Suspend the Mining!

Monday, April 19th, 7-9pm
Society of Friends (Quaker) Meetinghouse
823 North A Street, Lake Worth, FL 33460

In March, Several Mayan communities and organizations presented a Constitutional Petition to the government of Guatemala, calling for the immediate suspension of all mining activities taking place on Mayan land. The Petition follows a formal request by the International Labor Organization’s (ILO) Committee of Experts to suspend the activities while they investigate reported violations of international law in the Country.

Father Erick Gruloos is a Belgian-born priest who for 30 years has been pastor of the Parish of San Miguel Ixtuhuacan, Guatemala, where a gold mine owned by Canadian corporation GoldCorp has been polluting the water and air and damaging people’s homes while refusing to pay compensation. Father Erick and his parishioners, including many indigenous Mam people, have been very active in opposing this mine – this Monday he will share his first-hand experience with us.

We will also show part of the documentary, the Business of Gold, which chronicles the resistance of the people of San Miguel.

This event takes place in advance of the LatAm Mining Congress, where representatives of Goldcorp and other mining companies with bad reputations will meet in Miami, April 28-30.

For more information, contact Lynne at lynnejpurvis@gmail.com or 561-588-9666

Let’s bury the 2010 Lat-Am Mining Congress in Miami this April

Once again, for its sunny weather and its strategic position as the overly played out capitalist "Gateway to the Americas," this April the southern tip of the Florida peninsula will play host to a special array of parasites: representatives of a variety of ore-mining multinational companies, international development banks and other investors, and ministers of mining who seek to promote and expand what has become one of the most environmentally devastating industries. Mining is one of the most widely, popularly contested issues in Latin America, pitting the region´s land based communities and social movements against the state governments that encompass them. Many of the people forcibly displaced from these projects have settled in South Florida, because of the proximity and likeness to home, and now the giants of mining come to taunt them.

Some of the more prominent earth destroyers to show their faces at the LatAm Mining Investment Congress in Coral Gables this spring include:

- Mr Rodolfo Sabonge, Vice President, Office of the Market Research and Analysis, Panama Canal Authority
- Mr. Hernan Martinez Torres, Colombia Minister of Mining & Energy, Ministry of Energy & Mining
- Dr Claudio Scliar, Brazil Secretary of Geology, Mining, and Mineral Processing, Ministry of Mines & Energy
- Mr Jose de Jesus Martin del Campo Esparza, General Director of Mining Promotion, Ministry of Economy - Mexico
- Mr. Salvador Garcia, VP Mexico, Goldcorp Inc.
- Mr. Abraham Morris Fox, Structured and Corporate Finance, Inter-American Development Bank
- Mr John Price, Managing Director, Kroll


To read about the conference from its own promoters, go to http://www.terrapinn.com/2010/latmining/

Come spend April 28-30 in Miami’s luxurious Coral Gables neighborhood. Join folks from all over, bring a shovel, and let’s cut off industrial mining in Latin America from its lifeline here in South Florida, and bury it once and for all!!