CPTnet  
10 November 2008
COLOMBIA: CPT urgently seeking participants for January 2009 delegation to Colombian mining communities struggling for survival


Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT) is planning a delegation for 13-26 January 2009, to highlight the concerns of Colombia's traditional mining communities.  As well as traveling to Bogota and Barrancabermeja, where CPT-Colombia's full-time presence is based, delegation participants will visit a mining community in the San Lucas Mountains of southern Bolivar province.  There, they will hear firsthand about the miners' struggles to stay on their land and maintain their way of life, despite paramilitary violence, assassinations, unjust accusations and arrests, and the encroaching interests of agro-industry and multinational mining companies.


CPT-Colombia has accompanied the Federation of Agricultural-Miners of Southern Bolivar since 2006, when the assassination of leader Alejandro Uribe compelled the Federation to demand more urgently justice and human rights for their communities and constructive dialogue with the Colombian government.

On 15 October, when government representatives failed to appear in Santa Rosa for a scheduled meeting with the Federation, the 900 assembled miners and farmers protested the government's neglect.  Two days later, a commission of 150 marched to Cartagena and occupied the headquarters of the Secretariat of Mining until the government agreed to hold official negotiations with the Federation.  A meeting between government representatives and Federation members on 6 November has led to the formation of a joint commission to investigate human rights violations.

Now is a crucial time to act on behalf of Colombian's traditional mining communities.  While the communities experience and protest the violence, environmental degradation, neglect, and abuse of their human rights, the Colombian government is negotiating with Canada and the U.S. trade agreements that would further threaten these communities' survival.  Please consider expressing your solidarity with the miners by joining CPT's delegation to the mining zone of southern Bolivar.  More information and delegation applications are available on the CPT website at http://www.cpt.org/participate/delegation or by contacting cptdelegations@gmail.com