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What countries came to CANSEC to buy weapons?

By
Brent Patterson
-

Photo by Koozma J. Tarasoff.

What countries were buying weapons at the CANSEC arms show in Ottawa this past week?

We can confirm the United Kingdom, Israel and Qatar were there.

And we know Argentina, Bahrain, Chile, Colombia, Kuwait, Mexico, Peru, and Saudi Arabia have attended a previous CANSEC arms show.

It’s also plausible that the Philippines and the United Arab Emirates were at CANSEC.

Past buyers of Canadian military equipment may have also been there, including Brazil, Brunei, Egypt, Haiti, Indonesia, Morocco, Turkey, and Singapore.

Lack of transparency about attendance

This guess work is needed because the Canadian Association of Defence and Security Industries (CADSI), the organizers of CANSEC, aren’t saying who came.

While CADSI has boasted that 55 international delegations would be present, they have not publicly disclosed a list of those countries.

Notably, the “Participating Countries” hyperlink on the CADSI website also appears to be closed to the public.

How to piece together the list then?

UK, Qatar and Israel

CADSI may have included the United Kingdom in their count given Jeremy Quinn, the British minister of defence procurement, was a keynote speaker at the arms show.

Social media tells us that Khalid Bin Rashid Al-Mansouri, the Ambassador of the State of Qatar to Canada, visited CANSEC on June 2.

The night before CANSEC, Ronen Hoffman, the Israeli Ambassador to Canada tweeted about hosting “a pre-#CANSEC2022 reception for visiting reps. of Israeli innovative aerospace, defence and security industries” wanting “to explore opportunities for mutual collaboration between Israeli & Canadian defence companies.”

Beyond that, an older promotional video on the CADSI website shows military officers from Peru, Israel and at least one other country.

Global Affairs Canada

While we don’t know all the countries at CANSEC this year, the Exhibitors List does show that Global Affairs Canada and “Israel Representatives” had an official presence.

That list also tells us that companies including Terradyne, Bell and General Dynamics Land Systems that have sold equipment to security forces in Mexico and Colombia implicated in human rights violations were present.

We also know from an annual “Exports of Military Goods” report that Global Affairs Canada produces that Canada’s Top Twelve Non-U.S. Destinations for Military Goods and Technology in 2021 were Saudi Arabia, Japan, United Kingdom, Germany, Ukraine, France, Norway, Algeria, Australia, Israel, Sweden and Singapore.

Their report notes $2.731 billion in sales to non-U.S. countries, including those above, as well as Brazil, Brunei, Colombia, Egypt, Haiti, Indonesia, Kuwait, Mexico, Morocco, Turkey, and the United Arab Emirates among many other countries last year.

Canadian Commercial Corporation

The Canadian Commercial Corporation, the Ottawa-based federal government agency that promotes exports, was also present at CANSEC, but did not post a media release with information about who they met with.

This is different from May 2014 when they issued a media release highlighting: “At CANSEC 2014, CCC led eight foreign delegations visiting from Argentina, Bahrain, Chile, Colombia, Kuwait, Mexico, Peru, and Saudi Arabia.”

We also note that the CCC has a webpage dedicated to Selling to the U.S. Military.

And just four year ago, in February 2018, David Pugliese of the Ottawa Citizen reported: “Canadian defence industry representatives have praised the Canadian Commercial Corporation for its efforts in selling military equipment around the world and have pointed out it was now focused on boosting arms sales to the United Arab Emirates.”

That article highlighted that the Canadian Commercial Corporation had just brokered the sale of 16 combat helicopters to the Philippines and noted the ongoing deal with Saudi Arabia for light armoured vehicles (LAVs).

Later that same year, Pugliese also reported: “The Canadian Commercial Corporation acknowledges it conducts no follow-up to ensure exported Canadian-built equipment isn’t being used to abuse human rights.”

$6 billion in exports

CADSI boasts that Canadian defence and security companies generate $10 billion in annual revenues of which roughly 60 per cent come from exports.

And yet the lack of public transparency makes any scrutiny of the human rights records of the countries attending CANSEC unduly challenging.

This coming week we will be trying to reach the CADSI contact for international delegations, as well as the Canadian Commercial Corporation and Global Affairs Canada Trade Commissioner representatives who were at CANSEC to see if they are willing to tell us more about what countries were at CANSEC this year.

