The World Bank has been heavily criticized by its own ombudsman for breaching protocol in its funding of the Marlin Project, a $45 million gold mine project in San Miguel Ixtahuacán and Sipakapa, Guatemala. According to an August 22 article in the Financial Times, the ombudsman drafted a report accusing the International Finance Corporation (IFC), the arm of the World Bank that made the loan, of failing to allow sufficient time to conduct an ‘informed consultation’ prior to establishing the mine.
"The IFC should have considered more systematically the potential risk on human rights at the project level," according to the Financial Times, quoting the report. Glamis Gold, Ltd., the Canadian company building the mine, has maintained that the Marlin Project has full support from the indigenous Maya and Sipakapense residents, and the IFC has previously said it believes Glamis to be a good corporate citizen. But many local citizens remain violently opposed to the mine, which is speculated to cause major environmental damage and "ruin the agrarian way of life" in the region, according to Reuters news service.
