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RCMP C-IRG hired Vancouver-based intelligence company to spy on the online activities of Fairy Creek land defenders

By
Brent Patterson
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Photo: “RCMP officers block the road leading to the Fairy Creek encampment on the day arrests began, May 17, 2021. Photo by Jimmy Thomson / Canada’s National Observer”

Canada’s National Observer reports: “The RCMP’s controversial C-IRG unit hired a third-party intelligence company to spy on the online activities of Fairy Creek activists, newly available documents show.”

Key excerpts from the article include:

“The contents of the intelligence report, authored partway through the protest movement, has been blocked from publication by a ban imposed by the B.C. Supreme Court since June 2022. But an invoice obtained through a federal Access to Information request, filed in May 2023, allows Canada’s National Observer to reveal its existence for the first time.

The officer in charge of the RCMP’s Community-Industry Response Group, John Brewer, signed off on paying Human-i Intelligence Services Ltd. $9,975 for the report, according to the invoice. The invoice refers to the document as an “online intelligence report” on Fairy Creek.

[In February 2014] the B.C. Civil Liberties Association filed a complaint with the mounties’ sole oversight agency, the Civilian Review and Complaints Commission (CRCC), regarding the [surveillance of environmental protesters by the RCMP … during the Enbridge Northern Gateway pipeline hearings in 2013, when environmental groups were organizing to urge the National Energy Board to reject the pipeline].

The result of that complaint was a ruling that narrowed the RCMP’s leeway in determining how and when to spy on participants in peaceful environmental protests. The ruling did not address whether it would apply to a third-party intelligence company like Human-i, or whether it would apply to spying on internet activities.

Human-i Intelligence Services is a small private intelligence firm based in Vancouver and headed up by Julie Jones. …Jones also worked for the RCMP in the Wet’suwet’en protests. She testified at the trial of Chief Dtsa’hyl (Adam Gagnon) as a witness for the Crown: according to CBC’s coverage of the trial, the RCMP “hired Jones to download about a dozen web pages and video from public Facebook and Instagram accounts operated by opponents of Coastal GasLink’s pipeline.””

The full article can be read at: RCMP hired private spies to monitor Fairy Creek activists (Jimmy Thomson, Canada’s National Observer, August 9, 2024).

Peace Brigades International-Canada participates in the Abolish C-IRG coalition. We have also been following the Civilian Review and Complaints Commission (CRCC) “systemic investigation” of the C-IRG launched seventeen months ago on March 9, 2023.

On March 22, 2023, PBI-Canada hand-delivered this letter from Abolish C-IRG to the CRCC office in Ottawa that stated: “Given the nature of the complaints and substantial evidence supporting them, we argue for the suspension of all C-IRG deployment in BC pending investigation and resolution of all complaints currently before the CRCC. The CRCC reviews can take years to complete, and it is irresponsible to have this unit continue operations during that time, enabling the continuation of unlawful use of force, arrests, detentions, and assaults that have sparked such an investigation.”

The CRCC has previously told PBI-Canada that it “strives to complete its systemic investigations within 12-18 months.” The 18-month timeline falls on September 9, 2024, about four week from now.

#AbolishCIRG

PBI-Guatemala accompanied Council of Communities of Retalhuleu (CCR) highlights need for water legislation

By
Brent Patterson
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Photo: The CCR observes water being taken from a river for a water-intensive sugar plantation; May 3, 2023.

In this article published by Peace Brigades International-United Kingdom, former PBI-Guatemala field volunteer Lorna Ní Shúilleabháin contrasts the theory versus the reality of Indigenous rights in Guatemala.

She highlights: “Approximately 43.75% of Guatemala’s population belong to Indigenous communities. Rights, laws and mechanisms exist to protect these Indigenous peoples. However, PBI has seen that these laws and mechanisms are not being implemented on the ground and Indigenous communities suffer grave human rights violations.”

Photo: Lorna Ní Shúilleabháin was a field volunteer with PBI-Guatemala from March 2023 to February 2024.

Ní Shúilleabháin notes the Agreement on Identity and Rights of Indigenous Peoples, Articles 67 and 68 of the Guatemalan Constitution, the UN Convention on the Rights of Indigenous People, Convention 169 of the International Labour Organisation, and the protocol for police action during evictions.

She adds: “According to PBI’s observations of the situation on the ground, these laws and treaties are not being implemented in indigenous communities.”

