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Indigenous environmental defender Adolfina Kuum on “the destruction of our people’s rivers, our forests and way of life” in West Papua

By
Brent Patterson
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Video still of Adolfina Kuum from Lepemawil Timika.

PBI-UK has highlighted the work of Adolfina Kuum, also known as Dolly. She is the founder of Environmental Care Community in Timika.

Google Maps image marks location of Timika.

Kuum says: “I see the basic rights of the [Indigenous] Amungme, Kamoro and Samopane tribes being ignored by the [Indonesian] state and Freeport [which is] a USA owned gold mining company operating in Timika.”

She highlights: “The presence of Freeport in the Indigenous territories of the Amungme and Kamoro tribes brought destruction and havoc, which led to the creation of the Women’s Movement Against Mining in Timika.”

Freeport-McMoRan map indicates the location of their Grasberg Mine.

Kuum has previously stated: “This case is about our fight against those who profit from the destruction of our people’s rivers, our forests and way of life. Our communities are experiencing the life-threatening effects of mining.”

Threats against defenders

Kuum further notes: “Me and other human rights defenders protesting against Freeport have experienced intimidation, terror and violence by thugs, company employees and the military. Between 2013 and 2023 we received direct and mobile phone intimidation, threats, destruction of meeting places and cars, and arrests under various pretexts. One of my female friends was arrested by the police on 7 April 2020, as well as myself later in August 2020. There has been shrinking of democratic space by security personnel, stopping women’s discussions and conducting interrogations at the place of activity on 10 December 2021, UN International Human Rights Day.”

She adds: “Human rights activists and environmental defenders have been stigmatised by the state as subversives, rebels, leftist groups, OPM (Free Papua Movement), and other stereotypes. Discrimination towards Papuans in particular, has resulted in the shrinking of democratic space and silencing of local media.”

The Grasberg Mine

PBI-UK has previously noted in their The Case for Change report: “The Grasberg Mine in West Papua, Indonesia, has been subject to allegations of major environmental devastation and severe human rights violations. Indigenous communities accuse the mine of polluting rivers and causing health issues. Human rights defenders and Indigenous communities protesting the mine’s operations since the 1970s have faced repression including torture, displacement and threats, amid ongoing militarisation.”

Photo: The Grasberg open-pit copper and gold mine in 2007. Photo by Alfindra Primaldhi.

Ownership of the mine

The Phoenix, Arizona-based company Freeport-McMoRan has noted: “Through its subsidiary, PT-FI [PT Freeport Indonesia], FCX [Freeport-McMoRan] mines one of the world’s largest copper and gold deposits in the Grasberg minerals district in Papua, Indonesia. In addition to copper and gold, PT-FI produces silver. FCX has a 48.76 percent interest in PT-FI and manages its mining operations.”

In July 2022, the Chicago-based Corporate Accountability Lab further explained: “Since 1967, Freeport McMoran (‘Freeport’), a US company headquartered in Arizona, has owned and operated the world’s largest gold and third largest copper mine [the Grasberg Mine], located in the mountains of Papua, Indonesia.”

Kuum calls for divestment from Grasberg Mine

In February 2024, Kuum stated: “We call on all businesses, including banks and exchanges, such as the London Metal Exchange, to end their international complicity with these mining operations. We demand to live with dignity, respect and fulfil our basic rights as dignified human beings and be able to enjoy the natural environment that our ancestors have cared for and passed on to us.”

The major shareholders of Freeport-McMoRan include the Toronto Dominion Bank (at $73.39 million in shares), the Investment Management Corp of Ontario/IMCO (at $3.21M). The Toronto-based IMCO “may manage the assets of pension plans or investment funds on behalf of the following: Ontario Government Agencies, Ontario Municipalities, Ontario Universities or Colleges, Ontario Crown Corporations.”

Payments to “a brutal security state”

The Corporate Accountability Lab has also noted: “Estimates place Freeport’s payments to the military and police between $20 and $80 million in the 1990s and 2010s. After the Sarbanes-Oxley Act passed the US legislature in 2003, Freeport began sending money to police and military units rather than to individual commanders and officers – but for years, individual security personnel received direct payments.”

They add: “It is estimated that the number of Indigenous Papuans killed by Indonesian security forces since Papua lost its independence in 1962 is close to 500,000. A covert investigation by the Catholic Justice and Peace Commission of the Archdiocese of Brisbane in 2016 concluded that Indigenous Papuans have suffered  a ‘slow motion genocide’. A 2013 study estimated that one torture incident had occurred every six weeks for the past fifty years by Indonesian security forces, the vast majority involving civilians.”

