As Canadian company sells mine in Oaxaca, we remember the territorial defenders killed while opposing it
Photo by Educa Oaxaca. “March 21, 2012: CPUVO members and Mexican human rights organizations hold a protest in front of the Canadian embassy in Mexico City and at the Canadian Consulate in Oaxaca city to denounce the responsibility of the Fortuna Silver Mines Company in the murders of human rights advocates in San José del Progreso.” – Civilian Observation Mission Report.
Yesterday, April 14, 2025, Vancouver-based Fortuna Mining Corp. announced “the successful completion of the sale of its 100 percent interest in Compañia Minera Cuzcatlan S.A. de C.V. to JRC Ingeniería y Construcción S.A.C., a private Peruvian company…”
The company notes that in the deal: “Fortuna retains a 1.0 percent net smelter royalty on production from the San Jose Mine concessions payable after the first 6.1 million ounces of silver and the first 44,000 ounces of gold or 119,000 gold equivalent ounces have been mined or extracted from the property.”
The mine has a controversial and deadly history.
On February 15, 2012, Dawn Paley reported: “It’s been almost three years since hundreds of people took direct action to temporarily shut down Vancouver-based Fortuna Silver’s gold and silver mine near Oaxaca City, Mexico.”
Paley added in that article: “Three people have been killed so far, most recently, Bernardo Mendez Vasquez, who was shot seven times on January 18, 2012, by a municipal police officer. Locals say municipal authorities ordered the police to attack residents who were refusing to allow a new water system to be installed on their land because they feared it would be used to supply the mine with water.”
Less than two months later, Ottawa-based MiningWatch Canada posted: “On March 15th, Bernardo Vásquez Sánchez, an Indigenous Zapotec community leader and member of the Coordinating Committee of the United Peoples of the Valley of Ocotlán (CPUVO) in San José del Progreso, Oaxaca, was murdered in an ambush by a group of some three gunmen. Bernardo was an outspoken leader against the mining operations of Vancouver-based Fortuna Silver Mines in San José del Progreso, Oaxaca, known locally by the name of its Mexican subsidiary, Minera Cuzcatlán.”
Photo: Bernardo Vásquez Sánchez.
On March 22, 2012, La Jornada reported: “Members of environmental and human rights organizations yesterday symbolically took over the Canadian embassy to protest the murders of Bernardo Méndez Vásquez and Bernardo Vásquez Sánchez who opposed the activities of the Canadian-Mexican mining company Cuzcatlán.”
Photo: Protest at Canadian Embassy in Mexico City.
Just a few months earlier in November 2011, the Peace Brigades International-Mexico Project had commented: “Fortuna Silver is a Canadian company that operates through the Mexican subsidiary Cuzcatlán. Mexican and international organizations report that the company obtained a permit for extraction from local authorities, without informing the community, violating their rights to consultation and to free, prior and informed consent.”
PBI-Mexico highlighted: “Since then, the sector of the community that is against the mine has been subjected to constant attacks, including threats, arbitrary arrests, and campaigns against human rights defenders.”
By November 19-22, 2012, Brent Patterson and Meera Karunananthan, both now with Peace Brigades International-Canada, were part of a three-day international observation mission, accompanied by PBI-Mexico, to examine the situation with the mine.
Allegations of paramilitary groups
The Civilian Observation Mission Report that was developed after that visit noted: “The testimonies gathered often report the presence of armed civilians who do not serve as official police. They point out that, beyond the municipal police, there are extra-official paramilitary groups acting as a shock group promoting company interests. This results in a highly confusing environment characterized by impunity in the cases of violation of human rights, and by mining company financing in the municipality.”
In her eulogy for Vasquez, Paley stated: “He was well aware that a paramilitary group was operating in San José Progreso, Oaxaca, and that it was organized to snuff out opposition to a gold mine, owned by Vancouver based Fortuna Silver. … One thing is clear: this was a political hit. Bernardo was murdered because he dared to speak out, ignoring the climate of fear imposed upon his people.”
One year after Bernardo’s murder, the Mexican Network of People Affected by Mining (REMA) also stated: “On repeated occasions, members of the CPUVO denounced that the mining company was financing armed groups in the community with the endorsement of the municipal president of San José del Progreso, Alberto Mauro Sánchez.”
Intellectual authors
On the one-year anniversary, the Oaxacan Collective in Defence of Territories demanded “punishment for those materially and intellectually responsible for the murders of Bernardo Vásquez Sánchez and Bernardo Méndez Vásquez, defenders of the territory.”
In March 2016, the Oaxacan Collective in Defense of Territories noted on the fourth anniversary of the murder of Bernardo Vásquez Sánchez: “To this day, the masterminds of Bernardo’s murder have not been investigated. In 2015, the Oaxaca Attorney General’s Office allowed Bartolo Aguilar, Domingo Aguilar, and Albino Hernández, accused of being the material authors of the crime, to be released.
Company denial
In May 2019, Luiz Camargo, the director of finance and general affairs of the Cuzcatlan mine, told Radio-Canada: “The mining company has not and has never had any participation whatsoever in violent acts.”
We continue to follow this.
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