Water Law Framework Initiative 5070

Ní Shúilleabháin further notes: “The water law framework initiative 5070 proposes a new law aimed at empowering communities to manage their water resources and ensuring their right to be consulted on any agribusiness or mining projects in their areas. Civil society and grassroots organisations including the Council of Communities of Retalhuleu (CCR) have united to form Campaña Agua Para la Vida and have highlighted what should be included in the water legislation.”

The human right to water

More than five years ago, the PBI-Guatemala accompanied Chinautla Multisector Urban Platform indicated their desire to “create a water law and government and municipal agreements that guarantee community and indigenous peoples’ participation to guarantee equal rights to water” within a two year period.

This demand has a constitutional context.

The Oxford Human Rights Hub has explained: “Guatemala’s constitution has several provisions that provide for or implicate the right to clean and safe water. In April 2016 there was nationwide mobilization by rural and indigenous communities to demand a stop to the theft and contamination of water. This led to a proposal for a new law (5070) which seeks to give the greatest possible power to communities to manage their water resources and to enforce the right of communities to be consulted on any agribusiness or mining project in their area.”

Accompaniment

The PBI-Guatemala Project has accompanied the Chinautla Multisector since December 2018 and the Retalhuleu Community Council since April 2020.

In May 2023, PBI-Canada travelled to Guatemala and met with both the Chinautla Multisector and the Retalhuleu Community Council. For more on this, please see: Photo-journal of PBI-Canada visit with PBI-Guatemala accompanied organizations, defenders and communities (May 9, 2023).

Photo: PBI-Canada visits Poqomám territory to meet with Chinautla Multisector and learn about their struggle to defend the right to water; May 1, 2023.

Photo: The plantations and mills that export sugar from Guatemala to Canada impact communities and waterways in Guatemala. PBI-Canada has highlighted this at Canada has imported 1.46 million metric tons of sugar from Guatemala since 2015 (May 14, 2023).

Maya K’iche’ defender Lucía Ixchíu on extractivism in Guatemala; notes the support of PBI in Berlin and Hamburg

By
Brent Patterson
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Photo of Lucía Ixchíu from Latin America Bureau by Eliana Lafone.

Lucía Ixchíu describes herself as: “K’iche, tree of the Forest, anti-patriarchal, cultural manager, journalist and indigenous storyteller, architect (Mayan in exile).”

In this interview with Linda Etchart for Latin America Bureau, “Lucía explains that Guatemalan Indigenous peoples continue to be intimidated, threatened, and attacked by the agents of the extractive industries operating in her homeland. She reports that the expansion of mining and logging has brought about a ‘fourth invasion’ of the region by multinational companies, whose activities have displaced communities and caused serious damage to the local and regional ecosystems.”

When Lucia is asked about “the trajectory of your political activism”, she replies: “This goes back more than 10 years to when I decided to become a journalist and an activist, leading the defence of our territory. This was following the massacre of my people on 4 October 2012, when seven people died and 40 were seriously injured. I am from a [Maya K’iché] community, organised into what are known as the ‘48 cantons of Totonicapán’, which collectively defend Indigenous territory and protect the forest. We are the owners of land which is one of the most important sources of water for Central America. The rivers that originate here flow to Mexico and to Honduras. The area is important for biodiversity, but it has been impoverished, ravaged, besieged by colonisers.”

She adds: “It was after the massacre of 2012 that we began to understand the links between the army, narco-traffickers and the extractive industries: they are almost one entity, different elements of a cohabitation.”

On the transnational corporations operating on Indigenous territories, Ixchíu specifies: “There are US and Canadian companies, such as Goldcorp [which closed the controversial Marlin mine in 2017], companies financed by European capital, such as the Cobra Group in which Florentino Pérez, the president of Real Madrid, is invested. They control much of the hydroelectric capacity of the north of the country that borders Mexico. Other foreign companies include Hidro Santa Cruz, Hidro San Luis, Perenco [an Anglo-French oil and gas company], CGN [Compania Guatemalteca de Niquel] and Pronico.”

Ixchíu left Guatemala for Spain at the start of the pandemic in 2020, then left Spain for Mexico because “I feel that Europe, and particularly Spain, as the imperial power, is not ready to engage with radical Indians like me.”

When asked about solidarity groups in the context of advocacy in Europe, Ixchíu notes: “There was the Collectif Guatemala in France, a group founded by a Guatemalan exile in the 1980s. They understand the Guatemalan context and were able to help us to organise our European tours. There was also PBI [Peace Brigades International] in Berlin and in Hamburg, who paid for our transport.”

And significantly, she highlights: “In December 2023, we pressured the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs to apply sanctions on officials of the dictatorship, and we succeeded. Two weeks after our visit, the French government announced sanctions against Guatemalan individuals, which was important [and contributed to President Bernardo Arévalo being sworn into office in January 2024].”

