OUR
VIEWPOINT
-
16 October: World Food Sovereignty Day
The
economic development model promoted by global power has already
clearly shown that it leads to social and environmental disaster,
both on a local and on a global scale. Climate change is the clearest
example regarding the environment, while increasing food scarcity
suffered by millions of people, proves this at the social level.
Global
policies do nothing to solve problems; they only make them more
serious. This is not out of ignorance but according to plan. The
result is the appropriation of more and more resources by increasingly
larger and more powerful transnational corporations. Seeds, water,
soil, biodiversity, all become the property of these companies
and the local inhabitants are stripped of the resources ensuring
their survival. What follow are but a few examples of the above:
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Family farming, producing a wide variety of food, is destroyed
to give place to industrial production of a single product, generally
not intended for human consumption and normally for export.
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Enormous areas of farmland are given over to the production of
pulpwood (eucalyptus and pine trees), or for agrofuels (corn,
oil palm, sugar cane, jatropha).
Mangroves
– a source of life for thousands of local inhabitants – are destroyed
to give place to industrial shrimp production for export.
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Commercial logging not only affects the availability of food and
other resources on which local inhabitants depend, but is also
the spearhead for the replacement of the forest by export-oriented
monoculture plantations (soybean, oil palm, rubber).
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Oil production and mining contaminate water, air and the resources
used as food by the local inhabitants (fishing, hunting, gathering).
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Large hydroelectric dams evict entire populations and destroy
the food resources on which thousands of people who live in the
affected area depend.
None
of this happens by chance. Decisions are taken in full awareness
of the impacts involved. Under cover of the “sustainable development”
discourse, large-scale destruction is going on, affecting nature
and all the resources that until then had ensured the local inhabitants’
food sovereignty.
The
divorce between the needs of the great majority of people and
global policies is increasingly wider. While people clamour for
food, sufficient in quantity and appropriate in quality, the governments
open the doors to foreign investment, strengthening the process
of appropriation and destruction of resources. As a result, the
inhabitants of countries rich in natural resources are stripped
of them, thus becoming poorer and suffering from hunger and malnutrition.
To
top it all, even the most serious problems – such as climate change
– are perceived from the standpoint of the economic powers as
“business opportunities” and are treated as such. It is thus that
a scientifically absurd, but economically profitable “carbon market”
has been developed, where destructive monoculture tree plantations
are advertised as positive “carbon sinks” where the conservation
or destruction of forests are negotiated for dollars, where strongly
questioned agrofuels are promoted as humanity’s lifebuoy, where
the impossible becomes possible: that burning of fossil
fuels can be “compensated for” and people and companies can become
“carbon neutral” through a simple payment of money to skilful
carbon market entrepreneurs.
Faced
by this scenario, many struggles have arisen seeking real alternatives
to face the growing social and environmental catastrophe that
large corporations have imposed on humanity. Many of them
are joining together under the banner of food sovereignty, which
appeals to the good sense of devoting land to satisfy peoples’
need for food, promoting family and cooperative farming as the
basis for the production of food, encouraging locally-based trade,
promoting resource conservation through appropriate farming and
forest-use practices. Which appeals, in sum, to social justice
based on the responsible use of nature.
On
this 16 October we are therefore making a joint appeal to everyone
so that this date may serve to further unify struggles to defend
and promote peoples’ Food Sovereignty.
Via Campesina - World
Rainforest Movement
index
FOOD SOVEREIGNITY
vs. AGROFUELS
- Via Campesina: Food Sovereignty as the peoples’ alternative
to destructive agribusiness
Via Campesina is an
international and intercultural movement that coordinates national
and regional organisations of small farmers, peasants, rural women,
landless peasants, agricultural workers, indigenous peoples, migrants,
fisherfolk and men and women who work in artisan activities.
This autonomous, multicultural, multi-ethnic and pluralist movement
primarily works for changes in agricultural production, in consumption
habits, in the role of women, education, health, environment etc.
The central themes of La Via Campesina have been enriched through
the cosmic vision of indigenous peoples, which preserves the mother
earth against natural disasters, global warming and the ecological
crisis provoked by unabated unrestrained capitalism.
The organisation has been pushing the concept of food sovereignty
up to the point that it is now part of the mainstream discussion
on agricultural and food policies. Food sovereignty is the right
of peoples and governments to choose the way food is produced
and consumed in order to respect our livelihoods, as well as the
policies that support this choice.
