JAVIER de LEON: Javier is a Mayan Mam community leader from the village of Maquivil, municipality of San Miguel Ixtahuacan, department of San Marcos. From his small home, he looks across at Goldcorp’s ever expanding open-pit, cyanide-leaching gold mine – the “Marlin” mine. Since 2004, Javier has been educating and organizing Mayan Mam communities and working to resist and demand justice for the health and environmental harms and human rights violations caused by Goldcorp’s mine.

CARLOS AMADOR: Carlos is a teacher and community leader in El Porvenir, 15 kilometres from Goldcorp’s open-pit, cyanide-leaching gold mine – the “San Martin” mine. Since 2000, Carlos has been educating and organizing local communities in the Siria Valley, and working to resist and demand justice for the health and environmental harms and human rights violations caused by Goldcorp’s mine.

KAREN SPRING: Karen is from Ontario, Canada. With Rights Action since early 2009, she lives and works in Honduras and Guatemala.

RESISTANCE TO HARMFUL MINING:

Since 2000, Rights Action has been supporting and involved with struggles related to Goldcorp Inc’s open-pit, cyanide-bonding mines in Honduras and Guatemala, and related to HudBay Mineral’s nickel mine (formerly owned by INCO and then Skye Resources) in Guatemala. (At http://www.rightsaction.org, there is extensive information about health and environmental harms and human rights violations linked to these mines and companies.)

The speakers will give first hand testimony, and show photos and documentary films, of the environmental and health harms and human rights violations caused directly and indirectly by Goldcorp’s mines in Guatemala and Honduras. With Karen as a co-speaker, they will focus critical attention on Canadian government, corporate and investor policies, as build up to Goldcorp’s annual shareholder meeting in Toronto, on May 19th.

DONATIONS TO SUPPORT GRASSROOTS MOVEMENT IN HONDURAS AND GUATEMALA

We will also accept donations at this event and contribute the funds towards the over-all costs of having the speakers from Honduras and Guatemala to come to Canada. All profits from this fund raising will go to the community based organizations that Rights Action supports and works with in Honduras and Guatemala.

** This event is supported by:
Indigenous Environmental Network (IEN),
Indigenous Peoples Solidarity Movement Ottawa (IPSMO),
Ontario Public Interest Research Group – University of Ottawa (OPIRG-Ottawa)
Territorio Libre
Public Services Alliance Canada National Solidarity Fund
MiningWatch Canada

and The Ottawa-Gatineau Coalition against Gold Mining in El Salvador:
Amanecer Ranchero FM 89.1
Amnesty International, Business and Human Rights Program
Breaking the Silence
Christian Hispanic Community of Emmanuel United Church
Committee for Human Rights in Latin America (CDHAL)
Emmanuel United Church
FMLN Ottawa-Gatineau
Magazine Vision Latina
MiningWatch Canada
Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC), Social Justice Fund
Rights Action
Salvadorian Canadian Association of Ottawa and National Capital Region (ASCORCAN)
Salvadorian Women’s Committee of Ottawa-Gatineau
Salvaide
School of Political Studies of the University of Ottawa
Territorio Libre

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