July 16, 2024 • 46 mins
Los habitantes de La Mojana ven como todos los años el río Cauca inunda su territorio, eso los obliga a dejar sus tierras, desplazar a sus animales a tierras altas y ver cómo su patrimonio se pierde ante la imposibilidad de cerrar el dique 'Caregato'. Según ellos explican, la corrupción y la falta de gestión de los últimos gobiernos, son los responsables de los daños económicos, que alcanzan cifras millonarias y lo que es aún peor, el daño medioambiental que ni siquiera es posible calcular.
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(00:06):
Ego Podcast, because the environment isa theme for everyone. Hello, how
am I doing? Greetings. Hespeaks to Pepe Morón and along with Erlencie
Gutiérrez, we welcome you to thisnew chapter of RCN Radio' s Podcast.
Today a lot of information related toseveral issues that have been given in
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recent days. The first has todo with the situation that has been affecting
the region of La Mohana for atleast forty years and that leaves millions in
economic losses, but also incalculable damageto the environment. And all of this
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is going through one of our mainissues today and it' s the one
that has to do with corruption withenvironmental resources. We will also be doing
an analysis of what happened in theCongress of the Republic with bullfights, a
key issue for our country. So, you know, prepare a coffee,
find a little corner, comfortable,and get ready for this journey around the
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environment world. Welcome. The subjectof today. There are certainly a number
of issues that we are going todiscuss and which are related to the environment,
but also to the diversion of resources. Few people talk in the media
about the corruption related to environmental projectsand the truth is that in Colombia there
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are several affects that we have forthis type of cases. Regional autonomous corporations
are certainly a very important chapter whenwe talk about corruption and talk about environmental
issues, but also the situation insome regions, as is the case with
Mohana and on time, what happenswith carelessness and as if it is welcome
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to this chapter of the Podcast ecoand let us start this issue of corruption
precisely in the Mohana sector. Yespepe we speak of a problem that leaves
critical consequences in the area of theMohane, in the Colombian Caribbean and it
is already forty years suffering for thesame thing a region that is affected in
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the environment, but also in theeconomic and, of course, in the
quality of life of the inhabitants.Saida Freiler, our companion from sucre,
tells us what happens in the Mohanawith the overflow of the Cauca River,
which has become repetitive in that regionyear after year. This is news and
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already many say that Cauca in theMohana is a river with streams of money
overflowed by corruption. I want toreport with deep sadness and pain. It
collapsed the jet of the arrats andthe appetizers are grandiosis again collapsing the structure
that was being built in cat faceto the whole Community in general of the
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region of La Mojana. Save yourlife, try to save the children,
the elderly, We return the mojanerosto make victims of the polluted waters of
the Cauca River all over the frontof the island of the Mata Huagua it
was that collapsed. He climbed upto understand what is happening in the region
of La Mojana, which corresponds tothe department of Sucre we would have to
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do an x- ray of itsgeographical location. And for that one of
those indicated is the journalist and historianJaime Vides, who for more than thirty
years has investigated the area. Notthat now it helps more than before,
but that the river is flat.There is movement of land in the northeastern
part of Antioch, with labor machinerymining. That produces movement at the bottom
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of the river. As there aredrags, it' s coming towards the
mohana. That starts to put theriver llanito it settles the mojana. It
is more than a mighty river thatdrags mercilessly what it finds in its path.
This is the habitat of hundreds ofspecies, but it is also the
place of thousands of low- incomefamilies who refuse to leave this earthly paradise
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that has given them more headaches thanjoys, but prefer to face the strength
of nature rather than abandon it.What are you going to do with us,
please, by holding cold mosquito hungerall to collaborate, please put your
hand in your heart. Multiple studieshave been carried out in the mojana.
Every investment announced in this area ismillionaire. However, the same sufferings and
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repeated images of the burning waters ofCauca are being cyclically experienced, taking away
the little that the darine peasants,the regino, the cattle rancher and the
farmer can reap or build. Mohanalost its worldwide known essence by producing large
quantities of dried rice. For beingpower in livestock and having the cultivation of
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patilla and melon as alternatives of foodand generation of employment. Today it changed
its essence with the overflow of theCauca River in the Moscow. Year after
year, there has been a kindof sublimation, but not precisely of fish
and it also does not benefit thepeasants of the area, as Rodrigo García,
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member of the Pact for the Mojanaexplains. The Mohana has a blood
history of whatever you want. Thesaddest thing is that they let themselves steal
eight billion pesos before Petro arrived.Where are those eight scripts in the monkey,
where they are where in the handsof whom, of the people who
had the power at that time fromthe national government and parliamentarians. Last,
the last robbery was in the administrationof Dr Duque the monkey Gonzalez gave him,
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awarded him a contract of sixty-seven billion pesos to a doctor day
Grenade war nephew of Maria Rosario,war that took him away. The water,
he filed the complaint with the prosecutor' s office and nothing has happened.
This river, according to critics,has been a hidden funder of multiple
campaigns. Just speaking of the mostrecent history, in recent years, this
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treasure of beauty, without the sameemphasis in its lyrics the hymn of the
Department of Sucre, has had numerousannouncements of millionaire resources that end up dragged
by the cauca, as happened witha part of the DIQUE in the cargo
sector. The most recent tragedy,investment in Mohana has been in the last
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twenty years of all governments. Irecall that the government of President Alvaro Uribe
invested in the construction of arions,an arion that enjoyed more than one hundred
and seventy- three billion pesos.Similarly, other arions have been built,
but the river continues to melt.There are those who sarcastically dare to say
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that deep down, very much to, at the bottom of this mighty river,
there is more money than fish Adilmeléndezbedor ambient. What we invite is
that the Attorney General' s Officeand the Attorney General' s Office open
investigations against the governors, against thedirector of the National Unit of this risk
and against those companies that have beenimmersed in this corruption scandal, because it
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has been a robbery for humanity.In the mojana there are good working people,
but above all resilient who, althoughthey have been hit by a battle
to the death against nature, corruptionand mercury thrown by illegal mining, are
not willing to give in. Mostof the mojaneros refuse to leave their land,
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which after every tragedy has seen themresurgent in the midst of water and
corruption plagues the flooded lands and withthe rains, the situation seems to worsen.
Many ayapel farmers, for example,have not been able to get the
breaks out of their farms because theyare without money and the rainy days have
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the cattle at high risk. Thedetails and Jairo Pérez has them. Those
are the roars of thousands of cattlewho want to talk to attract attention by
running away from the amount of waterthat comes from the Cauca River in the
municipality of Ayapel through the loading gapthat seeks dry lands to prevent death.
This is the situation in the celeitomunicipality. You see the córdoban people moving
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it earned it apart to the ro, some ranchers roam the roads aimlessly looking
for pasture to save their animals.Well, today' s off course because
he couldn' t get the pact. Well, the only thing I expect
from the national government is to finda solution to that burden. The sentient
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feeling of the growing Cauca River endedeverything that had Rolbert Regino Solorzano in his
parkles on the sidewalk Caño Prie.Today, personally, I tell all of
Colombia, that I am indebted toBanco Agrario, I have no way of
producing because, unfortunately, today evenour lands do not allow it, because
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today we do not have land.Today we have on our lands a water
sheet that covers our ability to produce, covers our hope, covers our future
and also takes away the possibility ofhaving a future for our children. In
the population of chiseling the land ofthe communal leader Luz Nelly Domes, the
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inhabitants returned to the tambos in orderto survive. The crops were lost,
the lands that were plowed, thepastures of the cattle, also already the
friendship of the people who had theircows, took them out. The water
continues to increase on the side ofthe cienega, but I also tell you
here no help has come from themunicipality. The dreams that the farmer Davir
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Yepes had with his rice crops weredragged by the growing I lost seventy-
three hectares of rice, the mitallasown with a month of sowing, the
other half with fifteen days of sowing. That is why we ask the national
government and the risk management unit tobe a person in the cargo closure.
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The truth is that we no longerwant warm water, we want structural works.
Today the national government abandoned us,left us alone. Oscar Doria was
one of the first displaced and foundrefuge in the Church of Ayapel. How
little we have been able to soweverything that was sown arroy yuca platalo vegetableizes.
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Everything is already lost the crisis oftotal. We were half recovering from
the onslaught of Cauca two thousand twenty- one, two thousand twenty- two
and now there is this year andagain it breaks again in Inunda the children,
because they are losing class as aresult of the flood. They can
make it to school. There areno access routes. In Lapel. There
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is a report of more than twozero Danified families, 3, 000 hectares
of devastated rice crops, thousands ofcattle at risk of death and closed public
schools. Another of the regions affectedby the complex situation in the mojana sector
is the coastal part of the departmentof Antioch and there is our comrade Nicolás
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Arismendi. When the waters of theCauca River break, not only do they
flood everything in their path, theycompletely change the lives of farmers, ranchers,
fishermen and all those who live inNechi, in a zone bordering the
south of Bolívar. Gustavo Gómez wasborn in the Mohana area. He has
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always lived on the banks of ariver that this time took his house,
the sown, the brown and thehens, everything in an instant of color
concerns the Mohana, all legs inthe left marg downstream is vulnerable with the
river, It is true and wehave always had the river alien in the
area. Now, three years ago, with the blush of the load jet,
the more we have been disconnected fromsuffering in the trazoma and the painful
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history is multiplying. Jorge Iván Riverahas been a farmer for four decades.
