The decision to grant a retrial presents further evidence of the deterioration of independence within El Salvador’s judicial system, and its politicization to punish and weaken the struggle to uphold the Law of Prohibition of Metals Mining of 2017.

San Salvador – On behalf of the hundreds of organizations from over two dozen countries that support the International Allies Against Mining in El Salvador, we condemn the November 26 ruling by Santiago Alvarado Ponce and José María Zepeda Grande, Magistrates of the Cojutepeque Appeals Chamber, that ordered a retrial for the Economic and Social Development Association of Santa Marta (ADES) Santa Marta Five Water Defenders.

The November 26 decision overturns a unanimous and principled verdict handed down by the Sentencing Tribunal in Sensuntepeque after a trial that dismissed the Salvadoran Attorney General’s office prosecution case based on a lack of evidence linking the five Water Defenders to the alleged crime. The Tribunal determined that the prosecution’s case did not meet the definition of 1) a crime against humanity; or 2) a war crime, as established in the Rome Statute and the Geneva Conventions, respectively. According to the legal defense team, the subsequent appeal lodged from the Attorney General’s office has no legal basis, and the Cojutepeque Appeals Chamber’s annulment of the trial ruling is a political decision that acquiesced to this appeal. Their decision presents further evidence of the deterioration of independence within El Salvador’s judicial system, and its politicization to punish and weaken the struggle to uphold the Law of Prohibition of Metals Mining of 2017.

The objectivity of the Sensuntepeque trial and its accompanying decision were affirmed by an international observer mission who have published their report on the proceedings. In reference to the retrial of the five Water Defenders, Mary Lawlor, UN Special Rapporteur for Human Rights Defenders, and the Archbishop of San Salvador, Monsignor José Luis Escobar Alas, have expressed publicly their concerns about the persecution of environmental defenders by the government in El Salvador.

It is worth noting that the 2023 arrest of the ADES Santa Marta Five Water Defenders took place as they and other activists voiced concerns that the Nayib Bukele government was considering reestablishing metals mining in El Salvador, pointing to 1) the Administration’s May 2021 decision to join the Intergovernmental Forum on Mining, Minerals, Metals and Sustainable Development, and 2) other legal reforms that led to the current moment. Chillingly, on the very day that dozens of social organizations held a press conference to denounce the retrial order, Bukele communicated on X, in reference to gold, that “God has placed a giant treasure beneath our feet,” called the mining ban “absurd,” and claimed, against all evidence, that gold can be mined sustainably. He further stated in a press conference that El Salvador has “trillions of dollars” worth of mineral resources and that they should be exploited in order to develop the country.

El Salvador’s 2017 prohibition against metallic mining is a widely popular measure and overturning it would be a death sentence for the small and densely-populated country with its scarce water sources, many of which are already contaminated. The historic ban, passed in a unanimous 70-0 vote by El Salvador’s Legislative Assembly in 2017, was the result of a decade-long campaign to value life over transnational mining corporations’ pursuit of profits. The campaign was ultimately supported by a wide coalition of civil society organizations, educational institutions, some business sectors, legislators and Ministers from across the political spectrum, as well as two Archbishops.  They were all persuaded by substantial evidence of gold mining’s destructive effects, and the deleterious impacts of cyanide used in gold mining. The struggle also cost the lives of several beloved water defender activists who stood up to the mining companies in Cabañas: Marcelo Rivera, Ramiro Rivera, student Juan Francisco Durán Ayala, and Dora Alicia Recinos Sorto, who was eight months pregnant when murdered, and whose two-year old child witnessed and was wounded in the attack.

In light of these troubling developments, we affirm our steadfast commitment to support the ADES Santa Marta Five Water Defenders and the broader movement to resist metallic mining in El Salvador. We call on the San Vicente Sentencing Court to exercise the same objectivity that already resulted in a verdict acquitting the Water Defenders. The eyes of the world remain on El Salvador and on this politicized, unwarranted trial.

Press contacts:

• Olivia Alperstein, Institute for Policy Studies, +1 (202) 704-9011, [email protected]
• John Cavanagh, Institute for Policy Studies, [email protected]
• Manuel Perez Rocha, Institute for Policy Studies, [email protected]
• Pedro Cabezas, Alianza Centro Americana Frente a la Mineria, Central American Alliance against Mining (ACAFREMIN) and International Allies Against Mining in El Salvador, [email protected]