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PBI-Honduras laments murder of Lenca leader and Radio Tenàn director Pablo Hernández

By
Brent Patterson
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On January 10, PBI-Honduras tweeted: “From PBI we regret the murder of the indigenous leader and human rights defender Pablo Hernández. We express our concern about the risky conditions experienced by people who work on issues of freedom of expression and community development.”

PBI-Honduras also shared the tweet from @MovAmplioHn (the Broad Movement for Dignity and Justice/MADJ) that says: “PABLO HERNÁNDEZ, INDIGENOUS LEADER, KILLED IN LEMPIRA, HONDURAS. There is another Lenca indigenous leader assassinated in the JOH government, it is Pablo Hernandez, from San Marcos, Caiquín in Lempira. From @MovAmplioHn we condemn this crime and demand justice.”

El Mundo reports: “The leader of the Committee of Relatives of Disappeared Detainees in Honduras (Cofadeh), Bertha Oliva, confirmed that the indigenous leader had filed complaints about threats, also with the Prosecutor’s Office, since his environmental struggle and the rights of his people had caused him problems with the municipal authorities.”

Oliva says: “Pablo had said that he had been threatened by the municipal authorities for his environmental struggle.”

Criterio also notes: “According to complaints from his relatives and colleagues, Hernández had been threatened for some time because he was a community leader and defender of the rights of the Lenca indigenous peoples and because of the strong denunciations he made on Radio Tenàn.”

Deutsche Welle further notes Hernández chaired the Network of Agroecologists of the Biosphere, promoted and integrated the Network of Human Rights Defenders of the Committee of Relatives of the Disappeared in Honduras, and was currently part of the National Network of the NGO of relatives of disappeared Hondurans.

And the Associated Press reports: “A local leader of Honduras’ Indigenous Lenca group was shot to death Sunday, police said.”

“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 Association of Honduran Community Media said in a statement that it ‘considered the killing yet another attack on freedom of expression and the defense of human rights.’”

“Hernández was the second Lenca leader killed in less than a year. In March 2020, Lenca activist Juan Carlos Cerros Escalante was shot to death in the town of Nueva Granada, in the Caribbean coast province of Cortés. He had helped lead a fight against construction of a dam.”

The AP report adds: “Both Hernández and Cerros Escalante belonged to the same Indigenous community as Berta Cáceres, a prize-winning environmental and Indigenous rights defender who was murdered in 2016.”

Front Line Defenders has reported that 20 human rights defenders were killed in Honduras in 2020, another 31 defenders in 2019.

Elaine Bishop recalls visit to El Salvador with Peace Brigades International

By
Brent Patterson
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In this video (starting at the 33:37 mark), Elaine Bishop, a former Coordinator of the Canadian Friends Service Committee, notes:

“I had an amazing experience going on to El Salvador with Peace Brigades International and Alaine Hawkins. We visited some of the people being accompanied by Peace Brigades International volunteers.

The story that we were told by the man who was being accompanied. He told us about a death threat that he received. We said: ‘What did you do?’ He said: ‘Oh I just ignored it. They said they would kill me within two days, but the postmark was six days ago.’”

As noted on the PBI website:

“In 1987, at the invitation of Lutheran Bishop Medardo Gomez, PBI started working in El Salvador. Most of the work consisted of providing international protective accompaniment to threatened popular organizations and regular visits to villages of returned refugees.

Groups with whom we worked included COMADRES (Committee of Mothers and Relatives of the Disappeared), UNTS and FENASTRAS (trade unions), CRIPDES (Christian Committee for Internal Refugees), and AMS (Women’s organisation).

After the signing of the peace accords in 1992, the Project was closed as there was no longer a need for our work.”

Elaine also shared the photo above and noted: “This is a photo of Alaine leading a peace training program in Kingston, Ontario.”

Alaine was a founder and active member of Peace Brigades International-Canada, the first PBI country group (incorporated in January 1984).

