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PBI-Colombia accompanies CAHUCOPANA at Fanny Garcia Gender School graduation

By
Brent Patterson
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On December 7, the Peace Brigades International-Colombia Project posted, “On November 25, PBI accompanied CAHUCOPANA at the 5th meeting of peasant women miners of the Northeast of Antioquia and the closing of the 2nd edition of the Gender School: Fanny García, in the Altos de Manila village.”

“More than 120 women from the municipality of Remedios joined their voices against gender violence and the murders of human rights leaders and demanded that respect for their rights be guaranteed.”

PBI-Colombia adds, “Long live empowered women! And Congratulations to the classmates for their graduation!”

CAHUCOPANA refers to the Humanitarian Action Corporation for Coexistence and Peace of the Northeast Antioquia. Doña Fanny García is one of the founders of CAHUCOPANA and was the first president of the organization.

PBI-Colombia has explained, “Thousands of families from the region [of Northeastern Antioquia] have lived off artisanal mining for centuries, mainly gold mining. …The arrival of large companies became a reality at the end of 2010, when 70 [small-scale artisanal] mines were closed and 118 people were detained in relation to informal mining in the area.”

This rabble article from February 2017 notes, “According to the Colombian National Agency of Mining there are 27 Canadian companies operating in the country with 42 mining titles for copper, silver and gold.”

The Canadian mining companies in Antioquia have included Toronto-based Rockcliff Copper Corporation, IAMGOLD, Continental Gold, Gran Colombia, and Vancouver-based Angel Gold Corporation and Antioquia Gold.

PBI-Colombia has a team of volunteers based in Apartadó, Antioquia and has accompanied CAHUCOPANA since 2013.

Peace Brigades International accompaniment of NOMADESC in Colombia

By
Brent Patterson
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Peace Brigades International has accompanied NOMADESC (the Association for Research and Social Action) since 2011 and its president Berenice Celeita since 1999.

PBI-Colombia has explained, “Founded in 1999, NOMADESC is a human rights organization that advises and accompanies organizations working on social, trade union, civic, indigenous, afro-descendant, agricultural and women’s issues.”

On September 13 of this year, PBI-Colombia accompanied NOMADESC in Buenaventura when it along with other human rights groups brought representatives from various embassies to visit what has been described as the most violent city in Colombia.

On October 1, PBI-Colombia travelled with Berenice to Washington, DC to meet with allies – including Amnesty International USA and Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights – to share concerns about the security situation in Buenaventura and northern Cauca.

In late-October, PBI-Colombia was accompanying NOMADESC when Cristina Bautista Taquinas and four unarmed Indigenous Guards were killed in an attack in the village of La Luz in the Tacueyó reservation in the department of Cauca. CUPE president Mark Hancock was in Colombia at that time and you can read his reflection on that experience in Courage and resilience in Colombia.

And in mid-November, PBI brought Olga Araujo from NOMADEC and several other women human rights defenders to the European Parliament in Brussels to draw attention to the sexist discrimination and attacks that women defenders experience.

It is significant to also note that Berenice and members of the SINTRAEMCALI union were targeted in 2004 in an assassination plot named Operation Dragon for their opposition to the privatization of Emcali, a state-owned company providing water, telecommunications, and electricity services in the city of Cali.

CUPE reported in its International solidarity report 2018-2019, “In January 2019 a court in Cali convicted three retired military officers of planning to assassinate Berenice, opposition senator Alexander López, and leaders of SINTRAEMCALI, the Cali municipal workers union that has steadfastly opposed privatization.”

“The conviction and four-year prison sentence come after years of investigation, which finally proved that Colonel Julian Villate Leal and Majors Alfonso Abondano Mikan and Marco Fidel Rivera were behind the 2004 assassination plot.”

In an interview Berenice did when she attended the CUPE BC convention in April 2018, she highlighted, “It’s very important to keep sending labour delegations to Colombia to visit us and see with your own eyes what is happening. I am convinced that I am alive today because of the actions of solidarity.”

Berenice has also commented in this interview with PBI, “On behalf of NOMADESC and the communities that we accompany, we give Peace Brigades infinite thanks for being here, to the young people and older people who have passed through Peace Brigades International, because I would really like to say thank you for coming to Colombia and leaving a footprint and the trace of a Colombia that is different and is possible.”

An 11-minute video of that conversation (in Spanish) with PBI-Colombia field officer Beatriz Puerta Santos can be seen here.

There is also this 1-hour video of Berenice speaking (with translation) in Toronto in June 2015 at a public forum organized by PBI-Canada.

