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CF-18 fighter jet flyby on Canada Day a reminder of land taken from the Dene Su’lene’ peoples

By
Brent Patterson
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A CF-18 takes off from Dene lands at CFB Cold Lake.

A CF-18 fighter jet is scheduled to flyby Ottawa on July 1, Canada Day. It will be piloted by Captain Daniel Deluce, an instructor at 410 Tactical Fighter (Operational Training) Squadron. That squadron is based in Cold Lake, Alberta.

Dene Su’lene’ land defenders have stated: “In 1952, we were forcibly evicted from our homelands [so that the base could be constructed]. In Suckerville [on the shores of Primrose Lake], our people had a 7-day sit-in, refusing to leave. Reluctantly, after heavy coercion from the government, a deal was made.”

They add: “Our people left peacefully under the understanding that this was to be a short-term lease purely for military use, and that the 4,490 square miles of land was to be returned or re-negotiated after 20 years.”

On June 3, 2001, Dene Su’lene’ Warriors established a Peace Camp blockade 300 metres from the gate to the military base that also includes the Cold Lake Air Weapons Range (CLAWR) where live fire training exercises are conducted.

Also known as the Primrose Lake Air Weapons Range, it includes “an instrumented aerospace testing and evaluation range, a manned air-to-ground range (including a high explosive range), and an air-to-air gunnery range.”

Land defender Brian Grandbois was one of the opponents of the military base at that time. In an interview, he told The Dominion: “My great-great-great-grandfather is buried there on a point on that lake where they bomb.”

By October 2001, the Band Council of the Cold Lake First Nation signed a $25.5 million that would allow the military base and weapons range to continue. This amounted to $35 for each acre of the weapons range and $2,500 for each band member.

In November 2012, Sandra Cuffe wrote: “Aside from a land claim settlement concerning the military base, the Cold Lake First Nation band council has also signed agreements with hydrocarbon corporations and owns a number of contracting companies serving the military and oil and gas industries.”

Grandbois commented: “They’re extracting huge amounts of resources, both in gas and oil. …If you look in the Air Weapons Range today in 2012, you’ll find the Denesuline are cleaning toilets for executives.”

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has stated: “I think this Canada Day, it will be a time of reflection on what we’ve achieved as a country, but what more we have to do.”

The CF-18 flyby is a reminder about the land taken from the Dene Su’lene’ and the efforts of land defenders to reclaim that land from a military base.

Land defender Brian Grandbois.

PBI-Canada asks that Canada’s feminist foreign policy be implemented as sexual violence against women at protests in Colombia increases

By
Brent Patterson
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On May 13, 17-year-old Allison Meléndez committed suicide after suffering sexual violence by members of the Colombian police.

Peace Brigades International is one of the 306 organizations that asked the United Nations Human Rights Council on June 21 to take further action against “flagrant human rights violations” in Colombia.

That statement notes: “Throughout the eight weeks of mass protests that have spread to different cities throughout the country, we’ve seen … sexual violence … against those exercising their right to protest… These violations are taking place in spite of a Supreme Court ruling ordering the security forces to refrain from acting violently…”

The full statement and list of signatories can be read here.

Sexual violence against women increasing

On May 25, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR-CIDH) also expressed its alarm about the “87 acts of sexual violence allegedly committed by law enforcement agents against women demonstrators…”

Now, the BBC reports: “There have been at least 113 cases of gender-based violence, according to a report by the Office of the Ombudsman, an official government agency tasked with overseeing the protection of citizens’ human and civil rights.”

That article adds: “[The NGO Temblores] says it has received reports from 28 protesters who allege they were sexually abused by members of the security forces. They include allegations of having been forced to strip naked, being groped and being raped.”

Canada’s response so far

Voices at Risk: Canada’s Guidelines on Supporting Human Rights Defenders states: “In militarized contexts and countries in conflict, women HRDs may face additional threats of sexual and gender-based violence…”

Voices at Risk further notes: “Missions can play a significant role to protect and support the work of women HRDs, for example through: Monitoring, documenting and reporting human rights violations, the gendered consequences of such violations, and state and non-state perpetrators who pose specific threats…”

The tweet from the Canadian Embassy in Colombia on May 4 and the statement from Canada’s Minister of Foreign Affairs on May 9 do not reference the reports of sexual violence being committed by state security forces.

Peace Brigades International-Canada calls on the Government of Canada to take further action to ensure that the sexual and gender-based violence being committed by Colombian security forces against women defenders is stopped.

Three Members of Parliament call for urgent action from Trudeau government on the human rights situation in Colombia

By
Brent Patterson
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Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay, Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe and Alexandre Boulerice.

Radio Canada International (RCI) reports: “Twenty-four Canadian civil organizations, including groups of Colombians in Canada, trade unions, churches, human rights associations and political figures in Canada organized a cross-country Day of Action for Human Rights in Colombia on Tuesday June 22.”