In the last year he was indebtedto the banks to sow thirty- five
hectares of rice and lost them.You will have to take on new debts,
but the strongest blow will be yourdaughters. Totally. I say agriculture
completely. I have the family veryaffected. I think for this next fernan,
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but I ask for it, theywon' t be able to study.
More water means no more fish,and that is well known to fishermen
in the region, like Hernán Benitez. Each of their ponds had about a
thousand animals and they all went downstreamwith the cargo breakup. Today it needs
about 50, 000 pesos a dayto survive, but its networks do not
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get anything. No sea of coursewe were entertaining the fish. They all
got out. Everything was dependent onanother family and all that was understood to
be nothing. History repeats itself everyyear with the arrival of rains and it
is they who are forced to rewriteit. The promises of the Government also
appear, but there appears to beno structural solution at all for the inhabitants
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of the Mojana in the Bajo CaucaAntioqueño. The river is not your enemy.
Reiterates Gustavo. What they really haveto face is the disgovernment that has
them in oblivion. But not exactlyas I said by the Presidency of the
Republic, that we are amphibians andthat we must live in water. Don
' t we have to say nature? Let us live, let us live
with you, Let us all makeourselves to work with nature and that already
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gave us the opportunity to live nextto it. They do not live in
fear, because the sudden rising ofthe cauca took the sleep and tranquility of
women like Marelis Martínez from a nightmare, because one can never be calm,
because one always has to be startingagain when he thinks of fixing the captain.
Again the waters come and again theyend everything and you have to be
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moving. They' re babysitting thefamily, because you know the rivers are
screened and dangerous when they come fromfront. Then, because I have a
nightmare Francisco Narváez was ready to pickup the rice harvest. He has mixed
feelings today. Leaving means losing theland and the traditions that are given is
putting life at risk. Despite this, it recognizes that mojana is one of
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Colombia' s agricultural pantry. Ileft the area at this time is somewhat
illogical, because finding things the wayyou are wanting from us is difficult.
Productive conceptions have very sewn what happenshere what we are. That equation of
life uriel Romero only wants to seea promise made real that of works that
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allow them to remain a productive regionfor Colombia. We do not want to
come out here in other government seriestotal candidate that does so so that not
everyone can work, produce food.We' re not used to it that
they didn' t have freedom andthings were good, we' re not
putting it to work. That partof the Colombian map, which includes one
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part of Bolívar, another part ofSucre and one more part of Antioch,
has recorded thirty- three emergencies inforty years because the rivers leave its riverbed.
Those living there consider it not tobe the fault of climate change.
Everything could be avoided if some ofthe countless political promises had been fulfilled in
time. We listened to Córdoba,his cre Antioquia and, finally, we
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left for Bolívar. There our compañeraDELCY fromÁvila tells us how this situation
affects them. Four hundred families inSan Jacinto del Cauca, in the department
of Bolívar ceased to sleep uncomfortable bedsand under the tranquility of a roof,
due to the fulminating rupture of thebottle of cat care due to the heavy
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rains and the growing of the CaucaRiver. Antación that we n in the
moment that exceeds more or less threethousand five hundred three thousand seven hundred tasks
flooded by the winter obla, wherethere are all the crops lost. More
than two thousand seven hundred and threeof rice were lost, the cattle,
the bread, the take, thecassava, the banana, the corn,
all that is guava and everything thatis so short for our inhabitants of the
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moana area. One of the manyvictims and affected is Gustavo Gómez, who
lives next to this dam and wholost everything as spoken in this region did
not have any shadow of his plot, because today everything is water. Totally
front to front of the load jet, totally front to front. I have
absolutely nothing. Gustavo Gómez has definedthis situation as overwhelming for the inhabitants of
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San Jacinto del Cauca, who mustnow live in makeshift Cambuches and under the
uncertainty of the future. Well,everyone lives in a walk- in where
plastic is there and lives on aplastic roof surrounded by cigars in front of
the Greens, and there we aresurviving and we are very much what we
are like today. Not only arethere losses or such in crops and housing.
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There are debts that many peasants claimwill not be able to pay.
That they would have lent for theircrops, because the water took away the
sowing with which they could have financedthese debts and commitments. The value of
the preparation of one hectare of landis six hundred and fifty thousand pesos.
The seeds are three points of seedand are worth eight hundred and fifty thousand.
We are unique and inclusively preparing andsowing the earth. Here come the
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supplies and the ortilizers and all themaintenance. From there on out. I
believe that so far, a hectareof rice must count three million five hundred
thousand farts to take to the cut, until the harvest. There are many
people and there are many cultists whowork with the banks, with Banco Agrario,
with the banks of the country andothers we work with agro- trade.
For example, I don' thave credit in banks and I used
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to handle credit with agro- trade, where there are people who have a
store of inputs and fertilizers and wework there with them. But many people
have credit in the banks and feeltotally hurt today because so that I walk
the bank and the bank is tryingto pack it up and take it away
from him. Meanwhile, the inhabitantsof this municipality in Bolívar receive humanitarian aid,
clarifying that they expect a definitive solutionto this public calamity that leaves them
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without crops or housing, and thatalso the hopes have taken them after several
years in which this type of emergencyis recorded and the national government has done
nothing to definitively close the river completelyclosed, the shu of the totally caked
water. That' s why everyonestarted for our property. They are going
to work the area, bring ourland closer, put hunger with many people,
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to sow rice, to put thecattle, the movers, the moved,
because we already had the confidence andthe hopes that were closed the jet
and of their truth, that wasnot a lie. Unfortunately, there was
a fairly high growth in the riverCauca ideal milk E did not endure the
structure, the water tie at thatsite that broke again. In video you
can see how the Cauca River isgrowing. As some inhabitants are affected,
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others try to get the water outof their homes and others cry today because
they have nowhere to live. Thelocal authorities have appealed to the national government
about this emergency, which leaves onlyin San Jacinto del Cauca four hundred families
affected the odyssey of every year thatthey have had to live in front of
the winter in carregato. EGOT podcastby RCN Radio is really worrying about a
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complex panorama that one sees behind thistour of the different departments that are affected
by the situation of the mojana withthe Cauca River, something that is not
new, something that has been heardfor a long time and from this route
one can feel the tufo to corruptionthat has the background of this particular situation
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and eye we do not only referto what is uncovered in recent days,
after what Olmedo López, former directorof the Disaster Risk Management Unit before the
media, has said, but isalso talking about corruption from a long time
ago. So, before we goon with the experts, let' s
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listen to Geraldin Russo who gives usan overview of how the current situation of
carregato, the Mohana and the affecteddepartments looks. Geraldin, as always welcome
to RCN Radio' s Eco podcastand storytelling Hello how about Pepe listeners.
For me it is a pleasure togreet you again, to be here with
you in this good space and Icome to tell you about this project of
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burden. It is precisely that youare speaking, and that is in the
midst of the political control debate heldby the Sixth Committee in the past few
days. The Director of the NationalUnit for the Management of Risk at Sastres
spoke about this project and said that, for the time being, they would
close this project which they hope willbe completed in the coming months to also
give continuity to this which for manyyears has generated great uncertainty and problems both
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in the crops for the Community andfor the food part. I also tell
you that the director pointed out thatthe purpose of the entity is to close
this gap in the coming months andis also calling for a reinforcement of this
gap to be made in order notto have to make a renewal in the
following year, when the new seasonarrives, the phenomenon of the country'
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s girl, because we are againsttime and that is why it is so
serious to see that the contractor,because it seems not giving everything of itself
to be able to close that gap. The more we take, the more
likely we are. We' regoing to have to get the rains up
and running as soon as possible.We have to close it as soon as
possible. Already, according to thecontractor' s data, 20 metres have
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been advanced in closing. It's a ninety- year gap, but
I insist that that gap be closed. Not that diquen is not a definitive
solution. And another thing we getout of this diagnosis is that the dam
doesn' t have the solidity,it doesn' t have the structural ability
to make a reelable dam. Thenthat' s how it' s over
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until there' s a lot morein- depth study. It will not
be and this is very bad newsfor the Community. It' s not
going to be a connectivity solution betweenthose we can go sacred. A few
porenta and two critical points are onlythere love. Those forty- two critical
points are along the Cauca River.In the wet we are very concerned because
closing cargo means that that water isgoing to go the other way. So
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we have to worry not only aboutthe cat face, but all the other
critical points. In the midst ofthis controversy that has arisen with the project
of loading in the mojana, communityand regional leaders of the affected area are
denouncing that the entity has not broughtthe adequate food existence for the magnified people.
