El Faro published this interview in Spanish in October 2023 and translated it after the Bukele administration’s announcement of plans to unravel El Salvador’s 2017 metallic mining ban.
In the early morning hours of Aug. 1, 2023, 7,000 soldiers and 1,000 police cordoned off the department of Cabañas in northern El Salvador. President Nayib Bukele had ordered the military siege to “prevent gang members from leaving the department” and “to cut off the supply lines of terrorist groups.” The blockade was deployed under a state of exception in force from March 2022, under which some 73,000 people had been arrested by October 2023. Authorities targeted an area of the country that has garnered much recent media attention, not only due to the prosecution of five community leaders from Santa Marta, including two members of the Association for Social and Economic Development (ADES), which took place last January in Victoria, but also as a result of increased denunciations in response to growing suspicions of a possible reactivation of mining operations in the area.
Vidalina Morales is 55 years old, a mother, a campesina, and one of the main voices of the movement against metallic mining in El Salvador. She has been a member of ADES since 2006, and through her work with that organization has emerged as an emblematic figure in the land defense struggle in Santa Marta, one of many small communities in the department of Cabañas, which was heavily hit by military operations during the armed conflict and has since become a symbol of the resistance against environmental destruction in El Salvador. Through her work with ADES, an organization founded in 1993 after the signing of the Chapultepec Peace Accords, Morales has focused her efforts and developed an expertise in the area of mining. Today, she is the group’s president and spokesperson, the one who takes the microphone whenever they take a stand against mining projects.
Her shy, soft voice contrasts with the confidence that she exudes when arguing that the cause her communities defend is “a legitimate struggle.” She does not hesitate to assert that, for defending their land, her community has been the victim of crimes and assassinations for which they are still demanding justice.
Although the Law for the Prohibition of Metallic Mining remains in force in the country following its approval in 2017, the anti-mining movement insists that the government is seeking to reverse the law, and claims that there are clear signs of its intent to do so. This, despite the efforts of the National Roundtable Against Mining, pursued during a seven-year period of litigation, which resulted in the Salvadoran government winning its claim before the International Center for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) in October 2016, against the Canadian company Pacific Rim (acquired in 2013 by the Australian Oceana Gold), which had requested millions of dollars in compensation for El Salvador’s refusal to issue mining permits. For Vidalina, re-opening the country to metallic mining is not an option, due to the immense environmental destruction it would cause in the form of polluting the water and land. “It’s a slow but certain death,” she says in this interview.
In the eyes of the movement she leads, there are clear indications that the state intends to bring mining back to the country: “Why create a Directorate of Hydrocarbons and Mines if there’s a law that bans mining?”
These recent developments have reactivated the anti-mining movement in the communities of Cabañas, where Pacific Rim itself determined that just one mine —the El Dorado project, located in San Isidro and Sensuntepeque, which was explored but not exploited— could yield a total of 1.4 million ounces of gold.
“We’ve spoken to the communities about the situation that we’re facing. We were in the process of launching this environmental struggle at the national level when our compañeros were arrested,” she says. The compañeros Morales is referring to are Antonio Pacheco and Agustín Rivas —both directors of ADES— as well as Santa Marta community members Miguel Ángel Gómez, Alejandro Laínez García, and Pedro Antonio Rivas Laínez, all detained on January 11, 2023, and accused of the disappearance and murder of María Inés Alvarenga in August 1989, during the Salvadoran civil war. After strong pressure from local residents and the international community, the movement was able to get the Sensuntepeque Court of Instruction to release the men on house arrest. (At the time of publication of this translation, they had been exonerated, but the Bukele-controlled Attorney General’s Office has announced its appeal.)
Vidalina says that the accused “have distrusted the judicial process from the beginning,” due to a number of outstanding legal irregularities, including the fact that their case is being processed under the state of exception, a national state of emergency rule launched by the government of Nayib Bukele to combat gangs. International experts, including the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Human Rights Defenders, have asked the Salvadoran government to “provide information on the legal basis for the detention and judicial proceedings” against the defendants.
