by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Jul 31, 2012 | ACTION, Mining & Drilling, Protests & Symbolic Acts, Toxification
By Peter Rugh / Waging Nonviolence
The war came home this weekend, as thousands of people whose land has been under siege by the U.S. government and corporate interests gathered in Washington, D.C. No, they weren’t victims of drone attacks or 10-plus years of fighting in Afghanistan. They were ordinary Americans, whose neighborhoods, townships and states have been struggling to put an end to fracking, a destructive form of natural gas drilling.
These veterans of the frack war were in Washington for a national convergence called Stop the Frack Attack. Over the course of two days, they held teach-ins and strategy sessions on ways to bring relief to their communities through collective action, before ending on Saturday with the first ever national march and rally against fracking. Many hailed the event as an important step to building a broad, grassroots movement to ban the drilling practice.
“I’m going to dream big,” said Jennie Scheibach with NonToxic Ohio, a group fighting the spread of fracking in northern Ohio and the disposal of fracking waste in the state’s rivers. “Standing together, rising up together, we can stop this.”
Jennie wasn’t alone. Thousands of people from across the country, from voluminous backgrounds, joined in common cause in D.C. over the weekend, raising the call for an end to fracking.
Lori New Breast of the Blackfoot Nation, whose homeland encompasses parts of Montana, Alberta, and Saskatchewan, took part in the rally. She said her community is mobilizing to reject fracking. “Oil companies would like you to think that that land is unoccupied and that we are gone. But as the care takers of the headwaters of the continent, we are still here. We do not want fracking. It is a threat to our cultural way of life.”
Members of Occupy Wall Street Environmental Solidarity were also on hand in D.C. as well, carrying banners that read, “Safe Fracking is a Lie; Occupy! Resist!” and “Frack Wall Street, Not Our Water!”
Meanwhile, suburban mothers like Vicky Bastidas, who brought her three teenage daughters to the rally, were present. She and her family have been fighting frackers from drilling near schools and playgrounds in their home town of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. Vicky said she was heartened by a recent court decision that overturned a law barring local municipalities from banning fracking and now looks forward to passing a ban in her town.
The decision might have come too late to reverse much of the long-term damage that the unimpeded invasion of drilling has done to Pennsylvania, but nonetheless it grants Pennsylvanians a chance to set up legal barricades against the fracking bombardment. Bastidas had a message from her family to Governor Corbett and lawmakers like him: “Our water is not for sale. We can live without oil. We can live without gas. But we cannot live without water.”
This was a widespread sentiment among the approximately 4,000 demonstrators who marched from the Capitol building to the headquarters of the American Petroleum Institute (API), the oil and gas industry’s lobbying arm. Along the way they made a brief stop at the home base of the American Natural Gas Alliance (ANGA), where Delaware Riverkeeper Maya Van Rossum held up a murky, brown libation of chemical diarrhea in a clear plastic jug.
“This is frack water,” she said. “We don’t want it in our communities. We can’t drink it safely. We’re giving it back to the drillers. I bet they won’t drink it!” Uniformed in hazmat suits, Van Rossum and several of her colleagues with Delaware Riverkeeper chanted “shame” and pounded on ANGA’s doors, but a representative of the Alliance failed to appear for a taste test.
Next, demonstrators flooded the courtyard of API’s home office. “The water, the water, the water is on fire,” they hollered in unison, “We don’t need no fracking let the corporations burn.” Members of the crowd set down a 10-foot replica of a fracking rig made of bamboo and canvas at API’s door and tipped it over. The move was a symbolic representation of what they hope the burgeoning movement against fracking can accomplish nationally.
The action also pointed toward another tipping point, that of the climate, which has been driven to the brink of near collapse by the fossil fuel industry with the support of politicians, including President Barack Obama, who received $884,000 in campaign donations from the oil and gas industry in 2008. Given such a payout, it should not be surprising that Obama signed a little-noticed executive order earlier this year establishing an intergovernmental task force for the support of “unconventional” gas drilling — in other words fracking.
