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Naomi Klein: “Unless political freedoms are defended, there will be no meaningful climate action”

By
Brent Patterson
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Photo: Alaa Abd El Fattah and his sister Sanaa Seif.

Canadian author Naomi Klein writes:

“Beginning on 6 November, the resort of Sharm el-Sheikh in Egypt will play host to this year’s United Nations climate summit, Cop27.

Tens of thousands of delegates – world leaders, ministers, envoys, appointed bureaucrats, as well as climate activists, NGO observers and journalists – will descend on the city…

While [political prisoner] Alaa Abd El-Fattah [is on hunger strike], it’s not at all clear that the world heading to Egypt for the climate summit is thinking much about him.

Or about the estimated 60,000 other political prisoners behind bars in Egypt, where barbaric forms of torture reportedly take place…

Or about the Egyptian human rights and environmental activists, as well as critical journalists and academics, who have been harassed, spied on and barred from travel…

[The costs of climate summits include] the carbon spewed into the atmosphere as delegates travel there, the price of two weeks in hotels (steep for grassroots organisations), and the public relations bonanza enjoyed by the host government, which invariably positions itself as an eco-champion, never mind evidence to the contrary.

[The benefits include] for those two weeks, the climate crisis makes global news, often providing media platforms for powerful voices on the frontlines, from the Brazilian Amazon to Tuvalu.

[The additional cost of this summit in Egypt is greenwashing the police state led by General Abdel Fatah al-Sisi, who seized power in a military coup in 2013.]

Since taking power less than a decade ago, it has built more than two dozen new prisons.

The Egyptian communities and organisations most affected by environmental pollution and rising temperatures will be nowhere to be found in Sharm el-Sheikh.

What, for the regime, is [acceptable to discuss]? “Trash collection, recycling, renewable energy, food security, and climate finance”.

What topics are unwelcome? “Those that point out the government’s failure to protect people’s rights against damage caused by corporate interests, including issues relating to water security, industrial pollution, and environmental harm from real estate, tourism development, and agribusiness.”

Also unwelcome: “The environmental impact[s] of Egypt’s vast and opaque military business activity … are particularly sensitive, as are ‘national’ infrastructure projects such as a new administrative capital, many of which are associated with the president’s office or the military.”

And definitely don’t talk about Coca-Cola’s plastic pollution and water use – because Coke is one of the summit’s proud official sponsors.

Though reluctant to give up on the process, most serious climate activists readily concede that these summits produce little by way of science-based climate action. Year after year since they began, emissions keep going up.

For months, Egyptians in exile in Europe and the US have been pleading with NGOs to put their country’s political prisoners on the agenda of negotiations leading up to the summit. But that was never prioritised.

Egypt’s summit will probably achieve as little by way of real climate action as all the others before.

But that does not mean it won’t achieve anything: when it comes to propping up a torture regime, showering it with cash and image-cleansing photo ops, Cop27 is already a lavish gift.

There may still be time to change that script, and for the summit to become a searchlight that illuminates the connections between surging authoritarianism and climate chaos around the world… There is still time to make the case that climate justice is impossible without political freedoms.

It isn’t hard – but it does take courage. The message activists should bring to the climate summit, whether they travel to Egypt or engage from afar, is simple: unless political freedoms are defended, there will be no meaningful climate action. Not in Egypt, nor anywhere else. These issues are intertwined, as are our fates.”

To read Klein’s feature length article, please go to Greenwashing a police state: the truth behind Egypt’s Cop27 masquerade.

PBI WEBINAR, NOVEMBER 15

Peace Brigades International will be convening a webinar during COP27 with frontline environmental defenders from Colombia, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Kenya and Nicaragua.

More than 1,200 land and environmental defenders have been killed since the COP21 climate summit in Paris in December 2015.

Indigenous Lenca environmental defender Berta Caceres was assassinated in March 2016. PBI was present at a commemoration at her grave in La Esperanza, Honduras on what would have been her 50th birthday in March 2021.

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

And yet the threats, attacks, criminalization, judicialization and killings continue.

To register for this webinar, click here.

#PBIaccompanies 

PBI-Guatemala accompanies the Human Rights Law Firm and the Peaceful Resistance of La Puya at a meeting on mining projects in the territory

By
Brent Patterson
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On October 15, PBI-Guatemala posted:

“#PBI accompanies the Human Rights Law Firm (BDH) and the Peaceful Resistance of La Puya at a socialization day in San Pedro Ayampuc, about the consultation process convened in June of this year regarding the tender of mining projects in the territory.”

