Environmental Destruction from Mining in Central America and Investment Protections Under the DR-CAFTA.

Presentation by Manuel Pérez-Rocha at the Congressional Briefing: Economic Underpinnings of Migration in the Americas, A Closer Look at DR-CAFTA, held September 10, 2014, at 2226 Rayburn HOB. Other panelists were Tefere Gebre, Executive Vice President of AFL-CIO; Ben Beachy, Research Director at Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch; and Walker Grooms, National Grassroots Organizer at Witness for Peace:

“I wish to thank you, Representative Marcy Kaptur, for organizing this briefing for such an urgent matter and for your continued solidarity with the people of Central America and Mexico. I am a Mexican national who has worked extensively on the impacts of NAFTA in Mexico, and because of that I also worked in Central America when the DR-CAFTA was being negotiated. Today, we can verify that our warnings on the crisis that the “free trade” agreement would bring to Central American people were, unfortunately, correct. Central America is facing a humanitarian crisis that has incited millions to migrate as economic and violence refugees, thousands of them children. And there is also an environmental crisis being provoked by ruthless mining corporations that are displacing many people from their rural livelihoods. Today, I want to talk about how the mining industry is protected by the rules on investment included in Chapter 10 of DR – CAFTA.…” Full text in PDF.

Listen to audio of the full presentation (10 mins):