Here are some parts of that post.
"We are a simple people, and before civil society, ecologists, politics, etc., we value our history, our grandparents and ancestors before any industry or media corporation's efforts or global needs of others -- especially those whom wish to use our land, our history, our culture for their own financial gains!
We are happy bathing in the river and eating a watermelon piece, and for that reason, when that mining company settled here 20 years ago, we were happy and people were thankful to have for this gift. We did not know laws, we did not have idea of the procedures of the miners, we did not know what the government understood by citizen participation, and as always, we were arranged to trust and to welcome those promises of progress and development that were done to us.
Nevertheless, 6 years ago, the company presented its first study of environmental impact. We understood that the subject was very serious, more than we were used to. The instances of citizen participation were meetings in the middle of a feast atmosphere eating "empanadas" they told us in a anecdotal way, that they were going to deposit tons of sterile wastes in the East of one of our rivers, and soon showed us numbers and pretty photos, while it was said that the toxic substances were going to travel by our roads and while the ice melted in our glasses of soft drink we saw that nobody named the glaciers, that were in the zone of the pit.
They used our simplicity, our naivety against us, while they conspired and covered over the larger implications, or abuse, to our lands and homeland. It was between those deceits, the covering over of the medium environmental damages, that the disappointment began and the necessity to become aware, to realise the truth, to find out, to reunite to us and to organize us to face that which did not come to contribute, but to rob and destroy. Just then we saw, already less excited, that they did not look at our eyes, that they betrayed his word, they walked promising jobs to everybody and offering to buy our products, which contaminated our waters, that did not listen to our voices. In short,people who we did not matter, who were sick of ambition, and greed and that needed to infected us.
And although many were infected, like all the authorities that irresponsibly approved the project in 2001, or since then, the public and private organisms that have sold themselves for an ambulance or a computer for the school, or by the promise of 60 million dollars (Junta of Vigilance of Huasco River) and also many neighbours and neighbours who receive small mirrors in exchange for their dignity; although many have been infected, we, the small ones, we continued fighting and demanding that o the project goes away, that the company gives account of the glaciers, that does not use our roads, that does not poison our waters, and that do not continue breaking the confidences and the friendships between localities.
Resisting, we have learned to be more alert, to trust our resources, our knowledge and capacities, we have learned to say stop, to defend our identity and our way of life, to stop waiting that the laws and the agreements that companies and governments elaborate and legitimise, are an effective answer for us, in fact those governors, in spite of all the mobilization and the technical studies who demonstrate the in-viability of the project, ratified their alliance with Barrick approving an extension of the project in the 2006.
Resisting, we have learned which our demands are not going to be listened to by the powerful ones, but those that like us, also are tired of the manipulation, the disinformation and that everything is "death smelling" around us. For that reason we make this page, so that our voice gets to you in spite that the mass media wants to hide it.
It is certain that the transnational companies have dressed us in clothes of losers. They have taken the resources, the territory, the sovereignty, the tranquillity, the purity, the simpleness, the confidence, the autonomy, our rights, rituals and traditions. But who loses, are the only the one who lowers their arms, that stop of remembering, who stops of learning, who put under the rules of ones game, who does not invent with the others a new game, that makes sense to all of us and returns smiles and eyes brightness to us lots of people have been added many to this fight and still we lack of those that share the indignation and the rage sharing the principles of honesty and autogestión, that in this site we propose to them.
Until now two declarations have been born of principles, that say the same with different language, one is of the organizations of the Valley of the Huasco, and another one is of those of resistance organizations from Santiago."
Pacha Mama, Gaia, Tonantzin need our help.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment