The Dominion - 53

Issue #53

dru — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 21:21:23 +0000

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August 2008

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The Coup in Context

dru — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 09:37:23 +0000

A look behind the removal of Barriere Lake's traditional government

The Algonquins of Barriere Lake continue efforts to get Indian Affairs and the Canadian government to uphold the law and recognize the community's customary governance code, as well as to respect the Trilateral Agreement.

Courtney Kirkby and Maya Rolbin-Ghanie are members of the Barriere Lake Solidarity Collective

#1 BLS - Geographical Location of Barriere Lake

#2 BLS - Housing Conditions

#3 BLS- Hydroelectric Dams

#4 BLS- Logging, Tourism

#5 BLS- Logging, Tourism

#6 BLS- Logging, Tourism

#7 BLS- Trilateral Agreement

#8 BLS- Scrapping the Agreement

#9 BLS- Leadership Interference

#10 BLS- Third Party Mismanagement

#11 BLS- Ousted Acting Chief Benjamin Nottaway

#12 BLS- Cannon Speaks With a Forked Tongue

#14 BLS- Demands

#15 BLS- Arrested While Waiting for Cannon to Obey the Law

#16 BLS- Keeping up the Pressure

Dammed if You Don't

dru — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 10:30:54 +0000

Hydro-Quebec turns its back on wind power

It takes 90 minutes to drive to Nemaska from the turn-off on the James Bay Highway. Following the gravel track that cuts east through the low-standing forest, you pass trappers’ cabins, veer left onto the access road that is marked with an inukshuk, and come to a compact and tidy Cree community, population 700, tucked onto the north shore of Champion Lake.

For the first-time visitor, strolling along the town’s sandy footpaths or sitting at the base of a wind-shaped cedar tree, it is easy to feel at peace here. Poking your head into the town’s steamy, camp-style diner, you are met by the sound of young voices, mostly speaking Cree.

The name Nemaska derives from a Cree word meaning "plenty of fish," and even today, aside from administrative functions, hunting and fishing remain the economic lifeblood of the community. On the nearby Rupert River, world-class rapids create an oxygen-rich environment that is ideally suited to the growth of sturgeon and giant trout.

A series of traplines, managed by extended families, cluster along the Rupert, which served as a conduit to the early fur trade. Cree settlement here, as evidenced by archaeology, goes back thousands of years.

Still, for a more recent generation of Nemaska Cree, the Rupert has become synonymous not only with tranquility and abundance, but also with upheaval. Originally located at a site 60 kilometres downstream, the town of Nemaska was closed by government order in 1970 to make way for a hydro-electric project that was expected to flood the area. Following protests, the project was suspended, but now, almost four decades later, a new Hydro-Quebec initiative is underway to divert the majority of the Rupert's waters into a set of reservoirs along the La Grande River, in the north of Cree territory.

When it is finished, in late 2009, the diversion will flood 640 square kilometres, reducing the area on 10 out of the 15 traplines belonging to Nemaska families. The once-mighty Rupert, up to a kilometre wide in places, will be reduced to a trickle. The new project will entail the construction of four dams, several dykes and a diversion channel.

The Rupert seems fated to become the latest link in a network of projects that has altered the shape of free-flowing rivers in northwestern Quebec. In 1974, Hydro-Quebec started building the first in a series of dams along the La Grande River, which drains into James Bay. Throughout the 1980s, the diversion of two neighbouring rivers doubled the outflow of the La Grande and flooded an expanded area around the La Grande reservoirs.

The project forced the relocation of the Cree community at Fort George (now Chisasibi), and was associated with a host of setbacks that included restrictions on fishing (due to mercury pollution), a change in weather patterns and a decline in waterfowl populations.

Proponents of the development point to a 1975 compensation package, negotiated with the provincial and federal governments, which helped pay for the construction and maintenance of infrastructure in Cree villages. But many Cree feel that by flooding traplines, the hydro development undermined the prospects for a hunting-based economy, forcing young people away from what is still a nomadic lifestyle and into a sedentary and rootless existence on reservations with few prospects for employment.

* * *

Each day, summer and winter, the Jolly family drinks tea brewed from the water of the Rupert River. A collection of storage jugs stashed beside the samovar in the kitchen attests to the fact that these Nemaska residents prefer the taste of fresh water to the tap variety. Freddy Jolly, a 53-year-old trapper, was my guide in Nemaska. Like many Cree of his generation, Jolly was born at his parents' bushcamp. Bushmeat remains a regular part of his diet and during spring goose season he spends a few weeks in a cabin on his family trapline.

As we drove around the back roads near Nemaska, Jolly kept his gun at the ready. More than once he estimated for me his yearly catch in animals. He described his childhood, explained how to roast bear fat with blueberries, and tried, in halting language, to convey the pain he felt at losing the Rupert, which runs along his trapline and which he feels is part of his very self.

To reach the northern reaches of Jolly's trapline today, you need to drive through a Hydro-Quebec checkpoint. You can have lunch, the way we did, at a workcamp built of prefab houses designed to accomodate 1,800 employees. While we were there, Jolly went to talk to a project manager about the burial sites of two of his older relatives, located near the area to be flooded.

From the workcamp, you can continue for half an hour and park your vehicle at the end of a gravel road, keeping well back from the earth-moving machinery that is busy there.

It will take you at least an hour to pick your way through the clearcut, a kilometre or three down to the isolated bush cabin that stands at the water's edge.

When the area is ready to be flooded, the cabin, according to Jolly, will be dismantled and burned.

Although Jolly opposes the diversion, last summer he accepted a contract from Hydro-Quebec to clear the spruce forest along this part of his trapline in advance of the flooding. I asked him how he felt about that.

"Sometimes, after the work, tears would come out from my eyes," he said. "Seeing the trees being cut, seeing the trees being piled and burned. It was hard."

* * *

The Rupert diversion was first mooted in 2001, when the Quebec government offered to provide funding for services that had been promised but not adequately delivered to the Cree communities. By tabling a "new relationship" agreement that included both the funding and the diversion, the province implicitly made one a condition for the other.

The agreement, known as the Paix des Braves, won the support of Grand Chief Ted Moses, who campaigned in favour of it. Initially, a majority of Cree residents on eight out of nine reserves voted to support the settlement in a referendum.

Nevertheless, for Cree residents in the affected communities of Nemaska, Waskaganish (located at the mouth of the Rupert; population: 2,200) and Chisasibi (population: 4,000), the diversion subsequently became the source of grave misgivings.

Speaking in June 2006, before an environmental review panel, the elected chiefs of these three communities criticized the plebiscite, arguing that since the vote was held three years before Hydro-Quebec issued its impact study, it could not provide a basis for informed consent. They noted that, during the referendum campaign, the Cree were told they were only approving studies on a potential diversion and were not being asked to give the go-ahead to the diversion, as such.

"At the end of the day, the project...is one that creates unacceptable impacts on the natural environment," said the chiefs. "Unacceptable impacts on the species that are most important to the Cree way of life; unacceptable impacts on the material, social and spiritual lives of our communities; and the loss of one of the the most extraordinary free-flowing rivers in North America."

The three chiefs promote the development of wind energy as a compromise that would allow Hydro-Quebec to generate electricity on Cree territory without destroying more of the traplines that sustain Cree culture.

According to Hydro-Quebec, diverting the Rupert will add 893 megawatts (MW), or about 2.5 per cent, to the utility's power-generating capacity.

But this figure represents less power than will be provided by wind energy once a series of new wind farms come online, starting in 2011.

Since 2002, Hydro-Quebec has licensed private wind contractors to generate electricity and sell it to the utility's distribution branch at a pre-negotiated price. In 2005, the utility launched a new phase of its competitive bidding process to invite contracts that would total 2,000 MW.

Regrettably, the proposals that were selected all involve wind farms in the south or southeast of the province.

Among the unsuccessful bids was a proposal by Yudinn Energy, a Cree company based in Chisasibi, to build a wind farm near one of the existing reservoirs on the La Grande River.

In an interview with The Dominion, a Hydro-Quebec spokesperson declined to specify the reason why the Yudinn project was rejected, citing confidentiality.

Nevertheless, a cursory search on the utility's website shows that the projects that were approved were mostly small. Twelve of the 15 sites accepted projects at capacity of 150 MW or less, whereas the Yudinn farm, situated at a favourable location, would have produced 324 MW.

For environmentalists and some Cree, it seems that the corporate culture at Hydro-Quebec remains biased against wind energy. In March 2007, an article by journalist Louis-Gilles Francoeur, writing for Montreal's Le Devoir newspaper, indicates that the province has a policy of not allowing wind power to exceed 10 per cent of the utility's generating capacity.

This attitude is highly frustrating to those who see more hydro development as both socially and environmentally destructive.

In their written submission, the chiefs said:

"We have unfortunately discovered that Hydro-Quebec is not a leader but a follower in this 21st-century industry. For many years, Hydro-Quebec has been discussing the difficulties of wind development, while others have been busy solving them."

"The documents leave little doubt that Hydro-Quebec would simply rather dam another river than take on the challenge of harnessing the wind."

Freddy Under Power Lines

Elder cleaning sturgeon

The Rupert River

The Media's FARCed

Moira Peters — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 10:51:07 +0000

Mainstream coverage of Colombia

In what most news outlets described as a daring and stunning military victory, on July 2, 2008, the Colombian government freed 15 hostages being held by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). The rescued group included the best-known of the FARC’s prisoners, former journalist and Colombian presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt, as well as three United States military contractors and 11 Colombian soldiers and police.

The story and accompanying images and sound bytes--splashed across the front of newspapers and on heavy rotation in broadcast news for several days--praised the operation as a sign both of the effectiveness of the Colombian government’s battle against the FARC and of the revolutionary organisation’s decline.

The future of the FARC was questioned by not only mainstream media, but also by the independent press. While it is clear the insurgents are not on the brink of being wiped out, voices in the media--from independent journalist Justin Podur, to cable news outlet CNN--pointed out that the rescue mission follows on the heels of the assassination of the FARC's second-in-command, Raul Reyes, by the Colombian government the previous month and the death in March of the FARC's leader, Manuel Marulanda. It also accompanies a growing belief that the FARC’s tactics of kidnapping and waging an insurrectionary war is no longer the best way to change Colombia’s political landscape.

The event has led to a critical eye being cast on the FARC, but it has had the opposite effect on the Colombian government. A government recently plagued by scandals has been able to re-invent itself in the mainstream media as a knight in shining armour. In fact, the success of the operation has made Colombia’s president, Alvaro Uribe, more popular than ever, with polls showing support among the population at a stunning 91 per cent.

The extent to which this has allowed the mainstream press to gloss over questions surrounding Uribe and his government is surprising. While the FARC has used what many describe as deplorable tactics in its revolutionary fight, the groups responsible for the largest share of the killings in Colombia during their drawn-out civil war-–particularly deaths among civilians and non-violent progressive activists-–have been the country’s right-wing paramilitary groups.

According to some estimates, 75 per cent of the 3,500 to 4,000 civilian deaths in Colombia between 1998 and 2006 were due to paramilitary forces. The operations of these groups have been publicly denounced by the government, but have at the same time received thinly veiled support from Colombia’s military law-makers, including President Uribe’s cousin, Congressman Mario Uribe Escobar, who was arrested in April 2008. According to an Edmonton Journal article published in April, 62 current or former Colombian politicians have been arrested and 31 more are being investigated for their links to paramilitaries. Individuals named on the list of those connected with the massacre of 15 people in 1997 include the speaker of the house, a supporter of President Uribe, and the president himself. However, in articles such as “Betancourt liberation a tonic for Colombia's problems,” published in the Montreal Gazette on July 4, no mention is made of these links. Even an article ostensibly critical of Colombia’s president, “Alvaro Uribe has more work to do,” published in the Toronto Star on July 14, skirts the issue.

The rescue operation has also helped to deflect attention from a bribery scandal that nearly forced Uribe to hold a referendum on the legitimacy of his 2006 re-election. The Colombian Supreme Court recently sentenced congresswoman Yidis Medina to four years of house arrest for admitting to taking bribes in the form of money and promises of jobs for supporters in exchange for backing a constitutional amendment that allowed Uribe to stand for re-election. Faced with a legitimacy crisis, Uribe had announced he was willing to hold a country-wide vote on whether he should remain in office. He has called it off since the freeing of the hostages.

