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PBI-Colombia accompanies CJL at meetings with United Nations in New York, members of Congress in Washington

By
Brent Patterson
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On October 10, PBI-Colombia tweeted:

“We start tour with @CorpoJuridicaLi [Corporation for Judicial Freedom] in New York with dialogues with Missions of @un_council [UN Security Council], presenting proposals from civil society before the challenges and opportunities facing the implementation of the Peace Agreement and the new opportunities for peace in #Colombia.”

Then on October 11, PBI-Colombia tweeted:

“We continue our tour in New York with @CorpoJuridicaLi and @UN_Claretians [a religious congregation of the Catholic Church]. On the eve of the Security Council session on Colombia, we held meetings expressing that peace must be built from the territories and listening to the communities and civil society.”

And on October 12, PBI-Colombia tweeted:

“Communiqué of the @CorpoJuridicaLi and @UN_Claretians during the advocacy tour in New York, in the framework of the UN Security Council Session on Colombia. In the meetings of the tour, the challenges and opportunities for peace in Colombia were presented @MisionONUCol [UN Verification Mission in Colombia].”

The communiqué states:

“Within the framework of the advocacy tour, in New York from October 10 to 12, 2022, the Corporation for Judicial Freedom – CJL, an NGO that is part of the Colombia-Europe United States Coordination and PROCLADE International [a non-governmental organization promoted by the Claretian Missionaries], have been received by the Colombian Mission to the UN, as well as by several Security Council Missions; as well as UN officials and representatives of civil society in NY, to talk about the implementation of the Peace Agreement, the challenges and opportunities brought by the new political context of the country and the role of social organizations.

In each meeting, the Colombian delegation has spoken about the current humanitarian and human rights crisis that many of Colombia’s regions are going through, as well as the lack of guarantees for the work of leaders and to protect the lives of former FARC combatants, all this due to the failure of the previous national government to fully implement the Peace Agreement. This reality, which continues to affect mainly ethnic and peasant communities, differs from the view of some sectors of the international community, which consider Colombia a successful experience of peace worldwide.”

The following day, October 13, PBI-Colombia also tweeted:

“After meetings in NY for the #UNSC session, we arrived in Washington to speak with congressmen about the importance of regional humanitarian agreements and an active participation of civil society in the emergency plan for the protection of social leaders.”

PBI-Colombia has accompanied the Corporation for Judicial Freedom since 2000.

PBI-Colombia with CJL Founder Elkin Ramírez.

PBI-Mexico accompanies International Day of Indigenous Resistance march in Mexico City

By
Brent Patterson
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On October 13, PBI-Mexico tweeted:

“On #October12, International Day of #IndigenousResistance, we accompanied the March in CDMX [Mexico City], in the framework of global action against #militarization and capitalist and patriarchal war, led by Indigenous organizations and communities.”

EFE reports: “Representatives of indigenous communities and students marched on Wednesday [October 12] in the Mexican capital to demand ‘a stop to militarization and the capitalist and patriarchal war against the peoples of Mexico and the world.’ The massive demonstration, which began in the Angel of Independence and would end in the Zócalo of the capital, criticized, mainly, the strategy of the Mexican Government to maintain until 2028 the presence of the Armed Forces in public security tasks.”

La Jornada adds: “The walk was led by the National Indigenous Congress (CNI), followed by the contingents of the parents of Ayotzinapa, [the Indigenous] students of that same rural normal [teachers] school [who were disappeared by the military in September 2014], mothers looking for their disappeared relatives, students of various universities and members of various trade union and social organizations.”

The BBC further explains: “Mexico’s Congress has voted in favour of extending the presence of the military on the streets until 2028. Troops have been carrying out public security duties for years as part of Mexico’s war against drugs and the gangs which control their trade. But critics say extending the military’s duties for another four years further militarises the country. Rights groups say the militarisation of police duties has led to human rights abuses and further violence. Accusations of human rights abuses by the military hit the headlines again last month when a retired general and two other members of the army were arrested over their alleged links to the disappearance of 43 students in 2014.”

The banners in the photo above reference Indigenous Náhuatl land defender Samir Flores Soberanes.

Samir Flores

Flores was a vocal opponent of the Morelos Integral Project (PIM).

On February 20, 2019, he was shot in his home in Amilcingo, Morelos and died later that day in hospital. He was 35 years old.

