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ACTION ALERT: Tell Pacific Rim Mining to get out of Cabañas! |
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Wednesday, 10 February 2010 |
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Monthly Call-In Day TODAY - February 10, 2010
Since 2005, community organizing efforts have successfully blocked
Pacific Rim Mining Corporation’s application for gold mining permits in
the department of Cabañas, El Salvador. This effective resistance has
been met with death threats, kidnapping attempts and assassinations
against activists who oppose mining. Two more community leaders were
murdered just before the New Year. In early January, Salvadoran
President Mauricio Funes explicitly sided with the environmental
movement, declaring “My government will not authorize any mining
extraction projects.” However, Pacific Rim refuses to pack up and
leave, despite that conflicts and violence that its presence has
generated.
TAKE ACTION! Call Barbara Henderson, Vice President of Investor
Relations at Pacific Rim Mining, and tell her that the company has the
moral responsibility to leave Cabañas immediately.
To call from the U.S. dial 1- (888) 775-7097, or from Canada (604) 689-1976, and then press ‘1’. (See sample script below)
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Nestor Castillo of Bay Area CISPES speaks about the anti-mining struggle in El Salvador |
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Alert: Call in Solidarity with the Honduras Resistance Movement |
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Thursday, 25 February 2010 |
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Leader Assassinated Yesterday in Front of Her Two Children, Denounce U.S. Support for Repressive State Run by Pepe Lobo
Today, February 25, 2010 marks an historic date in the struggle for
true democracy and the respect for human rights in Honduras. Tens,
maybe hundreds, of thousands of supporters of the National People’s
Resistance Front (FNRP) will march through the streets of Tegucigalpa
to demand that the largely unrecognized month-old government of
Porfirio “Pepe” Lobo halt its attacks on the peaceful Resistance
movement. The FNRP has documented at least 254 human rights violations,
including murder, kidnappings and rape, since Pepe Lobo took over for
the de facto government.
Just yesterday, FNRP supporter Claudia Larisa Brizuela Rodriguez was
gunned down in her home in San Pedro Sula. Her two young children, ages
2 and 8, witnessed their mother’s murder.
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Update: Movement Responds to Pacific Rim’s Media Offensive |
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Tuesday, 09 February 2010 |
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Also included in this update:
* First Popular Consultation in Salvadoran History

Pacific Rim has launched a media campaign after months without public appearances. Representatives of the company in El Salvador spoke on several Salvadoran TV news programs, continuing to blame the murders in Cabañas on family quarrels unrelated to mining. A January 24th article in El Salvador´s right-wing Diario de Hoy newspaper backed up their claims.
On Wednesday the 27th, the National Roundtable against Metallic Mining (the Mesa) held a press conference denouncing the new Pacific Rim press strategy and restating the fact that violence in Cabañas was generated by the presence of the mining company as well as the continued context of impunity in the region. "The personal or family quarrels that possibly exist in the town of Trinidad are due to the operations of Pacific Rim in the region and the opinions in favor of or against mining adopted by the members of the community. Cabañas -- in spite of its high level of poverty and exclusion -- was one of the least violent departments of the country but this changed with the presence the extractive company in question," according to the Mesa´s press statement. You can watch a video clip of the press conference (courtesy of Maggie Von Vogt), or read the statement.
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Interview: Alexis Stoumbelis, director of CISPES, on mining-related deaths in El Salvador |
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Friday, 19 February 2010 |
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By Matthew Kennard, from the Comment Factory
In a six-day period over Christmas, two prominent anti-mining activists in El Salvador were shot dead in broad daylight. First,
Ramiro Rivera Gomez, vice-president of the Cabanas Environment
Committee, which is campaigning to stop Canadian mining company Pacific
Rim from opening a gold mine in the area, was killed while walking with
his 14-year-old daughter. Six days later, Dora “Alicia” Recinos Sorto
was shot returning from washing laundry in a nearby lake. She was eight
months pregnant and another prominent member of the CEC.
Below, Alexis Stoumbelis (AS) discusses the issues around the murders and anti-mining resistance.
MK: Why has there been such a concerted campaign against Pacific Rim’s gold mine?
