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PBI-Guatemala accompanies UVOC in judicial recognition of the boundaries of two communities on La Primavera farm

By
Brent Patterson
-

On February 28, the Peace Brigades International-Guatemala Project posted on its Facebook page, “Yesterday we accompanied the community members of UVOC [the Verapaz Union of Peasant Organizations] and their lawyer in the act of judicial recognition, carried out by the Justice of the Peace of San Cristóbal, Alta Verapaz, of the boundaries of the El Chico and Saq-ixim communities on the La Primavera farm.”

PBI-Guatemala adds, “The ownership of part of the lands of this farm has been achieved by the communities in 2015 [as explained below]. However, today there are still conflicts over the property and access to it.”

In November 2013, PBI-Guatemala interviewed UVOC lawyer Jorge Luis Morales about the case of the Primavera estate, San Cristóbal, Alta Verapaz.

He stated, “The case of La Primavera is emblematic of the issue of agrarian disputes in Guatemala: it is a situation that we have lived through time and time again. The workers and their families’ land tenure rights are a legitimate result of a working relationship and were violated when this property changed hands. The new landowners do not recognize this land tenure right and try to evict communities from the land.”

In 2015, Land Portal reported, “Success is rare among indigenous peoples’ struggles for land rights in Guatemala. But the nearly 300 Poqomchi’ Maya families that make up the Primavera communities in the department of Alta Verapaz have just won a significant victory.”

“On July 14, community representatives and the Guatemalan Land Fund signed documents to officially recognize three communities that have called the land home for centuries.”

“In the end, the logging company ceded nearly 800 hectares of land, with the Guatemalan secretary of agrarian affairs overseeing the titling of the land to the families of the communities.”

UVOC is an indigenous and peasant organization dedicated to the defence and promotion of access to land in the context of historical dispossession and ongoing inequality in Guatemala. UVOC represents Q’eqchi’, Poqomchi, Achi and Mestizas peoples.

PBI-Guatemala has accompanied UVOC since 2005.

Peace Brigades International speaks at the United Nations on human rights in Colombia, Guatemala and Honduras

By
Brent Patterson
-

On February 28, Peace Brigades International-Switzerland Advocacy Coordinator Kim-Mai Vu presented to the 43rd Regular Session of the Human Rights Council in Geneva.

The video of her presentation can be seen here (from 1:07:30 to 1:09:00).

Kim-Mai commented on the human rights reports on Colombia, Guatemala and Honduras.

She stated:

“PBI welcomes the presentation of the annual reports on Colombia, Guatemala and Honduras. We highly praise the work of the office monitoring and promoting respect of human rights in these three countries and we believe that it’s crucial to continue this work. We note with concern the trends towards the criminalization and stigmatization of defenders of human rights, impunity in terms of attacks against human rights defenders, as well as the militarization of law enforcement.”

“In Colombia we see continued systematic and serious violations of human rights and the exacerbation of the conflict with serious humanitarian consequences. It is urgent to ensure that the government is committed to the implementation of the peace agreements and implements effective public policies to guarantee the protection human rights defenders and dismantle the paramilitary structures.”

“In Guatemala the government continues to respond in protecting the human rights against attacks and also implementing different laws. It is crucial to develop a public policy to ensure the continued protection of the rights of human rights defenders and bring to justice the material and intellectual authors of human rights defenders.”

“In Honduras it is urgent to recognize the rights of LGBT community and combat violence and discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity through the promotion of national laws and implementation of institutional discourse against hate speech.”

Previous interventions by Kim-Mai at the UN Human Rights Council include calling on Nepal to guarantee the security of women human rights defenders (June 2019) and at a session related to the Working Group on Involuntary Disappearances (September 2019).

PBI-Switzerland has highlighted that its “advocacy work includes regular meetings with representatives of the EDA [the Federal Department of Foreign Affairs] in Bern and the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights in Geneva. PBI Switzerland has had consultative status with the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) since 2014. PBI Switzerland works closely with NGOs, aid organizations, solidarity groups, churches and interest groups, especially within the framework of platforms on specific countries and topics.”

