This was the place that Isidro called home

taken from the London Mining Network. See original here

Last Friday, 5 June, the expropriation of Isidro’s house in Roche Community took place . “It was a small house made of natural material, it didn’t take more than five minutes to tear down but it was the place that Isidro called home,” said one of the delegates.

On Thursday, after a long day of travel across La Guajira, visiting communities impacted by the Cerrejón coal mine as part of a Witness for Peace delegation, we met a woman named Doña Maria from the community of Roche, who came to us for help.   She had just found out that the police were planning to knock down her father’s house, probably the following day in the Roche community, where Cerrejón has already displaced the majority of families and resettled them in Nueva Roche.  Her father, Don Isidro, a  community elder, who was born in Roche and has live there for all 97 years of his life, was facing expropriation from the land passed down by his family.

Prior Consultation and Free, Prior, and Informed Consent at the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues 2015

By Emma Banks

Vanderbilt University

Between April 20-May 1, the United Nations hosted its fourteenth annual Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues in New York.  Representatives from state institutions, NGOs, indigenous advocacy groups, and other organizations from around the world gathered to discuss the future of indigenous people, and how the UN can incorporate the diverse indigenous agenda in its programs and policies.    This year was an especially important meeting as the UN’s Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) expire this year, and will be replaced by a new set of fifteen-year goals, which will be called the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).  The MDGs made no explicit mention of indigenous peoples, but the UN has since recognized the importance of indigenous voices in achieving development goals and protecting natural resources for years to come.  The UN must not only guarantee the participation of indigenous people in name, but also monitor and evaluate compliance with UN norms worldwide.  To this end, several organizations are experimenting with pilot programs to allow indigenous people to report on state, regional, and local compliance with the UN Declaration on Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP).  These programs are part of the UN goal to create more robust development indicators that disaggregate data on indigenous peoples to better understand their specific development challenges and needs in the future.

Free, Prior and Informed Consent: Protecting Indigenous Peoples’ rights to self-determination, participation, and decision-making

Taken from Cultural Survival, in http://www.culturalsurvival.org/publications/cultural-survival-quarterly/free-prior-and-informed-consent-protecting-indigenous

“Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC) is one of the most important principles that Indigenous Peoples believe can protect their right to participation. It is embedded in the right to self-determination. The duty of States to obtain Indigenous Peoples’ FPIC entitles Indigenous people to effectively determine the outcome of decision-making that affects them, not merely a right to be involved.” --UN Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples

Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC) is an emerging standard in the dialogue on Indigenous Peoples rights; some argue that it is becoming part of customary international law. At Cultural Survival’s recent board meeting in October, Stella Tamang (Tamang) from Nepal, Grand Chief Edward John (Tl’azt’en) from Canada, Vincent Nmehielle (Ikwerre) from Nigeria, and Nicole Friederichs weighed in on what this concept actually means in practice. They see FPIC as an important standard Indigenous people can use to claim their rights to self-determination, consultation, and participation in decision-making. Governments and corporations can no longer ignore these principles.

The community that dies from thirst

A three year old child died of malnutrition last Friday in Uribia, a town of Colombia located in the department of La Guajira, mostly inhabited by the indigenous population Wayuu. The lack of water in recent years has taken the lives of nearly 5,000 children, according to Javier Rojas, leader of the Association of Traditional Indigenous Authorities Shipia Wayuu Wayuu. The more than 400,000 people who make up this community live 365 days a year with temperatures between 35 and 42 degrees, without water. Since a mining company was installed more than 10 years in the region, there has been a decline in the possibilities to access the liquid. The deaths make clear the drama that is lived.

The case has already reached the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), which called on Wednesday the Colombian Government to explain what measures it has taken to address this community and follow up to any attempts they have made to solve the food crisis that also affects those indigenous peoples. At the end of the process, according to Carolina Sáchica, the lawyer handling the case on behalf of the Wayuu, they expect to recover the water from the largest water resource in the area, the Rancheria River, which was dammed for the exclusive use of companies expected engaged in coal mining.

Book exposing Glencore (one of the owners of Cerrejon)! and its human right, labor, and environmental violations

Swiss-registered Glencore is one of the world's largest companies in  the extractive industry. Glencore's many mines and mining projects have  violated human rights and labour and environmental legislation on  countless occasions. In May 2014, MultiWatch published "Milliarden mit Rohstoffen – Der  Schweizer Konzern Glencore Xstrata", a survey of Glencore's  controversial business practices and of the negative impacts of its  mining projects. MultiWatch now present the English and Spanish version of the book.
Download here:
English and  Spanish

Cerrejón mine in Colombia: can it address its human rights risks?

