Category: Unnecessary Developments

Goldcorp Security Shoots Peaceful Protesters in Guatemala 1st May

Police, mil­i­tary and pri­vate secu­ri­ty attack peace­ful anti-min­ing pro­test­ers at the San Rafael mine in Guatemala, Sep.

Police, mil­i­tary and pri­vate secu­ri­ty attack peace­ful anti-min­ing pro­test­ers at the San Rafael mine in Guatemala, Sep. 2008

From Rights Action:

Six civil­ians were shot and wound­ed (2 seri­ous­ly) on April 27, 2013 by Tahoe / Gold­corp secu­ri­ty forces at Tahoe’s “San Rafael” mine site (munic­i­pal­i­ty of San Rafael Las Flo­res, depart­ment of San­ta Rosa, Guatemala).  The wound­ed are: Adol­fo Gar­cía, 57; his son Luis Gar­cía, 18; Wilmer Pérez, 17; Anto­nio Hum­ber­to  Castil­lo, 48;  Noé Aguilar Castil­lo, 27; Érick Fer­nan­do Castil­lo, 27.  Local res­i­dents, who are main­tain­ing a per­ma­nent peace­ful occu­pa­tion by the mine entrance in protest against it, saw com­pa­ny armed guards open fire on the group of men who were walk­ing by.  (Pren­sa Libre, April 29, 2013, http://www.prensalibre.com/santa_rosa/personas-resultan-incidente-San-Rafael_0_909509181.html)

Read more here about Goldcorp’s (and sub­sidiary Tahoe Resources’) recent his­to­ry of vio­lence and repres­sion against indige­nous and campesino com­mu­ni­ties in Guatemala.

 

Lockdown Continues in the “Red River Showdown” 25th April

A pro­test­er with the group Great Plains Tar Sands Resis­tance has stopped con­struc­tion of the Key­stone XL pipeline by lock­ing his arm into a con­crete cap­sule buried direct­ly in the pipeline’s pro­posed path. Fitzger­ald Scott, 42, is the first African Amer­i­can to risk arrest while phys­i­cal­ly blockad­ing TransCanada’s dan­ger­ous tar sands pipeline, and the sec­ond per­son to take action this week. On Mon­day a 61 year old man locked him­self to a piece of con­struc­tion equip­ment effec­tive­ly shut­ting down anoth­er Okla­homa pipeline con­struc­tion site. This week of action, called the “Red Riv­er Show­down,” is intend­ed to pro­tect the Red Riv­er, which marks the bor­der between Okla­homa and Texas and is a major trib­u­tary of the Mis­sis­sip­pi.

The site Scott has block­ad­ed is a wet­land area where crews are attempt­ing to lay sec­tions of the Key­stone XL tar sands pipeline direct­ly into the marshy waters. An unde­tect­ed pin­hole leak at this loca­tion would cause can­cer caus­ing chem­i­cals to mix direct­ly into the local com­mu­ni­ty water table.

Scott, who has a master’s degree in urban plan­ning from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Illi­nois, Chica­go, is a long­time activist for social and envi­ron­men­tal jus­tice. While orga­niz­ing against Key­stone over the past five months, Scott has met many peo­ple strug­gling to pro­tect their homes from TransCanada’s abuse of emi­nent domain.

“I am doing this for the peo­ple who don’t have the finan­cial resources to pro­tect them­selves from a bul­ly like Tran­sCana­da,” explained Scott. “Imag­ine how much worse it is for them – like the most­ly African Amer­i­can neigh­bor­hood in Winona, TX, where pro­test­ers with the Tar Sands Block­ade found holes in welds of the pipeline sec­tion that runs right behind a children’s play­ground, and nei­ther Tran­sCana­da nor the gov­ern­ment will do any­thing about it!”

As con­struc­tion on the south­ern por­tion of Key­stone XL nears two thirds com­ple­tion, no reg­u­la­tors or politi­cians show any will­ing­ness to halt the project or even inspect those faulty welds. Accord­ing to George Daniel, spokesper­son for Great Plains Tar Sands Resis­tance, “Scott’s action sends a clear mes­sage: because every oth­er avenue has failed to stop this dead­ly project, we will block­ade – all sum­mer and on into the fall, if that’s what it takes.”

Today’s action comes just a few weeks after the dev­as­tat­ing tar sands spill in Mayflower, Arkansas, which has left com­mu­ni­ties across Okla­homa and Texas ter­ri­fied that they may be the next vic­tims of reck­less indus­try prac­tices. Sur­vivors of the spill in Mayflower have report­ed nau­sea, blurred vision, vom­it­ing, and black outs caused by the same blend of raw tar and poi­so­nous chem­i­cal sol­vents that will be trans­port­ed through Key­stone XL.

