The Dominion - 49

Rec Room

dru — Sat, 03 May 2008 19:57:32 +0000

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Issue #49

dru — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 11:28:53 +0000

Subhead:

February 2008

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Late Summer

dru — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 07:47:07 +0000

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January in Review

dru — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 03:35:43 +0000

News from social movements

Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug (KI)-- aka "Big Trout Lake"-- Chief Donny Morris announced that he is ready to go to jail to defend his community's sovereignty. "I'm prepared to give myself up if the court decides I've disrespected the November ruling to allow Platinex on our land. I'm prepared to acknowledge that," Morris stated in a press release. Two years ago Ontario-based mining company Platinex sued the KI First Nation for $10 billion for preventing mining on their land in the far northwest of Ontario. In November 2007, KI withdrew from the legal proceedings, citing over $600,000 in debt accumulated while fighting the province and Platinex. Morris' contempt of court charges stemmed from an encounter with Platinex, where the chief escorted officials from the company back to their plane, and threatened to file trespassing charges if they came back. Observers expect the people of the remote fly-in community to continue to resist attempts by Platinex to mine their lands. Future resistance, however, is unlikely to be undertaken through the courts.

Six Nations leaders have put towns and cities along the Grand River on notice that the land still belongs to the people of Six Nations. The stretch of land, which extends from Lake Erie to the area lying to the northwest of Toronto, was granted to the Six Nations Confederacy in the 1784 Haldimand Proclamation. "There's no more of this sweeping it under the rug. It's not OK to steal land anymore and we're going to make people aware of that," one representative told the CBC.

Three hundred supporters of Jeremy Hinzman and Brandon Hughey, the first two war resisters to cross into Canada after refusing to deploy to Iraq with the US military, gathered in Toronto calling upon the Canadian parliament to pass a motion allowing them to remain in Canada. The rally was attended by Liberal foreign affairs critic Bob Rae, as well as Toronto NDP MP Olivia Chow. Similar rallies and actions were held in 11 cities across the country. Days before, a rally of 50 Iraq veterans gathered at the Canadian Embassy in Washington urging the Canadian government to provide sanctuary to all military service personnel looking to escape deployments with the US military. In November the Canadian Supreme Court refused to hear the cases of Hinzman and Hughey, on the grounds that they had previously been turned down by the Canadian Immigration and Refugee Board, which considered the illegality of the Iraq war under international law inadmissible. There are at least 30 war resisters in Canada at the moment.

A group calling itself the Wreath Underground vandalized buildings on Vancouver's University of British Columbia (UBC) campus. The group released a communiqué, taking credit for the actions and opposing commercial and Olympic-related developments that resulted in the destruction of public space on campus. The action comes in the context of an ongoing campaign by Students for a Democratic Society UBC (SDS-UBC) to prevent further privatization of public spaces on the UBC campus. SDS-UBC says the University's development plan's purpose "is to make the centre of campus a corporate/private space to which students only have access as customers or condo owners/renters." SDS-UBC is organizing a conference in March entitled "Resisting the University," which will address "privatization and commodification of education."

Hundreds rallied and marched in Montreal in support of Abdelkader Belaouni, a 40-year old blind Algerian refugee who has been living in sanctuary in St. Gabriel's Church for over two years. Solidarity pickets and embassy visits were also held in most major cities across Canada and in several cities internationally, including Tokyo, New York, Beirut, Paris, Durban, and London. Belaouni's supporters were demanding that federal Minister of Immigration Diane Finley grant a stay of the deportation order, and grant him permanent resident status in Canada. Belaouni fled Algeria's brutal civil war in 1996, arriving first in the United States. He came to Montreal in 2003 and applied for refugee status. His application was rejected by Immigration and Refugee Board judge Laurier Thibault, who had close to a 100% rejection rate amongst refugee claimants. Belaouni entered sanctuary in early 2006, and has since received international support for his case, including from Laibar Singh, currently in sanctuary in Vancouver. Said Singh in a statement issued days before the solidarity march: "The Canadian government says it raises its voice for the less fortunate around the world but if it can't see us, who can it see?"

Solomon Islands Prime Minister Derek Sikua affirmed his full support of the Australian-dominated occupation force, known as RAMSI. The force, consisting of over 2,000 soldiers, along with bureaucrats and "advisors," who took effective control of much of the Islands' state apparatus, including prisons, police, courts, public service, and central bank. Critics called the move a "neo-colonial" effort to "safeguard Australian corporate interests and maintain its regional domination." Former Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare had angered Australian diplomats when he moved to roll back some of RAMSI's powers over spending and pave the way for an eventual withdrawal. He was ousted in a parliamentary vote, and replaced with a Sikua-led coalition, which has been enthusiastically current pro-occupation.

Despite Canada's official stance of non-participation in the invasion of Iraq, another Canadian general has been sent to work with the command group overseeing the US-led occupation and counterinsurgency war. Brigadier-General Nicolas Matern of the Special Forces is the third Canadian general to serve in the command group, as part of an inter-military exchange program. According to a report from the US State Dept., "the governments of the United States and Canada collaborated on a broad array of initiatives, exercises, and joint operations that spanned virtually all agencies and every level of government."

An anti-Olympics speaking tour visited 18 cities and Indigenous communities, calling attention to destruction caused by development fuelled by the Olympics. "There is an infrastructure being created for 2010 that will result in the further destruction of mountains and valleys that are traditionally Salish, St’at’imc, and Squamish territory," said Dustin Johnson. Resistance to "Sun Peaks" development on Secwepemc lands, one of many areas affected by the Olympics, extends back a decade. There have been dozens of arrests, and government-supervised destruction of a house and two traditional sweatlodges. Johnson and Kanahus Pellkey of the Native Youth Movement are calling for direct action to shut down the Olympic Games.

Itchy the Bedbug, Creepy the Cockroach and Chewy the Rat will be the official mascots of Vancouver's Poverty Olympics. Organizers, who hope to draw attention to Vancouver's "world class poverty," decried the lack of funding for social housing and the devastating effect of rapid gentrification on Vancouver's vast population of poor and homeless.

A recent report estimated that between 8,000 and 15,500 British Columbia residents are "absolutely homeless," while an estimated 39,000 are "inadequately housed." BC Forest and Housing Minister Rich Coleman had previously estimated the number of homeless at roughly 5,000.

A Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) report warned of the possibility of "violent protests" during the Olympic Games in 2010. The heavily-censored public version of the report has raised concerns about "how far CSIS will go." "We're more than a little worried about the potential for infiltration of non-profit societies and legitimate protest groups," a representative of the BC Civil Liberties Association told the Canadian Press. The Anti-Poverty Committee (APC) is one of the groups targeted by police and intelligence agencies. APC representative Mary Claremont said, "This is what we have been protesting... the coming Olympic police state. People thought we were nuts, but look, from 40 kilometers of electric fence, surveillance cameras, civil city, CSIS... it's here."

A group of academics and media watch groups filed a complaint with the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC), alleging that media coverage of the attempted deportation of Laibar Singh was "not accurate... or comprehensive". CBC TV, CBC Radio, CKNW, CTV, and Global TV are cited in the complaint, which states that Singh was falsely said to have come to Canada "illegally" or that he "was illegal" in Canada prior to taking sanctuary. The complaint says that repetition of falsities despite widely available accurate information "fuelled ignorance in the public sphere and has negatively influenced perceptions of Mr. Laibar Singh and all asylum seekers to Canada."

Security Certificate detainee Mohammed Harkat was seized, then released again by Police and Canadian Border Services agents. Widely referred to in media reports as a "terrorism suspect" Harkat is being held without charges under Bill C-3, "anti-terrorism" legislation passed after September 11, 2001. "I think it's a political move," Sophie Harkat told the Ottawa Citizen in an interview, adding that the government seeks to "stir fear" in the leadup to a vote over bill C-3. If the government does not vote to renew Bill C-3 before the end of March, existing security certificates--including the one under which Harkat is being held--will be struck down, in keeping with a Supreme Court ruling that found the legislation unconstitutional.

Alberta tar sands giant Suncor has given final approval for a plan to increase output by 200,000 barrels per day in a $20 billion expansion project. The company says that the increase is part of a plan to double the company's output to 550,000 barrels per day by 2012.

Energy company TransCanada has moved forward with plans to build a natural gas pipeline across unceded territory belonging to the Lubicon Cree. In a letter to TransCanada, Lubicon legal counsel F. M. Lennarson wrote that the "response of the Lubicon people is that they are the aboriginal owners of the land that TransCanada wishes to violate with this huge new pipeline." The pipeline will transport natural gas to the tar sands, allowing for expanded tar sands processing capacity.

Ecuadorian officials revoked a total of 587 mining concessions effectively cancelling Canadian-based Ascendant Copper’s bid to the controversial Junin Project. The transnational corporation is under intense scrutiny for impacts on local communities and environmental degradation. Human rights lawyers contend that the mere purchase of the mining concession is in breach of community members’ rights, and Ecuador’s constitution.

Canadian mining financier Frank Giustra was at the center of a political scandal in the United States involving Bill Clinton and a mining deal in Kazakhstan potentially worth tens of millions of dollars. According to the New York Times, Giustra gained access to Clinton's inner circle after he donated $31 million dollars to the former US President's foundation. Giustra subsequently accompanied Clinton on a trip to Kazakhstan, where he signed a deal that "stunned the mining industry, turning an unknown shell company into one of the world’s largest uranium producers," according to the Times.

George Habash, Palestinian leader, and founder of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), died January 26th, 2008 at the age of eighty-two after six decades of struggle. Habash dreamt of Arab unity and an end to the dispossession of Palestinians. Seen by supporters as “the conscience of the Palestinian revolution,” Habash effected his politic treating the poor for free as a medical doctor, and through the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, the largest secular resistance group in Palestine. U.S., Canadian, and Israeli governments have branded Habash as a terrorist for bombings and hijackings carried out by the PFLP during the 1970’s. Many Palestinians, however will remember Habash as a man who “embodied Palestinian and Arab aspirations.”

Despite reports of rising environmental consciousness among Canadians, car ownership and usage is on the rise. A study conducted by Statistics Canada found that 74 per cent of Canadian adults made all of their trips by car. A similar study in 1998 found 70 per cent using cars for all of their trips, while the number was 68 per cent in 1992. The study found a strong connection between low density neighbourhoods and high car use, while those living in high-density neighbourhoods were relatively far less likely to use cars.

Representatives from Venezuela's grassroots social movements gathered to discuss ways to advance a grassroots socialist agenda, while addressing growing bureaucracy within the Chavez-led government. "There is a reformist sector that has been working internally to construct a force to build a counterweight to the revolutionary sector that is in the government," said one participant. Another spoke of a "return to the street," adding "we didn't realize that the bureaucracy isolated us from this reality and this deterioration in which we are living."

In response to the ongoing Israeli siege of Gaza, a convoy of Arab and Israeli peace activists held a demonstration of between 1500 and 2000 at the Eretz border crossing, calling for an end to the Israeli siege of the Gaza strip and the immediate lifting of the blockade of badly needed medical equipment, fuel, and food. The demonstration, which was organized by organizations such as Gush-Shalom and the International Coalition Against House Demolitions, was held in conjunction with the delivery of 5 tons of food aid to the border crossing near Gaza city. A demonstration of 200 Palestinians was held in Gaza at the same time, from which speeches were broadcast to the Eretz gathering via amplified cellphones. The Israeli military barred the aid supplies from entry into Gaza, ordering that they be stored at a nearby Kibbutz. Organizers have pledged to petition the Israeli supreme court in order to allow the aid supplies to be delivered to Gaza, where 83 Palestinians, including 16 children, have died due to the ongoing Israeli siege.

