The Dominion - Foreign Policy

War is Peace

Tim McSorley — Mon, 15 Oct 2012 14:26:04 +0000

Francophonie summit exposes Canada's hypocrisy towards the Congo

MONTREAL—Comforted by the contradictions befitting classic Orwellian “doublespeak,” Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper attended the Sommet de la Francophonie in Kinshasa, in the Democratic Republic of Congo, over the weekend.

Prior to the weekend, Harper had already indicated to the Congolese, with a straight face no less, that they should engage in actions that favour democracy and respect for human rights. Such a posture of talking down to the Congolese allows Ottawa to cut short all legitimate questions concerning the historic responsibility of Canadian businesses and the Canadian government in the Great Lakes area conflict in Africa that claimed millions of Congolese lives between 1996 and 2003.

In the early 1990s, the power hold of Joseph Mobutu's Congolese kleptocracy had begun to waiver. Mobutu, who had ruled the Congo, and before that Zaire, as absolute master, largely by supporting the country's social system with a nationalized mining infrastructure, suddenly found himself cut lose by his former supporters. These included most notably Belgium, France and the United States.

Under pressure from the World Bank, Mobutu opened the country's prized asset, its mining sector, up for privatization. Barrick Gold, the Canadian gold mining outfit, at the time received an exploration lease for a mind-boggling 82 000 km2. Justin Kanhwenda, former assistant to the special representative of the Great Lakes area to the Secretary General of the UN, has noted that the Barrick Gold deal officially signalled to the world that the Congo was open for business.

What followed was the triggering of a bloody and protracted conflict over the country's mineral resources. The High Commissioner on Human Rights, referring to the violation of fundamental rights during this period, summarized the conflict as a clash between armed rebel groups and militias representing the government's interests. Both sides made war to secure mining leases, which they would then concede to international, private enterprises, for the very purpose of continuing to finance their own war.

Yet another UN report on the war-torn Congo, this one published in 2002, highlighted the actions of nine mining Canadian companies in particular, including AMFI, Banro and First Quantum Minerals. The report found that their actions went against the guidelines for multinational enterprises of the France-based Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, as their dealings in the Congo were considered unethical.

In the mid-2000s, the Congolese parliament had recovered slightly from the shock of years of mineral-driven civil war, and created a commission charged with studying the contracts signed between the government and private industry during war time. The commission, signed-off on by then president Christophe Lutundula, concluded that an impressive number of extremely unequal contracts had been signed between private companies and the government-at-war during the period of 1996 and 2003. These ultra-advantageous contracts involved numerous Canadian companies, notably Anvil and Emaxon. Some of these Canadian companies ratified these contracts via their subsidiaries located in tax-haven nations.

A commission to “revisit” these mining contracts was subsequently put in place to attempt to restructure their terms, at least superficially. Fear of reprisal from foreign investors has limited this commission's strength.

Amidst the UN sources already mentioned, the “expert” report mandated by the UN Security Council on the October 16, 2002 (S/2002/1146) recommended that home nations investigate the companies suspected of having profited from the pillage of resources in the Congo during the war. The report added in no uncertain terms:

“The Governments have the power to regulate and sanction those individuals and entities. They could adapt their national legislation as needed to effectively investigate and prosecute the illegal traffickers. In addition, the OECD Guidelines offer a mechanism for bringing violations of them by business enterprises to the attention of home Governments, that is, Governments of the countries where the enterprises are registered. Governments with jurisdiction over these enterprises are complicit themselves when they do not take remedial measures.”

The UN report mentioned that the experts themselves did not have the legal prerogative to carry out such investigations, or bring private companies to justice.

Canada never capitulated to these demands. It did perhaps win itself some points, and time, by organizing round table consultations with various concerned parties, all within the sterile, and legally-unbinding, environment of determining “good governance.” The “consensus” that came forth from these consultations amounted to nothing, except for Ottawa's nomination of a powerless “ethics counsellor.” For this continued inaction, Canada has assumed the global leadership role as the regulatory and judicial safe haven of choice for mining companies. Today, 75 per cent of mining companies choose to register themselves within the Canadian legislative framework, as the lax system of accountability assists them in their mining endeavours outside of Canadian soils.

Canadians driven by ethic convictions are today at the same point as were Europeans at the end of the 19th Century. All attempts are made by the government to hinder the identification of the individuals responsible for the grave suffering caused to the Congolese people. In the age of Belgian colonial domination in the Congo, the Brit Edward Dene Morel and the American author George Washington Williams, having gathered information from returning Europeans as to the atrocities being committed, drew grave hypotheses as to the true goings-on in the resource rich African nation. Diplomat Roger Casement confirmed these allegations in an investigation undertaken by the British government.

Today, Canada has still not undertaken a similar investigation. Instead, we find ourselves with a regressive government seeking, through any possible artificial means, to create colonial-inspired propaganda that allows Canada to assume the role of a democratic older brother to the Congo. All this, when in reality the pressure should be weighing on Canada.

Alain Deneault's most recent book, written with William Sacher, is Imperial Canada Inc.: Legal Haven of Choice for the World's Mining Industries (Talonbooks: 2012). He is a member ATTAC-Québec and the Réseau international pour la justice fiscale. Translation from the French by Miles Howe.

Mining and War

Hemispheric Resistance to Canadian Mining

Sandra — Fri, 27 Jul 2012 09:56:30 +0000

Day of Action organizers speak out about repression, connections, solidarity

VANCOUVER—From Canada to Argentina, preparations are well underway for the Continental Day of Action Against Canadian Mega Resource Extraction on August 1.

Dozens of organizations have signed a call for the day of protest in solidarity with communities impacted by Canadian extractive industries. The event is meant to highlight the dominance of the Canadian mining industry worldwide. Their demands range from divestment to putting people before profit.

But some activists in North America argue that the serious repression accompanying Canadian mining around the world requires going further than those initial demands. They say that acknowledgment, a sense of urgency and a deeper strategic analysis for concrete local action are also needed. Communities and organizers resisting extractive industry projects in Latin America continue to face displacement, harassment, threats, and death, often dismissed as part of unrelated violence and conflicts.

Decentralized actions will be taking place throughout the western hemisphere on Wednesday, including a national day of mobilization in regions of mining conflict in Colombia, a memorial in Vancouver to remember those who have lost their lives opposing mining projects and a rally outside the Canadian Embassy in San Salvador.

The National Roundtable Against Metallic Mining (Mesa Nacional Frente a la Mineria Metalica) in El Salvador, comprised of community-based groups affected by mining as well as environmental and other organizations across the country, will be actively participating in the day of action. Vidalina Morales spoke with The Dominion from her home in the department of Cabanas, El Salvador, where Vancouver-based Pacific Rim's plans to develop a gold mine have been fraught with controversy.

"We're going to rally in front of the Canadian Embassy here in El Salvador," said Morales, adding that there will also be a press conference on-site. Over the course of the Roundtable's actions and campaigns, many affiliated organizations have faced ongoing human rights violations, particularly in Cabanas.

The community-based resistance to the Pacific Rim mining project in Cabanas has suffered extreme repression, including murders of several active community organizers and activists from communities in the vicinity. Earlier this month, 19-year-old engineering student David Alexander Urias was murdered in the community of Palo Bonito, says Morales, only a few kilometres from Pacific Rim's operations. His murder has been reported as being gang-related, but Morales says local community organizers suspect otherwise.

"Because we continue directly in the region where we're in conflict and where the company has shown so much recent interest in mineral exploration, we've seen some things that seem surprising to us—when families that have been longtime supporters of our efforts are attacked. Here in this department where we live, a youth [David] who was only 19 years old was recently murdered—a young student who is the son of a woman who has been very involved in this struggle," she said.

"Here, anything that happens, they always blame it on the gangs, because it's the easiest way to deny links to other things," said Morales.

In Colombia, murders, threats and other repression against individuals and communities facing large-scale mining activities around the country take place amid an ongoing armed conflict. Mario Valencia, a member of the Colombian Network Against Large-Scale Transnational Mining—RECLAME—spoke with The Dominion via telephone from Bogota, where preparations for the August 1 day of action are in full swing.

"In the middle of this conflict, the issue of mining can't be seen as unconnected because many of these conflicts take place in zones that are rich in natural resources...It's a struggle for territory. It has to do with taking possession of these areas—for example, displacing small-scale miners from territories where they have been mining for years, or even for centuries, and the conflict becomes a tool for that to happen," said Valencia. "The National Confederation of Miners of Colombia, which unites small and medium-scale miners, is currently threatened and being persecuted by the government, to make way for transnational companies."

In Colombia, a national day of mobilization "to stop the mining-energy locomotive" is being organized, coordinated by an alliance of unions, communities, and organizations, including the National Confederation of Miners and RECLAME. Rallies, marches, carnival-style parades and cultural festivals will be held in over a dozen different departments, all regions with mining conflicts. In Caldas, for example, actions will denounce the displacement of communities to make way for Canadian company Gran Colombia Gold's Marmato mining project, says Valencia.

"Mining is one of the principal activities in the Colombian economy. The government's idea is that Colombia should be a mining country, so the most important issue is territorial defense. We have proposed to take this on as the defense of life, the defense of water, the defense of territory, so that these transnational companies can't find the conflict, the pretext to enter these regions," he told The Dominion.

Valencia says that organizations in Colombia realized that they would not be able to confront the mining policy alone—a mining policy imposed on the country from outside but fiercely adopted by the Colombian government. Some of the sectors that have joined forces against transnational mining in Colombia may not seem like natural allies to some people, he says, given that they include communities resisting mining, mining and energy sector workers, small-scale miners and environmental organizations.

"Obviously not everything is all rosy and there are conflicts, but we are fundamentally united in RECLAME for one reason," Valencia explained, adding that the unity is a product of years of discussion. "We came to the understanding that the main aspect of the contradiction on the issue of mining isn't between workers and communities or between environmentalists and small-scale miners, but that the principal contradiction is with transnational large-scale mining companies."

Root Force, a campaign based out of Tucson, Arizona, also connects environmental, social and other justice issues through a strategic anti-infrastructure approach to solidarity with communities in Latin America resisting extractive industry projects. Root Force has signed onto the call for the Continental Day of Action, although concrete actions are left to the discretion of the various autonomous collectives and affiliate groups scattered throughout the southwestern US, the Pacific Northwest and beyond.

"The sort of broader goal of Root Force is to help bring down this global economic system that is at the root of the various injustices that so many of the environmental and social justice groups are organizing against," Ben Pachano, an organizer with Root Force, told The Dominion in a telephone interview. "The method that we've identified for doing that is by preventing the expansion of this resource extraction and transportation infrastructure that underlies the system.

"The actions that Root Force promotes and that, you know, our affiliate and allied groups take are aiming toward that ultimate goal, which is itself an act of solidarity, because the idea is that oppression of an Indigenous community resisting a mine, say in Guatemala, is coming in large part because of the demand for that metal in the first world," said Pachano.

The organization provides resources to facilitate connections between like-minded groups, to raise awareness about struggles against extractive and infrastructure projects in Latin America and their connections to the US, and to promote effective strategic action at the local level.

"Because of that sort of interconnected nature of basically a globalized capitalist economy, that means that you don’t necessarily need to be in the place where the resources are being extracted to take actions affecting that extraction," he said.

In Canada, which is home to companies that together own more than 3,000 mining projects around the world, actions are planned across the country. In Toronto, where many corporate headquarters and the Toronto Stock Exchange are located, people will mobilize at Queen's Park. In Vancouver, another city with a huge number of mining company offices, the local Mining Justice Alliance is hosting a memorial action outside of Goldcorp's head office.

Latin American communities spearheaded the Continental Day of Action, but the Vancouver action is also in solidarity with communities in Asia-Pacific, in Africa, locally and around the world, Mining Justice Alliance member Beth Dollaga told The Dominion. She is also a founding member of Canada-Philippines Solidarity for Human Rights and sees the same patterns of extraction and repression that occur in the Philippines happening elsewhere as well. Paramilitaries around the world are often trained not just to protect corporate infrastructure, she says, but also to harass communities resisting mining and people who speak out in support of community resistance.

"We know that the aggressive extraction—mining—it’s not just the environment plundered or killed, but also mostly Indigenous people, because this happens in the remotest areas of places, like in Latin America or anywhere in Asia-Pacific. So most of these places are actually the Indigenous ancestral domain. And people are killed," she said.

"Part of this event is also to remember them. And to continue. It's not just remembering those people, those martyred activists, but also to carry on and pick up from [where they left off], in solidarity, from wherever we are," said Dollaga.

Dollaga is not the only one to recognize that solidarity organizing with resistance to Canadian extractive projects is often a matter of life or death for people from affected communities. Pachano also emphasizes that for many, it is a fight for survival.