Peace Brigades International is a non-partisan organization that originated in Canada in 1981 in response to calls by Central American human rights organizations to provide non-violent accompaniment to human rights workers.

Through the unarmed protective accompaniment of organizations and communities, PBI seeks to reduce violence and open political space for social change.

PBI-Guatemala visits the Nuevo Horizonte Cooperative

By
Brent Patterson
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On December 6, the Peace Brigades International-Guatemala Project posted on its Facebook page, “During our trip in [the department of] Petén we met representatives of the Permanent Delegation of the Laguna Del Tigre Sierra Lacandón and the women of Leaving Footprints of the Nuevo Horizonte Cooperative.”

PBI-Guatemala adds, “We also had meetings with the governorate, the PDH, the departmental COPREDEH and the mayor’s office of Flores.”

PDH refers to the Office of Human Rights (a state entity commissioned by the Congress to ensure compliance with human rights), while COPREDEH is the Presidential Commission on Human Rights (that coordinates executive policy on human rights).

PBI-Guatemala has also previously explained, “The Women’s Group Leaving Footprint is made up of 35-40 women from the Nuevo Horizonte Cooperative… This ‘group of promoters of popular education, ex-combatants of the guerrillas, work on issues of women’s rights and economic empowerment…’”

In April 2007 PBI-Guatemala published an interview with Nuevo Horizonte Cooperative president Eduardo García Franco.

He stated, “This cooperative was not created from nothing. It is the result of a 36-year process, the revolutionary uprising that began here in 1960/61. In the 1960s, all avenues of legal protest and organization were closed in Guatemala, and there was no other choice for people except to organize and defend their rights. The guerilla forces in El Petén began to gather strength after 1980. After that, we began to form part of the revolutionary movement, all of us who live here in Nuevo Horizonte.”

That full interview can be read here on pages 8 and 9.

The Nuevo Horizonte Cooperative is located south-east of the Laguna del Tigre national park.

PBI-Guatemala has also noted, “At the end of July 2010, PBI received the petition of the communities of the Sierra del Lacandón [which is located within the Sierra del Lacandon national park) … and the [adjacent] Laguna del Tigre [national park]…”

That request was “to make visible the population and the situation of the communities in these areas and publicize their concern about militarization, government eviction announcements and aggressions on earth in the form of mega projects approved and promoted without prior information or community consultation.”

In June 2017, New York University history professor Greg Gandin commented, “The Guatemalan military and National Police drove 700 Guatemalans from the Petén community of Laguna Larga [located just south of the Laguna del Tigre national park] a majority of them women, children, and older people, out of their homes into the Mexican state of Campeche.”

“The reason the military drove them out was to execute a court ruling, which found in favor of Guatemala’s National Council of Protected Areas of Guatemala (CONAP, in Spanish) in its effort to clear the settlers out of the region’s protected nature reserve.”

“Sounds good, right—protect nature?”

But that article quotes Luis Solano, an investigative reporter, who says, “The problem for the communities in the Parque Nacional Laguna del Tigre is that they are located on land where military, economic (oil extraction, agribusiness, including biofuel production, and tourism), and extra-economic interests (including drug trafficking, ‘narco-planters,’ and ‘narco-ranchers,’) intersect. They are subject to the corrupt political structures and narco-power that dominate the region, in collusion with the main oil company, Perenco.”

While PBI-Guatemala does not accompany human rights defenders in Petén, it visits every six months to monitor the human rights situation there.

Petén is the northernmost department in Guatemala. Its capital city Flores is situated about 485 kilometres north of Guatemala City.

PBI-Canada observes the National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence Against Women

By
Brent Patterson
-

 

Peace Brigades International stands in solidarity with human rights defenders around the world who seek to end gender-based violence and femicide.

On December 6th, Peace Brigades International-Canada observes the National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence Against Women.

It was on this day 30 years ago that a man, in an explicitly anti-feminist attack, murdered fourteen women, most of whom were studying mechanical engineering, at the Université de Montréal’s École Polytechnique.

We remember their names: Geneviève Bergeron, Hélène Colgan, Nathalie Croteau, Barbara Daigneault, Anne-Marie Edward, Maud Haviernick, Maryse Laganière, Maryse Leclair, Anne-Marie Lemay, Sonia Pelletier, Michèle Richard, Annie St-Arneault, Annie Turcotte and Barbara Klucznik-Widajewicz.

We also recognize, as noted in the #CallItFemicide report published in 2018, that, “At least 10,495 women and girls have been killed by violence in Canada since 1961 when official data began to be collected.”

