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PBI-Guatemala accompanies Maya Ch’orti’ visits to state institutions to demand closure of projects lacking their consent

By
Brent Patterson
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On December 3, the Peace Brigades International-Guatemala Project posted, “Today PBI accompanied Nuevo Día to different state institutions in Chiquimula, San Juan Ermita, Camotán and Jocotán where they requested the absolute closure of projects that have been installed illegally and without the consent of the communities.”

These photos from the Nuevo Dia Facebook page show the 5-page document delivered to the state institutions.

A Nuevo Dia post notes: “Electro Ruta, Trecsa, Corredor Interoceanico, the exploitation of illegal mining, as well as an unknown company dedicated to the felling of the communal forest of Lela Obraje Pajcó, Tapuán, and the volcano of the municipality of Camotán.”

Electoruta refers to “an electric power transmission project” and Tresca is an electrical company that provides energy to mining projects (concerns have been cited over deforestation and exploitation of water resources).

With respect to the felling of forests, The Guardian has reported, “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.”

That article also notes, “In the peasant farming communities around Camotán, water storage is scarce, and the Maya Ch’orti’ people who live here mostly rely on rainfall to irrigate their crops. Most houses have no toilets, and low water reserves mean most families drink and cook with contaminated stream water.”

The Nuevo Dia website notes, “We combine efforts to defend the territory still occupied by Ch’orti’ families. We are also known for articulating the proposal for the rural economic recovery in the eastern part of Guatemala.”

It adds, “We develop actions that allow the autonomy required for the Good Living of the Ch’orti’ People and their territorial co-inhabitants.”

PBI-Guatemala Project has accompanied Nuevo Dia since 2009.

Colombian human rights defender Yanette Bautista on being accompanied by PBI “green vests”

By
Brent Patterson
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Yanette Bautista has been fighting against forced disappearances in Colombia since the disappearance of her 32-year-old sister Nydia Erika on August 30, 1987.

Nydia Erika’s body was exhumed on July 26, 1990. A sworn statement made to the Public Ministry’s Special Investigations Office by a former military intelligence agent named members of the Battalion of Intelligence and Counterintelligence (BINCI) of the Colombian National Army as responsible for the crime.

In 1999, Yanette, while in exile for her own safety, founded the Nydia Erika Bautista Foundation (FNEB) which is dedicated to the fight against forced disappearances. The United Victims Registry (RUV), the government body in charge of registering war victims, has registered 150,000 forced disappearances between 1986 and 2017.

The organization has suffered numerous attacks and threats due to its work searching for truth and justice and an end to this crime.

Peace Brigades International has accompanied FNEB occasionally from 2007 and signed a full accompaniment agreement with them in 2016.

Yanette says, “We felt very important, when we began to arrive at meetings with authorities alongside PBI, with their green vests, the authorities started to look at us differently.”

To support our accompaniment of human rights defenders like Yanette, please consider making a donation by clicking here.

PBI accompaniment in relation to the Positive Peace Report and the Global Peace Index

By
Brent Patterson
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The global network Rotary highlights on its Promoting Peace webpage that, “Rotary has partnered with the Institute for Economics and Peace, an independent think tank and leader in the study of peace and conflict, to help address the root causes of conflict and create conditions that foster peace.”

Rotary adds, “The institute has identified eight factors that lead to Positive Peace: 1) Low levels of corruption; 2) Acceptance of rights of others; 3) Free flow of information; 4) Strong business environment; 5) High levels of human capital; 6) Equitable distribution of resources; 7) Good relations with neighbors; and 8) Well-functioning government.

In the Positive Peace Report 2019 produced by the Institute for Economics and Peace, Canada ranked 10th with a score of 1.41.

The countries where Peace Brigades International (PBI) accompanies at-risk human rights defenders ranked 67th (Mexico with a score of 3.00), 80th (Colombia, 3.10), 103rd (Honduras, 3.39), 110th (Guatemala, 3.49), and 119th (Kenya, 3.60).

The Institute for Economics and Peace also produces a Global Peace Index.

That report uses 23 indicators to measure a country’s peacefulness score including number of deaths from internal organised conflict; number of refugees and displaced persons as percentage of population; number of internal security officers and police per 100,000 people; and military expenditure as a percentage of Gross Domestic Product.