UPDATE 9:30 AM Work is still stopped on the ease­ment due to the large amount of police and emer­gency equip­ment need­ed for extrac­tion!  Show your sup­port for Fitzger­ald here!

UPDATE 9:10 AM: Fire­fight­ers have extract­ed Fitzger­ald and he’s now in police cus­tody. Please show your sup­port with a gen­er­ous dona­tion to his legal fund.

UPDATE 8:49 AM: Anoth­er fire res­cue vehi­cle on scene, offi­cer just com­mand­ed “every­one not involved in emer­gency ser­vices, back off now!” and work­ers retreat­ed slight­ly.

UPDATE 8:30 AM: Half a dozen work trucks, four police cars (3 sher­iffs and 1 state troop­er), four cops, four fire­fight­ers, 2 EMTs, one fire truck and a fire res­cue truck on scene. Spe­cial fire depart­ment equip­ment truck just arrived; large group of offi­cials crowd­ed around Fitzger­ald.

UPDATE 7:42 AM: Sher­iff on scene.

Anti-Mining Activist Daniel Pedro Mateo Kidnapped and Murdered in Guatemala 23rd April

Anti-mining community leader Daniel Pedro Mateo

Anti-min­ing com­mu­ni­ty leader Daniel Pedro Mateo

Anti-mining community leader Daniel Pedro Mateo

Anti-min­ing com­mu­ni­ty leader Daniel Pedro Mateo

In the midst of an ongo­ing geno­cide tri­al against a for­mer pres­i­dent of Guatemala, which is now being sus­pend­ed by the cur­rent pres­i­dent who is also impli­cat­ed in the war crimes, vio­lence against indige­nous envi­ron­men­tal activists con­tin­ues, with anoth­er per­son found dead last week in Hue­hue­te­nan­go.  

On April 16, 2013, the body of Qanjob’al com­mu­ni­ty activist Daniel Pedro Mateo was found mur­dered in San­ta Eulalia, Hue­hue­te­nan­go, Guatemala.   He had been kid­napped for 12 days and his body showed signs of tor­ture. Haz clic aquí para la ver­sión en español.

Daniel, a founder of the com­mu­ni­ty radio sta­tion Snuq Jolom Konob, dis­ap­peared on Sun­day, April 7th  in the vil­lage of El Quet­zal, Hue­hue­te­nan­go on his way to host a work­shop on Indige­nous rights in the com­mu­ni­ty of San­ta Cruz Bar­il­las. His fam­i­ly was con­tact­ed by kid­nap­pers and demand­ed a ran­som of Q150,000 in return for his safe­ty. Despite the efforts of his fam­i­ly and com­mu­ni­ty to gath­er mon­ey to pay the ran­som, Daniel’s body was found last night in his vil­lage of San­ta Eulalia.

Daniel Pedro Mateo was a painter, teacher, a founder of Radio Snuq Jolom Konob, and a leader in the com­mu­ni­ty resis­tance to min­ing and hydro­elec­tric activ­i­ties in Hue­hue­te­nan­go. Child­hood expe­ri­ences that exposed him to the grave inequal­i­ties and injus­tices con­fronting poor and indige­nous com­mu­ni­ties in Guatemala moti­vat­ed his life­long com­mit­ment to work for a more just and humane soci­ety.  After the armed con­flict end­ed, he joined with oth­er Qanjob’al Maya lead­ers in San­ta Eulalia to start a radio sta­tion that would give voice to their com­mu­ni­ty that formed the major­i­ty of the local pop­u­la­tion, but were nonethe­less mar­gin­al­ized and silenced. Daniel was no longer involved in the day-to-day work of the sta­tion, but main­tained close ties with many of the cur­rent vol­un­teer staff and lead­er­ship.

Many in the com­mu­ni­ty believe this vio­lent act to be a reper­cus­sion of Daniel’s envi­ron­men­tal activism. Loren­zo Fran­sis­co Mateo, Daniel’s cousin and fel­low mem­ber of Radio Snuq Jolom Konob stat­ed, “The only crime he was ever guilty of was fight­ing in defense of the envi­ron­ment.” Daniel was an out­spo­ken orga­niz­er against the Hydro San­ta Cruz dam in San­ta Cruz Bar­il­las, a dam in his town of San­ta Eulalia, and a log­ging com­pa­ny Maderas San Luis that had forced evic­tions of local Indige­nous peo­ples. He was a mem­ber Cul­tur­al Survival’s part­ner orga­ni­za­tion Asem­blea de Pueb­los de Hue­hue­te­nan­go, and a mem­ber of the polit­i­cal par­ty WINAQ, found­ed by Nobel prize win­ner Rigob­er­ta Menchu.

