Category: Wilderness Defence

Wilder­ness defence

Shale Gas Truck Seized By Elsipogtog First Nation Warriors

A shale gas explo­ration company’s ser­vice vehi­cle was sur­round­ed and seized by a group of self-described native war­riors near Elsi­pog­tog First Nation in so called “New Brunswick” on Tues­day, Roy­al Cana­di­an Mount­ed Police say.

A shale gas explo­ration company’s ser­vice vehi­cle was sur­round­ed and seized by a group of self-described native war­riors near Elsi­pog­tog First Nation in so called “New Brunswick” on Tues­day, Roy­al Cana­di­an Mount­ed Police say.

The truck dri­ver was con­front­ed at a gas bar along Route 116 dur­ing the lunch hour, police said, refer­ring to it as a peace­ful inci­dent.

RCMP would not con­firm who owns the truck, but it has a Stan­tec logo on its doors. Stan­tec is a Fred­er­ic­ton-based engi­neer­ing firm doing work for SWN Resources Cana­da, a major indus­try play­er in the province.

RCMP described the inci­dent as peace­ful.

Elsi­pog­tog Chief Aaron Sock had said ear­li­er in the day his coun­cil does not wel­come SWN’s seis­mic test­ing in New Brunswick.

SWN spokes­woman Tracey Stephen­son described the inci­dent as a “secu­ri­ty event” involv­ing one of the company’s sub­con­trac­tors.

The protest in Elsi­pog­tog con­tin­ued into the evening Tues­day at the local RCMP detach­ment, where the truck con­tain­ing seis­mic test­ing equip­ment was tak­en after pro­test­ers had seized it at a gas sta­tion along Route 116 dur­ing the lunch hour.

About 65 peo­ple, includ­ing chil­dren, gath­ered around the truck in a bid to keep it from being moved from the RCMP park­ing lot.

 

“I think [SWN] should pack up their gear and go,” said John Levi, who led the protest.

“This is not going to end until they do that,” he said. “That’s our goal.”

Levi said he is not affil­i­at­ed with the band chief and coun­cil, but was appoint­ed a few days ago as a war­rior chief for his tra­di­tion­al native ter­ri­to­ry.

He said he rep­re­sents about 5,000 peo­ple in Elsi­pog­tog and the sur­round­ing area, includ­ing non-native groups who oppose the devel­op­ment of a shale gas indus­try.

“They broke the law a long time ago when they start­ed this frack­ing in our tra­di­tion­al hunt­ing grounds, med­i­cine grounds, con­t­a­m­i­nat­ing our waters,” Levi said.

Hydraulic frac­tur­ing, also known as hydro-frack­ing, is a process where explo­ration com­pa­nies inject a mix­ture of water, sand and chem­i­cals into the ground, cre­at­ing cracks in shale rock for­ma­tions.

That process allows com­pa­nies to extract nat­ur­al gas from areas that would oth­er­wise go untapped.

Oppo­nents of the process say it could have a neg­a­tive effect on local water sup­plies and many of them have held protests across the province.

Fracking secrecy questioned

The Oppo­si­tion Lib­er­als argued Tues­day there will be too much secre­cy sur­round­ing shale gas devel­op­ment in the province.

They not­ed sec­tions of the Oil and Gas Act will remain off-lim­its from the Right to Infor­ma­tion law.

But the ener­gy min­is­ter con­tends the exempt sec­tions apply to the geo­phys­i­cal data com­pa­nies will col­lect and it’s unrea­son­able to expect it would be made pub­lic.

“That infor­ma­tion, the com­pa­nies that are putting the invest­ment into that research, they should have the oppor­tu­ni­ty to uti­lize that infor­ma­tion to their advan­tage, for a rea­son­able amount of time, and that’s what the Oil and Gas Act says,” Leonard said.

The Lib­er­als argue they want to make sure the pub­lic knows what chem­i­cals are used by shale gas com­pa­nies. The gov­ern­ment says the list of chem­i­cals will be released pub­licly.

Mine Security Chief Ordered Assassination of Indigenous Protesters 4th June

Alber­to Roton­do, exec­u­tive of Tahoe Mine, San Rafael in Guatemala, gave direct orders to assas­si­nate mem­bers of the com­mu­ni­ty San Rafael Las Flo­res.

Alber­to Roton­do, exec­u­tive of Tahoe Mine, San Rafael in Guatemala, gave direct orders to assas­si­nate mem­bers of the com­mu­ni­ty San Rafael Las Flo­res.

