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Nuluujaat Land Guardians set up blockade of Mary River Mine in Nunavut to protest proposed expansion

By
Brent Patterson
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A solidarity rally in Pond Inlet, Nunavut in support of the Inuit hunters blocking the Mary River Mine’s airstrip and service road. Photo by Enooki Inuarak.

A group of Inuit hunters are using snowmobiles and wooden sleds to blockade the airstrip and service road to the Baffinland Iron Mines Corporation owned Mary River open pit iron ore mine on North Baffin Island, Nunavut.

The blockade began around 10 pm on Thursday February 4 and by Saturday February 6 there were 10 men participating with more expected to join with supplies.

They are from the communities of Pond Inlet, Igloolik and Arctic Bay.

The Oakville, Ontario-based company that owns the mine wants to double its annual mining output there to 12 million tonnes a year. It says the expansion would have a lifespan of about 30 years. It would also involve building a 110-kilometre railway from the mine to Milne Port and increasing shipping in Milne Inlet.

Those at the blockade say the mine expansion will harm local wildlife including caribou and narwhal, two key sources of food for impacted communities.

There are concerns that railway construction will damage seal hunting grounds and that caribou would not be able to cross the train tracks. There are also concerns that the narwhal in Milne Inlet would be impacted by the port expansion and increased shipping associated with the bigger mine.

There are already concerns that the iron ore dust from the current blasting at the mine has polluted waters used for drinking and cooking.

One of the hunters at the blockade told a reporter by satellite phone that there had been an agreement with Baffinland to have access to their facilities and internet but that they have been cut off from those services.

Baffinland says it respects the right to protest, but that the blockade means the food, supply and crew change flights for the 700 workers at the mine have been suspended. On Tuesday February 9 the company indicated that it would seek a court injunction the following morning against the blockade.

Pond Inlet RCMP have said they are aware of the blockade and that they are monitoring the situation and are in contact with the hunters.

The final hearings of the Nunavut Impact Review Board on the mine expansion have just concluded, but additional hearings have now been scheduled to take place sometime in March in Iqaluit. Once the hearings have ended the review board has 45 days to make recommendations to federal Minister of Northern Affairs Dan Vandal who will either approve or reject the mine expansion.

UPDATE: On February 10, a Nunavut judge issued an interim order requiring the Inuit to allow workers at the mine to fly out. The lawyer for the Inuit says the injunction is not necessary because they have not stopped workers from leaving. The order is in place until the court hearing resumes on Saturday February 13.

UPDATE: On February 11, APTN reported: “Court documents identify seven people as being on the site, and according to a press release from their lawyer –Iqaluit based Lori Idlout- they have named themselves the Nuluujaat Land Guardians. Nuluujaat is the Inuktitut name for the Mary River area.”

#InuitBlockade

PBI-Canada calls on Canada’s Ambassador for Climate Change to amplify UN resolution on human rights defenders

By
Brent Patterson
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Patricia Fuller was appointed Canada’s Ambassador for Climate Change in June 2018.

The Prime Minister’s announcement about her appointment highlighted:

“Ms. Fuller will advise both the Minister of the Environment and Climate Change and the Minister of Foreign Affairs on how Canada can best advance its climate change priorities on the world stage and work closely with Canadian missions to put the Government of Canada’s environmental policies into practice.”

Ms. Fuller has had a distinguished career in the public service and her international assignments have included postings in Mexico and Guatemala.

Global Witness has documented: “On average, four defenders have been killed every week since December 2015 – the month the Paris Climate agreement was signed, amid hopes of a new era of climate progress. Countless more are silenced by violent attacks, arrests, death threats, sexual violence or lawsuits.”

Global Witness further notes: “Between 2015 and 2019 over a third of all fatal attacks have targeted indigenous people – even though indigenous communities make up only 5% of the world’s population.”

In 2019 alone, 18 land and environmental defenders were killed in Mexico. Another 12 were killed in Guatemala that year.

