Help us to be heard: we are demanding justice!
After more than 6 months of legal struggles before the institutions and justice, the communities and unions of the mining corridor achieved a historic sentence on September 14, 2022 when the Administrative Judge 7 of Valledupar ordered the installation of the first large public round table to be carried out with all the communities, national and local authorities and with the oversight of the control institutions, the accountability and dissemination of the environmental and social duties that this company must comply with before definitively withdrawing from the area and that will be agreed in its plan for partial closing of obligations.
Today this sentence is at risk of being revoked and we have made a request for judicial surveillance to the disciplinary committee since it is surrounded by irregular practices by the company that go against due process and good judicial practices. That is why we denounce:
- Firstly, Prodeco Business Group has declared that it has not been notified of the judgement of first instance on two occasions, the last time arguing that there are several companies that make up its consortium and that each one of the processes must be notified individually. Dilating the case, generating its nullity and restarting the process already twice. Denying a notorious fact at the public level, and it is the business unit that they themselves declare on their website and where they inform society in general that its sole owner is Glencore, an Anglo – Swiss multinational.
- Secondly, the process must begin again from the beginning, because the company has begun to summon the communities and unions to irregular dissemination processes, without the guarantees that the judge has demanded in the sentence. This in order to demonstrate compliance with this process and change the ruling.
As communities, unions, and national and international civil society organisations, we believe that this public round table may be the last guaranteeing and binding opportunity that the communities, workers, and citizens in general of the mining municipalities of La Jagua, El Paso, and Becerril to unite so that we take stock of what has happened in our territories and achieve a great plan to close obligations that compensates and restores all the impacts caused. We invite the company Prodeco to a constructive dialogue, to avoid evasive actions and to respect the judicially ordered table.
We ask to everyone of us unite in a great process to demand justice and defend this judicial decision in order to be able to restore our territory, compensate for the serious environmental and social impacts caused and that economic measures be taken immediately to achieve a true economic reactivation in the face of the irregular mining closure and the great poverty and unemployment that is being experienced. Achieving a progressive and planned a just economic transition in our territories for the coming years.
We continue to ask everyone to join us to be heard, to heal our territories and to urgently recover our economy.
For a Just transition for the defence of our territory:
La Junta de acción comunal de Boquerón,
Consejo Comunitario afrodescendiente Coafrovis de la Victoria de San Isidro
Red de Mujeres del Municipio del Paso
Asamblea Campesina del Cesar
Asociación de usuarios campesinos ANUC el paso
Sindicato Nacional de trabajadores del Carbón –Sintracarbón
Sindicato Nacional de los trabajadores de la industria minero-energética- Sintramienergetica
Resguardo Sokorhpa del pueblo indígena Yukpa
Consejo Comunitario Caño Candela de Becerril
Junta de Acción Comunal del Barrio Don Jaca en Santa Marta
Corregimiento de Cordobita en Ciénaga (Madgalena)
Vereda el Hatillo
Representante Junta de acción comunal Sororia de la Jagua de Ibirico
Pax Colombia – PAX-
PAX-Netherlands-
ASK- Working Group Switzerland Colombia
Kolko e.V. – Germany
Aluna Minga – Germany
Leben statt Kohle – Germany
Solifonds – Switzerland
Multiwatch – Switzerland
Urgewald – Germany
pax christi- Kommission Solidarität Eine Welt – Germany
London Mining Network – United Kingdom
Terra Justa – England
CNV International – Netherlands
Freebrunoofficial – Germany
Centro de Estudios para la Justicia Social TIERRA DIGNA