Black Hawk helicopters, militarized conservation in Colombia and the “30 x 30” initiative

By
Brent Patterson
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A Sikorsky Black Hawk helicopter flies over Tinigua National Park in Colombia. Sikorsky is owned by Lockheed Martin, the world’s largest “defence” contractor. Photo by Andres Cardona/Al Jazeera.

Journalist Christina Noriega reports in Al Jazeera: “In March, security forces landed a Black Hawk helicopter near [53-year-old farmer Anayiber] Pino’s remote Amazon home. Her family had arrived at the farthest reaches of the jungle after having fled the conflict-ridden Cauca province seven years before.”

“As the family finished lunch that day, a throng of heavily armed police stormed in and accused Pino’s husband and son of crimes related to illegal deforestation and the invasion of a national park. They gave the family three minutes to rescue what they could from the home, then detonated the shack in a blast, burning all that was left inside.”

“When [the family] remained missing the next day, neighbours confronted a group of soldiers. A mobile phone video, released by Senator Ivan Cepeda [who was previously accompanied by PBI-Colombia], showed farmers and soldiers engaged in a heated argument that crescendos before a barrage of shots is heard. Julian Andres Suarez, a farmer, died after being shot in the chest, while three others were reportedly wounded.”

“[And] in one operation that Al Jazeera witnessed in May, the defence ministry spent more than $12,000 on Black Hawk expenses alone for a two-hour mission that ended with the capture of one target: 54-year-old Gladis Galindo, a farmer who said she had settled in Tinigua National Park to provide food for her seven children.”

The article adds: “In recent years, dozens of subsistence farmers populating national parks in Colombia have been targeted by state forces under Operation Artemis, an army-led offensive aimed at combatting rampant deforestation.”

“For the first time, Colombia is employing military forces, hardened by years of combat with rebels and organised criminals, in its efforts to protect the country’s forests and rivers.”

It further notes: “[Operation Artemis] has targeted vulnerable farming families with expensive helicopter missions into the remote Amazon, instead of focusing on the kingpins who finance mass forest clearance from the comforts of their urban homes.”

The feature length article can be read in full at ‘They left us with nothing’ How Colombia’s deforestation campaign is targeting subsistence farmers.

Colombia and the 30 x 30 initiative

This appears to be connected to the “30 x 30” high ambition target. That is an international plan to conserve 30 per cent of the Earth’s land and sea areas by 2030 through “area-based conservation measures” like protected national parks.

In January 2021, the Colombian minister of climate and sustainable development stated his government was “committing to the 30 × 30 target.”

At the COP26 climate summit in November 2021, Colombian president Ivan Duque further promised to protect 30 per cent of his country’s territory by 2022. Duque stated: “We can’t wait until 2030, we must act now to protect our forests.”

PBI-Canada has now begun to organize around COP27 this coming November 7-18. For more on that, please see UN COP27 climate summit Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt nears as extractivism, military spending increases.

Militarized conservation

In August 2021, 49 organizations expressed concern with the 30 x 30 initiative, warning: “The Framework’s focus on ‘protected areas’ will likely continue to lead to human rights abuses across the globe.”

One of the signatories, the Swift Foundation, said: “How it’s working right now is a militarized form of conservation. You have guards with guns, people imposing fines, building fences and kicking people out of their traditional lands. And if communities react in defense they are perceived as anti-conservation.”

More broadly, José Francisco Cali Tzay, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, has also commented: “Throughout conservation’s checkered history, we have seen exclusionary conservation as a gateway to human rights abuses and militarized forms of violence.”

Canada backs 30 x 30

In September 2020, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced Canada’s support for the “high ambition coalition” and the 30 x 30 initiative.

Catherine McKenna, who as Canada’s environment minister supported the purchase of the Trans Mountain tar sands pipeline and its construction on Secwepemc territory and who now chairs the UN’s High-Level Expert Group on Net-Zero Commitments of Non-State Entities, also backs the 30 x 30 initiative.

We continue to follow this issue.

Photo and video: A Sikorsky/Lockheed Martin Black Hawk helicopter on display behind the EY Centre for the CANSEC arms show in Ottawa, June 1-2, 2022.

A “Lockheed Martin Stop Selling War Machines” banner blocks cars trying to enter the CANSEC arms show, June 1.

IACHR-CIDH warns of “structural violence” faced by human rights defenders in Colombia

By
Brent Patterson
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PBI-Colombia with the IACHR-CIDH, June 2021.

