Mined out of home

>> A Mexican lawyer says a Canadian
mining company turned him into a refugee

ROUGHED UP EXILE: Enrique Rivera Sierra

by JESSE ROSENFELD

Arriving in Montreal in late May, Enrique Rivera Sierra, a Mexican human rights activist and lawyer, claimed political asylum after fleeing his central Mexican home state of San Luis Potosí, where he says he faced violence and intimidation from a corrupt state government and hired paramilitary thugs. He was targeted, he says, because, as the legal representative for the Frente Amplio Opositor (FAO—which translates into English as the Broad Opposition Front), he was a vocal critic of an open-pit mine in the San Luis Potosí town Cerro de San Pedro.

Sierra says he filed for refugee status in Canada after he was severely beaten by paramilitaries allegedly funded by the mine’s owners, Minera San Xavier, a subsidiary of Canadian mining company Metallica Resources. After the beating, Sierra contends that he faced increased harassment, intimidation and threats of incarceration from state police, which forced him into hiding in early May. Soon after, he says, state police were surrounding his house, waiting for him to return.

“I’ve been harassed while walking down the street and the state is claiming I’m implicated in criminal actions, criminalizing my presence [in San Luis],” says Sierra through a translator. “The choice is go to jail or go into exile.”

He chose Montreal, he says, because he knew people from his organization were also living here.

Professional beatings

The FAO says that the cyanide-leaching gold and silver mine will contaminate the local aquifer that provides water for 1.5 million people and 73 per cent of local agriculture. They also argue that the daily use of 25 tons of explosives, blasting 75,000 tons of rock and earth, will displace the town, destroy its historic mountain and ruin the region’s fragile ecosystem.

Having resisted the construction of the mine and demanded its closure for over 10 years, Sierra and the FAO say they have experienced increasing human rights violations from a state government which supports the mine and the paramilitaries. Sierra says he was beaten in the head with a metal pipe by company-paid paramilitaries while distributing flyers in Cerro de San Pedro with his girlfriend in April 2006. He contends that the paramilitaries are comprised of the sons of three wealthy families in the town who are employed by the company.

“While flyering, my girlfriend and I were pepper-sprayed by employees of the mine and I was beaten,” says Sierra. “The paramilitaries…are big country boys. It wasn’t an ordinary civilian attack, it was very effective and they had me down in a few seconds.”

Sierra says that he is not the only one who has faced repression from the company and the state—it is a common practice. He describes how other FAO members had their homes shot at, and alleges that the death of the town’s mayor, just days after he condemned the mine in 1996, was a paramilitary assassination.

“Anyone who gets involved in the opposition movement against the mine can expect repression, either from the government or the mine itself,” says Sierra.

Allegations and counter-allegations

While no one directly from Metallica responded to the Mirror’s request for an interview, the company’s spokesperson, Geoffrey Rowan, the managing director for Ketchum Public Relations Canada in Toronto, denies any destruction of the town, its surrounding area or any company links to paramilitaries. He says that in the case of Sierra’s beating, it was Sierra who picked a fight with a local teenager and the boy’s father came to his defence. Although claiming the company had looked into the matter, Rowan says there was no report or documentation confirming an internal investigation or its outcome.

However, Jared Will, Sierra’s immigration lawyer, called Metallica’s allegations baseless and defamatory. “If it’s their allegation that [Sierra] received his injuries after picking a fight, that’s defamatory, especially if they can’t provide any documentation,” says Will.

Will says that Sierra’s case is unique in the sense that there is “an extraordinary amount of evidence documenting the persecution he faced.” However, he adds that there is a concern of political bias because a Canadian company is involved.

“It’s a very, very obvious claim for refugee protection and there would be no reason to reject it, unless there is political interference,” contends Will. He adds that the Canadian government has an added responsibility to provide asylum in this case.

“Given that the Canadian government’s at least passive acquiescence to the actions of [Metallica], the Canadian government has a responsibility to ensure that [Sierra] can stay in Canada,” he says.