We are excited to announce the Summer 2022 Claudia Jones Editorial Intern is Cygaelle “Cy” Bergado, a senior at Temple University majoring in Media Studies & Production. We asked Cy a few questions.
Tell us about yourself.
I am a Filipino-American organizer based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. My interests include fighting towards social justice, writing, video production and hanging out with my cat. I am ecstatic to be interning with Toward Freedom!
How would you describe your interest in journalism?
It has been rooted in me since I was a teenager; journalism pays duty to the people by informing us about important issues and events. Journalists provide information that help communities shape decisions—and by extension, organize. I’m proud to be in the journalism field.
What drew you to the Claudia Jones Editorial Internship?
Toward Freedom takes a grassroots perspective. I appreciated its diligence in bringing attention to human rights issues. It was very resonating to find TF‘s dedication towards anti-colonial struggles aligned with mine.
What do you hope to report on this summer?
This summer, I would like to report on the political tyranny of The Philippines. It is important to bring to light the human rights violations being committed there. I am looking to report on the fraudulent Philippine elections ridden with vote buying and voter disenfranchisement. These human rights violations are not anything new to the Filipino diaspora; as we have been colonized, militarized and oppressed by the governments of Spain, the United States, Japan and our own for thousands of years. I also hope to report on the struggle of the Filipino diaspora, from all around the globe, to fight back against these fascist empires.
Anything else you’d like to do while you’re at Toward Freedom?
I hope to strengthen my skills in writing, editing and fact-checking. I also am looking forward to meeting, collaborating with and finding solidarity with new comrades.
Israeli artillery firing into Gaza on May 18 / credit: IDF Spokesperson’s Unit
Editor’s Note: This analysis was produced by Globetrotter.
On January 27, 2022, the Hebrew-language news site Walla published part of the text from a telegram sent by Amir Weissbrod—who is part of the Israeli Foreign Ministry—to Israeli embassies around the world. The telegram warned the Israeli diplomats that in the upcoming 49th regular session of the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC), which is expected to begin on February 28, a report will be tabled regarding Israel’s 2021 bombing of Gaza. This report will apparently use the word “apartheid” to refer to Israel’s occupation of the Palestinians, according to the telegram.
Weissbrod relayed Tel Aviv’s instructions regarding the report prepared by a UNHRC-appointed committee to the Israeli diplomats through this telegram: “The main goal [for Israel] is to delegitimize the committee, its members and products” and “To prevent or delay further decisions.”
After a four year investigation, on February 1, 2022, Amnesty International released a 280-page report with a sharp headline, “Israel’s Apartheid Against Palestinians.” Amnesty “concluded that Israel has perpetrated the international wrong of apartheid, as a human rights violation and a violation of public international law wherever it imposes this system. It has assessed that almost all of Israel’s civilian administration and military authorities, as well as governmental and quasigovernmental institutions, are involved in the enforcement of the system of apartheid against Palestinians across Israel and the OPT [Occupied Palestinian Territory] and against Palestinian refugees and their descendants outside the territory.” Amnesty further said that these acts “amount to the crime against humanity of apartheid under both the Apartheid Convention and the Rome Statute.” Israel’s Foreign Minister Yair Lapid retaliated by accusing Amnesty of quoting “lies shared by terrorist organizations.” As if on cue, Israel’s government accused Amnesty of anti-Semitism. The Amnesty report will provide key material for the UNHRC investigation.
One of the immediate issues that will be the focus of attention for the UNHRC session is Israel’s Operation Guardian of the Walls against the Palestinians in Gaza in May 2021. According to a July 2021 report by Human Rights Watch (HRW), which looked at three Israeli strikes that were part of the operation “that killed 62 Palestinians,” there were “no evident military targets in the vicinity.” In its report, HRW used the term “war crimes” to describe attacks by “Israeli forces and Palestinian armed groups.” When the firing stopped after 11 days, the UNHRC passed a resolution in late May 2021 to establish an “ongoing independent, international commission of inquiry” to investigate various crimes in the OPT, including East Jerusalem, and in Israel. Navi Pillay, the former UN high commissioner for human rights and a former South African judge, was appointed to chair the three-person commission, which also included Miloon Kothari, an Indian architect; and Chris Sidoti, an Australian human rights lawyer. The commission is expected to present its first report to the UNHRC in June.
