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PBI-Guatemala accompanies BDH in defence of Indigenous land defender Samuel Choc Ac

By
Brent Patterson
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On September 6, the Peace Brigades International-Guatemala Project posted, “Yesterday we accompanied the BDH in the court of Cobán to the hearings of Samuel Choc of the Las Mercedes community, Chisec, criminalized with two legal charges. In both cases, the beginning of the debate was rescheduled for January 2020.”

Indigenous land defender Samuel Choc Ac is being represented by BDH (the Human Rights Law Firm), a group of lawyers who represent those who human rights have been violated, that has been accompanied by PBI-Guatemala since 2013.

On September 5, 2019, Prensa Comunitaria reported, “Choc Ac, a Maya Q’eqchi’ originally from the community of Las Mercedes, was denounced by the palm oil producing company, Tecniservicios Agroindustriales SA, through its legal representative Luis Fernando Oliva Oliva, and charged with the crime of aggravated usurpation on October 29, 2018.”

“As stated in the complaint, Choc Ac along with other families settled on land that is claimed as the property of the oil palm production company.”

After seven months of preventive detention, Judge Úrsula Teyul ordered that Choc Ac be released from prison.

The Prensa Comunitaria article continues, “Samuel Choc denounced having been criminalized and imprisoned for not wanting to give up his land and for promoting, together with the community, the defence of the land.”

Choc Ac says, “My parents, grandparents and families in the community have lived for several generations in that place. We are a family of farmers, merchants and fishermen on the Chiribiscal, Quimala, San Román and Negro rivers, which are being contaminated by palm planting waste these days. They have caused serious damage, many fish have died and many people have sprouted skin diseases, the pestilence of waste has increased and caused the increase in flies.”

The article also notes, “On several occasions the workers of the company have threatened the community members and destroyed the sown fields, they have attacked women as a form of pressure to sell their land for the sowing of the oil palm.”

“The crime of aggravated usurpation is one of the ways that oil palm companies use to criminalize the peasant population living in the northern transverse strip (FTN).”

“The community demands the withdrawal of the palm company as they are responsible for the pollution of the rivers and for promoting social conflicts. The communities reject that the authorities are defending business interests and do not take care of the waste produced by monoculture of African palm. They demand that those responsible for the death of the fish be prosecuted and this irreparable damage in impunity remains.”

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.”

Usurpation used against Indigenous land defenders

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.”

Palm oil plantations, violence against human rights defenders, and climate change

On July 30, the Global Witness report Enemies of the State? highlighted that 164 land and environment defenders were killed in 2018.

That report specified that in 2018 there were 16 land and environment defenders were killed in Guatemala. That report also notes that among the key resource sectors that are driving the violence against human rights defenders is agribusiness.

Furthermore, the Union of Concerned Scientists has reported, “Unfortunately, because current palm oil production methods often cause the destruction of carbon-rich tropical forests and peatlands, it is a major contributor to global warming.”

Further reading

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.

The Prensa Comunitaria article (in Spanish) can be read here.

PBI-Colombia attends meeting with community groups, diplomats in Buenaventura

By
Brent Patterson
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On September 12, the Peace Brigades International-Colombia Project tweeted, “Today in Buenaventura visit of the diplomatic corps and meeting with the Committee of the Civic Unemployment and Committee for the Defence of Territory.”

Both NOMADESC and Black Communities Process (PCN) are noted in their tweet.

PBI-Colombia has previously explained, “Founded in 1999, the Association for Social Research and Action (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.”

“NOMADESC has defended human rights in the port city of Buenaventura since 1999, when the Pacific and Farallones fronts of the Calima Block of the Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia (AUC) paramilitary group began staging incursions in the area, leaving a trail of crime, theft, displacement and forced disappearance in their wake, all the way from Cali to Buenaventura.”

PBI-Colombia has also noted, “After NOMADESC began accompanying the processes of Afro-Colombian communities in time they saw the need for collaboration with other organisations.”

“NOMADESC now works with a dozen organizations from the Inter-Organizational Committee for the Defence of Rights of the Communities who live the Territories Reclaimed from the Sea in Buenaventura and started an integrated research initiative to show how the current port expansion and infrastructure development are linked to the human rights violations in the city and how constitutional and ethno-territorial rights are being infringed.”

