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Maya-K’iche defender Lolita Chávez speaks about extractivism and the “false green” REDD+ plan

By
Brent Patterson
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Chávez during the Defend Dissent Tour in Canada, 2013.

Aura Lolita Chávez Ixcaquic is a member of the Council of K’iche Peoples for the Defence of Life, Mother Nature, Land and Territory (CPK), that the Peace Brigades International-Guatemala Project began to accompany in 2013.

That organization was founded in 2007 to deal with the effects of the Central American-U.S. Free Trade Agreement.

Death threats and an attack with high-calibre bullets on a vehicle she was in forced Chávez to leave Guatemala in 2017.

She recently spoke with EarthBeat from an undisclosed location.

In that interview, she said: “I’m from a territory in Iximuleu, which the West calls Guatemala. The place is called Quiché.”

Chávez further noted: “There currently are various plans [in the Quiché region], some under way and others still on the drawing board.”

Hydroelectric dams

Chávez says: “One is to generate electricity using water. There is an invasion of transnational companies going after the water, because despite climate change and global warming, in my territory … there are rivers and mountains, so we have water. The Chixoy hydroelectric dam, one of the largest in Guatemala, is in the north of Quiché.”

Mining

She further highlights: “Because the area is mountainous there are also minerals, so there are mining leases. But community organizations opposed them. There were various community consultations, not carried out by the government, but autonomous, and we managed to block many leases.”

The Montreal Gazette has reported: “Chávez has been branded a threat to national security and a terrorist for speaking out against the development of Canadian-owned mines against the people’s will.” In that article, Chávez says: “Canadian companies are the main protagonists in this invasion that brings only death and destruction.”

Logging

In the EarthBeat interview, Chávez continues: “[When we blocked the mines] that’s when the logging companies moved in. We realized that the government had granted 97 forestry licenses to timber companies. These are licences to invade.”

REDD+

Chávez also speaks about false solutions:

“Since we didn’t let the mining companies in, they came with ‘green capital’ plan through REDD+ [reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation]. But that is a false green. They plan forestry [plantations] with companies that eliminate ancestral trees like the teun uman pine, which is a tree very specific to Quiché.”

It appears very likely that REDD+ will be on the agenda of the United Nations COP26 climate summit in Glasgow this year.

UN-REDD has reported: “Last November, leaders in international development, politics, civil society and business came together at UN-REDD’s Race to Zero event to discuss how we can leverage the potential of forests as a key nature-based solution to carbon emissions.”

Canadian Mark Carney, the UN special envoy for climate action and finance, is a supporter of REDD+ and voluntary carbon markets.

PBI at COP26

Peace Brigades International will be intervening in support of human rights defenders at the COP26 summit planned for November 1-12 this year.

The article in EarthBeat highlights that Chávez will receive the annual Romero Human Rights Award from the University of Dayton on April 20. To read that article, please see: Environmental justice award winner: ‘We have the right to live in a territory that for us is sacred’.

For more about Chávez, please also see: Lolita Chavez: “Society is not aware of companies, even Basques, that are exploiting territories”.

Will the purchase of new fighter jets once again be an election issue?

By
Brent Patterson
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Three transnational corporations – Lockheed Martin, Boeing and Saab – are currently bidding for a $19 billion contract to sell 88 fighter jets to Canada.

While “government evaluators are now busily assessing” their proposals, political considerations will also likely be part of the calculus of the final decision.

This story begins more than a decade ago.

In July 2010, the Conservative government announced that Canada would be buying 65 Lockheed Martin F-35 fighter jets for $9 billion.

By April 2012, a report by Auditor General Michael Ferguson found that the Department of National Defence (DND) did not exercise due diligence in its choice of the fighter jet and that it was not forthcoming about the true estimated cost of the purchase.

The Auditor General’s report showed that DND had internal estimates that 65 F-35s would cost $25 billion over 20 years but would only admit to $14.7 billion.

The purchase was soon suspended.

And while Defence Minister Jason Kenney was promising to fix the procurement process, the Harper government continued to support the choice of the F-35.

In contrast, Justin Trudeau vowed that a Liberal government would scrap the Conservative plan to buy F-35s and then launch an “open and transparent competition” to buy more affordable airplanes to replace the current fleet of CF-18 fighter jets.

Trudeau even promised to exclude the F-35 from that new bidding process.

And yet, the F-35 has long been the choice of the Canadian military.