NYM Speaking Tour

Haldimand Tract

Freedom of Expression in Afghanistan

dru — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 03:58:44 +0000

Restrictive laws, self-censorship keep criticism to a minimum

After the collapse of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, as President Hamid Karzai came to power, one of the promising things he did was to declare freedom of the media.

Soon a Media Law was ratified ensuring more freedom of the media under which individuals could run independent papers, publications, radios and TVs. But still some of the articles in the Media Law were controversial and could still bring all other articles of the media law under question. Under such articles, no one has the right to write or say anything that is considered against "national interests." But there is no clear definition of what national interests are that journalists must not touch. In the media law it is also stated that no one can write or say anything that affronts Islam. Such articles can easily be misused by the enemies of free media.

Under the media law a commission was set up to deal with journalistic violations of the media law, however, because the minister of information and culture himself chaired the commission, the decisions of the commission in most cases were biased in favour of those in power. The commission soon came under severe criticism after which some other
representatives from civil society organizations were included among its membership. This again did not work due to the face that the minister still headed up this commission and the independent members were a minority.

The government itself has proved not to be in favour of freedom of expression. Proof of this can be found in the Press Guidelines paper that was distributed to the free media runners last year in which it was stated that no media could run information about suicide attacks of the Taliban on the news headline, nor could they criticize the US-lead coalition, and no one could air and publish news that would decrease people's morale and spirit.

This letter was distributed by the Afghan intelligence to the media and came under severe criticism after President Karzai, in his speech in Madrid conference, highlighted freedom of the media in Afghanistan as one of the greatest achievement of his administration. Interestingly, the spokesman of the president later claimed that he did not know that the intelligence had issued such a letter. This could mean that there are still fragments of power in Afghanistan and powerful individuals in the government that can unilaterally take individual action against journalists and the free media.

Self-censorship is another big enemy of freedom of expression in Afghanistan, one that prevents writers and journalists from expressing certain things. As an example, recently Afghanistan's last king Zahir Shah passed away. All private TV channels felt forced to make exclusive programmes about him and in the ensuing round table discussions only people who would speak in favour of the king were invited. No one could utter a word about his negative points. The fear among the media was that Zahir Shah has been declared the Father of the Nation in Afghanistan's constitution, and those who dared speak against him could be arrested on the charge of insulting him.

I remember a few years ago, when Dr. Sima Samar, the head of Afghanistan's Independent Human Rights Commission, had spoken of secularism in her interview with a Canadian newspaper. Soon after her interview was made public in Afghanistan, papers belonging to the Mujahiddin denounced her heavily and attacked her in several articles, describing her as the "Salman Rushdie of Afghanistan" meaning the enemy and insulter of Islam in Afghanistan. She could do nothing but keep quiet and wait for the media noise to cool down. Finally, all she could say to the media was that her words have been misunderstood and that she hadn't meant to insult Islam. Even after this noise died down, she had to keep bodyguards in her presence at all times, and was forced to severely restrict her movements.

But perhaps the biggest challenge to independent media in Afghanistan is the lack of unity among the so called defenders of freedom of expression in Afghanistan. There are several organizations in Afghanistan working in the field of defending freedom of expression: Afghanistan PEN centre a branch of International PEN, Centre for International Journalism, Committee to defend Afghan Journalists, Afghanistan National Journalists Union and others. It is very important for all of these organizations to be united and to defend each other's rights. Unfortunately, many of them have their own ethnic and linguistic divisions which prevents them from unifying. Only if they are able to unite, despite their differences, and defend each other's rights to freedom of expression, can one be hopeful for the future of freedom of expression in this country. Otherwise, this notion will be just a fragile dream.

The fighters of freedom of expression are in dire need of moral support from the international community. Currently there are some elements within the Afghan parliament and government trying to revise the media law in order to enforce more restrictions upon journalists and free thinkers.

As Canada is one of the main countries involved in Afghanistan's reconstruction, I believe Canadians can play an important role by urging their government officials, particularly those who visit Afghanistan, to keep reminding the Afghan president of his obligations to protect freedom of the media in the country. Such a pressure from the international community, including Canada, can prevent the Afghan government from taking the wrong decisions to repress free media and strangle the throat of freedom of expression.

Waheed Warasta is the Executive Director of the Afghanistan PEN Centre in Kabul. He also served as coordinator of the Open Media Fund for Afghanistan.

Kids with Radio

Indigenous Rights and the Mayan Victory in Belize

dru — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 07:35:48 +0000

Implications for Indigenous Title Rights in Canada

On 18 October 2007, the Supreme Court of Belize ruled in Cal v. Attorney General that the national government must recognize the indigenous Mayans’ customary tenure to land and refrain from any act that might prejudice their use or enjoyment of this land. The landmark Supreme Court ruling which recognizes the rights of Indigenous Peoples to their land was a great victory for Mayan communities in Belize.

The decision is the first judgment rendered with reference to United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (DRIP), adopted on 13 September 2007 by the UN General Assembly. As such, the Belizean Supreme Court judgement could have legal repercussions abroad.

In 2001, the Belize government began giving rights to logging, oil, and hydro-electric concerns on traditional Mayan lands, denying Mayan farmers access to their ancestral land.

The Chief Justice of Belize, Abdulai Conteh, stated that British colonial and subsequent acquisition of land in Belize did not abrogate the Mayan people’s primordial rights to their land.

In his judgement, Conteh upheld that “the Maya people live, farm, hunt and fish; collect medicinal plants, construction materials and other forest resources; and engage in ceremonies and other activities on land within and around their communities; and that these practices have evolved over centuries from patterns of land use and occupancy of the Maya people.”

Conteh found the Maya had a “complex traditional set of land tenure regulations.” Furthermore, “all attempts to divide up the customary village land into arbitrary-sized parcels are doomed to fail to establish a stable land-tenure regime” because the Mayan lifestyle “requires access to a variety of land types in order to grow and gather all the crops and resources they need to survive in any given year.”

Conteh held that Mayan rights to occupy their lands, farm, hunt and fish pre-date European colonization and remain in force today. Conteh noted, “[A] mere change in sovereignty does not extinguish native title to land. … Extinguishment or rights to or interests in land is not to be lightly inferred.”

Referring to Delgamuukw v British Columbia, Conteh said, “Indigenous title is now correctly regarded as sui generis.” In other words, the very fact of Original Peoples having inhabited a land over time confers land title rights to the Original Peoples.

In his decision, Conteh cited the Belizean Constitution and several international legal precedents that affirmed the existence of Indigenous Peoples’ collective rights to their land, resources, and environment.

While agreeing the DRIP is non-binding, Conteh argued that principles of general international law contained in the declaration should be respected. Moreover, he noted, the DRIP was adopted by an “overwhelming number” of states thus reflecting “the growing consensus and the general principles of international law on indigenous peoples and their lands and resources.”

Conteh focused on Article 26-1 of DRIP, which states: “Indigenous peoples have the right to the lands, territories and resources which they have traditionally owned, occupied or otherwise used or acquired.”

Based on this and other legal law and precedents, he ordered the government of Belize to “determine, demarcate and provide official documentation of Santa Cruz’s and Conejo’s [two Mayan villages] title and rights in accordance with Maya customary law and practices.” He also ordered the government to desist from any logging, mining or other resource exploitation projects on Mayan land.

Although the Canadian government -- along with Aotearoa (New Zealand), Australia, and the United States -- rejected the DRIP, law students and faculty from the University of Toronto had a hand in Cal v. Attorney General. The UT group worked on behalf of the Mayan farmers researching, gathering evidence, and considering external comparative law. Toronto lawyer Paul Schabas also contributed his expertise pro bono to the Mayan case in 2006.

UT Faculty of Law Dean Mayo Moran gushed, “The faculty of law is proud of the extraordinary commitment that faculty, students, and our law firm partner, Blakes, have made to this case … The Supreme Court of Belize will now have the opportunity to set an important precedent in the area of indigenous rights of the Maya of Belize and U of T’s Human Rights Clinic will play an important role in the court’s deliberations.”

Also involved were the faculty and law students at the University of Arizona. The UA law professors held that landmark case would probably aid the cause of indigenous peoples elsewhere.

UA College of Law Dean Toni Massaro, like her UT counterpart was proud of UA’s connection to Cal v. Attorney General. Massaro said:

“Ideas that take root in one place can -- and often do -- migrate. This suit was based on a concept of property rights that has possible theoretical and practical implications for people across the globe, and here in the United States, who analyze property across time, across cultures, across legal systems. I expect many to take notice of the Belize case in the years ahead.”

Belize

Canada's Mining Continuum

dru — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 05:02:53 +0000

Resources, Community Resistance and "Development" in Oaxaca

CAPULÁLPAM DE MENDEZ, OAXACA -- It is an open secret that throughout the Americas and the world, people are struggling against the intrusion of Canadian mining companies and their short term "get the gold and get out" strategies. The backlash against Canadian mining companies has, in some cases (particularly in Guatemala and Peru), strengthened broader social and political movements re-vindicating local control over land. In Oaxaca, Mexico, the struggle against a Vancouver based mining company is unifying an isolated Zapotec community, and bringing their struggles to state and nation-wide attention.

* * *

"Welcome to Ixlán: Our land is communal land, not to be bought or sold," pronounces a rusting billboard just outside regional centre of Ixlán, 60km north of the Southern Mexican state of Oaxaca’s capital city, Oaxaca de Juarez.

A couple of bumpy, graveled kilometers from Ixlán lies Capulálpam, a remote mountain village flanked by locally owned riverside eco-tourism getaways. The town center is but a square block, as the majority of community members are rural indigenous Zapotec farmers, who farm to support their families.

"The whole territory of Capulálpam is communally owned," explains Francisco Garcia López, a member of Capulálpam’s Commission of Communal Goods, standing on a rock above a river valley and indicating with a sweep of his arm the forests, rivers and mountains that comprise the municipality.

He then points down to a series of white buildings, with mining carts on tracks leading to openings into the earth.

"For 230 years, gold and silver mining companies have been exploiting tunnels in the mountains," he explains.

Thousands of people from Calpulálpam worked in the mine, until the union was broken in 1993. Only a few hundred people, mostly from the nearby town of Natividad, stayed on. In the last few years, there has been little activity at the mine.

Today, residents of Calpulálpam as well as former miners from the town have agreed that reopening the mine will not benefit the community. "The quantity and quality of our water supplies have been negatively affected by mining activity, that’s the main reason we’re demanding the cancellation of all mining concessions in our communal land," says López.

Skyrocketing gold prices, favorable mining laws and a recent flood of speculation-linked financing for junior mining companies have opened up the way for Vancouver-based Continuum Resources to buy up the majority of the mining concessions in the state of Oaxaca. The reactivation of the historic "Natividad" site, reportedly Oaxaca’s richest gold and silver mine, has been spearheaded by Continuum, majority owners in a joint venture which started up in 2004 with a Mexican firm. At the Natividad project alone, Continuum holds more than 54,000 hectares of concessions.

Underneath the entrance to the mine, an area where waste rock, chemicals and tailings have been thrown directly into the river below for centuries looks like a sagging black stain on the hillside. But it gets worse. Out of service electrical transformers, once used to power the mining operation, are now generating toxic Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), which community members fear could be entering the water system.

