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PBI-United Kingdom to screen new film at the People’s Summit for Climate Justice

By
Brent Patterson
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Peace Brigades International-United Kingdom will be screening their film “In Defence of Our Lands: Latin American activists fighting for their lives, land, and human rights” at the People’s Summit for Climate Justice that is taking place November 7-10.

This webpage highlights:

“A film documenting, in their own words, the struggle of activists in Mexico, Honduras and Colombia. Followed by a panel discussion with the filmmaker Manu Valcarce, and the interviewer, Susi Bascon, UK Director of Peace Brigades International, connecting this struggle with world-wide ecological and climate destruction.”

For recent statements on the critical role played by land and environmental defenders that have been made by the Global Women’s Assembly for Climate Justice, Fridays for Future, Global Witness, young climate activists from Colombia, Mexico and Kenya, and the UN Human Rights Council, please click here.

The complete programme for the People’s Summit can be seen here (the PBI-UK film ‘In Defence of our Lands’ is on page 2).

The People’s Summit notes: “We have brought together hundreds of submissions to host interactive workshops, panel discussions, strategy sessions, artistic and cultural events, constituency assemblies and more.”

It adds: “The evolving covid restrictions means that the exact date and location (in-person or online) for each session is subject to change. Register to stay up to date!”

To register for the People’s Summit, click here.

Analysis of how US-Colombia FTA has harmed Black communities in Buenaventura

By
Brent Patterson
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Peace Brigades International in Buenaventura.

Thomas Power and Cruz Bonlarron Martínez have written this analysis on how free trade has harmed Black communities in Colombia.

This analysis is helpful when reflecting on the Canada-Colombia Free Trade Agreement that came into force in August 2011.

Key excerpts from their article published by Aljazeera include:

“In 2013, US Vice President Joe Biden visited Colombia and met with then-President Juan Manuel Santos to cement ties between the two countries.

Just a year before, a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) had been ratified between the two which proponents held would be beneficial for both. But, eight years on, social leaders, economists, and leaders of Afro-Colombian semi-autonomous community councils question if the US-Colombian FTA really made sense for everyone.

Wealth generated not extended to port workers

Despite the National Infrastructure Agency’s large port concessions to handle the increased trade – and Afro-Colombians frequently providing the low-cost labour for such port expansions – those living in and around the port city of Buenaventura have not shared in the wealth that increased trade has produced.

Many without clean drinking water

As part of this year’s deadly, weeks-long National Strike in protest against austerity measures that would have reduced fiscal deficits by taxing the poor and middle class, residents of Buenaventura prevented cargo from entering the country, demanding better living conditions for its 415,000 inhabitants – many of whom have no running water – and more funding for the violence-ridden city.

Evictions from collective lands to accommodate port expansion

Colombian human rights advocate Enrique Chimonja sees the continuing paramilitary group activity as a strategy by private companies to evict people living on their collective lands in order to accommodate port expansion required not only by the free-trade agreement with the US but also by the 16 other FTAs Colombia has signed.

Right to collective land ownership undermined

Law 70 granted Black communities on Colombia’s Pacific coast the right to collective ownership of lands they have already occupied for more than 300 years. It formalised their right to maintain their unique lifestyle and culture while aiming to promote economic and social development.

[But] Law 70 and the community councils in the rural areas near Buenaventura stand in tension with the policy of economic opening-up, which has been state policy since the late 1980s. This is marked by low tariffs, a reduction in state subsidies and privatisation.

Privatization of port facilities

Buenaventura was an early example of these new economic policies when Colombian President Cesar Gaviria privatised the state-run port, Colpuertos, in 1994, and the new Sociedad Portuaria de Buenaventura changed its technical capacities to make port activities more capital-intensive rather than labour-intensive.

Reduction in the port’s workforce

The new, private owners introduced “labour flexibility” measures. These changes reduced the labour force from 10,000 in 1990 to 4,200 in 1996, and the average salary of a port worker fell by 70 percent. Furthermore, the private port often brought workers from outside Buenaventura for higher-wage jobs, creating a separation between the private port and the community living in Buenaventura.

Trade deficit

Proponents held that the free-trade agreement would increase Colombian exports and access to international markets, resulting in economic growth for the country as a whole.

Despite these promises, since 2012, Colombia has gone from a trade surplus to a trade deficit, and its dependence on primary material exports – oil, coal, coffee, bananas – has increased. The FTA [also] lowered tariffs on imported goods, making them cheaper than those produced domestically.

