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Meet PBI’s frontline brigadistas!

By
Brent Patterson
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Our webinar with Giulia, Charlotte, Valentina and Anuja is coming up soon – Sunday October 24!

They will be talking about what it’s like to be a PBI brigadista accompanying at-risk land and environmental rights defenders in Colombia and Guatemala.

We may also have a PBI volunteer speaking from Honduras.

You can register for that webinar by clicking here.

The planning for our webinar on Saturday November 6 about the United Nations Conference of Parties (COP) 26 summit is also progressing.

You can register for that webinar by clicking here.

It will feature Danilo Rueda from Colombia, Juana Ramona Zuñiga from Honduras, Amaru Ruiz from Nicaragua, and a representative from Salvemos los cerros (Save the hills) in Mexico. We should have news for you next week about the speakers we’ll have from Guatemala and Kenya, so please stay tuned for further updates.

Accompaniments this week

1- PBI-Guatemala accompanies lawyers at hearing on the 1982 Dos Erres village massacre

2- PBI-Honduras accompanies sit-in at trial for Indigenous Lenca land defenders Víctor Vásquez and José Santos Vigil

3- PBI-Guatemala accompanies Olopa communities at ceremony for Indigenous resistance

4- PBI-Mexico accompanies criminalized river protector Miguel López Vega at court hearing

5- PBI-Colombia accompanies CAHUCOPANA as communities in northeastern Antioquia face difficult human rights situation

We have a lot more on the go, so please follow us on Twitter for daily updates on accompaniments in Latin America and commentary on Indigenous land defence struggles in this country, specifically on Gidimt’en and Secwepemc territories in British Columbia.

Thank you for opening this email! And if can make a donation to allow us to continue to do this work, this is a safe and secure online platform, or you can mail us at PBI-Canada, 211 Bronson Avenue, Ottawa, Ontario, K1V 6H5.

Sincerely, Brent Patterson, executive director, PBI-Canada

What support does Canada provide to the Honduran military and police?

By
Brent Patterson
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“We never wanted to go to the police, because it was the police who were chasing us.”

The Peace Brigades International-Honduras Project posted this quote last year and explained: “The National Network of Women Human Rights Defenders in Honduras explains that in Honduras 70% of the attacks against women defenders the aggressors are state security forces, especially police or the military.”

And earlier this month, PBI-Honduras published the article “The other side of militarisation: human rights violations” (also available in Spanish here) that points to the growing level of militarization in Honduras.

That article quotes lawyer and human rights defender Reina Rivera who says: “Soldiers are intervening in matters of telecommunications, energy, justice… Moreover, we see that this militarisation seeks to entrench itself with a request to the next government for more funding for police and armed forces.”

This raises the question: To what degree is the Canadian government funding or supporting Honduran security forces?

It’s not clear the current level of funding, but we can look back to the time of the coup in Honduras and begin to piece together a picture.

Training members of the army

On July 30, 2009, about a month after the coup, The Globe and Mail reported: “Canada is still providing training to members of the Honduran army.”

Surveillance support

And in February 2015, Sandra Cuffe reported: “Canadian aid to security forces and investigative units has picked up, but some of it has produced more concerns than results.”

She adds: “Since 2011, Canada has provided the Northern Triangle (Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador) with $5 million in surveillance and criminal investigation equipment and training to investigate homicides and violent crimes, wrote Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development [DFATD] spokesperson John Babcock in an email to Ricochet.”

“Bertha Oliva, coordinator of the Committee of Relatives of the Detained-Disappeared in Honduras takes it for granted that human rights activists and social movement organizations are under heavy surveillance.”

Security cooperation with Colombia in Honduras

Cuffe also notes: “Another cause for concern regarding the Canadian regional security initiative was the involvement of Colombian security forces. In April 2012, DFATD and the Colombian Ministry of Foreign Affairs signed a memorandum of understanding for $1 million in security cooperation in Honduras and Guatemala.”

In that February 2015 article, she highlighted: “The Canadian memorandum of understanding with Colombia for security cooperation in Honduras and Guatemala expired at the end of March 2014, but questions remain. There are still two thirds left of the five-year Canada Initiative for Security in Central America and little indication of what will be funded over the course of the remaining years.”

