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Indigenous land defenders from Ecuador face the risk of reprisal after speaking against Canadian mining companies

By
Brent Patterson
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Photo: Ivonne Ramos, Hortencia Zhagüi, Rachel Lim (Amnesty International), Louise Casselman (Public Service Alliance of Canada/PSAC), Zenaida Yasacama and Fanny Kaekat at public forum in Ottawa, October 3, 2024. Photo by Laura Avalos (PSAC).

CBC News reports: “Indigenous women from Ecuador are in Ottawa this week raising concerns a proposed free trade agreement could enable human rights abuses by Canadian mining companies operating on their ancestral lands.”

The article highlights the risks faced by Zenaida Yasacama, Fanny Kaekat, Hortencia Zhagüi and Ivonne Ramos for speaking out.

Kaekat tells CBC News: “We are being threatened and our territory is being expropriated. Speaking out here puts my safety at risk.” Yasacama adds: “Women are threatened. They are judicialized. They are subjected to violence.” Yasacama also tells The Globe and Mail: “If necessary, we will give our lives to defend our land because we want to preserve the land for future generations. We are here as protectors of the jungle, and we are here to reject the destruction of our environment.”

On CBC Radio’s As It Happens, Amnesty International Canada secretary-general Ketty Nivyabandi also noted: “One of [these defenders] told us very clearly, she said, I do not know whether I will stay alive once I go back to Ecuador. People know that I have come here. They will hear about it and people have died while doing exactly what she’s doing. And she told us, well, I will hold. I want everybody to know that I will hold my government, Ecuadorian government, the Canadian mining companies responsible for anything that happens to me. So, the risks are extremely high. But at the same time, what they’ve told us is we had to come all the way to Canada to ensure that our voices are heard.”

Video still: Ivonne Ramos from Acción Ecológica works for the protection of nature defenders and accompanies territorial defense processes.

Canadian mining companies in Ecuador

CBC News also highlights: “There are 15 Canadian mining companies operating in Ecuador, with some facing allegations of abuses and working in ecologically sensitive areas, according to Mining Watch Canada.”

Amnesty International notes: “Solaris Resources is among the Canadian companies facing allegations of abuse as it attempts to advance its Warintza open-pit copper-gold project in Shuar Arutam territory.”

Video still: Fanny Kaekat, a leader with the Shuar Arutam People.

Amnesty International also note that an independent review found that Dundee Precious Metals and its proposed Loma Larga gold mine is a “ticking time bomb” for arsenic contamination in an important watershed.

Video still: Hortencia Zhagüi is a defender of the páramo (wetland) of Kimsakocha.

IPS has reported that a popular referendum in August 2023 rejected oil production in Yasuni National Park, but implementation of that result remains a challenge.

Years before, the National Audubon Society noted that ChevronTexaco “had dumped 18 billion gallons of toxic waste in the rainforest north of Yasuní” and references “a joint venture led by Spain’s Repsol” in Block 16, while Amazon Watch noted this past August that state-run Petroecuador is “nowhere close to meeting the deadline” of one-year after the referendum to end its oil activities and restore the area.

While in Canada, Yasacama told The Globe and Mail: “Canadian companies cause a lot of trouble for us because our organizations are there to defend the land and we will continue to defend the land.”

Video still: Zenaida Yasacama participated in the campaign to protect the Yasuni Biosphere Reserve that culminated in the referendum win on August 20, 2023.

Free trade talks

In November 2022, Canada and Ecuador announced the launch of exploratory discussions toward a potential Canada-Ecuador Free Trade Agreement. On May 8, 2024, Ecuador and Canada concluded the first round of negotiations. On September 24 of this year, MiningWatch Canada noted: “Canada and Ecuador are in their fourth round of negotiations…” MiningWatch has further noted that the governments of Canada and Ecuador hope to conclude these negotiations in 2025, perhaps as early as January or February.

Risk of retaliation

This past July, The Globe and Mail reported that the office of United Nations Special Rapporteur Mary Lawlor “has registered 15 cases, between June, 2019, and March, 2022, of retaliation against human-rights advocates that she alleges can be linked to the activities of Canadian mining abroad.”

