The Dominion - Peru

Showdown in Peru

dawn — Mon, 12 Sep 2011 08:55:19 +0000

Indigenous communities kick out Canadian mining company

BURLINGTON, VT—Earlier this spring, an anti-mining Indigenous movement in Peru successfully ousted a Canadian mining company from their territory.

“In spite of government repression, if the people decide to bring the fight to the bitter end, it is possible to resist the pressure of mining and oil companies,” Peruvian activist and journalist Yasser Gomez told The Dominion.

The David-and-Goliath scenario of this anti-mining uprising highlights the vast economic inequality that has beset Peru. The country’s economy has been booming for the past decade, with a seven per cent growth expected this year—one of the highest growth rates internationally. Sixty-five per cent of the country’s export income comes from the mining industry, and investors are expected to spend over $40 billion in the next 10 years on mining operations.

Yet this growth has not benefitted a large percentage of the population. The poverty rate in Peru is just over 31 per cent; in the countryside, two in three people live under the poverty line. Today, more than 200 communities across Peru are organized against mining.

On June 5, left-leaning presidential candidate Ollanta Humala defeated right-winger Keiko Fujimori, the daughter of ex-president and human rights violator Alberto Fujimori. Humala, who won resounding support in the poor countryside, promised to redistribute wealth by increasing taxes on the lucrative mining industry.

But another political force, from the grassroots, may end up being a powerful force of change under Humala.

In May and June of this year, hundreds of local residents in Puno organized road blockades, strikes and protests to demand the government rescind a concession to the Vancouver-based Bear Creek Mining Corporation. Activists also called for an end to future mining concessions in their area, due to the industry’s impact on the environment.

According to Bear Creek, at the time of the protests the company had already invested some $25 million in the mine. Company Director Andrew Swarthout said the mining would not impact Lake Titicaca (a massive freshwater lake shared by Bolivia and Peru) and would create approximately 1,000 jobs. But local residents were not convinced.

Walter Aduviri is the president of the Front for the Defense of Natural Resources in Southern Puno, and a leading organizer in protests against Bear Creek and mining in general in the area.

“It is as though we, the Aymaras, do not have any politicians or representatives in the congress,” Aduviri told a reporter from the Peruvian newspaper La Republica. He critiqued outgoing president Alan Garcia, who he says governed only for those who have money. "We do not ask for money, we ask for respect for our rights, our property and territory,” said Aduviri.

“The president [Alan Garcia] has sold off our territory without consulting us,” Paolo Castro, a farmer who joined the protests against Bear Creek told Al Jazeera. Farmer Alejandro Tucuuhami agreed, telling the news outlet, "We know that in European countries, for example, mining contaminates a lot, so that's why they want to send the mines to underdeveloped countries."

Indigenous campesinos on the Bolivian side of the border began road blockades in solidarity with the Peruvian activists. Overall, the blockades put a standstill to inter-country traffic, stopping hundreds of trucks, local passengers and tourists.

On June 24, following seven weeks of strikes, protests, road blockades and bloody police repression of activists, then-President Garcia broke with Peruvian political tradition and heeded the demands of the protesters by cancelling the Bear Creek contract, and putting a three-year hold on future mining deals for the region. In addition, recently inaugurated Ollanta Humala has pledged to move forward on legislation that will make community input necessary before mining operations anywhere in the country can proceed.

Just hours after Garcia overturned Bear Creek's concession, a conflict erupted at the airport in Juliaca, north of Puno. There, activists protesting other mining operations and a hydroelectric plant occupied the airport only to be attacked by police who shot and killed five of them. Major English media outlets inaccurately reported that Garcia’s decision against Bear Creek was linked to the massacre at the airport, when in fact the airport protest was linked to separate proposed mining and hydroelectric projects.

Jennifer Moore, the Latin America Program Coordinator of MiningWatch Canada, told The Dominion that Garcia’s decision to annul the concession “is an important indicator of the strength of local organizing that we have been seeing for a while in Peru.” Moore said Garcia has been “extraordinarily bent on handing out mining concessions without consulting with local communities first.”

In response to Garcia’s decision, Bear Creek has applied for a constitutional injunction against the Peruvian government. Swarthout contends that the cancellation of the concession is unconstitutional and in violation of foreign investment laws. Moore noted that it is plausible that Bear Creek could use the Canada-Peru Free Trade Agreement, signed in 2009, to challenge the loss of their concession.

