By Matthew Russell Lee
www.innercitypress.com/mines1guat021710.html
UNITED NATIONS, February 17 -- Abuse by mining firms of rural Guatemala, particularly indigenous communities, has become systemic. Even President Alvaro Colom, when asked Wednesday by Inner City Press at the UN about the abuses had to admit that the current law "is not suitable." Video here, from Minute 18:32.
Inner City Press asked President Colom whether his government will respect the decision of several communities to be "mine free." Colom replied that "with respect to mines and the mining law, promoted in 1997, honestly, it's a bad law... Not only when it comes to royalties [but also] environment and natural resources [and] the rights of indigenous people to give their opinion."
Guatemala is a signatory of the UN Convention on the Rights of Indigenous People, and Colom says his government will abide by it. He said he has not issued a single new mining license. The former government, he said, did authorize many, some of which have been frozen.
But not enough. In late 2009, for example, Maudilia Lopez Cardona and Carmen Mejia Aguilar on behalf of the residents of San Miguel Ixtahuacan, a municipality in southwestern Guatemala traveled to Canada to file a complaint with the government against Goldcorp.
They documented that Goldcorp's "Marlin mine contaminated water supplies and damaged homes while the company harassed protesters." The complaint was submitted under Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) guidelines for multinational firms. We'll see.
President Colom also spoke, with Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and then the Press, about the UN affiliated International Commission against Impunity in Guatemala. Inner City Press previously interviewed the head of CICIG Carlos Castresana on such topics as his prosecution of the murders of bus drivers and his advocacy for a wiretapping law.
President Colom on Wednesday, when Inner City Press asked about the rejection of the Commission's recommendation that three "corrupt" judges not be put on the Supreme Court, cited the Commission's work on the wiretapping law, as well as on an updated arms and munitions law. He said he did not intervene in the placing of the three judges on the court due to separation of powers. "If we don't want impunity, we have to respect the division of powers," he said. Again, we'll see.