"When you look at a lot of communities that are opposing mega-extraction projects, often the root of their opposition is that they believe that these projects will destroy their way of life and that at the end of the day it's a battle for survival," said Pachano. "Solidarity requires that we take that—that we sort of take to heart the urgency of the battles we’re in solidarity with."

"Ultimately, true solidarity requires looking at the systems that are producing these types of exploitations and actively trying to take them down."

Sandra Cuffe is a Vancouver-based freelance journalist.

Day of Action

Express Coup Rattles Paraguay

dawn — Mon, 09 Jul 2012 10:14:05 +0000

Transnational corporations including Canada's Rio Tinto Alcan undeterred by political turmoil

TORONTO—A coup snuck up on South America last month, taking people around the world by surprise. The June 22 ouster of President Fernando Lugo Mendez and his replacement by Federico Franco, head of the right-wing Paraguayan Liberal Party, took place without heavy police or military repression.

The Economist called the coup a "constitutional impeachment." There is no doubt that when he left office on June 22, Lugo bowed to the pressure of the Paraguayan Senate.

While several governments in South America indicated they would not recognize the coup government, Canada and the US immediately acknowledged the incoming regime. "Canada notes that Fernando Lugo has accepted the decision of the Paraguayan Senate to impeach him and that a new president, Federico Franco, has been sworn in," Diane Ablonczy, Canada's Minister of State of Foreign Affairs, said in a statement following the coup.

Lugo's final statement as president indicated he would submit to the request of the Senate and step down. Initially, he did not call for his supporters to take to the streets, and in fact through his words demobilized the Paraguayan people.

Following the coup, however, Lugo stated that what happened was indeed a coup, and that he had been removed from office in the same style as Manuel Zelaya was removed in Honduras.

"Here, there was a rupture of the democratic order, here there was a political trial without any reason, and a parliamentary coup was carried out. There are various names: an express coup, Cristina Kirchner [president of Argentina] mentioned that it was a soft coup," Lugo said during a radio interview a week after the coup. "The laboratory for all of this was three years ago in Honduras, and here in Paraguay it was perfected."

Unlike in the case of Zelaya, who was removed from Honduras to Costa Rica by Honduran soldiers, Lugo continues to reside in Asuncion, Paraguay's capital. Now in the thick of winter, Asuncion is cold, rainy and grey, and the level of mobilization is far lower than it was following Zelaya's ouster in Honduras.

Even before the coup took place in Paraguay, tensions were mounting. Lugo's removal as president came after calls for his resignation on the heels of a massacre in the Curuguaty region east of the capital, in which at least 17 people were killed, including six police officers and 11 peasants. It was the first peasant massacre in Paraguay since the country's return to democracy in 1989.

The campesino (peasant) movements in Paraguay are the most important social movements in the country, which is a little larger in size than the province of Newfoundland and Labrador, with a population of just over 6.5 million. The context of struggles around land, and in particular the events in Curuguaty in June of this year, are of great importance in order to properly understand the coup.

"In Paraguay there are between nine and 11 million hectares of land that we call 'wrongly-granted land' (tierras malhabidas), which are lands that were granted in a fraudulent manner during the Strossner dictatorship, from 1954 to 1989, to children of the dictator, relatives of the dictator, business people from the region, even to other dictators like Somoza, and to members of the Uruguayan military," said Abel Enrique Irala, a researcher with the Paraguay Peace and Justice Service (Serapaj) who spoke to The Dominion from Asuncion, Paraguay.

The June 15 massacre took place at Yvy Pyta, an area that is classified as having been mis-granted during the dictatorship and where the peasant movement had organized occupations at least four times. But at the time of the massacre, those who were occupying the lands were not connected to the larger peasant movement; they were called to participate by supporters of the Liberal party, of which Federico Franco is part. Following the massacre, press reports indicated that the police were killed by sharpshooters, but according to Irala, the only weapons found in the peasant camp at Yvy Pyta were machetes and homemade shotguns.

"This occupation was not carried out in the framework of the peasant movement, or with the knowledge of support of any Paraguayan national or regional peasant organization," said Irala. The day after the massacre, Irala traveled with a delegation of activists and journalists to Curuguaty, where he said local Liberal Party bosses were already calling for Lugo's resignation and the promotion of Franco to the presidency.

"The next day when we did the evaluation of what we saw, one of the things that really caught our attention was the relation between the [political] parties in that area, and the calls specifically for Lugo to resign and be replaced by Federico Franco," said Irala. "What we didn't imagine is that those speeches, made 170 kilometres from Asuncion, coming from what seemed like local party members...We would end up hearing seven days later, with the political trial of Lugo and with Federico Franco staying on as president."

Since Franco took power, the commission entrusted to investigate the events at Yvy Pyta has been cancelled.

In Paraguay, there have been actions to protest the coup, including a week-long occupation of a state-owned TV station by its workers, demonstrations in the capital, and international protests along with supporters in Paraguay's border areas with Brazil and Argentina. However, the overall level of social mobilization since the coup has been low.

Paraguay was the last country in the region to break with a two-party system, with the election of Lugo, considered a progressive President, in 2008. "Since 2008, a sector of the best [social movement] leaders transformed into bureaucrats and took up residence in the capital, convinced that this was the path to gain more force," wrote Raul Zibechi, a Uruguayan journalist and analyst, following the coup. "Today, with some exceptions, the movements are the weakest they have been in decades."

Though considered progressive, Lugo's government passed anti-terrorist legislation and declared a state of emergency across a number of departments (provinces) with a high level of peasant organization, once in 2010 and again in 2011. His government used repression to discourage peasant organizing and land occupations, and has maintained close relationships—especially with regards to intelligence sharing—with the US government under the umbrella of anti-narcotics initiatives.

Paraguayan analysts and writers have also commented on the appearance of a "ghost" guerrilla movement, the Paraguayan Peoples Army (EPP), which they say has been used by the government to justify increasingly repressive tactics, including the use of Colombian-trained special forces, against the peasant movement.

"The fall of Lugo, as in every political crisis, exposes the changes that are being produced in the region since Barack Obama defined the [United States'] new defence strategy," wrote Zibechi.

Since Franco was named president, he has agreed to re-initiate negotiations with Montreal-based Rio Tinto Alcan, and has sat down to meet with various local, national and international representatives of transnational capital. "One can deduce that [Franco] has already met with regional, national and international business people, who represent transnational power," said Irala. While Rio Tinto Alcan represents the biggest Canadian interest in Paraguay, it is far from the only one.

Bilateral merchandise trade between Canada and Paraguay last year was valued at more than $25 million. "Canadian companies looking into the Paraguayan marketplace may find opportunities in oil and gas, mining, and infrastructure sectors," according to the Government of Canada. Paraguay is also a participant in Canadian military training through the Pearson Peacekeeping Centre.

Dawn Paley is a freelance journalist and co-founder of the Vancouver Media Co-op.

An article focused on the coup government's resumption of negotiations with Rio Tinto Alcan was published by the Media Co-op on Friday.

Anti-Coup protestors in Paraguay

Oil Rich Gulf Co-operation Council Grows

stephlaw — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 03:55:55 +0000

Extreme extraction could prove to be the meaning of GCC membership for Morocco and Jordan

AMMAN, Jordan—The Arab Spring sent shockwaves through the regimes of the Middle East and North Africa, and in the face of demands for popular accountability alongside bread and butter issues, states throughout the region have devised strategies to try and avert popular upheaval.

If one were asked to list the most powerful players from the Arab world, it is likely that neither Morocco nor Jordan would head that list. Both are relatively poor countries, and neither is classically known as being resource-rich. Morocco occupies the edge of Western Africa, geographically distant from richer Arab countries such as Kuwait or the United Arab Emirates. Jordan has high energy demands, and thus has long been reliant on imports. The steady backing of the United States, in exchange for Jordan's relative complicity in American policy, has also somewhat isolated Jordan in the Arab world.

Regardless of their outsider status, the kingdoms of Morocco and Jordan have recently been invited to join the Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC). On the surface, inviting in Jordan—and even more so the non-Gulf nation of Morocco—appears to be a puzzle.

Similarities between the newly-invited monarchies and other GCC countries are not completely lost, at least not with their reigning pro-American kings: Mohammed VI of Morocco, and King Abdullah II of Jordan. Despite some limited political reforms, both monarchs have spent a dozen years on their thrones with static regimes and unregulated, free market economies. Both reflect the deires of other regimes in the region to avoid the uprisings that have swept rulers from some Arab states in recent months. Jordan and Morocco also share in high unemployment and poverty rates, and both countries have seen street protests in recent months.

Recent promises from King Mohammed VI for "meaningful reform" included a recent referendum on constitutional amendments, to which it was reported that the general population of Morocco responded 98 per cent in favour. Moroccan protesters have since called the poll fraudulent and the newly-drafted constitution insufficient. Likewise, in an attempt to placate protests, King Abdullah has re-shuffled the Jordanian parliament. Critics, however, perceive the changes in both kingdoms to be little more than cosmetic.

The GCC, which is now courting Morocco and Jordan, was founded in 1981 by Saudi Arabia, Oman, Bahrain, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait. “It's not as far advanced as the European Union but in many ways is similar to the European Union regional integration project,” says Adam Hanieh of the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London.

“This was partly a security agreement that was established with the support of the United States, but then beyond that it has evolved in the last few decades—particularly the last ten or so years—to be focused very much on the economic integration of these six countries in the Gulf,” explains Hanieh.

“These countries all have strong oil and gas supplies, they have similar political structures and through economic integration they have been promoting common trade, free movement of capital and goods, pretty much across the borders, and also the movement of citizens,” he says.

During the Arab Spring, Jordan and Morocco experienced street protests in their capital cities, and elsewhere. Neither have had movements that called for the end of their respective monarchies or the establishment of republics. However, in terms of reshaping the economy and landscape, both nation states have been looking to convert oil shale rock into synthetic petroleum, which has implications for the GCC.

Within OPEC, GCC states have consistently called for production targets that are more in line with most Western countries like the U.S. and France—seeking to heighten targets and lower global market prices. Nation states such as Venezuela or Iran seek lower production targets as a way of generating higher prices for crude on the world market.

In recent years, the way that global petroleum reserves are measured by country has changed so as to be able to include bitumen from the Canadian tar sands. This is a result of Canada proving the “commercial viability” of its mock oil development, which has been expanding at a breathtaking pace. Similar dynamics could immediately take root in both Morocco and Jordan if their planned oil shale ventures go into production. Integrating these new huge reserves into the GCC would guarantee both investments and a market for mock crude from the new member states.

The terms of the invitation to the GCC have yet to be spelled out, but there is good reason to assume some conditions may apply.

“If countries like Jordan and Morocco were to join, I don't think they would join as full members or with the same type of integration as the existing GCC states have,” says Hanieh. “I don't think you would see for example, the ability of people to move freely to the GCC states from Jordan and Morocco.”

This may leave GCC membership for newcomers to look more like the North American Free Trade Agreement than the European Union: de-regulation and neoliberal re-regulation, freer movement of capital, no new movement (or rights) for labour.

“In all of the GCC countries, citizenship is restricted to a minority of the population,” says Hanieh. “The bulk of the people living in these countries are migrant workers who don't have citizenship rights.”

GCC countries, however, have long been the favoured states of Washington in the Arab world for other reasons as well. Even before the 2011 uprisings began, the GCC states were allied with many American ventures, such as the two wars of aggression against Iraq.

“They have become a close adjunct of the U.S. foreign policy in the region. The one thing about the GCC states—with the exception to a certain extent of Saudi Arabia as you saw in the case of Bahrain—is in general, their military capability is very weak and they act under a U.S. military umbrella,” explains Hanieh. Qatar in particular has been exposed recently, having aligned militarily with NATO countries in their air and ground war against the Qaddafi government in Libya.

The short and long term development of the large oil shale deposits in the Kingdoms of Morocco and Jordan have similar plots. Both countries are poor and reliant on imports for energy. Both have large oil shale potential despite serious water shortages, and both also have (among others) development plans that stem from a partnership between Brazil’s state-owned Petrobras and French energy giant Total to strip mine and convert kerogen rock into mock oil, perhaps allowing the integration into economic and trade matters for the rest of the GCC states.

Of course, there is also the issue of Israel.

While publicly critical of Israel, GCC states have accommodated Tel Aviv to varying degrees. Normalization with Jordan in 1994 allowed for Israeli-Jordanian trade. Jordan joining the GCC may provide another means of trade with Israel for Arab states that are still officially part of the general Israeli boycott.

