[R-G] Challenging Canadian Mining Companies

[Anthony Fenton]

  RESOURCE WARS

Challenging Canadian Mining Companies
Imposing mining projects on communities of resistance
http://zmagsite.zmag.org/June2007/gedicks0607.html

By Al Gedicks

Canadian mining companies, which constitute almost 60 percent of the  
world’s exploration and mining companies, have made Latin America the  
world’s most popular resource frontier. The Toronto stock exchange is  
the world’s largest single source of financing for the global mining  
industry. At the forefront of Canadian mining investment in Latin  
America are the so-called “junior explorers,” who are involved in  
speculative exploration projects in many environmentally sensitive  
regions and/or lands inhabited by indigenous communities. The juniors  
now account for more than half of this year’s $7 billion worldwide  
exploration total. But the juniors rarely have the expertise or  
capital to undertake mining themselves. Their properties are seen as  
less politically risky and thus attractive acquisitions by the mining  
giants like BHP Billiton, Rio Tinto, and Newmont if and when they  
have obtained the necessary permits to begin mining.

In their drive to realize the profits of speculation, however, junior  
companies frequently try to impose projects on communities that have  
said no to mining, creating serious conflicts in the process. Not so  
long ago, the most serious cases of human rights abuses and  
environmental degradation were associated with the giants of the  
mining industry. However, as they became the targets of international  
advocacy campaigns by environmental and human rights groups, they  
sought to minimize their exposure to politically risky investments.  
Thus, in recent years, allegations of forced dislocation, assaults  
and even killings by security forces, contamination of lands, support  
for repressive regimes, and violation of workers’ and indigenous  
rights are more often associated with junior explorers, many of them  
incorporated in Canada or listed on a Canadian stock exchange.

The Ugly Canadian Mining Company

A series of “roundtable” discussions took place in Canada involving  
the mining industry, the Canadian government, and civil society,  
about if and how to regulate the global mining industry. One of the  
most compelling arguments for holding mining companies criminally  
liable for their misdeeds is the case of the Vancouver-based  
Ascendant Copper Corporation (ACC). This junior mining company is  
trying to impose a large-scale open pit copper mine known as the  
Junin project on communities in an 1,800- square-kilometer rural area  
of northwestern Ecuador. Known as Intag and characterized by cloud  
forests and family farms, most of the 15,000 residents have  
emphatically said no to mining. Intag, located 50 miles northwest of  
Quito in Cotacachi County in the province of Imbabura, is part of  
both the Choco and the Ecuadorian Andes biodiversity hotspots and is  
exceptionally rich in water resources.

Graham Saul, International Program Director for Friends of the Earth  
(FOE) Canada, called Ascendant’s Junin project “a poster child for  
the ‘ugly Canadian’ mining company. Ascendant is fueling a local  
conflict and actively undermining democratically elected officials in  
Ecuador.” Even before Ascendant came to Intag, it had already been  
involved in conflicts with indigenous peoples in the Napo province  
where it has concessions, according to the coordinator of the  
Ecological Mining Action Campaign in Quito.
gedicks-title1

Ascendant acquired the Junin copper project in 2004. The rural Intag  
communities have been resisting the project since 1995. The previous  
owner of the project, Bishimetals Exploration of Japan, a subsidiary  
of Mitsubishi Corporation, had concluded in their environmental  
assessment that mining in Junin would result in massive  
deforestation, contamination of rivers with toxic metals, and the  
resettlement of more than 100 families from 4 communities. When  
Bishimetals refused to acknowledge widespread community opposition,  
local residents burned down the company’s mining camp. Mitsubishi  
pulled out of the project shortly thereafter. To protect the  
community against future mining threats, Carlos Zorrilla, the  
president of the Organization for the Defense and Conservation of  
Intag (DECOIN), helped raise funds for the purchase of 5,000 acres of  
land to set up an environmental preserve and pursue sustainable and  
community-based projects such as growing and processing organic  
coffee for export. Many of these projects provide income to village  
women and they have taken a prominent role in organizing against the  
proposed mine.

In 2000 Cotacachi County, where the proposed mine is located, was  
recognized as the first Ecological County in Ecuador. Parts of the  
504,000 acre Cotacachi-Cayapas Ecological Reserve are within  
Cotatcachi County. Cotacachi Caypas is arguably the most biodiverse  
protected area in the world, home to over 3,000 plant species and to  
a wide range of mammals, amphibians, and bird species severely  
threatened by extinction.