According to López, over the last few years, 13 streams have disappeared completely because of Continuum’s exploration activities. The National Water Commission (Conagua) has confirmed that during the course of their activities, Continuum Resources captured underground water, which resulted in the disappearance of springs. The company maintains that "the mine and the mining activity are not responsible for the disappearance of the springs."

"People in Capulálpam know that mining isn’t sustainable" says Aldo Gonzales Rojas, a member of the Union of Organizations of the Sierra Juarez (UNOSJO), an organization devoted to popular education and farmer-to-farmer outreach. In addition to dried up springs and contaminated water, "people can’t use sand from the rivers anymore because it’s contaminated, nor can we capture the frogs that are part of our diet without leaving our traditional territory," says Rojas.

Roadblock for Negotiation

"All of our complaints to the government were falling on deaf ears," says López, referring to the dozens of attempts by the municipal council and community organizations to have the federal or state government intervene in environmental conflicts with the company.

In October of 2007, the Federal Environmental Protection Agency (Profepa) ordered Continuum to halt all exploitation activities at Natividad due to environmental complaints. Locals were glad that the government stepped in, but remained concerned that the company would continue exploration work.

"We decided to take collective action," says López, referring to the decision by members of the community, including the mayor, to block the main highway out of Oaxaca City.

"On October 16th, we blocked the highway with fifty pickup trucks for five hours, demanding the permanent closure of the Natividad mine." They withdrew the roadblock once a working dialogue with the Secretary of Economy, the sub-Secretary of Government and Profepa was agreed upon.

Profepa issued another document in November of 2007, noting that among other infractions, Continuum had not carried out hydro-geological studies required of it, because "[the company] lacks permission from the authorities of Capulálpam to enter in their jurisdiction or territory."

Continuum acknowledges in official documents that it has received environmental complaints and that Natividad has been subject to temporary closure. The company does not appear to have adopted a protocol on corporate social responsibility.

Mexico has ratified the International Labour Organization’s Convention 169, on Indigenous and Tribal Peoples, Article 16 of which reads "In cases in which the State retains the ownership of mineral or sub-surface resources or rights to other resources pertaining to lands, governments shall establish or maintain procedures through which they shall consult these peoples, with a view to ascertaining whether and to what degree their interests would be prejudiced, before undertaking or permitting any programmes for the exploration or exploitation of such resources pertaining to their lands."

López, a lifetime resident of Capulálpam, says that neither the government of Mexico nor the company has consulted with the people of the village. The main prospects for Continuum’s expansion of the Natividad mine lay under communally owned property in Capulálpam.

"Protest and Violence" in Context

"Investors may be aware that political and social tension has lead to incidences of protest and violence in Oaxaca over the past six months," warns a promotional piece for Continuum Resources prepared by Fundamental Research Corporation in April of 2007.

In her new book The Shock Doctrine, Naomi Klein summarizes recent events in Oaxaca in the context of popular resistance to the current economic model in Mexico. Klein writes, "...the right wing government sent in riot police to break a strike by teachers who were demanding an annual pay raise. It provoked a statewide rebellion against the corruption of the corporatist state that raged for months."

The scale of repression is captured in part by Mexico’s National Human Rights Commission, which reports that stemming from the repression of the teachers’ strike in Oaxaca, between June and December 2006 20 people were killed, 25 people were disappeared, 349 people were detained and 370 people were wounded. The report notes that "the sections of the Federal Preventative Police (PFP) that intervened to restore public order have used repetitive and excessive violence."

The International Civilian Commission for Human Rights Observation describes the state repression of the uprising as "a juridical, police, and military strategy... whose final objective is to intimidate and gain control over the civilian population."

Stripped of its context, the "protest and violence" referred to in Continuum’s promotional material is rendered innocuous, and the company unabashedly capitalizes on it: "While other companies have shied away from exploration due to the violence in Oaxaca, Continuum has been able to acquire highly prospective properties with very large land areas due to a lack of interest there."

Continuum has made good off of "protest and violence," doing deals with Oaxaca’s corporatist governments, and joining a host of other mining companies, like Vancouver’s Eurasian Minerals in Haiti and others in Colombia, aiming to make a profit in parts of the Americas where repression and violence are often directed against popular movements.

Oaxaca, 2008

In the city of Oaxaca today, there is little more than graffiti as physical evidence of the 2006 rebellion. The full-scale repression intended to decimate the popular movements seems to have worked, at least temporarily.

On my first evening in Ixlán, I went to a gathering place behind the church to watch a fireworks display in honor of the city’s patron saint. Less than a block away was a military jeep with six heavily armed soldiers, monitoring the crowd.

A man approached me, and noticed I was looking at what seemed like too many soldiers for a small town festival. "They’re not here to protect us," he said quietly, "they’re scared of us. We supported the resistance in Oaxaca City, they know we’re strong."

For his work advocating for the rights of the 70,000 Zapotec people in the Sierra Juarez, as well as his stand in solidarity with the popular uprising in Oaxaca in 2006, Aldo Rojas from UNOSJO has received email death threats from unidentified individuals, and has reportedly appeared on military black lists, accused of being a guerilla.

Rojas continues his work for justice in the area, as do the citizens of Capulálpam, regardless of intimidation from a government that has proven it is willing to kill, torture and imprison its citizens in the name of control.

It is in this climate of "protest and violence" that Continuum Resources is determined to carry its project forward, and the likelihood is that the mainstream media and the Canadian Government rallies behind them in promoting the extractive industry’s "development" model in Southern/Indigenous territory.

For communities struggling against the extractive industries, consensus around who benefits and who pays is perhaps more easily reached than it is around other issues. As the popular Latin American folk song reminds us, "El pueblo, unido, jamás será vencido/The people, united, will never be defeated."

Mural Oaxaca

Francisco Garcia López

Mining site near Ixlán

December in Review

Stuart Neatby — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 00:32:31 +0000

Halted deportations, Lakota secession, and social tension in Latin America

In Vancouver, 1500 demonstrators effectively paralysed the Vancouver International Airport and halted the planned deportation of 48-year old paralysed Punjabi refugee Laibar Singh on December 10-- international Human Rights Day. The vast majority of the supporters were members of Vancouver’s Sikh community, who had been mobilizing and campaigning against Singh’s impending deportation to India for months, while he lived in sanctuary within a Sikh temple. On January 9, a second attempt by the Canadian Border Services Agency to deport Singh was thwarted after officials showed up at the Nanak Sikh Temple in Surrey at 4AM to find 300 of Singh’s supporters blocking the entrance to the temple. Singh’s supporters have argued that he should remain in Canada on Humanitarian and Compassionate grounds due to his medical needs.

The Canadian Supreme Court ruled that the Safe Third Country Agreement-- legislation that has cut refugees' eligibility to remain in Canada-- was illegal. The STCA, enacted by the Martin government, prohibits political refugees from remaining in Canada if they have landed first in the US. The ruling declared that the United States could not be deemed a “safe” country for refugees due to its violations of the UN Convention Against Torture and the Refugee Convention.

The Lakota Sioux nation made steps to legally secede from the United States on December 20 in Washington after Lakota representatives withdrew from all treaties signed with the US. Following years of discussions amongst treaty representatives within the various Lakota communities throughout Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota and Montana, the notice of withdrawal from the 1851 and 1868 Fort Laramie Treaties was hand-delivered by a four-member Lakota delegation to Daniel Turner, Deputy Director of Public Liaison at the US State Department. According to delegation members, the legal basis for this withdrawa stands with the continuous violation of the 1851 and 1868 treaties by the United States, as well as the conditions of extreme poverty that exist within the Lakota communities.

Environmentalists have perhaps won a partial victory after the United States and Canada both backed down from their obstructionist positions at the UN Climate Change Summit in Bali. After the summit was extended an extra day, Canadian Environment Minister John Baird, who had been dogged by a delegation of Canadian youth activists throughout the week, reversed his original position against a binding target of 25 to 40 per cent reductions of carbon emissions from wealthy countries by the year 2020. The United States also agreed in the end to endorse the “Bali roadmap,” although only after the section requiring binding targets for all nations to collectively reduce carbon emissions was removed. Some environmentalists have argued that the summit’s key failing was the “single-minded focus on getting Washington on board,” to the detriment of actually achieving firm carbon-reduction targets.

In Haiti, grassroots leader Rene Civil was released after spending 20 months in prison. Civil was a member of the Lavalas party of former Haitian president Jean-Bertrand Aristide and was also a leader of the Popular Power Youth (JPP), a grassroots organization of youth from poor communities. Civil was arrested in August 2006, shortly after organizing a demonstration calling for the release of political prisoners and the return to the country of Aristide. However, another grassroots activist, Wilson Mesilien, acting director of the September 30th foundation, a human rights organization, was recently forced into hiding after receiving death threats. Mesilien’s predecessor, Lovinsky Pierre-Antoine, remains at large after he was kidnapped by unknown figures last August. The US and Canadian governments took part in the military overthrow of Aristide in 2004, and Canadian RCMP officials currently head the UN training program for the Haitian National Police, which is accused by Haitians and international observers of human rights abuses including mass murder, sex trafficking and rape.

In Pakistan, in the midst of political turmoil in the week following the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, the United States government announced it would approve the nearly five-hundred million dollar sale of eighteen Lockheed Martin fighter jets to the regime of Pervez Musharraf. Although no definitive investigation has been carried out of Bhutto’s murder (the Pakistani President has refused to allow a UN investigation of the killing), many of Bhutto’s supporters, as well as Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton, have expressed belief that elements of Pakistan’s military may have been behind the assassination, and have criticized the continued sale of arms to the regime.

A new report issued by the Canadian Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade has found that Canadian arms sales reached $700 million, the highest levels ever recorded, in 2003. This figure did not include sales made to the US which, if counted, would have brought the total sales of Canadian arms to over $2 billion. According to Ken Epps, an arms control researcher with Project Ploughshares, many of these sales were made to countries with dubious human rights records, such as Colombia, China, and Saudi Arabia. Epps also noted that the Pakistani military purchased $250 million worth of helicopters from Canada between 2004 and 2005.

The Bush administration’s case for war with Iran was dealt a severe blow after sixteen different US intelligence agencies concluded that the country had ended its nuclear weapons more than four years ago. Despite this, George W. Bush, claimed publicly that he still believed Iran to be a threat to the United States. The completion of the report by the National Intelligence Agency had reportedly been held up and postponed by vice-President Dick Cheney for two months.

In Toronto, a new report by the provincial government has found that, despite crackdowns, 31,000 people currently receive a "special diet" supplement designed for welfare recipients with medical dietary needs. The supplement, valued at $250 extra dollars for food per month, is an obscure and often overlooked government program. The Ontario Coalition Against Poverty (OCAP) has publicly set up special diet clinics throughout the city and province in recent years, arguing that individuals on welfare live in conditions of state-sponsored poverty, which limits their dietary health. Over the last two years, this campaign effectively redirected over $30 million of provincial revenue into the hands of the province's poorest residents.

Recent reports from human rights organizations in Chiapas, Mexico indicate that the Mexican government is ramping up its military presence in regions under heavy influence of the indigenous Zapatista Liberation Army. According to the Centre for Political Analysis and Social and Economic Research, a human rights NGO based in Chiapas, there has been a marked increase in the presence of military and paramilitary deployments within this Southern Mexican state which, coupled with an increase in expropriations of land occupied by indigenous Mayan sympathizers of the Zapatistas, has prompted IPS News to dub this escalation “the worst onslaught by state forces in the last 10 years.” Since the 1994 uprising by the Zapatistas, indigenous self-rule has been quietly built within the region, as the Zapatistas have established their own health, education and development programmes, while forming their own governing “caracoles,” or good-government councils.