From 1986 to 1991, Alaine was the Toronto-based coordinator of PBI’s Central American Project. Joan Edenburg comments in the book Making Space for Peace: “During these tense and difficult years in Central America, Alaine made a major contribution in establishing PBI as a respected organisation in the region.”

In 1988, Alaine explained to Toronto’s NOW Magazine our work: “Peace Brigades supports the political space in which people work for social change in a non-violent way. Our people are a physical presence. If anything happens to the people they are escorting, we are able to get the word out immediately.”

Alaine was also crucial in the formation of PBI’s Sri Lanka Project in 1989 (which was based in Halifax, England) and the North America Project in 1992 (based in Toronto).

Alaine passed away on April 3, 1997, at 62 years of age from cancer.

Related reading:

Remembering Alaine Hawkins

The key role played by Quakers in the formation of Peace Brigades International 40 years ago

Barbara MacQuarrie and the early days of PBI in Guatemala and El Salvador

The story of Karen Ridd, a PBI volunteer in El Salvador

PBI volunteers present when Salvadoran police raided the CRIPDES office in 1989

 

Wet’suwet’en water protectors oppose Coastal GasLink micro-tunneling gas pipeline under sacred Wedzin Kwa river

By
Brent Patterson
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Photo by Arvin Singh.

Journalist Brandi Morin is present on Wet’suwet’en territory in northern British Columbia reporting for Ricochet media on Coastal GasLink (CGL) preparing to drill under Wedzin Kwa (Morice River).

Yesterday she tweeted: “CGL will use micro-tunneling hydraulic drilling to put their LNG pipeline through. CGL says it’s safe, traditional Wet’suwet’en says it’s not.”

Wet’suwet’en water protectors have been arrested in militarized RCMP raids in January 2019, February 2020 and November 2021.

Most recently, water protectors who had occupied the Coastal GasLink drill pad site on the territory evaded a fourth RCMP raid in January 2022.

Wet’suwet’en water protector Sleydo’ says: “It’s our sacred headwaters, our clean drinking water, and our salmon spawning river.”

She adds: “Our way of life is at risk. Wedzin Kwa is the the river that feeds all of Wet’suwet’en territory and gives life to our nation.”

Coastal GasLink intends to use a method called micro-tunneling to lay the 48-inch diameter pipe 11 metres below the lowest point of the riverbed.

The company says: “Micro-tunneling is one of the most expensive and technically advanced crossing technologies that uses hydraulic jacks and a tunnel boring machine to push concrete casing segments through the soil deep under water bodies in a way that minimizes risk and disposal volume.”

It adds: “The pipeline is then safely pulled through the tunnel created by the concrete casing. Micro-tunneling is a remote-controlled excavation method that results in limited environmental, economic, or social disturbances.”

TMX “mechanical failure”

The federal government owned Trans Mountain Corporation recently used another trenchless drilling method known as horizontal direct drilling (HDD) under the Fraser River near Coquitlam, British Columbia.

In late December, the company announced it must redrill 332 metres of the tunnel eight metres to the east of its first attempt. Trans Mountain stated: “The first attempt at the Fraser River HDD (Horizontal Directional Drilling) ended with a mechanical failure of the HDD drill pipe as it was pulling the product pipe into the bore hole.”

Bentonite spills

Trans Mountain pipeline

In November 2021, Trans Mountain also reported that approximately one cubic mere of the clay-based drilling fluid bentonite was “inadvertently released” into a watercourse during drilling for the 48-inch diameter pipeline under the Fraser River.

Line 3 pipeline

In August 2021, the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA) also reported there had been 28 releases of the drilling fluid over a two-month period at 12 river crossing locations for the Calgary-based Enbridge Line 3 pipeline.

In one spill 80 gallons of the drilling mud was released into the Willow River.