The Peoples’ Front in Defence of Land and Water (FPDTA) described his murder as “a political crime for the human rights defence that Samir and the FPDTA carried out against the [PIM] and for people’s autonomy and self-determination.”

The PIM megaproject includes a 171-kilometre gas pipeline across the states of Tlaxcala, Puebla and Morelos; a gas-fuelled thermoelectric plant in the town of Huexca, Morelos; and a 12-kilometre aqueduct to divert water from the Cuautla River to cool the turbines at the thermoelectric plant.

The FPDTA has stated: “[Mexican President] Lopez Obrador [supporting the PIM] betrays the peasant and the promise of change of his government, to favour transnational corporations [including] Canadian miners like Alamos Gold, among others.”

Toronto-based Alamos Gold has reportedly reactivated work on their Esperanza open-pit gold mine near the community of Tetlama (about 60 kilometres due west of Huexca). Mines can be energy-intensive and could use electricity generated by the plant.

In January 2022, Pie de Pagina reported: “Inhabitants of more than 16 Nahua towns and colonies of Morelos marched to protest the entry of the Canadian company Alamos Gold in the municipality of Temixco, Morelos with the intention of exploiting gold and silver in an open pit. They demand that the municipality declare its territory free of mining and Semarnat [the Secretariat of the Environment and Natural Resources] reject the entry of the mining company”

PBI-Mexico began to accompany the Peoples’ Front in 2020.

Wet’suwet’en land defender Eve Saint challenges RBC at Competition Bureau over greenwashing

By
Brent Patterson
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The Toronto Star reports: “The Competition Bureau has opened an inquiry into the marketing practices of the Royal Bank of Canada over allegations of “greenwashing” as the country’s biggest bank promotes its efforts to fight climate change.”

That article adds: “A coalition of six Indigenous leaders and land defenders and individual environmental activists filed an application claiming … the bank is actually exacerbating climate change by continuing to provide financing for fossil fuel development and expansion.”

The six applicants include Wet’suwet’en land defender Eve Saint who opposes the RBC financed Coastal GasLink (CGL) fracked gas pipeline being built on her territory and under the Wedzin Kwa river without free, prior and informed consent.

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.”

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

Saint says: “Wet’suwet’en Hereditary Chiefs recently travelled across Canada in a Nation-to-Nation tour to raise awareness about the Coastal Gaslink project and the role RBC plays as financier of the project. It has violated so many of the Wet’suwet’en’s Indigenous rights, including by militarized attacks on the Wet’suwet’en. As drilling begins on our lands, now more than ever, we must stand up and speak out about RBC’s continued funding of fossil fuel infrastructure like Coastal Gaslink and how it contributes directly to climate chaos and undermines reconciliation in Canada.”

Since January 2019, more than 74 land defenders, legal observers and members of the media have been arrested in three militarized raids by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) to allow the construction of the pipeline to continue. And over the three-month period of March to May 2022, the RCMP have attended the Gidimt’en village near the CGL drill pad site by Wedzin Kwa 269 times. This despite the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination repeatedly calling on Canada to remove the RCMP from Wet’suwet’en territory.

PBI-Canada visited the territory at the time of the third raid in November 2021.

The Toronto Star has noted: “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.”

We continue to follow this.

PBI mobilizes for COP27 summit

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

One of those killed was Indigenous Lenca water protector Berta Caceres in Honduras.

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.

We will be helping to bring together PBI accompanied environmental defenders for a webinar next month during the COP27 summit.

We feel it’s important that their voices be heard.

Looks for the details, date and list of speakers coming soon.

If you can help us with a donation for this webinar, please click here.

And be sure to follow us on Twitter for daily updates on PBI accompaniments, including news about the COP27 summit.

Accompaniment updates

PBI field volunteer webinar, Sunday October 23

PBI-Canada webinar: Frontera Energy vs San Luis de Palenque, Colombia

Canadian Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault visits Colombia – were extractivism and human rights on the agenda?

Wet’suwet’en man denied access to ancestral territory by RCMP as CGL drills under Wedzin Kwa

The Breach reports on Toronto-based GCM and paramilitaries in Northeast Antioquia, Colombia

PBI to highlight role of environmental defenders during UN COP27 talks in Egypt

By
Brent Patterson
-

COPINH tweet: The image of Lenca environmental rights defender Berta Caceres was projected on a building in Glasgow during the COP26 summit last year. Caceres was killed in March 2016, just months after the COP21 summit in Paris.

