Six People Arrested Inside Enbridge Hearings

Van­cou­ver, BC / Coast Sal­ish Ter­ri­to­ries – This morn­ing (15th Jan), six peo­ple direct­ly inter­vened in the Enbridge pipeline joint Envi­ron­men­tal Assess­ment and Ener­gy Board hear­ings and put cli­mate change on the agen­da.

Van­cou­ver, BC / Coast Sal­ish Ter­ri­to­ries – This morn­ing (15th Jan), six peo­ple direct­ly inter­vened in the Enbridge pipeline joint Envi­ron­men­tal Assess­ment and Ener­gy Board hear­ings and put cli­mate change on the agen­da. The group man­aged to make their way past police unde­tect­ed and into the secured 4th floor of Vancouver’s Sher­a­ton Wall Cen­ter. Once inside they revealed shirts embla­zoned with mes­sages like “Stop the Pipelines” and pro­ceed­ed to use police tape to cor­don off the hear­ing area as a “cli­mate crime scene.”

“Cli­mate change is killing thou­sands of peo­ple every year, pri­mar­i­ly in devel­op­ing coun­tries and Indige­nous com­mu­ni­ties that are the least respon­si­ble for cre­at­ing this prob­lem. Despite this fact, the Joint Review Pan­el has instruct­ed those par­tic­i­pat­ing in the hear­ings not to talk about cli­mate change. This is a shock­ing­ly irre­spon­si­ble move con­sid­er­ing Canada’s tar sands con­tain twice the amount of car­bon diox­ide emit­ted by glob­al oil use in our entire his­to­ry. New fos­sil fuel pipelines are an irre­spon­si­ble step in the wrong direc­tion.” said Sean Devlin.

The impacts of cli­mate change have been draw­ing glob­al atten­tion recent­ly, between Hur­ri­cane Sandy, unprece­dent­ed dead­ly typhoons in the Philip­pines and pre­vi­ous­ly unimag­in­able tem­per­a­ture records in Aus­tralia. In this urgent con­text the JRP has des­ig­nat­ed cli­mate change and the car­bon emis­sions of Canada’s tar sands “out­side of the panel’s man­date,” a move that offi­cial­ly dis­cour­ages inter­ven­ers from rais­ing these crit­i­cal issues dur­ing their oral state­ments.

“Enbridge and the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment are using their posi­tion of author­i­ty with­in this process to coerce mem­bers of the pub­lic into silence on these issues. The major­i­ty of First Nations and set­tler com­mu­ni­ties in the province oppose fos­sil fuel pipelines. We respect those who are voic­ing their oppo­si­tion to the pipelines inside the hear­ings, but the hear­ing process is mean­ing­less, espe­cial­ly since Harp­er has changed the law, giv­ing his cab­i­net final say on pipeline projects,” said Fiona De Bal­asi Brown.

Today marks the sec­ond day of the Joint Review Pan­el hear­ings in Van­cou­ver and the sec­ond day that the mem­bers of the pub­lic have crossed police lines to make their oppo­si­tion heard. On Mon­day more than a thou­sand pro­test­ers peace­ful­ly forced their way past police onto the Sher­a­ton prop­er­ty drum­ming so loud­ly the noise could be heard inside the hear­ings. Pub­lic out­rage has been embold­ened by a deci­sion to exclude the pub­lic from the hear­ings in Van­cou­ver, a move the BC Civ­il Lib­er­ties Asso­ci­a­tion crit­i­cized yes­ter­day as “poten­tial­ly unlaw­ful.”

The Economics of Insurgency — Thoughts on Idle No More & critical infrastructure

News reports are ablaze with reports of loom­ing Indige­nous block­ades and eco­nom­ic dis­rup­tion.

News reports are ablaze with reports of loom­ing Indige­nous block­ades and eco­nom­ic dis­rup­tion. As the Idle No More move­ment explodes into a new ter­ri­to­ry of polit­i­cal action, it bears to ampli­fy the incred­i­ble eco­nom­ic lever­age of First Nations today, and how fright­ened the gov­ern­ment and indus­try are of their capac­i­ty to wield it.

In recent years, Access to Infor­ma­tion (ATI) records obtained by jour­nal­ists reveal a mas­sive state-wide sur­veil­lance and “hot spot mon­i­tor­ing” oper­a­tion coor­di­nat­ed between the Depart­ment of Indi­an Affairs, the Roy­al Cana­di­an Mount­ed Police (RCMP), the Cana­di­an Secu­ri­ty Intel­li­gence Ser­vice (CSIS), local secu­ri­ty forces, nat­ur­al resource and trans­porta­tion min­istries, bor­der agen­cies, and indus­try stake­hold­ers. These efforts have been explic­it­ly mobi­lized to pro­tect “crit­i­cal infra­struc­ture” from Indige­nous attack.

What is crit­i­cal infra­struc­ture? Accord­ing to an RCMP inter­nal doc­u­ment con­cern­ing the risk of Abo­rig­i­nal protest, “crit­i­cal infra­struc­ture refers to infra­struc­ture, both tan­gi­ble and intan­gi­ble, that is essen­tial to the health, safe­ty, secu­ri­ty or eco­nom­ic well-being of Cana­di­ans and the effec­tive func­tion­ing of gov­ern­ment.” RCMP Nation­al Secu­ri­ty Crim­i­nal Inves­ti­ga­tions have pri­or­i­tized four crit­i­cal infra­struc­ture sec­tors: finance, trans­porta­tion, ener­gy, and cyber-secu­ri­ty.

On Jan­u­ary 5 alone, INM protests includ­ed five bor­der cross­ing block­ades, bridge block­ades, and rail line dis­rup­tions span­ning the coun­try.

And it’s not only intel­li­gence ser­vices that are warn­ing of threats to crit­i­cal infra­struc­ture.

