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by
Rachel Nadelman
2018
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

For my mother, my first teacher. This work would have never come to be without you.
SITTING ON A GOLD MINE: THE ORIGINS OF EL SALVADOR’S DE FACTO
MORATORIUM ON METALS MINING (2004-2008)
BY
Rachel Nadelman
ABSTRACT
At the present time, El Salvador allows no industrial metals mining. In 2006, the
Salvadoran government, under the leadership of the right-wing Alianza Republicana
Nacionalista (ARENA) party, took the first of a series of steps to stall the country’s emerging
metals mining industry. In 2007, citing the country’s extreme environmental challenges
(including to water), the government suspended all industrial metals mining activity. Together
these actions created a de-facto moratorium that blocked all corporate access to El Salvador’s
domestic metals deposits. Two subsequent presidential administrations, led by the left-wing
Frente Farabundo Martí para la Liberación Nacional (FMLN) party, sustained and strengthened
the moratorium. In March 2017, the Salvadoran legislature unanimously passed a historic law
banning metals mining.
Opposing metals mining was not always the majority stance in El Salvador. As recently
as the early 2000s, the Salvadoran government and its international donors and creditors sought
to attract foreign investment to make El Salvador another metals-exporting nation. Therefore, the
country’s rejection of metals mining represents a drastic and largely unique policy shift.
This dissertation utilizes process tracing to analyze the origins of El Salvador’s de facto
metals mining moratorium (2004-2008), based on evidence from fieldwork (2013, 2014, 2015)
and archival research (including private and public sector documents not previously accessed and
freedom of information requests). Based on the research findings, this dissertation argues that the
ii
determining factor influencing El Salvador to reverse its metals mining plans was the diversity of
domestic sectors that came to oppose, or withhold support for, the industry. These sectors,
including Salvadoran civil society as the driver, along with the institutional Catholic Church,
domestic business, and executive branch government actors, largely followed parallel tracks
rather than collaborating. Yet together they moved public opinion and influenced government
decision-making, which ultimately halted El Salvador’s pursuit of short-term economic gain
through metals mining.
iii
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I must begin these acknowledgements by thanking the people in El Salvador who gave
me their time, who confided in, trusted, and befriended me, and whose support made it possible
to carry out the research for this dissertation. There are more people than I can name, but I must
recognize several: Orlando Altamirano, Nelson Ventura, Andres Mckinley, Pedro Cabezas,
Rafael Cartagena, Hilary Goodfriend, Bethany Loberg, Amalia Calles Minero, Robert and
Carole Johansing, Doris Molina, Vidalina Morales, David Pereira and Sandra Carolina Ascencio.
Each contributed directly to the substance and quality of my El Salvador research. In several
cases the friendships that developed have enriched my life. I must separately acknowledge
Herbert Vargas, my Spanish language transcriber who became an invaluable research
collaborator and intellectual partner. He enabled me to better digest the vast material I gathered
and understand it through a Salvadoran lens. Finally, Fausto Nieto did not just drive me to every
public or obscure location I needed to reach in El Salvador, but he became my Salvadoran “dad,”
inviting me to become part of his family (and thank you Rosie, Carolina, Fausto Jr., and
Monica). There is one US-based Salvadoran-American who I must thank: Luis Parada, whose
generosity enabled my research to be far more extensive than it would have been without him.
I am incredibly grateful to each of my three committee members who have guided and
supported me through the marathon that is a dissertation. First, this project—and all the
relationships and knowledge I have gained because of it—only exists because of the mentorship
of my committee chair Dr. Robin Broad. Almost seven and a half years ago I wrote to Robin
introducing myself and asking to work with her because her scholar-practitioner model was
exactly what I hoped to learn from and emulate. As her research assistant, I learned about the
exceptional story of El Salvador and metals mining which would alter the course of the next
iv
years of my life in ways I could not anticipate then. The forthcoming dissertation shows
how Robin’s scholarship provides critical foundation for mine. Robin’s guidance over my seven
years at American University, as my professor, supervisor, adviser, committee chair, and mentor,
helped me to overcome the rockiest periods as well as to remember to savor the successes along
the way. She would not let me give up on myself or this work and for that I am forever grateful.
Dr. Carolyn Gallaher was one of my very first professors during my time as a doctoral
student. In our Ph.D. qualitative methods seminar, she offered warmth, support and a swift kick
in the pants when that was what I needed to achieve my best work. This combination is what led
me to ask her to join my committee and her participation has been invaluable. Her open-door
policy, patience, and empathic listening have gotten me through some of the most challenging
moments of this process.
Luckily for me, Dr. Jonathan Fox came to AU in the fall of 2013, right as I was forming
my committee. Since the beginning he has patiently guided me to shape my ideas, so they are
sharp and concise, which has helped me to express myself with greater clarity and power. Back
in 2013, I had no idea that by asking Jonathan to complete the scholarly “team” that would be
my committee I was “recruiting” the person who would—several years later— recruit me to join
the Accountability Research Center (ARC) he started at AU. ARC allows me to bring together
the skills and scholarship from my Ph.D. studies with my 15 years of professional International
Development experience. This is the applied/action research path I had hoped I would find
through School of International Service (SIS). I am grateful to Jonathan for his ongoing
mentorship during this challenging dissertation process and for the opportunities I will continue
to have with ARC and at AU after finishing this degree.
v
There are others at American University I must thank. The first is Dr. Eric Hirshberg, the
Director of AU’s Center for Latin America and Latino Studies (CLALS). Eric has been an
invaluable advisor from the earliest moments of the development of this project and especially
throughout my time in El Salvador. There are key contacts I simply never would have made if
not for Eric making the connection and vouching for me and my work. I am also grateful to
CLALS for opportunities to write about my research outside of the larger dissertation process. I
also wish to thank AU faculty including Dr. Boaz Atzili, Dr. James Mittelman, Dr. Sharon
Weiner, Dr. Robert Albro, Dr. Tamar Gutner, Dr. Stephen Silvia, Dr. Miguel Carter, Dr. David
Hirschmann (Z"L), Dr. Paul Winters and many others. Thank you to my cohort (Lena Osipova,
Jiajie He, Goueun Lee, Asifa Batool and Nick Smith) as well as to fellow Ph.D. student
colleagues from SIS and the School of Public Affairs (SPA) who became dear friends, Julia
Fischer-Mackey, Abby Lindsay and Marcela Torres Wong. Many thanks are also due to SIS
Ph.D adviser Mike Rosenberger. Outside of American University, I am extremely grateful to Dr.
Michael Cohen, my professor and mentor from The New School, who has had a role in every
turn I’ve taken since I met him in 2004, including returning to school for my doctorate.
Funding for this project came from a number of different American University sources.
First, I would like to thank SIS for hosting me these seven years, including four years as an SIS
Dean’s Fellow. The fact that this fellowship is given equally to all SIS Ph.D. students fosters a
collaborative, rather than competitive, environment for which I am incredibly grateful. I am also
thankful for supplementary funding I received from SIS to hone my methodological skills at the
University of Michigan and European Consortium for Political Research (ECPR). In addition,
several competitive American University grants provided funding that allowed me to undertake
the fieldwork this project required: The Tinker Pre-dissertation Field Research Grant from AU’s
vi
Center for Latin America and Latino Studies (2013), SIS Ph.D. Summer Funding (2013, 2014,
2015), and the Vice-Provost Doctoral Student Research Scholarship (2014-15). Finally, I am
grateful to the Salvadoran think tank, PRISMA, that provided me with an organizational
affiliation and workspace while in El Salvador.
Last but farthest from least, I would like to thank my friends and family (even though
saying thank you is not enough). The first thank you is for my parents, Alice and Manny and my
brother, Joel. My mom helped me launch my fieldwork in 2014 by joining me for ten days in El
Salvador. That is just the tip of the iceberg of what she has contributed to my dissertation. As a
result of my parents’ eagerness to learn about my research, they became colleagues who helped
me to strengthen this work. I also thank Paul Crispo, my tireless, compassionate coach who got
me from “maybe I can’t finish” to “I will finish.” My deep friendships sustained me throughout
these years (thank you Jen, Nitzan, Shira, Pamela, Amanda, Moushumi, Brandie, Flavia,
Brandon, Andrea, Melissa, Alys, cuz Daniel, Eric and Allegra!!). I have to acknowledge three
who directly had an impact on this dissertation. They are: Lauri (Friedman) Scherer whose
wordsmithing and cheerleading kept me energized and made me better; Lisa Mendelow whose
(pretty much) daily companionship as a co-working buddy (and then a best bud) this last year
and a half got me to the finish line; and Kim Smolik whose friendship sprang from this crazy
Ph.D. business (and Craig’s List) and then whose teaching (and introductions to others) on
Catholic Social teaching enabled this Jewish girl to write convincingly about the Catholic
Church. Finally, I must thank Anthony Lauren, my husband and life partner, whom I met four
and a half years ago, just two weeks before I defended the proposal for this dissertation. I cannot
imagine having navigated this without you – and I am so glad I never have to imagine that. Your
love and unwavering belief in me is why I’ve made it through.
vii
TABLE OF CONTENTS
ABSTRACT .................................................................................................................................... ii
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ............................................................................................................. iv
LIST OF TABLES .......................................................................................................................... x
CHAPTER 1 “I CAN MINE ANYWHERE BESIDES EL SALVADOR”:

STUDYING EL SALVADOR AND THE ORIGINS OF ITS BAN ON
METALS MINING (2004-2008).................................................................................. 1
I. Why El Salvador? ....................................................................................... 1

II. El Salvador: Defying the Latin American “extractive imperative”
or the start of a new development paradigm? ............................................. 9
III. Research focus .......................................................................................... 14
IV. Methodology ............................................................................................. 18
V. Overview of dissertation ........................................................................... 36
CHAPTER 2 A CITIZEN MOVEMENT TO KEEP MINING OUT .............................. 38
I. Introduction ............................................................................................... 38
II. Foundational background: Conditions for Salvadoran civil society
mobilization against metals mining in defense of the environment
in El Salvador (1992–2004): ..................................................................... 41
III. From mobilized to influential: Tracing civil society’s instrumental
role in explicit and implicit government decision-making (2004–
2008) ......................................................................................................... 53
IV. Wrap up ..................................................................................................... 96
CHAPTER 3 THE CATHOLIC CHURCH WEIGHS IN .............................................. 106
I. Introduction ............................................................................................. 106

II. Foundational background: The Salvadoran Catholic Church and
evolving perspectives on social and environmental issues (late
1970s-end 2003)...................................................................................... 110
III. From Catholic social organizations upwards to the Bishops’
Conference: Tracing the institutional Catholic Church’s
involvement in and influence on El Salvador’s metals mining
debates and decisions (2004-2008) ......................................................... 116
IV. Wrap up ................................................................................................... 139
CHAPTER 4 MISALIGNMENT BETWEEN DOMESTIC AND

INTERNATIONAL PRIVATE SECTOR INTERESTS IN SALVADORAN
METALS MINING: THE WEAK LINK ................................................................. 144
I. Introduction ............................................................................................. 144
viii
II. Foundational background: Wealth, political control, and metals
mining in El Salvador ............................................................................. 151
III. Action without appearing to act—utilizing process tracing to
uncover the links between the Salvadoran private sector and
government decisions on metals mining (2004-2008) ............................ 163
IV. Wrap up ................................................................................................... 190
CHAPTER 5 “JUST FOLLOWING THE LAW”: A PRO-BUSINESS

GOVERNMENT TURNS AWAY FROM THE “PROMISE” OF METALS
MINING .................................................................................................................... 195
I. Introduction ............................................................................................. 195

II. Foundational background: The legal framework for mining and its
management in El Salvador .................................................................... 200
III. From tacit to explicit action: Tracing political and administrative
change in governance of the metals mining industry (2004-2008)......... 208
IV. Wrap up ................................................................................................... 260
CHAPTER 6 CONCLUSION......................................................................................... 267
I. Introduction ............................................................................................. 267

II. From parallel actions to converging outcomes: Using process
tracing to explain the de facto moratorium on metals mining in El
Salvador .................................................................................................. 269
III. Concluding analysis ................................................................................ 289
REFERENCES ........................................................................................................................... 298
ix
LIST OF TABLES
Table 1: Interviews, by Actor Category........................................................................................ 31
Table 2: Breakdown of Interview by Location ............................................................................. 31
Table 3: Phase 1 Milestone Actions Map (2004-2005) .............................................................. 270
Table 4: Phase 2 Milestone Actions Map (2006)........................................................................ 277
Table 5: Phase 3 Milestone Action Map (2007-2008) ................................................................ 284
x
CHAPTER 1
“I CAN MINE ANYWHERE BESIDES EL SALVADOR”1: STUDYING EL SALVADOR

AND THE ORIGINS OF ITS BAN ON METALS MINING (2004-2008)
I. Why El Salvador?
“It would not matter if mining companies promised 100% of profits to El Salvador,”
explained Antonio Pacheco, Executive Director of ADES,2 a long-standing Salvadoran social
justice organization. “For us in El Salvador, the problem [with mining] is not if the community
benefits. Mining ‘benefits’ do not account for the damage they cause, the effects at social,
economic, and environmental levels. So, we cannot allow it.”3 It was May 2013. I had sought out
Pacheco, one of the public faces of the anti-mining movement, to understand why and how El
Salvador became the first country in the world to suspend all industrial-scale metals mining.
Beginning in 2006, the Salvadoran government, under the right-wing ARENA (Alianza
Republicana Nacionalista) party, took the first of a series of steps to stall industrial metals
mining in El Salvador. Then in 2007, the government required that all such mining activity be
stopped.4 Together, these actions created a de-facto moratorium that immobilized the country’s
nascent metals mining industry. Two subsequent presidential administrations, led by the left-
wing FMLN (Frente Farabundo Martí para la Liberación Nacional) party, sustained and
1
Robert Johansing Former Manager in El Salvador for Pacific Rim, Au Martinique Silver Inc., Martinique Minerals,
and Triada, Interview by Author, San Salvador, El Salvador, October 5, 2014.
2
Asociación de Desarrollo Económico y Social (The Association for Social and Economic Development)
3
Antonio Pacheco Director, Asociación de Desarrollo Económico y Social (ADES), Interview by Author,
Guacotecti, El Salvador, May 20, 2013.
4
Oficina de Información y Respuesta (OIR) del Ministerio de Economía (MINEC), “Licencias de exploración
otorgadas entre el 2000-2006 ya en archivo, Response to a Freedom of Information Request” (Ministerio de
Economía, El Salvador, November 10, 2014).
1
strengthened the moratorium. In 2017, a unanimous vote in the legislature turned the de facto
moratorium into a legal ban.5 In this case, the government was acting according to the will of the
people: a majority of Salvadoran citizens and political leaders across the political spectrum had
expressed opposition to mining, citing the country’s environmental degradation, population
density, and limited water resources.
Yet, opposition to industrial gold mining has not always been the majority position in El
Salvador, within the populace, or among government decision-makers. In the early 2000s, the
Salvadoran government, with support from international donors and creditors, courted foreign
investors who could develop the country into a gold-producing nation. Even as recently as 2015,
when I last traveled to El Salvador, the prospect of a total prohibition passed by El Salvador’s
deeply divided legislative assembly seemed like wishful thinking. This all leads to the
straightforward question: what had changed in El Salvador and why?
In May 2013, I met with Antonio Pacheco at ADES’ office compound in Guacotecti,
Cabañas, a potential mining region, for the first of a series of interviews he would grant me over
the next three years. Sitting with me in a well-shaded area in ADES’ main outdoor communal
meeting space, Pacheco explained that before 2004, ADES—a social justice organization with its
roots in the government opposition during the civil war—had only marginally addressed
environmental issues. The 2004 shift came in response to ADES constituents who came to the
organization with concerns about foreign metals mining companies undertaking exploration
activities in the Cabañas town, San Isidro, and in other areas of El Salvador. ADES then
mobilized with other Salvadoran organizations to form the coalition, la Mesa Nacional frente a
5
Asamblea Legislativa de El Salvador, “Ley de Prohibición de la Minería Metálica,” Decreto N. 639 § (2017).
2
la minería metálica (“La Mesa,” National Roundtable Against Metals Mining).6 La Mesa
represented an alliance of community organizations from the provinces along El Salvador’s
stretch of the Central American gold belt as well as San Salvador-based environmental, human
rights, religious, policy, and research organizations.
When I met one-on-one with Pacheco, I was piggy-backing on a 35-person international
fact-finding mission7 organized by a network of transnational NGOs that called themselves
“International Allies.” The International Allies had mobilized several years earlier to support La
Mesa’s mission – the total prohibition of mining in El Salvador. As part of the delegation, I went
to “fact-find” in the town of San Sebastián in La Unión, one of the Salvadoran provinces with
gold beneath its soil. Known to geologists as the Central American Gold Belt (CAGB), this band
of gold deposits runs through mountainous land that begins at Guatemala’s northwest border,
extends southward, and ends in northwestern Costa Rica. In between, the CAGB winds across
Guatemala, the length of El Salvador’s northern territory, then crosses Honduras’ southern edge,
and through Nicaragua.8
Central America’s gold deposits go beyond the specific CAGB territory, but recent
investment in the region’s metals mining sector has predominantly focused there.9 San
Sebastián, La Unión is unique among towns on El Salvador’s portion of the gold belt because it
is the only place in the country where mining extraction – not simply exploration – had been
6
The organizations that make up la Mesa first started working together loosely in 2004 and established themselves
as a network under the name “La Mesa Nacional frente a la minería metálica” in 2005.
7
Raul Burbano, “International Delegation Confronts Mining in El Salvador” (Common Frontiers, May 21, 2013).
8
Stephen Anderson, “The Mineral Industries of Central America Belize, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala,
Honduras, Nicaragua, and Panama,” U.S. Geological Survey Minerals Yearbook 2006 (Washington, DC:
Department of the Interior and U.S Geological Survey, 2006), 6.1.
9
Anderson, 6.1.
3
active following the 1992 Peace Accords that ended the 12-year Civil War. More than 20 years
later, remaining heavy metals and acid mine drainage in the San Sebastián River caused the
streams to run a rust-like red/orange during the rainy season – which is the way I saw it during
my visits in 2013 and 2014. Each time, I followed along the same path where anti-mining
activists had been leading visitors for almost a decade. These “tours” had been initiated
specifically for other Salvadorans, who the growing opposition wanted to show, to warn, what
could potentially be the future for their water sources.
“There are records that show that San Sebastián was once the most productive mine in
Central America,” explained La Mesa member David Pereira, when I returned to San Sebastián
in 2014. Pereira’s organization, the San Salvador-based environmental research NGO
CEICOM,10 had dedicated substantial time and resources to scientific analysis of gold mining’s
consequences for territories and communities surrounding the San Sebastián mine. He explained
to me that the last company to have worked in that area, the American firm Commerce Group,
stopped activity in the 1990s. Yet, Pereira explained, “the acid mine drainage produced that
reddish liquid you saw. Rather than having diminished in decades since,11 [it] has increased to
the extent that today the San Sebastián River is practically annihilated.”12 The San Sebastián
River, however, is the main source of water for only a fraction of El Salvador’s 6.15 million
residents. Therefore, the river’s contamination and depletion, while dire for inhabitants of that
area, are not a danger to most Salvadorans.
10
David Pereira CEICOM and representative to La Mesa, Interview by Author, Chalatenango, El Salvador, June 10,
2014.
11
Pereira is referring to the most active period of mining activity in San Sebastián which was during the 1970s.
12
Pereira, Interview by Author, June 10, 2014.
4
El Salvador’s Lempa River, unlike the San Sebastián River, is the sole source of water
for more than half of the country’s citizens. The Lempa has its home in El Salvador’s northern
corridor, the territory that encompasses the bulk of the country’s share of the CAGB and includes
Pacheco’s home state of Cabañas. This means that El Salvador’s gold, in the words of
Salvadoran academic and conservative political columnist Dr. Sandra de Barraza, lies within “the
hydraulic heart of the country.”13 In 2014, I met de Barraza at her office on the campus of
Universidad Dr. José Matías Delgado. De Barraza explained that she knew the arguments for and
against metals mining in El Salvador well, having worked on the issue over 12 years, while
serving on El Salvador’s National Development Commission under three ARENA
administrations. She commented to me, “anyone should be able to understand the people’s
concerns about mining in El Salvador when you look at a map.”14 She then directed me to do just
that. Opening an atlas to a page featuring a map of El Salvador’s northern territory, she used her
finger to trace the Lempa River’s course through gold country.
Sixteen months after my first visit to San Sebastián, I interviewed Robert Johansing,
formerly El Salvador General Manager for a number of Canadian and American mining
companies. We sat in the living room of his sprawling cliffside San Salvador home, sharing
locally roasted nuts and glasses of chilled white wine, as he shared his perspective on mining’s
ill-fated trajectory in El Salvador. “I can mine anywhere in the world,” he boasted, and then
added, “…besides El Salvador.”15 First working in El Salvador in 1993, Johansing saw himself
as a pioneer, “invited,” as he explained it, to re-invigorate the metals mining industry that
13
Sandra de Barraza member of Commission for National Development (1997-2009), academic, Interview by
Author, San Salvador, El Salvador, August 21, 2014.
14
de Barraza.
15
Johansing, Interview by Author.
5
decades of social instability and civil war, as well as stagnant gold prices, had chased away. At
that time, he believed that he and the Canadian mining firm he represented, Kinross Gold, were
at the forefront of a movement poised to launch a new metals mining industry at a scale never
seen before within El Salvador’s borders. Johansing’s account of the 1990s matches that of
published records.16
Historically, gold mining has not been a significant contributor to the economy in any
Central American country and El Salvador was no exception.17 Starting in the late 19th century,
foreign mining firms intermittently engaged in Central American mineral extraction, with
domestic private sectors minimally participating, if at all.18 As in other parts of Central America,
over the course of the 20th century, gold mining efforts in El Salvador grew and contracted in
sync with the vicissitudes of global mineral prices.19 In the 1980s, crises and war (including El
Salvador’s civil war from 1980-1992), combined with the low price of gold that limited its
demand in the global market, kept most commercial mining out of Central America.20 Yet, in the
post-war 1990s, Central America re-emerged as a new frontier for metals mining, sparking the
interest of industry as well as the post-conflict governments that sought to generate new
opportunities for economic growth.
16
José Reyes, “El Salvador,” in Latin American Investment Protections: Comparative Perspectives on Laws,
Treaties, and Disputes for Investors, States and Counsel, ed. Jonathan C. Hamilton, Omar E. Garcia-bolivar, and
Hernando Otero (Leiden ; Boston: Martinus Nijhoff, 2012), 298–300.
17
Thomas Power, “Metals Mining and Sustainable Development in Central America: An Assessment of Benefits
and Cost” (Boston, MA: Oxfam America, 2008), 7.
18
Power, 7.
19
Power, 7, 9.
20
Anderson, “The Mineral Industries of Central America Belize, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras,
Nicaragua, and Panama,” 6.1.
6
Following the 1992 peace accords that brought El Salvador’s civil war to an end, the
Salvadoran government actively courted international mining firms, like Johansing’s multi-
national employer, to jump-start the industry.21 With gold still commanding no more than $300
an ounce at that time, international mining companies were not clamoring for concessions to
explore El Salvador’s mineral-rich areas.22 Yet, companies like Johansing’s employer saw this
barely concessioned country as an opportunity to take the lead on building a modern mining
industry. In response, consecutive Salvadoran governments (alongside the country’s Central
American neighbors) implemented strategic legal and regulatory reforms to facilitate the entry of
these foreign firms and expand the nascent industry.23 This included passing a modernized
mining law in 1996 and further amendments in 2001 that lengthened mining license terms while
also reducing royalties and taxes.24 Robert Johansing claimed to me that he and other industry
colleagues had closely advised the development of the 1996 mining law and had introduced El
Salvador to the Chilean mining model, considered then to be an exemplar within the Latin
American region.25 Based on the new law, El Salvador launched a process through which
companies applied for and began to receive mining licenses to explore (but not yet extract) the
country’s underground metals.26
21
Igor Oleynik, Central American Countries Mineral Industry Handbook Volume 1 Strategic Information and
Regulations (Int’l Business Publications, Inc, 2015), 96.
22
Oleynik, 96.
23
Reyes, “El Salvador,” 298–99.
Denis Collins, “The Failure of a Socially Responsive Gold Mining MNC in El Salvador: Ramifications of NGO
24
Mistrust,” Journal of Business Ethics 88, no. 2 (2009): 252.
25
26
Collins, “The Failure of a Socially Responsive Gold Mining MNC in El Salvador,” 252. El Salvador’s regulations
for first securing exploration rights and separately the “legal right to remove discovered mineral deposits from the
ground,” will be explained in greater depth in Chapter 4.
7
The dominant message at that time, in Johansing’s telling, was that the gold and silver
mining industry would be a “huge tool for global development and poverty reduction.”27 In 2002,
as gold’s value began its steady climb, the argument appeared to grow more persuasive.
Johansing explained: “My message to the people [of El Salvador]: The more money we make,
the more money the communities make. The more benefits, the more everything.”28 During this
period, it appeared to those both within and outside the country that these actions had set El
Salvador on an inevitable march to metals mining. Or as Johansing predicted in 2014, “when the
time is right, we will build a mining industry in El Salvador.”29
On March 28, 2017, the Salvadoran legislature voted to ensure that there would never be
a “right” time to mine in El Salvador, unanimously passing a bill that banned mining. In the
decade prior, the term “de facto moratorium” had been used interchangeably with the phrase “de
facto ban” although “ban” had never been accurate terminology. This is because until March
2017 the industry had never been legally prohibited. The stoppage of industrial metals mining
operations depended on presidents authorizing the suspension of El Salvador’s mining law; yet
such executive action did not actually alter Salvadoran law, which still permitted metals mining.
Therefore, until March 2017, the risk had remained that any presidential administration could
reverse course and start granting metals mining licenses again. This legislative vote was historic
and transformational because, for the first time, a country formally outlawed an extractive
industry.30
27
28
Johansing.
29
Johansing.
30
In 2002 the Costa Rican president instituted a ban on new open pit mining that subsequent presidents maintained
(besides between 2008-10). In 2010, the Costa Rican legislature went farther, banning new open pit mining (similar
to the presidential ban) and all mining that used cyanide. The ban prevented new projects from using open pit
8
In practice, daily life in El Salvador did not change following passage of the mining ban.
What the vote did was bring legal protection to the tectonic shift in the status quo that had
occurred a decade before, when the government suspended industrial metals mining activity.
Thus, with this legal prohibition that made the decade long suspension permanent, the research
question I started with in 2013 became even more pressing: Why would the government of El
Salvador, a low-income country that possesses domestic gold reserves, choose to forgo, as
Johansing succinctly put it, “more money, more benefits, more everything” from gold mining?
II. El Salvador: Defying the Latin American “extractive imperative” or the start of a new
development paradigm?
El Salvador’s disallowance of metals mining is not simply a divergence from its own
prior economic strategy. It lies in stark contrast to the intensive resource extraction currently
taking place across both developed and developing countries.31 Per Arsel et al (2016), “the
conventional wisdom suggests that for countries richly endowed with natural resources,
extraction—for domestic use, but in particular for export—is an integral part of the process of
economic development.”32 Furthermore, in the words of post-development scholar Alberto
Acosta, it is the norm for governments of natural resource-rich territories that, “some damage to
mining and cyanide but did not impose an outright ban on industrial metals mining. See Robin Broad and John
Cavanagh, “Poorer Countries and the Environment: Friends or Foes?,” World Development 72 (August 2015): 423–
25.
31
Murat Arsel, Barbara Hogenboom, and Lorenzo Pellegrini, “The Extractive Imperative in Latin America,” ed.
Murat Arsel, Barbara Hogenboom, and Lorenzo Pellegrini, The Extractive Industries and Society 3, no. 4
(November 2016): 880.
32
Arsel, Hogenboom, and Pellegrini, 880.
9
the environment and even some serious social impacts are accepted as the price to be paid” for
the economic gains from extractive industries.33
In this context, governments across the political spectrum continue to prioritize the
promised economic gains of “extractivism,” which encompasses the industrial extraction of a
wide range of sought-after minerals and hydrocarbons, over probable negative social and
environmental consequences. Furthermore, because of increased market demand for
underground resources and the advent of advanced extractive technologies, “modalities of
extraction are extending to regions and resources once considered unreachable in order to extract
more dilute, more remote and significantly deeper deposits to fuel global energy consumption
and manufacturing markets.”34 As a result, extractive industry is expanding globally and with
farther reaching frontiers than ever before.35
As detailed above, in El Salvador the draw for foreign companies was not oil or gas or
the full range of underground metals. El Salvador offered the promise of striking gold.
According to the 2015 British Geological Survey, it is estimated that annual global gold
extraction reaches 3 million kilograms.36 The price appreciation of gold in the early years of the
21st century has been crucial to gold mining’s growth. 37 At $2000 an ounce in 2011, gold
33
Alberto Acosta, “Extraction and Neoextractism: Two Sides the Same Curse,” in Beyond Development: Alternative
Visions from Latin America, ed. Miriam Lang and Dunia Mokrani (Quito, Ecuador: Rosa Luxemburg Foundation,
2013), 72.
34
Kirk Jalbert et al., eds., ExtrACTION: Impacts, Engagements, and Alternative Futures (New York, NY:
Routledge, 2017), 3.
35
Arsel, Hogenboom, and Pellegrini, “The Extractive Imperative in Latin America.”
36
Jalbert et al., ExtrACTION: Impacts, Engagements, and Alternative Futures, 3.
37
Gold can be investigated separately from sister precious metals like silver, platinum or other metals like copper
and aluminum that are highly demanded by industry because of the unique dynamics that influence gold’s value.
Paramount among these are: Manufacturing’s increasing dependence on precious metals like gold (particularly in
areas like electronics); enhanced extractive technology that enables exploration in locations and at depths never
before possible; and most importantly, economic crisis-instigated shifts in investment from financial markets to
10
reached 650% of its 1999 value. Gold prices have fallen in recent years, triggering lamentations
from gold enthusiasts. Yet valued just above $1200 in May 2018, gold still commands four times
the pre-2000 value.38 Rising metals prices have attracted mining firms, from both developed and
developing countries, to venture into diverse, and in some cases never before tapped, mineral
markets. At the time same, previously established mining firms have revisited territories
abandoned during less profitable periods to sign new concessions and begin mining again.39
Gold mining expansion is a global phenomenon. However, a set of contemporary
scholars claim that Latin America stands out as being “emblematic” of extractivism in terms of
both its vast expansion throughout the region and the entrenched belief, among governments of
right and left ideologies, “that the sector will pave the way to socioeconomic development.”40
Yet, these scholars also claim that Latin America extractivism is not simply a product of
economic policy. Instead, it is “characterized by the fact that extraction itself is so central to
development that it overrides any other concern…[and] has taken over other state activities,
reorienting policy objectives to further justify and advance the policy of extractivism.” 41
These scholars call this phenomenon, as it has taken hold in Latin America, an
“extractive imperative,” because it is “marked by an ideological commitment to further
physical ownership of precious metals. Gold is therefore more than a commercial and industrial input or a luxury
good; it is also considered an asset, a financial instrument and even most simply, “safe money”.” Gold and the 'Safe
Haven' Myth,” Seeking Alpha. June 21, 2012. http://seekingalpha.com/article/675581-gold-and-the-safe-haven-myth
Gina Heeb, “3 Reasons the Gold Rout May Be Over,” Business Insider, May 17, 2018; Reuters Staff, “Precious-
38
Gold Prices Ease as Dollar Hovers near 2018 Peak,” Reuters, May 16, 2018.
UNCTAD, “World Investment Report 2006: TNCs from Developing and Transition Economies” (Geneva and
39
New York: United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, 2006), 162.
40
Arsel, Hogenboom, and Pellegrini, “The Extractive Imperative in Latin America,” 880.
41
Arsel, Hogenboom, and Pellegrini, 881.
11
extraction as a necessary and unavoidable step towards higher level of development.”42 An
extractive imperative describes more than the implementation of extractivist development
policies. This theory posits that, in practice, the extractive imperative plays out through
countries’ “political economic relationships over nature and natural resources that shape state-
society interactions…[which] manifest as environment and [economic] development policies that
are simultaneously dependent on and reinforcing [of] extractive activities.”43 In other words,
Arsel et al. refer to a political/policy environment in which extraction is foundational to a
country’s development model, with the implication that the perpetuation of extractive activities
and strategies will then shape overall expectations and policies.
In Arsel et al.’s discussion of the hold of the “extractive imperative” on Latin America,
they do not specifically discuss El Salvador and, therefore, do not contend with what the
empirical evidence from this case means for their overarching theory. Having recognized this
gap in theory in my initial work on the El Salvador case,44 I identified El Salvador as having
defied the Latin American extractive imperative. My analysis did not claim that El Salvador
challenges the validity of the overarching theory in terms of its application to the rest of the
region, but instead that its deviating actions make it an exception and, therefore, outlier case in
the region and the world.
42
Arsel, Hogenboom, and Pellegrini, “The Extractive Imperative in Latin America,” 884.
43
Murat Arsel, Barbara Hogenboom, and Lorenzo Pellegrini, “The Extractive Imperative and the Boom in
Environmental Conflicts at the End of the Progressive Cycle in Latin America,” ed. Murat Arsel, Barbara
Hogenboom, and Lorenzo Pellegrini, The Extractive Industries and Society 3, no. 4 (November 2016): 878.
44
Rachel Hannah Nadelman, “El Salvador’s Challenge to the Latin American Extractive Imperative,” in
ExtrACTION: Impacts, Engagements, and Alternative Futures, ed. Kirk Jalbert et al. (New York, NY: Routledge,
2017), 184–97.
12
It is worth noting that scholarship from Broad and Fischer-Mackey,45 written
concurrently with Arsel et al., offers a sharply different interpretation of the existing empirical
evidence and what it means for extractivism’s current direction and future. Broad and Fischer-
Mackey highlight recent national mining policy changes in El Salvador and Costa Rica, among
other countries, as evidence of a small but growing trend. According to Broad and Fischer-
Mackey, this new trend indicates the “weakening of the extractivism paradigm” and “the rise of a
development paradigm” that brings together both social and environmental concerns.46 In this
context, Broad and Fischer-Mackey do not interpret the El Salvador case as an exception to a
unifying and dominating imperative for the perpetuation of extractive industry as foundational
economic policy. Instead, they argue that El Salvador (along with Costa Rica) is at the forefront
of the emergence of a new set of norms that have shifted from “extractivism-based development”
to prioritizing environmental concerns.47
There is a key point of overlap between these two approaches. Both Arsel et al. and
Broad and Fischer-Mackey recognize that for decades the extractivist paradigam dominated
nations’ economic decision-making. This dissertation does not attempt to settle the scholarly
debate on the current or future role of extraction in countries’ economic development. Instead, it
focuses singularly on the puzzle of the El Salvador case. Whether or not the available evidence
leads one to conclude that El Salvador is an outlier or is precedent-setting, the country’s metals
mining decisions mark a monumental change. Therefore, the question guiding this El Salvador-
45
Robin Broad and Julia Fischer-Mackey, “From Extractivism towards Buen Vivir: Mining Policy as an Indicator of
a New Development Paradigm Prioritising the Environment,” Third World Quarterly 38, no. 6 (June 3, 2017):
1327–49.
46
Broad and Fischer-Mackey, 1328.
47
Broad and Fischer-Mackey, 1328.
13
centric research is: Why did El Salvador deviate from an economic development paradigm that
prioritized the short-term economic gains from extraction over the social and environmental
costs and choose instead to disallow industrial metals mining? In the next sections, I explain my
process and approach for finding answers to this question.
III. Research focus
I am not the first researcher inspired to understand the El Salvador case. Contemporary
scholars Cartagena, Collins, Broad/Cavanagh, and Spalding48 began their research and writing on
this case before I did, with Broad/Cavanagh and Spalding continuing concurrently. My
dissertation aims to build from their foundational work, complementing it where my research
finds common ground, and offering alternative understandings where my findings diverge.
Furthermore, unlike the cited authors, my work singularly focuses on 2004-2008, a period that
has not yet been investigated in depth by other scholars. I chose this five-year time span because
that is when the civil society opposition came together and expanded from many localized
concerns to become a national priority. This also when the Salvadoran government first changed
its course, when officials within the pro-business ARENA government of President Antonio
48
Rafael E. Cartagena, “Organizaciones y tendencias del ambientalismo en El Salvador,” ECA: Estudios
centroamericanos, no. 711 (2008): 33–57; Rafael E. Cartagena, “Orígenes del movimiento de oposición a la minería
metálica en El Salvador,” ECA: Estudios centroamericanos 64, no. 722 (2009): 497–524; Collins, “The Failure of a
Socially Responsive Gold Mining MNC in El Salvador”; Broad and Cavanagh, “Poorer Countries and the
Environment”; Robin Broad and John Cavanagh, “El Salvador Gold: Toward a Mining Ban,” ed. Thomas Princen,
Jack P. Manno, and Pamela L. Martin (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2015), 167–92; Rose Spalding, “Transnational
Networks and National Action: El Salvador’s Antimining Movement,” in Transnational Activism and National
Movements in Latin America: Bridging the Divide, ed. Eduardo Silva, Routledge Studies in Latin American Politics,
8 (New York, NY: Routledge, 2013), 23–55; Rose Spalding, Contesting Trade in Central America: Market Reform
and Resistance, First edition. (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2014); Rose Spalding, “Domestic Loops and
Deleveraging Hooks: Translational Social Movements and the Politics of Scale Shift,” in Social Movement
Dynamics: New Perspectives on Theory and Research from Latin America, ed. Rossi, Federico M. and Von Bulow,
Marisa, The Mobilization Series on Social Movements, Protest, and Culture (England: Ashgate Publishing Limited,
2015), 181–211.
14
Saca (2004-2009) re-interpreted existing policy so that the country shifted from a path towards
developing a modern mining industry to one that allowed no further exploration and therefore
and no possible transition to extraction. Furthermore, my research will demonstrate that El
Salvador’s “de facto moratorium” on metals mining did not result from a single event or
decision. Rather, it developed over a two-year period, 2006-2008, and involved several distinct
decisions and actions that built on each other.
Drawing on research I conducted in 2013, 2014, and 2015, and grounded within the
foundation set by the scholars cited above, I argue that the determining factor influencing
government decision-making was the diversity of the domestic sectors that opposed, or withheld
support for, metals mining in El Salvador. In a country plagued by bitter, longstanding partisan
divisions, the actors and sectors that comprise and drive the mining opposition cross traditional
political divides. Who are they? I identify four distinct sectors here.
At the helm, one finds a network of civil society organizations, with alliances among
those based both in the affected gold-belt provinces and the capital, San Salvador. As Broad and
Cavanagh have written, partnership among citizen groups across the county has transformed
what could have remained as “local concerns into a sophisticated, organized civil-society
opposition to mining based on its environmental and social costs and lack of long-term economic
benefits.”49 Furthermore, the anti-mining campaigns did not get stuck on demonizing the mining
industry, but instead focused on framing the main message in the positive – as one that was pro-
water. Water is the central issue in the fight against mining, because of the risks of extreme
contamination as well as the depletion of existing sources from mining operations’ intensive
water needs.
49
Broad and Cavanagh, “Poorer Countries and the Environment,” 421.
15
In addition, critical to understanding how and why El Salvador has deviated from the
regional norm are the non-community-based sectors that have had a role in opposing mining. At
the top of this list is the Catholic Church. I separate the “Church” from community because I am
referring to the institutional church, what Salvadorans call “la iglesia jerárquica” (the church
hierarchy) versus “la iglesia del pueblo” (the people’s church). I argue that the Catholic Church
cannot simply be considered a component of civil society because, per Spalding, “the
hierarchical structure of the Catholic Church and its formal lines of authority distinguish this
organization from the kinds of networks that normally populate international social movement
and civil society theory.”50 The Catholic Church’s backing brought a non-political moral
authority to the anti-mining movement. As the executive director of Caritas (the arm of the
Catholic Church that focuses on social services) Antonio Baños explained in our interview, “the
Church’s position was important in the sense that it clarified for the population that [being
against mining] wasn’t a political position, wasn’t a political issue, but an issue of human and
environmental consequences.”51
El Salvador’s domestic private sector has been a less visible, but no less important, actor
in the metals mining debates. Dominated by 14 families, long-labeled as the country’s unofficial
ruling oligarchy, El Salvador’s economic elite appeared to largely remain outside the debate.
Known to be ferociously pro-foreign investment, the business sector’s silence has been
interpreted by some as intentional withholding of support for the foreign-led mining industry.
According to economist Cesar Villalona, with all the obstacles that the anti-mining movement
50
Spalding, Contesting Trade in Central America, 170.
51
Antonio Baños National Director, Caritas El Salvador, Interview by Author, San Salvador, El Salvador, July 2,
2014.
16
has had to overcome, “the fact that they did not need to also take on the oligarchy helped the
movement to gain traction.”52
While the other sectors, mentioned above, had decisive roles in influencing how the
government managed the mining industry, specific actions taken by individual members of the
government were also drivers, in and of themselves, in creating and sustaining the de facto
moratorium. Individual government actors within the executive branch—from top officials to
civil servants—maneuvered within their positions and the political system to influence how the
government carried out metals mining policies and regulations. These officials’ overt actions, as
well as deliberate non-actions, were key to sustaining the metals mining industry suspension.
Four sub-questions allow me to operationalize my overarching research question. I will
tackle three sub-questions in each sectoral analysis. They include:
1. What role did each sector play in the country’s choices and actions on industrial metal
mining?
2. What were the respective sectors’ motivations?
3. What were the milestone events/actions that took place in El Salvador, that moved the
country away from this purported short-term economic growth opportunity?
By answering these three questions in each of the sectoral analyses, I will develop the
evidentiary building blocks that will allow me to resolve a final operationalizing research
question. This fourth question, which I tackle in the concluding chapter, is:
4. How did these sectors overlap and/or cooperate vs. operate individually? Can their
independence/inter-dependence be sorted out?
52
César Villalona Independent Economist and economic advisor to the Sanchez Ceren government (2015-present),
Interview by Author, San Salvador, El Salvador, November 10, 2014.
17
The discussions that develop from the answers to these four questions will uphold my essential
hypothesis: The four sectors that together comprised the broad-based Salvadoran opposition to
mining (civil society, the Catholic Church hierarchy, the domestic private sector, and the key
actors from executive branch of government), while frequently following parallel tracks rather
than collaborating, moved public opinion and influenced government decision-making to
ultimately halt El Salvador’s pursuit of industrial metals mining.
IV. Methodology
In this section I present my research methodology, explaining my approach, methods and
data collection procedures.
Research design and approach
To answer the research questions and accomplish the goals explained above, this
dissertation adopts a single case study methodology. This no-variance research design is most
appropriate because the purpose is to discern what led to a particular, known but unexplained,
outcome in the specific, individual case.
As explained above, at the outset of the research and in the crafting of initial publications
based on my findings, I classified El Salvador as an “outlier”53 case which provided justification
for the single case study focus of this project. Per Stephen Van Evera, outlier cases are those that
53
The study of outlier cases is also called by some scholars “Deviant case studies” (See: George and Bennett 75;
Lijphart. “Comparative politics and the comparative method.” American Political Science Review, 65 (Sept 1971):
682-93). These terms are analytically equivalent. However, in the Latin American context the terms “Deviant” and
“Deviance” have alternate meanings that have nothing to do with the focus of study here. The logic of such
expectations – be they called “Outlier” or “Deviant” -- is derived from the work of John Student Mill, A system of
logic, ratiocinative and inductive: being a connected view of the principles of evidence and the methods of scientific
investigation (pp. 397-398).
18
are “poorly explained by existing theories” and therefore unknown causes explain the outcomes
and intensive case examination is required to “try to identify these causes.”54 In line with Van
Evera, I established El Salvador as an outlier precisely because the “Latin American Extractive
Imperative” theory, as formulated, could not adequately explain or account for El Salvador’s
metals mining actions and decisions. Considering Broad and Fischer-Mackey, who do not view
El Salvador as an exception, but who recognize the country’s challenge (along with Costa Rica)
to the extractivist economic paradigm as precedent-setting, El Salvador still warrants a single
case study focus. Using this conceptualization, El Salvador is no longer simply an outlier case
that is a notable exception to the rule, but is at the forefront of a body of evidence that challenges
the validity of the rule.
The purpose of this research project, as will be discussed below, is not to test or build
theory. It is dedicated to finding answers in this particular case with the hope of extrapolating
lessons that can be taken into consideration elsewhere. Therefore, this single case research
design for El Salvador allows me to “examine in detail the operation of causal mechanisms”55 at
work specifically in this country context. This will provide a means to inductively identify “new
variables…causal mechanisms, and causal paths” that can explain El Salvador’s atypical—be it
outlier or paradigm transforming—government decision-making on metals mining.
54
Stephen Van Evera, Guide to Methods for Students of Political Science, 1 edition (Ithaca: Cornell University
Press, 1997), 2.
55
Alexander L. George and Andrew Bennett, Case Studies and Theory Development in the Social Sciences (The
MIT Press, 2005), 21.
19
Methodology – Process-Tracing56
As explained above, identifying the causal mechanisms at work in the El Salvador case
will enable the atypical outcome to be explained. Defining a causal mechanism is not a simple
proposition. Mahoney defines it as “an unobserved entity that—when activated—generates an
outcome of interest.”57 “Activated” is a key word in that definition because, as George and
Bennett explain, causal mechanisms “operate only under certain conditions” and “their effects
depend on interactions with the other mechanism[s] that make up these contexts. In other words,
a causal mechanism may be necessary, but not sufficient, in an explanation.”58 There is not only
a single type of causal mechanism. On one end of the spectrum, a causal mechanism embodies
simple, linear causality, which encompasses “a straightforward, direct chain of events that
characterizes simple phenomena.”59 On the other end of the spectrum, one finds more complex
forms of causality, which George and Bennett conclude are what characterize “most phenomena
of interest in international relations and comparative politics.”60
To find and analyze the complex causal processes operating in the El Salvador case, I
employ the within-case analytical tool, process tracing, which “attempts to trace the links
between possible causes and observed outcomes”61 and provides a “systematic examination of
56
As noted in the references, the scholars cited spell the methodology in different fashions. For example, George
and Bennett use “process tracing” while Beach and Pederson use the hyphenated “process-tracing.” Given that more
scholars currently use the two word rather than hyphenated formulation, that is the version I use in this work.
57
James Mahoney, “Review Essay: Beyond Correlational Analysis: Recent Innovations in Theory and Method,”
Sociological Forum 16 (2001): 580.
58
George and Bennett, Case Studies and Theory Development in the Social Sciences, 114.
59
George and Andrew Bennett, 212.
60
George and Bennett,159.
61
George and Bennett, 6.
20
diagnostic evidence selected and analyzed in light of research questions and hypotheses posed by
the investigator.”62 George and Bennett draw attention to process tracing because of the
method’s ability to “generate and analyze data on the causal mechanisms […] that link putative
causes to observed effects.”63 Furthermore, Mahoney has argued that process tracing is “the most
important tool of causal inference in qualitative and case study research.”64
Recognized for providing significant theoretical insight into “a case that fails to fit
existing theories,” process tracing is particularly appropriate to utilize as part of explaining El
Salvador’s decision-making on metals mining. Beyond its recognition as a focused, within-case
analytical tool, process tracing can make a unique contribution because it investigates the
“workings of the mechanism(s) that contribute to producing an outcome,” going “beyond the
correlations between independent and dependent variables.”65 Therefore, process tracing allows
one to get to the “why” and “how” in a particular case because it enables us to work out the
“causal process,” which is the sequence of causal mechanisms, or intervening variables, within a
case that produces the outcome.66 When this kind of “backward” analysis is considered
successful, it allows discovery of the causal mechanism or mechanisms that made the outcome
possible.67
62
David Collier, “Understanding Process Tracing,” Political Science and Politics 44, no. 4 (October 2011): 823.
63
Andrew Bennett and Alexander George, “Process Tracing in Case Study Research,” in Lost in the Translation:
Big (N) Misinterpretations of Case Study Research (MacArthur Program on Case Studies, 1997), 5.
64
James Mahoney, “The Logic of Process Tracing Tests in the Social Sciences,” Sociological Methods & Research
41, no. 4 (November 1, 2012): 571.
65
Derek Beach and Rasmus Brun Pedersen, Process-Tracing Methods: Foundations and Guidelines (Ann Arbor,
MI: University of Michigan Press, 2013), 1–4.
66
Van Evera, Guide to Methods for Students of Political Science, 37.
67
Van Evera.
21
This dissertation utilizes a specific variant of process tracing called “explaining-
outcome.” Scholars Alexander George and Andrew Bennett established the foundational
categories of process tracing. These are “process induction” and “process verification,” which,
respectively follow inductive and deductive analytical processes.68 Derek Beach and Rasmus
Pedersen built upon George and Bennett’s work, adding the innovation of a third variant that
they call explaining outcome process tracing.69 This category “establishes a minimally sufficient
explanation for an outcome that has been produced in a specific historical case”70 with the
objective of explaining rather than creating generalizable observations.71
As a result, the aim of explaining-outcome process tracing is not to build or test theories,
but to “craft a (minimally) sufficient explanation of the outcome of the case where the ambitions
are more case-centric than theory oriented.”72 Per George and Bennett, process tracing “must be
adapted to the nature of the causal process thought to characterize the phenomenon being
investigated,”73 which for this case makes the “explaining-outcome” variant the most
appropriate. The explaining-outcome, case-specific focus means that I am not making broader
claims that the causal mechanisms I identify and analyze will be operating in any cases beyond
68
Bennett and George, “Process Tracing in Case Study Research,” 5.
69
Beach and Pederson’ first two categories overlap with George and Bennett. What George and Bennett call process
induction, Beach and Pederson name theory building, while George and Bennett’s process verification category is
called theory testing. Beach and Pedersen, Process-Tracing Methods: Foundations and Guidelines, 3, 18–19, 51. 63.
70
Beach and Pedersen, 3.
71
Beach and Pedersen, 3, 19.
72
73
22
this one. At the same time, having identified and analyzed these causal mechanisms, they can be
the basis for further investigation in other country cases, as appropriate.
Necessary and sufficient conditions
Beach and Pedersen argue that explaining-outcome process tracing is particularly well
suited for assessing the relative importance of the necessary and sufficient conditions74 that lead
to a given outcome. Per Mahoney, in general, “process tracing tests are fundamentally built
around these ideas [of necessary and sufficient conditions].”75 Additionally, Beach and Pedersen,
“all the parts of the more complex mechanism must be individually necessary for the mechanism
and the overall mechanism need only achieve minimal sufficiency.”76
Specifically, the concept of necessary and sufficient conditions is the foundation of my
hypothesis guiding this research. To restate the hypothesis, with the language of necessary and
sufficient conditions:
• First, in El Salvador it was the involvement of each of the sectors, including civil
society, the Catholic Church hierarchy, the domestic private sector, and key
government actors,– and not one over another – that was necessary within the
overall complex causal process that led to the outcome of a suspended metals
mining industry.
74
Beach and Pedersen, Process-Tracing Methods: Foundations and Guidelines, 3. Bear F. Braumoeller and Gary
Goertz, “The Methodology of Necessary Conditions,” American Journal of Political Science 44 (2000): 844–658.
75
Mahoney, “The Logic of Process Tracing Tests in the Social Sciences,” 573.
76
Beach and Pedersen, Process-Tracing Methods: Foundations and Guidelines, 178.
23
• Second, the influence of the respective sectors, individually, would not have been
sufficient to bring about that outcome and, therefore, minimal sufficiency comes
from the convergence of these sectors’ actions on this issue.
By positing these two ideas, I am arguing that there cannot be an assumption of linearity in the
causal process that led to the outcome of interest, but instead it flows “from the convergence of
several conditions, independent variables or causal chains.”77
In the El Salvador case, therefore, the points of convergence of the respective causal
chains that comprise each highlighted sector’s actions in relation to metals mining are
responsible for the country’s de facto metals mining moratorium. In other words, it is not only
the fact of each highlighted sector’s respective actions (or the causal processes that comprise
their actions) but the points where their actions/efforts converge that account for the outcome.
This convergence is two-fold: thematic and temporal. This means that it was the coinciding of
actions with similar messaging and at related times, on the issue of metals mining for El
Salvador, that changed the direction of Salvadoran metals mining activity.
What, in practice, does this mean for the analysis to follow? The format selected for this
project follows Beach and Pederson, who argue that case studies constructed using process
tracing “cannot be presented in narrative form,” or use “temporal sequencing.”78 The analysis is,
therefore, organized by the stakeholder sectors presented above: grassroots civil society, the
Catholic Church hierarchy, the domestic private sector, and government actors. The selection of
these stakeholder sectors builds upon those identified by Broad and Cavanagh and is supported
77
78
Beach and Pedersen, Process-Tracing Methods: Foundations and Guidelines, 5.
24
by the evidence I gathered during my 2013, 2014, and 2015 fieldwork. This format allows me to
individually analyze the necessary component causal processes carried out by each sector that
together comprise the complex causal mechanism that brought about the outcome of interest.
While focused on each individual component, the chapters will identify the points of
convergence among two or more of the sectors, developing the narrative further with each
subsequent chapter analysis, and tying the analysis together in the conclusion.
As introduced earlier in this chapter, the outcome of interest—the moratorium on
industrial metals mining in El Salvador during the Saca administration—was de facto and not de
jure. As this work will show, this de facto moratorium was the result of a series of crucial formal
and informal actions taken at the executive branch level by individual policymakers and agencies
starting in 2006. Some of these actions were behind the scenes and others public, but together
they prevented the metals mining industry from advancing.
While the period of study only continues through 2008, the de facto moratorium remained
in effect, although never the law, until the legislative vote that prohibited metals mining in
March 2017. This could appear to make the outcome of interest more challenging to identify,
which in turn would make it difficult to determine the causal mechanisms responsible for it. Yet,
the outcome is still straightforward: the lack of forward movement in El Salvador’s metals
mining industry. This means that the causal mechanisms that allowed the de facto suspension to
remain the norm become even more crucial. Therefore, I will use process tracing to demonstrate
how each component causal process of the overall complex causal mechanism contributed to
maintaining the de facto moratorium, even while the law of the land remained one that permitted
metals mining.
25
Each chapter will proceed temporally, from 2004-2008, tracking the following:
• The evolution of views on metals mining as expressed among key non-
governmental actors (civil society, institutional Catholic Church, and the private
sector) recounted via interview, archival data and captured in media, press
releases;
• As is possible to identify, the influence of evolving views as captured in shifts in
language and action undertaken by government officials in the executive branch
(members of the presidential administration, staff in the Ministries of Economy
and Environment, etc.) in speeches, reports, press accounts, correspondences,
archival data, and administrative documents;
• As possible to identify, the influence of evolving views on elected decision-
makers as demonstrated in stated positions on the issue within official political
platforms (as expressed by parties, within specific electoral campaigns, within
legislative debate, and legislative documents);
• The unfolding of each stakeholder groups’ actions on the issue;
• Points of convergence in terms of both overt cooperation in undertaking specific
action (among two or more actors) and as non-cooperative, but parallel,
compatible actions on the issues.
What is crucial here is not simply identifying and analyzing the evolution of ideas,
opinions and perspectives in the focus time period. Instead, the forthcoming analysis establishes
causality/causal mechanisms that demonstrate the link between the shifting positions and their
direct influence on the specific government decisions/actions specified above. I recognize that
the fact of an active opposition, no matter its diversity of involved actors, and changes within
26
policy are not automatically linked. Therefore, in locating the “what” and “how” of shifting
viewpoints across the involved stakeholder groups and their subsequent actions, I will present the
evidence via direct attribution as well as indirect substantiation that demonstrates causality.
Evidence
In order to engage in the backwards analysis of process tracing, one must first find the
tangible evidence that will be the basis of that analysis. As with much original research, this
dissertation relies heavily on primary data that I collected. At the same time, this work could not
exist without building from secondary data produced by local journalistic reporting and also a
first generation of scholarship on this issue and case (Broad and Cavanagh, Spalding, Cartagena,
McKinley, etc.).
My main primary resources are two-fold. First, they include interviews that I conducted
in 2013, 2014 and 2015; second, they include original documentation produced during the period
of focus (2004-2009), including press reports, official government documents, and civil society
records. To support my data gathering, I also undertook participant observation, when
appropriate. Given that this issue has been ongoing, many of the key actors from my period of
focus remained active and attending rallies, press conferences, meetings, legislative sessions,
educational events, etc. This allowed me, during my fieldwork, to connect with the key actors
who would become my interviewees as well as understand the then-current relevance and
environment. However, participant observation was decidedly secondary in terms of data
collection because it is important to avoid confusing a current policy moment with what was
taking place at an earlier time.
27
All the evidence I employ to underpin my arguments can be organized according to
Pederson and Beach’s categories appropriate for process tracing. These are trace, account,
sequence, and pattern evidence. Trace evidence is data whose existence, in and of itself, proves
that a hypothesis is true or that a hypothesized relationship is in fact real.79 The content of the
evidence is not what is important for this category. It is the fact that the documentation exists.
For example, the minutes of legislative meetings about the mining debate show that such
meetings took place. If the existence of the meeting (beyond the content of the meeting) is an
important piece of evidence, in terms of tracing the process that led to an outcome, then this trace
evidence becomes critical.
Account evidence counts as evidence because of the empirical content.80 For example,
transcripts of forums on mining with members of civil society and government or
correspondences between the government and the international private sector that capture the
evolving positions and decisions, would be account evidence. The recounting of such a forum by
participants would also be account evidence.
Sequence evidence deals with the chronology of events.81 For example, calendar data
that shows that certain civil society sponsored awareness events that involved government
participation took place immediately before the government undertook new actions on mining
(such as hiring an international environmental consultant to assess the industry) can serve as
sequence evidence. If the sequence is found not to have taken place as expected, then this could
challenge the plausibility of the hypothesized explanation.
79
80
Beach and Pedersen.
81
Beach and Pedersen.
28
Finally, Pattern evidence “relates to the predictions of statistical patterns in the
evidence.”82 In other words, statistical data can be used to look for patterns. Since I work within
a single case study, I will not employ pattern evidence. Therefore, I rely on the first three
categories of evidence with the bulk of my evidence falling within the account evidence category
because it is derived from the content of elite interviews and archived documentation.
Data collection
I collected primary data through elite interviews across the categories of stakeholders,
presented above, as well as through online and off-line archival research (explained below). The
first exploratory round of fieldwork took place in El Salvador during May 2013 to lay the
groundwork for a longer, more in-depth research period. My main period of field study took
place between the beginning of June and the end of November 2014 in El Salvador, with a short
visit to Guatemala City. I continued to work inductively throughout the six months of fieldwork,
refining my research protocol, as needed, as the fieldwork advanced. I returned to El Salvador a
year later, in November 2015, for final follow-up interviews. Results from the interviews and
archival research conducted in El Salvador during the 2013 pre-dissertation, 2014 primary
fieldwork, and 2015 follow-up fieldwork, are included in the final product.
Elite interviews (semi-structured)
My aim, as I initiated my 2014 field work, was to reach at least ten individuals across
each identified sub-group, ensuring that the diversity of involved actors was adequately
represented. This would be added to the interviews I had already conducted in El Salvador in
2013 as well as in Washington, DC in 2013 and 2014 (and via Skype to Canada). For most of the
82
29
rounds of interviews, but most intensively during my six months of fieldwork in 2014, I utilized
a basic “snowball” technique. This meant that I leveraged contacts I had been given, or that I
developed, to connect with new people who may not have been responsive without a known
entity involved in the connection. There also was a degree of serendipity that enabled me to
expand the network of interviews beyond what I could initially imagine.
The main example of this was that I met Carole Johansing, wife of mining executive,
Robert Johansing when I attended El Salvador’s only synagogue for the Jewish high holidays.
Mrs. Johansing then invited me to their home to meet her husband. It is only because of this
chance meeting that I accessed Johansing (and subsequently the vast archives from his time
working with Au Martinique Silver Inc., Martinique Minerals and Triada, which he openly
shared). Given my commitment to reach a minimum of 10 people per group, I could not entirely
rely on the snowball method, since individuals from each sub-group are most likely to have
contacts within their own community and not across sectors. In some cases, particularly related
to the Salvadoran business world, I needed to find intermediaries who could connect me to a
person of interest who I would then interview, even if the initial contact would not be an
interview subject.
In my final fieldwork trip in November 2015, I met with two important government and
civil society stakeholders who I had not been able to interview during my six months in the
country in 2014. Furthermore, I held several follow-up interviews with stakeholders to answer
questions that arose during my data analysis. During the course of my research I was able to
interview 88 people across the sub-groups, several of them multiple times. I conducted the vast
majority of the interviews in Spanish, only using English in six cases when interviewees were
native English speakers or were bi-lingual and expressed a preference for English. For the
30
majority of my interviews I was granted permission to record the discussions and this enabled
me to produce written transcripts. I used both the interview transcripts, and my notes in cases
where recording was not possible, in my analysis. All English translations of the Spanish
language interviews I conducted are my own. By category, my results were as follows:
Table 1: Interviews, by Actor Category
Actor Category Total Sub-groups Covered

number of
Interviews
Civil Society Organizations, 33 Salvadoran community-based organizations
Domestic and International* including those with a focus on the following issues
(sometimes in combination): environment, socio-
*Initially I considered domestic economic development, research, health, religious,
and international civil society local governance, legal advocacy. Some of these
separate categories, which for this organizations are members of La Mesa (past and
project I have combined. Given present) while others are outside this network;
their respective importance, even International organizations
as I combined the category, I still
aimed for a minimum of 20 in this
category.
Government 23 Elected government: Legislative, Executive
Branches; Civil Servants: Ministries, Human Rights
Ombudsman; Foreign Service: office of
Ambassador to the US
Catholic Church hierarchy (El 10 Auxiliary Archbishop, Caritas, Bishop San Vicente,
Salvadoran and US) US Council of Catholic Bishops
Private Sector 6 Trade organizations and individual business
Domestic and International people/Canadian & American mining companies
Other 16 Academia, Think tank, public Intellectuals, Media
(Radio and Print), US government organizations
Total 88
Table 2: Breakdown of Interview by Location
El Salvador US Guatemala (in Canada (via Total

