by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Feb 23, 2018 | Repression at Home
by Cultural Survival
Cultural Survival condemns the murder of the Purépecha environmental activist Guadalupe Campanur Tapia, whose body was found on January 16, 2018 in the municipality of Checrán, Michocán, Mexico. She was strangled to death by two unidentified killers. Investigators have not indicated that Campanur’s death was due to her activism, but they have not ruled it out either.
Threats of violence and violent acts against Indigenous human rights and environmental defenders, particularly women, is an increasingly widespread problem. Frontline Defenders reported that in 2017 they received reports on the murder of 312 defenders in 27 countries.
- 67% of the total number of activists killed were defending land, environmental and Indigenous peoples’ rights, nearly always in the context of mega projects, extractive industry and big business.
- 84% of murdered defenders received at least one targeted death threat prior to their killing.
Femicides, sadly common in the Mexico, have ended the life of a talented and passionate woman: a defender for women’s rights, Indigenous Peoples, and the environment. Campanur’s work earned her the admiration and respect from many in her Purépecha community, but she posed a threat to others.
Campanur died at a young age of 32 years old, leaving a legacy of courageous work that will continue to inspire her generation and future generations. In April 2011, she was among Indigenous leaders of Cherán, who rung the bell calling on people to defend their forests against against illegal and merciless logging. Organized crime groups had been operating in the area destroying the municipality’s natural resources with the aid of the corrupt local officials. Campanur was the only female member of the founding team of the Forest Rangers of Cherán, a community initiative that held community patrols in defense of the life in the forest. Her fellow rangers praised her bravery and dedication.
In the midst of the struggle to defend their lands and resources, the community of Cherán decided to claim their rights as Indigenous Peoples in self-government by electing representatives directly and independently from the costly and corrupt conventional elections, expelling politicians, policies and other state and organized crime authorities involved in corruption from their territory. Campanur contributed to creating one of the best functioning examples of self-government in Mexico. These changes also successfully reduced violence in the area, with the last murder occurring in 2012.
Friends of Campanur reported that she had stopped patrolling the forests, but remained involved in the reconstruction of Cherán’s communal territory and culture as well as social work. Campanur became a member of the community’s Concejo Mayor or “Great Council” which aims regulate and aid public life. Her work for seniors, children, and workers made her an icon in her community.
The Attorney General of the State of Michoacán has announced that a investigation is in process in coordination with the Federal Mechanism for the Protection of Journalists and Human Rights Defenders through the Secretariat of State Government.
by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Sep 18, 2017 | Indigenous Autonomy
by Rawiri Taonui / Cultural Survival
This month marks the 10th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP 2007). Indigenous Peoples have come a long way. Our individual struggles coalesced during the 1970s in the Indigenous-initiated World Council of Indigenous Peoples. A decade of consultation and negotiation through the United Nations culminated in a first draft. Some of those who had worked on the draft lost their lives in struggles at home.
Consultation with states followed. On one side, the will of Indigenous representatives to craft a document worthy of the aspirations of first nation communities; on the other side the reservation of states.
The chair of the first Intergovernmental Working Group refused Indigenous representatives the right to speak. Silence incompatible with a voice seeking freedom, a walk out followed, the rules were changed and discussion proceeded. A New Zealand representative once described the Declaration as constituting discrimination – an easy allegory for an uneasy conscience.
The Declaration
On 13 September 2007, the UN General Assembly passed the Declaration – 143 countries in support, 4 against and 12 abstaining. The culmination of 500 years of struggle against colonisation, racism and neo-liberalism, every passage in the Declaration is a response to injustices suffered by Indigenous Peoples.
The preambulatory paragraphs and articles affirms the collective and individual human rights of First Nations as Peoples and human beings and in doing so proclaims our equality with all other members of society. The Declaration provides a framework for reconciliation with nation states by mapping a pathway to overcome the historical denial of our rights and established the minimum requisite standard for our advancement and the restoration of our dignity.
