Mediaboss Marketing

At that time, the community was focused on the priests from the Community Centre, who usually accompanied food security programs and guided the indigenous people in the elaboration of their life plan (a route to recover their knowledge and community organization). It was precisely the appeal made by the priests that made the engineer respect the inhabitants, their collective rights and leave the hut.

The community started making claims against Rubn and other leaders.

They pointed me out. They told me that I sold the territory for money, that I received thirty million, fifteen million. That's false," the Captain says.

In Timb de Betania they think that the right to prior consultation was not respected because they did not dialogue with all the inhabitants of the three communities, Bogot Cachivera, Murutinga and Timb themselves. Apparently, there was a meeting with some indigenous people where they signed an agreement.

Jos Ernesto Uribe Surez, who was a captain between 2005 and 2014, says that he learned that the miners held a meeting in Murutinga and an engineer came to the area to take coordinates, but at the time he did not know what these people were working on.

"They came with an engineer, as they negotiated. They had a big meeting and I think that's where they signed the document. According to people, most of them signed the document, which means that they are going to mine, so after five years, or six, this problem started to appear (...). From then on, a year later, they returned by force, they came with a big project, which was already done, already signed," says the former captain, calling for clarification of what happened.

The indigenous people are talking about their fears again. They fear that the arrival of the mining company will contaminate their rivers and, in a worst case scenario, force them out of their homes.

View post:
Defenders of the Colombian Amazon scared hills: the mining concession - Open Democracy