Daniel’s death comes in a series of recent mur­ders in Guatemala of Indige­nous activists. Just last year, anti-dam activist and com­mu­ni­ty leader, Andres Fran­sis­co Miguel, was shot and killed by secu­ri­ty guards of Hydro San­ta Cruz in Bar­il­las, where Daniel was head­ed to host a work­shop. In March, Exaltación Mar­cos Uce­lo, an Indige­nous Xin­ca leader active against Cana­di­an Tahoe Resources’ sil­ver mine in Jala­pa was found beat­en to death, after being abduct­ed along­side three oth­er Xin­ca lead­ers. Six months ago, sev­en Indige­nous pro­tes­tors were shot and killed by Guatemalan mil­i­tary in Totonicapan.These events reflect the dan­ger­ous state that Indige­nous lead­ers and envi­ron­men­tal activists find them­selves in Guatemala.

Com­mu­ni­ty orga­ni­za­tions in San­ta Eulalia are call­ing for con­tri­bu­tions to cov­er funer­al expens­es and to sup­port Daniel’s fam­i­ly in this dif­fi­cult time. He leaves behind an ail­ing wife and eight chil­dren.

Activist Locks Himself to Keystone XL Heavy Machinery Launching a “Red River Showdown” Over KXL South 23rd April

On Earth Day 2013, to mark the close of the State Department’s pub­lic com­ment peri­od for TransCanada’s pro­posed Key­stone XL North­ern Seg­ment (KXL North) pipeline’s Envi­ron­men­tal Impact State­ment (EIS), an activist with the Great Plains Tar Sands Resis­tance has locked him­self to a piece of Key­stone XL heavy machin­ery in Okla­homa, tem­porar­i­ly halt­ing work site con­struc­tion. Alec John­son, a 61-year old cli­mate jus­tice orga­niz­er from Ames, Iowa took direct action to defend the Red Riv­er in sol­i­dar­i­ty with the Mayflower, Arkansas com­mu­ni­ty, which is cur­rent­ly reel­ing from last month’s mas­sive tar sands spill. The dis­as­ter, due to a 22-foot long gash in ExxonMobil’s rup­tured Pega­sus tar sands pipeline, has result­ed in chron­ic health prob­lems for near­by res­i­dents and has left Lake Con­way dan­ger­ous pol­lut­ed.

“This is our envi­ron­men­tal impact state­ment,” stat­ed artist/activist and Great Plains Tar Sands Resis­tance spokesper­son Richard Ray Whit­man. “Tran­sCana­da claims its tech­nol­o­gy will pre­vent spills, but that same tech­nol­o­gy was used on the Pega­sus line, too. That didn’t work, now, did it? We are tak­ing a stand to pro­tect our access to clean water. KXL South is already being con­struct­ed with or with­out the North, and the destruc­tion of our water­ways in its path is not a ques­tion of if, but when. No tox­ic pipeline is worth the gam­ble and no com­mu­ni­ties in Texas or Okla­homa deserve the fate of Mayflower, Arkansas.”

While the cur­rent fate of KXL North rests upon U.S. Pres­i­den­tial approval, KXL South’s now lies in the broad-spec­trum oppo­si­tion it has gar­nered in the form of legal cas­es as well as the grass­roots civ­il dis­obe­di­ence cam­paigns by groups like Great Plain Tar Sands Resis­tance and Tar Sands Block­ade. Should KXL North be per­mit­ted to start con­struc­tion, these groups along with grass­roots indige­nous orga­ni­za­tions, sev­er­al Lako­ta Nation trib­al coun­cils, and over 60,000 oth­ers have pledged resis­tance in the form of non-vio­lent direct action to halt pipeline con­struc­tion.

Inter­na­tion­al treaties like the Treaty to Pro­tect the Sacred and strong­ly-word­ed trib­al coun­cil res­o­lu­tions like those recent­ly passed by the Oglala and Ihank­ton­wan Oyate/Yankton Sioux Gen­er­al Coun­cils pledg­ing resis­tance to KXL North “by all means nec­es­sary” indi­cate a tremen­dous uni­ty amongst Great Plains indige­nous nations. The strong reac­tions come after years of inad­e­quate con­sul­ta­tion on the part of Tran­sCana­da with regards to impacts on the Lako­ta Nation com­mu­ni­ties by its tox­ic tar sands pipeline. In rec­og­niz­ing the dire threat to their first med­i­cine, sacred water, the com­mu­ni­ties are also embrac­ing the spir­it of inter­na­tion­al sol­i­dar­i­ty with First Nation com­mu­ni­ties down­stream from tar sands min­ing sites. After years decry­ing the chem­i­cal pol­lu­tion and result­ing destruc­tion of tra­di­tion­al life ways from tar sands exploita­tion in what some affect­ed indige­nous peo­ples refer to as a “slow indus­tri­al geno­cide,” Cree and Dene Nations are expe­ri­enc­ing an upsurge in sym­pa­thy and sol­i­dar­i­ty with their plight.

