PBI-UK notes win by farmers against LSE listed mining company in Mexico, the environmental defenders killed after denouncing abuses

Published by Brent Patterson on January 31, 2025January 31, 2025

Image from PBI-UK report: The Case For Change: Why human rights defenders need a UK law on mandatory due diligence.

PBI-UK has posted on X/Twitter: “WIN! Court confirms UK-registered company owes farmers in El Bajío over £5 million for gold illegally extracted from community land. Environmental defenders were murdered after denouncing land & environmental abuses.”

The Pie de Página article by independent journalist Alejandro Ruiz shared by PBI-UK reports: “The Unitary Agrarian Tribunal Number 28 accredited that the company Fresnillo PLC, owned by the Baillères family, owes the ejidatarios of the ejido El Bajío, in Sonora, the sum of 13,258,667,000 pesos. The amount corresponds to the illegal extraction of gold that the mining company carried out on ejido lands from 2005 to 2013…”

That article further notes: “The information could lead to sanctions for the company, which is listed on the London Stock Exchange in the United Kingdom, where the board informs its shareholders that the mine is still active and that ‘there is no legal conflict’, so they could be expelled from that space.”

The Mexican Network of People Affected by Mining (REMA) also highlights the Pie de Página article and the significance of this ruling in this tweet.

Fresnillo in PBI-UK report

PBI-UK highlighted the Fresnillo case in their investigative report: The Case For Change: Why human rights defenders need a UK law on mandatory due diligence (November 2024).

That report highlighted (on pages 21 to 23):

“Minera Penmont operated the Soledad-Dipolos open-pit gold mine located in the territory of the El Bajío Ejido in Mexico, between 2010 and 2013. When mining exploration began on communal lands, local communities began to defend their rights. Agrarian Courts have ruled that Penmont were operating on the land illegally without the community’s permission, ordering Penmont to leave the land and compensate the residents. However, land and environmental defenders calling for accountability have faced a series of reprisals including arbitrary detention, criminalisation, and killings. Minera Penmont is a subsidiary of Fresnillo PLC, a UK-incorporated company listed on the London Stock Exchange.”

Attacks against land defenders opposed to the mine

Their report further notes:

“Leaders of the peaceful community resistance faced arbitrary arrest in April 2016 when police officers – allegedly escorted by private security guards of Minera Penmont – arrived at the Ejido and arrested land rights defender Bartolo Pacheco and four other members of the Ejido.

Attacks against community representatives continued to escalate and, in February 2018, land rights defender Raúl Ibarra de la Paz was murdered, and his wife Noemí López Gutierrez forcibly disappeared. Journalists who went to the El Bajío Ejido to cover the story reported being threatened by security staff allegedly linked to Minera Penmont.

In May 2021, José de Jesús Robledo Cruz, human rights defender and former Ejido President, was found murdered in the middle of the desert together with his wife, María de Jesús Gómez Vega.José de Jesús had actively opposed the activities of Minera Penmont in the region. Alongside their bodies, a list with the names of 13 other anti-mining Ejido members was found. When invited by the Business and Human Rights Resource Centre to respond to the killing of José de Jesús and his wife, Minera Penmont categorically rejected that it is linked in any way with the crimes.

PBI has provided security and advocacy support to members of the Ejido due to the ongoing threats they face.”

How a UK Business, Human Rights and Environment Act would have applied

PBI-UK concludes:

“Ultimately, a Business, Human Rights and Environment Act would likely have provided a robust framework to prevent serious human rights violations and environmental harm by compelling early and appropriate action, ensuring meaningful consultation, and offering avenues for redress. This is all that the land and environmental defenders from the El Bajio Ejido ever wanted. It is what some of them paid the ultimate price for demanding.”

We continue to follow this and support calls in Canada for a “Mandatory Human Rights and Environmental Due Diligence” law (proposed by the Canadian Network on Corporate Accountability, of which we are members) as well as for a legally-Binding Treaty on transnational corporations and human rights that the Canadian government continues to oppose at United Nations talks in Geneva.