SPECIAL ALERT: Phone Calls Needed Today to Stop Imminent Buffalo Slaughter
Yellowstone National Park is holding approximately 150 of America’s last wild buffalo captive in their Stephens Creek bison trap. The Park Service intends to ship these gentle giants to slaughter facilities beginning this week! Why does Yellowstone slaughter America’s last wild buffalo? Because Montana’s livestock industry pressures them to. There is no justification for it, no matter what the Park Service tells you. Wild bison are not overpopulated, and the so-called brucellosis threat is a livestock industry excuse to kill wild buffalo and prevent them from reinhabiting their native landscape.
So many of you have been taking action, calling Yellowstone National Park, and urging them to set these buffalo free. Thank you so much! Unfortunately, Yellowstone has been unresponsive. Yellowstone’s superintendent still needs to hear from you, but we need to increase our pressure and take our message all the way up to the White House. We also need to contact Montana Governor Steve Bullock and tell him to end livestock industry authority over wild, migratory bison, which is the driving force behind Yellowstone’s participation in the slaughter of America’s last wild buffalo.
PLEASE TAKE ACTION TODAY!
* CALL PRESIDENT OBAMA AT THE WHITE HOUSE: #202-456-1111
Tell President Obama to make Yellowstone stop the buffalo slaughter and set the captive buffalo free! There is no justification for killing members of the world’s most important bison population, beloved the world over. Tell the President you do not want your hard-earned tax dollars to be spent on destroying a natural, national treasure.
* CALL MONTANA GOVERNOR STEVE BULLOCK: #406-444-3111
Tell him you stand with the majority of Montanans who want wild, migratory bison restored in this state. Tell him bison slaughter hurts tourism, and insist that he work to end livestock industry policies and intolerance, which are the driving force behind Yellowstone’s participation in the slaughter of America’s last wild buffalo.
* CALL YELLOWSTONE’S SUPERINTENDENT DAN WENK: #307-344-2002
Demand that he cease catering to livestock industry intolerance, release the captured buffalo, and end plans to slaughter! His willing participation in slaughtering America’s last wild buffalo goes against the National Park Service’s mission and Yellowstone’s own bison science!
Thank you so much for taking these actions for the country’s last wild buffalo!
This Thursday morning, March 3rd 2016, was stained with blood at the hands of the murderers who took Berta Cáceres’ life. Berta was a Honduran Indigenous leader who has been deeply involved in the protection of Indigenous land rights in Honduras, well known for her activism leading a campaign against the construction of the Agua Zarca hydroelectric dam in the Gualcarque River, a sacred site for the Lenca people. It was a result of her work that the largest contractor of this dam at the international level, Sinohydro, pulled out of the process.
After many years of organizing in the face of repeated death threats and the assasinations of her colleagues, Cáceres herself was killed at her home in La Esperanza, Intibucá, Honduras. The attackers entered into her home at approximately 1:00 AM Thursday morning, informed Tomas Membreño, member of Commission of Indigenous Peoples of Honduras (COPINH) of which Berta was the Coordinator. Berta, a Lenca leader from Honduras, had spent many months in hiding, after receiving threats to her life over the years for her work accompanying movements that defended her community, in addition to suffering from political persecution, and multiple calls for her arrest. The international community had strongly condemned the threats to her life; Berta’s fight, together with COPINH and her community, was recognized with the highest recognition on an international scale for Environmental defenders with the 2015 Goldman Environmental Prize. Berta had applied for and received Precautionary Measures from the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, meaning that the government of Honduras was obligated to provide police protection. However, there was no police detail protecting her on the night of her death, reported The Guardian.
UN Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Vicky Tauli Corpuz recently met with Berta in Honduras during a country visit. “I condemn this dastardly act and I urge the Honduras authorities to investigate this case and bring the perpetrators to justice. I condole and deeply sympathize with Berta’s family, relatives and community. Such impunity is totally unacceptable and the State has to do something about this,” she commented.
