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Implications of pause and possible closure of USAID on HRDs in Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras and Colombia

By
Brent Patterson
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Photo: Elon Musk and Donald Trump, November 2024.

The Associated Press reports: “The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) is facing its greatest threat since its inception over 60 years ago, as President Donald Trump and his billionaire adviser Elon Musk spent the weekend impugning the agency that has contributed to Washington being the most critical source of foreign assistance around the world.”

Musk says: “You’ve got to basically get rid of the whole thing. It’s beyond repair.” He has also commented: “With regards to the USAID stuff, I went over it with (the president) in detail and he agreed that we should shut it down.”

The USAID building was closed to Agency personnel on Monday February 3 and 600 staffers were locked out of computer systems overnight.

The AP article adds: “In fiscal year 2023, the most recent data available, $68 billion US had been obligated in U.S. foreign aid to programs ranging from disaster relief to health and pro-democracy initiatives in 204 countries and regions. USAID was responsible for about 62 per cent of the total, with the State Department next at 28 per cent.”

That article also notes: “The Trump administration and Secretary of State Marco Rubio have imposed an unprecedented freeze on foreign assistance. Rubio has said there is a 90-day review period analyzing programs and that those offering “life-saving” assistance including medicine, medical services, food and shelter would be exempted from the aid freeze, though what qualifies is not immediately clear.”

WOLA analysis

The Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA) has commented: “The unprecedented pause and potential elimination of many U.S. foreign assistance programs, announced in President Trump’s executive order ‘Reevaluating and Realigning United States Foreign Aid’, has caused shock waves worldwide.”

Implications for the countries where PBI is present include:

Mexico

“USAID has provided important support for Mexican institutions’ efforts to address the country’s devastating disappearance crisis, as well as assistance that aims to improve human rights, protect journalists and human rights defenders, and support economic development and state-level justice institutions.”

Guatemala

“In Guatemala, the most impacted project will be Justice and Transparency, which aims to ‘reduce criminal impunity and more effectively investigate, prosecute, and adjudicate crimes that drive illegal migration’. Given the country’s lack of judicial independence and criminalization of dissident voices, freezing this program could prevent elected President Bernardo Arévalo and civil society organizations from denouncing irregularities in the troubled judiciary and restoring the rule of law.”

Honduras

“In Honduras, measures to improve government’s transparency, accountability, and citizen-responsiveness will be affected during the crucial runup to the November 2025 general elections.”

Colombia

“USAID’s cooperation supports the country’s efforts to consolidate peace in conflict areas. It focuses explicitly on vulnerable populations disproportionately affected by violence, especially Afro-descendant, Indigenous, and rural communities. USAID efforts are crucial to advancing citizen security and reconciliation in one of the most violent and conflictive countries in the region. In one of the most biodiverse and mineral-rich countries in the world, USAID has sought to preserve Colombia’s natural resources.”

USAID and military assistance

WOLA also highlights: “We have opposed certain forms of U.S. assistance, particularly military assistance through the Departments of Defense and State, which backed military dictatorships; supported security-force units that engage in abuse, corruption, or support of paramilitaries and death squads; or distorted civil-military relations by, for instance, helping armed forces to take on what should be internal civilian roles. We have advocated for conditions on U.S. assistance to ensure that U.S. tax dollars do not go to security forces that violate human rights with impunity.”

It adds: “Much U.S. military and police aid, including training programs and counter-drug eradication and interdiction funded through the State Department’s International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (INL) Bureau, is now on hold.”

Notably, WOLA says: “The INL mission in Bogotá has reportedly been forced already to lay off 250 contractors. The freeze has also grounded dozens of Colombia’s U.S.-provided Black Hawk helicopters for at least three months, for lack of maintenance and contractor crews. The Black Hawks were the largest single item in the much-touted ‘Plan Colombia’ aid packages of the early 2000s.”

“Informal imperialism”

Others have more sharply criticized USAID.

Carlos Cruz Mosquera, a PhD candidate and teaching associate at Queen Mary University of London, has commented: “Alongside overt forms of domination — military interventions, territorial acquisition, direct political interference — Western powers have long developed parallel forms of intervention and control, sometimes called informal imperialism. …Though firmly aligned with violent, militaristic forms of intervention, European Union aid, USAID, and other such developmental agencies have worked in the region with relatively little scrutiny or opposition. This is largely due to the widespread assumption that their projects are inherently benevolent and a force for good.”

We continue to follow this.

Artificial intelligence poses new threats to human rights defenders, UN Human Rights Council to receive thematic report in June 2025

By
Brent Patterson
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Photo: PBI-Mexico concerned Cerezo Committee on list the Ministry of National Defence targeted with Pegasus spyware (October 4, 2022).

There is no single, simple definition of artificial intelligence, but crucial elements of it include sorting through massive amounts of data, finding patterns, creating hyper-realistic video or audio recordings that can make it appear as if someone is saying or doing something they never did, and more.