The Canadian Femicide Observatory for Justice and Accountability has also stated that, “In 2018, 148 women and girls were killed by violence in Canada. On average, every 2.5 days one woman or girl is killed in this country – a consistent trend for four decades.”

We also remember those who continue to be affected by gender-based violence. Status of Women Canada has noted that over half of Canadian women have been victims of at least one act of physical or sexual violence since the age of 16.

And we recognize that gender-based violence disproportionately impacts trans women and Indigenous women in Canada. Trans women are almost twice as likely as cisgender women to experience gender-based violence in their lifetime. Indigenous women are killed at six times the rate of non-Indigenous women.

Sharon McIvor, Pamela Palmater and Shelagh Day have written, “Discrimination against Indigenous women is as old as Canada. It is a marker that defines Canada as a colonial, patriarchal nation-state. …Two investigations, by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women, found that sex discrimination in the Indian Act is a root cause of the crisis of murders and disappearances, precisely because Indigenous women have been cast out of their communities and treated like marginal human beings.”

Judy Rebick has commented, “I think [what happened on December 6, 1989] was both an act of terrorism and an extreme form of the violence women face every day. The best way to remember these fourteen women is recommit ourselves, women and men, to the fight for women’s liberation and an end to violence against women.”

Peace Brigades International strives for a world free of violence. We stand in solidarity with women impacted by gender-based violence and with all who strive to end femicide, gender-based violence, discrimination, harassment, and hate.

Further reading: PBI-Guatemala meets with organizations in Petén that challenge gender-based violence; PBI-Mexico accompanies CodigoDH on the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women; PBI-Colombia accompanies ceremony on new report on violence against women; PBI supports women human rights defenders in Nepal.

PBI-Colombia remembers with Adriana Quintero the disappearance of her father

By
Brent Patterson
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On December 4, the Peace Brigades International-Colombia Project posted, “Ángel Quintero was an active member of the Association of Family Members of the Detained and Disappeared (ASFADDES) – Medellín section.”

“On October 6, 2000, after having testified in the Prosecutor’s Office regarding the forced disappearance of three of his relatives, he was also a victim of forced disappearance together with Claudia Monsalve. We have been waiting for him for 19 years.”

PBI-Colombia adds, “His daughter, Adriana Quintero, who has lived in exile for 14 years, tells us that story that marked her family changed forever, just like us.”

On Instagram, PBI-Colombia notes, “Adriana visited us in August in the framework of events organized by the Truth Commission and the People Search Unit given by Disappeared. We sit with her and remember that tragedy that marked us all and all forever.”

Adriana tells her story in this 16-minute video (in Spanish).

There is also this 2-minute video (with English subtitles) with Gloria Gómez of ASFADDES talking about the context when PBI-Colombia opened its office in Medellín in 1999. She says, “We remember PBI with a lot of affection, it is still in the heart of ASFADDES.”

PBI-Colombia has explained, “ASFADDES was the first organization in Colombia to unite family members of victims of forced disappearance, to make this crime visible and to call for a response and was one of the organizations that requested PBI’s presence in Colombia.”

“We accompanied the organisation’s national office in Bogotá and its regional offices in Barrancabermeja and Bucaramanga. In light of the situation of violence and repression facing the ASFADDES Medellín office, they also asked for PBI accompaniment.”

And they note, “PBI maintained a permanent presence in Medellín until 2011, a deeply important part of our history in the country.”

PBI-Guatemala visits Nuevo Dia blockade of the Jupilingo Bridge in opposition to megaprojects

By
Brent Patterson
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On December 4, the Peace Brigades International-Guatemala Project posted, “Yesterday we visited the peaceful assembly called by Nuevo Dia on the Jupilingo Bridge to demand the immediate interruption of the excessive felling of the Lelá Obraje forest and the implementation of megaprojects that threaten Mother Earth and human rights.”

PBI-Guatemala adds, “As a consequence, a dialogue table is held with different state institutions, where the members of Nuevo Dia present their complaints and requests.”

Emisoras Unidas Chiquimula reported Roadblock Against Mining.

That article notes, “The dissatisfied have indicated that in the vicinity of the protected ‘El Zompopero’ forest, it is intended to install a mining company, to exploit the resources of that locality. The neighbors are opposed to that happening.”

And TN 23 reported, “A group of villagers from a village block the path between the Jupilingo Bridge, El Florido, Chiquimula. The neighbors show their disagreement for different reasons, such as the state of the road, the price of electricity and lack of access to drinking water.”

