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PBI-Guatemala expresses concern about freedom of expression following police repression of protests against budget

By
Brent Patterson
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Photo: A still from a Twitter video of police firing tear gas at the protest in Guatemala City.

On November 22, the Peace Brigades International-Guatemala Project posted on its Facebook page: “We join the concerns about fundamental human rights to freedom of demonstration and freedom of expression.”

They shared with that a post from the Association of Relatives of the Detained and Disappeared of Guatemala (Famdegua) that says: “We reject repressive government brutality! We stand in solidarity with the people illegally detained, the persons assaulted and injured, the students and the civilian population in general who have joined the call and participated in the various demonstrations that took place in several places in the national territory, where the act police had the same repressive tactics against the civilian population.”

There were at least two protests, one in front of the National Palace and a separate one, not far away, at the Congress building.

Yesterday, the BBC reported: “The bulk of Saturday’s demonstrations, which some observers said were the biggest yet against the budget, were peaceful.”

And the Associated Press notes: “The Inter-American Human Rights Commission on Sunday condemned what it called an ‘excessive use of force’ by police against demonstrators opposed to a new budget that slashes social spending.”

That article, and many other news reports, also noted: “Protesters broke into the Congress building and set one office afire on Saturday, and tossed rocks at police. Flames poured out of the building’s neoclassical facade.”

That article adds: “Police used tear gas and nightsticks to push demonstrators back, attacking not only about 1,000 demonstrators in front of Congress but also a much larger protest in front of the country’s National Palace.”

Sandra Cuffe further notes in Al Jazeera: “Thousands of people took to city and town squares around the country with demands ranging from a presidential veto of the budget bill and prosecution of corruption to resignations across all branches of government and the constitutional assembly.”

“Guatemala’s Congress passed the budget bill Tuesday night, increasing lawmakers’ own stipends for meals and other expenses and cutting funding for human rights programmes and the judiciary.”

Significantly, Cuffe adds: “They also axed $25 million destined to combat malnutrition, igniting nationwide outrage. A subsequent amendment that restored those funds did nothing to quell peoples’ anger. Guatemala has one of the world’s highest rates of chronic malnutrition and the hurricanes have exacerbated hunger; for many, the funding cut affecting malnutrition was the last straw.”

And the BBC notes: “The opposition says the budget prioritises big infrastructure projects to be handled by companies with government connections and overlooks the social and economic impact of the Covid-19 pandemic. They are also angered by what they describe as major cuts to education and health spending.”

Similarly, France 24 notes: “Guatemala’s Congress, dominated by conservative pro-government parties, approved an almost $13 billion budget [and most] of the funds will go to infrastructure tied to big business, sparking outrage in a country where poverty is widespread and half of children under five years old are malnourished.”

There has been no comment on social media from Global Affairs Canada or Foreign Minister François-Philippe Champagne.

Thirteen defenders of Black and Anishinabe lives arrested at Chiinawendiwen – We Are Related action in Ottawa

By
Brent Patterson
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Photo: A still from a video by @RoughChopOttawa of the Chiinawendiwen – We Are Related action on the evening of Thursday November 19.

At 3:30 am on Saturday November 21, Ottawa police arrested 13 defenders of the human rights of Black and Indigenous lives on unceded Algonquin territory.

Twelve were charged with mischief, while one youth was released with a warning. Three of those arrested are Anishinabe, three are Black, and seven are allies.

The defenders had been occupying a major intersection (Laurier Avenue and Nicholas Street) in downtown Ottawa since late Thursday afternoon in a Chiinawendiwen – We Are Related action, also referred to as a Day of Action for Anishinabeg and Black Lives.

They were seeking to draw attention to a 10-point set of demands including: freeze the Ottawa police budget, more funding for Indigenous and Black students, and end dynamic entry, wellness checks and sexual assault by police.

Dynamic entry refers to a no-knock, no-announcement method of police entering a home and can involve using a battering ram to knock down the front door and the use of a flash grenade as tactical officers file into the home.

Last month, 23-year-old Anthony Aust jumped from his 12th-floor bedroom window in Ottawa and died after police used a dynamic entry method to enter his home.

The coalition is also calling for an “immediate end to the occupation of any and all contested Indigenous territories by police forces, such as the ongoing occupation of Haudenosaunee lands by the OPP [Ontario Provincial Police], and an end to weaponized injunctions against Indigenous land defenders.”

