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UN report identifies Aamjiwnaang First Nation as a pollution “sacrifice zone” in Canada

By
Brent Patterson
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Facebook photo of Aamjiwnaang water protector Vanessa Gray.

On March 10, The Guardian reported: “A United Nations expert has warned [in this report] of the creation of pollution “sacrifice zones” across the world, where tens of millions of people are suffering strokes, cancers, respiratory problems and heart disease as a result of toxic contamination of the environment.”

David Boyd, the Special Rapporteur on human rights and the environment, says: “There are sacrifice zones all over the world, in every region: in the north, in the south, in the east, in the west, in rich countries, in poor countries.”

In a 43-0 vote on October 8, 2021—with just China, India, Japan, and Russia abstaining—the Human Rights Council formally recognized the right to a safe, clean, healthy, and sustainable environment (Resolution 48/13).

Boyd’s report points to over 60 sacrifice zones around the world, including the Aamjiwnaang First Nation.

On page 10, point 43, the report states:

“One of the most notorious pollution hotspots in Canada – “Chemical Valley”, in Sarnia, Ontario – has disturbing health effects on the Aamjiwnaang First Nation. There are more than 40 large petrochemical, polymer, oil-refining and chemical facilities in close proximity to Aamjiwnaang, as well as a coal-fired power plant. This Indigenous community endures some of the worst air quality in Canada. Physical and psychological health problems are common, including high rates of miscarriages, childhood asthma, and cancer.”

Other reports

In October 2016, the Montreal Gazette reported: “[A study by McGill health science professor Niladri Basu] found women in the Aamjiwnaang First Nation are exposed to higher-than-average levels of hormone-blocking toxins. It hints there may be a link between this and the unusually low male birth rate on the Chippewa reserve.”

That article adds: “Health surveys conducted in the community also found high rates of asthma, chronic headaches and miscarriages in Aamjiwnaang. About 40 per cent of adults on the reserve use an asthma inhaler, according to the 2006 survey.”

And notably in June 2019, United Nations Special Rapporteur on human rights and hazardous substances and wastes, Baskut Tuncak stated: “The condition of the Aamjiwnaang First Nation in Sarnia is deeply unsettling.”

Tuncak adds: “Deeply connected with their land, residents on the reservation are now surrounded on three sides by over 60 industrial facilities that create the physiological and mental stress among community members regarding the risk of impending explosions or other disasters, as well as a wide variety of health impacts from unquestionably poisonous chronic exposures.”

Water protector Vanessa Gray

The Toronto Star has reported that Anishinaabe land defender and water protector Vanessa Gray grew up adjacent to Chemical Valley, “which houses over 40 per cent of Canada’s petrochemical industry (that’s over 60 plants in a 25-kilometre radius).”

She has commented: “I was born into a place called the “Chemical Valley” where there are 60 high-emitting facilities in a very small area surrounding my community. I grew up with companies like Shell and Suncor and Imperial Oil and Enbridge always spilling and releasing [chemicals] without [my] knowledge of why.”

In 2019, Gray co-led the launch of the University of Toronto-based The Land and the Refinery research project, that includes the Pollution Reporter mobile app.

The Sarnia Observer has explained: “The new app catalogues 70 chemicals emitted by Imperial Oil, self-reported by the refinery via the federal National Pollutant Release Inventory. It connects those with known health harms based on peer-reviewed medical literature. The app also gives users an easier way to report incidents to Ontario’s Environment Ministry.”

Last month, the Toronto Star reported that Gray “has been arrested twice in her work as a land protector” most recently in December 2021 for “her alleged involvement in a solidarity action supporting land protectors on unceded Wet’suwet’en territory, who were the subject of a high-profile RCMP raid the month before.”

For more on that, please see – Solidarity Statement: From Wet’suwet’en to Tkaronto We Demand an End to the Criminalization of Indigenous Land Defenders.

Facebook photo.

Indigenous Rarámuri forest defender José Trinidad Baldenegro murdered in Coloradas de la Virgen, Sierra Tarahumara, Mexico

By
Brent Patterson
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On March 11, the Associated Press reported: “An Indigenous rights activist who campaigned against illegal logging has been killed in northern Mexico, prosecutors say, five years after his activist brother also was slain.”

