The Dominion - militarization

Militarized Mining in Mexico

dawn — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 10:31:06 +0000

Canadian mining company makes good off the "drug war"

MADERA, MEXICO—On an August afternoon in 2008, Dante Valdez Jimenez was giving a teacher training class in an elementary school in Madera, a small town in the northern Mexican state of Chihuahua. But before he got through his lecture, he was interrupted by a group of 30 men, some of them armed.

In the minutes that followed, Valdez was savagely beaten in front of his students. While they beat him, his attackers yelled that he should keep his nose out of other people's business. Valdez was lucky to escape with his life.

Five days later, Amnesty International put out an alert expressing concern for the safety of Valdez, as well as members of a nearby community. The attack was political: Valdez is known for his work against Minefinders, a Vancouver-based company that operates an open-pit gold mine near Madera. Amnesty indicated that among the attackers were employees of the mining company.

“There isn’t a single authority in any of the three levels of government that is looking out for the people who are displaced, for people who have been mistreated or beaten,” said Valdez, his voice quiet and low. He pointed out that there was a classroom full of witnesses to the incident, but there was never an investigation.

The attack on Valdez wasn’t an isolated event, but a brazen reminder of the repression meted out to those who organized against Minefinders, which began operating in Mexico in 1994 on the heels of the North American Free Trade Agreement. The company started construction on a low-grade, cyanide-leaching gold and silver mine near Madera in 2007.

Madera, which means “wood” in Spanish, is situated high in the Sierra Madre mountain range and possesses the rugged air of a logging town. But the area is anything but tranquil: throughout the Sierra Madre, the Sinaloa Cartel, Mexico's most powerful drug cartel, is said to be battling with La Linea, the armed wing of the Juarez Cartel.

According to the official story, at stake are trafficking routes, as well as vast fields where marijuana and opium poppies are cultivated by peasant and Indigenous farmers.

The war in Mexico, often called a “war on drugs,” launched in late 2006, resulting in increased violence and militarization that has spread to municipalities and rural areas all over the country. The northern state of Chihuahua has been particularly hard hit. Since 2008, more than 9,000 people have been murdered in the city of Juarez alone, and massacres against unarmed civilians have taken place across the state.

But in some areas, like Madera, it appears the militarization that’s taken place on the pretext of the drug war has worked in favour of the extractive industries.

Before construction of the Minefinders mine could begin, the historic town of Dolores was relocated to make way for the project, affecting more than 60 families. Locals were not ardently anti-mining, but many felt that Ejido Huizopa, the body which represents communal landholders in the area, was not getting a fair shake.

By 2008, as construction gave way to gold production, tensions between the company and members of Ejido reached a breaking point. That May, after coming to a majority decision in an assembly, members of the Ejido erected a blockade at the mine access route, demanding meaningful negotiations and a better agreement with the company. People working for the mining company were prevented from passing, but soldiers were allowed through the barricades.

Minefinders soon found a way around the protesters, one which didn’t involve sitting at a negotiating table.

“At the blockade, there was always, permanently, soldiers travelling in the company trucks, dressed like civilians, [and] as many as eight company trucks watching the demonstrations, the blockade,” said Valdez. Not only were blockaders intimidated by the presence of soldiers, but the company continued to access the mine, passing through the blockade because they had soldiers in their trucks.

During and immediately following an attack by armed commandos that year on civilians in Creel, a neighbouring village, soldiers and police maintained a continuous presence at the blockade.

“There was an attack on the community of Creel, and 14 people were killed,” explained David de la Rosa, an environmentalist and peasant organizer based in Madera. “The authorities took three days to get to Creel, and the army was here accompanying a peaceful blockade, backing up a company, just two hours away from where this took place.”

The blockade lasted one year and five months, during which time residents say Minefinders co-opted members of Ejido Huizopa through financial incentives and intimidation.

“When the mining company saw that we had a majority of [communal land owners] supporting us, they began to manipulate in a certain way, using the same people from the Ejido to manipulate other companeros, to ensure that we didn’t have a majority in decision-making,” said Luis Pena Amaya, a member of Ejido Huizopa who helped organize the blockade.

As on the blockades, the militarization of the region factored into Minefinders’ ability to win support for their open-pit mine.