The inves­ti­ga­tion of the min­ing con­flicts in San Rafael Las Flo­res, San­ta Rosa, took a 180 degrees turn, after the Pub­lic Min­istry sub­mit­ted audio from wire­tap­ping as evi­dence. In the audio it can be clear­ly heard how Alber­to Roton­do, head of the San Rafael Min­ing Secu­ri­ty out­fit ordered to assas­si­nate oppo­nents of the mine.

The news­pa­per Siglo.21 pub­lished today a report titled “Roton­do ordered: Kill those sons of B..”, the report doc­u­ments how the Secu­ri­ty Chief gave direct orders to assas­si­nate min­ing pro­test­ers and oppo­nents of the min­ing project.

“The pre­lim­i­nary inves­ti­ga­tions found that Roton­do gave the order to attack the com­mu­ni­ty, he also ordered the crime scene to be cleaned up and change the police report.”

The infor­ma­tion reveals Roton­do mak­ing sev­er­al state­ments: “God dam dogs, they do not under­stand that the mine gen­er­ates jobs”. “We must elim­i­nate these ani­mals’ pieces of shit”. “We can not allow peo­ple to estab­lish resis­tance, anoth­er Puya no”. “Kill house sons of Bitch­es”

Despite this sit­u­a­tion, Roton­do is ben­e­fit­ed by a benev­o­lent sur­ro­gate mea­sure of only house arrest by offi­cials of the jus­tice depart­ment of Guatemala. The pros­e­cu­tion has asked to revoke that proxy mea­sure.

On the oth­er hand, oppo­nents of the mine are still detained with­out being brought before a judge, because their war­ranties were restrict­ed by a state of siege.

Ror­ton­do was appre­hend­ed at the air­port La Auro­ra, when he try­ing to flee the coun­try. Wire tap­ping of con­ver­sa­tions between him and his son reveal that he planned to leave Guatemala for a while, because “I ordered to kill some of these sons of Bitch­es.”

Sources: La Hora Guatemala, Siglo XXI.

For more exten­sive infor­ma­tion on the back­ground of the con­flict see: State of Siege: Min­ing Con­flict Esca­lates in Guatemala, May 2, 2013

http://upsidedownworld.org/main/guatemala-archives-33/4270-state-of-siege-mining-conflict-escalates-in-guatemala

Letter No. 9: Tragedies and Dams (the struggle does not end there nor here)

In an unprece­dent­ed step, the Brazil­ian gov­ern­ment has met pro­tes­tors’ demands by fly­ing the entire indige­nous occu­pa­tion – as well as their legal coun­cil and accom­pa­ny­ing jour­nal­ists – from Altami­ra to Brasil­ia to dia­logue with Pres­i­dent Rousseff’s Chief of Staff Gilber­to Car­val­ho and oth­er high offi­cials and min­is­ters. 

Led by the Mundurukú peo­ple of the Tapa­jós Riv­er basin, occu­pa­tions of Belo Monte’s main work camp spanned 17 days from May to June demand­ing the sus­pen­sion of dam con­struc­tion and envi­ron­men­tal fea­si­bil­i­ty stud­ies for future dams on indige­nous lands, and the guar­an­tee of the con­sti­tu­tion­al right to pri­or con­sul­ta­tion.

The 150 indige­nous pro­tes­tors who have staged a coura­geous nine-day occu­pa­tion of the Belo Monte dam’s main work camp have trav­eled to Brasil­ia today to meet in the Pres­i­den­tial Palace with high offi­cials from the Brazil­ian gov­ern­ment. Today the indige­nous groups issued a 9th let­ter to the gov­ern­ment (see below)

Let­ter No. 9:
Tragedies and Dams (the strug­gle does not end there nor here)

We have left our occu­pa­tion of the Belo Monte dam and have come to dia­logue with the gov­ern­ment.

We have not come to an agree­ment with you. We accept this meet­ing in Brasil­ia because the more we said we would not leave, the more you sent police to the work camp. And on the same day that we were to be removed by force by the police, you killed a one of our rel­a­tives, a Ter­e­na in Mato Grosso do Sul. There­fore we decid­ed that we did not want anoth­er death. We avoid­ed a tragedy, not you. You do not pre­vent tragedies, you com­mit them.

We came here to speak to you of anoth­er tragedy that we will fight to pre­vent: the loss of our ter­ri­to­ry and our life. We did not come to nego­ti­ate with you, because one can­not nego­ti­ate with ter­ri­to­ry nor life. We are against the con­struc­tion of dams that kill indige­nous land, because they kill cul­ture when they kill fish and drown the land. This kills us with­out need­ing a weapon. You con­tin­ue killing a lot, sim­ply a lot. You have killed too much, for 513 years.

