by DGR News Service | May 21, 2014 | Strategy & Analysis
By Kim Hill / Deep Green Resistance Australia
Life itself has been stolen from us.
Genes, the very basis of life, no longer belong to the living beings who embody them, but to institutions that convert life into profit.
Our basic needs, of food and water, no longer come from the land where we live, but from distant corporations that use the exact same food and water as a dumping ground for their wastes.
Monsanto executives take up positions of power in the US Food and Drug Administration, and Environmental Protection Authority. These bodies, instead of protecting our food and water as they were intended to do, now protect the interests of those who are causing the harm.
Governments exist within the rules of Free Trade Agreements and The World Bank, institutions that exist to protect the profits of corporations. Governments have little power to create change.
So we cannot ask governments to act.
In India, 250,000 farmers have committed suicide by drinking Monsanto pesticides after their Bt cotton crops, sold to them by Monsanto, failed, and they were no longer able to provide for their families. Monsanto obstructs labelling laws, and suppresses the results of research that are not in its favour. It is not going to listen to the demands of the people. The purpose of a corporation is to make profit, regardless of the costs to other people and living beings. It is not possible for it to act in any other interest.
So we cannot ask corporations to act.
Even if Monsanto were stopped, there are plenty of other biotechnology companies ready to take their place. The entire economic system is structured to see living beings only as an opportunity for profits, or as standing in the way of profits. For life to continue, the entire system needs to be dismantled.
It is up to us to act.
As human beings, we are part of a natural community of rivers, forests, soil and myriad living beings. This community provides our food and water.
We need to act, not as consumers, not as citizens, but as humans.
We are accountable not to profits or institutions, but to the land that provides for us.
Actions that ask governments and corporations to change – rallies, petitions and letters – can never be effective on their own. Those who are profiting from the theft of life itself need to be physically stopped.
Every day, people are taking real action, by destroying GM crops, sabotaging equipment and infrastructure, and engaging in cyber-attacks against corporations. These actions are essential to stop Monsanto and all those profiting from the destruction of living communities.
On behalf of those whose lives have been stolen and manipulated for profit, those who cannot speak and cannot act, we need to give our full support to the people who are risking their own lives and freedom to defend life itself.
by DGR News Service | Mar 4, 2014 | Lobbying, The Solution: Resistance
By Amaranta Herrero / eJolt
On the 14th of February, the regional government of Castilla y León cancelled the plan for Mountaintop Removal Coal Mining (MRT) in Laciana Valley (Spain).
During the last twenty years, irreversible changes have been taking place in the Southwestern Cantabrian Mountains, in an area of great ecological value, which is protected by EU environmental legislation.
The extractive technique known as Mountaintop Removal Coal Mining (MTR) has illegally modified during this time the topography and the life of people in Laciana Valley (León). Although it is literally an explosive industrial process, this mining activity developed in relative silence, away from public opinion. In general, MTR operations are remote, located beyond the landscape seen from city centers. At first glance, only a well-trained eye can detect the landscape morphological transformations involved in the amputation of the top of a mountain and its subsequent artificial reconstruction. But for the 10.000 inhabitants directly affected by this activity, mostly connoisseurs of mountain valley profiles, MTR is constantly visible and audible.
In the past two decades, Laciana Valley has fallen into severe socio-economic decline. Coal mining has gradually reduced, partially driven by EU liberalization measures of the energy market that reduce State subsidies for the extraction of coal. Since 1990, coal production has shrunk 67% in Spain. Surface mining in Spain began in the 1970s, but it was not until 1985 that MTR, much less labour-intensive, started replacing underground mining on Laciana’s private land. The number of coal mining jobs were reduced by 85,7% in the last 20 years in Spain. In 2010, the 6,429 jobs in the Spanish coal-mining sector included directives, technicians, administrative stuff and workers from underground mining and MTR.
The local population has been highly polarised with regard to the continued existence of MTR and the future of the valley. Coal mining has been for far too long an economic monoculture in Laciana, maintained by the very close relations between the political and the economic powers in the area. Suspicion of corruption has always surrounded the coal mining sector since the 90s. Victorino Alonso, the owner of Laciana’s MTR company, Coto Minero del Cantábrico, and the main Spanish coal entrepreneur was declared guilty of fraud in 2010. On the 10th of February 2014 all Spanish coal companies have been brought in front of the Court accused of fraud related to Coal Aid.
Laciana MTR mines have been active without the legally required environmental and planning permits. At the same time, these illegal activities have, curiously, been intensively subsidised by the Spanish government and indirectly by the EU. As a result of the illegalities, the biggest private mining company in Spain, Coto Minero del Cantábrico (CMC), was brought before a Spanish court by individuals and local environmental groups. In fact, some of the inhabitants of Laciana Valley together with regional environmental groups, autonomous activists and Members of the European Parliament, have spent twenty years opposing and struggling against this industrial activity. This heterogeneous ecological resistance movement has addressed the destruction of natural resources and environmental services and the residents’ future. They sued the company and the Town Council, appealed to the European Court, wrote articles and documents, tried to reach the media, organised talks, camps, and they have even put in more than one occasion their bodies in the middle to stop the mountain destruction. This movement has fought for a different future, based on economic activities that are truly compatible with the protection of the environment. This local environmental movement in Laciana has also faced an intense process of stigmatisation and scapegoating within the Valley.