Berta held the role of Coordinator of Council of Indigenous Peoples of Honduras (COPINH) and as a member of coordinating team of the National Platform of Social and Popular Movements of Honduras (PMSPH). She was a major contributor to Cultural Survival’s campaign work against the Patuca III Dam in La Moskitia in 2011, and had tirelessly documented the extensive human rights abuses experienced by her community and Indigenous Peoples across Honduras in order to bravely denounce these actions at the national and international level via reports to the United Nations. She was also active in leading protests against the 2009 US-backed coup d’etat against former president Manuel Zelaya, who has also condemned her murder: “The assasination of Indigenous leader Berta Cáceres removes all possibility of dialogue and the responsibility lies with current president Juan Hernandez,” said Zelaya in a statement this morning.
During protests against the construction of the Agua Zarca dam, Cáceres demonstrated her strength and courage in stating “Our people come face to face here with dignity, capacity, resistance, intelligence and ancient strength.” Berta leaves behind her four children and husband Salvador Zuñiga, Executive Committee member of the Council of Central American Indigenous Community Radio network.
“When a bright star of hope and power goes out, we grieve deeply because we know our pain and loss is much larger than ourselves and timeless over generations in our struggle. Berta Cáceres devoted her life to her people, to Indigenous people worldwide, and to life itself. Her murder is a criminal act of violence, is senseless, and a deliberate attack on what Berta stood for — the rights of Indigenous Peoples. It should be condemned at every level from the state to the international and the perpetrators brought to justice,” said Suzanne Benally, Executive Director of Cultural Survival
Cultural Survival sends our deepest condolences to her family, colleagues, and the entire Lenca community. Rest in power, Berta.
A short film discussing the nature of the Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement and its impact on Te Tiriti o Waitangi, the treaty representing the bicultural relationship in Aotearoa New Zealand. Jane Kelsey, Hone Harawira, Marama Davidson and Margaret Mutu provide their insight on the matter and call on this generation to stand up for our rights.
For more on the threat of the Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement, see:
A tribe in eastern India are facing a new threat from mining on their ancestral land, despite having won a major “David & Goliath” legal battle in 2014.
The Dongria Kondh were originally threatened by international mining corporation Vedanta Resources, who tried to open a bauxite mine in their sacred Niyamgiri hills, but were prevented by the Indian Supreme Court, which ruled that the Dongria should decide whether to allow the mine to go ahead.
The tribe unanimously rejected Vedanta’s plans to mine their hills during a historic referendum in which all twelve villages that were consulted voted against the mine.
Now, however, the Odisha state is trying to re-open the issue, petitioning for the right to hold another referendum for the Dongria to pave the way for a large-scale mining operation, this time by state-run Odisha Mining Corporation.
British-owned Vedanta opened a bauxite refinery close to the Dongria’s hills without having secured permission to mine in the area. Even though the mine itself was quashed, the refinery has continued to operate at a loss.
Despite strong resistance to the project from the Dongria, who have lived in the Niyamgiri hills for generations, the state authorities are keen to keep the refinery open and expand mining operations in the region.
Last year Mukuna Sikaka, a Dongria tribesperson, said: “We are not going to allow mining over Niyamgiri at any cost – not for all the developmental efforts of the government.”
Survival International led a successful global campaign against Vedanta’s plans, and is now calling for the Odisha state authorities to respect the Dongria’s decision to reject the mine.
Survival Director Stephen Corry said: “It is bitterly disappointing to see that the Odisha state authorities have still not learned to respect the wishes of the Dongria Kondh. Tribal peoples have a right under Indian and international law to determine what happens on their lands, yet still governments and corporations insist on putting profits before people’s wishes. Attempts to resume this project after international outcry and stern resistance from the Dongria themselves are not only un-democratic and illegal, but also deeply immoral.”
The reeds and grasses are as tall as Sebastián Pérez Méndez, if not taller. The vegetation is so thick it’s hard to see the water in the Suyul Lagoon that he and other local Maya Tzotzil residents are working hard to protect. Pérez Méndez crosses the road to point out where aquatic plants serve as a natural filter for the water as it flows out the lagoon, located in the highlands of Chiapas, in southern Mexico.
“The water is under threat,” he said. Pérez Méndez is the top authority of the Candelaria ejido, a tract of communally-held land in the municipality of San Cristóbal de las Casas. “We’re not going to allow it.”
