International Indigenous anti-dam activists join two year anniversary celebration of blockades in Malaysia

by | Oct 30, 2015 | Indigenous Autonomy, Obstruction & Occupation

By , , , and  / Intercontinental Cry

Indigenous resistance against the proposed Baram Dam receives international support for the celebration of the second year anniversary of the Baram Dam blockades: indigenous anti-dam activists from many parts of the world adopt declaration at the banks of the Baram River in Sarawak, Malaysia.

(BARAM / SARAWAK / MALAYSIA) On October 23rd 2015, indigenous communities from around the world gathered on the banks of the Baram River in Sarawak, Malaysia in the context of the second year anniversary of the indigenous-led blockades against the proposed Baram Dam. Two years ago indigenous communities set up two blockades and chased workers and researchers from the site. The works on the dam have come to a standstill and last month the government of Sarawak announced a moratorium.

Indigenous anti-dam activists from Indonesia, the Philippines, Cambodia, Brazil, the US, Honduras, and from around Malaysia united at the blockades to stand in solidarity with the resistance against the Baram Dam and to strengthen ties between their communities. The week-long event is called the World Indigenous Summit on Environment and Rivers, WISER Baram 2015, and was hosted by the grassroots network SAVE Rivers.

Participants sharing their experiences through workshops at the village of Tanjung Tepalit

During celebrations at the two blockades, the proposed dam site, as well as at a conference in the town of Miri, the participants were united by the similarities between their struggles. “I have gained a lot of experience from all of the delegates. And with such information, I am confident enough such experiences will be fundamental to us – the Baram People – and our strategies to continue to fight and stop the proposed Baram Dam,” said James Nyurang, who hosted the delegates at his village.

According to Berta Cáceres, 2015 Goldman Prize winner from Honduras, “this summit on indigenous peoples and rivers has a special value in that its actions give strength to the historic resistance of our peoples and makes visible the grave aggressions and conflict generated by the privatization of rivers and the construction of dams within Indigenous communities and regions.”

Peter Kallang, Chairman of SAVE Rivers, rallies the crowd at the blockade at Kilometer 15

The declaration also calls on governments and institutions to stop presenting dams as climate neutral, and recognize that dams emit large amounts of greenhouse gases, including methane.

Participants in the summit collectively produced a declaration that acknowledges the widespread suffering and destruction caused by dams, and stresses the importance of obtaining Free, Prior, and Informed Consent from communities impacted by dam building. It urges all stakeholders to act in full accountability, transparency, and compliance of all human rights principals and values.

The indigenous defense of the Baram river stands united with other communities’ struggles for land, livelihood, spirituality, identity, and community cohesion.

 

Ahousaht Nation Makes Salmon Farm Pull Anchors

by | Sep 22, 2015 | Indigenous Autonomy, Obstruction & Occupation

by  / Intercontinental Cry 

Ahousaht, BC Canada – On Monday morning at daybreak Cermaq has said it will be pulling anchor on its new salmon farm north of Tofino, British Columbia. The Province of BC granted Cermaq licenses and permits to operate a relocation fish farm at a site called Yaakswiis in July.

When Cermaq attempted to anchor the farm there 10 days ago, five Ahousaht men stepped onto the farm and told the Cermaq crew to leave. They vowed they would risk arrest rather than see another salmon farm in their territory.

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The standoff began on September 9, as Cermaq was dropping its anchors in a remote region in Ahousaht territory. The Ahousaht don’t want more salmon farms because they have seen a decline in shellfish, salmon and herring since salmon farms appeared in their territory in about 1999.

There are currently already 16 Cermaq salmon farm sites in Ahousaht territory. Despite promises of employment and prosperity only 15 jobs have been created in the remote village of 1000 people; Ahousaht Nation itself has 2000 + members in total.

“It’s common sense,” said Ahousaht tourism business owner, Lennie John who was the first on scene when Cermaq tried to anchor the farm.

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“We fish in these waters for food, we don’t go into Cermaq’s kitchen and leave a mess all over their floor.”

Food, people and support poured into the remote protest camp. People slept in tents tied down to prevent them from blowing away. A small boat was used to cook meals. They called it the Yaakswiis Ocean Action Camp.

The Yaakswiis warriors stated that the Cermaq salmon farm was not legal because the Ahousaht people had not been consulted, nor did they consent, a requirement written into the protocol Cermaq and MHSS (Maaqtusiis Hahouthee Stewardship Society) signed. Consent is also a requirement to fulfill the legal obligations the province has in regards to Ahousaht’s collectively held Aboriginal rights and title.

Additionally, Free Prior and Informed Consent is required by the UN Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, therefore, they declared all Cermaq protocols, agreements and operations were nullified and illegal.

70b“We don’t want any more salmon farm sites in our territory and will be taking a much closer look at this industry,” Joe James Rampanen.