Overall funding

In 2009, Canada provided $16.4 million in official assistance to Honduras. After the coup, that aid has increased to an average of $29 million per year between 2010 to 2016.

PBI-Honduras accompanied defender Dina Meza has commented: “Giving resources to the Government of Honduras is giving them tools so that they continue to violate the population. The focus of the international community is very important to curb all these human rights violations.”

The Berta Cáceres Human Rights in Honduras Act

The Berta Cáceres Act, first introduced in 2016, states: “The Honduran police are widely established to be deeply corrupt and to commit human rights abuses, including torture, rape, illegal detention, and murder, with impunity.”

It then calls on the United States to suspend all “security assistance to Honduran military and police until such time as human rights violations by Honduran state security forces cease and their perpetrators are brought to justice.”

On March 21, during the Women Warriors panel of the Building Movements in Defence of Life film festival, Bertha Zúñiga Cáceres, general coordinator of COPINH, expressed her support for the proposed Berta Cáceres Human Rights in Honduras Act.

Next steps

PBI-Canada continues to research the question of Canadian support for Honduran security forces. We believe it might also be interesting for there to be a private members bill in the House of Commons that echoes the Berta Cáceres Act.

“Giving resources to the Government of Honduras is giving them tools so that they continue to violate the population. The focus of the international community is very important to curb all these human rights violations.”

Canada signs UN letter calling for a “safe and enabling environment” for human rights defenders

By
Brent Patterson
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Photos: Unist’ot’en land defender Freda Huson speaking at the UN on April 24, 2019.  On February 10, 2020, she was arrested on her territory.

On April 24, 2019, Unist’ot’en land defender Freda Huson spoke at the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues in New York City.

Huson stated: “Our hereditary chiefs have said ‘no’ to pipelines on Wet’suwet’en territory. This year, a pipeline company forced a court injunction on us. If we stop them from entering our territory because they don’t have consent, we face arrest.”

She concluded: “I am here today to make UN aware of the continued genocide happening in Canada, and to demand that our Indigenous rights and laws are respected.”

Within months of that intervention by Huson at the UN, the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) passed this resolution with respect to the fracked gas pipeline being constructed on Wet’suwet’en territory.

On December 19, 2019, it called:

“Upon the State party to immediately halt the construction and suspend all permits and approvals for the construction of the Coastal Gas Link pipeline in the traditional and unceded lands and territories of the Wet’suwet’en people, until they grant their free, prior and informed consent, following the full and adequate discharge of the duty to consult.”

It further urged:

“The State party to guarantee that no force will be used against Secwepemc and Wet’suwet’en peoples and that the Royal Canadian Mounted Police [RCMP] and associated security and policing services will be withdrawn from their traditional lands.”

And yet within weeks, on January 13, 2020, the RCMP set up an exclusion zone on Wet’suwet’en territory blocking access to media and allies of these land defenders.

Then on February 10, 2020, Huson was arrested by the RCMP on her territory while holding a ceremony to honour missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls.

As of this date, October 15, 2021, the Wet’suwet’en believe another RCMP raid on their territory is imminent as water protectors peacefully blockade a site where Coastal GasLink would drill under the sacred Wedzin Kwa headwaters.

In contrast to Huson’s intervention at the UN in April 2019 and her arrest by the RCMP in February 2020, Canada joined with 79 other countries on October 14, 2021, to recognize “the importance of civil society and human rights defenders.”

That statement highlights:

“The Security Council has encouraged States to create a safe and enabling environment for those who protect and promote human rights, especially women, to allow them to conduct their work independently, and to address threats and violence against them.”

While there has not been the suggestion that Huson’s arrest was in reprisal for her engagement with the UN, her arrest near the Unist’ot’en Healing Centre (at kilometre 66 on Wet’suwet’en territory) to a jail in Houston, British Columbia still raises concerns about criminalization and forced removal from territory.