The full interview by Linda Etchart can be read at Honouring Indigenous resistance in Totonicapán: interview with Maya K’iché exile Lucía Ixchíu (Latin America Bureau, August 8, 2024).

To hear more from Lucia, see this Democracy Now! interview from January 16, 2024, following the delayed swearing-in of Bernardo Arevalo.

PBI-Colombia accompanies the CSPP at Roundtable meeting visibilizing the criminalization of social leaders who opposed Frontera Energy

By
Brent Patterson
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The Peace Brigades International-Colombia Project accompanied the Committee for Solidarity with Political Prisoners (CSPP) at the recent meeting of the Roundtable for Human Rights in the face of corporate power (la Mesa por los DDHH frente al poder empresarial) and the United Nations Business and Human Rights Working Group.

Agencia de Prensa IPC has tweeted:

“#BusinessAndHumanRights @OscarRamirez_P from @comite_CSPP makes visible the criminalization of leaders of the community of San Luis de Palenque, Casanare, who opposed the social, environmental and cultural impacts generated by Frontera Energy (…)”

The tweet continues:

“Judicialization is one of the multiple risks that those who defend their human rights must face against extractive activities carried out by national and transnational companies in Colombia.”

La Mesa has summarized:

“In 2005, the Ministry of Environment, Housing and Territorial Development, through Resolution No. 2147, granted an environmental license for the Cubiro Exploratory Block project, in Trinidad and San Luis de Palenque, Casanare.

Although the license warns of a series of potential effects on the social and economic infrastructure of the population, the impacts reported by the communities resulting from the project exceed these warnings.

Thus, two types of effects were identified: (i) the contamination of water sources, generation of respiratory and health problems for the communities and other living beings; and (ii) the non-compliance with economic obligations – approximately 3.4 billion pesos that were not paid to the community at the time of the protests, despite the fact that they provided transportation, food, lodging, among other services, for two years.

As a way of demanding payment of this debt and compliance with the regulations that protected people and the environment, several working groups were held in which unfulfilled agreements were reached between the community, represented by leaders such as Ferney Salcedo, Yulivel Leal, Jesús Leal, Miguel Angel Rincón, Carmen Salcedo, Josue Eliecer Rincón, María Teresa Rincón and Jerónimo Salcedo.

As a result of the company’s failure to comply with its commitments, between 2017 and 2018 the community and various leaders, exercising their rights, held peaceful mobilizations, which led to the prosecution of the same leaders who had been recognized for participating in the negotiations, since according to intelligence reports, they were part of an alleged organized crime group called “Los Jinetes con careta.”

In this regard, after the raid on their homes, which involved the participation of a large number of members of the public force and helicopters, the Attorney General’s Office irregularly and improperly accused them of having committed crimes such as conspiracy to commit a crime, violence against a public servant and obstruction of public roads, and two of them of attempted homicide due to the assault suffered by a member of the Mobile Anti-Riot Squad at a demonstration in 2018 (where the identity of the man who assaulted him is still unknown).

Prensa Libre video: On November 16 and 19, 2018, Frontera Energy signed agreements with the Colombian Ministry of Defence. On November 27, 2018, the army and police launched a massive operation and arrested the social leaders.

However, the initiation of criminal proceedings against the 8 leaders (where the victims are Frontera Energy and Ecopetrol) would not have been possible without the existence of figures that allow the establishment of links between the companies, the accusing entity and the public force, such as the cooperation and/or collaboration agreements regulated in Resolution 5342 of 2014 of the Ministry of Defense.

Thus, in the present case, it was established that, prior to the criminalization and opening of criminal proceedings, agreements were signed, where:

i- 10 months before the capture of the victims, Ecopetrol (a partner of Frontera Energy) agreed to pay $17,600,983,146 pesos to the FGN for the creation of a unit called the Hydrocarbon Support Structure (EDA) so that the entity could investigate conduct such as the obstruction of public roads and the use of roads during social protests;

ii- 11 days before the arrest, the company paid the Ministry of Defense a total of $2.34 billion pesos, with the objective that the National Army would provide special protection to the areas of impact of the project (this same entity was one of those that participated in the construction of the intelligence report that led the Prosecutor’s Office to initiate the criminal proceedings);

iii- and 3 days after the mass capture, another agreement was signed between the same parties for an amount of $2.340 million to be executed within a period of one month and twelve days, which also had the objective of protecting the areas of interest of the company.”

