Mining Resistance: Lessons from Guatemala and Mexico

This post is also available in: Spanish

Barite mine near Nebaj Photo Anna Vogt

Tobias Roberts is an MCC service worker in Nebaj, Guatemala 

Grassroots advocacy work in Central America isn´t usually a job that yields many astounding success stories.  More often, it is sadly comparable to the despairing effort of a 5 foot 2 inch, 100 pound weakling ninth grader who incessantly practices his jump shot on a winter day while dreaming of one day playing in the NBA though forlornly realizing that his dream will probably never come true. That metaphor may or may not be auto-biographical.

In Guatemala, accompanying the Mayan indigenous population in their persistent struggle to maintain control over their ancestral territories, resources and traditional ways of life is frustrating, to say the least.  Despite jurisprudence anchored in national and international law that supposedly recognizes, respects, and defends the rights of the majority Mayan population, the Guatemalan government, the oligarchy it serves, and the interests of transnational corporations consistently trump the rights and wellbeing of the Mayan people.  When Mayan communities dare to determinedly defend their rights and territories, government sponsored bloodshed is oftentimes more common than negotiation or dialogue.

Due to this rather depressing reality, it´s important to highlight the occasional successful advocacy work, though it may be few and far between.  Thus, we share this brief account of the resistance of the Mayan Ixil people not to blow our own horn, but rather to offer forth the hope that advocacy work isn´t completely futile.

Since the 1970´s, the Mayan Ixil communities of Nebaj, Guatemala have resisted the exploitation of a barite mine located in a communal forest in the northern part of their ancestral territory.  Barite is a mineral used primarily for the drilling of oil wells. With the ascent of the fracking industry, barite is in high demand.  In 2001, the government of Guatemala issued forth an extraction license for the barite mine.  As is the case with all mining permits in Guatemala, the local community was never consulted or even informed of the proposed mine.

After bouncing between different companies, the barite mine license eventually fell into the hands of Jorge Luis Avalos, a Mexican born, Guatemalan businessman with enormous ties to the mining and chemical industries of Guatemala.  Avalos began exploitation of the mine in 2005, but when a local water spring mysteriously went dry, local communities expelled the mining venture.

Recently, Avalos tried to sell the mining license to Double Crown Resources, a North-American based mining company.  Due to the extremely bad track record of multinational mining corporations in Central America (Goldcorp, for example), local communities began to worry.   When the news went public, MCC along with other national and international NGO´s supported the Mayan Ixil communities call to annul the license and due to this national and international media pressure, Avalos cancelled the agreement with Double Crown.

MCC Mexico supports Otros Mundos, a Mexican NGO that, among other things has supported the community of Chicomuselo, Chiapas in their resistance to another barite mine operated by Blackfire Exploration, a Canadian based mining company.  The communities of Chicomuselo, after years of resistance, were able to expel the Canadian company from their municipality after Mariano Abarca, a prominent anti-mining community organizer was assassinated by people with ties to the mining company and the local government.  In September of 2014, MCC helped to organize a visit of Mayan Ixil ancestral authorities to the communities in Chicomuselo, Chiapas.

During the two day visit, José Luis Abarca, son of the martyred Mariano, and other community leaders shared their experiences related to the business of barite mining and the long process of resistance.  A visit to the old mine site confirmed the ecological destruction that mining unavoidably causes.  During the last night of the visit, José Luis lamented that “resisting big mining companies oftentimes brings with it the death of those of us who defend our rights and our land.  In our case, it was my father who was killed.  In your communities, you have to ask yourselves who is going to be killed for the cause of the land and the community.”  The Mayan Ixil ancestral authorities returned to their communities determined to continue defending their communal land, their communities, and their rights.

In November of 2014, Mayan Ixil leaders were able to bring Jorge Luis Avalos, owner of the mining license, to Nebaj for negotiations.  Avalos arrived determined to convince the communities of the “benefits” that barite mining would bring to the local community.  His power point presentation elaborated upon the job opportunities that the mine would create and the lack of environmental impact that the mine would have.  During one point in the presentation, Avalos mentioned the mine in Chicomuselo.

When he stated that “there is another barite mine in Chicomuselo, Mexico that offered great advantages to the local population”, a round of skeptical laughter filled the room.  Lu Pa´l, member of the Indigenous authorities of the Mayan Ixil people interrupted Avalos and reproachfully asked: “How can you say that the mine in Chicomuselo was good for the people there?  We´ve been to Chicomuselo and have seen the mine and its effects.  The only thing it brought to the community was death, and that we will not accept.”

At that point in the negotiation, Avalos realized that he was not going to be successful in convincing the communities of the supposed benefits of barite mining.  Various members of the Ixil authorities thanked Avalos for coming but insisted that the community was vehemently opposed to the barite mine and would not tolerate the presence of any uninvited mining company.  Avalos dejectedly accepted (for now) the decision of the Ixil communities and promised that he and his mining company would respect the community´s decision and not proceed with plans for the barite mine.

This supposed “success” story is far from finished.  Avalos still has the mining license which is official until 2021 and it would be foolish to believe that he or another company that he might try to sell the license to will simply disregard the promising profitability of a huge source of a high demand mineral.  Nonetheless, a victory is a victory and should be celebrated and shared.  The advocacy work of using the international media to draw attention to under the table business deals and connecting communities facing similar struggles and sharing the same resistance were in this case successful.

We hope that MCC and other international organizations will continue in the long and tedious work of supporting communities throughout Central America and the world in the defense of their lands, their communities and their rights.