Con­ser­v­a­tive mil­i­tary ana­lyst Dou­glas Bland has also long warned that Canada’s eco­nom­ic vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty is based on the “crit­i­cal infra­struc­ture that trans­ports nat­ur­al resources and man­u­fac­tured goods from mines, oil fields, hydro-elec­tric facil­i­ties and fac­to­ries to inter­na­tion­al mar­kets.” With­out these crit­i­cal sys­tems, he cau­tions, “Canada’s econ­o­my would col­lapse.”

Though Bland has coun­seled a con­cil­ia­to­ry approach to Abo­rig­i­nals in order to stave off the com­ing cri­sis, his alarmism – and that of oth­er right-wing pun­dits – simul­ta­ne­ous­ly jus­ti­fies the state’s secu­ri­ty and sur­veil­lance appa­ra­tus by man­u­fac­tur­ing a fear of native upris­ing. But for Bland and oth­ers, a com­ing “Native Spring” is less feared for its poten­tial “vio­lence” and all the more grave for its threat to prop­er­ty rights.

In Bland’s fic­tion­al book Upris­ing, he pre­dicts coor­di­nat­ed attacks by secret native cells on key instal­la­tions and urban hubs, such as the James Bay hydro-elec­tric dam and the down­town core of Win­nipeg. This attack on crit­i­cal infra­struc­ture telling­ly ends in a blaze of hero­ic Cana­da-US mil­i­tary attacks on the rebel army. (The US gets involved only when they real­ize their source of elec­tric­i­ty, oil, and gas is at stake.)

Here­in lies the real role of right wing alarmists in the INM move­ment: to main­tain the eco­nom­ic sta­tus quo, because ter­ri­to­ry is cap­i­tal. Land is mon­ey. And the cir­cu­la­tion of goods, resources and ener­gy through ter­ri­to­ry is the very essence of cap­i­tal­ism today.

The fact is that crit­i­cal infra­struc­ture in Cana­da is at the mer­cy of Indige­nous peo­ples, who are more rur­al than Cana­di­ans and have access to impor­tant arter­ies for eco­nom­ic flows: trans­porta­tion cor­ri­dors, ener­gy sec­tors, and sites of nat­ur­al resource extrac­tion.

This vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty is dead­ly to the logis­tics indus­try. Logis­tics is a busi­ness sci­ence con­cerned with the man­age­ment of goods and infor­ma­tion through glob­al sup­ply chains. As the World Bank has declared: “A com­pet­i­tive net­work of glob­al logis­tics is the back­bone of inter­na­tion­al trade.” For an indus­try depen­dent on main­tain­ing open chan­nels for cap­i­tal cir­cu­la­tion, a block­ade means mas­sive loss­es: the truck­ing indus­try alone is worth $65 bil­lion and employs more than 260,000 dri­vers.

In the ener­gy sec­tor, Cana­da has oil reserves sec­ond in the world after Sau­di Ara­bia, though less acces­si­ble – 98 per cent of this oil is in Alber­ta and 95 per cent of it is in the tar sands, where effec­tive Indige­nous resis­tance by Treaty 8 and oth­er First Nations has led to glob­al boy­cott cam­paigns and fierce resis­tance.

In north­ern BC, the Unist’ot’en Clan, with sup­port from grass­roots Wet’suwet’en, have built a com­mu­ni­ty of resis­tance direct­ly on the GPS co-ordi­nates of the pro­posed pipeline route from the Alber­ta tar sands to the Kiti­mat port. From this camp they have evict­ed sur­vey­ors work­ing for Pacif­ic Trails Pipeline. Mean­while, in Ontario, Enbrdige’s Line 9 has been has been opposed by the Onei­da, the Hau­denosaunee Devel­op­ment Insti­tute, and Aami­ji­waang First Nation, who have all vowed to fight the pipeline to pro­tect their lands and waters.

In terms of nat­ur­al resource extrac­tion, over 10 per cent of Canada’s econ­o­my is com­prised of the nat­ur­al resources sec­tors and earth sci­ence indus­tries, which direct­ly employ close to 763,000 peo­ple. The great­est con­cen­tra­tion and cor­re­la­tion between Indige­nous lands and min­er­al claims are being cur­rent­ly devel­oped in the north­ern mod­ern treaties and ter­ri­to­ries, such as Nunavut; Yukon; the James Bay region of Que­bec, and the Que­bec-Labrador bor­der; on unced­ed north­west­ern BC lands (e.g. on Nakazdli, Tzal­ten, and Tlin­git tra­di­tion­al ter­ri­to­ry); and in north­ern Ontario’s “Ring of Fire” on his­toric treaty lands, par­tic­u­lar­ly Treaties 3 and 9.

In addi­tion to min­er­al resources, over half of large intact for­est land­scapes are found on lands in his­tor­i­cal Abo­rig­i­nal treaty areas. More specif­i­cal­ly, as Glob­al For­est Watch reports, “Treaties 8 and 9 con­tain about a quar­ter of all of Canada’s intact for­est land­scapes and close to half of all the intact for­est land­scapes that occur with­in treaty areas. Mod­ern land claim set­tle­ments con­tain about a quar­ter of Canada’s intact for­est land­scapes.”

That is not to say mean­ing­ful con­sul­ta­tion con­cern­ing crit­i­cal infra­struc­ture has not been tak­ing place. The prob­lem is that it has exclu­sive­ly been between indus­try and gov­ern­ment, instead of between Indige­nous peo­ples and the state. Jour­nal­ists have been uncov­er­ing mul­ti­ple inci­dents of high-lev­el co-ordi­na­tion between indus­try and gov­ern­ment offi­cials. For exam­ple, Access to Infor­ma­tion requests revealed that the gov­ern­ment has been shar­ing infor­ma­tion with the oil indus­try on envi­ron­men­tal­ists and Indige­nous groups twice a year since 2005 at secret brief­in­gs, even on such seem­ing­ly irrel­e­vant activ­i­ties such as par­tic­i­pa­tion in anti-G20 demon­stra­tions.

