Another Anti-mining Activist Shot in Cabañas El Salvador

A leader in the movement opposed to re-opening the El Dorado goldmine in northeast El Salvador was in stable condition after being shot eight times in the back and legs. Doctors at San Salvador’s Rosales Hospital said it was “miraculous” that Ramiro Rivera survived the attack, which occurred in front of Rivera’s modest house. Rivera identified one of two assailants as Oscar Menjívar, who was detained by police in Cabañas, where both men reside.

Ramiro Rivera is President of the local Community Development Association (ADESCO) of Nueva Trinidad, a small community located in the unpaved highlands of Cabañas Department. In 2005, as exploration permits were offered to the US/Canadian Pacific Rim Mining Corporation, the community found that it was in the crosshairs of a proposed gold mine. As the company began to drill deep holes to estimate the quality of gold deposits, residents noticed their wells were drying up. Some wells were poisoned by unknown chemicals, leading in some cases to stillborn calves and dead livestock.

Rivera was reluctantly elected to lead the group after residents accused the previous ADESCO Board of receiving hush money from Pacific Rim representatives in exchange for their silence regarding the mine’s potentially detrimental impacts. When Rivera took the helm, he organized three road blockades near Nueva Trinidad that prevented exploratory equipment from being transported into remote areas. Rivera has previously reported threats against his life that he said were based on his opposition to the goldmine.

As complaints about the impacts on the region’s water supply rippled, people throughout Cabañas actively confronted Pacific Rim contractors who brought heavy equipment into the backwoods. In July 2008, the company paused its exploratory work and publicly stated that its feasibility study about mining gold deposits could not be completed.

The accused Menjívar had previously attacked mining opponents. According to Jesse Freeston, a US-based reporter who has covered events in Nueva Trinidad, Menjívar was arrested last year for a machete attack on Santos Rodriguez, a farmer also from Nueva Trinidad. Rodriguez lost two fingers in the attack, but Menjívar was released after three days in jail and was never tried for the crime. Freeston said that Menjívar’s rapid release was likely due to political connections he built with mayors in Sensuntepeque (Jesús Edgar Bonilla Navarrete) and Ilobasco (José María Dimas Castellanos Hernández) . Both mayors hail from the ARENA political party and support re-starting operation sat El Dorado.

The attack against Ramiro Rivera was another in a series of violent El Dorado-related incidents in Cabañas Department. Last month, the body of Marcelo Rivera, an outspoken mining opponent, was found in a well after he had been forcibly disappeared 12 days earlier. Marcelo—no relation to Ramiro—was founder of the Amigos de San Isidro, a local pro-ecology group which had warned residents about the poisonous impacts of cyanide-leach goldmining upon local water reserves.

Earlier in July, a local parish priest outspoken on the mining issue barely escaped a harrowing kidnapping attempt by armed assailants. And reporters from the Radio Victoria community radio station have received a broad volley of death threats over the last few months. The threats are communicated through mail, text messages and phone calls. One of which exhorted the newsgatherers to “shut your mouths, or we will shut them forever.”