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Professor Avi Chomsky (history) and Professor Noel Healy (geography) just returned from a weeklong Witness For Peace delegation to Colombia.

Here the Salem State professors met with representatives of indigenous Wayúu, Afro-Colombian, and campesinos communities, human rights activists, trade unionists, and others affected by coal production in Colombia.

Cerrejón is the world’s largest open-pit coal mine in the world. It is located in the southeast of the department of La Guajira, close to the border with Venezuela.

For over a decade professor Chomsky has led Witness For Peace Delegations to the region. Here professor Chomsky has worked closely with numerous communities who have been displaced by the Cerrejón mine.

On the delegation professor Healy and Chomsky also explored how we as consumers can work in solidarity with communities and organizations in Colombia to hold corporations accountable for human rights. 

Professor Chomsky organized and mediated talks between nearly a dozen community representatives and mine officials. Professor Healy testified at the Witness For Peace delegation inside Cerrejón mine.

During the trip Professor Healy conducted interviews and documented injustices for his new international collaborative project on energy justice. Six former and current Salem State geography students are working with professor Healy on this new project. He is also researching the impacts of fracking in rural communities within the US. 

Colombia is the largest recipient of US military aid in the hemisphere, and also the country with the highest levels of official and paramilitary violence, including forced displacement, killings of journalists, trade unionists, and human rights activists.

Foreign corporations, many of which are engaged in the large-scale extraction of natural resources, benefit from this situation. They control Colombia’s coal mines, which supply power plants in the United States while generating immense profits for mining companies. These corporations have been accused of serious human rights violations, displaced entire communities, exploited workers, and destroyed natural environments.

Cerrejón supplied the old Salem power plant for coal for over a decade.

has published on the impacts of coal mining in Colombia and will be leading another delegation in 2018.

recent publication,  calls for a greater recognition of energy justice across entire energy lifecycles, from extraction to final use.