PBI-Canada seeks to keep you up to date on PBI accompaniment, activities and advocacy

By
Brent Patterson
-

Peace Brigades International-Canada has prioritized bringing news about the work of Peace Brigades International around the world to you – on a daily basis.

We take short 70-word social media posts from the PBI field projects in Colombia, Guatemala, Honduras and Mexico, translate them into English, and expand them into 600-word articles with context to make them accessible to readers in Canada.

We also do posts about the PBI field projects in Kenya, Nepal and Indonesia, as well as on the inspiring work done by PBI country groups around the world.

We then share these articles via various online platforms (our website, Twitter, Facebook, a weekly e-newsletter, and now Instagram).

We also work to reach a wider audience by posting a weekly blog about a PBI issue of concern on the independent media platform rabble.ca, which has 350,000 unique visitors per month. Those blogs are also tweeted by rabble.ca (to their 42,000 followers) and posted to their Facebook page (with its 20,000 followers).

PBI-Canada is committed to visibilizing the work of PBI accompaniment because we believe it means that it makes at-risk human rights defenders safer.

A fundamental belief underlying the work of PBI is that the more visible the work and the struggles of human rights defenders, the higher profile they are, the less likely it is that harm will be done to them given the perpetrators understanding the world attention and consequences that action would bring.

That theory of change is explained in this 2-minute PBI-Colombia video which says, “Opening the eyes of the world to activities being carried out in certain places increases their visibility to such an extent that it dissuades the armed actors involved, be they legal or illegal, from doing things that violate human rights.”

A quick summary of some of our numbers:

Website

– at least 2 new updates posted to our website every day

– about 60 updates per month

– more than 700 updates a year

Our daily updates are posted here.

Twitter

– about 60 tweets per month

– around 50,000 impressions (views) per month

– on average about 85 new followers on Twitter each month

– presently at 1,570 followers

To follow us on Twitter, please click here.

Facebook

– on average 2 posts every day

– presently at 5,000 friends on Facebook

To visit us on Facebook, please click here.

E-newsletter

– 52 e-newsletters per year

– about 15 updates per e-newsletter

– about 3,500 subscribers

– on average, about 600 readers per e-newsletter

To subscribe to our e-newsletter, please click here. To see what one of our e-newsletters looks like, please click here.

To support this communications work, as well as the speakers tours, advocacy, volunteer recruitment, frontline fundraising, solidarity, and other work we do, you can make a secure and quick donation via our online platform.

Human rights concerns mount as Gitxsan hereditary chiefs and Mohawk land defenders arrested by Canadian police

By
Brent Patterson
-

Concerns about Indigenous sovereignty, the rule of law, police violence and the United Nations recognized right to free, prior and informed consent are mounting after the arrests of Gitxsan hereditary chiefs and Mohawk land defenders.

On February 24, CBC reported, “Several people, including at least two [Gitxsan Nation] hereditary chiefs, were arrested at a railway blockade in northern British Columbia Monday evening, according to witnesses.”

Ten people were reportedly arrested, including Hereditary Chief Spookw (Norman Stephens) in his regalia and 80-year-old matriarch Gwininitxw (Yvonne Lattie).

A 90-second video of Chief Spookw explaining the rationale for the blockade, made prior to his arrest, can be seen here. A 20-minute video by Cody Wedlidi Merriman of the night-time raid by the RCMP can be seen here.

That morning, CTV reported that another 10 Indigenous land defenders had been arrested at a blockade on Mohawk of Tyendinaga territory in Ontario.

That news article notes, “A stream of police cruisers, vans, unmarked vehicles, and dozens of officers, including some wearing what appeared to be tactical gear were seen flooding the Mohawk blockade shortly after 8:00 a.m. EST.”

Video of one of the arrests at Tyendinaga can be seen here.

While police dismantled these two blockades, multiple other Indigenous land defender and ally blockades were set up in other parts of the country.

