MPs Statement

Tegucigalpa, 13 September, 2007

At the invitation of His Eminence Cardinal Oscar Andres Rodriguez, we, members of the British and Canadian Parliaments, have spent four days in Honduras. The purpose of our visit has been to hear from all sides in the debate on mining in Honduras, and to offer our support to Caritas Honduras and other sectors of civil society in their efforts to secure a just and responsible mining law. We have appreciated the openness and availability of everyone we have met, from local communities to the highest levels of Congress.

Ethical standards in extractive industries, including gold mining, have become highly significant on the international agenda, as we see the disruptive effects in terms of conflict and corruption of oil extraction, diamond and gold mining around the world. The governments of both the United Kingdom and Canada have participated in international efforts to set standards of transparency for extractive industries. In Canada, a round table consultation representing all sectors, including mining companies, has recently recommended that Ottawa should establish a Canadian Corporate Social Responsibility Standard, and appoint an independent ombudsman to verify compliance with such a standard.

As foreign MPs, we recognise that our first duty is to ensure that mining companies from our own countries behave with integrity in their dealings with countries such as Honduras. As such, we are highly aware of the significance of the debate around gold mining in Honduras. We live in one world. We wish to do whatever we can to promote the protection of the environment and justice for local communities in Honduras.

During our stay, we have met with a broad cross section of Honduran government and civil society representatives. We have visited the Siria Valley, where we met with local communities and the managers of the San Martin mine. We have come to two conclusions:

While there is not absolute national unanimity, there is a broad consensus on the urgent need for reforms to the mining law, and the widespread desire that the present discussions on the reforms should lead to the adoption of the bill in Congress. Our last meetings took place with Roberto Micheletti Bain, president of the National Congress, and Arnoldo Aviles, president of the Bill Committee on Natural Resources. Mr. Micheletti gave a firm commitment that the reforms bill, if returned to the Congress by the Executive, would be fully debated by the Congress in plenary before the end of the current session. This commitment was reiterated by Arnoldo Aviles. We have every confidence that this will become reality by the end of the year.

We are convinced that the conflicts around gold mining in Honduras are the consequence of the deficiencies of the present mining law. Our visit to the communities in the Siria Valley and the San Martin mine run by Entre Mares (Goldcorp) illustrated this. We are also convinced that the lack of a clear regulatory framework allows mining companies to define the terms of engagement with the government of Honduras, with local communities and with the environment.

A reform of the law alone will not be sufficient to correct this situation: we see an urgent need to strengthen the technical and operational capacity of state institutions including increased human, technical and financial resources that are needed to adequately monitor and regulate transnational mining corporations that already have vastly superior resources at their disposal.

We are aware that this debate is one that transcends national borders, and the responsible extraction of natural resources is an issue that concerns us all. We pledge to bring these issues to the attention of our own governments, and we recognise that effective regulation in Honduras must be complemented by regulation in the home countries of the mining corporations. We call on all home countries of mining, oil and gas corporations operating in the countries of the Global South, in particular on Canada, to enact standards of corporate social responsibility in overseas operations.

Keith Hill, MP (Labour)Streatham, United Kingdom
Stephen Pound, MP (Labour) Ealing North, United Kingdom
Alexa McDonough, MP (New Democratic Party) Halifax, Canada

Day 3: Meeting with the Honduran Congress

On the eve of our departure from Honduras, we finally find ourselves in an opulent wood panelled room, flanked with portraits of every Honduran president of the Congress since independence. Someone observes that they are all men, and all are light skinned and European looking, unlike most Hondurans of darker complexion. This would send shivers down the spine of the Development and Peace diversity committee.

President Roberto Micheletti has finally agreed to see the delegation after several requests from the MPs, from Caritas, and from the Canadian embassy in Costa Rica.

The MPs have come to the conclusion during the trip that the only viable way forward towards a mining law that reflects the concerns of the communities affected and the whole country in general is to press forward with a reforms bill that has been the topic of much controversy in Honduras. Despite the fact that the current bill reflects all the demands of civil society and the communities, a sector in civil society is still demanding a new law, rather than reforms, a process that would allow mining companies to continue taking advantage of the current legal vacuum for several more years. The reforms bill proposes a ban on open pit mining and the use of cyanide and mercury in mining, increased taxation, better social and environmental controls and sets out that communities must be consulted before a mining concession is approved, and can veto the project if they are opposed – the enactment of Free and Prior Informed Consent (FPIC).

