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PBI-Colombia accompanied CREDHOS calls for Environmental Public Hearing scheduled for February 19 to be postponed

By
Brent Patterson
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On February 18, the Peace Brigades International-Colombia Project tweeted: “While serious threats and attacks occur @Credhos_Paz + communities in #MagdalenaMedio denounce the absence of measures to mitigate environmental impacts of oil companies‼️ It is requested that the Environmental Hearing be postponed, tomorrow 19F, to guarantee effective participation of communities.”

CREDHOS has issued this public statement on the request by Ecopetrol to modify the Comprehensive Environmental Management Plan (PMAI) De Mares.

CREDHOS explains: “The main objective [of Ecopetrol’s request] is to increase hydrocarbon exploration and exploitation activities in Centro, Lisama and Llanito” which includes the municipalities of Barrancabermeja, Simacota and Puerto Wilches.

They also note that a public hearing was requested in August 2021 by more than 100 people and three organizations (including CRY-GEAM) to present their concerns focused on irregularities in environmental managements in the areas of exploitation of Ecopetrol and its allies including Calgary-based Parex Resources.

CREDHOS further states: “A relevant aspect of the information meeting [convened on February 5-6 by the National Environmental Licensing Authority/ANLA] was the call by the participants to postpone the Environmental Public Hearing on February 19.”

That’s because the information on the modification of the PMAI De Mares was shared at the end of January in a virtual format, which made it difficult for communities to access and analyze the information.

The statement concludes that CREDHOS:

1- Supports the communities and the participants in the repeated complaints made at the information meeting, which demonstrated the social discontent and the socio-environmental consequences of the expansion of the oil industry in the region.

2- Requests the Colombian State to postpone the public hearing convened for February 19 to guarantee the effective participation of the communities.

3- Requests the Office of the Attorney General and other authorities to support the communities that have requested the postponement.

4- Calls on the international community and multilateral organizations (including the United Nations) to observe the actions of the Colombian State with respect to its obligation to guarantee and respect the fundamental rights of peasant, Afro-Colombian and other communities in rural Magdalena Medio, Santander.

Parex and the Aguas Blancas oil field

We are attentive that Parex operates the Aguas Blancas oil field in the municipality of Bajo Simacota, an area within Ecopetrol’s request to modify the PMAI.

Just prior to World Water Day last year, CREDHOS tweeted: “For a healthy environment, CREDHOS accompanies and supports the processes in defense of water in the territory. We highlight the struggle of the Bajo Simacota community against contamination by oil spills, caused by Parex.”

We also note that Parex may be interested in unconventional fossil fuel extractivism in Colombia. In March 2019, then-energy minister Maria Fernanda Suarez named Parex as one of the companies interested in the fracking pilot projects.

Canadian companies secure 39 new exploration blocks

On January 18, La Republica reported that 30 new contracts valued at US$148.5 million were awarded in 2021 for the exploration and production of crude oil in Colombia.

La Republica adds: “Parex Resources will be the company with the most area allocations, with an investment of more than US$85 million.”

Of the 69 blocks awarded by Colombia between 2019 to 2021, Portafolio has reported 26 blocks went to Parex, 5 blocks to Canacol Energy Ltd., 4 to Gran Tierra Energy and 4 to Frontera Energy.

PBI-Colombia has accompanied CREDHOS since 1994.

“We defend water, because water is life, and I would not exchange a glass of water for a glass of oil.” – Adolfo Salinas Coba

PBI-Honduras accompanies protest demanding the release of the Guapinol River defenders from Olanchito prison

By
Brent Patterson
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On February 17, PBI-Honduras tweeted: “PBI accompanies the Committee for the Defense of Common and Public Assets in its demand ‘for the immediate release of the six defenders of @guapinolre who remain in illegal detention at the hands of @PJdeHonduras [the Honduran Judiciary], which refuses to resolve their case.’”