The Mesa has also noted:

“The judicial process is currently in the oral trial stage and to date, 6 witnesses have been presented and more than 40 people are still pending to testify on behalf of the Attorney General’s Office. Of more than 100 proposed documentary evidence, only 4 have been incorporated so far. In addition to the delay in the process, which has lasted approximately 5 years, an improper use of criminal law has been established, establishing a violation of other rights such as freedom from arbitrary interference, arbitrary detention and stigmatization (article 9 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights).”

We continue to follow this closely.

Photo: PBI-Canada visits with social leaders in San Luis de Palenque, Casanare, criminalized for their opposition to the Canadian company Frontera Energy; July 1, 2022.

EDC loans up to $200 million to Coastal GasLink after hearing Wet’suwet’en speak about RCMP C-IRG violence

By
Brent Patterson
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Photo: Wet’suwet’en Hereditary Chief Na’moks and land defender Eve Saint meet with EDC in Ottawa, October 16, 2023.

The National Observer reports: “Canada provided up to $200 million to pipeline company Coastal Gaslink, recently updated financial data reveals — an apparent violation of a commitment to phase out fossil fuel subsidies.”

“According to Export Development Canada (EDC), a Crown corporation that provides loans and grants to help businesses reach the market, Coastal Gaslink was given between $100 million and $200 million worth of project financing to help it export gas. The publicly-disclosed financing is thin on details, but was signed on June 27.”

The article continues: “In a statement, deputy spokesperson Caroline Thériault said the investment ‘does not contravene the government’s commitment to phase out inefficient fossil fuel subsidies.’ ‘Canada is committed to developing and releasing an implementation plan to phase out public financing of the fossil fuel sector, including by federal Crown corporations, by fall 2024,’ she said.”

This isn’t the first EDC loan to TC Energy/Coastal GasLink.

On May 4, 2020, the Toronto Star reported: “[Export Development Canada] will lend up to $500 million to build the Coastal GasLink, a natural gas pipeline that sparked a national protest movement and reckoning over the Liberal administration’s commitment to Indigenous reconciliation.”

On May 11, 2020, Le Devoir further reported: “EDC says it carried out ‘rigorous due diligence’ before granting the loan.”

RCMP C-IRG raids

By the time of that May 2020 loan, the RCMP Community-Industry Response Group (C-IRG) had already launched two full-scale militarized raids on Wet’suwet’en territory (in January 2019 and February 2020).

This most recent EDC loan comes after the November 18-19, 2021, RCMP C-IRG raid on Wet’suwet’en territory (that involved using a borrowed chainsaw to breakdown a door) and while a Civilian Review and Complaints Commission (CRCC) systemic investigation and abuse of process hearings are still underway.

Video.

It also follows the EDC meeting with Wet’suwet’en Hereditary Chief Na’moks and land defender Eve Saint on October 16, 2023, in Ottawa. Both Chief Na’moks and Saint were clear about the impact of Coastal GasLink on their territory and the violence of the RCMP C-IRG in enabling the construction of that pipeline.

That meeting was accompanied by York University Professor Anna Zalik, Above Ground and Peace Brigades International-Canada.

Just prior to that meeting in Ottawa, Wet’suwet’en and Otomi land defenders also marched in Toronto in opposition to TC Energy.

The National Post subsequently reported that TC Energy “launched a ‘geo-fenced’ ad campaign around the protest areas in Toronto and Ottawa to ensure it got its message out to both its financiers and media covering the events.”

Notably, the EDC-Coastal GasLink agreement for up to $200 million was signed on June 27, just weeks after the TC Energy annual meeting on June 4 in which shareholders voted against a resolution submitted by the Wet’suwet’en along with the Otomi, Nahua, Totonac, Nuntajɨɨyi’ and Tepehua peoples of Mexico. Their resolution asked that “TC Energy commission an independent assessment on its practices relating to obtaining Free, Prior and Informed Consent on its projects”.

Calgary-based TC Energy proposed the Coastal GasLink pipeline in June 2012 and began construction on it in January 2019. On May 25, 2020, TC Energy closed a deal selling 65% of the project to investment firm Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co (KKR) and Alberta Investment Management Corporation (AIMCo).

We continue to follow this with concern.

PBI-Guatemala accompanies the Maya Ch’orti’ Indigenous Council of Olopa in court, hearing postponed to February 2025

By
Brent Patterson
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Photo by Prensa Comunitaria.

On July 18, PBI-Guatemala posted: “Today members of the Maya Ch’orti’ Indigenous Council of Olopa face a hearing in a process of criminalizing their right to defend their territory Ch’orti’.”