The CBC has reported: “The military signed three MOUs with the U.S. in 1997, 2002 and 2006 committing Canada in some measure to the new F-35 fighter jets, but had not enlisted Public Works, which vets federal procurements.”

Despite the military’s preference, the election platform for the Liberals in 2015 stated in bold: “We will not buy the F-35 stealth fighter-bomber.”

Their Real Change platform further noted: “We will reduce the procurement budget for replacing the CF-18s, and will instead purchase one of the many, lower-priced options that better match Canada’s defence needs.”

This suggests a dynamic in which the Canadian military has favoured the F-35, while the Liberal government having cancelled the Conservative purchase five years ago could be reluctant to be seen choosing the aircraft it had once promised to exclude.

Speculation continues that the Liberal minority government will call an election to be held this fall, with the Canadian Press reporting: “Liberal insiders suggest that could happen during the summer, provided the vaccine rollout is going smoothly and the pandemic, currently spreading like wildfire once again, is brought back under control.”

An additional consideration is that the Government of Canada’s timeline for the purchase of new planes notes that “the initial evaluation of proposals is anticipated to be completed by spring 2021” and further promises to award the contract in 2022.

And while the Auditor General’s report saying the fighter jets would cost $25 billion was a political bombshell in 2012, it has now been estimated that the life-cycle cost of 88 new fighter jets could be $76.8 billion.

There are also, of course, questions about how $76.8 billion could be better spent on social needs, the use of warplanes in Canada’s military alliances, the stationing of these planes on stolen Indigenous lands in this country, the morality of bombing other countries, and if the use of violence can build a genuine peace.

With the signing of a contract on the horizon and the absence of a new report from either the Auditor General or Parliamentary Budget Officer on the true cost of new fighter jets, warplanes could once again be an election issue.

PBI-Guatemala meets with the CCDA to discuss security situation during visit to Cobán, Alta Verapaz

By
Brent Patterson
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On April 10, PBI-Guatemala posted: “Last week we traveled to Cobán to present ourselves to different departmental authorities and to visit the members of the CCDA Verapaz to inform us about their security situation.”

Cobán is the capital city of the department of Alta Verapaz and is located about 220 kilometres north of Guatemala City.

PBI-Guatemala has explained: “The Community Council of the Highlands (CCDA) accompanies more than 150 Maya Q’eqchi’ communities who have been repressed and stripped of their land or are immersed in conflicts regarding land tenure.”

Due to their work many of their members have faced threats, criminalization processes and kidnappings. In 2018, five CCDA members were killed.

On a previous visit to Cobán (noted in their monthly information package for March), PBI-Guatemala reported: “We met with Lesbia Artola and Imelda Teyul, Coordinators of the CCDA-Las Verapaces Region.”

PBI-Guatemala adds: “They shared the general situation of the communities affected by criminalization with us, as well as the constant threats and the risk of eviction. They also shared their deep concern over the existence of more than 60 eviction orders in Alta and Baja Verapaz and 932 arrest warrants.”

The PBI-Guatemala report We Defend Life! The Social Struggles in Alta Verapaz also provides the historical context: “The indigenous peoples and campesinos of AV have been subjected to continuous dispossession dating back to the Spanish conquest, when the looting of natural wealth in the region began through the exploitation of raw materials.”

It adds: “Faced with this history of dispossession, the indigenous and campesino population has organized multiple resistances throughout history. …The State’s response to these resistances has been characterized by repression.”

The Guardian has reported: “A peace agreement in 1996 should have led to land redistribution, but a handful of powerful families still dominates the economy, and Guatemala remains one of the world’s least equal and most violent countries, with the largest 2.5% of farms occupying more than 65% of the land.”

That article further notes that foreign-backed mining, dams and other extractive industries have meant the continued evictions of Indigenous peoples.

For additional photos from the visit to Cobán, please click here.

PBI-Colombia accompanies dhColombia at protest calling on international community to speak against police violence

By
Brent Patterson
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On April 9, PBI-Colombia tweeted: “Today, PBI accompanied dhColombia with organizations of state victims in a sit-in in front of the Consulate of the European Union in Colombia within the framework of the National Day of Memory and Solidarity with Victims.”

Established in 2012, the National Day pays tribute to the estimated 6 million victims of violence in the Colombian Armed Conflict.

It also relates to more recent police violence.