With the stroke of a pen, Obama picked a side in a war that began under his predecessor’s administration. In 2005, lawmakers on Capitol Hill approved the Energy Policy Act, a bill championed by then-Vice President and former Halliburton executive Dick Cheney that exempted frackers from the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA) and the Clean Water Act (CWA). The fracking amendments gave the world’s wealthiest energy corporations license to invade some of America’s poorest counties, poison their drinking water, foul their air and putrefy their soil. For each frack site, and there are now tens of thousands across America, drillers pump millions of gallons of water, sand and toxic chemicals into the land in order to draw oil and gas from shale rock.
Since the frack boom began, impoverished, cloistered communities sitting on millions of dollars worth of shale gas — from Pennsylvania to Wyoming, from indigenous tribal lands in Montana to the Texas border — have become ground zeros for fracking. In most cases, they are offered a short-term cash prize for land rights or desperately needed jobs in return for long-term ecological devastation. Such a strategy for prosperity, critics contend, would have left mountaintop removal strongholds in Appalachia looking like Beverly Hills long ago.
Instead, it seems the only pockets being lined are those of the corporate executives and politicians. In 2010, the fracking industry raked in $76 billion in revenues. Meanwhile, the Obama 2012 campaign is set to bring in more from oil and gas lobbyists than was raised in the previous election. If there’s hope in matching corporate campaign donations, though, it’s not with money, but rather a national movement, comprised of the diverse voices of dissent that marched through Washington on Saturday.
by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Jul 31, 2012 | Mining & Drilling, Toxification
By Duke University
Water pollution from surface coal mining has degraded more than 22 percent of streams and rivers in southern West Virginia to the point they may now qualify as impaired under state criteria, according to a new study by scientists at Duke and Baylor universities.
The study, published this week in the peer-reviewed journal Environmental Science & Technology, documents substantial losses in aquatic insect biodiversity and increases in salinity linked to sulfates and other pollutants in runoff from mines often located miles upstream.
“Our findings offer concrete evidence of the cumulative impacts surface mining is having on a regional scale,” said Emily S. Bernhardt, associate professor of biogeochemistry at Duke’s Nicholas School of the Environment. “The relationship is clear and direct: The more mining you have upstream, the higher the biological loss and salinity levels will be downstream, and the farther they will extend.”
Numerous recent studies have demonstrated the water-quality problems caused at or near the site of individual surface coal mines, Bernhardt noted. So she and her team “set out to understand how the large and growing number of surface mines is affecting water quality throughout Appalachia.”
They used NASA satellite images and computer data to map the extent of surface mining taking place across a 12,000-square-mile area of the southern West Virginia coalfields between 1976 and 2005.
They found that companies had converted more than 5 percent of the land into mine sites and buried 480 miles of streams beneath adjacent valley fills during this period.
By overlaying the map with chemical and biological data from 223 streams the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection sampled in the study area between 1997 and 2007, the researchers determined that pollution runoff from the mines could substantially degrade more than 1,400 miles of streams in the region – four times the length of streams buried below the valley fills.
“It’s important to recognize that surface coal mining pollution doesn’t stop at mine-permit boundaries,” said Brian D. Lutz, a postdoctoral associate in Bernhardt’s lab.
“Our analysis suggests that mining only 5 percent of the land surface is degrading between 22 percent and 32 percent of the region’s rivers,” he said.
Substantial declines in insect diversity began to occur when companies had mined as little as 1 percent of upstream land, the analysis showed. In areas where companies had converted about 5 percent of the land into mines, sensitive species such as mayflies and stoneflies had vanished or declined to an extent that the streams would qualify as biologically impaired under criteria set by the state of West Virginia.
The designation means the streams could be placed on a list of waterways that the state must take steps to rehabilitate.
“What is so compelling is that we found many different types of organisms are lost downstream of surface coal mines, and most of them begin to disappear at similar levels of mining,” said Ryan S. King, associate professor of biology at Baylor. “Our analysis shows that coal mining is leading to widespread declines in aquatic biodiversity in Appalachian streams.”
