by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Jun 22, 2017 | Repression at Home
by Jamie Sechrist
TODOS SANTOS, BCS, MX–Chief John J. Moreno, of the traditional Council of Chiefs at Crow Dog’s Sundance, Rosebud, Lakota Territory, has been jailed in La Paz, Baja California Sur, Mexico, in what looks like an effort to silence the young environmental attorney.
Moreno, lead attorney for local fishermen and the Todos Santos community against a mega-development, here in Todos Santos, was arrested Friday, May 19, using an old and settled land dispute case. The landowner, Joella Corado, an American- Mexican citizen was also jailed.
Moreno has participated with his family in the traditional Lakota Sun Dance Ceremony since he was seven years old. In 2010, he became a member of the Sundance Chief’s Council and an international representative in Mexico and Europe. In 2012, he travelled to Italy where he signed, as an Honorary Tribal Member of the Lakota Sicangu Nation, The Perpetual Peace and Friendship Agreement Between the Traditional Council of Chiefs of the Lakota Nation and the Provinces of Florence, Prato, Pistoia, and the Municipality of Vaino – Repubblica Italiana.
Moreno’s personal attorney, working with forensics experts immediately proved that the papers used to justify the arrest were actually forged. Nonetheless, the two remain jailed without bail, awaiting a federal court decision.
Attorney Arturo Rubio Ruiz calls the case a blatant example of the “corruption tainting the Baja California Sur legal system,” and that evidence had been falsified in a manner he called “comically obvious.” Rubio Ruiz has filed before a federal judge to overturn the state judge’s decision.
The jailing comes on the heels of a 14-chapter lawsuit Moreno filed in February against the mega development known as Tres Santos, a project of The Black Creek Group of Denver, Colorado, and its Mexican subsidiary MIRA. The project has the backing of the state governor, Mendoza Davis, who just prior to the arrests spent a morning with MIRA CEO Javier Barrios.
Meanwhile, the lawsuits Moreno filed in state and federal courts, on behalf of those opposing the development, detail the violations of State and Federal environmental laws and the regional urban development plan.
Immediately upon his arrest, supporters of Moreno filed an “amparo” (protection order) to recognize his spiritual beliefs and cultural heritage under “freedom of worship.” The “amparo” was necessary to protect Moreno from having his long hair cut and allowed for certain provisions of protection while imprisoned.
The lawsuits filed by Moreno challenge the location of Tres Santos’ boutique beach hotel development at Punta Lobos arguing that that the hotel illegally took over a beach belonging to the fishing cooperative, is in violation of laws pertaining to the federal zone, is on protected fragile dunes, and destroyed vital wetlands. Additionally the development is drawing on the fragile aquifer that supplies the small town’s water, despite having promised to “not use a drop of Todos Santos’ water.”
Soon thereafter, a dossier was leaked to the Moreno family making it clear that Tres Santos’ representatives were researching old files, looking for a line of attack on Moreno. Despite a judgment in Corado’s favor and the closing of the case, it became the excuse for jailing the two.
The development threatens to overwhelm the small town of Todos Santos, nearly tripling its population of 6,000 with construction of 4,472 homes over twenty-five years.
Attorney Arturo Rubio Ruiz calls the case a blatant example of the “corruption tainting the Baja California Sur legal system,” and that evidence had been falsified in a manner he called “comically obvious.” Commented Forensic Investigator Humberto Franco Merlos, “If the Procurador forged documents to arrest Moreno, what will happen when someone we love, or we ourselves, are arrested based on fabricated evidence?”
Protesters have filled El Congreso, fishermen marched in Todos Santos, demonstrations in front of the prison have been non-stop, and over 150 organizations have signed a letter to BSC Governor Carlos Mendoza Davis decrying this “egregious human rights violation.” The American Consulate is watching Corado’s case and monitoring threats against several other US citizens who have opposed the development.
An on-line petition at change.org online petition has been launched
Run for Freedom – CSU Lory Student Center, Ft Collins, CO followed by run to State Capitol in Denver, Event Page
John Moreno Defense Fund
Joella Corado Website and Defense Fund
Facebook Page for John and Joella
Twitter for John and Joella
Patrimonio is a documentary that is currently in progress that covers the entire struggle with the mega development Tres Santos. Please visit their page
Truth Santos is a website that covers all the aspects of the issues with the development Tres Santos
Baja Sur TV covers live footage and informational releases in regard to the development Tres Santos
Jamie Sechrist is a 40 year old U.S. Citizen that lives in Todos Santos, BCS, MX as a full time resident. She works mostly for non-profit organizations to help with fundraising and promotional efforts. For two years she has been involved with helping the Fishermen of Punta Lobos and the town of Todos Santos to raise awareness of the impacts that Colorado-based Black Creek Capital’s mega development Tres Santos has caused in this small town in Baja California Sur. For these efforts she has earned herself a lawsuit, persecution on social media, defamation in local media, and fled the country in January 2016 for fear of government reprisals. In February 2016 she received a protection order called an amparo which enabled her to return to Mexico without fear of repercussions.