We did not come to talk only about dams on the Tapa­jós, as you are telling the press. We came to Brasil­ia to demand the sus­pen­sion of fea­si­bil­i­ty stud­ies and the con­struc­tion of dams on the Xin­gu, Tapa­jós, and Teles Pires Rivers. You are not only talk­ing with the Mundurukú peo­ple. You are talk­ing with Xipaya, Kayapó, Arara, Tupinam­bás, and with all the peo­ple who are togeth­er in this strug­gle, because this is a major strug­gle of us all.

We did not bring wish lists. We are against dams. We demand the fed­er­al government’s com­mit­ment to con­sult us and ensure our right to veto projects that destroy us.

But no. You tram­ple every­thing and do what they [the dam build­ing com­pa­nies] want. And to achieve that you do every­thing to divide indige­nous peo­ples. We came here to tell you to stop, because we will resist togeth­er and stand unit­ed. We have been gath­ered for 35 days in Altami­ra, and for 17 days we occu­pied the main hydro­elec­tric dam that you are build­ing. Along with this let­ter we are send­ing all the let­ters from the two occu­pa­tions that we car­ried out. Read every­thing care­ful­ly to under­stand our move­ment. And in so doing respect us, as you have not done up until today.

Dis­re­spect does not come only from words. It is demon­strat­ed by your actions.

In the region of the Xin­gu River’s Big Bend, every­thing is being destroyed and has been turned upside down since you approved the con­struc­tion of the Belo Monte dam. Every­one very sad and only the rich are doing well. Our indige­nous rel­a­tives have fought a lot. Even the con­struc­tion work­ers suf­fer.

On the Teles Pires and Tapa­jós Rivers, you are begin­ning this process now, but have already grave­ly dis­re­spect­ed us.

In August 2012, your researchers began to invade our lands, cap­ture our ani­mals and plants, count hectares, mea­sure the water, and drill our land.

In Octo­ber, [the indige­nous agency] FUNAI and Eletro­bras said in the meet­ing that the dams would be built in any cir­cum­stance, whether or not we want them. And that they would send the police force to our land if nec­es­sary.

In Novem­ber, the fed­er­al police attacked and destroyed the Teles Pires vil­lage, where we are all against dams. Ade­nil­son Mundurukú was killed, shot three times, and anoth­er 19 indige­nous peo­ple were wound­ed. At the end of the month we went to Brasil­ia denounce the police oper­a­tion to the Min­istry of Jus­tice, FUNAI and the Gen­er­al Sec­re­tari­at of the Pres­i­den­cy. We also went to pros­e­cu­tors from the Fed­er­al Pubic Min­istry.

In Jan­u­ary 2013, we held a large assem­bly in the Mundurukú vil­lage of Sai Cin­za, where a doc­u­ment with 33 demands was deliv­ered to a rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the Gen­er­al Sec­re­tari­at of the Pres­i­den­cy.

The fol­low­ing month, we returned to Brasil­ia demand a response from the Gen­er­al Sec­re­tari­at on these 33 points. We man­aged to find the min­is­ter, but he ignored our demands and tried to get us to sign a doc­u­ment accept­ing dams on the Tapa­jós Riv­er.

To ensure that envi­ron­men­tal impact stud­ies of these dams were car­ried out, the gov­ern­ment issued a decree in March 2013 autho­riz­ing the entry of police troops on our land. On the fol­low­ing day our vil­lages were raid­ed by police squads.

On the Teles Pires Riv­er, the ancient bones of our rel­a­tives were unearthed. You are destroy­ing a sacred place.

We could not accept this sit­u­a­tion any­more. For this rea­son we occu­pied your work camp, bring­ing our claims, demand­ing the government’s com­mit­ment to respect the orig­i­nal peo­ples of this coun­try, to respect our right to land and to life. Or, at least for the gov­ern­ment to respect its own law: the Con­sti­tu­tion and the inter­na­tion­al treaties you sign. Yet you want to destroy the laws that pro­tect us, indige­nous peo­ples, with oth­er laws and new decrees. You want to legal­ize destruc­tion.