“Some mining companies have taken advantage of the current lack of adequate law,” Arnoldo Aviles, president of the Bill Committee, told the delegation. “Some have paid no tax for the last 20 years, and have promised social projects to communities then failed to live up to their promises.

“We want a just law, that will protect human life, the environment and our water sources, and at the same time not frighten away investors. A law that we can be proud of, that will serve as a model for other Latin American countries.”

President Micheletti finally affirms to the delegation that if the Executive returns the reforms bill to the Congress, it will be fully debated before the end of the session.

With the President of the Congress

The delegation with Roberto Micheletti, President of the Congress, and Honduran deputies.

Alexa McDonough with Roberto Micheletti, president of the Honduran Congress.

What a team

Development and Peace, CAFOD, Alexa McDonough, MP for Halifax, Keith Hill and Steven Pound of the UK parliament, and Pedro Landa and Carlos Patino of Caritas Tegucigalpa.

Day 2 - Palo Ralo

At 7am the Caritas minibus arrives to take us to the Siria Valley, a two hour journey from Tegucigalpa. We drive up steep and narrow roads to leave this city which is built in the crater of a 700m mountain range.

Our First Stop is Palo Ralo, the village which was moved to accommodate the mine. 13 families were relocated, nearly 8 years ago now. Some, including Olimpia Arteaga, an elderly single parent who is now a grandmother, still have no proper title deed to her house or land. ‘My home is all I have,’ says Olimpia. ‘Yet I have no security to that.’ A further complication: according to Caritas, the boundaries of the mining concession are not exactly clear, and when the company, Entre Mares leaves, within the next three years, the mining concession becomes once again property of the government. Of course, even with the proper legal title deeds, the current 1998 Mining Law allows access anywhere in the country for mining operations.

The Environmental Committee of the Siria Valley are next on our agenda. President Martin Erraza welcomes us warmly, and Secretary Carlos Amador directly addresses Alexa McDonough, as a representative of the Canadian Parliament, the home country of Goldcorp, parent company of Entre Mares. Carlos asks her to transmit the committee’s five demands to the company, and the Canadian government:

• Compensation for local residents whose health has been ill affected by the pollution caused by the mine;
• Local water supply should be cleaned up;
• The area should be reforested with species native to the region, that were there before the arrival of the mine;
• The people of Palo Ralo should all be given legal title deeds;
• Local farming lands should be cleaned up so that they can be farmed again.

Alexa tells Carlos and the Committee of a growing worldwide movement whereby people are demanding further accountability from extractive companies operating in the Global South. She explains the Canadian Roundtables on CSR and their recommendations for Canadian companies overseas. Unfortunately, some sectors are resisting this initiative.

‘However, the Canadian population, political parties and civil society organisations are working together to tell corporations that their resistance is unacceptable. It is unacceptable to the Canadian people, to the British people, and to the human family.’

Steve and Keith give House of Commons baseball caps to Martin Erraza and Rodolfo Arteaga; they ask for a translation of the House of Commons logo and are plainly delighted.

Our Next Stop: the San Martin Mine and meeting with Entre Mares managers. We embark on an air-conditioned company bus for a tour of the mine given by Manager Eduardo Villacorta, flanked by South American geologists and environmental specialists.

They take us to see the vast pits that will eventually be filled in at closure of the mine, the heap leeching pads where cyanide is sent to extract gold, and a series of ponds where the gold extract is sent. The company is at pains to show that there is wildlife and natural vegetation in the area despite the mining activity. They take us to Terra Rosa, a former pit which has been reclaimed and replanted, and where they have set loose deers, snakes and iguanas native to the region. The company has an unnerving habit of filming our every move. We take our own photos and have the Caritas photographer with us. The 90 minute visit under a hot sun is obviously designed to impress, and it does; however, none of us has any technical expertise in mining operations.