“We don’t want future generations to inherit a legacy of pollution, these waters feed us.”
“Just because three chiefs signed your agreement doesn’t mean you have consent from the whole Ahousaht Nation,” Marshall Thomas told the Cermaq crew.

Lennie John said he will be watching where this farm goes. “Cermaq, you are done here.”

Monday night there is a community celebration dinner in Ahousaht. The Ahousaht are looking forward to written confirmation from Cermaq and MHSS that no new fish farms will be sited, relocated or expanded for time immemorial in Ahousaht territory.

This article originally appeared at Gorilla Radio blog. Photos: Yaakswiis.  Republished with permission by Intercontinental Cry.
Rising Tensions in Bolivia Over Oil and Gas Exploitation on Indigenous Lands

Rising Tensions in Bolivia Over Oil and Gas Exploitation on Indigenous Lands

by | Aug 31, 2015 | Indigenous Autonomy, Mining & Drilling, Obstruction & Occupation

by Fionuala Cregan / Intercontinental Cry

 

On August 19, members of the People’s Guarani Assembly of Takova Mora blocked a main highway in the Chaco region of Bolivia demanding their right to free, prior and informed consent regarding oil extraction on their communal lands. The Government responded by sending in 300 police who broke up the demonstration by force.

Police repression of the blockade in Takovo Mora. (Photo OIEDC)

Police repression of the blockade in Takovo Mora. (Photo OIEDC)

Using tear gas and batons, police then raided the nearby community of Yateirenda–where many of the demonstrators had fled–damaging property and violently arresting 27 people, including 2 youth aged 14 and 17.

According to eye witnesses,

The behaviour of the police was more like that of mercenaries who raided the community without any arrest warrant, attacked houses and used violence to detain leaders.

All 27 detainees were released the following day; however, 17 of them were given extrajudicial sanctions (medidas sustantivas) to prevent them from participating in road blocks or being involved in any events related to the Takova Mora conflict.

This confrontation takes place amidst rising tensions between the Government of Evo Morales and Indigenous Peoples, environmental advocacy groups and civil society organizations critical of his extractivist policies.

Read more at Intercontinental Cry

Barro Blanco Protesters Injured and Arrested During Crackdown in Panama

Barro Blanco Protesters Injured and Arrested During Crackdown in Panama

by | Aug 6, 2015 | Colonialism & Conquest, Indigenous Autonomy, Obstruction & Occupation

By  / Intercontinental Cry

Protests against the Barro Blanco hydro dam in western Panama turned violent last Saturday, July 25, when riot police, claiming to act in self-defense, unleashed pepper spray and batons on some 50 Ngäbe activists, women and children among them. At least three protesters were badly injured in the clash.

The crackdown occurred during a visit to the area by the Panamanian Vice President Isabel Saint Malo, who, under the pretext of dialogue, convened three Ngäbe leaders behind closed doors at the Centro Misionero (Mission Centre) in the town of Tolé. Despite a reasonable request to be included in the meeting, leaders from local community groups were excluded. Activists responded to Saint Malo’s move by blockading the Carretera Interamericana, the country’s principle highway.

Protesters, including women and children, recover after clashes with the police. (Photo: Oscar Sogandares)

Protesters, including women and children, recover after clashes with the police. (Photo: Oscar Sogandares)

According to the Ngäbe, at around 10:15 am, in scenes reminiscent of the Martinelli years, the police reacted violently to disperse the 50-strong protesters, destroying their equipment, trashing their camps, and burning their banners.

The police deny improper use of force.

Edilma Pinto, 17, suffered a fractured foot during the police crackdown. (Photo: Oscar Sogandares)

Edilma Pinto, 17, suffered a fractured foot during the police crackdown. (Photo: Oscar Sogandares)

 

Many fled the scene before 20 people were arrested (including several minors) and dispatched to the city of Santiago for processing.

While in the private meeting with Saint Malo, the Cacique of Muná, Chito Gallardo, and the Mayor of Muná, Rolando Carpintero, learned of the arrests and quickly intervened to have them returned. The injured were soon taken to the Casa Misionero for treatment and for the Vice President to bear witness.

According to one person at the scene, the vice president appeared coolly uninterested.

Some 20 Ngäbe protesters were detained by the police. (Photo: Oscar Sogandares)

Some 20 Ngäbe protesters were detained by the police. (Photo: Oscar Sogandares)

 

For several weeks, hundreds of police units have been stationed in and around Tolé, including numerous SENAFRONT troops, an elite militarized squad funded in part by the United States. SENAFRONT is normally charged with defending the jungle frontier with Colombia, making their presence of considerable significance.

Under the US Leahy Law on Human Rights, the US Department of State is prohibited from providing military assistance to foreign units who violate human rights with impunity.