On June 3, PBI-Colombia tweeted:

“Annual Report of @CIDH highlights very high rates of impunity in serious violations of #human rights in #Colombia and points out the clear use of excessive force by State security agents, see report: http://bit.ly/3x9c9tc @USEmbassyBogota @CanadayColombia.”

The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR-CIDH) chapter specifically on Colombia can also be read here. It highlights:

“The Commission reiterates its concern about the persistence of structural violence in Colombia, and the effects specifically faced by human rights defenders and social leaders, as well as the impact on groups whose human rights have been historically and structurally violated, such as indigenous peoples, Afro-Colombians, peasants, children and adolescents, women and LGBTI people.”

It also notes:

“The IACHR received serious allegations of the indiscriminate use of firearms against demonstrators and people who were not participating in the protests, especially in Cali (southeast) and different municipalities in Valle del Cauca (west), as well as in Pereira, Risaralda department (central west). The reports received to indicate the use of this type of weaponry allegedly by some members of the security forces, some of whom are not fully identified. The Commission also received extremely worrying information about the possible actions of armed persons dressed in civilian clothes.”

“The IACHR reiterates its concern about the differences in the numbers of victims recorded by the State and the situations documented by civil society. It also considers that these inconsistencies can generate distrust of citizens in the authorities. For this reason, it is an obligation of the State to maintain a consistent, up-to-date and public record of information.”

“The IACHR considers that the handling of such disparate records and hypotheses about, for example, people killed or injured in the context of the protests, generates an obstacle in the access to justice of people who claim to be victims of human rights violations. In any scenario, the size of the figures reflected in the various reports is of extreme concern to the Commission, so it reiterates its condemnation emphatically, as well as reinforces the call for the State to diligently investigate all the facts denounced. The Commission recalls that impunity contributes to the reproduction of these acts.”

You can also read about the IACHR-CIDH report in El Espectador.

The IACHR-CIDH visit to Colombia

Last year, an Inter-American Commission on Human Rights delegation was in Colombia on a three-day (June 8-10, 2021) working visit to assess the human rights situation.

France 24 commented: “The presence of the IACHR in the country becomes essential for the demonstrators, who have been denouncing abuses for weeks during the exercise of their right to protest.”

On June 11, 2021, PBI-Colombia tweeted: “Last night the CIDH was in the Portal Resistencia hearing directly from youth initiatives and human rights organizations including the Justice and Peace Commission that accompany in the humanitarian space.”

Publimetro had reported: “The IACHR will visit the Portal de la Resistencia (Americas) to hear from demonstrators.”

El Tiempo further noted: “The delegates toured the place on foot, escorted by citizens who usually participate in the protests and those who were participating in the dialogue table.”

Canada

The Embassy of Canada in Colombia has not yet commented on the IACHR-CIDH report.

Last month, PBI-Colombia accompanied Association for Research and Social Action (Nomadesc) and victims of police violence at meetings with Ambassador Marianick Tremblay.

The Embassy also tweeted:

“In her meeting with the Archbishop of Cali @arzobispodecali, Ambassador @MarianickT discussed the social impacts of the 2021 protests on Cali, the humanitarian crisis in the Pacific region and the violence against Indigenous leaders in Cauca.”

But significantly, just this week Nomadesc tweeted:

“We Colombians do not want more weapons, no more massacres, no more disappearances, no more threats, no more fear. #StopTheGenocide. We demand truth, justice and guarantees of non-repetition. Don’t send us any more weapons. That has made them accomplices of Barbarism.”

This comes amid a report of a major sale of Canadian-manufactured military equipment to Colombia.

On May 20, Infodefensa.com reported: “Yesterday, May 19, the Colombian Government, through the Ministry of Defense, approved the purchase of 50 General Dynamics Land Systems (GDLS) 8×8 LAV III DVH armored vehicles.”

The article adds: “The LAV III DVH is manufactured by the [London, Ontario-based] Canadian subsidiary of General Dynamics Land Systems.”

Last month, Al Jazeera also reported: “Local environmental defenders and a representative of the JEP [the Special Jurisdiction for Peace extrajudicial court] 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 specifically.”

Today, the Canadian Embassy described Ecopetrol as a private sector ally.

We continue to follow this situation.

PBI-Honduras accompanies COFADEH to former military torture centre in Amarateca that is now a House of Memory

By
Brent Patterson
-

On June 3, PBI-Honduras posted:

“Recently, as part of the week of the Detained-Disappeared, we accompanied COFADEH [the Committee of Families of Detained- Disappeared in Honduras] to the House of Memory in Amarateca, a space that was used in the 1980s as a torture house. COFADEH acquired the property in order to rescue historical memory on issues of human rights violations and crimes against humanity.”

