Honduran villagers take legal action to stop mining firm digging up graves for gold
Families face pressure to decide the fate of their relatives grave, dividing the community of Azacualpa where as many as 350 bodies have already been exhumed
Heather Gies in Azacualpa, Honduras
Mon 28 May 2018 01.00 EDT
Nothing is sacred in the path of gold miners in northwestern Honduras not even the dead.
A transnational mining company, Aura Minerals, has been digging up graves in the 200-year-old cemetery near the community of Azacualpa, La Union, to clear the way to dig for gold.
As many been exhumed by the companys Honduran subsidiary, Minerales de Occidente (Minosa) since the process began last fall. The issue has divided Azacualpa, a coffee-producing community perched near the edge of the decades-old San Andres open-pit gold mine, and opened up rifts within families.
Some residents fear the graveyard is the last line of defence before the Canadian-listed company will eye the community as its next extraction site.
More:
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/may/28/honduran-villagers-take-legal-action-to-stop-mining-firm-digging-up-graves-for-gold
#RIGHT2RIP : TELL AURA MINERALS TO RESPECT THE DEAD AND THE LIVING IN HONDURAS!
Aura Minerals, a Toronto-based mining company, is seeking to dig up and move a 200 year old cemetery near La Unión, Copán, Honduras, because the cemetery is in the way of their mining project.
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Aura Minerals has been using every tool in the book to collaborate with the local police and military in forcing the community into allowing their family members to be exhumed and relocated, including violently evicting protesters, putting the cemetery under military occupation, bribes and false promises, drone surveillance, charging local leaders with illicit protest, and declaring the cemetery to be a safety hazard. Despite all of this, the community continues to resist these coercive pressures through blockades, negotiations, and community referenda. Many worry that a relocation of the cemetery could happen any day unless more action is taken.
Just this month, the company and the Honduran Government, Army and Police pressured the Azacualpa Environmental Committee into signing a so-called Act of Conciliation, in the presence of:
Hector Leonel Ayala, Minister of the Interior, Human Rights, Justice and Decentralization;
Abel Contreras, Departmental Governor of Copan;
Coronel Mario Edgardo Padilla, Commander of the 120th Infantry Brigade;
National Police Commissioner Henry Amilcar Márquez Quintero;
who were brought in to intimidate members of the community into signing an agreement to allow for the destruction of the cemetery, without prior consultation with the community. Click here for more information about what happened during this coercive negotiation.
https://mininginjustice.org/archive/aura-minerals/