The Dominion - Pacific

Barrick Supported Police Who Carried Out Fiery Evictions in PNG

Moira Peters — Sat, 05 Jun 2010 05:22:55 +0000

Amnesty report confirms links between cops & Canadian mining company

TORONTO—Amnesty International (AI) recently made waves in human rights circles, publishing a new report focusing on Canadian mining giant Barrick Gold's role in violent forced evictions in the Porgera region of Papua New Guinea (PNG).

The publication marks AI’s first report detailing the human rights abuses occurring near a Canadian mine. Publishing such a report can be risky business; the threat of a lawsuit targeting individual journalists and publishers for reporting on the activities of extractive companies is not one that many NGOs can afford to face, and Barrick is known to take crippling legal action when challenged on its human rights record.

Although AI does not conclude that representatives of Barrick directly ordered the evictions, the international human rights organization does express its concern about the company's continued support for a police unit participating in illegal activities in the region.

The report, titled “Undermining Rights: Forced Evictions and Police Brutality around the Porgera Gold Mine, Papua New Guinea,” examines links between Barrick Gold and a special Mobile Squad of police officers which burned to the ground more than 130 homes in the Porgera region between April and July 2009. The report found Barrick Gold provided food, housing and fuel to the Mobile Squad during the period of the evictions, and continues to do so despite a PNG court ordering the retreat of the police.

The Porgera Joint Venture (PJV) gold mine is located in the Porgera region of Enga, a highland province of PNG. PJV has been in operation since 2006, and continues to be 95 per cent owned and operated by subsidiaries of Canada-based Barrick, the largest mining company in the world. The remaining five per cent is split between the Enga provincial government and select local landowners. Barrick had been exploring expansion of its mine site for two years, but ceased exploration one month before the evictions.

According to the AI report, in 2008 PJV produced 627,000 ounces of gold, worth approximately $US546 million.

Jefferey Simon, a resident and member of the Akali Tange Association—a human rights organization in the Porgera area that was formed in 2004 to document abuses at PJV—explained in an interview that there is a strong history of artisanal mining in the community, which has provided a source of income alongside subsistence agriculture.

When the government of PNG granted PJV exclusive exploitation rights to a large region known as the Special Mining Lease (SML) area, it effectively cut off the community's ability to support itself, according to Simon.

PNG's 1992 Mining Act states that "all land in the State is available...for exploration and mining and the grant of tenements over it." However, the country's constitution recognizes Customary Law, which dictates that all individuals—including unborn generations—have the right to use land and resources for livelihood and traditional activities. In 2000 the National Parliament enacted the Underlying Law Act, mandating the courts to pay greater attention to Customary Law when upholding the law of the country.

Under the pretext of addressing illegal mining activities and the general decline in law and order around PJV, a request was made by the Porgera District Law and Order Committee for a 30-member police unit to patrol the area. Instead, in April 2009, a 200-member elite Mobile Squad unit, typically sent to regions of high conflict and usually armed with assault rifles, arrived within SML, an area with some 10,000 Indigenous inhabitants.

According to AI's report, when police arrived in the area to begin Operation “Ipili,” PJV provided logistical support and conducted frequent briefings.

On April 27, 2009, police encircled houses in the community of Wuangima and proceeded to violently evict families from their homes and set fire to at least 130 houses.

According to the AI report, after refusing to leave his house, one man was locked inside while police set fire to his home. He escaped with the help of neighbours. One woman, while nursing her child, was struck on her shoulder by a police officer with the butt of his rifle.

Those who were away tending their gardens came home to find only the charred remains of their houses and their highly valuable livestock killed by police. Those who had been home met with violent confrontation: witnesses testify that police pointed their weapons at them, threatened and yelled at them to leave their houses. Others reported police officers shot at or near them.

At least three women independently testified to AI about being raped by police officers. AI is strongly pressing for further investigations into these reports.

In a meeting held December 3, 2009, between AI and Barrick Gold, the company insisted that PJV was only one of several parties that supported the April 2009 deployment of police to the area. Barrick denied having prior knowledge of police actions in Wuangima.

Barrick has publicly insisted that the buildings destroyed were nothing more than temporary shelters used by migrants to the area, and that they housed people participating in illegal mining activity.

