by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Sep 18, 2016 | Colonialism & Conquest
Featured image: Members of the Paraguayan Ayoreo-Totobiegosode group on the day they were contacted for the first time, in 2004. © GAT/Survival
by Survival International
The Paraguayan government has failed to act to protect a group of uncontacted tribal people, despite having been ordered to do so in February of this year.
Six months ago the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights demanded that the government stop the deforestation of the Chaco, which suffers the highest rate of deforestation in the world, and protect the vulnerable uncontacted Ayoreo Indians who live there.
However, the government has failed to stop the continuing clearance of the area’s forest, raising concerns that the uncontacted Ayoreo Indians face annihilation.
Several major ranching corporations are clearing forest to raise cattle in the Chaco, which is losing an average of 14 million trees per month. Deforestation continues and bulldozers have recently been heard on Ayoreo land.
Local organizations GAT and OPIT have been trying to persuade the government to act on the Commission’s demands but the government has so far done very little.
One Ayoreo told Survival: “We don’t want to lose our land. It’s where our fathers and grandparents lived and where our relatives live now. We want our children and grandchildren to grow up in the land of our ancestors. We are claiming this land.’’
Much of the Ayoreo Totobiegosode land is being deforested, Paraguay.
© GAT/Survival
Companies destroying the Chaco include Carlos Casado S.A. (a subsidiary of Spanish construction company Grupo San José), River Plate S.A, and Yaguarete Porá S.A, a Brazilian beef company. Yaguarete previously received Survival International’s “Greenwashing of the year” award for trying to brand an area it had heavily deforested as a “nature reserve.”
Evidence proves that tribal territories are the best barrier to deforestation and therefore the best way to protect the Chaco is to uphold the Ayoreo’s land rights. Uncontacted tribes are also the best guardians of their environment. Their knowledge is irreplaceable and has been developed over thousands of years.
In August 2016, the UN examined Paraguay’s performance on racial discrimination. Survival International submitted a report on Paraguay’s human rights violations against the Ayoreo, which was considered in the session.
Survival’s Director Stephen Corry said: “Unless Paraguay takes rapid action, the Ayoreo will become another statistic in the ongoing genocide of South America’s uncontacted peoples. The situation couldn’t be more serious: the Ayoreo face catastrophe unless their land and forest is protected from these rapacious foreign companies.”
Read more about the Ayoreo and their homeland here.
by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Sep 12, 2016 | Male Violence, Rape Culture
Quechua Bolivian woman unfairly sentenced to life in Argentina
Reina Maraz Bejarano was the last person in the courtroom to understand that she had just been sentenced to life imprisonment for allegedly murdering her husband.
Maraz is from an indigenous community in Bolivia. Like many women in rural Bolivian communities, she was raised speaking the local language, not Spanish. On the day she was sentenced by the Argentine justice system, Maraz’s interpreter was translating the judges’ words from Spanish into Quechua so that she could understand. Married at 17 years old, a mother shortly after and subject to a violent marriage, Maraz was 22 when she was arrested for the murder of her husband Limber Santos. She was 26 in November 2014, when her future was determined by three Argentine judges. At that point she had already been imprisoned for four years. Because she couldn’t fully understand Spanish, she spent nearly a year of that jail time without understanding that she was accused of being responsible for her husband’s death.
Maraz’s case is emblematic of the ways in which both the dominant culture and the judicial system abuse women, especially indigenous women. For Maraz, this means being a survivor of physical and psychological violence. Then came the double injustice of being blamed for that violence by the Argentine state. Now she is a victim of a judicial system gone wrong.
A Long Path of Migration and Violence
To tell the story of how Maraz was condemned to life in Argentina’s prisons that day in court in 2014, we have to rewind to 2009, the year Maraz came to Argentina with her husband Limber Santos and their two young boys.
There are more undocumented Bolivian immigrants in Argentina than in any of Bolivia’s major cities. Many migrate from rural areas like Santos’ community in Chuquisaca, Bolivia, and often whole families move. In Maraz’s case she had no choice: her husband threatened to take away their children if she did not accompany him to Argentina.
Maraz testified in court that when they lived together in Bolivia her husband used to get drunk and beat her. Once they were in Argentina, the abuse continued. His family was complicit in the physical violence and took away Maraz’s documents.
After some months in Argentina, the Santos-Maraz family eventually settled in cramped rooms at a brick kiln where they worked in the city of Florencia Varela, in greater Buenos Aires. In a 2013 interview conducted in jail, Maraz’s interpreter translated her words, “Her children never went to school because her husband didn’t want them to. Reina was unhappy, there was never enough money because of Limber’s drinking.”
Santos was going on drinking sessions in the Buenos Aires barrio of Liniers with a man who worked and lived in the kiln also, Tito Vilca Ortiz. Vilca was to play an important role in what happened next.
