The Dominion - land claims

Guatemalan Women Speak Out Against Rape

dawn — Mon, 23 Aug 2010 05:05:42 +0000

Soldiers, police, security terrorized residents who live in nickel-rich area

EL ESTOR, GUATEMALA—It was the middle of May, just days into the rainy season, when I made the trip to Lote 8, one of the dozens of Maya-Qeqchi villages scattered about the steep and perennially green Santa Cruz mountain range in eastern Guatemala. Clouds formed and dissipated over the Western Highlands, reaching by dusk the lowlands around Lake Izabal and the Polochic River basin. Then the stagnant heat broke, in storm. In the weeks to come, the rains would increase, scouring the mountains of their red-tinted earth, forcing it to the valley below, and eventually out to sea.

Roughly 100 years ago, the Maya-Qeqchi of Izabal began to occupy the marginal lands. Many still live on these lands—on the narrow sloping tracts beneath the mountain, within view of the sprawling lake and the distant mist-shrouded ridges of the Sierra de las Minas to the south. Others, like those from Lote 8, fled the lowlands below, higher into the mountains. Despite the steep slopes and rugged terrain, they took root, grew with family, endured flood and drought, had plentiful harvests and practiced the ancient ways.

Nathan Einbinder is a graduate student in the field of geography. Much of his work focuses on the impacts of development on Indigenous and marginalized people, particularly in Central America.

Guatemalan Women Speaking out against Rape

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Barrick Supported Police Who Carried Out Fiery Evictions in PNG

Moira Peters — Sat, 05 Jun 2010 05:22:55 +0000

Amnesty report confirms links between cops & Canadian mining company

TORONTO—Amnesty International (AI) recently made waves in human rights circles, publishing a new report focusing on Canadian mining giant Barrick Gold's role in violent forced evictions in the Porgera region of Papua New Guinea (PNG).

The publication marks AI’s first report detailing the human rights abuses occurring near a Canadian mine. Publishing such a report can be risky business; the threat of a lawsuit targeting individual journalists and publishers for reporting on the activities of extractive companies is not one that many NGOs can afford to face, and Barrick is known to take crippling legal action when challenged on its human rights record.

Although AI does not conclude that representatives of Barrick directly ordered the evictions, the international human rights organization does express its concern about the company's continued support for a police unit participating in illegal activities in the region.

The report, titled “Undermining Rights: Forced Evictions and Police Brutality around the Porgera Gold Mine, Papua New Guinea,” examines links between Barrick Gold and a special Mobile Squad of police officers which burned to the ground more than 130 homes in the Porgera region between April and July 2009. The report found Barrick Gold provided food, housing and fuel to the Mobile Squad during the period of the evictions, and continues to do so despite a PNG court ordering the retreat of the police.

The Porgera Joint Venture (PJV) gold mine is located in the Porgera region of Enga, a highland province of PNG. PJV has been in operation since 2006, and continues to be 95 per cent owned and operated by subsidiaries of Canada-based Barrick, the largest mining company in the world. The remaining five per cent is split between the Enga provincial government and select local landowners. Barrick had been exploring expansion of its mine site for two years, but ceased exploration one month before the evictions.

According to the AI report, in 2008 PJV produced 627,000 ounces of gold, worth approximately $US546 million.

Jefferey Simon, a resident and member of the Akali Tange Association—a human rights organization in the Porgera area that was formed in 2004 to document abuses at PJV—explained in an interview that there is a strong history of artisanal mining in the community, which has provided a source of income alongside subsistence agriculture.

When the government of PNG granted PJV exclusive exploitation rights to a large region known as the Special Mining Lease (SML) area, it effectively cut off the community's ability to support itself, according to Simon.

PNG's 1992 Mining Act states that "all land in the State is available...for exploration and mining and the grant of tenements over it." However, the country's constitution recognizes Customary Law, which dictates that all individuals—including unborn generations—have the right to use land and resources for livelihood and traditional activities. In 2000 the National Parliament enacted the Underlying Law Act, mandating the courts to pay greater attention to Customary Law when upholding the law of the country.

Under the pretext of addressing illegal mining activities and the general decline in law and order around PJV, a request was made by the Porgera District Law and Order Committee for a 30-member police unit to patrol the area. Instead, in April 2009, a 200-member elite Mobile Squad unit, typically sent to regions of high conflict and usually armed with assault rifles, arrived within SML, an area with some 10,000 Indigenous inhabitants.

According to AI's report, when police arrived in the area to begin Operation “Ipili,” PJV provided logistical support and conducted frequent briefings.

On April 27, 2009, police encircled houses in the community of Wuangima and proceeded to violently evict families from their homes and set fire to at least 130 houses.

According to the AI report, after refusing to leave his house, one man was locked inside while police set fire to his home. He escaped with the help of neighbours. One woman, while nursing her child, was struck on her shoulder by a police officer with the butt of his rifle.

Those who were away tending their gardens came home to find only the charred remains of their houses and their highly valuable livestock killed by police. Those who had been home met with violent confrontation: witnesses testify that police pointed their weapons at them, threatened and yelled at them to leave their houses. Others reported police officers shot at or near them.

At least three women independently testified to AI about being raped by police officers. AI is strongly pressing for further investigations into these reports.

In a meeting held December 3, 2009, between AI and Barrick Gold, the company insisted that PJV was only one of several parties that supported the April 2009 deployment of police to the area. Barrick denied having prior knowledge of police actions in Wuangima.

Barrick has publicly insisted that the buildings destroyed were nothing more than temporary shelters used by migrants to the area, and that they housed people participating in illegal mining activity.

However, AI's research provided significant evidence to the contrary. Taking lengthy testimonies of residents and religious leaders, examining photographs taken before and during the burnings, and relying on the physical evidence of the charred remains of the houses, AI concluded the buildings destroyed were solidly constructed with wooden frames and traditional woven bamboo walls.