Given this reality, particularly in Latin America, the United Nations Human Rights Council passed this resolution that affirms: “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.”

And yet it has been a challenge to have human rights fully acknowledged at UN COP climate summit talks and at present language referencing human rights is only in the preamble rather than the operative provisions of the Paris Agreement.

We call on Ambassador Fuller to acknowledge the crucial role of environmental human rights defenders and amplify the UN Resolution on their important role in supporting States to fulfil their obligations under the Paris Agreement.

We would welcome her support on this issue.

PBI-Colombia accompanied Inter-Church Justice and Peace Commission highlights “blockade for peace” at Buenaventura port

By
Brent Patterson
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Photo of the blockade at Puente del Piñal (bridge) in Buenaventura by @AlCarajoOrg.

On February 4, the PBI-Colombia accompanied Inter-Church Justice and Peace Commission  tweeted about a “blockade for peace” happening in Buenaventura.

Then on February 5, El Espectador reported: “Tired of being among the crossfire of criminal gangs, a group of people planted on the Piñal Bridge, the only way to access the port of Buenaventura. In Tumaco and Cali there were also demonstrations.”

Blu Radio adds: “The protest led to the paralysis of goods and cargo reaching the different port terminals that are there, resulting in million-dollar losses.”

That morning, Justice and Peace tweeted this video from the blockade.

The following day, Justice and Peace also posted this statement by WOLA (Washington Office on Latin America) that noted: “Protests have been held in the port city and even Cali, and more are planned in the coming weeks.”

That statement further highlights: “Local authorities in Colombia must respect the right to peaceful protest, as communities continue to take to the streets to draw attention to Buenaventura’s crisis of violence and poverty.”

WOLA also recently highlighted: “Social justice groups are asking [Colombian president] Ivan Duque, the UN and the OAS to support creating an international mission that would document how state neglect and structural racism are behind the crises of violence and poverty in Colombia’s biggest port city Buenaventura.”

PBI-Colombia has previously noted that the Association for Research and Social Action (NOMADESC) has undertaken research “to show how the current port expansion and infrastructure development are linked to the human rights violations” and that a report by Justice and Peace explains how living conditions in Buenaventura have deteriorated due to the development and expansion of the port.

The port accounts for nearly 60 per cent of all Colombian imports and exports by sea. Given two-way merchandise trade between Canada and Colombia totalled $1.73 billion in 2017, goods coming from and going to Canada undoubtedly pass through this port.

The Colombian government intends to further expand the port with an LNG regasification terminal. The government will award the contract to build, own and operate that LNG terminal on March 8. The terminal would be operational by 2023.

The Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) recently noted this webinar hosted by CoDevelopment Canada (CoDev) about the situation in Buenaventura that featured NOMADESC president Berenice Celeita.

Celeita stated: “The extractivist model of economic development affects Colombia and the whole world. Colombia is still one of those countries where the multinationals keep exploiting our national resources: gold, water, oil. But since COVID-19, it’s gotten worse. The people in control are taking advantage of the pandemic to take extraordinary measures.”

Celeita also noted on this webinar that Colombian activists will be seeking international support to have peace declared a human right.

About 85 percent of the 430,000 residents of Buenaventura are Black, about 80 per cent of the population lives in poverty, and the unemployment rate is about 40 per cent.

In May 2017, Buenaventura residents held a 22-day civic strike to protest investment in the port rather than the spending needed to build a local hospital and provide access to potable water. The Colombian government responded with the ESMAD riot police.

Canadian organizations – including CUPE, PSAC, CUPW and the Steelworkers – have worked in solidarity with the leaders of that strike.

 

PBI-Guatemala accompanies four human rights defenders criminalized for opposing the diversion of rivers by sugar mills

By
Brent Patterson
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Abelino Salvador Mejía

On February 6, the Peace Brigades International-Guatemala Project posted this 1-minute video on its Facebook page with the comment: “PBI accompanies four human rights defenders criminalized for defending water.”

