Colombia Solidarity Campaign

Villa Rica, in tears after the violent attack, is raising its voice calling for peace and asking for the police station to be rebuilt outside the area where people live.

In the first half of February, two attacks on the police caused the death of Colombian civilians in two different Afro-Colombian localities, with some of the most vulnerable sectors of Colombian people, Tumaco in Nariño, and Villa Rica in the Cauca region.

Last Tuesday 5 June, the streets of the city of Ibagué were filled with the people of Tolima, united in their call to defend life, their water sources and territory. Over 30,000 people participated in the third march against large-scale mining, emphatically rejecting open cast mining, specifically the La Colosa mining project, currently being proposed by AngloGold Ashanti, and located in the Central Forest Reserve of Colombia.

View footage of the march.

Photo Credit: Amnesty London Photography

On 1 June Colombians, Latin Americans, British people, and people from other countries peacefully gathered outside the Colombian embassy in London in solidarity with the people of Tolima, Colombia, whose livelihoods are under threat by the devastating consequences posed by the La Colosa gold mining project.  The picket outside the Colombian embassy was timed to coincide with a march in Ibagué (the nearest major city in the area) on 5 June, when thousands of people are expected to take to the streets to voice their opposition to the mining project.  The demonstration was well-attended, during which slogans were chanted in English and Spanish to reinforce the message that water and food sovereignty are more important than gold.  The protest culminated with this letter being handed to Colombian embassy officials by representatives of various social and environmental organizations from London.  The letter expresses concern about the AngloGold Ashanti gold mining project, and presents several reasons why this project should not go ahead.

Attachments:

carta-embajada-1jun2012.pdf

[Letter to Colombian Embassy about La Colosa - 1 June 2012]

856 Kb

Colombia Solidarity Campaign London Branch Meeting 7pm Tuesday 15 May

A documentary about the proposed la Colosa open cast gold mining project, produced by Bertram Doll and Helena Sala. La Colosa is a project being explored by London-listed AngloGold Ashanti in Cajamarca, an agricultural community nestled in the central Andean mountains of Colombia . Beneath Cajamarca is one of the world's largest gold reserves discovered in the last decade. If the mine goes ahead, a unique ecosystem will be devastated, and strategic water sources that are crucial for the livelihoods of thousands of Colombians will be lost forever.

3pm-6pm, Friday 1 June, outside Colombian Embassy, London
Nearest Tube: Knightsbridge
3 Hans Crescent, London SW1X 0LN

Join us in solidarity with the people of Cajamarca, central Colombia, to say
NO TO THE COLOSA MINE AND YES TO LIFE!

Within the same month, one of Colombia’s principal guerrilla groups, the FARC, release ten hostages and an international conference is called in Switzerland to discuss a political solution to the country’s internal conflict. Though both have highlighted the complexity in finding such a resolution, it has also become increasingly clear that President Juan Manuel Santos is not the only one with ‘the key to peace’ within reach.