In Bolivia, clashes continued between middle- to upper-class supporters of the the Democratic and Social Power (PODEMOS) political party and the social movements and indigenous communities united under the Movement Towards Socialism (MAS) of current president Evo Morales. Partisans of the right-leaning PODEMOS, which include the governors of four eastern departments, have been staging blockades, strikes, and demonstrations for months against the proposed constitutional changes championed by Morales and the social forces united under the MAS, largely movements of the country’s majority poor and indigenous peoples. The constitution would grant the central government greater control over the country’s rich natural resources, but would also guarantee expanded autonomy for departmental governments and indigenous communities. The opposition disagrees with the limitations on land ownership established in the document, as well as the redirection of departmental gas revenues to a new National Pension Fund for all citizens of the country over the age of sixty. Late last month, the opposition has declared autonomy from the central government for the city of Santa Cruz, establishing a new police force, television station and special ID cards.

The Ontario government finally announced that the province will be returning the Ipperwash Provincial Park lands to the Chippewas of Kettle and Stony Point First Nations. This announcement follows the conclusion of the Ipperwash inquiry into the 1995 Ontario Provincial Police killing of Dudley George last May. The land was originally expropriated from the Stony Point band in 1942 to allow the federal government to build a military base.

First Nations survivors of the Canadian residential school system received their first cheques as part of a $2 billion compensation settlement for the collective experience of mass sexual and physical abuse suffered by indigenous children at Catholic-run schools between the 1950s and 1980s. Eighty thousands First Nations people are eligible for this compensation, which is paid in lump sums, and which amount to an average of $28,000. This amount, however, only accounts for the federal government’s portion of the settlement; The Catholic church is also responsible for paying 30% of the settlement. Although viewed by residential school survivors as an important milestone in the process of achieving justice, the size of the settlement pales when compared to a similar settlement given to Australian aboriginals of the “Stolen Generation,” whose treatment at the hands of their government throughout the twentieth century bears many striking similarities to that of the Canadian aboriginal experience.

In New Orleans, police attacked, tazered and pepper-sprayed public housing residents who had arrived at city hall to take part in a “public hearing” about the proposed demolition of 5000 public housing units in the city. In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, there remains a homeless population of 12,000 within New Orleans. City Hall and private developers have nonetheless intensified efforts to demolish public housing in order to make way for commercial property and high-priced condominiums. Police had initially erected a metal gate around city hall, prohibiting public housing residents from entering the building. Fifteen were arrested in total as the council passed the motion in favour of the demolitions. Residents have pledged to continue fighting, and have called for supporters to travel to the region and take part in a campaign of direct actions against these home demolitions.

Officials in India have conceded that the construction of the World Bank-backed Narmada Dam is illegal. Shri Afroz Ahmad of the Narmada Control Authority admitted that the construction of the dam to the height of 121.9 metres has led to the illegal submergence of houses and farms, particularly those of the Bhil tribal people, many of whom have been struggling against the construction of this mega-dam for more than twenty years. Critics of the dam have demanded that its size be reduced in order to avoid flooding still further indigenous communities, and continue to fight for land for those who have been displaced by the dam’s construction.

Hundreds of trade union demonstrators gathered in Toronto to protest the proposed Canada-Colombia Free Trade Agreement, while approximately 30-40 activists with the Canadian Union of Public Employees picketed the office of former Foreign Affairs Minister Peter Mackay in New Glasgow, Nova Scotia. Critics from trade unions, human rights organizations, and ecumenical organizations in Canada have argued that this trade deal has been negotiated in complete secrecy, after a dramatically similar trade deal between the US and Colombia met with overwhelming opposition within Congress due to human rights concerns. Colombia currently has the worst human rights record of any country in the Western Hemisphere, and more trade unionists are killed in the region than in the rest of the world combined. Little has been made public about this trade agreement, nor of the timeline for its implementation, but public officials have speculated that the trade pact could be completed within the next few weeks. Many Colombian activists have argued that this trade agreement encourages para-military political violence against indigenous peoples, trade unionists, afro-Colombian communities, and poor people within resource-rich territories, and also provides the framework to “legalize and legitimize” this economic and political terrorism. Meanwhile, reports of increased military and para-military attacks upon indigenous protests against land expropriation have emerged from the Southwest Cauca in recent weeks.

African political leaders have rejected a neo-liberal trade agreement with the European Union, which would have forced punitive duties upon imported goods from the continent, such as sugar, meat and bananas, which would have competed with European producers. The “Economic Partnership Agreements” have been the subject of protests by trade unions and social movements throughout the continent, and were voted down during an EU-Africa summit in Lisbon. The increased amount of investment from China in Africa has likely provided the subcontinent with a greater amount of breathing room in negotiating such trade deals in recent years.

Lakota Map

Laibar Singh and Supporters

Placing Curfews on Themselves

dru — Sun, 13 Jan 2008 18:40:56 +0000

Israel and America don't have to worry when Palestinians repress their own protesters

RAMALLAH -- It is a sad day when one observes a Palestinian member of the security force tearing a sign that reads “end the occupation.” This was what took place during the anti-Bush protest in Ramallah. Observing the current situation in Palestine, I admire the will and perseverance of the Palestinian people, who are met with inconveniences and disturbances on a daily basis.

George Bush’s visit to the occupied Palestinian territories on January 10, 2007 illustrated the grim reality on the ground created by Abu Mazen’s takeover of the West Bank. Walking in the streets, many Palestinians remarked that it felt they were under curfew as they were during the days of the intifada.

Most shops and roads were closed and Palestinian residents were cautious to leave their homes. Some could not, even if they wished to. These road closures and curfews were not enforced by the Israeli military, but rather by our very own Palestinian government in cooperation with the United States and Israel. In the main square of Ramallah, known as Al Manara Circle, one needed permission to take pictures. I, along with a young Palestinian student, learned this after our passports and cameras were confiscated.

Neither Bush nor Israel have nothing to worry about. Abu Mazen and his gang are doing a phenomenal job in maintaining order and crushing any form of resistance or civil disobedience in the West Bank. Even before Bush’s arrival, the Palestinian Authority (PA) took precautionary steps to ensure that Bush’s visit would be as smooth as possible. Two days before Bush's arrival, two helicopters landed in the Muqataa’, Yasser Arafat's former compound and his current burial ground. The people who guarded the Muqataa’ during Bush’s visit came from outside a day or two before, while Palestinian police guarded the outside. Roads were dug and repaved, and every sewer in Ramallah was checked for security purposes.

Residents living around the Muqataa’ particularity felt the high security alert and curfews as they were told that for their own security not to open the windows of their homes or climb their rooftops. In case of an emergency, residents were given a number to call in which a helicopter would come and take them from their homes. A curfew was imposed in these closed areas from 3am until 4pm and residents were not allowed to move by car or foot. Some residents in this area were even placed in hotels. When the high security alert was at its peak, the stress and anxiety was palpable in the streets of Ramallah.

Bush met Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) in the Muqataa’, and the Palestinian political elite welcomed him as a man of peace and a president that would help create a viable Palestinian state by January 2009. At the same time, at least 1,000 protesters took to the streets for an anti-Bush demonstration, despite a ban on public protests. Protesters were gathered at Ramallah's Orthodox Club, not too far from the presidential compound, and attempted to move towards the Clock Square but were violently pushed back by Palestinian security forces.

In addition 25 protesters were seized by Palestinian security forces, of whom ten were arrested and two injured and taken to the government hospital in Ramallah. Bashir Kahyri, a senior leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PLFP) who served 16 years in an Israeli prison, was treated in the hospital for a fractured shoulder. Another demonstrator suffered from a broken nose while others were being treated in the hospital for tear gas suffocation.

I am a Canadian-Palestinian that has attended countless demonstrations in Montreal, and it was the first time I had attend a protest in Palestine. It was disheartening to see the way the Fatah-allied PA is dealing with its Palestinian citizens protesting Bush’s policies in the region. Demonstrators were met by pepper spray and clubs and security forces began tearing posters and banners. Arguments broke out between the security forces and the citizens. The latter decried the shame of Palestinians denying other Palestinians from their right to protest, and taking over the role of the occupation forces.

The demonstrators remained and continued to chant in Arabic slogans such as "CIA out," and "Bush not welcome." For Mahmoud Abbas demonstrators chanted that "Palestine is one nation" and even turned against security forces saying "enough from the police." Later, Palestinian women sat down in defiance of police demands to move and disperse and instead began to sing national songs such as the Palestinian national anthem among others.

Seeing Palestinian people stand against Bush renewed my faith and re-instilled hope for continued resistance against imperial policies in Palestine and a "peace" forced on the Palestinians that in no way would bring justice to the people. Unfortunately for Palestinians citizens in the West Bank, the Palestinian quasi-state that Abu Mazen is attempting to create already seems to mirror other corrupt Arab regimes in the region that ban its people from protesting. To deny one of the few means of fighting for political and social justice is to jeopardize the very essence of the Palestinian cause and its resistance.

Palestinian Women

Anti-Bush Demonstrators in Ramallah

Palestinian Women 2

Police Seize Protester

Hospital

Ripped Placard

Echoes of Revolution: Burkina Faso's Thomas Sankara

dru — Sun, 13 Jan 2008 05:02:31 +0000

Part I: Interview with Aziz Fall

Thomas Sankara, the former president of Burkina Faso, a political leader renowned across Africa as a revolutionary, died 20 years ago in an assassination that sent political shock waves across the continent, marking a critical moment for progressive social movements in Africa.

Burkina Faso, a small western African nation formally known as Upper Volta, was renamed Burkina Faso, meaning “the land of upright people,” after the 1983 revolution that brought Thomas Sankara's government to power.

As president, Sankara actively appealed for pan-African self-determination, for the full cancellation of foreign national debts across the continent and for liberation from apartheid in South Africa.

"The question of debt is the question of Africa’s economic situation, as much as peace; this question is an important condition of our survival," Sankara said as president.

"The debt cannot be repaid. If we do not pay, our creditors will not die. We can be sure of that. On the other hand, if we pay, it is we who will die. Of that we can be equally sure."

In 2007, Thomas Sankara remains a powerful symbol within grassroots social movements in Africa, as the 1983 revolution of Burkina Faso catapulted an alternative vision of African development onto the world stage.

Revolution in Burkina Faso led to a national development model rooted in "self-reliance" and social solidarity.

Burkina Faso presented a radically different concept of development to the charity model common today, strongly promoted by international institutions like the International Monetary Fund (IMF), or fashionably displayed through events such as Live Aid or campaigns such as "Make Poverty History."

Independently driven development policies and an anti-colonial political platform brought international attention to Burkina Faso, inspiring grassroots social movements across Africa, and won Thomas Sankara powerful political enemies in France, Europe and the US.

Ten years after the death of Thomas Sankara, the Montreal-based Group for Research and Initiatives for the Liberation of Africa (GRILA) launched an international legal campaign into the circumstances surrounding Sankara’s death. In the courts of Burkina Faso, GRILA put forward a controversial legal challenge to the government of President Blaise Compaoré, a close ally of France who organized a coup d'état against Sankara and who has held power since. Compaoré is widely understood as having a direct role in Sankara's 1987 assassination.

After complete dismissal within the courts of Burkina Faso, GRILA presented Sankara’s case to the UN Human Rights Committee. In 2006, the UN Committee ruled in favour of the International Justice for Sankara Campaign on behalf of Thomas Sankara's widow, Mariam, and his children, Auguste and Philippe.

