Indigenous Rarámuri land defender Julián Carrillo was murdered by armed men on October 24, 2018, in his community of Coloradas de la Virgen in the mountainous region of the Sierra Tarahumara in the northern state of Chihuahua.

Mariana Azucena Villarreal Frías of the Network in Defense of Indigenous Territories of Sierra Tarahumara (REDETI) will be in both Ottawa and Washington, DC this coming Tuesday October 24^th, the 5^th anniversary of Julián’s death.

In December 2019, Mariana’s organization signed this statement that says: “In Chihuahua, in the Rarámuri community of Coloradas de La Virgen, located in the Sierra Tarahumara, four mining concessions were granted without guaranteeing the people’s right to their ancestral lands and to consultation: three to individuals and the fourth to the mining company Evrim S.A. de C.V., which belongs to the Canadian group Evrim Resources Corp.”

We further note that the Evrim Resources Cerro Cascaron project is located in Chihuahua. Initial drilling for gold and silver at this site began on October 4, 2018.

In June 2020, Evrim Resources Corp. merged with Renaissance Gold, Inc. to form a new royalty business named Orogen Royalties Inc. headquartered at 1015–789 West Pender Street in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.

The statement signed by REDETI further noted: “Resisting projects of death in this region where extreme violence reigns has a cost: comrade Julián Carrillo, of the Network in Defense of the Indigenous Territories of the Sierra Tarahumara, was murdered on October 24, 2018, shortly after the community denounced the existence of these concessions.”

Amnesty International has also highlighted this concern.

Graciela Martinez has written: “[Julián was murdered] after expressing his opposition to a mining concession in his community’s territory because of its social and environmental impacts.”

And Kathy Price has noted: “The assassination [of Julián] came just a week after he spoke out against the environmental impacts of a mining concession awarded by authorities to a Canadian mining company without the free, prior and informed consent of the Indigenous people whose lands would be impacted.”

Additionally, Sierra Madre Alliance (ASMAC) director Isela Gonzalez highlighted in a meeting with the Canadian Embassy in February 2021: “The situation of human rights violations of the Indigenous communities that are located in the Sierra Tarahumara region with more than 1,521 mining concessions from transnational companies, among them several are Canadian.”

Photo of Erika Guevara Rosas (Amnesty International) and Isela Gonzalez (ASMAC) by Raíchali.

TC Energy in Chihuahua

Journalist Martha Pskowski has also written: “Several indigenous activists, including Carrillo and Isidro Baldenegro López, a 2005 recipient of the prestigious Goldman Environmental Prize, were killed [in October 2018 and January 2017 respectively] after standing up to criminal organizations that traffic drugs and illegally harvest timber in the area.”

Pskowski then comments: “Those acts of intimidation discouraged some Rarámuri people from speaking out when the energy company TransCanada [now TC Energy] began building [the El Encino-Topolobampo] natural gas pipeline through the area.”

Further reading: Wet’suwet’en and Otomi land defenders to speak in Ottawa about their resistance to TC Energy pipelines.

The risk to human rights defenders in Chihuahua

The Center for Women’s Human Rights (CEDEHM) has also documented that at least 38 human rights defenders have been killed in Chihuahua between 1973 and 2019.

Global Witness has further noted that 30 land and environmental defenders were killed in Mexico in 2020, 54 in 2021 and 31 in 2022.

We continue to follow this with concern. Look to our social media – Twitter, Facebook and Instagram – for posts on October 24 about the commemoration of Julián Carrillo’s struggle to protect Rarámuri lands from extractivism.

Video (at 12:12): Photojournalist Amber Bracken was arrested by RCMP C-IRG officers on November 19, 2021. Bracken says: “For the record, I’m a member of the media. You’ve been notified that I’m here. I’m an observer.”

