Category: Wilderness Defence

Wilder­ness defence

Longest Tree Sit in Tasmanian History Stays Strong

19.2.12

TODAY marks the begin­ning of a glob­al 24 hours of action in sup­port of Miran­da Gib­son, who has now bro­ken the Tas­man­ian record for the longest time spent at the top of a tree.

19.2.12

TODAY marks the begin­ning of a glob­al 24 hours of action in sup­port of Miran­da Gib­son, who has now bro­ken the Tas­man­ian record for the longest time spent at the top of a tree.

Miran­da has been on a plat­form 60m above the ground for 52 days and will remain there to high­light the ongo­ing destruc­tion of Tasmania’s forests.

Her tree sit, known as The Observ­er Tree, has received inter­na­tion­al atten­tion over the past 52 days as she uses solar pow­er and inter­net access to bring Tasmania’s spec­tac­u­lar forests into people’s homes all around the world.

The Observ­er Tree is call­ing on the Japan­ese cus­tomers of log­ging cor­po­ra­tion Ta Ann to cease pur­chas­ing wood com­ing from Tasmania’s high con­ser­va­tion val­ue forests.

Yes­ter­day the Bellin­gen Envi­ron­ment Cen­tre ini­ti­at­ed a ral­ly in sup­port of Miran­da and also to raise aware­ness about the loss of habi­tat local­ly.

BEC spokes­woman Car­o­line Joseph said Bellin­gen Shire res­i­dents were increas­ing­ly wor­ried about their own forests.

“The inten­si­ty of log­ging has increased local­ly as Forests NSW tries to keep up with its quo­tas,” Mrs Joseph said.

“Peo­ple can see that increase and are feel­ing con­cerned about this dra­mat­ic loss of habi­tat, espe­cial­ly for koalas.”

She said anoth­er habi­tat threat was to tracts of land zoned for devel­op­ment under old leg­is­la­tion.

“This land is not cov­ered by new­er envi­ron­men­tal pro­tec­tion laws and is high­ly desir­able to devel­op­ers.”

Massive Protests Block Pan-American Highway for Six Days, Leave Police Station in Ashes

18.2.12

18.2.12

As she stands among vil­lagers in the high­lands of west­ern Pana­ma, their cho­sen leader, Sil­via Car­rera, is an image of bucol­ic har­mo­ny. Then Car­rera, elect­ed chief or gen­er­al cacique of the Ngäbe-Buglé com­mu­ni­ty, ges­tures to a woman who hands her a bag of spent US riot-con­trol equip­ment – rub­ber bul­let cas­ings, shot­gun shells, sting-ball grenades, tear­gas can­is­ters.

Pana­ma nation­al police, she explains, used these against her peo­ple only days ear­li­er to break up a protest against gov­ern­ment plans for a vast cop­per mine and hydro­elec­tric schemes on their ter­ri­to­ry. Three young Ngäbe-Buglé men were killed, dozens were wound­ed and more than 100 detained.

What began with vil­lagers at Ojo de Agua in Chiriquí province using trees and rocks to block the Pan-Amer­i­can high­way ear­li­er this month – trap­ping hun­dreds of lor­ries and bus­loads of tourists com­ing over the bor­der from Cos­ta Rica for six days – has now placed Pana­ma at the fore­front of the endur­ing and often vio­lent clash between indige­nous peo­ples and glob­al demand for land, min­er­als and ener­gy. Car­rera is emerg­ing as a piv­otal fig­ure in the con­flict.

“Look how they treat us. What do we have to defend our­selves? We don’t have any­thing; we have only words,” Car­rera protests. “We are defence­less. We don’t have weapons. We were attacked and it wasn’t just by land but by air too. Every­thing they do to us, to our land, to our com­pan­ions who will not come back to life, hurts us.”

At the height of the protests, thou­sands of Ngäbe-Buglé came down from the hills to block the high­way; in El Vol­cán and San Félix they briefly rout­ed police and set fire to a police sta­tion. In Pana­ma City, stu­dents and unions joined with indige­nous pro­test­ers march­ing almost dai­ly on the res­i­dence of Pres­i­dent Ricar­do Mar­tinel­li. Some daubed walls near the pres­i­den­tial palace with the words “Mar­tinel­li assas­sin”.

Car­rera pulls from her satchel a hasti­ly drawn-up agree­ment bro­kered by the Catholic church that oblig­es the Pana­man­ian nation­al assem­bly to dis­cuss the issue. It did not guar­an­tee that the projects would be halt­ed. Nei­ther she nor the Ngäbe-Buglé peo­ple expressed opti­mism that the gov­ern­ment would keep its word on the min­ing issue.