Prensa Comunitaria reports that these criminalized defenders now face “a hearing scheduled for March this year.”

The four defenders – members of the Retalhuleu Community Council (CCR) – are Anabella España Reyes, Abelino Salvador Mejía, Flabio Vicente and Virgilio García Carrillo.

They have stated: “We organize ourselves in a peaceful way to publicize the consequences of sugar cane, the diversion of rivers that the mills have.”

Abelino has also highlighted: “We created this group to defend the water [because] three sugar mills did whatever they wanted to divert the rivers.”

PBI-Guatemala has previously explained: “The CCR consists of more than 18 communities in the department of Retalhuleu (mainly the municipality of Champerico), belonging to the Mam, K’iche’ and Ixil peoples. Its main objective is the defence of life, territory and human rights, in particular the right of access to water and agriculture on a small scale.”

“They began to organize in 2015 as a result of adverse effects caused by the expansion of the monoculture of sugar and the use of large-scale agrochemicals and pesticides used by the mills in the region.”

That article adds: “In recent years there has been drought and pollution of wells, rivers and lagoons, as well as the destruction of livelihoods, causing lack of access to water and health problems such as malnutrition and respiratory and renal ailments.”

Panorama Noticias has also reported: “Allegations of violations of the right to water, food and environmental pollution by the communities of the South Coast led to four defenders of Champerico and Retalhuleu being criminalized by the mills of El Pilar and Magdalena.”

The Prensa Comunitaria article further notes that this persecution began when a dialogue table was formed in 2016 to discuss community concerns and then intensified after a protest against the sugar mills in 2018.

PBI-Guatemala has been accompanying the four defenders since April 2020.

PBI-Guatemala has also now posted this 7-minute video.

PBI-Canada/USA webinar on how to become a field brigadista happening on Sunday February 28

By
Brent Patterson
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PBI-Canada and PBI-USA are working together to offer four webinars this year for individuals interested in becoming a frontline volunteer with PBI accompanying human rights defenders in Colombia, Guatemala, Honduras or Mexico.

The first webinar will be on Sunday February 28 at 3:30 pm EST.

To register for that, please click here.

We will have more updates soon, but we now have Lucrezia Aresi (PBI-Mexico) and Morna Christie (PBI-Colombia) confirmed as speakers.

When Morna first became a volunteer in 2017, she said: “They say that the place of a woman is in struggle, and the most important thing in this world is solidarity. I hope to offer the people we accompany here in Colombia solidarity that means that their struggles, sowed with a firm hand in this rich land, can continue.”

And when Lucrezia became a volunteer in 2019, she said: “I think that being a ‘brigadista’ is a huge responsibility, it means committing yourself fully to working alongside people who risk their lives to defend human rights, which for me is one of the highest examples of justice and human dignity.”

Join this webinar and hear directly from them about their experiences these past years and the crucial role played by PBI field brigadistas.

Our webinar on Sunday February 28 is intended for those who may be thinking about applying to be a volunteer this year or even a few years down the road.

It might also be of interest to donors, allies and others who would like to find out more about what accompaniment involves.

More than 20 people have already registered for the webinar!

To join this discussion, please click here.

PBI-Colombia draws attention to NOMADESC and dhColombia media conference on ESMAD riot police killing of Jhonny Silva

By
Brent Patterson
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On February 10, the Peace Brigades International-Colombia Project tweeted about a media conference organized by NOMADESC, dhColombia and the family of Jhonny Silva about a judicial action filed before the Supreme Court of Justice.

That judicial action is calling for a review of the decision of the Prosecutor’s Office to close the criminal proceedings against Colonel Gabriel Bonilla who was in charge of the ESMAD operation the day that Silva was killed by the police.

That media conference can be seen on Facebook here.

