The Dominion - 51

Issue #51

dru — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 05:36:12 +0000

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June 2008

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Corporate Rights Trump Indigenous Rights in Ontario

Moira Peters — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 04:00:00 +0000

In attempts to skirt constitutionally required consultations with First Nations, mining corporations are seeking access to territory by dragging the process through the Ontario legal system long enough to bankrupt cash-strapped First Nations.

Situated about 580 km north of Thunder Bay is Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug First Nation (KIFN; Big Trout Lake). Despite winning an important legal victory on July 28, 2006, in the Ontario Superior Court – a victory that forced Ontario mining exploration company Platinex Incorporated to cease drilling operations in the territory claimed by the Cree community of 1,300 – KIFN eventually found itself, according to its press release of April 9, $700,000 poorer. Moreover, Platinex had been granted a court injunction permitting it to drill on KIFN land and forbidding residents to obstruct the company’s operations.

KIFN has withdrawn from the judicial route and stressed the necessity of a political solution. The First Nation is concerned about the impact mining operations will have on their treaty-guaranteed traditional way of life – hunting and fishing – which is dependent upon the health of the environment.

In a letter to James Trusler of Platinex dated November 2, 2007, leaders from KIFN cautioned:

“Be advised that even as we write this letter there are Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug persons on those Customary Lands carrying out their trapping, hunting and fishing activities. Any other land use activity will be an absolute interference in their pursuit of their livelihood.”

No response has been forthcoming from Platinex to confirm whether the community’s “no entry” position will be respected. Platinex had not responded to an email inquiry prior to publication of this article.

Attempts by Platinex to enter their traditional territory were denied by KIFN, and six leaders from the KIFN community – chief Donny Morris, deputy chief Jack McKay and four councilors: Samuel Mckay, Bruce Sakakeep, Darryl Sainnawap and Cecelia Begg – were sentenced on March 17 by Ontario Superior Court justice Patrick Smith in Thunder Bay to six months imprisonment for contempt of court.

The same sentence was meted out on February 15 by the Ontario Superior Court in Kingston to the former chief of the Ardoch Anishinabek First Nation (AAFN), Robert Lovelace, who defied a court order giving privately owned Frontenac Ventures Corporation access to unceded AAFN territory at a potential uranium mining site near Sharbot Lake, about 30 km west of Perth in Ontario. KIFN and AAFN say they stand in solidarity along with other First Nations against unwelcome corporate intrusion on First Nation territory.

In its February 19 press release, AAFN described the sentencing of Lovelace as “a travesty of justice.” The sentence had a chilling effect on indigenous protest: co-protesting Shabot Obaadjiwan First Nation subsequently ended its protest, and AAFN chief Paula Sherman – a single mother of three, wanting to avoid jail time – ended her protest against the mine. For AAFN, it is one in a series of struggles against interference by the province of Ontario in AAFN affairs.

In 1979, AAFN fought the province of Ontario to preserve indigenous rights to manomin (wild rice) in the Ardoch area. In 1995, the First Nation clashed with Ontario over restricting indigenous rights to hunting. The jurisdictional struggle continues. Ontario refuses to recognize Anishnabek law.

University of Victoria Law School professor John Borrows, who teaches Anishinabek Law, holds that Canada is a multi-juridical country where “Indigenous legal traditions shape and are embedded in our national legal structure.”

At the Fifth John C. Tait Memorial Lecture at McGill University in 1996, Borrows identified a “real crisis in the rule of law in Aboriginal communities. And it is not a crisis because Aboriginal peoples don’t have the rule of law; it is a crisis of legitimacy about the rule of law and Aboriginal communities. If Aboriginal peoples were able to start to see themselves and their normative values reflected in how they conduct their day-to-day affairs, I believe that would go at least some distance to diminishing some of the problems that we have.”

Since 2007, Anishinabek chiefs representing 42 First Nations in Ontario have begun to develop Anishinabek law through the incorporation of grassroots principles. Grand Council Chief John Beaucage stated, “The principles contained in the Anishinabek Nation law will have come from our engagement and consultation with our leadership and citizens.”

The AAFN claims that Lovelace is being punished for upholding Anishinabek law on AAFN territory. On top of imprisonment, the Ontario Superior Court judgment applied additional fines of $2,000 for each day that Lovelace continues to obey AAFN law rather than the court order. The AAFN community was fined $10,000 and Chief Paula Sherman $15,000, and, according to AAFN, their statement of defense, in which they challenge the constitutional validity of Ontario’s Mining Act, was ruled out. KIFN accuses Ontario Aboriginal Affairs minister Michael Bryant of actively colluding with mining corporations against First Nations: “Contrary to what Minister Bryant has been saying in the media, Ontario did not support KIFN in any way. On virtually every issue they support Platinex.”

In a March 31 prison interview with Nation Talk TV, KIFN chief Donny Morris said, “Something is definitely wrong when Ontario sits back while their [treaty] partner is to be thrown in jail.”

Uranium mining is the source of another conflict between Anishinabek, the Province of Ontario and private interests. Isadore Day (Wiindawtegowinini), elected Chief of Serpent River First Nation, situated between Sault Saint Marie and Sudbury on Highway 17, frets over the pace of private-sector development compared with the government-required consultation with First Nations: “It poses real challenges between industry and First Nations when government moves slower in First Nation negotiations than it does when pushing through proponent approvals for expropriation of Crown lands." Even worse, according to Day, “is that Consultation and Accommodation requirements are not even in the form of mutually agreed policy between the Crown and the First Nations, and yet government is approving land expropriation in favor of development in traditional lands.”

The KIFN actions, while confrontational, are hardly radical. The financially debilitating court system has required that KIFN instead call for First Nation-to-government talks.

First Nations in Ontario identify the source of the dissension as lying within Ontario government legislation. Ontario has a “free entry” system to mining claims, opening all lands claimed by the Crown – including those subject to Indigenous title claims – to staking, exploration and mining without any required consultation or permission. In other words, anyone with a prospector’s license may stake and record claims and prospect for minerals on any Crown land.

KIFN seeks talks and has offered proposals to end the confrontation, stating, “Although Mr. Bryant has not yet responded to the proposal, both communities have told him that we are still prepared to work with Ontario to set up the Joint Panel, as soon as all of the prisoners are released from jail and a moratorium on mining and exploration in the disputed territories is implemented.”

No reply was forthcoming from minister Bryant before publication of this article.

On April 30, delegates to the United Nations Seventh Session of the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues in New York emphasized the need for national governments to protect people over profits. Implementation of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples was viewed as crucial to this end. The Conservative Party government of Canada has been excoriated by the opposition, Indigenous peoples, and supporters of Indigenous rights for its failure to sign on to the Declaration.

Grand Council Chief Beaucage argued that the jailing KIFN leaders iterates to the world that the rights of Original Peoples are not equal to the rights of other Canadian citizens. “This,” he said, “is precisely why Canada should have been a signatory to the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.”

Assembly of First Nations Women's Council chair Kathleen McHugh deplored the arrests of Indigenous peoples:

What is being implied in this case? That economic interests trump First Nation rights? Or that economic interests trump constitutionally protected rights? This is a slippery slope, not only for First Nations but for all Canadians. This should never have gotten to the point where it went to court. The corporations involved can still do the right thing: sit down and negotiate fairly and openly with the community and their leadership. We also call on the federal government to end its silence and act responsibly by following its legal duty to ensure First Nations are properly consulted when development takes place on their lands.

On April 23, Anishinabek Nation leaders and citizens rallied at Queen's Park in Toronto to spotlight the deficiencies of the Ontario Mining Act.

Beaucage called for inclusion: "Our citizens do not want to block economic progress; we want to be part of it. However,” he added, “the rule of law in Canada – as outlined by the Constitution and the Courts – and Anishinabek Traditional Law indeed support our aboriginal right to protect our traditional territories, as well as our treaty rights to share in the wealth derived from them. As far as we're concerned, human rights will always trump mineral rights.”

On April 30, 2008, Anishinabek from Grassy Narrows First Nation began a 1,850-km Protecting Our Mother walk from Kenora to Queens Park. According to spokeswoman Chrissy Swain, the walk arose out of long frustration at the way “our people have been criminalized and imprisoned for protecting the Earth, our future generations and our rights as Anishinabek and First Peoples of this land.” The walkers hope to raise awareness of the ongoing theft and plunder of Indigenous lands and repression of Indigenous people.

The Ontario provincial government's agenda for traditional First Nations territory has maintained its allegiance to the "rights" of mining corporations instead of to the Indigenous People's millennial ties to the land. Yet, just as this article was going to publication, the Ministry of Aboriginal Affairs in Ontario announced in a press release the release of KIFN leadership from jail on May 23, pending the appeal of their sentence. Also pending the appeal, Platinex, for its part, has agreed not to enter the exploration site, and the KIFN leadership has agreed to curtail it's protests of Platinex's exploration activities.

queens park protest

May in Review

Moira Peters — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 21:40:12 +0000

A 1,850 km walk, phony foreign weddings, Sean Bell protesters arrested

The Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union of Canada (CEP-FTQ), representing 260 employees locked out by a Petro-Canada refinery in Montreal since November 2007, denounced what they called the company's attempt to persuade an employee to start a mutiny within union ranks. "Such actions are not only unacceptable but also illegal," said CEP-FTQ National Representative Daniel Cloutier. According to the CEP-FTQ, Petro-Canada had attempted to bypass official union negotiators during contract negotiations.

The Beaver Lake Cree Nation filed a lawsuit against the Alberta and federal governments for more than 16,000 infringements that are contributing to the destruction of the environment, the loss of traditional areas, and the decline in wildlife populations within their territory. "The Governments of Canada and Alberta have made a lot of promises to our people and we intend to see those promises kept," said Chief Al Lameman. "Governments and industry ignore our concerns. This is our home. This is where we live. We have a responsibility to our children, and to our children's children, to see that the lands where the Cree live, and will always live, remain inhabitable."

In New York more than 200 people were arrested in a day of protest over the acquittal of three police officers in the killing of Sean Bell. The unarmed 23-year-old died after police fired fifty bullets on the morning of what would have been his wedding day. Among those arrested was Bell’s fiancée who was followed by a large crowd who kneeled in prayer and counted from one to fifty to mark the number of bullets shot by police. "I need some questions answered," said one protester. "One police officer shot 31 times, and he was found not guilty of excessive force. So I need to know what the number is that makes it become excessive force."

General Motors (GM) permanently closed its Windsor, Ontario transmission plant. After the plant closes in 2010, no GM plants will remain in Windsor, once known as "The Automotive Capital of Canada."

The Permanent People's Tribunal (PPT) gathered in Lima, Peru, for its second session on European Transnational companies in Latin America. The Tribunal spent a week collecting evidence and testimony surrounding the actions of more than twenty European Corporations who stood accused of violating human rights and destroying the environment. The final ruling resolved in part "to morally and ethically sanction the companies as well as the political, economic, financial, productive and judicial conducts and practices of the neoliberal model, implemented and permitted by the States and the Institutions of the European Union."

Barrick Gold’s Annual General Meeting in Toronto was beamed around the world via a live webcast, but statements by Indigenous delegates attending the meeting were cut from the webcast. Indigenous leaders from Papua New Guinea (PNG), Australia, and the United States traveled to Canada to attend the shareholders’ meeting, calling on investors to divest their shares in protest of Barrick’s alleged violations of human rights in its mining operations overseas. Jethro Tulin from the Enga province in PNG demanded that the 5,000 families living in danger around the Porgera mine site be relocated. “When will Barrick finally pay fair compensation to the families who have lost their loved ones to the guns of your security forces, to the rape victims, to the families who have lost members in your open pit and in the waste dumps and who have drowned in your river of tailings?” The leaders also presented statements to the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues in New York. Soaring gold prices and a timely decision to ditch its corporate hedge book paid off for Barrick in the first quarter as the world's top gold miner posted stronger earnings despite weaker production.

Dozens of protesters from Honduras, Guatemala and Canada lined the street outside the hotel in Toronto where another Canadian mining company, Goldcorp, was holding their AGM. "What is the price of life as opposed to the cost of gold?" asked Fausto Valiente of Guatemala, who accused the company of polluting groundwater, damaging homes and ignoring the will of 18 indigenous communities who oppose Goldcorp’s operations on their land.

Quebec politicians and commentators used the occasion of hockey-related riots to call for increased powers for police. "It is necessary that the police have all the powers that they want," opposition leader Mario Dumont told journalists. Writing in La Presse, Yves Boisvert said "there must be a show of force [and] active retaliatory steps" to stop future riots. Crowds destroyed five police cars and damaged an additional 12 following a first-round playoff victory by the Montreal Canadiens.

Two Canadian forces reservists were were sentenced to 10 years in jail for their role in the beating death of homeless man Paul Croutch. Homeless men in Toronto are nine times more likely to be murdered than their housed counterparts.

In the largest labour strike since the invasion of Iraq, ports along the West Coast of the US—all twenty-nine of them—were shut down as some 25,000 dockworkers went on a one-day strike to protest the war. "I hope that this will be an example to other workers that we have the power, we've got to use it," said Jack Heyman of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union, "And that's how we can bring this war to a halt."