The commission chaired by Pillay is the ninth commission established by the UNHRC to investigate Israeli actions against the Palestinians. It has a very broad mandate that includes to study violations of international humanitarian law, according to the “four Geneva Conventions of 1949,” which both Israel and Palestine are party to, and to continue to investigate these crimes into the future. It is widely expected that Pillay’s report will use the word “apartheid” to define Israeli policy in the OPT. This would not be the first time that a United Nations report has used this term to define Israeli actions against the Palestinians. In 2017, the UN Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA) released a report prepared by Richard Falk, “a former United Nations special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967,” and Virginia Tilley, “a researcher and professor of political science at Southern Illinois University.” The report defined Israeli policy against the Palestinians as “apartheid” as understood under international law (in his 2014 report, Falk had already used the term “apartheid”). The release of that 2017 report led to the resignation of ESCWA head Rima Khalaf, a distinguished Jordanian diplomat, after she faced “pressure from the [UN] secretary-general to withdraw the report.”
Hasbara 2.0
In 2006, the Israeli government set up a Ministry of Strategic Affairs to essentially run two campaigns, one against Iran and the other against the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement. This hasbara (explaining or, more specifically, propaganda) ministry operated an information war that sought to delegitimize BDS activists and to paint anyone who supported the movement as an anti-Semite. Largely due to criticisms of its heavy-handedness, the Ministry of Strategic Affairs was shut down in July 2021 and some of its functions were shifted to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Amir Weissbrod’s telegram from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is essentially Hasbara 2.0.
On January 23, 2022, the Israeli government set up a new project—Concert—inside the Foreign Ministry. This well-funded project will carry forward the mission of Solomon’s Sling—“a Public Benefit Corporation (PBC) but controlled by government representatives,”—to burnish Israel’s image around the world, particularly in the West. Concert will be the means through which the Israeli government plans to transfer millions of dollars to nongovernment organizations and media houses to ensure that the reporting about Israel is positive. “Delegitimization” of any critics of Israel is part of the agenda this project aims to achieve.
The telegram sent by Weissbrod is part and parcel of Hasbara 2.0. Weissbrod is an experienced hand, having served Israel at the United Nations in New York and as an ambassador in Jordan, besides working in various ministries in Tel Aviv. In 2011, he told Haaretz that the diplomats from most countries understand Israel’s position relating to the “Palestinian Authority” “behind closed doors” but they “are not willing to state publicly what they readily say in a private meeting with Israeli representatives, which is often infuriating.” What such duplicity reveals is that these foreign representatives, who agree with Israel “behind closed doors,” recognize that public opinion in their countries is against Israeli policy, but these representatives know that they must not annoy the Israelis or the U.S. diplomats, who would otherwise make life difficult for their countries. (A senior Indian diplomat told me plainly that India normalized relations with Israel in 1992 because the United States told New Delhi that the “road to Washington had to go through Tel Aviv.”)
Israel recognizes that few of the countries in the UNHRC will vote against the report that is expected to brand it as an “apartheid state.” It will try to do two things to prevent the report from coming out: delegitimize the commissioners, notably Pillay, and ask the United States to use its membership on the UNHRC to delay the release of the report.
War Crimes
In March 2021, Fatou Bensouda, the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), confirmed that her office had opened an investigation relating to “Rome Statute crimes” by Israel against the Palestinians. There are effectively four Rome Statute crimes: crime of genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and the crime of aggression. Each of these crimes is horrendous.
What Israel fears is that a negative report in the UNHRC might provide evidence for the ICC investigation. On January 3, 2022, Israel’s Foreign Minister Yair Lapid told Israeli journalists that his government fears that this year a set of international institutions will try to portray Israel as an “apartheid state.” These institutions include the UNHRC, the ICC, the International Court of Justice, and the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination.
