Photos here.

Pacific Rim Mining executives Barbara Poisonwell and Thomas Snake are joined by shareholders for a toast to U.S. Rep. Jim McDermott (D-WA) as protesters look on

SEATTLE – Dozens of demonstrators marched from Westlake Plaza to the office of Rep. Jim McDermott (D-WA) on Thursday afternoon to protest the Congressman’s ongoing refusal to endorse a trade policy reform bill currently before the Congress, and to disrupt a press conference held by Pacific Rim Mining Corporation honoring McDermott for his support of free trade.

Representatives of several Seattle-area unions, environmental groups, churches and other community organizations lined sidewalks on both sides of 7th avenue between Olive and Stewart Streets in front of McDermott’s downtown Seattle office, chanting and holding signs in support of the “TRADE Act,” a bill that would overhaul existing free trade agreements and set standards for future pacts.

Meanwhile, before a backdrop of golden balloons, a dozen executives and shareholders of Pacific Rim, a Vancouver, B.C., gold mining company, held a press conference thanking McDermott for his refusal to support trade policy reform. Pacific Rim is currently suing the government of El Salvador for hundreds of millions of dollars under the provisions of the Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) after that country nixed a proposed gold mine on environmental and public health grounds. If it were to become law, the TRADE Act would eliminate provisions in U.S. trade agreements allowing corporations to challenge environmental protections with lawsuits.

Pacific Rim CEO Thomas Snake praised McDermott’s “bold inaction” on trade policy reform, and thanked him for his “bravery in standing up to keep trade policy as it is – with corporate profit as the bottom line.”

At the close of the ceremony, Pacific Rim executives and their supporters toasted McDermott with hearty gulps of “Pacific Rim Mineral Water,” which the company had unveiled just moments earlier. The water, tainted with cyanide and heavy metals that threaten to contaminate El Salvador’s rivers and ground water as a result of gold mining operations, immediately had dramatic, negative health repercussions for the well-dressed corporate crowd that ingested it.

Pacific Rim executives collapse in front of Rep. McDermott's office after ingesting their own new mineral water

With the mining CEOs’ and shareholders’ expired bodies littering the sidewalk, activists seized control of the podium and called for McDermott to support the TRADE Act, and for Pacific Rim Mining to drop its lawsuit against El Salvador.

Addressing the crowd, Kristen Beifus, Director of the Washington Fair Trade Coalition, said that the Pacific Rim CEOs had died due to “their own greed, and U.S. trade policies that encourage them to put profit over health and safety. We are here to demand respect for the environment, workers rights and human rights in US trade policies. Rep. McDermott, co-sponsor the TRADE Act now! Pacific Rim, drop your lawsuit against El Salvador now!”

Proceedings in Pacific Rim’s lawsuit against the government of El Salvador are scheduled to begin on Monday at the World Bank in Washington, D.C. It is unclear how Thursday’s self-inflicted poisoning deaths of the company’s CEO and other top leadership will affect the case.

CLICK HERE to download the Fall 2009 Seattle CISPES newsletter. Contents include:

• CISPES launches anti-mining campaign
• A personal reflection on the election of Mauricio Funes
• Solidarity Cycle recap
• Seattle hosts CISPES National Convention