All things considered, it is not necessarily surprising that questions have arisen about the accuracy of the official story of the rescue. The Colombian government has claimed it managed to infiltrate the inner-circles of the FARC, thereby fooling them into believing a top FARC officer had ordered the transfer of the hostages when in reality they were being placed on a rescue helicopter. But Radio Suisse Romande, a Swiss radio station, has claimed that, according to a confidential source, a $20 million ransom was paid to the FARC to free the hostages and that the ensuing rescue operation was staged. Most media have ignored or buried this story. For example, the rescue itself made the cover of the July 3, 2008, issue of the National Post, but the story of the possible payment appeared on page A15. Adding further to this embarrassment was the little-reported story that the Colombian government was forced to apologise to the Red Cross when it was revealed one of the soldiers donned the aid organisation’s uniform during the mission. Impersonating the Red Cross is considered a breach of the Geneva Convention, which regulates war crimes.

The rescue mission has not only been used to minimise controversy in Colombian politics; the strategy is being used in North American politics as well. Several major news outlets have featured pieces using the hostages’ release as justification for increasing free trade ties with Colombia, despite Colombia continuing to be one of the most dangerous countries for labour organisers. Globe and Mail columnist Jeffrey Simpson used the occasion to support a Canada-Colombia free trade pact in a July 5 article entitled, “A bold rescue is good news for Colombia--and Canada.”

In the US, Marc Grossman, vice-chairman of The Cohen Group and former undersecretary of state for political affairs in the George W Bush Administration, made the case for a US-Colombia deal in the Boston Globe. Unlike Canada, where the Conservative Government has all but signed an agreement, Democratic legislators in the US halted debate on the issue in the spring, ostensibly over the Colombian Government’s lack of action to curb human rights abuses. In his article, Simpson noted that, “Colombia has moved a long way from those grisly days when judges, mayors, police officers and other symbols of authority were targeted by the FARC, while paramilitaries targeted unionists, teachers and others.” While it's true that the rate of killing has dropped and that the FARC have ceased assassinations, in a July 8 letter to the Globe, Ken Georgetti, president of the Canadian Labour Congress, pointed out that Simpson went too far in saying the murder of trade unionists has ended; since the beginning of the year, the killing of labour organisers is up 70 per cent over the same period in 2007, and Colombia remains the country where the most labour organisers are killed every year.

As Colombian-Canadian surgeon and activist Manuel Rozental recently explained to Democracy Now! host Amy Goodman, “We’re talking about the regime with the worst human rights record in the continent and the army with the worst human rights record in the continent with the greatest US support, including the contractors or mercenaries. So the fact that this regime was involved in this liberation does not, and should not, and can not, cover up the fact that it is a horrendous regime.”

Betancourt in France

July in Review

dru — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 05:33:19 +0000

G8 feasts, pancakes go dry and "yellowcake" soars

The Federal Court of Appeal reversed a decision that had struck down an agreement banning refugee claimants from seeking asylum in Canada if they touched down on American soil first. The "Safe Third Country Agreement" was found by the Federal Court of Canada to be in violation of the Refugee Convention, the Convention Against Torture and Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The appeal court overturned the federal court's ruling, however, rejecting the argument that the US is not a safe country for refugees.

After children in the Algonquin community of Barriere Lake were punished for speaking Anishnaabe at the government-run school, parents and elders started an alternative school in the community. Two thirds of children in Barriere Lake, north of Ottawa, are now attending a volunteer-run school that focuses on traditional language and learning.

The Canadian government announced that it will give energy giant Suncor an additional $25 million grant (in addition to $22 million awarded in 2005) for the expansion of an Ethanol plant in Sarnia, Ontario. Suncor's second-quarter earnings this year were $829 million, a marked increase from the same period last year.

A publication ban was lifted on the preliminary inquiry into charges against Tyendinaga Mohawk spokesperson Shawn Brant, revealing police evidence that included wiretap transcripts between Brant and OPP Commissioner Julian Fantino. The taped conversations took place during the build-up to the First Nations blockade of Highway 401 in 2007. During the phone conversation, Fantino is quoted as saying "your whole world’s going to come crashing down" and threatening to "do everything I can within your community and everywhere to destroy your reputation." After spending two months in jail as what many considered a political prisoner, Brant was cleared of assault charges from a separate incident and released from custody. His trial for involvement in the blockade of Highway 401 is scheduled for January 2009.

Six people were arrested in Halifax for protesting the widening of a residential road to accommodate 300 additional cars per hour. Some demonstrators sat in trees slated to be cut down; they were removed by police, and the trees removed and ground up.

Temperatures hit all-time highs in Iqaluit several days in a row, peaking at 26.8 C. The normal temperature for this time of year is between 12 C and 4 C.

The Gwich'in may have to limit hunting of the Porcupine Caribou -- an important food and clothing source -- due to plummeting numbers. The last full count of the herd in 2001 showed 120,000 caribou, and the number may now be as low as 90,000.

The number of cruise ships in the Arctic have increased from 50 ships in 2004 to 250 ships in 2007.

The Governor General appointed 75 new people to the Order of Canada, including five "companions" -- the order's highest rank. The order's newly appointed companions include former prime minister Kim Cambell, billionaire businessman Wallace McCain and Architect Raymond Moriyama, who designed the new Canadian War Museum.

SaskEnergy applied for a gas rate hike of nearly 40 per cent, a raise that, if passed in October, will hit low-income families particularly hard if no subsidies are offered.

Goldsource Mines Inc., a junior exploration company, discovered coal in its search for Saskatchewan diamonds. The company's shares rose from 37 cents in late April to $14 per share. With energy costs on the rise, the company says a coal deposit discovery is more valuable than diamonds.

In Kanehsatake, a new band council was elected that includes a record number of women in the Mohawk community's local government. Priorities for the council will include education, especially preserving the Mohawk language. "Quebec's got Bill 101 to protect the culture and everything else," said new council member Sheila Bonspille. "We've got to protect our culture. In our education system, we have to protect our language."

Newly declassified government documents revealed that CSIS spied on Indigenous and activist groups in the summer of 2007. Targeted groups included the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty in Toronto, No One is Illegal, and Block the Empire in Montreal, and anti-Olympic activists in Vancouver.

Students and collaborators continued to resist the closure of D-Q University, the only tribal college in California and the only indigenous-controlled institution of higher learning outside of a reservation in the United States. Water and electricity services were shut off this past month after violent police raids and arrests of students and elders earlier this year. D-Q was founded in 1971 after the occupation of a former US Army communications facility by Native and Chicano youth and activists.

A native protester was arrested in Brantford, Ontario, after over 150 Six Nations people and supporters blocked a Kingspan Insulation truck. Kingspan is building a warehouse facility on land that protesters say belongs to Six Nations.

Authorities in Guerrero, Mexico, agreed to pay 14 indigenous men US$3,400 in compensation for being coerced into having vasectomies. More than a dozen countries, including Canada and the United States, have in the past sterilized men or women without their knowledge or consent.

Guatemalan campesinos faced kidnappings and multiple violent attacks by paramilitaries associated with the biofuel agribusiness Ingenio Guadelupe. Farmers were planting crops on their traditional land when the first attack took place. The community was attacked the following day during a demonstration to protest the violence. Two company managers, and members of the paramiltary security force that accompanied them, fired into the peaceful crowd. The Inter American Development Bank is supporting the development of biofuel industry in Guatemala.

A homeless count in Calgary found that more than 4,000 people do not have a home, including almost 200 families -- an increase of 18 per cent over 2006. July 1, Quebec's traditional moving day, left 11 new families homeless in Montreal, according to activists. Two homeless men died in Toronto, prompting a protest of the city's refusal to address poverty.

"Subjective Atlas of Palestine," a book that "challenges the one-sided approach of the Western media," received a prestigious Dutch award for best-designed book.

US war resister Robin Long was deported to the United States where he faces punishment for refusing to participate in the Iraq War. Long was deported after Canada's Parliament voted to allow US war resisters to stay in Canada.

The number of names on the US government "terrorist" watch list surpassed one million. The watch list has resulted in the delay or cancellation of flights for thousands of people. In one notable case, a flight carrying Yusuf Islam, formerly known as Cat Stevens, was diverted from its destination. The man who penned such songs as "Peace Train" and Moonshadow" is barred from entering the United States.

Another man died after being stunned by a Taser in Winnipeg. Robert Dziekanski's Taser-related death at Vancouver International Airport last year has sparked a number of probes into the use of the weapon.

New evidence called into question the RCMP's commitment to get to the bottom of the Taser-related death of Robert Dziekanski. Email exchanges obtained by the CBC indicate that the head of the RCMP and the BC Premier have offered their support to the officers involved, before the provincial inquiry into Dziekanski's death has begun.

The European Union proposed an import ban on products derived from seals that it deems to be "inhumanely killed;" the legislation would exempt products from traditional Inuit sealers. Inuit say that despite the exemption, the import ban would destroy the sealing economy in the North. Mary Simon, president of the Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami said she was angered by animal-rights activists who are "ignorant of and callous towards Inuit culture."

President Bush signed the FISA Amendment Act into law, allowing the government to spy on emails, phone calls, web surfing and other communications without warrants. Numerous democrats voted for the bill, including Nancy Pelosi and Barack Obama.

Citizenship and Immigration Canada is considering making HIV a reportable disease, which would make it mandatory to report cases to public health officials. "There are huge privacy concerns that are raised when people with HIV go through the system, particularly given the fact that HIV is not something that is easily spread," said Michael Battista, a Toronto immigration lawyer.

Beijing's 170,000 recyclers are being pushed out of their homes and livelihoods as part of China's "sanitization" of the city for the Olympic Games. Most of the people who scour the city for scraps to be reused and resold are migrant workers. The homeless, the mentally ill and prostitutes are also being targeted.

China is implementing extraordinary security measures in preparation for the Olympics. According to the state media, an anti-terror force of 100,000 and hundreds of thousands of police and security guards will be deployed in Beijing and other cities hosting Olympic events.

In Canada, wheat farmers are cashing in with wheat prices more than double what they were two years ago. The increase in price is due partly to biofuel production worldwide. An Internal World Bank report obtained by the media says biofuels are responsible for raising global food prices by up to 75 per cent.

Aid agencies estimated that by December, 3.5 million Somalians, or half the country's population will be in need of life-saving aid due to displacement and hunger. Aid workers, however, are fleeing the country for safety and security reasons.

Pancake-lovers on Prince Edward Island were out of luck as none of the Island's maple syrup producers made syrup this year. Nation-wide, this has been the worst year for maple syrup in four decades, due to unusual weather and rising fuel costs.

Hopi and Dine (Navajo) communities held emergency town-hall meetings after the Office of Surface Mining rejected their request for an extension to the period for public comment on the Environmental Impact Study (EIS) for Peabody Coal's plans to re-open and expand their coal mine in Black Mesa. After years of protest in the northeastern corner of the Navajo Nation, the Environmental Protection Agency granted an air permit for the Desert Rock coal-fired power plant proposed by Houston-based Sithe Global Power and the Dine Power Authority. The Governor and Attorney General of New Mexico immediately announced a legal challenge to the EPA decision.

Workers at Drummond's Pribbenow coal mine in Colombia ended their six-day strike after being granted a pay increase.

In Cauca, Colombia, the Indigenous guard detained mine exploration workers working for Vancouver's Cosigo Resources Ltd. for trespassing on their territory.

A controversial copper mine was approved near Carmacks, Yukon. In Yellowknife, the city is seeking compensation for the contaminated Giant Mine site. One of the biggest issues is the 237,000 tonnes of poisonous arsenic trioxide dust left over from 50 years of gold production.

Indigenous people of the Bismarck-Solomon Sea met to discuss seabed mining in their seas by Canadian-based mining company Nautilus Minerals. The group declared their rights "to Free Prior Informed Consent over anything potentially impacting our land." Due to the experimental nature of the mining, the group opposes the government of Papua New Guinea's decision to grant Nautilus a contract.

Farmers in Northern Mexico are worried that a mine owned by Canada’s Minefinders Corporation Ltd. will destroy their grazing land and their ability to maintain a traditional livelihood.

The former top executive of Canadian mining company Inco Ltd. says Canada is not supportive enough of "global industry champions."

Goldcorp Inc.'s Marlin Mine in Guatemala was unable to operate at full capacity for over a month due to opposition by local residents and anti-mining activists. One community member intentionally damaged a power line on her property that supplied the company with electricity and protesters then blocked the mining multinational from fixing it.