In 2006, CMC received the highest environmental fine in the country’s history (approx. €170 million) and was ordered to stop activities by the regional Administrative Court. In November 2011, the European Court of Justice also recognised the environmental crimes in Laciana. Disregarding the legal verdict, the fine remaining unpaid, the company continued MTR activities and planned expansion. This expansion plan had been presented in 2008 by the regional government. It also represented a threat to Laciana’s inhabitants, ecosystems and future, until last 14th of Februrary. With the MTR expansion plan cancelled, Laciana’s people can start a promising transition towards different, diverse and environmentally lower impact economies.
Congratulations to everybody who fought against MTR coal mining in Laciana for their long and intense ecological resistance and their final victory. If we want to promote a new and sustainable energy model, as well as having a chance of avoiding runaway climate change, it is a must to challenge the coal industry, to end fossil fuels subsidies and to leave coal underground.
From eJolt: http://www.ejolt.org/2014/02/victory-no-more-mountaintop-removal-coal-mining-in-laciana-valley-spain/
by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Jan 15, 2014 | Obstruction & Occupation, Repression at Home
By Cal Winslow
Will Parrish needs your support. He now faces eight years in prison; in addition, $490,000 in fines, “restitution”. And for what? For delaying a freeway, the “Redwood Highway” – the California 101.
Parrish is a journalist here in Willits, in Mendocino County. He is also an activist and a teacher. His trial is scheduled for the County Courthouse in Ukiah, at 8:30 AM, on January 28th.
Will’s crime must be peculiarly Californian, a crime against a freeway. It must, from the grave, be raising Ronald Reagan’s hackles, jolting his memory. We’re told, incessantly in the media, this delay also enrages our ordinary travelers; drivers, it seems, now delayed five minutes (or so) along the main street of Willits on the trip to Eureka.
Willits, Eureka, Mendocino, Humboldt, why here? In this wildest corner of the state? “California’s transportation infrastructure – once the freeway wonder of the world – now lags hopelessly behind…”, Mike Davis tells us this, and quite rightly, but you can’t say they’re not trying. The issue here is a bypass.
Mike’s down south, where the people are. Things are different here. There are fewer than 5000 people in Willits, its population in decline; there are just about 90,000 people in Mendocino County, a few more than in new Mayor Bill De Blasio’s Brooklyn neighborhood. But this is a big County, nearly 100 miles south to north. We have lots of elbow room. And that’s Mendocino; take 101 north and there’s hardly anyone at all. The shrewd driver, once in southern Humboldt, can easily make up the time. Then it’s the supermax at Pelican Bay in nothing flat.
But it doesn’t matter, it’s systemic. Caltrans, the state’s mega transportation department is pushing the bypass at Willits; it’s wanted it for a long time. It’s for our own good, of course. And Caltrans has a plan. A master plan? Indeed it’s had this very plan for twenty years (it seems it’s always a good time for a new freeway). Caltrans has proposed and is now building a $200 million, six mile, four-lane freeway the size of Interstate 5.
Willits is “the Gateway to the Redwoods”, drivers learn this from a large arch they pass under (not from actual trees). They also navigate a five mile stretch of two lane traffic, two lights, then an array of shops, etc., few really worth slowing down for. The one real problem, let’s be fair here, is the snag where state route 20, at Safeway and a light, turns off to Fort Bragg and the Coast. It is a bottleneck. I’ve seen rush hour traffic backed up two or three blocks, delays of five minutes or so. But let’s have some perspective on this. We’re out in the country, on our way to the Redwoods, the few remaining. We’re just not talking about the BQE on Monday morning or the Santa Monica Freeway on Tuesday nights.
So $200 million? California is just clawing itself out of the recession. We’ve hardly had time to catch our breath, how will we undo the damage done to our schools, our services, our health and welfare? Costs still figure even here, even in this latest boomlet. Caltrans likes to keep it quiet, but the first stage of the freeway bypass will be only two lanes, though construction will prepare for an eventual four. Back to Mike Davis, there’s something more than meets the eye here, something “primal”.
Good, sensible people in Willits have been fighting the bypass here for twenty years; they’ve challenged Caltrans every foot of the way – they’ve demanded proper public input, attention to environmental regulations, a haven for rare birds, and protection of wetlands, this last elemental, primary in terms of survival here in (too) thirsty California. It’s amazing, the persistence of these people. And they’ve been willing to seek compromises – perhaps a smaller project. But Caltrans has been patient too (and with 22,000 employees, the state’s huge contractors on your side, also the local politicians, building trades unions, etc., I suppose it’s easy to be patient).
Will Parish is a new-comer of sorts to this (a new-comer in California? Is that an oxymoron?). He’s been up here in Mendocino County for just four years, and we’re very lucky for it. Will grew up in Santa Cruz, his parents teachers, his home fronting a Redwood forest, his childhood sanctuary. Will went to UC Santa Cruz, majoring there in Sociology and Journalism. The administration apparently considered the Journalism School a problem (a sure sign it was doing its job), and used the 2003 round of cuts to get rid of it. Will reckons he’s the last of its graduates.