Reina Maraz – in blue – with her defense lawyer and interpreter in court November 2014. Credit – Agencia ANDAR.
Sexual Violence and ‘that night’
Maraz told in court how one night Limber Santos and Vilca went out drinking. Around 5am, Vilca came back to the kiln and into Maraz’s room, where she was sleeping with the children. He woke her and horrifyingly told her ‘your husband owes me a debt, and he gave me you.’ Then he raped her in front of her children.
The lead judge, Marcela Alejandra Vissio, described the incident as improbable in her verdict because Maraz did not make a police report. But not filing a police report for rape is not unusual for women, who face significant barriers in the legal system such as reliving trauma and being victim-blamed. Data on unreported rape is hard to find in Argentina, as in many countries, but it is likely to be far under-reported. On top of the usual barriers, Maraz has the additional barrier of not fully understanding or speaking Spanish.
The aftermath of Maraz’s rape included a vicious beating at her husband’s hands. It also sparked violent conflict between Vilca and Santos.
On the morning of her husband’s death, 14 November 2010, Maraz got up at 4am to help him prepare for a trip to visit his sister to pay her back a debt. Maraz explained in court that Vilca was also up that morning, drunk. Limber Santos and he started arguing through the window of the room, and then Santos went out. At that moment, Maraz heard the sound of a padlock locking her and the children into the room.
The person who removed the lock and came into the room shortly after was not Maraz’s husband, but Vilca. She asked him where her husband was, and Vilca said Limber Santos had left for his sister’s. Then he raped her again, again in the presence of her two children.
The Aftermath of Limber Santos’ death
Maraz had no idea that her husband was dead at that moment. When there was no sign of him, she went to stay at her father-in-law’s house with her sons. She testified that she was afraid to stay at the brick kiln because of Vilca’s presence. And she went to the police and reported her husband as missing – she was worried he had been robbed when he didn’t appear at his sister’s.
Limber Santos’ body was then found in a rubbish heap on the grounds of the brick kiln. Maraz and Tito Vilca were arrested and jailed as responsible. In jail, Maraz discovered she was pregnant. Her little girl was born in Unit 33 of Prison Los Hornos of Buenos Aires.
It took nearly a full year until Maraz was informed of the charges against her in her own language. The Argentine human rights advocacy organization La Comisión Provincial por la Memoria —‘The Provincial Commission for Memory’ — carried out one of its regular prison inspections in Prison Los Hornos and realized that Maraz was unable to communicate well in Spanish. They brought a Quechua speaker to visit her.
The Battle for an Interpreter
When Maraz faced trial in October 2014, she had Frida Rojas, a Quechua-speaking interpreter, at her side. Accessing this basic right for Maraz took over two years of advocacy and legal formalities, headed by the Commission for Memory.
The battle included a trip to the Supreme Court of Argentina, who ordered the criminal court to provide Maraz with an interpreter. Even so, the Argentine state made the Commission jump through many more hoops to get Maraz the interpreter she had a right to.
Dr. Mariana Katz is in charge of the Commission’s program for Indigenous and Migrant Peoples. Katz is a lawyer, and was an observer at Maraz’s trial. In a recent interview with Intercontinental Cry, Katz said, “In all of these delays and official proceedings, the person who suffers is Reina.”
She went on, “For the Commission, the legal basis [of Maraz’s conviction] is invalid, because from the very first moment [of her arrest] they should have provided her with an interpreter.”
Language Discrimination in Court
In another violation of rights, Maraz’s sister was forbidden by the judges from testifying in her native language, even though the Quechua interpreter was present in court that day.
“When they asked her questions it was clear she didn’t understand, because she was answering something different to the question she was asked,”Katz said. “On top of that, the judges were getting annoyed.”
To convict Maraz, the judges relied on testimony from her 5-year-old son who couldn’t speak Spanish fluidly. “When they brought the boy to declare, he had to be asked the questions several times, because he also has difficulties in Spanish,” explained Katz.
Maraz’s eldest son testified in a Gesell Dome, a one-way mirror system used by law enforcement. Three expert psychologists brought to testify by Maraz’s defense lawyer discredited the Gesell Dome testimony independently of each other. They said it was carried out as an interrogation using leading questions and not as it should be — a psychological test where the child is given time to express themselves through play. Despite all this, the judges did not take into account the three psychologists’ testimony.
The judges also ignored language subtleties that could have led to different interpretations of the boy’s testimony. It was also questionable whether to allow testimony from a 5-year-old who had been subject to traumatic experiences.
More Evidence Dismissed by Judges
Other important evidence was dismissed by the judges. Vilca was also arrested for Santos’ murder. While he was in jail, the Vice Consul of Bolivia to Argentina, Jorge Valentín Herbas Rodriguez, visited him. When Vilca began to tell him the story of what had happened the night of Limber Santos’ death, Herbas stopped him and told him to save it for court. Vilca died in jail before he got a chance to tell his story in court.
