Description

Goldcorp’s open-pit, cyanide leaching mine is also killing cows in village of the municipality of San Miguel Ixtahuacan (department of San Marcos, Guatemala), and getting away with it with impunity.

On July 24, 2010, a local farmer Faustino Mendez (a Mayan-Mam man from the village of San Jose Ixcanique) came across two of his cows, dead. They had drunk water from a small creek flowing out of, and below Goldcorp’s “San Martin” mine, and fallen dead in the river.

This is not the first time this has happened near Goldcorp’s mine in Guatemala, but it is the first time it has been documented.

In a report issued by the leading grassroots group in the Goldcorp-harmed communities of San Miguel Ixtahuacan (the Association for the Integral Development of SMI - ADISMI), Faustino Mendez explains how he has been a farmer for 35 years, tending to his cows all that time, and this has never happened. When Goldcorp officials came upon the dead cows, just below their mine, there was a discussion about paying Faustino 2,500 quetzales (over U$300) per cow.

The report then documents an extraordinary conversation between a veterinarian who works for the Goldcorp-funded Sierra Madre foundation, that presents itself as a local NGO. The vet is trying to explain to the campesinos, who have gathered by the dead cows, that these deaths have nothing to do with the drinking of the water; that these diseases have been around for 1,000,000 years; that the campesinos should get vaccinations for their cows, etc.

Beyond being dumbfounded by the words of the veterinarian, in the pay of Goldcorp, another campesino explains that he has lived and worked there for 50 years and that – like Faustino – has never seen anything like this. No one gathered there believes Goldcorp’s vet, but they treat him with respect.

Source: http://rightsaction.org/articles/Mine_kills_cows_020511.html