Will, as a journalist, sought out issues of power and war; he dug into the roots of the Bay Area’s war connections, in particular those in the UC system – no shortage of material there. Nuclear weapons, nuclear power appalled him. And he combined writing with activism; he is a journalist in the best tradition of our muckrakers, a writer “with his boots on the ground”. This is a good expression, I think; I’m taking it from my mentor, the late Edward Thompson, in his own time a relentless opponent of the war machine, of nuclear weapons in particular, writer and activist.
Close Counterpunch readers will remember Will’s many contributions including: How Imperial San Franciscans Loot the Planet (February 26-28 2010 with Darwin Bond-Graham) and Who Runs the University of California? (March 01, 2010 with Bond-Graham). And here in wine country his focus has been the burgeoning wine industry: see pieces including In the Shadow of the Gallos; Sonoma County, Banana Republic of Wine Grapes (January 21-23, 2011).
In Mendocino Will began with a focus has been the burgeoning wine industry, its owners, its workers and its place in the economy (see, for example, In the Shadow of the Gallos; Sonoma County, Banana Republic of Wine Grapes, Counterpunch, January 21-23, 2011). And on the wetlands of the Little Lake Valley.
“When I first came here, Willits, I fell in love with the tranquility here, with the mountains, the boggy marshes, the grasslands, the eco-diversity, the space. And no freeway. The 101 stops just south of Willits – that makes it a different world here.
“My journalism, my practice, has always been to scan the horizon, to look for the most pressing problems, to look for the problems that most need addressing.
“The bypass issue struck me as a really big problem, a thing that really needed addressing. And that meant getting involved; I can’t write and not be involved.” (See “The Insanity of the Willits Bypass”, in the Ukiah Blog, January 8th, 2013)
Here’s an example:
“As Willits’ settlers set about gridding the land and marketing it to cattle ranchers and timber merchants, they rapidly removed the wetlands. They did the same to the Pomo villagers and wildlife — waterfowl, pelicans, vast herds of Tule elk and antelope, etc. — that had dwelled among the marshes and springs for so long. The early Euroamerican pioneers incised streambeds, redirected creeks, constructed artificial drainage ditches, and ripped apart the hardpan layers of topsoil that contained the water, allowing it to seep slowly into the ground.
“Some of the moisture that time had stored on the land remains, though, most notably within the marshy area on the north end of the valley, extending across Route 101 on the west and Reynolds Highway on the east. The area acts as a collection point for three creeks that flow through the valley. It is then drained by Outlet Creek, a tributary of the Eel River. Among its other contributions to what might be called the “real world” of inland Mendocino County, Outlet Creek provides the longest remaining run for the endangered Coho salmon of any river tributary in California.
In June, Will climbed a wick drain “stitcher”, a giant machine there to plant tens of thousands of drainage tubes along the path of freeway construction, tubes to drain the wetlands and stabilize the earth upon which the highway will be built – in the process destroying Little Lake Valley wetlands, the largest Northern California wetlands to be drained in any single project in the past fifty years. So David and Goliath again. Will: “Caltrans is a scofflaw agency that, by virtue of a failed political and regulatory system, is facing no other forms of real accountability for causing immense and probably irreversible destruction of Little Lake Valley.”
An important argument in this entire conflict is that the whole project is illegal, Caltrans having violated nearly every regulation possible.
“I threw myself in because the more I came to understand this the more upset I became. The Willits project epitomizes so much of everything that is wrong; it epitomizes the power dynamics that underlie all the problems I see in society.”
Will lived on a platform, more than fifty feet up, for eleven days. Will is six foot five, no, not a basketball player, rather tennis, a large, attentive, kind man, hair flowing like Clay Matthew’s, only dark brown. Gentle, yes. Passive, no. Will on the stitcher was a figure not to be missed. And the California Highway Patrol (CHP) took every precaution in bringing him down – precaution meaning that they overwhelmed him, attacking with swat teams, climbing specialists (a career path), hoisted in giant bucket loaders, prepared with saws specifically designed to cut him loose. But not until the entire project had been halted.
This story has not generated the emotion, the energy of Julia Butterfly Hill’s but it demands our attention, as do dozens of such projects here in California’s Northwest. They are fundamental contests. They are about our future. In the stitcher Will lived in a sort of house arrest, surrounded on the ground by dozens of the small army of CHP troopers brought into Willits. He was deprived of food; the CHP even arrested six people who attempted to bring him supplies. He went six days without food, surviving an unseasonal rain storm, also bitter cold.
Construction started in February, 2013, but was delayed until spring. Will was not the first to be arrested. There were others, tree sitters, people who sat down in the paths of bulldozers (West Bank weapons) – fifty people in all have been arrested, these people too demand our support. They include a core of those who have kept this crusade alive, all these years. In truth, it’s been a small group that has kept this issue alive; many were the young at heart – often 50, 60, even 70 year olds, but tenacious. Against them the troopers, the choppers, the armed vehicles.
Will is charged with trespassing, “unlawful entry”. (He is also charged with two “resisting arrests”.) So Will and his supporters expected him to be charged with two or three two misdemeanors. Some tree sitters have yet to be charged with anything. The Mendocino County District Attorney, David Eyster, typical of the small town bullies we suffer as DA’s, offered a plea bargain, but this left Will subject to restitution. Will refused, asked for a jury trial. Infuriated, Eyster made a package of the misdemeanors; charging Will instead with 16 misdemeanors, these with a cumulative maximum eight-year jail sentence. As it happens, Caltrans then piled on with a demand for $490.000.02 in restitution. The costs of delay!