The Inter Press Service has reported:

“The country estate of a Honduran general who formed part of a past military government housed a torture centre used by the army in the 1980s, according to police reports and a team of U.S. anthropologists.

Bertha Oliva with COFADEH said the army held and tortured many opponents of the military regime on the estate of Gen. Amilcar Zelaya. Some of the victims figure on the list of people “disappeared” by the security forces last decade.

Zelaya was one of three generals who formed the junta that ruled this Central American country from 1978 to 1981, after a string of coups d’etats.

Using special techniques, the anthropologists found traces of human blood and even the prints of bloody hands on the walls of several rooms of Zelaya’s country residency.”

And Somos+ Tocoa has also previously explained:

“This house served as a torture center in the ’80s. According to COFADEH reports there were more than 500 people here until 1986, in possession of the death squads (Army Intelligence Battalion 3/16). The house belonged to Lieutenant Colonel Amilcar Zelaya Chief of the Honduras Police in the period of the triumvirate from 1978 to 1980 [after the coup that toppled] General Melgar Castro [in August 1978].”

That triumvirate was headed by Policarpo Paz García.

For a first hand account from Hernán Guevara Gutiérrez, who was arrested in 1982 and taken to the house where he was tortured for a month, see So that it never happens again.

Canada and Honduras in the 1980s

During the period that the house was being used to torture people, Joe Clark and then Pierre Trudeau, John Turner and Brian Mulroney were the prime ministers of Canada.

Canadian academic Tyler Shipley has written: “Between 1978 and 1980, the US spent some $10 million beefing up the Honduran armed forces.”

He adds: “In 1980, the Honduran military peacefully relinquished political power, a move that was designed – by the military and its allies in the US – to forestall more dramatic civil unrest.”

Shipley continues: “Between 1980 and 1992, the US spent some $1.6 billon in military and economic aid to Honduras, intended to establish the apparatus of repression, buttress the institutions of political power, and infiltrate and co-opt the civil society organizations that were best positioned to harness social unrest.”

In 1983, UPI reported: “Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau told a group of about 700 college students [in Toronto] he could not do anything about U.S. foreign policy towards Central America [including Honduras]… Trudeau said that as a major world power the United States was trying to protect its own interests.”

In December 1987, Maclean’s magazine reported: “[Foreign Affairs minister Joe Clark] announced an additional $13 million in aid to Honduras, which has not yet dismantled its contra base camps or cut supply flights to the rebels [fighting the Sandinista government in Nicaragua].”

This week, Dalhousie University professor John M. Kirk wrote in The Globe and Mail:

“The Conservative government of Stephen Harper was clearly driven by ideology when it supported the government of Porfirio Lobo in Honduras, who took power after a coup in June 2009.

Canada was the last country in the hemisphere to call for the reinstatement of the democratically elected president Manuel Zelaya, and even maintained its Military Training Assistance Program there following Mr. Zelaya’s overthrow.

Canadian support for corrupt Honduran presidents continued under the [Justin] Trudeau government, despite clear evidence of ballot-stuffing and corruption in 2013 and 2017 elections.”

Photo of PBI-Honduras on a previous accompaniment to the house in August 2020.

Land defenders face criminal contempt charges as the struggle against the Coastal GasLink fracked gas pipeline continues

By
Brent Patterson
-

On June 3, Gidimt’en Checkpoint tweeted:

Haudenosaunee land defender Layla Staats has also posted this short Instagram video.

CBC reports: “The B.C. [British Columbia] Prosecution Service plans to prosecute 15 [land defenders] for criminal contempt for allegedly defying an injunction protecting construction of a controversial pipeline in northern British Columbia.”

That article adds: “A Crown lawyer told B.C. Supreme Court Justice Marguerite Church on Wednesday [June 1] that prosecutors need four more weeks to decide whether to charge 10 other [land defenders, including Sleydo’ Molly Wickham] with criminal contempt in relation to blockades and actions last fall opposing Coastal GasLink’s natural gas pipeline.”

That decision is expected on July 7.

Criminal vs civil contempt

The British Columbia Civil Liberties Association (BCCLA) has explained:

“Civil contempt is where a person or corporation breaches a court order, and the nature of the conduct interferes with the interests of another private party. Criminal contempt is where a court order is breached, but the nature of the conduct interferes with the public’s interest in the ‘proper administration of justice’.”

