Bolivia - Public Communication - For The Right To The Truth

BOLIVIA

Public Communication - For the Right to the Truth

CEPA - Center of Ecology and Andean Peoples, Bolivia, Oruro, Bolivia

9th February 2007

On February 8, 2007, in our CEPA offices, we received a visit from a group of community members, or comunarios, led by Germán Pinto, Evaristo Chavez, Edelmira Quispe, Felipa Alarcon and others who had asked for a meeting with the director of this institution, Br. Gilberto Pauwels. The motive of their visit was to pressure CEPA to abandon its work of technical support to organizations and communities who are demanding a Transparent Environmental Audit, to provide guarantees to the communities, instead of just benefits to the audited company, Inti Raymi.

The tense meeting between the group of community members led by Pinto was marked by various threats which we denounce though this statement, and which were directed against the security and physical integrity of our co-worker, Emilio Madrid, threats which have also been extensively made against Mr. Felix Laime, president of CORIDUP, a social organization made up by over twenty communities of the Desaguadero River and Uru Uru and Poopó lake basins. They have moreover yet threatened to intervene and damage the facilities of CEPA.

In the face of this situation we would like to state before local and national public opinion that CEPA is an organization committed to the defense of the rights of the least protected populations. In this sense and in relation to the environmental problems of Oruro, the position of CEPA has always been to urge an absolutely transparent and impartial Environmental Audit of the operations of the mine Kori Kollo of the Inti Raymi company, a subsidiary of Newmont Mining.

It is publicly known that, throughout many years, we have dedicated our strength and resources to seeking the evidence which has demonstrated the necessity of an environmental audit. Different studies carried out by noted professionals have supported our petition (1). Equally the process of selecting and hiring an auditing agency has been closely followed. We consider that the audit process currently being carried out does not offer the technical and procedural guarantees necessary to determine the true impacts of mining operations performed for more than twenty years in this area.

What is urgently needed is the carrying out of an audit which offers guarantees to the communities and to the nation, instead of just being a smoke screen for contamination and those responsible. We demand as well the right of all community members of the region to know the impacts and effects of the environmental contamination. At the same time the audit should serve to determine the methods that must be taken to prevent present and future damages to the affected basins.

We defend the right of our institution and our members to make an iron-clad defense of the environment and affected communities, and we will not accept that our rights be restricted by any type of threats coming from any groups. We publicly and legally place responsibility upon the leaders of this group of comunarios, who visited our offices this morning, for any damages caused to the people of our institution or its facilities. We call upon everyone to join with us in the struggle for a healthy environment and for the rights of communities to develop their agricultural and livestock activities free of pollution.

Finally, we consider these threats of intimidation to derive from a small group of comunarios, led by Germán Pinto, and supported by the company Intí Raymi, which sees itself as benefiting by the Audit contract which was recently signed: a contract which has been refuted and contested by the Coordination for the Defense of the Desaguadero River and Uru Uru and Poopó Lake Basins (CORIDUP).

Inti Raymi managed to sign off on a convenient but faulty and corrupt audit, which will not determine the level of damages nor the responsibility for the contamination of the river and lake basins. Inti Raymi is now trying, through groups of comunarios, to block our legitimate right to refute a faulty process and urge an environmental audit with the necessary guarantees.

Signed:

Brother Gilberto Pauwels
Director CEPA

Elizabeth López, Lic.
Co-Director CEPA