The irony is that many cor­po­ra­tions are tired of hav­ing oper­a­tions held up by Indige­nous protest and are will­ing to go fur­ther than gov­ern­ments to rec­og­nize Indige­nous rights. The log­ics of colo­nial­ism and cap­i­tal­ism divide here around con­flict­ing objec­tives of ter­ri­to­r­i­al acqui­si­tion ver­sus the cir­cu­la­tion of goods. But more often than not, the state and indus­try con­verge around the com­mon inter­ests of the rul­ing class. For Indige­nous peo­ples, this becomes a ques­tion of co-ordi­nat­ing lever­age.

In con­clu­sion, I want to high­light three main con­cerns expressed in the risk assess­ments under­tak­en by RCMP, CSIS, Indi­an Affairs, and right-wing thinkers on Indige­nous upris­ing that fore­ground Indige­nous eco­nom­ic pow­er.

The first is that a mis­han­dling of con­flict will gal­va­nize co-ordi­nat­ed efforts of First Nations across the coun­try; hence the rel­a­tive­ly hands-off approach tak­en until now. In the Fed­er­al Coor­di­na­tion Frame­work for the AFN Day of Action in 2007, the pro­posed solu­tion in the case of co-ordi­nat­ed mobi­liza­tion is to “iso­late the splin­ter group.”

Sec­ond, the eco­nom­ic cost of even a few hours of such co-ordi­nat­ed efforts would be crip­pling and impos­si­ble to police giv­en cur­rent resources.

Third – and this is one of the most wor­ri­some trends to observers – sol­i­dar­i­ty and co-ordi­na­tion between non-Natives and Indige­nous peo­ples will encour­age the move­ment to build.

As a final thought, while the gen­er­al pop­u­la­tion might have been tak­en by sur­prise by the strength of Idle No More, the gov­ern­ment had long pre­pared for this inevitabil­i­ty. As far back as 2008, when changes were first pro­posed to the Nav­i­ga­ble Waters Act, CSIS’s Inte­grat­ed Threat Assess­ment Cen­tre warned about “poten­tial unrest.”

Cana­da cre­at­ed the cri­sis of insur­gency. Canada’s greed cre­at­ed a sit­u­a­tion where Indige­nous peo­ples stand with almost noth­ing to lose. There­fore, the fight is theirs to take. It is also ours to sup­port.

Read the full arti­cle here.

Anti-road campaigners peacefully resisting camp evictions (16 Jan)

The evic­tion of the two remain­ing camps (“Base camp” and “Decoy Pond Wood” – see here and below for maps) has begun, and cam­paign­ers are resist­ing peace­ful­ly in tree­hous­es and tun

The evic­tion of the two remain­ing camps (“Base camp” and “Decoy Pond Wood” – see here and below for maps) has begun, and cam­paign­ers are resist­ing peace­ful­ly in tree­hous­es and tun­nels. Please protest, sup­port and pub­li­cise!

Bailiffs arrived just before 8am, and the evic­tion prop­er began around 8.15am. As at 8.37am there were 30+ bailiffs on site with more secu­ri­ty arriv­ing, focussing main­ly on the tunnel(s). As at 8.59am it was no longer pos­si­ble to access the camp via the access road to Adam’s farm (though oth­er cross-coun­try routes may still be avail­able), and Har­ris fenc­ing was being brought in.

Please note: This is only the end of the begin­ning for the protests against the Bex­hill Hast­ings Link Road (BHLR)! We urgent­ly need to replen­ish our finances fol­low­ing the last month of protests, so please con­sid­er giv­ing a dona­tion, using the “donate” but­ton on our web-site and Face­book page, if you are able.

 

Press release Combe Haven Defend­ers [1]
Wednes­day 16 Jan­u­ary
Con­tact 07926 423 033

EVICTION OF ANTI-ROAD CAMP NEAR HASTINGS HAS STARTED
Pro­tes­tors resist­ing peace­ful­ly in tree­hous­es and tun­nels

Wednes­day 16 Jan­u­ary, 8.16am: Oppo­nents of the Bex­hill-Hast­ings Link Road (BHLR) are defend­ing trees and  occu­py­ing tun­nels at their main protest camp in Crowhurst. Secu­ri­ty guards and bailiffs, sup­port­ed by police, began attempts to evict the camp at 8am today.

The main camp, which has been in place since 21 Decem­ber, is locat­ed on the pro­posed route of the BHLR close to Adam’s Farm, Crowhurst [2]. Fur­ther trees on route are occu­pied by pro­tes­tors at near­by “Decoy Camp”.

The peace­ful protests against the road– which have now been run­ning for a month, with 12 arrests – have seized nation­al atten­tion over the past week [3].

Tree-felling work for the road start­ed on 14 Decem­ber 2012 and rep­re­sents the first sig­nif­i­cant work on the high­ly-con­tro­ver­sial £100m road, one of over forty “zom­bie roads” that were declared dead years ago but have now been resus­ci­tat­ed as part of as part of Britain’s largest road-build­ing pro­gramme in 25 years [4, 5].

Con­tact 07926 423 033

NOTES
[1] http://www.combehavendefenders.org.uk
[2] Near­by post­code TN33 9AY. For map see http://combehavendefenders.wordpress.com/camp-groundrules-directions/
[3] http://combehavendefenders.wordpress.com/recent-media-coverage/
[4] See ‘Con­tro­ver­sial ‘zom­bie roads’ scheme to be resus­ci­tat­ed’, Guardian, 10 Octo­ber 2012, http://tinyurl.com/zombieroads
[5] http://bettertransport.org.uk/media/26-Oct-roads-report

Ecuadorian Indigenous Village Threatens to “Die Fighting” Against Oil Company — 15th Jan

 

An indige­nous com­mu­ni­ty in the Ecuado­ri­an rain­for­est says they “will die fight­ing to pro­tect the rain­for­est” after they say they were swin­dled by an oil com­pa­ny into sign­ing away rights to 70,000 hectares of one of the most bio­di­verse areas in the world.