The Sinkan refugee camp in Myanmar has 39 blue, evenly-spaced tents, a team of white-uniformed doctors and nurses, white UN Toyota Land Cruisers, and a group of Japanese diplomats inspecting the camp. Ten minutes down the road, in the town of Kyauktan, hundreds of people line the riverbank “in living conditions scarcely superior to those of animals.” Local monks provide the only institutional help available to these refugees and hundreds of them sheltered in the monastery's prayer hall until government authorities forced them out. Only seven United Nations representatives have managed to make their way through red tape and visa requirements and out of Yangon, Myanmar's former capital, in order to head out to the delta region. Recent reports estimate that more than 130,000 people are dead or missing from Cyclone Nargis that hit the country's Irrawaddy delta. Damage totaled to USD$10 billion; it was the worst natural disaster in Burmese history.

The Harper government announced a plan to deploy teams to foreign countries to research elaborately staged phony weddings. The Department of Citizenship and Immigration says that some people are using 'marriages of convenience' to settle in Canada.

Stephen Harper and his cabinet have exempted contracts with Parliament and Canada's spy agency from oversight by a new ombudsman's post. Opposition MPs were taken by surprise at the exemptions, saying they were unaware the Senate, the House of Commons and the Canadian Security Intelligence Service would be excluded from the ombudsman's statutory duty to review contracts for "fairness, openness and transparency."

Faustino Vinluan, a 72 year old Filipino immigrant living in Surrey, died of lung cancer while his brothers waited for visitor visas. Vinluan had hoped to spend his final months in the company of his brothers, but their visas were denied based on fears the brothers would try to stay indefinitely in Canada.

An Algerian refugee who has lived in sanctuary in a Montreal church for more than two years launched a hip-hop album. Abdelkader Belaouni collaborated with Muslim-American rapper 23 (Tu-Three). "This is one of the rare opportunities that Abdelkader has to express himself to the outside world, having been stuck between four walls for over two years," explained Mostafa Henaway from the Committee to Support Abdelkader Belaouni.

The Lubicon People were denied participation in the Alberta Utilities Commission hearing on TransCanada's application to build a major gas pipeline across unceded Lubicon territory.

American folk singer, song writer and champion of the working class Bruce "U. Utah" Phillips died in his sleep at the age of 73. After first being diagnosed with congestive heart disease in 1995 Phillips wrote, "Don't give our world up. It needs to grow, yes – but subtly, out, through, under, quietly, like water eroding stone, subversive, alive, happy."

Puvirnituk, an Inuit village in Nunavik, is suffering from a housing crisis. With a growing population of 1,500 and only a few hundred homes available, residents say the shortage is fueling violence, substance abuse and death; 2008 has brought five suicides in as many months.

Hundreds of labour activists attended a Blue Jays game at the Rogers Centre in Toronto to draw attention to the city's only major non-union sporting venue and the concession workers employed there. Aramark recently took over the contract to provide concession services at the Rogers Centre and has designated all staff as probationary employees even though many have worked at the venue for years.

Twenty-two members of Grassy Narrows First Nation completed their 1,850 km walk from Kenora to Toronto. The group was joined by members of the Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug (KI), Ardoch Algonquin First Nations and other aboriginal leaders from across Ontario to protest mining exploration on disputed native lands and to call for the immediate release of First Nations leaders jailed in recent months for protesting mining in Ontario. The walk culminated in four days of activities in Toronto including a march and "Sovereignty Sleepover" in Queens Park.

Six leaders from Kitchenuhumaykoosib Inninuwug have been temporarily released from jail, having been imprisoned since early March for peacefully resisting platinum exploration in their territory. They have to report back to the Courts on May 29. Their lawyer Chris Reid stated, “We’re asking the Court of Appeal to send a message to the government that they need to change the mining law or this is going to happen over and over and over again.”

One of the most contentious aspects of Mining Law in Ontario and other provinces is the Free Entry system, which is the subject of a new report titled “Mining Exploration Conflicts in Canada’s Boreal Forest,” by the International Boreal Conservation Campaign.

This year's sockeye salmon catch from the Fraser River is expected to be 'dismal,' meaning a food shortage for many First Nations people who rely on the fish for up to one third of their diet. The catch has been decreasing for years, blamed partly on climate change and the river's rising temperature. "It's going to be a difficult summer, probably especially in remote communities," said Eduardo Jovel, director of the UBC Institute for Aboriginal Health.

A motion seeking the mandatory labeling on foods containing genetically modified components was defeated in the Canadian House of Commons. Over 40 countries around the world have successfully implemented such requirements and polls reveal that the majority of Canadians support mandatory labeling of GE foods. Almost all Conservative party members voted against the motion while most Bloc and NDP members voted in favor.

Sixty-two striking members of the United Steelworkers Union (USU), who say they're fighting for a fair and decent contract from CIBC, delivered a message to the company's Toronto headquarters. "[The Strikers] are not asking for anything extraordinary or out of line. But, after four months, their struggle has become a living, breathing symbol for all bank workers," said USU Ontario/Atlantic Director Wayne Fraser. "This is an important fight that, with support from consumers and others who believe in fairness and decency, may benefit all underpaid bank employees who help put huge profits into bank CEOs' pockets." The CEO of CIBC takes home nine million dollars a year.

BC Supreme Court Justice Ian Pitfield exempted Insite, North America’s only legally operating safe injection site, from Canada’s drug laws until the end of June, 2009. The decision buys another year for Insite. Many health professionals, community activists, and Vancouver residents would like to see such supervised injection facilities become permanent.

A raid of a meatpacking plant in Iowa resulted in the detainment of nearly 400 of the slaughterhouse's 968 employees. Federal officials arrested hundreds of undocumented immigrants working at the plant. "We feel strongly that these kind of overdramatic theatrical raids are done for political purposes and fail the test of legitimate law enforcement," said a union spokesperson.

A US Supreme Court Ruling gave the go ahead for three class action lawsuits, filed against corporations that allegedly aided and abetted South African military and security forces during the Apartheid era. The suits were filed under the Alien Claims Tort Act against corporations including ExxonMobil, UBS, Deutsche Bank, General Motors, IBM, Hewlett-Packard, Bank of America, General Electric, BP, Citigroup, and Ford. Canada has no such legislation, making it near impossible to bring such cases against Canadian corporations that operated in South Africa between 1948 and 1994.

The Serpent River First Nation, whose waters and territory have already been negatively affected by the Elliot Lake uranium mines, issued a press release demanding “decisive action from the Ontario government on a list of matters pertaining to development in their traditional territory including the exploration of minerals, especially uranium.”

May 15 was a solemn anniversary for Palestinians and their supporters. It marked 60 years since yawm al-Nakba, or the Day of the Catastrophe, when over 750,000 Palestinians were forced from or fled their homes when Israel declared its independence. Independent media from Canada, the US and Occupied Palestine marked the day by holding a joint broadcast, Radio Free Palestine.

Childcare workers in Halifax gathered at the Nova Scotia legislature to protest their low wages. The CUPE local that represents childcare workers says the average pay is nine dollars an hour, which works out to less than the low income cut-off in Canada of about $22,000.

Retired US Army Sgt. Adrienne Kinne revealed that the Palestine Hotel in Iraq – which US forces bombed in 2003, killing two journalists – was in fact listed as a potential target by the American military. The shelling of the hotel, which was known to house international media covering the war, killed Reuters cameraman Taras Protsyuk and Jose Couso, cameraman for the Spanish television network Telecinco. Kinne, an intelligence officer, also told Democracy Now! that part of her work involved eavesdropping on journalists staying at the hotel in the lead up to the war.

Al-Jazeera cameraman Sami al-Haj was released from Guantanamo Bay prison after over six years. Al-Haj, who was captured in 2001 in Pakistan, was held in the American military without charge and was allegedly subjected to torture and over 200 interrogation sessions. The 39-year-old was immediately flown back to his native Khartoum, in Sudan, where he received medical treatment. He had been on a hunger strike for over a year to protest his arrest.

Former US president Jimmy Carter told an audience at a UK literary festival that Israel has 150 nuclear weapons. Carter was giving a talk at the Hay-on-Wye festival in Wales about the need for diplomacy in dealing with Iran’s nuclear ambitions. While estimates on how many weapons Israel holds range from 50 to 400, the Israeli government has repeatedly refused to confirm whether it has a nuclear arsenal. This was the first time a US president has openly acknowledged that Israel has nuclear weapons.

A native community near Sudbury is suing the Canadian and Ontario governments for $550 billion. Representatives of Whitefish Lake First Nation say that their reserve boundaries were drawn on a far more limited territory than was agreed to when a treaty was signed in 1885.

Forty poor families took over a parcel of land on the outskirts of Buenos Aires and began establishing a community. While land occupations are common, observers note that this group, called Tierra y Libertad, makes decisions collectively by popular assembly. While building homes, a bakery, and two community buildings, Tierra y Libertad has been resisting eviction attempts.

Dunkin' Donuts pulled an ad featuring TV personality Rachel Ray wearing a black and white silk scarf. Th scarf bears resemblance to a keffiyeh, a traditional headdress worn by Arab men. Fox News commentator Michelle Malkin praised the company’s response: "It's refreshing to see an American company show sensitivity to the concerns of Americans opposed to Islamic jihad and its apologists."

In Lebanon, armed clashes between Hezbollah-led opposition groups and US-backed pro-government forces led some commentators to accuse the US of instigating a civil war. "This is very much similar to what is happening in Sudan, in Palestine, in Iraq, in Afghanistan and Somalia, [where] the United States is basically instigating and funding civil wars," said political science professor As'ad AbuKhalil.

Reformed election finance laws have kick-started a campaign for the Canadian Labour Congress (CLC). The CLC's new political strategy has three main areas of work: municipal politics, issues advocacy, and "Better Choice" campaigns keyed to federal elections.

In Chicoutimi, Quebec, 400 teacher's assistants voted over 89 per cent in favour of joining the Public Service Alliance of Canada. The new union members established some priority objectives: pay for all hours worked, suitable salary increases, safe working conditions and protection of intellectual property.

Justice officials in Nunavut signed a deal that will double the number of inmates serving time in Ontario facilities while local authorities search for ways to relieve chronic overcrowding at the territorial jail. A new territorial jail is scheduled to open in Rankin Inlet in 2011. As well, a separate women's facility in Iqaluit is expected to be ready next year.

The Pentagon announced plans to build a new, 40-acre detention complex on the main American military base in Afghanistan. The plan reveals the United States intends to hold prisoners overseas for years to come, though US officials say the "driving factor" behind the move is "the highest standards of treatment and care." Some current detainees have been held without charge for more than five years and about ten prisoners are juveniles.

Uncle Chappy and the Gold

Sean Bell Protest

An Eagle Feather for Linda Keen?

dru — Wed, 28 May 2008 15:55:46 +0000

The question of jurisdiction (Part III in a series)

[Continued from Part II]

When it comes to how to deal with polluting nuclear power plants and other matters, jurisdiction becomes very important, especially with regard to unceded Aboriginal territory.

Although the Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd. (AECL) installation at Chalk River is located along the shores of the Ottawa river in Ontario, it is situated within unceded Algonquin territory. Traditional Algonquin territory straddles both sides of the Ottawa river, with most Algonquins residing on the Quebec side.

In 1992 the federal and Ontario governments entered into land claim negotiations under the Comprehensive Land Claim process with the Indian Act band of Pikwakanagan and several other contemporary Algonquin communities. Recent Supreme Court of Canada and international case law has affirmed that the title and associated jurisdiction of Aboriginal polities in place prior to sovereignty assertions of the Crown have legal recognition and constitutional protection.

Currently, the Kichesipirini Algonquins are the only Algonquins meeting these legal requirements, yet they are consistently denied recognition within any consultation or negotiation processes. To enter into negotiations, they are told they are required to first abrogate their basic rights.

While the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC) has attempted to ensure that at least a semblance of public participation and consultation had taken place, even it has wondered if Aboriginal groups have been adequately consulted.

As the following exchange shows, the CNSC had not been informed on the question of Aboriginal jurisdiction, nor had it conducted research into the matter.

During the Environmental Assessment Screening Hearing Report of March 30, 2006, CNSC member James Dosman questioned Claude David, Environmental Assessment Specialist for the CSNC, about which First Nations had been consulted.

"We regularly send correspondence to the Algonquins of Pikwakangan which is, I believe, the Golden Lake Reserve in the area," David responded.

Dosman then asked: "May I ask, have you received any reply?" David`s response: "We never received any reply, response from these groups."

"And has anyone discussed this matter with them?" asked Dosman.

"Staff have never gone out to meet with the chief or the tribal council to explain the reasoning for our requests for their participation in the environmental assessment process," David responded.

Dosman then directed questions to Bill Coopershmidt of AECL, asking: "And may we have any comment from AECL on this matter of consultation with First Nations; which groups and what the efforts were that were made?"

