The North Shore Colombia Solidarity Committee Blog

from Avi Chomsky

A great article from New Brunswick:

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THE LIVING DEAD

La Guajira and Belledune Pay the Price for New Brunswick Comfort and Complicity

By Tracy Glynn

“Their fundamental rights have been violated. These communities lack the most minimal

conditions necessary for a decent life. They seem to belong to the living dead,”

- writes Jairo Quiroz from the National Union of Coal Workers (Sintracarbón) after investigating

the living conditions in communities around the Cerrejón coal mine in Colombia in early

November.

NB Power consumes coal produced in the Cerrejón mine at its plant in Belledune.

Approximately 16% of the power in our province supplied through NB Power is

generated from what has been dubbed “Colombian blood coal.”

José Julio Pérez was a farmer from Tabaco, Colombia. Today, Tabaco and its homes,

farms, church and school do not exist. All that lived in Tabaco was destroyed for the

Cerrejón mine in August 2001. During the bloody displacement, some of Pérez’s

neighbours sustained serious and long lasting injuries after being beaten with clubs by the

police including a woman who intervened on a beating of her father.

Tabaco is not the only village that was illegally wiped off the map and those formerly

from Tabaco are not the only ones suffering because of the world’s largest open-pit coal

mine. Since the development of the Cerrejón mine in 1982, indigenous Wayuu and Afro-

Colombian communities in La Guajira have been forcibly displaced from their lands.

Traditional agriculture-based livelihoods have been destroyed with the loss of land and

industrial contamination. More communities face similar fates with the coal mine

expansion.

The multinational companies that have and currently own Cerrejón include ExxonMobil,

Glencore, Xstrata, BHP Billiton and AngloAmerican. While it welcomed the foreign

investors, the Colombian State dehumanized the local indigenous and Afro-Colombian

communities. The people who lived on top of the rich coal reserves were treated less than

human and became dispensable things. Their say in the development or destruction of

their communities did not matter. Atrocities against them including poverty, brutal

intimidation, beatings, jail sentences and the prospect of being killed were justified.

The disenfranchised communities were left to suffer the health consequences of breathing

bad air and drinking contaminated water. Similar environmental injustices also occur

inside New Brunswick’s borders like in Belledune where two smelters and ironically the

plant that burns the Colombian coal have contaminated the area. An incinerator that plans

to burn PCBs is now planned for the area but the citizens refuse to be further

dehumanized and contaminated. In the Conservation Council’s recent publication, Dying

for Development, author Inka Milewski exposes forty years of government neglect

concerning the contamination of Belledune by a lead smelter, now owned by Xstrata

which also owns part of the Cerrejón mine. A 2005 provincial health study revealed that

the community had a high death and cancer rate compared to other parts of the province.

Turning Up the Heat

José Julio Pérez visited many towns and cities in New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and the

United States in March 2006 to ask for support including NB Power's in expressing

solidarity with and demanding justice and collective relocation for the people who live in

the mining area. Solidarity can be as simple as receiving regular updates to stay informed

and vigilant of the situation in the affected communities, committing to exerting public

pressure (on the mine, on its customers, on government agencies in the home countries of

the mine or in the countries that import this coal), or traveling to La Guajira to act as

international observers and accompaniment when requested by the communities. The

Atlantic Regional Solidarity Network (www.arsn.ca) and the Fredericton Peace Coalition

(www.frederictonpeace.org) are currently organizing efforts on these fronts and can be

contacted for more information.

On October 17, representatives of ARSN and FPC as well as concerned individuals met

with NB Power while the UNB/STU Social Justice Society organized a demonstration

outside NB Power’s office to generate much needed media attention. The concerned

citizens asked that NB Power write a letter urging Cerrejón to respect and uphold

internationally recognized human rights and labour norms, and the collective rights of the

affected communities for fair relocation and reparations during its negotiation with the

union and affected community slated to begin in November. On November 14, NB Power

executive director David Hay sent a letter that included these demands to Cerrejón

President Leon Teicher. Francisco Ramirez Cuellar, a fearless union activist in Colombia,

responded to the letter from NB Power: “I want to tell you that it provoked a very strong

reaction on the part of the company…it is wonderful that the letter was written because

the company now is beginning to have to weigh very carefully what the consequences are

going to be if it continues to trample on the communities.”

Dr. Timothy Bood from Halifax and Dr. Tom Whitney from Maine visited Colombia in

early November and treated many people with medical supplies donated by citizens in

Fredericton, Halifax, Maine, and Massachusetts. Debbie Kelly in Halifax is selling handwoven

bags made by La Guajira women as a urgent fundraiser for the affected

communities. She writes: “while this may be a short term solution at best, it will at least

provide food for many who have little or no way for decent meals, especially for the

children and sick. Some only eat every three days and for the smiling little children, it is

hard to take. Even though their little body is racked in open sores from contamianted

water, they don’t cry.”

Meanwhile, an environmental justice campaign to prevent future Belledunes is underway

in New Brunswick by the Conservation Council. An Environmental Bill of Rights is

proposed to entrench the public’s right to know about environmental and health risks, and

to protect civil servants who "blow the whistle" on government inaction when it threatens

the environment and health of citizens.

North Shore Colombia Solidarity Committee