On February 13, 2023, the Canadian Association of Journalists (CAJ) posted: “The Narwhal and award-winning photojournalist Amber Bracken have filed a lawsuit in British Columbia’s Supreme Court today against the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) for the violation of their Charter rights after Bracken was wrongfully arrested and detained while covering the enforcement of an injunction in Wet’suwet’en territory as a journalist in late 2021.”

The CAJ media release added: “The Narwhal and Bracken are suing for damages related to the RCMP’s arbitrary arrest and detention. The lawsuit is also seeking acknowledgment that The Narwhal and Bracken’s press freedom rights, pursuant to Section 2(b) of the Charter, were breached.”

RCMP responds to The Narwhal’s lawsuit

Now, eight months later, the Canadian Press reports: “The RCMP say a photojournalist who is suing the force was not exempt from complying with a court injunction while reporting on protests over the Coastal GasLink pipeline that’s nearing completion in northern B.C.”

“The RCMP response to the lawsuit says another Narwhal journalist had written to notify police of Bracken’s presence in the area on the day before her arrest. It says an RCMP media relations officer, Staff Sgt. Janelle Shoihet, replied saying, ‘As long as (Bracken) is clear with the members on the ground there shouldn’t be any issues. I will pass along the information to the officers out there.’ Shoihet’s email was sent just over four hours before Bracken was arrested.”

“The Mounties’ response to the claim [also] says Bracken identified herself as a member of the media immediately after her arrest, not before. …Bracken’s lawsuit says she was wrongfully detained after identifying herself as a journalist with media credentials that were visibly attached to her camera gear.”

The article adds: “The response, filed Oct. 5, alleges Bracken was ‘not engaged in apparent good faith newsgathering activities’ and was instead ‘aiding or abetting’ protesters ahead of her arrest during an injunction enforcement operation in November 2021.”

This news article seems to suggest that the RCMP are saying that even if the C-IRG were aware that Bracken was a journalist, she was still not exempt from the injunction and that they somehow deemed she was still “abetting” the land defenders.

The C-IRG as arbiters of who is a journalist

The Narwhal now comments: “This response indicates freedom of the press is severely endangered in Canada. If police officers are allowed to be the arbiters of who is considered a journalist, the health of our democracy hangs in the balance. The right to a free press is one held not just by the media, but by every person in this country. The Narwhal remains committed to establishing meaningful consequences for police when they interfere with the constitutional rights of journalists covering events in injunction zones, and we will see the RCMP in court in October 2024.”

C-IRG also aware of media “optics”

In December 2019, The Guardian reported on the C-IRG raid on Wet’suwet’en territory on January 7, 2019, and their preparedness to use “lethal overwatch” – lethal force – against Indigenous land defenders despite police intelligence that indicated there was “no single threat indicating that [land defenders] will use firearms”.

That article further reported: “Police established a ‘media exclusion zone’, blocking reporters from accessing the area. They took care to hide their carbine rifles on the approach to the roadblock because the ‘optics’ of the weapons were ‘not good’, according to one of the [RCMP C-IRG] documents.”

The CRCC on the media and exclusion zones

On March 9, 2023, the Civilian Review and Complaints Commission (CRCC) announced: “Today, Michelaine Lahaie, the Chairperson of the Civilian Review and Complaints Commission for the RCMP (CRCC), initiated a systemic investigation into the activities and operations of the RCMP “E” Division Community-Industry Response Group (C-IRG).”

The terms of reference for this systemic investigation notes: “The file review will focus on the C-IRG’s governance, command and control, and operational planning, as well as its activities and enforcement operations with respect to at least three sites [including] the Coastal GasLink Ltd injunction on Wet’suwet’en traditional territory.”

In this February 13, 2020, response to a complaint from the B.C. Civil Liberties Association, Wet’suwet’en Hereditary Chiefs, and the Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs about RCMP exclusion zones on Wet’suwet’en territory, CRCC Chairperson Michelaine Lahaie cited past findings of RCMP actions in Kent County, New Brunswick.