The remains of established gardens and the existence of a church in Wuangima constructed in 2004 by residents provide further evidence that the community was not temporary. PJV surveyed the area in 2007 in the hopes of expanding the mine, and would have known the area was established with permanent homes.

According to the AI report, Barrick and PJV finally acknowledged in their meeting with AI that some of the houses in Wuangima were in fact occupied for quite some time. The company maintained, however, that it had not been in a position to authorize or dictate the activity of the Mobile Squad, and claimed it had no prior knowledge of the evictions.

Barrick Gold, like many other Canadian mining companies, claim they support strong human rights standards, and their operations fully support the Voluntary Principles on Security and Human Rights, a non-binding agreement signed by governments, companies, NGOs and observer organizations.

These principles dictate the company must document and report to the appropriate authorities cases where physical force is used by public security, as well as record and report any credible allegation of human rights abuses by public security. In addition, companies should urge an investigation and support action to prevent recurrence of such physical force.

Barrick maintains it did not know the intentions of police. However, according to the AI report, PJV had almost daily communications with police. PJV in fact participated in a police briefing meeting the morning of the evictions. Barrick told AI that PJV employees saw smoke only after the buildings were burning. Photos taken during the raid show PJV employees watching from the mine site.

According to the report, the General Manager of Corporate and Legal for PJV contacted the Commander of the Mobile Squad, but after his being told the evictions were legal there were no further investigations on the part of PJV or Barrick.

Corporate accountability is a large focus within Amnesty International Canada (AIC) for the next several years.

“One of the challenges of researching community concerns that relate to large corporations is the fear of a lawsuit or some form of legal action,” said Ian Heide, the coordinator for Business and Human Rights for AIC. “The complexity of the situation in terms of government responsibility versus corporation responsibility or obligation means that AI needs to be sure of our research before going public."

AI has good reason to be careful. Noir Canada—edited by Alain Denault and the Collectif Ressources d’Afrique and published in French out of Montreal—details the role of Canadian companies operating in Africa with the support of the Canadian government. In that particular case, lawyers for Barrick Gold claimed there were inaccuracies in the book’s detailing of Barrick’s role in the 1996 massacre in Bulyanhulu, Tanzania, where more than 50 small-scale miners were buried alive. Barrick Gold filed a SLAPP lawsuit (Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation) against the writers, editors, translators and publishers of Noir Canada in order to block the translation of the book into English. Barrick Gold has also sued The Observer and The Guardian over articles they published about the Bulyanhulu massacre.

Simon explained the importance of the AI report. “Both the company and the state are bonded for development,” he said. “The only way to express ourselves is through media and connecting with international NGOs who can carry out adequate research and produce reliable reports.”

While acknowledging the quick response by AI—the report was researched and released within eight months of the evictions—Jethro Tulin, another resident of Porgera, thinks the report could have gone further. According to Tulin, there is no room for doubt that the company was responsible, but this was not made clear in the report. He maintains that even if AI did not have proof that Barrick was directly responsible for ordering the forced evictions, they could have recorded opinions of witnesses and made stronger recommendations to Barrick.

“AI has a reputation for being fair and impartial,” responded Heide, “so we only name governments and companies when we are certain that what we are saying is accurate and fair.”

Simon and Tulin agree with AI's report in its clear statement of the unanimous demand by people living near Barrick’s Porgera mine to be relocated to areas outside the SML.

AI has called on the Government of PNG to investigate the evictions and ensure that alternative accommodations and adequate compensation are provided for those who have been displaced.

Valerie Croft worked in Guatemala as an International Accompanier in 2008 and is active in issues relating to corporate accountability.

Mines causing environmental devastation in Papua New Guinea

From Potlatch to Welfare

Moira Peters — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 06:18:09 +0000

Lutz on historical "dialogue" and the subordination of Indigenous economies in the Pacific Northwest

Makuk: A New History of Aboriginal-White Relations
John Sutton Lutz
Vancouver: UBC Press, 2008

TRADITIONAL TERRITORY OF SNUNEYMUXW FIRST NATION (NANAIMO, B.C.)—Captain James Cook and the crew of the HMS Resolution encountered the Mowachat people and Chief Maquinna at Yuquot. The Mowachat said to the visitors, “Makuk.” Makuk conveyed various meanings. It was an invitation to trade; it was an indication of confidence; and it signified a request for communication between cultures. University of Victoria history professor John Sutton Lutz chose makúk as the starting point to examine how dialogue, or lack of it, could explain the history of the relationship between Europeans and the Original Peoples of the Pacific Northwest.

The story, according to Lutz, is one of “an international process—the displacement of Aboriginal Peoples from control of resources, the resettlement of land by people of European descent, and the partial incorporation of Aboriginal peoples into the new Euro-Canadian economy and into the modern welfare state.” The Europeans would later settle on the territories of First Nations, sometimes with their approval (as with the Lekwungen), at other times without (as with the Tsilhqot'in). The colonies became a basis for extraterritorial encroachments by the colonists which eventually led them to claim all First Nations territories, waterways and resources.

****

Labour, writes Lutz, is how Europeans “valued themselves.” Eurocentric views about labour were seized upon to create the myth of the “lazy Indian”—and justified the Europeans in dispossessing of the Original Peoples of their land.

BC Supreme Court Chief Justice Allen McEachern echoed this stereotype in his 1991 judgment of the Delgamuukw case. He held that Original Peoples were unable to compete with the “relentless energy” of conquering Europeans.

Some fur traders called Indians “indolent” because they didn't need European goods and they enjoyed much leisure, “meaning a lack of interest in a European form of labour subordination.”