In response to widespread local opposition, Ascendant set up and  
funded the Corporation for the Development of the Communities of  
Garcia Moreno (Codegam), a front organization led by Ronald An-  
drade, an ex-congressperson previously investigated by the Ecuadorian  
congress for corruption. Codegam offered communities all kinds of  
public projects, such as roads, new schools, etc., on the condition  
they go along with mining. At other times Codegam resorted to more  
violent tactics. In April 2005 Codegam and a few dozen pro-mining  
people brought by Ascendant stormed the Cota- cachi Municipal  
building and held 19 community leaders, including township officials  
and representatives of grassroots organizations, inside the building,  
demanding to see the anti-mining indigenous Mayor Auki Tituana. He  
refused to meet with anyone until the place was vacated by the  
aggressors.

Codegam tried on various occasions to create a new county so  
Ascendant wouldn’t have to deal with the requirements of Cotacachi  
County’s ecological ordinance. “To enforce this ordinance,” said  
Beatrice Olivastri, CEO of FOE Canada, “they’re insisting that all  
mining and prospecting arrangements located in Intag be canceled and  
are proceeding with legal steps to accomplish this. It is the height  
of arrogance to think that Ascendant, a Canadian junior mining  
company, believes it can ignore or bypass this significant  
environmental law. What part of ‘no’ does Ascendant not understand?”

At the same time, landowners in Intag reported that Ascendant had  
acquired title to land illegally. Some of the land in question was  
within Junin’s community reserve. Some individuals have never lived  
on the lands they claim to own, including an Ascendant employee who  
managed to get someone at Inda, the national land office, to issue a  
document stating that he has been a “homesteader” (“posesionario” in  
Spanish) for 15 years. Others who sold their possession rights to  
DECOIN are reselling them to the company for many times the original  
sale price. In still other cases the new illegal claimants are  
claiming land that belongs to legal owners of titles. DECOIN has  
hired a team of lawyers in Quito to take the government officials  
involved in this scam to court. In the meantime, community members  
are blocking Ascendant’s attempts to gain entry to community lands.

EquadorMAP

OECD Complaint in Canada

Ascendant’s official support in Intag is limited to the single parish  
of Garcia Moreno. In a letter dated April 2005 Ronald Andrade of  
Codegam and the Garcia Moreno parish president asked the head of the  
armed forces in Ecuador to militarize the Intag area due to the  
alleged high level of insecurity. DECOIN’s Carlos Zorrilla warns that  
if government troops are ever sent to put down local resistance to  
the Junin project there will be a “bloodbath.”

In May 2005, with the help of FOE Canada and MiningWatch Canada,  
Zorrilla traveled to Ottawa to file a complaint with Canada’s  
Department of International Trade against ACC for alleged violations  
of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development’s (OECD)  
guidelines for multinational corporations. The complaint stated that  
ACC had not disclosed material information to the public and  
potential shareholders concerning its Junin project, including  
information on: local government actions challenging the legality of  
the Junin concessions; a land ownership dispute that could lead to  
militarization of the project area; and intense opposition from local  
representatives and government officials to the potential forced  
relocation of four communities. “I’m here because Canadians need to  
understand the real risk of violence that is emerging as a result of  
this company’s activities,” said Zorrilla. “It is time for this  
country’s authorities to stop pretending they have no influence over  
this kind of corporate behavior. The Canadian government must take  
action to curb the excesses of Canadian mining companies operating  
and exploring overseas.”

FOE Canada and MiningWatch Canada organized the “No Means No to  
Ascendant in Ecuador” campaign. They initiated the campaign by  
releasing a documentary film about the Junin conflict the day before  
Ascendant’s annual meeting in Vancouver. (The film is The Curse of  
Copper and can be viewed at www.ascendantalert.ca.)

Zorrilla said that he and other mine critics have been threatened  
with guns and machetes after they started fighting the company’s  
exploration plans. “We’ve all received death threats,” Zorrilla told  
a reporter for the Ottawa Citizen. All of the threats were allegedly  
carried out by members of Codegam, according to Zorrilla. Among the  
company’s high-profile leaders is Cesar Villacis Rueda, a former army  
general with close ties to Ecuador’s military intelligence and a  
graduate of the infamous School of the Americas in Fort Benning,  
Georgia. The general has said that he believes that people who work  
for human rights, indigenous rights, and workers’ rights are part of  
a “triangle of subversion.”