I have heard it said that the sentence demanded in this case is unusual, harsh in nominally liberal and eco-friendly Mendocino County. True, this isn’t South Carolina, and it is also true that there is something of a history of tolerance in this County. And there is radicalism of a certain kind; many here are on alert for peak oil, Fukushima, broken bridges, marine protectors, black choppers. And thank heavens for it. But, for the few who will remember, Tony Craver and Norm Vroman are gone. Still, there is a curious way in which Eyster relates to the growers, so he often gets a pass. But he’s not on his own, he’s certainly not the only bully in the County, and he’s not the only one who is happy to not see our biggest industries’ bad behaviors.
Will has lived up to his self-pledge to seek out the most pressing problems, and to get to the bottom of them. In this case he’s found wetlands. And water, fundamentals for all California, and no small concern here in California, now in the grips of an historic drought. Wetlands take us to water and water to the growers. The grape growers here are not mom and pop operations; they are more likely Silicon Valley veterans, wealthy people with more money than they know what to do with. They come here to concoct boutique wines; but premium wine production touches everything, from the price of land to the very structure of labor, and not for the better. They create the groomed landscape that the Anderson Valley has become. But they also consume the water; now, as we await our rainy season, we have dry creeks and depleted rivers. And they bring pesticides, and all the nasty environmental procedures that are the unmentionables in an eco-friendly County. And these are not on David Eyster’s agenda. And salmon that still don’t come back. Will Parrish is our Lincoln Steffens (The Shame of the Cities, 1904). And they don’t like him.
There is a similar story with our biggest industry, that is, with “the crop”, marijuana. Of course it’s an underground economy; of course it has its victims, its innocents. Yet it too is extractive in the worst senses; it too drains our streams, poisons them, it drives up the price of land, it too takes the profits away. It creates our culture of secrecy; ask no questions, it stretches out the class divide while thriving on illusions of community. No wonder Mendocino is still a poor County, its schools struggle, its public services all but non-existent. Our “infrastructure” crumbles – our County roads? No help from Caltrans for these. And Will has had the courage to say this.
So why is Eyster being the bully? I think we have a conspiracy here, but it’s an open conspiracy, its origins, its cast of characters is right here for all to see. Caltrans wants roads, big roads; the builders want to build. Eyster’s job, grease the wheels. It’s systemic. Why would he not be the bully? A few examples will quiet things down, or so he seems to think. He’s got Will Parrish on deck.
The 101 is named the Redwood Highway and for good reason. Its construction began in the twenties – for us in the North it begins on the Golden Gate Bridge; it then passes through a series of lovely valleys until it reaches the mountains of northern Mendocino County, then it follows the South Fork of the Eel toward Eureka and on to the Oregon border. Its initial construction was promoted as a pathway to a tourist’s paradise, that is, the motoring tourist. It opened up a new world, magnificent yet until then inaccessible. The 101 had on offer – for those with cars – giant trees, raging wild rivers, steep canyons, rugged mountains, there to see, yet all without a step out the door.
There was another intention, however. By the twenties, the coastal Redwood forests were all but exhausted; the depression of the thirties put an end to the “harvest”. There remained, however, millions of acres of old growth Redwood, just out of reach of the coastal mills. Not, however, out of reach of the truck, the bulldozer and the chain saw. The 101 cleared the way that led to the final ravaging of the forest; in sheer destruction it far surpassed that of the late nineteenth century, though the old images – man vs. tree – still dominate our imagination of this history. The result, today fewer than four percent of the old growth survives. Second and third growth forests still are cut; there is farming. But the great Redwood forests, once a common of unimaginable value, a true wonder of the world, remain only terribly wounded, and almost all as private property, no trespassing.
This part of California, its “wildest” corner, grabs people, it moves them. It’s got Will and the Willits tree sitters, Warbler and the others, the bulldozer blockaders (I think of Rachel Corrie), its geriatric Wobblies facing down the troopers. And Willits is not the only site of conflict. Caltrans wants the road widened at Richardson Grove; it wants the road up to Oregon straightened. Never mind our remaining giant trees. Never mind the Smith River canyon, the path to the sea of California’s only undammed river.
I see the conspiracy when I drive home from the City, up the 101 to Cloverdale. It’s not hidden. The traffic on an afternoon is of course catastrophe in Northern Marin and on through Sonoma to Santa Rosa. So the solution? There are massive projects now in place, ever widening the highway, knocking down whatever is left in its path, so far almost to Windsor.
In its path, strip malls and giant box stores follow, one after another; sometimes it’s as if we’re in a tunnel of Mall. Then comes the sprawl.
And so it continues, the highways will soon be jammed again; Caltrans will push on northwards. Development. Plunder. Profit. It’s a “primal scene”, Mike Davis (Ecology of Fear) again. The widenings, the bypasses, these are “the familiar tremors heralding an eruption of growth that will wipe away human and natural history”.
Will and his comrades see this, the insanity of it all. They understand that this will not stop at Cloverdale or Ukiah. They understand the damage being done – “to human and natural history”.