Surveillance

In May 2022, the European Parliament’s Subcommittee on Human Rights (DROI) called for hearings on the use of artificial intelligence. They noted: “The increasing use of artificial intelligence (AI) generates new challenges for human rights, with expressed concern about the unprecedented level of surveillance across the globe by state and private actors, which is incompatible with human rights. Human rights defenders and dissenters face particular risks that they will be targeted…”

Karine Gentelet, a professor at the Université du Québec en Outaouais, and Sarit K. Mizrahi, a Ph.D. in Law Candidate at the University of Ottawa, have also warned: “AI systems created to monitor illegal activities have been used to track and target human rights defenders.”

Pegasus spyware

The reference by Gentelet and Mizrahi to human rights defenders links to a Forbidden Stories consortium article about Pegasus spyware developed by an Israeli company called the NSO Group.

It is believed that 85 human rights activists and 189 journalists are among the 50,000 phone numbers targeted by clients of the NSO Group since 2016.

The PBI-Mexico accompanied Espacio OSC has stated: “We stand in solidarity with the victims [of Pegasus espionage] and their families, among whom is the member of the Management Team of Consorcio Oaxaca, Yesica Sánchez Maya, as well as the Director of the Tlachinollan Human Rights Centre, Abel Barrera and the lawyer Vidulfo Rosales, who are also part of the Espacio OSC, as well as the other defenders and journalists subject to attempts at espionage.”

It is also believed that the Cerezo Committee and journalist Cecilio Pineda Birto (who was murdered in 2017) were targeted by Pegasus spyware.

Keyboard surveillance, digital union busting

A.J. Schumann and Omar Ocampo at the Washington, DC-based Institute for Policy Studies have commented: “When people speak of AI today, what they’re most often referring to are machines capable of making predictions through the identification of patterns in large datasets. … Military AI technology is being sold to corporations to subvert and disrupt unionization efforts before they gain momentum. Artificial intelligence is effectively used for digital union busting, identifying and firing labor organizers through keyboard tracking, Zoom call spying, and alert systems tracking when a large number of employees hold internal meetings.”

Digital surveillance technologies

Luke Stark, an Assistant Professor at Western University in London, Ontario, also cautions: “If you’re tracking things like public transit use via digital smart cards, geolocation data via cell phones, all these different kinds of digital traces, a state that is willing and able to put all that data together is going to be able to really, really crack down on dissent extraordinarily effectively.”

The fabrication of false information to discredit defenders

In October 2024, Mongabay reported: “[UN Special Rapporteur Michel Forst] says that there is a growing pattern of attacks against environmental and territorial defenders, ‘using increasingly sophisticated technological means that we were not used to in the past.’ Forst also told Mongabay Latam that not only is justice turning to artificial intelligence, but criminals are using it to fabricate videos, audios and other false information to discredit environmental defenders. ‘It’s an issue that we still don’t know how to deal with effectively.’”

Mining of raw materials required for AI

Heather Ashby, an independent researcher and consultant, also notes: “The physical infrastructure and components behind AI—data centers, advanced chips, and servers—directly impact countries throughout the world. Many of the raw materials required for AI infrastructure, including cobalt, copper, and lithium, are sourced from areas in the Global South, including countries facing ongoing conflicts or near lands where Indigenous communities are located, adversely impacting the environment for those communities. The extraction of these resources without regard for local communities contributes to fueling violence, human rights abuses, and environmental degradation.”

Report to be presented at Human Rights Council in June 2025

The UN Working Group on Business and Human Rights has also noted: “Pursuant to Human Rights Council resolution 53/3, the United Nations Working Group on the issue of human rights and transnational corporations and other business enterprises (the Working Group) will present a thematic report to the 59th session of the UN Human Rights Council in June 2025. The theme of the report will be ‘The Use of Artificial Intelligence and the UNGPs [UN Guiding Principles].’”

The Working Group adds: “The report seeks to clarify the respective duty and responsibility of States and businesses outside the technology sector, understood here as businesses which do not develop AI, to protect and respect human rights, as well as the roles of other relevant stakeholders, including civil society, human rights defenders, academia, and trade unions, in the context of the evolving landscape of AI procurement and deployment.”

We continue to follow this.

Tweets by PBI-Mexico.

From #PBIMéxico we express our concern about the use of #Pegasus in Mexico.

We call on the State to comply with the demands for transparency, exhaustive investigation and guarantees of non-repetition formulated by the @EspacioOsc

The @espacioOSC points out that in #México 🇲🇽 , the acts of espionage revealed by #PegasusProject:

“These were not isolated incidents and were part of a government policy that was characterized by attacks and acts of harassment against human rights defenders and journalists.”

 

What impact could Trump’s tariff war have on Canadian military exports, the F-35 fighter jet purchase, critical minerals and human rights?

By
Brent Patterson
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Video still of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s media conference, February 1, 2025.