Coopershmidt responded: "We have had on a number of occasions representatives from the Algonquins of Pikwakangan on site and as part of that we have briefed this group of individuals on a number of our activities including this particular project. So we certainly have made the nature of this project fully aware to this particular interested party."

"And were any concerns expressed by the Algonquin First Nations following what I take was a presentation to them?" Dosman asked.

"There were no concerns expressed," said Coopershmidt.

Mainstream Canadian society has come to expect the romanticised attempts of Aboriginal Canadians to act as heroic environmental watchdogs. So why no bark out of the Algonquins of Pikwakanagan, a federally funded Indian Act Band?

And why were the Algonquins of Pikwakanagan, a federally funded Indian Act Band located in Ontario the only Aboriginal group "consulted"?

The Algonquins of Pikwakanagan have no legal jurisdiction beyond their reserve at Golden Lake, a 76 kilometre drive from the Chalk River reactor, completely removed from the Otawa river. There were no concerns expressed because the matter had never even been taken to that community for proper consultation.

There were no concerns expressed because the vast majority of federally-recognized Algonquins, intimately attached to the Ottawa River, reside in Quebec, on the other side the river, and were never informed or consulted. The issues were not even advertised beyond the AECL website.

The actual Aboriginal community most associated with the Ottawa River is Kichesipirini. Kichesipirini, however, is not federally recognized and is continually persecuted because of their adamant stance regarding protection of the environment and their refusal to abrogate or derogate their constitutionally and internationally protected rights and responsibilities.

This partially explains why the Kichesipirini Algonquin First Nation, despite meeting the legal requirements to enter into negotiations, despite having submitted a claim without reliance on any government funding or assistance, and despite demanding third party expertise and international standards of good governance be applied to the process, has been consistently rejected from land claim or treaty consultation and negotiations.

Corporate Canada, parading as political representatives, are experts at circumventing legitimacy. They wiggled out of their actual obligations to the actual Aboriginal peoples of Canada by creating facsimile Aboriginal communities, under domestic policy, that are not party to the original legal international contracts.

As part of the same masquerade, they are attempting to circumvent a commitment to safety and environmental stewardship by implementing the Cabinet Directive on Streamlining Regulation (CDSR). It sounds impressive, but the CDSR, put into effect by the Canadian Government on April 1, 2007, "introduces several key 'improvements' to regulation in Canada," which actually shifts the onus away from uncompromised safety and environmental protection and marries these concerns to "a number of performance management requirements," most notably to "promote a fair and competitive market economy that encourages entrepreneurship, investment, and innovation." Rather than solely adhering to the scrutiny of independent expert watchdog organizations, new Canadian policy will "require timeliness, policy coherence, and minimal duplication throughout the regulatory process by consulting, coordinating, and cooperating across the federal government, with other governments in Canada and abroad, and with businesses and Canadians."

Just as the Indian Act, cloaked in a language of righteousness and protection, completely eroded the legal obligations and responsibilities of the Canadian government to the original stewards of the land, the application of the CDSR will erode the authority of the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission.

A report presented to the CNSC entitled "Regulatory Independence: Law, Practice and Perception," explains that "The notion of the 'independence' of a regulatory body such as the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC) relates, from a legal perspective, to two broad ideas: institutional independence and adjudicative independence.

"Both aspects of independence relate to the ultimate goal of independence, which is decision-making that is unbiased and impartial."

Unfortunately for the CNSC and Linda Keen, the former CNSC president, "the Supreme Court of Canada has indicated that the institutional independence required of the judiciary in Canada for constitutional law reasons is not the same as what the law requires of an administrative tribunal."

Instead, the Supreme Court has determined that "it is for Parliament or the legislature to determine what functions" an administrative tribunal should serve.

Regarding issues of adjudicative independence, the "CNSC's processes reflect efforts to ensure that individual members may successfully avoid concerns of undue influence." The process "ensures that all information on which the CNSC may base its decisions is made available to the affected parties, so that they can know the case to meet and have the opportunity to make representations with respect to the information."

Another CNSC report tells us: "Aboriginal groups bring to the CNSC a unique relationship and history with the federal government, and different cultural, environmental, economic and social perspectives on nuclear issues. Working with Aboriginal communities and/or their political representatives requires a solid understanding and respect of the history and cultures of the affected communities, and their past and current relationship to the federal government."

Reliance on only those Aboriginal groups defined as Indian, Metis or Inuit by the federal government limits the consultation to only those Aboriginals represented through domestic policy and fails to recognize those Aboriginal polities, like the Kichesipirini, who have not yet acquiesced any of their inherent traditional rights. Such affected parties have not been given the opportunity, nor granted access to fair or uninfluenced processes, that would allow them participation or consultation as stakeholders.

Welcome, CNSC and Linda Keen to the protracted wrestling match well known to the Kichesipirini between the long arms of the law and the short arms of the Canadian state.

According to the laws of natural justice, common law, civil law, constitutional law and international law, the traditional rights and jurisdiction of the Aboriginal nations in existence prior to sovereignty assertion by the Crown supercede domestic policy... until ceded through military defeat, land claims or treaty negotiations. Kichesipirini title and jurisdiction supercedes the CNSC, the provinces, and the exclusive authority of the existing Parliament of Canada.

An eagle feather for Linda Keen in appreciation for her attempts at protecting our communities and our river? Perhaps. Keen has strongly recommended that her performance as president of the CNSC be referred to a public inquiry, parliamentary committee or independent international review. From our perspective of centuries of persecution and discrimination only an independent international review will suffice.

If Linda Keen is successful in having the issues referred for such examination, and as part of that examination the important issue of Kichesipirini jurisdiction and the rights of the traditional Algonquin Nation are also addressed, then it will be job well done. Until then it is still sword-rattling and ass-covering by the colonizers on unceded Algonquin territory.

Paula LaPierre
Principal Sachem
Kichesipirini Algonquin First Nation

Migizi Kiishkaabikaan

“People’s War” Turns to People’s Vote

hillarybain — Tue, 20 May 2008 13:18:41 +0000

Maoist return to the democratic process

Communism in Nepal is not a new concept. Nepal’s first communist party was created in 1949 and communism has shaped the history of the country ever since. In 1994, a coalition government came together to form one of the few elected national communist-party governments in history. The breakdown of this coalition led to the death of 13,000 Nepalese in a brutal decade-long civil war.

Often portrayed as brainwashed savages holding onto an anachronistic ideology, the Nepalese Maoist movement receives virtually no Western media attention unless blood is shed in the name of the cause. Nepal’s recent election has given Western media another reason to focus on the Nepalese Maoist movement.

On April 10, the Communist Party Nepal-Maoist (CPN-M) won a majority of seats in Nepal’s election. The victory has been seen as a cause for alarm for the Bush administration, which sent both military and financial aid to the former Nepalese government in order to fight the Maoist insurgency.

Before the election, in November of 2007, I was brought to a rural Maoist village where I had the opportunity to talk with Maoist leaders and locals. I was able to see the human side of the civil war in Nepal as well as the grassroots organization of Nepal's Maoist party.

The rise of the CPN-M is a success story for grassroots movements. On February 13, 1996, Maoists began what is known at the “People’s War” by taking control of the Small Farmers Development Bank in Gorkha. Bank workers were overpowered late one night, leading to a takeover of the building, the burning of loan papers and a speech that described the bank as instrument of exploitation used by the state. After a brief parting speech, the Maoists left. Thus marked the beginning of the “People’s War.”

Most peasants who witnessed the takeover had no idea who these rebels were, but understood their message and shared their anger. Many villagers were subjugated to cast, ethnic, linguistic and gender injustices and became sympathetic to the Maoist cause.

The CPN-M held political gatherings throughout the “People’s War.” The message espoused by Maoists not only spoke to the outrage felt by the villagers throughout the countryside, but did so in the local dialect. The Maoists respected the local languages, customs and beliefs of various tribes and promised to bring about a secular, democratic state with safeguards for minority rights including language protection. Women also played a vital role in the movement.

It was in the mountainous villages of Lamjung on the border of Gorkha where I was introduced to the Maoists' way of life and the hardships they face. I was first taken to my friend Nanda’s village. The village is ethnically Mongolian and residents hold both Buddhist and Hindu religious beliefs.

The murder of journalist Birendra Shah at the hand of Maoist card holders occurred only one month before my visit. The Federation of Nepalese Journalists had released a statement in the Kathmandu Post warning journalist not to meet with Maoists due to safety concerns. I departed from tourist friendly Pokorah on a seven-hour bus trip and was dropped off on the side of a windy, mountainous road. Two jeep rides and a two-hour hike landed us in Nanda’s village.

It is hard to describe the stunning natural beauty and sense of community one feels when entering such a village. Nanda had recently been paid and we spent the better part of our first day visiting villagers and distributing gifts and money. In the days that followed I travelled to surrounding villages and was taken aback by the communal way of living and property sharing embedded in the culture. Hiking from village to village the sense of collectivism was ubiquitous.

Although the people I met shared what they had, communities were lacking in essential services like medicine. While traveling to a neighbouring village, I met an elderly woman who asked if I had any medicine for her stomach pains. I gave her what medicine I had and through Nanda explained how it was to be taken. Further up the mountain I saw a man being carried on another man's back, clearly in pain. He was being transported to a hospital 10 hours away.

The lack of general social services (including electricity) along with the lack of employment opportunities forces many young villagers into urban areas in search of wage-labour work. In cities one experiences a different Nepal: a Nepal with electricity and paved roads. Once living in cities, the low wages and lack of transportation infrastructure into rural areas makes returning home a onerous task. Nanda’s sister has a one-year-old child. Her husband works over ten hours away and comes home whenever he can. He literally has to climb the Himalayas to see his wife and child. It is within this context of neglect that the Maoists released their 40 demands in 1996.

Of the 40 demands, perhaps six could be seen as communist in nature. The rest focus on basic rights, including: the abolition of the caste system, rights for women, the creation of a constitution, the end of the monarchy and the creation of a democratic secular state with intellectual freedom for all. When these demands were not met, Maoists began their “People’s War.”

The war on terror gave Colin Powell the perfect pretext to visit Nepal in January 2002. He pledged support for the government’s “war on terror,” known to locals as the People’s War. To date, the U.S has donated an estimated $29 million in military aid to Nepal. According to critics, this aid led to the widening of the war and an increase in atrocities on both sides. While surely not Powell’s intent, this military aid also helped the Maoists gain new sympathizers, members and soldiers.

When she was 11 years old, Nepalese police killed Sita Kumari’s brother while he was harvesting potatoes. Quoted in the book When There Were No Men: Women in the Maoist Insurgency, Kumari’s story exemplifies how these attacks helped the party recruit members. “Yes my brother was killed. But we have 1000 brothers of the same kind. We will all come together and take revenge. We will not spare those responsible for our grief.” Before her brother's murder Sita Kumari was not a Maoist, nor were any of her family, however, after he was killed she became an ardent Maoist supporter and her two older brothers became Maoist insurgents.

Maoist military strategy dictates that the rural areas must come under party control before any action is taken in urban areas. After cities are surrounded by Maoist-supported communities, major military offensives on urban areas can take place. While limited-scale attacks took place in Kathmandu and other urban areas during the civil war, no full-scale military assault occurred. Instead, the party chose a different tactic: the CNP-M formed the All Nepalese Trade Union Federation (Revolutionary), and spoke to the needs of the urban working class.

As the party grew in both membership and legitimacy in cities and throughout the country, the CPN-M decided to re-enter the political sphere in January of 2008. It agreed to rejoin the government allowing Nepalese Maoist to be sworn in as cabinet ministers.

I had the opportunity to meet with a Maoist district leader (who wishes to remain nameless) and his second and third in command. All three have been members since the beginning of the civil war. All are in contact with Prachanda, the leader of the CPN-M and leader of People's Liberation Army (PLA), the military wing of CPN-M. All have served in the PLA in varying forms.

The first thing I was told during our meeting was that if I had any problems I should come to these men; that they were the security in the district. Nanda then told me of the soldiers who patrolled the mountains, going from village to village to ensure domestic peace and to record any grievances. These patrols are organized by the district leader and report directly to him. An hour before we arrived in one village, two soldiers passed through. These routine patrols have caught many unsuspecting trekking tourists by surprise, when the soldiers request a “donation.” The donations cost an average of three American dollars. For the three trekkers I met, the donation experience was not frightening. Of the three, two were issued receipts and one lied and said she had already paid. Maoists feel it is well within their rights to ask tourists for a modest amount for crossing their lands, since the Nepalese federal government charges 1,270 Rupees (20 American dollars) for trekking permits yet provide no services to the areas in return.

As we spoke, some villagers came to listen to our conversation. All showed the utmost respect for the PLA leaders. It was difficult to ascertain whether the respect came from fear or admiration.

“We are confident that we will win many seats,” the leader said. “Our country knows what is at stake and the sacrifices we have given in the name of justice.” While the leader sounded very confident, most prognosticators at the time did not believe the Maoists had a chance at becoming the ruling party in Nepal. “We are on a path of peace, and we feel that this election will serve to prove to the people of Nepal our party is serious about its commitment to peace and democracy.” On that note the three men stood up, gave the Maoist salute and walked off into the valley.