On Wednesday February 9, the court in Trujillo ruled that six of the Guapinol River defenders were guilty of criminal damage and illegal detention of the Los Pinares mining company’s security chief. Two of the defenders were absolved of these same charges.

Barely 24 hours later, on Thursday February 10, the Honduran Supreme Court ordered their immediate release.

Now, Proceso.hn reports: “A group of residents of Colón moved to Tegucigalpa on Thursday [February 17] to protest in front of the Supreme Court of Justice (CSJ), to demand compliance with the ruling of the Constitutional Chamber that releases six members of the well-known Guapinol case who are still being held in the north of the country.”

The six environmentalists are being held in Olanchito prison, Yoro.

Last week, PBI-Honduras tweeted: “The communities remember that the defense of common goods continues until the mining license is annulled.”

Al Jazeera has reported: “The Pinares mining complex is operational. The pelletizing factory – a towering, multi-storey facility for processing iron oxide – looms over Guapinol and neighbouring villages, where residents report hearing the constant noise of heavy machinery and factory equipment at all hours, and say the Guapinol River has lost its clarity since the mining project began.”

PBI-Honduras has accompanied the defenders of the Guapinol and San Pedro rivers for the past three years.

Photo by HCH TV.

Photo by Radio America.

PBI-Mexico calls on Mexican State to guarantee and respect the work of human rights defenders

By
Brent Patterson
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On February 16, PBI-Mexico tweeted: “During the early hours of Tuesday, February 15, a police operation evacuated the Altepemelcalli facilities, in Cuanalá, Puebla. The ‘House of the Peoples’ has meant a space for the communities to defend their collective rights.”

Their Twitter thread also noted:

“The United Peoples of the Cholulteca Region and the Volcanes and members of @fpdtampt [the People’s Front in Defense of Water and Land – Morelos, Puebla and Tlaxcala] turned Altepemelcalli into a space to exercise their rights as indigenous communities and against the dispossession of water and the scarcity that exists in the region.

In Altepelmecalli, defenders met to reflect and articulate on the defence of their rights as indigenous communities to water to territory, to a healthy environment, to self-determination. In their own words, “to life”.

Currently and frequently there have been various incidents against communities and members of @fpdtampt both in Morelos and Puebla. There is an increased risk against community defenders due to: criminalization, direct threats, homicides.

Days before, the @fpdtampt condemned the murder of [water defender] Francisco Vázquez [in Morelos]: “Framed in the context of violence, attacks and violations of human rights faced by those who defend their rights to water and land against the PIM [Morelos Integral Project that includes a gas pipeline, aqueduct and thermoelectric plant].

The eviction from Altepemelcalli is part of this same context of risk that communities and their members see increasing due to the defamation and criminalization to which they are subjected due to the peaceful defense of their collective rights.

These acts occur a few days from commemorating 3 years since the murder of community defender and popular communicator Samir Flores in 2019 in Morelos, who had spoken out in favor of the rights of peoples and against the Project Comprehensive Morelos.

For all of the above, we express our concern about the climate of constant risk that exists for community defenders in the center of the country and for the members of @fpdtampt.

We call on the Mexican State to guarantee and respect the defense work of articulated communities in favor of their rights and to guarantee their integrity and life as defenders of their human rights and collectives.”

PBI-Mexico has accompanied the People’s Front in Defense of Water and Land – Morelos, Puebla and Tlaxcala (FPDTA-MPT) since early 2020.

PBI-Canada remembers peace activist Frank Showler

By
Brent Patterson
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Photo: Frank Showler a his 100th birthday in August 2019.

Frank Showler passed away on February 10 at the age of 102.

Frank was a long-time peace activist and member of the Toronto Monthly Meeting Peace and Social Action Committee.

In this recollection of Frank’s life, Matthew Behrens writes: “Born in the aftermath of the mass slaughter of WW1, Frank was part of a generation who came by their pacifism and anti-capitalism honestly, having inherited the wounds and trauma of the previous decade and challenged themselves to sincerely ask: how do we prevent that from ever happening again, and how do we transform a system that perpetuates and profits from mass slaughter?”

