“Lo metrosexuales nos ha ganado.”
(“The metrosexual culture has
beaten us.”)
--Sonoran
Mining Association (AMSAC) president Joaquin Rojo de la Vega Ulloa, 2011
Tom
Barry
Minera María, open-pit copper mine owned
by Grupo Frisco in upper Sonora River basin not far from U.S. border and near
Cananea / Photo credit: Soy Cobre.
Public
officials in Mexico routinely boast of the megaprojects undertaken during their
administrations. Presidents, state governors, and mayors assert that it was their
leadership that brought major infrastructure projects to Mexican communities,
thereby boosting social well-being and economic growth.
The
operating assumption is that the bigger the megaproject, the better Mexico is.
Since the 1930s this megaproject logic has served as a driving force in the
country’s development plans.
To
some extent, the political economy of megaprojects can be found the world over.
But in few other countries do public officials so unabashedly brandish the term
megaproject (megaproyecto) to promote
their own political legacies as in Mexico. Politics and megaproyectos are inextricably linked – regarded as a political
necessity because these construction megaprojects provide jobs to constituents
and government revenues to the allies, friends, and families of politicians in
the business community.
Rarely
do the announcement of the initiation of new megaprojects preceded by any
cost-benefit evaluations or even rigorous assessments of need for the projects
or of their budgets.
Dams
and the building of tourism centers (such as Cancún or Los Cabos) have long been
among some of the most favored type of megaprojects in Mexico.
In the
case of Sonora, Governor Guillermo Padrés points to the water megaprojects of
Sonora SI (dams and aqueducts) and the natural gas pipeline from the U.S.
border as among his top accomplishments.
Never,
however, do Mexican presidents or governors refer to the major mining
operations that are initiated or expanded on their watch as part of their
megaproject legacy – even though most of the mining projects depend on the
close cooperation of the government through the provision of water, roads,
subsidies, and technical assistance.
However,
measured by most any standard – quantity of investment, associated
infrastructure, contracts and subcontracts, and land and natural resources
affected – mining projects are certainly megaproyectos.
Conflicting Narratives
about Mining’s Impact and Problems
The
larger mines generally involve displacement of existing communities and the
creation of company towns. In Sonora, Cananea and Nacozari de Cananea (copper
mining by Grupo México) are prime examples. To the east, across the Sierra
Madre Occidental in Chihuahua, the Bismark zinc mine owned by Industrías
Peñoles sits next to the company-owned town of Bismark where the mineworkers
and service staff live not far from the U.S.-Mexico border.
Nongovernmental
organizations involved in environmental protection and indigenous issues point
to mines as among Mexico’s most socially and environmentally destructive
megaprojects. They also note that economic benefits are captured almost
exclusively the transnational mining corporations, including Mexico-based
companies like Grupo México.
“Mining is the megaproject which has cost the
most lives in [workplace and environmental] accidents overall the world,” wrote
Gustavo Castro Solo of the Network of Communities Impacted by Mining (REMA).
Furthermore, “Mining is the megaproject that consumes the most energy and
water, and is the largest cause of environmental contamination.” Mining
projects involve invariably involve corruption, the loss of indigenous
cultures, community divisions, according to REMA.[1]
A disconnect between the huge social and
environmental impact of the mining boom and the attention of government to
those impacts. Both the federal and state governments – through agencies
associated with the ministries of economy – closely collaborate with the mining
industry in providing easy access to land, water, and rural communities.
This disjuncture is readily evident when
listening to the prevailing narrative about the mining industry as told by the
mining industry and the state’s Direccíon General de Minería, a subagency of
the Secretary of Economy’s office in Hermosillo.
Over the past decade, as the mining industry’s
presence in Sonora has more the doubled, the social and environmental impacts
of mining have grown exponentially – as evident in the rising complaints
registered by mineworkers, environmentalists, university researchers, and
affected communities. However, it wasn’t until the massive spill of toxic water
into the Sonora River basin by Grupo México’s Buenavista copper mine in Cananea
that this gap between the official story and the reality of the costs of this
boom in mining exploration and extraction.
