In mid-December, the European Union reached an important agreement for the future of respect for human rights in the business world. The European institutions agreed on the final text of the new European directive on due diligence in corporate sustainability.
About 8,100 kilometers away, in Colombia's La Guajira, the situation is complicated since many energy companies, several of them European, began to arrive with the intention of developing renewable energy projects, very necessary for the country's energy supply. The Colombian region of La Guajira is the ancestral territory of the Wayuu people and Afro-descendant communities settled centuries ago. There is talk of a total of 29 companies registered in the country belonging to 17 parent companies to develop 57 wind farms in the territory. Wayuu from La Guajira.
The arrival and installation of energy companies in La Guajira is not being easy. In just a few years, a very complicated scenario has been generated for the development of any energy project due to the bad practices of companies, the mistrust generated among the Wayuu communities and the conflict caused in various communities. Examples are not lacking. Only in 2023, the ENEL company announced the suspension of the construction of the Windpeshi park due to delays caused by road closures and conflicts with the communities. That same year, the EDPR company decided to suspend the construction of the Alpha and Beta parks; and the company CELSIA announced that it prefers to develop wind projects in Peru while the situation in La Guajira improves. For its part, the company GEB, which carries out the Colectoras project, continues to accumulate delays.
The lack of knowledge of the reality and cultural context in which they are going to install their projects has generated a generalized situation of violation of rights and mistrust between the traditional Wayuu authorities and the representatives of the companies. But this situation has also been aggravated by the arrogance of those who believe they are saving the world and do not understand that the Wayuu communities have been living in their territory for centuries and the impunity of those who thought that by developing clean energy projects of general interest to the The State did not need to respect the human rights of the communities of the Wayuu people.
Wayuu organizations and communities clearly denounce human rights violations and raise the need to promote new business models. In 2022, a group of 105 Wayuu traditional authorities issued a statement against the social dialogue strategies of companies in the region. In November 2023, the report Reflections of Wayuu women regarding climate changeprepared by the Wayuu Women's Force with the support of Oxfam Colombia, the office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights in Colombia and Akuaipa Transformation, presented a complex panorama from the point of view of community rights and especially the rights of Wayuu women.
The report denounces that the companies are not carrying out prior consultation processes with the traditional authorities that own the territories and that they have caused conflicts within the communities to divide opposition groups and have easier entry. Likewise, they denounce that there have been many breaches of agreements between companies and communities; that human rights due diligence has not been applied nor have human rights impact studies and a mitigation and resolution plan for negative impacts been carried out. Companies are not respecting the right to participation for the benefit of communities and, instead, are offering them social investment plans that are misleading, since they can only execute these plans with the same companies that propose them.
Companies with their headquarters in Europe must reflect deeply on how they should modify their ways of developing projects in relation to the new regulatory frameworks. Currently, none of the European companies that operate in La Guajira would comply with the parameters established by the European Directive that will be adopted during 2024. There have been no analyzes of risks and studies of impacts on human rights with the participation of communities. There are also no plans to resolve and mitigate adverse impacts. And, judging by the complaints that come from Wayuu communities and organizations, the international standards of rights of indigenous peoples ratified in Colombia are not being respected either.
Paradoxically, many Wayuu communities do not oppose the development of projects if their rights are respected. To encourage this situation, companies must assume that natural resources are part of indigenous territories and, therefore, are property of indigenous peoples. They must modify their ways of relating to the indigenous communities in La Guajira, applying due diligence on human rights in all projects. They must promote genuine dialogue with traditional authorities and alliances with communities to improve living conditions. It must be recognized that the right to participation includes the distribution of benefits and understand that economic compensation must be adjusted to the resolution of the impacts they have caused, must have the approval of the communities and must not be conditioned in any way. way by the company.
The situation in La Guajira is a paradigmatic example of the changes that due diligence in human rights is causing in the business world, as well as the preventive usefulness it can have. This case demonstrates the difficulties that companies that want to operate outside of this new legal framework have to face. It demonstrates the impact capabilities that interest groups can have by demanding respect for international human rights standards in the development of business projects.
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