Herbas testified at Maraz’s trial. It was clear that Vilca was likely to have made a full confession had he lived. But the judges dismissed the word of the diplomat as “indirect testimony.”
On 11 November 2014, the three judges unanimously declared Maraz guilty of doubly aggravated homicide. The aggravating factors were premeditation and motive of robbery. The judges thought that Maraz and Vilca were lovers and planned to murder Limber Santos for the money he was carrying, which was barely $70US.
For this alleged crime, they condemned Maraz to a life spent in prison.
“They gave Reina the same sentence they give to perpetrators of the genocide [Argentina’s ‘Dirty War’],” Katz said.
Reina Maraz has been condemned to a life in prison. Her appeal is asking for her freedom. Credit -feelsgoodlost on flickr – CC BY-SA 2.0.
Reactions to the Sentence
The gross injustice of the Argentine judicial system did not go unnoticed. Feminist activists from several organizations protested outside the court (and have continued to protest). Adolfo Pérez Esquivel, Nobel prize winner and President of the Commission for Memory, wrote an article entitled The 3 Deadly Sins: Woman, Indigenous and Poor.
Maraz’s defense lodged an appeal in Argentina’s Court of Cassation (a certain type of appeal court that examines the interpretation of the law). The Commission together with feminist and human rights organizations have submitted a briefing to the judges (an Amicus Curiae). They stressed that Maraz did not have a fair trial. The vulnerabilities of a non-Spanish speaking migrant indigenous woman were not taken into account by Maraz’s judges, they said.
The demand is for Reina Maraz’s freedom. Failing that, advocates are calling for her sentence to be transmuted to the most lenient sentence for homicide in Argentina, eight years imprisonment, of which she would have already served six. There is no date set yet for the hearing of the appeal.
The Commission believes fully that Maraz is innocent. “We (the Commission) believe in Reina’s innocence, because for nearly 6 years, when she is asked about the facts, she always tells the same story with no cracks,” Katz said. “If it were invented, she would not be able to tell the same story without some level of error. This gives us the certainty that she is innocent.”
An emblematic case of indigenous discrimination
The lead judge Vissio repeatedly stated in her verdict that Maraz, Maraz’s sister Norma Bejarano, and Maraz’s eldest son were all fluent in Spanish. The court treated their need for interpretation of the Spanish language as no more than a defense tactic. The results of this attitude were rights violations; Maraz’s sister and son were never allowed to testify in Quechua.
By Argentine law, this was illegal, but the country’s courts still don’t have interpreters on file for more languages than English, French and Portuguese — notably, all colonial languages.
It’s a symptom of a deep-seated societal norm. “We have a problem in Argentina where people think that there are very few indigenous people, despite the history of indigenous struggle in the country,” Katz said. “There is a cultural conceptualization that indigenous people don’t exist.”
The judges’ actions and verdict speak to this attitude: migrants or indigenous peoples must speak the host country’s or the colonizer’s language; if they don’t, it’s their own fault. It is deeply unfair and deliberate: they are actions that make Indigenous Peoples invisible.
Reina Maraz, Survivor
Maraz was already a survivor of terrible violence; physical and psychological violence committed by her husband and his family, and sexual violence at the hands of Tito Vilca.
Now she is surviving violence at the hands of the Argentine state. Maraz is currently under house arrest, and suffering health problems. House arrest instead of jail was a small comfort achieved by activists, principally so that she can look after her young daughter. Her other two children are in Bolivia with her parents. She hasn’t seen them in a number of years; another type of punishment.
The hope now is that the judges who hear Maraz’s appeal are subject to enough pressure to drop the charges against her.
The Argentine state not only ignored Maraz’s proven status as a Quechua-speaking migrant and so prevented her from accessing a fair trial; they used her vulnerabilities as a weapon to condemn her. These are deeply misogynist and racist actions. Reina Maraz has already been unjustly imprisoned for six years. To free her now would be the bare minimum of justice.
All references come from the author’s original interview with Dr Mariana Katz; La Comisión Provincial por la Memoria’s full coverage of Reina Maraz’s situation and trial; and the verdict of Reina Maraz’s trial.
by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Sep 11, 2016 | Gender
by Meghan Murphy / Feminist Current
Planned Parenthood, as you may know, is the largest single provider of reproductive health services in the United States. The non-profit defines itself as “leading the reproductive health and rights movement,” and has supported millions and millions of women, over the past century, in accessing pregnancy tests, contraceptives, sex education, STD tests, abortions, and more. But do they know how women’s reproductive systems work?
Recent actions leave us guessing.
On September 2nd, Planned Parenthood tweeted, “Menstruators in New York started to #TweetTheReceipt celebrating the repealed tampon tax — but some are still charged.”
