The Dominion - USA

Ghost Town

Tim McSorley — Mon, 30 Jul 2012 09:43:55 +0000

Hemispheric Resistance to Canadian Mining

Sandra — Fri, 27 Jul 2012 09:56:30 +0000

Day of Action organizers speak out about repression, connections, solidarity

VANCOUVER—From Canada to Argentina, preparations are well underway for the Continental Day of Action Against Canadian Mega Resource Extraction on August 1.

Dozens of organizations have signed a call for the day of protest in solidarity with communities impacted by Canadian extractive industries. The event is meant to highlight the dominance of the Canadian mining industry worldwide. Their demands range from divestment to putting people before profit.

But some activists in North America argue that the serious repression accompanying Canadian mining around the world requires going further than those initial demands. They say that acknowledgment, a sense of urgency and a deeper strategic analysis for concrete local action are also needed. Communities and organizers resisting extractive industry projects in Latin America continue to face displacement, harassment, threats, and death, often dismissed as part of unrelated violence and conflicts.

Decentralized actions will be taking place throughout the western hemisphere on Wednesday, including a national day of mobilization in regions of mining conflict in Colombia, a memorial in Vancouver to remember those who have lost their lives opposing mining projects and a rally outside the Canadian Embassy in San Salvador.

The National Roundtable Against Metallic Mining (Mesa Nacional Frente a la Mineria Metalica) in El Salvador, comprised of community-based groups affected by mining as well as environmental and other organizations across the country, will be actively participating in the day of action. Vidalina Morales spoke with The Dominion from her home in the department of Cabanas, El Salvador, where Vancouver-based Pacific Rim's plans to develop a gold mine have been fraught with controversy.

"We're going to rally in front of the Canadian Embassy here in El Salvador," said Morales, adding that there will also be a press conference on-site. Over the course of the Roundtable's actions and campaigns, many affiliated organizations have faced ongoing human rights violations, particularly in Cabanas.

The community-based resistance to the Pacific Rim mining project in Cabanas has suffered extreme repression, including murders of several active community organizers and activists from communities in the vicinity. Earlier this month, 19-year-old engineering student David Alexander Urias was murdered in the community of Palo Bonito, says Morales, only a few kilometres from Pacific Rim's operations. His murder has been reported as being gang-related, but Morales says local community organizers suspect otherwise.

"Because we continue directly in the region where we're in conflict and where the company has shown so much recent interest in mineral exploration, we've seen some things that seem surprising to us—when families that have been longtime supporters of our efforts are attacked. Here in this department where we live, a youth [David] who was only 19 years old was recently murdered—a young student who is the son of a woman who has been very involved in this struggle," she said.

"Here, anything that happens, they always blame it on the gangs, because it's the easiest way to deny links to other things," said Morales.

In Colombia, murders, threats and other repression against individuals and communities facing large-scale mining activities around the country take place amid an ongoing armed conflict. Mario Valencia, a member of the Colombian Network Against Large-Scale Transnational Mining—RECLAME—spoke with The Dominion via telephone from Bogota, where preparations for the August 1 day of action are in full swing.

"In the middle of this conflict, the issue of mining can't be seen as unconnected because many of these conflicts take place in zones that are rich in natural resources...It's a struggle for territory. It has to do with taking possession of these areas—for example, displacing small-scale miners from territories where they have been mining for years, or even for centuries, and the conflict becomes a tool for that to happen," said Valencia. "The National Confederation of Miners of Colombia, which unites small and medium-scale miners, is currently threatened and being persecuted by the government, to make way for transnational companies."

In Colombia, a national day of mobilization "to stop the mining-energy locomotive" is being organized, coordinated by an alliance of unions, communities, and organizations, including the National Confederation of Miners and RECLAME. Rallies, marches, carnival-style parades and cultural festivals will be held in over a dozen different departments, all regions with mining conflicts. In Caldas, for example, actions will denounce the displacement of communities to make way for Canadian company Gran Colombia Gold's Marmato mining project, says Valencia.

"Mining is one of the principal activities in the Colombian economy. The government's idea is that Colombia should be a mining country, so the most important issue is territorial defense. We have proposed to take this on as the defense of life, the defense of water, the defense of territory, so that these transnational companies can't find the conflict, the pretext to enter these regions," he told The Dominion.

Valencia says that organizations in Colombia realized that they would not be able to confront the mining policy alone—a mining policy imposed on the country from outside but fiercely adopted by the Colombian government. Some of the sectors that have joined forces against transnational mining in Colombia may not seem like natural allies to some people, he says, given that they include communities resisting mining, mining and energy sector workers, small-scale miners and environmental organizations.

"Obviously not everything is all rosy and there are conflicts, but we are fundamentally united in RECLAME for one reason," Valencia explained, adding that the unity is a product of years of discussion. "We came to the understanding that the main aspect of the contradiction on the issue of mining isn't between workers and communities or between environmentalists and small-scale miners, but that the principal contradiction is with transnational large-scale mining companies."

Root Force, a campaign based out of Tucson, Arizona, also connects environmental, social and other justice issues through a strategic anti-infrastructure approach to solidarity with communities in Latin America resisting extractive industry projects. Root Force has signed onto the call for the Continental Day of Action, although concrete actions are left to the discretion of the various autonomous collectives and affiliate groups scattered throughout the southwestern US, the Pacific Northwest and beyond.

"The sort of broader goal of Root Force is to help bring down this global economic system that is at the root of the various injustices that so many of the environmental and social justice groups are organizing against," Ben Pachano, an organizer with Root Force, told The Dominion in a telephone interview. "The method that we've identified for doing that is by preventing the expansion of this resource extraction and transportation infrastructure that underlies the system.

"The actions that Root Force promotes and that, you know, our affiliate and allied groups take are aiming toward that ultimate goal, which is itself an act of solidarity, because the idea is that oppression of an Indigenous community resisting a mine, say in Guatemala, is coming in large part because of the demand for that metal in the first world," said Pachano.

The organization provides resources to facilitate connections between like-minded groups, to raise awareness about struggles against extractive and infrastructure projects in Latin America and their connections to the US, and to promote effective strategic action at the local level.

"Because of that sort of interconnected nature of basically a globalized capitalist economy, that means that you don’t necessarily need to be in the place where the resources are being extracted to take actions affecting that extraction," he said.

In Canada, which is home to companies that together own more than 3,000 mining projects around the world, actions are planned across the country. In Toronto, where many corporate headquarters and the Toronto Stock Exchange are located, people will mobilize at Queen's Park. In Vancouver, another city with a huge number of mining company offices, the local Mining Justice Alliance is hosting a memorial action outside of Goldcorp's head office.

Latin American communities spearheaded the Continental Day of Action, but the Vancouver action is also in solidarity with communities in Asia-Pacific, in Africa, locally and around the world, Mining Justice Alliance member Beth Dollaga told The Dominion. She is also a founding member of Canada-Philippines Solidarity for Human Rights and sees the same patterns of extraction and repression that occur in the Philippines happening elsewhere as well. Paramilitaries around the world are often trained not just to protect corporate infrastructure, she says, but also to harass communities resisting mining and people who speak out in support of community resistance.

