[News] Community, Indigenous and Worker Alternatives to Transnational Mining

[Anti-Imperialist News]

Community, Indigenous and Worker Alternatives to Transnational Mining
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1515/1/

Written by Jennifer Moore
Wednesday, 08 October 2008

"We’re human beings and we deserve respect," 
exclaimed a municipal councilor from the 
Department of Guajira in northeastern Colombia.

Known as "the Forgotten Guajira" the councilor 
revealed the devastating impacts of Cerrejón, one 
of the largest open pit coal mines in the world, 
on surrounding communities that are principally 
indigenous and afro-descendent.

"It appears that when the state granted the 
mineral concessions to the companies that they 
also handed over our lives," he stated, referring 
to the imminent displacement of their people and 
lack of access to the River Ranchería that has historically sustained them.

The experiences of affected communities as well 
as small and medium scale miners were the focus 
of the Andean Forum against Large Scale Mining: 
Community, Indigenous and Worker Alternatives 
that took place in Bogotá from September 26th to 27th.

The forum is part of the struggle against the 
powerful transnational mining industry and was 
organized by the Hemispheric Social Alliance, 
roughly four dozen labour, indigenous, peasant 
farmer, small and medium scale mining, and 
environmental organizations participated.

Compounding social and environmental impacts of 
mining, numerous testimonies indicated the role 
of violence and repression - both state-led and 
private - to enable large scale mining expansion in the region.

But despite frequent persecution, assassinations, 
criminalization of protest, human rights 
violations and environmental destruction, 
companies enjoy impunity and favourable public 
policies, while communities like La Guajira face 
the bulk of the impacts and are often ignored by the state.

Since the mid 1990s, Latin America has been a 
major site of global mining expansion. Neoliberal 
policy development along the logic of free trade 
has been essential to its implementation.

International agreements and legal reforms 
promoted by the World Bank and various foreign 
governments in collaboration with friendly 
national representatives "put states in a bind, 
preventing them from being able to promote 
national development policies," says Executive 
Secretary Enrique Daza of the Hemispheric Social 
Alliance, "making countries dependent on foreign 
investment and international trade."

Ensuring that "transnational corporations are the 
major beneficiaries," he reflects, "Communities are the principle victims."

Luis Manuel Claps, journalist and editor of Mines 
and Communities, says that the profit-driven 
"compulsive consumption" of industrial mining of 
energy, minerals, water and other common goods is 
best characterized as "bulimic."

According to Earthworks, mining is responsible 
for up to 10% of world energy consumption and 
around 13% of global sulfur dioxide emissions.

It also produces tremendous amounts of solid 
waste. The same source also says, for example, 
that 79 tons of mine waste is generated for every 
ounce of gold. Quantity and quality of water 
supplies are also often both at risk.

Additionally, as a short term activity 
contemporary mines last on average between 10 and 
15 years and employ fewer workers as technology improves.

Claps adds that through company mergers and 
diversification into fossil fuel and agro-fuel 
production, in order to service their energy 
needs, that transnational corporations are 
becoming "extractive company complexes that 
require ever more energy, water, and territorial 
space causing cultural, environmental, political 
and social impacts that are frequently irreversible."

A point of entry

In Colombia’s experience, small and medium scale 
mining operations have been one notable site of 
conflict. Senator Jorge Robledo from the 
Alternative Democratic Pole says that one key 
objective of recent policy reforms was the 
"Abandonment, persecution and weakening of small scale mining."

Small scale mining in Colombia provides 
employment for about two million families and its 
mining code has been working against them.

Robledo indicates that their Ministry of Mines 
and Energy has expressed clear interest in 
"eradicating" small scale mining for being 
"illegal." However, he states, "It is not legal, but rather informal."

Several small and medium scale mining 
associations testified during the forum to the 
persecution and threats they are facing as part 
of attempts to undermine their activities and to 
make way for transnational operations.

A representative from the Colombian Federation of 
Gold, Silver and Platinum Miners challenged the 
common assertion that "large scale mining does 
not contaminate like small or medium scale 
operations." He also described how systematic 
delays inhibit small scale operations from 
fulfilling legal requirements while transnational 
companies move through bureaucratic processes with ease.

Another pointed out that local authorities are 
generally unaware of the overarching aim to displace their activities.

 From the Department of Bolívar, observations 
were made about how transnational corporations 
have used third parties to obstruct permitting 
processes and how paramilitary and state violence 
threatens workers and leaders.

Robledo proposed that national governments should 
invest in small and medium scale mining 
operations while ensuring strong environmental 
and fiscal policies promoting nationalization of 
mineral resources and national participation in mining activities.

The mining model

However, indigenous leaders from across the 
continent and from communities which are saying 
"no" to any type of mining, such as in Ecuador, 
urged an even deeper reflection on the nature of large scale mining.

