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PBI-Honduras accompanies the National Union of Rural Workers (CNTC) in their work on land title and gender equality

On November 18, PBI-Honduras tweeted:

“This week, together with CNTC La Paz, we visited some communities in the department that have been fighting for years to obtain title to the land they work. We highlight the efforts of the Gender Committee of CNTC La Paz to improve the conditions of women in rural areas.”

PBI-Honduras further explained on Facebook:

“This week we met with the members of CNTC La Paz and visited some communities in the department that have been fighting for several years to obtain title to the land they work.

The CNTC since 1985 supports affiliated peasant families so that they have land and resources to develop productive activities, offers them legal support and executes profitable productive projects with a gender approach and sustainable agriculture.

Despite the high rate of cases of gender-based violence, we want to congratulate the CNTC La Paz Gender Committee for their constant efforts to counteract them and for their commitment to improving the condition of women in rural areas.”

Earlier this year, PBI-Honduras also tweeted:

“Despite their fundamental role in food production, 90% of rural women do not have land #DïaInternacionalDeLaLuchaCampesina [International Day of Peasant Struggles]. The #ONU [United Nations] invite #Honduras to review reforms of #CódigoPenal [Penal Code] that reduce civic space #criminalización [criminalization].”

The International Day of Peasant Struggles was established in 1996 by the international peasant movement La Via Campesina to commemorate the April 17th massacre of 19 landless Brazilian peasants.

PBI-Honduras has also noted:

“Agrarian laws initially designed to benefit the peasantry (passed in 1962 and 1975) had legally defined land ownership as eligible only to “men over 16 years of age”, effectively invisibilizing rural women.

It was only in 1992, with the Law for the Modernization and Development of the Agricultural Sector, that the legislation even contemplated the registration of property titles for spouses or common-law partners, opening new spaces for women.

Despite these legal advances, there continues to exist serious inequity in terms of access to land. In the last decade, Honduras’ National Agrarian Institute (INA) granted almost 79,000 land titles nationwide, of which only 37% correspond to women, and currently only 14% of all rural women have a land title.”

At this time, we also recall that Canada abstained in the vote on the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and other people working in rural areas that was adopted by the UN General Assembly in December 2018.

PBI-Honduras has previously noted that this UN Declaration recognizes key elements such as “the right to land, to natural resources and to food sovereignty, based on the principle of equality between men and women.”

Image showing Canada’s vote on the UN Declaration shared by Andrea Nuila, gender and women’s rights coordinator at FIAN International, at a PBI co-organized webinar.

A 2-minute video (in Spanish) produced PBI-Honduras, featuring two speakers from the National Union of Rural Workers (CNTC), can be seen here.

The Peace Brigades International-Honduras Project has accompanied the National Union of Rural Workers (CNTC) since May 2018.

The CNTC is affiliated with the Unified Confederation of Honduran Workers (CUTH) which in turn is affiliated with the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), along with 150+ labour organizations including the Canadian Labour Congress.

Canada “working hard” at COP27, while RCMP armoured vehicle ready to enforce fracked gas pipeline on Wet’suwet’en territory

In contrast to Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault’s tweet that “Canada is working hard to achieve real progress with all parties at #COP27”, this tweet shows a Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) armoured vehicle on Wet’suwet’en territory.

The Delgamuukw v. British Columbia decision by the Supreme Court of Canada on December 11, 1997, recognized Indigenous rights to their ancestral territories.

The RCMP armoured vehicle is on Wet’suwet’en territory in northern British Columbia despite the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination resolution that calls on Canada “to guarantee that no force will be used against Secwepemc and Wet’suwet’en peoples and that the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and associated security and policing services will be withdrawn from their traditional lands.”

That resolution was issued on December 13, 2019, the same year as the first RCMP raid on Wet’suwet’en territory. There was another raid in February 2020, and a third on November 18-19, 2021, just days after COP26 concluded in Glasgow.

The RCMP has spent more than $25 million on its presence on Wet’suwet’en territory since January 2019. The costs of RCMP policing are shared, with provinces and territories paying 70% of the costs and the federal government paying 30%. The federal Minister of Public Safety Marco Mendicino is responsible for responsible for the RCMP.