Canadian “military goods” to Indonesia

Over the last five years, Canada has exported at least CAD $30 million in “military goods” to Indonesia.

This includes $2,738,360.44 in 2019, $8,176,217.40 in 2020, $10,708,499.85 in 2021, $8,380,657.83 in 2022, and $285,120.73 in 2023.

These figures do not reflect the additional “military goods” that may have been exported to the United States then re-exported. The US State Department noted in January 2025 that: “The United States has $1.88 billion in active government-to-government sales cases with Indonesia under the Foreign Military Sales (FMS) system.”

Mining and the Canada-Indonesia CEPA

Global Affairs Canada has noted: “On November 15, 2024, Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Indonesia’s President Prabowo Subianto announced the substantive conclusion of the negotiations … of the Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA).”

Canada and Indonesia are committed to “sign the CEPA in 2025.”

In 2023, Canada imported US$1.43 million of copper from Indonesia.

On December 23, 2024, The Globe and Mail newspaper reported: “[The Canadian government] in 2021, as CEPA talks were getting under way, projected that Canadian imports of mineral products from Indonesia would increase by 42 per cent by 2040, and imports of metal products by 18 per cent.”

Peace Brigades International

The Peace Brigades International-Indonesia Project promotes human rights in Indonesia through strengthening the capacities of human rights defenders in remote areas, with a focus on their ability to document human rights abuses, advocate to the Indonesian government and internationally, and build their personal security and protection networks.

To read the full Peace Brigades International-United Kingdom article about Adolfina Kuum, go to Life as a Papuan Woman Human Rights Defender.

Video still: PBI-Canada helped Kuum to visit Lekwungen and WSÁNEĆ territories (Victoria, British Columbia) in September 2023. The image below says: “SHUTDOWN FREEPORT – Freeport is a parasite on people and nature in Timika.”

Canada signs the OAS Belém do Pará Convention citing “increased attacks on human rights defenders”

By
Brent Patterson
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Photo: Canada’s Permanent Representative to the OAS, Ambassador Stuart Savage signed the Convention at the OAS headquarters in Washington, DC. On March 7, 2025. Photo by Juan Manuel Herrera/OAS.

A Global Affairs Canada news release dated March 7, 2025, highlights: “The Honourable Mélanie Joly, Minister of Foreign Affairs, and the Honourable Marci Ien, Minister for Women and Gender Equality and Youth, are pleased to announce that today, Canada signed the Inter-American Convention on the Prevention, Punishment and Eradication of Violence against Women (Belém do Pará Convention).”

That news release notes: “Amid increased attacks on human rights defenders and growing global uncertainty, Canadian leadership in promoting and protecting human rights as a core element of Canada’s feminist foreign policy is more important than ever.”

Canada recognizes various categories of human rights defenders including women human rights defenders, LGBTI human rights defenders, Indigenous human rights defenders, and Land rights and environmental human rights defenders in its Voices at Risk: Canada’s Guidelines on Supporting Human Rights Defenders.

The Convention

The Convention was first adopted in 1994. As of March, 2020, 32 of the 34-member Organization of American States (OAS) have signed the Convention. The United States remains the singular non-signatory.

The six-page Convention can be read in full here.

Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua (in 1995), Colombia (1996) and Mexico (1998) have all ratified the Convention.

The MESECVI follow-up mechanism

The OAS has also explained: “The effective implementation of the Convention requires a continuous and independent evaluation process, which in 2004 led to the creation of the Follow-up Mechanism to the Belém do Pará Convention (MESECVI).”

In May 2023, the Committee of Experts of the MESECVI expressed “its deep concern over the increase in acts of violence against women journalists and human rights defenders throughout the region.”

The Convention, the Escazú Agreement and environmental defenders

The Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL) has also noted: “The leaders of State Parties to the Amazon Cooperation Treaty (ACT) gathered in the Brazilian city of Belém for a two-day summit [on August 8-9, 2023]. During the Summit, State Parties presented the Belém Declaration outlining their collective commitments.”

The State Parties to this Treaty are Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Peru, Suriname and Venezuela.

At the time of that two-day summit in 2023, Carla García Zendejas of CIEL commented: “Latin America remains the most dangerous region in the world to speak out in favor of land, water, and our basic right to live in a healthy environment. Colombia and Brazil have the highest levels of violence, killings, and threats to defenders worldwide. Yet the Belém Declaration fails to acknowledge how conflicting forces in the region continue to put oil and gas projects and devastating extractive and infrastructure plans forward despite pushback from communities and Indigenous leaders advocating to protect the ecosystems on which they rely.”

