The Marlin Mine is just reaching what Goldcorp calls the “heart of the ore-body.” The company has also found another high-grade gold and silver vein nearby. Goldcorp has years and years of profitable mining ahead of it in Guatemala.

But there’s more than cash costs to mining. Bishop Alvaro Ramazzini sees social costs.

“The community is very divided,” the bishop of San Marcos, Guatemala, told The Catholic Register. “One of the factors is the presence of mining operations, which is something unfamiliar to us.”

It’s been two years since Ramazzini has had a death threat because of his opposition to the Marlin Mine, but that doesn’t mean bitter divisions that in the past fueled violence have disappeared, he said.

“The conflict is still there,” he said. “People are still fearful — there is an atmosphere of fear. We don’t enjoy the same peace and tranquility that we used to in San Miguel.”

On July 7 a local Mayan anti-mining activist was shot in the face in front of her home. She survived. Another activist was attacked a week later. No one alleges the Vancouver-based Goldcorp sanctions the violence. It would seem an internal struggle in the community over the mine has something to do with it.

The people of the region don’t enjoy the health they once had, said Ramazzini.

In June the Guatemalan government moved to suspend operations at the mine in response to an Inter-American Commission on Human Rights report. It alleged cyanide from Marlin’s milling operations is finding its way into the drinking water. Goldcorp denies it is poisoning the water and continues to operate the mine despite the government order to shut down. A long legal process in Guatemala’s courts is likely.

The mine, located on traditional Mayan lands, has been a problem ever since a Goldcorp subsidiary began buying up property in the area, said Ramazzini, who was in Toronto in late September. The bishop alleges consultation with the local community, particularly the Mayan community, was inadequate.

“Coming into a great background of mistrust, a foreign company starts to buy up lands without telling anybody what it’s for,” he said.

“It starts using thousands of litres (of water) a day for its mining operations. This doesn’t help resolve things.”

The Marlin mine employs 1,900 people on a $23-million per year payroll. Sixty-four per cent of the employees are indigenous residents from San Miguel and nearby Sipacapa.

But violence and the health risks aren’t a situation any Canadian mining town would tolerate, says the Canadian Catholic Organization for Development and Peace. With one eye on the Marlin Mine, the Catholic development agency is urging Parliament to pass Bill C-300, a private members’ bill coming up for a final vote around the end of October. The bill would create a complaints mechanism that would allow anyone from an affected community, or any Canadian citizen, to initiate an investigation into human rights, labour and environmental abuses by Canadian mining companies operating outside Canada.

Bill C-300 sanctions against offending companies would be fairly minor — the loss of government backing for export financing and loss of consular services. But it’s important for communities like San Miguel to know their concerns matter to the Canadian people and that the Canadian government will take action, said Ramazzini.

“More than solidarity, for me it would be a sign of justice,” he said.

Ramazzini doesn’t blame Goldcorp for all his community’s troubles. Thirty-six years of savage, dirty warfare ending in 1996 have done much to erode the moral and cultural fabric of society, he said. The legacy of 500 years of colonialism in one form or another has produced huge gaps between rich and poor, and confined native Mayans to a permanent underclass.

“Guatemala is a racist society,” said Ramazzini. “There is a great deal of discrimination towards indigenous people and people who work the land. Always economic power has been in the hands of the descendants of the Europeans.”

No mine is going to undo that history.

“We’re trying to denounce everything that goes against human dignity,” said the bishop. “We are also trying to convince Catholics that being Catholic isn’t just about carrying out devotions. It’s also about having a certain coherence between faith and lifestyle. We’re trying to make people see that anything related to the economy has an ethical dimension to it.”

To which Development and Peace is saying “Amen.”

Over the past three years Development and Peace has persuaded half-a-million Canadians to sign postcards in support of responsible mining measures. Despite the scale of this support, C-300 only narrowly passed its second reading by a vote of 137 to 133.

The bill comes up for third reading and debate Oct. 26 and a vote could happen as soon as Oct. 27.

Goldcorp hasn’t shied away from its detractors, answering accusations that it has poisoned local water sources with independent assessments by the local environmental monitoring group Asociacion deMonitores Ambiental Comunitario.

Goldcorp has also hired On Common Ground Consultants Inc. to conduct an 18-month human rights assessment, and made the final report public on its web site at www.goldcorp.com/operations/marlin/hria.

“There are at least four levels on which Montana contributes to local development,” wrote Todd in an email to The Catholic Register. “Directly through jobs, services and goods purchased in country; directly through the community development supported by Montana; indirectly through economic multiplier from local direct economic activity of the mine; indirectly through the taxes and royalties paid to the national and municipal governments.”