“Prosecutors in the border state of Chihuahua state said Friday [March 11] that Jose Trinidad Baldenegro was attacked when he left his house in the settlement of Colorada de la Virgen to go to work on Monday [March 7].”

“Baldenegro, 47, was part of the Tarahumara people who for years have fought illegal logging and mining in their territory, where drug gangs often cut down forest to plant narcotics [including poppy and marijuana crops].”

The article adds: “His brother, Isidro Baldenegro, whose campaign against illegal logging won him a Goldman Prize for environmental activism in 2005, was murdered in [January] 2017. A year later [on October 24, 2018], Julián Carrillo, another Tarahumara leader, was slain. Four of Carrillo’s relatives had been killed.”

El Pais further reports that José’s 25-year-old daughter Yurisa says the family was then forced from their home after José was killed and that the house was then burned down.

“For Yurisa, one of the activist’s four children, this attack is a direct affront to her father and the work he did to support the Coloradas community.”

The El Pais article notes: “The association Alianza Sierra Madre has condemned in writing the murder of José Trinidad Baldenegro and points out that for years the inhabitants of the region have been displaced by members of the crime, who intimidate them and force them to leave their lands.”

And El Heraldo reports: “The community of Coloradas de la Virgen, Baborigame section of the Guadalupe y Calvo municipality, Chihuahua, Mexico has a long history of violence, harassment and threats against their traditional authorities for the defense of their forest.”

It further notes: “The community is located in the south of the state of Chihuahua and the Sierra Tarahumara, being a territory of more than 49 thousand 500 hectares shared by Indigenous Rarámuri people and, to a lesser extent, Odami.”

The Peace Brigades International-Mexico Project has accompanied the Sierra Madre Alliance (ASMAC) since 2018.

José’s brother Isidro, who fought for the preservation of the forests of the Sierra Tarahumara in the face of illegal logging and mining, was murdered on January 15, 2017.

European Parliament condemns the killing of human rights defenders and journalists in Mexico

By
Brent Patterson
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On March 11, Espacio OSC tweeted: “Yesterday, the European Parliament issued an urgent resolution on Mexico, due to the most recent attacks and murders against human rights defenders and journalists and called for a comprehensive public protection policy.”

This statement signed the CSO Space for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders and Journalists (Espacio OSC) and other organizations noted: “Yesterday the European Parliament condemned violence, human rights violations and attacks against journalists and human rights defenders, including environmental defenders, indigenous peoples and communities, as well as those who defend women’s rights in Mexico.”

Emergency resolution (RC9-0153/2022) was passed by the European Parliament with 607 votes in favour, 2 against and 73 abstentions.

That resolution can be read here.

It notes that at least 6 journalists have been killed this year and that at least 68 human rights defenders have been killed in Mexico since December 2018.

The statement adds: “The European Parliament reiterated to the Mexican State its international obligation to adopt concrete, effective and coherent measures to prevent, protect, investigate and fully remedy human rights violations against those who defend human rights and exercise their right to freedom of expression through journalistic work.”

And it highlights: “The signatory organizations join the call of the European Parliament and demand that the Mexican State honor its international obligations, strengthening the rule of law and enforcing the regulatory frameworks that civil society organizations have promoted.”

Those signatory organizations also include the Saltillo Migrant Shelter and the Project on Organization, Development, Education and Research (PODER).

The CSO (Civil Society Organization) Space for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders and Journalists (Espacio OSC) – which is accompanied by the Peace Brigades International-Mexico Project – includes Article 19, the Tlachinollan Mountain Human Rights Centre, the Consortium for Parliamentary Dialogue and Equity, Oaxaca A.C. (Consorcio Oaxaca).

The full statement can be read at El Gobierno de México debe cesar la estigmatización contra personas defensoras de DH y periodistas y adoptar medidas integrales para protegerles.

“The Government of Mexico must end the stigmatization against human rights defenders and journalists and adopt comprehensive measures to protect them.”

