Rights Action -- SPEAKING TOUR NORTH AMERICAN MINING COMPANIES versus CENTRAL AMERICAN COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT NEEDS

 Is your organization, educational or religious institution, union, etc, interested in hosting education events in your community?

WHEN:  March 2005

WHERE:  Canada / North-east USA (depending on demand) 

WHO:  Sandra Cuffe, a global justice activist living in Central America, working for Rights Action, and a Honduran or Guatemalan community development activist whose community has been negatively affected by global mining company operations.

INTERESTED IN HOSTING EVENTS: Grahame Russell, 416-654-2074, info@rightsaction.org 

GUATEMALA & HONDURAS: THE GLOBAL INVESTOR'S OASIS

 Central America is currently undergoing an aggressive phase of what some call neo-colonialist expansion.  On-going militarism in Latin America accompanies mainly North American efforts to secure control over and exploitation of the region’s resources: minerals, land and water, not to mention cheap labour.

CAFTA (Central American Free Trade Agreement) with the US will further “liberalize” the region in the same way that NAFTA “liberalized” Mexico. Trade negotiations with Canada are also underway. 

A majority of impoverished Central Americans already live in poverty, consequence of a historically exploitative "development" model as well as the more recent "structural adjustment policies" of the IMF. 

MINING – “DEVELOPMENT” FOR WHOM? Mining operations offer a clear example of the type of 'development' promoted by the U.S. and Canadian governments, global companies and the International Financial Institutions.  The World Bank, which invests in mining companies and insures their investments, has supported the 'modernization' of mining legislation in a number of countries from the Global South, including Honduras and Guatemala; 'modernization' that simply means favouring multinational mining companies at the expense of the development and human rights needs of local communities. 

GLAMIS GOLD in HONDURAS & GUATEMALA Specific examples are the “Marlin project” in Guatemala and the disastrous “San Martin mine” in Honduras, both owned by the Canadian/US company Glamis Gold. In addition to mines and projects underway, huge portions of national territory (over 30% in Honduras' case) have been granted in mining concessions to mining corporations principally from Canada and the United States. 

Hidden from the public eye, and granted without consultation, many of these concessions fall within Indigenous lands, in direct violation of the ILO Convention 169 that Indigenous and development groups in Honduras and Guatemala successfully fought to have ratified. 

On behalf of Rights Action, Sandra Cuffe is finishing a report on these mining and community development issues, that she will be presenting and talking about on the speaking tour. 

THIS EDUCATIONAL SPEAKING TOUR is being organized by Rights Action.  We will ask interested organizations to contribute towards the over-all costs of the tour. 

INTERESTED IN HOSTING EVENTS: Grahame Russell, 416-654-2074, info@rightsaction.org