Colombia
Solidarity Campaign,
BM Box
Colombia Solidarity,
London WC1N 3XX
email: info@colombiasolidarity.org.uk
Sir John Parker, Chairman
and Mark Cutifani, Chief
Executive,
Anglo American plc,
20 Carlton House Terrace,
London SW1Y 5AN.
27 August 2013
Dear Sir John Parker and Mark
Cutifani,
We wish to express our outrage at
the planned expropriation of the old village of Roche in La Guajira, Colombia.
This expropriation is a violation
of the rights, dignity and wellbeing of the eight families remaining in the
village. The judge in San Juan del Cesar who authorised this act of violence
was acting at the request of Carbones del Cerrejon, in which your company owns
a one-third share.
Among the inhabitants of the
village are around fifteen children aged between one and fifteen years, ten
adult women and two elderly people.
This eviction is the latest
example of the systematic pressure and abuse which this community, along with
many others in the area, has been suffering over the past thirty years as a result
of opencast coal mining. The initial promise of development and improvement in
living conditions has been transformed into a reality of eviction and
impoverishment. Thousands of people have been displaced, and many who have
remained have suffered loss of livelihood and cultural impoverishment as a
result of environmental destruction.
The Colombian State has not
complied with the order of the Supreme Court of Justice of 13 September 2012,
which demanded that a process of prior consultation be undertaken in the area.
The forced displacement of Roche would be a negation of the community’s
constitutional rights and a threat to the community’s ability to make any kind
of living.
The eight families
remaining in Roche have resisted a process of relocation which has involved
inordinate pressure on residents to sell up at minimal prices and move to a new
community which has inadequate land for the cattle herding on which some of the
families have relied for their livelihood. Some of the residents of the new community
report that the economic development projects promised by Cerrejon Coal as a
replacement for agricultural work have been badly mismanaged by the company and
have left people in a state of need.
The way the
relocation has been handled has split the community. Negotiators for the
remaining eight families, and North American observers of the negotiation
process, report that officials from Carbones del Cerrejon have shown deep
disrespect for the farming families, refusing to take seriously many of the matters
which Roche residents have raised. It is this disrespect which has led to the
present stalemate. The company has responded to the stalemate not with a new
attempt at respectful negotiation but with legalised brutality.
The eight families at old Roche
are terrified that what happened at Tabaco on 9 August 2001 is about to happen
to them. Former residents of Tabaco, violently evicted on that day, were
scattered to various locations and their community life destroyed. Despite a
settlement with Carbones del Cerrejon after many years of struggle, the people
of Tabaco have still not been able to take possession of the new community
which they were promised. Depression and ill health have afflicted some of them
as a result.
The remaining
villagers at Roche were due to be forcibly evicted on Thursday 29 August.
Pressure from villagers and their supporters has led to the postponement, but
not the abandonment, of the planned eviction. What is needed at old Roche is
not forced displacement but a changed attitude on the part of company
negotiators so that a just settlement can be reached. We demand that the company negotiate
in good faith in order to come to an agreement, and not continue with the
expropriation.
Yours sincerely,
Andy Higginbottom,
Secretary, CSC.