Communities in Chiapas are organizing to protect the Suyul Lagoon and communal lands from a planned multi-lane highway between the city of San Cristóbal de las Casas and Palenque, where Mayan ruins are a popular tourist destination. Candelaria residents continue to take action locally to protect the lagoon. They also traveled from community to community along the proposed highway route, forming a united movement opposing the project.
It all started back in 2014 when government officials showed up in Candelaria looking for ejido authorities, including Pérez Méndez’ predecessor. It was the first residents had heard about plans for the highway. The indigenous inhabitants had not been consulted and were not shown detailed plans.
“They realized that [the government officials] were only seeking signatures,” Pérez Méndez said.
No one person or group is authorized to make a decision that would affect ejido lands, however, and there are strict conditions in place to ensure elected ejido leaders are accountable to members, he explained. An extraordinary assembly was held to discuss the highway project.
The Candelaria ejido was established in 1935, a year after a new agrarian law enacted during the Lázaro Cárdenas administration led to widespread land reform throughout Mexico. More than 2,000 people live in the 1,600-hectare ejido, and more than 800 of them are ejidatarios — legally recognized communal land holders whose rights have been passed down for generations. Only ejidatarios as a whole have the power to make decisions on issues like the highway project.
Candelaria residents paint over graffiti to fix up a roadside sign proclaiming their opposition to the highway project. (Waging Nonviolence/Sandra Cuffe)
“The ejido said no,” said Guadalupe Moshan, who works for the Fray Bartolomé de Las Casas Human Rights Center, or FrayBa, supporting Candelaria and other communities in Chiapas. “They didn’t sign.”
Candelaria leaders sought assistance from FrayBa in 2014, after they were approached by government officials and pressured to sign a document indicating their consent to the highway project that would involve a 60-meter-wide easement through communally-held lands. Officials told community members that the highway was already approved and that they would be well compensated, but that there would consequences if they refused to sign, Moshan said.
“They told them they would suspend government programs and services,” she explained. In the days following the extraordinary ejido assembly rejecting the project, there was unusual activity in the area, according to Moshan. Helicopters flew over theejido, unknown individuals entered at night, and trees were marked, she said.
Protecting the Suyul Lagoon remains at the heart of Candelaria’s opposition to the planned highway. The lagoon provides potable water not only for Candelaria, but also for several nearby communities, said ejido council secretary Juan Octavio Gómez. Aside from the highway itself, project plans eventually shown to the community leaders include a proposed eco-tourism complex right next to the lagoon. That isn’t in the communities’ interest, Gómez explained.
“Water is life. We can’t live without it,” he said. “Without this lagoon, we don’t have another option for water.”
Fed by a natural spring, the Suyul Lagoon never runs dry. Local residents are careful to protect the water and lands in the ejido, where the majority of residents live from subsistence agriculture, sheep rearing and carpentry. They engage in community reforestation, but have plans to plant more trees, Gómez said.
The Suyul Lagoon is also sacred to local Maya Tzotzil. Ceremonies held every three years in its honor involve rituals, offerings, music and dance.
“It is said that it’s the navel of Mother Earth,” Pérez Méndez said.
Candelaria residents didn’t sit back and relax after rejecting the highway project in their extraordinary assembly. They have been organizing ever since. The Suyul Lagoon lies just outside the Candelaria ejido, but it belongs to ejidatarios by way of an agreement with the supportive land owner. Aside from the highway project and potential eco-tourism complex, the lagoon has caught the attention of companies, whose representatives have turned up in the area expressing interest in establishing a bottling plant.
It’s cold in February up in the highlands, but community members have been out all day, erecting a fence around the Suyul Lagoon to protect it from intruders. White fence posts are visible under the treeline across the sea of reeds. Like so many other local initiatives, fence materials are collectively financed by the ejido and the labor is all voluntary, communal work.
While residents continue stringing barbed wire from post to post, others take paintbrushes to one of their roadside signs. Locals have erected large signs next to roads in and around their ejido, announcing their opposition to the tourist highway.
A sign along the road leading to Candelaria informs passers-by of opposition to the planned super-highway. (Waging Nonviolence/Sandra Cuffe)
“We’re also already organized with the other communities,” Pérez Méndez said. “All the communities reject the super-highway.”