Many were left wondering what a “menstruator” was — previous to this, we’d all simply referred to each other as “women.” But it seems that Planned Parenthood’s social media intern is not the only one confused about the fact that literally only female bodies are capable of menstruating.
Marie Solis, a writer for Mic responded to the immediate push back from women, angered at having been reduced, essentially, to bleeders, by explaining, “Not everyone who menstruates is a woman! @PPact is using ‘menstruators’ to be inclusive.”
Inclusive of whom, you might ask? Solis responds, “‘Menstruators’ is meant to include trans men, for example, who may still menstruate.”
Conundrumy! How is it possible for a human being — trans or not — to menstruate if they do not, in fact, have ovaries and a uterus? Well, hold on to your hats, folks — the answer is: it’s not possible. Every single person who menstruates has a female body. Does this make you feel uncomfortable? Apparently it makes Planned Parenthood uncomfortable, which is odd, as they, of all people, should understand these basic facts about women’s bodies, as experts and educators on the very topic of women’s bodies.
Despite the fact that numerous women were kind enough to remind Planned Parenthood that it was ok to acknowledge that women’s bodies are real things that exist and are different from men’s bodies, the non-profit was back at it again the very next day, tweeting, “Purvi Patel has been released from prison, but people continue to be criminalized for their pregnancy outcomes.”
Who are these “people” who “continue to be criminalized for their pregnancy outcomes,” you might also ask. Has a man ever, in all of history, been criminalized for his pregnancy outcome? The answer, of course, is no. That has literally never happened. Purvi Patel was jailed because she has a female body, and that female body, once pregnant, miscarried. Apparently, punishing women based on the way their pregnancies end is ever-popular in the U.S., as well as in many other countries. This practice has put countless women’s lives in danger and contributes to our ongoing marginalization, but hey, no need to acknowledge this reality as a gendered one. Women’s rights are people’s rights, after all.
Oh wait, that’s not right.
You see, the reason patriarchy exists is because men decided they wanted control over women’s sexual and reproductive capacities. Not people’s sexual and reproductive capacities — women’s. Sexual subordination is a gendered phenomenon, no matter how you identify, and for an organization that exists to advocate on behalf of women — due to their female biology (you know, the thing that placed them, whether or not they chose it or like it, within an oppressed class of people) — to erase that is unconscionable.
A woman is an adult female human — it really is as simple as that. And understanding how that reality is at the root of our ongoing oppression under patriarchy is one thing that is not up for debate.
by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Sep 9, 2016 | Mining & Drilling
Featured image by Tony Webster / Flickr
by Steve Horn / Desmog
In the two months leading up to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ decision to issue to the Dakota Access pipeline project an allotment of Nationwide 12 permits (NWP) — a de facto fast-track federal authorization of the project — an army of oil industry players submitted comments to the Corps to ensure that fast-track authority remains in place going forward.
This fast-track permitting process is used to bypass more rigorous environmental and public review for major pipeline infrastructure projects by treating them as smaller projects.
Oil and gas industry groups submitted comments in response to the Corps’ June 1 announcement in the Federal Register that it was “requesting comment on all aspects of these proposed nationwide permits” and that it wanted “comments on the proposed new and modified NWPs, as well as the NWP general conditions and definitions.” Based on the comments received, in addition to other factors, the Corps will make a decision in the coming months about the future of the use of the controversial NWP 12, which has become a key part of President Barack Obama’s climate and energy legacy.
Beyond Dakota Access, the Army Corps of Engineers (and by extension the Obama Administration) also used NWP 12 to approve key and massive sections of both Enbridge’s Flanagan South pipeline and TransCanada’s southern leg of theKeystone XL pipeline known as the Gulf Coast Pipeline. Comments submitted as a collective by environmental groups, such as the Sierra Club, National Wildlife Federation, several 350.org local chapters, the Center for Biological Diversity, WildEarth Guardians, Corporate Ethics International, and others, allege NWP 12 abuses by the Obama administration.
Image Credit: Regulations.gov
The groups say NWP was never intended to authorize massive pipeline infrastructure projects and that that kind of permitting authority should no longer exist. Instead, they argued in their August 1 comment, federal agencies should be required to issue Clean Water Act Section 404 permits and do a broader environmental review under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA).
“Simply put, the Congress did not intend the NWP program to be used to streamline major infrastructure projects like the Gulf Coast Pipeline, the Flanagan South Pipeline, and the Dakota Access Pipeline,” reads their comment. “For the reasons explained herein, we strongly oppose the reissuance of NWP 12 and its provisions that allow segmented approval of major pipelines without any project-specific environmental review or public review process.”