“The report by the Inter-Church Justice and Peace Commission Buenaventura: Displacement for a Competitive Economy explains how the living conditions in Buenaventura have deteriorated as a consequence of the economic growth, modernisation and expansion through the development of the port.”

“This has led to restrictions on the population an increase in violence, social disintegration, the gradual disappearance of customs, and a disruption to local production and the traditional means of subsistence linked to the sea. The constant anxiety of not knowing where the affected population may be resettled or how they will survive economically is just one of many examples.”

In another tweet from September 12, PBI-Colombia quoted a participant at the meeting saying, “Black, indigenous and ethnic communities are legitimate here, we have not taken anything from anyone and live in harmony with the sea. Our desire is to live with dignity in Buenaventura quiet in our territory.”

For more on the context, you can also read PBI-Colombia visits Buenaventura following attack on social leader Carlos Tobar (August 16, 2019).

PBI-Colombia has accompanied NOMADESC since 2011 and its president Berenice Celeita since 1999. And it has accompanied the Inter-Church Justice and Peace Commission, whose report on displacement is noted above, since 1994.

Peace Brigades International accompanies defenders of the rights of Indigenous peoples

By
Brent Patterson
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PBI-Honduras accompanies the Civic Council of Grassroots and Indigenous Organizations in Honduras (COPINH). In January 2019, members of COPINH (pictured above) expressed solidarity with Unist’ot’en land defenders following the RCMP raid on their territory to facilitate the construction of the Coastal GasLink fracked gas pipeline.

Peace Brigades International stands in solidarity with threatened and at-risk human rights defenders around the world.

In 2018, 77 per cent of the 321 human rights defenders killed were defending land, environmental or Indigenous peoples’ rights, often in the context of extractive industries and state-aligned mega-projects.

A key global instrument in the articulation and advancement of human rights is the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP).

It is notable that when the United Nations General Assembly adopted UNDRIP on September 13, 2007, Canada voted against it, Colombia abstained, while Guatemala, Honduras and Mexico voted in favour of it. Peace Brigades International accompanies numerous Indigenous rights defenders in Latin America.

PBI’s work includes accompanying Indigenous struggles against mining, hydroelectric dams, deforestation, displacement, and industrial wind power projects.

Just a few recent notable examples:

– PBI-Mexico accompanies EDUCA at Indigenous Guelaguetza festival against mining;

– PBI-Colombia accompanies Indigenous Wounaan verification mission;

– PBI-Guatemala accompanies Indigenous land defender Justino Xollim at court hearing;

– PBI-Mexico and the Civil Observation Mission on the right to water for the Indigenous community of Ayutla;

– PBI-Honduras and PBI-Guatemala accompany Indigenous communities opposed to dams;

– PBI-Mexico accompanies Indigenous Zapotec group opposed to industrial wind power megaprojects on their territory;

– PBI-Guatemala accompanied Q’eqchi fisherman opposed to now suspended Fenix nickel mine.

PBI-Canada is also keenly aware of continuing violations of Indigenous rights in Canada and has reported on that in these recent articles:

– The PBI-North America Project on structural violence against Indigenous peoples;

– Land defender Rita Wong sentenced to 28 days in a Canadian jail;

– Mohawk land defender Ellen Gabriel on the continuing struggle for land and territory;

– Global Witness human rights report notes criminalization of Unist’ot’en land defenders.

PBI-Canada is also organizing a speaking tour in this country with representatives from CCALCP legal collective who are seeking the implementation of the right to free, prior and informed consent in Colombia.

Indigenous peoples are criminalized and killed for defending their territory and rights and continue to suffer from ongoing dispossession from their land, marginalization, poverty and the impacts of colonization.

The full implementation of UNDRIP and protection of Indigenous rights defenders would result in significant improvements in the global situation of Indigenous peoples. To read the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, please click here.

PBI-Switzerland addresses UN Human Rights Council session on involuntary disappearances

By
Brent Patterson
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On September 11, Peace Brigades International-Switzerland Advocacy Coordinator Kim-Mai Vu addressed the 42nd Regular Session of the Human Rights Council in Geneva. She spoke during a session related to the Working Group on Involuntary Disappearances.

PBI-Switzerland has posted on Facebook, “Yesterday, at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, PBI took a position on the current human rights situation in Colombia, Guatemala and in particular forced military forces in Mexico.”