Laura Avalos of the Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC) was the organizer of the event on Parliament Hill. She told RCI: “We organize from Canada, as Canadian citizens, and denounce that Canada is an accomplice of Colombian President Iván Duque.”

Three Members of Parliament were at the protest on Parliament Hill.

In an interview with RCI, MP Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay stated: “We want the Minister for Foreign Affairs to seriously reassess the export licences for military equipment to Colombia. As long as there is reasonable doubt that military equipment exported to Colombia is being used against the civilian population in human rights violations, licences should be suspended.”

MP Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe noted: “Canada has a certain power because it invests there, because it exports military equipment to it and because there is a free trade agreement that mentions human rights in its text.”

And MP Alexandre Boulerice says: “Canada needs to raise the tone and demand more from the Colombian government. This country could file a complaint about the Colombian situation with the Organization of American States or with the UN. And as a trading partner, it could put conditions on the Free Trade Agreement if human rights are not respected, including imposing trade sanctions.”

Armoured vehicles and free trade

The RCI article also notes: “When asked about allegations regarding the use of Canadian military materiel in repressive acts against civilians in Colombia, Jason Jung told us that at the beginning of the unrest in that country, Canada’s Ministry of Global Affairs contacted the responsible Colombian authorities, who confirmed that Colombian law enforcement ‘is not using Canadian armored vehicles’ to intervene in that context.”

The Global Affairs spokesperson adds: “Canada is monitoring developments in Colombia and will take appropriate action if credible evidence of the inappropriate use of any controlled Canadian product or technology is identified, including to perpetrate or facilitate serious violations of international human rights law.”

Jung also notes that the 2020 annual report on human rights and the Canada-Colombia Free Trade Agreement “will be published shortly.”

To read the full Radio Canada International article, click here.

Photo by Laura Avalos.

PBI-Mexico allied Educa Oaxaca highlights health problems experienced by Zapotec communities near Canadian mine

By
Brent Patterson
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Photo by Roxana Romero.

The PBI-Mexico allied Educa Oaxaca is highlighting continued concerns about the impacts of the Canadian-owned mine on communities near San José del Progreso.

Mongabay reports on instances of itchy skin, hepatitis, fish without eyes and tails, breathing and intestinal issues in an area “located less than 20 kilometers from the facilities of the Cuzcatlán Mining Company, a company located in San José del Progreso that extracts daily 3000 tons of gold and silver from an underground mine.”

Cuzcatlán is the Mexican subsidiary of Vancouver-based Fortuna Silver Mines Inc.

The article adds: “According to experts consulted, these conditions could be related to the presence of aluminum, barium, chromium, iron, manganese and lead in the Coyote stream and aluminum in the Santa Rosa River, two channels near the mining company that pass through the communities where the diseases occur.”

“Physician Heiser Ariel Vásquez Salazar … believes that the latest cases of this viral disease [hepatitis] could be associated with the spill of the Cuzcatlán Mining Company in 2018, if it is confirmed, as the communities maintain, that the water contaminated with metals reached the well from which the population of Magdalena takes water.”

Fortuna seeks to mine until 2029

The article adds: “Meanwhile, residents are concerned about the possibility that the Cuzcatlán mining company will continue in Oaxaca and spread to other regions of Mexico.”

“According to the last MIA that the company delivered in September 2020, they intend to continue with their gold and silver extraction activities in the municipality of San José del Progreso until 2029, although Semarnat [Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources] does not yet approve this request.”

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-Canada also hosted Neftali Reyes and Salvador Martínez Arellanes (an Indigenous leader from Santa Carina Minas) at public meetings about this mine in Ottawa and Toronto in November 2018.

PBI-Mexico has accompanied Educa Oaxaca since May 2013.

We continue to follow this issue closely.

PBI-Mexico accompanies LGBTQI+ march in Chihuahua that called for respect for diversity and the rights of all persons

By
Brent Patterson
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PBI-Mexico has posted: “On June 26, in the city of Chihuahua, PBI accompanied the vindication of (call by) the LGBTIQ community+ for diversity and rights of all persons.”

El Heraldo de Chihuahua reports: “The call for this movement, which claims to be 100% peaceful, was made through social networks, to march on University Avenue to the Plaza del Ángel, in the first square of the city.”

“Hundreds of people, carrying rainbow flags, or with the colors representative of the different sexual identities, as well as posters and representative T-shirts, gathered this Saturday afternoon in the vicinity of the roundabout.”

Euronews further reports: “There is still work to be done in this area in the country. In 12 states they have not yet passed same-sex marriage and in 20 there are still no gender identity laws for trans people.”