“It's clear that over the last decade, the United States has really been pushing increased regional integration in the Middle East and particularly trying to break the boycott of Israel, and increase the normalization. This has had some success in the case of the GCC. For example, in the case of Qatar, there was a trade office that was opened for many years, I'm not sure if it still operates but it probably operates unofficially,” says Hanieh.

In Jordan, collaboration with Israel functions at an official capacity. However, if Jordan's industrial plans were to go ahead, closer ties between the two nations might emerge. Already on the table is a major nuclear facility within Jordan, and the so-called “Red-Dead” canal.

The Gulf Co-operation Council has set itself up as a localized combination of NATO and EU in terms of policy. There is little doubt that given the events of the Arab Spring so far the GCC has adjusted itself to a combination of counter-revolutionary politics, mixed together with a promotion of western (oil) interests, ranging from Saudi Arabia leading the occupation of Bahrain, to Qatar flying sorties and providing ground troops during the recolonization of Libya.

Jordan and Morocco both maintain Kingdoms that straddle the so-called fence. They choose to deal with Israel, align with the Saudis and other oil-producing monarchies, all the while adding their own plans to become extreme extractors. The Gulf Co-operation Council is the agent to integration of the same ideology, regardless of territorial ambiguity.

Jordan and Morocco both possess reserves of oil shale that, if counted by the International Energy Agency and OPEC as oil, would outstrip other members of the GCC. The spread and influence of pro-USA, pro-Israel, GCC politics into Morocco and Jordan could have an important social, political, and environmental impact on the entire region.

This article is the fourth in a four part series examining unconventional oil deposits in the Middle East and North Africa. The series was originally published by the Media Co-op. Questions? Comments? Drop us a line: info@mediacoop.ca.

Shale Oil Basins in Israel and Jordan

Extreme Extraction

stephlaw — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 09:03:49 +0000

Oil production plans could reshape Morocco's economy and environment

RABAT, MOROCCO—Many well-known voices trying to address the global climate crisis have posited that less-developed countries—those without a full-blown industrial base—can skip industrialization all together and transition away from fossil fuels. If that is achieved, development in those countries would ideally result in the construction of infrastructure suitable for a post-fossil fuel society.

But if Morocco is any indication, the opposite scenario appears more likely to happen. Instead of proceeding with climate-friendly energy developments, Morocco is poised to begin extracting crude oil from unconventional deposits—the dirtiest fuel available. Mining rock for oil in Morocco would leave massive craters in post-fossil, green energy hopes.

Morocco, like Jordan and Israel, is moving towards using the most carbon intensive fuel base on earth. This move is supported by present, and projected, oil prices that make synthetic crude from oil shale profitable on a near permanent basis. Technology has become cheaper while the price of oil has gone up dramatically. Recent industry estimates indicate that oil can now be extracted from shale for approximately US$40 per barrel, while the average price at an American pump is US$94 per barrel.

With global oil demand slated to grow, Morocco is set to become an unconventional oil producer through mining oil shale and converting it to mock crude oil in a fashion similar to Canadian tar sands development, but borrowing on shale technology from Brazil. Morocco also has contracts to use Estonian technology to mine and burn oil shale directly for domestic electricity.

Estonia is one of a few countries in the world that has ongoing oil shale currently in operation. The Tangier deposit of oil shale in the north of Morocco is likely to see Eesti Energy-owned Enefit of Estonia work to mine this shale directly for domestic electricity generation, which would treat the kerogen shale more like a cousin of coal rather than an ancestor of oil.

Petrobras, the Brazilian state-owned oil company, has developed a technique of extracting oil as well as gas from oil shale, and has been involved in this process commercially since the early 1980s. A partnership between Petrobras and TOTAL energy of France has been developing towards shale-to-oil mining at the Timahdit deposit, a deposit much larger than Tangier, approximately 240 kilometres southeast of Rabat, Morocco’s capital. Petrobras would be the main operator of the Timahdit mine, but both world energy majors will share the costs and profits.

However, there is one persistent problem for both these projects: water. Even without proposed oil shale mining and in-situ developments, Morocco has a serious potable water problem.

To operationalize oil shale in Morocco, water would need to be sourced from nearby the Timahdit deposit. Throughout the country, waterways are already becoming silt-ridden as erosion slowly manifests as a result of another ecological tragedy in the area: illegal timber harvests.

Some environmental journalists, like Mohammed Attaoui, have recently landed directly in the crosshairs of the Moroccan Kingdom. Attaoui was imprisoned by the Moroccan government after he investigated ongoing illegal timber marketing and exporting. Although Attaoui was officially charged and convicted in March 2010 for the extortion of 1,000 dirham (approximately US$120), critics maintain Attaoui was set up in a ploy timed immediately after his research into the country's “cedar mafia” had been published. He was handed a two-year sentence for his alleged crime.

Deforestation, destructive in its own right, is without doubt one of the major factors furthering the water crises of Morocco. But if the water needs for running a major mining operation are appended onto the existing crisis, the prognosis for the country's environmental health gets ever bleaker. The proposed mine at Timahdit happens to be in the same region as two national parks: the Ifrane National Park, which is already under threat from the illegal timber harvest, and Haut Atlas Oriental, which is home to tens of thousands of small farmers who rely on the area and its habitat for agriculture and subsistence.

The illegal timber harvest is the primary threat to the macaques, the last remaining large population of monkeys in northern Africa. Primarily living in the Ifrane National Park, macaques used to be common throughout the Mahgreb but are now endangered by loss of habitat elsewhere and by the shrinking forest. The only place outside Morocco where they live is in the small and shrinking Djebel Babor Nature Reserve on Algeria's coast. According to The Morocco Board News Service, the region is also home to more than 200 forms of plant life not found anywhere else.

Oil extraction is but another burden in a region defined by an already fragile environment. Between the three proposed sites for shale oil development in Morocco, early projections indicate that 50,000 barrels per day of mock oil could be produced for conversion into various fuels within a few years. (This figure does not include electricity generation where shale is burned in a similar fashion to a coal fired plant.)

That estimate includes the Tarfaya deposit near Morocco's border with the nominally independent Western Sahara, which is still occupied by Moroccan forces. Tarfaya has also just seen the completion of an in-situ pilot project constructed by San Leon Energy of Ireland, a smaller player with some operations in the continental United States. Building up Tarfaya has already meant the construction of major highways in less populated parts of southern Morocco to allow for the transport of supplies and materials for the project.

Morocco is on its way to becoming a testing ground for unprecedented oil shale extraction. “The environmental issues in places such as Colorado are not an issue in Morocco,” John Buggenhagen, San Leon Energy’s vice-president of exploration, told Petroleum Economist.

This article is the third in a four-part series examining unconventional oil deposits in the Middle East and North Africa. The series was originally published on the Media Co-op.

Questions? Comments? Email us at info@mediacoop.ca.

Morroco map shale oil

Foreign Aid to Mining Firms

dawn — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 15:08:10 +0000

CIDA teams up with NGOs to do development work at mine sites

MONTREAL—As excavators, heavy haulers and chemical treatment plants dig made-in-Canada mines around the world, Ottawa has taken new steps to ease growing criticism of Canada’s extractive sector.

The Harper government recently announced a publicly funded agreement between three of Canada’s mining giants and three of Canada’s leading non-governmental organizations (NGOs). The agreement, which marks a significant shift in how mining and politics mix, elicited little more than a yawn from the media. But a closer look reveals this partnership is transforming Canada’s aid landscape—with disturbing implications.

“The Canadian government is using aid to support the expansion of Canadian mining...[and] to determine development paths inside countries according to the logic of mining companies,” Yao Graham of Third World Network Africa, a research and advocacy organization based in Ghana, told The Dominion. Graham has seen many communities in Africa ravaged by the exploitative labour practices and lax environmental practices that often accompany mining megaprojects.

In the first phase of this new program, the World University Service of Canada (WUSC) has partnered Rio Tinto Alcan; Plan Canada is paired up with IAMGOLD; and World Vision Canada has joined forces with Barrick Gold. This new funding approach raises some serious ethical and political questions about the role of NGOs, and constitutes a veritable PR coup for a mining industry that has racked up quite the rap sheet of environmental and human rights abuses.

Critics argue that under this new dispensation, industry can counter resistance to its activities by claiming that its presence has brought development to impoverished communities. Cash-strapped NGOs, in an era of shrinking government funding for international development, have found a funding niche. Last but not least, the Canadian government is able to deflect demands for more stringent—and potentially profit-damaging—controls over one of its most lucrative industries.

In the past, while NGOs were bound by financial ties to the state, they still had some nominal autonomy to bear witness to that abuse. Now, they are increasingly tied to government funds earmarked to further Canada’s mining interests, topped up by money from the mining industry itself.

“When a mine goes in, there is a development deficit created immediately because there are impacts that can last literally thousands of years on water, on land, on the air,” said Catherine Coumans of MiningWatch Canada. “And these impacts can be devastating. It can mean that people literally have to leave that area and live somewhere else because they can’t live there anymore.”

Coumans, who has kept a watchful eye on this evolving relationship, argues that whatever project an NGO gets up and running in one of these mining communities cannot even begin to redress the damage caused by the mining company’s presence there. She calls the NGO presence at mining sites “a Band-Aid on a gaping wound.”

Chris Eaton, the Executive Director of WUSC, sees things differently. He argues that this closer working relationship between NGOs and the mining sector will be an opportunity for organizations like WUSC to “nudge along good practice.” He is confident that WUSC’s role in building the capacity of local government to engage with mining companies will reap greater benefits for local people.

Plan Canada, another beneficiary under the new government initiative, could not find anyone to respond to our questions before this story went to print. Plan Canada will receive $5.7 million from the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) to fund activities relating to IAMGOLD’s mining activities in 13 communities in Burkina Faso.

While Plan Canada’s project is nowhere close to any of IAMGOLD’s operations, it has partnered with a mining company that has been mired in labour strife at at least one of its mines.* Last May, IAMGOLD had to close down operations at its Essakane mine in Burkina Faso due to labour unrest. The company’s CEO, Steve Letwin, warned that he would not tolerate an ‘illegal’ strike ‘and as they will find out, will not tolerate anything that has a negative impact on our stakeholders.’

Given Plan Canada’s stated commitment to ‘work in the best interests of children and the communities in which we work,’ would they be prepared to risk their multi-million dollar funding to speak out against any violations of labour or human rights in the communities in which their partner works?

For the Canadian government, this new troika is simply the latest step in a long process of prying open the door on the planet’s mineral wealth to the benefit of the extractive industry. The last decade saw the Canadian government provide technical and financial support to create industry-friendly mining codes around the world. The Canadian Network on Corporate Accountability documented how government initiatives in Colombia and Tanzania have translated into weaker environmental and social safeguards, reduced royalties for the host countries and new tax holidays.

Canadian cash, technocrats and know-how have also been involved in rewriting mining codes in Malawi, Ghana, Mali and the Democratic Republic of Congo (with, in this last case, civil war as a backdrop). All this has led to rising profits for Canadian companies and dwindling revenues for host countries.

Now that many official hurdles to access to overseas mineral wealth have come down, the government has turned its attention to partnering NGOs with mining firms. At the local level, this kind of agreement is cause for suspicion.

The Canadian government is turning its back on a deeper examination of the structural problems in the relationship between First World mining firms and Third World resources, says Third World Network’s Graham, instead opting for what he calls a “palliative” approach. “It’s a way of sidestepping the need for companies to pay more revenue because they can say, ‘We are doing so much for the community. Why do we have to put more into the central treasury?’”

The mining industry’s dismal reputation is its Achilles heel. Concern about its poor track record overseas is growing—even the mainstream is starting to take note.

Despite the clarion call from Canadians to put guidelines and mechanisms in place to keep the industry in check, the government has opted for optics instead. “The Canadian government is very anxious about the reputation of mining companies and instead of accountability, it is putting money into projects that show that mining leads to development,” said Coumans. In her view, it is now taxpayers that are footing the bill to polish a tarnished corporate image.

“CIDA has always worked government-to-government,” said Coumans. “Now what CIDA is doing is channelling Canadian taxpayer money directly to the mine site and basically paying for corporate social responsibility projects, and that is very bizarre.”

MONEY IN MINING

WUSC-Rio Tinto Alcan project
Total budget: $928,000 over 3 years
CIDA: $500,000
WUSC/Rio Tinto Alcan: $428,000
Rio Tinto net profit in 2010: $726,000,000

Plan Canada-IAMGOLD project
Total budget: $7.6 million over 5.5 years
CIDA: $5.7 million
Plan Canada: $0.9 million
IAMGOLD: $1 million
IAMGOLD gross profit in 2010: $597,000,000

World Vision-Barrick Gold project
Total budget: $1 million over 3.5 years
CIDA: $500,000
World Vision/Barrick Gold: $500,000
Barrick Gold net profit in 2010: $3,279,000,000

Source: Canadian International Development Agency, Sedar.com

Eaton insists that WUSC’s work is about community empowerment, not corporate social responsibility (CSR) projects. “I don’t think the government should be funding NGOs to do the CSR of mining firms, and I don’t see ourselves doing that in the context of this initiative,” he said.

