Rooted in thousands of pages of Access to Information documents and dozens of interviews carried out throughout Latin America, Blood of Extraction examines the increasing presence of Canadian mining companies in Latin America and the environmental and human rights abuses that have occurred as a result. By following the money, Gordon and Webber illustrate the myriad ways Canadian-based multinational corporations, backed by the Canadian state, have developed extensive economic interests in Latin America over the last two decades at the expense of Latin American people and the environment. Latin American communities affected by Canadian resource extraction are now organized into hundreds of opposition movements, from Mexico to Argentina, and the authors illustrate the strategies used by the Canadian state to silence this resistance and advance corporate interests.
About the Authors
Todd Gordon is the author of Imperialist Canada and Assistant Professor of Law and Society and Social Justice and Community Engagement at Laurier University.
Jeffery R. Webber is the author of Red October: Left-Indigenous Struggles in Modern Bolivia.
What People Are Saying
“This careful and comprehensive analysis of Canada’s economic policies and political interference in Latin America demonstrates in brutal detail the predatory and destructive role of a secondary imperialist power operating within the overarching system of subordination of the Global South to the demands of northern wealth and power. It also reveals clearly the responsibility of citizens of Canada and other dominant societies to join in the resistance of the victims to the shameful and sordid practices exposed graphically here.” - Noam Chomsky; “Gordon and Webber expertly show Canada’s role in supporting the rise of new, brutal forms of accumulation.” - Bhaskar Sunkara, Editor of Jacobin; “A vital new resource on a subject Canadians cannot ignore. Drawing on interviews, case studies and in-depth documentary research, this book is sure to become a key tool for activists, researchers and readers seeking to understand Canada’s evolving role in Central and South America.” - Dawn Paley, author of Drug War Capitalism
Table of Contents
Part I: Introduction
Velvet Gloves and Iron Fists
Part II: Central America
Authoritarian Capitalism: The New Normal in Honduras
Mining in the Wake of Genocide: Canadian Corporations in Twenty-First-Century Guatemala
Dispossession and Security in Central America
Part III: The Andes
Canada’s Evil Hour in Colombia
Agonies of Mineral Dependency in Peru
Tapping the Veins of Ecuador
Venezuela’s Threat of a Good Example
An Exercise in Cynicism: “Democracy” and “Security” in the Andes
Part IV – Conclusion
Expansion Continues, Resistance Persists
Notes
References
Index