Blood for Gold: The Human Cost of Canada’s ‘Free Trade’ With Honduras

Rodolfo Arteaga says he understands what people in Azacualpa are going through. “I experienced it firsthand,” he says. Arteaga’s home community of Palo Ralo was displaced in 1999 to make way for Vancouver-based Goldcorp’s San Martin open-pit gold mine in the Siria Valley, 100 kilometers north of Tegucigalpa, the Honduran capital. His new home in New Palo Ralo is less than two kilometers from the mine’s cyanide-leaching facilities. Production ended in 2008, but the mine’s impacts persist.
Thousands of kilometers away from the company offices where corporate social responsibility promotional materials are drawn up with photos of smiling Central Americans, Arteaga and countless other Siria Valley residents suffer from serious health problems. Blood and hair tests have consistently revealed high levels of arsenic, mercury and lead in both children and adults. Water resources and the local agricultural sector have not recovered.
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/honduras-archives-46/5123-blood-for-gold-the-human-cost-of-canadas-free-trade-with-honduras