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PBI-Mexico meets with the State Security Commissioner of Chihuahua

By
Brent Patterson
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The PBI-Mexico Project has met with the State Security Commissioner of Chihuahua to express concern about the risks faced by human rights defenders in the state of Chihuahua, especially in Ciudad Juárez and in the Sierra Tarahumara.

On June 26, the International Day in Support of the Victims of Torture, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) encouraged Mexican authorities to elaborate and implement a national strategy to combat torture.

The OHCHR described the situation as “a chronic and generalized problem”.

PBI-Mexico has accompanied the Paso del Norte Human Rights Centre (Centro de Derechos Humanos Paso del Norte) in Chihuahua since 2013.

The Centre verifies and documents human rights violations by security forces there.

PBI-Mexico has noted on its website, “The Centre’s main areas of work are a comprehensive defence of rights and the accompaniment of victims of human rights violations, with a focus on cases of torture and enforced disappearances.”

On June 6, El Mexicano reported (in Spanish), “From 2011 to May 2019, the Centro de Derechos Humanos Paso del Norte, A.C. has documented nearly 200 cases of torture that occurred in the different police corporations in Ciudad Juarez.”

That article continues, “Organizations such as the Peace Brigades International-Mexico Project showed their support for human rights advocates in their fight to combat torture in Juarez.”

The security situation is also serious for Indigenous land and water defenders in the Sierra Tarahumara region of Chihuahua.

In October 2018, Julián Carrillo Martínes, an Indigenous Rarámuri land and water defender, was killed in that region. He was an outspoken defender of Indigenous rights, an opponent of deforestation, and concerned about the impacts of mining.

In January 2017, two other Rarámuri land defenders, Isidro Baldenegro Lóperz and Juan Ontiveros Ramos, were killed in Chihuahua. Lóperz was dedicated to stopping illegal logging, while Ramos was defending his ancestral territory of Choréachi from illegal logging and illegal land grabbing for illicit crop harvesting.

In a June 2018 letter to the editor published in The Guardian, Peace Brigades International (United Kingdom) stated, “Peace Brigades International (PBI) has provided protection to at-risk human rights defenders in the country since 2000, an experience that has shown us that in the federal states where a security strategy based on militarization has been implemented, attacks against activists have increased significantly.”

The Peace Brigades International-Mexico Project supports the call for the Mexican government to implement a comprehensive policy to improve the security situation for land and water, human rights, and Indigenous rights defenders so that they can carry out their work without risk of threats, harassment or death.

#PBIAbreEspacios #PBIMakingSpace

PBI-Guatemala accompanies the Chinautla Multisector Urban Platform’s struggle for the right to water

By
Brent Patterson
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The PBI – Guatemala Project accompanies the Chinautla Multisector Urban Platform (la Plataforma Urbana Multisectorial Chinautla) that advocates for the human right to water to be respected and that raises concerns about the resource (sand) extraction that endangers homes and a massive garbage dump that pollutes water.

On June 10, PBI-Guatemala posted on Facebook, “Due to the lack of access and pollution of the basins, [the Urban Platform] has requested the Human Rights Ombudsman, the Mayor of Santa Cruz Chinaulta, and other competent authorities to carry out the appropriate actions to guarantee the right to water in the short, medium and long term.”

PBI-Guatemala has previously posted on its website, “Since 1989, the Chinautla Multisector Urban Platform has defended its right to be consulted on the projects of several sand companies operating in its territory (Arenera La Primavera, Arenera El Pino, San Luis Piedrinera and San Fernando Arenera).”

That web-page adds, “The region has been a sand area for decades, but it was in 1995 when large-scale sand extraction began with heavy machinery” with major consequences.

In May 2018, the Guatemalan newspaper Prensa Libre reported that the extraction of sand from the channel of the Chinautla River and the confluence of the Tzaljá and Las Vacas tributaries, in an area where there are already geological faults, accelerates the cracking of walls and the sinking of some homes in the community.

That newspaper notes that there are three sandpits in the area. Those operations were authorized for 25 years by the Ministry of Energy and Mines and then-Mayor Arnoldo Medrano.

That May 2018 article also highlighted that those licences could expire in about three years (likely meaning around 2020-21).

Chinautla Multisector Urban Platform member Martín Catalán stated that in 2016 that the group had called for the extraction of the sand to be moderated to stop the erosion of the soil, but that their proposals were not taken into account by local authorities.

