After 12 years of mining, the Marlin Mine leaves a fragmented locality, poisoned water sources, a wounded land, hunger and unemployment, a servile and complicit political power and much more evidence that mining is far from being that dream of development and progress.
The resistance of part of the population continues to demand justice, it continues to demand guarantees to be able to live healthy in the land where their grandparents grew up freely. They demand a healthy and dignified future so that their generations can exist.
Continue“They took the gold from our lands. And now our water springs are affected. Our homes are cracked, there are skin diseases. And now the company’s leaving. They’ve made a good profit from what they took from San Miguel to Canada. And we're left with the damage that's been done.”1
In 2005, when the Marlin Mine arrived to the San Marcos region, in the municipality of San Miguel de Ixtahuacan, located 300 km from Guatemala City, it arrived with the promise of employment, a better quality of life, and an economic boom. It came to be installed as many of the extractive companies do, with little information for the population.
In 2017, the Goldcorp/Montana Exploradora company ceased its operations in the area, leaving without telling what the conditions of the soil are, or nothing about the toxic waste. They left without a closure plan that would guarantee the future conditions of the population.
Now, the people of San Miguel de Ixtahuacan stare at the great hole left by the company, a hole in the ground, yes, but also a hole on the tables of impoverished, unemployed, formerly peasant families. A hole in the abandoned fields and in the not very productive land due to contamination, a gap in community relations of a socially confronted society, that is divided and hurt.
After 12 years of mining operation, the population of San Miguel does not even have access to minimal basic services.
What happened to the water?The Marlin Mine closed in the same conditions in which it arrived: without respect for the population with whom it lived since 2005. For women, men, children, a very serious and repetitive question remains...
The current scenario is very bleak. The environmental, ecological, social, economic and cultural degradation is profound. What the mine left was a new slavery, because with its speech it stripped away its habits, its practices, its relationships.
“Inequity affects not only individuals but entire countries; it compels us to consider an ethics of international relations. A true “ecological debt” exists, particularly between the global north and south, connected to commercial balances with effects on the environment, and the disproportionate use of natural resources by certain countries over long periods of time.”(LS,51)
"For the council of the Mayan people, this extractivist model is the fourth dispossession, the fourth invasion compared to the invasion 500 years ago. This economic model is a threat to the lives of our peoples".
The Goldcorp / Montana Exploradora company and the entire state apparatus that accompanied it for its establishment, exploitation of resources and private enrichment in Guatemala is not only due to a strategy of a mining company. The extractivist model has configured a whole global scenario that allows it to exist and profit without limits.
With its enlightening speeches, the company spoke to the people of economic security, profits and the dream of development.
“We need to reject a magical conception of the market, which would suggest that problems can be solved simply by an increase in the profits of companies or individuals. Is it realistic to hope that those who are obsessed with maximizing profits will stop to reflect on the environmental damage which they will leave behind for future generations? Where profits alone count, there can be no thinking about the rhythms of nature, its phases of decay and regeneration, or the complexity of ecosystems which may be gravely upset by human intervention. Moreover, biodiversity is considered at most a deposit of economic resources available for exploitation, with no serious thought for the real value of things, their significance for persons and cultures, or the concerns and needs of the poor.”(LS,190)
They knew very well what they were doing, they wanted to convince, they wanted to divide, they wanted to mount on top of their community structures to change them, so that they wanted to be like the economic, globalized and neoliberal model they want them to be.3
To understand post-mining in the case of the Marlin Mine, it is essential to approach it, not as an isolated case of what happens in the Latin American context. It is a case that must be faced in light of the critical interpretation of history, to understand what the deepest roots are, the causes of the economic-social debacle that Guatemalan society suffers, as well as the conspiracy of a State that favors the economic interests of a transnational elite, in collusion with the national oligarchy, which is strengthened based on the accumulation of capital through the violent dispossession of the territories and their brutal and condemnable plundering of natural resources to the detriment of historically excluded majorities. It is not isolated, it is the economic model that acts this way.
