what is happening to the social and the cultural fabric of the people who oppose these mining projects.”
Ana Linares and Jose Angel have voiced environmental and human-rights concerns over Canadian companies that want to mine in their native El Salvador.
For SFU undergraduate student Ana Linares, there are things more important than gold at stake in the fight against the mining company. “There’s a fear that if Pacific Rim wins the right to mine in El Salvador, it will set a precedent for other mining companies to go and do the same thing,” Linares told the Georgia Straight. “The problem is that El Salvador is a very, very small country. It’s very densely populated, and so the people feel that the mining is not sustainable, especially with the water resources. There are water shortages in El Salvador. The biggest river in the country—the Lempa River—is highly endangered. There’s fear that the mining will also further damage an already vulnerable river ecosystem.”
Linares, who is of Salvadoran descent, has joined the campaign to raise public awareness in Vancouver of the activities of Pacific Rim. At the age of six, Linares arrived in Canada with her family in the mid 1980s as a bloody civil war raged in El Salvador.
“Canadians are well-known about [respect for] human rights,” she said. “But when we have Canadian mining companies…developing projects in Third World countries, it’s important for us to know the consequences of those projects, what is happening to the social and the cultural fabric of the people who oppose these mining projects.”
Pacific Rim has strongly denied any involvement in the killings. In a phone interview with the Straight, its Vancouver-based vice president for investor relations, Barbara Henderson, claimed that the company has enjoyed “overwhelming” community backing since it began operations in Cabañas in 2002. “Our experience working there has been overall extremely positive,” she said.
According to Henderson, the company stopped exploration activity at its El Dorado site in July 2008 following inaction by the Salvadoran government on its application for an environmental permit.
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