PBI-Mexico accompanies consultation process in Santa Maria, calls for Indigenous rights to be respected

By
Brent Patterson
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On March 11, PBI-Mexico tweeted:

“On March 13, at #Puebla, in the municipality of Juan C. Bonilla, one will take place: Consultation with the indigenous community of Santa María #Zacatepec to determine the election system they wish to use to elect authorities: “Uses and customs” or “Polls and Elections””

Their Twitter thread adds:

“The @trielecpue [the Electoral Court of the State of Puebla] issued a statement ordering the following: “A prior, free, informed and good faith consultation with the inhabitants of the Auxiliary Board of Santa María Zacatepec” after the @INAHmx [the National Institute of Anthropology and History] made an anthropological opinion.

Since days past, the @Puebla_IEE [State of Puebla Electoral Institute] have prepared the way for the query to be carried out. And that, as @trielecpue points out, it is based on the recognition of the “indigenous character with which they self-ascribe” in #Zacatepec, that is, the right to self-determination

The right to self-determination is not a minor issue to guarantee peace and respect for #ddhh [human rights] as the Convention on Indigenous Peoples of the @ONU_es [United Nations] points out, there is an “urgent need to respect and promote the intrinsic rights of indigenous peoples”

However, in Mexico and Latin America there is a special concern in this regard: “HRDs [human rights defenders] of the right to land, the environment and the rights of indigenous peoples were the object of attacks in 40%” in cases documented by @FLDAmericas [Front Line Defenders]

For this reason, we want the consultation on Sunday to be “free, informed and in good faith”, without coercion or violence. We call for the security and protection of defenders of #ddhh who advise and who are members of #Zacatepec to be guaranteed

And we also urge the authorities involved in the process to generate the necessary conditions to guarantee the free exercise of collective rights that will take place in Santa María #Zacatepec.”

The PBI-Mexico Facebook post on this.

For more background, please see PBI-Mexico accompanies Indigenous consultation in community of Santa Maria Zacatepec.

Last month, PBI-Mexico commented: “Both the Mexican constitution and international treaties indicate the right of indigenous peoples to self-determination, autonomy and/or self-government. In this sense, we express our concern about the intimidation against the traditional authorities and their legal advice to the community that occurred in a meeting with the Electoral Institute of the State of Puebla on February 5.”

Photo: PBI-Mexico at the February 5 community meeting convened by the State Electoral Institute (IEE) was held at the “Francisco Villa” elementary school.

Gidimt’en land defenders report Canadian police surveillance and harassment on Wet’suwet’en territories

By
Brent Patterson
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On March 8, Gidimt’en Checkpoint tweeted:

“RCMP have been entering our village several times each day to harass, surveil, intimidate, and threaten our guests. When police came to her home at 4am, Auntie Janet confronted the officers and kicked them out of our camp.”

This Gidimt’en Access Checkpoint video posted on March 8 also notes:

“The last couple days the BC RCMP have been coming into camp, multiple officers at a time, to walk around harassing people claiming “crown land” patrols. There have been threats of arrest, recording of vehicle information, and intimidation.

This particular video is at 1am. They have been coming in multiple times a day with threats to keep coming every day. Their motivation seems to be purely intimidation. They have no reason to continue this behaviour other than to be bullies.

They have been told by the Hereditary Chiefs they are not welcome in Gidimt’en territory. They are trespassing on sovereign land and refuse to accept the 1997 Delgamuukw decision that upheld our Hereditary Chiefs jurisdiction and title. This is not something new. We will continue to hold our ground in the face of police harassment and the violence of the state.”

Filmmaker Michael Toledano has also explained in this series of tweets:

“Coastal Gaslink has stationed several private security (who are ex law enforcement) inside and at the entrance of Wet’suwet’en camps, while RCMP are conducting repeated foot patrols of Wet’suwet’en camps at odd hours.

RCMP are also providing 24 hour security at CGL’s drill site.

This policy of total surveillance involves continuous video surveillance of Wet’suwet’en home sites by ex law enforcement, and private security or police following your vehicle when you travel. RCMP pulled me over yesterday for no specific reason.

There are officers from the CIRG unit, but there are also police resources being pulled from towns over 150km away.

The “temporary” RCMP detachment set up in 2019 appears to be in use still, despite statements from police and even Justin Trudeau that it was removed in 2020.”