Video from Oct 15, 2015, at Punta Lobos, Jamie Sechrist: https://www.facebook.com/jamie.sechrist/videos/vb.1615008376/10204326181067382/?type=3&theater
Video from Jan 26, 2015 fleeing Mexico:
https://www.facebook.com/jamie.sechrist/videos/vb.1615008376/10204812040853573/?type=3&theater
by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Jun 17, 2017 | Repression at Home
by No More Deaths
Arivaca, AZ—In temperatures surging over 100 degrees Fahrenheit, the US Border Patrol raided the medical-aid camp of humanitarian organization No More Deaths and detained four individuals receiving medical care. Obstruction of humanitarian aid is an egregious abuse by the law-enforcement agency, a clear violation of international humanitarian law, and a violation of the organization’s agreement with the Tucson Sector Border Patrol.
This afternoon, in an unprecedented show of force, approximately 30 armed agents raided the camp with at least 15 trucks, two quads, and a helicopter to apprehend four patients receiving medical care.Agents from the Border Patrol began surveilling the No More Deaths camp on Tuesday, June 13 at around 4:30 p.m. Agents in vehicles, on foot, and on ATVs surrounded the aid facility and set up a temporary checkpoint at the property line to search those leaving and interrogate them about their citizenship status. The heavy presence of law enforcement has deterred people from accessing critical humanitarian assistance in this period of hot and deadly weather. These events also follow a pattern of increasing surveillance of humanitarian aid over the past few months under the Trump administration.
For the past 13 years, No More Deaths has provided food, water, and medical care for people crossing the Sonoran Desert on foot. The ongoing humanitarian crisis caused by border-enforcement policy has claimed the lives of over seven thousand people since 1998. Human remains are found on average once every three days in the desert of southern Arizona.
Kate Morgan, Abuse Documentation and Advocacy Coordinator for the organization, said, “No More Deaths has documented the deaths and disappearances of hundreds of migrants in the Arivaca corridor of the border. Today’s raid on the medical aid-station is unacceptable and a break in our good-faith agreements with Border Patrol to respect the critical work of No More Deaths.”
John Fife, one of the founders of No More Deaths, commented, “Since 2013 the Tucson Sector of the Border Patrol has had a written agreement with No More Deaths (NMD) that they will respect the NMD camp as a medical facility under the International Red Cross standards, which prohibit government interference with humanitarian-aid centers. That agreement now has been violated by the Border Patrol under the most suspicious circumstances. The Border Patrol acknowledged that they tracked a group for 18 miles, but only after the migrants sought medical treatment did the Border Patrol seek to arrest them. The choice to interdict these people only after they entered the No More Deaths camp is direct evidence that this was a direct attack on humanitarian aid. At the same time, the weather forecast is for record-setting deadly temperatures.”
People crossing the deadly and remote regions of the US–Mexico border often avoid seeking urgent medical care for fear of deportation and incarceration. For this reason, a humanitarian-focused aid station in the desert is an essential tool for preserving life. The targeting of this critical medical aid is a shameful reflection of the current administration’s disregard for the lives of migrants and refugees, making an already dangerous journey even more deadly.
In spite of this, No More Deaths remains committed to our mission to end death and suffering in the desert and will continue to provide humanitarian aid, as we have for the past 13 years.
by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Mar 8, 2017 | Repression at Home
Featured image: Francisca Ramírez. Photo: Jorge Torres / La Prensa
by Courtney Parker / Intercontinental Cry
For those who have not yet heard of Nicaraguan activist, Francisca Ramírez, that is about to change. The apolitical, movement-focused leader of the growing anti-canal mobilization in Nicaragua is not backing down from state intimidation tactics, and is – self -professed – ready to die for the cause.
Ramírez heads a civil society group in Nicaragua that opposes government plans to construct an increasingly notorious trans-oceanic canal, financed by the Chinese HKND Group. Ramírez has mobilized a unified movement of Indigenous Peoples and campesinos (small farmers) against massive government oversight on respecting their rights to free, prior and informed consent for the project, which will displace thousands of individuals from ancestral and family farming territories.
