Unbridled greed and growth – Challenging global corporations | DW Documentary

Unbridled greed and growth – Challenging global corporations | DW Documentary

I’m from Latin America. this region of the world, that is dreamed of by so many: its strength, its mountains and rivers. The joy and resistance of its people. A region marked by the brutal way in which we were conquered. First, it was for gold and silver. Then sugarcane, coffee, oil…

They even took the lives of those who extracted and harvested. Very little has changed. Only the vessels of the first conquistadores transformed into newer ones, our resources leaving to benefit others. Our land and our people sacrificed. After my studies in journalism in Colombia, I went to work in Europe.

For several years, I coordinated a network of NGOs tracking the relationship between the EU and Latin America. From that position, I could see the unlimited thirst of states and companies for our natural resources. I started to wonder: Who are the new conquistadores? How do they operate? How far are they willing to go?

In the face of this pillage, who is resisting? And how do they confront these global actors? With these questions, here I was 20 years later, ready to go back to what has been called for many centuries, The Land of Abundance. My first destination is Cajamarca, in Peru.

I came here to meet Máxima Acuña. The land where she lives is surrounded by Latin America’s largest gold mine. I came to listen to her story about the battles she won. But became even more interested in the battles she lost. I understood the mining corporation had trapped Máxima in her own territory.

It seemed like an absurd situation, in a desolate remote area, 4000 meters above sea level. I have been here since 1994. We work the land. We are farmers. My parents were farmers. We grew up in the fields and they taught us how to work. Mother Earth gives us everything we need.

But now they’re saying there’s gold here. That is why the mining company wants to take our land. They want to kick us out. Who knows where we will end up? I wanted to see the mine up close. Yanacocha’s expansion plan included the Conga Project. Very close to Máxima’s house.

Conga would destroy several lagoons and water reserves, crucial to the survival of the local population. What did Yanacocha do to you? When did it all start? Yanacocha started in 2010. They came with their people. They claimed this land does not belong to us. This land belongs to the Yanacocha mining company, the said.

But we have the title to the land. So we showed it to them: “Here are the documents!” The first time, there were 6 people. They couldn’t kick me out. The second time, there were 50 people. We are humble people. Look at what the mining company did. They brought the police with them.

They hit my mother and my sister. Look where the engineers are. Far off, way back there! They don’t even come and fix the problems themselves. They prefer to send their people. Look at the machinery they brought! A mining company should not act this way. They com and take what belongs to others!

Look what they did to my family. My mother fainted. Please, we need your help! My husband went to Cajamarca to the NGO Grufides in Cajamarca. There he met the lawyer, Mirtha. She helped us spread information. That is when I first met Máxima.

Her story was so extreme that I first I doubted its truth. We are talking about a company that claims to have high social and environmental standards. So when Máxima told us that they used violence to try to evict her, that they came with police, with private security, that they beat her,

And that they almost killed her daughter… To me, that was too much. An I even doubted her words. So I asked her to show me her injuries. She undressed. Her entire body was covered in bruises. That gave us what we needed to take on such a delicate case.

We tried to use the judicial system in our favor. We took on the complaint which Máxima filed. Not only had the case already been archived, but the company had filed a complaint against Máxima and her family. And their accusation was given due process. I found that shocking.

Because I understood then that the judicial system works for those in power. The mining company sued Máxima and her family claiming they had illegally appropriated the land. They had absolutely no qualms about telling outrageous lies, like Máxima turned up and assaulted 10 police officers. That 10 police officers were injured.

It was almost funny! So I said, “Super Máxima, how did you fend off so many policemen and then get inside and take over the land?” A wind of resistance is blowing in the mountains of Cajamarca. I just want to say we are all fighting together to protect our water,

Our land. We know that without water we can’t survive. Without land there is no work, no food. As country people, we don’t want to go and live in a city. And how are we going to survive? Their money will disappear. Our land will be forever. Until the day we die.

