Written in Spanish by Jessica García
Photos: Lukasz Firla
From Colombia to Palestine, from La Guajira to Gaza
"They take the coal, and we are left only with pollution and pain." This is how one of the female leaders we met during our visit to La Guajira last June summarized the impacts of the Cerrejón mine on the communities living in the area. There, the companies extracting coal in La Guajira do so at the expense of the lives of the communities living there, to sell it to large companies, including Israeli ones that use it to manufacture weapons for genocide.
Cerrejón Mine: The Beginning of Dispossession
The Cerrejón coal mine, located in the Ranchería River basin, in the southeast of the Department of La Guajira, began to be exploited in the 1970s. In 1976, after the Colombian Government opened bids, a 33-year partnership contract was signed between Carbones Colombianos S.A, CARBOCOL, and INTERCOR, a subsidiary of Exxon Corporation (now ExxonMobil) for the exploitation of the northern zone of El Cerrejón. In 1999, the concession was extended with the Colombian State until 2034. From that moment on, mining activity intensified, and the company came under the control of Carbones del Cerrejón Limited, formed by Xstrata Plc, BHP Billiton, and Anglo American.
The company extracts about 108,000 tons of coal daily from the deposit, which covers approximately 69,000 hectares, transporting it via Cerrejón's railroad to the coal port of Puerto Bolívar on the Caribbean coast, where it receives ships of up to 180,000 tons that transport the coal to other countries.
In 2022, the multinational mining company Glencore acquired all the shares of the Cerrejón mine, which it previously shared with BHP and Anglo American. This Swiss-based company claimed that this acquisition was consistent with its climate change strategy and that it was committed to reducing its total emissions footprint in the coming years. So far, it appears to be just another greenwashing strategy, as the communities continue to denounce that their demands have not been heard. The Manantialito community has reported a gradual forced displacement of some families due to the environmental impacts on the community. For example, the river that crosses their territory has been decreasing in flow, and they no longer have the same access to water. The community has demanded that the company recognize that they are located in the mine's area of influence and that any mine expansion should be consulted with the community, but so far, they have not been heard and the mining activity continues to affect their daily lives. The beneficiaries of this harmful development change names, but not their practices. The losers continue to be the same communities that bear the cost of "development."
The Beneficiaries of Dispossession: From ExxonMobil to Glencore and Drummond
The lack of water is felt, the drought is felt, and the fatigue as well. The communities we visited feel that every day. However, those who make large profits from mining do not feel the same as they do not live there, they do not suffer from water contamination or noise, they do not feel anything. As always, those who bear the cost of so-called development are not the ones who cause the exploitation or take the resources.
According to a recent publication by Naturgas, in 2023 Drummond and Cerrejón had the highest revenues in the mining sector with 16.5 billion and 7.4 billion Colombian pesos, respectively. While the Cerrejón mine has caused terrible impacts on communities, with various reports of persecution and forced displacement of those who have denounced these impacts, Drummond, the other big "winner" in terms of income, has a very similar history.
Drummond is a U.S.-owned mining company, with its main exploitation center in the Colombian department of Cesar. This company has not only been denounced for environmental impacts on the communities surrounding the mining centers, but it also has on-going legal cases before the Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP), as well as the ordinary Colombian and U.S. justice systems for financing paramilitary groups. Two of Drummond’s top executives, its current president and his predecessor, have been indicted for collaborating with the paramilitary groups by the JEP. The Truth Commission stated in its final report that "there was a convergence between the state's military apparatus, the actions of paramilitary groups, and the multinational Drummond to 'secure' its mining project."
These companies, which share similarities in the profits they take and the damage they cause to obtain them, have a new common point. A portion of the coal they extract, despite community resistance, is exported to Israel, the main culprit in the genocide against the Palestinian people.
These companies, which share similarities in the profits they take and the damage they cause to obtain them, have a new common point. A portion of the coal they extract, despite community resistance, is exported to Israel, the main culprit in the genocide against the Palestinian people. Until last June, around 50 percent of the coal imported by Israel for use in electricity generation came from Colombia. The main Israeli importing company is Israel Electric Corporation, which supplies energy to companies producing the weapons with which Palestinians are killed daily. Meanwhile, in Gaza, people are not only killed by bombs and weapons but also by the lack of access to basic services due to the destruction of all infrastructure.
Losers from South to South: From La Guajira to Palestine
La Guajira
The communities around the Cerrejón mine continue to denounce the impacts of mining activities that are far from the greenwashing attempts implemented by Glencore, which has been a co-owner of the mine since 1995. A few years ago, a farmer interviewed by Democracia Abierta said, "That thing about social responsibility is a fallacy. They say they are respectful of us and the environment, but it’s not true. They dump a lot of mining waste water into our streams; that’s not (social) responsibility. They are experts at violating our rights." The current climate crisis, and in this case, that of La Guajira, has not been driven by the communities affected by mining activities, but by the company whose power to control and extract the existing resources in this territory far exceeds the people who live there, and therefore also the responsibility.
The current climate crisis, and in this case, that of La Guajira, has not been driven by the communities affected by mining activities, but by the company whose power to control and extract the existing resources in this territory far exceeds the people who live there, and therefore also the responsibility.
For example, in 2019, in ruling T-614-19, the Constitutional Court of Colombia reviewed the judgment of a legal action filed in 2017 by several members of the indigenous communities of the Provincial Indigenous Reserve against Cerrejón, the Ministry of Environment and Sustainable Development, the Ministry of Health and Social Protection, the National Environmental Licensing Authority, the National Mining Agency, and the Regional Autonomous Corporation of La Guajira, for severe damage to health and the environment due to coal extraction, the granting of licenses without oversight and without strict guidelines, and the lack of consultation with the communities. This ruling makes it clear that the company has used an open-pit extraction mechanism with explosives for decades, 24 hours a day, every day of the week, generating constant particulate matter emissions, constant noise, and prolonged odors from suspended particles that affect the health of the community. However, the community continues to suffer from the impact of pollution, particularly the women, who have seen their children fall ill and have been persecuted for denouncing these health impacts on their people.