She continued: “This makes the absence of any mention of the Escazú Agreement (the Regional Agreement on Access to Information, Public Participation and Justice in Environmental Matters in Latin America and the Caribbean), in a declaration by South American nations that is meant to solidify urgent cooperation in the Amazon region, even more egregious. This glaring omission illustrates an ongoing failure to understand the role defenders play in protecting the right of every citizen to live in a clean and healthy environment and to ensure that this right exists for future generations.”

Canada and the Escazú Agreement

On March 5, 2021, Special Rapporteur Mary Lawlor presented to the UN Human Rights Council on the threats against and killings of human rights defenders.

During that session, Canada’s Ambassador to the UN Leslie E. Norton stated: “Some states have established specific protection mechanisms to prevent risks and attacks against HRDs and to intervene when need be. Canada wants to stress these important milestones such as the Escazu Regional Agreement in Latin America and the Caribbean.”

Nicaragua (in March 2020), Mexico (in November 2020) and Colombia (in August 2023) have ratified the Agreement. Guatemala signed the agreement in September 2018, but has not ratified it. Honduras has not signed the agreement.

We continue to follow this with specific attention to the safety and security of human rights and environmental defenders.

PBI-Nicaragua accompanies the block of Nicaraguan migrant women at International Women’s Day march in Costa Rica

By
Brent Patterson
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Photo: The banner says: “In Nicaragua there is a dictatorship we demand an end to the repression”.

PBI-Nicaragua has posted on Instagram:

“Another 8th of March in which Nicaraguan women cannot march in their country.

For the past 7 years, Nicaraguan women refugees in Costa Rica, due to political persecution, have participated in the M8 marches organized in this country.

Here they call for freedom for political prisoners and chant slogans such as “Exiled women, never silenced” or “You will flourish Nicaragua, free and feminist” along with those shared with the Costa Rican women’s movement such as “Not one less, free we want” thus joining the denunciation on the increase of femicides in the host country where Nicaraguan women are also murdered.

PBI accompanied the block of refugee women in the march. We recognize the courage and resistance of Nicaraguan women defenders who far from being silenced have consolidated their activism from exile.

#8M #WomenDefenders #womenrefugees”

La Prensa further reports that “dozens of Nicaraguan women” took part in the protest in San Jose, demanded the release of political prisoners in Nicaragua, and that the “block of women from Pinerola” carried banners with messages including “Against macho tyranny, here we are feminists”.

Photo: The banner says: “Freedom for political prisoners”.

EFE also reported: “In the march, the participants also launched slogans against the government of Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua, which they called a dictatorship, and also expressed their support for Nicaraguan women who have had to go into exile to flee violence and repression in their country.”

That article also highlighted the situation in Costa Rica, notably: “Data from the Observatory of Gender Violence against Women and Access to Justice of the Judiciary of Costa Rica, indicate that at least 30 femicides occurred in 2024, while so far in 2025 at least 11 have been counted.”

Photo: The sign says: “Nicaraguan migrant women also resist”.

In November 2024, Nicaraguan feminist activist Ana Quirós commented how the criminal code in Nicaragua criminalizes abortion despite repeated efforts to align the law with international human rights standards. She also stated that there had been 64 femicides and 158 attempted femicides so far that year.

For more on the work of PBI-Nicaragua, click here.

And to read the PBI-Nicaragua article about the IWD mobilization, click here.

PBI-Guatemala observes IWD march, shares photo of poster in the Plaza de la Niñas of Luz Haydee Méndez Calderón

By
Brent Patterson
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On March 8, PBI-Guatemala posted on Facebook:

“Today, #PBI observes the march for the commemoration of #InternationalWomen’sDay. Different women’s groups showed their rejection and repudiation of hatred, discrimination, persecution, violence and decisions that violate the human rights of girls, adolescents, women and the LGBTIQ+ community. They also demanded the fulfillment of their rights to education, decent working conditions, health, access to justice and security, among others.

The march culminated in the Plaza de la Niñas where a ceremony was held to remember the violent death of 41 girls and adolescents as well as 15 injured in the fire at the Hogar Seguro de la Asunción eight years ago on this same day.”

The Plaza de la Constitución was renamed Plaza de las Niñas de Guatemala 8 de Marzo in memory of the 41 teenage girls (ages 13 to 17) killed in the fire at the Virgen de la Asunción Safe Home on March 8, 2017.

One of the photos PBI-Guatemala shared in their Facebook post is a large poster of a painting of Luz Haydee Méndez Calderón.

Mendez Calderon was forcibly disappeared on March 8, 1984. She was 36 years old and the mother of two children aged 9 and 11.