That evening, the Consejo Indígena Maya Ch’orti’ de Olopa Chiquimula posted on their Facebook page an update on that hearing:

“Suspension of the oral and public hearing of 10 Mayan Ch’orti’ people from the municipality of Olopa Chiquimula, including indigenous authorities, defenders criminalized for opposing the mining license for the Los Manantiales quarry.

The judge in charge of the case is unable to hear the case due to an accident.  The hearing was rescheduled for February 2025.

Lawyers from the Center for Human Rights and Legal Action (CALDH) requested the interim judge of the criminal sentencing court, Luis Fernando Archila Lima to modify measures for 6 indigenous Mayan Ch’orti authorities who are under house arrest and must sign the control book every month at the Public Ministry, arguing the economic cost and the age to mobilize and their presence in the process voluntarily, this was accepted by the judge.”

PBI-Guatemala has previously explained: “The American Minerals S.A. company has been operating an antimony extraction mining project, ‘Cantera Los Manantiales’, in the municipality of Olopa, department of Chiquimula, since 2016.” The company had been “granted a 25-year antimony extraction license in 2012, without prior consultation with the communities.”

The Maya Ch’orti’ Indigenous Council of Olopa is also attentive to the operations of Vancouver-based Volcanic Gold Mines Inc., operating as Minerales Sierra Pacífico, on Maya Ch’orti’ territory.

Specific concerns relate to two large licences that cover Olopa, San Juan Ermita and Quezaltepeque, namely the Carolina project and the Las Pomas project. There are also concerns about the Holly/Banderas project and the Motagua Norte project listed on the Volcanic Gold website.

We continue to follow this.

Photo: On May 9, 2023, PBI-Canada met with Ubaldino García Canan of the Maya Ch’orti Indigenous Council of Olopa.

#ResistenciaChorti

PBI-Honduras accompanies COPINH at protest, 12 Lenca communities win titles for ancestral territories

By
Brent Patterson
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On July 17, PBI-Honduras posted:

“Yesterday and today, we accompanied Copinh Honduras [the Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras] at a demonstration inside the facilities of the National Agrarian Institute (INA).

COPINH demands advancement for the community title processes of several indigenous territories, specifically in the communities of Montaña Verde, El Achiotal, Rio Blanco, El Naranjo and La Jarcia.

We highlight the brave work of COPINH to achieve respect for indigenous rights in Honduras.”

At that time, COPINH also posted:

“More than 500 members of different Lenca communities organized to #COPINH raised our voice for 10 land claim processes and installed a sit-in at the National Agrarian Institute INA, demanding community titling.

Various of these processes have been known by the INA for more than 15 years, however the right of the communities has not been respected, which is an obligation of the State according to Honduran and international laws.

We defend our territories which are our life.”

And on July 17, Criterio.hn reported:

“More than 500 people from [twelve] communities mobilized aboard 19 buses demanding speed in the issuance of their community titles and an end to the criminalization of their members through the crime of land usurpation.

They spent the night on the main street of the Alameda neighborhood, placed their mattresses in front of the National Agrarian Institute (INA) waiting for a commitment from the director of said institution, Francisco Funes, who met at night with their representatives.

Bertha Zúniga Cáceres, coordinator of the Civic Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras (COPINH), said that the communities are demanding community titles to more than 9,000 blocks of land on which at least 852 families of the Lenca people live.”

Now, COPINH shares on social media:

“After lengthy negotiations, COPINH reached an important agreement with the National Agrarian Institute (INA) for 12 Lenca communities.

The management of INA and representatives of Lenca communities organized in COPINH signed agreements that recognize and grant property titles over the ancestral territories of these indigenous communities.

Thank you to the mobilization and active participation of the Lenca communities organized in COPINH, a commitment was made to move forward with land titling.

COPINH will be attentive to the fulfillment of the agreements, ensuring that they are respected and implemented in a fair and prompt manner.”

Avispa Midia also highlights:

“After a week of mobilizations, more than 500 indigenous Lenca belonging to 12 communities in southwestern Honduras reached a historic agreement with the National Agrarian Institute (INA), through which the State commits to the community titling of more than 9,000 blocks of land on which more than 900 families live. …The agreement was announced after the mobilizations where representatives of the Lenca communities of Montaña Verde, Limoncillo, El Achiotal, Río Blanco, Wise, El Naranjo, 1 de Agosto and Grupo Campesino Nueva Esperanza participated, who claim communal possession of their territories.”

