| On 5 June, churches and faith-based organizations from Colombia, the United Kingdom, and Ireland, together with investment and ecumenical partners, submitted a complaint under the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises on Responsible Business Conduct concerning HSBC Holdings plc and its financial relationship with Glencore, the company operating the Cerrejón coal mine in La Guajira, Colombia. This is the first of a three-part feature story that illustrates the grave effects of the Cerrejón mining operation on human rights for Indigenous people, on children’s health, and on the environment, water access, and pollution. |
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 | | Mildreth Guetta Uriana, Wayúu indigenous woman from La Guajira, Colombia. The Wayúu indigenous people have faced decades of displacement, contamination and cultural destruction linked to the Cerrejón open-cast coal mine — one of the largest in the world. Communities report polluted water, failing harvests, and chronic respiratory disease, while remaining excluded from the legal recognition that would give them access to basic rights and state services. Photo: Sean Hawkey/WCC |
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Blasted into the homeland of the Wayúu people in northern Colombia is an immense open pit—a toxic industrial wasteland spread over 690 square kilometres that has, for four decades, consumed the water, poisoned the land, and displaced the communities of one of South America's most marginalised peoples. For scale: Washington, DC covers 177 square kilometres, a quarter of the area of the mine. The Cerrejón coal mine is the largest coal mine in Latin America, and by the measure of its impact on the people and environment, it’s as damaging as it is enormous. Colombian judges have ruled repeatedly that the mine has violated Indigenous rights to water, food, and health - and Cerrejón has defied those rulings. Colombia's National Health Institute has documented that La Guajira, the department that hosts the mine, accounts for nearly one-third of all child malnutrition deaths in the country. Colombia's own president has accused the company of responsibility for the deaths of thousands of Wayúu children. And when the mine's licence expires in 2034—if it’s not extended—it will leave behind depleted and contaminated groundwater, destroyed villages, and no financial plan to address any of it. |
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 | | Vast spoil heaps tower over the landscape around the Cerrejón coal mine in La Guajira, Colombia. The waste material excavated to expose the coal seams has reshaped the terrain across tens of thousands of hectares, smothering vegetation, contaminating groundwater and generating clouds of fine toxic dust that carry across surrounding Wayúu communities — communities that have never consented to, nor benefited from, the mine's operations. Photo: Sean Hawkey/WCC |
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Who owns the pit—and who finances it? The Cerrejón mine transports approximately 80,000 tonnes of coal per day by rail—150 kilometres to the port of Puerto Bolívar. To put that in perspective: it is the equivalent of around 3,000 fully loaded heavy goods vehicle lorries every single day—roughly one every 30 seconds, nonstop. Since January 2022, the mine has been wholly owned by Glencore, the Swiss-headquartered, London-listed commodity giant. But who finances a mine of this scale—and who therefore shares responsibility for what happens in its operations? The mine's owner, Glencore, between 2016 and 2023, received €83.3 billion in loans and investments—of which nearly half came from European banks, led by UBS, BNP Paribas, Société Générale, ING, and HSBC. In May 2023, HSBC alone helped raise $1 billion for Glencore, despite having made public pledges not to fund coal expansion. This doesn’t sit well with all investors and shareholders. The Norwegian Government Pension Fund divested from Glencore in 2020, and its Dutch counterpart followed in 2021, citing "bribery, corruption, conflicts with local communities, and poor working conditions" as the reasons for excluding the company from its portfolio. The question now is whether other investment groups and banks will follow suit. Wayúu Indigenous woman Mildreth Guetta Uriana has a direct message for them: "The companies, the churches, the people who invest in Glencore—what should they do? They should investigate more, or at least come to the communities and find out what is happening. There are many documentaries on YouTube showing the real problems that exist in La Guajira. Don't just think about a company - think about children who deserve to live in a healthy environment, who deserve to have their own community. At least understand us — put yourselves in our shoes and find out what is really happening. Because of mining, we lose lives, we lose territory, we lose everything we have and everything our ancestors built with effort." |
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 | | Jocelyn Carolina, active community leader, stands outside her house, with guayacan blossom on the floor, with Juan Carlos de Piayú, another indigenous authority from a neighbouring village. The Wayúu indigenous people of La Guajira, Colombia, have faced decades of displacement, contamination and cultural destruction linked to the Cerrejón open-cast coal mine — one of the largest in the world. Photo: Sean Hawkey/WCC |
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Villages destroyed More than 25 communities have been forcibly displaced from their territories, at times with considerable violence. Juan Carlos de Piayu comes from an ancestral Indigenous community that is today private property belonging to Cerrejón. His family was displaced in 1992. "The displacement happened partly because of ignorance among the elders—the Wayúu elders could not read or write. People came from outside and said the land had been handed over to the mine. They convinced some of the elders and took them to Venezuela. My mother was a woman alone with eight young children. Because she didn't leave, they came and dismantled her home. The state itself did it—they left them in a neighbouring territory about three kilometres away." Omar Sapuano, a community leader in Barrancas, describes a threat issued by an official just weeks before this article was written. "He told us: You still have an active police eviction order, and at any moment you refuse to hand over the territory, you will be the ones to suffer - because we will demolish your house and take everything you have.” The community has been on the land for 14 years. Their request for formal recognition of their traditional authority was refused, the leader says, because "the mayor's office told us they could not appoint us over the territory because