Lahaie wrote (on page 7): “The Commission specifically noted that other instances of blocking public access to roadways, especially when such actions may have directly or indirectly unnecessarily hindered the media’s ability to report on the protests, may have been unreasonable.”

When PBI-Canada contacted the CRCC in June 2023 about the status of the investigation, they stated: “The CRCC strives to complete its systemic investigations within 12-18 months; however, the timely provision of requested information and access to RCMP personnel will largely determine when the CRCC’s report will be available.”

When we contacted them again in September 2023, they replied: “At this point in the investigation, it would be premature to specify a timeline for its completion.”

We await both a status update from the CRCC and a firmer commitment on the completion date of this systemic investigation.

For more, please see this FAQ backgrounder from The Narwhal: The Narwhal and Amber Bracken’s case against the RCMP: what you need to know.

Video: RCMP C-IRG officers smash down a door and arrest land defenders at gunpoint on November 19, 2021.

Greenpeace Canada notes: “In a few weeks Wet’suwet’en land defenders will be in the colonial courts defending their right to protect their territory from the unlawful trespass and property damage caused by TC Energy’s Coastal GasLink.”

They add: “Later this year, they will be in court again pursuing a civil suit against the RCMP, Coastal GasLink, and Forsythe Security for waging a daily campaign of intimidation and harassment against Wet’suwet’en people and supporters on the land.”

The Greenpeace Canada letter links to this call for donations to Wet’suwet’en Yintah Defence Legal Funds.

Criminal contempt proceedings against land defenders

The CBC has also reported 13 land defenders face criminal contempt proceedings in relation to the RCMP arrests on November 18-19, 2021.

One of those facing criminal charges is Wet’suwet’en land defender Sleydo’.

On November 23, 2021, after four days in custody in a provincial jail in Prince George, she stated: “C-IRG and the RCMP need to be abolished. Anybody who is not into prison abolition should be after this experience that we’ve had.”

Civil suit for Charter violations

On February 28, 2023, a Gidimt’en Checkpoint media release noted: “A dozen Wet’suwet’en land defenders and supporters have applied to the Supreme Court of British Columbia to have criminal contempt charges stayed in light of widespread Charter violations stemming from police misconduct.”

That statement further explains: “Alleging an ‘abuse of process,’ the court applications highlight the RCMP’s ‘disproportionate and excessive use of force’ against peaceful land defenders during a series of militarized police raids in November of 2021. In violation of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, the applications allege that arrestees were variously denied their right to security of person, subjected to unreasonable search and seizure, arbitrarily detained and imprisoned, and denied reasonable bail without just cause.”

Linking Indigenous land defenders struggles in Canada and Mexico

Wet’suwet’en land defenders (who oppose the TC Energy Coastal GasLink pipeline on their territory) will be in Toronto and Ottawa in the coming days to meet with Mixtec, Otomi and Nahua land defenders (who oppose the TC Energy Tula Pipeline Project on their ancestral lands in central Mexico.

For more on the Toronto events, click here.

For more on the public forum in Ottawa, click here.

Photo: “Members of the Gitxsan Nation’s rally called to dismantle the RCMP’s Community-Industry Response Group. Photo by Isaac Phan Nay for Canada’s National Observer.”

The National Observer reports: “Hereditary chiefs from the Gitxsan First Nation marched to BC Supreme Court in Vancouver on Wednesday morning [October 11], demanding an end to RCMP suppression of Indigenous-led protests against development.”

The article continues: “Met by a crowd of about 40 people at the steps of the courthouse, the leaders denounced court injunctions that stopped Indigenous land defenders from protesting development and called for the dismantling of the RCMP’s contentious Community-Industry Response Group (C-IRG) and its presence on Indigenous land.”

Gitxsan Hereditary Chief Clifford Sampare says: “There’s no consideration for our traditional laws, and our law is to protect the land. When we try to go and protect our territories, they call a militia on us.” Hereditary Chief Gordon Sebastian adds: “We told them the deployment of the RCMP is not allowed on the Gitxsan territory.”

