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PBI-Colombia seeks field volunteers, application deadline is June 5

By
Brent Patterson
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The Peace Brigades International-Colombia Project is seeking field volunteers.

The deadline to apply is June 5.

The face-to-face training and final selection week will take place from August 28 to September 4 in Spain.

Those selected would begin to be placed in the field in late October and the following months.

Upon arrival in Colombia, new volunteers will receive a further two-week long Orientation/Initial Training in Bogotá.

From there, volunteers will be assigned to one of the field teams in Apartadó, Barrancabermeja or Bogotá.

It is crucial to know that applicants must be fluent in Spanish and be able to commit to 18 months of accompaniment work in Colombia.

While in Colombia, volunteers will receive a monthly stipend of 275 Euros and live in a PBI team house where their living expenses are covered.

The list of organizations that PBI-Colombia accompanies can be found here.

The application process and forms can be found here.

To watch the video of our  most recent webinar about being a PBI field volunteer, click here.

PBI-Mexico accompanied Tlachinollan centre report “Your Name that I Never Forget” on the situation in Guerrero

By
Brent Patterson
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On May 31, Quetzalli Villanueva, a lawyer with the Tlachinollan Human Rights Centre in Guerrero, will be a featured speaker on a PBI-Canada organized webinar about militarization of territory. You can register for that webinar here.

To read the 27th report from Tlachinollan, click here.

Key excerpts from the S!Paz article on that report include:

“The twenty-seventh report on the activities of the La Montaña Tlachinollan Human Rights Center, Your Name that I Never Forget, presents the scenario in which a human rights crisis is developing that has kept the wounds of the Guerrero population open for decades. A crossroads of violence in which various sectors of the population live, particularly the indigenous.

22 crime groups

According to Tlachinollan, at least 22 organized crime groups are vying for the state of Guerrero. They are not only dedicated to cultivating and moving drugs, but also control the exploitation of natural resources in collusion with mining companies; they control formal and informal businesses in various regions and even “govern” municipalities, forcing the population to abide by their decisions. It mentions that, despite the militarization of the state, neither the National Guard nor the Army enter these areas.

Ayotzinapa 43

In this context, the levels of violence and human rights violations in the state are not surprising, one of the most emblematic cases being that of Ayotzinapa. September 26th, 2021, marked seven years since the disappearance of the student teachers.

For [the mothers and fathers of the 43] it is imperative to break the pact of silence that covers up the participation of the Army in these disappearances because there are data that indicate that different security forces, including the Army, were involved in this massive aggression, as they describe in the report.

The Dirty War

Forced disappearance in the state of Guerrero has been omnipresent since what is known as “The Dirty War.” According to the Tlachinollan report, during this period, relatives have documented more than 600 people disappeared. The “Death Flights” threw the bodies into the sea, staining the Pacific Ocean with blood along with the disappearances and murders carried out by the army, the navy and the state police corporations.

Enforced disappearances

The National Search Commission showed in its latest report that from March 15th, 1994, to November 7th, 2021, 98,008 people were declared missing nationwide, while in Guerrero, this figure reaches 3,719 cases.

Vicente Suastegui Muñoz

One of the most recent cases is that of Vicente Suastegui Muñoz, who was deprived of his liberty by three armed men on his way back home on August 5th, 2021. The disappearance of the land defender and member of the Council of Ejidos and Communities Opposed to the La Parota Dam (CECOP) is framed within the decomposition of the police bodies and “this climate of criminal violence that murders and disappears people they classify as enemies, without the authorities carrying out exhaustive investigations to arrest the perpetrators”, stressed Tlachinollan.

“The disappearance of Vicente is an example that in Mexico there is a crisis of insecurity to preserve the lives of defenders”, states La Montaña Human Rights Center in its report. The document also mentions that the state of Guerrero ranks fourth nationally in the number of attacks against human rights defenders and journalists, a region of silence where “media coverage is not given or avoided, due to the imminent risk that implies accounting for the insecurity, impunity and injustice that prevail.”