“The vil­lage doesn’t believe it,” she says, “and it wouldn’t be the first time that the gov­ern­ment threw around lies. They do not lis­ten to the vil­lage. There was a sim­i­lar mas­sacre in 2010 and 2011, when there were deaths and injuries. Some were blind­ed, some of our com­pan­ions lost limbs.” A cry goes up: “No to the min­ers! No to the hydro­elec­tric!”

The Ngäbe-Buglé comar­ca, or ter­ri­to­ry, sits atop the huge Cer­ro Col­orado cop­per deposit, the rich­est min­er­al deposit in Pana­ma, pos­si­bly in all of cen­tral Amer­i­ca. Pro-busi­ness Mar­tinel­li, a self-made super­mar­ket tycoon, signed a deal with Canada’s Inmet Min­ing with a 20% Kore­an invest­ment to extract as much as 270,000 tons of cop­per a year, along with gold and sil­ver, over the 30-year lifes­pan of the pro­posed mine. Panama’s tribes form 10% of the pop­u­la­tion but, through a sys­tem of autonomous comar­cas, they con­trol 30% of the land, giv­ing them greater lever­age.

Mar­tinel­li could hard­ly have found a proud­er adver­sary than Car­rera who, at 42 and elect­ed only in Sep­tem­ber, is the first woman to lead Panama’s largest indige­nous tribe. “The land is our moth­er. It is because of her that we live,” she says sim­ply. “The peo­ple will defend our moth­er.” Car­rera holds Mar­tinel­li in scant regard. She accus­es him of “mock­ing” indige­nous peo­ple and con­sid­ers his admin­is­tra­tion a gov­ern­ment of busi­ness­men who “use us to enter­tain them­selves, say­ing one thing today and anoth­er tomor­row”.

Two days before the police cleared the road­blocks, the pres­i­dent invit­ed her to the Pala­cio de las Garzas in Panamá City for a “good meal and a drink”. The Ngäbe-Buglé chief, who received edu­ca­tion to sec­ondary lev­el, was unim­pressed. The offer, she said, revealed “a lack of respect”.

In past min­ing dis­putes, the gov­ern­ment blamed “for­eign actors” and jour­nal­ists for stir­ring up trou­ble. Last week it accused the Ngäbe-Buglé of “kid­nap­ping” and “hostage-tak­ing” when refer­ring to the trav­ellers delayed on the high­way. By the time the smoke cleared, Panama’s for­eign min­is­ter, Rober­to Hen­ríquez, con­ced­ed that his gov­ern­ment was “only pro­duc­ing deep­er wounds”.

Car­rera ges­tures to women in the group she says have been injured. Over the pre­vi­ous 24 hours she had trav­elled between towns to ensure that all the pro­test­ers had been released, but some reports sug­gest that dozens are still miss­ing. One woman holds up a ban­daged hand, a wound that she says came from an army bul­let.

With the dead – includ­ing Jerón­i­mo Rodríguez Tugri, who had his jaw blown off, and Mauri­cio Mén­dez, a learn­ing-dis­abled 16-year-old – still lying in the mor­tu­ary, Carrera’s anger is plain. “This is the strug­gle of the indige­nous peo­ple. We are try­ing to make con­tact, ask­ing our inter­na­tion­al broth­ers to join us in sol­i­dar­i­ty. We call for jus­tice from the UN. The gov­ern­ment doesn’t want oth­er coun­tries to know about this. That’s why they cut off our cell­phone ser­vice. We couldn’t find each oth­er. Nobody knew any­thing. They were try­ing to con­vince us to give up.”

Fear­ful of the envi­ron­men­tal and polit­i­cal fall­out, gov­ern­ments through­out cen­tral Amer­i­ca are tight­en­ing min­ing con­trols. But Mar­tinel­li, who came to pow­er with the cam­paign slo­gan “walk­ing in the shoes of the peo­ple”, seems deter­mined to find a way around leg­is­la­tion that pro­tects indige­nous min­er­al, water and envi­ron­men­tal resources from exploita­tion.

The Mar­tinel­li gov­ern­ment faces accu­sa­tions of sys­tem­at­ic crony­ism in the allo­ca­tion of more than $12bn in new con­struc­tion projects, fund­ed in part by increased rev­enue antic­i­pat­ed from a $5.25bn Pana­ma canal expan­sion pro­gramme. Among the dis­put­ed projects is a $775m high­way that will encir­cle Pana­ma City’s old quar­ter of Cas­co Viejo, cut­ting it off from the sea and iso­lat­ing a new Frank Gehry-designed muse­um cel­e­brat­ing Panama’s influ­ence as a three-mil­lion-year-old land bridge between the Amer­i­c­as. Crit­ics say the road is point­less and Unesco is threat­en­ing to with­draw its world her­itage site des­ig­na­tion if it pro­ceeds.