Minnesota Public Radio has reported: “Drilling fluid is used as a lubricant during the drilling process. It’s made of mostly bentonite clay and is not considered toxic, but can impact aquatic life. …Enbridge has said that the drilling mud was quickly contained.”

Sabal Trail pipeline

When bentonite spilled into the Withlacoochee River in Georgia during HDD drilling for the Sabal Trail fracked gas pipeline in October 2016, the WWALS Watershed Coalition said that the company “had testified under oath that this could not happen”.

The coalition further noted bentonite can reduce oxygen in the water potentially threatening fish and other aquatic species.

Following that spill, activists blocked trucks carrying thousands of gallons of water and several tons of bentonite at another drill site for the pipeline.

The WWALS Watershed Coalition has also expressed concern that gas could leak into rivers.

In July 2017, less than five weeks after gas began flowing through the Sabal Trail pipeline, “minor technical issues” were blamed on an odorant leak, though that leak was from a large tank from a proposed compressor site for the pipeline.

A second leak happened the following month.

The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) has also documented other incidents of gas pipelines impacting clean water and communities.

Questions and concerns

The image below includes a “mud management” structure.

It’s not clear if Coastal GasLink will be using bentonite as a drilling mud, how many truckloads would be required, what CGL’s contingency plans are if there is an inadvertent release into the river, the potential for a mechanical failure during the drilling, or if studies have been conducted on the impact the turbidity an accidental release of drilling mud would have at this crossing on salmon and other aquatic life.

While Coastal GasLink says micro-tunneling “minimizes risk and disposal volume” and results in “limited environmental disturbances”, Wet’suwet’en water protectors continue to defend their sacred river and to assert that the pipeline is a violation of their sovereignty and lacks their free, prior and informed consent.

Coastal GasLink image.

Brandi Morin reporting from the drill pad site.

PBI-Colombia notes IACHR call for precautionary measures for National Strike medic in Cali and his missing brother

By
Brent Patterson
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Photo: National strike street medic John Fernando Marín Marín.

On January 8, PBI-Colombia tweeted: “Without protection and with serious #impunity in case of leader of medical missions from #nationalstrike in #Colombia, around death threats and forced disappearance of his brother.”

El Tiempo reports: “The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) has granted precautionary measures in favor of John Fernando Marín Marín and Fredemyr Alberto Marín Marín, after considering that they are at risk of irreparable damage to their rights.”

That article further explains:

“John Fernando was coordinator of medical missions in Cali, in the midst of the 2021 national strike, and as a result of these tasks, he would be the target of threats and harassment. In addition, his brother Fredemyr Alberto has been missing since November 10, 2021, and it is presumed that said disappearance could be related to the threats against John Fernando.

In the middle of studying the request for precautionary measures, the Colombian State reported that it had received various complaints about these events and that there were already files opened by the competent authorities for their investigation.

However, the IACHR, after assessing this information in light of the current context in Colombia, especially the situation of social leaders and human rights defenders, considered that the available information indicated that no measures had been adopted to protect John Fernando, despite the persistence of serious risk events since the national strike.

Likewise, regarding the disappearance of Fredemyr Alberto, the Commission verified that there is a lack of information on his situation or whereabouts since November 10 and concluded that both brothers are in a serious and urgent situation.

The international organization asked the State to adopt the necessary measures to determine the situation and whereabouts of Fredemyr Alberto, guarantee effective search actions through its specialized mechanisms, and adopt the necessary measures to protect the rights to life and integrity of John Fernando Marín Marín and his family nucleus; and report on the actions taken to investigate the threats that led to the adoption of this precautionary measure, and thus avoid its repetition.”

Semana adds: “[The IACHR] gave the State a period of 15 days to send a report on the progress of the investigations, the actions taken to clarify these facts, and the protection measures for the two Marín brothers.” The date of that communication was December 31, so the deadline is January 15.

The Organization of American States/IACHR (CIDH) statement on this can be read here.