In the press conference, Lapid called the characterization of Israel as an apartheid state “a despicable lie.” Two years ago, in June 2020, however, one of Israel’s most respected human rights organizations—Yesh Din—published a report with a startling conclusion: “It is a difficult statement to make, but the conclusion of this opinion is that the crime against humanity of apartheid is being committed in the West Bank. The perpetrators are Israelis, and the victims are Palestinians.” Such statements are anathema to Lapid and Weissbrod, but—according to Israeli human rights groups (including B’Tselem) and Palestinian human rights groups (including Al-Haq and Addameer) as well as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch—are a reflection of the facts witnessed on the ground, and no amount of Hasbara 2.0 can erase these facts.
The practice of “thengapalli” has helped one forest in India.
Groups of 4 or 5 women have taken turns carrying wooden sticks to guard their community forest against theft and poaching. This practice has helped the once-devastated forest in the state of Odisha to regenerate.
“Nature is the source of identity, culture, language, tradition and livelihood for an Indigenous community and, thus, they have been protecting it,” said Archana Soreng, an Indigenous activist and researcher from Odisha. “Unlike how the contemporary development framework sees nature as a commercial entity.”
A new report more than 20 Asian Indigenous organizations have authored warns Western conservation models governments and organizations worldwide have adopted threaten the rights of Indigenous communities and local people.
Posang Dolma Sherpa said such spatial targets are simplistic and do not translate into actual progress.
“For many of the Indigenous peoples and local communities already safeguarding the planet’s natural resources and biodiversity without outside help, the catchphrase ‘30 by 30’ belies the many complex considerations required to ensure truly sustainable conservation,” said Sherpa, executive director of the Centre for Indigenous Peoples and Research and Development (CIPRED), based in Kathmandu, Nepal.
As an example, she explained that in Nepal, generations of Indigenous customary institutions and self-governance systems that contributed to sustainable management of biodiversity and ecosystem were ignored. Instead, new land and forest management processes were superimposed, causing injustices and marginalization that exacerbated the issues that were meant to be rectified.
“When countries gather in Kunming in April to finalize the post-2020 Biodiversity Framework, it is imperative that the draft targets are modified to explicitly recognize human rights-based approaches to conservation on a global scale,” she added.
Sherpa said this can be done by:
Changing Target 2 in the framework to include the appropriate territories of Indigenous Peoples and local communities and their right to Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC);
changing Target 3 to include the appropriate territories of Indigenous peoples and local communities, the equitable governance of these territories and resources, and their appropriate legal recognition within the target;
including the “devolution of authority and broad-based alliances with Indigenous peoples and local communities” within the GBF’s enabling conditions, paragraph 17; and
ensuring a due diligence mechanism and an accountability process.
A view in Rachakonda in the Indian state of Telangana / credit: Sravan Kumar on Unsplash
Living In Constant Fear of Evictions
A huge gap exists in the recognition and legal status of tenure rights. Between 1.65 billion to 1.87 billion Indigenous peoples and local communities live in important biodiversity conservation areas globally, but legally own only 10 percent of the lands they customarily manage.
Sherpa said for the GBF to achieve its goals for a better and harmonious future, it must support and initiate drastic transformations that facilitate environmental and social justice. “Failing to uphold international standards of human rights or erect due diligence mechanisms to ensure human rights are being implemented will only enable the continuation of the same processes that are destroying the environment and causing human rights violations at the same time.”
A 2020 map of Indian states and neighboring countries, including Nepal / credit: Maps of India
Already, several communities have lost access to local, ecological and cultural resources, and have undergone trauma due to eviction. In many areas, their rights are still not recognized. Even when legal rights are afforded, such as India’s 2006 Forest Rights Act, many of these rights are subverted. During the 2020 lockdown, land belonging to tribes in the states of Telangana and Odisha were reportedly grabbed under the pretext of afforestation.
Neither the forest departments of the Indian government nor the Odisha state responded to this reporter, as of press time. The Indian Ministry of Tribal Affairs also did not reply.
