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.

—–

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.