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PBI-Guatemala accompanies Retalhuleu Community Council for the Defence of Life in its struggle against sugar mills

By
Brent Patterson
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On January 15, the Peace Brigades International-Guatemala Project posted on its Facebook page: “PBI accompanies the Retalhuleu Community Council (CCR) awaiting notification of suspension of its hearing.”

Four of its members have been criminalized, charged by companies with illegal detention, coercion and threats.

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

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.”

In November 2019, Panorama Noticias 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.”

“Following these events, the defenders brought a Constitutional Action of Amparo so that the decision issued by the Court of First Instance of Retalhuleu, which terminated a case in which they were accused, however, the case was appealed by sugar mills for the defenders to be linked to the process.”

PBI-Guatemala has been accompanying the four criminalized members — Anabella España Reyes (President), Abelino Salvador Mejía, Flabio Vicente and Virgilio García Carrillo — of the Retalhuleu Community Council since April 2020.

PBI-Mexico accompanies Indigenous communities impacted by the energy industry on their lands

By
Brent Patterson
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On January 14, Servindi reported: “At least 105 local and indigenous communities in Mexico were affected by the impact of the energy industry and other projects on its territories, as revealed by the Infringed Collective Rights platform.”

“The platform [is] a digital tool powered by the Rights and Resources Initiative (RRI) with support from Amazon Conservation Team (ACT).”

“According to the platform, 14 extractive and infrastructure projects were mapped, affecting at least 105 Mexican communities. Of the total projects, 9 are from the energy sector: solar, thermal, wind and hydro-energy.”

“In addition, agribusiness, timber extraction and mining are the other industries that violate the collective rights of indigenous peoples.”

“According to the platform, the right to collective dominance over the territory and the right to a healthy environment were violated in 64.3% of cases. Prior and informed free consent was also violated in 57% of registrations. The disturbance of cultural and sacred sites – in 71.4% of cases – and the invasion of collective territory – in 64.3% of cases – were the most frequent attacks in recorded cases.”

The article highlights: “Murders and criminalization against environmental defenders were also reported. An example of this was the assassination of indigenous communicator Samir Flores, who died in February 2019, who opposed the Huexca thermoelectric plant.”

Flores was a member of the People’s Front in Defence of the Land and Water of Morelos, Puebla and Tlaxcala (FPDTA-MPT).

The Peace Brigades International-Mexico Project began to accompany the FPDTA-MPT following the murder of Flores.

The Huexca plant is part of the Morelos Integral Project (PIM) that also consists of a 171-kilometre gas pipeline that would cross the states of Morelos, Puebla and Tlaxcala and a 12-kilometre aqueduct that would divert water from the Cuautla River.

The FPDTA-MPT has also stated: “[Mexican president] Lopez Obrador [supporting the PIM] betrays the peasant and the promise of change of his government, to favour transnational corporations [including] Canadian miners like Alamos Gold.”

Toronto-based Alamos Gold has reactivated work on their Esperanza open-pit gold mine near the community of Tetlama (about 60 kilometres west of Huexca). The FPDTA-MPT statement suggests the concern that this mine could draw energy from the PIM.

Overall, given the broader concern raised by the platform about the impact of mining on the collective rights of Indigenous peoples in Mexico, it has also been noted: “According to Global Affairs Canada, roughly 70 per cent of foreign-owned mining companies operating in the country are based in Canada.”

The full article by Servindi can be read in Spanish at México: Alto impacto de derechos vulnerados por industria energética. Servindi is a news agency specialized in indigenous peoples, the environment, climate change, and other social issues in Peru and the world. You can find them on Twitter here.

PBI-Colombia accompanied San José de Apartadó peace community and dhColombia featured in Yes! magazine article

By
Brent Patterson
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On January 14, Yes! magazine published this article that tells the story of the Peace Community of San José de Apartadó and references Germán Romero, a lawyer with dhColombia, and a new threat to the peace community: losing their communal land from a state project of agrarian reform.

