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PBI-Canada Board member Heather Neun reports back on visit to Colombia, August 24

By
Brent Patterson
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Peace Brigades International-Canada Board member Heather Neun participated in the International Observation Mission for the Guarantees of Social Protest and Against Impunity in Colombia (#MisiónSOSColombia) this past July 3-12.

She will be reporting back on that mission this coming Tuesday August 24 at 7 pm on Denman Island, British Columbia.

The promotion for the event notes: “Denman resident and human rights/labour lawyer Heather Neun will speak about her recent visit to Colombia as part of an international observation and verification mission organized by Peace Brigades International (PBI).”

It adds: “The human rights mission followed reports of widespread, extreme violations of the right to social protest in that country, especially the brutal state response to ongoing country wide protests that began in April 2021 and are still continuing, and the Colombian state’s impunity in the face of abuses of power, authority, assaults and police violence.”

And it highlights: “Heather’s talk will include the Canadian connections to the upheaval and ongoing violence in Colombia.”

Some of those connections could include the sale of Light Armoured Vehicles (manufactured in London, Ontario) to the Colombian Army and Huron armoured vehicles (manufactured in Toronto) to the Colombian National Police; a bilateral policing initiative between Canadian and Colombian police; and Canadian oil and gas companies – including Calgary-based Parex Resources and Toronto-based Frontera Energy – that have been involved in the criminalization of human rights defenders concerned by their environmental impacts.

The preliminary report from the Mission can be read (in Spanish) here.

For more on the current situation, please see this 12-minute France 24 video titled ‘Colombia: Silencing a Revolt’ (available in English).

#CambiémoslaYa calls for profound reforms to the Mining Law in Mexico

By
Brent Patterson
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Short video on the #CambiémoslaYa website.

On August 18, the Mexican newspaper La Jornada reported: “Mining in the country has left at least 374 socio-environmental conflicts, derived from the fact that more than 19 thousand localities of the Mexican Republic are settled in territories concessioned to extractive companies.”

“This was denounced yesterday in a virtual national forum by the promoters of the national movement #CambiémoslaYa [#Lets change it now] made up of members of various social organizations, representatives of affected villages, as well as researchers and academics from different universities in the country.”

That article highlights: “Currently, it was reported, there are about a thousand projects in different stages of development in about one thousand 600 mines, and among the consequences are the persecution and murder of opposition inhabitants, who defend their territories and water against foreign companies.”

Significantly, Canada represents about 75 per cent of the total foreign investment related to the mining sector in Mexico. Put another way, roughly 70 per cent of foreign-owned mining companies operating in Mexico are based in Canada.

San José del Progreso

The La Jornada article further notes that there are 13 mining communities that “suffer from poverty levels above the national average, among them there are seven in extreme poverty, as is the case of San José del Progreso, Oaxaca.”

This is where the Vancouver-based Fortuna Silver Inc. mine is located.

NACLA reports: “In March 2009, a group of residents protested this violation of [their right to free, prior and informed consent 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.”

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

Those deaths included community defenders Bernardo Méndez who was killed on January 18, 2012, after he and others confronted a municipal crew working on a water pipeline they suspected would divert water for use at the mine and Bernardo Vásquez who was killed on March 15, 2012 as he travelled back home from the Oaxaca airport.

#CambiémoslaYa

The website for this campaign notes: “#CambiémoslaYa brings together peoples, communities, civil organizations, movements, academics, land and territory defenders seeking profound reforms to the Mining Law.”

Their six non-negotiable demands are:

  1. Remove the quality of public utility from mining projects
  2. Create consultation and analysis mechanisms that guarantee the collective well-being and self-determination of indigenous peoples
  3. Modify the concession regime towards a more social objective and interest
  4. Remove water and land privileges for businesses
  5. Strengthen care for the environment, sacred sites and human rights
  6. Transparent information and stop corporate capture.

Peace Brigades International-Canada is following this new campaign and continues to amplify the instances in which Canadian capital leads to human rights violations and threats against human rights defenders.

On March 11, PBI-Canada and Amnesty International organized this webinar in which Educa Oaxaca and community leaders highlighted concerns related to the Fortuna Silver mine. To watch the video of the webinar, click here.

