Gold Mining

New US Sanctions Are Designed To Hit Nicaragua’s Poorest Citizens

November 3, 2022 John Perry, Alliance for Global Justice. Educate! Gold Mining, Nicaragua, Poverty, US Sanctions

The Biden administration has announced new sanctions which are intended to hit the poorest Nicaraguans – both in their pockets and in the public services on which they depend. This latest attack on a small Central American country is, as usual, dressed up as promoting democracy saying that the sanctions will “deny the Ortega-Murillo regime the resources they need to continue to undermine democratic institutions in Nicaragua.” But everyone knows the real target is ordinary Nicaraguans who voted overwhelmingly to return a Sandinista government to power in last year’s elections. Anyone hearing or seeing the NPR news item on the sanctions will have read that they are aimed at “Nicaragua’s gold industry,” with an implicit message that this hits President Daniel Ortega’s personal treasure chest.

Activists Slam Latest Sanctions Placed On Nicaragua By White House

October 26, 2022 Morning Star. Resist! Gold Mining, Nicaragua, Sanctions, US Imperialism

The Biden administration said on Monday that it would ban US citizens from doing business with Nicaragua’s gold industry. The White House also raised the possibility that it may impose further trade restrictions on the central American nation, which could include stripping 500 government insiders of their US visas. Previous rounds of sanctions have focused on President Daniel Ortega, Vice-President Rosario Murillo, who is Mr Ortega’s wife, and members of their family. But the new executive order greatly expands a Trump-era decree by accusing Mr Ortega of hijacking democratic norms, undermining the rule of law and using political violence against opponents. The order will make it all but illegal for US citizen to do business with Nicaragua’s gold industry.

Tribes And Water Protectors Ward Off New Black Hills Gold Rush

July 24, 2022 Talli Nauman, Esperanza Project. Resist! Black Hills, Gold Mining, Indigenous Rights, Sacred sites, Water Protectors

Native nations and citizen watchdogs were prepared to take action against the permitting, because this is not the first time the federal agency has moved to allow the renewal of large-scale mining at these headwaters of the Missouri and Mississippi rivers. Four toxic Superfund sites are the result of water pollution from the mining over the past 70 years. Two generations of Lakota and settler descendants have worked across and through cultural differences to prevent any more of the same. Taxpayers already are footing the bill for the cleanup of hazardous heavy metals used in modern mining: cyanide, arsenic, chromium III and VI, copper, lead, mercury, nickel, selenium, silver, thallium, and zinc. About $100 million of public money has been spent on runoff at just one of the sites, which generates approximately 95 million gallons of poisonous acid rock drainage a year.

For The Nez Perce, A Proposed Gold Mine Is A Symbol Of Broken Promises

May 31, 2021 Marcie Carter, In These Times. Educate! Gold Mining, Indigenous Rights, Treaties, US Imperialism

As a citizen of the Nez Percé, or Nimíipuu, which means the People, I look at gold mining as a symbol of broken promises. In 1855, when my ancestors entered into a treaty with the United States, we ceded millions of acres in what eventually became Idaho, Oregon and Washington. In exchange we reserved an exclusive homeland and rights to fish, hunt, gather and pasture throughout our vast aboriginal territory. Then in 1860 gold was discovered, and thousands of prospectors flooded across our borders in violation of the treaty, damaging our sacred places and natural resources and causing unspeakable injury to our people. The United States failed to uphold the terms of the 1855 Treaty and instead forced the Nez Percé to enter into a new treaty in 1863.

Guatemalan Water Protectors Persist, Despite Mining Company Threats

April 2, 2020 Jen Moore, Inequality.org. Resist! Gold Mining, Guatemala, Indigenous Resistance, Water Protectors

Guatemala - The hard work of protecting water and land from the long-term harms associated with gold and silver mining takes place daily on the frontlines of tenacious struggles throughout Latin America and around the world. Indigenous people and affected communities face many reprisals for their resistance, including a mounting number of arbitration suits against their governments from mining companies suing over projects that people have managed to halt through direct action and in the courts. This month, in Guatemala, the Peaceful Resistance “La Puya” celebrates eight years of struggle against a gold mining project that threatens to pollute or dry up already scarce water supplies in an area just north of Guatemala City. Day after day, since March 2012, community members have rotated in shifts to keep 24-hour watch over the access gate to the “El Tambor” gold mining project.

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