PBI-organized “Who Bears the Cost?” webinar highlights the impacts of transnational corporations, the situation in Buenaventura

Published by Brent Patterson on February 24, 2025February 24, 2025

On Monday February 24, Peace Brigades International organized a webinar, hosted by Lorena Miguel of PBI-Catalunya, that highlighted a new report “Who Bears the Cost?” and included perspectives and analysis from several countries.

We include excerpts of their comments below.

Milbia Andrea Díaz, Inter-Church Commission for Justice and Peace, Colombia

“In Colombia, many of the missing people lie in the sea. “[Specifically, in the San Antonio estuary in Buenaventura], there must be about a thousand people in water graves. We know the difficulties of finding remains in the sea and in the mangrove swamp, but there is technology that would make it possible to find them.”

“[Families] ask that the estuary be kept as a place of historical memory, because that is where their disappeared rest. It would be an act of justice, feasible within the framework of the special mechanism for the issue of memory.”

“There is a high level of corruption, violence and state neglect of fundamental rights, which has turned into a scenario of harassment and abuse of illegal armed structures, with strong links to the Public Force. Responsibility of the state for action, omission and lack of respect for the state. Today it is being challenged by a totally failed peace proposal, which only relies on criminal gangs of perpetrators of violence and misery in Buenaventura.”

Vicente Vallies, author of “Who Bears the Cost?” report

“With the dredging of the estuaries, the right to search would be violated. Reparation involves being able to bury your loved one in a dignified way… It is difficult to think that people can talk about coexistence and positive construction if they are prevented from recovering the bodies of their loved ones.”

“[In Buenaventura] everyone pays extortion: the fishmonger, the displaced person who goes to get his subsidy check, everyone pays the illegal armed actors. This represents a risk for companies.”

“The European delegations in Colombia would do well to believe the local population, the fishermen, the people who are looking… If they supported them in their desire not to dredge that estuary, which is a large cemetery, it would be a great step.”

Ixmukane Quib, the Committee for Peasant Unity (CUC), Guatemala

“It is important to mention that Guatemala is a country made up of an indigenous population, present in territories in which there is a high interest on the part of national and transnational extractive companies.”

“The capitalist system is based on dispossession and mainly responds to the economic accumulation of a minority and that these are strongly linked to financial organizations such as the IDB, WB, which finance extractive companies. These financial resources serve to dispossess the common goods of the communities, destroy biodiversity, territories and the social fabric.”

“In my territory, because it is a territory rich in water resources and highly productive lands due to its diversity, there is a high interest from transnational companies and consequently greater conflict, the dispute over the territory then is between extractive companies, palm oil monoculture that currently occupies just over 180,614 hectares nationwide and this has caused serious contamination in the rivers, a decrease in the quality of life of the communities, precarious health, violation of locomotion and the human rights of those who inhabit the territory and that for these projects to be carried out triggers a series of land dispossessions and the concession of national lands to private companies.”

Brent Patterson, Peace Brigades International, Canada

“A key connecting point for us with the port of Buenaventura is the Canada-Colombia free trade agreement.”

“In 2010, the year before this Agreement came into force, two-way trade between Canada and Colombia totaled $1.4 billion. By 2023, with twelve years of the Agreement, two-way merchandise trade dramatically increased to $2.6 billion.”

“Despite the expansion of the port that comes with increased trade, the displacement of communities and human rights violations that happens with the expansion of the port, and the associated push to dredge the harbour to allow for a deepwater port and bigger cargo ships, and disturb the water graves, Global Affairs Canada, continues to conclude that they are ‘unable to demonstrate that any actions taken by the Government of Canada … through the implementation of the [free trade agreement] … have had a direct impact on human rights in Canada or Colombia.’”

Laia Otero, CooperAcció, Catalunya/Spain

“At CooperAcció we are part of the Catalan Group for Business and Human Rights, a working group made up of 22 entities and 2 second-level platforms that is working towards the creation of the Centre for Business and Human Rights.”

“In June 2015, the situation in Buenaventura was denounced in the Parliament of Catalonia and the European Union, where foreign investments for the expansion of the port have a direct relationship with the violence and poverty that develops in the territory and where the then Catalan company TCB- Barcelona Container Terminal invests in the expansion of the port through its subsidiary TCBuen, with the idea of ​​turning it into a large infrastructure for the country’s trade, ignoring the authoritative voices that denounce how these megaprojects aggravate the situation of violence in Buenaventura.”

“In addition to the Buenaventura case, the group has generated investigations of human rights violations by companies operating in our territory and we have collected them on the AlertaDH website, where we have more than 20 cases and to which we continue to add new investigations today, not only to generate advocacy strength but also to raise awareness and inform the Catalan population about the practices carried out by companies in the global south.”

“We hope that 2025 will be the year of the creation of the Catalan Center for Business and Human Rights.”

Lorena Miguel, Peace Brigades International, Catalunya

Lorena Miguel, who organized, introduced and moderated this webinar, concluded the discussion with highlighting the new “Who Bears the Cost?” report.

That report can be found here.

The Executive Summary can also be read in English here: Inglés_Digital_REjecutivo_PBI

Further reading: “With the dredging of the estuaries, the right to search would be violated”: Vicente Vallies, author of PBI report on Buenaventura (PBI-Canada), The Canada-Colombia free trade agreement and “aquafosas” (water graves) in the San Antonio estuary of Buenaventura (PBI-Canada) and PBI-Canada to participate in “Who Bears the Cost?” webinar on the port of Buenaventura in Colombia and transnational corporations (PBI-Canada).