(Washington person and via Skype)
DC) Skype)
Interviews 77 5 4 2 88
As the first table shows, I was successful reaching my minimum in all but one category
and for government and civil society I far surpassed my minimum goal. As expected from the
start, the private sector required a somewhat different tact. For this sector, my analysis relied on
31
a combination of interviews with individuals, supplemented by primary documents, most of
which had not been previously unearthed by the earlier scholars working on this El Salvador
case. I believe that the information gathered from across the sectors, as well as the archives I
obtained, enabled me to adequately supplement my elite interviews. The majority of interviews
involved single individuals, but several included two or, at most, three participants. Interviews
with more than one person resulted because my target interviewee invited other colleagues to
join him/her for the meeting. As well, I pursued follow up with key informants across the sectors
and I was successful in achieving this with 20 interviewees, most in-person, but several via
phone and via email correspondence. The majority who allowed for repeat contact were national
and international civil society activists who were consistently the most accessible. However, I
also had the opportunity for follow-up with several stakeholders from government (all of these
were via phone or email), media, academia, private sector, and international organizations.
Archival/transcript analysis
My main primary source archives include executive, legislative and judicial records
(written and audio), internal political party documentation, records of campaign debates/political
platforms, government/private sector correspondences, civil society reports/correspondences and
private sector notes on the evolving mining situation in El Salvador. My secondary archives are
original media coverage.
As a part of my research methodology, I planned to gather official government
documents. However, I expected this to be supplementary to the data I obtained through elite
interviews, which I imagined would provide the foundation of my work. While interviews are
still central, official documents (government and private sector) contributed more significantly to
this work than I had anticipated. This is because of the volume and unique content of what I
32
could successfully access in El Salvador. Furthermore, as a result of the ongoing International
Centre for the Settlement of Investment Dispute (ICSID) cases, I had access to a wide range of
documents that had been submitted as exhibits by both the plaintiff and the defendant. This was
the kind of documentation I had hoped for, but thought unlikely that I would be able to acquire
from the government. I imagined it would be more challenging than it actually was to procure
documents from government agencies, even if they were categorized as public. All translations
of primary and secondary sources from Spanish to English are my own unless noted otherwise.
In the end, I found I had utilized three different techniques for gathering documentation
during my fieldwork. The first, one that I was aware of before beginning my fieldwork, involved
connecting with people that had already undertaken the initial procurement of relevant
documents. The primary example of this method pertains to the primary documents from the
ICSID cases. The plaintiff and defendant briefs are publicly available online, but I was also able
to access the exhibits submitted in the ICSID arbitration which were made available to me by the
legal counsel for El Salvador with the authorization of the Salvadoran Office of the Attorney
General.
The second technique could be called “friendly pursuit”/“friendly procurement,” meaning
I utilized contacts I already had within institutions, or found contacts in areas that stored
information, to help me to locate and procure information related to my research. It is via the
“friendly-procurement” process that I obtained official, original documents via private sector and
civil society contacts. Since there was no official request procedure to follow for these sources,
my fortune was based on the willingness of people I met to share their archives with me. Such
documents – in some cases official correspondences with the government – had been preserved
in binders that I then received permission to copy or scan.
33
The third technique involved utilizing official government mechanisms. In El Salvador,
what this means is following the country’s freedom of information policies passed in 2011 which
include the Ley de Acceso a la Información Pública83 (Access to Public Information Law) and
the Reglamento de la Ley de Acceso a la Información Pública84 (The Regulations of the Public
Information Law). Each Salvadoran government institution has its own office of public
information that is charged with managing a process in which the appropriate sector, or
individuals within the institutions, provide the documentation/data that meets the request. The
law lays out a protocol through an online platform that enables such requests to be submitted and
fulfilled in a timely fashion (10 days). While I could have simply submitted my requests online
from any location, I decided to visit the respective public information offices in each ministry of
interest and work with a staff person to complete the online submission with his/her assistance. I
believe this in-person contact, that complemented the required online submission process, helped
me to complete the requests correctly and make the personal connections for productive follow-
up. While my assumption, from the outset of my fieldwork, was that the first and second options
would be the most likely to yield results, utilizing El Salvador’s official process for requesting
public information proved incredibly efficient and productive.
I collected secondary data through a variety of resources, the main ones being news
reports in print, electronic, and visual media. The press accounts are crucial for capturing news
as it happened at a given moment in time as well as then-current public reaction. I located new
articles both in the electronic and physical archives of involved organizations, the ICSID case
83
Instituto de Acceso a la Información Pública (IAIP), https://www.iaip.gob.sv/?q=foia
84
Gobierno de El Salvador, http://www.medicamentos.gob.sv/index.php/es/normativa-m/reglamentosdnm-
m/reglamento-de-la-ley-de-acceso-a-la-informacion-publica
34
files, as well as through my own web searches. El Salvadoran newspapers do not have all their
archives available online and therefore the hard copy records, kept and shared by stakeholders,
proved crucial for me to gather as much at-the-time reporting as possible.
Participant Observation
As stated above, I utilized this method secondarily since my focus was not current,
ongoing events, but an earlier time period. However, I attended events to gauge and understand
current circumstances as represented by current public events including press conferences,
rallies/protests, and mining-related activities. This enabled me to meet key actors and
organizational representatives, many of whose current involvement is a continuation or an
outgrowth of previous participation in different or similar capacities. All of the participant
observation I include in this project took place at public events and nothing shared was
considered confidential.
The public events I attended included: A Human Rights Ombudsman meeting about post-
mine contamination in San Sebastián; a press conference on mining held by the Salvadoran
archdiocese; the Eighth Annual Salvadoran Independence Day Rally Against Mining in San
Isidro, Cabañas; the first local referendum for a community free of mining in San José las Flores,
Chalatenango. As explained, these kinds of events are representative of the current priorities for
those individuals, communities, and organizations involved in the issue of mining in El Salvador.
While my work is focused on the actions taken during an earlier period, these events allowed me
to meet key stakeholders who had been involved since the beginning and to understand how the
issue has evolved.
35
V. Overview of dissertation
This study encompasses six chapters. Chapter 1, which comes to a close here, begins
with an introduction to the dissertation topic and research question: Why did El Salvador
deviate from an economic development paradigm that prioritized the short-term economic
gains from extraction over the social and environmental costs and choose instead to
disallow industrial metals mining? This chapter sets the question within the Latin American
context vis a vis extraction and lays out the justification for focusing the study on the single El
Salvador case. The second half of the chapter elaborates my hypothesis and lays out my research
design (single case study) and methodology (process tracing, necessary and sufficient conditions)
to explain the methodology and how specifically it is applied in this project. Finally, the chapter
details my sources of evidence and a discussion of what is new and significant in this research
contribution.
Chapters 2, 3, 4, and 5 comprise the core analytical chapters of the dissertation. Each
chapter focuses on one of the respective societal sectors I hypothesize were necessary (although
individually not sufficient) to halt the metals mining industry in El Salvador during the period of
focus 2004-2008. These chapters cover respectively: civil society, the institutional Catholic
Church, the domestic private sector, and the executive branch of the Salvadoran government.
Applying the overarching and sub research questions to each sector, each chapter proceeds
chronologically following the same structure, using process tracing to analyze the scope,
mechanisms, and outcomes during the period of study. Where the sector of focus in a given
chapter converges with other sectors, in terms of actions taken, this will be recognized. The
concluding sections of each chapter provide an overview of the discussion, highlighting the
significant and most notable points, and then introducing the subsequent sector to be discussed.
36
Chapter 6 is the concluding chapter of the study. It contains an overall process tracing
analysis of all four sectors together. The main section weaves together the identified causal
mechanisms from each of four analyzed sectors. From this I draw out the main conclusions and
possible lessons. I then recognize the unique contributions of this dissertation and lay out
suggestions for future research. The chapter concludes with some final thoughts on the
implications of the El Salvador case for other countries and contexts.
37
CHAPTER 2
A CITIZEN MOVEMENT TO KEEP MINING OUT
I. Introduction
“It is undoubtedly a success that today in El Salvador there is no metals mining,”
Salvadoran anti-mining1 activist Rodolfo Calles said in our interview, adding, “but this success is
not owed only to the government; it is because of the stability and durability of the social
movement that continues resisting and pushing ahead.”2 I had asked Calles to share his
perspective on what led El Salvador to suspend all industrial metals mining in the country.
Calles framed his response around “who” instead of “what.” He asserted:
It is because of communities’ determination to get involved, despite the reality that in El

Salvador, there is a legal regime that permits mining. To be clear: there is no legislated
policy that prohibits mining. What there is, is a moratorium that in fact was won by the
people themselves.3
Calles identified Salvadoran civil society—“the people themselves”—as the force behind
achieving and sustaining this moratorium.
I heard different versions of this position repeated across my interviews, and not only
from those who considered themselves part of the civil society movement. For example,
according to Yanira Cortez, who at the time of our interview was the government’s Deputy
Ombudsman of Human Rights (OHR) for the Environment:
There have been several key actors who influenced the government [on the issue of
metals mining], but I believe the most important actor is organized civil society ... It is
1
“Anti-mining” is my language for describing the movement, which has not referred to itself in these words but
instead as “in defense of water.” This will be explained later in the chapter, referencing Broad/Cavanagh, 2015.
2
Rodolfo Calles Coordinator for La Mesa, Interview by Author, San Salvador, El Salvador, June 16, 2014.
3
Calles, Interview.
38
organized civil society that from the ground up began to detect that the harms from
mining projects represented a serious problem for their lives.4
Calles’s and Cortez’s perspectives are not identical, but their point of overlap is important. Both
believe that the government of El Salvador acted to halt industrial metals mining because
Salvadoran citizens organized to oppose the industry. The perspectives of two individuals cannot
definitively explain a social or political phenomenon. Nevertheless, they provide a meaningful
entry point into my analysis of Salvadoran civil society’s involvement in the country’s
suspension of metals mining.
In this context, this chapter analyzes Salvadoran civil society’s opposition to metals
mining in terms of my overall research question: Why did El Salvador deviate from an economic
development paradigm that prioritizes extraction’s short-term economic gains over the social and
environmental costs and choose to instead disallow industrial metals mining? Three sub-
questions will allow me to operationalize this overall research question to analyze the civil
society opposition. These are:
• What role did Salvadoran civil society’s opposition to metals mining play in the
country’s choices and actions on metals mining?
• What were the sector’s identifiable motivations?
• What were the sector’s formative, determinative milestone actions and events that
contributed to this outcome?
Considering Cortez’s and Calles’s assertions quoted above, the current chapter will answer these
three questions and provide the first evidentiary building block that will be considered in the
conclusion to the dissertation.
4
Yanira Cortez Deputy Ombudsman for Human Rights for the Environment, Interview by Author, San Salvador, El
Salvador, July 18, 2014.
39
Based on the empirical evidence, the process tracing analysis of the civil society sector
covers the period of 2004–2008. The chapter builds from the scholarship of Broad and
Cavanagh, Cartagena, and Spalding, which documented and analyzed both the origins of civil
society opposition and its critical contributions to effecting policy change on metals mining.
Using my fieldwork undertaken in 2013, 2014, and 2015, and archival research—which included
access to previously unavailable printed materials from both the Salvadoran press and the private
sector—I will augment this seminal work with new and/or different information and insights.
Given the volume of data collected and the forensic approach that process tracing allows, I will
reconstruct the causal chain of events with more detail than has to date been accomplished. This
will allow me to delineate, with even more precision than in the existing foundational literature
on which I build, the causal mechanisms through which organized Salvadoran civil society
shaped the government’s evolving positions and actions related to metals mining.
Regarding Salvadoran civil society’s opposition movement to metals mining, the 2004–
2008 period can be divided into three phases:
• 2004–2005: movement formation, mobilization, and education
• 2006: coordinated activism influencing government action and de facto policy
changes
• 2007–2008: movement expansion, sustained de facto gains, de jure still unattained
In these three phases, the analysis works to identify the causal mechanisms that demonstrate
discernible links between civil society’s opposition activities and the government’s suspension of
industrial metals mining. As the first sector analysis, this chapter also lays out the process tracing
framework into which the other relevant societal sectors will subsequently fit.5
5
My selection of civil society actor voices is strategic; it represents both central figures during the period studied as
well as those who provided critical evidence that allows the causal process to be reconstructed. A key caveat: one
40
To adequately analyze the actions and impacts of the Salvadoran civil society opposition
to metals mining between 2004 and 2008, one must first understand its antecedents. The next
section of this chapter analyzes the conditions that drove Salvadoran social mobilization6 in
defense of the environment against industrial gold mining. I do this following Broad (1994), who
posited a set of conditions, based on research undertaken in the Philippines, that spur citizens to
engage in grassroots environmental activism “based both on the people’s relation to their
ecosystems and on the state of civil society.”7 This theoretical and historical foundation provides
the critical background for understanding the movement’s decision, dynamics, and ability to
exert influence, which will be the focus of the remainder of the chapter.
II. Foundational background: Conditions for Salvadoran civil society mobilization against
metals mining in defense of the environment in El Salvador (1992–2004):
Twenty years ago, based on research in the Philippines, Broad challenged the
traditional, deterministic understanding of the relationship between poverty and the environment,
which centered on “the negative impact of the poor on the environment.”8 This traditional
central voice was not directly included—that of Gustavo Marcelo Rivera, who was murdered in 2009. Although his
murder was never thoroughly investigated, his friends, family, and colleagues strongly believe that he was killed for
his anti-mining activism. Rivera led the organization Asociación Amigos de San Isidro Cabañas (ASIC) and was a
longtime Cabañas activist; he was an initiator of both the community-led metals mining investigation and the
eventual movement to stop it, and also inspired many other Salvadorans to join in.
6
I employ “social mobilization” following Bebbington et al. (2008), which they understand as “a response to the
threats that particular forms of economic development present, or are perceived as presenting, to the security and
integrity of livelihoods and to the ability of a population in a given territory to control what it views as its own
resources.” Anthony Bebbington et al., “Mining and Social Movements: Struggles over Livelihood and Rural
Territorial Development in the Andes,” World Development 36, no. 12 (2008): 2890. Note: defensive mobilization is
just one kind of social mobilization.
7
Robin Broad, “The Poor and the Environment: Friends or Foes?” World Development 22, no. 6 (June 1994): 814.
8
Broad, 815.
41
understanding recognized the poor as victims of environmental destruction but simultaneously
blamed them—in fact, the state of poverty itself—as a primary perpetuating factor, because
surviving in impoverished circumstances supposedly required one to sacrifice the environment.
The implication of this view is two-fold. First, because of their circumstances, poor communities
cannot be environmental stewards. Second, environmental protection can only be prioritized
after economic development has been adopted to address poverty.9 Broad’s challenge to this
view asserted that poverty is a proximate, not root, cause of environmental destruction and that,
in fact, the poor are often environmental sustainers, not degraders. 10
To support this conclusion, Broad suggested that there are three clear-cut conditions
that spur poor communities to engage in grassroots environmental activism, all of which are
“based both on the people’s relation to their ecosystems and on the state of civil society.”11
These conditions include:
• Environmental degradation threatens the natural resource base off of which the poor live.
• Poor people have lived in an area for some time or have some sense of permanence there.
• Civil society is politicized and organized.12
Considering the traditional understanding of the relationship between poverty and the
environment, El Salvador’s outcome is unexpected on two counts: (1) that the industrial metals
mining industry was halted; and (2) that the civil society movement, launched and led by poor
communities living along the country’s Gold Belt, was instrumental to that decision. It is my
contention that one cannot grasp civil society’s role in the struggle against mining without
9
Broad, 811–12.
10
Broad, 811–12.
11
Broad, 814.
12
Broad, 814.
42
understanding the foundational context of the mobilization and action, especially how it relates
to the role of the poor and the environment. Broad extrapolated from the case of the Philippines
to create this framework, which I apply to El Salvador. Doing so allows me to lay out key
background elements as well as to process poor communities’ actions vis-à-vis economic
opportunity and environmental risk.
The next section demonstrates how the Salvadoran case of metals mining meets
Broad’s three hypothesized conditions for the rural poor to mobilize as environmental defenders.
This sets the stage for discussing how the community-led opposition helped shape metals mining
policy debates and ultimately the decisions that halted industry progress.
1. Environmental degradation as a threat to livelihood13
Broad presents this first condition as “grounded in an understanding of peasant
perceptions of the environment and of ecological collapse.”14 She explains that for the poor,
“natural resource degradation often becomes an immediate and life- and livelihood-threatening
crisis—a question of survival.”15 As a result, poor communities are compelled to act in defense
of the environment when the natural resource base on which they depend for their subsistence,
and even survival, is jeopardized because “the ecological limits have been exceeded.”16
This first condition is evident in El Salvador. As introduced in Chapter 1, El Salvador
faces extreme environmental vulnerability.17 This environmental degradation is not a new threat.
13
Broad, 814.
14
Broad, 814.
15
Broad, 816.
16
Broad, 816.
17
Robert A. Dull, “Unpacking El Salvador’s Ecological Predicament: Theoretical Templates and ‘Long-View’
Ecologies,” Global Environmental Change 18, no. 2 (May 2008): 319–29; Susanna B. Hecht et al., “Globalization,
43
World Bank reports from the 1970s called attention to the demographic strain on El Salvador’s
natural resources, especially its water resources,18 given the small size of its territory and its high
population density. In 1995, future Salvadoran Environment Minister Herman Rosa Chavez and
his co-author Deborah Barry predicted environmental degradation would be the greatest threat to
the country’s economic progress. 19 By the 1990s, El Salvador was ranked as having some of the
highest levels of soil erosion and deforestation in the hemisphere,20 and faced recurrent
drought.21 Since the turn of the millennium, the UN and other international agencies have
published several warnings that the country’s primary dependence on a single water source—the
Lempa River—exacerbates the ecological precariousness that has been worsening for decades.22
This “survival threat”—the threat that gold mining posed to El Salvador’s already
compromised water sources—motivated the creation of El Salvador’s civil society opposition to
metals mining. Despite El Salvador’s minimal experience with industrial mining, some
Salvadorans did have direct contact with mining’s negative impacts, including:
Forest Resurgence, and Environmental Politics in El Salvador,” World Development, Part Special Issue (pp. 324–
404). Corruption and Development: Analysis and Measurement, 34, no. 2 (February 2006): 308–23.
18
Deborah Barry and Herman Rosa, “El Salvador: dinámica de la degradación ambiental.” (San Salvador, El
Salvador: PRISMA, June 1995), 3.; Herman Rosa Chavez Minister of the Environment (2009-2013), Interview by
Author, San Salvador, El Salvador, August 22, 2014.
19
Barry and Rosa, 3.
20
Barry and Rosa, 11.
World Bank, “El Salvador: Country Note on Climate Change Aspects in Agriculture” (Washington, DC: The
21
World Bank, 2009), 2.
22
The United Nations Development Programme, “Paving the Way for Climate-Resilient Infrastructure: Guidance
for Practitioners and Planners.” (United Nations Development Programme, 2011); The World Bank, “Republic of El
Salvador Country Environmental Analysis Improving Environmental Management to Address Trade Liberalization
and Infrastructure Expansion, Report No.” (The World Bank, Washington, DC).
44
• Serious and apparently irremediable contamination of the San Sebastián River.
Introduced in Chapter 1, this river runs through the Salvadoran town of the same name
(La Unión province), where the American company Commerce Group had once operated
a mine. Although Commerce Group’s operations ceased in the 1990s, ten years later San
Sebastián residents were still forced to rely on a highly contaminated23 river that was
believed responsible for human and animal illnesses in the area.
• Sharp reductions in the available water table in San Isidro, Cabañas, following foreign
companies’ initiation of exploration operations, which are small-scale efforts to discern
the presence and viability of metal resources in a territory. This “drying up” of local
water sources affected both small and large local business (in agriculture and ranching)
as well as resources for home use.24
• Awareness of metal-mining projects’ impacts on the local economy and livelihood
opportunities in neighboring Honduras and Guatemala. Examples from these countries
not only served to warn of what could happen, but also directly impacted Salvadoran
communities because El Salvador’s stretch of the Lempa River is downstream from
sections of the river that pass through these countries.
Each of these experiences can be considered to have trigged Salvadorans’ recognition of a
survival threat. These tangible manifestations of a threat to the natural resource base on which
these communities depend fulfills the first condition that primes communities for mobilization.
23
Silvia Nolasco, “Ficha de registro impactos negativos de la minería en Centroamérica: Mina San Sebastián”
(CEICOM, 2009).
24
Rafael E. Cartagena, “Metabolismo socio-natural y conflictos ambientales en Costa Rica y El Salvador, 1992-
2007” (Facultad Latinoamericano de ciencias sociales programa centroamericano de postgrado, 2008), 244.
45
2. Poor people have lived in an area for some time or have some sense of permanence
there25
The concept of “permanence” as discussed in Broad’s 1994 work was based on language the
communities in the Philippines used to describe their deep connection to their homes and land.26
This condition adds another layer to the relationship that poor communities have established with
the wider ecosystems. It is not just that environmental degradation poses a threat to livelihoods in
a general way; it also constitutes a threat to a community’s direct relationship with the land on
which they live and its natural resources. The length of time a community has lived in a
particular territory is an important component that shapes how the environment is perceived, but,
as Broad recognizes, “equally important is the security of people in terms of their control over
the land or resources.”27
El Salvador has experienced substantial outmigration triggered by different cycles of
political instability (the most notable being the 12-year civil war), economic insecurity, and
organized crime-related violence. Yet this historically insecure relationship with their homeland
has not undermined Salvadorans’ feelings of “permanence” or connections to the territory
encompassed within El Salvador’s geo-political borders. Instead, it is credited for strengthening
many Salvadorans’ commitment and connection to it.28
25
Broad, “The Poor and the Environment,” 814. Broad explains that she chose the term “permanence” because it is
the language communities used.
26
Since the development of this framework, Broad, with co-author John Cavanagh, has developed the concept of
“rootedness,” which adds to the understanding of “permanence.” Using the 1994 framework as my framework here,
I choose to stick with the original terminology. Robin Broad and John Cavanagh, “Reframing Development in the
Age of Vulnerability: From Case Studies of the Philippines and Trinidad to New Measures of Rootedness,” Third
World Quarterly 32, no. 6 (July 1, 2011): 1127–45.
27
Broad, “The Poor and the Environment,” 816.
28
Cartagena, “Metabolismo socio-natural y conflictos ambientales en Costa Rica y El Salvador, 1992-2007,” 246.
46
In the late 1980s, even before the war ended, this sense of permanence and attachment
brought many Salvadorans, accompanied by other members of their refugee communities, back
to El Salvador.29 Refugee communities in Honduras, in fact, had remained intact, maintaining
both their Salvadoran identity and involvement—directly or indirectly—throughout the war.30
The return migration became known as “masivas” because of how common it was for entire
refugee communities to collectively “repopulate”31 Salvadoran land. The term “repopulate”
comes from “los Repobladores” (the re-populators), which is what the returning refugees called
themselves.32 Although these groups of returned citizens sometimes “repopulated” their
communities of origin, others repatriated to new territories.33 Even when settling in parts of El
Salvador that had not previously been home, these returnees were not transient immigrants, but
rather citizens with longstanding Salvadoran identity who had been forced to leave their country
and were reclaiming their homeland.34 The collective refugee experiences are thought to have
reinforced an intense connection to Salvadoran territory. In fact, reclaiming and repopulating
what had been “theirs” became even more important because it had been taken away.35
29
Patrica Weiss Fagen and Sally W. Yudelman, “El Salvador and Guatemala: Refugee Camp and Repatriation
Experiences,” in Women and Civil War. Impact, Organizations, and Action, ed. Krishna Kumar (Boulder, Colorado:
Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2001), 82–84.
30
Cartagena, “Metabolismo socio-natural y conflictos ambientales en Costa Rica y El Salvador, 1992-2007,” 227.
31
Alan Meyers et al., “Community Health Assessment of a ‘Repopulated’ Village in El Salvador,” Medical
Anthropology Quarterly 3, no. 3 (1989): 271.
32
Irina Carlota Silber, Everyday Revolutionaries: Gender, Violence, and Disillusionment in Postwar El Salvador,
Kindle Book (Rutgers University Press, 2011), 11.
33
Fagen and Yudelman, “El Salvador and Guatemala: Refugee Camp and Repatriation Experiences,” 82.
34
Fagen and Yudelman, 82.
35
Antonio Pacheco, Director, Asociación de Desarrollo Económico y Social (ADES), Interview by Author,
Guacotecti, El Salvador, June 21, 2014.
47
In a literal sense, many of these communities were new because they encompassed
returning refugees who had not lived there previously; however, these so-called “guerrilla
towns”36 are recognized for their deep sense of community solidarity. This is attributed to “the
Salvadoran refugee experience in Honduras, which involved whole families and endured up to a
decade for some and led to the formation of intense grassroots, binational ties."37 The
intensiveness of both the grassroots and the binational ties would prove important to the
movement against mining.
The connection of people living directly in and around the sites targeted for industrial
gold mining to their land is significant vis-à-vis community mobilization. “Repopulated”
communities and their social networks are located throughout the provinces that make up El
Salvador’s Gold Belt. In particular, residents and organizations from repopulated towns within
the Cabañas and Chalatenango provinces have been leaders in the mobilization against metals
mining. In Chalatenango, after the war, returned refugees formed the Asociación de
Comunidades para el Desarrollo de Chalatenango (CCR—The Association of Communities for
the Development of Chalatenango) to help with repatriation in the municipality of San José de
las Flores.38 Today CCR represents citizens in 22 municipalities in Chalatenango and was a
founding member of La Mesa. In Cabañas, los Repobladores of the guerrilla town of Santa
Marta and the organization they founded, ADES, have served as leaders of the civil society
opposition to metals-mining, at times its public face.
36
37
Spalding, 164.
38
CCR originally had the name Coordinador de Comunidades de Refugiados y Repobladores. As community needs
changed post-war, so did the organization’s mission. Therefore, CCR kept the well-known acronym CCR but
changed its name to Asociación de Comunidades para el Desarrollo de Chalatenango.
48
Furthermore, although it might seem counterintuitive, it was not only the grassroots but
also the binational aspect of community ties that provided an additional dimension to feelings of
permanence among the repopulated communities at the forefront of the anti-mining effort. This
relates directly to the land and the people, despite political boundaries. Spalding’s writing
conveys that feeling of permanence:
Relationships between dislocated Salvadorans and Honduran sympathizers forced a sense

of connection anchored in lived experience…Refugee children were born in Honduras or
lived much of their childhood there; parents and grandparents were buried near the
refugee camp in Mesa Grande. The subsequent return of these refugees to El Salvador
and the repopulation of their communities at the end of the 1980s left behind a layer of
cross border connections on which future mobilizations could build.39
These Honduran/Salvadoran cross-border connections had important implications for the anti-
mining movement, as will be discussed below.
These communities are but one political subpopulation within El Salvador that would
be affected by the entrance of metals mining. Yet, their story illustrates the larger phenomenon
of citizens’ long-term connectedness to and feelings of ownership over their territory. Anti-
mining leader Antonio Pacheco of ADES, who lived as a refugee in Honduras and was one of the
Santa Marta founders of ADES, explained how mining exploration activities on Salvadoran land
awoke this sense of territorial belonging among Salvadorans:
Something that lit the spirits of the people was when the workers and executives from the
company came onto their properties. You know that a campesino is quite suspicious and if
you, a stranger, break through their fence to take something without the prior consent of the
population, you are not going to find a passive people. You are going to inflame them and
they will demand answers, asking, “What are you doing here?”40
39
40
Antonio Pacheco Director, Asociación de Desarrollo Económico y Social (ADES), Interview by Author,
49
Pacheco’s recounting of Salvadorans’ impassioned response to what they perceived to be a threat
to their land is representative of the accounts I heard from people from the affected territories—
not all of whom would have comfortably called themselves activists. This quote is particularly
telling because of its lingering question: “What are you doing here?” It conveys people’s sense
of ownership, their right to question the presence of outsiders. This evidence of deep, personal,
longstanding connection to the land in the face of what appears to be a threat fulfills the second
condition.
3. Civil society is politicized and organized41
This third condition is distinct from the first two, which speak to what drives poor
communities to prioritize and fight for their natural environment. As Broad explains, the third
condition requires “that the fabric of civil society include well-organized units,”42 meaning that
the poor have structural means to collectively confront threats to their well-being.43 Broad’s
focus here is on the capacity of individuals within civil society to organize.
Long before communities became aware of metals mining exploration activities in the
early 2000s, Salvadoran civil society had demonstrated sophisticated levels of community
organizing and political mobilization. The vast network of coalitions that pervade Salvadoran
civil society are one illustration of this sophistication. According to Salvadoran Canadian
community organizer Pedro Cabezas, “If you go back through the history of social movements in
41
Broad, “The Poor and the Environment,” 814, 816.
42
Broad, 816.
43
“The state of civil society is key for understanding how poor people choose to react to the loss of what has
historically been their source of subsistence…Thus, environmental activism involves people becoming agents of
social change. A politicized civil society, a civil society accustomed to using political space for organized action,
gives people what Scott terms ‘the possibility to act.’ It enables them to transcend what he has found to be
“obstacles to collective action” among the poor, and respond to the destruction not through his ‘weapons of the
weak’ but through what Falk calls “direct resistance activities by civil society.” Broad, 817.
50
El Salvador, it is all about coalition building…The FMLN started as a coalition. We also have
the coalitions of unions. Fundamentally, we are a country that builds coalitions.”44
Observations like Cabezas’s are also the subject of El Salvador scholar Paul Almeida’s
Waves of Protest: Popular Struggle in El Salvador, 1925–2005. The work comprehensively
documents El Salvador’s phases of social mobilization and the different incarnations of coalition
building that underpinned social movements over 80 years. Yet Almeida identifies the post-war
coalition-building of the late 1990s/early 2000s as having features distinct from earlier historical
periods, which allowed for increased influence over electoral politics and policy making.
Almeida argues that the foundation for this increased strength and influence can be found in the
1992 Peace Accords because the truce did not require government opposition organizational
structures to be dismantled and gave the leading opposition coalition, the FMLN, legal status.45
Furthermore, the democratic transition following the truce created an environment that allowed
civil society to not only expand substantially but to thrive with a new level of institutional
access.46
A notable feature of post-war Salvadoran civil society that is particularly relevant to the
anti-mining struggle was the “restructuring of the most important civil society organizations”
into larger umbrella organizations, or what Almeida calls “organizations of organizations”
(OOs),47 which increased their profile and access. Organized “to counteract the growing
44
Pedro Cabezas Coordinator for the International Allies to la Mesa (2013-2015), Interview by Author, San
Salvador, El Salvador, October 21, 2014.
45
Paul Almeida, Waves of Protest: Popular Struggle in El Salvador, 1925-2005, Social Movements, Protest, and
Contention (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2008), 186.
46
Almeida, 191.
47
Almeida, 190.
51
globalization pressures from above,”48 Almeida credits the common reaction to neoliberal
economic threats as fostering intra- and intersectoral alliances of a kind that had not previously
existed.49 These OOs therefore “served as an information sharing and coordinating center in
which mutual awareness of particular neoliberal policies could be attained across a variety of
organizations through the holding of popular assemblies and the dissemination of newsletters.”50
What made the OOs that emerged in the late 1990s and early 2000s most potent was their
ability to “deliver rapid mobilization” based on pre-existing, cross-sectoral organizational
alliances and commitments.51 In our interview, community activist and anti-mining leader
Bernardo Belloso provided practical evidence for Almeida’s claims. Belloso referenced how
these multi-organization alliances led to civil society successes that laid the groundwork for the
anti-mining movement. He explained that in the late 1990s and early 2000s:
There were a series of social struggles to prevent privatization of basic services like
healthcare. When the government [backed off the privatization plans] we realized, wow,
social movement struggles focused like this could accomplish something.52
Echoing Broad’s third condition, Belloso’s statement shows how pre-existing organized civil
society offered a foundation from which communities could mobilize to oppose metals mining.
From conditions to actions
Broad’s framework provides a way to demonstrate how Salvadoran society meets the
basic conditions for the poor to mobilize in defense of the environment while also introducing
48
Almeida, 193.
49
Almeida, 193.
50
Almeida, 191–92.
51
Almeida, 193.
52
Bernardo Belloso CORDES, Interview by Author, San Salvador, El Salvador, June 16, 2014.
52
the circumstances that led to the formation of the civil society opposition to metals mining. Yet
establishing that Salvadoran civil society meets these conditions for mobilization does not
automatically mean that the mobilization effected changes in policy. Bebbington et al. (2008)
discuss a key factor that enables mobilization to influence development decisions. Per
Bebbington et. al:
The extent to which this mobilization modifies subsequent economic development

depends greatly on the relative power of movements and economic actors…This relative
power is determined partly by the roles assumed by other actors (in particular the state)
and to a great extent by the relative strength or weakness of the social movements
themselves.53
In other words, mobilized communities’ capacity to influence economic growth policy
depends on the relative power they can attain. Considering Bebbington et al.’s conceptualization
of “relative power,” the rest of this chapter will use process tracing to show how organized civil
society in El Salvador had transformational influence on subsequent government decision-
making on metals mining.
III. From mobilized to influential: Tracing civil society’s instrumental role in explicit and
implicit government decision-making (2004–2008)
I utilize process tracing to reconstruct and analyze Salvadoran civil society’s actions from
2004 to 2008 to oppose the country’s developing metals mining industry. Organized into three
phases (2004-05, 2006, and 2007-08), the analysis will accomplish two main tasks. First, it will
demonstrate how the domestic movement came together around concerns about metals mining;
and second, it will locate and link the causal mechanisms through which civil society
53
Bebbington et al., “Mining and Social Movements,” 2890.
53
successfully influenced the national agenda and traceably influenced subsequent government
actions and decisions.
A. Local mobilization, coalition building, and strategic framing (2004 and 2005)
This first phase, 2004-05, captures the period in which the civil society opposition to
industrial metals mining coalesced and then took its first coalition-based actions to combat the
industry. This opposition began in the gold-possessing border provinces Chalatenango and
Cabañas, launched by local citizens who questioned the premise that their country’s territory was
appropriate for this industry. In the words of Salvadoran scholar Rafael Cartagena, “the
opposition to metals mining began in Chalatenango and Cabañas, albeit independently in each
department, based on the particularities of [local] civil society and the state of progress of mining
exploration.”54 Therefore communities in these two provinces began to organize to oppose
metals mining based on their direct, individualized experiences with industry actors and without
influence from one another.
The key particularities to which Cartagena refers, related to each province, involves their
contrasting levels of social organization. Chalatenango is known for its cohesive, highly
developed civil society that is dominated by FMLN affiliation. Cabañas is recognized for its lack
of cohesion among civil society actors and its blunt division between a vocal FMLN-linked
minority (represented by organizations like ADES) and the majority of Cabañas, which remained
aligned with the government during the war and today has a local government that is dominated
by ARENA.55 Community organizations from these two provinces—such as ADES and CCR
54
Rafael E. Cartagena, “Orígenes Del Movimiento de Oposición a La Minería Metálica En El Salvador,” ECA:
Estudios Centroamericanos 64, no. 722 (2009): 498.
55
Cartagena, 499.
54
discussed above—have remained at the forefront of this struggle. Given the province-based
movements’ independent and unconnected beginnings, I start process tracing with separate,
parallel discussions of the origin stories of each, demonstrating when they come together.
1. Independent beginnings, coinciding goals (early 2004)
Cabañas
Cabañas is home to El Dorado, a formerly functioning mine licensed for re-opening in the
1990s and acquired for exploration by Canadian company Pacific Rim in 2002. Héctor Berrios,
executive director of current La Mesa member organization MUFRAS-32, explained to me that
even though mining exploration had already been taking place in the province for a number of
years, it was not until 2004 that communities reacted. In fact, he explained, FMLN-linked
community-based organizations had initially come together in reaction to a different
environmental threat: a proposed landfill to be constructed adjacent to an important community
water source. Per Berrios:
In 2004 mayors from both the left and the right wanted to promote a landfill that would
be 500 meters from the Titihuapa River [A tributary of the Lempa, and in the
municipality of San Isidro]. We in MUFRAS were invited by Marcelo Rivera to a
meeting of various local organizations, like ASIC and ADES, to deal with the problems
that the landfill would create for the municipality and we worked together to draft a zero-
waste bill to be presented to the Assembly.56
Therefore, the community-based mobilization against metals mining in Cabañas was an
unexpected outgrowth of organizing for a different, but also water-related, purpose.
In Berrios’s recounting of the mobilization against the planned landfill, he identified
San Isidro community activist Marcelo Rivera’s role as convener. According to Antonio Pacheco
56
Héctor Berrios Coordinator MUFRAS-32, Interview by Author, San Isidro, El Salvador, June 24, 2014.
55
of ADES, Rivera’s early leadership was crucial to why people began to mobilize around this
kind of environmental issue. He explained:
San Isidro had [the community organization] La Asociación de San Isidrenses de Cabañas
[ASIC], the organization closest to the people of San Isidro. Its director was Marcelo
Rivera, a natural leader who had formed the association and the main leader who brought
attention to the need to increase awareness of these environmental issues. Yet, Marcelo
also showed people that it would not be just San Isidro affected, that the harms would be
more generalized and with this he informed a larger network of organizations.57
Rivera’s longstanding experience and deep ties within San Isidro, as well as his ability to
demonstrate that such environmental threats were relevant to those in surrounding communities,
attracted and sustain broad support.
Having brought together this larger network of Cabañas organizations to respond to the
proposed landfill, Rivera had created a loose alliance that was positioned to respond to other
perceived threats. This mobilization also led to the creation of a new, Cabañas-based
environmental organization called Comité Ambiental de Cabañas (CAC), founded by San Isidro
resident Francisco Piñeda.58 According to Pacheco, CAC was the first Cabañas group that
prioritized the environment in its name and mission. He explained that community backlash to
the “plan for the environmentally and politically irresponsible landfill gave birth to CAC,” but
the metals mining exploration at El Dorado kept it going.59
Berrios recounted to me how metals mining displaced the proposed landfill as the focus
for the newly organized Cabañas coalition. With Rivera at the helm, the group “had reached out
first to the FMLN,” trying to leverage relationships they had within the local branch of the party,
57
Pacheco, Interview by Author, June 22, 2014.
58
Cartagena, “Orígenes Del Movimiento de Oposición a La Minería Metálica En El Salvador,” 500.; Francisco
Piñeda founder and director Comité Ambiental de Cabañas (CAC), Interview by Author, San Salvador, El Salvador,
May 20, 2013.
59
Antonio Pacheco, Director, Asociación de Desarrollo Económico y Social (ADES), Interview by Author.
56
“to propose alternatives to deal with solid waste.”60 Yet according to Berrios, in a meeting that
followed, an FMLN mayor retorted, “‘You all make so much noise about the landfill project. But
you say nothing about [gold] mining!’”61 He and the others had not been aware of the gold and
silver exploration taking place at the El Dorado site adjacent to San Isidro, also adjacent to the
vulnerable water sources that had motivated the mobilization against the landfill project.
When they began to learn more about the El Dorado plans, Berrios said “it was like a
‘click’ for us. It was then that we, together with these other organizations, began to turn our
attention to mining.”62 Comparable worries about water contamination and the implications for
local communities allowed for a smooth shift in focus from the planned landfill to metals mining.
This was because, per Berrios, “here what determines everything is water—the unifying element
for us is water. We don’t have water. Like the landfill, the river that El Dorado would
contaminate is the Titihuapa River, a tributary of the Lempa River.”63
According to Pacheco, the organizations then “set about establishing a dialogue, talking
about how the company [Pacific Rim] was progressing and how their activities could affect the
population.”64 In separate interviews, Pacheco and Berrios each explained that it did not take
long to recognize how little they knew about metals mining. To learn, Berrios explained, he and
other leaders turned to friends and allies in Honduras, and “took our first visit to [the Honduran
60
Berrios, Interview by Author.
61
Berrios.
62
Berrios.
63
Berrios.
64
57
mining site] Valle de Siria.”65 The importance of cross-border linkages with Honduras to the
movement will be discussed after introducing the Chalatenango mobilization.
Chalatenango
Exploratory studies of the Potonico area in Chalatenango began in the 1990s, but it was
not until 2003 that the Canadian company Au Martinique Silver, Inc. secured its first exploration
license, and not until late 2004 that it began exploration activities.66 Unlike in Cabañas, where
mining exploration had been underway for several years before community members became
aware of it, Chalatenango’s well-organized civil society reacted swiftly to the presence of
workers and machinery. The civil society response in Chalatenango was reinforced in two key
ways: its interconnectedness with the FMLN, which occupied most elected provincial positions,
and its active, sustained partnership with “accompaniment organizations,” which, per Spalding,
are a subset of international NGOs that have a “non-transferable mission defined by work
focused on El Salvador.”67 All of this meant that civil society in Chalatenango was primed to
respond to perceived threats to their community.
The SHARE Foundation was one of the accompaniment organizations that first joined the
Chalatenango effort. Former SHARE staffer and Salvadoran national Guadalupe Cortez
explained how SHARE joined Chalatenango communities as they responded to what they saw as
invading mining company workers.
65
66
Rafael E. Cartagena, “Orígenes Del Movimiento de Oposición a La Minería Metálica En El Salvador,” 499.
67
Spalding, Contesting Trade in Central America, 172. Mostly formed during the 1980s, accompaniment
organizations were formed in reaction to the US government’s overt and sustained support, financial and political,
for the Salvadoran regime during the civil war. This backlash to the US-Salvadoran alliance galvanized an
alternative solidarity among global north, primarily US, communities and Salvadorans in the opposition. This
solidarity was both financial and activist/advocacy, and the roots laid during the war allowed the efforts and
alliances to continue once the war ended in 1992.
58
Why did we [SHARE] get involved with the mining issue? Because, in 2004, our sister
communities in Chalatenango began to receive visits from mining workers and they
began to hear talk about mines… Therefore, the communities and their leaders wanted to
begin to educate themselves about the issue, but they didn’t know how to begin. Already
accompanying these partners, SHARE decided to become involved.68
Benjamin Orellano Martínez, a former guerrilla and long-time member of Chalatenango coalition
CCR, explained that even with their advanced level of organization and political support, he and
other members of the metals mining opposition did not have the knowledge of or experience
with the metals mining industry to adequately respond to Au Martinique Silver’s exploration.
Therefore, like the organizations in Cabañas, the burgeoning movement from Chalatenango
turned to their already organized “campañeros” in Honduras to learn about gold mining’s
environmental and social threats.69
The Beginning of Lateral Transnationalism70—San Martin Mine in Valle de Siria,

