Home Blog Page 280

PBI-Guatemala accompanies CCDA Verapaz members to file complaint with Public Ministry

By
Brent Patterson
-

On October 27, PBI-Guatemala posted: “PBI accompanies the CCDA Verapaz community members to file a complaint at the capital’s Public Ministry (MP) for death threats and breach of eviction protocols. Earlier, in the Cobán MP they were not served.”

PBI-Guatemala has explained: “The CCDA is a peasant organization that accompanies and advises communities, mostly indigenous, that fight for access to land and ownership to create dignified living conditions in the face of eviction and dispossession of their lands where these communities have lived for many generations.”

The CCDA of the Verapaces accompanies some 150 Q’eqchi communities, supporting them in the resolution of conflicts related to the possession of the land they inhabit.

The Public Ministry “is an Institution with autonomous functions, it promotes the criminal prosecution and directs the investigation of crimes of public action; also ensure strict compliance with the laws of the country.”

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

 

Transnational Institute report highlights Canada spends 15 times more on border militarization than climate financing

By
Brent Patterson
-

A new report by the Transnational Institute finds that Canada spent an average of $1.9 billion a year (over the years 2013-18) on the militarization of its borders while only contributing $149 million a year over the same period on climate financing to mitigate the impacts of climate change that drive forced migration.

Overall, the report documents: “The world’s wealthiest countries have chosen how they approach global climate action – by militarising their borders.”

“As this report clearly shows, these countries – which are historically the most responsible for the climate crisis – spend more on arming their borders to keep migrants out than on tackling the crisis that forces people from their homes in the first place.”

Canada is responsible for 2.6 per cent of the world’s carbon emissions since 1850. It now spends 15 times more on border militarization than climate financing.

The report also specifies: “Seven of the biggest emitters of GHGs – the United States, Germany, Japan, the United Kingdom, Canada, France and Australia – collectively spent at least twice as much on border and immigration enforcement (more than $33.1 billion) as on climate finance ($14.4 billion) between 2013 and 2018.”

And it comments: “This militarisation of borders is partly rooted in national climate security strategies that since the early 2000s have overwhelmingly framed migrants as ‘threats’ rather than victims of injustice.”

We would also add that Canada deepens the climate crisis and furthers militarization through the $18 billion in subsidies and other forms of financial support it provided in 2020 to the fossil fuel industry, the $1.966 billion in “military goods and technology” it exported in 2020 to non-US destinations (Canada does not report on its arms exports to the US) as well as the $553 billion it intends to spend over the next 20 years on the Canadian armed forces.

The full 62-page report can be read at GLOBAL CLIMATE WALL How the world’s wealthiest nations prioritise borders over climate action.

In June, Peace Brigades International signed this statement that expresses concern about the “militarization of borders, particularly in the United States, Mexico and Guatemala.” These concerns were also raised on June 24 in this presentation during a Dialogue with the Special Rapporteur on the Human Rights of Migrants at the United Nations Human Rights Council session in Geneva, Switzerland.

PBI webinar, November 6

A PBI webinar on Saturday November 6 will feature environmental defenders from Kenya, Guatemala, Colombia, Honduras, Nicaragua and Mexico talking about how climate change has informed their struggles in the context of the COP26 summit.

The online event will be at 11:00 am (in Guatemala, Honduras, Costa Rica, Chihuahua), 12 pm (Colombia), 1 pm (Ontario/Quebec), 7 pm (European time) and 8 pm in Kenya.

It will have simultaneous translation in English and Spanish.

To register to hear these frontline defenders speak, click here.

Women human rights defenders call for guarantees for their protection, an end to impunity

By
Brent Patterson
-

Video: “By being women in the public space, and as guardians of our Indigenous and local communities and resources, we face marginalization, discrimination and racism, patriarchy and gender-based violence. As women human rights defenders we are at the intersection of all of these systems of oppression.” – Sara Mux, Ixpop Collective (Guatemala)

The International Service for Human Rights (ISHR), Amnesty International, IM-Defensoras, ProDESC and other organizations recently brought together virtually 45 women human rights defenders from Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, Colombia, Nicaragua and other countries who collectively demanded that the United Nations and international community recognize their key role in protecting humanity and the environment.

Their statement highlights: “Our communities are under threat from extractive industries and environmental destruction, corrupt and inept governments, armed groups and worsening climate conditions.”

Among their demands, they called on the UN and international community to:

1- Take action against States that continue to allow impunity for hundreds of killings of environmental human rights defenders and women human rights defenders every year.

