The Dominion - 47

Outperforming Gentrification

hillarybain — Wed, 08 Aug 2007 18:01:02 +0000

A profile of Jessica Rose

On November 11, 2006, artist and curator Jessica Rose orchestrated A Funeral for a Building, a performance piece/memorial service to mark the end of an era for her Queen West arts community. Rose invited residents and community members to express their grief over plans to tear down her home at 48 Abell Street in order to make way for two condominium towers. For the last quarter-century, the 80,000-square-foot, industrial, loft-style building has provided 80 live/work studios for artists in the heart of what was recently renamed Toronto’s “Art and Design District.”

Less than two months before the funeral, on September 28, Toronto city council voted against designating the 120-year-old former lamp factory as a heritage building, which would have protected it from demolition. The timing was as harsh as the news; it came on the eve of Nuit Blanche, the inaugural all-night, Paris-inspired, city-wide contemporary art fest that artists from the Queen West gallery district had been helping the city plan for months.

Rose, a key organizer for the overwhelmingly successful Nuit Blanche, is diplomatic about what many in the arts community consider outright betrayal on the part of the city: “I’m in a complicated position,” she says. “But what’s the alternative? Not getting involved and not being able to impact things and saying, ‘Oh, you’re an agent of gentrification--I hate you’? That’s a really dumb position.” Rather than just complaining about it over cocktails, the 28-year-old is using her performance art to get Torontonians thinking and talking about the value of preserving affordable live/work spaces for artists.

Rose moved into 48 Abell with her mother 15 years ago, when it was far from the sightline of circling condo vultures. “There were 14-year-old prostitutes on the corner,” she recalls. “Everyone thought [my mom] was crazy for having a kid in this neighbourhood.” Her long bangs mostly obscure her eyes and she has a serious, almost brooding appearance that belies her moxie. “This was such an amazing building, even then,” she says. “John Scott [a major Canadian painter] lived here…all the senior faculty at OCAD [Ontario College of Art and Design]—they all lived here.”

Spurred on by her community, Rose got her first film grant at 19 and left to study filmmaking at Emily Carr shortly thereafter. By the time she came back and moved into her own loft space at 48 Abell in 2001, the neighbourhood was well on its way to becoming the contemporary art mecca it is today. New galleries had sprouted up everywhere. “To come back in to this amazing, active community—it was sort of like my introduction to the world,” says Rose. After assisting sculptor John Jackson in his studio for a year and completing courses at OCAD and the University of Toronto, she secured a job as the associate art director of the Drake Hotel and was curating shows within six months.

While there’s no question that the area around the Drake has gotten a lot trendier since the boutique hotel opened on Queen West in February 2004, Rose thinks that blaming it for the gentrification of the area is a simplistic way to look at community growth. “I really believe that if you have a good thing, you beam that out to the world. You don’t have something that’s really great and only show 10 people just so you don’t lose it,” she says. Yet a disheartening pattern emerges whenever artists move into low-rent neighbourhoods: they act as catalysts for urban renewal by beautifying live/work spaces and producing amenities (as Richard Florida, author of Rise of the Creative Class, would say), which in turn ups the hip-quotient of the area, thereby increasing rent and forcing artists out. And they are not alone: all low-income community members who have made the neighbourhood a home suffer the same consequences.

Rose, however, refuses to accept this as inevitable. “There are other cities where planners or councils will hire an artist to be on their board,” she says. “What needs to happen [in Toronto] is more artists working closer with the city and guiding the people who have the ability to invest.”

While Rose has devoted a lot of time to working with Active 18, the community group formed to fight irresponsible development in the Ward 18 gallery district, she does not identify herself as an activist. When it comes to raising awareness about the importance of preserving a space like 48 Abell, she says she’s “a lot more comfortable with the artist strategy.” Sparked by her research on public art for Nuit Blanche, Rose joined forces with choreographer Jenn Goodwin in May 2006 to launch the “Movement Movement” in which they “run with art” through public spaces, like galleries and city squares, along with whoever wants to join them. The purpose is less about creating a spectacle, Rose says, and “more about bringing together the janitor who works at York University with the executive who’s obsessed with running, with kids from some high school in Scarborough and... creating a circumstance for them to make relationships with each other and with the space.” The concept behind the project--bringing attention to shared public space by activating it in a unique way--outlives the temporary act. Is it conceptual art? Performance art? Interventionist art? Social art? Rose uses all of these terms to describe it.

On May 12, 2007, Rose and Goodwin accomplished their most ambitious project to date: running through the Royal Ontario Museum with some 250 people. It was the first stop in a cross-country tour of major art institutions that will continue into 2008. At Nuit Blanche numero deux on September 30, 2007, Rose will participate by bringing the Movement back to the seat of its inception. In “an extension of A Funeral for a Building,” she and fellow artist residents will present another large-scale public project at 48 Abell.

Efforts to appeal the city’s decision, and even the backing of Toronto’s mayor, David Miller, have only helped to delay, not stop, the condo plans. In the meantime, “there’s a bunch of work that’s going on behind the scenes to save as much as possible,” says Rose.

“What we learned from Nuit Blanche is that people really do give a shit and the thought of a live/work space that houses 80 units for artists and dancers and writers getting torn down is ridiculous in any city,” she says. “It’s not just an artist issue; it’s a much greater issue about Toronto. There are so many people who love this city so much who are just saying, 'No, this should not be happening.'”

Related:

Run the ROM

Issue #47

dru — Wed, 08 Aug 2007 01:02:08 +0000

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August 2007: Day of Action and Indigenous Resistance

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AFN Supports Direct Action?

dru — Sat, 04 Aug 2007 19:00:13 +0000

Day of Action discussed, criticized at AFN General Assembly

HALIFAX--At the annual general Assembly of First Nations (AFN), July 10-12, First Nations leaders from across Canada resolved to continue to hold "Days of Action" to uphold native rights. The assembled chiefs also passed a resolution mandating the AFN to uphold the rights of Day of Action participants against "politically motivated reprisals" and to ensure they are "treated with due process, consideration and fairness."

Underlying the resolutions, however, was a fundamental tension between the AFN's leadership and grassroots people.

The last resolution is seen as providing implicit support for Shawn Brant, a member of the Bay of Quinte Mohawk community in Ontario, who was arrested for breach of bail conditions after participating in a blockade of CN Rail lines. Brant was repeatedly portrayed in media reports as a "militant" in opposition to "peaceful" AFN-mandated protesters.

The resolution followed a long discussion, in which several chiefs passionately voiced what they saw as the necessity for direct action to defend the future of native peoples in Canada. Many specifically spoke in support of Brant and the Bay of Quinte Mohawks.

Terrence Nelson from the Roseau River First Nation in Manitoba said that native people have to look beyond the government to solve issues of poverty and human rights.

Nelson said that Canada is thriving on resources that belong to First Nations, and that First Nations need to assert their legal rights to those resources and move towards self-determination. "The resource wealth of our land...supports every Canadian," said Nelson.

Nelson's comments reflect increased grassroots pressure on the AFN to take action. The AFN, however, receives its funding from the Canadian federal government, putting it in a tricky position. In the past, AFN funding has been severely cut when a leader was seen as too confrontational.

Normally, time is alloted to the AFN's National Chief to address comments made in discussion at an assembly. However, current National Chief Phil Fontaine opted to remain silent, saying that he would respond in a few weeks. Instead, he gave over his alloted speaking time to Nelson.

Many First Nations, including Roseau River, have called for direct action to assert native rights, but the AFN as a whole has been limited to "raising awareness." Fontaine cited a poll showing 70 per cent of Canadians supporting the Day of Action and said he wanted to continue to build support.

However, others say little has changed, despite the apparent support of the majority of non-native Canadians. Some critics question the legitimacy of the AFN as a representative body.

"The 1876 Indian Act was how the Canadian state imposed these band councils over our traditional forms of governance and social organization," said Gord Hill, a Kwakwaka'wakw artist and organizer, in an interview with No One Is Illegal Radio.

"When the AFN calls for a national Day of Action, we're opposed to it. A big part of that is that the AFN's objective is to gain more support and more funding from the Canadian government."

"A lot of people just assume that the AFN is a legitimate organization that actually does represent our people. We're trying to say no, it's not a legitimate organization; it's a state-funded and -founded organization whose main purpose is to assimilate our peoples."

"The Day of Action is a way to make itself relevant," said Hill, "And to portray itself as a pseudo-militant organization that stands up and fights for the rights of the people, when in actuality, they represent the interests of government and big business."

Participating in the Day of Action was about solidarity, Susan Levi-Peters, chief of Elsipogtog (Big Cove) First Nation in New Brunswick told the assembly. Levi-Peters called for more solidarity between the AFN leadership and all those organizing in support of native rights.

Nelson ignited controversy in 2006 when he told reporters, "There's only two ways to deal with white people to have an effective resolution of the issues."

"You either pick up the gun and deal with the issue, or you stand between the white man and his money."

Nelson explained the comments to the assembly, emphasizing that Canada's economic structure is based on natural resources, and that those same natural resources are being stolen from native people on an ongoing basis.

Day of Action in Calgary

Downtown Eastside Women Ask Politicians for Housing Swap

dru — Fri, 03 Aug 2007 19:30:33 +0000

Living conditions deteriorating from cuts, Olympic preparations, says group

Shelters, transition houses and safe houses in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside (DTES) turn away about 200 people each night, leaving many on the streets without access to basic amenities.

A press conference held on July 4 by Power of Women (POW) at the DTES Women's Centre revealed a group of women who have experienced -- and continue to experience -- poverty first-hand in a myriad of unsettling circumstances. Some young, some old, and all looking a little weary, the women who assembled to share their stories and their demands were exasperated, but not lacking in focus or energy. They seemed to relish the opportunity to speak out and possibly be heard by as many people as watch the evening news. The room was charged with a feeling of legitimacy that can only come from the recounting of lived struggle. They took turns speaking and acknowledging one another. Some had a lot to say, and said it loud, while others were only there to share a few succinct words. The press conference came days after the group presented an open letter to Mayor Sam Sullivan and City Council. The letter challenges the 11-member council to swap homes with POW members for eight weeks. The demand was spurred by the upcoming 2010 Olympic Games; the number of homeless in Vancouver doubled in 2005 to approximately 2174 and is predicted to triple due to the Olympics. These figures do not account for a much larger population that pays for sub-standard housing in Vancouver’s DTES; their situations rendered increasingly more precarious by rising housing prices and urban development, the impoverished are finding that there are fewer and fewer places to go.

Canada's poorest neighbourhood, the DTES has long been dubbed a nucleus of deplorable living conditions. People are forced to live in hotel rooms and boarding houses due to an affordable housing crisis of massive proportions. Many such hotels are notorious for sudden and unexplained evictions. For women, indigenous people and people with disabilities, obstacles quickly accumulate. For those able to find work, the province has not made things much easier. B.C.'s privatization of public services has cost over 20,000 unionized workers their jobs, three-quarters of whom are women. The B.C. Human Rights Commission and Ministry of Women's Equality, both considered tools to fight discrimination, have been eliminated and pay equity provisions in B.C. have been repealed. This means that there is no longer a requirement that women receive equal pay for work of comparable value to that performed by men. Women working low-income jobs, whether or not they have dependants, often live below the poverty line and seldom have the time or energy to investigate the reasons behind the scarcity they encounter on a daily basis.

Cuts to legal aid and to income assistance, the closure of women's centres, political assaults on women's advocacy and support services, the lack of childcare support, cuts to welfare and changes to eligibility for welfare, the rising cost of living, and low-income work: these have all had devastating, gendered effects. While women have historically been marginalized in politics and public planning, they carry the burden of care-work and are therefore the most directly-affected by those policies. Prime Minister Stephen Harper's cuts to Status of Women Canada (SWC) centres and his cancelled agreement with the provinces for more daycare spaces has many feeling that women's rights are being trampled upon by the government, which is systematically eliminating institutions intended to secure them. The budget allotted to SWC has been cut from $13 million to $5 million, leaving 12 of their 19 offices facing closure, and indicating an end to core funding for all 37 Women's Centres in B.C. In an effort to depoliticize SWC, the government has prohibited the agency from funding groups that undertake advocacy for women's rights. The word "equality" has also been removed from the agency's mandate.