Mario Palacios from the National Confederation of 
Peruvian Communities Affected by Mining 
(CONACAMI) commented that "The root problem is 
not just the laws, nor the constitutions, but 
rather the development model." He described the 
western model of development as "a culture of 
self-extermination" that is "putting human survival at risk."

Suggesting that Peru may be the current model 
upon which further mining expansion is being 
considered in Ecuador and Colombia, Palacios 
noted that despite Peru’s status as a major 
mineral producer that it is facing major impacts 
and a rising number of social-environmental conflicts.

Sixteen out of fifty rivers that flow from the 
Peruvian Andes are contaminated with heavy 
metals, he stated, and more than half of the 
country’s 6,000 highland communities are affected 
by mining. Despite this, the government continues 
deepening an already favourable legal framework 
to further guarantee protections for transnational mining companies.

For those who resist, he said in contrast, 
penalties have become increasingly stiff. 
Providing an illustration, he said that about ten 
years ago the penalty for blocking a highway in 
Peru was four years in prison. Now it can be up 
to twenty five years, surpassing penalties even for premeditated murder.

He and others expressed the immediate need to 
recuperate the Andean philosophy of life based 
upon concepts of "Good Living" and "to live well 
in harmony with Mother Earth and without 
destroying the land." They also prioritized 
recognition of indigenous rights and the right of 
local communities to free, prior and informed 
consent over possible mining investments.

Considering the future generations

"We are demanding respect for the lives of our 
peoples," exclaimed Salvador Quishpe, member of 
the Pachakutik Movement of Ecuador. He pointed 
out that his home country is in the unique 
position in which no large scale metal mining has 
yet to begin despite numerous projects in various stages of development.

After forty years as an oil producing country, he 
commented that people still need to strike "just 
to fix up the roads in areas of oil extraction." 
Now that oil reserves are running out, he says, 
mining is being presented as next solution for 
the Ecuadorian economy, but this "does not 
reflect the needs of the people and our ways of living."

Reflecting on various attempts to divide 
communities that are opposed to mining, including 
gifts, job offers and criminalization, he 
lamented the persecution that anti-mining 
activists are currently facing from their government.

The final declaration respected differences 
between countries like Ecuador where communities 
are resisting all forms of mining, and specified 
the relevance of proposals concerning small and 
medium scale mining to the case of Colombia.

Overall, however, agreement was expressed toward 
combating impunity of transnational corporations, 
the need for strong environmental and human right 
protections toward the aim of good living for 
all, as well as opposition to the whims of 
sumptuary consumerism of metals and metal products.

Finally, calling for "greater unity between all 
those resisting the devastation caused by large 
scale mining," the declaration expresses hope 
that this will be a step toward "bringing these 
experiences together 
 contributing to other 
actions at a continental level." The next Andean 
Forum is anticipated to take place in Quito, Ecuador in 2009.

The Bogotá  Declaration: Community, Indigenous and Worker Alternatives

Participants in the forum created the following declaration:

The Bogotá Declaration

Following a broad debate, peoples and indigenous 
communities from the Andean and Amazonian region, 
mining workers, small and medium miners in 
Colombia, together with social movements and 
fraternal organizations from Guatemala and the 
United States, who have coexisted ancestrally 
with mountains and clear waters according to ways 
of life founded on a good life for all that is 
both complementary and values reciprocity and who 
are today affected by mining and brought together 
by the Andean Forum in response Large Scale Mining, declare:

Considering that:

1. Peoples and communities of the Andean region 
are suffering the consequences of large scale 
mining operations by multinational companies that 
have caused extensive impacts on the environment, 
threatening to exhaust and contaminate our water 
supplies, and that destroys the soil, 
contaminates the air, degrades biodiversity and 
displaces communities, also jeopardizing our sovereignty and food security.

2. Many governments have granted natural goods, 
such as minerals, to the voracious appetite of 
these companies without demanding adequate 
conditions concerning the environment, labor 
standards and taxes, nor with regard to human 
rights whether economic, social or cultural; and 
that mining does not represent significant state revenue.

3. Throughout the region and the continent, 
affected communities and indigenous peoples have 
widely denounced the fatal consequences that 
mining has on life, Mother Earth and human survival.

4. Labor conditions within transnational mining 
operations are precarious and violate the right 
to health and the right to association for their 
workers, leading to degenerative illnesses.

5. Small and medium scale mining is persecuted 
and banned by several governments with the aim 
that foreign investors take control over their 
production; not recognizing, as in the case of 
Colombia, their contribution to local development 
which generates employment for two million 
families and causes fewer environmental impacts than large scale mining.

6. Protests against these situations have been 
repressed, criminalizing those who participate 
and violating the right to freedom of association and to protest.

