We condemn the brutal repression and ferocious hunt in the name of social peace in Jujuy, Argentina

From the CLACSO Working Group Epistemologies of the South We support the statement of the Assembly of the Third Malón de la Paz of Indigenous Peoples "in protection of the territory and in defense of life" and we stand in solidarity with the people of Jujuy. 

We denounce the institutional violence that occurred on June 20th around the Jujuy provincial legislature during the swearing-in of the unconstitutional reform without the required prior, free, and informed consultation with Indigenous peoples. What is happening in Jujuy is part of a geopolitical dispute over the control of common resources, particularly Argentina's lithium, by the extractive powers and multinational corporations that exploit our territories.

Causing numerous serious injuries, the brutal repression unleashed against the people whose peaceful demonstrations began with teachers' marches demanding better wages, and the detention of minors, violating the rights of indigenous communities, contradicting the National Constitution and international treaties.

The current reform undermines the process of recognizing the legal status of indigenous communities, the ownership of the territories they have inhabited for millennia, and the processes of free, prior, and informed consultation enshrined in the national constitution. 

As the Inter-University Forum of Lithium Specialists of Argentina explains, "It is no coincidence that there are attempts to violate the territorial rights of indigenous communities and to advance in the strict control of their territories, within the framework of a dispute over lithium mining, the star metal so coveted by global corporations and world powers. We view with deep concern that the reformed constitution does not expressly guarantee the right to water as a universal right."

Lithium mining under current conditions puts freshwater reserves at risk and causes irreversible degradation of the ecosystems of the communities that have ancestrally inhabited these territories and have rights over them.

As stated by various national and international human rights organizations, it is unacceptable that 40 years after the return to democracy, peaceful protest and demands for participation are met with repression and institutional violence.

Our solidarity with the people of Jujuy, with its indigenous peoples, as part of the Argentine and international university system.

June 26th, 2023
CLACSO Working Group
Epistemologies of the South
PIP Project "Artivism Threads: Cartographies of Resistance Against Ecocide" by NuSUR/EDAES/UNSAM

This text expresses the position of the aforementioned Working Group and not necessarily that of the centers and institutions that make up the CLACSO international network, its Steering Committee or its Executive Secretariat.