“In addition, every month more than 6 hate killings against LGTBI people are recorded. …Of the 79 murders that occurred in the community in 2020, 43 were of trans women.”

That article also notes: “According to a survey on discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity aimed at people aged 16 and over who live in the national territory who self-identify as gay, lesbian, bisexual, trans and other sexual orientations and gender identities, 59.8% ‘felt discriminated against for at least one reason in that year’.”

Peace Brigades International has been present in Mexico since 1998.

PBI-Honduras accompanies Arcoíris at Pride Day gathering outside National Commission for Human Rights in Tegucigalpa

By
Brent Patterson
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On June 28, PBI-Honduras posted: “PBI accompanies @arcoirisghn [Rainbow Association] in front of @CONADEH [the Institution of the National Commissioner for Human Rights] in an event that highlights the need to achieve equality in Honduras.”

PBI-Honduras adds: “In this way, the LGTBIQ+ community remembers that, despite all the discrimination, exists and resists.”

The Spanish online newspaper Público reports: “Since 2009, nearly 400 LGBTIQ+ murders have been recorded in Honduras. …92 percent of violent deaths go unpunished, according to CONADEH.”

It is in this context that the Peace Brigades International-Honduras Project accompanies Arcoíris, the LGTB Association of Honduras.

PBI-Honduras says: “We support the work of the LGTBIQ+ rights advocates and the Rainbow Association commemorating the day of the #Pride, an organization that is born with a commitment to empower, inform and accompany the LGTB population.”

PBI-Honduras began accompanying Arcoíris in July 2015.

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

By
Brent Patterson
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Photo: In February, PBI-Colombia accompanied the Inter-Church Commission on Justice and Peace as concerns were expressed about the bodies that have been dumped by armed groups into the waters around Buenaventura.

Late on Friday June 25, Global Affairs Canada posted its latest Annual Report on human rights and the Canada-Colombia Free Trade Agreement.

It can be read in full here.

The Annual Report states: “The report found no human rights impacts which could be directly associated with Canada’s 2020 tariff reductions.”

It also notes: “One written submission was received in response to the public call for submissions. This submission highlighted the increased violence and forced displacements in the city of Buenaventura, as well as the negative impact of the city’s port activities and infrastructure development on human rights and the living conditions of the local community. The information shared has been taken into consideration in the elaboration of the relevant section of this report.”

It is not clear how the concerns were taken into consideration or where in the report there is any further elaboration on this issue.

That one written submission came from PBI-Canada highlighting concerns raised by PBI-Colombia accompanied organizations:

Association for Research and Social Action (NOMADESC)

PBI-Colombia has noted that the Association for Research and Social Action (NOMADESC) has pursued research to show how the port and infrastructure development are linked to human rights violations and the infringement of constitutional and ethno-territorial rights.

Inter-Church Commission on Justice and Peace

The report Buenaventura: Dispossesion for Competitiveness, produced by the Inter-Church Commission on Justice and Peace and Mundubat in May 2015, has documented the impacts of the port on the community.

That report notes: “The magnitude of the international trade agreements that frame the claim to expand the Colombian market abroad, the dimension of the projects and of the groups of companies that participate in them against the extreme vulnerability of the affected population makes us face extremely unequal social actors and makes participation essential of the State as guarantor of the rights of the population at risk.”

Nydia Erika Bautista Foundation for Human Rights (FNEB)

PBI-Colombia highlighted this past February: “Social organizations including the ‘Nydia Erika Bautista’ Foundation for Human Rights (FNEB) accompanied by PBI, are fighting against the port expansion [in Buenaventura], reporting that it would destroy areas where they report common and watery graves.”

Limited scope of the report

The veracity of the report has long been criticized.

The Canadian Press has reported: “[The NDP] said the Harper Conservatives — then in a minority government — were pressured to insert the reporting requirement to win over Liberal support for the deal, and have acted since to make the reports meaningless.” The NDP has commented that it was “arbitrary” to exclude the impacts of Canadian investment on human rights in the annual report.

PBI & RIDH webinar, July 1

On July 1 at 11 am EDT, Peace Brigades International and the International Network of Human Rights (RIDH) will hold this webinar in both Spanish and English: Buenaventura 5 years after the Peace Accords: between massive protests, resurgence of the armed conflict and resistance. To register, click here.

PBI-Honduras accompanies hearing for student activist Hery Flores at hearing in relation to a right to health and education protest

By
Brent Patterson
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PBI-Honduras has posted: “[On June 25] we observed the trial of student Hery Yovani Flores Quiroz, arrested on Tuesday, June 22 [after he participated in] the march against the ZEDES [controversial special economic zones].”

“He is charged with the alleged crime of aggravated arson that would have occurred on October 24, 2019, in Tegucigalpa [during a right to heath and education protest].”