The Movement of Victims of State Crimes (MOVICE) explains in this tweet: “The victims of events committed by the security forces in Soacha and Bogotá hold a sit-in at the Consulate of the European Union demanding that the international community speak out against the murders of their relatives.”

And dhColombia tweeted: “Never forget, the Massacre of September 9, 2020 was a massacre committed by the State at the hands of the Colombian Police.”

Last September, at least fourteen people were killed and hundreds wounded (72 of them with gunshot wounds) while protesting in Bogotá and the satellite city of Soacha following the police killing of Javier Ordonez.

The death of Ordonez evoked memories of the police killing of George Floyd in Minnesota given police pinned him to the ground with their knees as he cried “please, no more” and “I’m choking” in a video widely circulated on social media.

The BBC reported that hundreds of people clashed with officers outside the CAI, the police sub-station where Ordóñez died.

DHColombia tweeted at that time: “It is necessary to disarm the [CAI] centres of torture and sexual violence that they have become.”

Alejandra Garzón, a lawyer with dhColombia, speaks at the sit-in outside the EU Consulate. The button she is wearing appears to be of Nicolás David Neira, a 14-year-old killed by the ESMAD riot police during an International Labour Day mobilization in Bogota in 2005.

Threatened defender Yuli Velasquez: “In addition to being environmentalists we have to be detectives now.”

By
Brent Patterson
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To hear Yuli in her own words, join her on this webinar on April 29.

On April 9, W Radio reported: “Yuli Velasquez says that despite being the victim of several death threats and having suffered an attack on her life in mid-January this year, the Attorney General’s Office decided to shelve a complaint [about a contractor] who verbally threatened her after she made some environmental complaints.”

The article notes Velasquez is a legal representative of the Federation of Artisanal Fishers and Environmentalists of Santander (FEDEPESAN) and a member of the Alliance for a Colombia Free of Fracking.

Velasquez says: “In addition to being environmentalists we have to be detectives now.”

The attack she mentions happened on January 20. Two men on a motorcycle approached and fired several shots hitting her home.

Alfredo Molano Jimeno wrote in El Espectador: “Yuli Velasquez, defender of the San Silvestre swamp, was attacked, where contractors have a millionaire squat disguised as an environmental protection and water care program.”

The day after the attack, PBI-Colombia accompanied CREDHOS when they visited her home.

During that visit, CREDHOS tweeted: “CREDHOS accompanies environmental organizations and the leader Yuli Velasquez of FEDEPESAN in the face of events that threatened her life and integrity in Barrancabermeja.”

Yuli will be taking part in a PBI-Canada organized webinar this coming Thursday April 29. To hear her talk about her experiences and work, register at Environmental defenders challenging fracking & extractivism in Colombia.

The W Radio article concludes: “According to the Alliance for a Colombia Free of Fracking, there are currently five other environmental leaders in the Barrancabermeja region who are threatened with death.”

The full article in Spanish can be read at Environmental leader calls for prosecutor’s office to investigate threats and attack against her.

To hear Yuli in her own words, join her on this webinar on April 29.

PBI-Colombia accompanies CREDHOS president Ivan Madero as they approach Yuli’s house the day after shots were fired at her there.

Amnesty International launches Urgent Action following death threats against PBI-Colombia accompanied CREDHOS

By
Brent Patterson
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Clip from TV news report: “Death threats against CREDHOS, leaders demand guarantees”

Amnesty International has launched this Urgent Action in support of the Colombian human rights organization CREDHOS.

Amnesty International highlights: “On 24 March, the Santander’s (North) Regional Corporation for the Defence of Human Rights (CREDHOS in Spanish) received a threatening call from an unknown man self-identified as member of the Magdalena Medio Block of the armed group FARC-EP.”

That call said: “Stop making publications and being toadies, CREDHOS’ staff is a military objective, you have 48 hours to leave Barrancabermeja.”

A similar call was also received by Ivan Madero, the president of CREDHOS.

Amnesty International provides this sample letter you can email to the Director of the Unit for Attention and Integral Reparation of Victims in Bogotá.

That letter states: “We urge you to fully implement the integral plan of collective reparation (Plan Integral de Reparación Colectiva, PRIC) granted by your office to CREDHOS on 2016 that included the guarantee for full protection for the members of the organization.”

Please take action today!

Additionally, Ivan participated in a PBI-Canada organized advocacy tour in November 2019 with events and meetings in Toronto, Ottawa, Vancouver, Nanaimo and other communities. Among the issues he highlighted was opposition to fracking. He will be speaking about this again on April 29 on a webinar about the threats experienced by environmental defenders in the Magdalena Medio region. To register for that, click here.