The UN calls for Coastal GasLink to stop

At this time, we recall that the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination called on Canada “to immediately halt the construction and suspend all permits and approvals for the construction of the Coastal Gas Link pipeline in the traditional and unceded lands and territories of the Wet’suwet’en people, until they grant their free, prior and informed consent, following the full and adequate discharge of the duty to consult.”

That same decision urged Canada “to guarantee that no force will be used against Secwepemc and Wet’suwet’en peoples and that the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and associated security and policing services will be withdrawn from their traditional lands.”

Canada was required to submit a report to the UN Committee by November 15, 2021, on its compliance with the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination. Instead, Canada delayed that until an unspecified date in 2022.

Coastal GasLink drilling to start this spring

Last month, a Coastal GasLink spokesperson stated: “We expect that the micro-drilling [under Wedzin Kwa] will take place starting this spring.”

The Terrace Standard adds: “In preparation, a drilling company is getting ready to install a starting shaft which is a deep circulation excavation acting as an entry point on the east side of the Morice. The active tunneling work is expected to take two and half to three months.”

PBI-Canada was present on Wet’suwet’en territories in November 2021.

We continue to follow this issue with concern.

Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders posts Urgent Intervention following attack on CAHUCOPANA president Carlos Morales

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

“The Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders, the Organization Against Torture (OMCT) and the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) condemn the serious attack against Carlos Morales, president of @CAHUCOPANA, and his family. And they request urgent intervention of authorities to guarantee their protection. In 2022, 35 defenders have already been killed.”

The Observatory’s Urgent Intervention notes:

“The Observatory has received with concern information about the attack against Mr. Carlos Arturo Morales Mallorga, a peasant leader, human rights defender and president of the Humanitarian Action Corporation for Coexistence and Peace in Northeast Antioquia (Cahucopana).

On February 27, 2022, at half past ten in the evening, in the city of Barrancabermeja, department of Santander, Carlos Morales, while picking up his minor son, accompanied by his partner and his other minor son, was shot by unidentified armed individuals, who were traveling on a motorcycle.

Carlos Morales and his partner were injured. They were immediately transferred and admitted to the hospital. All of them are out of danger. On February 28, 2022, Carlos Morales filed a complaint with the Prosecutor’s Office.

Days before the attack, Carlos Morales led meetings with the Representative of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights in Colombia and with representatives of the diplomatic corps accredited in Colombia to analyze the security situation in Cahucopana.

Likewise, Carlos Morales and other members of Cahucopana have held meetings with local authorities and governments to communicate the situation of persecution, harassment and criminalization faced by leaders who defend the right to land and territory against the control and dispossession of their lands by paramilitary successor groups and guerrilla groups.

The Observatory emphasizes that Carlos Morales and other members of Cahucopana have been beneficiaries of precautionary measures by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) since 2018. Mr. Morales has armed escorts and an armored vehicle under the individual scheme granted by the National Protection Unit (UNP). At the time of the attack, neither the bodyguards nor the vehicle were accompanying him.

Likewise, the defender had been relocated to Barrancabermeja by the UNP because of the high level of risk he faced due to his position in the organization and for legitimately exercising his right to defend the peasants and their territories in the Northeast Antioquia subregion.

In addition, since 2019 Cahucopana has had collective measures differentiated from the UNP, which extend to all the peasant and mining communities with which they work. None of these prevention and protection measures were effective in preventing the attack on Carlos Morales and his family.

The Observatory stresses that the attack against Carlos Morales is part of a context of harassment and systematic violence in the region against defenders linked to movements in defense of land, territory and the rights of peasants, both by paramilitary structures and by guerrilla groups.”

Their full Urgent Intervention can be read here.

PBI-Colombia has accompanied the Humanitarian Action Corporation for Coexistence and Peace in Northeast Antioquia (Cahucopana) since 2013.

TC Energy and the Encino-Topolobampo pipeline on Rarámuri ancestral territory in Mexico

By
Brent Patterson
-

Photo: PBI-Mexico accompanies CONTEC on a visit to the San Elías Repechique Forest community in August 2016.

Calgary-based TC Energy is currently building the Coastal GasLink fracked gas pipeline without consent on unceded Wet’suwet’en territory in British Columbia.

This spring, the company plans to begin drilling under the Wedzin Kwa river considered sacred by the Wet’suwet’en peoples.