In an IPS article by José Adán Silva, Ramírez is described as an Indigenous farmer who grew up in Nueva Guinea, an agricultural municipality in the Autonomous Region of Caribe Sur. After surviving the U.S.-financed war against the Sandinistas in the 1980’s, Ramírez got married, became a farmer, and had five children.
A former child of war, Ramírez carved out a relatively happy and peaceful life in later years. She first heard of plans for the canal over a radio broadcast in 2013, and initially believed government claims that the megaproject would lift her country out of poverty. “They said that we were no longer going to be poor”, she told IPS.
Then one day, a group of public officials accompanied by military and national police, as well as a delegation of Chinese business interests, arrived in her community and told them, “The route of the canal runs through your property and all of you will be resettled.”
It was at this point her journey of resistance began.
Ramírez is not involved in any other political causes other than the canal movement. The main goal of her organization, the Consejo por la Defensa de la Tierra, Lago Soberania (Council for the Defense of the Land, the Lake and Sovereignty) is to repeal Nicaraguan Law 840, passed in 2013. The collective opposition to the government project has set their sights on this statute because it grants a 100-year concession to the Chinese financers for all land subject to the proposed canal route.
Because of her outspoken activism and leadership, Ramírez has been on the receiving end of various intimidation tactics, including: harassment, intimidation, arbitrary detainment, and even violent attacks on her family members.
Ramírez met with Berta Cáceres in August of 2015 during a forum on the defense of natural resources. Approximately one hundred women met in Juigalpa, Chontales for the meeting during which Ramírez recalls Cáceres speaking with them about her own journey in the struggle for Indigenous rights and environmental justice against the mining industry. Cáceres also shared with the women her experiences of intimidation by government and private interests.
Inspired by Cáceres’s story, Ramírez told Nicaraguan media outlet, Confidencial:
“I thought about all the suffering we had to go through in the struggle for our rights against the transnational companies and powerful economic groups that always try to run ragged over the rights of the poor and those of limited resources in the country.”
Ramírez came to believe [development projects] inflicting damage to the earth is a way of eradicating Indigenous and campesino peoples’ right to live in peace. After Cáceres’s alarming and untimely death in 2016, Ramírez joined a march in her honor in the capital city of Managua.
Photo: confidencial.com.ni
Amnesty International has been monitoring the targeting of Ramírez by Nicaraguan state officials. In a publication on her struggle, the human rights watchdog group took special note of the intersectional threat facing women human rights defenders in Latin America, citing that:
“Women human rights defenders are often at risk of violence and experience intersecting forms of discrimination. Particularly in Latin America, as highlighted by the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders, women defenders are among the most threatened owing to the nature of their human rights work and to their gender.”
Recently, the European Parliament joined the momentum of international solidarity with Ramírez’s struggle and urged Nicaraguan state officials to strengthen protections for human rights activists, and to desist in the harassment and intimidation tactics aimed at opponents of the transoceanic canal. The EU resolution produced a long list of escalating violations of human rights, civil liberties, and democracy in Nicaragua, and specifically demanded compliance with international statutes on Indigenous rights.
Also specifically mentioned in the joint motion, was Ramírez, in regards to her leadership of the mobilization against the environmentally catastrophic canal. The joint motion disavowed her detainment and intimidation after she attempted to file a complaint about attacks against her and her family, urging “the government to refrain from harassing and using acts of reprisal against Francisca Ramírez and other human rights defenders for carrying out their legitimate work.” The official EU document also publicly issues, “calls on the Nicaraguan authorities to end the impunity of perpetrators of crimes against human rights defenders”; asserts that it “supports the right of environmental and human rights defenders to express their protest without retaliation”; and, also formally, “calls on Nicaragua to effectively launch an independent environmental impact assessment before engaging in further steps [on the proposed canal] and to make the whole process public.”
In a statement to Nicaraguan independent media outlet, La Prensa, Ramírez relayed that President Daniel Ortega dispatched the former political secretary of the FSLN in New Guinea, Alcides Altamirano, to try and convince her to meet with the government for private talks on behalf of the anti-canal movement.
Ramírez affirmed in her public statement that the movement is willing and open to dialogue, but not behind closed doors, “because we do nothing hidden.” She confirmed such discussions are good when they are open and transparent, and doubled down on their central demand that the government repeal the 25 articles of Law 840.
by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Feb 11, 2017 | Colonialism & Conquest, Repression at Home
Featured image: Yoryanis Isabel Bernal Varela was shot dead in the head in Colombia. © El Heraldo
by Survival International
Yoryanis Isabel Bernal Varela, 43, was a leader of the Wiwa tribe and a campaigner for both indigenous and women’s rights.