Many colonists contradict this portrayal. Lutz quotes fur trader Gabriele Franchere: “They possess, to an eminent degree, the qualities opposed to indolence, improvidence, and stupidity...” He draws upon many examples from Original Peoples demonstrating that laziness was anathema to them, noting their heavy involvement in the capitalist economy across myriad occupations, drawing on colonial accounts that contradict the myth, and explaining First Nations culture, where “everyone was expected to contribute in accordance with their abilities and place in society.”

Historical media accounts complained of Indians being too industrious and thus preventing White men from getting work. Moreover, Lutz points out that leisure time was essential to the Original Peoples's economy—spirituality and economy were not separate. Wsanec Chief David Latasse, who lived to be well past 100, revealed the secret of his long life: “I like work.”

****

Around the estuary of the N'ch-ĩwana (Columbia River) lived the Chinook people. A patois form of their language, known as Chinook, or wawa, became the basis for trade and communication among the peoples of the Pacific Northwest, offshore traders, and colonists. The Original Peoples, relates Lutz, considered wawa a White man's language, and colonists thought of it as “speaking Indian.”

Despite participating in the capitalist economy, Original Peoples maintained their subsistence and prestige economies, forming an interdependence among these systems. By selling their labour Original Peoples could expand their prestige economy. Lutz calls this combination of capitalist, subsistence and prestige economies a “moditional economy.”

However, Lutz points to a power imbalance in the dialogue between colonists and Original Peoples, expressed through wage work and dependence on welfare. With the dispossession of territory and resources from Original Peoples, they were cut off from their subsistence economy. Racist hiring practices locked Original Peoples outside the workforce. Alienated from their own economies and the wage economy, Original Peoples were forced onto welfare. Reports of Indian agents, persons granted fiduciary power over First Nations by the federal government, classify working Indians as “good” and non-working or Potlatching Indians as “some good” or “no good.”

By incorporating Original Peoples in their Eurocentric economy of labour, colonists often successfully dispossessed them of their territory and their culture. Lutz calls this dispossession a “peaceable subordination”—a subordination without subjugation.

****

Lutz notes that Original Peoples vanished from historical records between 1885 and 1970. He tries to explain this by looking at the Lekwungen (Songhees and Esquimalt peoples near present-day Victoria) and the Tsilhqot'in, situated in the remote Chilcotin plateau in the province of British Columbia.

Lekwungen society was hierarchical, with a gender-based division of labor, slavery, property ownership and wealth accumulation. Wealth was not hoarded for oneself; it was to be given away in Potlatch (wawa for “giving away”)—an important part of Pacific Northwest First Nations culture, particular to each nation. Potlaches were gatherings which celebrated special occasions (rights of passage, marriages, funerals, etc), repaid debts and declared status.

Most of “British Columbia" is still unceded, unsurrendered Indigenous territory. Only a few treaties have been signed; some of those by Vancouver Island Governor James Douglas when he started a “new regime of property relations” by signing treaties with six Lekwungen families for land. Initially, the Lekwungen became very wealthy from the sale of land. They helped build Fort Victoria and believed their assistance had given them a stake in the fort. Lutz notes, “In light of the consequences for the Lekwungen, it seems ironic that they welcomed, and assisted with, the building of Fort Victoria.”

The Lekwungen “participated in the capitalist economy...to participate more fully in their own.” Potlatches grew more elaborate. But a demise was nearing. The Potlatch would be outlawed by the federal government in 1885. This targeted the heart of Indigenous culture and society, with the intention of assimilation. Without Potlatch, there was little incentive to work.

Then came hitherto-unknown deadly infectious diseases, the scourge of alcoholism, racism, joblessness, the disempowering Indian Act, and the specter of starvation. The Lekwungen came to be seen by prominent colonists as a blight to be removed from the city core. The Lekwungen staunchly resisted for many years.

With the completion of CP Railway, a surfeit of Chinese workers came onto the labour market, which, along with a preference for White workers, displaced Original Peoples from jobs.

Original Peoples began to work in less skilled jobs, were paid less, received less in relief payments, and had a “disturbingly high rate of unemployment.” Kathleen Mooney's research of 1952-71 shows Indigenous men to be eight times more likely to be unemployed than non-Indigenous men.

The situation became so bad that in 1961 the Colonist warned of imminent starvation to a people who had never known hunger. Surrounded by abundant game, it was, in fact, legislated starvation.

****

The Tsilhqot'in were a “poorer,” egalitarian, non-hierarchical society. Remotely situated, the Tsilhqot'in had less contact with Europeans, resisted European encroachment onto their territory, and retained much more of their culture longer than did the Lekwungen.

In 1862, politician-turned-businessman Alfred Waddington led a push to build a road from the Bute Inlet across Tsilhqot'in territory into the goldfields at Barkerville. The Tsilhqot'in opposed the road through their territory, and in one incident, eight Tsilhqot'in men attacked one of Waddington's work camps, killing 14 road workers.

The colonial administration sent a militia after the defenders of Tsilhqot'in sovereignty. Lutz notes: “The only way the colony captured any Tsilhqot'in was by luring them to a peace talk and then clapping them in irons and trying them as murderers—a practice so unethical it made the presiding officials squirm.” Presiding Judge Matthew Begbie (to be remembered by his nickname 'The Hanging Judge') found that the captured Tsilhqot'in had been “most injudiciously treated.” He concluded that if the Tsilhqot'in people had been treated well, the “outrage would not have been perpetrated.” Nevertheless, six Tsilhqot'in were hanged for attacks on the work crew and others, leaving a black mark on BC history.

Despite the formidable growing conditions on the plateau, the province sought to “civilize” the Tsilhqot'in by turning them away from game hunting and toward farming. Authorities wanted to limit their traditional subsistence economy by enacting game laws. Eventually, the Tsilhqot'in—unable to hunt game, and displaced by White ranchers—migrated and became fishers of salmon. But the government also sought to protect commercial fisheries, and the salmon season was was eventually closed. This was even though Indian Agent E. McCleod had warned that a closed season on salmon created such a hardship that it sent a number of Tsilhqot'in into their graves.

