In June this year, indigenous and peasant communities in Jujuy, a province in northern Argentina, mobilised to demand the annulment of the provincial constitutional reform, the approval of which failed to comply with the obligation of free, prior and informed consultation.
The reform opens the door to the extractivism of mineral resources, especially lithium, a mineral that is presented as key to the global energy transition and which is found in large quantities adjacent to indigenous territories. The protests unleashed fierce repression by the government, but that did not stop the communities who decided to take their struggle to the gates of the Palace of Justice.
As part of its ongoing work, the National Land Coalition of Argentina supported the mobilisation, and helped to make the fight visible in different national and global spaces. These actions were also part of the regional campaign "Securing Indigenous Territories to Protect Life", promoted by the Working Group on Indigenous Peoples of the International Land Coalition in Latin America and the Caribbean (ILC LAC).
The adoption of a constitutional reform on 20th June, which was carried out behind closed doors, without community consultation and which implies serious setbacks in human rights, caused a situation of extreme tension that exploded in Jujuy, Argentina.
The local and indigenous communities of Jujuy protested against the reform, which they say "benefits foreign companies that exploit natural resources and only leave pollution and dispossession". The repression of the social mobilisation was brutal and excessive, leaving hundreds injured.
ONE OF THE MAIN DEMANDS IS THAT THE NEW CONSTITUTIONAL TEXT PROVIDES MORE FAVOURABLE CONDITIONS FOR THE ADVANCE OF EXTRACTIVE INDUSTRIES, AND IN PARTICULAR THE EXPLOITATION OF LITHIUM. THE SALT FLATS WHERE LITHIUM RESERVES ARE FOUND ARE, IN MANY CASES, THE TERRITORIES OF INDIGENOUS COMMUNITIES. THIS HAS LED TO COUNTLESS CLAIMS AND CONFLICTS ON THE PART OF THE INHABITANTS OF THE HIGH ANDEAN PUNA.
Given this critical scenario, NLC of Argentina joined the demand that the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation rule on the unconstitutionality of the provincial reform process in Jujuy, and that the National Congress sanction the Indigenous Community Property Law that defends the territorial rights of the communities.
Furthermore, it advanced with different actions to make visible not only the repression and persecution, but also the demands of the local and indigenous communities that refer to the defence of the territory and its natural resources, demanding the fulfilment of the prior, free and informed consultation that should have been respected in the reform process.
FROM THE PUNA TO BUENOS AIRES: RIGHTS UP, REFORM DOWN
In order for the voices of the communities in resistance to be heard by the justice system, the Tercer Malón de la Paz, a space representing 400 communities of the Collas, Atacamas, Ocloyas and Guaraníes peoples - including member organisations of the NLC of Argentina - decided to undertake a peaceful and vindicating walk towards the capital of the country.
The Third Malón de la Paz is heir to previous struggles of the communities. As in 1946 and 2006[1], this space began its journey, from Jujuy to Buenos Aires, in defence of their rights. After passing through the provinces of Salta, Catamarca, Tucumán, Santiago del Estero, Córdoba and Santa Fe, on 1 August (Pachamama Day), it reached the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires. There, the representatives of the communities settled in front of the Palacio de Tribunales to meet with the Supreme Court and present their demands. The magistrates of the highest court of justice only accepted the delivery of a petition.
After a change in the national government and four months of camping, the Malón returned to Jujuy to continue working for the annulment of the reform of the provincial constitution, the creation of the Federation of Indigenous Peoples and Communities, and the implementation of the law on indigenous community property.
Under the slogans "Water is worth more than lithium", "Rights up, reform down!", and to the shout of JALLALLA! (an Aymara Quechua word meaning that what is being done is going to happen), the indigenous communities of Jujuy continue to demand the right to defend their territory and natural resources, and to demand compliance with free, prior and informed consultation.
AMPLIFYING THE FIGHT
In addition to supporting the defenders of the land of Jujuy in the mobilisations, NLC of Argentina aimed to make visible and to advocate in the public agenda - locally, nationally and internationally - on the energy transition and its effects on local communities that face extractivism on a daily basis.
In this sense, it promoted the participation in the Climate Week in New York of two members of the communities affected by the advance of lithium in Jujuy. Through a video, Beatriz Débora Sajama and Germán David, members of the NLC, shared their testimony on the risks that the transition to clean energy implies for indigenous peoples and human, land and environmental rights defenders.
LITHIUM AND ENVIRONMENTAL CHALLENGES IN JUJUY: TESTIMONIES IN THE FRAMEWORK OF THE CLIMATE WEEK IN N.Y.
But the struggle demanded something more. The result is "Lithium: what's behind the reform", a documentary that reconstructs the violent repression suffered by communities confronting the advance of extractivism and the unconstitutional reform in Jujuy, Argentina. Traversing territories and landscapes, it focuses on the voices of the environmental defenders who lead the resistance, seeking to make visible the human rights violations in the name of the energy transition and false climate solutions.
"We continue to advocate in global spaces through the strongest possible participation. It is necessary to generate spaces that question the current extractivist models, even more so when they are justified by the energy transition," say the NLC of Argentina.
This film, coordinated and produced by Fundación Plurales in the framework of NLC of Argentina and the Platform of Defenders of Land and Territory, both ILC initiatives, was also supported by the GAGGA Alliance and the Environmental Defenders Programme.
The presentation of the documentary was carried out through a series of collaborative and simultaneous screenings, which took place in different countries and territories, in an attempt to spark debates not only in Argentina, but also in other countries of the global south and north. Thus, between 30 November and 15 December, the documentary was screened at the COP28 on Climate Change in the United Arab Emirates, at the ILC headquarters in Rome, in the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires, in front of the Supreme Court of Justice accompanying the Malón de la Paz encampment, at the Meeting of Indigenous Communities of the Puna at the National University of Jujuy, among other places.
[1] In May 1946, a hundred indigenous people from northern Argentina marched on foot from Jujuy to Plaza de Mayo to claim their territories. This unprecedented event went down in history as the "Malón de la Paz". Sixty years after that event (in August 2006), 120 indigenous communities of Jujuy carried out the "Second Malón de la Paz". They walked for a day and a half from the different departments of the province to Purmamarca and demanded that the Governor comply with a court ruling that obliged him to hand over 1.5 million hectares of land to the Kolla and Guaraní peoples.