That article further explained, “Villagers indicate that they will free up the passage when they have a meeting with the municipal authorities. …In declarations, the inhabitants of this village assure that the blockades could extend during several days, until obtaining an arrangement.”

It would appear that a meeting with municipal authorities was arranged and the bridge blockade was ended with that agreement.

For additional context, please see PBI-Guatemala accompanies Maya Ch’orti’ visits to state institutions to demand closure of projects lacking their consent.

PBI-Colombia accompanies FCSPP at December 4 national strike march

By
Brent Patterson
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On December 4, the Peace Brigades International-Colombia Project tweeted, “Today PBI accompanies the Foundation Committee in Solidarity with Political Prisoners (FCSPP) in the framework of guarantees for the peaceful social protest of 4D.”

4D (December 4) refers to the third national strike in Colombia in 14 days.

More than 40 unions are backing the national strikes including the Unitary Central of Workers (CUT), the General Confederation of Labour (CGT), the Confederation of Colombian Workers (CTC) and the teachers’ union FECODE.

The FCSPP was established in 1973, and several social and trade union organizations and well-known Colombians took part in creating it, to deal with a context of the widespread prosecution of social, union and student leaders, and of political opposition.

The Associated Press has reported, “Members of the [National Strike] steering committee said they want a greater say over any overhaul of the pension system and labour laws as well as a tax reform plan that the government recently presented to the congress.”

That article adds, “They have also called for more funding for public universities and are demanding a ban on fracking, a method for drilling oil which [Colombian president Ivan] Duque has said he is open to.”

Reuters now reports, “Protesters have wide-ranging demands – including that the government to do more to stop the murder of human rights activists, offer more support for former leftist rebels who demobilized under a peace deal and dissolve the ESMAD riot police, whom marchers have accused of excessive force.”

PBI-Colombia has previously posted, “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.”

Following the death of 18-year-old student Dilan Cruz, PBI-Colombia also commented, “We regret the death of the young Dilan Cruz who in the exercise of his right to social protest to claim his rights was the victim of a violent attack Violence can never be justified or used to resolve conflicts Solidarity and love for his family.”

Al Jazeera has reported, “Despite inconveniences, polls say 55 percent of Colombians support strike, though they would also like to see a return to normality.”

Peace Brigades International has accompanied the FCSPP since 1998.

Lawyers’ Rights Watch Canada supports PBI tour with Colombian human rights defenders

By
Brent Patterson
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Peace Brigades International works with Lawyers’ Rights Watch Canada (LRWC), “a committee of Canadian lawyers who promote human rights and the rule of law by providing support internationally to human rights defenders in danger.”

Their October-November newsletter notes, “LRWC supported and facilitated public events and meetings with lawyers in Toronto, Vancouver and Duncan as part of Peace Brigades Canada (PBI) tour of Canada by Colombian human rights lawyer Julia Figueroa and journalist Andrea Nocove of the women’s lawyers collective Colectivo de Abogadas Luis Carlos Perez (CCALCP), and Iván Madero of the regional human rights organization Corporación Regional para la Defensa de los Derechos Humanos (CREDHOS).”

“In Toronto, delegates met with Ontario lawyers.”

“On 6 November there was a well-attended public forum at Simon Fraser University’s Morris J. Wosk Centre for Dialogue, featuring talks by the three Colombians about the deteriorating human rights situation in Colombia and the lack of adequate protection for human rights defenders. This event was co-sponsored by the SFU Institute for the Humanities, LRWC, Mining Watch Canada, Amnesty International and PBI.”

“On 7 November delegates met in Vancouver a group of interested lawyers to discuss critical human and environmental rights issues in Colombia and possible roles for Canadian lawyers—to advocate for defenders in danger and to take cases to Canadian courts.”

And it notes, “On Nov 9 delegates met in Duncan with the Hul’qumi’num Treaty Group (HTG) to discuss indigenous land rights and the HTG’s petition before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.”

For more on Lawyers’ Rights Watch Canada, please visit their website.

PBI-Guatemala meets with organizations in Petén that challenge gender-based violence

By
Brent Patterson
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On December 4, the Peace Brigades International-Guatemala Project posted on its Facebook page, “Yesterday we met with the representatives of Women of Petén Ixqik, the administering organization CAIMUS in Petén. We are concerned about the situation of violence against women, as well as the security situation of the members of the organizations that serve victims and survivors of gender-based violence.”