It is also notable that John Stackhouse, a Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) vice-president, is part of Canada’s official delegation at COP27.

Stand.earth has documented: “RBC is among top commercial banks providing the CGL project with working capital, including CAD $275 million in project finance, a co-financed $6.5 billion loan, a $40 million corporate loan, and $200 million in co-financed working capital – while acting as financial advisor for the pipeline.”

Decolonial Solidarity recently projected this video on the side of an RBC branch in Ottawa of the RCMP using an axe and chainsaw to tear down the door of a cabin on Wet’suwet’en territory on November 19, 2021, and arrest land defenders and two journalists.

The Coastal GasLink pipeline has also been directly financed by Export Development Canada, an export credit agency wholly owned by the Government of Canada. The Board of EDC reports to Parliament through the Minister for International Trade, Mary Ng. In May 2020, this federal government body lent up to $500 million to build the Coastal GasLink pipeline after a “rigorous due diligence review.”

The pipeline is being constructed to transported fracked gas from north-eastern British Columbia to the LNG Canada export terminal near Kitimat. After investors granted their approval for the $40 billion project in October 2018, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau commented: “Today is a good day.”

The terminal itself will add nearly four million tonnes of carbon emissions per year.

The Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives has also reported: “Instead of reducing oil and gas emissions from 2007 levels, LNG Canada will increase the sector’s emissions by 24 per cent in 2030, 54 per cent in 2040 and 49 per cent in 2050.”

It has also been calculated that the Coastal GasLink pipeline could produce 125 million metric tons of CO2 pollution annually.

As such, it can be argued that the Wet’suwet’en land defenders and allies criminalized for their resistance to this pipeline should be, as the UN Human Rights Council has generally said of environmental human rights defenders, “ensured a safe and enabling environment to undertake their work free from hindrance and insecurity, in recognition of their important role in supporting States to fulfil their obligations under the Paris Agreement” to limit global average temperature increases to 1.5 degrees Celsius.

We continue to follow all of this with concern.

PBI-Colombia accompanies the Nydia Erika Bautista Foundation as Colombia joins the Global Alliance for the Disappeared

On November 16, PBI-Colombia tweeted:

“Colombia adheres to the World Alliance for the Disappeared. It is key to include the voice and experience of relatives who are victims of the #ForcedDisappearance so that the search is effective and the recognition of #WomenSearchers as @nydia_erika.”

The Nydia Erika Bautista Foundation (FNEB) also tweeted:

“The FNEB salutes the World Alliance for the Disappeared and calls on States to legislate on the rights of women searchers, violated in the search. #RightsForSearchers”

EFE reports: “Colombia joined on Wednesday [November 16] the Global Alliance for the Disappeared, an initiative of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and the Swiss Government, to raise awareness of this problem, promote compliance with international commitments and promote practices to prevent new disappearances.”

“The Global Alliance on the Disappeared, launched on 11 May 2021 and initially formed by the ICRC and Switzerland, is currently made up of Argentina, Azerbaijan, Estonia, Kuwait, Mexico, Nigeria, Norway, Peru, South Korea and now Colombia.”

That article adds: “In Colombia, 90,088 people are currently still missing, according to the latest publication of the UBPD [the Search Unit for Missing Persons] dated October 31, 2022.”

Prensa Latina also notes: “The Global Alliance on the Disappeared seeks, inter alia, to promote collaboration and best practices, guidance and technical recommendations to improve the prevention of and response to missing persons at the national, regional and global levels.”

“It offers an opportunity for the State to join the international effort to implement methodologies for the search for disappeared persons and guarantees for the rights and interests of victims, making the search a reparative process.”

The signing took place in Bogota at the Palacio de San Carlos, headquarters of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

PBI-Colombia has accompanied the Nydia Erika Bautista Foundation since 2007.

COP27 draft declaration fails to recognize role of environmental human rights defenders

Photo: Environment Canada.

The just-released 20-page draft of the final declaration of the COP27 summit fails to reference environmental human rights defenders.

The UN Human Rights Council has affirmed that “human rights defenders, including environmental human rights defenders, must be ensured a safe and enabling environment to undertake their work free from hindrance and insecurity, in recognition of their important role in supporting States to fulfil their obligations under the Paris Agreement.”