Prudhviraj Rupavath, researcher with New Delhi-based data research agency Land Conflict Watch, who contributed to the report, said many Indian states have neglected to implement the Forest Rights Act. “Awaiting legal titles for their cultivating land, indigenous people are constantly living with the fear of evictions.” He added that though Indigenous communities help protect and restore forests, Indian state governments are prioritizing displacing people rather than securing tenure rights.
Aside from being an Indigenous activist and researcher, Soreng is a member of the UN Secretary General’s Youth Advisory Group on Climate Change. She said when an Indigenous community is displaced, they lose their identity, culture, language, and traditional knowledge and practices of forest conservation. That makes not only the humans, but the ecosystem, vulnerable to the climate crisis.
Soreng added Indigenous communities have been using twigs to brush teeth, and building dining plates, mats, chairs, and small tables using leaves.
A mountain in Deomali, Barakutni, in the Indian state of Odisha / credit: Mohan Vamsi on Unsplash
Moving Toward Collective Ownership
The increasing focus on commodity-driven development threatens one-quarter of Indigenous peoples’ land, according to the report.
“Due to a systemic lack of formal legal recognition, the lands customarily occupied and owned by Indigenous peoples and local communities are seen as ‘available’ or property of the government,” said Thomas Worsdell, editor of the report.
In India, several large areas are classified as wastelands although they customarily belong to tribal communities. This opens them to environmentally destructive industries and human rights abuses, he said.
“Examples are the coal sector in India and the fossil fuel industry, more broadly, agricultural expansion (e.g., palm oil), mining, renewable energy (hydroelectric dams and wind turbines) and even the carbon offsets market,” Worsdell told Toward Freedom. “These industries are expanding into the lands and territories of Indigenous peoples and local communities who do not have collective ownership.”
These threats on territories are often encouraged and even enabled by the state, he added. In Indonesia, the recent Omnibus bill was enacted to attract business investments, but weakened both environmental and human rights protections.
To prevent these threats, the report states governments should embrace human rights-based strategies, and recognize the land, forest, water, and territorial rights of Indigenous peoples and local communities.
Worsdell said supporting Indigenous and local movements is key to creating legal transformations at the national level that support capacity and funds. Capacity in this instance can include trainings, workshops, supporting knowledge sharing, participatory mapping, among other steps to ensure the human rights of Indigenous and local peoples are upheld.
Indigenous and local community organizations are already providing solutions for human rights-based approaches. They have proposed laws and amendments, created the frameworks for nationally recognized Indigenous institutions and agencies, and are conducting research that proves the environmental benefits of human rights-based conservation.
For example, the Tsumba and Nubriba Indigenous groups in Nepal renewed in 2012 the practice of a Shagya (non-violence) customary institution to protect nature, biodiversity and their cultures. This practice involves the establishment of a committee made up of representatives from 10 villages to ensure no killing, hunting, harvesting of wild honey, forest fires, flesh trading, trapping and sale of animals, and trading of domestic animals take place during various timeframes.
Worsdell said, however, this practice lacks legal recognition, which is often the case in many Asian countries, where the legal climate does not favor human rights-based approaches to conservation.
“Governments must first recognize Indigenous identities, bring an immediate end to criminalizing and killing of Indigenous peoples and local communities defending their lands, and put in place a national accountability and reparation mechanism for past and present human rights violations,” Worsdell explained.
He said Indigenous peoples must have a seat at the decision-making table as leaders instead of as symbolic representations. He added governments must endorse and commit to the ‘Land Rights Standard,’ a set of emerging best practices for recognizing Indigenous peoples’ and local communities’ land and resource rights in landscape restoration, management, conservation, climate action, and development projects.
A song created by groups of Indigenous people aptly captures the essence of the report:
“…Nature was taken from Indigenous people again and again, betrayed, they lost their forest wealth. We had knowledge of the forest then, why have we lost the knowledge now. Indigenous people lived with freedom in the forests, today we are oppressed by the ruling class. We used to have everything, Now, why have we lost what was ours…”
Deepa Padmanaban is a Bangalore, India-based freelance journalist, who writes about the environment, conservation and climate change. She can be followed on Twitter at @deepa_padma.