The blockades of railway tracks on Indigenous lands have been established in solidarity with Wet’suwet’en land defenders in northern British Columbia following an RCMP raid on their territory that began on February 6.

The blockades have demanded that the RCMP leave Wet’suwet’en territory and that Coastal GasLink stop construction of a fracked gas pipeline on that territory until the Wet’suwet’en hereditary chiefs give their free, prior and informed consent to the megaproject.

These demands have also been made by the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) in this declaration.

Mount Royal University Professor Sean Carleton has commented, “Canada has decided to force a kind of ‘might is right’ approach. And unfortunately, I think it shows a sign of weakness, and a lack of courage on Canada’s side to actually sit down at the table, understand what the Wet’suwet’en chiefs were asking for, which was not unreasonable.”

Carleton adds, “As a historian, I’m disappointed. We often talk about learning from the lessons of the past, so that we don’t make the same mistakes, and here we are.”

Ethan Cox of Ricochet Media has also commented, “It’s past midnight on the east coast, but [Ricochet journalist] Jerome Turner and I wanted to get you a story on the arrest of two hereditary chiefs tonight, because it signals a major escalation in the Wet’suwet’en crisis. A journalist also appears to have been arrested.”

Notably, the Gitxsan and Wet’suwet’en were co-plaintiffs in the December 11, 1997 Supreme Court of Canada ruling known as the Delgamuukw decision.

The CBC has explained, “In the Delgamuukw case, Wet’suwet’en hereditary chiefs established that the Indigenous nation has a system of law that predates the days of elected band councils enacted under Canada’s Indian Act.”

That article continues, “Under traditional Wet’suwet’en law, hereditary chiefs are responsible for decisions regarding ancestral lands. In the current dispute, some hereditary chiefs say the decision to approve a pipeline in their ancestral lands without consent is an infringement of their Aboriginal title and rights.”

It then highlights, “Aboriginal title and rights are protected under the Constitution.” Section 35 of the Constitution Act 1982 confirms “existing Aboriginal or treaty rights” that had not been extinguished by surrender or legislation before 1982.

Kate Gunn, a lawyer with First Peoples Law, notes, “In the situation where we have a group that’s been in court for years establishing title … I think that the obligations on the Crown [to justify a rights infringement] would be very high.”

After the first RCMP raid on Wet’suwet’en territory last year, Bruce McIvor, lawyer, historian and principal at First Peoples Law, stated, “The fact that the Chiefs and their supporters found themselves facing heavily-armed RCMP officers is a testament to a complete and shameful failure of the rule of law.”

Peace Brigades International-Canada continues to observe this situation with concern. As noted on this webpage, Peace Brigades International accompanies numerous organizations in Colombia, Guatemala, Honduras and Mexico who are under threat in the struggle to protect their ancestral lands and cultural heritage as powerful interests wish to exploit the natural resources found within and beneath traditional territories.

PBI affirms that Indigenous land defenders are essential allies, not enemies, and that the defence of human rights is not a crime.

For further commentary, please see Settler governments are breaking international law by Beverly Jacobs, Sylvia McAdam, Harsha Walia and Alex Neve who note, “While Wet’suwet’en land and water protectors are being depicted as transgressors of the ‘rule of law’, they are in fact upholding Indigenous and international legal orders.”

Is Coastal GasLink compliant with the UN’s Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights?

By
Brent Patterson
-

The United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs) outlines a State’s duty to protect human rights, but also notably (on pages 13 to 26) the corporate responsibility to respect human rights.

While it may be argued that the State has a primary obligation, the UN affirms that corporations have responsibilities too.

A foundational principle in the UNGPs is that, “Business enterprises should respect human rights. This means that they should avoid infringing on the human rights of others and should address adverse human rights impacts with which they are involved.”

How might this apply to the Coastal GasLink fracked gas pipeline that TC Energy (formerly TransCanada Corporation) and other investors (including the Alberta Investment Management Corporation, KKR, and now possibly Export Development Canada) intend to build on Wet’suwet’en territory in northern British Columbia?