Then for our children. For our grandchildren. There is no reason why the company should win! Why not unite all the districts and loudly proclaim that the mind doesn’t belong here! So that we can live in peace. I’ll stop now since we’re reaching the end of the day. Thank you!

The People, united, will never be defeated! My blood, my life! I’d give it all for the water! Conga? No! Not now! Not ever! I had heard that, back in 2011 Ollanta Humala, the presidential candidate at the time, stood out as a fierce advocate for water during his campaign.

The mining company says you want to sell the water! They say you were consulted. Did they consult you? No! What matters more: water or gold? Water! I was surprised to know that, once elected, he changed his discourse. The Conga project is important for Peru. It will enable the great transformation

And social inclusion of the Peruvian people. We reject extreme positions: water or gold. We prefer a common sense position: water and gold! We can clear up any doubts about the lagoons. The government will guarantee the supply of water for the entire community. They grabbed him. Don’t hit me! Don’t hit me!

I’m not doing anything wrong! I’m a journalist! All the people of Peru show solidarity with the people of Cajamarca. Our fight is full of hope! The protest that started in the Cajamarca region, organized by peasants and indigenous communities, quickly spread nationwide, into a historical march in defense of water.

It eventually paralyzed the Conga mining project. We want potatoes, we want corn! Out with the transnational companies. Despite the victory against Conga, Máxima had to face Yanacocha once again. This time at the Supreme Court. We will now begin. It is May 3rd, 2017, 9 AM. Please read out the court’s decision.

We declare the cassation appeal filed by Yanachocha’s legal representatives unfounded. The accused are acquitted: I’m happy and relieved. Justice has been served. Here in the capital of Peru, today, justice was served based on truth. I just hope I’ll never have to face any further harassment from the company. They are very abusive people!

Máxima thought she had finally won. We all thought so. But nothing could be further from the truth. This was the path we used to take to the nearby villages down hill. After we won the trial, the company started to put up fences everywhere. We didn’t know how to get in or out.

We’re back! Lucky you came before the rain! There wasn’t a drop this morning. Once we left the lagoon, it started. The company won’t leave us alone. You can see their CCTV cameras. They are watching us, pointing them at the house. The camera up the hill? Yes, that one. – Ah, yes.

It is monitoring us. They are watching us. Whether we are here, or not. What we are doing, who we are meeting. If we are alone, or not. They also started to send drones. Máxima was idealized by the global media for this David-and-Goliath battle. Global media left.

The mining corporation remains. I am silent when I leave Máxima’s land. I had been to Honduras a few years earlier within the context of my previous work. The European Union has an agreement with six Central American countries. Honduras is one of them.

It never ceases to amaze me that a giant like the EU negotiates with such small economies as if they were on equal terms. If these negotiations benefit people, why is Honduras still one of the poorest countries in the world, ten years later. And one of the countries

Where the largest number of environmental defenders are killed. Honduran indigenous and environmental organizer Berta Caceres has been assassinated in her home. She was one of the leading organizers for indigenous land rights in Honduras. For years, the group faced death threats and repression as they stood up to mining and dam projects

That threatened to destroy their community. It is precisely the murder of the activist Berta Caceres that brings me back here. In La Esperanza, the city where Berta Caceres lived, I meet her daughter, Bertha. When I told that they had killed Berta Caceres, who was my mother,

I knew without a doubt that she and the Lenca people had really had an impact in their struggle against these corporate interests. So from that moment onwards, I have dedicated every single day of my life to seeking justice for my mother.

Who said that the struggle led by the indigenous people was an easy one? That was never the case! Do you know how long indigenous people have been fighting? For five-hundred twenty years. Since the Spanish invasion. Since the invasion, power has remained in the hands of big northern countries.

It’s based on the exploitation of our people. Seventy million indigenous people were murdered on our continent. Colonialism is not over. That’s why this fight is so hard for the indigenous populations. And the State apparatus is working to maintain the situation.