This past August, PBI-Colombia accompanied Nomadesc and victims of state violence in Cali at a meeting at the Canadian Embassy in Bogota.

Last month, Canadian foreign affairs minister Mélanie Joly tweeted: “Canada always stands up on questions of human rights.”

Given that promise, we look forward to the Canadian Embassy in Colombia supporting the IACHR’s call for precautionary measures in the case of the Marin brothers in line with the Voices at Risk guidelines on supporting human rights defenders.

Indigenous land defenders in Mexico seek to connect with the Wet’suwet’en in shared opposition to TC Energy pipelines

By
Brent Patterson
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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.

Calgary-based TC Energy is both the largest foreign investor in Mexico and the company building the Coastal GasLink pipeline on Wet’suwet’en territory in Canada.

TC Energy currently owns five pipelines in Mexico, including in the mountainous Sierra Tarahumara region of Chihuahua.

Researcher Martha Pskowski has noted that the murders of Rarámuri land defenders, including Julián Carrillo, discouraged some Rarámuri from speaking out when the company started building a gas pipeline through the area.

On December 1, Natural Gas Intelligence reported the company is looking at in-corridor expansions and expanding its existing pipelines in Mexico.

The company is also looking at a $4 billion-plus capital investment in an offshore gas pipeline that would start in Tuxpan in the state of Veracruz and run to Yucatán that would be developed with the state power utility Comisión Federal de Electricidad (CFE).

The pipeline would “essentially function as an extension of the Sur de Texas-Tuxpan system” that currently supplies 15 per cent of Mexico’s gas imports.

The article also notes that TC Energy “is working to have [the] Villa de Reyes [pipeline] fully in-service by mid-2022”. Educa Oaxaca has previously noted that construction on this pipeline had been suspended due to Indigenous resistance.

The Tuxpan-Tula gas pipeline

The Natural Gas Intelligence article also reported that TC Energy plans to complete its Tuxpan-Tula project, a 287-kilometre gas pipeline from Tuxpan, Veracruz through the states of Puebla and Hidalgo.

Several months prior to this in August 2021, Reuters reported on a new pact between TC Energy and the state power utility CFE that “says Mexico will step up efforts to help TC Energy complete the Tuxpan-Tula pipeline after work stalled over concerns the project would cut across lands local communities consider sacred.”

Just weeks prior to this pact, Mary Ng, the Canadian Minister of Small Business, Export Promotion and International Trade, met with the Mexican Secretary of Economy and TC Energy’s Senior Vice President of Pipelines in Mexico and President of TC Energía at the TC Energy office in Mexico City.

Indigenous opposition to the TC Energy Tuxpan-Tula pipeline is covered in the 216-page report Territories of water: defense of community areas and the shared history of their peoples (published in December 2021).

The report was produced by researchers from the Workshop for the Defence of Territories (Taller por la Defensa de los Territorios), the Autonomous University of Mexico City (UACM), the Center for Studies for Change in the Mexican Countryside (Ceccam) and GRAIN in collaboration with communities impacted by the pipeline.

The report links TC Energy and “a series of irregularities in Mexico against Otomi, Nahua and Totonac communities and in Canada against Wet’suwet’en communities.”

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.”

Gastivists Network tweet, June 2018.

Webinar on the Day of the Endangered Lawyer, January 24

By
Brent Patterson
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This year, the Day of the Endangered Lawyer, marked annually on January 24, will feature the situation of lawyers in danger in Colombia.

An online event is being planned by the Law Society of Ontario, Lawyers’ Rights Watch Canada, and Human Rights Watch Canada. The event is scheduled to take place online on January 24, from 5:00-7:00 pm EST/COT (2:00 to 4:00 pm PST).

While the event will have its main focus on Colombia, the situations in several other countries will also be discussed. Confirmed speakers include human rights defenders from Colombia, Hong Kong and Myanmar. In 2021, the dramatic increase in dangers to Colombian lawyers since 2020 led the coalition to feature Colombia for a second time in 2022.

