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PBI-Guatemala accompanies Nunca Pares at hearing seeking justice for students sexually assaulted at university

By
Brent Patterson
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On May 11, PBI-Guatemala posted:

“PBI accompanies Nunca Pares to the unilateral hearing at the Public Ministry in its demand for justice for the sexual violations suffered by several students in January 2020. According to the group’s complaint, these violations were committed by members of the ‘Honorable Strike Committee de Dolores’, a kind of fraternity of the University of San Carlos de Guatemala (USAC), during an initiation rite and within the facilities of the University itself.”

PBI-Guatemala has previously explained: “The Association of Victims and Relatives of Violence against Women in Universities, Nunca Pares, accompanies university students who are survivors of sexual violence.”

“They demand the application of protocols for providing attention to victims of sexual violence in state institutions and the creation of similar structures for protection within Guatemalan universities.”

“Their principal objective is the non-repetition of these crimes.”

PBI-Guatemala adds: “Nunca Pares demands justice for the rapes suffered by several students in January 2020.”

“According to the collective, these rapes were committed by members of the ‘Honorable Committee for the Friday of the Sorrows Strike’, a kind of fraternity of the University of San Carlos de Guatemala (USAC), during an initiation rite and within the grounds of the University itself.”

This article adds: “In Guatemala City, on Saturday, January 25, 2020, around 4 p.m., two young female university students were admitted to the San Juan de Dios General Hospital in an unconscious state, after attending the University of San Carlos de Guatemala (USAC).”

“The girls were physically and emotionally assaulted, as well as forced to ingest an anesthetic.”

That article further notes: “In the hospital and in the Public Prosecutor’s Office, they were treated with delay and stigmatized by medical and justice personnel.”

And Ruda has reported: “The movement demands justice, both from the Public Ministry -MP- and the rector of the University of San Carlos -USAC- Murphy Paiz, for the young women who were victims of different types of violence.”

It has also been reported that: “According to a survey conducted in 2019 with more than 700 students, 89% of women at the University of San Carlos have experienced harassment on campus. 30% of bullies are professors.”

Nunca Pares says: “We fight so that no young student, no woman suffers psychological, physical, sexual violence, harassment and any type of violence in the USAC. Because the lives of all young women matter, we demand truth and justice!”

PBI-Guatemala began accompanying Nunca Pares in April 2021.

PBI-Guatemala accompanies Poqomchi’ land defender and UVOC member Justino Xollin at sentencing hearing

By
Brent Patterson
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On May 11, PBI-Guatemala posted:

“PBI accompanies Justino Xollin, defender of nature and member of UVOC during the second day of debate in the sentencing hearing. The defender is accused of cutting down trees and depredation of natural resources.

To learn more about Justino and the struggle of his La Primavera community, we recommend our short documentary: https://cutt.ly/nHiLbaZ.”

UVOC is the Verapaz Union of Campesina Organizations.

In 2013, UVOC lawyer Jorge Luis Morales commented: “The case of La Primavera is emblematic of the issue of agrarian disputes in Guatemala.” In short, Indigenous Poqomchi families have worked this land for centuries, but the current landowners do not recognize their land tenure rights and have tried to evict them.

PBI-Guatemala has explained that the ownership of part of the lands of this farm was achieved in July 2015. However, in early-2020, PBI-Guatemala noted that “there are still conflicts over the property and access to it.”

In February 2019, Prensa Comunitaria tweeted: “For Luis Cugua, defense attorney for Justino Xollin, the arrest of the peasant leader and defender of the forests was an arbitrary arrest in Alta Verapaz.”

In terms of additional context, The Guardian has reported: “A peace agreement in 1996 should have led to land redistribution, but a handful of powerful families still dominates the economy, and Guatemala remains one of the world’s least equal and most violent countries, with the largest 2.5% of farms occupying more than 65% of the land.”

That article notes that foreign-backed mining, dams and other extractive industries have meant the continued dispossession of lands from Indigenous peoples.

UVOC is an indigenous and peasant organization dedicated to the defence and promotion of access to land in the context of historical dispossession and ongoing inequality in Guatemala. UVOC represents Q’eqchi’, Poqomchi, Achi and Mestizas peoples.

PBI-Guatemala has accompanied UVOC since 2005.

PBI-Guatemala observes campesina march for ancestral territory and an end to criminalization in Cobán, Alta Verapaz

By
Brent Patterson
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On May 11, PBI-Guatemala posted: “PBI observes the campesina (peasant) march for peace convened by social organizations in Cobán, Alta Verapaz.”

