Pacific Rim Mining Corporation based in Vancouver has been working on its El Dorado Gold property in Cabañas, El Salvador since 2002 near  Sensuntepeque (pop. 49,000).  The exploration and exploitation permits were granted by the ARENA government without any community consultation.

Community activists have resisted this development because extensive drilling has caused water systems to dry up and the proposed use of cyanide in gold refining would further contaminate river systems and ground water.

On June 18 Gustavo Marcelo Rivera, a community leader and anti-mining activist, was disappeared. Less than two weeks later his corpse was found at the bottom of a 60-foot-well, while an autopsy later revealed he was strangled to death and tortured. Rivera directed a local community centre and founded Amigos of San Isidro, an organization that formed part of the main coalition of groups that opposed the El Dorado mine.

The details around Rivera's case, his "disappearance" and torture, corresponds with the way death squads worked during that country's civil war. “.. history may be repeating itself in El Salvador," said Jamie Moffett, USA film maker  who made a film on Rivera. See: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yvXm52BhSHQ Another film about gold mining in El Salvador by Jesse Reeston can be viewed at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9BBifbxZZMM
On December 26, Dora “Alicia” Sorto Recinos, an active opponent of Pacific Rim’s El Dorado gold mine in El Salvador, was shot and killed as she returned home from doing her laundry. Sorto Recinos was eight months pregnant and carrying her two-year old child at the time. The child was also shot, in the foot, and is currently receiving medical attention.   She is the second anti-mining activist to be killed in less than a week, in the department of Cabañas.              

 Ramiro Rivera Gómez, vice-president of CAC (Comité Ambiental de Cabañas/ the Environmental Committee of Cabañas) was gunned down six days earlier, in front of his thirteen-year old daughter in the Trinidad neighborhood of Ilobasco. Rivera Gómez had just recovered from a previous attempt on his life in August of this year. He was shot 8 times in the legs and back. According to the Committee In Solidarity with the People of El Salvador (CISPES), Oscar Menjívar was arrested and charged with the attempted murder. Menjívar had been “previously implicated in physical attacks on anti-mining activists” and is reported to be a former employee of Pacific Rim; however, the company denies the charge. Following the attack, Rivera was placed “under the protection of two police officers from the Witnesses and Victims Protection Unit of the National Civilian Police, adds CISPES. However, “on the afternoon of December 20th, they were apparently unable to protect him. Recently, Human Rights Ombudsman, Oscar Luna, held a special press conference to denounce threats made against reporters at Radio Victoria, a community-based radio station, including “you’re on the list,” and “you’ll be next.”  “Be careful, because they spoke too much in San Isidro.” The Radio Victoria staff opposes the proposed gold mine plans, and want a public investigation into their friend Marcelo’s assassination.

See more on Canadian corporations abuses:

http://intercontinentalcry.org/briefing-on-the-human-rights-and-environmental-abuses-of-canadian-corporations/

ACTION: PHONE:  Barbara Henderson, Vice President of Investor Relations at Pacific Rim Mining (604) 689-1976, and then press ‘1’.PLEASE WRITE LETTERS: Catherine McLeod-Seltzer, Chair, and Thomas C. Shrake, President & CEO, Pacific Rim Mining Corp,410 – 625 Howe St. Vancouver V6C 2T6. Express your concern over the violence & environmental destruction of El Dorado. Ask that Pacific Rim drop its suit against El Salvador & withdraws from

operations & 

community involvement in  Cabañas.