Yesterday, Saturday February 1, CBC reported: “[US president Donald] Trump launched a trade war against Canada … by imposing a 25 per cent tariff on virtually all goods from this country — an unprecedented strike against a long-standing ally that has the potential to throw the economy into a tailspin.”

That article adds: “Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced late Saturday the federal government will hit back… To start, Canada will slap 25 per cent tariffs on $30 billion worth of American goods coming into Canada as of [February 4]. The tariffs will then be applied to another $125 billion worth of American imports in three weeks’ time.”

The export of Canadian military goods

It is not clear if the Trump tariffs will be applied to the more than $1 billion of Canadian-produced military “goods” exported to the US every year.

One week ago, the Canadian Association of Defence and Security Industries (CADSI) commented: “CADSI is aware that any U.S. tariffs applied to Canadian #defenceexports would have a significant negative impact on our members, and on the highly integrated Canada-U.S. defence industrial base.”

To avert this “negative impact”, CADSI asked its member groups: “Can you provide examples of Canadian-made defence goods that are mission-critical to the U.S. and would be impacted by the anticipated tariffs?”

One example could be Ottawa-based Gastops. The Breach has reported: “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.”

Restrictions on the export of critical minerals?

The CBC article yesterday also noted: “Trudeau said there is more non-tariff trade action coming to try to force Trump’s hand and get him to call off the hostilities. Those actions are still to be decided but could include measures like restrictions on the export of critical minerals and energy products to the U.S. and a move to block American companies from bidding on government contracts, he said.”

In May 2024, Washington, DC-based CBC correspondent Alexander Panetta reported: “The U.S. military has, for the first time in generations, spent public money on minerals projects inside Canada: nearly $15 million US to mine and process copper, gold, graphite and cobalt in Quebec and the Northwest Territories. It might not be the last: Officials expect additional cross-border announcements under the more than half-billion-dollar U.S. program. These minerals are vital ingredients in an endless array of civilian and military products — including medicine, batteries, electronics, engines, cars, planes, drones and munitions.”

For example, by one estimate, every F-35 fighter jet has about 920 pounds of rare earth elements (a subset of crucial minerals) built into its engines and electronics

That CBC article further highlighted: “The cash comes with no strings attached — for now [but] in a national-security crisis, the U.S. military could demand these supplies — say in the event of a severe trade war, or worse, a shooting war in the Asia-Pacific.”

Could trade war impact the purchase of F-35 fighter jets?

Yesterday, Global News reporter Paul Johnson asked British Columbia NDP premier David Eby: “We are about to buy a bunch of surveillance planes from Boeing [16 P-8A Poseidon aircraft for $10 billion], replace our fighter jets in a multi-billion dollar deal from Lockheed Martin [$19 billion on 88 F-35s that will be assembled in Fort Worth, Texas], might it not be time for Canada to start considering the timing and the terms of major investments in the American economy like that at this point?”

Eby responded: “The prime minister will speak for the national approach… For major defence expenditures, which I know is a priority for the Americans, for the president, he wants to see Canada putting additional money into defence, well, we are all happy to do that work together, but these tariffs will force Canada into procuring from other countries.”

Video still: BC premier Eby responds to question on “defence” procurement.

The Trudeau government decided to purchase the Lockheed Martin F-35 fighter jet in January 2023. The other main contender in the competition had been Saab. This Swedish aerospace firm had pledged to build the Gripen E fighter jet in Canada.

The first four of the 88 F-35s being purchased are expected to arrive in 2026. It’s not clear the payment schedule for Canada, but in the past Canada has made payments in April for its participation in the F-35 program.

Implications for human rights

In March 2024, Kelsey Gallagher of the Canadian peace research institute Project Ploughshares “conservatively” estimated that: “The total annual value of Canadian military exports to the United States exceeds one billion dollars. However, the Government of Canada does not regulate the majority of Canada’s military transfers to the United States; the total is, therefore, not officially reported or known.”

The Defence Production Sharing Agreement (DPSA) means that Canada does not report on most transfers to the US, nor does it require specific permits for them.

This lack of transparency is troubling given William D. Hartung, a Senior Research Fellow at the Washington, DC-based Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, has argued that US arms sales have played a role in the “enabling of human rights abuses”.

In October 2022, Hartung wrote: “The United States routinely sells to undemocratic regimes, many of which commit major human rights abuses. As of 2021, the most recent year for which full statistics are available, the U.S. has provided weapons and training to 31 nations that Freedom House has defined as ‘not free’. …As [Yale Law School professor] Asli Bali noted in a Quincy Institute issue brief, ‘What is needed is not selective human rights conditionality but an end to arms sales to abusive regimes.’”

David Swanson, the Virginia-based executive director of World Beyond War, has also highlighted that since World War II the United States has overthrown at least 36 governments, interfered in at least 86 foreign elections, attempted to assassinate over 50 foreign leaders, and dropped bombs on people in over 30 countries.