But we are also very powerful! This is why we are still here today! In 2009, there was a civilian and military coup in Honduras. The aim was not to remove the President. It was against a deeper social revolution led by the people, about re-founding Honduras, territorial control, indigenous and women’s rights…

A key aim of the coup was to establish an economic model based on the privatization of common goods and nature. It included a set of 49 licenses for hydroelectric dams to exploit rivers as well as for other energy projects. Forty-nine in the territory of the Lenca people alone.

One of these projects was the Agua Zarca project. You did not consult the people, and today we don’t want you to tell lies. The one who is leading you here, Berta Caceres. She had a meeting with the president. And the President of the Republic told her that the company is not going away!

They will come for the water. Here we will be day and night! I see clearly that most people are in favor of the dam. NO!! We are going to read you a part of this document which states that people here have signed it.

But this is a lie as we never signed any document. This is a lie, because here you see the list, all written by the same hand, and without an ID numbers. People who can’t even read or write appear here. My name is Santo Gil Gomez.

I was upset because I was in this document claiming I am in favor of this dam. I can’t sign my name or read. So why is my name in this document? They simply stole the signature from me. My name is Gloria Suyapa Paz.

My signature is in this document, but I did not sign it. They have forged my signature and this is a crime against these people. We are the Lenca, the indigenous community from Intibuca. Bertha tells me that in 1994, a historical Lenca march, promoted by COPINH, took over the capital of Honduras.

It led to the ratification of International Convention 169. It enables indigenous communities to have a say in the economic projects affecting them in their territories. However, Convention 169 was not respected. On the 1st of April 2013, people in Rio Blanco started the Oak campaign. They wanted to block the machinery,

That was already destroying part of the mountain. The machines were there to build a road so equipment could be brought in to construct a dam. That was the day the violence started. Private security, machinery, police, military, they all started to come here. Getting in and out of the area was very strictly controlled.

Here, COPINH rules! We could already see in January and February, that the level of tension was rising again. There was surveillance everywhere. At one of the protests, the community leader was shot dead. His name was Tomás Garcia. He was the President of the Council, as well as a religious authority.

He was very well respected. We want to make a commitment here, in front of Tomás’s body and soul. We are not going to sell out! We want DESA and SinoHydro to halt this project. We demand that they remove all repressive forces from here — the hitmen culture and the death threats,

The persecution during these one-hundred and eight days of heroic resistance. In 2013, we started to investigate who the investors were, as we did not know them. Thanks to people in the Netherlands, we discovered that the FMO bank was involved. This is the Dutch development bank. So was FinnFund, a development fund from Finland,

The Central American Bank for Economic Integration, and for turbines and electrical consultancy, the German company, Voith Hydro. Berta Caceres, as COPINH coordinator, started communicating with the FMO bank, mainly through email. She asked them not to invest in this project anymore, since it was violating the rights of the indigenous communities,

And that the leader, Tomás Garcia, had already been shot dead. To a second e-mail, the bank replied the communities were not indigenous communities. So we asked ourselves: how dare a Dutch bank tell us who is and who is not, in our territories? In this North vs. South relationship,

We are the ones who must pay for the brutal consumerism of these countries. We have to bear the brunt of the climate crisis, driven by this economic exploitation. I read in a press release that the FMO and the FinnFund decided to withdraw from the project right after Berta’s murder.

If in a first trial, seven Honduran people were sentenced, it took no less than six years to sentence just one of the co-authors of the murder. David Castillo, ex-military and CEO of DESA was sentenced to 22 years in prison. Bertha has no doubt that David Castillo

Is just a link between those who pulled the trigger and those who ordered the crime. And that the roots of her mother’s murder extend beyond Honduras. This is why Bertha and her family decided to sue the FMO in the Netherlands, and to find support in Brussels, the heart of EU political power.

The death of Berta Caceres is the chronicle of a death foretold. Thirty-three times, she reported receiving death threats simply for trying to protect her land, indigenous people, and the environment, the lives of people with rights to it. But Bertha can tell you the story much better than I can.

Thank you for allowing me to speak here today. This is an appeal to those investing in these projects that have violated principles, values and human lives. We have come to the EU to tell you that we won’t stop fighting for justice. Love is our strongest driver.