Key excerpts from the article by Agostino Petroni include:

“In the ’70s, cacao production expanded around San José de Apartadó [a conglomerate of villages scattered in Urabá of Antioquia], adding to the corn and beans that were cultivated for subsistence there, and quickly became the area’s principal cash crop.

The land on which the cacao trees grew didn’t just interest farmers but also paramilitary groups, the FARC, drug-traffickers, landowners, and the army. The fertile soil was great for illicit coca cultivations, and proximity to Panama made it a natural smuggling corridor to North America. In the early ’90s, the various groups started taking hold of the area.

On March 23, 1997, Brígida Gonzáles, 69, along with the others who decided to stay, founded the Comunidad de Paz de San José de Apartadó. This ‘Peace Community’ declared itself neutral in the conflict, pledging not to get involved in any way—from acting as informants to cultivating illicit crops—and asked to be left in peace.

The new neutrality status did not last long. A week after the declaration, members of the community were forced out by the conflict. The cacao trees were abandoned, and the forest took them back. [But] staying away from the fields meant economic ruin. After a few years of abandonment, the community decided to go back to their land slowly.

Members of the Peace Community have some individual land, but most of the 150 hectares of cacao trees grow in collectively owned plots.

“To them, this is actually a very profound act of transcending traditional capitalist society models and building something together,” [says Gwen Burnyeat who produced the documentary Chocolate of Peace].”

The Peace Community is known internationally thanks to the support of nonprofit organizations such as Peace Brigades International and Operazione Colomba. And because of the outside support, the community was able to enter the Fair Trade network and sell their cacao abroad for higher prices. According to [farmer Germán Graciano] Posso, the community sells about 50 tonnes of organic cacao a year to Lush, a British cosmetic company that makes soaps and other products with their cocoa.

The Peace Community, in addition to suffering this new wave of violence [after the peace agreement in 2016], is also under the threat of losing their communal land from a state project of agrarian reform, according to Germán Romero, a lawyer with dhColombia, a nonprofit organization in charge of representing the community in court to seek justice for the violence they have experienced.

“We’re trying to keep the integrity of the territory,” Romero says. He says the community has survived physical extermination but might not survive the state’s project of redistribution of land. Local politicians and entrepreneurs who are against the community accuse them of having stolen the lands they cultivate, a claim Romero dismisses.”

To read the full article by Agostino Petroni please see Cooperation and Chocolate: The Story of One Colombian Village’s Quest for Peace.

The Peace Brigades International-Colombia Project has accompanied the Peace Community of San José de Apartadó since 1999 and the Associated Network of Human Rights Defenders (dhColombia) since 2016.

PBI-Canada asks MPs to endorse the call for a UN Binding Treaty on transnational corporations and human rights

By
Brent Patterson
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Photo: Bertha Zúñiga Cáceres, the general coordinator of the PBI-Honduras accompanied Civic Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras (COPINH), is part of the campaign supporting the creation of a Binding Treaty.

UPDATE: Members of Parliament Leah Gazan (Winnipeg Centre), Matthew Green (Hamilton Centre) and Paul Manly (Nanaimo-Ladysmith) have now endorsed the call for a Binding Treaty on transnational corporations and human rights.

The United Nations has an inter-governmental working group process in place to develop a Binding Treaty on transnational corporations and human rights.

The goal is to ensure that companies are fully accountable for human rights violations and environmental crimes.

The Binding Treaty would be legally binding in contrast to the existing UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights.

The Global Campaign of more than 250 social movements, civil society organizations, trade unions and communities affected by the activities of transnational corporations has noted that Canada has opposed the UN process for a Binding Treaty.

The Global Campaign is working to ensure the Binding Treaty will:

– create mechanisms that reinforce State responsibility to prevent human rights violations and access to a judicial remedy by those impacted by TNC operations.

– assert the primacy of human rights over trade and investment agreements.

– reflect comprehensive and mandatory human rights due diligence mechanisms with meaningful consequences for non-compliance.

The Global Campaign has highlighted that to be able to accomplish this, an open and participatory process is needed that includes States, but also civil society, Indigenous peoples, impacted communities, and others.

