The Extractive Industries and Society 3 (2016) 930–938

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The Extractive Industries and Society

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Original article

Social mobilisation and violence at the mining frontier: The case of

Honduras
Nick Middeldorpa , Carlos Moralesb , Gemma van der Haarb,*
a
Independent Researcher on Natural Resource Conflicts and Consultation Processes in Central America, United States
b
Sociology of Development and Change, Wageningen University, Netherlands

A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T

Article history:
Received 16 December 2015 This paper documents opposition to mining in Honduras, a country at the verge of an attempted ‘mining
Received in revised form 20 October 2016 boom’ since the ratification of a new mining law in April 2013. It analyses how a broad movement –
Accepted 20 October 2016 involving NGOs, social movements and local communities – engages in opposition to the extractive
Available online 16 November 2016 industry, declared a national development priority by the Honduran government. The movement
emerged in the first decade of the 21st century in response to the establishment of two industrial mines
Keywords: and builds on the negative impact of Goldcorp’s open-pit operation in Valle de Siria, where serious health
Honduras problems have been reported. The anti-mining movement has devised a successful campaign about
Mining
access to uncontaminated water. By contrast, the extractive industry and the central government have
Social movements
been far less successful in convincing local populations of the potential benefits of mining. As political
Conflict
Criminalisation of dissent opportunities for dialogue with the central government have been lacking since the 2009 coup d’état, the
anti-mining movement increasingly turned to the local level, motivating communities to declare their
municipality free of mining via public referendums. In turn, when legal means to obtain consent from
communities for mining projects fail, the ‘extractive frontier’ is frequently extended through
criminalisation of dissent and the threat of violence.
ã 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction the shifting political context, moving from an initial focus on

In 2007, Bebbington and Valencia suggested that Central
America would become the new frontier of the mining industry.
Indeed, in recent years the extractive frontier has been aggressively
pushed forward in Central America, and its effects are becoming
clearly noticeable. Within Central America, Guatemala has been
the best documented case (see e.g. Fulmer et al., 2008; Urkidi,
2011; Yagenova et al., 2010). This paper focuses on Honduras, a
country that began to experience the ‘extractive imperative’ more
recently. Unlike cases where extractivism is a cornerstone in
development strategies by New Left governments (as commented
in the introduction to this special issue), in Honduras extractivism
is expanding under a neoliberal scheme and is justified by
arguments of debt relief and public security. Our analysis of
Honduras shows how resistance to mining can materialise quickly,
without necessarily building on an indigenous cosmology, as has
been argued for Guatemala. This paper documents how strategies
of resistance to mining started and subsequently were adapted to
* Corresponding author.
E-mail address: gemma.vanderhaar@wur.nl (G. van der Haar).
mining legislation to a strategy of organising communities before
mining companies are present on the scene. It also shows how, in
response to anti-mining mobilisation, confrontations at the
extractive frontier have hardened: when the mining industry fails
to obtain consent from communities, it resorts to criminalisation of
dissent and intimidation of activists. The case of Honduras
illustrates such pressures and the heavy social toll that extending
the mining frontier takes.
Honduras is currently one of the poorest countries of the
Western Hemisphere, with a per capita GDP (Purchasing Power
Parity) of US$ 5085 in 2015 (World Bank, 2016a). Among the total
population, 63% lives below the poverty line (World Bank, 2016b),
and a disproportionate share is rural, female and indigenous
(IDAMHO, 2013). Most rural communities are Ladino, although a
significant part of the population (9%) is indigenous. Remittances
represent the country’s largest source of income, constituting 18%
of its GDP (World Bank, 2016c), followed by agricultural produc-
tion (14%, World Bank, 2016d) and drug trafficking (13% in 2010,
UNODC, 2012). For almost a century, political control alternated
between the right wing Liberal and National parties (Barahona,
2005). However, after he was elected in 2006, liberal president
Manuel Zelaya started manifesting left-leaning tendencies, such as

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.exis.2016.10.008
2214-790X/ã 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
 N. Middeldorp et al. / The Extractive Industries and Society 3 (2016) 930–938
raising minimum wages and joining ALBA.1 This turn also provided
a political opening for social movements. Zelaya’s re-election
would have allowed him to continue his reforms and potentially
threaten the established order. In 2009, a coup d’état ended his
regime, restoring power to the conservative National Party while
broadening the political spectrum as new opposition parties
formed in response to the coup. The coup was followed by
increased repression: the Truth Commission (Monge Yoder et al.,
2013) recorded 5418 human rights violations between June 2009
and 2012, including 94 cases of torture and 58 political killings. In
this context, environmental activists face serious obstacles, as
illustrated once again by the murder of renowned activist Berta
Cáceres on the 2nd of March 2016.
The mining sector in Honduras expanded rapidly in the wake of
Hurricane Mitch in 1998, becoming a case of ‘disaster capitalism’
(Klein, 2013). The country’s embrace of the mining sector has to be
understood in a global and Central American context. The end of
the WTO quota system for garment and textile exports had a strong
impact on the economies of Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras.
To compensate for the lost foreign revenues, these countries have
increasingly resorted to seeking investments in the mineral sector,
which has led to a regional ‘race to the bottom’ in the competition
to attract investment in the mining industry (Dougherty, 2011).