The groups involved in organizing the occupation included KZ Land Protectors, the Ottawa Black Diaspora Coalition, and the Justice for Abdirahman coalition.

The We Are Related action began on the same day that the Crown announced it would not be appealing the not guilty verdict in the death of Abdirahman Abdi.

Abdi died in July 2016 after being repeatedly punched in the head by Ottawa police officer Daniel Montsion who was wearing gloves with reinforced knuckles. In October of this year, a judge ruled: “The Crown failed to prove this was a substantial departure from the standard of a reasonable police officer.”

The Justice for Abdirahman coalition responded to the Crown’s decision to not appeal this ruling by stating: “We are outraged but not surprised. The Crown is a colonial institution with a history of genocide, racism and white supremacy against Black, Indigenous and People of Colour in Canada.”

The arrest of the 13 defenders in the early morning hours of November 21 came shortly after an agreement from members of the Ottawa Police Services Board that they would meet with them that morning to discuss their demands. Organizers have stated that the early morning police raid was a betrayal of that promise by the police board.

For further updates on this, you can follow Justice for Abdirahman on Twitter and Instagram and the Ottawa Black Diaspora on Twitter and Instagram.

The CBC’s Deadly Force database has compiled data on police killings over the past 20 years in Canada and found that Indigenous people disproportionately accounted for 16 per cent of  those deaths (though they are 4.21 per cent of the population) and Black people 8.63 per cent (and 2.92 per cent of the population).

Photo by @CPEPgroup.

Photo by @DiasporaOttawa.

PBI-Colombia accompanied CREDHOS, Nomadesc and CSPP take part in National Strike protests

By
Brent Patterson
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Photo: During last year’s National Strike marches on November 21, 2019, PBI-Colombia accompanied David Ravelo Crespo (a founding member of CREDHOS), the CSPP and CCAJAR. National strike protests are taking place this year from November 19-25.

Thousands of people took to the streets on Thursday November 19 to protest against violence and the economic, labour and social policies of Colombia’s President Ivan Duque.

On that day, PBI-Colombia accompanied CREDHOS tweeted that it had marched in defence of life, rights and the just struggles of the Colombian people.

And PBI-Colombia accompanied Nomadesc tweeted: “From very early hours, the social organizations and defenders of the rights of the peoples of the city of Cali met at the exact point where Duvan Villegas fell immobile, victim of a shot that the police gave him in the back in the mobilization of the N21 National Strike in 2019.”

Then on Friday November 20 peasant communities continued the strike, including mobilizing outside the Colombian oil company Ecopetrol plant in Cantagallo.

Today, Saturday November 21, university students and teachers will mobilize in Bogota.

On Monday November 23, social movements will hold a candlelight march to commemorate the one-year anniversary of the death of 18-year-old student Dilan Cruz, who was killed by the Colombian ESMAD riot police during a national strike last year.

The PBI-Colombia accompanied Committee in Solidarity with Political Prisoners (CSPP) has tweeted: “Next Monday marks one year of the murder of Dilan Cruz at the hands of the Colombian Police. We wait for you so that together we demand justice for Dilan and for all the young people who have been murdered while exercising their right to social protest.”

Later next week, on Wednesday November 25, various feminist movements will march to demand an end to all forms of gender-based violence on the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women.

One of the key demands of the national strike mobilizations has been a rejection of fracking. It is expected that Toronto-based Sintana Energy will be awarded a contract next week to conduct a fracking pilot project in Puerto Wilches, Santander.

As these mobilizations take place, we recall that PBI-Colombia has previously tweeted: “Social and peaceful protest is a human right, above all, disproportionate repressions cannot be justified against the civilian population, we ask for guarantees and respect for life.”

To follow on Twitter, search the hashtag #paronacional.

5 things to know since the CCALCP and CREDHOS advocacy tour in Canada in November 2019

By
Brent Patterson
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Photo: The Colombian delegation arriving at Pearson International Airport in Toronto, Canada in the early morning hours of November 2, 2019.

One year ago, Julia Figueroa and Andrea Nocove from the Luis Carlos Perez Lawyers’ Collective (CCALCP) and Ivan Madero from the Regional Corporation for the Defence of Human Rights (CREDHOS) visited Canada for an eight-day advocacy tour.

They were accompanied by Javier Garate, the Canada/USA advocacy representative from the Peace Brigades International-Colombia Project.