Despite the region’s his­to­ry of con­flict and shady bank­ing prac­tices, Pana­ma is aggres­sive­ly posi­tion­ing itself both as an eco­nom­ic haven (GDP growth is run­ning at close to 7.5%) and a tourist and eco-tourist des­ti­na­tion. New sky­scrap­ers thrust up into the humid­i­ty like a mini-Dubai; chic restau­rants and hotels are open­ing up .

Offi­cials express con­cern that the Ngäbe-Buglé and oth­er indige­nous dis­putes may undo Panama’s care­ful­ly orches­trat­ed PR push, spot­light­ing the dis­par­i­ty of wealth in a coun­try where 40% of the pop­u­la­tion live in pover­ty. “The gov­ern­ment says Good, Pana­ma is grow­ing its econ­o­my. Yet the econ­o­my is for a few bel­la­co [macho men],” Car­rera says. “But progress should be for the major­i­ty and for this we will go into the street, and from fron­tier to fron­tier, to protest.”

The tourism Pana­ma seeks is threat­en­ing their way of life, she says. Along the coast, pri­vate devel­op­ments are begin­ning to restrict access to the sea. “We work and we own prop­er­ty, but the tourists take the land and the best prop­er­ty. Then we can’t go there.”

At the bot­tom of the hill the gen­er­al cacique waits for a bus to take her and sev­er­al dozen women to Pana­ma City, 200km to the west, for anoth­er anti-gov­ern­ment ral­ly, where they will be joined by the Kuna and rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the Emberá and Wounaan peo­ples, who are oppos­ing encroach­ment of farm­ers on their land in the east­ern provinces. Car­rera vows that the Ngäbe-Buglé cam­paign will con­tin­ue. “We are not vio­lent. We just want to reclaim our rights and jus­tice. Above all, we want to live in peace and tran­quil­i­ty.”

Venezuelans Blockade Streets, Burn Tires After Oil Spill

15.2.12

15.2.12

Hun­dreds of pro­test­ers blocked streets and burned tires in east­ern Venezuela on Wednes­day to demand clean water after a recent oil spill pol­lut­ed rivers and streams that sup­ply local stor­age tanks.

“We have not had water for a week,” said Maria Rodriguez, an angry 26-year-old house­wife who joined the protest in the city of Maturin. “We don’t have water to cook and bathe, and we don’t have the mon­ey need­ed to buy bot­tled water every­day.”

Crude oil began spilling from a rup­tured pipeline on Feb. 4 near Maturin.

Mon­a­gas state Gov. Jose Gre­go­rio Briceno declared a “state of emer­gency” fol­low­ing the spill, halt­ing water dis­tri­b­u­tion and clos­ing schools in the state’s cap­i­tal of Maturin, which is locat­ed approx­i­mate­ly 255 miles (410 kilo­me­ters) north­east of Cara­cas

Rep­re­sen­ta­tives of Venezuela’s state oil com­pa­ny, Petroleos de Venezuela S.A., or PDVSA, have not revealed how much oil leaked into the riv­er.

City may­or Jose Vicente Maicavares said approx­i­mate­ly 2,000 peo­ple, includ­ing PDVSA employ­ees, try­ing to con­tain the spill that has fouled the Guara­piche Riv­er.

Maicavares called for calm, say­ing offi­cials were doing every­thing pos­si­ble to resolve the prob­lem.

“We under­stand the irri­ta­tion,” Maicavares told a news con­fer­ence on Wednes­day. “We can only be patient.”

None of the pro­test­ers have been arrest­ed, he said.

Ramiro Ramirez, envi­ron­men­tal direc­tor of state oil com­pa­ny, told the state-run Venezue­lan News Agency last week that work­ers have been using absorbent bar­ri­ers to block the crude in the riv­er.

They have also shut off water intakes along the riv­er, where a drink­ing water purifi­ca­tion plant is locat­ed, Ramirez said.

State oil com­pa­ny offi­cials said a pipe that trans­ports crude to a pro­cess­ing plant rup­tured.

Ramirez said offi­cials were inves­ti­gat­ing what caused the acci­dent.

 

Reclaim the Fields Spring Gathering 2012

The first Reclaim the Fields Gath­er­ing of the year will be tak­ing place this March at the Wilder­ness Cen­tre in the For­est of Dean.

The pro­vi­sion­al timetable includes work­shops on:

The first Reclaim the Fields Gath­er­ing of the year will be tak­ing place this March at the Wilder­ness Cen­tre in the For­est of Dean.