A demonstration in March 2022 against Canada-based mining company Libero Copper and Gold in Mocoa, the capital of the Putumayo department in Colombia. The banner reads, “Mocoa says no to megamineria. Water is worth more than copper.” The march initiated a four-day event called the Festival in Defense of the Mountain, Water and Life, held to protest the company’s copper mining project / credit: Antonio Cascio
MOCOA, Colombia—“We are experiencing a profound crisis, not only in the Amazon, but throughout [the world],” said Campo Elías de la Cruz, a Catholic priest and environmental activist. “Over three centuries, the umbilical cord of Mother Earth has been cut.”
De la Cruz, who opposes the extraction of minerals in Colombia’s Putumayo Department, referred to thousands of rubber trees that had been cut down, along with 70,000 Indigenous people who died in the western Amazon during the extraction of rubber, timber, oil and quinine (a substance used to prevent malaria). “And today,” de la Cruz told Toward Freedom, “in the 21st century, they tell us they are taking the copper from Mother Earth.” The priest remarked on contemporary plans to explore and mine for copper and molybdenum to feed “clean energy” technologies in what could be one of the largest deposits of these minerals on the continent and in the world.
An Andean Saddle-Back Tamarin monkey (Leontocebus fuscicollis) in the Mocoa area. The biodiverse Putumayo department is home to more than 150 animal species, which is why environmentalist groups worry about mining activities / credit: Antonio Cascio
In this richly biodiverse region, where the cool mountains of the Andes meet the steamy Amazon rainforest, opinions are divided and emotions fume over the environmental and social costs of housing a “green” mining project. It is here where the Caquetá and Putumayo rivers originate, both major tributaries of the Amazon River. Any alteration of the natural state of this area is likely to impact the entire Amazon rainforest, often referred to as the “lungs” of the Earth, for absorbing carbon dioxide and releasing life-giving oxygen into the atmosphere.
All this is why a Canadian mining company appearing to move forward on exploring mining possibilities in Putumayo has raised questions about a progressive government that won power by promising environmental protection.
Mocoa city, capital of Putumayo. Its geographic position puts it at high risk of natural disasters. In 2017, for example, a landslide destroyed part of the city and caused more than 300 deaths. For this reason, residents are concerned about mining activities in the mountains that surround Mocoa / credit: Antonio Cascio
‘Clean Energy’ Promises
In 2018, the Canadian multinational company Libero Copper and Gold acquired four mining titles to explore and extract minerals, such as copper and molybdenum, in more than 11,000 hectares (27,000 acres) in Mocoa, the capital of the department of Putumayo in southern Colombia.
The proposal to extract copper and molybdenum has been framed by proponents as a “green” project that can help transition Colombia to using renewable energy and replace polluting fossil fuels, the use of which has been found to cause climate change. This proposal aligns with the policy of the progressive government of Colombian President Gustavo Petro, who took power last year. During his campaign, he vowed to stop issuing oil and gas exploration licenses and has recently advocated for the exploration of crucial minerals in the country to develop renewable energy as a climate change solution.
Map of Colombian city of Mocoa and Mocoa River in Putumayo department / source: Google
Libero Copper and Gold has gained support among locals—most of whom work with the company—because of the jobs and development it promises for a region that lacks access to basic services such as an adequate health system and a reliable water supply. However, the region’s history with oil extraction produced no benefits for the people, either, according to José Luis Lopez, a researcher at the Observatory of Environmental Conflicts at the National University of Colombia, in an interview with Toward Freedom.
A stone that contains copper found in the Tosoy stream, close to the mining project area. Locals say no fish live in this stream because of the high levels of water mineralization. Humans do not consume the water, either. To them, this shows how mining could lead to the contamination of water, affecting human settlements and biodiversity / credit: Antonio Cascio
“Currently, 46 percent of the economy of Putumayo depends on oil exploitation. Yet, between 2008 and 2016, formal employment only reached 26 percent,” Lopez said, citing a study carried out by Fedesarrollo for Ecopetrol, the largest oil company in the country.