"We know that the aggressive extraction—mining—it’s not just the environment plundered or killed, but also mostly Indigenous people, because this happens in the remotest areas of places, like in Latin America or anywhere in Asia-Pacific. So most of these places are actually the Indigenous ancestral domain. And people are killed," she said.

"Part of this event is also to remember them. And to continue. It's not just remembering those people, those martyred activists, but also to carry on and pick up from [where they left off], in solidarity, from wherever we are," said Dollaga.

Dollaga is not the only one to recognize that solidarity organizing with resistance to Canadian extractive projects is often a matter of life or death for people from affected communities. Pachano also emphasizes that for many, it is a fight for survival.

"When you look at a lot of communities that are opposing mega-extraction projects, often the root of their opposition is that they believe that these projects will destroy their way of life and that at the end of the day it's a battle for survival," said Pachano. "Solidarity requires that we take that—that we sort of take to heart the urgency of the battles we’re in solidarity with."

"Ultimately, true solidarity requires looking at the systems that are producing these types of exploitations and actively trying to take them down."

Sandra Cuffe is a Vancouver-based freelance journalist.

Day of Action

Straight from the Heart

Moira Peters — Fri, 14 Oct 2011 12:06:32 +0000

Messages from Occupy Wall Street

NEW YORK CITY—While in New York on October 8 and 9 to photograph the ongoing Occupy Wall Street (OWS) protest, I was struck by the clarity and simplicity of the messages being delivered by those attending. While protesters had many ways of expressing themselves, I was affected most by the direct, simple, and visceral messages coming from young and old, employed and unemployed, activists and non-activists. The posters—handmade and written in pen or felt marker on the simplest of surfaces—told the story of an angry, heartbroken and disillusioned population. It made me think of the signs I saw Haitians holding in Port-au-Prince following the 2004 coup d’etat: simple messages scrawled on cardboard demanding human rights and an end to injustice.

While the United States is certainly not Haiti, the disgust that people are feeling with the current economic system and those who run it for their own benefit is palpable. Among the protesters were those who understood the complex workings of the corporate capitalist system that is ruining the lives of millions of people. Also among them were people with a less sophisticated understanding of the issues, but nonetheless a very clear lived experience of the damage being done.

Although Liberty Square measures only one square block in the massive city of New York, I wondered like many of those present if this growing protest would have the long-term effect of satisfying some of the demands of those holding the signs.

On the eve of OWS coming to Canada, I am hopeful.

Darren Ell is a freelance photographer in Montreal and a member of the Canada Haiti Action Network. His work can be viewed at www.darrenell.com.

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Under the Radar

Tim McSorley — Mon, 28 Feb 2011 06:19:02 +0000

Diplomatic cables raise concerns of US influence in F-35 jet campaign

TORONTO—Classified cables released in December 2010 revealed an exhaustive American campaign to pressure Norway to buy a fleet of US-made F-35 Joint Strike Fighter jets. As the Canadian government looks to spend at least $16 billion on its own fleet of the controversial aircraft, it appears a similar campaign is underway here.

The American diplomat who filed the cables—cables which detail high-level diplomatic pressure on the Norwegian government and a media campaign to sway public opinion—is now based in Canada. Several of the tactics his cables recommend have recent parallels in this country, where the government is promoting the sole-sourced purchase as a done deal but has not signed an official contract.

Kevin Johnson, former Deputy Chief of Mission at the US Embassy in Oslo, was named US Consul General to Toronto in August 2009—nine months after Norway announced it would buy a fleet of the Lockheed Martin-made stealth bombers. His name appears on several classified American cables released through Wikileaks last year.

Written over four months in late 2008, the cables advised the US state department to put pressure on Norway to ensure the sale while avoiding any appearance of doing so. A memo copied to the US embassy in Ottawa offered advice on how to replicate the campaign’s success in other countries.

In one leaked memo, titled “Lesson Learned From Norwegian Decision To Buy JSF,” United States embassy officials claimed the Norwegian government asked its American counterpart to publicly deny US officials had exerted pressure in the sale. The document also noted that the rival Saab Gripen bid offered superior benefits for Norwegian industries.

It stated Norway chose the F-35 despite the jet's high price tag—double that of the Gripen. Norway’s decision was a significant victory for the JSF program, and followed three months of lobbying subtly in public, forcefully behind closed doors.

In a cable sent September 22, 2008, the US Embassy in Oslo asked the US Secretary of State, the Joint Chiefs of Staff and several US embassies in Scandinavia to ensure Norway understood that diplomatic relations between the two countries would be affected by the choice.

“A Gripen decision would significantly alter the 40-year close relationship between our Air Forces and weaken one of the strongest pillars of our bilateral relationship,” stated the cable, titled “Norway Fighter Purchase: High-Level Advocacy Needed Now.”

The document’s author expressed concern that the F-35 was losing favour in the eyes of Norwegians.

“High-level Washington advocacy on this issue is needed to help reverse this trend,” the cable reads.

A public affairs officer from the American consulate in Toronto, Barbara Jafelice, declined to discuss the cables or Johnson’s relation to them, saying it was against policy to comment on anything Wikileaks-related. In an email, an unnamed public affairs officer from the consulate implied there was nothing abnormal about Johnson’s transfer, saying Foreign Service officers are typically moved to a new post approximately every three years.

The United States embassy in Ottawa declined The Dominion’s request for an interview.

The Oslo Cables

The dryly written cables from Oslo’s US embassy reveal much about how the US pressured Norway to buy the F-35.

One cable, sent October 30, 2008, lists then-Deputy Secretary of Defense Gordon England, former State Department Assistant Secretary Mark Kimmitt and former United States Air Forces in Europe Commander Roger Brady as officials who pushed the sale. Their campaign produced a “coordinated...message which publicly professed the unequalled capabilities of the aircraft and the value we place on the relationship, and privately pressed for the selection of the F-35.”

The Norwegian government announced its decision to buy the planes November 20, 2008, nearly a month earlier than expected, although it has not yet signed a contract. The October memo noted the influence Norway's decision would have on the other participants in the JSF development program, countries including the United Kingdom, Italy, the Netherlands, Canada, Turkey, Australia, Israel and Singapore.

“Norway will be the first JSF partner to make a choice on the plane and thus will disproportionally affect other partners' choices,” it read.

The “lessons learned” cable, sent December 16, 2008, encouraged other embassies campaigning on the JSF’s behalf to exert more than diplomatic pressure. It suggested off-the-record discussions with media outlets’ editorial boards, fielding supportive newspaper editorials written by military figures and hosting public speaking events tailored to shine a favourable light on the aircraft. The cable was copied to US embassies in several governments considering the jets, including Ottawa.

“Having a socialist government like Norway’s choose the JSF is an even more powerful symbol than if a right-wing government of another country had gone first,” it added.

If the tactics used in Norway seem familiar, it’s because many of them are being used in Canada, anti-war activist Tamara Lorincz told The Dominion. A member of the Halifax Peace Coalition and part of a group organizing a national March 3 rally against the jet purchase, Lorincz pointed to a string of government speaking engagements promoting the sole-sourced deal with Lockheed Martin.

“It’s almost unheard of, to have Minister of Public Works Rona Ambrose, [Industry Minister] Tony Clement and [Defence Minister] Peter McKay criss-crossing the country to try to build support for the F-35,” said Lorincz, a former NDP candidate in the Halifax West riding.

