Letter To Paula Palmer, Global Response Program Director:
By this letter we want to thank you and recognize the valuable collaboration that you and your organization, Global Response, have given in the international campaign ?No Coal Mining? in the Perija Mountains and in indigenous territories of the Wayuu, Yukpa and Bari peoples of Zulia State in the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela.
The initiatives undertaken by your organization at the 2006 World Social Forum in Caracas and in the Alternative Forum have served to inform and create a solidarity network among people and organizations that participated in those forums through your talks, meetings and your active participation in the January 27, 2006 march in Caracas for indigenous rights and environmental protection.
Your personal visits in Zulia State, in the indigenous Wayuu community of San Miguel, located in the watershed of the Mache River at the mouth of the Manuelote reservoir, as well as in the indigenous Yukpa community of Tukuko in Machiques de Perija county in the piedmont of the Perija Mountains, served to reinforce our morale and create collaborative relationships that helped us build the Wayuu community radio station Radio Nikiisa Cachiri.
We think that your organization?s international letters to President Hugo Chavez and Minister of Environment Jacqueline Faria were decisive in paralyzing the opening of the Socuy coal mine in Wayuu territory, a region of forests that includes the Socuy and Mache Rivers and the Manuelote reservoir, and influenced the executive decision to prohibit coal mining in all the concessions in the piedmont of the Sierra Mountains. This presidential decision was ratified on the 20th of March of this year by the new Minister of Environment Yubiri Ortega at the gathering of Wayuu and Yukpa indigenous peoples and environmentalists at the Ministry entrance.
We hope you will come again to see us in Zulia and we invite you to continue to accompany us in our struggle until President Chavez revokes all the coal mining concessions in the piedmont of the Perija Mountains, and also that you support us in the next phase of our work which is to consolidate the indigenous communities through socio-environmental projects.
Lusbi Portillo
Coordinator, Sociedad Homo et Natura