In an effort to show how “green” this project is, Libero Copper and Gold created an alliance with the National University of Colombia in Medellin as part of their “Green Route” strategy. This alliance aims to create the first copper production chain in the country for the development of electric motors and generators. However, Congress members denounced the project because of conflicts of interests that led Vice-Minister of Mines and Energy Giovanny Franco Sepulveda to resign early this year.
According to Lopez, Libero Copper and Gold’s discourse lacks consistency. “First, they told us this could be the biggest mine in the world. Later, they focused on a strategy based on social responsibility and environmental sustainability. And, now, they present a plan to extract copper in small quantities.”
Libero Copper and Gold reported the reserves contain 4.6 billion pounds (2 million tons) of copper and 510.5 million pounds (232 kilotons) of molybdenum, exceeding the amount contained in the biggest mines in the world.
The Nasa Indigenous Guards and other participants at the Festival in Defense of the Mountain, Water and Life. The Indigenous Guards said they found evidence that Libero Copper and Gold was drilling with suspended mining titles. They also accused the Canadian company of illegal activities that have caused environmental damage / credit: Antonio Cascio
Beyond the environmental consequences, local people also worry this mining project could cause an environmental disaster similar to the one that took place in Mocoa in 2017, when intense rain led to a mudslide that caused the deaths of more than 300 people. Although the 2017 disaster was linked to the movement of Earth in a different area to where Libero Copper operates, geologists have confirmed that the mountain where the mining titles are located also contain highly fractured rocks and, therefore, are more susceptible to landslides.
“Energy transition should not under any circumstances put at risk the water supply of such an important region,” Lopez said. “If we affect the area where the water originates, and you also take into account the production of heavy metal residues, we are putting at risk communities whose survival depends on the rivers.”
Colombian Vice President Francia Márquez (right) and President Gustavo Petro (left, on mic) at a June 7 demonstration in favor of government reforms / credit: Antonio Cascio
Does Clean Energy Protect the Environment and Indigenous Territories?
In April, Petro opened his speech in front of the Organization of American States (OAS) by talking about Latin America’s strategic importance in producing critical minerals for the “clean energy” transition. According to the International Energy Agency, the area from Mexico in the north to Chile in the south accounts for 40 percent of global copper production and 35 percent of the world’s lithium. Yet, the reserves remain underdeveloped, which for some means a great potential exists to increase production––not only of these two materials––but also of others essential to the transition away from fossil fuels. Those can include nickel and rare earth elements, among others.
Despite a growing consensus on the importance of reducing carbon emissions, questions have arisen over who should bear the environmental and social costs of extracting resources essential to this transition. Indigenous and peasant communities in Colombia worry copper mining will affect their livelihoods and even force them to abandon their territories.
“I feel so much pain to see that a company like Libero Copper and Gold is coming to destroy the most precious thing we have, water,” said Rufina Valencia, an elderly peasant woman who arrived in the village––where Libero Copper and Gold operates––when she was a child. It was this land that helped her and her husband, who worked in the water company, raise their kids, she said. “[Water] is the heart of our community, our Putumayo region, and the world. Because Putumayo is the lung of the world.”
Aerial view of the Putumayo department, called the door of the Amazon / credit: Antonio Cascio
Petro’s victory during last year’s presidential elections was due to the overwhelming support of Indigenous and peasant communities, who saw Petro and Vice President Francia Márquez as allies in their struggle to defend land rights and protect their territories. This support, however, could come under scrutiny if mining interferes with their way of life.
“In different parts of the country, it has been proven how mining results in a loss of sovereignty over the lands of communities and loss over food sovereignty, as people abandoned agricultural practices to work in the mines,” explained Carlos Duarte, Coordinator of Rural Development and Land-Use Planning at Javeriana University in the capital of Bogotá, in an interview with Toward Freedom.
In this sense, Petro’s government could find itself in a tough spot as his plans to increase Colombia’s share in critical materials for a transition away from fossil fuels and toward a more independent Colombia could eclipse the interests of Indigenous and peasant communities.
