by EZEQUIEL ADAMOVSKY
PHOTO/Upside Down World
The past 26th November the people of the Argentinean province of Chubut, in Patagonia, were witnesses to yet another example of the limits of democracy when it comes to affecting the interests of transnational corporations. That province has been in the vanguard of the struggle against mega mining since 2003, when Esquel, located in one of the most beautiful spots of the Andes, became the first Argentinean city in passing a resolution rejecting new mining projects. A few years before, the Canadian transnational company Meridian Gold had located an area rich in gold at some ten kilometers from the city, which promised juicy profits. As is often the case, the project and negotiations with local and provincial authorities advanced in secret, until one of the communities of the mapuche people reported that the company was working in their ancestral land without their consent. After that denunciation, in October 2002 the neighbors of Esquel started to self-organize. Echoing the assemblies’ movement that had mushroomed in the country as part of the 2001 rebellion, a participatory, non-hierarchical Self-Organized Neighbors’ Assembly Against the Mine (Asamblea de Vecinos Autoconvocados por el No a la Mina) became their main organizational structure.
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