Their visit is documented at Photo-journal of 8-day solidarity tour by Colombian human rights defenders from CCALCP and CREDHOS to Canada.

What has happened since then?

1- During the tour, the defenders raised concerns about Canadian companies seeking to frack in Colombia. Those concerns have continued to be expressed. Next week, however, Toronto-based Sintana Energy will likely be awarded a contract to frack in Puerto Wilches, Santander. Furthermore, several activists in Barrancabermeja, where CREDHOS is based, recently received a death threat related to their opposition to fracking.

2- The defenders raised the need to have meaningful mechanisms to file grievances against Canadian corporations. They asked officials for examples of how the Global Affairs ‘Voices at Risk’ guidelines had been used and been successful. This week, it was announced that the launch of the long-promised (but weak) Canadian Ombudsperson for Responsible Enterprise (CORE) complaints mechanism has been delayed until early 2021.

3- The defenders highlighted their concerns about the lack of the implementation of the 2016 Peace Agreement. One year later, those concerns remain. Last month there was a massive one-day national strike and an Indigenous Minga mobilization demanding that the Colombian government fulfill its obligations to implement the peace accord.

4- The defenders raised their concerns about the aerial fumigation of coca crops. In 2015, a court ruling ended 25 years of the aerial spraying of these crops. While the Trump administration had been pressuring the Colombian government to resume spraying, it is hoped that the recent election of Joe Biden could mean the US may now favour crop substitution and rural development instead.

5- The defenders also raised the high number of human rights defenders who have been killed since the peace agreement in 2016. Sadly, this situation has only worsened. Last month, Indepaz reported that at least 223 social leaders – community activists defending human, environmental and land rights – had been murdered this year. Prime Minister Trudeau has spoken with Colombian President Ivan Duque twice in recent months but has not raised this serious and pressing issue.

PBI-Canada continues to be in touch with CCALCP, CREDHOS and our colleagues at PBI-Colombia and to work on the issues raised during the tour.

While the pandemic has meant that a Canadian delegation that we were organizing to visit the sites of Canadian corporate violence in Colombia for September has been postponed, we are now looking at ways to conduct a virtual delegation.

Photo: CREDHOS president Ivan Madero receives a t-shirt from the Hul’qumi’num Treaty Group at their office in Duncan, BC on November 9, 2019. On October 21, 2020, Madero wore that t-shirt during the national strike/Minga mobilization in Barrancabermeja.

Canada’s proposed climate legislation falls short of addressing climate breakdown and protecting frontline defenders

By
Brent Patterson
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Please take action today to call for the protection of frontline climate defenders through this Urgent Action petition.

On November 19, Environment Minister Jonathan Wilkinson tabled Bill C-12, the Net-Zero Emissions Accountability Act, in the House of Commons.

The Canadian Press reports: “Bill C-12, if passed, would require the federal environment minister to set five-year targets for cutting carbon emissions starting in 2030, and ending in 2050, when Canada is supposed to hit net-zero.”

The legislation doesn’t say what those targets for 2035, 2040 and 2045 will be (those would be set five years prior to each date).

Canada doesn’t have a 2025 target and its current target for 2030 is to cut carbon emissions by 30 per cent below 2005 levels by 2030.

Using the more commonly used international baseline of 1990, that equates to a pledge to reduce emissions by 14 per cent by 2030. In comparison, the European Parliament recently voted for a 60 per cent reduction from 1990 levels.

Adjusting back to the 2005 baseline, government figures released in January 2019 project that even under a best-case scenario, Canada will only achieve a 19 per cent reduction by 2030 (not the 30 per cent reduction promised in 2015).

The CBC adds: “Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has vowed that Canada will exceed the country’s existing target of a 30 per cent reduction below the level of 2005. The government is suggesting that such a plan could be just weeks away.”

If this media report is correct, that might suggest that a new 2030 target could be set prior to the Climate Ambition Summit on December 12.

The intention of that summit is to ratchet up commitments from countries as spelled out in the Paris Climate Agreement in December 2015 and in the lead-up to the COP26 climate summit now scheduled for November 1-12, 2021 in Scotland.

PBI-Canada is profoundly concerned that four land and environmental defenders have been killed on average every week since COP21 in Paris. More than one-third of those fatal attacks have been against Indigenous land defenders and water protectors.