Finally, a lack of jobs and available capital or collateral to receive financing, along with the crash of the cash economy after WWII, brought the welfare economy to the Original Peoples.

****

Lutz notes that “European 'settlement' was, in fact, a period of depopulation.” There was a great drop in population of Original Peoples between 1861 and 1871 (from 60,000 people to 37,000). Even so, 73.6 per cent of BC's population was Indigenous. These “lazy Indians” had been involved in many industries, such as trapping, mining, fishing, sealing, forestry, hop picking and the fish canneries.

During these years, trapping and fur trade became regulated by authorities; traditional Tsilhqot'in traplines were registered to non-Indigenous people. In the coal mines Original Peoples were displaced by Chinese; in the canneries they were displaced by Japanese. In forestry, Original Peoples were denied harvesting rights in 1910. The BC Forest Service's unwritten policy allocated only marginal timber lands to Original Peoples. Traditional methods of reef net fishing were outlawed. Original Peoples required permission from colonists to fish for food. The BC government sought to limit the size of the commercial fishery through a small boat buyback, disadvantaging the Original Peoples and favoring corporate fishers. As Lutz writes, the province “attempt[ed] to make fishing a 'white man's' industry.” After confederation, the federal government claimed the sea and the resources in it.

Original Peoples were prohibited from holding purse seiner—the most lucrative form of commercial fishing—licenses. Nuu-chah-nulth Peter Webster commented, “I think a lot of us became 'criminals' without really knowing the reason.”

During the years 1885-1970, Original Peoples were “vanished” from censuses, voting lists, annual reports, and other records. Statistics focused on formal capitalist economies. Massive immigration of other Europeans, Japanese, and Chinese to BC caused even further displacement. Game and fishing regulations pressured Original Peoples out of their subsistence economies and forced them into the wage economy and to eat White man's food, “as that was the only way to stay alive.” This caused Nuu-chah-nulth Charles Jones to lament in 1976: “I think all they do is dream up new laws against the Indians.”

****

Lutz writes that it was settlement, not contact, which marked the demise of Indigenous culture and history. History, he contends, has mainly been the monologue of colonists. “What histories would have been written had we asked Aboriginal People?” he asks.

Original Peoples talked about a “White Problem.” That "Problem" outlawed their Potlatches; instituted racism in hiring; enacted legislation that disenfranchised them; treated them as minors under law; declared their reserves to be crown land, unmortgageable; deprived them of their land and resources despite no surrender, and despite treaty rights; forbade their entrance into restaurants and other public facilities in the 1960s; sought labour solidarity along racial lines as unions were white-dominated; instituted compulsory schooling that broke up family economy; and forced Original Peoples onto relief.

Even relief (at a far lower level that that for Whites) was a Catch 22; Lutz writes: “That relief was based on the principle that it would be supplemented by subsistence foods, which they could no longer obtain!”

“By 1936, per capita relief spending for registered Indians was one-third that for other Canadians.” And still, Indians had to beg for relief cheques. Relief was not shameful; the Lekwungen called the Indian Agent “siem/leader of the Indian people” and it was the “siem's responsibility ...[of] providing for his/her people.”

Stó:lō Rena Peters said, “I'm going to take the welfare but I'm not going to call it welfare, I'm going to call it spirit money.” Some people might call it reparations.

Makúk was originally a way for Original Peoples to enrich their own economies. Lutz reminds us that “Prior to the establishment of white settlement, the Aboriginal peoples of present day British Columbia were among the richest and best-fed societies in the world.”

* In October 1999, the BC government officially apologized for the hangings of the Tsilhqot'in chiefs defending their territory, and erected a plaque describing the injustice and honoring the hanged. Judge Begbie is honored eponymously with buildings, mountains, a street, a school and a larger-than-life sized statue at the entrance to the BC Parliament buildings.

Kim Petersen is Original Peoples editor at The Dominion.

OP Makuk Cover

Appreciates Recent Correspondence

Paula LaPierre — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 22:13:35 +0000

Another Site 41?

Moira Peters — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 17:02:32 +0000

Landfill in southern Ontario starts legal battle

TORONTO—After years of blockades and campaigning, another battle to protect wetlands and water in southern Ontario is going to court.

Cayuga is a small community on Six Nations territory south of Hamilton. For five years, protesters, First Nations and Cayuga residents have been trying to stop the development of a landfill by SF Partnership Chartered Accountants and Haldimand Norfolk Sanitary Landfill Inc. On October 2, preliminary hearings to stop the site's development occurred.

“There have been blockades to stop trucks coming in twice,” most recently in late 2008, says Jody Orr, co-chair of Haldimand Against Landfill Transfer (HALT). “What happened in 2007 was an attempt to bring garbage in and some members of the Haudenosaunee and our group stopped it. Since then, there has been little activity on the site. We keep a watch on it.”

Blockades and legal battles around dump sites and development have been numerous this summer in Southern Ontario. Site 41 in Simcoe County was slated to have a dump site built on top of it for garbage from the surrounding area. Unfortunately for residents in the area, it would also be on an aquifer containing the “purest water in the world.” Protesters and members of the Council Of Canadians filed an injunction claiming the site was operating illegally in July of 2009 and on September 22 Simcoe County councilors voted to stop construction and development of the site.

Just a few weeks earlier, development at the Hanlon Creek Business Park (HCBP) in Guelph was halted for 30 days by a court injunction. The site had been occupied beginning in July by Guelph and Six Nations protesters. Recently, the City of Guelph voted to halt construction until July 2010.

Both situations mirror developments at the Edwards landfill site in Cayuga.

The Edwards site is within the Haldimand Tract, land granted to Six Nations in 1784. The site was opened in 1959 as an industrial and commercial landfill and has maintained sporadic activity as a dump site since.