Catalán says, “This area is dying and the authorities have been indifferent to the problem.”

Prensa Libre has also noted that the residents of Santa Cruz Chinautla are additionally impacted because during rainy season the floods from three rivers drag trash from Guatemala City into their community.

PBI-Guatemala has explained this as, “This population is also affected by the pollution of the river, which comes from the dump in zone 3 of the Capital City, a problem that increases during the rainy season.”

The Urban Platform has stated, “There is no will to administer and distribute to guarantee the human right to water” and that the cause of this is the “corruption of authorities”.

Their proposal is to “Create a water law and government and municipal agreements that guarantee community and indigenous peoples’ participation to guarantee equal rights to water” within a two year period.

This demand has a constitutional context.

In August 2017, Oxford Human Rights Hub explained, “Guatemala’s constitution has several provisions that provide for or implicate the right to clean and safe water. Despite this, Guatemala remains the only country in Central America, along with El Salvador, not to have proper legislation that protects the right to water access and that regulates its use.”

That article adds, “In April 2016 there was nationwide mobilization by rural and indigenous communities to demand a stop to the theft and contamination of water. This led to a proposal for a new law (5070) which seeks to give the greatest possible power to communities to manage their water resources and to enforce the right of communities to be consulted on any agribusiness or mining project in their area.”

Furthermore, the degradation of the Chinautla river basin has also been characterized as an “eco-ethnocide” against the Poqomam Maya People of Guatemala.

The PBI – Guatemala Project has accompanied la Plataforma Urbana Multisectorial Chinautla since December 2018.

PBI-Honduras accompanies the Association of Defenders of Common Goods in Quimistán

By
Brent Patterson
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The PBI – Honduras Project accompanies the Association of Defenders of Common Goods in Quimistán (Asodebicoq).

It is an association that defends the environment and common property in the municipality of Quimistán in the department (province) of Santa Bárbara, near the border with Guatemala.

PBI-Honduras highlights that, “Among other activities, ASODEBICOQ provides information workshops on human rights and environmental rights to the inhabitants of this remote area.”

ASODEBICOQ is opposed to the construction of the Santa Lucia I and Santa Lucia II dams on the Cuyamel River by Hidroeléctrica Cuyagual S.A.

It has called on the Government of Honduras to stop construction on the Santa Lucia dams because the project violates the Indigenous and Tribal Peoples Convention, 1989, an International Labour Organization Convention, also known as ILO-convention 169.

PBI-Honduras has accompanied ASODEBICOQ since May 2018.

PBI-Guatemala accompanies the Human Rights Law Firm to a hearing for the Indigenous human rights defender Samuel Choc

By
Brent Patterson
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On June 13, the PBI – Guatemala Project accompanied the Human Rights Law Firm (Bufete de Derechos Humanos – BDH) at a hearing for the Indigenous human rights defender Samuel Choc.

Choc was arrested in March 2018 and charged with “usurpación agravada” (aggravated usurpation).

UNSR Victoria Tauli-Corpuz, the United Nations special rapporteur on the rights of indigenous peoples, has stated in a report to the UN Human Rights Council that the “crime of aggravated usurpation is commonly brought against indigenous land rights defenders.”

She highlights, “Disregard of indigenous rights of traditional lands ownership breeds tensions, subsequent violence and criminalization, as indigenous peoples become trespassers or illegal occupants of their own lands, subject to criminal charges such as ‘usurpation’ or illegal occupation, and liable to forced evictions and removal from the lands they rely upon for their livelihoods, social and cultural cohesion and spiritual traditions.”

PBI-Guatemala has previously posted, “Indigenous leaders and leaders continue to be criminalized in [the department/province of] Alta Verapaz. We reaffirm that defending rights is not a crime.”

Yesterday they noted, “The BDH and PBI-Guatemala Project will continue to monitor the legal situation of Samuel and the other defenders who are criminalized.”

The UN Special Rapporteur’s report (dated August 2018) where she comments on how states use the charge of usurpation against Indigenous peoples can be found here.

PBI-Honduras accompanies the Broad Movement (Movimiento Amplio) to a court hearing

By
Brent Patterson
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On June 10, the PBI – Honduras Project accompanied the Broad Movement (Movimiento Amplio) and observed the judicial process against nine members of the San Francisco Locomapa tribe who live in Yoro department, Honduras.

