Citizens called upon to declare their support of the citizen's group Frente Amplio Opositor a la Minera San Xavier (FAO) and the people of the historic village of Cerro de San Pedro, Mexico. This 400-year-old heritage site is facing destruction and disappearance at the hands of Canadian transnational Metallica Resources Inc.

This declaration was written by members of the FAO present in Québec, Canada during the month of November, to denounce the environmental and cultural destruction of this historic village and the contamination of the air, soil and water of the nearby state capital, San Luis Potosí.

Signatures will be collected over the upcoming weeks, until we have enough to hand over the petition to the appropriate authorities in Canada and Mexico - accompanied by simultaneous media actions in both countries.

The text of the declaration can be read below, in English.

The declaration can be signed on line (see link below)

Note that the declaration posted online is in French. The English and Spanish versions are also available at:
www.ccdhal.koumbit.org/spip.php?article495

PLEASE CIRCULATE WIDELY !

Frente Amplio Opositor against Metallica Resources Inc. (Minera San Xavier)

C. Stephen Harper
Prime Minister of Canada

C. Felipe Calderón Hinojosa
President of Mexico

C. Jesús Marcelo de los Santos Fraga
Governor of the State of San Luis Potosí, Mexico

C. Rosaura Loredo Loredo
Municipal President of Cerro de San Pedro, SLP, Mexico

Madam, Sir,

We, the undersigned, members of civil society in Canada and the province of Quebec, present our total opposition to the illegal actions undertaken by the Canadian mining transnational Metallica Resources Inc. (Minera San Xavier) in Cerro de San Pedro, San Luis Potosí, Mexico. We find said mining company guilty of abusing the vulnerability of a local population and the corruption of the Mexican authorities: by having authorized without permission the implementation of its mining project; by having ignored the decision of the tribunals; and by engaging in invasive and destructive activities against the founding people of the state of San Luis Potosí through the use, for said mining project, of the method of open-pit mining and cyanide leaching in order to extract precious metals from rock. This method requires the daily use of several tonnes of sodium cyanide, thereby contaminating and devastating the surrounding environment.

We call upon the Prime Minister of Canada, the President of Mexico, the Governor of San Luis Potosí and the Municipal President of Cerro de San Pedro to use their respective powers to require the enforcement of the law, by respecting and valuing the resolutions of the highest tribunals of Mexico that have clearly and definitively called for the cancellation of said mining project due to its violation of Mexican judicial norms.

Even from far, we proclaim our solidarity with the energetic and pacific struggle undertaken over the past eleven years by the citizens of San Luis Potosí against this devastating project. We believe that the international courts have clearly recognized and upheld the judicial and moral arguments of these Mexican citizens; we are aware that the Frente Amplio Opositor against Metallica Resources Inc. (Minera San Xavier) has already won the legal battle before the tribunals. Consequently, we demand the immediate withdrawal of Metallica Resources Inc. (Minera San Xavier) from Cerro de San Pedro.

They are not alone. Their struggle is our struggle, even here in Canada.

**SIGN THIS DECLARATION (see link below)

To read more about the Cerro de San Pedro case, visit CDHAL's website:
www.ccdhal.koumbit.org/spip.php?mot=67&mot