The Wiwa are one of four tribes that live on the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, a unique pyramid-shaped mountain in northern Colombia. The Sierra Nevada Indians believe it is their responsibility to maintain the balance of the universe.
Bernal Varela is the latest victim in a long line of attacks against Sierra Nevada leaders, who have been at the forefront of the indigenous movement in South America. Many Indians have been killed by drug gangs, left-wing guerrillas and the army.
In November 2012 Rogelio Mejía, the leader of one of the other Sierra Nevada tribes, the Arhuaco, narrowly escaped an assassination attempt.
José Gregorio Rodríguez, secretary of the Wiwa Golkuche organization, stated: “Indigenous people are being threatened and intimidated. Today they murdered our comrade and violated our rights. Our other leaders must be protected.”
The problem is not limited to Colombia. Indigenous activists throughout Latin America are being murdered for campaigning against the theft of their lands and resources. The murderers are seldom brought to justice.
In January, Mexican Tarahumara indigenous leader Isidro Ballenero López was killed. In 2005 he had received the prestigious Goldman prize for his fight against illegal deforestation.
by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Jan 28, 2017 | Colonialism & Conquest, Repression at Home
Featured image: Tuahka Indigenous Territorial Government Prosecutor, Camilo Frank López, was confirmed dead from a gunshot wound to the head on Wednesday evening. (Photo: Gilberto Ariel Artola; permission to use from Jose Garth Medina of La Presna)
by Courtney Parker / Intercontinental Cry
The climate of violence endemic to the ongoing resource wars, illegal occupation, violent siege, and politically motivated land grabs of Nicaragua’s North Caribbean Autonomous Region, is continuing to escalate.
On Wednesday evening, January 25, the death of a well-known Tuahka Indigenous leader was confirmed – Camilo Frank López was shot in the forehead and killed while leaving a local bar with his cousin. López was the current Tuahka Indigenous Territorial Government Prosecutor.
López’s first cousin, Eloy Frank, who was the Deputy Foreign Minister Secretary for Indigenous Affairs of the Presidency, also suffered an injury to his arm in the attack.
The killing took place in an area known as the ‘Mining Triangle’.
Nicaragua is often lauded for its low crime rates compared to more systemic cultures of violence found in Central American nations such as Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala. However, the region where this latest killing took place, largely known as La Muskitia, has been host to intensifying violent conflict as the legal territories of Indigenous Peoples, such as the Mayagna and the Miskitu, are encroached upon by Mestizo settlers from the interior and Atlantic regions of Nicaragua.
Many claim the illegal settlers are affiliated with the ruling Sandinista political party, who have much to gain economically from seizing and exploiting the resource rich region. Estimates have held that around 85% of Nicaragua’s intact natural resource preserves are contained there; and thanks to ongoing Indigenous stewardship, much of the biodiversity is currently preserved and remains intact.
The binational Indigenous nation of Muskitia, which extends into Honduras, is also home to the second largest tropical rainforest in the western hemisphere – second only the Amazon in size and commonly referred to as “the lungs of Central America”– and many endangered species of animals.
by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Dec 16, 2016 | Lobbying, Repression at Home
by Noah Weber
On Sunday, March 7, 1965, roughly 600 African Americans and their allies gathered and marched towards Montgomery, Alabama in order to take a stand and draw attention to the fact that 99% of Selma, Alabama’s registered voters were white, and that the African American community was being denied their legal right to vote. The unarmed men and women who marched across the Edmund Pettus Bridge were met by a heavily armed police force and were tear gassed and beaten horrifically. In the end, 17 marchers were hospitalized, and another 50 were treated for injuries caused by the police.
On Sunday, November 20, 2016, more than 400 Native Americans and their allies marched on the Backwater Bridge outside of Cannon Ball, North Dakota. The Water Protectors had been demonstrating peacefully for months in order to preserve sacred burial grounds and protect their only source of clean drinking water from the oil-bearing Dakota Access Pipeline. However, this unarmed march was meant to clear vehicles that had been set up by DAPL to block the Backwater Bridge. They were attempting to clear the road so that emergency medical vehicles could have faster access to the residents and campers at the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation. After being trapped on the bridge by heavily armed police, the marchers were hosed with water cannons in 23°F temperatures, and shot with rubber bullets, tear gas, pepper spray, and concussion grenades for more than 7 hours. 26 people were hospitalized, and more than 300 were treated for injuries caused by the police forces.