You can hear Kim-Mai (in Spanish and English) via this web-link at the 7:58 mark.

Just recently, on August 30, Peace Brigades International entities around the world marked the International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearances.

The UN has highlighted its concern on: “the ongoing harassment of human rights defenders, relatives of victims, witnesses and legal counsel dealing with cases of enforced disappearance; the use by States of counter-terrorist activities as an excuse for breaching their obligations; and the still widespread impunity for enforced disappearance.”

Peace Brigades International accompanies human rights defenders working toward a world without involuntary or enforced disappearances.

PBI-Mexico accompanies Codigo DH at public meeting on proposed hydro transmission line

By
Brent Patterson
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On September 12, the Peace Brigades International-Mexico Project tweeted, “PBI accompanied @CodigoDH during the public information session on the SET – IXTEPEC POTENCIA transmission line project in Unión Hidalgo.”

IstmoPress News Agency has reported, “Defenders of the Zapotec community of Unión Hidalgo in the Isthmus of Tehuantepec with the accompaniment of the social organization Codigo DH, warned about the installation of a new electric transmission line, which will cover from Unión Hidalgo to Ciudad Ixtepec and that is promoted by Invex Bank and Siemens Gamesa.”

“They said that this transmission line will be used to transmit the electrical energy generated from the two wind farms that already operate in the community, such as ‘Piedra largo 1 y 2’ owned by the wind company ‘Desarrollos Eólica Mexicanos’ and three more projects ‘Gunaa Sicarú’ of the wind company of France and Palmitas 1 and 2 developed by Siemens Gamesa and which will cover three other locations such as: Ixtepec, Ixtaltepec and Juchitán.”

The article highlights that it was the defenders who requested the Secretary of the Environment and Natural Resources (Semarnat) hold an informational meeting on September 12 so that the community knows what this project is about and the environmental impact that could occur. This is the public meeting PBI-Mexico accompanied.

The PBI-Mexico briefing paper Wind Farms and Concerns about Human Rights Violations in Oaxaca states, “Throughout 2013, PBI observed with concern an increase in the level of violence in the context of wind farms, particularly against HRDs [human rights defenders] and community leaders whose work involves the defence of those affected by these developments.”

PBI-Mexico has previously noted, “Because of the security risks they face, PBI has accompanied the Committee for the Integral Defence for Human Rights ‘Gobixha’ (Comité de Defensa Integral de Derechos Humanos ‘Gobixha’, Código-DH) since its creation in 2011.”

Further reading: PBI-Mexico accompanies Indigenous Zapotec group opposed to industrial wind power megaprojects on their territory (July 20, 2019)

Colombian top court ruling maintains temporary moratorium on fracking

By
Brent Patterson
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Reuters reports, “Colombia’s top administrative court maintained a temporary moratorium on the use of fracking on September 10, stymieing potential pilot projects…” And Argus Media highlights, “A final court decision on the practice is not due until next year.”

The Reuters article adds, “A representative from anti-fracking group the Alliance for a Colombia Free of Fracking hailed the decision in a live video on social media but said the group’s fight against the technique would continue.”

That’s because the push for fracking is also expected to continue even though more than 90% of Colombians are opposed to fracking in their country.

After the court ruling was made public, Colombia Reports reported, “Oil and Mining Minister Maria Fernanda Suarez turned to local media [and] reiterated warnings that the country’s oil reserves are expected to deplete within six years, which would have severe consequences for the economy.”

And in August Reuters had reported, “Pipeline company Oleoducto de Colombia is ready to move increased crude output from the center of Colombia to the Caribbean if the use of fracking is approved…, the company’s chief executive said on [August 21].”

That article highlighted a 483-kilometre pipeline that can transport up to 236,000 barrel per day through the Magdalena Medio region. Owners of the pipeline include Colombia’s state-owned Ecopetrol, Canada’s Frontera Energy, France’s Perenco and Spain’s Repsol.

After the court decision was announced, CCALCP retweeted the Cordatec San Martín tweet: “We celebrate the decision of the State Council. The regulatory framework of fracking remains suspended. The precautionary measure is maintained!!”

This November, representatives CCALCP and CREDHOS who are accompanied by the Peace Brigades International-Colombia Project will be speaking in Canada to highlight their concerns about fracking and climate change.

More details on that speaking tour coming soon!

