Future of Colombia's Embera Katio People Will Be Drowned By New Dam
9/27/99
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RELAYED TEXT STARTS HERE:
Title: Future of Colombia's Embera Katio People Will Be Drowned By
New Dam
Source: The Embera Katio people via global response
Status: Distribute freely with credit given to source
Date: September 27, 1999
Dear Members of the Global Response "Quick Response Network:"
Last January we issued an Emergency Action on behalf of the Embera
Katio people in Colombia. At that time paramilitary groups were
kidnapping and assassinating Embera Katio leaders because the
community opposes the Urra hydroelectric project.
We have just received this urgent request from the Embera Katio
community. Please send letters to some of the addresses given at the
end of their appeal.
Thanks for supporting this courageous community.
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Date: September 27, 1999
Subject: Urgent Action/Please write
From: Comunidades Emberas/Colombia
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URGENT ACTION
Solidarity with the Embera Katio people of the Upper Sinu.
THE LIFE AND DIGNITY OF THE EMBERA PEOPLE WILL NOT BE DROWNED
The Embera Katio people and leaders of the Upper Sinu are calling for
the solidarity of our friends, to stop the Urra hydroelectric project
from drowning our dignity because the Colombian government doesn't
understand our principles and our vision of development.
The future of the Embera people and our territory will be irrevocably
affected if the Colombian government, through the Environment
Ministry, gives Empresa Urra the environmental permission for the
project without first conducting a process of consultation and
negotiation in accordance with the law, and without establishing a
clear commitment to prevention,mitigation, correction, compensation
and management of the grave environmental effects caused by this dam.
The most fertile areas of our territory, which contains the only
forest on Colombia's Caribbean coast and which provide our food
supply, must not be flooded because od an arbitrary and authoritarian
way decision of the Environment Ministry, as was the case in the
environmental go-ahead that was given to OXY and which affects the
U'wa people.
Nor can we accept that money flood this community and pretend that it
will solve our current and future problems. The disappearance of
species of migratory fish has not been resolved and the Empresa
Urra's initiatives, which consist of giving money and imposing its
Development Plan without listening to our requests, will not allow us
to be able to adapt and coexist with the Corambara (Urra) dam.
We are also concerned about the thousands of fishing families and
other residents whose problems have not been resolved and about the
volatile human rights situation that is intensifying in the area.
These human rights violations consist of the displacement of
thousands of peasant families, especially in the Saiza zone, and
constant threats to our communities and our leaders, which have
already resulted in the death of our spiritual leader Alonso Domico,
our spokesperson and advisor Lucindo Domico, as well as Alejandro
Domico and Ruben Mosquera Pernia.
We ask that you please send letters to:
1. JUAN MAYR MALDONADO. Ministro del Medio Ambiente, Calle 37, No.
8-40, Santafe de Bogota, Colombia. Fax: 2889788 or 2889892 Email:
juan-mayr-m@hotmail.com.
2. Dr. ANDRES PASTRANA ARANGO, Presidente de la Republica de
Colombia, Carrera 8, No. 7-26, Santafe de Bogota, Colombia. Email:
pastrana@presidencia.gov.co
3. Dr. NESTOR HUMBERTO MARTINEZ, Ministro del Interior, Carrera 8,
No. 8-09, Palacio Echeverry, Santafe de Bogota, Colombia. Fax: Int'l
code + 57-2515884
4. Dr. LUIS CARLOS VALENZUELA, Ministro de Minas y de Medio Ambiente,
Centro Administrativo Nacional, Santafe de Bogota, Colombia.
5. Dr. JAIME BERNAL CUELLAR, Procurador General de la Nacion, Carrera
5, No. 15-80, Santafe de Bogota, Colombia. Web page:
http://sinpro.gov.co/progenal.index.htm Phone: 3360011 or 3520066
6. Dr GUILLERMO FERNANDEZ DE SOTO, Canciller, Calle 10 No 5-51,
Palacio de San Carlos. Santafe de Bogota, Colombia. Fax: 3416777
Email: Dmminist@minrelext.gov.co.
7. Dr ALFONSO GOMEZ MENDEZ, Fiscal General de la Nacion, Diagonal
22B, No. 52-01, Ciudad Salitre, Santafe de Bogota, Colombia.
Requesting: 1) Denial of the environmental permit to Urra until the
company agrees to real consultations and negotiations with the Embera
people with the goal of forging an agreement.
2) Completion of consultation and negotiation of an agreement with
the Embera people on all of the issues, in good faith and in
accordance with Law 21 of 1991 (CONVENIO 169 OIT), the National
Constitution and Sentence T-652/98, as the Constitution Court has
ordered.
3) Order Empresa Urra to prevent, mitigate, correct, compensate and
manage the environmental effects, in accordance with the ruling in
the AUTO 828 of 1998, of the impacts identified by the Embera Katio
people of the Upper Sinu, in accordance with Sentence T 652/98 of the
Constitutional Court and agreed to by the fishing communities of the
lower part and other sectors of the Sinu River basin.
4) Consider the proposals of the Jenene Plan, or Life Plan of the
Embera People, to control their own development and understand, for
example, that the indigenous people prefer territory to money and
want to maintain their culture and autonomy, and to guarantee also
the existence of the important ecosystem of the Upper Sinu forest.
5) To stop blaming the Embera people for the errors of the National
Government and its development strategies when it backs projects of
such a high social, cultural, economic and ecological cost to the
country. The Colombian people assume an enormous debt of $800 million
in utilizing 21.8 hectares of flooded areas of rain forest to produce
one megawatt of energy, including the environmental damage of an
important basin and the social and cultural disintegration of the
Embera Katio people of the Upper Sinu. All of this is done with the
aim of later selling the Urra Dam for less than $200 million.
6) To acknowledge and accept responsibility for the human rights
violations the Embera people have suffered and which have resulted in
the assassination of several Embera leaders, forced dislocation of
some communities, and continuing threats which become more menacing
as the dam project continues.
Please send copies to: 1) ONIC, Organizacion Nacional Indigena de
Colombia, Calle 13, No. 4-38, Santafe de Bogota, Colombia. Email:
onic@colnodo.apc.org
2) Cabildos Mayores Embera Katmo de los rios Sinu y Verde, A.A 770,
Monteria, Colombia. Email: camaemka@col3.telecom.com.co
Thank you.
* Translated by: *Kora McNaughton*