And now we come here to you. Hop­ing that you final­ly lis­ten to us, rather than lis­ten­ing to those who pay for your polit­i­cal cam­paigns. Even if you are not will­ing to learn to lis­ten, we are will­ing to teach.
– Con­struc­tion site of the Belo Monte dam, Vitória do Xin­gu, June 4, 2013

URGENT: “We will die. We will not leave without being heard.” 4th June

Only two days after the reoc­cu­pa­tion of the Belo Monte Dam began, the fate of 170 indige­nous peo­ple is at stake. Yes­ter­day, the Fed­er­al Court in Altami­ra ordered them to leave by 4 pm today or they would be removed by Fed­er­al Police. They respond­ed by tear­ing up the order and refused to leave by the dead­line. Instead, they are stand­ing strong and are demand­ing that Pres­i­dent Dilma’s Chief of Staff, Gilber­to Car­val­ho, come meet with them. Their let­ter to the Brazil­ian gov­ern­ment is below. Read, share and take urgent action right now!

You can also show your sup­port by donat­ing to the indige­nous occu­pa­tion on CAUSES.

Let­ter No. 8:
The mas­sacre has been announced and only the gov­ern­ment can avoid this fate

(Orig­i­nal ver­sion in Por­tuguese here)

We have occu­pied the con­struc­tion site of the Belo Monte Dam. We are defend­ing our lands. These ancient lands have always been ours and you have already tak­en a part of them. And now you are try­ing to take more. We will not leave.

You will come to kill us and we will die. We will not leave with­out being heard.

The fed­er­al gov­ern­ment announced a mas­sacre of indige­nous peo­ples, the 170 war­riors, women, chil­dren, lead­ers and shamans who are here. This mas­sacre is going to hap­pen at the hands of police, Funai, and the judi­cial sys­tem.

You have killed at Teles Pires and will kill again when you need to. You killed us because we are against the dams. We know what you are capa­ble of doing.

This time the gov­ern­ment and cor­po­ra­tions have asked Norte Ener­gia to kill us. Norte Ener­gia pled their case to a fed­er­al judge, who sub­se­quent­ly autho­rized the police to beat and kill us if need­ed. Gov­ern­ment of Brazil and cor­po­ra­tions build­ing Belo Monte, it will be your fault if any of us die.

Enough with the vio­lence! Stop threat­en­ing us! We want our peace and you want your war. Stop lying to the press that we are kid­nap­ping work­ers and bus­es and caus­ing an incon­ve­nience. The occu­pa­tion is qui­et The unrest is caused by the police sent by the judge, Norte Ener­gia, and the gov­ern­ment. You are the ones who are humil­i­at­ing us, threat­ing us, intim­i­dat­ing us, and assas­si­nat­ing us when you don’t know what else to do.

We demand the sus­pen­sion of the order to repos­sess the con­struc­tion site, until Thurs­day morn­ing, May 30th, 2013. The gov­ern­ment needs to come here and hear us. You already know our agen­da. We demand the sus­pen­sion of all works and stud­ies of dams on our lands. We demand the removal of the Nation­al Force from our lands. The lands are ours. You have wast­ed enough of our lands.

You want us to be tame and qui­et, obey­ing your civ­i­liza­tion with­out ques­tion. But in this case, we know you would rather see us dead because we are mak­ing noise.

A Few Inspiring Moments from Turkey, Occupy Gezi. 2nd June

There is a lot of fear, there is a lot of anger, there is a lot of bloodshed.

There is a lot of fear, there is a lot of anger, there is a lot of bloodshed.
But there is also a lot of beauty.

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Istanbul Government Truck, one of many destroyed last night. Graffiti reads "You are not innocent anymore" #gezi pic.twitter.com/yFAKG78SYL

Istan­bul Gov­ern­ment Truck. Graf­fi­ti reads “You are not inno­cent any­more” pic.twitter.com/yFAKG78SYL

 

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Clean up in Gezi Park

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San Francisco Activists Liberate Park in Solidarity with Turkish Resistance 2nd June

On June 1st, in sol­i­dar­i­ty with the mas­sive resis­tance in Turkey which began six days ago, Lib­er­ate the Land activists in San Fran­cis­co marched to a park space known as “Hayes Val­ley Farm” and began an occu­pa­tion.

On June 1st, in sol­i­dar­i­ty with the mas­sive resis­tance in Turkey which began six days ago, Lib­er­ate the Land activists in San Fran­cis­co marched to a park space known as “Hayes Val­ley Farm” and began an occu­pa­tion. The piece of land is sched­uled to be turned into con­do­mini­ums, a devel­op­ment project which the pro­tes­tors plan to stop. Not only are they phys­i­cal­ly hold­ing the space with their bod­ies and mul­ti­ple treesits, the group is also plant­i­ng a “Free Farm” for the com­mu­ni­ty, shar­ing reg­u­lar meals, and hold­ing com­mu­ni­ty-build­ing and per­ma­cul­ture work­shops.