Our Place as Indigenous Peoples
The Declaration reminds us that the sovereignty of the States that came to wield power over us was not attained through “free and intelligent consent”, but through the trickery or absence of treaties, through warfare the coloniser called conquest, victory and the Christian mission, which today we understand to have been cultural genocide, the unjust alienation of our territories, the suppression of our languages, forced cultural assimilation, the inter-generational marginalisation of our societies at all levels, including the taking of our children through Residential Schools in North America, the Stolen Generations in Australia and in New Zealand through what were “State Care Homes.”
The Declaration has lifted the confidence of Indigenous Peoples. Our rights are more visible. We are important. We are the descendants of the first arrivals or earliest surviving occupants of a land. We number between 350 to 500 million people living in up to 90 countries. We comprise 5,000 distinct cultural groups speaking 4,000 of the world’s 7,000 languages. We are home to 90% of the world’s cultural diversity.
We live upon 22 per cent of the Earth’s land mass harbouring 80 per cent of its remaining biodiversity. Our cultures, ancestral knowledges and philosophies are deeply embedded within the environment; the Skyfather, the Earthmother and their children are our relations. Once belittled, our epistemologies are integral to the survival of the planet.
Progress on the Declaration
Several of the original abstentions, such as Colombia and Samoa, now support the Declaration; 182 States at the Durban World Conference on Racism endorsed the Declaration. Having overcome the self-inflicted trauma of their previous hesitation, the governments of the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand now support the Declaration.
God may also be on our side, Pope Francis’ 2015 encyclical on meaningful climate action declaring that Indigenous Peoples “should be the principle dialogue partners” on matters concerning the environment and that when our land rights are protected we are the best guardians of the world’s forests and biodiversity.
Guided by the principle that “no one is left behind”; Indigenous Peoples are a priority under the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
From the Waitangi Tribunal and courts in New Zealand where the Declaration reinforces the 1834 Declaration of Independence and the 1840 Treaty of Waitangi, to Belize, Bangladesh and the African Commission on Human and People’s Rights the international judiciary is increasingly citing the Declaration. Many more cases are going before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and Court of Human Rights, and the rulings and decisions are supporting the protection of Indigenous rights.
Indigenous rights are being recognised in new laws and/or being enshrined in constitutional instruments. South America has been an important leader, in particular Bolivia under the leadership of President Evo Morales.
In Asia, Myanmar and Japan are considering greater recognition. In Europe, Denmark has granted greater self-government to Greenland where 90% of the 56,000 population is Inuit.
In Africa, the Republic of the Congo, the Central African Republic, Kenya, Namibia and Burundi have taken steps to recognise Indigenous Peoples. Others have processes in place.
Where once the killing of Indigenous People was conducted with impunity – the historical massacres in Australia, the Trail of Tears and Wounded Knee in the United States, and Handley’s Woolshed, Rangiaowhia, Ngā Tapa in New Zealand – there is increasing accountability. The leader of a militia that massacred Mbuti Peoples in the Ituri forest was sentenced to 18 years in prison. There have been arrests in Honduras for the killing of the distinguished Lenca leader Berta Caceres shot dead in 2016.
Challenges
Many challenges remain. Even where the countries have adopted the Declaration, most have not been able to implement it effectively.
Compromises in the Declaration from discussion with states will be difficult to overcome. States objected to Article 3 the Right to Self-determination. The compromise in Article 46, essentially that Indigenous Peoples cannot form new states, reinforces uncertainty and dislocation for Indigenous Peoples straddling the borders of nation states. The Karen spanning the river border between Thailand and Myanmar, the Guarani spread between countries across the Amazon, and 30 million Kurds, the largest nationality in the world without a country, are divided between Iran, Iraq, Syria and Turkey.
We are losing one Indigenous language every two weeks. We remain the world’s most vulnerable peoples. At 6% of the world’s population we are 15% of the world’s poorest peoples. Wherever we live, we are the poorest of the poor.
