It is urgent to reform the Mining Law to increase punishments against companies that violate concessions

Andrea Becerril and Victor Ballinas

Newspaper La Jornada
Thursday June 16, 2022, p. 9

The decision of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador to file an international complaint against the company Calizas Industriales del Carmen SA de CV (Calica) for the serious damage to the ecology in Quintana Roo is highly relevant and creates a precedent for all mining companies and metallurgical companies that in other governments were allowed to act with impunity and pollute rivers, seas and land, said the senator from Morena, Napoleón Gómez Urrutia.

In an interview, the national leader of the Mining Union stressed that the federal Executive gave a “very clear message” in the sense that “Mexico is not a dump for national or foreign companies that pollute and create, as the President of the Republic himself pointed out, in the case of Calica, an ecological disaster.

Gómez Urrutia highlighted the need for a comprehensive reform of the Mining Law to force national and foreign consortiums to comply with their social responsibility and establish a stricter and harsher penalty for those who violate the conditions established in the concession that the federal government grants them. granted to exploit mining deposits and other natural resources.

Otherwise, we are risking the lives and health of the workers, their families and those who live in the locality where the company is located, and this country should not allow this.

He recalled that President López Obrador himself has expressed that private investment, whether national or foreign, is welcome, as long as it meets four requirements: respect for Mexican legislation, the rights of workers, the communities and the population where they operate. and, of course, to the environment.

In that sense, he insisted, it is The determination of the federal government to sue Calica and any company that pollutes the environment of our country, destroys the flora or fauna, is very correct.. It is a fact, he considered, that it must be taken into account by other companies that exploit their concessions in an inappropriate or irresponsible manner.

It is, he insisted, a direct message from the President of the Republic so that all businessmen begin to change the negative practices they used during past governments, in which all kinds of abuses were allowed.” He gave as an example of this the toxic waste spill in the Sonora River, which seriously affected 22,000 people, while Germán Larrea’s Grupo México did not stop operating for a day, an hour, or a minute and did not remedy the damage it caused.

Fortunately, Senator Gómez Urrutia added, the government of the Fourth Transformation is going to force the mining consortiums to act responsibly and respect Mexican laws; international courts will be resorted to, as in the case of Calica.