At the press conference, many members of POW described the physical conditions of the "way of life" that they experience: hotel rooms are rarely, if ever, cleaned; faeces, condoms and clothes from previous tenants are often left strewn about; most often, rooms are infested by bugs or rodents; bathrooms are generally shared and sometimes lack a shower; people that have paid rent for years, sometimes decades, are evicted without notice or justification; and the expulsion of their belongings, and themselves, is often police-enforced. Ex-sex worker and POW member Susanna Kilroy spoke of hoping to "survive the Olympics." Another woman, Beatrice Star, said she hopes and prays "not to get evicted before 2010." POW Member and indigenous rights activist Anita Chubb-Kennedy said: "where is everybody's social conscience? These people are not animals. It's social cleansing, what they're doing." Chubb-Kennedy invited Phil Fontaine, chief of the Assembly of First Nations, to comment on the situation facing indigenous people in the DTES: "every native is supposed to have a house, but the actual situation is comparable to the third world...we [aboriginal peoples] are still the first owners of the country," she said. "It's not up to Stephen Harper to 'give' land that's not his. The treaties aren't done being worked through." 'No Olympics on stolen Native land' has become a rallying cry for indigenous resistance to the games. "One question I think deserves a bit of focus is the athletes," said Kilroy. "Do they know? That people are dying?"

A June 2007 report by the Geneva-based Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions (COHRE) found that 2 million people have been forcibly displaced in the last 20 years to clear space for the Olympic Games. Jean du Plessis, executive director of COHRE, said, "Our research shows that little has changed since 1988 when 720,000 people were forcibly displaced in Seoul, South Korea, in preparation for the Summer Olympic Games. It is shocking and entirely unacceptable that 1.25 million people have already been displaced in Beijing, in preparation for the 2008 Games, in flagrant violation of their right to adequate housing." The hosting of the Olympics in Atlanta in 1996 as well as those in Sydney in 2000 led to immense difficulties faced by tenants, boarders and lodgers, ranging from substantial rent increases, no-fault evictions and the closure of cheap rooms. Much like Mayor Sullivan's "Project Civil City," which many contend is aimed to police and criminalize Vancouver's poor, Atlanta and Sydney both undertook measures to "clear the streets" of the poor in order to make way for an enormous influx of tourists. In 2004, the Olympics in Athens forced the eviction of the Roma community of Marousi for a parking lot and road enlargements.

A march for safe and long-term affordable housing organized by POW and held on June 8 occurred in solidarity with the Women Against Poverty Collective (WAPC) in Toronto, who on June 3 orchestrated a housing takeover to draw attention to the connection between safe housing and women's ability to live free from violence. WAPC members, along with many others, marched to an abandoned building near Sherbourne and Bloor with the intention of converting it to safe housing. Once inside, the women hung a banner and pitched tents on the property, saying that they would keep the building and provide their own affordable housing for women and their children. The group said this action is necessary because the government hasn’t followed through on promises for housing and childcare. The police ended the standoff, arresting two people in the process.

In one of Vancouver's better-known anti-Olympics rallies held in February, the Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games (VANOC), and the Vancouver Board of Trade were celebrating the disclosure of a "three-year countdown clock" in the downtown business district. Native People from all over B.C. participated in the rally, together with non-native members of the Anti-Poverty Committee, who are protesting the gentrification of their neighbourhood and the eviction of hundreds from low-income housing in the DTES. Seven protesters were arrested during the protest. Tselletkwe of the Native Youth Movement (NYM) made a statement upon her release, stating: "Our land is not for sale, we are still at war with Canada, we have never surrendered our land. We want the whole world to know not to come to our country and to boycott Canada and the 2010 Olympic Games. Tourism is not welcome here."

Unlike members of POW, or NYM, who are fighting for their homes and their land and who would rather see the Olympics shut down than have to deal with the catastrophe that it will wreak on the quality of their lives, the province has made choices that reflect a desire for worldwide Olympic tourism. In June 2004, Visa announced two global agreements with Tourism Vancouver and Tourism Whistler to promote domestic and international travel in the run-up to and during the 2010 Olympics. The multi-million-dollar global agreements will offer Visa cardholders worldwide value-added offers and incentives to visit Vancouver and Whistler and are expected to stimulate tourism spending in Western Canada. Tourism Vancouver maintains that their leadership “benefits the society, culture, environment and economy of Greater Vancouver.”

The proposed House Swap with the women of the DTES is intended to breed understanding through experience. POW member Joan Morelli pointed out that "even the well-meaning politicians don't understand. That's why we're challenging them. There is no understanding without experience." The swap is also focused on issues of respect: "if Sullivan wants a civil city, let politicians show some courtesy," said Morelli. Council members would live on the same amount as an average single person on social assistance: $610 per month. After the cost of shelter, this averages to less than $8 a day. As it is believed that it would be much easier for Council members to rent hotel rooms due to the fact that many wear their privileged lifestyles on their sleeves, and that many are, in fact, white, or male, at least two of the eight weeks must be spent homeless. Meanwhile, the women who offered the challenge would live as the Councillors do. To date, not a single member of Council has accepted the terms of the swap. A few have expressed reasons they do not wish to participate, such as bedbugs and concern for the safety of their children. Councillor Suzanne Anton said she was "interested in doing a night, but I don't think I'd be interested in spending a long time." Mayor Sullivan himself declined because, he said, he's already familiar with the issues, as he once collected welfare and spent several years in a social housing co-op and a paraplegic lodge in Vancouver's East End.

Sullivan's "Project Civil City,” proposed in November of 2006, outlines his aim to "eliminate" homelessness, the open drug market, and the incidence of aggressive panhandling, with the goal to reduce all of these by 50% by 2010. He also aims to "increase the level of public satisfaction with the City's handling of public nuisance and annoyance complaints" by 50% by 2010. These targets are aggressive and require aggressive law enforcement, which is causing the concern of many living in the DTES. “People chalk it [poverty] up to inefficiency, inactiveness,” said Chubb-Kennedy.

A research team, coordinated by COHRE, spent three years studying past and future Olympic host cities and the impact that the Games have had on housing rights. The report also addresses the housing effects of other mega-events like the FIFA World Cup, World Expos, IMF/World Bank Conferences and beauty pageants such as the Miss World and Miss Universe contests. It concludes that mega-events can cause a number of breaches in housing rights. "It is possible (and imperative) for mega-events to be organized without forcibly evicting people, without criminalizing the homeless and without rendering housing unaffordable," said Du Plessis. COHRE calls on affected communities and support organizations to closely monitor these processes, and to take action to ensure that no housing rights are violated as a result of mega-events. To the women of the DTES, however, and many others, the onus for ensuring that no housing rights are violated should fall on the government, rather than groups with little or no funding who must struggle to be represented by the media.

Refusal of the terms of the house swap and Councilors’ excuses for not participating are not acceptable to the women of the DTES. "This would be a confirmation," they said, "that there is absolutely no political will to eliminate poverty."

Anita Chubb-Kennedy

Joan Morelli

UN Arrested 40 Ahead of Harper's Haiti Visit

dru — Fri, 03 Aug 2007 17:10:03 +0000

Many demonstrators remain in jail

Forty Haitian demonstrators were arrested by UN soldiers hours before the arrival of Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper in the Haitian slum neighbourhood of Cite Soleil on July 20. Haiti was the last stop for the Prime Minister's Latin American tour, which also included stops in Colombia, Chile, and Barbados. The protest had been organized by residents of Cite Soleil in response to the visit of the Canadian Prime Minister, according to Lovinsky Pierre-Antoine, a protest organizer and director of the Haiti-based September 30th Foundation.

"On the morning of the 20th, our comrades went out into the streets with placards, banners, and megaphones," said Pierre-Antoine in a phone interview with the Dominion.

"At that moment, it was around six in the morning, MINUSTAH soldiers began to make arrests for no reason. Many of our friends were arrested that morning."

According to Pierre-Antoine, 10 demonstrators were released on the afternoon of July 20, after Harper's departure from the country. Thirty demonstrators remain imprisoned in the National Penitentiary in downtown Port-au-Prince. They have no access to legal counsel due to financial inability to hire a lawyer, and will wait for an indefinite amount of time before seeing a judge. Although Haiti's constitution requires prisoners to see a judge within 48 hours of their arrest, they will often remain in jail for months before this happens.

When contacted by the Dominion, UN spokesperson Sophie Boutaud de Lacombe would not confirm that UN soldiers had made arrests in Cite Soleil on July 20.

Several sources report that the UN mission for stabilization in Haiti (MINUSTAH) has committed numerous documented human rights abuses within the seaside neighbourhood. According to reports by Democracy Now! and the Haiti Information Project, UN forces conducted a raid in Cite Soleil on December 22, ostensibly aimed at rooting out "armed gangs," which resulted in the deaths of at least 30 civilians, including several children. As survivors of this raid lay bleeding in the streets, UN soldiers prevented Red Cross ambulances from reaching the dead and wounded.

Cite Soleil has been a centre of political support for the Fanmi Lavalas political party of deposed president Jean-Bertrand Aristide. The July 20 protest was organized to oppose Canada's involvement in the February 29, 2004 coup d'etat of elected President Aristide, as well as Canada's continued interference in Haitian politics.

After Aristide's removal, Haiti descended into a nightmare of political violence. Community activists were murdered, former Lavalas parliamentarians were jailed, and the Haitian National Police, which has received training by Canadian RCMP officers since 2004, waged a campaign of terror against some of the poorest neighbourhoods in Haiti's capital. Cite Soleil was the hardest hit of these neighbourhoods. The Lancet, a prestigious medical journal based in the UK, estimated 8000 murders in Haiti's capital alone between 2004 and 2006, as well as 35,000 incidents of rape.

"Their plan was clear,"says Pierre-Antoine of the Canadian-backed Latortue regime which ruled until 2006. "Their plan was to eliminate the party of President Aristide, the Fanmi Lavalas party, the majority party. But they did not succeed in their objective."

Although such political repression has diminished since the election of current President Rene Preval, the Canadian government continues to play an influential role within Haiti. Canada's Department of Foreign Affairs has been a strong advocate for aggressive "anti-gang" attacks and raids by MINUSTAH against poor neighbourhoods like Cite Soleil. In a January 15 radio interview, Canadian Ambassador Claude Boucher applauded the deadly December 22 raid, calling upon the UN to "increase their operations as they did last December." A Parliamentary report penned by Foreign Affairs Minister Peter Mackay also applauded the December 22 killings, stating that "more robust operations led by MINUSTAH and the Haitian National Police from December 22, 2006, further improved the security situation."

In the months following December 2006, the UN staged a number of brutal raids in Cite Soleil. Seven year-old Stephanie Lubin and four year-old Alexandra Lubin, killed as they lay sleeping on the morning of February 2, were two among many other civilians killed during these attacks. In its press statements, the UN has claimed it has subsequently been successful in dislodging gang leaders from Cite Soleil.

"What MINUSTAH is doing is not a mission of stabilization; it is not engaging in peacekeeping," said Pierre-Antoine. "It is a mission that engages in operations of massacres, of assassinations, [and] of destabilization more so than activities of reconstruction and peacekeeping."

During a visit to Haiti this week, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon announced plans to extend the UN's mission in Haiti by one year.