It is unlikely that we will realise the goal of equality under the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development because it does not prioritise the right to self-determination or the principle of free, prior and informed consent and therefore will not prevent the avarice of development that threatens many Indigenous Peoples. Every year were hear submissions at the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues and the Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples echoing the words “we may not survive.”
Extractive Industries
The majority of new extractive industry projects, including mining, drilling, hydro-electric, forestry and agribusiness, are in Indigenous areas from the Artic to the Amazon, from West Papua to Africa. Drilling and fracking quench an insatiable thirst for oil. Agribusiness feeds a gluttonous demand for beef burgers. Environmentally friendly biofuels have unfriendly impacts on first communities. Coltan, tin and tungsten build our cell phones, laptops and flat screens.
The extractive industries cost many lives. It is sobering to apprehend that in the ten years since the signing of the Declaration the annual number of individual Indigenous human rights advocates being killed has doubled to 600 per year.
Directly and indirectly, these industries have cost 100,000 West Papuan lives since 1963. From 1998 to 2003, 10,000 to 70,000 Indigenous peoples lost their lives in the conflict mineral regions of central Africa. Alongside gorillas and elephants some were eaten as bush meat supplying militias.
The Struggle for Identity
Many Indigenous Peoples struggle for recognition. China supported the Declaration, an official once stating because there are no Indigenous people in China. There are 10 million Uighur, 2 million Tibetans and 13 million Yao-Mein and Miao-Hmong.
India recognises 400 groups numbering 84 million people as Scheduled Tribes; over 600 groups numbering at least the same are not recognised. Russia recognises ‘northern groups’ as Indigenous but only if their population is smaller than 50,000.
The San, Khoi, Mbuti, Mbenga, Twa and Batwa are the earliest African Indigenous Peoples and oldest cultures on Earth. Botswana, Zimbabwe and Zambia do not recognise their indigeneity.
Racism, Violence and Suicide
Indigenous Peoples continue to face grave racism. In developed countries this has a “new colourism.” Dominant institutions prefer indigenes if we are compliant, middle class, fair skinned and have European features.
Indigenous women and children continue to endure significant violence. There is an emerging world-wide crisis in Indigenous suicide.
New Zealand acknowledges the UNICEF Building the Future report saying that at 15.6 per 100,000 we have the worst adolescent suicide rate in the developed world. What is not recognised is that the national figure is elevated by a high Māori youth suicide rate, often double or more than for non-Māori, in conjunction with their higher proportion of the national population proportion (35% under 15 years old; 27% between 15 and 40) when compared with other Indigenous situations. The crisis is Māori suicide.
Comparative figures demonstrate that the Indigenous suicide rates in Canada, Australia, the United States, and among the Nenets of Russia, the Guarani of Brazil and the Sami of Scandinavia are equal to, or higher than Māori. However, they do not lift their national average in the same way because the Indigenous demographic is a significantly smaller proportion of the national population than that of Māori.
If we do not understand the problem then we miss the best solutions. Mainstream approaches to suicide focus on mental health, bad parenting, drug addiction, crime and poverty. These approaches have their place, however, they are also driven by underlying deficit assumptions about the inferiority of first cultures.
In the case of Māori, historical research shows that pre-European Māori were good parents; before 1900 when the language was intact Māori were just 3% of prisoners – today they are 50%; before the mass urbanisation of the 1950s every Māori knew their marae and subtribe and suicide was half that of Europeans. A Canadian study has shown that where 50% or more of an Indigenous community speaks their language suicide is between half that of other communities and zero.
Cultural alienation as anomie is a causal factor so too its relation racism and discrimination. They compress Indigenous youth between two worlds and a past they do not understand, a present that does not understand them and a future without hope.
The Future
The Declaration is not perfect. A lack of action by governments is the greatest impediment to progress. Nevertheless, the journey has begun. We live in a new world.
