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March 5, 2025



** Canada’s Equinox Gold threatens Mexican community members near cyanide-leaching “Los Filos” gold mine
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Below: Urgent communique from Mining Watch Canada

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Please consider sending your own (personal, organizational) letter to Greg Smith, President and CEO of Equinox, denouncing their threats and pressures, with copies to your elected politicians, media, networks.

“Canadian problem” of mining injustice and immunity from accountability
For anyone who has followed Rights Action’s work since 2004 related to mainly Canadian (also U.S. and Swiss) mining companies operating in Guatemala and Honduras, you will find Equinox Gold’s abuse of power familiar.

There is effectively no political oversite from the Canadian government. There is no political will in Canada’s legal and political establishment to open any criminal investigations. Besides the few recent and important civil lawsuits (including the recently settled landmark Hudbay Minerals lawsuits ([link removed]) ), there is almost no access to civil lawsuit justice.

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Carrizalillo denounces death threats and reiterates call for respectful negotiations with Equinox Gold as company leadership makes surprise visit
3 March 2025, Viviana Herrera, MiningWatch Canada, Latin America Program Coordinator
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On Sunday, representatives of Carrizalillo, a community of 3,500 located roughly 500 metres from the cyanide leaching pad of Equinox Gold’s Los Filos mine in Guerrero, Mexico, sent a letter to CEO and President Greg Smith.

The correspondence denounces a surprise visit to the community from top company leadership in Mexico as part of efforts to discredit Carrizalillo’s community representatives while death threats have been escalating against their members. (Letter attached, below)

Since late January, Carrizalillo has been calling for a reset in renegotiations over new land use and social cooperation agreements with Equinox Gold that are set to expire at the end of March. The company requires a land use agreement with Carrizalillo to operate Los Filos, given the majority of mine installations are currently located on their land. The company has also sought agreements with two other communities onto whose lands the mine is expanding.

Equinox Gold has repeatedly issued an ultimatum over the negotiations in its public communications, stating that if it does not achieve the terms it seeks in the agreements with Carrizalillo - which amount to drastic cuts in current agreements - it will indefinitely close the mine. Carrizalillo, which has negotiated with successive owners of the Los Filos mine since 2007, has publicly indicated within the last month that it will accept a 64% cut in the current land rental agreement, but that it requires direct talks with the company independent of other communities and Guerrero state officials, to work out outstanding issues. If the company decides to close the mine, the community also seeks talks over closure plans.

Carrizalillo’s recent letter questions the intentions of Equinox Gold’s top leadership in Mexico when they organized the last-minute visit to the community on Saturday, perceiving it as an act of provocation. Mr. André Souza de Amorim, Equinox Gold General Manager for Los Filos, and Mr. Armando Fausto Ortega, Senior Vice President for Equinox Gold in Mexico, gave a couple hours’ notice of their visit “to talk about the future of the mine” on Facebook, the mine’s radio station and other digital outlets.

With a megaphone in hand, Mr. Ortega arrived threatening that if Carrizalillo refused to sign a final agreement with the company that day that the mine would close. Presumably, they sought an outpouring of support from the general population. But only 15 to 18 people showed up. According to the letter, most complained about the company’s lack of respect for the community’s decision-making process with its surprise visit, as well as its own broken promises in current agreements, and lack of concern for the particular situation that the community faces as a result of living in such close vicinity to the mine.

The community has lost nearly all of its agricultural lands to the Los Filos mine operations since the mine was installed in 2007, along with multiple water sources and a corresponding rise in health harms. In the context of the extreme systemic violence that dominates in central Guerrero, Carrizalillo has also faced escalating violence since the installation of the Los Filos mine, including dozens of murders.

The letter further denounces company leadership for reinforcing the prominent discourse that company communications have generated, blaming Carrizalillo and especially community leadership for the threatened mine closure. The company ultimatum has been picked up regularly in local media, including to single out specific community representatives in at least once case. Further, the Los Filos mine hourly radio program has also been disseminating spots accusing Carrizalillo’s representatives of obstructing efforts to reach a new agreement, to the detriment of workers and children in the community.

The community denounces that this has contributed to the rise in death threats against community leaders and their family members, which they believe is being directed by a company mine manager.

The community letter seeks to set the record straight stating that they are not opposed to negotiations, but that they won’t do so in the streets nor will they tolerate constant discrimination and stigmatization. Rather, they are calling for direct and respectful negotiations with Equinox, without the presence of Guerrero state officials or other community representatives, over the future of the mine that will take into consideration their specific context.

Carrizalillo community letter to Greg Smith, President and CEO of Equinox Gold, March 2, 2025 ([link removed])

Related
* News Ejido de Carrizalillo Announces it Will Halt Operations at Equinox's Los Filos Mine in Mexico ([link removed]) 19.02.2025
* Blog Entry Open Letter from the Ejido of Carrizalillo in Mexico to Equinox Gold ([link removed]) 10.02.2025
* News Brazilians Still Without Water Six Months after Mine Dam Breach ([link removed]) 27.09.2021
* Blog Entry Open Letter to Equinox Gold and Brazilian Authorities ([link removed]) 25.05.2021
* News No Relief for 4000 People Affected by Brazil Mine Spill ([link removed]) 07.04.2021

More info
Viviana Herrera, MiningWatch Canada, Latin America Program Coordinator
[email protected] (mailto:[email protected]) | [link removed]

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Mining Injustice Solidarity Network (MISN)
March 2, 2025
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On March 2, activists gathered at the Toronto Stock Exchange for a march, calling out Canada's biggest banks—RBC, TD, BMO, Scotiabank, and CIBC—for financing destructive mining projects. The march stopped at these banks before confronting a heavy police presence outside the PDAC mining convention.

Speakers from Wet’suwet’en, Sámi, Palestinian, Congolese, Chilean, Sudanese and other Indigenous communities exposed how mining fuels displacement, militarization, environmental destruction and ethnic cleansing worldwide. From the Wet’suwet’en struggle to land theft in Sápmi, forced labor in the DRC, and weapons production for Palestine’s occupation, the message was clear: mining is tied to genocide and corporate greed.

As PDAC continues, so do the demands for accountability:
- Cut off funding for mining-linked violence
- Hold banks accountable for the harms they fund interna
tionally
- Honor indigenous sovereignty and land stewardship
- Stop the exploitation of both land and people for profit

The fight against extractive industries is a fight for justice. Will you stand with Indigenous land defenders around the world?

Mining Injustice Solidarity Network (MISN)
[email protected] (mailto:[email protected]) | www.mininginjustice.org

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Settlement of landmark Hudbay Minerals lawsuits
Oct.7, 2024 press release: [link removed]
“TESTIMONIO–Canadian Mining in the Aftermath of Genocides in Guatemala”
Edited by Catherine Nolin & Grahame Russell (Between The Lines, 2021)

Tax-Deductible Donations (Canada & U.S.)
To support land and environmental defenders, and human rights, justice and democracy defense struggles in Honduras and Guatemala, make check to "Rights Action" and mail to:
* U.S.: Box 50887, Washington DC, 20091-0887
* Canada: Box 82858, RPO Cabbagetown Toronto, ON, M5A 3Y2

Credit-Card Donations: [link removed]
Direct deposits, write to: [email protected] (mailto:[email protected])
Donations of securities, write to: [email protected] (mailto:[email protected])

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