For more on this, you can also read: Enhorabuena! INA y Copinh logran acuerdos positivos (Canal 8, July 17, 2024) and INA y Copinh firman acta de entendimiento para acelerar titulacion de tierras (Canal 8, July 18, 2024).

The Peace Brigades International-Honduras Project has accompanied COPINH since May 2016 only a few short weeks following the murder of their co-founder and general coordinator Berta Caceres on March 3, 2016.

PBI-Colombia accompanies Peace Community on the 24th anniversary of July 8 massacre as paramilitary threats against community continue

By
Brent Patterson
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PBI-Colombia has posted:

“We accompany the Peace Community of San José de Apartadó, @sanjoapartadó in the commemoration of the massacre of July 8, 2000, in which 6 of its members were murdered in the village of La Unión by paramilitaries in collusion with the security forces. To remember is an act of resistance.”

In the October-December 2000 issue of Peace Magazine, Erika Zarate, a former PBI volunteer from Canada, writes about the massacre. Her article begins with a quote from Scott Pearce, another former PBI volunteer from Canada, who says:

“Yesterday we visited the village of La Unión. It was an emotional trip for me because it was the first time I had returned to the community since the massacre of July 8. We rode up to La Unión on mule. I rode with a young girl from the community, and as we proceeded slowly along the steep muddy trail she told me about her classes at school and we practiced counting. Then, without pausing, she began to talk about the massacre. Her father was one of those killed. She talked in detail about the events of July 8 in the same tone of voice she had talked about her troubles learning to read, as if it was all a strange story she couldn’t quite understand…”

Erika adds:

“This recent massacre in San José, [was] allegedly instigated jointly by military and paramilitary troops… Twenty hooded men entered the village of La Unión and gathered together the villagers. After asking them several questions and, accusing them of “helping the guerrillas,” they separated the women, children, and old people and opened fire on the remaining group of men, killing six of them. They left immediately following the massacre, warning the villagers to flee the area within three weeks. According to the Intercongregational Commission for Justice and Peace (Colombia), Amnesty International, and the World Movement Against Torture, a helicopter, probably belonging to the XVII Brigade of the Army, flew over the site of the massacre, and troops from the same Brigade were seen close by during the same time period.”

PBI-Colombia has also noted:

“PBI accompanied the families of the victims in the village of La Union [on July 9, 2000]. The day before, members of the Peace Community, Rigoberto Guzman, Elodino Rivera, Diofanor Correa, Humberto Sepulveda, Jaime Guzman and Pedro Zapata were assassinated by paramilitaries. According to Father Javier Giraldo, this massacre was not the product of confrontations in the midst of the armed conflict, nor was it a war crime.  This massacre was planned and carried out with a single and indisputable objective: to wipe out the Peace Community.”

More than 326 Peace Community members killed

On the twentieth anniversary of its formation in 2017, the Peace Community stated that 326 of its members had been murdered and that more than 4,000 human rights violations had been committed against the community.

More of its members have been killed since then.

Most recently, community members Nalleli Sepúlveda, age 30, and Edinson David, age 14, were killed on March 19, 2024.

Moira Birss, formerly of PBI-Colombia, has written in the NACLA report:

“Part of what makes Apartadó and the Urabá region so attractive to armed groups (and the economic interests that often drive them) is the area’s strategic location near the Gulf of Urabá. The gulf flows into the Caribbean Sea, connecting to the Panama Canal and all its commodity export opportunities. On the other side of the gulf is the Darien Gap, which in recent years has become an important migratory route and where transit is controlled by the Gulf Clan. The Peace Community believes that the transit of goods and people through this area is central to the motivation behind the murders of Nalleli and Edinson.

In the months and weeks leading up to the killings, tensions had been building in La Esperanza over widening a pedestrian and horse path to become a car-sized road that would go deep into the hills, presumably to facilitate commodity exports.

The route runs through the Las Delicias estate [where Nalleli and Edinson were killed]. As it is not authorized by the regional authorities, the construction of the road is illegal. The Peace Community has opposed the project and has denounced the involvement of the Gulf Clan and the support of the Army in the process.”

The Peace Community

The Peace Community is located more than 700 kilometres northwest of Bogota in the mountainous northern region in the department of Antioquia.

On March 23, 1997, the Peace Community of San Jose de Apartado was formed. The farming community declared itself neutral in the armed conflict and rejected the presence of all the armed groups in its territory.

PBI-Colombia began accompanying the Peace Community in 1999.

PBI-Kenya says peaceful protesters exercising their rights as police hurl teargas at them on Mombasa Road in Nairobi

By
Brent Patterson
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PBI-Kenya has posted: “The peaceful protesters in Nairobi CBD [Central Business District], Mombasa road and all across the country are simply exercising their rights.”