The Federal Chambers of Tucumán in Argentina brought criminal charges of environmental contamination against Julián Rooney, Vice-President of Bajo La Alumbrera, Argentina’s largest mining operation. The ruling is a result of a complaint filed ten years ago that Alumbrera dumped millions of litres of toxic liquid waste into a canal used by animals and farmers.

Four people were arrested in Tennessee for protesting against mountain-top-removal coal mining.

In Bogotá, the Permanent Peoples' Tribunal came out with a guilty verdict against 43 multinational corporations active in Colombia. Canadian union leaders attended the judgement of the Tribunal. The labour leaders denounced the Canada-Colombia Free Trade Agreement. Paul Moist, National President of CUPE, told The Dominion that "the proposed free trade agreement between Canada and Colombia is all about enabling the corporate agenda."

Cameco plants in Port Hope, Ontario, will be refining "yellowcake" uranium from Iraq -- remnants of Saddham Hussein's nuclear program. Port Hope has been refining uranium for decades. The industry has employed many people and has also made parts of the town radioactive. Cameco only admitted last year that uranium, arsenic and fluorides have been leaking into groundwater, likely for decades.

After two heated public meetings, the New Brunswick government announced that it will limit uranium exploration and staking of claims. The number of staked claims for uranium in New Brunswick has more than tripled in the last three years and many residents have found flags on their land. "There's no scientific basis for the public fear of uranium exploration but mining companies do recognize the government must calm its citizens," said Dave Plant, spokesman for Canadian Manufacturers and Exporters.

The US House Natural Resources Committee exercised rarely used emergency powers to ban uranium mining near the Grand Canyon. The decision affected more than a thousand mining claims on one million acres of land adjacent to Grand Canyon National Park. Meanwhile, an industry analyst claimed that a recently discovered undeveloped uranium deposit in Virginia is the largest in the United States and the seventh biggest in the world. The industry lobbied to lift the state's uranium mining ban, while local environmental and indigenous activists worked to maintain the ban and enact local ordinances. New uranium deposits were also found in Botswana, leading one company to speculate that the country may hold eight per cent of the world's uranium.

A popular assembly convened in Argentina in response to the country's expanding uranium industry. The Indigenous Municipality of Tilcara in northern Argentina ratified legislation that prohibits open-pit metal mining, as well as the storage, use, sale, production, extraction and transportation of dangerous substances used in the mining process.

A new study by researchers from Cambridge and Yale found a correlation between International Monetary Fund (IMF) programs and mortality rates from tuberculosis (TB). According to the study, countries in the former Soviet Union that participated in IMF programs suffered greater deaths from TB, while those that dropped IMF programs saw improvements. The authors hypothesize that IMF policies force governments to spend less on health care and cut social programs to qualify for loans.

A World Bank Study reported that an estimated 105 million more people could drop below the poverty line due to rising food prices. G8 leaders met in Japan to discuss the crisis and enjoyed a six-course lunch followed by an 18-course dinner featuring milk-fed lamb and hairy-crab bisque.

After a five-month journey of over 8,000 miles, the Longest Walk 2 for the environment, the protection of sacred sites, and indigenous rights arrived in DC. The Manifesto for Change was presented to congressman John Conyers, who announced that the Congressional Committee on the Judiciary will hold public hearings on each of the issues addressed in the proposed resolutions.

Since May 2, 800 undocumented immigrants have occupied the Paris CGT (General Confederation of Labour). The protesters are seeking residence rights in France and are demanding the support of the CGT trade union. The Paris prefecture has insisted all applicants be forwarded through the CGT, but the union has only been prepared to take the cases of workers who belong to its ranks.

An upstart St. John's, NL-based newspaper, the Independent, announced that it has lost its financial backing and will close its doors if it does not find new sources of support. Despite regular growth in circulation, the weekly newspaper's editors say that their advertising sales have been undercut by Quebec-based Transcontinental, which owns both dailies and most weekly papers in Newfoundland and Labrador.

"I will call on a new generation of Americans to join our military, and complete the effort to increase our ground forces by 65,000 soldiers and 27,000 Marines." That was the first of many statements by US Presidential candidate Barack Obama that upset his supporters with anti-war sentiments. In other appearances, Obama reiterated his support for continued war in Afghanistan and voted to grant broad wiretapping powers to the government.

Business owners in Vulcan, a small town in southern Alberta, said that high gas prices are revitalizing the community, as the cost of transportation has encouraged people to shop locally. "I think we have a little more life in us now," a grocery-store owner told the CBC.

Evo Morales asked the US to stop interfering in Bolivia's internal affairs. Bolivia's coca farmers were asked to sow food crops due to soaring food costs.

Ecuador and Venezuela signed a contract to build a new oil refinery on the coast of Ecuador. Ecuador's new constitution has been approved by the country's Constituent Assembly. During the drafting of the constitution, the Canadian ambassador has worked to protect the interests of mining companies.

If passed in a popular vote, Ecuador's new constitution will recognize nature as having the inherent right to "exist, persist, maintain and regenerate its vital cycles," and mandates the state to protect and restore ecosystems.

Despite a year of record oil prices, shares in some oil companies have dropped in value as major oil developments have been taken over by local governments, particularly in Russia and Venezuela. In other areas, multinational oil companies are "moving down the value chain" as contracts are increasingly given to state-owned companies.

The Colombian army rescues Ingrid Betancourt and 14 other hostages held by the FARC. After the military operation, Colombia was criticized for using the symbols of the Red Cross, which is a violation of the Geneva Convention.

Four of Canada's largest oil companies announced combined profits of over $5 billion, leading to speculation about what executives might do with the money.

A penitentiary in New Brunswick started a program to train inmates to work as "roughnecks," or entry-level oil workers.

Greenpeace activists clad in hazardous-materials suits broke into a tar sands plant belonging to Syncrude near Fort McMurray, Alberta, and unfurled a banner reading "world's dirtiest oil: stop the tar sands."

Plans advanced for the construction of pipelines to carry natural gas from Alaska's north slope to Alberta's tar sands; to carry natural gas from the BC coast to the tar sands; and to carry bitumen from Alberta to refineries in Texas. The Carrier Sekani tribal council of interior BC is pushing for a review of pipeline plans with regard to aboriginal title. The pipeline brings the risk of environmental damage, while providing no permanent jobs to the region.

Former Bosnian Serb paramilitary leader Radovan Karadzic was arrested in Belgrade and is slated to go on trial for war crimes. No US, Canadian or NATO officials have ever been brought to trial by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, though NATO forces provided air support for major ethnic-cleansing operations targetting Serbs.

A subcontractor working for tar sands extraction operations owned by Suncor was killed on the job while moving a heavy hauler -- a house-sized truck used in strip-mining operations.

A ten-year-old boy was killed at a demonstration against the construction of the seperation wall in the West Bank village of Na'lin. A Canadian student was arrested and deported after taking photos of Israeli soldiers breaking up a protest, also in Na'lin. Israeli bulldozers and tanks invaded a refugee camp in Rafah, shooting a man twice in the leg. An Israeli rights group said that soldiers are rarely disciplined for offenses committed against Palestinians. Israeli soldiers invaded the city of Hebron, kidnapping five civilians and ransacking several houses. In Nablus, Israeli troops set fire to a furniture store. The sea near the Gaza strip was filling with sewage; officials say sewage treatment is impossible without steady electricity. Since Gaza power plants were attacked by Israeli planes in 2006, Gaza's power supply relies on Israel, which periodically cuts off supply to punish Gazans for rocket attacks. Israeli troops raided schools, orphanages, medical centres, and soup kitchens in Gaza, seizing supplies and posting closure notices. West Bank Palestinians were dealing with a chronic undersupply of water, due to a system which reserves the majority of water supplies for Israeli use. The Dahiyeh al-Salam neighbourhood in East Jerusalem has become a dump for Israeli garbage from West Jerusalem; human-rights complaints put a stop to some of the dumping; cleanup has not begun.

A project by the Israeli human-rights group B'Tselem distributed 100 video cameras to document the daily grind of life under occupation. The result is an archive of footage of Israeli settlers beating, abusing and humiliating Palestinians, with Israeli military often turning a blind eye, or participating. In one typical segment, an Israeli settler shouts "I will exterminate you" at Palestinians.

Almost 400 Afghan civilians were killed in July -- at a wedding and in the streets. Meanwhile, the Taliban continue to dominate the country, leading major attacks, distributing media and controlling roughly 60 per cent of Afghanistan.

In Saskatoon, potash workers demanded improved wages while the price of potash increases. Montreal hotel workers demanded job security. Workers at a Cape Breton gypsum plant threatened a blockade if they don't receive back wages. Toronto hotel workers staged a 45-minute wildcat strike to protest lagging contract talks.

3,000 workers lost their jobs when Bell Canada, Owens-Illinois and Air Canada decided to cut positions.

The subprime mortgage crisis in the US spread to Cuba after billion-dollar losses were reported at the two largest US mortgage providers. Canada saw its 2007 April surplus of $2.8 billion become a $500 million deficit in 2008. George W. Bush declared that ""Wall Street got drunk."

Mohawk elder Katenies again refused to recognize the jurisdiction of the Superior Court in Cornwall, Ontario, on July 14, 2008. Katenies and fellow Mohawk Nation News (MNN) editor Kahentinetha Horn were arrested and beaten by Canadian Border Services Agency (CBSA) officers last month as the two attempted to cross the US-Canada border, which lies within their community of Akwesasne.

Dr. Ronald B. Herberman, director of the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute, issued an unprecedented warning to 3,000 faculty and staff, advising them to limit their cell-phone use because of possible risk of cancer.

A New York City police officer was stripped of his gun and badge after an amateur video, taken by a tourist standing on the sidewalk, surfaced on the Internet showing the officer pushing a bicyclist to the ground in Times Square during a Critical Mass ride. The cycler was arrested by the officer and charged with attempted assault, disorderly conduct and resisting arrest.

Greenpeace Action

Boiling Point!

hillarybain — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 10:31:48 +0000

Polaris report finds water in First Nations communities a “violation of fundamental human rights”

In May, the Polaris Institute, a citizen-focused think tank, released Boiling Point!, a report about the “violation of fundamental human rights” occurring in First Nation communities across Canada.

“For many, water has become a source of fear and people have good reason to believe that what comes out of their taps may be making them sick,” reads the report. This reality is not a new one for First Nations in Canada, and it’s getting worse, not better.

In May 2007, The Dominion reported that 88 First Nations were under a Health Canada drinking water advisory. As of April 18, 2008, almost 100 First Nations are on a drinking water advisory, according to the Polaris Report. Health Canada put the figure at 97 as of July 11, 2008.

Phil Fontaine, national chief of the Assembly of First Nations, believes the lack of progress on obtaining clean water for First Nations “...clearly demonstrates that access to clean water for First Nation citizens is not a priority for Canada.”

“First Nations have always viewed water as a sacred trust. From time immemorial, First Nations have centred their existence on water,” says Fontaine. “Today, it is unacceptable that many of our First Nations should be subjected to conditions where there is no access to safe, potable water...These conditions would not be tolerated in any municipal setting and if they are to occur, swift and decisive action is the norm and is expected.”

Boiling Point! investigated the situation in six First Nations communities across Canada:

Neskantaga First Nation is situated 500 kilometres north of Thunder Bay in northern Ontario. The community of 282 has been under a boil water advisory since 1995. Polaris asks: “What other community do you know of in Canada that has been on boil water advisory for 13 years? Would this be acceptable for you, your family, friends and colleagues? What does this say about the federal government’s fiduciary responsibility to First Nations health and safety?”

Boil water advisories only hint at the problems for Neskantaga First Nation. On September 29, 2004, the presence of gasoline and a high level of the suspected carcinogen trihalomethane caused the water supply to be shut down entirely.

The cost of bottled water ($6/litre) is beyond the community’s means. Following the shut down, the department of Indian and Northern Affairs Canada (INAC) provided five litres of water a day per person (insufficient for daily needs, according to Polaris), then, because of the cost, decreased the ration to two litres.

“INAC has a fiduciary and financial responsibility to take care of the people of Neskantaga and to honour our Treaty rights in an adequate standard of living and health care,” says Neskantaga Chief Moonias. “The right to a safe and useable water supply is a right of every person living in this country for the health and well-being of himself and his family.”

“Nowhere else in Canada would anyone accept this,” Moonias continues. “It’s a violation of our fundamental human rights...We’re being treated as second-class citizens.”

“I wonder how different the response would be if the residents of Toronto were without access to water,” he says.