She attended an F-35 forum hosted by Dalhousie University’s Centre for Foreign Policy Studies on November 26, led by two members of the Department of National Defence (DND) procurement division and two members of the air force. The event was part of a string of similar engagements across the country promoting what will be the largest military purchase in Canadian history.

“They...essentially gave the talking points about why Canada should buy the F-35s to a receptive audience,” she said. “We know from Norway that we can’t trust what the Canadian government is saying.”

The Department of National Defence spent more than $130,000 on the tour, one media announcement and an industry trip to a Lockheed Martin facility in Texas, according to federal documents recently released by the Liberal Party of Canada. The documents, obtained by The Globe and Mail, also revealed that Industry Canada has spent $55,000 on foreign and domestic trips to promote the jet purchase.

The jets themselves are expected to cost at least $9 billion, with at least $7 billion in maintenance costs.

In late January, US Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates visited Ottawa to publicly push for the planes at a press conference with Minister McKay.

“Obviously, having all of our partners continue to be with us in this program is very important and I'm pleased at the number of our allies who are going forward with the F-35,” said Gates. “Without getting into domestic affairs in Canada, I would just say that my hope is, that for all of our sakes, that all of our partners continue to move forward with us on this program.”

Meanwhile, the F-35 debate has been raging in Canada’s media. Stories by mainstream and alternative outlets have critiqued the sole-sourced contract, continued delays in the development process and the high cost to taxpayers, while government- and military-penned editorials have defended the planes.

On January 26, The Ottawa Citizen ran an op-ed titled “The truth about those jets,” written by retired General Paul Manson, a former Chief of the Defence Staff, and retired Lieutenant-General Angus Watt, a one-time air force commander. While attempting to debunk 10 common complaints about the F-35, its authors failed to note their connection to Lockheed Martin.

“Manson forgot to mention his post-military stint as the president of Lockheed Martin Canada,” military journalist Scott Taylor pointed out in Halifax’s The Chronicle Herald. “It should have been considered a salient point to make to readers.”

Taylor noted that Chief of the Air Staff Lieutenant-General Andre Deschamps has also come to the defence of the F-35 in the media, writing that it “is the right fighter aircraft for Canada” in the Canadian Military Journal.

Ministers McKay and Ambrose have also waded into the fray, fielding a response to “Ottawa off course on jets,” a letter co-written by Lorincz and Steven Staples of the Rideau Institute think-tank, published in The Chronicle Herald in December 2010.

“This...piece presents a misleading and inaccurate account of our government's decision to procure F-35 fighter jets,” wrote McKay and Ambrose in a letter to the editor, decrying Staples and Lorincz’s claim that the planes were sole-sourced. “There was an international competition held between 1997 and 2001—of which Canada was a part—and the winner of this competition was the F-35. Another lengthy competition is redundant and unnecessary.”

Not so, says Alan Williams, former Assistant Deputy Minister (Material) for the Department of National Defence. Williams led Canada’s military procurement division from 1999 to 2005 and says government claims that a competition was held are disingenuous.

“This competition had absolutely nothing to do with the need...to determine which jet aircraft in the marketplace can meet the Canadian military requirements at the lowest life-cycle costs,” Williams told the House of Commons’ Standing Committee on National Defence in October, explaining the competition the ministers refer to was conducted by the US in 2001 to determine which company would build the jet.

“Equating one competition with the other insults our intelligence,” he said.

According to figures Williams presented to the committee, sole-sourcing at DND has gone from 8.8 per cent of all contracts worth more than $25,000 in 2004, the year before he retired, to 42 per cent in 2009. When making deals worth billions, that increase represents a significant amount of taxpayer money, said Williams, the author of Reinventing Canadian Defence Procurement, subtitled “How to fix Canada’s dysfunctional defence procurement process.”

“The military loses [this money] from two perspectives...If you squander it, that’s money that would be open and available for other projects,” he said in an interview with The Dominion. “Equally—more importantly—if your objective is designed to buy what’s best for the military, the only way you truly know that is by running a competition.”

According to information posted on a DND website, Canada needs new fighters by 2016 in order to be ready for the retirement of the country’s F-18 fleet at the end of this decade. However, recent reports have revealed the Lockheed Martin stealth bomber won’t be out of its development phase until late 2016, making it unlikely that Canada’s order for 65 planes will be ready that year.

Williams believes that leaves the government enough time to clearly and publicly define its requirements and launch a bidding process.

“There’s nothing from stopping us tomorrow from launching a competition...The F-35 might turn out to be right, but at this stage it’s years behind schedule and its costs have gone crazy. We don’t know today what it will cost us to buy, maintain and whether it will ever be operational. But if the JSF turns out to be the right one, we can still go ahead and get it.”

When questioned about the plane’s selection, DND communications advisor Evan Koronewski directed The Dominion to the ministry’s website, which boasts of the fighter’s advanced “fifth generation” capabilities and the potential for interoperability with other NATO forces.

He was unable to answer questions on the sole-sourced contract or speak to Williams’ assertion that the plane was chosen before the military had defined its requirements. Although promising to seek that information, he did not meet several agreed-upon deadlines and at press time had not provided the information.

In October, the Rideau Institute’s Staples penned a report on the jet purchase called “Pilot Error: Why the F-35 stealth fighter is wrong for Canada.” Released by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, it encouraged legislators to examine the role a Canadian military plane would play, suggesting a single-engine stealth bomber wasn’t appropriate for missions such as patrolling the Arctic.

“We don’t need the bombing role,” he told The Dominion. “The F-35 is basically a big bomb truck. That’s why it’s stealth. The single engine is a problem as well. One could fail when you’re a long way from home.”

Lorincz would prefer the money went to altogether different projects, such as health care, education and the environment.

“[The government is] not acting in the best interests of Canadians,” she said. “They are working in concert with one of the largest weapons manufacturers on the planet to get the Canadian government to agree to buy something we absolutely don’t need.”

Saira Peesker is a Toronto-based journalist who covers politics, social justice issues and the arts.

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Allies in Media Justice

Tim McSorley — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 09:05:16 +0000

A report back from the Allied Media Conference

DETROIT, MICHIGAN—The Allied Media Conference's reputation is that it is one of the best conferences in the United States—period. After attending the 12th annual AMC in June, I think it’s fair to say that the conference outdoes its own reputation.

There are broad lessons for organizing conferences that can be taken away from the AMC, as well as specific insights linked to media organizing in the United States that could go a long way in rejuvenating media activism in Canada.

Stepping out of the hot and humid air into the lightly air conditioned building at Detroit's Wayne State University—which served as a hub for the conference—it was obvious this was different from typical media conferences.

Most of the volunteers and folks hanging out in the lobby were people of colour. The vibe was friendly and uninhibited: punks, queers, nerds, fashionistas and students milled around, chatting, sitting up on couches deep in discussion or leaning back, resting. Throughout the weekend there was a strong presence of students and activists from Detroit, an encouraging sign that the conference wasn’t just descending on the city but that it was learning from and contributing to local community projects.

“We are here at the Allied Media Conference this year, and every year there are more hearts, there are more souls, there are more stories, there are more connections, there’s more love, there’s more hope, there’s more happening, than anywhere I go in the year, and I mean that, seriously,” said Ron Scott from Detroit’s Coalition Against Police Brutality in the opening ceremony. This year about 400 people, mostly from the US, attended the AMC.