Our commitment to truth won’t be stopped not due to fatigue, nor adversity. How did we get here? When corporations and governments don’t act decisively to prevent human and environmental crimes, what is there left for us to do? My final destination is Brazil. The region of Minas Gerais entered Western History

The day the Portuguese found gold. The extracted quantities extracted were so great that it quickly became the largest economic center in the region. One century later, Minas Gerais fell into disgrace. I had no idea just how shocking it would be, to enter a town where all traces of life seemed to have disappeared.

My name is Carolina de Moura Campos. I’m 36 and I was born in Belo Horizonte. My mother brought me up alone, as she separated from my dad. After being sexually abused in my teens, I started to question the world around me.

I studied journalism and this is when I felt a calling to protect nature. So with some friends, I got involved in working for the environment. We created an NGO. We were a group of young people who wanted to change the world. And as we are in Minas Gerais,

It was inevitable that we would address the mining issue. This is an issue that dramatically affects the life of communities here. In 2015, we were shocked by the tragic collapse of the Fundão dam in Mariana. It was operated by Samarco, a joint venture between Vale and BHP.

There were 42 million cubic meters of toxic waste. I had already heard about Vale, but I wanted to know more about this company. Vale was created in 1942 by the government of Getúlio Vargas, under the name “Vale do Rio Doce”. It was a public-private venture with the federal government as the main shareholder.

It was privatized in May 1997, under the government of Fernando Henrique Cardoso and was listed on the stock exchange of Rio. Today, Vale is the third largest company in the country, just behind Petrobras and Itau Unibanco. Its revenues are estimated at 52 billion euros. Mining is inefficient.

The amount of earth they move to get such a tiny, let’s say, diamond. It’s absurd. They bomb an entire mountain and just a small part will be used. So there is a lot of waste And for this, they need tailings dams. These are places where mines put waste that has no economic value.

These are the leftovers of what they bombed, after keeping what is of economic value for them. In Brazil, these tailings dams are built with the cheapest and least safe technologies. Three years after the Fundão dam burst in Mariana three further dams, also properties of Vale,

Collapsed today and created a disaster still difficult to assess. This time it happened in Brumadinho, located in the Belo Horizonte metropolitan area. We urgently need a plan to evacuate everyone. The police have already ordered the city center of Brumadinho to be closed. Hundreds of people are missing.

We must devise a plan to get everyone out. It’s urgent! They destroyed our streets, our garden, our houses, our dreams. They destroyed our life plans. In a matter of minutes, 272 people died. How could it be that only three years after the tragedy in Mariana,

Another dam, operated by the same company in the same region, collapsed? We are counting on all members of this parliament, parliamentarians from Minas Gerais, we are counting on everyone to put pressure on this company, because they keep violating our rights. I wonder if a terrorist activated a bomb now and killed us all,

Would they have the right to sit down at the table and negotiate? Or would they immediately go to jail? How can it be that a company that kills every single day, repeatedly… mining kills every single day. Toxic waste kills people, drop by drop every day!

How come those companies still have the right to negotiate when it comes to what they will or will not fix? We have to arrest them now and force them to do everything the people demand. Because the lives they took away will never come back.

In the document, pages 76 and 77 from the public civil action, Vale refers ten risky dams. These dams are those with a high risk according to the assessment done by the company itself. In this list, we see dam B1 and 4A… That was in October 2018! Shouldn’t the CEO be aware of this?

Should he? The one in possession of the information decides that. If the information is in the technical department, and they think it is not within competence of the CEO, then I have no decision-making authority. If a CEO is not responsible, and here at CPI we think he is, then who is responsible?

A mine operator pays another company to certify the stability of a dam. Vale contracted one company; they said: “No!” Vale commissioned another company. They said “No!” Then Vale contracted Tüv Süd, a German company. As we know Germans are known for quality manufacturing.