75 organizations say Guapinol River defenders should be released from Honduran prison by August 26

By
Brent Patterson
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On August 11, the Peace Brigades International-Honduras Project visited seven of the Guapinol environmental defenders in the Olanchito prison.

The seven share the same cell in this prison, while an eighth defender, Jeremías Martínez Díaz, is being held in La Ceiba prison.

They are being held in pretrial detention 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.

Criterio has reported: “[They are being held] despite the opinion and recommendations issued by the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detentions and the amparos presented by Honduran civil society organizations to remedy the ruling issued by the judiciary.”

On August 26, the legal period of two years of preventive detention expires for these defenders.

The Public Prosecutor’s Office has filed a request with the Sentencing Court of Trujillo asking for an extension of the pre-trial detention for the defenders.

In response, 75 organizations submitted this letter stating that the request for an extension of the two-year pre-trial detention should be denied.

Two of the signatories are the University of Guelph (Canada) and the Comité por los derechos humanos en America Latina (Canada).

They cite the Working Group on Arbitrary Detentions opinion from November 2020 that the defenders should be released immediately.

PBI-Honduras has been accompanying various processes in relation to the defenders of the Guapinol River for the past two years.

PBI-Kenya supports Missing Voices coalition’s efforts to stop extrajudicial killings and enforced disappearances by the police

By
Brent Patterson
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Photo: On March 24, 2021, Missing Voices released its 2020 report on police killings and enforced disappearances in Kenya.

On August 17, The Guardian reported: “The Kenyan police killed 157 people in 2020, up from 144 the previous year, according to Missing Voices, a group of organisations investigating unlawful killings in Kenya.”

Missing Voices also notes: “According to our data, 31 people have been killed by the police or disappeared [as of June] 2021.”

The Missing Voices coalition is supported by numerous organizations, including the Nairobi-based Peace Brigades International-Kenya Project.

The Guardian article tells the story of lawyer Willie Kimani who was killed by the police in Nairobi in 2016. Kimani was representing Josephat Mwenda who had been shot and injured by the police the previous year.

The article notes: “Five people, among them four police officers, are on trial over the killings [of Kimani, his driver and Mwenda], but proceedings are far from over.”

The article also tells of Nura Malicha who was shot dead in 2015 by the police at his workplace. The case is still at the hearing stage. And of Samantha Pendo, a baby who died in 2017 after being struck on the head by a police baton. An inquest found that five senior police officers were responsible, but the court case has yet to begin. And of university student Carilton Maina who was shot dead 2018. The officer who allegedly shot him pleaded not guilty to murder in 2020. Now the inquest file has been declared missing.

The Star has reported: “[Missing Voices] says the 157 cases were a result of 131 separate incidents and that 83 per cent of the cases have not been investigated. A paltry 3.5 per cent of the cases have the alleged perpetrators arrested and 7 per cent are under investigation by IPOA [the independent policing oversight authority].”

The full article in The Guardian can be read at ‘The wounds won’t heal’: Kenya’s agonising wait for justice on killings by police.

For more, please see the Missing Voices website, Twitter account and Facebook page.

PBI-Honduras present as five criminalized Lenca water protectors opposed to Progelsa dam receive provisional dismissal

By
Brent Patterson
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On August 17, PBI-Honduras posted: “Yesterday, provisional dismissal was issued for defenders of the Lenca Indigenous Council of Reitoca, they were arrested for their opposition to a hydroelectric company and criminalized for caring for, defending and protecting the Rio Grande, mountains and forests.”

Proceso Digital reports: “The Criminal Court provisionally dismissed five men, who had been arrested, for being accused of burning a police post in Reitoca, municipality of Francisco Morazán.”

“The spokeswoman of the Criminal Courts Barbara Castillo announced that after a long day the criminal judge issued a provisional dismissal in the case against: Renán Zelaya, Jorge Alberto Montes, Andrés Evelio Gutiérrez, Jaime Noé Oliva and José Orlando Rodas.”

The article adds: “They obtained provisional dismissal, until new evidence emerges [about the burning of the police post].”