Honduras
In the 1990s, Honduras (along with Guatemala) was caught up in Central America’s
emergence as a new frontier for metals mining. As in El Salvador, foreign companies focused
their revived interests on gold rather than other metals present in these countries.71 Honduras
began extraction via open-pit mining in 2001 at the San Martin Mine in Valle de Siria.72 As
communities in El Salvador were turning their attention to the issue in 2004, affected Honduran
68
Guadalupe Cortes, formerly of Fundacion SHARE, Interview by Author, San Salvador, El Salvador, October 27,
2014.
69
Benjamin Orellano Martinez member CCR, Interview by Author, Chalatenango, El Salvador, June 10, 2014.
70
Rose Spalding, “Domestic Loops and Deleveraging Hooks: Translational Social Movements and the Politics of
Scale Shift,” in Social Movement Dynamics: New Perspectives on Theory and Research from Latin America, ed.
Federico M. Rossi and Marisa Von Bulow, The Mobilization Series on Social Movements, Protest, and Culture
(England: Ashgate Publishing Limited, 2015), 185.
71
Power, “Metals Mining and Sustainable Development in Central America: An Assessment of Benefits and Cost,”
9.
72
Power, 11.
59
communities had already been organizing for several years in response to the environmental,
social, and economic consequences of metals mining.73 As discussed in the previous section,
Salvadoran communities displaced to Honduras during the war had forged strong ties there that
they maintained following their repatriation. Both Berrios and Martínez, from Chalatenango,
recounted in their interviews how the “cross border connections”74 returning to Spalding’s
terminology, that remained following resettlement became a foundational resource for
Salvadoran education and mobilization against mining.
According to Rodolfo Calles, who in 2004 worked in Chalatenango for early La Mesa
member organization Caritas, the San Martin Mine in Honduras played a particularly key role in
galvanizing the Salvadoran movement.75 This was not simply because the mine’s location in
southern Honduras made it more easily accessible for site visits than other regional mines. Calles
explained that among active mines in both Honduras and across the region, San Martin offered
exceptionally stark visual evidence that metals mining operations did indeed damage the local
environment and provoke social problems, in contrast to industry claims.76 This visual evidence
included displaced communities, eroded native forests, diminished and contaminated local water
sources, and human skin diseases.77 Berrios of MUFRAS-32 recounted that, with funding from
73
Honduran anti-mining efforts that mobilized around open-pit mines in Valle de Siria and Santa Rosa de Copan
brought attention to the projects’ social and environmental dangers, including chemical spills during operations and
social disruption from project-forced population displacement. Keith Slack, “Digging Out From Neoliberalism:
Responses to Environmental (Mis)Governance of the Mining Sector in Latin America,” in Beyond Neoliberalism in
Latin America? Societies and Politics at the Crossroads, ed. John Burdick, Philip Oxhorn, and Kenneth M. Roberts
(New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009), 125.
74
75
Calles, Interview by Author.
76
Calles.
77
Patricio Chávez and Joan Martinez Alier, “Valle de Siria, Honduras,” Environmental Justice Atlas, January 2014.
60
ADES for a bus, the first Cabañas group traveled to San Martin and, guided by Honduran
activists, saw for themselves “firsthand the impacts of a mine.”78 Nelson Ventura, an organizer
for ADES who participated in these early visits to San Martin, explained to me that because he
and the other Cabañas activists had longstanding relationships with Hondurans “who already
knew what metals mining was, they could teach us about the processes of extracting gold and
silver that we did not know.”79
Echoing Ventura’s recollections, Spalding’s analysis of the catalyzing role of cross-
border alliances posits that it was by seeing “the hard experience of similarly situated, trusted
counterparts in Honduras [that] encouraged community activists in El Salvador's Gold Belt to
view the advent of mining with increasing alarm.”80 Spalding also identifies that after
experienced Honduran activists passed on knowledge and strategies that Salvadorans adapted to
their circumstances, Salvadoran activists reciprocated by sharing their experiences with their
Honduran counterparts.81 Spalding calls this phenomenon of cross-border alliances “lateral
transnationalism,” which she defines as a “variant of transnational activism that connects
similarly situated activists in neighboring countries around issues of mutual concern.”82
In my research, I learned that activists from both Chalatenango and Cabañas credit this
early lateral transnationalism with Honduras as creating the direct linkages between the separate
78
79
Nelson Ventura Organizer, Asociación de Desarrollo Económico y Social (ADES), Interview by Author,
80
Spalding, “Domestic Loops and Deleveraging Hooks: Translational Social Movements and the Politics of Scale
Shift,” 191.
81
Spalding, 191.
82
Spalding, 191.
61
province-based Salvadoran opposition efforts. This supports Spalding’s contention that such
“direct, cross-border community experiences” allowed the separate components of the growing
Salvadoran movement to both align their objectives with their northern neighbor’s movement
and leverage their knowledge in the Salvadoran context, bringing those claims home with
them.83
2. The National Roundtable Against Mining comes together (late 2004 to early 2005)
As 2004 progressed, according to David Pereira of La Mesa member organization
CEICOM, leaders of the separate province-based movements came to recognize that the issue of
metals mining “was too large a problem that would overwhelm existing local capacity, and
therefore it needed to become an issue of national interest.”84 Collaborating with organizations
and networks outside of the directly affected areas allowed for a new level of social mobilization
in response to metals mining’s perceived threat to country’s main water source—the Lempa
River. Per Berrios,
In environmental matters, there are no boundaries…the Lempa River crosses 64% of the
country. 50% of greater San Salvador takes their water from the Lempa River. If we
allowed any river that supplies the Lempa River to be contaminated, it would be risking
the lives of our entire country. 85
Even without a clearly defined identity and strategy, a loose coalition began to coalesce. Pereira
recounted La Mesa’s genesis:
We began to gather—I’m talking about in June or July of 2004—to face these challenges.
That got us thinking…After several months of regular meetings to formulate strategies to
oppose mining together, someone had the idea of officially naming ourselves and that is
83
Spalding, Contesting Trade in Central America, 164–65.
84
85
62
when the idea was hatched to call ourselves the National Roundtable Against Mining. It
was beginning in mid-2004 that our first meetings started, and it was in 2005 that it all
came together.86
As of September 2005, the organizations that together recognized themselves as La Mesa
would become the main convening coalition for El Salvador’s gold mining opposition.87 It
brought together mobilized groups from Cabañas and Chalatenango “with environmental and
human rights organizations and research affiliates”88 from San Salvador that operated with
national agendas. Yet the fact that these different organizations came together was not the only
significant part of this collaboration; their combined knowledge, skills, and credibility gave La
Mesa, utilizing Bebbington et al.’s terminology, its “relative strength.”89 As explained to me by
Dorothee Molders, the in-country representative for the international NGO American Jewish
World Service (AJWS) that was supporting La Mesa during my 2014 fieldwork, on the one
hand, the “organizaciones territorales” from Cabañas and Chalatenango formed La Mesa’s
backbone because of their “command over” the directly affected areas. On the other hand,
national-level partners added muscle with their “command over” policy and political space (i.e.,
Fundación de Estudios para la Aplicación del Derecho [FESPAD], Unidad Ecológica
Salvadoreña [UNES], and Amigos de la Tierra El Salvador [CESTA]) and technical and
scientific expertise (El Centro de Investigación sobre Inversión y Comercio, [CEICOM]). 90
86
David Pereira CEICOM and representative to La Mesa, Interview by Author, San Salvador, El Salvador, July 1,
2014.
87
Spalding, Contesting Trade in Central America, 162. Spalding, “Domestic Loops and Deleveraging Hooks:
Translational Social Movements and the Politics of Scale Shift,” 190.
88
89
Bebbington et al., “Mining and Social Movements,” 2890.
90
Dorothee Molders Country Representative for American Jewish World Service, Interview by Author, San
Salvador, El Salvador, July 1, 2014.; For a more in depth exploration of the types of Salvadoran organizations that
63
Even in the Salvadoran context where, in the post-civil war era, the coming together of
OOs has become a standard feature of civil society, there are still major challenges that can
threaten the longevity of such coalitions. One fundamental challenge facing La Mesa was getting
members to agree upon its mission. Pacheco recalled early tension among members on this point:
There was a debate over how we were going to focus. Would it be on metals mining that
used cyanide? Or mercury? Or just open pit mining? We were caught in this debate.
We decided early on that La Mesa would be “The Roundtable against Metals Mining.”
We decided this not because non-metals mining isn’t harmful, but because there is so
much to deal with, subterranean or open pit, if it uses mercury or cyanide, if it is to
extract metals other than gold and silver, even though that is primarily what we have
here. Ultimately, we knew we couldn’t take on too many opponents at one time.91
Yet even after agreeing as a network to focus exclusively on metals mining, when trying to
define their mission La Mesa members “clashed in fiery debates.”92 As Pereira explained:
We were defining La Mesa’s strategy but held different positions. Some of us said, “we
must fight only for a moratorium on metals mining,” while others said, "no, the fight
must be to reform the mining law, to make the mining law more difficult so that
companies are not incentivized”…in those discussions, in those great debates, entire
meetings spent debating and still, we managed not to agree.
Even without achieving consensus on La Mesa’s ultimate objective, the coalition
continued in its immediate efforts to halt the activities of the mining companies. A key factor
that enabled its progress was support from an international ally, Oxfam America. Per Vidalina
Morales, a spokesperson for ADES:
The role of Oxfam in El Salvador is one of an international funding agency. Here it is like
it is in any part of the world. But on this issue [metals mining] Oxfam was different—it
identified itself as also being our ally. Often these kinds of international agencies fund
comprised La Mesa, see Spalding, “Domestic Loops and Deleveraging Hooks: Translational Social Movements and
the Politics of Scale Shift,” 189–94.
91
92
Leonel Herrera Director of ARPAS, former communications coordinator for La Mesa and journalist with Co-
Latino, Interview by Author, San Salvador, El Salvador, November 28, 2015.
64
only studies. But Oxfam, no, they were alongside us when we developed our plans, when
we carried out our activities.93
In the early 2000s, Oxfam America was involved in both publishing about the ills of metals
mining in countries throughout Latin America as well as providing grant money to community-
based organizations and coalitions like La Mesa.94 The support Oxfam America gave to the
Salvadoran anti-mining movement fit with the organization’s agenda for Central America at that
time. In 2005, Oxfam America researcher Thomas Power published a study on the costs and
benefits of metals mining in Central America, the first of its kind.95
Yet in El Salvador, leaders and participants within the movement, as well as observers,
argue that Oxfam America’s role went beyond typical international NGO support. They credit
Oxfam America’s unique, hands-on involvement specifically to Andres McKinley, a United
States-born Salvadoran citizen who had lived in El Salvador for four decades and developed
longstanding relationships with Salvadoran social movements. In 2004, McKinley was Oxfam
America’s lead staff member on extractives for Central America. While that meant he
administered technical and financial support to organizations in multiple countries, because he
lived in El Salvador, and was a member of Salvadoran society, he partnered far more closely
with La Mesa than with other Central American grantees.96
93
Vidalina Morales Organizer Asociación de Desarrollo Económico y Social (ADES), Interview by Author,
Angela J. Bunch, “Evaluación del programa de industrias extractivas en la región CAMEXCA de Oxfam
94
América” (Oxfam America, 2014), 6.
95
Power, “Metals Mining and Sustainable Development in Central America: An Assessment of Benefits and Cost.”
96
Juliana Turqui Coordinator for Extractive Industry Programs in Central America, Oxfam America, Interview by
Author, San Salvador, El Salvador, September 19, 2014; Jorge Cruz Madre Selva, Interview by Author, Guatamala
City, Guatamala, September 23, 2014.
65
In 2014, I interviewed McKinley, who still focused his work on opposing metals mining
but had moved from Oxfam America to Catholic Relief Services. In his own words:
I have been working in Central America for about 38 years and came to mining only
really about 15 years ago, more or less. At that time, there were not many people working
on mining issues—I was just starting with Oxfam. I was impassioned quickly with this
issue because it is hard not to become impassioned when foreign transnational
corporations are coming in trying to rip off the natural resources of a small developing
country, telling lots of lies in order to win hearts and minds and violating the rights of
communities…In general, people in Central America didn’t know much about mining.
There was a period of time when Oxfam America was accused a lot by mining companies
of leading the battle against mining, building social organizations. The fact is, I would
say, we did play an important role in terms of educating people around the issues related
to mining when very little information was circulating.97
Whether a manifestation of Oxfam America’s regional agenda or the result of a specific
employee’s dedication, the organizational support Oxfam America provided to La Mesa—as
conveyed to me across my interviews with members of the coalition representatives—
contributed in key ways to its growth as an organization and its public profile.
Journalist and former La Mesa activist Leonel Herrera explained to me what made Oxfam
America and McKinley different from other international NGOs:
In the case of Oxfam there was this commitment, as if they were playing for keeps
because they were certain that El Salvador could not have mining. In terms of Andres
[McKinley], he was not a traditional collaborator, but instead someone really convinced
of the problem, who made many decisions in support of the communities. Oxfam’s role
was so important that at times it was Oxfam’s name and Andres’s and not ours that were
on the lips of the mining companies. This is an indicator how important they [the
companies] thought Oxfam was to our work.98
By mid-2005, the organized community opposition against mining was indeed on the lips of both
the mining companies and government officials. Although they were not yet known nationally,
97
Andres McKinley Water and mining specialist at the Universidad Centroamericana José Simeón Cañas (UCA),
former staff of Catholic Relief Services and Oxfam America in El Salvador, Interview by Author, San Salvador, El
Salvador, June 14, 2014.
98
Leonel Herrera Director of ARPAS, former communications coordinator for La Mesa and journalist with Co
Latino, Interview by Author, San Salvador, El Salvador, July 30, 2014.
66
La Mesa and partner actors had increased their public profile. Therefore, in terms of El
Salvador’s metals-mining opposition, one can understand 2004 as the year of initiation, the birth
of province-based movements, the start of cross-border knowledge and strategy diffusion, and
the informal coming together of La Mesa with domestic and international support. In turn, 2005
should be understood as a year of continuity that featured growth, formalization, and
establishment of a cohesive mission and message. The next section will show how this happened
and what the implications were.
3. Narrowing the focus, carrying out new strategies, showcasing science (mid to late
2005)
Pro-water versus anti-mining
By the second half of 2005, La Mesa members had collectively decided that core to their
platform would be advocating for nothing less than a total, permanent ban on metals mining in El
Salvador.99 This vision enabled the local and national organizations that had been loosely
collaborating for more than a year to publicly establish themselves as a cohesive coalition with
an identity independent of its member groups.100 This narrowly defined, focused objective has
been the glue that has kept La Mesa operational as an OO for over a decade. It demands a
permanent, legal prohibition of mining in El Salvador and the prevention of any cross-border
mines in neighboring countries that could harm Salvadoran territory. Uniformly motivating this
mission was protecting El Salvador’s vulnerable water sources.
99
Broad and Cavanagh, “El Salvador Gold: Toward a Mining Ban,” 177.; Rodolfo Calles interview, June 16, 2014;
100
Rodolfo Calles interview, June 16, 2014; While publicly recognized as consolidated network, La Mesa has never
become a formal legal entity (although it is perceived as such due to its public exposure). In essence it is a political
coalition with a single objective and is meant to be temporary. Funding for La Mesa is always administered through
its member organizations. Cabezas, Interview by Author.
67
By coming to a consensus on a concise organizational objective, La Mesa overcame a
substantial hurdle to reaching its goals. However, this did not immediately translate into a clearly
defined or agreed upon plan for how to achieve this objective. In fact, according to Luis
Gonzalez from La Mesa member organization UNES, “in the first years La Mesa conducted
itself reactively. The mining companies did something and we would respond.”101 La Mesa
members recognized they that they needed to move from response-based efforts to strategic
actions directed at altering the legal framework that allowed the companies to operate. Gonzalez
admitted that even though most La Mesa members understood this, “it was extremely
challenging to change this [reactive] pattern.”102
The unifying mission to protect the Lempa from contamination was central to La Mesa’s
shift from reactive to proactive strategic efforts. In Broad and Cavanagh’s 2015 analysis they
conclude that the Salvadoran civil society campaign’s focus on protecting precious water sources
meant that it was promoting a pro-water rather than anti-industry message.103 It was this water-
protecting framing, rather than a narrower opposition to metal mining, that gave the cause
relevance across Salvadoran society, outside of mining-affected areas and across political
affiliations. As Morales of ADES explained, “people’s position become clearer when they see
that their source of water will be affected. When one sees that resources most vital to life are
affected, this is when one opposes these projects.”104 My research findings fully support Broad’s
and Cavanagh’s. This pro-water foundation, and then the messaging around this issue, was an
101
Luis Gonzalez Coordinator for Environment and Climate Change, la Unidad Ecológica Salvadoreña (UNES),
Interview by Author, San Salvador, El Salvador, July 24, 2014.
102
Gonzalez.
103
Broad and Cavanagh, “El Salvador Gold: Toward a Mining Ban,” 174, 183.
104
Morales, Interview by Author.
68
important factor, if not the key factor, in convincing a majority of Salvadorans that mining would
be more detrimental than beneficial for the nation. Furthermore, such a frame also created an
opportunity for those whose economic interests depended on clean water, even on a large scale
(i.e., corporate agriculture and bottling businesses) to have a stake in advocating for its
protection. The view of water as a commodity will be explored further in the private sector
chapter.
Notably, the September 6, 2005, edition of La Prensa Gráfica, El Salvador’s center-right
daily, included four separate articles on El Salvador’s burgeoning mining industry. Three articles
appeared to read as quasi-promotional material for the industry. They featured quotes from
enthusiastic citizens and included a nostalgic retrospective on a flourishing 20th century
Salvadoran metals mining industry.105 They also celebrated the jobs that El Dorado’s opening
(scheduled for 2007) promised to create.106 One of these three articles did acknowledge
community resistance in Cabañas and described the reasons for it. The fourth article, however,
presented a strikingly different picture. Under the headline, “Sodium Cyanide Used to Extract
Gold and Silver: Fear of Pollution by 21st Century Mines,” the article laid out the potential
dangers to El Salvador’s water sources, thereby reaching a mainstream audience that would not
likely have been exposed to this negative perspective on the industry.107
September 2005 was also when the groups in Chalatenango adopted a new tactic:
physically obstructing Au Martinique Silver’s exploration efforts. Au Martinique Silver staffer,
105
Camila Calles, “Un sector que floreció durante la colonia,” La Prensa Gráfica, September 6, 2005.
106
Adriana Valle and Camila Calles, “En 2007 comenzará la extracción en Cabañas,” La Prensa Gráfica, September
6, 2005.
107
Adriana Valle, “Cianuro de sodio se utiliza para separar el oral y la plata de la roca: miedo a la contaminación
por las minas eel siglo XXI,” La Prensa Gráfica, September 6, 2005.
69
Jorge Muñoz, recounted each of what he called “attacks” in his detailed memos to management.
He reported that this started on September 19, 2005, when a protest of approximately 200 people
blocked workers from entering the exploration sites at Potonico and Las Flores. He noted that
among community members were the mayor of Las Flores and representatives from the Las
Limas village council. He recounted that the protestors:
Had posters that said things against mining and they asked who was responsible for the
project, what the name of company was, the telephone number, and where was the
document that authorized the exploration for minerals…they then forced [the workers] to
leave the area and warned that we must present the documents they demanded. The
mayor said that he had not authorized anything.
So [the protestors] forced [the workers] to withdraw and they could not even come back
to gather up their tools. The workers of Las Flores said that at the end of the previous
week the town council had shown a video about the mining in which they showed
destruction and contamination that the mining would cause to the lands and that would
exhaust the sources of water…The video showed destruction and contamination of mines
in Guatemala and Honduras.108
Muñoz’s memos to Au Martinique Silver management document that in Chalatenango,
communities continued to use tactics that forcibly blocked exploration progress, although such
tactics were not violent. One account is of particular interest because my archival research
uncovered an official intra-government letter that backs up Muñoz’s report of a specific incident
that took place on October 10, 2005. According to Muñoz, on this day in October:
More than 100 people on foot blocked the highway intersection. They said they would
not recognize any license the government had authorized because it was the communities
themselves that would decide. [They said] that all the municipalities had agreed that in
this area there would be no development of mining, that wherever we were they would
kick us out, that they were ready to fight and even give their lives if necessary to protect
their little bit of land because it was all that they had.109
108
Jorge Mario Ríos Muñoz, “Bloqueo En Las Limas,” Internal Memo (Chalatenango, El Salvador: Au Martinique
Silver/Intrepid Minerals/Triada, October 10, 2005), Johansing archives, private collection, unpublished.
109
Jorge Mario Ríos Muñoz, “Bloqueo En Garujila,” Internal Memo (Chalatenango, El Salvador: Au Martinique
Silver/Intrepid Minerals/Triada, October 10, 2005), Johansing archives, private collection, unpublished.
70
The government letter I referenced above had been sent by the Antiguo Cuscatlán, Chalatenango
police department to the president of El Salvador’s Legislative Assembly. It describes the
incident in terms similar to Muñoz.
Employees Jorge Mario Ríos Muñoz and Toth Patrick Eric were intercepted by a group
of people, approximately 100, who would not let them pass. Having had their passage
impeded, they were forced to turn back…[with] “Los Ranchos” escorting them.110
It appears that this letter was not reporting criminal charges; rather, it was sent to the Legislative
Assembly as a complaint because the group had included an assemblyman from Chalatenango,
Marco Tulio Mejía. Whatever its purpose, the letter provides additional evidence for how the
opposition had made it impossible for the company to advance in Chalatenango.
As Chalatenango citizens continued using these kinds of physical tactics to prevent
exploration, even El Diario de Hoy took note. In an October 30, 2005 article the author joked, “it
seems that Chalate is writing a new chapter of the well-known adventures of Asterix… A
community resists, irreducible, before the invaders. As in the cartoon, but with other players: six
organized villages and one mining company.”111 Yet even the author’s mocking tone could not
belie the effect of the actions in Chalatenango: Au Martinique Silver’s exploration progress had
been thwarted.
As significant as it was to have forced Au Martinique Silver to halt its exploration in
Chalatenango, La Mesa recognized the unlikelihood that this represented the beginning of a
trend. La Mesa knew that any success achieved in the more politically homogenous, progressive
Chalatenango would not be easily replicated in Cabañas or other Salvadoran Gold Belt provinces
Policía Nacional Civil Antiguo Cuscatlan, “Police report to President of the Legislative Assembly,” Letter,
110
October 12, 2005, Johansing archives, private collection, unpublished.
111
Leyre Ventas, “El poder del más pequeño,” El Diario de Hoy, October 30, 2005.
71
that lacked Chalatenango’s level of civil society and political organization. Furthermore, La
Mesa recognized that blocking the work of individual companies would do nothing to change El
Salvador’s legal framework that permitted mining meaning that over the long term, El Salvador
would remain vulnerable to industrial metals mining. Using the pro-water frame, the opposition
movement aimed to reach a national audience with tangible and scientific evidence of mining’s
immediate and probable threats to El Salvador’s territory and environment. Unlike in
Chalatenango—where the tactics to stop Au Martinique Silver included physical confrontation,
obstruction, and even destruction of property—in Cabañas, where there was not yet majority
opposition among citizens, the movement followed a technical, scientific path. Morales, of
ADES, explained:
I still carry the memory of when we met with the Environment Minister, Hugo Barrera,
and I remember his extremely stern words: “You don’t know much, you know nothing
about this issue.” He said this to all of us, the community members that had come to talk
to him. We realized that what he said was true and we returned home with his message
saying, “It has become necessary to undertake technical studies.”
This was the moment that we jump started this other kind of action—a technical
action—to accompany the mobilization and advocacy. But we had to find a way to
undertake such studies. One of the first initiated [on our behalf] was by Dr. Robert
Moran. The main action that Dr. Moran took was to review the [environmental] study
Pacific Rim presented, and this helped us significantly at that moment of the fight.112
Pacific Rim had advanced farther than Au Martinique Silver in their El Salvador explorations.
Having confirmed the presence of gold deposits at El Dorado, the company had applied for a
license to begin full-fledged extraction. To meet the requirements for this license, Pacific Rim
submitted an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA)—the “environmental study” to which
Morales refers in the quote above. This EIA would be the focus of the analysis ADES hired
Moran to undertake.
112
72
Pereira explained to me that Moran’s analysis of Pacific Rim’s EIA was something the
Ministry of Environment should have undertaken itself but did not, due to either lack of capacity,
financing constraints, or apathy.113 Those in the opposition knew that Pacific Rim’s scientific
claims about the planned project’s environmental impacts might go uncontested given the
Ministry of Environment’s low level of scientific expertise compared to what was needed to
accurately judge the quality and veracity of the company’s submission.114 Moran’s report on El
Dorado revealed the inadequacies of the company’s EIA from beginning to end, including
inadequate baseline research on water levels and quality; insufficiently specified remediation
efforts in the event of accidents such as cyanide spills or other residual hazards; no plan to
compensate citizens in the face of such accidents; and complete disregard for the public feedback
and community consultation processes mandated in Salvadoran mining and environmental
law.115 ADES released Moran’s report to the public immediately, sponsoring its presentation it at
an October 8, 2005 public gathering in Sensuntepeque, Cabañas’s capital.116 Pereira credits
Moran’s analysis as being “the departure point for the resistance to the El Dorado mine in
Cabañas,”117 and would soon have implications for communities organized against mining
elsewhere in the country.
113
114
Shift,” 193.
115
Robert Moran. Technical Review of the El Dorado Mine Project Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA). El
Salvador, 2005
116
Robert Moran, “Technical Review of The El Dorado Mine Project Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA), El
Salvador” (Michael Moran Assoc., L.L.C., October 2005), iii.
117
Pereira, Interview by Author, July 1, 2014.
73
In my interview with Pereira, he quoted a colleague who, at the time of Moran’s report,
worked in the Ministry of Environment and was tasked with evaluating Pacific Rim’s EIA as the
basis for granting environmental permits:
Look David, you need to understand that at the ministry, in terms of understanding of
mining, we were in diapers. If you hadn’t presented us with [Moran’s work] we would
have granted them a permit. I thank you for having given us this because it served as our
basis for beginning to question the company’s claims.118
Or in the words of Pacheco, “The scientific technical support provided via our organizations
served them at MARN [Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources] so that they could ask
[the company] to explain [the EIA]. If this hadn’t been provided, surely MARN would have
approved it.”119 Moran’s work not only exposed the insufficiencies of one company’s
environmental analyses and protection plans, it challenged the adequacy of El Salvador’s
environmental review process, in terms of risk assessment and citizen engagement. It questioned
mining’s economic benefits and development impacts while casting doubt on the country’s
institutional capacity to adequately regulate and monitor the industry. This countered the
scientific “status quo”120 that had been established by scientists working with mining industry
actors, that the Salvadoran bureaucracy did not have the capacity itself to challenge. As the
movement grew, it mobilized additional experts who contributed scientific data that further
bolstered the opposition’s position.
Even with a unified goal, committed civil society support at both local and national
levels, and some success creating obstacles for individual companies, activists still felt isolated
118
Pereira.
119
Pacheco, Interview by Author, May 20, 2013.
120
Frank Fischer, Citizens, Experts, and the Environment: The Politics of Local Knowledge (Duke University Press,
2000), 110.
74
in these initial years. The perception was that beyond their immediate supporters, the issue of
metals mining was not considered a priority and therefore, as Pereira explained, “We were on
our own.”121 This would change in 2006.
B. “In El Salvador, everything is local:”122 The metals mining cause becomes national
(2006)
2006 was a watershed year for the civil society opposition to metals mining in El
Salvador. Following the years of feeling isolated in the struggle, a series of civil society
successes in 2006 brought this local issue to the national stage. My research showed that the
major turning point occurred in June 2006. Therefore, the process tracing analysis of 2006 will
be divided in three sub-phases. During 2006, civil society actions began to attain concrete
victories that both served to impede mining progress and draw media coverage.
1. The transition period before national recognition (early 2006)
The first five months of 2006 represent a period that can be easily overshadowed, given
the many civil society achievements that began in June 2006. The building blocks that were
created from January through May provided the foundation for subsequent, more significant
accomplishments. There were both incremental gains as well as behind the scenes reactions that
contributed to the national acknowledgement the civil society opposition would achieve by the
middle of the year.
In March 2006, Au Martinique Silver management sent a memo to shareholders that
shared the threat the company understood the opposition movement to have become to their
121
122
75
business plans. As discussed above, Au Martinique Silver had withdrawn its workers from
Chalatenango in late 2005 because of citizen backlash to the company’s exploration efforts.
However, with the company’s mining licenses and authorizations still effective, activity could
have legally restarted at any time. Instead, as Au Martinique Silver management explained in the
correspondence with shareholders, “we have suspended our social positioning efforts at this
moment due to violent responses and threats by opposition.”123 The memo blamed the decision
on civil society, explaining that, “our opposition has used religious-social organizations124 to very
effectively disseminate misinformation about the industry. The use of videos, radio and
propaganda have elevated the populations’ concern about mining.”125 Although it never
mentioned La Mesa by name, the memo acknowledged that the Chalatenango opposition was
part of a broader effort, calling it “a dynamic movement that has evolved over time.”126
This March 2006 confidential communication with shareholders validates two important
pieces of information. First, it indicates that local civil society actions in Chalatenango had
directly harmed metals mining progress in that area and second, that this mobilization was not
simply local but part of a larger movement. By informing shareholders of these developments,
Au Martinique confirmed the growing influence of the metals mining opposition.
123
Jorge Mario Ríos Muñoz, Ferdinando Didonna, and Robert Johansing, “Au Martinique Silver/Intrepid Minerals
Strategy for Re-Insertion into the Potonico Gold-Silver Project, Chalatenango, El Salvador” (San Salvador, El
Salvador: Au Martinique Silver/Intrepid Minerals/Triada, March 2, 2006), Johansing archives, private collection,
unpublished. As reflected in the title of this memo, in early 2006 Au Martinique Silver was in the process of re-
establishing its efforts in El Salvador as a joint venture with the company Intrepid Minerals. This partnership was
not yet formalized at the time of this memo and therefore this analysis continues to refer to the company as Au
Martinique Silver during this period.
124
The religious organizational element will be discussed in the next chapter.
125
Muñoz, Didonna, and Johansing, “Au Martinique Silver/Intrepid Minerals Strategy for Re-Insertion into the
Potonico Gold-Silver Project, Chalatenango, El Salvador,” 2.
126
Muñoz, Didonna, and Johansing, 1.
76
La Mesa activities during April and May 2006 reflect that the coalition, as well as
individual member organizations, were taking more proactive, offensive actions targeted toward
the greater Salvadoran population and the national government. One notable high-profile
example took place in April 2006, involving CESTA, the El Salvador branch of the Friends of
the Earth network and a national-level La Mesa member organization at that time. CESTA’s
executive director, Ricardo Navarro was the only one among La Mesa’s organizational
representatives to sit on the National Commission for the Environment (La Comisión Nacional
del Medio Ambiente, CONAMA),127 a civil society board organized by then-Environment
Minister Hugo Barrera early in the Saca administration.128 Navarro utilized the status of his
advisory role to solicit and obtain media attention for a letter he sent to the Legislative
Assembly, urging “the formation of a legislative commission to investigate the concessions that
were authorized to international mining companies.”129 Although I did not find evidence that any
assemblymen responded directly to this letter, several mining companies immediately
counterattacked, publishing ads disputing Navarro’s criticisms of the industry and personally
attacking him for taking this position. These attack ads themselves became newsworthy.130 This
media coverage represents one of the earliest moments in El Salvador when an action taken in
127
Rodrigo Baires Quezada, “Explotación Minera: Los Conflictos Del Oro,” El Faro, June 19, 2006.; Ricardo
Navarro Executive Director of CESTA, the El Salvador branch of Friends of the Earth, Interview by Author, San
Salvador, El Salvador, July 25, 2014.
128
World Bank, “República de El Salvador análisis ambiental de país mejorando la gestión ambiental para abordar
la liberalización comercial y la expansión de infraestructura” (The World Bank, March 20, 2007), 32. The
forthcoming government chapter will provide more information on CONAMA.
Rodrigo Baires Quezada, “‘Creo que las comunidades pueden beneficiarse de la explotación de una mina’:
129
Entrevista Con Gina de Hernández, Directora de Hidrocarburos y Minas Del Ministerio de Economía,” El Faro.
130
Rodrigo Baires Quezada, “Minería, un tema a medias,” El Faro, January 1, 2007.; Navarro, Interview by Author.
77
opposition to mining received national attention in a variety of mainstream news outlets and
demonstrated that even “negative” attention raised awareness of the issue.
Another example occurred in May 2006, when Eduardo Mira, one of several CEICOM
staffers to be actively engaged with La Mesa, condemned metals mining in an op-ed published in
El Diario Co-Latino. Writing in a daily publication with primarily left-wing readership, Mira
was speaking to a friendly audience. Even so, the national circulation meant that the op-ed would
reach readers previously unaware of El Salvador’s metals mining industry or the movement that
opposed it. Additional op-eds by La Mesa and CEICOM that criticized metals mining would
become a recurring feature in El Diario Co-Latino to keep like-minded Salvadorans informed
and energized, while also reaching people who were not yet familiar with the cause.131
La Mesa’s 2006 shift to higher profile, national-level efforts was due in large part to the
El Salvador branch of Oxfam America’s financial and operational support, according to Luis
Gonzalez of UNES. He explained that Oxfam America had given the network “small grants for
activities” from the beginning of its mobilization, but that in 2006 Oxfam America’s support
expanded. He recounted:
By 2006 [Oxfam America] was supporting a larger project that would allow us to have
some time from a facilitator, who officially worked for other of Oxfam’s projects, for
communication and to document, systematize what we were doing. But more than
anything, they helped us to plan for the major actions that we wanted to do at the national
level.132
Following the example set by Guatemalan activists who had sponsored an Action Week Against
Metals Mining during June 2005, La Mesa planned to host the same kind of Action Week in El
Salvador in June 2006. According to Pereira of CEICOM, it was Oxfam America’s Andres
131
Edgardo Mira, “Y los proyectos mineros?,” CEICOM (blog), May 31, 2006.
132
Gonzalez, Interview by Author.
78
McKinley who conceived of the idea to celebrate the one-year anniversary of Guatemala’s
Action Week by holding similar week-long events across several Central American countries.133
2. A week of action launches a national movement (June 2006)
In mid-June 2006, La Mesa, with Oxfam America’s support, would indeed launch what
was at that point its most significant action to date: El Salvador’s first Action Week Against
Mining. An Oxfam America newsletter sent later that summer explained that the purpose of the
simultaneous national action weeks was to “educate different sectors of society (affected
communities, private companies, government officials) about the consequences of mining
activities and get the issue into the political agenda.”134 The idea was for activists in El Salvador,
Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua to simultaneously carry out their own individual week-
long series of events criticizing metals mining in order to raise the profile of the cause among the
respective citizenries and demonstrate the regional nature of their concerns.135 The Central
American Action Week Against Mining demonstrates Spalding’s concept of lateral
transnationalism, which until that point was unprecedented for these Central American anti-
mining movements.
Although El Salvador’s Action Week was part of a larger regional effort, success for La
Mesa required garnering greater attention and support in El Salvador. Publicity in El Salvador
for the action week was crafted to be accessible to those not yet familiar with metals mining
133
Pereira, Interview by Author, June 10, 2014; Cruz, Interview by Author.
Oxfam America, “La minería de metales no es conveniente para El Salvador,” Oxfam America (blog), August 10,
134
2006.
135
Alberto Ramírez, “Semana contra minería,” Prensalibre.Com, June 13, 2006.
79
concerns or La Mesa, as demonstrated by this excerpt from La Mesa member organization
FESPAD’s website:
A group of organizations, including FESPAD, have set up La Mesa Frente a la Minería

because of our concern about the environmental and health impacts of mining. Among
the actions planned by the La Mesa, is a week dedicated to action against metals mining,
which includes forums and mobilizations to raise public awareness of the need to control
this industry.136
To begin El Salvador’s Action Week, on Monday, June 12, FESPAD hosted a press conference
at its San Salvador office. The stated goals for the press conference, also shared widely across La
Mesa member websites, were to:
Make the public aware of the beginning of this week against metals mining, organized to
finally bring this issue to the national and regional agendas, calling attention to the
consequences these megaprojects will have on water, food production, the economy, on
social relationships, showing that these projects will not bring development to the
country.137
By launching the week with a press conference, La Mesa aimed to bring media on board right
away and maintain their attention. Furthermore, to keep the media interested and to garner
publicity, La Mesa widely disseminated the carefully crafted agenda to Salvadoran media outlets.
This publicized the highest profile events and actions in San Salvador, regional forums hosted
across four different Salvadoran provinces, and the finale event involving all four participating
countries in Guatemala.138
Yet even before the first event, planned for Tuesday, June 13, La Mesa managed to
broadcast its message nationally, in real time, to a far wider audience than its members had
Fundación de Estudios para la Aplicación del Derecho, “Semana de acción contra la minería metálica,”
136
Fundación de Estudios Para La Aplicación Del Derecho (FESPAD) (blog), n.d.
137
CESTA, “Semana de lucha resistencia contra la minería en El Salvador” (CESTA Amigos de la Tierra El
Salvador, June 2006).
Fundación de Estudios para la Aplicación del Derecho (FESPAD), “Semana de acción contra la minería
138
Metálica”; David Pereira, CEICOM representative to La Mesa, Personal Interview, July 1, 2014.
80
imagined possible. On the afternoon of Monday, June 12, following the morning press
conference, then-television star (and future Salvadoran president) Mauricio Funes featured
Andres McKinley of Oxfam America and Edgardo Mira of CEICOM on his popular Canal 12
daytime television program La Entrevista con Mauricio Funes.139 In my interview with El Diario
Co-Latino journalist Gloria Silvia Orellana she emphasized the monumental nature of McKinley
and Mira’s appearance on Funes’s show. She explained that, “at that time channel 12 represented
THE standard for first-rate interviews, which even TCS [Telecorporación Salvadoreña, the
leading Salvadoran television news channel] would frequently cite.”140 By featuring McKinley
and Mira on his program, Funes not only offered the opposition platform unprecedented
exposure, but also showed his audience that he believed it to be credible.
I could not access a transcript or recording of the June 12 television program. However,
in Robert Johansing’s private files, I found a multi-page memo to management that provided in-
country company representatives’ recounting of that program as part of a detailed summary of
the week’s events. The memo explained that from the sidelines, “staff member JMR [Jorge
Muñoz] has been following the news and interviewing participants in order to synthesize the
events…since we were not invited.”141 Muñoz recounted that during Funes’s two-hour interview,
McKinley and Mira “showed pictures of skin diseases and the massive destruction produced by
mining, the opposing movements in Honduras and Guatemala, and provided details about mining
being responsible for water depletion, water contamination, acid mine drainage and the lack of
139
Jorge Mario Ríos Muñoz, “Activities of the ‘Week Against Mining’ in El Salvador" June 12 to 18, 2006,”
Internal Memo (Au Martinique Silver/Intrepid Minerals/Triada, n.d.), 1, Johansing archives, private collection,
unpublished.
140
Gloria Silvia Orellana, Journalist Diario Co Latino, Interview by Author, San Salvador, El Salvador, September
27, 2014.
141
Muñoz, “Activities of the ‘Week Against Mining’ in El Salvador" June 12 to 18, 2006,” 1.
81
development for communities that surround mining projects.”142 In his commentary, Muñoz
lamented that “the June 12 interview gave a very negative impression to the TV audience and
even the host of the program. During a visit to [our] office [afterwards], our landlady mentioned
the program and recounted the tremendous environmental damage produce by mining.”143
These Au Martinique Silver chroniclers would not have been a sympathetic audience to
La Mesa’s messages. Therefore, it is notable that the report acknowledges that what Muñoz calls
a “negative impression” was persuasive, illustrated by the inclusion of the landlady’s reaction.
This one account shows that even before the organizer’s first official event at the University of
Central America (UCA), the Action Week message was reaching a new, seemingly sympathetic
audience.
The National Forum on Mining, hosted by the UCA on June 13, was planned to be the
highest profile official event of El Salvador’s Action Week.144 Organized by La Mesa, UCA
rector Father José Tojeira hosted the forum, thus lending his well-regarded name to the event and
the overall cause. La Mesa did not only rely on attendance for their spotlight event from San
Salvador, but also supported the participation of community members from the directly affected
areas. According to some press reports, attendees packed the hall.145
The forum featured a range of public figures who spoke to citizens about metals mining
and its dangers. In addition to openly anti-metals mining activists, such as McKinley and Mira,
142
Muñoz, 1.
143
Muñoz, 1.
Fundación de Estudios para la Aplicación del Derecho (FESPAD), “Semana de acción contra la minería
144
metálica.”
145
Leonel Herrera, “MARN No permitirá proyectos mineros que desequilibren el medioambiente,” Diario Co
Latino, June 13, 2006.
82
the forum featured Yanira Cortez of the Salvadoran Ombudsman’s office and, most notably, the
Minister of Environment, Hugo Barrera. The fact that the minister accepted the invitation was a
win in and of itself.146 Francis Perdomo, a civil servant who worked closely with Barrera during
his two years as Minister of Environment, recalled the UCA forum with no prompting during our
interview. He shared:
There was a meeting I remember, a famous meeting at the UCA in which there was much
opposition to the mining industry, I remember there were many people, there were more
than 200 I do not remember, but the auditorium was filled. As well I was going to go to a
field inspection, but Don Hugo [Barrera] made me come back because of this conference
in which there was going to be Father Tojeira, rector of the UCA and there would be Don
Hugo, I don’t remember who else…but most of all, it turned out that there would be this
great number of people who were completely opposed to mining projects.147
Perdomo’s statement reveals that even before the forum took place, Minister Barrera recognized
its importance and wanted his staff to attend.
I had planned to ask Barrera about his recollections of the UCA forum during our
interview, but he brought it up to me before I could inquire about it. He cited the event as
providing him with firsthand evidence that Salvadorans opposed metals mining projects. Barrera
recalled:
Pacific Rim had been saying that all communities in the area were absolutely in favor of
their project. But on this point, I had the luck of being able to develop a clear idea for
myself as to if they [community members] were in for it or against it. The rector of the
UCA, [Father] Tojeira, organized more or less 500 people living in that [the mining
affected] area to be part of a meeting at the UCA and invited me to attend…During the
meeting I asked them, “Are you in favor of or against the project?” Everyone raised their
hands saying no…it was absolutely clear that the community was against the project. 148
146
Yanira Cortez, Deputy Ombudsman for Human Rights, for the Environment, Interview by Author, San Salvador,
El Salvador, May 12, 2013.
147
Francisco Perdomo Former Director of Environmental Management, Ministry of Environment, Interview by
Author, San Salvador, El Salvador, November 18, 2014.
148
Hugo Barrera Minister of Environment (2004-2006), Interview by Author, San Salvador, El Salvador, September
26, 2014.
83
Barrera said that when he accepted Father Tojeira’s invitation to speak on the panel, he had been
aware that the organizers’ objective was to present an argument against the industry. Yet he
explained that it was the crowded hall packed with ardently anti-metals mining citizens, and not
the panelists and their arguments, that left the most significant impression on him.
Faced with a packed audience of metals mining opponents, Barrera utilized the forum
as an opportunity to educate community members about their legal rights on this issue and to
explain how they could use the law to achieve their goals. As he said:
I asked them who among them owned the land and many people [indicated that they]
owned the land. [I explained] therefore that the law also establishes that for a mining
project to operate, the company—in this case Pacific Rim—must check who is the owner
of the territory and then procure the authorization of these landowners to be able to go
ahead with their projects.
Right now, they do not have [this authorization] and if the communities are not willing to
give permission, the problem is solved. If you authorize then it will happen. If you do not
authorize it, the law says they will not have permission. For us [the government], we only
regulate, not ban.149
For Morales, of ADES, Barrera’s legal counsel was a welcome surprise. She explained to me that
the Action Week’s organizers had envisioned the UCA forum as an opportunity to educate the
public officials who agreed to take part. They had not expected that they would gain legal
knowledge that offered them new strategies for their activism. She recounted:
Barrera told us, “You are the owners of the land, the state is only the subsoil owner, so do
not sell.” This was advice from a former minister of the [political] right, however we took
his words, saying that we could fight this from within own territories since we were still
the owners of the land. This [advice] was wonderful because people left knowing [a new
way] to carry on the fight from within their communities.150
149
Barrera.
150
84
Therefore, as the Action Week Against Mining raised the movement’s national profile,
educated a wider audience about the dangers of metals mining, and gave government officials a
firsthand look at the intensity among supporters, local activists also learned ways they could use
the specifics of the law to further their goals. The nuances of the role that the UCA forum, its
attendees, and overall citizen opposition had in influencing Barrera’s 2006 decision to stop
granting environmental permits for exploration will be discussed in depth in the forthcoming
chapter on the government.
After the UCA forum in San Salvador, the Action Week organizers held events outside of
the capital city in four different Gold Belt provinces. These included San Miguel city, in San
Miguel province; Sensuntepeque, in Cabañas; Aguillares, the country’s third largest city, located
in San Salvador province; and San José de las Flores, in Chalatenango. By holding more events
outside of the capital than within it, and by including locations in Gold Belt provinces San
Miguel and San Salvador that had not yet experienced substantial organized resistance to metals
mining, the Action Week events reached a larger swath of the population and reinforced the
message that this issue should matter to all Salvadorans.151 Furthermore, on Friday, July 16,
sandwiched between these decentralized events, the organizers led a “great national march
against mining” 152 that involved, according to a CESTA press release, “more than 800 people
from different parts of the country and communities affected by mining exploration.”153 The
march on the capital allowed protesters to shout their message down San Salvador’s main streets
151
CESTA, “Semana de Lucha Resistencia Contra La Minería En El Salvador” (CESTA Amigos de la Tierra El
Salvador, June 2006).
152
CESTA.
153
CESTA.
85
as they walked to the Legislative Assembly “to ask the assembly members to intervene to
prevent El Salvador from further authorizing mineral exploration permits.”154
Finally, on Sunday, June 18, representatives from the four Central American countries
that had coordinated and planned each country’s Action Week Against Mining came together in
Sipacapa, Guatemala, to demonstrate mutual support for one another and show that the
movements were inextricably linked. Press across Central America took note. The Honduran
newspaper La Prensa de Honduras reported that environmentalists from these four countries
undertook this “week of protest” to “put a halt to mining projects so as to prevent displacing
populations and contaminating aquifers in the region.”155 In Guatemala, the media reported the
coordinated multi-country efforts as a “movement of peaceful resistance” in which pro-
environment activists utilized marches, forums, and community meetings as a way to pressure
their government to end extractive policies.156
An Oxfam America newsletter dated July 2, 2006, proclaimed that events held across
Central America had “succeeded in getting the issue into the public agenda,” as evidenced by
how each “national media addressed the issue [and then how] ministries and companies
reacted.”157 The Salvadoran anti-mining activists I interviewed, as well as the mining proponents
and government officials, mark this week of protest as a watershed moment that catapulted the
movement and its pro-water/anti-mining message onto the national agenda. Furthermore, it
154
CESTA.
155
“Salvadoreños protestan contra explotación minera,” La Prensa de Honduras, June 16, 2006.
156
Alberto Ramírez, “Semana contra minería.”
157
Oxfam América, “Una semana de acción frente a la minería en Centroamérica,” Oxfam, July 2, 2006.
86
demonstrated that La Mesa had fully transitioned from its primarily reactive phase to one in
which it could carry out large-scale proactive efforts.
The Salvadoran media’s attention to the Action Week showed that La Mesa’s
communications strategy was working. While coverage had previously been sporadic, Oxfam
America’s July newsletter reported that since that third week in June, “El Salvador has not had a
single week without this issue being discussed among politicians, covered in the media or
discussed by communities and civil society organizations.”158 The consistency of coverage did
not mean that all reporting was flattering. From the conservative daily, El Diario de Hoy,
coverage rarely, if ever, was sympathetic. A cheeky headline that ran five days after the Action
Week tied left-wing politics to the mining opposition. It read, “No way forward for miners: In
the Northwest of Chalatenango mining companies and President Elias Antonio Saca have
something in common, they are not liked or wanted.”159 Even with the negative tone of articles
like this, coverage of all sorts meant that the movement’s efforts and messages remained in the
public sphere, a primary goal for La Mesa.
3. Building on the momentum (July–August 2006)
Following the Central American Action Week against mining, La Mesa supporters Sister
Cities and the SHARE Foundation took the Salvadoran movement’s message to Canada, the
national headquarters for Pacific Rim and Au Martinique Silver. As reported in a Sister Cities
blog:
As communities gather in Chalatenango to strengthen their resistance to foreign mining

interests and carry their message directly to the national government, a complementary
158
Oxfam América.
159
Jorge Beltrán, “No hay paso para las mineras,” El Diario de Hoy, June 23, 2006.
87
movement grows in North America. Representatives from US-El Salvador Sister Cities
(USESSC), the SHARE Foundation, Mining Watch Canada, and the Center for
Alternative Mining Development Policy, among others, have come together in solidarity
with the communities of Chalatenango to stop unwanted mining development from
continuing in the region.160
This excerpt reveals that in addition to the El Salvador-specific accompaniment organizations,
international NGOs with a mining rather than a country or regional focus had joined the
advocacy campaign. Several years later, Mining Watch Canada would become a key partner of
La Mesa, but in 2006 the connection was more indirect, via the accompaniment organizations
that had longstanding relationships with Salvadoran communities.161
The ongoing Chalatenango organizing efforts to which the Canadian protest lent support
extended beyond rallies and marches. In early July, ten municipalities from across northern
Chalatenango came together to ratify and broadcast a proclamation against metals mining:
We, the communities of Chalatenango, facing the greed of the transnational corporations
who want to plunder our natural resources and our government’s surrendering attitude
towards our territory; We, the Salvadoran people and the international community,
express our total rejection of any mining exploration or exploitation. This threatens the
life of the country because it contaminates water, air and soil and other elements essential
for human beings and other living species.162
This formal proclamation is notable because ten different municipal governments publicly
announced support for this position, alongside civil society. Although sponsors were all
Chalatenango-based, the objections focused on a national danger that threatened the “life of the
country.” To further underscore the national nature of these claims, the El Diario Co-Latino
article that reported on the proclamation emphasized that “the communities’ decision has the
US-El Salvador Sister Cities, “Protests against Au Martinique Silver, Inc,” Luterano Blogspot (blog), July 3,
160
2006.
161
Jen Moore Mining Watch, Interview by Author, October 4, 2013.
162
Leonel Herrera, “Explotación minera,” Diario Co Latino, July 10, 2006.
88
support of local FMLN mayoralties, the Chalatenango Diocese, and various environmental, rural
development and human rights NGOs that together make up La Mesa Nacional Frente a la
Minería.”163 This inclusion of the range of support for what otherwise could be seen as a limited
local effort is a marked change from earlier reporting.
Over the course of two full days (July 22 to 24, 2006) more than 1,000 people marched
from Chalatenango to the Ministry of Economy in San Salvador, with participants joining from
other affected areas along the route.164 One participant, anti-mining leader Francisco Piñeda of
CAC, was quoted by a reporter as explaining, “The main motivation for this march is to reiterate
to the government that communities are willing to do whatever it takes to throw out the mining
companies.”165 This message appears to have reached the leaders of MINEC and MARN. On the
morning of the first day of the march, July 22, Economy Minister de Gavidia and Environment
Minister Barrera held a held a press conference on the issue of metals mining. The ministers
never explicitly acknowledged the civil society demonstration taking place concurrently, but
press coverage in La Prensa Gráfica and El Diario de Hoy made the link.166 The specifics of the
ministers’ statements and subsequent actions will be explored in the forthcoming government
chapter (Chapter 5). It is relevant to note here, however, that when the marchers arrived at
MINEC on Monday July 24, Minister de Gavidia’s response sharply contrasted to how she had
handled the June 16 Action Week march from Chalatenango. This time, just five weeks after she
163
Herrera.
164
“Marcha contra minería metálica llega a San Salvador,” Mundo Farabundista (blog), July 24, 2006.
165
“Mundo Farabundista.”
Ricardo Valencia, “Reformaran la ley de minería: buscan endurecer requisitos de la ley para explotar
166
yacimientos,” La Prensa Gráfica, July 23, 2006; Alejandra Dimas and Katlen Urquilla, “Hugo Barrera abre la
puerta a mineras,” El Diario de Hoy, July 23, 2006.
89
had ignored the first cross country action, the minister personally greeted the contingent upon
their arrival and invited the organizers to meet with her inside the ministry.167
The fact that Minister de Gavidia responded so differently to the July march than she had
to the June march, demonstrates the discernable impact the opposition movement had begun to
have on the top officials who authorized and managed the metals mining industry. This traceable
influence went beyond the minsters to the president himself. Although President Saca is often
described as not making a definitive statement on metals mining until 2008, a La Prensa Gráfica
article that reported on the ministers’ press conference quoted the president as adding to de
Gavidia’s statement by saying, “we must take into account what people want because they own
their property; as well as what the environmental study says.”168 The study to which President
Saca refers will be discussed in Chapter 5.
The government’s response indicated progress. However, an article in El Diario de Hoy
released on the same day as the post-march press conference reminded readers that despite recent
government statements, no Saca administration official had ever committed to stopping the
metals mining industry. Recalling that the national legal framework allowed for mining, the
article quoted a statement that Barrera repeated often: “The country had no legal prohibition of
mining, only regulations that dictate the conditions under which such companies must
operate.”169 Opposition leaders were keenly aware of this. Therefore, as Morales of ADES
explained to me, even with top government officials’ supportive statements and the advice that
167
Mauricio Funes, “July 26, 2006 episode, featuring Ricardo Navaro (CESTA) and Yolanda de Gavidia, Minister
of Economy (2004-2008),” Television, La Entrevista con Mauricio Funes (San Salvador, El Salvador: Canal 21,
July 26, 2006).
168
Valencia, “Reformaran la ley de minería: buscan endurecer requisitos de la ley para explotar yacimientos.”
169
Dimas and Urquilla, “Hugo Barrera abre la puerta a mineras.”
90
officials like Barrera had given them, “we knew that in addition to these kinds of actions, we had
to also advocate in the legislature—not for proposed reforms to the existing law, but instead [for]
the total prohibition of mining.”170
4. “Eyes on the prize”: Not just suspension, but prohibition (late 2006)
Similar to most countries, non-lawmakers in El Salvador cannot officially introduce a bill
for consideration in the Legislative Assembly. Therefore, the civil society movement worked
behind the scenes with allied deputies to draft a prohibition bill that was submitted to the
legislature in late 2006. Morales explained that as they worked to draft the bill, and once it had
been submitted, “we then made constant visits to the Assembly, flooding them with letters to
encourage them to give attention to the issue.”171
By the end of 2006, the Salvadoran civil society movement against metals mining had
developed significant strength and influence, far beyond what anyone involved could have
anticipated when the year began. As will be laid out in the government chapter, while Saca
government officials publicly responded to civil society actions with promising public
statements, they were also acting behind the scenes to suspend industry operations and finally
investigate potential consequences for the country. Therefore, in 2006, the civil society
opposition had convinced Saca administration leaders to reconsider their approach to metals
mining. By suspending the process to grant new environmental permits for metals mining
exploration, the administration acknowledged citizens’ influence. This progress defied earlier
170
171
Morales.
91
predictions that the movement would not be able to withstand pressure from or be more
persuasive than the far richer and more powerful international mining companies.
2006 proved itself to be a transformative year for metals mining opposition in El
Salvador. Although complete information about the government’s suspension of mining permits
was not yet public knowledge as the year came to a close, the progress in 2006 had created a new
reality where legislatively outlawing metals mining appeared to be in reach. With the
movement’s increasing national profile, and growing domestic and international support and
funding, leaders were cautiously hopeful that this process could lead to a permanent ban on
mining.
C. New allies and enemies maintain de facto gains and fight to make them de jure (2007–
2008)
My process tracing analysis of 2007 and 2008 identifies three critical moments for civil
society during which the opposition leveraged unexpected opportunities and tackled unforeseen
challenges to keep metals mining activity out of El Salvador. The first two happened to the civil
society opposition, while the third was created by civil society and its allies. These three turning
points take us to the end of the Saca era and set the stage for the entrance of the two other
nongovernmental sectors—the Catholic Church and the domestic private sector—that alongside
the civil society movement were crucial to maintaining El Salvador’s suspension of mining.
One of these turning points occurred in May 2007 when, as recounted by Morales of
ADES, “the Conference of Catholic Bishops made their pronouncement against mining, calling
on Salvadorans to ‘care for all of our home.’”172 Morales was referring to the archbishop’s May 3
announcement that all 12 members of El Salvador’s Bishops’ Conference had signed a
172
Morales.
92
proclamation that unequivocally condemned mining in El Salvador. While the Diocese in
Chalatenango had been an outspoken ally for more than a year by that point, and several Catholic
social organizations—like Caritas, with ties to Rome—were founding members of La Mesa, the
civil society opposition had not anticipated that the full hierarchy of the Catholic Church would
align itself with their message. As Morales simply stated, the Church’s public anti-mining stance
“created a very good situation [for us].”173 These events will be discussed in depth in the next
chapter, but I introduce them now because the moment when civil society received unambiguous
backing from a non-traditional and important ally is critical for understanding civil society’s
actions through the end of the Saca administration.
In mid-2007 the Salvadoran public found itself inundated with an anonymously
sponsored, aggressive campaign to support “minería verde,” which in English translates to
“green mining.” Journalist and former La Mesa media coordinator Leonel Herrera explained:
They mounted a campaign to promote “green mining,” a concept that does not exist. But
they put forth the idea that green mining existed, that would be friendly towards the
environment. [To promote this] they launched a terrible media campaign…saturating the
media via the airwaves, print media, television…but the message did not stick.174
Herrera uses the pronoun “they” in this quote, but no entity—individual or corporate—signed its
name to this media campaign. Pacific Rim was widely assumed to be the sponsor of this
campaign (to be discussed in Chapter 4 on the Private Sector).175 The media blitz did not deny
that metals mining had been destructive in the past. Its focus was on creating a new image of
metals mining, one that could convince the public that with modern technology, this economic
173
Morales.
174
Herrera, Interview by Author, July 30, 2014.
175
Spalding, “Transnational Networks and National Action: El Salvador’s Antimining Movement,” 41.
93
development opportunity could be implemented responsibly and with minimal environmental
consequences. While the campaign initially put the opposition movement back on the defensive,
the unsponsored pro-mining media blitz faltered under the weight of its own miscalculations. As
Herrera explained, “The campaign was clumsy, utilizing laughable arguments…and no one
stood behind it, not one company claimed responsibility for it—not one.”176
La Mesa struck back at the media campaign with its own messaging that challenged the
veracity of so-called green mining. An August 2007 example published in El Diario Co-Latino,
under the headline, “Green Mining Does Not Exist,” quoted La Mesa as saying that so-called
green mining cannot be found “anywhere in the world because every process of mining or coal
exploration and extraction is a threat to the environment and life, even with technological
advances in the field.”177 However, La Mesa did not have the financial means to launch a
challenge to the green mining media campaign that would fully counter the messages that
saturated the air waves.178
Yet even though La Mesa could not afford to directly counter the green mining narrative
through paid advertising, the coalition devised a new way to attract the press to cover their
position. Both the opposition movement and the companies claimed to have a majority of citizen
support on their side. Therefore, La Mesa—in partnership with McKinley, from Oxfam
America—aimed to test which side was accurate and if the media campaign had influenced
public opinion. As Spalding has documented, they did so by commissioning UCA’s IUDOP
176
177
“Minería verde no existe,” Diario Co Latino, re posted by OCMAL, August 21, 2007.
178
Izote News, “El Salvador: La minería verde - una empresa mentirosa,” Izote News (blog), November 29, 2007.
94
(Institute for Public Opinion) to implement a public opinion survey on metals mining.179 It was
carried out between September 29 and October 10, 2007, in the 24 municipalities across the 8
provinces in which the government had granted exploration licenses.180 The surveyed area
included those where mining exploration activities had already begun and others that remained in
a planning phase. It was based on a sampling method designed to “best reflect the adult
population residing in the[se] municipalities,” which had 215,946 adult residents over the age of
20.181 The survey therefore included 1,200 respondents, divided proportionally based on age,
gender, and location (urban vs. rural) of that population.182
The results were striking: 62.5% of those polled believed the country did not have
suitable conditions for mining.183 Before this, La Mesa members knew anecdotally that citizens
were not supportive of metals mining, but they lacked the figures to prove it. However, one
finding came as a surprise. Per Herrera: “the factor that most convinced people that the campaign
was based on lies was its anonymity, that no company took responsibility for it. Not one
company.184 Beyond showing that the green mining media campaign was a public relations
failure, the IUDOP survey results armed the opposition with statistically significant evidence to
contradict Pacific Rim’s claims of community support. Per Pacheco:
179
Instituto Universitario de Opinión Pública (IUDOP), “Encuesta sobre conocimientos y percepciones hacia la
180
minería por la incursión minera en El Salvador,” Survey (San Salvador: Universidad Centroamericana José Simeón
Cañas (UCA, November 2007), 2.
181
Instituto Universitario de Opinión Pública (IUDOP), 2–4.
182
Instituto Universitario de Opinión Pública (IUDOP), 5.
183
Instituto Universitario de Opinión Pública (IUDOP), “Conocimientos y percepciones hacia la minería en zonas
afectadas por la incursión minera: resumen ejecutivo” (Universidad Centroamericana José Simeón Cañas (UCA),
January 22, 2008).
184
95
It can be difficult to understand how it is possible that people with conservative thinking
could come together with people of “progressive or leftist” thinking on any issue.
Sometimes it may seem to be inexplicable, but [on the issue of mining] I can prove it to
you with the results of IUDOP poll.185
The IUDOP survey further strengthened the evidence base for the opposition’s arguments. La
Mesa would continually cite the poll results in the years that followed, including during the high
stakes presidential campaign to replace Saca in elections to be held in early March 2009.
As discussed above, civil society’s multi-faceted actions during 2007 and 2008 served to
strengthen and broaden opposition to metals mining across El Salvador. For the first time during
the period of study, the civil society opposition’s pro-water/anti-mining messages had been taken
up and spread by other societal sectors, such as the institutional Catholic Church. Furthermore,
despite the anonymous green mining campaign that saturated Salvadoran print and broadcast
media during this period, a majority of Salvadorans in potentially affected areas—as illustrated
the 2007 IUDOP survey—expressed the belief that metals mining would not be appropriate or
advantageous for their country. The growth of the pro-water/anti-mining constituency during this
period, a result of civil society’s sustained efforts over the prior years, transformed metals
mining from a local environmental issue into a national issue of political and social significance.
1. A bishop and the archbishop speak up (2006)
On January 13, 2006, Msgr. Alas became the highest-ranking member of the Catholic
Church to come out publicly against mining.186 At a ceremony to commemorate the feast of St.
Hilary in Amayo, Chalatenango, the bishop utilized his keynote speech to read a prepared
185
186
Msgr Eduardo Alas, “Diócesis De Chalatenango: Explotación Minera En El Departamento De Chalatenango Y
Otras Zonas” (Amayo, Chalatenango, January 13, 2006).
96
statement about mining on behalf of the Chalatenango diocese.187 Msgr. Alas began by clarifying
that politics had no influence on his position. The statement was lengthy and tackled concerns
related to both metals mining and dam megaprojects. He concluded with a definitive statement:
“This diocese believes and maintains that the dam megaproject Cimarron and metals mining in
our department does not benefit our people/community. Because of this we do not provide our
backing or support.”188 Those I interviewed from the anti-mining/pro-water movement recounted
Alas’ statement as monumental.
However, my research showed that in early 2006 Au Martinique Silver was still
actively pursuing Bishop Alas’ support. In a March 2006 internal strategy document, the
company (which that month had been renamed Au Martinique Minerals after merging with the
firm Intrepid Minerals) laid out how the Catholic Church, and specifically the Chalatenango
Diocese, remained key to their eventually “gaining a social license,” for their projects.189 The
memo explained:
The Church’s highest authority in Chalatenango is the bishop and is widely