The wave of strikes and conflicts that have swept across Peru in recent months, along with the election of Humala, are likely to have a long-standing impact on the regulation and taxation of the multinational extractive industry in Peru. On August 23, at the time of this writing, the Peruvian congress signed into law a bill that requires mining and oil companies to consult with Indigenous communities before constructing extractive projects. Humala now has to sign the bill into law for it go into effect.

The people’s victory in Puno against Bear Creek may set the stage for a new struggle in the country that will test the political will of Humala, and challenge social movements to pressure from below.

Ben Dangl is the editor of UpsideDownWorld.org, a website on activism and politics in Latin America. He is the author of the book, Dancing with Dynamite: Social Movements and States in Latin America.

Peru protests

Canada Gets Cuddly with Mining Companies

Moira Peters — Mon, 07 Feb 2011 10:28:38 +0000

Unconditional love for extractive industry costs taxpayers, say C-300 supporters

HALIFAX—Despite the death of Bill C-300, which would have introduced accountability for Canadian mining, oil or gas corporations operating in developing countries, watchdog groups are sounding the alarm louder than ever over what they see as a conflict of interest in the government. Not only is there a refusal to regulate these industries, they say, but government agencies are providing direct and indirect support for their practices.

“They are aiding and abetting, essentially,” said Catherine Coumans.

Coumans is the research coordinator for MiningWatch Canada. The group's raison d'etre is to be a watchdog in the extractive sector, drawing attention to human rights and environmental abuses perpetrated by Canadian companies. MiningWatch also lobbies MPs to promote sustainable mining practices and policies, such as Bill C-300, which would have disqualified any corporation implicated in unethical operations from receiving government funds.

In a report commissioned by the Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada in 2007, Canadian companies were singled out as perpetrating almost half of documented misconduct around the world, including causing community conflict, engaging in environmentally unsound practices and violating human rights. The report went unreleased until it was leaked by MiningWatch in 2010.

Bill C-300 gained broad support—from a coalition of NGOs and activists to the Globe & Mail and the Toronto Star,—yet was defeated by six votes in its final reading in the House of Commons. Despite their initial support for the bill, the Bloc Quebecois, Liberals and NDP were instrumental in its defeat, as a handful of their members missed the vote, including Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff.

Mining companies and the Conservative government vehemently opposed the bill. They argued that if regulations were imposed on the industry, companies would pack up shop and find headquarters outside Canada. They also said it jeopardizes development projects in the countries of the Global South, as well as jobs in Canada. Industry lobbyists, including former Liberal cabinet minister Don Boudria, met with MPs on the issue nearly 100 times in October 2010 alone.

These corporate interests can't be allowed to trump human rights, says Ian Thomson, Program Coordinator for Corporate Accountability with ecumenical justice group KAIROS.

“Whenever we went to Guatemala, we met with Canadian officials in the embassies and it's very obvious where their loyalties lay,” said Linda Scherzinger, a volunteer with KAIROS. The group is committed to advocating and acting on issues of climate and social justice in Canada and overseas.

The Harper government committed in 2009 to re-focus its aid to Latin America, adding five countries from the region to its list of 20 countries targeted by a $1.5 billion bilateral aid fund. The list included mineral-rich countries such as Colombia, Bolivia and Peru.

In November 2009, CIDA unexpectedly announced that KAIROS would no longer receive funding from the public agency. The sudden move raised eyebrows, especially after freelancer Kim Mackrael obtained through a freedom of information request the department memo responding to KAIROS's funding proposal, and published the story with Canadian Press. The memo read, “RECOMMENDATION—That you sign below to indicate you (not) approve a contribution of $7,098,758 over four years...” The word “not” was hand written above by an unknown person and was signed by International Co-operation Minister Bev Oda. Oda denied altering the application in front of a parliamentary committee, but has since admitted she edited the document.

In La Libertad, Peru, CIDA is spearheading a $500,000 reforestation project. Coumans says the project sounds good, but if this project is reforesting its mine site, that should be the responsibility of Barrick Gold. Coumans argues that Canadian taxpayers should not be footing the bill to fix Barrick's environmental impact, especially not under the auspices of “development.”