2- Recognize that the criminal justice system is used as a tool of repression against us. Join in our calls that those detained arbitrarily or solely for defending human rights must be released immediately and false charges must be dropped.

3- Call to urgently protect and promote women human rights defenders and end stigmatization, hate campaigns and digital attacks against them.

4- Provide flexible resources for women human rights defenders and their organizations to guarantee their holistic protection.

Their full statement can be read in English and Spanish.

PBI webinar, November 6

A Peace Brigades International webinar on Saturday November 6 will include women environmental human rights defenders from Honduras, Guatemala, Kenya and Mexico to highlight these same issues during the UN COP26 climate summit.

The online event will be at 11:00 am (in Guatemala, Honduras, Costa Rica, Chihuahua), 12 pm (Colombia), 1 pm (Ontario/Quebec), 7 pm (European time) and 8 pm in Kenya.

It will have simultaneous translation in English and Spanish.

Women human rights defenders Nelly Madegwa (Kenya), Sandra Calel (Guatemala), Juana Ramona Zuñiga (Honduras) and Valeria Villa (Mexico) will be speaking on November 6. To register to hear them speak, click here.

PBI-Colombia accompanies CAHUCOPANA at humanitarian mission meeting in Carrizal, Antioquia

By
Brent Patterson
-

Twitter photo by CAHUCOPANA.

On October 26, CAHUCOPANA tweeted: “At this time, in the town of Carrizal #Remedios, peasant communities and peace signatories, expose the difficult situation that exists in the area due to the territorial dispute of different armed actors.”

They add: “No return to conflict!”

Carrizal, Remedios, Antioquia is located about 261 kilometres northwest of Bogotá.

On October 25, CAHUCOPANA posted on Facebook that it was preparing for the International Humanitarian Mission to the Northeast of Antioquia.

In that post it highlighted: “Tomorrow in the town of Carrizal, municipality of Remedios, the peasants, leaders and women leaders, will expose to the international community and social organizations, the difficult situation regarding human rights.”

El Espectador has reported: “The presence of armed groups has been a constant. First came the guerrillas, such as the extinct FARC, during the eighties. Ten years later, with the emergence of the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC), the municipality became a place of dispute over the richness of its gold-mined land.”

That article adds: “According to its inhabitants, this wealth has belonged to armed groups and multinationals that, according to trade unionists, committed crimes to keep most of the territory to exploit this mineral with titles in perpetuity.”

On October 8, PBI-Colombia accompanied CAHUCOPANA at a meeting with various United Nations officials to discuss this situation.

At that time, CAHUCOPANA notes: “We work together under the need to strengthen the protection and self-protection mechanisms of peasant communities.”

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

On October 27, PBI-Colombia posted:

PBI-Canada takes note of federal cabinet appointments with portfolios relating to human rights and peace

By
Brent Patterson
-

Photo: Mélanie Joly is now Canada’s Minister of Foreign Affairs.

On October 26, a new Canadian cabinet was sworn into office following the September 20 federal election that saw Prime Minister Justin Trudeau re-elected with a minority government (with 159 seats in the 338 seat House of Commons).

The full cabinet list can be seen here.

We note that:

1- Mélanie Joly becomes Minister of Foreign Affairs

This Minister is responsible for Canada’s relations with Colombia, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico and other countries where human rights defenders are at risk. Voices at Risk: Guidelines on Supporting Human Rights Defenders falls under her responsibility.

2- Mary Ng remains Minister of International Trade, Export Promotion, Small Business and Economic Development

This Minister is responsible for Export Development Canada (which provides more than $13 million a year in financial support to oil and gas companies) and the Canada Commercial Corporation (that signs export permits for Canada’s arms sales).

3- Marc Miller becomes Minister of Crown-Indigenous Relations

This Minister is responsible for relations with Indigenous nations in Canada, the implementation of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and following the recommendations of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls.

4- Anita Anand becomes Minister of National Defence

This Minister will oversee the planned increase in military spending from $18.9 billion in 2016-17 to $32.7 billion in 2026-27, which amounts to $553 billion on a cash basis over 20 years. She would also be involved in the deployment of Canada’s military forces.

5- Filomena Tassi becomes Minister of Public Services and Procurement

This Minister will work with the Minister of Defence to manage the $19 billion purchase of new fighter jets (whose lifespan costs have been estimated to be $76.8 billion).

6- Steven Guilbeault becomes Minister of the Environment and Climate Change

This Minister is responsible for Canada meeting its carbon emission reduction targets and would additionally hold some responsibility for public statements in support of at-risk land and environmental rights defenders.