That article further noted that: “[Lawlor] singled out Canadian embassies, saying many have failed to respond adequately to those who raise serious concerns about the impacts of mining and oil activities abroad.”

Photo: UN Special Rapporteur Mary Lawlor in Toronto, June 2024.

The context of risk is serious.

Global Witness has documented the murders of land and environmental defenders in Ecuador including Eduardo Mendúa (in 2023), Alba Bermeo Puin (in 2022) and Andrés Durazno, Nange Yeti and Víctor Enrique Guaillas Gutama (in 2021). They all opposed either oil or mining extractivism on Indigenous lands.

We continue to follow this situation.

Photo: Public forum in Ottawa, October 3, 2024. Photo by Laura Avalos.

100+ organizations call for rigorous investigation into the masterminds behind the murder of Juan López

By
Brent Patterson
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Photo of Juan Lopez from Criterio.hn.

Criterio.hn now reports: “More than 100 civil society organizations have raised their voices in an urgent appeal to the President of Honduras, Xiomara Castro, following the murder of environmental defender Juan López on September 14 in Tocoa.”

That letter (dated September 27 and posted September 30), signed by the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee (UUSC), CoDevelopment Canada, University of Guelph, COPINH, Plataforma Agraria, the Latin American Working Group (LAWG), NISGUA, Sisters of Mercy of the Americas – Justice Team, and many others can be read in full here.

The Criterio.hn article adds: “Juan López, an environmental defender and municipal councilor of Tocoa, had constantly denounced death threats from political and economic actors, including Mayor Adán Fúnez and companies linked to extractive activities such as Inversiones los Pinares, Grupo EMCO and Inversiones Ecotek. His work in defense of the Guapinol River and his opposition to open-pit mining had made him a target of reprisals.”

The letter also calls on Honduran President Castro to seek international support to “launch a rigorous, impartial, and effective investigation to identify both the perpetrators and masterminds behind this crime.”

Speculation

A feature article by Ismael Moreno in RadioProgreso.hn speculates on three “lines of accusation” on who could have been behind the murder of Lopez.

The first line suggests “the mayor of Tocoa, Adán Fúnez, with whom Juan López had permanent altercations, confrontations and disagreements”, the second line speculates “Lenir Pérez and his closest and most public partners in Inversiones Los Pinares and Ecotek” while the third line conjectures it was the military and its links to organized crime given “the army’s role in the security and intelligence services of Inversiones Los Pinares and Ecotek, but also [as] an investment partner of the company.”

The corporate structure behind the megaproject

Researcher Elvin Fernaly Hernández Rivera at ERIC & Radio Progreso (ERIC-RP) has noted: “Both [mining] licenses were awarded to Inversiones Los Pinares, belonging to the EMCO Group, whose main partners are the married couple Lenir Pérez and Ana Facussé, who belong to one of the wealthiest families in the country. Among their holdings is the Corporación Dinant, with over 12 thousand hectares of oil palm in the Aguán valley.”

Their research adds: “The mining licenses were preceded by the installation of the iron oxide pelletizing plant. To carry out the iron processing, the EMCO Group created Inversiones ECOTEK S.A. because the licenses granted to Inversiones Los Pinares are for non-metallic mining, so they cannot be involved in the processing stage.”

A collaboration between Contracorriente, the Centro Latinoamericano de Investigación Periodística (CLIP) and the Univision Investigative Unit has also highlighted: “The plant, which will melt iron with carbon or coke to form compound pellets — part of the steelmaking process — is 99.6% owned by Inversiones Ecotek S.A. de C.V., a company created in 2017 in Honduras by Pérez and Facussé. The plant’s remaining .4% of shares belong to another mining firm owned by Pérez and engulfed in conflict, Empresa Minera La Victoria, S.A.”

That investigative report further notes that Nucor Corporation, the chief steel producer in the United States, partnered with Pérez and Facussé starting in March 2015 but then sold its shares in NE Holdings in October 2019, though there are reportedly still some outstanding questions about these transactions including the shares being sold to a company named Aluminios y Techos de Guatemala (Alutech).