Standing Rock has taught us of the power of social media in the fight to raise consciousness.
New allies may benefit the cause of Indigenous Peoples. North America and Europe require 100 million new immigrants each by 2050 to support ageing European populations. Many immigrants suffered oppression in old countries and confront racism in new lands. In a country like New Zealand the combined Māori, Pasifika and immigrant community will equal and then surpass the European population somewhere around 2050. We are natural allies and will be the majority of the work force, the parliamentarians and the decision makers.
There is a changing of the guard between the West and the developing world. Alt-right and the American presidency are a reaction to that. In 2050, 27 of the fastest growing economies in the world will be formerly oppressed brown colonies. Those who can work with other cultures as equals will be a force for change.
There are risks. We need to stay grounded with the lowest common denominator in our communities and the realities of other Indigenous Peoples, use our proven resilience and capacity to fight for our rights and survive in the face of great difficulties to take all our people forward in emancipatory praxis.
We need to be cognisant of the risks of building a self-serving middle class, confining power to small elites or suffering rigid cultural nationalism lest the formerly oppressed becoming the new oppressor. For those who survive the next generation there is a future.
–Rawiri Taonui is a professor at the College of Humanities and Social Sciences & Global Centre for Indigenous Leadership at Massey University in New Zealand.
This paper was presented at the Conference on the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples on 5-6 September 2017 at Te Papa Tongareva – Wellington Museum, New Zealand.
by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Jun 3, 2017 | Colonialism & Conquest
by Parbatya Chattagram Jana Samhati Samiti (PCJSS) via Cultural Survival
A massive communal and arson attack on four Jumma localities was carried by the Bengali Muslim settlers with the support of army and police in Longadu under Rangamati hill district of Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) on 2 June 2017. This organized and army-police-backed arson and communal attack claimed more than 300 Jumma houses burnt to ashes, of which it counts more than 200 houses and shops in Tintila of Longadu upazila headquarters and more 120 houses (around 40 houses in each of the three villages) in Manikjorchara, Battya Para and Baradom villages to have been completely burnt down. It is reported that at least an aged woman named Guna Mala Chakma (75) w/o late Rabichan Chakma was killed in this arson attack. Parbatya Chattagram Jana Samhati Samiti (PCJSS) expresses strong protest and condemnation over the setting fire and looting in the houses of indigenous Jumma peoples and massive communal attack.
It is learnt that centering recovery of a dead body identified to be of a driver of motor cycle Nurul Islam Nayon in Khagrachari, a belligerent procession of the Bengali Muslim settlers from Battya Para of Longadu upazila took to street under coverage of the army and police forces around 9:00 am. When the procession reached at Longadu upazila headquarters around 10:00 am, the settlers from within the procession began looting and setting fire in the Jumma houses and shops including the PCJSS office without any provocation. At this, 200 houses and shops belonging Jumma people got burnt down. Afterward, the Bengali Muslim settlers left for nearby Manikjorchara to attack the village under army and police force protection. At this, around 40 houses of the village were completely reduced to ashes.
The local administration promulgated Section 144 around 12:00 noon. But it was learnt that despite being so, the settlers moved ahead under army-police guard and set fire in the villages of South Manikjorechara, Battya Para, Boradam, etc. Jumma localities and these were being carried out at the time of origination of this report. In this attack, 30/35 houses in Battya Para and 40 houses in Boradom villages were burnt to ashes.
On receipt of the news of setting out a procession with the dead body last night, the local Jumma public representatives and leaders called on Longadu army zone and Longadu police station authorities to apprise their sense of danger and lacking of security. This morning, the 2nd-in-Command (2IC) Major Rafique of Longadu army zone assured on behalf of the army zone saying: “Staging procession is a democratic right of the settlers. They will exercise their right peacefully. No untoward incident will be allowed to happen. Hence, there is nothing to be worried.” Saying so, the commander assured the local Jumma public representatives and leaders, but it is a great irony that the settlers carried out organized attacks, looted and set fire in the Jumma houses and shops in all time presence of Longadu Zone Commander Lt. Col. Abdul Alim Choudhury psc, 2IC Major Rafique and Officer-In-Charge (OC) of Longadu police station Mominul Islam along with the joint forces.