He adds: “For his whole adult life, he, along with his beloved Isabel, resisted war while supporting its victims. [This included welcoming] Chilean and other Latin American refugees from the death squad dictatorships of the 60s and 70s and 80s, housed war resisters who arrived in Toronto with no place to stay, journeyed to the war zone in Nicaragua with Witness for Peace to try and prevent (once again) the use of Canadian weaponry then being used by the terrorist contras on the people of Nicaragua…”

Matthew concludes: “Frank and Isabel always kept the faith with a gentle, subversive, relentless persistence. And with some love and solidarity amongst each other, we can too.”

Dan Anstett also writes: “I first worked with Frank during the Cruise Missile Conversion Project days in the 1980’s, then later when assisting the Quaker Committee for Refugees and the work of Peace Brigades International.” And he tells us: “Frank was a support to me when I worked with PBI in Guatemala in 1984-85 and I think he attended some meetings with the small team in Toronto in those days.”

To hear more from Frank about his life, please see this video from his 99th birthday.

There is also this 4-minute audio clip of Frank and Isabel recorded by Scott Neigh on pacifism during World War II.

Photo: Frank Showler (age 21-22), a conscientious objector, at his bunk at the Montreal River Alternative Service Work Camp (Montreal River Harbour, Ontario) in 1942.

PBI-Guatemala accompanies CCR at Champerico Justice of Peace and to the España River impacted by the agroindustry

By
Brent Patterson
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PBI-Guatemala meets with Abelino Salvador Mejía at the España River.

On February 15, PBI-Guatemala posted: “PBI accompanies three of the four criminalized defenders of the CCR in the signing of the book, in the Champerico Justice of the Peace in the department of Retalhuleu. Then we accompany to the España River, whose water is strongly affected by the agroindustry in the department.”

PBI-Guatemala accompanies Anabella España Reyes, Abelino Salvador Mejía, Flabio Vicente and Virgilio García Carrillo, criminalized water defenders on the Southern Coast of Guatemala who are part of the Council of Communities of Retalhuleu (CCR) and who have as a key demand the right to water.

Sugarcane production uses large amounts of water which impacts the availability of water for local community consumption. Large sugar mills use various means to guarantee their water supply, including diverting rivers and drilling wells for which they have not carried out adequate environmental impact studies.

In recent years there has been drought and pollution of wells, rivers and lagoons, as well as the destruction of livelihoods, causing lack of access to water and health problems such as malnutrition and respiratory and renal ailments.

Anabella, Abelino, Flabio and Virgilio began to organize in 2015 because of the adverse effects caused by the expansion of the monoculture of sugar and the use of large-scale agrochemicals and pesticides used by the mills in the region.

Notably, Canada is the largest importer of Guatemalan sugar.

The four water protectors are now scheduled to be on trial on Monday March 14. They have been charged with illegal detention, coercion and threats, but they have stated: “We organize ourselves in a peaceful way to publicize the consequences of sugar cane, the diversion of rivers that the mills have.”

PBI-Guatemala has been accompanying Anabella, Abelino, Flabio and Virgilio of the Retalhuleu Community Council since April 2020.

PBI-Canada is planning a webinar to be held on Sunday March 13 at 1:30 pm (Guatemala) 2:30 pm (Ottawa). We also hope to arrange for a meeting with the CCR water defenders with Global Affairs Canada on Thursday March 3.

Still from 7-minute video about this situation in Guatemala.

PBI-Honduras accompanies COFADEH at exhumation of murdered Lenca journalist Pablo Isabel Hernández

By
Brent Patterson
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On February 15, PBI-Honduras tweeted: “PBI accompanies COFADEH [the Committee of Relatives of Disappeared Detainees in Honduras] in the exhumation of Pablo Isabel Hernández, indigenous leader, defender of human rights and social communicator assassinated on January 9 in the Department of Lempira. It is worrying that there is no open investigation to find those responsible for the crime.”