We continue to follow this situation.

The CADSI-organized CANSEC arms show in Ottawa this coming May 28-29, 2025 could be a significant moment where these issues further come to the fore.

Twitter photo of US Ambassador David L. Cohen (right) at CANSEC 2023.

PBI-Honduras accompanied COPINH, ARCAH, CNTC and Arcoiris sign statement declaring emergency in the Aguan Valley

By
Brent Patterson
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Organizations accompanied by Peace Brigades International-Honduras – including the Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras (COPINH), the Honduran Alternative for Community and Environmental Vindication (ARCAH), the National Union of Rural Workers (CNTC) and the LGTBI rights group Arcoiris – along with affiliated organizations including the Municipal Committee in Defence of Common and Public Goods of Tocoa, the Agrarian Platform, the San Alonso Rodriguez Foundation and C-Libre – have signed a statement declaring an emergency in the Aguan Valley.”

That statement on the situation in the Aguan Valley (Bajo Aguan) is signed by “social, popular, feminist, human rights, Indigenous, Garifuna, artistic, sexual dissidence, Afro-indigenous, student, social, popular, feminist movements”.

COPINH has tweeted:

“National Declaration of Emergency in Bajo Aguán.

COPINH joins together with various social organizations in Honduras to warn about the serious situation in the cooperatives of Camarones, El Tranvío and El Chile, where armed groups are attacking, displacing and killing peasants (campesinos y campesinas).

Despite denunciations by organizations such as COPA and Plataforma Agraria, the government continues to fail to intervene effectively. The violence is escalating and the deadly risk is imminent.

Read the full statement and join the urgent call to protect their lives.”

EFE reports: “Social, peasant and human rights organizations in Honduras declared an ‘emergency’ on Saturday [February 1] in the Caribbean department of Colon, mainly in what is known as the Aguan Valley, due to the ‘mortal risk’ faced by organized peasants.”

That article continues: “These peasants from the Camarones, Chile and Tranvío cooperatives are victims of ‘armed attacks by hitman groups, supported by guards under the responsibility of the Dinant Corporation (one of the largest producers of African palm in Honduras), who are displacing and murdering’ peasants to ‘evict them from the land for which they have organized’, the organizations said in a statement.”

That article adds: “They regretted that ‘the calls for help and solidarity’ from the organized peasants ‘have not touched’ the government presided over by Xiomara Castro, whom they accuse of being ‘now an accomplice’ of what is happening in Colón, one of the most violent regions of the country due to land problems and drug trafficking that have operated for many years.”

The Dinant Corporation

As noted above, the statement highlights the Dinant corporation.

Dialogue Earth has explained: “The Honduran government started promoting oil palm cultivation during the 1960s [but] it was really in the late 1990s that production skyrocketed [and by July 2023, when the article was published] the country has roughly 200,000 hectares of oil palm yielding close to 600,000 metric tonnes of oil a year.”

That article adds: “Of the total national production, 61% comes from just three companies – Corporación Dinant, Grupo Jaremar and Aceydesa – and their plantations are located where the highest levels of violence have been recorded.”

The Guardian further notes: “In Honduras, [palm oil exports are] mostly going to the Netherlands, the US, Italy and Switzerland.”

Two peasants killed

Another article by EFE also notes: “The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights in Honduras (OHCHR) on Saturday condemned the murder of José Luis Hernández and Suyapa Guillén, members of the Gregorio Chávez peasant cooperative, in an attack that occurred this Friday in the department of Colon, in the country’s Caribbean.”

Image from COPINH tweet.

We continue to follow this situation.

Further reading: Photo-journal of PBI-Canada visit with PBI-Honduras accompanied organizations, defenders and communities (November 1, 2024).

PBI-UK notes win by farmers against LSE listed mining company in Mexico, the environmental defenders killed after denouncing abuses

By
Brent Patterson
-

Image from PBI-UK report: The Case For Change: Why human rights defenders need a UK law on mandatory due diligence.

PBI-UK has posted on X/Twitter: “WIN! Court confirms UK-registered company owes farmers in El Bajío over £5 million for gold illegally extracted from community land. Environmental defenders were murdered after denouncing land & environmental abuses.”

The Pie de Página article by independent journalist Alejandro Ruiz shared by PBI-UK reports: “The Unitary Agrarian Tribunal Number 28 accredited that the company Fresnillo PLC, owned by the Baillères family, owes the ejidatarios of the ejido El Bajío, in Sonora, the sum of 13,258,667,000 pesos. The amount corresponds to the illegal extraction of gold that the mining company carried out on ejido lands from 2005 to 2013…”

That article further notes: “The information could lead to sanctions for the company, which is listed on the London Stock Exchange in the United Kingdom, where the board informs its shareholders that the mine is still active and that ‘there is no legal conflict’, so they could be expelled from that space.”