PBI-Canada is calling on Members of Parliament in Canada to support the initiative for the creation of an effective and legally Binding Treaty on transnational corporations and other business enterprises and human rights.

MPs are encouraged to add their name alongside the many elected officials who have already done so via this Global Interparliamentary Network webpage.

For further information, please see this Transnational Institute webpage and the full text of the second revised draft of the Binding Treaty.

The next session of talks on the Binding Treaty will take place in October.

Maria Josefina Caal Xol of the PBI-Guatemala accompanied Peaceful Resistance of Cahabón, a collective of 38 Maya Q’eqchi communities, formed to oppose the construction of the Oxec and Renace hydroelectric dams on the Cahabón River and its tributaries.

PBI-Colombia accompanied Jose Alvear Restrepo Lawyers Collective (CCAJAR) lawyer Yessika Hoyos has stated: “Unfortunately, our experience with the Guiding Principles from the UN is that companies do not comply with them. That’s why our collective together with other organizations have been supporting the real creation of a Binding Treaty from the UN. Many companies together with the states have been blocking this issue. They haven’t allowed for a Treaty to be created.”

PBI-Honduras to watch the trial of the five defenders criminalized for opposition to the construction of the Jilamito dam

By
Brent Patterson
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On January 13, the Peace Brigades International-Honduras Project posted on its Facebook page: “We will be very attentive to the oral and public trial of the five people criminalized for the defence of the Jilamito River (Arizona, Atlántida) against the construction of a hydroelectric plant by the INGELSA company.”

“The municipality of Arizona, where three hydroelectric plants already operate, is one of the most impoverished and with the least access to drinking water in the department [of Atlántida].”

PBI-Honduras adds: “The trial will begin next Monday, January 18 in the municipality of Tela. The communities in resistance are accompanied by Movimiento Amplio [Broad Movement for Dignity and Justice/ MADJ].”

Canada supports the dam through the Inter American Development Bank (IDB)

On December 4, 2020, it was announced that IDB Invest had approved a $20.25 million loan to support the development, construction and operation of the dam.

The Honduras Solidarity Network and the Simcoe County Honduras Rights Monitor Committee have noted Canada’s involvement in this dam through the IDB.

The Government of Canada has reported: “Canada holds 4 percent of the IDB’s voting power and is the third-largest, non-borrowing shareholder after the United States (30 percent of votes) and Japan (5 percent of votes).”

In 2009, Canada’s capital investment in the IDB was temporarily increased to USD $4 billion. Last year, the annual lending capacity of the IDB was $13 billion.

US financing of the dam

In August 2020, the WFP Solidarity Collective further reported: “The DFC [Development Finance Corporation] announced that, in conjunction with the Inter-American Development Bank, it will be using U.S. tax dollars to invest in the Jilamito Hydropower Project.”

In this letter to the Chief Executive Officer of the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation last summer, US Representative Ilhan Omar opposed US financing of this dam noting among other concerns that: “The river that is being dammed is the only source of clean drinking water for the communities in the area.”

The struggle against the dam

In May 2018, The Guardian reported: “The accused – a teacher, hardware-store owner, farmers and the newly elected municipal mayor – are opposed to a dam on the Jilamito river in the tropical region of Atlántida.”

“Their alleged misdemeanour: ‘land invasion’ during a protest against the construction of a dam. A guilty verdict could bring a jail term of up to four years.”

“Jilamito river supplies several thousand households across the municipality of Arizona, and communities fear the 14MW plant will aggravate water shortages, which the company Ingelsa (Inversiones de Generación Eléctrica SA de CV) denies.”

The article by Nina Lakhani in The Guardian also noted: “The authorities are hoping a prosecution will enable them to clear a makeshift community blockade in the remote hilly pastures so construction can begin.”

The Solidarity Collective has also highlighted: “INGELSA illegally pushed [the dam] forward without legally-required free, prior, and informed consent.”

The upcoming trial

PBI-Canada will join PBI-Honduras and many others around the world following with great concern what happens in court starting on January 18.