UN Soldiers In Cité Soleil

Canadians Run Amok in Azerbaijan

dru — Thu, 02 Aug 2007 19:07:32 +0000

Mining, oil undermines central Asian diplomacy and trade

When Jean Chretien retired as prime minister after a decade running Canada, he did not go to Disneyland. Instead, he visited a place seldom visited by American tourists. He hopped on a flight to Ashgabat, Turkmenistan, a former Soviet Republic populated by nomadic desert tribes.

Turkmenistan is also home to sensitive post-Soviet territorial disputes, the most delicate of which is its claims to oil under the Caspian Sea. For years, the country has been slowly working towards an agreement with its Caspian-side neighbours –- mainly Azerbaijan -- over where to draw territorial boundaries and how to divide those resources.

In the midst of this delicate situation, the seasoned Canadian statesman jetted in as a lobbyist for Roger Haines's Buried Hill Energy, an Alberta-based company that was hoping to help Turkmenistan extract oil beneath the Caspian Sea.

While the high-profile lobbying barely made the back pages in Canada, the image of a longtime G-8 leader meddling in the fragile negotiations laid a wallop to the process. Chretien departed Turkmenistan after a few handshakes, but he left behind a regional diplomatic chill. Only now, two years later, has the process of determining the regional boundaries started inching forward again.

One might imagine that the Alberta oil company storming in to sensitive, decade-spanning negotiations might have broken a rule or regulation somewhere. But there are no Canadian rules when it comes to our companies extracting abroad. As industry watchdog Karen Keenan of The Halifax Initiative explains, "The Canadian government doesn't have any policy statement or regulatory oversight of how it expects Canadian mining companies to operate overseas. It's a total policy vacuum."

When it comes to mining and oil exploration abroad, Canada not only turns a blind eye to the corporate weekend in Vegas, but it often also supplies the poker chips.

"The Canadian government provides a myriad of forms of support for these companies," says Keenan, "but we and many others are saying that the Canadian government shouldn't be promoting these companies; instead they should look at them and make sure they're following standards."

The misadventure in Turkmenistan might also have cost Canadians jobs.

Azerbaijan -- which, thanks to rising oil prices, has suddenly emerged as one of the world's hottest economies --was unhappy when Canada's former leader doubted its territorial sovereignty.

Recently, according to one highly-placed source, Canada went to bat for a Canadian jet manufacturer bidding on a fat contract to supply the Azerbaijan government with jet aircraft. The would-be Azeri buyers politely reminded the Canadians of the Turkmenistan affair.

The Azerbaijanis weren't buying from Canada.

It wasn't the first time that Canada's laissez-faire approach to mining and exploration needlessly irritated the fast-modernizing former Soviet republic, which has often cited Canada as a model for its post-Soviet democracy.

The Azerbaijanis also claim that controversial Canadian miner Robert "Toxic Bob" Friedland has been mining on parts of Azerbaijan now controlled by the Armenian army. An international gold-mining tycoon, Friedland got his nickname after he tried to sell LSD to an undercover agent in Maine in 1969. He retained the moniker after a string of his South American mining operations left a wake of environmental disasters and mass protests, including a spill of three billion litres of cyanide-contaminated wastewater in Guyana in 1995.

Azerbaijani officials referred to satellite evidence that Friedland, whose mine-now-think-later policies have caused a stir in many countries, set up the Zod gold mine in the western regions of Azerbaijan.

The area is within a conflict zone where one million Azerbaijanis were expelled in 1992.

The Armenian army currently controls the area and many Azeris see the presence of Canadian miners on the spot where Azeri residents were ethnically cleansed as immensely hurtful and insensitive.

Legally, Canada can do nothing to discipline such mining and oil companies. There is, however, hope that Canuck miners might soon lose their international license to misbehave.

Last year in Canada, the Government Roundtable on Extractive Industries resulted in an unprecedented agreement between a wide-range of socially conscious do-gooders and the oil and mining industries.

In March, an impressive coalition of industry and citizen groups signed the document that would set standards on how Canadian mining corporations should operate abroad.

Although the system is toothless -- the mining companies balked at fining rule breakers -- civil groups hope that the agreement will be enshrined in law this fall and that fines for corporate mining misbehaviour will eventually follow.

Keenan is optimistic that the federal government will soon make the deal law.

"We've got mining, oil and gas companies behind this agreement, Canadian civil society, faith-based organizations, labour unions, environmental NGOs, human rights groups; they're all backing it. We've never had this kind of consensus before."

And there's hope that other Canadians can pick up the slack and help foster the sort of positive trade in Azerbaijan that Canadians can be proud of.

Ottawa entrepreneur Grant Thomas, who has visited the Caucasus half a dozen times, sees Azerbaijan's rocketing economy as having potential for more than morally dubious mining by opportunistic Canadian entrepreneurs.

"If we can mobilize the time and the attention, there are some niche areas in which Canadian companies in Canada could become a leader in Azerbaijan," he says.

Thomas's baby is called a Regional Innovation Zone, a conception that would accelerate the possibility of Canadian technology reaching Azerbaijan. He sees Canada working with Azerbaijan on such things as satellite seismic mapping and environmental clean-up technologies.

Other Canadian initiatives fostering a different kind of relationship with Azerbaijan includes the Digital Opportunity Trust, an Ottawa NGO that aims to bring computers to countries where they're scarce. Alberta businessman Donn Lovett tells the Dominion that he was enthusiastically received in a trade mission to the country.

Meanwhile, Karen Keenan hopes that one day soon, Maple Leaf miners will no longer be able to undermine Canada's reputation and interests abroad. "The Canadian government is finally saying that maybe we should revisit our rules to see if our standards are high enough to bring us real benefits."

Baku Women

Disputed Territory in Azerbaijan

July In Review

hillarybain — Wed, 01 Aug 2007 19:20:07 +0000

Anti-Canada Day, taking corporations to court, and striving to pie Alberta's Premier

Organizers in Vancouver and Montreal held Anti-Canada Day demonstrations on the first of the month. In Vancouver, over 200 people took to the streets and blockaded train tracks. Several Canadian flags, painted with the words "No Justice on Stolen Native Land," were burned. In Montreal, demonstrators highlighted their opposition to CN's current lawsuit against three Mohawk activists at Tyendinaga Mohawk Territory, and expressed their support for Indigenous sovereignty and self-determination. A banner read, "When Justice Fails, Block the Rails!"

Aboriginal women from across North and South America marched through the Mohawk community of Kahnawake near Montreal to protest against Ottawa's refusal to adopt the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. The declaration upholds aboriginal people's land rights and ways of life. Only one other country, Russia, has refused to support it at the Human Rights Council.

A National Day of Action was held in Australia protesting the government's plan to impose police-military control over about 70 Indigenous communities across the Northern Territory. The takeover, which the government says is a response to widespread sexual abuse, is being seen by many as a land grab that will exacerbate the shocking social conditions facing the Northern Territory’s Aboriginal population.

Chevron called the $6 billion lawsuit the US firm is battling in the Ecuadorian courts a "legal farce" and said it would challenge any ruling against the company. The class-action suit filed by 30,000 Indigenous people is for cleanup costs for the jungle region where Texaco Petroleum Co. spent three decades extracting oil before it merged with Chevron in 2001. “The environmental clean-up alone is likely to surpass $6 billion, and that does not include health and personal damages for tens of thousands of people who live in the area," said Pablo Fajardo, a lawyer for the plaintiffs. "This could dwarf any other damages claim in environmental law, as well as in any civil case that resulted in an actual judgment.” Chevron's vice president for Latin America criticized the "unfair trial and lack of due process" in Ecuador, but critics point out that the case was originally filed in New York federal court in 1993, and the company fought for years to move it to Ecuador, finally getting its wish in 2002. "Since it is losing on all the facts, it is fighting back in the only way it can, by attacking the process itself," said another lawyer for the plaintiffs, Alegandro Ponce. "Chevron should stop its misinformation campaign and pay up for the damage it has caused.”

The Ka'agee Tu First Nation in the Northwest Territories won a court case against the federal government for violating the Ka'agee Tu's right to meaningful consultation when in 2005 it approved Paramount Resources' application to drill several new oil wells in the Cameron Hills area. A lawyer representing the First Nation said "[The Canadian government] doesn't consult with the communities, it doesn't comply with its legal duties, and the regrettable result is the communities are forced to take their resources, hire lawyers, [and] go to court in order to force Canada to comply with the law."

Five thousand agricultural workers from Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras and Panama have filed a lawsuit against Dole Fresh Fruit Co. and Standard Fruit Co., now a part of Dole, claiming they were left sterile after being exposed in the 1970s to the pesticide known as DBCP. The lawsuit claims Dow and Amvac knew about DBCP's toxicity as early as the 1950s but continued to use the pesticide outside the United States. The Los Angeles County Superior Court will hear the case, which legal experts say raises the issue of whether multinational companies should be held accountable in the country where they are based or where they employ workers. A verdict in favor of the workers could open the door for others to file similar claims in the U.S., where juries are known for judgments more favourable to labourers.

US Congressional Democrats introduced resolutions “condemning the President, Vice President and other administration officials for misconduct relating to the war in Iraq and for their repeated assaults on the rule of law." Critics have called the censure ineffectual; the resolutions are symbolic, and bring no legal consequences.

Anti-war leader Cindy Sheehan and several activists were arrested outside the office of Rep. John Conyers. The contingent refused to leave after Conyers said he would not pursue impeachment of George Bush and Dick Cheney. Polls show that a slight majority of Americans currently support pursuing impeachment. Sheehan has said that she will run against Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic House Speaker, in the next election, due to Pelosi's refusal to support impeachment. "I am committed to challenging a two party system that has kept us in a state of constant warfare for the last 60 years," said Sheehan.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert confirmed that the United States is planning a significant increase in military and defense aid to Israel, to the tune of $30 billion over the next ten years. The new package amounts to a 25% increase in military aid. Washington is also reportedly preparing a $20 billion arms deal with Saudi Arabia because of its concerns over Iran's nuclear program.

Alberta's Premier Ed Stelmach narrowly missed getting pied in the face while serving up pancakes at Calgary's Annual Stampede Breakfast. The protester cried out, "I think it's pretty cozy for the Premier to be eating breakfast when people are homeless on the streets," while being dragged away by police after missing her target and hitting a security guard with the chocolate cream pie instead. The breakfast was attended by a number of advocates for the homeless as well as an individual dressed in a Batman costume who called himself "No Tar Man" and demanded an end to the development of northern Alberta's oil sands. Four years ago at the same event, then-premier Ralph Klein was hit in the face with a pie.

Alberta Premier Stelmach narrowly missed getting pied a second time, this time with a banana cream pie in Calgary. The pie thrower, Donna McPhee who also wished to draw attention to homelessness, was waiting outside a television station where Stelmach was being interviewed, but he left using another door. McPhee was left standing with a pie without a politician - until Calgary mayor walked out the door. "He was going to be on the list anyway, so why ruin the pie?" said McPhee.

Royal Dutch Shell announced it would pump $27 billion into the Alberta tarsands. The plan is consistent with Shell's vision for Canada, announced in January, to expand its oilsands business with its partners fivefold, to 770,000 barrels a day.

Chief of the State Environmental Protection Administration in China (SEPA), Zhou Shengxian, said that public discontent with pollution "has resulted in a rising number of 'mass incidents'" -- an official euphemism for riots, protests and collective petitions. This month, two hundred thousand people in the province of Jiangsu were cut off from tap water for 40 hours due to an industrial chemical spill and hundreds of farmers blocked a highway in Sichuan province demanding $1.1. million in compensation, accusing an aluminum company of leaking chemicals that contaminated grapes and other crops. Twenty-six percent of the length of the China's seven main river systems had pollution of grade 5 or worse, making it unfit for human contact. About 460,000 Chinese die prematurely each year from breathing polluted air and drinking dirty water.