The wetlands in Little Lake Valley are small, really; they have already been damaged by the agriculturalists of a century ago. Are they worth saving? I wondered if the Willits fighters had not perhaps exaggerated.
Counterpunch readers will recognize Ignacio Chapela as the microbial ecologist and mycologist at the University of California, Berkeley, known for exposure of the flow of transgenes into wild maize.
Ignacio explains, “The highland wetlands are the basis of the health of the whole environment, this includes all the ecosystems downstream, they are the basis for everything, our water, the diversity of species, everything is at stake.”
“Will is a young investigative reporter, one of a kind. He’s not afraid of pursuing questions to their ultimate consequence. It’s not surprising at all to me that he’s working on wetlands, he understands environmental problems deeply and has the unique capacity to make these clear in his writings.
“It would be a terrible loss for California, also for environmental journalists everywhere, if he is silenced – even slowed down.
“I want to do whatever I can to do to support him and I want invite everyone to join us.”
So do I.
————————-
Support Will in Court. Ukiah County Courthouse, 8:30 am, January 28, 2014
Send messages to: Mendocino District Attorney David Eyster at Eysterd@co.mendocino.ca.us
or to
Supervisor Fifth District, Dan Hamburg at Hamburgd@co.mendocino.ca.us
Contributions can be sent to: Little Lake Valley Legal Fund/Will Parrish, Box 131, Willits, CA 95490
by Deep Green Resistance News Service | May 15, 2013 | People of Color & Anti-racism, Repression at Home
It’s often said that where there is oppression and brutalization, there is resistance; that resistance is fertile, and that it inevitably takes root in the cracks between the building blocks of exploitation and injustice. Even as industrial civilization drives indigenous peoples from their homelands and destroys what little remains of the living world, there is resistance. Even as men abuse and violate women, there is resistance. Even as whites oppress and exploit people of color, there is resistance. We continue to find determined resistance in the places we would think it least likely to survive in.
But there is another truth, a corollary to the undeniable will of resistance; where there is resistance, there is repression. Whenever and wherever people fight back, those in power—those higher on the social hierarchy—go to whatever lengths they deem necessary to protect their power and privilege. If resistance is inevitable, so is repression. Those of us determined to see justice need to be prepared for it, and use it to our advantage as much as possible.
This is becoming all the more immediately relevant as resistance against industrial extraction begins to enter a new phase of confrontation and action against those who would dismember the planet for profit. Across North America (and around the world), activists are increasingly turning to nonviolent direction action, having tired of the failures of legislative & administrative strategies. While this certainly represents a step in the right direction—that of physically confronting and stopping atrocity—it is also beginning to shed light on the way that power operates, and the means it will use to prevent dissent and resistance.
You may have heard about the anti-forest defense bills which are currently on the table in the Oregon State legislature. House Bill 2595 makes it a mandatory misdemeanor for the first charge of disrupting government forest practices, and a mandatory felony and minimum 13 months imprisonment for a second offense. House Bill 2596 essentially makes it easier for private entities to file suit against forest defenders. The laws come in response to direct action protests—including sit-ins, tree-sits, and blockades—by forest defense groups, including Cascadia Forest Defenders and Cascadia Earth First!, which stymied attempts to log the Elliot State Forest. Both bills have already been passed in the House and are now moving onto the senate.
Obviously, these bills are a blatant attempt to intimidate those who would act to defend the forests they love. It’s telling as well that the phrase “eco-terrorism” has been central in dialogue around the bill; labeling peaceful protesters using nonviolent tactics as “terrorists” is clearly an attempt to justify their political repression.
This sort of rhetoric and political repression extends far beyond the battle for forests in the Pacific Northwest. In Oklahoma and Texas, TransCanada—the corporation behind the Keystone XL pipeline—has filed lawsuits against individuals and organizations to stop them protesting and using nonviolent direct action to stop construction of the pipeline. It’s a blatant attempt to stamp out any interference or meaningful opposition to the pipeline.
In Canada, state security forces—including the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and the Canadian Security Intelligence Service—have begun viewing and approaching nonviolent protests, especially against the oil and gas industries, as “forms of attack” and “national security threats”.
Of course, this isn’t by any means a new or recent phenomenon, nor are these repressive measures outstandingly horrific. Take for example, the Counter-Intelligence Program (COINTELPRO) conducted by the FBI against indigenous, Black, Chicano, and other radical movements in the 1950s, 60s and 70s, which aimed to discredit, disrupt and destroy those social movements and political organizations. COINTELPRO used infiltration, psychological warfare, legal harassment, and illegal state violence (among other tactics) to tear apart movements and render them ineffective.
While it certainly succeeded in its diabolical mission in many regards, COINTELPRO and other forms of intense repression were a key factor and motivation in driving many revolutionaries into underground and militant action and organizations. As Akinyele Omowale Umoja argues in his study Repression Breeds Resistance, when aboveground factions of the Black liberation movement came under increasingly heavy political repression, they turned to underground militancy to more effectively carry on the struggle. In his words, “Due to the intense repression against the BPP [Black Panther Party] and the Black liberation movement, it was necessary to go underground and resist from clandestinity.”
The potential of repression to fuel the formation and growth of underground resistance is also a trend to which Robert Taber speaks, in his 1965 study of guerrilla warfare, War of the Flea. In his survey of different guerrilla movements, Taber identified several prerequisite conditions that must be met for militant guerrilla struggle to be effective, among them the presence of “an oppressive government, with which no political compromise is possible.”