However, AI's research provided significant evidence to the contrary. Taking lengthy testimonies of residents and religious leaders, examining photographs taken before and during the burnings, and relying on the physical evidence of the charred remains of the houses, AI concluded the buildings destroyed were solidly constructed with wooden frames and traditional woven bamboo walls.

The remains of established gardens and the existence of a church in Wuangima constructed in 2004 by residents provide further evidence that the community was not temporary. PJV surveyed the area in 2007 in the hopes of expanding the mine, and would have known the area was established with permanent homes.

According to the AI report, Barrick and PJV finally acknowledged in their meeting with AI that some of the houses in Wuangima were in fact occupied for quite some time. The company maintained, however, that it had not been in a position to authorize or dictate the activity of the Mobile Squad, and claimed it had no prior knowledge of the evictions.

Barrick Gold, like many other Canadian mining companies, claim they support strong human rights standards, and their operations fully support the Voluntary Principles on Security and Human Rights, a non-binding agreement signed by governments, companies, NGOs and observer organizations.

These principles dictate the company must document and report to the appropriate authorities cases where physical force is used by public security, as well as record and report any credible allegation of human rights abuses by public security. In addition, companies should urge an investigation and support action to prevent recurrence of such physical force.

Barrick maintains it did not know the intentions of police. However, according to the AI report, PJV had almost daily communications with police. PJV in fact participated in a police briefing meeting the morning of the evictions. Barrick told AI that PJV employees saw smoke only after the buildings were burning. Photos taken during the raid show PJV employees watching from the mine site.

According to the report, the General Manager of Corporate and Legal for PJV contacted the Commander of the Mobile Squad, but after his being told the evictions were legal there were no further investigations on the part of PJV or Barrick.

Corporate accountability is a large focus within Amnesty International Canada (AIC) for the next several years.

“One of the challenges of researching community concerns that relate to large corporations is the fear of a lawsuit or some form of legal action,” said Ian Heide, the coordinator for Business and Human Rights for AIC. “The complexity of the situation in terms of government responsibility versus corporation responsibility or obligation means that AI needs to be sure of our research before going public."

AI has good reason to be careful. Noir Canada—edited by Alain Denault and the Collectif Ressources d’Afrique and published in French out of Montreal—details the role of Canadian companies operating in Africa with the support of the Canadian government. In that particular case, lawyers for Barrick Gold claimed there were inaccuracies in the book’s detailing of Barrick’s role in the 1996 massacre in Bulyanhulu, Tanzania, where more than 50 small-scale miners were buried alive. Barrick Gold filed a SLAPP lawsuit (Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation) against the writers, editors, translators and publishers of Noir Canada in order to block the translation of the book into English. Barrick Gold has also sued The Observer and The Guardian over articles they published about the Bulyanhulu massacre.

Simon explained the importance of the AI report. “Both the company and the state are bonded for development,” he said. “The only way to express ourselves is through media and connecting with international NGOs who can carry out adequate research and produce reliable reports.”

While acknowledging the quick response by AI—the report was researched and released within eight months of the evictions—Jethro Tulin, another resident of Porgera, thinks the report could have gone further. According to Tulin, there is no room for doubt that the company was responsible, but this was not made clear in the report. He maintains that even if AI did not have proof that Barrick was directly responsible for ordering the forced evictions, they could have recorded opinions of witnesses and made stronger recommendations to Barrick.

“AI has a reputation for being fair and impartial,” responded Heide, “so we only name governments and companies when we are certain that what we are saying is accurate and fair.”

Simon and Tulin agree with AI's report in its clear statement of the unanimous demand by people living near Barrick’s Porgera mine to be relocated to areas outside the SML.

AI has called on the Government of PNG to investigate the evictions and ensure that alternative accommodations and adequate compensation are provided for those who have been displaced.

Valerie Croft worked in Guatemala as an International Accompanier in 2008 and is active in issues relating to corporate accountability.

Mines causing environmental devastation in Papua New Guinea

Statement at UNPFII: Canadian Mining in Papua New Guinea

Sandra — Wed, 27 May 2009 17:45:36 +0000

IMG_1676.JPG

[photo: Jethro Tulin reading a statement in front of the Metro Toronto Convention Centre, right before the Barrick Gold Annual General Meeting, April 29, 2009. photo by Sandra Cuffe.]

