Editors note: We are publishing this release because we support all movements against extractive industries. But we want to make clear that bypassing safety precautions is standard for the oil industry and extractive corporations around the planet, and that even when the best available technologies and precautions are used, these things still kill the planet by their very nature. For example, it’s not gas drilling “done irresponsibly” that is the problem. It’s gas drilling as a whole, and by extension the entire industrial economy.
Featured image: Okavango River by Dr. Thomas Wagner, CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons
Media Release
ReconAfrica fails to place a leack proof lining system in the drilling fluid containment pond. Drill site 6-2 Kavango Namibia
ReconAfrica is a Vancouver based Canadian petroleum exploration company that has acquired an exploration licence for the PEL 73 area located in Kavango East and West in Namibia. Drilling of the first of two permitted exploration boreholes began in December 2020. The borehole, referenced BH 6-2 is situated approximately 600m from the ephemeral river Omatako Omarumba, and all earthworks required to facilitate the drill rig have been completed. This includes a below ground level drill fluid containment pond.
The pond is approximately 45m in length, 30m in width and some 3m in depth and capable of holding almost 4.2million liters of liquid waste It is not known if the capacity of the pond has been designed to contain at least 110% of the largest expected wastewater volume at any given stage as is standard practise. During the drilling process waterbased drilling fluids are used to provide lubrication to the drill bit and to stabilise the borehole amongst other reasons. The drilling fluids are circulated down the borehole and pumped back to the surface for storage in the containment pond.
As drilling progresses the borehole will initially intersect shallow ground water aquifers that typically occur at a depth of 10 to 30m below ground level, At greater depths, at the base of the Kalahari beds and beyond into the underlying Karoo formations, beyond an anticipated depth of about 900m, highly saline groundwater will be intersected. This was revealed in the Environmental Impact Report prepared by Risk Based Solutions. As drill fluids circulate they will bring rock cuttings and a quantity of groundwater back to the surface which is stored in the containment pond built for the purpose. Due to the proposed ultimate borehole depths of 2500m, hypersaline fluid brine will be intersected in the deep Karoo sediments. The return drill fluids that will be placed in the containment pond will therefore contain drilling mud and rock cuttings from the Karoo sediments that are known to contain natural occurring radioactive materials (NORMS), and hypersaline brine – a cocktail that must be treated as hazardous liquid waste.
An onsite visual assessment of the containment pond located adjacent to BH 6-2 has revealed that the containment pond has not been lined with an appropriate water proof barrier system. Although not explicitly stated as a requirement in the Environmental Management Programme prepared by Risk Based Solutions, the requirements for a liner are implied. The report makes it a requirement of ReconAfrica to “…Never allow any hazardous substance to soak into the soil”. Furthermore, the document also requires that upon completion of the drilling, ReconAfrica must “… allow the pollution control dam to evaporate completely, scrape all waste that has collected in the pond and dispose of these and the pond lining at a suitable site”
No lining or efforts to render the containment pond impervious have been made despite the implied requirement that there should be at least a single pond liner. As reported by National Geographic on 29th January 2021 a spokesperson for ReconAfrica indicated in a written reply in October 2020 that potentially toxic drill cuttings from the oil test wells “will be managed in lined pits, cleaned, and disposed of offsite as per company and regulatory requirements.”
Given the vulnerability of groundwater at this site, it would be expected that a double lining system would be required, coupled with monitoring of the pond lining, the interstitial pond fluid (i.e. the fluid between the two liners), the returned wastewater quality for selected parameters such as electrical conductivity (EC) and radioiactivity. Regular monitoring of the groundwater quality in the immediate vicinity of the site must also be implemented.
Management guideline for saline fluids for hydraulic fracturing published by the British Oil and Gas Commission in April 2019 provide detailed requirements for the impoundment of saline flowback such as anticipated in Kavango East and West. Among the many design requirements specified in Canada some include:
The primary synthetic liner must be a minimum of 60 mil (1.5 mm) thick, have hydraulic conductivity of 10-7cm/s or less and must have properties that are fit for the purpose intended and conditions and temperature extremes encountered.