In the swirl of controversy around this corporate shift in government aid policy, one thing is clear: the Canadian mining sector has emerged the big winner.

Last year the Canadian mining sector led a successful lobby effort to defeat Bill C-300, the Bill that would have seen the introduction of minor controls on the unregulated overseas activities of Canada’s mining industry.

Now, this same powerful sector has access to even more government funds as well as NGO know-how to help revamp its public image. Little wonder the Mining Association of Canada recently issued a press release encouraging the federal government to continue its support for Canada’s CSR Strategy. It knows a good thing when it sees it.

*The original version of this article incorrectly implied that the joint project by Plan Canada and IAMGOLD would be taking place in a mining community. In fact, Plan Canada’s work will not be carried out at any of IAMGOLD's mine sites. The version above has been changed to correct the error.

Roberto Nieto is a Montreal-based independent journalist and activist who has worked for unions, and as an organizer in support of migrant workers. He is a regular contributor to Amandla!, Canada’s longest running African current affairs radio show. Gwendolyn Schulman is co-founder and co-host of Amandla! Questions? Comments? Drop us a line: info@mediacoop.ca..

Foreign Aid to Mining Firms.Image

Oil in the Desert

stephlaw — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 18:48:38 +0000

Will water be sacrificed to oil in Jordan?

AMMAN, Jordan—In March of 2011, The Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan jumped headlong into unconventional oil extraction, and signed a deal with Karak International Oil (KIO), a subsidiary of Jordan Energy and Mining Limited (JEML--a British company), for the commercial mining of oil shale approximately one hour’s drive from the capital of Amman. Unlike most countries in the region, if you fill up your gas tank in Jordan, you are using imported oil— but the Kingdom is touting a future when extreme extraction will change that, and soon.

Jordan is one of the countries most likely to bear the harshest impacts of climate change, and least suited to dive headlong into the most destructive forms of energy yet devised. Walking the streets of Amman, however, one gets the sense that the government has already decided the country will serve as a launching pad for American interests. The entire city is oriented towards the American troops, engineers, and others who stop off on their way to and from Baghdad, Iraq.

The invasion of Iraq transformed Jordan without the dropping of a single bomb overhead. New oil shale proposals could promote a similarly intense kind of change with an absence of popular input—but perhaps even more discreetly.

The main oil shale deposit designated for exploitation in Jordan is at Al Lajjun in the southern Karak governorate, and the lease has a 35-square-kilometer radius. This project is expected to produce commercial crude for refining within five years, maxing out some years after that at 60,000 barrels of mock crude per day. By way of comparison, the entire nation consumes an average of 200,000 barrels per day.

Part of the project’s construction and know-how will be imported into Jordan from the Athabasca region of Canada via Thyssenkrupp Group of Germany. Thyssenkrupp has pledged to build strip mining operations there based on their existing work in Alberta's tar sands mines—the largest existing industrial project in human history.

Elsewhere in the country, Royal Dutch Shell operates under a 100-per-cent-owned subsidiary called Jordan Oil Shale Company (JOSCO). JOSCO also has long-term development plans for oil exploitation in Jordan that are expected to come online no sooner than 2021. Shell/JOSCO have exploration rights to large segments of the country. Shell will also be bringing technology from their operations in Alberta, Canada—including the huge Albian Sands mine.

It's not just Shell and Thyssenkrupp that are coming in with the know-how. So too are Petrobras and TOTAL SA Energy, of Brazil and France respectively. Petrobras has long since operated an oil shale mining and conversion to oil and gas plant. TOTAL has multiple unconventional oil shale and tar sands plays around the world, some operational.

Oil shale slated for extraction in Jordan is for local electricity (not synthetic crude production), by Eesti Energia of Estonia. Estonian electricity has been provided almost exclusively by oil shale mining and burning for several decades. Eesti Energia is now looking into providing technology and constructing electrical plants from shale in not only Jordan, but also in Morocco. Estimates of a recoverable 40-billion barrels of mock crude exist in Jordan, in a total of 26 different deposits.

“We depend 96 per cent on importing our energy from outside of Jordan. It's basically coming from Saudi Arabia, from Iraq and from Egypt,” said Basel Burgan, the head of the Jordanian Friends of the Environment—a group that, among other issues, is in opposition to possible nuclear development in the country on economic and environmental grounds.

“We had depended for a good time on the Egyptian Gas that was cheaper than heavy fuel, but unfortunately the Egyptians have been bombing the pipeline that's sending gas through Sinai to Jordan because it's connected at the same time to Israel,” he said.

Jordanian Friends of the Environment has yet to take a firm position on oil shale.

Power needs for synthetic oil production are vast, and could coincide with a brand new nuclear power plant expected to be announced by French nuclear powerhouse Areva. The amount of water needed for cooling nuclear reactors as well as heating oil shale to extract petroleum is exceedingly high.

With regards to the water needed to run nuclear plants, Burgan says the Jordanian government “claims they are going to take this grey water and do tertiary purification which is a very costly plan, about $800 million [US], and eventually it will produce good water available to be used in a reactor.”
Burgan went on to explain how all of these projects may in fact rely on one another, and even on further regional integration with Israel:

“Some people have said that Jordan will end up sending electricity to Israel. [...] I have read only that Hashemite University, located in the area proposed for the plant site (north of Amman ~40kms) has signed an agreement with Colorado University, which already has an agreement with Ben Gurion University on the same project to build up some kind of desalination plant inside the Hashemite University with modern technology for purification and desalination. We say that all of these agreements and projects are basically depending on the Jordanian nuclear reactor because any desalination plant or station would need massive energy, and the energy would be available from a nuclear reactor.”

Jordan possesses, at best, the fourth smallest water to population ratio on the planet. Israel, which is also poor in terms of water, has already constructed five desalination plants, one of which is the largest on the planet. In the area where KIO plans to construct a large oil shale mine, many traditional Bedouins live off the land and source their water through deep wells in an extremely arid environment just east of the Dead Sea. Damage to the water table through use for extraction, or through contamination resulting from toxic waste produced by the mining process could have disastrous health effects on local people and ecosystems. The same would be true of air quality.

One of the other possibilities for increasing available water supply is a massive industrial project euphemistically known as the Red-Dead canal. This canal comes with a plan to pump sea water over 200 kilometers from the Red Sea to fill up the ecologically unique Dead Sea (where water levels are currently dropping at an alarming rate) and provide sea water for desalination projects and industry to both Israel and Jordan. Essentially Red-Dead project would transform the Dead Sea into little more than a reservoir for Israel and Jordan to use for industry, and would likely require the deepening of 1994 normalization agreements signed in the shadow of the increasingly sidelined 1993 Oslo Agreements, themselves signed as a pre-cursor to a two-state solution for Israel and the Palestinian Authority.

Jordanian water is used in varying amounts by Israel, depending on the season, under the terms of the '94 normalization between the two states. The water situation in Jordan is so bleak that the Red-Dead Canal is endorsed by groups that oppose nuclear power, including Friends of the Environment, in the hopes that this massive Israeli-Jordanian project could supply the population with potable drinking water even as climate change dries out the planet ever further.

The Jordanian government has announced open bids for nuclear plans, while the United States—backed by Israel—demands the uranium be converted to fuel somewhere other than the Kingdom out of a desire to prevent technological and research development. For obvious reasons, official confirmation or details about Israel's continued uranium research at their Dimona nuclear facility in the Negev desert, where Israel's nuclear arsenal was almost certainly developed, are not forthcoming. Israel has also declared their desire to have a nuclear power plant in the Negev—the hot, arid desert lands west of the rapidly drying Dead Sea.

If normalization were to include collaboration on a plan to extract crude from shale, industrial mega-projects would stand in as a regional response to dwindling water and energy supplies.

With the Red-Dead Canal plan still in play, the possibility of collaboration and increasing development on both sides of the Dead Sea looks likely.

This article is the second in a four part series examining unconventional oil deposits in the Middle East and North Africa. The series was originally published at http://mediacoop.ca

Israel Jordan Shale Oil Map

Apartheid Oil

stephlaw — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 12:58:40 +0000

Crude oil trapped in shale could transform Israel into energy powerhouse

JERUSALEM—Major offshore gas strikes in 2009 and 2010 may soon convert Israel into a gas exporting country with self-sufficient energy. But perhaps more important than the gas under the sea is the mock crude trapped in husk dry sands and rock hard shale, reserves which could push Israel into the upper echelons of recoverable oil on the planet. Israel’s reliance on others for energy supplies has long been a weakness, both economically and militarily.

What promises to be the most energy intensive form of oil recovery on the planet could reinforce Israel's military might, while presenting a new threat to scarce water resources and the climate.

New estimates show that there are 250 billion barrels of recoverable mock (or synthetic) crude oil, possibly even more, in locations throughout Israel. By way of comparison, Canada has just under 200 barrels of oil, including recoverable tar sands while Saudi Arabia is said to have 260 barrels.

The announcement of these major oil finds comes on the heels of the discovery of the contested Leviathan offshore gas field in the Mediterranean Sea, estimated to hold between 16 and 30 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.

The Leviathan field was discovered by Texas-based Noble Energy Inc. in June 2010. The discovery is disputed by Lebanon, which brought a complaint to the United Nations alleging Israeli slant drilling off the Lebanese coast following the 2006 aerial war. Further complicating matters is the other major natural gas play in the region, which lies beneath the recognized maritime territory of the Gaza Strip.

“Israel [will] never buy gas from Palestine,” declared Ariel Sharon in 2001, after the Palestinian Authority signed 25-year development leases with European energy companies. Palestinian control over their own gas was challenged in a 2003 Israel Supreme Court case that has yet to be resolved.

British Gas Group was close to striking a development deal on the Gaza deposit, and was planning to pipe gas through to Egypt when, in 2006, UK Prime Minister Tony Blair allegedly intervened to prevent sending the gas south, in the interest of Israel. In the following year, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert issued a proposal to buy the $4 billion worth of gas found in the Gaza deposit, with $1 billion in profits going to the Palestinian Authority (PA). The Israeli cabinet approved the proposal, and bypassed the newly-elected Hamas government in Gaza altogether.

The proposal eventually fell through because various military and security advisers warned a gas deal with the PA would pose a security risk to Israel. Soon after, British Gas Group closed their office in Israel and announced on their website that they were “...evaluating options for commercialising the gas.” Perhaps on the advice of retired high-ranking Israeli Defence Forces officials, British Gas Group ceded their field license, so as to no longer involve the Palestinian Authority.

Israeli interest in the Gaza deposit didn’t end then. In November 2008, the Israel Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of National Infrastructures instructed the Israel Electric Corporation to enter into negotiations with British Gas with hopes of purchasing natural gas from British Gas’s offshore concession in Gaza, according to a press release by Boycott Israel UK.

These instructions came approximately one month before Operation Cast Lead, or the Gaza War, and might have played a role in stalling an official Israeli attack on Gaza.

"It is possible that the prospect of a major natural gas transaction with the Palestinians has been a factor in the Israeli cabinet's refusal to launch a Defensive Shield II operation in Gaza,” wrote retired Israeli Lieutenant General Moshe Yaalon, only months before the Operation Cast Lead bombing of the Gaza Strip.

Together with the Leviathan deposits, the natural gas fields off of Gaza's shores represent reserves that could easily meet Israel's internal electrical energy needs and turn the Zionist state from net importer to an exporter of energy. But the importance of the gas deposits may pale in comparison to the more recent development of technology for recovering tar sands and shale oil. In fact, given the massive energy inputs required to extract oil from shale, the Leviathan and Gazan gas fields may become an integral part of supplying the energy for this massive heavy oil project.

Israel's massive oil shale deposits vary in form from petrified kerogen rock to bituminous formations that have the texture and appearance of the tar sands common to places like Alberta, Canada.

Israel Energy Initiatives (IEI) announced in March 2011 a project to transform shale into oil. The project will use a combination of technologies already in use in Canada's tar sands and newer conceptual technology developed in Colorado's vast oil shale deposits. If it proceeds, the shale oil extraction in Israel project could permanently alter the political and atmospheric climate of the Middle East.

IEI is a subsidiary of the much larger Israeli Data Technologies (IDT), a corporation that already dominates Israel's economic landscape and is led by IDT Chairman Howard Jonas. Along for the ride on this venture are media mogul Rupert Murdoch and former US vice-president Dick Cheney, along with many other notables.