In June, Prensa Latina reported: “The Minister of Energy and Mines, Alberto Pimentel … stated that the Government will soon issue regulations for carrying out community consultations stipulated in Convention 169 of the International Labor Organization (ILO) on indigenous and tribal peoples.”

“In addition, the pre-consultation stage is being prepared for the Progreso VII Derivada Mining project, also known as El Tambor or La Puya.”

The article also noted: “[Pimentel] also announced that the National Mining Policy is being prepared, which is not only based on a reform of the Mining Law, but also on a broader discussion process with the rest of the country’s sectors that will be convened to carry out the exercise of defining the future of mining in the country. Other entities such as the Ministry of the Environment and others should also be integrated. According to the official, the Policy would be finished in 2023, since he wants to finish it before the change of government.”

Canadian mining in Guatemala

According to Natural Resources Canada, Canadian Mining Assets (CMA) in Guatemala were valued at $382 million in 2020 (up from $377 million the previous year). That chart further notes that six Canadian companies are operating in Guatemala.

Notably, on March 2, 2012, residents from San José del Golfo and San Pedro Ayampuc – an area known as La Puya, just north of Guatemala City – set up a 24-hour a day blockade at the entrance of the Vancouver-based Radius Gold Inc. By August 2012, the Canadian company sold El Tambor to US-based Kappes, Cassiday & Associates, but retained an economic interest in the mine (including quarterly royalty payments on the gold production from the mine).

PBI-Guatemala has accompanied the Peaceful Resistance of La Puya since November 2012 and the Human Rights Law Firm since 2013.

PBI-Honduras accompanies CNTC at meeting with campesino groups, expresses concern about violence against territorial defenders

By
Brent Patterson
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On October 17, PBI-Honduras tweeted:

“#PBI accompanies @CntcTegucigalpa [National Union of Rural Workers] during the audience of 25 people from the campesino groups ‘Men and Women of Faith’ and ‘United to the countryside’. We express concern about the levels of violence and criminalization faced by defenders of land and territory.”

The Peace Brigades International-Honduras Project began accompanying the National Union of Rural Workers (CNTC) in May 2018.

Peace Brigades International and the struggle for water justice

By
Brent Patterson
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Peace Brigades International accompanies numerous emblematic water justice struggles in Latin America. Some of those include:

COLOMBIA

Water pollution: PBI-Colombia accompanies the Regional Corporation for the Defence of Human Rights (CREDHOS) who in turn accompanies the Federation of Santander Fishers for Tourism and Environment (FEDEPESAN). Their struggle includes the pollution of the San Silvestre wetlands by the Ecopetrol refinery in Barrancabermeja and large-scale agribusiness (buffalos and palm) that harms the livelihoods of artisanal fishers.

Opposition to fracking: PBI-Colombia also accompanies the Committee for the Defence of Water, Life and Territory of Puerto Wilches (AGUAWIL) with CREDHOS. Their struggle includes resisting two fracking “pilot projects” near the Magdalena River in Santander that would be operated by Ecopetrol.

GUATEMALA

Opposition to hydroelectric dams: PBI-Guatemala accompanies the Peaceful Resistance of Cahabón, a collective of 38 Maya Q’eqchi’ communities, who oppose the construction of hydroelectric dams on the Cahabón River and its tributaries without free, prior and informed consent of the Maya Q’eqchi’ peoples.

Opposition to river diversions and water pollution by the sugar industry: PBI-Guatemala accompanies the Retalhuleu Community Council (CCR) who have seen the diversion of rivers, drought and the pollution of wells, rivers and lagoons, as well as the destruction of livelihoods caused by sugar mills in the South Coast region.

HONDURAS

Water privatization: PBI-Honduras accompanies the Alternative for Community and Environmental Reclamation of Honduras (ARCAH) in Tegucigalpa who are mobilizing against the World Bank and the planned privatization of water services which they see as a violation of the UN-recognized human right to water.

Water pollution by a poultry processing plant: ARCAH has also struggled against the poultry company ‘El Cortijo’ dumping its waste into the Choluteca River.

