Muriel Mining: modern conquistadores

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It was January 6 and we were in the Humanitarian Zone of Andalucia Caño
Claro in Curvaradó when “La Hermana”, a nun with the Comisión
Intereclesial de Justicia y Paz, got the call from headquarters in
Bogotá.

Indigenous Embera Katio and Oibida communities in Jiguamiandó had
spotted Colombian Army helicopters escorting Muriel Mining Corporation
through their ancestral territory to the Cerro de Carreperro mountains,
the human rights office in the capital said.

This is an escalation of the
dispute that has raged since 2005 when Muriel was awarded a 30 year
mining concession by the Colombian state to explore and exploit 11,000
hectares of indigenous and Afro-Colombian territory in the
municipalities of Murindó and Carmen del Darien for gold and copper.

The Embera tribes located there say Muriel has failed to properly
consult them before entering their territory, an action that violates
the Colombian Constitution of 1991, International Labor Organization
Resolution 169, and National Law 70 of 1993.

“Send everyone you’ve got to the region right away to support the indigenous mobilization occurring there.”

We jumped at the offer and started packing our bags before La Hermana even got off the phone.

“Here, there is palm,” La Hermana said. “There, there are minerals. In both places, multinationals want all the wealth and will destroy
the rivers and the environment and leave people in misery to get it. This is the savage neo-liberal economic model. These are the plans of
the multinationals.”

“Do you know what the river means to the community?” she continued rhetorically. “Food, bathing, washing clothes, it is their life. If
the river is destroyed, they will have to leave. The communities know
this.”

We didn’t have to be convinced. Indigenous Colombians versus a U.S./Colombian
mining company? It didn’t take us long to pick sides. Before we knew
it, we were on a dug-out canoe with a 9.9 horsepower motor and 13
Afro-Colombians, cruising down the Jiguamiandó river. After 4 hours,
we stopped for the night at the Embera community of Alto-Guayabal.

It took another 8 hours on foot to reach Coredocito, where the conflict between Muriel Mining, the army and the locals was taking place.

The scene was buzzing with activity. Over 280 indigenous Embera and
Afro-Colombians representing the communities of Alto Guayabal,
Bachidubi, Bella Flor, Cañaveral, Caño Seco, Koredó, Coredocito,
Guaguay, Isla, Lobo, Nueva Esperanza, Pueblo Nuevo, Puerto Lleras, and
Urada were there and the place was hopping with impromptu meetings,
drum-circles, and other festivities.  A permanent fire was maintained
under each house for cooking.

The morning of January 9, two members of Justicia y Paz and one from
Pasc Canada arrived.  We attended a large meeting, where the mobilized
communities expressed concern about the ecological and environmental
damage unregulated mining could inflict on their ancestral territories,

“From her, the mountain, we find pure air.  From her, there is an
ecosystem. There´s animals, there´s everything.  But then the state
tells us that, because of their new rules, that we don´t have rights. And why? Why don´t we have rights?” One leader asked.

Another tribal member stated that the alleged breaking of treaties
between the state and the indigenous people was part of a trend of
human rights violations that began when Spanish conquistadores first
arrived in the Western Hemisphere in 1492.

“For us this is not a struggle to live tomorrow. It is a struggle to live today.”

On January 9, a delegation of indigenous and international observers
marched from Coredocito to the foot of the Cerro de Carreperro
mountains, where they confronted the Colombian Army unit assigned to
protect the mining corporation. This confrontation led to an agreement
between the indigenous communities and the mining corporation for a
meeting to be held in Coredocito the following day.

According to an international
human rights worker with Pasc Canada, some
of the Colombian soldiers failing to properly display valid identification of
their name, rank, and unit on their uniforms, and that a minority of
soldiers present wore goggles or masks and otherwise concealed their
faces.  Although it is not clear whether the soldiers´ failure to
properly identify themselves was deliberate or unintentional, failure
of state security forces to properly identify themselves is a violation
of the Geneva Conventions.

A meeting between Muriel and the Embera tribes was held in Coredocito
on January 10.  When the company first landed in their helicopter,
indigenous women surrounded the helicopter and held hands.  It was some
kind of traditional greeting, but the indigenous women must have
freaked the mining company reps out because they took off, only to come
back a few hours later, this time with armed escorts from the Colombian
Army. The internationals all laughed their asses off.