The period in which Nucor owned shares in the megaproject (March 2015 to October 2019) saw the killing of three water defenders and the beginning of the arbitrary detention of eight other water defenders.

Investors in Nucor have included the Caisse de depot et placement du Quebec (an institutional investor that manages the Québec Pension Plan), the Royal Bank of Canada, the Bank of Montreal, and the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board. The Vanguard Group, that has been the largest shareholder in Nucor, has an office in Toronto, Canada.

The role of Canada and the U.S.

We further note that the letter states: “We also recognize and lament the role of the United States with its failed policies towards Honduras (the tacit support to the 2009 coup d’état and the following 12 years of narco-governments) that helped and embed the very structures of organized crime and corruption that resulted in the murder of Juan López.”

It has been highlighted that Canadian foreign policy mirrored US policies including the tacit support of the 2009 coup. In May 2010, NACLA published this article by Vancouver-based Canadian academics Maxwell A. Cameron and Jason Tockman that states: “Throughout the Honduran crisis, Canada moved in lockstep with the United States, even as U.S. policy diverged from the hemispheric consensus.”

We continue to follow this.

PBI-Honduras tweet: “Today we are accompanying the press conference of the Municipal Committee in Defense of Common and Public Goods. The Committee demands that justice be done and that those responsible for the vile murder of the defender Juan Lopez be punished. From PBI we make an urgent call for justice to be done.”

PBI-Canada to host webinar on COP16, COP29, the Binding Treaty and the language needed to protect environmental defenders

By
Brent Patterson
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Photo: Yannick Wild, Berenice Celeita, Javier Garate.

Join us on Thursday October 24 at 12 pm (Colombia) / 1 pm (Ottawa) / 7 pm (Geneva) for a webinar that will link the protection needs of environmental defenders and the upcoming United Nations COP16 Biodiversity, COP29 Climate and Binding Treaty talks.

To register, please click here.

This one-hour webinar with simultaneous translation will feature Cali, Colombia-based Berenice Celeita of the Association for Social Research and Action (Nomadesc), Washington, DC-based Javier Garate of Global Witness, and Geneva-based Yannick Wild of Peace Brigades International-Switzerland.

The webinar will take place during the COP16 Biodiversity conference (from October 21 to November 1) in Cali, Colombia. At COP16, with the them of Peace with Nature, there will be efforts to strengthen Target 22 of the Global Biodiversity Framework that notes the need for “the full protection of environmental human rights defenders.”

It will also take place prior to the COP29 Climate conference (from November 11 to 22) in Azerbaijan. Notably, this COP process has failed to include in any of its final texts language about defenders despite the killings of at least 1,390 land and environmental defenders since the COP21 conference in 2015.

And it will take place before the negotiations on the Binding Treaty on business and human rights (now rescheduled to December 16 to 20) in Geneva. A recent draft of the Binding Treaty calls on State Parties to “adopt appropriate legislative, regulatory, and other measures” to “protect the safety of human rights defenders”.

Should we expect more from these UN conferences? Are they credible processes? What are the impediments to stronger language and implementation? What do think will happen at the COP16, COP29 and Binding Treaty talks? What can the international community do to strengthen protections?

To register for this webinar, click here.

PBI-Canada extends 30th anniversary greetings to PBI-Colombia with appreciation for all their work

By
Brent Patterson
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Photo: PBI-Colombia with Carlos Morales of the Humanitarian Action Corporation for Coexistence and Peace in Northeast Antioquia (CAHUCOPANA).

Luis Enrique Eguren, a founding member of the Peace Brigades International-Colombia Project, has written that several PBI members conducted an exploratory mission in May-June 1993 to evaluate if PBI’s experience in Guatemala, El Salvador, Sri Lanka and other countries could be applied to the Colombian context.

Another founding member, Francesc Riera, notes: “We had three very specific petitions: one from Padre Javier Giraldo to accompany and provide an international presence in the shelter of Justice and Peace for displaced persons in Barrancabermeja; another from CREDHOS to accompany them in Barrancabermeja, and finally one from ASFADDES to provide accompaniment in Bogotá.”

