A statement has just been released about the killing of Bernardo Vásquez Sánchez, a Mexican civil society activist who has spoken out against the Canadian-owned Fortuna Silver Mine in San José del Progreso, which is located about 550 kilometres south-east of Mexico City. The statement reads:
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We are participants of the World Alternative Water Forum, a space for organizing the struggles for water as a commons of humanity and nature. We have learned of the terrible news that in Mexico, Bernardo Vásquez Sánchez, community activist of the Coordination of People’s United for the Ocotlan Valley (CPUVO) and the National Assembly of the Environmentally Affected people, has been murdered. In these events, Arturo Vásquez Sánchez (Bernardo’s brother) and Rosalinda Dionicio Sánchez also activists for the collective right to water in the community of San José del Progreso, Oaxaca, were wounded in hands of gunmen giving service to the Canadian Fortuna Silver Mines (locally this company is called Minera Cuzcatlán).
Bernardo Vásquez’s assassination is part of a series of aggressions by the municipal authorities of San José del Progreso, which act in service of the transnational mining corporation. The last one of these was the murder of another community activist in San José, Bernardo Méndez Vásquez last January 19.
We know that in Mexico, the transnational mining industry – particularly the Canadian – is characterized for operating in impunity, with disregard to law, promoting authorities corruption (through careful conflict engineering), intimidating communities and destroying the life conditions of communities where it works. We also know that the authorities of the state of Oaxaca and the federal government have for years unattended the demands of the communities of Ocotlan Valley in Oaxaca to close definitively the operations of this criminal mine.
We demand that the Mexican government undertakes a complete investigation of the case to find the murderers of Bernardo Vásquez Sánchez and cancel once and for all the operation of Fortuna Silver Mines as the community of San José del Progreso, Oaxaca demands.
In solidarity with the families of Bernardo, Arturo and Rosalinda, we will be following what happens.
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To read more about the situation in San José del Progreso, and sadly about the killing of another civil society activist, Bernardo Mendez Vasquez, please see this late-January 2012 article from the Vancouver Observer, http://www.vancouverobserver.com/politics/news/2012/01/28/vancouver-mining-company-opponent-killed-mexico-pipeline-clash.
Brent Patterson, Political Director, The Council of Canadians
www.canadians.org/wwf; www.canadians.org/mining
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