Lutz and King co-authored the paper with Bernhardt. Other coauthors were John P. Fay, instructor of geospatial analysis at the Nicholas School; Catherine E. Carter, a 2010 master’s graduate of the Nicholas School, now at TetraTech; Ashley M. Helton, postdoctoral associate in Duke’s Department of Biology; John Amos of SkyTruth; and David Campagna, of Campagna & Associates.
The study was supported by unrestricted gifts in support of research from The Foundation for the Carolinas and the Sierra Club, and through a contract to Amos and Campagna from Appalachian Voices.
From Duke University
by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Jul 29, 2012 | Mining & Drilling, Obstruction & Occupation, Worker Exploitation
By Charles Suggs, RAMPS organizer
More than 50 protesters affiliated with the R.A.M.P.S. Campaign have walked onto Patriot Coal’s Hobet mine and shut it down. Ten people locked to a rock truck, boarded it and dropped banners: ”Coal Leaves, Cancer Stays.” At least three have been arrested, with another in a tree being threatened by miners with a chain saw. Earlier in the day, two people were arrested at Kanawha State Forest before a group of protesters headed to the state capitol.
“The government has aided and abetted the coal industry in evading environmental and mine safety regulations. We are here today to demand that the government and coal industry end strip mining, repay their debt to Appalachia, and secure a just transition for this region,” Dustin Steele of Matewan, W.Va. said. Steele was one of the people locked to the rock truck.
Mounting scientific evidence shows that strip mining negatively impacts community health and miner health. Recent studies have found a 42 percent increase in risk of birth defects around strip mines, and miners who spend at least 20 years as strip-mine drillers have a 61 percent chance of contracting silicosis, a virulent form of black lung. “The coal companies are poisoning our water and air, and they’re treating the workers no better than the land – fighting workplace health and safety protections to get the most out of labor as they can,” said Junior Walk of Whitesville, W.Va.
As coal production declines, protesters are concerned that the region will be left with only illness and environmental devastation as the industry pulls out of the region and companies file for bankruptcy to shed legacy costs.
Patriot Coal is currently going through Chapter 11 bankruptcy, in which union contracts and pensions could be on the chopping block. Both UMWA pensions and the state’s Special Reclamation Fund are funded through a per-ton tax on coal. With Central Appalachian coal production in the middle of a projected six-year, 50 percent decline, this funding stream is increasingly unsustainable. Protesters are calling on the coal industry and government to ensure that funding is available both to honor commitments to retired workers and to restore the land.
“Coal companies must employ their surface mine workers in reclaiming all disturbed land to the highest standards. Instead of arguing about the ‘war on coal,’ political leaders should immediately allocate funds to retrain and re-employ laid off miners to secure a healthy future for the families of this region,” said R.A.M.P.S. spokesperson Mathew Louis-Rosenberg.
Appalachian communities, from union miners to the anti-strip mining activists of the 1960s, have a proud history of confronting the coal industry and demanding an end to its exploitive practices with direct civil disobedience. R.A.M.P.S. and other campaigns have returned to this tradition to eliminate strip mining once and for all. Since its founding in 2011, R.A.M.P.S. has organized a range of actions, from tree-sits to blockades of coal trucks.
Today’s protesters are among the hundreds of people across the country who are joining this summer’s National Uprising Against Extraction, using radical tactics to fight oppressive extractive industries and demand a transition to a sustainable economy.
From We Are Power Shift:
You can help support RAMPS by making a donation here: https://www.wepay.com/donate/57022?ref=widget&utm_medium=widget&utm_campaign=donation
by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Jul 24, 2012 | Mining & Drilling
By Andreea Campeanu / Agence France-Presse
Knee-deep in muddy water, a 10-year-old child and a woman with braided hair lean over a large sieve, washing earth and rocks, their eyes clenched against the filthy splashing water.
They are among the thousands of panners hoping to strike it rich on a recently discovered seam of sapphires, running through Madagascar’s newest national park created to protect the island’s famed lemurs and dozens of other rare species.
The 381,000 hectares (941,000 acres) of virgin rainforest of the Ankeniheny-Zahamena corridor officially became a protected area late last year. Then in April, sapphires were found.
