Sixth installment of the “Raphael Project”, in collaboration with the investigative journalism consortium Forbbiden Stories. Through the story of an indigenous governor, we make a portrait of the dispossession, contamination and violation of the rights of ethnic communities in the south of Córdoba, a disputed territory between large-scale mining and illegal groups.
Victims of a massacre and forced displacement, the Zenú indigenous people of the Cabildo Bello Horizonte were relocated six kilometers from Cerro Matoso SA, the largest open-pit nickel mine on the continent. Without explanation, a Constitutional Court ruling excluded them from the measures that the company must comply with for the benefit of the communities in its area of influence. He journalist Rafael Moreno he was investigating the case before being assassinated in unexplained circumstances.
by angandlica Pérez and Aabla Jounaïgave
Of all the municipalities in the south of Córdoba, the most dangerous is Montelíbano. The journalists and activists who share our table. In fact, Rafael Moreno was murdered here, says one of them. and this is fair the place where we have met Yoli de la Ossa, the governor of the Cabildo Indígena zenor Beautiful horizon.
LShe arrives accompanied by her everlasting smile and four bodyguards. “Two belong to the National Protection Unitno of Vvictims. And two are compañeros from the Indigenous Guard because, honestly, I don’t trust the State. You know, one carries the ‘indian malice’gene‘ since he was born”, explains Yoli with that humor and self-confidence typical of the people of the South of Córdoba, one of the most violent regions of Colombia. where illegal armed groups, large legal mining and violence against communities are rampant.
“Here where I am, I am a victim of homicide, displacement and threats”. To the cuhe was assassinated by the guerrilla groupshe brother the paramilitaries, precise.
“It was Mancuso.” His voice becomes a thin thread and highly strung when he names the fearsome paramilitary commander, Salvatore Mancuso, who ordered the two massacres against his community in the municipality of tierralt. TO late 1990s, The United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC) converted this ancestral territory of the Zenú indigenous in the stronghold of extreme right-wing paramilitaries, drug trafficking and counterinsurgency.It was there that the foundation stone of parapolitics was signed: the Ralito Pact.
Also read and listen: “Since they killed Rafa no one dares to speak anymore”
“The stop us They carried out the first massacre on September 8, 1997. The second, a year later: on March 26. That time, murdered eight people and they gave us 24 hours to leave our territory. They said if we didn’t leave, they would kill us all.” The 420 people join the 100,000 displaced by massacres perpetrated in the south of Córdoba from the 1980s to the beginning of this century, and which constituted 47% of the massacres in the entire department.
Legal mining and illegal groups dispute the territory
“liveWe were in the park area” he says wistfully. It refers to Paramillo National Natural Park, dandtop largest protected area in the countrys, hydrographic zoneAfrica, a biodiversity reservoir, a region of extensive forest reserves and of great geostrategic importancegica.
behindn of this intricate geography have hidden coca crops and illegal armed groups that replace the State: the extinct guerrillas FARC and EPLthen the far-right paramilitary squads and currently the Clan del Golfo, “the organizationcriminal activity, linked to drug trafficking and miningto illegal, mmost powerful in the country from a military point of view.” tell uswent days ago senator ivan Cepeda, banner of the denunciation of the ties between politics and narco-paramilitarism in Córdoba.
The south of Córdoba is also a paradise for large-scale mining: exist 60 current mining titles, between national and international and 180 applications for exploitation.
Box source: Anaya J. and Coronado S. (2014). A look at extractivism in the South of Córdoba. Córdoba Land and territory, contributions to the debate. Bogota. Cinep and Program for Peace.
The same region is a bloody and spoiled land: since the implementation of the peace process in Colombiain 2016, until the year 2020,they were killed 37 social leaders in the south of Córdoba (Cordobexia Foundation). 11 more than 2020 to date (Indepaz).
Between 1996 and 2012, 213,701 people from seven southern municipalities and the capital, Montería, were victims of forced displacement. Said exodus implied the abandonment by violence of 11,832 hectares. In the same period and in the same territories, 68,104 hectares were granted for mining extraction.
“No one told us anything”
The indigenous community of Yoli was displaced for three years. “ANDOn April 24, 2021, INCORA –currently the National Land Agency- relocated us to the town of La Dorada in San José of Urand”.
started a new life for them… six kilometers from Cerro Matoso SA
“We didn’t know the mine was so close. Nobody told us anything”. Very soon they would know what it is like to live in the area of influence of one of the largest open-pit nickel mines in the world: “The species began to disappearr, crops of pltoso and of chili pepper they did not bear fruit. We saw a fall powderItemor yellow, then cohelet’s hear totumitas pumpkinzaeon the roofs of the houses and we check that it is filled with that little powder like noor we have drinking water, we have always had to collect Water rain that already comes with that scum. People began to feel a lot of itching in their eyes and on their skin, difficulties in breathing. And cases of lung, womb, stomach and breast cancers increased.”
Also read and listen: “Surviving at the foot of the nickel mining giant”
Yoli, governor of the council since 2004, led her community’s battle against Cerro Matoso SA “The cacique brought experts who did a study. Once the impact has been verified, we call the company to dialogue. They didn’t listen to us. We held a two-day peaceful march and they attacked us with the ESMAD (Mobile Anti-Riot Squad). So, in 2013 we stopped the activity of the mine. 38 days we were there”.
In 2014, Bello Horizonte filed a joint guardianship with the other 8 councils that make up the Resguardo del Alto San Jorge Pueblo Zenú, which was joined by the Council of Black Communities of San José de Uré. In it they denounced that the activity of Cerro Matoso SA put at risk the existence of those ethnic communities.
Juged thing
In 2017, The Constitutional Court ruled in favor of the indigenous and Afro-Colombians who live in the zone of influence of the mining complex. The company appealed. Result: You the sentence to create an ethnographic fund for the compensation and reparation of the victims was annulled. But survived the order obliging Cerro Matoso SA to provide permanent medical attention to communities and perform with themto prior consultation.
Fatality! The ruling of the High Court does not cover the Bello Horizonte indigenous council. His name and that of the Embera Katio-Dochama indigenous reservation, parties to the process from the beginning, disappear among the hundreds of pages of the sentence.
“If it covers San José de Uré, which is on the edge of the mine’s area of influence, why not us? If the winds that carry the contamination of Cerro Matoso SA pass through my town hall first. If our last lobbyist lives a five-minute walk from the hill. Why were we excluded from the sentence? asks the indigenous governor.
“Res Judicata” the courts have responded in each appeal. They do not even investigate the reasons why the council was excluded. And they don’t back down, says Pedro Villamarín, the lawyer representing the indigenous people of Bello Horizonte.
Also read and listen: “San José de Uré: ‘Town of mine, town of ruin’
The day comes to an end and we are warned that it is not prudent to travel in this area when night falls.
And how are the people in your community doing? we asked Yoli before saying goodbye.
“With respiratory problems and dying of cancer. My husband passed away at the age of 56 from cancer that ate his lungs. My sister just got out of chemotherapy. And in the council there are three children who were born without an anus and with both sexes. Without a taste, with only one eye and one ear. one of them is my grandson”.
The medical studies carried out on the families of these children rule out genetic causes, he says. “We want to scientifically investigate the origin of these pathologies. But that costs a lot of money. and we don’t have it”.
