In a panel discussion held in the Union on Oct. 13, representatives of various environmental agencies and Latin American indigenous groups said transnational mining companies in Latin America damage the environment and local populations.
Oxfam America, an organization that helps protect Third-World regions from globalization, sponsored the event in commemoration of Columbus Day, which they call Indigenous Day.
Keith Slack, senior policy adviser for Oxfam America, has arranged for the panelists to speak to several different universities this week.
“We want to share the indigenous peoples’ point of view of mining to the schools with mining programs,” Slack said. “The environmental impacts have been destructive to their water, land, crops and way of life.”
Carlos Cuasace, president of the Organizacin Indigena Chiquitana community of Bolivia, expressed the concerns of his people via a translator. Bolivia has been a mining hot spot for more than 500 hundred years, but the citizens of the poorest country in Latin America have not seen the profits, he said.
“The government and the mining companies say it will help develop the indigenous groups, but it is making us more poor,” Cuasace said. “We no longer have our trees, our animals and our property…we feel we are going to lose everything.”
Cuasace recognized that international law protects Third-World nations from globalization but blamed his local government for neglect.
Mining has recently expanded to other Latin American countries besides Bolivia. In 1955, American and Canadian companies started geographical surveys of Guatemala. Nickel has been the main natural resource mined, but a gold mine was developed in 2003.
Although the people have owned the land in Guatemala since the days of the Mayans, the government claims eminent domain over all the natural resources. Josh Alvord, a sophomore in mechanical engineering, viewed the event as an eye-opening experience.
“You hear in your classes of the destruction caused by these corporations, but you don’t feel the effect until you have heard the desperation from someone who has actually lived it,” he said.
The panel is not necessarily against the mining of natural resources, but all the members said the indigenous people in the areas being mined should have the right to consult and make decisions about the future of the land.
“We don’t want to see ourselves in a museum one day…we want to stay in our land forever,” Cuasace said.
For more information about Oxfam America’s program to protect indigenous communities, visit its Web site at www.oxfamamerica.org.