“Oil companies have been using this antiquated fast-track permit process that was not designed to properly address the issues of mega-projects such as the Dakota Access pipeline,” Dallas Goldtooth of the Indigenous Environmental Networkstated in the environmental groups’ press release at the closing of the NWP 12 comment period. “Meanwhile, tribal rights to consultation have been trampled and Big Oil is allowed to put our waters, air and land at immense risk. This cannot continue, it’s time for an overhaul.”
Industry groups, on the other hand, made their own arguments for the status quo.
Industry: Keep NWP 12 Alive, Presidential Campaign Ties
Many industry groups chimed in on the future of NWP 12. They included the American Petroleum Institute (API), Ohio Oil and Gas Association, West Virginia Oil and Natural Gas Association, Louisiana Mid-Continent Oil and Gas Association, the Baker Botts Texas Industry Project (a who’s who of petrochemical corporations such as Halliburton, ExxonMobil, Shell Oil, Chevron, Marathon Petroleum, Kinder Morgan, and BP, as of 2008), coal and natural gas utility company Southern Company, and others.
One of those other commenters was the Domestic Energy Producers Alliance (DEPA), a lobbying and advocacy consortiumspearheaded by Harold Hamm, founder and CEO of hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”) giant Continental Resources, as well asenergy aide to the Donald Trump presidential campaign and potential future U.S. Secretary of Energy.
Continental Resources, as reported by DeSmog, will send some of its oil through Dakota Access and previously signed a shipping contract for the Keystone XL pipeline.
“DEPA applauds the Corps for its efforts to reissue the NWPs as they are an important regulatory vehicle to authorize activities that have minimal individual and cumulative adverse environmental effects under the Clean Water Act, Section 404 Program,” wrote DEPA. “These permits are critical to DEPA’s members in their day to day operations.”
Another commenter was Berkshire Hathaway Energy, a “most of the above” energy sources utility company (including coal and natural gas) owned by Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway holding company. Buffett serves as a fundraiser for Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign.
“Berkshire Hathaway Energy supports the Corps’ intention to issue NWPs,” wrote Berkshire Hathaway Energy. “The continued implementation of the NWPs is essential to the ongoing operation of Berkshire Hathaway Energy’s businesses — particularly in circumstances when timely service restoration is critical.”
Obama “Climate Test” Guidelines
On August 1, 2016, the day the commenting period closed for the future of NWP 12 and just days after the Army Corps issued a slew of NWP 12 determinations for Dakota Access, the Obama White House’s Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) issued a 34-page guidance memorandum, which could have potential implications for the environmental review of projects like Dakota Access.
That memo, while non-binding, calls for climate change considerations when executive branch agencies weigh what to do about infrastructure projects under the auspices of NEPA.
“Climate change is a fundamental environmental issue, and its effects fall squarely within NEPA’s purview,” wrote CEQ. “Climate change is a particularly complex challenge given its global nature and the inherent interrelationships among its sources, causation, mechanisms of action, and impacts. Analyzing a proposed action’s GHG [greenhouse gas] emissions and the effects of climate change relevant to a proposed action — particularly how climate change may change an action’s environmental effects — can provide useful information to decision makers and the public.”
NWP 12 does not receive mention in the memo. Neither does Dakota Access, Keystone XL, nor Flanagan South.
The non-binding guidance, which some have pointed to as an example of the Obama White House applying the “climate test” to the permitting of energy infrastructure projects, has been met with mixed reaction by the fossil fuel industry and its legal counsel.
The Center for Liquefied Natural Gas, a pro-fracked gas exports group created by API, denounced the CEQ memo. So too did climate change denier U.S. Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK), as well as U.S. Rep. Cynthia Lummis (R-WY).
Industry attorneys, however, do not view the guidance with the same level of trepidation, at least not across the board. On one hand, the firms Holland & Knight and K&L Gates — both of which work with industry clients ranging from Chevron and ExxonMobil to Chesapeake Energy and Kinder Morgan — have pointed to the risk of litigation that could arise as a result of the NEPA guidance. On the other end of the spectrum, the firms Squire Patton Boggs and Greenberg Traurig LLP do not appear to be quite as alarmed.
Greenberg Traurig — whose clients include Duke Energy, BP, Arch Coal, and others — jovially pointed out in a memo thatCEQ‘s NEPA guidance does not take lifecycle supply chain greenhouse gas emissions into its accounting. The firm also points out that, with agency deference reigning supreme throughout the memo, “agencies should exercise judgment when considering whether to apply this guidance to the extent practicable to an on-going NEPA process.”
Francesca Ciliberti-Ayres, one of the Greenberg Traurig memo co-authors, formerly served as legal counsel for pipeline giant El Paso Corporation.
Similar to Greenberg Traurig, the firm Patton Boggs attempted to quell its clients’ fears in its own memo written in response to the CEQ guidance memo. Patton Boggs’ clients also have included a number of oil and gas energy companies and lobbying groups, such as API, ConocoPhillips, Halliburton, Marathon Oil, and others.