The state systems of the majority of the governments in Latin America, have demonstrated with many examples, what they have decided: They have decided to place themselves on the side of private interests, above human rights and collective rights. The privatization of the economy privatizes politics, since the State loses its role as guarantee of the rights of citizens and ceases to represent public interests.
The Unpayable Debt of the Marlin MineThe Guatemalan oligarchic elites, on their part, do the same, the State collects humiliating percentages for the plundering of natural resources and the most derisory crumbs are given to those who usufruct or sell their properties based on gimmicks and deceptions of the new colonial mediators, who propagandize the capitalist ecological disaster as something referring to the only way that peoples have towards progress: order and the ascent of the human being to a better life condition than the one they have today.4
"All the rivers, the springs, the environment is contaminated. So yeah, we are worried about our life"
The environmental impacts of mining are very critical, however, there are no rigorous epidemiological surveillance studies on health and the environment, with which to quantitatively determine the level of the effects in addition to the fact, that the social and environmental reports are many times toned down and made up. “The export of raw materials to satisfy markets in the industrialized north has caused harm locally, as for example in mercury pollution in gold mining or sulphur dioxide pollution in copper mining” (LS, 51).
Is the biggest concern for the population in San Miguel Ixtahuacan. From their own knowledge of the territory and from the studies carried out, it is identified that at least 18 water sources are dry. And not only that, the water is contaminated, which is why the presence of diseases in children, colic, diarrhea, skin allergies is evident. People do not have access to healthy water, they are afraid to go to the river, and to anyone that approaches it, they are afraid that the animals would drink the water from the river. Contamination of the water by heavy metals was detected, with contents that were above national and international regulations” and according to the (Peace and Ecology Commission Association [COPAE], 2018)
The Marlin mine consumed about 2,175,984,000 liters per year, According to the Montana Environmental and Social Impact Study (ESIA) (2003), the mine used 250,000 liters of water per hour. In other words, the amount of water used by the mine in a single hour is equivalent to the amount of water that a peasant family in the area uses for 22 years.
The water sources have dried up by drilling, by the tunnel. And also because they use water to wash the gold, where they have a mechanical well to get directly to the company.5 For 2 years, people have wondered why is there water for only 1 hour and then there is no more?
"My two daughters are really sick from the contaminated rivers. The genuine pure springs are contaminated. You can't bathe there anymore, much less drink the water."
The opening of the tunnel caused the earth to undergo changes such as cracks and others, this resulted in the disappearance of 73 water sources (wells, springs, streams), so there are currently problems in the supply of water for human consumption (LC, 2020).
With the wells, springs and streams that existed, people could grow vegetables in the dry season for self-consumption, some had production of flowers for sale, which generated income for the family. However, at present this water no longer exists, which generates sadness in people, but also exacerbates and increases the percentages of malnutrition by strictly depending on the rainy season to obtain food. (LC, 2020)6
As the gold extraction progressed, the population was identifying the implications that this had on their closest landscape: first the springs dried up, then there were cracks in the houses, due to the excavations and internal detonations. The houses in the area could fall anytime.
"The tunnel zigzags and they told me at the time it was more than 35 kilometers long. What happened with the process of pulverizing all that rock ”? What is going to happen with this tunnel, how are they going to close it? Is that included in the mine closure plan?"
Land subsidence remains a risk and a potential disaster situation has been identified.
"When the mine was working, the explosions were felt as if they were tremors. Sometimes in the afternoon, sometimes at 4 in the morning, sometimes at noon.".
We can list the environmental damage left by the mine:
Biodiversity loss (wildlife, agro-diversity)
Deforestation and loss of vegetation cover
Surface water pollution/decreasing water (physico-chemical, biological) quality
Groundwater pollution or depletion
Air pollution
Noise pollution
Soil erosion
Mine tailing spills
Large-scale disturbance of hydro and geological systems
And also the effects that this may carry in the near future:
Loss of landscape/aesthetic degradation
Soil contamination
Desertification/drought
Waste overflow
And all this will directly affect the food supply of the families that live in the area.