The Broad Movement has previously explained, “Nine Tolupanes indigenous comrades are accused by the INMARE company and the Public Ministry for allegedly obstructing a management plan that has served to loot [extract wood from] the tribe’s forest.”

The Broad Movement further notes, “[The nine] face a judicial process because of the denunciation of a businessman who for years and years has plundered the common goods of the tribe leaving them only poverty, confrontation and pain.”

It adds, “His main accomplices have been the institutions of the state that have deaf ears, blind eyes and mouth closed to leave in impunity all the outrage against the Tolupán people.”

In terms of further context, the Organization of American States (OAS) has noted, “In Honduras, the IACHR [the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and the UN Human Rights condemned the murder of Salomón Matute and his son Juan Samael Matute in February 2019.”

The OAS explains both were Tolupanes indigenous members of the San Francisco Locomapa tribe and the Broad Movement for Dignity and Justice in the department of Yoro.

And the OAS highlights, “Solomon Matute was a beneficiary of precautionary measures granted by the IACHR since 2013, due to threats, harassment and acts of violence in the framework of his work as an environmental and indigenous peoples defender.”

The Broad Movement says that “defending the forest and the ancestral territory is not a crime.”

It also notes in its Facebook post on June 10 that, “PBI – Honduras Project, made up of people from different parts of the world, are part of the delegations that participate as observers in this unfair [judicial] process against indigenous people.”

Photo by Movimiento Amplio Por la Dignidad y la Justicia.

PBI-Honduras accompanies National Union of Rural Workers on an environmental march

By
Brent Patterson
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On June 5, the PBI – Honduras Project accompanied the CNTC (the National Union of Rural Workers) on a march in La Paz to mark the international day of the environment.

PBI-Honduras notes, “Approximately 500 people from different organizations and backgrounds gathered at this peaceful demonstration for the protection of the land and the environment.”

The CNTC, which was founded in 1985, is a small-scale farming and trade union organization that fights for the distribution of land. It is affiliated to the Unitary Confederation of Honduran Workers (CUTH) and is part of La Vía Campesina – Honduras.

On May 27, PBI-Honduras observed the forum where the “cultivate without risk” campaign was launched.

The CNTC participated in that meeting.

The newspaper La Tribuna has reported (in Spanish), “Currently the situation in agriculture is dramatic, because there is food insecurity, there is no good winter, there is repression, there is climate change and hunger, among other difficulties.”

Last month, PBI-Honduras also accompanied the CNTC to observe the court appearance of five of its members accused of illegally occupying their land. For lack of evidence, all received a definitive dismal of the charges.

The Council on Hemispheric Affairs has noted, “Since the coup [in 2009], peasants have suffered from increased repression, with death squads threatening and assassinating hundreds of campesinos while palm oil and hydroelectric companies accumulate land by dispossession.”

The environmental and human rights organization Global Witness has stated, “Nowhere on earth are you more likely to be killed for protesting the theft of land and destruction of the natural world than Honduras.”

PBI-Honduras has been accompanying the CNTC since May 2018.

PBI-Guatemala accompanies the Human Rights Law Firm to film screening

By
Brent Patterson
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On June 23, the PBI – Guatemala Project accompanied the Human Rights Law Firm (Bufete Jurídico de Derechos Humanos – BDH) to a screening of the film ‘Water, the blood of Mother Earth’.

The documentary tells the history of the resistance to hydroelectric dams in the defence of the Cahabón River and the Ox-eek River as well as the criminalization of Mayan Q’eqchi’ community leader Bernardo Caal Xol, an opponent of those dams.

The presentation was organized by the Mother Jungle Collective (Colectivo Madre Selva) and the Council of Ancestral Authorities of the Q’eqchi’ people of Cahabón (el Consejo de Autoridades Ancestrales del pueblo Q’eqchi’ de Cahabón).

In August 2017, Indigenous communities voted against the construction of the Oxec I and II hydroelectric dams on the Cahabón River in a community-organized consultation.

The Peaceful Resistance of Cahabón (Resistencia Pacifica de Cahabón) is demanding that the licences granted to Oxec (owned by Energy Resources Capital Corp.) be revoked by the Guatemalan government because there was no prior consultation with Indigenous peoples.

In November 2018, Caal Xol, a leading member of the Peaceful Resistance of Cahabón, was sentenced to seven years and four months in prison. He had already been imprisoned through “preventative detention” since January 2018.