The secondary synthetic liner must be a minimum of 60 mil (1.5 mm) thick, have hydraulic conductivity of 10-7cm/s or less.
The design must incorporate a leak detection system within the engineered seepage pathway leading to at least one leak detection well, vault, or port. This must allow for water sampling from the lowest point of the pond, positioned between the primary and secondary liners and be designed for accurate measurement of leakage rate.
The BC Oil and Gas Commission also provide guidelines for the management of containment ponds which include some of the following actions:
The pond must be constructed and bermed in a manner that does not allow surface runoff from the site to enter the pond. A minimum of 1.0 m freeboard must be maintained within the containment pond at all times. The primary containment liner be regularly inspected for evidence of leaks and damage and that records of issues related to inspections and corrective actions be maintained.
A groundwater monitoring program must be developed by a qualified professional to evaluate potential groundwater impacts that could be associated with the pond. Monitoring wells must be used to establish baseline conditions for groundwater levels and chemistry prior to use of the containment pond and the baseline monitoring. Samples from the leak detection system and sub-drain must be collected and analyzed on a weekly basis.
Visual evidence obtained from the site indicate that ReconAfrica are not in compliance with their own declarations made in October 2020, and do not comply with the requirements of the EMPR. They are therefore in violation of the Environmental Compliance Certificate issue by the Ministry of Environment and Tourism. In addition, ReconAfrica have chosen to ignore Canadian industry approved guidelines issued by the Oil and Gas Commission in British Columbia, the state in which the companies head offices are located.
Despite the fanfare and extensive publicity that ReconAfrica have generated over the drilling of water wells adjacent to each exploration borehole will be made available to the communities once the exploration holes are completed – there will be no benefit accrued if the groundwater is contaminated by drilling effluent. The conclusions and inferences that can be drawn from the cavalier attitude of Recon Africa is that there is a lack of respect for the rural indigenous people of Kavango East and West who’s livelyhoods are total dependent on access to clean groundwater.
First Voices Indigenous Radio host Tiokasin Ghosthorse interviewed Max Wilbert about the occupation of a proposed mine in northern Nevada. Lithium Americas corporation plans to rip open 5,000 acres of this land to extract lithium for consumer products.
Campers are hiking and gathering around a fire. Some visit with Cody and Cloud the wolf brothers. I again sing the wolf song. I spoke to Blackfeet Holy Man on the phone. Blackfeet had the largest traditional home range in this side of Turtle Island even larger than the Paiute. I am Blackfeet on my father’s side. The Holy Man reminded me that our spiritual efforts to protect bears and wolves are becoming law in some places.
Change? Efforts to appease us? Progress? Crumbs.
We’re going all the way. Even beyond sovereignty. Decolonization.
I am “police” warrior society and we will have to ultimately enforce those Ideals that become law such as the American Indian Religious Freedom Act of 1978 because nobody else will enforce it. We may have to enforce indigenous law with the war club again one day. Will we get grizzly bears reintroduced into the northern cascades and other places?
How wild can we get?
Sitting here in what would have been wolf habitat before colonists made them extinct in 1953 watching the sun reflect brilliantly off the side of a mountain. Later I sing a peyote song. Focus. Healing. Waiting for the descendants of Chief Paulina the renegade chief to rise up again. But they were decimated to 38 members. Waiting for root and bannock people. Bison n rice people posted up a little longer. Tobacco is placed on the alter near the golden eagle carving.
A.I.M WE’RE STILL HERE! Golden Eagles > lithium mines. Until we have #RedPower and control over our own destinies on our own land we will have to watch everything we love die.
Written By Max Wilbert and originally published on January 25, 2021 in Sierra Nevada Ally. In this article Max describes the plans for an industrial scale lithium mine, the harm this will cause and why we need to protect the area for endangered species.
