Colombia Solidarity Campaign

On Friday 25 October, 2013, at approximately 6:30 am, two vehicles from the company  Cootracaime were travelling, according to reports, in the direction of El Silencio, located in the Canyon of Anaime in the district of El Cajón. One of the vehicles was hit by a ball of fire, resulting in burns to two people, the driver and an official from the Agustín Codazzi Geographic Institute (IGAC), who were transferred to Bogotá.

Given these events, the Environmental and Campesino Committee of Anaime and Cajamarca, and the entire Network of Environmental and Campesino Committees of Tolima, wish to make it known that:

• We denounce the violent events yesterday and demand a rapid investigation to obtain clear and transparent public information about them.
• We denounce every kind of violence in the territory that jeopardises the right of communities to freely and voluntarily determine their way of life.
• We are tired of the fact that every time that the communities decide to claim their rights and defend their water, agriculture and environmental assets against mining activities being conducted by AngloGold Ashanti, it coincides with violent events that create an atmosphere of anxiety.  This, we believe, is an attempt to discredit the social protest of communities. In this case it is essential that the public understand that since Monday 21 October, the communities of Altamira and La Bolívar have expressed their categorical rejection of the activities being conducted by the company in the La Bolívar Municipal Park and the area around the Chorros Blancos basin  found in the Forest Reserve Area, where many water sources originate. AngloGold Ashanti is carrying out studies and exploratory activities without any consultation or dialogue with the communities, allegedly with the consent of the Municipality of Cajamarca.

In the light of all this, we wish to draw the national and international communities’ attention to the importance of standing with those who are reporting the current impacts and future threats of ecocidal projects such as the La Colosa gold mine, which the multinational AngloGold Ashanti is attempting to push forward.