EVENT: Global Day of Action Against Mining

Simultaneous rallies are being organized in several cities around to world for July 22nd to raise awareness about mining issues as part of a global day of action against mining.

The following call-out from the community of Cerro de San Pedro calling for the Global Day of Action Against Open-Pit Mining:

Protesters outside the shareholders meeting of Metallica Resources (now called New Gold) show their support for affected communities in Cerro de San Pedro, Mexico.

The methods and technology used in open-pit mining operations causes the destruction and exhaustion of the planet’s ecosystems. Removing forest cover, destroying soils, contaminating both running water and underground reservoirs, dividing communities, bribing officials, threatening, blackmailing, and violating human rights are all common practice for open-pit mining projects around the world.

Quit investing in violations of human rights

In contrast with its self-proclaimed ‘environmental awareness’, Canada is the global leader in open-pit mining. Canadian-based transnational corporations (TNCs) control 51% of global mining capital and Mexico in particular had a big role to play in Canada’s rise to become the world mining champion.

Human rights above mining rights

The neoliberal policies implemented in Mexico since the mid-1980s, codified and consolidated by the creation of NAFTA, were of great importance for Canadian mining companies. The erosion of labour rights aside, it is the repression of environmental movements, increasing militarization and autocracy, and the forced eviction of entire communities that have allowed for the establishment and survival of mining projects.

Mining companies must stop extraction

As of 2007, the Mexican government has granted 438 mining concessions, most of them going to Canadian companies. In the state of Chiapas alone, 72 projects cover 727,435ha of land (slightly larger than the Palestinian Occupied Territories). Half of this territory is now owned by two Canadian companies: Linear Gold and the Frontier Development Group. The territory passed into private ownership without the knowledge, let alone consent, of the communities located there, most of whom are peasants and indigenous people. The same is happening in the states of Zacatecas, Chihuahua, Sonora, Oaxaca, and Coahuila.

Rape of mother earth

A similar fate awaits much of the world. Canadian mining companies are at work in Peru, Chile, Argentina, Bolivia, Guatemala, Brasil, Panama, Honduras, Colombia, Ecuador, El Salvador, the Philippines, Surinam, Ghana, Congo, Tanzania, Sudan, Zambia, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, the United States, and Canada itself!

Mining Scmining!

*It is for these reasons that we call for a Global Day of Action Against Open-pit Mining on July 22nd. Given Canada’s leading role in the global mining industry, we call for peaceful demonstrations in front of Canadian embassies across the world in order to show our condemnation of these mining projects that only leave behind desolation, poverty, and death for our people while enriching the few.*

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Affected communities around the world are reaching out to Canadians to reject the harms done to them by Canadian mining companies.

Peaceful rallies are now being planned in response to their calls in Toronto, Montreal, London, Mexico, Australia, the Philippines, and more.

In Toronto:

Wednesday 22, 2009

4:30-7:00

130 King Street West (outside the Toronto Stock Exchange)

For more on the harmful effects of the global mining industry see:

Someone Else’s Treasure