More displacement of people as the port expands

As a result of the FTAs, Buenaventura has seen a 42-percent growth in international trade during the decade of 2010 to 2020.

It has also undergone a number of port expansions including a $200m mega-project, the Buenaventura Containers Terminal (TC Buen), which has also displaced people from surrounding neighbourhoods to make way for construction.

Needs of the port prioritized over needs of people

Snyder Rivera, an economist with the Colombian organisation Cedetrabajo, which monitors the implementation of free-trade agreements, says advanced port logistics have been prioritised over the needs of the people living collectively in and around Buenaventura.

María Miyela Riascos, a community leader in Buenaventura, also believes that international trade has been prioritised over people. “I’ve been to the port of Vancouver and its technology and functioning is comparable with Buenaventura, Buenaventura has nothing to be jealous of. The difference is how the people live in Vancouver and how people live in Buenaventura, there, there is a difference,” she says.

Economic interests profit, Afro-Colombians displaced

Ultimately, Riascos says, the government and powerful international economic interests have only benefitted from the displacement of Afro-Colombian people from their traditional lands.”

To read the full analysis by Thomas Power and Cruz Bonlarron Martínez, go to How free trade has harmed Colombia’s Black communities.

Further reading

Marking the 10th anniversary of the Canada-Colombia Free Trade Agreement

Concerns of PBI-Colombia accompanied organizations raised in Annual Report on Canada-Colombia free trade agreement

PBI-Canada asked (without success) that the Annual Report Pursuant to the Agreement Concerning Annual Reports on Human Rights and Free Trade between Canada and the Republic of Colombia for fiscal year 2020:

1- specify the total amount of Canadian imports/exports that were transported through the port in Buenaventura in 2020.

2- document the number of people killed and displaced in in Buenaventura in 2020.

3- acknowledge the gendered impact of displacement in Buenaventura in 2020.

4- acknowledge the impacts of the port on the majority Afro-descendant/Black population of Buenaventura.

5- affirm the importance of the continued participation of the Canadian Embassy in verification missions to Buenaventura.

Threats against environmental defender Oscar Sampayo, disappearance of his father Miguel

By
Brent Patterson
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Photo of Miguel Sampayo from W Radio article on his disappearance at Desapareció papá de líder ambiental del Magdalena Medio Santandereano.

On October 6, CRY-GEAM tweeted: “We denounce the disappearance of the father and serious threats against the environmental leader Oscar Sampayo.”

This statement from CRY-GEAM, the Alliance for a Colombia Free of Fracking and other organizations further notes:

“With concern and consternation we report the delicate personal and family situation for which our colleague OSCAR SAMPAYO, recognized environmental leader of Barrancabermeja and Magdalena Medio, member of the Yariguíes Regional Corporation – Social Studies Group Extractivos y Ambientales del Magdalena Medio (CRY-GEAM), the SINALTRAINAL Union, the National Environmental Movement, and the coordination of the Alianza Colombia Libre de Fracking.

Since September 13 in the morning and to date the whereabouts and condition are unknown physical and emotional of OSCAR SAMPAYO’s father, Mr. MIGUEL SAMPAYO. His family has received confusing messages from his part via WhatsApp and phone calls, which generate uncertainty founded on whether it is he who is actually communicating, which makes one suspect that found in the power of strangers, doubting the freedom of his actions and if he finds himself coerced by someone.

On September 17, OSCAR SAMPAYO received a message directly to his WhatsApp threatening signed by who calls himself “commander of the Madalena Self-Defense Forces Medio”, where a supposed quota was demanded in exchange for not attempting against OSCAR’s life, his father and the UNP bodyguards who provide protection. Also, in the last conversation that OSCAR’s mother argued with his father on September 24, he stated that he had to “Pay so they don’t kill OSCAR.

On September 30 after a series of inquiries by OSCAR SAMPAYO in Barrancabermeja and Yondó about his father, he receives another threat to his phone assigned by the UNP, in which they call him and tell him “we are tracking him, we have him located and we are already riding to fuck it up.”

On October 5, the social networks of facebook and whatsapp of OSCAR SAMPAYO’s father were hacked and impersonated, using them to send messages to his contacts requesting help for the conducting money transactions.

