Category: Wilderness Defence

Wilder­ness defence

Taiwan Activists Praise “Tree-Top” Man 8th April

BANGKOK: Tai­wan activists are prais­ing one man’s efforts to bring about change to the envi­ron­men­tal poli­cies of the East Asian coun­try through his demon­stra­tion atop a tree.

BANGKOK: Tai­wan activists are prais­ing one man’s efforts to bring about change to the envi­ron­men­tal poli­cies of the East Asian coun­try through his demon­stra­tion atop a tree. Dubbed the “tree-top” man, Pan Han-chi­ang has vowed to stay in his perch until a local coun­cil ends its con­tro­ver­sial devel­op­ment project.

“I have so much respect for him and what he is doing,” envi­ron­men­tal activist Li Xiun told Bikyanews.com as the protest entered its 12th day on Mon­day.

The gov­ern­ment of New Taipei City, on the out­skirts of the cap­i­tal, plans to build a swim­ming pool and an under­ground park­ing garage in the grounds of a junior high school in the Panchiao dis­trict.

Despite objec­tions from con­ser­va­tion­ists, some near­by res­i­dents and alum­ni and teach­ers of the school, a con­trac­tor start­ed remov­ing five out of the 32 tar­get­ed 40-year-old trees from the cam­pus late last month.

In reac­tion, activist Pan, 46, climbed one of the trees on March 28 and has refused to come down, with meals and water sup­plied by his sup­port­ers on the ground.

“We will sup­ply him with what he needs until the gov­ern­ment changes,” said one of his sup­port­ers.

The sit-in has halt­ed prepara­to­ry work on the project.

“This is the last method we can use now… the protest will con­tin­ue indef­i­nite­ly if the gov­ern­ment decides to go ahead with the project,” his broth­er Pan Han-sheng was quot­ed by AFP as say­ing.

The city gov­ern­ment insists that the project, esti­mat­ed to cost Tw$310 mil­lion ($10.4 mil­lion), is designed to meet pub­lic demand and the trees will be replant­ed else­where.

But oppo­nents ques­tion the wis­dom of remov­ing mature trees – many of them unlike­ly to sur­vive trans­plan­ta­tion – to build the swim­ming pool and espe­cial­ly the under­ground park­ing garage, which they say is unnec­es­sary.

“These trees are part of the col­lec­tive mem­o­ry of tens of thou­sands of stu­dents grad­u­at­ing from the school. It is cru­el to cast off their mem­o­ry,” said Pan Han-sheng.

He said at least 3,000 peo­ple have expressed oppo­si­tion to the project.

Japan Confirms Sea Shepherd Success in the Southern Ocean

Operation Zero Tolerance has been Sea Shepherd’s most effective campaign to date.

The Japan­ese Insti­tute for Cetacean Research, the front organ­i­sa­tion for Japan­ese ille­gal whal­ing activ­i­ties has released their kill records for 2012/

Operation Zero Tolerance has been Sea Shepherd’s most effective campaign to date.

The Japan­ese Insti­tute for Cetacean Research, the front organ­i­sa­tion for Japan­ese ille­gal whal­ing activ­i­ties has released their kill records for 2012/2013.

They want­ed 50 Hump­backs. They took none.

They want­ed 50 Fin whales. They took none.

They want­ed 935 Minke whales. They killed 103.

832 Minke whales not slain! 50 Hump­backs and 50 Fins not slaugh­tered!

Dur­ing the 2010–2011 Oper­a­tion No Com­pro­mise, the Japan­ese whal­ing fleet took 17% of their ille­gal self-allo­cat­ed quo­ta. Dur­ing the 2011–2012 Oper­a­tion Divine Wind, the Japan­ese whalers took 26% of their ille­gal self-allo­cat­ed quo­ta.

 103 Minke whales and zero Fin whales and zero Hump­back whales trans­lates into 9.96% of their com­bined quo­ta. The whalers took only 11% of their Minke whale quo­ta and zero per­cent of their Fin and Hump­back quo­ta.

These per­cent­ages trans­late into a finan­cial dis­as­ter for the Japan­ese whalers. The over­haul of Nis­shin Maru alone cost $24 mil­lion dol­lars. Out­fit­ting, fuelling and oper­at­ing costs added an addi­tion­al esti­mat­ed $11 mil­lion dol­lars. That fig­ure may be much high­er. Going on the con­ser­v­a­tive esti­mate of $35 mil­lion dol­lars, means that it cost the whalers a min­i­mum of $340,000 per whale. There are only two words to describe this, “eco­nom­ic luna­cy”. In addi­tion there is the loss of pres­tige and the anger of the inter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty direct­ed at the Japan­ese peo­ple.