The pro­vi­sion­al timetable includes work­shops on:

*How to organ­ise & main­tain effec­tive land occu­pa­tions
*An intro­duc­tion to land rights
*Com­post­ing gen­der
*Legal options for access­ing land
*Learn­ing from Peas­ant Strug­gles in the Glob­al South
*Using the food sov­er­eign­ty prin­ci­ples as a strate­gic frame­work

There will also be feed­back from the Euro­pean Reclaim the Field Gath­er­ings & con­stel­la­tion as well as space for work­ing group ses­sions around:

*Seed Sov­er­eign­ty
*WWOLF (woof­ing with teeth) and Reclaim the Field Trips
*Plan­ning for Inter­na­tion­al Peas­ants Day of Strug­gle on April 17th

Some guer­ril­la-gar­den­ing type actions are also planned through­out. Sat­ur­day 10th is the Wilder­ness Cen­tre’s pub­lic open day so there will also be prac­ti­cal skills-shar­ing work­shops.

When: Accom­mo­da­tion is avail­able from the evening of Wednes­day 7th. Oth­er­wise the gath­er­ing is two full days Thurs­day & Fri­day 8–9th March. The For­est always wel­comes vis­i­tors so arrange with them if you want to stay & help out before hand.
Where: Wilder­ness Cen­tre, For­est of Dean. Direc­tions are here: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Protect-the-Wilderness-Centre-Forest-of-Dean/321890141176064
Who to con­tact for more infor­ma­tion: use the RTF UK email list or email frankynecklace@yahoo.co.uk

What to bring: Sleep­ing bags, blan­kets, mats, own set of cut­lery & bowl if pos­si­ble. There is indoor sleep­ing space and room for tents out­side. Any home grown food to share & also seeds to swap.

Food will be a min­i­mum of £5 dona­tion per day. Any oth­er dona­tions are wel­come

More sug­ges­tions for work­shops, ses­sions & oth­er activ­i­ties are always wel­come, this is our con­stel­la­tion & gath­er­ing to make things hap­pen.

About:

Reclaim the Fields is a con­stel­la­tion of peo­ple and col­lec­tive projects will­ing to go back to the land and reas­sume the con­trol over food pro­duc­tion. We are deter­mined to cre­ate alter­na­tives to cap­i­tal­ism through coop­er­a­tive, col­lec­tive, autonomous, real needs ori­ent­ed small scale pro­duc­tion and ini­tia­tives, putting the­o­ry into prac­tice and link­ing local prac­ti­cal action with glob­al polit­i­cal strug­gles.
You can find more about us, our strug­gles & more resources such as down­load­able zines here: www.reclaimthefields.org.uk

Action to re-occupy the ZAD

A reoc­cu­pa­tion action is being planned in case of an evic­tion at the ZAD, near Notre-Dame-des-Lan­des in France: To re-plant and rebuild against the con­struc­tion of the air­port: Vin­ci get out! Not here, not Khim­ki, not any­where! Meet on the 4th Sat­ur­day after the first evic­tion with your pitch­forks, tools, beams and camp­ing gear. Although we don’t know when the troops will be sent in, we are launch­ing this call-out now to be able to cre­ate a mas­sive rapid reac­tion.

A reoc­cu­pa­tion action is being planned in case of an evic­tion at Notre-Dame-des-Lan­des in France: To re-plant and rebuild against the con­struc­tion of the air­port: Vin­ci get out! Not here, not Khim­ki*, not any­where!

This is a joint call out from occu­pants of the ZAD and the net­work Reclaim the Fields to meet on the 4th Sat­ur­day after the first evic­tion, near Notre-Dame-des-Lan­des.

To give an idea of some of the things that have hap­pened:

On 7 May 2011, we were a thou­sand peo­ple on an action, pitch­forks in hand, to clear and put to use an aban­doned plot of agri­cul­tur­al land. This was to cre­ate a space to grow food to feed the strug­gle against the air­port — and it’s been thriv­ing since the action! We’ll be back to strive to pro­tect this farm and oth­er occu­pied places on the ZAD (Zone d’A­me­nage­ment Dif­feré), or in oth­er words, Zone About to be Destroyed).

On 24 June, Vin­ci start­ed evic­tion pro­ce­dures against eight squats, includ­ing Les Planchettes, our col­lec­tive space of organ­is­ing and hos­pi­tal­i­ty.

On 10 July, dur­ing a gath­er­ing a few thou­sand peo­ple made a human ban­ner say­ing “Vin­ci d égage!” (Vin­ci get out!)

On 23 August, the pres­i­dent of the region Pays de la Loire, Jacques Aux­i­ette, asked the local author­i­ties to clean out the rad­i­cal occu­piers of the ZAD. It was an unam­bigu­ous bru­tal call for repres­sion, but this will not pre­vent us from resist­ing, re-occu­py­ing and re-grow­ing.

To fol­low up on May 7, occu­piers from the ZAD and Reclaim the Fields, a net­work of young activist peas­ants, are invit­ing you to be a part of a huge demon­stra­tion to re-occu­py in case of an evic­tion, and urge all groups and col­lec­tives to sup­port this action. If the police force does arrive to clean us out, we want to be back by the thou­sands to give shape to the cry “Vin­ci get out!” and to con­tin­ue to occu­py the zone and to stop con­struc­tion works in their tracks.

