ENVIRONMENT: All Gold Is Not Golden

By Julio Godoy Reprint | | Print |

Julio Godoy

PARIS, Nov 13 2006 (IPS) - The cancellation of a gold mining contract in French Guiana has placed the spotlight on another project that is continuing in Guatemala, at disastrous cost to local people and the environment.

The French government announced last month that it was withdrawing a permit to the Canadian company Cambior to dig for gold in the Amazon region Kaw in French Guiana, a small French protectorate between Brazil and Suriname with a population of 200,000.

The French government had given Cambior a 25-year permit in 2003 to extract 34 tonnes of gold. But under pressure from environmental activists and inhabitants of Guiana, the government set up a commission in May 2006 to look into the environmental impact of the project.

The commission said in its report published Oct. 10 that the project must not proceed because discharge of cyanide-contaminated wastewater from the mines represented unacceptable environmental risk.

French minister for the environment Nelly Olin said Cambior had been informed of the commission’s findings, and that the company had abandoned the project. A national environmental park would be created at the site instead.

But since 2003, farmers and human rights activists in Guatemala have been fighting in vain against a similar gold and silver mine project managed by the Canadian corporation Glamis in San Marcos in the south of the country. Glamis has been extracting gold and silver from the site since October 2005.

Cambior would have used the same process Glamis is applying in Guatemala to extract the precious metals – rocks with gold and silver resources are treated with chemicals including cyanide to free the metals from the stone. Wastewater from this process flows into nearby rivers.

Local Mayan peasants, environmental and human rights groups, and the Catholic Church in Guatemala say the mine at San Marcos is polluting the Cuilco and Tzalá rivers, fundamental sources of water in the area.

But in February this year the Guatemalan government only expanded the contract to allow for mining of zinc, mercury, lead, iron, and copper in the same area.

“It makes a difference if a government is sensitive to environmental, labour, human, and health concerns,” Iris Stolz, human rights activist with the German Christian organisation Terre des Hommes told IPS.

“European governments are aware of the political costs of ignoring such concerns,” she said. “In addition, the capacity of civil society to mount pressure upon governments and institutions is of utmost importance in such cases.” Stolz is coordinating Terre des Hommes’ campaign against the Canadian gold mine in Guatemala.

Local groups found through a local poll that 95 percent of the local population opposes the mining project. “This result shows the importance Mayan communities give to land, forest and water for their survival and development,” Mario Antonio Godinez from the Guatemalan environmental organisation Ceiba, which helped organise the vote told IPS.

Ulrike Bickel, development expert at the German Catholic organisation Misereor, said “the Guatemalan government does not respect the interests of its own people, and is violating international labour conventions.”

Bickel, who has visited the Guatemalan site and interviewed local people as well as members of the Guatemalan congress and government told IPS that the Guatemalan permit was tainted by suspicions of corruption. “Guatemalan congress representative Alfredo de León told us that numerous of his colleagues had received kickbacks for supporting the mining concessions.”

The Guatemalan legal office representing Glamis is directly linked to President Oscar Berger.

A lawyer who gave up his professional practice when he took office in January 2004, Berger was leading associate of the Guatemalan law firm Berger, Sosa & Permueller. One of Berger’s main partners was Rodolfo Sosa de Leon, now legal counsellor of Glamis in Guatemala. Sosa de Leon’s daughter is married to Berger’s son, Oscar Berger Widmann.

Although the Guatemalan government first conceded Glamis total tax exemption until the end of 2007, following pressure from environmental and development groups it was agreed that the Canadian company would pay income tax starting July 1, 2006.

The World Bank routed 45 million dollars in credit to Glamis, close to a fifth of the total Glamis investment of 261 million dollars.