So after an hour's sleep on Wednesday morning, we arose at 5.30am to head to La Toma, near Suarez, to meet the afro-descendant community there. We left El Mesón by chiva bus, accompanied by a Guardia 50 strong. They accompanied us down to the river Cauca, where we took a boat downstream to Suarez. This part of the Cauca river was dammed in 1984-6, in the midst of a ream of incompleted impact assessments by the government. This raised the level of the river by 350m, flooding huge swathes of the most fertile land in the Cauca valley, causing displacements of thousands of campesinos.
Arriving at Suarez, I think the best way to explain what's happening there is by reproducing this Urgent Action. If you have time, please help by sending an email with the demands to the emails below.
From the human rights team of the Process of Black Communities and other organisations:
6th August is the date fixed for the eviction of the black community in La Toma, in the Suárez municipality in north Cauca, Colombia. La Toma´s Afro-descendant inhabitants have been declared ´squatters in bad faith´ in a legal possession order taken out by Raúl Fernando Ruiz Ordoñez and Jesús Sarria. Yet the presence of black communities on these lands dates from 1636, since when they have worked small gold mines which is today the only means of subsistence for hundreds of families.
The black community´s territory in La Toma district consists of 7,000 hectares, some 6,500 hectares of which, including the cementary, are sought by Anglo Gold Ashanti for exploration purposes. The company has found a fast-track to an immediate start to operations, via two mining concessions together making up 403 hectares. They are concession EKE-151 (314 hectares) held by Raúl Fernando Ruiz Ordoñez, and concession BFC 021 (99 hectares) held by Héctor Jesús Sarria. Neither of these concession holders are linked with the community, nor have they carried out any mine exploration or exploitation activities. Rather, in the light of the known interest of Anglo Gold Ashanti, these two gentlemen have initiated a legal process of expropriation that will stop the afro-colombian miners from developing the work that they have carried out for generations in this district.
Anglo Gold Ashanti and the Canadian owned company Cosigo Resort have been pressurising to take over other territorios in Suárez, and the neighbouring municipalities of Buenos Aires and Santander. None of the moves by these mining corporations respect the the right of the black communities to consulta previa (previous and informed consent) the guarantee set out in ILO Convention 169, as recognised by Colombia´s constitution, and elaborated in Law 70 passed in 1993.
This is not the first wave of evictions from this region. Back in the 1980s the construction of the nearby La Salvajina dam and reservoir system displaced hundreds of families to the urban slums of Agua Blanca in Cali and other cities. The environmental, economic, social and cultural impacts of this hydroelectric project have still not been addressed by the operating company CVC (Corporación Autónoma Regional del Valle del Cauca) or the Colombian state. In 1994 the Salvajina project was taken over by Energía Eléctrica del Pacifico-EPSA (in turn owned by Spanish multinacional). EPSA tried to divert the Ovejas river that runs by La Toma in order to augment Salvajina´s gnerating capacity.
Before Salvajina, the Afro-Colombians native to this region sustained themselves through fishing, agriculture, la balsería and mining; after the dam´s construction much of the best farming land was flooded under the reservoir, there were also drastic climate changes both of which led to a crisis in traditional farming. For most of the black community the only remaining means of making a living was through artesanal gold mining. Besides the predicted environmental impacts from the opne cast mining that Anglo Gold Ashanti and similiar multinationals want to undertake, this artisanal mining would disappear and the black communities would be displaced entirely from their territories.
In Judgement No 005 of 2009, Colombia´s Constitutional Court stated a number of transversal factors tending to cause the displacement of afro-colombians including structural exclusion, the pressures generated by big mining and agriculture, and the deficient legal protection for the collexctive territories of the black communities. The Constitutional Court drew special attention to the situation of the black communities who are the ancestral inhabitants Buenos Aires and Suárez as an emblematic case; these communities are a clear and living example of the risks pointed out by the Court of the vulnerability of territorial rights, the loss of social and cultural control by the communities, the violation of their right to previous consent, and the absence of registration of ancestral territories that even now have not been recognised as collective property titles.
The Constitutional Court ordered that there be effective participation of the communities, and set in motion a plan of monitoring that would take into account the general factors and the specific risks identified in its judgement 005. The Court ordered that the territorial rights of the afro-colombian communities be protected through the design of a plan to be implemented by 30 October 2009, characteising the lands as ancestral territory, of ethnic signficance and part of the patrimony of these communities. The artisanal gold mines constitute one of the last common goods still conserved by the black communities of northern Cauca. Their eviction from La Toma would be one more link in the historic chain of unjust expropiations that should be blocked by determined action by all the communities. We call on all Afro-Colombian organisations, leaders and other social sectors nationally and internationally to take action to demand:
1. That the Colombian Ministry of Mines and Energy revokes the mining concessions EKE-151 held by Raúl Fernando Ruiz Ordoñez and BFC 021 held by Héctor Jesús Sarria, on the grounds that has not been previous and informed consultation with the black communities living on these territories..
2. That the Ministry of Mines and Energy definitively stops the order to evict the black communities of the Corregimiento (district) La Toma, located in Suárez municipality in the north of Cauca department.
3. That the Ministry of the Interior, Justice and Social Action immediately fulfils the the Constitional Court Judgement No 005, by formulating an action plan of attention and protection of these communities, putting in place the measures organised by the Court to protect the territory and the patrimony of the communities.
4. In the case of any process concerning the exploration and exploitation of mining resources, and other projects and political or
administrative measures that might affect the black communities, the application of Consultation with Previous, Free and Informed Consent in accord with ILO Convention 169 and the national Constitution.
5. That the Ministry of the Interior adopts measures for the protection of the life and security of community leaders in the region.
RECOMMENDED ACTION / ACCION SOLICITADA
Please send to the following emails a personal message with the above demands:
- Minister of the Interior and Justice, Fabio Valencia, fabiovalencia@mij.gov.co
- Minister of Mines and Energy, Hernán Martínez, menergia@minminas.gov.co
- Address for matters relating to Black, Afro-Colombian, Palenquera and Raizal communities, Rosa Carlina García, drnegrasafroraizalypalem@mij.gov.co
- Human Rights Director of the Ministry of the Interior and Justice, Rafael Emiro Bustamante, dhdirector@mij.gov.co
- Vice-Minister of Justice, Miguel Antonio Ceballos Arévalo, vicejusticia@mij.gov.co
- Vice-Minister of the Interior, Viviana Manrique Zuluega, viceinterior@mij.gov.co
- Secretary General of the Ministry of the Interior and Justice, María del Pilar Serrano Buendía, sgeneral@mij.gov.co
Translated by Colombia Solidarity Campaign. Campaign adds please also send a brief message with the above demands to the Colombian Embassy in the UK.
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