Peace Brigades International accompanies lawyers in Colombia, Honduras, Guatemala and Mexico.

In Colombia, PBI accompanies the José Alvear Restrepo Lawyers’ Collective (CCAJAR) and Luis Carlos Pérez Lawyers’ Collective (CCALCP).

In Colombia alone, over 400 lawyers have been killed since 1991. Colombian lawyer Alirio Uribe of CCAJAR has stated: “The death sentences against each and every one of us have not been carried out because we are not alone, we have the accompaniment of PBI.”

Lawyers are also threatened.

In June 2021, CCAJAR lawyer Yessika Hoyos and her client Alfonso Mora León received threats during a hearing into the police killing of university students in September 1996.

To register for the Day of Endangered Lawyer webinar, please click here.

Four Canadian companies secure 39 new oil exploration blocks in Colombia

By
Brent Patterson
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Photo: Heather Neun of PBI-Canada visited the El Diviso village in Bajo Simacota in July 2021 where community members shared concerns about Parex Resources. In recent years, Parex has secured 26 new exploration blocks in Colombia.

On January 6, the Colombian newspaper Portafolio reported: “Of the 69 blocks that the nation delivered between 2019 and 2021, 45 were in the hands of Frontera Energy, Parex, GeoPark, Gran Tierra Energy and Canacol.”

Four of these transnationals are Canadian.

With 26 blocks to Parex Resources Inc., 5 blocks to Canacol Energy Ltd., 4 to Gran Tierra Energy and 4 to Frontera Energy, 39 of the 69 blocks went to Canadian companies. GeoPark is a Chilean company registered in Bermuda.

Eighteen of the 26 bids by Parex were made in December 2021.

Frontera Energy also acquired 100 per cent of the shares of Petróleos Sudamericanos Energy (PetroSud) in December 2021.

The article then quotes the Colombian Minister of Mines and Energy, Diego Mesa, who says: “In the next 18 months these projects will begin the exploratory work, and it is expected that for the following years the discoveries will begin to be reported.”

Environmental defenders killed and criminalized

This must also be understood in the context of human rights.

In September 2021, Global Witness reported that 65 land and environmental activists were murdered in Colombia in 2020 for defending their land and the planet.

Global Witness further noted that a third of these attacks targeted Indigenous and Afro-descendant people.

PBI-Colombia accompanies human rights organizations that have supported social leaders criminalized by at least two Canadian oil companies.

CREDHOS has raised concerns about the criminalization of social leaders by Parex Resources in relation to the Aguas Blancas operation, while the Committee in Solidarity with Political Prisoners (CSPP) and COSPACC have followed the arrest of eight social leaders protesting Frontera in San Luis de Palenque, Casanare.

Last year, the PBI-Colombia accompanied Inter-Church Commission for Justice and Peace also reported that a campesino was killed and an Indigenous leader wounded while protesting the Costayaco oil field in Putumayo operated by Gran Tierra.

Fracking in 2022-23

We have also noted that two fracking pilot projects have been approved in Colombia. The Kalé project in December 2020 and Platero in April 2021.

Drilling at the Kalé and Platero pilot projects located in Puerto Wilches, Santander are scheduled to begin in 2023, but that could be advanced to this year.

In October 2019, Alexander Rustler, a researcher at the New York City-based Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment, cautioned: “Fracking’s expansion risks aggravating tensions, potentially causing demonstrations against oil and gas drilling to metamorphose into violent clashes between communities and companies.”

In November 2020, six members of the Alliance for a Colombia Free of Fracking in the Magdalena Medio region received death threats.

In February 2021, it was reported that several young people from the Committee for the Defense of Water, Life and Territory of Puerto Wilches (AguaWil) had received threats due to their opposition to fracking in the area.

