The Social Medicine Portal

Gold, Pacific Rim and “The Salvador Option” in El Dorado, Cabanas, El Salvador

Gold, Pacific Rim and “The Salvador Option” in El Dorado, Cabanas, El Salvador

A few years back, when the US was worrying about opposition groups in Iraq operating out of Syria, the proposal was made to attempt “The Salvador Option” (Newsweek, 1/10/05, see also The New Statesman at http://www.newstatesman.com/200501310012). Ah, what was that? Why, just as the USA did in El Salvador (and Honduras, under John Negroponte’s watch), a plan to create rogue death squads in Iraq with a license to kill. What was done from that suggestion, I don’t know, but the fact that it was even considered and that it was called “The Salvador Option” says so much about US foreign policy (during its proposal, John Negroponte was US Ambassador to Iraq) that we must highlight that plan and keep its consideration fresh to prevent such atrocities.

Tragically, the (El) Salvador Option has, for community environment activists, returned to the site of its name, this time with the unhappy association of a transnational mining company based in Canada and the United States by the name of Pacific Rim. For an interview covering the tragedies, please see Democracy Now (http://www.democracynow.org/2009/12/29/ ).

The summary is that on 26 December a 32 year old, 8 month pregnant environmental activist named Dora Alicia Sorto Recinos was shot while carrying another of her children (also shot, but who survived), making her death the second within one week of an environmental activist opposed to Pacific Rim reopening the currently closed mine of El Dorado, and the third this year. See www.cispes.org for details of Ms. Sorto Recinos’ death and that of Ramiro Rivera, vice-president of the local Environmental Committee, who was killed on 20 December in front of his daughter, despite the police escort with him since he was shot 8 times last August. A 52 year old woman riding with him was also killed.

The first environmental and community activist killed was Marcelo Rivera (no relation to Ramiro Rivera), a teacher and cultural center director who was abducted 18 June 2009 and found dead a few weeks later in a well, his body showing signs of torture. See “The Mysterious Death of Marcelo Rivera” on Youtube, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yvXm52BhSHQ .

Pacific Rim, with golden tongue, has denied having anything to do with the death of Marcelo (see its official statement at http://pica-blog.blogspot.com/2009/09/pacific-rim-responds-to-report-about.html  and its official plan of exploitation of El Dorado at http://www.pacrim-mining.com/s/Eldorado.asp ).

Pacific Rim, which was denied its permit to extract gold in El Salvador in April 2009, largely due to the efforts of Marcelo Rivera, has since applied for arbitration under the US-Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) to obtain millions of dollars in compensation for the closing of the mine. You can read the report that drew the Pacific Rim denial, published on13 August 2009 by Real News, available at http://therealnews.com/t/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=411 For deeper exploration of corporate greed and how trade trumps health and the environment in international treaties, see NOW with Bill Moyers on “Trading Democracy” at http://www.pbs.org/now/transcript/transcript_tdfull.html

“The Salvador Option” is an unhealthy one for all concerned, including for environmental and community activists in Cabanas, El Salvador, which is contiguous with Honduras. Authorities from El Salvador, Canada and the USA must work to get to the bottom of who is killing environmentalists in Cabanas, and stop the killing. If this is happening in El Salvador, it is happening to all of us, everywhere.