The new neo-liberal mining policy paved the way to controversial
mining exploitations at an unprecedented scale in Honduras. Two
Canadian-owned open-pit gold mines were established, i.e. the San
Andrés mine and the San Martín mine. In response to these
experiences, which revealed the effects of open-pit mining on local
populations, a broad social movement emerged, managing to halt
further expansion of the mining industry for several years, until the
coup d’état in 2009 reversed many of its achievements.
Currently, mining in Honduras is a source of social conflict. The
post-coup government – re-elected in November 2013–supports
the expansion of the extractive industry as the spearhead of the
National Development Plan. With technical support from the
Canadian Official Development Cooperation a new mining act was
drafted in 2012 and came into effect on 23 April 2013. The private
sector Council of Mining and Extractive Industry, Commerce and
Investment (COMICOIN) proclaimed 2015 as ‘the year of mining’
(Latin America Advisor, 2015). In February 2014, the Honduran
newspaper La Prensa reported that exploratory drilling was carried
out in 950 locations; as of July 2015, 380 concessions had been
awarded or awaited approval (INHGEOMIN, 2015).2 In response to
this new extension of the ‘resource frontier’ (Peluso and Lund,
2011), environmental and indigenous movements, local NGOs,
rural communities, as well as sectors of the Catholic Church have
joined forces to oppose mining. With a constitutional complaint
against the Mining Act and by mobilising the communities in
defence of territory, the movement hopes to halt the impending
expansion of the mining industry.
This paper documents the dynamics of ‘push forward’ and ‘push
backward’ at the extractive frontier. In contrast to earlier
legislation, the new mining act requires that communities consent
to the exploitation phase of a project. However, as the message of
the anti-mining movement has resonated at the community level,
the industry is discovering that this consent is difficult to obtain.
The drive to extend the extractive frontier in Honduras, however,
has proven to be forceful. In the face of the rather effective
1 4
Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of our America, an intergovernmental
organisation for social, political and economic integration of countries in Latin
America and the Caribbean, founded by Cuba and Venezuela in 2004.
2
As of July 2016, this remains the most recent concession record.
931
mobilisation at community level, the industry not only relies on
persuasion and efforts to instrumentalise community consultation
mechanisms but increasingly resorts to intimidation and violence
or the threat thereof.
This paper is based on 6 months of fieldwork in Honduras by
[author A], between May and November 2013. Fieldwork started
one month after the new mining act was ratified, tracing the
opposition to mining by ASONOG,3 one of the key NGOs in the
movement. Field research included participation in meetings,
training sessions and community mobilisations in different parts
of the country,4 interviews with leaders of different organisations
within the anti-mining movement and attendance at regional
forums with environmental activists in Honduras, El Salvador and
Nicaragua. The mines of San Andrés and San Martín were visited,
and managerial staff was interviewed from the Canadian company
Aura minerals. We also interviewed state representatives, notably
the president of the congressional mining commission and officers
of INHGEOMIN,5 the regulatory body of the mining industry. The
study also included document analysis, including a review of
available academic literature, press releases, letters, videos and
other documents.
The next section of this paper introduces the theoretical
arguments. The paper then analyses the development of anti-
mining mobilisation in several key stages: the origins of the
movement in Valle de Siria, advocacy concerning the new mining
law, mobilisation of communities, counter-mobilisation strategies
deployed by the industry and the state and, finally the public
assemblies convened against mining. The analysis shows that
while the movement has maintained a rather consistent discursive
structure, its resistance strategies have been adapted to the
political context. As dialogue gave way to repression with the 2009
coup, the movement has focused increasingly on mobilising at
grassroots levels.
2. Studying mobilisation at the mining frontier
This paper examines the advancing mining frontier in Honduras
by combining a political ecology approach to shifting frontiers of
resource control (Peluso and Lund, 2011) with social movement
analysis. Resource control is highly contested in Honduras: the
extractive industry’s resource claim is played out against the claim
laid by communities ‘defending their territory’, motivated and
supported by the anti-mining movement.
Expanding the mining industry requires territorial control. The
different mechanisms identified by Peluso and Lund (2011) are
useful for understanding the drive to extend the extractive frontier
in Honduras. Mining expansion implies that communities lose
control of the territory they inhabit or use through enclosure: the
physical separation of rural communities from the territory where
mineral exploitation takes place and the legal restrictions that
deny and penalize access by former users, now labelled ‘intruders’.
Enclosure in this case also relates to water sources that become
commodified and risk contamination due to mineral exploitation.
Both legalisation and the use of violence play a role in the advance of
the mining frontier. Mining concessions are granted pursuant to
national legislation and institutional agreements between the
state and the mining companies at both national and local levels.
3
Asociación de Organismos No Gubernamentales (Association of Non-Govern-
mental Organisations).
In the departments of Copán, Ocotepeque, Santa Barbara, Cortés, La Paz, Colón,
Yoro, Olancho and Choluteca.
5
Instituto Hondureño de Geología y Minas (Honduran Institute of Geology and
Mining).
932 N. Middeldorp et al. / The Extractive Industries and Society 3 (2016) 930–938
We encountered violence in strategies to intimidate and criminal-
ise key opponents to mining. These mechanisms work to allow
‘accumulation by dispossession’ (Harvey, 2004). Concerning
mining, such accumulation may entail forced displacement of
peasant communities, transformation of communal property into
exclusive regimes (privatisation of natural resources, especially
water and land) and obstruction of other forms of production
(ibid), all of which were noted in Honduras.