FPIC and due diligence

The Wet’suwet’en Hereditary Chiefs have not given their free, prior and informed consent (FPIC) to the construction of the mega-project on their unceded territory to which they hold rights and title. That is a human right recognized under the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) to which Canada is a signatory.

The Hereditary Chiefs, however, had proposed the McDonnell Lake route rather than the company’s preferred South of Houston Alternate Route.

The company’s webpage highlights, “Coastal GasLink examined the McDonnell Lake route using our standard route selection criteria (including environmental, social, technical, economic aspects).” Among the reasons noted the company noted for its rejection of that route was, “An estimated increased capital cost of between $600 and $800 million plus one year delay negatively impacts the viability of the LNG Canada project.”

David Pfeiffer, the president of Coastal GasLink, has further stated, “The current route was selected as the most technically viable with the least environmental impact.”

From these statements, it does not appear that human rights were an explicit consideration in their decision understood as “due diligence” in the UNGPs.

The UN’s Guiding Principles state, “In order to identify, prevent, mitigate and account for how they address their adverse human rights impacts, business enterprises should carry out human rights due diligence. The process should include assessing actual and potential human rights impacts, integrating and acting upon the findings, tracking responses, and communicating how impacts are addressed.”

Injunctions, RCMP raids

On January 27, The Globe and Mail additionally reported, “[Pfeiffer] said Coastal GasLink prefers to avoid having RCMP enforce a court injunction against protesters [Indigenous land defenders], and he hopes it will be possible to soon remove a blockade of dozens of trees on a remote logging road [the Morice River Forest Service Road] that leads to a work camp [man camp] for the final 84-kilometre stretch of the pipeline across the Coast Mountains.”

That statement came after the militarized RCMP raid on Wet’suwet’en territory in January 2019 and prior to the second raid on the territory in early February of this year.

It also came after The Guardian had reported that RCMP commanders had instructed its officers in 2019 to “use as much violence toward the gate as you want” to remove an obstruction to Coastal GasLink’s operations on the territory.

The statement by Coastal GasLink’s president also came after the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) had called on Canada to immediately suspend work on the Coastal GasLink pipeline until free, prior and informed consent had been obtained, to cease the forced eviction of Wet’suwet’en peoples opposed to the pipeline, to prohibit the use of lethal weapons and force against Indigenous land defenders, and to withdraw the RCMP from their traditional lands.

Does a transnational corporation’s “preference” not to use force meet the obligations outlined in the Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights?

Missing permit, missed opportunity to deescalate

An additional matter to be considered is that on January 30 of this year, about a week prior to the RCMP raid, The Narwhal reported that Coastal GasLink had yet to submit a report to the BC environmental assessment office in order for construction of the pipeline to proceed in the area of the Unist’ot’en healing lodge.

Gavin Smith, a lawyer with West Coast Environmental Law, commented, “From a practical perspective the lack of the ability to begin construction in the area gives a strong reason to avoid any armed enforcement of that injunction to allow time for discussion and further recourse to the courts if parties decide to take that route.”

That would strengthen the argument that Coastal GasLink had an option to not seek RCMP enforcement of the injunction until this matter had been resolved.

Unlawful actions by the police

Furthermore, Harsha Walia, the Executive Director of the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association, commenting on recent RCMP actions noted, “There is absolutely no legal precedent or established legal authority for such an over-broad policing power. Simply put, RCMP operations in Wet’suwet’en territory have been unlawful.”

There does not appear to have been a public statement from Coastal GasLink in regard to this finding and the role played by the RCMP in advancing the company’s project. In contrast, Coastal GasLink almost immediately commented on an RCMP investigation into alleged actions by Indigenous land defenders.

PBI, UNGPs, Binding Treaty

Peace Brigades International has expressed concerns about the gap between the promise of the Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights and their implementation.

In response, PBI-United Kingdom and the law firm Simmons & Simmons developed a Human Rights Defenders Toolbox that “seeks to address the fact that, despite the existence of these principles, gaps in their implementation mean that human rights defenders confronting corporate interests still face escalating violence.”