respected…numerous approaches have been considered for the resolution of our project’s
opposition. On the basis of social characteristics and sources of the opposition, it has been
decided to implement the strategy that focuses upon the Catholic Church owing to their
high credibility among the people and a certain degree of respect from the formal
opposition to exploration and mining. From the beginning, Bishop Alas of Chalatenango
has manifested the Church’s willingness to learn about the positive and negative impacts
that mining could have on the proximal [sic]–nearby communities.190
187
Msgr Eduardo Alas.
188
Msgr. Eduardo Alas.
189
Muñoz, Didonna, and Johansing, “Au Martinique Silver/Intrepid Minerals Strategy for Re-Insertion into the
Potonico Gold-Silver Project, Chalatenango, El Salvador,” 1–2.
190
Muñoz, Didonna, and Johansing, 1–2.
97
This memo documents the company’s belief that successfully recruiting the Church to a pro-
metals mining position would be a boon to their cause because of the Church’s credibility among
the public at large, including those that directly oppose metals mining. Even two months after
Bishop Alas’s pronouncement, of which the company may not yet have been aware, the
leadership evaluated the bishop as someone who could be converted into an ally.191 It appears
that the company had not yet realized that the bishop’s apparent openness to learning had
eventually led him to take a strong position in opposition.
As discussed above, Bishop Alas’s alliance with the community movement was
important, but even as bishop he did not serve as proxy for the institutional Salvadoran Catholic
Church. It was not a foregone conclusion that the archbishop or other conference members
would adopt Bishop Alas’s position against metals mining. Antonio Baños of Caritas explained
that community activists and the bishop himself knew that, “the coup de grace would happen
when Msgr. Alas passed on his position to Archbishop Sáenz Lacalle.”192
Archbishop Sáenz Lacalle, to quote La Mesa’s representative from MUFRAS-32 Héctor
Berrios, “was no ally of ours.”193 Berrios explained that he and others in La Mesa had seen proof
of this when they requested meetings with the archbishop. “He would never attend to us, never,”
Berrios recounted, even though he would “meet with the mining companies, with Salvadoran
national Erika Colindres [from Pacific Rim] and her associates so they could tell him all the
virtues of mining.”194 Antonio Baños talked to me about Archbishop Sáenz Lacalle in more
191
Muñoz, Didonna, and Johansing, 1–2.
192
Baños, Interview by Author.
193
194
Berrios.
98
neutral terms, explaining that the archbishop, “was neither a person opposed to investment, nor
could you consider him a bishop aligned with the left.”195 Therefore, in 2006, even as leaders of
the pro-water/anti-mining movement worked to cultivate support from members of the
Salvadoran Bishops’ Conference, they expected that if the archbishop embraced any stance, it
would be the corporate position.
La Mesa and its allies achieved unprecedented national media coverage for the anti-
mining/pro-water cause with the inaugural Action Week Against Mining, held from June 12-19,
2006 (as discussed in Chapter 2). JPIC, Caritas, and CONFRES participated along with the other
La Mesa members, but without any obvious links to the institutional Catholic Church. The only
other prominent Catholic figure with a featured role was Father José Maria Tojeira, Rector of the
University of Central America (UCA). Father Tojeira hosted La Mesa’s June 12 community
forum at the UCA, providing the first high profile opportunity for community members and
Minister of Environment Hugo Barrera to dialogue. Although a well-known member of the
Catholic clergy, Tojeira hosted the event in his capacity as rector of one of El Salvador’s pre-
eminent academic institutions and not as a representative for the institutional Catholic Church.
Based on Salvadoran reporting on the 2006 Action Week Against Mining that I could access and
the recollections of those I interviewed, the institutional leadership of the Catholic Church
neither participated in nor responded to the anti-mining messages broadcast that week.
Six weeks after the UCA forum everything would be different. From Saturday, July 22
to Monday, July 24, a caravan of anti-mining/pro-water activists marched from Chalatenango to
the Ministry of Economy in San Salvador to a deliver a letter to Minister of Economy Yolanda
195
99
de Gavidia.196 On the second day of the March, Sunday, July 23, Archbishop Sáenz Lacalle
started his weekly post-mass press conference by talking about metals mining. 197 This was not
something he had done before. In my research the only reporting I found of the archbishop’s
commentary was in the leftist daily El Diario Co Latino and not the major Salvadoran news
outlets. As published in Co Latino, the archbishop stated: “‘the Bishops from all dioceses have
been reflecting on this issue and, as the Bishops’ Conference, we have resolved that metals
mining is not advisable for this country.’”198
By delivering this post-mass statement to the press, the archbishop acknowledged that the
Salvadoran Bishops’ Conference considered the issue important enough to deliberate and decide
on together. He explained that “water contamination throughout the country is what has led us to
make this warning about the dangers of mining,”199 highlighting the same issue that had led civil
society to mobilize against the metals mining industry. Sáenz Lacalle, however, did not
acknowledge this common ground with the civil society opposition. In fact, he never mentioned
civil society or the anti-mining march that was taking place as he spoke. In contrast, Sáenz
Lacalle praised the Ministry of Environment for having committed to ending authorization for
environmental permits because “the damages caused by mining would not be easy to
mitigate.”200 As discussed in the civil society analysis, and to be further developed in the
government chapter, Ministers Barrera and Gavidia had also discussed metals mining at a press
196
“Mundo Farabundista.”
197
Leonel Herrera, “Conferencia Episcopal en contra de minería metálica,” Diario Co Latino, July 24, 2006.
198
Herrera.
199
Herrera.
200
Herrera.
100
conference convened the day before, on July 22, the first day of the march. Without explicitly
making the connection, Sáenz Lacalle’s praise of the Environment Ministry’s commitments
echoed, and therefore demonstrated support for, the minister’s comments and promises issued
the day before.
What is particularly notable about the archbishop’s July 23, 2006 remarks is the absence
of theological references. The objections expressed are practical and scientific, focused on water
contamination and the difficulty mitigating the risks the metals mining industry poses—an
argument that echoed the messages broadcast by activists throughout the weekend protest. In this
way, the leader of the Salvadoran Catholic Church’s condemnation of metals mining closely
resembled objections expressed by civil society and government. Therefore, this marks a key
juncture. This represents an early instance of three sectors—the institutional Catholic Church,
civil society opposition, and government (as represented by top Saca officials)—operating on
parallel tracks regarding the issue of metals mining, moving in the same direction but without
direct collaboration.
IV. Wrap Up
To conclude, I return to my overarching research question and the supporting questions
that guided the process tracing analysis of civil society’s opposition to metals mining from 2004
to 2008. As laid out in the introduction, the guiding research question is: Why did El Salvador
deviate from an economic development paradigm that prioritizes extraction’s short-term
economic gains over the social and environmental costs and choose instead to disallow industrial
metals mining? The three supporting-questions that I utilize to operationalize this guiding
question include:
101
1. What role did Salvadoran civil society’s opposition to metals mining play in the
country’s choices and actions on metals mining?
2. What were civil society’s identifiable motivations?
3. What were civil society’s traceable milestone events/decision points that contributed to
this outcome?
The analysis of Salvadoran civil society’s opposition to metals mining from 2004 through
2008 leads to the following takeaways regarding civil society’s role, motivations, and milestone
actions and events:
Salvadoran civil society’s role:
First, the process tracing timeline shows that civil society was the first sector to mobilize
against metals mining. Therefore, organized civil society’s role can be understood as
precipitator; as the initiator of an opposition effort that would grow larger than this sector alone.
How the other sectors fit alongside civil society is a discussion for a later chapter, but the process
tracing analysis allows us to identify organized civil society as the beginning of the movement
that would eventually lead to a metals mining industry freeze.
Second, civil society utilized their reality to develop pro-water messaging for the
campaign. This message framing showed how those who opposed mining did so on the grounds
of protecting vulnerable water resources rather than opposing a particular industry or foreign
investment more broadly. Third, civil society played a role in making science accessible to the
citizenry, and not simply the bastion of the experts on the side of the mining companies. By
commissioning their own studies, hiring experts to analyze the complex submissions of
companies like Pacific Rim, and working to get this information out to the public, civil society
enabled the citizenry to adopt an informed position on the issue.
102
Civil society’s motivations:
The process tracing analysis reveals that civil society’s most significant reason to oppose
metals mining was water. Specifically, civil society aimed to protect the country’s already
depleted and vulnerable water sources from an industry that empircal evidence shows would
further deplete and contaminate it. Related to this was the motivation to have the country pursue
development opportunities that were sustainable for El Salvador’s communities in the long term,
and not based on short-term opportunites for profitmaking.
Civil society’s milestone events/actions:
The first milestone moment occurred in 2004, when the range of civil society
organizations that would become known as La Mesa began to informally work together to tackle
their concerns about metals mining as a network. I consider this as the milestone, more than the
2005 “recognition” of La Mesa as a network. The official naming of La Mesa simply formalized
what had already been in operation for more than a year. It was the coming together and
sustained steady collaboration among the range of local and national social service, religious,
policy, and human rights organizations that gave the civil society opposition a strong foundation
from which it could build.
The second milestone relates to the results produced by Dr. Robert Moran, whom La
Mesa member ADES hired to evaluate Pacific Rim’s EIA. This civil society-led effort revealed
the flaws in the company’s work and future plans. There were no indications that the government
would have, or potentially could have, discovered this important information on its own. This is
a milestone action because it provided the civil society opposition with scientific evidence that
proved their concerns had a basis, and gave them a tool with which they could lobby government
decisionmakers.
103
The third milestone event was Au Martinique Silver’s withdrawl of operations from
Chalatanengo. This is a civil society milestone because the withdrawl was directly the result of
efforts by the Chalatenango-based opposition (with support from the larger network). Although
this was not a feat that anti-mining efforts could duplicate in other parts of the country, it
accomplished two important goals: it stopped one mining company from advancing its work and
demonstrated the movement’s commitment to the government.
The fourth milestone is an event and a series of actions that took place over the course of
the June 2006 Action Week Against Mining. As discussed, this carefully planned week of
advocacy and awareness-building was itself a watershed moment for the opposition, as it helped
launch the civil society opposition onto the national stage. Within this week, the June 12 forum
at the UCA can be regarded as a milestone because, per the former Minister of Environment’s
admission, it shaped his position and subsequent actions on the issue of metals mining. Beyond
the individual UCA event, the full week of proceedings educated the Salvadoran citizenry,
prioritized the issue for decision-makers, and established the opposition as a force with national
reach.
Fifth, the implementation and results from the 2007 IUDOP survey to track citizen
perceptions of metals mining are together milestone actions. This survey, carried out in response
to the corporate green mining media campaign, enabled the civil society opposition to
empirically challenge Pacific Rim’s assertion that a majority of Salvadorans favored metals
mining. The IUDOP survey gave tangible, statistically sound evidence to policymakers that
disproved Pacific Rim’s contention. The results of the survey contributed to electoral politics
because respondents were citizens who would be voting in the next set of elections.
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In conclusion, this chapter showed that the civil society anti-mining movement used
grassroots mobilization (2004–2005) and then policy-targeted activism (2006–2008) to make
itself instrumental to the government’s decision to suspend the metals mining industry. The
movement accomplished this through the use of multi-level collaborations, science-driven
actions, and by focusing on water protection rather than opposition to industry. Yet even though
civil society’s influence can be linked to the government’s initial decision to first suspend metals
mining permits and then the all industry activities, it was not sufficient on its own to achieve this
goal independently.
As the research questions suggest, the ultimate durability of the de facto moratorium on
mining goes beyond the contributions of civil society itself and extends to the converging
positions of those actors and sectors not typically aligned with a civil society opposition
movement. These additional necessary conditions will be explored in the next three chapters on
the institutional Catholic Church, the Salvadoran private sector, and the Salvadoran government.
Before tackling the roles of the Salvadoran private sector and government, the next chapter is
dedicated to the role of the Catholic Church in El Salvador’s suspension of metals mining. It will
show how beginning in mid-2007, the moral authority that the institutional Catholic Church lent
to the civil society movement would have significant importance, particularly as mining
proponents implemented new tactics that sought to undermine the opposition’s foundational
claims.
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CHAPTER 3
THE CATHOLIC CHURCH WEIGHS IN1
I. Introduction
“I believe that without the Catholic Church having been so strongly against mining the
story would have been different,” declared Alex Segovia, the Technical Secretary and Chief of
Staff to President Mauricio Funes (2009-2014), in our 2014 interview. He explained:
The Catholic Church in the country—it is a challenge to get it involved in any issue. But
when it gets involved, it gets in deep….and the Catholic Church in this country obviously
continues to have strength at the community level, as well as at societal and political
levels. So, this was a decisive factor.2
I heard assessments like Segovia’s about the Catholic Church throughout my interviews
when I would question respondents about what they understood to have influenced El Salvador’s
freeze on the metals mining industry. While the prior chapter traced the important role of civil
society, respondents I interviewed consistently expressed the view that the Catholic Church’s
influence had likewise been decisive. I heard this from across respondents, including from
members of civil society, regardless of stakeholders’ stances on metals mining, their opinions on
the effectiveness of the mobilized civil society opposition, or their personal relationships with the
1
In the early stages of dissertation writing the current author published an independent analysis of the role of the
Catholic Church in El Salvador’s metals mining decisions, focusing on a longer period of time than is the subject of
this dissertation. This work on this publication greatly contributed to the development of this chapter. Please see
Rachel Nadelman, “‘Let Us Care for Everyone’s Home’: The Catholic Church’s Role in Keeping Gold Mining Out
of El Salvador,” CLALS Working Paper Series (Washington, DC: Center for Latin America and Latino Studies,
American University, December 2015).
2
Alex Segovia, Secretaria de la Presidencia (2009-2014), Interview by Author, San Salvador, El Salvador, October
28, 2014.
106
Catholic Church. According to Antonio Baños, director of Caritas-El Salvador,3 the Salvadoran
Catholic Church’s denouncement of metals mining was uniquely persuasive to Salvadorans
because, “it clarified for the population that this wasn’t a political position, it wasn’t a political
issue, but a concern with true human and environmental consequences.”4
Whether appreciative, begrudging, or matter-of-fact, the most common understanding
expressed in my interviews was that the Salvadoran Catholic Church’s firm position against
metals mining was decisive for cementing the anti-mining position taking hold across the
populace and maintaining influence at the policy level. To reiterate my overarching research
question: Why did El Salvador deviate from an economic development paradigm that prioritizes
extraction’s short-term economic gains over the social and environmental costs and choose
instead to disallow industrial metals mining? As laid out for the civil society sectoral analysis, in
this chapter I will utilize process tracing to answer the following three questions as they relate to
the Catholic Church:
• What role did the Salvadoran institutional Catholic Church play in in the country’s choices
and actions on metals mining?
• What were the Catholic Church’s identifiable motivations?
• What were the formative, determinative milestone events and/or actions involving the
Salvadoran Catholic Church that contributed to this outcome?
Recall that Chapter 2’s civil society analysis laid out a framework for my process tracing and
therefore Chapter 3 will not repeat that. As in Chapter 2, the answers to these three questions
3
Caritas is the Catholic Church’s “official international relief, development and social service agency.” Caritas,
"¿Quien Somos?,” Caritas El Salvador, n.d., www.caritas.org.sv.
4
107
provide a second evidentiary building block that will be considered in the conclusion to the
dissertation.
Before answering these questions, it is necessary to first define the meaning of “the
Catholic Church” in this analysis. Scholars have and can analytically categorize the Catholic
Church, as with as other religions, as sub-communities within the larger category of civil society.
For example, in Broad and Cavanagh’s framing of the El Salvador case,5 they include the
Catholic Church within their analysis of the role of civil society. In my current disaggregation of
sectors, and given my expanded research on the role of the Church, I will disaggregate further to
inform the process tracing and analyze the Catholic Church as an institutional entity. This
follows Spalding, who explains that, “the hierarchical structure of the Catholic Church and its
formal lines of authority distinguish this organization from the kinds of networks that normally
populate international social movement and civil society theory.”6
Furthermore, this conceptualization of the Catholic Church is particularly salient in El
Salvador because of its unique legal status as the sole recognized religious institution in the
country.7 In El Salvador, any other religion, including all non-Catholic Christian denominations,
are legally designated as non-governmental organizations. This institutional framing also fits
with how Fray Domingo Solis and Sandra Carolina Ascencio, of the Franciscan order Justice,
Peace and Integrity of Creation (JPIC), described the Catholic Church to me in our interview.
They explained that the Salvadoran public see the Catholic Church as encompassing two
5
6
7
Monseñor Medgardo Gomez, Lutheran Archbishop of El Salvador, Interview by Author, San Salvador, El
Salvador, June 18, 2014; Jonathan Fox, A World Survey of Religion and the State (New York: Cambridge
University Press, 2008), 302.
108
separate discernable entities: “la iglesia jerárquica,” the hierarchical Church with a formal
power structure set up by and accountable to Rome, and “la iglesia del pueblo,” the people’s
Church, made up of parishioners who practice their faith without access to the formal Church
power structure.8
By utilizing Spalding’s conceptualization, and therefore embracing the understanding of
the Church that Domingo Solis and Ascencio described, I can focus my investigation specifically
on the Salvadoran Catholic leadership’s actions on metals mining. In light of my research
findings, I do this differently from Spalding. As discussed in the introduction, Spalding’s work
emphasizes the transnational dimensions of the anti-mining opposition. In this context, she
understands the Salvadoran Catholic Church, given its position in a global network, as further
proving this thesis. In contrast, I continue to focus on the primacy of El Salvador’s domestic
actors, while acknowledging the influences of the global network that comprises the Catholic
Church—particularly the top down decision-making that begins in Rome. I accomplish this by
utilizing process tracing to track the institutional Church’s actions in relation to the Salvadoran
government’s evolving decision-making and policy implementation (or non-implementation)
regarding metals mining.
Different from the civil society process tracing analysis, which I analyzed in three
phases, the Catholic Church’s actions between 2004 and 2008 can be understood as comprising
two phases.
• 2004-2006: Building toward consensus within the institution of the Catholic Church:
from Vatican headquartered Catholic social organizations to individual bishops
8
Fray Domingo Solis Director JPIC and Sandra Carolina Ascencio lay leader JPIC, Interview by Author, San
Salvador, El Salvador, June 12, 2014.
109
• 2007-2008: A united Bishops’ Conference: A unanimous, public stance and directed
action
To answer the three sub-questions presented above, and thereby delineate the role of
the institutional Catholic Church in bringing about the policy outcome, this chapter
examines the Salvadoran Catholic Church’s theological and pragmatic motivations for
unanimously adopting and rallying behind the movement against metals mining. As well, it
describes and analyzes the Catholic Church’s strategic actions to promote its position,
determining which of those can be considered “milestones” in terms of their influence on the
trajectory of government decision-making for the metals mining industry.
Before beginning the process tracing analysis for this sector, the next section provides
background important for understanding the actions taken by the Salvadoran Catholic Church
related to metals mining and their subsequent social and political impacts. Following this
historical foundation, I move into the process tracing analysis, organized by the two relevant
phases, 2004-2006 and 2007-2008.
II. Foundational background: The Salvadoran Catholic Church and evolving perspectives
on social and environmental issues (late 1970s-end 2003)
This brief background narrative, spanning the late 1970s through the end of 2003,
interweaves two separate but interrelated themes. The first relates to the changing Salvadoran
Catholic Church leadership’s engagement in divisive national political and social issues over this
period. The second discusses the emergence of the environment, and particularly water, as a
subject of concern for the Catholic Church globally and nationally as in a country archdiocese
110
like El Salvador’s. Both are pertinent to understanding the actions taken by the Salvadoran
Catholic Church on metals mining.
As referenced in earlier chapters, El Salvador is characterized by deep divisions between
right and left, rich and poor, citizens from the capital and “el territorio” (the rest of the country).
The Salvadoran Catholic Church also exhibits this polarization, having long encompassed
divergent factions within the leadership. This ranges from those that represent conservative or
traditional interpretations of the Catholic faith to those that preach a progressive, pro-poor
understanding influenced by Liberation Theology, with degrees of moderating influences in
between.9 While the Vatican and the Salvadoran Bishops Conference provide overarching
guidance, an individual bishop can act with some independence. In this context, even though the
Archbishop of San Salvador presides over the Bishops’ Conference and sets the ideological tone
of the national Church, there can be significant discord within its highest echelons. Therefore, it
is not uncommon for individual provincial dioceses and their member parishes, to preach
messages distinct from those supported by the national Church and its archbishop leader. This
creates a practical division between those clergy who understand their mission as primarily
spiritual, to be pursued via prayer rather than political intervention, and those who adopt a hands-
on approach that includes efforts to actively apply key Church doctrine and pastoral
interpretation in public policy debates.10
The tenure of El Salvador’s renowned, recently beatified Archbishop of San Salvador, the
assassinated Monsignor Oscar Romero, offers an important example. Romero served as El
9
Steven Dudley, “The El Salvador Gang Truce and the Church: What Was the Role of the Catholic Church Religion
and Violence in Latin America,” CLALS Working Paper Series (Washington, DC: Center for Latin America and
Latino Studies, American University, May 2013), 6.
10
Dudley, 6–7.
111
Salvador’s archbishop from 1977 until his death in 1980, as the country moved toward civil war.
His theological orientation evolved as archbishop to incorporate facets of Liberation Theology.11
He utilized his authority within the Church to preach against what he understood to be the
government’s unjust and oppressive actions against its people—actions he believed to be
inconsistent with Catholic teachings. Yet even with the highest Catholic leader in the country
taking such positions, the majority of the eleven Salvadoran bishops that make up the country’s
Conference of Catholic Bishops (Conferencia Episcopal de El Salvador or CEDES12) did not
embrace or preach his messages. Furthermore, as Romero increased these impassioned pastoral
critiques, particularly when aimed at the ruling elite, a majority of Salvadoran bishops made it
clear that the archbishop did not do so with their agreement.13
While his fight for social justice is globally celebrated, it is less commonly known that
Msgr. Romero also spoke out against humans’ mistreatment of the natural environment, at times
utilizing his pulpit to call attention to El Salvador’s worsening ecological conditions. For
example, he prioritized these issues in a June 3, 1979 homily:
It is shocking to hear that the air is corrupted, that there is no water, that there are regions
in our capital where water flows for barely a few minutes and that sometimes there is
nothing, that the water tables are drying up, that our mountains’ picturesque rivers are
disappearing. Man’s alliance with God is not being fulfilled because man, the Lord of
nature is instead becoming nature’s exploiter.14
This condemnation of nature’s exploitation, a betrayal of humanity’s alliance with God, is
consistent with Romero’s overall pastoral teaching. However, during Romero’s time, the global
11
Emelio Betances, The Catholic Church and Power Politics in Latin America: The Dominican Case in
Comparative Perspective (Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2007), 90, 92.
12
“Iglesia Católica En El Salvador,” Iglesia Católica En El Salvador (blog).
13
Betances, The Catholic Church and Power Politics in Latin America, 92.
14
Alfredo Carías, “Monseñor Romero en vida no hubiera permitido la minería,” ContraPunto, March 28, 2014.
112
Catholic Church was in a nascent phase of what today is recognized as Catholic social
teaching/thought on the environment and environmental theology15 and I did not find
documentation outside of this homily that Romero preached about ecological issues.
Romero’s immediate successor, Msgr. Arturo Rivas y Damas who served as archbishop
from 1983 to 1994, also presided over a Bishops’ Conference that was visibly split between its
traditional and reformist wings, with the traditionally-oriented bishops in the majority. In the
aftermath of Romero’s assassination, and given the deepening civil war, Rivas y Damas was
forced to proceed delicately when addressing social issues that could be considered
controversial. He is credited with continuing Romero’s pastoral denunciation of injustice until he
died in 1994, but as archbishop he acted far more judiciously with his critiques of those in
power. In the context of the political and social crises that dominated both Romero and Rivas y
Damas’s tenures as archbishop, El Salvador’s environmental vulnerability was not prioritized.
This would eventually change under the leadership of Msgr. Fernando Sáenz Lacalle who
ascended to archbishop in 1996.
To understand changes in the Salvadoran Catholic Church’s approach to environmental
issues under Sáenz Lacalle, it is first important to recognize that before Rivas y Damas’s death,
the environment gained new prominence at the highest levels of the global Catholic Church.16
Pope John Paul II, whose papacy spanned Romero, Rivas y Damas, and Sáenz Lacalle’s tenures
as archbishop, is considered pivotal in bringing ecological concerns to the forefront of Catholic
15
John Hart, What Are They Saying About Environmental Theology? (New York: Paulist Press, 2004), 7.
16
Hart, 10–13.
113
social teaching.17 In his highly publicized December 8, 1989 pastoral letter, The Ecological
Crisis: A Common Responsibility he declared:
Faced with the widespread destruction of the environment, people everywhere are
coming to understand that we cannot continue to use the goods of the earth as we have in
the past…[A] New ecological awareness is beginning to emerge…The ecological crisis is
a moral issue.18
With this letter, Pope John Paul II brought a message of conservation to his global audience,
elevating environmental destruction to the status of a moral cause. A year later in 1990, he took
this message further, contributing the first papal document dedicated entirely to ecology with his
World Day of Peace Message, “Peace with God the Creator, Peace with all of Creation.”19 In it
he asserted:
There is a growing awareness that world peace is threatened not only by the arms race,
regional conflict, and injustices among people and nations, but also by a lack of due
respect for nature, by the plundering of natural resources which leads to a progressive
decline in the quality of life.20
The above are just two of the earlier examples of Pope John Paul II’s contribution to
Catholic guidance on ecology that set a new ecologically focused mandate requiring people to
not just revere “God’s Creation,” but instead to actively care for, protect, and nurture the earth
and the natural resources it contains. These papal messages emphasized that God’s gifts of the
earth’s natural resources must be available to all and not a select few. As time passed, he focused
more specifically on protecting the life sustaining resource of water. An oft cited example of this
17
Education for Justice, “Care for God’s Creation” (Cecilia Cornelia Library, nd), 3.
18
Pope John Paul II, “Peace with God the Creator, Peace with All of Creation: For the Celebration of the World Day
of Peace,” No 6, January 1, 1990.
19
Education for Justice, “Care for God’s Creation,” 3.
20
Pope John Paul II, “Peace with God the Creator, Peace with All of Creation: For the Celebration of the World Day
of Peace.”
114
was his “Message to the Bishops of Brazil” in 2004, in which Pope John Paul II wrote simply:
“As a gift from God, water is a vital element essential to survival; thus, everyone has a right to
it.”21 In 2006, Pope Benedict XVI built on the foundation set out by his predecessor, John Paul
II, writing: “Water is much more than just a basic human need. It is an essential, irreplaceable
element to ensuring the continuance of life.”22 Yet neither Pope John Paul II’s nor Pope Benedict
XVI’s messages to followers about protecting water led them to openly condemn the kinds of
industries that contaminate these resources, such as metals mining.
It was the midst of the Catholic Church’s pastoral shift on the environment, spurred on by
Pope John Paul II, that Msgr. Sáenz Lacalle ascended to archbishop, a role he occupied from
1996 until 2009. Sáenz Lacalle had an ideological profile that sharply contrasted with
predecessors Romero and Rivas y Damas. He was openly politically conservative and pro-
investment, and an adherent of the traditionalist Opus Dei Catholic movement.23 In the early
years of his tenure as archbishop, his critics accused him of encouraging practices that went
against “preferential option for the poor” that his prior two predecessors had practiced. These
actions included targeting Church activities and sectors seen as progressive, cutting both
personnel and financing as well as enacting other kinds of measures that hindered their activities.
Sáenz Lacalle’s repeated explanation for these decisions was that it was the Church’s
21
Pope Benedict XVI, “Water, an Essential Element for Life: An Update.” (A Contribution of The Holy See to The
Fourth World Water Forum., Mexico City, Mexico, March 2006).
22
Benedict XVI.
23
Msgr. Gregorio Rosa Chavez, Auxiliary Bishop, President Caritas, Personal Interview, San Salvador, El Salvador,
October 14, 2014; Spalding, Contesting Trade in Central America, 170.
115
responsibility to speak on behalf of the poor and disadvantaged but not appropriate for the
Church to engage in activism or politics on their behalf.24
Yet, any understanding of Sáenz Lacalle’s profile focused solely on his religious
positions would be incomplete. The archbishop was also a scholar and a scientist, having
received a Master of Science in Chemistry in his native Spain before being posted as a bishop in
El Salvador.25 This means that at the same time two consecutive popes were speaking out
globally regarding the sanctity of water and Salvadoran communities were mobilizing to protect
their water sources, the Salvadoran Catholic Church was being led by an apparent traditionalist
who was educated as a scientist. How the archbishop’s identity as a traditionalist and a scientist
shaped the Salvadoran Catholic Church’s actions on the metals mining industry and toward
mobilizing citizen opposition to it, will be an important part of the analysis in the rest of this
chapter.
III. From Catholic social organizations upwards to the Bishops’ Conference: Tracing the
institutional Catholic Church’s involvement in and influence on El Salvador’s metals
mining debates and decisions (2004-2008)
Set on the backdrop laid out above, in the remainder of this chapter I utilize process tracing
to reconstruct the institutional Salvadoran Catholic Church’s actions between 2004 and 2008 on
metals mining in El Salvador. Divided into two phases (2004-06, 2007-08) the subsequent
24
“50 aniversario de la ordenación sacerdotal,” Arzobispado de San Salvador, nd,
http://www.arzobispadosansalvador.org/index.php?myclearcode=&catid=0&id=132.
116
analysis aims to: identify how and why the Salvadoran Catholic Church became involved in
these issues; locate and link the causal mechanisms through which the institutional Church acted
to insert its objectives into the national agenda; and, show where these actions can be traced to
have influenced subsequent government actions and decisions.
A. The formative beginnings of the Salvadoran Catholic Church hierarchy’s involvement in

the movement against metals mining (2004-2006)
The first phase, 2004-06, captures a period in which distinct, not necessarily coordinated,
elements within the institutional Salvadoran Catholic Church individually responded to the
emergence of industrial metals mining in the country. I use the term “elements” to refer to
individual members of the clergy as well as Catholic social organizations. Furthermore, I say
“individually” because in these first three years, although some of the organizations and clergy
worked together, their involvement was not orchestrated or officially sanctioned by the Church
hierarchy’s leadership. Yet in all cases, they acted within their official institutional Catholic
Church capacities. This discussion of 2004-06 therefore identifies the multiple origins of the
Catholic Church’s involvement and traces the distinct paths taken that would lead, in 2007, to a
unanimous Conference of Bishops condemnation of metals mining.
2. Initiation from below, the Catholic social organizations that led El Salvador’s
institutional Catholic Church into the anti-mining/pro-water movement (2004-2005)
The institutional Catholic Church includes more than the Vatican-appointed bishops that
preside at the top of each national hierarchy. It also officially encompasses a range of
organizational entities that are incorporated into the formal lines of Catholic Church authority.26
26
Caritas. ¿Quien Somos?,” Caritas El Salvador, n.d.
117
This nuance is important for this analysis because my research showed that the Salvadoran
Catholic Church’s involvement in anti-mining/pro-water concerns in El Salvador began with
three Catholic social organizations that have a formal membership in the hierarchy. These
organizations include:
• Caritas-El Salvador whose mission is to promote “advocacy on issues such as access to
water, climate change, dam construction, mining, health and prisons in El Salvador,” has
its international headquarters at the Vatican and a Salvadoran bishop serves as its
president.27
• JPIC-El Salvador (Justice, Peace and Integrity of Creation) which represents the
Franciscan branch of Catholicism and also has its international headquarters at the
Vatican.28
• CONFRES (Conference of Religious of El Salvador), an organization primarily made up
of and managed by Catholic nuns that does not uniformly have counterparts in other
countries but in El Salvador has been incorporated into the national archdiocese with a
Salvadoran bishop serving as president.
All three of these organizations were founding members of La Mesa and at first glance,
they would not appear significantly different from their non-faith based civil society organization
(CSO) counterparts. Like other San Salvadoran headquartered founding members of La Mesa,
including UNES and CEICOM, introduced in Chapter 2, Caritas-El Salvador and JPIC were
27
National Caritas organizations are considered autonomous entities directed by their bishops. Yet together they
create the Caritas Internationalis confederation which, per the Caritas Internationalis website, “is a body of the
Universal Church.” Caritas, “Caritas Is Church,” Caritas (blog), accessed October 23, 2017.
28
Justicia, Paz e Integridad de la creación (JPIC), “Quienes Somos,” Oficina de JPIC (blog), accessed October 22,
2017.
118
brought into the network’s first informal gatherings in 2004 by concerned community members
and CSOs.29 Locals from affected areas asked for these Catholic social organizations’ support
because of their long-standing ties to communities and their recognized experience working on
social justice issues. However, like most other early La Mesa members, they had little prior
exposure to metals mining and therefore were learning alongside their constituents.30
CONFRES, on the other hand, was in the position to make a unique contribution to the
network. As explained to me by Pedro Cabezas of International Allies, CONFRES was
“represented by Honduran nuns with experience in the anti-mining resistance back home,” and
brought La Mesa a “regional perspective” and first-hand knowledge of both industry operations
and community mobilization against it.31 Beyond these community-based contributions, all three
Catholic social organizations also provided an asset none of the non-faith-based organizations
could. This asset was, in Cabeza’s words, “direct channels of communication between La Mesa
as a social movement and the bishops.”32 In fact, Luis Gonzalez, UNES’ representative to La
Mesa, told me that he believed it was because of these organizations’ “advocacy and support that
we got the bishops to take the side of the fight against mining.”33
From my research I learned that the Salvadoran Bishops’ Conference support for the pro-
water/anti-mining cause originated with one of these organizations, Caritas-El Salvador, and one
particular bishop, Msgr. Eduardo Alas, Bishop of Chalatenango. As Rodolfo Calles, former
29
Fray Domingo Solis Director JPIC, Interview by Author, San Salvador, El Salvador, June 12, 2014.; Dagoberto
Cabrerra Caritas El Salvador, Interview by Author, San Salvador, El Salvador, July 2, 2014.
30
Cabrerra, Interview by Author.
31
Cabezas, Interview by Author.
32
Cabezas.
33
Gonzalez, Interview by Author.
119
Caritas-El Salvador staff and later coordinator of La Mesa, recounted, “in El Salvador, there
were members of the clergy who were a part of the fight from the beginning who were also in the
hierarchy. Of course, namely, this was Msgr. Alas of Chalatenango.”34 Calles referred to Msgr.
Alas as if his involvement in the opposition to metals mining would have been obvious to me. I
learned that this was because the bishop had multiple personal and professional connections to
the issue. First, as to be expected, it was in Alas’s “capacity as Bishop of Chalatenango, and his
personal relationships with involved priests and affected communities that he developed this
involvement” with the anti-mining cause, Antonio Baños Director of Caritas explained.35
Nonetheless, the personal relationships Baños mentioned began long before Alas’s appointment
as Chalatenango’s bishop because he had been born and raised in the province. As a result,
according to Fray Domingo of JPIC-El Salvador, Alas “felt an innate connection to the land
there.”36 Nevertheless, Msgr. Alas’s links to this issue went beyond his attachment to
Chalatenango. As bishop he also had a second set of responsibilities—the presidency of Caritas.
Caritas’s National Coordinator for Environmental Protection, Dagoberto Cabrera, told
me in our interview that in 2005, about a year into Caritas’s involvement with La Mesa, Bishop
Alas came to him to talk about their work on metals mining. Cabrera recounted that the bishop,
“asked us what we were doing on this issue and we told him about our community
accompaniment. It was at his request that we began to also study the effects of mining.”37
34
35
36
Solis, Interview by Author.
37
120
Caritas-El Salvador director Antonio Baños added that in Alas’s capacity as Caritas president, he
had “all of the information from the work we were doing, from the studies we were conducting.38
However, Bishop Alas’s personal awareness of the risks of metals mining and his
backing of Caritas’s work with La Mesa did not guarantee that support would follow from other
Salvadoran bishops. Without eventual agreement from others in the Salvadoran Bishops’
Conference, Caritas involvement could have been stifled. It was Msgr. Elias Rauda, Bishop of
San Vicente, who first clarified this for me. He explained in our interview that Caritas,
Cannot act differently from what the Church thinks. Being a Catholic institution, it
depends on the Catholic Church. There is Caritas international at the Vatican. And in El
Salvador it is the Bishops' Conference is always responsible for Caritas, and it carries out
this responsibility through its [bishop] president and vice president.39
I learned more about Caritas’s mandate to adhere to the Bishops’ Conference’s final decisions
from Auxiliary Archbishop Gregorio Rosa Chavez,40 who had succeeded Alas as president of
Caritas and held the position at the time of our interview in 2014. He explained, “Caritas is part
of the Church and I am there in name of the Bishops’ Conference. The policies Caritas applies
are those that are decided upon by the Conference.”41 This does not mean that in practice,
Caritas, as well as JPIC and CONFRES are constrained in their actions by top-down instruction.
Instead, it means that for issues that become high profile, these organizations’ involvement
would be required to be consistent with positions taken by the Church leadership. Therefore, it
38
39
Msgr. Elias Rauda, Bishop of San Vicente, El Salvador, Personal Interview, San Salvador, El Salvador,
September 3, 2014.
40
On June 28, 2017 Pope Francis made Msgr. Gregorio Rosa Chavez a Cardinal. As of 2018 Cardinal Rosa Chavez
has continued to serve as El Salvador’s Auxiliary Archbishop. Because my interviews took place in 2014 before his
ascension to Cardinal, the text will refer to him as the Auxiliary Archbishop or Msgr.
41
Msgr. Gregorio Rosa Chavez, Auxiliary Bishop, President Caritas, Personal Interview.
121
was extremely significant that, according to Rodolfo Calles, in late 2005 Bishop Alas “generated
the support to secure us a meeting with the Bishops’ Conference to discuss the issue.”42
However, by the close of 2005, no member of the Catholic Church hierarchy, including
Alas, had taken a public position on metals mining. My research revealed that in 2005, just as
civil society was seeking ways to convince the Catholic leadership to take their side, exploring
mining companies were doing the same. As General Manager Robert Johansing shared in our
interview, during this period he and his company, Au Martinique Silver, were working to
cultivate the Catholic Church’s support.43 He explained that they believed that to procure the
“social license” required to sustain operations, they would need allies among Catholic clergy,
potentially at the highest levels of the Church.44
Johansing provided me with internal company documents from 2005 which included
documentation of Bishop Alas and other lay Caritas staff, like Rodolfo Calles, meeting with Au
Martinique Silver members one-on-one and as part of community contingents.45 Notes following
an October 2005 meeting with the bishop describe him as holding “reasonable positions,”
because he appeared to refrain from picking a side and insisted upon having “all available
information before taking action.”46 These internal company memos convey that through the end
42
43
44
Johansing. Interview
45
Jorge Mario Ríos Muñoz, “Reunión con Monseñor Eduardo Alas, Obispo de Chalatenango,” Internal Memo
(Convento de Chalatenango, Chalatenango, El Salvador: Au Martinique Silver/Intrepid Minerals/Triada, October 11,
2005), Johansing archives, private collection, unpublished; Jorge Mario Ríos Muñoz, “Meeting With Bishop Alas
and Rodolfo Calles,” Internal Memo (Chalatenango, El Salvador: Au Martinique Silver/Intrepid Minerals/Triada,
March 5, 2006), Johansing archives, private collection, unpublished.
46
Jorge Mario Ríos Muñoz, “Visita a Monseñor Eduardo Alas, viernes de octubre 2005,” Internal Memo (Oficina de
Diocesis de Chalatenango, Chalatenango, El Salvador: Au Martinique Silver/Intrepid Minerals/Triada, October 21,
2005), Johansing archives, private collection, unpublished.
122
of 2005, Au Martinique Silver leadership believed they still had a chance to recruit Bishop Alas,
Caritas personnel, and, in turn, the greater Catholic Church power structure to their side.
B. The Salvadoran Catholic Church leadership takes a unified stand, motivated by faith and
science (2007-2008)
May 6, 2007 began a new phase in El Salvador’s institutional Catholic Church’s
involvement in the anti-mining/pro-water movement. Until that date in May 2007, different
actors from the institutional Catholic Church had notable presences in El Salvador’s mobilization
in support of water/against metals mining. Yet, while important to the growth of the movement,
these actors—be they individual clergy or Catholic social organizations—did so in their own
official capacities. Therefore, while participating as part of the Catholic Church, they could not
claim to have been acting formally on behalf of the institutional leadership of the Salvadoran
Catholic Church.
At first glance, Archbishop Sáenz Lacalle’s July 2006 warning statement on metals
mining, presented as representing all Salvadoran bishops, could be viewed as the start of the new
phase. Yet my research revealed that, as one of many remarks in an issue-filled press conference,
few press outlets actually covered the archbishop’s metals mining and water warnings in their
reporting. As a result, very little of the public appeared to be aware of it and it did not change the
dynamics of the national debate. The discussion below will show how and why this changed on
May 6, 2007, drastically shifting the institutional Church’s involvement to a new direction.
1. The Salvadoran Bishops’ Conference and its “pastoral vision” condemning metals
mining (2007)
On May 6, 2007, at his post-Sunday mass press conference, Archbishop Sáenz Lacalle
publicly took the Bishops’ Conference’s position on metals mining a step farther than he had
123
done in July 2006. This time, the Bishops’ Conference would not only advise against pursuing
metals mining, but also call on the government to prohibit it. The open letter, Cuidemos la casa
de todos (Let us care for everyone’s home) laid out a “pastoral vision” for why metals mining
should be forbidden in El Salvador.47 The bishops’ arguments were general, for example when
they asserted, “this type of exploitation is shown to cause irreversible damage to the environment
and surrounding communities,” as well as specific, “people suffer serious health problems
mainly due to the use of cyanide in large quantities.” The conclusion was straight-forward:
metals mining’s risk of contamination and harm to “everyone’s home” outweighed any potential
economic benefits. Thus, “no material advantage can compare with the value of human life.”48
With the use of “la Casa” the Bishops’ Conference was specifically referencing the
territory contained within its home country of El Salvador, explaining, “our small country is the
space our God Creator has given us life. It is the portion of the world that He has entrusted to us
so that we care for and use it according to his will,” which they explain, quoting Genesis, as
being to “fill the earth and subdue it (Gen. 1. 28).”49 The letter continues:
But this blessed land that we love dearly, has suffered a growing and merciless
deterioration. We are all responsible for conserving and defending the environment
because it is "the home for us all," for us now and for future generations. From this
perspective of faith, we want to share with you our pastoral vision of a problem that
concerns us deeply: the possibility that metals mining will be authorized, both open pit
and subterranean, above all in the north of our country. The lived experience of our
neighboring, sister countries, which have allowed mining of gold and silver, is truly sad
and unfortunate. The Bishops of those nations have raised their voices. We also want to
speak out, before it is too late.50
47
Conferencia Episcopal de El Salvador, “Cuidemos la casa de todos: pronunciamiento de la Conferencia Episcopal
de El Salvador sobre la explotación de minas de oro y plata,” May 12, 2007.
48
Conferencia Episcopal de El Salvador.
49
50
124
Like the papal messages cited in the background section, the bishops’ comunicado builds from
biblical verse to serve as the crux of the argument. Yet from this theological reference, the
bishops move swiftly to the practical basis for their “pastoral vision,” the negative “lived
experiences” of “neighboring, sister countries,” which had already ignited reactions from those
countries’ bishops. The letter does not explicitly name the referenced neighboring countries or
the bishops who “raised their voices” because the bishops likely expected their audience to
understand the reference. For reasons referenced in Chapter 2, El Salvador has a long and
entwined history with its adjacent neighbors Guatemala and Honduras. The bishops referenced
these countries’ newly developed metals mining industries as well as individual Catholic bishops
from each country who, at great risk to themselves, had spoken out against mining and its
deleterious impacts. Thus, the letter acknowledges that by taking an anti-mining position the
bishops did not stake out new or unfamiliar ground. Instead, they joined other leaders at the
highest levels of their national Catholic Churches who had also taken a stand.51
Similar to the structure of the archbishop’s remarks on metals mining the previous July,
the bishop’s comunicado also closed the statement by complimenting the government for the
actions it pledged to take. Sáenz Lacalle read, “we know that the government has publicly stated
its decision not to authorize this kind of exploitation. As pastors at the service of the Salvadoran
people we support that position.”52 Framing their stance as having matched commitments the
government had already made can be understood as both praise for the government’s early
actions on the issue as well as a warning that the Church planned to hold the government to
51
Conferencia Episcopal de Guatemala (2005), “Comunicado de los obispos de Guatemala sobre la minería a cielo
abierto,” February 2, 2005.
52
de El Salvador sobre la explotación de minas de oro y plata,” 2.
125
account. With “Cuidemos la casa de todos,” Sáenz Lacalle threw the weight of the country’s
institutional Catholic leadership onto the anti-mining side of country’s metals mining debate.
According to Cabañas community leader and La Mesa member Héctor Berrios, “for us it
was a gift from God when [Archbishop] Sáenz Lacalle announced that mining would
contaminate our land and water. Our communities are very Christian. So, even if you wouldn’t
listen to your mother, this man of God? You would listen to him.”53 Caritas director Antonio
Baños shared a more pragmatic view of the 2007 pronouncement. He called the timing “quite
opportune,” explaining that by publishing and broadcasting the pronouncement, the Church
hierarchy gave Salvadoran anti-mining/pro-water activists “a tool” that they eagerly used to
bolster their effort, “whether they believed in the work of the Catholic Church or not.”54
However, the apparent alignment between the Bishops’ Conference message and that of
the civil society opposition did not translate into coordination or public partnership between
them even as they acted on their mutual objections to the mining industry. In my 2013 interview
with Sandra Carolina Ascencio, JPIC’s representative to La Mesa, she said,
The work of the Church and La Mesa happens in parallel. [The Church] supports the
work of La Mesa, but there isn’t an open alliance.55
Even without an overt public alliance or immediate coordination, the fact that the institutional
Church’s public statements about metals mining reflected the civil society opposition’s messages
made the argument palatable to a wide constituency. Repeating the Baños’ quote I cited in the
introduction to this chapter, in Baños’ view, the Church’s stance “clarified for the population that
53
54
55
Sandra Carolina Ascencio JPIC representative to La Mesa, Interview by Author, May 20, 2013.
126
this wasn’t a political position, it wasn’t a political issue, but a concern with true human and
environmental consequences.”56 As a result, according to former Technical Secretary to
President Funes Alex Segovia, the Church “became a pebble in the shoe” of those seeking to
promote mining.57 Soon after the release of Cuidemos la casa de todos, pro-mining forces sought
to shake out the pebble.
During the summer of 2007, busloads of Salvadorans who said they were from Gold Belt
areas began holding weekly Sunday protests in front of the Salvadoran Cathedral. Pacific Rim
did not publicly admit responsibility, but anti-mining leaders believe Pacific Rim, and potentially
other mining firms, recruited and paid protesters to directly target the Church. According to
Msgr. Rosa Chavez, the bishops also came to believe the company was behind this.58 The
apparent company support for the protests, to quote Héctor Berrios, turned out to be a “major
tactical mistake” for mining proponents.59 The protests gave La Mesa and its allies, who until
then had operated at a distance from the Church leadership, the opportunity to publicly defend
the Church. David Pereira, CEICOM’s representative to La Mesa, recounted that after several
weeks of these protests:
In a CEICOM meeting we argued that we were neglecting Msgr. Sáenz and so we said
that we would also go and hold a counter protest. We went on our own and made a ruckus
several meters away from the protests. We were worried that since there was a mass
going on, the Bishops could end up angry with us. But when the mass had ended [a
Church representative] thanked us.
One time [after mass] this man admitted to us that he was indignant because he believed
the company was manipulating these people, that “they” had given $25 to those people to
come. So, we were happy knowing we were doing the right thing. So, the next Sunday we
56
57
Alex Segovia, Secretaria de la Presidencia (2009-2014), Interview by Author.
58
Rosa Chavez, Interview by Author, October 14, 2014.
59
127
invited people from Cabañas. They rented a bus, Vidalina [from ADES] and other people
from there. We felt stronger than Pacific Rim. The people coming to support mining said
they were from Cabañas, but the people who came for the counter protest said they had
never seen these people before. When he heard that, the archbishop was furious with
Pacific Rim because of this. [Among ourselves] we thanked Pacific Rim!60
In addition to these staged protests, mining proponents in El Salvador shifted strategies to
undertake new lobbying efforts. During the second half of 2007, this included finding new ways
to engage the institutional Catholic Church and reach the wider Salvadoran populace. As
introduced in Chapter 2 and to be explored further in the next chapter, one strategy was
sponsoring a media blitz to advertise “minería verde”—green mining. The media campaign
sought to utilize the Catholic Church’s credibility, even if not through the official channels, by
buying airtime on the radio station run by the University of Central America, El Salvador’s
Catholic University.
One new lobbying tactic Pacific Rim adopted in 2007 was hiring Ex-Minister and ex-
Senator Manuel Enrique Hinds as a consultant. His work was not targeted to the Catholic Church
per se, but as he shared in our 2014 interview, he met in person with the archbishop to advocate
that he and the Bishops’ Conference adopt the industry position. Hinds recounted:
We had one or two meetings with the former Archbishop Sáenz. He was a chemist. We
went to him and we explained to him that actually, the chemical parts, which was one of
the things they were opposing, were not a problem. We said, really, you could manage
these things with modern mining exploitation. He said, “you know, really, I am a
chemist, but I have forgotten a lot of these things, but I can tell you, it’s because we have
this opposition in Caritas.” I said, “this is a surprise, because the church in Chile is very
much in favor of mining.” He said, “Maybe they are not dependent on Caritas as we are.
We think that their challenge is a serious one, because of these chemical problems.” He
was not more explicit than that. This was the reason, he said. “Caritas is against it.”61
60
Pereira, Interview by Author, July 1, 2014.
61
Manuel Enrique Hinds Consultant to Pacific Rim (2007), Former Minister of the Treasury (1994-95), Interview
by Author, San Salvador, El Salvador, November 6, 2014.
128
Hinds’ characterization of the archbishop’s command of science, his reactions to companies’
efforts to educate him on metals mining, and the power of Caritas vis-à-vis the Bishop’s
Conference, is at odds with what members of the Church and civil society recounted. However,
in analyzing the contradictions, I recognize that both accounts could be accurate. For example, in
his meetings with Pacific Rim the archbishop could have minimized his scientific understanding
and strategically utilized Caritas as a scapegoat for the Church’s evolving position against
mining. Conversely, in settings with other leaders in the Catholic Church he may have
emphasized his knowledge. Regardless of the different perceptions, the reality was that in 2007
the Bishop’s Conference unanimously came out in opposition to the industrial metals mining for
El Salvador.
On September 23, 2007, four months after the May release of “Cuidemos la casa de
todos,” Sáenz Lacalle again utilized his press conference pulpit to speak out against mining,
making it clear that he did so on behalf of all the Salvadoran bishops.62 As reported in Diario Co
Latino, the archbishop greeted the assembled press by saying, “the Catholic Church is proud to
say a few words about the issue of mining in this country.”63 He structured his remarks around
four points. First, he clarified that the Church was taking up the issue again because parishioners
had asked, repeatedly, to hear the Church speak out on the issue. As a result, the full Bishops’
Conference had come to together to discuss it. Second, he reminded his audience of the
Conference’s May 2007 comunicado with its call to prohibit all forms of metals mining because
of the risks to health and the environment. Third, he explained that even though the bishops
62
Iván Escobar, “Iglesia Católica Retoma Discusión de Explotación Minera En El País,” Diario Co Latino,
September 24.
63
Escobar.
129
believed they had already made their position clear, they saw current events—like the pro-
mining media campaign—as evidence that the bishops needed to speak out publicly again.
Finally, he mocked the pro-mining media campaign, commenting that “even though the so-called
green mining ‘intends’ to reforest areas [in El Salvador], one needs to always keep in mind that
98% of [the profits] earned from the gold they would extract would be taken away” from El
Salvador.64 Overall, the archbishop’s remarks show that the passing of several months had not
lessened the institutional Catholic Church’s stance against metals mining for El Salvador.
When Msgr. Alas of Chalatenango retired at the end of 200765 he had been successful in
achieving the “the coup de grace,” as Antonio Baños called it, by passing on his position to
Archbishop Sáenz.”66 The anti-mining/pro-water stance that Alas publicly embraced for the first
time in January 2006 had become firmly entrenched among all in the Conference. As Sáenz
Lacalle made clear in his repeated comments to the press, Msgr. Alas’ anti-mining stance was
now being loudly proclaimed as the official position of all Salvadoran Bishops. Thus, just as
2006 was the watershed year for the civil society movement, 2007 played that role for the
institutional Salvadoran Catholic Church.
2. The archbishop and the cyanide argument (2008)
From the beginning of 2008, Archbishop Sáenz Lacalle spoke out about metals mining
more frequently. It was not only that he spoke more often on the subject, but the content of his
remarks also shifted. He began to narrow his arguments so that he focused primarily on one
64
Escobar.
65
66
130
issue—the threats posed by the use of cyanide in mineral extraction. For example, as reported in
Co Latino, when Sáenz Lacalle met with members of the National Assembly’s Environmental
Commission in mid-February 2008 he argued that, “we cannot be okay with something that
utilizes cyanide” because it is “tremendously poisonous.”67 He explained further to the
legislatures that, "cyanide comes in, but cyanide does not go out, [and therefore] cyanide remains
and cyanide pollutes.”68 With this February meeting, the archbishop took his arguments directly
to Salvadoran lawmakers. In my interviews with Msgrs. Rauda and Rosa Chavez, as well as
Caritas director Antonio Baños, all three emphasized that cyanide was the aspect that caught the
archbishop’s attention because of what he had learned as a chemist. Baños recounted to me that
when company representatives came to the Bishops’ Conference to promote so-called modern
mining techniques through which they claimed cyanide would no longer be harmful, Sáenz
Lacalle “realized immediately, given his background as a chemist, that they were lying.” 69
I discussed Sáenz Lacalle’s preoccupation with cyanide with Andres McKinley, who (as
discussed in depth in Chapter 2) was Oxfam America’s point person on extractives in Central
America during the period of study (2004-08). He recounted that, “when I was with Oxfam, we
were very focused on educating the Church. I gave talks on mining to priests and nuns. I gave
talks to the Conferencia Episcopal [Bishops’ Conference].”70 Based on his discussions with the
Bishops’ Conference, McKinley believed he gained insight into the archbishop’s thinking on the
issue. He explained:
67
Hato Pintado, “Arzobispo a favor de la minería de El Salvador,” La Prensa, February 18, 2008.
68
Norberto Costa, “La iglesia contra el cianuro en minería,” El Salvador Contaminada (blog), February 25, 2008.
69
70
McKinley, Interview by Author.
131
One thing that I saw very quickly, Sáenz, politically speaking he is very conservative. But
he understood the threat of mining, especially in terms of the use of cyanide. When we
began to talk to him about the impacts of cyanide—I mean he knows, he is a chemist. We
didn’t know this when we started talking to him. But he picked up on cyanide right away,
and that was the issue for him. Those of us who have been working on this issue for
years and years understand a little bit better some of the other elements, components or
threats around mining. What he understood was cyanide.”71
However, Sáenz Lacalle’s understanding of cyanide also left McKinley with concerns.
During our interview he added:
I remember one day at a meeting with Sáenz [Lacalle] he said, “Andres what would you
think if we allowed mining, but we took the ore out into the ocean for the process of
lixiviation, meaning we’d bathe it in cyanide but we’d do it out in the ocean.” The minute
he said that to me, this chill came over me. I thought to myself, oh wow, this is a rather
vulnerable ally we have here. If the mining company could resolve in his mind the issue
of cyanide, he would be supportive of mining.
Impressions like McKinley’s were not just based on closed door conversations like the one he
describes. Additional press reporting on Sáenz Lacalle’s February meeting with legislators
matched McKinley’s recounting of the archbishop’s cyanide-focused objections to metals
mining. The Co Latino article on the archbishop’s meeting with the Legislative Assembly’s
Environment Committee mentioned above did not report on all of the archbishop’s remarks at
the meeting. The weekly Salvadoran paper La Prensa also reported on the meeting, but from a
drastically different angle. Broadcasting the headline, The Archbishop supports mining, the
article quoted the archbishop as telling the committee members, “there is no reason to be against
mining in this country, we are not against mining, nor concretely against gold mining…rather it
is the contamination of cyanide that is used in the metals extraction process.”72 Statements like
these were what worried the anti-mining/pro-water movement, as McKinley says in the quote
71
McKinley.
72
Pintado, “Arzobispo a favor de la minería de El Salvador.”
132
above, that an industry proposed “solution” to cyanide could persuade the institutional Catholic
Church the abandon its opposition stance.
Pacific Rim management also noted the archbishop’s narrow cyanide focus and saw it as
an opportunity. An April 28, 2008 e-mail written by CEO Thomas Shrake that was submitted as
part of El Salvador’s counter-memorial for the country’s defense against Pacific Rim at ICSID,
stated:
The Catholic Church has softened their stance in a statement made this week. The
archbishop stated that he was not [o]pposed to mining, he just wants to be sure of
environmental protection. This is the result of our demonstrations at mass the past seven
weeks. . . The archbishop is in his final year before mandatory retirement and wants his
final year to be special-without people protesting his mass. We will maintain these
weekly protests, find an opportunity to surprise him in some other forum and increase the
numbers. 73
In the e-mail, Shrake credits the weekly protests, for which the company had publicly denied
involvement, as responsible for shifting what he perceived to be the archbishop’s stance. The e-
mail conveys Shrake’s optimism that Pacific Rim could influence the archbishop in the
company’s favor, given that, as he says, the archbishop wanted to avoid controversy in his final
year. However, the e-mail continues:
While in Washington I met with the former US Ambassador to the Vatican. We discussed
the possibility of getting to the Pope with our issue. The Pope is anti-liberation theology
and the statements by the ES archbishop contradict the statements of the Pope made in
January. We are identifying for the right person in the Vatican for help. 74
73
Robin Broad, “Summary of El Salvador’s Rejoinder on the Merits (11 July 2014) in Pac Rim Cayman LLC v The
Republic of El Salvador,” The Blue Planet Project (blog), September 4, 2014, 1; “Pac Rim Cayman LLC v.
Republic of El Salvador, ICSID Case No. ARB/09/12: The Republic of El Salvador’s Rejoinder on the Merits”
(International Court for the Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID), July 11, 2014), 35.
74
Pac Rim Cayman LLC v. Republic of El Salvador, ICSID Case No. ARB/09/12: The Republic of El Salvador’s
Rejoiner on the Merits, 35.; Broad, “Summary of El Salvador’s Rejoinder on the Merits (11 July 2014) in Pac Rim
Cayman LLC v The Republic of El Salvador,” 1.
133
Shrake’s acknowledgement in this e-mail that he and colleagues sought methods for reaching the
pope, shows the degree of influence opponents and proponents understood the Church to have.
The fact that Pacific Rim was motivated to bypass the Salvadoran Church to find allies in the
Vatican belies the e-mail’s confident tone. It reveals that despite the expressed optimism, the
company sought powerful reinforcements from the Vatican to persuade the Salvadoran Catholic
Church in case the company could not.
In terms of the Vatican commentary, Shrake was accurate when he identified Pope
Benedict XVI as an opponent of liberation theology. Yet he neglects to mention that Sáenz
Lacalle, as discussed in the background, was also recognized as anti-liberation theology but
opposed metals mining. As the background narrative showed, the Catholic Church’s evolving
theology on the environment was not limited to either a progressive or conservative
interpretation. The evidence submitted to ICSID does not show whether Shrake knew that Pope
Benedict himself had already spoken publicly about the sacred duty to protect water sources, as
captured in his earlier cited 2006 quote.75 Therefore Shrake’s assumptions expressed in this e-
mail demonstrate why the global Catholic Church’s pastoral teachings on the environment are
relevant for understanding the institutional Salvadoran Church’s actions on mining.
Like Shrake and Pacific Rim, La Mesa and its allies did not assume that the institutional
Salvadoran Catholic Church’s opposition to metals mining was immutable. Therefore, La Mesa
engaged in efforts designed to keep the Catholic Church hierarchy as a metals mining opponent
and to utilize the Church’s previous anti-mining stance to maintain and expand Salvadoran
opposition to mining. One example includes La Mesa’s May 2008 op-ed in Diario Co Latino
commemorating the one-year anniversary of the Bishops’ Conference’s open letter against
75
Pope Benedict XVI, “Water, an Essential Element for Life: An Update.”
134
mining. The op-ed was written for a diverse audience, but appeared to be reminding readers,
which could have included members of the Church leadership, of the Bishops’ Conference’s
commitments. This resembles the strategy the Bishops’ Conference used in Cuidemos la casa de
todos when highlighting commitments the government made, suggesting the Church would be
holding the government accountable.
For example, in the op-ed La Mesa called the Church’s stance “irreversible,” and praised
the Bishops’ Conference for its “courageous stance…and maintaining its firm opposition to
metals mining in spite of fierce pressure from Pacific Rim.”76 The op-ed also dedicated praise to
the archbishop, quoting some of his prior statements including one in which he said that because
El Salvador’s minerals resided in the same territory as the country’s water sources, metals
mining would lead to contamination that “would not only affect the population of the north, but
the whole country.”77 The op-ed mentioned the range of forums where the archbishop had
spoken about metals mining, including before the Legislative Assembly’s Environmental
Commission, as well as his condemnation of the green mining media campaign. Finally, the
piece strategically closed with a quote from Sáenz Lacalle that echoed La Mesa’s main campaign
message: “a moratorium on metal exploitation permits must be established, while deeper studies
can guarantee that there will be no environmental damage."78
On June 15, 2008, five weeks after La Mesa’s anniversary op-ed in Co Latino,” El
Salvador’s conservative daily El Diario de Hoy featured an interview with Archbishop Sáenz
Lacalle. This interview was part of a special edition dedicated exclusively to the issue of mining
Equipo de comunicaciones de la Mesa Nacional frente la Minería Metálica, “La postura de CEDES contra la
76
minería es irreversible,” Diario Co Latino (blog), May 5, 2008, https://www.ocmal.org/4244/.
77
Equipo de comunicaciones de la Mesa Nacional frente la Minería Metálica.
78
Equipo de comunicaciones de la Mesa Nacional frente la Minería Metálica.
135
in El Salvador. Although the overall special edition presented arguments against mining with
open skepticism, the interview with the archbishop was published largely without additional
commentary. When questioned about “responsible mining” techniques touted by the green
mining media campaign, which promised to transform cyanide into cyanate, a substance that
would not be harmful to the environment, the archbishop countered:
That's a legend, it has no substance…It has no objectivity. It is even dangerous to have a

barrel full of water with cyanide. What if a rain comes and it tips over? So, that's an
excuse. Also, what is worse, is that these mines would be in the northern part [of the
country]. All of El Salvador's water flows from north to south. Even if the mines are in
the north, the aquifer is downstream in the rest of the country.79
The archbishop clarified with this statement that, based on science, that he did not believe it
would be possible to mitigate the harm from cyanide (or from “cadmium and iron and lead,”
which he added to the list of toxins later in the interview).80 It also illustrates that his concerns
about metals mining were not limited to cyanide. In these statements, Sáenz Lacalle was not
explicitly accusing the companies of “lying,” as Baños, quoted above, recounted the archbishop
had done in private. However, he did insinuate that there had been falsehoods in their claims by
calling the claims “legend.”
With the Church hierarchy publicly involved, primarily through the archbishop as the
face of the Church, less public attention was given to Caritas-El Salvador, JPIC, and CONFRES’
continued advocacy against metals mining. Yet coverage notwithstanding, throughout the final
part of the period of study (2007-08) these three Catholic social organizations remained active in
the anti-mining movement. In so doing, they not only represented the overall stance of the
79
“En contra del cianuro,” El Diario de Hoy, June 15, 2008, El dilema de la minería: las ventajas y desventajas para
El Salvador Edición Especial edition.
80
“En contra del cianuro.”
136
Church leadership, but also differentiated themselves from the Catholic hierarchy. The three
organizations continued their participation within the civil society opposition and targeted their
condemnation of the industry far beyond the issue of cyanide alone. Members of the civil society
opposition with whom I spoke, acknowledged that the Bishops’ Conference’s pronouncement
had made the opposition’s message more accessible to many Salvadorans, but lamented that the
Church leadership had not extended itself beyond pulpits or microphones. For example, Rodolfo
Calles who worked with Caritas in Chalatenango during the period of study and who would later
become coordinator of La Mesa, shared, “the Church’s position on mining has had value, but it is
not that they have also done the work of building awareness on the issues in communities.”81
An example of Caritas-El Salvador’s continued leadership opposing industrial metals
mining during this period can be found in the organization’s July 2008 letter to the Legislative
Assembly.82 This letter demonstrates how the Catholic Church’s theology of the environment,
particularly as it pertains to water, also anchored opposition arguments made by the Catholic
social organizational members of the institutional Church. In the letter, Caritas expressed its
concerns about both the green mining media campaign and a draft bill that had been submitted to
the Legislative Assembly (introduced in Chapter 2) by the small right-wing party PCN that they
feared would weaken the current regulations on metals mining. The letter was signed by the
Caritas leadership (which included Bishop Bolaños who had replaced Bishop Alas as president
in 2007) and the religious leadership of all the provincial country offices. Emphasizing the
industry’s threat to the country’s vulnerable water sources, the letter states:
81
82
Caritas, “CEDES letter to Legislative Assembly,” July 24, 2008.
137
As the pastoral social arm of the Catholic Church we are profoundly worried by the
media campaign and the strong pressure by mining companies to approve a mining law
that threatens the environment and particularly our water resources.83
To bolster the water protection arguments, Caritas’ letter referenced Catholic pastoral teaching
produced by both the Salvadoran Church and the Vatican. Beyond reminding the Legislative
Assembly of the Salvadoran Church’s 2007 comunicado, the letter presented papal statements on
the sanctity of water. The letter’s papal quotes included: Pope Benedict XVI’s oft repeated (and
quoted in this chapter) statement that “Water is an inalienable right” and an “essential and
indispensable good that God has given man to maintain and develop life.”84 It also cites Pope
John Paul II, warning that considering the environment as a “commodity” puts at risk the
environment serving as “home.”85
In December 2008, Msgr. Sáenz Lacalle retired from his leadership of the Salvadoran
Catholic Church. Until then, he continued to utilize his pulpit and press conferences to reiterate
that the Church believed that the dangers of metals mining outweighed any potential economic
benefit.86 His words were explicit and biting—echoing statements he had made before. He
declared that El Salvador could not justly risk the health of its people and the natural
environment when the mining companies would take 97% of the profits from El Salvador but
leave behind 100% of the cyanide residue.87 With these final statements as archbishop, in which
he also reaffirmed support for the government’s ongoing mining permit suspension, he again
83
Caritas.
84
Caritas.
85
Caritas, “Quien somos?”; Caritas, “CEDES letter to Legislative Assembly.”
86
87
Valencia.
138
reminded his audience of the Church’s anti-mining stance and the 2007 comunicado. By doing
so, he gave the Salvadoran government and the Bishops’ Conference his blessing to continue to
defend themselves against foreign pressure to mine.
For this study, the years (2007-2008) represent the first time that the Salvadoran Catholic
Church leadership came to the forefront of the country’s anti-mining/pro-water movement. Yet,
the 11 members of El Salvador’s Catholic Bishop’s Conference did so by adopting, but not
explicitly endorsing, the call of the civil society movement. With this approach the Catholic
Church carved a prominent place for itself within El Salvador’s opposition to metals to mining
while still maintaining its identity as a sector distinct from the others involved.
IV. Wrap up
To conclude this chapter’s process tracing analysis of the Salvadoran institutional
Catholic Church over the period of 2004 through 2008, I reconsider the overarching research
question and the three supporting questions that guided the discussion. As laid out in the
introduction, the principal research question is: Why did El Salvador deviate from an economic
development paradigm that prioritized the short-term economic gains from extraction over the
social and environmental costs and choose instead to disallow industrial metals mining? The
supporting research questions that apply are:
1. What role did the Salvadoran Catholic Church hierarchy play in the country’s metals
mining decisions?
2. What were the Catholic Church’s identifiable motivations?
3. What were the traceable milestone events/decision points that contributed to the
outcome?
139
The analysis of the Salvadoran private sector’s actions in relation to metals mining from 2004
through 2008 leads to the following takeaways:
The Salvadoran Catholic Church’s role:
By the time of the Salvadoran Bishops’ Conference’s May 2007 pronouncement against
metals mining, civil society had been actively opposing metals mining for more than three years
and the government’s freeze on environmental permit had been taking place for almost a year.
This means that the Salvadoran Catholic Church’s “gift from God,” to repeat civil society
activist Héctor Berrios quoted above, joined in with, rather than precipitated, the Salvadoran
opposition to metals mining. Yet this does not diminish the Church’s significance. The
Salvadoran Bishops’ Conference unanimous support enabled the anti-mining/pro-water
arguments to transcend partisan political ideologies. The Church hierarchy emphasized that it
was the duty of whatever individuals and/or parties elected to govern to oppose the industry for
El Salvador. This invited political leaders of all persuasions to follow the Church’s guidance.
Despite company efforts to politicize this issue, such a strategy appeared more objective and,
therefore, more palatable across sectors of the highly divided and politically partisan society.
Salvadoran Catholic Church motivations:
The analysis shows that the Salvadoran Church leadership was motivated to oppose
metals mining for both theological and scientific reasons. Relying on biblical narrative and
Catholic social teaching, the Salvadoran Church provided a religious foundation for why
protecting the environment is a responsibility one has to God. Scientific evidence also was a key
motivator. The unusual circumstances of Archbishop Sáenz Lacalle’s background as a chemist
helped to raise the profile of scientific fact as the church formulated its position. This allowed the
Bishops’ Conference to then integrate scientific data into its theological arguments, showing how
140
metals mining, if introduced into El Salvador’s existing ecological vulnerabilities, would
threaten the country’s ability to live out its divine responsibilities. These two motivations were
not conflicting. The scientific evidence served to further support principles of faith, including the
sanctity of God’s creation, which for Salvadorans means their territory and water resources. This
is essential to recognize, because in other public debates on contentious social and political
issues, such as women’s reproductive rights or sexuality, science and religion are perceived by
some to clash. Nevertheless, in this instance in El Salvador, Catholicism and environmentalism
have been mutually reinforcing, which served to strengthen the Church’s anti-mining position
overall.
Salvadoran Catholic Church milestones events/actions:
The analyses for this chapter have lead me to identify four milestone events or decision
points.
The first milestone for the Church sector is the same as discussed for civil society. This is
when, in 2004, the organizations that would come to be known as La Mesa in 2005 began to
meet and form a network to confront concerns about metals mining exploration in El Salvador.
In the civil society chapter, I claimed that La Mesa’s coming together and sustained steady
collaboration gave the civil society opposition a strong foundation from which it could build.
The fact that La Mesa at its origin encompassed Caritas-El Salvador, CONFRAS, and JPIC,
three Catholic social organizations that are part of the institutional Church, meant that La Mesa
had direct ties to the Salvaodran bishops from its earliest days.
The second and third milestones are discrete events. On January 13, 2006, Msgr. Eduardo
Alas, Bishop of Chalatenago and President of Caritas became the highest-ranking member of the
Catholic Church to come out publicly against mining when he laid out a theological opposition
141
to industry during a formal religious ceremony. Before this, Bishop Alas had lent his support to
the civil society effort—demonstrated, for example, by allowing Caritas’ involvement as a leader
in La Mesa. However, this speech marked the first time Alas would introduce himself, as bishop,
directly and publicly into the debate and providing doctrinal justifications for an opposition
stance.
Then, on July 23, 2006, Archbishop Sáenz Lacalle added his voice on behalf of the
Salvadoran Bishops’ Conference to the opposition, marking the third milestone. Although the
archbishop spoke to the press weekly after presiding over mass, he had never before included
commentary on the issue of metals mining. In his remarks, Sáenz Lacalle acknowledged to the
Salvadoran public that, “‘the Bishops from all dioceses have been reflecting on this issue and, as
the Bishops’ Conference, we have resolved that metals mining is not advisable for this
country.’”88 By utilizing his post-mass platform to speak on this issue, the archbishop let the
country know that the full Catholic leadership was expressing opposition to the development of a
metals mining industry in El Salvador.
The fourth milestone is both a single event and a decision point with impacts that
continued for years afterwards. On May 6, 2007, Archbishop Sáenz Lacalle once again utilized
his post-Sunday mass press conference to speak against mining, but this occasion would be far
more monumental than his statements in the summer of 2006. The archbishop dedicated the
press conference to only this issue, reading aloud Cuidemos la Casa de Todos (Let us care for
everyone’s home) a pronouncement prepared by all 11 members of the Salvador Bishops’
Conference. With this “pastoral vision” for why metals mining should be forbidden in El
88
Herrera, “Conferencia Episcopal en contra de minería metálica.”
142
Salvador,89 the Catholic hierarchy introduced a concrete religious and moral opposition
argument. This published and widely disseminated document would become an invaluable
reference across the other sectors of society. It would also be the touchstone on this issue for the
Salvadoran Catholic Church from that point forward, providing Church leaders from the
Bishops’ Conference and down through the hierarchy a simple and indisputable reference for
theological and scientific positions in opposition to metals mining.
As demonstrated throughout this analysis, the institutional Catholic Church’s stature in
Salvadoran society, even among non-Catholics, helps explain why the Church’s anti-mining
position proved so influential. Furthermore, once the hierarchy unanimously embraced many of
the same objections to metals mining as the community-based opposition, the cause gained a
new level of credibility for the public at large and decision-makers in the government. Yet, the
Catholic Church’s steadfast commitment end industrial mining El Salvador is just one of the
factors that led to the government’s suspension of the industry and decision to favor protection of
the country’s natural resources over possible short-term economic gain. The subsequent two
sectoral analyses focus on the roles played by the Salvadoran private sector and the government.
In the final chapter of this work, I will look at all process tracing findings from all four sectoral
analyses to determine how the seemingly independent actions of each combined to bring about
and sustain El Salvador’s freeze on metals mining.
89
de El Salvador sobre la explotación de minas de oro y plata.”
143
CHAPTER 4
MISALIGNMENT BETWEEN DOMESTIC AND INTERNATIONAL PRIVATE SECTOR

