“It’s resource management,” said Mayor Bautista. “We send notes tocompanies asking them to sponsor activities, and there are manyactivities in the cantons,” he said. “I don’t call that corruption,”because there is no agreement on the part of the government to advanceany interests of companies. When we visited Mayor Bautista of SanIsidro, he also informed us that a local church had received donationsfrom Pacific Rim for specific projects. [3]Father Oscar Antonio Granados, who has fought mining projects since1995 in Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, and El Salvador, alsoexpressed the suspicion that Pacific Rim had paid funds to a localpriest in Cabañas.

Mayor Bautista stated that about 15 percent of the village of SanFrancisco El Dorado, where the company has sought to commenceexploitation of a mine, opposed Pacific Rim’s mining project. A memberof our delegation mentioned to him a Central American University (UCA)survey which cited that two-thirds of the population in the affectedregions of El Salvador is against mining. [4]He responded that, although he was not familiar with that poll, henonetheless hoped the mining would not happen since for him “it wouldbe one less headache” to deal with. Although local activists haveaccused the mayor of accepting bribes from Pacific Rim, he has come outpublicly in opposition to mining in Cabañas since our visit with him.

Father Granados began his work in opposition to precious-metalmining in Costa Rica against Placer Dome (which formerly employedPacific Rim’s current CEO, Thomas C. Shrake, and Pacific Rim boardmember Paul B. Sweeney). He told us that in his experience these miningprojects always happen the same way. They start out currying the favorof a select group within the respective community and thereby sowingdivisions. They always promise to leave the flora and fauna intact upontermination of their operations and that no one will be harmed in anyway. In the end, the communities are rife with social conflict betweenthose in favor and those against the mines, and the environment ispoisoned. Vegetation is destroyed, water sources are dried up,livestock are poisoned, children are born with birth defects, andpeople die of cancer and other diseases from the contamination of theenvironment. Father Granados described the mining companies as“aggressors, oppressors, monsters…demons for the country.”

The Birth of the Anti-Mining Movement

According to the director of the Association for Economic and SocialDevelopment (ADES), Antonio Pacheco, his organization had receivedcomplaints about mining exploration since 1998. It was not until 2004that ADES began a campaign to raise awareness about Pacific Rim’smining. That was about when the Environmental Committee of Cabañas forthe Defense of Water and Culture started its work.

Francisco Pineda, who has been active with the Committee from itsbeginnings, told the delegation how their struggle to ensure cleanwater soon led to a struggle against gold mining. In addition to watersources drying up, livestock were dying. Pacific Rim would use two tonsof cyanide and 900,000 liters of water per day when it began full-scalemining operations – and they were polluting already. The company madethe bogus claim that it had technology that would render watercontaining cyanide harmless. [5]“You could basically stick a cup in the water and drink it,” corporatespokesperson Barbara Henderson boasted to the Miami Herald. [6]

The Environmental Committee and ADES, along with a growing coalitionof organizations, such as the Francisco Sánchez United Movement 1932(MUFRAS 1932), soon reached the conclusion that the contamination oflocal rivers would affect the whole country, as several activists toldus. This is because all the local rivers feed into the Lempa River,which is the source of water for 60 percent of El Salvador’spopulation, including part of capital city San Salvador. Moreover, theLempa runs through Guatemala and Honduras, and the contamination couldpotentially spread there. [7]

Although much of El Salvador’s surface waters are already polluted,precious-metal mining would turn a bad situation into a catastrophe.Pineda and other residents of La Trinidad told us how, when explorationat Cerro Limón commenced nearby, the residents of La Trinidad heard thenoise 24 hours a day. According to Antonio Pacheco of ADES, thecorporation promised a bonanza in new jobs, but these would not offsetall the jobs lost, mainly in agriculture, because of environmentalcontamination.

The activists’ first tactic was to acquire and disseminateinformation, said Pineda. Pacheco said ADES used its networks topressure the national government. They inquired about mining in otherparts of the hemisphere, such as Peru, Chile, Bolivia, Ecuador,Honduras, Nicaragua, and Guatemala. According to Pacheco, over a periodof two years, some 150 community leaders from Cabañas went to visit theSiria Valley in Honduras, which had borne the brunt of full-scaleprecious-metal mining. There they witnessed the dried-up water sourcesand health damage including skin problems, Francisco Pineda told me.These contacts with other communities that had already been affected bymining “helped [them] to have a stronger basis for their resistance.Yet at that point,” he noted, “some in the Committee dropped out” oftheir struggle “because they said it was dangerous. ‘The company hasmoney and power. They could have us killed.’”