7- Marco Mendicino becomes Minister of Public Safety

This Minister is responsible for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP). The RCMP has been controversially deployed against Indigenous land defenders opposing the Trans Mountain and Coastal GasLink pipelines as well as old growth logging.

8- Sean Fraser becomes Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship

This Minister will be responsible for implementing Canada’s promise to accept 250 human rights defenders each year as refugees because they are at risk at heightened risk, this includes women, journalists and LGBTQ2 rights advocates.

In the coming days, the Mandate Letters that highlight the priorities for these Ministers will be released. It is also expected that the opposition parties will name their critics/shadow cabinet in the coming weeks.

Vancouver-based Fortuna Silver secures provisional injunction to allow San Jose mine to continue beyond expiry of permit

By
Brent Patterson
-

A mural in San José del Progreso, Oaxaca, reads: ‘Yes to life, no to the mine’. Photo by Liam Barrington-Bush and Jen Wilton.

On October 25, Vancouver-based Fortuna Silver Mines Inc. provided this update on its application for an extension of the environmental impact authorization (EIA) at the San Jose Mine which is located in San José del Progreso, an Indigenous Zapotec community in the Central Valleys of Oaxaca, Mexico.

It notes that the Mexican Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources (SEMARNAT) had granted in 2009 a 12-year EIA to Fortuna’s subsidiary Companía Minera Cuzcatlán (CMC) to operate the mine until October 23, 2021.

This past July, SEMARNAT rejected a new EIA for the company.

Now, Fortuna highlights in this media statement: “CMC is working with SEMARNAT and government authorities to resolve this matter and has obtained a provisional injunction from a Mexican federal court that allows the continued operation of the San Jose Mine beyond the expiry date of the EIA.”

Communities reject the mine

The communities that make up the No to Mining Front for a Future of All oppose the San Jose Mine. They say that the application by Fortuna/Cuzcatlán “minimizes the damage in the territories of Central Valleys and argues that the irregularities and illegality of the project are simply an ‘update of works and activities.’”

Notably, the No to Mining Front also “categorically rejects the ‘Canada-Oaxaca Indigenous Encounters 2021’ promoted by Oaxaca state governor Alejandro Murat and Canadian ambassador Graeme C. Clark”. The “Encuentros Indígenas Canadá-Oaxaca 2021” that ran from September 20 to October 8.

The No to Mining Front further states that it has “met on different occasions with representatives of the Canadian embassy to denounce the effects of the San José project.” It adds it has not received “any favourable response”.

The mine’s controversial history

NACLA reports: “In March 2009, a group of residents protested this violation of their rights by setting up an encampment at the entrance to the mine. In May, 1,000 state and federal police—acting at the request of the mining company and its local political allies—evicted protesters using helicopters, tear gas, and dogs.”

The mine began production in September 2011.

El Universal has reported that there has been four deaths and eight people shot in direct relation to the mine between 2010 and 2012.

New threats

Those concerns continue as freight truck transporters affiliated with the Confederación de Trabajadores de México (CTM) demonstrated on October 25 in front of SEMARNAT demanding that the federal government issue a decision in favour of an MIA.

El Universal reports that hundreds of workers from the mining company had also demonstrated on October 12 to “stop the harassment of small groups of people opposed to mining” and for “anti-mining groups” to stop lying about their work.

And Saúl Molina, the Secretary General of the Union of the Mining Industry, reportedly stated at a protest on October 25: “We are not going to let them close down … even if blood runs, we are going to defend it.”

Webinar earlier this year

On March 11, Peace Brigades International and Amnesty International co-hosted this webinar that featured Neftali Reyes of Educa Oaxaca and representatives from Magdalena Ocotlán discussing the impacts of this mine.

This Educa Oaxaca report on the webinar highlights: “The representatives of the community located just a few meters from the San José mining project, owned by the FSM company, reiterated that ‘the mining company is affecting us a lot’ with water pollution, mine waste, constant noise and the shortage of water.”

PBI-Mexico began accompanying Educa Oaxaca in May 2013.

Canada opposes United Nations Binding Treaty process that would help save the lives of human rights defenders

By
Brent Patterson
-

Photo: Bertha Zúñiga Cáceres, the general coordinator of the PBI-Honduras accompanied Civic Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras (COPINH), is part of the campaign supporting the creation of a Binding Treaty.

The United Nations open-ended intergovernmental working group (OEIGWG) is holding its 7th session from October 25-29 to negotiate a third revised draft of a proposed Binding Treaty on transnational corporations and human rights.

Peace Brigades International supports the Binding Treaty as an instrument that would offer more leverage and protection to human rights defenders.

