As the US and Canadian-backed drug-trafficking regime of Juan Orlando Hernandez continues in power until the Jan.27, 2022 transition of ower to the democratically elected President Xiomara Castro, US-based mining company Aura Minerals seemingly is taken advantage of corruption and repression right to the end of the military-backed, drug-trafficking regime’s time in power.
The Bufete Estudios Para la Dignidad legal clinic (@bufetedignity) reports that on January 13 there was a military/police deployment in and around the Maya Chortí community of Azacualpa, and that the military shot live rounds into the air to frighten the cemetery and community defenders.
Illegal exhumations
The Movimiento Amplio reports that the Azacualpa Environmental Committee denounced that for three days national police and soldiers have been installed in the vicinity of Azacualpa Cementerio hill to support the exhumations that Aura Minerals (and its Honduran subsidiary MINOSA, Minerales de Occidente S.A.) intend to carry out.
“We don’t want money. We defend our rights. No to the exploitation of the Azacualpa Cemetery”
For over ten years, the community of Azacualpa, La Union, Copan has fought a hard battle to protect their territory, homes and cemetery from the destruction that Aura Minerals/ MINOSA and the Honduran government intend to carry out.
Hedme Castro of the Association for Participative Citizenship (ACI PARTICIPA) reported that, on beginning on January 13, Aura Minerals (and MINOSA, its Honduran subsidiary), together with the army and police, again took illegal control of the 200 year old Azacualpa cemetery.
“They are preventing family members from entering the cemetery to present offerings to their dead relatives and repair and take care of graves and tombs damaged and destroyed by Aura Minerals/ MINOSA, in order to extract the gold that lies beneath the dead.
“The voracity of the mining company and the corrupt state institutions have allowed these families to live in emotional, psychological and Christian anxiety for fear that the remains of their dead will be removed from these graves without their authorization.
“The army and the police have threatened local human rights defenders, including Hector Antonio Trigueros, also a member of ACI PARTICIPA.
Background
“Story Behind the Story: What Aura Minerals didn't want us to see in Azacualpa” (2017, 4 minute film by Maggie Padlewska: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T1uY6E6zs7Q)
“Where even the Dead can’t rest” (2019, 6 minute film by Trocaire: https://vimeo.com/365482741)
“La Fiera de Azacualpa: Resistiendo la avaricia y destrucción de Aura Minerals” (2019: https://youtu.be/o42NDTIgAFM)
Rights Action archives
https://rightsaction.org/aura-minerals-archives
More information
Bufete de Estudios para la Dignidad, sanjuanvic@yahoo.com, direccion@bufetedignidad.org, https://www.facebook.com/EstudiosparalaDignidad/
Hector Antonio Trigueros, Environmental Committee of Azacualpa, https://www.facebook.com/azacualparesiste/
U.S./Canada: Grahame Russell, Rights Action, info@rightsaction.org
Write to Aura Minerals/MINOSA
info@auraminerals.com / www.auraminerals.com
78 SW 7th St, Aura Minerals @ WeWork, Miami, FL 33130, USA
Craigmuir Chambers, PO Box 71, VG1110, British Virgin Islands
Management
Rodrigo Barbosa, President & CEO, rbarbosa@auraminerals.com;
Sergio Castanho, SCastanho@auraminerals.com;
João Kleber Cardoso, kcardoso@auraminerals.com;
Richmond Fenn, rfenn@auraminerals.com;
Monty Reed, mreed@auraminerals.com;
Board
Rodrigo Barbosa, President & CEO, rbarbosa@auraminerals.com;
Stephen Keith, snskeith@gmail.com;
Philip Reade, philip.reade@outlook.com;
TESTIMONIO: Canadian Mining in the Aftermath of Genocides in Guatemala
By Catherine Nolin & Grahame Russell
Published by Between The Lines, October 2021
Purchase books: https://btlbooks.com/book/testimonio
Bulk purchases: karina@btlbooks.com
More information: www.testimoniothebook.org