South African police fired rubber bullets to break up crowds protesting against a lack of municipal services in the country's biggest black township Soweto. The protest was the latest in a string of often violent clashes between residents and police in black townships around Johannesburg and in the central Free State province. Residents are demanding better housing, faster access to electricity, clean drinking water and sewage facilities. Despite faster economic growth, wealth is still not trickling down to the poor, prompting action to uplift a "second economy" characterized by sprawling city slums and poverty that is fuelling some of the highest rates of crime in the world.

Eight protesters were shot dead in the southern state of Andhra Pradesh in India by police. The demonstration was part of a three-month campaign demanding land for the poor. Protesters were reportedly throwing stones at police as they approached the tent where the protesters were gathered.

The group "Saving Iceland" has stepped up its campaign against heavy industry, and the aluminum industry in particular, with road blockades, banner drops and a protest camp. Several arrests have been made but the group warns that they are "not through with this summer's actions." According to the group's website, 30 per cent of aluminum is produced for military use. Saving Iceland is accusing the state broadcaster of slander for allegations that activists from the group receive payment for being arrested.

A nationwide protest that that has drawn the support of education workers, construction workers, farmers and miners in Peru has resulted in the death of three people and the detention of over 100 union leaders. Demonstrators are calling for a fairer distribution of wealth and have held protests blocking roads and closing airports. Currently 44 per cent of Peruvians live poverty. Under pressure from demonstrations, the President apologized for not doing enough for the country's poor. "I would have loved to do a lot more," he said, and promised to do more in the future.

At least 12 people were injured and 59 arrested when Honduran police violently cleared several roadblocks set up by protesters demanding a new mining law. The demonstrators are demanding a law that forbids open pit mining, including the use of cyanide, mercury and other toxic substances. Among other demands, they are calling for community involvement in any decision to open a mine, and for companies to carry out measures that mitigate the impact of mining on the environment.

Opponents of Canadian mining operations in Ecuador are "facing death threats and attacks" according to a report released by Amnesty International. The report comes at a time when Canadian mining company Ascendant Copper Corp is facing controversy and resistance to a copper-molybdenum mine in an ecologically sensitive region of northwestern Ecuador. Earlier this week, Ecuador's Ministry of Energy and Mines ordered Ascendant to stop its community-relations work, saying it was "intended to divide the community." Ecuador's anti-corruption watchdog also urged the government to investigate alleged irregularities in the Ascendant land deals, saying speculators snapped up 18 properties earmarked for use as farmland, and sold them within weeks to the mine at prices 40 to 50 times higher than they had paid.

The Algonquin First Nations, occupying a proposed uranium mine site in eastern Ontario, are being sued by the mining company, Frontenac Ventures Corporation, for $77 million dollars in damages. In their Statement of Claim the company says the protests have been “threatening” and “intimidating.” Those occupying the site say the protest has been peaceful and "completely non-violent and non-threatening" from the beginning

Please email us with your story ideas for the Month In Review

Anti-Canada Day

Reaching the Breaking Point

dru — Fri, 27 Jul 2007 21:05:47 +0000

Mixed results on First Nations Day of Action

By any measure, highway blockades upstaged the marches and rallies on Canada’s Aboriginal Day of Action in June. Weeks of high-profile controversy climaxed on June 29, when small groups of protestors took over roads, rail lines and the country’s news headlines.

In the media, open conflict between “radical” and “moderate” indigenous leaders got plenty of airtime, although the underlying political issues received little attention. The issue of “violent” and “illegal” protest was the top story.

As early as May 15, Prime Minister Stephen Harper was warning that “violence —- or the threat of violence —- will kill any public sympathy for getting on and fixing this problem.” On June 28, Phil Fontaine made a last-ditch appeal to aboriginal people and non-aboriginal people not to use the national day of action as an opportunity for “violent confrontation and illegal road blockades.” But despite all the warnings, at the end of the day, no incidents of violence were reported.

Nonetheless, newspapers across the country tagged Shawn Brant, the leader of the Tyendinaga Mohawk blockade in Ontario, as a “hothead” (National Post), “rogue” (CBC) and “militant” (Canadian Press). CP went further, calling Brant a “lone voice advocating militancy” —- ignoring the dozens of Mohawks standing with him and hundreds more behind barricades across the country.

Against this backdrop, the Assembly of First Nations (AFN) were positioned in the media as moderates. The national organization formed in 1982 as a way for chiefs and bands to advocate for treaties, land rights, education, development, health, housing and more. But the AFN doesn’t represent all indigenous people: non-status natives are left out, for example.

The AFN initiated the Day of Action last December when the Special Chiefs Assembly passed a proposal calling on Canada to “respect the fundamental human rights of indigenous peoples to ownership and legal recognition of a rightful share of all natural resource wealth in Canada.” Chief Terrance Nelson of the Roseau River First Nation in Manitoba sponsored the resolution. By May, Nelson and the band were promising to block the CN Rail lines through the Roseau River Reserve.

In the weeks leading up to the protest, Phil Fontaine, the Grand Chief of the Assembly of First Nations, tried to rein in the blockaders. But Fontaine himself had to admit he couldn’t control what individual chiefs and bands choose to do. “Many of our communities have reached the breaking point. The anger and frustration are palpable,” he told reporters in May.

Fontaine, along with Harper, argued that blockades are counter-productive because they don't win support from the public. There is much more than public image at stake, however. Fontaine and other AFN leaders may have been aiming to win the hearts and minds of Canadians, but for the blockaders, the day of action had a different goal: to squeeze the government and corporations until they are willing to make real change. Blockades are economic actions, not media stunts, but they still got the lion’s share of the camera time.

They also got the government’s attention. Threats of action spurred the government into moving to resolve outstanding issues that have festered for generations.

On June 12, Harper, Fontaine and Indian Affairs Minister Jim Prentice announced a proposal to overhaul the native land claims system. One week later, the Conservatives settled the Roseau River land claim, prompting the AFN’s action leader to cancel the CN Rail blockade in Manitoba. And on June 30, the government designated former diplomat Janet Zukowsky as a special representative to the Barriere lake Algonquin community, days after members of that First Nation set up camp on Parliament Hill.

Astute observers will note the new initiatives do not address widespread poverty on reserves, and they don’t provide help for employment, health services, drinking water, or education. The announcements also fail to address a key demand of First Nations: implementation of the Kelowna Accord to address living conditions on reserves.

First Nations leaders warn if the status quo doesn’t change, many more protests are on the way.

“What Shawn Brant did is nothing compared to what is going to happen in the future if we can’t give our people hope for the future,” Nelson told delegates at the Alliance of First Nations annual general meeting in July.

In fact, a second wave of protests started only days after the National Day of Action. Writers for Warrior Publications, a West Coast-based group, slammed the AFN as colonialist collaborators and called for a boycott of the Day of Action. They organized Anti-Canada Day protests against a system they describe as corrupt –- a system that includes treaty negotiations, the band councils and the AFN itself.

Activists in Montreal, Guelph, Vancouver and Saanich, B.C., organized more blockades and protests on July 1, although on a smaller scale than those seen two days earlier. The Anti-Canada Day protests, however, lacked the media punch of the Day of Action protests, coming as they did after editors had moved on to other news priorities.

As summer temperatures climb, First Nations unrest continues. In B.C. alone, three more civil disobedience actions began in the first week of July. Members of the Sechelt Band occupied their band office, demanding the chief resign after he accepted an apology from RCMP officers who pepper-sprayed a crowd of soccer fans. In Lytton, band members blocked the highway to protest the loss of a ferry service, which left a community isolated. And a long-simmering dispute within the N’quatqua First Nation erupted again when protestors blocked an old-growth logging operation in Blackwater.

What the National Day of Action achieved was a flash point —- a focus and an impetus for activists. But as Fontaine learned, once people are galvanized into action, they may not be willing to fall into line behind their leaders.

Burning Flag on Anti-Canada Day

August Books

hillarybain — Sat, 21 Jul 2007 23:59:52 +0000

New works by Rhodes, Lebowitz, Henderson, and Nickel

The Bindery
Shane Rhodes
NeWest Press: Edmonton, 2007.

This third collection by Shane Rhodes is a declaration, a questioning, a conversation, and a language lesson, all rendered in the strong and unrelenting voice he established in his previous two books. The range of form is impressive: compare the contemplative open field style of “Portrait,” which examines memory and myth through the recollection of family figures and the national history of oppressive deceit, to the prose poems chronicling travels in Mexico, which celebrate foreign culture as seen through the eyes of the traveller. Compare again to the list poems “On Travel” and “To Elizabeth Bishop.” In each case, Rhodes marries form and content seamlessly. The eponymous “The Bindery”-- alternately funny, moving, and smart, this is Rhodes at his best-- uses original verse and found items (overheard snippets of conversation, literary quotations, signage, photographs) to create a constellation of images and moments. It's the poet who ‘binds’ all the pieces together – both in “The Bindery” as a poem and The Bindery as a collection – thus allowing for dialogue between the individual elements, the infusion of meaning, and a powerful overall effect.

--Matthew J. Trafford

Hannus
Rachel Lebowitz
Pedlar Press, 2007.

Lebowitz's first book is a creative biography of her great-grandmother, suffragist Ida Hannus, who moved to a Finnish socialist commune on the BC coast in 1901. The questions "what happened?" and "what was it like?" are answered from a range of documented and imagined perspectives. These voices blur, sometimes to the point of confusion. Hannus' mixed form includes photos, newspaper clippings, diary excerpts, interview quotations, Finnish literature, and government documents, into which
Lebowitz inserts poetic and prose commentary. The resulting collage is questioning, tender, and surprisingly reluctant to present or imagine its characters' personalities. One of the most effective poems is the simple "Grocery Shopping." It describes how "he launched the craft / pushed the boat into the waves . . . / We waited. / He returned with a lap organ. / 'But music,' he said, 'feeds our souls.'” The poem exemplifies Lebowitz' commitment to incorporating external sources, taking its first verse from a Finnish folk poem. Also, its eloquent placement after a section on suffering in the commune allows its unnamed characters both to represent the community, and to imply the developing relationship between Hannus and her partner. It's these compelling personal tensions which seem to be lacking in the work as a whole.

--Jane Henderson

yesno
Dennis Lee
Anansi: Toronto, 2007.

In yesno, Dennis Lee returns to the theme he considered in Un: the future of planet earth. These poems examine how the simultaneous forces of hope and pessimism interact to create an ethic that Lee sums up as "yesno." This is a new kind of eco-poetry. It rebukes and encourages in the same breath. In "dopey," Lee even issues a call to arms: "Dopey & grumpy & doc, just / truckin along – / here come chorale; / mind to the / grindstone, ear to the plough. / Hi- / hoein along with a song: / What home but here? Whose grubby hands but ours?" These poems, however serious in intent, are playful. Lee pairs words in nonsensical ways. He pays strange and wonderful attention to rhythm. In "forgi-", a poem about unforgivable acts, Lee scats, "blindblabbing our / gobshut, our / gutted-by-greenslag, our undisad- / missable burden". In "DNA", Lee writes, "No DNA for the crunch, we got / neural nothing. / No yesno receptors; no template for cosmochaos." In yesno, Lee seems intent on creating just that—a template. A means, as he writes in the title poem, to "habitate crossbeing. / To ride both reals at once."

--Ben Hart

Domain
Barbara Nickel
Anansi: Toronto, 2007.

Nickel has the ear of a violinist as well as a poet, and there is a trained lightness to her sense of the line and the phrase. Nickel uses parts of a house-- “Master Bedroom,” “Girls' Room,” “Living Room,” etc—as her section headings, and the most surprising and satisfying of her formal tricks is to begin each of these sections with a poem whose first line repeats the last line of the previous section's initial poem. These linked verses feel like generations of a family, each borrowing a starting point and then veering off somewhere new. The section on Catherine the Great contains the fierce and dreamy poem, “Woman on a White Horse,” in which the empress is a presence in a small Saskatchewan town: “She came from a blue half-light./ She was snow spun high off a drift/ by the wind, woman on a white horse/ on my way to school—there!--/ see her hair, sabre, a glitter in the air/cast orange by the lights of the arena.” The warlike figure of Catherine saves the collection from running too close to sentimentality in its domestic scope, and Nickel's precision does the rest.