Expansion of mineral exploitation is hotly contested on the
ground and is a source of intense social conflict. In seeking to
understand how the anti-mining movement in Honduras opposes
the expanding extractive frontier, the means deployed in this
struggle and the resulting implications, our approach in this paper
draws on the rich tradition of Latin American social movement
literature. In particular, we work with the idea that social
movements are the public manifestation of existing conflict and
are vehicles people use in their struggle to satisfy their collective
needs (Zibechi, 2003) and breach the limits of compatibility
(Melucci and Avritzer 2000, 518). In line with Melucci, who sees
collective action as a relationship between two or more adversar-
ies, we show how the mining industry, the state and the anti-
mining movement react to each other, and how distinct moves to
‘obstruct, contain or repress collective protest’ (Melucci, 1996: 301)
emerge in response to community-level mobilisation that threat-
ens to halt mining.
Our analysis of Honduras both confirms and complements the
material found on resistance to mining in Guatemala. The rich
literature about opposition to mega-projects in Guatemala (e.g.
Dougherty, 2011; Fulmer et al., 2008; Rasch, 2012; Urkidi, 2011)
stressed the key importance of community-led consultation
processes and highlighted the role of indigenous cosmology. In
the absence of any meaningful state-sanctioned application of ILO
Convention 169, Maya communities have organised their own
‘community consultations’. By 2011, 400,000 Guatemalans from at
least 42 municipalities had held such consultations, in which
municipal referendums were organised as an expression of
opposition to mining (Dougherty, 2011). We found a similar move
to organise community consultations outside of and prior to formal
processes for the case of Honduras, where it leads to declaring
municipalities ‘free of mining’. Our argument here is that the
formal emphasis on community consent has brought about an
instrumentalisation of consultation mechanisms, which the anti-
mining movement in Honduras has in turn sought to circumvent.
Studies on Guatemala have suggested that the ‘indigenous
cosmology’ is incompatible with industrial mining and have
argued that this cosmology underlies the resistance to mining
(Holden and Jacobson, 2008; Van de Sandt, 2009). Other authors
(Rasch, 2012; Urkidi, 2011) have qualified this, however, arguing
that resistance at the local level is not primarily an indigenous
rights question, but is linked to municipal authority, defence of
territory and autonomy. In Honduras, mining is widely rejected by
both indigenous and non-indigenous peasants. Both types of
communities organise public referendums blocking mining
activities and ‘defending their territory’. This suggests a common
rationale among rural communities transcending ethnic and
cultural backgrounds and hinging on the struggle to protect water
as a subsistence need, as well as deep-rooted distrust of the state,
its elitist bias and its neoliberal resource extraction development
model (Rasch, 2012).
3. Waking up to the mining boom: Valle de Siria
The history of resistance to mining in Honduras starts with the
San Martín mine, owned by Entre Mares (a local subsidiary of
Goldcorp). The mine opened in 1999, shortly after the 1988
ratification of the General Mining Act paved the way for industrial-
scale cyanide leaching in open-pit gold mines. The mine was
established without any community consultation whatsoever. It is
located in the ‘Valle de Siria’ region, department of Francisco
Morazán, 70 km northeast of Tegucigalpa, a region of smallholder
agriculture and livestock that is home to about 4500 people.
Though closed since 2008, the mine remains a key reference for the
anti-mining movement due to the serious water and health-
related problems associated with mineral exploitation –allegations
that the corporation has denied to date. The mining company made
some minor efforts to gain a ‘social license to operate’ by financing
local events but took no responsibility for the problems it was
accused of causing: water scarcity and serious health problems due
to high levels of ground water contamination.
After the mining company was established, water became a
marketable and increasingly scarce resource. Some individuals
started selling water from natural wells on their land to the
company, resulting in the commoditisation of water (as observed
for Peru by Sosa Landeo, 2012) and increasing scarcity. Although
the mine created up to 140 local jobs at its peak, this never,
according to community activists, compensated for the economic
loss caused by the drop in agricultural output due to lack of water.
Various peasant families migrated to Tegucigalpa or the United
States.
Serious health problems were registered in the area, such as
epidermal blemishes, rashes and respiratory problems, as well as
miscarriages and congenital defects in a new born (Bianchini,
2006; and personal communication with Bianchini). The anti-
mining movement and local inhabitants attribute these problems
to the mine, but the corporation has systematically denied this to
date. A first study showed alarming levels of lead and arsenic in the
local creeks,6 liable to cause genetic mutation. Entre Mares/
Goldcorp states that the study lacked scientific rigour. In addition,
forensic medical reports from the Public Ministry conclude that
blood samples from the region do not surpass ‘the findings in the
external references’. The contradictory results of these studies are
illustrative of the confrontation at the mining frontier, where even
‘the truth’ becomes contested terrain.
A 2009 scientific report confirmed a high concentration of
heavy metals and acid mine drainage in subterranean waters
(Jarvis and Amezaga, 2009) and recommended that the company
rectify the environmental consequences. Based on the study, the
Environmental Prosecution pressed criminal charges against the
company’s managers, but these charges were dropped for
unknown reasons. State inspectors found that the levels of metals
present were excessive and fined the company one million
lempiras (US$ 50,000). However, the company challenged the
results of the sample and denied responsibility. State officials,
however, appear to have been aware of the damages. In an
interview, INHGEOMIN’s director – chief environmental prosecu-
tor at the time – insisted that ‘the San Martín mine has a problem.
As a public official, I will not hide that’.