Approximately 15 per cent of the landmass of UN-defined Israel overlays oil shale deposits. In fact, Israel has already exported their know-how to the Alberta tar sands: Ormat, an Israeli firm, has set up shop with patented energy technology in Alberta under the name Opti. Opti teamed up with Nexen in Canada to launch an in-house technique of burning the waste gunk produced through extraction in order to provide energy for the extraction operation itself. At the end of July 2011, Opti (and their interests in Alberta's tar sands) was sold to China National Offshore Oil Corp.

Not unlike the seismic shift that kicked the long dormant Alberta tar sands into high gear following the war on Iraq and cumulative rise in oil prices that coincided with the Katrina disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, the latest announcements out of Israel are staggering.

The oil shale proposal that is closest to approval is a short drive southwest of Jerusalem, a pastoral area of Kibbutzes and small villages that historians believe was the backdrop for the biblical battle between David and Goliath. The area doesn't feel anything like the oil boomtown of Fort McMurray, Alberta, or even anything close to much of the Middle East, but more like parts of western Canada's Okanogan Valley.

In the sunny backyard of a house in a gated community, Lia Tarachansky of the Real News Network interviewed Chagit Tishler about the proposed oil shale project while myself and a Palestinian man from a Jerusalem neighbourhood listened and drank tea.

“It's the biggest license even given to a private company in Israel,” said Tishler, who works with the organization Save Adullam, which is made up of local residents who oppose the IEI pilot project. The license was granted under the Oil Law, said Tishler, which is essentially a free entry law dating from 1952, which prioritizes oil and gas exploration over farms, parks or historical sites.

“The area could be ruined completely. This area is the last area in the centre of Israel that remains an open area and a green area, and has a lot of archaeological sites that are important not only to Israelis but to the rest of the world,” she said, before listing historical sites in the vicinity. Known as the Elah Valley, the area was re-settled only a couple of years after the Nakba in 1948 by primarily North African Mizrahi Jews. To this day, they and others use the valley for food crops and Israeli wine.

IEI's planned operations in the Elah Valley include digging five kilometres of trenches through farms and vineyards to expose the shale rock, which would then be heated until the kerogen and other organic materials held inside it are bled out of the rock, producing a basic crude substance. Much like tar sands bitumen, this substance will still need to go through an upgrading process before refining.

If carried out as planned, IEI’s project would constitute one of the least energy efficient forms of oil production ever devised. Three to five gigawatts of electricity would be used to produce a single barrel of shale-based oil, according to Save Adullam. Heating the shale, which takes place for months at a time, could release at least 15 million tons of CO2 into the atmosphere. No other extraction process in conventional oil or even tar sands involves a heating process this extensive, nor is any as carbon intensive. This carbon release takes place even before refining, let alone consumption.

Regardless, for Israel, these reserves represent a local supply that cannot be blockaded. IEI states that the petroleum from this shale produces a light synthetic crude nearly perfect for converting to jet fuel.

Thus far, groups like Save Adullam who wish to stop this project have failed to make alliances with other communities living with the threat of oil shale extraction. The focus of Save Adullam is to demand a repeal of the 1952 oil law. Their allies are inside the Knesset and others within the Israeli state, including the Jewish National Fund (JNF).

Though the first lands slated for large scale development projects have religious and biblical resonance, there are also mining projects that will spread across the traditional territory of Bedouin Palestinians in various parts of the Negev Desert. The majority of the surface oil shale, which is similar in composition to the Albertan tar sands, sits in the northern part of the desert. In addition, mining for oil shale, which is burned for electricity, has already taken place in the deep south of the desert, close to Eliat.

The Mishor Rotem Basin is on the west bank of the Dead Sea, and an oil shale deposit straddles both sides of the border between the state of Israel and the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. In 2006 the JNF concluded that Israel was using 25 per cent more water than was sustainable (this includes the almost 90 per cent of the water diverted from Palestinians in the West Bank).

In Zionist settlements and recognized Bedouin villages in the Negev, cancer rates are already considerably higher than in the rest of the Jewish state. Pollution from oil shale developments in any form would undoubtedly contribute to increasing overall contamination. In addition, the bulk of the Negev desert is also a training ground and “free fire zone” for the air force and military—already a massive environmentally destructive force at play.

Israel's laws make it nearly impossible for non-Jewish citizens of Israel to exact equal rights in almost any field, even within Israel. Bedouins are seeing these problems deepen—primarily upon the orders of the JNF, and carried out by riot squads and the IDF—with JNF-led “making the desert bloom” projects, attacking and bulldozing entire villages (some over 25 times in the last year) to facilitate “forest planting”; and forced re-settlement into government planned townships.

Bedouin communities traditionally linked with the land who wish to stop the intrusion of oil shale and its toxic consequences will likely need to think beyond strategies that simply try to undo laws written by the Zionist state, and they aren't likely to find allies in the JNF.

And in yet another parallel to Canada, the vast offshore gas deposits claimed by Israel—mainly but not exclusively the Leviathan field—could serve the same vital role for energy input of oil shale developments that natural gas plays in the Athabasca tar sands. Israel already has a water crisis, but it looks like it might see fit to exacerbate that problem in the push for energy independence.

This article is the first in a four part series examining unconventional oil deposits in the Middle East and North Africa. The series was originally published at http://mediacoop.ca

Israel Jordan Shale Oil Map

The Changing Face of Oil Extraction

stephlaw — Wed, 23 Nov 2011 18:39:35 +0000

Shale oil and gas plays in Israel/Palestine, Jordan and Morocco

You may have heard of "Dirty Oil", "Ethical Oil", "Bloody Oil" or even "Conflict Oil"-- but have you heard of "Apartheid Oil"? This is the topic that Edmonton-based writer and activist Macdonald Stainsby has been exploring ever since he visited the Middle East and Northern Africa earlier this year.

In a four-part series to be released over the next month, Stainsby examines key shifts in technology and politics that could change the face of oil extraction in Israel/Palestine, Jordan and Morocco. As an introduction to the series, The Media Co-op had a chance to talk with Stainsby about what he learned on his visit and through the writing process.

Media Co-op: How important are the new shale oil and gas plays in the Middle East?

Macdonald Stainsby: The question is fairly technological, as well as geopolitical. If the Israeli plans go ahead for example, it could mean a dramatic shift towards Israeli power and away from the traditional sources of oil in the region. It would take many years for Israel to be able to produce at a level that could undermine other countries, but the impact of proving the ability would be immediate. In the case of Jordan, the question will be the destruction of local water first and foremost, as well as tightening the previous "peace accords" with Israel without repatriating a single refugee. In North Africa, Morocco has the potential to become one of the most polluted countries in the region where environmental standards are already alarmingly low. In each of these cases, it is hardwiring forms of oil production possibly even more destructive than Canadian based tar sands production.

Media Co-op: What surprised you about your time in the Middle East and North Africa?

MS: In all three cases, the biggest surprise was the level of media awareness [about tar sands and shale oil] in the business pages — which was quite high — and how little concern it seemed to generate among the population that one would hope should oppose such projects. In Israel in particular, the main opponents are pro-Zionist groups that openly collaborate with sectors of the government involved in ethnic cleansing inside the 1948 borders internationally recognized as Israel.

Media Co-op: Are people aware of what is going to happen because of these projects?

MS: Not really, though, community groups near the proposed site in Israel are taking an oppositional, "not in my backyard" approach. Considering the condition of water in Morocco and, even more so, Jordan, education about the potential dangers to the little water available is paramount.

Media Co-op: How could these new oil and gas plays factor into the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions [BDS] campaign against Israeli Apartheid and other organizing in Canada?

MS: If BDS is to work, it has to be able to make the Israeli state economically scream, to borrow a phrase. The ability to sanction a state with a massive oil and gas sector is slim to nil. BDS is already having strong effects, but pollution aside, the energy security provided to the state by such a play would be monumental and could be the single greatest enabler of Israeli intransigence for years to come, all the more reason — along with those other pesky issues like climate change, peak oil and water in desert regions — such projects must be halted.

Media Co-op: Can you talk about the interconnections between the heavy oil discoveries and the longer term state response to the uprisings in the spring?

MS: It also appears the US is openly planning to use GCC [Gulf Cooperation Council] countries — all of them currently major oil producers — as a local attack dog in the region for US interests. We saw this with Saudi and Qatari troops invading Bahrain, as well as Qatar openly engaging the adventure in Libya. With Morocco and Jordan invited into the GCC, likely also now to be oil producers — this locks them into that alliance, which ultimately also serves American and Israeli interests. This could end up having these tar sands and oil shale projects playing major role in global capitals efforts to steer the Arab Spring in the direction they want, again as we have recently seen in Libya.

Stay tuned: over the next month, the Dominion will publish four articles exploring the theme of Apartheid Oil. This series originally ran on the Media Co-op in November 2011.

Shale Oil Basins in Israel and Jordan

Showdown in Peru

dawn — Mon, 12 Sep 2011 08:55:19 +0000

Indigenous communities kick out Canadian mining company

BURLINGTON, VT—Earlier this spring, an anti-mining Indigenous movement in Peru successfully ousted a Canadian mining company from their territory.

“In spite of government repression, if the people decide to bring the fight to the bitter end, it is possible to resist the pressure of mining and oil companies,” Peruvian activist and journalist Yasser Gomez told The Dominion.

The David-and-Goliath scenario of this anti-mining uprising highlights the vast economic inequality that has beset Peru. The country’s economy has been booming for the past decade, with a seven per cent growth expected this year—one of the highest growth rates internationally. Sixty-five per cent of the country’s export income comes from the mining industry, and investors are expected to spend over $40 billion in the next 10 years on mining operations.

Yet this growth has not benefitted a large percentage of the population. The poverty rate in Peru is just over 31 per cent; in the countryside, two in three people live under the poverty line. Today, more than 200 communities across Peru are organized against mining.

On June 5, left-leaning presidential candidate Ollanta Humala defeated right-winger Keiko Fujimori, the daughter of ex-president and human rights violator Alberto Fujimori. Humala, who won resounding support in the poor countryside, promised to redistribute wealth by increasing taxes on the lucrative mining industry.

But another political force, from the grassroots, may end up being a powerful force of change under Humala.

In May and June of this year, hundreds of local residents in Puno organized road blockades, strikes and protests to demand the government rescind a concession to the Vancouver-based Bear Creek Mining Corporation. Activists also called for an end to future mining concessions in their area, due to the industry’s impact on the environment.

According to Bear Creek, at the time of the protests the company had already invested some $25 million in the mine. Company Director Andrew Swarthout said the mining would not impact Lake Titicaca (a massive freshwater lake shared by Bolivia and Peru) and would create approximately 1,000 jobs. But local residents were not convinced.

Walter Aduviri is the president of the Front for the Defense of Natural Resources in Southern Puno, and a leading organizer in protests against Bear Creek and mining in general in the area.

“It is as though we, the Aymaras, do not have any politicians or representatives in the congress,” Aduviri told a reporter from the Peruvian newspaper La Republica. He critiqued outgoing president Alan Garcia, who he says governed only for those who have money. "We do not ask for money, we ask for respect for our rights, our property and territory,” said Aduviri.

“The president [Alan Garcia] has sold off our territory without consulting us,” Paolo Castro, a farmer who joined the protests against Bear Creek told Al Jazeera. Farmer Alejandro Tucuuhami agreed, telling the news outlet, "We know that in European countries, for example, mining contaminates a lot, so that's why they want to send the mines to underdeveloped countries."

Indigenous campesinos on the Bolivian side of the border began road blockades in solidarity with the Peruvian activists. Overall, the blockades put a standstill to inter-country traffic, stopping hundreds of trucks, local passengers and tourists.

On June 24, following seven weeks of strikes, protests, road blockades and bloody police repression of activists, then-President Garcia broke with Peruvian political tradition and heeded the demands of the protesters by cancelling the Bear Creek contract, and putting a three-year hold on future mining deals for the region. In addition, recently inaugurated Ollanta Humala has pledged to move forward on legislation that will make community input necessary before mining operations anywhere in the country can proceed.

Just hours after Garcia overturned Bear Creek's concession, a conflict erupted at the airport in Juliaca, north of Puno. There, activists protesting other mining operations and a hydroelectric plant occupied the airport only to be attacked by police who shot and killed five of them. Major English media outlets inaccurately reported that Garcia’s decision against Bear Creek was linked to the massacre at the airport, when in fact the airport protest was linked to separate proposed mining and hydroelectric projects.

