Five environmental activists who helped secure a historic mining ban in El Salvador are facing life imprisonment for an alleged civil war-era crime, in a case that has been condemned by UN and legal experts as baseless and politically motivated.
The trial against Miguel Ángel Gámez, Alejandro Laínez García, Pedro Antonio Rivas Laínez, Antonio Pacheco and Saúl Agustín Rivas Ortega, who were arrested in January 2023 for the alleged killing of an army informant in 1989, opened on Tuesday in Sensuntepeque, in the department of Cabañas in northern El Salvador.
The case has proceeded in almost total secrecy amid widespread allegations of legal violations – and repeated calls for the charges to be dismissed from UN experts, and hundreds of international lawyers, academics and rights groups.
The defendants, who were at the forefront of a 13-year grassroots-led campaign to ban metal mining to protect the country’s dwindling water and farmland from further contamination, were arrested amid warnings that President Nayib Bukele was planning to overturn the 2017 historic law.
The five anti-mining activists had denounced suspicious land sales and mining interests operating in the area when arrested, accused of murder and illicit association over an alleged crime during the 1979-1992 civil war.
“This case has no legal basis, but we fear that the lack of judicial independence and the Bukele government’s desire to overturn the metal mining ban risks the five environmental leaders being subjected to a terrible miscarriage of justice,” said Pedro Cabezas, coordinator of the Central American Alliance Against Mining.
“The five are respected community leaders, and sentencing them to inhumane prison conditions would be a death sentence.”
The five activists are among more than 70,000 people detained since Bukele declared a state of emergency and suspended basic rights after a surge in gang violence in March 2022.
Since sweeping to power in 2019, Bukele and his allies have taken steps to “effectively co-opt democratic institutions”, replacing independent judges, prosecutors and officials with political allies, according to Human Rights Watch.
In a letter to the government in March 2023, a group of UN special rapporteurs and the vice-president of the UN working group on arbitrary detention, said: “We fear that the case is an attempt to intimidate those who seek to defend the environment in the country, and especially those who defend human rights from the negative impacts of mining.”
Bukele’s interest in mining is part of a broader effort to secure international investment for industries that include bitcoin, tourism and fossil fuel exploration – which environmental experts say risk generating forced displacement, social conflict and water shortages.
Bukele has implemented a series of institutional changes including the creation of a new agency to oversee extractive industries, the Energy, Hydrocarbons and Mines Directorate, which this year was given a budget hike while most other departments faced cuts.
Experts say the case against the five activists should never have gotten this far.
According to pre-trial hearings, the state’s case appears to rely on the testimony of one person, who first claimed to have witnessed a killing but then later said he had heard about the incident from someone present. No body or weapon has been found.
In what was perceived as a show of support for the activists, Canada, Germany, France, the UK and the EU sent representatives to pre-trial hearings. The Biden administration has remained silent despite 17 members of Congress condemning the arrests and urging the secretary of state, Antony Blinken, to join calls for the charges to be dismissed.
International legal experts have argued that the arrests violate El Salvador’s national reconciliation law, passed after the 1992 peace accords that ended the 13-year civil war that claimed 75,000 lives – mostly civilians killed by the US-backed dictatorship and rightwing death squads.
The activists were all leftwing FMLN combatants when the crimes are alleged to have taken place. The military has never faced justice for the human rights violations and crimes against humanity in Santa Marta, the community in Cabañas where the five detained defenders live and work.
“If there is any justice left in El Salvador, these five will be freed and the charges dropped. Or the public will see that Bukele has no respect for either human rights or the environment in El Salvador,” said John Cavanagh, director of the Institute for Policy studies, a Washington-based research and advocacy group.
The five leaders, who are over 60 and suffer from a range of chronic medical issues, spent nine months in overcrowded cells without access to lawyers, family, or adequate food and medical care, before being transferred to house arrest. They have since been confined to their homes, unable to farm or work, causing them further psychological distress, according to friends.
“For over a year and a half these human rights defenders have had this case hanging over their heads. It’s astounding that it has progressed this far despite any evidence of the defenders’ guilt,” said Mary Lawlor, UN special rapporteur for human rights defenders. “I’ll be following what happens in the trial closely. It should be an opportunity for the judge to put an end to the ordeal and let the defenders move on with their work and lives.”
The president’s office did not respond to requests for comment.
The trial is scheduled to last three days.
