"White Gold: The violent water dispute", 22 April 2020

In the Jujuy puna, in northwestern Argentina, thirty-three indigenous communities of Salinas Grandes and Laguna de Guayatayoc resisted the advance of lithium mining a decade ago. Neither the judicial conflicts nor the threats that are current in the province paralyzed their claim: they defend water, they want to sustain their way of life linked to the salt flats and they demand that the companies that put the area at water risk leave their territories... For other inhabitants of the area, the mining companies are synonymous with dispossession and new violence scenarios. The seven families comprising the Apacheta Collective were victims of threats and harassment in 2012, when one of them was beaten up and ended up in the hospital with several blows to his body. This was Hipólito Guzmán, Carlos Guzmán’s brother... Hipólito was also part of the Assembly and rural commissioner of Susques. Shortly before the attack, he had already reported threats and verbal aggressions due to his anti-mining position...