Jennifer Moore, the Latin America Program Coordinator of MiningWatch Canada, told The Dominion that Garcia’s decision to annul the concession “is an important indicator of the strength of local organizing that we have been seeing for a while in Peru.” Moore said Garcia has been “extraordinarily bent on handing out mining concessions without consulting with local communities first.”

In response to Garcia’s decision, Bear Creek has applied for a constitutional injunction against the Peruvian government. Swarthout contends that the cancellation of the concession is unconstitutional and in violation of foreign investment laws. Moore noted that it is plausible that Bear Creek could use the Canada-Peru Free Trade Agreement, signed in 2009, to challenge the loss of their concession.

The wave of strikes and conflicts that have swept across Peru in recent months, along with the election of Humala, are likely to have a long-standing impact on the regulation and taxation of the multinational extractive industry in Peru. On August 23, at the time of this writing, the Peruvian congress signed into law a bill that requires mining and oil companies to consult with Indigenous communities before constructing extractive projects. Humala now has to sign the bill into law for it go into effect.

The people’s victory in Puno against Bear Creek may set the stage for a new struggle in the country that will test the political will of Humala, and challenge social movements to pressure from below.

Ben Dangl is the editor of UpsideDownWorld.org, a website on activism and politics in Latin America. He is the author of the book, Dancing with Dynamite: Social Movements and States in Latin America.

Peru protests

REDD Light!

Moira Peters — Mon, 30 May 2011 05:37:55 +0000

Indigenous say offset plan threatens traditional title

SAN CRISTOBAL DE LAS CASAS, MEXICO—The carbon market was the hottest issue at last year’s Conference of the Parties (COP)-16 summit in Cancun. Inside the meeting, delegates approved the Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation and Conservation program (REDD+). However, outside the official meeting, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and Indigenous-led organizations clashed over its merits.

Opponents of REDD+ (or simply “REDD”), say the mechanism is a false solution to the climate crisis which will intensify a pattern of land grabs by the private sector throughout the Third World. The final Cancun text on REDD does little to address these concerns, as it does not contain wording that would prevent conservation projects from encroaching on the rights and title of Indigenous peoples living in forest-rich lands.

Deforestation is responsible for at least 18 per cent of global carbon emissions—more than aviation and global transport combined—according to a report by carbon management company Carbon Planet. REDD is a mechanism by which forests in developing countries are “sustainably managed” or designated as carbon sinks in order to mitigate climate change. Though REDD primarily emerged from the COP-13 in Bali in 2007, the idea germinated during Kyoto Protocol negotiations in 1997.

In Cancun, a clear anti-REDD message unified many Mexican Indigenous, environmental and peasant groups, but NGOs such as Greenpeace International, the World Wildlife Federation, the Environmental Defense Fund, and Conservation International promoted the REDD agreement.

No REDD projects have yet been implemented in Chiapas, which, as a state with heavy forest cover, is a target region for the program. According to Gustavo Castro Soto, an organizer with Otros Mundos (“Other Worlds,” a social and environmental justice organization) in San Cristobal de las Casas, Chiapas, the mechanisms for measuring the effectiveness and impact of REDD programs have yet to be designed.

Already, precursors to the implementation of REDD have people like Castro worried. Barring people’s access to forests on ejidos (communally-held lands) is the first necessary step in putting these forested areas on the carbon market.

“This is how the government will ensure that there is a forest in each ejido, and this will obviously be sold as an Environmental Service [a UN-defined category of the carbon market], for which the government will receive a quantity of money, of which the community will receive a fraction,” said Castro.

“This is what they call sustainable community forest management,” he said dryly.

Decisions about how exactly to finance REDD have been postponed to COP-17 in Durban.

“If REDD is going to be financed through the carbon market, it won’t be a real solution to climate change,” Mariana Porras of Friends of the Earth Costa Rica told The Dominion in a phone interview from San Jose. “We’ve denounced this, but government groups don’t see it the same way,” she said.

Market-based financing for REDD will likely complement the ongoing privatization of forest reserves, which moves ownership and access rights of forests currently owned communally by Indigenous or peasant communities into the hands of individuals.

In Costa Rica, as in Mexico, the government is in the early phases of implementing REDD, which means engaging in public consultations. “If you see who gets invited to the meetings about REDD—to the consultations—it’s rare that you’ll see a peasant community, or peasant organizations,” said Porras. “Mostly, you’ll see people who own private lands, or people from private organizations.”

In Cancun, the Indigenous Environmental Network stood in opposition to the discourse of many other NGOs. In a final statement from Cancun, they berated COP-16 as the “World Trade Organization of the sky,” and harshly criticized the REDD plan. “The agreements implicitly promote carbon markets, offsets, unproven technologies and land grabs—anything but a commitment to real emissions reductions,” reads their final release.

In the streets of Cancun, Greenpeace International brought delegates from around the world to show support for popular movements, but the organization’s language fell short of grassroots solidarity. Days before the final agreement was reached, Executive Director Kumi Naidoo released a statement saying that “a good REDD deal would benefit biodiversity, people and the climate.”

Greenpeace was steadfast in its support for the outcome of the climate negotiations in Mexico, and after COP-16 wound down, Naidoo posed for a photo with Mexican President Felipe Calderon, and praised the president’s leadership in reaching a global climate agreement.

Resistance to the REDD program did not end with COP-16. Activists say that the COP-17 meeting in Durban at the end of the year will be decisive as to the future of REDD, and the carbon market is sure to be a key issue in the months preceding the conference.

Dawn Paley is a journalist based in Vancouver.

Cop 16 Picture 3

Ngobe Protest Prevails

Tim McSorley — Wed, 04 May 2011 12:58:21 +0000

Indigenous Panamanians rise up against Canadian mining interests

PANAMA CITY—Massive Indigenous mobilization in Panama recently brought down a contentious law that made it easier for multinational mining corporations to gain entry into the Central American country. Law 8, a revision of Panama's 1963 mining code, enabled foreign, state-owned companies to directly invest in large-scale mining projects.

While seen as a tentative victory for the Indigenous Ngobe people, who strongly opposed the law, international corporations continue to scramble to win concessions to Panama’s mineral wealth. Canadian companies are at the forefront of international mining interests in the country.

The new laws granted foreign, state-owned companies the right to acquire concessions to vast tracts of land in Panama, a change many deemed a threat to national sovereignty. “It is a very good time in Panama for international mining corporations, as foreign governments will be permitted to buy national territory. This is impossible and prohibited in Panama’s constitution,” commented Julio Yao, a professor of international relations at the University of Panama.

Panama contains several major copper and gold deposits. The two largest copper deposits are Cerro Colorado and Cobre Panama. Canada’s Inmet Mining Corporation, a publicly-traded company listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange, owns 100 per cent of the Cobre Panama concession, located in north-central Panama. The proposed open-pit mine site neighbours several Indigenous Ngobe and campesino (peasant) communities. The Cobre Panama project is expected to begin operations in the near future, pending approval of its Environmental and Social Impact Assessment.

Covering approximately 630 square kilometres, Cerro Colorado is the world’s fifth largest untapped copper reserve. The deposit lies in the heart of Ngobe territory in the rugged mountains of Panama’s interior.

There has been much speculation that Inmet’s need for financing for its Cobre Panama project underlies the introduction of Law 8. The stipulations of Law 8 would allow Inmet to obtain the massive start-up capital necessary to begin operations in Cobre Panama through previously illegal investment from foreign, state-owned companies. Prior to Law 8’s approval, state-owned LS-Nikko Copper Inc. of South Korea and Temasek Holdings Ltd. of Singapore expressed interest in backing the Cobre Panama project.

“Singapore corporations are putting pressure on [Panamanian President Ricardo] Martinelli, threatening that they won’t invest in Cobre Panama, worth millions of dollars, if Law 8 is not put in place,” commented Yao.

Due to the cancellation of the mining code revisions, neither LS-Nikko Copper Inc., nor Temasek Holdings Ltd. will be permitted to directly invest in the Cobre Panama project. Inmet must now seek alternative funding.

Indigenous and campesino communities surrounding Inmet’s project are divided on whether they support the copper mine. While some community members feel mining development would create jobs and increase community welfare, a strong resistance movement emerged as Law 8 was debated in the Legislative Assembly of Panama. Roadblocks were established and marches held on the road leading to the Cobre Panama project site.

The Cobre Panama project lies adjacent to the Molejon Gold mine owned by Petaquilla, a Panamanian corporation. This is the only mine currently in production in the country and is reputed for its poor environmental track record; community members have suffered from contaminated water. They have also endured harassment from company employees and fear similar fall-out from the Inmet project.

Due to the rejection of Bill C-300 (The Corporate Accountability of Mining, Oil and Gas Corporations in Developing Countries Act) by the Canadian parliament in October 2010, Canadian companies operating in Panama, such as Inmet, are not obligated to meet Canadian standards of operation. Given the history of Canadian mining injustices across Latin America, and the poor precedent set for mining regulation in Panama, it comes as no surprise that communities fear Inmet’s project will have a negative impact on their livelihoods.

Although Law 8 was most directly related to the development of the Cobre Panama project, the focal point of resistance lay in the Ngobe–Bugle territory surrounding the Cerro Colorado copper deposit. Ngobe leaders feared that opening Panama’s mining concessions to foreign enterprises would accelerate development of the Cerro Colorado project, violating their territorial rights.

"These mega-projects put at risk our territory and our natural resources. This has not been co-ordinated with the leaders of the Comarca [Ngobe territory] or with traditional authorities. They are violating our Comarca legislation," explained Celestino Mariano, traditional authority of the Nedrini region in the Ngobe Comarca.

The Ngobe are the largest Indigenous group in Panama. They have been fighting to protect their traditional territories from mining since prospecting began in the region in the early 1970s. Today, rising copper prices have renewed interest in the development of the area, including from Canada's Corriente Resources. According to Ngobe leaders, Corriente has been present in the community promoting sustainable mining opportunities through community capacity-building programs.

Law 8 pushed the Ngobe to new levels of opposition. Before the law came into legal effect, it passed through three rounds of debate in the legislative assembly in early February. As the first debate session began, over 500 Ngobe mobilized and took to the streets of San Felix, a small town located just outside the Ngobe territory. As word spread across the Ngobe territory, protests swelled to 3,000.

The Ngobe’s peaceful demonstrations were met by tear gas and police violence, leaving several with minor injuries. “We are a peaceful population,” said Eleto Martin, resident of the Ngobe community of Guabo. “So it was surprising that when 3,000 Ngobe demonstrated their rejection of Law 8, that instead of sending a commission to enter into dialogue with us, the government sent riot police.”

Despite opposition from the Ngobe and other civil society groups, Law 8 was passed on February 11, 2011. Immediately thereafter, waves of demonstrations spread across Panama. Protests in San Felix, a community of roughly 1,200 residents, grew to 10,000 people. Many protestors travelled several days by foot from the interior of the Ngobe Comarca to attend the marches.

Still unsatisfied with the government’s lack of response, the Ngobe intensified their efforts by establishing a four-day roadblock of the Transamerican highway. This effectively blocked the flow of people and goods through Panama.

Government and pro-mining groups attempted to delegitimize Ngobe protests by accusing outsiders of inciting Indigenous resistance. Daniel Esquivel of CAMIPA, a pro-mining lobby group whose member companies include Inmet’s Panamanian subsidiary, explained the uprisings this way: “Environmentalists and other outsiders opposed to mining transmitted these [anti-mining] ideas to Indigenous peoples and incited the Ngobe to rise in protest against Law 8.”

It was on these grounds that Francisco Gomez Nadal, a Spanish journalist freelancing for one of Panama’s national newspapers, was detained by police and deported from the country. The government blamed Nadal of encouraging Indigenous violence at an anti-mining protest held in Panama City on February 26.

The March 3 cancellation of Law 8 by President Martinelli came as a surprise to pro- and anti-mining groups alike. South Korea's government had already committed to help finance Inmet’s Cobre Panama project; Law 8’s repeal prevents such investments from proceeding.

Following Martinelli’s announcement of the repeal, Inmet stock price plummeted. Inmet immediately issued a press release attempting to appease investor concerns. The company claimed the project’s feasibility was not linked to Law 8 and that it would proceed with alternative funding. Industry representatives are certain that this project will become a reality, especially in light of recent core samples revealing higher-than-anticipated copper levels within the Cobre Panama concession.

With Inmet's Cobre Panama project looming on the horizon, the political atmosphere surrounding mining in Panama remains tense. The Ngobe realize that Cerro Colorado is still being eyed by the government for development. Mining in Panama remains an investment priority for Canadian companies. A Panama–Canada Free Trade Agreement was signed in 2009, promoting Canadian involvement in Panamanian industry. The mining industry is one of the major attractions for Canada’s participation in the Free Trade Agreement (FTA).

