Four years ago, residents of the southeastern Guatemalan municipality of Mataquescuintla held a municipal referendum in which 98.42% of participants voted against the presence of resource extraction projects in their territories. This past Friday, the municipality re-affirmed its commitment to uphold that decision and continue to stand up against [...]
November 16, 2016 (Ottawa/Toronto/Vancouver/Reno/Washington/Guatemala) North American organizations are dismayed and deeply troubled by the execution-style murder of 22 year-old Jeremy Abraham Barrios Lima, assistant to the director of the Guatemalan Centre for Legal, Environmental and Social Action (CALAS), on Saturday in Guatemala City. A group of Canadian and US [...]
The following article was written in collaboration with the Network in Solidarity with the People of Guatemala, the Maritimes-Guatemala Breaking the Silence Network, MiningWatch Canada, and the Progressive Leadership Alliance of Nevada. In February 2016 houses in the village of La Cuchilla in the municipality of San Rafael Las [...]
PRESS RELEASE Tuesday, November 1, 2016 Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL) - Network in Solidarity with the People of Guatemala (NISGUA) - Progressive Leadership Alliance of Nevada (PLAN) Today, the British Columbia Court of Appeals in Vancouver, Canada will revisit a procedural motion in the case of seven [...]
Community members from La Cuchilla in the municipality of San Rafael las Flores are concerned about major cracks in the foundation of their houses that have developed since Tahoe Resources' began mining operations at the neighboring Escobal mine. They claim that the cracks are due to explosions and an increase [...]
News Release August 11, 2016 (GUATEMALA CITY/OAKLAND/TORONTO) - The US Security and Exchange Commission (SEC) is being asked to investigate a Canadian mining company with offices in Reno, Nevada and operations in Guatemala. The Justice and Corporate Accountability Project (JCAP), based in Canada, will submit a thirty-five-page report on [...]
News Release: Source: Mining Watch Canada - Network in Solidarity with the People of Guatemala (NISGUA) (Ottawa/Guatemala City) Today, a letter from Guatemalans living in the vicinity of Gunpoint Exploration’s ‘El Escorpión’ project was sent to the company raising concerns about inadequate disclosure in company filings, particularly considering overwhelming results [...]
This weekend, the municipality of Quesada, Jutiapa held a consultation in which 99% of voters expressed their firm opposition to resource extraction activities taking place in their territories. Consultations organized at the community and municipal levels have been one of the many ways Guatemalans have organized in defense of [...]
(Guatemala City/Ottawa/Tatamagouche) On Monday, plaintiffs in the criminal case against Tahoe Resources’ former security manager, Alberto Rotondo, were informed that he had escaped police custody. Rotondo is accused of having ordered private security guards to attack peaceful protestors outside the Escobal mine in southeastern Guatemala on April 27, 2013, [...]
Source: Maritimes-Guatemala Breaking the Silence Network - MiningWatch Canada - Network in Solidarity with the People of Guatemala (Ottawa/Oakland/Tatamagouche) Canadian and US organizations are calling a British Columbia judge’s refusal to hear a lawsuit against Tahoe Resources over violence at its Guatemala mine site wilfully blind to the gravity of [...]
NISGUA's 2015 speaking tour "Tahoe On Trial: Guatemalan Communities Rise up to Defend Land and Life" set out to raise awareness about Tahoe Resources, a joint US-Canadian silver mining company, and its contribution to human rights violations around its Escobal silver project in southeastern Guatemala. We were joined by the [...]
Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL) – Maritimes-Guatemala Breaking the Silence Network (BTS) – MiningWatch Canada – Network in Solidarity with the People of Guatemala (NISGUA) – Projet Accompagnement Québec Guatemala (PAQG) (Guatemala/Ottawa/Washington/Tatamagouche) Fifty-five international organizations are calling for an investigation into the second armed attack in as many years [...]
On Saturday, October 17, armed assailants shot at six people in Mataquescuintla, Jalapa, Guatemala, where communities have organized in peaceful resistance to Tahoe Resources’ Escobal mine project. Among those injured was Alex Reynoso, an environmental defender and member of the Mataquescuintla mining resistance movement in southeastern Guatemala. Alex remains [...]