Organizers and participants made direct links between the need for alternative and radical media and broader social and economic issues including capitalism, police violence, prisons, environmental destruction, ableism, and gendered and racialized violence, to name a few. These links were made possible by a holistic approach to reclaiming media that went far beyond the idea of “media democracy” into the realm of “media justice.” To date, there is no equivalent to the AMC in Canada.

“If you hope to radically restructure the media you have to begin with the slow and deep work of allowing space for the oppressed to speak and have control over media,” Anthony Meza-Wilson, a Vancouver-based educator who attended the AMC told The Dominion. “It isn't enough to label yourself as ‘democratic media’ or ‘progressive media’ if the voices that are heard, the languages used, and the narratives spoken still all come from people of privilege, academics, and professional journalists.”

It’s clear that over the last 11 years, the founders and organizers of the AMC have been able to do that work that Meza-Wilson describes and create trusting spaces for media activists that are outside of the academic, professional world of media to come together and “create, connect, transform”—as the conference slogan goes.

One of the strengths of the AMC was that presenters were themselves media activists, journalists, mud stencilers, and Indigenous media makers, people with different abilities, women of colour who organize against violence, and ex-prisoners.

The AMC adheres to a series of network principles, which include emphasizing the power and legitimacy of participants, assuming agency not victimization, and working to highlight solutions coming through process, not at the end of a process. Perhaps most important is the last principle: “We begin by listening.”

Workshops were based around seven tracks, which included the Art and Practice of Disability Justice, Ecojustice Media Making for Sustainable Communities, Communication Strategies for Ending the Prison Industrial Complex and Indigenous Media and Technology.

The ambitious 84-page AMC schedule was filled with workshops, discussions, caucuses, panels and skill builders ranging from queer/trans people of colour zine-making to youth discussions on the movie Avatar. The definition of “media” was broad enough to include activities like mud stencils, coding drupal, political art and silkscreening.

Throughout the weekend, there were information tables set up, creating a book fair atmosphere and a space for people to talk at length about their projects. Downstairs, there was a live radio stream set up with DJs old and new sharing the mic with conference attendees. A table dedicated to building radio transmitters was busy all weekend, while people soldered, discussed and plotted.

AMC organizers have already put the word out for people to “save the date” for next year’s conference, to be held June 23-26 in Detroit. Anyone interested in media and justice would be well served by being there.

Dawn Paley is a journalist based in Vancouver. She made a presentation about the Vancouver Media Co-op during a packed session at the AMC in June.

Creating a print at the AMC

Indelible

Moira Peters — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 05:33:26 +0000

Heather Meek.Indelible.jpg

Clinton Apology to Haiti Surprises NS Activists

Moira Peters — Tue, 11 May 2010 05:21:18 +0000

Former US president calls dumping cheap rice "a mistake"

HALIFAX—Nova Scotia activists are expressing surprise that former US president Bill Clinton has apologized for flooding Haiti with cheap American rice beginning in the mid 1990s. During testimony before a US Senate committee last month, Clinton admitted that requiring Haiti to lower its tariffs on rice imports made it impossible for Haitian farmers to compete in their domestic economy. The trade policy forced farmers off land and undercut Haiti's ability to feed itself.

“It may have been good for some of my farmers in Arkansas, but it has not worked. It was a mistake,” Clinton—now a UN special envoy to Haiti—told the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee March 10. “I had to live everyday with the consequences of the loss of capacity to produce a rice crop in Haiti to feed those people because of what I did; nobody else.”

“I would like to believe that Clinton has had a change of heart,” wrote Heidi Verheul of the Halifax Peace Coalition in an e-mail. “But he actually needs to do something to challenge the free market shock doctrine economic policies that are being designed to further subjugate and impoverish Haiti,” she added. “The policies of aid and development in Haiti have continuously served to undermine democracy [and] local economies, and have driven tens of thousands of people from their land, enslaved them in sweatshops, makeshift homes, and absolute grinding, miserable poverty.”

Clinton’s apology attracted scant media attention in the US and none in Canada. It was included as part of an Associated Press news agency report that was published March 20 by the Washington Post. The AP report from Haiti’s earthquake-ravaged capital, Port au Prince, suggests world leaders are reconsidering trade and aid policies that make poor countries dependent on rich ones. It quotes UN aid official John Holmes as saying that poor countries, like Haiti, need to become more self-sufficient by rebuilding their own food production.

“A combination of food aid, but also cheap imports have...resulted in a lack of investment in Haitian farming, and that has to be reversed,” Holmes told AP. “That's a global phenomenon, but Haiti’s a prime example. I think this is where we should start."

The Clinton administration forced Jean Bertrand Aristide to agree to cut rice tariffs drastically when the US restored the Haitian president to power in October 1994. Aristide, Haiti’s first democratically elected president, had been overthrown by a US-backed military coup in 1991. In return for $770 million in international loans and aid, Aristide was required to agree to a business-friendly “structural adjustment” program that, aside from cutting food tariffs, also included freezing the minimum wage, cutting the size of the civil service, and privatizing public utilities. (Aristide annoyed the US by being slow to implement such policies, making Clinton’s apology last month all the more surprising.)

Janet Eaton, trade and environment campaigner for Sierra Club Canada, said members of the global democracy movement have long known about the failures of the globalized food system, and Clinton’s apology to Haitians only reinforced what many activists have talked and written about for years.

“When high-profile leaders admit that economic globalization isn’t working, then it’s time for governments to get on board and look at alternatives.” Eaton added. “It is time to admit that these failures exist and put an end to the aggressive free trade frenzy that is now occurring in Canada, the US and Europe as they vie for foreign markets, raw materials and unfettered free trade.”

Eaton pointed to one alternative in Nova Scotia—a Food Policy Council, which was formally established at a meeting in Truro on April 19. Farmers, consumers, academics, policy analysts and organizations were promoting food security for all Nova Scotians by focusing on ways to grow more of our own food. Eaton contended that growing more local food would help curtail climate change, reduce dependence on increasingly expensive fossil fuels and alleviate global poverty.

She added, “Haiti should be seen as a metaphor for what can happen on a planetary level if we fail to recognize the crisis we face.”

Bruce Wark is a freelance journalist based in Fall River, NS. This article was originally published by the Halifax Media Co-op.

clinton in haiti

Bitter Sweet or Toxic?

hillarybain — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 06:37:27 +0000

Indigenous people, diabetes and the burden of pollution

WINNIPEG—Diabetes is now widely regarded as the 21st century epidemic. With some 284 million people currently diagnosed with the disease, it’s certainly no exaggeration—least of all for Indigenous people.

According to the State of the World's Indigenous Peoples Report by the United Nations, more than 50 per cent of Indigenous adults over the age of 35 have Type 2 Diabetes, “and these numbers are predicted to rise.”

Diabetes is referred to as a "lifestyle disease," its rampant spread believed to be caused by obesity due to our increased reliance on the western diet (also known as the "meat-sweet" diet) and our avoidance of regular exercise.

While these may certainly be contributing factors, there is growing evidence that diabetes is closely linked with our environment. More than a dozen studies have been published that show a connection between Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs) including polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs); carcinogenic hydrocarbons known as Dioxins; and the "violently deadly" synthetic pesticide, DDT and higher rates of the disease.

