The North Shore Colombia Solidarity Committee Blog

(sent
by -- Avi
Chomsky)

----------

From
Richard
Solly, a Colombian solidarity activist in London, U.K.

Reflection on the December 2008 agreement between Cerrejon Coal and
the Tabaco Relocation Committee

by Richard Solly

The signing of an agreement between Cerrejon Coal and the Tabaco
Relocation Committee is historic and truly welcome. According to
Armando Perez, the Committee's legal adviser, the agreement contains
most of what the community has been demanding since the brutal
eviction of the inhabitants of Tabaco and the demolition of their
village in late 2001 and early 2002.

This agreement has been achieved through the dogged determination of
the people of Tabaco and the organisational capacity of the Tabaco
Relocation Committee. But it has been assisted by alliances with
others within and outside Colombia. The involvement of Mines and
Communities member group Yanama was key. It was Yanama's President,
Remedios Fajardo, who first brought to international attention the
devastation being caused by the Cerrejon mine. Remedios Fajardo and
Armando Perez helped to create a network of organisations in the
countries where the mine's multinational corporate owners have their
headquarters - the USA (where original mine operator Exxon Mobil is
based), Australia (BHP Billiton), Switzerland (Xstrata) and the
United Kingdom (Anglo American).

Among the elements of the campaign of support for the people of
Tabaco have been the following:

* A series of legal cases brought in the Colombian courts,
culminating in a legal victory for the people of Tabaco in the
Colombian Supreme Court in May 2002 - but this decision has remained
scandalously unfulfilled by the Colombian authorities.

* Regular attendance at the London AGMs (annual shareholders'
meetings) of Anglo American and BHP Billiton by supporters or
representatives of the community and, on two occasions, by Colombian
trade union representatives, to insist that Cerrejon coal accept the
community's demands for relocation and compensation.

* Campaigns in the USA and Canada to ensure that electricity
generating companies buying coal from Cerrejon put pressure on
Cerrejon Coal to come to just agreements with communities affected
by the mine's operations.

* Support for the community's demands by SINTRACARBON, the mine
workers' union at El Cerrejon, and inclusion of community demands in
union negotiations with the company.

* Numerous speaking tours in North America and Europe by
representatives of Yanama, the community and the union, organised by,
among others, North Shore Colombia Solidarity (USA), Colombia
Solidarity Campaign (UK) and Aktion Schweiz Kolumbien (ASK)
(Switzerland), and involving public meetings, meetings with
Government officials and members of legislative assemblies.

* Publication of material about the community's struggle on the MAC
website and numerous other websites and in printed form, particularly
through the work of Professor Avi Chomsky of Salem State University.

* Protests and letter-writing campaigns to the multinational
companies involved.

* The bringing of a complaint against BHP Billiton to the Australian
National Contact Point of the Organization of Economic Co-operation
and Development (OECD) for breach of the OECD's voluntary guidelines
on involuntary resettlement of communities by BHP Billiton at El
Cerrejon, brought by South Australian lawyer Ralph Bleechmore.

* A similar complaint brought by ASK to the OECD's Swiss National
Contact Point concerning Xstrata's role at El Cerrejon.

The OECD complaints seem to have been the last straw for Cerrejon
Coal's multinational owners, who established in mid-2007 an
Independent Panel of Inquiry into the Cerrejon mine's impacts. The
Panel, chaired by John Harker, Vice Chancellor of Cape Breton
University in Nova Scotia, made a number of recommendations about
changes in mine management. Cerrejon Coal accepted the
recommendations, and the agreement with the Tabaco Relocation
Committee is one of the fruits of this.

The agreement has the potential to lead to the reconstruction, on
adequate agricultural land, of a new community of Tabaco for those
who wish to live there, and the rebuilding of people's livelihoods.
But it is essential that supporters of the people of Tabaco continue
to monitor implementation of the agreement to ensure that it does not
simply gather dust like the Supreme Court decision of May 2002.

Furthermore, other communities - Tamaquitos, Roche, Chancleta and
Patilla - still face relocation and need solidarity in their own
negotiations with Cerrejon Coal. The company must accept those
communities' demands concerning community membership and the quantity
and quality of the land to which they are to be moved, and ensure
that, in the period before relocation takes place, the livelihoods of
all members of those communities are protected.

As well as this, the SINTRACARBON workers are currently (late
December 2008) in the midst of negotiations with the company over pay
and conditions. Cerrejon Coal must accept all the demands which the
union is making. Prominent among those demands are the conditions of
subcontracted workers, who do not enjoy the same rights and
conditions as directly employed workers. Prominent also is the issue
of worker health. The company continues to resist SINTRACARBON's
entirely legitimate demand that work involving prolonged exposure to
carcinogenic substances be categorised as hazardous, because this
would mean that the company would have to make the increased social
security payments required by Colombian law so that workers could
retire earlier.

Those of us who have accompanied the Tabaco Relocation Committee in
its struggle can rejoice that collective perseverance has at last
brought a measure of justice. But, to echo a well-known mid-twentieth
century British Prime Minister, this is not the end. It is not even
the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the
beginning.

The struggle continues!

---

posted by Alan  # 3:45 PM