Exactly two years ago in this Mexican city, local groups set up a campsite to prevent the operations of ECOLTEC , a subsidiary of Holcim, which is accused of the death of eleven people who were poisoned by the pollution caused by the company.

In the past years, Friends of the Earth Latin America and the Caribbean (ATALC) has exposed the environmental impacts caused by the cement company, especially in Mexico, Guatemala and Colombia. In fact, in April of 2010, a lawsuit against the company was filed before the Permanent Peoples’ Tribunal held in Madrid.

Grace Garcia, from Friends of the Earth Costa Rica/COECOCeiba, told Real World Radio that Holcim currently controls over 80 per cent of the cement industry in Central America.

According to Garcia, one of the clearest examples of the business attempts to criminalize the resistance of communities is San Juan Sacatepequez, Guatemala, where Holcim has been accused of violating International Labor Organization’s Convention 169.

The organizations are therefore promoting a “week of action” to denounce the record of environmental destruction and violation of rights by Holcim, parallel to the company’s annual shareholders’ meeting taking place in Switzerland.

Holcim is a world leader in the extraction of minerals for the production of cement and aggregates, and of sand, limestone, gravel and other materials. The company is present in tens of countries, but it controls a quarter of Mexico’s 40 million tons of cement produced per year.

Photo: http://www.otrosmundoschiapas.org