The La Libertad project is essentially a facade, says Emilie Lemieux, winner of the 2009 Gordon Global Fellowship, an annual award given to a progressive Canadian committed to sustainable international development. In a scathing report based on her experience in the region, she writes, “This project seems to fulfill the basic social needs the company is looking to address, as well as the Canadian embassy’s interest to work in [Corporate Social Responsibility], rather than the needs of the local population.” She goes on to say that CIDA's involvement exists simply to put a good face on Barrick's work, and that locals had no engagement in the projects.

In rhetoric and in cash, the Canadian Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade (DFAIT) also backs the Canadian extractive sector abroad. Centerra Gold, a Toronto-based company that operates the Boroo mine in Mongolia, received $270,000 in funding this September as part of a direct investment program that totals $601 million. The company's mine had lain dormant, as months earlier workers picketed the site, demanding higher wages and severance pay. The Mongolian government had also suspended the mine's license, citing, among other things, improper operating procedures.

Centerra also operates the Kumtor mine across the border in Kyrgyzstan. The operation was sharply criticized for being a dangerous work environment after one worker was crushed by a pit wall in 2002. Before that, the mine had been the site of two large chemical spills—the first in 1998 and the second in 2000—that caused four deaths and 2,500 illnesses. In 1998, the company failed to notify residents until a Russian border guard discovered the spill; in 2000 they improved their record and only waited a day to make public the news that 1.5 tonnes of explosive material had spilled near the town.

The Kumtor mine is also the recipient of $35 million from the Canadian Pension Plan investment board and $50 million in political risk insurance from Export Development Canada (EDC). Political risk insurance covers 90 per cent of a company's investment in a “developing” country against events such as government nationalization or political turmoil. The stipulations for receiving the insurance revolve around EDC's corporate social responsibility policies. According to one representative for EDC, “We're not going to support something that the Canadian government doesn't support.”

EDC's support is worth a lot. The Financial Post has estimated that the crown corporation gives the extractive industry $20 billion in subsidies and insurance, including $1.3 billion in political risk insurance.

Despite DFAIT's role in lending support to these companies, it also houses the offices that purport to keep them in check. The office of Corporate Social Responsibility Counsellor, headed by commissioner Marketa Evans, was created in 2009 to create a partnership between the Canadian extractive industry and those who reside near their projects overseas. The move has been largely panned by watchdog groups as being an ineffective half-measure that does more to serve mining companies than impacted communities. The office has an “avenue of recourse for mining, oil and gas companies who feel they've been unfairly targeted,” said Erica Bach, senior adviser in the office of Corporate Social Responsibility, who lauded the mechanism as being unique worldwide. The office's CSR strategy revolves around encouraging dialogue rather than regulating or imposing sanctions against companies who have been the subjects of complaints. To date, the office has not received any requests to review allegations against any Canadian mining companies.

Even CIDA's Indigenous Peoples Partnership Program (IPPP) is little more than a $10 million, taxpayer-funded lobby group for the mining industry, according to one source who spoke on the condition of anonymity. The agency employs Indigenous representatives such as Chief Glenn Nolan and Chief Jerry Asp.

Nolan serves as first vice president of the Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada and on the board of Noront Resources Ltd. Asp is vice president of the Canadian Aboriginal Minerals Association, and made news in 2005 after 35 elders occupied his office in protest of his involvement with the mining companies. The elders demanded that Asp step down, saying he was in a conflict of interest, having simultaneously acted as Indian Act chief and Chief Operations Officer of the Tahltan Nation Development Corporation, which is responsible for bidding on mining contracts for companies such as NovaGold, which operates one of the world's largest gold mines in Alaska with partner company Barrick Gold.

According to CIDA, IPPP exists to encourage the “sustainable development of Indigenous peoples in the [Latin American and Caribbean] region through an exchange of knowledge, experience, expertise, and existing models.” Those Indigenous people who met with Nolan and Asp were not informed of their mining connections, the source said, and were outraged when they learned of their involvement in the sector.

While Bill C-300 may be dead, an alternative bill is lying stagnant on the floor of the House of Commons. Bill C-354 would empower non-Canadian citizens who claim to be affected by Canadian mining companies to sue those companies. While opinion on the bill is mixed, those who supported C-300 are desperate for federal regulation of Canadian-owned mines.

Justin Ling is an activist and a journalist based in Halifax.