Telesur explains that, “It was Caal Xol who filed three lawsuits against the Oxec construction company at different institutions, including accusations for failing to consult the local population, and illegally cutting down 15 hectares of trees.”

Another Telesur article reports, “The communities claim the Oxec and Renace hydroelectric projects are illegal because the local Indigenous Q’eqchi’ peoples were not properly consulted and informed about it, as established by Convention 169 of the International Labor Organization.”

Convention 169 is a forerunner of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP), which includes the right to free, prior and informed consent.

The Peace Brigades International-Guatemala Project has accompanied BDH since 2013 and the Resistance since 2017.

PBI-Mexico accompanies public forum on “Violence of State and Torture”

By
Brent Patterson
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On June 26, the Peace Brigades International – Mexico Project accompanied the conversation “Violence of State and Torture” organized by the Integral Defence Committee for Human Rights “Gobixha” (Codigo DH Gobixha AC) in Oaxaca.

The forum moderated by journalist Evlin Aragón took place on the International Day in Support of Victims of Torture.

The outreach for the conversation highlighted the three year anniversary of the events of June 19, 2016 in the state of Oaxaca.

On that day 800 state and federal officers were deployed and used live ammunition and tear gas to clear a series of roadblocks set up by striking teachers from the CNTE teachers union.

In July 2016, Telesur reported that 10 people were killed in that police action and that a report by Mexican human rights organizations – including Codigo-DH – accused the Mexican government of a series of human rights abuses including excessive use of force, arbitrary detentions and extrajudicial executions.

PBI has noted, “Codigo-DH focuses its work on the following issues: arbitrary detention, torture, gender-based violence, community processes in defence of land and territory, and freedom of expression.”

In March 2018, Codigo-DH stated, “Torture has been an issue in the state in Oaxaca especially since the conflicts between the regional government and teachers from the Section 22 Union.”

It adds, “The dispute escalated in 2006 when the police tried to violently break up large scale protests led by striking teachers. According to the Oaxaca Truth Commission (CVO), 26 people were killed and about 500 tortured over months of protests associated with the teacher led movement.”

Codigo-DH also notes, “One well-known case is Emeterio Cruz Vásquez who was tortured by different police forces in the streets of Oaxaca during the conflict mentioned above as well as later on during his arrest. He still suffers from various medical consequences as he was beaten on the heat with assault rifle and received electric shocks.”

In March 2016, the Mexico News Daily reported, “The Oaxaca Truth Commission, established in 2013 to look into the social upheaval that rocked the city of Oaxaca in 2006, has issued its final report, in which it calls for a renewed investigation of former governor Ulíses Ruiz and other officials.”

That article adds, “The commission alleges that the governor and others were responsible for human rights abuses that included crimes against humanity, extrajudicial assassinations, arbitrary arrests and torture.”

In December 2014, a report by the United Nations Special Rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment or punishment stated, “Torture is generalized in Mexico.”

That report adds, “It occurs especially from the moment when a person is detained until he or she is brought before a judge, and is used as punishment and as a means of investigation.”

That United Nations report also stated, “The Special Rapporteur received many credible complaints from victims, family members and their representatives and persons deprived of their liberty and was informed of a number of already documented cases that point to the frequent use of torture and ill-treatment in various parts of the country by municipal, state and federal police, state and federal ministerial police and the armed forces.”

And it noted, “The National Human Rights Commission reported receiving 11,608 complaints of torture and ill-treatment between 2006 and April 2014.”

The Peace Brigades International-Mexico Project has accompanied Codigo-DH since it was formed in 2011.

United Nations report links human rights and climate breakdown

By
Brent Patterson
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Making space for peace and human rights and averting climate breakdown are deeply interconnected issues.

Philip Alston is the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Extreme Poverty and Human Rights.

His report — which will be formally presented to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva this coming Friday — concludes, “Human rights might not survive the coming upheaval.”

Alston issued a media release today that says with climate change “civil and political rights will be highly vulnerable.”

Peace Brigades International – Schweiz/Suisse has its office in Geneva and has a regular presence at UN meetings there.

Given major extractive projects including agribusiness, hydroelectric dams, mines and fossil fuel projects are all contributors to climate breakdown, the work of human rights defenders is critical to averting the deepening climate catastrophe the world is facing.

The London-based international non-governmental organization Global Witness has reported that 201 land and environmental defenders were killed in 2017.