“The new guidance has the potential to add substantial time and expense to all environmental reviews for companies and other entities currently undergoing the NEPA process — and for future actions,” Patton Boggs’ attorneys wrote.
“However, it will likely take some time for agencies to acclimate their review processes to the new requirements. Interested persons and companies would help themselves both by developing internal off the shelf information to accommodate the new review requirements and by working with federal agencies to develop efficient methodologies to expedite consideration on this issue, minimize any additional review time and add clarity to the process.”
J. Gordon Arbuckle, a Patton Boggs memo co-author, has previously worked on permitting projects such as the massive Trans-Alaska Pipeline, the Alaska Natural Gas Pipeline, the Louisiana Offshore Oil Port, and others.
Using NWP 12 to permit major pipeline projects in a quiet and less transparent manner made its debut in the Obama White House. However, it remains unclear whether its use, or the somewhat contradictory NEPA guidelines from CEQ, will ultimately shape Obama’s climate legacy in the years to come.
by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Sep 5, 2016 | Colonialism & Conquest
Featured Image: Police clashes. Credit: Frenadeso
By Richard Arghiris / Intercontinental Cry
Panama’s national police left approximately 20 indigenous Ngäbe protesters injured last week in what one medic described as an “absurd and irresponsible act.”
The protesters, all residents of Gualaquita, mobilized against the Barro Blanco hydro dam after the project’s owner and operator, Honduran-based Generadora del Istmo (GENISA) began flooding the Tabasará River basin with blessings from the government.
It didn’t take long for Ngäbe communities within the basin to suffer the consequences. In the community of Kiad, local road connections were washed away by the flood waters leaving entire families geographically isolated. Houses were also submerged by the rising waters, along with significant archaeological sites in the region.
Submerged houses. Photo: Ricardo Miranda
All of the Tabasará communities affected by the flood waters were excluded from the talks that led to the agreement. They also didn’t endorse the new agreement in any way, shape, or form.
The Ngäbe community of Gualaquita is located outside of the affected area, but they too declined to endorse the agreement.
For the protesters, who are members of the Mama Tatda religion, the Tabasará River is a holy site that needs to be protected. The river is also home to ancient petroglyphs and unique Ngäbe cultural centers. To the protesters, their loss or destruction represents a violation of religious freedom.
The government wasted little time responding to the protesters.
According to a preliminary report by one of the country’s largest trade unions – the National Front for the Defense of Economic and Social Rights (Frenadeso) – around 2pm on Aug 24, 2016, some 500 police officers arrived to crush the opposition.
Police in Gualaquita. Credit: Frenadeso
Speaking to Frenadeso, Dr. Manuel Pardo, who attended to the injured in the aftermath of the assault, called the protesters “victims of police aggression,” stating, “There was a clear and flagrant violation of the fundamental human rights of the community of Gualaquita.”
Dr. Manuel Pardo assesses the injured. Credit: Frenadeso
Osvaldo Jordan, director of the Alliance for Conservation and Development (ACD), told IC that the police didn’t just target the protesters. “[They] stormed into the whole community, detaining people who were not even in the protest… It was an outright occupation of the community, war style.”
Injuries that appear to have been inflicted by rubber bullets. Credit: Frenadeso
“The weapons that were used for the confrontation were rubber bullets, birdshot and pepper gas,” said Dr. Pardo during his visit to the community on Aug 28, 2016.
“The police entered the community and practically every house was ‘fumigated’ with pepper gas… we are still coughing and itchy… In addition to rubber bullets, birdshot and pepper gas, the attacks involved physical blows and kicking… The result was 20 people injured…”
Police ammunition and equipment collected in Gualaquita. Credit: unknown
Police ammunition and equipment collected in Gualaquita. Credit: unknown
Police ammunition and equipment collected in Gualaquita. Credit: unknown
Dr. Pardo went on to explain that, three of the protesters were severely wounded during the crackdown. One person may have suffered a life-changing injury to his right eye. Another, who sustained serious head trauma, was detained by police for 48 hours before receiving medical treatment in a hospital.
Some of the injured community members reportedly refused to seek help from official institutions for fear of being arrested. Dr. Pardo described this as a “lamentable” violation of their basic human right to health care.
The Frenadeso report also alleges that the police burned a Mama Tatda flag and broke into several community stores. They apparently stole food, cell phones, chargers and hundreds of dollars in cash. They are also alleged to have threatened a storekeeper with firearms and made various death threats to different people.
Adolfo Miranda was allegedly shot in his right eye by a rubber bullet. Credit: Frenadeso
Some of the protesters hit back at the police with rocks and slingshots. Several officers were injured and subsequently transported by plane for treatment in private hospitals.
