On June 16, a judge of the Municipal Court of Jericó, a municipality in the department of Antioquia, released eleven peasants who are facing legal proceedings for opposing a mining project of transnational corporation AngloGold Ashanti in the area.

The decision allows the peasants to continue the process while remaining free, contrary to the request of the Prosecutor’s Office that requested house arrest, and charged them with the crimes of simple kidnapping, aggravated theft, damage to property belonging to others and personal injury, following a lawsuit filed by Minera Quebradona, a subsidiary of AngloGold Ashanti.

The alleged crimes took place in 2022 and 2023, when inhabitants of the region and environmentalists protested against the mining project (copper, gold, silver and platinum), because it destroys water sources and the agricultural livelihoods of the population of the area.

In a quick appearance on Monday before the media and representatives of organizations and social movements that accompanied them on the day, the farmers thanked for all the support they have received in Colombia and at international level. Rodolfo Tobón and José Gabriel Suárez spoke on behalf of themselves and their colleagues.

For example, Friends of the Earth International, had called on its 70 national member groups through its Internationalist Solidarity System to let the Colombian Judiciary know that the international community was aware of the case, and to pay attention to the legitimate demands of the communities of Jerico resisting the mining project.

The judicial resolution “motivates us and helps us to continue fighting, defending the environment, taking care of the water, in this ongoing struggle that we have been fighting for several years, and that as lifelong coffee farmers and peasants of this region drives us to continue taking care of our territory,” said Gustavo Arboleda, one of the farmers who was prosecuted, interviewed for Real World Radio by CENSAT Agua Viva – Friends of the Earth Colombia.

In 2021, Colombia’s National Environmental Licensing Authority (ANLA) shelved AngloGold Ashanti’s environmental impact study for lack of technical accuracy, but the transnational company continues to press on.

According to CENSAT Agua Viva – Friends of the Earth Colombia, AngloGold Ashanti has been implementing a territorial insertion strategy characterized by the silencing of communities, intimidation of social leaders, social fragmentation and the alleged capture of public decisions.

Hundreds of people demonstrated on Monday near the court where the peasants were released, and celebrated the victory.

Also interviewed by CENSAT Agua Viva, activist María José Cano Espinoza, of the Imagina Jericó collective, explained that the communities’ protest, which for the Prosecutor’s Office is a crime, “is a legitimate act of defense of our rights to decide what we want in the territory, especially the peasants, who are subject to special protection measures in Colombia.”

According to Cano, AngloGold Ashanti’s aim is to stop the protest and that the peasants go to prison, and considers it evident that the Prosecutor’s Office defends the rights of the company and ignores the context of peaceful protest and the socio-environmental conflict.

The activist warned that this case could take years. “This could lead to the peasant communities, the environmental defenders, being systematically attacked for several years, wearing us down between hearings. But here we remain firm,” she stressed.

The representative of Imagina Jericó spoke of the structural demands towards the national government presided by Gustavo Petro. This is a government that “speaks the same language as us,” she said. Regarding the demands, she said that “we have been requesting all these years that the company leave the territory”, and demanded that the discourse of energy transition not be used to justify AngloGold Ashanti’s mining project. “It is a false argument,” she said.

Cano acknowledged that the request for AngloGold Ashanti to leave the country is ambitious, and that no other company should arrive with the same extractive intentions, because “at global level, they already know that these mountains are full of minerals”. However, “if it was not for the ambition that we can fight for these mountains we would not be here,” she said. And she left a message and a strong demand with reference to the structural demands: “if the Mining Code is not changed there will never be social and environmental justice in these territories. The Code must not be in favor of the transnational corporations, but in favor of the people”.

All photos featured in this article were taken by Julián Camilo Barrientos, from CENSAT Agua Viva – Friends of the Earth Colombia.