KØBENHAVN: Transnationale virksomheders oprørsbekæmpelse i Latinamerika
Join us for an afternoon and evening focused on the role of companies in conflicts, how CSR can be used as counterinsurgency measures and recent efforts to combat corporate impunity!
In this event researchers will share findings on how companies collaborate with public and private security forces, paramilitaries and armed ground in extractive spaces in Latin America. Based on long-term field work and engagement, the researchers have followed several sites and investigated hard and soft forms of corporate security. Often, corporate social responsibility (CSR) is being used to mask corporate complicity in human rights violations.
There will be two presentations as well as time set aside for questions, comments and responses. The first talk is by the activist-researchers Daniel Marín-López and Line Jespersgaard Jakobsen who have investigated and documented how transnational extractive corporations have fueled Colombia’s conflict through violent and deceptive practices. Drawing examples from the coal, oil and palm oil sectors, Line and Daniel’s studies document how these actions have led to severe human rights abuses and environmental destruction. Despite the 2016 peace agreement, which developed a design for justice, truth, reparations and guarantees of non-recurrence, corporate impunity persists, undermining justice and peace efforts.
Activist-researcher Michael Wilson Becerril will discuss corporate counterinsurgency and violence in Peruvian mining conflicts, drawing from his book “Resisting Extractivism.” Shedding light on the subtle and routine forms of violence in gold-mining conflicts in Peru, Michael will discuss how meaning-making practices highlight certain types of damage while concealing others. By comparing four case studies and drawing on extensive ethnographic research, Michael shows how similar conflicts can lead to different outcomes and offer strategies for preventing and transforming violence over resource extraction.
José Ernesto Fuentes Cabrera will share insights from his recent field study on similar issues in the palm oil sector in Guatemala.
Understanding these dynamics is crucial for the international solidarity movement to hold corporations accountable and combat impunity. By exposing practices of hard and soft security and different forms of violence, activists can support local communities and civil society groups in their fight for justice and sustainable peace. This knowledge is also relevant in the light of the ongoing negotiations for a UN Legally Binding Treaty on Transnational Corporations and Human Rights. We look forward to be sharing our work with you, and exchange experiences and perspectives.
Program
17:00: Welcome and introduction (NOAH/Colombia Solidarity)
17:10: Transnational corporate counterinsurgency in the Colombian conflict and its legacies today (Daniel Marín-López and Line Jespersgaard Jakobsen)
17:30: Michael Wilson Becerril
17:50: Break
18:00: Jose Ernesto Fuentes Cabrera
18:20: Q&A
19:00: Community dinner
Language of presentations: English
Hosts: NOAH – Friends of the Earth Denmark & Colombia Solidarity Denmark.