Water pollution by a mine: PBI-Honduras accompanies the Guapinol River defenders who have been criminalized for opposing the Inversiones Los Pinares open-pit iron oxide mine. When the company began building an access road to the site, the tap water in Guapinol turned brown and thick with muddy sediment.

MEXICO

Water takings by the fossil fuel industry: PBI-Mexico accompanies the Peoples’ Front in Defence of Land and Water – Morelos, Puebla and Tlaxcala (FPDTA-MPT) who oppose the Morelos Integral Project (PIM) that includes taking 50 million liters of water daily from the Cuautla River to cool the turbines at a thermoelectric plant.

Water takings by the bottled water industry: The Peoples’ Front has also been active in denouncing the Danone/Bonafont bottled water plant in Cuanala that has been extracting 1,641,000 litres of water per day from community water sources for the past 29 years.

Be sure to join us on Tuesday November 15 at 10 am ET when PBI accompanied defenders will speak about the intersection between climate change and water security as well as the attacks, criminalization and imprisonment they have experience due to their water justice activism. You can register at COP27 and environmental defenders.

Skat’sin te Secwepemc-Neskonlith Kukpi7 Judy Wilson challenges RBC, upholds land defenders resisting climate change

By
Brent Patterson
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Photo: Kukpi7 Judy Wilson.

CBC recently reported on Kukpi7 (which means Chief in the Secwepemc language) Judy Wilson’s visit to Montreal (on the traditional territory of the Kanien’kehà:ka).

The article by Jaela Bernstien notes: “Wilson, based in south central British Columbia, is the chief of the Skat’sin te Secwepemc-Neskonlith Indian Band and the secretary-treasurer for the Union of British Columbia Indian Chiefs (UBCIC). She’s also one of six applicants who filed a complaint to Canada’s Competition Bureau, accusing RBC of greenwashing — something that prompted the regulator to open an inquiry into whether Canada’s biggest bank misled customers about its climate action.”

The Toronto Star adds: “Investigations into false or misleading representations or deceptive marketing practices can lead to criminal charges or a civil lawsuit. The maximum penalty for corporations in civil cases is $10 million.”

RBC and the Coastal GasLink (CGL) fracked gas pipeline

In RBC’s three-page Climate Blueprint document, RBC CEO Dave McKay says: “Global plans to drastically reduce greenhouse gas emissions to net-zero by 2050 require the largest change to our economies in our lifetime, and one that the Royal Bank of Canada (RBC®) is fully committed to supporting.”

RBC Climate Blueprint video: “With a commitment to reach net-zero emissions in our lending by 2050 aligning with the international goals of the Paris Agreement.”

And yet 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.”

The Indigenous Environmental Network and Oil Change International report Indigenous Resistance Against Carbon (page 16) has also noted the Coastal GasLink fracked gas pipeline could produce 125 million metric tons of CO2 pollution annually.

Construction on the pipeline is scheduled to be completed in 2023 and would be in service for a minimum of 25 years (to 2048). Given gas pipelines can have a lifespan of 50 years, Coastal GasLink could be operational through to 2073. 

Campaign telling RBC to stop financing Coastal GasLink

Stand.earth is leading the campaign calling on RBC to defund the Coastal GasLink pipeline.

On October 6, they tweeted: “Last week, we launched a call tool with the direct lines of RBC execs to demand RBC defund the Coastal GasLink pipeline before CGL drilled under Wedzin Kwa. In response, RBC blocked us. We’re doubling down. Here’s the direct lines of @RBC execs, & a sample script.”

By October 16, Decolonial Solidarity highlighted: “More than 800 people made 2200 calls to RBC execs…1st they hung up, then turned their voicemails on and recorded grumpy messages…They even complained to the telecom carriers…Pressure is working.”

RCMP arrests Wet’suwet’en land defenders

The RCMP has launched three militarized raids (January 8, 2019; February 6-10, 2020; November 18-19, 2021) on Wet’suwet’en territory to enable construction of this fracked gas pipeline to continue without free, prior and informed consent.

Photo: RCMP raid on Wet’suwet’en territory, January 2019. Photo by Michael Toledano.

After the first militarized RCMP raid on the territory in 2019, Wilson stated: “Canadians, I think what they need to realize is that the land defenders are doing this for everybody. They’re doing it to protect the water, they’re doing it to protect the land, because with dirty oil and gas, we have to change, and it has to be immediate.”

