Two mining municipalities of La Guajira are lagging behind in progress, when they should be better positioned, in positive and altruistic conditions, but this is not the case. Whose fault? From heartbreak and lack of meaning it belonged; compromising responsibility, which implies: politics, greed and indifference; nourished, with the predominance of corruption, against collective progress and well-being.
It is not fair to be as they are, the aforementioned municipalities. One with the largest open pit coal mine, discovered since the last century, located globally, in the Municipality of Barrancas, before getting rid of the town of Calabacito, today Albania, by a mayor, surnamed Soto, justifying the abandonment, due to not having a budget, to pay the mayor’s salary and the municipality of Maicao, adopted it, until its emancipation, elevated to municipal territory.
The municipality of Hatonuevo was separated from the municipality to become a municipality, dividing the distribution of the large mining project, with which they hoped to promote progress, to improve the living conditions, to the prosperity of its inhabitants, who are resigned to living as God willing, losing hope for progress and opportunities for entrepreneurship, due to the crude way in which the resources that must be invested in infrastructure and security works are appropriated and distributed, to offer agricultural, tourist, industrial and labor alternatives; urban and rural, jointly with private capital.
The municipality of Manaure is the third among the aforementioned municipalities in the department of La Guajira, after Riohacha and Macao. Artisanal exploitation by the Wayuú family began in 1900 and was legalized during the Government of Marco Fidel Suarez in 1920, institutionalizing the exploitation through Ifis Concession Salina, administered by the Bank of the Republic. In Manaure, when it was the district of Uribia, they estimated that salt would be exploited in sufficient quantities to supply the human consumption of 70% of the inhabitants of Colombia. The largest non-mineral sea salt mine in the national territory is located in Manaure, producing one million tons annually, but we are below Brazil, Chile and Argentina. What has happened for Manaure to stagnate in progress?
Manaure was the first township, created as a municipality, by ordinance No 015 of 1973, it began to govern as such, as of October 1, 1974, being designated by departmental decree, by Governor Lorenzo Solano Peláez, with the first mayor being Manuel Marcelino. “Manenchi” Mengual Meza. With the opening of the new municipality of La Guajira, a dock was built to transport salt to Riohacha and Barranquilla.
Likewise, the number of ponds was extended to increase exploitation of the two that were in operation, run by different Wayuú families, in charge of extracting salt, in an artisanal way, with the purpose of promoting processes of industrialization of products derived from salt, refined seasoning products, soap, soda, chlorine, hypochlorites and other products for animal consumption and domestic artisanal use.
Manaure stagnated only in the cultivation of sea salt, when it had to promote an industrial complex, of products and by-products, derived from salt, destined for commercial, local, national and international consumption; with which job opportunities, employment and service offers, inherent with the operation, were guaranteed to indigenous people and Arijunas, who inhabit the Manaureros territory. With the income they obtain from it, they contribute to the improvement of the lifestyle.
Manaure was awarded with royalty rights that former senator Rodrigo Dongón managed to obtain, calling for debates with ministers of Mines and Finance, who considered that neither La Guajira nor Manaure would have rights to royalties, gas exploitation, on marine platforms, finally managing, with the approval of President Virgilio Barcos, to insert the norm into the Royalty Law, in favor of our Department and the salt capital of Colombia. Nothing was planted, with resources from royalties, in the municipal territory, which they received in the 90s, these vanished and were irrigated, in payments of favors and commitments, politics and waste.
No works and infrastructure were built to open space for ventures related to tourism, taking advantage of its beautiful beaches for economic exploitation; complemented by crustacean farms, between Mayapo and El Pájaro. It is not conceivable that the municipality of Manaure does not have a desalination plant that solves the serious need for water in headwaters and communities, because there are no economic resources to provide these services, but if they waste it or appropriate it, in personal and family distributions, they will never make progress. The fate of the backwardness or progress depends on the inhabitants of a territory, with what its inhabitants can contribute to rent, in goods and services.
The municipality of Barrancas is stagnant or stranded, it has lost the best opportunities to grow, it did not invest in agricultural fields, to become a food pantry. The mining exploitation was of no use, leaving us with memories of a fantastic dream, which ends in sadness. Good lands were lost due to coal exploitation, dispossessing, evicting and expropriating their owners, to satisfy the interest of private individuals, mining operators, trampling on human rights, with the complacency of competent authorities and the support of sycophants who sell Creole homeland. .
For not forcing the mine workers to live near the Barrancas municipality, due to the lack of local public service. The mining project, instead of contributing, in agreement with the municipal administration, to the implementation of water, sewage, energy and road services; He preferred to finance transportation, by land and air, to Barranquilla and Bogotá, for workers and managers, at the expense of exploitation; spending over 20 years, more than what the operation of an aqueduct could cost. To top it off, he urbanized the mine and built hotels for visitors to the project, who had been staying in Barrancas, to change accommodation. The latest thing is that Cerrejón is not hiring a significant number of natives for operators who replace pensioners.
The buying and selling of votes, to win the mayor’s office and councils of Barrancas, has the municipality upside down. The privilege of having had the highest income in Coal royalties and having the joy, today, of electing the two representatives to the Chambers, for La Guajira, has been of no use, without reflecting hopeful optimism that stimulates, dreaming or envisioning spaces entrepreneurs.
Mistreatment in the management of economic resources has dire consequences. If the people do not rebel, they stop the actors and accomplices, they will remain in filth, submissive passive or fearful dissatisfied, which leads to nothing but bubbling more misfortunes and moral ruin. . Having the works unfinished and paralyzed, when the budgeted resources were available for their execution, is not to be endured, so as not to report. Even worse, cheating by handing over keys to non-existent houses is a mockery that should generate reactions of respect and disciplinary sanctions. In this way, how can the municipality of Barrancas progress?