“If it is the POPs, not the obesity that causes diabetes, this is really striking if true,” says Dr. David O. Carpenter, director of the Institute for Health and the Environment at the University of Albany.

One out of four Indigenous adults living on reserves in Canada have been diagnosed with Type 2 Diabetes, the most common form of diabetes. The prevalence of the disease appears to be so great that the number of new cases being diagnosed in Canada may exceed the growth of the Indigenous population. It’s no longer uncommon to find children as young as three with the disease. According to government statistics, 27 per cent of all Indigenous people in Canada will have Type 2 Diabetes in the next ten years.

Sandy Lake First Nation, in the Sioux Lookout Zone of northern Ontario, has all but met the mark. A March 2009 study co-authored by Dr. Stewart Harris found that 26 per cent of the community has the disease, the highest recorded rate of diabetes in Canada. With a population of 2,500, the northern Cree community was recently described as an “epicentre” of the epidemic.

There has been little research on the levels of persistent organic pollutants in Sandy Lake; however, according to the First Nations Environmental Health Innovation Network, several neighboring communities who also have high rates of diabetes, like Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug First Nation, are known to have elevated levels of PCBs in their blood.

The Mohawk community of Akwesasne has its own conflict with diabetes and exposure to POPs. Located across the New York-Ontario-Quebec borders along the St. Lawrence River, three aluminum foundries upriver from the reserve dumped PCBs into the river for decades, contaminating the water, soil, and vegetation.

For many years, Dr. Carpenter has been involved in the study of Adult Mohawks at Akwesasne. Most recently, in 2007, he took part in a study to examine the diabetes/pollution link in the community. “Our study of adult Mohawks showed a striking elevation in rates of diabetes in relation to blood levels of three persistent organic pollutants, DDE, the metabolite of DDT, hexachlorobenzene and PCBs,” Dr. Carpenter explains. “Our results are quite compatible with those of Lee et al.”

In 2006, Dr. Dae-Hee Lee and her colleagues showed that people with the highest rate of exposure to POPs were roughly 38 times more likely to have diabetes than those with the lowest rate of exposure. Further, “they showed that people who were obese but did not have high levels of POPs were not at increased risk of developing diabetes,” continues Dr. Carpenter. “Probably the reason most people get obese is that they eat too many animal fats, and this is where the POPs are.”

The dietary source of POPs was confirmed by the US Environmental Protection Agency in their Draft 1994 Dioxin Reassessment, which has never been formally released to the public. According to the Draft Reassessment, 93 per cent of our exposure to Dioxin comes from the consumption of beef, dairy, milk, chicken, pork, fish, and eggs; in other words, the western diet.

A May 2001 study published in the Journal of Toxicology and Environmental Health drew similar conclusions to the EPA Reassessment. In addition, the study found that “nursing infants have a far higher intake of dioxins relative to body weight than do all older age groups,” and that human breast milk was twice as toxic as dairy milk. It also found that vegans had the overall lowest rate of POPs in their bodies.

According to an October 2009 paper by the Research Centre for Environmental Chemistry and Ecotoxicology at Masaryk University, another major source of POPs, specifically DDT, is the world’s oceans. The paper also found that despite restrictions placed on the use of DDT more than 30 years ago, concentrations of the toxin are on the rise.

Indigenous people carry an unequally high proportion of this global toxic burden. For instance, according to Environment Canada’s National Pollutant Release Inventory (NPRI) there are 212 Indigenous communities in Canada living near or downstream from pulp mills and other facilities that produce dioxins and furans. One striking example is the old Dryden pulp mill near Grassy Narrows which, according to the Grassy Narrows and Islington Bands Mercury Disability Board, dumped tonnes of dioxin-laced mercury wastewater into the English-Wabigoon River system from 1962-70.

Forty years later, the poisonous waste continues to pose a “serious health threat” to Grassy Narrows and the Wabaseemoong First Nations, says the Disability Board. No formal steps have been taken toward remediation by federal or provincial governments.

The Tohono O’odham Nation's experience bears a close resemblance to Grassy Narrows: the world’s highest rate of diabetes can be found in southwest Arizona nation. According to Tribal health officials, nearly 70 per cent of the population of 28,000 has been diagnosed with the illness. The O’odham People make up the second largest Indigenous Nation in the United States.

Lori Riddle is a member of Aquimel O’odham Community and founder of the Gila River Alliance for a Clean Environment (GRACE).

GRACE was instrumental in the 10 year struggle against a hazardous waste recycling plant that operated without full permits on O’odham land for decades. Owned by Romic Environmental Technologies Corporation, the plant continuously spewed effluents into the air until it was finally shut down in 2007.

The Romic plant was not the first contributor to the O’odham’s toxic burden, explained Riddle. Looking back to her childhood, she recalled: “For nearly a year, [when] a plane would go over our heads, you could see the mist. We never thought to cover our water. The chemicals just took over and they became a part of us.”

From the early 1950s until the late 60s, cotton farmers in the Gila River watershed routinely sprayed DDT onto their crops to protect them from bollworms. According to the Agency of Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR), each and every year the farmers used roughly twenty-three pounds of DDT per acre.

In 1969, the State of Arizona banned the use of DDT; by this time the river was gravely contaminated. According to the ATSDR, farmers then switched to Toxaphene, a substitute for DDT—until it was banned by the US government in 1990.

Because of these chemicals, Riddle explains, the O’odham were forced to abandon their traditional foods and adopt a western diet. Farms also went into a recession, forcing many families to leave their communities. Companies, such as Romic, began moving on to their territory, exasperating the situation. “It’s taken a toll on our quality of life,” she says. “I’ve cried myself to sleep.”

The O’odham are dealing with what Riddle terms “cluster symptoms,” including miscarriages, arthritis in the spine, breathing problems, unexplainable skin rashes and problems regenerating blood cells. This is in addition to diabetes, which frequently leads to renal failure, blindness, heart disease, and amputations.

More and more studies are showing the link between diabetes and persistent organic pollutants like DDT—stemming from the landmark Ranch Hand study. In 1998, the study found a 166 per cent increase in diabetes (requiring insulin control) in US Air Force personnel who were sprayed with the herbicide and defoliant Agent Orange during the Vietnam War. The study also found that as dioxin levels increased so did the presence and severity of Type 2 Diabetes, and the time to onset declined following a similar trend.

However, Dr. Carpenter notes that because of the widely-endorsed belief that diabetes is a life-style disease related to diet and exercise, the link is gaining little attention by governments, news agencies, or by any of the hundreds of non-profit diabetes foundations around the world. “[It] hasn’t even made it into the medical community at this point,” Dr. Carpenter adds. “It takes a long time to change both medical and public opinion.”

“Clearly one thing everyone can do is to eat less animal fats,” suggests Dr. Carpenter. Several Indigenous communities in northern Manitoba and British Columbia have begun to do this, planting their own gardens and building greenhouses; returning, in a traditional sense, to some of the foods that sustained them for millennia. Others are turning to exercise, which plays a vital role not just in the prevention of diabetes, but in their overall health.