In the aftermath of the clash, images of the injured protesters were circulated on social media, but government ministers initially denied their veracity.
“They are using old photos of other incidents,” Alexis Bethancourt, Minister of Security, told La Estrella newspaper. “This police force guarantees human rights.”
Subsequent on-the-scene reporting from national journalists such as Lissette Centen helped to confirm that the images were in fact real.
This photograph of journalist Lissette Centen at the scene verifies that the images were real. Credit: Frenadeso
According to a BARRO BLANCO. INFORME DDHH 22-6-16 (HRNP), the repression in Gualaquita is only the latest act of violence the Varela government has committed against Panama’s Indigenous Peoples.
According to eye-witness testimonies collected by the HRNP, on May 23, 2016, in an orchestrated prelude to the filling of the Barro Blanco reservoir, riot police descended on a Ngäbe protest camp, demolished a Mama Tata church and decapitated the community’s livestock. They rounded up some 30 protesters and held them for 36 hours without due process. Young children were among the detainees and one woman was apparently stripped naked in front of her family.
Despite clear threats to their safety, the Tabasará communities are determined to keep fighting Barro Blanco. Mass mobilizations are planned in different parts of the country for Monday September 5, 2016.
Meanwhile, the Ngäbe community of Kiad is at a critical juncture. According to Osvaldo Jordan, the waters of the reservoir are nearing the houses. “The main square can still be saved,” he said. The government just has to stop the flooding of Ngäbe land.
by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Sep 4, 2016 | Gender
New Books Highlight the Debate between Radical Feminism and Transgender Movement
by Robert Jensen
Within feminism there has been for decades an often divisive debate about transgenderism. With increasing mainstream news media and pop culture attention focused on the issue, understanding that feminist debate is more important than ever.
Two new feminist books that analyze transgenderism (Sheila Jeffreys’ Gender Hurts: A Feminist Analysis of the Politics of Transgenderism and Michael Schwalbe’s Manhood Acts: Gender and the Practices of Domination, which includes a chapter on “The Limits of Trans Liberalism”) are helpful for those who are concerned about the harms that result from the imposition of traditional gender roles but do not embrace the ideological assumptions and assertions of the transgender movement.
The propositions below are not taken directly from those books, whose authors may not agree with my phrasings. I am not trying to summarize their arguments but instead hope to bring greater clarity to the debate with a concise account of my position, which is rooted in a radical feminist analysis of sex and gender. I present these ideas as a series of propositions to make it easier for readers to identify where they may agree or disagree.
Biological and Cultural
We are a sexually dimorphic species, male and female. Although there is variation, the vast majority of humans are born with distinctly male or female reproductive systems, sexual characteristics, and/or chromosomal structure. Intersex people are born with reproductive or sexual anatomy that does not fit the definitions of female or male; the number of people in this category depends on the degree of ambiguity used to mark the category. Intersex conditions are distinct from transgenderism.
The biological differences between males and females that are tied to reproduction are not trivial; no species can ignore reproductive realities. Not all females have children, but only females can bear and breastfeed children, which no male can do. Therefore, human communities have always, and will always, recognize two distinct sex categories, male and female. There has always been, and always will be, some sex-role differentiation in human communities.
Other observable or measurable physical differences (average height, muscle mass, etc.) between males and females may be socially relevant depending on circumstances. Sex-role differentiation based on those differences may be appropriate if it can be shown to be necessary in the interests of everyone in a society. This claim is asserted far more often that is demonstrated.
People from varying ideological positions also claim that these biological differences give rise to significant differences in moral, intellectual, or emotional characteristics between males and females. While it is plausible that differences in reproductive organs and hormones could result in these kinds of differences, there is no clear evidence for these claims. Given the complexity of the human organism and the limits of contemporary research, it’s unlikely we will gain definitive understanding of these questions in the foreseeable future. In the absence of evidence of the biological bases for moral, intellectual, or emotional differences, we should assume that all or part of any differences in observed behavior between males and females in these matters are a product of cultural training, while remaining open to alternative explanations.
In short: males and females are far more similar than different.
Patriarchy
Today’s existing sex-role differentiation is the product of a patriarchal society based on male dominance. In that system, males are socialized into patriarchal masculinity to become men, and females are socialized into patriarchal femininity to become women.
In patriarchy, sex-role differentiation supports male power and helps make the system’s domination/subordination dynamic seem natural and normal. Moral, intellectual, and emotional traits are assigned differentially to each sex, creating what we today typically call gender roles. This patriarchal system of control—which is complex, adapting to changing conditions and to resistance—is designed to justify and perpetuate male dominance.
The gender roles in patriarchy are rigid, repressive, and reactionary. These roles constrain the healthy flourishing of both males and females, but females experience by far the most significant psychological and physical injuries from the system.
In patriarchy, gender is a category that functions to establish and reinforce inequality.