Kitigan Zibi Anishinabeg is located in Quebec, 130 kilometres north of Ottawa. The community has been advised to refrain from drinking its well water since 1999, after uranium and other toxic-heavy chemicals were detected. Polaris notes “some progress” for the community’s water situation since 2006, but emphasizes that, “This comes after years of people drinking water that most Canadians would deem undrinkable.”

On the eastern shores of Pikangikum Lake, about 100 kilometres north of Red Lake in northwestern Ontario, is the remote Ojibway community of Pikangikum First Nation. It is a self-sufficient community of 2,300 keen on preserving their culture and language. Indeed, it has the highest rate of indigenous language retention in northern Ontario. Polaris argues, “The case of Pikangikum underscores why Canada must recognize water as a human right and ecological trust.”

Boiling Point! also describes the extreme poverty of Pikangikum First Nation. Juliette Turtle, a 58-year-old woman, and her family of eight live in a 65-square-metre house with no toilet and no running water. In the backyard is an outhouse. When the hole is full, a new hole is dug and the outhouse moved over top. In the same backyard, seven of Turtle’s 12 children are buried. All seven committed suicide.

Particularly frustrating, according to Polaris, is a water treatment plant built in 1995, which is capable of producing enough potable water for the entire community. However, in 2007, 90 per cent of homes were still unconnected.

Despite the clear reality that Pikangikum is in crisis, it is not considered one of the 21 priority communities identified under the federal government’s Plan of Action for Drinking Water in First Nations Communities.

On the southwestern tip of Lake Athabasca, 200 kilometres from Fort McMurray, in the middle of the Alberta tar sands, is the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation.

In February 2008, chiefs from Treaties 6, 7 and 8, including Chipewyan First Nation, unanimously urged the Alberta government to enact a moratorium on all new oil sands projects until watershed and resource development plans have been approved by First Nations.

Dr. John O’Connor blew the whistle on unchecked tar sands development after noticing high rates of illnesses, in particular, cholangiocarcinoma, a rare bile duct cancer, in residents of Fort Chipewyan in late 2000. According to the Polaris report, there is a belief among physicians of an effort on the part of the Alberta government to silence O’Connor.

Along the Yukon River lies Little Salmon/Carmacks First Nation. The community’s water is supplied by upwards of 90 individual wells and truck delivery. The wells, installed by INAC, are poorly situated and as a result the water is unsafe to drink and the community has been under a boil water advisory for over three years.

Currently, there is a joint initiative between the Canadian Auto Workers and the Assembly of First Nations to help provide clean drinking water in Little Salmon/Carmacks First Nation.

In northeastern Saskatchewan, the Yellow Quill First Nation was under a boil water advisory from 1995 until 2004. During that time the community got its water from Pipestone Creek, which flows between just five and 15 days every spring. In addition, a town located upstream empties its sewage lagoon into the creek. “[O]ur water was worse than what they had in Walkerton,” says the community’s chief, Robert Whitehead.

Since then, Yellow Quill First Nation’s water source has been switched to an underground well that is being successfully treated through a process developed by Dr. Hans Peterson of the Safe Drinking Water Foundation.

Yellow Quill provides the one sanguine account in the Polaris report. According to Trevor Sutter, communications manager at INAC, the treated water at Yellow Quill is now "very good, very good water."

Peterson reports that, “Two more communities, Pasqua and George Gordon, have now had full-scale Yellow Quill systems for 2.5 years and they are all running flawlessly.”

Peterson is surprised there aren’t more examples of successful water systems in First Nations communities. “For all the hundreds of millions the federal government has spent on researching water through Canada's many universities, Canada's federal research departments, Health Canada, Environment Canada and the National Research Council, would you not have thought that the head of the Assembly of First Nations would have some examples of what those agencies have done in terms of water in aboriginal communities?” he asks. “The fact is a couple of years ago the director general of INAC, Gilles Rochon, told me he had no example of research agencies having done research on aboriginal water issues and then having come up with solutions that could be implemented."

The Safe Drinking Water Foundation is currently working on a Framework for Safe Drinking Water, for which Peterson is hoping to receive funding.

To overcome the disparity between indigenous communities and other Canadian communities, Polaris identifies the need for federal government implementation of long-term solutions based on “equality and respect, including ensuring access to safe drinking water, source water and sanitation.”

Boiling Water

A Long "Hot Winter" and Painful Spring

hillarybain — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 11:49:46 +0000

Putting a name to Gaza's injured

CAIRO, EGYPT -- Bedridden yet painfully conscious, nearly paralyzed with no feeling from the waist down, 16-year-old Abdul Rahman (nicknamed Abed) is one of the hundreds injured by intense Israeli shelling and firing on Gaza between February 27 and March 3, 2008, during an operation dubbed "Hot Winter" by Israel. According to a World Health Organization report, during this period the Israeli army killed at least 116 Palestinians--nearly half of them civilians and more than a quarter children, including a six-month-old infant and a 20-day-old baby--and injured 350. Later counts tallyed the number killed as over 150, with more than 55 killed in one day alone. Over half the week's fatalities and injuries occurred in and around Jabaliya, the refugee camp where Abed was born and has called home all his life.

At 11 a.m. on March 2, Abed stood on the roof of his family's home, observing as Israeli tanks overran the camp. No curfew had been announced and he was unaware of the presence of soldiers on a neighbouring rooftop. The youth was struck from behind by an Israeli sniper bullet that dug into his spine, destroying three of his vertebrae and leaving him paralyzed and bleeding on the roof, where he lay for 15 minutes before his younger brother found him. The 13-year-old dragged Abed to the stairs and down into the family's home, dodging further sniper fire as he went. The invasion outside continued, preventing ambulances from reaching Abed. Three hours after his injury, the teen was finally taken to a hospital in Gaza City, where doctors, after seeing his injury, were surprised to see the boy was still alive. Unable to provide adequate emergency care in Gaza, they immediately loaded him into an emergency transfer ambulance bound for the Rafah border crossing to Egypt.

With the high number of serious injuries, Rafah crossing--closed virtually continuously since June 2007, when Israel imposed complete closure on Gaza--was opened temporarily to allow some of the wounded passage for treatment in Egyptian hospitals. Due to the siege and its detrimental impact on the availability of essential medicines and functioning equipment, Gaza's own hospitals are not able to meet patients' needs. As one of the more critically injured, Abed was transported to a hospital in al-Arish, roughly 50 kilometres from the Rafah border, and eventually to Cairo's Nasser Hospital, where he arrived 15.5 hours after being shot.

Over four months later, Abed lies gaunt and sickly pale, wondering how this happened to him and waiting for a series of operations that may help him recover. The operations to strengthen the broken vertebrae and plug the bullet wound in Abed's spinal cord have only a minimal probability of success and ‘success’ would still mean being confined to a wheelchair for the rest of his life. Dr. Saleh Abu Sobheh, a surgeon who treated Abed in Cairo's Palestine Hospital for a period, is more grimly pragmatic: "Spinal surgery is a highly risky procedure. Abed will be paralyzed for life and will be lucky if he does not suffer brain damage from the operation."

On seeing him in the hospital, one might imagine he had always been a slight, sickly boy, not a youth who used to enjoy football and who lifted weights every day. Activity and sport were some of the things he didn't allow Israel to deny him under the siege. Now he can barely lift a bottle of water.

Samir (who prefers to be known by his first name), an Egyptian accountant and humanitarian, volunteers by helping Palestinian patients from Gaza in Cairo, visiting different hospitals to see that patients are receiving adequate treatment and are able to pay for their care. Samir, who has monitored Abed's case since Abed arrived in Cairo and has consulted with his doctors, explains, "The first operation will be to strengthen his vertebrae with a sort of metal splint." Without reinforcing his vertebrae, even the negligible weight of his now-emaciated mass would put immense pressure on the remaining vertebrae, causing further damage. Samir adds, "The two operations will take place during one week. Samples which two months ago were taken from Abed's spinal cord will be re-injected into the hole left by the bullet." Like Dr. Sobheh, Samir is also worried and he cautions that, "This is highly experimental surgery."

Abed's options are few: to remain bedridden for life or to risk brain damage to try to regain some feeling from his waist down and be able to sit upright. Either way, according to Dr. Sobheh, "People who suffer spinal injuries usually develop respiratory disease." Altogether, there is little hope to coax him through his long days of waiting. He is one of many injured from Gaza who have become numbers that disappear into statistics.

His current caretaker is "Uncle" Rahme, an unrelated Palestinian in Cairo who travelled from Jerusalem to oversee the medical treatment of his two nieces. Although they'd never met, Uncle Rahme took pity on Abed's isolation and dependency. "Of course I am helping Abed. His father isn't allowed to leave Gaza and he has no family here. I'm here, so I do what I can for him. But he's very unhappy to be away from his family--he's not used to that." Since arriving in Cairo, Abed has been transferred to five different hospitals due to considerations in specialized treatment and cost. Uncle Rahme followed Abed from Cairo's Palestine Hospital to al-Farook Hospital in Cairo's Maadi suburb. But in a few weeks, when Uncle Rahme returns to Jerusalem, Abed will be left alone to deal with his injuries and paralysis; Abed's father's attempts at obtaining an exit permit to leave Gaza to be at the boy's side have thus far been denied.

Down the hall from Abed's room at the Palestine Hospital, 34-year-old Ziyad Hashan lies waiting for his intestinal tract to heal enough for a colostomy, a procedure needed as a result of his intestinal injury. His pelvis has begun the slow road to recovery, time being the only medicine. His urethral and bladder injuries were treated surgically in Gaza. He must wait another three months before doctors can perform the colostomy.

Hashan's complicated injuries are the result of an Israeli attack on Khan Yunis in late March. Shortly before 4 a.m. on March 28, Hashan was en route to his parents' house next door to pick up his father for morning prayers. Four shots rang out, one of which hit him in the pelvis from behind. He never made it to the mosque, where his father was already waiting.

The Israeli army maintains, in statements to Hashan's Gaza-based lawyer, that Hashan was caught in a conflict between the army and Palestinian fighters in Gaza. His father, who was permitted to accompany Hashan from Gaza to Cairo for treatment, countered: "There was no shooting. I had left five minutes before Hashan was shot. I heard nothing. He wouldn't have left the house if there was shooting." Instead, he says, Israeli undercover soldiers were dressed in civilian clothes, posing as Palestinians. Hashan noticed nothing unusual.

After Hashan was shot, his father recounted that he and another son had carried Hashan for half a kilometre; ambulances were unable to get nearer as an Israeli fighter plane flew overhead. "Ziyad lost so much blood he nearly died." And yet, Hashan counts himself "lucky" that someone was around to carry him to safety. In the same incident, one neighbour was killed by the shooting and another wounded in the forearm.

Hashan previously worked in ground operations at Gaza's airport until it was shut down by Israel. Since then, he has had trouble putting enough food on the table for his three young children. This will become even more of a concern with his medical expenses, which, once he leaves hospital, will be his burden to bear. Even after surgery, he will need continual check-ups to monitor his situation and healing.

The family's lawyer has contacted an Israeli lawyer who plans to file a complaint against the Israeli army for having shot an unarmed civilian. Hashan, perhaps subdued by his injuries and depression, is less vocal than his father, who illuminates the injustice: "He is just a normal citizen who was going to knock on the door of his parents' house, on his way to pray."

Israel's siege, backed by the US and EU, has more than crippled Gaza and has meant that injured Palestinians like Hashan and Abed, as well as hundreds suffering from cancer and chronic kidney, liver and heart disease, cannot be treated within the confines of Gaza. The Gaza-based Popular Committee Against the Siege lists over 180 Gaza patients who have died over the past year due to unattainable surgery or lack of medicine because of Israeli-imposed closures. Dr. Sobheh points out that, given the circumstances, "the quality of emergency care in Gaza's hospitals is phenomenal." However, he adds, serious surgery and treatment is out of the question. According to Dr. Sobheh, "What we really need to focus on is getting foreign doctors into Gaza. Before the siege, specialists used to visit Gaza's hospitals to share knowledge and techniques with Gaza-based doctors." Since the siege, this has become impossible.

Back in their respective Cairo hospital beds awaiting surgery, Abed and Hashan are just two of the "faceless victims," testimony to the agony of Palestinians in Gaza confronting continued military attacks and a cruel siege that has largely been ignored and minimized by the international community. Abed hopes one day to sit in a wheelchair with his father by his side, and like Hashan, wants to see an end to Israel's siege and the attacks that brought them here.