Many of them have had to makeimprovised tents and are also without food
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or precorns that due to the overflowof the gap, more than seventy thousand
hectares were flooded, affecting more thantwo hundred and eighty thousand animals and more
than two hundred and seventy thousand peopleaffected. Let' s hear exactly what
the complaint has been made by someof these leaders use I come to wake
up where the driving was followed bythe hours of clanging. I was chewed
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up by them. Now because theworlds or the gare wedding such that we
had already pronounced another via we willsee simply to say that good or leave
in all the hours then already bythem. Likewise, for the moment,
the people of the mojana do notclaim to have a food crisis, also
of health and also several environmental impacts. In the meantime, pepe and listeners.
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The population in the mojana has hadto move the upper part where they
are not flooded and make improvised tentslike cabuches in order to live there.
But their food problems persist. Manyreport that they do not have the means
to feed themselves, since their sourceof economy was crops and livestock and most
of them have been lost to flooding. Ego podcast, because the environment is
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a theme for everyone. But wehave been talking about the situation in the
mojana care Gato, the Cauca Riverand how this territory has been flooded for
many years now. Initial responsibilities tothe Government, but not only to the
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Government of Gustavo Petro, but tothe governments of recent years that have been
evading the problem with promises that donot end up being fulfilled and, on
the other hand, corruption. What, as we' ve been hearing,
is one of the great ones responsiblefor what happens in the Mohana, how
corruption works in that part of thenational territory. Well, this was discussed
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by the Director of the Disaster RiskManagement Unit, who referred precisely to what
is happening in this region of thecountry. In addition, he gave some
rather striking details, Mr Carlos Carrillo, who said that the contractor in charge
of the expensive project coming from Bucaramanga, would have received an advance of about
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twenty- six million pesos. Thislast December 22nd and then on March 5th
presented a report of the project tothe entity. Let' s hear what
Carlos Carrillo says about it. OnDecember 22nd, López delivered twenty- six
billion pesos and then the first day, because the day was that they were
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going and there are already the borjesof the cousin. The contractor doesn'
t even have the full bag tracidadwants Jun There are already some family near
the region that, besides they saythat it is half moon of the DJ
has flooded their land and that alreadypadded, because here we have the sticks.
Twenty- five thousand eight hundred andthirty- seven million pesos. She
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' s been involved in anas aspeed. Let us hope that everyone will
fail the speed and President will presentthe nineteenth, the twenty- two will
come into effect and will therefore celebratethat great reality. Then they presented on
March 5, after the fall ofOrnedo, why she presented it on March
5, when basically she had notbeen the author of the grandiose, but
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she was in Paris. In thedebate he decided to have a new of
the whole new co podcast on RCNRadio. Well, we' ve heard
some of the reports they send usfrom our regions. These regions, as
we said initially, have been affectedby the issue of burdening the Mohana.
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Several departments have territory affected by thissituation and have, moreover, beyond the
territory, a population very affected byeverything that happens. We have a guest
to discuss this issue and to helpus land the key situation a little bit
to understand what is happening in theMohana. He' s a civil engineer,
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he' s Francisco Ribón, whomwe thank for accepting this call from
RCN Radio' s echo podcast.Engineer welcome and we know that you have
a long time knowing closely the situationthat you live in the Mohana, particularly
with the subject of cargo and theCauca River. We know that there are
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texts, even written by you,explaining about the particular situation there, and
this not only from the perspective ofa resident of the region, but also
from a civil engineer who knows detailsof what is happening with charge and precisely
for that reason we call it.That is precisely why we are contacting you
to tell us a little bit Aboutthat, what is happening from your perspective
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in this particular case that affects hundredsof people, as we have heard in
the reports, but also that directlyaffects the environment of the region of La
Mohana. Welcome engineer to RCN Radio' s eco podcast. Thanks to R
T to you for the invitation.Yes, I am precisely a civil engineer
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based in La Mohana. In morethan twenty- five years I have made
a particular research follow- up asa specialist who I am in works in
riveric marine hydraulics and, as amaster' s degree, in environmental sciences.
That has allowed me to develop thewhole series of research over more than
fifteen years. It has allowed meto do a lot of writing that publishes
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newspapers and magazines and has allowed meto take him to the chair at the
participating conference. Have a lot ofchorus, especially in these times that there
is much debate about what happens allthe overflows caused by Río Cauca in the
great region of La Mojana. Engineertaking advantage of the microphones of the Eco
Podcast of RCN Radio and who listento it not only inhabitants of that region
of the country, but of theentire national territory. Please help us understand
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what is happening there, why thisflood has been going on for so long
and why it has not been possibleto find a solution. What happens to
the load and what happens to theMojana and the Cauca. If we analyze
the historical part of embroidering of theCauca River, we find in the analyses
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that twenty years ago most frequently overflowsoccur. For example, a summary that
in the last fifteen years the cautahas overflowed twenty- five times. But
that means there are years where thecauca breaks the protective dam in different places.
That happened in the two thousand ten, it happened in the two thousand
nine, and that' s whathappens then as we' re talking about
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climate change, about the phenomenon thegirl that leads to adds a lot of
water and that' s a globalphenomenon. And mining, on the other
hand, covered us with a cautiousriver. I want to tell the Colombian
Community and the fact of giving miningtitles in the first decade of this century,
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in the government of two thousand eightto two thousand ten. There,
the number of hectares in Lower Caucaand Southern Bolívar for gold extraction tripled.
And just as it tripled that whichmeans, it rose to seven hundred percent
of the delivery of the titles.The sedimentation also triples, because the particles
of gold are brought from the earthand the earth is washed within the platforms
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that are installed in the rivers ofthe lower caucas the River and, above
all and in other rivers like theMagri, all the tronada of low cautas.
Then those washed lands are thrown intothe river and the rivers flood.
The mojana, the channel of riverCauca is fed and covered in less than
twenty years we are covered by riverCauta and the mining contracts of these titles
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are granted according to the clauses,first to thirty years. If you pay
the royalties of those transnational corporations thathave the benefit to make the gold exploiters.
If they pay the royalties in full, they say the theory of the
clauses that extend them for another twentyyears and if they continue to pay the
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royalties, finally, they will extendit for another fifty years, that is,
the problem. There they play theinternational interests of the big companies that
exploit do the exploitation in the LowerCauca and in the South of Bolivar.
The populations of the mojana are affected. It is a very serious problem and
river is already covered and there arestill eighty more years of work of exploitation
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of gold President Petro Dios in SanMarco in your subject that had to be
modified the Mining Code. He tothe hist of eighty- five of the
year two thousand veino genre, youmention two very important topics. On the
one hand, it talks about whatglobal warming is. It speaks of rains
and phenomena like the girl, who, for example, is about to arrive
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in this mid and final season ofthe two thousand twenty- four. He
speaks of something as complex as theissue of mining that is taking place in
that region of the country and thatis affecting them directly and that is one
of the direct responsible for this situation. But as part of the journey we
have been taking in that area ofthe country, we have seen that it
(32:43):
also has a lot to do withthe issue of corruption. You, who
are in that region, know thesituation very closely. How responsible is corruption,
although not of the origin of thisproblem, if it has been prolonged
in time and in so many years, or it was corruption, I say
the general counter- loan of therest in the last national governments more than
three million pesos or say the drinksof riocauta because the works are not seen
(33:07):
in what invested so many contracts,there was not in fiction or paper,
but that it is not invested inthe resources and the few hydraulic works that
have been contracted. First he talkeda lot about the fluvial sending. Other
times, directly since the creation ofthe National Disaster and Risk Management Unit by
Decree 15 23 of the year twothousand and twelve. The Unit has financial
(33:30):
autonomy so the works are left ormore contracted, they are of no use,
because there it must be protected.According to that law fortnightly twenty-
three. That combines two terms.The threat that is the growing one of
Rioku, that is the threat andvulnerability of the work that supposedly must protect
(33:52):
the populations of the Mohana. Yeah, if you guys have a structure that
' s physically lonely, it's stable and you' re not gonna
let it go. No, youcan' t let it break through the
avalanche of river, because we wouldhave a work that guarantees, that guarantees
the security of the populations. Butit' s not like that. When
they sadudicated thousands of mining titles thatrose in seven hundred in seven hundred percent
(34:14):
of the delivery to the lands,that that goes to multiple long years the
activity, because a dam is built. That was known that by handing over
that amount of land and that theriver will be fed, then with greater
flow due to the avalanche of thegirl' s phenomenon, the water will
flow above what was the riverbed andwill break more frequently the protective dam.