For forty years, deci­sion mak­ers and con­struc­tion man­agers have been push­ing a new air­port next to Nantes, at Notre-Dame-des-Lan­des, to make their dreams of mas­sive eco­nom­ic expan­sion and a metrop­o­lis. The ZAD: it’s 2000 hectares of cul­ti­vat­ed and inhab­it­ed land that they want to anni­hi­late under con­crete. The resis­tance against this project is at the cross­roads of many chal­lenges on which to unite, to address issues of com­mon strate­gies and think­ing.

Through this strug­gle we are fight­ing indus­tri­al soci­ety and agri­cul­ture, its eco­nom­ic devel­op­ment poli­cies, its cli­mate change and its con­trol of the land, the mega­lopo­lis and the nor­mal­i­sa­tion of ways of life, the pri­vati­sa­tion of the com­mons, the myth of end­less growth and the illu­sion of demo­c­ra­t­ic par­tic­i­pa­tion …

The deci­sion-mak­ers are con­stant­ly try­ing to sell their project and to give the impres­sion that going back­wards is unthink­able at this stage. So after forty years strug­gling, the pre­lim­i­nary con­struc­tion work of the air­port and its high­way have start­ed: drilling for soil analy­sis, envi­ron­men­tal assess­ments, archae­o­log­i­cal exca­va­tions and clear­ing works… all pre­req­ui­sites for pour­ing con­crete all over the area.

But its oppo­nents are far from giv­ing up and the actions inten­si­fy: block­ing drillings, dis­turb­ing the envi­ron­men­tal assess­ment work of Biotope*, dis­trib­ut­ing news­pa­pers, occu­py­ing offices, con­struc­tion sites, open­ing up Vin­ci’s toll­ways, and much more..

In addi­tion, for more than two and a half years, instead of the ZAD grad­u­al­ly emp­ty­ing to the rhythm of black­mail and destruc­tion, life and activ­i­ty has been flour­ish­ing.

Many of the hous­es left aban­doned were refur­bished and occu­pied, new hous­es were con­struct­ed on the ground and in the trees, col­lec­tives occu­pied land to make veg­etable gar­dens. Meet­ing spaces, guest acco­mo­da­tion, a bak­ery and a library were opened for one and all. There are more than a hun­dred peo­ple per­ma­nent­ly occu­py­ing the ZAD, sup­port­ed by many oth­ers, local and else­where, who meet and organ­ise. The occu­pa­tions are part of a move­ment that has many dif­fer­ent forms. Among oth­er things, they have a allowed rapid reac­tions to the first steps tak­en by Vin­ci towards con­struc­tion work.

In June 2011, Vin­ci began evic­tion pro­ce­dures in order to have the legal means to remove the occu­piers of the ZAD who have “no right or title”. Now they want to stop the growth of the move­ment and make a clean sweep to start the work: as well as evict­ing the occu­piers, they are think­ing about the ten­ants, own­ers and farm­ers. At the same time, those names who are pro-air­port do every­thing they can: run­ning a cam­paign to iso­late the occu­piers, attempt­ing to divide the move­ment and break up sol­i­dar­i­ty, rein­force the dai­ly police pres­ence and repres­sion of col­lec­tive action.

Despite this con­text, we’re keep­ing the mem­o­ry of past vic­to­ries in France against mega­lo­man­ic projects, from nuclear to mil­i­tary, like at Car­net, Plo­goff or Larzac, and we know that this air­port can still be stopped. We look to the oth­er side of the Alps, where oppo­si­tion to the con­struc­tion of the Lyon-Turin high-speed train line across a val­ley, where tens of thou­sands of peo­ple pre­vent work. We are prepar­ing the same here: any attempt to con­crete the place will cost them dear­ly.

This call for action sig­ni­fies that evic­tions do not mean in any way the end of the strug­gle; it allows us to launch col­lec­tive attacks after the poten­tial evic­tions as well. It affirms that they can­not mil­i­tarise or ster­ilise this place at all times and that what­ev­er their efforts they won’t stop us reoc­cu­py­ing it. It shows the com­mon will to keep the occu­pa­tions going to pre­vent the air­port project. This event will allow, as nec­es­sary, the recon­struc­tion of col­lec­tive spaces for organ­is­ing, hous­ing, or again for grow­ing food.

Although we don’t know when the troops will be sent in, we are launch­ing this call-out now to be able to cre­ate a mas­sive rapid reac­tion. We pro­pose to meet again on the fourth Sat­ur­day after the first evic­tion — bring your pitch­forks, tools and beams — to reclaim the land and rebuild togeth­er.

