Urban Leadership Foundation

Dear friends and family:

The following account was written by Nate Bacon, an InnerCHANGE missionary serving in San Francisco, CA. It is a poignant reminder to us all of the tragic consequences of unchecked greed and the economic policies that exploit the poor.

I write as one who has come to know and love Central America and its people.

I have ministered among Central American immigrants and refugees for the past 18 years, and they constitute a large percentage of the people of my neighborhood and my church. I am honored to have many close friends (and co-workers in our ministry) from Central America. My wife is from Guatemala, my youngest son was born there, I have made many trips to Central America, including living in Guatemala in 2000-2001. While not an expert, I feel I can speak with a substantial degree of personal knowledge on matters concerning Central America.

For the past 13 years, the focus of ministry for my wife and myself has been with Latino youth who get caught up in the worlds of gangs and drugs on the streets of San Francisco. For nearly 10 years a steady stream of young people have come to the US from one particular town in Honduras, and its surrounding villages. They come on freight train, risking life and limb (some as young as 11 or 12), and cross the border illegally. The lion¹s share of these young people end up selling crack cocaine on the streets of San Francisco, Portland, Seattle, Los Angeles, Atlanta, and Vancouver, Canada.

Their primary motivation in coming to the U.S. is to send money home to their families who are dirt poor. They come from El Porvenir, in the Francisco Morazan province of Honduras, an area of extreme poverty, where the majority eke out a living in subsistence farming.

They often begin selling drugs in order to pay back the debt owed to those who trafficked them across the border. Unfortunately, once having been caught up in the dark world of the drug trade, and faced with the immense challenge of finding ³legitimate² work (without legal status), most continue to sell crack in order to send money home. Because of the dynamics of the street economy, an increasing number also end up joining gangs.

While talking to a young Honduran named Ovando a few months ago, I discovered something that I had not known about El Porvenir. When Ovando shared it with me, I could not believe it. I was angered to the point of tears: Right outside of their hometown, THERE IS A LITERAL GOLD MINE.

The Entremares gold mine was established roughly five years ago. Ovando shared with me the devastation this mine has brought to his people. First he described how people came and bought up their land, and relocated them, without divulging their plans. Later, when they discovered their intentions, the locals had absolutely no say in the matter. This was in violation of certain protective laws which require consultation with the local people before establishing new mining operations.

Ovando shared with me that since the establishment of the mine, schoolchildren have begun to lose their hair for no apparent reason, and babies are being born with skin diseases. The mine has brought massive deforestation, and consumed the water supply, drying up the wells of poor farmers throughout the area. Open-pit mining techniques involve the use of millions of gallons of water, mixed with arsenic, forcing the poor to purchase water or to use contaminated water from local streams. The poorest are unable to purchase water. It is believed the contaminated water is to blame for the heart-wrenching health effects on infants and children.

Entremares is owned by a U.S.-Canadian Mining Company called Glamis Gold, Inc., headquartered in Reno, Nevada. In 2002, the Entremares mine produced roughly $32 million in gold. The average Honduran earns roughly $900/ year.

The disparity is tragic, and in my mind criminal. The benefit to locals has been slight, consisting mainly in a small number of jobs at the mine. These jobs will terminate when the mine runs out of gold, but the devastation will remain.

Only 1% of the earnings from the mine remain in Honduras.

At one time, foreign mining operations were required to pay 25% tariffs to the Honduran government. But just weeks after Hurricane Mitch in 1998, the worst natural disaster ever to hit Honduras, the ³General Mining Law², under the influence of multi-national mining corporations, was passed quietly one night while all the attention was focused on the disaster. This law reduced tariffs on mining to a pitiful 1%. It was an underhanded and sleezy maneuver.

It is so tragically ironic, that with a gold mine in their own backyard, young people from El Porvenir continue to migrate northward, and cross our borders, hoping to help their families survive.

A final word from John Shorack, serving with InnerCHANGE in VenezuelaŠ The US House is set to vote on the Dominican Republica-Central American Free Trade Agreement (DR-CAFTA) before July 29, 2005. DR-CAFTA has been negotiated just as quietly and behind closed doors as the mining corporations negotiated the change of tariff laws in Honduras five years ago. DR-CAFTA¹s basic design is just as skewed as the tariff laws and protections that support the mining operations. Though unintended by its proponents, DR-CAFTA will only fuel a larger wave of undocumented immigrants crossing our border in search of survival.

One step we can take TODAY to stop further economic exploitation in Central America is to write your congressmember to urge them to VOTE NO on DR-CAFTA.