Qhana Pukara Kurmi, Cultural Survival, and Earthworks Support the Rejection of a Sham Consultation by Mining Companies from the Totoral Chico Community in Ayllu Acre Antequera, Bolivia

The Board for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination has currently shared its certain concern regarding the infractions of the constitutional right to prior examination in the Ayllu Acre Antequera in 2023.

The “assessment” suggested by the Jurisdictional Administrative Mining Authority (AJAM) breaches basic principles of the right to Free, Informed and prior Authorization, such as the fact that it is previous (the company has been running for years), that the details is transferred in the language of the area and using its decision-making processes and via its very own self-government organizations, to name a few demands. The area has not received an ecological effect research study nor various other resources of details on the possible impacts of the task.

As a result of mining exploitation, these business have actually created environmental catastrophes that speed up the disappearance and contamination of limited water resources and dirts, including the cleaning of the sacred Orqu Chualla hill, and seriously affecting the incomes and subsistence of the areas. In defending their territory, the Aboriginal and Native authorities, in addition to other members of the community, have experienced criminalization and attacks, consisting of the compelled displacement of women and females.

The Bolivian Ministry of Mining and Metallurgy is holding conferences and authorizing arrangements with the Avicaya and Totoral mining unions, who run in the location, to continue mining without also having actually held a deliberative conference with the neighborhoods, which reveals that this appointment stands for a simple formality and has no genuine intent of obtaining the approval of the individuals who live in these lands in good belief and appreciating international requirements.

This “consultation” looks for to legitimize the activity of the mining company La Salvada Sociedad Colectiva, owned by the Avicaya Mining Workers Union, who have actually been operating illegally in the territory because 2013 without obtaining consent from the Quechua and Aymara neighborhoods that inhabit it.

We share our utmost worry relating to the serious violations of the rights of the Quechua neighborhood of Totoral Chico of the Ayllu Acre Antequera, Oruro, in Bolivia, consisting of the company of a false assessment on October 23, 2024.

We highly sustain the neighborhood’s choice to deny the examination as a result of its clear failing to abide by the minimal global standards of the right to Free, Enlightened and previous Permission consisted of in the United Nations Statement on the Civil Liberties of Native Peoples, to name a few national and international instruments and rulings.

In this context, we advise the Bolivian federal government and the firms operating in the area to follow the community’s will certainly to decline this bogus appointment, appreciating the civil liberties of the Aboriginal Peoples, consisting of the genuine right to Free, Educated and prior Consent.