Arsenic concentrations 26 times higher than WHO health standards

Ghent/San Marcos, 15 of October 2010 - In September the Guatemalan Ministry of Environment caught the Canadian mining company Goldcorp on illegal discharges of its water basin into the rivers of San Miguel Ixtahuacán. At first Goldcorp made it seem like the discharges had happened by the rules, but gave no reaction after the Ministry published an accusation against the mining company.

The International Conference on Mining in Antigua Guatemala was closed by the Antigua Declaration, in which the international civil society alerts for the enormous consequences of industrial mining. It also proposes 5 challenges to face the mining problem. We call on everyone to sign the Antigua Declaration.

FESTIVAL ZAMBOCREOOL

Zuiders muziek-en folklorefestival ter opening van Vila Cabral, door Colectivo Zudaka.
Het Felix Pakhuis wordt omgedoopt tot een exotische mestizotempel waarin Latijns-Amerikaanse en Afrikaanse tradities moeiteloos in elkaar overvloeien.
De ideale afsluiter van het zomerfestivalseizoen, met ritmische klanken, dans, kunst en gastronomie, en dit alles volledig gratis!
Met live optredens van o.m. Marcelo Moncada Space Quartet, A Fuego, Sindicato Sónico Ensemble en veel meer!

Lima – Cerro de Pasco, seven hours by bus. Some 300km separate heaven and hell. The contrast between trendy restaurants and bars in Lima and the gloomy town of Cerro de Pasco cannot be bigger.

The road to Pasco extends form sea level over a pass of 4800m and winds up the high plateau. We pass hundreds of heavy loaded trucks that crawl up the mountain. A splendid green mountain landscape passes by. In between the mountain tops large empty orange spots are visible. These deep scars, in this largely undisturbed landscape appear to be mining projects. While passing another truck, we suddenly have to brake because we face another truck that just came round the corner. Later at some 4000m height, a sterile valley is unveiled from the grey fog. A mountain, halve excavated shows beautiful colors from its interior: yellow to orange. The huge project of Morococha is at our feet and forms a forerunner from what we would see next in Cerro de Pasco.

We drive under a sign ‘Welcome in Cerro de Pasco, capital of mining in Peru’. Another 200m further the town is suddenly at our feet. A divided town with in the middle a deep wide pit (1 km wide, 500m deep), the result of 55 years of excavations. A quest for metal for which everything had to move. The culmination of a capitalistic system that puts economic profits in front of everything. This was something we only found out later, when the impact of the Volcan company (the Peruvian company that acquired the mine in 1999) became clear to us. 

The indigenous populations of the Amazon area in Peru have united and started a protest against the policy of President Alan Garcia. They cry for help in their attempt to protect the Amazon, which is under pressure because of the extraction and export of oil, gas, timber, gold, and other commodities.