(34:36):
This 70- kilometre- long wealthwas built on the grounds that it was
already known that the river would besedated and that mining production, although it
is sixty- two percent gold productionin this territory. The Mojana Sucreña does
not have a single gold mine inoperation, but it is the territory that
suffers the most. Then I'll give you the answer. It is
(35:00):
that corruption takes the best part inthis great business, but the communities do
not see the works as protection inobedience to the law, which must be
a solid work of protection against theavalanche, against the threat that mounted the
river Hey. My engineer you spokeor commented to me a while ago about
(35:22):
the visit of the national government tothat region of the country, even on
time by the President of Gustavo Petro. As you see, today the treatment
that is being given from the currentgovernment to this situation, if you see
possibilities of improvement or you really believethat things are not being done properly,
(35:45):
well, things you know already Iwas attentive to RCN what is said at
national level all forums. I haveparticipated in many MPs on these are regional
local debates on this problem, becausethe government of Dr Petro as President is
(36:07):
very busy seeking a solution, asit orders a recruitment that is, in
fact, real that Mr Olmedo obtained. The hundred and twenty- nine billion.
It' s like a turnkey contractbecause it has the point of designing
what it' s going to buildand, second, building that socialization of
(36:28):
that contract. He made it consortiumin four different places here in the Mohana
suffer He did it in a sectorcalled the San Benito, Abar, area
very much victimized by the floods ofCarragato. It was made in San Assinto,
the cauca in the municipality, itwas made at the edge of river,
(36:50):
where is the site itself known asthe Carregato. It was done in
Ajafel Córdova and there it is meant, to what is called alternative or proposed
is of closure of sectora regato Andthe truth that amplifying it as civil engineer
and as expert engineer in hydraulics ofrin and Costa, because it is very
(37:13):
different to what was done and whatis still being done. It is very
different from the proposal that they themselvesdelivered, because the lid do it assuming
that the bottom of that breaker isflat, as if to place sacks full
of earth, which are giant sacksor bags, as if to find a
completely flat bottom of fifty meters wideand place those megabags in rows on top
(37:39):
of one another in the form ofpyramids to cover almost twelve meters of height,
then the river. However, thefirst closure when you were in so
much part of the Duke' sGovernment was the same way that was applied
and complemented by this other consortium usingthe same form. Look from the bag
(38:04):
weigh eighteen tons, a bowl workedthat only carries a geobag full of the
land that they bring from the riverof the earth, which they pull out
with backseaters or dredges from the sameriver. They sew his mouth and throw
it away, not placing it.Why don' t they put it down,
because it' s simply a breakholethat has some depths and with the
(38:32):
spoons of the retro excavators they don' t have a system to place them
from the bottom, but the bottleyou see that so the red one from
above and they seek and settle asthey want in that accommodation, because it
is not subject to an order ofalignment already to cover the width that the
(38:54):
drawing or the letter says. Thatis a document that they themselves socialized the
Government, the national government, exactlythe consortium that is responsible for the Government.
Then that same system of throwing outthe bags failed. And only when
the bags appear on the water level, then they go like trying, pushing
(39:16):
it with the retros to try togive it an alignment. Before that first
contractor did that technique, the caucagrew and again broke races and broke a
major in a distance of two kilometersplus three hundred months. Now the cause
(39:37):
grew half- heartedly, and itcomes back and breaks it. Why.
Because, underneath, in this disorderof not knowing how to put the geo
bags in line, because the depthamericana was to have as an abuse to
go holding it with some cables andorienting the bags that are heavy, each
(40:00):
one weighs eighteen tons. Then you' d have to do that. Or
they had to do this because itwas proposed by the consortium in public socialization,
which made it four different sites inthe Mojana region. So, he
' s a failure. What doI predestinate about this work that now has
an avalanche with the phenomenon of thegirl mallor caudal and they are coming to
(40:25):
hurricanes in the entire region of theriver basin of Río Cauca, especially in
the low cause, in the Caribbeanand Colombia. So it breaks again.
You just know why. Because inColombian university hydraulics, the Nuestra Academy that
(40:45):
taught us hydraulics, there is nostructural design that tells us those or bags
obey to a hydraulic design first andstructural after it will contain the hydro thrust
of the river waters cause in thisengineering sector. It is important to know
(41:06):
all this that you explain to usand I ask one last favor. Tell
us how the territory is today,how the Mohana is today, especially for
those of us in the interior ofthe country who are not in that area
and we want to know how well- indurated it is today if, in
a certain way, in these dayswe find dry what is the reality,
(41:27):
what is the present of the inhabitantsof women. Well, the present is
a calamity, it' s ahealth emergency. Thirty- two months caused
the first break, the wagon thatbroke August 27 of the year two thousand
twenty- one. Until two monthsago there are already two more months,
the new breaker, the new mouth. Then, in the first tragedy,
(41:51):
in the low areas that flooded you, that add up to more than one
hundred fifty thousand hectares, the rabonarea. The rabon area is the wet,
but there is land from several municipalities. There are San Jacinto del Cauca
and Guaranda de Sucre, there areMajagual, there is San Benito, Mahual,
there is San Marcos, there isCaimito, which is San Marcos.
(42:14):
Then, one hundred and fifty thousandhectares, filled with people of extreme poverty,
with houses of wood, floor toground, roof of straw. Then,
those thirty months of flooding, thewood, the partitions, that is,
the walls, rotted, and thatwent to the ground. Now that
people were returning, thinking without recourseto rebuild their house, they come back
(42:37):
and flood. Then it is atragedy of manifest health urgency. In consultation
with the Adaptation Fund, the Fundhas some resources. The National Irrigation Management
Unit has it. That buy that' s called the forty- six,
which was approved two billion for theMohana. The silver. Silver is specifically
(42:58):
for the Moana, but silver isfrom the population of the Mohanna. It
is not for what the office advisorsof the respective ministers want to attend,
nor for the managers appointed by thePresident, because we are seeing and we
are already beginning to claim that onething is the regional dialogues and their result,
(43:22):
the product, which is the petitionsthat intomatively the communities of the Mojana
are in time of flood of wagons. Of course, then, if the
National Development Plan of Colombia, theworld power of life, is not attended
to and said, the requests madein the regional dialogues are met, but
the manipulators, advisers, divert andspeak to us. Since the year two
(43:45):
thousand and sixteen social and environmental problemshave been identified. It was Mohana.
Then or who was the first,the chicken or the chicken, the chicken
egg, then it is the lastchicken, that of Gustavo Petro. That
' s the one who lays theeggs and holds the Mohana communities. The
development plan Colombia potent to Mundia inthe Grebe is in force that prioritizes the
(44:07):
need to identify in this national programmeof development world power of life. Engineer
Francisco Ribón. Thanking him for acceptingthis call from RCN Radio' s echo
podcast, for telling us a littlebit about the situation that is being experienced
in that part of the national territoryand, above all, from his academic
(44:29):
knowledge. We know that he isa specialist in river and coastal hydraulics,
in addition to having a master's degree in environmental sciences, is a
researcher, is an environmentalist and knowsthat region very closely. Not for nothing,
he is already at least twenty yearsold by making known the situation that
(44:49):
is presented there through the writings thathe shows, as you yourself told us
in different regional media. Thanking youfor accepting this call, for telling us
about this situation and for showing ushow complex the panorama is in the Mohana
and in all the departments that haveterritory in that region of the country.
Well, thank you very much.Yeah, we' re done. We
(45:10):
remain available to speak in these termsof professional technician of what happens love of
Rio Town. There we listened toour guest and expert, who, moreover,
has all the credentials to talk aboutthe subject we have for today.
It is not easy to understand whenthis situation is not experienced so closely.
(45:32):
It is not easy to understand thatthey spend forty years in the national territory
and that they suffer from something likewhat happens with Caregato, the Cauca River
and the Mojana. However, herewe expand the picture and bring that reality
closer to you so that we tryto understand what is happening, why there
(45:52):
are tens or hundreds of people affectedby what is happening with this river,
that the environment is at risk,precisely because of what is happening there,
because it seems that mining is moreimportant than the environment and why corruption continues
to reign in that part of theterritory. Complicated the situation and in this
(46:16):
way we are finished our broadcast todaywithout first thanking, as always to Erlense
Gutiérrez, for accompanying us in thecabin and the integrated information system that is
under the direction of hope Rico.We hear Chao Chao Ego Podcast, because
(46:37):
the environment is a theme of all
Ego Podcast, because the environment isa theme for everyone. Hello, how
am I doing? Greetings. Hespeaks to Pepe Morón and along with Erlencie
Gutiérrez, we welcome you to thisnew chapter of RCN Radio' s Podcast.