Eguren adds: “To put it briefly, we needed to understand if the presence of international volunteers would be capable of protecting human rights defenders from threats and attacks and in what conditions or with what strategies that would be possible.”

He then shares: “Following the mission, we spent several weeks producing a report that ended up totalling more than two hundred pages. We concluded that international accompaniment had a role to play in Colombia in certain scenarios and under certain conditions. Based on this report, PBI held a series of discussions that culminated in the decision to open a project in Colombia, after which the fundraising work began.”

The first PBI-Colombia team was established in-country on October 3, 1994. The PBI annual report from 1994 notes: “The Colombia Team officially began work in November 1994, with four team members in Bogota and four in Barrancabermeja.”

Video: Gloria Gómez of the Association of Family Members of the Detained and Disappeared (ASFADDES).

Among those wishing PBI-Colombia a happy 30th anniversary via social media messages are Coordinación Colombia Europa Estados Unidos, Cahucopana Nordeste, Humanidad Vigente, Henry Ramirez Soler, Colnodo and CAJAR.

We recall fondly celebrating the 25th anniversary of PBI-Colombia at an informal gathering in Toronto in 2019 during an advocacy tour with representatives from CREDHOS and CCALCP and former project volunteers.

We also remember this 6-minute video that was made at that time.

We also highlight that the 1994 PBI Annual Report notes that the request for PBI accompaniment came from CREDHOS following the murders of CREDHOS members Blanca Valero de Duran in January 1992, Julio César Berrio Villegas in June 1992, and Ligia Patricia Cortez (who worked on a CREDHOS backed educational project) along with two trade union members in July 1992.

Photo: On January 29, 1992, Blanca Valero de Duran, secretary of CREDHOS, was shot by two armed men at point blank range as she left the CREDHOS office at 6:30 pm that evening. She was married with three children.

We wish that there was not a continued need for accompaniment of organizations, defenders and communities in Colombia, but we celebrate the important work that is done by our colleagues at the Peace Brigades International-Colombia Project.

To read the most recent PBI-Colombia annual report, click here.

PBI-Guatemala accompanies Indigenous authorities at meeting with Governor on the Trifinio plan that lacks consent

By
Brent Patterson
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PBI-Guatemala has posted:

“On Monday [September 30] #PBIaccompanied the Maya Ch’orti’ Indigenous Council of Olopa Chiquimula and the Indigenous Community of San Francisco Quezaltepeque to a meeting in the governor’s office of Chiquimula in relation to the Trifinio plan.

The meeting was also attended by community members from the municipalities of San Juan Ermita, Jocotán and Camotán, a member of Redsag [the National Network for the Defense of Food Sovereignty in Guatemala], government authorities and the PDH [the Human Rights Ombudsman].”

What is the Trifinio Plan?

The Guatemalan News Agency has explained: “The Trifinio Plan is a regional organization that is part of the Central American Integration System, which seeks to develop a process of environmental and territorial management in the regions shared by the three Central American countries.”

“The Trinational Commission of the Trifinio Plan (CTPT) [is] in charge of overseeing the execution of the Trifinio Plan and its permanent updating, within the framework of the Treaty between the Republics of El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, which delimits the Trifinio Region and defines it as an indivisible ecological unit.”

The article adds: “[The Plan] seeks to contribute to Central American integration through joint action by Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras, aimed at the integral, harmonious and balanced development of the border region of the three countries.”

Indigenous opposition

Prensa Comunitaria has previously reported: “The Board of Directors of the ancestral authorities of the indigenous community of San Francisco in the municipality of Quezaltepeque met urgently last Sunday, June 30, at the headquarters of the community, with the aim of learning about and discussing an agreement that the municipality signed with the Trifinio Plan on May 28. within the framework of the Trifinio Fraternidad Transboundary Biosphere project”

“After the meeting, the ancestral and indigenous community authorities of the municipality of Quezaltepeque, Chiquimula, stated that they categorically reject the agreement signed by the mayor of the Cachaga commune, Milton Napoleón Duarte Lara. The ancestral authorities point out that no consultation was carried out with the inhabitants about the signing of the agreement.”