Murdered human rights defenders

Tlachinollan presents the cases of murdered human rights defenders that they have documented between September 2020 and August 2021 in the report. The first was the environmentalist leader of the Los Guajes ejido, Elias Gallegos Coria, and his son, Fredy Gallegos; the last one, that of Guerrero journalist Pablo Morrugares and his bodyguard, this despite the fact that he had been a beneficiary of the Mechanism for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders and Journalists since 2016. They also highlighted the case of the Jose Maria Morelos y Pavon Regional Center for the Defense of Human Rights whose members suffered different attacks by organized crime and local authorities for their work accompanying the communities victims of forced displacement.

Forced displacement

Conflicts with extractivist companies have been aggravated by the influence of criminal groups that are in charge of terrorizing communities by assassinating heads of families to displace their widows and children, seize the forests or rivers that the communities protect.

Tlachinollan has mentioned that the control of organized crime, together with authorities, private companies and the public force “systematically transgresses human rights without any consequence” and “gives a glimpse of how state players and criminal groups operate in a mining region, where the owners of the land have to bow to the macroeconomic interests of transnational companies.”

Femicide in Guerrero

From September 2020 to October 2021, they documented 26 femicides in different municipalities of the state. According to the follow-up that the Center has given, in only 20% of the cases have those responsible been prosecuted and a minimum percentage has reached convictions.

Indigenous women are especially vulnerable due to the absence of institutions. There is an environment of normalized and dehumanized violence that is coupled with the ineffectiveness of the justice system that maintains these crimes in impunity.”

The full article can be read here.

To hear more from Quetzalli Villanueva of the Tlachinollan Human Rights Centre on May 31, register here.

The Tlachinollan report can be read here.

PBI-Guatemala accompanies Human Rights Law Firm at hearing of Toribio Acevedo Ramírez in the Military Diary Case

By
Brent Patterson
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On May 19, the Peace Brigades International-Guatemala Project posted: “PBI accompanies the Human Rights Law Firm (BDH) at the hearing of the first statement of Toribio Acevedo Ramírez in the #MilitaryDiaryCase.”

Toribio Acevedo Ramírez was arrested in Panama on the evening of May 10.

On May 11, Prensa Libre reported:

“Guatemalan security forces received on Wednesday, May 11, handed over by Panama, a former military officer accused of war crimes allegedly committed during the internal armed conflict, which left more than 250,000 dead and missing between 1960 and 1996.

According to authorities, the Guatemalan was wanted for his alleged involvement in the murders, enforced disappearances and crimes against the duties of humanity that are contained in the case called “Diario Militar,” which was declassified by the U.S. National Security Archive in 1999.

The document, also called the “Death Dossier” and prepared by military intelligence, describes the cases of at least 183 people who were considered “enemies of the state” and who were disappeared or murdered in the 1980s.

Just last Friday, a high-risk Guatemalan court sent 9 former police and ex-military officers to trial for their connection to the case, and therefore in the murder of almost 200 people.

The nine retired military and police officers are accused of having participated in murders, enforced disappearances and rapes of at least 183 men and women, according to the “Diario Militar”.”

Prensa Comunitaria adds:

“According to information from the Center for Independent Media (CMI), Toribio Acevedo Ramírez served as Industrial Security Manager of Cementos Progreso, and was also in charge of legal litigation.

The CMI suggests that Acevedo Ramírez is one of the alleged perpetrators who devised the paramilitary structure that acted against the Kaqchikel communities in San Juan Sacatepéquez, in the dispossession of their territory for the construction of a cement plant. He also maintains that the soldier now detained was one of the direct connections with Ricardo Méndez Ruiz, president of the Foundation against Terrorism, and that Cementos Progreso, of the Novella family, would be one of the companies that finances his work.

The first statement hearing is expected to be in the Mayor Riesgo B court, presided over by Judge Miguel Ángel Gálvez.”

On May 11, the Associated Press reported:

“A Guatemala judge who last week ordered nine former police and military officers to stand trial for alleged crimes during that country’s civil war, said Wednesday [May 11] that death threats against him had increased since announcing his decision.”

Miguel Ángel Gálvez says: “They send me messages, they call me on the phone, there’s vehicles following; all of that is happening.”

