Even those who endorsed the mining project in the Esquel mountain chain recognize that a before and an after exists in Esquel from the social process that the Patagonian population has started as an opposition against the multimillionaire enterprise that is considered opposite to their way of life and to the future that they imagine for their children.

The neighbours take the lead

Without distinction of social sectors, the neighbors of Esquel take ahead a range of actions that began from the moment in which the first news became public on the possibility of the installation of a mine to extract gold, by the Canadian company Meridian Gold Inc.

The endorsement in favor of the mining entrepreneurship - that is manipulated like an imposition - from the provincial government of governor Lizurume and municipality of mayor Williams, like most of the members of the Deliberative Council, contributed to the growing motives for protagonism of the common neighbor, habitually despised by politicians and civil employees.

A significant fact is that the population knew to disregard the mismanagement of government, although they identified that their drive was strongly political in the true sense of political action: to change the reality for the good of all.

How does this process work? It could be synthesized that the population was alerting itself and- about everything - inquiring deeply and massively about the project and the implications of open sky mining, initiating a cycle of self-managed learning that allowed them to take a position on the subject and develop an active rejection action, which continues to be effective.

Discovering the lies

The esquelens perceived the lack of information about the entrepreneurship and that the provincial and municipal governments, like the mine, diminished some of the detrimental aspects of mining and emphasized other supposedly favorable ones in an exaggerated manner. The neighbors investigated in order to inquire with autonomy.

At first there were valuable contributions from different groups that organized workshops, distributed brochures, and supported information campaigns. Also a handful of educational professionals from the National University of Patagonia developed a task of university extension, offering lectures in schools and neighborhood councils.

Assemblies inform, learn, and fight

After these initial actions, the neighbors came together in assemblies, where each one participated in leaving aside its adherence to a political party, union, neighbors council, etc. In this and other senses, the "assemblies of neighbors self evocated of Esquel" began in November, 2002, and they got together with the assemblies born in several cities of the country the nights of the 19th and 20th of December, 2001.

From there, the movement took a massive impulse because the population adopted these assemblies as a genuine form of participation, debate, learning and decision making. It was in these assemblies that the neighbors unanimously voted to impel NO TO THE MINE.

But the interests to face are powerful and they were not going to leave their gold mine easily. Since the first assemblies, there have been anonymous threats and other violations of human rights, which include beatings and exhibition of firearms towards neighbors who are members of NO TO THE MINE. So far forty reports have been accumulated before the local office of the public prosecutor; the great majority of them was filed and did not prosper. Several occurred after the popular consultation.

A neighbour is more credible than any politician

The information between neighbors has deepened enormously with the assemblies that led to lectures in the entire city, the installation of information tables in the streets, the distribution of brochures, the projection of videos, and appearances in television programs. With what money is all this economically supported? With contributions from the neighbors and local retailers themselves.

In those actions the reach of the mining exploitation project was exposed, and the consequences in all aspects - not only the environmental ones- but also social, economic, and the negative experiences of other Latin American countries. Each neighbor contributed with his knowledge, his information, and his time for these tasks.

"I march to throw the Meridian out, I march for dignity"

However, the most outstanding factor of the resistance by the neighbors is the marches for NO TO THE MINE. After a couple of assemblies, the neighbors resolve to march on the streets against the entrepreneurship.

The first march on the 24th of November, 2002, took place because the provincial government delayed the public hearing predicted for the 4th of December. In the hearing "the study of environmental impact would be evaluated", but the population perceived that the hearing would merely be the waiting room and the beginning of the mining exploitation. From then on after that partial triumph of the neighbors, the marches repeated on the 4th of every month in our city. The mining project is frozen, without a starting date.

The marches and the concentrations in the Deliberative Council and Intendance followed, along with protests against the directors of the mining company and governor Lizurume, combating the support of the mining project and demanding an inclusive popular consultation.

The population even punished the media and retailers who supported the mining project; by not shopping at their stores or not tuning into their stations.

In the marches - where the neighbors from other localities of the chubutense mountain range also participated - they denounce the political accomplices of the mine, the effective mining laws, and they warn of looting because "[the mining companies] come for gold and they come for everything."

Visits that shed light

This movement also had an important weight in the population's explanation on the subject of mining in Esquel, in the presence of two members of the deliberative council of Andalgalá, a catamarquenan city that suffers the environmental, economic, and social consequences of the effect of the biggest gold mine exploitation of the country: Bajo la Alumbrera.