“The Federal Police had a presence and intimidated people on many occasions. In the decisive assembly, they took control and surrounded the inside of the salon where we held our assembly,” said Pena Amaya. The intrusion of police into communal decision-making is unconstitutional in Mexico. “When things turned against the other group, which was the group preferred by the mining company, [Federal Police] intervened to ensure that we didn’t exercise our rights.”

Eventually, the Ejido signed an agreement with Minefinders, but problems remain. Last year, a tear in the liner of a heap leach pad, which has yet to be fully repaired, caused leakage of contaminants near the mine site. Environmentalists and human rights organizations in the area confirmed that they fear travelling to the mine site, because the road to the mine is under the control of organized crime groups.

Dawn Paley is a journalist and co-founder of the Vancouver Media Co-op.

Questions? Comments? Drop us a line: info@mediacoop.ca.

Mining In Mexico

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.

F-35 fighter jet

Military, Mounties Trained for the Games

dawn — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 06:41:52 +0000

Demonstrations a greater security threat than terrorism: CSIS

VANCOUVER—The role the Canadian Forces play in domestic security is not new in Canada but the security plans for the 2010 Olympics demonstrated an intensification of using military strategies to control public dissent.

The Integrated Threat Assessment Centre is a CSIS unit and part of the RCMP’s Joint Intelligence Group (JIG). The Centre initially identified foreign-based terrorism, crime, and domestic protests (in that order of severity) as the most plausible threats during 2010, but later reconfigured their analysis. The ITAC most recently listed international terrorism as a low-level threat and anti-Olympic demonstrations—including anti-globalization and First Nations activists—as the primary threat with a medium level rating.

The conflation of protests and terrorism has steadily increased since the 1999 “Battle of Seattle” and the 9/11 attacks which even further entrenched the notion that militarized strategies were essential in quelling dissent. The deployment of military forces alongside police is part of a “continual flow of technologies that are first developed for the military and later flow into police departments,” Luis Fernandez, author of Policing Dissent: Social Control and the Anti-Globalization Movement, told The Dominion.

“In the past few years we are seeing an increase, not of the police being militarized, but of police working with the military. It goes beyond militarization,” said Fernandez.

Domestic military support dates back to the "aid-to-the-civil" power mandate in the Militia Act of 1855. Indeed, the use of military force has been used steadily since the early 17th Century by the French, British, and Canadians to impose colonial rule under the auspice of maintaining law and order.

More recently, Canada deployed 16,000 troops during the 1976 Montreal Olympics and 4,500 soldiers during the Oka crisis in 1990.

"This role (of the military) has certainly expanded and evolved in the post-9/11 environment, and perhaps for the first time, we are seeing a much more concentrated effort on the part of the military to fulfill that obligation," Scott Taylor, editor of Esprit de Corps magazine, told The Dominion via email.

During the G8 Summit in Kananaskis in 2002, the RCMP coordinated the largest security operation in Canada. Approximately 1,500 officers and 5,000 soldiers were deployed and ordered to “shoot to kill” any demonstrators who breached the security perimeter.

Canada Command was established in 2006 to focus on domestic operations, as well as the remodeling of the Reserves into specialized geographical units responsible for, among other things, assisting law enforcement agencies and providing support for large public events.

At the Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP) meeting in Montebello, Quebec, in 2007, camouflaged Canadian Forces were in position to reinforce riot police, and military helicopters were used to patrol the Ottawa River. Meanwhile, police were using agents provocateurs to incite violence amongst demonstrators.

During the 2010 Olympics, the Canadian Forces will have had 4,500 military personnel in land, air, and sea capacities, including the use of “Special Operations Forces” (JTF 2). They have been allocated $212 million of the total security budget.

The military have set up bases and facilities throughout the region and have conducted numerous training exercises including Operations Bronze, Silver, and Gold, as well as anti-terrorism training exercises and a mock biological warfare scenario in suburban Vancouver.

Although the public has been assured that the military presence would be discrete, bomb-removal squads in Victoria, helicopter and CF-18 fly-overs above Vancouver, and other public displays of training exercises have not gone unnoticed. Some residents have grown wary from being subjected to the growing military presence.

Pre-Olympics military training was supplemented by the construction of up to 10 temporary military bases between North Vancouver and Pemberton in the lead up to the Games. Increased military presence could be felt in the region from Victoria to Kamloops, part of what has been dubbed "Fortress British Columbia."