In 2021, several Colombian and international organizations denounced before the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) that the Wayúu and Afro-descendant communities were resisting an "ethnocide and ecocide" resulting from the Cerrejón mining activities. At least 25 communities have been displaced, confined, and dispossessed of their ancestral territories, and more than 17 tributary streams of the only river in the department of La Guajira, the Ranchería River, have been polluted and diverted. The responsibility for the climate crisis in this region of Colombia is clear; it is not the communities who are the cause, but a multinational extractive company.
In 2023, Censat Agua Viva and the Center for Research and Popular Education (CINEP), two organizations that have supported the struggle of indigenous and Afro-descendant communities in La Guajira, presented a report titled "Does Cerrejón Always Win? Between Corporate Impunity for Human Rights Violations and the Search for Comprehensive Reparations in Times of Transition." The title itself reveals the indignation against the extractive advance that only brings benefits to a few while bringing destruction to many, especially to communities that have historically been subjected to the benefit of capital. The report denounces the connection between the current humanitarian crisis in the department of La Guajira and the operations of Glencore, as well as the systematic human rights violations against the Wayúu and Afro-descendant communities by the company. The report mentions that despite promises of socioeconomic development, after 40 years of mining exploitation, the impoverishment of the communities has not only not decreased but has deepened. Forty years of exploitation by foreign companies from the Global North.
What has been the cost? The destruction of everything around it. There is no life around the mine. Communities have been displaced; some have managed to be "relocated" to new lands, such as the dispossessed indigenous Wayuu community Tamaquito 2, but others have not even achieved this, and 20 years after their forced displacement, like the case of Afro-descendant community Tabaco, they continue to demand comprehensive reparations for the community that was dispossessed of its territory.
In all these decades of exploitation, the company has extracted millions of tons of coal, most of which was exported to countries in the Global North. What has been the cost? The destruction of everything around it. There is no life around the mine. Communities have been displaced; some have managed to be "relocated" to new lands, such as the dispossessed indigenous Wayuu community Tamaquito 2, but others have not even achieved this, and 20 years after their forced displacement, like the case of Afro-descendant community Tabaco, they continue to demand comprehensive reparations for the community that was dispossessed of its territory.
However, even those who have been relocated continue to suffer the impacts of the mine, because the exploitation continues, and those who were previously far away are now not so far away. Other communities, like Manantialito, are suffering a gradual displacement process due to environmental and health impacts caused by the proximity to the mine and the company's lack of recognition that the community is within the mine's area of influence. In this community, the nearest river has been gradually drying up, plants are dying, people are getting sick, and they are breathing coal. These are the impacts of extractive projects that only generate profits for a few while destroying the lives of entire communities.
Genocide in Palestine
In early June, Colombian President Gustavo Petro announced that he would ban coal exports to Israel until it complied with the resolutions issued by the International Court of Justice and the United Nations. This revealed that 50 percent of the coal imported by Israel comes from Colombia. Finally, in August, a decree was published that prohibits coal exports to Israel. Israel has used this coal for electricity generation through the Israel Electric Corporation, which supplies energy to the companies producing weapons now used in the genocide against the Palestinian people.
Israel has used this coal for electricity generation through the Israel Electric Corporation, which supplies energy to the companies producing weapons now used in the genocide against the Palestinian people.
Since the beginning of the genocide, the Colombian government has taken concrete actions to denounce it, including breaking diplomatic relations with Israel and banning coal exports to that country. However, human rights organizations and those in solidarity with Palestine continue to demand that contracts with military companies such as Elbit Systems, Israel Aerospace Industries, and Israel Weapon Industries, which have long profited from the apartheid regime and the genocide against the Palestinian people, also be broken. In addition to being part of those who sustain the genocide, these companies are the ones that sell surveillance technology to Latin America. For example, while the coal export ban to Israel was being announced, the National Police's Directorate of Criminal Investigation signed a contract with the Israeli company Elbit Systems for the maintenance of a platform for receiving and analyzing intercepted communications.
As of today, more than 40,000 people have been killed in Palestine, most of them women and children. These deaths occurred with weapons produced by companies that profit from war, most of them Israeli and the U.S. The same weapons that kill Palestinians today have repressed Colombians and Latin Americans in general. As an Argentine campaign said, "The bullets that kill Palestinians repress Argentinians."
To Exist is to Resist: Colombian and Palestinian Communities Resisting to Live
While some try to make us believe that they are distant peoples with no relation to each other, we want to remember that there is not only a great connection between the dynamics of dispossession but also between the resistance and the defense of life by the vast majority on both sides of the ocean
Just as indigenous and Afro-Colombian communities resist in La Guajira against the Cerrejón mining project, despite having been persecuted and displaced for decades, in Palestine, the indigenous people also resist the advance of the colonization project of the State of Israel. In both cases, Western powers have been complicit in the dispossession of the peoples who have historically inhabited these lands in Latin America and Palestine.
While some try to make us believe that they are distant peoples with no relation to each other, we want to remember that there is not only a great connection between the dynamics of dispossession but also between the resistance and the defense of life by the vast majority on both sides of the ocean, against these colonialist practices implemented by large extractive companies and by governments aligned with projects that only seek to benefit a few at the expense of the dispossession of our territories.
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