Indigenous Bolivians flee homes as backlash to mining protest turns explosive

by Maxwell Radwin on 29 April 2024

• Indigenous communities have been threatened and attacked for protesting mining pollution, water scarcity and land use change in the community collective of Acre Antequera.
  
  
• The collective, or ayllu, is an Indigenous territorial structure made up of eight Quechua communities traditionally devoted to pastoralism and agriculture.
  
  
• But open-pit mining for silver, copper, lead, zinc, tin and other minerals has used up a lot of their freshwater.
  
  
• While protesting earlier this month against the harmful impacts of mining, several women in the community said dynamite was thrown into their homes and their children weren’t allowed to attend school.

Environmental activists in Bolivia say they’ve become the targets of discrimination, death threats and even bombings after speaking out against harmful mining operations in the department of Oruro.

The activists, most of them women, have faced escalating violence this year because of their opposition to mining pollution, water scarcity and land use change near the Indigenous Quechua community collective, or ayllu, of Acre Antequera. In some cases, they’ve even been attacked with sticks and dynamite.

Now, they’re making a renewed push to raise awareness about the conflict.

“They realize that there isn’t the same amount of water anymore, that their food is being contaminated with waste from mining activity,” said Carol Ballesteros, from the Assembly for Forests and Life, an organization that has been advocating for the communities. “This is a situation in which they’re being forcibly displaced from their territory.”

The ayllu is an Indigenous territorial structure that, in this case, is made up of eight Quechua communities traditionally devoted to pastoralism and agriculture. But open-pit mining for silver, copper, lead, zinc, tin and other minerals has used up a lot of their freshwater, resulting in the desertification of the area, Ballesteros said.

More:
https://news.mongabay.com/2024/04/indigenous-bolivians-flee-homes-as-backlash-to-mining-protest-turns-explosive/