A few days prior to that, two unknown men broke into the home of 20-year-old Yuvelis Natalia Morales, a member of Aguawil, and threatened the young woman with death by telling her they “could kill her any day.”

Canadian companies interested in fracking

Despite this, several Canadian transnationals hope that the fracking pilot projects in Puerto Wilches will lead to full-scale commercial fracking in Colombia.

Canacol

Last year, the CEO of Canacol commented: “The objectives of these [fracking pilot projects] are to demonstrate that this important resource can be developed in an environmentally safe way, similar to how the same unconventional resources have been implemented in the United States and Canada.”

Canacol holds a 20 per cent stake in the VMM-2/Plata and VMM-3/Piranga projects near Puerto Wilches in the Magdalena Medio region. The American transnational ConocoPhillips holds the remaining 80 per cent stake.

Parex

In March 2019, Colombia’s then-Mines and Energy Minister Maria Fernanda Suarez stated that Parex Resources was among the companies “seeking to operate” a fracking block.

Colombian environmental activist Oscar Sampayo notes: “What worries us is that in 2014 Parex directly entered Magdalena Medio in block VMM9. This block is in the municipality of Cimitarra in Santander. That block is destined for the development of a nonconventional deposit using fracking.”

Frontera

Additionally, Frontera is a minority owner in a 236,000 barrel per day pipeline that runs from the Magdalena Medio region to Coveñas on the Caribbean coast that is reportedly ready to move increased crude output if fracking is approved beyond the pilot projects.

Sintana

And significantly, Toronto-based Sintana Energy Ltd. welcomed the news of the U.S. company ExxonMobil being granted a pilot project contract for Platero/VMM-37 (an area of land that ExxonMobil co-owns with Sintana) and stated that the fracking pilot projects should provide an effective path forward for future operations.

The company added: “[The pilot project] process should now provide an effective path forward for the testing and production of source rock hydrocarbons in future operations.”

Obligations and responsibilities

Canada does not have due diligence legislation in place that recognizes and addresses (through enforcement mechanisms and meaningful consequences) the dangers faced by human rights defenders who challenge the impacts of Canadian transnational corporations and investment banks on their communities.

Canada has also refused to call on Colombia to ratify the Escazú Agreement, a legally-binding mechanism to protect environmental defenders.

Given the absence of legislative frameworks for protection and the dangers faced by environmental defenders challenging conventional and unconventional fossil fuel projects in Colombia, we continue to follow this situation with concern.

Cerezo Committee: 25 human rights defenders killed by state agents in Mexico in 2021

By
Brent Patterson
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Photo: Luis Urbano Domínguez Mendoza, an Indigenous Yaqui water defender, was shot and killed in June 2021. He is one of 25 defenders identified by the Cerezo Committee in their report released this week.

On January 4, the Cerezo Committee released its annual report on the extrajudicial killings of human rights defenders in Mexico.

It found that 25 human rights defenders were killed in 2021 “as a state response to their work in defence of human rights”.

As explained in the report: “The figures presented are only of extrajudicial executions, that is, of murders that also constitute human rights violations insofar as they have been committed by state agents in the form of commission [directly by the state] or acquiescence [when the state sends a private individual to commit the killing of the defender].”

It further notes that:

– In 9 cases (32 per cent) the victims were Indigenous, in 19 cases (68 per cent) were mestizo (generally meaning people of both European and Indigenous descent), and 4 cases could not be determined.

– 12 of those killed were defenders of territory, 5 were defenders of a dignified life, 4 were environmentalists, 2 focused on the defence of human rights, 1 was a labour activist, and 1 defended freedom of expression.

– 5 of the killings benefitted private companies.

– The highest number of extrajudicial executions happened in Oaxaca (7 people), Chiapas (5 people) and Sonora (4 people).

– 59 defenders have been executed since Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador took office in December 2018 (17 in 2019, 17 in 2020, 25 in 2021).

The 15-page report by Comité Cerezo México can be read here.