"Also, we must find ways of getting the POPs out of the animals that we eat. That is not going to be easy, given how contaminated we have made the world,” adds Dr. Carpenter. For this, Lori Riddle, who is herself a diabetic, points to the Tribal Council and the Federal Government.

John Schertow is an Indigenous rights advocate and author of the blog Intercontinental Cry.

POPs

Chicago Thwarts the Bid

dawn — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 06:06:05 +0000

How one American city dodged the Olympic bullet

WASHINGTON, DC—"This is a devastating blow for the people of Chicago." So said ESPN's Chicago-born Michael Wilbon.

But the decision to send the 2016 Summer Olympics to Rio was in fact a victory for the people of Chicago. Pushing back against immense pressure from Mayor Daley's political machine, organizations like No Games Chicago went grassroots, corner to corner, and spoke out against the Olympic storm of gentrification, tax hikes, and police misconduct. They are a model of resistance in the Obama era. Certainly one reason the United States got the high hat was the lingering bad taste of George W. Bush. The global community, after eight years of sneering contempt from Washington, DC, isn't ready to rinse with the Obama mouthwash.

But it's the community activists of Chicago who should feel tremendously gratified. In the Windy City, the hastily formed group No Games Chicago took to the streets, shadowing Olympic organizers at every stop. They turned almost every public relations gambit into challenged, contested, space. They—along with the millions of Chicagoans who expressed their trepidation in polls—saved their city. They have every right to say with pride, "That's the Chicago way!"

As for Barack Obama, he may not be feeling it, but he is the luckiest man alive. Yes, he traveled all the way to Copenhagen and didn't even get a lousy t-shirt, but he is very fortunate his bid went down like it did.

Obama is the first US president to ever appear before the International Olympic Committee and plead for the Games. The Games coming to the Windy City would have been an eight-year distraction and political gold for his opponents. Every time an Olympic project came in late and over budget, every time a scandal hit the tabloids, every time a crime was captured on a cell phone camera it would have been "Obama's Olympic Folly."

The person who really has egg on his face is Mayor Richard Daley. He wanted to show everyone he was a bigger man—and mayor—than his Daddy, with an Olympic-sized stadia to boot. Now expect all the Daley arm-twisting and all the dirty skullduggery in the lead up to both come to light and come home to roost. Mayor Daley, rocking a 35 per cent approval rating, said that the Games would be "a huge boost to our economy, raising it to a new level. The Games will help us recover sooner from the recession that still grips our nation and enable us to better compete in the global economy."

There was only one problem with this argument: the history of the Olympic Games almost without exception brands it as a lie. As Sports Illustrated's Michael Fish—an Olympic supporter—has written, "You stage a two-week athletic carnival and, if things go well, pray the local municipality isn't sent into financial ruin."

In fact, the very idea that Chicago could have been an appropriate setting for the Olympics might have been hatched by Jon Stewart for a four-year supply of comedic fodder. To greater or lesser degrees, the Olympics bring gentrification, graft and police violence wherever they nest. Even without the Olympic Games, Chicago has been ground zero in the past decade for the destruction of public housing, political corruption raised to an art form, and police violence.

It was also difficult for Chicago residents to see how this would help their pocketbooks, given that Daley pledged to the International Olympic Committee that any cost overruns would be covered by taxpayers.

This is why a staggering 84 per cent of the city opposed bringing the Games to Chicago if it cost residents a solitary dime. Even if the Games were to go off without a hitch—which would happen only if the setting was lovely Shangri-La—not even half the residents would support hosting the Games.

The Obamas, former Chicago residents, should have stood with their city. Instead, we had the sight of Barack, Michelle, and Oprah trying to out-muscle Pele and Brazil for a place at the Olympic trough.

Michelle Obama said in her speech to the IOC, "My father was disabled, and I think what it would have meant for him to see someone in his shoes compete. Kids need to see that and that needs to be celebrated just as much, if not more."

This seems more like an argument to support the Paralympics (a tremendous event) but that's beside the point. Michelle Obama should have realized that if the Olympics had come to Chicago when she was a young girl on Chicago's working class southside, her home may have been torn down to make way for an Olympic facility. No word on how being out of house and home would have helped her disabled father.

The question is, why did Obama risk this humiliation?

Maybe Obama wants the Olympic fairy dust enjoyed by Ronald Reagan at the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles or Bill Clinton at the 1996 games in Atlanta. Or perhaps he is returning favor to the developers and other sundry connected people in the Windy City who will make out like bandits once the smoke has cleared. But his intentions are clear: he wants the glitz, glamour, and prestige of the Games and he wants it for the Daley machine. What the people of Chicago want doesn't seem to compute.

But we shouldn't be surprised at this point that Obama is tin-eared to the concerns of Chicago residents. As Paul Krugman wrote September 20 on the banker bonuses, "The administration has suffered more than it seems to realize from the perception that it's giving taxpayers' hard-earned money away to Wall Street." Shoveling taxpayers' money into the Olympic maw is no better, especially in these tough times.

No Games Chicago organizer Alison McKenna said to me, "I oppose the Olympics coming to Chicago because instead of putting money toward what people really need, money will be funneled to real estate developers who will be tearing down Washington Park and other important community resources. I oppose the Olympics coming to Chicago because the nonprofit child-welfare agency that I work for had to sustain budget cuts and layoffs, while Chicago has spent $48.2 million on the 2016 Olympic bid, as of July 2009."

There is an urgency to building resistance to these kinds of priorities. Right now, the right wing is shamelessly adopting populist rhetoric and the power of protest to sell an agenda of racism and fear wrapped in taxpayer protection. The big public voice against Obama's trip to Copenhagen was the repellent Republican National Committee chief Michael Steele who believes, and this is hilarious, that "at a time of war and recession" Obama needs to stay home. It shouldn't be a scoundrel like Steele who represents a party of privatization and occupation who delivers that message.

Now is the time to build a pole of attraction on the left for people furious at corporate greed amidst a recession. This needs to happen, and not just for the Windy City. In Vancouver, the struggle is now defensive in nature as our anti-Olympic heroes strive to find a way to sand off the worst edges of the Olympic scythe, cutting through one of the world's most beautiful cities. It's about building a vibrant protest movement that believes in social justice not the rank divisiveness of the right. Obama likes to say that change comes from "outside Washington." It's time to take him at his word.

Dave Zirin writes for The Nation magazine, among other publications. His most recent book is A People's History of Sports in the United States.

Chicago.Bid.Protesters

North American Badger

Moira Peters — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 06:00:49 +0000

Diggin' it

This proud creature, recognizable by the distinctive white stripe on its otherwise dark brown and black coat, can be found in Central Canada, Western and Central parts of the US, and Northern Mexico.

These solitary souls keep to themselves for most of the year. Communal activity is restricted to the summer mating season and when the females are rearing their young.

Badgers are known for being keen diggers, and justifiably so. Indeed, one of their best defence mechanisms is their ability to dig at an alarmingly fast rate. When in danger, badgers dig to safety, disappearing far underground in less than a minute.

They also dig in order to construct burrows, used for living and pursuing prey. Not content with just one abode, badgers switch between their dens during the warmer months, sometimes on a nightly basis. This high level of activity decreases in the colder months, and during the winter they tend to settle for one den in particular. This allows badgers to spend much of the winter drifting in and out of periods of deep sleep, each of which can last up to 29 hours.