That resolution was adopted in March 2019. At least 639 land and environmental defenders have been killed since then.

Between 2012 and 2021, Global Witness has also documented that more than 1,733 land and environmental defenders have been killed.

Indigenous Lenca water protector Berta Cáceres was killed in March 2016, less than three months after the COP21 climate summit, for her opposition to the Agua Zarca hydroelectric dam on the Gualcarque River in Honduras. Photo by Carlos Castro.

On pages 4-5, the draft declaration section on “Human rights and human approaches to climate action” only “recognizes the important role of indigenous peoples, local communities, cities and civil society, including youth and children, in addressing and responding to climate change, and highlighting the urgent need for multilevel and cooperative action.”

On pages 18-19, the section on “Action by non-Party stakeholders” mentions “youth and children, women and girls, cities and local communities, indigenous peoples”.

And yet, the draft declaration highlights in a single-bullet point item in the “Engagement of the private sector” section that “affirms that achieving the objective of the Convention and the long-term goals of the Paris Agreement requires extensive collaboration among all levels of government, the private sector and civil society.”

There are at least 636 oil and gas lobbyists present at the COP27 summit.

Canada’s official delegation to COP27 includes executives from Enbridge (that set up a fund for US police to access to arrest and surveil defenders opposed to the construction of the Line 3 tar sands pipeline) and the Royal Bank of Canada (that is financing the construction of the Coastal GasLink fracked gas pipeline on Wet’suwet’en territory that has seen more than 74 people arrested in three militarized raids).

On November 18-19, 2021, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) launched a militarized raid on Wet’suwet’en territory despite the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination repeatedly calling for the RCMP and private security to leave the territory. Photo by Dan Loan.

The Guardian also reports the draft declaration “does not call for a phase-down of all fossil fuels [nor does it] include details for launching a fund for loss and damage, a key demand from the most climate vulnerable countries such as island nations.”

Greenpeace International notes “the draft text is an abdication of responsibility to capture the urgency expressed by many countries to see all oil and gas added to coal for at least a phase down”, 350.org highlights the text does not reflect the call “for a just, equitable and managed phase-out of all fossil fuels” and Stand.earth says the “phase down ‘unabated coal’ is still in but ‘unabated’ is a loophole big enough to drive a drill rig through”.

Peace Brigades International recently convened a webinar with environmental defenders from Colombia, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua and Kenya. To hear their concerns about COP27, click here.

PBI-UK meets with the People’s Front in Defence of Land and Water resisting the PIM megaproject in Mexico

On November 15, PBI-UK tweeted: “Defenders from the @fpdtampt tell PBI UK’s @BenLeather1 how the strength of their movement coupled with international attention have limited the impact of judicial processes & trumped up charges designed to stop their land & #environmentalrights defense.”

The PBI-Mexico accompanied People’s Front in Defence of Land and Water-Morelos, Puebla, Tlaxcala (FPDTA-MPT), an organization composed of Indigenous Nahuatl communities, is opposed to the Morelos Integral Project (PIM).

The EU-LAT Network has explained: “The PIM consists of two combined cycle gas thermoelectric plants in Huexca, Morelos; a 160 km gas pipeline that crosses the states of Tlaxcala, Puebla and Morelos; two 12 km aqueducts to transport drinking water and discharge water that will be used by the thermoelectric plant, modifying the composition and flows of the Cuautla River (Morelos); and a 20 km high voltage network.”

The Network has also noted: “There are 26 human rights defenders who have been prosecuted for their work within the framework of the PIM, some of them with arrest warrants. Three people have been illegally detained for their legitimate human rights work, two of whom have spent 10 months in prison. In addition, two community media outlets have been violently shut down. In Morelos, violence against defenders of the land, territory and environment has reached the arrest and torture of a human rights defender for two consecutive days, culminating in the murder of Samir Flores Soberanes.”

Samir was an Náhuatl environmental defender, member of the People’s Front and opponent of the PIM. On February 20, 2019, he was shot in Amilcingo, Morelos and died later that day in hospital. He was 35 years old.