It is learnt that the militant procession of the settlers was also participated by the national parties irrespective of their ideologies and differences, such as, ruling Awami League, BNP, Jatiya Party, Jamat-E-Islam etc. including the so-called Parbatya Chattagram Samo Odhikar Andolan (CHT Equal Rights Movement) and other upstarts organizations of the settlers. As part of their solidarity, Juba League, youth wing of the ruling party, organized a procession at 11:00 am today in Rangamati town in protest against killing of the said motor bike driver. It has been reported that anti-Jumma communal slogans were shouted during the demonstration.
Despite assurance given on part of the army and police authorities, the unabated looting and arson attack in the Jumma houses in the very presence of the authorities who ensured verbal assurance, it can safely be concluded that the Bengali Muslim settlers procession with the dead body has been a deliberate one in orchestration of the army-police forces and local leadership of the ruling party.
PCJSS considers this sort of organized communal and arson attack that happened today, has been conducted with the support of state machineries and local leadership of the ruling party to evict the Jumma people from their ancestral lands, to obstruct the implementation process of the CHT Accord, and over all to achieve their mean objective of turning the CHT region into a Muslim-dominated region.
The PCJSS, calls upon all the parties concerned to stop the army-police-backed communal and arson attacks by the Bengali Muslim settlers and to step up legal measures to bring all those army-police personnel and settlers responsible for the attack, looting and arson in the Jumma houses and shops, on an emergency basis.
Illegal search in the house of PCJSS leader & harassment of family members by the BGB in Kaptai
In a press release signed by Assistant Information and Publicity Secretary of Parbatya Chattagram Jana Samhati Samiti (PCJSS) Sajib Chakma dated 1 June 2017, PCJSS strongly protested against illegal search in the house of Areise Marma, President of PCJSS Raikhali Union Branch and and ill-attempt of planting explosive materials inside the house, beating and undue harassment upon his family members.
PCJSS says, a BGB troop of 19 Battalion from Wagga BGB Zone and Dongchari BGB camp entered the No.1 Para of Narangirimukh under Kaptai Upazila of Rangamati Hill District and conducted a thorough search in the house of Areise Marma (55), President Mv Raikhali Union Branch of PCJSS at the wee hours of today, 1 June 2017. It was learnt that the BGB searching party handcuffed Mathuiching Marma, wife of Areise Marma and slapped their daughter Unuching Marma.
As per the statement on the occurrence, the BGB personnel surrounded Areise Marma’s house at 01:30 am and having waken up the inmates of the house, began their search and this continued till 4:00 am. The BGB searching party were looking for Areise Marma who was not at home by then. At certain point of their search, Unuching Marama, daughter of Areise Marma noticed the BGB personnel digging the inside floor by theft and planting some explosive materials taken out from their bag that they carried along with and soon she offered challenge saying that it was they who brought in those articles, which were never part of their household objects. The BGB person concerned, for being unsuccessful, got tempered and slapped Unuching Marma with might.
At certain phase of searching, the BGB personnel locked Mathuiching Marma, wife of Areise Marma with handcuff. They entered into the bedroom of Areise Marma’s son and daughter-in-law and muddled the household articles including the wears and all. They snatched the mobile phones from the family members and mounted heavy pressure upon them seeking to know whereabouts of the arms and show the cached arms to them. The BGB kept them under threatening of sending to jail and filing up cases against them, if they did not show the location of the arms. The BGB personnel did not let them go to bed and harassed all the family members outside their house till 4:00 am. While leaving around 4.00 am they BGB wrote a note in a piece of white paper stating that nothing was done to the family members and made Unuching put her signature in the paper.
