Latin America Week April 2013 LIMERICK

international | environment | event notice Tuesday March 26, 2013 12:50 by Latin America Solidarity Centre - Latin America Solidarity Centre (LASC) events at lasc dot ie

Latin America Week

LIMERICK Wed 10th APRIL

LIMERICK Wed 10th APRIL

- Public Talk: Social and environmental impact of mega-extractive industries: the cases of Peru (La Conga) and Colombia (La Colosa mine). Speakers: Milton Sánchez and Aida Julieta Quiñones Torres. Venue: Postgraduate Students Room, University of Limerick (Stables courtyard).Time: 1 pm.

- Public Talk: Social and environmental impact of mega-extractive industries: the cases of Peru (La Conga) and Colombia (La Colosa mine). Speakers: Milton Sánchez and Aida Julieta Quiñones Torres. Venue: The Blind Pig Foxes Bow, Limerick (Dr. John's, upstairs). Time: 7 pm.

- Other events TBC – Latin party, film screenings, etc

THE SPEAKERS’ BIO:

Milton Sánchez Cubas

Native to the province of Celendín, department of Cajamarca, Peru. Milton is the 31-year-old president of the Plataforma Interinstitucional Celendina (PIC) (Inter-institutional Platform of Celendin) - a body that brings together 40 social organizations from Celendín. He is also the ´Comando Unitario de Lucha´ (Spokesman for the Command Control Unit of the campaign), which is the body that brings together the defense fronts of the Cajamarca Region. This body leads the defense of our natural resources endangered by the extractive industry in our region.

Milton is an accountant by profession, specializing in governance, local development and citizen participation. He has also been involved in youth organizations at a national and regional level (such as his role as Secretary General of the Regional Youth Council in the Cajamarca region). He is dealing with approximately 40 lawsuits against him from the mining company and the government, and is one of the more than three hundred victims of judicial persecution for defending our natural resources.

Aida Julieta Quiñones Torres

Colombia - Lecturer and PhD student in Universidad Javeriana. Member of the Environmental Committee for the Defense of Life which monitors the socio-environmental impact of the La Colosa mine, in the department of Tolima, Colombia. Aida is a militant researcher on the issue of resistance to 3 mining mega-projects in Colombia:

- the gold mine of La Colosa, Cajamarca-Tolima - population: small farming communities. Transnational Anglo gold Ashanti has been carrying out illegal explorations with a view to have one of the biggest open cast mines in South America. The mine is in a natural reserve. In previous projects in this mine, a family - including a baby - was murdered by state agents.