Another Canadian Mining Company in Honduras: Glen Eagle Resources Begins Operations in Choluteca

Glen Eagle Resources, a Canadian mining company, has announced it will begin operations in southern Honduras. Glen Eagle will be operating a gold processing plant in a free trade zone (Industrial Mining Park or Parque Industrial Minero in Spanish) in the city of Choluteca. The plant will be used to process rock removed from a mine in San Juan Arriba, El Corpus (and potentially other mines in the area) by two local cooperatives.

Photo caption: The Catholic church in El Corpus that overlooks the town plaza.

The Industrial Mining Park legislation in Culculmeca was approved by the Honduran Congress and published in the official Gaceta on September 11, 2014. The Industrial Park is a public-private partnership managed by Comission for the Promotion of Public-Private Alliances (COALIANZA), the Honduran Institute of Geology and Mines (INGEOMIN), and the Secretary of Energy, Natural Resources, the Environment, and Mines (SERNA).

Photo caption: A statue of a miner stands in the central plaza of El Corpus representing the long history of mining in the area. The golden crocodile built under the statue represents a local legend that a golden crocodile lives under the town's Church in the tunnels mined by the Spanish in the 1800s.

El Corpus has a long history of artisanal mining and is currently the site of at least two other mines run by foreign companies. In July 2014, eleven local miners were trapped inside the Culculmeca mine in the community of San Juan Arriba, El Corpus. Three miners were rescued and eight lost their lives. Shortly after the incident, the local and national government imposed a ban on artisanal mining in the area and militarized the area preventing many of the locals from entering the mines. This caused discontent and outrage from local citizens who have long depended on mining as their source of income and employment.

Photo caption: New York-based Mustang Alliances currently operates an open-pit gold mine in El Corpus, Honduras. Residents have expressed concern about the contamination of the mine and its close proximity to the municipality's town center.

Canada-based Aura Minerals Ready to Dig up the Dead in Honduras

In April 2014, the community of Azacualpa blocked the entrance of the San Andres mine in La Unión, Copan, in western Honduras. The open-pit gold mine is owned by Minerales de Occidente, a subsidiary of Toronto-based mining company, Aura Minerals who acquired the mine in August 2009.

A few weeks after initiating the blockade, the community was violently evicted by Honduran military and police who beat protesters including minors, shot tear gas, and arrested those that stuck around to fight the evict or that lived close to where it took place. Radio Progreso reports that various people were arrested and 21 community members face charges requiring them to sign before a Honduran judge every month.

According to a community member that asked that her name not be revealed because of the delicate security situation in the area: "A large group from the community and former employees of the mine blocked the entrance of the mine for .. some days, 15 days. The company refused to negotiate, they told us that they had nothing to say to us. The military arrived, beat, and captured some people .. I think 15 people, but I'm not sure, many were injured"

A 20-minute video shot on a community member's cell phone (that is shaky and needs some editing) caught and recorded the eviction:




Upon initiating the blockade, the residents of Azacualpa were protesting the expansion of the mining operation, including a potential threat that operations would expand into the community's cemetery. According to Radio Progreso's report, the Azacualpa residents agreed to be relocated to a new area before the operations expanded, but since the agreement was reached the company's commitment failed to materialized. However, despite the relocation agreement, the community leadership says that they did not want the company to operate in the cemetery, where approximately 400 families lay their loved ones to rest.

As Orlando Rodriguez, the Vice President of the patronato (the community leadership) told Radio Progreso:

"They [the mining company] want to exploit the land of the cemetery but the community is not in agreement, we have our public deed that gives us the power to prevent it. They claim that they have permission to exploit 50 metres from the cemetery, we as the elected community leadership decided to consult the people house-by-house and the majority do not agree that the remains in the cemetery are removed, but they have used force because they have militarized the area and continue to exploit."

Following the eviction, Honduran military remained in the community for approximately three weeks and Aura Minerals continues its operations that a community member described as "very close to the boundaries of the cemetery."

"They put military soldiers in the cemetery, there are only guards now but yes, after that, a lot of time passed, I think three weeks, that the military was patrolling. There were a lot of military cars patrolling the area. They were going to put up a big gate so that people could not enter [the cemetery]."

Ending a seven-year mining moratorium, the law was approved in January 2013. Mining operations - many of which are owned by transnational corporations - are expanding and/or beginning in various parts of Honduras. Canadian companies like Aura Minerals have directly benefited from the new legal framework that was written with support and assistance from the Canadian government and the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA). Since its approval last year, two legal challenges have been presented against the law and various communities and organizations argue that the process in which the law was written and the law itself, completely ignore the demands of communities that have and will be affected by mining operations in their territory.

Denouncing Recent Threat: STOP HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATIONS OF PRIESTS AND OTHER HUMAN RIGHTS DEFENDERS IN HONDURAS

The Broad Movement for Dignity and Justice (MADJ), condemns the criminal action which César Augusto Espinoza Muñoz and Abel Carbajal, priests of the parish of Arizona, Atlántida and international human rights volunteers with PROAH who were accompanying them, were victims of when yesterday, July 3rd at approximately 7 pm, when armed men driving a tourism vehicle, intercepted the vehicle that the priests and accompaniers were traveling in near Siguatepeque. The armed men forced them to stop their vehicle, pointed guns at them and took their vehicle and other belongings. They were then taken to another location in Siguatepeque where there were abandoned.

The priests Cesar Espinoza and Abel Carbajal as well as other leaders of the Atlántida department, are beneficiaries of protective measures from the Inter American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) as of December 2013; measures which have not been implemented by the State despite the fact the beneficiaries as well as MADJ have made concrete proposals to the State of Honduras for the protection of the lives and other rights
of the beneficiaries who are under threat due to their legitimate opposition to mining operations on the part of businessmen in the department of Atlántida.

MADJ denounces that days before this criminal action against the priests, several beneficiaries of protective measures issued by the IACHR and other members of MADJ of the Florida sector, have received repeated threats and harassment on the part of people linked to the mining company Minerales La Victoria, which is responsible for mining
project Buena Vista I which is opposed by the communities as it violates their individual and collective rights. MADJ warns that all of these actions which threaten the lives and security of leaders who denounce corruption and oppose the destruction of natural resources in the department of Atlántida occur following the June 30 hearing in Tela during which, thanks to the opportune action on the part of the victims, an attempt on the part of the Public Ministry to benefit the head of security for Minerales la Victoria, Wilfredo Funes, was rejected. Funes is in prison for crimes committed against human rights defenders in the zone.

MADJ again holds the State of Honduras responsible for failing to uphold its responsibility to respect and guarantee the human rights of priests Cesar Espinoza and Abel Carbajal, and leaders of MADJ, beneficiaries of
protective measures from the IACHR. MADJ demands that these and the many other criminal acts that we have denounced before the appropriate State institutions, be investigated and that the businessmen and corrupt functionaries who violate human rights and destroy the peace and tranquility of many rural communities that today suffer persecution on the part of national and transnational companies and corrupt state actors.

¡POR LA DIGNIDAD NO MÁS IMPUNIDAD!

July 4, 2014.

Original Spanish version: https://www.facebook.com/MADJhn?fref=ts