Earlier today, indigenous Ipili human rights activist Jethro Tulin, executive director of the Akali Tange Association in Porgera, Papua New Guinea, registered and read a formal statement to the plenary of the 8th session of the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues at the UN headquarters in New York City. The statement follows below.

After the UNPFII ends this coming Friday, Jethro Tulin will be traveling to Washington DC for a series of meetings. Before returning to Papua New Guinea, he will be speaking at a series of public events in Montreal, Ottawa (tbc) and Toronto, between June 5th and June 9th.

For more general information, see ProtestBarrick.net

For more information about (or to help coordinate) events, contact: Sandra Cuffe, 514-583-6432, lavagabunda27@yahoo.es
****************************************

A Statement
UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, Eighth Session

Intervention by: Jethro Tulin, Executive Officer of Akali Tange Association (Porgera, Enga Province, Papua New Guinea)

Supported by: Asia Caucus, Pacific Caucus, Western Shoshone Defense Project (Nevada, USA), Peoples Earth, Society for Threatened Peoples International (ECOSOC), Indigenous Peoples Link

Item 7: Future Work of the UNPFII
New York, May 27, 2009.

Toronto, April 26: An examination of the Canadian mining industry

Sandra — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 03:41:09 +0000

QuestionSustainabilityImage.jpg

WHAT: 1 day conference about mining issues within Canada and abroad

WHEN: Sunday, April 26, 2009, 10:00am - 7:30pm

WHERE: Earth Sciences, Room 1050 (ES 1050), University of Toronto, 5 Bancroft Avenue

Moderated by Judy Rebick

$10 (sliding scale) to cover cost of meals; free for students. No registration required. Donations gladly accepted (available seating for 400 in auditorium).

Hosts: UTERN, Science for Peace, Students Against Climate Change / Toronto Mining Support Group, Aboriginal Students Association of York University

With the intention of building a movement for change within Canada we are hosting a conference on mining issues at the University of Toronto. This conference will provide the space for people within Canada to interact with affected communities and each other, and the conference format prioritizes facilitating conversations focused on solutions to ending corporate impunity.

“The Question of Sustainability” is a conference dedicated to examining the Canadian mining industry through the lens of sustainability within ecosystems, human rights, culture, and economics.

Featuring speakers from Papua New Guinea, Chile, the Congo, Guatemala, Tanzania and Peru, as well as many First Nations speakers and academics from Canada. This conference brings together indigenous people from the global south and the global north, and serves to address some of the complex social, political and environmental issues that relate to the imposition of extractive industries on traditional cultures.

Major issues include water use and contamination, human rights violations by Canadian companies operating abroad, the question of corporate social responsibility, and the autonomy and preservation of traditional cultures.

Waste Not, Want Not

dawn — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 10:59:25 +0000

One company's fight against Newfoundlanders & Kanaks

FREDERICTON, NEW BRUNSWICK–The province of Newfoundland and the archipelago nation of New Caledonia in the southwest Pacific seem to have little in common.

New Caledonia, also known as Kanaky after the indigenous Kanaks who inhabit it, is a French colony in the southwest Pacific. Kanaky-New Caledonia separated from Australia some 85 million years ago and is referred to as a Jurassic Park of prehistoric Gondwanan forest, habitat to plants and animals found nowhere else in the world. The New Caledonia Barrier Reef, which surrounds the country, is the largest coral reef and lagoon system in the world. The endangered dugong, a manatee-like marine mammal, makes its home there, and the green sea turtle depends on the reef as a nesting site. The nautilus, a living fossil species, is still found in these waters. Kanaky-New Caledonia’s tropical lagoons and coral reefs are listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, identifying it as a site of outstanding natural importance to the common heritage of humanity.

Halfway around the world, on Newfoundland's Avalon Peninsula, Sandy Pond lies about 100 kilometres west of St. John’s. Sandy Pond, a 38-hectare headwater lake near the community of Long Harbour, is the centre of a controversy that is forcing people to pick between employment or the environment. The economically depressed region is hungry for jobs but the toxic legacy of the community's 40-year-old phosphorous plant has environmental concerns at the forefront of many people's minds. Sandy Pond is home to trout, rainbow smelt, and American eel, a species of conservation concern.