An interesting article discussing what Cerrejon thinks and plans for addressing the allegation of their human right violations. Is it enough to just inform their personnel about Human Rights Law? or to impose ways to deal with situations that are incommensurable, such as the use of territory in indigenous ancestral lands?

La Guajira only has a handful of formal petrol stations. Instead, drivers in this remote corner of north-east Colombia fill up at temporary kerbside stops, where a vendor stands with a plastic drum of contraband fuel and a shorn-off hosepipe.
Over the years, the state has earned a reputation as Colombia's Wild West. As well as pimpineros (petrol smugglers), its porous border with nearby Venezuela is a popular route for narcotic gangs and leftwing guerrilla groups. The region also bears the scars of Colombia's decades-long civil during which millions were displaced and an estimated 200,000 killed.

International Campaign to stop the diversion of the Bruno Stream

The Cerrejón coal mine in Colombia has already forcibly relocated thousands of people from local communities. Now the mine wants to divert one of the area's few rivers to access more coal - but it is one of the main sources of water for people in the area.
Local communities have joined forces with workers in the mine to stop the river diversion and protect the livelihood of people living in the area. Community opposition recently stopped the company from diverting the arid region's major river to get at 500 million tonnes of extra coal.

Cerrejón is owned by three massive mining multinationals listed on the London Stock Exchange: Anglo American, BHP Billiton and Glencore. Please tell them to respect community rights in Colombia and halt the diversion of the Arroyo Bruno river.

This is a joint action by a coalition of organisations working in solidarity with communities around Cerrejón.

Click here to sign and show your support

With the Article 22 of the National Plan of Development, the Drummond wins and the state loses.

The National Development Plan in Colombia which is pending in Congress, includes an article that seeks to automatically extend the contracts of mining contribution not agreed to have extensions.

This was denounced by House Representative for the Party of the U of the Department of Cesar, Christian José Moreno Villamizar, who said that the adoption of Article 22 of the Law Project on the National Development Plan, makes the Drummond, a coal multinational company operating in Cesar, wins and while the nation loses.

The parliament representative recalled that in mining matters the Colombian government signed the contract 078 1988, which does not express possibilities for extension.

Diverting the Arroyo Bruno: A Stupid Idea

Across the globe, governments, international organizations, social organizations, political parties, and civil society all worry about the impeding water crisis, which is no longer a far-off nightmare, but a real apocalyptic threat. 

The Obama administration proclaimed several years ago, “water is not only a health issue, not only an economic development issue, no only an environmental question, but also a security problem.”

María Otero, the Under Secretary of State for Civilian Security, Democracy, and Human Rights, emphasized that water, “would be the priority within the various issues on the agenda for foreign policy and national security from now on.”

The navigational map for this perverse hegemonic imperialist project is Intelligence Community Assessment on Global Water Security from 2012.

Public Declaration from La Guajira after Grand Forum for the defense of the Bruno Stream.

Communities, social and political organizations, environmentalists, workers of the Colombian mining and energy sector, handicraftsmen, indigenous people, students, educators, human rights defenders and other participants in the GRAND FORUM IN DEFENSE OF THE BRUNO STREAM, HEALTH AND THE ENVIRONMENT, held on 4 and 5 March 2015 in Riohacha, make public to the Colombian society and peoples of the world the following conclusions:

Carbones del Cerrejón Limited, in its P40 expansion project, which aims to "increase production from 32 to 40 million tons of coal per year starting from 2015" and in complicity with the government of Juan Manuel Santos, plan to divert the Bruno stream, one of the main tributaries of the Rancheria River. Since over 80% of La Guajira territory is semidesert and its water supply is very fragile, changing the course of this stream can result in the loss of biodiversity, accelerated and increased sedimentation, and severe alterations of evapotranspiration, and a probable death of the stream.

Departmental March on March 19 to defend the Bruno Stream

The Civic Committee for the Dignity of La Guajira invites everyone to all Guajiros to go out to march in March 19 to tell Cerrejon and the government of Santos that the people from La Guajira will not allow the change of the course of the Bruno Stream

Excerpt from Documentary in Progress The Cost of Power

Watch this excerpt of this great new documentary in progress about Cerrejon in La Guajira (bilingual)

Cautionary measures to protect the rights for water of the indigenous Wayuu people

This month we should know the decision of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights around the cautionary measures to be taken requested by the Wayuu communities that depend on the Rancheria River for their subsistence.