And PBI-Mexico has commented, “PBI believes that a Binding Treaty has the possibility to contribute to greater accountability for companies in relation to human rights abuses and could potentially lead to greater protection of human rights defenders working on business and human rights cases throughout the world.”

Peace Brigades International is a human rights organization that accompanies at-risk human rights defenders in Colombia, Guatemala, Mexico, Honduras and Kenya, and that advocates for human rights to be upheld to make space for the peaceful resolution of conflicts.

Photo: RCMP officers look on as contractors pass through their roadblock on Wet’suwet’en territory on January 9, 2019, two days after the RCMP raided the Gidimt’en checkpoint. Photo by Chad Hipolito/The Canadian Press.

5 things to know about human rights and climate change

By
Brent Patterson
-

1- Climate change has massive human rights implications

United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet has commented, “We call on leaders and governments to recognise that climate change and environmental degradation severely undermine the human rights of their people.” She has also stated, “The world has never seen a threat to human rights of this scope.” And UN Special Rapporteur on Extreme Poverty and Human Rights Philip Alston has warned, “Human rights might not survive the coming upheaval.” Furthermore, five UN human rights treaty bodies issued this Joint Statement on Human Rights and Climate Change.

2- Climate change increases violence against women

The UN has noted, “Climate change is recognized as a serious aggravator of gender-based violence. Climate action is therefore an essential component in the ongoing fight to eliminate violence against women and girls.” The International Union for the Conservation of Nature study Gender-based violence and environment linkages: The violence of inequality also found that, “Climate breakdown and the global crisis of environmental degradation are increasing violence against women and girls.”

3- Human rights defenders are needed to achieve climate justice

Katharine Rall of Human Rights Watch has stated, “The frequent attacks and threats against environmental rights defenders throughout the world are an example of why governments need to include protecting rights in their climate policies.” In recognition of this, the UN Human Rights Council has passed a resolution that “stresses that human rights defenders … must be ensured a safe and enabling environment … in recognition of their important role in supporting States to fulfil their obligations under the Paris Agreement [reached at the COP21 climate summit in December 2015].”

4- WEHRDs are on the front lines of the struggle against climate change

The Women and Gender Constituency has stated, “Women environmental rights defenders continue to be on the front lines to save the planet, especially indigenous, black and those from the global south, and yet are harassed, threatened and persecuted by those in authority in their own countries and elsewhere.” The Gender-based violence and environmental linkages report dedicates a chapter to the situation of women environmental human rights defenders titled Gender-based violence in defending land, territories and the environment.

5- Land and environmental defenders are being killed

In 2018, 61 land and environmental defenders were killed in countries where Peace Brigades International has field projects: 24 were killed in Colombia, 16 in Guatemala, 14 in Mexico, 4 in Honduras, 2 in Kenya and 1 in Indonesia. Front Line Defenders has highlighted that 77% of the total number of defenders killed in 2018 were defending land, environmental or indigenous peoples’ rights, often in the context of extractive industries and state-aligned mega-projects. Extractive industries and mega-projects are key drivers of the climate crisis.

PBI on the climate crisis

Peace Brigades International has stated, “PBI accompanies environmental defenders and activists in different parts of the world as part of our commitment to protect the environment and prevent further climate breakdown.”

PBI-Guatemala has commented, “The climate crisis is one of the greatest challenges that has faced humanity for decades and, having grown in urgency over time, it is now causing much alarm.” Their article highlights the organizations they accompany who are raising their voices about the climate crisis.

And PBI-Honduras has observed, “The fact that Honduras is one of the areas most affected by the climate change within Latin America shows once again the importance of the work provided by land and territory defenders, criminalized for their work in defense of common goods.”

As various UN bodies have recognized, climate change poses a threat to interrelated human rights including the right to life, the right to an adequate standard of living, the right to food, the right to water, and the right to a healthy and sustainable environment.