Taita Pablo Crispín Chindoy held a spiritual ceremony at the end of a meeting in March in Mocoa with Colombian Minister of Mines and Energy Irene Vélez Torres. Indigenous communities, and social and activist groups, from the Putumayo department organized this meeting to provide the minister with their case for requesting the end of the Libero Copper and Gold project in the Mocoa area / credit: Antonio Cascio
Controversy Within the Government
So far, neither Petro nor Márquez have released a public statement about the copper and molybdenum mining project in Mocoa.
Although Márquez does not have political functions related to the mining sector, she is expected to be vocal on mining issues, explains Duarte. “Márquez has stated during her campaign––and as Vice President––her conviction that mining, as it is currently implemented, is not feasible,” he said. Toward Freedom contacted Márquez’s office, requesting a statement on this matter, but did not receive a response. “She has been part of this struggle her whole life and will probably not disassociate from this matter,” Duarte added.
However, the neoliberal extractivist policies implemented by governments of the first left-wing wave that engaged a socio-ecological discourse ––as was the case of Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa ––show how these contradictory approaches have coexisted in the region.
According to Duarte, the Petro-Márquez government’s efforts to conserve the environment are obvious with the signing of the Escazú Agreement that aims to protect the environment and the lives of environmental activists. Although the agreement was signed in 2018, it was only until late last year that Colombia ratified it. The question remains of how the pair will move on the mining question. “Will they favor environmental protection or will they take an extractivist approach to satisfy the global demand for these resources?” Duarte asked.
Close to the Libero Copper and Gold mining project, three important rivers pass through the area, the Mocoa (seen here), the Caquetá and the Putumayo rivers. All are tributaries of the Amazon River, so contamination of their waters would affect the entire Amazon region / credit: Antonio Cascio
For now, the Colombian government is revising the existing mining code—which many hope will toughen regulations and protect the environment. The Petro-Márquez administration has approved the National Development Plan 2022-26, in which the protection of water is one of the three central elements of territorial planning and its development strategy. A fact that Lopez also associates with the government’s willingness to protect the environment.
“The energy transition has an enormous demand for strategic minerals. At the global level, that means extraction frontiers are under pressure,” said Minister of Mines and Energy Irene Vélez when visiting Indigenous and local communities in March in Mocoa. “But this government is not going to generate a copper rush that will leave social and environmental destruction.”
On various occasions, the National Mining Agency (or ANM in Spanish) has stated that the company cannot conduct any exploration or exploitation activities due to the 020 Regional Accord prohibiting medium and large-scale mining in Mocoa. However, the company has violated this accord by carrying out exploration activities. Such violations are verifiable on the company’s website, where they report on their activities. On this matter, the ANM is conducting an investigation but so far has not presented its findings.
In response to Toward Freedom‘s inquiry regarding the investigation, the agency said the process is still underway. However, this exceeds the time limit set forth in Article 288 of the Mining Code.
For now, Libero Copper and Gold continues operating in the territory and the people refuse to relent.
“I will not sell my land because I don’t want future generations to say they were left in a desert, impossible to survive because of my decision,” said Valencia, who has lived in Putumayo since childhood. “But if that project continues, we worry we will be forced to sell when the water is contaminated.”
The video above was first published by Mongabay.
Natalia Torres Garzón graduated with an M.Sc. in Globalization and Development at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London, United Kingdom. She is a freelance journalist who focuses on social and political issues in Latin America, especially in connection to Indigenous communities, women, and the environment. Her work has been published in Earth Island, New Internationalist, Toward Freedom, the section of Planeta Futuro-El País, El Salto, Esglobal and others.
Antonio Cascio is an Italian photojournalist focused on social movements, environmental justice and discriminated groups. He has been working as a freelancer from Europe and Latin America. He has also collaborated with news agencies like Reuters, Sopa Images and Abacapress, and his pictures have been published in the New York Times, CNN, BBC, the Guardian, DW, Mongabay, El País, Revista 5W, Liberation, Infobae, Folha de S.Paulo, Amnesty International and others.