FULLY BOOKED / Transnational Corporate Counterinsurgency in Latin America

FULLY BOOKED! 
Unfortunately, the event is now fully booked. 

Join us for an afternoon and evening focused on the role of companies in conflicts, how CSR can be used as counterinsurgency measures, and discuss efforts to combat corporate impunity!

Researchers will share findings on how companies collaborate with public and private security forces, paramilitaries, and armed groups in extractive spaces in Latin America. Based on long-term fieldwork and engagement, they have investigated hard and soft forms of corporate security. There will be three presentations and time for questions, comments, and responses.

The first talk is by activist-researchers Daniel Marín-López and Line Jespersgaard Jakobsen, who have documented how transnational extractive corporations have fueled Colombia's conflict through violent and deceptive practices. Drawing examples from the coal, oil, and palm oil sectors, their studies show how these actions have led to severe human rights abuses and environmental destruction. Despite the 2016 peace agreement, which aimed for justice, truth, reparations, and non-recurrence, corporate impunity persists, undermining justice and peace efforts.

Michael Wilson Becerril will discuss corporate counterinsurgency and violence in Peruvian mining conflicts, drawing from his book "Resisting Extractivism." Shedding light on the subtle and routine forms of violence in gold-mining conflicts in four sites in Peru, Michael will explain how similar conflicts can lead to different outcomes and offer strategies for preventing and transforming violence over resource extraction in Latin America.

José Ernesto Fuentes Cabrera will present findings from his recent field research on corporate counterinsurgency and Q’eqchi’ Indigenous resistance within Guatemala's palm oil industry. Through three case studies rooted in the lived experiences of affected communities, he examines how counterinsurgency tactics use CSR initiatives and voluntary industry certifications to obscure the harm inflicted on communities and their environments.

Understanding these dynamics is crucial for the international solidarity movement to hold corporations accountable and combat impunity. We look forward to sharing our work with you and exchanging experiences and perspectives.

Program

17:00: Welcome and introduction (NOAH/Colombia Solidarity)
17:10: Transnational corporate counterinsurgency in the Colombian conflict and its legacies today (Daniel Marín-López and Line Jespersgaard Jakobsen)
17:30: Michael Wilson Becerril
17:50: Break
18:00: Jose Ernesto Fuentes Cabrera
18:20: Q&A
19:00: Community dinner

Language of presentations: English

Hosts: NOAH - Friends of the Earth Denmark & Colombia Solidarity Denmark

Bios of speakers

Daniel Marín-López is co-creator of Enramada Collective and a PhD researcher in Human and Social Sciences at the National University of Colombia. His research focuses on corporate accountability, the war-to-peace transition, and the political economy of armed conflict. He was a Fellow at Harvard Carr Center for Human Rights Policy, an Expert Advisor on corporate complicity at the Colombian Truth Commission, a Principal Researcher at Dejusticia, and a Legal Aid for the “Transitional Justice in Colombia - ProFis” program of the German Cooperation Agency (GIZ).

Line Jespersgaard Jakobsen is a postdoctoral fellow at the Department of Social Sciences and Business, Roskilde University. She has conducted ethnographic research on corporate security practices in natural extraction sites, specifically coal mining in Colombia. Currently, she studies Colombia's transition towards peace, including corporate accountability.

Michael Wilson-Becerril is an activist-scholar specializing in the political ecologies of violence, resistance, and justice, with a focus on Latin America. He is the author of Resisting Extractivism: Peruvian Gold, Everyday Violence, and the Politics of Attention (Vanderbilt University Press, 2021). He has conducted extensive fieldwork on environmental justice in Peru, everyday violence in Mexico, and Indigenous rights in Costa Rica and Guyana. His work integrates policy advocacy, activism, and public engagement.

José Ernesto Fuentes Cabrera is an independent researcher and communications consultant based in Central America with over a decade of experience in the region and a recent MSc Global and Development Studies graduate from Roskilde University. Through his firm, Clak Clak, Research and Design, he collaborates with international and national civil society organizations to lead advocacy campaigns, public engagement initiatives, and innovative communication strategies.