Furthermore, the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination wrote this letter on November 24, 2020, to Canada’s ambassador at the UN that highlighted: “The Committee regrets that the State party has provided no information on measures taken to address the concerns [about the three megaprojects, including the Coastal GasLink pipeline] raised by the Committee in its decision of 13 December 2019.”

That letter also noted that the Committee expects Canada to submit a report on its compliance with the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (that Canada ratified in 1970) by November 15, 2021.

We continue to closely follow this situation.

Video: Huson speaks at Coyote Camp on Gidimt’en territory on September 30, 2021, where land defenders anticipate another militarized RCMP raid to push through the Coastal GasLink fracked gas pipeline without free, prior and informed consent.

More on the current situation on Gidimt’en territory.

PBI COP26 webinar to feature Mexican environmental defenders Salvemos los cerros

By
Brent Patterson
-

Mexican environmental defenders Salvemos los cerros will be speaking on the PBI ‘COP26 and land defenders’ webinar on November 6.

To register to hear them speak, click here.

Salvemos los cerros says: “We are inhabitants of Chihuahua City, we want to save the hills that are the source of life, water, air, culture, identity.”

Their profile notes: “The protection of the environment and biodiversity with activities such as rescue of native fauna, mitigation of climate change, an approach in which the comrades of the National Network of Climate Resistance support us and the defense of the territory with a human rights perspective, especially with a focus on respect for the most vulnerable and marginalized social sectors,  the preservation of the cultural and archaeological heritage that exists in the territory, which we carry out together with the INAH [the National Institute of Anthropology and History] in Chihuahua.”

This past July, they also tweeted: “The hills help capture water and mitigate climate change. As the destruction of natural areas advances, so will ‘natural’ disasters.”

In July, Luis Rivera of Salvemos los cerros also spoke at this Facebook live event on the topic of Climate Crisis and Racism in the context of #500AñosdeResistencia.

And they have highlighted: “We all lose out with the terrible political and economic model that destroys the environment. A few make a lot of money, but money can’t be eaten, it can’t be taken, it can’t breathe, and it can’t heal.”

They add: “What do we prefer, to take care of Mother Earth, to respect the collective human rights of us and our children or that a few continue to earn a lot of money?”

Salvemos Los Cerros works with Extinction Rebellion and Fridays for Future among other climate justice groups.

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 1 pm EST (Ontario/Quebec) and 1900 CEST (European time) with simultaneous translation in English and Spanish.

It will feature Salvemos los cerros along with land and environmental rights defenders from Colombia, Honduras, Guatemala, Nicaragua and Kenya.

To register for this webinar, please click here.

Water protector Winona LaDuke on meeting with Mary Lawlor and the “Enbridge model” of financing police violence

By
Brent Patterson
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On October 11, Anishinaabe water protector Winona LaDuke was interviewed by Amy Goodman on Democracy Now! about the struggle against the Enbridge Line 3 export pipeline that runs from Alberta, Canada to Lake Superior in the United States.

Last week The Guardian reported that Calgary-based Enbridge Inc. paid Minnesota police $2.4 million in reimbursements, as Goodman notes, “all costs tied to the arrests and surveillance of hundreds of water protectors, including officer training, wages, overtime, meals, hotels and equipment for the local police, paid for by an international corporation.”

Goodman: “In August, you met with the U.N. special rapporteur on human rights defenders to share the police violence suffered by water protectors protesting the Line 3 construction site. And now we are learning just how much money the Canadian corporation gave to the local police to do the arrests, to do the training, etc. What happened with the U.N. rapporteur?”

LaDuke: “The U.N. rapporteur has asked the United States a bunch of questions and is expecting a response on what exactly the United States is planning to do to protect the human rights of Indigenous peoples, because this pipeline does not respect not only treaty rights, but, you know, when you get 900 people arrested and they’re brutalized with all kinds of — you know, I mean, it is torture. Some of what was done to these people is classified as it’s excessive force. So, the United Nations has called to task the United States on the Enbridge pipeline.”

Canada in the World

LaDuke: “And I just want to say that this isn’t just like our problem, because the Enbridge model — like, first of all, Canadian multinationals kill people in Third World countries. That’s what they do. You know, that is known. Seventy-five percent of the world’s mining corporations are Canadian, and all through Latin America there’s human rights violations. This is no different. This is a Canadian multinational and Indigenous people.”