Last week, Defensores en linea reported: “A month after this vile murder, there is not even a line of investigation that leads to the whereabouts of those responsible for the crime against the indigenous defender and member of the Lempira network, accompanied and empowered by COFADEH.”

That article also noted: “[COFADEH coordinator Berta] Oliva announced that in this case an exhumation will be carried out in order to advance in the investigations and find the whereabouts of those responsible.”

Today, COFADEH posted on Facebook:

“On this day the Public Ministry (MP) is carrying out the exhumation of the body of the indigenous defender and social communicator Pablo Hernandez, murdered in San Marcos de Caiquín, last January 9, 2022.

In the general cemetery of the previously mentioned municipality such exhumation is being carried out, as part of the investigation that leads to giving indications of the people who committed this murder.

Human rights prosecutors of the Committee of the Family of Missing Detainees in Honduras (COFADEH), an organization that accompanies victims, both legally and emotionally, in the search for justice. Also, international human rights organizations such as Peace Brigades International (PBI).”

On January 10, the Associated Press reported: “A local leader of Honduras’ Indigenous Lenca group was shot to death Sunday, police said. Pablo Isabel Hernández was killed on a dirt road near the town of San Marcos de Caiquín as he headed to a local church with his father and brothers, police spokesman Cristian Manuel Nolasco said.”

That article adds: “Hernández served as director of a radio station known as ‘Radio Tenan, the Indigenous Voice of the Lencas.’ He was also active in Indigenous education and environmental projects.”

The International Federation of Journalists has also noted: “The 34-year-old director of Radio Tenan was assassinated in the Tierra Colorada community in the department of Lempira, after being shot while walking to church from his home and was found by his family.”

“In addition to being director of the popular communication project of Radio Tenan, Hernández Rivera was a leader of the Lenca indigenous community to which the radio belonged and from which he promoted the creation of the Indigenous and Peoples University. He was also a member of the network of Human Rights Defenders.

That post adds: “Radio Tenan is a critical medium that denounced acts of corruption of the municipal mayor Efraín Guadalupe Muñoz. Members of the media assure that during 2021, as a result of their critical position against the local government, they had been victims of threats, theft of computers and sabotage of transmission equipment, with the aim of preventing their investigative work.”

Photo of Pablo Isabel Hernández.

PBI-Honduras accompanies ASODEBICOQ in the delivery of proposals to the mayor of Quimistán (Santa Bárbara) to protect rivers

By
Brent Patterson
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On February 15, PBI-Honduras tweeted: “PBI accompanies ASODEBICOQ in the delivery of several proposals to the new mayor of the municipality of Quimistán (Santa Bárbara). We highlight the organization’s effort to protect the micro-watersheds to conserve the environment and defend the rivers.”

Last month, PBI-Honduras also tweeted: “Today, we are following the judicial process against defenders criminalized for their legitimate defense against the Santa Lucía I (Sta. Bárbara) hydroelectric plant. We highlight [the Association for the Defense of Common Goods of Quimistan] ASODEBICOQ’s efforts to protect the environment.”

In February 2019, Radio Progreso reported that the department of Santa Bárbara is “threatened by more than 15 hydroelectric projects and 23 concessions for mining.”

That article notes: “In the municipality of Quimistán, there is an imminent danger from the installation of the Santa Lucia hydroelectric dam, which is advanced by 90%. And, despite the fact that there is a strong rejection by the population, they currently intend to build a second hydroelectric dam also on the Cuyagual River.”

ASODEBICOQ is opposed to the construction of the Santa Lucia I and Santa Lucia II dams. It has called on the Government of Honduras to stop construction of the dams because the project violates the Indigenous and Tribal Peoples Convention, 1989, an International Labour Organization Convention, also known as ILO-convention 169.

PBI-Honduras has accompanied ASODEBICOQ since May 2018.

Mexican police and National Guard raid the Indigenous Nahua occupied Danone bottled water plant in the city of Juan C. Bonilla

By
Brent Patterson
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Video still from El Universal Puebla.