The article also notes: “The authorities announced that they will go to the governor of Chiquimula, Luis Compá, to request accompaniment and an immediate response to the problem and seek to form a dialogue table. Finally, they called on international cooperation not to finance the aforementioned entities that intend to dispossess communities of their belongings and their natural resources.”

Accompaniment

The meeting with the governor of Chiquimula noted above could be the meeting that was accompanied by PBI-Guatemala earlier this week.

PBI-Guatemala accompanies the Indigenous Council of Maya Ch’orti’ de Olopa Chiquimula and the Indigenous Community of San Francisco Quezaltepeque.

We continue to follow this.

PBI-Colombia accompanied CAJAR notes trial of ESMAD violence against Leidy Cadena will be heard by ordinary criminal justice system

By
Brent Patterson
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The PBI-Colombia accompanied José Alvear Restrepo Lawyers’ Collective (CAJAR) has tweeted: “#TheLatest @CConstitutional [Constitutional Court] determines that the case of eye injuries caused by ESMAD [Mobile Anti-Riot Squadron] agents to young Leidy Cadena will be taken up by the ordinary criminal justice system and not by the military, as the defence had intended.”

The fuller statement from CAJAR notes:

“As the victim’s representative, [we] would like to inform that the Constitutional Court of Colombia has just determined that the case of eye injuries caused by ESMAD agents to the young Leidy Natalia Cadena on April 28, 2021, in the city of Bogotá during the National Strike will be assumed by the ordinary justice system and not by the military criminal justice system. as requested by the defense.

Sebastián Escobar, lawyer for the Cajar and representative of the victim, clarifies that, although this decision mentions only patrolman Danilo José Núñez, the Court’s decision studies the facts of the case, in which Lieutenant Álvaro Ramírez is also involved, so the defense of that State agent could not argue a conflict of jurisdiction either. Both members of the ESMAD, now called UNDMO, were formally charged on April 23.

For Cajar this is a ruling that represents an advance in the protection of the rights of victims of police abuse during social protests and highlights the importance of cases of possible human rights violations by members of the Public Force being investigated impartially and with full respect for judicial guarantees.

It is worth remembering that Leidy was only 22 years old when she was hit by a rubber bullet fired directly at her and that caused her to lose her right eye. This has been a systematic practice of the ESMAD: from 1999 to 2022, around 179 people were victims of eye injuries attributed to agents of that Squadron in Colombia. During Duque’s government alone, more than 100 cases were registered.”

The full statement from CAJAR can be read at Corte Constitucional determinó que caso de lesiones oculares ocasionadas por agentes del ESMAD a la joven Leidy Cadena será asumido por justicia penal ordinaria (September 27, 2024).

Canadian unions call for ESMAD to be dismantled

During the National Strike, the Canadian Labour Congress (CLC), the Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC) and the National Union of Public and General Employees (NUPGE) supported the popular call for the dismantling of the ESMAD.

Instead of being dismantled, the ESMAD has now been rebranded as the Dialogue and Order Maintenance Unit (UNDMO).

Planned screening of documentary

In the coming weeks, PBI-Canada hopes to be able to organize a virtual screening of the documentary ‘The Eyes That Are Reborn’ (Los ojos que renacen) in collaboration with the Movement in Resistance against Ocular Aggressions (MOCAO).

Back in June of this year, PBI-Colombia joined MOCAO for a screening of this documentary.

Stay tuned for more on this.

Where do the provincial parties in British Columbia stand on disbanding the RCMP C-IRG?

By
Brent Patterson
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Photo: B.C. NDP Leader David Eby, B.C. Conservative Party Leader John Rustad, B.C. Green Party Leader Sonia Furstenau. (Ben Nelms/CBC)

The provincial election in British Columbia will take place on October 19, 2024.

CBC News has just posted an article How do British Columbia’s three main parties compare on these election issues? Those three main parties are identified by CBC News as the B.C. Conservatives, B.C. NDP and B.C. Green Party.

For a full list of registered political parties in BC, click here.

