(en) Anarkismo.net, Colombia, Repression and Criminalisation in Tolima: The social cost of mega-projects

In Colombia, when investment arrives, repression arrives also. Tolima, in the centre of 
the country, with innumerable mineral and hydro resources, is becoming an important 
attraction for both national and transnational capital. The problem is that in the same 
region there are also peasants who, generation after generation have put down their roots, 
and who do not want to be forced from their land to facilitate a quarry on the mountains. 
---- The eight ASTRACATOL organisers arrested in Dolores, Tolima, on May 9th, 2013 ---- 
Repression and Criminalisation in Colombia, Tolima: The social cost of mega-projects In 
Colombia, when investment arrives, repression arrives also.

These days we have seen this clearly in the region of Catatumbo in Colombia, where 
thousands of peasants have been mobilising against the destruction of their livelihoods by 
the army and the militarisation of the region with the excuse of ?counter-insurgency? 
operations. The region has, incidentally, been declared a strategic region for the 
mining-extractive industry.

The same is happening elsewhere. Tolima, in the centre of the country, with innumerable 
mineral and hydro resources, is becoming an important attraction for both national and 
transnational capital. The problem is that in the same region there are also peasants who, 
generation after generation have put down their roots, and who do not want to be forced 
from their land to facilitate a quarry on the mountains. Not only will they have nowhere 
to go, because all they have ever known is working the land and they do not have the 
resources to go elsewhere, even if they wanted, but the problem is that they do not want 
to. And since these people are not giving in, then this is certainly an inconvenience. An 
inconvenience which the state is ?solving? the same way that it has done during two 
centuries of republican life: with brutality.

The following are some of the cases of repression in the Tolima department, symptomatic of 
a situation which is becoming general all over the country:

1. Chaparral, La Marina

Ever since ISAGEN decided that they wanted to construct a hydro-electric project in Alto 
Ambeima, things have gotten difficult for the rural communities of La Marina. Things were 
never easy, since this is a zone of so-called ?territorial consolidation? between the Army 
and the presence of the Infantry Battalion XVII ?Jos? Domingo Caicedo? which has known 
links to right-wing paramilitary death squads, and which has been a source of constant abuses.

The people who dwell in the district were already aware of the consequences of these 
projects as one has been built in San Jos? de las Hermosas and many farms were left 
completely dry. Therefore, as soon as they had begun to protest, the military boot was put in.

Those most affected have been from the trade union ASTRACATOL, which is affiliated with 
Fensuagro. On the 30 March 2011, the rural leaders Gildardo Garc?a and H?ctor Orozco were 
killed between two military control points on the road from Chaparral to La Marina (near a 
place called Albania). They had been harassed for some time by the army leading up to this 
murder. Then came the mass arrests: during that same year Edwin Lugo Caballero and Jos? 
Norbey Lugo Caballero, along with Arcesio D?az, Aycardo Morales Guzm?n, Saan Maceto Mar?n 
and Fredynel Ch?vez Mar?n, all from ASTRACATOL, were arrested. Also arrested were 
Alexander Guerrero Casta?eda and Armando Montilla Rey, of the Community Action Committees 
of La Marina and La Esperanza (R?o Blanco) respectively. Later the nephew of Arcesio D?az, 
Enzo Fabi?n D?az, would be arrested. In this state of paranoia, four local soldiers who 
were serving in Piedras were also arrested: Vilman Useche Pava, Wilmer Javier P?rez Parra, 
Isidro Alape Reyes and Jason Orlando Casta?eda. Apparently the orders to kill all the 
guerrillas were not followed with enough zeal, and so they ended up being considered 
suspicious to their officers.

This farce against the agrarian union ASTRACATOL has been orchestrated with a cartel of 
witnesses on the payroll put forward by the prosecution and the Caicedo Batallion, who 
have paid, in the opinion of the peasants, the laziest of the village to denounce their 
peers. The set-up is so clumsy that at least five of the paid informers, who pose as 
demobilised guerrillas, were not even registered as such in the Colombian Agency for 
Reintegration of Armed People and Groups. As such, it is demonstrated that in the south of 
Tolima the only law which is followed is that of the Army, which acts as judge, jury and 
executioner. And alas for those poor souls who oppose the supreme designs of big capital.

2. Dolores

The municipality of Dolores is right in the slopes of the East Andes range of mountains in 
Colom-bia, west of the Huila department, an area rich in water sources and with an 
important coffee pro-duction that sustains many small farmers and peasants who combine 
this crop with other fruit and vegetables. This area is privileged for agricultural 
production and almost anything will grow there. Recently, however, oil has been discovered 
in the municipality and the ?development train?, as president Santos calls megamining 
enterprises, is on the way. While exploitation has not started, pressure against the 
peasantry has already started. Militarisation, generalised abuse against the population, 
arbitrary arrests and displacement is step 1 in setting up the conditions for foreign 
in-vestment. The agrarian organisations denounce that oil exploitation will require 
thousands of peas-ants to be displaced and lose their land; others, those who stay will be 
affected by exploitation that will damage their capacity to grow food and will thus be ruined.