Aziz Fall is a member of the Group for Research and Initiatives for the Liberation of Africa (GRILA) and the international co-ordinator for the International Justice for Sankara Campaign. In this interview, Aziz Fall reflects on the case of Thomas Sankara 20 years after the assassination and outlines contemporary efforts to seek justice for the 1987 assassination.

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Stefan Christoff: October 2007 marks the 20th anniversary of Thomas Sankara’s assassination, to highlight this anniversary you recently participated in an international speaking tour organized by the Justice for Sankara Campaign, focused on the UN case surrounding Sankara’s killing. In this context, can you reflect on the political significance of Sankara’s case in relation to contemporary African history and also to international movements for social justice?

Aziz Fall: First it’s important to say that Sankara’s case remains relevant and critical to the understanding the current debate on ‘African development.’

This year is the 20th anniversary of Sankara’s death and for 20 years the circumstances surrounding Sankara’s death remain unknown. In this context, GRILA recently won a major victory at the United Nations, in establishing a legal precedent against impunity in Africa. Until today, the official death certificate in Burkina Faso claims that Thomas Sankara died of natural causes and this is certainly not true.

It is the first time within the UN system regarding African affairs that in the investigation of a case in the death of a former head-of-state, a UN body has ruled on the side of justice, outlining clearly [in its recent decision] that people have a right to know the circumstance surrounding Sankara’s death and that the family has the right to be compensated.

In the context of the recent UN decision, why is Sankara’s death significant in terms of struggles for social justice in Africa?

Sankara incarnated the last African revolution, the last radical African experience of the 20th century; today, we can collectively reference no other similar political experiences in Africa. In the Burkina Faso revolution, there was the establishment of self-reliant development. Concretely, this meant there was a serious attempt on a national level to ensure that the peasantry would have the correct amount of food crop to supply the national population with nutrition, prior to considering the possibility of exporting to the international market.

In Burkina Faso, on a national level, there was an effort to establish a model of self-reliant development in regards to food, education and healthcare; within four years, the national political mentality and national production model were shifted in a progressive direction that no other African nation has succeeded in achieving before.

This political process had an enormous impact on the imagination of the youth, while also had an impact in regards to the neo-colonial framework of development within Africa, mainly in regards to the ongoing French influence over African development.

France, in reality, hasn’t granted independence to the former colonies due to the neo-colonial economic development framework that it continues to impose on Africa. France utilizes mainstream development models to smuggle resources from Africa, to have easy access to valuable minerals, to have access and influence over the maintenance of a system of capitalist development in Africa. An economic development system that can only be maintained with the support of local puppets that are totally reluctant to listen to the grievances and demands of their own population.

Sankara’s project in Burkina Faso is certainly a project that is important to consider for Africa because it relates directly to pan-Africanism, the collective integration of the African nation-states, certainly an economic model that advocates something inherently different than NEPAD [the New Economic Partnership for African Development], which is actually a plan that is fostering relations between Africa and western nations. In reality, NEPAD can’t be viewed or understood as an African plan for development.

Today, Africa needs to outline an African plan for development and the development of a local or indigenous definition of development was fundamental to the economic program that Sankara was advocating. This is why Sankara died; this is why Sankara was assassinated.

What has been the echo-effect of Thomas Sankara--the way in which the legacy of Sankara’s alternative economic ideas impacted all of Africa, the political and economic ideas that are being discussed today in Africa within networks advocating for social and economic justice?

In terms of civil-society: I must first admit that I have mixed feelings concerning the role of civil-society today, as major parts of ‘civil-society’ on an international level have been co-opted by the international neo-liberal economic framework and institutions like the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF). However, there are still very authentic and participatory elements to networks today in Africa that are labelled 'civil-society.'

In this context, it’s important to note the contemporary recognition of Sankara’s economic and political ideas as models for exploring possibilities of self-reliant development models. It is interesting to note that the World Social Forum in Nairobi, Kenya, echoed the African Social Forum in recognizing Sankara’s policies as potential models for self-reliant development.

Today in Africa, there is a growing movement in support of Sankara, with political parties based on Sankara’s ideas in Burkina Faso and Mali; this movement didn’t exist while Sankara was alive, but is thriving today with an amazing number of associations, groups and organizations around Africa and abroad that are very active today.

In 2007, I met with many organizations in multiple countries who continue to work on Sankara’s case while also advocating for the political and economic ideas surrounding development that Sankara pushed while alive. Throughout our recent international caravan from Mexico to Europe, where we visited multiple countries, I was amazed by the crowds that welcomed us and the support and solidarity that we witnessed.

Sankara’s ideas are still extremely relevant today. Internationally, people are wearing t-shirts and buttons throughout the world, so Sankara is becoming an icon, which is not necessarily a good thing; however, it illustrates the support for Sankara’s ideas today in Africa. Sankara is the Che Guevara of Africa, who died at almost the same age, at 37, accomplishing great things in a short time while operating with political honesty, with a total dedication to the people of Burkina Faso and Africa.

African social movements continue to recognize Sankara’s legacy in terms of the demand for debt cancellation, an unconditional demand for cancellation of national debts, as part of an effort to change the balance of power between modern economic imperialism and Africa, towards the development idea of a true pan-African movement for liberation.

Can you explain for yourself why Sankara’s case is touching for you on a political level? How do Sankara’s ideas strike you? Why are they important to you as a social activist?

It’s simple to understand. GRILA was born the year of the revolution in Burkina Faso, based on the same values that Sankara advocated, as GRILA shared a similar world view, shared a similar dream of establishing a self-governed model for development in Africa, which explains the attachment, the connection.

Self-governed, or managed development, means that nations must rely on their internal forces first, before looking to external assistance. Development must be rooted in creating your own markets of consumption. A nation must feed its own population, which means that all citizens must have access to the national land, while the natural resources and mineral wealth should be owned by the people, not foreign companies.

Sankara advocated for a model of development as focused on first fulfilling the basic needs of the population, including providing access to clean water, to quality education, to housing and healthcare. Once these critical elements are fulfilled on a national level, then you can adapt to modern economic markets and modern technology based on the rhythm of your own society and culture.

Today, most African nations aren’t in a position to compete in the world capitalist market due to realities such as the subsidies within the agricultural market within European countries and the unfair nature of the international economic system. African nations must rely on their own forces first, while co-operating with other nations in the global south.

Sankara did not formulate ideas of economic development in Africa within the charity conception common within wealthy countries as a solution to the gross social inequities between the north and the south that are a pressing reality today throughout the world. Sankara didn’t ask for charity; Sankara demanded social justice, calling for self-determination rooted in a completely different social and economic vision to the charity model often promoted today…

It’s important to remind people that the reality today is that ‘international development’ is strategically assisting northern countries or developed countries. Fifty years after the establishment of the Bretton Woods system of international monetary management, with the creation of the World Bank and IMF, an economic system that still dictates large parts of the international economic system, poverty and inequity has only increased.

In this context, it’s important to note that the majority of development aid granted to southern nations is never truly received because all financing received is returned to the donor countries through debt payments. So the very tiny amounts of aid or charity that is given is returned, which is important to note, while direct aid only makes up only three per cent of the entire balance of international development, anyways. Charity from developed nations to the south, when reviewing the real statistics, has never actually existed.

Additionally, it’s important to mention that if the international economic system was truly fair, charity would not be needed at all. If international policies rooted in fair trade were applied, even in a capitalistic framework, charity would not be necessary as long as you maintain a balanced method to international trade.

Today, the entire understanding of northern charity and the humanitarian framework in which international development is presented is a complete falsity rooted in propaganda, a false message that has been repeated for years. Thomas Sankara never believed in this propaganda, trying to push an alternative to the present model of international development, trying to ensure that international development projects in Africa were undertaken on African terms.

Sankara created a consultation table between international donors to Burkina Faso, forcing Italy, France and England, for example, to sit at the same table and actually co-operate with the local ideas or concepts of development. For this reason, Sankara faced an international aid boycott, which forced Burkina Faso to rely and focus solely on national development, which saw the government begin the construction of national water dam projects, a national railway system using the local energy of their own population, not international donors or advisers.

International development aid pulled out of Burkina Faso because the western donor nations were reluctant to be dictated conditions, because in fact it is the current international development system that dictates the conditions for development. So, for the first time you had a country in Africa putting forward a strong position that international development aid must be delivered and implemented only through the leadership of the local population.

For this reason, Sankara’s government became unpopular with the governments of Europe and North America. As soon as Sankara died, the strong position on insisting that the people of Burkina Faso play the central role in defining national development or the implementation economic assistance was reversed. After Sankara’s death, all the international development agencies returned to Burkina Faso, achieving little in comparison to the major steps forward achieved throughout Sankara’s government.

Many international development organizations exist or thrive on the conditions of our poverty playing a large role in sustaining our poverty in Africa. Current models of international development thrive on creating dependency within the south, a development perspective in which you can’t rely on your own people, resources or skills--a model of development based on reliance, not self-reliance.

International development agencies mushroomed throughout the globalization era due to the downsizing of the state, due to the privatization of the social sector as pushed by institutions like the World Bank and IMF, which saw the creation of the NGO sector.

Today, the NGO sector is unsuccessfully attempting to fill the void of the state, to support the type of social development in southern nations that governments traditionally have taken responsibility for. Development must be viewed as a central responsibility of national governments, not of the private sector, as the private sector exists simply to accumulate economic profit, which is priority number one, not the interests of the people. This is the context in which Sankara’s economic policies for Burkina Faso were not supported by western governments or international development agencies.

Sankara did win the praise of the World Health Organization (WHO) after the government of Burkina Faso managed to vaccinate the entire population for multiple diseases within one week. Sankara, with the exception of the WHO, was boycotted by many international institutions for the alternative or self-reliant development models adopted in Burkina Faso. It is for the revolutionary development and national economic programs that shook the foundations of the traditional economic development models imposed on Africa--which economically benefit European countries--that eventually led to Sankara’s assassination.

[Read part II of this series, an interview with journalist Jooneed Khan about Sankara's contemporary impact]

Sankara

Fear, Impunity and State Power

dru — Sat, 12 Jan 2008 22:53:01 +0000

Colombia's paramilitary regime and social movements

MONTREAL -- In August of 2007, Paola, a mother, university student and teacher, received a written death threat. She is a member of the Committee for Solidarity for Political Prisoners, a group that struggles for the rights of political prisoners in Colombia. It is a country where state repression has broken the social fabric, where being a human rights defender can have dangerous consequences; since 2002, there have been 955 assassinations committed by the Armed Forces, the highest level of politically motivated homicide in the Western hemisphere.

In a country where repression of social organizations involves selective and collective assassinations, disappearances, detentions and massacres, fear of death is part of daily life. On the bus on the way to the Industrial University of Santander in Bucaramanga, Paola handed me a note sent by the paramilitary organization known as “Aguilas Negras” to 11 student organizers, accusing them of being linked to networks of the FARC and ELN, Colombia’s two largest guerrilla groups. The death threat assured their recipients that their actions were being monitored and their days numbered. "You and the organizations you represent are a problem for Colombia... The plan to annihilate you all will begin with the very next student strike."

The death threat is a common tactic from this nationwide right-wing paramilitary group. Weeks ago, the local office of SINALTRAINAL, a national union of food workers, received a written death threat under the front door. Fear courses in the veins of the country; a legitimate fear, a well-sanctioned and reasonable fear for the safety of human rights defenders, unionists, peasant leaders, Afro-Colombians, indigenous leaders and community members.

