This week, a delegation from Mexico, including representatives from El Bajío ejido, located in Sonora, Mexico, will be in London, United Kingdom, to denounce the abuses against them by the Mexican mining company Fresnillo PLC. An ejido is a community with a particular status under Mexican law, giving them rights over common land. El Bajío ejido has engaged in a legal fight against this mining company since 2009, which invaded, destroyed and contaminated the community’s territory to extract gold and silver for an estimated value of c. 500 million GBP.
Fresnillo Plc is a mining company based in Mexico. Since 2008, its shares have been traded on the London Stock Exchange in the UK. Fresnillo plc is the world’s largest producer of primary silver and the largest gold producer in Mexico. Fresnillo has mining operations in Sonora and Zacatecas in Mexico, and also has about 20 exploration projects in the country. The company plans to expand its operations in Latin America, especially in Peru and Chile.
In 2007, the Penmont mining company, a subsidiary of Fresnillo, began exploration in Sonora. The company offered 16,000 Mexican pesos (about £640) for mining rights to the ejidatarios. Two years later, Penmont opened the Soledad-Dipolos mine, citing a property title issued by the Secretariat of Agrarian Development for part of the Ejido territory. However, this title was never ratified by the Ejidal Assembly. As a consequence, in 2009, five ejidatarios filed an agrarian dispute. Despite this, in 2010 the construction of the Soledad-Dipolos mine began.
In 2011, Agrarian Court No. 28 ruled in favour of the ejidatarios. The Penmont mining company, however, began to illegally exploit the territory. In 2013, the community managed to stop the illegal mining activity with the support of the Federal Police, and part of the territory was recovered. Later that year, 67 Ejidatarios filed 67 identical agrarian disputes in the same court.
In 2014, the Agrarian Court ruled in favour of all 67 Ejidatarios and ruled that the company must vacate the occupied land and return the extracted gold to the rightful owners of the Ejido. Among other points, the sentence requested that the company repair the environmental damage caused by gold extraction. The company has refused to comply with this sentence and has launched various legal actions to take ownership of the land.
Since 2014, the Ejido community has alleged that company officials have been linked to the use of armed force in attempts to intimidate them. The community has reported death threats, disappearances and deadly violence against its members, which the community considers to be connected to their opposition to the mine. Read our 2022 briefing “Life is worth more than gold” about the alleged human rights violations.
Alongside the delegations from Mexico, we have attended the AGMs in 2022, 2023 and 2024, and challenged the management to address the Ejidatarios’ demands for justice. The company has however continually failed to address the fundamental issues.
This year we will be in the AGM meeting again, alongside representatives from Transform Trade and ShareAction, and a delegation of journalists from Mexico. Stay tuned for the report!