Furthermore, the United Nations has stated environmental human rights defenders play a crucial role protecting vital ecosystems and addressing climate change and must themselves be defended in order to continue their vital work.

Please join us in calling on Prime Minister Trudeau to strengthen Canada’s climate targets, to present credible plans to meet those targets, and to recognize and uphold the right of Indigenous land defenders to free, prior and informed consent.

You can send the Prime Minister an email with that message prior to the December 12 summit through this URGENT ACTION petition.

Senator Iván Cepeda warns of the violence and human rights violations to come with fracking in Colombia

By
Brent Patterson
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It is expected that Toronto-based Sintana Energy (through its Colombian subsidiary Patriot Energy Oil & Gas in partnership with the Texas-based transnational ExxonMobil) will be awarded a contract by the Colombian hydrocarbon agency (ANH) on November 25 to begin a fracking pilot project in Puerto Wilches, Santander.

On a webinar last night about Canada’s role in Colombia’s humanitarian tragedy, Cepeda commented on the wider context of this:

“One of the ways proposed to resolve the economic crisis [in Colombia] is a new phase of extractivism-based economy, a form of neo-extractivism is what we call it, that means intensifying mining exploration, but it also implements new methods like fracking to extract petroleum and other forms and methods that will lead to misery, destruction in many regions of the country and they will in turn lead to more violence.”

“It’s unquestionably true the research we’ve done in the Colombian Congress I’ve led many debates that looked at the relation between mining, extractivist industry and human rights violations in the country.”

“Indeed, it’s clear that big corporations that are present in territories where there is armed conflict and violence factors promote those violations.”

Cepeda also referenced a concern about the relationship between transnational corporations and the Colombian military.

He noted: “There is evidence of companies, I’m not saying just Canadians, but there is evidence of companies that have hired paramilitary groups. [There are also contracts between companies and the Colombian armed forces] in a sense the army becomes a privately hired company for security purposes for the multinational.”

It has been reported that 70 national and international companies, mainly in the mining-energy sector, have 200 cooperation agreements with public institutions in Colombia, including the Ministry of Defence and even the Attorney General’s Office.

There is the notable example of the contracts between Toronto-based Frontera Energy and the Colombian military that led to the criminalization and arrest of eight social leaders in San Luis de Palenque, Casanare who were protesting against the social and environmental impacts of the Canadian oil company on their community.

Additionally, there is the current concern about a death threat received by environmental activists in the Magdalena Medio region who are opposed to fracking.

PBI continues to monitor this situation closely.

Cepeda became a human rights activist after his father was assassinated in 1994. Prior to being elected to the House of Representatives in 2010 and the Senate in 2014, Cepeda was accompanied by PBI-Colombia.

Near the end of this 2-minute PBI-Colombia video from last year, Cepeda says: “Today I’m speaking here with you thanks to PBI. The paramilitary took me off a vehicle and there was a moment where if two PBI women hadn’t been with me, an Italian and a Norwegian, they probably would have made me disappear.”

The video of the Canadian Latin American Alliance webinar on Canada’s role in Colombia’s humanitarian tragedy can be watched in full here.

Victoria Tauli-Corpuz responds to PBI-Canada question about global solidarity among Indigenous land defenders

By
Brent Patterson
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On November 19, Peace Brigades International-Canada listened to a webinar organized by Peace Brigades International-Switzerland and Franciscans International about the criminalization of Indigenous land defenders in Guatemala.

We had the opportunity to ask the panellists about solidarity efforts with Indigenous nations outside of Guatemala, for instance in Canada.

Victoria Tauli-Corpuz, the former United Nations Special Rapporteur on the rights of Indigenous peoples, responded:

“We just formed an organization called Indigenous Peoples Rights International which is actually working on building solidarity between Indigenous peoples who are victims of criminalization. The main objective of IPRI is to address the issue of criminalization and violence against Indigenous peoples as well as the impunity in their countries.”

Tauli-Corpuz added: “We are linking up with the organizations in Canada or in the US because that’s where many of the companies are coming from as well. So, whenever you have those problems that you face we can also help in the campaign against a particular company or a particular incident that happened in your country.”

The website for IPRI can be found here.

In 2019, there were 157 attacks on Indigenous peoples defending territory, the environment and the right to land in Guatemala.

The Global Witness Defending Tomorrow report further documents that 12 land and environmental rights defenders were killed in Guatemala that year.

