The Criminal Decision Chamber of the Superior Court of the Judicial District of Bucaramanga, through a second instance ruling by Judge Danny Samuel Granados Durán, He confirmed the guardianship ruling against the Minister of Environment, Susana Muhamad for violating the right to information of small miners affected by the possible application of a reserve area near Santurbán, In Santander, and not having responded in the background the requests, concerns and problems raised by the affected mining community.
(Read: They open contempt against mining for delays to delimit the Santurbán Páramo).
The second instance ruling, which demonstrates that communities have not been guaranteed sufficient access and participation on the reserve zone that is intended to be imposed in 98% of the 6 municipalities of Soto Norte (California, Vetas, Surratá, Matanza , Charta and Tona), a few hours are known that the Ministry of Environment closes the deadline for the more than 35 thousand people who would be affected by the reserve, comment on the Ministry’s resolution project, which expires this Friday 14 February 2024.
According to the document, the judge ruled in favor of the guardianship of Ivonne Consuelo González, leader of the mining strike and president of Asomineros Vetas, after considering that the Ministry of Environment and Sustainable Development, under the direction of Susana Muhamad, violated his right to The information. This was due to the fact that it did not respond completely to its concerns and requests related to the temporary reserve areas, Decree 044, the mining formalization and other issues addressed at the dialogue table on November 5, within the framework of the agreements To finish the mining strike.
(Also: Procuraduría opens inquiry for non -compliance with the delimitation of the Santurbán Páramo).
“This is one more evidence of the complaints we have made for more than a year, on how the Minister of Environment has violated the fundamental rights of thousands of families of small and medium legal mining, condemning us to poverty and illegality. She intends to delete 450 years of mining vocation and cultural roots, with a resolution that has not been concerted, which does not know sentences of the Constitutional Court, which has no sufficient technical support, and that violates the Escazú agreement that the minister herself defended “González said.
According to the failed guardianship in favor of the mining community in the second instance, González, as a signature of the formalization agreement and mining regularization of small and medium scale, made an express request to the Ministry through a right of petition before the concerns and concerns and The impact of government decisions against mining at the meeting held with the minister on November 5, 2024.
However, as the judge points out, The Ministry did not know and violated the right to information from the miners, as it was limited to giving superficial, general and evasive responses, which did not solve the request of the affected community in the background.
(Here: Minambiente and village municipality agree to delimitation of Santurbán).
“It should be clear that this measure is not to take care of the Santurbán Páramo because it is already protected by law, but to expand restrictions to areas that are not moor, without technical support or agreement, to comply with agreements with activist groups from Bucaramanga that do not live in Soto Norte. We have never asked to allow mining in wasteland, that is unheard of because we ourselves are the one we live there and protect it. What we ask is that they do not continue, with arthile, criminalizing legal miners, opening the passage to the groups outside the law, and doing politics with our territory ”said Ivonne González.
Minister of Environment, Susana Muhamad.
EFE
Within the right of petition that resulted in this failed guardianship in favor of small miners, it is emphasized that “All the measures adopted by the National Government in relation to temporary reserves or with the reservations of article 47 of the Code of Renewable Natural Resources, comply with respect for access rights and compliance to guarantee the right to information , citizen participation and environmental justice, and the rules of call, information, consultation and initiative, consultation, and prior dissemination of the administrative act ”.
The Minera leader criticized the bias and lack of impartiality of the Ministry that, in recent days, received with hugs, open doors and even publications in the official networks of the Ministry to a group of activists who do not live in the area that will be affected; While in October 2024 he did not know and minimized the demonstration of more than 1,500 peasants and small miners who reached the headquarters of the Ministry of Environment in Bogotá to protest against reservations, What derived days later in a mining strike in 8 departments of the country, with more than 100,000 people protesting for a week against the government.
“The activism that the minister has promoted since her office is shameless. Not only does he receive hugs and publications to his allies, but now they deceive public opinion indicating that in Soto Norte they made socialization tables. The reality is that the meetings failed, the call was void, in all the villages, lack of guarantees was denounced, they could never explain the scope of the reserve, there was no presence of the control agencies, and the inhabitants were emberrazed and left the meetings for the manipulation and lies of the ministry “González concluded.
The second instance ruling against the Ministry of Environment adds to the pronouncements of the Government of Santander, The mayors of the 6 municipalities of Soto Norte, and the reports of the Attorney General of the National National Natural Resources, and the application of Decree 044 of 2024; Standards with which the mining activity is ostensibly affected in at least 7 departments of the country.
