by DAWN PALEY
Three dead and community divided over Fortuna Silver’s gold and silver project
It’s been almost three years since hundreds of Zapotec community members took direct action to temporarily shut down Vancouver-based Fortuna Silver’s gold and silver mine just south of Oaxaca City, Mexico.
The blockade ended with a massive police raid, during which demonstrators were beaten and 23 people were taken by police and jailed, some for up to three months. Since then, the neighbouring community of San José del Progreso has been deeply divided, and residents have faced a series of difficult and sometimes deadly confrontations.
Three people have been killed since then, most recently Bernardo Méndez Vásquez, 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 felt it would be used to supply the mine with water.
“Yes there’s problems in the municipality,” admits Bernardo Vásquez Sánchez, who lives in San José and works with the Coordinating Committee of the United Villages of the Ocotlan Valley. “But it’s not unconnected, because they started in 2008 and they’re because of the mine, if the company leaves, the municipal problems will be solved,” he said in an interview with the Vancouver Media Co-op.
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