****

Vale Inco (formerly Inco, then CVRD Inco) is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Brazilian mining company Vale. Its nickel mining and metals division is headquartered in Toronto. The merger between CVRD and Inco in 2006 created the world’s second-largest nickel producer. Inco, a Canadian company, dates back to the early 1900s. Dark parts of Inco history include its provision of Canadian-mined nickel to Hitler’s Germany and its dealings with brutal dictatorships in Indonesia and Guatemala. Vale Inco's failure to fulfill human rights requirements had it struck from the FTSE4GOOD index in 2006. The company has been criticized repeatedly for its pollution and its treatment of indigenous communities and workers. Residents of Port Colborne, Ontario, affected by the company’s nickel refinery, are currently suing the company in the largest environmental class action lawsuit in Canadian history.

Today, Vale Inco wants to dump about 400,000 tonnes of waste every year into Sandy Pond as part of a proposal to process Voisey’s Bay nickel at Long Harbour. In Kanaky-New Caledonia, the mining company wants to build a pipeline into the ocean to dispose of mine waste.

****

A 2002 Canadian government decision means that natural bodies of water may be renamed as "tailings impoundment areas." This reclassification is part of the Metal and Mines Effluent Regulations under the Fisheries Act.

Eleven natural water bodies, many of them fish-bearing lakes, are slated to be reclassified as mine-waste disposal sites in the next year or so. Due to legislation protecting lakes and natural water bodies, the practice is not permitted in Quebec, New Brunswick, the United States and many other countries.

Canada is becoming more attractive to mining multinationals because using a lake for waste disposal is cheaper than constructing a tailings pond. Vale Inco estimated that using Sandy Pond would cost $62 million whereas constructing a tailings pond would cost $490 million.

Environment Canada has shortened the time allowed for public input at the national level, making it difficult for Canadians to organize to save their ponds and lakes. Chris Doiron, Chief of the Mining and Minerals Section at Environment Canada, argues that the environmental impact of man-made containment can be larger than the environmental impact of using a lake. Absent from this accounting system, however, is the lost value of a lake ecosystem.

The amended law requires that mining companies proposing to dump waste into fish-bearing lakes and rivers must devise a plan to compensate for loss of fish habitat. Vale Inco plans to compensate for the destruction of Sandy Pond by transferring its fish into two nearby smaller ponds, which will be merged and dammed to contain the water. Concerns have been raised about the impacts on all these water bodies, including the introduction of predatory fish to new habitats.

In June of this year, Newfoundland's Department of the Environment accepted the Environmental Impact Statement submitted by Vale Inco to use Sandy Pond as a mine waste disposal site.

The Fish, Food and Allied Workers (FFAW/CAW) who represent Placentia Bay fish harvesters are opposing a plan to dispose 1.6 billion gallons of waste effluent each year into Placentia Bay. Fish harvesters are worried that the proposal will severely harm fish habitat and adversely impact their livelihoods. The proposed processing plant will emit an estimated 555,000 kilograms of chemicals including lead, hydrogen chloride, sulphur dioxide and sulphuric acid into the air every year, according to the company’s Environmental Impact Statement.

Those who support the use of Sandy Pond as a tailings dump do so for the local employment opportunities. With a current population of 211, down from 522 in 1991, Long Harbour is still reeling from the collapse of the cod fishery and the closure of the phosphorous plant. The mayors of Placentia and Long Harbour-Mount Arlington Heights have both put their support behind the Vale Inco project, hoping it will revitalize the community’s economy.

****

Many residents in the proposed area grew up in the shadows of radioactive pollution left behind from Erco’s phosphorous plant. Heaps of waste slag near the plant contained uranium and thorium, and were known to emit carcinogenic radon gas. The fisheries were closed down in 1969 after dead cod and herring were reported in the bay. According to Newfoundland and Labrador’s Heritage Website, investigations revealed that the untreated waste caused the fish kills, and that the plant's smokestack emitted fluoride that damaged nearby vegetation. The website noted: “Deformed moose and rabbits were found near the plant. Snowshoe hares were dissected and tested, and high levels of fluoride were found in their bones.”

