In 2016, Máxima Acuña de Chaupe won the Goldman Environmental Prize for her defense of her territory against a project of Newmont Mining Corporation, the world’s largest gold miner.
Máxima Acuña was born in the mountains of Cajamarca and has lived there all her life. The department of Cajamarca is located in the north of Peru and has an important hydrographic basin in the country since its waters contribute to the Marañon River, the main water source of the great Amazon River. Máxima and her family live high in the mountains near the beautiful Laguna Azul, their source of water and life. This lagoon is one of the 600 bodies of water in the Alto Peru Lagoons region.
This earth defender says that she never went to school and did not learn to read or write. She married very young, at the age of 14, to Jaime Chaupe, with whom she had four children. She and her husband worked for other farmers in the community raising their animals. They also grew tubers and potatoes, which they exchanged for grains and fruits with other members of the community. In 1994, they sold all the animals they had to buy their land in Tragadero Grande, where they lived in peace until 2011 when the nightmare with the Yanacocha mining consortium began.
One day in May of that year, a group of Yanacocha engineers, accompanied by security guards and police invaded their land in Tragadero Grande to evict the family. They claimed that they were not the rightful owners of the land. When Máxima showed them the land purchase documents they told her they were worthless, tore down her fences and destroyed her house.
The Yanacocha consortium is comprised of U.S.-based Newmont Mining Corporation, Peru’s Compañía de Minas Buenaventura, and the International Finance Corporation-an agency of the World Bank. Yanacocha claims that the land where Máxima and her family live was purchased from the Sorochuco community in 1996 and 1997 for the Conga Project. The project was intended to extract six million ounces of gold over 19 years in Cajamarca. To do so, Yanacocha would have to dry up four lagoons, one of which was Laguna Azul.
Máxima wonders: where in the world are lakes for sale? For her and her family, lakes are their greatest treasure.
Four months later, Yanacocha’s engineers returned with heavy machinery and a large group of riot police and soldiers. Máxima’s youngest daughter knelt in front of a bulldozer to stop them from doing any more damage to her land but they showed no mercy. The soldiers kicked Máxima and her daughter unconscious on the ground while the police pointed their machine guns at the heads of her husband and youngest son. They destroyed their new hut and seized absolutely all their belongings. Máxima’s eldest daughter recorded everything on her cell phone. This was the first of many attacks that were to come.
Máxima and her family went to the Public Prosecutor’s Office in the province of Celendín and denounced these violent assaults but their complaints were shelved. Seeking justice, they turned to attorney Mirtha Vasquez of the NGO Grufides who agreed to take their case.
This family was not the only one to oppose Yanacocha; the resistance was communal. During the protests, hundreds of people were injured and five people were killed, including a minor. That same year, Yanacocha sued the Chaupe Acuña family for aggravated usurpation and the Celendín court found them guilty. They were sentenced to almost three years in prison, pay reparations to the mining company and leave their land within 30 days. Mirtha Vásquez appealed the decision and the Superior Court of Cajamarca ordered the acquittal of the family in 2013. Despite this, Yanacocha took the usurpation case to the Peruvian Supreme Court.
The mining company continued to torture Máxima with police support. They fenced in her land and built a tower to monitor her movements, destroyed her crops and killed her animals, and even threatened to kill her. The mining company repeatedly destroyed and invaded Máxima’s home, tried to evict her and intimidated her. The community also suffered this pattern of harassment, violence and threats. In 2014, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights ordered Peru to adopt the necessary measures to guarantee the life and personal integrity of the leaders of the peasant communities and the Rondas Campesinas of Cajamarca.
In 2017, the Supreme Court of Justice ruled in favor of Máxima and her family declaring them innocent of usurpation.
Máxima Acuña received the Goldman Environmental Prize with this song:
I am a jalqueñita, who lives in the mountain ranges.
Grazing my sheep in fog and downpour.
When my dog barked, the police came.
They burned my huts, they took my things.
I didn’t eat any food, I only drank water.
I didn’t have a bed, I kept myself warm with straws.
For defending my lagoons, they wanted to take my life.
Engineers, security guards, stole my sheep.
They drank head broth, in the Congo camp.
And with this, goodbye, goodbye, most beautiful laurel, you stay in your house, I am going to suffer”.
After her song she added:
“I defend the land, I defend the water, because that is life. I am not afraid of the power of the companies, I will continue to fight for the comrades who died in Celendín and Bambamarca and for all of us who are in the struggle in Cajamarca.”
The struggle of this peasant family against one of the largest mining companies in the world continues to this day.
References
Front Line Defenders. (2017) “Case History: Máxima Acuña de Chaupe”. Retrieved on 09/12/2023.
Olivera, Roxana. (2016) “I will never give up my land”, New Internationalist. Retrieved on 09/12/2023.
Redacción BBC News. (2016) “Máxima Acuña, la campesina peruana ‘heredera’ de la activista asesinada Berta Cáceres”, BBC Mundo. Retrieved on 09/12/2023.
Goldman Environmental Prize. (2016). Máxima Acuña acceptance speech, 2016 Goldman Prize ceremony. Retrieved on 09/12/2023.
