October 2010 is a month that will be long remembered in the highlands of Guatemala. In that month, 4 community consultations will take place on the issue of mining. That would be the 43rd, 44th, 45th and 46th community consultation at the municipal level in the highlands.

It is noteworthy that so far in all the consultations that have taken place, the population has unanimously spoken out against mining.

That the mining activities of the Marlin Mine in San Miguel Ixtahuacán, exploited by Montana Exploradora, subsidiary of Goldcorp, constitute violations of human and indigenous rights and of Guatemalan law has been a known fact from the onset. Now, the excellent legal researchers of the mining resistance movement in the west of Guatemala, brought to light that the act of buying of the lands of San Miguel constituted a mere crime to Guatemalan law. The person accused of this crime is no one less than the current president of the Supreme Court of Guatemala.

In San Miguel Ixtahuacán, in the last two weeks, we reported two armed attacks on two known people of the resistance against mining in that municipality. This is an apparent increase in the level of violence in a municipality that has been marked by social conflict as of the introduction of the Marlin mine of the company Montana exploradora, a subsidiary of Goldcorp, six years ago. These events are in contradiction with the supposed commitment of the government of Guatemala to "guarantee the life and physical integrity of the neighbors of the mine."