Meeting with Jeremy Corbyn MP.
Last week a group of 11 ejidatarios representing the El Bajío ejido, located in Sonora, Mexico, were in London, United Kingdom, to denounce the abuses of which they have been victims by the Mexican mining company Fresnillo PLC. In the El Bajío ejido we have engaged in a legal fight against this mining company since 2009, who invaded, destroyed and contaminated our territory to extract, according to their own reports, 236,709 ounces of gold whose approximate value is 436 million dollars.
With the support of the London Mining Network and London Mexico Solidarity, the tour was led and meetings were coordinated with members of the British Parliament, non-governmental organisations, law firms and the Mexican embassy in the United Kingdom.
The main objective of the visit was to demonstrate the inaccuracies present in the annual report and accounts of Fresnillo PLC and to demand that the company assume responsibility for environmental contamination caused by illegal mining activities in the territory of the ejido and that it comply with the sentences handed down by the Agrarian Court #28 located in the city of Hermosillo, Sonora, in 2014.
Meeting with Fabian Hamilton MP.
The MPs to whom the case was brought were: Jeremy Corbyn MP; Fabian Hamilton MP – responsible for Latin America-; Stephen Timms MP and the task force of Fiona Bruce MP, Conservative Party and Minister for Freedom of Religion and Belief. The non-governmental organisations with whom long and productive meetings were held: Amnesty International – UK; Peace Brigades – UK; Local Authority Pension Funds Forum and Transform Trade, an organisation that is already collaborating with the ejido.
For the common El Bajío, this visit to the United Kingdom a few days before the annual meeting of shareholders of Fresnillo PLC takes place, has undoubtedly been a fundamental activity in the dissemination of the struggle and the demand for justice. The delegates of Ejido El Bajío hope that the Mexican embassy in London will issue a public report in which it expresses its knowledge and concern about the case and they hope that Agrarian Court #28 will finally execute the 67 existing sentences in their favour, in order to achieve justice.
Meeting with the Mexican embassy in the United Kingdom.
Photographs: Giuliano Salvatore.