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Author: Admin | 2025-04-28
The Oakland Institute's research team visiting impacted Miskitu communities living beside the Rio Coco River. Image: The Oakland InstituteNicaragua’s deepening authoritarianism has made international headlines in recent weeks with the arrest of “26 political opponents and pro-democracy actors, including six presidential contenders, student activists, private sector leaders and other political actors” by the government of President Daniel Ortega and Vice President Rosario Murillo. Media reports rightly note the collapse of any semblance of electoral democracy in the country; however, the role of North American and European gold mining companies in sustaining and exacerbating Nicaragua’s regime goes unreported.The corrupt alliance between the Ortega government and mining companies has fueled the incessant violence faced by the Indigenous and Afro-descendant peoples in the country’s autonomous Caribbean Coast region. And yet it remains unnoticed in recent media accounts. At the very same time that the widely reported raids on the homes of the country’s political elites took place, Indigenous people and peasants in the North Caribbean Coast Autonomous Region faced violence and forced displacement for the sake of the ever-expanding gold mining sector.Gold Mining: A Key Driver of the Colonization of Indigenous and Afro-Descendant TerritoriesAs exposed by the Oakland Institute’s 2020 report Nicaragua’s Failed Revolution, gold mining — alongside the cattle and forestry sector — is a key driver of the colonization of Indigenous and Afro-descendant peoples’ territories on Nicaragua’s Caribbean coast. Despite the recognition of these lands as autonomous territories by the country’s legislation, the Ortega government has heavily promoted gold mining since taking power in 2007 — both by its actions and omissions.Nicaragua’s investment agency, ProNicaragua, advertises that over 7.1 million hectares of land — 60 percent of the country’s landmass — are available for mining concessions. In 2017, it approved a law that opened 1.5 million hectares for mining concessions when sought in partnership with the state mining company, ENIMINAS. Within a month of this new law, the amount of Nicaraguan territory under approved or solicited mining concessions more than doubled from 1.2 million to 2.6 million hectares. Furthermore, the government has allegedly issued concessions in titled Indigenous and Afro-descendant territories without consultation and consent of the communities whose lands are at stake — a flagrant violation of Nicaraguan and international law.In the meantime, the value of Nicaragua's gold exports has increased dramatically in recent years — reflecting an expansion in production and rising prices. The entire mining sector, however, only
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