After they were approached by government officials, Candelaria ejido residents traveled from community to community along the entire planned highway route. Some communities hadn’t heard of the project at all, while others said they were pressured into signing documents indicating their consent, Pérez Méndez said. As a result of Candelaria’s visits, community organizing along the highway route led to the formation of a united front of opposition, the Movement in Defense of Life and Territory.
Candelaria also recently got together with other indigenous communities in the highlands to issue a joint statement rejecting the tourist super-highway and a host of other government and corporate projects and policies.
“Our ancestors, our grandfathers and our grandmothers have always taken care of these blessed lands, and now it’s our turn to [not only take] care of the lands, but also to defend them,” reads the February 10 communiqué.
“The neoliberal capitalist system, in its ambition to exploit natural assets, invades our lands,” the statement continues. “The government and transnational companies are violently imposing their mega-projects.”
Back along the edge of the Suyul Lagoon, Candelaria residents continue to string barbed wire from post to post. They’ve been at it for a while now, according to Pérez Méndez, but they’ve now stepped up their efforts and hope to finish the fence by the end of the month.
Pérez Méndez surveys the progress, protected from the unrelenting sun and icy wind by his hat and white sheep’s wool tunic. He becomes pensive when asked if he thinks communities will be able to defeat the highway project.
“Yes,” the ejido leader said, after giving it some thought. “We can stop it.”
By Jhonathan F. Gómez / Upside Down World All photos from Supreme Court trial by Jhonathan F. Gómez
Maya Q’eqchi’ women survivors recently entered the Supreme Court in Guatemala as part of the Sepur Zarco case to demand justice for sexual violence, sexual and domestic slavery, forced disappearances and murder, crimes committed during the internal armed conflict of 1960-1996. On February 1, 2016, Army Lieutenant Colonel Francisco Esteelmer Reyes Girón and military commissioner Heriberto Valdés Asij appeared before the court as another historic trial began.
The Sepur Zarco case is representative of the current state of justice for women in Guatemala. It serves as a reminder that the work towards bringing those responsible for genocide and crimes against humanity is an extensive and challenging process anywhere in the world.
The case goes back to 1982, when the army built a military outpost between the departments of Alta Verapaz and Izabal. Built by forced labor from men of the communities of Panzós and El Estor, it was designated as a resting area for the troops. Late in 1982, the army captured and disappeared Maya Q’eqchi’ men who were fighting for their rights to the land in the area. Consequently, the army took advantage of the widowed women and declared them “alone and available,” forcing them into domestic and sexual slavery. The women were subjected to inhumane conditions, repeatedly raped, gang raped and forced to cook and clean for the army.
These crimes occurred when retired general José Efraín Ríos Mont Ríos Montt was president. Part of his government’s policy was to eliminate the Mayan people by way of displacement, disappearances, murder or forced exile. (Ríos Montt is currently waiting retrial to face justice for his crimes.)
In 1993, the United Nation’s Historical Clarification Commission collected testimonies which allowed for an understanding of what happened. However, a broader understanding of what took place began to surface further in 2000 when the Community Research and Psychosocial Action Team (Equipo de Estudios Comunitarios y Acción Psicosocial, ECAP) conducted psychosocial work with women of the Sepur Zarco region.
The roots of this landmark case are part of a living history which Maya Q’eqchi’ women have been working for years at the community level in the pursuit of justice. In 2009, an independent psychosocial investigation, which led to the publication of a book called Tejidos Que Lleva el Alma (The Weavings that Our Soul Carry) was conducted by ECAP and the National Union of Guatemalan Women (Unión Nacional de Mujeres Guatemaltecas, UNAMG). The book’s aim was to bring the stories of Mayan women survivors into the public consciousness.
In 2010, a symbolic Court of Conscience (Tribunal de Conciencia) against sexual violence for crimes committed during the armed conflict was conducted as a public act by the women survivors. It signaled a breaking of the silence and promoted the sharing of stories with the clear objective that nothing of that nature should ever happen again. The event was organized by various community organizations and with the support of multiple embassies including those from Costa Rica, Spain, Germany Norway and Sweden. Following the symbolic act, the women took a step forward with strategic litigation within the Guatemala justice system.