Sea Shep­herd would have reduced the killing much low­er if not for the suck­er punch deliv­ered at the eleventh hour by the Ninth Dis­trict Court of the Unit­ed States that effec­tive­ly knocked Sea Shep­herd USA out of Oper­a­tion Zero Tol­er­ance by grant­i­ng the Japan­ese whalers an injunc­tion against inter­ven­tion by Sea Shep­herd USA.

Sea Shep­herd Aus­tralia imme­di­ate­ly swept up the ban­ner, car­ried it down to the South­ern Ocean and deliv­ered the most deter­mined cam­paign ever mount­ed to shut down the unlaw­ful poach­ing activ­i­ties of the Japan­ese whal­ing fleet in the South­ern Ocean Whale Sanc­tu­ary. Sea Shep­herd Aus­tralia pre­dict­ed that the take would not exceed 10% and the over­all take was indeed just under 10%.

“Sea Shep­herd Aus­tralia is elat­ed that we have deliv­ered the worst sea­son to date to these whale poach­ers from Japan. These poach­ers have shown a com­plete dis­re­gard for cetacean life, human life and Aus­tralian and Inter­na­tion­al law. By tar­get­ing pro­tect­ed and endan­gered whales in a whale sanc­tu­ary and risk­ing mas­sive oil spills in the pris­tine Antarc­tic wilder­ness, they are show­ing the world their con­tempt for ocean life and for the glob­al com­mu­ni­ty who has con­sis­tent­ly called for an end to whal­ing,” said Jeff Hansen, Sea Shep­herd Aus­tralia Direc­tor.

“One whale killed is still one whale killed too many. How­ev­er, today we cel­e­brate the fact that with courage and con­vic­tion in the face of great dan­ger and adver­si­ty, the brave crews of the four Sea Shep­herd ships were able to suc­cess­ful­ly pre­vent the Japan­ese whal­ing fleet from reach­ing more than nine­ty per­cent of their self-allo­cat­ed quo­ta. This has meant sav­ing the lives of 932 threat­ened, endan­gered and pro­tect­ed whales,” said Cap­tain Peter Ham­marst­edt.

“Nine years ago on Sea Shep­herd’s first Whale Defense cam­paign the lives of 85 whales were saved. At the con­clu­sion of the 9th Antarc­tic cam­paign, that num­ber has increased 11-fold to 932. Oper­a­tion Zero Tol­er­ance is by far Sea Shep­herd’s most suc­cess­ful cam­paign with the kill num­bers being the low­est since the ille­gal research-whal­ing pro­gram start­ed. It is a def­i­nite­ly an epic moment in Sea Shep­herd’s his­to­ry, how­ev­er it is an even big­ger one for the whales. Nev­er has the sanc­tu­ary been more peace­ful. While the crews and the ships bore the brunt of the vio­lence at the hands of the Japan­ese Whal­ing Fleet, the whales were spared the har­poons,” said Cap­tain Sid­dharth Chakravar­ty.

 

Daniel McGowan Released After Lawyers Confirm He Was Jailed For HuffPost Blog 5th April

Lawyers for envi­ron­men­tal activist Daniel McGowan said in a state­ment Fri­day after­noon that he had been returned to his halfway house in Brook­lyn.

Lawyers for envi­ron­men­tal activist Daniel McGowan said in a state­ment Fri­day after­noon that he had been returned to his halfway house in Brook­lyn. They added that they had con­firmed McGowan was jailed by fed­er­al mar­shals on Thurs­day for his Huff­in­g­ton Post blog post — on the basis of a prison reg­u­la­tion that was declared uncon­sti­tu­tion­al by a judge in 2007.