“I am per­son­al­ly amazed at how resis­tance to the Key­stone XL tar sands pipeline and edu­ca­tion as to what tar sands exploita­tion looks like con­tin­ues to grow every day,” John­son wrote in a state­ment pri­or to his action. “Because it would be irre­spon­si­ble, we’re not stop­ping until the indus­try stops poi­son­ing our futures with lies, unnec­es­sary risks, and death for their prof­it. As long as the tar sands indus­try promis­es it will kill, we will block­ade.”

 

UPDATE 7:30PM – Cor­rec­tion – Friends are being held on a com­bined $9,000 bail and will be spend­ing the night in jail.

Sor­ry for the con­fu­sion, as charges and asso­ci­at­ed bail change.  Our friends are in high spir­its and would like to be bailed out togeth­er.  Hope­ful­ly tomor­row!

Dona­tions have been pour­ing in and we real­ly appre­ci­ate the sup­port!  How­ev­er, we still need some help to get our friends out of jail togeth­er…

Help GPTSR get our friends out of jail here!

 

UPDATE 5:30PM – Four activists are cur­rent­ly being held on a com­bined $14,000 bail

Alec has been charged with crim­i­nal tres­pass for shut­ting down the KXL con­struc­tion site today and is being held on a $3,000 bail.  The charges for the 3 oth­er activists also include crim­i­nal tres­pass.

UPDATE 1:00PM – Ral­ly at the Ato­ka Coun­ty Cour­t­house – Cel­e­brate Earth Day and sup­port our brave activists

Dozens are gath­er­ing after the KXL con­struc­tion site shut­down. Come join a ral­ly hap­pen­ing right now with local indige­nous lead­ers and KXL pipeline activists @200 E Court St. Ato­ka on this beau­ti­ful Earth Day.

See more pho­tos from today’s action here.

UPDATE 11:30AM – Alec has been extract­ed and arrest­ed for shut­ting down a KXL con­struc­tion site – 4 arrests on Earth Day so far

UPDATE 11:00AM – Fire Depart­ment try­ing to remove Alec from KXL machin­ery – Con­struc­tion shut down on both sides of road

UPDATE 10:30AM – Two arrests so far at site of Key­stone XL con­struc­tion shut down – Alec still locked to heavy machin­ery 

Activists with Idle No More South­ern Okla­homa ral­ly in sol­i­dar­i­ty with Alec and Mayflower res­i­dents liv­ing with the health affects of tox­ic tar sands.

UPDATE 10:00AM – LIVE VIDEO: Alec locks him­self to Key­stone XL heavy machin­ery

Watch this live footage shot by live stream­er @jak_nlauren of Alec lock­ing him­self to Key­stone XL heavy machin­ery.  10 min­utes into the video local police show up and arrest Jak for his cov­er­age of the sto­ry.


Video stream­ing by Ustream

Tsleil-Waututh First Nation Sign International Treaty to Oppose Tar Sands Development 21st April

In the lat­est step toward oppos­ing oil pipelines at every port in Cana­da, the Tsleil-Wau­tuth Nation of Bur­rard Inlet signed on to the Inter­na­tion­al Treaty to Pro­tect the Sacred yes­ter­day. The nation held a press con­fer­ence at the Sher­a­ton Wall Cen­tre where new­ly elect­ed Chief Mau­reen Thomas signed the doc­u­ment, wit­nessed by the pres­i­dent of the BC Union of Indi­an Chiefs Stew­art Phillip and nation­al chief of the Assem­bly of First Nations Shawn Atleo.

The West Coast Oil Pipeline Sum­mit fol­lowed the sign­ing.  The theme of the event was urgency, with sev­er­al lead­ers touch­ing on the need to oppose devel­op­ment at a grass­roots lev­el.

Stew­art Phillip told reporters and com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers assem­bled that the First Nations of BC are com­mit­ted to using the legal sys­tem to defend their con­sti­tu­tion­al rights, but that’s not the only strat­e­gy they’re using.

“More impor­tant­ly, we have com­mit­ted to stand­ing shoul­der to shoul­der on the land itself.”

Atleo echoed Phillip’s fatigue with the jus­tice sys­tem and spoke to the urgent nature of the strug­gle not just for Abo­rig­i­nal land rights, but also for envi­ron­men­tal pro­tec­tion for every­one.