Par­tic­i­pants have renamed the space “Gezi Gar­dens” in sol­i­dar­i­ty with the cur­rent rebel­lion in Turkey, which began with the occu­pa­tion of Gezi park in Istan­bul. Pro­test­ers in Istan­bul began occu­py­ing Gezi park when devel­op­ers start­ed rip­ping up the trees to make way for a shop­ping mall. The insane police response sparked an upris­ing that has swept the coun­try. There have been oth­er sol­i­dar­i­ty demon­stra­tions all over the world, includ­ing the reoc­cu­pa­tion of Zuc­cot­ti park in New York City, the orig­i­nal home of Occu­py Wall Street.

Lib­er­ate the Land plans to occu­py indef­i­nite­ly, and has released a state­ment ask­ing oth­ers to join them:

Lib­er­ate the Land invites every­one to join this net­work in the days fol­low­ing today’s lib­er­a­tion, to plant food, cre­ate and pro­mote per­ma­cul­ture, host and attend work­shops, teach and take class­es, play and enjoy music, build, gath­er, exper­i­ment, play, learn, and be togeth­er.  A vibrant com­mu­ni­ty of plants and peo­ple are liv­ing on this land as of this first of June rather than the first lay­ers of con­crete foun­da­tion for con­do­mini­ums.  We invite our neigh­bors in Hayes Val­ley to join us in open dia­logue to fur­ther decide what Gezi Gar­dens will become.

Lib­er­ate the Land is bring­ing into dia­logue the con­cept of com­mon space, a clas­si­fi­ca­tion of space that goes out­side of the dichoto­my of pri­vate and pub­lic and instead places itself as the com­mons. The com­mons exist as the spaces owned and oper­at­ed nei­ther by gov­ern­ments and states, nor cor­po­ra­tions and pri­vate indi­vid­u­als. Instead, the com­mons are owned, or stew­ard­ed, by all peo­ple, with an under­stand­ing that the gifts of the earth are for all to enjoy and that peo­ple need land bases for grow­ing food, har­vest­ing med­i­c­i­nal plans, main­tain­ing healthy forests for build­ing mate­ri­als and fire­wood, wild­craft­ing plants for fab­rics, and host­ing wildlife habi­tat.

Read the rest of the state­ment here, and fol­low @LiberateLand on twit­ter for more updates on Gezi Gar­dens

Plea from Turkey 1st June

Turkey’s protests against the log­ging of trees in  Gezi Park have grown into a nation-wide upheaval. The heavy-hand­ed police response, using tear gas and pep­per spray against bystanders and pro­tes­tors, alike, has ignit­ed a pro­found response against state repres­sion in Turkey.

Envi­ron­men­tal­ism in Turkey as well as East­ern Europe/West Asia has been on the rise in the last 5–10 years, and this mas­sive demon­stra­tion ris­ing from anti-log­ging protests presents a land­mark in the his­to­ry of this region.

Thou­sands of pro­tes­tors have swelled in the streets of every major city in Turkey. More sol­i­dar­i­ty demon­stra­tions are planned from Ger­many to the US. From Athens to Lon­don, San Fran­cis­co to Boston, protests are already draw­ing thou­sands of peo­ple, and more are planned for the future.

Gezi Park is one of the small­est parks in Istan­bul, but the sym­bol­ic val­ue of replac­ing it with an Ottoman-style bar­racks aggra­vates the anti-impe­r­i­al dri­ve of the Turk­ish peo­ple. The police bru­tal­i­ty is shock­ing even to vet­er­ans of pro-democ­ra­cy strug­gles.

Here is an urgent mes­sage from an anony­mous source in Turkey right now: “I am writ­ing you all to ask that you please share any and all infor­ma­tion you can about the cur­rent sit­u­a­tion in Istan­bul. There is des­per­ate need of int‘l sup­port from what I wit­nessed last night and from the news com­ing via social net­work­ing, etc. They are get­ting no domes­tic media atten­tion, and the Prime Min­is­ter has offered no expla­na­tions for the unprece­dent­ed police vio­lence. Gov‘t sup­port­ers also went com­plete­ly unchecked by police last night, beat­ing (and as i under­stand it) killing at least one pro­test­er on their walk home.”