A member of the Peruvian confederation that groups the communities affected by the mining, conducted a lecture and projected videos on the terrible reality in which hundreds of localities of their country live because of mining exploitation, especially those of gold and other metals.

The technical objections, which destroyed the studies presented by Meridian Gold on their project and the effects in superficial and underground waters, were solidly contributed by two outstanding specialists, an Argentinean and a North American, who gave greater precisions on the negative effects of these projects.

NO TO THE MINE is constructed between all

The popular pressure in front of the doors of the deliberative council finally obtained authorization to summon mayor Williams to a public hearing, but in a nonbinding manner. The previous campaign to the popular consultation included all the population.

Political sectors, next to the construction union, failed in their attempt to prevent the population from responding when the federal justice rejected the submission made for this purpose.

From its installation in Esquel, Meridian Gold oiled a close relationship with the institutional political power, the local partisan supporters and their leaders, as well as with sectors of the commerce. With that alliance they approached their campaign for the "yes" to the entrepreneurship of the mine.

On the other hand, the neighbors had to face this typical electoral apparatus with the only resource they could count on: creating a conscience with the truth in direct contact with the people.

In the march for the closing of the campaign, 8,000 people declared themselves for the "NO". There were so many fiscal neighbors supporting the "NO" that each table had a holder and a substitute, and during the voting many voters left the "yes" ballots that had been distributed beforehand abandoned in darkened rooms. These are some facts that demonstrate the degree of mobilization and popular endorsement of this campaign. The percentage of voters present widely surpassed that of the habitual elections.

The 81% that defines the future

The incredible result against the mining entrepreneurship shook all the structures: thousands of neighbors celebrated by marching in the streets, the mayor and the governor received a blow that they will not forget, and the company - the following day- saw a rapid fall in value in the stock-market of New York.

By the massive participation of the esquelen population along with the overwhelming results of the "NO" in the popular consultations organized by the neighbors of Trevelin, Epuyen and Lago Puelo, the plebiscite has become binding and now projects its influence in the entire province and the rest of the country. The local and national media have reflected the determination of the esquelens and it has even been covered by important foreign newspapers.

To the neighbors, the company must abandon the project and leave, and the neighbors demand the provincial and municipal governments to act without doubt in the same manner as the popular decision.

Environmental shelter to defend what is ours

During December, 2002, a young neighbor of Esquel with the support of two local lawyers presented an environmental shelter to restrain the entrepreneurship. The judge granted environmental shelter in February, 2003. The Civil House first confirmed the decision and finally the Provincial Higher Court.

The Mine, which immediately after the popular consultation declared that "they would respect the decision of the town of Esquel", not only appealed the shelter in all the instances of the justice of the province but also took their "resource of complaint" to the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation, which at the time of writing this article is evaluating if it must resolve the subject or firmly support the judicial determination of the people of Chubut .

The neighbours alerting and resisting...

Simultaneously, the neighbors of Esquel have informed different communities and encourage them to organize in order to stop other entrepreneurships. In different parts of the country, such as Rio Negro, San Juan, Mendoza, Tucumán and Catamarca, the neighbors and producers are rising up against mining projects, denouncing the governments for their complicity with the companies and rejecting the mining laws.

Several attempts of "seduction" by the mining company have failed as part of its plan to revert the NO of the population. The neighbors view this as attempts of bribery and pose their rejection before local neighbors meetings, clubs or schools, and to those whom the mining company makes their offers.

... The governments negotiating

The present provincial administration of Mario Das Neves has not executed any governmental measure in the same direction of the decision of the esquelens. As of today, the company Meridian Gold continues to be the concessionary of the provincial state in the deposit that they tried to explode in the Esquel mountain chain and in 94 declared deposits of the province, which belong to them completely or in join participation to Patagonia Gold.

Under the pressure of the mining companies, their employees have announced that they will not make a mine in Esquel but they accept open sky mining and the use of toxins in the rest or in ample regions of Chubut. The battle horses are the same as all the mining companies use: jobs under the guise of "development", when we know that not one or the other is obtained through mining.

The Deliberative Council and mayor Williams have not acted as the town requests. Neither the sweeping hearing nor the later discovery of two deposits in the mine have done what the town set out to do- for example- the expiration of the commercial abilities of Meridian Gold, alleging supposed "legal obstacles and empty legislation."

In the end, the mining entrepreneurship has been stopped by the mobilization of the esquelens and the environmental shelter dictated by the justice system. Nothing has made the government make the determination of the population effective.

ASSEMBLY OF ESQUEL NEIGHBORS SELF-EVOCATED

MARCH 2006