Take Action! Sign Petition on Goldcorp's Marlin Mine

Participe en la acción urgente dirigida a Goldcorp - Versión en español

Canadian mining company with U.S. investors could leave indigenous communities with multi-million dollar bill to pay.

We need your support to help defend the rights of indigenous peoples affected by mining in Guatemala's western highlands.

On April 26, Goldcorp will hold its Annual General Meeting (AGM) of shareholders in South Porcupine, Ontario.  During the meeting, shareholders will have the opportunity to vote on a resolution asking the company to ensure an adequate and fully funded closure plan for the Marlin mine and to consult with affected communities throughout the process. 

Only shareholders can officially vote on the resolution, but we need you to take action today.  Please cast your symbolic vote in favor of the resolution by signing Amnesty International's petition.

Let Goldcorp know that affected communities, advocates and people with indirect investments are also calling on the company to take full responsibility for recuperating the mine site.

Goldcorp's Marlin Mine in Guatemala is one of the company's most profitable gold mines, but the mine has been operating - and expanding - without the consent of indigenous peoples whose drinking water and farm lands may be affected.  Goldcorp pledges $28 million for mine closure costs, but has posted a mere $1 million financial guarantee. Respected, independent studies indicate the company has grossly underestimated the real costs of mine closure, which could be at least $49 million over many years.  The mine is expected to close in 2018.  Guatemalans shouldn't pay to clean up Goldcorp's mess.

Take a minute to urge mining company Goldcorp to act responsibly, and respect the rights of communities near the mine.

The shareholder resolution and the petition are supported by communities in Guatemala. The number of sign-ons will also be presented to the company and media at the time of the AGM.

NISGUA is working closely with our Guatemalan counterparts and our international coalition partners to plan events and actions for the week of Goldcorp's annual meeting.

Thank you for your time and for standing in solidarity with the communities affected by the Marlin mine in Guatemala.

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For more information on mining in Guatemala:

• Visit NISGUA's website and the Goldcorp out of Guatemala site.
• Press Release - Shareholders Say Guatemalans Should Not Have to Pay for Goldcorp's Mess
• Comunicado de prensa - El pueblo guatemalteco no debería pagar por los trastornos de Goldcorp

Visit our international coalition partners' websites:

• Amnesty International Canada
• Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL) 
• Maritimes - Guatemala Breaking the Silence Network
• MiningWatch Canada
• Movimiento M4

Photo Credit:  James Rodriguez - MiMundo

NISGUA visits Sponsoring Community in Washington, D.C. area

The victim asks the bystander to share the burden of pain.  The victim demands action, engagement and remembering. ... To hold traumatic reality in consciousness requires a social context that affirms and protects the victim and that joins victim and witness in a common alliance. ... In the absence of strong political movements for human rights, the active process of bearing witness inevitably gives way to the active process of forgetting.

--Dr. Judith Herman, "Trauma and Recovery: The aftermath of violence --from domestic abuse to political terror"

I was recently invited to Washington, D.C. by the Partners for Arlington in Guatemala (PAG), a project of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Arlington, VA (UUCA).   Reading Dr. Herman's book on the way home, I was reflecting on the power of bearing witness and what that really looked like in the community I'd just visited. 

UUCA-PAG is one of nine Sponsoring Communities in NISGUA's network that support accompaniers to work in Guatemala.  As a Sponsoring Community they contribute to the efficacy of accompaniment as a tool to dissuade human rights violations.  In addition to financially and morally supporting individual accompaniers, UUCA-PAG educates their local community, takes action in the face of ongoing human rights violations, advocates for just US policies in the region and agitates against transnational mining corporations.  If each of us is a granito, an individual grain of sand doing our part, then Sponsoring Communities like UUCA-PAG are buckets of sand, adding more volume and weight to the human rights and social justice movements.

Chris and John Sutton from UUCA-PAG

UUCA's international solidarity work is made more powerful by the work they engage in locally.  VOICE (Virginians Organized for Interfaith Community Engagement) includes the church in a coalition of over 50 organizations organizing to build community power.  Their current campaign is affordable housing.  Visiting the church during a mid-week evening, one could see numerous meetings and study groups happening; the one I visited was a group formed to study the issue of immigration.  During Sunday service, the high school youth group talked about their upcoming national assembly and likened strategies of allying with immigrants to accompaniment work.  UUCA has also been developing a relationship with their neighbors in Buckingham Village, a housing complex with a large immigrant community.  As Buckhingham residents don't have access to land for cultivating, a growing number of UUCA members have been loaning their yards and gardens.  Guatemalans who come from rural farmworker origins are growing corn and other crops in suburban Arlington, VA.

I was struck by the many different facets of solidarity the church is engaged in and was honored to meet the activists of this community who actively work in allyship with the Guatemalans we accompany. 

Almost everyone I spoke to had either visited Guatemala, met an accompanier or was otherwise educated on the issues facing Guatemala today.  Together, we were able to celebrate recent victories in the fight for justice for crimes of the past, while strategizing on how accompaniment will face the challenges presented by the current administration of Gen. Otto Perez Molina.  There was great concern expressed about President Pérez Molina's statements denying that genocide had ever taken place in Guatemala.

After those discussions, on the plane back to Guatemala, this passage from "Trauma and Recovery" resonated with me:

In order to escape accountability for his crimes, the perpetrator does everything in his power to promote forgetting.  Secrecy and silence are the perpetrator's first line of defense.  If secrecy fails, the perpetrator attacks the credibility of the victim.  If he cannot silence her absolutely, he tries to make sure no one listens.  To this end, he marshals an impressive array of arguments, from the most blunt detail to the most sophisticated and elegant rationalization.  After every atrocity one can expect to hear the same predictable apologies: it never happened; the victim lies; the victim exaggerates; the victim brought it upon herself; and in any case it is time to forget the past and move on.  The more powerful the perpetrator, the greater is his prerogative to name and define reality, and the more completely his arguments prevail.

It is a powerful responsibility to bear witness and stand with survivors who today continue to fight against historical amnesia.  To hear the demands and testimony of Guatemalans we accompany compels us to amplify those demands, to counteract the secrecy and lies of the perpetrators and to build movements in alliance with them.  To honor this responsibility requires many levels of commitment and action, many granitos de arena, many grains of sand and we look forward to engaging in that work with UUCA-PAG in Arlington and all the people involved in NISGUA's sponsoring community, former accompaniers and activist network.

To participate in a house party screening of "Granito: How to Nail a Dictator" to support NISGUA's work, please contact us.

Staff member Bridget Brehen works in NISGUA's Guatemala City office.