Canada opposes the Binding Treaty

Following the 6th session last year, the Global Campaign of 250 social movements supporting the Binding Treaty highlighted “the countries whose economies rely heavily on transnational corporations with overseas operations who have always opposed this UN process, such as the United States, Japan, Canada and Australia.”

This week, Ana María Suárez of FIAN International, stated that the US, which had boycotted the process along with Canada, Australia and New Zealand up until now, announced it would be participating in the meeting.

There are now concerns being expressed by more than 50 civil society organizations that the US is engaging in the process to undermine or derail an agreement. That concern has also been exemplified in this tweet.

Transnational corporations and the killing of human rights defenders

The Zero Draft (first draft) of the Binding Treaty was published in 2018.

While Canada has opposed this UN process, Global Witness has documented the murders of 606 land and environmental rights defenders over this three-year period (227 in 2020, 212 in 2019, and 167 in 2018).

Global Witness concludes: “Many companies engage in an extractive economic model that overwhelmingly prioritises profit over human rights and the environment. This unaccountable corporate power is the underlying force that has not only driven the climate crisis to the brink, but which has continued to perpetuate the killing of defenders.”

They add: “Companies continue to cause, contribute to, and benefit from human rights abuses and environmental harms, particularly across borders.”

Third revised draft, 7th session

The 23-page third revised draft of the Binding Treaty can be read here.

Paragraph 12 of the preamble of the Binding Treaty notes:

Emphasizing that civil society actors including human rights defenders have an important and legitimate role in promoting the respect of human rights by business enterprises, and in preventing, mitigating and seeking effective remedy for business-related human rights abuses.

And paragraph 1 of Article 1. Definitions states:

“Victim” shall mean any person or group of persons, irrespective of nationality or place of domicile, who individually or collectively have suffered harm that constitute human rights abuse, through acts or omissions in the context of business activities. The term “victim” may also include the immediate family members or dependents of the direct victim. A person shall be considered a victim regardless of whether the perpetrator of the human rights abuse is identified, apprehended, prosecuted, or convicted.

Commenting on this paragraph, the global trade union movement has recommended: “A comprehensive definition of victim should include persons who have suffered harm in intervening to assist victims in distress or to prevent victimization so that human rights defenders, including trade unionists, are implicitly covered by the term.”

Updates

For updates on this negotiating session, please see the Global Campaign to Reclaim Peoples Sovereignty, Dismantle Corporate Power and End Impunity, Treaty Alliance and ESCR-Net / Red-DESC on Twitter. You can also search with the hashtags #BindingTreaty, #StopCorporateImpunity and #Feminist4BindingTreaty.

Further reading: Why do we need a binding treaty for Business and Human Rights? by the Peace Brigades International-Mexico Project.

PBI-Honduras accompanies CNTC at media conference where it makes five key demands

By
Brent Patterson
-

On October 25, the Peace Brigades International-Honduras Project posted: “PBI accompanied the CNTC Tegucigalpa at a press conference calling for: repeal of ZEDEs, role for peasant people in agricultural regulations, fair trial for Victor Vásquez and Jose S. Vigil, freedom for Guapinol defenders, and prevent the use of the crime of forced displacement to continue criminalizing people defending land and territory.”

In brief:

1- Repeal of ZEDEs

PBI-Honduras has noted that the CNTC warns that the ZEDEs plan entails the privatization and sale of national territory and common and natural goods to foreign capital, which will hold complete autonomy in the administration of public services and the criminal justice system. They also refer to their social impacts (such as forced displacement and increased conflict), environmental impacts (such as deforestation and pollution), and economic impacts (such as increased poverty and the loss of livelihoods).

2- Role for peasant people in agricultural regulations

Franklin Almendares, the national coordinator of the CNTC, has lamented: “With the new food production law approved by the government through PCM-030-2020, businesspeople will be the ones in charge of food production, not small producers or peasant farmers.”

3- Fair trial for Victor Vásquez and Jose S. Vigil

PBI-Honduras has posted that land defenders Víctor Vásquez and José S. Vigil are accused of forced displacement. And Front Line Defenders has explained Vásquez has been repeatedly threatened for supporting local small farmers’ groups in La Paz in activities to recover land they consider has been illegally privatized by local authorities.

4- Freedom for Guapinol defenders

PBI-Honduras has posted that the defenders of Guapinol have been held in arbitrary preventive detention for two years for their peaceful participation in a protest camp intended to stop the Inversiones Los Pinares iron oxide mine polluting the water sources that originate in the Carlos Escaleras Mountain National Park.