The Mexican Network of People Affected by Mining (REMA) also highlights the Pie de Página article and the significance of this ruling in this tweet.

Fresnillo in PBI-UK report

PBI-UK highlighted the Fresnillo case in their investigative report: The Case For Change: Why human rights defenders need a UK law on mandatory due diligence (November 2024).

That report highlighted (on pages 21 to 23):

“Minera Penmont operated the Soledad-Dipolos open-pit gold mine located in the territory of the El Bajío Ejido in Mexico, between 2010 and 2013. When mining exploration began on communal lands, local communities began to defend their rights. Agrarian Courts have ruled that Penmont were operating on the land illegally without the community’s permission, ordering Penmont to leave the land and compensate the residents. However, land and environmental defenders calling for accountability have faced a series of reprisals including arbitrary detention, criminalisation, and killings. Minera Penmont is a subsidiary of Fresnillo PLC, a UK-incorporated company listed on the London Stock Exchange.”

Attacks against land defenders opposed to the mine

Their report further notes:

“Leaders of the peaceful community resistance faced arbitrary arrest in April 2016 when police officers – allegedly escorted by private security guards of Minera Penmont – arrived at the Ejido and arrested land rights defender Bartolo Pacheco and four other members of the Ejido.

Attacks against community representatives continued to escalate and, in February 2018, land rights defender Raúl Ibarra de la Paz was murdered, and his wife Noemí López Gutierrez forcibly disappeared. Journalists who went to the El Bajío Ejido to cover the story reported being threatened by security staff allegedly linked to Minera Penmont.

In May 2021, José de Jesús Robledo Cruz, human rights defender and former Ejido President, was found murdered in the middle of the desert together with his wife, María de Jesús Gómez Vega.José de Jesús had actively opposed the activities of Minera Penmont in the region. Alongside their bodies, a list with the names of 13 other anti-mining Ejido members was found. When invited by the Business and Human Rights Resource Centre to respond to the killing of José de Jesús and his wife, Minera Penmont categorically rejected that it is linked in any way with the crimes.

PBI has provided security and advocacy support to members of the Ejido due to the ongoing threats they face.”

How a UK Business, Human Rights and Environment Act would have applied

PBI-UK concludes:

“Ultimately, a Business, Human Rights and Environment Act would likely have provided a robust framework to prevent serious human rights violations and environmental harm by compelling early and appropriate action, ensuring meaningful consultation, and offering avenues for redress. This is all that the land and environmental defenders from the El Bajio Ejido ever wanted. It is what some of them paid the ultimate price for demanding.”

We continue to follow this and support calls in Canada for a “Mandatory Human Rights and Environmental Due Diligence” law (proposed by the Canadian Network on Corporate Accountability, of which we are members) as well as for a legally-Binding Treaty on transnational corporations and human rights that the Canadian government continues to oppose at United Nations talks in Geneva.

PBI-Germany together with PBI-Honduras meets with defenders from ARCAH and COFADEH

By
Brent Patterson
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PBI-Honduras has posted:

“Together with ARCAH and Peace Brigades International Deutschland, we accompany the German Embassy in Honduras during a visit to Rio Grande or Choluteca in Aldea Loarque, Tegucigalpa. ARCAH defenders shared about the importance of creating legislation on atmospheric pollution in Honduras and denounced the river pollution allegedly caused by the poultry company El Cortijo. From PBI, we remind you that 11 members of ARCAH have precautionary measures from Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and that it is important to ensure their protection.”

The Honduran Alternative for Community and Environmental Vindication (Alternativa de Reivindicación Comunitaria y Ambientalista de Honduras, ARCAH) is a space for community articulation and an anti-capitalist, anti-racist, anti-patriarchal, anti-colonialist and anti-classist social movement that seeks to defend territories and common goods from any project that threatens the peace and cosmovision of communities.

PBI-Honduras then posted:

“Together with the Committee of Relatives of the Detained and Disappeared in Honduras (COFADEH) we met with defender Berta Oliva de Nativi and PBI-Germany to talk about the importance of not forgetting what happened in Honduras in the 1980s under the Doctrine of National Security. During the visit, we shared that the proposal for Victims Act has not yet been approved by Congress, while the State of Honduras has, among other things, the obligation to incorporate the subject into the educational curriculum, as stipulated by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights in the sentence Deras Garcia and others vs. Honduras.”

The Committee of Relatives of the Disappeared in Honduras (Comité de Familiares de Detenidos Desaparecidos en Honduras, COFADEH) is a human rights NGO in Honduras founded in 1982 by twelve families of disappeared Hondurans, including Bertha Oliva de Nativí, whose husband Professor Tomás Nativí was disappeared in 1981.

For more about PBI-Deutschland, see their website, as well as on social media at X/Twitter, Instagram, Bluesky and Facebook.

RCMP Black Hawk helicopters now patrol Quebec-United States border target “individuals who illegally enter Canada”

By
Brent Patterson
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Photo: RCMP officers approach Black Hawk helicopter.