AS: The biggest opposition to Pacific Rim’s gold mine is due to the
community’s concerns about severe environmental damage, specifically
the risk of cyanide contamination and the massive amounts of water that
would be used during the extraction, estimated at 10.4 liters/second.
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CISPES Radical Roots Delegation - June 19-27 |
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Wednesday, 20 January 2010 |
Please join us for the CISPES Radical Roots Delegation!
June 19-27, 2010
download:
The Committee In Solidarity with the People of El Salvador (CISPES) is organizing a delegation this winter that will be specifically tailored for Salvadoran and Salvadoran-American young adults over the age of 18. This trip will provide you with an intimate reconnection to your own heritage and familial background, and will tie these experiences to an understanding of the multi-faceted political and social issues that the country faces today.
This trip will be crafted so that you will:
· connect to Salvadoran culture
· learn about the history and present-day reality of the struggle for social and economic justice in El Salvador
· analyze US economic intervention, the “free-trade” model, and their impacts on the lives of real people
· build leadership skills for progressive organizing
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Fundraise with CISPES! part-time phonebanking jobs in Seattle and Wasghington DC |
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Sunday, 07 February 2010 |
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CISPES is currently looking to hire 3 part-time fundraisers (one in Washington DC and two in Seattle)
Washington DC Fundraising Collective MEMBER - hourly (10 hrs/week)
Location: Columbia Heights--Washington, DC
Start Date: March 1st, 2010
more information here
Seattle Fundraising Collective MEMBER - hourly (10 hrs/week)
Location: Seattle, WA
Start Date: March 1st, 2010
more information here
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Materials for the CISPES Stop the Suits campaign! |
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Wednesday, 07 October 2009 |
Download these campaign materials:
If you or your organization wants to join the Stop the Suits campaign, please be in touch with Lisa (
This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it
) at the CISPES National Office for more information.
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NACLA: Salvadoran Anti-Mining Activists Risk Their Lives by Taking On ‘Free Trade’ |
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Tuesday, 02 February 2010 |
by Lisa Skeen, from https://nacla.org/node/6389
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residents of El Salvador’s northern department of Cabañas, 2009 was a
year fraught with political high drama that reached a tragic climax in
December with the assassination of two anti-mining activists. A public
commemoration of their work, which marked the start of 2010, was as
much a statement of solidarity as one of mourning.
On December 20, heavily armed gunmen evaded police protection and
murdered the vice president of an anti-mining environmental
organization, Ramiro Rivera Gómez. Six days later, Dora “Alicia”
Recinos Sorto, a prominent member of the same organization, was shot
and killed while returning home after washing clothes in a nearby
stream. She was pregnant and carrying her two-year-old son when she was
killed.
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CISPES Supports Human Rights Defender in Face of Death Threats |
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Monday, 25 January 2010 |
Also included in this update:
* President Funes declares: No mining in El Salvador!
* Vigil Honors “Anti-mining Martyrs”
* State Apologizes for Violence on Anniversary of Peace Accords
* Solidarity with Haiti
CISPES would like to express our heartfelt solidarity with El
Salvador’s Human Rights Ombudsman, Oscar Luna, who announced last
Thursday, January 21 that he and his family have been receiving death
threats. Luna declared that the threats have been delivered in the name
of supposed extermination groups, demanding that he leave the country
within 48 hours so as to not “obstruct the work of social cleansing”
that they are attempting to carry out against “delinquency.” The
re-emergence of such “social cleansing” groups was previously denounced
by former Human Rights Ombudswoman Beatrice de Carrillo in 2006.
Oscar Luna has been an outspoken advocate for human rights in El
Salvador. He defended the Suchitoto 13, water privatization protesters
who were charged under the anti-terrorism law and denounced electoral
fraud by ARENA during the 2009 elections. Most recently, he has pushed
the Attorney General’s office to investigate the intellectual authors
of the murders of Marcelo Rivera, Ramiro Rivera and Dora Alicia Sorto
Recinos and mobilized his office to provide protection for
environmental activists in Cabañas. (Read the National Roundtable
against Metallic Mining statement on these threats. ) He has decided not
to leave his post, nor to leave the country. Instead, he is calling on
the Attorney General and the head of the National Civilian Police to
investigate and to provide additional protection for him and his family.
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Nestor Castillo on KPFA radio talking about the anti-mining movement in El Salvador |
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