PLEASE SUPPORT THE STUDENTS, LECTURERS AND COMMUNITY OF TOLIMA SO THAT THE ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT OF THE CAJAMARCA MINE CAN BE RESEARCHED OBJECTIVELY AND INDEPENDENTLY.

 

Students and lecturers at the University of Tolima in Ibagué, Colombia, are voicing their strong opposition to the imminent signing of a contract with AngloGold Ashanti worth £500K/year to carry out the environmental monitoring of the Cajamarca La Colosa gold mine, currently in the exploration phase. AngloGold Ashanti, which was fined last year for not requesting all the necessary environmental permits for the exploration, is now stipulating that any research results must be kept confidential by the university, thereby jeopardizing the objectivity of the study. The projected site of the Cajamarca gold mine, in the central Colombian mountains, includes an area of forest reserve and 161 water sources. It is an important agricultural hub for the whole country. The results of the exploration so far indicate that the gold mine would be the largest in South America. Opencast mining exploitation, planned to start in three years’ time, would result in complete destruction of the ecosystem. The use of cyanide to treat the gold ore would inevitably contaminate water sources for a large area of the Tolima department. The Machín Volcano a few kilometres from Cajamarca presents a potential unimaginable ecological disaster for the region.

NEW THREATS ARRIVE ON THE 11TH AND 14TH OF DECEMBER 2010

The organizations signed below, denounce to the international and national community the reiterated threats against social and human rights organizations in the region. Threats which have been made in a systematic way, stigmatizing the work of human rights defenders. Between the 22nd October 2009 and the 14 December 2010, 11 death threats have been received, one as a fax, the rest as text messages sent simultaneously to all the organizations via mobile phone.

ARMY ASSAULT AGAINST WORKERS IN TAURAMENA, CASANARE

EMERGENCY PICKETS CALLED EVERY THURSDAY

Today (2 June 2010) at the hour of mid-day, a commando group of the National Army of Colombia equipped with combat arms burst in, leaping over a security grid at the installations of the Central Processing Facility of Tauramena, where they met workers affiliated with USO engaged in a peaceful protest.

S.O.S

ANNOUNCED MASSACRE IN THE MINING MUNICIPALITY OF SUAREZ, CAUCA, COLOMBIA

Santiago de Cali, 8th April 2010

Eight miners were murdered by armed men travelling in two vehicles and a motor bike. The killings occurred in a place known as “Alto de Ovejas”, a rural zone in the municipality of Suárez, department of Cauca, southern Colombia. The place where the massacre occurred is the upper part of the Ovejas river. It can be reached by a one and a half hour journey on foot.

Last October, Wayuu Indigenous leader Karmen Ramirez Boscan was in London as a guest of the Colombia Solidarity Campaign. She came to Britain for the AGM of mining multinational BHP Billiton, which is one of the three multinational owners of the Cerrejon coal mine (the other two are Anglo American and Xstrata. All three are listed on the London Stock Exchange. The largest shareholder in Xstrata is the private Swiss company Glencore.) Since returning to Colombia, Karmen and her colleagues have suffered threats from paramilitaries for their organisational work and their criticisms of the Cerrejon mine's operations. Karmen's organisation, Fuerza de Mujeres Wayuu, has issued the following Urgent Action.

Forwarded from Washington Office on Latin America     December 6, 2009

Dear Activists,

AFRODES USA and WOLA urge you to contact Colombian authorities immediately and urge them to take action to guarantee the safety of Afro-Colombian, Indigenous and human rights leaders in northern Cauca.

On December 4, Lisifrey Ararat of the Community Council of La Toma and the Black Communities Process (PCN) received a text message that stated:" Hp no decidan por la comunidad que si quieren los recursos, tienen 8 dias pasalir sigue la lista *** fin **. This translates into English as "Motherfucker don't decide for the community what they want. You have eight days to leave the area. The list remains active."

We denounce before the national and international community that on 24 November 2009 our comrade Luis Javier Correa Suárez received a call on a mobile phone assigned to him by the protection programme of the Ministry of the Interior and justice, the call came for the mobile number 312-8160930 and a man who identified himself as Arnold Jiménez told Javier Correa “you have until the 22nd to renounce, and there won’t be another phone call”, when he asked why the man replied “you know why, don’t play games, you know what I mean” and hanged up the phone.