The next day while trekking, I met the CPN-M’s third ranking member, Dubar. He remembered me from the day before and affably invited me to his village for tea. I agreed and we hiked to his village where he put on tea and introduced me to his family. This took longer than one might expect due to the fact that the entire village was in some way related to him. After the introductions, he turned to me and said, “This is the face of Maoism in Nepal.” He took great pride in his village and their accomplishments. He was eager to show me that a few of the younger villagers could speak some English.

I attempted to ask Dubar more about the upcoming elections and the future of his party, but he preferred to discuss politics in my country. He was very excited to hear how communism was progressing in Canada. I explained to him how the New Democratic Party was most popular socialist party in Canada, amassing 17.4 per cent of the popular vote, and that both Communist Parties do not receive one per cent. He was shocked but still in high spirits. His face brimmed with hope and enthusiasm when he asked, “What does average Canadian think of us Maoists? What we have accomplished?” I did not have the heart to tell him that the average Canadian knows virtually nothing about Nepalese Maoists, or that the only way that the average Canadian hears about the Nepalese Maoist movement is when government troops die or when police stations are raided. Instead I told him simply that the movement receives little attention in Canada.

Villager in Nepal

Rural Nepal

April in Review

dru — Mon, 19 May 2008 08:25:40 +0000

Regional autonomy in South America, Goldcorp's social irresponsibility, global food prices

"It is a terrible event. It is not going to do anybody's image any good," Prime Minister Stephen Harper said of hundreds of ducks that died after landing in a giant toxic lake built by tar sands extraction operations owned by Syncrude, near Fort McMurray. The Cree and Dene community of Fort Chipewyan, which lies downstream of the "tailing ponds" that line the Athabasca River, have reported abnormally high cancer rates in recent years. "Air cannons" are usually used to scare birds away, but Syncrude did not have the cannons in place when the birds landed.

Ducks Unlimited, an organization with the mandate, "conserving Canada's wetlands," was criticized for its silence over the massive duck die-off. Ducks Unlimited has accepted millions of dollars from major tar sands operators Suncor and Syncrude, and channels millions of dollars to Canadian environmental groups through the Canadian Boreal Initiative.

Another conservation organization, the Nature Conservancy, has also come under fire for accepting corporate money, this time from Shell Canada Limited. A Prince George forestry professor and former supporter of the organization sent a public letter criticizing the relationship, citing Shell's controversial coal bed methane projects near the headwaters of the Skeena river.

Activists could pose a serious threat to the 2010 Olympic Games in Vancouver, a former RCMP security analyst told the Canadian Press. "There is some commonality of thinking here between anarchist groups, social activists groups... and then I see native groups," said Tom Quiggan. "When you see that kind of convergence coming up, it makes you a little nervous."

The book launch for Noir Canada: Pillage, corruption et criminalité en Afrique was cancelled when the authors and publishers (Édition Écosociété) received letters from a law firm representing Barrick Gold. The letters claim inaccuracies in the books account of an incident in Bulyanhulu, Tanzania, where more than 50 small scale miners were buried alive in 1996. Barrick Gold is suing for $6 million.

Authorities in the Guatemalan village of San Miguel Ixtahuacán voted to carry out a community referendum (consulta) about the operations of Vancouver-based Goldcorp in their territory. The neighbouring municipality of Sipakapa rejected mining almost unanimously in a community referendum in June of 2005. They also presented a denouncement of the company’s operations in their territory to the municipal government, focusing on the many houses that have cracked as a result of mine operations, the drying up of streams and wells, the increased violence in the municipality, intimidation and arrest of local authorities who are against mining, and water contamination.

Fernando Lugo, a former bishop, was elected president of Paraguay on April 20. Election day was relatively peaceful, but there were targeted assasinations of leftist leaders in the weeks leading up to the elections. Lugo’s victory marks the end of more than 60 years of governance by the right wing Colorado Party, a significant shift in the South American nation.

In a surprise reversal, Nepal's Maoists won a majority of the votes in national elections. The former guerillas, who laid down their weapons subsequent to a 2006 peace pact, have promised to abolish the Nepalese monarchy in the coming months.

The Venezuelan government announced plans to nationalize a major steel plant, which was privatized in 1997. Observers say the announcement could strain relations with Venezuela's ally, Argentina, as Argentinian conglomerate Techint is the plant's largest shareholder.

Some political leaders in Venezuela's oil-rich region of Zulia have begun a campaign for "autonomy." Legislators in the country's national government have called the move an attempt to destabilize the socialist government. Many politicians involved in the campaign have benefitted from millions in "aid" and "democracy promotion" funding that have poured into the country since Hugo Chavez was elected President in 1998.

Bolivia's resource-rich region of Santa Cruz has been making a similar move with the backing of the US Agency for International Development (USAID). The agency has provided $13 million in funding to political parties, organizations and projects in Bolivia, most of it aimed at "reinforcing regional governments." The campaign has become a fight between the socialist national government and the wealthy region over control of resources. Politicians from Zulia cited Santa Cruz's campaign as inspiration for their own activities. The Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), as well as the Dutch Cooperation Agency have also supported the autonomous referendum in Santa Cruz. CIDA's support was part of a three million dollar "strengthening of democracy" grant made in 2005 to the National Electoral Court, funneled through the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).

Under intense pressure from Colombian military commanders to register combat kills, the army has been killing peasant farmers, dressing them in combat fatigues and calling in local newspaper reporters to write about the supposed combat that had taken place. Soldiers are given incentives -- extra pay and days off -- for amassing kills in combat. “This is because the army gives prizes for kills, not for control of territory,” said one soldier. Human rights groups say that between mid-2002 and mid-2007, 955 civilians were killed and classified as guerrillas fallen in combat. The spike has come during a military buildup that has seen the armed forces nearly double to 270,000 members in the last six years, becoming the second-largest military in Latin America. US Sen. Patrick J. Leahy, chairman of the Senate Appropriations foreign operations subcommittee, said he is holding up $23 million in military aid until he sees progress in the fight against impunity and state-sponsored violence. “We’ve had six years, $5 billion in US aid. More than half of it has gone to the Colombian military, and we find the army is killing more civilians, not less,” Leahy said in an interview.

The US congress also blocked the ratification of the Free Trade Agreement with Colombia over concerns with the human rights violations, violence against union organizers, and increasing paramilitary activity in the country. Canada is currently negotiating a Free Trade Agreement with Colombia. International Trade Minister David Emerson told Embassy Magazine: "There's a government in Colombia that's working hard trying to build a viable democracy and deal with human rights, and why not give them the economic opportunities to go with what can keep them out of poverty and off of businesses that may be linked to drug trades."

The US Navy announced that they will be reactivating the "Fourth Fleet." Disbanded in 1950, the reactivated Fleet will "oversee ships, aircraft, and submarines operating in the Caribbean and Central and South America," including a nuclear aircraft carrier, according to the New York Sun.

Global food prices continued to rise, putting pressure on the poorest populations dependent on the global economy for nourishment. Analysts explained that despite higher prices, a shortage of food is not the cause of the price increases. A Wall Street Journal report explained that "one of the chief causes of food-price inflation is new demand for ethanol and biodiesel, which can be made from corn, palm oil, sugar and other crops."

Price increases have provoked a new round of condemnations of World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) policies, which some analysts say have undermined poor countries' ability to feed themselves and exercise control over food policy. In Haiti, food riots have been traced to a 1986 IMF-imposed policy that lifted tariffs on rice, resulting in a flood of subsidized rice into the country from the US, putting most Haitian farmers out of business and rendering them dependent on foreign supplies.

Haiti’s senate fired Prime Minister Jacques Edouard Alexis following seven days of “spectacular, and often violent,” protests against hunger, poverty, unemployment, and the high cost of living. Although prompted by the explosion of frustration from Haiti's poor, the Senate vote was chiefly led by members of Haiti's elite, particularly Youri Latortue, the nephew of former interim Prime Minister Gerard Latortue, who ruled Haiti in the two year's following the coup of elected President Jean-Bertrand Aristide in 2004. Youri Latortue is widely believed to have been linked to corruption, the drug trade, and the 1994 killing of Jean-Marie Vincent, a Catholic priest. Preceding the senate’s demand for the Prime Minister’s resignation, Haiti’s president Rene Preval, a former agronomist, spoke of the need to subsidize domestic farming instead of subsidizing imported products in Haiti. He then met with Haiti’s principle rice importers who agreed to reduce – with government subsidies – the price of a 50kg bag of rice from $51 to $43.

Dozens of groups, communities and organisations in more than 25 countries around the world organized more than 50 actions such as farmer's markets, conferences, direct actions, cultural activities and demonstrations to defend their right to food and their right to feed their communities. These actions marked April 19, International Peasants Day, a commemoration of the 19 landless demonstrators killed by military police of the State of Pará in Brazil in 1996. Often marginalised, impoverished and oppressed, farmers and rural populations represent almost half of the people on earth. Farmers organisations believe that sustainable family farming and local food production can solve the current crisis.

The number of refugees waiting to have their claims heard by Canada's Immigration and Refugee Board has more than doubled, to 42,300 from just over 20,000. The Board's chairman told the Canadian Press that the Conservative government has not been filling vacant adjudicator positions. The number of empty positions has increased from 10 to 58 since the Conservatives took power. The Liberal immigration critic told reporters that he suspects the government is trying to sabotage the board in order to impose a "more restrictive" system.

Conservatives have recently said that the immigration system is "on track to collapse," Immigration Minister Diane Finley told the House of Commons. The Conservatives have introduced a new set of changes to the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, embedded in Bill C-50, a 136-page "budget implementation bill." The changes would give the immigration minister the authority to arbitrarily reject applications, and set quotas on the number of immigrants allowed from a particular ethnic group or country.

Mohawk demonstrators from Tyendinega blockaded a road near Deseronto, Ontario in opposition to a housing development on disputed territory. The Culbertson Tract is an area the federal government has acknowledged is unsurrendered Mohawk land, but development has been allowed to continue. Mohawks have occupied a quarry, which they point out is literally removing Mohawk land at a rate of 20,000 tonnes per day. The latest blockade opposed a housing development that began in the area, despite ongoing negotiations over land rights. Three men, including Shawn Brant, were arrested during a show of force by the Ontario Provincial Police.

The Canadian Union of Postal Workers voted in favour of a resolution supporting an ongoing boycott, divestment and sanctions campaign aimed at ending Israel's policies with regard to the occupation of Palestinian land. "It's time to push for a fair and just settlement so that both Palestinians and Israelis can live in peace," Denis Lemelin, the union's president, told reporters. "There can't be a solution while settlements exist on Palestinian land and while a security barrier restricts the movement of Palestinian workers." The union represents more than 50,000 postal workers in Canada.

One year into the strike at the French-language daily Journal de Québec, negotiations remained at a standstill. On strike over a proposed extension of working hours and additional duties, the reporters have been operating their own free newspaper, MédiaMatinQuébec.

Members of the Lubicon Cree Nation delivered a statement opposing unilateral approval of construction of a natural gas pipeline accross their territory. After the statement was delivered, the Lubicon representatives and their supporters walked out of the Alberta Utilities Board (AUB) hearing. The AUB, said Lubicon representatives, "does not have legitimate authority in unceded Lubicon Territory" and "the Lubicon people will oppose [the proposed pipeline] every inch of the way, every way we can."

Due to criticism regarding the environmental and human rights impacts of its mining operations in Guatemala and Honduras, Goldcorp Inc. agreed to conduct an independent Human Rights Impact Assessment at the request of its Canadian and Swedish shareholders. Jantzi Research, an independent investment research firm that evaluates and monitors the social and environmental performance of securities, recommended that Goldcorp be considered ineligible for socially responsible investment (SRI) portfolios that seek to avoid companies with relatively poor records in the areas of community and aboriginal relations and environment.

April 25 2008 was the first ever World Malaria Day. Malaria is one of the most common infectious diseases; each year, there are approximately 515 million cases of malaria, killing between one and three million people. One child dies of the disease every 30 seconds, most of them in Sub-Saharan Africa. Malaria parasites are transmitted by female Anopheles mosquitoes. No vaccine exists for malaria, and existing drug treatments are often too expensive for people living in endemic areas. Malaria breeds poverty and underdevelopment in regions of the world where it is most prevalent, contributing to issues such as illegal migration and security.

US President George W. Bush declared that he knew his top national security advisers discussed and approved specific details of the CIA's use of torture. Bush reportedly told ABC, "I'm aware our national security team met on this issue. And I approved." Top advisers signed off on how the CIA would interrogate Al Qaeda suspects -- whether they would be slapped, pushed, deprived of sleep or subjected to simulated drowning, called waterboarding, sources told ABC news. This is the first time sources have disclosed that a handful of the most senior advisers in the White House explicitly approved the details of the program. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is calling on Congress to demand an independent prosecutor to investigate possible violations by the Bush administration of laws including the War Crimes Act, the federal Anti-Torture Act, and federal assault laws. Said Anthony D. Romero, Executive Director of the ACLU, "It is a very sad day when the president of the United States subverts the Constitution, the rule of law, and American values of justice." Darius Rejali, an expert on the history of torture, told Democracy Now! "Torture is actually the clumsiest method that one could possibly use…to gather information."