Partly funded by the US State Department, elite SENAFRONT troops have been dispatched to the area. (Photo: Oscar Sogandares)

Partly funded by the US State Department, elite SENAFRONT troops have been dispatched to the area. (Photo: Oscar Sogandares)

 

The clashes on the Interamericana foreshadow greater unrest as Barro Blanco’s owner, Generadora del Istmo (GENISA) – a corporation owned by the controversial Kafie family, now mired in a high-level corruption scandal in Honduras – scrambles to complete the final 5-10% of the hydro dam’s construction.

The company has never sought the free, informed, and prior consent of the indigenous communities living on the banks of the Tabasará river, while the project’s funders, the Dutch and German investment banks FMO and DFE, admit to failing their own due diligence tests. Unfortunately, all funds have now been dispensed to GENISA and the banks themselves made a point of threatening the government when it suspended the project earlier this year.

The negative impacts of Barro Blanco have been identified by scores of technical teams, independent experts, international observers, and the United Nations. Those same impacts are nowhere to be found in GENISA’s Environmental Impact Assessment. Among them, the dam will displace several indigenous and campesino communities, including the community of Kiad, where a unique school and cultural centre is developing the written script of the Ngäbere language.

The ancient Ngabere language is taught at this school house in Kiad. (Photo: Richard Arghiris)

The ancient Ngabere language is taught at this school house in Kiad. (Photo: Richard Arghiris)

 

Additional impacts include the loss of farm plots and fish stocks — vital sources of sustenance for indigenous and campesino communities in the region – as well as the loss of several ancient petroglyphs, part of Panama’s national patrimony and a special significance to the Mama Tata religion, a Ngäbe revivalist movement that syncretises indigenous animism and Catholicism.

The Ngabere language is a great source of cultural pride. (Photo: Richard Arghiris)

The Ngabere language is a great source of cultural pride. (Photo: Richard Arghiris)

 

Among the most devout followers of Mama Tata are the M22 resistance movement, who successfully blockaded the entrance to the dam for 38 consecutive days – until just ten days ago. International news footage of the groups praying and dancing on the highway may have influenced the government’s decision to enforce a ‘soft’ take-over of the site entrance. In contrast to the force deployed outside Tolé, Ngäbe women lying in the path of machinery were carefully removed.

Construction of the dam has now resumed and M22 are continuing to pray day and night by the highway. They complain of psychological intimidation with the police shining high intensity lamps on their camp during the night and aggressively entering the temple they have built near the river banks.

Days before their eviction from the site entrance, M22 gather for prayers under police spotlights. (Photo: Oscar Sogandares)

Days before their eviction from the site entrance, M22 gather for prayers under police spotlights. (Photo: Oscar Sogandares)

 

For his part, Panamanian President Varela, who continues to talk condescendingly about giving the Ngäbe ‘the keys to the dam’ upon its completion, appears to have acquiesced to pressures from his own business community, tacitly enabling foreign corporations who respect neither the environment nor international law nor indigenous or human rights.

The Supreme Court has cheered him on by annulling a moratorium on hydro projects passed by the environment agency, ANAM, who were concerned with the stress being placed on Panama’s delicate but biologically rich watersheds. With the crackdown last week, the Panamanian government appears officially back to business as usual.

From Intercontinental Cry: https://intercontinentalcry.org/barro-blanco-protesters-injured-and-arrested-28467/#imageclose-28472

Indigenous Activists Block Entry to the Barro Blanco Hydro Dam

Indigenous Activists Block Entry to the Barro Blanco Hydro Dam

by | Aug 5, 2015 | Biodiversity & Habitat Destruction, Colonialism & Conquest, Indigenous Autonomy, Obstruction & Occupation

By and  / Intercontinental Cry

June 14, 2015

NGÄBE ISSUE ULTIMATUM TO THE GOVERNMENT OF PANAMA: CANCEL THE PROJECT BY MONDAY

A 30-strong splinter group of Ngäbe from the M10 resistance movement has blocked the entrance to the Barro Blanco hydroelectric dam in western Panama, preventing workers from entering the site. The 15 year struggle of the Tabasará river communities to protect their livelihoods, their culture, and their ancestral heritage now appears to be entering a tense new phase. With negotiations exhausted and the dam 95% complete, M10 has an issued an ultimatum for the government to cancel the project by Monday, June 15, 2015. It is unclear how the government will respond.