Their state­ment read:

Daniel McGowan has been released from the Met­ro­pol­i­tan Deten­tion Cen­ter in Brook­lyn where he was tak­en into cus­tody yes­ter­day and is back at the halfway house where he has been resid­ing since his release from prison in Decem­ber. Yes­ter­day, Daniel was giv­en an “inci­dent report” indi­cat­ing that his Huff­in­g­ton Post blog post, “Court Doc­u­ments Prove I Was Sent to Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Man­age­ment Units (CMU) for My Polit­i­cal Speech,” vio­lat­ed a BOP reg­u­la­tion pro­hibit­ing inmates from “pub­lish­ing under a byline.” The BOP reg­u­la­tion in ques­tion was declared uncon­sti­tu­tion­al by a fed­er­al court in 2007, and elim­i­nat­ed by the BOP in 2010. After we brought this to the BOP’s atten­tion, the inci­dent report was expunged.

The Bureau of Pris­ons did not imme­di­ate­ly return a request for com­ment.

The ear­li­er sto­ry …

NEW YORK — The jail­ing of envi­ron­men­tal activist Daniel McGowan is under review, a Fed­er­al Bureau of Pris­ons (BOP) offi­cial said Fri­day morn­ing.

McGowan, who plead­ed guilty to arson linked to the Earth Lib­er­a­tion Front in 2006, was serv­ing out the final months of his sev­en-year sen­tence in a Brook­lyn halfway house when he was jailed by fed­er­al mar­shals Thurs­day morn­ing, alleged­ly for writ­ing a com­men­tary on The Huff­in­g­ton Post crit­i­cal of a harsh­ly restrict­ed fed­er­al prison unit in which he had spent time.

Tra­cy Rivers, a res­i­den­tial reen­try man­ag­er for the BOP in New York, told Huff­Post Fri­day morn­ing, “We are review­ing this case to deter­mine if the actions that were tak­en were appro­pri­ate.”

Rivers declined to say more about why McGowan was moved to the Met­ro­pol­i­tan Deten­tion Cen­ter, cit­ing pri­va­cy issues. But she not­ed that a deter­mi­na­tion would be made in McGowan’s case by the end of Fri­day.

In gen­er­al, Rivers said, pris­on­ers can be pun­ished for vio­lat­ing a BOP rule thatpro­hibits giv­ing inter­views to the news media with­out offi­cial approval. But that rule says noth­ing about pris­on­ers writ­ing blog posts.

McGowan’s wife, Jen­ny Synan, told Huff­Post that nei­ther he, his lawyers nor a BOP offi­cial she talked to about the case had heard of a reg­u­la­tion pro­hibit­ing pris­on­ers from writ­ing blog posts.

In a state­ment Thurs­day, McGowan’s lawyers at the Cen­ter for Con­sti­tu­tion­al Rights said, “If this is indeed a case of retal­i­a­tion for writ­ing an arti­cle about the BOP retal­i­at­ing against his free speech while he was in prison, it is more than iron­ic, it is an out­rage.”

UPDATE: 1:25 p.m. — Daniel McGowan may soon leave jail. His attor­ney with the Cen­ter for Con­sti­tu­tion­al Rights, Rachel Meeropol, told Huff­Post Fri­day after­noon, “We have been told by the BOP that he will be sent back to the halfway house today.”

Daniel McGowan Sent Back to Prison April 4th

Less than a week after Daniel’s arti­cle regard­ing being held in a CMU for his polit­i­cal speech was pub­lished by the Huff­in­g­ton Post, he has been sent back into cus­tody. The fol­low­ing mes­sage is from a sup­port site for Daniel McGowan:

“Just when we thought it was over…. We have some bad news to report. This morn­ing Daniel was tak­en into cus­tody by fed­er­al mar­shals and is now at the fed­er­al deten­tion cen­ter in Brook­lyn get­ting processed.

We are still wait­ing to hear why this has occurred. Con­sid­er­ing his exem­plary behav­ior at the halfway house, approved week­end pass­es and the full-time job he start­ed as soon as he was released back to the city this is all pret­ty insane. The Bureau of Pris­ons has proven to be cru­el and vin­dic­tive time and time again.

Any­way, what YOU can do right now is write to Daniel and send your love! We don’t know how long he will be here, but there is a good chance it will be until his sen­tence offi­cial­ly ends on June 5.

Please write to:
DANIEL McGOWAN
#63794–053
MDC BROOKLYN
METROPOLITAN DETENTION CENTER
P.O. BOX 329002
BROOKLYN, NY 11232

Thanks for your con­tin­ued sup­port!”

There is also an arti­cle post­ed by NYC ABC, which you can read here.