In the months the Olympics began security forces received new gadgets, including: weapons, bullet-proof body armour, radar systems, surveillance equipment, and Vancouver Police-requested "tactical armoured vehicles."

The Olympics also acted as a catalyst for integration with the US, increasing the transfer and training of military and security knowledge and equipment. Phil Boyle, who studies the long-term effects of Olympic-style security systems on host cities and states, said the 2010 Olympics are “setting a precedent for harmonizing protocols between Canada and the US over military use.”

“The time and context are being provided by the Olympics,” said Boyle of an agreement signed early in 2008 which allowed cross-border military expeditions in times of distress.

At the upcoming G8 summit in Huntsville, Ontario, in June, the Canadian military operation is expected to be even larger than in Vancouver.

Andrew Crosby is a writer and musician based in Vancouver.

For up-to-the-minute Olympics resistance coverage, check out the Vancouver Media Co-op, and the Convergence website. Follow the VMC on twitter!

Olympic Security Tally

"The Only Crime": Testimony of Marcial Hernandez, beaten, detained and hospitalized in Honduras

Sandra — Sun, 16 Aug 2009 12:53:10 +0000

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"The Only Crime": Testimony of Marcial Hernandez, beaten, detained, and hospitalized in Honduras

Text, translation and photos by Sandra Cuffe

San Pedro Sula, Honduras, August 15th, 2009.

Repression against the national movement against the military coup in Honduras has become a daily occurrence. All over the country, police and the army are using tactics of terror and violence to disperse protests and illegally detain demonstrators.

Nevertheless, the resistance actions coordinated by the National Front of Resistance to the Military Coup in Honduras (FNRCGE, for its acronym in Spanish) continue to grow across the nation.

On August 14th, organizations and citizens in resistance from the northwestern region of the country mobilized in Choloma, blocking vehicle traffic along the highway between San Pedro Sula and Puerto Cortés. It was a very strategic choice of location, along the main highway leading to the country's main port. Puerto Cortés has a great volume of exports, principally to the United States, of textile goods from the maquila factories in the northwestern region, as well as the fruits of the Tela Railroad Company, subsidiary of the transnational banana company Chiquita.

Soon after the highway blockade began, there was a negotiation between resistance leaders and police officials, supposedly in order to avoid yet another violent eviction. According to witnesses, a verbal agreement was made between the two parties to allow the protest to continue for another hour and peacefully disperse.

just another day [of indiscriminate police violence] in Honduras...

Sandra — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 03:46:33 +0000

collage fotos 14 agosto.jpg

Police brutality, militarization, torture, political murders, disappearances, injuries, tear gas, illegal detentions, State forces' use of sexual and gender violence, intimidation, paramilitary activity, death threats, censorship...

...are all becoming DAILY OCCURRENCES IN HONDURAS.

Ongoing international solidarity needed. Now.

Sandra Cuffe
sandra.m.cuffe@gmail.com
http://HondurasSolidarity.wordpress.com
http://flickr.com/photos/lavagabunda

Tune in!: Online radio show on media battles in Honduras

Sandra — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 13:42:55 +0000

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LISTEN ONLINE TO THE SHOW!

Political upheaval continues in Honduras, after liberal leader Manuel Zelaya was ousted in a military coup in late June. It is a battle that has played out not only in the streets of Honduras, but also on television screens and over radio waves across the world.

Some, including U.S. President Barack Obama and the Organization of American States, have condemned the ouster of the democratically-elected president, saying it was unconstitutional, illegal and a threat to democracy.

Others point out that Zelaya was pushing ahead with a referendum on term limits that Honduras’ Supreme Court had ruled unconstitutional, and consider his removal the result of healthy checks and balances.

The Honduran military has clamped down on pro-Zelaya channels in the country and blocked the signal of Telesur, a left-leaning television network based in Venezuela. Other state-run media across Latin America have broadcast programs in support of Zelaya.

Worldfocus.org’s weekly radio show on explored the coup in Honduras and how Latin America’s media industry — from state-run stations to independent websites — has become a political battleground.

Worldfocus anchor Martin Savidge hosts the following panel of guests:

Sandra Cuffe is an independent journalist and photographer from Montréal, Canada. Sandra has reported from Latin America for several years and is the Honduras correspondent for UpsideDownWorld.org.