...he and other mine critics have been threatened with guns and  
machetes after they started fighting the company’s exploration plans  
“We’ve all received death threats”...

ACC’s CEO Gary Davis denied any firsthand knowledge of death threats,  
but admitted to a reporter for the Ottawa Citizen that Codegam had  
been “persecuting” its opponents. In June 2005 the company fired  
Villacis Rueda and told employees that such actions will not be  
tolerated in the future. Codegam employees, led by its president  
Ronald Andrade, later turned on their financial sponsor and  
criticized Ascendant for failing to live up to previous agreements  
with Codegam and the communities.

In December 2005 representatives of 20 communities of the Intag area  
met in the community of Chalguayacu Bajo and decided to dismantle and  
set fire to the facilities of the mining company. The action was  
taken to protest the proposed Junin mine, Ascendant’s funding of  
Codegam, and their aggressive land buying in their communities. The  
facilities consisted of a building that was the company’s base of  
operations. To the people of Intag it was a potent reminder of the  
company’s unwanted presence in the community.

No one was hurt and company employees were allowed to take out  
valuables before the building was set on fire. While DECOIN did not  
participate in the action and does not condone the use of violence,  
they explain the reaction of the local people was caused by the  
“constant abuses” which preceded the protest. “The events are the  
product of 18 months of assaults, intimidations, death threats,  
highway closings, violent aggression against representatives of the  
county government of Cotatachi, and many other measures against  
opponents of the Junin mining project,” according to a DECOIN press  
release. Ascendant’s Gary Davis claimed that, “This attack was  
perpetrated by a very small percentage of the regional community  
stakeholder population and is not representative of the majority view  
of the general communities.”

The company immediately accused certain leaders of DECOIN as being  
responsible for the fire, even though no DECOIN members were present  
at the event. After the fire, Zorrilla had to testify before the  
district attorney in response to a new accusation by Ascendant  
claiming that he was behind the burning. Previously, the company had  
put in an official request asking the Ministry of Foreign Relations  
to investigate Zorrilla. Ascendant has also claimed that the  
opposition to their project comes from “foreigners.”

The company has used the burning of their mining camp as a pretext  
for bringing in a private security firm called GOESIP. Company guards  
are now a constant public presence in the community, often at points  
far from Ascendant properties. International human rights observers  
who are part of the Intag Solidarity Network (ISN), and who have been  
present in the Intag region since February 2005, warned in a July  
2006 report that, “A very dangerous situation is arising—community  
conflict may converge with Ascendant’s paramilitarization of the  
region, resulting in a Colombianization of the Intag region. Once  
this process starts, a vicious conflict cycle may result, one that  
could be very hard to stop.... It is clear that Ascendant seeks to  
rip communities apart in its strategy to defeat the resistance.”  
Among the company’s activities denounced by the ISN were the following:

     * The use of death threats against mining opponents
     *     Employing armed guards who don’t wear visible  
identification or uniforms when operating in public spaces
     *     The mis-representation of activities and local realities  
in Intag through misleading statements and press releases
     *     Trespassing on community property (in Junin, for example),  
despite signs stating that miners are not welcome
     *     The manipulation of resource scarcity within communities  
and offering services in exchange for declarations of support for the  
company

In addition to employing private security firms, ACC has contracted  
Daimi Services, a public relations company, to try to win the “hearts  
and minds” of local residents and provide the social impact component  
of their environmental impact statement (EIS), a prerequisite for  
obtaining a mining license. On several occasions community members  
from Junin and other communities adjacent to the project area have  
detained employees of Daimi Services and prevented them from entering  
communities to carry out the studies necessary for the EIS. They have  
vowed to keep ACC employees from going into the community-owned and  
managed ecological reserve where the community runs a successful  
ecological tourism project. The reserve sits atop the copper deposit  
claimed by the company. On one occasion the police sent their SWAT  
team to the rescue of the detained employees. However, once the  
communities explained why they had taken this measure, the police  
expressed support for their action. The employees were released  
unharmed and there were no arrests. There were lawsuits, however, for  
kidnapping against six community residents. Company employees, in  
their attempt to obtain a social license to operate, now have to be  
accompanied by fully-armed bodyguards whenever they go to communities  
to talk about the benefits of mining and Ascendant. All of this  
conflict stimulates the conditions for paramilitarization and the  
cycle of violence so clearly illustrated in neighboring Colombia.