 

An indige­nous com­mu­ni­ty in the Ecuado­ri­an rain­for­est says they “will die fight­ing to pro­tect the rain­for­est” after they say they were swin­dled by an oil com­pa­ny into sign­ing away rights to 70,000 hectares of one of the most bio­di­verse areas in the world.

But the state-backed oil com­pa­ny, PetroAmazonas—backed by the Ecuadore­an army—plans to begin prospect­ing the Kich­wa vil­lage on the Napo Riv­er on Tues­day, The Guardian reports.

PetroA­ma­zonas, one of the biggest oil com­pa­nies in South Amer­i­ca, orig­i­nal­ly offered the vil­lage a new school, uni­ver­si­ty places for vil­lage chil­dren and bet­ter health­care, but dropped those pro­vi­sions before the chief of the vil­lage signed away the rights to the land for $40 per hectare.

But the com­mu­ni­ty sec­re­tary, Klid­er Gualin­ga, said 80 per­cent of the vil­lage oppos­es the deal, which he says has not yet been final­ized. “Peo­ple think it is dis­hon­est and the oil com­pa­ny is treat­ing them like dogs. … They’re very upset and wor­ried. We have decid­ed to fight to the end. Each land­hold­er will defend their ter­ri­to­ry. We will help each oth­er and stand shoul­der to shoul­der to pre­vent any­one from pass­ing.”

“If there is a phys­i­cal fight, it is cer­tain to end trag­i­cal­ly,” Shaman Patri­cio Jipa said. “We may die fight­ing to defend the rain­for­est.”

He con­tin­ued:

It makes me feel sad and angry. Sad because we are indige­nous peo­ple and not ful­ly pre­pared to fight a gov­ern­ment. And angry because we grew up to be war­riors and have a spir­it to defend our­selves. I wish we could use this force to fight in a new way, but our men­tal strength is not suf­fi­cient in this mod­ern world.

[…]

There is huge con­cern the oil com­pa­ny will move quick­ly to clear the land. When that hap­pened else­where, they used armed troops, beat­ings and abduc­tions to remove those who stood in their way.

Jipa and his wife, Mari Muench, a British busi­ness­woman, are fight­ing the plan.

Sci­en­tists say a sin­gle hectare in this part of the Ama­zon con­tains a wider vari­ety of life than all of North Amer­i­ca. The Ama­zon rain­for­est and oth­er trop­i­cal forests are also among the earth­’s best defens­es against cli­mate change, absorb­ing some 20 per­cent of car­bon diox­ide pro­duced by burn­ing fos­sil fuels.

“Pro­tect­ing the Ama­zon basin, which con­tains the largest trop­i­cal rain­for­est on the plan­et, is crit­i­cal to our plan­et’s cli­mate sta­bil­i­ty,” accord­ing to Ama­zon Watch.

Police say camps to be evicted this week, as 400-year-old oak felled

Con­trac­tors moved in in force on Mon­day (14 Jan­u­ary) to evict the “Three Oaks” camp near the rail­way line opp.

Con­trac­tors moved in in force on Mon­day (14 Jan­u­ary) to evict the “Three Oaks” camp near the rail­way line opp. Upper Wilt­ing Farm in Crowhurst (see press release below), and police have told activists that they plan to evict the remain­ing two camps (“Decoy Pond Wood” and “Base Camp” – see map below) this week.

So if you want to come and help peace­ful­ly stop the felling (whether in an arrestable or non-arrestable role): now’s the time! See here for more info re. the Camp.

[Update at 12.30pm: Despite being heav­i­ly out­num­bered by secu­ri­ty and con­trac­tors, activists at the “Three Oaks” protest camp were able to delay the felling of the 400-year-old oak by 3–4 hours this morn­ing. Two peo­ple were final­ly evict­ed from high-up in the oak, and a third per­son, locked-on near the base, was also removed. No arrests were made, and the trees in ques­tion are now being felled.]

Press Release
14 Jan­u­ary 2013
Combe Haven Defend­ers

CHAINSAWS MOVED IN TO FELL 400-YEAR-OLD OAK AT HASTINGS TREE PROTEST

9am, Mon­day 14 Jan­u­ary, Crowhurst:  Con­trac­tors prepar­ing the way for the Bex­hill-Hast­ings Link Road (BHLR) are believed to be felling a 400-year-old Oak Tree as they evict the “Three Oaks” protest Camp near the rail­way line opp. Upper Wilt­ing Farm (TN38 8EG) in Crowhurst (see map below).

Police, secu­ri­ty, chain­saw oper­a­tives, and a dig­ger moved in on the tree-protest Camp (one of three along the route of the BHLR) this morn­ing, short­ly after 7am. Despite being heav­i­ly out­num­bered by police and secu­ri­ty, as at 8.30am sev­er­al activists were in the trees and at least one was locked-on.

Accord­ing to a recent report in the Guardian: “When the landown­er signed the com­pul­so­ry pur­chase order for the land at Three Oaks, where a fly­over is to be built above the rail­way, he per­suad­ed the coun­cil to spare one tree thought to be 450 years old (not a promise the pro­test­ers expect to be kept).” [3]

Two more protest camps (“Decoy Pond Wood Camp” and “Base Camp”) have not yet been evict­ed.

The BHLR is one of over forty “zom­bie roads” that were declared dead years ago but have now been resus­ci­tat­ed as part of Britain’s largest road-build­ing pro­gramme in 25 years [4].

[2] See map here: www.combehavendefenders.org.uk
[3] “Road protests return: a new gen­er­a­tion takes on the bypass builders”, Guardian, 12 Jan­u­ary 2013, http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2013/jan/12/combe-haven-green-protesters-trees
[4] http://bettertransport.org.uk/media/26-Oct-roads-report

Self-Determination and Self-Defense in Cherán, Michoacán

On Decem­ber 11, 2012, the US Jus­tice Depart­ment announced that bank­ing giant HSBC was immune from pros­e­cu­tion despite over­whelm­ing evi­dence that they con­sis­tent­ly failed to imple­ment con­trols against mon­ey-laun­der­ing. Assis­tant attor­ney gen­er­al Lan­ny Breuer said: “Had the US author­i­ties decid­ed to press crim­i­nal charges, HSBC would almost cer­tain­ly have lost its bank­ing license in the US, the future of the insti­tu­tion would have been under threat and the entire bank­ing sys­tem would have been desta­bi­lized.”