Thacker Pass landscape. Image: Max Wilbert
On January 15th, my friend Will Falk and myself launched a protest occupation of the proposed lithium mine site at Thacker Pass, Nevada. We have set up tents, protest signs, and weathered more than a week of winter weather to oppose lithium mining, which would destroy Thacker Pass.
You might already be wondering: “Why are people protesting lithium? Isn’t it true that lithium is a key ingredient in the transition to electric cars, and moving away from fossil fuels? Shouldn’t people be protesting fossil fuels?”
Let me put any rumors to rest.
I am a strong opponent of fossil fuels and have fought against the industry for over a decade. I’ve fought tar sands pipelines, stopped coal trains, and personally climbed on top of heavy equipment to stop fossil fuel mining.
Now I’m here, in northern Nevada, to try and stop lithium mining. That’s because, in terms of the impact on the planet, there’s little difference between a lithium mine and an open-pit coal mine. Both require bulldozing entire ecosystems. Both use huge amounts of water. Both leave behind poisoned aquifers. And both are operated with massive heavy machinery largely powered by diesel.
The encampment at Thacker Pass. Image: Max Wilbert
I want people to understand that lithium mining is not “good” for the planet.
Sure, compared to coal mining, a lithium mine may ultimately result in less greenhouse gas emissions. But not by much. The proposed Lithium Americas mine at Thacker Pass would burn more than 10,000 gallons of diesel fuel every day, according to the Environmental Impact Statement. Processing the lithium would also require massive quantities of sulfur—waste products from oil refineries. One local resident told me they expect “a semi-truck full of sulfur every 10 minutes” on these rural, quiet roads.
This is not a “clean transition.” It’s a transition from one dirty industrial energy source to another. We’re making the argument for something completely different, and more foundational:degrowth. We need economic contraction, relocalization, and to stop using and wasting so many resources on unnecessary consumer products.
When people think about wilderness and important habitat, they generally don’t think of Nevada. But they should. Thacker Pass is not some empty desolate landscape. It’s part of the most important Greater sage-grouse habitat left in the state. This region has between 5-8% of all remaining sage-grouse, according to Nevada Department of Wildlife and BLM surveys.
Thacker Pass is home to an endemic snail species, the King’s River pyrg, which biologists have called “a critically imperiled endemic species at high risk of extinction” if the mine goes forward. Burrowing owls, pygmy rabbits, golden eagles, the threatened Lahontan Cutthroat Trout, and hundreds of other species call this place home, watershed, or migration corridor.
Thacker Pass is home to important old stands of Big sagebrush who are increasingly rare in Nevada and threatened by global warming.
One biologist who has worked in Thacker Pass, and who asked to remain unnamed for fear of retaliation, told me the Thacker Pass area “has seen the rapid decline of native shrubland/bunchgrass communities that form the habitat foundation.” He continued, “Those communities (particularly sagebrush) are already under tremendous stress from the dual-threat of invasive annual grasses (especially cheatgrass) and the increased fire returns that those volatile fuels cause.”
Now the BLM is permitting Lithium Americas corporation to come bulldoze what is left, tear away the mountainside for some 50 years, and leave behind a moonscape.
We are engaging in direct action and protest against this mine because the public process is not working. Despite sustained opposition, BLM ignored serious concerns about this mine and “fast-tracked” this project under the direction of the Trump Administration. We mean to stop the mine with people-power.
If you are interested in joining us, visit our website, to learn more about getting involved. And speak out on this issue. We can’t save the planet by destroying it. Transitioning away from fossil fuels and fixing humanity’s broken relationship with the planet will require a more critical approach. Follow
On Friday, January 15th, two activists drove eight hours from Eugene, Oregon, to a remote corner of public land in Nevada, where they pitched a tent in below-freezing temperatures and unfurled a banner declaring:
“Protect Thacker Pass.”