Serious contamination of the site occurred between the late 1960s and late 1980s when the St. Lawrence Resin Products Plant was dumping industrial waste there. Thousands of tons of toxic chemicals have been found in the site including toluene, ethylstyrene, xylene, ehtylbenzene, ethyltoluene, methylstyrene, cymene and divinyl benzene.

When the site was opened again as a landfill in 2004, HALT was formed by Cayuga residents hoping to stop continued contamination from the use of the site. “We had tried different steps and had gone through a legal process, and despite that the trucks were still coming in,” says Ann Vallentin, another co-chair of HALT.

In 2007 blockades against trucks associated with Haldimand Norfolk Sanitary Landfill Inc, the company owning the site, began.

“We didn't see another route to go at that point, says Vallentin. “We were not exited but it was a last-resort effort at that point. The blockade was done by Six Nations members and activists at the road at the time.” Eventually an injunction was put against anyone trying to stop the trucks.

The blockades were successful, at least temporarily. The company, having spent a considerable amount of money on site preparation, was unable to deliver garbage. Shortly before, it had gone into bankruptcy and was put into receivership. Receiver Brahm Rosen, of SF Partnership Chartered Accountants in Toronto, has been trying to “operate the landfill and sell it as is our mandate...as receiver.”

“But we can't do it," said Rosen, speaking in the Hamilton Spectator. Rosen was unable to contact this author by deadline.

Similar to Site 41 and HCBP, a collaboration between First Nations and white activists has been key to the success of stopping the Edwards site from further use.

According to Orr, “In HALT, there are people that do not agree with what is happening with a number of issues (such as land claims). Some will be supportive, but not others. On this issue, everyone sees a reason to come together. I don't want to leave my grandkids this kind of legacy. I think that the involvement of the Haudenosaunee was critical in stopping garbage. If it had not been for their decision, I'm not sure what the outcome would have been.”

In 2007, Six Nations spokesperson Ruby Montour said the Haudenosaunee Development Institute had not been informed about revival of the dumpsite and told the Hamilton Spectator: "This is Haudenosaunee land and it's not for garbage. Why should the people who live around there have to fear that?"

The Hoskanigetah of the Grand River, a group within the Haudenosaunee, have made repeated announcements that they will not allow the “reactivation of the Edwards Landfill” promising to “undertake the supervision of our own Environmental Review of contamination.”

Wilf Ruland, a professional geoscientist, says serious contamination at the site exists. Conducting a “Review of 2006 Monitoring Report for Edwards Landfill,” Ruland found that “the existing hazardous wastes on the Edwards Landfill property pose an ongoing threat to both groundwater and surface water quality for as long as they remain on the property.“

The Hoskanigetah have outlined concerns regarding premature births, miscarriages and deformities, pointing out that “the integrity of the same liner used at Edwards Landfill has been breached at other sites including [in] the US, where it has been used.”

In an email, Jennifer Hall, Regional Communications Advisor for the Ministry of the Environment, stated that “the newly constructed landfill cell meets the stringent requirements of Ontario’s landfill design standards.”

HALT disagrees and is now taking the receiver to court, seeking an injunction to stop the development of the site.

“When the receiver got an injunction against the protesters, the CoA [certificate of approval] from the Ministry of Environment had a number of provisions that had been violated,” says Orr. HALT then filed a counter-injunction which stopped work on the site and mandated that protesters would be notified of subsequent work.

“In 2008, a number of conditions still had not been met. The Ministry of Environment was allowing things to go ahead without proper approval. There’s a lack of detail on the decontaminating plan for a very toxic site.”

Like the Hoskanigetah, Orr and HALT have concerns about the integrity of the liner and charge that there is no monitoring of the quality of water and no annual report on environmental plans, as mandated by the certificate of approval. “We’re seeking in court, for prosecution, that this site is operating illegally,” says Orr.

According to Hall, “There were some minor items of non-compliance regarding preparation of the site to receive waste that have since been resolved. The ministry is satisfied that the receiver is in compliance with their CoA and the court order.

“The CoA requires the site owner to monitor ground and surface water on the site for impacts caused by the landfill site. The ministry is confident that the terms and conditions of the CoA will protect groundwater and surface water.“

Though the legal process to stop the site is in its early stages, neither Orr nor Vallentin are optimistic that the site will be permanently closed any time soon.

“Will [the legal work] be effective? I don't know,” says Vallentin. “We were told by people when we started that it was going to happen so there was no reason to try to stop it. But we felt that if it was bad then we have a duty to try to do what we can do. Typically in situations like this companies will keep trying until they wear out people on the ground. Site 41 took 25 years, I hope it wont be the same thing here.”

Geordie Gwalgen Dent is a contributing member of the Toronto Media Co-op.

A version of this article was originally published by the Toronto Media Co-op.

Edwards site protester

Not With Bullets or Machetes

Moira Peters — Sun, 05 Apr 2009 06:27:30 +0000

Popular resistance to Xalala Dam finds international law on its side

COPAL’AA, GUATEMALA–In a remote village bordering the Chixoy River in northern Guatemala, scores of people gather outside a wooden meeting hall. Mayan men, women and children face a video camera to demonstrate their resistance against the construction of the Xalala Dam, a mega-project promoted by the Guatemalan government which would flood an estimated minimum of 18 Indigenous villages and drastically affect many more.

The message, in the words of community activist Elena Hernández*, is clear: “I want to tell the businesses, the rich from other countries, the transnational corporations to respect our lands. We, the women, will defend our land.”

This resistance hasn’t gone unnoticed. In November, nine international corporations failed to bid on the hydroelectric project, despite estimates that the dam would generate annual profits totaling between US$100 million and US$150 million, according to Guatemala’s National Institute of Electrification (INDE).

