Gold is not eaten. These days, it is devoured. One troy ounce of the precious metal rose to $1,195 (US), a historic record. In times of global financial crisis, the entire world is sick with gold fever. Mining companies like Goldcorp win at the cost of communities in San Marcos.

In the last few months, gold bars and gold coins are being sold like Christmas tamales. The dollar fell, the financial crisis dragged on, but gold didn't not lose its position. It is the principal refuge of nervious investors, and banks around the world are insuring their future in storing the metal. According to the World Gold Council, the stored gold reserve is nearly 30,000 tons. In 2008, the (identifiable) investment covered 31% of the total gold demand, 57% was used for jewelry and 12% was for industrial and dental use. In other words, nearly one-third of the gold that was extracted wasn’t used. It is guarded in safes. The community members who live above the gold do not have a safe, much less gold inside.

Hungry companies

The companies are hungry. In San Marcos department, the Canadian company Goldcorp Inc. has, by means of its subsidaries Montana Exploradora and Entremares de Guatemala, 15 mining licences. Following recent dates of the Ministery of Energy and Mines, its licences occupy 573 square kilometers, which is 15% of whole San Marcos territory. For the moment, Marlin I is the only licence in explotation in San Marcos. Its impact is huge. Montana Exploradora is devouring the territory of San Miguel Ixtahuacán and Sipacapa around the clock, working 24 hours per day. In 2008, it excavated and processed 1.845 billion tons of rock in the Marlin Mine (Goldcorps Annual Report). That’s more than 1,000 truckloads per month. In other words, 55 Olympic pools of land contaminated with cyanide. Every month.

The same year, with the average price of gold at $870 (US) per ounce, Montana extracted and sold 241,3000 ounces of gold. The facts are proudly published on their webpage for the accionist sharks in the seven seas of neoliberalism. Some of the glutonous inversionists in Canada, Sweden, Norway and other feverish countries already pulled out their calculators for 2009 because the price of the metal has almost tripled. When Montana, in 2002, still part of Glamis Gold, began explorations in San Marcos the price of gold was $309.66 (US). It is not surprising that Goldcorp, Inc., the mother company in Canada, afirms being the most profitable gold mine in the world. It trumpets that of all the mining companies, it has grown most quickly. Wonderful.

Crumbs for the poor

The current climate greatly favors the extractive industries. the State of Guatemala even more. Goldcorps Central America Director, Eduardo Villacorta, in hearings of the Congressional Transparency Commission in the Congress of the Republic, affirms that the Marlin Mine uses 12 liters of water per second. Take out your calculator. That is 1,036,800 liters per day. A farmer family that uses 30 liters of water per day could survive for 91 years with this quantity. The company has paid Q0.000.000 to the state and another Q0.000.000 to the communities for this water.

However, in El Ingeniero, it’s folder of information for the communities, Montana affirms that it has invested Q15,407,810 in 2008 in community development projects. Although that corresponds to the State of Guatemala, and not to a false Santa Clause, let’s be honest: that’s not a small amount.

Still, one has to understand how these are just crumbs for the poor. They do not reach even a small percentage if we compare them to the net earnings of Montana in this period: $188,800,000 (US). More than Q1.5 million. For those that want to feel nauseous: mother Goldcorp, that mines gold in all of the Americas, earned $2.344 billion (US) in those years. In Quetzales the amount doesn’t even fit on the calculator.

Neither El Ingeniero, nor the webpage, mention the social conflict caused by the distribution of their “development” projects. Where there are winners, there are loseres. As Father Eric Gruloos explains: “Those that dare to oppose the mine harvest the resentment of their neighbors. The mine’s workers threaten my parishioners. ‘If the mine doesn’t give us a sports field, asphalt, or a teacher for our school, it’s because you have not shut up.’ This terror reminds me of the armed conflict.” Goldcorp did not come to Guatemala to “develop” communities. It came to mine gold in favorable circumstances. Period. It came to earn money and earn a lot of money in this financial climate. It is a fat company and it loves to eat a mountain.