The Vancouver Sun provides this biographical background on her: “She was born in 1948 to a family that ran a modest bakery. Affectionately known as “La Chapparita,” or “Shorty,” as a child, she sold bread in the streets. Méndez Calderón’s father participated in the pro-democracy revolution of 1944, bringing about a decade of reforms, before the U.S.-backed coup in 1954 triggered the civil war. At university, Méndez Calderón participated in progressive movements and wrote for the student newspaper.”

Journalist Sandra Cuffe has also reported: “At the time, Mendez Calderon was secretary of international relations for the Guatemalan Labour Party, which had been forced underground after a United States-backed coup in 1954 and became one of the armed fighter groups involved in a 36-year conflict with the military.”

The article by Cuffe in Al Jazeera adds: “The Diario Militar, or Death Squad Diary, documented the abductions, torture, disappearances and executions of 183 people, including Mendez Calderon, between 1983 and 1985. The military intelligence dossier includes a section with a numbered list of the 183, with their names, affiliations, photograph, date and location of abduction, and other basic details.”

The CBC has also reported: “At the time, the Guatemalan army, supported by U.S. military aid, said it was fighting terrorists bent on a Communist overthrow. Government opponents said they were merely struggling to provide more rights to impoverished Mayan peasants being squeezed off the land by fruit growers and coffee conglomerates, or employed by those same companies for low wages.”

That article further notes that Mendez Calderon’s daughter Wendy arrived “in Vancouver in 1985 as political refugees after the disappearance of her mother.”

Update on #CasoDiarioMilitar

PBI-Guatemala has been accompanying the #CasoDiarioMilitar court hearing process that began in May-June 2021.

In May 2024, PBI-Guatemala commented: “Currently, the process is moving very slowly and is practically at a standstill. However, the families and friends of the people who appear in the [military diary} commemorate the publication of this document every year [on May 20, 1999], in the hope of learning the whereabouts of their loved ones and raising awareness about the importance of this document in the history of Guatemala.”

Most recently, in December 2024, Prensa Comunitaria also reported: “Currently, the case is paralyzed.”

Accompaniment

PBI-Guatemala now accompanies the Association of Relatives of the Detained and Disappeared of Guatemala (FAMDEGUA). They note that FAMDEGUA “is playing a key role in the Diario Militar case.” FAMDEGUA was accompanied by PBI from 1992 until 1999, when PBI’s Guatemala Project was temporarily closed. In 2023, after receiving a renewed request from the organization, PBI began accompanying FAMDEGUA again in April 2024.

We continue to follow this.

PBI-Honduras observes International Women’s Day (IWD) march in Tegucigalpa

By
Brent Patterson
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On International Women’s Day, PBI-Honduras posted:

“Today we observe the march within the framework of #8March. The organizations of #women demand a halt to the structural #violenceagainst #women, greater access to the PAE [the Emergency Contraceptive Pill or “morning-after pill”] and greater protection for #women #defenders of #humanrights

From PBI, we express concern about the high rates of #femicide and attacks against women defenders and we remember that #Honduras has not yet approved a Comprehensive Law against Violence towards Women, requested by the organizations.”

Honduras has the highest rate of femicide in Latin America

In August 2023, The Globe and Mail reported: “A UN report, which detailed a breakdown by country [in 2021], found that among 11 Latin American countries, Honduras had the highest rate of femicide – murders of women that are gender-motivated – with 4.6 cases per 100,000 women. Women’s organizations estimate that 90 per cent of Honduran femicides go unpunished.”

That article adds: “Luis Martinez Estrada, a sociologist and the co-ordinator of the Regional Violence Observatory, said the rise of violence in Honduras spans decades but intensified in the 2000s. Although he said some progress was being made in human rights, the 2009 coup that ousted president Manuel Zelaya reversed some of that. ‘We saw a militarization of our society and how politicians with connections regained the power of the country,’ he said.’”

Their banner says: “Because you are frightened by those who fight and not by those who die?”

Abortion remains illegal, the ”morning after pill” legalized on IWD 2023

In April 2024, The Guardian reported: “Honduras is one of five Latin American countries – along with Haiti, Nicaragua, El Salvador and the Dominican Republic – where abortion is prohibited in all circumstances, even in cases of rape, incest, or when the pregnant woman’s life is at risk. Until last year, it was also the only country to outlaw emergency contraceptives.”

In March 2023, the BBC reported: “Honduras, a largely Catholic Central American country, banned the use of the morning-after pill following a coup in 2009 that ousted Xiomara Castro’s husband, then-President Manuel Zelaya. …The country’s first-ever woman leader said she had made the change by executive order [legalizing the pill] for International Women’s Day, on 8 March.”