PBI-Guatemala shares letter condemning murder of environmental defender Diana Isabel Hernández

By
Brent Patterson
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On September 12, the Peace Brigades International-Guatemala Project posted on Facebook a letter (see below) and noted, “Organizations of the Americas condemn the murder of Diana Isabel Hernández, teacher and environmental defender in Guatemala.”

The Mother Earth Women Association (the Asociación de Mujeres Madre Tierra) has explained, “Professor Diana Isabel Hernández Juárez was the coordinator of the environmental committee of the parish of Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe in the southern part of the Department of Suchitepéquez, on the south coast of Guatemala.”

“The Professor was a community activist devoted to the protection of the environment and its natural resources. She devoted a large part of her life to creating environmental awareness and recovering rare native species as part of a reforestation programme. She worked particularly closely with communities in her parish to help them address environmental issues.”

“The Parish and the Asociación are working together with young people and men and women to make them aware of the need to develop a way of life in harmony with Mother Earth.”

Aleteia reports, “According to the information received by Fides [News Agency], the teacher, on Saturday, September 7, participated in a meeting for Bible Day in the community of Monte Gloria, when she was attacked by two people who shot her and then fled.”

IM-Defensoras and the Network of Human Rights Defenders of Guatemala says, “We demand from the State of Guatemala an expedited and exhaustive investigation of it so that justice is done and does not remain in impunity; Likewise, we remind you of your obligation to guarantee the protection … of all human rights defenders in the country.”

And Erika Guevara-Rosas has tweeted, “The heinous murder of human rights defender Diana Isabel Hernández Juárez in Guatemala must be investigated impartially and expeditiously. The authorities must have as a main line of investigation their work in defense of rights and the environment.”

Bachelet: Climate change a threat to human rights

By
Brent Patterson
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Referencing climate change, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet has told the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, “The world has never seen a threat to human rights of this scope.”

Bachelet highlighted, “The economies of all nations, the institutional, political, social and cultural fabric of every state, and the rights of all your people, and future generations, will be impacted [by climate change].”

The Guardian reports, “Bachelet lamented that those sounding the alarm over the devastating impacts of climate change are often attacked.”

That article adds, “UN experts, she said, had ‘noted attacks on environmental human rights defenders in virtually every region, particularly in Latin America’.”

Bachelet says, “The demands made by environmental defenders and activists are compelling, and we should respect, protect and fulfil their rights.”

Last month, UN Environment Programme (UNEP) Executive Director Inger Andersen promised that, “UNEP and the UN Human Rights Office are committed to bringing environmental protection closer to the people by assisting state and non-state actors to promote, protect and respect environmental and human rights. In doing so, we will move towards a more sustainable and just planet.”

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.

Some of the human rights defenders who PBI accompanies are challenging key drivers of climate change. Those include COPINH (hydroelectric dams), the Peaceful Resistance of La Laguna (deforestation), Educa Oaxaca (mining), the Inter-Church Justice and Peace Commission (palm oil plantations), and CCALCP and CREDHOS (fracking).

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, particularly those in vulnerable situations – including the generations of tomorrow.”

This past June, UN Special Rapporteur on Extreme Poverty and Human Rights Philip Alston cautioned, “Human rights might not survive the coming upheaval.”

And 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?”

For more, please go to the UN News website for We are ‘burning up our future’, UN’s Bachelet tells Human Rights Council.

PBI-Mexico film ‘Children of the Water’ screened in Puebla prior to court ruling on dam

By
Brent Patterson
-

“Sow beauty and not the destruction of the land, Out Comexhidro”

On September 9, LadoB reported, “The Peace Brigades International (PBI) organization has made a short-film documentary titled ‘Los Hijxs del Agua’, which was presented on Tuesday, September 3 in the city of Puebla, with a subsequent conversation in which José Galindo, a member of the Tutunaku Community Council in Defence of the Ajajalpan River, spoke of the problem [his community faces].”

The problem is that the Ajajalpan River is endangered by the construction of the Puebla 1 hydroelectric project by Comexhidro.

The dam would generate electricity for Walmart Mexico.

The article continues:

“Together with Teresa Santiago, one of the protagonists of the short film, they explained that the defence [of the Ajajalpan River] has been going on for several years now and that the people are only looking to take care of the water, they are not looking for aggressions, violence or death, but to preserve life.”