Today a lot of information related toseveral issues that have been given in
(00:29):
recent days. The first has todo with the situation that has been affecting
the region of La Mohana for atleast forty years and that leaves millions in
economic losses, but also incalculable damageto the environment. And all of this
(00:50):
is going through one of our mainissues today and it' s the one
that has to do with corruption withenvironmental resources. We will also be doing
an analysis of what happened in theCongress of the Republic with bullfights, a
key issue for our country. So, you know, prepare a coffee,
find a little corner, comfortable,and get ready for this journey around the
(01:14):
environment world. Welcome. The subjectof today. There are certainly a number
of issues that we are going todiscuss and which are related to the environment,
but also to the diversion of resources. Few people talk in the media
about the corruption related to environmental projectsand the truth is that in Colombia there
(01:38):
are several affects that we have forthis type of cases. Regional autonomous corporations
are certainly a very important chapter whenwe talk about corruption and talk about environmental
issues, but also the situation insome regions, as is the case with
Mohana and on time, what happenswith carelessness and as if it is welcome
(01:59):
to this chapter of the Podcast ecoand let us start this issue of corruption
precisely in the Mohana sector. Yespepe we speak of a problem that leaves
critical consequences in the area of theMohane, in the Colombian Caribbean and it
is already forty years suffering for thesame thing a region that is affected in
(02:21):
the environment, but also in theeconomic and, of course, in the
quality of life of the inhabitants.Saida Freiler, our companion from sucre,
tells us what happens in the Mohanawith the overflow of the Cauca River,
which has become repetitive in that regionyear after year. This is news and
(02:43):
already many say that Cauca in theMohana is a river with streams of money
overflowed by corruption. I want toreport with deep sadness and pain. It
collapsed the jet of the arrats andthe appetizers are grandiosis again collapsing the structure
that was being built in cat faceto the whole Community in general of the
(03:06):
region of La Mojana. Save yourlife, try to save the children,
the elderly, We return the mojanerosto make victims of the polluted waters of
the Cauca River all over the frontof the island of the Mata Huagua it
was that collapsed. He climbed upto understand what is happening in the region
of La Mojana, which corresponds tothe department of Sucre we would have to
(03:28):
do an x- ray of itsgeographical location. And for that one of
those indicated is the journalist and historianJaime Vides, who for more than thirty
years has investigated the area. Notthat now it helps more than before,
but that the river is flat.There is movement of land in the northeastern
part of Antioch, with labor machinerymining. That produces movement at the bottom
(03:52):
of the river. As there aredrags, it' s coming towards the
mohana. That starts to put theriver llanito it settles the mojana. It
is more than a mighty river thatdrags mercilessly what it finds in its path.
This is the habitat of hundreds ofspecies, but it is also the
place of thousands of low- incomefamilies who refuse to leave this earthly paradise
(04:15):
that has given them more headaches thanjoys, but prefer to face the strength
of nature rather than abandon it.What are you going to do with us,
please, by holding cold mosquito hungerall to collaborate, please put your
hand in your heart. Multiple studieshave been carried out in the mojana.
Every investment announced in this area ismillionaire. However, the same sufferings and
(04:41):
repeated images of the burning waters ofCauca are being cyclically experienced, taking away
the little that the darine peasants,the regino, the cattle rancher and the
farmer can reap or build. Mohanalost its worldwide known essence by producing large
quantities of dried rice. For beingpower in livestock and having the cultivation of
(05:05):
patilla and melon as alternatives of foodand generation of employment. Today it changed
its essence with the overflow of theCauca River in the Moscow. Year after
year, there has been a kindof sublimation, but not precisely of fish
and it also does not benefit thepeasants of the area, as Rodrigo García,
(05:27):
member of the Pact for the Mojanaexplains. The Mohana has a blood
history of whatever you want. Thesaddest thing is that they let themselves steal
eight billion pesos before Petro arrived.Where are those eight scripts in the monkey,
where they are where in the handsof whom, of the people who
had the power at that time fromthe national government and parliamentarians. Last,
the last robbery was in the administrationof Dr Duque the monkey Gonzalez gave him,
(05:51):
awarded him a contract of sixty-seven billion pesos to a doctor day
Grenade war nephew of Maria Rosario,war that took him away. The water,
he filed the complaint with the prosecutor' s office and nothing has happened.
This river, according to critics,has been a hidden funder of multiple
campaigns. Just speaking of the mostrecent history, in recent years, this
(06:14):
treasure of beauty, without the sameemphasis in its lyrics the hymn of the
Department of Sucre, has had numerousannouncements of millionaire resources that end up dragged
by the cauca, as happened witha part of the DIQUE in the cargo
sector. The most recent tragedy,investment in Mohana has been in the last
(06:34):
twenty years of all governments. Irecall that the government of President Alvaro Uribe
invested in the construction of arions,an arion that enjoyed more than one hundred
and seventy- three billion pesos.Similarly, other arions have been built,
but the river continues to melt.There are those who sarcastically dare to say
(06:58):
that deep down, very much to, at the bottom of this mighty river,
there is more money than fish Adilmeléndezbedor ambient. What we invite is
that the Attorney General' s Officeand the Attorney General' s Office open
investigations against the governors, against thedirector of the National Unit of this risk
and against those companies that have beenimmersed in this corruption scandal, because it
(07:21):
has been a robbery for humanity.In the mojana there are good working people,
but above all resilient who, althoughthey have been hit by a battle
to the death against nature, corruptionand mercury thrown by illegal mining, are
not willing to give in. Mostof the mojaneros refuse to leave their land,
(07:43):
which after every tragedy has seen themresurgent in the midst of water and
corruption plagues the flooded lands and withthe rains, the situation seems to worsen.
Many ayapel farmers, for example,have not been able to get the
breaks out of their farms because theyare without money and the rainy days have
(08:07):
the cattle at high risk. Thedetails and Jairo Pérez has them. Those
are the roars of thousands of cattlewho want to talk to attract attention by
running away from the amount of waterthat comes from the Cauca River in the
municipality of Ayapel through the loading gapthat seeks dry lands to prevent death.
This is the situation in the celeitomunicipality. You see the córdoban people moving
(08:31):
it earned it apart to the ro, some ranchers roam the roads aimlessly looking
for pasture to save their animals.Well, today' s off course because
he couldn' t get the pact. Well, the only thing I expect
from the national government is to finda solution to that burden. The sentient
(08:52):
feeling of the growing Cauca River endedeverything that had Rolbert Regino Solorzano in his
parkles on the sidewalk Caño Prie.Today, personally, I tell all of
Colombia, that I am indebted toBanco Agrario, I have no way of
producing because, unfortunately, today evenour lands do not allow it, because
(09:15):
today we do not have land.Today we have on our lands a water
sheet that covers our ability to produce, covers our hope, covers our future
and also takes away the possibility ofhaving a future for our children. In
the population of chiseling the land ofthe communal leader Luz Nelly Domes, the
(09:35):
inhabitants returned to the tambos in orderto survive. The crops were lost,
the lands that were plowed, thepastures of the cattle, also already the
friendship of the people who had theircows, took them out. The water
continues to increase on the side ofthe cienega, but I also tell you
here no help has come from themunicipality. The dreams that the farmer Davir
(10:01):
Yepes had with his rice crops weredragged by the growing I lost seventy-
three hectares of rice, the mitallasown with a month of sowing, the
other half with fifteen days of sowing. That is why we ask the national
government and the risk management unit tobe a person in the cargo closure.
(10:24):
The truth is that we no longerwant warm water, we want structural works.
Today the national government abandoned us,left us alone. Oscar Doria was
one of the first displaced and foundrefuge in the Church of Ayapel. How
little we have been able to soweverything that was sown arroy yuca platalo vegetableizes.
(10:50):
Everything is already lost the crisis oftotal. We were half recovering from
the onslaught of Cauca two thousand twenty- one, two thousand twenty- two
and now there is this year andagain it breaks again in Inunda the children,
because they are losing class as aresult of the flood. They can
make it to school. There areno access routes. In Lapel. There
(11:11):
is a report of more than twozero Danified families, 3, 000 hectares
of devastated rice crops, thousands ofcattle at risk of death and closed public
schools. Another of the regions affectedby the complex situation in the mojana sector
is the coastal part of the departmentof Antioch and there is our comrade Nicolás
(11:31):
Arismendi. When the waters of theCauca River break, not only do they
flood everything in their path, theycompletely change the lives of farmers, ranchers,
fishermen and all those who live inNechi, in a zone bordering the
south of Bolívar. Gustavo Gómez wasborn in the Mohana area. He has
(11:52):
always lived on the banks of ariver that this time took his house,
the sown, the brown and thehens, everything in an instant of color
concerns the Mohana, all legs inthe left marg downstream is vulnerable with the
river, It is true and wehave always had the river alien in the
area. Now, three years ago, with the blush of the load jet,
the more we have been disconnected fromsuffering in the trazoma and the painful
(12:16):
history is multiplying. Jorge Iván Riverahas been a farmer for four decades.