Photo: Canadian police raided Wet’suwet’en territory in November 2021 to enable construction of the TC Energy Coastal GasLink pipeline to continue.

TC Energy also owns five pipelines in Mexico that transport about 25 per cent of the natural gas consumed in the country.

One of those pipelines is the Encino-Topolobampo pipeline.

It was built on the ancestral territory of the Rarámuri in the Sierra Tarahumara in the state of Chihuahua without free, prior and informed consent.

The pipeline has the capacity to move 670 million cubic feet of natural gas a day from Texas through the mountains of Chihuahua to Mexico’s Pacific Coast.

When the San Elías Repechique Forests community opposed the project in February 2014, that created sufficient pressure for a consultation.

The Chihuahua-based human rights organization Technical Community Consultation (CONTEC) was one of the organizations that supported them.

Journalist Martha Pskowski writes that when the consultation began in November 2014, “Rarámuri communities voiced concerns that construction would impact their water sources, cause deforestation, and affect their farmlands.”

She adds: “The community of Repechike maintained that they wanted the pipeline route to be re-drawn so it would not cross their territory.”

By February 2015, the community decided to end the “dialogue” in this consultation process because TC Energy subsidiary Noreste Natural Gas Transporting corporation (TGNN) had not taken into consideration this request to redraw the pipeline route.

In a report about the consultation, CONTEC commented: “The logic of the state is to impose the project at the lowest social cost possible. That’s how the consultation is used as rhetoric, as discourse, without its real meaning.”

Pskowski notes: “[TransCanada] eventually agreed to modify the route to avoid Repechike’s territory. However, in other communities where construction started before the consultation got underway, it was impossible to turn back the clock.”

By December 2018, the pipeline was operational.

Pskowski further comments: “Experiences like the El Encino-Topolobampo pipeline have soured many Indigenous communities and human rights lawyers to the state-run consultation process.”

Now, TC Energy, the largest foreign investor in Mexico, has plans for another pipeline.

As of December 2021, the company was looking at a $4 billion-plus capital investment in a pipeline that would function as an extension of the Sur de Texas-Tuxpan pipeline. It also wants to have the Villa de Reyes pipeline fully in-service by mid-2022.

Both pipelines have been opposed by Indigenous peoples in Mexico.

Photo: In January 2020, Indigenous Otomi peoples in the town of San Pablito called for the TC Energy Tuxpan-Tula pipeline to be cancelled because it would cross the sacred hills of the Pahuatlán region in the state of Puebla.

The report Territories of water: defense of community areas and the shared history of their peoples (before the Tuxpan-Tula gas pipeline), can be downloaded here.

When the report was presented to the Regional Council of Indigenous Peoples in Defense of the Territory of Puebla and Hidalgo, the council “accepted and celebrated the document, and pledged to continue their fight, and eventually to establish links with the Wet’suwet’en communities that resist TC-Energy in Canada.”

The Peace Brigades International-Mexico Project has informally accompanied CONTEC since 2015. In February 2022, PBI-Mexico amplified and formalized that accompaniment due to the increased level of risk faced by the organization.

Photo: PBI-Mexico remembers Julian Carrillo, a Raramuri defender the Sierra Tarahumara who was murdered in October 2018. Pskowski has noted that his death and other acts of intimidations “discouraged some Rarámuri people from speaking out when the energy company TransCanada began building a natural gas pipeline through the area.”

Webinar this Sunday!

By
Brent Patterson
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We hope that you will be able to join us this Sunday March 13th at 2:30 pm EDT to hear from Abelino Salvador Mejía talk about the situation for environmental defenders speaking against the harms caused by the sugar industry in Guatemala.

Notably, Canada was the largest importer of sugar from Guatemala in 2020.

To register for this webinar, please click here.

PBI-Guatemala has posted: “On the South Coast, agribusiness hoards water and diverts riverbeds, leaving communities without access to water. In addition, the fumigation carried out without any type of control causes illnesses in people and losses in crops.”

More than 50 rivers have been diverted for agribusiness on the South Coast.

Abelino has spoken against this violation of the human right to water.

On March 14, the day after he joins our webinar, he will be in court with three other colleagues all of whom have been criminalized by sugar mills.