7. Mining aggression is accompanied by regressive 
legislative reforms, dismantling of rights, 
paramilitarism and a range of political violence, 
as well as assassinations and persecution of 
thousands of popular leaders that defend the right to life.

8. Mining is a key part in the domination imposed 
through neoliberal globalization that aims to 
extend its reach through free trade (including 
Free Trade Agreements with the US, Canada, and 
the European Free Trade Association, as well as 
Association Agreements with the European Union), 
mega-projects (IIRSA, Plan Puebla Panamá) and 
bilateral investment agreements, as well as 
agro-fuels, transgenic crops, the export and 
extractive industry oriented economic model, 
leading to the abandonment of possible food 
sovereignty, sustainable development and 
self-determination of peoples and their 
alternatives for Good Living in harmony with Nature.

We resolve:

a) To call for continent wide action such that 
states, peoples and communities recover control 
over their territories, natural goods and 
biodiversity, respecting their various ways of life.

b) To strengthen and consolidate territories, as 
well as the social and productive strategies of 
peoples and communities based upon Good Living, 
autonomous development and economic relationships 
that are socially equitable, sustainable and 
respectful of inter-cultural differences, and as 
alternatives to the neoliberal model based upon 
economies that are reverting to dependency upon 
primary industry and mineral production; and that 
includes the struggle of indigenous peoples to 
recover and strengthen their cosmovisions and spiritualities.

c) To struggle for the recuperation and 
nationalization of control over natural goods by 
local communities, indigenous peoples, workers 
and citizens, as an alternative to privatization, 
plunder and de-nationalization.

d) To develop a popular movement across diverse 
spaces that includes the promotion of alternative 
public policies with regard to mining pertaining 
to prior consent, prohibition of the use of 
groundwater supplies in areas in which there is 
little rainfall, contamination, labor rights, benefits and others.

e) To build campaigns and actions through broad 
networks of indigenous movements, labor unions 
and social organizations uniting those affected 
by similar companies, including alliances with 
unions and leading to withdrawal of shareholders from parent companies.

f) To foster exchanges between various struggles 
through visits, tours, leader caravans, at both 
the national and international level.

g) Investigation and documentation of emblematic 
cases to be distributed as means of influencing 
public opinion and international political actors.

h) To support struggles currently taking place 
and to emphatically denounce the criminalization 
of social protest as is occurring in various 
cases in Colombia (Cerrejón, the Ranchería River 
dam, Marmato, Támesis, Cauca), Perú (Cerro de 
Pasco, Doe Run, Majaz, Antamina, Bambas, 
Yanacocha), Chile (Pascua Lama), Bolivia (Inti 
Raymi-Newmont, Sinch'I Wayra-Glencore, San 
Cristóbal-Apex Silver), Argentina (Bajo La 
Alumbrera), Ecuador (Intag, El Pangui, Cóndor 
Mountain Range, Northwest Pinchincha), Guatemala 
(San Miguel Ixtahuacán in San Marcos, Ixcán El 
Kiché, Polochic, Alta Verapaz, El Estor in 
Isabal, San Juan Zacatepeques), United States (Western Shoshone).

i) To show solidarity with popular struggles in 
Colombia including sugar cane cutters and legal workers.

j) To reject the criminalization, court processes 
and repression that popular struggles against 
mining throughout the continent are facing.

k) In the case of Ecuador, to call on its 
government to respect the decision of communities 
opposed to mining projects and to stop 
persecuting those who prefer Good Living over Mining.

l) To demand that the free, prior and informed 
consent of affected communities be binding and 
prioritized with regard to decisions pertaining 
to mining investments (in accord with Convention 
169 of the International Labor Organization and 
the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous 
Peoples) and that states adopt effective means 
for environmental control and to ensure adequate 
labor standards, community protection and 
redesign of projects including their possible 
suspension in cases where the lives of 
communities, the environment and regional 
development are at risk. And that states 
recognize the local votes that have taken place 
in various communities such as in the Majaz case 
in Perú and in San Marcos, Guatemala, as well as others.

m) To support the declaration of Colombian 
organizations in opposition to mining code 
reforms and proposals for change from small scale mining organizations.

n) To promote broad based alliances toward the 
use of international mechanisms pertaining to 
racism, indigenous peoples, the environment, 
water, human rights and others, presenting 
documented cases to the Inter American Human 
Rights Commission and Court, the United Nations 
and through Convention 169 of the International 
Labor Organization, and others.

o) To defend the autonomous decisions of local 
communities, whether to stop all mining 
investments or to prioritize national small and 
medium scale mineral production, such that 
sovereignty over development within countries be respected.

p) To promote and develop communication networks 
involving local alternative and community media 
to strengthen our voices at a continental level.