Peasants who were concerned about the impact of mineral
exploitation formed the Valle de Siria Environmental Committee
(CAVS), initially because they were worried about the water. The
CAVS professionalised over time, with support from national and
international NGOs. The CAVS has become one of the key
organisations of the anti-mining movement: it frequently receives
delegations from Honduras and neighbouring countries. Valle de
Siria has become a central point of reference and a symbol of
resistance, both within and outside Honduras. Photos of people
6
173 mg/dL of lead and 263 mg/dL of arsenic. Accepted levels range from 10 to
30 mg/dl; levels above 100 mg/dl are considered critical (IDAMHO, 2013: 26).
 N. Middeldorp et al. / The Extractive Industries and Society 3 (2016) 930–938
with skin disorders circulate on the internet, and activists present
the case at community training sessions about mining. Organised
visits by community leaders to Valle de Siria are an essential step in
mobilising communities against mining. The CAVS receives
delegations with statements such as:
We are peasants; peasants with the will to fight, to take care and
to protect. Nowadays, we are generating a voice so that the
communities may know, so they will not permit that the mining
companies enter their communities.
Countering the claims by villagers that the mine has
contaminated their water and affected their health, Goldcorp
maintains that mining drives development. In what seems to be a
remote parallel universe, Goldcorp offers an entirely different
picture of the impact of mining, claiming on its website that ‘we are
tireless advocates of human rights and pursue a principled,
conscientious approach to corporate citizenship’ (Goldcorp,
undated). The company mentions ‘sustainable prosperity’, ‘alli-
ances and business opportunities with aboriginal and indigenous
peoples’, ‘sustainable community investments’ and ‘sustainable
development’. Goldcorp presents the San Martín project as a
successful case of post-closure environmental restoration and
community development. In a video posted on YouTube by
Goldcorp (2011), San Martín is presented as a case where the
local communities, thanks to the efforts by the company, ‘continue
to prosper’, despite the mine closing. The video depicts an
ecotourism hotel and livestock projects realised by the San Martín
Foundation, a charity established by the company, when the mine
closed.7 In a publication about mining in ‘undeveloped countries’,
Goldcorp employees Roldan and Purvance (2012) write that the
San Martín mine left a ‘positive legacy’ for the communities and
conclude that ‘mining can benefit the surrounding communities,
the company and the mining industry in general’.
The company participates in different corporate social respon-
sibility organisations and initiatives, such as ICMM (International
Council of Mining and Metals), UN Global Compact, EITI (Extractive
Industry Transparency Initiative), Business for Social Responsibili-
ty, the Voluntary principles on Security and Human Rights and the
International Cyanide Management Code. Despite the globalisation
of the case, the voices of the victims of the mine have been unable
to penetrate the walls of the Stock Market, where Goldcorp has
received awards for its sustainable conduct. Goldcorp appears on
the list of the top 100 employers in Canada (2010, 2011, 2012 and
2013) and is ranked in the top 100 of the Nasdaq Sustainability
Index 2015 (Goldcorp, 2015). This raises strong doubts as to the
effectiveness of the voluntary guidelines that Goldcorp claims it
observes.
4. Legal victory and defeat
The mobilisation in Valle de Siria marked the start of a
nationwide movement. NGOs, municipal governments under the
Association of Municipalities of Honduras, social movements and
local communities opposed to mining activities joined forces to
amend the 1998 Mining Act in an effort to halt further mineral
expansion in the country. In 2005, the movement achieved a first
major success: 13 articles of the Mining Act were declared
unconstitutional by the Supreme Court, including the tax regime,
and the article that provided for forced expropriation of
7
Members of the community maintain that they do not know the individuals
featured in Goldcorp’s promotional material and affirm that the hotel is staffed by
non-local employees.
933
community property. However, the movement did not manage
to obtain the desired ban on industrial open-pit mining.
This split the movement into two camps. On the one hand, the
Civic Alliance for the Reform of the Mining Act (Alianza cívica por la
reforma de la ley minera, AC in short) – mainly a platform of
international NGOs and the Association of Municipalities of
Honduras – waived its demand to prohibit the use of cyanide
and open-pit mining, aiming instead for more modest reforms. On
the other hand, national NGOs and environmental committees,
supported by the diocese of Copán led by Bishop Luis Alfonso
Santos, withdrew from the AC and continued the struggle as the
Civic Alliance for Democracy (ACD). Without the support from
constituent organisations, the reformist AC was unable to compete
with the more uncompromising ACD and lost popular support. The
ACD was more successful, at least initially. Mobilising thousands of
persons at highway blockades, it exerted strong pressure on the
national government to halt new mining concessions and
motivated then President Zelaya to form a congressional commis-
sion that would draft a new Mining Act. This act would have raised
taxes on mining, prohibiting open-pit mining and the use of
cyanide and restricting water use. These mobilisations were an
effective display of ‘hard power’ to the state. As expressed by one
activist: ‘the only way left for the people is to manifest in the
streets. ( . . . ) in some moments, the politicians respond only to
force and to pressure [tactics]’.
The ACD became a powerful movement, central in the
opposition to mining, until it suffered serious blows. The 2009
coup d’état marked the end of Zelaya’s progressive mining reforms:
Zelaya was ousted, the draft bill was never debated in congress, and
the interim government began awarding new mining concessions
to counter the economic crisis aggravated by the coup. ACD leaders
received death threats and were severely pressured. The ASONOG
director at the time fled the country, and Bishop Santos’ campaign
was halted by the conservative Cardinal Rodriguez (among those
who supported the coup). Mining industry lobby groups were
quick to take advantage of the circumstances, arguing that due to
the lack of a Mining Act, the country was losing US$ 3 billion a year
(Jamasmie, 2012).
