Indigenous People take over mining firm in the wake of Climate Change conference

April 19, 2010

With the Glob­al People’s Con­fer­ence on Cli­mate Change and the Rights of the Moth­er Earth set to begin in Cochabam­ba, Bolivia, a group of Indige­nous peo­ple have occu­pied the offices of a min­ing firm in the south­east­ern province of Poto­si near the Chilean bor­der.

April 19, 2010

With the Glob­al People’s Con­fer­ence on Cli­mate Change and the Rights of the Moth­er Earth set to begin in Cochabam­ba, Bolivia, a group of Indige­nous peo­ple have occu­pied the offices of a min­ing firm in the south­east­ern province of Poto­si near the Chilean bor­der.

The occu­pa­tion began sev­er­al days ago, on April 12, with rough­ly 700 Qul­la Peo­ple block­ing access to a key rail­way line that leads away from the San Cristo­bal sil­ver-zinc-lead mine, owned by Japan’s Sum­it­o­mo Cor­po­ra­tion.

The Qul­la say that Sum­it­o­mo is dump­ing mine waste direct­ly into the Madera Riv­er, con­t­a­m­i­nat­ing the land and threat­en­ing their water sup­plies; and con­struct­ing roads that are tram­pling on the rights of Moth­er Earth. They are demand­ing com­pen­sa­tion for the envi­ron­men­tal dam­age and call­ing on the Poto­si gov­ern­ment to hon­our their agree­ments, which includes pro­vid­ing help with some local infra­struc­ture.

“Our demands are fair and must be met. The mine is ran­sack­ing our nat­ur­al resources. We want com­pen­sa­tion for the dam­age and … we want help with our devel­op­ment,” says protest leader Mario Mamani. Since the protest began, some 80 con­tain­ers loaded with ore have also been seized and they have occu­pied the company’s offices. Accord­ing to lat­est reports, the Qul­la set fire to the offices and they have start­ed to over­turn the con­tain­ers.

At the same time, the Qul­la are also express­ing frus­tra­tion over Pres­i­dent Evo Morales’ refusal to let them set up “Table 18″ at the Cli­mate Con­fer­ence.

Accord­ing to the Acha­cachi Post, which is spon­sored by the US gov­ern­ment, the Nation­al Coun­cil of Ayl­lus and Markas of Qul­la­suyu (CONAMAQ) wants the table to dis­cuss envi­ron­men­tal prob­lems in Bolivia, includ­ing Sumitomo’s pol­lu­tion of the Madera Riv­er and the con­cern about Lake Intik­jar­ka (Titika­ka) being filled up with “sewage from the cities of El Alto, Batal­las, Hua­r­i­na, Tiquina, Acha­cachi, Mina Matilde in Bolivia and Puno and Huan­cane in Peru.” The lake is an impor­tant fish­ing resource for the Qul­las and Uru-chul­lu­nis.

The Boli­vian Deputy Min­is­ter of Envi­ron­ment, Juan Pablo Ramos, told the Asso­ci­at­ed Press that it’s not their inten­tion to cir­cum­vent the dis­cus­sion, but the world con­fer­ence is not the appro­pri­ate settin,g because it will be focused on glob­al issues.

CONAMAQ, how­ev­er, says they are still going to pro­ceed with Table 18, because “the Earth is our moth­er [and she has her rights], “for exam­ple, not to be con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed.”

The Rights of Moth­er Earth will be one of the cen­tral focus­es of the Con­fer­ence. Oth­er tables will include dis­cus­sions on Agri­cul­ture and food sov­er­eign­ty, the Kyoto Pro­to­col, Dan­gers of the Car­bon Mar­ket, and estab­lish­ing an Envi­ron­men­tal Court.

Over­all, the World People’s Con­fer­ence on Cli­mate Change is a vital fol­low-up to the failed UN Con­fer­ence in Copen­hagen. And while the Qul­la have been unfor­tu­nate­ly side­lined, per­haps we can take stock in the fact that they won’t be labelled as crim­i­nals and thrown in jail.

We should, nev­er­the­less, pay close atten­tion to the Qul­la. If noth­ing else, they are remind­ing us that we can­not ignore the rivers for the ocean. Instead, we must lead by exam­ple for every tree, riv­er, plant and ani­mal, ecosys­tem, every per­son, com­mu­ni­ty and Nation.

We cer­tain­ly can’t leave it to com­pa­nies like Sum­it­o­mo and Unit­ed States gov­ern­ment or the Unit­ed Nations. It’s up to each and every one of us.