You’ll be forgiven if you’ve never heard of the place—it’s seriously in the boonies—but these activists, Will Falk and Max Wilbert, hope to make it into a household name. One of the activists is Will Falk, a writer and lawyer who helped bring a suit to US District Court seeking personhood for the Colorado River in 2017. He describes himself as a “biophilic essayist” and he certainly lyrical in describing the area where they set up:
“Thacker Pass is a quintessential representation of the Great Basin’s specific beauty. Millions of years ago a vast lake stretched across this land. Now, oceans of sagebrush wash over her. If you let the region’s characteristic stillness settle into your imagination, you’ll see how the sagebrush flows and swells like the ancient lake that was once here. On the north and south ends of the Pass, mountains run parallel to each other. The mountains feature outcroppings of volcanic rock left by the active volcano that was here even before the ancient lake. The mountains cradle you with the valley’s dips and curves up to the ever-changing, never-ending Great Basin sky. During the day, the sun shines down full-strength creating shape-shifting shadows on the mountain faces. At night, the stars and moon shine with such intensity and clarity that you can almost hear the light as it pours to the ground.”
I’ve spent enough time in the Great Basin to attest to its beauty myself: the dramatic ranges, the expansive flats, the gnarled trees, the stiff-stemmed wildflowers, and the lean, sinewy jack rabbits; they are all expressions of endurance in a landscape imbued with the echoes of the ancient. How long ago it must have been, when waves lapped the foothills, yet the shapes they left are unmistakable. The sense is palpable of being elevated, inland, and isolated from the ocean—the waterways here don’t run to the sea, hence the name “basin.”
Austere as it all is, humans have lived in the area for many thousands of years, digging roots, gathering seeds & berries, harvesting pinenuts and hunting game.
These traditions, though assaulted, survive.
To the Europeans seeking fertile valleys to farm or dense forest to cut, the Great Basin offered little to nothing, so most of the folks from “back east” just passed through. But ranching and mining cursed the region since the invasion began, and its grasses were razed and its rocks ripped open. Still, many areas, especially up the slopes, were spared the hammering that befell the tallgrass praries of the Midwest and the old growth forests of the West, which were extirpated to the degree of 95% or more. In fact, some of the last best wildlife habitat in the lower 48 still hangs on in the Great Basin, ragged though it might be around the edges.
Yet it seems the time has come when these “wastelands,” as so many erroneously consider them, will be put on the chopping block for a new kind of exploitation: “green” energy development. Massive solar arrays and huge wind farms have been taking the lead in this latest wave of exploitation, and now mining is being imposed. Not coal for fuel or gold for wealth but lithium for electric car batteries.
The Proposal
Thacker Pass is the site of a proposed lithium mine that would impact nearly 5700 acres—close to nine square miles—and which would include a giant open pit mine over two square miles in size, a sulfuric acid processing plant, and piles of tailings. The operation would use 850 million gallons of water annually and 26,000 gallons of diesel fuel per day. The ecological damage in this delicate, slow-to-heal landscape would be permanent, at least on the human scale. At risk are a number of animal and plant species including the threatened Greater Sage Grouse, Pygmy Rabbits, the Lahontan Cutthroat Trout, a critically imperiled endemic snail species known as the Kings River Pyrg, old growth Big Sagebrush and Crosby’s Buckwheat, to name just those that are locally significant. Also present in the area are Golden Eagles, Pronghorn Antelope, and Bighorn Sheep.
A cultural heritage also exists in this area. In describing the north-south corridor immediately to the east of Thacker Pass, wildtender Nikki Hill says:
“This pass in Nevada is a bridge of great importance. My auntie, Finisia Medrano, would speak of how this was the way one would travel by horse or foot from the wild gardens of Eastern Oregon to continue into Nevada and still be supported, finding food and water for the journey. She would speak of how there was no other real good way to make this crossing, due to a lack of resources in the surrounding landscape. If this is the case for a human, it is the case for all the non human people traversing this area as well. There is so much fragmentation, in landscape, mentality and relations, all stemming from a displaced sense of belonging. How will we know our way back to places, both in spirit and in touch, without threads of continuity to weave together?”