Tar Sands Protestors Chain Themselves To Canadian Consulate Doors 3rd April

Two Seat­tle res­i­dents have chained them­selves to the doors of the Cana­di­an Con­sulate in down­town Seat­tle today protest­ing pro­posed pipelines that would bring Cana­di­an tar sands to Amer­i­can refiner­ies.

Two Seat­tle res­i­dents have chained them­selves to the doors of the Cana­di­an Con­sulate in down­town Seat­tle today protest­ing pro­posed pipelines that would bring Cana­di­an tar sands to Amer­i­can refiner­ies.

“We used to look up to Cana­da as an envi­ron­men­tal leader, but pro­mot­ing extreme ener­gy like tar sands has soiled that rep­u­ta­tion for­ev­er,” said Car­lo Voli, a 47 year old Edmonds res­i­dent, as pro­tes­tors poured fake oil over Cana­di­an and Amer­i­can flags. Voli and Lisa Mar­cus, a 57 year old Seat­tle res­i­dent and grand­moth­er, have U‑Locked their necks to the doors of the consulate’s con­fer­ence room.

Par­tic­i­pants are protest­ing the con­struc­tion of the Key­stone XL pipeline and pro­pos­als to increase the num­ber of tankers car­ry­ing tar sands through the Sal­ish Sea. More than fifty peo­ple have been arrest­ed at sim­i­lar protests around the coun­try this past month. 1

“We’re here to expose the col­lu­sion between the tar sands indus­try and the Cana­di­an gov­ern­ment,” explained Rachel Sto­eve, a recent Uni­ver­si­ty of Wash­ing­ton grad­u­ate who was hold­ing a ban­ner out­side the cheese fac­to­ry, “The Cana­di­an gov­ern­ment and the tar sands indus­try are work­ing togeth­er to bring tar sands to our com­mu­ni­ties. They’re not doing it for our ben­e­fit; they’re doing it for prof­it,”

Cana­di­an Diplo­mats have come under crit­i­cism around the world for their aggres­sive pro­mo­tion of the tar sands indus­try. The Harp­er Admin­is­tra­tion also pro­voked the indige­nous rights move­ment Idle No More when they opened up native lands to devel­op­ment. In March Envi­ron­men­tal Defense, a Toron­to based group, released near­ly one thou­sand pages of inter­nal e‑mails from Cana­di­an diplo­mats out­lin­ing a strat­e­gy to pro­mote the Key­stone XL pipeline with Amer­i­can journalists.2 Last year an inter­nal mem­o­ran­dum released by Post-Media news revealed the Harp­er gov­ern­ment had deployed a net­work of Diplo­mats to lob­by For­tune 500 com­pa­nies in order to counter an envi­ron­men­tal cam­paign tar­get­ing the tar sands.3 In Europe, the Cana­di­an gov­ern­ment has attempt­ed to under­mine the Euro­pean Union’s “Fuel Qual­i­ty Direc­tive” with a lob­by­ing cam­paign that Friends of the Earth described as “pos­si­bly the most vocif­er­ous pub­lic rela­tions cam­paign by a for­eign gov­ern­ment ever wit­nessed in the EU.”4

While the fight against the Key­stone XL pipeline has become a head­line issue for envi­ron­men­tal­ists around the coun­try, Seat­tle res­i­dents point out that Canada’s tar sands are already impact­ing the Sal­ish Sea. All five of Washington’s refiner­ies cur­rent­ly process tar sands mate­ri­als, trans­port­ed by Kinder-Morgan’s Trans-Moun­tain pipeline and oil tankers.5 THe Kinder-Mor­gan has pro­posed twin­ning the Trans-Moun­tain pipeline near­ly tripling its capac­i­ty from 300,000 bar­rels per day to 850,000 bar­rels per day.6

 

“There is no safe method for tar sands trans­port. Kinder Morgan’s plans could bring up to 360 tankers through the Sal­ish Sea7 and the Depart­ment of Ecol­o­gy still has no plan to deal with a tar sands spill. It’s a dis­as­ter wait­ing to hap­pen,” warned Rachel Sto­eve

The Depart­ment of Ecol­o­gy esti­mates a major oil spill could cost the state’s econ­o­my $10 Bil­lion and 165,000 lost jobs as well as wipe out Washington’s res­i­dent Orca pop­u­la­tion.

