Divide and Rule in the Land of Gold [View all]

[polly7]

By Frauke Decoodt

Source: Fraukedecoodt.org

Friday, July 27, 2012

http://www.zcommunications.org/divide-and-rule-in-the-land-of-gold-by-frauke-decoodt

Doña Deodora tells her story in broken Spanish interwoven with her native Mam language. She is 58 years old, and appears humble and poor. Deodora survives by running her livestock on the lands of her community in the municipality of San Miguel Ixtahaucán, which is in the San Marcos department of Guatemala, near the Mexican border. San Miguel has always been an isolated mountainous region where the indigenous inhabitants mainly live from subsistence agriculture and migrate for temporary work to the coffee plantations on the coast. Things began to change in 1996, when the Canadian mining company Goldcorp started to eye up the land. Coincidentally, it was that very year when the civil war ended and the Peace Agreements were signed. 1 By 2005 Goldcorp, through its national subsidiary, started to dig up gold and silver in what it called the “Marlin Mine”.

“Attacks from our own brothers”
A few metres from Doña Deodora’s house one can see an enormous hole in the mountain. Deodora is the only one in her hamlet who has not sold her land and who does not work in the mine. Pleas and threats to make her sell her land come almost daily. She cries “They want to kill me and my family. We lived here in peace. Now there is so much fear, loneliness, pain and sadness.” A local activist clarifies, “These attacks come from our own community, from our brothers. Brothers who do not own the company but defend her.”
The strategy to divide a population, to break its resistance, is common in Guatemala. It is also not a new strategy. On the other side of Guatemala, on the border with Honduras, where communities also confront the intrusion of mining companies, an indigenous Chort’í exhorts his companions to remember the Spanish conquest. “They co-opted leaders, and the ones killing native people were the same natives. The mines are buying our leaders, to divide us and break our struggle.”

“The company is not here to do social work and lift people out of their poverty” says Javier De León from the organisation ADISMI 2, a driving force behind the resistance against the mine. “It is here to make a profit”. In 2011, according to the reports of Goldcorp to its investors, the Marlin Mine generated 607 million dollars of profit. It gave 1% – less than 9 million dollars – in royalties to Guatemala. The amount of taxes it paid is not on public record. A young peasant, Noe Navarro, also from ADISMI, adds, “there are about 35,000 people in San Miguel, about 700 work for the mine. The company is offering development to some. Goldcorp says that there is no longer extreme poverty here but we experience and see another reality. We remain poor. There is no general benefit.”

There are, however, general damages, highlighted by both locals and studies from national and international organisations. 3 The walls of adobe and earth houses are cracked, there are also fissures running in the ground for kilometres. Water is becoming scarcer and in some places it is contaminated with arsenic. Skin diseases and hair loss have been reported. Enough complaints for the CIDH 4 to order a temporal suspension of activities in the Marlin Mine in 2010. The inhabitants also face various indirect damages. The cost of housing and basic food staples rose, the price of land tripled. More money for some also meant more bars, weapons, violence, robbery, and crime.