Peru and Colombia: Community self-defense against megaminerķa
Peru and Colombia: Community self-defense against megaminería
By Raúl Zibechi | 25 / July / 2014
When states act to facilitate the business of multinationals and leave communities unprotected, as with mining, those communities have no choice but to defend themselves by their own means–through self-defense organizations, mobilization of affected communities, or the creation of new ways to prevent dispossession.
Peru and Colombia are experiencing this situation today. Resistance to mining in the Andean region shows great vitality as in the opposition to the Conga gold mining project in northern Peru and in some regions of the Colombian Cauca. In both cases, local populations have managed to slow or reverse mining, always thanks to direct community action.
In Peru, Ollanta Humala’s government approved a package of measures to facilitate foreign investment. Even the United Nations thinks it could affect the environment. A letter from the UN’s Peruvian office to the chancellor stated “legitimate concern, on the part of the United Nations system, over the impact that the new economic measures might entail.”[1]The package of measures approved on July 12 is questioned for “cuts to the functions of the Environmental Evaluation and Supervision Agency (Organismo de Evaluación y Fiscalización Ambiental, OEFA), the specialized technical agency ascribed to the Ministry of Environment (Ministerio del Ambiente, MINAM).”[2]
The relaxation of the environmental control norms foreshadows the fact that the OEFA will only be able to issue sanctions in exceptional cases for three years. And whenever it does, it will have to appeal for corrective measures without imposing fines. If corrective measures are not met, the OEFA may impose fines, but only for 50% of current amounts. It is thought that this repression of environmental control “opens doors to the impunity of irresponsible industry.”[3]
More:
http://www.cipamericas.org/archives/12676