Paramilitary and military forces have honed a method of instilling fear and producing forced displacement throughout the country. Jose Antonio knows this tactic well. An Afro-Colombian peasant, a subsistence farmer until his forced displacement and the theft of his lands in 1997, he and his family have lived it first-hand. As we walked through the African Palm plantations in Choco, Jose Antonio showed me the former location of his community. Ten years ago, under Operation Genesis, the whole region was attacked by air, water and land, a concerted military and paramilitary operation that massacred, tortured, assassinated and forcibly displaced over 4,000 traditional communities living ancestral lifestyles. He showed me the former location of his brother's small farm, which is now rows of African Palm trees.

Jose Antonio pointed to where there used to be a river and said, "Over there, my brother used to fish."

"He was fishing one day with his four children, when the paramilitaries came to him. They tied his hands behind his back, cut open his chest and removed his innards with their hands. They told his children to leave and not to come back to this land."

The statistics of systematic violence in Colombia show the endemic nature of the problem. The Union Patriotica, a political party seeking a humanitarian accord between the FARC and the government since the 1990s, have suffered the assassination of over 5,000 members. The highest rates of homicide of indigenous people have been among the Embera Katio, the Wayuu and the Kankuamo peoples, who have suffered 234 homicides since 1999. From 1986 to 2006, there have been 2,515 union leaders assassinated. The National Federation of Municipal Councils (FENACOM) reports 251 council members assassinated since 1985. According to the Colombian Commission of Jurists, between 1996 and June 2006, 31,656 people were either killed or disappeared. Of these massacres, 83.07% are attributed to State forces.

The Consultation of Human Rights and Forced Displacement (CODHES) has stated that between 1985 and 2005, there were 3,720,428 citizens registered as forcibly displaced. According to the Ideas for Peace Foundation, members of the AUC--a former paramilitary organization--have invested in three million hectares of land, while drug traffickers have bought one million hectares. Seventy per cent of landowners are small-scale farmers who possess only five per cent of total land area. The reality of forced displacement by State forces and the subsequent purchasing of large quantities of land by paramilitary members are facts that demonstrate the illegal appropriation of land through violent means. Meanwhile, most small-scale farmers are forced either to find smaller parcels of land to cultivate, or join the growing waves of urbanization. In either case, they continue to face the threat of violence.

A traveller passing through the cities of Colombia might see a moderately developed country, an urbanized population and a burgeoning middle class. Liberal economic journals describe Colombia’s economy as a prosperous, growing market, rich in natural resources and ready for investment. But many Colombians understand the situation as an ongoing civil war. The State apparatus of control and repression--legitimated through impunity and maintained through the consolidation of executive military power in all branches of government and a broken social fabric with violence being a continual threat in all levels of society--has maintained a state of siege and atomized the Colombian countryside. Informants and military and paramilitary forces create local fiefdoms, regional strongholds of ultra-right-wing power. Urban centres are infiltrated by networks of informants and surveyed by police and military.

“The most preoccupying factor of the situation is the appearance of normality which this military and political project has acquired”, says Soraya Gutierrez Arguello, president of the Jose Alvear Restrepo Lawyers' Collective. Specific elements of social control, such as paramilitarism, impunity and State power, have kept much of the country's population in a state of terror.

Paramilitarism: Infiltrating Civil Society and Rending the Social Fabric

Most socio-political studies agree that the origins of contemporary violence in Colombia began in the mid-1940s. Institutional and rural violence, stimulated by the Conservative Party, left 300,000 dead without investigation and left thousands without homes. The resulting armed uprising from rural sectors precipitated an internal conflict that to this day continues to spill blood. The State doctrine since the 1960s has been one of counterinsurgency and has authored systematic, generalized violations of human rights and crimes against humanity. A key element of the counterinsurgent strategy has been paramilitarism, which uses terrorist tactics and benefits from state support.

Paramilitarism has worked to annihilate social resistance and democratic opposition of civil society, creating new agents of capitalist accumulation while generating forced displacement.

According to Arguello, paramilitarism has united the anti-insurgent struggle with drug trafficking and State support under one apparatus of "irregular right-wing war, constructing paramilitary corridors, owned territorialities, zones of consolidation, eruption of local para-states, interlinked into a national phenomenon of power."

Armed right-wing paramilitary groups have had ample support from corporate sectors, large scale farmers, merchants, State security institutions, Armed Forces, police and regional government. They have even benefited from significant representation in Colombian parliament and share a profound affinity with the current administration of President Uribe Velez. The Colombian Office of the United Nations' High Commission of Human Rights has signalled the ongoing connections between paramilitary groups and the State.

The paramilitary strategy is excused with claims that victims are suspected guerrillas or guerrilla collaborators. In reality, the victims are systematically targeted members of the civilian population. According to a follow-up mission conducted by the Organization of American States in July 2007, paramilitaries maintain and exercise an authoritarian criminal control, which inhibits the possibility of citizen action without coercion, making municipal and departmental elections very problematic. Relying on a network of informants, paramilitary infiltration into communities and authorities at all levels of society has broken the social fabric, creating suspicion and mistrust among communities, neighbours and even family.

According to Leonardo Jaimes M, a lawyer with the Committee for Solidarity with Political Prisoners (FCSPP), it is common in penal processes to observe lists created by militaries that include many people (students, small farmers, unionists, civilians) accused of being guerrillas.

"No one knows how these lists are formed, what criteria are held, or what proof exists to conclude guerrilla participation. The majority of these listed people are later assassinated or disappeared by State agents or paramilitary groups."

Canadian and other foreign companies certainly figure prominently in the paradigm of State violence for economic development. According to Maria Jimenez of The Globe and Mail, Canadian investments in Colombia are an estimated $1 billion from 17 corporations, making Canada the 10th largest investor in the world. The investments are concentrated in the sectors where repression of unionists is greatest: oil, gas and mining.

While scandal erupts in Colombia over President Uribe’s ties to narco-traffickers and paramilitaries, Canada is putting trade negotiations with Colombia in overdrive by signing a new Free Trade Agreement. The FTA will open up Colombia for more foreign development and resource extraction for the profit of Canadian companies at the expense of the basic civil rights of Colombians.

Three Soldiers

"Full Confrontation with the State"

dru — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 05:39:36 +0000

Vancouver's Anti-Poverty Committee escalates opposition to 2010 Olympics

Vancouver's Anti-Poverty Committee (APC) has been getting a lot of negative media coverage. So why are they more popular with the public than ever?

"Without a doubt, the APC is enjoying more public support now that we're in full confrontation with the state than when we were just complaining about it," says David Cunningham, one of the group's organizers.

"Full confrontation with the state" is hardly an exaggeration. Earlier this year, the group quickly progressed from noisily disrupting Olympic press events to an "eviction campaign," targeting the Vancouver Olympics Committee (VANOC). In May, the dramatic eviction of VANOC member Ken Dobell from his office was front-page news across the province.

When Cunningham was arrested for "uttering threats" related to the evictions, police lured him to an isolated site by pretending to be a journalist with the free daily paper 24 Hours, a tactic that was roundly denounced even in the mainstream press.

"So many people are pissed off at the Olympics that any type of display of anger, most people can sympathize with," he says. "They're finally accepting direct action as a viable political alternative."

It may not exactly be universal support, with a range of virulent blog posts deriding Cunningham as a "lazy bastard" and worse, but there's no denying that these actions have made the social impact of the Olympics a priority issue for the public.

"As far as municipal political parties go in Vancouver, the APC is bigger than any of those groups. We've got more members and we carry more physical presence," says Cunningham.

On October 14, the APC had been planning to march to and occupy one of the many vacant buildings in the Downtown Eastside to draw attention to the role of the Games in the deterioration of already abysmal housing conditions in the neighbourhood. The night before, the advance team of people sent to prepare the building were violently arrested and threatened with tasers and dogs, according to Cunningham.

"With all of the advance propaganda, the police had locked down the Downtown Eastside prior to the demonstration," he says. "We thought we could slip in under the radar and we were wrong."

"It's important to recognize that these are hotel units," he adds. "We don't pretend that these are decent housing, these are just rooms. But given that people are living and literally dying in the alleys behind this building, it's a step up from the gutter."

Six people, ranging in age from from 18 to 64, were arrested and charged with breaking and entering with concealed instruments. The arrests and subsequent protest against police brutality are the subject of the short Burning Fist Media video "They Came in the Night".

The APC is now holding town meetings in various communities across the city to determine their next steps.

"It's common knowledge that the Olympics are socially cleansing not just the Downtown Eastside, but poor communities throughout Vancouver," Cunningham explains. "But that in itself poses a problem to us because now we're in a situation where people have that analysis, so how do we motivate them into direct political action?

"I guess realistically what APC is after is transforming this protest movement into a community of resistance. That's what pragmatically we need to confront the Olympics."

Their day-to-day work with the poor and Indigenous people who will be most affected by the Games is part of that transformation, as are alliances with groups like No One is Illegal and Native Youth Movement. They are working together to organize a large-scale convergence against the Olympics in February 2010.

"First and foremost, this convergence is an anti-colonial showdown," Cunningham explains. "We don't believe it's Vancouver-specific. The colonial juggernaut that is the 2010 Winter Games is something that will affect all of North and South America."

In October, an international delegation of 1,500 Indigenous representatives in Sonora, Mexico, unanimously agreed that the Olympics, as a colonial genocidal institution, posed a great risk to Indigenous cultures. They called for a boycott of the Games and for Indigenous people from around the world to travel to Vancouver for the protest.

It's a bold move on the part of organizers to announce a gathering that is still more than two years away. As the Games creep closer and the level of resistance rises, so too will the heat. Cunningham anticipates direct involvement from CSIS and the military.

"By the time we get to February 2010, it'll just be part of the continuum of protest that's happening now. With that, there's an escalation of surveillance and police repression," he says. "It's our responsibility to continue escalating that resistance into revolution."

"We're pretty clear. We're talking about overthrowing the government. We're not living in revolutionary times, but we have a revolutionary analysis and a revolutionary objective."

Visit apc.resist.ca and www.no2010.com for more information.

Marcos and Mohawks

Dobell Eviction

Is Canadian Military Aid Funding Assassinations in the Philippines?

dru — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 07:15:48 +0000

The final article in the "battle of the ballot box" series

This is the third in a series of three articles: Part I | Part II

A history of popular rebellions is woven into politics in the Philippines, from the 1986 "People Power Revolution" of street protests that overthrew the US supported dictator, Ferdinand Marcos, to the ongoing left-wing guerrilla insurgency of the New People's Army (NPA).

Economic inequality is a central element fueling political turmoil and grassroots rebellions in the country. According to the United Nations, an estimated 45 million people in the Philippines live on less than two US dollars per day.

Instability in the Philippines extends beyond the current economic crisis, as a growing international controversy surrounds the administration of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. Political killings in the country are on the rise; the Philippines is estimated by Amnesty International to have one of the highest rates of politically-motivated murders in the world.

In 2006, Amnesty concluded that "over recent years reports of an increased number of killings of political activists, predominately those associated with leftist or left-orientated groups, have caused increasing concern in the Philippines and internationally."

Today, political organizers implicated in movements for social change in the Philippines are under the gun.

In Manila, human rights advocates point to aid from the governments of Canada and the US as supporting the governmental-backed targeting and killing of local activists.

It is commonly estimated that over 860 people have been killed in acts of politically motivated violence in the Philippines since the beginning of Arroyo's term in 2001, which many local human rights activists attribute partially to a US backed "counterinsurgency" program of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP). Union leaders, religious figures, progressive politicians and community organizers have all been targeted in killings that leave a bloody trail pointing to the highest levels of political power in the nation.