Writer-researcher Martha Pskowski has noted that in November 2010 “the governor [of Morelos] awarded the construction of the thermo-electric plant to the Spanish company Abengoa, with a $440 million investment.”

PODER has also explained: “The Italian company Bonatti was contracted to install the 160-kilometer-long pipeline and was responsible for carrying out the initial conversations and negotiations with inhabitants of the communities through which the work would pass to obtain the permits for passage.”

And this statement on Samir’s assassination highlighted: “The Spanish companies Elencor, Abengoa, Enagas and Italian company Bonatti are the promoters and constructors of the project. French company Saint-Gobain is one of the main beneficiaries.”

Enagas has received financing from various European banks including London, UK-based Barclays. (We note that Barclays Corporate and Investment Bank also has offices in Toronto and Calgary.)

Source: Banking on Climate Chaos.

In December 2021, the Chicago-based international law firm Baker McKenzie noted it had “advised Enagás and Elecnor on the agreement to jointly and equally sell the Mexican companies Gasoducto de Morelos and Morelos O&M to Macquarie for a total amount of US$173.8 million (154.2 million euros). Specifically, the purchase of the Mexican companies was carried out by MIP V International, a subsidiary of the Macquarie fund.”

The global law firm Cuatrecasas further noted that Gasoducto de Morelos and Morelos O&M were the “owners and operators of a 172 km gas pipeline crossing the states of Morelos, Puebla and Tlaxcala”.

Macquarie, an Australian global financial services group, has offices in multiple cities around the world including London (28 Ropemaker Street), Brussels, Madrid, Munich, Toronto, Montreal, Calgary and Vancouver.

Macquarie Infrastructure Holdings LLC has also received financing from the British bank Barclays and the Canadian bank RBC.

Source: Banking on Climate Chaos.

The People’s Front has also linked Toronto-based Alamos Gold to the megaproject (its Esperanza Gold Project mine is situated in Morelos).

In November 2020, they posted: “[President] Lopez Obrador’s [support for the PIM] betrays the peasant and the promise of change of his government, to favour transnational corporations [including] Canadian miners like Alamos Gold.”

In February of this year, that mine was sold to Vancouver-based Zacatecas Silver.

We continue to follow this situation with great concern.

On November 16, PBI-UK tweeted: “Today we were in Amilcingo paying tribute to #environmental defender & #Indigenous leader Samir Flores, murdered there in 2019, but who lives on through the community school in his name, and the work of the @fpdtampt.”

PBI-Guatemala accompanies criminalized Retalhuleu water defenders to sign registry as they await trial

On November 15, PBI-Guatemala posted:

“#PBI accompanies the members of the Council of Communities of Retalhuleu [CCR] to the book signing but the book has not yet arrived and it is the second time it hasn’t been. It represents a waste of time and money for criminalized people.”

The criminalized defenders must sign a registry every 30 days.

In September, PBI-Guatemala explained:

“We accompanied Anabella España Reyes, Abelino Salvador Mejía, Flavio Vicente and Virgilio García Carrillo, criminalized human rights defenders from the Council of Communities of Retalhuleu (CCR) to the final hearing of the preparatory phase of their trial on 21 September. The Public Prosecutor’s Office presented charges against the four defenders during the hearing, for the alleged crimes of threats, coercion and illegal detention. Following the intervention of the defense, the judge ordered the dismissal of the cases related to the crimes of threats and coercion. However, the judge ordered the human rights defenders to stand trial for the alleged offence of illegal detention. In addition, he reactivated the alternative measures, of article 264 CPP [Criminal Procedure Code], which include: house arrest, prohibition to leave the territory and signing a register every 30 days. This criminalization process began in December 2018, which means that it will soon be four years old.”

And back on March 14, PBI-Guatemala also posted: “PBI accompanies members of the Council of Communities of Retalhuleu to sign the book in the MP [Public Ministry]. The hearing scheduled for today was suspended.”

PBI-Guatemala has accompanied the CCR since April 2020.

PBI-Mexico accompanies People’s Front on advocacy tour highlighting European water and energy companies in Mexico

Photo: Marcelina Barranco (second from the left, back row) of the People’s Front in Defence of Land and Water is part of an advocacy tour in Europe.