It is highly likely that neither group of marchers knew the full extent of the violence that they were about to experience as they marched on these bridges for the first time. However, they certainly knew what was in store for them for any subsequent actions. After the first march on Montgomery, the nation was horrified by the images broadcast by media sources, and on March 9, more than 2500 people showed up for the second march on Montgomery. Due to a pending decision, and a restraining order issued by Federal District Court Judge Frank Minis Johnson, the marchers turned around on the Pettus Bridge.
Ultimately, on March 17, Judge Johnson ruled that the civil rights activists’ right to march could not be abridged by the state of Alabama, writing “The law is clear that the right to petition one’s government for the redress of grievances may be exercised in large groups…by marching, even along public highways.” Meanwhile, on March 13th, President Lyndon Johnson met with Alabama Governor George Wallace in an attempt to prevent further violence and harassment from being directed at the civil rights activists. While unsuccessful with Wallace, President Johnson introduced a bill two days later to Congress. That bill became the Voting Rights Act. While it took time for the bill to pass, President Johnson deployed 2000 soldiers of the U.S. Army, 1900 Alabama National Guard troops under federal command, and unknown numbers of FBI and Federal Marshals to protect the demonstrators as they successfully continued their march on March 21.
When I showed up on November 24 to bring supplies and provide medical support at the Oceti Sakowin Camp, there were an estimated 3500 people at camp. When I left at the end of the week, there were roughly 10,000. Dozens of countries, and hundreds of tribes from around the world are expressing outrage and concern over the violence and harassment directed towards the Water Protectors at Standing Rock. These communities are also outraged that the pipeline was originally supposed to pass north of Bismarck, ND, but was rejected as being too dangerous to pass near that overwhelmingly white community’s water source, and instead was relocated to pass through traditional Lakota lands and under their Missouri River water source without any conversation regarding indigenous concerns and opposition to the pipeline.
Governor Jack Dalrymple of North Dakota is escalating his rhetoric towards the safety of the people camped at Standing Rock. He has threatened anyone bringing food and clothing donations to the camps with $1000 fines. This week, he threatened to oust the Water Protectors from their camps in the name of safety, due to winter conditions. However, the Water Protectors are not going to leave, and making someone homeless in winter is unconscionable. Using water cannons on peaceful demonstrators in sub-freezing temperatures shows that safety is not Dalrymple’s top priority. Getting people to vacate the land is his priority.
The Water Protectors are going to continue to march, pray, and peacefully demonstrate, regardless of the violent reactions from DAPL security and police forces. They are doing everything that they can to stand up for their rights in a peaceful manner. They are waiting for action from President Obama. It is time for a sit-down between President Obama and Gov. Dalrymple. It is also time for an immediate and decisive response from the Obama administration to ensure the safety of peacefully assembled citizens and their right to clean water. This means troops standing with the Water Protectors, not opposed to them. President Johnson was not perfect, but he has been judged by this nation, and the world, to have been on the correct side of history on civil rights in the wake of Bloody Sunday. Due to the shared history of abuse and denied rights, despite laws and treaties on their side, it is difficult to see why President Obama praises one group’s actions, but has yet to do anything of substance for the other.
Bloody Sunday
When will troops protect the Water Protectors? So far the only troops acting in such a capacity are the veterans recruited by Wes Clark Jr. My thanks go out to Mr. Clark and his veterans. However, anything short of deploying troops to protect the peacefully assembled demonstrators, in conjunction with pushing a bill through Congress to extend the rights of indigenous communities over the governance of their own land, would be a shameful act by the Obama administration. This is your Pettus Bridge, Mr. President. On which side of this historic bridge do you stand?
Taking the least effective route to enact change is not praiseworthy. A teacher would award a D for such effort.
While the ruling by the Army Corps of Engineers sounds nice, demonstrators are still fighting for Lakota rights on land that is considered to be federally-owned, but was granted to the Lakota “in perpetuity” by the government. The Lakota never relinquished their right to this land. The government took it.
There are still Federal Police and Army Corps vehicles on Lakota land. They are still on the north side of Cantapeta Creek…with the DAPL security forces. I will believe something has changed when Federal forces are standing shoulder-to-shoulder WITH the Standing Rock Water Protectors, indigenous rights have been extended by law, and the pipeline is re-routed or terminated. Until this happens, nothing has changed.
Noah Weber is a nurse and a farmer from Montana. He volunteered as a medic at the Oceti Sakowin Camp at Standing Rock, though most of his time went to ensuring everyone in the medic, healer, midwifery, and warming tents had wood, warmth, and functional stoves.
Featured image: Standing Rock, by Rob Wilson