While it does not appear that the Conservatives or NDP have released their full election platforms, the Greens did so on October 1.

On page 58, the BC Greens 2024 platform says: “The BC Greens will disband CIRG, the Community Industry Response Group, a branch of the RCMP tasked with protecting industrial interests at the expense of public and Indigenous rights. This group has caused significant harm to police-community relationships and must be dismantled to rebuild trust.”

When the Conservatives and NDP post their platforms, we will update this online article with any pledges they make with respect to the C-IRG.

We do note at this time though that in March 2023, The Tyee reported: “A portion of the $230 million promised last fall by the BC NDP to bolster rural police detachments and make communities safer is earmarked for a controversial RCMP unit tasked with policing resource industry protests, The Tyee has learned.”

338 Canada is currently projecting that the NDP will win 35 to 59 seats, the Conservatives 35 to 55 seats, and the Greens 0 to 2 seats. Their website further projects the seat count will be NDP: 48, Conservatives: 44 and Greens: 1.

47 seats are needed to form a majority government.

We continue to follow this.

NS Voice of Women for Peace protest the DEFSEC arms show in Halifax, October 1-3

By
Brent Patterson
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Photo: Peace activists protest DEFSEC on October 1.

The Nova Scotia Voice of Women for Peace are protesting against the DEFSEC arms show from 12 pm to 1 pm October 1 to 3 in Halifax.

As can be seen in the photo below reposted by DEFSEC Atlantic, its sponsors include Lockheed Martin, Leonardo DRS and Boeing.

The online resource Companies Profiting from the Gaza Genocide published by the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) Action Center for Corporate Accountability names each of these companies.

That resource highlights:

“The world’s fifth largest weapons manufacturer, Boeing manufactures F-15 fighter jets and Apache AH-64 attack helicopters, which the Israeli Air Force has used extensively in all of its attacks on Gaza and Lebanon, including in 2023.”

“Italy’s largest weapons manufacturer, Leonardo makes the Oto Melara 76/62 Super Rapid 76mm naval guns installed on the Israeli Navy’s Sa’ar warships. Israel’s newest warship, the Sa’ar 6, was used operationally for the first time on Oct. 16, 2023, firing at targets in Gaza using Leonardo’s gun.”

“The world’s largest weapons manufacturer, Lockheed Martin supplies Israel with F-16 and F-35 fighter jets, which Israel has been using extensively to bomb Gaza. Israel also uses the company’s C-130 Hercules transport planes to support the ground invasion of Gaza.”

The floorplan for DEFSEC also shows BAE Systems, Gastops, General Dynamics Ordnance and Tactical Systems Inc., and Rolls-Royce as exhibitors.

The AFSC further notes:

“The world’s seventh largest weapons manufacturer, U.K. company BAE Systems manufactures the M109 howitzer, a 155mm mobile artillery system that the Israeli military has been using extensively, firing tens of thousands of 155mm shells into the Gaza Strip.”

“Rolls-Royce Holdings is the world’s 25th largest weapons manufacturer. It is no longer associated with Rolls-Royce cars, which have been manufactured by BMW since 1998. The company’s German subsidiary MTU developed the engines for Israel’s Merkava 4 and 5 (Barak) battle tanks. Israel has used these tanks extensively in the Gaza Strip, including in its November attacks on the Shifa Hospital and the Indonesian Hospital.”

Additionally:

The Breach recently reported: “[Ottawa-based] Gastops is the only company in the world that produces engine sensors that go into U.S.-made F-35 combat jets—including the ones dropping 2,000 pound bombs in Gaza.”

And in mid-August The Maple reported: “The United States government announced this week that a Quebec-based company [General Dynamics Ordnance and Tactical Systems Inc.] will be the principal contractor in a ‘possible’ $61-million US sale of high explosive mortar cartridges and related equipment to Israel.”

UN Inquiry finding of war crimes

In June, a United Nations Inquiry found:

“Israeli authorities are responsible for war crimes and crimes against humanity committed during the military operations and attacks in Gaza since 7 October 2023, the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel, said in a new report.