On November 16, PBI-Mexico tweeted:

“On the 3rd day of the FPDTA [Peoples Front in Defence of Land and Water] European tour, Marcelina BL met with MEPs [Members of the European Parliament] from the Greens to continue expressing concern about the risks faced by defenders who oppose #PIM [the Morelos Integral Project] and [the bottled water company] @bonafont @Danone.”

PIM

The PIM megaproject includes a gas pipeline that crosses three states, a thermoelectric plant in Huexca, and an aqueduct that will draw 50 million liters of water per day from the Cuautla River to cool the plant’s turbines.

Samir Flores Soberanes was a member of the People’s Front and a vocal opponent of the PIM. On February 20, 2019, he was shot at his home in Amilcingo, Morelos and died later that day in hospital. He was 35 years old.

The megaproject was built by the Spanish companies Abengoa, Elecnor and Enagas and the Italian company Bonatti.

Last December, Enagás and Elecnor sold their ownership of the pipeline to the Sydney, Australia-based Macquarie Group.

Macquarie has offices in Brussels, Madrid, London, Paris, Amsterdam, Frankfurt, Munich, Geneva and other cities in Europe.

Macquarie also has offices in Toronto, Montreal, Calgary and Vancouver.

The People’s Front has also linked Toronto-based Alamos Gold to the megaproject (its Esperanza Gold Project mine is situated in Morelos). In February of this year, that mine was sold to Vancouver-based Zacatecas Silver.

Bonafont

The Bonafont bottled water plant in the city of Juan C. Bonilla has taken more than 1,400,000 litres of water per day over the past 25 years.

On February 15 of this year the National Guard and State Police forcibly evicted the Indigenous occupation of the bottled water plant.

Bonafont is owned by the Paris-based Danone.

The People’s Front has called for a boycott of Danone products.

Danone products sold in Canada include Activia, Oikos and Danone yogurts, Silk almond milk, So Delicious dairy free ice cream.

Danone and PepsiCo jointly distribute Evian bottled water in Canada.

Danone has offices in Boucherville (Montreal) and Toronto.

We continue to follow this advocacy tour.

PBI webinar with environmental defenders on frontline struggles and the failure of COP27

On November 15, Peace Brigades International brought together environmental human rights defenders from Colombia, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua and Kenya, along with United Nations Special Rapporteur Pedro Arrojo-Agudo, to share insights on frontline struggles and the COP27 summit.

To watch the video of the webinar (with original audio), click here.

In the coming days, we will be adding key quotes from each of the speakers.

Christopher Castillo, Honduras

“We must never forget that the water, the earth and all the elements that constitute us are not exclusively of humanity. We must always be clear that we are on a planet and that planet we need to rescue. And we’re going to rescue it from a capitalist model of dispossession.”

Yuli Velasquez, Colombia

“I am the daughter of a murdered fisherman, born and raised on the banks of the Magdalena River, the main artery of Colombia. My fight is to protect water sources: this has caused me three attacks.”

“We defend our territory, we make contamination from industry visible, and we confront armed groups that have links with companies. To silence ourselves, we have been victims of systematic attacks.”

“Those of us who are from territories defending the environment are not visible at COP27. Colombia is one of the countries where more environmentalists kill. When we raise our voice, they kill us, threaten us or take us out of the territory.”

“There are 5 actors that are affecting the swamp, a water source that supplies water to Barrancabermeja, causing diseases. When one defender denounces entities that must ensure a healthy environment, as there are links with armed actors, the threats begin.”

“The Escazú Agreement gives some hope, but there are many public officials who do not apply laws, but on the contrary, they stigmatize us. Companies have displaced us for years and communities have to be present in any project that affects the environment.”

“As fishermen we oppose fracking. We already have a lot of contaminated water and damage caused by companies in Barrancabermeja. Water sources are degraded every day and megaprojects only benefit large companies, not to communities.”

To watch the video of the webinar (with original audio), click here.