q) To develop legal actions toward the 
recognition of indigenous legal and 
constitutional rights; the creation of a tribunal 
to judge transnational corporations; advancement 
of constitutional changes to reestablish natural 
goods as common property and to create a legal 
observatory for indigenous peoples for the 
fulfillment of international agreements.

r) An awareness and action campaign against 
consumerism especially regarding sumptuary metals 
toward reduction of their demand and impacts.

s) To call for participation in the following days of international resistance:

* October 12th: Continent wide mobilization of indigenous peoples

* November 7th: Nationwide popular and labor mobilization in Colombia

* Organization of national referenda to declare 
water as a fundamental human right, such as is taking place in Colombia

* To promote a continent wide forum concerning 
indigenous and popular alternatives to large 
scale mining to strengthen networks and to 
establish a continent wide day of action

The struggles of Andean peoples against large 
scale mining projects by which their lives are 
affected are growing in strength and breadth. The 
Andean Forum in response to Large Scale Mining: 
Community, Indigenous and Worker Alternatives is 
step toward bringing these experiences together 
that we hope will contribute to other actions at 
a continental level; along the way, we call for 
greater unity to bring together all those who are 
resisting the devastation caused by large scale 
mining, including peoples who are directly 
affected, intellectuals and writers denouncing 
its impacts, lawyers - indigenous or not - who 
defend the rights of peoples, human rights 
organizations, unions acting in overall defense 
of human rights, small scale miners according to 
the particularities of each country and area, 
NGOs that respect the autonomy of our 
organizations for technical support; consumers 
who are challenging sumptuary consumerism of 
metals and alternative communication media.

Bogotá, September 27th 2008

Hemispheric Social Alliance

Coordinadora Andina de Organizaciones Indígenas - CAOI

Organización Nacional Indígena de Colombia - ONIC

Consejo de Ayllus y Markas del Qollasuyo - CONAMAQ (Bolivia)

Confederación Nacional de Comunidades del Perú 
Afectados por la Minería - CONACAMI

Confederación de Pueblos de la Nacionalidad Kichwa del Ecuador - ECUARUNARI

Federación Regional Única de Trabajadores 
Campesinos del Altiplano Sud Bolivia (FRUTCAS)

Coordinadora en Defensa de la Cuenca del Río 
Desaguadero y Lagos Uru Uru y Poopo-Bolivia - Coridup

Observatorio Latinoamericano de Conflictos 
Ambientales - Caso Pascua Lama (Chile)

Red de Veedurías de Colombia - Redver

Movimiento Pachakutik del Ecuador

Convergencia Nacional Wakib Kej (Guatemala)

Western Shoshone People (United States)

Consejo de Pueblos de la Comunidad San Marcos (Guatemala)

Organización Indígena Yanama

Central Unitaria de Trabajadores de Colombia - CUT

Unión Sindical Obrera - USO

Sintracarbón, Cerrejón

Pueblo Shuar Arutam del Ecuador

Asamblea de los Pueblos en Defensa de la Naturaleza - Ecuador

Coordinadora de defensa del nor occidente de Pichincha (Codecono)

Asamblea Nacional Ambiental de Ecuador

Ecuador Solidarity Network - Canada, United States

Comunidades en Resistencia del Consejo de Pueblos del Occidente - Guatemala

Resguardo Indígena Cañamomo Lomaprieta Rio Sucio Supía Caldas

Organización Indígena Wayuu de Mayabamgloma

Asociación de Mineros del Bajo Cauca

Asociación de Mineros del Nordeste Antioqueño

Corporación por la Defensa de los Derechos Humanos del Nordeste Antioqueño

Grupo Cívico de Nanmatu

Asoguayabal - Asociación de Artesanos y Alfareros Barrichara

Sindicato Nacional de la Industria del Carbón - Sintracarbón

Red Colombiana de Acción Frente al Libre Comercio - Recalca

Instituto de Investigaciones y Estudios 
Energéticos de Trabajadores de América Latina y el Caribe - Ieetalc.

Funtraenergética

Sintramienergética, seccional El Paso

Sintracerromatoso

Federación Colombiana de Mineros del Oro, Plata y Platino - Fedoro

Federación Agrominera del Sur de Bolivar, Fedeagromisbol

Corporación Aury Sará

Centro de Estudios del Carbón y la Gran Minería

Federación de Mineros de Santander - Fesamin

Organización Colombiana de Estudiantes - OCE

Federación de Areneros y Balasto del Eje Cafetero

Ecuador Decide

La Chiva - Canada

Comités de las minas El Caño, La Esperanza, San 
Martín y La Vega de San Martín de Loba

Centro de Estudios del Trabajo - Cedetrabajo

Congresistas del Polo Democràtico Alternativo: Orsinia Polanco, Germán Reyes y

Jorge Enrique Robledo.





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