Communities and organizations in northern El Salvador continue to organize referendums in an effort to keep their territories free of mining.
Established by the country’s Municipal Code as a mechanism for community participation, the consulta popular is an official municipal-level referendum on an issue of local concern that can be invoked by petition if residents are able to gather signatures from 40 percent of registered voters. On the books for years, the mechanism had never been used, but it now plays an important strategic role in the country’s movement against metallic mining.
The most recent referendum took place on February 26, when more than half of all registered voters in the municipality of Cinquera flocked to polling stations in four communities. The final tally was along the lines of the four previous referendums on the issue: 98.1 percent of participating registered voters in Cinquera cast a ballot opposing metallic mining exploration and exploitation. The local government will now draw up an official municipal ordinance prohibiting mining in its jurisdiction.
The afternoon prior to the referendum, the village was abuzz with activity in anticipation of the event as the sun began to set behind the hills surrounding Cinquera. A couple blocks from the central plaza, Bernardo Belloso pulled up a plastic chair in a local community association’s open-air meeting hall to discuss the context behind the referendums.
Belloso is the president of CRIPDES, a Salvadoran organization with roots in Catholic liberation theology. The group was founded in the midst of the 1980-1992 armed conflict in El Salvador that left 75,000 dead and another 8,000 people disappeared. Approximately one quarter of the country’s population was displaced.
These days, Belloso has been accompanying and supporting resettled communities in northern El Salvador in their struggles to keep their territories free of mining. On the eve of the referendum in Cinquera, the first to take place in the department of Cabañas, he spoke about the recent history of anti-mining struggle in the neighboring department of Chalatenango, as well as national-level organizing for a legislated ban on mining in El Salvador.
Could you explain, in a nutshell, the history of CRIPDES?
CRIPDES arose in 1984 as the Christian Committee for the Displaced of El Salvador. [It has since changed its name to the Association for the Development of El Salvador, but the acronym remains the same.] It was founded with the objective of denouncing the repression, killings, forced disappearances and massacres that the army was carrying out during that period. Over time, CRIPDES was one of the trail-blazing organizations at the national and international levels in terms of reporting and condemning human rights violations in the country.
Later on, in the lead-up to the Peace Accords, CRIPDES played a very important role in the return of the populations that were refugees and displaced in other countries here in Central America. CRIPDES accompanied their return to El Salvador, creating human settlements in different parts of the country. An organizing mechanism was also established in all of those communities, transforming them into community structures for the self-governance and development of their own communities.
From there, CRIPDES has been doing accompaniment and support work, strengthening community organization through the ADESCOs [Communal Development Associations], and — of course — working with women, youth and other sectors of the population.
Communities in Chalatenango, where the first four referendums took place, have engaged in different activities and actions with regard to mining over the years. What’s the backstory to the referendums?
The process of the referendums has a fairly complicated history because in El Salvador, until 2001, the population basically didn’t know what a metallic mining exploitation process entailed. However, in 2001 and 2002, mining companies began a process of exploration along the whole northern strip of El Salvador — including the department of Chalatenango, particularly its northeastern area, where we have an organizing process developed by CCR [the Association of Communities for the Development of Chalatenango].
When people there began to see workers carrying out exploration activities, especially in lands that belonged and belong to community residents, they began to investigate to see what those workers were up to. What really troubled the communities and people was that the workers were putting markers in the people’s lands, and in some cases they also caused damage to crops.
A process of exchange began with other communities, especially in the Siria Valley in Honduras, and people travelled there to see the results of an extractivist model. They saw the poverty, destruction and social conflicts that was the result of the the mining company’s presence. So, in the end, people said, “We don’t want mining here in our country.” They dedicated themselves to kicking out the mining companies, especially from the northeastern area of Chalatenango.
The movement against mining has also been pursuing legal mechanisms, from a law at the national level to the referendums at the local level. Could you explain their objectives?
The population began calling for the creation of legal instruments at the national level to ban metallic mining exploitation. This was of course related to a series of campaigns carried out by the conglomeration of organizations affiliated with the National Roundtable against Metallic Mining, of which CRIPDES is a member, along with organizations like CCR, ADES [the Santa Marta Association for Economic and Social Development] and others. We were demanding the legislative assembly pass a law banning metallic mining. We’ve been demanding they pass a law for more than 10 years, but legislators aren’t responding to this issue that we’re facing in the communities.
