People Behind The Coal in Appalachia and Colombia - Post 6

KFTC and Witness For Peace have joined together over the last three years to forge closer connections between coal-affected community members and miners in Appalachia and in Colombia. Foreign corporations, mainly American ones, mine millions of tons of coal in Colombia every year, even though Colombia does not use coal for its own electricity. And, 80% of coal mined in Colombia is exported to the United States. To bolster this exchange, every year Colombians visit Kentucky and KFTC members visit Colombia.

Coal miners Raul Sosa and Jose Brito, members of Colombian coal mining unions representing workers at American-owned Drummond coal company and multi-national Cerrejon coal company, visited Kentucky in October. KFTC and Witness For Peace co-sponsored the trip as a part of an ongoing Appalachia-Colombia exchange. 

Unionists in Colombia face increasingly numbers of violence and threats from private security forces hired by foreign extraction companies, many of which are American. Raul was fired from Drummond after working as a union leader. As some of his union leader colleagues have been murdered over the last few years, he fears for his personal safety.

Raul and Jose meet with Kentucky coal miners and KFTC members in Whitesburg.

During their time in Kentucky, Raul and Jose toured eastern, western and central parts of the state. They visited a mountaintop removal site, spoke with community members and miners about the impacts of coal mining, toured an underground mine in Henderson, Kentucky and visited the Cane Run coal ash dump with directly affected KFTC member Jes Deis. 

Raul, Jose, Amy and Darrell Shelton, 4 miles down into an underground mine

In Whitesburg, a KFTC member asked Jose and Raul whether they thought surface or underground mining was worse for health and the environment. Jose's responded, "All types of coal mining are bad...We shouldn't argue over whether underground mining or surface mining is worse for the environment. We need to focus on the fact that we have shared struggles against a common enemy - transnational corporations that don't have our interests at heart."

Jose and Raul also spoke to crowds in Bowling Green and Louisville. During their talks, they detailed human rights abuses inflicted on coal miners and community members in Colombia and discussed their vision for a better future. Jose mentioned sustainable agriculture and wind generation companies as two possible economic development opportunities for his community. He focused on the shared struggle that Kentuckians have with Colombians in working towards these solutions.

"It's time we start thinking together like brothers and sisters. What we have to do is learn how it is that we can live together in this world, how we can live in balance with nature, with people."

If we all come together there are solutions out there we can find. We have taken one of the first steps - we have admitted the problem and we are now walking the same path to find the solution."

Learn more about the Appalachia - Colombia connection here. You can join the delegation to Colombia next year!