Xstrata mine protest reaches Dominican Republic’s National Palace

Santo Domingo.- Hundreds of people walked to the National Palace on Sunday to ask president Danilo Medina to halt the open pit mining by the Canadian company Xstrata-Falcondo at Loma Miranda, Central Mountains.

The protesters who set out from Independencia park, also demanded a halt to mining in other areas of Dominican Republic’s Central Mountains, the source of most of the country’s rivers.

Presidency Deputy chief of staff Henry Molina received a commission representing the protersters in the National Palace, where they delivered a document addressed to the President.

"The President has instructed the President’s Chief of Staff to receive every Dominican who has a grievance or for any action. The president will proceed to convey these documents to each pertinent agency for study and give his opinion as responsible leaders do," Molina said.

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In the document, read by Commission spokesman Domingo Abreu, the organizations note that there are 200 mining sites in the Central Mountains, the highest in the Caribbean. "It’s something to shock even the least sensitive conscience."