Mining ventures nowadays have become particularly aggressive, especially in several Latin American countries. The need for economic growth, applauded by the world’s economic agencies, demands the extraction of non-renewable resources located in rural areas, harming the water, the fields, the forests and the air we breathe. Mining unleashes a devastating chain of deadly effects on the health of people, ecosystems, and the life of the planet as a whole.
Aggravating matters, in countries including Guatemala, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia and Brazil, mine operators have their sights on lands where indigenous and farming peoples have lived for generations. The worldview of these ancestral peoples not only includes the need for production, an economy and community organization, it also includes the values and principles of social reproduction that have been the foundation of their culture down through history. Of particular concern, national governments harshly repress these extremely vulnerable communities, whose inhabitants are hit the hardest by this scourge in the time of globalization. The particular cruelty used in criminalizing social activism, branded as terrorism and called by other invectives, hearkens back to the bitterest days of the fascist dictatorships that tried to wipe out the peoples’ organizations and their cry for change in the face of injustice and exploitation. But the thing is, we’re now in “peacetime” and, in some countries, we even have the leadership of governments that call themselves anti-imperialist, say they’re in the socialist camp, and ascribe to themselves other pretentions.
Dark storm clouds are gathering over this new century, foretelling years of confrontation and pain, where all signs indicate that the capitalist monster, drunk on oil, is demanding new levies on the land. For the blood that was spilled only momentarily sated its voracious appetite for power. Now it demands more gold, copper, silver, nickel and so on. What took the planet millions of years to create is now being turned into consumer goods, scrap metal and waste.
Meanwhile, in the cities, indolent urbanites watch impassively and even scornfully as hundreds of communities protest and march in defence of their lives. Or, they simply close their eyes to the repression, death and disappearance of grassroots leaders, the imprisonment of many others, and all the abuses of the forces of order of modern empire.
But, they don’t realize that when the springs dry up at the source, the water treatment plants in the cities will also shut down. That when the fields cease to produce, the markets and supermarkets will also be bare. And, that the cities, already teeming with millions of the unemployed, will be the last redoubt of the hoards displaced by mining.
Because of this, and much more, it is clear that only the resistance of the underdogs will halt the destruction of the environment and people who are still trying to live in harmony with nature. Organized struggle is the only direction for us to go, against the wickedness of those who think they are destined to own the world and all that exists on the face of the Earth. The latticework of fraternity and solidarity should only be woven directly from people to people, as the underpinnings for the development of an alternative system that looks with optimism on the future of humanity. Because if it is otherwise, the storm on the horizon will leave us no room for restoring our dreams.
Chimaltenango, 18 April 2010
Jaime Idrovo Urigüen
EQUIPO COMUNICÁNDONOS