Opposition to Progelsa dam

Criterion.hn adds that defenders are opponents of the hydroelectric project backed by Promotora de Generación de Energía Limpia S.A. (Progelsa).

Residents of Reitoca oppose the dam because the river is the only source of water for more than 12,000 people in 10 villages and 113 hamlets. They also highlighted that they have title to the land and that the dam lacks their free, prior and informed consent.

Campamento en Defensa del Rio Grande

The dam was announced in 2013 and construction on it began in April 2016.

Criterio.hn notes what happened when construction began: “At the beginning of the work the construction company dynamited the hills that are in the riverbed and the earth fell into the waters, which caused a decrease in the flow. The color of the water darkened, the fish died, and the water level dropped substantially.”

In 2017, the Lenca Indigenous Council of Reitoca denounced the water pollution and the illegality of the project but were ignored.

In January 2018, they established Campamento en Defensa del Rio Grande, a camp in defence of the river, on community land in front of the entrance gates to the company.

They said in a public statement: “We initiated territorial control actions in the construction zone, since January 14, 2018, and we remain an average of one hundred people daily to prevent the construction of the dam from continuing.”

The camp was attacked by police on January 30, 2018.

Construction on the dam has been halted since this time.

Judicial process against defenders

Aler has reported: “Jose Orlando Rodas, one of the criminalized defenders points out that this new judicial process seeks to intimidate the resistance of the citizens and crush the fight, but that the company and the municipal mayor will not achieve the objective of continuing to damage the river with the hydroelectric plant, and they will continue to defend the main source of water of this indigenous Lenca community.”

Our earlier article on this can be read at: PBI-Honduras concerned by arrest of Lenca defenders of the Petacón River opposed to dam.

Giniw Collective meets with UN Special Rapporteur Lawlor, discuss Canadian company funding police in Minnesota

By
Brent Patterson
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Photo: Tara Houska (Giniw Collective), Winona LaDuke (Honor the Earth), Osprey Orielle Lake (Women’s Earth and Climate Action Network), Mary Lawlor (UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders).

On August 17, the Giniw Collective posted: “This morning, Giniw Collective founder Tara Houska met with UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights Defenders Mary Lawlor to discuss the egregious human rights violations occurring at the hands of police in direct financial relationship with Enbridge.”

Earlier this month, Houska told Democracy Now! about the funding relationship between Calgary-based Enbridge Inc. and police forces in Minnesota.

She said: “[The police have] billed over $1.7 million to the Public Safety Escrow Trust, in which Enbridge is dumping millions of dollars to incentivize and encourage police officers to repress, suppress and surveil, harass Indigenous people and our allies that are helping us try to stop this pipeline from happening in our treaty territory.”

Emily Atkin has reported in Heated: “Enbridge established a financial relationship with Minnesota law enforcement in May 2020, when the state Public Utilities Commission approved Line 3’s route permit. That permit required the oil giant to set up a special fund that would reimburse police responding to anything pipeline-related.”

And most recently Audrey Carleton has detailed in Vice how Enbridge “has given Minnesota law enforcement $2 million to fund the policing of protests against construction of its pipeline.” Specifically, she reports the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission (PUC) has paid $1,957,011.37 in expenses to date.

The Calgary-based Enbridge Inc. 760,000 barrel per day Line 3 tar sands pipeline would run from Hardisty, Alberta to Superior, Wisconsin (just south of Duluth, Minnesota). 531 kilometres of the 1,659 long kilometre pipeline would cross Minnesota.

It would also cross over 3,400 acres of wild rice waters. Anishinaabe water protector Winona LaDuke has stated: “Wild rice is our life. Where there’s Anishinaabe there’s rice. Where there’s rice there’s Anishinaabe. It’s our most sacred food. It’s who we are.”

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau approved the construction of the Line 3 tar sands export pipeline in November 2016.

The Rainforest Action Network (RAN) has documented that the top five financiers of Enbridge are Canadian banks: TD Bank, Bank of Montreal, Scotiabank, RBC and CIBC. Collectively they have provided billions of dollars in financing to Enbridge.

Giniw Collective post on Facebook.