That report also notes: “In January 2019, members of the Wet’suwet’en First Nation indigenous group who objected to the construction of a gas pipeline through their territory were forcibly removed from their protest site in British Columbia [Canada]. Heavily armed police arrested 14 demonstrators, injuring one of them.”

It adds: “The police were enforcing an order by the British Columbia Supreme Court requiring the removal of the protestors’ barricade, which blocked the access road to the pipeline’s proposed construction site. First Nations people claim the project infringes on their land rights. The court order effectively criminalised them for protesting on their own land.”

On average four land and environmental defenders around the world have been killed every seek since the Paris climate agreement was reached at the UN COP21 climate summit in Paris in December 2015. More than one-third of those fatal attacks have been against Indigenous land defenders and water protectors.

The video of the PBI-Switzerland and Franciscans International webinar on the criminalization of Indigenous land defenders in Guatemala will be posted shortly.

Colombian Special Jurisdiction for Peace trial of former General Montoya for extrajudicial killings scheduled to begin in 2021

By
Brent Patterson
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Photo by EFE.

The Guardian has published a feature article by journalist Mariana Palau about the upcoming trial of former Colombian Army General Mario Montoya that references three groups accompanied by the Peace Brigades International-Colombia Project: the Corporation for Judicial Freedom (CJL), the Network of Human Rights Defenders (dhColombia), and the Peace Community of San José de Apartadó.

The article notes that in October 2002 President Alvaro Uribe ordered General Montoya to attack the FARC guerillas in the city of Medellin. The result was Operation Orion, the largest urban military operation in Colombia’s history.

It continues: “Orion was immediately hailed as a success. The armed forces arrested 355 guerrilla members, raided around 150 properties and liberated 17 hostages. But allegations of extrajudicial killings swiftly followed.”

“In 2003, an NGO that specialises in human rights law, the Corporation for Judicial Freedom, published a report that said 17 civilians were killed and at least 80 more were injured in the operation. Several people were also disappeared.”

“There were also worrying claims that the army had relied on illegal paramilitary groups to gather intelligence in the run-up to Orion. …If Montoya collaborated with them during Orion, it suggested the army was happy to operate beyond the law.”

The article adds: “The operation, which remains controversial to this day, set the terms of debate around Uribe’s democratic security policy.”

PBI-Colombia has previously noted: “Thanks to CJL’s work, in December 2011, Montoya, gave testimony to the Supreme Court of Justice in the prosecution against him for his alleged links to the paramilitaries in carrying out Operation Orion.”

Now, Palau notes that Montoya is being investigated by Colombia’s war crimes tribunal (formally known as the Special Jurisdiction for Peace or JEP) for his role in the false positives (falsos positivos) scandal.

The tribunal, a product of the 2016 peace agreement, is investigating this scandal in which as many as 5,000 people were extrajudicially killed by members of the Colombian army and then falsely labelled as enemy combatants.

A key witness in Montoya’s trial will be Alfamir Castillo whose son Darbey Mosquera was a false positive victim in 2008.

On January 11, 2019, two men on a motorbike fired several rounds at her as she sat in the back of a car in the city of Cali. She survived the attack because of the bulletproof car that had been provided to her by the state National Protection Unit.

Her lawyer is Germán Romero, a member of dhColombia which has been accompanied by PBI-Colombia since 2009.

While Palau reports that the tribunal will not evaluate Montoya’s possible role in the massacre of five adults and three children in the Peace Community of San José de Apartadó in February 2005, “if he is found to have had a role in the extrajudicial killings, he could be sentenced to up to 20 years in prison.”

The article concludes: “Montoya’s trial – which, because of the coronavirus pandemic, has been postponed until next year – will have huge political implications.”

Meanwhile, Reynaldo Villalba, a lawyer with the José Alvear Restrepo Lawyers’ Collective (CCAJAR), is representing Senator Iván Cepeda in legal proceedings against Uribe. The Committee in Solidarity with Political Prisoners (CSPP) and Franklin Castañeda have also filed a lawsuit for slander and harassment against Uribe.

Additionally, Daniel Prado, a lawyer with the Inter-Church Justice and Peace Commission (CIJP), is representing the family of Camilo Barrientos who was allegedly murdered by a paramilitary group that Uribe’s brother Santiago is accused of bankrolling.

PBI-Colombia also accompanies CCAJAR, CSPP and CIJP.