On January 30, the Montreal Gazette reported: “Facing the threat of U.S. trade tariffs, the RCMP has deployed a new Black Hawk helicopter to bolster patrols along the Quebec-U.S. border, a move the RCMP says signals to Washington that Canada is serious about tackling illegal migration and drug smuggling.”

The province of Quebec borders four US states: Maine, New Hampshire, New York, and Vermont.

The Gazette article adds: “The RCMP has acquired two Black Hawk border patrol helicopters, with the other being used in the Prairies. The helicopters are being rented for $5.3 million from Ontario company Helicopter Transport Services from Jan. 17 until the end of March.”

On January 22, the RCMP began patrolling the Manitoba-US border with Black Hawk helicopters. On January 28, patrols with Black Hawk helicopters began on the Alberta-US border.

An RCMP media release on the Alberta patrols says the helicopters will “search for, and target, all illegal activity along the border region; this includes searching for individuals who illegally enter Canada between official ports of entries and for the human smugglers who facilitate their travel. It will also be used to detect and stop illegal smuggling and trafficking of contraband such as illicit drugs into, and out of, Canada.”

Global News further reports: “Since Trump’s election victory, Ottawa has pledged $1.3 billion to increase border security, including 60 new drones in the air along the border and more surveillance towers.”

And Northeast Now adds: “The Black Hawks [that can carry up to twelve officers] are being used to patrol, detect, and respond to both north and southbound threats. Six of the helicopters in the fleet have cameras capable of thermal imaging, and one is capable of hoisting operations.”

The Toronto-based Migrant Rights Network has commented: “Seven years ago, when Trump was first elected, Prime Minister Trudeau declared that ‘refugees are welcome’. Now, as Trump returns to power, the Canadian government has allocated $1.3 billion to increase border policing and create a ‘border strike force’.”

Decades of exclusion

In April 2021, just after Trump’s first term as president ended, Vancouver-based migrant rights activist Harsha Walia commented: “There’s been a lot of emphasis on the ways in which Donald Trump was enacting very exclusionary immigration policies. But border securitization and border controls have been bipartisan practices in the United States. We saw the first policies of militarization at the border with Mexico under Bill Clinton in the late 90s.”

At that same time, Erika Guevara-Rosas, the Americas director at Amnesty International, also said that Biden was “repeating the mistakes of past administrations by securing agreements with Mexico, Guatemala, and Honduras to further militarize their borders in a bid to stop people who are fleeing from state repression, violent crime, food insecurity, and the devastating effects of the climate crisis.”

In December 2018, Pedro Rios, the director of the American Friends Service Committee US-Mexico Border Program, noted: “Over the past four decades, policies under every presidential administration – regardless of political party – have systematically militarized southern border communities, criminalizing millions of immigrants and creating repressive conditions from California to Texas.”

Border observatory

We are following the human rights implications of Canada’s border policies and are seeking to amplify the voices of migrant rights defenders.

Further reading: PBI-Canada to follow the human rights implications of RCMP Black Hawk helicopters deployed at US-Canada border (PBI-Canada, January 30, 2025).

PBI-Mexico: “The dignity of people is beyond any border”

PBI-Guatemala accompanies the Association for Justice and Reconciliation (AJR) at #MujeresAchí trial

By
Brent Patterson
-

PBI-Guatemala has posted:

“Today #PBI accompanies the Association for Justice and Reconciliation -AJR- at the beginning of the second trial of the #AchíWomen case against three former patrol members accused of sexual violence and crimes against the duties of humanity during the Internal Armed Conflict.

A ceremony was held in the Human Rights Plaza in which representatives of the Achí women read a statement demanding justice and respect for human rights and the rights of indigenous peoples. They have called on the media and civil society to follow the process closely. AJR and other human rights organizations were present to support the Achi women in this judicial process.”

Background

On January 29, LaHora.gt reported: “High Risk Court B began the trial against three former members of the Civil Self-Defense Patrols (PAC) accused of crimes of duty against humanity and rape allegedly committed against women from the Achí community of Rabinal, Baja Verapaz, during the Internal Armed Conflict between 1981 and 1982. …In this case, Pedro Sánchez Cortez, Simeón Enríquez Gómez and Feliz Tum Ramírez are being prosecuted, whom the Public Ministry (MP) seeks to convict.”

CRN Noticias has also explained: “high-risk court in Guatemala on Tuesday began the trial of three former members of a paramilitary force. The defendants face charges of sexual violence against more than 30 Mayan women of the Achí people during the 1980s, in the context of the internal armed conflict. The Public Prosecutor’s Office (Prosecutor’s Office) presented evidence to the High Risk Court B indicating that the defendants sexually abused at least five women. These women were detained for more than 25 days in a military barracks in Rabinal, Baja Verapaz.”