The PCJSS strongly protests against such conspiring and ill-attempt of planting explosive materials inside the house of Areise Marma, President of PCJSS Raikhali Union Branch, beating and undue harassment upon his family members and demands immediate stop to such conspiring and illegal searching.
It is worthy to be cited here that a group of BGB personnel from Wagga BGB Zone arrested No.4 Raikhali Union Council member and also Vice-President of PCJSS Raikhali Union Committee and his son Kyawhing Hla Marma, President of Kaptai Thana Branch of Pahari Chhatra Parishad by unknowingly planting explosive materials inside their house on 31 March 2017. They were taken to Rangamati Amy Zone and brought out heavy inhuman torture upon them. The BGB and Army Zone authorities made the severely wounded father and son say what they were taught to confess to the local press media.
In recent days, searching operation elsewhere by army and BGB, filing up false-based and fabricated cases entangling the Jumma people including the PCJSS members engaged in the movement for rights and implementation of the CHT Accord, taking the arrested by secretly planting fire arms and sending to jail, meting out physical torture and harassment have become a very common scenario with intensity. The PCJSS has the ground to believe all this design to have been being directed to achieve mean objectives of identifying the just movement for implementation of the CHT Accord as an act of terrorism, destroying the dynamic leadership of PCJSS and over all, to obstruct the implementation process of the CHT Accord and to utter surprise to note that the atrocities upon the members of PCJSS and its associate organizations are being meted out by the army-BGB-police forces with the support of the ruling party, the misdeeds of which can never yield in wellbeing to the national interest.
by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Jan 9, 2017 | Indigenous Autonomy, Lobbying
by John McPhaul / Cultural Survival
On November 1, 2016, the Constitutional Chamber of Costa Rica’s Supreme Court provided some good news to a Terraba (Teribe) Indigenous territory when it stopped the state-run Costa Rica Electricity Institute (ICE by its Spanish acronym) from going forward with the Diquis hydroelectric project for failing to consult Indigenous communities who would see part of their lands flooded.
The permit, issued in 2007 under former President Oscar Arias, had declared the dam to be located at the mouth of the General River Valley in the southern Pacific and part of the country of “national interest.”
The court ruling did not question the “national interest” part of the permit, but said ICE had failed to comply with a previous high court order to adequately consult the Indigenous communities. The project has been stalled since 2011 over the Indigenous consultation issue.
The 650 megawatt hydroelectric project was to be the largest such project in Central America. The project’s reservoir would occupy 7363 hectares of land, 830 hectares of which are Indigenous territories, and displace over 1547 people.
The project would also flood 10 percent of the Terraba (also known as Teribe) China Kichá Indigenous territory (104 hectares) and 8 percent of another Terraba communities of Curré and Boruca (726 hectares). Officials estimate that 200 sacred Indigenous sites would be destroyed by the reservoir.
Some see the development as very positive. The $2.5 billion project would provide employment in the region to 3,500 people. The Diquis project would increase that renewable energy capacity and also allow Costa Rica to sell energy to neighboring Central American countries. Costa Ricans are proud of their electrical energy system which provides energy mostly from renewable resources. In 2016, the country went most of the year without resorting to using oil-fired thermal generators. But sometimes even renewable energy has high cost, especially when it comes to hydro-electric dams.
The high court ruling referred to Article 8 of the Arias Administration decree which would have allowed ICE to gather materials for the dam, power station, and connected works in locales in the areas of El General, Buenos Aires, Changuena and Cabagra, despite the fact that Indigenous people live in the areas.
According to the Constitutional Chamber’s press office, the annulled article was challenged previously in September of 2011, when the court determined that the decree was constitutional just as long as the Indigenous communities were consulted within a period of six months from the notification of the ruling.