“This is not just a North Amer­i­can moment you’re wit­ness­ing,” he said. “The tip­ping point we have reached is glob­al.” He also spoke to the inad­e­qua­cy of the legal avenues avail­able to First Nations to set­tle land claims and hold the gov­ern­ment account­able. He said he doesn’t want to see the courts clogged with cas­es.

“We don’t need to be pulled down into the weeds of whether con­sul­ta­tion has hap­pened.”

Tsleil-Wau­tuth is the first nation whose ter­ri­to­ries are direct­ly in the path of one of the pro­posed pipeline projects to sign the treaty. Phil Lane Jr., hered­i­tary chief of the Yank­ton Sioux nation from South Dako­ta, said one of the key goals of the treaty is get sig­na­tures from all of the nations whose ter­ri­to­ries are direct­ly affect­ed.

The West Coast Oil Pipeline Sum­mit brought togeth­er First Nations lead­ers from across the province as well as activists and busi­ness peo­ple from a hand­ful of dif­fer­ent alter­na­tive ener­gy sec­tors.

The event was host­ed by 2G Group of Com­pa­nies, a con­sult­ing firm whose man­date is to help devel­op equi­table rela­tion­ships between Abo­rig­i­nal and non-Abo­rig­i­nal busi­ness ven­tures.

Econ­o­mist Robyn Allan gave a keynote speech high­light­ing the Harp­er government’s extreme shifts in ener­gy pol­i­cy from the Kyoto Pro­to­col and plans to lim­it bitu­men exports to the cur­rent push to expand tar sands devel­op­ment. She crit­i­cized the mes­sage that the econ­o­my and the envi­ron­ment are on oppo­site sides of the debate.

“This is a fab­ri­cat­ed trade-off designed to put ordi­nary Cana­di­ans against ordi­nary Cana­di­ans,” she said.  

A pan­elist of five speak­ers dis­cussed dif­fer­ent facets of the tar sands debate from the eco­nom­ics of renew­able ener­gy devel­op­ment to the effects of cli­mate change around the world.

Ben West, direc­tor of the tar sands cam­paign for For­est Ethics Advo­ca­cy, dis­cussed the via­bil­i­ty of alter­na­tive ener­gy sources and the ways in which con­ven­tion­al meth­ods of development—such as the con­struc­tion of the Port Mann Bridge to relieve congestion—are often counter intu­itive.

“If we could build our way out of con­ges­tions, LA would be the best city in the world to dri­ve in,” he quipped. For the cost of the $3 bil­lion bridge, he said, Van­cou­ver could build street­car infra­struc­ture to serve the bet­ter part of the city.

“We’re talk­ing about very real tech­nol­o­gy, very real solu­tions.”

Also in atten­dance was Green Par­ty leader Eliz­a­beth May, who stood up to talk about Monday’s vote in the House of Com­mons that will deter­mine whether the Cana­da-Chi­na For­eign Invest­ment Pro­mo­tion and Pro­tec­tion Act (FIPA) will go through.

She said she was impressed by the breadth of infor­ma­tion pre­sent­ed through­out the evening par­tic­u­lar­ly fact about how Cana­da imports the con­den­sate required to trans­port bitu­men.

“I don’t think we’re hear­ing about it near­ly enough that we’re cre­at­ing depen­den­cy on Mid­dle East­ern fos­sil fuels rather than upgrade it in Alber­ta and refine it in Alber­ta,” she said, adding that she’s not see­ing the response she’d like from BC politi­cians.

“Where is Adri­an Dix on this project? It does not seem that provin­cial NDP is opposed to this project and that’s a big prob­lem.”

Protesting for Human Rights, Environmental Abuses of Mining in London 20th April

Cam­paign­ers from four over­seas coun­tries vis­it­ed Lon­don to protest alleged human rights and envi­ron­men­tal abus­es at the annu­al meet­ings of min­ing com­pa­nies Rio Tin­to and Anglo Amer­i­can which was held at The Queen Eliz­a­beth Con­fer­ence Cen­tre. Here are some pho­tos:

Cam­paign­ers from four over­seas coun­tries vis­it­ed Lon­don to protest alleged human rights and envi­ron­men­tal abus­es at the annu­al meet­ings of min­ing com­pa­nies Rio Tin­to and Anglo Amer­i­can which was held at The Queen Eliz­a­beth Con­fer­ence Cen­tre. Here are some pho­tos:

2000 March Against Taitung Miramar Resort 20th April

More than 2,000 peo­ple, includ­ing many dressed in tra­di­tion­al Abo­rig­i­nal garb, marched through the streets of Taipei yes­ter­day after­noon protest­ing the con­tro­ver­sial Mira­mar Resort Vil­lage con­struc­tion project on Taitung County’s Shanyuan Beach (杉原沙灘).