The situation that the Wayuu indigenous people have suffered for decades shows that it is false to think that extractivist projects generate prosperity for the communities living in the territories where they are held. La Guajira is coping with one of the worst humanitarian crisis in the country, a few miles from one of the most profitable mines in its history: El Cerrejón.

The People Behind the Coal: Delegation to Colombia

Witness for Peace

Colombia: The People Behind the Coal

Colombia is the largest recipient of U.S. military aid in the hemisphere, and also the country with the highest levels of official and paramilitary violence, including forced displacement, killings of journalists, trade unionists, and human rights activists.

Foreign corporations, many of which are engaged in the large-scale extraction of natural resources, benefit from this situation. They control Colombia's coal mines, which supply power plants in the United States while generating immense profits for mining companies. These corporations have been accused of serious human rights violations, displaced entire communities, exploited workers, and destroyed natural environments.

This delegation meets with human rights activists, trade unionists, members of Afro-Colombian and indigenous communities, and others affected by coal production in Colombia. We will explore how we as consumers can work in solidarity with communities and organizations in Colombia to hold corporations accountable for human rights.

June 01, 2015 - June 08, 2015

Total Cost: $1300 plus airfare

Total due: May 01, 2015

Deposit: $150

Deposit due: April 01, 2015

Click here to apply for this trip.

Download Delegation Flyer

For more information about this delegation, please contact:

Delegation Coordinator

Avi Chomsky

978-542-6389

achomsky@salemstate.edu

Delegation Coordinator

Steve Striffler

479-283-4795

striffler@hotmail.com

Grand Forum for the Defense of the Bruno Stream, Health, and the Environment

Attend or follow the conclusions of this Grand Forum in La Guajira which will discuss how irresponsible and unfeasible it is to divert the Bruno Stream, based on the expertise of many scholars and the experience of local communities historically affected by Cerrejon.

"Fuera Cerrejón de la Guajira" Memoria, reflexión y acción colectiva (Spanish) "Cerrejon, go away from La Guajira" Memory, Reflection, and Collective Action

Watch a short documentary in Spanish about how Cerrejon has impacted La Guajira, tricking, polluting, and impoverishing the region.

Diversion of the Bruno Stream in La Guajira. An environmental absurdity

Once again, it appears that coal mining became an environmental, economic and social scam for a region that expected welfare and progress coming from the exploitation of large mineral reserves, stored for millions of years. The mining-energy locomotive that pulls out the important minerals of the zone is also carrying the hopes of a people who looked for mining extraction a boost for development that would bring decent work, growth and modernity and social transformation.

The results of more than 3 decades of exploitation show another thing: Coal production is equivalent to 61% of regional GDP, but which employs only 3% of the economically active population; a notorious environmental degradation, destruction of tropical dry forest, contamination of surface and groundwater, disappearance of many tributary streams of the River Rancheria, and population displacement as people are forced to leave their ancestral villages to give place to mining. Poverty, drought, violence, poor health and insecurity are notorious in a territory that is generously endowed by nature.

FOR THE WAYUU, THE ARGUMENTS TO DIVERT THE BRUNO STREAM ARE MERE STORIES TO DECEIVE FOOLS!

The Wayuu communities settled on the banks of the Bruno Stream and other social organizations gathered on Saturday February 7 in the ancestral ranchería of Paredero, of the Municipality of Albania, La Guajira. The objective of this meeting was to discuss the claims of Cerrejón that, with the complicity of the government of Juan Manuel Santos, wants to divert the Bruno Stream, one of the tributaries of the Rancheria River, with the sole purpose of the increase of profit of multinational corporations. As a result, we give the following public communique form La Guajira, Colombia:

For the Wayuu, the water, as it is the Bruno Stream, means the veins of Wounmain - Our territory - that is in charge of fertilizing the cultural riches, including what allows us to have food sovereignty and life itself.

26th of February: Departamental March in Defense for the Bruno Stream

The purpose of diverting the stream Bruno by the multinational company Cerrejón generated a unison reaction various social sectors of La Guajira. Unions and the Civic Committee for the Dignity of La Guajira unveiled their resolution to conduct a series of activities, in order to visibilize the feeling of the Guajira community regarding this event. For February 7, unionists and The Civic Committee are calling traditional authorities, governors and indigenous Wayuu leaders to a meeting In Paredero in order to hear the position of the indigenous people, and coordinate the participation of the ethnic groups in the mobilization for the defense of water and life.

For February 19, there will be a departmental Union plenary, while on February 26, there will be a march in defense for Bruno stream.