In relation to Israeli military operations and attacks in Gaza, the Commission found that Israeli authorities are responsible for the war crimes of starvation as a method of warfare, murder or wilful killing, intentionally directing attacks against civilians and civilian objects, forcible transfer, sexual violence, torture and inhuman or cruel treatment, arbitrary detention and outrages upon personal dignity.”

ICJ ruling on plausible genocide

And almost eight months ago, on January 26, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) issued a preliminary ruling on South Africa’s claim that Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinian people, specifically in the Gaza Strip.

At that time, the ICJ ruled that it is “plausible” that Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinian people.

Toronto-based university law school professors Heidi Matthews, Faisal A. Bhabha and Mohammad Fadel have argued: “Because the ICJ found a serious risk of genocide in Gaza, continuing to export arms to Israel would be illegal. It would also be flagrantly inconsistent with Canada’s obligation to prevent genocide and could expose Canada and Canadian officials to liability for participation in genocide.”

We continue to follow this.

Peace Brigades International-Canada has endorsed the campaign for an Arms Embargo Now. To see the video of the recent webinar with Rachel Small (World Beyond War), Kelsey Gallagher (Project Ploughshares) and Noam Perry (American Friends Service Committee Action Center for Corporate Accountability) that PBI-Canada co-hosted with the Canadian Friends Service Committee (CFSC), click here.

PBI-Mexico accompanies the 10th anniversary march in Mexico City seeking truth and justice for the Ayotzinapa 43

By
Brent Patterson
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PBI-Mexico has posted: “#Ayotzinapa10 years September 26th marked 10 years since the disappearance of the 43 students from #Ayotzinapa. PBI accompanies the march for truth, justice, and an end to widespread impunity in cases of enforced disappearance in Mexico #JusticeForThe43.”

Thousands marched

The Associated Press also explains: “Families of the 43 students from a rural teacher’s college abducted 10 years ago in southern Mexico marked the painful anniversary Thursday [September 26], disillusioned after what they say was a decade of unfulfilled government promises. Thousands marched with the families in the rain through Mexico’s capital, demanding the truth about what happened and justice for the missing.”

Somoselmedio highlights: “Lawyer and human rights defender Vidulfo Rosales Sierra [of the Tlachinollan Human Rights Centre], who also represents the affected families, denounced that the authorities tried to sabotage the march by placing cement barriers to block the advance of the demonstrators. Rosales stressed that, in addition to denying the truth to the families, the struggle for justice was betrayed. ‘It is unacceptable that, added to the daily pain and suffering of our mothers, today their path is also obstructed,’ he declared.”

10 years ago

El Pais also notes: “On the night of September 26 and early morning of September 27, 2014, the criminal group Guerreros Unidos and the police, backed by a corrupt network of local, state, and federal institutions, kidnapped 43 students from the Isidro Burgos rural normal school in Ayotzinapa. The young people were trying to travel in five buses from the city of Iguala to the country’s capital for the commemoration of another student massacre, that of October 2, 1968, in the Tlatelolco square, when they were attacked with bullets.”

Demanding all the files from the military

And the Center for Justice and International Law (CEJIL) states: “The investigation into the forced disappearance of these young students a grave instance of state violence in Mexico, was initially manipulated to fraudulently protect those responsible.  Despite the requests of the parents, their representatives and the prosecutorial authorities, it has not been possible to obtain full access to the military information necessary to clarify the facts and determine the whereabouts of the students. …To the military authorities, we demand the delivery of all the files in their possession related to this case, since it is clear that they have information that can expedite the investigations.”

A new Mexican president

WOLA adds: “The upcoming inauguration of president Claudia Sheinbaum on October 1 thus marks a decisive moment for the Ayotzinapa case and for the country’s disappearance crisis. The new president and her government have an obligation to take up the case and the crisis it represents, not only to search for and identify the direct victims, but to break the cycle of disappearances in Mexico.”

We continue to follow this.

Gitanyow post video with images of RCMP “mercenaries” as land defenders maintain checkpoint against PRGT pipeline

By
Brent Patterson
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The Gitanyow Hereditary Chiefs have posted on Instagram and Facebook:

“We stand on the shoulders of our ancestors!