New Teargas Crackdown on Anti-government Protesters in Turkey 31st May

Turk­ish police fired tear gas and water can­non on Fri­day at pro­test­ers occu­py­ing a park in cen­tral Istan­bul, injur­ing scores in the lat­est vio­lent crack­down on anti-gov­ern­ment demon­stra­tions.

Turk­ish police fired tear gas and water can­non on Fri­day at pro­test­ers occu­py­ing a park in cen­tral Istan­bul, injur­ing scores in the lat­est vio­lent crack­down on anti-gov­ern­ment demon­stra­tions.

The protest at Gezi Park start­ed late on Mon­day after devel­op­ers tore up trees but has widened into a broad­er demon­stra­tion against Prime Min­is­ter Tayyip Erdogan’s Islamist-root­ed Jus­tice and Devel­op­ment Par­ty (AKP).

Riot police recent­ly clashed with tens of thou­sands of May Day pro­test­ers in Istan­bul. There have also been protests against the government’s stance on the con­flict in neigh­bor­ing Syr­ia, a recent tight­en­ing of restric­tions on alco­hol sales and warn­ings against pub­lic dis­plays of affec­tion.

Police staged a dawn raid on demon­stra­tors who had been camp­ing for days in Gezi Park in anger at plans to build a shop­ping mall, and clouds of tear gas rose around the area in Tak­sim Square that has long been a venue for polit­i­cal protest.

“We do not have a gov­ern­ment, we have Tayyip Erdogan…Even AK Par­ty sup­port­ers are say­ing they have lost their mind, they are not lis­ten­ing to us,” said Koray Caliskan, a polit­i­cal sci­en­tist at Bospho­rus Uni­ver­si­ty who attend­ed the protest. “This is the begin­ning of a sum­mer of dis­con­tent.”

The Istan­bul Med­ical Cham­ber, a doc­tors’ asso­ci­a­tion, said at least 100 peo­ple sus­tained minor injuries on Fri­day, some of them when a wall they were climb­ing col­lapsed as they tried to flee clouds of tear gas.

Amnesty Inter­na­tion­al said it was con­cerned by what it described as “the use of exces­sive force” by the police against what had start­ed out as a peace­ful protest.

Erdo­gan has over­seen a trans­for­ma­tion in Turkey dur­ing his decade in pow­er, turn­ing its econ­o­my from cri­sis-prone into Europe’s fastest-grow­ing. Per capi­ta income has tripled in nom­i­nal terms since his par­ty rose to pow­er.

He remains by far Turkey’s most pop­u­lar politi­cian, and is wide­ly viewed as its most pow­er­ful leader since Mustafa Kemal Ataturk found­ed the mod­ern sec­u­lar repub­lic on the ash­es of the Ottoman Empire 90 years ago.

The unrest has been far from the sort of mass demon­stra­tions seen in oth­er parts of the Mid­dle East or even parts of Europe in recent years, but it reflects grow­ing oppo­si­tion con­cern about Erdogan’s author­i­tar­i­an­ism.

DEFIANCE

Hun­dreds of mil­i­tary offi­cers have been jailed on charges of plot­ting a coup against Erdo­gan in recent years; oth­ers includ­ing aca­d­e­mics, jour­nal­ists and politi­cians face tri­al on sim­i­lar accu­sa­tions.

Erdo­gan has made no secret of his ambi­tion to run for the pres­i­den­cy in elec­tions next year when his term as prime min­is­ter ends, exac­er­bat­ing oppo­si­tion con­cerns.

“These peo­ple will not bow down to you” read one ban­ner at the Gezi Park protest, along­side a car­toon of Erdo­gan wear­ing an Ottoman emperor’s tur­ban.

Post­ings on social media includ­ing Twit­ter, where “Occu­py Gezi” – a ref­er­ence to protests in New York and Lon­don last year – was a top-trend­ing hash­tag, and Face­book said sim­i­lar demon­stra­tions were planned for the next few days in oth­er Turk­ish cities includ­ing Ankara, Izmir, Adana and Bur­sa.

“Kiss protests” – in which demon­stra­tors are urged to lock lips – had already been planned for Istan­bul and Ankara this week­end after sub­way offi­cials were report­ed to have admon­ished a cou­ple for kiss­ing in pub­lic a week ago.

Erdo­gan is push­ing ahead with a slew of mul­ti-bil­lion dol­lar projects which he sees as embody­ing Turkey’s emer­gence as a major pow­er. They include a ship­ping canal designed to rival Pana­ma or Suez, a giant mosque and a third Istan­bul air­port billed to be one of the world’s biggest.

