Special Call-In Day TODAY - National Monseñor Romero Day: March 24, 2010

Cispes El SalvadorMarch 24, 2010 at 12:19pm

Subject: Special Call-In Day TODAY - National Monseñor Romero Day: March 24, 2010

*Accompany El Salvador’s mining resistance and tell Pacific Rim Mining to get out of Cabañas!*

(aqui para alerta en español: http://www.facebook.com/l/a0b17;www.cispes.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=685&Itemid=1&lang=es)

Today is National Romero Day in El Salvador, the very first official government recognition of the pueblo’s revered martyr for social justice – Monseñor Oscar Arnulfo Romero, the archbishop of El Salvador. While conducting mass on March 24, 1980, he was assassinated by State-linked paramilitary forces for openly denouncing and defying the U.S.-sponsored Salvadoran government’s bloody war on the poor. Monseñor Romero believed, “If they kill me, I will be reborn in the Salvadoran people.” Thirty years later, Romero continues to live on in the fighting spirit of the Salvadoran people, who have advanced the cause of social justice in the face of U.S. intervention and destructive economic policies, like the U.S.-Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) imposed by the Washington Consensus and El Salvador’s right wing.

Today, transnational companies are clamoring to extract El Salvador’s gold, which would bring severe environmental, social and economic consequences for rural communities. Since 2005, community organizing efforts have successfully blocked Pacific Rim Mining Corporation’s application for gold mining permits in the department of Cabañas, El Salvador. In response to this effective resistance, death threats, kidnapping attempts and assassinations against activists who oppose mining continue. Moreover, Pacific Rim has retaliated by filing a $77 million dollar lawsuit against El Salvador for denying gold mining permits, using CAFTA’s investor protections provisions. The present-day struggle against mining addresses the very same issues – human rights, land and self-determination – as the popular struggle that drew violent repression from the Salvadoran State during the Civil War from 1980-1992, which robbed the lives of Monseñor Romero and 70,000 Salvadorans.

Take Action Today! In honor of National Romero Day, call Thomas Shrake, President and CEO of Pacific Rim Mining and tell him that the company has the moral responsibility to leave Cabañas immediately. To speak with Mr. Shrake at the Reno, NV office, dial 1-(775) 852-5888.

Go to http://www.facebook.com/l/a0b17;www.cispes.org for call-in script and background information