On June 27, 2005, the Committee joined a growing anti-miningcampaign with regional organizations, such as ADES and Association ofFriends of San Isidro, Cabañas (ASIC). Together with a gamut of socialorganizations across the country, they formed the Roundtable againstMetallic Mining to stop what they saw as a “death project” for ElSalvador. Their campaign included public education in forums andspeaking events featuring testimonies of people exposed to the effectsof mining, especially the Hondurans, as well as video presentations,informational brochures, and posters. They also held protests.

The communities began to read Salvadoran laws on mining, theenvironment, and the Salvadoran Constitution, Pineda said. They learnedthat the Salvadoran Environmental Act requires that they be “consultedand informed of the advantages and drawbacks of such projects beforethey take place.” They initially called Pacific Rim to their meetingsto share information, but soon the company refused to meet with them,he said.

Pacific Rim’s Campaign

Yet, with the price of gold tripling between 2001 and 2009, [8]Pacific Rim’s incentive to exploit the mines has grown exponentially.According to Héctor Berríos, attorney, researcher, and coordinator ofMUFRAS 1932, Pacific Rim chose key people to influence public opinionabout their project, including community leaders, politicians, and“people who were well suited to penetrate the community.” It sponsoredmunicipal events, such as patron saint festivities. It funded eye examsand gave away free glasses in La Trinidad. But when the villagers fromLa Trinidad saw the Pacific Rim name displayed where the services weredispensed, many in the community refused. In fact, there was widespreadrejection of Pacific Rim’s munificence, said Héctor Berríos. PacificRim seems to have miscalculated in expecting that its high-profilegiving would endear it to the population of Cabañas.

Héctor Berríos also told me that the company paid residents of thecommunities in Cabañas to promote the mining projects. One suchadvocate was a woman who had raised awareness on health issues in thecommunity for 10 years, according to Pineda and other members of theCommittee. When she changed her mission, evidently induced bysubstantial remuneration from Pacific Rim, she was able to exploit herestablished credibility in the community to win favor for the company.Staff at Radio Victoria told us that Pacific Rim had offered the radiostation $8,000 to renovate their station. This amount would have beenhuge for the cash-strapped station, but they refused because PacificRim was asking for a commitment to promote the company in return, forwhich it offered additional funds. Radio Victoria has been one of themost outspoken critics of Pacific Rim.

The community was well organized and courageous. [9]Each one of the three times that Pacific Rim brought its equipment tothe top of Cerro Limón hill, where the mine was to operate, members ofthe community forced them to bring the equipment back down. Theactivists were legally entitled to do so, according to Pineda. “Some ofit was their private property,” he said.

Perhaps the first victim was Luisa Velasco, Pineda said. WhenPacific Rim representatives came to her home in March 2006 and askedher if they could explore for gold on her property, she refused. Theythen said they would do it whether she liked it or not; their invasivestance may have contributed to a stroke she suffered from which she hasnever recovered.

The Rise of Violence against Anti-Mining Activists in Cabañas

The first personal threats were made against staff at Radio Victoriaand arose during the 2006 mayoral and city council elections when localactivists registered irregularities. But by late 2007, Pacific Rim’smining project was mentioned in the threats. It is worth noting thatthe Salvadoran Minister of the Environment, Hugo Barrera, underpressure from the burgeoning anti-mining movement, declared in 2006that he would not grant Pacific Rim a permit to operate its mine at ElDorado. With no revenue from mining and dim prospects for receiving thepermits, all the corporation’s operations finally ceased in July 2008.

In December 2007 and January 2008, Neftaly Ruiz, a reporter forRadio Victoria, received threats telling him to “keep out of PacificRim’s way.” In April 2008, Oscar Menjívar chased Nelson Ventura, amember of ADES, with a machete. Nelson was able to escape, but in asubsequent similar attack against Santos Rodríguez, Oscar Menjívar cuthis victim’s fingers, which then had to be amputated, according toHéctor Berríos.

Héctor himself was threatened and his house was ransacked androbbed, he told me, whereby all of his equipment and documentationcontaining evidence about Pacific Rim’s bribery and the election fraudwas stolen, but his money was not. Many of the staff at the radiostation have been threatened in a sustained campaign of intimidation.Two attempts to kidnap Father Luis Quintanilla, who had a program atthe radio station, also occurred. A complete list of the threats, whichunfortunately continue to occur, is beyond the scope of this article.

