Wednesday, April 3, 2013 – 6:00pm
George Brown College (St. James Campus), 200 King St. E, Career Centre Room B155
Presented by the Environmental Justice Club at George Brown College in collaboration with Mining Injustice Solidarity Network
The story:
In 1999, the residents of Tambogrande, a small town in northern Peru, learned that the government had secretly granted mining concessions on their land to a multi-national corporation. The residents of Tambogrande organized The Defense Front to protect their town. The directors follow the Tambogrande residents’ five-year-long struggle to thwart the Peruvian government’s connivance with corporate plans that would despoil their land and destroy their livelihoods. The film traces the history of the region, including the pioneering efforts of mango farmer Godofredo Garcia Baca, the leader of the protest movement who, beginning in the mid-Sixties, had helped transform Peru’s northern desert into an important agricultural region. Tambogrande also chronicles the changing nature of the protest movement, from its early, often violent protests and confrontations with police, to the rechanneling of their efforts into peaceful protest and political action, using popular culture and technology – everything from dance and music to the Internet – to publicize their cause and to force the government to allow a referendum on the issue.
Film by: Ernesto Cabellos and Stephanie Boyd
Speaker and Discussion (Q & A) to follow film.
Admission: By donation
*All proceeds will go to Ulises Garcia founder of the grassroots not-for-profit NGO ‘Tropico Seco’ (Peru) and their work with mining affected communities in Latin/South America.