Indigenous Community Seque Jahuira's Presentation at the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, delivered by the Association of Indigenous Peoples and Native Farmers Qhana Pukara Kurmi
Sound the Alarm: Indigenous Plight in Seque Jawira
Comunidad Seque Jahuira, Asociación de Pueblos Indígena Originario Campesinos Qhana Pukara Kurmi, Cultural Survival (April 2025)
Hey there, fellow Earth warriors at this gathering, I'm Pastor Carvajal, your Aymara brother from Seque Jawira in La Paz, Bolivia.
For the past decade, my homeland's been a gold rush ground for 23 mining companies, digging up minerals from old mines. Huge corporations transport over a hundred tons of minerals daily, deploying cyanide, mercury, arsenic, and sulfuric acid, devastating our territory without a care for the environment. Our community has taken a beating - once dairy farmers, we're now displaced due to the death of our animals and contaminated lands. The health of our people has suffered too, from consuming polluted water.
State institutions handed out operating and environmental licenses like candy, without upholding Free, Prior, and Informed Consent, as mandated by the Indigenous Peoples. Despite numerous complaints, the authorities are nowhere to be found, fostering a hostile environment with miners, who've threatened us, defamed us, and attacked us more than four times.
Our waters flow into Lake Titicaca, the world's largest high lake, which should create a global uproar. To the Aymara people, these lakes are our origin, the essence of our life. But now our territories, once places of life and spirituality, have become territories of suffering. Speaking up for our rights gets us silenced, criminalized, or persecuted – a clear violation of Indigenous rights.
I've journeyed here to raise my voice, to raise the voices of my people, to cry out the painful reality that the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples is being brutally overlooked in Bolivia. My country, one of the first to formally incorporate the Declaration into its Constitution, is trampling on its collectives rights.
We call out the violation of Article 3, the right to self-determination, Article 4, the right to autonomy and self-government, and Article 26, the right to tenure, possession, use, and control of our territories. Our territories are being invaded without our consent, a direct violation of Article 32, requiring Free, Prior, and Informed Consent before approving projects affecting our lands and resources. We're not just statistics; we're human beings fighting desperately to preserve our culture and our homes.
So, esteemed members of the Permanent Forum, we need your help:
- Demand that the Plurinational State of Bolivia abide by the Declaration’s articles already embedded in their Constitution.
- EncourageStates to develop sustainable development practices that prioritize Indigenous rights, rather than destroying them in the name of progress.
- Urge the Bolivian state to respect and follow Articles 19 and 32, mandating Free, Prior, and Informed Consent.
- Question the implementation and monitoring of the Permanent Forum’s recommendations to Bolivia.
- We're asking for justice, not speeches.
Long live the Indigenous Peoples of the world!
- In the light of the ongoing environmental disaster in Seque Jawira, there is a pressing need for the global community, particularly those in the fields of science, environmental-science, and general-news, to highlight the plight of the Indigenous People and raise awareness about the potential impact of the mining activities on the ecosystem and health of the local community.
- Furthermore, the political and financial sectors must intervene to ensure that the rights of Indigenous People, as outlined in the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, areprotected and upheld by the Plurinational State of Bolivia, including obtaining Free, Prior, and Informed Consent before approving projects affecting their lands and resources.