The Sonora Miners Association (AMSAC), which
includes the director of the state government’s mining office on its board of
directors, includes most of the major mining companies in Sonora, including the
big three of Mexican mining companies: Grupo México, Grupo Frisco, and
Industrías Peñoles. The membership of the association also includes less
well-known mining firms such as the gold-mining firm Agnico Eagle and Minera
Cascabel. In most cases, the Sonora-based mining firms are fronts for foreign
mining corporations – almost all of which are Canadian.[2]
Hermosillo-based Minera Cascabel working
with Mag Silver of Canada organized forces to counter anti-mining majority in
Ejido Benito Juárez, located on the eastern edge of the Sierra Madre
Occidental. / Photo by Tom Barry
Angered by
the assassination the ejido’s anti-mining figures, Ismael Solorio and Manuela
Solís, and the failure of Minera Cascabel and Mag Silver to remove mining
chemicals and samples farther from town and comply with environmental
regulations, members of Ejido Benito Juárez together with the agrarian
organization El Barzón dump materials along highway. / Photo by Tom Barry
Such is the case of Minera Cascabel. The
exploration firm has functioned as a front for the Canadian mining firm Mag
Silver. The two companies have come under sharp public scrutiny in Chihuahua after
the October 2012 murders by sicarios
(hired killers) of two anti-mining activists. The married couple belonged to
the organization of small farmers and ranchers El Barzón and led the
community’s opposition to the mining operations in the Benito Juárez Ejido, which is located in the
northwestern part of the state. “From the beginning, we have known who were
involved in the murders. The mining company (Mag Silver and its associate El
Cascabel) used their funds to buy sicarios
and killed them,” according the murdered couple’s family.[3]
The Sonora Mining Association also maintains
close relations with the state government. The chief of the Dirección General
de Minería is a member of the association. And one of the most powerfully
connected members of Sonora’s business class, Miquel Ángel Áyala Guerrero, serves
as AMSAC liaison with state government. Ángel Áyala is owner of couple of
construction companies including Terracerías Construcciones, y Vías Férreas
(Tecovifesa), which is invested in the expansion of Grupo México’s Buenavista copper
mine in Cananea.
Among other work, Tecovifesa builds the dams
and terraces for mine tailings – including the one that failed so spectacularly
on August 6, 2014, contaminating the Sonora River.[4] Tecovifesa is also part of the consortium of
companies, Exploraciones Mineras del Desierto, which has the state contract to
build the controversial (and nearly complete) Novillo-Hermosillo aqueduct.[5] Ángel
Ávila’s company has received numerous state contracts, including for
construction related to mine maintenance.[6]
Facts and
Fantasy from Sonora’s Mining Association
A 2011 public letter by AMSAC’s president
Joaquin Rojo de la Vega Ulloa illustrates the perspective of the mining
industry with respect to workers, youth, environment, water use, and security.
AMSAC
president Joaquin Rojo de la Vega Ulloa speaking at 2011 AMSAC meeting. /Mundo
Minero
In his 2011
public letter and speech, AMSAC president boasted, “Sonora is the top mining
state in Mexico, and [in Sonora] mining far surpasses any other industry” in
the benefits it provides to the state population and economy.[7]
With respect to the foreign exchange (mostly dollars) from exports by the
state’s mining industry, this assertion is certainly true with respect to any
other nonagricultural industry, such as manufacturing.
The assertions
of AMSAC’s president about how the mining industry benefits Sonora mirror the laudatory
declarations by the state government’s own mining agency, Dirección General de
Minería (See “Mining Boosterism in Sonora”).
Although the
figures cited by AMSAC and the Dirección General de Minería likely reflect the
industry’s production and sales, there is a fanciful quality to assertions
about the industry’s social and environmental benefits, as evident in the
dubious assertions by AMSAC’s president, such as the following:
* “We are
the industry with the most certifications as a clean industry.” Which “means
that government agencies recognize us as agencies that don’t contaminate and
which conserve the environment – and all of this documented.”
* “More than
any other industry, we take care of water resources.”
* “We don’t
contaminate the water, as our detractors assert.”
* “If our
standards for responsibly caring for water were applied to the agricultural or
cattle industries, they couldn’t even operate nor meet our [environmental care]
requirements.”
* The mining
industry plants and conserves more trees than other industries. Our tree
nurseries plant and conserve millions of trees. We aren’t killers of trees, we
are reforesters.”
“Only 30
percent of our territory has been explored – and 70% remains unknown.”
AMSAC’s
president Rojo de la Vega did, however, acknowledge that “all isn’t beautiful
and right” with the industry. One major problem, he underscored, was that “young
people today don’t want to work in the mining industry because “they only want
to work in an office, to wear suits, to stay out of the bad weather, and to eat
and sleep when they choose.”
Summing up
this major challenge for the mining industry, Rojo de la Vega regretfully
observed: “Lo metrosexuales nos ha
ganado.” (“The metrosexual culture has beaten us.”) What is more, speaking of the industry’s bad
reputation, he noted that nowadays “comfort prevails over personal and
professional growth.”
Many
Sonorans, especially after the August 2014 mining disaster in the Sonora River
Valley, might also take issue with his statement: “We are an industry oriented
to the environment; we are an industry of labor peace; we are an industry of
open and honest communication.”