The Campesino Committee of the Highlands (CCDA) also tweeted: “Indigenous Q’eqchi’ communities carry out a peaceful demonstration to denounce the criminalization, persecution generated by the landed oligarchy in complicity with the State of Guatemala, dispossessing their ancestral lands. Freedom for Jorge and Marcelino!”

And the Maritimes-Guatemala Breaking the Silence Network tweeted: “3500 people from various Q’eqchi campesino communities march today in Coban to the Attorney General’s office and the Ministry of the Interior, demanding respect to their rights, access to land, and an end to criminalization.”

Later in the day, PBI-Guatemala posted: “PBI observes the campesina (peasant) march for peace arriving in the central park of Cobán.”

PBI-Guatemala began accompanying the Campesino Committee of the Highlands (CCDA)-Verapaces Region in July 2018.

PBI-Honduras accompanies LGBT Rainbow Association at event where Honduras acknowledges role in the murder of Vicky Hernández

By
Brent Patterson
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On May 11, PBI-Honduras tweeted:

“PBI accompanies the LGBT Rainbow Association of Honduras during the public pronouncement in which the State of Honduras acknowledged its responsibility in the transfemicide of Vicky Hernández.”

In June 2021, The Guardian reported: “In a landmark ruling for transgender rights, the Honduras government has been found responsible for the 2009 murder of the trans woman and activist Vicky Hernández.”

“Hernández was killed on the first night of the June 2009 coup d’état, in which the Honduran military ousted President Manuel Zelaya.”

That article also notes: “Lawyers working on Hernández’s case argued that state agents actually committed the murder.’”

Now, Los Angeles Blade reports: “The government of Honduras on Monday [May 9] publicly acknowledged it is responsible for the 2009 murder of a Transgender activist.”

“Solicitor General Manuel Antonio Díaz Galeas and Foreign Minister Eduardo Enrique Reina García were among those who attended Monday’s ceremony that took place in front of Colectivo Unidad Color Rosa’s offices. President Xiomara Castro, who took office in January, participated virtually.”

That article also notes: “Kerry Kennedy, president of Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights, which represented Hernández’s family alongside Cattrachas, a lesbian feminist human rights group that is based in the Honduran capital of Tegucigalpa, also attended alongside Hernández’s mother, Rosa Hernández.”

Cattrachas has stated that more than 400 LGBTQ+ people have been killed in Honduras since the coup took place in 2009.

The Peace Brigades International-Honduras Project has accompanied Arcoíris, the LGTB Association of Honduras, since July 2015.

Vicky Hernandez.

PBI-Mexico accompanies conclusion of the 34-day Caravan for Water and Life in the Nahuatl community of Cuentepec, Morelos

By
Brent Patterson
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On April 23, PBI-Mexico tweeted:

“PBI accompanies the end of the Caravan for Water and Life, on April 23 and 24, in the Nahuatl community of Cuentepec, in Morelos. It is the outcome of a month of articulation of struggles in defense of land, territory and the environment in 9 states of the country.”

Communiqué of the Caravan for Life and Water

The communiqué of the caravan was posted several days later. Key excerpts from that statement include:

“The Caravan for Water and Life ends its journey today in the Zapatista lands of Cuentepec, Morelos.

For 34 days we visited our sisters, brothers, and siblings of the Tutunaku, Nahua, Otomí (ñhöñhö), Mazateco, Triqui, Zapoteco, Binizaa, Matlatzinca, Nuntaj iyi, Ayuujk peoples for whom water and land are sacred, who give their very lives to defend and recover what belongs to them.

We knew the pains of the others are the same as ours: contempt, repression, dispossession, and exploitation are the forms in which the war that capitalism imposes around the world manifests to all of us.

We went out to look for ourselves in other geographies, to witness other rages and other rebellions, because we are aware that only with the union of the peoples will we have the necessary strength to defeat this murderous system.

We transgressed the borders that have been imposed on us, we broke the fences, we united and weaved our struggles.

We exposed the voracity of capitalism and its innumerable names:

Mining, water exploitation, real estate, gentrification, contamination of land, air, rivers, and seas, dispossession of territory, transnational mega-projects, assassinations of environmentalists, imprisonments, disappearances, drug trafficking, para-militarism, conscience buying, division of peoples, the commodification of life, precarity of waged and informal labor, collusion of the state and organized and authorized crime, privatization of education, femicides, repression; violence in all its forms.