Peace Brigades International is now considering how to further highlight the interrelationship between climate change and human rights, the need to protect human rights defenders and how to meaningfully raise these concerns at the UN COP26 climate summit in Glasgow, Scotland this coming November 9-19.

PBI-Guatemala accompanies Nuevo Dia at celebration of 1st anniversary of opposition to the Cantera Los Manantiales mine

By
Brent Patterson
-

On February 27, the Peace Brigades International-Guatemala Project posted on its Facebook page, “Yesterday we accompanied Nuevo Dia in the celebration of its first anniversary of peaceful resistance and installation of a blocking of the ‘Cantera Los Manantiales’ mine in the municipality of Olopa, Chiquimula.”

“The members are waiting for a ruling from the CSJ [Supreme Court of Justice] on the violation of their right to prior, free and informed consultation. In November 2019, the CSJ granted a provisional protection that suspended the activities of the mine.”

Nuevo Dia has explained that the amparo (a legal remedy for the protection of constitutional rights) they have filed is “against the Ministry of Energy and Mines for having granted mining license to the Cantera los Manantiales company, without consulting the Ch’orti‘ indigenous communities of Olopa, Chiquimula.”

Nuevo Dia says that the mine “illegally extracts antimony, contaminating water, cutting down forests, causing strange diseases that especially affect children and removing tranquility, the peace and joy of the communities.”

And it notes, “Leaders and authorities have suffered criminalization, persecution, slander and defamation for opposing the company ‘Cantera Los Manantiales’.”

RIO Medios Independientes adds, “The direct concern is about the pollution of the Jupilingo River, as well as the appearance of skin diseases of children and elderly people.” The Belizean newspaper Amandala has reported that locals opposed to the mine say that it is also polluting the Zacapa River.

PBI-Guatemala has accompanied Nuevo Dia since 2009.

PBI-Guatemala accompanies UVOC at court hearing for La Primavera community defender

By
Brent Patterson
-

On February 27, the Peace Brigades International-Guatemala Project posted, “Yesterday we accompanied members of the UVOC [the Verapaz Union of Peasant Organizations] to the intermediate stage hearing for an accusation against a defender of the La Primavera community, San Cristobal, for illegal logging.”

“His lawyer argued the inconsistency of the evidence provided by the MP [Public Ministry] and noted the accusation in the context of a land conflict, which La Primavera got in 2015 after a long negotiation process.”

PBI-Guatemala adds, “The defense lawyer asked that the case be dismissed, however, the judge decided to link the defender to the process and called the next hearing on March 24.”

In November 2013, PBI-Guatemala interviewed UVOC lawyer Jorge Luis Morales about La Primavera and it provides a helpful context to understand yesterday’s hearing.

Morales stated, “The case of La Primavera is emblematic of the issue of agrarian disputes in Guatemala: it is a situation that we have lived through time and time again.”

“The workers and their families’ land tenure rights are a legitimate result of a working relationship and were violated when this property changed hands. The new landowners do not recognize this land tenure right and try to evict communities from the land.”

In 2015, Land Portal reported, “Success is rare among indigenous peoples’ struggles for land rights in Guatemala. But the nearly 300 Poqomchi’ Maya families that make up the Primavera communities in the department of Alta Verapaz have just won a significant victory.”

“On July 14, community representatives and the Guatemalan Land Fund signed documents to officially recognize three communities that have called the land home for centuries.”

“In the end, the logging company ceded nearly 800 hectares of land, with the Guatemalan secretary of agrarian affairs overseeing the titling of the land to the families of the communities.”

UVOC is an indigenous and peasant organization dedicated to the defence and promotion of access to land in the context of historical dispossession and ongoing inequality in Guatemala. UVOC represents Q’eqchi’, Poqomchi, Achi and Mestizas peoples.

PBI-Guatemala has accompanied UVOC since 2005.

PBI-Guatemala hosts film screening and public forum on the climate crisis and water shortages

By
Brent Patterson
-

On February 26, the Peace Brigades International-Guatemala Project hosted a film screening and discussion on the climate crisis and water shortages.