This National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, we honour the generations who fought for our lands, waters, and people — and we carry their fight forward. This is our Laxyip. This is our truth.

Special thanks to @brennenleigh for allowing us to use and adapt her powerful song. Her music strengthens our voices as we stand united to defend our traditional territory.

Please sign the petition to halt construction of the PRGT pipeline until a modern environmental assessment is conducted at the link in our profile.

T’ooyaks’y nisim”

The video posted by the Hereditary Chiefs include images of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) Community-Industry Response Group (C-IRG) raids on Wet’suwet’en territory in November 2021 and on Pacheedaht territory in August 2021.

The lyric in the video says: “You can send mercenaries with guns and weapons / bring big bulldozers and use machines / pepper spray us, sic your dogs on us / but you ain’t laying no pipeline through our land”.

The RCMP C-IRG is now under systemic investigation by the Civilian Review and Complaints Commission (CRCC), an independent federal agency, after nearly 500 formal complaints had been filed alleging excessive force, illegal tactics, unprofessional behaviour, racism, discrimination and Charter violations.

Gitanyow blockade of PRGT pipeline

Construction on the Prince Rupert Gas Transmission (PRGT) pipeline began on August 24. The Gitanyow Hereditary Chiefs set up a highway checkpoint two days earlier to impede construction of this megaproject.

Gitanyow Hereditary Chief Gamlakyeltxw, Wil Marsden, of the Lax Ganeda (frog) Clan says the blockade is set to stay up until at least November 25, the date which the environmental certificate for the pipeline expires unless the consortium building it can demonstrate the project has been “substantially started”.

The proposed pipeline is being presented as a “joint venture” between Houston, Texas-based Western LNG and the Nisga’a Nation. The Reston, Virginia-based engineering company Bechtel will “oversee and manage the execution of the PRGT natural gas pipeline” while BC-based Ledcor will “support the 2024 work plan”.

If completed, the 800-kilometre pipeline would carry fracked gas from northeastern British Columbia across about 50 kilometres of Gitanyow territory and 120 kilometres of Gitxsan territory until it reaches the proposed the Ksi Lisims LNG terminal near the Nass River estuary on Nisga’a territory in northwestern BC.

Photo: The Gitxsan are also holding a rally today in Vancouver at the Law Courts building to continue their “fight against the corruption of the BC Supreme Court in issuing injunctions on traditional territories and deploying of militarized RCMP units to terrorize, arrest and harm Gitxsan and our neighbouring First Nations.”

The National Day for Truth and Reconciliation

September 30 marks the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation.

The Government of Canada says: “The day honours the children who never returned home and Survivors of residential schools, as well as their families and communities.”

This year, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau stated: “Between 1867 and 1996, the federal residential school system forcibly removed over 150,000 First Nations, Inuit, and Métis children from their families and communities…”

While a Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) report “identified 3,200 deaths” at residential schools, and TRC chair Murray Sinclair suggested at least 6,000 Indigenous children died at the schools, Cindy Blackstock and Pamela Palmater have commented the number could be closer to 12,000 children.

The RCMP forcibly removed Indigenous children from their families to take them to residential schools that were often hundreds of kilometres away to deliberately prevent parents from visiting their children or the children to escape and return home.

The Scream painting by Kent Monkman.

While the RCMP apologized in 2004 and 2014 for their role, they tweeted in 2020 about the “Indigenous children who were sent away to residential schools” and in 2021 the RCMP Veteran’s Association posted an opinion piece that said: “Today’s generations cannot be responsible for the actions of our forefathers.”

In recent days, the RCMP have killed five Indigenous people: John Charles Piche (on August 29), Hoss Lightning (August 30), Daniel Knife (September 8), Steven Dedam (September 8) and Joseph Desjarlais (September 24), while within the same period Tammy Bateman was killed by Winnipeg Police, Jason West by Windsor Police, Ron Skunk by the Ontario Provincial Police, and Jon Wells by Calgary Police.

PBI-Canada is a member of the Abolish C-IRG coalition.

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