In 2012 or 2013, CRIPDES started discussing the creation of a mechanism to be able to inform and empower communities. It started with the idea of empowering communities to defend their territories, and of creating local proposals or documents or legal instruments oriented against the exploitation of the mineral resources that might be found in these municipalities.
That’s where we were at, and we saw fit to review some legal instruments like the Municipal Code. There are articles in there that instruct the population on mechanisms for how people can participate, making certain demands of the municipal council. It’s established in Articles 115-117. People can participate via community assemblies, town hall meetings, campaigns, and, of course, the referendums are also established as a mechanism for the participation of the population. So when we initiate the referendum process, we refer specifically to those three articles.
How has the referendum process unfolded in practice?
The first referendum was in San José las Flores, used as a pilot to see if people would respond, given that they themselves had articulated the demand. When it came time to vote on the day of the referendum, 72 percent of registered voters showed up. And when it came time to tally the votes of that first experience, we saw that 99 percent of the people who voted said no. Only two people said yes to mining. One ballot was void and another was blank.
We used this mechanism so people could see that we carried out an entirely transparent process. Of course, that motivated other municipalities to work and learn about the experiences, particularly of the people. We started to generate that process of awareness in the other municipalities of San Isidro Labrador, Nueva Trinidad and Arcatao — all in the department of Chalatenango. Consolidating the total of all the people who have voted [in the first four referendums, before Cinquera], we calculate that nearly 70 percent of the [registered voters] in that overall territory came out to vote, and of that 70 percent, 99 percent said no to mining.
We want to bring this experience to other municipalities that are being threatened by metallic mining companies. What we’re trying to do is to allow people to decide what it is that they want for their community and for their municipality.
I’m going to address the topic of mining and it’s detractors choosing that focus when in contrast, by importance, El Salvador’s murder rate and gang violence is one of the greatest concerns in an almost failing state. I’m going to connect the two in an economic discussion. The violence, some say this is inherent from civil war experiences, others say it’s exported from L.A. gangs, but the culmination of violence murder theft and extortion in El Salvador ,…and Guatemala and Honduras; is not limited to the gangs. It’s become a social order, that has endured through recent history because of poverty. The economics of poverty drives the labor forces’ exodus north and subsequently funds the biggest sector of the GDP of El Salvador Guatemala Honduras Nicaragua and others, in the form of Remittance payments…people in the north sending money south. The average is about 20 percent of GDP. (Honduras is higher) These 3 states are not supporting themselves, they’re failing. With out remittance payments they would have economic collapse. There is no work for these people in their own country. 75 thousand children under the ages of 17 were apprehended on the US – Mexican border in 2016 unaccompanied by an adult. These are only the children apprehended on the Mexican side and repatriated to El Salvador Guatemala and Honduras, less to Nicaragua. (the figures vary) . The figures don’t include those apprehended on the USA side of the border. Many of the children are fleeing gang violence. There is culture of poverty that feeds viciously in a cycle on it’s self. A young person has no reasonable expectation of continuous self sustained living. The options are extremely few for employment. Full time employment is not a reality for 40 percent of the people. Quality of life in any community in El Salvador is threatened with gang violence, the curse of poor people with no options for work. It’s a social disorder much worse today than the civil war violence in El Salvador, during it and after.
I’ve read numerous slogans regarding self determination in the efforts to stop mining in El Salvador. In the interests of being responsible for what you’ve promoted please explain the “self determination plan” that Bernardo Belloso et al, is talking about. Given the above facts, the conditions of life in El Salvador, and here, you can debate any citizen living in El Salvador, they will say the same as I have. They need economic growth better jobs and no more fear of gang violence. Paling in comparison are the traditional corrupt government and police and after that all too common violent crime extortion and theft in the street. These are all rooted in low economic development jobless communities with no hope.
Here’s the question: Why turn your backs on over a billion dollars worth of mining enrichment when the country’s communities that are dominated by gang violence, the curse of the poor could be economically stimulated? Economic growth has a strong potential to steer a culture into positive behaviors and away from theft and murder represented by the Gang problem in El Salvador. (though not limited to that) But an injection of wealth, created from a mine, into a suffering economic system that is plagued with poverty induced violence is today in El Salvador not seen as a good thing… why is that? There seems to be a blindness or a myopia that constricts thought in this., and it’s not limited to only El Salvador of course. People who are destined to live in the dense population in El Salvador need economic options, they need paying employment. Agriculture in such a densely populated country isn’t sufficient economic support. With a median age of 19 – 20 years old the population needs to work or migrate north and pay money back to their family members in a “welfare state” type of existence. That’s not an enviable life situation.El Salvador needs economic stimulation now. All the people who campaigned against the mine from ideological perspectives have taken the chance of economic growth from the people in the communities in Cabanas (and other departments too). A billion dollars worth of economy is not easy to just find some where. The supporters and proponents of a no mining policy in El Salvador don’t want that economic stimulus, while there is not another economic stimulus waiting to be chosen, and they have sacrificed that for what exactly, Clean water? My 30 years of experience prior to, and in observing, mine installations in Guatemala, (although the detractors never are willing to admit this), is that mining companies involvement in communities has major benefits in the sewage handling improvements in the communities they operate in, very much contrary to what detractors say to communities that are deciding “the mine question”. The rivers and drainage systems have become extremely clean, by any comparison, after sewage treatment systems are paid for and implemented by the communities with help from the mining companies. I can walk you to smaller river drainage that has fish today, it was a thick black sewer effluent, before the mining company came there. The community and the mine are responsible for this change, but the community prior to that with no sewage treatment facilities and no money couldn’t get to that sanitary state with out the help of the mine company. (This is one of two companies, I’ve witnessed). Mining accidents are well known, focus here instead, more of a concern would be corrupt government officials who are bribed in restoration of lands and decommissioning of mine’s waste heaps, that’s where the lying in mining happens. Properly administered the human race can benefit extensively with minimal impact from mineral extraction. The sophistication has improved immensely in the last 30 years along with the asymptotic growth in all kinds of technology. The world thrives on mine materials. Look at the computer you are reading this on right now. Try to understand what’s inside it. The economic stimulus mining brings has so much potential to curtail violence by enriching poor communities that I take exception to your populist slogan, “Waging Nonviolence” The most probable outcome for Cabanas and surrounding communities is that their drainage effluent systems will continue to be overloaded with raw human waste this will provide lower sanitation conditions, more disease (people are the vector in disease, their waste is implicitly involved). If the mine was operating there that wouldn’t be the case. There would be a sewage treatment plant and the rivers and creeks would run cleaner. The potentials for mining acid run off from effluent in the modern engineering realities are extremely limited more so when the reburial of acid generating rock is the mining plan, as planed there. The mining detractors have offered no benefit to that community. What detractors from the mine development have afforded the people in El Salvador in general is a poverty level a little lower than what was necessary, and in Cabanas where the economy would have been stimulated more and life autonomy better it is today less than it could be. Choices like of how a family can educate their children or not having to accept medical care options for people with less or no money. Lost are 12 – 15 years of direct steady salaries for 500 or more people in the community that would have displaced at least their remittance “welfare” condition. That might not seem significant to Bernardo B and the people who follow the anti mining ideology he does. This blog is never going to be written in Spanish so it is destined for a northern reader who has little information regarding life where this story originates. I’ll try to make these statements relevant to people who need information objectively intended. As well i don’t expect you’ll publish what I write, because I’m suggesting that missing the opportunity to help people because of misdirected efforts is what this is about. I’m critical of the bias and the narrow vision represented in the guise of liberal thought. There are all kinds of political NGOs with dogmas who want to demonstrate their righteousness in front of their sponsors and get paid excessively in donation money when the collection try gets passed. It’s a business now rife with corruption and hyperbola all aimed at funding. Bernardo gained from that, that’s his business. The people who suffer from the intervention in the mine program are the workers and their families and the whole poor community, who didn’t get a job, medical care, better education, sewage controls, running water, and the luxury of working every day for the next 15 years. To dislodge this prejudice against mine extraction and water use; I’ll offer this; If any one reading this is brave enough to confront reality, i will walk with you and we can see together the benefits of the better economy afforded a community in Central America that has a mine to pull it out of abject poverty, and the autonomy it affords the people, which is what brings an end to violence.