The post-coup government designated mining as a national
priority. The new Mining Act, drafted with technical support from
experts provided by the Canadian Official Development Coopera-
tion (Gordon and Webber, 2011), came into effect on 23 April 2013,
in a highly politicised environment and without societal consen-
sus. The CONROA8 (currently the main platform of organisations
expressing critical views of mining) dropped out of the negotia-
tions. This distrust was mutual. Donaldo Reyes Avelar, congress-
man and president of the congressional mining commission,
discredited the movements’ leaders in an interview, stating that
they were in it only ‘to extract money’ and to gain power as
supporters of the left.
The new law rectifies several provisions found to be unconsti-
tutional in the existing law: it differentiates between exploration
and exploitation concessions, contains a section on artisanal
mining; raises the territorial canon to US$ 1.50 per hectare for
metallic exploration concessions and to US$ 3.50 for metallic
exploitation concessions (as compared to rates as low as US$ 0.25
under the former Mining Act) and increases mining royalties from
two to six percent, in which the percentage left to the municipality
has been doubled from one to two per cent. An important aspect of
the current Mining Act is the consulta, the consultation to be
8
Coalición Nacional de Redes y Organizaciones Ambientales/National Coalition
of Environmental Networks and Organisations.
934 N. Middeldorp et al. / The Extractive Industries and Society 3 (2016) 930–938

conducted with the local inhabitants (both indigenous and Ladino denouncing open-pit mining. When resources permit, leaders are
communities), before a company may proceed to the exploitation taken to Valle de Siria.
phase. In the words of the president of the congressional Comisión The nature of development brought by mining is challenged. As
Minera, this is expressed by a representative of the CAVS:
a very important fact: who decides whether there will be therefore I tell you, if this gives food insecurity, if this has
mining or not? The people. The municipalities: the people whose generated peasant unemployment, if this has provoked health
analysis suggests that mining exploitation can be beneficial and problems, problems with production, what are we speaking of?
bring growth and, on other side, others who say it cannot, well, let What development are we speaking of? We call such a
them live in their poverty if they want. development patas arriba (feet up). Yes, there is development.
Despite the changes for the better, the new Mining Act remains For the big transnational corporation. A lot of money. And the
controversial. The duration of concessions is unrestricted. Neither country? It leaves me with environmental problems, health
small-scale mining nor exploration activities require environmen- problems.
tal permits. Mining companies are free to choose any method of
Using Valle de Siria as a powerful example, mining is framed as
extraction they please and are allowed to use unlimited water
endangering lives, as expressed in the commonly heard phrase and
within and outside the concession. No areas can be declared
motto of the movement ‘life is worth more than gold’. As asked
permanently free of mining, and, if a concession is located in
rhetorically by an MIGR activist during a community meeting,
multiple municipalities, only one municipality will be consulted. If
How much is your river worth? How much does your forest
a community opposes mining in such a consulta, the result is valid
cost? What is the value of your soil? How much gold do you have;
for three years only, whereas approval remains valid indefinitely
how much silver do you have?
and cannot be reversed.
Swyngedouw (2004: 28) wrote that ‘water is a “hybrid”
Last but not least, the mining act imposes a tasa de seguridad
element, that captures and incarnates processes that are at the
(security tax): one third of the total of royalties paid needs to be
same time material, discursive and symbolical’. Writing about
spent on strengthening the police, the military and the newly
mining conflicts in the Andean region, Budds and Hinojosa (2012)
formed military police. This measure establishes a mutually
conclude that water often has a key role in mining conflicts. This
beneficial link between the industry and these state security
holds true for Honduras as well: water makes for cohesion among
institutions. This exemplifies what Watts and Peluso (2014)
communities in their rejection of mining.
identify as ‘securitisation’ of strategic resources, a reciprocal
The emphasis on water proves highly effective for mobilising
process: the military is deployed to guard the extraction in
communities against mining. Rural communities are heavily
progress, and resource extraction revenues are in turn invested in
dependent on natural resources, especially on water, for main-
the military. The securitisation of mining codified by law –
taining the source of their livelihood. In rural Honduras, around
coincides with the violence used by state security actors to repress
90% of the households lack access to improved running water
anti-mining protests at community level.
(IDAMHO, 2013): they obtain water for human consumption and
agricultural production from rivers, wells and self-made pipelines
5. Mobilising the communities
and storage tanks. Their lives and livelihoods are determined by
whether drinkable water is present or absent. This dependence is a
When the coup reversed the progress on mining reform, the
major reason why many rural communities are ready to defend
anti-mining movement ceased to regard negotiating with the
their territory. The movement’s motto ‘life is worth more than gold’
central government as a viable option. To counter the increase in
captures how mining (especially open-pit mining) dries out and
mining activities in a context of restricted political space, the
contaminates local water sources.
movement shifted its focus to, on the one hand, building alliances
Water transcends the boundaries of private property, munici-
with several other movements to continue applying pressure at
palities and semi-autonomous indigenous communities. This fact
national level and, on the other hand, to directly mobilising
is a strong discursive instrument of the anti-mining movement:
communities facing mining concessions. The number of organ-
water flows and connects. Awareness is growing that if one person
isations involved in the anti-mining struggle has grown signifi-
sells his land, one hundred persons will drink contaminated water.
cantly.