More than 2,000 peo­ple, includ­ing many dressed in tra­di­tion­al Abo­rig­i­nal garb, marched through the streets of Taipei yes­ter­day after­noon protest­ing the con­tro­ver­sial Mira­mar Resort Vil­lage con­struc­tion project on Taitung County’s Shanyuan Beach (杉原沙灘).

The parade, ini­ti­at­ed by an alliance of more than 40 civic groups and Abo­rig­i­nal tribes from across the nation, was held to protest the devel­op­ment project, which has been ruled invalid more than once by the Supreme Admin­is­tra­tive Court, but still gained approval at a local envi­ron­men­tal impact assess­ment meet­ing last year and is sched­uled to go into oper­a­tion this year.

The march was titled “Don’t say good­bye to the east­ern coast­line,” and the pro­test­ers expressed con­cern that the Mira­mar case would set an exam­ple for oth­er devel­op­ment projects along the east­ern coast­line and cause irre­versible dam­age to the envi­ron­ment.

The crowd in Taipei was joined by a group of peo­ple that had marched for 17 days from Taitung to Taipei.

At the head of the parade was an Amis bam­boo raft with a ban­ner that read “Return our domain to us,” car­ried by 20 men, to express their hope to live in har­mo­ny with nature.

The pro­test­ers said the hand-made raft rep­re­sents the idea of tak­ing “just enough” from nature instead of abus­ing and exhaust­ing nat­ur­al resources.

“Abo­rig­ines do not have a spe­cif­ic life phi­los­o­phy, but they do feel strong­ly con­nect­ed to the land,” Abo­rig­i­nal folk singer Panai said. “Please feel our affec­tion for the land. This is what res­i­dents in Taipei have lost.”

The parade marched through the streets of Taipei, singing an Abo­rig­i­nal verse sig­ni­fy­ing waves and the ocean in response to the chant­i­ng of Abo­rig­i­nal folk singer Nabu.

They shout­ed demands such as “tear down the Mira­mar, pro­tect the east­ern coast­line,” “pro­tect our home­land” and “we don’t want cement dumped on the beach.”

The pro­test­ers arrived at the Mira­mar Gar­den Taipei (美麗信花園酒店), a hotel owned by the same cor­po­ra­tion as the Mira­mar Resort Vil­lage in Taitung, and the crowd waved sil­ver grass, mim­ic­k­ing a rit­u­al aimed at expelling evil spir­its and puri­fy­ing the heart.

Reach­ing Keta­galan Boule­vard in front of the Pres­i­den­tial Office, the pro­test­ers held hands and per­formed an Amis har­vest fes­ti­val dance.

The leader of the walk­ing group, Lai Ching-lung (賴進龍), born in the Malan Tribe of Taitung, walked the whole jour­ney to Taipei bare­foot.

He said the jour­ney had been exhaust­ing, but while walk­ing through the many tribes along the way, he felt the sig­nif­i­cance of bring­ing their mes­sage of pro­tect­ing tra­di­tions and the envi­ron­ment to the Pres­i­den­tial Office.

“I hate that the gov­ern­ment is treat­ing us like this. It is using inap­pro­pri­ate mea­sures to take our land and ocean from us.” Lai said, adding: “The coast is where the Amis used to col­lect food and live. Now we are con­cerned that the ocean will be pol­lut­ed and destroyed by devel­op­ment projects.”

Burma: Police Crack Down On ‘Unlawful’ Gas Pipeline Protestors 19th April

Hun­dreds of locals gath­ered in Arakan state’s Kyaukpyu town­ship to protest against the Chi­nese-backed Shwe Gas Pipeline on 19 April 2013 (Htun Kyi)

Hun­dreds of locals gath­ered in Arakan state’s Kyaukpyu town­ship to protest against the Chi­nese-backed Shwe Gas Pipeline on 19 April 2013 (Htun Kyi)

At least three peo­ple were detained and ques­tioned by local author­i­ties in Arakan state on Fri­day, for their role in stag­ing an unau­tho­rised protest against the Chi­nese-backed Shwe Gas Pipeline in west­ern Bur­ma ear­li­er this week.

On Thurs­day, over 400 locals in Arakan state’s Kyaukpyu town­ship ral­lied against the Chi­na Nation­al Petro­le­um Cor­po­ra­tion (CNPC) – a major share­hold­er in the Shwe Gas Pipeline – demand­ing that the com­pa­ny take respon­si­bil­i­ty for the dam­ages caused to their liveli­hoods and local envi­ron­ment.

Accord­ing to one of the organ­is­ers, they had sought per­mis­sion to protest three times before, but after being repeat­ed­ly refused they decid­ed to go ahead with the ral­ly any­way.

