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On the cover of TESTIMONIO is Diodora Antonia Hernandez Cinto, a Mayan Mam campesina woman who refused to sell her plot of land to Goldcorp Inc., formerly a Canadian company now bought out by Newmont Gold. The community defense struggle of the Mam people is one of the mining resistance struggles addressed in TESTIMONIO.
In TESTIMONIO, Catherine Nolin and I wrote (slightly edited for clarity):
“On May 14, 2016 we hiked across open fields in the Maya Mam village of San José de la Esperanza to where Diodora was tending to her cows and sheep, as she has always done. We stood in the shade of an adobe hut with Diodora Hernández, her daughter and granddaughter, and with Aniseto López of Frente de Defensa San Miguelenese / San Miguel Ixtahuacán Defense Front (FREDEMI) who translated for us from Mam to Spanish.
With no right eye, no hearing in her right ear, no water running through the one tap in her home, no investigation or justice for the murder attempt on her life, Diodora will still not sell her land to Goldcorp, Inc.
Her land sits in the path of where Goldcorp—and its Guatemalan subsidiary Montana Exploradora—had hoped to expand their initial open-pit, cyanide-leaching mining operation; now, tunnels snake underground.
On July 7, 2010, two men, one who had worked at Goldcorp's Marlin mine, one who had previously worked there, tried to assassinate Diodora, shooting her in the right eye. The bullet exited by her right ear, permanently blinding her right eye and causing loss of hearing. A couple of weeks before the assassination attempt, company employees had told local men, in a meeting at the mine, that they could not expand their open-pit mine because Diodora would not sell her plot of land. Men in the meeting said, “We’ll take care of that.” Some apparently tried; Diodora survived.
On July 20, 2010, David L. Deisley, Executive Vice President of Goldcorp, and General Counsel, wrote to Rights Action and ADISMI (Association for the Integral Development of San Miguel Ixtahúacan):
“I understand that the two men who allegedly committed the assault have been identified and were detained by the police, but were subsequently released. ... Both men are residents of San Miguel Ixtahuacán. One of the two was employed by Montana, but his employment was terminated more than one year ago. The other man is employed by a contractor that provides underground mine development services to Montana at the Marlin mine. ... Both Goldcorp and Montana Exploradora de Guatemala condemn this violent attack and offer our sincere condolences to Ms. Hernandez and her family.”
With condolences like these, who needs human rights violations?”
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Through my work with Rights Action in this region beginning in late 2004, I regularly brought US and Canadian citizens, journalists and film-makers on fact-finding human rights trips to learn about what was happening on the ground.
On July 5, 2010, I came with a group of visitors from the Mayflower United Church Christ (Minneapolis) to Diodora’s home and plot of, to visit with her and other Mam campesinos (farmers) resisting and protesting the harms and violations caused by Goldcorp Inc.’s mining operation (now bought out by Colorado based Newmont Gold). At the time, this mining operation was fully supported by the governments of Canada and Guatemala, with major investments from the World Bank.
Two days later, I was in the Maya Achi region of central Guatemala with the Mayflower delegation, visiting communities that had been massacred and devastated so as to make way for the Chixoy hydro-electric dam project, a mega-investment project of the World Bank and Inter-American Development Bank (1975-1985).
There, I received a call from Javier de Leon, a Mam community defender who had translated from Mam to Spanish during our meeting with Diodora. He explained that she had been shot and was in critical condition in the Roosevelt Hospital in Guatemala City, … where I found her and some family members three days later.
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Gold Fever documentary film
Along with other courageous community defenders, Diodora is profiled in the 2013 award winning documentary Gold Fever.
“A frightening vision of the world's insatiable hunger for gold, Gold Fever documents how Canadian mining giant Goldcorp Inc. [now owned by Newmont Gold] violently and harmfully operated its cyanide-leaching, mountain-top removal mine in Mayan Mam and Sipakapan territories of western Guatemala, leaving a legacy of repression and human rights violations, forced evictions, environmental and health harms.
“Dynamic and beautiful quality, this film provides a powerful look at the reality of what it means when gold miners dig into the homes, communities and lands of courageous people, in faraway places, who are forced to courageously resist the harms and violations, and struggle for justice and a different “global economic development” model.”
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Tax deductible donations (Canada / U.S.)
To support the land, human rights, environmental and justice defense struggles of the communities we support, including Diodora and indigenous community defenders in TESTIMONIO, make checks payable to 'Rights Action' and mail to:
- U.S.: Box 50887, Washington DC, 20091-0887
- Canada: (Box 552) 351 Queen St. E, Toronto ON, M5A-1T8
Donations of stock? Write to: [email protected]
Credit-Card Donations: https://rightsaction.org/donate
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