--Linda Besner

Uranium rising

hillarybain — Fri, 06 Jul 2007 13:21:42 +0000

Plan to mine radioactive ore generates controversy in Moncton, New Brunwick

One of the largest and most profitable mining companies in the world -- a company that received a failing grade on the Globe and Mail's corporate social responsibility survey -- is prospecting for the radioactive ore near Moncton, New Brunswick.

CVRD-Inco spent roughly $4 million to buy exclusive uranium prospecting rights for the next year on a 136,000-hectare area between Sussex and Moncton. The area includes land bordering the city of Moncton's watershed, which supplies drinking water for 100,000 residents.

New Brunswick Health Minister and Moncton MLA Mike Murphy has stated unequivocally that there will be no mine in the watershed, but according to Department of Natural Resources spokesman Brent Roy, Minister Murphy doesn't have the legislative authority to make that call.

"Prospecting just happens to intersect with the northern tip of the watershed and this is a legal legislative activity," said Roy in an interview. "In order to say 'no' [to mining in the watershed], we would have to change the law."

"The mining industry isn't in the business of taking 'no' for an answer," said Dr. Mark Winfield, a nuclear analyst with the Pembina Institute.

But they're hardly alone. Despite Health Minister Murphy's assurances that CVRD-Inco will not open a mine, Roy feels otherwise.

"The price of uranium is really high right now and we should be looking for it if we want to be in business," Roy said.

"Existing mines in northern Saskatchewan have caused severe contamination through heavy metals like arsenic, and long-lived radionuclides, along with conventional pollutants," said Winfield. In 2004, Health Canada concluded that effluent from uranium mines meets the definition of a toxic substance under the Canadian Environmental Protection Act.

"There's no such thing as 100 per cent safe," said Moncton City Councillor Steve Boyce. "We've been assured [of environmental safety] by CVRD-Inco, the same company that has been charged with dumping mine tailings into a brook in Ontario."

In an interview, CVRD-Inco spokesman Cory McPhee stated the obvious: "The ultimate goal is to explore for resources and open a mine."

So, it looks like two camps are digging in for a good old-fashioned showdown. Elements within the provincial government, and of course the mining company, are on one side pushing for the project, while Moncton City Council and environmental groups are hoping to bury it.

On the surface, it looks like the impending showdown could be characterized by what some corporate consultants call a NIMBY (Not In My Backyard) campaign. But CVRD-Inco's mining plans, and government support for them, dig at something a little deeper in New Brunswick provincial politics.

In early June, Premier Shawn Graham received a standing ovation during an address to the Canadian Nuclear Society when he stated that the "possibility of a second nuclear unit at Point Lepreau is very interesting to us and will be closely examined."

It seems as though power and the desire for it, specifically nuclear power, runs in the Graham family. Alan R. Graham, father of Premier Shawn Graham, sits on the Atomic Energy Control Board (AECB), the federal agency responsible for enforcing health, safety, security and environmental standards related to nuclear energy.

As a member of the AECB, Alan Graham, a Liberal party stalwart appointed to the board in 1998, is responsible for issuing licenses for nuclear activities, one of which may come from the N.B. government, led by his son.

Unearthing a little more toxic bureaucracy, the Atomic Energy Control Board reports to Parliament through the minister of natural resources, rather than the minister of the environment.

"The Department of Natural Resources is not in the business of protecting the environment; they're in the business of development," said Councillor Boyce. Thus, if the AECB is making a tough decision between a potentially dangerous mine and economic development, the board has political interest in siding with development, due to the mandate of the department it reports to.

Nova Scotia enacted a formal moratorium on uranium mining in 1982.

"Politicians were responding to public outcry," said Rick Ratcliffe, spokesman for the Nova Scotia Department of the Environment. Notice, it's the Department of the Environment, rather than the Ministry of Natural Resources that now administers uranium mining policy in Nova Scotia.

"CVRD-Inco didn't put the uranium there," said Corey McPhee, who has worked at Inco for the last 17 years. "We have a 100-year history of mining and mining responsibly."

'Responsible' is the last word Tracy Glynn, a staffer at the New Brunswick Conservation Council, would use to describe Inco.

Glynn wrote her masters thesis in Indonesia, where Inco operates a major mining complex.

In 2005, Glynn found that Inco was providing local communities with bacteria-contaminated water. Inco's senior employees, mostly from Canada and Australia, were given clean, filtered water.

"No local people were employed as managers at the company's Indonesian operations," said Glynn, who spent time with affected communities. "The young people would have frequent protests calling for employment at the mine."

When giving Inco a failing grade in its 2005 Corporate Social Responsibility Survey, the Globe and Mail noted that company policies had led to "strained community relations at nickel projects in New Caledonia [an island in the South Pacific] and Guatemala."

"Inco has been trying for about 10 years to get the huge Goro Nickle mine up and running in New Caledonia," said Catherine Coumans, a policy expert with Mining Watch Canada, a union-funded, non-governmental organization based in Ottawa.

"The mining permit they were granted in 2004 was yanked," said Coumans, who said Inco has been more or less ignoring the order. Many of New Caledonia's residents are indigenous people who have been "fighting Inco tooth and nail; taking them to court, blocking roads and burning equipment," said Coumans.

New Caledonia has some of the highest biodiversity on Earth. Inco's operations there have already destroyed eco-systems that may have included previously undiscovered plant and animal species, said Coumans.

"We think we are improving, in terms of corporate social responsibility," said CVRD-Inco spokesman Cory McPhee. "An example of that might be seen in our New Caledonia project where we have begun sitting down and talking with the community." Coumans agreed that community relations have improved in New Caledonia since Inco was bought out by CVRD of Brazil in 2006.

However, New Caledonia is but one of the company's trouble-spots. In Montreal, on November 13, 2006, Mining Watch Canada brought together a panel made up of community leaders from Indonesia, Guatemala, New Caledonia and Canada, who discussed their struggles against Inco. Those fighting against the mine worry that New Brunswick may have a delegate at events like this in the future.

And according to Dr. Winfield, the potential health and environmental impacts of the mine are not balanced out by any positive ones.
"The inter-governmental panel on climate change was very clear that nuclear [energy] can't compete economically," he said. "New Brunswick has better options for energy: a lot of coast line, a lot of wind, tidal power.

"They should be pursuing these options before going down this [nuclear] path."

Inco in Sudbury

Defending "Life and Sovereignty"

hillarybain — Thu, 05 Jul 2007 18:55:01 +0000

Ecuador’s mining prospects, Canadian companies, and the conflict with affected communities

“…what has happened to all of the oil extracted since March 22, 1967? Ecuador has produced 4.035 million barrels of oil since that time which valued at nominal historic international prices represents a sum total of $82 billion. Where is this money? And I’m not speaking about riches, because the true riches are what have been destroyed, that weren’t in the ground, but rather in the biodiversity, in the life and in the cultures that have been lost.”

– Former Minister of Energy & Mines, Alberto Acosta, speaking on the 40th anniversary of oil extraction in the Ecuadorian Amazon

Following attempts in recent months to obtain concrete responses from the government of President Rafael Correa regarding its plans for large-scale mining in Ecuador, the National Co-ordinating Committee in Defence of Life and Sovereignty -- an inter-provincial coalition of organizations and communities -- called for a national uprising, which is ongoing. Highway blockades taking place across South and Central Ecuador between June 26 and 29 faced stern repression from police and armed forces under direct orders from the government. Recent statements by the government are also worrying to those involved.

While 2007 marks 40 years for Ecuador as an oil producing nation, it has never been a major mineral producer and current large-scale mining projects have yet to enter into production. In some situations, this is largely due to tenacious community resistance, such as in the case of Intag in the northern province of Imbabura, where struggles have been ongoing for 10 years. Legal reforms by past governments favouring private investment and internationally funded studies revealing rich mineral deposits throughout the central Andes and the southern Amazonian region of Ecuador are making the country’s mining sector attractive to foreign investors. A recent industry report by Madison Avenue Research entitled “Ecuador, Number One in Potential for Pipeline Ounces of Gold,” highlights Ecuador’s appeal to Canadian corporations in particular. To date, the Ministry of Energy and Mines has granted licenses for over 4,000 mining concessions that cover roughly 20 per cent of the surface of Ecuador, including many ecologically and culturally diverse areas, according to Acción Ecológica, an environmental organization based in Quito.

In opposition to efforts to make Ecuador a major mineral producer, the National Co-ordinating Committee in Defence of Life and Sovereignty and the thousands mobilized by its call are convinced that there are better alternatives for the future of their communities and the country. Considering that communities are already experiencing tremendous “social contamination,” even before mining begins in Ecuador, and considering the health and environmental deterioration faced in other countries where large-scale mineral mining is already happening, the National Co-ordinating Committee wants Ecuador to cut its losses before production gets underway and for Ecuador to declare itself “a country free of large-scale mining.”

The National Co-ordinating Committee in Defence of Life and Sovereignty

The National Co-ordinating Committee in Defence of Life and Sovereignty was established on January 26, 2007. It brings communities in resistance from more than eight provinces across Ecuador together and includes numerous environmental and human rights organizations, urban associations and student groups. Lina Solano from the National Co-ordinating Committee says that the “social and environmental impacts of large-scale mining are too great to justify this as a major source of income for the country.”

From Ecuador’s experience as an oil producer, “we already know where the profits will be spent,” she says. “A large percentage will be used to pay off the external debt, that is to say it will also leave the country, while another large percentage will go toward the bureaucracy and the armed forces, with a minimum percentage remaining for education and healthcare, likely not even fulfilling the 30 per cent established in our constitution,” she adds. Even such minor gains are unlikely unless the government amends the Mining Law, which requires foreign investors to pay a minimum per-hectare conservation patent and zero per cent in royalties.

Subsecretary of Mining, Jorge Jurado, indicated in an interview with Reuters on June 22 that the government plans to present reforms to Ecuador’s Mining Law to congress this month. These would reintroduce royalties, limit exploration concessions currently good for 30 years, and strengthen environmental regulations, amongst other things. The government has also said it will create an independent Ministry of Mines and a state-owned mining company.

In contrast, the National Co-ordinating Committee would like the government to suspend current projects and place a moratorium on new concessions. Following investigations, they ultimately demand that current concessions be annulled. Their demands are premised on Ecuador’s constitution which guarantees communities the right to fair and informed consultation with regard to state decisions that might affect the environment. Both the President and the former minister of energy and mines -- who stepped down on June 14 in order to announce his candidacy for upcoming elections of a new National Constituent Assembly -- have previously agreed that these demands are just and that the overwhelming majority of current concessions are unconstitutional.

As several mining projects near production, the National Co-ordinating Committee has been urgently seeking government support. However, after numerous delays following four months of marches, meetings and correspondence, the Committee declared an indefinite national uprising on June 5. Demonstrations at the end of June elicited a definitive response, but not one that protesters had been hoping for.

Police Repression

Blockades that began on June 26 shut down three major arteries around Cuenca, the third largest city in the country and capital of the province of Azuay. Other main routes were also closed in the Southern Amazonian provinces of Morona Santiago and Zamora Chinchipe, with additional demonstrations taking place in the central province of Chimborazo.

On June 27, the president ordered the police to bring an end to the blockades and stated to the press that the “elimination of mining concessions is inconceivable” given the costs that the state would incur. He refused to speak with protesters and police enforcement of his orders resulted in brutal repression against demonstrators, particularly in the vicinity of Cuenca.