In their Global Peace Index 2019, Canada ranked as the 6th most peaceful country in the world with a score of 1.327.

The countries where PBI accompanies at-risk human rights defenders ranked 114th (Guatemala with a score of 2.264), 119th (Kenya, 2.300), 123rd (Honduras, 2.341), 140th (Mexico, 2.600), and 143rd (Colombia, 2.661).

Rotary has highlighted, “Despite high crime rates in recent years, Mexico’s potential for peace is one of the highest in the world. During the 2019 pilot workshop in Mexico, Rotary and Rotaract members will work with emerging leaders and experts in the country to build regional coalitions that support Positive Peace and Rotary’s efforts for peacebuilding in the country.”

It has also noted, “Signing the Colombian peace agreement put an end to one of the world’s longest armed conflicts and marked the beginning of a process to build lasting and sustainable peace. Through the workshop, Rotary and Rotaract members will help shape this process by leveraging its networks and engaging key stakeholders to identify ways to build Positive Peace at the local level.”

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 protective accompaniment to organizations and communities, PBI seeks to reduce violence and open up political space for social change.

In this Rotary article about Rotary Club of Lethbridge East member Brandon McNally, it notes, “Brandon worked for Peace Brigades International (PBI) in Kenya as a field officer. PBI provides security mechanisms for human rights defenders at risk. Brandon assisted in providing security assessments, accompaniments, advocacy, as well as recommending and fulfilling non-violent protection measures.”

PBI-Canada is a charitable organization that raises the profile of human rights concerns through speaking tours and a weekly e-newsletter and that seeks out volunteers in Canada to accompany human rights defenders in the field.

PBI-Honduras to hear the testimony of LGBTQI+ defenders, Dec. 6

By
Brent Patterson
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The Peace Brigades International-Honduras Project has posted on its Facebook page, “This Friday, December 6, we will be at Casa Quinchon listening to the testimony of defenders of the rights of the LGTBIQ+ community. It will include the presentation of the report ‘Voices and Stories of Diversity in Honduras’ prepared together with Peace Brigades International (UK). We are waiting for you!”

The struggle for LGBTQI+ rights in Honduras is a critical one. Between 2009 and mid-2018, 296 members of the community were murdered.

And there is a high level of impunity. Of the 141 violent deaths reported between 2010 and 2014, less than one-quarter (30) of the cases have been prosecuted in the courts.

PBI-Honduras has accompanied the advocacy group Asociación LGTB Arcoiris de Honduras (LGTB Rainbow Association of Honduras) since July 2015. The organization faces violence, intimidation, harassment and physical attacks.

Arcoíris coordinator Donny Reyes has stated, “The biggest problem that we face is the violence of the state security forces towards the LGBT+ community: the armed forces, the police, the criminal investigation police, military police, municipal police.”

The violence also drives migration. In November 2018, Telesur reported that a group of at least 40 Honduran LGBT youth were travelling as part of a migrant caravan to the United States. They were making the arduous and dangerous journey to escape the discrimination, violence and poverty in their home country.

Most recently, Arcoíris has launched a court challenge. The Honduran Constitution bans same-sex marriage and refuses to recognize them even if they have been legally sanctioned in other countries, including in Canada where it has been legal since July 2005.

In July 2018, Reyes and Alex Soto of the Centre for LGBTI Development and Cooperation (Somos CDC) filed a constitutional challenge on marriage equality and adoption. That petition is pending before the Supreme Court of Honduras.

On November 19, 40 human rights lawyers from across Latin America (including Honduras) launched the Red Litigio LGBT (the LGBT Litigation Network).

The South Florida Gay News reports, “This group of legal experts has an ambitious agenda.  They have identified the following goals for the member countries: ensuring that LGBT relationships are decriminalized, allowing for public displays of affection among same-sex couples, full marriage and adoption rights, gender identity protection laws and combatting impunity in homicide cases.”

For more, please read Peace Brigades International and the human right to sexual orientation and gender identity.

PBI-Honduras observes the sentencing of the seven men found guilty of killing Berta Cáceres

By
Brent Patterson
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On December 2, the Peace Brigades International-Honduras Project posted, “Today we observed the reading of the sentence of the seven defendants in the case of Berta Cáceres. The court sentenced between 30 and 50 years for the murder of the indigenous leader and for the attempted murder of Mexican defender Gustavo Castro in 2016. According to COPINH Intibucá, ‘this road is not over here, there is a great debt to true justice’, and demands a trial against the intellectual authors behind the crime.”