“We had an invasion of illegal miners in this park, which is our most recent protected area”, says Angelo Francois Randriambeloson from the ministry of environment.
The park has 2,043 identified species of plants; 85 percent are found no where else in the world. There’s also 15 species of lemurs, 30 other mammals, 89 types of birds and 129 kinds of amphibians. And that’s just what’s been discovered so far.
But now among the park’s tall trees, a one-kilometre (half-mile) stretch of river valley has turned into a mudpit as thousands of Madagascar’s desperately poor people have thrown up makeshift homes of branches and plastic sheets, beaten by near-daily rains.
The vast Indian Ocean island is one of the poorest countries in the world, with 81 percent of the population living on less than $1.25 a day, according to the World Bank.
Sapphires present an irresistible lure of quick riches for the lucky, who say they don’t have to dig more than three metres (10 feet) to find large stones.
Madagascar is one of the world’s biggest sapphire producers, selling most to Sri Lanka and Thailand for cutting and polishing.
Reaching the mine takes two days of hard walking from the small town of Didy, the closest place reachable by bush taxi. Even getting to Didi is tough. It’s 300 kilometres from the capital, and less than a third of the distance is on paved roads.
The last 10 hours of the walk is through beautiful rain forest, climbing precipitous hills on barely perceptive boggy paths.
Morris, a 40-year-old aspiring miner, walked barefoot, carrying a heavy sack of rice so he would have food at the mine.
Most people spend just a few weeks here until they find one or more larger sapphires or rubies, some up to 10 grams.
“Here there are only two: blue sapphires and rubies. But there are more large ones,” said Dudu, a 35-year-old buyer.
But the government wants miners to leave the park.
“We are now forming a commission and we are trying to plan a way to send the people away from the mine,” said Randriambeloson. “As it’s a protected park, its soil also belongs to the Malagasy state.”
But people still go every day, in groups, to and from the mine. Some have nothing but the clothes they are wearing. Others carry bags of rice, noodles, powdered milk or even generators.
Water for washing is now hard to find, since the river is extremely dirty. There is no drinking water and not a lot of food. Informal eateries surrounded by mud and fallen branches are expensive.
“The place has changed, there are more people around. But there are no security problems, only sanitation ones,” Didy’s deputy mayor said.
The authorities in the capital Antananarivo sent in police to discourage people from mining, to little result so far.
“Once the miners are out, we will restore the damage done,” Randriambeloson vowed.
From Google News:
by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Jul 18, 2012 | Mining & Drilling, Repression at Home
By Human Rights Watch
The Philippine government’s failure to address threats and killings of environmental advocates worsens a climate of lawlessness just as the Aquino administration is pushing for new mining investments.
On July 2, 2012, President Benigno Aquino III signed Executive Order No. 79, which aims to institutionalize reforms in the Philippine mining sector by “providing policies and guidelines to ensure environmental protection and responsible mining.” However, the executive order is silent on the issue of human rights abuses arising from mining investments and on the deployment of paramilitaries at the mines.
“President Aquino has enacted decrees to encourage mining investment in the Philippines but has done little to stop attacks on environmental advocates,” said Elaine Pearson, deputy Asia director. “He should recognize that respecting human rights is crucial for economic development.”
The government should redouble its investigations into attacks on advocates, particularly when evidence points to the involvement of the military or paramilitary forces, arrest and prosecute all those responsible, and protect witnesses at risk.
Human Rights Watch has documented three cases since October 2011 in which critics of mining and energy projects have been killed, allegedly by paramilitary forces under military control. The activists had been vocal in opposing mining and energy operations which they said threatened the environment and would displace tribal communities from their land.
Margarito J. Cabal, 47, an organizer of a group opposing a hydroelectric dam in Bukidnon province, was gunned down on May 9, 2012. Relatives allege that the police have not investigated the killing, and no suspect has been arrested. Cabal had told relatives that he was under military surveillance and had been called to meet the military regarding his activities.