In the last year he was indebtedto the banks to sow thirty- five
hectares of rice and lost them.You will have to take on new debts,
but the strongest blow will be yourdaughters. Totally. I say agriculture
completely. I have the family veryaffected. I think for this next fernan,
(12:41):
but I ask for it, theywon' t be able to study.
More water means no more fish,and that is well known to fishermen
in the region, like Hernán Benitez. Each of their ponds had about a
thousand animals and they all went downstreamwith the cargo breakup. Today it needs
about 50, 000 pesos a dayto survive, but its networks do not
(13:01):
get anything. No sea of coursewe were entertaining the fish. They all
got out. Everything was dependent onanother family and all that was understood to
be nothing. History repeats itself everyyear with the arrival of rains and it
is they who are forced to rewriteit. The promises of the Government also
appear, but there appears to beno structural solution at all for the inhabitants
(13:24):
of the Mojana in the Bajo CaucaAntioqueño. The river is not your enemy.
Reiterates Gustavo. What they really haveto face is the disgovernment that has
them in oblivion. But not exactlyas I said by the Presidency of the
Republic, that we are amphibians andthat we must live in water. Don
' t we have to say nature? Let us live, let us live
with you, Let us all makeourselves to work with nature and that already
(13:46):
gave us the opportunity to live nextto it. They do not live in
fear, because the sudden rising ofthe cauca took the sleep and tranquility of
women like Marelis Martínez from a nightmare, because one can never be calm,
because one always has to be startingagain when he thinks of fixing the captain.
Again the waters come and again theyend everything and you have to be
(14:07):
moving. They' re babysitting thefamily, because you know the rivers are
screened and dangerous when they come fromfront. Then, because I have a
nightmare Francisco Narváez was ready to pickup the rice harvest. He has mixed
feelings today. Leaving means losing theland and the traditions that are given is
putting life at risk. Despite this, it recognizes that mojana is one of
(14:30):
Colombia' s agricultural pantry. Ileft the area at this time is somewhat
illogical, because finding things the wayyou are wanting from us is difficult.
Productive conceptions have very sewn what happenshere what we are. That equation of
life uriel Romero only wants to seea promise made real that of works that
(14:52):
allow them to remain a productive regionfor Colombia. We do not want to
come out here in other government seriestotal candidate that does so so that not
everyone can work, produce food.We' re not used to it that
they didn' t have freedom andthings were good, we' re not
putting it to work. That partof the Colombian map, which includes one
(15:13):
part of Bolívar, another part ofSucre and one more part of Antioch,
has recorded thirty- three emergencies inforty years because the rivers leave its riverbed.
Those living there consider it not tobe the fault of climate change.
Everything could be avoided if some ofthe countless political promises had been fulfilled in
time. We listened to Córdoba,his cre Antioquia and, finally, we
(15:35):
left for Bolívar. There our compañeraDELCY fromÁvila tells us how this situation
affects them. Four hundred families inSan Jacinto del Cauca, in the department
of Bolívar ceased to sleep uncomfortable bedsand under the tranquility of a roof,
due to the fulminating rupture of thebottle of cat care due to the heavy
(15:56):
rains and the growing of the CaucaRiver. Antación that we n in the
moment that exceeds more or less threethousand five hundred three thousand seven hundred tasks
flooded by the winter obla, wherethere are all the crops lost. More
than two thousand seven hundred and threeof rice were lost, the cattle,
the bread, the take, thecassava, the banana, the corn,
all that is guava and everything thatis so short for our inhabitants of the
(16:18):
moana area. One of the manyvictims and affected is Gustavo Gómez, who
lives next to this dam and wholost everything as spoken in this region did
not have any shadow of his plot, because today everything is water. Totally
front to front of the load jet, totally front to front. I have
absolutely nothing. Gustavo Gómez has definedthis situation as overwhelming for the inhabitants of
(16:41):
San Jacinto del Cauca, who mustnow live in makeshift Cambuches and under the
uncertainty of the future. Well,everyone lives in a walk- in where
plastic is there and lives on aplastic roof surrounded by cigars in front of
the Greens, and there we aresurviving and we are very much what we
are like today. Not only arethere losses or such in crops and housing.
(17:03):
There are debts that many peasants claimwill not be able to pay.
That they would have lent for theircrops, because the water took away the
sowing with which they could have financedthese debts and commitments. The value of
the preparation of one hectare of landis six hundred and fifty thousand pesos.
The seeds are three points of seedand are worth eight hundred and fifty thousand.
We are unique and inclusively preparing andsowing the earth. Here come the
(17:27):
supplies and the ortilizers and all themaintenance. From there on out. I
believe that so far, a hectareof rice must count three million five hundred
thousand farts to take to the cut, until the harvest. There are many
people and there are many cultists whowork with the banks, with Banco Agrario,
with the banks of the country andothers we work with agro- trade.
For example, I don' thave credit in banks and I used
(17:48):
to handle credit with agro- trade, where there are people who have a
store of inputs and fertilizers and wework there with them. But many people
have credit in the banks and feeltotally hurt today because so that I walk
the bank and the bank is tryingto pack it up and take it away
from him. Meanwhile, the inhabitantsof this municipality in Bolívar receive humanitarian aid,
clarifying that they expect a definitive solutionto this public calamity that leaves them
(18:11):
without crops or housing, and thatalso the hopes have taken them after several
years in which this type of emergencyis recorded and the national government has done
nothing to definitively close the river completelyclosed, the shu of the totally caked
water. That' s why everyonestarted for our property. They are going
to work the area, bring ourland closer, put hunger with many people,
(18:34):
to sow rice, to put thecattle, the movers, the moved,
because we already had the confidence andthe hopes that were closed the jet
and of their truth, that wasnot a lie. Unfortunately, there was
a fairly high growth in the riverCauca ideal milk E did not endure the
structure, the water tie at thatsite that broke again. In video you
can see how the Cauca River isgrowing. As some inhabitants are affected,
(19:00):
others try to get the water outof their homes and others cry today because
they have nowhere to live. Thelocal authorities have appealed to the national government
about this emergency, which leaves onlyin San Jacinto del Cauca four hundred families
affected the odyssey of every year thatthey have had to live in front of
the winter in carregato. EGOT podcastby RCN Radio is really worrying about a
(19:26):
complex panorama that one sees behind thistour of the different departments that are affected
by the situation of the mojana withthe Cauca River, something that is not
new, something that has been heardfor a long time and from this route
one can feel the tufo to corruptionthat has the background of this particular situation
(19:49):
and eye we do not only referto what is uncovered in recent days,
after what Olmedo López, former directorof the Disaster Risk Management Unit before the
media, has said, but isalso talking about corruption from a long time
ago. So, before we goon with the experts, let' s
(20:18):
listen to Geraldin Russo who gives usan overview of how the current situation of
carregato, the Mohana and the affecteddepartments looks. Geraldin, as always welcome
to RCN Radio' s Eco podcastand storytelling Hello how about Pepe listeners.
For me it is a pleasure togreet you again, to be here with
you in this good space and Icome to tell you about this project of
(20:41):
burden. It is precisely that youare speaking, and that is in the
midst of the political control debate heldby the Sixth Committee in the past few
days. The Director of the NationalUnit for the Management of Risk at Sastres
spoke about this project and said that, for the time being, they would
close this project which they hope willbe completed in the coming months to also
give continuity to this which for manyyears has generated great uncertainty and problems both
(21:06):
in the crops for the Community andfor the food part. I also tell
you that the director pointed out thatthe purpose of the entity is to close
this gap in the coming months andis also calling for a reinforcement of this
gap to be made in order notto have to make a renewal in the
following year, when the new seasonarrives, the phenomenon of the country'
(21:29):
s girl, because we are againsttime and that is why it is so
serious to see that the contractor,because it seems not giving everything of itself
to be able to close that gap. The more we take, the more
likely we are. We' regoing to have to get the rains up
and running as soon as possible.We have to close it as soon as
possible. Already, according to thecontractor' s data, 20 metres have
(21:51):
been advanced in closing. It's a ninety- year gap, but
I insist that that gap be closed. Not that diquen is not a definitive
solution. And another thing we getout of this diagnosis is that the dam
doesn' t have the solidity,it doesn' t have the structural ability
to make a reelable dam. Thenthat' s how it' s over
(22:12):
until there' s a lot morein- depth study. It will not
be and this is very bad newsfor the Community. It' s not
going to be a connectivity solution betweenthose we can go sacred. A few
porenta and two critical points are onlythere love. Those forty- two critical
points are along the Cauca River.In the wet we are very concerned because
closing cargo means that that water isgoing to go the other way. So
(22:33):
we have to worry not only aboutthe cat face, but all the other
critical points. In the midst ofthis controversy that has arisen with the project
of loading in the mojana, communityand regional leaders of the affected area are
denouncing that the entity has not broughtthe adequate food existence for the magnified people.