This issue of mutual dependency is used to mobilise entire
To mobilise grassroots, umbrella organisations such as the
communities and to generate internal pressure not to sell.
Movimiento Amplio por la Dignidad y la Justicia (MADJ)9 and the
Community members try to convince their neighbours to remain
Mesa para la Incidencia de Gestión de Riesgos (MIGR),10 establish
united. As argued by a Patronato president in the Aguán:
contact with local institutions, mostly the Patronatos (community
Do not think of the money they are offering. ( . . . ) Think of the
councils recognized under Honduran law) and Juntas de Agua
people behind you. Your children, all who are close to the
(village water councils) in communities facing mining concessions.
community. Because not only this community will be affected but
Their strategy involves organising training sessions that combine
the municipality as a whole. ( . . . ) How can we achieve this? Only
knowledge transfer and raising awareness of the risks that mining
by standing together, by creating awareness from us toward the
entails for local communities with a powerful discourse about
others. The money is something that will end. But this vital liquid,
water, protection of human life and shared distrust of the state.
the water, we all need. And then the great diseases will come. We
Communities are instructed about their rights and informed how
have to be careful, to think and, if we want a better future for our
to resort to lawful and peaceful means to oppose a mining
country: say no to mining.
company. They invoke global discourses, screening documentaries
The disposition of the communities to reject mining also arises
of Latin American anti-mining struggles and television celebrities
from the generalised distrust of both large scale projects and the
central government. Activists build on and fuel this distrust by
using militant language that acknowledges the structural violence
in which mineral expansion is embedded. As an activist tells a
group of 20 community leaders from across Honduras:
9
Broad Movement for Dignity and Justice. You have to show them your balls, your testicles, to defend our
10
Round Table of Advocacy for Risk Management. territories! If the poor steal from the rich, then it is called violence,
 N. Middeldorp et al. / The Extractive Industries and Society 3 (2016) 930–938
right? But if the rich steal from the poor, then it becomes
negotiating. With all the promises they make, they come and
deceive the people!
This statement shows how resistance against the mining
industry is framed not only as defence of territory but also as a
generic class struggle against an elite-dominated state that preys
upon the poor both by deceit and by force.
Many rural communities have their own memories of the loss of
patrimony. People are conscious of the historical presence of the
banana industry and the expropriations in the Bajo Aguán to
develop the palm oil industry, as well as the numerous victims of
the related agrarian conflict. As a villager commented during a
meeting: ‘There is no development. Only deception’. Why would
the mining sector bring something different? It is in this context
that the memories of the communities take shape. Understand-
ably, therefore, the act of mobilisation is frequently framed at the
community level as ‘defending territory’ against ‘an invasion’.
Sometimes, these words are taken literally.
6. Countering mobilisation
‘Winning the hearts and minds’ of community members is
important to both the mining industry and the anti-mining
movement. Nevertheless, although the mining industry is stronger
in terms of financial and political resources, its efforts to convince
the population of the benefits of mining frequently fail. A ‘counter-
movement’, as conceived by Melucci (1996), takes shape.
‘It is practically a war’, comments an official of INHGEOMIN. He
argues that the anti-mining movement abuses the lack of
understanding among local communities of the benefits of mining:
We believe it is a Modus Vivendi – a way of life for these
organisations. To obtain funds, attract attention and create
antibodies against the mining activities in the country, which
are not grounded, scientific, real. The problem with this is that the
people in this country unfortunately are not educated to have the
capacity to say ‘yes, this is true’ or ‘no, this is not true’. So what it
does is instil fear in the population, fear of a mining project. Fear of
change. So there is a lot of refusal within the communities. Many
communities say ‘I prefer to remain in my state of poverty, without
change’. This is because of all the work that these environmentalist
organisations have done in the communities.
He advises mining companies to seek local support as early on
as possible. The companies enter the communities with discourses
of prosperity, good salaries and other benefits and may offer trips
abroad and good jobs for community leaders. Mining is presented
as rational, based on scientific knowledge: the path to progress.
Environmental organisations are depicted as parasites of the
mining industry that cultivate unfounded fears and sabotage the
development process.
INHGEOMIN is aware of the negative reputation of the mining
sector and employs several strategies to improve this image. EITI
membership is believed to help destigmatise the industry. The
association of the transnational mining sector, ANAMIMH,11 owns
a television station that projects mining as the salvation of
Honduras. According to the official:
nowadays we have a television station, a national station on
which every Wednesday we speak of things related to mining, so
that the people will begin to see that mining is a process linked
with our lives, and that we cannot live without mineral extraction.
11
Asociación Nacional de Minerías Metálicas de Honduras (National Association
of Metallic Mining in Honduras).
935
Because the discourse from these environmentalist groups is: zero
mining. Zero mining would signify social regression.
The station broadcasts scenes of people drinking water from the
creeks near the mine, commenting that it is perfectly safe, shows
how mundane objects like cigarettes also contain cyanide and
depicts mine workers expressing gratitude for their salaried
employment. Notwithstanding this media campaign, CESPAD12
found in 2011 that over 90% of interviewed Hondurans rejected
open-pit mining. In the six communities studied for this paper,
interviewees without exception stressed the need to defend their
community, their water sources and their territory against the
mining industry.