Political repression is a terrible thing; it has destroyed countless lives, families, communities, and movements, and continues to do so today. It is of course undeniable that repression hurts movements—and usually aims to destroy them, but it is also true that it can push them into new and much needed directions. One unintended effect of measures such as the Oregon House bills or TransCanada’s lawsuits may be to bolster support for and acceptance of militant & underground resistance. Certainly, we should not be surprised if this is the case, and rather than lament the means to which people resort in defense of the land, we should celebrate such action.
It should be clear that when nonviolent and aboveground means of fighting for justice & sustainability are criminalized, those who would otherwise limit themselves to legal means are motivated to take up more militant forms of action. It should be clear to anyone paying attention that political repression is going to get worse, the reins on acceptable political action continuously tightened, and the list of legally allowed responses to atrocity to be constantly shrinking. But this may very well (and very likely, if history is anything to go by) encourage and facilitate more serious and determined militant and underground action.
Time is Short: Reports, Reflections & Analysis on Underground Resistance is a biweekly bulletin dedicated to promoting and normalizing underground resistance, as well as dissecting and studying its forms and implementation, including essays and articles about underground resistance, surveys of current and historical resistance movements, militant theory and praxis, strategic analysis, and more. We welcome you to contact us with comments, questions, or other ideas at undergroundpromotion@deepgreenresistance.org
by Deep Green Resistance News Service | May 4, 2013 | Defensive Violence, Mining & Drilling, Property & Material Destruction, Repression at Home
By Sandra Cuffe
This article was originally published by Upside Down World on May 2, 2013, and is republished here with permission from the author.
With the world’s attention focused on the on-again off-again genocide trial of former Guatemalan dictator Efraín Ríos Montt and his head of military intelligence in Guatemala City, there has been little international reporting on other events in the Central American nation. Meanwhile, as the trial continues, conflicts involving rural communities and Canadian mining companies are escalating, to the point that a State of Siege was declared last night.
Fifty miles southeast of the capital, private security guards working for Vancouver-based mining firm Tahoe Resources shot and wounded several local residents on Saturday in San Rafael Las Flores, on the road in front of Tahoe’s El Escobal silver mine. The mining company’s head of security was arrested while attempting to flee the country. A police officer and a campesino were killed during conflicts earlier this week. Through it all, demonstrations against the mining project have continued amid conflicting reports and government misinformation.
Following a Cabinet meeting late last night, Guatemalan President Otto Pérez Molina declared a 30-day State of Siege in four municipalities around the El Escobal mining project: San Rafael Las Flores and Casillas in the department of Santa Rosa, and Jalapa and Mataquescuintla in the department of Jalapa. The measure is in effect as of today. Initial reports indicated that the constitutional rights suspended include freedom of movement, freedom of assembly and protest, and certain rights of detainees and prisoners.
Even before the measure was declared, communities were denouncing army mobilization in the region last night. When he announced the State of Siege, Pérez Molina stated that security forces reported for duty at three military bases last night and that operatives would begin early this morning.
“We fear for the lives of our leaders,” stated a message circulated online by the Xinka People’s Parliament, denouncing the mobilization of armed forces in Jutiapa with the alleged intention of arresting Xinka leaders in Santa María Xalapán, Jalapa. “We’re returning to the 1980s, with the persecution of leaders, extrajudicial execution and forced disappearance.”
Two weeks ago, Guatemalan Minister of the Interior Mauricio López Bonilla announced that executive and judicial officials were analyzing the possibility of declaring a State of Emergency in at least 30 municipalities throughout the country, due to violence. The government, according to the April 16 announcement, had anticipated finalizing the details of its evaluation of “red zones” within two weeks and implementing the measures suspending constitutional rights, possibly within three weeks to a month. At the time, mining was not mentioned.
The suspension of constitutional rights did not come as a surprise to Moisés Divas, Coordinator of the Diocesan Commission in Defense of Nature (CODIDENA) in Santa Rosa.
“The extent of the reaction from both the company and the State has completely violated people’s constitutional right to protest,” Divas told Upside Down World in a telephone interview on Monday. At the time, he was in Guatemala City accompanying some of the wounded San Rafael Las Flores residents at the Office of the Public Prosecutor, where they were being seen by a medical examiner.
“They no longer even respect human life. The government officials who should be at the service of the population have now turned against the population to defend a transnational project,” said Divas.
Tahoe Resources owns the El Escobal mine, but Vancouver-based mining giant Goldcorp retained a 40 percent ownership interest in Tahoe when it sold the project in 2010. Still under construction, El Escobal was granted an exploitation license by the Guatemalan government on April 3 amid widespread protest and threats against opponents. Five days later, the community-based movement against mining in San Rafael Las Flores began an ongoing resistance camp on privately owned land less than 200 feet from the mine’s front gate. Despite a violent eviction on April 11, when 26 people were arrested and held for four days before being released without charges, the resistance maintained its presence at the camp.
On Saturday, April 27, a group of local residents left the resistance camp along the road that passes directly in front of the mine, heading towards the community of El Volcancito. When they passed the front gate, security guards opened fire on them from the other side.
