REFILE-Guatemala top court confirms suspension of Tahoe mining licenses

[Judi Lynn]

25 DE AGOSTO DE 2017 / 0:04 / HACE 3 DÍAS

 Redacción de Reuters

GUATEMALA CITY, Aug 24 (Reuters) - Guatemala’s constitutional court confirmed on Thursday the provisional suspension of two mining licenses belonging to a local unit of Canadian miner Tahoe Resources Inc., two people involved in the case said.

The court is assessing whether the company consulted appropriately with indigenous communities, after an environmental organization argued that indigenous people in the region had not been consulted about the projects.

The mining licenses of the company’s Escobal unit, one of the world’s largest silver mines, as well as the smaller Juan Bosco unit have been suspended since July 5.

“We are sorry about the court’s decision,” said Andrés Dávila, a spokesman for San Rafael, Tahoe’s local unit. “We will continue exhausting all the legal avenues that Guatemalan law permits us.”

More:
https://lta.reuters.com/article/marketsNews/idLTAL2N1LB06B?rpc=401&

[Judi Lynn]

1. Earlier event:

More:
https://www.reuters.com/article/guatemala-mining-tahoe-resources/update-1-canada-set-as-jurisdiction-for-guatemalan-suit-against-tahoe-resources-court-idUSL1N1FH004

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Why did Goldcorp really pull out of Tahoe Resources’ troubled Guatemalan mining project?
July 7, 2015 Posted by Guest Blogger

. . .

Risky business

The biggest risks of investing in Tahoe are likely to be social and political in nature. Goldcorp’s divestment follows that of Norway’s Government Pension Fund-Global, which divested from Tahoe in January 2015. Norway’s Government Pension Fund-Global’s Council on Ethics recommended “the exclusion of the company Tahoe Resources Inc. due to an unacceptable risk of the company contributing to serious human rights violations through its mining activities in Guatemala.” More details are available in the Council’s Annual report for 2014.

While Tahoe has downplayed risks to its community relations in its communication to investors, and Goldcorp has dismissed its sale of Tahoe shares as a divestment of “non-core assets,” Tahoe shareholders should consider Tahoe’s numerous social and political risks:

Community resistance to mining is strong in Guatemala. Burdened by the legacy of decades of civil conflict, indigenous, and other rural communities have been mobilizing against many planned and ongoing mining projects. In fact, mining has been one of the primary triggers of social conflict in the country, leading to violence and deadly force in several instances. Data show that social conflict exists in 78 percent of municipalities with mining licenses (compared to 10 percent of municipalities without mining activity), despite the relative insignificance of mining for the country (fiscal income from mining only constitutes a mere 0.3 percent of the government’s revenue).
Communities’ grievances are based on the violation of their fundamental human rights, including the right to free, prior, and informed consent (FPIC), as covered by international and Guatemalan laws. Individual companies, including Tahoe, don’t have the wherewithal to manage or legitimately mitigate communities’ opposition to these projects. Five municipal-level and nine community assembly-level consultations have been carried out—all of which have resulted in the overwhelming rejection of mining.

More:
https://politicsofpoverty.oxfamamerica.org/2015/07/why-did-goldcorp-really-pull-out-of-tahoe-resourcess-troubled-guatemalan-mining-project/