The entire bank­ing sys­tem would have been desta­bi­lized?

 

The Depart­ment of Jus­tice opt­ed rather to charge HSBC a record-break­ing 1.9 bil­lion dol­lar fine, and ordered the bank’s activ­i­ties mon­i­tored for five years. The 1.9 bil­lion is equiv­a­lent to five weeks’ worth of HSBC earn­ings, in oth­er words, a drop in the buck­et. The sad­dest part of the sto­ry in the main­stream media, is the focus on mon­ey laun­dered and mon­ey fined, as opposed to lives lost and crime legit­imized in one of the most grotesque admis­sions of com­plic­i­ty with orga­nized crime in the so-called war on drugs. Basi­cal­ly what was announced to the world by the US Jus­tice Depart­ment was that the mon­ey ran too thick, and the crim­i­nals were too pow­er­ful. The glob­al eco­nom­ic impact of pros­e­cut­ing a bank where the dirty mon­ey has been going, was too dan­ger­ous to risk. “Sor­ry kids, but we guess the bad guys win.”

In Cher­an, Michoa­can, Mex­i­co the news of HSBC’s immu­ni­ty from crim­i­nal pros­e­cu­tion and US sanc­tions comes as no sur­prise. Orga­nized crime has been preva­lent in the com­mu­ni­ty since 2000. After a 2008 may­oral race that left a PRI (Insti­tu­tion­al Rev­o­lu­tion­ary Par­ty) can­di­date in office, illic­it activ­i­ty increased sub­stan­tial­ly. The com­mu­ni­ty learned that orga­nized crime is an inte­gral part of local pol­i­tics and eco­nom­ics every­where. Cher­an is a beau­ti­ful small indige­nous Purepecha moun­tain com­mu­ni­ty sur­round­ed by pre­cious forests, that knows the true cost of those prof­its laun­dered. Imme­di­ate­ly after the 2008 may­oral race the com­mu­ni­ty began expe­ri­enc­ing the dev­as­tat­ing effects of dog eat dog cap­i­tal­ism of which orga­nized crime is only anoth­er part.

The ille­gal log­ging indus­try began to rav­age the community’s most pre­cious forests, which have been tra­di­tion­al­ly respect­ed as a spir­i­tu­al con­nec­tion by the Indige­nous Purepecha peo­ple to their ter­ri­to­ry. The log­ging began to look a lot more like pil­lag­ing and when com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers began to attempt to defend their forests, they were met with a real life night­mare: the log­gers were not only aid­ed and pro­tect­ed by gov­ern­ment agen­cies and local police, the entire log­ging oper­a­tion was being coor­di­nat­ed by mem­bers of a major orga­nized crime syn­di­cate. [To this day I am told by com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers not to name the actu­al syn­di­cate in any­thing I write or say, or risk an almost cer­tain death.]

The first com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers who began to defend their for­est were sim­ply and quick­ly assas­si­nat­ed. From 2008–2011 the sit­u­a­tion only became worse. Crim­i­nals charged pro­tec­tion to run even a small busi­ness in the com­mu­ni­ty of Cher­an. The for­est was raped and ter­ror reigned as any­one felt at risk. The city would become a ghost town by sun­set. This is a real­i­ty con­front­ed by too many com­mu­ni­ties in Mex­i­co every day.

Mur­ders, dis­ap­pear­ances, kid­nap­pings, the crim­i­nal amounts of ille­gal log­ging and the reign of ter­ror came to a head on the ear­ly morn­ing of April 15th, 2011. A group of women had begun qui­et­ly orga­niz­ing in the days before an action to bring the rav­aging of their town to a halt. On April 15th, with chil­dren and youth at their sides, the women rose up and attempt­ed to detain log­gers trav­el­ing through town. The log­gers tried to run the women over and in response the com­mu­ni­ty react­ed as a whole, and began burn­ing the log­gers’ vehi­cles and began detain­ing the log­gers them­selves.

It is at this point that the com­mu­ni­ty rec­og­nized the com­plic­i­ty of the local police when it was police offi­cers who guid­ed orga­nized crime thugs to the place where the log­gers were being held, in an attempt to vio­lent­ly release them. The com­mu­ni­ty erect­ed “fogatas” or bon­fire bar­ri­cades through­out town in order to pre­vent vio­lence against com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers. With­in days the com­mu­ni­ty decid­ed that it no longer trust­ed any politi­cians from any polit­i­cal par­ty or any of the local and state police. They began to orga­nize for self-deter­mi­na­tion and self-defense and chose to return to their tra­di­tion­al Purepecha forms of self gov­er­nance.

A gen­er­al coun­cil of com­mu­ni­ty elders was elect­ed and com­mis­sions were formed in order to car­ry out the community’s logis­ti­cal, social, eco­nom­ic, and polit­i­cal needs. Com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers sim­ply say that they referred to their his­to­ry and referred to their elders in order to return to the way the com­mu­ni­ty was orga­nized before polit­i­cal par­ties, police, and orga­nized crime exist­ed. The gen­er­al coun­cil is legal­ly rec­og­nized as the gov­ern­ing body of Cher­an, Michoa­can today.