“We’ve had enough of politi­cians on both sides of the bor­der act­ing as mouth­pieces for the fos­sil fuel indus­try. It’s time for ordi­nary peo­ple to put their bod­ies on the line to pro­tect our region and our cli­mate from extreme ener­gy,” said Voli.

Amazon Dam Activists Threaten to Wage War on Brazil Over Military Incursion 3rd April

An Ama­zon­ian com­mu­ni­ty has threat­ened to “go to war” with the Brazil­ian gov­ern­ment after a mil­i­tary incur­sion into their land by dam builders.

The Munduruku indige­nous com­mu­ni­ty in Para state say they have been betrayed by the author­i­ties, who are push­ing ahead with plans to build a cas­cade of hydropow­er plants on the Tapa­jós riv­er with­out their per­mis­sion.

Pub­lic pros­e­cu­tors, human rights groups, envi­ron­men­tal organ­i­sa­tions and Chris­t­ian mis­sion­ar­ies have con­demned the government’s strong-arm tac­tics.

Heli­copters, sol­diers and armed police have been involved in Oper­a­tion Tapa­jós, which aims to con­duct an envi­ron­men­tal impact assess­ment for the first pro­posed con­struc­tion, the 6,133MW São Luiz do Tapa­jós dam.

The facil­i­ty, to be built by the Norte Ener­gia con­sor­tium, is the biggest of three planned dams on the Tapa­jós, the fifth-largest riv­er in the Ama­zon basin. The government’s 10-year plan includes the con­struc­tion of four larg­er hydro­elec­tric plants on its trib­u­tary, the Jamanx­im.

‘We don’t want Belo Monte’ reads a sign at an anti-dam ral­ly in front of the Brazil­ian par­lia­ment in Brasil­ia. Under Brazil­ian law, major infra­struc­ture projects require pri­or con­sul­ta­tion with indige­nous com­mu­ni­ties. Fed­er­al pros­e­cu­tors say this has not hap­pened and urge the courts to block the scheme which, they fear, could lead to blood­shed.

“The Munduruku have already stat­ed on sev­er­al occa­sions that they do not sup­port stud­ies for hydro­elec­tric plants on their land unless there is full pri­or con­sul­ta­tion,” the pros­e­cu­tors not­ed in a state­ment.

A sim­i­lar sur­vey in Novem­ber led to dead­ly con­flict. One res­i­dent, Ade­nil­son Kir­ixi, was killed and sev­er­al oth­ers were wound­ed in clash­es between local peo­ple and troops accom­pa­ny­ing the researchers in Teles Pires vil­lage.

The min­istry of mines and ener­gy not­ed on its web­site that 80 researchers, includ­ing biol­o­gists and foresters, would under­take a study of flo­ra and fau­na. The army escort was made pos­si­ble by Pres­i­dent Dil­ma Rouss­eff, who decreed this year that mil­i­tary per­son­nel could be used for sur­vey oper­a­tions.

Mis­sion­ar­ies said the recent show of force in Sawré May­bu vil­lage, Itaitu­ba, was intim­i­dat­ing, degrad­ing and an unac­cept­able vio­la­tion of the rights of the res­i­dents.

“In this oper­a­tion, the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment has been threat­en­ing the lives of the peo­ple,” the Indige­nous Mis­sion­ary Coun­cil said. “It is unac­cept­able and ille­git­i­mate for the gov­ern­ment to impose dia­logue at the tip of a bay­o­net.”

The group said Munduruku lead­ers end­ed a phone call with rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the pres­i­dent with a dec­la­ra­tion of war. They have also issued open let­ters call­ing for an end to the mil­i­tary oper­a­tion, “We are not ban­dits. We feel betrayed, humil­i­at­ed and dis­re­spect­ed by all this,” a let­ter states.

One of the community’s lead­ers, Valdenir Munduruku, has warned thatlocals will take action if the gov­ern­ment does not with­draw its task­force by 10 April. He has called for sup­port from oth­er indige­nous groups, such as the Xin­gu, fac­ing sim­i­lar threats from hydro­elec­tric dams.

Envi­ron­men­tal groups have expressed con­cern. The 1,200-mile water­way is home to more than 300 fish species and pro­vides sus­te­nance to some of the most bio­di­verse for­est habi­tats on Earth. Ten indige­nous groups inhab­it the basin, along with sev­er­al tribes in vol­un­tary iso­la­tion.