PBI accompaniment

The Peace Brigades International-Guatemala Project accompanied the Human Rights Law Firm (BDH) and Édgar Pérez Archila at an early stage of these proceedings last year.

PBI-Guatemala accompanied eight days of hearings that concluded on June 10, 2021, as well as the four days of hearings that resulted in the indictment of former Defense Minister Marco Antonio González Taracena on June 25, 2021.

PBI-Guatemala began to accompany BDH lawyer Édgar Pérez Archila in August 2010 due to several security incidents he had faced in relation to the high-profile judicial processes he was working on. At the end of 2013, PBI-Guatemala extended the accompaniment to the other lawyers of the BDH who work in high-profile trials to fight against impunity and in defending criminalized human rights defenders.

PBI-Guatemala presents at European Parliament’s “Tackling Environmental Criminality” workshop in Brussels

By
Brent Patterson
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On May 19, Peace Brigades International-Guatemala Project advocacy coordinator Kerstin Reemtsma spoke at the European Parliament’s Committee on Development (DEVE) workshop on “Tackling Environmental Criminality in Developing Countries”.

The promotion for the workshop stated:

“Environmental crimes have become a wide-spread phenomenon worldwide and are widely recognised as one of the most profitable forms of transnational criminal activity. Bringing together a wide range of international experts and policy-makers, the workshop, to be held on 19 May, 14.00-16.30, will seek to identify existing gaps in policy and legal responses, and generate debates about how the identified gaps can be filled.”

Reemtsma’s intervention can be seen here (starting at 15:11:33).

Her intervention highlighted that Peace Brigades International accompanies human rights defenders at risk, many of them environmental and land defenders protecting water resources, forests, and biodiversity.

In Guatemala, PBI accompanies an organization struggling for access to water and health.

She noted that local communities have lost access to water because the sugar farms are diverting the rivers to their lands and digging very profound wells.

She also highlighted that close to 30% of all drinking water in the country is used for the irrigation of sugar.

PBI is accompanying an organization in this context that following their struggle for the right to water and healthy environment are suffering attacks, intimidation, smearing, attacks on their homes, and criminalization processes.

Reemtsma said: “It is central that on one side the due diligence initiative and also the directive on the environment, includes strong provisions for the protection of human rights defenders, mainly environmental defenders, as well as very clear mechanisms for participation, meaningful participation prior to investment and environmental impact assessments of major development projects.”

Her full presentation (from 15:11:33 to 15:15:40) can be seen here.

PBI-Canada webinar on CANSEC arms show and militarization of territory in Colombia, Mexico and Alberta, May 31

By
Brent Patterson
-

We hope you can join us on Tuesday May 31 at 2:30 pm ET for a webinar (with simultaneous English-Spanish translation) on arms exports and militarization.

To register, click here.

The city of Cali was a focal point of police violence during the national strike in Colombia. PBI-Colombia accompanied Nomadesc president Berenice Celeita will discuss the human rights implications of militarized responses to social protest.

The residents of Quechultenango, Guerrero told the army earlier this year: “We do not want the area to be militarized!” PBI-Mexico accompanied Tlachinollan human rights centre lawyer Quetzalli Villanueva Vergara will talk about the human rights implications for Indigenous peoples of the militarization of territory in Guerrero.

Canada’s new F-35 warplanes will be stationed in newly built multi-million-dollar hangars on Denesuline territory in northern Alberta. Land defender Tunkwa Dene Uldai will talk about this militarization of territory.

Last November, World Beyond War organizer Rachel Small went to Wet’suwet’en territory in response to the call for supporters to come to the yintah. Next month, she will be in Ottawa to protest the CANSEC arms show. She will help connect CANSEC with militarization of territory, colonial state violence and threats to Indigenous rights.

And PBI-Canada Board member Seb Bonet was recently a legal observer on Wet’suwet’en territory. He will be the moderator of this webinar.

To register now, please click here.

Nomadesc remembers Michael Andrés Aranda Perez and Harold Antonio Rodríguez at meeting with Canadian ambassador

By
Brent Patterson
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Photo by Nomadesc.

On May 16, the Peace Brigades International-Colombia Project accompanied the Association for Research and Social Action (Nomadesc) at a meeting with Canadian Ambassador Marianick Tremblay in Cali.