Tunnel of Love

Peru's Farmers Demand Healthy Land

dawn — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 09:56:08 +0000

Criminalization of anti-mining dissent strengthens resolve

LIMA, PERU–In Peru’s northern Piura region, in a high-altitude valley surrounded by forests and clouds, sits the village of Ayabaca. The streets of the village are narrow and crooked; most houses are made of adobe and covered with brown tiles. Ayabaca’s farmers’ market offers a large variety of fruits and vegetables grown in the fertile fields surrounding the community.

Underneath this productive land lie enormous copper deposits. In 2003, the Ministry of Energy and Mines announced that large territories belonging to indigenous farmer communities in Ayabaca and the neighbouring town of Huancabamba were open for mineral exploration.

Shortly after the announcement, Río Blanco Copper, a subsidiary of Chinese company Zijin Mining Group, completed its exploration activities and is now ready to convert the area into one of the major mining extraction projects in Peru. Adjacent mining concessions are managed by subsidiaries of mining giants Newmont and Vale who are planning to initiate exploration activities shortly.

Mario Tabra, a school teacher from Ayabaca, has been one of the leaders in the resistance to the Rio Blanco mine.

“It started in 2003 with the illegal presence of the mining company within the territory of the farmer community of Yanta,” Tabra says. In order to acquire farmer-community land in Peru, two-thirds of the community members need to agree with the change of ownership. This permission was never given to the mining company. “We reacted by filing an official complaint against Río Blanco for usurpation of land, but it never received any attention. Hence, we increased our resistance and organized two marches to the mining camp, which were both met by brutal force from the private security company contracted by Río Blanco.”

The clash resulted in two deaths among the protesters. The pro-government media has since initiated what opponents to the mine consider a smear campaign against the farmers, calling them "communists" and "anti-development activists."

“We are not anti-mining; we just don’t think it’s a viable economic option for Ayabaca, given that our local agriculture has comparative advantage compared to other regions in Peru," says Tabra.

Some of the world's largest mining companies are now active in Peru, as well as a host of junior exploration companies listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange. Peru’s controversial President Alan García, who has become a key force for neoliberalism in South America, is working hard to make the country an attractive place for foreign investors. Peru and the US ratified a free-trade agreement in December 2007 and Canada concluded free-trade negotiations with Peru in May 2008.

This new political climate and rise in interest from the world’s top mining companies has generated serious and sometimes bloody conflicts with the land-based indigenous and campesino (peasant farmer) populations who rely on the land to live.

Water is a primary concern for Tabra. The mountains around Ayabaca are the upper part of two drainage basins, generating rivers that flow to the lower areas in the Piura and Cajamarca regions. "Large-scale open-pit mining will require so much water that all agricultural activities in the valleys below will be severely affected," he says.

An expert in Peru’s pre-Columbian culture, Tabra has a home that doubles as Ayabaca’s archeological museum. “The area around Ayabaca has several pre-Columbian offering sites. Combined with the many artifacts and petroglyphs encountered over the years, we determined that this area has been inhabited for at least 15,000 years. Surely we will not permit the destruction of the land on which our ancestors have worked for thousands of years.”

Re-evaluating the action strategy

After the violent clash with mine security, campesino leaders fighting the mine realized they needed to change tactics.

With the help of various solidarity organizations, they called for a consulta vecinal in which the inhabitants of the region would be able to vote for or against the Rio Blanco project.

Ignoring the central government’s appeal to boycott the consulta, two-thirds of Ayabacans cast their vote in the referendum. Of those who voted, 97 per cent rejected any mining activity within their territory.

"The consulta showed the entire world that we are peaceful people who are not willing to give up our agriculture for a project that might bring short-term economic growth but a lot of destruction in the long run," says Tabra. "And furthermore, the Defensoría del Pueblo [the Peruvian Human Rights Ombudsman] also affirmed on several occasions that the consulta is legal and that we, as native inhabitants of this region, should participate in any decision that will directly affect our communities.”

Anti-mining, anti-development?

Tabra’s participation in organizing the referendum has not gone unnoticed; along with 34 other local leaders and supportive activists involved in the consulta, he now faces allegations of various crimes, including terrorism, crimes against humanity and coercion.

“The charges have been presented by an obscure campesino organization, including former community members who now work for Río Blanco Copper," he says. "The accusations are so vague...they don’t even indicate how we are in any way connected to those acts other than the fact that we participate in the anti-mining opposition.”