Brent

PS. I hope you can also join us on Sunday March 20 at 2:30 pm EDT to hear Clara van Tienhoven, a past PBI-Mexico field volunteer and the incoming Field Coordinator for the South Team, talk about the application process to be a PBI brigadista.

PBI-Mexico is seeking new volunteers in July-August of this year and has set an application deadline of March 31.

Register to hear more about that here.

La France accueille activiste anti-fracking Yuvelis Morales alors que le gouvernement canadien reste silencieux

By
Brent Patterson
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Les sociétés transnationales canadiennes – y compris Canacol Energy Ltd., basée à Calgary – ont accueilli favorablement la perspective de la fracturation commerciale en Colombie.

Parex Resources, basée à Calgary, a également été nommée par le ministre colombien des Mines et de l’Énergie parmi les entreprises « cherchant à exploiter » un bloc de fracturation hydraulique.

Et Frontera Energy, basée à Calgary, est propriétaire minoritaire d’un pipeline de 236 000 barils par jour qui part de la région de Magdalena Medio et qui serait prêt à transporter une production accrue de pétrole brut si la fracturation est approuvée commercialement.

Le gouvernement canadien ne l’a pas dissuadé publiquement.

Et pourtant, les projets pilotes – dont le projet Platero sur un bloc de terrain détenu en copropriété par la société torontoise Sintana Energy Ltd. – ont déjà conduit à une situation dangereuse pour les défenseurs de l’environnement, dont le militant afro-colombien de 21 ans Yuvelis Natalia Morales.

Morales est le fondateur d’Aguawil, le Comité pour la défense de l’eau, de la vie et du territoire de la communauté de Puerto Wilches.

Morales a commenté: «Ce comité est assez spécial et très important en Colombie car c’est un comité de jeunes. Nous avons tous entre 18 et 25 ans.

La première menace de mort contre Morales est survenue en janvier 2021, peu de temps après qu’elle avait organisé une manifestation en décembre 2020.

Morales raconte : « Des hommes armés sont venus chez moi et m’ont piégé. Ils ont pointé un pistolet sur ma tempe.

En avril 2021, Morales a déclaré à PBI-Canada : « Lorsque nous sommes devenus un problème pour les compagnies pétrolières, celles qui s’intéressent à la promotion de la fracturation hydraulique et de ses avantages économiques, elles ont commencé à nous menacer, à nous stigmatiser et à nous faire taire. Plus de huit de nos jeunes ont été menacés.

Elle a également expliqué : « Ils appelaient nos téléphones, venaient chez nous, menaçaient nos parents, disant qu’ils allaient leur enlever leur travail. Ils ont commencé à les persécuter, les qualifiant de «guérilleros». En Colombie, quand ils vous qualifient de guérilla, cela signifie la mort.

D’autres menaces en février 2022 ont forcé Morales à déménager en France. Elle a pu le faire dans le cadre de l’initiative Marianne du gouvernement français pour les défenseurs des droits humains lancée en décembre 2021.

Morales a été parmi les premiers défenseurs accueillis en 2022. La France déclare : « [Les cohortes de cette année] seront entièrement composées de femmes, conformément à la diplomatie féministe française.

Le 8 mars, Morales a rencontré le président français Emmanuel Macron pour exprimer ses inquiétudes concernant la fracturation hydraulique en Colombie.

Elle a parlé à Macron de la violence systémique contre les défenseurs de l’environnement qui s’opposent à la fracturation hydraulique en Colombie et a dénoncé le président colombien Iván Duque qui « parcourt le monde en parlant de la protection de l’environnement et de la planète, alors que ses politiques en Colombie détruisent la nature et contribuent à augmenter les émissions ». des gaz qui génèrent la crise climatique.

Morales a également demandé à Macron “d’influencer la communauté internationale pour que l’État colombien apporte les garanties pour défendre la terre, sans que cela nous coûte la vie et pour que les entreprises impliquées dans ces projets respectent les droits de l’homme”.

Malgré les lignes directrices du Canada sur les «Voix en danger» visant à protéger les défenseurs des droits de la personne, aucune déclaration publique d’inquiétude n’a été faite au sujet de la fracturation hydraulique en Colombie.