On April 9, 2009, Oscar Menjívar’s father, Horacio Menjívar, who wasa supporter of the mines, was killed. Just as in the case of thesubsequent crimes against anti-mining activists, the police and theprosecutor’s office have not disclosed information about theinvestigation of this crime. The online version of El Diario de Hoystates that Horacio Menjívar was shot to death and that Santos BalmoreGuerra Pérez was arrested as the alleged hit man. The publication,which is notorious for attacking the left, maintains that the spate ofassassinations does not have to do with mining but interfamilialfeuds. [10]

Police Chief Domingo Bográn Acosta told us that Oscar Menjívarblamed Ramiro Rivera, a community leader in La Trinidad who activelyparticipated in the anti-mining movement, for his father’s death.Francisco Pineda commented to us that Horacio Menjívar had many enemiesand was involved in organized crime. Héctor Berríos and others we spokewith mentioned that Horacio Menjívar was involved in livestock theftand was known to be violent.

On June 18, 2009, Marcelo Rivera, one of Cabañas’ most prominentenvironmentalists, was last seen getting off a bus at around 5 or 6 PMat the El Molino turnoff near Ilobasco, Cabañas, en route from SanIsidro, Cabañas to San Salvador. Margarita, Marcelo’s sister-in-law,received an anonymous phone call 12 days later saying there was a bodyin an abandoned well. A cadaver was found in a 30-meter-deep dry wellnear an abandoned house with Marcelo’s clothes and keys nearby.

The corpse showed signs of torture and strangulation, and latexgloves and two ski masks were found at the scene of the crime,according to Alirio Hernández and Héctor Berríos, who were both presentwhen the body was discovered. The Salvadoran police sometimes wear skimasks to protect themselves from retaliation. According to Alirio,there was a person in the house near the well who members of thecommunity knew to be affiliated with the Mara Salvatrucha, theSalvadoran gang implicated in the dramatic surge of organized crime inthe country. The police would not demand that this individual come outand identify himself.

Rodolfo Delgado, a lead prosecutor of the national PublicProsecutor’s Office, stated that four suspects had been arrested, and afifth that was already in jail had been notified that he was also asuspect. They were all gang members. The prosecutor stated that Marcelohad been drinking and had got into a fight. Reference was made tohomosexual behavior in an apparent attempt to defame and blame thevictim. A government forensic investigator stated that the body wasMarcelo’s based on results of DNA tests. According to the coroner’soffice, Marcelo died of asphyxiation, while the public prosecutorstated that he died from blows to the head with a hammer. Marcelo’sfamily asked to claim the body, but the police said that it had alreadybeen buried.

On August 7, 2009, Oscar Menjívar attacked Ramiro Rivera (norelation to Marcelo Rivera) in La Trinidad. Oscar shot Ramiro eighttimes in the back while the latter was going out to milk his cow.Ramiro recognized Oscar Menjívar as the person who attacked him. Ramirowas able to escape and find help to get him to a hospital. OscarMenjívar was jailed for attacking Ramiro Rivera, but acquitted in March2010. According to Alirio Hernández, Oscar Menjívar recruited employeesfor the mine in La Trinidad and promoted the mining projects indifferent communities. Pacific Rim has denied this claim.

Domingo Miranda Portillo, also a resident of La Trinidad, stated tous that in mid-2009, he was threatened with an M-16. In September 2009,according to Francisco Pineda, the door of Santos Rodríguez’s house inLa Trinidad was broken down, and Santos was fired upon in a secondattempt on his life. “The authorities came the next day to collect theevidence, but we didn’t hear any more about it after that,” saidFrancisco Pineda.

In October 2009, Oscar Menjívar’s mother, Esperanza Velasco, wasalso murdered. According to the online version of El Diario de Hoy, shewas shot by “several men” early one morning while she was on her way totend to her cows. The article goes on to say that “nobody saw anything,so the authorities don’t even have suspects for that crime.” [11]

We were unable to obtain details of this murder from the police, themayor, the human rights ombudsman, or the community. Both ManuelFuentes of FESPAD and Alirio Hernández of ASIC pointed out to us thatthe Roundtable against Metallic Mining has demanded clarification ofthe murders of Oscar’s parents, among other reasons, so they are notused to weaken the other cases. None of the activists with whom I spokeseemed to believe that the murders of Oscar’s parents are related tothe mining issue.