With the headline “Tear gas as police battle protesters heading to Mombasa Road”, the Kenya Star reports: “Police on Tuesday [July 23] engaged protesters in running battles as they tried to march towards Mombasa road, ostensibly to head to Jomo Kenyatta International Airport (JKIA). The group had assembled at the Nairobi Central Business District before they started walking towards Haile Selassie Avenue and later Uhuru High Way to eventually enter the  Mombasa Road. But police swiftly responded to the plan and hurled teargas to disperse the crowd.”

ABC News further explains: “Kenya’s anti-government protests entered their fifth week, having started as calls for legislators to vote against a finance bill that proposed new taxes. President William Ruto declined to sign the controversial bill and has dismissed almost all of his Cabinet ministers, but protesters have continued calling for his resignation. At least 50 people have died and 413 others have been injured in the protests since June 18, according to the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights.”

Human Rights Watch has also noted: “The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has committed $4.4 billion to Kenya, and the World Bank anticipates $12 billion in support from 2024 to 2026. Yet, the program negotiated with the IMF requires steep spending cuts and increased revenues. A June IMF statement praised the Finance Bill and the upcoming fiscal year’s proposed budget as in line with the required ‘sizable and upfront fiscal consolidation,’ referring to reducing public expenditure or increasing revenues.”

The BBC reported in mid-June that the Finance Bill praised by the IMF included “a 16% levy on bread”, taxes “on cooking oil, mobile money services and on motor vehicles”, taxes that “would raise the cost of key goods such as nappies, sanitary towels, computers and mobile phones” and that “a housing levy of 1.5% of a worker’s monthly pay, which goes towards the construction of affordable houses, has also been introduced” along with “a new higher health insurance levy is also due to come into effect soon.”

We continue to follow this.

Further reading:

– PBI-Kenya demands release of at least 210 peaceful protestors arrested at the Occupy Parliament protest (June 18, 2024)

– PBI-Kenya calls for the release of activists arbitrarily detained before protest against vote on finance bill (June 25, 2024)

– PBI-Kenya supports call for police accountability following the deaths of more than 40 people at recent protests (July 17, 2024)

Convictions of Just Stop Oil activists and Wet’suwet’en land defenders suggest “an international pattern to criminalize”

By
Brent Patterson
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The BBC reports: “Five [Just Stop Oil] environmental activists who organized protests that brought part of the M25 [motorway] to a standstill over four days [in November 2022] have been jailed. …[Roger] Hallam was sentenced to five years’ imprisonment while the other defendants each received four-year jail terms.”

Michel Forst, the United Nations Special Special Rapporteur on environmental defenders, who attended part of the trial last week, states: “This sentence should shock the conscience of any member of the public. …Rulings like today’s set a very dangerous precedent, not just for environmental protest but any form of peaceful protest that may, at one point or another, not align with the interests of the government of the day.”

The international non-governmental organization Global Witness has also commented: “Until now, most of our attention has focused on people speaking up against powerful interests in Global South countries, where a defender is killed every other day for protecting their land and environment. …Now, the UK is becoming one of the most dangerous countries in the western world to speak up in defence of our planet.”

“Striking similarities” between the UK, Canada

Just nine months ago, on October 12, 2023, The Guardian reported: “[While] scientific experts are unanimous that there needs to be an urgent clampdown on fossil fuel production … many governments … seem to have different priorities [including] launching a fierce crackdown on people trying to peacefully raise the alarm.”

Significantly, that article by Nina Lakhani, Damien Gayle and Matthew Taylor highlights: “The Guardian has also found striking similarities in the way governments from Canada and the US to Guatemala and Chile, from India and Tanzania to the UK, Europe and Australia, are cracking down on activists trying to protect the planet.”

While Canada has not yet seen the use of legislation to criminalize peaceful protest the way the Public Order Act 2023 and the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill 2022 have been used in the UK, other legal instruments have been used.

Injunctions and the RCMP C-IRG

Following his January 2024 visit to the United Kingdom, UN Special Rapporteur Forst commented: “I am deeply troubled at the use of civil injunctions to ban protest in certain areas, including on public roadways.”

In March 2020, the Canadian Press reported Irina Ceric, now an Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Law at the University of Windsor, saying the use of injunctions to dispel protests has been on the rise in Canada.

Ceric expressed concern that injunctions give “corporations that are impacted by blockades the power to call the shots in terms of protest policing, which I think is really problematic.” This is particularly the case with Indigenous-led blockades against extractive projects on their sovereign territories within Canada.