Radio-Canada also reports (in French): “The protesters are calling for the dismantling of the Community and Industry Safety Task Force…In a letter sent to the Supreme Court, the Office of the Hereditary Chiefs of the Gitxsan Nation [stated] ‘We believe that the continued use of terror by the [C-IRG] will eventually result in an accident or intentional death of an Aboriginal person, potentially a woman or a child. This is not acceptable.’”

Prior to the rally, CFNR reported: “In addition, the rally will call for the RCMP to sign an armistice agreement presented by the Gitxsan Hereditary Chiefs in April. It would limit the C-IRG’s access to their territory, calls for the cessation of hostile acts, and reduces the number of RCMP allowed on their territory to 9.”

Pipelines coming to Gitxsan territory

Amanda Follett Hosgood  of The Tyee has previously reported that three pipelines – the TC Energy Prince Rupert Gas Transmission pipeline and the Enbridge Pacific Trail and Westcoast Connector pipelines – have their environmental assessment certificates, “a blanket authorization allowing the pipelines to move forward”.

Her article further explains: “Among the territories that the three pipelines would cross are Wet’suwet’en yintah and Gitxsan laxyip. …The Gwininitxw Indigenous Protected Area, 170,000 hectares encompassing pristine wilderness that includes important wildlife habitat, unique wild salmon populations and Indigenous cultural heritage, [is] just upstream from the proposed route of two pipelines…”

The Globe and Mail has also previously reported: “Wilps Gwininitxw said in a statement that the protected territories are upstream from two proposed gas pipelines that would affect salmon-bearing rivers and streams: the [TC Energy] Prince Rupert Gas Transmission Project and the [Enbridge] Westcoast Connector Gas Transmission Project.”

Wilps Gwininitxw member Ankhla Jennifer Zyp says: “We’re worried, for sure, that we’re going to be met with the same violence [as seen against the Wet’suwet’en], with the same push from the government. We’re concerned about how these pipelines crossing all these rivers are going to affect the salmon returning back to our territory.”

Photo: Heavily-armed RCMP C-IRG officers on Gitxsan territory, November 2021.

The Gitxsan media statement and rally kit for yesterday’s action can be found here.

The full National Observer article by Isaac Phan Nay can be read at ‘How is that reconciliation?’: Hereditary Gitxsan Nation chiefs rally for their rights (October 11, 2023).

Further reading: RCMP “E” Division says its “lawful obligations” take priority over Hereditary Chiefs ban on C-IRG on Gitxsan territory (PBI-Canada, March 17, 2023).

On Monday October 16, Wet’suwet’en and Otomi land defenders will come together to speak about their experiences resisting Calgary-based TC Energy building gas pipelines on their territories within the countries of Canada and Mexico.

To register for the in-person event in Ottawa, click here.

Wet’suwet’en Hereditary Chief Na’Moks and land defender Eve Saint will speak about their opposition to the company’s Coastal GasLink pipeline now being constructed on their territory in northern British Columbia in Canada.

Otomi land defender Don Salvador Aparicio Olvera will speak about his opposition to the company’s Tula Pipeline Project (Tuxpan-Tula pipeline) that would extend from Tuxpan, Veracruz to the states of Puebla and Hidalgo in central Mexico.

Dr. Eliana Acosta Marquez of the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) and the Workshop for the Defence of Territories will also be speaking. She contributed to the research, systemization and editing of the Territories of Water report (December 2021) that documented opposition to the Tuxpan-Tula pipeline.

The report links TC Energy and “a series of irregularities in Mexico against Otomi, Nahua and Totonac communities and in Canada against Wet’suwet’en communities.” When the Regional Council of Indigenous Peoples in Defense of the Territory of Puebla and Hidalgo received the report they indicated their desire to establish links with the Wet’suwet’en.