This placard says: “This M8 I don’t want flowers, I want rights.”

A Comprehensive Law against violence against women is still pending

On March 9, 2024, La Via Campesina called for: “The immediate submission of the proposed Comprehensive Law against Violence against Women by President Xiomara Castro and its approval in the National Congress, in the face of the wave of murders we cannot stand idly by.”

Reporting on the IWD march that took place in Tegucigalpa on March 7, La Tribuna highlighted: “The women called for the approval of the Comprehensive Law against violence against women, the Purple Alert Law for the search for missing women, and the regulations of the Law for the protection of women in contexts of humanitarian crises, natural disasters and emergencies.”

This sign says: “If abuses were fire, Honduras would be in flames.”

Women human rights defenders are under attack

In December 2023, the Mesoamerican Initiative of Women Human Rights Defenders (IM-Defensoras) documented the murders of “Juana Maria Martinez, woman defender of the Indigenous Pech Peoples and Soraya Alvarez, trans defender of LGBTI rights in Honduras.”

In 2022, IM-Defensoras noted: “In Honduras, we registered 70 attacks against 15 women defenders of women’s right to a life free from violence.”

In July 2021, The Guardian reported: “Between 2016 and 2019, 48% of all incidents targeting female defenders in the region [of Central America] occurred in Honduras [according to research by IM-Defensoras].”

We continue to follow this.

Wet’suwet’en land defender Sleydo’ highlights liberation struggle, CRCC systemic investigation of RCMP C-IRG reaches two-year point

By
Brent Patterson
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Photo: Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) C-IRG officers during the November 2021 raid on Wet’suwet’en territory. Photo by Michael Toledano.

Our questions: What is the current status of the CRCC systemic investigation of the C-IRG?  What can be expected from it? What are key dates that have passed? What do Indigenous land defenders have to say about colonial processes?

The Ottawa-based Civilian Review and Complaints Commission for the RCMP (CRCC) announced its “systemic investigation” of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) Community-Industry Response Group (C-IRG) on March 9, 2023.

Three months later, on June 7, 2023, a spokesperson with the CRCC told PBI-Canada via e-mail: “The CRCC strives to complete its systemic investigations within 12-18 months; however, the timely provision of requested information and access to RCMP personnel will largely determine when the CRCC’s report will be available.”

The first “Investigation Update” was posted on their website on November 23, 2023. That update highlights: “Recently, the CRCC met with the RCMP to express concerns about the delays, and a way forward was agreed to, including bi-weekly meetings with the C-IRG Officer in Charge to provide updates on the status of CRCC requests. Since that meeting, the CRCC received more than 400 files. Significant amounts of materials remain outstanding but are expected to be received in the coming weeks.”

That update further notes: “The CRCC is monitoring progress closely and will provide an investigation status update in the new year.”

The CRCC then released in its Annual Report 2023-2024, on October 23, 2024, a two-point “Status of the Investigation” section that noted: “While delays in receiving relevant materials persisted throughout 2023, improvements in this regard are notable and the investigation is progressing.“ It added: “To date, the CRCC has received and is analysing thousands of documents as well as more than 17,000 videos and images.”

That Annual Report also noted: “The CRCC hired an Indigenous owned law firm to interview individuals and groups who have had interactions with C-IRG. Information derived from the interviews will be compiled into a report and may be used to exemplify the CRCC’s findings and inform any recommendations.”

The “CRCC Truth Gathering/Truth Sharing” webpage of Richmond, BC-based Turtle Island Law LLP notes: “The nature of our work for the CRCC will involve us conducting interviews with impacted individuals in a decolonial, Indigenized, and trauma-informed manner. …Your narrative will inform a public report that we will be drafting which brings to light the nature of the interactions between you and the C-IRG.”

Most recently, on February 21, 2025, the CRCC told PBI-Canada by e-mail: “The investigation continues and most of the material collected by the CRCC has been reviewed. Currently, investigators are analyzing this material and conducting interviews with RCMP members. CRCC investigations consider all relevant information to make findings and recommendations, including applicable jurisprudence. Since this investigation is ongoing at this time, we would not speculate on the contents of our final report or when it will be available.”

“Applicable jurisprudence”

The mention of “applicable jurisprudence” in the CRCC email to PBI-Canada most likely refers to the recent abuse of process ruling.

On February 18, 2025, BC Supreme Court Justice Michael Tammen ruled that “multiple offensive and discriminatory comments [against Indigenous land defenders] made by multiple officers in the wake of Nov. 18 and 19, 2021, arrests that is potentially a sign of a systemic attitudinal issue within the C-IRG.”