La Jornada de Oriente reports:

“At 1:20 a.m. on Tuesday [February 15], agents of the National Guard and the State Police evicted members of the Council of United Peoples of the Volcanes Region who had taken – in the municipality of Juan C. Bonilla – the Bonafont water bottling plant – which is owned by the French consortium Danone – since March 22, 2021.

Preliminarily, some members of the popular organization that had under their protection the plant, which was called Casa de los Pueblos [House of the People], reported that there were no injuries during the eviction and apparently, there were no detainees.

Eleven months ago, residents of Juan C. Bonilla and 30 other communities in the region, taking advantage of the fact that March 22 is World Water Day, took over the Bonafont plant as part of a growing unrest against the bottler they accuse of having caused the wells of that municipality to run out.

Over the last year, this conflict became emblematic in Latin America for having managed to get the protest against Bonafont to the headquarters – in France – of the Danone Group and collectives from Europe, the United States and Canada, in solidarity in the struggle for the defense of water in the municipality of Juan C. Bonilla.

It was learned that Bonafont had exerted strong pressure on the governments of the state of Puebla and the federal government to proceed with the eviction of its Juan C. Bonilla plant, which led this company to extract water from other wells clandestinely.”

The full article is at Guardia Nacional y Policía Estatal desalojan planta de Bonafont en Juan C. Bonilla.

Shado (See Hear Act Do) reports: “Since 8th August [2021, the plant] has been occupied by local Indigenous communities and renamed Altepelmecalli: the House of the People.”

That article explains: “20 Nahua Indigenous communities from the volcanic region in Puebla, Mexico, came together in response to the depletion of water in their wells, rivers and streams, united in defence of water and life. Together they formed Pueblos Unidos (the United Peoples) to resist the colonisation and depletion of their waters by Bonafont.”

We have also previously noted that in Canada Danone sells a wide variety of dairy and non-dairy products.

PBI at La Casa de los Pueblos

Just last month, on January 15-16, PBI-Mexico accompanied the organizations and communities that gathered at the occupied bottled water plant to participate in the National Meeting of Struggles against Gas Pipelines and Death Projects.

And on December 15, 2021, PBI-Mexico also participated in an International Mission at the occupied plant on the physical and emotional integrity of communities in Puebla that defend land and water.

We continue to follow this situation.

PBI-Mexico accompanies journalists in Chihuahua protesting the murder of 28 colleagues since 2000 and the five deaths this year

By
Brent Patterson
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On February 14, PBI-Mexico tweeted: “This afternoon we accompanied the call for communicators and journalists in the state of #Chihuahua, in front of the Municipal Palace in the framework of the national ‘The truth is not killed’ mobilization.”

PBI-Mexico also tweeted:

“33 chairs were placed in the place, 28 in memory of the journalists murdered in #Chihuahua between the years 2000 and 2022. In addition to 5 more chairs for the murders of 5 journalists nationwide so far in 2022.”

“The organizers described this peak of violence against journalists as the highest since 2017. They demand that the lines of investigation of the homicides put their journalistic work at the center, as well as that said murders not go unpunished.”

“#Chihuahua is among the 5 states in the country that register the highest number of murders of journalists.”

El Heraldo de Chihuahua reports: “On Monday, February 14, chihuahua journalists gathered in the Plaza de Armas to demand justice for the cases of their colleagues killed so far this year. They demanded from the authorities such as President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, as in the last march, the non-repetition of the acts and the correct investigation of the facts, but also the protection of reporters and the pause to hate speeches towards the press.”

El Pais also reports:

“On Monday [February 14], journalists from fifteen cities came out to demand action from the government against the attacks.

It is the second time since the beginning of the year that journalists in Mexico have had to go out to protest. In the first six weeks of 2022, five reporters have been killed. One crime every eight days.

The Committee to Protect Journalists already considers this period to be the deadliest for the country’s press in more than a decade.