If the mining ban is reversed, the president of ADES is sure of one thing: “The criminalization of our territories will intensify,” says Morales. While she does not allege that the military siege has targeted her or the movement specifically, she is afraid of what could happen in the future. Despite her composure, there is one sensitive subject capable of breaking her voice: the arrest of her son, Manuel Gámez Morales, who was detained on May 18, 2023, then released 24 hours later. “They’ve already tested me... And they found what hurts me the most,” she says.
What does it feel like to see your community militarized?
For me, it brings back memories of the armed conflict, for one thing. Near the offices where we work, we see tanks all the time, ugly vehicles with machine guns. There’ll be two, three armored vehicles. In Ilobasco, heading toward the border zone, there’s a lot of military presence. I don’t want to think of it this way, but there’s something suspicious, something strange. The militarization is in the area around the El Dorado mine, and that was the mine that was explored and that was ready to be exploited. It’s true that in the recent past, this area suffered a lot of conflict due to gangs, but at this point, with the number of arrests that have been made, the police themselves say they’ve “cleansed” the area. So our question is: What is the main reason for the continued presence of the military, police, and tanks in an area where they were about to open a mine? It makes us a little suspicious about what’s behind all this.
Tell me a bit more about what makes you suspicious.
We’ve been seeing the signs since 2020, of the government’s intention to exploit metallic mining. There are three major indicators that lead us to suspect that the [Bukele] administration has this intention. Cabañas has been a major site of resistance to mining extractivism for a long time, and what they’re trying to do, by arresting our compañeros, is to silence what has long been, and what still is, up to this day, the struggle of the communities of Cabañas and of El Salvador generally, to resist mining, because this resistance transcends just our one department. What we’re experiencing now is the return of metallic mining.
When the government pursues incorporation with the Intergovernmental Forum on Mining, Minerals, Metals and Sustainable Development (IGF), when it passes laws alongside the Mining Law —for example, the Law for the Creation of the General Directorate of Energy, Hydrocarbons and Mines— and when it has such a large budget for reviewing and updating this law. These are the three clear indications we’ve been speaking out against since 2022. We’ve talked to the communities about the situation we’re facing. We were in the process of launching this whole environmental struggle at the national level when our comrades were arrested. Why do we do this? Because we’ve been insisting on the need to keep this [mining prohibition] law in place, but instead we’re seeing the government move in the opposite direction. In other words, why create a Directorate of Hydrocarbons and Mines if there’s a law that bans mining?
Do you think the underlying purpose of the military siege is to stop your environmental struggle?
Honestly, we haven’t experienced any kind of retaliation for our presence in the streets. At least not yet. That doesn’t mean that tomorrow things won’t change. We’ve taken actions during this military siege. Every now and then they’ll pull us over, ask us where we’re going or coming from, especially when we travel to San Salvador, because that’s where we’ve had most of our actions. But they haven’t repressed us. The few times we’ve been stopped, we just told them where we were going and it never went any further than that. In fact, in August, we organized an environmental march in Cabañas, in the midst of the military siege. They [the soldiers] were on one side and we conducted ourselves nonviolently, of course. What we have seen, at every action we’ve organized, when we go to the Attorney General’s Office, for example, or in front of the Bureau of Prisons, or to the hearings [of detained community leaders], is that people —detectives, apparently— come and take pictures. So they have photographed us. We’ve documented it extensively. People who aren’t with us come and do that.
Have you ever confronted these people?
A few times, yes. When we went to the Bureau of Prisons, we asked one of the men what he was doing and he told us he was with a media outlet. He almost said the name of the outlet, but then he started getting nervous and ended up leaving, but he had already taken a lot of photos. Our biggest concern is that these movements we’ve built, around our struggle to defend our compañeros, could face reprisals in the near future, because it doesn’t seem like this will end anytime soon. Today it’s them and tomorrow who knows who it will be.
