The human rights organizations that accompany communities affected by mining in La Guajira, Cajar, Cinep and Censat, publicly denounce before different government entities the practice of forced evictions that are being committed in the south of this department, vitiated by serious irregularities and disregard for international human rights standards. 

In recent months, two evictions have been committed, one in November 2021, promoted by the extractive company Carbones del Cerrejón belonging to the transnational company Glencore in the vicinity of the Wayuu indigenous reservation of Provincial in the jurisdiction of the municipality of Barrancas. The evicted rural families denounce that they are being dispossessed of lands that belonged to their ancestors, as a result of a misappropriation of their lands and a purchase agreement in favor of the company.

They also denounce that, although they have presented before the Police Inspector of the Municipality of Barrancas, Grettys Leonor Brito Puche, documents that prove the long-standing possession of their relatives over these lands, their evidence and rights are not valued, since there is a recurrent and irregular conduct of local officials that exclusively favors the interests of the extractive company.

The second eviction occurred in March 2022 against a community of families living in the San José property in the rural area of the municipality of Albania, most of whom are in a vulnerable situation. This property was purchased in 2020 by Corpoguajira for the protection programs of the Montes de Oca forest reserve; however, no relocation program for these families or recognition of the investment and losses in their homes and work on the land has been contemplated in this acquisition.

There is also the threat and anxiety of the reactivation of a third forced eviction against the families of the communities of El Rocío and Tigre Pozo that live in the upper and middle part of the Bruno stream in the municipality of Albania. In the case of the Rocío community, there have been warnings for several years that their expulsion would be related to the eventual purchase of the lands by the extractive company.

Our complaint and public denunciation was filed with the Ombudsman’s Office, the Personería of the municipality of Barrancas and the municipality of Albania, the Attorney General’s Office, the National Environmental Licensing Authority and the National Mining Agency, so that, according to the competencies of each control entity, the administrative eviction and the actions of the police inspector of Barrancas are investigated, to ensure that there is accompaniment and surveillance of the eviction operations against communities subject to special protection, characterization of people in vulnerable conditions and spaces for dialogue to seek alternatives, as well as independent investigations into these operations and the role of the company in them.  

In a discriminatory and disproportionate manner, peasant communities with elderly people, women, children, victims and in general families in a situation of social and economic vulnerability have been affected, whose homes and crops have been destroyed through the intimidation of the use of public force. In this way, these evictions are intensifying the inequality, marginalization and social conflicts suffered in a region such as Guajira.

The serious irregularities and arbitrariness behind these evictions are not being investigated, nor have the victims been provided with guarantees of relocation and redress for the violations committed against them. The local authorities are not acting in strict compliance with the relevant provisions of international human rights law and respecting the general principles of reason and proportionality regarding forced evictions.

We call attention to the fact that these evictions take place in a systematic context of a history of dispossession, land grabbing and speculation in land sales in the region that are directly or indirectly related to the development and expansion of open-pit coal mega-mining operations carried out in this territory by the foreign company Carbones del Cerrejón.

We emphasize that in addition to the widely documented and judicially proven violations committed by this extractive project, the strong dynamics of asymmetries, co-optation and undue influence of the extractive company due to its economic power are public knowledge in the region, which makes it imperative that state authorities take the respective corrective measures and actions regarding the repeated abuses of this transnational company.

We bring this alarming situation to the attention of the government so that the corresponding measures are adopted in accordance with the state’s obligations on the matter, so that the right to housing and subsistence of rural communities and their livelihoods are effectively protected, and so that the particular interests of companies or state projects are not privileged over the rights of the communities.