She added: “The other thing is that the land defenders are doing this because of climate change and global warming. We can see it in the weather, we can see it in the emergency flooding and fires that we’re going through. We go right from flooding to fires in our territory. Last year a lot of this was burnt up, a lot of our communities that were affected are still struggling. Our animals were affected, our plants, our medicines, our water.”

Wilson has also commented: “The use of military force and violence against Indigenous people on the ground, and it’s not just happening at Wet’suwet’en. It’s happening everywhere … We really do need to get to that issue.”

Wilson at COP27 in Egypt

The CBC article also notes: “Wilson, who will be attending the UN Climate Change Conference in Egypt next month, said she’s learned issues must be tackled holistically.”

The United Nations Conference of Parties (COP) 27 talks will be taking place this coming November 6-18 in Egypt.

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.”

But at COP26 in Scotland last year, Global Witness highlighted that 1,005 land and environmental rights defenders had been killed since the Paris Agreement was reached at the COP21 summit in December 2015.

Many others on the frontlines of the climate crisis, like the Wet’suwet’en land defenders and water protectors arrested by the RCMP in 2019, 2020 and 2021, have been criminalized and judicialized for their defence of land, water and territory.

We continue to follow this.

Photo by Decolonial Solidarity at Bank Street and First/ Ottawa.

PBI-Colombia, CREDHOS and National Network of Artisanal Fisherman in conversation with UN Special Rapporteur on Water

By
Brent Patterson
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On October 16, PBI-Colombia tweeted:

“@ONU_es [United Nations] @SRWatSan [Special Rapporteur on Water and Sanitation] P. Arrojo highlights in dialogue with @PBIColombia, @Credhos_Paz and the National Network of Artisanal Fishermen @peibus01 the importance of water and fishing for people’s health: ‘We have to make peace with our rivers’ @PlataformaDesc [Colombian Platform for Human Rights, Democracy and Development], @EmbAlemaniaCOL [German Embassy in Colombia] @EmbajadaEspCol [Embassy of Spain in Colombia].”

On June 30 this year, CREDHOS, FEDEPESAN, PBI-Colombia and PBI-Canada visited the San Silvestre wetland ecosystem in Barrancabermeja and witnessed the impacts of the Ecopetrol refinery and large-scale agribusiness (buffalos and palm) on the water, wildlife and livelihoods of artisanal fishers.

Journalist Lise Josefsen Hermann and photographer Edu Leon were also on that observation visit. Their report can be read in El Pais at Amenazas y destierro: el precio a pagar por defender el agua en Colombia..

Arrojo’s visit to Colombia

The UN Special Rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation is on an academic visit to Colombia.

Prior to this meeting, Arrojo also participated in a panel with the Committee for the Defense and Life of Buenaventura, Wayuu Force and Women, and the Colombian Platform for Human Rights, Democracy and Development (PCDHDD).

More on that at: UN Special Rapporteur Arrojo’s visit to Colombia raises water justice issues in Buenaventura and Guajira, the murder of social leaders.

Arrojo has also highlighted the Social Forum on Water that will take place both in Geneva and online on November 3-4 of this year, as well as the UN 2023 Water Conference will be in New York on March 22-24, 2023.

For a 2-minute UNO news report on Arrojo’s visit to Colombia, please see El agua es un derecho y no una mercancía, dice Pedro Arrojo, relator de la ONU, de visita en Colombia.

Canada sends armoured vehicles to Haiti as Haitian activists call for foreign military interventions to stop

By
Brent Patterson
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Photo from CTV News.

CBC reports: “Global Affairs Canada confirmed Saturday evening that, in a joint operation, U.S. and Canadian air forces helped deliver three Mine-Resistant, Ambush-Protected (MRAP) vehicles and three commercial pattern armoured vehicles. The vehicles were purchased by the Haitian government from a Canadian company.”

For more, this is the Global Affairs Canada media release: Canada and United States coordinate delivery of Haitian National Police equipment.

CTV notes: “While Canada has pledged financial aid in recent months for Haiti, experts and activists that have been closely following the events in the country over the last two decades say Haiti needs to be left alone.”

Former Canadian ambassador to Haiti Gilles Rivard says: “We keep saying what we’ve been saying for a long time, let Haiti decide its own destiny. …There’s a lot that has to be done but that first part has to come from Haiti in my view.”

And Haitian-Canadian activist Jean Saint-Vil says: “Get out. Haitians have been telling Canada, the United States, Europe to get out.”