To register for our COP27 webinar on November 15, please click here.

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.

And Tla’amin land defender Ta’Kaiya Blaney stated: “My land and waters are under the genocidal illegal occupation of the Canadian government, resource extraction industries and international corporations that are bleeding us dry of our birthright, the salmon, the cedars, the soil. Myself and all my relatives here have been criminalized, surveilled and experienced violence at the hands of the police, the hands of RCMP and injunctions issued by colonial governments to remove us from our lands when we get in the way of profits.”

And yet the 71-point draft text that emerged from COP26 made no reference to land and environmental rights defenders.

Two weeks ago, Global Witness published a report that documented that another 200 land and environmental defenders were killed in 2021.

We express our concern that defenders continue to be attacked despite their vital work protecting the environment and fighting climate change.

Many others are highlighting this concern in the context of COP summits.

Last year, 19 organizations, including PBI-UK, signed this letter in the lead-up to COP26 that urged governments around the world to: “Strengthen protection arrangements for environmental human rights defenders, through measures such as protection grants, amnesties and funding for rapid response emergency mechanisms.”

Fridays for Future has also demanded: “Stop the violence and criminalization against indigenous peoples, small farmers, small fisherfolk, and other environmental and land defenders. Support the work they do. Respect and listen to our defenders.”

And 100+ organizations at the Global Women’s Assembly for Climate Justice called “on all governments to immediately halt the criminalization of land defenders, whose efforts are central to a climate-just world.”

Concerns about COP27

Last year, Blaney also stated: “COP26 is a performance, it’s an illusion constructed to salvage capitalist economies rooted in resource extraction and colonialism. I didn’t come here to fix the agenda I came here to disrupt it. Colonialism is what caused climate change and I’m not going to my colonizers for solutions.”

This year, concerns have been expressed about the summit taking place in Egypt. UN Special Rapporteurs recently highlighted: “Arrests and detention, NGO asset freezes and dissolutions and travel restrictions against human rights defenders have created a climate of fear for Egyptian civil society organizations to engage visibly at the COP27.”

And it has been lamented that Coca-Cola – which has been implicated in the killing of trade unionists in Colombia – is a sponsor of the summit.

PBI webinars

Last year, PBI organized this webinar on COP26 with Nelly Madegwa (Kenya), Sandra Calel (Guatemala), Danilo Rueda (Colombia), Juana Ramona Zuñiga (Honduras), Amaru Ruiz (Nicaragua) and Valeria Villalobos (Mexico). More than 400 people from 17 countries registered to watch this webinar via Zoom.

This year, we will be organizing again.

PBI-UK has already signed this joint letter that cautions the transition to a decarbonized economy must uphold human rights. The letter states: “[There have been] at least 369 attacks on human rights, labour and environmental defenders around the world since 2015, including 98 killings, related to renewable energy projects, and 148 attacks, among them 13 killings, related to transition minerals mining.”

Webinar on COP27, November 15

To register for our COP27 webinar on November 15, please click here.

PBI-Kenya project officer Florence Mwikali and WHRD Toolkit Organizer Jecinter Agunja on advocacy tour

By
Brent Patterson
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Photo (left to right): PBI-Kenya project officer Florence Mwikali, UN Human Rights Officer, WHRD Toolkit Organizer Jecinter Agunja.

On October 12, PBI-Kenya tweeted: “The first stop on our international advocacy tour that started this week, is #Switzerland. Jecinter Agunja, #WHRD Toolkit Organiser, together with PBI Kenya’s Florence met with the Human Rights Officer for @UNHumanRights Topics: Elections and the work of the Toolkit Organisers.”

Florence Mwikali is a project officer at Peace Brigades International (PBI) in Kenya, an organization supporting human rights defenders. She is a human rights defender herself and a gender enthusiast, with extensive experience on gender and human rights issues. She has previously been involved with Amnesty International Kenya and the Coalition on Violence against Women (COVAW) and has a wealth of experience in training on women’s human rights, particularly sexual and reproductive health rights, gender equality, and violence against women. She envisions a gender-equal society, where everyone’s rights are respected.

