On Feb. 1, Gregoria Crisanta, an opponent of the local Marlin gold mine, was detained by police in San Miguel Ixtahuacán, San Marcos department, Guatemala. She was presented before a local magistrate, and arrest orders related to vandalism at the mine were apparently issued retroactively, a legal irregularity. As she was being transfered to San Marcos town, the regional capital, the police vehicle was stopped by a roadblock erected by the local populace, and Crisanta was liberated. There was no violence.

Crisanta is a leading member of the Association for Integral Development of San Miguel Ixtahuacán (ADISMI), an organization made up of local Mam Maya campesinos who oppose cyanide pollution from the huge open-pit mine owned by the Canadian Goldcorp. (Rights Action, Feb. 4)

See our last posts on Guatemala and the mineral cartel in Latin America.

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