However, early the next year, the court ruled that the six months established by the Court had passed and the consultation had not been made. “The Constitutional Chamber has demonstrated that, in fact, in the space of time established in the 2011-12975 ruling, the referred to consultation was not made nor did any party come to this Chamber request an extension of the time limit granted. Therefore, since the condition dictated in ruling 2011-12975 have not been met, the Article 8 of the No. 34312-MP-MINAE executive decree is unconstitutional because the consultation failed to occur,” said the press office.
The Terraba say they are not interested in the offers made so far to relocate their communities to other lands and provide them with well-paid jobs. “We don’t believe in the promises of employment for Indigenous Peoples, as up until today it had been demonstrated that all the qualified and best paid personnel have been brought from outside, Indigenous workers are used only to break rocks,” said community leader Jehry Rivera.
For Indigenous people, ICE offers are only opportunism. Indigenous Peoples want better lands and compensation in order to agree for the project to go forward.
The Court said that the consultation of Indigenous communities under Costa Rican law was necessary since the project is located in areas declared as an Indigenous reserve, “In fact, Costa Rica could be in violation of not complying with international conventions in relation to the autonomy of Indigenous Peoples over their territory. Costa Rica is a signatory of the International Labor Organization’s Convention on Indigenous and Tribal People.”
Indigenous Peoples are not the only ones opposed to the project. Environmentalists say that the dam’s reservoir would dry up the intensely green Térraba River Valley and would destroy irreplaceable habitats such as the Ramsar wetland and the river delta that drains into the Pacific. The wetlands and delta are the nesting grounds for many species including the endangered hump-back whale.
–John McPhaul is a Costa Rican-American freelance writer based in San Juan, Puerto Rico. During his many years in Costa Rica, the land of his birth, he wrote for the Miami Herald, Time Magazine and Costa Rica’s The Tico Times among other publications.
Photo by Florian Delée on Unsplash
by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Dec 25, 2016 | Colonialism & Conquest, Mining & Drilling
Featured image: Domingo Ankuash of the Shuar speaking at the Inter-American Commission in Washington DC. By Daniel Cima.
by Cultural Survival
Cultural Survival condemns the action of the Ecuadorian government in the raiding of the Shuar federation, FICSH (Federación Interprovincial de Centros Shuar), and the arbitrary detention of its president, Agustin Wachapa, on December 20, 2016.
The Shuar have been organizing to defend their ancestral lands from the development of a Chinese copper mine. Under the San Carlos Panantza copper project, the Ecuadorian government conceded 41 thousand hectares of land to the Chinese mining company ECSA for a period of 25 years. The project, currently in the exploration phase, is estimated to deliver around $1200 million USD in annual profits.
To make way for the mine, the Shuar community of Nankints was evicted in August 2016 without their Free, Prior and Informed Consent, in violation of Convention 169 of the International Labor Organization, the Ecuadorian constitution, and the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
Since the evictions, violent clashes have broken out between individuals seeking to regain control of their homes and ancestral lands and military and police who are stationed to guard the property and employees of the mine. Now, the government has declared a “state of exception” in the province of Morona Santiago, and militarized the community of Nankints with hundreds of military personnel, tanks, and trucks, and helicopters. The state of exception strips Indigenous residents of the rights to freedom of movement, freedom of association, freedom of assembly and inviolability of the home, among others.
Cultural Survival joins COICA (Coordinadora de la Organizaciones Indígenas de la Cuenca Amazónica) in making the following demands:
- We urge for intervention by neutral third parties in order to find a dialogue that does not deepen and aggravate the existing conflict.
- We call for an immediate demilitarization of the community of Nankints, insuring the continued respect for human rights and collective rights of the Indigenous Shuar people, guaranteed by the Ecuadorian constitution in article 57. 20.
- We demand the immediate release of Shuar leader and human rights and environmental defender Agustin Wachapa, and for him to be treated in accordance with the UN Declaration on Human Rights Defenders.
- We condemn the Ministry of the Environment in Ecuador for their December 20th call to close the grassroots environmental organization Accion Ecologica.
Take Action: Defend Environmental Defenders! Stand with Acción Ecológica and the Shuar!