Criminalizing protest and free speech across borders NISGUA’s Tahoe on Trial speaking tour kicked off yesterday by going right to the U.S. source - Tahoe’s U.S. headquarters in Reno, Nevada. We were honored to join local indigenous leaders and activists organized with the Nevada Progressive Leadership Alliance (PLAN Nevada) [...]
For the past five years, communities impacted by Tahoe Resources' Escobal mine in southeastern Guatemala have stood up to peacefully defend their lands and livelihoods. The Diocesan Committee in the Defense of Nature (CODIDENA) has led this movement – organizing and carrying out community referenda in which more than [...]
Article written in collaboration with MiningWatch Canada and the Maritimes-Guatemala Breaking the Silence Network. If the militarized security strategy that Tahoe Resources has used to put its Escobal silver mine into operation isn’t enough to raise questions about the ethics of the company’s operations in Guatemala, the recent resignation of Guatemalan President [...]
On July 12, 2015, the Guatemalan Center for Environmental and Social Legal Action (CALAS) filed criminal charges against former Minister of the Ministry of Energy and Mines (MEM), Erick Archila, and former mines director at MEM, Fernando Castellanos. CALAS is accusing Archila and Castellanos of violating the Constitution and [...]
In honor of World Environment Day, communities impacted by Tahoe Resources' Escobal mine did what they have consistently done since the mining company came on to their lands - stand up for land, water and life against mega-development extraction. The situation is critical: just over a year into the [...]
On April 30th and May 8th respectively, Goldcorp and Tahoe Resources held their Annual General Meetings (AGM) in Canada to discuss their FY2014 accomplishments and future expansion plans at their mine sites in Guatemala. What was missing, however, were the many voices of those impacted by Goldcorp and Tahoe's [...]
UPDATED May 1, 2015 Last night, Roberto de Jesus Pivaral y Pivaral was release from police custody due to lack of evidence, and all charges against him were dropped. Pivaral was charged with murder on April 21 (see information below). He was held for 10 days after being arrested [...]
(Guatemala City/Ottawa) Monday, a Guatemalan judge denied bail to the Administrative Manager and Legal Representative, Carlos Roberto Morales Monzón, of Tahoe Resources’ subsidiary, Minera San Rafael S.A., and ordered him to pre-trial detention on charges of industrial contamination. The Guatemala's Public Prosecutors' Office for Crimes Against the Environment launched [...]
An affidavit given on November 24, 2014 by Donald Paul Gray, vice president of the Canadian mining company Tahoe Resources Inc., has shed light on the strong interests at play since 2011 in contracting private security companies for the Escobal mining project in San Rafael Las Flores, Santa Rosa. [...]
Source: Amnesty International Canada – MiningWatch Canada - Network in Solidarity with the People of Guatemala (NISGUA) April 7, 2015 (Guatemala City/Ottawa/Vancouver) Wiretap transcripts ordered by Guatemala’s Public Prosecutor of Tahoe Resources’ former head of security, Alberto Rotondo, in connection with an April 27, 2013 shooting outside its Escobal [...]
"In the face of a storm, some animals go underground and bury their heads. But eagles fly above the storm. We need to be like the eagles...with this storm upon us, we choose to rise higher, knowing that our struggle is one that has value and dignity." Teresa Muñoz, [...]
Tuesday, February 3, 2015 (Ottawa/Guatemala) North American shareholders in Tahoe Resources should follow the Norway's Council on Ethics’s lead and divest say Canadian and U.S. organizations. They urge Canadian and U.S. investors to make use of a report published last week that recommends the exclusion of Tahoe Resources from [...]
Source: Center for Environmental, Social and Legal Action (CALAS) - MiningWatch Canada - Network in Solidarity with the People of Guatemala (NISGUA) (Guatemala City/Ottawa) On Wednesday, a Guatemalan judge decided that Tahoe’s former security manager, Alberto Rotondo, should stand trial for his role in a shooting attack on peaceful [...]