CCAJAR calls on Honduran judicial authorities to recognize COPINH as a victim in the Fraud on the Gualcarque trial

By
Brent Patterson
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COPINH tweet: “Press conference: Positioning of COPINH before the start of the ‘Fraud on the Gualcarque’ trial. COPINH and the Río Blanco community continue to be denied the right to participate as a victim in this process.”

The Peace Brigades International-Honduras Project has posted: “On August 17, the ‘Fraud on the Gualcarque’ trial will start for acts of corruption in the concession of the Agua Zarca hydroelectric project on the Gualcarque River.”

It adds: “The Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras (COPINH) and the Río Blanco community continue to be excluded from the process as victims whose rights were violated for more than 10 years.”

COPINH has asked to be accepted as a victim in this trial.

COPINH co-founder Berta Caceres was murdered in March 2016 for her opposition to this dam on Lenca territory.

The trial will reportedly look at the irregularities in the Agua Zarca hydroelectric project, including acts of corruption in which permits and licences were authorized as well as violations of the Indigenous right to free, prior and informed consent.

On August 16, the José Alvear Restrepo Lawyers’ Collective (CCAJAR) and other organizations in Guatemala and Honduras urged Honduran judicial authorities to recognize COPINH as a victim of the acts of corruption being prosecuted.

Their letter notes: “The former manager of hydroelectric company Desarrollos Energéticos S.A. (DESA), David Castillo, was recently sentenced as a co-perpetrator of Cáceres’ murder. He and other individuals will stand trial for fraud, abuse of power, falsification of public documents, and use of false documents in the licence of the Agua Zarca project.”

“Nevertheless, this hearing will begin without the participation of COPINH, which was excluded as a victim in the trial since August 2019.”

It further highlights: “Denied its rightful place in this corruption trial, COPINH is prevented from accusing the perpetrators of corruption responsible for the injustices suffered—wrongdoing that amounts to human rights violations.”

The amicus curiae letter from CCAJR, the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), Centre for Human Rights Legal Action (CALDH) and the Centre for Research and Promotion of Human Rights (CIPRODEH) can be read here.

Earlier this month, about 70 organizations highlighted in this letter that Honduran law establishes the right of civil societies to be recognized as victims requested that the Constitutional Chamber “resolve expeditiously and within the framework of legality” the amparo filed by COPINH on this matter in 2019.

One of the signatories to that letter is Lawyers Without Borders Canada.

PBI-Colombia has accompanied CCAJAR since 1995.

PBI-Honduras has accompanied COPINH since May 2016.

PBI-Colombia accompanies Nomadesc at Intercultural University of the Peoples in Cali

By
Brent Patterson
-

On August 16, PBI-Colombia posted: “We are proudly accompanying the Association for Research and Social Action (Nomadesc) as part of this great initiative from the Intercultural University of Peoples in Cali.”

PBI-Colombia has previously explained: “As part of its education strategy, Nomadesc has promoted and accompanied different educational schemes.”

“In 2015 the Peoples’ Intercultural University was launched, which is ‘an open-air learning experience’ designed to further train human rights defenders who, although they come from different regional and cultural backgrounds within Colombia’s South-West, share similar stories of pain and resistance.”

“This is a university conceived and designed for peasants and indigenous and Afro Colombian communities in rural areas.”

PBI-Colombia adds: “Its courses are mobile, taking place outside classrooms and conventional buildings. The education takes place through the so-called territorial tours, where theory and practical implementation come together and different communities exchange knowledge through dialogue.”

The Third Cohort of the Intercultural University of the Peoples with the theme “Socialization first documentation center analysis model development and life plans” is taking place in Cali from August 14 to16.

PBI-Colombia has accompanied NOMADESC since 2011 and its president Berenice Celeita since 1999.

Gidimt’en land defenders seek to stop destruction of heritage site from construction of Coastal GasLink fracked gas pipeline

By
Brent Patterson
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Still from #WetsuwetenStrong video.

The Gidimt’en Checkpoint has posted: “Coastal GasLink wants to destroy one of our archeological heritage sites.”