Many of them have had to makeimprovised tents and are also without food
(22:59):
or precorns that due to the overflowof the gap, more than seventy thousand
hectares were flooded, affecting more thantwo hundred and eighty thousand animals and more
than two hundred and seventy thousand peopleaffected. Let' s hear exactly what
the complaint has been made by someof these leaders use I come to wake
up where the driving was followed bythe hours of clanging. I was chewed
(23:23):
up by them. Now because theworlds or the gare wedding such that we
had already pronounced another via we willsee simply to say that good or leave
in all the hours then already bythem. Likewise, for the moment,
the people of the mojana do notclaim to have a food crisis, also
of health and also several environmental impacts. In the meantime, pepe and listeners.
(23:48):
The population in the mojana has hadto move the upper part where they
are not flooded and make improvised tentslike cabuches in order to live there.
But their food problems persist. Manyreport that they do not have the means
to feed themselves, since their sourceof economy was crops and livestock and most
of them have been lost to flooding. Ego podcast, because the environment is
(24:19):
a theme for everyone. But wehave been talking about the situation in the
mojana care Gato, the Cauca Riverand how this territory has been flooded for
many years now. Initial responsibilities tothe Government, but not only to the
(24:41):
Government of Gustavo Petro, but tothe governments of recent years that have been
evading the problem with promises that donot end up being fulfilled and, on
the other hand, corruption. What, as we' ve been hearing,
is one of the great ones responsiblefor what happens in the Mohana, how
corruption works in that part of thenational territory. Well, this was discussed
(25:04):
by the Director of the Disaster RiskManagement Unit, who referred precisely to what
is happening in this region of thecountry. In addition, he gave some
rather striking details, Mr Carlos Carrillo, who said that the contractor in charge
of the expensive project coming from Bucaramanga, would have received an advance of about
(25:30):
twenty- six million pesos. Thislast December 22nd and then on March 5th
presented a report of the project tothe entity. Let' s hear what
Carlos Carrillo says about it. OnDecember 22nd, López delivered twenty- six
billion pesos and then the first day, because the day was that they were
(25:56):
going and there are already the borjesof the cousin. The contractor doesn'
t even have the full bag tracidadwants Jun There are already some family near
the region that, besides they saythat it is half moon of the DJ
has flooded their land and that alreadypadded, because here we have the sticks.
Twenty- five thousand eight hundred andthirty- seven million pesos. She
(26:18):
' s been involved in anas aspeed. Let us hope that everyone will
fail the speed and President will presentthe nineteenth, the twenty- two will
come into effect and will therefore celebratethat great reality. Then they presented on
March 5, after the fall ofOrnedo, why she presented it on March
5, when basically she had notbeen the author of the grandiose, but
(26:44):
she was in Paris. In thedebate he decided to have a new of
the whole new co podcast on RCNRadio. Well, we' ve heard
some of the reports they send usfrom our regions. These regions, as
we said initially, have been affectedby the issue of burdening the Mohana.
(27:08):
Several departments have territory affected by thissituation and have, moreover, beyond the
territory, a population very affected byeverything that happens. We have a guest
to discuss this issue and to helpus land the key situation a little bit
to understand what is happening in theMohana. He' s a civil engineer,
(27:32):
he' s Francisco Ribón, whomwe thank for accepting this call from
RCN Radio' s echo podcast.Engineer welcome and we know that you have
a long time knowing closely the situationthat you live in the Mohana, particularly
with the subject of cargo and theCauca River. We know that there are
(27:53):
texts, even written by you,explaining about the particular situation there, and
this not only from the perspective ofa resident of the region, but also
from a civil engineer who knows detailsof what is happening with charge and precisely
for that reason we call it.That is precisely why we are contacting you
to tell us a little bit Aboutthat, what is happening from your perspective
(28:15):
in this particular case that affects hundredsof people, as we have heard in
the reports, but also that directlyaffects the environment of the region of La
Mohana. Welcome engineer to RCN Radio' s eco podcast. Thanks to R
T to you for the invitation.Yes, I am precisely a civil engineer
(28:38):
based in La Mohana. In morethan twenty- five years I have made
a particular research follow- up asa specialist who I am in works in
riveric marine hydraulics and, as amaster' s degree, in environmental sciences.
That has allowed me to develop thewhole series of research over more than
fifteen years. It has allowed meto do a lot of writing that publishes
(29:02):
newspapers and magazines and has allowed meto take him to the chair at the
participating conference. Have a lot ofchorus, especially in these times that there
is much debate about what happens allthe overflows caused by Río Cauca in the
great region of La Mojana. Engineertaking advantage of the microphones of the Eco
Podcast of RCN Radio and who listento it not only inhabitants of that region
of the country, but of theentire national territory. Please help us understand
(29:26):
what is happening there, why thisflood has been going on for so long
and why it has not been possibleto find a solution. What happens to
the load and what happens to theMojana and the Cauca. If we analyze
the historical part of embroidering of theCauca River, we find in the analyses
(29:47):
that twenty years ago most frequently overflowsoccur. For example, a summary that
in the last fifteen years the cautahas overflowed twenty- five times. But
that means there are years where thecauca breaks the protective dam in different places.
That happened in the two thousand ten, it happened in the two thousand
nine, and that' s whathappens then as we' re talking about
(30:12):
climate change, about the phenomenon thegirl that leads to adds a lot of
water and that' s a globalphenomenon. And mining, on the other
hand, covered us with a cautiousriver. I want to tell the Colombian
Community and the fact of giving miningtitles in the first decade of this century,
(30:33):
in the government of two thousand eightto two thousand ten. There,
the number of hectares in Lower Caucaand Southern Bolívar for gold extraction tripled.
And just as it tripled that whichmeans, it rose to seven hundred percent
of the delivery of the titles.The sedimentation also triples, because the particles
of gold are brought from the earthand the earth is washed within the platforms
(30:56):
that are installed in the rivers ofthe lower caucas the River and, above
all and in other rivers like theMagri, all the tronada of low cautas.
Then those washed lands are thrown intothe river and the rivers flood.
The mojana, the channel of riverCauca is fed and covered in less than
twenty years we are covered by riverCauta and the mining contracts of these titles
(31:19):
are granted according to the clauses,first to thirty years. If you pay
the royalties of those transnational corporations thathave the benefit to make the gold exploiters.
If they pay the royalties in full, they say the theory of the
clauses that extend them for another twentyyears and if they continue to pay the
(31:40):
royalties, finally, they will extendit for another fifty years, that is,
the problem. There they play theinternational interests of the big companies that
exploit do the exploitation in the LowerCauca and in the South of Bolivar.
The populations of the mojana are affected. It is a very serious problem and
river is already covered and there arestill eighty more years of work of exploitation
(32:00):
of gold President Petro Dios in SanMarco in your subject that had to be
modified the Mining Code. He tothe hist of eighty- five of the
year two thousand veino genre, youmention two very important topics. On the
one hand, it talks about whatglobal warming is. It speaks of rains
and phenomena like the girl, who, for example, is about to arrive
(32:22):
in this mid and final season ofthe two thousand twenty- four. He
speaks of something as complex as theissue of mining that is taking place in
that region of the country and thatis affecting them directly and that is one
of the direct responsible for this situation. But as part of the journey we
have been taking in that area ofthe country, we have seen that it
(32:43):
also has a lot to do withthe issue of corruption. You, who
are in that region, know thesituation very closely. How responsible is corruption,
although not of the origin of thisproblem, if it has been prolonged
in time and in so many years, or it was corruption, I say
the general counter- loan of therest in the last national governments more than
three million pesos or say the drinksof riocauta because the works are not seen
(33:07):
in what invested so many contracts,there was not in fiction or paper,
but that it is not invested inthe resources and the few hydraulic works that
have been contracted. First he talkeda lot about the fluvial sending. Other
times, directly since the creation ofthe National Disaster and Risk Management Unit by
Decree 15 23 of the year twothousand and twelve. The Unit has financial
(33:30):
autonomy so the works are left ormore contracted, they are of no use,
because there it must be protected.According to that law fortnightly twenty-
three. That combines two terms.The threat that is the growing one of
Rioku, that is the threat andvulnerability of the work that supposedly must protect
(33:52):
the populations of the Mohana. Yeah, if you guys have a structure that
' s physically lonely, it's stable and you' re not gonna
let it go. No, youcan' t let it break through the
avalanche of river, because we wouldhave a work that guarantees, that guarantees
the security of the populations. Butit' s not like that. When
they sadudicated thousands of mining titles thatrose in seven hundred in seven hundred percent
(34:14):
of the delivery to the lands,that that goes to multiple long years the
activity, because a dam is built. That was known that by handing over
that amount of land and that theriver will be fed, then with greater
flow due to the avalanche of thegirl' s phenomenon, the water will
flow above what was the riverbed andwill break more frequently the protective dam.