"Despite major international pressure, Arroyo's government has not halted the ongoing political killings," explains Benjie Oliveros the managing editor of Bulatlat, a popular alternative online news publication based in Quezon City.

"The Armed Forces of the Philippines denies that they are involved in the killings, although everyone understands implicitly that the military is directly involved," Oliveros told the Dominion over tea in Manila, "we believe that international media has a responsibility to amplify the untold violence that progressive movements are facing in our country today."

In 2007 Philip Alston, the Special Rapporteur of the United Nations Human Rights Council, accused the current government of "encouraging or facilitating the killings" through the AFP. According to Alston, President Arroyo and the national military were not only in a "state of denial" about the political killings, but "complicit" in the systematic executions of those labeled "enemies of the state."

"In some areas, the leaders of leftist organizations are systematically hunted down by interrogating and torturing those who may know their whereabouts," outlines a additional United Nations report released in August 2007, "they are often killed following a campaign of individual vilification designed to instill fear into the community."

"I cannot agree on that," Lieutenant-General of the state military, Alexander Yano, told Reuters news agency in a recent interview, in contradiction to the recently published UN report, explaining "that there could be some rogue elements in the military", but it was "not state policy to allow extra-judicial killings and disappearances."

Until today the Armed Forces of the Philippines and left-wing guerrillas of the 10,000-strong New Peoples Army (NPA), remain locked in a decades-old battle for political control throughout the Pacific archipelago. Commonly viewed as one of the longest running guerrilla wars in the world, the battle between state military forces and the NPA dates back to the 1960s, when communist-driven national liberation movements spread throughout Asia.

Since 9/11, the ongoing struggle between state forces and the leftist guerrilla movement in the Philippines has been swept into the international "War on Terror," as both the NPA guerrilla movement and also the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP), an umbrella organization representing left movements in the country, have been designated as "terrorist" organizations domestically and internationally by western governments, including the US and Canada.

Today, the Canadian government delivers approximately $20 million on an annual basis in overseas development aid to the Arroyo government in Manila, mainly through the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA). Officially, the outlined objectives of CIDA’s development strategy in the Philippines is to "foster efficient, responsive, transparent and accountable governance at all levels."

Canada's international development agency describes the Philippines as a "functioning democracy with a vibrant civil society," despite the rise in political killings in the country.

In addition to Canadian "development aid," Canada's Military Training Program (MTAP) has provided army personnel from the Philippines with training in Canada on "peace support operations, staff training and language" since 1997.

According to the Department of National Defense, military personnel from the Philippines participate in training activities in Canada on an annual basis, despite official Canadian policy guidelines barring the government from offering military support "to countries that are involved in armed conflict or whose governments have a persistent record of human rights violations."

As Canadian military aid to the Arroyo government continues to flow, the southern Philippines has been labeled a "new front" to the US-driven 'War on Terror' opened shortly after 9/11, in an effort to legitimate the heightened targeting of armed movements rooted in the minority Muslim community by both the Philippine military and US forces stationed in the country, according to human rights advocates.

In 2002 the Bush Administration launched Operation Enduring Freedom – Philippines, in which thousands of US soldiers and military personnel were deployed, including more than 1200 members of the United States Special Operations Command, Pacific. Armed Muslim movements such as the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) and the shady Abu Sayyaf group are facing an overt military campaign from government and US troops in this new battleground of the War on Terror."

A 2007 feature article in USA Today claimed that in the Philippines, the "US is making progress in war on terror; US special forces have helped kill, capture or rout hundreds of Abu Sayyaf guerrillas." According to one US Army Major operating in the Philippines, "they've been kicking some butt... I think they're close to breaking this thing open."

Hundreds of Filipinos civilians are missing or have been killed in the military violence. Those affected by the military campaigns are overwhelming the Philippines' impoverished majority.

Muslims in the Philippines are estimated to comprise five per cent of the national population, known locally as Moros -- the term dates to Spanish colonial forces which ruled the islands from 1565 to 1898 -- and widely regarded as playing a central role in the struggles against both Spanish and US colonization. In recent years, grassroots political parties representing minority Muslim communities in the Philippines such as Suara Bangsamoro -- "Voice of the Moro People" -- have built alliances with left movements running in national elections.

100 years ago, US forces battled Moro fighters in the southern Philippines, during the Philippine-American War, in which an estimated one-tenth of the Filipino population lost their lives. Violent US military campaigns in Philippines during the early 20th century are a haunting historical reference point for the current US military role in the southern islands; until today, US forces have never been able to permanently subdue the Moro population.

US writer Mark Twain authored a disturbing account of US military action in the early 20th century. "We have pacified some thousands of the islanders and buried them," Twain wrote, "destroyed their fields; burned their villages, and turned their widows and children out-of-doors; furnished heartbreak by exile to some dozens of disagreeable patriots."

Silencing "disagreeable patriots" in the Philippines remains a seemingly impossible task today, as modern weaponry and US troop deployments to the Philippines as part of the "War on Terror" manifest echoes of the history of US colonialism in the country.

"People in the Philippines today are facing a deathtrap, as the international economic system creates a massive monetary outflow from the country, with over 70 per cent of our annual budget going to payments on our national debt, as administered by international creditors including the World Bank," explains Teddy Casino, sitting congressman for the progressive political party Bayan Muna.

"This economic system squeezing the people of the Philippines is a new colonialism, enforced by the Arroyo government through military force," continues Teddy Casino, "a government that is waging a war with US support against the progressive movements in this country with armed violence and repression."

A battle of ideas is apparent everywhere you visit in the Philippines, a battle that pits western-backed economic and military policies endorsed by the government of Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo against grassroots progressive movements in the country, which according to all indicators are on the rise throughout the nation.

Setting Sun

Suara Bangsamoro

October in Review

dru — Thu, 01 Nov 2007 21:34:16 +0000

Royalty Hikes, Indigenous Legal Battles, and a Landless March on Gandhi’s Birthday

After occupying the proposed Sharbot Lake uranium mine site outside of Kingston for four months, members of the Ardoch Algonquin and Shabot Obaadjiwan First Nations ended their occupation after the Ontario government agreed to step in and mediate land-claim talks between the nations and Frontenac Ventures Corp, the mining company which had been conducting test drilling on the site. The withdrawal agreement will allow for 12 weeks of mediation with the province. The protestors have moved their blockade outside of the gates of the mine, to another protest camp that had been set up by non-native supporters from nearby communities. One such supporter, Donna Dillman, has begun a hunger strike demanding a moratorium be placed on uranium exploration and mining in the area.

Canada's military spending is now higher than it has been since the second World War, according to a new study released by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. By the end of the fiscal year, Canada will have spent an estimated $7.2 billion on military missions in Afghanistan.

Canada's military exports have tripled in the past five years, according to a study conducted by the CBC. Exports of tanks, rocket launchers and other military hardware currently stand at $3.6 billion per year.

The Latin American Water Tribunal, an ethical tribunal which evaluates legal claims of environmental damage to water resources in Latin America, gathered in Guadalajara, Mexico to hold a public hearing about the practices of Minerales Entre Mares (MAM) de Honduras, a subsidiary of Canada’s Goldcorp Inc. The Tribunal ruled that the government of Honduras and Goldcorp were responsible for the exploitation and contamination of water in the Siria Valley, which damaged the ecosystem and resulted in adverse health effects for residents of nearby communities. Although this ruling is non-binding, the Natural Resources and Environment Secretariat of the Honduran government has instituted penalizing fines against MAM’s operations in the Siria Valley in the past.

In Belize, indigenous Mayan residents of the villages of Conejo and Santa Cruz have won a ten-year legal battle after a Chief Justice granted an order acknowledging that the constitution of the Central American nation upheld the customary land tenure practices of these villages. The ruling found that the recent United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples also supported the land claims of the Mayan residents. Over the past decades, the government of Belize has denied these land rights, claiming that the residents of the villages were immigrants from Guatemala, and have allowed logging and oil exploration by foreign corporations on traditional Mayan land.

Wildfires in Southern California forced over 700,000 people to evacuate their homes. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) staged a fake press conference, with staff members posing as journalists. Actual journalists were given 15 minutes notice about the event, and were allowed to listen in via telephone, but not to ask questions. Critics say US emergency infrastructure has once again been found inadequate to deal with natural disasters.

The Asia Times reported that, at the close of the Chinese Communist Party's 17th National Congress, the country's leadership has much to fear from discontent among the country's massive population of rural peasants. "Mass incidents"--the official term for riots and large protests in the countryside, are said to be a "daily occurence" as resentment about deeping inequality comes to a head.

In Oaxaca, Mexico, thousands marched on October 27th to commemorate the first anniversary of the murder of American Indymedia journalist Brad Will. Will was shot at a street blockade in 2006 while filming a battle between supporters of state Governor Ulises Ruiz and members of the Oaxaca Peoples Popular Assembly (APPO). APPO organizers have claimed that the Mexican government later used the death of Brad Will as an excuse to send in military troops to put down the popular uprising which overtook the city of three million last year. To date, no individual has been charged with this killing despite the fact that photos of plainclothes police officers firing at Will were published in Mexican newspapers the day after he was shot.

Elsewhere in Mexico, indigenous representatives attending a recent intercontinental indigenous gathering in Vicam, Sonora have called for an international boycott of the Vancouver 2010 Olympics. According to a press release issued by BC First Nations representatives at the gathering, hundreds of Indigenous people plan to attend the Olympic games "not in celebration, but in resistance to the danger the Olympics poses to Indigenous lands, identity, culture, health, livelihoods, and to future generations."

A detainee arrested in September during a protest at a subdivision outside of Caledonia, Ontario, near the site of the Six Nations occupation, has allegedly been subjected to threats by correctional staff within the Hamilton Barton St Jail. According to an alert issued by Six Nations supporters, Skyler Williams, one of at least 9 people arrested during the September demonstration, has been denied working plumbing within his cell, has been threatened with denial of his legal counsel as well as detainment in solitary confinement, and has been told that he would be transferred to a unit reserved for serious violent offenders. The Six Nations demonstrators were protesting the development of Stirling Creek Estates, whose housing developments are located on Kanienkehaka (Mohawk) territory.

Twenty-three Canadian cities participated in a national day of action calling for an immediate removal of Canadian troops from Afghanistan, with the biggest demonstrations taking place in Montreal and Vancouver. Malalai Joya, the embattled former Afghan parliamentarian and women’s rights advocate, began a brief Canadian tour with a speech at the Vancouver rally. Joya was kicked out of Afghanistan’s Loya Jirga in May after giving a television interview in which she compared the parliament to a stable or zoo, and accused other parliamentarians of being warlords. She faces daily death threats in Afghanistan, travels everywhere within the country in the presence of armed bodyguards, and changes houses each night. Joya’s Canadian visit, which will also include visits to Toronto and Halifax, comes shortly after the Harper government’s throne speech announcement of its plans to extend the Canadian mission in Afghanistan to 2011, despite overwhelming opposition from the Canadian public. Demonstrations were also held in 11 cities across the US demanding an end to the war in Iraq.

The Harper government has introduced a plan to drastically cut corporate taxes by $14.3 billion over the next six years. The announcement, which would make Canada’s corporate taxes the lowest in the G-7, even took the business community by surprise. “This is a surprisingly aggressive and definitely welcome set of tax cuts,” said Douglas Porter, deputy chief economist at BMO Nesbitt Burns. In response to the plan, the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives said that the tax cuts would only benefit a small elite, while doing nothing to address the priorities that have been identified by the Canadian public, such as lower tuition fees, reduced greenhouse gases, or shorter wait times within the healthcare system.