INTERESTS IN SALVADORAN METALS MINING: THE WEAK LINK
I. Introduction
“I am going to put forth a hypothesis,” asserted economist Cesar Villalona1 in our
interview, when I asked for his insight into what drove the Salvadoran government’s freeze of
the country’s burgeoning metals mining industry. He offered his theory: “it was a combination of
factors—the rejection by communities concerned about the dangers of mining in such a small
country…and the fact the ‘oligarchy’ never had insinuated itself into the industry.”2 When I
posed the same question to Héctor Dada Hirezi, former Partido Demócrata Cristiano (PDC)
assemblyman (1998-2009) and President Funes’ first Minister of Economy (2009-2012), he too
emphasized that “Salvadoran capital,” as he called it, had not been invested in the country’s
metals mining industry.3 He explained: “mining has never been an area of attention for them, not
when they were landowners, and not now that they are exploiters of real estate and merchants.”4
In fact, according to Carlos Reyes, a sitting ARENA assemblyman representing Cabañas at the
time of our 2014 interview, when mining exploration activities were taking place in his
department, “we saw absolutely no one with anything to do with the Salvadoran private sector
1
Villalona is a Dominican national who at the time of our 2014 interview, had been a Salvadoran citizen for 30
years. In 2015 he was appointed to serve as part of the Sanchez Cerén, FMLN presidential administration
2
Villalona, Interview by Author.
3
Héctor Dada Hirezi Minister of Economy (2009-2012), Assemblyman for Partido Demócrata Cristiano (2006-09),
Interview by Author, San Salvador, El Salvador, October 23, 2014.
4
Dada Hirezi.
144
involved…we never saw that there were entrepreneurs or people from the Salvadoran private
sector, we absolutely never saw it.”5
Villalona, Dada Hirezi, and Reyes’ statements are representative of a refrain I
encountered repeatedly throughout my interviews: across the Salvadoran business community,
from the economic elites to small entrepreneurs, there had been minimal interest in metals
mining. Given this perception, why would El Salvador’s private sector be relevant for answering
my guiding research question: Why did El Salvador deviate from an economic development
paradigm that prioritizes extraction’s short-term economic gains over the social and
environmental costs and choose to instead disallow industrial metals mining?
In the same interview in which Villalona asserted that the Salvadoran private sector had
minimal involvement in the country’s metals mining industry, he also gave an argument for why
the sector still had been influential in the government’s decision to suspend the industry.
According to Villalona,
If national entrepreneurs had stakes in the industry, they would have launched their own
campaign favorable to mining. But [it] never became a [local] business issue and so
Salvadoran business did not promote it…this made opposing things less complicated and
worked in favor of the [community-based] opposition because when fighting the mining
companies, they did not have to also fight against the economic elite.6
Villalona’s claim is that because El Salvador’s powerful private sector did not defend and/or
promote a domestic metals mining industry, other sectors had more latitude to fight against it and
influence policymakers than they otherwise would have. Therefore, according to this perspective,
it is not what the private sector actively did, but instead, what it deliberately refrained
5
Carlos Reyes ARENA Assemblyman for Cabañas (1997-Present), Interview by Author, San Salvador, El Salvador,
September 17, 2014.
6
145
from doing, that allowed for the suspension of mining in El Salvador. This argument is the
reverse of what has been discussed until this point in this dissertation. For this sector, as will be
argued, it is an absence of explicit action and influence, and not the presence thereof, that proved
decisive.
A lack of explicit action is not equivalent to non-action or non-decisions. Refraining from
overt action and decision-making can in fact be the product of active, intentional choices.7
Furthermore, for individual actors, communities, or a sector with considerable power and
influence, small, behind the scenes action can potentially be decisive in ways that a less
influential actor or sector could match only with large, public, or even disruptive actions. With
that in mind, the research questions I utilized in the prior sectoral chapters remain relevant. As
shaped for the domestic private sector, these questions are:
• What role did the domestic private sector play in El Salvador’s choices and actions on
metals mining?
• What were the Salvadoran private sector’s identifiable motivations?
• What were the formative, determinative milestone events and/or actions involving the
Salvadoran private sector that contributed to this outcome?
In the following analysis I will answer these three questions and develop the third evidentiary
building block that will be added to the framework that has developed throughout the first two
sector analyses.
This process tracing analysis builds on scholarship from Peter Haslam (2009) that
discusses the role that international and domestic private sector alliances can play in creating
7
Peter Bachrach and Morton Baratz, “Decisions and Nondecisions: An Analytical Framework,” American Political
Science Review 57 (September 1963): 641–51.
146
conditions favorable to multinational business interests. Based on mining industry case studies in
Chile and Argentina, Haslam argues that multinational corporation8 alliances with domestic
elites have “proved extremely important and efficient in protecting foreign firms from potential
changes to the rules of the game.”9 The “rules of the game” pertain to laws, regulations, and
practices governing the extractive industry that national governments, with citizen support,
aimed to change to be more domestically favorable.10 Therefore, according to Haslam’s analysis
of the Chile and Argentina cases, it was the forged “links between multinational corporations and
domestic political and economic elites” that fostered elite-level domestic mobilization on behalf
of the companies, which then restrained government action that international companies did not
want.11 Haslam’s work is relevant to the El Salvador case. It posits circumstances in which
economic elite support, and specifically, international-domestic private sector alliances utilized
to exert said support, are key and seemingly necessary, to block changes to existing
multinational, corporate-friendly rules of the game.
I refer to non-El Salvador specific literature here because, with the exception of Broad
and Cavanagh, scholarship on the El Salvador case has not analyzed, specifically, how domestic-
international private sector alliances, or a lack thereof, contributed to the country’s metals
mining decisions. The absence of consideration of the domestic private sector is particularly
notable in business scholar Denis Collins’s 2009 work published in the Journal of Business
8
In this work I use the term Transnational Corporation (TNC), but in references to cited work including Peter
Haslam and Denis Collins, I utilize the language he employs, which is “multinational corporations.”
9
Paul Alexander Haslam, “The Firm Rules: Multinational Corporations, Policy Space and Neoliberalism,” Third
World Quarterly 28, no. 6 (2009): 1180.
10
Haslam, 1180.
11
Haslam, 1181.
147
Ethics. One of the first published English-language, scholarly analysis of this El Salvador case,
Collins sought to explain how the “socially responsible Gold Mining MNC,”12 Pacific Rim,
failed to “fulfill the business expectations it had at the time of entering El Salvador through the
purchase of the El Dorado Gold Mine in 2002.”13 According to Collins, “many key factors were
in place for [Pacific Rim’s] anticipated success” including:
• “El Salvador's historical openness to globalization,

• Political control by a pro-business federal (sic) government,
• Extreme poverty in the region,
• Lack of viable economic development alternatives,
• Pacific Rim's reputation for being socially responsive, and
• State-of-the-art environmental risk controls.”14
However, beyond a passing mention of individual Salvadoran businesspeople, Collins does not
consider Pacific Rim’s (or other mining companies’) relationships with the Salvadoran private
sector when analyzing why these “key factors” were not sufficient for Pacific Rim’s success.
Collins explains the failure of what he believes should have been an auspicious environment for
a mining industry in two ways. First, he tepidly critiques Pacific Rim for failing to use the tools
of multi-stakeholder dialogue in its engagement in El Salvador, which, he asserts, would have
allowed the citizenry, and then the government, to more accurately appreciate the promised
benefits gold mining would bring to the country.15 Second, he blames what he sees as a unique
confluence of sociocultural factors in El Salvador as responsible for stalling Pacific Rim’s plans,
deducing that:
12
As explained above In this work I use the term transnational corporations (TNC), but this quote keeps Collins’
language. Collins, “The Failure of a Socially Responsive Gold Mining MNC in El Salvador,” 245.
13
Collins, 243.
14
Collins, 263.
15
Collins, 263.
148
Pacific Rim became a symbol for everything wrong with MNCs threatening the local
culture, no matter how socially responsive the company or how economically
impoverished the local population…Pacific Rim bore the burden of El Salvador's tragic
history and all the wrongdoings of other MNCs in the worldwide mining industry. The
company wanted to be trusted within an industry and culture where trust is dubious.16
Collins’s conclusions as to what led to El Salvador’s shift in metals mining plans and the
implementation of a de facto ban starkly contrast with Broad and Cavanagh, Spalding, and my
own analyses, as discussed in earlier chapters. However, there is one important area of overlap:
all of these scholarly explanations leave room for the private sector to have impacted the
outcome—El Salvador’s suspension of its planned metals mining industry.
As the first to address the gap in the research on this case, Broad and Cavanagh17
demonstrate a link between the Salvadoran private sector’s overall lack of interest, involvement,
and active support for metals mining (even without public rejection) with the government’s
eventual halt to the industry.18 Thus, the El Salvador case becomes “negative” proof for
Haslam’s thesis. In El Salvador, where there was no MNC-national economic elite bulwark
protecting metals mining MNC interests, the government—pressured by civil society—could
effectively change the rules of game. By highlighting the impact of the absence of the national
private business elite, Broad and Cavanagh show this to be a necessary condition for the de facto
moratorium. A key observation from Broad and Cavanagh is that “the Canadian mining firms
either chose not to, or were not able to, establish a network of strong connections with local
elites.”19 This acknowledges that the lack of engagement did not come from domestic private
16
Collins, 263.
17
Broad and Cavanagh, “Poorer Countries and the Environment,” 421–22.
18
Broad and Cavanagh, 421–22.
19
Broad and Cavanagh, 422.
149
sector absence in general, but from the absence of a metals mining supporting alliance between
the mining TNCs and the domestic economic elites in particular.
My analysis therefore seeks to build from and expand upon Broad and Cavanagh and fill
in the gaps left by Collins. I do so by dividing the 2004-2008 timeframe into two phases:
• 2004-2006: Before the industry freeze—a foreign-led industry expands without domestic
partners
• 2007-2008: After the industry freeze—new TNC strategies, too little, too late
Within these two phases, I use process tracing in two distinct ways. First, I track
Salvadoran private sector decisions and/or action where distinguishable, recognizing that given
the considerable power wielded by economic elites in El Salvador, actions that may appear less
significant than what one would find for the other sectors can have a major impact. Second,
following the argument that apparent private sector inaction created opportunities for less
powerful sectors to exert influence they otherwise likely could not have, I use process tracing to
create a timeline of events/actions that I then superimpose over the known timelines of the other
sectors. With this second step I illustrate how the private sector responded (even subtly) or
refrained from responding at the pivotal moments of influence in the other sectors’ trajectories.
Before the process tracing analysis of the Salvadoran private sector (section III) the next
section (section II) provides a brief background on the origin and rise of the small nucleus of
families that dominates El Salvador’s private sector; mechanisms through which the Salvadoran
economic elite exercises political influence; and foreign vs. domestic investment in metals
mining exploration and extraction in El Salvador. Following this background discussion, the
process tracing analysis is organized into the two phases laid out above, 2004-2006 and 2007-
2008 (sections A and B in section III).
150
II. Foundational background: Wealth, political control, and metals mining in El Salvador
This background section comprises three components. First, it introduces the nucleus of
elite families that have monopolized wealth in El Salvador and, in turn, political power for most
of the country’s history, situating them within the Salvadoran private sector. Second, it discusses
three mechanisms through which this powerful elite and the private sector conglomerates they
control exert influence over the country’s economic and political decisions. Third, it discusses
the Salvadoran private sector’s limited history with metals mining.
A. The oligarchy that presides over El Salvador’s economy
In El Salvador, both economic and political affairs have revolved around a small number
of families, who, after independence, consolidated their wealth and status from coffee production
and export to control most of El Salvador’s land and wealth through the 19th and 20th centuries.20
This “coffee oligarchy” became known as las catorce familias (the fourteen families).21 As
explained in a 1981 New York Times feature on members of the Salvadoran elite living in exile in
Florida at the beginning of the country’s civil war, the term ‘oligarchy’ is appropriate for this
Salvadoran center of economic and political power because the term:
[C]aptures the archaic, slightly feudal nature of social relations in countries like El
Salvador and Guatemala. ''It's different from an aristocracy…,'' explains Jorge Sol
Castellanos, a 66-year-old oligarch and former minister of the economy. ''It's an oligarchy
because these families own and run almost everything that makes money in El Salvador.
Coffee gave birth to the oligarchy in the late 19th century, and economic growth has
revolved around them ever since.''22
Richard A. Haggarty, “The Upper Sector,” in El Salvador: A Country Study, E-Book (Washington, DC: Library of
20
Congress, Federal Research Division, 1988).

21
Sonja Wolf, “Subverting Democracy: Elite Rule and the Limits to Political Participation in Post-War El
Salvador,” Journal of Latin American Studies 41, no. 3 (August 2009): 435.
22
Paul Heath Hoeffel, “The Eclipse of the Oligarchs,” The New York Times, September 6, 1981, sec. Magazine.
151
The Salvadoran oligarchy has held onto its position at the center of El Salvador’s economic life
by first expanding beyond coffee to dominate commercial agriculture.23 It then extended its reach
farther, with the traditionally landowning, agricultural exporters becoming powerful financiers
by taking control of major stakes in both the banking and industrial sectors. In fact, the oligarchy
is credited with establishing the majority of the country’s economic and financial systems.24
The dominance of the Salvadoran oligarchy did not preclude the emergence of an
influential “merchant class,” known as such because of members’ professional predominance in
El Salvador’s financial sector. Mainly encompassing late 19th and early 20th century immigrant
families and their descendants, these “new elites” were reminded of their secondary position by
the traditional elite who disparagingly called them “Turcos” because, in addition to immigrants
of European origin, their ranks included migrant families from Lebanon and Palestine.25
Although El Salvador’s merchant class became economically and politically influential in its
own right, it has never posed a significant challenge to the power of the traditional oligarchy.
The oligarchy, per Wolf, has “preserved its cohesion and dominance through kinship ties and
business alliances among the dominant family groups.”26
Following the civil war-driven decline in national output and increase in capital flight,
which drastically reduced the profitability of the agro-export sector, the elites—many in exile
during the war—adapted by transitioning their wealth to non-traditional exports and the surging
23
Haggarty, “The Upper Sector.”
24
Carlos Paniagua, “El bloque empresarial hegemónico salvadoreño,” ECA: Estudios centroamericanos 645–646
(2002): 610.
25
26
Wolf, “Subverting Democracy,” 436.
152
commercial and service sectors.27 The neoliberal reforms of the 1990s that facilitated this
transition led to the establishment of conglomerates, or what the literature calls “globalized
economic power groups” (EPGs). 28 Thus today, instead of being primarily consolidated among
14 oligarchic families, financial power in El Salvador is concentrated among eight powerful
business groups 29 While only a few of the EPGs publicly use the surnames associated with the
14 families, in El Salvador the connection between these conglomerates and the oligarchy is well
known.30 In the words of Salvadoran scholar Velasquez Carrillo, “in the popular lexicon the 14
families...is still used today to identify the limited number of families that continue to control the
new economic power of the neoliberal era.”31
Although there has been continuity in the control of Salvadoran wealth because the
traditional 14 families remain behind the “new economic power of the neoliberal era,” the
domination of the economy by EPGs rather than individual family enterprises has had significant
implications for the country. Particularly relevant for the analysis of metals mining in El
Salvador is the overall internationalization of the country’s private sector. The neoliberal reforms
of the 1990s that promoted new patterns of growth based on nontraditional exports, services, and
commerce, motivated Salvadoran EPGs to expand their activities outside their country’s borders
27
Elisabeth Jean Wood, Insurgent Collective Action and Civil War in El Salvador (New York: Cambridge
University Press, 2003); Wolf, “Subverting Democracy,” 436.
28
29
Wolf, 436.
30
These are: Grupo Cuscatlán, Banagrícola, Banco Salvadoreño, Banco de Comercio, Grupo Agrisal, Grupo Poma,
Grupo de Sola and Grupo Hill. One can find the names of some of the longstanding elite families in these business
groups, but in others the names are no longer front and center, although Salvadoran citizens widely know the
families behind them. Carlos Velásquez Carrillo, “La consolidación oligárquica neoliberal en El Salvador y los retos
para el gobierno del FMLN,” Revista América Latina 10 (2011): 161–202.
31
Carrillo, 161.
153
at unprecedented levels. Furthermore, these reforms, including trade liberalization and
privatization of previously government controlled public services, drew TNCs into El Salvador
and other Central American countries. This did not simply increase competition, it also led to
economic integration and increased domestic and international cooperation. As a result, in El
Salvador since the 1990s,
TNCs have penetrated the sectors formerly controlled by national elites and become
economically powerful actors in their own right. Nonetheless, the EPGs have themselves
concentrated greater wealth and economic power in their hands, and while this has
reinforced the polarization within the private sector, it has also shaped the ways in which
the elite exercises its influence over the state and public policymaking.32
The progression toward increased economic integration among TNCs and Salvadoran
conglomerates is critical for understanding why and how the Salvadoran private sector,
particularly economic elites, were influential in the Salvadoran mining case. Two individuals
from two of the oligarchic families, Murray Meza and Ricardo Poma, and the EPGs they control,
Grupo Agrisal and Grupo Poma, will figure importantly in the process tracing analysis to come
in section three of this chapter.
B. Channels through which the economic elites exert influence in El Salvador
Exploring the complex dynamics of consolidated economic control in El Salvador in
depth goes beyond the scope of this work. However, recognizing the main channels through
which Salvadoran elites exert their far-reaching political influence is important for interpreting
their role in El Salvador’s metals mining freeze. Building from Wolf (2009), I discuss three
32
Wolf, “Subverting Democracy,” 436–37.
154
critical channels: The ARENA political party, lobbying mechanisms, and the Salvadoran
media.33
1. Alianza Republicana Nacionalista (ARENA)
The main mechanism through which the Salvadoran economic elite, whether referred to
as the oligarchy, las catorce familias, the eight EPGs, or another moniker, has maintained its grip
on political influence is the political party Alianza Republicana Nacionalista (ARENA).34
Founded in 1981 and then elected to the presidency in 1989, the party has served as the primary
tool for the Salvadoran private sector, particularly its nucleus of the 14 families/business groups,
to maintain its grip on political influence.35 The oligarchy crafted ARENA to restore the pre-war
status quo that had benefited them, and in so doing, counter the surging leftist tide gaining
ground during the civil war.36 This elite-dominated party has enabled a revolving door between
El Salvador’s private and public sectors.37 Per Wolf (2009):
One of the ways in which this affluent minority, particularly the EPGs [Economic Power
Groups], can shape government policies is through its control of ARENA...Indeed, many
businessmen have held important posts in past administrations, affording them
involvement in strategic decisions.38
The most obvious example of this was the ascension of one of the 14 families when Armando
Calderon Sol (of the Sol family) became president (1994-99) in the first post peace accords
33
Wolf, 438.
34
Alex Segovia, “Integración real y grupos Centroamericanos de poder económico,” ECA: Estudios
Centroamericanos 691–692 (2006): 533–34.
35
36
Wolf, 430, 437–38.
37
Segovia, “Integración Real y Grupos Centroamericanos de Poder Económico,” 550.
38
155
presidential election. For those not participating directly in government, EPGs—in a context
without campaign finance regulations—have typically been the dominant funders of political
campaigns.39 Although ARENA eventually grew beyond the immediate control and interests of
the economic elite, it was explicitly a business-interest based party from its founding. Thus, it
would be expected that the private sector’s interests have had outsized influence over ARENA-
led policymaking. As we will see later in this chapter, this expectation has important implications
for the case of metals mining.
2. Lobbying Associations
Outside of formal, “official” political arenas, El Salvador’s economic elites have
coordinated to translate their economic control into political power through self-created lobbying
and policy advising mechanisms. Designed “to reconcile their differences and represent their
interests” these formal and informal associations have enabled the economic elites, and at times
the overall private sector, to exert pressure on government decision-making.40 The most
prominent among the “formal” associations is the Asociación Nacional de la Empresa Privada
(National Association of Private Enterprise, ANEP), which according to Haggarty’s analysis,
exists to present “oligarchy views through various declarations in the media and before the
government.”41 Officially, ANEP has functioned as a nongovernmental mechanism through
which the elites attempt to hold elected government to account in their priority areas. An ally to
past ARENA administrations, ANEP today functions as a vehicle for the opposition to the
39
Wolf, 439.
40
41
Haggarty.
156
present FMLN government. Unofficially, ANEP has also been an incubator for political
appointees and candidates. For example, it served as Antonio Saca’s launching point for the
presidency, to which he was directly elected in 2004 after serving as ANEP’s president. As
former Minister of Economy Héctor Dada explained it: “You have to remember that President
Saca, despite the fact that the businessmen do not like him today, was a candidate of
businessmen, taken from the presidency of ANEP to the Presidency of the Republic.”42
Separate from formal associations such as ANEP, the wealthiest among the Salvadoran
elite have also carved out more direct, although less formal, mechanisms to influence ARENA
politicians, in and out of power. A 2013 article in the Salvadoran weekly La Pagina offered a
retrospective example, reporting that, “a group of Salvadoran millionaires…and former president
Francisco Flores have an alliance that has resulted in a power center where major decisions are
made and from where they control trade unions, think tanks and a political party, ARENA…”43
Repeating a term published in other newspapers of that time, the article called these Salvadoran
multimillionaires together “El Grupo de los 20” because they included 20 members of the “main
families of the Salvadoran oligarchy.” The author then referred to the group with the shorthand
G20, satirically referencing the international forum representing the 20 most industrialized
countries in the world. Per the article,
The pact between the G20 and [Flores’] inner circle was born when Francisco Flores
became president in 1999 and he began his privatization plan (pensions, the La Unión
bridge, the telephone company, “green” mining, prisons, health services and electric
power generation, among others), say several analysts the Flores pact with the
millionaires went beyond economics. Being president of the Republic, [Flores] guided
them to lead the ARENA party. It was in this way that, in 2002, they got themselves into
ARENA’s “’high command’ and [oligarchic] figures such as Archie Baldocchi, Roberto
42
Dada Hirezi, Interview by Author.
43
“El círculo de Francisco Flores, brazo político del G20 salvadoreño,” La Página, October 14, 2013.
157
Murray Meza, Roberto Palomo, Ricardo Poma, Ricardo Sagrera, Carlos Enrique Araujo
Eserski and Guillermo Sol Bang entered the ARENA domain.
…This arrival and ascendency of the multimillionaires as the leadership of ARENA

brought applause and criticism. A report from El Diario de Hoy of that time states: "The
arrival and rise of these prominent businessmen over and above that of ARENA’s
founders suggests…that it is they who have always had a grip on the party [from behind
the scenes] but now prefer to show their faces."44
As conveyed in the El Diario de Hoy quote that the La Pagina article excerpts, even
before President Flores showcased his collaboration with these members of El Salvador’s richest
families and they publicly claimed roles within ARENA, they had significant behind-the-scenes
influence on the party’s decisions, direction and therefore ARENA politicians’ policymaking.
The article sums up simply why this matters: because this group, the G20 as they are named
here, “completely control the largest companies and, directly or indirectly, dozens of
intermediate firms,” in El Salvador, they are then able to “subordinate most of the right-leaning
economic and political class.”45
3. The Salvadoran media
El Salvador’s elite, according to Wolf (2009) has also promoted and protected its
interests through the country’s broadcast and print media.46 Wolf (2009) acknowledges that
although post-civil war El Salvador would appear to have a diversity of print, broadcast, and
online media choices, given that the market includes five national newspapers, approximately
180 radio stations, and 10 TV channels, the “picture of diversity, however, is deceptive.” 47 This
44
“El círculo de Francisco Flores, brazo político del G20 salvadoreño.”
45
46
47
Wolf, 440.
158
deception comes from the reality in which, “[e]ach market niche is dominated by a handful of
advertising-rich, audience-strong outlets that fail to offer a critique of the dominant political and
socio-economic order…”48
These “advertising-rich, audience-strong outlets” referenced in the quote above include
the newspapers La Prensa Gráfica and El Diario de Hoy (EDH), and broadcast media company
Telecorporación Salvadoreña (TCS). While none of the three media families are part of the
traditional oligarchy, all three have direct personal and professional links to the elite families and
a public commitment to the political and economic interests shared by ARENA and the private
sector.49 The Salvadoran families that have monopolized the country’s access to media share the
oligarchic interests and, as a result, access to some of this power. Wolf explains:
Whereas La Prensa Gráfica’s newsroom enjoys relative independence and encounters

limits only when the owners consider their social and economic status to be threatened,
El Diario de Hoy exercises internal censorship and the owner himself pens the editorial.
A similar case is that of the TCS, where stories are filtered and source blacklists are
maintained…[and] stations provide free airtime to ARENA members and function as the
party's propaganda arm.50
Consistent with Wolf’s scholarship, Cesar Villalona asserted in his interview, that “when
the [Salvadoran] business community wants to impose their views, for example if they decide
that it is necessary to privatize water, this becomes the crux of a massive propaganda campaign,
on television, on the radio, and in print.”51 As a result, in the post-war era of ARENA dominated
“democracy,” which covers the period of study here (2004-08), the country’s leading media
48
Wolf, 440.
49
Wolf, 440.
50
Wolf, 440.
51
159
organizations presented news to reflect “the overlapping interests of media owners, government
and, the private sector.”52
C. The Salvadoran private sector and the metals mining industry
Given the ubiquity of the Salvadoran oligarchy throughout the country’s economy, and
the growing internationalization of the country’s private sector since the end of the civil war, one
might expect that they would have been part of metals mining when it re-emerged in the country
in the late 1990s, early 2000s. Yet this was not the case. As recounted to me by Salvadoran
businessman and former Ambassador to the United States (1981-89) Ernesto Rivas Nieto, who
would be considered a part of the new elite rather than the traditional elite, metals mining “has
always been in foreign hands.”53According to economist Cesar Villalona, foreign control was not
simply because the Salvadoran elite lacked access; instead, the limitations of the country’s
metals deposits meant it was of little interest. He explained:
Mining here has never been important in terms of the national economy and never had
been in the hands of the national/domestic business sectors. When it began in 1880 I
believe it began with English capital and the gran empresa salvadorena (Salvadoran big
business) never became involved in this enterprise. The main/biggest oligarchs, they were
involved in coffee at this time which was the lynchpin of the economy and after the end
of the [civil] war the economy transformed to depend more on services and the they were
involved here, in commercial services. Therefore [mining] never was of interest to these
sectors.54
In addition to what Villalona describes, the few foreign firms that had concessions by the start of
the country’s 12 years of civil war withdrew from their operations during the conflict. With the
52
53
Ernesto Rivas businessman and former ambassador to the United States, Interview by Author, San Salvador, El
Salvador, October 29, 2014.
54
160
price of gold at a low when the war ended, they did not re-engage.55 Therefore, when the first
foreign, primarily Canadian, metals mining companies responded to the post-war Salvadoran
government’s invitation to explore the country’s gold and silver resources, there was not pre-
established interest nor predisposed partners in the domestic private sector for these TNCs.
As is typical in the mining industry, the TNCs that responded to the Salvadoran
government’s invitation, like Kinross Gold, Dayton Mining, and Pacific Rim, were junior mining
firms. “Junior” and “senior” are categories used for mining companies in financial markets.
Junior mining companies encompass small firms that focus on discovering new natural resource
extraction opportunities, raise funds for this exploration, and earn revenue by issuing new shares
based on the newly discovered resources. These companies aspire to have their concessions
acquired by larger mining firms, which could include other companies in the junior category.
However, the most profitable sale would be to senior mining firms. The senior category includes
sizeable, long-established companies that have the financial capital and capacity to manage the
large-scale mining operations that result when projects have moved from the exploration to the
extraction stage.56
American mining executive Rob Johansing, who had developed his career working with a
series of junior firms on the exploration side of the metals mining industry, recounted to me his
understanding of the post-civil war story of the Cabañas-based El Dorado mine. Per his telling:
I was a consultant working out of Mexico. A gentleman I knew in Denver, got in bed
with…well…at the time it was just an upstart company called Kinross Gold…They asked
me to come on as project manager in ’93. I came down. We started drilling. We
confirmed previous drilling done in 1974, before the war. And we raised a bunch of
money. And during those, that first year, if not 6 months, I had visitors like [President]
55
56
“What Criteria Classify a Company as a Junior Gold Miner?,” Investopedia, April 8, 2015.; Hans Smit, “The W5
of Junior Mining Companies” (Ascot Resources Ltd., April 2008).
161
Christiani, the president at the time. Following that [President] Calderon Sol. I mean,
people came in and said, ‘thank you for coming to this country.’ It had just come out of a
civil war. And who the hell is going up to northern El Salvador where the war was really
fought, to set up shop? That was my job, to insert ourselves, to become part of the
community, to invest literally tens of millions of dollars. So that’s what we did. Our main
base was the El Dorado project in Sansunte…
Everything was on the up and up until 1997, when the gold price dropped….From ‘97
until 2002 it was tough, about 6 years here. We were just hangin’ in there. Because [at]
Kinross, we were too small, the gold price was down, everybody was disillusioned. But
…we kept this thing going. [During that time,] we were bought out by a company with
the name of Dayton Mining. That was between 2000-02. They were just a typical
Canadian Junior, stupid, short sighted, selfish. But we managed to get a lot done. Then in
April 2002, Pacific Rim came in.57
As Johansing’s statement recounts, Pacific Rim’s point of entry came when the smaller
companies had already done the preparatory work to locate “lucrative metallic deposits.” Per
Lydsen, “Pacific Rim was drawn to El Salvador because of the possibility of lucrative metallic
deposits and also new Salvadoran Mining and Investment laws passed in 1996 and 1999,
respectively, meant to court foreign investment.”58 Therefore, the kinds of neoliberal policies
that attracted TNCs in other sectors attracted companies like Pacific Rim.
As reported in the 2013 La Pagina Flores retrospective introduced above, it was “ during
[Flores’] term of office, for example, that Pacific Rim was given permission to start studies and
extract gold...The idea, according to policy experts like researcher Geovani Galeas, was that G20
entrepreneurs were to be the local partners of those foreign investors.”59 This article conveys that
during Francisco Flores’s presidency (1999-2004), the period during which Pacific Rim
purchased Dayton Mining’s El Salvador concessions, the expectation was that Salvadoran
57
58
Kari Lydersen, “Pacific Rim and Beyond: Global Mining, Global Resistance and International Law,” Colorado
Journal of International Environmental Law and Policy 23, no. 2 (2012): 368.
59
162
economic elites would fill the same kinds of partnership roles for the new metals mining industry
that they had for other industries, despite the elites’ limited history with or connection to metals
mining. It is in the context of these expectations the process tracing analysis begins.
III. Action without appearing to act: Utilizing process tracing to uncover the links
between the Salvadoran private sector and government decisions on metals mining
(2004-2008)
Within the context detailed above, the rest of this chapter analyzes the Salvadoran private
sector’s actions, reactions to, and interactions with, the metals mining industry and the influences
on the country’s metals mining policy, between 2004 and 2008. This discussion is divided into
two phases, 2004-2006 and 2007-08. The first phase, 2004-06, represents the period prior to the
de facto moratorium on mining and the second, 2007-08 encompasses the time following the
industry freeze.
Legally, as already discussed, Salvadoran mining policy did not change from the
beginning of my period of study in 2004 through the end in 2008, since the law that allowed and
regulated mining had not been altered. However, in practice, the 2004-2006 and 2007-08 periods
do represent different policy environments. When the government stopped granting metals
mining permits in 2006, the enabling environment transformed into one in which private sector
actors, be they foreign or domestic, could operate in relation to metals mining. In each of these
two stages of analysis, I explore the engagement, or lack thereof, between mining TNCs and the
majority of domestic Salvadoran businesses, discussing the implications of these circumstances.
From there, I link the causal mechanisms through which the domestic private sector’s overt and
covert actions can be traced to having influenced government actions and decisions on metals
mining.
163
A. The foreign-financed metals mining industry expands, but where are the “anticipated”
Salvadoran private sector partners? (2004-2006)
My process tracing analysis of the 2004-2006 period uncovered a reality that starkly
contrasts with the expectations conveyed in the La Pagina excerpt above—that members of El
Salvador’s private sector would serve as key partners for the mining TNCs. During this pivotal
period of gold and silver exploration, I found no evidence of any direct relationships between the
main foreign mining companies and the Salvadoran private sector. In fact, I found evidence that
Salvadoran businesses were neither primed nor inclined to become industrial partners, and that
this was not simply the result of El Salvador’s economic elite’s lack of historical involvement
with the metals mining industry.
Therefore, in the subsequent discussion, I utilize process tracing to accomplish two main
tasks. First, I will show how over the course of 2004 to 2006, there were factors beyond the lack
of historical involvement that deepened the divide between the foreign mining firms and the
Salvadoran private sector. Second, looking at the year 2006, I will show the implications of the
non-existent foreign-domestic private sector relationships (which perhaps could be seen as an
estrangement) for government decision-making when the civil-society led opposition to metals
mining was gaining greater prominence and exerting increasing pressure.
1. No common industry and conflicting economic interests (2004-2006)
My research revealed that in the formative years of the period of study, 2004-06, there
were two critical factors that exacerbated the pre-existing historical divide between the foreign-
led mining TNCs and El Salvador’s private sector: the absence of partnership cultivation by the
mining TNCS and the industry’s perceived threat to water resources critical to certain
164
Salvadoran industries. I discuss them consecutively because their causes and implications are
distinct, but respectively they had important impacts through the entire 2004-2006 timeframe.
Foreign investment in Salvadoran mining without Salvadoran partners
At the start of 2004, Pacific Rim had been engaged in exploration activities for two years.
Other foreign companies, including the Canadian junior firms Triada, Minerales Morazan, and
Brett Resources, were carrying out their exploration with permits in provinces outside of
Cabañas and Chalatenango that included San Miguel, Morazan, and La Unión.60 At that time,
American mining executive Robert Johansing, who had been fired by Pacific Rim when it took
ownership of Dayton’s concessions in 2002, was launching new initiatives on behalf of Au
Martinique Silver, which would receive its first exploration permits in mid-2005.61 Johansing
recounted to me:
We had a little boom in the industry…from 2002 to 2006. I started doing reconnaissance
work all over northern parts of El Salvador. We found tons of great projects, really cool
projects. What I loved about them, they were in parts of the country where the people
were dirt poor. If you look at the map of indices of pobreza [poverty] in this country, you
will see that the northern part of the country has cornered all the poverty. So, we started
turning up all kinds of new projects. We found a project, a fantastic gold project in the
area I worked and lived in from 2004-2006—Chalatenango, San José las Flores.
Martinique Minerals. I set that up. I had investors and we started turning up some really
cool stuff. 62
The “little boom in the industry” Johansing mentions was the product of the new global demand
for gold that started in 2002 and that continued steadily between 2004 and 2006, as discussed in
60
otorgadas entre el 2000-2006 ya en archivo, Response to a Freedom of Information Request.”
61
Oficina de Información y Respuesta (OIR) del Ministerio de Economía (MINEC).
62
165
Chapter 1. According to Johansing’s recollection, El Salvador appeared quite promising for the
metals mining industry, given both the project opportunities he and his colleagues discovered
and their location in El Salvador’s poorest areas, which they believed meant the investment
would be eagerly welcomed.
My research did not uncover evidence that mining TNCs, while expanding their El
Salvador operations, were also building local business partnerships beyond direct hiring between
2004 and 2005. They neglected to cultivate these relationships, even though there was not an
“entrenched economic elite invested in metals mining.”63 As discussed above, with the direct ties
between business and ARENA, the party that had liberalized financial laws and courted mining
companies to operate within its borders, the TNCs may have taken for granted that government
alliances would be sufficient. Furthermore, per Johansing’s comments on the poverty in the
communities along El Salvador’s mining belt, there may have been the expectation that any new
foreign investment would be quickly embraced, and additional alliance building would be
unnecessary.
I discussed this issue with Jorge Daboub, ANEP president at the time of our 2014
interview. Daboub, who had ascended to the ANEP presidency in 2011 (the position Antonio
Saca held before being elected as El Salvador’s president) was not related to the country’s
traditional oligarchic families. However, a descendent of Palestinian immigrants who had been
instrumental in El Salvador’s financial sector, Daboub would be considered a member of El
Salvador’s “new elite” merchant class, discussed in the background section. When I asked
Daboub if he recalled any mining companies recruiting ANEP members into their investments,
he stated bluntly that, “the companies working in this industry have never been associates of
63
166
ANEP.”64 He then added a point that went beyond foreign-domestic partnership for the
developing mining sector, explaining, “there is something very important…I could be wrong, but
if I remember the companies never translated the success of their project into success for the
country… I do not remember Pacific Rim or any other interesados having clearly laid out such a
vision on the table.”65 In other words, beyond neglecting to build direct partnerships, the TNCs
poised to benefit from El Salvador’s natural riches did not demonstrate to their domestic
counterparts and potential allies how they too would benefit from this new industry.
Juan Héctor Vidal, who had served as Executive Director of ANEP (a position directly
below the presidency) in the 1990s and early 2000s, shared recollections similar to Daboub’s.
From his perspective, the exclusion of the local private sector had not been an oversight. Vidal
saw the snub as intentional, explaining that the Salvadoran business community, in his words,
had not been "invited to take a seat at the table"66 by the exploring mining companies. According
to Vidal, it was this ongoing neglect of the Salvadoran business community by the mining
companies that accounts for the domestic business communities’ non-involvement. He stated,
“perhaps with the exception of those acting as advisers or lawyers, their [the private sector’s]
position was for the most part not based on a matter of principle. At least as far as I remember,
there were no open reactions of support or rejection.” Vidal’s statements echo those included
earlier in this chapter and add a new dynamic. He asserts that the private sector’s lack of
involvement was not driven by beliefs about the industry, but by the fact that the private sector
had never been offered a stake in the industry. Beyond that, he recognizes that there were local
64
Jorge Daboub President, ANEP (2011-2016), Interview by Author, San Salvador, El Salvador, November 4, 2014.
65
Daboub.
66
Juan Héctor Vidal Executive Director ANEP (1990-97), Interview by Author, San Salvador, El Salvador,
November 5, 2014.
167
actors who did have a stake, but he identifies them as “acting advisers or lawyers,” implying that
they were somehow on the payroll of the companies.
Vidal’s observation is consistent with Broad and Cavanagh’s findings (discussed above),
which I also substantiated with my field work. It was local staff directly employed by the foreign
firms who spoke in favor of the mining endeavors. For example, Salvadoran Ericka Colindres,
who was hired by Pacific Rim while working on environmental issues for the Salvadoran
government67 and Jorge Mario Ríos Muñoz, a Guatemalan national who was hired to be the local
representative for Au Martinique Silver, that represented the pro-mining perspective at the town
hall style forums and public events discussed in Chapter 2. Neither Colindres nor Rios Muñoz
had known links to the country’s economic elites.
Therefore, by focusing primarily on employing individuals from the local private sector,
rather than cultivating investors or partners from among the Salvadoran economic elite, the
mining TNCs operating in El Salvador overlooked potentially powerful domestic private sector
allies with pre-existing governmental ties. These circumstances set metals mining apart from
other commercial and industrial sectors in El Salvador. As discussed in the background, while
other sectors were internationalizing because enterprise management engaged both domestic and
foreign firms, metals mining in El Salvador was becoming internationalized to the exclusion of
El Salvador’s private sector. This exclusion alienated the powerful lobbying organization ANEP,
which, as discussed in the background, the elites utilize to influence government, particularly
ARENA-led government, policy decisions. The seemingly total exclusion of Salvadoran business
would change to a degree in 2007, with behind-the-scenes collaboration between Pacific Rim
67
Colindres worked as an Environmental Specialist for the Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources (2000-
2005) and an Environmental Manager at the National Administration for Water Supply and Sewerage (2005-2006)
before joining Pacific Rim.
168
and El Grupo Poma, one of El Salvador’s eight dominant business groups. I will discuss this in
depth below.
Water for profit
As discussed in the civil society and Catholic Church hierarchy chapters, protecting water
resources was at the core of these sectors’ missions to halt mining industry progress. In my
research I found that in the early years of the period of study, El Salvador’s business community
also recognized the perils that mining would pose to their country’s water sources. Water, in this
context, has a different identity from those already discussed in the civil society and Catholic
Church chapters, that of a staple commodity. Therefore, water source contamination does not just
pose risks to human life, but also to private sector profit and even long term commercial
sustainability. The economic elites’ move into finance and services did not mean they had
entirely abandoned the territory-based industries that sustained their past wealth. The large
business conglomerates maintained investments in water-reliant sub-sectors, including
agribusiness, ranching, juice and soft-drink production, and bottling. Therefore, members of the
Salvadoran private sector had direct stakes in domestic industries that would be negatively
affected by further taxing of the country’s already vulnerable water systems.68
As explained to me by Silvia Larios, the Director of Environment Assessment and
Compliance at the Ministry of Environment at the time of our 2014 interview, “it was not so
much they were against metals mining development per se, but instead it was because within the
private sector itself there were other economic interests that were at odds with mining.”69 Larios’
68
69
Silvia Larios General Director of Environmental Assessment and Compliance, MARN, Interview by Author, San
Salvador, El Salvador, September 10, 2014.
169
comment mirrors that of former ANEP executive director Juan Héctor Vidal. Both assert that the
Salvadoran business community did not have an ideological opposition to metals mining. Yet,
unlike Vidal who insinuated that foreign mining firms could have built local alliances if they had
invited Salvadoran business to join them in their enterprises, Larios identifies a different barrier:
clashing economic priorities.
In our interview, Larios cited an example taken from one of the oligarchic families,
Murray Meza, and the associated EPG, Grupo Agrisal. She recounted:
[Roberto] Murray Meza is one of the country’s strong right-wing people, but he has
always wanted to be active and do more than simply not conflict with natural resources.
And he certainly does have an interest in water. Agrisal bottles water, and other drinks.
Its businesses are beverages…
Murray Meza, through an NGO called FUNDEMAS, promoted an initiative to protect the
Lempa River Basin, effectively the basin in the northern part of the country. I remember
that once when [Minister Barrera] gave a presentation on the issue of water, [Murray
Meza] thanked him, said he was interested and he too was supporting some water
initiatives…and Hugo Barrera is very close, for example, to Murray Meza in the private
sector.70
My independent research supported Larios’ recollection of a leading oligarch providing explicit
support for a pro-water approach. I found records showing that Roberto Murray Meza, CEO of
Grupo Agrisal and a one-time presidential candidate, had utilized his family foundation
FUNDEMAS to co-sponsor Initiativa Rio Lempa, a public-private Lempa River protection
campaign carried out between 2003 and 2005.71 There is an obvious connection between Grupo
Agrisal’s business interests and protecting El Salvador’s main water source. Central to Grupo
Agrisal’s portfolio is the bottling business (e.g. for sodas and juices) using El Salvador’s fresh
70
Larios.
71
CND, FUNDEMAS, FUNDALEMPA, “Iniciativa Río Lempa (2003-2005),” n.d.
170
water resources.72 Initiativa Rio Lempa continued throughout 2004 and 2005 meaning this
private sector campaign overlapped with the formation and ascension of the civil society
movement’s “Water for Life”73 campaign. In fact, in 2006 the Murray Meza’s foundation,
FUNDEMAS, published a glossy hardcover with a title that echoed the civil society movement’s
message, The Lempa River: The Flow of Life.74
The Murray Meza/FUNDEMAS campaign did not explicitly critique or advocate
against the metals mining industry in defense of water. Yet the existence of this campaign meant
that even though the private sector was silent on mining, there was a private sector effort
simultaneously promoting a pro-water protection message synonymous with that of civil society
opposition to metals mining. This example appears emblematic of the economic elite in relation
to the mining debates. While ostensibly remaining outside the contentious public discourse and
certainly not openly supporting the civil society efforts or expressing opposition to metals
mining activity, Murray Meza and his business partners brought public attention to the issue at
the heart of the civil society opposition campaign: water.
Concerns about water resources were not just the domain of the El Salvador’s economic
elite. This issue pervaded my interviews with the members of the private sector. Ernesto Rivas,
Salvadoran businessman and former Ambassador to the United States stated in his interview that
his stance against metals mining developed because he saw the water and environmental risks as
72
“Grupo Agrisal El Salvador - Historia,” accessed December 8, 2016, http://www.agrisal.com/historia.; Dorys
Inglés, “Agrisal Construye Su Centro Comercial,” El Diario de Hoy, September 7, 2002.
Robin Broad and John Cavanagh, “El Salvador Gold: Toward a Mining Ban,” ed. Thomas Princen, Jack P.
73
Manno, and Pamela L. Martin (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2015), 167–92.
74
Pedro Antonio Escalante Arce and Federico Trujillo, eds., Río Lempa: caudal de vida (FUNDEMAS, 2006).
171
too great.75 Like Rivas, Waldo Jiménez, ANEP’s Director of Social and Economic Issues at the
time of our 2014 interview, acknowledged the dangers of the mining industry to water, but
emphasized that he saw this as a product of the government’s inability, or perhaps unwillingness,
to adequately monitor the industry. 76 He stated:
I’ve had the impression that the people of MARN do not know how to control the effects
of mining. I think that if the country ever decides to authorize the exploitation of mining
there should be clear rules, adequate institutionality and responsible authorities with the
strength to enforce those rules. A mining operation needs to implement scientific tests of
the waters that are affected, of water treatment, all that does not exist now in El Salvador
because the [different elected] governments have not been interested. Therefore, the
development of mining has not been viewed as a good opportunity for the country.
If the water issues are not handled, what will happen is that the opponent groups are
going to organize better, and they will go to the work sites…and take more belligerent
action. 77
Although blaming weak government oversight and not TNC actions for metals mining potential
water contamination, Jiménez specifically acknowledges that the industry’s risks to El
Salvador’s water reduced the industry’s attractiveness. His final point regarding water is that
insufficient oversight resulting in contamination of the country’s water sources could embolden
and strengthen the civil society opposition, which would create new problems for private sector
interests. The implications of this concern will be explored later in this chapter.
2. Minimal corporate media coverage for metals mining as the opposition gains national
prominence (2006)
Identifying key reasons for why El Salvador’s private sector did not become engaged
with the foreign-led metals mining industry does not demonstrate that the sector had a role in the
75
Rivas, Interview by Author.
76
Waldo Director of Economic and Social Issues Jiménez ANEP, Interview by Author, San Salvador, El Salvador,
November 4, 2014.
77
Jiménez.
172
government’s 2006 suspension of mining permits. However, having established and explained
the disconnect between the domestic private sector and the global metals mining industry, it
becomes possible to analyze its implications for the continuation of the metals mining industry.
One important implication relates to El Salvador’s corporate media, which as discussed in the
background section, is a principal vehicle through which the Salvadoran private sector promotes,
protects, and imposes its interests. As economist Villalona recounted in his interview, metals
mining never was “an issue that the right-wing media supported with massive propaganda as
they’ve done for other issues, such as free trade agreements or privatization of telephone and
electricity services.” In other words, since metals mining was not a priority for the domestic
private sector, the corporate media did not promote or defend the industry. This is relevant for
the industry freeze that would begin in the middle of that year.
In my study of policymaking in 2006, I investigated the online archives of the
conservative Salvadoran daily El Diario de Hoy, discussed in the background as one of the three
print and broadcast companies that monopolize El Salvador's media and, in Villalona’s words,
has “unmatched influence.”78 There was no prominent coverage of El Salvador’s developing
metals mining industry before 2006 and only sporadic coverage before the Action Week Against
Mining, in June 2006, described in the civil society chapter. The pre-Action Week coverage in
2006 appears to have been focused on profiling the mining industry and investing companies,
like Au Martinique Silver and Pacific Rim, without acknowledging community opposition. The
78
Unfortunately, La Prensa Gráfica’s archives from 2004-2008 are only available in hard copy and are not readily
accessible to the public. Therefore, the Prensa Gráfica articles I refer to here were ones I found in others’ archives
and I could not do a comparative study of press coverage on mining in the way I could for Diario de Hoy.
173
article did not acknowledge that in late 2005 Au Martinique Silver withdrew its operations
following community backlash, as discussed in Chapter 1.79
However, as the opposition achieved a more public profile, the tenor of coverage in El
Diario de Hoy took a sharp turn. During the second week of June 2006, El Diario de Hoy
published almost daily articles on the events held during the civil society-led Action Week
Against Mining. The coverage was neither friendly nor impartial. Reporting showcased the
opposition’s arguments and attempted to dismantle them in the narrative that followed. In a June
13, 2006 piece called “Trips and Forums to Convince,” the subtitle states, “A report concludes
that the illnesses in Valle de Siria are not related to possible mine pollution. However, this
continues to be opponents' battle cry.”80
Most notable was a June 15, 2006 editorial, called “The Perverse Campaign Against
Mining,” authored by right wing activist and El Diario de Hoy’s publisher/owner, Fabricio
Altamirano, who is known to singularly author all the paper’s editorials.81 This particular
editorial excoriated the civil society opposition and insulted its domestic and international
supporters, aiming to discredit them with language such as “the Reds now attack the mining
companies.”82 The piece also mocked citizens’ concerns with statements like, “women and cows
will not be able to be pregnant anymore and the people’s hair will fall out while great sores will
appear on their bodies."83 A particularly graphic line from the editorial declares, “the more
79
El Diario de Hoy, “La industria minera toma más fuerza,” El Diario de Hoy, March 16, 2006.; Jorge Beltrán, “La
industria cabalga en Centroamérica,” El Diario de Hoy, June 11, 2006.
80
Jorge Beltrán, “Viajes y Foros Para Convencer,” El Diario de Hoy, June 13, 2006.
81
Wolf, “Subverting Democracy.”
82
“La perversa campaña contra la minería,” El Diario de Hoy, June 15, 2006.
83
“La perversa campaña contra la minería.”
174
primitive and ignorant the people in a community are, the more credibility they give to the
apocalyptic omens propagated by these groups of perverts.”84
If, as I have asserted, this particular newspaper is a mouthpiece for elite positions, the
friendly coverage of the TNC projects and adversarial coverage of the community opposition
would appear to refute the argument that the private sector was had virtually no interest in the
metals mining industry. Yet, by digging more deeply, I found information that argues against this
apparent refutation. From mining executive Robert Johansing’s private archives I recovered a
copy of an e-mail exchange between Johansing and El Diario de Hoy owner Fabricio
Altamirano. On the same day as the El Diario de Hoy editorial cited above was published, June
15, 2006, Johansing wrote to Altamirano to thank him for having published it and invite the
paper to cover his company’s efforts more frequently:
After this week of protests contra la minería, our work is only beginning. Your
newspaper has done a great job and I (as a Salvadoran wanna-be) appreciate your
efforts...There will be an event on June 29 at 1 pm in a small community north of San
Miguel…and I want to tell our story. I will be giving a presentation to the school,
community and Padres de Familia. Could you please have one of your reporters there to
interview me and the participantes [participants]?85
Altamirano’s brief response on June 19 stated:
Thank you for your kind words regarding our newspaper and intentions. I am forwarding
this mail to Eduardo Torres, our editorial director, for him to deliberate [sic, decide on]
the coverage of the communities in San Miguel. We all wish you well and we trust that
the organized opposition to what is evidently good for our country, will crumble by its
own weight. But it is not likely, so the road ahead for you and those that will benefit from
the materialization of the project is unfortunately quite steep.86
84
“La perversa campaña contra la minería.”
85
Robert Johansing, “Felicidades,” Email, June 15, 2006, Johansing archives, private collection, unpublished.
86
Fabricio Altamirano, “Re: Felicidades,” June 19, 2006, Johansing archives, private collection, unpublished.
175
Altamirano’s response is telling. The adversary in this editorial is the same as in many El Diario
de Hoy editorials, “the Reds,” and “the Communists,” which for him refer to the FMLN.
Therefore, the editorial is consistent with the political leanings of the paper and the economic
elite, independent of the specific issue of metals mining.
However, the most important portion of the message is Altamirano’s statement that the
opposition movement is likely to continue unabated, complicating the mining industry’s plans
for El Salvador. This demonstrates that while Altamirano ideologically aligns with the metals
mining industry, he is already resigned that to the likelihood that it will not succeed. With this
message he is distancing himself from the metals mining industry and conveying that it is “their”
battle. Altamirano’s tone in his email to Johansing, as publisher of a mouthpiece of elite
interests, is not consistent with how the corporate media or the right-wing in general respond to
priority issues under attack by opponents. As Villanova stated:
El Diario de Hoy was in favor [of mining], but even being in favor, they did not launch a
big campaign...did not choose to incorporate it into its propaganda. This new outlet (El
Diario de Hoy) has unmatched influence, as one of two of the most read newspapers in
the country…yet they never provoked a fight in favor of mining…Pacific Rim was left
alone to do that…totally alone.”87
An important aspect of Villalona’s point is his acknowledgement that the elite and its
representatives in the media chose not to use their influence to support TNC defense of the
mining industry, leaving Pacific Rim, and mining companies in general, on their own. Without
support exerted through lobbying mechanisms like ANEP or dominant media outlets like El
Diario de Hoy, the TNCs promoting metals mining in El Salvador were left exposed to the
sectors opposed to their industry. Without active use of the economic elite’s offensive and
87
176
defensive mechanisms to support the case for metals mining to the Salvadoran government, the
opposition arguments had a more easily accessible audience in the ARENA controlled
government.
In July 2006, Saca cabinet officials Yolanda de Gavidia and Hugo Barrera made public
announcements conveying that the permit process for metals mining would be suspended to
allow the government to study the issue.88 These government officials' deliberations and
decisions will be discussed in depth in the next chapter. The evidence analyzed until this point
does not show the Salvadoran private sector to be directly “responsible” for the Saca
government’s mid-2006 decision to halt the metals mining permitting process. There is no
indication that the private sector, in the form of individuals or associations, advocated, or even
expressed support, for the metals mining permit freeze or that the Saca administration decision
can be traced back to their influence. Nevertheless, the research also demonstrates that the
private sector did not intervene to protect the industry in any way or, once the suspension was
enacted, to stop or weaken it. In this unique case, given the private sector’s demonstrated
influence over other internationalized industries, the absence of any private sector defense of
metals mining at this time was important for the freeze’s enactment and continuation. The
circumstances in which foreign mining companies (specifically Pacific Rim) were left to launch
the public relations defense “all on its own,” to paraphrase Villanova, will be explored further in
the next section, the final section of process tracing in this chapter.
Hugo Barrera, “‘Adiós a las minas,’ (Interview with Minister of the Environment),” La Prensa Gráfica, July 9,
88
2006.
177
B. The industry suspension and its after effects: new TNC strategies, new Salvadoran
private sector responses and actions (2007-08)
My process tracing for 2007 and 2008 revealed important changes among both the TNCs
engaged in metals mining activities in El Salvador (most notably Pacific Rim) and the reactions
and actions taken by a subset of domestic private sector actors. In my research of the 2007-08
period, I found evidence of direct relationships among some members of the international and
domestic private sectors as well as public advocacy by private sector actors both for and against
metals mining industry activities. This is markedly different from the overall private sector
silence from 2004 through 2006. Therefore, in the forthcoming discussion, I will use process
tracing to accomplish several key tasks. First, I will show how in this period, the TNCs employ
new tactics (again, particularly carried out by Pacific Rim) to directly compensate for the lack of
domestic private sector advocacy (i.e. from the media) and to recruit domestic private sector
support. As a result, for the first time, we can identify specific domestic private sector voices
advocating on behalf of the foreign-led industry and explicitly against the civil-society
opposition.
Second, I will show how these few instances of domestic private sector support were
followed by other members of the Salvadoran private sector publicly taking stands against the
industry. In one case in particular, this included direct support for the civil society position and
the government’s de facto ban. Third, I will show how, even with a small minority of private
sector actors taking a concrete position for or against metals mining, it was largely the “non-
action”/silence on the part of the Salvadoran private sector (particularly among the economic
elite) that was most significant. This provided the civil society opposition with more unimpeded
opportunities to continue to influence the ARENA-led government on this issue.
178
1. Responding to the de facto ban: Pacific Rim seeks allies from the Salvadoran
private sector (2007)
In 2006, the Salvadoran government dealt a blow to the metals mining industry by
suspending the permitting process. This halted any industry growth beyond the exploration
activities already approved. In May 2007, almost a year after civil society opposition gained
national attention and several days after the institutional Catholic Church’s May 3, 2007
proclamation against metals mining in El Salvador, the government took the industry suspension
a step further. In a meeting of mining company representatives held on May 7, 2007, Minister of
Economy Yolanda de Gavidia and new Minister of Environment Carlos Guerrero announced that
companies would be required to stop all metals mining activity, regardless of the status of a
company’s license, so that the government could undertake an Environmental Impact
Assessment (EIA).89 These government actions will be discussed in the next chapter.
It is important to reiterate this this sequence of events because they prompted the affected
TNCs, namely Pacific Rim, to adopt new strategies. While Johansing and Au Martinique Silver
(as discussed in Chapter 3) had already pulled out of operations in Chalatenango, “corporate
pack leader Pacific Rim” (so called by Spalding because the company had advanced the farthest
among all companies engaged in exploration activities in El Salvador) 90 was doubling down in
its efforts to proceed. There are two identifiable parts to Pacific Rim’s new strategy: 1) a more
concerted push to build local corporate support that the company had previously neglected; and
2) the launch of a media blitz to persuade the citizenry of “the corporation’s good citizenship and
89
Pacific Rim, “Pac Rim Cayman LLC v. Republic of El Salvador, Pac Rim Cayman LLC’s Memorial on the Merits
and Quantum,” March 29, 2013, 146.
90
179
environmentally friendly technologies.”91 This latter strategy included the “green mining”
campaign discussed from the civil society perspective in Chapter 2.
A 2008 ADES retrospective on the mining struggle provides a recounting the first part of
Pacific Rim’s new strategy. According to this report: “in the face of defeats in public debates,
Pacific Rim [engaged in] a subtle strategy of pressure on the government, inviting local investors
as partners, believing that the executive branch had denied [the requested] permission because
ARENA businessmen would not gain anything from [metals] mining.” The first example of this
new direction was Pacific Rim’s “hir[ing] the economist Manuel Enrique Hinds….”92 As
Spalding (2014) explains, Pacific Rim contracted Hinds, “a former finance minister (1995-99)
and a long-term advocate of dollarization,” to make the company’s “economic and environmental
case.”93 By strategically selecting Hinds, the man who played a “central role in El Salvador’s
market transition” would now be “defending the government’s [prior] decision to encourage gold
exploration.”94
In his 2007 report, Hinds based his argument in support of the Salvadoran government’s
prior mining plans on disproving the proposition that the environmental cost would be more
significant than the economic gain. He claimed that the analysis behind the opposition’s position
was based on erroneous interpretations of the data. In the report, he argued that the opposition
had made four key errors regarding metals mining. These included:
(a) a serious underestimation of the benefits of gold mining;
91
92
Mesa Nacional frente a la Minería, “Rechazo ciudadano a la minería en El Salvador,” Ecoportal.net, February 19,
2008.
93
94
Spalding, 175.
180
(b) the overestimation of potential environmental risks;
(c) the ignorance of possibilities that modern technologies offer to neutralize these risks;
and
(d) the lack of comparison of the risks of gold mining with those of other economic
activities that are common in the country.95
A scathing, Co-Latino article authored by Leonel Herrera in August 2007, provides an example
of an opposition reaction to Hinds’s findings. Herrera accused Hinds of being a corporate hack
whose supposed rigorous research was simply propaganda that “added to the mining companies’
publicity offensive.”96 Herrera worked to refute Hinds’s arguments and pointedly rejected
Hinds’s tactic of intellectually dismantling the opposition arguments, saying that the economist’s
supposedly empirically based claims were, in fact, fabrications.
When I interviewed Hinds in 2014, he repeatedly emphasized that he had only served as a
paid contractor for Pacific Rim and not as a shareholder nor as a pro-mining activist. He
recounted:
I was involved because Pacific Rim hired me to write a kind of document on what would
be the impact of mining on the economy [in El Salvador]. I wrote this for them. They
called me several times. I was on retainer for a few months. I would update this report, as
new evidence was coming out and new issues were coming out in the discussion. And
that was it… Very quickly this thing became a legal problem and I resigned.97
The excerpt above is an example of how Hinds characterized his involvement quite differently in
his interview with me than depicted in the Herrera article cited above. He attempted to portray
his involvement with Pacific Rim as simply a job for which he was hired and one that he left
when the issue became too politically charged. In my research I did not find evidence that he
95
Manuel Enrique Hinds, “la minería de oro y el proyecto de el dorado en el salvador: costos y beneficios” (Pacific
Rim Mining Company, May 2007), 3.
Leonel Herrera, “Ideólogo neoliberal se suma a ofensiva publicitaria de empresas mineras,” Diario Co Latino,
96
August 9, 2007.
97
Hinds, Interview by Author. Emphasis added
181
indicated these kinds of caveats in his earlier work or statements. Therefore, as much as he
hedged on his position in 2014, my research showed that Hinds had been an important
Salvadoran pro-mining voice in 2007.
In addition to trying to minimize his previous relationship with Pacific Rim and the
metals mining industry during our interview, Hinds also acknowledged that the anti-mining
platform had put forth an argument had resonated with him. Hinds recounted:
There was one problem, one argument that really made sense to me. That argument was,
if you are going to allow for gold exploitation you will need a lot of regulation in order to
have this “green mining.” But then you will need a very strong institution to supervise it
and the problem is that our institutions are very weak. It is possible or probable that these
institutions could be captured by the company or the companies or just become surely in
incompetent. Many of the things they say that the company will do, they won’t do and
then they are going to have these problems. That argument was very strong. It was a
reasonable argument.98
In this statement Hinds acknowledges that El Salvador lacked sufficient institutional strength for
adequate oversight of industrial metals mining. I cannot know if Hinds would have admitted his
agreement with this particular opposition arguments in 2007 while still on the Pacific Rim
payroll. Even so, it is quite significant that in 2014, Hinds, a member of El Salvador’s private
sector, former ARENA appointee in the government and a public advocate of metals mining in
El Salvador, would acknowledge this concern on record.
Beyond Hinds’s “hired” role with Pacific Rim, my research uncovered that there was
another component to Pacific Rim’s new domestic corporate recruitment: an attempt to partner
with and seek support from a member of the oligarchy, Ricardo Poma, CEO and owner of the
Salvadoran EPG Grupo Poma. The Salvadoran press has called Ricardo Poma “the country’s
richest man,” and for several consecutive years Forbes has recognized him as just one of two
98
Manuel Enrique Hinds, Consultant to Pacific Rim (2007), Former Minister of the Treasury (1994-95). Emphasis
added
182
Salvadorans who are among “the most important millionaires in Central America.”99 Several of
my interviewees, for example Guillermo Aleman from Caritas and Leonel Herrera, the journalist
who authored the 2007 Co Latino article cited above, and also formerly served as La Mesa
communications coordinator, told me about longstanding suspicions that Poma, through Grupo
Poma, had been surreptitiously advocating on behalf of Pacific Rim.100
The Poma-Pacific Rim rumors were fueled in part because Patricio Escobar Thompson,
the husband of El Salvador’s Vice President under President Saca, Ana Vilma de Escobar, was
an executive at Grupo Roble, a subsidiary of the Poma Group. The 2008 La Mesa op-ed cited
above described the relationship as follows:
Pacific Rim implemented a strategy that included the incorporation of the powerful Poma
Group as a local shareholder, represented by Patricio Escobar Thompson. This allowed
his wife, the Vice President of the Republic, Ana Vilma de Escobar, to push in favor of
mining, inside the executive branch.101
In my research I could not find independent evidence for the La Mesa claim that the Poma
Group, or any member of the Poma family including Ricardo Poma, were Pacific Rim
shareholders who would have directly benefited financially from Pacific Rim’s El Salvador
investments. Yet during my interview with Alex Segovia, Technical Secretary to Salvadoran
President Mauricio Funes (2009-2014), he confided, “I mention a name, Ricardo Poma, the
richest man in this country, a man who controls a great deal: ARENA, finance, etc. He was one
of the main drivers of the mining issue.” Segovia assured me that he based this claim on first-
99
“Ricardo Poma y Roberto Kriete, entre los ‘millonarios más importantes de Centroamérica,’” La Página,
Periódico Digital, May 27, 2014.
100
Guillermo Alemán, Caritas El Salvador, Interview by Author, San Salvador, El Salvador, July 2, 2014.; Herrera,
Interview by Author, July 30, 2014.
101
Equipo de comunicaciones de la Mesa Nacional frente la Minería Metálica, “¿Quiénes están detrás de la ‘minería
verde’?,” Diario Co Latino, May 28, 2008.
183
hand knowledge, that during his time in government he had seen Ricardo Poma himself advocate
on behalf of Pacific Rim’s interests and for the government to allow metals mining, and that he
knew this advocacy had begun during this Saca administration.102
In addition to Segovia, other interviewees, like Aleman and Herrera referenced above,
who linked the Poma Group or Ricardo Poma himself to Pacific Rim, acknowledged that they
learned of the connection primarily through rumors and that they did not have concrete evidence
for the connection.103 It was not until 2017 that I found corroborating accounts for these
suspicions in the Salvadoran press. As documented in an April 2017 online article published by
LanoticiasSV.com, Monsignor Gregorio Rosa Chávez had admitted during a television interview
that “one of the major financiers of the ARENA party tried to influence the Catholic Church to
change its position on mining for the country.”104 The auxiliary archbishop claimed that just as
he and other members of the Bishops’ Conference were “deliberating on metals mining, a lawyer
for the one of the richest men in the country came to the archdiocese to convince us that to
support mining…but he did not succeed in convincing us.”105 Monsignor Rosa Chávez himself
did not reveal the name this wealthy Salvadoran whom the lawyer represented. However, the
LanoticiasSV.com article cited above named the individual as Ricardo Poma, citing a tweet that
the ex-Salvadoran president Mauricio Funes sent immediately following Rosa Chávez’s April
102
Alex Segovia, Secretaria de la Presidencia (2009-2014), Interview by Author, San Salvador, El Salvador, October
28, 2014.
103
Herrera, Interview by Author, July 30, 2014.; Alemán, Interview by Author.
Miriam Muñoz, “Empresario Poma habría intentado influenciar a Mons. Rosa Chávez y a Funes para apoyar
104
minería,” LanoticiaSV.com, April 19, 2017.
105
Muñoz.
184
interview which said: “I am sure that Poma was the gran empresario that Rosa Chávez
mentioned. He tried to convince my government of the same thing.”106
Given the combination of actual reports as well as innuendo, I cannot make a definitive
claim about exactly what role Ricardo Poma as an individual, or the Poma Group as a company,
played on behalf of Pacific Rim at this time. For example, I did not uncover written
documentation that shows Poma owned shares in Pacific Rim or had other common investments
with the company. Notwithstanding whether Poma or his company were actual stockholders, as
the La Mesa report claimed, and/or if Poma himself or his representatives actually lobbied the
Catholic Church leadership and government officials to abandon their criticisms of mining, there
is a significant takeaway. It appears that private advocacy from an extremely wealthy individual
member of the economic elite was not sufficient to turn around the metals mining industry’s
fortunes. As Segovia shared, Poma’s lobbying for metals mining was notably at odds with other
oligarchs. Segovia explained, “The right was divided, it was not united. Of course, we all know
what it is to be Ricardo Poma. But at the same time, we know that there are others in the business
elite that were not like him [Poma], that did not adopt the same position.”107
Segovia suggests that, even with Poma’s level of wealth, power, and influence, his
isolation from the rest of the economic elite on this issue, meant that his support and advocacy
were insufficient to regain government support for metals mining. In our 2015 follow-up
interview, Leonel Herrera shared that it was his understanding, that after the government had
suspended the industry in 2007, “Pacific Rim finally understood that they had to do something,
so they pursued the Poma Group…but they did this too late, and it did not work.” Herrera’s
106
Muñoz.
107
Segovia, Interview by Author.
185
conclusion is consistent with the information provided by Segovia as well as the reported
statement by former President Funes, cited above.
2. Taking media coverage into their own hands: Pacific Rim sponsors pro-mining
publicity; members of the private sector speak out (2007-2008)
During this same period in 2007, the second part of Pacific Rim’s new strategy was also
being rolled out. An anonymous media campaign hit the airwaves and print media, meant to
“announce the benefits of green mining technology” and demonstrate to Salvadorans across
society that modern-day technology would allow for responsible and eco-friendly mining
techniques.108 Despite the formal anonymity, it was generally assumed that Pacific Rim
promoted this campaign, which ran from 2007 through 2008.109 The ads also tackled issues
beyond environmental concerns, including the opposition’s accusation that the majority of profit
would leave El Salvador and the stereotype that being pro-mining was only for those that were
politically conservative.110As discussed above, without the private sector support or right-wing
media advocacy that has typically accompanied priority issues for the country’s economic elite,
the mining TNCs were left to create this media advocacy for themselves. In this way the “green
mining” press onslaught can be understood as Pacific Rim’s public relations substitute for the
media campaign the right-wing media was not providing.
108
“Minería metálica y su inviabilidad en El Salvador” (Asociación de Desarrollo Económico y Social (ADES),