“The arrests have begun – the [police] are look­ing for [organ­is­ers] in Kyauk­tan, Ywar­ma and Pan­deinse vil­lages,” said Htun Kyi, adding that three peo­ple had already been inter­ro­gat­ed and asked to seek bail guar­an­tors.

The police report­ed­ly took their per­son­al details and pressed them on who helped them organ­ise the protest and how they got the mon­ey to print out t‑shirts and oth­er cam­paign mate­r­i­al.

“My fam­i­ly just informed me that police offi­cials also showed up at my house and asked them to tell me to go to the police sta­tion when I get back and also to bring guar­an­tors along,” said Htun Kyi, who was in Kyaukpyu as of this morn­ing. “We are pre­pared – we are ready to accept any pun­ish­ment.”

Hun­dreds of locals, wear­ing white t‑shirts with red cross­es over CNPC logos, gath­ered near the Chi­nese company’s office on Madaykyun island on Thurs­day and shout­ed out slo­gans against the con­tro­ver­sial pipeline.

Accord­ing to Htun Kyi, who is also a spokesper­son of the Rakhine Social Net­work, said that local author­i­ties had pre­vi­ous­ly promised to help them nego­ti­ate with the com­pa­ny over their demands, but lat­er done noth­ing.

Pro­tes­tors are call­ing for com­pen­sa­tion for con­fis­cat­ed land, new job oppor­tu­ni­ties, local infra­struc­ture, includ­ing bet­ter roads, as well as a fair share of the elec­tric­i­ty that will be gen­er­at­ed from the project.

The protest was joined by hun­dreds of local res­i­dents, includ­ing fish­er­men who have lost their jobs because of the pipeline, as well as a num­ber of civ­il soci­ety organ­i­sa­tions.

The con­tro­ver­sial Shwe Gas Pipeline, which is sched­uled for com­ple­tion in May, is a joint ven­ture between the state-owned Chi­nese com­pa­ny and the mil­i­tary-owned Myan­ma Oil and Gas Enter­prise (MOGE), as well as three oth­er for­eign firms.

The pipeline will con­nect west­ern Burma’s Arakan state and China’s Yun­nan province, slic­ing through many eth­nic minor­i­ty ter­ri­to­ries, includ­ing the con­flict-torn Shan and Kachin states. Human rights groups have com­plained that the project has led to mass con­fis­ca­tions of local farm­lands, forced labour, human rights abus­es and increased mil­i­tari­sa­tion across the coun­try.

Ear­li­er this month, a group of activists warned that the 800-kilo­me­tre pipeline is like­ly to fuel con­flict in north­ern Shan state, where clash­es between eth­nic rebels and the Burmese army are ongo­ing.

“Run­ning an over-ground gas pipeline in a loca­tion where an armed con­flict tak­ing place is absolute­ly unad­vis­able,” said Michael Oxlade, a con­sul­tant with West­min­ster Inter­na­tion­al, a UK based firm that spe­cialis­es in pro­vid­ing secu­ri­ty ser­vices for glob­al oil oper­a­tions.

The Burmese gov­ern­ment is esti­mat­ed to earn USD$29 bil­lion over the next 30 years from the dual pipeline, which will pump gas from the Bay of Ben­gal and oil from the Mid­dle East to main­land Chi­na.

Riot Police Attack Villagers During Mining Conflict 17th April

In the small vil­lage of Buzhe, in Guizhou Province, around 600 vil­lagers were beat­en and dis­persed with tear­gas by about 300 riot police on April 11. The vil­lagers had come to assist a young cou­ple being abused by police dur­ing a min­ing-relat­ed dis­pute.

In the small vil­lage of Buzhe, in Guizhou Province, around 600 vil­lagers were beat­en and dis­persed with tear­gas by about 300 riot police on April 11. The vil­lagers had come to assist a young cou­ple being abused by police dur­ing a min­ing-relat­ed dis­pute.

Along­side agri­cul­ture, coal min­ing is the main source of income in this moun­tain­ous vil­lage, but it is caus­ing seri­ous dam­age to the envi­ron­ment. 

A res­i­dent called Mr. Han said that six or sev­en peo­ple were quite seri­ous­ly injured dur­ing the clash, includ­ing an 80-year-old woman, and four peo­ple were sent to hos­pi­tal to receive treat­ment for dam­age to their eyes from the gas.

Local author­i­ties and the min­ing com­pa­ny made a reset­tle­ment agree­ment with the vil­lagers nine years ago, but have not pro­vid­ed ade­quate com­pen­sa­tion for the envi­ron­men­tal dam­age to the area, accord­ing to Mr. Han.

