[EF! Newswire editor’s note: The following piece is an adapted translation from a Radio Macondo FM broadcast transcribed by <a href="http://www.conflictosmineros.net/contenidos/10-colombia/17396-violencia-policial-para-imponer-mineria-en-landazuri"
target=”_blank”>OCMAL. It expresses the current situation in Landázuri, Columbia where the mining industry is trying to extend slimy fingers into the region’s vibrant territories. Local campesine (“e” is being used as a gender neutral replacement) communities are focusing shared sentiments of opposition on direct retaliation. As a result of their defiance, not only are the they facing continual repression under the country’s police unit, Esmad, but they (especially if they are seen as an “organizer” of the movement) are also being threatened by assassination, such as in the case of Pedro César García Moreno who was killed back in November. Regardless of the raw escalation of militarization, communities remain cohesive, exercising self-defense for the sake of protecting their relations with surrounding life.]
The implementation of mining policy is undeniably tied to irreversible environmental, social, cultural, and economical degradation. The bulldozer does not rest. Even amid community festivities, the machines menacingly advance.
Since three in the morning on Friday, December 26, a group of around forty agents from Escuadrón Móvil Antidisturbios (an anti-riot squad also known as Esmad), have been actively present in the area of Río Blanco, a municipal of Landázuri within the province of Vélez. They came with the intention of guarding the entry of the mining operation from local opposition and shepherding the onslaught of heavy machinery.
To defend the Velez province from the mining industry is to defend campasine culture and the territory–it is to defend life.
With this surging in their veins, the campasine communities are actively opposing the arrival of the equipment, declaring that the mining activity is contradictory to the region’s agricultural rhythms. Esmad, however, has reacted to the inhabitant’s open refusal to support the project by indiscriminately assaulting them with tear gas, rubber bullets, and stun bombs. Several local beings have already been injured after being labeled as intruders in their own homeland.
According to information shared by the leaders of Río Blanco, 15 motor bikes that were being utilized by the campesinos have been seized by Esmad and other affiliated authorities. With the bikes being one of the inhabitants’ only modes of long-distance transportation, they were quickly reclaimed by locals and returned to their original site. Some are preoccupied that the inhabitants’ refusal to comply will only be used to justify any future abuse towards the community and to help compile lawsuits against the campesino leaders, which has already been exercised in similar situations.
Machines are also utilizing the community’s small metal bridge that was not built to sustain their brutal weight, making it dangerous for the locals to cross its weakening frame. I demand that authorities heed to the integrity and life of the Rio Blanco community. I demand that they open investigations about Esmad’s unjust treatment towards the campesinos and that their misuse of power is used as evidence against their presence. I will also reach out to the environmental authorities so that they can review the so-called environmental licenses that are being issued, as they have been found to be violating the law enacted in 1959, which was supposedly drafted with the intention of restricting privatization and requiring the transparency of impact statements.
As the constituent of the campesine movement and the senator of the republic, I firmly express my solidarity with the Rio Blanco community whose inhabitants and environment face the tangible risk of being shadowed and contaminated by the mining sector.
We announce, join, and support the defense of the Velez region. We stand with the campesinos and their agricultural ties.
To autonomous communities! To the inhabitants resisting the disintegration of their surroundings! To the wild!