Lina Solano describes how, blockade by blockade, hundreds of police used overwhelming amounts of tear gas and anti-riot vehicles to dislodge protesters of all ages from the highways violently. Dozens of people were taken into detention and injuries were sustained by a number of demonstrators, as well as several police officers. In the area of Tarqui, southwest of Cuenca, police exhausted their supply of tear gas while taking control of the demonstration and reportedly sprayed tear gas inside of several homes, nearly asphyxiating several children.

Others on site were also threatened by police, including attempts to confiscate the camera of one Indymedia journalist.

Late on June 29, in the area of Molleturo where campesinos were maintaining the last remaining blockage of the main highway connecting Cuenca with the port city of Guayaquil, protesters reported the arrival of over 400 soldiers and 150 police officers, at which point they decided to retreat from the roadway.

Detentions Target National Co-ordinating Committee Leadership

Roughly 30 people were taken into detention between June 27 and 28, many even after road blocks had been cleared. Solano and two other organizers from the National Co-ordinating Committee were amongst those held overnight on June 27.

Solano says that five police officers aggressively detained her and Nidia Soliz, also from the Committee, late in the afternoon. For roughly three hours, they were held together in a locked car without windows and driven around the countryside before being taken to provincial police headquarters. Solano says the officers were driving “at top speed, braking abruptly, presumably so that we would bang ourselves against the inside walls of the car.” Earlier in the day, Fernando Mejia of the National Co-ordinating Committee was also detained.

Solano believes that their leadership was clearly targeted. Other demonstrators also reported being interrogated by police about the homes and whereabouts of leaders from the National Co-ordinating Committee. Early on June 28, student supporters, in particular from the University of Cuenca, along with many others, held demonstrations in front of government and judicial offices and the three were granted Habeas Corpus by midday. Others held in detention were also freed, although at least 11 still have charges filed against them.

“We are incredibly surprised,” says Solano, “because we didn’t think that a government based upon the defence of our country and our sovereignty [would allow such repression to take place.]” She quotes former Minister of Energy and Mines Alberto Acosta as having said that “not one drop of blood will be shed, no matter how profitable a project might be.”

“There’s an effort to minimize participation in our movement, to say that there are only a few hundred people in opposition and that in reality the rest of the population is in favour of these mining projects.” However, says Solano, the reality is otherwise. “In all this time that [the Co-ordinating Committee] has been organizing since the 26th of January of this year, there are thousands of people mobilizing, as much women, men, elderly, children and youth -- whole families in fact -- that are demonstrating in defence of our water more than anything, since this is the resource that is most put at risk by large-scale metal extraction.”

Communities from the provinces of Imbabura, Pichincha, Bolivar and Cotopaxi have participated in previous demonstrations and the two largest indigenous organizations in Ecuador, the CONAIE and ECUARUNARI, have also released public statements expressing solidarity with the struggle.

Government Priorities Conflict with Community Interests

President Correa’s statements last week are also “incredibly worrying,” says Solano. “To give a completely negative response and to say that the government is not going to support the communities’ petitions is a marked change.”

“In the beginning,” she recalls, “the government maintained that communities’ interests would be put first, before those of private corporations, and that what the communities are asking for is just and that the government would see how to deal with the issues. But now the government seems to be planning to make mining a main source of sustenance for the country, following the depletion of oil, and to be arranging for the state to earn a percentage of mining profits to put toward areas such as education and health.”

“This is horrible from our perspective because it’s like negotiating with our lives, and in particular with the lives of thousands of rural families who are most directly affected by these mining projects,” says Solano.

The subsecretary of mining, Jorge Jurado, made a further announcement last week stating that a High Level Commission would be commissioned to produce a report within 30 days concerning Project Quimsacocha. Project Quimsacocha is a large gold mining initiative led by Canadian company IAMGOLD in the high plateau (páramos) surrounding the communities of Tarqui and Victoria del Portete, where local resistance has been vehement.

Solano says that this announcement is a “step backward” from what the government previously promised. “When we spoke with the president on March 26, he gave the green light for then-minister of energy and mines, Alberto Acosta, to initiate a series of exhaustive audits concerning current projects. However, time has passed and they had to wait for people to protest so that they can now talk about striking this high level commission. We don’t know what it will mean, who will participate and if it will entail the suspension of this project.” Above all, Solano is concerned that people will put their hope in this commission and that it will be another waste of time while mining projects proceed toward production.

The Ongoing Struggle

Solano says that looking back over the last five months, the National Co-ordinating Committee has been successful in generating national debate on the issues. However, she says, “unless other organized sectors and the rest of Ecuador respond to what is happening, regrettably we will not be able to put up a sufficient front.”

She notes that Ecuador is unique in Latin America for not having an industrial mining sector and emphasizes the country’s right to make its own decisions. “We ask everyone who understands what is taking place here to support this struggle. This is really about our national sovereignty and our right to say 'no'.”

She adds, “Within the system that we are living in, decisions are being made not even by a small group of countries anymore, but rather by a small group of transnational corporations. And these decisions are being imposed all around the world, often by blood and fire. In this regard, all international solidarity is important to us in order to reclaim our right to self-determination.

This article was originally published in America Latino Em Movimento and a shorter version is available in Spanish

Ecuador Blockade

Ecuador Blockade 2

Welcome to Ambiguica

hillarybain — Sun, 01 Jul 2007 23:51:51 +0000

Round Two of the Atlantica Debate

With the exception of the Provincial-Federal row over the Atlantic Accord, the biggest news story, in terms of sheer column space, to hit Atlantic Canada over the past month centred on Halifax street demonstrations campaigning against a proposed ‘Atlantica’ trade zone. On June 15, a demonstration of about 400, organized to coincide with an “Atlantica: Charting the Course” conference of corporate and government leaders from throughout the Northeastern region, ended with scenes of brief confrontations between black-clad demonstrators and police. Photos of the ‘black bloc’ would be splashed across the front pages of local and regional newspapers for days, almost entirely supplanting any discussion or coverage within the mainstream media of the Atlantica trade corridor itself.

In the midst of this near-blackout of media scrutiny, the announcement of $558,000 in funding by the federal government for the development of an “Atlantica Council,” whose main objective will be to lobby for and “champion” the Atlantica notion, passed almost unnoticed. Similarly, the bizarre appointment of American businessman Jonathan Daniels, head of the Eastern Maine Development Corporation, to head the Atlantic Provinces Chamber of Commerce, also received little media focus. Daniels’ appointment, which had been expected for more than a year, signals the centrality of the Atlantica proposal within the agenda of Atlantic Canada’s business elite.

The Atlantica trade zone would link Canada’s Atlantic provinces with Eastern Quebec and the New England states of Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire and Upstate New York. According to Charles Cirtwell, president of the right-wing Atlantic Institute for Market Studies (AIMS), which has been a leading proponent of Atlantica, the scheme is simply “about people with common needs –- in a common neighbourhood –- coming up with common solutions.”

Lost in this neighbourly rhetoric are the concrete realities of the Atlantica proposal. The Atlantica website outlines a proposal whose main thrust is the re-orientation of the port of Halifax and the rest of the northeastern region to a transportation entry point and highway corridor for cheaply produced goods from China and India. Such goods would be trucked from Canada’s East Coast and through New England to the ‘heartland’ urban markets of Montreal, New York and Boston. In addition, the website includes a number of proposals focused upon further facilitating the export of oil and natural gas resources from Atlantic Canada exclusively to the United States, creating a combined energy grid between Atlantic Canada and New England and generally harmonizing regulations and immigration policies between the two regions. The website is also remarkably frank in its dislike for social policies and refers to minimum wages, union density, government spending and the size of the public sector as “public policy distress factors.”

Of Highways, Truck-Trains and Prosperity

The Atlantica proposal has generated protests from labour, environmental, trade justice, and anti-imperialist organizations in Atlantic Canada. Scott Sinclair, researcher with the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives and author of the critical report Atlantica: Myths and Reality¸ notes that the Atlantica proposal, although guided by the free market fundamentalism of global trade initiatives like NAFTA, places remarkably little emphasis on trade between New England and Atlantic Canada.

“There’s something wrong with an economic development strategy that's based on turning the region into a conduit for goods that are produced outside the region in Asia and are intended to be consumed outside the region,” said Sinclair.

Atlantica could also carry with it devastating environmental costs due to increased greenhouse gas emissions from giant “truck-trains,” multi-cargo transfer trucks. Environmental journalist Tim Bousquet, in a recent article for the Halifax weekly The Coast, estimates that the tripling of truck traffic in the northeastern region, as a result of the Atlantica scheme, could increase Nova Scotia’s greenhouse gas emissions by “something like five million tonnes.”

In addition, the Atlantica proposal also contains remarkably little mention of the fishing or farming sectors, which have traditionally been a staple of the local economies of both Atlantic Canada and New England, or of the details about how the Atlantica proposal would impact local indigenous communities.

Such sectors appear to be expendable within the worldview of some of Atlantica's more radical proponents."The painful reality is that the world changes and traditional ways of life often do not fit with the new circumstances," wrote Cirtwell in a column in Halifax's Chronicle Herald on the opening day of the Atlantica conference.

“If urban centres are growing, then serve that market and don’t worry about the declining local one.”

Exclusion

As unpopular as such notions might be within regions of Atlantic Canada, where the rural population constitutes nearly half of the total population, Atlantica’s proponents have managed to line up prominent political support for the cause. The conference in June began with a keynote speech by Nova Scotia Premier Rodney Macdonald and featured a presentation by Conservative Foreign Affairs Minister Peter Mackay. The announcement of federal funding for the Atlantica council followed a $2.1 billion federal commitment to ‘gateway initiatives,’ of which Atlantica appears to be a primary target.

Critics pointed out that it seemed accepted as a matter of faith that the economic fate of the “Atlantica” region would be decided solely by business and corporate leaders. Participants of the “Atlantica: Charting the Course” Conference paid a $600 fee to attend. This alone ensured that the representation from labour, environmental, indigenous, or even farming organizations would be left off the table entirely.

When asked about the lack of representation from other parties outside of the business sector, the Atlantic Provinces Chamber of Commerce's in-coming American President Jonathan Daniels replied that “everybody has been invited into this process.”

When asked about the prohibitive nature of a $600 entry fee to such an invitation, Daniels then shrugged. “Well, we’re not going to be able to get everybody to the table. We’re going to get the people who really truly want to be interested in the development of this.”

The Uninvited

Outside of Halifax’s World Trade and Convention Centre, the anti-Atlantic protests had a remarkably different flavour than during the inaugural Atlantica conference, held in Saint John, New Brunswick, in early June 2006. During this conference, trade union leadership in the region had mobilized significantly, bringing in representation from Acadian workers in the Mirimichi, Moncton and Bathurst regions as well as the predominantly Anglophone regions of Fredericton and Saint John. The heads of the Federations of Labour of Nova Scotia, PEI, New Brunswick and Newfoundland were also present at this mobilization and spoke out publicly against Atlantica.

By contrast, organized Labour in Halifax played little role in the mobilizations and teach-ins outside of this year’s Atlantica conference, aside from a well-attended town hall featuring Maude Barlow at Dalhousie University on June 13. Although the main demonstration was arguably as large as the Labour-sponsored march in 2006, the makeup this year was predominantly composed of smaller, grassroots organizations operating under the banner of the Alliance Against Atlantica. There was also a larger contingent of individuals who had travelled a fair distance, from places as far away as Guelph, Hamilton, Montreal, Fredericton, Maine and Indiana, in order to oppose Atlantica. Actions throughout the week included a sizeable critical mass bike ride, a full day of workshops, a Friday evening street party and a spontaneously organized disruption of the lunch of former AIMS director Brian Lee Crowley.