He adds: “The imperialists are pretending to be putting to put out fires, we are telling them that we know you are the arsonists.”

Democracy Now has also reported: “Mass protests in Haiti are condemning rising fuel prices and demanding the resignation of the U.S.-backed Prime Minister Ariel Henry. For nearly two months, street protests likened to a civil war have rocked the island nation’s capital Port-au-Prince after the government announced it would raise heavily subsidized fuel prices.”

Haitian activist Vélina Élysée Charlier told them: “The gangs that we are seeing, they are very close to the power. The government uses the gangs to control the population, to terrorize the population and try to kill any will that the population would have to protest against what’s happening. They also use the gangs so that they can change the narrative.”

Montreal-based author Yves Engler has also highlighted in Canadian Dimension magazine: “In the last two decades alone Canada helped destabilize Haiti’s elected government, planned a coup, and participated in an invasion to topple a president. Ottawa also trained and financed a highly repressive police force, enabling a litany of politically motivated arrests and killings. Canada also backed the exclusion of Haiti’s most popular party from participating in multiple elections and helped fix an election.”

PBI in Haiti (1993-2001)

In 1993, in response to increasing military violence in Haiti after the 1991 coup, Peace Brigades International participated in the Cry for Justice coalition with dozens of other organizations including Christian Peacemaker Teams.

Cry for Justice sent 75 volunteers to Haiti in late 1993 to provide a short-term peaceful presence in six different towns suffering from high levels of violence.

After the return of Haitian president Jean-Bertrand Aristide in 1995, PBI fielded a long-term team that offered training programs in nonviolent conflict resolution.

The aim was to establish a network of Haitian trainers to continue the work in a country devastated by years of tyranny and military rule.

Aristide’s government was overthrown in February 2004.

The film Haiti Betrayed documents how Canada worked with the United States and France to topple the Aristide government.

We continue to follow this situation.

Image: PBI in Haiti.

Ecopetrol wants to develop Platero fracking pilot project near Puerto Wilches, Colombia

By
Brent Patterson
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Photo: The site of existing Manatí 1 conventional well where the Colombian state-owned oil company Ecopetrol wants to develop the Platero pilot fracking site. The Magdalena River is seen in the background. Image from the Podion Corporation.

The nonprofit environmental science and conservation news platform Mongabay reports: “Colombia has authorized two fracking pilot projects, Platero and Kalé, both in the municipality of Puerto Wilches, in the northeastern department of Santander.”

Please read “With fracking promising a quick energy boost, can Colombia say no?” by Dimitri Selibas in Mongabay.

Platero was first submitted to the National Hydrocarbons Agency (ANH) in March 2021. The ANH gave its provisional approval of that proposal later that month. It is now awaiting approval by the Environmental Licensing Authority (ANLA). Kalé was approved by the ANH in November 2020 and approved by ANLA this past February.

Both pilots would be operated by Ecopetrol.

In May, Ecopetrol said it expected to begin drilling at Kalé in October and at Platero in the first quarter of 2023. By September, the company reportedly asked the ANH to pause the contracts for 90 days pending a decision on the anti-fracking law.

Canadian interests in the pilot projects

On a PBI-Canada webinar in May of this year, Edmonton-based researcher Bronwen Tucker of Oil Change International shared a slide that says that Export Development Canada, the Government of Canada owned export credit agency, has provided $300,000,000 in financing to Ecopetrol between 2012 and 2020.

An Oil Change International co-authored report also documents that Toronto-based Scotiabank provided USD $665 million to Ecopetrol in 2018, another $666.67 million in 2020, and $1.7 billion in 2021 for a total of $3.0 billion in financing.

And Toronto-based Sintana Energy has confirmed it holds an undivided 30% non-operated participation interest in Block VMM-37 where Platero would happen.

Beyond this and Calgary-based Parex Resources having an exploration and production contract to frack (more on that below), Calgary-based Canacol Energy Ltd. has also commented that the two pilots are “positive steps towards realizing the commercial potential of the unconventional shale oil field in Colombia and specifically for the resources prospects that we have through our position in the Middle Magdalena Valley basin.”

If fracking were commercially approved in Colombia, Canacol would likely seek to explore and extract from the VMM-2/Plata and VMM-3/Piranga projects near San Martin, Cesar, in collaboration with the American transnational ConocoPhillips.