109
2008), 14, reposted by Observatorio de Conflictos Mineros de América Latina (OCMAL).

110
Minería Verde and Métodos, Estudios y Procesos (MEP), “Los moderados superan a los extremistas (¿de que
lado estas tu?),” La Prensa Grafica, June 26, 2008, sec. Paid Advertisement; Minería Verde, “68.8% del valor del
oro se queda en El Salvador,” La Prensa Gráfica, June 26, 2008, sec. Paid Advertisement.
186
The private sector post-facto analysis of the campaign and its impact is not favorable.
During interviews with private sector members, their criticism included the campaign’s
anonymity, the focus on catchy slogans instead of explanations or evidence of how mining
would help and not hurt Salvadorans, and the off-putting sense that Salvadorans should just
“trust” whoever was behind the campaign. Hinds’s harsh criticism of the campaign focused not
only on its slickness in terms of images and catch phrases, but its ultimate lack of substance. He
explained:
Initially the ads were very, very attractive and people became interested. But then I said,
“Now you have to explain what green mining is.” I recommended them to do some of
this little…to insert some pages in the newspapers or in magazines explaining…i.e. “this
is how…” Because the opposition used a lot of [specific] arguments, lots of statements.
So, you have to say, “well there are dangers, they are this and this…but we will address it
x, y, z…” And you have to explain everything.
…I think that eventually they admitted it was by Pacific Rim. But it was anonymous in
the sense that the company did not come out in front of the entire public and say, “yes,
we are Pacific Rim and we will explain to you what we want to do and why we think this
is good for the country.” But rather than that, what they did was just these things with a
catchy phrase that became a phrase. Because if you keep saying, “green mining,” “green
mining,” people start laughing. After a while people start thinking it is a joke….
…so ultimately it was not just the interests. It was not just that they didn’t have support
from entrepreneurs. It was also that they lost the communications battle.111
Jorge Daboub complained that there was “no ‘click’ between the [company’s] offer to sell the
product and peoples’ needs as Salvadorans…It never answered the question, ‘What does this
have to do with me?’”112 Waldo Jiménez homed in on the faults of the “just trust me” approach.
He explained: “Everything was trust us, ‘we are good.’ Just like the politician tells you that he is
‘good’—and we are accustomed to politicians who tell us, ‘I am good, and I will do things
111
Hinds, Interview by Author.
112
Daboub, Interview by Author.
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right!’ But they [the campaign] did not ever concretize how it would benefit the citizens or the
country’s economy.”113 As Juan Héctor Vidal explained, instead of squashing concerns among
the public, “this type of propaganda…generated suspicions, as if there was something strange
and dark there.”114
In October 2007, as the “green mining” media blitz escalated, Ricardo Poma’s oligarch
counterpart Roberto Murray Meza spoke publicly about protecting the Lempa River. As
discussed above, Murray Meza’s FUNDEMAS foundation, had sponsored a water protection
campaign during the same period that civil society was mobilizing against metals mining to
protect El Salvador’s vulnerable water sources. As part of a promotional event for the book his
foundation published, The Lempa River: The Flow of Life,115 Murray Meza declared that,
"rescuing the Lempa River from its deterioration has an obvious importance for us. Therefore,
we have taken on the responsibility to share our commitment and to compel others to adopt
it.”116 I do not have evidence that Murray Meza spoke out about protecting the Lempa in October
2007 as a direct reaction to the “green mining” media campaign. However, the timing does show
that coinciding with “green mining” advertising campaign, Murray Meza, who did not support
the foreign-led mining industry, was lending his significant influence to efforts to protect the
Lempa River. This, of course, is the water source that civil society opponents demonstrated and
publicized would be contaminated by industrial metals mining. Segovia’s assessment, cited
113
Jiménez, Interview by Author.
114
Vidal, Interview by Author.
115
Arce and Trujillo, Río Lempa.
116
Arce and Trujillo.
188
above, that support for mining by only one oligarch had no significant impact is consistent with
these developments.
Although Murray Meza’s late 2007 pro-water comments were not necessarily a direct
response to Pacific Rim’s public relations campaign, in 2008 there are such examples from
members of the Salvadoran private sector. Different from the mining opposition voices heard
until that point, this new group of dissenters emphasized in their arguments the industry’s risks to
existing economic sectors. For example, in an op-ed titled, “If we want tourism, we must have
less mining,” economist Henry Campos laid out a detailed case as to how metals mining would
indeed hurt El Salvador’s nascent tourism industry.117 Furthermore, Juan Héctor Vidal, former
executive director of ANEP, established himself as one of these public dissenters. On May 26,
2008 Vidal published an op-ed called, “Who is behind ‘Green Mining’?” in the center-right
publication La Prensa Gráfica. This article brought to light the anonymity of the campaign
backers and questioned the campaign’s validity.118 Two days later, on May 28, La Mesa
members utilized Vidal’s stance as the basis for their own op-ed for Diario Co-Latino, writing
that “Vidal’s question was timely.”119 In my 2014 interview with Héctor Berrios, he explained
that even six years later the 2008 Vidal op-ed remained memorable. Having La Prensa Gráfica
feature an opposition argument penned by former leader of ANEP that overlapped with La
Mesa’s message, bolstered the civil society opposition.
117
Henry Campos, “Si hay turismo debe haber menos minería,” La Prensa Gráfica, June 8, 2007.
118
Vidal, Interview by Author; Equipo de comunicaciones de la Mesa Nacional frente la Minería Metálica,
“¿Quiénes están detrás de la ‘minería verde’?”
119
Equipo de comunicaciones de la Mesa Nacional frente la Minería Metálica, “¿Quiénes están detrás de la ‘minería
verde’?”
189
The above criticisms from members of the Salvadoran private sector generally referred to
how the campaign failed to reach Salvadorans writ large and were not specifically related to its
impact on the private sector. Yet their complaints about how the media campaign never
explained “what’s in it for us,” are similar to the other complaints discussed—that the TNCs had
also never made the benefits clear for the Salvadoran business community. In the context of
growing public disapproval, unclear evidence of benefit to Salvadoran capital, and established
risks to existing sectors, the private sector continued to stay, mostly, outside of the debate. As
Waldo Jiménez summed up:
In El Salvador there is an implicit consensus around “no mining.” No one comes out to
advocate “yes to mining.” So, it would seem instead that it would be better not to get
involved in these problems.’120
Even without providing public broad-based support for the anti-mining/pro-water
movement, the Salvadoran business sector, by not opposing the anti-mining efforts, provided
tacit acceptance. Even taking into account the few exceptions discussed above, the private
sector’s overall lack of enthusiasm for the metals mining industry’s attempts to penetrate the
country eliminated what could have been an insurmountable obstacle for the anti-mining
movement. We will return to this in concluding chapter.
IV. Wrap up
This conclusion returns to the overarching research question and the three supporting
questions that guided the process tracing analysis. As laid out in the introduction, the overarching
research question is: Why did El Salvador deviate from an economic development paradigm that
120
Jiménez, Interview by Author.
190
prioritizes extraction’s short-term economic gains over the social and environmental costs and
choose to instead disallow industrial metals mining? The sub-questions for this sector are:
1. What was the role the domestic private sector play in El Salvador’s choices and actions
on metals mining?
2. What were the sector’s identifiable motivations?
3. What were the traceable milestone events/decision points that contributed to this
outcome?
The analysis of the Salvadoran private sector’s actions in relation to metals mining from 2004
through 2008 leads to the following takeaways:
The private sector’s role:
The domestic private sector contributed differently from the prior sectors analyzed. The
contribution came from absence, rather than presence, meaning that the influence was based on
what the sector did not do, as much as, if not more than actions that it took. In other words,
except for a minority of members in the final years of the period of study, the Salvadoran private
sector largely stayed out of the debates on metals mining for El Salvador. This absence was
influential because of the domestic private sector’s traditional role as a broker between
international private sector interests and the government. In particular, the nucleus of families
that make up the economic elite, generally took an active pro-business advocacy role. Even
when, in the later years of the period of study, a small number of private sector actors, most
significantly oligarch Ricardo Poma, appear to have intervened, it did not make up for the
Salvadoran private sector’s overall lack of engagement. This absence meant that the opposition
had greater unimpeded access to both decisionmakers in the government and voters than they
would have if the private sector had come to the mining industry’s defense.
191
Private sector motivations:
The Salvadoran private sector’s disengagement was primarily motivated by two factors:
first, that the international companies had never demonstrated how domestic business, from the
lowest rungs to the highest levels of the elite, would benefit from the exploitation of the
country’s metals resources. Second, the industry posed direct threats to private sector interests,
be they related to traditional landholding or the country’s vulnerable water sources. Without a
clear idea of how they would benefit, but with evidence of how they could be harmed, it was not
to the advantage of the domestic private sector to support the metals mining industry to succeed.
Private sector milestone events/actions:
The challenge throughout this entire analysis has been to identify milestone moments in
the apparent absence of action. The process tracing analysis revealed several critical moments.
The first milestone moment for this sector occurred in 2006, when the foreign-led metals
mining industry came under attack by civil society opponents. The civil society opposition was
able to get their message to both government decision-makers and the Salvadoran public with
few impediments because the domestic private sector was not primed to come to the industry’s
defense. Whereas historically, the Salvadoran private sector has defended foreign investment in
other situations—be it privatization or trade agreements—the sector did not mobilize to do this in
2006 as the opposition movement gained national prominence, beginning with the June 2006
Action Week Against Mining.
Second, an extended milestone related to the Salvadoran media began in 2006 and
continued throughout the remainder of the period of study. The media response to the developing
metals mining debates offers the most explicit consequence of the absence of domestic private
sector mobilization. As discussed in the analysis, the country’s leading media outlets
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traditionally convey elite interests through their print and broadcast resources. However, because
the domestic private sector did not share in the interests of the metals mining industry, the media
did not use its power to broadcast a pro-mining position. This is not say that instead, the leading
media outlets (El Diario de Hoy, La Prensa Gráfica, and the TV stations owned by TLC)
broadcast anti-metals mining positions. Rather, while the media—across the spectrum—covered
the opposition’s actions as “news” there was minimal commensurate pro-metals mining
coverage. Thus the absence of direct private sector support for metals mining translated in the
loss of a “free” supporting media campaign. The substitute advertising campaign sponsored by
Pacific Rim failed because many in the Salvadoran public saw it as PR and advertising rather
than as reporting by respected domestic media outlets.
Third, when in 2007 several private sector actors publicly and privately began to
advocate on behalf of the industry, most signficiantly oligarch Ricardo Poma, this did not make
up for the prior lack of private sector engagement. As Leonel Herrera commented, these attempts
at building alliances so many years after mining exploration had started was “too little, too late.”
To conclude, the process tracing analysis in this chapter has demonstrated how
international mining companies and the domestic private sector/economic elites never adequately
developed strong alliances in El Salvador. As a result, the international mining firms did not
have a domestic, influential sector as a partner to exert pressure from within the country on their
behalf. This absence was a critical contributor to the inability of the mining industry to dissuade
the government from changing the “rules of the game,” to return to Haslam, in ways that would
significantly harm their interests. The next chapter will utilize process tracing to examine the role
of the Salvadoran government in bringing about this outcome between 2004 and 2008. This will
193
be the last individual sectoral analysis before considering the findings from each sector together
in the conclusion.
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CHAPTER 5
“JUST FOLLOWING THE LAW”: A PRO-BUSINESS GOVERNMENT TURNS AWAY

FROM THE “PROMISE” OF METALS MINING
I. Introduction
“It is important to recognize that it was the Saca administration that first refused metals
mining,” Dr. Angel Ibarra, the Vice-Minister of Environment for the Sánchez Cerén government,
told me in our 2015 interview.1 Dr. Ibarra, who had been a long-time civil society activist,
scholar, and the executive director of founding La Mesa member UNES before being appointed
to Vice-Minister continued:
This was significant. We must appreciate the fact that the government of Saca, and in
particular Minister Barrera [Saca’s first Minister of Environment], was sensitive to this
problem that we [the Sanchez Cerén administration] are calling attention to and they did
not give in to transnational companies’ interests and pressures.2
According to Ibarra, it was the Saca administration, and most notably Saca’s first Minister of
Environment, Hugo Barrera, that deserve credit for initially halting metals mining in El Salvador.
In 2014, a year before I met with Ibarra, I heard a similar perspective from Héctor Dada,
President Mauricio Funes’ first Minister of Economy. Dada went further than Vice-Minister
Ibarra’s appreciation of the Saca administration’s position, emphasizing what he understood to
be the crucial nature of its actions. He told me, “If Saca had not already decreed what the
lawyers call ‘the moratorium,’ if instead an FMLN government had decreed it first, this would
have elicited a furious attack about the state violating the rights of private enterprise.”3 In other
1
Angel Ibarra Vice Minister of Environment (2014-present); Formerly President of UNES, Interview by Author,
San Salvador, El Salvador, November 30, 2015.
2
Ibarra.
3
Dada Hirezi, Interview by Author.
195
words, according to Dada, the fact that the pro-business ARENA party began the freeze made it
easier for the subsequent FMLN elected presidents to continue it. These two presidential
appointees from two different FMLN administrations made clear to me that they believed the
Saca administration’s prior actions suspending the metals mining permitting process and
ultimately halting all metal mining, were significant in terms of creating a new status quo for the
industry that their respective administrations then built upon.
In contrast to Ibarra and Dada’s understandings, several among my civil society
interviewees argued that the Saca administration should not be credited for having done anything
more than give in to social pressure by suspending metals mining activities. For example,
Rodolfo Calles, La Mesa Coordinator at the time of our interview, argued that, “Saca only said
no [to metals mining] at the end of his term in 2009, when his government was close to leaving
office,”4 with the implication that it was a move to curry political favor, taken by a lame duck
president. Furthermore, Cabañas-based anti-mining leader Antonio Pacheco challenged the
notion that Environment Minister Barrera deserved special recognition. Pacheco opined: “I think
he did what he should have done as a minister, asking a company to do what the environmental
norms instructed. So, to me he did not do anything notable. He did not do anything beyond what
the law required.”5
In this context of divergent (although not mutually exclusive) perspectives, the current
chapter considers the Salvadoran government, and specifically the executive branch under
President Antonio Saca (2004-2009), to answer my overall research question: Why did El
Salvador deviate from an economic development paradigm that prioritizes the short-term
4
5
196
economic gains from extraction over the social and environmental costs and instead choose to
disallow metals mining? With that in mind, the sub-questions I utilized in the prior sectoral
chapters remain relevant. As shaped to put the Salvadoran government in focus in this chapter,
these questions are:
• Who were the Salvadoran government actors and entities instrumental to El Salvador’s
choices and actions on metals mining and what specific roles(s) did each of them and the
sector overall play?
• What motivations can be identified?
• What were the formative, determinative milestone actions and events?
Following the structure of the prior three analytical chapters, the answers to these three questions
provide a fourth and final evidentiary building block that will be considered, along with the
findings from those sectoral discussions, in the concluding chapter of this dissertation.
Before delving into my own original analysis, it is important to highlight where the
foundational scholarship by Broad and Cavanagh and Spalding reflects the contrasting
interpretations of the Saca administration’s role that my interviewees expressed. Spalding’s work
gives limited attention to the Saca administration’s involvement focusing only on the actions of
the president himself in her analysis. Mirroring Rodolfo Calles’s perspective, she ascribes Saca’s
public statements against mining at the end of his term6 to what she calls El Salvador’s
“leftwards shift in public policy”7 at that particular political moment. Spalding then cites Saca’s
6
Keny López Piche, “No a la minería: Saca cierra puertas a explotación de metales,” La Prensa Gráfica, February
25, 2009.
7
Shift,” 197.
197
“increasingly vocal…personal reservations about the impact of mining on the environment,”8 as
evidence of an evolution leftward in his personal ideology. In doing so, she suggests that this
represents the kind of a stance that would then lead to Saca “publicly distance his administration
from some traditional [ARENA] party positions”9 rather than reflective of an alternative
perspective emerging among those on the conservative side of the Salvadoran political spectrum.
Broad and Cavanagh’s analysis goes beyond looking at president Saca and focuses as
well on the key role that top Saca administration official Hugo Barrera had in shifting the
government’s approach to metals mining. They explain:
The Ministry under Barrera did not reject Pac Rim’s application for an environmental
permit; it simply did not act upon it. While some see this as an oversight and an
indication of incompetence, our research (backed by the ICSID submissions) suggests
this was a conscious act of disapproving by not acting.10
Broad and Cavanagh argue that the Ministry of Environment (MARN), under Barrera’s
leadership, took conscious non-action on Pacific Rim’s environmental permit application without
which Pacific Rim could not secure the required license for mineral removal. Therefore, even
though MARN never officially rejected the company’s permit application, the intentional lack of
action on the application effectively had the same practical result as a formal disapproval. Pacific
Rim could not begin ore extraction.
My research conclusively supports Broad and Cavanagh and, building from their work,
adds an important finding. As the forthcoming analysis in this chapter will show, MARN’s
conscious act of disapproving by not acting on Pacific Rim’s environmental permit represents
8
Spalding, 197.
9
10
Broad and Cavanagh, 422. Emphasis added.
198
just one example of how the agency intentionally albeit unofficially, halted all metals mining
expansion in El Salvador. I found that beginning in mid-2006 MARN strategically utilized
deliberate non-action on environmental permit applications from all metals mining companies,
all of which were for exploration licenses except for Pacific Rim’s. This approach, while
avoiding official rejection, stalled industrial mineral mining expansion in the country.
Furthermore, this chapter will show how MARN’s strategy of intentional non-action on permit
applications represents just one among a set of tactics that officials within the Salvadoran
executive branch—at the Ministry of Economy (MINEC) as well as at MARN—utilized to slow
and then halt industrial metals mining in El Salvador.
By using process tracing in section three, below, for the period of 2004-08, I will
demonstrate how government actors within the executive branch, from top appointees to civil
servants, utilized a range of explicit to tacit strategies to establish and then sustain the metals
mining industry suspension. Often ad-hoc and without coordination, government officials
utilized these strategies based on specific constraints and opportunities related to available
resources and political will that shifted over the course of Antonio Saca’s presidency. The
evidence will show that key government actions were not driven primarily by Saca himself, but
from within his administration.
This analysis of the period of 2004 through 2008 is organized in three phases, the same
structure that I utilized for the civil society process tracing analysis in chapter two. The three
phases are:
• 2004-2005: A new presidential administration, a new vision for applying and
upholding national environmental law
• 2006: The year policy action changed: the sharp shift from regulation to suspension
199
• 2007-2008: Permit suspension become a de facto industry ban despite leadership
changes at the ministerial level
The three-phase discussion to follow uses process tracing to identify and analyze deliberate
action as well as non-action taken by the executive branch of the Salvadoran government related
to application of Salvadoran law on mining and the environment. That will be linked to the
ultimate government decisions to suspend and stop the metals mining industry. In so doing, the
chapter identifies the key government officials and explores the motivations for and implications
of their interpretations and resulting actions. Finally, in analyzing the range of strategic and
tactical actions identified, the analysis will highlight those that should be understood as the key
“milestones” because of their discernible importance to the trajectory of government decision-
making that led to the outcome of study.
Before I begin the process tracing analysis, the next section provides background on the
legal frameworks developed in El Salvador in the 1990s to guide, regulate and facilitate both El
Salvador’s modernized mining industry and the country’s overall environmental policy. To
understand Saca administration officials’ interpretation and application of these laws, it
necessary to understand the politics behind the original development of the mining and
environmental laws as well as how officials in prior administrations enacted and implemented
them.
II. Foundational background: The legal framework for mining and its management in
El Salvador
Previous chapters have provided background on El Salvador’s limited historical
involvement with the metals mining industry and the implications for the government’s efforts in
the post-civil war era to develop a modern mining industry. This section adds to that background
200
by providing insight into the legal frameworks created to guide and regulate El Salvador’s
modernized mining industry. First, this includes the country’s first formal mining law (1996)
and its revision (2001) and second, the country’s first Environment Law, that built a government
apparatus, with related policies, to protect the environment (1998). Understanding certain
particulars about these laws is critical to understanding how “the law” itself was an entry point
for the government (and as discussed in earlier chapters, for members of the citizen opposition)
to disrupt the metals mining industry. This section will introduce the components of these laws,
followed by discussion of how government officials utilized them.
A. Development of a modernized mining law (1995-1996, Armando Caldaron Sol

presidency)
Gina Navas de Hernández, director of the Ministry of Economy’s Bureau of
Hydrocarbons and Mines until 2008, shared her recollections of the period in the 1990s when the
government revamped its mining policies. She explained:
At the beginning [in the 90's] there was support among ministers, as if we must support
mining, we must invest in that. And this led to the new law. You see, when I was first
assigned to the subject of mining, there was no mining law. There was only the Old
[1922] Mining Code. But there was interest among mining companies…As a result, the
government decided to put forth a new law. It was not the best law in the world, but it
was better than the old one.11
The new mining law Hernández mentioned was “promulgated through Legislative Decree No.
544, dated December 14, 1995, and published in Official Gazette No. 16, Volume 330, of
11
Gina Navas de Hernández Director, Bureau of Mining and Hydrocarbons, Ministerio de Economía (MINEC,
1996-2007), Interview by Author, San Salvador, El Salvador, November 6, 2014.
201
January 1996.” 12 It was specifically crafted to regulate “the exploration, exploitation, processing
and commercialization of non-renewable natural resources.”13
As explained by Denis Collins, the 1996 Mining Law laid out two separate processes for
obtaining exploration and mineral removal14 mining licenses.15
Gold mining companies apply to the Ministry of the Economy (MINEC) Department of
Mines for both exploration and mining licenses. The Department of Mines inspects the
exploration area, reviews company operations, and then decides to either grant or deny a 4-
year exploration license that could be renewed for up to 8 years. The mining company
submits annual reports describing its exploration progress. Next, the mining company
submits a mining license application for the legal right to remove discovered mineral
deposits from the ground. Additional required documents include an Environmental Impact
Assessment (ElA), a Feasibility Study, and a five-year Development Plan.16
This brief description reveals several important facets of the 1996 law. First, the Ministry of
Economy (MINEC) would be the primary authority managing and regulating the industry.
Second, because exploration and mineral extraction are separate processes and therefore require
two separate application processes, the government has the authority to intervene between the
exploration and exploitation stages. This administrative separation between the exploration and
extraction phases was an important change from how the industry had operated (even in its
limited form) under the 1922 Mining Code, because it added an additional opportunity for the
government to evaluate company activity and intervene before a project advanced from the
12
Carlos Guerrero, “Carlos Guerrero Minister of the Environment (MARN) to Yolanda de Gavidia, Minister of
Economy (MINEC), Resending Terms of Reference for Strategic Environmental Assessment (SER),” Letter,
November 13, 2008, 2, Exhibit C-835, ICSID Case No. ARB/09/12, made available by counsel for El Salvador with
the authorization of the Office of the Attorney General of El Salvador.
13
Carlos Guerrero, 2.
14
In Spanish the terms are “exploración” and “explotación” which are far more straightforward terms than how the
latter stage of mineral removal is described in English. In this discussion I will say “mineral removal” and
“extraction” for this second stage.
15
Collins, “The Failure of a Socially Responsive Gold Mining MNC in El Salvador,” 252.
16
Collins, 253.
202
exploration to extraction stage. Third, as stipulated in article 37 that describes the requirements
for the exploration and extraction phases, the 1996 Mining Law mandated formal environmental
review and permitting only at the extraction stage. This meant that potential environmental risks
would not be a consideration for approving or denying exploration permits.
Collins’s summary quoted above provides a general sense of what the 1996 Mining Law
required for exploration and mineral removal (extraction) licensing. However, it did not mention
the provision in the law related to land ownership for the extraction phase. In article 37.2.b, the
1996 law stipulates that to procure a license for the extraction phase, a company must show
“Deed of ownership of the property or authorization granted in legal form by the owner.”17 As
alluded to in the civil society chapter and as expanded upon in this chapter, this provision would
prove to be key in the movement’s strategy to obstruct the advancement of industrial metals
mining in El Salvador.
There is another factor of note during this period. As then-Legislative Assemblywoman
Lourdes Palacio (FMLN, 2006-2015) clarified during our 2014 interview, when the Salvadoran
government passed the 1996 Mining Law, “there were no institutions in charge of environmental
matters in El Salvador.”18 At that time the only government body working on environmental
issues was the Secretariat for the Environment (La Secretaría Ejecutiva del Medio Ambiente,
SEMA), an agency created in 1994 and managed by the Ministry of Planning and Coordination of
17
Asamblea Legislativa de El Salvador, “Ley de Minería y Sus Reformas,” Pub. L. No. Decreto Legislativo No. 475
(2001). Given that the Salvadoran constitution separates surface land rights (Which can be privately owned) vs.
underground resource rights (government owned), the stipulations laid out in article 33.2.b is of critical importance.
18
Lourdes Palacios FMLN Legislative Assemblywoman for San Salvador (2006-2015); member of Commission on
Environment and Climate Change (formerly Commission on Health, Environment and Natural Resources),
including holding the leadership role of Secretary, Interview by Author, San Salvador, El Salvador, September 16,
2014.
203
Economic and Social Development.19 SEMA lacked substantial expertise among its staff and a
mandate with which it could challenge actions taken by other government ministries. Therefore,
the country was limited in how it could even oversee the minimal environmental management
and regulation requirements set forth in the 1996 Mining Law.
B. Establishment of an Environmental Law and a Ministry of Environment (1998)
In 1998, the Salvadoran Legislative Assembly passed a National Environment Law that
established the Ministry of Environment (MARN). This new ministry absorbed SEMA and
administratively gave environmental management issues the same status as those issues managed
by other ministries.20 One of the many contributions of this new law was clarifying the industries
for which an environmental permit, to be granted based on the results of an environmental
impact study, would be required. Article 19 of the 1998 Environment Law stipulates the
following: “for the start and operation of the activities, works or projects defined in this law,
must have an environmental permit. The ministry will issue the environmental permit, after
approval of the environmental impact study.”21
Consistent with the 1996 Mining Law, the 1998 Environment Law categorized the
mineral extraction phase of metals mining as requiring an environmental permit to procure an
operating license. However, different from the Mining Law, the Environment Law required that
both stages, exploration and extraction, be subject to MARN oversight, therefore adding an
“Historia: nace la Secretaria Ejectuiva del Medio Ambiente (SEMA),” Ministerio de Medio Ambiente y Recursos
19
Naturales: (MARN).
20
Economy (MINEC), Resending Terms of Reference for Strategic Environmental Assessment (SER),” 2.
21
Asamblea Legislativa de El Salvador, “Ley Del Medio Ambiente,” Pub. L. No. Decreto N o 233 (1998).
204
important environmental requirement for the exploration stage. Article 21 stipulates that: “every
natural or legal person must submit the corresponding environmental impact study to carry out
the following activities, works or projects...exploration, exploitation and industrial processing of
minerals and fossil fuels.”22
This is just one example of how the 1998 Environment Law differed in its policies from
prior Salvadoran law. To reconcile any legal conflicts with earlier laws, the new law included a
key provision, Article 115. This article mandates: “the present law is of a special character
because its norms will prevail over whatever other that contradicts it.”23 According to the
parameters set out in the 1998 Environment Law, the MINEC-managed metals mining
permitting process would have been expected to also require formal MARN oversight for
environmental permitting based on environmental studies at both the exploration and extraction
stages. In practice this was not what occurred. Despite official adoption of the Environment Law
in 1998, government documents and stakeholder interviews reveal that MINEC’s exploration
licensing process did not change to include MARN until 2004. This will be discussed below.
C. The 2001 Revised Mining Law
In July 2001, the Salvadoran legislature passed substantial changes to its 1996 Mining
Law to encourage greater investment. At that time, 10 companies had exploration licenses for
territory covering 1,041 square kilometers 224 and had invested about US $15 million in
22
Asamblea Legislativa de El Salvador, 15.
23
Asamblea Legislativa de El Salvador, 46.
24
“New Law Strengthens El Salvador Mining Sector,” Business News Americas, July 26, 2001.
205
exploration in the prior four years.”25 The 2001 Mining Law revision, attracted international
press. As reported in Business News America:
With the approval by the El Salvador Legislative Assembly of a package of 30

amendments to the Mining Act, the Ministry of Economy’s Bureau of Hydrocarbons and
Mines took the first step toward the strengthening of the country’s mining sector,
according to the Bureau’s Director of Mining, Gina [Navas] de Hernández. She explained
that the amendments are part of the Government’s initiative to modernize the sector and
encourage more foreign and domestic investment in mining. “The first thing we are
doing,” she added, “is amending the law to make it more competitive with the laws in …
Central America.”26
These amendments included reducing royalties for the State, which had been “3% for the State
and 1% for the municipality where the mine is located; they are now 1.5% for the State and the
municipality still gets 1%.”27
In an October 2001interview published several months later in the same publication Gina
Navas de Hernández promoted the new law and the opportunities it would offer to metals mining
companies, citing the positive experiences of firms already working in El Salvador. The
interview quotes her as saying:
At the moment, we don’t have new firms interested but the companies that are operating
in the country have decided to stay thanks to the modification of the law… We see
optimism in the companies that are operating in El Salvador, given the recovery of the
prices of gold in the last days, this has awoken the interest of the companies to continue
their work.28
In this excerpt Navas de Hernández frames the new law as having primarily been intended to
make the mining sector more favorable to business interests. However, the revised law did
25
“New Law Strengthens El Salvador Mining Sector.”
26
27
Harvey Beltrán, “Entrevista con Gina Navas de Hernández, directora de minería de El Salvador,”
28
BNamericas.com, October 4, 2001.
206
incorporate at least two key provisions from the Environment Law. First, the 2001 law states in
the preamble: “that in accordance with the above it is necessary to harmonize the provisions of
the Mining Law with the Law of the Environment, considering also those attributions that
correspond to the latter.”29 By recognizing the authority of the Environment Law, the 2001
Revised Mining Law recognized the authority of the new Ministry of Environment in metals
mining issues and decisions. This is significant because the 1996 Mining Law, which pre-dated
the 1998 Environment Law, had not done this.30 Second, the revised law also recognized the
surface rights of property owners in areas of the mining concession, stipulating, “If the
exploration area comprises land owned by others and the work is carried out on the surface of the
land, a permit from the owner will be necessary, the obtaining of which is the responsibility of
the holder of the License.”31 This recognition of property owner’s surface rights is significant
because it means a mining company would be required to obtain owners’ permission before
engaging in mineral extraction. This will be discussed further in Section III.
Although the 2001 Revised Mining Law committed to harmonizing its requirements with
the Environment Law, the new law did not explicitly incorporate language codifying the
Environment Law’s stipulation that projects must have an environmental permit (based on an
environmental study) before obtaining an exploration license. As a result, there was no new
mandate in this law directing MINEC to change its metals mining licensing procedures from
what had existed since 1996. My research shows that the new law’s recognition, on paper, of
MARN’s authority did not translate in practice into the agency’s inclusion in decision-making
29
Asamblea Legislativa de El Salvador, Ley de Minería y sus Reformas, 1.
30
Economy (MINEC), Resending Terms of Reference for Strategic Environmental Assessment (SER),” 3–4.
31
Asamblea Legislativa de El Salvador, Ley de Minería y sus Reformas, Art. 21.
207
about metals mining exploration. However, the 2001 Revised Mining Law’s declaration in the
preamble that it would be “harmonized” with the 1998 Environment Law, cited above, along
with the provision in the Environment Law that its rules would take precedence over conflicts in
other laws, provided the foundation for future governmental action on metals mining.
The key point in understanding the legal framework around metals mining, prior to the
period of study, is that increased regulation of metals mining did not require changes in existing
Salvadoran law. The laws of 1996, 1998 and 2001 provided the foundation for future
governmental action. However, it would be changes in perspective, interpretation and
implementation of existing laws by ministers in the Saca government, that had a significant
tangible impact. It is in the regulatory context laid out above, that the process tracing of
government actions on metals mining from 2004 to 2008 begins.
III. From tacit to explicit action: Tracing political and administrative change in
governance of the metals mining industry (2004-2008)
Having laid out the building blocks of El Salvador’s legal framework for managing
industrial metals mining within the country, I now utilize process tracing to analyze the Saca
administration’s actions regarding this industry between 2004 and 2008. As stated in the
introduction this final sectoral analysis is divided into three phases (2004-05, 2006 and 2007-08).
The analysis aims to: identify how and why the Saca administration, specifically the Ministry of
Environment, approached the application of Salvadoran law to metals mining differently than the
precedent set by prior administrations; analyze how this new approach to carrying out the law
continued to evolve; track the impact of outside influence; analyze how this new approach then
extended from the Ministry of Environment to the Ministry of Economy, which had been openly
208
supporting the industry’s expansion; and explain how this approach became the de facto Saca
administration policy, creating a new status quo of a de facto mining ban for El Salvador.
A. Ensuring that operational procedure adheres to the law (2004-2005)
This first phase, 2004-05, captures the presidential transition from Francisco Flores to
Antonio Saca (June 1, 2004) and the first year and half of the new administration. The analysis
begins by recounting an episode from the last months of Francisco Flores’s administration, using
this as a reference point for how metals mining was managed and regulated when Saca and his
ministers assumed power. Second, the process tracing shows how Saca’s Minister of
Environment Hugo Barrera’s application of the country’s 1998 Environment Law, different from
his predecessors, changed the procedures of how metals mining companies could apply for and
receive the environmental permits required for exploration licenses.
1. From the end of the Flores administration to the beginning the Saca presidency (January-
June 2004)
My research into the first several months of 2004 shows that the dynamics that existed
between the Salvadoran executive branch and foreign metals mining companies were
cooperative and cordial immediately before the Saca government took office on June 1, 2006. A
detailed mid-January 2004 memorandum submitted by Pacific Rim to ICSID illustrates this.32
32
Adrián Juárez, “Memorandum: El Dorado Project: Meeting Summary at MARN, to Pacific Rim from Consulting
Company CTA” (San Salvador, El Salvador: Consultoría y Tecnología Ambiental (CTA), January 14, 2004),
Exhibit C-105, ICSID Case No. ARB/09/12, made available by counsel for El Salvador with the authorization of the
Office of the Attorney General of El Salvador.
209
The memo recounts a meeting between Consultoría y Tecnología Ambiental (CTA), a consulting
company hired by Pacific Rim, and a MARN administrator33
Written in the first person, the memo comes from CTA staffer Adrián Juárez and
describes his team’s meeting with then-MARN permit administrator Francisco Perdomo Lino
(whose interview with me is cited in Chapter 2 and later in this chapter).34 First, Juárez shares
Perdomo’s reminder to the meeting attendees that Pacific Rim’s planned environmental impact
study, referred to in the correspondence as an EIS, would be carried out “based on [the
company’s] own request and interest,” given that, according to MARN operating procedures,
conducting an environmental assessment is something that “companies at this stage are not
required by MARN to do.”35 Second, the memo quotes Perdomo as explaining that MARN
would prefer the consulting company “to be in charge of [civil society] consultations during the
preparation of the EIS,” rather than the ministry, and suggests that the consultations include
national-level environmental organizations UNES (where FMLN Vice-Minister Ibarra, cited
above, worked at the time), CESTA and Salvanatura.36 In the memo, Juárez comments on
Perdomo’s recommendations, cautioning Pacific Rim management by saying: “before inviting
UNES and CESTA for consultation, [we] should review their credentials because they seem to
be very anti-development, while Salvanatura, an NGO with a private sector base, could be a
good ally.”37
33
Juárez.
34
Juárez, 2.
35
Juárez, 2.
36
Juárez, 2.
37
Juárez, 3–4.
210
The Juárez memo reveals important information about how the permitting process for
metals mining exploration operated under President Flores. First, it reports that Perdomo stated
that an EIS for exploration is not a requirement. This documents that the update mandated in the
Environment Law had not become established procedure. It also shows that Pacific Rim made a
calculated choice to undertake such a study voluntarily (for reasons about which one can
speculate but that are not explained in this document). This could be considered an
environmentally responsible decision. However, the second quote shows the vulnerability of a
voluntary study, since Pacific Rim, not the government, would independently conduct the
consultations with civil society to obtain input and concerns. This means that Pacific Rim’s
hired consulting firm would have the ability to “vet” those civil society organizations given the
chance to be heard, in terms of how likely they were to be an ally rather than an adversary. This
would set up the consultation findings to be favorable to the project. The contents of this memo
provide insight into both the mining company’s action plans for El Salvador as well as the
dynamic at that time between the Salvadoran government and transnational mining corporations.
With the June 2004 presidential transition from Francisco Flores to Antonio Saca (both
members of the ARENA party), the mining companies that had been operating in El Salvador
had reason to anticipate continuity in metals mining industry processes and oversight. As
discussed in the domestic private sector chapter (Chapter 4), Saca transitioned to the presidency
of the nation directly from the presidency of ANEP, the country’s most powerful business
association. His business identity was central to his appeal to those who had voted for him. Per
Broad and Cavanagh: “Saca’s administration overall was extremely welcoming to foreign
211
investment and Saca’s Vice President, Ana Vilma de Escobar, had previously worked on the
promotion of private investment at the US Agency for International Development.”38
When appointed to be Saca’s Environment Minister in 2004, Hugo Barrera had both a
longstanding reputation in the business world as a top executive for the Salvadoran grocery giant
DIANA and was a known founder of the ARENA party during the civil war.39 As noted by
critics of his appointment, his prior direct government experience had been as Minister of
Security under ARENA President Armando Calderón Sol (1994-99) and he had little known
experience in the area of the environment. Cecilia Carranza, who had worked at MARN since
2001, shared in our 2014 interview that when she and her colleagues learned that Barrera would
be their new boss, “there was a fear among us about having someone in charge who was not
technical in an eminently technical ministry.”40 As a result, they prepared themselves for a fight,
saying, “if he dares to interfere with us….”
Carranza shared, however, that her fears about Barrera’s leadership proved unnecessary.
There is evidence from the first days of Minister Barrera’s tenure that he relied on the expertise
and advice of his technical staff in his earliest management decisions. For example, in a June 3,
2004 email, Pacific Rim El Salvador-based employee Carlos Serrano explained to his bosses,
executives Jorge Brito, Fred Ernst, and Bill Gehlen that: “we got a big surprise because the
outgoing Minister [Walter Jokish] had not signed the Environmental Permit and the new minister
is getting familiar with his new office and does not want to sign anything until his advisors
38
39
Rafael Cartagena Investigator for Programa Salvadoreño de Investigación sobre Desarrollo y Medio Ambiente
(PRISMA), Interview by Author, San Salvador, El Salvador, August 18, 2014.
40
Cecilia Carranza Especialista en Economía Ambiental en Ministerio de Medio Ambiente y Recursos Naturales,
(2001-Present), Interview by Author, San Salvador, El Salvador, October 22, 2014.
212
inform him of what he can and cannot sign.”41 In other words, just two days after the new
administration had assumed office Pacific Rim officials expected their company’s application for
an environmental permit would be quickly approved. However, they promptly learned that the
new Minister was not willing to do so without counsel from advisory staff. Like Pacific Rim, Au
Martinique Silver management received a MARN correspondence dated June 4, 2004, the day
after the Pacific Rim email exchange. In this letter, MARN’s Director General for Environmental
Management informed company Manager William McGinty that the company’s environmental
impact study submitted for the “San Pedro” concession in Chalatenango had been judged as
inadequate and therefore would be returned.42
These two June 2004 documents (the latter showing that Pacific Rim was not the only
company “electing” to submit an EIS for exploration), are not evidence enough to conclude that
Minister Barrera specifically, or the Saca administration in general, had become antagonistic to
metals mining. In fact, on June 14, 2004 Minister Barrera authorized Pacific Rim’s El Dorado
Norte y Sur exploration permit.43 However, these three documents from the early days of
Barrera’s term paints a picture more complex than one might have expected from someone with
his prior pro-business profile.
41
Carlos Serrano, “Re: Containers for water samples are en route to El Salvador,” Email, June 3, 2004, Exhibit C-
111, ICSID Case No. ARB/09/12, made available by counsel for El Salvador with the authorization of the Office of
the Attorney General of El Salvador.
42
Luis Armando Trejo, “Luis Armando Trejo, Director General de Gestión Ambiental to William McGuinty, Triada
S.A. de C.V., ‘Devolución de estudio de impacto ambiental licencia de exploración San Pedro,’” Letter, June 4,
2004, Johansing archives, private collection, unpublished.
43
Ministro Hugo Barrera, “Otorgamiento de permiso ambiental para proyecto de exploración minera El Dorado
Norte y Sur, MARN Resolución 151-2004” (Ministerio de Medio Ambiente y Recursos Naturales de El Salvador
(MARN), June 15, 2004), Exhibit C-112, ICSID Case No. ARB/09/12.
213
Therefore, who was Hugo Barrera in his role as Minister of Environment? The answer to
this question seems crucial to my process tracing analysis. Cecilia Carranza of MARN, quoted
above, who worked directly with Barrera, characterized him as:
No “average Joe,” nor a brilliant academic. However, one of the strengths that Hugo
Barrera had was the clarity to think and decide, the clarity of an executive that we did not
see in previous ministers. …Other ministers had other virtues, but the difference with
Hugo Barrera from those who preceded him was the political support he had.44
According to Carranza, Barrera’s political reputation, based on his prior political experience in
government and in the leadership of the ARENA party, made him one of the most highly
respected members of the Saca administration. This endowed him with strong political support
from inside and outside the administration.45 According to Carranza, “this gentleman did things
that nobody else has dared to do.”46
Carranza also explained that respect for Barrera as the leader of the Environment
Ministry increased among ministry staff as a result of the deference he showed to technical
personnel. She recounted:
It was a pleasant surprise when we saw the great respect that this gentleman had for all
the technicians of the ministry. And it was an even bigger surprise when he became a
defender of the interests of the environment. So, he was an ally that could really do
something. He was not superman, but something very similar, someone with political
weight ....”47
I heard a similar account from Salvadoran scholar Rafael Cartagena, whose writings on
Salvadoran civil society’s mobilization to protect natural resources I reference in earlier chapters.
He described Barrera in our 2014 interview by saying:
44
Carranza, Interview by Author.
45
Carranza.
46
Carranza.
47
Carranza.
214
Hugo Barrera is a founder of the ARENA party, he is an entrepreneur. There are
ministers who have more of a technical background, that are very highly qualified
professionals, but it could be, one might say, that they do not have the political autonomy
to express their opinion in the way that Hugo Barrera.48
Both Cartagena and Carranza describe Barrera in similar terms: lacking the technical knowledge
relevant for the Ministry of Environment but possessing a level of independent political
influence not previously held by appointees to the position while having respect for and relying
on those at MARN with technical expertise.
2. Finding power in the law to take “big” action on the environment (June-August 2004)
According to Gina Navas de Hernández, former director of the Bureau of Mining and
Hydrocarbons at the Ministry of Economy who is quoted in the section above, Barrera exercised
his political clout early in his tenure as Minister of Environment in a way that directly affected
MINEC’s distribution of mining licenses She explained:
In the [1996] Mining Law if you check it, there is no requirement for an environmental
permit for exploration, although the Environment Law, in one of its articles, requires
environmental permits. But for a while we did not require environmental permits. It was
an agreement with MARN, before Barrera…
…Sometime in 2004, I cannot say exactly when, we met with MARN. We met with, I
don’t remember the exact name of the unit at the time, something like the Division of
Environmental Management. They let us know that MARN had decided that from that
point forward, all companies seeking exploration licensees would first need an
environmental permit. There wasn’t much we [in MINEC] could do about it because they
[MARN] were the authority on that issue. So, we assented to companies requiring
environmental permission to show that their actions were not going to damage the
environment.49
48
Cartagena, Interview by Author.
49
Gina Navas de Hernández, Director, Bureau of Mining and Hydrocarbons, Ministerio de Economía (MINEC,
1996-2007), Interview by Author.
215
In this quote Navas de Hernández acknowledges that she and her MINEC colleagues knew that
the 1998 Environment Law required that MARN grant an environmental permit before MINEC
could authorize a license for metals mining exploration. However, she also admits that before
Barrera led MARN, her unit ignored the Environment Law’s mandate on this issue (with the
agreement of MARN authorities at that time) and continued to follow the lesser requirements set
by the 1996 Mining law that excluded MARN from the decision-making process. As discussed
in Section II, the 2001 Revised Mining Law recognized the authority of the 1998 Environment
Law and therefore the Environment Ministry, which means MINEC and MARN were not only
ignoring the Environmental Law, but the relevant provision in the 2001 Revise Mining Law as
well.
After learning from Navas de Hernández that MINEC had changed its procedures directly
in response to Barrera’s directive, I asked her if there were formal bureaucratic steps that the two
ministerial teams had to then follow to implement this change. She responded, “no reforms were
necessary because this was already required by the Environment Law. So, we in the Directorate
of Hydrocarbons and Mines obeyed the guideline.”50 This was confirmed by Pedro Abrego,
Navas de Hernández’s deputy in 2004 who still was working at the Bureau of Hydrocarbons and
Mines when I interviewed him in 2014. Abrego added that it was only when Barrera took over at
the Ministry of Environment that the two ministries began a process to operationally “reconcile
the environment and mining laws.”51
50
Navas de Hernández.
51
Pedro Abrego Deputy Director, Bureau of Hydrocarbons and Mines, Interviewed by Author, San Salvador, El
Salvador, November 14, 2014.
216
Navas de Hernández’ and Abrego’s statements are crucial. They both confirm that for
six years after the Environment Law’s enactment (and three years after the 2001 Revised Mining
Law), MINEC had continued to grant mining exploration licenses without environmental review,
only changing practices that complied with the law because of Barrera’s enforcement. As the
2006 discussion below will show, this 2004 procedural change that finally allowed MARN to
take on the authorizing role it had been granted by law would be critical to how the government
halted the growth of Salvadoran industrial metals mining.
However, the impact of this procedural change would not be apparent in 2004 or 2005.
Government records I obtained through El Salvador’s 2011 Freedom of Access to Information
Law show that, even with this added prerequisite, MINEC still continued to grant exploration
licenses throughout the first two years of Barrera’s tenure as Minister of Environment.52 This
data is consistent with what Saca’s Minister of Economy, Yolanda de Gavidia shared when I
interviewed her in 2014. She explained that during the first years of the administration, “we
[MINEC] were not at all closed to the development of metals mining in El Salvador.”53
MINEC’s openness to the metals mining industry at this time is revealed in late August
2004 correspondence between Pacific Rim management and MINEC’s Bureau of Hydrocarbons
and Mines. In an August 23, 2004 letter from Fred Ernest of Pacific Rim to Navas de Hernández,
52
otorgadas entre el 2000-2006 ya en archivo, Response to a Freedom of Information Request.” The request to
MINEC included: "Licencias de exploración Minera (Metálicos) otorgados y denegados (fechas de entrega y de
resultado) durante el periodo comprendido de 2001 a 2014, lugar de ubicación de estas (Departamento, Nombre de
la Empresa, Área (Km2)), así como también cuántas de estas licencias han sido concedidas y cuantas han sido
denegadas. Motivos de la negación de licencias hasta de 2009 y después de la suspensión a nivel presidencial."
53
Yolanda de Gavidia Minister of Economy (2004-2008), Interview by Author, Guatemala City, Guatamala,
September 23, 2014.
217
Ernest expressed concern about the renewal application for one of the company’s exploration
licenses. The company’s ten-year license was set to expire on December 31, 2004 but the
company had received no formal ruling on their renewal application submitted earlier that year.54
In a correspondence printed on MINEC letterhead dated the following day, August 24, 2004,
Navas de Hernández responded that the license had been delayed because MARN had not yet
authorized the environmental permit. However, she assured Ernest that his company would not
be penalized for the delay and that their “rights would not be affected.”55 The MINEC response
shows that although environmental permitting had lengthened the approval process, MINEC
remained committed to approving the company’s renewal in a timely manner.
3. MARN influence increases under Barrera leadership (September 2004 to September