(34:36):
This 70- kilometre- long wealthwas built on the grounds that it was
already known that the river would besedated and that mining production, although it
is sixty- two percent gold productionin this territory. The Mojana Sucreña does
not have a single gold mine inoperation, but it is the territory that
suffers the most. Then I'll give you the answer. It is
(35:00):
that corruption takes the best part inthis great business, but the communities do
not see the works as protection inobedience to the law, which must be
a solid work of protection against theavalanche, against the threat that mounted the
river Hey. My engineer you spokeor commented to me a while ago about
(35:22):
the visit of the national government tothat region of the country, even on
time by the President of Gustavo Petro. As you see, today the treatment
that is being given from the currentgovernment to this situation, if you see
possibilities of improvement or you really believethat things are not being done properly,
(35:45):
well, things you know already Iwas attentive to RCN what is said at
national level all forums. I haveparticipated in many MPs on these are regional
local debates on this problem, becausethe government of Dr Petro as President is
(36:07):
very busy seeking a solution, asit orders a recruitment that is, in
fact, real that Mr Olmedo obtained. The hundred and twenty- nine billion.
It' s like a turnkey contractbecause it has the point of designing
what it' s going to buildand, second, building that socialization of
(36:28):
that contract. He made it consortiumin four different places here in the Mohana
suffer He did it in a sectorcalled the San Benito, Abar, area
very much victimized by the floods ofCarragato. It was made in San Assinto,
the cauca in the municipality, itwas made at the edge of river,
(36:50):
where is the site itself known asthe Carregato. It was done in
Ajafel Córdova and there it is meant, to what is called alternative or proposed
is of closure of sectora regato Andthe truth that amplifying it as civil engineer
and as expert engineer in hydraulics ofrin and Costa, because it is very
(37:13):
different to what was done and whatis still being done. It is very
different from the proposal that they themselvesdelivered, because the lid do it assuming
that the bottom of that breaker isflat, as if to place sacks full
of earth, which are giant sacksor bags, as if to find a
completely flat bottom of fifty meters wideand place those megabags in rows on top
(37:39):
of one another in the form ofpyramids to cover almost twelve meters of height,
then the river. However, thefirst closure when you were in so
much part of the Duke' sGovernment was the same way that was applied
and complemented by this other consortium usingthe same form. Look from the bag
(38:04):
weigh eighteen tons, a bowl workedthat only carries a geobag full of the
land that they bring from the riverof the earth, which they pull out
with backseaters or dredges from the sameriver. They sew his mouth and throw
it away, not placing it.Why don' t they put it down,
because it' s simply a breakholethat has some depths and with the
(38:32):
spoons of the retro excavators they don' t have a system to place them
from the bottom, but the bottleyou see that so the red one from
above and they seek and settle asthey want in that accommodation, because it
is not subject to an order ofalignment already to cover the width that the
(38:54):
drawing or the letter says. Thatis a document that they themselves socialized the
Government, the national government, exactlythe consortium that is responsible for the Government.
Then that same system of throwing outthe bags failed. And only when
the bags appear on the water level, then they go like trying, pushing
(39:16):
it with the retros to try togive it an alignment. Before that first
contractor did that technique, the caucagrew and again broke races and broke a
major in a distance of two kilometersplus three hundred months. Now the cause
(39:37):
grew half- heartedly, and itcomes back and breaks it. Why.
Because, underneath, in this disorderof not knowing how to put the geo
bags in line, because the depthamericana was to have as an abuse to
go holding it with some cables andorienting the bags that are heavy, each
(40:00):
one weighs eighteen tons. Then you' d have to do that. Or
they had to do this because itwas proposed by the consortium in public socialization,
which made it four different sites inthe Mojana region. So, he
' s a failure. What doI predestinate about this work that now has
an avalanche with the phenomenon of thegirl mallor caudal and they are coming to
(40:25):
hurricanes in the entire region of theriver basin of Río Cauca, especially in
the low cause, in the Caribbeanand Colombia. So it breaks again.
You just know why. Because inColombian university hydraulics, the Nuestra Academy that
(40:45):
taught us hydraulics, there is nostructural design that tells us those or bags
obey to a hydraulic design first andstructural after it will contain the hydro thrust
of the river waters cause in thisengineering sector. It is important to know
(41:06):
all this that you explain to usand I ask one last favor. Tell
us how the territory is today,how the Mohana is today, especially for
those of us in the interior ofthe country who are not in that area
and we want to know how well- indurated it is today if, in
a certain way, in these dayswe find dry what is the reality,
(41:27):
what is the present of the inhabitantsof women. Well, the present is
a calamity, it' s ahealth emergency. Thirty- two months caused
the first break, the wagon thatbroke August 27 of the year two thousand
twenty- one. Until two monthsago there are already two more months,
the new breaker, the new mouth. Then, in the first tragedy,
(41:51):
in the low areas that flooded you, that add up to more than one
hundred fifty thousand hectares, the rabonarea. The rabon area is the wet,
but there is land from several municipalities. There are San Jacinto del Cauca
and Guaranda de Sucre, there areMajagual, there is San Benito, Mahual,
there is San Marcos, there isCaimito, which is San Marcos.
(42:14):
Then, one hundred and fifty thousandhectares, filled with people of extreme poverty,
with houses of wood, floor toground, roof of straw. Then,
those thirty months of flooding, thewood, the partitions, that is,
the walls, rotted, and thatwent to the ground. Now that
people were returning, thinking without recourseto rebuild their house, they come back
(42:37):
and flood. Then it is atragedy of manifest health urgency. In consultation
with the Adaptation Fund, the Fundhas some resources. The National Irrigation Management
Unit has it. That buy that' s called the forty- six,
which was approved two billion for theMohana. The silver. Silver is specifically
(42:58):
for the Moana, but silver isfrom the population of the Mohanna. It
is not for what the office advisorsof the respective ministers want to attend,
nor for the managers appointed by thePresident, because we are seeing and we
are already beginning to claim that onething is the regional dialogues and their result,
(43:22):
the product, which is the petitionsthat intomatively the communities of the Mojana
are in time of flood of wagons. Of course, then, if the
National Development Plan of Colombia, theworld power of life, is not attended
to and said, the requests madein the regional dialogues are met, but
the manipulators, advisers, divert andspeak to us. Since the year two
(43:45):
thousand and sixteen social and environmental problemshave been identified. It was Mohana.
Then or who was the first,the chicken or the chicken, the chicken
egg, then it is the lastchicken, that of Gustavo Petro. That
' s the one who lays theeggs and holds the Mohana communities. The
development plan Colombia potent to Mundia inthe Grebe is in force that prioritizes the
(44:07):
need to identify in this national programmeof development world power of life. Engineer
Francisco Ribón. Thanking him for acceptingthis call from RCN Radio' s echo
podcast, for telling us a littlebit about the situation that is being experienced
in that part of the national territoryand, above all, from his academic
(44:29):
knowledge. We know that he isa specialist in river and coastal hydraulics,
in addition to having a master's degree in environmental sciences, is a
researcher, is an environmentalist and knowsthat region very closely. Not for nothing,
he is already at least twenty yearsold by making known the situation that
(44:49):
is presented there through the writings thathe shows, as you yourself told us
in different regional media. Thanking youfor accepting this call, for telling us
about this situation and for showing ushow complex the panorama is in the Mohana
and in all the departments that haveterritory in that region of the country.
Well, thank you very much.Yeah, we' re done. We
(45:10):
remain available to speak in these termsof professional technician of what happens love of
Rio Town. There we listened toour guest and expert, who, moreover,
has all the credentials to talk aboutthe subject we have for today.
It is not easy to understand whenthis situation is not experienced so closely.
(45:32):
It is not easy to understand thatthey spend forty years in the national territory
and that they suffer from something likewhat happens with Caregato, the Cauca River
and the Mojana. However, herewe expand the picture and bring that reality
closer to you so that we tryto understand what is happening, why there
(45:52):
are tens or hundreds of people affectedby what is happening with this river,
that the environment is at risk,precisely because of what is happening there,
because it seems that mining is moreimportant than the environment and why corruption continues
to reign in that part of theterritory. Complicated the situation and in this
(46:16):
way we are finished our broadcast todaywithout first thanking, as always to Erlense
Gutiérrez, for accompanying us in thecabin and the integrated information system that is
under the direction of hope Rico.We hear Chao Chao Ego Podcast, because
(46:37):
the environment is a theme of all
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