FGER further notes: “The ‘Mujeres Achi’ case is emblematic of sexual violence during the internal armed conflict, evidencing the use of rape as a weapon of war by the Army and paramilitary groups to attack women and subjugate indigenous communities. According to the Commission for Historical Clarification (CEH), in 1999 1,465 cases of rape were documented during the conflict, affecting 89% Mayan women and 35% girls. …The events on trial occurred between 1981 and 1985, during which the Achi women were subjected to extreme sexual violence by the Army, military commissioners and civilian patrolmen, both in their homes and in military installations. Violations in these contexts were particularly degrading, as many victims were abused while in detention, and at times, in front of family members, which intensified their suffering.”

The next court dates are on January 30, February 11 and 12, February 17 and 18.

Accompaniment

The Association for Justice and Reconciliation (AJR) is a coalition of survivors from 22 communities in five regions of the country that suffered as a result of the scorched earth policy between 1978 and 1985. PBI-Guatemala began accompanying the AJR Board of Directors in April 2024.

PBI-Canada to follow the human rights implications of RCMP Black Hawk helicopters deployed at US-Canada border

By
Brent Patterson
-

Photo: Heavily armed RCMP officers onboard a Black Hawk helicopter near the Alberta-Montana border, January 29, 2025.

Peace Brigades International has accompanied the struggle for migrant rights, notably the Saltillo Migrant Shelter in Mexico.

The Saltillo Migrant Shelter is situated in the state of Coahuila which shares a 512-kilometre border with Texas.

PBI-Mexico has noted: “The Saltillo Migrant Shelter offers daily humanitarian assistance — including clothes, medicines, food, rest, and medical and psychological care — to hundreds of migrants crossing Mexico to reach the United States.”

Video: Saltillo Migrant Shelter director Alberto Xicotencátl Carrasco denouncing federal police attempting an immigration check at the Shelter, July 24, 2019.

In his inaugural speech on January 20, 2025, Trump stated: “I will declare a national emergency at our southern border” and further noted: “I will send troops to the southern border to repel the disastrous invasion of our country.”

The Washington Post has also reported: “At times, Trump has tied tariffs to border security, citing an ‘invasion’ of migrants and fentanyl from Canada. About 1.5 percent of migrants apprehended by U.S. Customs and Border Protection and 0.2 percent of fentanyl seized at U.S. borders in the 2024 fiscal year came from Canada.”

To counter Trump’s threat of the US imposing 25 percent tariffs on Canada as early as February 1, Public Safety Minister David McGuinty stated: “We have deployed 60 new drones along our border with the United States, and we will be deploying additional surveillance towers. We are acquiring new technology such as x rays, mobile x rays, and handheld chemical analyzers. As of this week, we are deploying new helicopters at the Canada U.S. border.”

On January 22, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) began patrolling the Manitoba-US border with Black Hawk helicopters. On January 28, patrols with Black Hawk helicopters began on the Alberta-US border.

The RCMP says: “The helicopter patrols will transverse the Prairie border to search for, and target, all illegal activity along the border region; this includes searching for individuals who illegally enter Canada between official ports of entries and for the human smugglers who facilitate their travel. It will also be used to detect and stop illegal smuggling and trafficking of contraband such as illicit drugs into, and out of, Canada.”

Another Washington Post article notes: “Trump has complained about irregular crossings into the United States from Canada. But after his election in November, officials here have been preparing for a surge in crossings in the opposite direction — a repeat of what happened during his first term.”

Either way, migrants detained by Canada and returned to the United States face deportation flights on US military aircraft while handcuffed or even being held at the notorious US Naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The Trump administration says up to 30,000 migrants could be held there.

The Toronto-based Migrant Rights Network has commented: “Seven years ago, when Trump was first elected, Prime Minister Trudeau declared that ‘refugees are welcome’. Now, as Trump returns to power, the Canadian government has allocated $1.3 billion to increase border policing and create a ‘border strike force’.”

For 2025, they are calling on people to “commit to ending wars, genocides, climate collapse, and capitalist extraction that force people to migrate.”

We are following the human rights implications of Canada’s border policies and are seeking to amplify the voices of migrant rights defenders.

Further reading: PBI-Mexico: “The dignity of people is beyond any border” (PBI-Canada, December 18, 2021).

PBI-Colombia accompanies NOMADESC in Cali as mural painters highlight paramilitary and state violence in Medellín

By
Brent Patterson
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PBI-Colombia has posted on Instagram and X/Twitter:

“We accompanied NOMADESC [the Association for Social Research and Action] in the mural day on January 19 in Cali, in their work to defend #humanrights and fight against #impunity. In the Luna de la Resistencia [Moon of Resistance], emblematic site of the 2021 National Strike, murals were made in support of the search for missing persons in the Comuna [neighbourhood] 13 of Medellín. NOMADESC’s denouncement of an armed man threatening the activist youth who carried out the work is of concern. Urgent investigations and #guarantees for those who defend human rights.”

Video by NOMADESC.