Magdiel Carrión is a member of the Yanta farmer community, as well as President of the Provincial Federation of Farmer Communities of Ayabaca. Confronted by the exploration activities on the mountain opposite his house, Carrión led Yanta’s resistance to the Rio Blanco project and managed to increase awareness in surrounding communities of the far-reaching impacts of large-scale mining. As a consequence, he has received 16 charges of criminal activity. He has not yet been convicted of any of the charges.

“These allegations are politically motivated by those who fear the success of the anti-mining movement in Ayabaca,” Carrión says. “It’s a strategy of the state and the corporate interests, aiming to silence our resistance.”

However, Carrión doesn’t think that this strategy will be successful. “The pro-mining groups think that the accumulation of criminal charges will lead to the preventive sentencing of the leaders, which, in turn, will discourage our communities from exercising their civil rights and deter a debate on matters of public interest. Indeed, eventually we might go to jail, but I feel as if the exact opposite is happening, because this criminalization of our movement has provoked widespread anger among the communities. Already, younger generations are stepping up and telling me that they will continue the struggle in defence of our territory. Truly, I believe the mining company’s strategy will never work here in Ayabaca, because these people don’t comprehend our identity, our ancestral relationship with our land, which is what gives us strength.”

Sander Otten works for the Belgian NGO Broederlijk Delen in Lima, Perú.

March in Ayabaca

Student in Peru

Peru: Indigenous occupations end with victory in Congress

Sandra — Sat, 23 Aug 2008 06:07:33 +0000

On August 22nd, the Peruvian Congress repealed two legislative decrees at the root of the indigenous demonstrations that paralyzed various roads and energy installations from August 9th through 20th. The indigenous movement of the Amazon, home to 65 different indigenous nations, declared victory.

[note: several of the hyperlinks are to articles and websites in Spanish.]

Background

Peruvian President Alan Garcia approved more than 100 legislative decrees in the first half of 2008, making use of special powers bestowed upon the Executive branch by the Congress in order to bring the Free Trade Agreement (FTA) between the US and Peru into effect. The FTA was signed in 2006 and passed - despite opposition - by the US House and Senate in late 2007.

Events in April

dru — Thu, 03 May 2007 03:37:28 +0000

Direct actions in Vancouver, mining strike in Peru, Immokalee workers, Somalia, and more

Montreal-based multinational aluminum processor Alcan pulled out of a contentious mining project in Kashipur, in the Indian state of Orissa. The company held a 45 per cent stake. The Montreal solidarity group Alcan't in India had previously undertaken a multi-year campaign against the project, gaining the support of several union locals representing Alcan workers, who said they would refuse to smelt aluminum from the proposed mine. The mine faced fierce resistance from local indigenous groups, who said that the resulting destruction and pollution would destroy their way of life. Alcan is the second investor that has divested its shares, and a renewed battle is expected with whoever buys Alcan's shares.

Members of immigrant rights group No One Is Illegal Vancouver staged an occupation of Canadian Border Services Agency (CBSA) offices for several hours on April 23, and demanded a meeting with Citizenship and Immigration Minister Diane Finley. In a statement, the group said that it intended to challenge Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) and CBSA employees to account for their participation in "the destruction of the lives of those deported and detained every day." Group members and supporters returned two days later and shut down the CBSA building, blocking the entrance and placing a lock on the front doors before police threatened arrests and the demonstrators agreed to leave. The group said that about 500,000 people live without official status in Canada, and an estimated 13,000 are deported annually.

In Florida, the Coalition of Immokalee Workers won a major victory in their campaign to force McDonald's to raise the price it pays for tomatoes by 32 cents per packet. The price had not been raised since 1978. A spokesperson for the Coalition said that McDonald's was "just trying to find another way to find a solution, but without necessarily including us in that process." The Coalition previously forced Taco Bell to negotiate a price increase, and now sets its sights on Burger King.

Journalists in Guangzhou, China found that fast food chains like McDonald's, KFC and Pizza Hut are using loopholes to exploit service industry workers. While the part time minimum wage is officially 7.5 yuan per hour in large cities, loopholes are used to pay part-timers between 5 and 6 yuan per hour.

Anti-poverty activists besieged a meeting of the Non Partisan Association (NPA), the ruling political party in Vancouver. The demonstration, organized by the Anti-Poverty Committee (APC), attempted to breach police lines to gain access to the meeting three times, and used whistles and loudspeakers to disrupt the proceedings. "The NPA's political vision is social cleansing and they conduct their brutal business with no real significant 'official' opposition," APC members wrote on their web site. 22 police officers were reported to be working overtime to keep the demonstrators out.