Tailing Pond

Shawn Brant

May Books

Moira Peters — Wed, 14 May 2008 05:00:36 +0000

New works by Wickers, Vuong-Riddick, Boyko and Bryan

Stations of the Lost
Brian Wickers
Mansfield Press: Toronto, 2006.

This book offers readers something remarkable: the chance to engage with a captivating voice and enlist the experience and lifetime observations of an extremely erudite and affable poet. Here we have a complicated and finely textured emotional landscape of ex-wives and teenage daughters, elderly fathers and the children who look after them. There is a solid quality to the voice in these poems, a sense that the speaker has withstood life’s inclement weather and will live to withstand more. In addition to carefully wrought images and phrases, Wickers is adept with sound; in the lyric “A Seashell From the Seychelles,” the ‘s’ sounds mimic the sea, and the resulting miasma of sound and meaning is beautiful. Wickers shines when he’s being ostentatiously humorous, as in “Marginal Questions, Winter, English 101, Frost.” The poem riffs off questions a teacher might ask students – mentally and verbally – while teaching Frost’s famous poem: “Who owns the woods – in which of several senses?/ do you own property have you ever tended to animals.” These poems span the pains and joys of life while reflecting on what it is to be human.

--Matthew J. Trafford

The Evergreen Country: A Memoir of Vietnam
Thuong Vuong-Riddick
Hagios: Regina, 2007.

As a child in Hanoi and later a student in Saigon, Vuong-Riddick witnessed Vietnam's turbulent changes in the second half of the 20th century. Historically under French colonial rule, Vietnam was occupied by Japan during World War II, then reoccupied by France, only to be split in two after Communist rebels led by Ho Chi Minh captured Hanoi. The Evergreen Country is Vuong-Riddick's vivid memoir of these times, brimming with historical, cultural and personal insights. The tone is straightforward: events are presented chronologically, with occasional welcome asides to describe relevant cultural details or social practices, including feet binding, teeth dyeing, betel chewing, and the use of the "shame pole" to punish immodesty. Vuong-Riddick casts both sides of the political conflict in a suspicious and violent light, and only hints at where her biases may lie. Vuong-Riddick is a likeable narrator, and we become interested in her personal growth and family, even as we're drawn into the larger historical narrative. Despite the ever-present tension of war, what emerges from the book is a colourful picture of a vibrant and dynamic country.

--Sam Fraser

Blackouts
Craig Boyko
McClelland and Stewart: Toronto, 2008.

First short story collections often possess a restless quality, as the developing writer casts out his or her net as widely as possible to determine just what sits within reach. In Blackouts, individual sentences often show signs of overextension, falling into the kind of exploratory wordiness that signals a young writer straining to broaden or discover the range of his abilities. Occasionally this effect works: “It sounded like a word she’d borrowed from her husband, the psychiatrist, the psychologist, whatever.” As this sentence from “Black Ink” presses outward, each word becomes essential to one character’s conception of another: first a tossed off statement of designation, then a frustrated amendment, and finally exasperation. At other moments, the unchecked forward momentum weakens the impact of some of the poetic passages. Subtle differences between the modifiers notwithstanding, sentences like “Science pursues truth impersonally, dispassionately, disinterestedly,” from “In the Dark,” would benefit from greater concision. The stories in Blackouts are extraordinarily varied in style and subject matter. Given the ambition of this collection, it may only be a matter of more time spent in the workshop for Boyko’s trials to yield major results.

--Bob Kotyk

Gerbil Mother
D.M. Bryan
NeWest Press: Edmonton, 2008.

D.M. Bryan’s first novel is a marvel. From the first few sentences—“Take it on trust—the moment's a bad one. Not Greek tragedy, but ordinary doctor's office despair, regular as a diagrammed digestive system”-- the narrative voice jerks us awake. Bryan has taken a classic character—the harassed mother of small children overwhelmed with noise, sleeplessness and loneliness—and, with the use of a judiciously chosen device, both heightened and deflated its pathos. Gerbil Mother is narrated from the point of view of a foetus, which is unusual in itself, but Bryan has gone one better and made this foetus a bully. The foetus tells us from the beginning “I see at once what a bad mother we have,” and it takes us several chapters to realize how unreliable this narrator is. This judgement mimics the actual voice a selfish toddler might use were it capable of eloquent expression, and the effect is startling. Bryan's language is sophisticated and vigorous, and every paragraph pops with images like this one: “Ref in a dirty diaper, shaking the ropes of the ring. The crib.” A tough and imaginative debut.

--Linda Besner

Golden Opportunity for Abandoned Farms

Moira Peters — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 14:49:04 +0000

Organic beekeepers co-op fighting to keep Cape Breton free of varroa mite

Organic beekeepers on Cape Breton Island are responding quickly in an effort to ensure the island remains free from the spread of the varroa mite, a suspect in the epidemic called Colony Collapse Disorder. Last winter, Colony Collapse Disorder affected between 50 and 90 per cent of commercial bee colonies in the United States. In Canada, 30 per cent of commercial colonies were killed off.

With bees responsible for as much as 30 per cent of our food needs, the consequences of the varroa mite and the colony collapses constitute a looming disaster, and a Cape Breton beekeeping organization is making an effort to keep the island free of those destructive forces.

The Cape Breton Organic Beekeepers Co-op (CBOBC) is currently taking steps to keep Cape Breton varroa mite-free, and potentially will soon be the only mite-free area in Canada or North America, explained CBOBC president, Dennis Laffan of North River Bridge.

Laffan credits another beekeeper, Cyril Welsh, with fostering the idea following two reported incidents of varroa mite on the island. “That was a clarion call to action. We had to do something right away because Cape Breton is one place in the world that has not been affected.”

Beekeepers in Cape Breton have been receiving their hive stock from two experienced beekeepers on the island. “Pretty much everyone got started by them and they always had clean stock,” said Laffan.

The situation began when the senior beekeepers retired and two blueberry growers used imported bees from mainland Nova Scotia to pollinate the blueberry fields, resulting in two reported incidents of varroa mite last year. The beekeepers’ response was immediate, Laffan said. One keeper burned his hives. The other destroyed affected bees and has been monitoring the rest.

“We knew we had to get organized to keep free of the varroa mite or it would destroy beekeeping,” Laffan said, pointing out just how destructive the mite can be on the industry. In Western Canada, he said, beekeepers raising conventional honey receive 60 cents a pound for their honey. In Cape Breton, organic beekeepers receive $4.50 a pound.

The are just 20 members in the Cape Breton Organic Beekeepers Co-op, but Laffan and fellow co-op member Jean Timmons of Coady Road in Margaree Forks believe that the industry can be increased to a hundred or more keepers, especially if the island can be kept free of the varroa mite. None of the Co-op members import queens or packages of bees from off Cape Breton Island.

“Cape Breton is really on the edge of the bee world,” Laffan explained. “This is the northern frontier economically. It’s really the last place where beekeeping has a financial reward. Various beekeepers have made a good living here but those people are retiring.

“Our objective is to have every beekeeper on the island associated with us for the simple reason that if we have one renegade beekeeper bringing in bees from outside, it threatens us all.”

One of the strengths of Cape Breton as an ideal location for organic beekeeping, explained Timmons, is found in the unfortunate failure of so many farms in Cape Breton. “Because farming has been in decline, a lot of the fields have had no pesticides. Along the Margaree River, very little pesticides have been used. It is an ideal world for beekeeping.”

The local beekeepers say that in other areas, besides raising bees for honey, people rent their hives out for pollination, which helps spread Colony Collapse Disorder. It is a hive disaster that has been slowly making its way towards Canada. The disorder puts stress on the bees, causing losses in the millions in the United States. Coupled with the varroa mite, which is a carrier for many other diseases, the danger to local beekeeping operations exists, unless the response is fast and total.

“It wouldn’t be hard to contain the varroa mite on Cape Breton with a strict protocol,” Laffan said. That protocol would require monitoring very, very closely, hives brought in from the mainland by blueberry growers, a situation that will continue to exist until the Cape Breton organic industry reaches the numbers of hives needed for both honey and pollination success.

Currently, the organic Co-op’s membership has approximately 100 hives. To meet both the need for honey production and pollination, Laffan and Timmons estimate that 1,000 hives will need to be nurtured on the island.

The organic keeping of bees, along with having pesticide-free fields, also requires a major “priming of the organic pump.” While organic beekeepers in Cape Breton are receiving an impressive price for their honey, they only harvest half the honey in each hive, leaving the rest for the bees to feed on throughout the winter. In other commercial practices, all the honey is removed and the bees are fed sugar, which both Laffan and Timmon feel is not an adequate food source.

“We are trying to put together a two- to three-year proposal. We have talked to blueberry growers and to their suppliers of bees (on the mainland), which bring 300-400 hives here for the blooming season—-usually one month,” Timmons explained. “We want to see of we can help the blueberry growers.”

The CBOBC would like to see the bees brought to Cape Breton in enclosed semi-trailers, help co-ordinate where they would be put, and monitor them for the presence of varroa mite. They would also watch for bees that may split themselves off from the hives to form new swarms, and they would watch those swarms closely.

The project would involve having a full-time beekeeper dealing with the varroa mite and controlling the swarms. The Cape Breton growers would also make a commitment to monitor every hive. Meanwhile, the co-op would be creating its own hives and would over time be able to provide local blueberry growers with the hives required.

“At that time, we are fairly confident we could control the varroa mite,” said Laffan. “We need to be involved with the blueberry growers. It’s a growing industry and if we are not involved in it, we are not going to be involved in beekeeping, either.”

If the Cape Breton Organic Beekeepers Co-op -- which is not in itself certified organic, Laffan explained, but whose individual members are -- is successful in its efforts, it foresees a not too distant time when the island, clean of varroa mite and Colony Collapse Disorder, could become the the continent’s safest source of queens and bee packages to beekeepers in other parts of the North America and the world.

This article was originally published in The Inverness Oran, February 27 2008.

Bees at Hive Entrance

Consultation Not Consent

hillarybain — Sat, 12 Apr 2008 11:44:16 +0000

The first interview with KI political prisoner Cecilia Begg

Cecilia Begg is the Head Councillor of Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug (KI) First Nation. She is the lone female in what has come to be known as the KI6, a group of six KI community leaders who blockaded a mining company from its licensed operations on their traditional territory in Northwestern Ontario. In March, the community leaders were sentenced to six months for contempt of court.

On April 2, journalist Jon Thompson spoke with Begg at the prison in Kenora, Ontario. During her first interview since her incarceration, Begg spoke about the road that led her arrest, the reasons she is fighting the development, and the path that she hopes will emerge from her imprisonment.

Jon Thompson: The land entitlement claim that KI filed back in 2000 had been licensed to junior mining company Platinex. Did that claim have anything to do with the fact that the government licensed a mining operation on the traditional territory of your people?

Cecilia Begg: We're still trying to get the Treaty Land Entitlement (TLE). That was one of the things we asked for. A solution has to accommodate [the government] revoking the license to Platinex.

How do you feel it would affect your community if the Platinex mine were to go ahead?

From the way things are, it would be a drastic change for our community. It would endanger the animals, our tradition and the culture of our people.

On September 24th, 2007, Platinex company employees were met at the KI airport by members of the community. They then charged you and the others with contempt, which you did not defend in court. What really happened that day?

They [Platinex Employees] came into town and they were going to set up an office in the community and then fly into the site. They were there to do what they called archeological studies. We had been saying no all along and they came anyway.

They were met outside the plane and told they weren't welcome in the community; that we were adamant about fighting for our land. They finally left later in the day. I left that morning for a meeting down south but I was in the party that blockaded their entry to our land.

You're a mother, a grandmother, and a great grandmother. A lot of the mobilization around your political struggle has related to your being a woman. Can you explain the connection?

Three years ago, I decided that if it came to doing a jail sentence to defend our land, I would. I could have got out of it. When we were first sentenced, I met with [Nishinawbe Aski Nation Grand Chief] Stan Beardy and [Assembly of First Nations National Chief] Phil Fontaine. They were concerned that I was the only female serving a jail term and that maybe their lawyers could work towards an appeal process. But since I'm the only female, I felt the importance to go through with it and I wanted to stand by my original decision until such time as we get a positive answer to what we're asking for.

In our culture, it's important to show respect to the females. They are the ones who are mothers, grandmothers, great-grandmothers, elders. You go on with things in that process. We're doing this on behalf of the ladies back home. They play an important role.

The women of Nishinawbe Aski Nation's Women's Council are fasting today to raise attention to your story. They're saying that in jailing you and the other imprisoned leaders, the Ontario government is creating heroes. How do you feel about that?