2005)
To better understand the motivations behind the actions of the Environment Ministry
related to metals mining under Hugo Barrera’s leadership, it is important to examine two of his
significant, non-metals mining related, regulatory decisions. First, in September 2004, Barrera
created the La Comisión Nacional del Medio Ambiente, (National Commission for the
Environment, CONAMA), to be MARN’s first formal vehicle to consult civil society
organizations for their input on MARN policies and programs.56 Composed of the minister, vice-
minister and representatives from NGOs and the private sector hand-picked by the minister,
54
Fred Earnest, “Fred Earnest, Pacific Rim El Salvador, S.A. de C.V. to Gina Navas de Hernández, Director, Bureau
of Mining and Hydrocarbons, Ministerio de Economía (MINEC),” August 23, 2004, Exhibit C122, ICSID Case No.
ARB/09/12, made available by counsel for El Salvador with the authorization of the Office of the Attorney General
of El Salvador.
55
Gina Navas de Hernández, “Gina Navas de Hernández, Director, Bureau of Mining and Hydrocarbons, Ministerio
de Economía (MINEC) to Fred Earnest, Pacific Rim El Salvador, S.A. de C.V.,” Letter, August 25, 2004, Exhibit
123, ICSID Case No. ARB/09/12, made available by counsel for El Salvador with the authorization of the Office of
the Attorney General of El Salvador.
56
World Bank, “República de El Salvador análisis ambiental de país mejorando la gestión ambiental para abordar la
liberalización comercial y la expansión de infraestructura,” 42.
218
CONAMA meetings were acknowledged to be “not of a public character.”57 In our 2014
interview, Silvia Larios, who had joined MARN as the Director of Environmental Assessment
and Compliance during the Funes administration, criticized CONAMA under Barrera as overly
“political.” This was not only because the Minister alone chose participants, but also because
CONAMA representatives communicated directly only, “with the Minister, which did not have
any impact on how things were being done at the technical level or by middle management.”58
Yet, Larios acknowledged that with the creation of CONAMA, MARN for the first time since its
inception aimed to comply with the Environment Law’s requirement for civil society
participation, and that environmental activists such as Ricardo Navarro of CESTA had
participated as part of it.59
Second, on February 5, 2005, the Salvadoran Legislature passed the Natural Protected
Areas Act. The act, for the first time in El Salvador’s history, designated specific territory
throughout the country to be managed by MARN to safeguard and preserve the local
ecosystems.60 Although Congress was responsible for passing the legislation, in the words of
Cecilia Caranza of MARN, “the Natural Protected Areas Act has a father, and it is Hugo
Barrera.”61 Hugo Barrera decided it would be a priority to establish nationally protected territory
and that MARN would then go to the legislature to make that happen. Caranza explained this
57
World Bank, 42.
58
Larios, Interview by Author.
59
Larios.
60
World Bank, “República de El Salvador análisis ambiental de país mejorando la gestión ambiental para abordar la
liberalización comercial y la expansión de infraestructura,” 16.
61
Carranza, Interview by Author.
219
approach by saying, that unlike the ministers of Environment before him, Barrera’s political
training taught him that “there was no other way to regulate but through a legal framework.”62
The evidence I have presented so far, related directly to metals mining and to broader
environmental issues, highlights several straightforward examples of when and how Barrera
exerted MARN’s authority in a way his predecessors had not, right from the beginning of his
term. These include restructuring MARN operations to fulfill requirements of the Environment
Law that had been overlooked or ignored by prior administrations and utilizing legislative levers
to expand the law to allow the ministry to undertake new endeavors. In our 2014 interview,
Barrera explained the basis for his taking actions like these:
Our work as [public officials] is based in what the law requires. In my case, it was the
Environmental Law, and so that was the point of entry for me. In the case of MINEC, it
was the Mining Law. I understand that, because of the influence of someone, they
[MINEC] wanted to change the mining law. But that was not my area, that was the area
of [Economy Minister] Gavidia.63
With the specific mention of Saca’s Minister of Economy Yolanda de Gavidia, this quote from
Barrera reinforces the split nature of metals mining governance in El Salvador and the different
laws that underpin the authority of both government agencies involved. Barrera refers to two
critical issues in this quote: MINEC’s involvement in trying change the mining law in 2005 and
the “influence” by an external force, that he does not name, to do that.
Although Barrera refrained from naming the “someone” he believed to have been
exerting influence to change the mining law, Broad’s 2014 analysis of El Salvador’s 2014
Rejoinder to Pacific Rim’s ICSID Claims reveals it to have been Pacific Rim or its allies. Per
Broad, “as early as 2005 (pp.30-31[of the rejoinder]), Pac Rim was working with Pres. Saca’s
62
Carranza.
63
Barrera, Interview by Author. Emphasis added
220
vice president and others to eliminate the requirement that it hold all relevant land titles.”64
MINEC, under de Gavidia’s leadership, was one of the “other” government entities Broad refers
to in that passage. Referencing government communication from September 2005 that included
draft language for amending the law, the 2014 Rejoinder acknowledges that MINEC “tried to
accommodate Pacific Rim.” Per the Rejoinder:
The Ministry of Economy considered amending the Mining Law to get rid of the surface
land ownership or authorization requirement for underground mines, so that Pac Rim
would not need to obtain authorization from all the surface land owners in the area of its
requested concession.65
As Broad explains, the Rejoinder acknowledges that, “the plan to get around this [the property
rights] requirement was that the Salvadoran Congress would amend or replace the mining law to
remove this requirement.66
These accounts show that MARN ‘s approach to managing the country’s metals mining
industry was not aligned with MINEC’s nor the office of vice president Escobar at this time.
While MARN was utilizing the existing law as the basis for promoting greater regulation,
MINEC and the vice president were seeking ways to change the law to reduce requirements for
the mining companies. It is quite possible that if the Minister of MARN had not been Barrera,
MINEC’s and the vice president’s interests would have prevailed.
4. Civil society intervention successfully influences MARN while Pacific Rim does not
succeed in attempts to influence the law (October-December 2005)
64
Robin Broad, “Summary of El Salvador’s Rejoinder on the Merits (11 July 2014) in Pac Rim Cayman LLC v The
Republic of El Salvador,” The Blue Planet Project (blog), September 4, 2014. Emphasis added
65
“Pac Rim Cayman LLC v. Republic of El Salvador, ICSID Case No. ARB/09/12: The Republic of El Salvador’s
Rejoinder on the Merits” (International Court for the Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID), July 11, 2014), 31.
66
Broad, “Summary of El Salvador’s Rejoinder on the Merits (11 July 2014) in Pac Rim Cayman LLC v The
Republic of El Salvador.”
221
As discussed in the civil society chapter (Chapter 2), in October, 2005 ADES-contracted
geologist Robert Moran published and presented his analysis of Pacific Rim’s Environmental
Impact Assessment (EIA), a required component of the company’s mineral extraction license for
the El Dorado concession in Cabañas. Moran’s report was extremely critical of Pacific Rim’s
EIA, pointing out missing and incorrect data, findings that were not linked to the data provided,
and instances where assumptions presented did not correspond to the actions the company
acknowledged it might take. For example, Moran wrote:
The El Dorado Project EIA lacks basic testing and data necessary to adequately define
baseline water quantity and quality conditions. It is especially weak in areas relating to
the definition of ground water resources, yet it states that no significant impacts to water
resources are expected…
Thus, as with most similar gold mine EIAs, the document fails to realistically discuss the
total impacts the local population is likely to experience. If other ore bodies are
developed, additional natural resources will be impacted. In fact, many of the technical
details presented in the EIA will obviously change. For example, according to the Pac
Rim website, the Nueva Esperanza vein may be developed using open pit mining
approaches, which could totally alter many of the assumptions presented in the EIA.67
Overall, Moran’s analysis of the Pacific Rim EIA was negative: “This EIA would not be
acceptable to regulatory agencies in most developed countries.”68
Moran’s work educated the public about metals mining and the potential negative
impacts of ore extraction at El Dorado. He identified the weaknesses in Pacific Rim’s accounting
of the environmental costs. Perhaps even more importantly, Moran’s work educated the Ministry
of Environment on these issues. Although MARN had the official authority to evaluate Pacific
67
Moran, “Technical Review of The El Dorado Mine Project Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA), El
Salvador,” 13–14.
68
Moran, 15.
222
Rim’s EIA to determine if the company warranted the required environmental permit, it did not
have the expertise or capacity to do so thoroughly.69
On October 19, 2005 Moran presented his main findings directly to the
ministry.70According to then-MARN staffer Francisco Perdomo, MARN response to Pacific
Rim, including detailed, technical follow-up requests, was based in large part on what Moran had
found.71 Furthermore, Perdomo explained that MARN’s trust in Moran’s findings were the basis
for not moving on the Pacific Rim permit request until Moran’s observations and concerns had
been comprehensively addressed. He explained that because Pacific Rim “never rectified the
observations from [Moran’s] technical analysis… it was determined that no environmental
permit would be given, or rather that it would be kept, on standby.”72 Perdomo’s use of the term
“standby,” is consistent with Broad and Cavanagh’s finding that MARN, under Barrera’s
leadership, had managed Pacific Rim’s environmental permit application for mineral extraction
at El Dorado by engaging in a “conscious act of disapproving by not acting.”
My research showed that during the same period that MARN was considering Moran’s
findings as part of its evaluation of Pacific Rim’s El Dorado EIA, Pacific Rim continued
lobbying the Saca administration to support amendments to the 2001 Revised Mining Law. The
company hoped that the administration would work with allies in the Legislative Assembly to
introduce a reform bill. Yet, despite this lobbying, 2005 ended without this taking place. As
reported in Pacific Rim’s 2014 “Memorial on the Merits” submission to ICSID, “in late 2005,
69
Moran, “Technical Review of The El Dorado Mine Project Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA), El
70
Salvador,” iii.
71
Perdomo, Interview by Author.
72
Perdomo.
223
Minister de Gavidia informed companies that President Saca instructed that the reform of the
Amended Mining Law would not be introduced until after the [legislative] elections in March
2006.”73 The evidence available does not allow me to definitively conclude why Saca postponed
considering the legislation. Whatever the motivation, this decision meant that the legal
framework for metals mining in El Salvador would remain unchanged. The status quo remained
one in which the country allowed for an operational metals mining industry. However, Barrera’s
emphasis on meeting the requirements of existing law meant that MARN implemented mining
regulations more stringently than past administrations had done.
From the beginning of Saca’s presidency in June 2004 through the end of 2005, there
were subtle changes in the government’s approach to the metals mining industry, despite the
absence of any new mining laws. Minister Barrera’s recognition that MARN had the authority to
intervene in the metals mining licensing process, under the 1998 Environment Law and the 2001
Revised Mining Law, meant that MINEC could no longer monopolize management of the
exploration licensing process. The authority that Barrera claimed for MARN had been available
to his predecessors, but they had not exerted it. Barrera’s action led to a small but important shift
in the balance of power in the governance of the metals mining. In addition, passage of Barrera-
backed Law of Natural Protected Areas (2005) raised the overall profile and power of MARN.
The creation of CONAMA by Barrera allowed civil society to have a voice, albeit limited, in
environmentally-related decision making. Although metals mining exploration licenses were still
being approved in 2004 and 2005, the regulatory and advisory changes described above laid the
foundation for future governmental action on the issue.
“Pac Rim Cayman LLC v. Republic of El Salvador, Pac Rim Cayman LLC’s Memorial on the Merits and
73
Quantum,” March 29, 2013, 149–50.
224
B. The transition from increased regulation to a permit freeze (2006)
In each previous chapter, I have noted the pivotal nature of 2006, with civil society
experiencing the greatest breakthroughs. I called this the “watershed moment,” for the pro-
water/anti-mining movement. The year 2006 is equally monumental for the Salvadoran
government in relation to metals mining, as becomes clear halfway through the year in June,
beginning with the civil society-led Action Week Against Mining. My research and the process
tracing findings show that the key events for the government sector began, in May 2006, after the
March legislative elections referenced above and before the June turning-point.
As discussed in the civil society chapter (Chapter 2), the June 2006 Action Week Against
Mining brought unprecedented attention from the national government to the civil society
opposition to metals mining. In earlier discussions, I used a range of sources of evidence to
demonstrate the measurable and documentable influence that civil society actions during that
week and subsequently had on policy makers. This chapter will not repeat what has already been
discussed, but will augment it from a government angle to clarify the role government actors
played. This will include exploring Saca administration officials’ participation in and responses
to the June 2006 Action Week and the after-effects and their impacts as experienced (publicly
and behind closed doors) over the remainder of the year.
1. The end of continuity, and then change (May and June 2006)
In May 2006, the government of El Salvador granted what would turn out to be the
country’s final license for metals mining exploration. This license, granted by the Ministry of
Economy on May 15, 2006, went to the English company Condor Resources Limited for the El
225
Gigante concession in Morazon province.74 At the time, MINEC could not have known that this
would be the last license for exploration that the agency would grant.
In fact, as reported in Pacific Rim’s 2013 ICSID filings, in May 2006, MINEC Minister
Yolanda de Gavidia was one of several top Saca officials, including Vice President Escobar, who
met in El Salvador with Pacific Rim CEO Thomas Shrake and Board Member Catherine
McLeod-Seltzer to consult on how to promote the company’s agenda. 75 According to Shrake’s
2013 testimony, “these high-ranking officials assured us that the Government was supportive and
enthusiastic about our work in El Salvador.”76 Furthermore, he testified that Minister de Gavidia
had “agreed that it was time to push forward with reforming the Amended Mining Law [the 2001
Revised Mining Law]”77 that, as discussed in the section on 2005 above, the Saca government
said it would pursue after the March elections. Shrake claimed that de Gavidia had also
“promised that she would meet with MARN Minister Barrera to see if she could facilitate
progress on PRES’s ED [Pac Rim El Salvador’s El Dorado] Mining Environmental Permit.”78
Minister de Gavidia’s May 2006 commitment to intervene with MARN to advocate for Pacific
Rim’s interests parallels promises made by Bureau of Hydrocarbon and Mines director Gina
Navas de Hernández to Pacific Rim in the 2004 letter discussed earlier.
74
75
Quantum,” 150.
76
Quantum,” 150.
77
Quantum,” 150.
78
Quantum,” 150.
226
Although MARN was delaying approval of Pacific Rim’s environmental permit for the El
Dorado extraction license, as late as May 30, MARN did approve a new Pacific Rim application
for an environmental permit for exploration at Santa Rita in Cabañas.79 This environmental
permit would only be valid for a single calendar year, shorter than prior environmental permits
had been. Yet this May 2006 environmental permit approval still paved the way for MINEC to
approve a new exploration license for the company. (Per the discussion on Condor above,
MINEC records show that this environmental permit never led to a license for Pacific Rim).
Two weeks later, on June 12, 2006 (as discussed in Chapter 2), Barrera sat as a panelist
on the University of Central America (UCA)-hosted Forum on Metals mining. This was held on
the second day of the Action Week Against Mining that ran from June 11 to 18, 2006. In our
2014 interview, Barrera shared his recollection of the forum, and recounted:
The Rector of the Catholic University of UCA, [Padre] Tojeira, on his own initiative,
summoned about 500 people who were living in the area to a meeting at the UCA and
invited me, invited Yolanda de Gavidia [who did not attend]. The idea I think was to put
us out as evidence that we were supporting a project that the community did not want.
But here Tojeira was wrong, because we were not really supporting anything or rejecting
anything. Simply we were complying with what the law says. But I attended the meeting
and the auditorium was full.
At the beginning, the first questions to me were quite hostile, because all these people
possibly thought that we would favor [the project] no matter what would happen to the
community, which was not true. I said to them: First, we officials do not have more
authority than the law gives us. Salvadoran law does not prohibit mining but regulates it.
What we are doing is asking these gentlemen to comply with the requirements.”80
79
Ministro Hugo Barrera, “Otorgamiento de permiso ambiental para proyecto de exploración minera Santa Rita,
MARN Resolución No7741-6332006” (Ministerio de Medio Ambiente y Recursos Naturales de El Salvador
(MARN), May 30, 2006), Exhibit C-166, ICSID Case No. ARB/09/12, ICSID Case No. ARB/09/12, made available
by counsel for El Salvador with the authorization of the Office of the Attorney General of El Salvador.
80
Barrera, Interview by Author. Emphasis added.
227
Barrera emphasized to me how he guided his actions and decisions as Environment Minister
according to, in his words, “what the law required.”81 He continued with this theme as he
explained how the audience’s attitude towards him changed as the forum progressed:
There [at the forum] they realized that what we [the Ministry] were doing was demanding
that the project comply with the law before they would be extended an environmental
permit. That changed the people’s attitude towards the Ministry. They realized that we
were only doing what the law commands, and that it really depended, more than on us, on
them…because, I explained to them, if they did not agree and did not sell or did not rent
or did not give the mining company authorization to occupy their land, then there would
be no project. The law in this regard is clear.82
Beyond reiterating his commitment to MARN’s duties under the law, Barrera references the
legal provisions related to land ownership requirements that MINEC’s draft bill sought to
change. By explaining this to the forum attendees, Barrera provided crucial counsel about their
rights under the law. His statement confirms what civil society leader Vidalina Morales shared
with me during our 2013 interview about Barrera’s advice at the forum (included in civil society
Chapter 2).83 She explained that before the interactions with the minister at the forum she and
others in the pro-water/anti-metals mining movement did not realize how those among them who
were property owners were empowered by the law to thwart the metals mining industry’s
advancement to extraction operations in Cabañas.84
Press coverage of the June 12th UCA forum by the news outlet Diario Co Latino
substantiates Barrera’s recollections. As discussed in the civil society chapter, Diario Co Latino
in, particular, has been one of the few national-level Salvadoran newspapers aligned with left-
81
Barrera.
82
Barrera.
83
84
Morales.
228
leaning social movements85 and is therefore often antagonistic to ARENA political figures. Yet,
the day following the UCA forum, Co Latino reported positively about Barrera’s participation in
the event under the headline, “MARN Will Not Allow Mining Projects that Disrupt the
Environment.” The article was written by Leonel Herrera, who would soon become La Mesa’s
press coordinator, (discussed in the civil society chapter). He reported that the minister promised
he would “not put water, flora or soil at risk” 86 and pledged to take “into account the views of
environmental organizations and affected communities.”87
The article also confirms that Barrera’s comments to me in 2014 about his emphasis on
following the law were consistent with statements he made during 2006. The article quotes the
Minister Barrera as assuring the audience that, “’we [at MARN] are following the procedures
and applying the criteria established in the Environmental Law.”88 The article also explains that
the minister did not just focus on compliance with the minimal requirements of Salvadoran law,
reporting that he also “acknowledged that due to the country’s lack of experience with these
projects, there are still some missing regulations and controls, so, in these cases [the government]
will apply the regulations established in developed countries.”89 However, Barrera’s documented
commitments focused on stringent regulation for a functioning metals mining industry and did
not include halting the industry, as the civil society opposition demanded.
85
Almeida, Waves of Protest: Popular Struggle in El Salvador, 1925-2005, 135.
86
Herrera, “MARN no permitirá proyectos mineros que desequilibren el medioambiente.”
87
Herrera.
88
Herrera.
89
Herrera.
229
On June 19, 2006 at the end of the Action Week Against Mining, the weekly online
newspaper El Faro featured an interview with MINEC’s Bureau of Hydrocarbons and Mines
Gina Navas de Hernández that presented a ministerial perspective that contrasted with Barrera’s.
Economy Minister de Gavidia had not accepted the UCA’s invitation to join the forum alongside
Barrera and did not comment to the press during that week, so MINEC’s position had not yet
been clarified to the public. Navas de Hernández’s interview appeared to serve that purpose.
With the interview title as one of her quotes, “I believe that communities can benefit from
mining,”90 the published transcript included the following statements:
Does the Ministry of Economy see mining companies as a development opportunity for
the northern part of the country? Undoubtedly, we see it as a possibility of development
in areas where there is no better possibility for another type of development. Some of the
places where these mines would be, even corn does not grow…91
Since the interview featured Navas de Hernández and not Minister de Gavidia, its
messages did not have the same level of political clout as Barrera’s statements. Yet, Navas de
Hernández spoke as an official representative for MINEC, and provided the first public
statements from MINEC since the Action Week had started. Navas de Hernández’s interview
offered the public a glimpse of MINEC’s view on metals mining, at the time, which was not
consistent with the position expressed by Minister Barrera just one week earlier. This showed
that, as of mid-June 2006, the Saca administration had not yet reached a consensus on the issue.92
Press coverage throughout the end of June continued to showcase MARN and MINEC’s
90
Baires Quezada, “‘Creo que las comunidades pueden beneficiarse de la explotación de una mina’: Entrevista con
Gina de Hernández, Directora de Hidrocarburos y Minas del Ministerio de Economía.”
91
Baires Quezada.
92
In Robert Johansing’s private, unpublished archives I found an account of a June 22, 2006 meeting between
Johansing, Jorge Mario Ríos Muñoz and Navas de Hernández that conveys a message similar to the El Faro
interview cited. Jorge Mario Ríos Muñoz, “Visit with Director of Mines,” Internal Memo (Ministry of Economy,
San Salvador, El Salvador: Au Martinique Silver/Intrepid Minerals/Triada, June 22, 2006), Johansing archives,
private collection, unpublished.
230
divergent perspectives on metals mining. At the end of June 2006, Barrera gave an interview to
the Salvadoran weekly El Mundo in which he shared more strongly worded, albeit personal,
disapproval of metals mining in El Salvador than he had previously: “In my personal opinion I
sincerely believe that mining is not good for El Salvador.”93 Yet, he made sure to differentiate
his personal stance from what he could do in his capacity as minister, emphasizing that his
authority was constrained by the prevailing legal framework, which explicitly permitted mining
in the country. He then advised communities on what to do to change the legal framework. He
explained:
If many communities do not want these projects to be done, what they have to do is to
present a draft bill to the Legislative Assembly, which is where such activities would be
[legally] banned. Because right now it [metals mining] is not banned and this [kind of
bill] has not been presented. We told representatives of affected communities that it is
important for them to visit the Legislative Assembly to see how they achieve the purpose
of having a law prohibiting mining.94
The minister’s documented statements once again show Barrera’s attention to carrying
out and leveraging the law. As discussed above, Barrera had previously advised community
members about the rights of property owners in the areas of the mining concessions, explaining
that they could legally stop mining company progress by refusing to sell their land. This time,
Barrera’s advice was relevant for a population far larger than those with land ownership in
mining territory. He was letting all citizens know that that the legal framework governing the
mining industry did not allow the government to ban the industry. Therefore, to legally establish
a prohibition on metals mining, which he recognized as the objective of the civil society
opposition, they would need to contribute to changing or replacing the existing law.
93
Edgardo Rivera, “Gobierno no avala minas,” El Mundo, June 30, 2006, www.elmundo.com.sv.
94
Rivera.
231
After the Action Week Against Mining no further environmental permits (for exploration
or mineral extraction), and therefore no mining licenses, were approved, according to the
MINEC and MARN records I received through Freedom of Information requests. Yet, Barrera’s
public statements made clear that as minister he could operate only as far as the law allowed, and
the law would not allow a ban on the industry. Therefore, does the evidence showing that all
permitting stopped in mid-June 2006 reveal that MARN was, in fact, doing more than the law
itself would allow?
I asked Barrera about this during our interview. He replied with the refrain that his
actions as minister always complied with the law. I then referenced information I had learned
from a 2014 interviewee (who requested to not be named)that during this period MARN had
stopped granting all environmental permit applications for mining exploration because of an
unofficial ministry practice informally nicknamed “la ley de la gaveta” 95 (the law of the drawer).
According to this informant, staff were instructed to put off action on any environmental permit
requests and engage in such delays without acknowledging that they had been instructed to do.96
Barrera responded defensively. Initially in his answer he referred only to Pacific Rim’s
environmental permit application for extraction at El Dorado and not to the overall portfolio of
environmental permit applications for exploration that companies submitted to MARN. Barrera
stated:
In the case of the Ministry, that does not exist. It did not exist. The Pacific [Rim] project
did not move, not because we “kept it in a drawer,” but because for more than 5 months
they did not present [what they were required to.] The ball was in their court and we are
95
Anonymous, Interview by Author, Washington, DC, March 13, 2014.
96
Anonymous.
232
waiting. It is not in a drawer, it is in a desk waiting for them to comply. If they do not
comply, it does not move. 97
I then asked Barrera to think back beyond the Pacific Rim/El Dorado case and to consider the
other exploration permit applications that MARN received. I restated the original question,
asking him to explain why MARN had refrained from granting any environmental permits for
exploration after the end of May 2006, even though there had been no formal policy change at
that juncture. He responded by stating:
The “drawer,” at least from my point of view, never existed for any case that I know of ...
Yes there were some others [that were not approved] but, I do not think they even met the
requirements that the law established and so, in the same way they did not advance. But a
policy of storing things as a way to avoid granting permits, despite having complied with
the requirements? That is not true.98
Similar to Barrera, none of the other current and former MARN officials I interviewed
acknowledged awareness that an unofficial protocol had existed instructing that staff delay action
on submitted environmental impact assessments.99 Among my seven MARN interviewees, only
Francisco Perdomo had been involved directly in reviewing environmental permits during that
time. Therefore, the others interviewed claimed no personal knowledge of how that process
occurred during the years of the Saca administration, either because they were in another area or
because they had not yet joined MARN. Perdomo, like Barrera, denied that there had been
intentional delays responding to permit requests, but acknowledged that there were delays. He
commented that MARN often dealt with a backlog of applications and agency delays responding
97
Barrera, Interview by Author.
98
Barrera.
99
Perdomo, Interview by Author; Larios, Interview by Author; Carranza, Interview by Author; Maritza Erazo
Division of Natural Protected Areas at MARN (2007-2011), Interview by Author, San Salvador, El Salvador,
October 2014.
233
to applications was unfortunately the norm across the industries monitored.100 Regardless of
whether delays in responding to permit requests were due to bureaucratic backlogs, intentional
but unspoken foot dragging or the product of deliberate, but unofficial internal decisions, these
acts of “disproving by not acting,” offered an alternative way to comply with the spirit of the
law, without apparently violating it.101
In my research, I found evidence that even as early as June 2006, MARN was not
consistently circumspect about how the agency planned to handle environmental permit
applications. On at least one occasion, MARN acknowledged to a company representative that
there had been an intentional, even if unofficial, permit stoppage. I found this evidence in Pacific
Rim’s weekly log for June 26-30, 2006, submitted as an ICSID exhibit for the 2013 case. Erika
Colindras, Pacific Rim El Salvador Vice President (who previously had worked for MARN from
2000 to 2005) was the author of the log entry which stated: “meeting with Mr. Francisco
Perdomo Lino, requesting information on Huacuco Mining Exploration. We were informed that
all mining projects are stopped, by decision of the Minister.”102 The log did not provide any
other information about the meeting. It is important to note that, according to this documentation,
100
101
These kinds of actions raise the issue of “Bureaucratic Resistance,” discussed by David Hirschman in “From
Home Economics to Microfinance: Gender Rhetoric and Bureaucratic Resistance” (2006). In this work, Hirschmann
finds that African government officials managed donor pressure to increase attention to women’s roles funded
initiatives by using delaying strategies such as “foot dragging.” Hirschman makes a parallel with James Scott’s
conceptualization of the resistance of the weak, “to describe strategies of the not-so-weak and even the reasonably
strong.” He argues for the application in this context because, “when Scott writes of 'routines of deference and
compliance' that if 'not entirely cynical are certainly calculating' his observation resonates closely with the
bureaucrats described’ in his research." David Hirschmann, “From Home Economics to ‘Microfinance’: Gender
Rhetoric and Bureaucratic Resistance,” in Women and Gender Equity in Development Theory and Practice:
Institutions, Resources, and Mobilization, ed. Jane S. Jaquette and Gale Summerfield (Durham, N.C: Duke
University Press Books, 2006).
102
Superintendencia de Protección del Medio Ambiente, Pacific Rim, “Informe mensual junio 2006,” Monthly
report (El Salvador: Pacific Rim El Salvador, S.A. de C.V, July 2006). Emphasis added by author.
234
the discussion was about Pacific Rim’s pending environmental permit for exploration at the
Huacuco concession in Cabañas and did not address Pacific Rim’s application for a mineral
extraction at El Dorado. Therefore, this “decision of the minister” related to Pacific Rim’s non-El
Dorado exploration interests.
2. Expanding government responses and actions (July 2006)

In July 2006, leading Salvadoran newspapers La Prensa Gráfica and El Diario de Hoy
(whose power and influence are discussed in the private sector chapter) published features on the
government’s a new approach to regulating the country’s metals mining industry. This press
coverage provides a public record of how the government’s handling of the issue began to
change mid-2006. For example, on July 9, 2006, La Prensa Gráfica published an interview with
Barrera under the attention-grabbing headline, "Goodbye to Mining: the government rejects
mining projects.”103 The article focused on El Salvador’s management of environmental
permitting for gold extraction. In 2014, Barrera scoffed when I asked him about this interview
and its provocative title, telling me that it was, “the invention of a journalist who creates
headlines to sell newspapers.”104 However, he did not deny any of the statements attributed to
him in the article, which included declarations such as “we will not grant rights for anything that
could harm the environment.”105
The La Prensa Gráfica interview captures Barrera as distancing MARN decisions on
metals mining under his authority from decisions made by his predecessors. When the reporter
asked Barrera about the extraction permits that the US company Commerce Group had
103
Barrera, “‘Adiós a las minas,’ (Interview with Minister of the Environment).”
104
105
Barrera, “‘Adiós a las minas,’ (Interview with Minister of the Environment).”
235
previously received for the Santa Rita mine in San Sebastián, Barrera immediately clarified that
the “San Sebastián permit had been authorized by another administration.”106 He said that
MARN was now retracting it because of the documented environmental damage and the
company’s lack of plans to resolve it. Underscoring that point he pledged, “I am annulling that
permit, I'm going to take it away.”107 Furthermore, when asked by the reporter if he had
discussed these permitting concerns with President Saca, Barrera responded: “I am secretary to
the president on environmental matters and I am in agreement with him that we are not going to
approve anything that could cause serious, transitory, permanent, or irreversible environmental
damage.”108 In this interview, Barrera cast doubt on the likelihood that MARN would approve
any applications for mineral extraction given the likely environmental damage and presented his
position as one developed in agreement with President Saca.
On July 12, as reported in El Diario de Hoy, Barrera communicated the same message
while testifying before the Legislative Assembly. He linked metals mining directly with
irreversible environmental damage, arguing that: “the only possibility of allowing mining would
be if the companies mitigated 100 percent of the damage, which is impossible because the
amount of the investment [for that mitigation] would be greater than the total value of the gold
and silver reserves.” Barrera’s prior public comments had focused on the risks involved in the
extraction phase. However, in this speech before the Legislature he added a warning about
exploration. He warned that companies with exploration licenses previously granted by MINEC
106
Barrera.
107
Barrera.
108
Barrera.
236
could lose them based on the environmental impact (although he did not explain what the
process for rescinding these already granted permits would be).109
On July 15, La Prensa Gráfica reported that MARN had begun to announce more
explicitly that that they would “put the brakes on gold mining.”110 In addition to stating explicitly
that Pacific Rim would not be able to obtain environmental authorization for mineral extraction,
the article discussed concerns about MARN’s capacity to manage this complex and dangerous
industry while monitoring the other thousands of industries for which it already had
responsibility. According to the article, MARN’s final decisions on metals mining would not be
predicated on “whether there is the will at the Ministry or not” but rather, whether or not the
agency had sufficient capability to exercise its regulatory mission. The article referenced an
unnamed auditor working at the ministry, who indicated that MARN lacked the technical
capacity to “audit and follow up with all companies to verify that they do not pollute.”111
These early to mid-July media reports seemed to indicate that MARN would not require a
covert “law of the drawer” as the way to halt metals mining. Instead it appeared that MARN,
under Barrera’s leadership (and according to Barrera, with President Saca’s agreement), was
developing a multi-pronged argument to change metals mining policy, based on both industry
dangers and the country’s technical and regulatory weaknesses that would limit the ability to
monitor these dangers. However, MINEC, the ministry that ultimately had the final say on
metals mining licenses, was missing from these media accounts.
109
110
Metzi Rosales Martel, “MARN frenara busqueda de oro,” La Prensa Gráfica, July 15, 2006.
111
Martel.
237
My research found that although MINEC Minister Yolanda de Gavidia was absent from
the spotlight on this issue during and following the June Action Week Against Mining, behind
the scenes she was engaged in efforts to investigate the benefits versus the risks metals mining to
El Salvador. As MINEC Director of Hydrocarbons and Mining Gina Navas de Hernández
recollected in our interview, it was at this time that de Gavidia informed her: “‘It is the time to
hire a consultant. It is appropriate. We are in a situation totally against mining.’”112 As a result of
this decision, de Gavidia’s subsequent actions would prove to be as instrumental as Barrera’s in
halting the industry.
In my interview, de Gavidia shared her version of events:
“I was not in charge of the environmental part, but as a minister I had a responsibility to
the country to ensure that what they [the companies] are promoting would not cause
harm. The vision we had was, well, we must see this issue more broadly, incorporating
the economic development part of the sector, incorporating the social part and
incorporating the environmental part. This motivated us to try to have, from a more
comprehensive point of view, what suited the country and that is why we chose [Manuel]
Pulgar [to conduct an assessment of the industry.]”113
In this quote, de Gavidia identified Manual Pulgar Vidal as the consultant that her Ministry hired
to assess the social and environmental impacts of metals mining on El Salvador. Vidal was an
environmental attorney who would later becoming Peru’s Environment Minister and, in that role,
oversee a multibillion-dollar metals mining industry. The Saca administration did not publicize
the recruitment of an independent consultant and Pulgar Vidal did not share his findings until
August 2006. However, the fact that de Gavidia hired Pulgar Vidal more than two years into her
tenure as Minister of Economy and less than two months after promising Pacific Rim that she
would advocate with the president to promote the Pacific Rim-supported mining bill that would
112
Navas de Hernández, Interview by Author.
113
de Gavidia, Interview by Author.
238
have weakened protections, is an indication that by early July 2006 she and her ministry had
become willing to reconsider their approach to the industry.
On July 22, 2006 Barrera and De Gavidia held their first joint press conference focused
on the issue of metals mining. As already detailed in the civil society chapter (Chapter 2),
activists had organized a two day (July 22-24) cross-country pro-water/environmental defense
march from Chalatenango to San Salvador.114 Barrera and de Gavidia held the press conference
on the morning of July 22 as the marchers began their two-day journey. However, they never
explicitly acknowledged that this civil society action had prompted them to speak out on the
issue.
According to El Diario de Hoy’s coverage of the MINEC/MARN joint press conference,
what was most notable about the ministers’ statements was that Barrera made a 180-degree shift
from his prior stance, and “opened the door to mining” in El Salvador. The article based this
understanding on Barrera’s emphasis during the press conference on the limitations of El
Salvador’s existing legal framework for metals mining, explaining that the government did not
have the authority to prohibit metals mining. Instead, he clarified that the law dictated the
standards for company operations and that it was only within those regulations that MARN and
MINEC had the authority to monitor compliance.115 In my interview with Barrera, he insisted
that any media coverage accusing him of changing his stance on mining over the course of July
2006 had either misunderstood or misrepresented his statements. His claimed that he always had
operated according to the parameters of Salvadoran law and his statements to the press at
114
Rodrigo Baires Quezada, “Minería, un tema a medias,” El Faro, January 1, 2007.
115
239
different times may have clarified aspects of that as related to the Environment and Mining Laws
respectively, but that there were no inconsistencies in his actions.116
El Diario de Hoy’s spin on the press conference seems to have missed its real
significance, that the two ministers spoke together on the issue of metals mining. The article did
acknowledge that when de Gavidia took the podium she “spoke of the need to tighten the
requirements and collect more taxes from companies.”117 In the context of de Gavidia’s prior
support (in 2005 and earlier in 2006) for the Pacific Rim-promoted bill to amend the Mining
Law, her press conference statements that she now was advocating for greater regulation were
significant. Furthermore, Minister de Gavidia made an additional comment of extreme
consequence during the press conference that El Diario de Hoy neglected to report, but that was
featured as a caption in La Prensa Gráfica’s coverage of the joint press conference. According
to La Prensa Gráfica, de Gavidia announced, “the communities have the key to the mines.
Giving permission isn’t possible without their authorization.”118 This statement is monumental
because in it de Gavidia went beyond merely acknowledging community demands to explicitly
recognizing that they had legitimate authority on these issues.
On July 24, two days after the press conference, the civil society march arrived at the
MINEC offices in San Salvador. In contrast to de Gavidia’s refusal to meet with protestors
during the Action Week Against Mining, she publicly greeted the marchers and then met
116
117
“Marcha Contra Minería Metálica Llega a San Salvador,” Mundo Farabundista, July 24, 2014.
118
240
privately with the march organizers.119 For the first time, Minister de Gavidia was making herself
publicly available to discuss issues related the metals mining industry.
Two days later, on July 26, 2006, de Gavidia took her messages about metals mining to
an even larger Salvadoran audience, as a guest by telephone on Mauricio Funes’s [later elected
President in 2009] popular television show. She participated in a live discussion about metals
mining with Ricardo Navarro of CESTA.120 During the most detailed interview of de Gavidia on
the subject that my research uncovered, she made revelations about government thinking and
action on metals mining that she had not stated publicly before.
Three points, in particular, reveal the changing nature of MINEC’s approach to metals
mining. First, Funes asked de Gavidia to describe the requirements a company must fulfill to
receive a mining license. She explained the main requirements thoroughly, providing important
information about property ownership requirements. Her remarks, excerpted below, appear to
contradict the position she expressed just two months earlier. She explained:
There is something that is very important and that nobody talks about: You must submit
the legal permission of the owners of the land on which or under which the resource
removal is to be made. This is very important, because the laws say that you have to
present the deed for property, [showing] that these companies must have bought the land
or received it from the communities…
This is one of the things that I clarified to the people that I received the day before
yesterday in my office…In the end they really have the key…If the property owners
decide not to sell, then it is no longer an issue. This is what is laid out in the law right
now…I told the communities that they can be calm because they have the key. If they do
not agree with the mining in their area they simply have the right to [decide to] sell or
not. If they do not give permission, there is no problem. 121
119
Funes, “July 26, 2006 episode, featuring Ricardo Navaro (CESTA) and Yolanda de Gavidia, Minister of
Economy (2004-2008).” The transcript was created by Herbert Vargas (the author’s transcriber) based a recording of
the episode and then translated into English by the author.
120
Funes.
121
Funes.
241
In these quotes, de Gavidia reveals that during the private meeting with community leaders she
counseled them on the mining law in the same way Barrera had at the UCA forum the month
before. She explained that, according to the law, the property owners of any portion of the
territory included in a concession, could stop advancement to the extraction phase by refusing to
transfer ownership. As discussed above, this provision is what the draft revision to the mining
law pushed by Pacific Rim, was intended to change.
Second, although she did not name Pulgar Vidal, de Gavidia acknowledged to Funes and
his audience that MINEC had hired a consultant to undertake a cost/benefit analysis of the
industry and that the findings would be the basis of any ministerial decisions moving forward.
She explained:
We have not been deaf at the Ministry of Economy. When this issue emerged a year ago,
and as this issue continues to arise we are studying it. We have learned that around the
world there is legislation that is far more modern [than ours] that considers mechanisms
that would ensure greater benefits from mining to the countries. So, because of this, we
have launched a technical study to really determine the benefit vs. the costs for the
country and to ensure that the process can be carried out responsibly…122
By announcing that her ministry had launched this technical study and giving the reasons for
having done so, de Gavidia acknowledged publicly the extent of her concerns about the risks of
mining and presented them as Saca administration concerns.
Third, she revealed that the ongoing study had already identified deficits in the existing
law, namely related to collection and distribution of royalties and the lack of any provisions for
mine closure. This revelation meant that El Salvador could be left with no support for cleanup or
longer-term community investment after the mine closed.123 Minister de Gavidia then
122
Funes.
123
Funes.
242
emphasized MARN’s critical role evaluating the environmental impacts and followed that with a
statement unlike any she appears to have made publicly before. She declared: “I am absolutely
clear that we have to ensure that there is no harm to either the environment or human health. We
also have another thing to evaluate, the cost/benefit of using water resources, which is another
issue being analyzed.”124 This statement contained echoes of both Minister Barrera and the civil
society opposition.
On July 27, the day following her broadcast interview, Minister de Gavidia and Gina
Navas de Hernández, met with executives from five international mining companies.125 The
companies represented included Martinique Minerals/Triada, Commerce Group, Nycon
Resources, Condor (the last company to receive an exploration permit as discussed above), and
Pacific Rim, whose attendees included president Tom Shrake. De Gavidia made a short
presentation to the executives before opening up the meeting to questions, stating “the
government’s official position is one of respecting and obeying the law, including the mining
law…” She explained that the government had come to recognize that there were mining
industry concerns that Salvadoran law “only vaguely addressed” and that they had learned that
other counties’ laws covered more thoroughly. Therefore, “in order to have a better perspective
on the issues raised by the opposition,” her ministry had “hired a consultant from Peru [with]
wide experience in mineral and environmental law.” In addition, she stated that the government
124
Funes.
125
Jorge Mario Ríos Muñoz, “Meeting with Minister of Economy,” Internal Memo (Ministry of Economy, San
Salvador, El Salvador: Au Martinique Silver/Intrepid Minerals/Triada, July 27, 2006), Johansing archives, private
collection, unpublished.
243
had decided to “review the mining law through a participative process that would include
legislators, communities, NGOs and mining companies.”126
The memo also includes statements by de Gavidia that seemed encouraging to the mining
executives, including, “all contracts and rights based on law will be honored since mining
companies are part of the foreign investment El Salvador needs and appreciates.”127 However,
according to the memo she added, that the “Environment Law must be respected and therefore
there will be a review of whether or not companies that have their environmental permits are
complying with the law.”128 This statement echoes Barrera in its emphasis on complying with the
law. Specifically, it is reminiscent of one of Barrera’s June 2006 remarks when she warned that
companies already granted exploration licenses could have them rescinded if it is determined that
they are harming the environment.
This memo is notable for its timing and contents. It makes no mention of the minister’s
public statements made over the previous several days. Yet, it reveals that the cited remarks were
consistent with those she made in her public statements, in terms of her representation of the
government’s position and the planned next steps. To each audience, de Gavidia made clear that
the government had identified deficiencies in the Salvadoran laws that governed the metals
mining industry and had concerns about how companies were complying with the aspects of law
that pertained to the environment. She explained that it was these realizations that motivated the
government’s decision to review industrial metals mining processes, procedures, and the law
itself.
126
Muñoz.
127
Muñoz.
128
Muñoz.
244
Minister de Gavidia’s statements on metals mining from July 22 through July 27 not only
were consistent with the statements expressed by her colleague Minister Barrera. At certain
moments, particularly in her interview with Funes, she made arguments consistent with the civil
society opposition. In my 2014 interview with de Gavidia, she denied that the civil society
movement had exerted any influence on her metals mining decisions and she repeatedly made a
point to condemn the “radical environmental NGOs” that pushed the agenda.129 However, my
research showed that de Gavidia only began to speak publicly about industrial metals mining’s
risks, and invest MINEC staff time and resources to investigate industry impacts, following the
June and July 2006 civil society-led public awareness campaigns.
3. New government actors begin to weigh in (August through December 2006)
The discussion so far has focused on the statements and actions of MARN and MINEC
ministers and not directly on President Saca because, during this period, the president refrained
from public comments on the issue. However, in September 2006, Eduardo Zablah, the
Technical Secretary to the President, gave a public statement to the press about metals mining on
the president’s behalf. Clarifying at the outset that MINEC and MARN were the government
agencies with the legal mandate to manage metals mining and not the office of the president,
Zablah stated: “My personal opinion is that we do not need [gold] mining. But institutionally, we
must look into it. [However,] if there is going to be mining it must meet the highest standards in
the world."130 The phrasing of Zablah’s statement is significant. He begins by sharing his
personal disapproval of metals mining. This would not be expected from a top government
official if government aimed to foster the industry. Simultaneously, his statement separates what
129
de Gavidia, Interview by Author.
130
Baires Quezada, “Minería, un tema a medias.”
245
the country would do institutionally, which was to engage with the industry, from his personal
feelings. Yet the conditional phrasing of his last statement showed the possibility that “looking
into it” and requiring “the highest standards in the world” might lead to a decision not to pursue
metals mining.
In most of 2006 government action on metals mining had been centered within the
executive branch. However, in the later part of the year members of the Legislative Assembly
also began to tackle the issue. At the beginning of October, Co Latino reported that Minister
Barrera again encouraged leaders in La Mesa to shift their advocacy to the legislature, given the
limited nature of what could be done by the executive branch under the existing legal
framework.131 He reiterated what he had advised in earlier statements to the press (as discussed
above), that to stop “this type of project in the country given the negative impacts on the
environment, especially on water” required introducing a bill that would prohibit the industry. 132
Later that month, civil society ally and then-Legislative Assemblywoman Lourdes
Palacios, an FMLN representative from San Salvador, made an attempt to follow Barrera’s
advice. As reported in the English language source BNAmericas:
Congress members from El Salvador's FMLN party have requested that mining activity,
mainly for gold and silver, be banned via a temporary decree while reforms to mining law
are under discussion. “We are suggesting a temporary decree for an indefinite period of
time since there have been several complaints, studies and objections from resident
communities in the zones where mining exploration is taking place,” FMLN
congresswoman Lourdes Palacios told BNAmericas. Palacios, who presented the
initiative to the Legislative Assembly, believes this is the best measure to take while the
law is in debate and allows for an in-depth analysis of mining's impact on health, society
and the environment.133
131
Leonel Herrera, “Ejecutivo apoyaría ley que prohíba minería metálica,” Diario Co Latino, October 5, 2006.
132
Herrera.
Harvey Beltrán, “Congress Considers Ban on Mining While Reform under Debate,” BNamericas, October 17,
133
2006.
246
Representing the then-titled Health and Environment Committee on which she served, Palacios’s
goal was for the Legislative Assembly to temporarily suspend industrial metals mining, stopping
any expansion, during the time that government considered more permanent reforms to the
current law.
As chronicled in an official government transcript (that I accessed through a Freedom of
Information Law request), the Legislative Assembly agreed to take up the issue of metals
mining, but not Palacios’s proposed temporary decree to suspend the industry. Instead, the
legislative body considered an advisory “Dictamen Parcial” (Partial Review) 134 on the issue. In
our interview, Francisco Perdomo explained to me that a Dictamen Parcial is not legislation but
instead is “a kind of administrative policy action.”135 This meant that the Legislative Assembly
did not actually consider a measure that could have legally halted metals mining, but instead
engaged in a parliamentary procedure that allowed legislators to document their position without
it having a legally binding result. On October 26, 2006, with 73 yes votes, 18 abstentions, and 0
no votes, the Legislature voted that the government “should not issue or authorize licenses or
concessions for the exploration or extraction of minerals until it has completed a comprehensive
review of the legal framework.”136
Such a vote in the legislature might seem monumental, but because it was not legally
binding it carried no more weight than an advisory opinion. However, while the vote did not
authorize changes to the legal framework guiding metals mining in El Salvador, it still had
Asamblea Legislativa de El Salvador, “Acta No. 24 de sesión plenaria, Response to a Freedom of Information
134
Request” (Oficina de Información y Respuesta (OIR), Asamblea Legislativa de El Salvador, October 26, 2006).
135
Asamblea Legislativa de El Salvador, “Acta No. 24 de sesión plenaria, Response to a Freedom of Information
136
Request.”
247
political significance. It showed that a majority of Assembly members supported the Saca
government efforts to suspend the mineral mining licensing process. Au Martinique Silver took
note of the political significance in an internal memo, expressing concern that a wide majority,
representing all but one Salvadoran party and that included ARENA representatives, had voted
for the measure.137
In response to the Legislative Assembly’s vote, on November 6, 2006 Ministers Barrera
and de Gavidia attended a hearing held by the Health and Environment Committee to affirm their
ministries’ commitment to the principles in the measure. Together they testified that their
ministries would:
Prepare a report on the work of the mining industry in the country…[and] committed
themselves to work together to improve the Mining Law, with the main objective being
the health of the people close to the projects and respect for the environment…the same
commitment that had been taken [in the Legislature] on October 26.138
These events during the last months of 2006 showed that both the executive and legislative
branches of the Salvadoran government agreed that the country’s legal framework governing
metals mining required changes, although neither body specified the nature of those changes. 139
With this momentum, in December 2006 FMLN legislators submitted a draft bill (on behalf of
the civil society movement that prepared it) to ban mining permanently.
However, before either branch considered any further action, President Saca made a
significant personnel change. In mid-December, he transferred Hugo Barrera to a new position in
his cabinet and appointed construction industry businessman, Carlos Guerrero, to replace him as
Jorge Mario Ríos Muñoz, “National Assembly of El Salvador,” Internal Memo (Au Martinique Silver/Intrepid
137
Minerals/Triada, October 26, 2006), Johansing archives, private collection, unpublished.
138
Baires Quezada, “Minería, un tema a medias.”
139
Baires Quezada.
248
the Environment Minister. 140 As reported in Co Latino, anti-mining activists suspected that Saca
had demoted “Barrera due to his disagreement with mining projects and that Guerrero’s
appointment [was] to guarantee that mining projects would be carried out.”141 Together, Barrera
and de Gavidia had presented the Saca administration as having come to a single, coherent vision
for the country’s metals mining industry. Without Barrera, who had instigated the administrative
changes in metals mining management, there was new ambiguity as to how the Saca
administration might proceed on this issue in the remaining years of the president’s term.
Even with the ambiguity left in the wake of Barrera’s end-2006 transfer, 2006 had been
transformative for the metals mining industry in El Salvador. This was in large part a result of
the increasing intersections between the civil society-led opposition and the national government,
in terms of the sectors’ interactions on the issue over the course of that year and the
government’s responses in the form of political action. Most practically, the mid-year “pause” in
MARN’s review of environmental permits had stopped the industry from expanding into new
areas of El Salvador. Furthermore, MINEC’s approach to mining had drastically changed over
the course 2006. Previously, and even during the first several months of 2006, Minister de
Gavidia had been in conflict with MARN on this issue, advocating on behalf of metals mining
industry interests. By July 2006 de Gavidia had begun to advocate for increased regulation and
additional study of the industry before supporting further growth. By the end of 2006, these two
ARENA ministers publicly touted the same concerns that the civil society movement had been
promoting and claimed that they acted with support from President Saca. Finally, the Legislative
Iván Escobar and Eduardo Toledo, “Saca descarta más cambios en gabinete presidencial,” Diario Co Latino,
140
December 8, 2006.
141
Escobar and Eduardo Toledo.
249
Assembly’s October 2006 vote in favor of the Dictamen Parcial, although it had no legal impact,
indicated that a majority of the legislative branch had also begun to question the metals mining
industry’s viability for El Salvador.
C. The permit freeze becomes a de facto industry-wide moratorium (2007 and 2008)
While 2006 was a turning point for the Salvadoran government on metals mining, 2007
solidified the government’s direction down this new path. Even with the freeze on new permits
in 2006, companies that already had been granted environmental permits were grandfathered in
and could continue their exploration efforts. This would change in mid-2007, when once again
the Saca government would make a significant change to its management of the metals mining
industry. Although, like the executive permit freeze, these government actions would not be
known to the public in real time, they would bring about a total industry suspension that two
subsequent administrations would sustain until the 2017 Legislature voted to change the law.
The discussion of this last phase of the period of study, covering 2007 and 2008, traces how this
happened and analyzes the implications.
1. Continuity once again gives way to change (January-November 2007)

President Saca’s end-2006 appointment of businessman Carlos Guerrero to replace Hugo
Barrera as the Minister of Environment meant that 2007 began without the official who had
spearheaded the government’s increasingly restrictive approach to metals mining. When
accepting the position of Environment Minister, Guerrero claimed that he would seek a “balance
between the economy and the environment”142 which contrasted with Barrera’s stated
commitment to put the environment first. This created concern that the new minister would be
142
Sebastián Darío, “Communities Protest Mining Impacts Study, January 10, 2007,” US-El Salvador Sister Cities
(blog), March 1, 2007.
250
friendlier to pro-metals mining interests and that he could end the permit freeze his predecessor
had enacted. However, Guerrero’s actions during his first few months as Minister of
Environment quickly demonstrated that he would not be friendlier to pro-mining interests and
that the permit freeze was not in jeopardy.143
In her 2013 testimony to ICSID, Pacific Rim’s Vice President for El Salvador Erika
Colindres recounted an unsuccessful early 2007 meeting she had with Minister Guerrero to
discuss plans for extraction at the El Dorado site.144 She met with Guerrero at the beginning of
his tenure, hoping that the new head of MARN would provide a response to the company’s
permit application. However, in her testimony Colindres complained that, “despite the fact that I
invited them [the minister and his staff] to put any question to me, the minister asked none and in
truth seemed to not be interested, in the least, in what I was explaining to them. For example, all
he did was check his cell phone instead of watching the presentation I gave.”145
Two months later, in March 2007, Erika Colindres met again with MARN, this time
seeking answers about Pacific Rim’s environmental application for exploration activities at the
Huacuco concession. At this meeting, Colindres received the same response she had in June
2006 (as discussed above), only this time from a different MARN staffer conveying a message
on behalf of the new minister. As recounted in Pacific Rim’s 2013 Memorial on the Merits
submission to ICSID:
Ms. Colindres went to MARN to request the assistance of Zaida Osorio, head of the
Gerencia de Evaluación Ambiental [“Environmental Assessment Office”]…At this time,
143
I did not have the opportunity to interview former Minister Guerrero as part of my field work, but my archival
research demonstrates that Guerrero’s approach to metals mining matched his predecessor Barrera’s.
Pacific Rim, “Pac Rim Cayman LLC v. Republic of El Salvador, Pac Rim Cayman LLC’s Memorial on the
144
Merits and Quantum,” March 29, 2013, 145–46.
145
Pacific Rim, 145–46.
251
Ms. Osorio told Ms. Colindres that Minister Guerrero had ordered all permits relating to
mining, including exploration, to be put on hold. 146
The message Colindres received at this meeting demonstrated that Minister Guerrero was not
simply maintaining his predecessor’s decision. Instead, Guerrero took responsibility for the
decision, giving a new order, under his authority as minister, to freeze the metals mining
permitting process.
In May 2007 Guerrero, alongside MINEC Minister de Gavidia, would go a step farther
than Barrera by suspending all industrial metals mining activity, not only environmental
permitting. As introduced in the private sector chapter (Chapter 4), on May 7, 2007, Ministers
Guerrero and de Gavidia announced the government’s decision at a meeting of mining company
representatives the ministers had convened. The following excerpt from Pacific Rim’s 2013
Memorial on the Merits provides a brief summary of the meeting.
On May 7, 2007, a meeting was held and representatives of all the mining companies in
the country were invited. The meeting was convened by Minister Guerrero and also the
Minister of Economy, Yolanda de Gavidia. At this meeting, the mining companies were
informed that all mining activity in the country would be halted until such time as an
Evaluación Ambiental Estratégica [Strategic Environmental Review] of the mining
industry was conducted. 147
As the ICSID memorial explains, at this meeting Ministers Guerrero and de Gavidia announced
to attending mining company representatives that the government would suspend the metals
mining industry until the government undertook a Strategic Environmental Review. They based
this decision on Pulgar Vidal’s 2006 findings, which had stressed that, according to the country’s
Environmental Law, a SER should have been conducted before any licenses were granted.148
146
Pacific Rim, 146.
147
Pacific Rim, 147.
148
Manuel Pulgar Vidal, “Reporte de consultoría: actividad minera, visión de desarrollo, medio ambiente y
relaciones sociales en El Salvador, Estado de la Situación” (San Salvador, El Salvador, August 11, 2006).
252
Although introduced as temporary, the suspension had no defined end date. By basing the
suspension on a provision in the Environmental Law, the Saca government had identified a legal
justification to suspend all metals mining industry activity without having to amend the existing
legal framework.149
The companies with a stake in El Salvador’s metals mining industry did not simply
accept the new operating parameters that Guerrero and de Gavidia had announced. The
announced suspension notwithstanding, companies continued to lobby MARN and MINEC to
approve their applications. Furthermore, companies objected that their operations had been
stalled for the duration of the SER even though the government had not actually initiated a
formal investigation.150
For example, the Au Martinique Silver/TRIADA archives show that in mid-2007 the
company continued to lobby the government to approve that exploration permits for new
concessions in Morazán province. By mid-2007 it had been almost two years since the company
had been physically pushed out of its concession areas in Chalatenango by community resistance
(see Chapter 2). However, this had not led the company to abandon its stake in El Salvador.
Instead, it pursued new exploration opportunities in areas outside of Chalatenango, including
Morazán.
Two communications from Robert Johansing to Carlos Guerrero dated July 23 and 27,
2007 provide examples of Johansing’s attempts to follow up with Minister Guerrero about
exploration applications submitted at the end of 2006. In these two cases, the letters referred to
149
Ministerio de Medio Ambiente y Recursos Naturales (MARN) de El Salvador, “Términos de referencia,
Evaluación Ambiental Estrategia (EAE) sector minero de El Salvador,” No date, ICSID Case No. ARB/09/12, made
available by counsel for El Salvador with the authorization of the Office of the Attorney General of El Salvador.
150
Francisco René Cruz Brizuel, “Resolución 245 del MINEC sobre solicitud de prórrogas de licencias presentada el
19 de octubre de 2007,” November 27, 2007, Johansing archives, private collection, unpublished.
253
the San Pedro and Cerro Petancol concessions in Morazan.151 Additional correspondences I
accessed in Johansing’s private archives show other similar letters sent to Guerrero requesting
information about previously submitted applications. According to the regulations in place
before the temporary suspension, the timeframe during which the company should have received
responses had long passed.152 According to Johansing in these July letters, his company had
never been given any acknowledgement that the San Pedro and Cerro Petancol applications had
been received. In both cases, permits had not been rejected. Simply, as Johansing complained in
the letter to MARN, the government had never responded.153
With mining companies pushing back on the industry suspension, MINEC sought to
create parallel legislation that would provide a stronger legal basis for this de facto policy. The
administration did not embrace the FMLN/civil society bill to prohibit the industry, but, instead,
supported one the legalized the suspension. Various executive branch staff from MARN,
MINEC, and then from the Technical Secretary of the President spent months assessing the
MINEC-drafted bill. Documents show that Technical Secretary Eduardo Zablah provided
intricate, detailed technical feedback meant to strengthen and clarify the bill.154 Nevertheless, the
bill was never ultimately finalized nor submitted for congressional review.
151
Robert Johansing, “Robert Johansing to Minister Carlos Guerro, ‘Triada solicita explicaciones sobre retraso en
otorgamiento de licencia de exploración en proyecto San Pedro,’” July 23, 2007, Johansing archives, private
152
Johansing.
153
Robert Johansing, “Robert Johansing to Minister Carlos Guerro, MARN, ‘Triada solicita explicaciones sobre
retraso en otorgamiento de licencia de exploración en proyecto Cerro Petancol,’” Letter, July 27, 2007, Johansing
archives, private collection, unpublished.
154
Eduardo Zablah-Touche, “Dictamen técnico respecto al anteproyecto mediante el cual se suspenden las
actividades de minería,” memorandum, August 15, 2007, Exhibit C-841, ICSID Case No. ARB/09/12, made
available by counsel for El Salvador with the authorization of the Office of the Attorney General of El Salvador.
254
An October 2007 memo from Robert Johansing to colleagues Jorge Mario Ríos Muñoz
and Marco Montecinos captures the recognition among some in the foreign mining sector that
the government in El Salvador had become antagonistic to the industry. Dramatically subtitling
the correspondence, “Evidence to Support Why Neither Major Political Party in El Salvador
Wants to Support the Canadian Mining Industry’s Effort to Survive,” Johansing wrote:
It is noteworthy that during this period from October 2005 thru 2006 the Salvadoran
government was considered to be publicly in support of our activities despite policies that
have always been indifferent. In late 2006 and throughout 2007 we have seen a marked
change in the position of Tony Saca’s government as well as other significant people in
the Salvadoran civil sector.
People who have been historically pro-private sector, pro-foreign investment, pro-natural
resource development and always anti-FMLN have suddenly said “This is very politically
complicated issue!” or “We just don’t understand what is going here!” Could this be the
first time that both the FMLN and ARENA are in agreement over their concerns about
the wellbeing of Salvadorans in Northern El Salvador?155
Johansing’s memo from this time chronicles the shifts in government action explored in
the process tracing analysis and confirms what this research has found, that the Saca
government’s change in position became evident in 2006. Furthermore, his musings about the
apparent compatibility of the positions of ARENA and FMLN on metals mining were prescient,
noting incredulously that Salvadorans that he had had previously considered allies, and who had
been expected to provide continued support for mining, were no longer doing so. His use of the
words “effort to survive” in the memo’s title reflected serious concern about the future of metals
mining in El Salvador.
Unlike Au Martinique Silver, as 2007 came to a close, Pacific Rim showed that it was not
willing to accept that the Salvadoran government had turned against metals mining. In
155
Robert Johansing, “The Potonico Brief: evidence to support why neither major political party in El Salvador
wants to support the Candian mining industry’s effort to survive,” memorandum, October 29, 2007, Johansing
255
November, company allies from the PCN party (Partido de Concertación Nacional) successfully
introduced a version of the mining reform bill that (as discussed in the 2005 and 2006 sections
above) the company had been advocating for MINEC to support. Per Pacific Rim CEO Thomas
Shrake’s testimony to ICSID cited in El Salvador’s 2013 Rejoinder: “on 22 November 2007, the
PCN party presented a mining law reform bill to the Asamblea. The bill was prepared with input
from my advisors, and with indirect input from Pac Rim.”156 Shrake’s testimony indicated that
Pacific Rim and pro-mining advocates believed they had found a government ally outside of the
Saca administration that would enable them to promote and realize their interests.
2. The effort to launch a Strategic Environmental Review (December 2007 through 2008)
By fall 2007, Saca government officials had been discussing the need to study the
economic and environmental impacts of metals mining for more than a year, but had not yet been
able to launch the investigation. With the December 2007 bill to lessen mining regulations
introduced by the PCN party, the issue had gained even greater urgency. Government records
show that in 2008 MINEC and MARN (which still remained under Ministers de Gavidia and
Guerrero’s authorities, respectively) developed a detailed terms-of-reference to guide selection
of a consulting firm that would lead the SER. However, they lacked sufficient financial resources
to fund the initiative without external support.157 MARN Minister Guerrero confronted this
problem in a December 18, 2007 communication with MINEC Minister de Gavidia. In the cover
note for the assessment guidelines Guerrero wrote:
“Pac Rim Cayman LLC v. Republic of El Salvador, ICSID Case No. ARB/09/12: The Republic of El Salvador’s
156
Rejoinder on the Merits,” 33.
157
Economy (MINEC), Resending Guidelines for SER,” Letter, December 18, 2007, Exhibit C-830, ICSID Case No.
ARB/09/12, made available by counsel for El Salvador with the authorization of the Office of the Attorney General
of El Salvador.
256
In response to your note dated October 18 of this year, we send you the guidelines for
Strategic Environmental Assessment of the Mining Sector, developed according to
Article 17 of the Environment Law. Furthermore, we have been informed that there is no
budget to support the development of the Strategic Environmental Review. Nevertheless,
we believe that at MINEC you could apply to an international funder and request support
for the SER.158
In this official inter-agency communique, Guerrero conveyed that MINEC would be in a better
position to find the requisite funding to carry out the SER, although MARN would be the agency
managing the technical aspects. Yet even as the SER remained unfunded and the process was
stalled, the Saca administration presented it as a mandate. In public statements reported by
Salvadoran media, Minister Guerrero continued to reiterate, “that there will be no mining permits
in the country until the Ministry of Economy has implemented the Strategic Environmental
Review, which will be carried out nationwide.”159
At the start of 2008, Ministers de Gavidia and Guerrero continued as the main public
figures representing the administration on the issue of metals mining. It was understood that
President Saca supported their efforts from behind the scenes. This changed in March 2008. As
published on March 11, 2008 in the El Salvadoran edition of the Latin American online
economic journal EcoDiario.com President Saca spoke directly to lawmakers, asking that they
approach the issue cautiously. He informed them that “‘in principle’ he opposes granting permits
for new mining operations in the country,” but that he believed “that the subject of mining must
be studied in depth.”160
158
Carlos Guerrero.
159
Gloria Silvia Orellana, “Pobladores solicitan de la Asamblea Legislativa, un pronunciamiento definitivo contra la
explotación minera,” Diario Co Latino, December 27, 2007.
Associated Press, “Presidente de El Salvador pide cautela ante proyectos de explotación minera,” EcoDiario.es,
160
March 11, 2008.
257
Saca’s March 2008 public statements have been called the start of the de facto ban by
early chroniclers of the El Salvador case, who may not have had access to information about the
Saca government’s actions which occurred out of the public eye. However, my research analysis
shows this is not the defining moment it was credited it to be, given the prior influential
government decisions—the 2006 environmental permit freeze and the 2007 full industry
suspension—that together comprised the de facto moratorium. Yet Saca’s public statements in
March 2008 should still be understood as a turning point. From March 2008 through the end of
his presidency, Saca became the government face of the de facto moratorium. Up until that point,
the administration’s actions on metals mining had been led by MARN and MINEC, with
indications of Saca’s support. By speaking publicly, Saca finally gave the presidential blessing to
the de facto industry moratorium and claimed ownership.
In June, 2008 MINEC secured a $400,000 grant from Spain’s Agency for International
Aid (Agencia Española de Cooperación Internacional para el Desarrollo, AECID) for the
Strategic Environmental Review.161 This grant enabled the Saca administration to launch “an
international search to hire an agency to carry out the Strategic Environmental Assessment.”162
In a special edition magazine focused solely on the issue of metals mining El Diario de Hoy
reported on the Saca government’s undertaking of the SER, defining the process for its readers
on as “an instrument that allows the cumulative effects of [metals mining] projects to be
evaluated.” The article summarized a statement from Minister de Gavidia that claimed the SER
would “enable [better] evaluation of mining development proposals, avoid undertaking projects
161
“Evaluación Ambiental Estrategia (EAE) de sector minero metálico en El Salvador” (Gobierno de El Salvador,
2008), Exhibit C-838, ICSID Case No. ARB/09/12, made available by counsel for El Salvador with the
authorization of the Office of the Attorney General of El Salvador.
162
“Saca y ministros tocan el tema con pinzas,” El Diario de Hoy, El dilema de la minería: las ventajes y
desvantajes para el Salvador, Segunda entrega (June 16, 2008).
258
that could be harmful to the environment, …[and] will facilitate decision making for the
government and help define a public policy on the issue.”163
Consistent with El Diario’s approach to the issue of metals mining, the article reported
cynically on the Saca government’s decision to use the SER, questioning if it was the appropriate
tool years after the industry had begun activities in the country.164 However, the article presented
the SER as based on a directive from Saca himself, reporting that days before the first day of the
fourth year of his presidential administration, Saca told El Diario de Hoy: "I have told the
Minister of the Environment, the Minister of Economy, that we need a study that determines the
possibility and the non-ecological damage of gold mining in our country and that after having
this study a decision [on the future of the industry] can be made.”165 Thus, Saca was identifying
himself to the broader public as the driver of the industry investigation.
According to a presentation prepared by the Saca administration at the end of its term,
the international search yielded proposals from two firms, one Spanish, one Canadian, but
neither met the technical qualifications.166 This forced the administration to try to launch a
second search. However, at this time the Saca administration was entering the final months of its
term before the next round of presidential elections scheduled for March 2009. These elections
would usher in a new government because of El Salvador’s single presidential term limits.
Therefore, the Saca administration “considered it most prudent to postpone beginning a new
163
“Saca y ministros tocan el tema con pinzas.”
164
“Evaluación Ambiental Estrategia (EAE) de sector minero metálico en El Salvador.”
165
Saca y ministros tocan El tema con pinzas.”
166
259
search so that the new authorities could undertake the evaluation themselves, as needed.”167
Even without the SER, which had been the justification for the 2007 de facto moratorium, all
metals mining activity remained suspended through the end of Saca’s presidency.
IV. Wrap up
To wrap up this chapter’s process tracing analysis of the Salvadoran government over the
period of 2004 through 2008, I reconsider the overarching research question and the three
supporting questions that guided the discussion. As laid out in the introduction, the guiding
research question is: Why did El Salvador deviate from the conventional wisdom that prioritizes
extraction’s short-term economic gains over the social and environmental costs and choose
instead to disallow metals mining?
In regard to the government sector, the following three questions apply.
1. What was the role of the Salvadoran government in determining (and not simply
carrying out) decisions related to metals mining?
2. What were the government’s identifiable motivations?
3. What were the traceable milestone events/decision points that contributed to this
outcome?
The analysis and chronology presented in this chapter regarding the government sector lead to
the following takeaways:
167
260
Salvadoran government’s role:
The Salvadoran government is the sector that actually carried out the policy decisions and
actions related to resource extraction. This would be the expected role of this sector in any
country context, but in this case, being the final decision maker is only one part of the story. The
process tracing timeline shows that government did not play one uniform role throughout the
period of study. Initially, the government involvement was reactive, motivated as a response to
civil society action including the civil society-sponsored Moran evaluation in 2005 and civil
society-organized and led Action Week Against Mining in June 2006. Yet the government’s role
began to shift in mid-2006, with specific government representatives from the executive branch
acting incrementally, basing the majority of their actions in legal protocol that had not
necessarily been followed in the past. This laid the ground work that eventually made the
industry freeze possible.
Such policy action that disrupted the functioning of a potentially lucrative industry could
not have taken place without participation and approval from the president, but this does not
mean that the president was the key actor. In this case, the individuals who were most
instrumental in changing the application of Salvadoran policy on mineral mining were President
Saca’s two Ministers of Environment, Hugo Barrera and Carlos Guerrero and his Minister of
Economy, Yolanda de Gavidia. Furthermore, the de facto ban was not simply the result of a
single decision. The distinct actions taken by the Saca administration, ranging from quite small
to substantial (to be discussed in the milestones section below) together created the de facto ban
on metals mining.
261
Government motivations:
For this sector, identifying actual underlying motivations is more complex than for the
other sectors because political figures often choose to explain their movitations without telling
the full story. This can be due to: their efforts to present themselves in the most favorable light
and not admit prior mistakes; the need to protect others who might be negatively affected if their
roles were revealed; the desire to be at the forefront of policy decision, not simply reacting to
public pressure; and the imperative not to disclose confidential governmental processes that
might not be acceptable to the entire public.
Yet, the process tracing analysis did show that the government cited three main
motivations for its actions: 1) the requirements of the law; 2) awareness of El Salvador’s extreme
environmental vulnerability; and 3) the Salvadoran government’s institutional weaknesses that
hindered the ability to implement existing laws and to protect the country’s environment from
the potential risks of metals mining. Beyond this, however, political motivations cannot be
discounted. Electoral politics can be a powerful motivator for elected officials, particularly given
the growing resonance the opposition movement had across Salvdoran society, as demonstrated
by the results of the 2007 UCA poll. Although it might seem that only the president himself and
not his appointed ministers would be concerned about electoral politics, those in appointed
postions can have aspirations to be voted into elected postions in the future. For example, Hugo
Barrera left his second appointment in the Saca administration in early 2008 to run in the
ARENA party primary to be that party’s candidate in the 2009 presidential elections (he was not
262
chosen in the ARENA primary).168 Motivations driven by the influence of the other sectors
analyzed will be discussed in the concluding chapter to this dissertation.
Government milestone events/actions:
The analyses in this chapter have lead me to identify seven milestone events. The initial
four involve Environment Minister Hugo Barrera. The first was his appointment as Minister of
Environment at the start of the Saca admnistration in 2004. This appointment provided MARN, a
young government agency, with a leader with pre-established political prestige as a long standing
member of the ARENA government and previous experience as an executive branch cabinet
member. Barrera’s stature within the ARENA party gave MARN a level of authority not
previously seen for environment ministers in El Salvador.
Related to this, the second milestone was Barrera’s reconciliation of the 1998
Environment and 1996/2001 Mining Laws. This forced the reformulation of the country’s
administrative process for granting licenses for metals mining exploration and gave MARN
authority in the decision-making process, from which it had been previously excluded. Even
though this reformulation was based in the existing 1998 Environment Law, it had previously
been ignored. A minister without Barrera’s political clout may not have tried or been successful
in influencing MINEC to enforce the law, given that MINEC was a more powerful agency than
MARN.
The third Barrera milestone was his participation in the UCA forum on the second day of
the civil society-led Action Week Against Mining. Appearing at this event allowed the minister
to hear in person the perspectives and experiences of Salvadorans directly affected by the
168
Carlos Dada, “Hugo Barrera confirma aspiraciones presidenciales,” El Faro, January 11, 2008.
263
planned mines. His participation also enabled Salvadoran citizens to learn that the minister was
clearly informed and prepared at a technical level. Furthermore, Barrera gave the audience
crucial legal advice about the power they had to stop mining companies by refusing to sell their
land. The press outlets which covered the event then disseminated the key information to a wider
audience. Barrera’s participation in the forum clarified MARN’s approach to metals mining,
allowed the minister to educate constituents on a key issue, and also put his postion on record
through the press coverage.
The fourth milestone was the June 2006 de facto freeze at MARN, under Barrera’s
authority, of environmental permitting for metals mining. A direct result of each of the prior
three milestones, this one is the most impactful because it was the first step in the de facto
moratorium of the metals mining industry in El Salvador. This specifically prevented Pacific
Rim from obtaining the environmental permit required for an extraction license at El Dorado, but
because of the change in protocol for exploration licenses, this also prevented further distribution
of exploration licenses. Although not stopping all aspects of the industry, the environmental
permit freeze stopped mining industry growth.
With the next milestones, other Saca administration officials in addition to Barrera
become involved. The fifth involves MINEC Minister de Gavidia and the transformation of her
position on metals mining from an industry ally to a supporter of a suspension of metals mining
activity. This cannot be traced to a single event or action, but rather, was the culmination of
events. The first public evidence of this tranformation came in July 2006, when she spoke
publicly about the industry’s dangers and the need for all activity to stop until more research had
been conducted. Previously at odds with Barrera on this issue, meaning MINEC and MARN had
operated at cross purposes, de Gavidia's shift meant that the permit suspension had more
264
substantial backing within the executive branch of the Salvadoran government. This alliance
allowed the two ministries to stand united before the press, testifying before congress as well as
representing the argument to the president. This also meant that when Barrera was transferred
from the Minister of Environment, de Gavidia still anchored the stance that supported
suspending the industry.
The sixth milestone is a single event: MARN and MINEC’s joint May 2007
announcement that all metals mining industry operations, including those operating with
previously granted valid permits, would be halted. This closed the loophole left by the
environmental permit freeze and created an industry-wide suspension. By mandating that all
metals mining activity stop until a Strategic Environmental Review had been undertaken, a
decsion underpinned by parameters set in the 1998 Environment Law, Ministers de Gavidia and
Guerrero found a legal basis to suspend all industrial metals mining activity. Although not an
explicit legislative ban, with this action the Saca administration started the de facto moratorium
on mining that remained in place until the legislature replaced the 2001 mining law in 2017 and a
formal congressional ban was put in place.
Although somewhat anti-climatic after the previous milestone moment, it is still
important to acknowledge President’s Saca’s actions in 2008, which I consider the final
milestone for the government sector in this period. By taking ownership publicly over his
administration’s actions on metals mining, President Saca established this as an ARENA party
position which further bolstered the image of the issue as nonpartisan.
It must be acknowledged that the Saca government did not fulfill all of its stated goals
related to metals mining. The two most significantly missed objectives included passing
legislation to legalize the temporary suspension and actually launching a SER. Furthermore,
265
these intended actions were still at odds with other sectors opposed to mining, namely civil
society and the institutional Catholic Church, because neither would permanently ban the mining
industry from the country. However, the actions the administration did take—managing to put
the metals mining industry on hold for the second half of Saca’s term—were significant steps
taken by a conservative, pro-foreign investment presidential administration. This set a precedent
from which the subsequent FMLN administrations could build. In the next and final chapter, the
conclusions for all four sectors analyzed will be integrated together to provide a final answer to
the question guiding this research.
266
CHAPTER 6
CONCLUSION
In the case of mining, it was a multi-track