A Supreme Court of Canada decision in 1992 further notes: “The Crown must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the accused defied or disobeyed a court order in a public way with intent, knowledge or recklessness as to the fact that the public disobedience will tend to depreciate the authority of the court.”

The BCCLA also notes: “Sentences are considered on a case-by-case basis. Because judges have discretion in sentencing, it is difficult to pre-determine what a sentence may be for a conviction of criminal contempt of court.”

That said, if found guilty, the sentence could include a fine of up to $1,500 and possibly up to 45 days in jail.

Skewed injunctions

The CBC also reports: “Coastal GasLink obtained an interlocutory injunction in 2019 blocking anyone from ‘physically preventing, impeding, restricting or in any way physically interfering’ with access to the road which leads to the company’s work site.”

And then adds: “In a study that collected data in 2019 on injunctions issued across Canada, the Yellowhead Institute found 76 per cent of injunctions filed against First Nations were granted, while 81 per cent filed by First Nations against corporations were denied.”

Defending rights is not a crime

Peace Brigades International accompanies land defenders in Colombia, Honduras, Mexico and Guatemala. Many of them have experienced similar criminalization and judicialization.

Peace Brigades International (PBI) has stated:

“International declarations and mechanisms on Indigenous rights enshrine the right to self-determination for Indigenous peoples and recognize the importance of land rights for the original inhabitants of many countries now governed by the descendants of colonizers. These rights are often the focus of conflict as powerful interests wish to exploit the natural resources found within and beneath traditional territories. Defenders of land rights, culture and natural resources can find themselves facing powerful interests and brutal opposition. Some have approached PBI for protection after they have been attacked or their colleagues assassinated. Many others have been subjected to criminal prosecutions based on spurious charges.”

Victoria Tauli-Corpuz, the past United Nations special rapporteur on the rights of Indigenous peoples, has also stated:

“Disregard of indigenous rights of traditional lands ownership breeds tensions, subsequent violence and criminalization, as indigenous peoples become trespassers or illegal occupants of their own lands, subject to criminal charges such as ‘usurpation’ or illegal occupation, and liable to forced evictions and removal from the lands they rely upon for their livelihoods, social and cultural cohesion and spiritual traditions.”

We echo PBI-Guatemala in their statement: “Indigenous leaders continue to be criminalized. We reaffirm that defending rights is not a crime.”

Colombian environmental defenders concerned by court ruling that permits fracking pilot projects to proceed within months

By
Brent Patterson
-

A protest against fracking in Puerto Wilches. Photo by Inigo Alexander.

Reuters reports: “Investigative fracking operations in Colombia can go ahead after a court in the Andean country’s Santander province on Thursday [June 2] reversed a lower court’s decision to block two pilot projects.”

Valora Analitik adds: “The fracking processes carried out by Ecopetrol in Puerto Wilches will now be able to continue their march, as the tutela filed by Afrowilches [the Afro-Colombian Corporation of Puerto Wilches] is declared inadmissible.”

And Business AM notes: “The Colombian oil company Ecopetrol, which is controlled by the government, wants to set up pilot projects on fracking in the province of Santander in the Kale and Platero regions. In addition, a collaboration is set up with the American group ExxonMobil. Ecopetrol acts as operator of both projects.”

The full text of the court ruling can be found here.

The tutela application had been supported by the PBI-Colombia accompanied José Alvear Restrepo Lawyers’ Collective (CCAJAR).

Alliance rejects fracking

In response, the Alliance for a Colombia Free of Fracking has stated: “We will ask the Colombian Constitutional Court to reverse the decision of the supreme court. After all, the supreme court’s decision ignores the concept of prior consultation. In addition, the projects represent a violation of the rights of the Afro-Colombian communities in Puerto Wilches.”

Radio Nacional Colombia further notes: “Likewise, they indicated that the legal, advocacy and mobilization actions will continue so that fracking is prohibited in the country, as well as they called on the candidates Gustavo Petro and Rodolfo Hernández, to commit themselves without double talk to suspend the fracking pilots.”

The second round vote in the presidential election will take place on June 19 and the new president of Colombia will take office on August 7.