Jecinter Agunja is a human right defender, feminist, and activist for women’s and girls’ rights. She has been involved with PBI Kenya’s project on sexual and gender-based violence since its launch in 2016. She is also a member of the Kenyan Coalition for Grassroots Human Rights Defenders. She envisions a violence-free society that ensures equality and respects everyone’s rights, regardless of gender, sexuality, age or race. She is committed to being a necessary agent of change in society and to returning to her community to continue to train people.

PBI-Kenya will also be visiting France and the Spanish State this month. We continue to follow this advocacy tour with great interest.

PBI in Kenya

As noted on the PBI website: “Kenyan human rights defenders (HRDs) face numerous challenges and threats, particularly if they work in informal settlements and rural areas, or if they work on sensitive topics such as the ICC trials, land rights, or corruption. PBI has been working to support Kenyan HRDs since January 2013, following extensive field and desk-based research into the human rights situation in the country and the needs of defenders.”

Field volunteer webinar, October 23

By
Brent Patterson
-

I hope you can join us on Sunday October 23 at 2 pm ET for a Peace Brigades International field volunteer webinar where we will hear from Roslynn, Duna and Clara what it is like to be a PBI brigadista accompanying at-risk human rights defenders in Honduras and Mexico.

To register for the webinar, please click here.

For more background on who is speaking and the webinar itself, click here.

If you can help amplify this call-out on social media, please help retweet this.

Thanks!
Brent

PBI field volunteer webinar, Sunday October 23

By
Brent Patterson
-

Join us on Sunday October 23 at 2 pm ET to hear PBI staff and volunteers speak about what it is like to be a field volunteer/brigadista!

To register for this webinar, click here.

Bring your questions!

The webinar will feature:

Roslynn Beighton, field volunteer with PBI-Honduras.

Duna Manent Puigjaner, Training Coordinator with PBI-Mexico.

Clara van Tienhoven Amil, former field volunteer with PBI-Mexico now Volunteer Coordinator with PBI’s team in Mexico City.

It will be moderated by Andrew Miller, a PBI-Colombia field team member in 1999-2000 and now Advocacy Director, Amazon Watch.

This webinar is happening just prior to the October 28 deadline for volunteer applications to the PBI-Mexico Project.

To register for this webinar, click here.

For more on that application process, click here.

PBI-Canada is co-organizing this webinar with PBI-UK, PBI-USA and PBI-Nederland in collaboration with PBI-Mexico.

For more on this, please also see the PBI-UK article: PBI Webinar: Volunteering for Human Rights.

PBI-Canada webinar: Frontera Energy vs San Luis de Palenque, Colombia

By
Brent Patterson
-

On October 11, PBI-Canada and PBI-Colombia collaborated on a webinar featuring Ferney Salcedo and Yulivel Leal, criminalized social leaders from San Luis de Palenque, and Reymundo Velasquez from the Committee of Solidarity with Political Prisoners (CSPP) and Ninfa Cruz from the Social Corporation for Community Advice and Training (COSPACC).

The webinar, facilitated by Luis van Isschot, focused on the criminalization of social leaders by the Calgary-based oil company Frontera Energy.

Additional background on this can be read at PBI webinar with social leaders criminalized by Canadian oil company in Colombia, October 11.

To watch the webinar in original English/Spanish audio, click here.

Ferney Salcedo: “Frontera seeks to silence the voice of everyone who exercises leadership to claim the rights that correspond to the community.”

“We social leaders make complaints about environmental impacts, contaminated water, and every time we make complaints, we take a risk.”

Yulivel Leal: “On November 27, 2018, I was captured in my home, the judge ordered house arrest. I lived under the control of an electronic device for 22 months.”

“What you experience is frustration. We are from the countryside, they locked us up in a city between four walls, it affected my children psychologically.”

“The situation with Frontera Energy remains the same or worse than in 2018, they continue to violate the rights of communities and workers. The only thing that interests them is the oil that they take from the land, they do not try to recover the damages.”

Recently, thanks to PBI, COSPACC and the CSPP, we paid a visit to an oil spill directly into a water source, without the company having done anything. The only thing we need is to take care of the environment, take care of the water sources.”

Reymundo Vásquez: “At the time of the judicialization events, reserved cooperation agreements were signed, agreements that promoted that the military forces could provide security to the company’s facilities.”