I don't know. My being in jail fighting for what I believe is ours…our rights, our land, for future generations. It's not about me, it's about the people back home. I appreciate their support…and the support from all over.

I want people back home to know that I'm doing alright. I have the support and prayers of many. In our culture it's encouraged to put the creator ahead of everything. That's what I believe in.

Did you see the demonstration marching by the jail last Saturday for you?

The glass is real thick upstairs so we couldn't get a clear view but we could hear the drumming and we could see the colours and that there were many people. That meant a lot to me, especially seeing so many people from back home who were able to join the rally.

One of the concerns from John Cutfeet [who negotiated on behalf of KI] was that the 2006 court ruling required the government to consult First Nations before companies could begin operations. In his words to me last summer, "First Nations gained the right to sit at the table, but they don't have the right to leave the table." To him, that wasn't legitimate consultation. What needs to be included in the consultation process that is not included now?

To go back to square one and ensure the proper steps are taken this time. There has to be changes. We have to be properly notified if there are even surveys going on. That has to happen before anything happens. The camps up North, there are signs of the land being staked. Land is being surveyed over the summer and winter with no consultation. Our treaty rights have to be respected.

In an interview with Aboriginal People's Television News, new provincial Aboriginal Affairs Minister Michael Bryant said the government is working to overturn the decision that put you in prison, and that the crown had never asked for imprisonment. What does that support mean to you and what do you think is going to happen?

I'm not sure. I've been talking with people from back home and what the minister is passing on is not entirely true. They say he lied about the number of times he has been there. Once, he made a press release prior to coming to our community saying that we're coming to some sort of an agreement. We hadn't reached any sort of agreement with him. That didn't sit well with us.

What do you think is going to happen at the end of your sentence?

I'm just taking it a day at a time, trying to get as much information as I can from back home. It's a long process, trying to get information. I haven't been able to speak with the other men [imprisoned in Thunder Bay] until today. We're encouraging each other by knowing we're doing fine. That's all we can do.

Is there any chance that there could be any sort of agreement with the company?

At the moment, the answer is still no. We haven't changed. It will be up to the future generations and future leaders to allow or not allow development. We're not for or against development but there's too much at stake and we have to get our community ready for that. It will be up to the future generation and we can't foresee what they will need. We're keeping the land for them.

Five of the KI6

Marmato’s Gold Bonanza

hillarybain — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 11:43:19 +0000

Canadian Mining Firm Involved in ‘Economic Forced Displacement’ in Colombia

MANIZALES, COLOMBIA – Uncertainty prevails on the cobbled streets of Marmato – a small mining town of some 8,000 souls clinging to the side of El Burro, a mountain in the Colombian Andes. For more than 500 years, ‘subsistence’ gold mining created a distinct community that based its living, traditions, and legends deep in the mountain’s dank corridors. Mining the gold of Marmato defines the Marmateño condition. Five years ago, its roots were shaken, however, when the Compañía Mineras de Caldas, a subsidiary of Toronto-based Colombia Goldfields Limited, began its project of consolidating ownership of the mountain, leading to what many call the “economic forced displacement” of Marmato and the social eradication of a working community.

Colombia Goldfields, the company’s website announces, is “rediscovering the land of the golden mountain” through two major projects in the region; the Marmato Development Project and the Caramanta Exploration Project, located approximately seven kilometres apart, hold at least 5.3 million ounces (over 150 tonnes) of gold.

Historical and Cultural Site or “World-class Asset”?

There is more to Marmato than gold, however. In 1982, the Colombian government recognized the town as a national historic site, due to its centuries-old mining tradition and unique history and culture.

The first to mine El Burro were indigenous peoples, including Cartamas and Quimbayas. Later, the Spanish Conquest brought to Marmato the first African slaves through the port of Cartagena. In 1825, the liberator Simón Bolívar conceded the mines to England as collateral for loans that would fund the war of independence from Spain. Marmato holds a celebrated place in Latin America’s history.

The distinct Marmateño condition courses through the veins bored through El Burro. The life of the miners, characterized by the eternal darkness of the mines, the ever-presence of death, and the constant drone of the mills, has influenced the imaginations of distinguished Marmateño writers and poets, such as Iván Cocherín.

Historical and cultural importance aside, Colombia Goldfields’ literature portrays Marmato as “a world-class asset” and their “latest success story.” In the Medellín newspaper El Colombiano, the project merited the description “the Cerrejón of gold,” a reference to the world’s largest open-pit mine located on Colombia’s north coast, controversial because of its environmental costs and the violent displacement of communities that preceded development.

The same article claims that an open-pit gold mine at Marmato would be “one of the largest in South America,” requiring the removal of “between 30,000 and 60,000 tonnes of earth daily in order to produce 250,000 ounces of gold annually.” The operation would exploit in 20 years what small miners could in 200.

While small mining practices are notorious for their use of harmful chemicals such as cyanide, open-pit mines are environmental disaster zones, according to critics, who say they bring limited short-term employment and leave behind gigantic holes in the ground where communities once lived.

The Colombian government is actively supporting large mining operations, which it claims bring foreign investment to a country where armed conflict and the threat of Latin America’s longest-surviving guerrilla insurgency, the FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia), has kept many investors away. Since his inauguration in 2002, Colombian President Álvaro Uribe Vélez has made it his personal crusade to portray to foreign investors and the world that he has the Colombian insurgency on the run.

A strong military presence throughout the country and pro-business legislation have made the Uribe government the star champion of neoliberal reforms in Latin America. The Mining Code of 2001, for example, includes shockingly low four percent royalty rates. Further business-friendly reforms are currently awaiting approval in Congress, and free trade negotiations with the US, Canada and the Scandinavian countries are in full swing. The message to investors is clear: Colombia is open for business.

The Shock of Cold, Hard Cash

Colombia Goldfields arrived in Marmato approximately five years ago, developing what it refers to as “a multi-million ounce gold resource […] through a program of property acquisitions, community resettlement and exploration.”

Yamil Amar Cataño, president of the Marmato Pro-Defence Committee, a grassroots organization opposed to the company’s plans, recounts the arrival of the company: “[The miners] had never seen so much money in one place. They only know pesos. The dollars flashed in their faces were part of a plan to destabilize the community.”

Indeed, most have sold their mines. According to Colombia Goldfields, the company has acquired 95 percent of legal mines in the Zona Alta, an area dedicated by a 1954 decree to small or ‘subsistence’ mining. In January 2008, the company won a bid for Mineras Nacionales S.A., which employs close to 700 people and exploits the Zona Baja, an area allocated for medium-sized operations. Such large-scale acquisitions are unprecedented in Marmato.

Diego Ruíz, a lawyer, miner and representative of the Colombian Federation of Small Miners (FENAMICOL), is concerned with the company’s behaviour. “In Marmato, when a mine is bought, it is closed. Mills are bought and destroyed. The local economy is going backwards, and for the first time, people are unemployed. Hunger, prostitution, and poverty are all that is left.”

Purchasing mines is not a crime. “The company has a right to invest in Marmato,” Ruíz adds. “But the community also has rights. The company and the government have ignored [the social problems associated with unemployment]. The community is left to deal with that on its own.”

Talking with Marmateños, resentment towards multinationals is not overtly apparent. For years, especially when gold prices are high, various companies have come and gone, leaving their technologies as “gifts” and the community intact.

“We are not enemies of capital,” explains Cataño. “But we are worried because there was never any mention of an open-pit mine [when the company first arrived]. Now, the people are totally paralyzed. That is why we are mobilizing.”

A “High-Risk Zone”: the Government Lends a Hand

In recent years, numerous strategies have been used in attempts to force Marmateños out of Marmato: the sudden suspension of dynamite sales to small mining cooperatives, a concerted attempt to deny legalization of small mining operations without titles, new laws threatening expropriation of small mines if such a move is deemed in the ‘national interest,’ and others.

The winter rains of 2006 caused a landslide that tore through Marmato’s historic centre. Fortunately, no one was killed, but several buildings were left in ruins. Studies were ordered, and Ingeominas, the state geological agency, declared the area a “high risk zone.” Those same studies concluded that geological instability could be addressed through mitigation projects, yet Ingeominas and the government continue to push for the relocation of Marmato.

Colombian Senator Jorge Robledo regards the government’s concern for Marmato’s safety as suspicious, given that “millions of Colombians are living at risk” of geological instability.

Robledo believes the real motives for displacing Marmato is for Colombia Goldfields’ mining project. If this is the case, he argues, “those costs should be assumed by the company, which would be enriched by the eradication.” With the declaration of a “high-risk zone,” however, the Colombian government, not the company, will pay for relocation. The government has built a new school, hospital, mayor’s office, and several small, tin-roofed dwellings in the neighbouring community of El Llano, the proposed ‘New Marmato’.

Prior to the 2006 landslide, Ian M. Park, president of the Compañía Mineras de Caldas, the Colombia Goldfields subsidiary, stated “we are willing to help the community but with the help of the government, because I’m not going to take the entire social responsibility.” The company has since hired a sociologist and contracted an NGO to promote alternative economic activity, such as agricultural production and tourism.

“I have never seen an example of a community of miners transformed into farmers,” Ruíz argues. “And what tourism will there be with an open-pit mine?”

Social responsibilities aside, residents of Marmato are vehemently opposed to their displacement. “We don’t want what [the government and the company] are offering us,” states one miner. “We don’t want a nice big school or a new office for the mayor. We only want what we already have. But here!”

Community consultations have been non-existent. On February 21, 2008, a public forum was held in Marmato. Colombia Goldfields and the Minister of Mining were invited to address the community directly. The company sent low-level functionaries, who refused to discuss the project directly. The minister did not attend. According to Ruíz, “the forum was their opportunity to respond honestly to the concerns of the community, and they simply refused.”

Uncertainty Prevails

As the consolidation of property in Marmato nears completion, it is thought that unemployment and misery will force those who remain in the town, those not directly involved in the mining economy, to leave behind their businesses, schools and homes – not to mention their history, culture and identity – to join the nearly four million displaced Colombians that currently surround the country’s metropolitan centres. Relocation to El Llano would place the community within walking distance to an open-pit mine and is thus widely rejected.

Miguel Alberto Giraldo, the son of a Marmateño historian and former mayor, sums up what one can clearly sense in Marmato’s streets: “Marmato doesn’t exist for Marmateños anymore. They’ll all have to go, but how, where and when? […] For me, this whole thing is forced displacement through unemployment and apocalyptic threats of total disaster.”

As the bedrock of El Burro cracks with the shocks of dynamite, so too does Marmateños’ identification with place, that which has held the community together for hundreds of years. With more of its inhabitants seeking more precarious work in other sectors and in other parts of the country, the community itself is splitting, fragmented from the shocks of a few thousand dollars and what appears to be government indifference.

“If they are doing this to Marmato,” states Senator Robledo, “they can do this to any community in Colombia.” Robledo believes the Canadian multinational is participating in setting a dangerous precedent.

Micheál Ó Tuathail is a freelance journalist and translator based in Edmonton, Canada. He is also a member of La Chiva, an Alberta-based collective working in solidarity with Colombian social movements and communities.

Abandoned Site of 2006 Landslide

Marmato Through Broken Window

Native Leader Serving Six Months for Opposing Mine

hillarybain — Sun, 16 Mar 2008 12:22:36 +0000

Supporters call Algonquin leader a "political prisoner"

Algonquin community leader Robert Lovelace had never been charged with an offence, but when a uranium company began prospecting for radioactive ore on unceded First Nations land without engaging in consultation, he decided to take action and organized a non-violent blockade.

On February 15, Judge Cunningham of Ontario's Superior Court sentenced Lovelace to six months in jail for contempt of court and fined him $50,000 for his involvement in the peaceful protest.

Chief Paula Sherman, elected leader of the Ardoch Algonquin First Nation, a small community about 110 kilometres southwest of Ottawa, where the controversial uranium prospecting is taking place, calls Robert Lovelace "a political prisoner."

"It seems like a very heavy sentence," said Jamie Kneen of Mining Watch Canada, a non-governmental watchdog. "If the court had issued a trespassing charge, there could have been an argument about who was really trespassing."

The territory in question involves mainly Crown land that is subject to ongoing land-claim negotiations between First Nations and the provincial and federal governments.

In September 2007, an Ontario provincial court issued Frontenac Ventures, the mining company, an interlocutory injunction ordering protestors from Ardoch and Sharbot Lake First Nations, along with their non-native allies, to vacate the Robertsville camp. The camp is the only feasible entry point to a 30,000-acre wilderness tract in Frontenac County, where the company has its prospecting license. Lovelace and other activists violated that order.

"The source of this conflict is the Ontario Mining Act, which allows companies to stake land and prospect without consultation with private land owners or other users, including First Nations," said Kneen. Lovelace and other activists argue their constitutional rights were violated by the lack of consultation.

People living on or near the exploration site discovered their land was being taken almost two years ago. There were no community meetings or information sessions about the uranium exploration. "It started on private land when a cottager saw trees being cut and started protesting the development," said Kneen. A few months later it became clear that some of the land being staked was disputed territory.