In addi­tion to this call for reoc­cu­pa­tion, oth­er ini­tia­tives are clear­ly wel­come: sol­i­dar­i­ty actions wher­ev­er you are, pres­ence at evic­tion time to hin­der the police … And until then, efforts con­tin­ue to pre­vent the air­port, and life on the ZAD as well!

Prac­ti­cal Info:

- Check reg­u­lar­ly  http://zad.nadir.org, espe­cial­ly in case of an evic­tion. The date and exact meet­ing loca­tion will be spec­i­fied at the time.

- It will be pos­si­ble to arrive on the eve of the event, for the final prepa­ra­tions and bring­ing every­one up to speed. Come pre­pared to camp.

- We invite you to stay here after the action to pro­tect the re-occu­pied spaces and con­tin­ue the con­struc­tion.

*Extra expla­na­tion:
Vin­ci is the biggest con­struc­tion com­pa­ny in the world and is respon­si­ble for build­ing the air­port at Notre-Dame-des-Lan­des. It is also engaged in build­ing pris­ons, high­ways, nuclear pow­er sta­tions, deten­tion cen­ters for ille­gal immi­grants, exploit­ing the ura­ni­um mines in Niger and destroy­ing the for­est of Khim­ki near Moscow.
Biotope: An enti­ty respon­si­ble for ensur­ing, through envi­ron­men­tal expert on the flo­ra and fau­na, the eco­log­i­cal sus­tain­abil­i­ty of the air­port … the new fron­tiers of green cap­i­tal­ism!

A call-out from occu­piers on the ZAD and Reclaim the Fields

 reclaimthezad@riseup.net

zad@riseup.net
zad.nadir.org

Indigenous groups shut down Interamerican highway to protest Panama mining laws

An indige­nous Ngobe pro­test­er was killed by a gun­shot wound to the chest dur­ing con­fronta­tions with the police this morn­ing, 5th Feb­ru­ary, in San Félix, Pana­ma. It has been con­firmed that three more peo­ple have been hurt with local res­i­dents insist­ing many more are injured. In flat con­tra­dic­tion, the Secu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Jose Muli­no has stat­ed that his offi­cers are not car­ry­ing guns. In retal­i­a­tion to the death, Ngobe pro­tes­tors have set light to a police sta­tion in San Félix.

Since 30th Jan­u­ary, demon­stra­tors have been posi­tioned at var­i­ous points along the inter­na­tion­al Inter­amer­i­can high­way using branch­es, pieces of wood, met­al and rocks to block the road. They are protest­ing against the gov­ern­men­t’s deci­sion to remove a law that would pro­vide envi­ron­men­tal pro­tec­tion to their lands. The police con­tin­ue to deny that there has been any vio­lence, although on Thurs­day 2nd Jan­u­ary there were reports of up to 7 peo­ple injured in attacks involv­ing tear gas.

Ear­ly 2011 saw sim­i­lar actions by thou­sands of Ngobe who protest­ed the gov­ern­men­t’s amend­ment of the nation­al min­ing law 415, which would have allowed for the com­mis­sion of mines and oth­er projects in the region. In March 2011, after talks between gov­ern­ment offi­cials and Ngobe lead­ers, it was agreed that arti­cle 5, which will pro­tect the entire Comar­ca from explo­ration and exploita­tion, would be writ­ten into the min­ing law 415.

Although the gov­ern­ment has begun the explo­ration of oth­er mines in Pana­ma, the semi-autonomous Comar­ca holds an extreme­ly con­sid­er­able amount of min­er­al wealth. Not only is it home to Cer­ro Col­orado – the sec­ond largest cop­per deposit in the world – but it hold sev­er­al small but sig­nif­i­cant sites already under explo­ration by for­eign min­ing com­pa­nies.

Cor­ri­ente Resources Inc. have report­ed­ly been work­ing in the area since 2009 with the assis­tance of the con­sul­tan­cy firm, Kokopel­li, owned by Cana­di­an Don Clarke. Kokopel­li’s role is, accord­ing to its own web­site, “to work direct­ly with indus­try to build sus­tain­able, respect­ful and respon­si­ble rela­tion­ships with Indige­nous com­mu­ni­ties.”

Don Clarke was also Vice Pres­i­dent of sus­tain­able devel­op­ment for Ecua­cor­ri­ente, a sub­sidiary of Cor­ri­ente Resources Inc, a com­pa­ny which was alleged­ly at the cen­tre of human rights abus­es and social con­flicts in Ecuador.

In ear­ly Jan­u­ary, Hec­tor Lopez, leader of the Asso­ci­a­tion for the Rights and Social Devel­op­ment of the Ngäbe-Bugle Peo­ple, stat­ed at the Nation­al Assem­bly that he opposed arti­cle 5 as it would affect devel­op­ment in the region, and in his opin­ion, vio­late law 10, a found­ing law of the Comar­ca. Lopez is strong­ly in favor of min­ing in the region and believes the Ngobe should receive 50% of min­ing prof­its.