The Guardian reports, “The four paid hitmen – Elvin Rapalo, Edilson Duarte Meza, Óscar Torres, and Henry Javier Hernández – were each given 34 years for the murder. They were also sentenced to 16 years and four months for the attempted murder of Gustavo Castro, a Mexican environmentalist who was shot in the same attack but survived by playing dead.”

That article adds, “Sergio Ramón Rodríguez, the communities and environment manager for Desa, and Douglas Geovanny Bustillo, a former Desa security chief and ex-US trained army lieutenant, were given 30 years and six months for their participation in the murder. Mariano Díaz Chávez, a US-trained special forces major who served with Bustillo, was found guilty by omission and given 30 years.”

Bertita Zúñiga, Cáceres’ second-eldest daughter, says, “From the outset, the path to justice has been painful, as our rights as victims have not been respected. These sentences are a start in breaking the impunity, but we’re going to make every effort to ensure that all those responsible – the company executives and state officials identified in the trial – are prosecuted.”

In terms of the intellectual authors of the crime, she has commented, “There is only one case open – which has also been extremely delayed – and that is of David Castillo, the president of the company. However, for us, David Castillo is a minor and in fact, the weakest representative of the powerful people that took the decision and economically lent support to this crime.”

Zúñiga adds, “That is why one of our petitions and demands is the arrest of the maximum responsible people, and there is already evidence which links some and with others, some type of participation with names and the role they played within the criminal structure has already been publicly determined.”

PBI-Honduras began accompanying COPINH in May 2016.

Canadian Ambassador Marcel Lebleu visits the office of dh Colombia

By
Brent Patterson
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On December 2, the Peace Brigades International-Colombia Project posted, “Today, the Canadian Ambassador, Marcel Lebleu, visited the office of the Association Network of Human Rights Defenders of Colombia (DH Colombia) and met with some of its members.”

“[The ambassador visited] in order to learn about the work they are doing in the search for justice and truth of many victims of the armed conflict and victims of human rights violations, as in the case of the journalist Claudia Julieta Duque. Due to this work in defense of human rights, they have received and continue to receive numerous threats, harassment, accusations.”

PBI-Colombia highlights, “We thank the Canadian Embassy in Colombia for their support of human rights organizations and defenders in Colombia.”

As noted on the dh Colombia Facebook page, its mission is to “defend the rights of victims of serious human rights violations based on a strategic litigation methodology.”

Germán Romero Sánchez (second from the right in the photo) of dh Colombia met with the ambassador. You can read more about him in this PBI-Canada article: Colombian human rights lawyer Germán Romero Sánchez receives death threat.

You can also read more about the work of dh Colombia and lawyer Jorge Molano in this PBI-Colombia overview. PBI-Colombia has accompanied Molano since 2009.

Following the visit by the Canadian ambassador, dh Colombia posted, “Thanks to PBI for all its support and solidarity with the cause of the defense of human rights in Colombia.”

PBI-Guatemala visits environmentally-threatened department of Petén

By
Brent Patterson
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On December 2, the Peace Brigades International-Guatemala Project posted, “During our observation trip to Petén we visited different organizations, including ACDIP (the Association of Peasant and Indigenous Communities for the Integral Development of Petén), the Petenero Front, the Ixmucáne Women’s Association, and La Otra Cooperative.”

PBI-Guatemala adds, “They shared their concern about the situation of human rights defenders and the pollution of the environment in the region.”

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

Bi-annual visit

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.”

Deforestation, land grabs

Al Jazeera has reported, “Guatemala’s northern Peten region is home to the largest tropical forest north of the Amazon.” Anywhere.com adds, “The northern third of Petén is protected under the Maya Biosphere Reserve. Even so, the pressures continue to rise to develop this reserve, and illegal logging and land grabs still occur.”

Oil extraction

The Hachette Book Group has noted, “Petroleum extraction continues in the northern Petén lowlands … although ecological organizations have long denounced its negative effects upon the environment.”