The Cerezo Committee was established after the arrest (on August 13, 2001), torture and detentions of the brothers Alejandro, Héctor and Antonio Cerezo Contreras in maximum-security penitentiaries in Mexico. The Peace Brigades International-Mexico Project began accompanying the Cerezo Committee in 2002.

Canadian court finds Secwepemc land defenders guilty of disrupting meeting on pipeline being built without consent

By
Brent Patterson
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@Weasel_Woman Twitter photo of Snutetkwe, Mayuk and Isha.

On January 5, Secwepemc land defender Mayuk Manuel tweeted that she and Isha Jules were found guilty of mischief and causing a disturbance, while Snutetkwe Manuel was acquitted on the mischief charge, but found guilty of causing a disturbance.

She added that she and Snutetkwe had also been found guilty on assault on a Trans Mountain security lead (former RCMP officer Peter Haring) with Snutetkwe additionally being found guilty of assault against a security guard.

This all relates to the Trans Mountain tar sands pipeline being built on Secwepemc territory without their free, prior and informed consent.

In May 2021, the Toronto Star reported: “Nicole Manuel [Mayuk], Chantel Manuel [Snutetkwe] and Isha Jules, members of the Tiny House Warriors, face charges of mischief, causing a disturbance and assault, stemming from a conflict with security and police outside a Dec. 10, 2018, meeting on the campus of Thompson Rivers University.”

“The incident took place at Thompson Rivers University’s Campus Activity Centre, where a closed-door meeting involving Natural Resources Canada, Supreme Court of Canada Justice Frank Iacobucci, government officials, Trans Mountain personnel and First Nations leadership was being held.”

That article adds: “The three defendants allegedly rushed the door to the room where the meeting was taking place and, in the process, allegedly assaulted three people.”

This took place in the context of the Federal Court of Appeal having ruled in August 2018 that the Canadian government’s consultation process with Indigenous peoples on Trans Mountain had been inadequate. By October 2018, the Canadian government appointed Iacobucci to lead a new consultation effort on the pipeline.

The Canadian government first approved the pipeline in November 2016. By May 2018 it had purchased Trans Mountain from Kinder Morgan.

Then in June 2019, following Iacobucci’s appointment in October 2018, it approved the construction of the pipeline a second time.

By December 2019, the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination had called on the Canadian government to stop construction on the pipeline until it had secured consent of the Secwepemc peoples.

In an opening statement for the three defendants in May 2021, lawyer Casey St. Germain stated: “What your honour will see took place on Dec. 10 [2018] was another incident in Canadian history of arresting Indigenous women and men when they resist oppression and resist damage to their lands.”

St. Germain added: “This resistance, we respectfully submit, did not take the form of assault, mischief or causing a disturbance.”

At an initial hearing in November 2020, Kamloops This Week reported: “Defence lawyer Joe Killoran has suggested the altercation was a result of over-policing and a bias among [the RCMP] and security officials. According to Killoran, police and security were convinced the [Tiny House Warriors] were a threat before the confrontation took place.”

Following the verdict, Mayuk tweeted: “STOP CRIMINALIZATION OF Secwepemc. #Secwepemc continue to say no consent for Trans Mountain pipeline to pass through and operate within Secwepemc Territory UNCEDED.”

Prior to this, Mayuk’s twin sister Kanahus, affirmed: “As human rights defenders, we know that as Indigenous people, we have a right to land, and we have a right to self-determination. And that includes homes, and that includes exclusively going and living on our territory without the interference from Canada or the colonial government.”

Sentencing will take place with 2-4 months.

Specialized police/army units in Canada and Colombia protect resource extraction projects from land defenders

By
Brent Patterson
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Just before the RCMP raid against Wet’suwet’en land defenders in February 2020, this march in Ottawa said “RCMP off Wet’suwet’en land”. Photo by Brent Patterson.