On December 20, 2009, Ramiro Rivera was shot to death along with hisneighbor Felícita Echeverría, whom he was giving a ride, as theyascended the road to La Trinidad by car. The two bodyguards who werewith them and had been assigned to protect Ramiro by the Program forthe Protection of Victims and Witnesses were left unharmed. The chiefof police of Cabañas, Domingo Bográn Acosta, told our delegation duringour interview with him that this murder was executed in expert fashion.The snipers shot at their victims from the sides of the road, catchingthem by surprise. When we visited La Trinidad and passed the site ofthe crime, it was clear that our vehicle could only ascend this road ata reduced speed, less than 5 mph at the spot of the assassination.

As if this prelude to the Christmas season had not been tragicenough, another resident of La Trinidad, the wife of Santos Rodríguez,Dora Alicia Recinos Sorto, was murdered on December 26, 2009 whilereturning from washing her clothes in a nearby stream. Residents of LaTrinidad told us that they found her dead body and could perceive thebaby in her belly moving as they died. Her two-year-old son, whom shehad been carrying upon being shot, was wounded in the foot butsurvived. Members of their community told us that the police, who bythis time were permanently on guard, acted completely passively andcame to the scene of the crime only upon instigation by Dora’sterrified and grief-stricken neighbors. The Ombudsman for Cabañas,Carlos Enrique Rodríguez, pointed out to us that, by the time DoraAlicia was murdered, the police had hermetically sealed the areasurrounding La Trinidad on a 24-hour basis. The perpetrator ought notto have been able to escape.

Impunity

Police and public prosecutors claim that investigations areongoing, but have brought no information to light about the mastermindsof the sustained wave of violence. However, it is hard to ignore thefact that it has arisen in the context of dueling campaigns to promoteand thwart Pacific Rim’s project in Cabañas. Otherwise, Cabañas hasbeen the second safest department in the country, as the chief ofpolice himself proudly pointed out to us.

Chief of Police Domingo Bográn Acosta explained to us that justafter Marcelo’s death the investigations were transferred to theSpecialized Division against Organized Crime in San Salvador. Thepolice chief commenced his tenure in August 2009, just after Ramiro wasattacked for the first time. He therefore had very limited knowledge ofthe circumstances of the attempted murder of Ramiro Rivera or thedisappearance and murder of Marcelo Rivera. When our conversationshifted to the murders of Ramiro Rivera and Dora Alicia Recinos, whichhad occurred in late December 2009 under his watch, he pointed out thatfrom the outset those investigations had been handled by the nationalpublic prosecutor and the Organized Crime Division in San Salvador.

He did put forward a theory about a person coming to El Salvadorfrom the United States and paying $2,000 for the execution of Ramiro.The police chief further stated that this person soon left the countryand eluded further identification. Héctor Berríos told me that it wason the insistence of community activists and the attorneys whosupported them that Marcelo’s case was transferred to the OrganizedCrime Division and the national public prosecutor, but there have beenno further developments in the case.

Threats have reached beyond Cabañas to the head ombudsman, OscarLuna of the Human Rights Ombudsperson’s Office in San Salvador,evidently in part because of his stance on metallic mining. The officeis a constitutionally mandated government agency that is designed andempowered to hold other governmental and non-governmental institutionsaccountable. When we visited the office, Assistant Human RightsOmbudsman Salvador Menéndez Leal affirmed that his organization opposesmetallic mining in El Salvador, in particular because of the limitedavailability of water and the high population density.

He also said that the violence against environmental activists“reflects that in the department of Cabañas there are death squadstructures in operation.” A fellow member of our delegation, who isSalvadoran, pointed out to me that, when the death squads operated inthe 1980s, they routinely rounded up 20 or more people a night tosubsequently torture and kill them, which is completely out ofproportion with the current situation.

However, Gustavo Pineda of FESPAD affirmed to us that the lastSalvadoran government still operated with a “counterinsurgentmentality,” deploying an imposing military contingent during electionsin San Isidro. Another community leader with whom we spoke, who did notwish to be identified for safety reasons, told us that “there is amafia in Cabañas” that involves “mayors, members of congress, and richpeople. They are involved in drug-trafficking and money laundering,”among other things, he said. Gustavo Pineda stated that “the linksbetween institutions and organized crime need to be investigated” tohalt the impunity in Cabañas. Ombudsman Menéndez Leal echoed theactivists’ position that “no line of investigation should be excluded”into the series of murders, including any political motives and that“Salvadoran society’s chronic and structural problem continues to beimpunity.”