By no means a fussy eater, a badger will feast on squirrels, moles, skunks, ground-nesting birds, lizards, frogs, insects, but also foods like cereals, peas, mushrooms and sunflower seeds.

Although badgers are largely peaceful creatures, the North American badger’s Eurasian cousin is the unfortunate key participant in the blood sport of "badger baiting," which emerged during the Middle Ages in Europe. This involves confining a badger to a small space, letting dogs into this enclosure, and goading them to fight the badger to death. Bets are placed on the outcome.

Unable to dig its way to safety, the badger shows remarkable bravery when cornered by the dogs. Its sharp bite, powerful claws and reckless defence reflexes make it a formidable adversary. Yet badger baiting almost always ends in the death of the badger, while the dogs may only sustain injuries. Despite being illegal, this blood sport still takes place in secret in some parts of Europe.

North American Badger

A Tale of Two Churches - One in Haiti, the other in New Orleans

WadnerPierre — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 16:55:16 +0000

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Wadner Pierre Fr.Jean-Juste, Haiti , 6janv, 2008 138.JPG.jpeg

By Wadner Pierre-www.haitianalysis.com

In 2006 two struggles were going on in two different Catholic churches and in two different countries. At Saint Claire’s Parish, Tiplas Kazo, Delmas 33 (one part of Delmas County), Haitian parishioners, students, and community leaders stood up against the decision of the Archdiocese of Port-Au-Port to remove the late activist priest, Gerard Jean-Juste, who had been serving this parish for ten years. Simultaneously at Saint Augustine Church, in Tremé, New Orleans, a similar struggle was taking place. Students of different beliefs and backgrounds, civil right’s movement leaders and community leaders stood up against the unjustified decision of the New Orleans Archdiocese, to remove the elderly African-American priest, Father Jerome Ledoux, from the oldest African-American Catholic church in the United States. To explain the meaning of the people’s struggle at Saint Augustine Church, it is important to understand the history of this church and why it is so important for the African-American Catholic community to keep this church from closing after Hurricane Katrina.

The History of Saint Augustine Church

The Business of Intelligence

dawn — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 12:43:15 +0000

Corporate intelligence-gathering harkens back to COINTELPRO

TORONTO—In the US, a new model of law enforcement has emerged in which police, military, security contractors and large corporations are collaborating on intelligence gathering. Are the 2010 Olympics ushering this new paradigm into Canada?

The security committee for the 2010 Olympics Task Force, based in Washington State, is at the forefront of planning US security efforts for the games. According to The Globe and Mail this group brings together government agencies from both sides of the border, more than 100 from the US and 17 from Canada.

Documents acquired by The Dominion reveal that this committee consists of not only the US Military, Canadian Forces, Federal Bureau of Investigation and Royal Canadian Mounted Police, but also “Pacific Northwest Private Sector Company Volunteers.” The amount the US will spend on Olympic security has not been disclosed.

“The safety and security of the 2010 Olympics and the United States is at risk if we do not take direct action,” testified Jeffery Slotnick, a member of the committee, at a Congressional hearing on Olympics security in March 2008.

Video of the hearing showed Slotnick wearing a dark blue suit and glasses. His bald head and black moustache hinted at the decades he spent in the military. He is president of Setracon Inc., a Tacoma, Washington-based company that contracts out security personnel and trains private security, military and police.

Slotnick explained some of the reasons the US should be involved in Olympic security, including the potential for attacks or natural disasters that could impact US businesses and have significant economic costs to the region. He called for increased funding to prepare for securing the games, plans to expedite border crossings, and a greater role for the private sector in information sharing.

“[The] private sector has tremendous awareness of what is going on... the opportunity to share in both directions is key and critical,” said Slotnick, emphasizing the need for corporate involvement in intelligence gathering for the Vancouver Olympics.

“Boeing, Microsoft, [and] Starbucks ... possess significant intelligence assets. In many cases, individuals from these organizations have higher security clearances than law enforcement officials. It would be unfortunate not to capitalize on these assets...”

It is perhaps not surprising that Boeing, a defence contractor, and Microsoft, a computer technology corporation, have large intelligence and security operations. Starbucks, on the other hand, runs a global chain of coffee shops. Yet they too have a program to identify and mitigate risks to the company.

During a 2007 security conference in Colorado Springs, Starbucks revealed part of their security operation includes monitoring retail stores, roasting plants and container loading sites from a “central security facility.” Press releases from the Industrial Workers of the World, the union representing some Starbucks workers, claim the company conducts surveillance of union activities.

“Are we trying to deputize every private company to be minor league James Bonds against citizens of our own countries?” asked Mike German, reached by phone from Washington, DC.

German is a former FBI agent who now works for the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). “From a security perspective this is a nightmare; I mean, you are actually giving private companies, who operate on profit margins, access to extremely valuable information.”

“I am sure the data [US] companies collect on Canadian citizens is routinely shared with their headquarters in the United States,” he said. “Is consumer information being collected in Canada that is shared across the border and [then] being brought back to [Canadian] law enforcement in violation of privacy regulations? If the answer is 'we don't know', that's a problem, and if the answer is 'we don't think so', that is still a problem. Because nobody is overseeing these intelligence activities it makes it very difficult to know the extent of the abuse.”

When asked about their involvement in 2010 security, Starbucks responded with a statement reading “...we cannot discuss specific security measures Starbucks is taking for the 2010 Vancouver Olympic Games.” They explained that they are prioritizing “the safety and security of our [employees] and customers,” and are “working with and will rely on the direction of local authorities and other official sources.”

Boeing and Microsoft did not respond to requests for comment.

The efforts to integrate multinational corporations into Olympic security have broad implications. The US has done much to involve the private sector in their security infrastructure. Washington State is at the forefront of blurring the lines between private and public security.

Slotnick informed the Congressional hearing that a “fusion centre” called the Washington Joint Analytical Center plays a role in coordinating intelligence with Canadian authorities. This organization has since been renamed the Washington State Fusion Center (WSFC).

Fusion centres emerged after September 11, 2001, as places for the FBI, Homeland Security, CIA, military, local and state police, and in some cases private sector companies, to jointly gather and respond to intelligence on terrorism and other criminal activities. Currently over 40 fusion centres exist in the US.

While fusion centres are generally not well known, criticism of them has started to emerge.

An ACLU report entitled What's Wrong with Fusion Centers? compares them to COINTELPRO, a controversial domestic intelligence program run by the FBI between 1956 and 1971.

The report outlines problems with fusion centres including: excessive secrecy, military involvement in law enforcement, corporations sharing private information on their customers and employees, and “policy shopping.”

Policy shopping is the practice of manipulating the differences between laws regulating various agencies and jurisdictions, in order to find loopholes in privacy legislation.

According to an article by the Center for Investigative Reporting, at the 2008 Republican National Convention a Minnesota fusion centre undertook data mining on protesters and requested their police partners conduct preemptive intelligence gathering.

Police then infiltrated groups, tapped information exchanges and conducted questionable searches. To justify these activities, some protesters were equated with terrorists.

The private sector is involved in the WSFC. Internal documents made available through Wikileaks show several of their intelligence analysts are contracted from security firms.

