Category: Global

24th May 2011
For more than two weeks, thousands of people have blocked an international border in Peru — and almost no one in the English-speaking world seems to have noticed.

The story has fallen through the cracks, but here's what's happening:

A proposed mining project on the shores of Lake Titicaca has provoked outrage among Peruvians. Protests are growing in the southeastern part of the country.

About 10,000 people gathered in the city of Puno this week, shouting "Mina no, agro si" (roughly "Mines no, farms yes"). Shops, schools and public transit all shut down.

The protests were sparked by the announcement that a subsidiary of the Canadian mining company Bear Creek would be allowed to build a silver mine near Lake Titicaca.

Titicaca is the highest navigable lake in the world and the largest lake in South America. The lake was considered sacred by the Incas and is a major tourist draw today.

The protesters say mining would pollute Lake Titicaca, the Desaguadero River and its tributaries. They are demanding the cancellation of all mining and oil concessions and the repeal of the decree that allows mining in the border area.

Bear Creek says the proposed project offers a "low-cost 'pure silver' mine" in a "mineral-rich nation with a favorable investment climate."

The Peruvian government said it would dispatch the military to control the protest and clear the road linking the two countries.

Bolivian businessmen estimate they have lost between $7 million and $16 million because of the blockade. The president of the Chamber of Exporters of Bolivia, Goran Vranicic, told Efe that daily losses total $1 million.

The protest began on May 9 with the closing of the Desaguadero border crossing. The route is still blocked with large rocks, logs and barbed wire.

About 600 trucks are stuck on the Bolivian side of the border, and in the last couple of hours, many of the trapped truckers have begun returning to the Bolivian capital of La Paz. The closure largely affects Bolivian cargo headed to Peru or to third countries through Peruvian ports (Bolivia doesn't have access to the sea).

In April, after a protest left three dead in the nearby region of Arequipa, the Peruvian government canceled the Tia Maria mining project.

May 22, 2011
The land acquisition for the proposed mega steel project of Posco in Orissa’s Jagatsinghpur district has been postponed following stiff resistance from villagers supporting as well as opposing the venture.

The State Government had to stop the land acquisition work on Friday after the villagers supporting the venture protested, demanding that the process be completely stopped till their six-point demands are met.

As many as 33 members of the United Action Committee (UAC), the group supporting the project, were arrested on Thursday when they blocked the entry of officials engaged in the land acquisition work. On Sunday, a large number of villagers supporting the UAC organised a rally in the area earmarked for the project reiterating their demands.

Meanwhile, Posco Pratirodh Sangram Samiti, the outfit that has been strongly opposing land acquisition for the project since 2005, has also decided to intensify its agitation in the coming days.

The Samiti has been demanding that the Government not acquire any land till the authorities organised Palli Sabha meetings in various villages to take the consent of the thousands of families that were to lose their land and livelihood sources.

The agitating villagers, who had staged a protest on May 18 when the authorities resumed land acquisition, have termed the Government action “illegal”.

The land acquisition work had shown little progress during the three days when administration officials entered the area amid heavy police presence to carry out the exercise. While the 1.52 acres of forest land was acquired by demolishing betel vineyards on May 18, it dropped to 72 decimals on May 19 and .27 acres on May 20.

In another development, the High Court has issued notices to the State Government and others on a petition challenging land acquisition for the project. The petition will come up for further hearing on May 25.

http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/companies/article2040318.ece?homepage=true

On April 15, Purepechas from the indigenous community of Cherán detained a group of five loggers who were attempting to transport illegally-logged timber from their land.

Hoping to turn the loggers in, the Purepechas later informed local authorities about what had happened. But, two hours after doing so, a police car arrived in the community with two pick-ups that were occupied by more than a dozen heavily-armed men.

The armed men proceeded to open fire on the community, seriously injuring one person, Eugenio Sánchez Tiandón, who was shot in the head and remains in a coma.

Following the attack, the Purepecha, with few other options, declared an emergency “state of siege” and closed off all access points to the community.