It’s industry vs. ecology once again, and there’s nothing “sustainable” about it for the thousands of creatures who will lose their lives or homes if the mine is allowed to happen.
The reason that Will Falk and his fellow activist Max Wilbert rushed to the site on January 15th was because that’s the day the Bureau of Land Management issued it’s “record of decision,” which greenlighted this horrific project. The BLM considered four alternatives and admitted that it did not choose the “environmentally preferable” one—which was no mine—because it would not have satisfied the “purpose and need”—which was obviously the mine itself. I point this out to illustrate that US land management decisions are primarily made in favor of development not preservation. Typically, what environmental regulations do exist are weak, poorly enforced, and increasingly watered down. Hence, Falk and Wilbert’s decision to take direct action.
This is not the most comfortable time of year to be camped out in northern Nevada, so I admire them for making this choice. Overnight lows are in the teens and twenties at this time of year, and daily highs in the thirties and forties. Snow is possible. But it’s the truth that showing up is often the only way to make a difference.
They sent out a press release on Monday, January 18th, announcing their encampment. Said Falk:
“Environmentalists might be confused about why we want to interfere with the production of electric car batteries.”
Here, Falk is speaking to the fact that over the last twenty years, the focus of mainstream environmentalism has narrowed in on carbon pollution as a central concern, too often to the exclusion of issues like industrial development, technological consumption and other forms of pollution. Specifically, the topic of automobile use has been reduced to a question of emissions when, in reality, cars and car culture are problematic for many other reasons:
Car-related deaths in the US are typically around 40,000 per year, and far more people are injured, sometimes maimed for life.
Cars kill countless animals annually in both urban and rural settings. Whether the vehicle is gas-powered or battery-powered doesn’t make a difference to the poor squirrel, cat, coyote, skunk or deer who is taken out.
Roads themselves demand a tremendous amount of resources for their construction and upkeep. If the cement industry were a country, it would be the third largest emitter of carbon in the world.
In rural areas, roads fragment habitat, preventing natural pattern of foraging, hunting and migration.
Car tires contain toxic substances that are harmful to wildlife, and as the Guardian recently reported, Salmon in the Pacific Northwest are being killed by a chemical being washed into rivers and streams by the rain.
City life is made far less hospitable by the quantity, speed, and dominating presence of cars. Streets and parking lots can take up 50% of a US city. Much of that would be better be used for other purposes like pedestrian plazas, green spaces and urban agriculture.
Then there are the cultural aspects of car culture. The car-based suburbs struck a terrible blow to localized communities in the US, breaking up close-knit urban neighborhoods and replacing them with atomized subdivisions, in which each household (now reduced to its “nuclear” form, without extended family) was isolated with a propaganda machine. The “conveniences” imposed on us then ended up having a far higher price tag than advertised, and the resulting consumer culture is now swallowing up the world. From a mental health stand point, the alienation the suburbs inflicted on our society still tortures us to this day.
More subtle, but very real, is the way our perception is shaped by observing the world from inside a metal box at great speed. From a vantage of insulation and separation, other objects—including people—are reduced to mere obstacles. The dehumanization that is imprinted this way doesn’t immediately end when we get out of the vehicle.
Replacing gas stations with charging stations is not going to address any of this. Though the globalized system of extraction that supports all of this is itself running out of fuel, I fear that electric vehicles will only draw out the agony.
Some will argue that electric cars are beneficial regardless of all of the above, because they do reduce emissions while driving, and doesn’t that make them worth it? That’s unclear. The entire calculus must include the damage incurred by lithium mining, and by all the other extractive activities needed specifically for electric cars. The air might indeed be fresher in the city, but at the cost of habitat destruction, pollution and human suffering in another place—in somebody else’s home.
“The biodiversity crisis is every bit as dire as the climate crisis, and sacrificing biodiversity in the name of climate change makes no scientific or moral sense. Over the last 50 years, Earth has lost nearly two thirds of its wildlife. Habitat loss is the major cause. Humans can’t keep destroying important wildlife habitat and still avoid ecosystem collapse.”