Above you can see that posters of Michael Andrés Aranda Perez and Harold Antonio Rodríguez were held in the group photo with the Ambassador.

Michael Andrés Aranda Perez

Cuestión Pública reports: “The young man from Cali was killed on May 28 [2021] by a bullet wound to the abdomen while participating, for the first time, in a demonstration. His relatives presume that the shot came from uniformed police officers and assure that the investigation for his murder does not advance in the Prosecutor’s Office.”

Harold Antonio Rodríguez

Manifiesta Media has reported: “On the night of May 3, 2021, Harold Rodríguez wanted to buy two sausages to go and then go to a viewpoint near his best friend’s house to see Comuna 20 and southern Cali. But in the midst of the onslaught of the Police, the GOES and the ESMAD at the Glorieta de Siloé during a vigil Harold died from a rifle shot to the face. The public force is presumably involved in the murder.”

Vorágine also reports: “The mother of Harold Antonio Rodriguez, a 20-year-old who had just left military service in Chocó, where he fought dissidents from the FARC and other illegal armed organized crime groups [says] ‘he defended his homeland by fighting the guerrillas and now the same homeland killed him,’ she says from her workplace in lower Siloam, just in the same direction where police from the Special Operations Group (Goes) and military arrived to break into the sector after 9:00 p.m. that day, to put control in the area after the riots that were being generated by the clash between the Esmad and demonstrators in the roundabout of Siloé.”

Canada on police violence

On May 9, 2021, Canada’s then-Foreign Affairs Minister Marc Garneau stated: “Canada condemns the violence, including the disproportionate use of force by security forces, and urges that the violence cease.” That comment was quickly followed by: “We welcome the Government of Colombia’s commitment to fully investigate and hold accountable those who may be guilty of violating human rights during these events.”

By July 14, 2021, when Garneau met with Colombian Vice-President Marta Lucía Ramírez, he: “emphasized Canada’s concerns regarding violence in Colombia, both in the context of social protests and against social leaders and ex-combatants working to implement peace.” Garneau then again “called on Colombia to keep its commitment to fully investigate and hold anyone who has violated human rights to account for their actions.”

PBI at the UN

On March 8, Peace Brigades International co-signed this open letter that was presented to the UN Human Rights Council that says:

“Almost a year after these events [the protests of April and May 2021], the criminalization and prosecution of those who were in the so-called ‘Front Lines’ (Primera Línea) leading the protests and the human rights organizations that accompany them continue. Likewise, we see a lack of progress and results in the investigations against members of the Police allegedly involved in human rights violations during the protests.”

We continue to follow this situation.

PBI-Colombia accompanies Nomadesc at meeting with Canadian Ambassador, the Archbishop of Cali

By
Brent Patterson
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On May 18, Nomadesc tweeted:

“In a meeting with the Ambassador of Canada, Political Secretary of the embassy and @arzobispodecali [Dario Monsalve, the Archbishop of Cali], territorial authorities of the #sospacifico request monitoring of DH [human rights] and DESCA [Economic, Social, Cultural and Environmental Rights] to overcome humanitarian crisis and violence in Buenaventura and Litoral del San Juan Choco. #priorconsultation.”

Litoral del San Juan Choco

Last week, Pares reported:

“In [Litoral del San Juan Choco], the ELN and the Gaitanista Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AGC) have been fighting since the end of last year, in addition to the operations of the public force, mainly against the ELN. This scenario makes the Litoral del San Juan an area of ​​high risk for the civilian population. In particular, it represents a risk for organizational processes, as well as for social leaders, due to the repeated violations of human rights that occur, which leave worrying figures of victims, in a municipality of only 6,741 inhabitants. Currently there are still confined indigenous communities because the armed strike of the AGC has not yet been lifted in its entirety.”

That article also notes: “Another aspect that aggravates the humanitarian situation is that, despite the fact that social organizations have been advancing all kinds of complaints about this situation, the authorities do not recognize the dimension of the problem.”

Buenaventura

On February 22, 2021, PBI-Colombia accompanied Nomadesc on a verification mission meeting on the humanitarian crisis in Buenaventura.