In hearings of the Standing Committee on International Trade last November, Don Clarke, manager of a consulting group working to promote what Clarke calls “sustainable mining” in Cerro Colorado, stated that, “Canadian industry, in our experience, is generally well received by people in Panama, and particularly in the Ngobe–Bugle Comarca, and we believe this is the biggest case that supports the FTA. In the case of mining, this industry needs to be founded, established, and legitimized in Panama.”

Despite Clarke’s assertions, the Ngobe have strongly demonstrated their opposition to mining development. The cancellation of Law 8 has been adopted as a platform from which they have called for a moratorium on all mining and hydroelectric projects in their territory.

Celestino Mariano confirms this position: “We [the Ngobe] know that consequences of mining are terrible, and we are working within our community to together stop mining projects in our Comarca.”

Dana Holtby and Rosie Simms are Montreal-based students and environmental organizers with a focus on water justice and Indigenous rights. They are currently travelling throughout Panama on a four-month field study semester.

Ngobe vs Canadian mining

Jewish National Fund Challenged for Complicity in Ethnic Cleansing

Tim McSorley — Wed, 06 Apr 2011 11:32:37 +0000

Canadian, Israeli activists push to remove organization's charitable status

JERUSALEM—Israeli, Palestinian and international protestors gathered in Tel Aviv and Ramallah in late February to denounce ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity. But instead of levelling their criticisms at the Israeli state, the chants and banners were aimed at an unexpected target: Canada.

Among other issues, protesters were targetting Canada for its role in building Canada Park, an Israeli park built over the ruins of three Palestinian villages with donations made to the Jewish National Fund of Canada (JNF-Canada). JNF-Canada's role is being challenged both at home and in Israel, while a targetted campaign against the JNF overall is underway.

“Canada Park was planted and funded with the support of the Jewish National Fund of Canada over the lands and over the ruins of three ethnically cleansed villages: Imwas, Yalu and Beit Nuba, occupied and ethnically cleansed in the course and the wake of the 1967 [Six Days] war,” explained Israeli activist Uri Davis, member of the Committee for Defending the Latrun Villages, in Tel Aviv.

Institutionalized Racism: The history of the JNF

The Jewish National Fund was created in 1901 before the founding of the State of Israel. Early Zionist leaders used the organization to secure property and land rights for exclusive Jewish use in British-mandate Palestine.

“The JNF was the principal Zionist tool for the colonization of Palestine. It served as the agency the Zionist movement used to buy Palestinian land upon which it then settled Jewish immigrants,” wrote Israeli historian Ilan Pappe in his 2006 book The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine.

According to Pappe, in the early 1940s the head of the Jewish National Fund’s settlement department, Yossef Weitz, stated, “All we need is 400 tractors, each tractor can cultivate 3,000 dunam—cultivating not just for the purpose of procuring food but in order to prevent anyone from returning to their lands.”

Today, the JNF controls approximately 13 per cent of the land in Israel, which it continues to lease only to Jews. This land falls under the management of the Israeli Lands Administration (ILA), an Israeli governmental agency that controls 93 per cent of the land in Israel.

In addition, the JNF controls 50 per cent of the seats at the ILA Council, giving the organization substantial power to decide how virtually all ILA lands are distributed. Under Israeli law, the JNF has also been given the same status as a public authority for the purposes of confiscating land.

According to a 2006 brief submitted to the UN Commission on Human Rights by Habitat International Coalition and Adalah, The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel, “Palestinian citizens, who constitute 20 per cent of the population, are denied access to [the JNF’s] 13 per cent of "Israel Lands." This discriminatory policy contributes to the institutionalization of racially segregated towns and villages throughout the state.”

The report continues: “Due to the explicitly discriminatory nature of the ILA and JNF’s policies, Adalah and HIC call upon the Commission to initiate an investigation into Israel’s discriminatory land allocation policies and to urge the State of Israel to cease discriminatory land allocation practices using institutions such as the JNF, and to apply covenanted principles of equality, just distribution and fairness.”

“Canada Park represents a blatant violation of international law, but it also represents a blatant violation of official Canadian policy condemning any intervention of settlement or occupation or change of demographic composition or any other alteration in the 1967 occupied territories,” he added.

JNF-Canada operates as a charity and collects approximately $10 million annually in tax-deductible donations. Canadian citizens have donated about $15 million to the JNF, which has gone to fund Canada Park and similar projects.

Located in the Latrun enclave, just off the major highway between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, Canada Park is a popular weekend picnic and hiking spot for Israeli families. What most road signs or tourist brochures won’t tell you, however, is that Canada Park extends several kilometres into the West Bank, far beyond the Green Line, the internationally recognized armistice line separating Israeli and Palestinian territory.

Today, the majority of Imwas, Yalu and Beit Nuba’s original Palestinian inhabitants are refugees living in Jordan or in and around the West Bank city of Ramallah. Since they are barred from entering Israel, these Palestinian residents are unable to access Canada Park, or visit the ruins of their ancestral villages.

According to the JNF-Canada website, “The history of the Jewish National Fund of Canada and the State of Israel are inseparable. Jewish National Fund of Canada land reclamation projects have created the infrastructure for countless residential areas and other communities across Israel.”

Operating as a branch of JNF-Israel, the JNF-Canada website vaguely states that the funds raised by JNF-Canada “are primarily directed to the payment of wages to workers engaged in various aspects of Jewish National Fund activities.”

Today, the JNF operates 11 regional offices across Canada, from Vancouver to Halifax.

Scott Weinstein is a Steering Committee member of Independent Jewish Voices Canada (IJV), which according to its website is “an organization that promotes a just resolution to the dispute in Israel and Palestine through the application of international law and respect for the human rights of all parties.”

Weinstein told The Dominion that IJV is working on a campaign to raise awareness in Canada about the Jewish National Fund and its activities, including how it built Canada Park over Palestinian communities. The long-term goal, he said, will be to de-list the JNF as a Canadian charity.

“The JNF's legal mission and strategy is explicit—Land [sic] for Jews only. Technically, the land is collectively titled to the JNF. Palestinians are denied the right to their land—forever—be it in Israel or even the occupied territories,” Weinstein wrote in an email to The Dominion.

“Since Israel was founded, no new Palestinian villages, forests or territory in Israel have been allowed, but hundreds of Jewish villages, cities, parks and forests are constructed. Thanks to Canadian JNF tax support, Palestinian territory shrinks as Jewish territory expands. Palestinian olive trees are destroyed so Jews can plant non-native pine trees, or orange trees,” he explained. “The propaganda cover-up of a very unethical mission is frankly upsetting, and shocking to many who learn the reality.”

A few hundred metres from the Palestinian Bedouin village of al-Araqib sit a half-dozen bulldozers. Surrounded by razor wire and heavily guarded by Israeli police officers and soldiers, a sign hangs on a shed inside the permanent bulldozer encampment: “Works being carried out by Keren Kayemeth Leisrael –Jewish National Fund.”

“There was police in al-Araqib and also the [JNF] bulldozers. They plowed some parts of the land. We tried to resist them, but we were arrested and handcuffed,” explained 17-year-old al-Araqib resident Adam Salim Abu Mdeghem.

Located inside Israel proper in the Israeli Negev desert about an hour south of Tel Aviv, al-Araqib has been demolished a total of 19 times since July 2010. The village’s destruction was commissioned by the JNF’s Israeli branch.

The Jewish National Fund in Israel aims to plant a forest over the village of al-Araqib. Co-sponsored by evangelical Christian organization God-TV, this forest would involve forcibly displacing the 300 Indigenous residents of al-Araqib, who are all Israeli citizens.

Since JNF-Canada is a chapter of JNF-Israel, funds allocated to the JNF in Canada are transferred to projects sponsored by the organization in Israel, such as planting trees in the Negev or Galilee, or restoring the Old City walls in Jerusalem, among others.

It is unclear whether the specific trees JNF-Israel wants to plant over al-Araqib lands were donated or purchased thanks to donations provided by Canadians. JNF-Canada does, however, advertise a project called "Action Plan Negev.” This is “a program designed to meet the challenge of developing the Negev for the 21st century” and aims to populate the Negev region.

The destruction of al-Araqib is part of a larger JNF-Israel project called “Blueprint Negev.” Launched in 2005 at the cost of $600 million, the project aims to increase the population in the Negev area by 250,000 Jewish residents by 2013.

Whether “Action Plan Negev” and “Blueprint Negev” are directly related, or constitute two parts of the same program, however, is unspecified.

Haia Noach, the Director of the Negev Co-Existence Forum, a joint Jewish-Arab organization that, among other things, works for Bedouin land rights in the Negev, explained that as the forestation authority in Israel, the JNF developed the project to plant trees over al-Araqib.

She said that while the JNF initially denied any involvement in the destruction of al-Araqib, residents and local activists saw JNF bulldozers destroying property in the village during a demolition in early February 2011.

“We connect them directly and they are responsible for what is going on there, to the fact that people lost their houses, lost their herds, their orchards,” Noach said.

“The situation is devastating, but this is what we have,” said Abu Mdeghem, sitting on the hillside next to the small, make-shift tent where he, his parents and seven other siblings now live. “I am...very sad for what has happened to the al-Araqib area. We never expected that anything would happen to our land.”

According to Noach, the JNF’s policy doesn’t end in al-Araqib; the organization is threatening the existence of dozens of other Palestinian Bedouin villages that have existed in the area for hundreds of years.

“The JNF is willingly part of this game where they serve as a foresting authority. [You] see it all over Israel, in the North and even in the South,” Noach said.

“There will be more and more Arab villages in the Negev that are threatened by the forestation of the JNF.”

A new campaign called “Stop the JNF” was recently launched with the goal of documenting and exposing the Jewish National Fund’s complicity in Israeli ethnic cleansing, disrupting JNF fundraising activities and revoking the organization’s charitable status in countries around the world.

According to Akram Salhab, an organizer of this international campaign and Communications Officer at Badil, the Resource Center for Palestinian Residency and Refugee Rights, the campaign aims to co-ordinate between various organizations and provide the resources and information needed for a united campaign.

“One of the first aims of the campaign is to expose and document the role of the JNF. One of the problems with trying to understand the role of the JNF is that it's shrouded in an esoteric legal language, which is indicative more broadly of the way in which the Israeli apartheid regime functions,” Salhab explained.

Despite this challenge, Salhab said he is hopeful that the campaign will unite activists around the world who are working to raise awareness about the JNF’s complicity in Israeli crimes.

“Our main aim is to influence public opinion and influence individuals in places where the JNF collects the largest amount of revenue. The problem with that is that those are the places where the JNF has a [great] deal of support. So we’re trying to find places where we can set a precedent of JNF discriminatory policy,” he said.

According to IJV’s Weinstein, this campaign will focus on first educating the Canadian public about the JNF’s true nature and making connections between Indigenous land rights in Israel/Palestine and Canada.

“Imagine if we had a Canadian charity that provided homes and parks to English Canadians only, on land taken from French Canadians. It could never happen, except if we lied about what the charity does. Yet it is precisely what we have done to the Native people of Canada—and few of us are proud of that legacy. So there are Canadian examples where we can make common cause with human rights issues around Indigenous land rights,” Weinstein explained.

“Most Canadians don't realize that our taxes support the JNF mission to erase Palestinian villages and lives so Jews can live as first-class citizens,” he continued. “We don't know that we support racial discrimination in Israel that would be illegal in Canada.”

Originally from Montreal, Jillian Kestler-D'Amours is a reporter and documentary filmmaker based in Jerusalem. More of her work can be found at http://jilldamours.wordpress.com.

Canada Park 1

Canada Park 2

The Other Drug Trade

hillarybain — Fri, 25 Feb 2011 06:03:44 +0000

New bill could make cheap HIV meds easier to access

HALIFAX—On March 9, Members of Parliament will have a very simple choice to make, according to Richard Elliott, executive director of the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network. They can vote for Bill C-393, and make it easier for people in the developing world to access affordable HIV medication.

“When you could do something with the most minimal of efforts to prevent these [HIV related] deaths from happening, to not [do so] is profoundly immoral,” says Elliott.

Despite Elliott’s confidence in the importance of the Bill, its passing on March 9 in the House of Commons is far from certain.

Bill C-393 seeks to amend a piece of legislation enacted in 2005, known as Canada’s Access to Medicine Regime (CAMR). CAMR was created to help Canadian generic companies produce and export generic medicines at reasonable prices to the countries that need them most.

In 2009, almost 15 million people in low- to middle-income countries were living with HIV, and only five million of them received treatment, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).

Despite these numbers, CAMR has been used only once. Advocates for Bill C-393 argue that CAMR is too complicated and must be fixed to make it easier to export affordable medication.