March on Quito

Ascendant’s website claims it “places high importance on working with  
local organizations.” It also says that community consultation and  
engagement are “key elements” in the company’s approach in the region  
of its operations. In May 2006 the communities of Intag held the  
company to its word. The democratically elected parish presidents  
that represent the communities of Intag met in a provincial assembly  
and passed a declaration demanding that Ascendant leave Ecuador. The  
company was given 15 days to leave. This is the first time so many  
local governments have publicly called for the immediate expulsion of  
a mining company in Ecuador. ACC refused the demand and after the 15  
days, the communities reassembled and called for a protest march on  
Quito.

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Paramilitaries attack with pepper spray and tear gas—photo from Intag  
Solidarity Network

In July 2006 approximately 400 men, women, and children came from  
Intag to the capital city of Quito to march against the Junin mining  
project. They were joined by another 300 from Quito and filled one of  
the capital’s main streets with colorful signs (“Get out, Ascendant”)  
and anti-mining chants. The crowd demonstrated in front of the  
Ministry of Energy and Mines until the minister agreed to meet with a  
delegation composed of the Cotacachi’s mayor, presidents of the local  
parish governments of Intag, and community activist Pobilio Perez.  
The minister promised that he would strictly abide by the law and, if  
there were any illegalities, the company’s concession would be revoked.

Early on October 17, 2006 about 19 persons identifying themselves as  
police, some in uniform, 2 with black ski masks, all armed with  
handguns or automatic weapons arrived at the home of DECOIN’s Carlos  
Zorrilla. He was not there. They arrived in five unmarked cars  
without license plates; at least one of the cars is said to belong to  
Ascendant. The police did not display name tags and when asked by a  
man working for Zorrilla, they refused to identify themselves. The  
police failed to produce a search warrant, but nonetheless proceeded  
to ransack Zorrilla’s home in front of his wife and son. Some time  
later, another individual, who claimed to be the prosecutor from the  
city of Cayambe, appeared with warrants that he briefly showed  
Zorrilla’s wife. At the end of the search, when the family was  
outside the house and no witnesses were present, police claim to have  
discovered a hand gun and a paper bag allegedly containing drugs.  
Neither the drugs nor the weapon had been in the house prior to the  
arrival of the police, according to members of the Zorrilla family.

The police apparently acted on a complaint by a U.S. citizen, Leslie  
Brook Chaplin, filed July 23 regarding an assault and robbery that  
had supposedly taken place during the peaceful rally against  
Ascendant’s Junin project in Quito in July. Eyewitnesses have  
reported that there was no violence at any point during the rally and  
that the complainant had been distributing leaflets on behalf of  
Ascendant in the midst of the rally. A few days later, Chaplin went  
to the police and accused Zorrilla of stealing a $1,200 video camera  
and $500 in cash. The entire exchange between Zorrilla and Chaplin  
was filmed by at least one person.

Based on these made-up charges, Ecuador’s legal system initiated a  
criminal lawsuit against Zorrilla, but never bothered to notify him  
of the charges. The court appointed a public defender who also failed  
to notify Zorrilla that he was charged and could present evidence  
during the 90-day period assigned to prove he was innocent. When the  
90-day period expired, the district attorney asked the judge to issue  
the warrants. All of a sudden, the authorities discovered where  
Zorrilla lived and raided his home.

The Ecumenical Human Rights Commission (CEDHU) of Ecuador immediately  
condemned the police action “as part of the campaign of persecution,  
intimidation, and aggression waged since 2004 by the Canadian  
Ascendant Copper Corporation mining company against the leaders and  
residents opposing mining activity in the Intag region since 1995.”  
They criticized Chaplin for “accusing a leader with a spotless  
background of dedication to serving the communities of the Intag  
area.” But CEDHU reserved its strongest condemnation “for our  
judicial and police institutions, involved in such crooked moves  
against Intag residents, acting as eager pawns for the Ascendant  
Copper Corporation.... This lawsuit, presented by Ascendant as ‘theft  
and injury,’ is actually just another attack against the collective  
cause of defending the villages of Intag.” Ascendant denies any  
responsibility for, or involvement in, the warrant or the  
government’s actions against Carlos Zorrilla.

After 30 days on the run while an international publicity campaign  
was organized on behalf of Zorrilla, the judge revoked the arrest  
warrant. No sooner had the warrant been revoked, than another one was  
issued for illegal possession of the gun the police planted in his home.