On March 5, a leader of a paramilitary group with a dozen of his men allegedly shot dead Jimmy Liguyon, a village chief in Dao, San Fernando town, Bukidnon province, in front of family members. Relatives said he was killed because he refused to sign an agreement needed to secure a mining investment, and that he had been under military surveillance. The main suspect, the leader of a group called the New Indigenous People’s Army for Reforms, faces a warrant for his arrest, but has been seen going about his usual business in the village.
The local paramilitary group Bagani (“tribal warriors”), reportedly under military control, was allegedly responsible for the fatal shooting of Italian priest Father Fausto Tentorio, 59, in Arakan, North Cotabato province on October 17, 2011. Fr. Tentorio was a long-time advocate of tribal rights and opposed mining in the area. No one has been arrested for the killing, although the National Bureau of Investigation has recommended charges against four suspects. Tentorio’s colleagues have alleged that some suspects with military ties have been deliberately left out of the case, and two witnesses and their families are in hiding while others have been threatened.
“While mining and other environmentally sensitive projects promise economic benefits for Filipinos, they should not come at the expense of basic rights, particularly the lives of environmental advocates,” Pearson said. “The Aquino government should ensure that those responsible for these attacks are brought to justice.”
Many mining investments in the Philippines are in areas with large indigenous populations or are controlled by tribal groups. Philippine law requires the “free and prior informed consent” of the local tribal communities for these investments to proceed. This often has divided tribal communities, some of whom back investors with the support of the military to acquire the necessary permits, while tribal factions opposed to the investments sometimes get support from the communist New People’s Army or other armed groups. This has resulted in proxy conflicts pitting tribal groups against each other, resulting in numerous rights abuses.
Media and local human rights and environmental groups have reported other attacks against anti-mining and environmental advocates. Sister Stella Matutina, a Benedictine nun who led a grassroots campaign to oppose destructive mining in Davao Oriental, told Human Rights Watch that she continues to fear for her life as the military persists in vilifying her as a communist. She and her fellow advocates say that she is being targeted because of her opposition to mining in the province.
And even in cases where suspects have been identified and face an arrest warrant, they may go unpunished. For instance, former Palawan governor Joel Reyes remains at large despite an arrest warrant for his role in the killing of journalist and environmentalist Gerry Ortega on January 24, 2011.
On July 9, the United Nations special envoys on human rights defenders and on extrajudicial executions issued a joint statement criticizing the Aquino administration for the attacks on human rights and environmental defenders, saying these abuses “have increased significantly over the past few months.”
Human Rights Watch reiterated its call to President Aquino to ban all paramilitary forces in the Philippines because of their long and continuing history of serious human rights violations. Aquino has backtracked from earlier pledges to dismantle paramilitaries, saying that getting rid of military-supervised groups “is not the solution.” The government claims that paramilitary forces are now better trained and better regulated than in the past. Until such groups are banned, Aquino should revoke a 2011 directive that permits these forces to provide security for mining companies.
“Aquino should disband paramilitary groups that are being used to divide tribal communities and instill fear among the residents,” Pearson said. “The government crucially needs to hold accountable the military officers who are behind these abusive forces.”
Killings of Environmental Advocates Investigated by Human Rights Watch
Anti-Dam Activist Gunned Down
At approximately 6:30 p.m. on May 9, 2012, Margarito J. Cabal, 47, was shot dead by two men riding a motorcycle near his boarding house in Kibawe town, Bukidnon province. According to a police report seen by Cabal’s relatives, one of the assailants wore a motorcycle helmet, and the other a balaclava that covered his face; their motorcycle had no license plate.
Cabal was an organizer for Save Pulangi Alliance, which opposes the construction of a hydroelectric dam in the area, and a government employee for the mayor’s office. He is survived by his wife and three children.
Cabal’s son, Marjolie, told Human Rights Watch that prior to his father’s killing, the military’s 8th Infantry Battalion in nearby Maramag town had summoned Cabal on suspicion that he was working for the New People’s Army (NPA). “His job with the town mayor required that he would often go to hinterland villages. That might have given them the idea that he was an NPA,” Marjolie said. He said his father had told him he was under surveillance by the military.