Foreign Policy has reported that “resentment simmers among Buenaventura residents over the fact that little money flowing through the port enriches the city.”

Five year ago, civic strike mobilizations demanded access to sources of employment, housing, drinking water, education, and health, among other economic, social, and cultural rights.

Noting that 95 percent of the city’s residents are Afro-descendant and Indigenous, Danelly Estupiñán with the Process of Black Communities says: “From our judgment” the lack of investment is “precisely for that reason.”

Colombian human rights advocate Enrique Chimonja, who has been helping to organise peasant, Indigenous and Afro-Colombian communities for decades, including communities in Buenaventura, sees “the continuing paramilitary group activity as a strategy by private companies to evict people living on their collective lands in order to accommodate port expansion required not only by the free-trade agreement with the US but also by the 16 other FTAs Colombia has signed [which would include the Canada-Colombia FTA in 2011].”

The Peace Brigades International-Colombia Project has accompanied Nomadesc since 2011 and its president Berenice Celeita since 1999.

RCMP continue surveillance and intimidation of Wet’suwet’en land defenders

By
Brent Patterson
-

On April 29, 2022, the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination called on Canada to stop the construction of the Coastal GasLink fracked gas pipeline on Wet’suwet’en territory in northern British Columbia.

The letter from Verene Shepherd, the Chair of the Committee, to Leslie E. Norton, the Ambassador of Canada to the United Nations in Geneva, highlights:

“According to the information before the Committee [received through the Early Warning and Urgent Action Procedure], the Governments of Canada and of the Province of British Columbia have escalated their use of force, surveillance, and criminalization of land defenders and peaceful protesters to intimidate, remove and forcibly evict Secwepemc and Wet’suwet’en Nations from their traditional lands, in particular by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), the Community-Industry Response Group (CIRG), and private security firms.”

And yet two weeks later, this video shows the CIRG unit of the RCMP criminalizing Wet’suwet’en land defenders on their territory.

Questions about the injunction

In the Wet’suwet’en video, an RCMP officer reads from a script: “Since 2019 this location has been used as a base of operations for individuals committing criminal code offences and actions breaching a Supreme Court injunction. Many of those individuals have been arrested and released by the court…”

The RCMP are referring to an interlocutory (temporary) injunction granted by a B.C. Supreme Court judge in December 2019 that prohibits Wet’suwet’en land defenders from impeding Coastal GasLink workers.

Yellowhead Institute research director Shiri Pasternak has noted: “When the court refused to recognize Wet’suwet’en hereditary authority, [the land defenders] become de facto lawless and so are labelled and treated as criminals. So a spectre of danger around these supposed criminals is created by the RCMP and other actors.”

Significantly, Pasternak asks: “But how can [a provincial court] injunction override a Supreme Court [of Canada] decision [on December 11, 1997] that recognized hereditary leaders as the proper title and rights holders?”

Kate Gunn at First Peoples Law has also commented:

“The trends in injunctive relief run counter to established Canadian law. The Supreme Court has been clear that Indigenous peoples’ exclusive occupation of their ancestral lands is both part of the test for establishing Aboriginal title, and a right that flows from title. Rather than undermining the rule of law, Indigenous peoples’ efforts to prevent unwanted development on their lands should be viewed as an expression of Aboriginal title based on requirements articulated by the Supreme Court.”

Questions about breaches of bail conditions

When the RCMP arrive at the village, they also say: “We are conducting patrols to ensure criminal code offences are not being committed and that individuals with court-ordered conditions are not breaching those conditions.”

But Vancouver-based lawyer Francis Mahon tells journalist Brandi Morin: “If there hasn’t been any evidence that people who are subject to bail conditions right now for breaches with the injunction (are there), then why are the police there?”

Mahon further notes: “If the purpose (of the RCMP) is to make it a very unfriendly environment for the clan and their supporters, I’m not sure that that’s a legitimate policing purpose. We know that the clan is not just there to protest CGL. This is an effort to re-establish a village site. It’s a place of cultural and historic importance.”

