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.