That said, Justice Tammen further commented that there was “no evidence” that this “attitudinal issue” extended into the higher ranks of the C-IRG unit or the RCMP and found “nothing inherently flawed” in the C-IRG’s heavily armed raid, arrest and removal of land defenders from Wet’suwet’en territory.

“Systemic investigation recommendations can include…”

Now that we are 24 months into a systemic investigation that the CRCC has said it normally “strives to complete” within 12-18 months, it may also be useful to consider what we might see in the report when it is released.

The CRCC Annual Report 2023-2024 highlighted that systemic investigation recommendations can include: “That the RCMP implement more widely a method, procedure or protocol worthy of emulating; That RCMP policies, procedures, or guidelines be developed, clarified or amended; That the RCMP develop, amend or modify training for members.”

The demands of land defenders

We contrast these types of recommendations with those asserted in this letter that was signed by land and environmental defenders and multiple organizations just after the CRCC systemic investigation began: “There is no set of reforms that would make it acceptable for Canada to have a paramilitary force designed specifically to manage the assertion of inherent and constitutionally-protected Indigenous rights in the face of unwanted development. The C-IRG should not exist, and it needs to be disbanded entirely.”

“Together we are achieving liberation”

Among the signatories of this letter was Sleydo’, a Wing Chief of Cas Yikh, a house group of the Gidimt’en Clan of the Wet’suwet’en Nation.

Last month, on the afternoon of February 18, just after Justice Tammen’s ruling, Sleydo’ stated: “My hope is that this decision will signal to the RCMP that they can no longer violate their own laws, and they cannot act with impunity.”

“However, we will never see justice from the courts for the amount of violence that we have experienced over the last specifically six years of repression by the state.”

“I celebrate the yintah [territory] for her resiliency throughout all of the destruction and for continuing to provide for us and our movement and for keeping us safe. I celebrate every single person who has stood with us, who went to jail, who lost their livelihoods, who continue to be harassed and intimidated by the state, and who are still in this colonial legal process. Together we are achieving liberation.”

Sleydo’ concluded: “Justice for us looks like RCMP off the yintah. CGL off the yintah. And the freedom to live self-determined lives as Indigenous people on our own lands. And we know that with all of the support and everybody who stood with us and the continued eye of the world watching what has been happening on Wet’suwet’en territory and to Indigenous people all over the globe that we will achieve that.”

Having responded to Sleydo’s video appeal on September 25, 2021, to come to the yintah, Peace Brigades International-Canada continues to follow this.

Photo: PBI-Canada coordinator Brent Patterson drives on the Morice Forest Service Road on Wet’suwet’en territory, November 20, 2021.

Peace Brigades International co-organizes side event in Geneva on the day Nicaragua withdraws from the UN Human Rights Council

By
Brent Patterson
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Photo: PBI co-organized side event in Geneva, February 27.

On February 26, the U.N. Human Rights Office of the High Commissioner (OHCHR) issued a press release that stated: “Nicaragua’s Government has dismantled the last remaining checks on its power, systematically executing a strategy to cement total control of the country through severe human rights violations, UN experts warned today in a new report. The experts called for decisive international action to address these violations.”

The following day, February 27, Peace Brigades International co-organized a U.N. Side Event at the 58th Session of the Human Rights Council on constitutional reform in Nicaragua. You can read more about that at in this PBI-Switzerland article: Nicaragua Side Event: A Systematic Erosion of Rights.

That same day, Reuters also reported: “Nicaragua announced on Thursday [February 27] it would withdraw from the United Nations Human Rights Council, following a UN report that urged the international community to address human rights violations by President Daniel Ortega’s government.”

Then on this Friday March 7, Democracy Now! noted: “Nicaragua announced last week it is withdrawing from the United Nations Human Rights Council, following a U.N. report that slammed the government’s human rights violations and warned the country was becoming an authoritarian state.”

To watch their interview with Reed Brody, a member of the U.N. expert panel, click here. Democracy Now! also explains: “[This comes] 40 years to the day since the release of his landmark 1985 fact-finding report Contra Terror in Nicaragua, which laid out how U.S. policy attempted to destabilize Nicaragua’s Sandinista government by funding the Contras and their campaign of torture, rape, kidnapping and murder.”

Video still: Reed Brody talks about the current situation in Nicaragua.

In September 1983, 10 Peace Brigades International volunteers maintained a short presence in Jalapa, close to the Honduran border, interposing themselves between US-backed contras and the Sandinista forces to deter hostilities. This initial PBI work was taken over and continued by Witness for Peace. JoLeigh Commandant, who became the first director of PBI’s Toronto-based Central America Project around November 1982, was part of our presence there.