phenomenon. It became a cause of national
importance and influence because different sectors
spoke out. And vice versa, other sectors began to
speak up as the issue gained national prominence
and authority.
Leonel Herrera, November 2015
I. Introduction
Why did El Salvador deviate from an economic development paradigm that prioritized
the short-term economic gains from extraction over the social and environmental costs and
choose instead to disallow metals mining? This question has been the inspiration and
overarching guide for this dissertation. My hypothesized answer, presented in chapter 1, is: the
diversity of the principal sectors that opposed or withheld support for industrial metals mining
(civil society, the Catholic Church hierarchy, the domestic private sector, and the executive
branch of national government) created the minimally sufficient conditions for El Salvador to
suspend all metals mining industry activity. In this work’s four sectoral chapters (chapters 2-5) I
utilized the process tracing method to answer the following three sub-questions (i) What role did
each of these sectors play in the country’s decision to disallow metals mining? (ii) What were the
motivations of the key actors in each respective sector? (iii) What were the milestone
events/actions that took place in El Salvador, that moved the country away from a purported
short-term economic growth opportunity?
267
The process tracing approach identified individual causal mechanisms for each of these
four societal sectors that I hypothesized had played crucial roles from 2004 through 2008 in the
enactment and the preservation of the de facto moratorium on metals mining. Each sector was
the star of its own story, with the other sectors appearing as supporting actors when actions and
events clearly overlapped or were the cause and/or effect of one another.
The identification and analysis of each of the sector-specific causal chains in these four
sector chapters is necessary, but not sufficient, to prove the hypothesis. Each sectoral chapter
used process tracing to reconstruct the sectors’ actions on metals mining from 2004-2008 and to
analyze the implications of those actions. In this final chapter, I weave together the findings from
the analyses of the four sectors over these five years and then come to final conclusions to
answer my overarching research question.
Answering the fourth and final sub-question, introduced in Chapter 1, but not repeated
until now, allows for the final “shuffling together” of these four key sectors. This final sub-
question is: How did the identified key sectors—civil society, the institutional Catholic Church,
the private sector, and government overlap and/or cooperate or operate individually to bring
about this outcome? Can their independence /inter-dependence be sorted out? The next
discussion will answer this question, focusing on the milestone moments highlighted in each
sectoral chapter to identify the points of:
• Convergence (where the roles, motivations, and/or milestones intersect);

• Concurrence (where the roles, motivations and milestones are parallel, not in conflict,
but without clear overlap); and, where relevant,
• Divergence (where the roles, motivations, and milestones markedly deviate from one
another and potentially conflict).
268
The chapter will close with a discussion of final conclusions. This will extract the overarching
lessons that can be drawn from this case and discuss the significance of this dissertation’s
contributions to scholarship.
II. From parallel actions to converging outcomes: Using process tracing to explain the de
facto moratorium on metals mining in El Salvador
The concluding analysis discusses the period of study in three phases:
1. Before the de facto moratorium: (2004-2005)
2. The freeze on environmental permits for metals mining: (2006)
3. The metals mining industry suspension: (2007-2008)
The discussion for each phase begins with a visual timeline, in table form, mapping the
milestone moments for each sector onto comparative “calendars.” I will refer to these as
milestone maps. The subsequent narrative discusses the major findings identified by reviewing
the sectoral milestones side by side. By evaluating the roles and motivations of the multiple
sectors at each stage and noting changes over time, I will track the changes and discuss their
implications.
A. Before the industry freeze: civil society as catalyst and subtly shifting policies at the
Ministry of Environment (2004-2005)
The years 2004 through 2005 represent the stage-setting period that laid the groundwork for
the first government action to curtail metals mining, MARN’s mid-2006 environmental permit
freeze that prevented the industry from expanding into new Salvadoran territory. The 2004-05
tables, below, capture the key actions taken by each of the four sectors in this first phase. The
following narrative lays out how these actions converge, coincide, and/or diverge and discusses
the implications.
269
Table 3: Phase 1 Milestone Actions Map (2004-2005)
Jan- Mar- Apr May-Jun Jul-Aug Sept-Oct Nov-
2004
Feb Dec
Civil Cabañas CSOs come together to oppose Chalatenango CSOs and local government Cabañas and Chalate CSOs continue
Society landfill (ADES, ASIC, MUFRAS-32 ); come together to respond to Au Martinique province-based resistance
(CS) Leads to founding of Comité Ambiental – Silver exploration activities
first Cabañas CSO dedicated principally to
environmental justice
Cabañas CSOs mobilized against landfill Nat’l coalition comes together encompassing local/provincial Chalate and Cabañas CSOs and
shift attention to PRES exploration at El Nat’l NGOs, with INGO support (no formal name yet)
Dorado mine (exact dates not clear)
Catholic Institutional Catholic Social orgs (i.e.
Church CARITAS) join loose opposition coalition
(CC)
No direct Bishops’ conference engagement
Private
sector  2003-2005 Grupo Agrisal/FUNDEMAS (of Murray Mesa family) Initiativa Rio Lempa →
(PS)
Govern- Commission on National Development (CDN) partner in Agrisal/FUNDEMAS Initiativa Rio Lempa
ment Antonio Saca Saca administration takes office, Hugo Min. Barrera orders change in exploration CONAMA – Min Barrera
(Gov) wins presidential Barrera becomes Minister of the licensing for mining to comply with ’98 convenes civil society
election (Mar 21) Environment MARN (Jun 1) Env. law (exact date not clear) advisory body for MARN. (Sept)
Jan-Feb Mar-Apr May-Jun Jul- Sept-Oct Nov-Dec

2005
Aug
CS During this period Nat’l coalition comes to agreements on key issues Geologist Robert Moran, contracted by ADES, presents
including name (La Mesa frente a la minería metálica, “La Mesa”) public report on Pacific Rim EIA (Oct 8)
and strategic goals (Pro-water, not “anti-mining”) (Exact date not Au Martinique Silver physically withdraws from Chalate.
clear) bec of CS resistance, still maintains El Sal presence (end-Oct)
Ongoing La Mesa advocacy →
CC Caritas, JPIC and CONFRES among Chalatenango Bishop Alas supports CS mobilization and
founding La Mesa members company withdrawal
PS  2003-2005 Initiativa Rio Lempa No notable domestic private sector intervention to company’s Chalatenango claims
Gov  CDN - Initiativa Rio Lempa CS-initiated Moran EIA analysis presented to MARN Saca admin. postpones reform
Natural Protected Areas (Oct 19) bill for 2001 Amended Mining
Act gives MARN new Law
authority to protect ES
territory (Feb 5) Moran findings become part of MARN review of PRES EIA
270
The 2004-05 milestone map allows one to draw three key conclusions about the four
investigated sectors during Phase I.
1. Civil society catalyzed the opposition to metals mining in El Salvador
Civil society actions from early 2004 show how it was the first of the four sectors to have
publicly opposed metals mining activity. In fact, until the civil society-initiated efforts, the
emerging and expanding metals mining industry had not faced directed resistance from within El
Salvador. Being first was not the only factor that made civil society the driver of the metals
mining opposition. There were two other key elements. First is the opposition’s composition of
local/national stakeholders whose range of interests converged around shared environmental,
social, and economic concerns. Second, is the emphasis on the core issue of protecting El
Salvador’s vulnerable water source which allowed the cause to have more universal relevance
across Salvadoran society.
Civil society was also the only sector to consistently oppose the metals mining industry
activity and plans during this first phase. The sustained and strategy-guided action—for example,
through physical resistance blocking exploration activities in Chalatenango and commissioning
scientific analyses such as Robert Moran’s technical review of Pacific Rim’s El Dorado
Environmental Impact Assessment—altered the conditions in which the foreign-led metals
mining companies could operate. The coordinated community resistance efforts in the
department of Chalatenango, that forced Au Martinique Silver’s withdrawal from its legally
permitted exploration sites, created a precedent for other communities to take a stand. Although
this approach was not applicable everywhere in El Salvador, given the distinct socio-political
circumstances across the country, the course of events provided a model for how civil society
could, literally, disrupt mining activity.
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By deploying their own independent scientific review of mining’s impacts, civil society
managed to both influence government review of Pacific Rim’s application for a second stage
exploitation permit and encourage informed public debate. This was accomplished when one of
La Mesa’s members, the Cabañas organization ADES, contracted the independent geologist Dr.
Robert Moran, to evaluate Pacific Rim’s submitted Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA). El
Salvador’s 1996 Mining Law included provisions for environmental authorities, even before the
establishment of MARN, to participate in decision-making on extraction licenses (unlike for
exploration licenses). However, even by 2005, seven years after MARN’s formation, the
environmental agency’s staff appeared to lack the technical capacity to adequately evaluate a
company’s application. Therefore, civil society stepped in to fill that void.
Moran’s civil society-commissioned and widely disseminated expert assessment
provided the under-resourced government technicians—as well as the Salvadoran CSOs and
broader public—with new information that allowed both audiences to approach Pacific Rim’s
plans and promises more critically. Civil society not only contracted Moran, but also organized
the forums at which he presented his findings and recommendations to the public and to MARN.
In the context of increased environmental regulation, civil society’s contribution of scientific
evidence, that MARN could then utilize, demonstrated possibilities for changes in the country’s
approach to the metals mining industry. This is an example of convergence, initiated by civil
society and implemented by MARN. Although MARN did not actively choose to obtain data
from civil society, it did not reject it. Moran’s analysis was at least partially responsible for
derailing Pacific Rim’s EIA approval process that, under other circumstances, likely would have
proceeded without hindrance. These two findings demonstrate how civil society was a
“necessary” factor for the eventual industry suspension.
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2. Changes in the Salvadoran Ministry of Environment’s legal and regulatory
authority created new entry points for organized civil society to exert influence
The Salvadoran government did not play a direct role in the metals mining opposition,
during this phase. However, under Hugo Barrera’s leadership, MARN asserted a new level of
authority in both administrative and political processes to increase environmental regulation and
make space for (some) civil society voices. MARN’s strengthened legal and regulatory authority
and the new, albeit limited, civic space created new opportunities for civil society to influence
government decision-making on the environment.
The first pivotal regulatory change came in 2004 when Minister Barrera asserted
MARN’s authority to act alongside the Ministry of Economy (MINEC) to approve (or not
approve) metals mining exploration. As discussed in Chapter 4, El Salvador’s 1996 Mining Law
granted MINEC sole regulatory power for the exploration phase of industrial metals mining.
However, the 1998 Environment Law changed this by requiring companies to obtain
environmental permits for exploration, authorized by MARN. Yet, in practice, the balance of
power between these economic and environmental agencies did not shift until Barrera claimed
the authorizing role for his ministry six years after it had been legally conferred.
The second crucial regulatory change occurred in late 2005, with passage of the National
Protected Areas Act, a law that was based on a MARN advocated bill. This legislation elevated
environmental considerations and gave MARN unprecedented decision-making power over how
portions of Salvadoran land would be utilized. These key actions made MARN, for the first time
in its six years of existence, a more powerful force in overall executive government decision-
making. Furthermore, MARN’s creation of the civil society advisory body CONAMA, although
top-down and without transparency regarding criteria for membership, provided an opening for
civil society input into MARN decisions. CONAMA provided a new model, even if
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operationally limited, for how civil society input could be considered for governmental
regulation affecting the natural environment.
3. The private sector and the institutional Catholic Church functioned as

background actors, taking action only in concert with either government or civil
society
As shown in the Phase 1 milestone map, during this first period the institutional Catholic
Church and the private sector took limited action related to metals mining. For the private sector
(Chapter 4), the earlier three-year Agrisal/FUNDEMAS initiative to protect the Lempa River
(Initiativia Rio Lempa, 2003-04) was the most relevant action, but it was only indirectly related
to metals mining given its focus on protecting the country’s main water source. Relevant actions
by the Catholic Church included the participation of institutional Catholic social organizations in
the coalition that would become La Mesa. Although limited in scope, these two sets of actions
are important because they were the entry points for the private and Church sectors into the
metals mining debates.
It is important to note that the two sectors did not act in isolation. Instead, the private
sector partnered with government while the institutional Catholic Church1 (Chapter 3) partnered
with civil society. For example, Initiativa Rio Lempa was a public-private partnership,
cosponsored by the Murray Meza family foundation and the Executive Branch Commission on
National Development (CDN), a body made up of presidential appointees. This represented
convergence between the private sector and government to protect the country’s primary water
source. However, this three-year effort to protect the Lempa River did not include explicit
1
As discussed in Chapter 1 (Introduction) and Chapter 3 (Catholic Church), this work distinguishes between the
institution of the Catholic Church (referring to the hierarchy that reports to Rome) and parishioners who practice
their faith without access to the formal Church power structure. These conclusions continue the same
conceptualization.
274
critiques of the metals mining industry. At the same time, this private sector attention to
protecting water was an example of parallel, concurrent actions on a common area of interest
with civil society, water protection, which demonstrated coinciding objectives on the core issue
driving the metals mining opposition.
The convergence of institutional Catholic social organizations with civil society in the La
Mesa advocacy coalition should not be mistaken for the Church leadership having adopted an
opposition position to metals mining. However, the fact that La Mesa, at its origin, encompassed
Caritas-El Salvador, CONFRAS, and JPIC, three Catholic social organizations that are part of
the institutional Church, meant that from the outset, La Mesa had direct ties to the Salvadoran
bishops. Including these religious organizations in the formation of La Mesa laid the groundwork
for the future involvement of Church leadership.
To summarize the main messages of this first phase: civil society was not only the
primary actor on metals mining but was, perhaps most importantly, the catalyst that established a
guiding purpose and determined the actions taken to tackle this issue. By first mobilizing at the
local level to confront the immediate threats of metals mining and then expanding to include
national and regional stakeholders, civil society created momentum for the cause. This sector
also expanded the scientific evidence base that revealed metals mining’s immediate threats to El
Salvador and took responsibility for its public disclosure. Government attention was not
specifically focused on the issue of metals mining. However, several key regulatory changes
affected the governance/policy landscape, giving new consideration to environmental concerns
and making it more conducive to civil society influence. Most important was the change in
stature and authority of MARN, giving the young agency greater decision-making capacity than
ever before. Meanwhile, both Church and private sector actors took the first steps toward
275
becoming advocates by collaborating with one of the other more active sectors. Although there
was no direct association between the private sector and civil society, the parallel efforts to
protect water revealed a degree of compatibility in their interests.
B. Environmental permit freeze (2006): national-level exposure, the Catholic Church

hierarchy adds its voice, the private sector steps back, and the Salvadoran government
takes action (2006)
2006 was a turning point for metals mining in El Salvador. The issue entered the national
consciousness, drawing coordinated advocacy (not only parallel action) from non-civil society
sectors. The 2006 table below captures each of the four sectors’ key actions during this year,
with the main takeaways discussed in the following narrative.
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Table 4: Phase 2 Milestone Actions Map (2006)
2006 Jan-Feb Mar- May-Jun Jul-Aug Sept-Oct Nov-Dec

Apr
CS June 12-17: CS led-Week Second action against mining march to CS collaboration w/FMLN
(ongoing La Mesa advocacy Against Mining: including San Salvador (July 22-24) on bill to prohibit mining,
limited national coverage) March to Min. of Economy, submitted to Assembly
events around the country Meeting between march leaders and (Dec)
(including June 13 UCA MINEC Min Gavidia (July 24)
forum in San Salvador)
Ongoing La Mesa advocacy
CC Bishop Alas of Archbishop Lacalle speaks against metals
Chalte speaks mining at post-Sunday Mass press
publicly against conference during CS march (July 23)
metals mining (Jan)
PS Muted response from corporate media to CS opposition as that gaining national attention
Gov Min Barrera participates in Peruvian environmental Lawyer Pulgar Mins Barrera/de Gavidia joint Barrera removed from
Action Week against mining Vidal hired as short-term consultant by presentations to Legislative Environment Ministry,
UCA forum (Jun 13) MINEC to undertake first government Assembly on metals mining Guerrero appointed (Dec)
Min De Gavidia refuses to sponsored social/environment “State of the concerns/risks (Sept)
meet march organizers at Situation” analysis of Salvadoran metals
MINEC (Jun 15) mining industry (July) Legislative Assembly vote
(advisory not binding) to
MARN (Barrera) suspends Mins Barrera/De Gavidia joint press suspend metals mining
environmental permitting conference about metals mining during first industry (Oct 26)
process for metals mining day of CS march (July 22)
exploration (Jun) MARN rescinds Commerce
Min De Gavidia meeting with CS march Group San Sebastián
organizers (July 24) Extraction permit/mining
In report (delivered in August), Pulgar concession (Oct)
recommends halting industrial metals
mining activity until formal SER
conducted & regulatory abilities
analyzed
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The milestone action map of phase 2 (2006) allows one to draw five key conclusions.
1. In 2006, civil society action leads the government and Catholic Church to become
directly involved in the metals mining debates
Over the course of 2006, for the first time, government and institutional Catholic Church
actors joined civil society to directly tackle industrial metals mining in word and/or deed. At the
same time, for most of the year, social and civic actors continued to be the main drivers of action
on and attention to metals mining. Civil society was responsible for launching the issue of metals
mining onto the national stage by organizing the Action Week Against Mining in June 2006.
This week of events educated the Salvadoran citizenry and established opposition to mining as a
force with national reach. Furthermore, this sector kept the issue in the mainstream media
headlines over subsequent months by staging protest marches, educational forums, and other
advocacy efforts. Therefore, the dynamic revealed is one where civil society took agenda-setting
actions which prompted government and the Catholic Church—and, to a lesser extent the private
sector—to react. This marks an important change from 2004-05, when civil society took action,
but overall, it did not provoke a reaction from other parts of society.
2. Initial government action can be categorized as reactive efforts
For the executive branch of the Salvadoran government, this reactive dynamic first
surfaced when Environment Minister Barrera accepted civil society’s invitation to participate in
the June 2006 Action Week Against Mining. As Barrera acknowledged, his participation in the
Action Week forum hosted by the University of Central America (UCA) contributed to shaping
his stance and subsequent decisions on metals mining. The UCA forum also marked the first
time a top Saca government official spoke alongside civil society leaders on the issue, which
revealed that their positions overlapped more than had been previously understood. While
Barrera explained to the UCA forum audience that the government only had the legal authority
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to regulate and not prohibit industrial metals mining, his statements showed that some
government concerns aligned with those expressed by civil society.
Accepting an invitation to participate in a public event is a clear-cut example of reactive
involvement. However, this still left open the question of whether the Environment Ministry
would actually exercise its newly-claimed regulatory authority on this particular issue. Yet,
direct action soon followed, with Barrera’s decision two weeks later to halt MARN’s
environmental permitting process for metals mining exploration licenses. Suspending the
approval process for new environmental permits was the first step in implementing the de facto
moratorium of the metals mining industry in El Salvador. Although not stopping all aspects of
the industry, by preventing the initiation of new projects the environmental permit freeze stopped
mining industry growth.
The government’s reactivity on metals mining revealed itself again in late July 2006
when, for the first time, Barrera and Economy Minster de Gavidia spoke jointly to the press
about this industry. The press conference occurred concurrently with an organized civil society
march from Chalatenango to the capital to protest industrial metals mining and to advocate for
water protections. The ministers did not credit the march for having inspired their joint press
conference. However, media coverage made the civil society-government link, citing where the
ministers’ statements corresponded to those expressed by the marchers. In addition, Minister de
Gavidia acknowledged that citizens in the directly affected areas had decision-making power,
stating to reporters that “communities have the key to the mines. It is not possible to give
permission with without their authorization.”21Thus, as recently as in June 2006, Barrera had
been alone among the Saca administration leadership in responding to the civil society
2
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opposition to metals mining. Yet by July, government reaction to metals mining extended to
another of Saca’s top cabinet officials. Not only did de Gavidia speak alongside Barrera to the
press about metals mining, but later that July she did so again while appearing independently on
television. On the broadcast, she recounted details about her face to face meeting with opposition
leaders after their July march. The meeting with civil society that she accepted in July was
almost identical to the meeting she had refused to join in June.
3. Institutional Catholic Church actions follow the same reactive pattern as the
national government
In 2006, members of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference, the highest authority in the
Salvadoran Catholic Church, spoke out publicly about metals mining. Like the government
action discussed above, these institutional Church actors’ efforts were direct responses to civil
society activity. When Chalatenango Bishop Eduardo Alas publicly denounced the metals
mining industry on January 23, 2006, he explained that this was at his parishioners’ behest and
that doing so was the fulfillment of his basic responsibility to the people of his diocese. He
expressed his belief that it would have been a dereliction of his duty to remain silent. This speech
made Bishop Alas the first member of the Salvadoran Catholic Church leadership to use
language regarding metals mining that was consistent with the civil society opposition. However,
given the bishop’s relationship with such opposition communities as Chalatenango bishop and
director of Caritas, Alas’s actions alone could not be taken as evidence that the Catholic Church
hierarchy overall had embraced the opposition position.
Nevertheless, exactly six months later on July 23, 2006, Archbishop Fernando Sáenz
Lacalle aligned himself with Bishop Alas’s critical stance on metals mining during his post-
Sunday mass press conference. The archbishop never directly spoke about the Salvadoran citizen
opposition and therefore did not frame his remarks exactly as Bishop Alas had. However, his
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statements should still be understood as a reaction to civil society efforts, given that this press
conference coincided with the two-day (July 22-24, 2006) citizen-led pro-water anti-mining
march from Chalatenango to San Salvador. Furthermore, the archbishop may have also been
responding to the government’s attention to the issue, given Ministers Barrera and de Gavidia’s
press conference on metals mining the day prior.
4. Mid-2006 shows the Salvadoran government shifting from a reactive approach to a

more proactive, independent strategy for dealing with metals mining
By mid-2006, the executive branch of the Salvadoran government had begun to play
more of an agenda-setting role. The key moment came in early July 2006 when MINEC hired
Peruvian environmental lawyer Manuel Pulgar Vidal to conduct the first government sponsored
social and environmental “State of the Situation” analysis of metals mining in El Salvador. This
study provided the government with recommendations from an environmental expert that
industry activity should cease until the the government could conduct a Strategic Environmental
Review (SER) of the industry and assess governmental capacity to regulate the industry.32
Subsequently, in the fall of 2006, de Gavidia and Barrera extended this new proactive trend by
testifying before the Legislative Assembly regarding their concerns about the metals mining
industry. The two ministers also made frequent public statements, documented by the media, that
their agencies would begin to revise the 1996 mining law in order to bolster its environmental
and social protections.
The two minsiters’ actions appear to have also influenced the Legislative Assembly to
take an advisory vote on metals mining in October 2006. Framed as an advisory decision and not
3
Pulgar Vidal, “Reporte de consultoría: actividad minera, visión de desarrollo, medio ambiente y relaciones sociales
en El Salvador, Estado de la Situación.”
281
a legally binding vote, the 73 to 0 result did not change to the country’s legal framework guiding
metals mining in El Salvador. However, the results were politically significant because they
showed that a majority of Legislative Assembly members, from multiple political parties and
with different ideologies, supported continuation of the Saca administration’s suspension of
metals mining licensing. These events during the last months of 2006 showed that the executive
and legislative branches of the Salvadoran government agreed that the country’s legal framework
governing metals mining required changes.
5. The relative lack of domestic private sector action/initiative or backlash during this
phase created space for both civil society and governmental mining critics to take
initiative and make progress
The process tracing of this second phase indicated that the Salvadoran private sector, in
the form of individuals or associations, did not directly influence the actions of the in-country
opposition to metals mining and the resulting government responses. However, the analysis
showed that the private sector also did not intervene to protect the foreign-run industry or, once
the environmental permit suspension was enacted, take action to stop or weaken it. Therefore, in
the same period that Salvadoran opposition efforts expanded from civil and social actors to
include institutional and government actors, the absence of any private sector defense of
industrial metals mining played a key role in enabling both the freeze’s enactment and
continuation.
The key developments during this second phase were that representatives from
government and the Salvadoran Catholic Church engaged in actions to limit and/or oppose
metals mining. Initially, both sectors’ responses were reactive to actions already taken by civil
society, without formally crediting civil society for its leadership role. However, during the
second half of 2006, the ministers of MARN and MINEC, the agencies that regulated the metals
mining industry, and key leaders within the Catholic Church hierarchy, including the archbishop,
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began to speak out against the negative impact of metals mining and took steps to oppose the
industry. In the case of the government, these steps had practical implications for the industry’s
ability to operate. Actions taken by both sectors were made easier by the absence of active
support for metals mining from the domestic private sector.
C. Suspension of the Metals Mining Industry (2007-08): the government stopped all
industry activity as the Catholic Church and domestic private sector came to the
foreground in their opposition
In this final phase, the non-civil society sectors demonstrated their necessary role in solidifying
and sustaining the de facto moratorium on metals mining. The 2007-08 table below captures
each of the four sectors’ key actions during this period, with the main takeaways discussed in the
following narrative.
283
Table 5: Phase 3 Milestone Action Map (2007-2008)
2007- Jan- Mar- May-Jun 07 Jul-Aug 07 Sept-Oct 07 Nov-Dec 07 Jan-Feb 2008 Mar-Apr 08 May-Jun 08
2008 Feb Apr
(Jun) 07 07
CS UCA-IUDOP survey UCA/IUDOP drives evidence- Use of IUDOP results and other advocacy in campaign for
(response to Pac Rim based CS opposition advocacy, presidency (election to be held in 2009)
Green Mining including to respond to PCN bill in
campaign) undertaken & Nov ‘06 La Mesa op-eds in
published showing domestic
citizen opposition to newspapers (May)
metals mining (Jul 1. Praising Catholic
15‘07) Church on 1-year
anniversary 2.
La Mesa attacks Pac
praising former
Rim consultant Hinds’
ANEP ED Vidal
report on mining (Aug)
article
CC Cuidemos la casa de The Archbishop Archbishop invited EDH interview with
todos, Salvadoran condemns to speak to Env Archbishop
Bishop’s Conf pastoral mining in post- Commission of condemning cyanide
letter against metals mass press legislature against use in metals mining
mining (May 6 07) conference (Sept cyanide in metals (May ’08)
28) mining (Feb 18 ‘08)
PS Salvadoran media continues its minimal coverage of pro-mining message; filling media vacuum Green Mining campaign launched anonymously by Pacific Rim
Former Min. Miguel Enrique Hinds hired as lobbyist for Pac Rim. Grupo Agrisal Hinds ends Former ANEP ED
Publishes report defending metals mining benefits for ES, May 7 ’07 CEO Murray consultancy at Juan Vidal writes
(same day as MINEC/MARN expanded industry freeze Meza press PR op-ed criticizing
announcement) conference to green mining (May
Poma behind the scenes advocacy for PR protect water 08)
(Oct 07)
Gov Mins de MARN/MINEC collaboration to MARN/MINEC continued effort to launch SER
Gavidia/Guerrero develop guidelines for SER
announce to mining PCN mining Saca speaks to AECID funds SER
companies freeze on reform bill, press 1st time process (Not
industry activity including plans criticizing (not undertaken during
officially expanding to to weaken condemning) Saca administration)
companies previously regulation (Nov metals mining
permitted (May 7 ‘07) 22 ‘07) for El Salvador
(Mar 10 ‘0)
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The 2007-08 milestone map leads to the following four takeaways:
1. The Catholic Church and executive branch staked out stronger positions, closing
ranks with civil society to alter the course of metals mining in El Salvador
Over two consecutive days, May 6 and 7, 2007, the institutional Catholic Church and the
executive branch of the Salvadoran government independently took actions that permanently
changed the trajectory of industrial metals mining in El Salvador. On May 6, 2007, Archbishop
Sáenz Lacalle once again utilized his post-Sunday mass press conference to speak against
mining, but this event would be far more monumental than his statements in the summer of 2006.
The archbishop dedicated the press conference to this issue, reading aloud Cuidemos la casa de
todos (Let Us Care for Everyone’s Home) a pronouncement prepared by all eleven members of
the Salvador Bishops’ Conference. With this “pastoral vision” for why metals mining should be
forbidden in El Salvador,41the Catholic hierarchy introduced a concrete religious and moral
opposition argument. This widely read document would become an invaluable reference across
the other sectors of society. It would also be the touchstone on this issue for the Salvadoran
Catholic Church from that point forward, meaning that it provided Church leaders, from the
Bishops’ Conference and down through the hierarchy, a simple and indisputable reference for
theological and scientific positions in opposition to metals mining.
The following day, May 7, MARN and MINEC jointly met with leading industry actors
to inform them that all commercial metals mining industry activity, even operations with valid
permits, would be temporarily suspended. This closed the loophole left by the environmental
permit freeze and created an industry-wide suspension. By mandating that all metals mining
activity stop until a SER had been undertaken, underpinned by parameters set in the 1998
4
Conferencia Episcopal de El Salvador, “Cuidemos La Casa de Todos: Pronunciamiento de La Conferencia
Episcopal de El Salvador Sobre La Explotación de Minas de Oro y Plata,” May 12, 2007.
285
Environment Law, Ministers de Gavidia and Guerrero found a legal basis for this decision.
Although not an explicit legislative ban, with this action the Saca administration started the de
facto moratorium on mining that remained in place until 2017 when the Legislative Assembly
approved a bill that banned all metals mining.
2. Foreign mining company attempts to offset critics failed, as the domestic private
sector kept its distance
International mining interests failed to recruit domestic private sector allies, leaving
ample political space for national mining critics to galvanize citizen support. Throughout 2007
and 2008, with the anonymous “green mining” media campaign and the cultivation of strategic
private sector partners, international metals mining actors tried to shift the public debates on
mining back in their favor. Pacific Rim took two new actions. The company hired Manuel
Enrique Hinds as a consultant and tasked him with producing a convincing economic report on
the benefits of the industry for El Salvador. At the same time, Pacific Rim also worked with
behind the scenes with leading Salvadoran businessman Ricardo Poma, whose family was one of
the 14 historic “oligarchic” families and whose company Poma Group was one of the current
era’s eight Economic Power Groups (EPGs) discussed in Chapter 4.
An important reason for the foreign sector’s failure, exhibited most clearly in this period,
was the lack of domestic private sector buy-in. The paid “green mining” media campaign is an
important example of this. As also discussed in Chapter 4, the country’s leading media outlets
traditionally convey elite interests through their print and broadcast resources. However, because
the domestic private sector largely did not share in the interests of the metals mining industry,
the media did not use its power to broadcast a pro-mining position. This is not to suggest that the
leading media outlets (El Diario de Hoy, La Prensa Gráfica, and the TV stations owned by TLC)
broadcast anti-metals mining positions. Rather, while the media—across the spectrum—covered
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the opposition’s actions as “news,” there was minimal commensurate pro-metals mining
coverage. Thus, the absence of direct private sector support for metals mining translated in the
loss of a “free” supporting media campaign.
Furthermore, although few leading private sector individuals spoke out to support the
metals mining opposition or the opposition messages, the international industry never found or
sufficiently invested in building domestic alliances that might have counteracted the messages of
Salvadoran leaders like Archbishop Sáenz Lacalle. Therefore, when members of the private
sector, such as former ANEP Executive Director Juan Héctor Vidal, used the Salvadoran media
to criticize Pacific Rim’s “anonymous” “green mining” campaign, it was notable because there
were no private sector voices expressing support for the campaign.
3. Civil society campaigners countered pro-mining efforts to influence public

opinion by deploying independent evidence effectively
Civil society responded to the “green mining” campaign by working to counteract its
messages with facts. An example was the 2007 implementation and dissemination of findings of
the UCA’s IUDOP (Institute for Public Opinion) public opinion survey to track citizen
perceptions of metals mining. The survey found that “62.5 percent of the population surveyed
believed that El Salvador was not an appropriate country for mining.”52This gave the
community-led opposition data with which it could empirically challenge Pacific Rim’s assertion
that a majority of Salvadorans favored metals mining. Furthermore, the survey, carried out by a
research center at a highly respected national university, provided policy makers with tangible,
statistically sound evidence on which to base their decisions. The survey affected electoral
politics because respondents were constituents who would be voting in the next set of elections.
52
Instituto Universitario de Opinión Pública (IUDOP), “Conocimientos y percepciones hacia la minería en zonas
afectadas por la incursión minera: resumen ejecutiva.”
287
Results showed that communities did not support the industry and the pro-mining media
campaign had not had the desired outcome.
4. The Salvadoran president himself became the face of government opposition to

mining and support for the de facto ban
For the first time, in 2008, President Saca allowed himself to be interviewed and quoted
publicly about his administration’s position on metals mining instead of leaving the issue to his
ministers. Once he spoke out in March 2008, the last year of this dissertation’s time frame, he
continued to do so until the end of his presidency. Toward the end of his term, just days before
the country would hold elections for his successor, Saca showed support for the anti-mining call
of the civil society movement on Catholic Radio. In contrast to the more ambiguous critiques and
questions about metals mining that he had offered in the past, President Saca explained that his
administration would not allow mining because of the dangers it posed. In fact, he said, he
“preferred to be forced into international arbitration and face those consequences”63rather than
allow mining. Two years after the national Catholic Church leadership had been unambiguous in
its rejection of metals mining for El Salvador, the Salvadoran president turned to a Catholic
audience to make the same case.
The final two years of this dissertation’s coverage (2007-2008) marked unprecedented
convergence, rather than parallel action, among civil society, the institutional Catholic Church,
and the executive branch of the Salvadoran government’s positions on metals mining. Still, the
positions were not identical. For example, the Salvadoran government never explicitly opposed
the industry to the degree that civil society and the Catholic Church did, but all three sectors
intersected in their opposition to the industry continuing to operate as it had under prior
63
López Piche, “No a la minería.”
288
administrations. Although the domestic private sector did not join in this convergence, it also did
not oppose it and some individual members even provided support. For these four sectors,
reaching the common goal did not require explicit alliances, coordinated actions, or embracing
the leaders of other sectors. Rather, each sector followed its own path.
III. Concluding analysis
This closing section has three parts: a discussion of the main lessons that can be drawn
from the analysis of this case study; a presentation of the significance of this work’s contribution
to scholarship; and final reflections on the El Salvador case.
A. Three overarching lessons
How did a civil society campaign originally grounded in poorer, rural communities and
associated with an opposition political party that had limited legislative clout—and had never
occupied the presidency—manage to drive a neoliberal government to disrupt the plans of a
powerful transnational industry? An important piece of the answer to this question returns to the
concept of necessary and sufficient conditions. Beyond the crucial leadership of civil society, the
actual enactment and sustainment of the metals mining industry freeze depended upon three
other sectors with different political perspectives—the Saca administration, the institutional
Catholic church, and the domestic private sector. Therefore, the defining, unifying issue analyzed
in the process tracing—protection of environmentally vulnerable Salvadoran territory and water
sources—created convergence where it otherwise may not have existed. Yet, it cannot be taken
for granted that the Salvadoran government, institutional Catholic Church, and/or the domestic
private sector would have adopted complementary positions on these environmental issues that
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led them to support suspending the metals mining industry. The circumstances that allowed for
this lead to three overall lessons from the Salvadoran case:
1. The importance of a resonating core issue and messaging around that issue
This lesson builds on the work of Broad and Cavanagh4who analyzed the central role of
water in driving Salvadoran civil society mobilization on the issue of metals mining.7 Indeed, the
citizen-led movement opposing metals mining was an outgrowth of previously organized
campaigns to defend vulnerable water sources. In the context of El Salvador’s extreme
environmental degradation, protection of water resources was of significant concern for civil
society and other non-civil society sectors. For the private sector, for example, it was a necessary
input for several industries (i.e. agriculture, cattle rearing) and a central ingredient for others
(beverage production).
This lesson therefore expands upon the above finding, by highlighting the critical role
that messaging around water played. It cannot be taken for granted that water concerns in a civil
society-led effort to oppose metals mining would have drawn support from other sectors. In El
Salvador, what therefore enabled this expanding interest and support was how the civil society-
led campaign shared the message of the resonating core issue, metals mining’s threats to water,
with the rest of Salvadoran society. In other words, by situating the message as pro-water first
and anti-mining second, the civil society-led metals mining opposition effectively communicated
why the cause was relevant across Salvadoran society. This was key to launching the issue from
the local to the national. Furthermore, this enabled sectors with distinct perceptions of water’s
central importance—for example, as God’s sanctified gift (Catholic Church) or profitable
commodity (private sector)—to advocate for its protection, and to different degrees against
74
Broad and Cavanagh, “El Salvador Gold: Toward a Mining Ban.”
290
mining, without having to further align their motivations. Thus, the power of this approach went
beyond the centrality of water and came from how the movement featured the water argument.
This allowed metals mining concerns to resonate with sectors and citizens that may have agreed
on little else.
2. The necessity of constancy from at least one involved actor or coalition of actors.
This dissertation has argued that the involvement of all four sectors was necessary to
bring about the de facto moratorium on metals mining in El Salvador. Yet the analysis showed
that that there is an additional crucial component to this four-sector equation: one sector having
sustained its efforts for the duration of the five years studied. That sector was civil society.
Important to civil society’s ability to remain consistently involved was the movement’s staying
power, based on strong territorial grounding, with a deeply-embedded social base and an
engaged local-national network. At the same time, this lesson goes beyond the characteristics
that allowed for sustained civil society involvement and focuses on what the constancy achieved.
The institutional Catholic Church and the government took more public action on metals mining
than they had previously. This broadened the base of support (Church) and stopped metals
mining activity (government). Yet, it was the consistent involvement of civil society, even when
not appearing to be at the forefront of the campaign, that built upon the other sectors’ actions to
ensure that momentum did not wane. The events from 2004-2008 showed that, during any given
phase, the lead sector does not need to be visibly at the forefront at all times. What is most
important is the steady, consistent involvement of that lead sector.
291
3. The power of diverse actors’ convergence in objectives, even without collaboration,
consultation, or coordination, to achieve transformational goals.
Although having a consistent leading sector sustained the movement, the ultimate success
was not a function of all actors collaborating or even sharing exactly all the same interests
beyond the core issue, although occasional coordination did occur. What proved most important
in the El Salvador case was that the divergent sectors were working toward an analogous goal.
This leads to a third lesson: in El Salvador it proved possible to achieve a transformational
outcome without a single overarching coalition among the four different sectors, and even
without loose affiliation. In this case, the four distinct sectors, with at times overlapping interests
and at other times parallel trajectories, provided multiple modes of influence on government
decision-making processes that together shaped policy actions. It was not as critical for actors or
sectors to explicitly work together as it was for them to have identified a shared goal toward
which they all worked.
B. Contribution of this research
I am not the first to investigate the El Salvador case and likely not the last. The primary
contributions of this dissertation are analytical and evidentiary. My research is the first in-depth
analysis of the origins of El Salvador’s de facto moratorium on metals mining. The moratorium
came into effect gradually, during a time when the political order in El Salvador appeared to be
following the same neoliberal direction begun with the first post-peace accord government. My
research question and method of investigation are unique from those guiding prior scholarship.
Other researchers have largely followed unfolding events, while my research aims to explain
decisions from a finite, five-year period of time, looking closely at minute actions and events,
that established the foundation for what transpired next.
292
My evidentiary contribution expanded the scope of this analysis. By integrating several
never-before-accessed sources of information with previously available data, I have been able, at
points, to reach new, better sourced, and/or broader, evidence-based conclusions than in previous
literature. Furthermore, having obtained evidence that had not been previously accessed, most
notably regarding the involvement of the domestic private sector, key ministries, and the
institutional Catholic Church, my research provides important additional support for earlier
analyses that were based on more limited documentation.
The most significant new source I accessed was Robert Johansing’s private files from his
time with Au Martinique Silver Inc., Martinique Minerals, and Triada in El Salvador. These had
not been seen or used for research before I was granted access. To my knowledge, I remain the
only researcher who has had access to these over 700 pages of company documents. These
included internal company memos and communications, external (but still private)
communications with other private sector entities, records of meetings (with local and national
level government officials, civil society actors, members of the Catholic Church leadership, and
private sector actors), official correspondences (including required reporting) to and responses
from the Salvadoran government. These materials provided evidence of previously unknown,
real-time, company activity in response to the organized efforts to oppose mining in the country.
Furthermore, they offered insight into some of the thinking and strategy among foreign mining
executives and staff at that time (versus from interviews conducted years later). These materials,
coming from a source that was antagonistic to the metals mining opposition, corroborated data I
gathered from the other sectors, providing important validation.
Beyond Johansing’s archives, I was also able to procure new primary-source information
from the government through freedom of information requests to three government agencies:
293
The Ministry of Economy and Finance (MINEC), the Ministry of Environment (MARN), and the
Legislative Assembly. While this information was already publicly available in theory, I was
told by my government contacts that it had not been assembled until my request. Most notable is
my request to MINEC. This request resulted in the generation of one centralized source of
information on metals mining license approvals and rejections between 2000 and 2014 which
conveyed, in print, that “the government approved no metals mining licenses from August 2006
through the present day.”85
My request to the Legislative Assembly allowed me to access a transcript of the
Legislature’s October 26, 2006 debate and vote on the Dictamen Parcial on metals mining. This
transcript provided a level of in-depth coverage of the proceedings that no public news source
offered. From this transcript I could discern the nuances of the political wrangling between the
different political parties beyond the basic vote count that had been publicized. Furthermore, my
request yielded access to never transcribed audio recordings of congressional hearings, including
those where Minister Barrera testified. The MARN request provided me with documentation of
the agency’s response to environmental permit requests during my period of study. This
confirmed that metals mining environmental permitting had stopped abruptly in mid-2006, but
that permit requests had also not be denied outright. This information from MARN, in
combination with the MINEC-provided data, allowed me to reconstruct more fully how
MARN’s halt in permit approval stalled the overall licensing process at MINEC.
Finally, my evidentiary contribution also includes interviews with 88 stakeholders. While
many of these respondents, especially the members of civil society, had been interviewed
85
294
previously by others on related subjects, I was able to gain access to key government officials
and private sector actors who had not been interviewed publicly. The most notable of these
include: former Ministers Hugo Barrera and Yolanda de Gavidia; former Director of
Hydrocarbons and Mines at MINEC, Gina Navas de Hernandez; and former Director of
Environmental Management at MARN, Francisco Perdomo. I was able to cross reference the
findings from these interviews with the archival material already mentioned, and an extensive
collection of Spanish-language print journalism to a degree earlier researchers could not.
C. Final reflections
In this dissertation I have sought to provide an answer to the question: Why did El
Salvador deviate from an economic development paradigm that prioritized the short-term
economic gains from extraction over the social and environmental costs and choose instead to
disallow metals mining? In doing so, I depict how a civil society movement anchored the
Salvadoran domestic opposition to metals mining based on environmental and water protection
arguments and how later the mining opposition was bolstered by sectors not typically in
agreement with civil society activist movements. Most significantly these sectors include the
institutional Salvadoran Catholic Church who, in the decades since Archbishop Romero, and
particularly under the leadership of Archbishop Sáenz Lacalle, had deliberately avoided
engaging with seemingly political efforts. This also includes El Salvador’s neoliberal
conservative domestic private sector actors as well as key government officials from the
executive branch.
Reflecting their pronounced differences, these stakeholder groups generally followed
parallel paths in their opposition to metals mining, rarely collaborating. When certain sectors did
work together, (i.e. Moran’s presentation of findings at MARN in 2005, Barrera’s side-by-side
295
participation with civil society at the UCA-hosted Action Week Against Mining in 2006) it
involved cooperating on a specific matter, at a specific time without formal partnership.
Nevertheless, collectively they succeeded in moving public opinion and influencing electoral
politics and policy, thereby bucking prevailing regional economic, neoliberal policy that focused
on aggregate economic growth through extractive pursuits despite environmental consequences.
My findings in this dissertation can provide the foundation for other researchers to move
beyond El Salvador and identify possible parallels between this case and other extractive
settings, including those where industrial mining already exists. Future research could build from
this analysis, both its substance and methods. The current findings and lessons from the El
Salvador case are meant to offer investigative starting points for future scholarship. Examples of
potential research questions include:
• Are there other cases where an overlapping concern, especially a core issue such as
water, and strategic messaging around that concern play a role in moving an agenda
to the degree that it changes policy?
• Are there other cases (or an individual case) where diverse actors or sectors leverage
common concerns without direct collaboration, but still manage to achieve protection
of natural resources to the exclusion of the pursuit of potential, short-term economic
gain?
• Are there cases where the lack of shared interests or alliances between the domestic
and international private sectors significantly decreased priorities promoted by
transnational corporations?
This dissertation tells the story of only the first chapter in El Salvador’s fight against
metals mining. In March 2017, almost a decade after this period of study ends, El Salvador’s
296
Legislative Assembly voted unanimously to pass a law banning metals mining. Therefore, the
period between 2009 and 2017, which took place under two FMLN governments (Presidents
Mauricio Funes and Sanchez Cerén), remains for future research. However, with this
dissertation’s in-depth analytical understanding of the origin of the de facto mining moratorium,
it has provided a foundation for understanding both the decade that led up to the 2017 vote and
the vote itself. In so doing, this dissertation also offers a foundation for future research on El
Salvador. The issue of metals mining and its acceptance or rejection by individual nations has
relevance for today and for future generations.
297
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MORATORIUM ON METALS MINING (2004-2008)

Salvadoran government, under the leadership of the right-wing Alianza Republicana

banning metals mining.

decision-making, which ultimately halted El Salvador’s pursuit of short-term economic gain

through metals mining.

Herbert Vargas, my Spanish language transcriber who became an invaluable research

moments of this process.

to have with ARC and at AU after finishing this degree.

affiliation and workspace while in El Salvador.

love and unwavering belief in me is why I’ve made it through.

LIST OF TABLES .......................................................................................................................... x

CHAPTER 1 “I CAN MINE ANYWHERE BESIDES EL SALVADOR”:

I. Why El Salvador? ....................................................................................... 1

CHAPTER 2 A CITIZEN MOVEMENT TO KEEP MINING OUT .............................. 38

CHAPTER 3 THE CATHOLIC CHURCH WEIGHS IN .............................................. 106

I. Introduction ............................................................................................. 106

CHAPTER 4 MISALIGNMENT BETWEEN DOMESTIC AND

I. Introduction ............................................................................................. 144

CHAPTER 5 “JUST FOLLOWING THE LAW”: A PRO-BUSINESS

I. Introduction ............................................................................................. 195

CHAPTER 6 CONCLUSION......................................................................................... 267

I. Introduction ............................................................................................. 267

REFERENCES ........................................................................................................................... 298

Table 1: Interviews, by Actor Category........................................................................................ 31

Table 2: Breakdown of Interview by Location ............................................................................. 31

Table 3: Phase 1 Milestone Actions Map (2004-2005) .............................................................. 270

Table 4: Phase 2 Milestone Actions Map (2006)........................................................................ 277

Table 5: Phase 3 Milestone Action Map (2007-2008) ................................................................ 284

“I CAN MINE ANYWHERE BESIDES EL SALVADOR”1: STUDYING EL SALVADOR

explained Antonio Pacheco, Executive Director of ADES,2 a long-standing Salvadoran social

expressed opposition to mining, citing the country’s environmental degradation, population

density, and limited water resources.

straightforward question: what had changed in El Salvador and why?

represented an alliance of community organizations from the provinces along El Salvador’s

rights, religious, policy, and research organizations.

When I met one-on-one with Pacheco, I was piggy-backing on a 35-person international

fact-finding mission7 organized by a network of transnational NGOs that called themselves

and through Nicaragua.8

could potentially be the future for their water sources.

in 2014. Pereira’s organization, the San Salvador-based environmental research NGO

area, are not a danger to most Salvadorans.

serving on El Salvador’s National Development Commission under three ARENA

finger to trace the Lempa River’s course through gold country.

opportunities for economic growth.

industry. In response, consecutive Salvadoran governments (alongside the country’s Central

country’s underground metals.26

Mistrust,” Journal of Business Ethics 88, no. 2 (2009): 252.

time is right, we will build a mining industry in El Salvador.”29

economic development.”32 Furthermore, in the words of post-development scholar Alberto

the economic gains from extractive industries.33

promised economic gains of “extractivism,” which encompasses the industrial extraction of a

environmental consequences. Furthermore, because of increased market demand for

underground resources and the advent of advanced extractive technologies, “modalities of

farther reaching frontiers than ever before.35

Gold mining expansion is a global phenomenon. However, a set of contemporary

“extractive imperative,” because it is “marked by an ideological commitment to further

extractive imperative describes more than the implementation of extractivist development

society interactions…[which] manifest as environment and [economic] development policies that