Instead of an offer, Brazilian business conglomerate Odebrecht directed a letter to the Guatemalan government detailing its reluctance to invest. Luiz Sergio de O Ferreira, Odebrecht’s representative in Guatemala, stated in the letter that the corporation would not participate in the project due to the central government’s failure to manage local community opposition, as well as the change in the company’s financial liquidity, caused by the global economic situation.

For Mayan communities fighting for their right to control the natural resources on their land, the bidding failure was considered an achievement.

Nevertheless, the government retains its unyielding stance that the dam will be constructed, with or without immediate investment from international companies.

If it were built, Xalala would be the second-largest hydroelectric dam in the country, producing an estimated 181 megawatts of energy annually.

According to government calculations, with this energy Guatemala could forgo the use of nearly 2.1 million barrels of petroleum derivatives, avoid the annual emission of 240 tons of contaminated substances and eliminate the 100-megawatt energy deficit currently facing the county.

These statistics led the INDE to define the project as “economically viable, socially equitable and environmentally sustainable.”

If the project were to go ahead, most of the energy would likely be used to fuel more resource extraction, like mining, and be sold for export.

But according to community leader Jeremiaz Chuy*, the project is neither clean nor economical: "[The dam] is not clean because it stagnates water and kills aquatic life, contaminates water sources that people live off of and floods large extensions of forest where many animals live," he says. "And it’s not cheap when you take into account all the fertile lands and food sources that are lost. If the government calculated all of this, as well as the cost of fairly relocating all the affected families, they would find it a very expensive project."

Many of the villages that form the Association of Communities for Development and in Defense of Territory and National Resources (ACODET), are accessible only by canoe or via long, muddy jungle paths. Their inhabitants harvest corn and beans, as well as some specialty crops like coffee and cardamom on small plots of land, which they work as a family. Some of the communities are located directly adjacent to the river, which allows them to transport their crops, catch fish for their families and have regular access to clean water.

Even though the government hasn’t provided many of these communities with roads, electricity, running water or schools, it certainly hasn’t lost sight of them. The government of Alvaro Colom, like that of his predecessors, is more than aware of the economic possibilities of the region.

National and international eyes have long been focused on the oil reserves under the soil, the electricity-producing potential of the Chixoy River and the rich terrain, which could be used for producing crops for biofuels.

Today, there is a complex negotiation at work between the government and the economic elite to exploit these resources. But according to the communities in resistance, these plans don’t consider the Maya people's plight.

Throughout Guatemala there is a growing movement to propose alternatives to mega-projects, like community- or municipality-run, small-scale hydroelectric dams to meet local energy needs.

Nonetheless, mega-dams are being promoted as the panacea that will supply regional needs, the needs of a rapidly growing mining- and resource-extraction industry, and make Guatemala a net exporter of energy as part of Plan Mesoamerica, formerly known as the Puebla-Panama Plan.

Worries about the effects of energy mega-projects led 144 communities in the Ixcán region to hold a community referendum in April 2007. The referendum was about the proposed Xalala Dam and oil exploration in the area.

Of the 21,155 participants, 89.7 per cent rejected the project, according to official data provided by then-municipal Mayor Marcos Ramirez.

Indigenous communities are legally guaranteed the right to consultation processes by the Guatemalan Constitution and Convention 169 of the International Labour Organization. But the Constitutional Court of Guatemala recently declared that these consultas are “legal, but not binding.”

Activists aren’t so easily discouraged. “This time we are here not with bullets or machetes,” proclaims community activist Pablo Garcia*. “We are here with the laws we know can defend us.” This tactic represents an important step for a region that suffered from high levels of state-sponsored repression during Guatemala's brutal armed conflict that resulted in the death of more than 200,000, primarily Indigenous, people.

The international community seems to agree. Recently the United Nations Committee to End Racism and Discrimination (CERD) directed a letter to President Colom asking for an official response to claims presented by a human rights group regarding three key cases dealing with natural resources in Guatemala, including the Xalala Dam.

In their letter, CERD likened the Guatemalan government's lack of respect for the communities' popular referendum and their promotion of harmful mega-projects in Indigenous regions to institutional racism.

The Xalala Dam project was conceived in the 1970s, during the 36-year armed conflict. In the early 1980s, the now-infamous Chixoy Dam was constructed with the backing of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.

In order to construct the Chixoy Dam, the Guatemalan army massacred 444 of the 791 Indigenous residents of the village of Río Negro. Survivors and their families have yet to receive any compensation for the damages inflicted by the state to clear the way for the Chixoy Dam.

To this day, affected towns have received little of the development promised to the region by the INDE and the principal funders when the project was getting off the ground. The residents of Río Negro were relocated to a town eight hours from their farmland and most are unable to pay for access to the water and electricity they were promised. Communities that would be affected by the proposed Xalala Dam fear a similar outcome.

In November, when community members denied land access to INDE engineers looking to conduct final geographic studies, INDE representatives returned in a low-flying helicopter. In a region that is heavily scarred by the armed conflict, this action provoked fear and frustration.

Further concern surfaced when President Colom announced in December that the military base located in the Ixcan’s municipal seat would be strengthened in order to recover territories that have been occupied by drug traffickers in the region.

Additionally, new military bases will be installed around the Northern Transversal Strip, where there are plans to put in a highway connecting Mexico with Guatemala’s Atlantic Coast.

According to Colom, “We are working so that Xalala will be constructed as Chixoy was. We have an offer for financing, and it will pay for itself.”

Community members worry that this statement indicates a remilitarization of the region. Colom's statement also alludes to the possibility the dam will go forward as a public-private partnership.

It is expected that the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) will play a role in funding the Xalala Dam, which requires an initial investment of $350 to $400 million, according to Alberto Cohen, President of INDE.

As a promoter of Plan Mesoamerica-related projects and so-called clean energy alternatives, the IDB has openly stated its eagerness to fund hydroelectric initiatives in Guatemala.

