PBI-Honduras accompanies CEHPRODEC at meeting on the impacts of mining on Juticalpa and Campamento

On January 27, the Peace Brigades International-Honduras Project posted, “This Saturday [January 25] we accompanied Cehprodec to a meeting with neighbors of Juticalpa and Campamento, for information on the effects of metal mining on the territory. Juticalpa is the municipality with the most metal mining concessions in Honduras.”

Juticalpa and Campamento are municipalities in the department of Olancho.

Defensores en linea has reported, “The department of Olancho is formed by 23 municipalities and in most of them concessions for exploration and exploitation have been granted, according to the report ‘The State of Mining in the Department of Olancho’, carried out by the Honduran Center for Development Promotion Community (CEHPRODEC).”

In May 2014, CEHPRODEC contributed to the report The Impact of Canadian Mining in Latin America and Canada’s Responsibility that was submitted to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.

That report notes:

“Opposition to the large mining operations imposed by national authorities has had serious consequences for the local population, including criminalization of rights advocacy and closure of institutional spaces for dialogue, in addition to the exacerbation of violence, threats and harassment, deaths and serious injuries.”

“The political and economic support Canada gives Canadian companies (through mechanisms such as Export Development Canada (EDC), the Investment Board of the Canadian Pension Plan, and the Canadian International Development Agency) is provided without adequate controls to prevent the violation of human rights in the countries where the companies that receive these benefits operate.”

“Trade agreements usually contain clauses on human rights and environmental protection. However, they lack the legal bases to force the parties — and, fundamentally, Canada — to comply with the obligation to respect and guarantee the human rights that are violated in the host countries by the actions of Canadian mining companies.”

Among the report’s recommendation, it calls on Canada to “refrain from providing any government support, whether through development programs, trade and/or association agreements, public financing or technical or political assistance, for the purpose of influencing the enactment of lax regulatory frameworks for mining investments and to the detriment of the obligation to guarantee human rights in the host countries of the extractive projects.”

PBI-Honduras began accompanying CEHPRODEC in May 2014.