The Oxford Human Rights Hub has explained: “Jhonny Silva-Aranguren was a [21 year old] chemistry student tragically murdered on September 22nd of 2005 in the Universidad del Valle’s campus [in Cali, Valle del Cauca] during a demonstration against the U.S.-Colombia Free Trade Agreement. According to witnesses, a member of ESMAD (anti-riot police) shot Jhonny when he left the library to go home.”

(Talks on a Canada-Colombia Free Trade Agreement began on June 7, 2007, less than two years after Silva was killed by the ESMAD.)

PBI-Colombia has further noted: “Lawyer Jorge Molano [of dhColombia] represents the relatives of Jhonny Silva. As yet, there have been no convictions in the case and in September 2016, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) admitted the case of Jhonny Silva, and a formal case against Colombia was initiated.”

“In 2010, the Public Prosecutor brought the former sub-commander of the ESMAD to trial, Gabriel Bonilla Gonzalez, but his conviction for the murder of Jhonny Silva was overturned on appeal.”

Significantly, the PBI-Colombia article highlights: “In 2011, the Valle del Cauca Administrative Tribunal determined that the Nation, the Minister of Defence and the National Police were responsible for the student’s murder.”

In December 2019, the Colombian NGO Temblores reported that the ESMAD had killed 34 people since its inception in 1999. Most of those killed were activists within Indigenous, student, or peasant movements and none have resulted in a conviction.

Issues of police violence in Canada, Colombia, Guatemala and Kenya were raised on a ‘Police violence has no borders’ webinar that PBI-Canada helped to organize in October 2020 that can be seen here. dhColombia lawyer German Romero who spoke at today’s media conference also participated in this webinar.

PBI-UK works with Amnesty International UK on ‘How the UK Government can defend the defenders’ report

By
Brent Patterson
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Amnesty international UK and the Centre for Applied Human Rights (CAHR) have produced this new report working with Peace Brigades International UK and several other organizations including Civicus and Front Line Defenders.

The report – ‘On the human rights frontline – How the UK Government can defend the defenders’ – found that 94 per cent of the 82 human rights defenders interviewed said that they had experienced threats, harassment, abuse or death threats, but only 6 per cent said they had received support from the UK government in the context of those threats.

In the media release for the report, PBI-UK Director Susi Bascon says:

“With foreign office budgets cut to the bone, now more than ever the UK government needs to see human rights defenders as key workers fighting on the frontlines for free and open societies. The government should put a strategy to protect and partner with HRDs front and centre of its foreign policy, not just to honour the UK’s long tradition of human rights, but to help support its efforts to promote the rule of law and freedom of the press. Working hand in hand is a win-win situation that we can no longer ignore.”

The human rights defenders interviewed for this report come from seven different countries including Colombia where PBI has accompanied defenders since 1994.

The report notes: “The Covid-19 pandemic has exacerbated existing human rights abuses across the world and provided fresh opportunities for repressive governments to further restrict already shrinking civic and political spaces.”

It then highlights: “In Colombia, the pandemic has hidden from view the violence faced by human rights defenders and the lack of protection provided by the authorities. Some told Amnesty International that the authorities have reduced protection arrangements such as provision of bodyguards and nightly patrols during this period, while at the same time giving the go-ahead for activities that increase risk to communities, such as the extraction of natural resources, police operations, and the forced eradication of illicit crops.”

Among some of the recommendations in the report:

– “UK ministers will raise the importance of the work of human rights defenders and their protection needs in bilateral meetings with states, and at multilateral spaces such as Commonwealth events.”

– “The UK will make it easier for human rights defenders harmed by the operations of UK companies abroad to get access to remedy in the UK via judicial and non-judicial mechanisms.”

– “The UK will call for and support the development of collective protection mechanisms where appropriate and in response to calls from human rights defenders.”

– “The UK will expand, develop and disseminate information about ‘rest and respite’ schemes for human rights defenders in the UK, including facilitating accessibility to temporary visas for human rights defenders at risk.”