But the territory is linked to the body and the spirit and the damages are also felt directly on people, even more so when they have been dispossessed of the land and their human rights have also been violated. They have been exposed to an uncertain and complex health risk. For example violence impacts (homicides, rape), health problems related to alcoholism, prostitution and death.
And all this increases the risk of : accidents, mental problems including stress, depression and suicide, Infectious diseases, and other environmental related diseases.
A group of people who were opposed, the resistance, although it was not the majority of the population, remained firm, in 2007 they filed a complaint in the CIDH -Inter-American Court of Human Rights, and it was not until 2014 that the case was admitted, and precautionary measures and demands were issued to the State and also to the company, which, in infamous complicity, were not assumed. Many women led the resistance process, many of them were threatened, persecuted and criminalized, like Crisanta López, this, not only by interests of the transnational company but in some cases, by their own countrymen. The interweaving of social relations among them was very impacted. The extractivist model remained in the community and sometimes it even prevails over community and cultural values.
“Of the 40 thousand inhabitants in San Miguel, perhaps some 2,000 or 3,000 stood up for the defense of the territory and mother earth”
The presence of the Mine had its good allies, the Municipality one of them, defender of Marlin's operations. The presence of the Mine, undoubtedly boosted local commerce, that is why prosperous family groups were consolidated, those who made a living out of commerce, builders, suppliers, who offered services to the company and to the new people who came to settle because of the mine. Also transporters came and even land traffickers, who, taking advantage of the possibility of the mine buying the land, built ghost complexes. Many community members, who started working in the mine (the cheapest labor and the heaviest work) were "invited" to leave their crops to receive a non-permanent biweekly or monthly salary. The profit and development discourses were convincing and caused a sharp breakdown in the community interweaving . As in many mining projects, it is one family that divides and is in conflict, the neighbors, the companions, in an attitude that is not accidental, but provoked.
The Marlin Mine, left 1% of royalties to the country, 0.5% to the local government and 0.5% to the national government. Regarding employment, which was its highest item, it represented 6.5% of its total work share. Less than 45% was for the benefit of local workers, 55% of the payroll was destined for workers from other parts of the country and abroad.
These statistics, added to the fact that the process of contracting and buying the land led to a state of de-peasantization , which means that the people who lived and worked in the area, the communities surrounding the Marlin Mine, sold their land and applied for positions as workers inside the mine, they went from having access to the land to feel detached from it and work for a salary. The socio-demographic impacts, which implied the presence of non-local personnel, brought prostitution, drug trafficking to say it in two words, cultural fragmentation.
The transition between the era of the mining royalties and the collapse of the local economy is beginning to be seen. Many of the people who have worked in the mine have not considered a better option than to migrate to the United States and risk everything they have in the hands of coyotes who do not give them any guarantee of life.
"How much money did they really make? What were the benefits for the people living nearby? Was there really a solution to unemployment in the area?"
The Marlin Mine wiped out the gold that laid underground in San Miguel and in 2017 closed the door and left. The company did not respond to anything, but in any case, nothing can be compensated. The cracks that remain, not only in the houses, cannot be undone.
Extractivism wants to change the way we think, go over our hearts and just as it wants to cut down the trees and let its machinery pass freely, it wants to uproot us from that land where the past and memories are and where our future generations will live. We are sure, from way they say in their own testimonies, that if the population of San Miguel de Ixtahuacan could go back, they would do so, and would fight with everything to keep mining out, that mining that kills. We never forget the evangelical hope that Laudato Si also tells us about:
“They also have the right to live. These are the mountains and rivers that allow my people to live; this is the inheritance that we have been receiving from our grandparents, and I am going to spill my blood before going through the shame of looking into the eyes of my children when we have lost”.