Representatives of the aforementioned human rights organizations, the
Embera and Afro-Colombian communities, and nearly 300 indigenous people
were present when the meeting finally began.  Also present were Pedro
Lemous, a representative of Muriel Mining Corporation, Lajida Barrios,
a woman who identified herself as a “ombudsman of the municipality of Carmen
del Darien”, a Colombian Army officer from Brigade 15 who identified
himself only as “Hernandez”, and another person, possibly North
American, who only identified himself by the name Cristian.

During the January 10 meeting, Muriel Mining Corporation representative
Pedro Lemous stated that the mining company had consulted with the
indigenous and Afro-descendent communities and produced a 2007draft
agreement between Muriel and some of the legal representatives of the
communities authorizing the company to begin exploring the mountains
for copper reserves.

“This is why we are here.  Because we have letters of agreement from
indigenous authorities in the Camical that have permitted the
exploration process,” Lemous said. “These things are legal. We consulted with the communities.”

These guys are assholes, we said to ourselves. They are talking down
to the Embera like they are children instead of equals. Fucking pricks.

But the Embera didn’t need any help from us. They were organized and
rebutted every point the company representative tried to make. One
member of the Afro-Colombian communities of Jiguamiandó stated at the
meeting that the representative listed on the document as Euterio
Romania was unknown to him and his constituents. Indigenous leaders
also called the document a forgery, stated that the company produced
minutes of meetings that never took place, and that agreements signed
between the company and a minority of Embera cabildos dodged the
traditional consensus process of the Embera people protected by ILO
Convention 169.

“I´m not going to say to our friend here, you are violating the rules,” an Embera leader said.

“Because he has done everything legally, by mestizo law. He has had a
previous consultance with the indigenous. He has arrived to an agreement,
with those who were there. But the community here, our children, our
women, our elderly, our youth, don´t know the agreement that has been
made. We are ignorant to the things that it states. The cabildo
mayors never arrived here to directly speak with us. We don´t know
them. This is a grand error that the legal representatives are
committing in the cities.”

“Here we are all in contrary to the agreement. Everyone here has said
no we do not agree with the company. We have never arrived at a point to agree
with them and we will never arrive at the point where we will sign.”

Lawyers with the Comisión Intereclesial de Justicia y Paz agreed.

“It is not enough to talk to a few inhabitants, because they do not
represent the majority opinion,” the organization said in a statement
released to the public. “Given the lack of guarantees, the lack of
clarity, the denial of the right to prior consultation, the indigenous
communities of the Urada-Jiguamiandó reserve have stated their
position.”

ILO 169 specifically states that the implementation of national laws in
indigenous territories must be conducted in accordance with the
traditional customs, laws, and institutions of the indigenous
communities. Following this framework, then, the legal argument that
the contract between sections of the indigenous community and Muriel
Mining Company is improper, null, and void, is a valid one if the
larger community can prove that they were cheated out of their
traditional consensus process.  The fact that the majority of Embera
living in the region in question are mobilizing against the mining
company´s position also adds strong evidence to their claims that the
agreement is improper and illegal.

After the meeting was over, Lemous and Barrios asked if they could stay
the night because it was too late to return to the city by helicopter. The indigenous offered them the same space we were staying in, but we
booked it out of there ASAP and found another house to stay at.  No way
in hell were we breaking bread with those corporate assholes. Our
indigenous hosts laughed and agreed that we had good taste.

The next day, we left to make the long journey back through the jungle
so we could catch our plane out of the country. But other
internationals and journalists were pouring into the region to cover
the story. The next stage will have to wait a month or so, because the
Embera communities of Jiguamiandó have organized their own internal
voting process, scheduled for the 24-28 of February, in which women,
the elderly, men and children older than 14 years of age, will decide
whether to admit the multinational mining company into their
territories.

In the interim, Embera leaders are calling on Muriel Mining Corporation
and the Colombian state to respect the autonomy and territoriality of
their tribe, and to cease and desist from all exploration activities in
the Cerro de Carreperro mountain until the community has concluded
their internal debate process.

“We have lived off this land for thousands of years. If Muriel
exploits it, can they pay us enough money to ensure that we will live
for thousands more?” one Embera leader said rhetorically.

The international community should support the indigenous in this case and call on Muriel Mining Corporation
and the Colombian state to abide by the national and international
treaties and laws that protect the indigenous way of life and respect
their traditional consensus-style of participatory democracy.

Authors David Goodner and Megan Felt are U.S. students and were in Colombia with interchurch organization Justicia Y Paz.