PBI-Mexico accompanied Comité Cerezo report documents the extrajudicial killing of 14 human rights defenders in 2020

By
Brent Patterson
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On January 13, the Peace Brigades International-Mexico Project posted: “We share the report made by the Comité Cerezo México.”

PBI-Mexico then highlights a key finding of the report: “14 human rights defenders were extrajudicially executed in 2020.”

One of those listed in the Comité Cerezo report is Oscar Ontiveros Martinez who was killed in May of last year in the state of Guerrero.

Rasa Informa has reported: “Ontiveros relatives hold Canadian mining executives led by Media Luna manager Alfredo Phillips responsible.”

And MiningWatch Canada has previously noted: “Labour activist Oscar Ontiveros Martínez was reported to have been murdered on May 12 by community police linked to organized crime, that operate around Torex Gold’s mine in Guerrero.”

It adds: “Ontiveros Martínez’ assassination has been connected with his involvement in a 2017 strike involving about 600 workers who sought to change unions, a struggle that has led to at least three murders and one disappearance to date.”

Proceso summary of the Cerezo report

The Mexican news magazine Proceso further reports: “For political reasons, 14 human rights defenders were extrajudicially executed in 2020, the second year of the government of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador.”

“The foregoing is clear from a report by the Cerezo Mexico Committee, which highlights that Oaxaca tops the list of defenders executed extrajudicially, with six cases, followed by Guerrero and Baja California, with two each, and Chiapas, Chihuahua, Morelos and Veracruz, with a case in each state.”

“According to the report, of the 14 extrajudicial executions, four activists defended the right to a healthy environment; two, respectively, the right to territory, a dignified life and human rights, and with one case are the defenders of the right to protest, labor rights, freedom of expression and justice.”

“Of the cases, 65% of the victims (eight) of extrajudicial execution were human rights defenders who belonged to an indigenous people, 36% (five cases) were mestizo [persons of combined European and Indigenous ancestry] and in one case they were unable to determine whether or not they belonged to an indigenous people.”

“The Cerezo Committee clarified that as a human rights organization it did not document homicides committed by individuals, it only included extrajudicial executions perpetrated against human rights defenders.”

The article further notes: “These executions were carried out for political reasons, that is, as a form of punishment for the defense activity or exercise of any human right that the defenders carried out, and the perpetrators were State agents under the modality of commission or acquiescence.”

The PDF of the 15-page Comité Cerezo report can be read in full here.

Photo: On August 21, 2019, PBI-Mexico posted: “Yesterday we had the honour of accompanying the presentation of the report Defend Human Rights in Mexico: The End of Impunity? Each year, the Comité Cerezo together with the Urgent Action for Human Rights Defenders (ACUDDEH) make an annual report on the situation of human rights defenders in Mexico. We applaud this research and analysis.”

PBI-Kenya calls for release of four human rights defenders arrested in front of Ugandan embassy in Nairobi ahead of election

By
Brent Patterson
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Photo from HAKI Africa.

On January 13, the Peace Brigades International-Kenya Project tweeted: “We express concern regarding the arrest of human rights defenders HAKI Africa ED Hussein Khalid, Waithera Beatrice, Yassah Musa, and Ojiro Odhiambo today and urge for their release.”

While still in detention, Khalid tweeted: “A threat to human rights and democracy anywhere is a threat to human rights and democracy everywhere.”

He adds: “Presently under arrest for calling on Kenyan government, EAC [the East African Community] and AU [the African Union] to stand with the people of Uganda and not side with atrocities being committed by Museveni’s government.”

HAKI Africa has also tweeted: “We are still strong in demanding for electoral justice and human rights in Uganda.”

Kenya News reports: “The activists made their way to the Ugandan Embassy early Wednesday morning. They intended to protest police brutality and call for free and fair elections in Uganda. They were also there to speak up against Uganda’s government’s systematic intimidation of the opposition. However, the police did not allow the activists to read their statement at Uganda House, Nairobi. The security agencies disrupted the event, lobbed teargas canisters, and arrested the four.”

Shahidi News adds: “They were being held at the Central Police Station. Shahidi News could not immediately establish the offense they had committed, if any.”