The risk situation and threats against OSCAR SAMPAYO and his family are fully knowledge of the State authorities, since September 17 a complaint was instituted before the Office of the Attorney General of the Nation on the latest events. His outstanding work in opposition to fracking, complaints of environmental contamination resulting from oil activities and the recent accompaniment to social and environmental conflicts with ECOPETROL in Barrancabermeja, San Vicente de Chucurí and Yondó, give an account of his exhibition.

Likewise, OSCAR SAMPAYO has denounced before the authorities about the threats that he has received in the past through threatening pamphlets, amidst the context of violence widespread against environmental defenders in Colombia, which have made it the country with the most dangerous for environmental activism. For this reason, WE ARE RESPONSIBLE for the negligence of the State any damage that may be presented to the integrity of OSCAR and his family.”

Watch the press conference for the final report of the International Observation Mission, October 7

By
Brent Patterson
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The International Observation Mission for the Guarantees of Social Protest and Against Impunity in Colombia was comprised of 41 commissioners, including Peace Brigades International-Canada Board member Heather Neun and two members of the Quebec-based Projet Accompagnement Solidarité Colombie (PASC).

The commissioners arrived in Colombia on July 3 and released this 32-page preliminary report on July 12.

On October 7, the final report will be presented.

To watch the livestream presentation of the report in English, please click here. To watch it in Spanish, you can click here.

9 am in Colombia is 7 am in Vancouver, 9 am in Winnipeg, 10 am in Ottawa, 11 am in Halifax.

Further reading:

International Observation Mission to Colombia makes 54 recommendations, including on free trade and military sales

PBI-Canada takes part in international mission to Colombia on the right to social protest

PBI-Honduras: “The other side of militarisation: human rights violations”

By
Brent Patterson
-

The Peace Brigades International-Honduras Project has written this article on the ways in which Honduran society has been militarized since the 2009 coup.

Some of the notable ways include:

Agriculture

1- In late 2019, the Government of Honduras announced that the Armed Forces would be assigned over one billion Honduran Lempiras (nearly 42 million US Dollars) for the management of the Agricultural Development Programme of Honduras (PCM 52-2019), placing the programme outside of the mandate of the country’s agricultural institutions.

Policing

2- The special militarised police unit, TIGRES (Special Comprehensive Governmental Security Response Unit), was created in 2013 (Decree 103-2013). Although this unit forms part of the country’s police, its officers wear camouflage uniforms, carry long-range firearms, and have specialised communications equipment. TIGRES performs hybrid security duties, such as patrolling streets and highways, maintaining order during public protests, and protecting mining and hydroelectric companies in cases of conflict with local communities.

Schools

3- In 2012 the military was assigned the administration of the Guardians of the Homeland programme, in which they entered into public schools to promote military, civic, and religious ideals. This was described by civil society organisations as “very disturbing”.

Prisons

4- In late 2019, following the declaration of a State of Emergency in the country’s prison system due to the violent deaths of several inmates, the Honduran Executive granted the Armed Forces responsibility over four maximum security prisons.

Lawyer and human rights defender Reina Rivera 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.”

To read the full article, please see The other side of militarisation: human rights violations or La otra cara de la militarización: vulneraciones de derechos humanos.

Global Women’s Assembly calls on governments to halt the criminalization of land defenders

By
Brent Patterson
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Photo by Ayşe Gürsöz of action at U.S. Embassy in Madrid during COP25, December 2019.

The Call to Action from the Global Women’s Assembly for Climate Justice states: “We call on all governments to respect the right of freedom of expression and peaceful protest, and to immediately halt the criminalization of land defenders, whose efforts are central to a climate-just world.”

Their statement was signed by 120+ groups including Amazon Watch, BankTrack, Global Witness, Honor the Earth, Indigenous Climate Action, Oil Change International, and Women’s Earth and Climate Action Network (WECAN).

The Global Women’s Assembly brought together 100+ climate leaders from 40 countries for a 6-day public forum that began on September 24.

Their statement echoes other recent calls to governments including:

Fridays for Future

“Stop the violence and criminalization against indigenous peoples, small farmers, small fisherfolk, and other environmental and land defenders. Support the work they do.  Respect and listen to our defenders.”

Global Witness

“Stop the killing of land and environmental defenders and ensure those who commit or are complicit in violence against them face justice.”

Young climate activists from Colombia, Mexico and Kenya

“We call on:

The UN secretary-general and the COP26 president-designate to condemn the killing and harassment of land and environmental defenders in the strongest possible terms, and to call for countries to bring the perpetrators of these crimes to justice.

The UN secretary-general to utilize all tools available to the UN to ensure the protection of environmental defenders, including by supporting the global implementation of the Declaration on Human Rights Defenders.

