Community organizer and MiningWatch Canada cofounder, Joan Kuyek, is launching a new book on September 12, 2019: Unearthing Justice: How To Protect Your Community From the Mining Industry.
"Whether it is to stop a mine before it starts, to get an abandoned mine cleaned up, to change laws and policy, or to mount a campaign to influence investors, Unearthing Justice is an essential handbook for anyone trying to protect the places and people they love." – Between the Lines Editor
On August 19, members of the Abarca family, along with a number of Mexican organizations, held a press conference in San Cristóbal de las Casas in Chiapas, Mexico, to mark the 10th anniversary of the murder of Mariano Abarca.
The former community leader was gunned down in broad daylight outside his home in November 2009.
The Federal Court of Canada recently decided not to order the Public Sector Integrity Commissioner to investigate alleged “actions and omissions” on the part of officials at the Canadian embassy in Mexico City in the months leading up to Abarca's death.
Abarca had gone to the embassy to report threats and allegations of harassment against community members in Chiapas opposed to a barite mine in Chicomuselo operated by Calgary-based Blackfire Exploration.
The new federalImpact Assessment Act, previously known as Bill C-69, came into force at 12:01 this morning. We should be celebrating, but it's hard to cheer too enthusiastically when the law is so much less than it should have been.
The Shuar Arutam People Have Decided: No to Mining, We Do Not Want to Be Consulted. Through several meetings in different communities, we have met in order to analyze a response to the systematic violation of our collective rights by the State and the mining companies that have been operating in our ancestral territory. Faced with this situation, we exercise of our right to self-determination, which recognizes our power to determine our present and future. Since the entry of mining companies in our ancestral territory without our consent has generated great impacts on our way of life, we have decided the following:
At a teahouse in the tiny village of Karaibrahimler in Turkey’s lush north-western Biga Peninsula, older male residents sitting at a table debate with young environmentalists from Istanbul and the nearby town of Çanakkale about the adjacent gold and silver mining project.
Seven of the villagers work in the project, run by the Canadian firm Alamos Gold, and the men are standoffish and leery of being lectured on the environmental and health hazards of the mine. One of them turns his back to the activists, pleading for them to leave him in peace.
On August 19th, 2019 members of Mariano Abarca’s family, along with supporting Mexican organizations, held a press conference in San Cristobal de las Casas to denounce the 10th anniversary of impunity for Mariano’s murder and announce their decision to use their right to appeal the Federal Court of Canada’s
August 19, 2019 (Ottawa/Mexico City/Tuxtla Gutiérrez) The family of Mariano Abarca, who was murdered nearly ten years ago for his leadership in community protests over the environmental and social impacts of a Canadian-owned mine in Chiapas, Mexico, have filed notice with the Federal Court of Appeal. They are appealing the July decision of Federal Court Judge Keith Boswell who conceded that “perhaps Mariano Abarca would not have been murdered” if the Canadian embassy in Mexico “[had] acted in a certain way,” and yet refused to order an investigation.
Source
Family of Mariano Abarca – Justice and Corporate Accountability Project – Otros Mundos Chiapas – Red Mexicana de Afectados por la Mineria (REMA) – MiningWatch Canada