PBI-Honduras adds: “Replacement measures were given to pre-trial detention.” This means he will not have to stay in prison until his trial.

PBI-Honduras has also highlighted that Hery Flores is a student from @UNAHoficial (the National Autonomous University of Honduras).

Defensores en linea explains: “The incident [for which he is being charged] allegedly occurred on October 24, 2019, to the detriment of the Punto Farma pharmacy, in Tegucigalpa, during the days of protests for the right to health and education.”

They have also noted: “Hery Flores is due to appear at a Preliminary Hearing on July 20 to continue the legal process for the legal team to prove his innocence.”

“[At the hearing on June 25] they explained that he is not a dangerous person, that for the crime he is accused of, he did not even need the presence of the fire department and that some digital evidence presented by the Public Prosecutor’s Office would not be accepted.”

That article adds: “The documents for Hery’s release will be sent [on June 26] to the maximum-security prison located in El Porvenir [which is located outside of Tegucigalpa] where the student was returned, and at about noon [on June 27] he will be able to return to his home in Tegucigalpa.”

Kaosenlard also notes: “Human rights defenders and student leaders criticized that [Hery Flores] has not been tried and was sent to a prison built for highly dangerous prisoners, politicians named in corruption cases receive alternative measures to prison or are sent to comfortable army battalions.”

The Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders adds: “The Observatory emphasizes that in recent years the student movement has been strongly repressed by the university and government authorities, which have resorted to the use of police force and elite bodies of the State security forces to repress demonstrations, as well as the filing of criminal proceedings against the members of the movement, including against Eduardo Urbina, with the aim of dismantling and delegitimizing the movement and its activities in defense of the right to education and the peaceful exercise of protest.”

PBI-Honduras comments: “According to data from COFADEH [Committee of Relatives of the Disappeared in Honduras], since 2017 more than 176 people have been criminalized for demonstrating against the current Government.”

Video of Hery Flores being released from prison, June 27.

 

PBI-Guatemala accompanies hearing in which former Defense Minister indicted on charges of enforced disappearance

By
Brent Patterson
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Image from Canal Antigua.

Prensa Libre reports: “Judge Miguel Ángel Gálvez linked to criminal proceedings on Friday [June 25] to former Defense Minister Marco Antonio González Taracena, for the crime of enforced disappearance.”

“In addition to the crimes of enforced disappearance, González Taracena is accused of crimes against the duties of humanity, murder and attempted murder.”

“The hearing was held in the Diario Militar case based on the ‘Dossier of Death’, a document that recorded how 183 people were kidnapped, tortured and executed by members of the security forces between 1983 and 1985, according to the Human Rights Prosecutor’s Office.”

The article adds: “The former minister is the seventh indicted by Judge Galvez in the case.”

PBI-Guatemala was present at the four days of this hearing.

It also accompanied the seven days of hearings for the first six defendants in the Military Journal Case. On June 9, all six defendants were indicted for crimes against humanity, and five of them were indicted for forced disappearance. They all also stand accused of murder, attempted murder or both, for the killings.

Human Rights Law Firm

Edgar Perez has been acting as the representative of the Association of Detained and Disappeared Relatives (Famdegua) in these hearings.

PBI-Guatemala began to accompany BDH lawyer Édgar Pérez Archila in August 2010 due to several security incidents he had faced in relation to the high-profile judicial processes he was working on. At the end of 2013, PBI-Guatemala extended the accompaniment to the other lawyers of the BDH who work in high-profile trials to fight against impunity and in defending criminalized human rights defenders.

PBI-Guatemala accompanies lawyers at hearing for soldier who will stand trial in October for the Dos Erres massacre

By
Brent Patterson
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On June 22, PBI-Guatemala posted: “PBI accompanies the Human Rights Law Firm (BDH) in the #CasoDosErres. 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 reported: “More than 200 people were killed in the village of Dos Erres in 1982, one of the most violent episodes in Guatemala’s brutal 36-year conflict.”

That article explains: “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.”

ProPublica has reported: “Witnesses identified Ortiz as one of the soldiers who blindfolded the victims, interrogated them, hit them with a sledgehammer and dumped them into a well in the center of the village, according to Guatemalan and U.S. court documents.”

Impunity for others

The Associated Press has reported: “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: “Ortiz becomes the fifth suspect arrested in the United States… 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: “Mr. Sosa Orantes, a former second lieutenant in the Guatemalan army, has been living peacefully in Canada for several months. …Under the principle of universal jurisdiction, the Crimes Against Humanity and War Crimes Act gives the Canadian government the power to initiate criminal proceedings against Mr. Sosa Orantes. …By continuing to rely solely on citizenship and immigration procedures, Canada is not fulfilling its obligations under international law to fight impunity for war crimes and crimes against humanity.”

 

#CasoDosErres

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