"Uranium mining has no record other than environmental destruction and negative health issues," said Doreen Davis, chief of the Shabot Lake First Nation. "Uranium can't be stored safely," said Davis, who will be sentenced on March 18 for participating in the blockade. She is under court order not to talk about the dispute with Frontenac.

"I do know that we have communities from Kingston to Ottawa on our side against uranium mining in this district," said Davis. "A huge group of settlers, that's what they call themselves, have been working with us, pounding the pavement and educating people about this. I think it is unique to have aboriginal and non-aboriginal people standing shoulder-to-shoulder like this."

The federal government has yet to get involved in this case and Ontario's provincial government has only been reluctantly and peripherally involved, according to Kneen.

Not much is known about the company at the centre of the dispute. "Frontenac is a private company, so they don't have to file any disclosure," said Kneen. "Aside from the president and their lawyer, no one knows who they are or where they get their money."

The company's website has only one page and a press release. Frontenac's president, George White, did not return calls. The website says the company "is committed to participating in any efforts of Ontario and the First Nations' to consult in good faith," but Ardoch Chief Paula Sherman isn't convinced.

"No consideration was given to the circumstances leading to our actions," said Sherman in a statement following Lovelace's sentencing. "The testimony given under oath by Robert Lovelace outlined Algonquin Law and the corresponding responsibilities of Algonquin people with respect to human activity in our territory," wrote Sherman, who was fined $15,000 during the court case for breaking the injunction that prohibited protests on land being explored by Frontenac.

Because the company obtained a court order against protestors rather than filing trespassing charges, the judge was not required to consider arguments regarding historical precedent or Algonquin legal codes when making the decision. "It's a way of avoiding the core issues," said Kneen.

After a decade of low prices, the spot price of uranium has increased drastically in recent years, from $43 per pound in 2006, to $75 today.

As oil prices rise, countries have re-started old nuclear reactors and countries like South Africa, India and China have ambitious nuclear-power plans on the horizon. UBS, a financial services company, predicts uranium will hit $110 per pound by 2010.

These developments don't sit well with Dr. Mark Winfield, a Canadian nuclear expert. "Existing [uranium] mines in northern Saskatchewan have caused severe contamination through heavy metals like arsenic, and long-lived radionuclides, along with conventional pollutants," said Winfield.

In 2004, Health Canada concluded that effluent from uranium mines meets the definition of a toxic substance under the Canadian Environmental Protection Act.

Canada is the world's largest supplier of uranium and Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper wants to increase exports in his bid to transform the country into an "energy superpower."

"The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was very clear that nuclear [energy] can't compete economically," said Winfield. "The potential health and environmental impacts of uranium mining are not worth the risks."

A version of this article appeared on Inter Press Service

Blockade Gates

Fortress Europe

hillarybain — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 13:27:09 +0000

The Spanish/Moroccan Border

As the gap between rich and poor widens around the world, those in the so-called Third World are desperate to reach the countries where food, jobs and ‘security’ remain. Similar to the US/Mexico border that is slowly being sealed off to those from the south, Fortress Europe is working hard to close itself off from those on the ‘outside.’

This essay is part of a larger project focused on borders that are becoming increasingly militarized and deadly, and the people and land they are dividing. These shots were taken from Melilla, Spain, a Spanish enclave in the north of Morocco. Migrants travel for four, five, sometimes six years to reach this side of the line, only to be held in migrant holding centres, sometimes for years, awaiting their papers or a deportation order back to where they started.

Spanish/Moroccan Border 1

Spanish/Moroccan Border 2

Spanish/Moroccan Border 3

Spanish/Moroccan Border 4

Spanish/Moroccan Border 5

Spanish/Moroccan Border 6

Spanish/Moroccan Border 7

Spanish/Moroccan Border 8

Spanish/Moroccan Border 9

Spanish/Moroccan Border 10

Spanish/Moroccan Border 11

Spanish/Moroccan Border 12

Spanish/Moroccan Border 13

Spanish/Moroccan Border 14

Spanish/Moroccan Border 15

Spanish/Moroccan Border 16

March Books

hillarybain — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 12:25:30 +0000

New works by Trussler, Adamson, Snider, and Friedman

Accidental Animals
Michael Trussler
Hagios: Regina, 2007.

There's an openness to Trussler's stanzas that's oddly relaxing—his speakers seem willing to accept whatever comes, even defeat. The unabashed autobiographical bent of these poems provides continuity and context, which allow some of the most difficult moments to resonate. A recently divorced parent writes to his daughter about the mistakes made by “your Mom and Dad, and the other/big people around you—all of who/ will never touch who you really are.” Though this kind of pronouncement occasionally verges on preciousness, it's not all sentiment; there are also some great lines like, “My face sweats so much sometimes it's/ like snails are copulating on the lenses.” The engaging authenticity of the content allows the reader to look past some awkwardness in the form. Trussler uses devices that other poets have employed to great effect, but here the slashes and numbered stanza breaks that don't actually divide the poem feel like exercises. Trussler's meditations, however, feel fruitful, and the collection gives a refreshingly honest sense of reflection rooted in experience.

--Linda Besner

The Outlander
Gil Adamson
Anansi: Toronto, 2007.

The Outlander, set in the early 1900s, chronicles the adventures of “the widow,” a 19-year-old woman who has killed her husband and is now fleeing his vengeful twin brothers across Western Canada. Adamson has done a fine job of endowing the widow with a complicated character, giving her so many faults it's a wonder the reader manages to like her—but we do. The niggling technical question in Adamson's execution is a distracting inconsistency in point of view. The narrative voice stays, for the most part, fairly close to the protagonist, but occasionally bolts into startling omniscience, remarking, as the widow fails to recognize the edible plants surrounding her in the forest, “Abundance lay about her, but she starved.” This, paired with phrases like, “August dandelion seeds floated across their path, as if nature itself hoped to bewitch them from their purpose and dream them into the trees,” lends The Outlander a kind of Hardyesque grandiosity, at the heart of which is a ballad's tall tale of a love story. Gather around the campfire and listen to Adamson spin this one out.

--Linda Besner

On Performing
Bob Snider
Gaspereau: Kentville, 2007.

This is intended as a self-help book: Bob Snider, the Canadian folk musician, gives a series of tips for whoever, in his words, wants to learn to be “a ham.” Here's a sample of his prose style:

Timing is the art of saying or doing the right thing at the right time. Let's say you're standing one the street with a friend and you decide to tell a joke.'I always wanted to be a tree surgeon,' you say, 'but I faint at the sight of sap.' This is a good joke and will probably get a laugh or a smile. But if your friend happens to mention that he had some tree surgery done in his yard and you then tell him your joke it will benefit from the addition of good timing.

This earnest explication doesn't seem to match what most people mean by the word “timing” in comedy. There is a vagueness here that plagues the book from the outset, as Snider gives would-be performers generic, flatly phrased advice like, “Anecdotes are interesting and illustrative.” Snider may be an entertaining performer, but he's not much of a writer.

--Linda Besner

Long Story Short
Elyse Friedman
Anansi: Toronto, 2008.

The situations depicted in Elyse Friedman’s new collection of funny and often unsettling stories are mounted with droll, crisp dialogue. Particularly likable is the Journey Prize-nominated “Truth,” which imagines a dating world in which the commitment to spoken veracity (Him: “My self-esteem will be temporarily boosted if I get you into bed tonight, and that waitress is making me horny.” Her: “I have masochistic inclinations and I’m feeling self-destructive.”) exposes the everydayness of game playing and self-deception. While amusingly told, the collection’s novella, “A Bright Tragic Thing,” about a young man who befriends a washed-up sitcom actor for the inside joke-generating potential afforded by their taped phone conversations, is overlong and, in the end, verges on preachiness. Cruelty aside, doesn’t the occasional lending of a disingenuously sympathetic ear to a bad-tempered friend constitute a necessary, even quasi-noble component of lasting companionship? Friedman privileges empathy in the story, upbraiding a youthful culture of detachment, but her targets feel too easy here, straw men (boys, really) who never quite evolve out of a caricature of their videogaming demographic.

--Robert Kotyk

"It's All About The Land"

hillarybain — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 13:07:50 +0000

Native resistance to the Olympics

"We are preparing to disrupt the Olympics any way that we can. We want to let the world know that our land is not for sale," said Kanahus Pelkey, at a February 1 talk held at the Native Friendship Centre in Montreal.

It was one of many stops on an extensive speaking tour of the Great Lakes and East Coast regions of Canada. The speakers included Pelkey, of the Secwepemc and Ktunaxa First Nations, and Dustin Johnson, of the Tsimshan First Nation -- both members of the Native Youth Movement (NYM) in British Columbia. The packed room saw many people sitting on the floor and standing for several hours.

The aim of the tour was to raise awareness about Native resistance to the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics, while underlining the importance of restoring traditional Indigenous knowledge and arousing a sense of responsibility in First Nations youth to defend and maintain their people and territories.

The quickly-approaching mega-sporting event is acting as an unwelcome catalyst for many First Nations people living in BC, a number of whom have been embroiled in bitter land rights battles with the Canadian government for most of their lives. Vast areas of unceded land that Indigenous communities depend on for hunting, fishing and general survival are at risk. Rivers, mountains and old-growth forests are being replaced by tourist resorts and highway expansions spurred by the 2010 games. Hundreds of millions of dollars have been spent to build new resorts and expand existing ones in order to attract and accommodate tourists, Olympic athletes and trainers.

Indigenous communities in the Interior and on the coast of BC, including the Secwepemc people of Skelkwek'welt and the St'at'imc people of Sutikalh, have long voiced their opposition to the establishment of Sun Peaks and Cayoosh ski resorts on their land. Strong and organized shows of resistance have been disregarded, ignored and covered-up by the BC government in attempts to capitalize on territory for which treaties were never signed. One of many examples of this occurred in 1990, when the province began an expansion of Highway 99, upgrading a logging road that cut through the Melvin Creek watershed. In order to complete this project, it was necessary to expropriate a portion of the Mt. Currie reserve. When the Lil'wat people of Mt. Currie blockaded the road, 63 arrests were made and highway construction continued. Not long after that, the government announced it was seeking proposals for a ski resort in the area -- a project that would only be made possible with the expansion of the highway.

Plans for the Cayoosh Ski Resort on St'at'imc territory were begun in 1991 by Nancy-Greene-Raine Resort Consultants Inc. (Greene-Raine is an Olympic medalist and former board member on Vancouver's Olympic Bid Committee.) What many refer to as a 'camp' was set up at Sutikalh in May 2000 to stop construction of the $530-million ski resort. Eight years later, Sutikalh is one of the only re-possessed Territories where people live 365 days a year, even in February, in five feet of snow. It is a village and not a camp, far from the government-sanctioned reserves.

One NYM member remarks: "It is a strong point of Indigenous resistance and serves as a great example to Native people that we can still survive on our land, free of the system.

"Sutikalh needs more attention. The resort is still planned for the area. Many times the word is not spread about the struggle on the land because all those involved are on the land where there is no form of electrical communication, so a network must be put in place to help give an international voice to those isolated places that need the most support and resources." *

Sun Peaks Ski Resort, on the other hand, has forcibly pushed ahead with construction on Secwepemc territory, including the thorough clear-cutting of mountains to make way for ski runs, development on the drainage basin for commercial and residential real estate, and an 18-hole golf course. Invaluable mountain lakes, creeks, trap lines, hunting grounds, salmon stocks, animal habitats, sacred sites and important food and medicine harvesting areas have been destroyed.

"Right now they're using recycled sewage waste to make man-made snow for their ski resorts," says Pelkey.

There have been over 70 arrests in the fight against Sun Peaks. Most of these have been elders, women and youth from the NYM.

"The province bulldozed our home on International Human Rights Day. They hired Sun Peaks employees to tear down our sweat lodges. So you get an idea what happens when Native people stand up and fight for their freedom. We announced it to the media, and all the corporate media, they showed up at Sun Peaks, but the roads were deactivated. They [Sun Peaks] made big, huge ice blockades so no vehicles could get through. And Sun Peaks resort has many, many snowmobile businesses, but all the businesses were given orders by Sun Peaks not to rent any snowmobiles to any media, or anybody that day," said Pelkey.

A log cabin that the Secwepemc had built on the outskirts of Sun Peaks to fight encroachment on the untouched land from other directions "was burnt down to the ground," she said.

The Secwepemc people, rendered homeless and faced with the threat of arrest if they continued living on their land, retreated. Many had endured previous arrests for similar involvements and did not want to risk imprisonment with no chance of bail.

When fresh ski trails were inaugurated shortly thereafter, the public did not hear about what had come to pass between the Secwepemc First Nation and the B.C. government. The provincial and federal governments have refused to accept Aboriginal title or even enter into negotiations to create co-jurisdiction, despite legally binding promises to do so.

