Thursday 05 April 2007
By Maria Teresa Aguirre
“ In the countryside, we put everything we have in the cooking pot. But we’ll never put gold and silver in the pot.” – Segundo Palacios, farmer from Tambogrande
The quest of Tamborande, a small farming community in Peru’s northern coast region, seemed more than hopeless: a small valley of fruit farmers taking on a wealthy foreign mining company backed by Peru’s powerful mining industry and top politicians. But the people of Tambogrande never doubted the outcome. They knew their cause was just and were convinced they would win.
Their unfailing belief was based on one simple fact that both the foreign company (Canada’s Manhattan Minerals) and the local politicians failed to grasp: the overwhelming majority of the town people did not want a mine. When put to the democratic test by means of a referendum, 98.6 percent voted against the mine. The farmers and townspeople knew that when an entire community unites - standing firm and simply saying “no” - nothing short of force can make them leave their homes and land.
The struggle was a long one and, over the years, the town’s opposition to the mine with the consequent associated environmental destruction matured from the initial frustrated anger and violent protest to peaceful but unbreakable resistance. As time went by, protests marches became cultural events that celebrated agriculture as much as they spurned mining. Instead of waving sticks in anger, farmers carried mangoes, limes, watermelons, squash and other local produce in their upraised fists.
Local music groups wrote and performed emotional songs in the style of traditional Peruvian ballads and waltzes. Local youth designed posters, web pages and internet alerts winning supporters in Lima, Peru’s capital city, and around the world. Dancers put on lime costumes and whirled through the streets and the town’s politicians held the world’s first referendum on mining. The impact of the example of Tambogrande has been such that similar ‘copy-cat’ referendums have been held in Guatemala and Argentina.
The town’s struggle has been captured in the documentary Tambogrande, Mangos, Murder and Mining produced by Guarango Cine y TV, a WACC corporate member and project holder in Peru. The Guarango film follows farmers from the coastal town as they struggle to save their fragile valley from mining developments. The 85 minute film shows how fruit growers defended their land and vibrant culture from foreign mining interests. The farmers choose mangoes over gold in a tale of a community that confronted the power and wealth of the global mining industry and won. It is a story of ordinary people rising to near-heroism in a time of crisis. Most of all, it shows that communities can resist by non-violent means.
WACC provided financial support for distribution of the film at the local level in Peru and for the accompanying six workshops on communication, advocacy and non-violent resistance held in six mining conflict zones in the north of the country.
The documentary has been widely shown in Peru and had its world premiere at the Amsterdam International Documentary Film Festival 2006. It was also chosen to be screened at the World Social Forum in Kenya in January 2007 and at the One World Human Rights film festival in the Czech Republic in February of the same year.