As noted on this Facebook event page, “We will present the documentary ‘La Sangre de la Tierra’ after which we will have a discussion on how the climate crisis is shown in Guatemala, especially through the dramatic shortage of water present in many parts of the country.”

The film screening and discussion took place in Guatemala City at La Casa de Cervantes, “a cultural house made up of galleries, a bookstore, restaurant, a fair trade store, the office of the NGO CEPP [the Small Producer Liaison Centre], and rooms for events.”

La Sangre de la Tierra

The documentary film by Félix Zurita tells the story of community resistance to hydroelectric dams. Specifically, opposition to the Puebla 1 dam in Mexico, Los Planes in Honduras, and the Renace and Oxec dams in Guatemala.

The trailer for the film can be seen here.

The climate crisis

PBI-Guatemala noted in Communities raise their voices about the climate crisis (pages 10-13 of Bulletin No. 42), “The climate crisis is one of the greatest challenges that has faced humanity for decades and, having grown in urgency over time, it is now causing much alarm.”

“Despite this urgency, however, so far the necessary measures have not been taken worldwide to stop it and avoid reaching a point of no return.”

“Guatemala is among the countries most affected by this emergency.”

Water shortages

The Guardian has reported, “In 2018, drought-related crop failures directly affected one in 10 Guatemalans, and caused extreme food shortages for almost 840,000 people, according to the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).”

“Water shortages and poverty are causally linked to the country’s skewed land distribution: roughly 2% of the population control 70% of all productive farmland.”

“Forests mitigate climate change, but Guatemala has lost half its woodlands in the past 40 years – and deforestation rates are rising, in turn causing floods, landslides and erosion of farmland.”

And Reuters has noted, “Guatemala could see a rise of 3 to 6 degrees Celsius by 2100 and a drop of 10 to 30 percent in rainfall if countries such as China, India and the United States do not cut greenhouse gas emissions, according to the Guatemalan System of Climate Change Sciences (SGCCC).”

The public forum

To watch the 1 hour 42 minute panel discussion, please click here.

PBI-Mexico accompanies ProDESC at press conference on Gunaa Sicarú wind power megaproject

By
Brent Patterson
-

On February 26, the Peace Brigades International-Mexico Project posted, “PBI accompanies ProDESC AC in the Zapoteca community of Unión Hidalgo to observe the third session of the informative phase of the indigenous consultation on the Gunaa Sicarú wind farm. This session presents the project and deals with social and environmental impacts.”

PBI-Mexico adds, “This morning PBI also attended the press conference in Oaxaca de Juárez where recognition was given to the amparo sentence that suspends the construction of the wind power plant and denounced the alarming increase in harassment and harassment of rights defenders in the community.”

Along with this 20-minute Consorcio Oaxaca video of the press conference, ProDESC AC has commented, “We denounce pressure from the SENER [the Mexican Secretariat of Energy] and the Government of Oaxaca to violate indigenous consultation.”

ProDESC adds, “Despite the amparos granted by Judge Elizabeth Franco Cervantes, to effectively guarantee the conduct of a free, prior and informed consultation in Unión Hidalgo, Oaxaca; the Ministry of Energy, the Oaxaca government and the municipal authorities continue to press for the consultation to develop improperly, violating the rights of this Zapotec community.”

Gunaa Sicarú is a proposed 252-megawatt wind power mega-project headed by the Mexican subsidiary of the French transnational EDF (Électricité de France) that would install 96 wind turbines over 4,400 hectares of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec region in the state of Oaxaca in southern Mexico.

EDF secured certificates to pursue the project in October 2016. By May 2018, a district court judge granted a suspension of the construction of the wind park. In March 2019, the Ministry of Energy convened consultations on the project related to free, prior and informed consent. In October 2019, ProDESC visited France to denounce the wind project.

ProDESC is a member of the Focal Group of Civil Society on Business and Human Rights (Focal Group) that PBI-Mexico has accompanied since 2015.

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