Radical Feminism
In contemporary culture, “radical” is often used dismissively as a synonym for “crazy” or “extreme.” In this context, it describes an analysis that seeks to understand, address, and eventually eliminate the root causes of inequality.
Radical feminism opposes patriarchy and male dominance. Radical feminism, which challenges the naturalizing of the process by which patriarchal societies turn male/female into man/woman, rejects patriarchy’s rigid, repressive, and reactionary gender roles.
Radical feminist politics addresses a wide range of issues, including men’s violence and sexual exploitation of women and children. Many radical feminists critique the gendered dress/grooming/presentation norms imposed on females in patriarchy, such as hyper-sexualized clothing, make-up, and ritualized behaviors of subordination, arguing for the elimination of these practices, not for males to adopt them as well.
The goal of radical feminism is a world without hierarchy, in which males and females would be free to explore the range of human experiences—especially experiences of love, whether sexual or not—in an egalitarian context.
Transgender
Transgender is defined as “A term for people whose gender identity, expression or behavior is different from those typically associated with their assigned sex at birth.” The transgender movement rejects the automatic sorting of males and females into the categories of man and woman, but does not necessarily reject gender roles. Some in the transgender movement embrace patriarchal gender roles typically attached to the cultural categories of masculinity and femininity.
While not all people who identify as transgender have sex-reassignment surgery or use hormones or other treatments to modify their bodies, the transgender movement as a whole accepts and/or embraces these practices.
Most radical feminists, who seek to eliminate patriarchy and patriarchal gender ideology, disagree with this transgender approach. Most radical feminists believe liberation is achieved through a political project that transcends patriarchal gender, rather than accepting those gender roles and merely seeking to allow people to move between the categories. Radical feminist politics focuses on challenging the patriarchal gender ideology that restricts the freedom of most individuals, especially women and others who lack power, to explore the fullest range of human experiences.
Nothing in a radical feminist analysis minimizes the social and/or psychological struggles of—nor provides support for violence against—people who identify as transgender or people who do not conform to patriarchal gender norms but do not identify as transgender. Radical feminism is not the cause of those struggles or the source of that violence but rather advocates for an egalitarian society with maximal freedom without violence.
Ecology
Many people, whether radical feminist or not, are critical of high-tech medicine’s manipulation of the body through the reckless use of hormones and chemicals (which rarely have been proved to be safe) or the destruction of healthy tissue to conform to arbitrary beauty standards (cosmetic surgery such as breast augmentation, nose jobs, etc.).
From this ecological approach, such medical practices are part of a deeper problem in the industrial era of our failing to understand ourselves as organisms, shaped by an evolutionary history, and part of ecosystems that impose limits on all organisms.
People are not machines, and treating the human body like a machine is inconsistent with an ecological understanding of ourselves as living beings who are part of a larger living world.
Public Policy
The state should not limit people’s freedom to choose, when those choices do not harm others. Disagreements can, and do, arise over identifying and assessing harms.
Transgender claims have led to a variety of policy debates, especially concerning the integrity of female-only spaces that are designed to foster a sense of safety and expressive freedom for females generally (such as cultural institutions) and particularly to create safety for females who have been victims of male violence (such as rape crisis and domestic violence centers). Forcing female-only spaces to accommodate people who identify as transgender reinforces patriarchy as a system and harms individual females.
Public funding for sex-reassignment surgery (such as through Medicare) raises serious public health questions that cannot be resolved by simplistic freedom-to-choose arguments.
Transgender practices involving children that are questionable on public health grounds (such as the use of puberty blockers) raise serious moral questions about our collective obligation for children’s welfare.
Intellectual Practice and Rhetoric
As in any contentious political debate, angry and uncivil words have been exchanged. People on all sides should be respectful and careful in choices of language.
Labeling a radical feminist position on these public policy issues as inherently “transphobic” or describing radical feminist arguments on the issues as “hate speech” are diversionary tactics that undermine productive intellectual and political discussion. A critique of an idea is not a personal attack on any individual who holds the idea.
This critical analysis does not demand that people accept these principles in constructing an individual sense of self. These propositions are relevant to such individual decisions, but are presented in the context of collective decision-making about public policy.
Conclusion
Transgenderism is a liberal, individualist, medicalized response to the problem of patriarchy’s rigid, repressive, and reactionary gender norms. Radical feminism is a radical, structural, politicized response. On the surface, transgenderism may seem to be a more revolutionary approach, but radical feminism offers a deeper critique of the domination/subordination dynamic at the heart of patriarchy and a more promising path to liberation.
Robert Jensen is a professor in the School of Journalism at the University of Texas at Austin. His books include Arguing for Our Lives: A User’s Guide to Constructive Dialogue (City Lights, 2013) and Getting Off: Pornography and the End of Masculinity (South End Press, 2007).