Further reading

The full transcript and video of the Democracy Now! interview is here.

More on the meeting with UN Special Rapporteur Mary Lawlor and the funding relationship between Enbridge and Minnesota police at: Giniw Collective meets with UN Special Rapporteur Lawlor, discuss Canadian company funding police in Minnesota.

Seminario web PBI COP26 con la participación del defensor Ambiental colombiano Danilo Rueda

By
Brent Patterson
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El defensor de derechos ambientales colombiano, Danilo Rueda, participará en el seminario web “COP26 y defensores de tierra”, organizado por PBI el 6 de noviembre.

Para registrarte y escucharlo hablar, haga clic aquí.

Danilo es el coordinador nacional de la Comisión Intereclesial de Justicia y Paz que trabaja a favor de la justicia socioambiental.

PBI Colombia ha señalado que “los equipos de campo y personal de JyP llevan a cabo estrategias de defensa del medioambiente y  del derecho a la tierra, labores agroecológicas, y acompañan a las comunidades con intervenciones y acciones legales, educativas y comunicativas para incidir en las políticas publicas”.

Además, “JyP ha documentado y acompañado varios casos de violaciones a los derechos humanos, daños al medioambiente e impactos en la seguridad alimentaria de las comunidades que fueron afectadas por operaciones de empresas agroindustriales de palma, banano y madereras, así como de aceite y otras industrias extractivas”.

En este contexto, JyP acompaña al Resguardo Indígena Uradá-Jiguamiandó donde recientemente fue asesinado el defensor, Dilio Bailarín, líder indígena de la comunidad embera de Alto Guayabal. Según Contagio Radio, “la Reserva Humanitaria Biodiversa Alto Guayabal enfrenta los intereses extractivos de multinacionales que desconocen los derechos de las comunidades de los pueblos indígenas”.

Danilo ha declarado que “una estrategia para [proteger el medio ambiente y la soberanía alimentaria es] el empoderamiento y la creación de capacidad para abordar los impactos de las violaciones de los derechos sobre la tierra. En esta área también promovemos la resiliencia frente al problema del cambio climático ”.

La Unión de Científicos Preocupados ha manifestado que “los métodos actuales de producción de aceite de palma que, a menudo causan la destrucción de bosques tropicales y turberas ricos en carbono, contribuyen de manera importante al calentamiento global”. Al respecto, Danilo Rueda señala que “el aceite de palma significa muerte por la violencia que trae consigo y por el daño ambiental que causa. Los grandes negocios, de la mano de la política colombiana e internacional, están destruyendo fuentes de agua y flora y fauna al agotar los bosques. Esta es la lógica capitalista, que favorece la acumulación de capital y, a largo plazo, los efectos son muy negativos ”.

Seminario web de PBI, 6 de noviembre

Peace Brigades International llevará a cabo un seminario web sobre la COP26 y los defensores de la tierra que tendrá lugar el sábado 6 de noviembre a la 1 pm EST (Ontario / Quebec) y 1900 CEST (hora europea) con traducción simultánea en inglés y español.

Contará con Danilo junto con defensores de los derechos a la tierra y al medioambiente de Honduras, Guatemala, Nicaragua, México y Kenia.

Para registrarse en este seminario web, haga clic aquí.

PBI COP26 webinar to feature Colombian environmental defender Danilo Rueda

By
Brent Patterson
-

Photo of Danilo Rueda by PBI-Colombia.

Colombian environmental rights defender Danilo Rueda will be speaking on the PBI ‘COP26 and land defenders’ webinar on November 6.

To register to hear him speak, click here.

Danilo is the national coordinator of the Inter-Church Justice and Peace Commission that works to achieve socio-environmental justice.

PBI-Colombia has noted: “J&P’s field teams and staff at the main headquarters in Bogotá carry out strategies for the defence of the environment and rural lands, agro-ecological work, and accompany communities with legal, educational and communication interventions and actions to influence public policies.”

