Atico Mining: Environmental Impact and Social Injustice Issues
100+ Organizations Voice Deep Concern Over Violence to Advance Canada’s Atico Mining Project in Ecuador
Quito/Ottawa. Today 108 human rights and environmental organizations sent a letter to Atico Mining Corporation and the president of Ecuador urging a stop to the militarization, criminalization, and intimidation of the campesino, Montubio, and Indigenous communities of Palo Quemado (Sigchos, Cotopaxi) affected by the Canadian mining company as a result of their defense of water and life.
The letter is sent amidst the fifth round of free trade negotiations between Canada and Ecuador and comes shortly after affected communities and human rights organizations denounced renewed efforts to carry out a controversial environmental consultation to advance Atico Mining’s La Plata project without adequately consulting affected communities.
At least three times in the last two years, the Ecuadorian military has entered the small parish of Palo Quemado in northern Ecuador, militarizing the community in order to carry out a rubber stamp process for environmental consultation that seeks to fast-track permitting and advance the company’s project in Palo Quemado.
The letter echoes the concerns of several United Nations bodies who have already denounced the violence in which this environmental consultation is being carried out.
A significant portion of the local affected communities of Palo Quemado and neighbouring Las Pampas have firmly opposed mining for at least the past 40 years. More than 70 people have been slapped with unfounded criminal charges for speaking out against this proposed mine.
The letters asks Atico Mining to stop the criminalization and intimidation of affected communities and cease its operations; to the Ecuadorian executive branch, to cancel the environmental consultation process for the La Plata mining concession and end its practice of militarizing the areas surrounding 14 mining projects by designating them as “Security Zones,” including La Plata; and to the Canadian embassy in Ecuador to implement its “Voices at Risk” guidelines for the protection of environmental defenders and withdraw all trade support to the Canadian mining company.
This consultation process is taking place within a larger context of trade negotiations between Ecuador and Canada aimed at increasing mining investment in the country and granting mining companies even greater privileges. This trade deal, denounced strongly by both affected communities and civil society organizations in Ecuador and Canada, will only increase this repression and spark further socio-environmental conflict in places such as Palo Quemado. In light of this reality, the letter asks the Ecuadorian and Canadian governments to cease trade negotiations.
A copy of the letter and complete list of signatories is available online here.
“Behind the statistics, behind the numbers, there are people, human beings who will continue to resist, human beings who are ready to give our lives to ensure our lands remain free, and to ensure we protect the environment we have. We want [Atico] to leave our town, to let us live in peace with our history, with our sugarcane and to stop destroying our history.” Rosa Masapanta, President of a local sugarcane cooperative Association Flor de Caña in northern Ecuador, whose members are among the more than 70 people criminalized for speaking out against this proposed mine.
“Residents from Palo Quemado and Las Pampas are completely exasperated. In order to carry out an environmental consultation for a mining project, what is needed is a mining law, not a decree like Decree 754 that goes against the Ecuadorian constitution. The Ministry of the Environment continues its attempt to carry out a ‘consultation’ behind closed doors and in bad faith. It is taking advantage of an incoherent Constitutional Court ruling that declared Decree 754 unconstitutional, but that left the Decree in force under certain conditions – conditions the State is failing to meet. This is all in spite of the fact that the State should instead guarantee a buen vivir (good living) and ensure clean water for communities and for Indigenous peoples. Our rights and those of Mother Earth are being violated, as massive numbers of leaders and campesinos who are only defending nature and their way of life are being criminalized. We will take our concerns to national and international courts to guarantee our rights,” Juan Carlos Carvajal, President of the Defenders of Water and Life Collective of the Parish of Las Pampas.
“The Ecuadorian government is failing to uphold its international responsibilities to protect defenders. What’s more, the State is treating them as common criminals, allowing third parties – like the mining companies or public institutions – to charge them with terrorism, unlawful association, even vandalism. There are many instances of intimidation. They are criminalizing small-scale farmers who don’t have the financial resources to access justice and who also don’t have the means to organize and travel far distances. It’s a strategy to wear people down. It’s a burden with economic, physical, emotional, and psychological implications, both for the collective in resistance and on the individual level for the defenders’ families.” Yuly Tenorio, lawyer providing legal counsel to the Associación Flor de Caña and Coordinator for the National Citizens’ Observatory for Monitoring the Fulfillment of Human Rights and the Rights of Nature with regards to all phases of mining, a body which – among other things – examines the human rights and rights of nature impacts of all phases of mining, including exploration.
“Using the military to impose citizen participation processes, as happened in July 2023, March 2024 and October 2024 in Palo Quemado, is unconstitutional, violates international human rights treaties and constitutes a very serious threat to the integrity of the local population. To call for the informative phase on the same day that it would be carried out and to give two days (and very few hours) so that the population can access, read, understand, and propose observations to thousands of technical pages is not only reducing the right to consultation to a ‘mere formality,’ but also converts it into a colonial instrument of state violence.” Vivian Idrovo, coordinator of the Alliance for Human Rights in Ecuador.
“There is a well-documented pattern of criminalization throughout Latin America, whereby environmental defenders are slapped with unfounded accusations and legal charges in an effort to silence their opposition to Canadian mining projects. In accordance with Canada’s Voices at Risk guidelines, we urge the Canadian embassy in Ecuador to publicly issue a formal statement denouncing the intimidation and criminalization that communities affected by Atico Mining are facing.” Viviana Herrera, Latin America Program Coordinator for MiningWatch Canada
For more information, contact:
Juan Carlos Carvajal, President of the Defenders of Water and Life Collective of the Parish of Las Pampas: 1987juancarvajal@gmail.com
Yuly Tenorio, lawyer providing legal counsel to the Associación Flor de Caña and Coordinator for the National Citizens’ Observatory for Monitoring the Fulfillment of Human Rights and the Rights of Nature with regards to all phases of mining, a body which – among other things – examines the human rights and rights of nature impacts of all phases of mining, including exploration: yu_isamar@hotmail.com
Vivian Idrovo, coordinator of the Alliance for Human Rights in Ecuador: alianzaddhh.ecuador@gmail.com
Viviana Herrera, Latin America Program Coordinator at MiningWatch Canada, MiningWatch Canada: viviana@miningwatch.ca
Source:
Similar Topics by FOE Canada:
https://foecanada.org/2024/12/human-rights-due-diligence/
https://foecanada.org/2024/09/global-plastics-treaty-4-indigenous-rights/
Global Plastics Treaty to Protect Indigenous Peoples’ Rights