PBI-Honduras accompanies Indigenous Lenca community defending ancestral territory from a 10,000 unit housing development

On November 11, PBI-Honduras tweeted:

“PBI accompanies to the Tierras del Padre Lenca Indigenous Community to file an amparo appeal to stop the eviction order filed. The community requests that ILO Convention 169, which establishes their property rights over ancestral lands, be respected.”

 

On Facebook they also noted:

“This week we accompanied the Lenca Tierras del Padre Indigenous Community to the presentation of an amparo appeal in the Supreme Court of Justice for the detention of the eviction order scheduled for next November 23.

The community requests that ILO Convention No. 169, ratified in 1995 by Honduras, be respected. This establishes the right of indigenous peoples to property and possession of the lands they traditionally occupy, and the duty of governments to guarantee the protection of these rights.

We highlight the work of Honduran indigenous peoples in defending their territories, worldview and rights. We express concern about the threats they face.”

On November 8, Criterio.hn quoted Kenya Oliva, lawyer at the Justice for the Peoples Law Firm, who says: “The Lenca indigenous people of Tierras del Padre [have been] cited for an illegal eviction.”

Earlier this year, El Heraldo explained: “Tierras del Padre is part of the Central District and its inhabitants have declared themselves owners of these properties, because they argue that they have ancestral titles that make them owners of the land, in addition to belonging to the Lenca ethnic group. But there is a court order in favor of the company Inmobiliaria Siglo XXI that also claims to own the land, after buying it more than 12 years ago.”

In February, Agence France-Presse reported: “Accompanied at dawn by a judge with an eviction order, many riot police stationed themselves at the entrance of a plot located 10 km south of the capital Tegucigalpa.”

That article adds: “According to the court decision, the families occupy this land called ‘Tierras del Padre’ of about 200 hectares, owned by a businessman carrying a real estate project to build 10,000 homes. But community representatives say they have a deed of ownership registered in the national archives dating back to 1739.”

Conexihon has also reported: “For some years, the families that inhabit the place, approximately 200, have been living in anxiety since Mario Facusse, a businessman, landowner known in the country, through his legal representatives threatens to evict them claiming to be the owner of the land on which they live.”

Facusse says that Siglo XXI Real Estate bought the 322 manzana (1 manzana = 1.7 acres) from the Real Estate Investment Corporation and that his company plans to develop a housing project there.

IM-Defensoras notes: “The Facussé family has been linked to business activities that violate the rights and common and public goods of the Honduran population, highlighting among them that derived from extractivist activity and illegal contracts with state institutions for more than 40 years.”

They add: “Lenir Pérez, owner of Inversiones Los Pinares (ILP), a company that formally accuses the defenders of Guapinol [for their resistance to his iron oxide mine], is the husband of the daughter of Miguel Facusse [who passed away in 2015], a businessman and landowner known in the area as ‘the palm tree of death’ for the introduction of African Palm on a large scale and its links in the peasant conflicts that have caused death and destruction in the area.”

We continue to follow this situation with concern.

El Espectador: “The legal dispute between a community and a [Canadian] oil company in the heart of Casanare”

On November 10, PBI-Colombia tweeted:

#COP27 Example of #ClimateChange in #Colombia: “They left destruction when they had offered well-being” in the most dangerous country for environmental defense. Case accompanied by @CSPP_ [the Committee for Solidarity with Political Prisoners] @CospaccOficial [the Social Corporation for Community Advice and Training] shows due diligence law urgency @CanadayColombia [the Embassy of Canada in Colombia]

El Espectador reports: “In San Luis de Palenque, Casanare, there is a dispute between the oil company Frontera Energy and a group of social leaders over the maintenance of a property that was worked by the company until 2015.”

“While part of the community accuses the company of bad environmental and social practices, Frontera assures that they have everything in order and that they are in the process of leaving the property in the best conditions.”

It adds: “This is a special report from Colombia+20 by El Espectador and Noticias Caracol with the backing of the German Embassy. The reporting in the territory was accompanied by Somos Defensores.”

To watch the 8-minute video report (in Spanish) click here.

On July 1, PBI-Canada visited San Luis de Palenque and met with the defenders featured in this El Espectador report. Then on October 11, we held a webinar in which they further highlighted their experiences with Frontera Energy.

To watch that webinar, click here.

We continue to follow this situation with concern.