What do you say to those who see the anti-mining movement as just the whimsical indulgence of a few people in Cabañas?
The anti-mining struggle is a legitimate struggle, which has been active from 2004 to the present. As we’ve said: our country is a densely populated country. It’s clear that the mining industry pollutes our water, our soil, and our way of life more than any other industry. There are so many impacts. How can anyone deny it, in a country where we already have such polluted water? There are studies that show heavy metal contamination, with cyanide, the main chemical used to separate gold from rock. This situation, this contamination, will last an eternity. And we don’t need to go that far. In San Sebastián [La Unión Department], the river is totally contaminated with acid mine drainage, because there’s no way to remediate it. Many years ago, the eastern part of the country was exploited with artisanal mining. Imagine how many years have passed and that acid drainage is still there. That river is dead. If we don’t become aware of the impacts that metallic mining can cause, this is what we can expect: death. A slow but certain death. If the mining ban is reversed, we will face an environmental catastrophe. We can’t afford to allow mining to return to this country. We’ve always dreamed that our struggle would bring the issue to a constitutional level, to put a stop to this harmful industry once and for all, but now, with the current Legislative Assembly, with this government and this justice system, there are so many things stacked against us. This is why the consciousness of every person is key to stopping mining projects.
Don’t you think there’s some part of the population that does want mining? People who maybe believe that this could be a way to solve their economic problems?
Yes, for sure, there are always people who see it as an opportunity, because the mining companies do a great job selling extractivism. And, of course, people need work and employment. That’s the trap laid by the mining companies, which take advantage of people’s needs. And that’s why it’s so important to raise people’s consciousness.
How many people in Cabañas would support the return of mining?
In the recent past, very few people have been in favor of it. Mainly, it was people who received remuneration from the company; it was people with close ties to the El Dorado project, and local politicians, of all stripes and parties.
What scenario do you imagine playing out if they revoke the law?
Criminalization in our territories will intensify. I’ve listened to people who live in the mining districts in Cabañas, from the communities that never give up, and they say: “They can walk over our dead bodies, but they’ll never open a mine here.” They say this with the certainty that their communities will close ranks and resist. So, what does that lead to? To more criminalization and more death. That’s what awaits us if mining returns. So what that essentially results in is a war between mining companies and communities affected by the contamination of their water and the destruction of their land. This is the harsh reality, and it doesn’t seem like this country is headed in any other direction; apparently this is the path this country has chosen, given the criminalization of our compañeros, and all the other points I’ve mentioned.
What specifically are you referring to when you talk about war?
Maybe “war” is not the right word; perhaps “conflicts” is better, like what we experienced around 2007, 2009, and 2012. To defend our rights and our territories, in the end, there’s no other way. The people say they won’t allow the companies to enter their territories and exploit the mines. And I’m talking mainly about peaceful land defense and resistance. Like what happened in La Puya, in Guatemala, a community that has been peacefully resisting mining exploitation for years.
But during those past conflicts, the crimes that took place in your community were linked to gangs. The authorities never connected them to your work in defense of the land. What does that tell you?
In this sense, the Salvadoran state owes a debt for the crimes committed against our comrades in 2009. To begin with, all the criminalization that took place from 2007 on, in the communities of Cabañas, and then with the murders. Only the case of Marcelo [Rivera] led to the imprisonment of four or five people, but the murders of Ramiro [Rivera] and Dora [Recinos] were never even prosecuted. Those cases were defined by total impunity. In Marcelo’s case, ultimately what the Attorney General’s Office said was that there was a gang connection from the beginning. They started saying that he’d been disappeared because of his sexual orientation, and from that moment on, neither the AG nor the National Civil Police would have anything to do with the search for Marcelo. In this case, there were strong suspicions that the companies operating in the area —Pacific Rim, for example— were also involved.
Was there any way to prove that hypothesis?
