Summit of Peoples in Argentina, Guatemala, Mexico and Peru Harmed Pan American Silver

Summit of Peoples in Argentina, Guatemala, Mexico and Peru Harmed by Pan American Silver
Communiqué, May 5, 2022

We, the undersigned peoples and organizations, gathered at this Summit of Peoples Affected by Pan American Silver (PAS), one week before the annual meeting of its shareholders in Vancouver, Canada, where the financial balance that will be announced will surely be positive.

Our realities are very different, and we want them to be heard.

This summit arises as a response to the need to articulate and exchange experiences of resistance and to confront the constant threats we suffer in our territories.

Since the arrival of PAS in our countries, we communities have been stripped of our rights, criminalized, persecuted, violated and made invisible.

All this has happened through the corrupt practices and ways of imposing the extractivism of this company in collusion with the political powers and restrictions of access to justice. All this evidences a systemic pattern of operation and tactics to establish the company in our regions.

In Argentina since 2009, and in order to exploit the Navidad project, Pan American Silver (PAS) has corrupted the 3 branches of the provincial State: executive, legislative and judicial. Its methods have been based on corruption and persecution of the communities of the provincial plateau.

In Guatemala, PAS acquired in 2019 the El Escobal project, suspended after a historical and peaceful 9-year resistance against the previous owner Tahoe Resources. PAS operates in Guatemala as it does in Argentina, in terms of human rights violations and alliances with the governments in power.

In Peru, after operating the Quiruvilca project for more than 18 years and having to face the closure of the mine, PAS disposed of the project and its responsibility, leaving environmental liabilities as ‘development’ for the communities.

In Mexico, since 1998, PAS’s mining operation has been imposed on the community La Colorada, culminating between 2014-2017 with the destruction of the houses and the total dispossession of the community that inhabited the territory.

From PAS's official data, we know that its economic future is based on the expansion of the La Colorada project (Mexico) and the progress of the projects currently paralyzed by community-based resistance: Navidad (Argentina) and El Escobal (Guatemala).

We hold PAS responsible for what might happen to community members acting in defense of Mother Earth. We demand that the States of Argentina, Mexico, Peru and Guatemala guarantee the security of their peoples and the right to self-determination, which includes the choice of which productive activities each community wants to choose for its inhabitants, according to their culture, history and beliefs.

From what was shared at the Summit, it emerges that our struggles are not isolated.

Pan American Silver and its partner governments operate with patterns of behavior that include corruption, coercion, extortion, disinformation, buying of favours and media, repression and militarization of territories, forced displacement of communities, violations of human rights, violations of the rights of indigenous communities, environmental and health damages, evasion of taxes and fiscal, environmental and labor responsibilities.

All of this is disguised with a discourse disguised with pretty words and images.

The unity between communities against the same invader allows us to strengthen the networks of support, resistance and communication to articulate ourselves as peoples for the defense of the territories against the threats of extractive companies like Pan American Silver.

We understand that the company financially profits from with the suffering and dispossession of others.

We will be delivering a petition (https://mailchi.mp/miningwatch/pas-shareholder-meeting-2022?e=1186657b4b) at their annual meeting to be held on May 11.

We reaffirm the path of resistance in defense of Mother Earth in the communities of Chubut in Argentina, Santa Rosa, Jalapa and Jutiapa in Guatemala, and we encourage other peoples oppressed by extractivism to raise their voices, take to the streets and join the strategies that this Summit initiates.