On November 4, 2019, Ivan spoke at Amnesty International House in Ottawa, Canada. CREDHOS members have received at least 5 death threats since September 2020.

PBI-Colombia comments on court ruling on police violence, the emergence of commemorative sites in Bogotá

By
Brent Patterson
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After a police bullet killed 18-year-old Julieth Ramirez last September,  a local Centros de Atención Inmediata (police sub-station) was burned down, then reclaimed and transformed into a library with a portrait of Julieth.

Last September, the BBC World News reported (in Spanish): “The Supreme Court of Justice ordered the national government to take administrative measures that guarantee peaceful protest because the control forces are making a ‘systematic, violent and arbitrary intervention’ against protesters.”

That ruling stated the “uncontrolled activities represent a risk, a serious and current threat for those who intend to go out and mobilize to peacefully express their opinions. …Far from being isolated, [this] is constant and reflects a permanent aggression.”

PBI-Colombia explains: “Several non-governmental organizations, lawyer collectives and student movements had felt the need to demand the protection of the right to social protest [through this constitutional action].”

Among the authors of that court challenge were dhColombia, the CCAJAR lawyers’ collective, and the Committee in Solidarity with Political Prisoners (CSPP), three organizations accompanied by PBI-Colombia.

After the historic court ruling, the CSPP tweeted: “This is thanks to the efforts of the victims of police violence, human rights organizations, professors and students from the Universidad de los Andes and Rosario.”

Unfortunately now, Colombia Reports notes: “The government of Colombia’s far-right President Ivan Duque asked the Constitutional Court to revoke a Supreme Court order that restricted the use of police violence against protests.”

PBI-Colombia comments: “There is still a long road ahead with many obstacles for protesters and those who defend the rights of peaceful protest, but the glimmer of hope has never been completely extinguished.”

It adds: “In a CAI in the city of Bogota, the site of the death of citizen Julieth Ramirez which was completely destroyed and burned by protesters, the community built a library two days after the event. And it is not the only site: all over the capital city the population began to transform those sites of fear into cultural and commemorative sites.”

To read the full article by the PBI Bogotá Field Team, please see Social Protest in Colombia: The Hope for a Dignified Life for All.

The Movement of Victims of State Crimes (MOVICE): “A group of people convert what used to be a CAI [police sub-station] into a library, in homage to Julieth Ramírez, who was murdered last Wednesday by the police. Torture spaces turned into living spaces!”

PBI-Colombia accompanies CREDHOS at workshop on violence against LGBTI community in Antioquia

By
Brent Patterson
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On April 8, PBI-Colombia posted: “Today PBI accompanied the Regional Corporation for the Defence of Human Rights (CREDHOS) in Puerto Berrio, Antioquia in a workshop with members of the Humanitarian Action Corporation for Coexistence and Peace in Northeast Antioquia (CAHUCOPANA) on cases of victims of forced disappearance and sexual violence against the LGTBI community in the region.”

The current situation

According to Colombia Diversa, there have been 624 homicides and femicides of LGBTI people over the last six years in Colombia.

And Colombia Hoy recently reported that 76 lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender people were killed in Colombia last year.

In the first three months of this year, 8 LGBT people were killed.

15 of the people killed in 2020 lived in the Antioquia region where PBI-Colombia accompanied CREDHOS for the workshop.

During the armed conflict

Furthermore, Caribe Afirmativo recently produced a report about violence against LGBT people during the armed conflict in Colombia.

It found that violence against been committed against the LGBT community by the FARC-EP, the paramilitaries, the ELN and the Public Force.

Semana Rural reports: “The Caribe Afirmativo team worked with leaders and human rights defenders from the Magdalena Medio region [and the departments of] Cesar, Arauca, Caquetá and Cauca [to produce the report].”

“The leaders mentioned the importance of the gender approach in the Peace Agreement [reached in 2016], the defence of human rights in the country’s municipalities, community resistance, differential attention in legal entities and the importance of making visible the efforts and effects of the population.”

Caribe Afirmativo says: “There are almost 100 documented cases of LGBT people who are victims of the armed conflict who have experienced threats, forced displacement, persecution, harassment and all kinds of violence [from legal and illegal armed actors] due to their sexual orientations and diverse gender identities and expressions.”