Community leaders worry that government institutions will begin to divide the resistance by offering strings-attached development projects to the region. In a region where the 2008 United Nations Human Development Report indicated a poverty rate of 84.7 per cent, organizers worry that the people could easily be bought.

“We don’t need compensation. Our struggle, our organization, doesn’t have a price. The money that they could give us wouldn’t last forever. God willing, we will have the courage to not accept preconditioned development projects,” stated Hernandez.

Last December, the Guatemalan government contracted the National Electricity Commission of Mexico to begin carrying out feasibility studies for the dam. The future of the project is uncertain, but the resistance to this and other mega-projects is strong.

More than 30 other municipalities throughout Guatemala have exercised their right to territorial sovereignty and carried out referendums that reject various forms of resource extraction and energy projects on their lands.

“Article 169 of the ILO and the Universal Declaration of Rights of Indigenous Peoples are two machetes we can use to defend our rights, but we have to know how to use them!" says Gonzalo Diaz* of the Catholic Church’s social branch. "Someone who doesn’t know how to use a machete ends up cutting himself.”

*Names have been altered upon request of interviewees.

Carrie Comer is currently working for the Network in Solidarity with the People of Guatemala and is based in Guatemala City.

Xalala Dam consulta kids

Xalala Dam consulta line

Battle for the Amazon

Moira Peters — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 22:14:49 +0000

Brazilian Supreme Court case pits farming in the Amazon against indigenous rights

The Brazilian Supreme Court has delayed a ruling that could have far-reaching effects on the Amazon and the thousands of indigenous people who live there. In question is the legality of a process that created an Indigenous Territory in northern Brazil, and the case threatens to reverse decades of progress on indigenous and social rights throughout the country.

After more than two decades of struggle for recognition, five indigenous groups in Brazil's northern Roraima state won the rights to their ancestral lands in 2005. Their efforts culminated in the creation of a new Indigenous Territory, Raposa Serra do Sol, which covers a large swath of the Amazon Rainforest on the border with Guyana.

In a decree signed by Brazilian President Luiz Ignacio Lula da Silva, over 18,000 indigenous Makuxi, Wapixana, Ingariko, Taukepang and Patamona peoples were granted 1.7 million hectares. Non-indigenous peoples were compensated and forced to leave the area. Although this might have brought an end to the long struggle for recognition of their territorial rights, the indigenous peoples of Raposa have faced fierce opposition from entrenched economic interests in Roraima.

In particular, a group of seven wealthy rice farmers has refused to leave the region, throwing the reserve into chaos. Known as fazendeiros, these large-scale farmers have rejected compensation and relocation, despite having arrived in the area less than 15 years ago.

A recent spate of violence against the indigenous peoples in the Raposa Territory has increased tensions. In April, an indigenous leader was attacked when a bomb was thrown at his house. In May, six Macuxi children and four adults were attacked and shot by armed men working for a rice farmer, and local mayor Paulo Cesar Quartiero. Quartiero was detained by police and later released, despite the discovery of a large weapons cache on his property.

Earlier, in April, the Supreme Court suspended an operation by the federal police to remove the remaining seven illegal occupants of the reserve: the fazendeiros had set up blockades and destroyed bridges in order to fight their eviction.

"Even with all the destruction carried out by the rice growers, the Supreme Court decided in their favor," Macuxi chief Dionito Jose de Sousa told the Associated Press in April.

According to Catarina Vianna, a member of Makunaima Grita, a Brazilian group dedicated to helping the indigenous people at Raposo Serra do Sol, the current struggle is a basic one for the peoples of Raposa.

"This is really a local conflict. It's about use of water, about the farms getting bigger and bigger,” she said by phone from London. “Now the indigenous people are saying, 'Enough, this has been recognized as our land.’"

With the support of the Roraima state government, the fazendeiros and state Governor José de Anchieta have appealed to Brazil's Supreme Court to break up the Raposa Territory and free up large amounts of the land.

"The farmers want the indigenous land to be divided into islands. They don't want the indigenous land to be a continuous tract of land. But legal experts in Brazil maintain that there is no legal basis to annul the 2005 demarcation," said Vianna.

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This comes at a time when President Silva has signed a decree to station troops permanently on all Indigenous Territories on the border. There has been talk among top officials in the Brazilian Armed Forces about foreign meddling in the largely-indigenous border region. Citing risks to national sovereignty, it appears the military feels threatened by the formation of Indigenous Territories.

"The military has an agenda," said Vianna, "to protect Brazilian sovereignty. It's been their main discourse since the dictatorship in the 60s and 70s. They are against the demarcation of continuous indigenous lands near the border because they want to control what happens [there], and they're afraid that what they call 'foreign interests' will use the Indians to then exploit the Amazon."

The military is using the conflict in Roraima to support these goals, suggesting the presence of drug traffickers and guerrilla groups in indigenous lands, and has called for the Supreme Court to annul Raposa Serra do Sol's boundaries.

According to Tim Cahill, a researcher on Brazil with human-rights organization Amnesty International, the military has long tried to taint social movements in Brazil by claiming connections to foreign revolutionary groups.

"In relation to the accusations of money coming in from Venezuela and FARC rebels – I have no evidence for or against it," he said. "But it's fair to say that whenever there's some criticism or attack to be made against social movements in Brazil... the FARC are always dragged out, although very little evidence is ever provided to prove these allegations. So it seems once again that it's an attempt to criminalize social movements in Brazil and discredit their work [that benefits] the poor and the marginalized."

Cahill says that the military – which has total access and freedom of movement in Indigenous Territories – does not have a good reputation among indigenous peoples.

"Indigenous people across the Amazon have persistently complained to Amnesty and denounced violations committed by soldiers who work indigenous areas – sexual abuse, physical abuse, and intimidation," he said. "There seems to be a clear contradiction in the sense that indigenous areas are meant to limit the access into those areas to guarantee their safety and protection. Yet when the Army goes in there, time and time again we see that [indigenous] rights are violated."