An article published at securitymanagement.com said the head of WSFC was "'adamant' about getting Washington State’s major private sector entities involved." It also revealed that Alaska Airlines, Amazon.com and Starbucks have shown interest in working with WSFC and that efforts have been made to give Boeing clearance to place a full-time analyst inside the organization.

A 2007 Washington State Preparedness Report revealed that the WSFC “...is integrated into the planning and intelligence gathering structure pertaining to... the 2010 Winter Olympics.” However, this is not the only area where the WSFC is involved in Canadian security matters.

WSFC plays a role in the Northwest Warning Alert and Response Network (NWWARN), a “regional information fusion centre” which shares intelligence between the public and private sectors, and rapidly disseminates alerts during disasters.

NWWARN originally operated exclusively in Washington State. The Pacific Northwest Economic Region (PNWER) was instrumental in expanding NWWARN into BC, Alberta, the Yukon and Saskatchewan in Canada, and Oregon, Montana, Idaho and Alaska in the US. PNWER is a forum that brings together business leaders and elected officials from these western provinces and states to impact policy decisions. Atlantica is a similar organization on the east coast, and there is talk of creating such organizations all along the Canada-US border.

These “cross-border regions” build upon free-trade agreements such as NAFTA, finding ways to harmonize policies to fit the needs of business interests without high profile changes to treaties.

NWWARN's benevolent-sounding mission to rapidly disseminate information during disasters is giving the private sector a growing role in policing, not only in the US but also in Canada. This permanent intelligence network works in a wide range of areas, but in his testimony Slotnick explained it would play an important role in Olympics intelligence gathering.

Canada has welcomed US involvement in Olympic security. In practical terms, this seems to include preemptive intelligence gathering. It is unclear to what extent multinational corporations will be involved in this, but it is undeniable that the Olympics are seeing an increased use of the fusion centre model of law enforcement in Canada.

“Obviously the Olympics are political," said German. "You have to expect that people are going to want to engage in the debate and discuss the issues that are important to them, and to treat those people as if they are criminals or terrorists is inappropriate.”

Tim Groves is a Toronto-based investigative researcher and trainer.

A Place at the Table?

macdonald — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 22:43:01 +0000

A Place at the Table?
The Great Bear Rainforest and ForestEthics

from "Offsetting Resistance: The effects of foundation funding from the Great Bear Rainforest to the Athabasca River", a special report by Dru Oja Jay and Macdonald Stainsby.

Released September, 2009.

http://www.offsettingresistance.ca/

Nuxalk Nation hereditary chief Qwatsinas (Ed Moody) explains that logging was causing concerns for his people on the Central BC Coast around Bella Coola, and that resistance began because “In the boom of the 1960’s and 1970’s, a rush [for logging companies] to get all the timber they could” was already underway. In response, “There was action with the hereditary chiefs and the elder people, and eventually the band council.” In 1994, the Nuxalk Nation invited Environmental Non- Governmental Organizations (ENGOs) large and small into their territory to see large scale clearcut logging then well underway.

“We sat down and discussed the pros and cons of any kind of relationship, and we set up a protocol and signed a protocol agreement.” The alliance with Greenpeace and smaller ENGOs Forest Action Network, People’s Action for Threatened Habitat and Bear Watch, says Qwatsinas, “started out really basic. The key people signed the agreements and we had our goals and our objectives and what we want to do to protect the environment.”

“That was the common goal between the environmentalists and ourselves as the First Nation, the Nuxalk, still had the outstanding issue of the land question. There had been a process developed in British Columbia called the BC Treaty Process. We could see that it wasn’t what we wanted because it was very limited, was kind of corrupt and really bent towards the industry.”

Just Green Jobs

Moira Peters — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 05:40:50 +0000

Transitioning towards an environ-mental economy

OTTAWA—Organizers of the Power Shift Canada 2009 conference are looking to bring hundreds of young activists from across the country to Ottawa, from October 23-26, to discuss climate change in the run-up to the United Nations Climage Change Conference in Copenhagen this December. But along with climate change, the Ottawa conference will also be looking to empower attendees to participate in the transition to green jobs.

I had the opportunity to sit down with Ben Powless, a Power Shift organizer and member of such groups as the Canadian Youth Climate Coalition and the Indigenous Environmental Network. He had just returned from the Green For All Academy in the San Francisco Bay Area of California, where 50 attendees, 49 from the United States and one—Powless himself—from Canada, were coming up with ways to bring green jobs to the forefront of both the environmental and social/economic justice movements.

“We [the Canadian Youth Climate Coalition] started setting up our own working groups [on green jobs], and really not seeing a lot of movement on the ground around green jobs: I mean you can find a few policy documents by some environmental groups, you can find some stuff on their website, but nobody’s out there in the streets talking about it.

“The focus around green jobs is to try and imagine a society and an economy—a way of life—that is environmentally sustainable: to try and imagine the actual jobs and the transition that we would have to go through,” said Powless.

“[Green jobs] are positions from all aspects of the economy, from typically what’s called ‘blue collar’ work right up to ‘white collar’ work, from research to actual design, to manufacturing," said Powless. "As well as things like simply going into houses and fixing them up: construction, manufacturing. So it really focuses on...fundamental aspects of our society, from our energy sources, our food sources, to the way we build things and the way we consume things, and eventually [the way we] have to recycle [those things].”

To transition to a more sustainable way of organizing our society, understanding that we need to reorient our entire workforce toward sustainability—making green work work—will be vital in addressing the global environmental challenges we face.

Granted, the effort is more than understanding what “green work” entails. It is also about coordinating a just transition in implementing these programs, to ensure that we are working toward social, economic, and environmental justice together.

“[The concept of green jobs] tries to address at the same time the fundamental social inequalities in our societies, especially tackling issues of poverty...[and] marginalized communities frequently not having access to most aspects of the environmental movement and not having access to a clean, healthy, safe environment.”

Green jobs are not just about making the world a cleaner place. According to Powless, there is “a human rights basis to it: that people of colour, people from poor communities, have just as much a right—in many cases even more of a right where their communities have been marginalized in the past—to participate in this new economy.

“If we don’t actually make sure that it’s led by communities, it’s not going to be the poorer communities who get access to their own sources of energy, who get access to energy audits.

“And it’s going to be especially immigrant and poorer communities who don’t have access to education and training [and] who are not going to be able to get those jobs, and are not going to be able to be involved in setting up any of those programs.”

To break the cycle of marginalization of poor and immigrant communities as the green jobs movement expands, Powless says it’s crucial for the green jobs movement “to make sure that...these communities are able to be there at the table as some of the main initiators of this discussion. And I think that’s why...we have to really start getting these people involved now.”

Another key aspect of the transition is keeping a local focus. “Remodelling a house, doing energy audits, installing renewable energy systems...local community agriculture, community gardens—these are all fundamentally local processes, and it can be replicated on a wide scale in most urban and even semi-urban centres across North America, and in a lot of other places.

“And these are the kind of things that can’t be outsourced, and [they] provide secure employment for people.”

Greg Macdougall is a member of Common Cause, an Ontario anarchist organization. He is also active with the Organizing For Justice conference in Ottawa (October 15-18), the Indigenous Peoples Solidarity Movement Ottawa and Equitable Education.

Green Jobs Ashley Chee

Green Jobs Youth March

Americas

Moira Peters — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 05:13:56 +0000

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