Excellon's hired thugs broke up a peaceful protest camp.
from Labourstart
On the morning of October 24, around 180 hired thugs violently evicted workers and landowners from a protest camp at the entrance to the La Platosa mine, located in La Sierrita, Durango and owned by the Canadian mining company Excellon Resources Inc.
The protest camp had been set up peacefully since July at the entrance to the mining complex in order to put pressure on the company to recognise freedom of association and the workers’ right to join the Miners' union SNTMMSRM; the community landowners were jointly protesting the company’s failure to comply with the terms of its 2008 agreement to lease the land from its peasant owners.
The armed aggressors arrived in five local buses and one belonging to the mining company, La Platosa. The aggressors were members of the yellow Don Napoleon Gomez Sada Metallurgical and Steelworks Mining Union. They arrived shouting, “We come with orders to remove you with beatings or with death”. A municipal police patrol car present at the camp did nothing. Members of the Mexican army and the Federal Police also arrived later in the morning, yet took no action.
Communal farmers and mine workers participating in the protest claim that La Platosa mine operators have reneged on legal commitments to workers and the local community. The federal and state governments have so far failed to intervene, to ensure the dispute is resolved and human rights upheld. Send your appeal to the local state governor and Interior Minister.
Sign the letter at Labourstart.
Laborstart supports this action, in partnership with IndustriALL, Amnesty International and Proyecto de Derechos Económicos, Sociales y Culturales, A.C (PRODESC).
IndustriALL Global Union represents 50 million workers in 140 countries in the mining, energy and manufacturing sectors and is a new force in global solidarity taking up the fight for better working conditions and trade union rights around the world. PRODESC is a non-governmental organization founded in 2005 whose primary mission is the defense of economic, social and cultural rights of underrepresented workers and communities in Mexico. Amnesty International is a global movement of more than 3 million supporters, members and activists in more than 150 countries and territories who campaign to end grave abuses of human rights.