Fracking appears imminent

On May 5, prior to the court ruling, BluRadio quoted Diego Mesa, the Minister of Mines and Energy, saying: “We continue with the intention of having the first drilling on August 7, but we must abide by the court ruling, it will depend on how the legal actions they are taking against the ruling prosper. The prior consultation process would delay the process in about two or approximately three months.”

In November 2021, Natural Gas Intelligence reported: “[Ecopetrol] executives expect the pilot projects to come online by 2023.”

And a month later, Diario del Huila reported: “The president of [Ecopetrol], Felipe Bayón, said that although it is estimated that the extractions will begin in 2023, they could be advanced to 2022 if everything goes well.”

Platero approval timeline

In this timeline, we are also watching for the decision on the Platero fracking pilot project.

The Platero fracking pilot project proposal was first submitted to the Colombian National Hydrocarbons Agency (ANH) on March 17, 2021. The ANH gave its provisional approval of that proposal on March 31, 2021.

The application for the Platero project was filed with the National Environmental Licensing Authority (ANLA) on February 15, 2022.

Ecopetrol is now waiting on this approval.

Canada finances fracking in Colombia

The Banking on Climate Chaos website reveals Scotiabank’s recent investments in Ecopetrol. The bank provided USD $665 million to Ecopetrol in 2018, another $666.67 million in 2020, and $1.7 billion in 2021 for a total of $3.032 million.

Bronwen Tucker of Oil Change International also noted on a recent PBI-Canada webinar that the Canadian government’s financing agency Export Development Canada (EDC) provided $300 million to Ecopetrol between 2012 and 2020.

Ecopetrol and paramilitaries

On May 9, Al Jazeera reported: “Local environmental defenders and a representative of the JEP [the Special Jurisdiction for Peace extrajudicial court] 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 specifically.”

Despite these serious allegations against Ecopetrol, Canadian government officials have not commented on the financing of Scotiabank and EDC of this oil company.

Today, the Canadian Embassy in Colombia described Ecopetrol as a private sector ally.

Canadian companies welcome fracking

At this time, we again highlight that Toronto-based Sintana Energy Ltd. welcomed the news of ExxonMobil being granted a pilot project contract for Platero/VMM-37.

In April 2021, Portafolio also reported: “The Canadian multinational Canacol announced in recent days the first exploratory results of an independent prospective evaluation of shale oil in two of its blocks (VMM-2 and VMM-3), in the Magdalena Medio basin.”

Canacol CEO Charle Gamba has also commented that the approval of the Kalé and Platero pilot projects 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.”

We continue to follow this situation closely.

Canadian armoured vehicle company Terradyne and sales to police force implicated in human rights violations

By
Brent Patterson
-

Photo by Terradyne.

In July 2013, the Migrant Human Rights Network (la Red DH Migrantes) expressed “its concern about the probable acts of torture, cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment, as well as violations of due process in the cases that occurred between March and June of this year [2013], documented and denounced by the Casa del Migrante de Saltillo ‘Frontera con Justicia’, AC, in the state of Coahuila.”

Their report compiled “the testimonies of at least 35 victims of alleged acts of threats, sexual assaults and torture by elements of the Municipal Preventive Police of Saltillo and agents of the Operational Response Group of the Municipality of Saltillo (GROMS).”

The World Organization Against Torture (OMCT) further noted: “The OMCT has been informed of cases of suffocation, electric shocks and rape among various torture techniques.”

Just a few months later in February 2014, the Newmarket, Ontario-based Terradyne Armored Vehicles Inc. tweeted: “Take a look at this video of the GURKHA LAPV used by Saltillo Police Department – GROMS / SRT.”

By 2016, these special forces in Coahuila (the state where Saltillo is situated) were discontinued after a series of scandals related to human rights violations, according to the Mexican Commission for the Defense and Promotion of Human Rights (CMDPDH).

Broader context

In 2016, the Amnesty International Surviving Death report demonstrated that “the Mexican police and armed forces routinely torture and ill-treat women, and that sexual violence is routine during arrest and interrogation.”

In 2019, Terradyne highlighted that it had sold its vehicles to the Nuevo Leon police in Mexico. It has also sold its Gurkha RPV vehicles to the Veracruz Fuerza Civil (civil force) and its MPV to the Ministry of Public Security in Ciudad Guadalupe, Nuevo.

CANSEC arms show, June 1-2

Now, Terradyne has its vehicles on display at the CANSEC arms show in Ottawa.