The report also notes that the policy document UK Support for Human Rights Defenders was produced in 2019, but that “it is no substitute for a considered and comprehensive strategy to support human rights defenders” and further points out that only 11 per cent of the 82 defenders interviewed had heard of the document.

The Government of Canada first produced Voices at Risk: Canada’s Guidelines on Supporting Human Rights Defenders in 2016.

Canadian organizations have commented: “For Canada’s new guidelines to be effective in helping to protect and support human rights defenders, they will need to be accompanied by a comprehensive implementation plan and increased Canadian funding going directly to human rights defenders and the movements they represent.”

For more on what the Canadian government could do, please see Feminist Foreign Policy Working Group report presents recommendations on human rights defenders that includes recommendations from Amnesty International Canada.

The UK report inspires and prompts further reflection on a comprehensive strategy in Canada for human rights defenders.

The full 28 page ‘On the human rights frontline – How the UK Government can defend the defenders’ report can be read here. To read news coverage of the report in The Guardian, please click here.

PBI-Guatemala present at media conference following Constitutional Court ruling allowing genetically modified seeds

By
Brent Patterson
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On February 5, PBI-Guatemala was present at a media conference that featured representatives from the Alliance for the Defence of Biodiversity in Guatemala and the National Network for the Defense of Food Sovereignty in Guatemala (REDSAG) responding to a Constitutional Court (CC) ruling on genetically modified organisms.

PBI-Guatemala posted this 17-minute video on their Facebook page and noted: “Press Conference against the ruling issued by the CC in favor of the Regulation of Modified Living Organisms (Transgenic).”

El Periodico reported: “Civil and peasant organizations rejected the decision of the Constitutional Court related to the technical regulation of biosecurity of living organisms modified for agricultural use promoted by the Ministry of Economy and Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock.”

The organizations stated: “We reject that transnational corporations here in our country have come to take away our sovereignty. …The seeds are for us, the essence of life, not a commodity for commercial purposes.”

Prensa Libre has previously reported: “On October 1, 2019, the Central American Technical Regulation on biosecurity of living modified organisms (VMOs), also known as GMOs, came into force in Guatemala, allowing the import, marketing and planting of modified seeds of products for human and animal consumption in Guatemala.”

This struggle extends back to at least 2014.

At that time, Upside Down World reported: “On September 4th, after ten days of widespread street protests against the biotech giant Monsanto’s expansion into Guatemalan territory, groups of indigenous people joined by social movements, trade unions and farmer and women’s organizations won a victory when congress finally repealed the legislation that had been approved in June.”

“The Monsanto Law would have given exclusivity on patented seeds to a handful of transnational companies. Mayan people and social organizations claimed that the new law violated the Constitution and the Mayan people’s right to traditional cultivation of their land in their ancestral territories.”

“Academics, together with the Mayan people, also feared that the law would have intensified already existing fierce social conflicts between local Mayan communities and transnational companies in a country historically and violently torn apart.”

That article also quoted Lolita Chávez on what was at stake with the protests:

“Corn taught us Mayan people about community life and its diversity, because when one cultivates corn one realizes that there is a variety of crops such as herbs and medical plants depending on the corn plant as well. We see that in this coexistence the corn is not selfish, the corn shows us how to resist and how to relate with the surrounding world.”

Chávez is a leader of the Council of K’iche’ Peoples in Defense of Life, Mother Nature, Earth and Territory (CPK) that PBI-Guatemala began accompanying in September 2013, and a member of the TZ’KAT Network of Ancestral Healers of Community Feminism that PBI-Guatemala has accompanied since February 2018.

PBI-Canada sees free, prior and informed consent as crucial in COP26 clean power talks

By
Brent Patterson
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The Indigenous Zapotec community of Union Hidalgo on the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, Oaxaca has long resisted wind power megaprojects that violate their territory.