In response to the petition lawyers from FESPAD submitted to theInter-American Commission, the Program for the Protection of Victimsand Witnesses has provided protection for several anti-miningactivists, including Francisco Pineda and staff at Radio Victoria. Butstaff at Radio Victoria told us that they often feel that the guardsassigned to them are investigating them more than protecting them. Whenthey were able to review logs which the guards kept on them, theydiscovered that the reports scrutinized their behavior in alarmingdetail. According to local Ombudsman Carlos Enrique Rodríguez, thebodyguards would often not allow victims who were local sustenancefarmers to harvest their own crops. As Yanira Cortez, the Ombudswomanfor the Environment in San Salvador, told us, “The children [in theprotected households] are afraid. They can’t grow up normally.”

Héctor Berríos gave up his protective accompaniment because thebodyguards had a “hostile attitude” and treated him and others “likecriminals.” In some cases, the authorities would lift the protectionwithout any apparent justification and without the requisite permissionof the Inter-American Commission, which is responsible for overseeingthe program. There is also reason to question the competence andprofessionalism of the security details. While the delegation was atthe house of Ramiro Rivera’s widow in La Trinidad, for instance, one ofthe guards accidentally shot himself in the finger, causing greatalarm, not least of all to our group of visitors.

On the Political Front

Activists Héctor Berríos and Alirio Hernández both told me that, inaddition to overtly collaborating with Pacific Rim, San Isidro MayorJosé Bautista carried out a vicious campaign to discredit MarceloRivera, who was a member of the Cabañas departmental board of the FMLN(the current president’s political party that was formerly theguerrilla movement in the civil war). Marcelo was also director of ASICand founder and director of the San Isidro Cultural Center. Accordingto Héctor and Alirio, Marcelo and other local activists were able tostop the 2009 elections because of major irregularities such as theparticipation of a large number of persons in the local elections whowere not residents of the community, including many Hondurans.

According to Antonio Pacheco, the Anti-Mining Roundtable lobbied fora bill to outlaw metallic mining in El Salvador, which was submitted tothe Salvadoran National Assembly in December 2007. The rationale wasthat the country has a population density of 350 persons per squarekilometer and that the country’s water supply has already deterioratedfrom pollution. Mining companies would further contaminate ElSalvador’s water reserves by releasing tons of cyanide and otherpoisons into the aquifer.

According to Pacheco, Pacific Rim authored its own bill in Decemberof the next year via the law firm of Dr. Chávez Mena and lawmakerOrlando Arévalo of the rightwing PCN party. This statute would have putthe awarding of mining permits into the hands of a professionalassociation and made acquisition of an operations concession automaticafter a prospecting permit has already been granted. The latter billwould also increase government duties on the respective company’sprofits from 2 percent to 3 percent. Neither of the bills passed.

In a nod to anti-mining activists, Salvadoran President MauricioFunes told a crowd in Cabañas this past January, “My government won’tauthorize any mining extraction projects.” When asked by protestors forrelevant anti-mining legislation, the President demanded that they“take him on his word.” According to Father Oscar Antonio Granados thisis “childish policy.” “El Salvador isn’t a monarchy,” said LuisFrancisco López Guzmán, an attorney working with the Anti-MiningRoundtable. “What the president says doesn’t automatically become law.”The President further committed to a “full investigation of the murdersof mining opponents,” but information from the public prosecutor is notyet forthcoming, according to Ombudswoman Yanira Cortez.

DR-CAFTA Arbitration

Right after FMLN candidate Mauricio Funes was elected El Salvador’snext President in March 2009, Pacific Rim evidently decided that itsoptions had run out and brought an arbitration proceeding against theSalvadoran government, on April 30 of last year. Under Chapter 10 of DR-CAFTA (the Central America, Dominican Republic, and US Free Trade Agreement), corporations can seek compensation for direct and indirect expropriation by government regulation, which is a euphemism for the company's actual lost investments and anticipated future lost profits.  This is the most controversialprovision under the NAFTA-style free trade agreements that the UnitedStates has negotiated with a number of countries in Latin America andthe Caribbean.