The situation in Uganda

This Thursday January 14 there will be an election in Uganda. President Yoweri Museveni, who has been the president of Uganda since 1986, is being challenged by Bobi Wine (Robert Kyagulanyi Ssentamu).

The Guardian has reported: “Many Ugandans have been drawn to Wine’s anti-establishment campaign message, which has come to represent the growing dissonance between elderly African autocrats and the youngest and fastest-growing populations in the world.”

That article adds: “The response by Museveni and his security agents has been brutal. Wine, his campaign team and his supporters have been repeatedly arrested, attacked and since he declared his candidacy in November. Dozens have been killed.”

Reuters has also reported: “On [January 11], Wine said soldiers raided his home in Kampala and arrested his guards while he was giving an interview to a Kenyan radio station.”

Reuters adds: “He also said a team member who works mainly as a mechanic was shot dead by the military overnight. Reuters was not immediately able to verify the claims and a military spokesman did not respond to a call seeking comment.”

An Al Jazeera reports: “Museveni has said his government shut down social media two days before the country heads to the polls, accusing Facebook and unnamed outside groups of ‘arrogance’ after the social media giant this week removed Ugandan accounts linked to his re-election campaign.”

That article further explains: “An industry insider who spoke to AFP news agency on condition of anonymity said the order was first communicated in ‘nasty and aggressive’ phone calls to the telecommunications companies on Tuesday morning. The calls made it clear the order was retaliation for Facebook deleting pro-government accounts for seeking to manipulate public debate before Thursday’s key polls.”

Following the arrest of the human rights defenders outside the Ugandan embassy in Nairobi, the Kenyan organization Defenders Coalition tweeted that it “condemns the violent dispersion of HRDs while reading a solidarity presser on the situation of democracy & human rights in Uganda.”

PBI-Canada continues to follow this situation.

Photo by IMLU.

UN Committee expresses continued concern with Canada in relation to megaprojects that lack Indigenous consent

By
Brent Patterson
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The Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) is the body of independent experts that monitors implementation of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination by its State parties. Canada ratified this United Nations Convention more than 50 years ago on October 14, 1970.

On December 13, 2019, the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination passed a resolution expressing its concern about the construction of the Site C dam (on Treaty 8 territory), the Trans Mountain tar sands pipeline on Secwepemc territory, and the Coastal GasLink fracked gas pipeline on Wet’suwet’en territory.

It notes its concern about the Canadian government’s “refusal to consider free, prior and informed consent as a requirement” for these megaprojects.

And it called on Canada to immediately stop the construction of the Site C dam, the Trans Mountain pipeline and the Coastal GasLink pipeline.

Canada responded to the CERD resolution of December 13, 2019 more than six months later in a letter dated July 7, 2020 (after the RCMP raided Wet’suwet’en territory a second time in February 2020).

By November 24, 2020, CERD had replied by letter to Canada’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations in Geneva, Leslie Norton.

Their letter states:

“The Committee takes note of the information provided regarding the interpretation of the free, prior and informed consent principle and the duty to consult. The Committee also notes that the State party plans to introduce legislation by the end of 2020 … similar to the legislation adopted by the provincial Government of British Columbia.

The Committee regrets the State party interprets the free, prior and informed consent principle as well as the duty to consult as a duty to engage in a meaningful and good faith dialogue with indigenous peoples and to guarantee a process, but not a particular result.

Further, the Committee regrets that the State party has provided no information on measures taken to address the concerns [about the three megaprojects] raised by the Committee in its decision of 13 December 2019.

In this regard, and in accordance with article 9 (1) of the Convention [on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination] and article 65 of the Rules of Procedure, the Committee invites the State party to provided updated information in its 21st to 23rd combined periodic measures taken to address all the issues contained in the decision referred to above.

The Committee notes that the State party’s 21st to 23rd combined periodic report is due on 15 November 2021.”

This refers to the obligation of all signatories to the Convention to submit regular reports to the Committee on how the rights are being implemented.