The Calgary-based TC Energy-owned Coastal GasLink fracked gas pipeline would cross 190 kilometres of Wet’suwet’en territory in the Canadian province of British Columbia without the free, prior and informed consent of the Wet’suwet’en peoples. Gidimt’en is one of the five clans of the Wet’suwet’en Nation.

Their post continues: “[The company has] obtained a ‘Site Alteration Permit’ from the Oil and Gas Commission with approvals through the Archeology branch. The site is 200 meters from camp, adjacent to an ancient village site where our ancestors would harvest lamprey eel, now known as Lamprey Creek.”

On August 14, the Gidimt’en Checkpoint also noted: “We have not and will not give permission for them to destroy our artifacts and erase us from the yintah [territory].”

They add: “The site is not isolated but part of an ancient village site where our people would go to harvest lamprey eels, which are now on the species at risk list. We are still here! We refuse to become a species at risk as well. We are strong and proud and will fight for our children and future grandchildren.”

To see a 5-minute video of their visit to this site, please click here.

The Wet’suwet’en have been subjected to two militarized RCMP police raids – in January 2019 and February 2020 – that resulted in the arrests of 36 land defenders.

Following that first raid, the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination passed this resolution calling for the RCMP to be withdrawn from Wet’suwet’en territory, but within weeks the British Columbia government approved the funds for the second RCMP raid against the land defenders.

Between January 2019 and April 2021, the RCMP has been allocated almost $20 million in public funds to police Wet’suwet’en territory.

For updates, please see the Gidimt’en Checkpoint on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.

Wet’suwet’en solidarity protest on Parliament Hill in Ottawa, January 2019.

Canada continues to invest in F-35 stealth fighter with nuclear strike capabilities

By
Brent Patterson
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Photo: The red tail of a B61-12 nuclear bomb is visible inside the bomb bay of the F-35 during a flight test in October 2019.

Last month, the Canadian Press reported that Canada made a US$71.7 million (CAD$89.85 million) payment to the United States military to remain a partner in the development of the Lockheed Martin F-35 fighter jet.

That article further notes that Canada has invested US$613 million (CAD$768 million) in the development of the F-35 since 1997.

The Canadian government says Canadian companies have secured more than US$2 billion in contracts as a result of this investment without acknowledging it is also helping to develop a stealth fighter jet with nuclear strike capabilities.

The F-35 has tested dropping a B61-12 nuclear free-fall bomb that would have an explosive yield of 50 kilotons (the bomb dropped on Hiroshima had an explosive yield of about 13 kilotons, while the bomb on Nagasaki had a yield of 21 kilotons).

Defense World reports: “The tests, carried out at Edwards Air Force Base in California, [with an inert bomb] were dated back to June 2019.”

CNN has also reported: “A US Air Force F-35 jet conducted a successful test drop of a mock nuclear bomb [in August 2020] while traveling at greater than the speed of sound.”

The Defense World article further highlights: “The test has proven that the nuclear bomb can be carried in the weapons bay of the F-35 thereby giving it the ability to take the bomb to its target undetected – a huge tactical advantage that flies in the face of global nuclear non-proliferation efforts.”

In their 2015 election platform, the Liberal Party of Canada stated if elected it would not buy the F-35 because “the primary mission of our fighter aircraft should remain the defence of North America, not stealth first-strike capability.”

Despite this, the Trudeau government has continued Canada’s investments in the F-35 (that began with Jean Chretien and continued under Paul Martin and Stephen Harper).

Significantly, Canada has not signed the United Nations Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, the first legally binding international agreement to prohibit nuclear weapons with the goal of leading towards their total elimination.

In December 2019, the Canadian Press reported: “[The treaty] has no support among the countries that possess nuclear weapons — including the United States and its allies, including Canada. Canada doesn’t have nuclear weapons but its membership in NATO means it adheres to the 29-country military alliance’s nuclear-deterrent policy.”

The Lockheed Martin F-35 is one of the contenders for Canada’s $19 billion acquisition of new fighter jets next year.

Even if it is not chosen, Canada has to date invested US$613 million (CAD$768 million) in a fighter jet that has the “stealth first-strike capability” to deliver undetected a nuclear bomb with a yield almost four times that of the bomb dropped on Hiroshima.

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