How­ev­er, Celio Guer­ra, pres­i­dent of the tra­di­tion­al Ngabe Bugle Coun­cil also stat­ed in Jan­u­ary that “the peo­ple who protest­ed last year in San Felix spoke loud and clear. We don’t want min­ing in the Comar­ca.”

As protests con­tin­ue to swell on the high­way, there are grow­ing con­cerns over Pana­ma’s free­dom of press. On 20th Jan­u­ary, a Cana­di­an jour­nal­ist and fix­er, Rosie Simms, was denied entry into the coun­try. She had been work­ing on behalf of the Cana­di­an broad­cast­er CBS who were cov­er­ing a sto­ry about Cana­di­an min­ing com­pa­nies in Latin Amer­i­ca.

Many believe that this is symp­to­matic of a wider issue relat­ing to free­dom of press. A recent report by Reporters With­out Bor­ders revealed that Pana­ma has dropped 58 places on the free­dom of press index since 2010.

As the protests con­tin­ue, oth­er parts of the coun­try have joined in sol­i­dar­i­ty. In Donoso dis­trict, Colón province, a group of Ngobe and campesinos have blocked a road to the Petaquil­la min­ing project. In Bocas del Toro province, Banana plan­ta­tion work­ers have announced that they will strike in 73 hours unless the gov­ern­ment hon­ors its agree­ments. Truck­ers, stuck in San Felix, have also pledged to strike. In the cap­i­tal, many peo­ple have tak­en to streets in sup­port of the Ngobe.

After five days of protests there is major dis­rup­tion through­out Pana­ma. Mar­ket sell­ers in the cap­i­tal have report­ed loss­es of up to $10,000. In Bocas del Toro, Banana Com­pa­nies have esti­mat­ed a loss of $270,000 due to road clo­sures. Accord­ing to the Cham­ber of Com­merce the econ­o­my could face a total loss of over 10 mil­lion dol­lars.

Mean­while, the Cos­ta Rican gov­ern­ment has expressed con­cern that 270 of its cit­i­zens remain stuck in Pana­ma due to the road clo­sures. Pres­sure has been increas­ing for all sides to enter into talks.

UN rep­re­sen­ta­tives in Pana­ma have urged both Ngobe lead­ers and the gov­ern­ment to begin ‘a peace­ful dia­logue’ and ‘to avoid vio­lence.’ Although Pres­i­dent Mar­tinel­li has said the sit­u­a­tion is ‘reach­ing a lim­it,’ he has refused to reach out to the Ngobe. He also con­tin­ues to under­mine the legit­i­ma­cy of the protests by accus­ing oppo­si­tion par­ties of ‘manip­u­lat­ing’ them.

In a con­tin­u­al dis­tor­tion of the facts, the gov­ern­ment has been using mis­lead­ing rhetoric such as ‘kid­napped’ and ‘hostages’ when refer­ring to trav­el­ers delayed on the high­way.

Yes­ter­day morn­ing, 4th Feb­ru­ary, mobile phone cov­er­age was sus­pend­ed along a large stretch of the high­way where the pro­test­ers are con­cen­trat­ed. Lat­er in the after­noon, six teach­ers were arrest­ed in the city of San­ti­a­go whilst protest­ing in sol­i­dar­i­ty.

The sit­u­a­tion is extreme­ly charged and ten­sion is mount­ing across the coun­try. As vio­lence con­tin­ues to unfold in San Félix, jour­nal­ists and human rights orga­ni­za­tions are being denied access to the area. The gov­ern­ment con­tin­ues to spread dis­in­for­ma­tion and there have been no attempts so far to reach out to the Ngobe and begin peace­ful talks.

India police arrest dozens of villagers for protesting against new toxic dump

4th Feb 2012

A total of 47 indige­nous peo­ple were arrest­ed and anoth­er 5 need­ed hos­pi­tal treat­ment after hun­dreds of Indi­an police and Vedan­ta secu­ri­ty guards con­front­ed a peace­ful demon­stra­tion two weeks ago in the state of Oris­sa, India.

On Jan­u­ary 21, a group of vil­lagers came togeth­er to protest against a new tox­ic mine waste dump that threat­ens to dis­rupt their way of life.

4th Feb 2012

A total of 47 indige­nous peo­ple were arrest­ed and anoth­er 5 need­ed hos­pi­tal treat­ment after hun­dreds of Indi­an police and Vedan­ta secu­ri­ty guards con­front­ed a peace­ful demon­stra­tion two weeks ago in the state of Oris­sa, India.

On Jan­u­ary 21, a group of vil­lagers came togeth­er to protest against a new tox­ic mine waste dump that threat­ens to dis­rupt their way of life.