Ensuring non-repetition

This report was presented last month to the Truth Commission (the Commission for the Clarification of Truth, Coexistence and Non-repetition).

Semana Rural notes: “Despite progress, LGBT leaders and human rights defenders proposed that greater coordination with civil society, institutions and the Government is necessary to guarantee non-repetition.”

Human rights defenders arrested in Nairobi following peaceful protests against IMF loan to Kenya

By
Brent Patterson
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Photo from tweet by Edgar Ogutu Liberator.

On April 7, Maryanne Kasina tweeted: “Police In this Country have always decided to betray the people and protect the Oppressors.”

Kasina, the co-founder of Kayole Community Justice Centre and convener of Women in Social Justice Centres movement in Kenya, participated in a PBI-Canada webinar last November on Women Human Rights Defenders Day.

Protection International-Africa explains what has happened: “We are informed that a total of 19 #HumanRights defenders were arrested [on April 7], for marching in Nairobi City to demand the release of @MutemiWaKiama, who was arrested for a president-critiquing tweet yesterday. Some of those arrested today were in their offices.”

Protection International-Africa has also tweeted: “The police officers at Kileleshwa Police Station in Nairobi Kenya say they do not know why they arrested the #HumanRights defenders and do not know what to charge them with.”

Kahawatungu provides further context. It reports: “Over the weekend, Kenyans took to social media to protest a move by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to approve Kenya’s Sh255 billion [about USD $2.34 billion] loan.”

That article then notes the police arrested Kiama Wa Mutemi accusing him “of making a viral notice with President Uhuru Kenyatta’s face warning the world against entering into loan agreements with him on behalf of the country.”

Responding to the arrests, HAKI Africa tweeted: “The Kenyan government should ensure that law enforcement fully complies at all times with international human rights laws & standards on policing. Peaceful protesters are not criminals.”

And the Social Justice Centres Working Group has also tweeted: “Protesting against bad leadership decisions is citizen’s right.”

PBI-Kenya works with the Social Justice Centres Working Group, the collective voice of 24 social justice centres in Nairobi.

Tweet by the Kenya Human Rights Commission (KHRC).

PBI-Honduras accompanies COPINH at trial for David Castillo in the murder of Lenca land defender Berta Cáceres

By
Brent Patterson
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Update: On April 7, the Associated Press reported: “The trial was suspended Wednesday as the defence team attempted to change the judge. The pause came just one day after the trial of Roberto David Castillo Mejía opened. The trial cannot continue until the Court of Appeals resolves the matter. It has three days to do so. The trial is scheduled to continue until April 30, after which a date will be set for a verdict.”

—

On April 6, PBI-Honduras posted: “Today PBI is accompanying COPINH in front of the Supreme Court of Justice in Tegucigalpa, at the beginning of the Oral and Public Trial against David Castillo for the crime of the murder of defender Berta Cáceres.”

It adds: “The trial will begin today more than 5 years after the murder of Berta and 3 years after the arrest of David Castillo, former DESA manager. From COPINH they assure ‘that it is a key trial to demonstrate responsibility for the crime and the participation of the Atala family in the attacks on Berta and COPINH.’”

The Intercept has explained: “All of the highest-ranking executives [of DESA} were members of the powerful Honduran Atala Zablah family, which has ties to the government and the international financial industry. [While Castillo was arrested] no one from DESA’s board of directors — and no one from the Atala Zablah family — has been charged with a crime or compelled to testify.”

Later in the day on April 6, PBI-Honduras posted with concern: “The Sentencing Court has announced that the physical presence of national and international observers and observers is not allowed in the room.”

At the time of Berta’s murder on March 2, 2016, Castillo was the CEO of DESA, the company seeking to build the Agua Zarca hydroelectric dam on the Gualcarque River on Indigenous Lenca territory in Honduras.

The Intercept also notes that DESA executives had become angry when Cáceres’ protests disrupted their investment in the hydroelectric dam.

Castillo is alleged to have coordinated with, and provided funds to, the men who were the material authors of the murder of Berta.

COPINH general coordinator Bertha Zúñiga Cáceres says: “After five years of being in this battle comes a defining moment in the process of seeking truth and justice.”

She adds: “In the political context of impunity in our country, and persecution of territorial leadership, this process will be a challenge where we know that from the background of the justice system, we need wisdom and the accompaniment of human rights organizations and people who have been part of this struggle.”

PBI-Honduras has accompanied COPINH since May 2016.

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