5- Prevent the use of forced displacement to criminalize defenders

PBI-Honduras has expressed its concern about the increase in penalties for the crimes of usurpation and forced displacement in the Penal Code. It further noted that social organizations have denounced the improper use of these crimes to criminalize defenders.

PBI-Honduras began accompanying the National Union of Rural Workers (CNTC) in May 2018.

PBI-Colombia accompanies Peace Community at meeting with Canadian Embassy in Bogota

By
Brent Patterson
-

On October 25, PBI-Colombia posted: “Thanks @CanadayColombia for receiving the @cdpsanjose of the #Uraba #Colombia accompanied by @dhColombia @OpColombaApg23 and PBI. There were serious risks in San José de #Apartado, impunity and breaches of international standards in serious violations of #DDHH [human rights].”

Voices at Risk: Canada’s Guidelines on Supporting Human Rights Defenders notes: “Missions should seek to build and maintain relationships with HRDs and civil society organizations… Contact with HRDs can help missions better understand their situation and the local context in which they work and facilitate response should an emergency situation arise.”

Those guidelines also highlight: “To demonstrate the importance of the work of the defenders, missions can, for example, conduct field visits, either independently or accompanied by other diplomatic missions, to meet with HRDs in the variety of settings where they conduct their advocacy. Such visits can sometimes take place in remote regions, often within sight of local authorities and security forces.”

Last week, PBI-Colombia also accompanied the Peace Community at meetings with the British, Norwegian, French and Swedish embassies.

The Peace Community of San José de Apartadó is located more than 700 kilometres northwest of Bogota in the mountainous northern region in the department of Antioquia.

They have posted this update about their situation.

“Once again, our Peace Community of San José de Apartadó sees the need to record before the country and the world the latest events of which we have been victims by paramilitarism that continues to act at ease in our region without being disturbed by any competent authority, because it has its economic and political support, which makes it strong to subject the peasantry to its projects.

The paramilitaries, as since the beginning of 2017, are forcing the civilian population to meet with them and to instill terror in those meetings, groups of them participate in camouflaged uniforms and with long weapons; thus they believe that their orders and directives are obeyed by the civilian population.

San José de Apartadó has become a scenario of yoke and dictatorship by politicians, businessmen, military forces and paramilitaries since all of them coexist in this region and each other is not harmed because the damages are suffered by the peasant who has to submit to all these actions of oppression.”

The Peace Community was formed in 1997 and PBI-Colombia began to accompany it in 1999.

PBI COP26 webinar to feature Guatemalan environmental defender Sandra Calel

By
Brent Patterson
-

Guatemalan environmental rights defender Sandra Calel will be speaking on the PBI ‘COP26 and land defenders’ webinar on November 6.

To register to hear her speak, click here.

Sandra is Maya Poqomchi and a deputy coordinator of the Verapaz Union of Campesina Organizations (UVOC), an Indigenous and campesina organization that defends territory and access to land for people in the departments of Alta and Baja Verapaz.

Many of the communities accompanied by UVOC are already suffering severely from climate change. Last autumn, hurricanes Iota and Eta severely damaged communities, killing more than 150 people. Indigenous communities in the region confirm that while hurricanes are “normal” the level of destruction by these hurricanes was exacerbated by already existing damage to the natural environment.

PBI-Guatemala has noted: “Guatemala is located on an isthmus, this and its topography, making it highly vulnerable to both an excess and lack of precipitation, a risk which will only increase with human activity-induced global warming.”

“Guatemala’s main defense against natural disasters is to maintain its ecosystems in a good condition [but] the country is undergoing a process of destruction of nature, rooted in the implementation of an economic policy based on extractive activities and industries which involve major changes in land use and loss of forest cover.”

PBI-Guatemala adds: “The indigenous peoples’ struggles in defense of the territory and natural resources is the same struggle to prevent the tropical phenomena, such as Eta and Iota, from becoming disastrous. It is the struggle to counteract the effects of the climate crisis; in short, it is the struggle for life.”

PBI webinar, November 6

Peace Brigades International will be holding a webinar on COP26 and land defenders that will take place on Saturday November 6 at 11:00 am (Guatemala, Honduras, Costa Rica, Chihuahua), 12 pm (Colombia), 1 pm EST (Ontario/Quebec), 7 pm CEST (European time) and 8 pm in Kenya.

The webinar will have simultaneous translation in English and Spanish.

It will feature Sandra along with land and environmental rights defenders from Colombia, Honduras, Nicaragua, Mexico and Kenya.

The webinar will also include an introduction by the UN Special Rapporteur on human rights and the environment David R. Boyd.

To register for this webinar, please click here.

1...279280281...476Page 280 of 476