The full article by Mariana Palau in The Guardian can be read at The ‘false positives’ scandal that felled Colombia’s military hero.

Register now for the PBI-Canada webinar on International Women Human Rights Defenders Day, November 29

By
Brent Patterson
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Peace Brigades International-Canada will be hosting a webinar on Sunday November 29 at 1 pm EST to mark International Women Human Rights Defenders Day.

To register for it, please click here.

The webinar will feature:

Tatiana Triana is a member of the Social Corporation for Community Advisory and Training Services (COSPACC) in Colombia that accompanies victims of human rights violations, including the social leaders criminalized by Toronto-based Frontera Energy.

Sophia Sidarous is a Mi’kmaq from the Metepenagiag First Nation in New Brunswick who has been a key organizer of numerous resistance actions in Ottawa (unceded Algonquin territory) in support of the Mi’kmaq, Algonquin, Wet’suwet’en and Secwepemc peoples.

Maryanne Kasina is a writer and the convener of Women in Social Justice Centres movement in Kenya. She is the co-founder of Kayole Community Justice Centre in Nairobi that organizes against gender-based violence and police brutality.

Meera Karunananthan is the Ottawa-based Director of Blue Planet Project, a global initiative aimed at promoting water justice around the world, and a PhD candidate in geography studying feminist urban water justice struggles. She is also a member of the Peace Brigades International-Canada Board of Directors.

To register for this webinar, please click here.

Quotes:

Tatiana Triana: “I am grateful to PBI-Canada for the invitation to talk about women human rights defenders in a space with human rights defenders from different latitudes. These spaces are very valuable and necessary.”

Maryanne Kasina: “Sign up to join the Webinar on international women human rights defenders day and listen to the progressiveness, resolutions and challenges faced by WHRD.”

Meera Karunananthan: “It is truly an honour to be working with Peace Brigades International-Canada to moderate this event featuring incredible frontline human rights and land defenders on November 29, International Women Human Rights Defenders Day.”

Crown corporation CDEV ignores questions about Secwepemc land defenders at annual meeting on November 17

By
Brent Patterson
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Photo: Ian Anderson, CEO of Trans Mountain Corporation, speaking at the annual meeting.

The virtual annual meeting of the Canada Development Investment Corporation (CDEV), the Government of Canada Crown corporation that owns the Trans Mountain pipeline, was held on Tuesday November 17.

The CDEV website had noted that representatives from its subsidiaries, including Trans Mountain Corporation, “will review the year and respond to questions [and that] every attempt will be made to answer them during the pre-recorded meeting.”

In response, hundreds of people submitted a question through this PBI-Canada urgent action online petition that stated:

“The UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination has called for the construction of the Trans Mountain pipeline to be stopped, for the right to free, prior and informed consent to be respected, and for the RCMP to be withdrawn from Secwepemc traditional lands. Will you do so and uphold Canada’s commitments to the UN Convention on ending racism?”

Similarly, 350 Canada also mobilized to have people submit questions to this annual meeting. They generated 2,828 emails!

This 19-minute video of the CDEV annual meeting shows no indication of the questions raised by thousands of people being addressed.

And yet the CEO of Trans Mountain did highlight that it had opened “camp communities” in Valemount and Clearwater.

This despite the final report by National Inquiry on Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls concluding: “Work camps, or man camps, associated with the resource extraction industry are implicated in higher rates of violence against Indigenous women at the camps and in the neighbouring communities.”

This Secwepemc Declaration also expresses profound concerns about camps resulting in increased sexualized violence against Indigenous women.

PBI-Canada is deeply disappointed by this.

Four land and environmental defenders have been killed every seek since the Paris climate agreement was reached at COP21 in Paris in December 2015.

More than one-third of those fatal attacks have been against Indigenous land defenders and water protectors.

We are now calling on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to commit to upholding the rights of Indigenous land defenders at the Climate Ambition Summit on December 12. You can join in this call by clicking on this URGENT ACTION today.

We further encourage you to read 350.org’s report titled: Human Rights Abuses by Fossil Fuel Companies. Their report connects with our accompaniment of the Front of Peoples in Defence of Land and Water (FPDTA) in Mexico and our accompaniment of organizations opposed to fracking in Colombia (where a Canadian company is likely to be awarded a contract next week). For excerpts from the 350.org report, please click here.

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