On 9 May 2013, the Colombian Army carried mass arrests against agrarian union organisers 
of ASTRACATOL in different villages of the municipality of Dolores, by order of the Judge 
of the mu-nicipality of Purificaci?n; there the general attorney is accusing the peasants 
of being ?aides of subversion? and of the crime of ?rebellion?, linking them to the 
FARC-EP guerrillas, based on the testimony of the cartel of witnesses on the State?s 
payroll. Funnily enough, the State blames them of being aides of the Front 25th of the 
FARC-EP which, according to the Army has been disbanded two years ago due to heavy combat 
in the region. The peasants arrested, all union organisers, are Ramiro Bazurdo Gonz?lez, 
Guillermo Antonio Cano Borja, Floricel Buitrago Cangrejo, Norberto Garc?a Garc?a, Gonzalo 
Ernesto Pastor Mora, Constantino Mayorga Garc?a, Jos? Guillermo Pa-checo Cruz and 
Edilberto Mayorga Garc?a. Guillermo Antonio Cano Borja is a senior agrarian or-ganiser who 
is in the executive committee of the main small farmers? association of the country, the 
combative Fensuagro union, and who also is the coordinator of the Human Rights? bureau of 
AS-TRACATOL. He had participated just a week (28-30 April) before his arrest in the Forum 
of Politi-cal Participation organised by the National University of Colombia and the 
United Nations Devel-opment Programme (UNDP), as a space for ?civil society participation? 
in the current peace nego-tiations between the FARC-EP and the National Government. This 
has been denounced as a gen-eral trend during past and present peace negotiations: that 
the people are asked to take part in the initiatives through their own popular 
organisations and then they are singled out, harassed, ar-rested or murdered.

On 11 May they were given house arrest. While the State was not able to prove any of the 
charges against them, it has managed to limit their movement, confine them to their 
villages and keep le-gally a surveillance eye on them. In the mean time, the contracts for 
the exploitation of oil are being prepared to lure in the almighty foreign investors.

3. Cajamarca, Anaime

In the municipality of Cajamarca, AngloGold Ashanti is lord and master. They plan a 
project there which they call La Colosa, the biggest gold mine in the hemisphere, and they 
have, for that purpose, appropriated 80% of the municipality?s lands. They have the 
support of the army -local peasants and opponents of the unsustainable mega-mining project 
have been harassed, stigmatised, followed and filmed. For the moment there are no cases 
pending against community leaders in the Comit? Campesino y Ambiental de Cajamarca (the 
Peasant and Environmental Committee of Cajamarca) who have mobilised against the project, 
but attention must be paid to this, because the campaign of criminalisation comes down 
strongly, and AngloGold understands this in terms of the State counter-insurgency 
strategies, because this is the only way they can justify the military course of action 
against the inhabitants of the region.

Proof of this is that on the 22 February in Ibagu? an ?Environmental Citizens Forum? was 
held (in which the disapproval of the community towards the project was evident) and the 
papers captured the exchange of messages between the vicepresident of sustainability of 
AngloGold, Rafael Hertz, and the Chief of Communications of La Colosa, Iv?n Malaver, in 
which one said ?several guerrillas of Anaime have been identified amongst the public who 
oppose (the project)?. To which the other replied ?Perfectly understood?. By November 
rumours were circulating that directors of the company had been saying the army would set 
up camp at AngloGold Ashanti, dispersing those ?guerrillas? and ?rioters? of Anaime. There 
is no smoke without fire.

4. Doima, Piedras.

Given that somebody has to pay the price for ?progress?, the yes-men of AngloGold have 
decided to construct several leaching pools in Doima; they are also going to construct a 
metallurgical plant and a dam to aid the operation of La Colosa. The problem is that the 
residents dared to wonder why it had to be them that paid the price for this so-called 
progress. Additionally, the environmental agency of the Tolima department, CORTOLIMA, 
ordered the suspension of these operations for failing to produce proper permits and 
affecting water sources. But AngloGold continues as if nothing had happened. On the 9 and 
11 April, the villagers were threatened by the army who were guarding trucks belonging to 
the mining company. Later, on the 24 April, during a peaceful protest, they attacked 
members of ESMAD, and arbitrarily arrested a disabled rural dweller.

Meanwhile, the propaganda of AngloGold Ashanti can be observed on giant billboards, full 
of smiles and lies.

Jos? Antonio Guti?rrez D.