Threats against anti-fracking activists

The Mongabay article highlights: “During this period [2018 to the present], there’s been a rise in threats and violence against anti-fracking activists in Puerto Wilches, site of the two pilot projects. The [Alliance for a Colombia Free of Fracking] recorded 20 cases in the first four months of 2022, mostly targeting young women.”

In April 2021, 21-year-old Afro-Colombian anti-fracking activist Yuvelis Natalia Morales of Aguawil told PBI-Canada: “When we became a problem for the oil companies, those interested in promoting fracking and its economic benefits, they started to threaten, stigmatize, and silence us. More than eight of our youth have been threatened.”

The first death threat against Morales came in January 2021, not long after she had organized a protest in December 2020. Morales says: “Some armed men came to my house and trapped me. They put a gun to my head.”

Scotiabank’s climate commitments

Scotiabank has stated: “In support of the Government of Canada’s net-zero commitments, the Paris Agreement on Climate Change, and as a signatory to the Net-Zero Banking Alliance (NZBA), Scotiabank has made a commitment to being a net-zero bank.”

It adds: “We are committed to transparency on climate-related risks and will continue to align climate related disclosures with the recommendations of the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD). We disclose climate-related information in our Annual Report, ESG [environmental, social, and corporate governance] Report and annual CDP [carbon disclosure project] submission.”

It’s unclear how Scotiabank reconciles its financing of Ecopetrol, and allegations of Ecopetrol’s links with paramilitary violence against environmental defenders, with its stated commitment to the Paris Agreement on Climate Change.

Risk of “free trade” challenge

Mongabay notes: “[An] anti-fracking bill went through its first debate in parliament on Aug. 15 and still needs to go through another three rounds before it goes up for a vote.”

“There are also seven other contracts for non-conventional oil and gas extraction, worth a combined $517.4 million, signed between 2013 and 2016 with multinational companies Drummond, ConocoPhillips and Parex Resources.”

The article cautions: “Banning fracking and other non-conventional extraction could saddle Colombia with enormous legal bills as the companies that signed contracts could pursue claims through international investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) mechanisms for lost investment and future profits.”

Given the Canada-Colombia Free Trade Agreement, Parex Resources could be in a position to launch a multi-million-dollar ISDS challenge against Colombia.

We continue to follow this situation.

Photo: On June 28, PBI-Canada met with a PBI-Colombia accompanied CREDHOS convened meeting of social leaders in Puerto Wilches and heard their determination to stop fracking and to defend life, water and territory. On July 5, we shared those concerns with the Embassy of Canada in Bogota.

UN Special Rapporteur Arrojo’s visit to Colombia raises water justice issues in Buenaventura and Guajira, the murder of social leaders

By
Brent Patterson
-

Photo: Arrojo sees water as a tool for peace.

The UN Special Rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation is on an academic visit to Colombia.

The National University of Colombia reports that Arrojo stated:

“In reports this year there was already talk of the need for society to make peace with rivers, that there should be a natural engineering that promotes the governance of water as a common good and not as a commodity, a situation that was seen, for example, with water being traded on Wall Street.”

Arrojo also participated in a panel with the Committee for the Defense and Life of Buenaventura, Wayuu Force and Women, and the Colombian Platform for Human Rights, Democracy and Development (PCDHDD).

The article highlights: “At the event, sociologist Andreiev Pinzón from the Buenaventura Committee said that it is incredible that the municipality has 9 watersheds, through which around 10,000 m3 flow by the second of this resource, and the community does not have water, which is a consequence of government management focused on water being part of projects for the docks or trains, but not for the population.”

For more please see our article: PBI-Colombia accompanies Nomadesc at meeting with UN representative and rural communities from Buenaventura.

“Indigenous leader Miguel Socarrás from the Wayuu community explained the problem of La Guajira pointing out that each year around 30 million liters of water are used in mining processes that affect the Ranchería River, the main tributary of the region, and specifically the Bruno stream, which causes the community to have a shortage of vital liquid.”

For more please see our article: PBI-Colombia accompanied CCAJAR highlights concerns about Cerrejón mine that exports coal from Colombia to Canada.

And “Aura Rodríguez, representative of the PCDHDD, said that some of the most serious problems associated with water in the country are its use in agribusiness, in products such as sugar cane or flowers, in addition to fracking, sugary drink companies, power and electricity generation, and the murder of social leaders.”

