Native folks name it “The Monster.” It sprawls throughout greater than 69,000 hectares, an space the scale of 100 soccer fields, and gulps down 30 million liters of water every single day within the barren semi-desert of Colombia’s second-poorest division, La Guajira. In return, it assuages the worldwide starvation for coal – in Germany, too – by producing 30 million tonnes of it per 12 months.
El Cerrejon is the most important open-cast coal mine in Latin America, and one of many largest on this planet. It’s owned by the Swiss firm Glencore. If Germany’s chancellor, Olaf Scholz, has his means, “The Monster” will play a big half in guaranteeing that Germans do not must freeze subsequent winter. The chancellor spoke to his Colombian counterpart, Ivan Duque, about it in early April – as a result of if Germany is to finish its reliance on Russian coal, it should urgently discover an alternate.
A traditional win-win scenario, you may suppose. Not, nevertheless, for folks like Dulcy Cotes. “The transnational firms are suffocating us with their greed for revenue,” she says.
Go to from an armed gang
Cotes is without doubt one of the nearly 700,000 indigenous Wayuu folks, who stay in Venezuela and north-eastern Colombia. Greater than 500 years in the past, they have been among the many first teams to be persecuted by the European conquistadors. Half a millennium later, they have been among the many first victims of the unlawful armed medicine cartels, who murdered them, extorted cash, and drove them out. Now historical past is repeating itself for the Wayuu for the third time. Many stay near the black gold of El Cerrejon, which means that they’re as soon as once more in peril.
Dulcy Cotes is representing indigenous individuals who stay close to the Cerrejon mine
“Considered one of our indigenous leaders, who’s campaigning to cease the mining firm diverting the Bruno stream with a view to extract extra coal, was visited a month in the past by armed males on motorbikes. It is typical for makes an attempt at intimidation to be made towards anybody who advocates on behalf of the setting and human rights,” says Dulcy Cotes.
She, too, has skilled this hostility. As a outstanding member of the group Fuerza de Mujeres Wayuu [Force of Wayuu Women], which is doing every thing in its energy to withstand the results of the mining, she is usually focused. “Many communities have already needed to transfer away,” she says, “as a result of the mine ate its means nearer and nearer to them. We do not really feel secure.”
Mining provides folks an revenue – and makes them sick
However there are divisions throughout the Wayuu group. On one facet there are folks like Cotes, who’re up in arms in regards to the mine. On the opposite, there are those that work in El Cerrejon, and badly want the cash. The mine employs 1000’s of individuals, in a area the place there are nearly no different jobs and each second particular person lives in poverty.
El Cerrejon, positioned within the semi-desert area of La Guajira, consumes 30 million liters of water per day
However Dulcy Cotes describes the back-breaking work they’re made to do within the mine. “The people who find themselves employed there work 12 hours at a stretch: the early shift from 6am until 6pm, or the evening shift from 6pm to 6am They get sick from this, and from all of the coal mud. It is most exploitation. In the event that they fall sick and demand compensation, they must sue for it; the corporate by no means pays of its personal accord.”
What Germany must learn about El Cerrejon
There’s a lot the human rights lawyer Rosa Maria Mateus Parra may inform German Chancellor Scholz about El Cerrejón. It’s not a nice story. Its grim chapters bear titles like: exploitation, expropriation, compelled resettlement, expulsion, destruction, irreparable environmental injury. Moreover, in recent times the childhood mortality charge has risen sharply. Round 5,000 Wayuu youngsters have died of hunger and thirst within the area across the mine. This horrifying determine even prompted the Inter-American Fee on Human Rights to get entangled.
“It is brought on by the scarcity of water, as a result of rivers and streams are contaminated, or have dried up,” Mateus Parra explains. “And the shortage of meals, as a result of coal is now mined the place indigenous communities grew their greens. These youngsters who survive have pores and skin rashes and respiratory illnesses due to the effective particle air pollution. We have proved all of this in court docket.”
The mine has contaminated water programs within the area
Final hope: a brand new president
What in regards to the Colombian authorities? Mateus Parra is dismissive. She does, nevertheless, have excessive hopes of Gustavo Petro, whom she is backing to win the presidential election this coming Sunday. Petro, a guerrilla in his youth, is an economist and former mayor of the capital, Bogota. Mateus Parra says he’s the one candidate who’s important of the harmful exploitation of nature, whereas the others are selling continuity: the export of coal as a technique to convey the home financial disaster below management.
“The provincial authorities of La Guajira is among the many most corrupt within the nation. And what we see popping out of Bogota is a political line that, in relation to financial and enterprise pursuits, is one factor above all: subservient! Nobody examines it too intently when an organization like Cerrejon Coal boasts that it’s defending fauna and flora and implementing reforestation, despite the fact that the fact is totally totally different.”
Incomparable to German mines
Stefan Ofteringer works in Colombia for Misereor, the help group of the Catholic Church in Germany, as a marketing consultant for human rights. He has seen “The Monster” together with his personal eyes. A number of years in the past, he walked alongside the sting of the mine within the blazing warmth of La Guajira. He says he’ll always remember it.
“On the one hand, there’s this huge destruction. Then there’s the massive amount of effective particle air pollution, each from mining and from the transportation of coal. And the earth tremors, and the noise from the each day blasting. Germany’s Garzweiler mine [an open-cast lignite mine, one of the biggest in the country – Editor’s note] is kid’s play compared.”
Misereor is one among 160 organizations from 30 international locations that initiated the marketing campaign “Life Not Coal” earlier this month. They known as on Scholz and Duque to cease exploiting the coal in El Cerrejon sooner quite than later, and, till then, to insist that human rights and environmental requirements lastly be upheld. “Diverting the course of the close by stream, which is what the mine operators are pushing for with a view to extract extra coal, could be a socio-ecological catastrophe,” says Ofteringer.
Does the availability chain legislation cross the fact verify?
Ofteringer is pinning his hopes on the availability chain legislation handed by the German parliament final 12 months. In keeping with this legislation, German firms are additionally obliged to hint and treatment any deficiencies when importing coal from Colombia.
Vitality firms akin to Steag and EnBW are due to this fact topic to this requirement. Uniper and RWE additionally purchase coal from Colombia.
So if all goes effectively, it is potential that “The Monster” might turn into much less scary sooner or later. The mine is predicted to stay in operation till 2034. Nevertheless, human rights marketing consultant Ofteringer warns that “up till now, the businesses have by no means set requirements that have been honest to the native inhabitants. And it has at all times been the rich elites which have benefited from mining in Colombia, by no means the impoverished inhabitants.”
This text has been translated from German.