The general secretary of the Save Pulangi Movement, a tribal leader named Datu Petronilo Cabungcal, said that the area has been the subject of military operations and that the military suspects his group is supporting the NPA. “We are just fighting for our land, our livelihood, that is threatened by this project. Why would that make us communists?” he said.
Cabal’s widow, Rosalie, told Human Rights Watch that the police never approached the family about any investigation and that, aside from a police report on the killing, there has not been any effort to investigate her husband’s death. “They never bothered to talk to us,” she said, adding that she did not know what would happen to the case.
Village Chief Shot Dead in Front of Family
Jimmy Liguyon was the village chief of Dao in San Fernando town and vice chairman of Kasilo, a tribal group opposed to mining and plantations in Bukidnon province. Witnesses told Human Rights Watch that on March 5, 2012, at around 6:40 p.m., they saw Alde “Butsoy” Salusad, a known leader of a local paramilitary group, fire an M16 assault rifle at Liguyon point blank. Salusad had arrived at Liguyon’s home accompanied by about a dozen men.
Liguyon’s widow, Sharon, told Human Rights Watch that the morning before the killing, Liguyon had reiterated his refusal in a village meeting to sign an agreement with a tribal group called San Fernando Matigsalog Tribal Datu Association. Liguyon feared the agreement would facilitate the entry of big mining companies into the tribal areas, where small-scale mining is a major source of livelihood.
In her sworn statement to prosecutors, Sharon said her husband had told her in October 2011 of a phone call he received from Benjamin Salusad, Alde Salusad’s father, in which the elder Salusad threatened to have Liguyon killed for not signing a document that would allow mining companies to operate in their village.
Days after the killing, Salusad’s group, the New Indigenous People’s Army for Reforms, issued a statement claiming responsibility, alleging that Liguyon was a communist. Credible media reports also said that Salusad, in a radio interview in Malaybalay City, had admitted to killing Liguyon.
Leah Tumbalang, a colleague of Liguyon in Kasilo, told Human Rights Watch: “Since we started protesting proposed mining projects, we have been getting threats and have been followed around by men.” Tumbalang said she received a text message on October 3, 2011, warning her and Liguyon to make sure to bring their coffins when they went home that day.
Leaders of local groups said Salusad and his father, Benjamin, are the leaders of a tribal group that serves as a paramilitary force for the army in that part of Bukidnon. Both father and son are known former members of the New People’s Army; they surrendered to the military last year and, according to Liguyon’s colleagues, became members of the CAFGU, the official militia under the command and supervision of the Philippine Army.
The police have investigated the killing and a murder case has been filed, naming Salusad and 14 unknown “John Does” as the suspects. A warrant of arrest was issued against him on April 30, 2012, but has not been served. The Bukidnon police chief, Supt. Rustom Duran told journalists that his men tried to arrest Salusad a month after the killing but failed. The governmental Commission on Human Rights of the Philippines has likewise promised to investigate the case but no official report on the investigation has been released.
According to residents interviewed by Human Rights Watch, Salusad continues to reside in Dao village, often accompanying individuals known to be close to the military.
Since Liguyon’s death, Salusad’s forces have allegedly threatened Liguyon’s relatives. Tumbalang, Liguyon’s colleague in Kasilo, claimed that she heard Salusad say in a radio interview that she “would be next” after Liguyon. The threats would come through text messages and, in some cases, Salusad’s men allegedly directly confronted Liguyon’s family members, threatening them with violence.
Italian Priest Known for Tribal Advocacy Killed
In the early morning of October 17, 2011, Father Fausto Tentorio, an Italian priest, was about to get into his vehicle inside the Catholic parish compound in Arakan town, North Cotabato province, in Mindanao, when a gunman shot him to death. Tentorio, 59, was a well-known advocate of tribal rights in Arakan and opposed mining in the area. He is the second Italian priest from the Pontifical Institute for Foreign Missions (PIME) to be murdered in the Philippines. As in the case of Father Tullio Favali in April 1985, who was killed by the Civilian Home Defense Forces militia, the suspects in Tentorio’s killing are allegedly members of a paramilitary force.”
