Among the main results of our research is the expansion and diversification of extractive activities in Latin America and the Caribbean. Such a trend continued even during the progressive government cycles in South America, which implies, among other effects, the growth of mining activities in traditionally non-mining countries such as Uruguay, or the expansion of the extractive border in countries such as Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Mexico or Peru.
Since the beginning of the 21st century, extractivism, despite the renewed discourse of some of its practices, as well as attempts at lessening its effects through social policies, in truth remains harmful and has in fact increased, generating numerous socio-environmental conflicts. Extractivism causes environmental pollution, damage to health, violence, land misappropriation and the forced expulsion of the affected populations.
It also threatens food security and traditional ways of life, while affecting the permanent transformation of ecosystems, which reinforces the seriousness of actions of global phenomena such as climate change. Furthermore, these elements do not affect everyone equally.
The most affected groups are the Indigenous, Afro-descendants, peasants and women, historically more exposed to the enforcement of projects by the Latin American elites. In addition, the effects are reinforced by phenomena such as centralism, internal colonialism as well as the racist and patriarchal systems that historically characterize the countries of the region.
However, these affected groups take the lead in processes of struggle and resistance in defiance of the advance of this hegemonic development model. As the cases of the Aratirí (Uruguay), Pacific Rim El Dorado (El Salvador) or Conga (Peru) projects show, women play a central role in the processes of struggle and resistance. The Indigenous and Afro descendants are also key players in these processes.
Faced with the adverse effects of extractive activities, and the threats they pose to their collective rights and traditional ways of life, these groups react to expose their reality through organising marches and other forms of resistance. Marches such as “Water, Dignity and Life” or “Against Mining”, occupations, complaints and campaigns (national and international), as well as artistic activities, constitute the networks of solidarity and influence of a regional and global character.
Examples of these processes are the occupation of territories threatened by mining. Two examples being: Intag (Ecuador), the community organization in defence of territories in Challapata (Bolivia), Cajamarca (Peru) and Huasco (Chile); and the organization of the Saramaka people which fights to claim their ancestral territories, and their right to maintain their traditional practices of living in the state of Suriname.
Those who oppose extractivism and those leaders who defend life and territories face high stakes and often pay a high price. According to a recent article published in Nature Sustentability, 1,558 people were killed in 50 countries for defending the environment between 2002-2017. As we mentioned earlier, Latin America and the Caribbean is the most dangerous region for defenders of land and the environment. Brazil and Colombia are the most dangerous countries, and no Latin American State is far from this tragic domination.
In Brazil 700 defenders have been killed since the beginning of the 21st century, and according to a recent Human Rights Watch report, in just 10 years, 300 people were killed by criminal networks linked to the deforestation and land invasion industry in the Amazon, and only 14 of those cases were tried in court. In mid 2019, the deaths of Dilma Ferreira da Silva (coordinator of the Movimento dos Atingidos por Barragens (MAB) in Brazil), Uriel Piranga Valencia (indigenous leader and former Cacique of Maticurú Reserve in Colombia), Sergio Rojas (indigenous leader Bribri in Costa Rica), Estelina López (land defender and member of the Luz y Fuerza del Pueblo Movement in Mexico), Jorge Juc Cucul (peasant and indigenous leader of the Comité de Desarrollo Campesino of Guatemala) are some of the many examples that illustrate the brutality of the violence that characterizes the progress of extractivism. Beyond the increasing number of murders, the violence that these people face is aggravated by the impunity that characterizes these crimes, as well as by the threats and judicial processes that these defenders constantly suffer.
Violence against these populations, in its multiple expressions, is exerted by transnational corporations, agents of organized crime, paramilitary groups and by state actors such as the Police, the Armed Forces or by those who should be the representatives of justice. Such actions are set up as part of the process of the criminalization of the defenders of the land and environment.
Campaigns to delegitimize and criminalize widespread resistance in Latin America and the Caribbean, accuse the leaders of threatening national security and of acts of “terrorism”, “sabotage”, “sedition”, or of opposing progress in their territories. The various forms of violence, as well as the stigmatization of the leaders of social movements and land defenders include threats against the defenders and their families, arbitrary detentions, court cases, evictions, forced displacement, and often murder.
These acts acquire particular characteristics in the cases of women and traditional communities, where sexual violence is added, and collective rape is used as a form of punishment or reprisal for the actions carried out by the movements.
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Enara Echart Munoz Maria Villarreal | Radio Free (2020-02-05T23:00:00+00:00) Extractivism and resistance in Latin America and the Caribbean. Retrieved from https://www.radiofree.org/2020/02/05/extractivism-and-resistance-in-latin-america-and-the-caribbean/
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