Juan Felipe Arcila, Barcelona, 17 de julio de 2011

[El Periódico Latino: http://elperiodicolatino.com.es/felipe1.htm]

La minería se ha convertido en uno de los sectores más dinámicos de la economía colombiana y apunta a convertirse en una de las principales actividades económicas en los próximos años, lo que la hace atractiva a las transnacionales mineras que ya han ingresado al país con miles de millones de dólares destinados a la exploración y explotación de recursos naturales. Las más grandes compañías del mundo en materia minera provenientes de Norteamérica, Canadá y Europa tienen presencia en Colombia.

[En español a continuación]

Doctor Ricardo Ávila
Director, Portafolio Magazine
Ref: We repudiate the coercive measures being taken to displace the residents of Marmato

Dear Mr. Ávila,

It is unacceptable that Juan Manuel Peláez, Manager of the Canadian company Medoro Resources Ltd., is acting in the town of Marmato, Caldas State, as if the company had already obtained the environmental license and the legal authorization required for initiating the destruction of the municipality’s urban area and for displacing its inhabitants as Mr. Peláez stated today in an interview with Portafolio Magazine. He definitively cannot do that, even after announcing (as a lure for preparing the displacement) that the company will donate a new hospital to replace the existing one.

La explotacion minera debajo de la ciudad sudafricana dejó un hoyo enorme que rápidamente se está llenando de agua color sangre. Los expertos advierten que pronto será demasiado tarde para construir las bombas y plantas de tratamiento de agua necesarias.

Mining below the South African city left a huge pit now rapidly filling with blood red water. Experts warn that it will soon be too late to build the pumps and treatment plants needed.

By Robyn Dixon, Los Angeles Times

by Roque Planas

[source: Latin America News Dispatch]

WASHINGTON — On Nov. 3, as ex-president of Colombia Álvaro Uribe left a class he teaches at Georgetown University as a visiting scholar, a second-year law student named Charity Ryerson hid behind the corner of the Inter-Cultural Center, waiting for a student perched on a hill in front of her to signal that Uribe was about to pass.

Un estudio científico muestra altos niveles de Arsénico en el agua subterránea de San Miguel Ixtahuacán, Guatemala, donde la mina de oro y plata Marlin "fue desarrollada por Montana Exploradora de Guatemala S.A.

[En español a continuación]

October 12, 2010

Dr. Roberto Pombo
Editor in Chief, El Tiempo
Bogotá, Colombia

The statement by El Tiempo’s special correspondent in Marmato, Caldas, to the effect that in 2006 “an avalanche wiped out City Hall, the main plaza, the church and 92 houses,” is extremely exaggerated as well as plainly false.

Written by Jennifer Moore
Published in Upside Down World
20 May, 2009

Coming from Canada - the world's principal source of financing for global mining activities – Robert Lovelace, a leader from the Ardoch Algonquin First Nation in Eastern Ontario, says his experiences in the Andean nation reveal that indigenous communities in both countries “share a heck of a lot in common.”