“In 2005, the Guatemalan government opened new concessions in an area along the Petén-Alta Verapaz border said to harbor an estimated 200 million barrels of oil.”

Palm oil industrial waste

In 2015, The Tico Times reported, “The United Nations office in Guatemala said that [the La Pasión river in the Petén department] had been contaminated with pesticides used to produce African palm oil, affecting thousands of people.”

“According to the team’s data, for every ton of palm oil produced, between 2.5 tons and 3.75 tons of toxic industrial waste are generated.”

Further information

In June 2017,  New York University history professor Greg Grandin wrote, “Peace Brigades International, which has been doing heroic work in Guatemala for decades, has produced a number of reports that provide background on the conflict, including the long history of migration to this area (some of the settlers had been external and internal refugees from the military’s scorched-earth campaign in the 1980s; others have been displaced from elsewhere by the expansion of biofuels, livestock, or drug trafficking).”

His article in The Nation highlights, “Two of the Peace Brigades International reports can be found here and here. Ongoing reports by PBI are periodically released, and would be a good source for readers to keep track of events.”

PBI-Colombia notes UN’s call for comprehensive protection for Indigenous Nasa community

By
Brent Patterson
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On October 29, Governor Cristina Bautista Taquinas, the leader of the semi-autonomous Indigenous reservation of Nasa Tacueyó, and four unarmed Indigenous Guards – Asdrubal Cayapu, Heliodoro Finscue, José Gerardo Soto and James Wilfredo Soto – were killed in an attack by illegal armed groups.

Five other members of the Indigenous Nasa community were injured in the attack, which took place in the village of La Luz in the Tacueyó reservation in the department of Cauca.

The Peace Brigades International-Colombia Project tweeted this article from El Espectador that highlighted, “The UN demanded from the Government of Colombia a comprehensive plan for the protection of the natives of the Nasa community [and] said that the solution to the violence they suffer is not simply to increase the military presence.”

Al Jazeera reported, “Bautista was an internationally recognised leader, who had represented indigenous women at the UN.” The UN adds, “Special Rapporteur Victoria Tauli-Corpuz had met Cristina Bautista Taquinas personally in the context of her work to defend the rights of indigenous peoples.”

Cultural Survival also notes, “Cristina was a traditional leader, social worker, land defender and Indigenous rights activist who was a 2017 Indigenous Fellow of the Office of the High Commission for Human Rights in Geneva, Switzerland.”

And Intercontinental Cry notes, “Indigenous guards are elected by their communities and mandated to protect Indigenous lives and territory without the use of arms.”

That article adds, “Throughout both the civil war and the undeclared battle for territory and resources that has followed it–and carrying only the staffs that serve as their mandate of office–Indigenous Guards have been killed by non-state armed groups of the left and the right, by the forces of the state, and by mafias unaligned to political ideologies.”

Mark Hancock, the president of the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE), was in Colombia when the attack against Bautista and the Indigenous Guards happened.

He writes, “The next day we travelled to Tacueyo, the community where the slaughter had happened less than 24 hours before, and we witnessed hundreds of members from the surrounding communities come together.”

“They came to grieve, but they also organized. More than 600 hundred people, in the midst of such a tragic loss, broke into discussion groups. They talked about the choices in front of them and how to move forward. What I witnessed that day was incredible courage, in the face of a tragedy, I still can’t quite comprehend.”

Justice for Colombia reports, “According to Colombia’s largest national indigenous organisation, ONIC [the National Indigenous Organization of Colombia], 121 indigenous guards and activists have been murdered since President Iván Duque took office in August 2018.”

WOLA has commented, “The massacre perpetrated in Cauca is a direct consequence of the Duque administration’s failure to fully implement the 2016 Colombian peace agreement in an integral manner. In particular, it reflects his neglect of the Ethnic Chapter in the accords, which transversally safeguards the rights of indigenous and Afro-Colombian communities and enshrines autonomous self-protection measures for communities like the indigenous guard.”

The National Indigenous Organization of Colombia says, “The non-compliance with the agreements is leading to an increase in the cultivation of marijuana and coca throughout the national territory, especially in the northern part of the Cauca province.”

It adds, “Faced with this situation, indigenous authorities and guards in their exercise of control of their territories and autonomy framed in the Laws of Origin, the National Constitution and international treaties and conventions have been persecuted, threatened, assassinated and massacred.”

