Dec
Defending Natural Resources, Rights for Youth and Women
Mesa Frente a la Mineria Release: Assassinations continue, Dec. 27, 2009
The National Roundtable Against Mineral Mining
San Salvador, December 27 2009
The assassinations of those opposing mining projects continue.
The environmentalist Dora Alicia Sorto Rodriguez, was assassinated yesterday at 3:30 in the afternoon, in the town of Trinidad in Sensuntepeque (Cabañas).
This crime occurred only a week after the murder of Ramiro Rivera Gomez, another leader in community resistance to the projects the Canadian mining company Pacific Rim, in Cabañas.
Sorto Rodriguez was gunned down when she was returning to her house from washing clothes in a stream. Her two year old son, who she was carrying in her arms, was wounded in one of his legs.
Dora Alicia was pregnant and leaves behind six children. Her husband, Santos Rodriguez, also an opponent to mineral mining, was attacked last year but survived.
The murder of Dora Alicia Sorto Rodriguez, reveals the dangerous situation in Cabañas, where community leaders, journalists from Radio Victoria, representatives of NGO’s and religious leaders that oppose Pacific Rim’s projects are victims of attacks, death threats, disappearances, tortures and murder.
Including the latest there have been three environmentalists murdered: Gustavo Marcelo Rivera, Ramiro Rivera Gomez and Dora Alicia Sorto Rodriguez. All the crimes have gone unpunished, which could lead to more assassination of environmentalists in the region. Because of this, it is necessary that the Attorney General of the Republic and the Civilian National Police act immediately to find the intellectual and material authors of these violations to human rights.