However, the military is unrepentant and has made it clear that no group's rights supersede those of the Brazilian Armed Forces.

"We want to be clear on something fundamental – Indian lands are Brazilian lands," said Defense Minister Nelson Jobim, according to a May Reuters article. "There are no nations or Indian peoples, there are Brazilians who are Indians."

The Brazilian Ministry of Defense was contacted for this piece, but declined to comment.

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Cahill believes the real causes for the current conflict over Raposa go deeper than the military's security concerns. He says that this case represents a key moment in the face-off between indigenous rights and the interests of big business in Brazil, and big agrobusiness in particular.

"This is something we see not only in the Amazon, but across Brazil," he said. "The cultural, social and economic rights of indigenous peoples tend to come into conflict with the economic interests of big agro-industry. And big agro-industry has been the driving force of the recent economic boom that's occuring in Brazil, and we've seen that there's a lot of political and judicial support for their interests."

"In this case, it's not that the military has allied itself with the farmers," said Vianna. "Rather, two separate interests have come together. This handful of farmers – they're extremely wealthy. It's not about them. It's about how Brazil will use the Amazon. Are they going to just leave it to the Indians, who won't develop it? Or does Brazil have a plan for developing the Amazon? This is a discourse of economic development.

"That's why the farmers are using economic arguments. They are saying, 'What we do is good for the state and national economy.' They call themselves the 'Nationalist Resistance.' They consider themselves those who represent the nation, against the Indians who are supported by 'foreign interests.' They never say who these 'interests' are. But by conflating the local conflict into this language of nationalism and development – of developing the nation – they were able to get closer to the military's cause."

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Rogerio Duarte do Pateo, a Sao Paulo-based member of Makunaima Grita, signalled that the consequences of the court's ruling could extend far beyond Raposa's borders.

"A decision against Raposa would create the legal precedents to revoke all indigenous titles to land in Brazil," he said. "Any other territory could be contested, [such as] the Yanomami, Kayapó."

Both Pateo and Cahill believe a decision against Raposa would not only violate the Brazilian Constitution, but it could put at risk the gains made over the last 30 years in terms of indigenous rights, throughout Brazil.

"What is on the line here is Article 231 of the Brazilian Constitution and the indigenous rights that are laid out in that article," Pateo said. "It's not that the court decision will directly affect the Constitution, but the arguments that are being used go against Article 231 – it seems that the justice system is going to favour the big landowners – and this will open up the way to revise Article 231."

"The 1988 Constitution allows indigenous people the process to set out and identify their ancestral lands," said Cahill. "There's a real fear that this will set back cases across the country of indigenous peoples who continue to fight for the rights to their land, and who, through this process, continue to seek the provision of their basic human rights and cultural rights."

According to a statement signed by 85 Brazilian NGOs in support of Raposa Serra do Sol, the Constitution "defined the rights of indigenous peoples over their lands and established that these rights enjoy over-riding precedence over any subsequent rights granted to non-indigenous holders."

However, Brazil's indigenous peoples are still fighting for these rights – and those outlined in the recently-adopted UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples – to be upheld and put into practice.

"Indigenous peoples are considered minors under Brazilian law… The demarcation process doesn't give [them] full rights to their land, but allows the land to be held by the federal government in custody for them," Cahill said. "[It is] an issue which has been hotly contested and which many believe limits the rights of indigenous peoples to their full citizenship and full rights under international law."

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Whatever the Supreme Court decides, the case represents a key moment in the decades-long struggle for indigenous rights in Brazil.

"It would seriously undermine the whole system of Indian reserves in Brazil if the courts were to bow to pressure from influential landowners and politicians, particularly given the violence the Indians have been subjected to," said Miriam Ross, from Survival International.

According to Pateo, a ruling against the Raposa territory would not only undermine the recent successes in relation to indigenous rights, but would "mark the future of development in Brazil in relation to the Amazon,” giving a clear signal to logging, hydroelectric and agricultural companies that the Amazon is up for grabs.

The ruling was to be announced on August 27, but was delayed when one of the judges requested more time to look into the case.

"Will we continue a predatory model of exploitation that doesn't respect the law?" Pateo asks. "Or will Brazil be transformed – definitively – into a country that develops itself sustainably, and respects human rights?"

Watch video of the May attack on Macuxi Indians in Raposa Serra do Sol.

Raposa Indigenous After Attack

APTN vs. Settler News Coverage of Tyendinaga

Stuart Neatby — Sat, 26 Apr 2008 20:48:58 +0000

Settling In.jpg

Photo by Clarkwork Orange

I've never actually watched the Aboriginal People's Television Network, but judging from their coverage of the recent arrest of Shawn Brant, I'll likely be tuning in to their online newscasts far more often.

The dominant narrative surrounding Brant's arrest, one of the many sparks that has ignited the standoff currently underway between hundreds of heavily armed Ontario Provincial Police officers and an estimated hundred Mohawk demonstrators and supporters at a blockade in Tyendinaga, is that of Brant breaching his bail conditions from his arrest following June 29th. Brant, of course, was one of the organizers of the one-day blockade of Mohawks of a stretch of the 401 highway between Montreal and Toronto during last year's June 29th national day of action. His bail conditions prohibited him from taking part in protests or acts of civil disobedience.

According to the Globe and Mail's account, Brant was arrested "during a traffic stop" and that "during Mr. Brant's arrest, two officers were allegedly confronted by a group of people and assaulted." Apparently, police then "noticed several suspects who were wanted in connection with protests in Deseronto on Monday and Tuesday," after which their attempt at arrest was foiled. Police then noticed a Mohawk demonstrator at the Tyendinaga site "pointing a long gun" at them. The CTV has reported