The Secwepemc held a protest at the Sun Peaks Resort on this season's opening day, November 17, 2007. As well as protesting the resort, they also called on the Austrian National Ski Team to boycott Sun Peaks because of the many human and Indigenous rights abuses the resort continues to perpetrate. The team had chosen Sun Peaks as a training facility leading up to the 2010 Games. Despite being confronted by Arthur Manuel of Indigenous Networks on Economies and Trade, who visited Austria in June of that year to expose the team to the abuses taking place on Secwepemc territory, Austria opened the 2007 ski season by formally inviting Felix Arnouse from the Little Shuswap Indian Band (representing few, according to an international statement issued by the Skwelkwekíwelt Protection Centre) in a media stunt to conceal the opposition of the Secwepemc First Nation.

In what many First Peoples see as an additional display of public disrespect and mockery of their cultures, the Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games (VANOC) created a trio of Olympic mascots that happen to be misappropriations of beings sacred to many Native people: a Sasquatch, a sea-bear and an animal guardian spirit.

"They know that's the way that it's going to make money. People want to come from all over the world, 'Oh, Native American, oh, what are the Native Americans doing?' But we want them to know that we're protesting," says Pelkey.

According to the 2005 Greater Vancouver Homeless Count, there are 300,000 (official) homeless in Greater Vancouver, 30 per cent of whom are First Nations people, despite the fact that they make up just two per cent of the city's total population.

"The UN human rights index will show Canada [ranked] right near the top, but registered Status Indians will be in the 50s, near any third world country," says Pelkey.

The number of homeless in Vancouver is predicted to triple by 2010 due to the large-scale closure of social housing and low-income hotels in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside (DTES). Closures have been spurred on by the Olympics in an effort to create more space for tourists and corporate investors. Three hundred low-income housing units have been lost in the last two years alone due to rent increases. (The province of B.C. does not impose rent controls.) According to the 2001 Canada census, over 126,000 people in Greater Vancouver are at risk of homelessness.

Dustin Johnson traces the Olympic tradition back to ancient Greece in identifying the birth of current patterns of marginalization: "All the lower classes, slaves and women were prohibited from participating... You go back that far, you can trace exactly the kind of effects that imperialism has had on our people... The worst forms of colonial culture are being promoted by the 2010 Olympics. Crass materialism, selfishness, outright greed. It's dangerous -- [if] you maintain these cultures, you maintain a disconnection from our territories, from our land, from the spirit world and from our cultures."

A June 2007 report by the Geneva-based Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions (COHRE) found that two million people worldwide have been forcibly displaced in the last 20 years to clear space for the Olympic Games.

When deciding where to hold the 2010 Olympics, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) faced a choice between Pyeongchang, South Korea, and Vancouver. While South Korea pitched itself as the 'peace' candidate, Vancouver sold itself as the 'safety and security' candidate, presenting the province of BC as a place where everybody gets along: rich and poor, rural and urban, Native and non-Native. Crafting just such an image, Mayor Sam Sullivan's November 2006 innovation, "Project Civil City," proposed to eliminate homelessness, the open drug market and the incidence of aggressive panhandling, with the goal of reducing all of these by 50 per cent by 2010. There have already been severe security crack-downs on the street; however, in an effort to accomplish this goal on time, over 10,000 police, military and security personnel will occupy Vancouver and Whistler during the Games, creating what many First Peoples have come to perceive as nothing short of a police state.

"You may think that Canada is a free country, but to us it is not. When you go out into the city, it's no different than prison, because the police can come and arrest you at any time," says Pelkey.

In 2003, Pelkey, forcibly separated from her baby boy, spent two and a half months in prison for her involvement with the Sun Peaks blockades. During her time there, she met many First Nations women who had been imprisoned for prostitution and drug abuse. Most of the women's stories involved sexual molestation during childhood; many women had experienced these abuses in residential school environments, while others were the children of residential school survivors.

The Olympic tradition of catering to the elite as a means of social control can be described as a policy of "sex, screens and sports," a phrase coined in reference to the 1988 Seoul Games, according to Johnson. A massive influx of prostitution, coupled with the pseudo-legalization of the sex industry for the benefit of businessmen and elite athletes, has always been an Olympic tradition, the Seoul Games and the 2004 Games in Athens being prime examples.

Among those who continue to be brutally criminalized by the police and simultaneously marginalized and taken advantage of by society in general are the city's sex workers, a community in which First Nations women are vastly overrepresented.

There are currently 500 (documented) First Nations women missing across Canada, 76 of whom are from BC.

"They're not all completely dysfunctional and degraded human beings," said Johnson. "Some of them are from good families, who've just been kidnapped outrightly by the most depraved, colonized peoples.

"You actually see, at some of the elementary schools in Vancouver, sexual predators, just waiting around to try to kidnap young Native kids. Some of these kids end up in the sex-slave industry, they get shipped all over the world. This is the kind of industry that VANOC and the people that are organizing the Olympics in Vancouver are trying to continue; they're trying to increase that just for the purposes of the 2010 Olympics. This is something that needs to be not only exposed, but stopped."

Meanwhile, the BC Coalition of Experiential Communities (BCCEC), the first sex worker cooperative in Canada, has been attempting to pressure the government to create legal brothels for the upcoming Winter Olympics in 2010. The move had the support both of Mayor Sullivan and VANOC, but has been refused by Canadian Justice Minister Rob Nicholson. Despite the decriminalization of sex workers being one of the BCCEC's primary motives, the issue is controversial both among Canada's political elite and among sex workers themselves.

Pelkey and Johnson stressed that their concerns are about much more than the 2010 Olympics and its effects. They acknowledged that "the Olympics will come and go," choosing instead to emphasize the fact that this globalized event can be used as a powerful tool for mobilization. Drawing attention to First Nations resistance, dating back to the 15th century and very much alive today, is among their top priorities. According to Johnson, Native resistance to the 2010 Games grew significantly following the death of Aboriginal Rights activist and respected Elder Harriet Nahanee in February 2007. The 73-year-old Pacheedaht woman died a week after serving a prison term for her protest of the Olympic-driven Sea-to-Sky Highway expansion, causing an uproar among youth in Canada's Native activist community.

Indeed, some of the effects of the powerful, growing Native opposition to the Games can be observed in the increasingly restricted access to Olympic events leading up to 2010. Due to the consistent disruption of VANOC/ IOC-organized celebrations by protests and demonstrations, many high-end hotels are now reserved exclusively for corporate sponsors like Visa and Coca Cola, and are entirely closed to the public.

In one of Vancouver's better-known anti-Olympics rallies held in February 2007, VANOC and the Vancouver Board of Trade were celebrating the unveiling of a "three-year countdown clock" in the downtown business district. Native people from all over B.C. participated in an anti-Olympics rally at the event, together with non-Native members from the Anti-Poverty Committee (APC). In a move garnering much sought-after media attention, a masked protester jumped on stage and grabbed the microphone from a VANOC official, shouting "Fuck 2010! Fuck Your Corporate Circus!" before being cut off and arrested.

Non-Native shows of solidarity with the First Nations anti-Olympic movement continue to grow, evident by the emergence of demonstrations such as the first annual Poverty Olympics, held on February 3 in Vancouver's DTES, with staged events like the 'poverty-line high jump,' 'the welfare hurdles,' and 'the broad jump over bedbug-infested mattresses,' to name a few. The objective was to embarrass the province into taking action against increasing poverty rates. Among other events being organized for the purpose of strengthening essential connections between Canada's First Nations and outside communities is the Massive Convergence scheduled for February 2010. Thousands are expected to arrive in Vancouver, many coming all the way from Mexico, for the purpose of banding together to counteract Canada's racist policies, to come up with solutions, and to commit to action.

Pelkey remarks that many non-Native people she has encountered on the tour have expressed bewilderment at what the best way to show their support might be.

"It's all about land and that's what everyone has to understand here," she replies. "It's about land and freedom. Non-Indigenous people should support that. Not always just the physically being there in the communities, sometimes that might be intrusive... understand the Nations that you're in, know what Nation you are occupying... and respect that."

"Building a collective, open movement from the ground up," adds Johnson. "That's what really needs to happen, in a lot of people's opinions and their beliefs, and it's really helping because it's promoting the culture of the human."

*On May 1 the eight-year anniversary of the re-possessed Sutikalh territory will be marked with an annual gathering. Anyone wishing to show support is welcome and encouraged to come. For more information, write to nymcommunications [at] hotmail.com.

Cayoosh Mountain Range

Kanahus Pelkey

All Eyes On Bolivia

hillarybain — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 13:40:22 +0000

US espionage and aid

Since the election of Evo Morales, an indigenous peasant of the Movement Towards Socialism (MAS) party, US involvement in Bolivia’s political sphere has come out of the shadows – if ever there were any idyllic illusions about US intervention in South American politics.

Recent allegations of spies at the American Embassy have the Bolivian media abuzz, and civil society and government alike enraged. Just last week, while strolling with my friend Ramiro in Cochabamba, we ran into an acquaintance of his who took notice of my fair complexion and blue eyes and warned him to be careful around North Americans. Ramiro organizes with Red Tinku, an autonomous group that is heavily involved with grassroots politics.

Ramiro laughed and said I wasn't "one of those gringas," but the woman took a while to be convinced - and rightly so. During the course of her life she has seen perpetual provocation from North American foreign policy that has recently come to a head.

At the end of January, Fulbright scholar Alex van Schaick and Peace Corps volunteers declared publicly that Vincent Cooper, a US diplomat, encouraged them to keep an eye on Cubans and Venezuelans while in Bolivia.

In mid-February, the Bolivian Vice Minister of Government Ruben Gamarra filed criminal charges against Cooper, who has since left Bolivia and may or may not be protected under diplomatic immunity. According to an agreement made February 13 between Philip Goldberg, the US ambassador to Bolivia, and Bolivian Foreign Relations Minister David Choquehuanca, Cooper will not be returning. Investigations against the US will continue, though, and will help determine the next steps to be taken.

On February 15, Alfredo Rada, Interior Minister of the Bolivian government, met with Goldberg to discuss the accusations of espionage. After three-and-a-half hours deemed "difficult" by employees of the government ministry, Rada and Goldberg confirmed the dissolution of the Development of Police Studies (ODEP), formerly known as the Special Operations Command (COPES).

ODEP was an intelligence organization working in parallel with the National Police, and received funding from the US. ODEP received approximately $350,000 per year for ´intelligence´ work. To date, there have been five intelligence organizations ostensibly protecting state security in Bolivia. In light of these allegations their activities will also be scrutinized.

Rada would not speak publicly at the meeting locale, but dramatically rushed journalists in state SUVs with sirens wailing to the now defunct ODEP headquarters, in the wealthy Zona Sur of La Paz.

"After this meeting with Philip Goldberg I am confident that the decision to dissolve COPES is the right one," said Rada once within the walled compound. He added that the dissolution of ODEP had to do with the "structural reorganization of the intelligence section of the National Police.”

"It's the first time as minister I've had to take such a step, and it is to ensure effective work of the National Police concerning crimes, and state security," Rada said.

When pressed for an explanation of how the dissolution of ODEP is related to charges of espionage against the US, Rada said that the matter of espionage is still under investigation and refused to elaborate. He did, however, stress the importance of maintaining good relations with the US, a statement which, in light of such serious allegations, may come as a surprise for MAS supporters who back the government's anti-imperialist agenda

Goldberg was even more reticent than Rada. In Spanish, heavily clad with an American accent, he said slowly and repeatedly, "Neither the embassy nor the United States government is involved with spying […] The majority of our help is against narco-trafficking and terrorism."

Goldberg's statement comes at a time of tense political relations between the US and Bolivia. On the same morning Rada and Goldberg met to discuss accusations of espionage, Morales publicly denounced the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), accusing the agency of supporting Bolivian opposition NGOs.

"The US agency offers money to NGOs on one condition – that they work and mobilize against the Bolivian government," said Morales.

Through both governmental and non-governmental avenues, North American interference in Bolivia is eerily reminiscent of the Cold War era, when the United States sought to undermine Southern governments who rejected the doctrine of free market capitalism.

The Human Rights Foundation, based in New York, recently wrote a letter to the Bolivian government stating that the country's new constitution is contrary to human rights, an accusation the Bolivian government refuted. The HRF website describes the organization's devotion "to defending human rights in the American hemisphere," but focuses almost exclusively on Venezuela, Bolivia, and Cuba, with brief mention of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).

And despite this Fifth Ave, New York City, based organization's statement of commitment to human rights, they make no mention of Guantanamo Bay, of impunity in Guatemala, or of the treatment of indigenous peoples across the Americas.

Contrary to criticisms from the North, Morales did not design the new constitution-- a constitutional assembly comprised of a cross-section of Bolivian society developed it. In addition, two years into his term Morales still has widespread popular support, especially among the poor majority. However, Morales’ "decolonization" project has drawn the attention of US intelligence and aid to right-wing opposition like bees to nectar. As a taxi driver recently told me, "It's like a baby used to getting everything he wants. He is sucking on a candy, and then someone takes it away - of course he is going to kick and scream and cry."

For more information on the US undermining democracy in Bolivia, see Ben Dangl's Undermining Bolivia: A Landscape of Washington Intervention.

Mural In La Paz