There were witnesses who could have provided information about the real reason behind Marcelo’s murder. It turns out there was an underage minor who was murdered about two days after he was transferred to the juvenile prison in Ilobasco. Things were happening that made us think about what was behind all this, what was being hidden. The cases never went further than imprisoning these people and that’s where Marcelo’s trial ended, but the other cases remain unsolved and the perpetrators continue to enjoy total impunity.
At that time, the current attorney general, Rodolfo Delgado, was in charge of the Organized Crime Unit. What do you think about the fact that he was promoted to head of the Attorney General’s Office?
It’s worrying. Of course, we know there are other people behind him.
What people?
Certain men with the last name Mena. To cite a case we know well, when the compañeros I was telling you about before were criminalized, one of [Fidel] Chávez Mena’s sons would enter the hearings like he was a lawyer, like he was part of the judicial process. So we started to wonder, “Why is a person who’s not even part of the process and not a lawyer showing up to almost all of the hearings? We started to suspect what sort of relationship this gentleman, [Rodrigo] Chávez, might have with Pacific Rim. Later, he was accused of dismemberment, and so we organized a rally to mobilize for the case, to denounce that he could also have been involved in the murders in the department of Cabañas. Well, they totally ignored our request. Instead, they released him. So, one gets the sense that the justice system might be just a little bit rigged, no? That it might be a little biased against demands for a real investigation and demands to truly bring those responsible for the crimes committed in Cabañas to justice, the kind of real justice that this country needs.
(Rodrigo Chávez Palacios was vice-president of Pacific Rim. ADES denounced Chávez Palacios in his capacity as the top representative of the Canadian company during the peak years of violence in Cabañas, and requested that prosecutors investigate his participation in crimes committed against environmentalists. In 2015, Chávez Palacios was sentenced to 11 years in prison for murder and document forgery, after confessing to the killing of Franklin Mendoza, whose body was found dismembered in San Salvador. In December 2020, Chávez Palacios was released after serving only half of his sentence. He is the son of the former chancellor and Christian Democratic Party candidate Fidel Chávez Mena, who has served as a notary for the family of President Nayib Bukele, as stated in the Bukele Kattán Foundation’s certificate of registration, published in the government’s Official Journal on Apr. 21, 2020.)
Would you automatically distrust any judicial process Rodolfo Delgado’s Attorney General’s Office might open against you, such as the process happening now with the members of ADES?
We’ve been suspicious of this process from the beginning. There are testimonies from residents of Santa Marta stating that the Attorney General’s Office, between April and June of 2022, came to the community, met with some residents, and started gathering information, saying that they were very interested in following up on the massacres that took place [during the civil war] in the vicinity of Santa Marta. Santa Marta is one of the communities where there were many massacres, including the Lempa River massacre and the Santa Cruz massacre. So, the people began to tell them the history. To tell them who the leaders were, the bosses, and that’s the information the Attorney General’s Office has used to pursue charges against our compañeros. That’s what their case is based on; it’s a case that the AG’s office has invented out of thin air.
What is your basis for saying the case is staged or rigged?
They’re accused of committing a crime. This crime, allegedly, occurred in 1989, in the midst of the armed conflict. What is still not clear is how the Attorney General’s Office put this case together to begin with, because they have still not found a body. There are also other things about the case that really stand out to us, and that’s that they have a witness named Soriano who, in a written statement submitted by prosecutors, claims to have seen the murder, but during the hearing he contradicted his own testimony. How is it possible for the judge not to dismiss the case given his contradictory testimony? I don’t think it was a simple mistake.
My understanding is that this witness contradicted himself because at first he stated that he saw the crime, but then later said he had only heard about it. Is that the inconsistency you’re referring to?
Yes, he said they told him about it. But the process has so many other irregularities, too, including the transfer of the hearings to San Salvador. The report they provided, that the state submitted in response, further criminalized the Santa Marta community, because it paints the community as a threat to public order, claiming that if the hearings were held in Victoria, the community would mobilize and would cause some kind of disorder at the courthouse, and that because of that fear, they decided to move the hearing. Our people don’t use violence, ever. We mobilize legitimately, the way we know how, which is peacefully.