We also expose the State, faithful butler of capital, which uses all its repressive apparatus against those of us who fight for life.”

The full communiqué can be read here.

PBI-Mexico also accompanied the National Meeting of Struggles against Gas Pipelines and Death Projects in January 2022 where the Caravan for Water and Life was first announced.

Government of Honduras acknowledges its responsibility in the murder of transgender activist Vicky Hernandez

By
Brent Patterson
-

On September 17, 2021, PBI-Honduras tweeted:

“PBI accompanied the Asociación LGTB Arcoiris at the forum on the ruling of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights that declared the State of Honduras responsible for the death of Vicky Hernandez, trans woman activist after the coup in 2009. The event focuses on the trans situation in Latin America and the challenges of the Gender Identity Act that LGTBIQ rights defenders are promoting.”

In June 2021, The Guardian reported: “In a landmark ruling for transgender rights, the Honduras government has been found responsible for the 2009 murder of the trans woman and activist Vicky Hernández.”

“Hernández was killed on the first night of the June 2009 coup d’état, in which the Honduran military ousted President Manuel Zelaya.”

That article also notes: “Lawyers working on Hernández’s case argued that state agents actually committed the murder.’”

Now, Los Angeles Blade reports: “The government of Honduras on Monday [May 9] publicly acknowledged it is responsible for the 2009 murder of a Transgender activist.”

“Solicitor General Manuel Antonio Díaz Galeas and Foreign Minister Eduardo Enrique Reina García were among those who attended Monday’s ceremony that took place in front of Colectivo Unidad Color Rosa’s offices. President Xiomara Castro, who took office in January, participated virtually.”

That article also notes: “Kerry Kennedy, president of Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights, which represented Hernández’s family alongside Cattrachas, a lesbian feminist human rights group that is based in the Honduran capital of Tegucigalpa, also attended alongside Hernández’s mother, Rosa Hernández.”

Cattrachas has stated that more than 400 LGBTQ+ people have been killed in Honduras since the coup took place in 2009.

The Peace Brigades International-Honduras Project has accompanied Arcoíris, the LGTB Association of Honduras, since July 2015.

Vicky Hernandez.

PBI-Canada denounces the imprisonment of Tsleil-Waututh land defender Will George for his opposition to TMX pipeline

By
Brent Patterson
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Photo: Will George

Peace Brigades International-Canada is drawing the attention of the international community to the imprisonment of Tsleil-Waututh land defender Will George.

The Times Colonist newspaper reports: “Cries of ‘Shame on Canada’ and accusations of racism echoed through Vancouver’s Law Courts [on Tuesday] May 10 as an Indigenous protester convicted of breaching an injunction against blocking work at a Burnaby pipeline facility was sentenced to 28 days in jail.”

This press release from Protect the Planet notes: “George was targeted and charged by the Crown in January 2021 with criminal contempt despite never being arrested, and during a period when pipeline work had been suspended.”

It adds: “George—who was tried last fall—is the first Tsleil-Waututh member to be convicted for resisting the TMX pipeline while on his own ancestral, unceded land. Despite George being present with several others on the day he was accused of breaching the TMX injunction, the Crown only brought charges against George.”

Land defender Rita Wong comments: “This is yet another example of the Crown continuing its long history of systemic racism and colonial violence, as it tries to separate Indigenous people from their land and criminalize them for defending it from harmful resource extraction. Criminalizing indigenous land defenders is racist and unjust.”

The sentencing of the Tsleil-Waututh land defender comes just days after the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination had called on Canada – for a third time – to halt construction on the Trans Mountain pipeline.

This most recent letter (dated April 29, 2022) from Verene Shepherd, the Chair of the Committee, to Leslie E. Norton, the Ambassador of Canada to the United Nations in Geneva, called on Canada to: “Cease the construction of the Trans Mountain Pipeline and the Coastal Gas Link pipeline, until free, prior and informed consent is obtained from, respectively, the Secwepemc people and the Wet’suwet’en people, following the full and adequate discharge of the duty to consult.”

The Trans Mountain pipeline crosses the territory of the Secwepemc peoples before it reaches the territory of the Tsleil-Waututh on the Salish Sea.

In March 2021, land defender Stacy Gallagher was also sentenced to prison for conducting ceremony in November-December 2019 near the Trans Mountain pipeline route. Coast Protectors highlighted that Gallagher had engaged in “peaceful prayer, smudging, singing and dancing for Mother Earth in ceremony at the TMX Burnaby tank farm.”

Numerous Secwepemc land defenders have also been criminalized and arrested.