Wet’suwet’en land defender Sleydo’ has described the Community-Industry Response Group (C-IRG) as a specialized group of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) that deal specifically with industry and Indigenous land defenders.

C-IRG officers have been deployed against land defenders and water protectors opposed to the Coastal GasLink fracked gas pipeline on Wet’suwet’en territory and the Trans Mountain tar sands pipeline on Secwepemc territory.

They have also been deployed to stop defenders opposed to old-growth logging at Fairy Creek on Pacheedaht and Ditidaht territory, the Site C hydroelectric dam on Treaty 8 lands, and an industrial fish farm endangering wild salmon in Musgamagw Dzawada’enuxw and Kwikwasutinuxw Haxwamis waters.

To date, the RCMP have made 79 arrests on Wet’suwet’en territory in the land defence struggle against the Coastal GasLink pipeline. Following her arrest by C-IRG officers last November, Sleydo’ highlighted the need for both the RCMP and C-IRG to be abolished.

In Colombia, there are Energy, Mining and Transport Battalions.

Several years ago, War Resisters’ International highlighted: “Their growth has accompanied the policy of attracting foreign investment in the sector from multinational corporations for the implementation of the neoliberal extractive policy.”

Those multinational corporations include Canadian companies.

The article further explains: “A number of these battalions are located within the premises of the companies or mines, as in the case of Military Battalion 15, located since October 2011 within the oilfields of the transnational Pacific Rubiales, in Puerto Gaitán, where the company also provides vehicles and fuel.”

In 2017, Pacific Exploration & Production Corporation rebranded itself as Frontera Energy Corporation, which is based in Calgary.

Frontera continues to operate in Colombia and in November 2018 signed two agreements with the Ministry of Defence for a total of US $1,343,106 to secure army protection for its activities. Days after those contracts were signed, a police and military operation arrested eight social leaders in San Luis de Palenque who had been protesting against the environmental and community impacts of Frontera’s operations.

In December 2019, then UN Special Rapporteur Michel Forst expressed concern about the “apparent connection” between Frontera and the Army’s 16th Brigade.

At least as far back as 1993, the 16th Brigade has been “charged with defending oil drilling operations” and “assigned specifically to protect BP’s oil installations.”

The WRI article also notes: “Another significant case relates to the Army’s aiding the entry of the Muriel Mining Corporation in Norte del Chocó, where it supported the company’s activities despite a fraudulent public consultation.”

Muriel began exploration of the Indigenous Embera peoples sacred Jaikatuma mountain in January 2009 reportedly escorted by Colombian Army helicopters.

While a court ruling eventually stopped that mining exploration, there are concerns that the Vancouver-based MCC Mining Corporation is now seeking to mine in the area.

In October 2021, this Open Letter from eight organizations based in Spain and Asturias (an autonomous community in northwest Spain) stated: “We know that the Minera Cobre SAS and by extension the Canadian MCC Mining Corporation, are heirs of the militarization and terror unleashed for the benefit of the Muriel Mining Corporation.”

There are other examples. This report from the Bonn/Berlin-based organization Germanwatch (citing Ivan Cepeda) notes that the No. 8 Battalion is stationed within the Toronto-based Gran Colombia Gold installation in Colombia.

Yesterday, Briarpatch Magazine published an article by Molly Murphy and Research for the Front Lines titled: The C-IRG: the resource extraction industry’s best ally. The authors are seeking to shed greater light on the C-IRG.

This past October, in a similar attempt, we posted: RCMP Community-Industry Response Group (C-IRG) deployed against Indigenous land defenders. We were present on Wet’suwet’en territory in November 2021 and tried to further document the role of the C-IRG in that raid in this article: Did RCMP stage Wet’suwet’en raid at Coastal GasLink camp?.

We are also trying to develop a better understanding of the relationship between Canadian corporations and the Energy, Mining and Transport Battalions in Colombia.

Briarpatch tweet.

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