The split of the ‘black bloc’ demonstrators from the main march on June 15, as well as the subsequent scattered confrontations with police, resulted in an overwhelming use of force by police. Ironically, the majority of the 21 arrests occurred after demonstrators within the ‘black bloc’ march were attempting to disperse by moving towards the base of Citadel Hill. They were corralled, surrounded, and heavily tasered by police. One demonstrator was held down by three police officers and tasered until he became unconscious. It took more than five minutes for an ambulance to arrive on the scene. Michael Doyle was also pepper-sprayed by police, seemingly because he witnessed police use of tasers.

“I was yelling ‘that guy is getting tasered for no reason,’” said Doyle.

“And then the guy just sprays me.”

Police subsequently laid a combined total of 70 charges against demonstrators, including assaulting a police officer, unlawful assembly and wearing a face-mask with intent to commit an offence.

Welcome to Ambiguica

In the midst of all the arrests, demonstrations and photo-ops to emerge from the second round of Atlantica/anti-Atlantica events, the Atlantica concept itself has become extremely muddied and largely ambiguous. Even political support for this initiative appears ambiguous; Premier Macdonald has been using the words ‘Atlantica’ and ‘Atlantic Gateway’ interchangeably to describe the initiative, despite the fact that many view the ‘Gateway’ as a more limited project aimed almost solely at expanding the traffic within the Halifax harbour. As Here! New Brunswick columnist Chris Arsenault has noted , even Atlantica’s proponents have stated that regional business leaders have become confused about whether to put their support behind the concept of an ‘Atlantic Gateway’ or a broader ‘Atlantica’ concept currently advocated by AIMS.

The confusion seems to be magnified further by the fact that the Atlantica discussions have been largely informal. At present, there is no signed agreement or proposal that has been put forward for an Atlantica trade zone. All the decisions regarding the proposal appear to have taken place within board meetings of either the Atlantic Provinces Chamber of Commerce or the Atlantic Institute for Market Studies.

It is the ambiguity of the Atlantica proposal that may offer the greatest threat to its success. However, given the entirely closed-door nature of the discussions that have taken place, it would be premature for Atlantica’s opponents to claim victory. The “Atlantica: Charting the Course” conference concluded with no specific recognition amongst the 200 delegates of any need to include farmers, environmentalists, labour organizations, or Atlantica critics within the discussion of the economic future of Atlantic Canada and New England.

This article was corrected on July 23, 2007; a quote was wrongly attributed to Scott Sinclair.

Anti-Atlantica March 2

Anti-Atlantica March

War, Landmines, and Some Hope of Peace

hillarybain — Thu, 21 Jun 2007 19:43:12 +0000

Getting a leg up on life in Northern Uganda

Gathered in the shade of a pair of immense mango trees, in a rare opening between a throng of cow dung huts packed so tightly together that their grass thatched roofs almost touch at the eaves, 25 amputees sit in a semi-circle amid a clutter of wooden crutches.

A skinny dog twitches in her sleep, belly pressed against the hard, red earth, where the smell of burning trash and wood smoke mix, carried by a warm sub-Saharan breeze.

These are the sights and smells of sleepy Paicho Subcounty, a camp for internally displaced persons (IDPs) 23 kilometres northeast of Gulu Town, hub of Northern Uganda.

With a population of about 16,000, Paicho is small relative to the growing number of camps like it and is situated in a region once endearingly referred to as Acholiland. The native Acholi tribe, after which it takes its name, have long since lost energy for such terms of affection. The pride that once characterized the Acholi Kingdom disappeared long ago. The Acholi sense of dignity is as frail as the Acholi elders, who alone in this community can remember times of peace.

Plagued by HIV/AIDS, malaria, malnutrition, rape and infant mortality, camps for internally displaced persons encompass the entire rural population of Northern Uganda, representing some 1.6 million civilians or almost 95 per cent of the region’s total population.

As one NGO chairman put it, “The conditions in these camps are appalling.” Yet it is due to the relative safety they provide that they have sprung up over the past 15 years.

For 21 years, Acholiland has been caught up in of one of Africa’s longest-running and most brutal civil wars.

A war that originally sought the overthrow of Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni’s government by the elusive Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), it has long since devolved into a brutal power play between opposing gangs of armed murderers, kidnappers, rapists and looters, in what Gulu District chairman and opposition member Norbert Mao calls, “a proxy war between the Sudanese capital, Khartoum, and the Ugandan capital, Kampala.”

While the LRA receives its funding from the powerbrokers of Sudan, the Ugandan government’s United People’s Defence Force (UPDF) is backed by what last year became an elected dictatorship in Kampala.

In October, President Museveni, though internationally praised for his AIDS initiatives and peace brokering, amended the constitution in order to retain his presidential powers.

As the Buganda of Southern Uganda begin the ascent out of poverty, the Acholi continue to suffer.

In 2001, Christine Omono was abducted by the Lord’s Resistance Army. As a healthy 31-year-old woman, her fate was likely a porter and sex slave.

On her first night, she and three fellow female abductees were sent marching ahead of the rebel ranks to act as human shields. When one of the women stepped on a mine, killing herself and one other, Omono’s left foot was severed at the ankle.

Omono’s brother, who had also been abducted that night, was permitted by the rebels to take his sister to the hospital.

In a war in which women and children are commonly abducted and almost as commonly killed, Omono was considered fortunate to have traded her foot for her freedom and that of her sibling. But when she returned to her husband’s family, she discovered her troubles had only just begun.

“People used to abuse me as I walked around the camp,” she says. “My husband’s family was the worst.”

Caving to his family’s pressure and frustrated with a wife that couldn’t work, Omono’s husband left her.

In a community plagued by food insecurity and where most depend on rations from the World Food Programme, those unable to earn their keep are frequently abandoned, even by their own families.

Okot Birigino, 46, emerges from between two huts and hobbles to the centre of the gathering. In 1996, Birigino lost his right foot when a friend set off a landmine as they were walking together down the side of a road.

Taking a seat on a small wooden bench, he lays his crutches on the ground and produces a book of names and numbers. Behind him, the white SUV he has just exited cools in the shade of a mango tree, bearing the maple leaf insignia of NGO Canadian Physicians for Aid and Relief (CPAR).

At once, a small crowd forms around him, waving filthy wads of cash. He records the amounts both in his own records and in little pink booklets they each carry.

Birigino is CPAR’s Paicho Subcounty Loan Committee chairperson. He is responsible for monitoring the NGO’s beneficiaries in the camp as part of a microfinance initiative specifically targeting landmine survivors like him.

Evidence of at least two of the survivors’ enterprises are scattered around: Three hardwood tables at various stages of completion; and a foot-operated sewing machine. Having learned tailoring and carpentry through CPAR’s vocational training programme for landmine survivors, Birigino now has his own tailoring business and passes on the skills as a peer-educator.

Christine Omono is also one of the initiative’s beneficiaries. Since December she has used the money CPAR lent her to pay able-bodied workers to lay bricks, which she then cooks and sells for profit. She uses another portion of her loan to pay labourers to help cultivate her small garden, the produce of which she sells at the market.

Today she has come to report on her progress and to pay an installment on her loan.

Still vulnerable as an abandoned wife in this survivalist culture, Omono hopes the small profit she has managed to save while paying off her loan will lure her husband into returning.

Ironically, the increasing number of camps like Paicho that have appearing in the last year, and of landmine victims themselves, are in fact signs of hope for Acholiland. With the Juba Peace Talks in southern Sudan now moving tentatively towards an anticipated peace agreement between the insurgent Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) and the Ugandan Government, eight months of “relative peace” since the signing of a landmark Cessation of Hostilities Agreement are beginning to restore popular confidences.

For the first time in over two decades, families broken and dehumanized by war and the desperate conditions of the military-guarded camps are beginning to resettle. As the more daring begin to abandon the camps in increasing numbers for so-called “decongestion sites,” a series of new, less-congested camps are springing up across the countryside, ready to absorb them.

Mostly these bring the largely peasant populace closer to their ancestral lands and away from the claustrophobic conditions of the mother camps. However, they also bring people back to areas that have been abandoned for years and which may be littered with landmines and other unexploded ordinances (UXOs).

“It’s the most critical moment now. People are returning home and mine-risk education is more pertinent than ever,” says Richard Olong, CPAR-Gulu’s economic support officer.

Resources are already stretched thin as NGOs try to cover the range of humanitarian work now needed in Acholiland’s reconstruction and Olong fears that CPAR’s landmine action mandate, due to expire next month, is ending prematurely.

“CPAR is coming in to fill in the gap that the government cannot fill. With landmines...the government doesn’t have enough people to complete the task at hand,” says Olong. “That’s why it’s important to have CPAR and other NGOs.”

Until local and national governments can provide safety and basic human rights to their citizens, he explained, the onus is left on the growing number of NGOs operating in the district.

But while many agencies scramble to dig boreholes to provide potable water and others build churches to soothe the soul, landmine action seems to be falling ever further below the radar screen.

“The capacity of the Ugandan government to cover mine action is not there,” says Olong.

Roadside signs illustrate what to look out for and advise caution, but with low literacy in the region, their effectiveness is subject to much skepticism.

CPAR in UGANDA

A Mined Democracy

hillarybain — Mon, 18 Jun 2007 18:44:14 +0000

The Philippines is rife with political violence, but Canadian mining companies don't seem to mind

Ranked second in the world for political killings -- over 800 since 2001 -- it may seem obvious that the Philippines is not a shining light of democracy. Yet many Western nations hold it in high esteem as exactly this, as well as a major trading partner and an ally in the war on terror.

A group of people from Montreal who travelled to the Philippines for the country’s mid-term May elections noticed this contradiction.

Speaking in front of the St. James church on June 3, delegation participant Stefan Christoff summed up this contradiction: In contrast to the “vibrant, thriving democracy” that the United States and Canada purport the Philippines to be, said Christoff, the mid-term elections were surrounded by an atmosphere of “coercion, corruption and violence.” He also stated that in the capital, Manila, the group he was with witnessed vote-buying and interviewed residents who were visited by the military and told how to vote.

The four-person delegation from Montreal was part of the larger Peoples’ International Observers Mission, which was comprised of participants from 12 countries. The effort was initiated in response to calls from Philippino human rights and church groups calling for witnesses for the lead-up to the elections for positions in the senate, congress and municipalities. Observers were positioned throughout the country and accompanied by local counterparts.

Freda Guttman, another member of the Montreal delegation, reviewed some of the hindrances to the democratic process discovered by her group operating in the city of Makati, a suburb of the capital. These included attempts at vote-buying through offers of money or free electricity and massive disorganization at polling stations. She said that buildings were plagued by periodic blackouts, during which time voting was suspended, and that many names were missing from voter lists. During the counting of the votes, Guttman also told of a surprise visit from a prominent businessman with close ties to the president. She stated that he “strode into the arena looking like Mussolini, with armed bodyguards” and “asked people counting which party they were from.”

Despite the fact that it is difficult for foreign observers to witness blatant electoral violations, observations like those of Guttman were common throughout the delegation. Their findings were also consistently corroborated by locals they spoke to, who deal with the forces of political pressure on a day-to-day basis, usually without the mitigating influence of international monitors.

The mid-term elections of the Philippines were of critical importance for the ruling regime’s effort to hold onto power amidst growing dissatisfaction with its leadership. Particularly, a 2005 impeachment effort sponsored by some of the opposition parties could be successfully reinitiated if the ruling government of Gloria Macapagal Arroyo loses its control of the senate and congress.

The precarious nature of the government’s position on the eve of the elections led to an increased level of persecution of perceived political threats, with over 20 killings reported in the lead-up to voting day. Among such incidents, Malcolm Guy, spokesperson for the Montreal Centre for Philippine Concerns (CPC), noted the disappearance of Luing Posa-Dominado, a friend whom he first met in the 1980s. Posa-Domingo, a human rights activist imprisoned during the Marcos dictatorship went missing with her partner Nilo Arado on April 12, 2007, and neither has been heard of since. Also, two members of the Kabataan youth party were abducted and killed during the election process.

