Six thousand people, as agreed by the Government Delegation and the organizers, the Save the Mountain Platform, took to the streets in Cáceres this Sunday to once again reject the lithium mine project.
The march has traveled through the main roads of the capital of Cáceres – Cánovas, San Pedro, Gran Vía – until it ends in the Plaza Mayor, where a manifesto has been read in which “the struggle of more than seven years” has been valued. against the project. “We will defend Cáceres in the streets and we will defend Cáceres in the courts,” they have warned.
The platform has been pleased with the good response to this call, since it almost doubled the number of attendees at the first demonstration against the mine, which took place on February 3, 2018, when this group denounced the polls carried out in the Valdeflórez valley. the company Extremadura Mining SL, a subsidiary of the Australian company Infinity Lithium, and a municipal ruling ordered its suspension for exceeding the minor works license granted.
The demonstration started at noon from the Plaza de América with a banner at the head that read ‘No to the mine in the Mountain of Cáceres’. There was no political representation in that head, only members of different groups, such as Save the Mountain, AmA Cáceres and the delegate of Hispania Nostra in Extremadura, Alejo Hernández Lavado.
The regional leader of Unidas Podemos and deputy in the Assembly of Extremadura, Irene de Miguel, did participate in the call, along with the municipal spokesperson for the purple party in Cáceres, Consuelo López. In statements to EFE, regarding the fact that there has been no participation from other political parties with institutional representation, De Miguel has attributed it to the fact that there are no elections now. “When there are elections there are more parties here. But we have always said it and we have not changed our opinion: the mine project goes against the future of Cáceres,” she stressed.
De Miguel has also asserted that “business and economic benefits cannot be put before the well-being of citizens, as has been done, for example, in Valencia,” and has insisted that the mine “is a danger to the heritage and to the future of this city.” He has also referred to the controversial municipal technical report that revealed its formation, which is “devastating” and which says that the project “is incompatible with the Municipal General Plan (PGM); It was kept in a drawer and another one was ordered to be made, as dictated, so that the mine could finally see the light and have the green light in the “Junta” of Extremadura.
The spokesperson for Somos Cáceres, Raquel Iglesias, also participated in the demonstration, without municipal representation, and slogans were chanted directed at the mayor of the city, Rafael Mateos, and the president of the Extremadura Regional Government, María Guardiola, both from the PP, urging them to “defend their city.”
Another of the banners read ‘Illegal mine next to the hospital’, in reference to the 1.5 kilometer distance that separates the mining site from the Cáceres University Hospital. ‘No to the mine in Sierra de Fuentes’, a municipality bordering the capital of Cáceres, and ‘They have been deceiving us for years and hiding information about the project’ read other banners.
Also ‘Water for life’, which urged the Tajo Hydrographic Confederation (CHT) to recognize the existence of the Calerizo aquifer, which anti-mining groups warn is in danger from the exploitation of the deposit. ‘We don’t play with our health’, ‘Cáceres wants its Mountain’ and ‘Cáceres doesn’t want a mine, neither open pit nor underground’, alluding to the mining company’s old project, already discarded, to exploit the open pit deposit.
The platform has highlighted the participation of people of “all ages, who have taken to the streets this Sunday”, to tour the city center with various groups, a batukada and even groups that have performed performances, with gas masks and even an artist, José A. Secas, who has locked himself in a methacrylate urn at the doors of the town hall with PPE and ‘no to the mine’ signs.
Finally, in its manifesto, Save the Mountain has directly accused the mining company, Extremadura New Energies (ENE), of not coming “head on.” It seems like a joke to the people of Cáceres,” because it is a project with “many more shadows than lights.”
And they have reminded the company that the CHT has indicated in a report “that it is not going to grant it water because it is going to spend twice what they had stipulated”, in addition to demanding from the Board “light and stenographers on this veiled project.”
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