Back at the company office, we are welcomed into an air conditioned lecture theatre, with ice cold drinks on offer. We, the delegation, plus the Canadian trade official Mark Strasser, and a British diplomat who has been dispatched from the embassy in Guatemala, are all assigned places at the front of the room. Our ‘audience’ is bizarrely made up of local community members, and people known as ‘promoters’, who are sort of grassroots PR agents for the company within the communities. (Siria Valley Environmental Committee members had previously told us how such ‘promoters’ are instrumental in efforts to oust the legally constituted community organisation that is critical of Entre Mares.) For the first time in Honduras, we have simultaneous translation, exactly as it is done in Canada, which gives George, Julia and I a rest from translating. Company officials embark on a slick power point presentation. These modern facilities are in stark contrast with the previous visit to local communities and indeed, to the Spartan and cramped government offices in Tegucigalpa we have visited.

After a long preamble, Villacorta gets down to the point: Entre Mares does not accept the validity of the government fine of one million lempiras (US$55,000) recently imposed for arsenic and cyanide pollution, the water tests were not properly done, he says. The government has not been transparent. As for the current government tests to determine whether local skin, respiratory and gastric tests are linked to the mine, Entre Mares says samples were not properly taken. Caritas tells us later that the company did not even witness most of the sample taking procedure.

Why, we ask, would the government want to discredit Entre Mares? There is no clear answer to this.

Entre Mares has appealed the government pollution fine. It is clear that the government will have to go to court and win a case that is bound to be a legal and political minefield if it wants the company to pay. If that happens, Villacorta says, ‘we will pay, but under duress.’

The delegation has just seen another example of why Canada needs to regulate its extractive companies in their overseas operations.

Visiting the San Martin mine.

George Gelber, CAFOD, asks a question during the delegation`s visit to the San Martin mine.

MPs with the Siria Valley Environmental Committee.

Alexa McDonough with daughter of Rodolfo Arteaga, resident of Palo Ralo.
Rodolfo was relocated to a new village 2km from his original village in order to make way for the San Martin mine.

Ready to Start Day 2

Yesterday was a long day for everybody in this international team, working for the first time together. The ice was quickly broken: the UK team had been curious to meet Alexa McDonough, and everyone was wondering how the team dynamic would work. Alexa put everyone at ease right away, chatting with the British team as if she had known them for years. She introduced over breakfast the current debate in Canada on Corporate Social Responsibility and cited Nova Scotia’s history of mining, referring to the Westray disaster in Springhill, NS, that killed 26 coal miners in 1992.

‘There is a lesson to be learned by Canada from this,’ Alexa said, expressing disappointment that former foreign affairs Minister, Peter Mackay, who as a native of Nova Scotia is well aware of the implications of Westray, did not take action to ensure the adoption of the recommendations of the National Roundtables on Corporate Social Responsibility.

The team quickly discovered a certain complementarity of skills and personalities.

Steven Pound is the joker of the group, who had everybody doubled over at his improvisations at Spanish despite a very basic vocabulary. A former recruit to the British Navy who had to leave for joining the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, Steven comes from a large Irish family with priests and nuns in the family, he is a Eucharistic minister and a strong Catholic. As a Catholic organization promoting social justice in mining, we often encounter overly pious individuals who claim a deep faith but whose actions go against Catholic Social Teaching. We expect to come across several over the next couple of days. Steven threatened to test the Catholic credentials of such individuals by grilling them on the sorrowful mysteries of Our Lady.

Keith Hill is very much the incisive, straight to the point astute politician who quietly absorbs and quickly processes large amounts of complex information. A former parliamentary private secretary to Tony Blair, and a former Minister of Transport and Housing, Keith showed his political experience yesterday when dealing with a media scrum that happened as the delegation left the office of the Special Prosecutor for the Environment. As the journalists honed in on Alexa, trying to press her for further and deeper commentary, as we approached just midday of our first full day in the country, Keith authoritatively told them, ‘That will be all for now, thank you very much,’ and led a dignified exit from a media scrum that would have gone on two hours.

Yesterday evening, Alexa and I had dinner with Mark Strasser, the Canadian trade attaché who works from the embassy in Costa Rica. He had come to Tegucigalpa to meet us and will be at the meeting with mining company Entremares officials today. Mark is informed about the Roundtables, and is ready and willing to inform Canadian companies operating here how they should act in a socially responsible manner. They rarely ask him, though, he says.

George Gelber’s suitcase finally turned up on another flight last night. Only it is still being held in customs, and when he got to the airport last night, the customs office was closed. If he is lucky, he may get his case before we leave on Thursday.