The mining
association president gave the example of the copper mines in Cananea as a
model for what could occur across the state. Mining in Cananea is “generating
an flood of economic wealth that is shaking treasure boxes the world over,”
waxed Rojo in his paean to the glories of mining in Sonora.
Closing his
address, AMSAC’s president underscored the importance of the Cananea model,
pointing out that the “transnationals are there” in Cananea but only the “most
intelligent” Mexican firms. Yet, in the mining sector, “there is opportunity
for everyone,” he concluded.
The only
part of the 2011 discourse by AMSAC’s Rojo de la Vega that attracted national
press attention was his observation about security. Yet here, too, the reality
of mining in Mexico and the official story often don’t correspond to what is
readily apparent to those living in mining regions, particularly the most
remote mines in the Sierra Madres.
There exists
no single truth about the security of mining megaprojects in Mexico. There are
at least several different ways to view the relationship between the mining
sector and organized crime.
As is
readily observable, most mining operations are highly controlled enclaves to
which there is no public entry. Guards stand at the ready at all the entrances
to the mines, such as Grupo México’s La Caridad mine in Nacozari, even though
the mines operate on public land and use public water supplies. It might be said
that in Mexico there are no other businesses that operate within such tightly
secured perimeters.
Throughout
the Sierra Madres, like most centers of mining in Mexico, mining companies often
maintain collaborative relations with organized crime. In some states,
organized crime organizations own or control all extractive industries. A
report by InSight Crime, a
Washington, DC organization that tracks organized crime in the Americas,
reported: “Criminal organizations now control the right to mine in at
least five Mexican states,
according to those working in the sector, in another example of illegal groups
expanding into resource exploitation in areas where state presence is weak.”
The states cited with proven links between the mining industry and organized
crime included Tamaulipas, Chihuahua, Guerrero, Morelos, and Michoacán.[8]
AMSAC’s Rojo de la Vega told a different story. According to
his narrative, the mining industry is under assault by organized crime and the
government has not provided adequate security for mining operations, especially
for the transportation of precious metals. As a result, the mining industry in
Sonora suffered a 15% increase in cost of doing business.
Some of those costs, explained the mining association
president, came from the purchasing and operation of security cameras. But most
costly, he said, has been the creation of private security forces. “We have
experienced the need to create our own paramilitary forces.”
As long as we don’t have tranquility and the rule of law,
said the AMSAC president, “We have had to create our own systems of security.”
Neither the federal or state governments have made information about the extent
of these mining-related paramilitary forces or about their purview, weaponry,
or violent incidents.[9]
Yet another perspective comes from mining sector expert
Miguel Valencia at Monterrey Technical School, who has observed that profits
from mining in Mexico are so high that any problems related to crime and
violence don’t detract from the incentives of capturing so much wealth. “It is
such a profitable business that although crime may cost the companies some
money and they have to pay for more security, the flow of investments will
continue,” he said.[10]
[1] Gustavo Castro Soto, “La minería y la Resistencia en
México,” Jan. 13, 2013, at:
http://www.cronicadechihuahua.com/Deudos-de-barzonistas-asesinados,31651.html
[2] AMSAC, “Directorio de Miembros,” at:
http://amsac.com.mx/dir_miem.htm
[3] “Deudos de
Barzonistas asesinados denucian el pacto del gobierno con el narco,” La Crónica de Chihuhua, Oct. 22, 2014,
at:
http://www.cronicadechihuahua.com/Deudos-de-barzonistas-asesinados,31651.html
[4] La Jornada, Sept. 12, 2014, at: http://www.jornada.unam.mx/2014/09/12/politica/003n1pol
[5] Sonora SI, “Curículum de la empresa,” at
http://www.sonorasi.mx/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=253&Itemid=145
[6] Sonora SI, “Fondo de Operación de Obras,” at:
http://www.sonorasi.mx/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=256&Itemid=145
[7] Carta del presidente at: http://amsac.com.mx/cartapresidente.htm See his 2011 speech to the annual AMSAC meeting at: http://youtu.be/daRFWgLY_Hk
[8] “Control
Narcotráfico Minas en 5 Estados,” 24 Horas, Aug. 16, 2013, at:
http://www.24-horas.mx/controla-narcotrafico-minas-en-cinco-estados/; “Mexican
Organized Crime Controls Mining in Five States,” InSight Crime, August 18,
2013, at: http://www.insightcrime.org/news-briefs/mexico-organized-crime-controls-mining-in-five-states
[10] Blanca Estela Botello, “Irregular, 30% de mineras,”
Crónica.com, May 20, 2013, at http://www.cronica.com.mx/notas/2013/754413.html
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