With sim­i­lar con­flicts over oth­er pro­posed dams in the Ama­zon, such as those at Belo Monte, Teles Pires, San­to Antônio and Jirau, some com­pare the use of force to the last great expan­sion of hydropow­er dur­ing the mil­i­tary dic­ta­tor­ship.

“The Brazil­ian gov­ern­ment is mak­ing polit­i­cal deci­sions about the dams before the envi­ron­men­tal impact assess­ment is done,” said Brent Mil­likan of the Inter­na­tion­al Rivers envi­ron­men­tal group.

“The recent mil­i­tary oper­a­tions illus­trate that the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment is will­ing to dis­re­gard exist­ing legal instru­ments intend­ed to fos­ter dia­logue between gov­ern­ment and civ­il soci­ety.”

Summer action camp against Shell

Come to Mayo on the 21st of June

This year it is planned to have a short­er camp, but to attract a large num­ber of peo­ple.

Come to Mayo on the 21st of June

This year it is planned to have a short­er camp, but to attract a large num­ber of peo­ple.

Basi­cal­ly we’ll be build­ing the camp from the start of June to be ready for Mid-June.

  • Build camp 1st – 15thJune
  • Sol­i­dar­i­ty camp from Fri­day the 21st to Sun­day the 30th June

 

The G8 is to take place 17th-19th June in Co. Fer­managh. The camp in Mayo takes place after the G8, for those who would like to have an active month in June!

We are also encour­ag­ing groups to come and engage in actions at this time, but if you can only come once this sum­mer, then the last week of June (21st-30th) is the time to be here – get organ­is­ing.

New posters, leaflets, youtube videos and speak­ing tours are being organised/made to pro­mote the cam­paign and sum­mer camp. Con­tact us if you can help organ­is­ing or pro­mot­ing the events this sum­mer.

Has­ta la vic­to­ria siem­pre,

RSC

 

Please print out the full update and help spread the word! http://www.rossportsolidaritycamp.org/?p=1651

rossportsolidaritycamp@gmail.com
www.rossportsolidaritycamp.org / www.shelltosea.com

Mexico: 22 Injured in Oaxaca Wind Farm Protest

Some 1,200 agents from the police forces of the south­ern Mex­i­can state of Oax­a­ca tried unsuc­cess­ful­ly on March 26 to remove local res­i­dents who were block­ing a road lead­ing to the Bii Yox­ho wind farm, which is under con­struc­tion in Juchitán de Zaragoza munic­i­pal­i­ty near the Pacif­ic coast. The oper­a­tion was also intend­ed to recov­er con­struc­tion equip­ment pro­test­ers had seized on Feb. 25 in an ongo­ing effort to stop the com­ple­tion of the wind project, which is owned by the Mex­i­can sub­sidiary of the Span­ish com­pa­ny Gas Nat­ur­al Fenosa. Local pros­e­cu­tor Manuel de Jesús López told the French wire ser­vice AFP that 22 peo­ple were injured in the March 26 oper­a­tion, includ­ing 11 police agents, and one police agent was tak­en pris­on­er. Pro­test­ers report­ed eight local peo­ple with seri­ous injuries, includ­ing Car­los Sánchez, the coor­di­na­tor of Radio Totopo, a com­mu­ni­ty radio sta­tion.

Sev­er­al com­pa­nies have been build­ing wind farms in south­east­ern Oax­a­ca on the Isth­mus of Tehuan­te­pec. Res­i­dents in the Juchitán area, most­ly from the Zapotec and Ikoots (Huave) indige­nous groups, say the Bii Yox­ho project is being built in an area they use for fish­ing and farm­ing that also includes cer­e­mo­ni­al sites, along with man­grove forests that are crit­i­cal to the local envi­ron­ment. The bar­ri­cade block­ing access to the Bii Yox­ho project on the Juchitán-Playa Vicente road is one of four main points of resis­tance to the wind tur­bines. Activists have also occu­pied the town hall in San Dion­i­sio del Mar since Jan­u­ary 2012; have refused to rec­og­nize the may­or in San Mateo del Mar, Fran­cis­co Valle, because he favors the projects; and have set up a bar­ri­cade in Juchitán’s Alvaro Obregón neigh­bor­hood to block access to anoth­er wind park, owned by the Mareña Ren­ov­ables com­pa­ny.