Le Canada n’a pas non plus encouragé le gouvernement colombien à ratifier l’Accord d’Escazú pour la protection des défenseurs de l’environnement comme l’ont fait les ambassades de Norvège, d’Allemagne et de Suède en Colombie.

Le Canada n’a pas non plus de programme de réinstallation temporaire pour les défenseurs des droits de la personne à risque. Ce n’était pas une option pour Morales de venir au Canada.

Aux côtés de la France, l’Allemagne a lancé l’Initiative Elisabeth-Selbert (ESI) pour la protection des défenseurs des droits humains menacés en juin 2020, le ministère néerlandais des Affaires étrangères soutient le Shelter City Network et le ministère irlandais des Affaires étrangères a soutenu trois- séjours d’un mois pour les défenseurs à risque depuis 2011.

Nous continuons de suivre cette situation étant donné que la fracturation devrait commencer en 2023 et pourrait être avancée cette année.

France welcomes Afro-Colombian anti-fracking youth activist Yuvelis Morales as Canadian government remains quiet

By
Brent Patterson
-

Canadian transnational corporations – including Calgary-based Canacol Energy Ltd. – have welcomed the prospect of commercial fracking in Colombia.

Calgary-based Parex Resources has also been named by Colombia’s Minister of Mines and Energy as among the companies “seeking to operate” a fracking block.

And Calgary-based Frontera Energy is a minority owner in a 236,000 barrel per day pipeline that runs from the Magdalena Medio region that is reportedly ready to move increased crude output if fracking is commercially approved.

The Canadian government has not publicly dissuaded this.

And yet, the pilot projects – including the Platero project on a block of land co-owned by Toronto-based Sintana Energy Ltd. – has already led to a dangerous situation for environmental defenders, including 21-year-old Afro-Colombian activist Yuvelis Natalia Morales.

Morales is the founder of Aguawil, the Committee for the Defence of Water, Life and Territory in the community of Puerto Wilches.

Morales has commented: “This committee is quite special and is very important in Colombia as it’s a youth committee. We are all between 18 and 25 years old.”

The first death threat against Morales came in January 2021, not long after she had organized a protest in December 2020.

Morales says: “Some armed men came to my house and trapped me. They put a gun to my head.”

By April 2021, Morales told PBI-Canada: “When we became a problem for the oil companies, those interested in promoting fracking and its economic benefits, they started to threaten, stigmatize, and silence us. More than eight of our youth have been threatened.”

She has also explained: “They would call our phones, come to our houses, threaten our parents, saying they would take away their jobs. They started to persecute them, calling them ‘guerrillas’.  In Colombia, when they label you a guerrilla, this means death.”

More threats in February 2022 forced Morales to move to France. She was able to do so under the French government’s Marianne initiative for human rights defenders that was launched in December 2021.

Morales was among the first defenders welcomed in 2022. France says: “[This year’s cohorts] will be made up entirely of women, consistent with France’s feminist diplomacy.”

On March 8, Morales met with French president Emmanuel Macron to express her concerns about fracking in Colombia.

She told Macron about the systemic violence against environmental defenders who oppose fracking in Colombia and denounced Colombian president Iván Duque who “travels the world talking about the protection of the environment and the planet, while his policies in Colombia destroy nature and contribute to increasing the emission of gases that generate the climate crisis.”

Morales also asked Macron “to influence the international community so that the Colombian State provides the guarantees to defend the land, without that costing us our lives and so that the companies involved in these projects respect human rights.”

Despite Canada’s “Voices at Risk” guidelines to protect human rights defenders, no public statements of concern have been made about fracking in Colombia.

Canada has also not encouraged the Colombian government to ratify the Escazú Agreement for the protection of environmental defenders as have the Embassies of Norway, Germany and Sweden in Colombia.

Nor does Canada have a temporary relocation program for at-risk human rights defenders. It was not an option for Morales to come to Canada.

Along with France, Germany launched the Elisabeth-Selbert-Initiative (ESI) for the protection of threatened human rights defenders in June 2020, the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs supports the Shelter City Network, and the Irish Ministry of Foreign Affairs has supported three-month stays for at-risk defenders since 2011.

We continue to follow this situation given fracking is expected to begin in 2023 and could be brought forward this year.

EL DIARIO Boyacá video.

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