The self-imposed state of siege is ongoing.

According to a May 5 report by Amnesty International, on April 23, “the community presented the five illegal loggers to representatives of the Federal Attorney General’s Office (Procuraduría General de la República, PGR) along with 140 complaints from residents.”

Four days later, another group of illegal loggers tried to gain access to the community; but they, too, were stopped by the Purepecha.

Unfortunately, the community came under fire once more–only this time, the armed men didn’t have a police escort. Two community members, Pedro Juárez Urbina and Armando Hernández Estrada, were killed in the attack.

It has been over three weeks since the two Purepecha men were killed on April 27; however, the community reports that warnings of reprisals have been sent to community leaders by the armed gang, which is believed to have ties to the main drug cartel in Michoacan.

According to the very latest reports on the “Cheran rebellion” as it’s been labelled by the press, the Mexican government has sent troops and federal police to patrol the outskirts of the community; something the Purepecha had been calling for since the state of siege began. But it remains to be see if they’ll actually do anything.

Providing some background, a community spokesperson recently told reporters that Cheran has been under attack for the past three years. Speaking on the condition that he remain anonymous, the spokesperson said that, since 2008, a total of nine people have been killed and five others have been disappeared.

In that same amount of time, Illegal loggers have deforested nearly 80 percent of the region’s 30,000-acre forest. “But during the past year, the groups seem to be supported by organized crime groups,” the spokesperson said.

Video at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QEHuoEdI1Kc

10 May 2011
Chile approved a hydroelectric project that would flood Patagonian valleys and become the country’s biggest power generator, sparking violent protests and more than a hundred arrests.

Police fired water cannons and tear gas at demonstrators outside the building in the city of Coyhaique where 11 of the 12 members of an environment commission voted in favor of the HidroAysen project that Santiago-based Empresa Nacional de Electricidad SA and Colbun SA (COLBUN) want to build.

HidroAysen’s five dams would flood nearly 6,000 hectares (14,800 acres) of land and require a 1,900 kilometer (1,180 mile) transmission line to feed the central grid that supplies Santiago and surrounding cities as well as copper mines owned by Codelco and Anglo American Plc. The government of President Sebastian Pinera says Chile needs more hydroelectric and coal- fired plants to meet demand that will double in the next decade and reduce power costs that are the highest in the region.

“We have to get that energy somewhere, independent of what the project is, because energy today is twice as expensive as in other Latin American countries,” Ena Von Baer, the government’s spokeswoman, told reporters yesterday in Santiago. “We want to be a developed country and to do that we need energy, especially cheap energy for the poor.”

Street March

Hundreds of protesters blocked the entrance to the room where the government’s regional representative Pilar Cuevas and other officials sat after yesterday’s meeting in Coyhaique. A police officer and at least one other person were injured by stones thrown by demonstrators, while more than 20 people were arrested during clashes with police involving tear gas and water cannons, regional governor Nestor Mera told reporters yesterday.

More than 120 were arrested last night in protests around the country, newspaper La Tercera reported. About 1,500 people gathered in a plaza in central Santiago before marching to the presidential palace, the newspaper reported. Police dispersed protesters who tried to block traffic in the downtown area.

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The results of the vote give the go-ahead to HidroAysén, a dam project run by the Italian group Endesa and its minority holding group the Chilean corporation Colbún, which holds a 49% stake in the project. The proposed series of dams would affect the Baker river, the most most voluminous in Chile, which attracts ecotourists, rafters and fishermen, and is an important ecological feature of the region. Project opponents say the project will badly impact 6 national parks, 11 national reserves, 12 important conservation sites, 16 wetlands and 32 privately-held protected areas. Meanwhile, proponents of the project project construction jobs and electricity production of 2.750 megawatts.