For  more on the protest against CANSEC that took place yesterday morning, see this Radio-Canada report (in French) that includes an interview with Cym Gomery from World Beyond War and the image below of a Terradyne vehicle parked on the CANSEC site.

Still from Vanguardia video of Terradyne armoured vehicle used by the Saltillo Operational Reaction Group (GROMS).

Nomadesc message to CANSEC arms show in Canada “We Colombians do not want more weapons”

By
Brent Patterson
-

On June 1, the PBI-Colombia accompanied human rights organization Association for Research and Social Action (Nomadesc) tweeted:

“We Colombians do not want more weapons, no more massacres, no more disappearances, no more threats, no more fear. #StopTheGenocide. We demand truth, justice and guarantees of non-repetition. Don’t send us any more weapons. That has made them accomplices of Barbarism.”

Nomadesc also retweeted this World Beyond War Canada tweet about a protest against the CANSEC arms show in Ottawa.

The day before this protest at the CANSEC arms show, Nomadesc president Berenice Celeita and World Beyond War Canada organizer Rachel Small participated in a PBI-Canada organized webinar on arms exports and militarization.

You can watch the video of that webinar here.

Examples of Canadian military exports to Colombia

50 Light Armoured Vehicles to be sold

On May 20, Infodefensa.com reported: “Yesterday, May 19, the Colombian Government, through the Ministry of Defense, approved the purchase of 50 General Dynamics Land Systems (GDLS) 8×8 LAV III DVH armored vehicles.”

The article adds: “The LAV III DVH is manufactured by the [London, Ontario-based] Canadian subsidiary of General Dynamics Land Systems.”

General Dynamics has three of its armoured vehicles on display at CANSEC 2022 in Ottawa this week.

32 LAVs sold for USD $65+ million

In January 2013, GDLS-Canada announced: “The Colombian Ministry of National Defence has awarded a USD $65.3 million contract to General Dynamics Land Systems-Canada for 24 Light Armoured Vehicles for the Colombian Army.”

Their media release adds: “The contract was signed through the Canadian Commercial Corporation, a Crown Agency of the Government of Canada.”

It was later reported that 32 LAVs were exported to Colombia.

Bell 407 helicopters surveil the national strike

The 2013-14 annual report of the Canadian Commercial Corporation, a federal government agency, notes this “success story” in Colombia:

“As per the CCC contract with Ministry of Defense, four Bell 407 helicopters were delivered to the National Police; and two Bell 412 helicopters were delivered to the Naval Aviation Group [the Colombian navy]. The aircraft were manufactured by Bell Helicopter Textron Canada Ltd. of Mirabel, QC.”

Open-source research by PBI-Canada detailed here reveals that Bell 407 helicopters were used for surveillance of the Colombian labour movement-organized National Strike mobilization on November 21, 2019.

The Waterloo, Ontario-based Project Ploughshares has also noted that Canada also sold forty CH-135 helicopters (between September 1998 and February 2000) and twelve 212 helicopters (between 1994 and 1996) to the Colombian police and military.

INKAS armoured vehicle blocks popular assembly delegates

On July 17, 2021, less than a month after that RCI report, Alejandra Wilches tweeted: “This morning on some roads in the country, the police detained different delegations heading to the National People’s Assembly in Cali!”

This tweet (with the armoured vehicle visible) further noted: “Several delegations from each city (Popayan, Bucaramanga, Bogota …) going to the Asemblea Nacional del Paro are detained by the police who prevent them from going there to Cali.”

The armoured vehicle tweeted about appears to be Huron tactical attack and defense vehicles. The Toronto-based company INKAS sold four Huron armoured vehicles to the Colombian police in 2014.

In April 2015, PLANT also reported: “The manufacturer is still building behemoth armoured personnel carriers (APCs). In fact, there’s a tendered order for 26 of its Huron vehicles, at about $450,000 a pop, for the National Police of Columbia.”

That article adds: “The Huron will be outfitted with a cannon to wrangle unruly rioters with foam, tear gas, dyes and water.”

In June 2017, the Canadian armoured vehicle manufacturer INKAS exhibited at CANSEC. In July 2021, the Colombian National Police used an INKAS Huron armoured carrier to stop delegations travelling to Cali for a National Strike popular assembly.

We continue to monitor, research, document and amplify concerns about these exports.