The full UN CERD resolution of December 2019 can be read here. The full UN CERD follow-up letter of November 2020 can be seen below and read here.

 

PBI-Colombia accompanied CAHUCOPANA calls on armed actors to respect the principle of distinction and the safety of civilians

By
Brent Patterson
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On January 12, PBI-Colombia tweeted: “Finding of a lifeless body and explosions of devices, says our accompanied organization CAHUCOPANA [the Humanitarian Action Corporation for Coexistence and Peace in Northeast Antioquia] and appeals to the principle of distinction between armed actors and the civilian population.”

That organization’s statement notes: “CAHUCOPANA, on January 7, 2021, reported the discovery of the lifeless body of a young inhabitant of the Panamá Nueve neighborhood, with several gunshot wounds. To date the authorities have not made a statement, nor have those responsible been identified.”

It continues: “[Then] on January 8 at approximately 10:30 am, in the town of Carrizal in the jurisdiction of the municipality of Remedios, a loud explosion was heard on a high-traffic highway through the community which leads from the town center… The information provided by the population gives an account of allegedly three wounded soldiers.”

CAHUCOPANA concludes: “We reiterate our call to the armed actors to respect and comply with international humanitarian law, appealing to the principle of distinction, in order to guarantee the protection of the human rights of the civilian population, excluding ourselves from any act of violence that puts our lives and personal integrity at risk.”

PBI-Colombia has previously explained: “The Northeast Antioquia region has been experiencing systematic violence for many years. Local communities have suffered massacres, bombings and blockades that prevented the entry of food and medicine, imposed by illegal armed actors and the National Army.”

And it notes: “A crosscutting component of CAHUCOPANA’s work is the denunciation of human rights violations by all the armed actors, and by private companies with operations [notably large-scale commercial mining projects] in the region.”

Cristy Lozano of CAHUCOPANA says: “PBI’s international accompaniment is an important shield, not only for us, but also for the peasants where the Army and paramilitaries are present, and at one time, the FARC.”

She adds: “PBI also helps us with advocacy. We are not alone: there are people who care about us, and this is clearly visible at the international and national levels.”

PBI-Colombia has accompanied CAHUCOPANA since 2013.

40th anniversary of invitation letter to the founding meeting for Peace Brigades International

By
Brent Patterson
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The letter inviting people to our founding meeting in 1981 was signed by five individuals, including Narayan Desai (left) and K.S. Radhakrishana (right). It was Narayan who first suggested the name ‘Peace Brigades International’.

As noted on this PBI webpage: “On 12 January 1981, a letter signed by Narayan Desai (Shanti Sena Mandal), Raymond Magee (Peaceworkers), Piet Dijkstra (Foundation for the Extension of Nonviolent Action), K.S. Radhakrishana (Gandhi Peace Foundation) and George Willoughby was sent out to a number of organizations.”

That article adds: “It invited them to attend a conference to revive the idea of an international organisation committed to unarmed third party intervention in conflict situations.”

That letter led to PBI’s founding meeting that began on Monday August 31, 1981 at the Quaker Peace Education Centre on Grindstone Island, which is situated on unceded Algonquin territory about 110 kilometres south-west of Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.

Several days later, on Friday September 4, 1981, the founding statement for PBI was agreed upon and adopted.

That statement highlighted: “Peace brigades, fashioned to respond to specific needs and appeals, will undertake nonpartisan missions which may include peacemaking initiatives, peacekeeping under a discipline of nonviolence, and humanitarian service.”

It added: “We are building on a rich and extensive heritage of nonviolent action, which no longer can be ignored.”

When PBI was formed, the peace movement was arguably in its ascendancy.

The Greenham Common Women’s Peace Camp in the United Kingdom had just been established that same month, within weeks 400,000 people would march in Bonn, West Germany in opposition to the NATO decision to deploy nuclear missiles in Western Europe, and on June 12, 1982, one million people marched in New York City’s Central Park against nuclear weapons and for an end to the cold war arms race.

Throughout this milestone year, we will be reflecting on key moments related to the 40th anniversary of Peace Brigades International.

#PBI40years

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