The COP26 president-designate to use the significant diplomatic resources at his disposal – through UK embassies and High Commissions around the world – to make this a top priority in his discussions with Government leaders, working with them to strengthen protections for environmental defenders in-country.”

United Nations Human Rights Council

“Human rights defenders, including environmental human rights defenders, must be ensured a safe and enabling environment to undertake their work free from hindrance and insecurity, in recognition of their important role in supporting States to fulfil their obligations under the Paris Agreement.”

Global Witness has documented that that 227 land and environmental defenders were killed in 2020 for peacefully standing against the destruction of nature. 125 of them, more than half the global total, were killed in Colombia (65), Mexico (30), Honduras (17) and Guatemala (13).

They have also highlighted that on average four land and environmental defenders have been killed every week since the COP21 summit in December 2015.

Peace Brigades International is organizing a webinar on Saturday November 6 to help highlight the relationship between human rights and climate change. Meetings between foreign ministers and human rights defenders are also being organized.

PBI-Colombia facilitates workshop with Movement of Victims of State Crimes in Buenaventura

By
Brent Patterson
-

On October 4, PBI-Colombia posted: “Last Friday [October 1], the PBI Social Fabric Reconstruction Support Team facilitated a workshop in Buenaventura with the Movement of Victims of State Crimes, Valle de Cauca chapter.”

MOVICE pursues strategies for truth, historical memory, reparations and non-repetition.

It has been estimated that 261,619 people were killed between 1958 and 2018 as a direct result of the armed conflict of which 214,584 were civilians. Earlier this year, the Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP) inquiry found that 6,402 civilians were killed by the military between 2002 and 2008 and falsely passed off as enemy combatants.

MOVICE has highlighted: “From our experience we consider that state crimes are mainly those perpetrated by State agents, or by non-State agents (such as paramilitary groups) acting in complicity with, or whose crimes are tolerated by, the State.”

It adds: “We consider that the majority of the crimes against social and popular movements in Colombia are the result of political and economic interests. In this context, this sociopolitical and State violence was not born as a result of the internal armed conflict but is rather a root cause of the conflict.”

MOVICE has also noted that it “has adopted a clear political posture that emerged from the crimes committed against the popular and social movement in Colombia [were done] in favour of the interests of the dominant classes and transnational companies.”

PBI-Colombia has previously noted: “In 2018, from PBI’s work area to Support the Reconstruction of the Social Fabric we have accompanied a group of twenty-five women, family members of disappeared individuals. These women are members of the Movement of Victims of State Crimes (MOVICE) – Valle del Cauca chapter.”

PBI-Colombia adds: “It is an accompaniment process that began in Buenaventura in 2017 and is focused on psycho-social support, self-care, and mutual care. Our accompaniment is aligned with MOVICE’s strategy to fight impunity, and in favor of truth and justice in the search for disappeared individuals, guarantees of non-repetition, and comprehensive reparation, where a methodological proposal meets empowerment using elements of historical truth.”

“Reconciliation is impossible if the State does not clarify the truth about its responsibility”: Martha Giraldo, spokeswoman for MOVICE in Valle del Cauca and victim of the extrajudicial execution of her father.

PBI-Canada attends Families of Sisters in Spirit Vigil on Algonquin territory (Ottawa)

By
Brent Patterson
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On October 4, PBI-Canada attended the Families of Sisters in Spirit Vigil that took place at Vincent Massey Park in Ottawa, unceded Algonquin territory on the National Day of Action for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls.

The gathering was to honour and remember all missing/murdered Indigenous women, girls and two-spirited peoples, the missing/murdered residential school children, and the missing/murdered 60s scoop children.

It was also held in memory of Gladys Tolley, Aileen Joseph and Diem Saunders.

Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls

Journalist Brandi Morin has written: “There have been approximately 4,000 or more Indigenous murdered or missing women and girls [in Canada] in the last 30 years. That works out to about 133 a year, or three a week. [But this has] been happening since 1492.”

The National Inquiry into Murdered and Missing Indigenous Women and Girls determined that “state actions and inactions rooted in colonialism and colonial ideologies” are in part responsible for the thousands of Indigenous women and girls who have been murdered or gone missing in Canada that the report names as genocide.

Residential schools

More than 150,000 Indigenous children were taken from their parents and sent to at least 139 state-funded “residential schools” operated by churches starting in 1883 as part of a genocidal campaign of forced assimilation.

