A nonviolent protest on March 15 at Fortuna Silver´s Trinidad/Cuzcatlán mine in San José del Progreso turned tense, when pro-mine groups surrounded and fired shots toward local community activists, national and international human rights observers and journalists in this small Zapotec town in Oaxaca, Mexico.
n the first few months of the administration of Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto, the human rights thermometer is burning red. Migrants, indigenous communities, women, social activists, journalists and many others confront mounting threats.
The wealth of Mexican businessmen who top the millionaires list of Forbes Magazine is based “on the theft of the nation’s commons” says Francisco Lopez Barcenas, author of the book on mining legislation in Mexico, “Mineral or Life”.
They set out on February 25, from different parts of a country torn apart. In silent defiance, they entered the capital city of Tegucigalpa on March 6. On International Women’s Day they made their demands of a government that has trampled their rights and brought bloodshed across the nation since the rule of law was shattered three and half years ago.
The real strength of the villages that are fighting against expropriation of their lands for expansion of wind farms in Oaxaca lies in their traditional system of community assemblies. The assembly decided to reject the Mareña Renovables project and a proposed government consultation on it for failing to respect their rights as indigenous peoples.
Idle No More (INM), started in late 2012 as an aboriginal movement to block regressive legislation threatening indigenous, territorial and treaty claims in Canada, has quickly become a worldwide vehicle for indigenous peoples’ rights and environmental complaints. By early 2013 It has attracted significant attention from Latin American quarters.
It was 35 years ago when Amexco S.A. de C.V. began its infamous illegal dumping of lead-contaminated residues in Tijuana – 30,000 m3 of slag imported from California under what the Mexican government deemed the false pretext of car-battery recycling. By the time Mexico’s federal environmental prosecutor analyzed remediation options in 1996, the U.S. corporation Alco Pacifico Inc. had acquired the liability. Mexican law mandated the return of the hazardous waste to its country of origin.