And Toronto-based Mi’kmaw lawyer Pamela Palmater writes in The Lawyer’s Daily: “Far from the dangerous criminals they are portrayed as, these Indigenous peoples — mostly women — are peaceful land defenders protecting their lands and waters from irreparable environmental destruction and trying to combat the climate change crisis.”

“These land defenders are also on the ground to protect their women and girls from the racialized and sexualized violence associated with pipeline camps. The National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women called on Canada to have an inquiry into the relationship between murdered and missing Indigenous women and extractive, energy and large-scale projects.”

She adds: “UN CERD has good reason to be concerned about the personal safety and security of these Indigenous land defenders who are merely trying to protect their lands, waters and peoples from irreparable harm and violence.”

July 15 deadline

The letter from the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) calls on Canada to provide a response to their concerns by Friday July 15.

Further reading: Legal Observer Visit to Wet’suwet’en Territory by Seb Bonet.

PBI-Guatemala accompanies Mayan Poqomchi’ land defender David Alejandro Maxena at court hearing

By
Brent Patterson
-

On May 17, PBI-Guatemala posted:

“#PBI accompanies UVOC at the hearing of David Maxena’s evidence presentation. Chintun’s criminalized leader is accused of usurpation.”

On April 18, PBI-Guatemala also posted: “PBI accompanies David Alejandro Maxena member of UVOC at the hearing of coercion measures at the Cobán court.”

UVOC has previously posted: “Almost 2 months in prison without committing any crime. Since last February 14 this year, the Mayan Poqomchi’ community leader David Alejandro Maxena Caal, defender of human rights and mother land, was detained.”

UVOC adds: “The Santa Teresa Hydroelectric and the Shintun Agriculture S.A. municipality of San Miguel Tucuru, are the main plaintiffs against the communities that were stripped of their land that was an ancestral belonging to them.”

In January 2017, Avispa Midia explained: “In the case of the Santa Teresa hydroelectric plant, it belongs to the company Agro Comercializadora del Polochic, SA (AGROPOLOCHIC), a member of the CM [Corporacion Multi Inversiones] consortium.”

That article adds: “EGI Guatemala was involved in the construction of the Santa Teresa hydroelectric plant, located in the Polochic region, in the municipality of Tucurú, which is owned by the Agropolochic company, a member of the CM group.”

It further notes that EGI Guatemala is the main subsidiary of ENEL in Guatemala, which owns the El Canada hydroelectric dam. That dam has been described as a “controversial carbon finance project”.

The Santa Teresa dam is situated on the Polochic River, which discharges 70 per cent of the total freshwater input to Lake Izabal.

The Peace Brigades International-Guatemala Project has accompanied the Union of Verapaz Campesino Organizations (UVOC) since 2005.

A photo from earlier this year of Maxena in custody.

PBI-Colombia accompanies Nomadesc at meeting with Canadian Ambassador and victims of police violence

By
Brent Patterson
-

On May 16, PBI-Colombia tweeted:

“We accompanied a meeting in Cali with the Ambassador of @CanadayColombia with @Nomadesc and @Justiciaypazcol with victims of police violence. They request actions to avoid impunity and move towards a comprehensive police reform and guarantees of non-financing of the public force [the national police and military].”

And the Association for Research and Social Action (NOMADESC) tweeted:

“Ambassador of @CanadaColombia meets with @nomadesc relatives and victims of the 2021 national strike. They show the responsibility of the Colombian State and impunity in atrocious acts. They request #police reform, human rights monitoring and no funding to the Public Force.”

In a previous meeting with a representative of the Canadian Embassy in December 2021, Nomadesc “requested guarantees that Canada will not assist the Colombian police with equipment.”

Canada has exported Toronto, Ontario-manufactured INKAS armoured vehicles and Mirabel, Quebec-made Bell Textron 407 helicopters to the Colombian police, both of which were used during the national strike.

NOMADESC president Berenice Celeita, who met with Canadian Ambassador Marianick Tremblay today, will be participating in an upcoming PBI-Canada-organized webinar on Canadian arms exports and the human rights implications of militarization of territory in Colombia, Mexico and northern Alberta, Canada.

To participate in that webinar on May 31, register here now.

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