They are trusted with everything, from kids’ toys to I don’t know what. As Tüv Süd had a nontransparent relationship with Vale, through many other contracts, Tüv Süd wanted to consolidate its position in the Brazilian mining market through other contracts. So Vale put on the pressure! If you don’t give us the certification,

We’re going to break the other contracts… In the end, a decision made in Munich granted Vale the certification, in September 2018. Just before the dam collapsed. All the minerals that made this dam so huge are gone. Someone bought them. Someone made profit off them. Someone shipped them away.

So we must look at the entire production chain. For that, we went to Europe, to alert EU players to their own responsibility. We told them: “You have the blood of innocent people on your hands, too”. Mothers, fathers, sons, daughters, cousins, grandchildren… Many, many families. Many European concerns influence mining company’s activities.

Deutsche Bank financed Vale. Allianz insured its ventures. In Brumadinho, Tüv Süd, the certifying company, played a key role. It’s important that all the players involved in the iron ore production chain face their responsibility. Now the first buyers of iron, as raw materials, are no longer Europeans.

Asian countries are the first buyers. But we are in the global value chain. So it would be better to have a general law saying that companies, in Europe, in a global value chain, have responsibility on how they buy products coming from another country.

And if we have this kind of law at the European level, we can manage to have this kind of law at the international level. And not only for European companies, but also for others. Now, as Europeans countires, to reflect on not only our welfare, but also the welfare of others. Criminals!

You brutally killed two-hundred seventy-two people. We’re going to fight you! This has to stop! Where are you? Máxima has been trying to sue Newmont in the USA since 2017. Until now, no court has let her do so. One day, the mining company sent her an offer. When they sent their letter, they wrote

“We will give you US 50,000 dollars to support the development of another piece of land provided by the company.” If I sell my land, I’ll be left with nothing. Sure they’ll give us some money. But what can we do with money if we don’t have our land to live on?

This is why we won’t sell; we prefer to take care of our land. We’ll keep fighting for its protection and our right to live here. Because I wanted to protect my lagoons, they wanted to take my life. I protect the land, the water, the sources of life.

I don’t fear the power of corporations. I’ll keep fighting! The brothers and sisters who died in Celendin and in Bambamarca. for all of them we are resisting in Cajamarca. Where does all the strength come from? Where do all the Bertas come from? My mother fought. Organised. My mother was not assassinated.

My mother is a seed that is born and reborn. The fire, the struggle of the people, which they tried to put out. What they actually did was to make this fire bigger because they tried to put it out with gasoline. Berta lives!

We live in a civilization driven by its desire for unlimited growth. Like a spinning wheel going faster and faster, out of control. Although people are suffering, fighting back, and resisting, corporations stop at nothing. Some harass, divide and threaten. When necessary, they send an army of lawyers to the courtroom.

When the resistance gets too strong, some don’t hesitate to brutally eliminate anyone who stands in their way. This is why, as I’m about to end this journey, I’m even more inspired by Máxima, Bertha and Carolina’s tireless courage. Three women, who were all suddenly forced to face the unacceptable. I wonder:

Why do governments let transnational corporations do abroad what they would never do in their own territories? How to protect those who defend nature? How long can we go on in this perpetual illusion of abundance?

They’ve declared war on transnational companies. Three courageous women in Peru, Honduras and Brazil are risking their lives to resist government and corporations exploiting their homelands out of greed — and in pursuit of unbridled growth.

Carolina, Bertha and Maxima live in Peru, Honduras and Brazil. What unites them: they’re homing in on companies in the EU and US that are wreaking havoc on their home nations in disregard of national and international law. Although their opponents are much more powerful than they are, these three women have a common goal: They’re leading today’s fight against modern conquistadors.

Whereas governments and corporations, trapped in a global race towards unlimited growth, need to get their hands on the cheapest raw materials, these three women tell us a story of tireless courage: how to continue battling to protect nature when police and corporations threaten violence and retribution, putting the activists very lives at risk? Bertha, Carolina and Maxima relentlessly raise their voices and demand justice, while transnational companies knowingly inflict damage on human life and the environment in the name of profit.

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