“In Yopal, Casanare there were more than 15 agreements signed between Frontera and Ecopetrol, which committed not only the Public Force, but also the Prosecutor’s Office, to form structures that ensure the security of companies.”

Ninfa Cruz: “”The XVI Brigade is the one that has its battalions to take care of the oil wells in Casanare, for the communities there are no personnel, for the companies there is.”

“It is no secret that wherever oil exploitation was going to be carried out, the XVI Brigade arrived to accompany companies, while they seized peasants, murdered them, and made them pass as false positives, under the command of General Torres Escalante.”

“We peasants demand from companies for environmental damage. Those peasants who demand their rights to the territory are displaced, stigmatized, singled out or killed. And that extermination of those of us who defend the environment and territory continues.”

To watch the full webinar, click here.

This webinar is a follow-up to a PBI-Canada visit to San Luis de Palenque on July 1 where we met Ferney, Yulivel, Reymundo and Ninfa.

Canadian Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault visits Colombia – were extractivism and human rights on the agenda?

By
Brent Patterson
-

Photo by the Embassy of Canada in Colombia.

Canada’s environment minister Steven Guilbeault has just visited Colombia – where 322 environmental defenders have been killed over the past decade.

What was discussed?

On October 9, Environment Canada provided some context when it tweeted: “Tomorrow Minister Guilbeault begins his visit to Colombia, Chile and Argentina to advance cooperation on climate and nature priorities, including working with partners toward a Global Biodiversity Framework at #COP15.”

COP15 refers to the United Nations biodiversity conference that will take place at the Palais des Congrès in Montreal this coming December 7-19.

And on the day of the meeting, the Canadian Embassy in Colombia tweeted: “Welcome to Colombia Steven Guilbeault, Minister of the Environment and Climate Change of Canada @environmentca! He had productive discussions with his counterpart from @MinAmbienteCo [the Ministry of the Environment] @susanamuhamad on our shared priorities to protect the environment & biodiversity & fight climate change.”

The Colombian Ministry of the Environment also tweeted:

“The Minister @susanamuhamad and the Minister of @environmentca @s_guilbeault met to review the progress of the Post 2020 Acceleration Mechanism that seeks to strengthen cooperation in biodiversity conservation and adaptation to climate change.”

The Ministry added:

“In order to raise the ambition in #COP27 Climate Change and #COP15 Biodiversity, we will work on an exchange of experiences to generate greater inclusion of communities as strategic actors in the management processes of #ColombiaWorldPowerofLife.”

Notably, the Colombian Minister of Mines and Energy, Irene Vélez-Torres, also met with Guilbeault and tweeted:

“We met with the Minister of the Environment and Climate Change of Canada, @s_guilbeault, with whom we discussed cooperation opportunities to learn about good practices of popular economies and work with indigenous communities in matters of #EnergyTransition.”

Ten areas of concern

1- Above Ground has documented: “Between 2018 and 2020, Canada provided more public finance for fossil fuels than any other country in the G20. Nearly all of this financing was delivered through Export Development Canada (EDC), which provided on average $13.6 billion a year in support to Canadian and foreign oil and gas companies. This was 22 times greater than EDC’s support for renewable energy.”

Can the Minister comment on how much EDC financing during this period went to Canadian fossil fuel corporations operating in Colombia? Is there a commitment to phase out or end this financing? Has an analysis been done on the relationship between this financing and the risks faced by environmental defenders?

2- Of the 69 oil and gas exploration blocks awarded in Colombia between 2019 and 2021 by the previous government, 39 went to Canadian companies. Natural Resources Canada has also reported that at $8 billion in 2018, Colombia was second largest location for Canadian Energy Assets Abroad (CEAA).

Can the Minister comment on the carbon/environmental footprint and human rights implications of these new exploration contracts?

3- In September, Mongabay Latam reported that there have been 2,133 oil incidents and spills in Colombia from 2015 to June 2022. At least 92 of those incidents have been linked to Canadian companies namely Frontera Energy/Pacific Rubiales (56), Gran Tierra (26) and Parex Resources (10).

Can the Minister comment on these incidents and efforts to prevent future incidents in the context of the human right to water and a clean environment?