The first demonstration was organized at the end of January to demand justice for José Luis Gamboa, Margarito Martínez, Lourdes Maldonado; to that of this Monday are added the photos of Roberto Toledo and Heber López. They were shot, stabbed, in their cars or leaving their jobs. These crimes are the tip of the iceberg of a guild that lives besieged by violence.

In recent weeks, criticism of the Mechanism for the Protection of Journalists has been common, because, for example, Lourdes Maldonado was incorporated, which did not prevent the hitmen from murdering her on January 23.”

The full article in El Pais can be read at Los periodistas exigen al Gobierno acciones contra la violencia en el período más letal para la prensa en México.

According to the organization Article 19, 150 journalists have been killed in Mexico since 2000. Of these crimes, 47 occurred during the 2012-18 term of Enrique Peña Nieto and 30 in the current administration of Andrés Manuel López Obrador (since December 1, 2018).

#NoSeMataLaVerdad

“The truth is not killed by killing journalists”

Photo below by Raichali.

Photo below by El Heraldo de Chihuahua.

 

Wet’suwet’en water protectors in court on March 14 to hear if CGL will pursue criminal charges

By
Brent Patterson
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Last week, Gidimt’en Checkpoint noted: “Over thirty water protectors are appearing in BC Supreme Court in Prince George on Monday February 14 after the RCMP invasion on Wet’suwet’en territory [on November 18 and 19] 2021.”

In this video update, Gidimt’en land defender Sleydo’ reports:

“Today we were supposed to be able to find out whether or not CGL was pursuing criminal charges against all the land defenders.

Everybody was charged was civil contempt of the court order by Justice Church that we could be blocking CGL on our sovereign Wet’suwet’en territory and that Wet’suwet’en laws were not upheld and do not supersede Western colonial laws.

So, CGL was supposed to say today whether or not criminal contempt would be pursued, and they asked for adjournment for a month from now.

And the reason that they are doing this is because they want all the bail conditions that everybody has to not be on the yintah and not be able to engage and support, they are trying to prevent everybody from being on the territory.

There’s 30 people that now have bail conditions saying they cannot and are not allowed to be on our territory even though they are invited guests, they are family members, they are part of our community and have every right to be on our yintah. It’s according to Wet’suwet’en law who gets to be there and who doesn’t get to be there and CGL and the courts are making that determination for us. And they want to hold that as long as possible to prevent any sort of resistance from happening out on the territory.

So, they’ve asked for an adjournment. The courts have advised CGL that they have to provide the disclosure evidence against us to our lawyers by March 7.

And by March 11, CGL needs to come forward to our lawyers and to the court and to say whether or not they are going to ask the Attorney General to get involved in the proceedings and pursue criminal charges against us.

And so, on March 14 there will be the next court date where they will set more dates in order to determine whether or not that’s going to go forward or not.”

To see the rest of the update after the court hearing, click here and here.

Additionally, the Tyee reports on this hearing at RCMP Error Delays Court Hearing for Pipeline Protesters.

That article notes: “Injunction violations fall under civil law and would require Coastal GasLink to pursue a lawsuit against the land defenders independently. But the company could ask B.C.’s attorney general to press criminal charges, which would transfer responsibility to the BC Prosecution Service.”

“[CGL lawyer Kevin] O’Callaghan said the company is still deciding whether to seek criminal prosecution.”

“When it was suggested that proceedings be put over until May, [Wet’suwet’en lawyer Frances] Mahon pressed for an earlier appearance.”

“A brief court appearance is scheduled for March 14 to determine the date for a subsequent hearing once it’s known if Coastal GasLink will request people be charged criminally. That would require a hearing before Judge Marguerite Church, who issued the injunction to Coastal GasLink on Dec. 31, 2019.”

The Terrace Standard also reports on this at Court adjourns CGL pipeline opposition groups’ hearing to March 14.

Earlier this month, the Terrace Standard also reported that CGL expects drilling under Wedzin Kwa to begin this spring and last for two and a half to three months.

For additional updates, follow @Gidimten on Twitter.

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