A pair of articles on infrastructure expansion and resistance in Colombia and Tanzania:

• Afro-Colombians threatened by biodiesel expansion: Afro-Colombian campesinos are increasingly being forced off their land for President Alvaro Uribe’s plan to convert the rain forests into palm oil plantations for biodiesel. According to this BBC article on the issue, traditional land use (small-scale subsistence agriculture) is clashing with Uribe’s vision for a new Colombia: “according to human rights organisations working in the north-west Choco province, and in dense forests along the Pacific, paramilitary gangs are seizing Afro-Colombian land to facilitate biofuel conglomerates. The land is also being transformed, with elaborate network of highways, drainage canals and palm oil plantation sites. Tropical forests are cut down, water sources diverted, to aid the development of agribusiness projects.”

• Barrick Gold Attacked in Tanzania: In retaliation for a campaign of violence waged by Barrick Gold against indigenous communities in northern Tanzania, thousands of villagers recently stormed a mine site, overrunning security and destroying between $7-15 million worth of equipment by fire. For more information and to learn more about Barrick’s destructive activities in other parts of the world, visit www.protestbarrick.net.