The Mazamorras Gold mining project, owned by Canadian multinational Gran Colombia Gold, and directed by ex-Colombian Foreign Affairs Minister María Consuelo Araujo, is located between the municipalities of Arboleda and San Lorenzo, in the Department of Nariño, Colombia. The company is currently moving ahead with mining exploration activities, which has created an environment of chaos and confrontation in and around local communities.
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In the provincial reserve in the jurisdiction of the Barrancas municipality in the department of Guajira, from November 18th to 20th, 2011, we consider the issues that have arisen as a result of the request for permission to expand the Cerrejón mining project, as well as the impacts from this project's open pit mining activities for the las 35 years in La Guajira. Especial attention was drawn by the active participation during these meetings on the part of traditional autorities, women, youngsters and children.
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Regulators, investors, and communities are increasingly aware of the potential environmental and social harm associated with open-pit mining projects. Local-level conflict is now commonly associated with proposed and operating mines as community members struggle to protect economic and social values of importance to them, to assert the right to refuse a mine, or to advance claims on mining companies for damages. In response, mining companies seek partnerships to help them secure a so-called social license to operate and manage risk to reputation.
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The emergence of the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC) represented the largest and most violent paramilitary group in the country, funding its murderous activities by means of the immensely enlarging ongoing drug trade. The Colombian government enacted Decree 128 and the Justice and Peace Law to launch and subsequently monitor the demobilization process, which failed under the Uribe administration, and led to the emergence of neo-paramilitary drug gangs known as the Bacrims.
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Tim Martin Canadian Ambassador in Colombia Carrera #114-33, Piso 14 Bogotá Email: bgota-td@international.gc.caSent by electronic mail RE: Concerns arising from October 26, 2011 complaint from the Cañamomo Lomaprieta Indigenous Resguardo in Caldas, Colombia regarding free, prior and informed consent Dear Ambassador Martin,
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Diego Felipe was 16 years old, he was in 11th grade, loved painting- you can see his room and it's full of drawings and graffiti everywhere. He was out one night around 10 pm with some of his friends, a police car drove by. They were young and they obviously got scared and ran away, two boys ran one way and the other two ran in the opposite direction. The police shot into the air and chased the boys; unfortunately one of the shots hit my nephew in the back and killed him". Cristina Lizarazu testimony. Aunt of Diego Felipe Becerra, urban artist who died in Bogotá on August 19th 2011
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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.
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The people of Arboleda and San Lorenzo (Nariño), tired of constant aggressions and the lack of consultation on mining development projects in their communities, reject the presence of the multinational Mazamorras Gold.
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Colombia is the first Latin American country to become subjected to the theatre of United States anti-guerrilla warfare. Colombia has also one of the richest histories of revolutionary politics on the continent extending well over half a century. It is throughout this time, that Colombia has been the battleground of an undeclared civil war.
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Squeezed between the Pacific Ocean and the Andes, covered by thick, forbidding jungle and drenched by so much rain that it’s among the wettest places on Earth, the Colombian region of Chocó was described by the anthropologist Michael Taussig as “one of the most remote regions of the world.”
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