Divestment from Colombian coal would send ‘powerful’ human rights message

July 4th, 2019

Divesting
from the ESB’s coal supplier in Colombia on human rights grounds
would send a strong international and regional message, a Stop Blood
Coal coalition spokesperson has said. 

Speaking
yesterday at a briefing in the Dáil,
Clodagh Daly of the coalition said that a humans rights-led Irish
divestment from the Cerrejón
mine in Colombia would be “powerful” and send a signal to Europe,
which is the biggest consumer of the its coal.

The
mine is one of the largest open-pit coal mines in the world and is
based in La Guajira, one of the poorest regions of the country. It
produces and exports over 30 million tonnes of coal a year. 

The
majority of coal imported to Ireland from Colombia is purchased
through a
Dublin-based Coal
Marketing
Company
(CMC).
Over 60 per cent of coal imports for burning at ESB’s Moneypoint
power station is mined in Cerrejón. 

Multiple
Colombian and international human rights and environmental
organizations, as well as academics,
have accused the mine of links to human rights abuses, including
intimidation,
assault and death
threats against activists. 

By
continuing to purchase Cerrejón
coal, Sian Cowman of the Latin American Solidarity Centre (LASC) said
earlier
this year that
Ireland
is complicit in the “documented human rights violations inflicted
on local communities by the Cerrejón
mine.” 

The mine has previously expressed concerns over threats to social leaders in Colombia, a situation that they “resoundingly reject and one that greatly alarms us.” 

In
a statement, the ESB said that it is also aware of problems reported
in the media and by other organizations in previous years and that it
will “remain vigilant to the issues raised.” 

Speaking
to The Green News in
February,
the utility said it would track these issues in the context of an
assessment process undertaken by Bettercoal – an international
alliance of major coal-buyers to establish globally responsible coal
supply chains – as part of its “commitment to use responsibly
source coal.” 

That
same month, indigenous and afro-descendent communities in the state
of La Guajira launched a legal challenge against a recent
modification of the environmental license for the mine. 

The
lawsuit filed in February by affected communities argues that the
alteration to the license was carried out without assessing the
environmental impact. The plaintiffs are also seeking an injunction
to suspend any further alteration of the license that would allow an
expansion of mining activities.

The
inadequacy of Cerrejón’s
environmental license amount to “a breach of constitutional law,
the State’s international treaties, and statutory regulations,”
according to Alirio Uribe Munoz, a legal representative from the Jose
Alvear Restrepo Lawyers’ Collective Corporation. 

Expanding the mine, the legal team said, would exacerbate the current humanitarian crisis in La Guajira caused by the mine, including a loss of food security and lack of access to water that has influenced the deaths of 5,000 children and malnutrition of 40,000. 

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