Photo from that day.

NOMADESC has also explained on Instagram: “In response to the constant denial of the right to justice, memory and freedom of expression, artists, human rights defenders and social organizations in #Cali united last January 19, in artistic and cultural expressions in support of the national sentiment of the searching mothers of #Medellín and all of Colombia who have been right to denounce the murders, disappearances and torture of their children at the hands of the public forces.”

Missing persons, the clandestine ‘La Escombrera’ burial ground

Freelance reporter Joshua Collins has provided crucial context in his article Mass Grave in Medellín Tourist Hotspot Sparks War of Words—and Walls  (NACLA, January 21, 2025).

Collins explains that:

“For decades, residents of the working class neighborhood of Comuna 13, in Medellín, Colombia have sworn that a garbage dump near the community also served as a clandestine burial ground for some of the city’s thousands of ‘disappeared’ – victims of gangs, paramilitaries, and Colombian security forces during the country’s more than half-century civil war.

On December 18, Colombia’s Peace Court (JEP for its Spanish initials) finally confirmed these suspicions when investigators uncovered human remains during a search of the grounds. The grim revelation has renewed the debate in the city over paramilitary ‘social cleansings’, which claimed thousands of lives in Medellin and culminated in 2002 in ‘Operation Orion’, a joint armed offensive in Comuna 13 carried out by state forces and their paramilitary allies that left hundreds of victims.

It has also inspired a graffiti war in a city that has become famous for its street art.

On Sunday, January 12, street artists and activists painted a mural on an underpass in the city honoring the victims of conflict in Comuna 13. The mural also depicted a group of mothers of missing children who have spent decades insisting that authorities investigate ‘La Escombrera’, which residents have long claimed is ‘the largest mass grave in the country’.

‘Las cuchas tenían la razón’,  (the old ladies were right), read the mural, using a slang term for ‘mothers’ that can imply affection or serve as a pejorative depending on the context.

The following day Medellin’s right-wing mayor, Federico Gutiérrez, better known as ‘Fico’, ordered the mural removed and sent city workers to repaint the underpass with grey primer. The decision was met with public outcry.

Undeterred, activists and artists returned to the site on January 14 and repainted the mural, this time twice as big, amid impromptu celebrations.”

W Radio Colombia Video (January 14): “Artistic groups from Medellín repaint the mural ‘Las cuchas eran razón’ that had been erased by order of the Mayor’s Office.”

The mural was defaced on Wednesday, January 17, when unknown parties partially erased one of the images, an homage to an iconic photo of paramilitaries directing government forces during Operation Orion.

According to Colombia’s Center for Historical Memory, [Operation Orion] resulted in six hundred direct victims: displaced, wounded, disappeared, and dead. According to Colombia’s Center for Historical Memory, the operation resulted in six hundred direct victims: displaced, wounded, disappeared, and dead. Seventy-five residents of Comuna 13 were killed and 105 disappeared.”

More about Operation Orion

On December 24, 2024, Colombia One also explained:

“On October 16 and 17, 2002, the military incursion into Comuna 13, one of Medellín’s most dangerous neighborhoods, left residents caught in the crossfire from both ground and air, resulting in forced displacement, disappearances, and numerous deaths.

The operation, which continued throughout November and December, was a joint initiative of the Colombian government and involved the Army, the DAS (intelligence services), the Police, and special military forces equipped with tanks and supported by armed helicopters. A total of 1,500 personnel, some with their faces concealed, participated in the operation.

Fifteen years ago, former paramilitary leader alias Don Berna, who headed the Cacique Nutibara paramilitary group, publicly acknowledged the involvement of paramilitary forces in Operation Orion. He stated that they conducted prior intelligence gathering, accompanied the military, and actively participated in ground operations.”

“They are killing us”, the National Strike in 2021

Infobae has also recently reported:

“The Vice President of Colombia, Francia Márquez, defended the mural that reads ‘The cuchas were right’, alluding to the skeletal remains found in La Escombrera, in the 13th commune of Medellín.

The mural also refers to a broader context: its predecessor, which bore the phrase ‘They are killing us’, had previously been removed. This graffiti recalled the deaths and disappearances that occurred during the 2021 national strike, as well as the crimes against social leaders. Its elimination generated a new wave of protests and culminated in the appearance of the current phrase, reaffirming the cyclical nature of tensions between popular expression and government decisions.”

Accompaniment

The Peace Brigades International-Colombia Project has accompanied NOMADESC since 2011 and its president Berenice Celeita since 1999.

Further reading: NOMADESC upholds the right of mural painting in Cali, denounces police violence and genocide (September 16, 2021).

Photo: This is the mural “They are killing us”. In a short statement, they stated that they are demonstrating “against the selective assassinations of social leaders, systematic massacres, femicides and homicides as a result of the brutality of the police in Colombia.” Photo by Graffiti Collectives of Medellín (RCN Radio, September 14, 2020).

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