“Canada should not be providing the mining industry unaccounted subsidies by sacrificing natural water bodies for mine waste disposal," says Catherine Coumans, Research Coordinator with Mining Watch Canada. "Destroying Sandy Pond is clearly not sustainable development and it is not even good practice in mine waste disposal, as Vale Inco acknowledges that Sandy Pond will leak waste into groundwater, creating a contaminant plume. Additionally, the pond will require three dams to hold the waste and these dams will have to be maintained in perpetuity."

****

Vale Inco’s Goro mine in Kanaky-New Caledonia is expected to start production at the end of 2008. Since 2001, the Rheebu Nuu Committee, an indigenous group, has been protesting the mine. It has promised to use all available means to stop the construction of a pipeline into their ocean. Rheebu Nuu has already successfully stopped the company from laying its pipe in Kwe West by building a village of traditional homes in the path of the proposed pipeline. In April 2008, hundreds of Rheebu Nuu supporters gathered to set up a totem pole on a sand bank in the lagoon to show their firm opposition to the waste pipe and to challenge the company to meet with them in dialogue.

Inco’s past refusal to speak with indigenous Kanak groups such as the Rheebu Nuu Committee has been responded to with blockades and in one incident, to the alleged destruction of US$10 million worth of equipment. Sixteen members of the Rheebu Nuu group were arrested following this incident in April 2006. The court acquitted six of the accused and gave suspended fines to the remaining 10 in July 2006. Work at the site eventually resumed, with French military police acting as guards at key areas.

The Kanaks have requested that Vale Inco restore the areas it has destroyed by removing its installations and reforesting the area. According to the Rheebu Nuu Committee, critics have been detained by police for several hours and then released without charge. Youths have attacked security installations and vehicles of mine employees. The Rheebu Nuu Committee has also reported that hooded police have been raiding people's homes in the middle of the night and taking people away for arbitrary detentions and beatings.

Indigenous groups have taken to confronting police guards on ocean waters to stop the waste pipe that Vale Inco is trying to lay in a hurry. The defiant actions of the indigenous groups and the growing opposition from the non-indigenous population are all thought to have played a role in the eventual signing of an agreement between the company and indigenous community representatives.

Jacques Boengkih of the indigenous organization Agence Kanak de Developpement Nouvelle-Caledonie reports that indigenous groups, including the Rheebu Nuu Committee and the Kanak traditional authorities, have signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Vale Inco regarding the Goro Nickel plant. The agreement recognizes the legitimacy and rights of the indigenous people as declared in the UN Declaration on the Rights of the Indigenous Peoples, and lays out terms for inclusive sustainable development structures. The Kanaks are now waiting to see how the national and provincial government authorities respond to the agreement.

Activists in Canada are making the connection between Vale Inco's operations at home and abroad. "Pipelines of waste should not be laid into Sandy Pond, Long Harbour or into the lagoon in Kanaky-New Caledonia,” says Coumans, who works with communities fighting Vale Inco's mining operations in both Kanaky-New Caledonia and Newfoundland.

The fate of the pipeline into the Kanaky-New Caledonia lagoon is awaiting a decision by the Southern Province government. Sandy Pond is slated for destruction in 2009.

Tracy Glynn is the Acadian Forest Campaigner at the Conservation Council of New Brunswick and co-editor of the Mines and Communities website.

New Caledonia Water Protest

New Caledonia Protest

Is Canadian Military Aid Funding Assassinations in the Philippines?

dru — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 07:15:48 +0000

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Setting Sun

Suara Bangsamoro

Current TV: Unrest in the Philippines

Stefan Christoff — Tue, 04 Sep 2007 18:23:35 +0000

DOMIIONchristoff1electionsign.jpg

A film report produced by journalist Stefan Christoff
& Kodao Productions Inc. in Manila.

Watch film report on CURRENT TV.

Battle of the Ballot Box Part II

dru — Mon, 27 Aug 2007 21:20:58 +0000

Economics, Migration & Social Change in the Philippines

This is the second in a series of three articles Part I | Part III

Violence surrounding the Philippine elections, including multiple assassinations and targeted bombings, has raised concerns internationally. Controversy over the mid-term elections of 2007, however, remains but one element of a broader political crisis facing the poverty-stricken island nation.