For more on this please see our article: Oscar Sampayo: “We have recorded at least 20 acts of human rights violations against voices that refuse fracking”

PBI and the right to water in Colombia

Last month, Kim-Mai Vu of Peace Brigades International presented at the United Nations in Geneva during the Interactive Dialogue with Arrojo.

She highlighted: “In Colombia, territorial communities have historically suffered persecution and forced displacement: it is the case of Putumayo, Magdalena Medio and Chocó, and of organizations such as Adispa, Justice and Peace Commission, Aguawil, Fedepesan and Credhos, who denounce corruption and contamination of rivers and swamps by companies national and transnational. To date there has been no progress in the investigations of the Prosecutor’s Office.”

In his comments, Arrojo responded: “To the indigenous peoples and social movements, like Peace Brigades International – so dear to me from the past, and so many other movements, let’s prepare the Social Water Forum, let’s prepare the Water conference in New York. This time it is not a question of organizing alternative forums, dear friends, but of developing this historic opportunity for dialogue with the United Nations to its full potential.”

The Social Forum will take place both in Geneva and online on November 3-4 of this year, while the UN 2023 Water Conference will be in New York on March 22-24, 2023.

The full article about Arrojo’s visit to Colombia can be read at “Se puede vivir sin oro o sin carbón, pero no sin agua”: Pedro Arrojo, relator de la ONU. For more, there is also the video of the panel with Arrojo at Derecho Humano al agua: riesgos, resistencias y perspectivas en el contexto de la crisis climática.

#GuacamayaLeaks reveals 62 oil and chemical spills in Colombia between 2015 and 2020

By
Brent Patterson
-

Illustration by Erick Retana.

Agence France-Presse (AFP) is reporting on the continued revelations by the Guacamaya information-hacking collective that is associated with the Citizen Lab (that studies digital threats to civil society) based at the University of Toronto.

We have previously highlighted that #GuacamayaLeaks revealed that the National Defense Secretariat in Mexico had surveilled the PBI-Mexico accompanied Cerezo Committee. It has previously been noted that the PBI-Mexico accompanied Tlachinollan Human Rights Centre has also been targeted by the military with Pegasus spyware.

More on that at PBI-Mexico concerned Cerezo Committee on list the Ministry of National Defence targeted with Pegasus spyware.

Now AFP reports:

“In Colombia, Guacamaya claimed to have obtained more than 300,000 private emails from the military forces and the state prosecutor’s office, although the hack has yet to generate the same level of controversy there as in Mexico.

The Colombian army said it was “aware of the possible extraction of information from the general command.”

Guacamaya also released tens of thousands of emails from the National Hydrocarbons Agency and a private company, New Granada Energy Corp.

The records revealed 62 oil and chemical spills between 2015 and 2020.

Most of these “environmental incidents” were not reported to authorities, according to internal communications from New Granada Energy…”

Mongabay Latam recently reported that there have been 2,133 oil incidents and spills in Colombia from 2015 to June 2022. 

At least 92 of those incidents are linked to Canadian companies: Frontera Energy/Pacific Rubiales (56), Gran Tierra (26) and Parex Resources (10).

The Mongabay analysis was based on figures collected by the National Environmental Licensing Authority (ANLA) accessed through Oscar Sampayo of the Yariguíes Regional Corporation (CRY-GEAM) and Senator Fabián Díaz.

Sampayo comments: “Official information on spills, incidents and operational failures in Colombia raises several questions. First, if there is an under-registration of the information. Second, whether the oil companies file the truthful and timely information about the spills. And third, whether the institutions and environmental authorities have the tools to verify or corroborate the information provided by the oil companies.”

Ciper Chile has also reported on communications by the Colombian Army that notes their concern on the consequences for Colombia of the election of progressive Gabriel Boric as the president of Chile in December 2021.

Biobiochile.cl highlights that those communications note the Colombian Army’s concern about “the negative trend of imports of coal and Colombian oil [main export products to Chile], pressured by the accelerated implementation of the change in the energy matrix that Chile advances as part of compliance with the Paris Agreements.”

In its most recent report, Decade of Defiance, Global Witness documents the killing of 1,733 land and environmental defenders over the past 10 years.

322 of those were killed in Colombia.

We continue to follow this situation in relation to the safety and security of environmental and human rights defenders.

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