It adds: “J&P has documented and accompanied various cases of human rights violations, damage to the natural environment and impacts on the food security of communities who were affected by the operations of agro-industrial palm, banana and logging companies, as well as oil and other extractive industries.”

In this context, J&P accompanies the Alto Guayabal indigenous reservation where Indigenous Embera defender Dilio Bailarín was recently murdered.

Contagio Radio has reported: “The Alto Guayabal Biodiverse Humanitarian Reserve is facing the extractive interests of multinationals that are unaware of the rights of the communities of the indigenous peoples.”

Danilo has stated: “A strategy to [protect the environment and food sovereignty is] empowerment and capacity building to address the impacts of land rights violations. In this area we also promote resilience against the problem of climate change.”

The Union of Concerned Scientists has reported, “Unfortunately, because current palm oil production methods often cause the destruction of carbon-rich tropical forests and peatlands, it is a major contributor to global warming.”

Rueda says: “Palm oil means death because of the violence it brings with it and because of the environmental damage it causes. Big business, hand in hand with Colombian and international policy, is destroying water sources and flora and fauna by depleting the forests. This is capitalist logic, which favours the accumulation of capital, and in the long term, the effects are highly negative.”

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 1 pm EST (Ontario/Quebec) and 1900 CEST (European time) with simultaneous translation in English and Spanish.

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

To register for this webinar, please click here.

PBI COP26 webinar to feature Honduran environmental defender Juana Ramona Zuñiga

By
Brent Patterson
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Photo by Giulia Vuillermoz / Trócaire.

Honduran environmental rights defender Juana Ramona Zuñiga will be speaking on the PBI ‘COP26 and land defenders’ webinar on November 6.

To register to hear her speak, click here.

Juana is a member of the Comité Municipal de Defensa de los Bienes Comunes y Públicos (Committee for the Defence of Common and Public Assets – CMDBCP). She lives in the village of Guapinol in the municipality of Tocoa in the department of Colón.

Her husband José Abelino Cedillo is currently in prison with seven other defenders for their role in peacefully defending the Guapinol and San Pedro rivers from contamination by the Inversiones Los Pinares iron oxide mine.

The Guardian reports: “The massive open pit mine, owned by one of the country’s most powerful couples, was sanctioned without community consultation inside a protected national park in a process mired by irregularities, according to international experts.”

It adds: “In March 2018, shortly after the company started widening a road within the national park, the tap water in Guapinol turned chocolate brown and thick with muddy sediment.”

Juana says: “They ruined our river … We couldn’t use water for anything, that’s why we organized, that’s our struggle.”

Her husband has been held in illegal pretrial detention in the prison in Olanchito since September 1, 2019, and she experiences harassment by the police.

The National Network of Women Human Rights Defenders in Honduras has noted that on two occasions last month the Honduran National Police went to Juana’s house and told her that they had an order from the National Mechanism for the Protection of Human Rights to pass through her house as a security measure for her.

But Juana had not asked for protection and the National Mechanism denied that it had given such an order to the National Police.

The imprisonment of her husband José has also meant Juana has the responsibility for raising their three children in challenging circumstances.

Juana says: “My 7-year-old daughter when she sees a military patrol hides and cries, because she thinks that now they are coming for me to take me prisoner.”

PBI webinar, November 6

The struggle to defend the Guapinol River is about the collective rights of communities and natural resources over a corporate extractivist agenda that harms the environment.

Peace Brigades International will be holding a webinar on COP26 and land defenders that will take place on Saturday November 6 at 1 pm EST (Ontario/Quebec) and 1900 CEST (European time) with simultaneous translation in English and Spanish.

It will feature Juana along with land and environmental rights defenders from Colombia, Guatemala, Nicaragua and Mexico.

To register for this webinar, please click here.

PBI-Guatemala accompanies lawyers at hearing on the 1982 Dos Erres village massacre

By
Brent Patterson
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On October 13, the Peace Brigades International-Guatemala Project posted: “PBI accompanies the Bufete Jurídico de Derechos Humanos [Human Rights Law Firm – BDH] in the mid-stage audience at the #CasoDosErres.”