"At a time of immense political tension, of continuing economic unevenness and of widening social inequality, one thing has become clear: the country direly needs a new plan," Jeffery Roden wrote in Philippine Collegian, an independent student newspaper distributed at the University of the Philippines.

"For even if we elect the most intelligent leaders, if the hearts of the people are fixated with dreams of going to distant lands we will still not attain progress," Filipino student Roden wrote in an editorial published just prior to the May 2007 mid-term elections.

Government statistics from the Philippines indicate that hundreds of thousands of Filipinos depart each year to work abroad, often in substandard conditions in the Middle East, Asia and North America. Indeed, government policy actively encourages the export of Filipino workers.

In Canada, thousands of overseas workers arrive each year from the Philippines through the Live-In Caregiver Program, a joint program between the governments of Canada and the Philippines. In cities across Canada, labourers from the Philippines, mainly women, toil without permanent legal status in Canada, in many cases for years at a time. Multiple cases of physical and psychological abuse of Filipino workers in Canada under the Live-In Caregiver Program have been documented and publicized by the Immigrant Workers Center in Montreal.

In 2007, the Canadian government announced an expansion of international labour agreements with the government in Manila. "To make matters worse, Canada, as part of extending its temporary workers program, is making deals with the Philippines to contract hundreds of Filipino migrant labourers to work in the oil sands of Alberta," Joey Calugay of the Centre for Philippine Concerns told a Montreal community forum in August 2007.

Today, it is commonly estimated that thousands of Filipinos leave the Philippines on a daily basis, an exodus that has been linked to the country's ongoing socio-economic crisis. According to the Philippine Central Bank, remittances from overseas Filipino labourers amounted to $12 billion US in 2006. "This global trade in people is the highest income-generating business of the Philippine government," Calugay added. "[It is] keeping its economy afloat and helping to pay for the more than $55 billion in foreign debt."

People of all stripes in the Philippines openly discuss the need for profound political change in the country; change that extends beyond the government and elections. "The problem with the country's politics is that it remains fundamentally elite-dominated and so overwhelmingly about governance for and by the elite," wrote Sonny Africa in a post-election editorial. Africa is with the IBON Foundation, a progressive social research organization based in Manila.

"This is a problem that dates back from the birth of the Philippine Republic at the turn of the century, continued through the US colonial period, and has alarmingly persisted under post-war neocolonialism until today," he wrote.

The economic crisis continues to plague the majority of the population--estimated at slightly below 90 million --creating severe political unrest and fueling support for leftist political parties and guerrilla movements. According to a 2007 World Bank study, more than 15 million Filipinos survive on less than one US dollar a day, while it is estimated by the UN that 40 per cent of Filipinos live on less than two US dollars per day.

"In the Philippines, we have an economic and political system which ensures that when Filipinos are working, whether in the fields, or in the offices, or in factories, that their labour doesn't benefit them directly because the majority doesn't control the national economic resources, including land, economic capital or industrial machinery," Africa explained in an interview in Manila.

Since taking office in 2001, President Arroyo has vigorously pursued an economic program centred on foreign investment, privatization of state institutions and World Bank-backed economic reforms.

"The Philippines is fashioning a development agenda based on an economy competitive in the 21st century," Arroyo said in a 2002 address at a Manila-based symposium on the Free Trade Area (AFTA) of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), which includes 10 East-Asian nations. "Our reforms aim to create a domestic environment that will enable us to reap the benefit of global economic integration," said Arroyo.

In the Philippine president's July 2007 State of the Nation address, Arroyo said that current governmental economic policies would lead "the Philippines to become a developed country in 20 years." But a recent report from Manila's IBON Foundation stated that "the situation of Filipinos is actually sinking deeper into Third World status, deteriorating in a way that hits the poorest majority the most."

The shaky national economy is rooted in extraordinary foreign investment laws, which allow certain economic sectors to be 100 per cent internationally owned while simultaneously allowing 100 per cent of corporate profits from foreign-owned industries or companies to be channeled outside of the country. A succession of US-backed governments constructed current national economic policy, a polar-opposite to the nationalist economic programs proposed by Philippine progressive movements.