This article was originally published on The Electronic Intifada

Eva Bartlett is a Canadian human rights advocate and freelancer who spent eight months in 2007 living in West Bank communities.

Abdul Rahman

South Koreans Have a Beef

hillarybain — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 13:07:05 +0000

Crackdown on demonstrations against US beef imports

SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA -- On June 28, a crowd of at least 13,000 (some estimates report 30,000) gathered near the city hall in Seoul to protest the government’s decision to allow US imports of beef to South Korea. The issue is huge in South Korea, where a June 10 demonstration-–which coincided with the 21st anniversary of the demonstrations that toppled the country's military dictatorship-–drew out up to half a million protesters.

The latest demonstration came on the heels of US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s visit to Seoul. Rice vouched, “I can only say that American beef is safe and that we hope in time the South Korean people will listen to that, and will be willing to listen to what their government is saying and what we are saying.”

On June 2, the thoroughfare of Sedong Street, which ends at the landmark gate of Gwanghwamun, was lined with over 100 buses that had been converted to transport vehicles with barricaded windows for riot gear-clad police. The fleet of buses, many marked with graffiti, were arranged to impede access to sections of Sejong Street, where the US embassy is located.

Later that night, when people tried to break through the bus barricades, the police used water cannons and reportedly detained more than 130 demonstrators.

President Lee Myung-bak of the Grand National Party, elected with 48.7 per cent of the vote in December 2007, has borne the brunt of South Korean anger during a growing number of demonstrations.

In April 2008, Myung-bak proposed lifting prohibitions on US beef imports, prohibitions that had been imposed in 2003 after a case of Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE or mad cow disease) was discovered in the US. Many South Koreans have reacted strongly against the perceived risks of BSE, which have been inflamed by Korean media.

In June, the pressure was such that Myung-bak's entire cabinet offered to resign in response to the street protests.

A senior policeman who wished to remain anonymous said, “The demonstration is okay if it is done in the proper manner with permission, not in the middle of the street, stopping cars and causing problems.”

The organizers, who addressed the milling crowd throughout the evening, emphasized that the demonstration should remain peaceful. Dozens of young men wearing military fatigues were present at the demonstration. Having completed their compulsory military service, they now call themselves the Guardians of the Citizens. They say they’re protecting the people from the state.

One of the Guardians, Kim Jin-kang, said the protestors were there “because the president has been lying...about the Great Canal and American beef.”

Much of the media has portrayed the protests as being solely about imports of US beef, but many voiced concern about the Great Canal project. The project proposes the construction of three great canals connecting four large rivers, and the city of Busan in the southeast with Seoul in the northwest.

A slim military officer, who wished to remain anonymous, manned an information table about the Great Canal project and said he was opposed to the project because of the environmental destruction it would entail. He saw Korean conglomerates as the only winners from the project.

Pak Jong-ju, who manned a table for the Korea Socialist Party, said he was at the demonstrations because of injustice. “The US and Korea alliance is a critical issue in Korea,” said Pak, who saw the protests rooted in a great polarization in South Korean society among those who support an alliance with the US and those who seek independence from the US.

Jong-ju is opposed to the “free trade” agreement between South Korea and the US. “There are a lot of rules with FTA [Free Trade Agreement] that oppress freedom of human beings, and favour business over government,” he said.

An elderly man who called himself “Mr. Korea” said the Great Canal had been added to the backside of the FTA. He believed that although most Koreans opposed the canal project, they would support the FTA if it was along the same terms as NAFTA.

Standing in the crowd was Kim Ji-hyun. She said she was against both US beef imports and the Great Canal project. She saw beef as a “life and death” issue and expressed contempt for the president.

Many demonstrators could be seen carrying slogan-bearing red cards printed by the Candlelight Movement of Korea that echoed these sentiment: “Who are you protecting with the power that we give you?” and “How can you let us down like this?”

A large white banner with blue lettering that hung high across the wide expanse of Sejong Street proclaimed: “Someday, this road will surely demonstrate the last days of a man who denied [that the] Republic of Korea’s state power originates from its people, but foolishly believed it comes from America, dirty richs [sic] and crap newspapers. Therefore, we will resist until our last breath to his idiotic ignorance, incompetence, irresponsible subterfuge, reckless beliefs, and ensure not to be victims of such.”

One Korean woman spoke of a Korean proverb that says a pot which boils quickly also cools quickly--something that the Myung-bak government is hoping for.

According to Agence France-Press, police blocked the rally planned for June 29 at Seoul Plaza before it could start, detaining 130 people and blocking nearby roads.

On June 30, investigators raided the office of the People's Association for Measures Against Mad Cow Disease and the office of the People's Solidarity for Korean Progress, seizing computers and other items, as well as arresting one organizer.

The following two weekends were relatively quiet and wet around Seoul city hall. The grass lawn has been replaced with new turf, and the vendors have disappeared. The season has changed. Middle- and high-school students who began the demonstrations are now out of school and an intense rainy period has deluged Seoul.

It seems that in the face of increasing government and police crackdowns, the boiling pot has cooled for now.

Police Crackdown

Candlelight Vigil

"Sorry" For Genocide?

hillarybain — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 11:10:21 +0000

Residential school apology in context

"I want to get rid of the Indian problem. I do not think as a matter of fact, that the country ought to continuously protect a class of people who are able to stand alone...Our objective is to continue until there is not a single Indian in Canada that has not been absorbed into the body politic and there is no Indian question, and no Indian Department; that is the whole object of this Bill." —Duncan Campbell Scott, head of the Department of Indian Affairs and founder of the residential school system, 1920

On June 11, 2008, Stephen Harper, prime minister of Canada and leader of the Conservative Party, issued an "apology" for the residential school system that over 150,000 indigenous children were forced through. The hype before and after the statement was enormous, with extensive coverage in all major media.

This event had a strong emotional and psychological impact on indigenous survivors of residential schools across Canada, survivors who suffered attempted forced assimilation, as well as countless acts of violence, rape and other abuses. Descendents of those subjected to this system were equally affected. People packed into community halls and similar venues on June 11 for what was bound to be an emotional day for survivors, regardless of their view on the meaning of the "apology." Some survivors reportedly felt that the statement was a step forward, while many others were highly critical.

In trying to understand the responses of indigenous people across Canada to this "apology," it is first important to address what it did not do. It must be judged in terms of the ability of indigenous people to move forward in the process of true healing, not only from the effects of the residential school system, but also from Canadian colonialism as a whole. Examined in context, the deficiencies of the "apology" are much greater than any positive impact it might have.

A crime of genocide

"I don't want to hear it. You know, you might as well send the janitor up to apologise...if it's just empty words or a nicely written text." — Michael Cachagee, survivor of Shingwauk Indian Residential School

If there is one thing that Mr. Harper's "apology" provided that could be considered groundbreaking or new, it's the idea that there can be crimes without criminals.

You might think offering an "apology" meant claiming some sort of accountability for the residential school system. But Harper's statement acknowledges that what happened was a "mistake" without addressing it as a crime, and without any sense of individual accountability. It views the residential school system as simply a mistake.

No discussion of the residential school system can be meaningful without acknowledging that this was an act of genocide. For those who value the importance of international law and the United Nations convention of genocide, a look at the UN definition itself as outlined in the "Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, adopted in 1948" is revealing:

Article 2. In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:

(a) Killing members of the group;

(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;

(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;

(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;

(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

Arguably all five of these criteria apply to the residential school system and other aspects of the Canadian government's colonization of indigenous people. There can be no argument, however, that parts (b) and (e) apply. It is important to note that guilt for this crime lies not only with the individuals who committed specific crimes against indigenous people (i.e., sexual assault, physical violence, forced removal), but also with those who enacted the policy.

Harper apologized for the residential schools as a "system," but that does not absolve individuals who participated in the numerous criminal acts they committed. Yet Harper's statement attempts to do so by apologising on behalf of "all Canadians," hiding behind the false logic of "nobody is guilty if everyone is."

Cherokee activist and academic Andrea Smith discusses some of these ideas in her book Conquest: Sexual Violence and American Indian Genocide. Smith uses Carol Adam's concept of the "Absent Referent" in exploring various aspects of sexual violence against indigenous women, also examining how this concept recurs throughout Western society, mythology and history. One example she uses is that of the "battered" woman, a concept that makes women "the inherent victims of battering. The batterer is rendered invisible and thus the absent referent."

A similar tool of deception is at work in not only the "apology," but also in the general approach of the Canadian government toward the residential school issue. Aside from identifying notorious cases like that of the Archbishop Hubert O'Connor--who was convicted of rape and indecent assault against two young aboriginal women and who can easily be tarred in Harper's statement--the perpetrator of the crimes against residential school survivors has no tangible face and almost no concrete existence.

Putting residential schools in historical context

A second great weakness of the "apology," related to the first, is that it attempts to separate the residential schools from the wider colonial project of the Canadian state. This further obscures a true understanding of why this crime was committed.

The key role of the residential school system in the overall process of Canadian colonialism cannot be overestimated. The theft of indigenous lands and resources, along with the destruction of indigenous cultures and societies, was met with resistance. In many cases this resistance was well organized and proved difficult for European settlers to quell, despite their supposedly more advanced weapons and military organization.

Rather than risking a resurgence of resistance in various indigenous communities by allowing them to exist, authorities adopted a policy of forced partial assimilation. If total destruction of indigenous people could not be achieved, partial assimilation could weaken the resistance of indigenous communities, while producing an underclass to perform menial wage labour in the Canadian economy.

This assimilation was partial in the sense that indigenous people were not to be completely absorbed into the settler society as equals. Even to call these youth prisons "schools" distorts both how these institutions functioned and what was being taught.

The residential school system had the effect of fostering complete self-hatred in most of the students, building a collective psychology. Indigenous people were forced to internalize a conception of themselves as drunken, lazy and stupid. Weakening indigenous communities, cultures and nations was the primary goal, with little in the way of education even in terms of Western notions of learning.

Challenging the Canadian state and the underlying settler project

The political implications of the residential school project continue today. It has had such a disastrous effect on the interpersonal relationships of indigenous people that its wounds are overcome only with immense individual and collective struggle.

Generations of physical and sexual abuse, alcohol and drug addiction, continued child apprehension by branches of the Canadian state, alarming rates of suicide-—these are only the more visible of the many problems indigenous people have had to work through since the residential school experience. As a result, the ability of indigenous communities to effectively organize against the continued theft of lands and resources has been directly weakened.

Yet this resistance continues and should be understood as one of the main factors influencing the decision of the Canadian government to issue its recent apology. Currently, there are numerous struggles by indigenous people within Canada over land and resources. These struggles are intensifying in response to the Canadian capitalist economy's increased hunger for valuable resources such as platinum, uranium and oil in a time of increasing prices, scarcity and volatility in energy markets.

The struggles of indigenous people, be they Haudenosaunee, Cree, Innu, Anishininimowin, or Tahltan, are only in part over ownership of land, in the Western sense of private property. When indigenous people assert sovereignty over their lands, this also challenges the legitimacy of the entire Canadian nation state and the settler project underpinning it.

More importantly, it involves struggles for the assertion of a different conception of land and of indigenous worldviews that see the well-being of humans, land and all living things as inseparable. This means a respect for the earth and valuing life in a way that has little to do with their market value.

The recent struggles over land, using road blocks and other forms of direct action, mark a departure from engaging with the Canadian state on the terms it tries to set, such as the notoriously slow land claims process. The response to indigenous people standing up and asserting their rights has been criminalization. Organizers like Shaun Brant, the KI 6, Robert Lovelace and Wolverine are presented by the mainstream media, the police and politicians as criminals, while the political content and nature of their actions remain hidden.

Harper's apology, along with the entire "Truth and Reconciliation Commission" project, must be understood in this context. Both are direct attempts to reframe the direction of indigenous struggles within the context of the Canadian settler state as it exists today.

Mixed reactions to Harper's statement

The mixed response of survivors reported by the mainstream media reflects the healthy level of distrust among indigenous people regarding the true intentions and meaning of the apology. The emotional impact Harper’s statement has had on survivors of the residential school system is completely understandable; even a small acknowledgement of wrongdoing goes a long way, given how many years the Canadian government has refused to accept accountability for its crimes.

Indigenous people are subjected to a large amount of "crazy-making." Experiences are frequently either outright denied by Canadian society or downplayed, people are told simply to ‘get over it.’ Thus, Harper’s acknowledgement of past atrocities-–however weak-–produced understandable and significant emotional response.