To read more about that time, please see: PBI in Jalapa, Nicaragua in 1983 as “tracer bullets lit up the sky”.

Following the political crisis in Nicaragua in 2018, PBI began an accompaniment project for Nicaraguan organizations and social groups exiled in Costa Rica. The project provides capacity development for exiled human rights defenders, from psychosocial support to organizational strengthening and security and protection strategies, focusing on improving their conditions for an eventual return to Nicaragua.

For more on the current work of PBI-Nicaragua, please click here.

PBI-Guatemala accompanies the Peaceful Resistance of the Poqomam People at “plantón” against sand mining

By
Brent Patterson
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PBI-Guatemala has posted:

“Today #PBI accompanies the women of the Peaceful Resistance of the Poqomam People in their stand-off/sit-in against the sand mills operating in #Chinautla. Extractive activity causes earth movements, health problems and is killing white mud, one of the raw materials and livelihoods of women potters.”

PBI-Guatemala has previously explained:

“In 1997, the State began to issue mining licenses in the area, without taking into account its inhabitants, and therefore ignoring the right to prior, free and informed consultation contained in Convention 169 of the International Labor Organization (ILO), ratified by the Congress of the Republic on March 5, 1996.

The mining exploitation [has] strong negative impacts on the population: pollution of the environment that causes, among others, respiratory diseases; landslides and infrastructure collapses; [and] cracks in houses.

The absence of a response to these problems has made the situation in Santa Cruz de Chinautla unbearable, leading the indigenous authorities of Chinautla to start a sit-in on June 27, 2022, to stop the illegal operation of the sand companies.

With the beginning of the sit-in, located at the entrance of the Piedrinera San Luis company at km 12 of the road to Chuarrancho (where trucks constantly pass carrying tons of stones and sand destined for the construction sector), our accompaniment and our visits to the encampment intensified.

Since the sit-in began, the security situation has worsened, increasing threats against people in the Resistance. All this keeps the population in fear and worry.”

We continue to follow this.

PBI-Canada travelled to Poqomam territory, met with the community, observed some of the mining activities, and visited the plantón on May 1, 2023.

PBI-Colombia amplifies statement on Catatumbo signed by accompanied organizations CAJAR, CSPP and CJL

By
Brent Patterson
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Image by the CAJAR lawyers’ collective: “For a social pact for Catatumbo with guarantees: we call for presidential rectification” 

Organizations accompanied by PBI-Colombia, including the “José Alvear Restrepo” Lawyers’ Collective (CAJAR), the Committee of Solidarity with Political Prisoners (CSPP), and the Corporation for Judicial Freedom (CJL), “strongly reject” a recent statement made by Colombian president Gustavo Petro.

They say Petro’s comment puts the lives of defenders at risk.

“Attention. Human rights platforms and social and victim organizations reject statements made by Gustavo Petro during the Council of Ministers in which he links civil society organizations and their members with armed groups operating in Catatumbo. This puts their lives at risk and turns them into military targets. We demand rectification.”

Repost by PBI-Colombia.

This joint statement signed by numerous other organizations notes that during a televised session of the Council of Ministers on March 3 on the situation in Catatumbo, Petro stated: “we know that many of the social organizations presented by Alexander are permeated by weapons, subordinate to arms”.

Context to understand this statement

“Alexander” appears to refer to Alexander López Maya, the director of the National Planning Department (DNP) whose had resigned three weeks ago, but whose resignation was not announced until March 6.

Caracol Radio reported: “The delay in his departure, according to government sources, has to do with the fact that the head of state would have entrusted him with the presentation of the Social Pact for Catatumbo, one of the government’s main bets to address the humanitarian crisis in this region.”

The Social Pact of Catatumbo, as explained by the President’s Office this past week, sees the sub-region as a “territory organized around water with social and environmental justice, supported by the right to education, health, drinking water, habitat and sustainable social development [with a strategic axis of] education, health, infrastructure, economy, territorial planning and total peace.”

And, slightly differently, El Pais explains: “It was known that his temporary stay was due to the need to present the Catatumbo Plan, a key project for investment and development in one of the regions most affected by violence in Colombia.”

The Catatumbo Plan reportedly includes the Petro government seeking “to eradicate 25,000 hectares of coca in the Catatumbo region within 140 days, as part of an effort to decrease violence and weaken rebel groups that profit from the cocaine trade. …Farmers in Catatumbo will eradicate their coca plantings voluntarily and will be paid by the government while they transition to legal crops.”