What makes the lawsuit, filed before the International Centre forSettlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) in Washington D.C., even moredraconian is that it judges the case purely on financial grounds.FESPAD has filed an amicus brief as a third party to the suit. AlthoughFESPAD’s filing addresses environmental and human rights concerns, itis unclear at this point to what extent the arbitration panel will taketheir arguments into consideration, according to Héctor Berríos, who isalso involved in the amicus brief.

For its part, Pacific Rim is a Canadian corporation and could onlybenefit from the DR-CAFTA provisions through opening a branch in Nevadain December 2007, [12]Pacific Rim Cayman LLC, which it evidently did to become eligible forDR-CAFTA protection. Meanwhile, the corporation continues the battlefor the hearts and minds of the public in El Salvador and abroad – asin this provocative statement:

El Salvador has mining laws, investment laws and environmental lawsin place. PacRim has complied with if not exceeded all of therequirements of these laws. The actions and inactions of the GOES[Government of El Salvador] over the past years have severely erodednot only Pacific Rim’s market value, but also El Salvador’s reputationas a place for foreign investment. Before El Salvador can hope toattract the future foreign investment sorely needed in this time ofeconomic crises, the country must demonstrate that it is willing toprotect and enforce the rights of existing foreign investors. [13]

According to Francisco Pineda, Salvadoran President Francisco Floresgranted Pacific Rim an exploration permit in 2002 that remained ineffect until 2005. In the opinion of Jennifer Link, director ofDemocracy and Governance at USAID in El Salvador, the Salvadorangovernment waited too long to deny Pacific Rim’s operations permit andtherefore broke its own rules. This interpretation would be thestrongest argument the corporation has in the arbitration proceeding.But, said Francisco Pineda, Pacific Rim never provided the requireddocumentation for the permit, including a proper environmental impactstudy. According to Dr. Robert Moran, an internationally recognizedhydro-geologist from the U.S. hired by ADES to review the environmentalimpact study, the company’s EIS “would not be acceptable to regulatoryagencies in most developed countries.” [14] Besides being scientifically defective, the EIS presented a number of issues only in English. [15]

According to attorney Yanira Cortez of the Ombudsperson’s office inSan Salvador, if Pacific Rim wins the lawsuit against the Salvadorangovernment, which in the words of Pacific Rim’s CEO is a claim for“hundreds of millions of dollars,” [16]it could only be awarded the monetary amount. The arbitration judgmentcould not compel the Salvadoran government to grant the permit. Butothers we spoke with pointed out that the arbitration proceeding couldserve as blackmail forcing the Salvadoran government to accept asettlement that approves the mine. Héctor Berríos calls it extortion:“‘You either let me extract the resources or you pay me.’”

A judgment of hundreds of millions of dollars, which would be asubstantial portion of the Salvadoran government’s annual budget, wouldhave a crippling effect on the state and use up funds that couldotherwise be spent on much-needed social programs, domestic security,and infrastructure projects. But the implications of an outcomefavorable to Pacific Rim are of even greater magnitude when consideredas a precedent. As a case in point, the joint venture of U.S. companiesCommerce Group Corp. has also filed DR-CAFTA arbitration proceedingsagainst the Salvadoran government.

Fueling Old Conflicts

At his office in a poor sector of San Salvador, Father Oscar AntonioGranados brought an important detail about El Salvador to ourattention. Creating the types of divisions that have occurred inCabañas has completely different ramifications in El Salvador than inCosta Rica or Nicaragua, where he also witnessed mining activity. Incontrast to Costa Rica, El Salvador recently experienced a bloody civilwar. Even though Nicaragua had a civil war of its own not too long ago,the much greater population density of El Salvador could potentiallyfuel greater conflict than has occurred in Nicaragua. In contrast, noone was killed in Costa Rica when Placer Dome came onto the scene.

But people have already been killed in Cabañas, and the realprospect for further violence remains. As a community leader, who didnot wish to be identified, told us, it looks unlikely the communitiesclose to the explored mines will tolerate the projects at any cost.Meanwhile, the activist community and the Salvadoran government arestill under tremendous pressure to concede to Pacific Rim’s wishes.“Community members already removed Pacific Rim’s equipment from thehilltop three times,” the source said. “If the company tries to operateagain, they might just burn it.” Pacific Rim’s project in Cabañas is apowder keg.

Leonard Morin, New York City, April 2010