On January 15 and 16, 2022, PBI-Mexico accompanied the National Meeting of Struggles against Gas Pipelines and Death Projects. The Regional Council of Indigenous Peoples in Defence of the Territory of Puebla and Hidalgo was present at this meeting.

Algonquin Elder Claudette Commanda will be welcoming everyone to the event in Ottawa and University of Ottawa Professor Karine Vanthuyne will be moderating.

An analysis by The Globe and Mail newspaper found that Ottawa-based Export Development Canada (EDC), a Crown corporation wholly owned by the Government of Canada, has provided TransCanada Pipelines (now TC Energy) with a minimum of $1 billion in funding between 2001 and the end of 2020.

On April 28, 2020, EDC signed an agreement with TC Energy to lend between $250 million and $500 million for the Coastal GasLink pipeline. In July 2021, Canadian Trade Minister Mary Ng visited the TC Energy office in Mexico City and tweeted about “the community-centered business approach of TC Energy, the largest Canadian investor in the country.” Ng is the cabinet minister responsible for EDC.

To hear more from Chief Na’Moks, Eve Saint, Don Chava and Eliana Acosta in Ottawa, click here.

EVENTS IN TORONTO

For more about the activities of this delegation in Toronto, click here.

Photo: wis-waa-cha/ Kati George-Jim.

Meral Jamal of IndigiNews reports: “A T’Sou-ke woman who took part in a tree-sit for nearly a month in protest of construction work at her First Nation says she avoided police who tried to confront her this week.”

Times Colonist: “On Tuesday about 9 a.m., RCMP began surrounding the tree with about a dozen officers, George-Jim said in a text.” Photo by SheBites Media.

wis-waa-cha (Kati George-Jim) posted on Instagram: “On Sept 26, 2023, the RCMP ERT and CIRG militarized units came to violently remove me from the tree. Thankfully, I evaded their arrest and brutality.”

The IndigiNews news article continues:

“The RCMP confirmed officers had attended the construction worksite Tuesday morning.

wis-waa-cha and her mother kWa’st’not (Charlene George) are against construction on the T’Sou-ke reserve, which involves the development of a gravity sanitary sewer collection system and wastewater pump station that would bring raw sewage from 53 homes on the reserve to the District of Sooke’s wastewater treatment plant.

wis-waa-cha said she is against the construction because, along with being a sacred location, it is taking place on unceded and unsurrendered land. She said this makes it beyond the control of T’Sou-ke’s chief and council, which has been given power through the federal Indian Act.

Instagram post by wis-waa-cha

Both women were served with an application for an injunction by the T’Sou-ke First Nation on Aug. 24, receiving a permanent injunction in a decision by the court on Aug. 30. wis-waa-cha said the band also served an application via email notice for the RCMP to enforce an exclusion zone on Sept. 7. The exclusion zone was granted by a British Columbia Supreme Court judge on Sept. 12, meaning the RCMP could forcibly remove her from the tree at any time moving forward.”

The full article can be read at T’Sou-ke woman, who sat in a tree for nearly a month, says protest was about more than a single development (September 29).

Further updates from wis-waa-cha can be found on Instagram and Facebook.

Video.

On September 28, Peace Brigades International presented its comments in Geneva, Switzerland during the Interactive dialogue with the Special Rapporteur on the rights of Indigenous peoples, José Francisco Calí Tzay.

In this video (starting at 40:09), Yannick Wild notes PBI’s concerns in Guatemala, Honduras, Colombia and Canada.

Wild stated: “In Canada, we draw your attention to the continued harassment of Wet’suwet’en land defenders opposed to the Coastal GasLink pipeline by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police Community-Industry Response Group. The Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination has repeatedly called on Canada to remove the Mounted Police and private security from Wet’suwet’en territory.”

Special Rapporteur Cali Tzay at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, September 28, 2023.

Cali Tzay visited Canada from March 1-10 of this year.