If completed, the Government of Canada-owned 1,150 kilometre-long Trans Mountain pipeline would move 890,000 barrels per day of tar sands crude oil across Tsleil-Waututh and Secwepemc territories without their consent.

The UN Committee has called on Canada to provide a response to its concerns by July 15, 2022.

PBI-Colombia accompanied defender Berenice Celeita to speak at webinar, May 31

By
Brent Patterson
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Association for Research and Social Action (NOMADESC) president Berenice Celeita will speak at the PBI-Canada webinar on May 31 to discuss arms exports and militarization of territory. To register for this webinar, click here.

NOMADESC president Berenice Celeita will speak on a PBI-Canada organized this coming May 31, the day before the CANSEC arms show begins in Ottawa.

She has previously called on the Embassy of Canada in Colombia for guarantees that Canada will not assist the Colombian police with equipment.

Canadian-made armoured vehicles in Valle del Cauca

On July 17, 2021, ETB trade union activist 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 video from the same day 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 in the tweets is a Huron tactical attack and defense vehicle. 

The Toronto-based company INKAS sold four Huron armoured vehicles to the Colombian police in 2014. In April 2015, PLANT also reported: “There’s a tendered order for 26 [more of the INKAS] Huron vehicles for the National Police.”

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

Helicopters in Siloé

SITU Research and Amnesty International have also documented how Colombian police attacked a protest in the neighbourhood of Siloé in Cali on May 3, 2021.

Notably, Amnesty International’s Digital Verification Corps has confirmed the presence of two helicopters in the area during Operation Siloé.

It is in this context that we note Canada has sold forty CH-135 (between September 1998 and February 2000), twelve 212 (between 1994 and 1996) and four 407 helicopters (in 2013-14) to the Colombian police and military.

The Canadian-made Bell 407 helicopter was used to surveil the national strike protests in the main cities of Colombia, which most likely would have included Cali.

In November 2019, when the national strike mobilizations first began, Webinfomil.com reported that the Colombian National Police would “deploy its entire fleet of Bell 407 Halcón surveillance helicopters in the main cities of the country, where the most important concentrations are expected to occur.”

Semana also noted: “The aircraft, normally, carries four policemen (two pilots) and sends the images it takes to the police command, in real time, so that they are implemented in chases, padlock operations and all kinds of operations.”

No monitoring of Canadian military equipment exports

Ottawa Citizen reporter David Pugliese has reported: “The Ottawa-based CCC [Canadian Commercial Corporation], which helps Canadian exporters get contracts with foreign governments acknowledges  it conducts no follow-up to ensure exported Canadian-built equipment isn’t being used to abuse human rights.”

CANSEC, Canada’s largest arms show

INKAS has previously been present at the CANSEC arms show. In 2017, it displayed armoured vehicles similar to those sold to the Colombian police that were later used to block activists en route to Cali during the national strike.

This year, both Bell (the manufacturers of the helicopters that surveilled the national strike protests) and the Canadian Commercial Corporation (a Government of Canada owned corporation that works with trade commissioners at Canadian embassies abroad) will be attending the arms show.

Webinar on Canadian arms exports, May 31

Along with Celeita, the webinar will feature Quetzalli Villanueva Vergara (Tlachinollan Human Rights Centre, Mexico), Ni Dene Uldai (Denesuline land defender from northern Alberta, Canada) and Rachel Small (World Beyond War, Canada).

The webinar will be moderated by Seb Bonet, a PBI-Canada Board member.

Quetzalli Villanueva Vergara, Rachel Small, Ni Dene Uldai, Seb Bonet.

To register for this webinar, please click here.

PBI-Mexico accompanies Mother’s Day march in Mexico City as the number of disappeared rises to over 100,000 people

By
Brent Patterson
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Today, PBI-Mexico tweeted:

“PBI accompanies on this May 10 Mother’s Day search groups and relatives of disappeared persons in the XI National Dignity March, Mothers looking for their sons and daughters, Truth and Justice in #CDMX [Mexico City].”

On Facebook, they also note:

“In its report, the Committee Against Forced Disappearance #CED [the Committee on Enforced Disappearances] “urges the State to adopt and implement a national policy for the prevention and eradication of disappearances that addresses the set of observations and recommendations presented in its report.””

The number of missing has risen to over 100,000 people since 1964. Disappearances of women remain high, with about 1,600 reported missing so far this year.

Today, Al Jazeera also reported:

“Thousands of women in Mexico have spent Mother’s Day marching in the nation’s sprawling capital, chanting and carrying pictures of their missing relatives, to demand accountability amid a worsening surge in violence.