The efforts to counter the anti-mining movement are not only
discursive. As the pro-mining discourse fails to convince, pro-
mining agents resort to acts of intimidation and violence. The
human rights and environmental defenders we studied faced
serious risks related to their work. This is confirmed by Global
Witness (2015), which found Honduras to be one of the world’s
most dangerous countries for land and environmental activists.
This derives in part from the impunity governing Honduras. Rule of
law is lacking: for example, 99% of all murders goes unsolved
(Gurney, 2012). The persistent threat and use of violence against
activists has brought about an environment of continuous fear. In
the case of opposition to mining, three mechanisms of fear-
inducing oppression are identifiable: repression of protest,
criminalisation of activism and the threat and use of violence.
The state security apparatus is used against community
protests to extend the mining frontier. Militarisation of the Bajo
Aguán region, which the government claims is in response to the
presence of armed criminal organisations, may well be interpreted
as a means to protect the economic interests being developed
there: African palm, hydroelectric projects and mining. In March
2014, the military police intervened to free a road blocked by the
community of El Níspero against the installation of an iron mine. In
April 2014, community members in Azagualpa blocked entry to
their village to prevent the impending demolition of its church and
graveyard due to the expansion of the San Andrés mine. The
blockade was dispersed by beatings, tear gas and bullets: a clear
example of violence employed to facilitate the process of
accumulation by dispossession.
Leaders in the movement face criminalisation and threats of
violence and need to adopt a low profile. Criminalisation of dissent
is structural in Honduras: 3064 cases of improper use of criminal
law to silence human rights defenders have been registered since
2010 (Global Witness 2015: 17). An activist from Valle de Siria,
having already spent weeks in a police cell without being charged
in 2010, wrote one of authors in 2014:
I tell you I have been criminalised for my efforts to defend the
natural resources and have experienced a lot of personal
persecution, but we continue the struggle, partner. ( . . . ) I am
thinking of moving out of Honduras for a while to reduce the
attention on me.
In 2014 alone, 12 environmental defenders were murdered in
Honduras (Global Witness 2015: 8). The military intervention in El
Níspero was followed by the brutal assassination of Rigoberto
López Hernández in May 2014. Hernandez – a member of the Santa
Bárbara Environmentalist Movement (MAS) – was found dead with
his throat sliced open and tongue cut out (Rights Action, 2014).
Activists working in the Bajo Aguán have received threats that they
trace to the municipal government of Tocoa. They have to work
with caution:
12
Centro de Estudios para la Democracia (Study Center for Democracy).
936 N. Middeldorp et al. / The Extractive Industries and Society 3 (2016) 930–938
It is very difficult for us ( . . . ) as facilitators of the opposition to
mining to work in the region. We have to watch our step and to be
very cautious. To live suddenly in anonymity and to conceal
yourself from public view, because the threat will always exist. The
people in the mining companies will contract the powerful,
dedicated to assassination, threats, pressure and persecution, so
that the movements that arise will dissolve. Because of the threats
to our lives, we see deaths. Those who make agreements with
groups of delinquents have no conscience.
These events and testimonies fit with the picture suggested by
Cruz (2011) regarding the persistent use of ‘violent entrepreneurs’
in Central America’s northern triangle: armed actors informally
linked to the state and operational in the management of ‘public
security’. Some investments are directly linked with organised
crime. Operation Neptune, coordinated by the DEA,13 in September
2013 led to confiscation of companies belonging to a drug cartel,
including an African palm plantation, a cattle ranch, a zoo, a tourist
centre, several gas stations and a carbon mine in the Bajo Aguán.
Local activists of the MIGR have denounced narco-mining here and
elsewhere. As a consequence, they received serious threats.
The role of drug cartels in the mining sector requires additional
investigation, but we suspect that it may extend beyond money
laundering. Like mining, drug trafficking requires territorial
control: mining concessions could be a strategy to acquire legal
control of remote territories. In any case, the use of violence is not
limited to narco-miners: activists confronting other companies
also suffer threats, which seem to have become widespread as a
form of market protection in Honduras to suppress opposition to
projects with considerable economic potential. The pro-mining
forces in Honduras, as Dougherty (2011) argues for Guatemala, are
in the perfect storm, where the darkest sides unfold. Rising firms,
driven by venture capital, aim for fast results and profit from the
opportunities created by neoliberal legislation of the 1990s and the
outspoken pro-mining governments in the post-coup period.
7. Public assembly vs. formal consultation
The current Mining Act (art. 68) establishes the need for a
consulta, a formal procedure for consulting communities before
starting mineral exploitation.14 Experiences with this consultation
mechanism so far suggest that it does little to protect communities
being pressured to accept mining exploitation. In practice, the
procedure seems intended to elicit eventual consent. The anti-
mining movement seeks to bypass the consulta and to win the
struggle before it begins by declaring municipalities ‘free of
mining’ before the entry of a mining company.
In the analysis of the anti-mining movement, the consulta is
highly susceptible to manipulation: it is neither free nor prior. It is
realized ex post to the installation of the mine in the exploration
phase: a community rejection would cost the company its
investment, which incentivises the company to pressure local
government and population alike to grant the exploitation
concession. The exploration phase begins months to years before
actual exploitation, giving mining exploitation advocates a
considerable margin to convince or coerce communities to accept
the project. This includes discourses of progress and benefits to
community leaders (cooptation), criminalisation, military or
armed group intervention and threats and violence directed at
13
Drug Enforcement Administration (USA).