What would you and your community consider a legitimate and lawful process? What would that look like?
First, that they had found a body, that there had been an exhumation. And that the DNA actually matched the family’s DNA. Starting there, then having a whole process that would have allowed us to see an arrest warrant, which they never produced, instead of just coming in like they did on January 11, like thieves breaking into a house, assaulting and dragging out our compañeros without explanation. It was the community itself that forced them to at least tell us why they were being taken away. I mean, how is it possible that as a community, we’ve been victims of so much suffering, of all those horrible massacres, and now, with the arrests of our compañeros, now we’re the victimizers? It’s a contradiction, isn’t it? This government isn’t interested in seeking real justice; they’re after other interests, which is what we’ve been denouncing.
Are you afraid at all to make these sorts of statements?
They’ve already tested me. As a human being, one can’t help being afraid. They got to me recently, with the arrest of my son. They found what hurts me the most. It’s like we were saying back in 2012: It’s hard to accept that something will happen to us, that our family will suffer, but that’s all over. But for our children to be hurt... It’s been hard for me. I’m trying to get over it. This has filled me with rage, too, but it’s a dignified rage. I want you to understand that about me, because it’s not a rage that came out of nowhere, that I just have because I’m angry or don’t like these people. It’s because the struggle to defend our territories is a just and legitimate struggle. Our ancestors also resisted Spanish interests when they came to exploit our minerals, and that same blood is inside us. We come from that past, we are of that blood, of those peoples, of the Indigenous people who fought against the powers that came to exploit our land some 500 years ago, and that blood still flows in our veins.
That’s what we’ve been doing all these years: If our communities in Cabañas and Chalatenango hadn’t organized this anti-mining struggle, there would already be mining here. I mean, they built the Northern Longitudinal Highway with those interests in mind, since the whole northern part of our country is full of minerals. They weren’t thinking about the communities. Why did they build it? For the mining interests that, up to this point, have been kept at bay. But that’s still hanging in the balance, because the policies of this government are aimed at extracting all the minerals from our subsoil. In the end, it’s a way to generate money to pay all the debts this country has accumulated, which grow bigger each day.
Do you think the detention of your son under the state of exception was meant to send a clear message to you?
I think so, yes. The fact that they weren’t able to keep him locked up is another matter. In this case, I think the efforts of our struggle paid off, because the response I got, from so many organizations that showed up to support, was so great. For me, the fact that within 24 hours my son was able to regain his freedom was a win. I’m still afraid that he’ll be arrested again, which is something that’s happened in a lot of places, where people are rearrested and taken away again, since the files they create on them stay on their record.
How do you manage to fight for your cause in the context of a state of exception that you yourself admit terrifies you?
In the case of those of us who go out [to the mobilizations], or are family members or close friends [of detained movement leaders], we’ve come to accept the fact that, if we’re arrested… well, what can we do? There’s nothing else to do but continue participating in the struggle. This is our conviction, and it’s why we’re engaging with this judicial process. I’m afraid, of course, but that fear doesn’t paralyze me. In our case, we’re struggling to defend our land, but this regime, this government, could care less when they continue to be so unabashedly interested in bringing back mining.
But it has had an impact, especially on the youth. And now we’re seeing that older people who lived through the armed conflict are also afraid, and here I’m talking again about Santa Marta, which has the most mobilized anti-mining communities in the country. It’s very difficult for them to see so much militarization. And this has decreased participation among the population. But I’m confident that if they have to do something, at the end of the day, they’ll do it, one way or another. In any case, one thing is certain: If we hadn’t raised our voices, our comrades would have died in prison, because the state of their health when they get out, it’s a critical situation. When we raise our voices, it makes the struggles more visible. If they try anything against the anti-mining movement, what we’ve warned about will come to pass. The government still hasn’t said anything. They haven’t said, “No, we’re not interested,” they’ve just stayed silent. And as we say: El que calla, otorga — silence implies consent.
*Translated by Max Granger