One example is the injunction related to the Calgary-based TC Energy Coastal GasLink fracked gas pipeline.

On December 14, 2018, the British Columbia Supreme Court granted Coastal GasLink an interim injunction to prevent land defenders from blockading/disrupting the construction of the pipeline that was at that time being built without free, prior and informed consent on Wet’suwet’en territory in northern British Columbia.

West Coast Environmental Law (WECL) has observed: “This type of injunction is common in resource disputes – the company sues a few of the protesters and then asks the court for a court order to ‘preserve their legal rights’ until the matter can go to trial. Usually the original lawsuit doesn’t go to trial – because by that time the project is built. The company really just wants the injunction.”

On January 7, 2019, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) Community-Industry Response Group (C-IRG) enforced that interim injunction with a heavily-armed, militarized raid on Wet’suwet’en territory.

By December 2019, BC Supreme Court Judge Marguerite Church granted Coastal GasLink’s application for an interlocutory injunction. That injunction was enforced by the RCMP C-IRG in two raids on February 6-10, 2020, and November 18-19, 2021.

A total of 74 people, including land defenders and media, were arrested in those three RCMP raids on Wet’suwet’en territory.

Furthermore, in January 2024, B.C. Supreme Court Justice Michael Tammen found three Indigenous land defenders guilty of criminal contempt of court for breaking the injunction against impeding construction of the pipeline.

While they face the possibility of imprisonment and/or a fine for criminal contempt, their sentencing has been delayed pending an abuse of process hearing against the RCMP that will continue this coming September 3-11.

The United States

On February 20, 2021, HuffPost reported: “Under a new bill in the Minnesota legislature, [environmental activists] could face much steeper consequences [holding] virtually anyone even remotely involved [in a protest] — especially those caught trespassing — liable for the damage, threatening protesters with up to 10 years in prison and $20,000 in fines.”

That article adds: “Minnesota’s bill is tougher than similar legislation proposed in other states, but it’s not unique. The legislation follows a model that’s been approved in 14 states and is also under consideration in Arkansas, Montana, and Kansas. The model designates ― if it isn’t already so ― any oil, gas, coal, or plastics facilities as ‘critical infrastructure’ and adds aggressive new penalties for vague charges of trespassing or tampering.”

Further reading: Ojibwe water protector Tara Houska shot with rubber bullets paid for by Calgary-based Enbridge Inc. (August 3, 2021).

“An international pattern to criminalize”

While there are differences between the Just Stop Oil protests in the UK and Wet’suwet’en resistance on their territory in Canada, there may be a connecting link.

Shin Imai, an emeritus professor at the Osgoode Hall law school in Toronto, has commented: “There is very clearly an international pattern to criminalize communities in which the nexus between corporations and governments is very important …fossil fuel companies need the state to criminalize defenders.”

Professor Imai, who is also the director of the Justice and Corporate Accountability Project, a community-based legal clinic, adds: “[Corporations] also often rely on their own government to use diplomatic influence to pressure the host state to deploy troops, pass laws, arrest activists and deny bail. Across the world, the legal goal posts are being changed to make criminalizing climate and environmental defenders easier in a way that violates fundamental rights and the spirit of the rule of law.”

As Lakhani, Gayle and Taylor highlight in The Guardian: “In other words, Shin said, acts of violence, online attacks, threats and other intimidatory tactics could be carried out against activists without state involvement, but criminalisation required lawmakers, prosecutors, police and courts to be involved – the same people and agencies we need to tackle the climate crisis and biodiversity loss.”

Watching Guatemala

As mentioned above, The Guardian article from October 2023 notes “striking similarities” in Canada, the UK and other parts of the world notably Guatemala.

While international attention has been given to the criminalization of Indigenous peoples in Guatemala resisting mining and hydroelectric dam megaprojects, less attention has been given to fossil fuel projects there.

In April 2024, BNAmericas reported that Perenco, Guatemala’s primary oil producer, whose refinery licences are set to expire in August 2025, is now in talks with the Arevalo government to stay beyond that time.

President Bernardo Arévalo has commented: “The Xan well that is in a protected area can no longer continue operating because it would be a violation of the existing legislation, but we expect Perenco will continue to carry out exploration and production in other areas of the country where there are no environmental protection limits.”

Mongabay has also noted that Perenco, a London, UK-headquartered oil and gas company, currently produces between 5,000 and 7,000 barrels of crude oil a day from its Xan field, or around 90% of national output.

We continue to follow this.

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