The resis­tance has been sub­ject­ed to police harass­ment, such as the 24-hour deten­tion by fed­er­al police of Lucila Bet­ti­na Cruz Velázquez, a leader in the Assem­bly of the Indige­nous Peo­ples of the Tehuan­te­pec Isth­mus in Defense of Land and Ter­ri­to­ry, in Feb­ru­ary 2012. Pro­test­ers also report the pres­ence of armed para­mil­i­tary groups, some with con­nec­tions to unions and oth­er groups affil­i­at­ed with the cen­trist Insti­tu­tion­al Rev­o­lu­tion­ary Par­ty (PRI) or close to the cen­ter-left Par­ty of the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Rev­o­lu­tion (PRD). On March 21 a group of men linked to Juchitán’s PRI may­or, Fran­cis­co Valle Pia­monte, briefly detained reporter Rosa Rojas and pho­tog­ra­ph­er Fran­cis­co Olvera, both from the left-lean­ing nation­al dai­ly La Jor­na­da, along with three reporters from alter­na­tive media and a San Mateo res­i­dent. On the morn­ing of March 29 a para­mil­i­tary group dis­man­tled Radio Totopa, seiz­ing a lap­top and the trans­mit­ter and cut­ting the pow­er cables, accord­ing to the Pop­u­lar Assem­bly of the Juchite­co Peo­ple (APPJ). APPJ spokes­peo­ple called this “anoth­er attack by the state gov­ern­ment and the transna­tion­al com­pa­nies which are try­ing to use vio­lence to silence the voic­es of those who oppose the con­struc­tion of wind parks.” 

After nego­ti­a­tions with rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the Oax­a­ca state gov­ern­ment on March 28, the APPJ returned 12 vehi­cles, includ­ing a back­hoe, to Gas Nat­ur­al Fenosa; in exchange the state agreed not to press charges against the pro­test­ers. How­ev­er, the APPJ reject­ed the state’s pro­pos­al for them to lift the road block­ades on April 1 and attend an April 2 meet­ing in the city of Oax­a­ca. The pro­test­ers said they would main­tain their bar­ri­cades, and they called on Oax­a­ca gov­er­nor Gabi­no Cué Mon­teagu­do to come meet with them in Juchitán. (Desin­for­mé­monos, March 24; Bloomberg News, March 27, from AFP; state­ment by assem­blies of the peo­ples of the Isth­mus, March 29, via Kaos en la Red; La Jor­na­da, March 29)

Panama: Ngöbe-Buglé Murdered After Anti-dam Protest 2nd April

Onési­mo Rodríguez, a leader in Panama’s Ngöbe-Buglé indige­nous group, was killed by a group of masked men in Cer­ro Pun­ta, in west­ern Chiriquí depart­ment, the evening of March 22 fol­low­ing a protest against con­struc­tion of the Bar­ro Blan­co hydro­elec­tric dam. Car­los Miran­da, anoth­er pro­test­er who was attacked along with Rodríguez, said the assailants beat both men with met­al bars. Miran­da lost con­scious­ness but sur­vived; Rodríguez’s body was found in a stream the next day. Miran­da said he was unable to iden­ti­fy the attack­ers because it was dark and their faces were cov­ered. Manolo Miran­da and oth­er lead­ers of the April 10 Move­ment, which orga­nizes protests against the dam, charged that “the ones that mis­treat­ed the Ngöbes were dis­guised police agents.”

The Ngöbe-Buglé stepped up their demon­stra­tions against the Bar­ro Blan­co project in Jan­u­ary, when con­struc­tion con­tin­ued at the site despite a Unit­ed Nations (UN) report that large­ly sub­stan­ti­at­ed indige­nous claims that the dam would flood three vil­lages, cut the res­i­dents off from food sources and destroy impor­tant cul­tur­al mon­u­ments. As of March 26 an inde­pen­dent study man­dat­ed by the UN report and agreed to by the gov­ern­ment had still not start­ed.