In Alberta, following a month-long media campaign undertaken by multinational oil companies, the Stelmach government announced plans to increase the share of oil royalties the province receives by $1.4 billion starting in 2009. The decision follows a ruling by a government-appointed review panel which had called for the royalties to be increased by 20 per cent, or $2 billion. The current royalties regime in Alberta was introduced in the 1990’s in order to offer bargain basement tax rates for investment in tar sands development. It has remained unchanged in the years since, despite the massive profits reaped by the oil industry from the tar sands after oil prices increased.

New studies have found that Boreal forests are losing the ability to absorb man-made carbon dioxide emissions due to climate changes. The studies, conducted by professors at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the US National Centre for Atmospheric Research, found that temperate woodlands in the Northern hemisphere, extending from Alaska and Canada to China and northern Asia, may soon reach a point where they will be releasing more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere than they will be absorbing. The recent increases in large-scale forest fires, much like those that have overtaken California in recent weeks, has accelerated the release of CO2 by these boreal forests, according to the studies.

In Haiti, former government minister Maryse Narcisse became the second high-profile activist affiliated with the Lavalas party of ousted Haitian president Jean-Bertrand Aristide to be kidnapped in the past three months. Narcisse, along with her friend Delano Morel, was released after a ransom was reportedly paid to the kidnappers. The whereabouts of another grassroots Lavalas activist and human rights advocate, Lovinsky Pierre-Antoine, who was kidnapped in Port-au-Prince in August, remain unknown. Both Pierre-Antoine and Narcisse spent two years in exile following the February 2004 coup of Haiti's elected president Jean-Bertrand Aristide by US, Canadian, and French military forces. Their kidnappings have raised fears that high-profile Lavalas activists have been deliberately targeted. Although human rights organizations like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch were quick to denounce the kidnapping of Narcisse, neither have issued any statement in three months about the kidnapping of Pierre-Antoine.

Canadian Auto Workers union President Buzz Hargrove has signed an agreement with auto parts giant Magna International which will allow the union to organize within the company’s Canadian plants in return for a guarantee that no worker strikes will take place for an indefinite period of time. The agreement has encountered heavy opposition within the Canadian Labour movement, as well as within the CAW itself. Chris Buckley, president of the CAW’s biggest local in Oshawa, argued in a letter to Hargrove that the no-strike clause compromises the fundamental right of union workers to strike. The CAW leadership’s position is that the Canadian manufacturing sector has faced large-scale job loses in recent years, and that compromises are necessary if Magna’s 18,000 Canadian workers are to have any hope of unionized representation. The agreement will be put to a vote at a CAW conference in December.

Following a 2-year campaign by a coalition of 12 indigenous organizations, an internal investigative panel slammed the World Bank’s conduct in the war-torn Democratic Republic of the Congo. The investigation revealed that the Bank encouraged foreign logging companies to destructively log rainforests, misled Congo’s government about the value of the forests, broke their own rules and regulations, and even threatened the lives of millions of Indigenous People and subsistence farmers who depend on the forests for survival. Congo’s rainforests are the second largest in the world.

The IMF/World Bank meetings in Washington DC were once again met with protests by global justice campaigners in late October. Demonstrators decried the IMF and the World Bank for their attempts to strong-arm developing countries into adopting deeply unpopular free market reforms. Although such protests have been held for years in front of the traditional headquarters of the Washington-based financial institutions, a disruptive and destructive march of 200-300, organized under the banner of a direct action coalition calling itself the October Rebellion, wound its way through the posh Georgetown shopping district, where many of the delegates were staying. Two demonstrators were arrested.

In India, 25,000 poor, landless and Dalit protestors marched 200 miles from Gwalior in Madhya Pradesh to the capital of Delhi over the course of October. The march was organized to demand the redistribution of land to the poor and landless. Protesters began marching on October 2nd, the birthday of independence leader Mahatma Gandhi. 40 per cent of Indians are now landless and 23 per cent live in abject poverty. Many of the marchers were farmers who have been forced from their land to make way for government-backed economic projects. In response to the march the Indian government has stated that it would establish a new panel to create policies, guide states and monitor the progress of land distribution.

M777

October Rebellion

Haiti: The Kidnapping of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide

dru — Tue, 23 Oct 2007 08:04:49 +0000

New book chronicles events surrounding Aristide's removal from Haiti

In a new book, author Randall Robinson has presented new evidence in the debate about the events surrounding the February 2004 removal of elected President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. An Unbroken Agony: Haiti, from Revolution to the Kidnapping of a President, raises critical questions about the role of the United States in the overthrow of Haiti's elected government.

A key piece of evidence presented in the book is the statement Robinson took from Aristide's helicopter pilot, Frantz Gabriel, in 2005. Other than President Aristide, his wife, and Haitian security personnel at the President's home, Gabriel was the only eyewitness to Aristide's abduction on the morning of February 29th, 2004.

Canada's ambassador to Haiti, Claude Boucher, has stated publicly that there was no coup d'état in Haiti and that the Haitian President left of his own accord.

Colin Powell, who was US Secretary of State at the time of Aristide's removal, has made similar denials. According to the CBC, Powell called "allegations of a coup d'etat and kidnapping 'baseless and absurd,' saying Aristide asked for American assistance to leave Haiti."

"He came back to us and said it was his decision, based on what the security people were also telling him about the deteriorating situation, that he should leave," Powell told the press.

What follows is the full text of Gabriel's testimony, taken in South Africa while in exile with Mr. and Mrs. Aristide. -- Darren Ell

Reproduced with the author's permission.

I got to the house at 3:30 A.M. on Sunday morning. The gate is usually opened by a member of the CAT team (Haitian Counter Ambush Team). That morning it was opened by the Steele people [private security firm protecting Aristide]. This never happened before. (I later thought that the Steele people had gotten a call to play the game, to play along.)

The gate closed behind me. I parked in my usual space in the parking lot on the right between the two walls. I left the M3 on the seat of my car. I walked through the second gate and into the command post. No one said anything to me. I then walked through the office and then into the president's living room.

The president was standing alone in the room dressed in a suit with a white shirt and a dark tie. The First Lady was somewhere else. She was not in the living room.

I then asked, "Is there a problem, Mr. President?"

The president said, "There has been a lot of pressure coming from all different directions."

I said, "What do you mean, sir?"

He said, "The way things are looking – I am under intense pressure."

The phone rang and the president went to answer it. I heard him talk. No American forces were there at that time. While he was on the phone, I said to myself that I should go out and see what was going on in the yard where Haitian security and the Steele people were.

As I walked out [the front door], pulling up to the walk to the front door was a big white Suburban with diplomatic plates. I was standing by the steps to the door. [Luis] Moreno got out of the Suburban with two American soldiers. I turned and went back into the living room to be closer to the president. The president was putting the phone down.

Moreno said, "Mr. President, I'm from the U.S. Embassy. Ten years ago, I was there when you came in. I was there to greet you. It's too bad that ten years later, I'm the one that has to announce to you that you've got to go."

I looked at the president and then at Moreno. By then the First Lady had come downstairs. The president went into the dining room to speak with her. They came out together. The First Lady was carrying a small bag. She was wearing a suit.

Outside there were twenty to thirty American soldiers on the walls that surrounded the house. They had lasers on their guns that made red dots. The red dots filled the yard. They were crisscrossing and coming from all directions.

The two soldiers with Moreno were Special Forces. I knew this because they had beards. They carried M16's and wore full battle dress with steel helmets and bulletproof vests. They were white and said nothing.

We got into the Suburban. The president sat in the second row by the window. The First lady sat in the middle and Moreno sat by the sliding door. The two solders sat up front with one of them driving. I sat in the back row.

We went through the main gate and made the right toward the airport. Outside the gate, we were joined by a convoy of ten U.S. embassy vehicles. There were all white Suburbans. We made a right into the airport in the direction of the general aviation area. There were two hangers there. The old Huey helicopter was there. There was s white Airbus there. It had a huge American flag on the tail. There was no tail number and no other markings.

Moreno opened the door and got out of the Suburban. He said to the president and the First Lady, "Okay, let's go."

That's all he said. He didn't say anything to me. He stood at the foot of the plane and sort of motioned to the president, the First Lady, and me to board the plane. The three of us went up the stairs into the plane. The two American soldiers who were in the Suburban boarded the plane and changed into civilian clothes (polo shirts and sneakers) while the door was still open.

Moreno never boarded the plane. The [American] ambassador was not there.

All this happened very quickly. Everything was timed so well. The Suburban came into the yard at about 4:00 A.M. We got to the plane at about 4:30 A.M. The Suburban went right to the bottom of the stairs. We sat in the Suburban about five minutes before Moreno opened the door and said, "Okay, let's go."

The plane looked like it would seat about 365 people. All the window shades were pulled down. Behind the first seating section was a big operations centre with telephone, a fax machine, and a computer. The machines were on one side of the plane and there were seats on the other side.

The president and the First lady were told to sit in the front section. I sat ten rows behind a bulkhead that was behind the American soldiers who were behind the operations centre. I could not see the president and the First lady from where I was sitting, but I went to talk to them several times. He was quiet. She was crying silently. I said to myself, This is incredible. This is a kidnapping. They just came and kidnapped the president in his home and took him away. I'm in the middle of a fucking kidnapping. This is the first thing that hit my mind.

There were about thirty American soldiers on the plane. They came from the house in the ten Suburbans. They all had beards. They boarded the plane with their gear and then changed into civilian clothes. One of them, who seems to be in charge, said to me, "Are you going back with us?" like he thinks I am one of his men. Maybe it was just because of my beard.

The American soldiers sat on the plane between me and the president and the First Lady. All the way in the back behind me were the Steele men with their wives and children. They were all wearing casual clothes. The pilots wore regular pilot's uniforms. We waited on the plane about thirty minutes before we took off.

There were five black people on the plane. Besides the president, the First Lady, and me, there was a Haitian woman who was with one of the Steele men. They had a baby. After we landed the first time, I asked somebody where we were but nobody would tell me. Everybody was quiet. I heard the fuel nozzle attach. Once in a while the baby would cry. After the baby was fed, everything was quiet again. They offered the president and the First lady some sandwiches, but they did not take them.

We were on the ground for five hours. The guys who spoke to me before, who seemed to be in charge, said to everyone over the PA system, "So far we don't have an official invitation yet for President Aristide. It seems like nobody wants him." The guy was on the phone the whole time behind the president who was sitting face forward. His staff was also on the phone. Some of the phones were black and some were red. They were using the fax and the laptops also.

We flew for a long time after we took off again. We landed again and waited on the ground for fuel. We didn't know where we were. When we were approaching the Central African Republic, the guy who was in charge asked me, "What are you gonna do? Are you going back with us?" I told him that I was staying with the president. Then he said, "You are going to a French military prison." This is what he said to me. I said, "I don't care. I'm going where the president goes." Then he said, "You will be greeted by a French colonel on your arrival."

No Americans got off the plane. Nobody. Only the three of us. Only the Central African Republic minister of foreign affairs came on the plane. We left the airport before the plane took off. Before that, we went into a small terminal. It was in the morning. We sat in the terminal for thirty minutes. The minister allowed journalists to ask him questions, but he was in no mood to talk. Then they drove us to President Bozize's palace. The president was out of town. They took us to two rooms in a side section of the palace. It was three days before President Bozize returned from out of town.

More information about Randall Robinson and his book can be found at www.randallrobinson.com.

Aristide