Human rights issues are also in the mix. Lest we forget, the US-backed right-wing coup in Bolivia in late 2019 was motivated in part by desire to control the lithium deposits in the Andean highlands, a place of otherworldly beauty. (See “Coups-for-Green-Energy added to Wars-For-Oil.”) Though the Bolivian people have since taken back their government, they experienced violence and suffering in the meantime. Unfortunately, the socialist party returned to power also favors mining the lithium. Their model is Venezuela, where oil profits were used to fund social programs. So, US leftists should take note that overthrowing capitalists does not automatically translate into “green” policy.
As Falk said: “It’s wrong to destroy a mountain for any reason – whether the reason is fossil fuels or lithium.”
The real answer, of course, is fewer cars.
Plenty of activists, academics and planners have been talking about how to do that for years, and there’s plenty of solutions to pick from. What’s been lacking so far is the political will and the vibrant movement needed to force that will.
Nikki Hill further commented:
“The answer to the climate crisis is not ramping up new, more, green energy. This ‘green’ is just a word coloring the vision of insatiable growth, peddled by green greed. The green we need so desperately is the one that fills our hearts with connected wonder with the rest of the living world. And that requires slowing the fuck down.”
Indeed. And as of Friday, January 15th, two activists are camped out in Thacker Pass, Nevada, to slow down—and hopefully stop—that insatiable growth.
Lithium is the miracle element powering your smartphone and under the hood of every electric car. Will batteries save the planet or cause more harm? The controversy is heating up in Nevada.
RENO, Nevada
Activists aiming to stop an open-pit lithium mine launched a permanent protest encampment last Friday. They invite supporters to join them.
Despite winter conditions at Thacker Pass, the site of the proposed $1.3 billion Lithium Americas mine, protestors have erected tents, a wood stove, and protest signs. Lawyer Will Falk, who is on site, says they mean to stay for as long as it takes to protect this old-growth sagebrush mountainside.
“Environmentalists might be confused about why we want to interfere with the production of electric car batteries, but, it’s wrong to destroy a mountain for any reason – whether the reason is fossil fuels or lithium.” Says Falk
Activists are prepared to remain in place and block all construction, mining, and road-building activities until Lithium Americas abandons their plan to destroy Thacker Pass. They are demanding:
The establishment of a protected area at Thacker Pass preserved for the enjoyment of future generations, for wildlife including the Kings River pyrg, and for water quality.
An immediate abandonment of the Thacker Pass lithium mine project by Lithium Americas corporation.
A sincere apology from Lithium Americas Corporation for claiming that Thacker Pass is a “green” project.
The Mine Proposal
The Thacker Pass mine proposal, located roughly 130 miles northeast of Reno, is one of a handful of large mining and energy projects fast-tracked by the outgoing Trump administration in what a December article in the New York Times called an “intense push” to “find ways to increase domestic energy and mining production.”
Though Lithium Americas claims they “strive to build a business where the well-being of the local community is essential to its success,” this fast-tracking comes despite objections from local residents, ranchers, and environmental groups, who are concerned about project impacts on wildlife and rural quality of life.
Project documents detail potential harm to many species.
The threatened Greater sage grouse, whose populations have been reduced by between 97% and 99% from historic levels, and for whom the Thacker Pass area represents the best remaining habitat in Nevada. Thacker Pass is located in the Lone Willow population management unit, which is home to between 5 and 8% of the entire global population. This project would sever a key connectivity corridor between portions of the habitat;
Lahontan cutthroat trout, a federally “threatened” species under the Endangered Species Act which exists in only a small fraction of its historic range, including the Quinn River basin downstream of Thacker Pass;
Pronghorn antelope, whose migration routes would be severed by the mine; and
A critically imperiled endemic snail species known as the Kings River pyrg that is known to reside in only 13 isolated springs. According to one group of scientists, “the Thacker Pass Project area might contain the entire known population of Kings River pyrg, thereby putting the species at risk of extinction.