PBI-Guatemala accompanies CCDA Verapaz on visit to communities of Xyaal Kobee and Xa Jobche

By
Brent Patterson
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On November 30, the Peace Brigades International-Guatemala Projected posted, “The day before yesterday we accompanied CCDA Verapaz to visit the communities of Xyaal Kobee and Xa Jobche in the municipality of Cobán.”

PBI-Guatemala began accompanying the Campesino Committee of the Highlands (CCDA), a campesino organization that accompanies and advises mostly Indigenous communities on land rights issues, in July 2018.

About 40 per cent of the population of Guatemala is indigenous.

Indigenous and peasant farmers were dispossessed of their land in the 18th century through colonization that drove Indigenous and peasant farmers to the less fertile highlands.

Land distribution in Guatemala continues to be deeply unequal with the largest 2.5 per cent of farms currently occupying more than 65 per cent of the land while 90 per cent of the farms are on only one-sixth of the agricultural land in the country.

There are now an estimated 1,000 land conflicts happening in Guatemala.

These land conflicts are related to concessions given to foreign companies for mining, sugar cane and palm oil farms, and hydroelectric dams, all of which deepen dispossession, exclusion and poverty among the indigenous peoples of Guatemala.

The World Food Programme has noted, “Guatemala is among the 10 countries that are most vulnerable to natural disasters and the effects of climate change. Over the past three years, extended dry seasons have had a severe impact on the livelihoods of subsistence farmers, who rely on rain-fed agriculture, especially in the Dry Corridor.”

PBI first operated a project in Guatemala from 1983-1999, which closed following the Peace Accords. Unfortunately, the human rights situation soon began again to deteriorate, and local organisations asked PBI to return. The current project opened in 2003.

Colombian petroleum workers union votes against fracking

By
Brent Patterson
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The Union of Workers of the Petroleum Industry (Unión Sindical Obrera de la Industria del Petróleo or USO) rejects fracking.

On November 28, Colombia Informa tweeted (and USO retweeted), “Tonight, in #Bucaramanga, overwhelming majority of the National Assembly of the Workers Union @usofrenteobrero voted against fracking.”

The USO’s Twitter page notes that it has “96 years of existence defending public assets, the unity of the working class and labour rights.”

USO’s opposition to fracking has been longstanding. In April 2016, USO also took part in a mobilization in San Martín against fracking.

Now La Republica reports, “ConocoPhillips Colombia plans to invest up to US $100 million in two pilots in Cesar.” That includes the 33,000 hectare VMM-3 block near San Martin in the Middle Magdalena Valley.

ConocoPhillips has previously partnered with CNE Oil and Gas, a subsidiary of Calgary-based Canacol Energy Ltd., to frack the VMM-3 and VMM-2 blocks.

Reuters has reported, “[The] two shale pilot projects were shelved by licensing authority ANLA after operators US independent ConocoPhillips (80pc stake) and Canada’s Canacol (20pc stake) failed to meet minimum environmental requirements.”

Those two “shelved” projects now look like they could move forward.

Peace Brigades International recently brought Bucaramanga-based human rights defenders Julia Figueroa and Andrea Nocove (CCALCP) and Barrancabermeja-based Ivan Madero (CREDHOS) to Canada to enable them to meet with government officials, lawyers, civil society allies, Members of Parliament, and the public to share their concerns about fracking (which is set to start in Colombia in 2020).

The USO, along with the Unitary Central of Workers of Colombia (CUT), the Confederation of Workers of Colombia (CTC), the General Confederation of Labor (CGT) and the Colombian Federation of Education Workers (FECODE) are key leaders in the ongoing national strike protests that began on November 21.

On that first national strike day, Peace Brigades International accompanied David Ravelo (a founding member of CREDHOS), the Committee in Solidarity with the Political Prisoners (CSPP) and the José Alvear Restrepo Lawyers’ Collective Corporation (CCAJAR) as they took part in the mass mobilizations.

Various news reports have now highlighted that a third national strike day has been called for Wednesday December 4.

The work of Peace Brigades International is supported by Unifor Canada. In November 2013, the National Executive Board of Unifor issued this statement supporting a Canada-wide moratorium on unconventional fracking activity.

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