Despite the peace­ful nature of the pro­test­ers, as seen in the fol­low­ing video by Amnesty Inter­na­tion­al, the 47 vil­lagers were sub­se­quent­ly charged with “attempt­ed mur­der” and “riot­ing”.

Amnesty Inter­na­tion­al is call­ing for the obvi­ous­ly-false charges to be dropped. They’re also urg­ing the gov­ern­ment to release the pro­test­ers; and to prop­er­ly take their needs and rights into account before let­ting the com­pa­ny pro­ceed with the new waste dump.

Just pri­or to the arrests, Amnesty alleged that the Uk-based min­ing giant has­n’t done any­thing to clean up exist­ing pol­lu­tion at the site of its Lan­ji­garh alu­minum refin­ery beside Niyam­giri moun­tain in Oris­sa.

Sim­i­lar­ly, “The Indi­an author­i­ties have remained silent on the issues of clean­ing up the refin­ery and mon­i­tor­ing the health of local com­mu­ni­ties. They must act on this now,” said Amnesty Inter­na­tion­al’s India researcher Ramesh Gopalakr­ish­nan.

“The red mud pond, which col­lects tox­ic waste by-prod­ucts from the refin­ery, cov­ers an area of approx­i­mate­ly 38 hectares. The pond is full to the brim and suf­fered seri­ous leaks dur­ing last year’s mon­soons,” explains Amnesty.

Two weeks ago, the High Court of Oris­sa reject­ed the com­pa­ny’s plan to expand the Lan­ji­garh refin­ery after find­ing that the project is in vio­la­tion of Indi­a’s envi­ron­men­tal laws.

The wel­comed deci­sion is the lat­est in a long line of legal set­backs for the com­pa­ny.

Cascadia Forest Defense blockades the Governor’s Mansion in Oregon

On Feb­ru­ary 3 Cas­ca­dia For­est Defend­ers (CFD) block­ad­ed the entrance to the Ore­gon Governor’s Man­sion with a mound of christ­mas trees. Activists held ban­ners, read­ing “Ral­ly at the State Land Board Meet­ing Feb. 14” and “KITZHABER LIES, FOREST DIE!” One per­son was arrest­ed.

On Octo­ber 11th 2011, Gov­er­nor John Kitzhaber approved a plan to almost dou­ble log­ging in the Elliott State For­est. Vot­ers, expect­ing a green Gov­er­nor, are out­raged at the hypocrisy of his actions. “The old Elliott State For­est man­age­ment plan already allowed an appalling amount of clearcut­ting,” says Erin Grady, a mem­ber of CFD, “The State Land Board made a 60 year com­mit­ment to this plan in 1995. And only six­teen years lat­er, they just threw the whole plan in the trash!” If log­ging in the Elliott con­tin­ues at the cur­rent rate, this for­est will be gone with­in our life­time.

In the past year, there has been wide­spread dis­ap­point­ment regard­ing Kitzhaber’s deci­sions towards the Elliott. For­est activist Echo Live­ly says, “If any­one was unsure about it before, we can now be sure that Kitzhaber is in the pock­et of indus­try in Ore­gon.” Anoth­er for­est advo­cate com­ments, “The only thing green about Kitzhaber is the mon­ey.” Kitzhaber has made many mis­takes man­ag­ing envi­ron­men­tal issues in Ore­gon, but there is still time to save this cru­cial rain­for­est of the Pacif­ic North­west.

CFD invites any and all who are enraged with Kitzhaber and oth­er mem­bers of the State Land Board to attend a ral­ly at their next meet­ing on Feb­ru­ary 14th at 10:00am. It will be held out­side the Depart­ment of State Lands locat­ed in Salem at 775 Sum­mer St. NE. Come tell Kitzhaber that we won’t let our forests be destroyed with­out a fight.

-Cas­ca­dia For­est Defend­ers

Malaysia: Temiar Blockade and Indigenous Rights

29.1.12

Eight Temi­ar indige­nous peo­ple (also known as Orang Asli) in Malaysia were arrest­ed by the police for attempt­ing to set up a block­ade and pre­vent log­gers from enter­ing their vil­lage in Gua Musang, Kelan­tan.

29.1.12

Eight Temi­ar indige­nous peo­ple (also known as Orang Asli) in Malaysia were arrest­ed by the police for attempt­ing to set up a block­ade and pre­vent log­gers from enter­ing their vil­lage in Gua Musang, Kelan­tan.

The vil­lagers are against the agri­cul­tur­al project of the local gov­ern­ment which would require the cut­ting down of for­est trees in their ances­tral land. The block­ade, their sec­ond attempt at doing so, was made after attempts to nego­ti­ate with the state gov­ern­ment have failed.

The police also refused to nego­ti­ate who removed the bar­ri­cades and arrest­ed the com­mu­ni­ty res­i­dents and their lawyer, Siti Kasim. They were released lat­er that night.

More info and here