"Today, when the majority of Filipinos work, the profits of their labour go to local economic elites," said Africa, "including factory owners and feudal landlords or in the worst scenario, foreign business based in the Philippines."

"The majority of Filipinos continue to suffer in poverty."

The Child from Smokey

Tondo Motorcycle

Battle of the Ballot Box: Part I

dru — Thu, 23 Aug 2007 17:27:51 +0000

Urban Militarization, Corporate Power & the 2007 Philippine Elections

This is the first in a series of three articles: Part II | Part III

MANILA--Across the Philippine archipelago, millions of voters cast ballots in the 2007 mid-term elections in May while a wave of political violence swept the country, including multiple assassinations and fire-bombings of polling stations.

According to the Philippine National Police, approximately 130 people lost their lives during a national vote widely viewed as a test to the political legitimacy of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, an important US ally in the Asia-Pacific region.

Final results for the 2007 Philippine elections remain undetermined, as major scandals, including allegations of state-sanctioned electoral fraud, pressure the fragile Arroyo government.

On the streets of Manila, violent incidents have put a sharp accent on elections in the former US colony, contributing to an air of political volatility as the Philippines face an unparalleled economic crisis.

"Elections in the Philippines have always been characterized by 'Guns, Goons and Gold'", Elisa Tita Lubi, a political organizer with the Gabriela women's movement explained. "For this reason, many in the country have lost faith in voting."

Major sectors of Philippine society, including national labour unions and opposition political parties, openly charge the government of Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo with having had a direct hand in electoral corruption.

"Today, you can't be positive that if a clear majority of the population votes for a certain candidate or political party that they will win, especially on the left, as today it is the gold and goons that often dictate who wins elections, not popular choice."

Amid the political buzz surrounding elections in the Philippines, the fiscal value of ballots is openly discussed among voters, as 'vote-buying' is an integral element of any major electoral campaign. Mainstream media coverage openly describes a farcical election, "Vote buying, it happened everywhere," an editorial from the Philippine Daily Inquirer said. "It marked the conduct of the elections, that could best be described in three words; chaos, confusion, disorder."

A critical layer to mainstream electoral politics in the Philippines is intimidation.

Accounts of violent tactics by the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) against voters from Manila's sprawling urban poor communities, such as Tondo, and vivid tales of military-driven electoral intervention are widespread.

"Military soldiers entered my family's home a couple of weeks before the election, giving orders on how to vote," Salvador, a community organizer in Tondo, explained through an interpreter. "Filipino soldiers, holding machine guns, gave us orders to not vote for progressive political party-lists and demanded the names of those in the neighbourhood planning on voting for anti-government parties in the elections."

Election-related violence and corruption in the 2007 Philippine vote has raised alarm globally.

A Thai international observer from the Asian Network for Free Elections (ANFREL) openly compared Philippine voting conditions to war-torn Afghanistan. "I have been to Afghanistan and observed the polling there and this is worse than Afghanistan," said ANFREL's Somsri Hananuntasuk in a recent interview. Hananuntasuk observed the NATO-enforced 2005 Afghan elections.

In contrast to the chaotic voting conditions depicted by Philippine media outlets and outlined by international election observation groups, US-backed President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo offers a strikingly different picture to the international community.

According to a statement from Arroyo shortly after the mid-term vote, Filipinos "cast their ballot, free of coercion and according to their own will." Arroyo's account stands in marked contrast to the elections as portrayed by even mainstream international media outlets. Reuters reported that "election-related violence has marred the democratic process" and that "the body count now is now over a hundred" throughout the country.

In Tondo, Manila, an observer from the US Embassy echoed President Arroyo's positive assessment of the elections, stating that "the Philippines is clearly a vibrant democracy" to the same Philippine media outlets that described the national vote as flawed with 'chaos,' 'fraud' and 'violence.'

Political violence in the Philippines, both in urban and rural settings, doesn't simply revolve around national elections. In Manila's urban poor communities, political violence is a constant reality. In recent months, the national army has established a visible presence in the impoverished communities along Manila's North Harbour.

Today's military build-up occurs as the Arroyo administration is pushing towards the privatization of Manila's North Harbour. Newspapers in the country are bubbling with editorials on the pending construction of a massive Hong Kong-style international port, as International Container Terminal Services, Inc., a major multinational, has expressed interest in developing a privatized port zone.