Towards truth and reconciliation on indigenous terms

Whether it is regarding the ability to decide what will happen on our lands, or how we are to overcome the impact of the residential school experience and deciding what to do with those criminally responsible, it is essential that we carry out these struggles on our own terms.

For this reason, we have to recognize the inherent limitations to the upcoming "Truth and Reconciliation Commission." Unlike the commission of the same name that took place in post-apartheid South Africa, the same racist institutions responsible for the crimes under study are heading this commission.

With a power dynamic like this, we can't expect real truth or reconciliation to come out of this commission, especially under the Harper government--the same government that voted against ratification of the UN declaration on the rights of indigenous people and a government that is still pushing for the extinguishment of aboriginal title.

The most effective means of healing the wounds of the residential school experience will be to challenge the very foundations of its existence. This includes the grassroots work of survivors who have been fighting for several decades to see real justice for the perpetrators of the crimes of the residential school project. Without this effort, the Canadian government would never have been put in a position to issue an apology in the first place.

Mike Krebs is an indigenous activist in Vancouver and a contributing editor of Socialist Voice.

For more information check out Healing begins when the wounding stops: Indian Residential Schools and the prospects for "truth and reconciliation" in Canada and An Historic Non-Apology, Completely and Utterly Not Accepted

Stephen Harper

Harper Apology

Meeting Crashers

hillarybain — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 10:00:00 +0000

Anti-mining activists confront shareholders at AGM

It was the first time that Mexican Congressman Armando Barreiro, historian Juan Carlos Ruiz Guadalajara and hydraulic engineer Mario Martinez visited Toronto, but this trip was not a vacation.

They came to the city to denounce the activities of Metallica Resources, a Canadian mining company running an open-pit mine in Cerro de San Pedro, Mexico.

After negotiating with Metallica Resources, the corporation granted Barreiro, Guadalajara and Martinez access to the mining corporation's annual general investors' meeting, but told them they had to follow the rules: They were not allowed to make statements and could only ask questions during the question period.

On the eve of the AGM, the Mexican delegation hardly slept, thinking of ways to transmit their message to shareholders via questions. "We have to word our questions carefully to tell them everything we want, and that the legal and social situation jeopardizes their investment," said Martinez that night.

The next day, the Mexican delegates arrived at the Sutton Hotel in Toronto's business area, where the AGM would occur. They were equipped with three key questions about the legal challenges to the mining project, the widespread social unrest and the opposition that the mining project is facing.

As they entered the meeting, they received a pamphlet stating that Metallica's mining projects were in "mining-friendly jurisdictions."

When question period came, the delegates calmly asked their questions.

"Have you told your investors that right now the Mexican Congress is in an extraordinary session, that 156 Congress people and 57 Senators are working to pass a law project to stop the mine from working under such irregularities and that retribution for the environmental damage to the area will likely be imposed?" asked Barreiro.

"Thanks for your information," replied the mediator.

Exasperated by the condescending tone, Guadalajara raised his voice, demanding the company get out of Mexico and stop creating environmental chaos.

This gave the corporation the opportunity it had been waiting for. Hotel security moved swiftly to demand that Guadalajara leave the premises. He started backing up towards the door while continuing to tell investors to divest from Metallica Resources.

Suddenly, the door swung open and Guadalajara was pulled back and grabbed by police. He tried to get loose, not realizing it was the police. They moved quickly: three officers dragged Guadalajara into the main lobby among the hotel guests, while Barreiro was pushed and pulled around, even after identifying himself as a Mexican congressman.

The police did not press charges due to the non-violent approach of the delegation, but demanded that the delegates leave the hotel.

Outside the hotel, a demonstration against the mining company was in full swing. Alternative press members were waiting to learn what had happened during the meeting.

"They were able to hear exactly what we wanted them to hear," said Barreiro. "Now they know that their actions will have legal implications."

Despite the encounter with the police, Enrique Rivera, a member of FAO Montreal (Broad Opposition Front against the mine in Cerro de San Pedro), thinks Guadalajara's outburst was appropriate and necessary.

"People in Cerro de San Pedro are angry and exasperated. This kind of outburst represents the frustration that people in San Pedro live day by day because their concerns are ignored by their own government and the company while their town is destroyed," says Rivera, who is seeking refugee status in Canada because of his opposition to the mine.

Guadalajara also believes the outburst was necessary. "We wanted them to really listen to us,” he says. “We wanted to disrupt their meeting if they didn't listen to what we had to say. Their meeting was pretty much ruined after the police came in."

This was the first time FAO Montreal and the visiting Mexican delegation used this strategy--targeting the investors of the Canadian companies through shareholder activism--to showcase their frustration and their environmental and social concerns. It is a strategy that is gaining momentum among anti-mining activists in Canada.

"Community representatives and human rights advocates from around the world come to Toronto because Canada is home to 60 per cent of the world's mining corporations," says Paul York, member of the Toronto Mining Support Group, a group that gives logistical support to groups who come to Toronto to oppose mining projects on their land.

"Gold prices have soared, leading to the opening of new mines, so this is a bad time for hundreds of indigenous and campesino communities whose misfortune it is to live near--or on top of--gold deposits," says York.

In May, Barrick Gold was similarly "honoured" with the presence of unexpected guests during their annual investors' meeting. Delegations of indigenous leaders from Papua New Guinea, Australia and the United States travelled to Toronto to make statements at the AGM about the deleterious impacts of the company's mining operations in their communities.

The delegation informed the shareholders about the destruction of spiritual sites in the US and Australia and about the killing, rape and illegal detention of local opposition villagers by Barrick's security in Papua New Guinea.

"A broad-based movement, pursuing a 'shotgun' approach of multiple tactics is needed," says York.

Barrick founder and chairman Peter Munk has felt the pressure of the shotgun approach before, from anti-mining groups such as Protest Barrick. As he was being interviewed for Vanity Fair at Indigo Books in June, a protester confronted him with questions regarding the human rights violations that Barrick has incurred.

Protest Barrick members also crashed the African Medical Research and Education Foundation gala in Toronto, for which Barrick was a "Gold" sponsor. Activists passed out flyers talking about human rights violations in Barrick's mining sites to gala participants until they were escorted out by security.

Ultimately, these tactics attempt to create awareness about the human rights abuses and environmental degradation by shaming those involved.

Delegations comprised of indigenous and campesino leaders from Guatemala, Honduras and Chile also visited Toronto in May for Goldcorp's annual investors' meeting.

The leaders went into the shareholders' meeting and explained to investors how their communities have been affected. As the leaders spoke inside Toronto's Prince Edward Hotel, protesters held a demonstration and an information session outside to warn Canadians of the negative environmental impact Goldcorp mines have on the global South.

York says opposition groups go to investors' meetings in the hopes that socially and environmentally responsible investors will divest (i.e., sell their shares). While some investors do not know about these issues, others do not care or are satisfied with the Corporate Social Responsibility reports from the company.

"A few care enough to divest or make a fuss...These are the ones we hope to reach," he says. In fact, due to criticism regarding the environmental and human rights impacts of its mining operations in Guatemala and Honduras, Goldcorp agreed this past April 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.

Anti-open-pit mining activists like York believe most investors will keep their shares as long as they increase in value, and that "many of these individuals hold no sway over the company." Thus, the media attention gained from shareholder activism and other actions is used to embarrass the companies, deter further investment and have them "de-listed" as ethical investments.

Shareholder activism has also brought together anti-mining groups from around the world. As those opposing mines come to Canadian cities to denounce human rights and environmental abuses, they realize other communities are facing similar challenges.

"[Shareholder activism] has helped the creation of an international movement of people who oppose open-pit mining. Still, the reforms they have hoped for from the companies have not yet taken place," says York.

According to a 2005 Parliamentary Standing Committee Report, "Canada does not yet have laws to ensure that the activities of Canadian mining companies in developing countries conform to human rights standards, including the rights of workers and of indigenous people."

Even if reforms have not materialized, certain Canadian MPs are listening to what these activists have to say.

Several attempts have been made in parliament to change legislation in Canada to avoid environmental and human rights abuses by Canadian mining companies. NDP's Alexa McDonough has spearheaded the movement in the Canadian Parliament to enact legislation and ensure Canadian transnationals behave ethically and obey the law when operating abroad.

The National Roundtables on Corporate Social Responsibility and the Canadian Extractive Industry Operating in Developing Countries, which wrapped up in late 2006, were an effort to do something similar. The Roundtables process represents the only recommendation of the aforementioned 2005 Standing Committee Report that was acted upon by the Canadian Government. After large meetings across the country with participation from industry, civil society, academics and the government, a consensus report written by all participating sectors was released in March of 2007. The federal government has yet to respond to the Roundtables report and its recommendations.

York does not believe lobbying for legislative changes is an effective tactic. He says changes in legislation--if achieved--will make little difference to those affected by the mines; if anything, such a move might further legitimize the extractive industries.

"Liberal reforms are not needed as much as shutting down open-pit mines altogether,” says York. “All open-pit mines violate human rights and environmental integrity and should be disallowed as fundamentally unjust and environmentally irredeemable. There are so many cases of unhappy communities--aboriginal and campensino--destroyed by open-pit mines...we need a broad-based social movement, global in scale, to advocate against such mines."

Tonantzin Mendoza, who lives in the Cerro de San Pedro community affected by Metallica Resources, could not agree more.

"This mine has effectively destroyed our community. I am not only talking about the plant and animal species that have disappeared, but about the people of Cerro de San Pedro. We used to be a tight community; now the mine has hired some within the community as guards and they bully and beat up those who disagree with the project," she says.

It is because of this kind of community erosion that anti-open-pit mine groups are willing to try any new strategy to stop mining projects in their communities; their communities and livelihoods depend on the result of this struggle.

Metallica Protest 4

Metallica Protest 3

The Road Begins at the Bottom of Your Feet

hillarybain — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 09:37:15 +0000

The Longest Walk 2 speaks out for Mother Earth

“Being here, at this very moment, it’s going to be a moment in your history that you’re going to remember for all time,” American Indian Movement (AIM) leader Dennis Banks told participants of April's Longest Walk 2 at the Dooda Desert Rock Camp in the Navajo Nation.

Following in the footsteps of the 1978 AIM Longest Walk for native rights, on February 11, 2008, the Longest Walk 2 left on a six-month, 4,400-mile walk from Alcatraz Island to Washington, DC. The island, located off the coast of San Francisco, California, and former site of the infamous federal prison of the same name, is Ohlone territory and was the site of a historic re-occupation in 1968.

Thirty years after the original Longest Walk, many of the problems facing native communities and nations continue. Participants in 2008 are bringing attention to several concerns first raised in 1978. The Longest Walk 2 is stressing the need to protect Mother Earth against destructive industries, pollution and the devastation of sacred sites, such as San Francisco Peaks.

The Walk includes two main routes: the northern route, which follows the path marched in the 1978 walk; and the southern route. Both began in California and they will converge as they near Washington, where participants will stage a three-day Cultural Survival Summit. The Summit will precede the official presentation of a Manifesto for Change to the government of the United States on July 11, 2008.

The Walk has been traversing the snaking rivers, towering mountain ranges and winding highways, through thunderstorms, blazing heat, snow and even a tornado.

Dooda Desert Rock Resistance Camp

In the windy desert in the Navajo Nation, the southern route participants gathered for a stopover at the Dooda Desert Rock Resistance Camp. ‘Dooda’ means ‘No’ in the Navajo language and references the grassroots resistance campaign against the proposed Desert Rock coal-fired steam-electric power plant. The Dine Power Authority and Houston-based Sithe Global Power are awaiting an air permit decision from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). If approved, the project would generate air pollution equivalent to 12.5 million cars, according to local Dine (‘Navajo’) activists.

According to federal law, the EPA has one year to determine whether or not to grant a permit; however, the application was made in 2004. At the beginning of June, the EPA filed a consent decree in court declaring that a decision will be made by July 31, 2008. At the same time, however, there has been increasing press coverage about the declining air quality, largely due to two existing power plants in the region. According to recent news coverage, San Juan County, New Mexico, reached the federal standard for maximum ozone levels in mid-June. An EPA report stated that in the year 2000 alone, the existing power plants and coal mines in the county released 13 million pounds of toxic chemicals, including sulphur dioxide, nitrogen oxide and airborne mercury.