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission documented the deaths of 3,201 children at residential schools, its chair Justice Murray Sinclair has stated that 6,000 children may have died at these schools, but Cindy Blackstock and Pam Palmater have estimated that more than 12,000 children died in them.

The Sixties Scoop

The government began phasing out compulsory residential schools in the 1950s and 1960s. The term Sixties Scoop refers to the mass removal of Indigenous children from their families that began at this time. The practice continued throughout the 1970s and well into the 1980s. An estimated 20,000 Indigenous children were removed from their families and fostered/adopted with primarily white families.

Gladys, Aileen and Diem

Gladys was struck and killed by a Québec provincial police car on October 5, 2001 in front of her home in the community of Kitigan Zibi. She was 50 years old. Her family is calling on the government to conduct an independent investigation into her death. Her daughter Bridget is a key organizer of the Sisters in Spirit vigils.

Aileen passed away at 79 years of age on April 29. Her 40-year-old daughter Shelley was stabbed to death on July 2, 2004. The killer plead guilty to manslaughter and was sentenced to nine years, which was reduced to five years and eight months for time served. Shelley’s son committed suicide 15 months after his mother was killed.

And 29-year-old Inuk defender Diem died on September 7. After the murder of her sister Loretta in 2014, Diem became an advocate for the rights of Indigenous women and testified at the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls.

There were other poignant and painful stories and memories shared at the vigil along with drumming and a sacred fire.

PBI-Canada is committed to confronting the violence of “state actions and inactions rooted in colonialism” that are responsible for the thousands of Indigenous women and girls in this country who have gone missing or been murdered. Colonialism, displacement, dispossession, land theft and genocide are intertwined.

#NoMoreStolenSisters

Bridget Tolley holds a photo of her mother as Theland Kicknosway drums. Photo from Facebook.

PBI-Colombia accompanies NOMADESC at commemoration of those killed at national strike protest in Siloé, Cali

By
Brent Patterson
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On October 4, PBI-Colombia posted: “During the weekend we accompanied @Nomadesc [the Association for Research and Social Action] at the commemoration of the May 3 massacre in Siloé, Cali within the framework of the #ParoNacional [national strike].”

Amnesty International has reported that on May 3 “in an incursion called ‘Operation Siloé’, National Police officers, together with members of ESMAD [riot police] and the Special Operations Group of the National Police of Colombia (GOES), used lethal weapons, including Tavor 5.56mm rifles, against peaceful protesters.”

“The community also reported the presence of soldiers from the National Army (by that date, President Iván Duque had already ordered the deployment of the military in the city).”

“That night, at least three deaths from gunshot wounds were recorded, among them that of the young man [21-year-old] Kevin Agudelo, and hundreds of people were injured and several arbitrarily detained.”

Amnesty adds: “The incidents documented were not isolated or sporadic, but rather reflect a pattern of violence on the part of the Colombian authorities, who have responded to the protest with stigmatization, criminalization, unlawful police repression and militarization.”

Just days after that massacre, PBI-Colombia tweeted on May 8: “PBI accompanies Berenice from @Nomadesc to the great mobilization of mothers and women of Cali and Valle del Cauca that is happening right now.”

At that time, the Colombian digital media platform Kienyke reported: “The call is made by the mothers of Cali who will take to the streets in rejection of the murders of young people in the midst of social protest.”

The Peace Brigades International-Colombia Project has accompanied NOMADESC since 2011 and its president Berenice Celeita since 1999.

PBI-Colombia accompanies ACVC-RAN campesinas at political training school on feminism and the environment

By
Brent Patterson
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On October 4, the Peace Brigades International-Colombia Project posted: “Over the weekend we accompanied the Asociación Campesina del Valle del Río Cimitarra (ACVC-RAN) in Yondo in the Magdalena Medio.”

It adds: “The organization conducted the second module of political training school. The themes were peasant feminism and the environment.”

PBI-Colombia has accompanied ACVC-RAN, a social organization operating in 120 villages in the Magdalena Medio region, since 2007.

It has also previously explained: “For more than twenty years the ACVC has been striving for a dignified life for peasant families affected by Colombia’s internal conflict. It promotes the implementation of the Peace Agreement as a strategy to achieve structural changes in the Colombian countryside. One of its prime initiatives is helping small farmers substitute coca leaf plantations with environmentally sustainable agricultural projects.”

You can find ACVC-RAN on Facebook and Twitter.

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