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 latest controversy involves the use of water from the Rancheria
River that the mine uses, which according to satellite images, has a flow that
dries after passing through the Cerrejon mine, which uses 35 million liters of
water per day (the equivalent of the supply 3 million people).
As demonstrated by the journalist Gonzalo Guillén by
recording a documentary on La Guajira, the situation of water supply is
critical to the indigenous population. While the place has always been a desert,
the few scarce water sources that communities depend on are now completely dry.
The question is: where did the water go so suddenly?
In one of the most disturbing scenes of the documentary,
titled “El Rio que se robaron” (The river that was stolen), an indigenous
leader is taken to the dam of El Cercado, which, according to the Wayuu,
prevent them from going to talk to the administration without a warrant signed
by the President of Colombia, Juan Manuel Santos. From a nearby hill, an
indigenous woman, outraged by seeing the water in the dam, repeated, "I
did not know the water was here, here's all while our animals die."
The experts consulted by the documentary agree in saying
that this dam, which is used to irrigate rice crops agribusiness and the
Cerrejon mine with the remaining flow of the river, are responsible for this
environmental and humanitarian catastrophe.
The result has been that, according to a report by the Defensoría
del Pueblo, "a significant number of children, mostly Wayuu, has died in La
Guajira department in recent months".
Cerrejón representatives consulted say, of course, that the
allegations are untrue. They say the Cerrejón hardly uses any water from the Río
Ranchería, and that the little that employs does not affect the flow; also,
they claim, their projects supporting indigenous communities are many and very
successful, and that their presence has brought enormous benefits to
communities and the Department of La Guajira; that the problem of La Guajira is
corruption, not the mining project; and the only environmental damage they have
caused is the contamination of air, although it is minimal and will soon be resolved.
He adds, by way of explanation, that all human activity affects the
environment.
Carolina Sáchica Moreno, from the legal office of the
Universidad Jorge Tadeo Lozano, has supported the representative of the
Association Shipia Wayuu, Javier Rojas Uriana, in preparing a request for cautionary
measures of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.
If the Commission decides in favor of the Wayuu communities,
as it must, according to the history of similar relief granted to the Indians
of the Xingu River basin, against Belo Monte hydroelectric project in Brazil,
the Cerrejón should discontinue the use of Rancheria River water, obliging them
to release the water from the dam El Cercado. This will happen until experts
determine how much water can be used for agribusiness and mining projects
without the indigenous communities dying from thirst.
It is unfortunate, but predictable, that national
authorities have been unable to protect the fundamental rights of communities
against the greed of big farmers and the country's most influential mine.
Written by: Santiago Villa
Translated by Rancheria River
Article in Spanish at http://rio-rancheria.blogspot.com/2015/03/medidas-cautelares-para-proteger-el.html
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