A delegation of 44 poor people and Halifax Coalition Against Poverty (HCAP) organizers disrupted the AGM of the riding association of Provincial community services minister Judy Streatch. " We felt that it was necessary for Streatch to come face-to-face with poor people in Nova Scotia, the people who live with the day-to-day reality of the deplorably low rates of social assistance in Nova Scotia," said HCAP member Susan LeFort. HCAP is demanding that the Department of Community Services double income assistance rates and peg these income assistance rates to inflation.

Organizers from the Bay of Quinte Mohawk community in Ontario promised more "economic disruptions" after ending a blockade of train tracks between Montreal and Toronto. The community members, who are operating outside of the government-run band council system, are targeting a gravel pit that is operating on disputed land. The operation should be shut down until land claim negotiations are concluded, spokesperson Shawn Brant told journalists.

Deh Cho Grand Chief Herb Norwegian announced that Canadian troops would "not be welcomed" in Fort Simpson. Forty military personnel were scheduled to arrive in Fort Simpson as a part of Operation Narwhal, billed as a security exercise to prevent terrorist attacks against the proposed Mackenzie Gas Pipeline. The Deh Cho are currently in negotiations over a land-use plan, which they say must be adopted before they grant permission for the pipeline to cross their land. "We have our own sovereignty over this land and do not intend to be intimidated by soldiers of a government using the threat of terrorism as an excuse to show their flag on our land," said Norwegian. Defence officials later met with Norwegian, who said that the Deh Cho feel the "pressure of Canada, the psychological pressure of their presence on our territory."

"Military intervention won't stop the killing. Those who are clamouring for troops to fight their way into Darfur are suffering from a salvation delusion." Those were the opening words of a review of recent peace talks in Sudan by Alex de Waal, published by the London Review of Books. In an extensive description of peace talks around conflict in Sudan, de Waal writes that the "crisis in Darfur is political. It's a civil war, and like all wars it needs a political settlement."

Fighting in Somalia's capital of Mogadishu was described as the heaviest warfare in the city's history, as occupying US-backed Ethiopian soldiers battled forces aligned with the Islamic Courts. According to the UN, roughly a third of Mogadishu's population has fled the fighting. Most observers note that Islamic Courts had restored stability to the war-torn country, while introducing unpopular bans on movies and televised soccer. The US-backed invasion by Ethiopia overthrew the Islamic Courts and created Somalia's largest humanitarian crisis in a decade, observers say. The US has said that it will not call for a ceasefire, saying it doesn't want to "leave the field to violent extremists who do not have an interest in building up the institutions of a democratic state." Canada has said little about the crisis, though Defence Minister Gordon O'Connor has publicly speculated that Canadian troops could invade Somalia or Sudan in the future. In January, hundreds of members of the Somali diaspora denounced the invasion, in which US Special Forces also participated.

Fourteen people were arrested during a protest inside a US Senate office building on the same day that Senators voted 51 to 46 to approve $95 billion in funding for the occupation of Iraq. Demonstrators from a group known as Artists Against War unfurled a banner inside the building, which read "your silence, your legacy." The largest banner contained the full text of Article II Section 4 of the US Constitution, which defines the conditions under which a President can be impeached, provoking chants of "impeach now."

Unions in Russia are reckoning with declining membership and pressure from the country's political class to avoid participation in political struggles, IPS News reported. "I urge trade unions to carry out stable and balanced work which is not timed to political events in the country," Russian President Vladimir Putin said in a speech to union delegates. "Many institutions' management are unprepared to see such bodies standing in opposition to their capitalist policies," one Russian academic was quoted as saying.

UBC professor of international law Michael Byers and Irish professor of human rights William Schabas sent a letter to the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, requesting an investigation of possible war crimes. The letter indicates that Canada's General Rick Hillier and Minister Gordon O'Connor appear to have allowed Afghan detainees to be handed over to the Afghan government "despite an apparent risk of torture," and chose "not to take reasonable and readily apparent steps to protect detainees against torture." If the evidence is shown to be accurate, the law professors argue, Hillier, O'Connor and other Canadian officials would be in contravention of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC), which was drafted in 1998 and ratified by Canada's parliament in 2000. According to the website of the Department of Foreign Affairs, "Canada supported the ICC effort from the very beginning and continues to support the ICC with crucial leadership, advocacy and resources."

