In the presentation of the piece of work titled “The Route of Gold”, it was stated that the document is made up by guidelines to understand how mining is displacing rural indigenous and peasant communities.

One of its authors, the agronomist Mario Godinez told Real World Radio that one of the aims of the 70-page report is to explain the chain of gold intermediation, and its immediate consequence: the militarization of communities.

Godinez, member of the Association for the Promotion and Development of the Community – CEIBA, stated that the bursting in of the military and paramilitary forces not only does imply the control of the territories to be exploited, but also include “social control methods” to the communities.

Of approximately 4 thousand pages of information, we reached 70 pages of a report-guideline summarized, explained the member of CEIBA.

On the issue of the origin of the extractive companies, Godinez pointed out that the most prevalent are those from Canada and the US, although there are also Latin American companies involved in the extraction.

Displacement of communities

The method used to extend exploitations is based on deceit, since the land is bought to the communities in fictitious prices. “They offer them money, but do not “warn” them about the gold under them”, Godinez explained.

For this reason there are several resistance actions that are being carried out. For instance, Godinez talked about the case of a group of Guatemalan women who resist the installation of new exploitations by threatening to cut the electric power to these companies.

As a consequence, the Guatemalan government has imposed a state of exception in several regions, in some kind of localized sieges, under arguments of narcotraffic and terrorism control.

This has been possible due to “constitutions created in dictatorship times, and which have much of anti-insurgency in its contents”.

Alert by the Situation in El Salvador

On another subject and less than two weeks from the presidential elections in El Salvador, Godinez warned on a campaign of intolerance from the Alianza Republicana Nacionalista (ARENA) currently in office, towards the opposition of the Frente Farabundo Martí de Liberación Nacional (FMLN).

“El Salvador is a thriving country in Central America in terms of trade, and it has been sold as the example of a succesful economy”, stated Godinez.

The difference between the FMLN with reference to the conservative party has reduced significantly and the FMLN has been denouncing anomalies which are worth the concern of the international community.