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November 5th, 2015.
19 people are murdered, 1.9 million people in at least two Brazilian states, Minas Gerais and Espirito Santo, get hit by the 43.8 million cubic meters of iron ore tailings poured in by Samarco, with the collapse of Barragem do Fundão (Fundão Dam), in Bento Rodrigues, subdistrict of the Municipality of Mariana, in Minas Gerais. Vale S.A. Billiton, the mining companies holding of Samarco, are also to be found guilty of the crime. Throughout these four years, a great number of violations of rights perpetuated and spread along the Bay of the Dace River and little has been done to repair the damages caused by irresponsible mining.
In these articles, we approached some of the main charges brought by people who have been living with the consequences of the greatest socio-environmental crime in Brazil. We also presented relevant questions to understand how maintaining a predatory and extractive mining in Brazil allows for new collapses to take place, like the one of mining company Vale in January 2019, which left 256 people dead and 14 missing by realising 12 million cubic meters of tailings in Brumadinho, in the state of Minas Gerais.
We discussed matters related to the collapse of Samarco’s dams in Mariana, and Vale’s in Brumadinho and the consequences of these continuing crimes. We also discussed the ineffectiveness of the Renova Foundation (Fundação Renova) – entity created by the companies responsible for Fundão Dam – in repairing the damages caused at the Rio Doce basin and, also the mining company Vale in repairing the affected communities of the Paraopeba River Basin. We shed light on the problems involving the mining system, such as: the fragility of studies and flexibility to approve environmental license; the lack of effective supervision of dam conditions; low tax collection on mining in Brazil; and tax evasion rates, questionable integrity technique used by companies to pay the least amount possible in taxes. We seek justice to all affected communities for the socio-environmental crimes committed by Samarco, Vale, and BHP Billiton. We want guarantees that this will not repeat.