The Breaking the Silence and Impunity Alliance (Alianza Rompiendo el Silencio y la Impunidad), which consists of three grassroots organizations, came together the same year to accompany the legal proceedings of the women survivors. The women survivors have waited over 30 years to see any inclination of justice, and this case can therefore have a large impact in Guatemala and around the world.
The significance of the case cannot be overstated. It is the first time in the world where a national court, in the context of a criminal trial will hear charges against sexual violence during war, as well as the first time a national court will hear charges against sexual and domestic slavery, also in the context of war. The case can set precedents on how sexual violence is judged at a national and international level. Ada I. Valenzuela López from UNAMG states, “In our society, no one else will position sexual violence as an issue in this context. It is a violence which has been silenced for many years. It is almost never at the forefront of any debate in the courts or our society.”
The case stands to move public opinion forward in the struggle for gender justice. It can serve as a step to strengthen trust in a justice system that is capable of hearing the voices of women, and not shaming nor stigmatizing them for speaking out as survivors of sexual violence. It is particularly important for an indigenous population that has been historically discriminated and marginalized to trust in due process. Fifteen women have already testified during the intermediate phase of the case. Many of them have faced threats because of their testimony, yet all of them continue to stand strong because they share a collective understanding of the importance of the trial.
On September 2011, criminal charges were filed in Puerto Barrios, Izabal against military officials Reyes Girón and Valdés Asij. On December, 2011, exhumations were performed at the military outpost. In July of 2012, the prosecutor’s office requested before the Supreme Court that the case be transferred to the High Risk Court. In September of that year, survivors and witnesses presented testimonies before Judge Miguel Ángel Gálvez Aguilar who precedes High Risk Court B.
Arrests were made for Reyes Girón and Valdés Asij in June 14, 2014. On June 23, the first hearing was held and in October, the intermediate phase began which prompted the judge to request a trial date. Immediately after the defense filed a writ of amparo, a legal remedy for the protection of constitutional rights, which was rejected by the Constitutional Court in April of 2015.
In March, April and May of 2015, hearings were suspended because the defense attorneys were not present and because of health problems by Francisco Esteelmer Reyes Girón. Esteelmer Girón had been hospitalized and the defense stated that he was in “poor health.” On June 23, the judge restarted the public debate and the case was sent to the High Risk Court A, comprised by judges Yassmín Barrios, Patricia Bustamante and Gerbi Sical.
On February 1 of this year, the trial began. It faces many challenges, both in the domain of public opinion, as well as in the trial itself. The defense continues to defame survivors’ organizations, witnesses and uses legal methods to delay the trial. Many organizations have denounced the defense’s methods as a way to evade justice and promote a culture of impunity. Jo-Marie Burt from the Washington Office on Latin America reiterates that “the challenge here is to prove that these types of crimes can be investigated, brought to trial and judged. And to seek to generate mechanism or protocols for the army understand that violence against women cannot be used as an instrument of war, and that women are not war trophies.”
On February 9, the plaintiffs presented over 30 boxes as evidence which contained the remains found in various exhumations which the Forensic Anthropology Foundation of Guatemala (Fundacion de Antropologia Forense de Guatemala, FAFG) conducted. As the contents of the boxes were presented, many people who attended the trial as observers and supporters walked out of the courtroom because of their graphic nature. Evidence of this nature has not always been used at such trials, making it an even more important method of illustrating the magnitude of the crimes.
As a show of support for the Maya Q’eqchi’ women who will be testifying, women from various regions across the country have been present through the trial. As the country watches another historic trial unfold, the survivors are clear on their position. They seek justice and will not rest in peace until justice is served. They want to bring the issue of sexual violence into the public conversation and to show that it is hard for women to speak out against this type of violence. They want their voices to be heard, their truth to be known. They want society to understand that what happened to them was not their fault, and most importantly, that no other woman in Guatemala, or anywhere in the world, experiences what they lived through.
Jhonathan F. Gómez, is a documentary photographer currently living in Guatemala City. He is commitment to documenting the subaltern and diasporic realities of Guatemala as they relate to historic memory, race, class, gender, sexuality, identity and justice.