Speak­ing just a few miles from Gezi Park at the launch on Wednes­day of con­struc­tion of a third bridge link­ing Istanbul’s Euro­pean and Asian shores, Erdo­gan vowed to pur­sue plans to rede­vel­op Tak­sim Square.

Archi­tects, left­ist polit­i­cal par­ties, aca­d­e­mics, city plan­ners and oth­ers have long opposed the plans, say­ing they lacked con­sul­ta­tion with civic groups and would remove one of cen­tral Istanbul’s few green spaces.

Brazil Police Shoot Indians – More Violence Feared 31st May

 

 

The Belo Monte occupation is the latest in a series of protests over the government’s failure to consult with the indigenous population.

Police in south­ern Brazil yes­ter­day killed a Ter­e­na Indi­an and wound­ed sev­er­al oth­ers while vio­lent­ly evict­ing them from their land. Mem­bers of the tribe had returned to live on part of their ances­tral ter­ri­to­ry cur­rent­ly occu­pied by a ranch­er who is also a local politi­cian.

Else­where in Brazil, an evic­tion order was served on Kayapó, Arara, Munduruku, Xipaya and Juruna Indi­ans occu­py­ing the con­tro­ver­sial Belo Monte dam site. Armed police have sur­round­ed the pro­test­ers and ten­sions are ris­ing amid fears that there will be sim­i­lar vio­lence.

Munduruku Indi­ans are also protest­ing con­struc­tion of a dam on the Tapa­jós riv­er. One Munduruku was shot dead when police invad­ed a com­mu­ni­ty last Novem­ber.

Pay­go­muy­at­pu Munduruku said, ‘The gov­ern­ment is prepar­ing a tragedy. We will not leave here. The gov­ern­ment has ignored us, offend­ed us, humil­i­at­ed us and assas­si­nat­ed us… They are killing us because we are against the dams.’

The Brazil­ian con­sti­tu­tion and inter­na­tion­al law enshrine the right of trib­al peo­ples to be con­sult­ed about projects on their land. Yet a raft of bills and con­sti­tu­tion­al amend­ments pro­posed by a pow­er­ful agri­cul­tur­al and min­ing lob­by threat­en to under­mine these land rights. Indi­ans are angry that, despite being in office for two and half years, Pres­i­dent Dil­ma Rouss­eff has yet to meet any Indi­ans.

The Belo Monte occu­pa­tion is the lat­est in a series of protests over the government’s fail­ure to con­sult with the indige­nous pop­u­la­tion.
© Atossa Soltani/ Ama­zon Watch

Sur­vival Inter­na­tion­al is call­ing on Pres­i­dent Rouss­eff to halt the evic­tion of indige­nous pro­test­ers, to con­sult with the Indi­ans, and to rec­og­nize the ter­ri­to­ries of Ter­e­na tribes­peo­ple imme­di­ate­ly.

Survival’s direc­tor Stephen Cor­ry said, ‘His­to­ry is repeat­ing itself. The Figueire­do report, chron­i­cling the geno­ci­dal atroc­i­ties of a past gen­er­a­tion, has been unearthed at exact­ly the same time as new attacks on the Indi­ans are unleashed. Killings of Indi­ans should not be tol­er­at­ed any­where, let alone in a coun­try plan­ning to host world sport­ing events.’

Update From the Amazon: No Consultation, No Construction! 31st May

Indige­nous pro­test­ers are once again occu­py­ing the con­struc­tion site of the Belo Monte Dam in the Brazil­ian Ama­zon to shed light on how hydro­elec­tric mega-dams cause seri­ous envi­ron­men­tal and social impacts and destroy the way of life of the region’s peo­ples and tra­di­tion­al com­mu­ni­ties. For exam­ple, the con­struc­tion of Belo Monte will cause 100 km (60 miles) of the Xin­gu to dry out on the river’s Big Bend if com­plet­ed. In the case of the hydro­elec­tric dams planned for the Tapa­jós Riv­er, the ancient river­side vil­lages of the Mundurukú peo­ple would be com­plete­ly flood­ed.

Indige­nous pro­test­ers occu­pied the Belo Monte Dam con­struc­tion site in ear­ly and late May 2013 to protest the government’s lack of con­sul­ta­tion with affect­ed com­mu­ni­ties tho­rugh out the Ama­zon.
Pho­to cour­tesy of Ruy Sposati via munduruku­de­nun­cia on Flickr

This is the sec­ond occu­pa­tion of Belo Monte’s con­struc­tion site in less than a month. On May 2nd the indige­nous pro­tes­tors occu­pied the same work camp and stayed there for eight days. They left the last occu­pa­tion peace­ful­ly because the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment ensured that there would be a nego­ti­a­tion, which did not hap­pen. In this case the pro­tes­tors guar­an­tee that they will main­tain their occu­pa­tion until rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment talk with them and meet their demands.