However, agriculture and food production are presently dominated
by transnational corporations whose industrial production pattern
seeks the complete vertical integration and full domination and
control over food and agriculture from the seed to the plate in
order to take in huge profits. This exploits workers, concentrates
economic and political power, and destroys rural communities.
Food sovereignty demands that food should not be marketed as a
mere commodity in order to obtain economic and political advantages
and neither should the base of food production –biodiversity,
land and water- be destroyed, degraded, used or appropriated at
the expense of other people or other nations. A genuine agrarian
reform should guarantee everyone the right to work on the land,
and democratize its ownership, giving priority to family, social
and cooperative forms of agriculture.
In the face of the present drama of global warming false solutions
such as agrofuels produced from monocultures –including tree plantations–
that undermine food sovereignty are being promoted.
Indeed, industrial agriculture is a major contributor to global
warming and climate change by: transporting food all around the
world, imposing industrial forms of production (mechanization,
intensification, use of agrochemicals, monoculture…), destroying
biodiversity and its capacity to capture carbon, converting land
and forests into non-agricultural areas, transforming agriculture
from an energy producer into an energy consumer.
The agrofuel “package” comes wrapped in the agribusiness model
imposed by the transnational corporations who see this as yet
another opportunity to increase their profits and control, while
at the same time destroying peasants’ lievelihoods.
The basic inputs needed in order to produce agrofuels on a grand
scale is the existence of three factors in abundance: land, water,
and sun. So, corporations immediately turned to the southern hemisphere,
especially to those countries near the tropics and those that
have abundant land. In many countries this expansion of area cultivated
by agrofuels has taken over areas dedicated to food and also to
dairy cattle. The possibility of earning a lot of money has allured
foreign capitals to buy land and expand large scale monocultures
in Southern countries –including the “green deserts” of eucalyptus
and pines in Brazil, Uruguay, Ecuador, Chile, South Africa, Swaziland,
Thailand and others, the oil palm plantations in Colombia, Cameroon,
Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea, etc.- thus bringing
a huge concentration of property and a process of de-nationalization
of land ownership.
In relation to the environment, the monoculture form of production
based on agrotoxics is going to seriously affect the environment,
destroy the existing biodiversity, affect rainfall, and also add
to climate warming. Either the “first generation” of agrofuels
based on the different forms of sugar from crops or the “second
generation” based on cellulose from wood –including genetically
modified trees which pose an additional risk to the environment–
increase corporate control and destroy existing biodiversity,
contributing to the imbalance and to global warming.
Apart from bringing about greater environmental problems for the
producing countries, industrial agrofuel production will revive
colonial plantation systems, bring back slave work and seriously
increase the use of agrochemicals, as well as contribute to deforestation
and biodiversity destruction. Intensive agrofuel production is
not a solution to global warming; neither will it solve the global
crisis in the agricultural sector. The impacts will again be felt
most seriously in developing countries, as industrialized countries
will not be able to cover their agrofuel demand and will need
to import huge amounts from the South.
Via Campesina believes that solutions to the current crisis have
to emerge from organized social actors that are developing modes
of production, trade and consumption based on justice, solidarity
and healthy communities. No technological fix will solve the current
global environmental and social disaster.
A set of true solutions should include:
* Sustainable small-scale farming, which is labor-intensive and
requires little energy use, can actually contribute to stop and
reverse the effects of climate change.
* A true agrarian reform, that strengthens small-scale farming,
promotes the production of food as the primary use of land, and
regards food as a basic human right that should not be treated
as a commodity.
* Local food production will stop the unnecessary transportation
of food and ensure that what reaches our tables is safe, fresh
and nutritious.
* Changing consumption and production patterns which promote waste
and unnecessary consumption by a minority of humankind, while
hundreds of millions still suffer hunger and deprivation.
Therefore, Vía Campesina demands:
* The complete dismantling of agribusiness companies: they are
stealing the land of small producers, producing junk food and
creating environmental disasters.
* The replacement of industrialized agriculture and animal production
by small-scale sustainable agriculture supported by genuine agrarian
reform programs.
* The banning of all forms of technologies such as genetic manipulation
that endanger natural resources.
* The promotion of sane and sustainable energy policies. That
includes consuming less energy and decentralized energy instead
of promoting large-scale agrofuel production as is currently the
case.
* The implementation of agricultural and trade policies at local,
national and international levels supporting sustainable agriculture
and local food consumption. This includes the ban on the kinds
of subsidies that lead to the dumping of cheap food on markets.