“The video, spoken almost entirely in Totonaco, shows a ritual of the inhabitants of San Felipe Tepatlán and Ahuacatlán on the Ajajalpan River, where they ask it to take care of people who only want to arrive with death.”

“For three years, the defenders of the territory and the organizations that accompany them have denounced harassment, threats, an indigenous consultation full of irregularities and crimes, in addition to the serious and irreversible effects on the environment and the riverbed that would cause the Puebla 1 project.”

On July 30, LAdobe.com.mx reported that a constitutional hearing on the dam was held on June 11 and that a ruling (that would either approve or reject the dam) is expected within 90 business days.

The 14-minute documentary can be seen here. The full LadoB article (in Spanish) can be read here. More on this situation can be read in the PBI-Canada article PBI-Mexico expresses support for Totonac communities defending the Ajajalpan River.

PBI-Guatemala accompanied the historic GAM protest march on October 12, 1984

By
Brent Patterson
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The Peace Brigades International-Guatemala Project was established on March 21, 1983 when it opened its first headquarters there in a vacant home in Guatemala City.

This was a time of intense political violence in Guatemala.

By August 8, 1983, Brigadier General Óscar Humberto Mejía Víctores had replaced the dictatorship of President José Efraín Ríos Montt in a coup d’etat.

Under Mejía Víctores, there were 2,883 reported kidnappings from August 1983 to December 1985. Between January 1984 and September 1984, there were 713 extrajudicial killings and 506 disappearances.

A US Department of State report from that period stated, “The security forces and paramilitary groups are responsible for most kidnappings. Insurgent groups do not now normally use kidnapping as a political tactic.”

It was during this extremely dangerous time that PBI-Guatemala accompanied the Grupo de Apoyo Mutuo (GAM), the Mutual Support Group for Families of the Disappeared and the Detained.

GAM’s clear and immediate goal was to find their loved ones.

Liam Mahony and Luis Enrique Eguren write in Unarmed Bodyguards, “Feeling that they had exhausted every other available option with no visible results, members organized the GAM’s first direct protest.”

“On October 12, 1984, hundreds of Guatemalans walked from San Lucas to Guatemala City in a silent march for peace, the first mass protest in years.”

“The twenty-mile march was accompanied by a team of peacekeepers trained by, and including, Peace Brigades volunteers.”

“The police, who had promised to provide security, were nowhere to be seen. PBI volunteers found themselves directing traffic around the marchers. The day passed without incident, but within a week several students at the University of San Carlos who had attended the march were abducted, and more family members flocked to GAM.”

The 40-year-long war in Guatemala (1960 to 1996) resulted in 200,000 deaths and up to 50,000 people forcibly disappeared.

The majority of the casualties were Maya Indigenous peoples.

The Commission for Historical Clarification found that the Guatemalan government was responsible for more than 90 per cent of the deaths, disappearances and other human rights violations during the war.

In August 2018, The Guardian reported, “Land reform has been painfully slow since the Guatemalan civil war, which ended in 1996 with a peace agreement that promised to return land to indigenous and peasant farmers, from whom it had been taken over 200 years before. Instead, there has been only a trickle of cases and it remains one of the world’s most unequal countries.”

“Mario Minera, former head of mediation at the government’s ombudsman’s office, said there were at least 1,000 land conflicts raging in Guatemala.”

Minera says, “The whole country has been opened to concessions for mining, sugar cane, palm oil to provide exports. Rivers have been diverted, others are drying up. Access to land and water is denied. The resources are in the hands of a very few people. It is a predatory model of economic development which is penalising the rural poor and does not benefit communities or the common good.”

In January 2019, Front Line Defenders reported that 26 human rights defenders had been killed in Guatemala and that the killings of human rights defenders in that country had increased by 136 per cent compared to 2017.

PBI continues to be present in Guatemala.

As highlighted in the 2018 Annual Report, “Ten international volunteers accompanied members of 11 organisations and three human rights defenders working on environmental and land rights, impunity and globalisation, and women’s and gender rights. Volunteers are based in Guatemala City from where they travel to other regions of the country.”

Photo: GAM demonstration with PBI volunteer observing at top left. Photo by Edith Cole. Source: Unarmed Bodyguards: International Accompaniment for the Protection of Human Rights (p.23).

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