The Energy Transition Council, launched by the United Kingdom as part of its presidency of the United Nations COP26 climate summit, recently highlighted: “A rapid and just transition to clean power is vital, to meet the goals of the Paris Agreement [reached at COP21].”

Hydro, wind, and solar power are presented as clean and renewable sources of power to replace fossil fuels, including oil, gas, and coal.

And yet while it is crucial to make this transition, clean power has also resulted in violence against Indigenous land and environmental rights defenders.

At COP24 in Poland in 2018, then UN Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Victoria Tauli-Corpuz stated: “I’ve seen how renewable projects like wind farms and hydropower electric dams have been done without consultation with indigenous peoples. And in the process, indigenous peoples are expelled or worse yet, killed.”

Peace Brigades International has observed this too.

PBI-Mexico has noted: “Throughout 2013, PBI observed with concern an increase in the level of violence in the context of wind farms, particularly against [defenders] and community leaders whose work involves the defence of those affected by these developments.”

PBI-Guatemala accompanies the Peaceful Resistance Cahabón and Maya Q’eqchi land defender Bernardo Caal Xol who is now serving a seven-year sentence in prison for his opposition to hydroelectric dams on the Cahabón River.

And PBI-Honduras has accompanied the Honduran Centre for the Promotion of Community Development (CEHPRODEC) to observe a community consultation after land defenders in Choluteca were criminalized for their opposition to a photovoltaic (solar power) concession granted to a Norwegian transnational.

Bogotá-based journalist Christina Noriega has commented: “Just as European colonization and a slew of modern development projects have displaced native communities from their fertile lands, [the Business & Human Rights Resource Centre/BHHRC] reports that clean energy companies are stripping Indigenous people of their territories, particularly for hydroelectric development, but also increasingly for wind farms.”

The BHHRC has noted: “Our outreach to 50 wind and hydropower companies around the world revealed that most renewable energy firms do not yet have adequate due diligence practices—including identifying whether a project will impact indigenous peoples and reaching consent prior to the start of a project—to prevent human rights abuse.”

As COP26 approaches this coming November 1-12, PBI-Canada will be working on ways to highlight that while a rapid transition to clean energy is needed that transition must also be accompanied by recognition of the Indigenous right to free, prior and informed consent and not the criminalization of defenders who uphold that right.

PBI-Canada to co-sponsor film screening of ‘La Lucha Sigue’ on Saturday March 20

By
Brent Patterson
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Peace Brigades International-Canada is proud to be supporting the world premiere of La Lucha Sigue (The Struggle Continues) on Saturday March 20 at 3 pm EST.

To watch the trailer for the film, please click here.

The film screening will be followed by a panel featuring Bertha Zúniga Cáceres (Civil Council of Grassroots and Indigenous Organisations in Honduras – COPINH) and Miriam Miranda (Black Fraternal Organization of Honduras – OFRANEH).

PBI-Honduras has accompanied COPINH since May 2016.

To register for this film screening and panel, please click here.

The film festival will also include a screening of Invasion, a short documentary about the struggle of Wet’suwet’en land defenders opposed to the construction of the Coastal GasLink fracked gas pipeline on their territories in British Columbia.

That screening will be on Saturday March 20 at 6 pm EST.

The following day, Sunday March 21 at 2 pm EST, there will be a screening of L’eau est la vie (Water is Life: From Standing Rock to the Swamp) about the struggle of Indigenous land defenders against the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) and the Bayou Bridge Pipeline that would carry fracked oil from Texas to refineries and ports in Louisiana.

The trailer for Invasion can be seen here and for L’eau est la vie here.

Following this screening there will be a group discussion at 4:30 pm EST with land defenders including Bertha Zúniga Cáceres (COPINH), Miriam Miranda (OFRANEH), Freda Huson (Unist’ot’en), Jen Wickham (Gidimt’en) and Cherri Foytlin (L’eau Est La Vie).

To register for the film screening and panel on Sunday March 21, please click here.

The large group discussion on March 21 will feature these speakers.

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