Other species who will be harmed by the project include Burrowing owls, Golden eagles, several bat species, native bees and other pollinators, Crosby’s Buckwheat, and rare old-growth big sagebrush. Impacts on the community include increases in heavy truck traffic, noise and light pollution, air quality issues, and reductions in the water table.
Lithium Americas has already built roads, drilled boreholes, constructed a weather station, and dug a 2-acre test pit. They plan to build large tailing ponds for toxic mine waste, drill new wells, build a sulfuric acid processing plant, import more than 170 semi-loads of sulfur (a byproduct from oil refineries) per day, and dig an open pit of more than 2 square miles into the pristine Thacker Pass mountainside.
The encampment went into place on Friday, the same day the Bureau of Land Management handed down the permit for the mine. For now it is home to only a few people. But Max Wilbert, another organizer of the protest and author of Bright Green Lies, a book looking at the environmental harms of renewable energy projects, expects that more people will come as the weather improves.
Wilbert states,
“Many see Nevada as a wasteland, but in truth it’s one of the last wild places left. Where else can you find silence, clean air, starry nights, and solitude? As soon as people spend time in these wild lands, they fall in love with them, and want to protect them.”
Join the Occupation
For more information, to support the campaign, or to join the occupation, visit www.ProtectThackerPass.org. Feel free to reproduce this press release in your publication.
Contact: Max Wilbert and Will Falk
contact@protectthackerpass.org
“For years, land and environmental defenders have been the first line of defence against climate breakdown. Yet despite clearer evidence than ever of the crucial role they play, far too many businesses, financiers and governments fail to safeguard their vital and peaceful work.” Globalwitness.org
Colombia, is a country with amazingly diverse ecosystems.
There are also a huge diversity of cultures. In 2019, Colombia was the worst country to be an environmental activist. There was hope this would improve in 2020 but sadly this was not the case. Worse still, Colombia started on new year’s day in 2021 with the murder of young people who were who fought with the guerrilla organization The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and had demobilized to return with their family after the peace agreement was signed in June 2016. FARC signed a ceasefire accord with the President of Colombia. A year later, FARC handed over its weapons to the United Nations. At this point it ceased to be an active, armed group.
The first day of this year started with the execution of a former member of the FARC, Yolanda Mazo aged only 22 and Reina her 17 year old sister. They were murdered in the early morning Friday, January 1st 2021. Yolanda is one of hundreds of activists who have been killed since the signing of the Accords between the Colombian state and the FARC. In addition to the deaths of two young women two union leaders have also been murdered.
Environmental activist found dead.
Most recently, Gonzalo Cardona, the first environmental activist and forest ranger who worked in the protection of the paramo ecosystem was murdered. These ecosystems are regions considered to be “evolutionary hot spots“. The ranger worked to protect this area and several endangered species of birds. He stood for the conservation of the habitat of the yellow eared parrot “loro orejiamarillo” and for the preservation of the natural world from the mining the deforestation and the industrial agriculture.
The systemic and systematic violence on the land and towards the Colombian people is brutal. It is the consequence of the capitalist system, of greed and profit over the health of the natural world and the humans and non-humans that inhabit it. The dominant, violent system depends upon inequality, poverty and repression of social movements to remain in power and when the profit or the power is threatened, they remove the threat.
Who is responsible?
The Colombian government, the military forces, the paramilitary groups and other armed groups are responsible for these deaths, for these murders. All this violence has its roots in land control, exploitation of natural resources and silencing of social movements. The Colombian government, in collusion with national and multinational corporate interests, continue to profit from the destruction of the natural world. They gain political benefits through mining contracts, fracking developments and widespread industrial agriculture. Those in power ensure the elites own the land, reducing the power of the poeple to defend land.
The Colombian government and those who benefits on the land exploitation, continue to attack and discredit social and environmental movements and when they feel threatened people die.
