09:26 PM
The municipalities of Vetas, California and Suratá, in Santander, make up about 1,300 traditional ancestral gold miners. Together with their families there are more than 15 thousand people. From them, It is estimated that 70% are not formalized, That is, they work in pits without mining titles, in an activity not recognized by the authorities.
These same miners met this Tuesday with delegates from the Ministries of Environment and Mines and Energy. On a ‘heated’ date, developed at the California Coliseum, both parties presented their arguments about the future of the territory without reaching an agreement.
Although the meeting was called “building agreements around mining alternatives and planning around water,” the meeting focused on one question: What effect will Decree No. 044, which came into force last January, have on the region? that creates temporary nature reserve areas?
This Decree No. 044 states that Once an area is declared a reserve, the issuance of environmental permits or licenses will be prohibited. for exploration or mineral exploitation in said area. In one of its sections it is pointed out that the delimited areas can “culminate with the restriction or definitive exclusion of mining.”
“It is condemning us to illegality”
The director of the Council for the Development of Soto Norte, Consotonorte, Fabio Maldonado, assured that This decree condemns hundreds of families to illegality and traditional miners who for years have tried to formalize themselves in Santander.
“We are not going to allow a temporary reserve zone to be imposed on us in Soto Norte without consulting the community, and only so that the Minister of the Environment fulfills a political agreement with the environmental groups of Bucaramanga. They do not represent us. This measure ignores the reality of our territoryis done without the participation and endorsement of the Attorney General’s Office or the Government of Santander, and is condemning us to illegality”, indicated Maldonado.
In this sense, Ivonne González, president of the Vetas Miners Association, expressed his concern about this decree, which in his opinion goes beyond the agreements between the community and the government itself reached during the last two years at the delimitation tables of the Páramo de Santurbán.
“This decree buries our economy and condemns more than 9,000 people to misery We live in Vetas, California, Suratá and Matanza. Not only are we now subject to the apathy of the State, which has prevented us from formalizing ourselves, but they also want to violate our right to citizen participation, the right to minimum living and work, the right to equality and the right to cultural identity. of traditional miners. In one fell swoop they put an end to 400 years of traditional mining in Santander,” said González.
Likewise, González He made a harsh claim to the Minister of the Environment, Susana Muhamad, since the artisanal miner considered that the portfolio manager would be prioritizing foreign matters.
“We defend our rights, our roots; roots that I have seen her very active defending, the difference is that her roots are foreign, they are from Palestine. She defends the rights of Palestine. That is the difference”.
“While she is concerned about Palestine, here in Colombia she is destining us to illegality.” Likewise, González questioned the absence of the Vice Minister of Mines “the anti-mining activists that we knew now are the environment portfolio and the Mines portfolio (…) antiminers making mining laws”, he asserted.
For his part, Daniel Maldonado, representative of the Association of Traditional Miners of Suratá, rejected the systematic persecution of mining in its territory and the consequences of arbitrary decisions, which have no environmental protection purposes and lack technical support.
“We are miners, and we don’t want to stop being one. All of this is a strategy to disregard the rulings of the Constitutional Court to extend the delimitation of the Páramo to Bucaramanga, and thus put an end to mining in our territory,” he stated.
¿What did the Minister of the Environment say?
The Minister of Environment and Sustainable Development, María Susana Muhamad González, explained that the Council of State issued a ruling, after 10 years of litigation, that forces the government to organize “the mining titling disorder in the country. In these years, titles were granted in areas where there are environmental determinants (environmental protection areas) without consultation. “That sentence forces us to fix that disorder…”
The Minister of Environment explained that there will be deliberation and socialization with the communities to apply these temporary reserve zones to protect the Soto Norte basinbut he provided figures of this disorder in the delivery of mining titles in Santander.
“In an area of 74 thousand hectares (in Soto Norte) 19 thousand hectares of mining titles were delivered in areas designated for water conservation and environmental recovery. We have a large mining title in this area. The territory must be organized now or we will have problems with those mining owners. These environmental reserve areas will not affect the mining formalization areas in Soto Norte.”
Faced with the question of her Palestinian ancestry, a topic that was discussed in the meeting with the miners, the minister urged “not to stigmatize people because of their roots. At this moment my grandfather’s people (Palestine) are being massacred and it has nothing to do with my role as minister of the Environment or with political dialogue about the future of a territory. At the end of the day I spoke with Ivone in a space of mutual respect,” indicated the senior official through her X account.
con information from Colpresa*
