Mining

The online magazine Intercontinental Cry reports that Innu communities are blocking access to two mining projects in northeastern Quebec and western Labrador.

As of Monday, June 14, roughly 100 Innu from the communities of Matimekush-Lac John and Uashat mak Mani-Utenam are attending the blockade, which officially began on Friday, June 11. The two mines are being proposed by New Millennium Capital and Labrador Iron Mines Holdings.

After the death of a native hunter in Labrador last fall, Quebec's Innu leaders are threatening court action and barricades to disrupt economic development in the region to assert their ancestral hunting rights. Yesterday, Innu from five Quebec communities said that they are willing to block every development project in northern Quebec and Labrador until all of their rights, including the caribou hu

The government of Manitoba has announced that it will offer $1.4 million to mining companies operating in the province, affecting 25 different projects.  This comes after an annoucement in October by the province that it would spend $42 million to clean up toxic remains of 18 old mining projects.

Intercontinental Cry reports that last month Platinex mining corporation

reached an agreement with the Ontario government to surrender its mining claims on KI [Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug] territory in return for $5 million and a royalty stake in any future development in the region where the mine was proposed.

Last week we reported the murder, in El Salvador, of an activist critical of Pacific Rim, a Canadian mining company operating in the area.  Just days later, on boxing day, another community activist, Dora “Alicia” Recinos Sorto, was killed in the same small community of Nueva Trinidad.

Another critic of a Canadian mining company has been murdered in Latin America by someone with links to the company.  On Sunday, Ramiro Rivera Gomez was gunned down in El Salvador.

Rivera was a leader in the resistance to Canadian mining company Pacific Rim Mining Corporation, which has been trying to secure permits for its El Dorado gold mine in Cabanas.

Last week we reported the assassination of Mariano Abarca Roblero, an indigenous anti-mining activist in Chiapas, Mexico.  The Mexican government has now arrested three men in connection with the murder.  All three have ties to the Canadian mining company Blackfire, that Roblero had filed a complaint against the previous day.

On Friday night, anti-mining activist Mariano Abarca was assassinated in Chiapas, Mexico by an unidentified man on a motorcycle.  Gustavo Castro, another Chiapas organizer wrote in an email the following day that Mariano was

a dear friend, admired for his struggle against the Canadian mining company Blackfire, and a member of the Mexican Network of People Affected by Mining (REMA-Chiapas). Yesterday we spoke to him on the phone and he told us he had filed a complaint against the company. Today he's dead.