"Second Anniversary, Municipal Consultation as requested by Residents." Photo: CPR Urbana “Authorities will come and go, but it’s the responsibility of the people to uphold this decision,” says Moisés Divas to a large crowd gathered in the central park in the municipality of Mataquescuintla, Jalapa, located less than six [...]
Haga clic aquí para leer en españo. The maps below were created as part of a collective, community-based process to build awareness around the existence of mining exploration and exploitation licenses in the department of Santa Rosa, Jalapa and Jutiapa. The initiative was led by local Guatemalan communities and [...]
For additional background on this case see the article: A cheat sheet for Kevin McArthur on Tahoe Resources' tactics to silence opposition in Guatemala PRESS RELEASE Friday, October 17, 2014 Source: Committee in Defense of Life and Peace of San Rafael Las Flores - Guatemalan Centre for Environmental, Social [...]
"Water and life are worth more than silver or gold. You are intelligent, don't let them fool you." Community organized billboard campaign in Santa Rosa and Jalapa. Photo NISGUA In February 2013, the community of San Juan Bosco, located just 8 miles from Tahoe Resources' massive Escobal silver mine, [...]
In an historic resolution, a Guatemalan Appeals Court ruled last week that the government must take into account the right to free, prior and informed consent when granting mining licenses on the lands of indigenous communities. The ruling came in response to a legal action presented by the Sipakapense [...]
Source: MiningWatch Canada - Network in Solidarity with the People of Guatemala (NISGUA) - Maritimes-Guatemala Breaking the Silence Network June 18, 2014 (Ottawa/Tatamagouche/Guatemala City) A civil lawsuit filed today in Vancouver against Tahoe Resources for negligence and battery in connection with a shooting at the company’s silver project in [...]
(Ottawa/Toronto) A sixteen year old Guatemalan girl, Topacio Reynoso, was murdered on April 13, 2014 near her home town of Mataquescuintla, Guatemala where she was head of a youth movement against mining. Her father, a leader in organizing a municipal vote on the mine, was shot in the same [...]
Merilyn Topacio Reynoso Pacheco, 1997 - 2014. (Photo: Danilo Zuleta) Two weeks have passed since the deadly attack against Alex and Topacio Reynoso, community leaders from Mataquescuintla, Jalapa who were actively opposed to Tahoe Resources' Escobal mine in southeastern Guatemala. Topacio, just 16 years old, was killed, [...]
Late Sunday night, around 10:30PM, father and daughter activists involved in the resistance against Tahoe Resources' Escobal Mine, Edwin Alex Reynoso and Merilyn Topacio Reynoso, were attacked by unknown suspects. Alex and Topacio were on their way home from Matequescuintla after attending an activity there. Topacio was shot and [...]
Please show your support for mining-affected communities in the area of Tahoe's Escobal project! Take action with this online petition directed at President, CEO and Director of Tahoe Resources, Kevin McArthur. (Versión original en español abajo) (Guatemala City/Ottawa) Contrary to Tahoe Resources’ recent claims, tens of thousands of people oppose [...]
While community opposition to Tahoe Resources’ Escobal project grows and wins support from the Constitutional Court, the company remains on the defense trying to convince investors that it enjoys “strong local community support.” However, the record of local votes in neighboring communities and municipalities, betrays a different reality. More [...]
Jalapa has said NO to mining. Photo: Xinka Parliament On Sunday, November 10, in a community consultation in the municipality of Jalapa, 23,152 people said NO to chemical metal mining. Members of Santa María Xalapán and other indigenous Xinca communities in Jalapa requested the popular vote in order to [...]
The time has come to support community resistance to the Escobal mine by echoing their voices internationally. Take Action! Write Kevin McArthur, President of Tahoe Resources, to demand the company respect communities' right to self-determination and leave Guatemala! Since communities surrounding Tahoe Resource's Escobal silver mine first organized community [...]
“In order to suffer what we have suffered, we must be committed. We have to imagine ourselves like pencils; if we aren't worn down, then we aren't doing our part” - Community leader from Jalapa arrested in September for protesting against Tahoe Resources' Escobal silver mine Just over one [...]