the territory belongs to Cerrejón." The mayor himself, Vicente Berardinelli, is, the community says, the great-great-grandson of the man who carried out the original displacement in 1900. "Today the same story repeats itself with the same family, the same lineage," the leader says. "We have no water supply, no housing, no healthcare - we have nothing. We are adrift." Jocelyn Carolina, whose community of 50 families occupies a single hectare of land hemmed in on every side, describes the mine's advance in terms that are both geographic and existential: "The mine has been advancing toward this side—there is only a little space left between here and the river. There is no land on the other side either, because they have been buying up the plots. They need to finish extracting on this side before they come over here." For Mildreth Guetta Uriana, the loss of territory is not only physical but spiritual. "A Wayúu without territory is not Wayúu. A Wayúu person without territory is nothing. But how beautiful it is to say: 'I come from this territory, I have my water, I have my river, I have my stream.' It is something very precious that must be protected and fought for until the very end.” |
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 | | Omar Sapuano, cabildo governor of the indigenous community of El Jamiche , walks near the Ranchería river. The Ranchería river flows through La Guajira, Colombia — once the lifeblood of the Wayúu indigenous people, providing clean drinking water across one of South America's most arid regions. Since the expansion of El Cerrejón, Latin America's largest open-pit coal mine, the river has been systematically diverted to serve the mine's operations. Independent studies have found the Wayúu now draw water contaminated with arsenic, mercury, lead, zinc, barium, and fuel residues discharged from the mine. Photo: Sean Hawkey/WCC |
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Disturbing situation Protests are now a routine feature of life around the mine. Protesters periodically block roads and railways, demanding water services, larger social investment, and jobs. In 2024 alone, there were 333 railway blockades - preventing coal transport to port for 135 days of the year - along with five explosive attacks on the railway in a three-month period. In June 2020, lawyers for the Wayúu community lodged a request with the UN special rapporteur for human rights and the environment to halt mining operations. In September 2020, several UN independent human rights experts called for a temporary suspension, citing serious environmental damage and negative effects on Indigenous peoples' health. The UN special rapporteur called the situation of Cerrejón and the Wayúu one of the most disturbing he had encountered in his tenure. International legal mechanisms offer further options. The OECD's complaint system allows communities and civil society groups to file cases against multinational companies, and crucially against the banks that finance them. The complaint to the UK National Contact Point (NCP) jointly submitted by the Methodist Churches in Colombia, Great Britain and Ireland on 5 June argue that financial institutions have a responsibility to ensure that financing and investment practices are aligned with human rights, environmental standards, and the climate commitments of the HSBC bank. However, the mechanism has real limitations. The OECD Guidelines' complaint procedure is voluntary for companies. NCPs have no authority to require companies to change their practices - at best, NCPs can only critique poor company conduct and encourage action. But where it has worked, the impact has been significant. A complaint against ING Bank resulted in the Dutch NCP ruling that ING must set concrete climate goals in line with the Paris Agreement, and the bank committed to reduce its thermal coal exposure to close to zero by 2025 and refrain from financing new coal-fired power plants. Glencore’s licence at El Cerrejón is set to expire in 2034, though there is speculation it could be extended under a different government. To date, it has not committed to full restitution, and communities fear the land will never recover even after the mine closes. They are calling for a closure plan that guarantees environmental, social, and climate justice. |
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 | | Indigneous children travel to school on the back of an open truck near Uribia, La Guajira, Colombia. Photo: Sean Hawkey/WCC |
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“Put yourselves in our shoes” "Land is not kept just by saying so," says Mildreth Guetta Uriana. "It is built, it is fought for. And that is what I try to do, what my mother tries to do. I am the daughter of a Wayúu leader, and thanks to her I am here today speaking in front of a camera—because I watched her fight every single day for my little brother. We do not want to give up our territory. We do not want to hand it over to other people who are doing well, who are comfortable in their own places.” The coal from Cerrejón has powered homes and industry across Europe and Asia for four decades. The communities it has left behind - the Wayúu, their animals dying of thirst, their crops covered in coal dust, the children affected by vapours of sulphur—are still waiting for justice and support. As the mine's licence ticks toward its 2034 expiry, their message to the banks and investors who made it possible is simple. "At least understand us," says Mildreth Guetta Uriana. "Put yourselves in our shoes and find out what is really happening. Because of mining, we lose lives, we lose territory, we lose everything we have and everything our ancestors built with effort." The churches’ complaint in relation to HSBC bank is one example of the implementation of the WCC Hope for Children initiative, catalyzed by children and youth who urged the WCC to make climate justice one of the pillars of the Churches’ Commitments to Children programme. The World Council of Churches is inviting churches, ecumenical partners, and faith-based organizations worldwide to support an open letter backing an OECD complaint submitted by Methodist churches in Colombia, Great Britain, Ireland, and partners concerning HSBC’s financial relationship with Glencore and the Cerrejón coal mine in Colombia. Churches, ecumenical partners, and other organizations wishing to endorse the initiative are invited to sign the Open letter here. WCC invites churches, communities to support call for responsible finance, climate justice (WCC news release, 10 June 2026) Faith-based groups submit OECD complaint concerning HSBC financing linked to Cerrejón coal mine in Colombia (WCC news release, 05 June 2026) Learn more about the Churches’ Commitments to Children and Climate-Responsible Banking |
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