Disappearances began during the Mexican authorities’ so-called dirty war against revolutionary movements of the 1960s to 1980s.

More recently, disappearances and homicides have soared amid a nationwide push to crack down on drug cartels and organized criminal groups in the country. Since 2006, more than 340,000 people have been murdered in a spiral of worsening violence.

The violence and disappearances disproportionately affect women and girls. In Mexico, an average of 10 women a day are killed, and tens of thousands more go missing.

Last month, the United Nations Committee on Enforced Disappearances urged Mexico to tackle “the alarming trend of rising enforced disappearances”, saying the problem is facilitated by “almost absolute impunity”.

The report found that less than 6 percent of disappearances had resulted in prosecutions.

Relatives of Mexico’s disappeared march every year, but this year, they were joined by a caravan of Central American mothers searching for loved ones who went missing while on their journey to the United States.”

For more about the march, please see the Facebook page for Movimiento por Nuestros Desaparecidos en México.

Colombian environmental defenders express concerns about suspected links between Ecopetrol and paramilitary groups

By
Brent Patterson
-

Photo by Al Jazeera.

On May 9, Al Jazeera reported: “Many Colombian activists are increasingly worried that they could be targeted for their work, as recent data from Colombia’s Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP) and Corporacion Compromiso, a local NGO, reveal a sharp increase in threats and violence towards environmental defenders.”

The article by Iñigo Alexander López continues: “The stakes for activists in Santander are especially high. Over the past 18 months, the JEP recorded more than four dozen threats against activists across the region.”

It then notes: “Corporacion Compromiso [Corporación para el Desarrollo del Oriente Compromiso] reported even higher numbers, citing 68 threats towards environmental defenders in Santander in the opening three months of 2022 alone – a significant increase from 2021, when it documented a total of 70 incidents in the whole year.”

“The [Magdalena Medio] area comprises the heart of Colombia’s petroleum industry, and the local town of Puerto Wilches has been selected for the country’s first fracking project, meeting strong resistance from locals and environmental groups. This opposition, in turn, has drawn threats from local armed groups.”

The article highlights: “Local environmental defenders and a representative of the JEP 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.”

A JEP representative told Al Jazeera: “Many contractors and those connected to these [fracking] projects have links to illegal groups.”

On a recent PBI-Canada webinar, Carolina Agón, a member of the CREDHOS human rights committee, stated: “This is not a secret. Ecopetrol has ties and is working hand in hand with the illegal armed groups.”

Carolina added: “We know that the companies are working together with the self-defence forces. We have the AGC and AUC working in our territory. I’ve received threats from both of these groups. I’m not sure which of these groups tried to kill me.”

On that webinar, Juan Camilo Delgado of CREDHOS also commented: “It’s very concerning when we look at the historic relationship between the oil companies and organized illegal groups, specifically paramilitary structures, which has led to human rights violations and attacks against social leaders and environmental leaders from the municipality of Puerto Wilches [in the Magdalena Medio region].”

Canada and Ecopetrol

On that PBI-Canada webinar, Edmonton-based researcher Bronwen Tucker of Oil Change International also noted: “Since 2012, Export Development Canada has given CAD $1.4 billion in government backed loans to oil and gas in Colombia. This is 44 per cent of all G20 international public finance for energy in Colombia in this period.”

Bronwen also shared this slide of the top recipients of Export Development Canada financing in Colombia between 2012 and 2020.

The Banking on Climate Chaos website also reveals Scotiabank’s recent investments in Ecopetrol. Scotiabank provided USD $665 million to Ecopetrol in 2018, another $666.67 million in 2020, and $1.7 billion in 2021 for a total of $3.0 billion in financing.

The Al Jazeera article also notes: “Yuvelis Natalia Morales, a 21-year-old environmental activist, was reportedly forced to flee Puerto Wilches and seek protection in France after intruders came to her home last year and put a gun to her head.”

Yuvelis also took part in the PBI-Canada webinar.

In that space, Yuvelis stated: “When your companies and banks are investing in mining and energy megaprojects in other countries where human rights are being violated every day, you are not an environmentalist country, you are not a green country. I’m sorry to be so blunt. This is a reality that people don’t often want to say because when you open your mouth that could mean you are shot in the forehead.”

With Ecopetrol possibly proceeding with drilling on its first fracking pilot project in August, we will continue to follow this situation very closely.

You can watch the video of this webinar here.

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