#CasoDosErres refers to the massacre of more than 200 people in the village of Dos Erres in 1982 during the 36-year-long Guatemalan conflict.

Back on June 22, PBI-Guatemala had posted: “Today Judge Claudette Domínguez tied former Kaibil José Mardoqueo Ortiz Morales to the process, for his participation in the massacre. The next hearing will be in October; the accused will remain in remand.”

The BBC has explained: “The Kaibiles [were] a US-trained counter-insurgency force fighting left-wing guerrillas. …The special unit of the Guatemalan army stormed the village in the north of the country on 6 December 1982.”

“The Kaibiles suspected the villagers of sympathizing with left-wing guerrillas who had two months earlier carried out an ambush on a nearby army patrol, leaving 21 soldiers dead. Even though the soldiers’ search of the village did not uncover any of the weapons the guerrillas had seized during the ambush, the Kaibiles proceeded to kill the village’s inhabitants.”

That article further notes: “Over several days, the soldiers systematically shot or bludgeoned to death hundreds of men, women and children. They disposed of most of the bodies by throwing them down a well.”

The Associated Press adds: “The slaughter [at Dos Erres] went unpunished for years — even after Guatemalan authorities issued 17 arrest warrants. In 2009, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights demanded the country prosecute the perpetrators.”

ProPublica notes: “[Five suspects have been arrested] but six others have eluded capture, some of them aided by Guatemalan security forces whose power has impeded the quest for justice, according to Guatemalan and U.S. investigators.”

On June 16, Lawyers Without Borders Canada (ASFC) and the Canadian Partnership for International Justice (PCJI) held a news conference that called on Canada to prosecute Jorge Vinicio Sosa Orantes for his alleged role in the Dos Erres massacre.

The two organizations say: “Canada is not fulfilling its obligations under international law to fight impunity for war crimes and crimes against humanity.”

We continue to follow this closely.

 

PBI-Honduras accompanies sit-in at trial for Indigenous Lenca land defenders Víctor Vásquez and José Santos Vigil

By
Brent Patterson
-

On October 13, PBI-Honduras posted: “Given the impossibility of accessing the room, PBI accompanied the sit-in for the oral and public trial against land defenders Víctor Vásquez and José S. Vigil. They are accused of forced displacement, included in the Penal Code to combat maras and gangs”

Bufete Justicia para los Pueblos (Justice for the Peoples Law Firm) has also tweeted: “Faced with the continuous illegal detention of the Lenca defenders Víctor Vásquez and José Santos Vigil, Habeas Corpus is presented against the violation of their right to liberty and demanding their immediate release.”

On May 26, PBI-Honduras tweeted: “PBI accompanied CEHPRODEC and Bufete Justicia para los Pueblos in the filing of Amparo appeal for the closure of the criminal proceedings against Víctor Vásquez and José S. Vigil for the crime of forced displacement.”

The day before, lawyer Edy Tabor tweeted: “Let us demand that the Constitutional Chamber order the closure of the criminal proceedings against Víctor V. and José V. since in a racist judicial act the Court of Appeals of Comayagua did not want to resolve the appeal presented by the defense and only resolved the one presented by the MP [Public Ministry].”

Víctor Vásquez

Front Line Defenders has explained: “Víctor Vásquez is a member of the Consejo Indígena de Simpinula (Indigenous Council of Simpinula) in Santa María, La Paz.”

“He is also the local leader of the Movimiento Indígena Independiente Lenca de La Paz (Lenca Indigenous Movement of La Paz, Honduras – MILPAH), which advocates for the rights of Lenca indigenous peoples to self-determination and to their ancestral lands.”

That post adds: “The human rights defender has been repeatedly threatened for supporting local small farmers’ groups in La Paz in activities to recover land they consider has been illegally privatised by local authorities.”

He has been detained at the La Paz Penal Centre since December 11, 2020, after being arbitrarily detained by Honduran police.

PBI-Honduras has highlighted: “The Simpinula community says community leader Victor Vazquez ‘has planted a fertile seed’ with more than six months in pre-trial detention for defending ancestral lands and defending human rights.”

We continue to follow this case.

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