“Social leaders put at risk”

The statement signed by CAJAR, CSPP and CJL highlights: “By irresponsibly relating the work of social organizations and social leaders with the actions of the armed organizations operating in the Catatumbo region, they are put at risk, and even in the condition of military targets, given the current context of violence in the area, unleashed, among other reasons, for the accusation against peace signatories of allegedly collaborating with one of the armed groups in confrontation.”

It continues: “The language used by the President is not only irresponsible and disrespectful to those who dedicate their lives to the defense of human rights in contexts of armed violence, but also deepens the risk that they face for exercising this work. This public stigmatization reinforces the narrative that has historically sought to criminalize social struggles, legitimizing the persecution against those who seek to build a country in peace with social justice, as well as phenomena as serious as the forced displacement of communities, the murder of civilians by armed actors, and the political annulment of social organizations in regions especially affected by the conflict.”

And the joint statement concludes: “From human rights platforms and social organizations, we call on the President of the Republic to rectify his statements and guarantee the rights of social leaders who, with courage and dignity, work for peace, justice and human rights.”

Humanitarian Caravan

PBI-Colombia recently accompanied the Board of Directors of the Catatumbo Peasant Association (ASCAMCAT) during the Humanitarian Caravan for Peace that arrived in the municipality of El Tarra in the department of Norte de Santander in the Catatumbo region on February 4 of this year.

For more on that: PBI-Colombia accompanies Humanitarian Caravan that seeks an end to armed violence against civilians in Catatumbo (February 5, 2025) and PBI-Colombia accompanies Board of Directors of ASCAMCAT during the Humanitarian Caravan to Catatumbo (February 12, 2025).

FEDEPESAN fishers in Colombia face collective displacement due to ongoing threats against them by armed groups

By
Brent Patterson
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We express our concern about the situation being experienced by members of the Federation of Artisanal, Environmentalist, and Touristic Fishermen and Women of Santander (FEDEPESAN) in Barrancabermeja, Santander, Colombia.

FEDEPESAN is a federation of fishers accompanied by the Regional Corporation for the Defence of Human Rights (CREDHOS) an organization which in turn is accompanied by the Peace Brigades International-Colombia Project.

An Amnesty International urgent action notes: “On 15 February, the fishers’ association FEDEPESAN announced that they feel forced to carry out a collective displacement from the lakes and rivers surrounding the city of Barrancabermeja, Colombia. In recent years, including the first two months of 2025, FEDEPESAN members have been subjected to numerous instances of harassment, threats, robbery, extortion, and even attempted murder by armed groups seeking control of the waters to their own benefit, or in retaliation for denouncing potential cases of pollution and corruption affecting the environment.”

That alert also notes: “[Members of FEDEPESAN] particularly those who carry out their fishing activities in the lake of Ciénaga de San Silvestre as well as the rivers Sogamoso and Magdalena, Caño San Silvestre, Caño Rosario, and Quebraza El Zarzal, in the Barrancabermeja area … felt forced to leave their territory … [because they] face multiple forms of harassment, including telephone and direct threats— sometimes for extortion, other times because they are seen as obstacles to armed groups seeking control of the region’s lakes and rivers. Additionally, they have been attacked after denouncing water pollution or potential acts of corruption that undermine environmental policies in their territory.”

On March 1, in response to the Amnesty International urgent action, Yuli Velásquez, the president of FEDEPSAN, posted on social media: “No more impunity in Barrancabermeja. We demand that investigations be accelerated.”

On March 2, she also posted: “A city drowned in blood, hunger, displacement, extortion, unemployment, corruption, and threats is uninhabitable. Unlivable, we demand permanence in the territory guarantee for the right to life, freedom of expression.”

On that same day, Velásquez was quoted in the Bucaramanga, Colombia-based newspaper Vanguardia saying: “There is a lack of clear answers from the institutionality. Of all the complaints we have made, there is no response or progress in the investigations. In January and February of this year we have denounced threats and there is no response. As there are no guarantees for permanence or for carrying out our fishing tasks, what we announce is a massive displacement to be able to protect our lives.”

And the next day, March 3, Agenciapi.co also reported: “Yuli Velásquez, president of Fedepesan, denounced that, despite multiple calls for help, they have not received protection from the local government or progress in the investigations. In the absence of guarantees for their safety and the exercise of their work, at least 10 families announced their imminent displacement. ‘We are tired of so many threats. We have no choice but to leave the territory to protect our lives,’ said the community leader.”

We continue to follow this with great concern.

Photo: Brent Patterson, Yuli Velásquez, Javier Garate; June 30, 2022.

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