“The mining company ordered the shooting against people there, injuring more than 10 people with gunshot wounds,” said Divas. “Six of them were taken to get medical assistance in Cuilapa and two to the Roosevelt Hospital in the capital, because they found evidence of serious injury.”
Wilmer Pérez, 17, Antonio Humberto Castillo, 48, Noé Aguilar Castillo, 27, and Érick Fernando Castillo, 27, were all released after medical treatment in Cuilapa. Adolfo García, 57, and his son Luis García, 18, were taken to Guatemala City. Adolfo García was later released, but his son Luis remained in hospital care. The 18-year-old was shot in the face, suffered extensive damage to his jaw, lip, and teeth, and requires maxillofacial surgery.
Alberto Rotondo, Tahoe’s Chilean head of security, was overheard giving the order to shoot, among other comments and insults, while some of the injured have stated that they saw him draw and fire a weapon as well. According to a Prensa Comunitaria article posted that same night, local witnesses said that Rotondo “ordered [the security guards] to shoot, saying that they are fed up with all this garbage, referring to our people. They insulted them, and then they loaded their rifles and began to shoot at them.”
Rotondo was later arrested at the airport attempting to flee the country on Tuesday morning, accused of attempted homicide for his role in the April 27 shooting. After his case was transferred from the capital to Santa Rosa, he was sent to the maximum security prison in Cuilapa. According to Prensa Libre coverage, a judge in Guatemala City also issued arrest warrants for three other individuals with regards to Saturday’s shooting.
On Monday morning, Minister of the Interior Mauricio López confirmed that El Escobal mine security guards had shot at local residents. But despite all evidence to the contrary, he also said that the residents had been attempting to forcibly enter the mine site at the time and stated that only rubber bullets were used.
Oscar Morales García, a member of the Committee in Defense of Life in San Rafael Las Flores that has been mobilizing against the mining project and organizing community consultations, says the statements are simply untrue.
“There are people who were shot with real bullets. One has a bullet lodged in his body and it was decided that it’s better if it stays there instead of taking it out. And the other youth, the son, whose face was disfigured when he was shot. Those aren’t rubber bullets,” he told Upside Down World in a telephone interview on Monday.
Morales García also says that there may have been less evidence had it not been for the actions of local community residents on Saturday.
“After the attack against those six people, the national police force and the mine guards came out, intending to remove evidence, to drive their vehicles over the crime scene, and to pick up the bullet casings. But some of the people who were there didn’t let that happen. They told the police to get back and then protected the crime scene,” he said. “After six, eight hours of waiting for representatives from the Office of the Public Prosecutor to arrive, yes, they found evidence. The evidence was there. The crime scene had been protected by civilians.”
López Bonilla’s assertion that rubber bullets were used wasn’t the only government statement to be called into question on Monday. Presiding over the signing of a new royalty agreement between Tahoe Resources and the Ministry of Energy and Mines, Guatemalan President Otto Pérez Molina said that there is community support for the mine.
According to the new voluntary contribution agreement, Tahoe will pay five percent in royalties instead of the one percent required by the country’s mining legislation. The additional funds will be distributed to several different municipal governments in the departments of Santa Rosa and Jalapa. The mayor of San Rafael Las Flores was present at the signing ceremony in the capital along with several other elected municipal leaders.
“I saw the statements made by President of the Republic Otto Pérez Molina, saying that the population of San Rafael supports the mining company,” said CODIDENA Coordinator Moisés Divas. That same day, he said, San Rafael Las Flores residents were out in the streets in huge numbers to protest the agreement. “I don’t know what argument or foundation he used to say that people support the mining company.”
Community consultations are underway in San Rafael Las Flores. Eight have been carried out in as many communities. More than 1,200 people have said no to mining and only eight individuals have voted in favor of mining, said both Divas and Morales García. The overwhelming majority of the thousands of people who participated in municipal-level consultations in other municipalities in Santa Rosa – Casillas, Nueva Santa Rosa and Vieja Santa Rosa – and Mataquescuintla in neighboring Jalapa have also rejected mining.
Morales García also rejected the allegation of local support. “The government just announced [on Monday] that we’re merely two or three people who don’t want mining in San Rafael, that everyone else agrees with it,” he said. Beyond just marginalizing the resistance, said Morales García, the government was acting in concert with the Minera San Rafael, Tahoe Resources’ Guatemalan subsidiary.
“What actually happens is one thing, and the version managed by the government and the mining company is something else. The best Minera San Rafael spokesperson here is Minister López Bonilla,” he added.
In 1982, then Second Lieutenant Mauricio López Bonilla was part of the “La Juntita” Young Officers Advisory Group working for the military junta led by Ríos Montt. He retired from the Army as a Lieutenant Colonel in 1997, shortly after the Peace Accords officially ended four decades of conflict in 1996. He later became the electoral campaign manager for current President Otto Pérez Molina, whose role in the brutal counterinsurgency campaign of the early 1980s in the Ixil region has again come into question during the genocide trial. López Bonillla was sworn into his Cabinet position when Pérez Molina began his term in January 2012.
A whole new set of statements made by López Bonilla came under fire on Tuesday, after a police officer was shot and killed in San Rafael Las Flores. The Minister of the Interior publicly accused Xinka leaders of orchestrating an operation to take 23 police officers hostage in Jalapa.