PBI-Colombia accompanies Nydia Erika Bautista Foundation at presentation of 15 recommendations to the president of the Truth Commission

By
Brent Patterson
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On May 30, the Norwegian Fund for Human Rights tweeted:

“We accompany @nydia_erika and victims of forced disappearance of #Colombia in a delivery of recommendations to the @ComisionVerdadC [the Truth Commission] report. One of the recommendations focused on the entity asking the @CConstitucional [Constitutional Court] to declare a state of affairs unconstitutional.”

The Nydia Erika Bautista Foundation also explained:

“Relatives of forcibly disappeared persons from Buenaventura, Meta, Guaviare, Bolívar, Bogotá, Valle, Putumayo with the Nydia Erika Bautista Foundation, Fundación Hasta Encontrarlos [Until Finding Foundation], Copsico [the Colombian Psychosocial Collective], deliver to @FranciscoDeRoux [the chair of the] @ComisionVerdadC [Truth Commission] the recommendations for final report.”

The 15 recommendations can be read here.

Among the recommendations:

– “Enforced disappearances must be eradicated from the country as a practice of State agents alone or with the participation of paramilitary groups, successors of paramilitarism or illegal armed groups that act with the tolerance, complicity, or cover-up of State agents.”

– Collective reparation for indigenous and Afro-descendant communities victims of enforced disappearance. According to the organizations, this victimizing act has been used as an instrument of terror, acculturation and land dispossession in strategic places such as Buenaventura and La Dorada (Bajo Putumayo).

The United Victims Registry (RUV), the government body in charge of registering war victims, has registered 150,000 forced disappearances between 1986 and 2017.

PBI-Colombia has previously explained:

“The ‘Nydia Erika Bautista’ Foundation for Human Rights (FNEB) is an organization of relatives of the victims of forced disappearance from five regions around the country (Bogota, Valle del Cauca, Meta, Casanare and Putumayo) and an interdisciplinary group of lawyers, social workers and experts in social archives and communication, who accompany people who have suffered the disappearance of one or several loved ones.”

Yanette Bautista has been fighting against forced disappearances in Colombia since the disappearance of her 32-year-old sister Nydia Erika on August 30, 1987. Members of the Battalion of Intelligence and Counterintelligence (BINCI) of the Colombian National Army have been named as responsible for the disappearance of Nydia Erika.

Peace Brigades has accompanied FNEB occasionally from 2007 and signed a full accompaniment agreement with them in 2016.

PBI-Honduras accompanies CEHPRODEC as municipality of San Esteban declares itself free of open pit mining

By
Brent Patterson
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On May 31, PBI-Honduras tweeted:

“#PBI accompanies @CEHPRODEC at an open town hall of San Esteban (Olancho) where the municipality declared itself free of open pit mining. We highlight the importance of ensuring effective participation of communities in decision-making that affect their territory. #Human rights.”

Impakter has reported: “According to the Social Forum on Foreign Debt and Development of Honduras, FOSDEH, there are currently 217 mining concessions and reserves in Honduras covering 324,981 acres. In 2020, roughly 130 of these mine sites reside on indigenous land, more than half of all mining concessions in Honduras.”

On February 28, Reuters reported: “Environmental permits for Honduran metal and non-metal mining will be cancelled, the country’s government said in a brief statement on Monday, describing the industry as harmful and declaring it will specifically prohibit open-pit mining.”

A few days later, on March 4, the news service added: “The Honduran government’s recent push to sharply restrict mining will not apply to existing projects, the country’s environment and mining minister said on Friday, days after the ministry declared the industry harmful and pledged to cancel permits.”

Canadian mining in Honduras

Between 1998 and 2005, Canada emerged as the leading investor in mining in Honduras.

Of the 154 energy and mining concessions granted before a moratorium on new mining concessions in 2006, nearly 100 had been owned by Canadian corporations at one point.

In January 2012, Development and Peace reported: “ [CEHPRODEC coordinator Pedro Landa] said that international mining companies, including Canadian ones, have been responsible for environmental pollution, have failed to pay taxes, and many are suspected of having paid bribes to government officials.”

CEHPRODEC mobilized against the General Mining Law that was passed by the Honduran Congress on January 23, 2013.

MiningWatch Canada has explained: “The General Mining Law was developed with technical assistance paid for with Canadian overseas development aid. Its passage in 2013 lifted a seven-year moratorium on any new mining projects.”

It also noted: “This law was developed and passed with strong diplomatic support from the Canadian embassy, and with contributions from the Department of Foreign Affairs and the former Canadian International Development Agency.”

PBI-Honduras has accompanied CEHPRODEC since May 2014.

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