The organization Patagonia Sin Represas (Patagonia Without Dams) planned a peaceful protest in the wake of the approval, to take place at Plaza Italia, Santiago’s ground zero for demonstrations at 7:00 PM tonight. Thousands of people joined together, chanting (among other slogans), Piñera, entiende, Patagonia no se vende (Piñera (president of the Republic), understand, Patagonia is not for sale). Protesters held signs with messages opposing the project, including one written in English, shown below partially supported with a kayak paddle. When asked why their sign was in English, the protesters said it was for the international media.

The police then drove four buses along the curve of the street to block the protesters and their signs from view by the commuting public driving and walking east up Avenida Providencia, the street on which thousands of commuters travel home each weekday night.

At approximately 7:30 PM, the protesters attempted to cross the street from Plaza Italia and take over one direction of the Alameda (the main street which leads down towards the city centre), at which point the police shot water from water cannons at the protesters and began to release tear gas into the crowd. Many protesters scattered, and several offshoot groups tried to make their way down to the Moneda (the presidential palace) where tensions increased between the protesters and the police, and local news reported that 600 protesters arrived and later set several barricades aflame. As of approximately 10:00 PM a helicopter with a search beam could be seen overflying the Moneda and nearby streets.

Similar protests were planned in other cities throughout the length of Chile.

2010 protest

May 9, 2011
Residents from 10 Bidayuh villagers this week set fire to five logging camps and thirteen heavy machines in a stark protest against logging activities on their land, in the Malaysian state of Sarawak.

As reported by Free Malaysia Today, the Bidayuh villagers took matters into their own hands because of the governments refusal to address their complaints about logging activities within their Native Customary Rights (NCR) land.

One village leader, who did not wish to be identified, explained to reporters that, “We have made several reports to the authorities and yet the logging activities still continue[d],” adding that crops, fruit trees and land had already been destroyed by the activities.

He also said that they warned the workers to stop what they were doing, but the workers ignored them, much like the government. “We gave them ample time, and when they failed to adhere to our warning, we have to take action,” he said.

Shortly after the fire, an unnamed villager was quoted as saying, “They have tested our patience and we just cannot take it anymore. We have lodged several reports and complaints to the authorities, but the logging activities continued. We are fed up. Our rights have been encroached, our crops destroyed.”

Dr. Christopher Kiyui of the People’s Justice Party (PKR), who lost to Manyin in Sarawak’s recent election, told Radio Free Sarawak that 500 villagers had “burnt 13 Caterpillar and tractor machines and some lorries, around 10 in the morning [of May 9th, 2011]. About 50 people came from each village.”

Fortunately, no one was injured during the agitation. Similarly, no arrests have been made; however the police did step in several hours after the fires began. They just couldn’t do anything because they were so outnumbered.

Leading up to May 9th, the Bidayuh were already busy blocking the access road used by the workers to defend their land. Local assembly representative and state Infrastructure Development and Communications Minister Michael Manyin Jawong had also incensed the Bidayuh when he claimed that the protesters were merely a group of “trouble makers” who were “causing a ruckus” to get some money from the logging company.

A spokesperson for the communities said that Manyin was lying. The villagers rejected the company’s intrusion, he said, because “our NCR land and our jungle… are our ancestral properties.” Properties that the Bidayuh clearly want to protect.

Agitations such as these are few and far in between, but have occurred in other parts of the world. In 2009, for instance, the Maya reportedly burned equipment at a gold mine in Guatemala; and the Lepcha took action against the Panan hydel power project in Sikkim, India. Similarly, in 2008, the Enawene Nawe completely levelled a hydro dam construction site in Brazil.

Governments and Industry spokespersons tried to dismiss these actions as mere vandalism, as if Indigenous Peoples have nothing better to do than trash private property. But the fact is, with more than 5,000 industrial projects taking place on Indigenous lands around the world, it’s no wonder it doesn’t happen more often.

Especially since the stakes are so high. Companies may offer a few short term jobs and maybe even free bubble gum for the kids, but Indigenous people face the depletion of their water supply, the destruction of their food sources, the loss of their cultural property and the overall devastation of their homelands.

The burden is simply too great for anyone to carry.