“Land­slides, ground sub­si­dence, a large sec­tion of the mine is crack­ing and sink­ing, this can be seen every­where,” he said. “Some of the sink­holes are almost 10 meters deep, and span more than 10 square meters.”

“No water can be stored in the ground, and over 300 Chi­nese acres of farm­land can’t be cul­ti­vat­ed any­more,” Mr. Han added.

“There are more than 200 house­holds in the vil­lage, but only 26 were relo­cat­ed last year.”

As a last resort, the vil­lagers built shacks in front of the mine to block the entrance in protest, and pre­vent min­ing activ­i­ties.

On April 11, police came to the shacks and took away an old man liv­ing in one of them. They then bashed up the fur­ni­ture inside, and set fire to his place. A cou­ple in their thir­ties rushed over to try and put out the fire, but were hand­cuffed and tak­en into a work shed, where they were appar­ent­ly beat­en by nine police offi­cers.

As soon as locals heard about this inci­dent, around 600 vil­lagers quick­ly sur­round­ed the work shed. 

“Vil­lagers had pieces of wood and fought with the police. They man­aged to free the cou­ple in the end,” Mr. Han said, although they were still wear­ing hand­cuffs.

Soon after, about 300 riot police arrived at the scene, and began attack­ing the vil­lagers, using tear­gas to dis­perse the crowd.

The next day, a large crowd came to protest out­side the town hall, which was heav­i­ly guard­ed by riot police. Mr. Han said they would con­tin­ue to protest as the lives of around 1,000 vil­lagers are at stake.

Two Lifelong Oklahomans Halt Construction of Keystone XL Work Site 16th April

BRYAN COUNTY, OK – Tues­day, April 16, 2013, 8:00AM – Two life­long Okla­homans have effec­tive­ly halt­ed con­struc­tion on an active work site for TransCanada’s Key­stone XL tar sands pipeline in Ben­ning­ton, Okla­homa.

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BRYAN COUNTY, OK – Tues­day, April 16, 2013, 8:00AM – Two life­long Okla­homans have effec­tive­ly halt­ed con­struc­tion on an active work site for TransCanada’s Key­stone XL tar sands pipeline in Ben­ning­ton, Okla­homa.

Eric Whe­lan, 26, who grew up in McLoud, Okla., has ascend­ed 40 feet into the air in an aer­i­al block­ade that began at dawn this morn­ing.

Gwen Ingram of Luther, Okla., 56, has locked her­self to heavy machin­ery and shut down the con­struc­tion site.

Today’s event marks the fourth act of civ­il dis­obe­di­ence by Great Plains Tar Sands Resis­tance and comes in the wake of the dis­as­trous tar sands pipeline spill in Mayflower, Arkansas.  For the last three weeks, over 300,000 gal­lons of tar sands dilut­ed bitu­men have spil –>led into a res­i­den­tial neigh­bor­hood and local water­ways.

“Key­stone XL sound­ed like a bad idea from the begin­ning,” explained Whe­lan. “The Mayflower spill proves that we shouldn’t be trust­ing these mul­ti-nation­al cor­po­ra­tions, like Exxon or Tran­sCana­da, because every spill fur­ther expos­es their crim­i­nal incom­pe­tence. Now, Tran­sCana­da wants to build a tox­ic pipeline through the cen­ter of the coun­try.

“I’m tak­ing action to pre­vent a tragedy like that from hap­pen­ing in Okla­homa.”

The tar sands’ cor­ro­sive nature makes pipelines more prone to leaks than trans­port­ing crude oil, as evi­denced by the Exxon’s Pega­sus pipeline burst in Mayflower, Ark.

When spills inevitably do occur, the heav­ier dilut­ed bitu­men sinks in water and into the water table. Key­stone XL’s pro­posed route cuts through the heart­land of North Amer­i­ca, cross­ing the Arbuck­le Simp­son and Edwards Trin­i­ty Aquifer in Okla­homa.

“The Key­stone XL tar sands pipeline would car­ry the dirt­i­est fuel on the plan­et from Cana­da to America’s Gulf Coast’s refiner­ies and ports, and then over­seas for export,” said Gwen Ingram, before lock­ing her­self to TransCanada’s heavy machin­ery.

“I sim­ply won’t allow this pipeline to cross our pre­cious rivers; the North and South Cana­di­an, The Red Riv­er, The Cim­maron and threat­en our drink­ing water.”

UPDATE 9:00 AM — Eric is hold­ing strong on a tow­er 40 feet off the ground in the mid­dle of the Key­stone XL con­struc­tion site

UPDATE 11:15 AM- Fire­fight­ers have extract­ed Gwen Ingram from the con­struc­tion machin­ery.  Gwen held strong in her non­vi­o­lent civ­il dis­obe­di­ence act for sev­er­al hours.

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