SÃO PAULO, Brazil – Catholics have been expressing their criticism of President Nayib Bukele’s plan to resume mining in El Salvador, a Central American nation where the exploitation of metal deposits has been illegal since 2017.
In a series of posts on X on Nov. 27, Bukele claimed El Salvador “potentially has the world’s gold deposits with most density per square kilometer.” He said that studies show the volume of gold under the nation’s soil may correspond to $3 billion.
“Taking advantage of this wealth could transform El Salvador [by creating] thousands of quality jobs; [by financing] infrastructure throughout our country; [by boosting] the development of local economies,” he said.
Bukele added that El Salvador is the only “country in the world with a total ban on metal mining, something that no other country applies,” and said that such a “wealth, given by God, can be used responsibly to bring unprecedented economic and social development to our people.”
On Dec. 1, as he inaugurated a road, Bukele talked about mining again, asking the attendants if they didn’t think “it’s awkward that we’re the only country in the world that forbids mining.”
The suggestions of Bukele concerning the exploitation of minerals have been received with strong sectors of the nation, including the Salvadoran Church, which was one of the key entities behind the campaign that banned mining in 2017.
According to Luis Gonzalez, who is one of the directors of Unidad Ecológica Salvadoreña (Salvadoran Ecological Unity), an environmentalist organization, the decision to stop mining seven years ago had great popular support and was directly connected to a number of serious concerns related to El Salvador’s natural resources.
“In Central America, we’re the country with the most serious level of deforestation, the country with less water, and the country with the most polluted water. We have 300 inhabitants per square kilometer. Our environmental indicators show our weakness in that perspective,” Gonzalez, who is also a member of the National Roundtable Against Metallic Mining, told Crux.
Gonzalez added that all those aspects have only gotten worse since 2017. Further polluting the water and the soil and harming biodiversity would only increase the impacts on human beings, he claimed.
Guillermo Navarro, who represents the Mesoamerican Ecclesial Ecological Network (REMAM) in El Salvador, emphasized that the country has a “terrible hydric diagnosis,” given that most of its water comes from 10 important rivers whose springs are in neighboring countries.
“River Lempa, the most relevant for us, comes from Guatemala. El Salvador has been struggling against a mining project there called Cerro Blanco for many years, because it would impact the Lempa,” he told Crux.
Now, if El Salvador resumes mining, it will lose its legitimacy to complain about the Guatemalan project, Navarro added.
Today, three quarters of the Salvadoran rivers are already polluted, he said, adding the territory wouldn’t be able to cope with more problems.
Archbishop José Luis Escobar Alas of San Salvador released a statement on Dec. 1 saying forbidding mining was “evidence of the primary value attributed by the Salvadoran people to the right to life and to health not only of the human beings but also of the animals and plants.”
Escobar emphasized that mining would pollute the air and the water with cyanide and mercury and would increase deforestation and the erosion of the soil, causing disease and death among many communities, especially the poor.
“We hope that our authorities will reconsider and not abolish the law that prohibits mining, protecting the life and health of our people,” Escobar said.
Despite the criticism generated by Bukele’s proposal, Navarro says his administration will not back down. He fears the government will present a bill about it to the Congress during Christmas, when the people are not paying attention to political issues.
“The same way he did in other cases, we think that he will introduce the bill and it will be automatically approved, without any discussion. He controls the Congress,” he said.
Bukele has been enjoying high levels of popularity among Salvadorans due to his policy of zero tolerance on crime that has taken thousands of gang members to prison over the past couple of years.
The news on human rights violations in the penal system and of illegal arrests of hundreds of people have been hushed up by the government on several occasions, given that it has been imposing month after month a “state of exception” in the country.
Many journalists and opponents had to flee El Salvador since then, and it has been hard for environmentalists and human rights activists to speak against the government’s violations.
“At this point, he’s calculating how the public opinion is relating to his idea. He fears damage to his image, so he conducts changes little by little,” Navarro said.
Despite Bukele’s strength, the water issue in El Salvador has been critical, and many people are not willing to change any law that may affect the hydric balance.
“The government will keep insisting on its narratives that mining will be positive for the people. There are groups of interest already preparing to invest in mining endeavors,” Navarro said.
The president has been trying to depict the Church and environmentalists as social segments that are against progress and economic development. Despite that, Catholics have a strong voice in society, claimed Gonzalez.
“That’s a problem that directly impacts our common home. The Church must continue to insist on that message,” he said.
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Publish date : 2024-12-02 21:01:00
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