The Tentorio case remains under investigation. The National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) has asked government prosecutors to file cases against four individuals – Jimmy Ato, his brother Robert Ato, Jose Sampulna and his brother Dimas Sampulna – but so far prosecutors have not sought arrest warrants.One of the suspects, Jimmy Ato, is currently in NBI custody after he was arrested for an unrelated case.
The two Atos are known in Arakan as members of a group called Bagani (“tribal warriors”). Bagani is a paramilitary force controlled and supervised by the 57th Infantry Battalion and has been based in the same military camp, according to government documents seen by Human Rights Watch. A former Bagani member told Human Rights Watch that Bagani operates in cooperation with local businessmen and tribal leaders who support new mining and other business projects. Witnesses have made sworn statements to the authorities stating that members of Bagani were responsible for Tentorio’s killing. However, other members of Bagani have not been included in the government’s investigation, despite witness accounts of their involvement in the killing.
According to government documents seen by Human Rights Watch, the military considered Tentorio an enemy for allegedly aiding the NPA, such as by helping wounded insurgents get medical assistance. One NBI “intelligence report” said Tentorio was an “oppositionist” to energy and mining projects that affected the tribes: “He was a respected leader by the Lumads [tribes], a very influential person who enjoyed the sympathy of the [communists] in the area. In short, he was a man of God that is hated most by those with evil motives.”
Father Peter Geremia, an Italian priest also with the PIME, said that various members of Bagani and businessmen who supported the group were not included in the NBI’s original charge sheet despite eyewitness evidence linking them to the killing. For instance, one witness told prosecutors that businessmen and the military provided a local tribal leader with a 50,000-peso “budget” for carrying out the killing. In his sworn statement filed with prosecutors, the witness said the leader of the Bagani, Jan Corbala, met with his men days before to plot the killing. Another witness said in his sworn statement that he saw Corbala and the Ato brothers fleeing the crime scene moments after Tentorio was shot. He said Jimmy Ato told him that “killing that priest was rather easy.”
Fr. Tentorio had previously faced intimidation from the military, including a June 2009 raid in which army soldiers barged into the church compound without a warrant and with no clear purpose.
For years, the military and Bagani vilified Tentorio and Geremia as NPA supporters. For instance, during a briefing for journalists in May 2006, military intelligence officers from the 40th Infantry Battalion in North Cotabato accused both priests of being communists who taught “revolutionary courses” to the tribal population. The Diocese of Kidapawan complained several times to the authorities, including then President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, about the military’s harassment and alleged attempts on Tentorio’s life by Bagani. “We cannot overemphasize the need to stop this baseless accusation of our priests and lay workers,” Kidapawan Bishop Romulo Valles wrote to Col. Isagani Cachuela, then commander of the army’s 602nd Brigade, on March 24, 2004. “And this must be done soonest, before name-tagging could claim another life.”
Officials from the Philippine military and the NBI, in separate interviews with Human Rights Watch, denied allegations of military involvement in the killing and a cover-up. Col. Cesar Sedillo, commander of the army’s 602nd Brigade that covers North Cotabato, said no military personnel was involved in Tentorio’s murder and denied the existence of Bagani.”
Angelito Magno, the NBI’s regional director in North Cotabato who is leading the investigation, said, “We are continuously investigating who are the masterminds” of the killing. He also denied that the bureau is protecting the military, saying it is guided by the evidence.
The witnesses in the case feel threatened by Fr. Tentorio’s killers. Those who entered the government’s Witness Protection Program have been compelled to leave Arakan with their families and go into hiding. Fr. Geremia said that he has repeatedly written to the Justice Department urging action, to expedite the case by forming a special investigation, to protect the witnesses. “The witnesses are about to give up hope and feel that your WPP [Witness Protection Program] is causing them to be like prisoners while the accused roam around freely threatening their families,” Geremia said in a May 29 letter to Justice Secretary Leila de Lima.
By Human Rights Watch: http://www.hrw.org/news/2012/07/18/philippines-killings-environment-advocates-unpunished
