The People Behind Coal in Colombia and Kentucky - post 2

By Randy Wilson, KFTC Member, Clay County

From July 19th-26th, a delegation of 5 from Kentucky - including Randy Wilson and two other KFTC members - participated in a Witness for Peace trip, which was focused on "The People Behind the Coal in Kentucky and Colombia." We spent the week learning about the impacts of the coal industry on communities in a northern coastal region called La Guajira.

    We got up @ 5:30 am and were on the bus by 6:00....another day on the road in the Guajira region of northern Colombia.  I don't think I saw more than 12 tourists the whole 7 days we were in that region....perfect for mining coal....nobody comes up there.  But we were there as a part of Witness for Peace observing what the mines were doing to the region.  Everywhere we went leadership said, "They promised prosperity and jobs...."and then the long list of economic, environmental, and health problems they had inherited from the coal companies.

Tabago Open Pit Operation at Cerrejon Mine

This day we had to leave the tour bus and take a four wheel van back into those villages directly effected by a coal pit the size of Long Island!   Thirty five miles long and five miles wide.  We pitched to and fro through rutted roads, crossed a swelling river once...then got caught in the rising river a second time.  Locals rustled up a long rope and a bus pulled us out to safety.  At one time all these villages were joined by a convenient trade route.  They traded tobacco, garden vegetables, goat and cattle.  They had no clear boundaries.  Their cattle ranged fair and wide.  Some indegenous tribes lived in the region before the European invasion in 1499.   But here was a different kind of invasion led by mining multinationals, supported by the US and Colombian governments, and strong armed by military and paramilitary thugs....displacing folks right and left in their path. 

Dancers in the Tamaquito Village

Some villagers were united.  Some were not.  The company picked off some, divided others.  All were in negotiations for removal.  One such village was Tomaquito, home of the indigenous Wyhuu people.  Once lord of thousands of hectares, now they were reduced to ten and bound within the confines of their village, dependant on food sources from town some 25 miles of treacherous road away.   They lived under a cool canopy of trees in mud huts with palm thatched roofs.  They performed for us a dance where the women covered from head to ankle in flaming red capes circled the open ground to the sound of a drum.  They told us of their life there.  "Once we fished, we hunted, we grew crops, we tended goats and cattle.  We had no boundaries.  We traded with nearby villages.   There was no need for electricity.   When the sun sets and night falls it is dark, but we know where we are.  We are not lost.  Once we lived in peace."

   Every year 132 million tons of Colombian coal goes to fire coal fired plants in places like Mobile,Ala, Tampa, Fla., and Salem, Ma.  These plants put us all at risk.  The very people who know how to live sustainably, who figured this out long, long ago, are being displaced by a society whose principles and policy don't have a clue.