The "One Laptop Per Child Project" announced that rising costs of materials would result in an increase from $100 dollars per laptop to $175. The non-profit project aimed to provide low-cost access to technology for children in the developing world.

The US military announced the creation of a new command centre in Africa, known as AFRICOM. In a news release, a State Department spokesperson denied that the US was taking a military leadership role in Africa. The report also denied claims that the US was responding to a larger Chinese presence in Africa, or was seeking influence over natural resources. AFRICOM is "not being stood up in order to secure resources such as oil," the briefing said.

The Associated Press reported that the Japanese government's practice of coercing women into prostitution continued after US troops occupied Japan. "Tens of thousands of women were employed to provide cheap sex to US troops until the spring of 1946, when Gen. Douglas MacArthur shut the brothels down," the report said. According to a recently released official police history, "police had to set up sexual comfort stations for the occupation troops... The strategy was, through the special work of experienced women, to create a breakwater to protect regular women and girls."

Mordechai Vanunu, the Israeli technician and whistleblower who revealed the size of Israel's nuclear arsenal to the world public, was convicted of violating a court order forbidding him to communicate with non-Israelis. After he told journalists that Israel possessed an estimated 100 nuclear warheads, Israeli agents kidnapped him in Rome and brought him to Israel. He subsequently spent 18 years in prison, 11 of which were spent in solitary confinement.

Facing massive protests, military recruiters announced their withdrawal from a job fair at the University of California at Santa Cruz. "If every school prevented recruitment, if every port stopped shipping weapons, if every community refused to accept war profiteers as neighbors, war would be impossible," said student organizer Natalie MacIntyre.

Several groups, including Jews for a Just Peace and the Canada Palestine Association, staged a protest at the annual dinner of the Jewish National Fund (JNF) in Vancouver on April 29. Israeli peace activist and former Knesset member Uri Avnery recently called for the abolition of the JNF. Avnery wrote that the fund, which holds 13 per cent of all land in Israel, has an explicit mandate to "prohibit the sale or rental of land to non-Jews," and as a result, is inherently racist. Donations to the JNF are tax-deductible charitable donations under Canadian law.

A global day of action against Toronto-based Barrick Gold is planned for May 2. The company, which is considered the largest gold mining company in the world, is facing increasing resistance to its projects worldwide. Simultaneous actions will be held in Chile, Argentina, Peru, Australia, Canada, the Philippines, Tanzania, and Europe. In Peru, protesters opposing a Barrick Gold project in the province of Àncash have been killed by paramilitary groups. In Australia, aboriginal groups have targeted a planned mine at Lake Cowal with a direct action campaign, and the massive Pascua Lama project in Chile and Argentina has faced significant local opposition.

Mine workers in Peru are gearing up for a major strike over wages, benefits and labour rights. The Peruvian government has declared the strike illegal. In the early 1990s, the World Bank established a "structural reform" program designed to make conditions favourable for mining. Peruvian critics say that under current laws, the mines provide very little benefit for Peru, despite rising commodity prices. Canadian firms' investments in Peru reached $2.3 billion in 2005, with the vast majority of investments going towards mining. Canada and Peru signed a bilateral trade agreement in 2006, which then Trade Minister David Emerson said would "help companies by creating a predictable environment for Canadian investors." Canadian companies have faced resistance from mine workers in Peru before. During a strike in 1999, a protest against the Canadian companies Barrick Gold and Antamina was broken up by the Peruvian army.

Worldwide demand for uranium is outstripping supply, and a flood at a major mining operation in northern Saskatchewan has pushed prices up. According to Bloomberg news service, a "rock fall" at Cigar Lake rendered 10 per cent of the anticipated world supply of uranium inaccessible for the time being. The current shortage "could limit the nuclear power industry's plans to develop 168 new nuclear plants worldwide by 2020," Bloomberg reported. Rising prices have set off a wave of uranium speculation in New Brunswick. Canada is the world's largest supplier of mined uranium, accounting for 28 per cent of world supply. Critics have long opposed uranium mining for its adverse effects on health and ecology, and Canada's history of using indigenous workers to mine and haul the uranium used to create the first atomic bombs continues to affect northern communities.

NOII Demonstration in Vancouver

CIW in Chicago