On page 13 of his report on his Visit to Canada, the Special Rapporteur noted:

“In Canada, Indigenous Peoples are taking up the fight for climate justice by opposing the construction of TC Energy’s Coastal GasLink pipeline and the Federal Government-run Trans Mountain pipeline, projects approved without the consent of all affected Indigenous Peoples. TC Energy signed benefit agreements with band councils along the pipeline route but did not obtain the consent of hereditary chiefs who assert jurisdiction off reserve. The use of injunctions and exclusion zones around worksites have led to the criminalization of Indigenous opposition to the pipeline. Despite letters from the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, in which the Committee urged Canada to cease forced evictions of Wet’suwet’en people from their lands, the federal police (under contract with the government of British Columbia) conducted a series of raids using tactical officers, helicopters, assault rifles and police dogs to arrest 74 Wet’suwet’en land rights defenders. Nineteen Indigenous defenders were charged with criminal contempt for violating an injunction prohibiting entry to the pipeline construction site on the community’s unceded, ancestral territory. Five pleaded guilty, the remaining land defenders will face trial later this year and could be sentenced to prison.”

On page 20, he stated that Canada should:

“(i) Suspend large-scale mining and other business activities in the Ring of Fire region and cease construction or operation of the Coastal GasLink, Trans Mountain and Line 5 pipelines, until the free, prior and informed consent of the Indigenous Peoples affected is secured;

(k) Halt the criminalization of Indigenous human rights defenders peacefully defending their lands and resources from extractive industries and other business actors.”

In April of last year, the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) issued its third rebuke to Canada commenting on its “use of force, surveillance, and criminalization of land defenders”, particularly those opposed to the construction of the Coastal GasLink fracked gas pipeline on Wet’suwet’en territory.

That letter expressed concern about the RCMP Community-Industry Response Group and reminded Canada of a CERD decision issued in December 2019 that called for the removal of the RCMP from Wet’suwet’en territory.

We continue to follow this situation.

Video: Wet’suwet’en land defender Sleydo’ and Gitxsan land defender Shaylynn Sampson arrested at gunpoint by the RCMP C-IRG unit on Wet’suwet’en territory on November 19, 2021.

C-IRG violence against the frontlines (PBI-Canada webinar, April 16, 2023)

Dismantle the C-IRG, end violence against land defenders (PBI-Canada webinar, February 21, 2023)

The full text of PBI’s comments during the Interactive Dialogue with the Special Rapporteur (SR) on September 28, 2023:

Mr. President,

In its accompaniment to indigenous peoples Peace Brigades witness many of the violations highlighted by the SR.

In Guatemala, we draw the council’s attention to the increasing number of violent attacks, criminalization and judicial and extrajudicial evictions of communities claiming their rights in the face of development projects counting in part with financing by International Financial Institutions, such as the Peaceful Resistance of Cahabón by Q’eqch’i communities and their struggle against the hydroelectric plants Renace and Oxec.

In Honduras we are concerned about the use of the crime of forced displacement aimed at protecting families from criminal groups but misused by the government and extractive companies to criminalize environmental defenders. This is the case of the indigenous Lencas Victor Vásquez and José Vigil, imprisoned in 2020 for almost a year and still waiting for their case to be resolved.

In Colombia, serious violations persist against indigenous peoples who defend their territories from large-scale economies, such as the Resguardo San Marcelino de Putumayo, on the border with Ecuador, where on July 29 the Kichwa community was subjected to violence by the Ecuadorian Army, with the acquiescence of the Colombian Army. We further stress the urgency for the Colombian Constitutional Court to ratify the Escazú Agreement.

In Canada, we draw your attention to the continued harassment of Wet’suwet’en land defenders opposed to the Coastal GasLink pipeline by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police Community-Industry Response Group. The Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination has repeatedly called on Canada to remove the Mounted Police and private security from Wet’suwet’en territory.