The com­mu­ni­ty has main­tained that they only have three demands: safe­ty, jus­tice, and the refor­esta­tion of their ter­ri­to­ry. They have active­ly been refor­est­ing the entire region and take that aspect of their strug­gle very seri­ous­ly, and remind us that for them pro­tect­ing the for­est is both a tra­di­tion­al and a spir­i­tu­al oblig­a­tion. Cher­an does not believe that any­body will ever be able to bring them jus­tice for their dead, dis­ap­peared, and dis­placed as a result of the con­flict, nor do they expect any­one in pow­er to under­stand the jus­tice they seek for the for­est. Today Cher­an knows that jus­tice is some­thing that they will have to take care of obtain­ing on their own from now on. When it comes to safe­ty, the world is able to see what it looks like for a com­mu­ni­ty to take respon­si­bil­i­ty for its own safe­ty through tra­di­tion­al indige­nous forms of self gov­er­nance and self-defense.

Short­ly after the 2011 upris­ing began, com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers state that the local politi­cians and the police sim­ply exiled them­selves in fear from the com­mu­ni­ty, war­rant­i­ng no need to run them out of town. Com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers took the local gov­ern­ment offices, took police trucks, took the polices’ weapons, and put them all to use. His­tor­i­cal­ly, Cher­an had tra­di­tion­al­ly been “policed” or defend­ed by mem­bers from the com­mu­ni­ty. In a vol­un­tary rota­tion mem­bers from each of the four “bar­rios” or neigh­bor­hoods would patrol the com­mu­ni­ty for self-defense in what is known as the “com­mu­ni­ty ron­da.” After the upris­ing the gen­er­al coun­cil made a call out for vol­un­teers to par­tic­i­pate in the com­mu­ni­ty “ron­da”, or com­mu­ni­ty guard. Com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers main­tain that police are imposed by the gov­ern­ment, but the “ron­da” is a tra­di­tion­al way in which com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers pro­tect them­selves and their com­mu­ni­ty. Today the “ron­da” is sep­a­rat­ed into two parts. The “ron­da comu­ni­taria” which is respon­si­ble for patrolling and pro­tect­ing the com­mu­ni­ty from with­in its bor­ders and the “guard­a­bosques” or for­est defend­ers, which patrol the out­skirts of town and deep into the forests in order to pro­tect com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers liv­ing in those more rur­al areas and in order to pro­tect the for­est itself.

Cher­an is not the first com­mu­ni­ty in Mex­i­co to return to their tra­di­tion­al means of com­mu­ni­ty self-defense, nor is it the first place in the state of Michoa­can, nor in the indige­nous Purepecha region. Oth­er com­mu­ni­ties have engaged in sim­i­lar prac­tices of self gov­er­nance and self-defense, and lit­tle by lit­tle more and more com­mu­ni­ties are see­ing tra­di­tion­al self gov­er­nance and self-defense as a viable alter­na­tive to cor­rupt pol­i­tics and sub­mis­sion to orga­nized crime. Recent­ly coun­cil mem­bers from Nurio, Michoa­can, a larg­er com­mu­ni­ty and long time prac­ti­tion­er of self gov­er­nance and self-defense, sug­gest­ed that the entire Purepecha region should begin to orga­nize a region­al “ron­da” that could poten­tial­ly coor­di­nate self-defense patrols on a region­al lev­el for the indige­nous Purepecha peo­ple liv­ing through­out the state of Michoa­can.

It is hard not to throw your hands up in the air in res­ig­na­tion when you hear about crim­i­nals such as HSBC being grant­ed immu­ni­ty from pros­e­cu­tion and sanc­tions, but it is even hard­er not to throw a fist in the air when you see indige­nous Purepe­chas suc­cess­ful­ly over­com­ing orga­nized crime, cor­rupt politi­cians, and big busi­ness by estab­lish­ing mod­els for self-deter­mi­na­tion and self-defense, on a com­mu­ni­ty lev­el.

Simòn Sedil­lo

Combe Haven Defenders cordially invite you to help! Serious lack of numbers, camps facing eviction tomorrow tuesday 15th Jan

We need more peo­ple urgent­ly, please help either NVDA or legal observ­er, urgent urgent camps fac­ing evic­tion tomor­row, come and run around in the cold mud­dy fields! Your trees need you

We need more peo­ple urgent­ly, please help either NVDA or legal observ­er, urgent urgent camps fac­ing evic­tion tomor­row, come and run around in the cold mud­dy fields! Your trees need you

Idle No More International Day of Action – January 28, 2013

14th Jan 2012.

14th Jan 2012. Indige­nous Resur­gence Explodes with Idle No More Day of Action

Idle No More grass­roots founders and orga­niz­ers from across Cana­da, in sol­i­dar­i­ty with com­mon caus­es – a new ini­tia­tive bring­ing togeth­er social jus­tice, envi­ron­men­tal, labour and oth­er Activist Groups…

- UNITED we are plan­ning IDLE NO MORE WORLD DAY OF ACTION on Jan­u­ary 28th, 2013 #J28.

This day of action will peace­ful­ly protest attacks on Democ­ra­cy, Indige­nous Sov­er­eign­ty, Human Rights and Envi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tions when Cana­di­an MPs return to the House of Com­mons on Jan­u­ary 28th. As a grass­roots move­ment, clear­ly no polit­i­cal orga­ni­za­tion speaks for Idle No More. This move­ment is of the peo­ple… For The Peo­ple! #IDLENOMOREFTP

The Vision of IDLE NO MORE revolves around Indige­nous Ways of Know­ing root­ed in Indige­nous Sov­er­eign­ty to pro­tect water, air, land and all cre­ation for future gen­er­a­tions.

The Con­ser­v­a­tive gov­ern­ment bills begin­ning with Bill C‑45 threat­en Treaties and this Indige­nous Vision of Sov­er­eign­ty.

The Goal of the move­ment is edu­ca­tion and the revi­tal­iza­tion of Indige­nous peo­ples through Aware­ness and Empow­er­ment.  IDLE NO MORE has suc­cess­ful­ly encour­aged knowl­edge shar­ing of Indige­nous Sov­er­eign­ty and Envi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tions. 

This mes­sage has been heard around the world and the world is watch­ing how Cana­da responds to the mes­sage sent by many INM Sup­port­ers.