This past September, IM-Defensoras reported, “On Tuesday, August 27, members of the Petén Ixqik Women’s Association arrived at the facilities of the Integral Support Center for Women Survivors of Violence (CAIMUS) in Petén and found the doors of the offices open, with indications of having occurred a raid of them. The Association filed a criminal complaint with the Public Ministry.”

That post adds, “This incident is extremely worrying, as women survivors of violence and relatives of victims of femicide come to CAIMUS to ask for support, finding in their interior sensitive documentation that compromises the safety of both these women and the members of the association.”

CNN has reported, “A 2012 Small Arms Survey says gender-based violence is at epidemic levels in Guatemala and the country ranks third in the killings of women worldwide. According to the United Nations, two women are killed there every day.”

“Military and paramilitary groups that committed barbaric acts during the war were integrated back into society without any repercussions. Many remain in power, and they have not changed the way they view women.”

“In many cases, femicide — the killing of a woman simply because of her gender — is carried out with shocking brutality with some of the same strategies used during the war, including rape, torture and mutilation.”

That CNN article also notes, “According to María Machicado Terán, the representative of U.N. women in Guatemala, ‘80% of men believe that women need permission to leave the house, and 70% of women surveyed agreed.’ This prevailing culture of machismo and an institutionalized acceptance of brutality against women leads to high rates of violence.”

PBI-United Kingdom has noted, “Although we do not accompany in this department, every six months PBI-Guatemala undertakes a visit as a way of following up on the human rights situation.”

It adds, “PBI-Guatemala holds meetings with different social actors, to advocate around various problematic issues: protected areas (evictions, agrarian conflicts illegal detentions, restricted freedom of movement); militarization; women’s rights; megaprojects (tourist and investment projects, hydroelectric dams, etc.); and palm oil.”

Petén is the northernmost department in Guatemala. Its capital city Flores is situated about 485 kilometres north of Guatemala City.

Colombian energy minister says fracking protocols will be ready by June 2020

By
Brent Patterson
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On December 3, the Colombian Minister of Energy announced at the Colombian Energy Summit in Bogota that the protocols for fracking would be ready by June 2020.

Caracol Radio reports, “Within the framework of the event, she revealed that before the end of the first half of 2020, the protocol for the execution of the fracking pilot tests will be ready. For his part, the president of Ecopetrol Felipe Bayón said that once the corresponding studies are available, the first drilling will be carried out at the end of 2020.”

El Tiempo further reports, “After analyzing the recommendations of the Commission of Experts for fracking, the Minister of Mines and Energy, María Fernanda Suárez, revealed that in the first half of 2020 it is planned to leave defined the technical protocols for the drilling of wells pilot projects of integral research using the technique of fracking, a key step for knowledge and learning of how the country should move forward on this front, based on the decisions of the State Council.”

That article adds, “According to Felipe Bayón, president of Ecopetrol, once these guidelines are defined, Ecopetrol is expected to drill this type of exploration well in the second half of 2020, for which it is already making progress on the different baselines.”

RCN Radio notes, “According to the minister, these protocols include all the information requested by the commission of experts and the purpose is to ensure that the pilot projects leave as much information as possible to make a documented decision on whether or not it is possible to develop fracking in the country.”

And Dinero explains, “The protocols include all the information requested by the commission of experts in its report delivered last year. The objective is to ensure that these pilot projects leave as much information as possible, to make a documented decision on whether it is possible to develop hydrocarbon extraction by unconventional techniques.”

This announcement about protocols comes on the eve of the third national strike in 14 days to be held on Wednesday December 4.

The Associated Press has reported, “Members of the [National Strike] steering committee said they want a greater say over any overhaul of the pension system and labour laws as well as a tax reform plan that the government recently presented to the congress. They have also called for more funding for public universities and are demanding a ban on fracking, a method for drilling oil which [Colombian president Ivan] Duque has said he is open to.”

Colombia Reports has highlighted that “more than 90% of Colombians are against fracking in Colombia, according to a poll taken [on February 18].” The Union of Workers of the Petroleum Industry (USO) has now also voted against fracking. And The Bogota Post has reported, “It is Colombia’s campesinos, who have already borne the brunt of a long conflict, who are likely to be hit hardest [by climate change].”

This past November, Peace Brigades International supported a cross-country speaking tour in Canada featuring human rights defenders Julia Figueroa and Andrea Nocove from CCALCP and Ivan Madero from CREDHOS.

They expressed their opposition to fracking, the fact that it worsens climate change, their concerns that it will further put at risk communities and land defenders in Colombia, and noted that Canadian companies are likely to be involved in fracking.

Photo via the Embassy of Panama in Colombia website.

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