Due to the introduction of party list proportional representation in 1995, political parties such as Kabataan and Bayan Muna have been able to gain greater representation through the electoral process. However, the growth of these type of reform oriented and traditionally marginalized groups has led to their increased targeting.
being targeted.

There is a lot of enthusiasm in the Philippines for initiatives such as the party list legislation and the potential for change they represent, says Tess Tesalona, former resident of the Philippines, and also with the Montreal CPC. But the social elite are feeling their dominance increasingly threatened and are responding accordingly, she says.

Given the political violence and high levels of poverty in the Philippines, bribery and the threat of violence significantly hinder the possibility of legitimate elections. With 80 per cent of the population living on two dollars per day or less, and the richest 10 per cent of the population earning 21 times more than the poorest 10 per cent, it is no surprise that bribery has proven to be an effective political tool for the wealthy to maintain their power in the Philippines.

Although often characterized by the military and government as the result of political infighting between rebel forces, widespread violence is another important tool of political influence, according to organizations such as the Philippine human rights group Karapatan. Most of the 858 politically-related killings since 2001, when the Arroyo government took office, were church activists, lawyers, union leaders and others working for political change through non-violent means. Karapatan says that culpability for these acts lies directly with the state security forces and associated paramilitaries. Circumstances of death documented show that most were killed through methods of professional assassination or murder, preceded by kidnapping and torture. The fact that only verified killings are used in the figure of 858 makes it likely that the actual number is much higher.

In February of this year, UN human rights envoy Philip Alston conducted an inquiry in the country wherein he concluded that many of the political killings taking place in the Philippines can be “convincingly attributed” to the military. Earlier in the year, the Philippine-based Melo Commission drew similar conclusions, with the head of the armed forces conceding that the military was involved in some of the deaths. Both of these reports lack any form of binding recommendations, however, and neither make a link to President Arroyo, head of the Philippine armed forces.

While the social and political environment in the Philippines remains dismal, the country’s relationship with the West is close. This amounts to a problematic situation, according to the Montreal delegation, since countries that publicly espouse common values of democracy and human rights are benefiting from a relationship with a government that is violating these deeply held principles.

For the United States this relationship has been a long and sordid one, beginning in a brutal military occupation that lasted almost five decades. In early 1991, the Philippines banned American military bases from its territory, but this was rescinded in 1999. The island nation has since been regaining a prominent strategic position in American foreign policy. Human rights organizations such as Karapatan believe that the influence of the US in the Philippines is contributing to a familiar situation in which proponents for social change, whether violent or not, are characterized as variations of communist or Islamic terrorism. This is seen as a mutually beneficial arrangement for protecting the interests of both the US and its client regime.

Canadian trade with the Philippines tops one billion dollars per year, according to Industry Canada, and investment in the mining sector has been singled-out by human rights groups, both within the Philippines and abroad, for Canadian firms’ involvement in environmental and human rights abuses.

A recently released report from Rights and Democracy criticizes the Calgary-based TVI Pacific corporation for its project on the island of Mindanao. The report states that TVI has “deprived thousands of small-scale miners of their livelihood,” and “contributed to a militarization of the area” that has had a “negative impact on the ability of the Subanon [the local indigenous population] to enjoy the human right to security and the human right to housing.” These charges refer to actions by the 160-person security force working for the mining company hired from the Philippino army and given tasks such as the displacement of settlements and manning of blockades.

Other Canadian human rights and church groups have cited Vancouver-based mining companies Placer Dome Incorporated and Crew Development Corporation for their record of environmental destruction and lack of transparency in the Philippines.

In a manner that is even more direct, a number of former members of Canada’s military and police forces are working with Grayworks, a Philippine company engaged in combating the guerilla organizations of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, Abu Sayyaf, and the New Peoples’ Army, primarily on the island of Mindanao.

With the elections over, the efforts of Canadian Philippino human rights organizations are being focused on other projects. A national coalition of groups, including the Centre for Philippine Concerns, recently submitted a 5,000-signature petition to parliament calling for a review of all Canadian relations with the Philippines and the impact these relationships are having on human rights in the country. The CPC is also continuing with its demonstrations on the first Sunday of each month, beginning at St. James church at the intersection of St. Catherine and City Councillors Street, in downtown Montreal.

The final tally of the election shows mixed results, with widespread success for the ruling coalition at the local and regional level and opposition parties gaining ground in the senate. In light of the conditions surrounding the election seen by the Montreal delegation, it would be premature to correlate polling results with popular desire and the functioning of a healthy democracy in the Philippines.

Protesting for a Just Peace in the Philippines

Where is Atlantic Canada Heading?

hillarybain — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 12:20:06 +0000

An interview with Maude Barlow on Atlantica

From June 14-16, corporate executives, the think-tanks they fund, and some government officials from Eastern Canada and Northeastern United States will gather in Halifax, Nova Scotia, to discuss Atlantica; “a broad social project” according the initiative’s leading intellectual architect Brian Lee Crowley.

“There are a lot of people with an interest in seeing Atlantica proceed,” said Crowley, former director of the Atlantic Institute for Market Studies and now a senior economics adviser to Conservative Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

Others, including unions and community groups in Eastern Canada and Northeastern United States, have an interest in stopping Atlantica. The economic and political project has identified several “public policy distress factors”, including “minimum wage legislation (a measure of labour market flexibility)” and “union density.”

Maude Barlow, author of more than a dozen books on politics and economics and chairperson of the Council of Canadians, has been following Atlantica and other neo-liberal initiatives closely.

She most recently won Sweden’s Right Livelihood Award -- similar to the Nobel Prize-- for her “exemplary and long-standing worldwide work for trade justice.” Her latest book is Too Close for Comfort, Canada’s Future Within Fortress North America.

She spoke with Chris Arsenault from her home in Ottawa.

In your recent book, you talk a lot about ‘Fortress North America’ and ‘Deep Integration.’

Can you describe those concepts a little bit? How do they relate to the Atlantica initiative?

Maude Barlow: One should look at the Atlantica project within the larger move towards creating one North American security block. It started post-9/11 with the creation of a task force on recommendations from the Canadian Council of Chief Executives (CCCE), the country’s largest corporate lobby group…who saw, frankly, an opportunity with 9/11 to push their agenda of deregulation of the border and deregulation of trade. That moved very quickly through senior political levels to the Prime Minister at the time, Paul Martin. He signed the Security and Prosperity Partnership for North America in Waco, Texas, in March, 2005 with George Bush and Vicente Fox. This commitment to building a kind of European Union in North America, but without the environmental, social and human rights safeguards that were in the original European Union, dramatically increased under Harper.

There would be one trade block, harmonizing: immigration, visas at entry level -- you name it. Some of them [CCCE leaders] are talking about a customs union; certainly a common market. Some are even talking about a common dollar and existing as one trade block in the WTO (World Trade Organization). So Canada would be negotiating as one with the United States, as opposed to being concerned about what the Americans are demanding from us and trying to protect ourselves.

It would require more integrated foreign policy, security policy, military policy and so on. We call it ‘Fortress North America’ basically because it’s based on the viewpoint and ideology of big business, big security, and big defence.

When you move into what’s happening with Atlantica, it’s important to have that as a backdrop; to realize what they are talking about with Atlantica is kind of an Atlantic version of this larger ‘Fortress North America,’ based on what’s good for big business, the big defence industry, the big security industry and so on.

As with Atlantica, ordinary Canadians, people with different kinds of concerns, were entirely left out of the negotiation and the debate about the Security Partnership for North America. So here we see the same thing happening: the corporate, trade and defence industries getting together and promoting an agenda that’s good for them but not for the majority of Atlantic Canadians.

In a Moncton Times & Transcript article, one columnist scoffed at critics, stating that “the Atlantica agenda is preoccupied with the hard, mundane work of facilitating trade and cross-border business relationships.” What do you think about this assessment?

This is always what they fall back on, like we’re just too silly to understand such important issues as cross-border trade. We’re not at all opposed to trade or rules to promote trade or even trade agreements.

We are opposed to agreements like NAFTA [North American Free Trade Agreement] that expose Canada to the whims of US bureaucracy and corporate interests.

With NAFTA and Atlantica, you’re getting into an agreement with a much larger partner and it’s going to be the interests of the larger partner that will prevail.

When the US wants to abide by NAFTA, it does; when it doesn’t, it just doesn’t. If nobody but the corporate sector is welcome in these talks, then what does that say about democracy?

What does that say about the environment? Human rights concerns? The concerns of working people? Women’s groups? Faith based groups? There are many groups who would have some things to say about how we might have closer co-operation.

Nobody is against better communication and even better transportation. But if you want to see what it’s like when that gets out of hand, go to Windsor, Ontario, and take a look at the eight-lane so-called NAFTA Highway that goes 24-7, all through the day and night It’s just this horrible strip of highway that takes the trade back and forth across that border. It’s polluting. It’s horribly noisy. There are downsides to constant growth.

Yes, prosperity is important, but so are social rights, maintaining environmental, health and safety standards and quality of life. All these elements need to be taken into account.

In your travels and meetings with social movements around the world, can you talk about some alternatives, some independent economic policies that really work?

I think you can look right here in Canada, with some flaws of course. We tried in the past to mix public and private in a really innovative way.

That’s because there were so few people living in this great big, cold, harsh, beautiful country, this huge geographic space. Our ancestors decided they needed to share with each other. I call it our Canadian founding narrative: Sharing for survival. It’s different from the American founding narrative: Survival of the fittest.

We said yes to the private sector; yes, people can make money, yes to entrepreneurship and all that stuff, but there also has to be a strong public sector. The private sector won’t deliver mail to small communities; it won’t take the railroad to the north. The private sector has to make money and it won’t provide the services and the connections to poorer communities.

In Atlantic Canada, for people who wanted to make those East-West links, ribbons of interdependence as I call them, this equalization concept is enormously important.

At the same time, the problem is that Atlantic Canada really was invaded by other parts of the country and its bounty was taken and that part of the model was not good. So the question is: how can we re-balance confederation so more of the resources of Atlantic Canada benefit the people there, while still benefiting from this great partnership called Canada?

So, I think in many respects, we can look favourably on the model we have created ourselves. The whole world, however, not just Atlantic Canada, is going to have to reconfigure our relationship with nature.

The notion behind Atlantica is unlimited growth which one American environmentalist compared to the logic of a cancer cell; it eventually turns on its host in order to survive. We are killing the Earth. The Earth cannot sustain more growth, more destruction of meadows and wetlands, cutting down more forests, damming more rivers or burning more fossil fuels.

The earth is saying, ‘I’ve reached my limit.’ We’re running out of fresh water, energy and minerals. We’re releasing too much greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. We’ve got to stop.

One of the major answers is something called ‘subsidiarity,’ where you can grow or produce something closer to home. You have economic policy that promotes that practice: food grown locally, not shipped in from across the world, where farmers are working for next to no wages. You stop this horrible head-to-head competition; you support locally produced goods. You cut down on trade, I don’t mean no trade, but the average North American dinner plate has travelled 1,900kms to get to you. That’s insane.

In Atlantic Canada, before life gets out of hand and everything becomes like it is in Toronto, people need to slow down and think about whether that is what they want.

There is a beautiful way of life in Atlantic Canada. I know; I come from there. This notion of supporting local communities, building something together, and being careful about our ecological footprint is what the whole world has to turn to. It would be really wrong for Atlantic Canada to give up what it has right now; that beauty, that way of life. It can still be prosperous, but not the model they are looking at with Atlantica. [Following that model],I see a zone where it will be US money and US corporations. It will be a free trade zone on the Canadian side with much lower wages -- a Canadian sweatshop.

They’ll deny this and say I am being alarmist, but there is a Third World in this country now.

We’ve created a poverty class that didn’t exist 15 years ago through these neo-liberal policies and free trade agreements. Atlantica wants to take this a whole step further.

Highway