{"id":50,"date":"2019-04-17T20:13:00","date_gmt":"2019-04-17T20:13:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tierra.local\/?p=50"},"modified":"2021-05-01T20:01:42","modified_gmt":"2021-05-01T20:01:42","slug":"el-hatillo-la-tensa-lucha-por-no-respirar-carbon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tierraderesistentes.com\/en\/2019\/04\/17\/el-hatillo-la-tensa-lucha-por-no-respirar-carbon\/","title":{"rendered":"El Hatillo, the Tense Struggle to Not Breathe Coal"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

In the department of Cesar in northeastern Colombia, a countryside community has been waiting for nearly a decade to be resettled because of pollution generated by nearby mines. In the last four years, one leader was killed and eight more have received threats.\n<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Whoever goes to El Hatillo will find that it is a village left to its own fate. The community bears the same name as a coal mine that the Colombian government promoted 22 years ago without local communities knowing about it <\/strong>(see page 11 of the document).<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

All that remains of their agricultural period are the memories. They do not have drinking water nor paved roads. The houses are mostly made of mud and sticks and the lack of infrastructure and job opportunities in the area depend on the three mining companies with which they have had to negotiate resettlement options. <\/strong>Their resettlement was ordered<\/a> by the Ministry of Environment in 2010 after the conclusion that coal mining was affecting this population, as well as the neighboring communities of Plan Bonito and Boquer\u00f3n.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe State left us here alone\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe State left us here alone,\u201d the townspeople repeat, describing the resettlement as a process that desecrated their tranquility and kept them in suspense.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That is why in this village, two hours from Valledupar, the capital of Cesar, the community watches its words carefully.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Few people want to talk about the murder of Aldemar Parra Garc\u00eda, that occurred on January 7, 2017, and the threats that began in 2014, made against the leaders who participated in the talks with the mining companies. The risk intensified in 2016 when they filed a civil rights action for the delay in resettlement, to the point that the Ombudsman\u2019s Office \u2013 which oversees the human rights of Colombians \u2013 included their names in a report<\/a> that warned of the vulnerability of 80 regional social leaders.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe danger is latent\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

The situation did not improve<\/strong>: \u201cThe danger is latent,\u201d says one of the eight leaders with a protection scheme provided by the Colombian state, who asks not to reveal his name out of fear.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Over the next five years, the community will enter a new process: the implementation of the so-called Resettlement Action Plan (PAR)<\/strong>, a document that took them six years of negotiation with the mining companies and which was finally signed on November 29, 2018. For Hatillo\u2019s leaders, what is fundamental is that the commitments made in its 700 pages do not remain on paper and, above all, that there are guarantees that they can rebuild their lives elsewhere.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The field that was no longer<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Jos\u00e9 del Carmen Correa speaks with nostalgia as he walks through the ramshackle, dusty streets of El Hatillo.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He is Hatillano and likes to evoke scenes from his childhood, when he ran freely through that green field that is currently a crater on one side and a mountain of sediments that grows with the exploitation of coal on the other. He is a descendant of settlers who came to this area in the 19th century to grow corn, banana, and cotton, without worrying whether or not they had land deeds. As these were empty lands belonging to the nation, they had the right to ask for them legally after several years of work, so the villagers lived quietly, cultivating their food, raising animals, and fishing in the Calenturitas river.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n