Zorrilla is not alone in being victimized by lawsuits. Ascendant  
tried to shut down the Intag community newspaper and filed ten  
criminal lawsuits against approximately 40 people of Junin and nearby  
communities in an attempt to silence the opposition. Instead of  
silencing the opposition ACC has inspired more resistance. In  
September 2006 the Imbabura Provincial Government where the Junin  
mining project is located asked the Ministry of Energy and Mines to  
suspend ACC’s exploration license. The rejection of the Junin mining  
project by local governments was now unanimous.

Ascendant Invades Junin

In the pre-dawn hours of December 1, a group of about 50 heavily  
armed persons attacked a road control post set up by the community of  
Junin to limit access to their community and forest reserve. When  
community members gathered at the control post to nonviolently resist  
the entrance of the armed group, they were hit with tear gas as the  
armed group tried to force its way through the post. When the  
community members refused to retreat the armed group fired hundreds  
of rounds from their hand and machine guns indiscriminately, wounding  
one of the community members. The invaders were forced to retreat  
after their ammunition ran out. The communities had won the first  
battle.

The attempted invasion resumed at 4:00 AM the next day. According to  
the account provided by the Ecumenical Human Rights Commission  
(CEDHU) in Quito: “...a group of persons—some dressed as civilians,  
others from Otavalo and Intag, but associated with the Ascendant  
Copper Corporation—used tear gas, automatic weapons and handguns in  
the area of Chalguayacu Alto (Garcia Moreno Parish: Cotacachi County,  
Imbabura province) injuring some members of the local population. As  
a consequence of this confrontation, the campesino Israel Perez  
suffered a bullet wound. The community captured 25 of these invaders,  
with the aim of turning them over to the police.”

CEDHU reported the attempted invasions to General Luis Garzon (First  
Army Division, in Quito), who confirmed that an Army helicopter had  
been hired for delivering provisions, but assured the human rights  
organization that no active Army personnel had taken part in the  
operation. CEDHU reports that the paramilitary forces are the  
employees of an agricultural company, Empresa Faleircorp. ACC has  
contracted Empresa Falericorp to develop the land in Junin which  
Ascendant claims to own. CEDHU asked the Ministry of Defense to fully  
investigate the paramilitary groups used by ACC. “We hold the  
Minister of Energy and Mines and Ascendant Copper Corporation  
responsible for these new measures which threaten the human rights of  
Intag’s communities, and for all the other consequences resulting  
from these premeditated armed incursions” said Sister Elsie Monge,  
executive director of CEDHU.

On December 6, 4 people were wounded, one seriously, when a pro- 
mining crowd of about 100 in the area of Garcia Moreno stopped  
approximately 400 people from all over Intag and other parts of  
Cotacachi County, along with the governor of Imbabura and Cotacachi  
County, who were headed to Junin to witness the transfer of the 57  
security guards who were captured by the communities previously, to  
government authorities. The pro-mining crowd threw rocks and tires  
that had been set on fire, fired shots, and threw Molotov cocktails  
at the group.

Following these incidents, the Undersecretary for Environmental  
Protection of the Ministry of Energy and Mines ordered ACC’s general  
manager in Ecuador to stop all activities at its Junin mining  
project: “As is publicly known, in the last few days grave  
confrontations have taken place in the communities within the area of  
influence of the Junin Mining project, which is under the  
responsibility of the company you represent, putting at risk the  
security and integrity of the inhabitants of the area.... Therefore,  
as the environmental authority in charge in the mining sector, this  
Subsecretary requires that the company you represent refrain from  
carrying out activities until this requirement [approval of  
Environmental Impact Study] is fulfilled.” The subsecretary later  
rejected ACC’s EIS because of insufficient consultation with the  
affected communities. This effectively stops the project. At the same  
time as ACC’s permit was suspended the Minister of Energy and Mines  
suspended all mining activities in the south of the country due to  
the unusual levels of violence surrounding the Ecaucorrientes mining  
projects, owned by another Canadian mining company, in the Condor Range.

After hearing testimony that Canadian mining companies are leaving a  
path of destruction in countries all over the world, the Canadian  
government rejected the recommendations of the Standing Committee on  
Foreign Affairs and International Trade for tighter regulations on  
Canadian mining companies abroad. Instead, it continues to rely on  
voluntary codes of conduct that don’t work.

Z


Al Gedicks teaches sociology at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse  
and is the author of Resource Rebels: Native Challenges to Mining and  
Oil Corporations (South End Press, 2001). The author has relied  
heavily upon reporting from the Intag Solidarity Network (www.intag  
solidarity.org).