4- According to Canada Energy Regulator (CER), Canada imported 10,872 barrels of oil per day from Colombia in 2021. CER also notes that all of that was exported to the province of New Brunswick. In March, the National Post reported that an oil tanker carrying bunker oil from Colombia to the Irving Oil refinery in Saint John, New Brunswick rerouted because the Russian shipping company carrying the oil had been blacklisted by the United States.

Can the Minister comment on the environmental, climate and human rights context of Canadian oil imports from Colombia?

5- In July, Mongabay reported: “Many Indigenous leaders and human rights advocates say [the 30×30 initiative in the Global Biodiversity Framework to be discussed at the COP15 biodiversity summit in Montreal] may lead to the mass eviction of Indigenous and local communities for the creation of more protected areas.”

Can the Minister comment on this concern about militarized dispossession of Indigenous peoples in the name of conservation?

6- Mines and energy minister Vélez-Torres has stated “there will be no fracking” in Colombia. But El Tiempo has reported Calgary-based Parex Resources has a signed exploration agreement for Block VMM-9 in the Magdalena Medio region (dated September 18, 2014). And last month, the CEO of Calgary-based Frontera Energy told Semana: “I think the Duque Government’s approach with scientific [fracking] pilots to obtain supported information is the right one. I don’t think it’s convenient to deny us that opportunity.”

Can the Minister comment on Canada’s position on fracking in relation to Canadian companies wanting to frack in Colombia? Can the Minister also comment on the possibility the investor-state dispute settlement mechanism in the Canada-Colombia Free Trade Agreement could be used by Parex Resources to sue Colombia over lost future profits?

7- On the day of the Minister’s visit to Colombia, El Pais reported: “The Colombian Congress has approved on Monday the bill that allows the country to ratify the Escazú Agreement, a treaty signed between several countries in Latin America and the Caribbean that seeks to protect the environment and human rights [and protect environmental defenders].”

Global Affairs Canada has previously refused to support adoption of the Escazu Agreement in Colombia (while notably Germany, Sweden and Norway publicly expressed their support for the agreement). Does the Minister now welcome the ratification of the agreement? Will the Embassy support environmental defenders to fulfil the promise of the agreement? Will the Voices at Risk guidelines be updated to reflect the responsibilities of Canadian missions in relation to the Escazu Agreement?

8- Canadian oil companies have been implicated in specific situations involving criminalization and human rights violations. This includes Frontera Energy and the community of San Luis de Palenque in Colombia. UN Special Rapporteur Michel Forst expressed his concern about “the apparent connection between Frontera Energy, the army’s 16th brigade and the Attorney General’s Support Office in this criminalization.”

Can the Minister comment on the situation in San Luis de Palenque, the use of protection agreements by Canadian companies, and the overall context of threats and attacks faced by environmental defenders and social leaders in Colombia?

9- In May, Al Jazeera reported: “Local environmental defenders [in the Magdalena Medio region of Colombia] and a representative of the JEP [Special Jurisdiction for Peace] told Al Jazeera that they suspected a connection between the paramilitary groups intimidating them and the state-owned Ecopetrol, which is behind the fracking project. The company has been accused of having ties with the Gulf Clan [AGC] specifically.” Oil Change International has documented that both Export Development Canada and Toronto-based Scotiabank have provided significant amounts of financing to Ecopetrol.

The Breach has also just reported on Toronto-based mining company GCM (aka Gran Colombia Gold) operating in Segovia a “town as belonging to the most powerful criminal armed group in Colombia, the Gaitanista Self Defense Forces of Colombia.”

Is the Minister concerned by allegations of a relationship between Canadian interests and paramilitary violence against land and environmental defenders?

10- On March 21, 2019, the United Nations Human Rights Council passed this resolution that states: “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.”

Does the Minister support a clear recognition of the role of environmental defenders (and the need for protection mechanisms for them) in the final declaration that will emerge from the COP27 climate summit this November?

We continue to follow the relationship between Canadian foreign policy, extractivism and the risks faced by frontline environmental defenders in Colombia.

WEBINAR TODAY!

Join us today (Tuesday October 11 at 2 pm ET) to hear from social leaders and environmental defenders speak about the criminalization experienced by the community of San Luis de Palenque in Colombia by the Canadian oil company Frontera Energy. To register for this webinar, click here.

PBI met with the community on July 1.

Peace Brigades International has had an on-the-ground presence in Colombia accompanying frontline human rights defenders since 1994.

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