Tuxtla Gutierrez, Mexico - A Canadian-owned mine at the centre of a dispute over the slaying of a Mexican mining activist has been shut down for environmental reasons, authorities said on Tuesday.
The mine operated by Blackfire Exploration in southern Mexico near the Guatemalan border "was closed because it was affecting the environment," Chiapas state's environmental department said in a statement.
Authorities accused the company of building roads and changing land use without authorisation as well as polluting.
No one answered the phone at Blackfire's headquarters in Calgary, Alberta, late Tuesday to comment on the state's order.
The closure came 11 days after the Nov. 27 killing of anti-mine activist Mariano Abarca Robledo, a slaying that fellow activists blame on mine officials.
Chiapas authorities did not link the closure with the killing. Blackfire has denied any involvement in the killing.
Abarca had long opposed the mine. But in September he upped the stakes when he led local residents in blocking an access road to the open-pit mine in Chicomuselo township where Blackfire extracts barite, a nonmetallic mineral used in oil drilling projects.
The blockade was intended to press demands for $235 000 that residents of a nearby hamlet said they were owed for ore taken from land outside the company's concession area.
With jobs at stake, the conflict grew heated.
Anti-mine activist Enrique Murias said Tuesday that Abarca feared for his life and had told police that Blackfire mine executives threatened him.
"Authorities didn't do anything about it," Murias said.
Chiapas state prosecutors have detained three mine employees in the investigation of the killing, but no charges have been filed, spokesperson Hector Flores said.
Flores said two of the men worked as drivers and translators for Blackfire executives and the third drove a truck for the company. At least two of the company's executives have been called for questioning but they have yet to talk to investigators, he said.
The southern state of Chiapas was opened to mining concessions about 10 years ago by the federal government. The leases, mostly held by Canadian firms, have been challenged by residents who are concerned about environmental damage and say they have a right to the land.
- AP