Indige­nous peo­ple also crit­i­cize the pres­ence of the military’s Nation­al Force in the region in order to ensure safe­ty of teams car­ry­ing out envi­ron­men­tal impact stud­ies for dams on the Tapa­jós Riv­er.

In addi­tion to the police offi­cers who were already housed with­in the con­struc­tion site to ensure the pro­tec­tion of Belo Monte, oth­er con­tin­gents of police have been arriv­ing at the occu­pa­tion site.

See the lat­est let­ter from the occu­pa­tion below:

Let­ter No. 7: Fed­er­al Gov­ern­ment, we have returned

We are indige­nous Munduruku, Xipaya, Kayapo, Arara and Tupinam­bá peo­ple. We live in the riv­er and the for­est and we are opposed to the destruc­tion of both. You already know us, but now we are more.

You (the Gov­ern­ment) said that if we left the con­struc­tion sites of Belo Monte, we would be heard. We left peace­ful­ly – and pre­vent­ed you from the shame of using force to take us out of here. How­ev­er we were not heard. The gov­ern­ment did not receive us. We called Min­is­ter Gilber­to Car­val­ho and he did not come.

Wait­ing and call­ing did not work for us. So we again occu­pied your con­struc­tion sites. We didn’t want to be back in your desert of holes and con­crete. We have no plea­sure in leav­ing our homes and our lands to hang our ham­mocks in your build­ings. But how not to come when that could mean we los­ing our lands?

We want the sus­pen­sion of stud­ies and the con­struc­tion of dams that flood our ter­ri­to­ries, cut the for­est down the mid­dle, kill the fish and scare the ani­mals, and open the riv­er and the land to the devour­ing min­ers. That will bring more com­pa­nies, more log­gers, more con­flicts, more pros­ti­tu­tion, more drugs, more dis­eases, more vio­lence.

We require that you con­sult us about this con­struc­tion before it begins, because it is our right guar­an­teed by the Brazil­ian Con­sti­tu­tion and inter­na­tion­al treaties. This right was dis­re­spect­ed here in Belo Monte, on the Teles Pires Riv­er, and it’s not being com­plied with on the Tapa­jós Riv­er as well. It is not pos­si­ble that all of you will con­tin­ue repeat­ing that indige­nous peo­ple were con­sult­ed. Every­one knows that this is not true.

From now on, YOU (the Gov­ern­ment) has to stop telling lies in press releas­es and inter­views. You need to stop treat­ing us like chil­dren: naive, irre­spon­si­ble, and manip­u­la­tive. We are indige­nous peo­ple and you need to deal with it. You also need to stop lying to the press that we are fight­ing with the work­ers: they are sym­pa­thet­ic to our cause! We wrote a let­ter to them yes­ter­day! Here at the con­struc­tion sites we played soc­cer togeth­er every day dur­ing the last occu­pa­tion. When we left, a work­er to whom we gave many neck­laces and bracelets told us: “I’ll miss you.”

We have the sup­port of many rel­a­tives in this fight. We have the sup­port of all the indige­nous peo­ple from the Xin­gu. We have the sup­port of the Kayapo. We have the sup­port of the Tupinam­bá;  the Gua­ja­jara; the Apina­jé; Xer­ente; Krahô, Kara­ja; Xam­bioá-Tapuia; Krahô-Kanela; Avá-Canoero; javaé Kanela from Tocan­tins and Guarani. And the list is grow­ing. We have the sup­port of the nation­al and inter­na­tion­al soci­ety even though that both­ers you – you are alone with your cam­paign donors and com­pa­nies inter­est­ed in craters and mon­ey.

We occu­pied your con­struc­tion sites again – and how many times will we need to do this until your own law is respect­ed? How many restrain­ing orders, fees, pos­s­e­sion orders will cost you until you hear us? How many rub­ber bul­lets, bombs and pep­per sprays do you plan to spend until you admit that you are wrong? Or will you kill again? How many indige­nous will you kill besides our rel­a­tive Munduruku, from the Teles Pires, sim­ply because we do not want dams?

And do not send the Nation­al Force to nego­ti­ate for you. Come your­selves. We want Dil­ma to come talk to us.