Privatization, a central piece of the Arroyo administration's economic policy, supported by the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF), is a hotly contested political issue in the Philippines.

"Privatization of the North Harbour will equal the dislocation of our community," outlined Abner Castro, a community organizer from Tondo. "People living along the port area will be forcibly displaced–-about 80,000 families–-to other regions of the country or areas of metro Manila," he said, adding that "the government is moving the military into our community to intimidate people into leaving for good."

Along the deeply polluted Pacific Ocean shoreline of the North Harbour, tens of thousands of urban poor Filipino homes were declared illegal in 2007 by state authorities. A growing military presence in the impoverished coastal neighbourhood strikes a chord of fear amongst residents.

"Why is the government deploying military into our community?" asked Abner Castro of Tondo at an open-air community meeting on the Pacific Ocean coast. "Military forces are a major part of a government effort to displace this community, to put fear in people's hearts, to ensure that we don't fight back."

A national, left-driven opposition to the US-supported Arroyo administration maintains a major political base in urban poor communities such as Tondo, important political battlegrounds, both at election time and beyond. Left Wing political parties, such as Bayan Muna--Tagalog for 'People First'--play a key role in local grassroots campaigns, including the struggle against harbour privatization in Manila.

Within this political power struggle, 2004 presidential elections delivered alarming results for the Arroyo government, as left-wing political parties secured significant electoral gains.

In 2004, progressive political parties won a number of congressional seats, including electoral victories for key political figures in the Philippine Left, such as Crispin Beltran of Anakpawis--Tagalog for 'Toiling Masses'--who lives in Tondo and who has openly called for revolutionary political change in the country since taking office.

"The majority of Filipinos are struggling against poverty, for better working conditions," explains Crispin Beltran while under government detention at a Manila hospital. After months in prison without trial and facing a deteriorating heart condition, Beltran was eventually transferred by state authorities to a detention hospital following international pressure.

"Economic justice is part of the political program of the national rebellion," continues Beltran. "Rebels are fighting to uplift all Filipinos, the majority who are very, very poor."

After the previous election, state authorities arrested Beltran, along with four other members of congress in 2006 on charges of 'sedition' and 'rebellion.'

Congressman Beltran, 74, was recently released after 16 months of imprisonment on rebellion charges deemed as "unfounded allegations" by Amnesty International, which wrote in a 2006 release on Beltran that the "nature of the charges and the manner in which they have been brought forward have intensified continuing concerns that these arrests constituted arbitrary detentions based on a deliberate invocation of unfounded allegations."

All charges levelled against Beltran by the government of the Philippines were recently dropped.

Campaign signs in Philippines

Smokey Mountain

Microcredit Celebration in Vanuatu

dru — Wed, 17 Jan 2007 18:43:58 +0000

A celebration of microcredit in Vanuatu. Feiner and Barker argue that microcredit helps individual women, but does little to alleviate poverty. [Creative Commons photo]

West Papua still struggling for independence

Fri, 17 Mar 2006 15:48:17 +0000

The Australian government has moved 43 West Papua refugees to refugee processing on Christmas Island, according to SBS News.

The island made headlines in 2001 when the Australian government moved 420 asylum seekers from Afghanistan and Sri Lanka to Christmas Island and refused to allow them to apply for refugee status.

The asylum seekers claim to have left Indonesia's West Papua province because of government violence. According to an article written by journalist John Pilger, 10% of West Papua's population has been killed since Indonesia began its occupation of the province in 1949.

West Papua, known in Indonesia as Irian Jaya, only comprises 1% of the population of Indonesia, but with 21% of the land mass, it is home to a wealth of natural resources, including gold, copper, nickel, wood and oil. West Papua is home to the "world's largest gold reserve and third-largest copper deposit," according to Pilger. Life expectancy and government provisions, however, are lower than in the rest of Indonesia, and infant mortality is higher.

In January, four teenagers on their way to school were killed by the Indonesian military, according to activists stationed in West Papua. One of the teenagers was a close relative of members of the 43 refugees currently being held on Christmas Island. Nick Chesterfield from the Australia-West Papua National Authority suggested that the killings were in retaliation to the refugees leaving Indonesia.

Geordie Gwalgen Dent