Apotex, a Canadian generic drug company, successfully shipped anti-HIV drug Apo-TriAvir to Rwanda in 2008 and 2009 under CAMR. The shipments contained enough medication to treat 21,000 people living with HIV for one year.

Turns out, this feat was a one-hit wonder.

“We're not likely to repeat the process under [CAMR],” said Bruce Clark, Apotex’s Senior Vice-President, Medical and Regulatory affairs. Clark says CAMR is not easy to use. “It’s a practical reality that no second country has made a request under the regime because it’s so complicated.”

Many steps are required before a shipment of drugs can be made. It took four years for Apotex to complete the process and get their shipment authorized by the Canadian government.

Four years is a long time to wait, considering approximately two million people died from AIDS in 2009, according to the WHO.

Despite this, the pharmaceutical industry insists Apotex’s process was “extremely quick” and CAMR is working well.

“There was tremendous co-operation on the industry’s part because we support the intention of CAMR,” said Wendy Zatylny, Vice President of Government Affairs at Rx&D, the association of research-based pharmaceutical companies in Canada.

Rx&D represents the interests of 50 drug companies, including GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), Shire and Boehringer Ingelheim, which were the three patent holders for the drugs that Apotex needed to produce Apo-TriAvir.

Apotex requested voluntary licenses from the three companies in July 2007. Within a month, all three responded and granted permission to manufacture the drugs royalty-free, according to Rx&D’s records.

Many conditions were attached to the voluntary licenses.

“Two of the patentees went so far as to expressly reserve all rights with respect to their trademark rights, effectively threatening suit,” Clark said.

In the end, after fruitless negotiations, the patent holders retracted the voluntary licenses and Apotex applied for a compulsory license in September 2007 under CAMR, he added.

It took 68 days from the time Apotex asked for voluntary licenses to when the government granted the compulsory license. But the entire process took four years because of the details Apotex needed in order to start the process in the first place.

“We were turned back as the request was, in their words, 'premature' as no country had confirmed an order,” Clark said

The developing country has to put forward a request for an exact quantity of drugs to be produced and exported in order for the process to begin. It is difficult for a country to accurately estimate the amount of medicine it needs at any given time. This is particularly true for infectious diseases like HIV, where predicting how many people are infected, and will be infected in the near future, is difficult.

In addition to the barriers to getting permission for exporting generic drugs, CAMR mandates an expiry date of two years on the compulsory license.

Once Apotex had delivered medication to Rwanda, the country wanted to order more. In order to do this, however, both Rwanda and Apotex would have had to go through the entire process again.

So they didn’t.

After this one and only experience working with CAMR, its advocates started discussing how to improve it. The outcome was Bill C-393, which former NDP MP Judy Wasylycia-Leis introduced as a private member’s bill in 2009.

The bill proposes a “one-license solution.” If passed, a generic company would be able to distribute drugs anywhere in the developing world simply by getting a single license from the brand-name companies. This would eliminate the daunting task of having to negotiate a separate license for each country that makes a request.

Furthermore, the bill wants to expand the list of drugs that qualify for compulsory licenses. CAMR only allows the export of certain drugs for certain diseases. Advocates of the bill argue that this list is too restrictive.

“That’s an unnecessary and unjustifiable restriction to the [CAMR] regime,” said Elliott. “It is both unethical and bad public health policy for Canada to tell developing countries that CAMR can only be used to get certain medicines for certain public health problems.”

A parliamentary committee gutted these two provisions from the bill in November 2010. The Conservative MPs in the committee and Liberal Marc Garneau took the position that CAMR works in its current form, a stance shared by Rx&D.

The removal of these provisions from the bill did not come as a shock to Elliott.

“I think there is of course tremendous pressure from Big Pharma,” said Elliott. “They're all over Parliament Hill arguing against the bill.”

During the second vote on the bill in 2009, the liberal MPs who voted against it sat in ridings where many pharmaceutical companies reside. For example, Abbott Laboratories, AstraZeneca and GSK operate within the ridings of Liberal MPs Marc Garneau and Stephane Dion.

In January this year, NDP MP Megan Leslie re-introduced the provisions as amendments to the bill in hopes of salvaging it. These amendments will be voted on in March.

While parliament continues to fight out this battle around reforming CAMR, the developing world faces a cruel reality. There is currently a global deficit of anti-HIV drugs suitable for children and many countries don't have the manufacturing capacity to develop and produce them.

"Unless Apotex or any of the other generic companies see a potential market, they're not going to go ahead on their own to produce the pediatric formulas," said Joel Lexchin, professor at York University. "And there's no market without a reformulation of CAMR."

Apotex has already committed to making and delivering infant and children-suitable HIV drugs if parliament votes to fix CAMR.

“It’s hard to imagine why there’s so much resistance to making this bill more workable and I think we continue to say whose interest[s] we’re protecting in the way the bill currently stands,” Clark from Apotex said. “It’s clearly not those of the developing world and not those [of people] suffering from AIDS.”

Steph Law is a freelance journalist, health rights activist and an epidemiologist. @lawsteph

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Canada Gets Cuddly with Mining Companies

Moira Peters — Mon, 07 Feb 2011 10:28:38 +0000

Unconditional love for extractive industry costs taxpayers, say C-300 supporters

HALIFAX—Despite the death of Bill C-300, which would have introduced accountability for Canadian mining, oil or gas corporations operating in developing countries, watchdog groups are sounding the alarm louder than ever over what they see as a conflict of interest in the government. Not only is there a refusal to regulate these industries, they say, but government agencies are providing direct and indirect support for their practices.

“They are aiding and abetting, essentially,” said Catherine Coumans.

Coumans is the research coordinator for MiningWatch Canada. The group's raison d'etre is to be a watchdog in the extractive sector, drawing attention to human rights and environmental abuses perpetrated by Canadian companies. MiningWatch also lobbies MPs to promote sustainable mining practices and policies, such as Bill C-300, which would have disqualified any corporation implicated in unethical operations from receiving government funds.

In a report commissioned by the Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada in 2007, Canadian companies were singled out as perpetrating almost half of documented misconduct around the world, including causing community conflict, engaging in environmentally unsound practices and violating human rights. The report went unreleased until it was leaked by MiningWatch in 2010.

Bill C-300 gained broad support—from a coalition of NGOs and activists to the Globe & Mail and the Toronto Star,—yet was defeated by six votes in its final reading in the House of Commons. Despite their initial support for the bill, the Bloc Quebecois, Liberals and NDP were instrumental in its defeat, as a handful of their members missed the vote, including Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff.

Mining companies and the Conservative government vehemently opposed the bill. They argued that if regulations were imposed on the industry, companies would pack up shop and find headquarters outside Canada. They also said it jeopardizes development projects in the countries of the Global South, as well as jobs in Canada. Industry lobbyists, including former Liberal cabinet minister Don Boudria, met with MPs on the issue nearly 100 times in October 2010 alone.

These corporate interests can't be allowed to trump human rights, says Ian Thomson, Program Coordinator for Corporate Accountability with ecumenical justice group KAIROS.

“Whenever we went to Guatemala, we met with Canadian officials in the embassies and it's very obvious where their loyalties lay,” said Linda Scherzinger, a volunteer with KAIROS. The group is committed to advocating and acting on issues of climate and social justice in Canada and overseas.

The Harper government committed in 2009 to re-focus its aid to Latin America, adding five countries from the region to its list of 20 countries targeted by a $1.5 billion bilateral aid fund. The list included mineral-rich countries such as Colombia, Bolivia and Peru.

In November 2009, CIDA unexpectedly announced that KAIROS would no longer receive funding from the public agency. The sudden move raised eyebrows, especially after freelancer Kim Mackrael obtained through a freedom of information request the department memo responding to KAIROS's funding proposal, and published the story with Canadian Press. The memo read, “RECOMMENDATION—That you sign below to indicate you (not) approve a contribution of $7,098,758 over four years...” The word “not” was hand written above by an unknown person and was signed by International Co-operation Minister Bev Oda. Oda denied altering the application in front of a parliamentary committee, but has since admitted she edited the document.

In La Libertad, Peru, CIDA is spearheading a $500,000 reforestation project. Coumans says the project sounds good, but if this project is reforesting its mine site, that should be the responsibility of Barrick Gold. Coumans argues that Canadian taxpayers should not be footing the bill to fix Barrick's environmental impact, especially not under the auspices of “development.”

The La Libertad project is essentially a facade, says Emilie Lemieux, winner of the 2009 Gordon Global Fellowship, an annual award given to a progressive Canadian committed to sustainable international development. In a scathing report based on her experience in the region, she writes, “This project seems to fulfill the basic social needs the company is looking to address, as well as the Canadian embassy’s interest to work in [Corporate Social Responsibility], rather than the needs of the local population.” She goes on to say that CIDA's involvement exists simply to put a good face on Barrick's work, and that locals had no engagement in the projects.

In rhetoric and in cash, the Canadian Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade (DFAIT) also backs the Canadian extractive sector abroad. Centerra Gold, a Toronto-based company that operates the Boroo mine in Mongolia, received $270,000 in funding this September as part of a direct investment program that totals $601 million. The company's mine had lain dormant, as months earlier workers picketed the site, demanding higher wages and severance pay. The Mongolian government had also suspended the mine's license, citing, among other things, improper operating procedures.

Centerra also operates the Kumtor mine across the border in Kyrgyzstan. The operation was sharply criticized for being a dangerous work environment after one worker was crushed by a pit wall in 2002. Before that, the mine had been the site of two large chemical spills—the first in 1998 and the second in 2000—that caused four deaths and 2,500 illnesses. In 1998, the company failed to notify residents until a Russian border guard discovered the spill; in 2000 they improved their record and only waited a day to make public the news that 1.5 tonnes of explosive material had spilled near the town.

The Kumtor mine is also the recipient of $35 million from the Canadian Pension Plan investment board and $50 million in political risk insurance from Export Development Canada (EDC). Political risk insurance covers 90 per cent of a company's investment in a “developing” country against events such as government nationalization or political turmoil. The stipulations for receiving the insurance revolve around EDC's corporate social responsibility policies. According to one representative for EDC, “We're not going to support something that the Canadian government doesn't support.”

EDC's support is worth a lot. The Financial Post has estimated that the crown corporation gives the extractive industry $20 billion in subsidies and insurance, including $1.3 billion in political risk insurance.

Despite DFAIT's role in lending support to these companies, it also houses the offices that purport to keep them in check. The office of Corporate Social Responsibility Counsellor, headed by commissioner Marketa Evans, was created in 2009 to create a partnership between the Canadian extractive industry and those who reside near their projects overseas. The move has been largely panned by watchdog groups as being an ineffective half-measure that does more to serve mining companies than impacted communities. The office has an “avenue of recourse for mining, oil and gas companies who feel they've been unfairly targeted,” said Erica Bach, senior adviser in the office of Corporate Social Responsibility, who lauded the mechanism as being unique worldwide. The office's CSR strategy revolves around encouraging dialogue rather than regulating or imposing sanctions against companies who have been the subjects of complaints. To date, the office has not received any requests to review allegations against any Canadian mining companies.

Even CIDA's Indigenous Peoples Partnership Program (IPPP) is little more than a $10 million, taxpayer-funded lobby group for the mining industry, according to one source who spoke on the condition of anonymity. The agency employs Indigenous representatives such as Chief Glenn Nolan and Chief Jerry Asp.

Nolan serves as first vice president of the Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada and on the board of Noront Resources Ltd. Asp is vice president of the Canadian Aboriginal Minerals Association, and made news in 2005 after 35 elders occupied his office in protest of his involvement with the mining companies. The elders demanded that Asp step down, saying he was in a conflict of interest, having simultaneously acted as Indian Act chief and Chief Operations Officer of the Tahltan Nation Development Corporation, which is responsible for bidding on mining contracts for companies such as NovaGold, which operates one of the world's largest gold mines in Alaska with partner company Barrick Gold.

According to CIDA, IPPP exists to encourage the “sustainable development of Indigenous peoples in the [Latin American and Caribbean] region through an exchange of knowledge, experience, expertise, and existing models.” Those Indigenous people who met with Nolan and Asp were not informed of their mining connections, the source said, and were outraged when they learned of their involvement in the sector.

While Bill C-300 may be dead, an alternative bill is lying stagnant on the floor of the House of Commons. Bill C-354 would empower non-Canadian citizens who claim to be affected by Canadian mining companies to sue those companies. While opinion on the bill is mixed, those who supported C-300 are desperate for federal regulation of Canadian-owned mines.

Justin Ling is an activist and a journalist based in Halifax.

Tunnel of Love