INM urges the gov­ern­ment of Cana­da to repeal all leg­is­la­tion; which vio­lates Treaties, Indige­nous Sov­er­eign­ty and sub­se­quent­ly Envi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tions of land and water.

INM is grate­ful to many lead­ers who have sup­port­ed this vision and the move­ment of the grass­roots peo­ple.

“The Treaties are the last line of defense to pro­tect water and lands from destruc­tion,” stat­ed Oren Lyons, Faith­keep­er Tur­tle Clan, Ononda­ga Nation Coun­cil of Chiefs.

Please watch and share this video of the Idle No More action in Toron­to, and orga­nize events in sol­i­dar­i­ty with Idle No More with­in your local col­lec­tives:

Today Marks 7th Year Anniversary of Eric McDavid’s Arrest

13th Jan 2013. Today marks the 7th Anniver­sary of Eric McDavid’s (also known as “D”) arrest. Eric was arrest­ed (along with Zachary Jen­son and Lau­ren Wein­er) on Jan­u­ary 13, 2006, as part of the government’s ongo­ing Green Scare cam­paign.

13th Jan 2013. Today marks the 7th Anniver­sary of Eric McDavid’s (also known as “D”) arrest. Eric was arrest­ed (along with Zachary Jen­son and Lau­ren Wein­er) on Jan­u­ary 13, 2006, as part of the government’s ongo­ing Green Scare cam­paign. All three were charged with “Con­spir­a­cy to dam­age and destroy prop­er­ty by fire and an explo­sive.” His arrest was the direct result of a gov­ern­ment infor­mant – known only as “Anna” – who spent a year and a half draw­ing him in and work­ing with the FBI to fab­ri­cate a crime and impli­cate Eric in it. Anna was paid over $65,000 for her work with the FBI. Eric was impris­oned for what amounts to thought-crime – no actions were ever car­ried out, and Eric was charged with a sin­gle count of “con­spir­a­cy” – a pow­er­ful legal tool often used by the state to crush dis­sent.

Below is his per­son­al cor­re­spon­dence fol­lowed by a cor­re­spon­dence from Jen­ny, his part­ner.

Learn more about Eric’s sto­ry or find out how to write to him at supporteric.org.

Let­ter from Eric McDavid,

7 yrs…  i can’t say it’s easy 2 put these words dn on paper – that it doesn’t pain me 2 look bk over these past 7 trips around the Sun… w/the process of the courts con­tin­u­ing n the final appeal stages; it’s end yet 2 show up on the hori­zon = no illu­sions, while still Danc­ing w/wishes… Love & Joy have also made their pres­ence known = the over­whelm­ing sup­port from all over the Earth ~ i wish 2 Thank every persyn/grp that has writ­ten & sup­port­ed me along this jour­ney – Ur intents, N which ever forms they’ve tak­en, have aid­ed & nour­ished me N remem­ber­ing who i am N a sit­u­a­tion &
envi­ron­ment bent on unrav­el­ing, dis­mem­ber­ing & remolding…along w/all the com­mu­nal Sol­i­dar­i­ty, i’m grate­ful 4 the sup­port of friends & fam­i­ly – & how i’ve been buoyed by the Love and Pas­sion­ate Patience of my Part­ner = i Love you J, you R my Joy…  …  i’m unable 2 ade­quate­ly express my feel­ings of Respect & Sol­i­dar­i­ty 4 all the folx Danc­ing w/the overt repres­sion across the con­ti­nent while stay­ing True 2 their Hearts…  2 the folx Danc­ing w/Grand Juries = bide Ur time, this is 1 of the few circ.s where time is on the SD of the oppressed…  w/N this cul­tur­al cli­mate the Path is not easy or sim­ple by any means – mak­ing it all the more impor­tant 2 find those unique, ever chang­ing, beau­ti­ful & sus­tain­able
ways 2 aid & nur­ture each oth­er… …. i’ll close wish­ing that each of U con­tin­ue 2 explore & heal Ur Hearts & com­mu­ni­ties; may U find the space & time over the com­ing yr 2 let Ur minds play w/new & safe com­mu­ni­ca­tion skills, & Ur bod­ies w/self-defense…

Stay safe & have fun find­ing Ur Joy

N Sol­i­dar­i­ty
w/much Love
D

Let­ter from Jen­ny,

Hel­lo friends,

Tomor­row, Jan­u­ary 13th,  marks the 7th year of D’s arrest.  It’s strange
how life real­ly does move in cycles.  Glanc­ing at the note I sent you all
last year my eyes are greet­ed by good news.  After his move to Ter­mi­nal
Island last year – right before the New Year – D and I were final­ly
allowed to hold hands dur­ing our vis­its for the first time since his
arrest.  After 6 years.  It was a reminder of how pre­cious such seem­ing­ly
insignif­i­cant acts can be – and to remem­ber to nev­er take them for
grant­ed.

On New Year’s Eve this year I spent the day vis­it­ing D at Ter­mi­nal Island.
The vis­it start­ed nor­mal­ly – a much await­ed hug and kiss, slow­ly mov­ing
to our chairs, but let­ting our hands linger – fin­gers inter­twined as we
reached across the tiny table between us.  That last­ed about 30 sec­onds.
They called D up to the podi­um where they sit and watch…  I heard a
flur­ry of voic­es with under­tones of urgency, although nev­er hos­til­i­ty. 
When he came back he told me they weren’t allow­ing us to hold hands
any­more.  He tried once more to get them to check their own rules, but to
no avail.  After over a year of being grant­ed this glo­ri­ous priv­i­lege, it
was yanked from under­neath us.

So many things have been tak­en from us.

A mil­lion thoughts swim through your head at times like that.  I knew this
might hap­pen.  It’s always in the back of your mind – what they
can/might/will take one day.  I’m more pre­pared for it now than I used to
be – which is to say it’s slight­ly less dev­as­tat­ing when it hap­pens.

