A diverse group of protestors raise issues about extractivism and the Trans Pacific Partnership during a conference that paralleled IMF/World Bank meetings
Police violently evicted a community resistance group in San José del Golfo, Guatemala. For two years the group peacefully protested the use of a local mine in La Puya by a U.S.-based mining firm.
Anti-extractivism protests in South America are sometimes oversimplified to "rural communities vs. big government." This framing overlooks movements' internal complexities and alternative proposals.
The conflict over Bolivia's new mining law offers a window into the complexity and contradictions of the country's mining sector, as they play out during the run-up to October’s presidential election.
Uruguay has earned a reputation as a democratic country, and the recent passage of laws implementing gay marriage and the legalization of cannabis confirmed its progressive stance. But becoming a top global exporter of iron ore could be a difficult test for this thriving democracy.
In a mining conflict country, police brutality under the pay of mining corporations is the ugliest side of community relations. With financial and logistical support from the corporations, the police find incentives to use force. What would Servando Huanca, Vallejo's anti-miner in El tungsteno (1931), have done about it?
Faith and large-scale mining have something in common: they both move mountains. On many occasions, the Church has been an obstacle to industry’s efforts to expand into Latin American countries. A growing movement connects anti-mining resistance, spirituality, and environmental struggles.
The legend of El Dorado stems from a Spaniard, Juan Rodriguez Freyle, watching a High Priest of the Muisca getting covered in gold dust and jumping in Lake Guatavita, near Bogotá, in a religious ceremony that makes the Pope's big hat and incense burning look fairly underwhelming. Naturally, the Spanish decided that they themselves were far better placed to use all the gold responsibly, and set about destroying the complex societies that had flourished in Colombia prior.