Community and regional leaders representing the non-Mayan Indigenous Xinka population in southeastern Guatemala have been outspoken opponents of El Escobal and mining in the region. Four Xinka community leaders were abducted by armed masked men on March 17 while on their way home to the neighboring department of Jalapa after observing the community consultation process in El Volcancito, San Rafael las Flores.
Rigoberto Aguilar and Roberto López, both local leaders of the Indigenous Xinka Community of Santa María Xalapán, managed to escape. Roberto González Ucelo, President of the Indigenous Xinka Community of Santa María Xalapán and of the Xinka Parliament, survived after a police operative was sent in. But Exaltación Marcos Ucelo, Secretary of the Xinka Parliament, was found dead. Now six weeks later, the Xinka Parliament has denounced that no progress has been made to bring those responsible to justice.
In an atmosphere of heightened tension after Saturday’s shooting by El Escobal security forces, communities mobilized in San Rafael Las Flores and Jalapa against the mining project on Monday, denouncing the agreement being signed in the capital between Tahoe and the government and the presence of municipal authorities at the event. Conflicts involving the national police force ensued in both locations. In San Rafael Las Flores, a police officer was shot and killed on Tuesday morning when police attempted to evict the community resistance. In Jalapa, 23 police officers were taken hostage and disarmed on Monday afternoon at a blockade between the town of Jalapa and Mataquescuintla. A massive police response involving some 2,000 officers was sent to rescue the first group. In the process, on Tuesday morning, several police officers were wounded and a campesino was killed. Police vehicles were also torched and destroyed in both locations.
On Tuesday, Vice Minister of the Interior Edy Juárez publicly stated that community leader Rudy Pivaral was responsible for inciting violence in San Rafael Las Flores, leading to the death of police officer Eduardo Demetrio Camacho Orozco. Minister of the Interior López Bonilla publicly accused Xinka leaders Roberto González Ucelo and Rigoberto Ucelo of orchestrating the conflict in Jalapa and said he would hold them responsible for any acts carried out with the weapons taken from the police officers when they were held hostage.
“They hold me responsible for all the problems that occurred,” Xinka leader Roberto González Ucelo told the Independent Media Center (CMI) on Wednesday. “I have proof that I went to Cuilapa, I was in Cuilapa, so I didn’t organize [anything] because I was on my way to Cuilapa.” There was evidence of the trip, he said, from various receipts and the registration of his visit in the municipal office in Cuilapa.
An outpouring of support for the Xinka Parliament, community leaders and the local resistance to mining came from Indigenous, campesino and human rights organizations following the government accusations.
“The atmosphere is really tense here,” González Ucelo said of Santa María Xalapán. “I don’t know what’s going to happen.”
On Wednesday, the Office of the Public Prosecutor requested the arrest of 18 people on charges related to the conflicts earlier this week in San Rafael Las Flores and Jalapa. However, the suspension of constitutional rights regarding legal detention and interrogation under the State of Siege leaves community leaders and outspoken mining opponents in the region vulnerable to unchecked repression.
Largely silent throughout most of the recent developments, Tahoe Resources issued a statement on Wednesday, May 1, “to clarify inaccurate media reports about violent incidents that have broken out in recent days.” In line with the company’s response after the murder of Xinka leader Exaltación Marcos Ucelo, Tahoe claimed the incident in Jalapa had nothing whatsoever to do with the mine.
Regarding protests against the mining project, Tahoe Resources CEO Kevin McArthur stated that, “while many of these activities have been peaceful and respectful, violence from outside influences has escalated in the past weeks since we received our operating permit,” according to the statement.
“Tahoe’s Guatemala security manager was detained by authorities on Tuesday,” the company confirmed, but alleges the arrest was simply “due to the highly charged atmosphere and inaccurate press reports about Saturday’s events.”
Tahoe is also sticking to López Bonilla’s initial claim that only rubber bullets were used, adding that the Escobal security force acted to repel a hostile protest of some “20 people armed with machetes” at the mine gate. “We regret any injuries caused by rubber bullets, but we take the protection of our employees and the mine seriously,” said McArthur, according to the statement.
“As a result of the incidents in recent days, work at the mine has slowed and construction and development is expected to return to normal by Thursday,” according to the company statement.
But if the past couple months are any indication, there is no real normal when it comes to El Escobal. Normal has been ongoing community-based resistance in the face of violent repression, which will likely escalate under the State of Siege.
For Oscar Morales García, the “violence from outside influences” has come from Tahoe Resources. “The truth here is that the social peace was shattered when the mining company came to San Rafael,” he told Upside Down World.
Morales García knows that Annual General Meetings are coming up this month for Goldcorp (today, May 2, in Toronto) and Tahoe (May 9 in Vancouver), and he has a message for the shareholders of both companies.
“Tahoe’s silver, minerals and gold in San Rafael are now stained with blood. It may be true that the government authorized an exploitation license, but what would be called a social license for Minera San Rafael doesn’t exist here. It doesn’t exist and it never will,” said Morales García.
“The message for the shareholders is loud and strong,” he continued. “You don’t have a social license. The resistance is just beginning. And we’re in it for the long haul.”
From Upside Down World: http://upsidedownworld.org/main/guatemala-archives-33/4270-state-of-siege-mining-conflict-escalates-in-guatemala
