa, the river that serves as a border between El Salvador and Honduras in the north. Unfortunately, the fast moving river and the Honduran army on the other side of the river, took many lives.
With other religious and human rights organizations, the UCC started to build a relationship.*
When the community of refugees in Honduras decided to return to El Salvador in 1987, the United Church of Canada accompanied them.
When Canadian Mining Company Pacific Rim (set up in Canada with US capital, as Canadian laws are less strict than US laws on mining) began exploration in 2004, submitting their own environmental assessment. With some difficulty an independent assessment was done, which led to the government of El Salvador to say no in conjunction with protests from El Salvadorans.
An ongoing lawsuit against the El Salvadoran government by Pacific Rim at a World Bank tribunal requests $315 million US in damages. As protests increased in the community where the mine was working, a series of deaths and threats against activists and supporters of the anti-mining coalition occurred.
Marcelo Rivera was tortured and killed in El Salvador in 2009. He was active in the anti-mining protests.
History
Accompaniment
Social Justice
All have played roles in why the United Church of Canada is in El Salvador. And why the UCC is reviewing policies relating to Canadian mines overseas.
*Historically the United Church of Canada was part of a group of church organizations that were assisting Salvadorans in the 1970’s and 1980’s: The Mennonite Church, Quakers, Anglican, Lutheran and other groups. It was The Inter-church Committee on Human Rights in Latin America that provided a framework for assistance to people whose human rights were being violated.
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