Dine elders in the areas most directly threatened began organizing opposition to the proposed power plant in 2003 and the Dooda Desert Rock Committee was created in 2004. A resistance camp has been maintained near the proposed power plant site for the past few years. In addition to environmental and health concerns, another principal issue is that the proposed site is immediately adjacent to a sacred burial ground.

“We want to make sure this doesn’t happen,” said Elouise Brown, a local Dine community leader at the forefront of the grassroots resistance to the project. She explained that at the beginning, only a handful of people were involved and that she was often alone at the site: “I would just sit there and cry and pray.”

Over the last few years, the resistance camp and the campaign have been receiving visitors and supporters such as those taking part in the Longest Walk 2. Brown explained to participants that many others from neighbouring towns and further afield have also been supporting the Dooda Desert Rock campaign: “They felt that if this was happening in their hometown, they wouldn’t want it going on.”

Dennis Banks explained to the group that he had grown up in a military boarding school and always dreamed of a military career. When he enlisted and was serving in Japan, thousands of people would protest the expansion of a US military base. The US troops would watch as Japanese police hit people’s heads "like coconuts."

“We said they would never win. How could they fight the US government?” asked Banks, comparing the situation to the one facing local Dine activists who oppose the proposed Desert Rock power plant. But in Japan, “they halted. They defeated the US Air Force...Now the farmland is booming with crops. On that side, the grass and wheat are growing up through the runways.”

Decades after leaving the armed forces and becoming one of the leaders of the American Indian Movement, Banks spoke from the other side of the fence, this time the one surrounding the proposed power-plant site. While looking over the spectacular desert in the direction of the sacred burial ground he said, “This is the way it should be left, just like this. It’s beautiful.”

“It’s almost asinine that archaeologists, anthropologists, mining people...come here and tell the ancestral inhabitants that there are no burial grounds here...Their interest is to grab the land,” continued Banks.

“It is being destroyed in the name of economic development, by people who do not live here or care about the area at all,” remarked Don Lindley, a Dine park ranger working at Mesa Verde in the Four Corners area.

He explained that what is occurring today is not new, but a continuation of something that has gone on for decades.

Interested in the resources on and in native lands, the US government imposed the Tribal Council government system in the 1920s. In 1931, despite the fact that the Great Depression had enveloped the country, the Livestock Reduction Act was passed and hundreds of cattle belonging to native people were taken away and killed, or herded away and left to decompose.

“While the rest of the United States was waiting in line at soup kitchens, they were over here terrorizing and killing our livestock,” said Lindley, explaining that from 1931 until 1956, white men working for the government rode the range enforcing the livestock quota.

Uranium mining has been occurring for decades in the Navajo Nation, fueling many of the nuclear weapons and nuclear power projects in the United States. There has been some attention to the plight of the Dine uranium workers, the affected communities and the alarming health problems, but instead of working to remedy the existing situation, the government is granting exploration permits for further uranium mining activities in the region.

Shortly before the Longest Walk 2’s visit to the area, Navajo Nation Tribal Council President Joe Shirley, Jr. voiced the Navajo Nation’s clear rejection of uranium mining to a Congressional Sub-Committee hearing in Flagstaff. The April 30 press release addressed the ‘Community Impacts of Proposed Uranium Mining Near Grand Canyon National Park’ and quoted Shirley at the hearing:

Today, the legacy of uranium mining continues to devastate both the people and the land. The workers, their families and their neighbours suffer increased incidents of cancers and other medical disorders caused by their exposure to uranium...The mines, many simply abandoned, have left open scars in the ground with leaking radioactive waste. The companies that processed the uranium ore dumped their waste in open-–and in some cases unauthorized-–pits, exposing both the soil and the water to radiation...The Navajo people have been consistently lied to by companies and government officials concerning the effects of various mining activities. Unfortunately, the true cost of these activities is understood only later, when the companies have stolen away with their profits leaving the Navajo people to bear the health burdens.

The Most Bombed Nation On Earth

Just over two months after visiting Dooda Desert Rock and walking through the Navajo Nation, the Longest Walk 2 participants arrived at the Y-12 National Security Complex, just outside of Oak Ridge, Tennessee. Managed for the National Nuclear Security Administration by Babcock and Wilcox Technical Services Y-12, a private corporation, the Complex has been using uranium from the Navajo Nation, among other places, for decades.

According to the sign in front of Y-12:

The Electromagnetic Separation Plant was a Manhattan Project facility built in 1943 to separate U-235 from U-238. Material for the first atomic bomb was produced here. In place of unavailable copper, nearly 14,000 tons of silver were borrowed from the US Treasury for use on the manufacturing equipment. The plant was constructed by Stone and Webster Engineering and was operated by Tennessee Eastman from 1943-1947.

Approximately 30 people walked eight miles to the fence at one of the entrances to the plant. Eleven security officers in uniform walked down the driveway and watched as the Walk formed a line along the fence facing Y-12 and stood praying, drumming and chanting. Participants from different places, including Hiroshima and the Navajo Nation, shared their prayers with the Walk and the dozen local peace activists who joined them at the Complex.

“We stand against this plant that represents death and destruction,” remarked local peace activist Erik Johnson.

Activists involved with the Oak Ridge Peace and Environmental Alliance have been gathering in front of the Y-12 National Security Complex to hold a vigil every Sunday evening for the last seven years. Others have been doing the same every Monday morning for the past five years.

While most people are aware that the bombs constructed at the Y-12 complex and elsewhere were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan at the end of the Second World War, very few are aware that literally hundreds of these bombs have been dropped on a nation much closer to home. When asked what they think is the most bombed nation on Earth, most people pinpoint Japan, Vietnam, Germany, Lebanon, England, Iraq, or other countries. In fact, the most bombed nation on Earth is the Western Shoshone Nation in Nevada, visited by the northern route of the Longest Walk 2.

In 1863, during the Civil War, Americans needed safe passage west to the gold mines in California in order to fund the war. The Treaty of Ruby Valley, a treaty of peace and friendship with the Western Shoshone covering 60 million acres, was written and signed that year. This treaty did not cede any territory, despite the fact that there was a military camp whose soldiers were engaging in the murder and rape of Western Shoshone community members and despite the fact that the translator told the Shoshone that if they did not agree they would all be shot.

Over the past 150 years, however, settlers and the US government have gradually taken over the vast majority of Western Shoshone territory, leaving only tiny reservations. In 1962, the government of the United States established that the Western Shoshone had lost their lands through “gradual encroachment” and a decade later began suing elders for “trespassing” on their own ancestral lands. In 1979, the Indian Claims Commission allotted 26 million dollars for 24 million acres of “lost” Western Shoshone territory; the Western Shoshone did not accept the money or the unilateral extinguishment of their Treaty rights.

According to Western Shoshone elder and Western Shoshone Defense Project founder Carrie Dann, 90 per cent of the land included in the Treaty of Ruby Valley is currently occupied by US government claims. Among these is the huge Nellis Air Force Base in southern Nevada, home to nuclear, biological and chemical warfare testing. From the 1950s to the present day, there have been over one thousand nuclear explosions at the Nevada Test Site, located within Nellis and within Western Shoshone territory.

Underground plutonium testing continues at the base. After September 11, 2001, a new facility for biological and chemical weapons testing was built on the same base. Plans for the detonation of 700 tons of explosives with a nuclear atomic warhead detonation device in June 2006 were postponed several times due to massive opposition and were finally cancelled in July 2007. The exercise at the Nevada Test Site, named “Divine Strake,” would have been the largest open-air chemical explosion ever carried out by the Pentagon.

Dann recalls the impacts of some of the earlier nuclear tests in the 1970s and particularly after 1976, when “about 10 per cent of the calf population was deformed in some way or another.” Dann also spoke of the contamination of water in Western Shoshone communities and of health problems such as leukemia, diabetes and birth defects.

Earth versus Resources

The Western Shoshone, their lands, air and water are also affected by the intensive open-pit mining activities in their territory. It is the second biggest gold-mining region in the world, with dozens of companies present, including three of the world’s largest gold corporations: Barrick Gold, Newmont and Goldcorp. Baroid Drilling Fluids, a subsidiary of the infamous military industry leader Halliburton, has been mining barite and molybdenum-–a metal used in steel alloys with diverse military and industrial uses.

The Western Shoshone Defense Project is currently struggling against Barrick Gold’s attempts to expand the Cortez gold mine in Horse Canyon, an important sacred site for the Western Shoshone. Barrick announced the gold deposit ‘discovery’ in February 2003 as one of the largest gold deposits in the United States and has been aggressively attempting to divide and buy out the Western Shoshone communities and leaders in the area.

“These big corporations with billions of dollars-–that’s who we’re up against,” remarked Larson Bill, a Western Shoshone community leader and Tribal Council member. “It’s kind of amazing that people in the United States, even the Congressmen, don’t know what’s going on out here. They have no clue what’s going on.”

Faced with some of the most destructive industries on the planet, such as the military and mining industries, Dann emphasizes the roots of the struggles of the Western Shoshone in the video Our Land, Our Life: The Struggle for Western Shoshone Land Rights. "To a traditional, indigenous person, land means life. All the things that you have-–they all come from this Earth. Today, they call those things resources. Today, those resources are taken in the name of economy, name of money. Who does that? Multinational corporations. They don’t care. They’re not going to be here tomorrow. And what do these companies care about the children of these children? They don’t care! 'Cause they’ll be gone! Soon as they take the resources out, they will be gone."

Dann also asks all of us if we are prepared “to dedicate ourselves to the next generations to come. Or are we just ready to accept things as they are and to hell with tomorrow, to hell with the future generations? And that is one of the reasons that I try so hard to protect the rights of indigenous peoples all over the world, because they’re the ones still related to the earth. They’re still close to the earth. And they do care.”

These are the questions, issues and struggles to which the Longest Walk 2 is bringing attention, mile by mile, through reservations, towns and cities across the country. Along the way-–and via the Longest Walk 2 website--people of diverse nations, colours and countries have been joining them, making donations, sharing their own histories and situations, and welcoming the Walk into their nations, communities and homes. The Manifesto for Change to be presented to the US government is also being compiled over the course of the walk.

Back at Dooda Desert Rock, Banks insisted that action is the next necessary step after hearing about or witnessing the ongoing injustice and destruction: “That should be an obligation. You should use what you have learned.”

“The road begins at the bottom of your feet.”

Sandra Cuffe is an independent journalist, activist, and the descendant of white European settlers.

The Longest Walk 1

The Longest Walk 2

Contemporary Currents of Quebec’s Student Movement

hillarybain — Sat, 31 May 2008 08:26:07 +0000

An interview with Sophie Schoen of L'Association pour une Solidarité Syndicale Étudiante (ASSÉ)

Waves of student protest have swept Quebec in recent years. In 2005 a major strike galvanized students across Quebec, with over one hundred student unions participating at the height of a strike organized around the demand for free post-secondary education in Quebec.

Major currents within Quebec’s student movement draw parallels between the struggle for accessible and free education in Quebec and larger movements for social justice in the Americas. From campaigns combating poverty, to fights for labor rights, Quebec students have woven profound connections between campus-based struggles and broader social movements.

The 2005 centered on a confrontation with the Liberal government of Jean Charest. Upon taking power in Quebec, Charest’s Liberals attempted to slash $103 million from bursaries granted to students, and the students fought back. Eventually, Charest was forced to back down on the cuts, and the funding was restored.

Quebec's Liberal government announced a protracted hike in tuition fees across Quebec for the first time since the late 1990s. In response, L'Association pour une Solidarité Syndicale Étudiante (ASSÉ) -- one of Quebec’s strongest student unions, boasting 42,000 members -- held a series of protests. Thousands took the streets in Montreal in mid-November while multiple student associations held strikes at CÉGEP* and university campuses.

Sophie Schoen is a community organizer and activist with ASSÉ. In this interview Schoen discusses the history of Quebec’s powerful student movement and the recent mobilization against rising tuition fees.

* CÉGEP is the French acronym for a "College of General and Vocational Education." In Quebec, High School ends in grade 11, after which students can attend one or two years of technical training or "pre-university" classes at a CÉGEP.

Stefan Christoff: Can you paint a picture of the current state for Quebec students? What are the central issues and political demands that are being pushed by students today?

Sophie Schoen: Last June, Quebec’s education minister, Michelle Courchesne, announced that tuition fees in Quebec would rise. A fifty-dollar hike in tuition fees is planned for each semester over the next five years, which means that by 2012 it will cost five hundred dollars more each year to go to school. Taking into account additional fees that universities continue to mount -- without government regulation -- every year, students will pay thousands more in tuition fees.

