Protests planned across 6 countries and 3 continents will highlight the environmental and social impact of Glencore’s mines in Colombia, Argentina, DRC, Peru and Brazil, as groups in South Africa call for an embargo to end Glencore’s coal exports to Israel.
Glencore, one of the world’s biggest mining companies and commodity traders, will face protests in London, DRC, South Africa, Colombia, Argentina and Switzerland on 28 May. The global day of action takes place as Glencore’s shareholders gather in Zug, Switzerland, for the company’s AGM and receive a $2bn dividend payout.
Demonstrations will highlight the impacts of Glencore’s mining operations worldwide. Glencore is among the mining companies that have successfully lobbied for reduced legal protections for Argentina’s glaciers. In Peru, elevated levels of toxic metals in urine have been linked to Glencore’s Antamina copper mine, leading communities to request the government declare an environmental and health emergency in the area.
The impacts of Glencore’s subsidiary cobalt operations in DRC include environmental pollution, child labour, and violence against human rights defenders. Glencore is also accused of causing deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon to develop its bauxite mining operations, and faces calls for reparations in Colombia over the mining company’s displacement of Wayuu and African descent people in various communities, including the community of Tabaco.
Activists in South Africa will protest against Glencore’s coal exports to Israel, with the company named as complicit in Israel’s economy of genocide in Francesca Albanese’s UN report. They will demand action in line with Colombia, where campaigners succeeded in pushing the government to stop its exports.
Diana Salazar, Latin America Coordinator at London Mining Network, said: “Across Glencore’s extraction sites, affected communities share a common story: they denounce human rights and environmental abuses while demonstrating strong dignity and resistance in defence of their territories and ways of life. As Glencore’s mining frontier expands under the banner of the energy transition and the search for critical minerals, the communities make evident that this comes at a profound cost – undermining people’s health and cultures and driving the destruction of ecosystems in extraction zones. This is not a solution for the ecological crises.”
Daniel Kalalizi, an environmental activist and representative of Resist Glencore in DRC, said: “Glencore has polluted the Luilu river which supplied water for the local population. Glencore says they contribute to the preservation of the environment, however they just plant trees in very dry areas where there is no rain. We are taking action in the South Kivu and Tshopo provinces to say no to everything Glencore is doing because this company contributes to the wars happening here and all over the world.”
Melina Zocchi from El Algarrobo Assembly, Andalgala, Argentina, said: “We protect the Aconquija mountain, our source of water, and stand firm in our rights as a people to live with dignity on our land, with clean, unpolluted water. We will continue to resist Glencore’s MARA Agua Rica – Alumbrera project until justice is done.”
Estela Rojas, Chairperson of the Peruvian Association of People Affected by Heavy Metals, Metalloids, and other Toxic Chemicals, said: “We have been contaminated, we have been polluted. There’s enough evidence to say that Glencore is to blame. This is tantamount to the fight between David and Goliath, but we will prevail and be listened to. We demand urgent medical attention for children and pregnant women affected by arsenic contamination which has been linked to Glencore’s Antamina copper mine”.
Lina Suter, from Climatestrike Bern, said: “Corporations like Glencore and investors generate a fortune through commodity trading and financial transactions. However, it is precisely these activities that lead to war, displacement, and environmental and social destruction in the Global South.”
- The London demonstration will begin at 11am on 28 May outside Glencore’s London HQ: 18 Hanover Square, London W1S 1JY. There will be speeches and chanting there followed by a march to the Apple Store on Oxford Street and branches of HSBC and Barclays.
- Climatestrike Bern and the Swiss Coalition against Glencore will hold a demonstration in front of the main station in Bern at 5pm on 28 May. They expect about 150 people, the demonstration will last 1.5 hours.
- Voices, an NGO based in Bern, will protest at Glencore’s AGM in Zug. Glencore holds a 45% stake in the bauxite mine MRN in the Brazilian Amazon and they are working with riverine communities there who are scared of a dam failure at MRN’s tailings storage facility. The protest will be at approximately 11-12 local time.
- In Argentina, a protest will take place at 5pm local time in Andalgala, Plaza 9 de Julio, against Glencore’s Agua Rica project which threatens local water sources.
- In Tabaco, Colombia, a permanent blockade of the trainline has been in operation since midnight of 23 May. Communities are demanding their town be rebuilt following displacement by Glencore.
- In Bogotá, Colombia, demonstrations will take place at 8am local time outside Glencore’s offices, Carretera 14 #85-68, and at 5pm local time outside the Constitutional Court, Calle 12 #7-65.
- In South Africa, a protest will take place from 12pm local time outside Glencore’s HQ: Melrose Arch, Johannesburg.
- In DRC, activities are planned on 27 and 28 May in the South Kivu and Tshopo provinces, centred on addressing poverty for communities impacted by mining operations and public awareness campaigns on the impacts of Glencore’s operations.