I spent much of the car ride home think­ing about loss.  Some­times it feels
like my heart has bro­ken so many times that the thing I am mend­ing bears
no resem­blance to the orig­i­nal.  That thought scares me.  But then I think
of the alter­na­tive.  A friend recent­ly told me that she always felt like
love should be a safe space…  I wish I could agree.  But that has nev­er
been my expe­ri­ence.  With love we throw our hearts wide open – which means
every­thing gets in.  The good, the bad, the ugly.  And some­times that
means we hurt like hell.  But oth­er times that means we get to expe­ri­ence
so much joy and beau­ty that we almost can’t stand it.  And that is what I
have expe­ri­enced with D.  And I would do it all over again in a heart­beat.

D is an amaz­ing indi­vid­ual.  His heart is big­ger than any i’ve ever known
and his mind pow­er­ful­ly cre­ative and beau­ti­ful…  and his com­mit­ment to
his friends, his fam­i­ly, and strug­gle is rock sol­id.  Being his part­ner
has been the most amaz­ing, beau­ti­ful jour­ney.  I wouldn’t trade it for
any­thing.

Even with all of the loss.

Some­times my heart gets so heavy…  but then I remem­ber our friends and
com­rades who have fol­lowed sim­i­lar paths.  Many of whom are now out here
with us, again.  And then I remem­ber all of you – who have been a part of
this strug­gle.  Who have been here with us every step of the way.  And
togeth­er we inch clos­er to that light at the end of the tun­nel…

Tomor­row is the 13th.  I’ll be dri­ving down to vis­it D again.  He called
me the day after our last vis­it to tell me they found the “memo” that
allows us to hold hands.  How strange that a piece of paper can dic­tate my
inter­ac­tions with my part­ner of 7+ years.  And that some­one mis­plac­ing
that piece of paper can be such a cause for pan­ic, sor­row and reflec­tion.
I’m glad they found it.  But D has told me it doesn’t seem to have fixed
the prob­lem…  either way,  I’m not hold­ing my breath.  Noth­ing is ever
cer­tain.  And even if they don’t have it fixed…I know that noth­ing can
stop us.  Because we have each oth­er.  And we have all of you.

To all of our friends and com­rades who have expe­ri­enced so much loss this
year – our unend­ing love, sup­port, and sol­i­dar­i­ty.  You are nev­er alone.

And to our friends and com­rades who have gained their free­dom – or at
least pieces of it – wel­come home.

With love and sol­i­dar­i­ty,
jen­ny

P.S.
Eric has been in prison a long time…and he has a lot more to go.  Please
let him know that you are still think­ing about him!  Let­ters, books,
dona­tions, fundrais­ers and sup­port events are still always need­ed.  For
more infor­ma­tion on how to write Eric a let­ter or how to donate to his
sup­port fund, please vis­it:  www.supporteric.org

Marie Mason Birthday Events Being Planned Across the World

12th Jan 2012. Marie Mason’s 51st birth­day is com­ing up on Jan­u­ary 26, 2013. We are ask­ing that folks hold events for Marie around her birth­day as part of what will be an annu­al time to cel­e­brate her life and keep her spir­its up while she remains impris­oned.

12th Jan 2012. Marie Mason’s 51st birth­day is com­ing up on Jan­u­ary 26, 2013. We are ask­ing that folks hold events for Marie around her birth­day as part of what will be an annu­al time to cel­e­brate her life and keep her spir­its up while she remains impris­oned.

 We know that the mid-win­ter hol­i­days are a busy time for every­one, but they are a sad time for the pris­on­ers who remain inside – and every­one wants some cheer on their birth­day! So we hope that folks can find time to plan a small event for Marie, such as a let­ter-writ­ing or birth­day par­ty. (If time per­mits, we rec­om­mend that you might want to hold let­ter writ­ings a week or more ear­li­er so the cards can reach her before the 26th.)
 
Some peo­ple are con­fused about Marie’s mail sit­u­a­tion. It is true that she can only send let­ters to a pre-approved list of 100 peo­ple. How­ev­er, she can receive let­ters from any­one and so she will be able to receive all these birth­day wish­es. (Please be sure that the sender’s first and last name are on the enve­lope, that let­ters are all in Eng­lish – she can receive let­ters in oth­er lan­guages but will be delayed – and that cards do not have glit­ter or oth­er things added to them.)
 
Last, if you are plan­ning a pub­lic event for her birth­day, please tell us and we’ll include the infor­ma­tion on the web­site. Sev­er­al cities have start­ed mak­ing plans, includ­ing NYC, Philadel­phia, Min­neapo­lis, Bal­ti­more, Bloom­ing­ton, Lake Worth and Haifa (Israel).  A cur­rent list­ing of events can be found here.  If you are orga­niz­ing an event and would like it list­ed on the site email us at supportmariemason@gmail.com
 

About Marie Mason

Marie Mason is a lov­ing moth­er of two and a long-time activist in the envi­ron­men­tal and labor move­ments. In March 2008, she was arrest­ed by fed­er­al author­i­ties for charges relat­ed to two acts of prop­er­ty destruc­tion that occurred in 1999 and 2000; no one was injured in either of them. She accept­ed a plea bar­gain and was sen­tenced on Feb­ru­ary 5, 2009 to just under 22 years. She is now serv­ing the longest sen­tence of any “Green Scare” pris­on­er.

The “Green Scare” is the name giv­en to the recent arrests of ani­mal rights and envi­ron­men­tal activists who have been charged with acts of eco­nom­ic sab­o­tage. Fed­er­al author­i­ties have sought out­ra­geous sen­tences (often Life in prison) and have pub­licly and legal­ly labeled the activists as “ter­ror­ists” – despite the fact that no one has been killed or injured in any of the acts.

Sup­port­ing Marie Mason does not mean agree­ing with the actions that she took — but it does mean oppos­ing the fear-mon­ger­ing tac­tics of the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment and the out­ra­geous sen­tences they have imposed.

The orig­i­nal call out for Marie’s birth­day can be found at www.supportmariemason.org, along with her cur­rent address, art­work, inter­views, let­ters and more ways to get involved.