 

In addi­tion to protest­ing the Hon­duran-owned com­pa­ny build­ing the dam, Gen­er­ado­ra del Ist­mo, S.A. (GENISA), indige­nous activists blame two Euro­pean banks for fund­ing the project: Germany’s pri­vate Deutsche Investi­tions- und

Entwick­lungs­ge­sellschaft (DEG) and the Ned­er­landse Financier­ings-Maatschap­pij voor Ontwik­kel­ings­lan­den N.V. (FMO), in which the Dutch gov­ern­ment holds a con­trol­ling inter­est. Dam oppo­nents say GENISA also sought fund­ing from the Euro­pean Invest­ment Bank (EIB) but with­drew the appli­ca­tion after learn­ing that bank offi­cials planned to vis­it the affect­ed com­mu­ni­ties them­selves. (Mongabay.com, March 25; La Estrel­la, Pana­ma, March 26)

In oth­er news, as of March 19 the Nation­al Coor­di­nat­ing Com­mit­tee of the Indige­nous Peo­ples of Pana­ma (COONAPIP) had decid­ed to with­draw from the Unit­ed Nations Reduc­ing Emis­sions from Defor­esta­tion and Degra­da­tion (UN-REDD+) pro­gram, which focus­es on envi­ron­men­tal prob­lems in devel­op­ing nations. The indige­nous group charged in a state­ment that the UN and the Pana­man­ian gov­ern­ment “have appeared to mar­gin­al­ize the col­lec­tive par­tic­i­pa­tion of the sev­en indige­nous peo­ples and 12 tra­di­tion­al struc­tures that make up COONAPIP” and have put “legal and admin­is­tra­tive obsta­cles in the way” of indige­nous par­tic­i­pa­tion. The Mesoamer­i­can Alliance of Peo­ple and Forests (AMPB), a coali­tion of Cen­tral Amer­i­can and Mex­i­can indige­nous and envi­ron­men­tal groups, is back­ing COONAPIP’s deci­sion. (Mongabay.com, March 19; Adi­tal, Brazil, March 21)

Hundreds Resume Letpadaung Mine Protest 1st April

More than 300 farm­ers in north­ern Burma’s Sagaing Divi­sion have resumed their protests against a con­tro­ver­sial Chi­nese-backed cop­per mine, say­ing they will refuse com­pen­sa­tion and con­tin­ue to push for the mine’s com­plete clo­sure.

More than 300 farm­ers in north­ern Burma’s Sagaing Divi­sion have resumed their protests against a con­tro­ver­sial Chi­nese-backed cop­per mine, say­ing they will refuse com­pen­sa­tion and con­tin­ue to push for the mine’s com­plete clo­sure.

“No mat­ter how much com­pen­sa­tion they give, we won’t accept it, because all we want is for the mine to be shut down com­plete­ly,” said one of the farm­ers from the Let­padaung area near Mony­wa.

The pro­test­ers are also demand­ing that the gov­ern­ment take action against those respon­si­ble for a Nov. 29, 2012, crack­down that left around 100 pro­test­ers injured, some of them severe­ly. They say they also want an emer­gency order ban­ning protests lift­ed.

The farm­ers say that the mine, joint­ly owned by the Union of Myan­mar Eco­nom­ic Hold­ings Ltd, a Burmese mil­i­tary-owned con­glom­er­a­tion, and Wan­bao, a sub­sidiary of Chi­nese state-owned arms man­u­fac­tur­er Nor­in­co, has been dump­ing waste on land owned by farm­ers who have refused com­pen­sa­tion.

Some of the farm­ers said that they have attempt­ed to obstruct the efforts of mine employ­ees to take over their land. “When we attempt­ed to halt their work, they called the police to dri­ve us back. Lat­er some farm­ers used big stone slabs to fence in their con­fis­cat­ed lands to pre­vent the bull­doz­ers,” said one farmer.

“They are even try­ing to get us to give up our lands for­ev­er, using some of the for­mer protest lead­ers to con­vince us. They say we will get elec­tric­i­ty and water. But we won’t accept it. We just want to stop the min­ing for the sake of our future gen­er­a­tions,” said anoth­er.

The protests against the mine began last year, and attract­ed sup­port from activists around the coun­try. How­ev­er, farm­ers in the affect­ed area have been divid­ed over whether to con­tin­ue their protests since a gov­ern­ment-formed com­mis­sion led by oppo­si­tion leader Aung San Suu Kyi released a report ear­li­er this month say­ing the project should go ahead.

Those still push­ing for the mine’s clo­sure say they will not give up.

“The rea­son we don’t accept the result of the com­mis­sion is because it doesn’t assure our future, our land and our envi­ron­ment, and makes no com­mit­ment to bring­ing the cul­prit behind the crack­down to jus­tice. We will con­tin­ue to protest—with per­mis­sion from the authorities—until the min­ing stops,” said one pro­test­er.