14
The mining act’s consulta should not be confused with ILO Convention 169: it
makes no reference to the convention and applies to indigenous and non-
indigenous populations alike.
key opponents. Its outcome is binding for three years, after which a
second round is to be held, should the population reject a mining
project.
Under these circumstances, the movement prioritises mobi-
lisation of communities before the installation of a mine, as a
preventive measure. Outside the playing field of the mining
industry, another arena is created where the communities involved
have greater autonomy. The movement strategy is to promote
independent public assemblies, in which communities vote
against mining, pressuring their local governments to declare
their municipality free of mining. They exercise political pressure
at the municipal level – mayors or candidates are called upon to
ratify the outcome of the public assembly, for example by turning
mining into a key issue in upcoming municipal elections.
The new strategy has proven successful, resulting in over 20
municipalities being declared free of mining15 through referen-
dums held in cabildos abiertos (public assemblies): sometimes
recognized by their local governments but without legal validity as
yet. Considering that the Mining Act explicitly states that ‘no
territory can be declared permanently free of mining’, however, it
remains to be seen what legal validity and lasting political impact
these declarations have. For the moment, declaring territories free
of mining has a powerful symbolic and political importance by
reconceptualising the territory as the arena of struggle against
dispossession and strengthens popular power against that of the
state (Yagenova and Garcia, 2012: 158).
8. Conclusions
The case of Honduras shows how the ‘extractive imperative’
plays out beyond the region’s countries governed by the ‘New Left’.
In Honduras, an initial, gradual shift to the left under Zelaya was
accompanied by a series of measures that restricted mining.
Similarly, in neighbouring El Salvador popular pressure led the
government to suspend all metallic mining exploitation conces-
sions. In Honduras, however, this shift was reversed through a coup
by conservative interests. Since then, mining has again become a
spearhead of the national development plan, albeit under neo-
liberal policy, in which revenues are largely invested in police and
military rather than in poverty reduction programmes. As mining
has become securitised, the rural poor in general and environ-
mental defenders in particular are increasingly perceived and
treated as security risks by pro-mining actors.
The new and unprecedented mining boom in Honduras is met
by social mobilisation to resist mining – a mobilisation that
advanced rapidly and adapted to the evolving situation. As avenues
for progressive legal reform were closed with the 2009 coup, the
movement resorted to direct mobilisation at community level. This
mobilisation was effective in countering the discursive pro-mining
campaign of the industry and the state. What is worrying about the
case of Honduras is that the success of the anti-mining movement
at community level has meant a hardening of the strategies
deployed to extend the mining frontier. As shown, these strategies
have included pre-empting community consultation, repression of
community protest and the use of violence against activists.
Organising public referendums as a means of avoiding the formal
consultation process is telling about the Honduran situation. These
cabildos abiertos have become an important mobilisation mecha-
15
Including Santa Bárbara, Atima, Colinas and San Francisco de Ojuera in Sánta
Barbara; Chinaclas and San José de la Paz in La Paz; Belen Gualcho in Ocotepeque;
Yorito y El Negrito in Yoro; Juticalpa y Olancho in Olancho; Danlí and Teupasenti in
El Paraíso; Jesús de Otoro in Intibuca; and Saba in Colón.
 N. Middeldorp et al. / The Extractive Industries and Society 3 (2016) 930–938
nism and a symbol of political resistance. Both law and lawlessness
favour the extractive industry, rendering true consultation impos-
sible. Despite the movement’s adaptability and ability to mobilise
and resist, the drive to extend the mining frontier is ongoing
and facilitated by criminalisation, repression and the threat and
use of violence directed at resistance leaders. Writing on the role
of violence as a means of claiming resources, Peluso and Lund (2011:
34) pose that ‘extensive and destructive violence is likely when
the resources are either in great abundance or have great economic
or strategic value’. Honduras figures as an example of how violence
is repeatedly used to enforce mining and other resource exploita-
tion projects. Repression is an integral part of the expansion of
the mining industry, visible among both national companies and
multinational companies partaking in CSR protocols. These
corporations benefit indirectly and directly from the repression
of social protest. The industry’s reliance on private security
companies and state security institutions to ‘clear its path’ is
especially problematic: military and police are deployed as security
guards on these projects, not as neutral forces promoting the rule
of law.
Using Melucci’s concept of ‘counter-movement’ allows us to
understand the dynamics of conflict at the mining frontier. In this
light, the violence used by state and non-state actors to enforce
mining expansion is not only the result of the attractive
opportunities of mineral extraction nor a random type of conduct
by some companies but a policy devised with the deliberate aim of
breaking resistance movements. Additional studies in this direc-
tion are needed to understand these counter-movements at the
mining frontier and to formulate a critique of the extraterritorial
legal responsibilities of transnational mining companies that
resort to or benefit from the use of violence.
Acknowledgements
We are greatly indebted to the director of ASONOG, José Ramon
Ávila, as well as ASONOG’s staff and members of the MNIGR for
their continuous support during the fieldwork phase of this
research. We thank the anonymous reviewers for their critical and
constructive feedback on earlier versions of this paper, which were
key to help us improve it. We are grateful to Barbara Hogenboom’s
feedback and support throughout the process. We acknowledge
the financial contributions from the research project “Collective
Action around Disaster Risk Management in Central America”
funded by ICCO/KerkinActie in the framework of the IS Academy
Human Security in Fragile States, and theSociology of Development
and Change group at Wageningen University.
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