US-Backed Canadian Mine in Guatemala Threatens Water Supply for Millions
https://truthout.org/articles/us-backed-canadian-mine-in-guatemala-threatens-water-supply-for-millions/US-Backed Canadian Mine in Guatemala Threatens Water Supply for Millions
Activists vow to fight the Cerro Blanco mine, which threatens a water supply for millions in Guatemala and El Salvador.
By Michael Fox , TRUTHOUT
Published May 27, 2024
Asunción Mita is a town of roughly 40,000 people in the hills of southeastern Guatemala, near the border with El Salvador. It’s dusty and hot in the dry season — located in the Central American dry corridor, which is particularly vulnerable to climate disasters. And it has become the center of a battle over the future of mining in Guatemala.
In January, the outgoing Guatemalan government gave the green light for the Cerro Blanco open-pit gold mine in the hills outside of Asunción Mita. The mine is run by Canadian corporation Bluestone Resources, which expects to produce over 300,000 ounces of gold per year. Bluestone says it will bring jobs and opportunities to the local community.
But most locals don’t buy it.
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Why Canada is at the centre of global mining atrocities
By Samantha Ponting
https://springmag.ca/why-canada-is-at-the-centre-of-global-mining-atrocities
“I was born and lived more than half my life in Lepanto, the location of the Lepanto Consolidated mine,” said Chandu Claver, an Indigenous land defender, in a recorded presentation to attendees of the April 19 virtual launch of the International Coalition for Human Rights in the Philippines – Toronto chapter (ICHRP-Toronto).
According to Claver, the Filipino mining company Lepanto Consolidated Mining Corporation has worked closely with the Canadian company Ivanhoe Mines Ltd. over the past 20 years— and the environmental impact of their operations have been devastating.
“Abra River is now dead thanks to Ivanhoe and Lepanto,” he said. He added that tailings from the mine disposed into the river have had a harmful impact on fish, and heavy metals have poisoned agricultural lands.
But Ivanhoe Mines is not the only Canadian company operating in the Philippines. While Claver said corporate mining ownership has been difficult for civil society to track due to a “global practice of changing company names and using proxies and fronts,” other industry players have been identified.
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They do things all over the world, including the US, that they would NEVER get away with in Canada. They leave horrible messes, expecially in their gold mining operations they just walk away from. The reason that Canada wants to send tar sands to the US is because Canadian law won't allow it being refined in Canada. The Canadian mineral and oil industries in a lot of ways uses the US as a third world nation.