Two years ago, there was a major student strike in Quebec due to cuts to the loans and bursaries program, a strike that was historic. At the peak of the strike, over one hundred students unions were participating across Quebec. Demonstrations mobilized tens of thousands of people on the streets of Montreal, on the streets of Quebec City, across Quebec. At seven weeks, it was the longest student strike in the history of Quebec.

Today, two years later, people within students unions and activists within the student movement are working to mobilize for a response to tuition hikes on the same scale as in 2005. Students remember a massive strike that cost seven weeks of lost classes, such as at CÉGEP St. Laurent; students remember a massive strike that didn’t win concrete gains, which makes mass mobilization more difficult.

For readers outside Quebec could you explain the role of CÉGEPs in Quebec society today and also the historical context in which the CÉGEP system was created in the late 1960s?

CÉGEPs exist only in Quebec, and were officially created in 1967. Quebec’s government at the time aimed to bring people planning on attending vocational schools and people moving onto university into the same educational institutions, studying together and having a common curriculum of classes.

In 1967, the year CÉGEPs were created, was a time of huge reforms within Quebec society, reforms that led to things such as free healthcare, the will to have free education in Quebec and also the creation of CÉGEPs.

What is often forgotten is that these major changes to Quebec society took place due to social struggles during that period, led by unions, led by students, led by social movements.

In 1968 there was a massive student strike, leading to the creation of UQÀM, the Université du Québec à Montréal. UQÀM was a second francophone university, created because there wasn’t enough room in the existing francophone university in Montreal. At the time UQÀM was created there was an ambition to have free post-secondary education in Quebec; mainstream political parties such as the Parti Québécois supported the idea at the time. Now UQÀM has obviously changed; it has become another tool of neo-liberalism, while at the time of its creation the goal was to have a university for the people. [...]

At the time that CÉGEPs were created, at the time that UQÀM was created, many radical student unions were also created. Student unions that function with direct democracy, through general assemblies, which from the onset took on radical positions in terms of free education, in terms of a critique of capitalism, in terms of solidarity with other social movements.

Those structures, those radical institutions have changed with time, but [they] still exist today. In Quebec we still have many, many student unions that function through direct democracy and that demand free education while viewing the student movement as a part of larger social movements.

Today, Quebec is known throughout Canada as having the most inexpensive education or affordable tuition in the country. Could you talk about the context of the student movement in the past ten years?

There is clearly only one reason why in Quebec we have low tuition. Low tuition in Quebec is a direct result of the major student strikes.

A large student strike happened in 1996 in response to the Parti Québécois saying they intended to raise tuition fees in the province. It wasn’t as massive as the strike in 2005, but it did force the government to step down from their decision to raise tuition.

An organized student movement is the only barrier to the state’s intentions to raise tuition fees -- a move that would be detrimental to the majority of students in Quebec society. It’s really important that people understand this point, that an organized student movement is the only barrier to having a situation in Quebec in which inaccessible education is the norm.

A student strike is the only way to halt government efforts to raise tuition fees in Quebec. A strike is extremely difficult to organize; it takes a lot out of the people -- the students who participate -- but a strike is what is takes.

Concerning accessibility to education in 2008, can you talk about the current economic conditions surrounding education in Quebec?

There are more and more barriers to education, mostly financial or economic barriers for the majority of people accessing quality education. Today many of these barriers to education exist because the student movement hasn’t been able to adequately defend students or the right to education.

Today, fewer and fewer poor people are attending school; fewer and fewer poor people are attending CÉGEP or university. Those in CÉGEP or in university who aren’t struggling to get by financially often don’t realize that there are major economic barriers to going to school for many in society.

Also, for students who have kids or who aren’t well-off, there are very few measures in Quebec that assist students with children, leading to many student parents leaving CÉGEP or university due to financial pressures.

People attending CÉGEP from families with parents who can’t help out financially could be working 20 to 30 hours per week over and above school work to cover the expenses of life or expenses related to studying, which is extremely difficult. Often people in this financial reality never finish CÉGEP or even start CÉGEP simply due to financial barriers.

Let’s jump back to the strike of 2005. Mainstream media coverage presented the strike as revolving around the cuts to the loans and bursaries program. Could you talk about the 2005 strike in detail and the importance of the strike for Quebec society in the face of neo-liberal economic reforms being pushed by Jean Charest’s Liberals?

Cuts to the loans and bursaries program, as proposed by the Liberals, meant that people would receive the majority of their funds from the government in loans and a small amount in bursaries, loans that students would have to pay back to the government soon after graduating or stopping their studies. Now in Quebec students would face a similar situation to the rest of Canada, where students graduate with tens of thousands of dollars in debt to the government.

Now also it must be understood that those who are accepted into the loans and bursaries program are those deemed by the government to be the most in need financially, or the poorest students. Generally, to be accepted for bursaries, the student has to be without major financial backing from their family; so these students, the poorest students, were directly targeted by Jean Charest’s Liberals' proposed cuts to the loans and bursaries program.

Can you talk about the proposed cuts to the loans and bursaries program within the context of larger neo-liberal economic reforms pushed by the same provincial government?

Certainly the cuts to financing for students are directly connected to all the other policies that the Jean Charest Liberals put forward, including raising daycare fees, opening up space for the privatization of social services, and the implementation of repressive labour laws in Quebec.

It’s clear that the success of the student strike in Quebec in 2005, in terms of political momentum or mobilization, was directly connected to the widespread opposition to Charest’s neo-liberal economic policies in Quebec in general.

Could you highlight a couple important actions that took place within the context of the student strike or broader social struggle against Jean Charest’s Liberals?

Starting from two weeks into the strike many small actions started to take place in Montreal and also throughout Quebec. The office of the Minister of Education was occupied; there was also an occupation at the Quebec office of the Ministry of Education for Quebec and there was also a blockade at the entrance to the port of Montreal.

In Quebec there were many actions that aimed to economically disrupt the government and corporations in Quebec -- the institutions behind the massive cuts to social services and to education. Targets for actions within the student movement were those individuals who promoted privatization, promoted a free-market vision for Quebec, promoted tuition fee increases.

At one point during the strike the bridge that leads to the Montreal casino was blocked for one evening. Many actions of this nature took place in Quebec. It was an important message of economic disruption. Of course there were large demonstrations across Quebec, however it’s important to understand that economic disruption was an important part of the student strike.

Talk about who was behind the strike; there were a number of student unions, federations and organizations involved in the strike.

The strike was first initiated by student unions that are members of ASSÉ, a student union in Quebec that right now has about 42,000 members -- a student union based on the fight for free education, on principals of social justice; basically a student union fighting for larger social change through the student movement.

ASSÉ has existed since 2001 and it didn’t come from nowhere: it exists within the historical context of other student organizations in Quebec prior to ASSÉ, including L’Association nationale des étudiants et étudiantes du Quebec (ANEEQ). ANEEQ was a large student union that existed in the 1970s and 1980s and was a large student organization with a large number of members. Basically, ANEEQ had similar principals to those that ASSÉ has today on free education and broader social change.

In 2005, student unions that were members of ASSÉ were behind the strike; they formed a coalition called Coalition Élargie de l’Association de Solidarité Syndicale Étudiante, or CASSÉE. This coalition included unions from ASSÉ and other independent unions that mobilized for the strike.

A couple of weeks after the strike had started, the more mainstream student unions in Quebec, the Fédération étudiante universitaire du Québec (FEUQ) and Fédération étudiante collégiale du Québec (FECQ) joined the Quebec-wide strike.

It was excellent that they joined the strike; we can never say no to having a bigger movement. The important point concerning these two mainstream student federations is that their executives were continually negotiating a deal with the government throughout the strike, maintaining channels of communication with the government while not seeking to build a mass movement, not seeking to mobilize their membership or fight for genuine social justice in society.

[In 2005] ASSÉ and CASSÉE were shut-out of all negotiations with the government and with the education minister. It was FECQ and FEUQ that put an end to the strike. It was a deal that was flawed because we didn’t really win that much. It even fell short of reinstating the status quo.

There are major elements of the student movement that until today are thinking about broader social change. The Summit of the Americas in Quebec City in 2001; the massive protests against the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) and then again solidarity protests with the mobilization against the Summit of the Americas in Quito, Ecuador in 2002 -- each saw a major demonstration in Montreal. Can you comment on the larger international movement the Quebec student movement operates within?

The year ASSÉ was created was also the year of the protests against the Summit of the Americas in Quebec City in 2001. There is a direct connection there, as one of the first major plans of action that ASSÉ had was continental days of action against the FTAA and neo-liberalism, in collaboration with allies in Latin America.

In 2002, there was an important demonstration against the FTAA in Montreal. Around five-thousand people participated in the protest, which was a very important mobilization for ASSÉ. In 2001 and 2002, people in ASSÉ openly talked about a five year plan of action, which would end with a continental strike against neo-liberal economics. Not even five years after ASSÉ was created there was a major general student strike in Quebec, which is an achievement.

It’s essential for a social movement to make those broader links and it’s excellent that ASSÉ was created in this context. Personally I always push to have ASSÉ focus more on the broader analysis, beyond Quebec, looking at neo-liberalism and broader issues, while trying to build links with other social struggles in our society such as indigenous struggles at home, and with social struggles internationally in Latin America, in the Middle East, in Europe and beyond. Many around the globe are struggling against on a daily basis in a much more profound way than the student movement in Quebec.

Today we are experiencing a strange political moment in Quebec: we have the extreme-right Action démocratique du Québec (ADQ), which has become the official opposition in Quebec. Can you talk about the recent actions or mobilizations organized by ASSÉ within this context?

Following the government's announcement of tuition hikes in June 2007, it was decided that ASSÉ would undertake a campaign of an unlimited general strike to fight back against those tuition raises. A strike effort commenced in a political context where a growing right-wing ideology is present in the province: for the first time in recent history people aren’t really scared anymore to state that they are openly right-wing.

Before in Quebec, one would always have to be watchful when stating you were hard right or right wing, as there was a sense of social shame involved with right wing ideology, which today doesn’t exist in the same way.

Despite this context, many student unions in 2007 had mandates from general assemblies to undertake a strike campaign this year, with the central demand for free education and other demands also, including reinvesting in the education system, and having more support structures for parents going to school, in terms of daycare but also more generally.

In the end, the strike was massively rejected this year in the CÉGEPs. In the universities, people were more open to the strike; at least this was the reality at UQÀM and at Laval University in Quebec City. Many student unions at UQÀM, as there isn’t one big student union at UQÀM but many smaller faculty unions, decided that they would go on a general strike this year.

Association facultaire étudiante des sciences humaines de l’UQÀM, (AFESH-UQÀM), the social sciences union at UQÀM, went on strike for two weeks. In mid-November there was a week of action; at the high point almost 60,000 students were on strike, an important achievement regardless of other things that happened during the campaign.

In Montreal, this week of action was punctuated by the attitudes of administration at UQÀM and also at CÉGEP du Vieux Montreal. Administrations reacted very violently against the striking students.

At UQÀM, students attempted to sleep at the university overnight in order to welcome people from other parts in Quebec who were coming to Montreal for a major demonstration. Students wanted to stay late at UQÀM and also at CÉGEP du Vieux Montreal to make banners for the demonstrations, and to make props for the protests, however both administrations refused to allows the student access to their own campus.

At UQÀM, students were violently evicted by the riot police. The next day at CÉGEP du Vieux Montreal, the CÉGEP was barricaded very well; the way it’s constructed allows for this. Students held on to the space for at least part of the night; however, finally the police evicted the students from their campus very violently.

Over one hundred students were arrested. Students were hit with serious charges such as assault on police and assault with a weapon, charges which will eventually come up in court. Protests for a strike this fall were marked by a refusal by university or CÉGEP administrations to even negotiate with students around the strike.

Also there was a large demonstration the same week organized by ASSÉ, which brought three or four thousand people onto the streets of Montreal to demand free education, more investment in the current educational system and more services for parents.

Can you discuss the central points that continue to drive the Quebec student movement?

Today it’s essential for people involved in the student movement to talk to people in Quebec, to students in Quebec, to highlight the fact that it’s necessary to act now. There are emergencies happening socially in terms of set-backs that many sectors within society are facing - not only students: direct attacks on people such as increasingly unaffordable housing, increasingly repressive immigration laws, and direct attacks on the education and healthcare systems. All such attacks we have the power to fight.

Quebec Student Strike 2007