Report of the Canadian delegation to Colombia to participate in the public hearing on the oil company Pacific Rubiales Energy under the auspices of the People’s Tribunal on the Natural Resource Extraction Industry in Colombia
August 2013
This summer the PASC and members of the Red de Hermandad y Solidaridad con Colombia (Redher - Colombia Friendship and Solidarity Network) will be organizing a Popular Tribunal against Colombia's extractive industry policies.
An Amazonian tribe has sent an urgent appeal to shareholders of Canadian-Colombian oil giant Pacific Rubiales to protect the lives of uncontacted Indians in Peru, whose survival is threatened by the company’s work on their land.
In an urgent video message Salomon Dunu, a member of the Matsés tribe, said, ‘Our uncontacted brothers live in the forest, we have heard them many times so we know they exist… Tell the world that the Matsés are firm in our position against the oil company. We do not want it on our land.’
A thick fog flows over the eastern range of the Colombian Andes. Here and there, the constant wind lifts the clouds to reveal lagoons, cloud forests, and páramo, an Andean alpine ecosystem known as a “mountain-top sponge” for its massive water-holding capacity. Descending lower into the Upper Magdalena Valley, about 400 kilometers southwest from Bogotá, rural communities farm a wide variety of fruit and vegetable crops, and raise animals that not only sustain families, but help feed Colombia´s major cities.
At times masked beneath decades of paramilitary repression and hidden behind headlines about Colombia’s armed guerrilla armies, Colombia’s mass movement has survived against all odds. It is now reemerging into the light of day, seemingly without notice in the international press.
On November 9, Colombia’s President Juan Manuel Santos seemed to retreat in the face of a massive nationwide student strike that has lasted since October 12. Santos offered to withdraw his “educational reform” bill from the Colombian congress and sit down to negotiate with the student movement.
Firms involved in Colombia's mines must be more transparent about the payments they make and the way they are governed.
Approximately 4,000 employees of Colombia's Pacific Rubiales oil company went on strike Monday after labor and wage negotiations failed.
Colombia Reports | Friday, 14 October 2011 15:42 James Bargent
In the department of Meta, mostly around the town of Puerto Gaitan, there are some 12,500 subcontracted workers labouring in terrible conditions for companies such as Pacific Rubiales, Ecopetrol, Secolsa. The working conditions are so poor that they violate both ILO conventions and Colombian national law. During July workers began a series of protests to achieve improvements in their work conditions.