“Being Ngäbe-Buglé cultural patrimony,” said Clementina Pérez, part of the group camped at Barro Blanco’s gates. “Our river, our mother earth, our ecology, our existence, we are here to make known to the national and international community that this patrimony belongs to us and to the church of Mama Tata. With the conservation of peace, liberty, justice and unity, liberation and social justice… [we ask] the President of the Republic the cancellation and removal of the dam from our communities, our river and our mother earth, which belong to us as original people of the Americas…”

Funded by European banks – the German Investment Corporation (DEG) and the Dutch Development Bank (FMO) – the dam is set to inundate a string of Ngäbe and campesino communities, all of whom have voiced their objections from the outset. The flood will destroy ancestral petroglyphs, fertile agricultural grounds, and Mama Tata cultural centres, including a unique school where the emerging written script of the Ngäbere language is being developed and disseminated. The dam will significantly impact the river’s marine life, wiping out migratory fish species which many communities – both up and down stream – rely upon for essential protein. None of the Tabasará communities have provided their free, informed and prior consent to the dam, a fact recently confirmed by the FMO’s own independent complaints mechanism (ICM).

 “Lenders should have sought greater clarity on whether there was consent to the project from the appropriate indigenous authorities prior to project approval,” said an ICM report, published on May 29, 2015. “[The plan] contains no provision on land acquisition and resettlement and nothing on biodiversity and natural resources management. Neither does it contain any reference to issues related to cultural heritage…”

The report is the latest in a series of professional analyses that pour a thick layer of scorn over the dam project’s owner, Generadora del Istmo (GENISA). Demonstrably unlawful, GENISA has been condemned by numerous independent investigators, the United Nations, several international NGOs, and Panama’s own environmental agency, ANAM, who found a raft of flaws and short-comings in their environmental impact assessment.

But despite failing their own due diligence, the banks appear to have shrugged off the ICM report with an insipid call for “constructive dialogue” and “a solution for a way forward.” In February this year, the FMO chose to threaten the government of Panama after building work was temporarily suspended on the recommendation of ANAM. Writing to the Vice President, the FMO warned that the suspension “May weigh upon future investment decisions, and harm the flow of long-term investments into Panama.”

The government seems to have taken this threat to heart. Panama’s president, Juan Carlos Varela, who was elected to office in 2014, flip-flopped on Barro Blanco before finally falling in line. Last week, while proffering flimsy reassurances about having found a human rights solution, his government left the negotiating table and signaled an end to the suspension of works. M10 claims the work never stopped and has been continuing clandestinely. They are now mobilizing for action.

Clementina Perez (Photo: Oscar Sogandares)

Clementina Perez (Photo: Oscar Sogandares)

“If this situation is not resolved,” said Clementina Pérez, “We will go to the Panamerican highway to ask together, at a national level, the cancellation of Barro Blanco…”

Rising with stark grey walls above the denuded banks of the Tabasará, Barro Blanco has become a symbol of the previous administration, its fundamental violence and contempt for the rule of law. The former President Ricardo Martinelli – now on the run in the United States and facing a corruption probe back home – provoked no less than four major uprisings as he grasped for land and resources in Panama’s indigenous territories. Heavy-handed repression resulted in the deaths of several protesters and bystanders, including an unarmed teenage boy who was shot in the face by police. Barro Blanco is the visible legacy of a proudly thuggish President who serially abused Panama’s Indigenous Peoples and plundered the country at will. Thus far, Varela has been keen to strike a more decent and humane tone. How he now handles the crisis evolving on the banks of the Tabasará River will be a demonstration of his sincerity, or lack of.

From Intercontinental Cry: https://intercontinentalcry.org/ngabe-block-entry-to-barro-blanco-hydro-dam-panama-28186/

Achuar seize 14 oil wells in Peru, demanding compensation for exploitation

Achuar seize 14 oil wells in Peru, demanding compensation for exploitation

by | Jan 28, 2015 | Indigenous Autonomy, Obstruction & Occupation

By teleSUR

Indigenous communities in Peru occupied 14 oil wells, paralyzing South American energy firm Pluspetrol’s production, in a protest to demand better compensation for the use of their land.

Some 380 members of the Achuar community took control of the facilities in Peru’s northern Amazon region of Loreto Monday, halting the production of some 3,100 barrels of crude oil. Pluspetrol said in a statement that the protesters also seized eight boats on the Tigre River, including two that provided supplies for the company.

Pluspetrol has been operating in Loreto in block 1-AB since 2001 and has been the target of many indigenous protests in the last few years, demanding both compensation for land exploitation and the cleanup of contamination from spilled crude oil.

Carlos Sandi, president of local indigenous and environmentalist group Feconaco, said the community was demanding better compensation for the exploitation of their land, including the installation of an industrial sawmill and the development of a community-run enterprise to help create jobs for the locals in the area.

“They have taken their measures of protest and are waiting for dialogue to resolve this as soon as possible,” Sandi told Reuters.

However, there seems little chance of a dialogue since, according to Pluspetrol, the community should not receive compensation because it is not within the area of direct influence of oil operations.

Its contract on the lot expires in August, while the government has not announced a new bid date for the rights to continue developing on the block.

From teleSUR: http://www.telesurtv.net/english/contenidos/2015/01/28/noticia_0024.html