Their efforts were helping to slow climate breakdown.

Canadian author Margaret Atwood says, “We need to salute their astounding bravery and pledge to add our voices to support their continued struggle against those who want to rip their land up for oil or gas, tear down its trees for timber, flatten it for intensive non-organic and polluting farming or poison it with industrial waste.”

Global Witness adds that the killings of environmental defenders in 2017 includes “the murder of Hernán Bedoya in Colombia, shot 14 times by a paramilitary group for protesting against palm oil and banana plantations on land stolen from his community.”

The writing on the road in the Peace Brigades International – Colombia Project photo with this post reads: “Sin olvido (we will not forget you) Hernán Bedoya”.

Related to this, the PBI – Honduras Project has accompanied the Civic Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras (Copinh Intibucá) since May 2016.

Berta Cáceres, the coordinator of COPINH, was shot dead in March 2016. At the time of her assassination, she was campaigning against the proposed Agua Zarca dam on the Gualcarque River which is considered sacred by the Lenca Indigenous people.

The Guardian has reported, “Researchers have found that rotting vegetation in the water means that the dams emit about a billion tonnes of greenhouse gases every year.”

The PBI – Guatemala Project accompanies the Peaceful Resistance of La Laguna which is opposed to deforestation.

Global Forest Watch has reported, “In 2017, Guatemala lost 79.7kha (thousand hectares) of tree cover, equivalent to 6.16Mt [megatonnes or million tons] of CO₂ of emissions.”

And the Peace Brigades International – Mexico Project accompanies Educa Oaxaca which has raised concerns about the impacts of Canadian mining in the state of Oaxaca.

The industrial mining of gold, silver and other metals worsen climate breakdown because of the clearing of the land (deforestation) to set up the mine and related roadways as well as the large amount of diesel fuel used to dig and transport rock in the mining process.

John Knox, the former UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights and the Environment, has stated, “If we can’t protect [environmental defenders], then how can we protect the environment we all depend on?”

The current UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights and the Environment is David Boyd from Canada.

Boyd and UN Special Rapporteur on human rights defenders, Michel Forst recently thanked the youth involved in the “Fridays For Future” protests for the climate leadership they are offering to the world.

The international “Fridays for Future” youth movement for climate action began when climate activist Greta Thunberg held a sign that read “Skolstrejk för klimatet” (school strike for the climate) outside the Swedish Riksdag (parliament) in August 2018.

PBI-Canada Board member at information meeting on Canadian mine in Mexico

By
Brent Patterson
-

The Peace Brigades International – Mexico Project accompanied the Civil Observation Mission (la Misión Civil de Observación) to an information meeting today about the Ixtaca mining project in the south-central Mexican state of Puebla.

Peace Brigades International-Canada Board member Paul Bocking travelled with PBI-Mexico for this accompaniment.

Vancouver-based Almaden Minerals Ltd. (through its Mexican subsidiary Minera Gorrion) owns the Ixtaca project.

The Mexico News Daily has reported, “The company bought the 14,000-hectare claim … in 2001, and discovered what it calls the Ixtaca gold and silver deposit in 2010.”

On June 5, 2019, the non-governmental organization PODER (the Project on Organizing, Development, Education, and Research) stated in a media release, “In April 2019, at the request of an indigenous community, a Mexican court canceled Almaden Minerals Ltd.’s mining concessions in Ixtacamaxtitlán, Puebla.”

The indigenous community refers to the Nahua or Tecoltemic in the village of Tecoltemi near the town of Ixtacamaxtitlan, which is situated about 140 kilometres east of Mexico City.

PODER adds, “Almaden has denied the indigenous presence in the area and conducted exploration without receiving free, prior, and informed consent.”

The Yucatan Times has previously reported, “A 2016 report by PODER, a local non-profit, found that exploration activity in Ixtacamaxtitlan had contaminated water sources, threatening the community’s supply.”

The Mexico News Daily adds, “According to a human rights impact assessment conducted by the NGOs, Almaden is violating the rights to health, informed consultation and access to water of the people of Ixtacamaxtitlán.”

That article also notes, “The NGOs say the firm has claimed in reports to shareholders that it has drilled to a depth of 700 meters, surpassing the permitted limit of 150 meters and reaching the underground water supply of 15 towns. They say the unauthorized drilling has left several farming properties in the Apulco River watershed without water, and caused pollution.”

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