Article produced by WRM based on documents from Via Campesina
index
- Colombia: “Green washed” palm increases threats to food sovereignty
and human rights
It seems like a slap in the face. The oil palm agro-industry has
chosen precisely 16 October, World Food Sovereignty Day, and the
Latin American country most hit by oil palm – Colombia – to hold
the first Latin American meeting of the “Roundtable on Sustainable
Palm Oil.”
This is an attempt by palm grower groups – presently on the rise
because of the possibility of their oil being used to produce
agrofuels – to acquire certification from the Roundtable. They
are seeking a “greenwash” that will enable them to overcome the
negative publicity received by agrofuels regarding the food crisis
and because of their harvest of pain and blood with the terrible
violations of the Colombian communities’ human rights.
The Colombian social and environmental organizations’ emphatic
rejection of the attempts to expand monoculture oil palm plantations
states that, far from solving the climate crisis, they lead to
“the land no longer being allocated to food production and therefore
creating peoples’ greater food dependency on large multinational
corporations. Vast stretches of land are given over to plantations
for agrofuel; tropical forests are being cleared to plant thousands
of hectares of oil palm, sugar cane and other crops.” “In many
cases, palm plantations are expanding over the territories of
displaced communities” through repression, death and misery. (see
full statement at: http://www.wrm.org.uy/subjects/agrofuels/Declaration_
Social_Organizations_Communities_Regarding_RTSPO.html)
However, it is not only in Colombia that there is proof of the
serious negative impacts of monoculture oil palm plantations.
Indonesia, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea, Cameroon, Uganda, Côte
d’Ivoire, Cambodia, Thailand, Ecuador and other countries can
give evidence of what they involve: violation of the right to
food and food sovereignty, violation of human rights, illegal
appropriation of territories, deforestation of tropical forests,
stepping up of climate change, the threat they imply for millions
of Indigenous people, conflicts over land tenure, increased use
of agrochemicals, just to name a few impacts mentioned in an international
declaration promoted by the Network for Alternatives to Market
Impunity and Globalization against the Roundtable on Sustainable
Palm Oil and in support of Colombian organizations (http://www.wrm.org.uy/subjects/agrofuels/
International_Declaration_RTSPO.pdf). The international declaration
originated at the Territory and Life Meeting held in Udine, Italy
last September, where work was carried out around several issues
with the common denominator of the imposition of social and economic
models that destroy peoples, deeply affect the environment, convert
territories of life into territories of death, torture, the negation
of rights and the transformation of human beings into a merchandise.
Monoculture oil palm plantations have been denounced as one of
the expressions of this ransacking by market interests exploiting
ecosystems and natural resources to feed the consumer and social
welfare of a very small part of humanity – basically in the North
– and to deprive a considerable part of humanity of the minimum
conditions of survival.
You are invited to support the International declaration by sending
a message with the name and country of the organization to the
following e-mail address:
unsustainablepalmoil@gmail.com
The declaration denounces that the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm
Oil “is an instrument for the expansion of the palm business and
not an authentic strategy to contain its negative environmental
and social impacts. Many of the member companies of RSPO continue
to destroy vast areas of the rainforest and to violate human rights,
as in the case of Wilmar International on the Isle of Bugala (Uganda),
PT SMART, Agro Group and IOI Group in Indonesia, FEDEPALMA in
Colombia, Unilever in Indonesia, Malaysia and Côte d’Ivoire.”
At the same time, “the serious crimes, irregularities and paramilitary
control related with the palm oil agribusiness” are silenced.
The main argument for rejecting the Roundtable on Sustainable
Palm Oil is that the principles and criteria it proposes for the
definition of sustainability include large-scale plantations and
it is well known that monoculture oil palm plantations “like all
agro-industrial monoculture plantations ARE NOT and NEVER can
be sustainable.”
What is needed is a change, a radical change in the way of “producing,
transforming, marketing and consuming farm products.” For this
to be possible it is necessary to halt the industrial production
of food contributing to climate change and to the destruction
of small rural communities; to end the privatization of natural
resources; to dismantle agribusiness companies, financial speculation
over raw material and the economic and market policies responsible
for the food crisis (and emergency); to replace industrialized
agriculture by sustainable peasant and family agriculture, supported
by true agrarian reform programmes; to consume less energy and
produce solar and wind energy and biogas locally instead of promoting
large-scale agrofuels; to implement agricultural and trade policies
on local, national and international levels supporting sustainable
peasant agriculture and the consumption of local and ecological
food. This includes the total abolition of subventions that lead
to unfair competition through subsidized food.
For their part, the Colombian organizations are demanding “a halt
in the expansion of palm plantations and the processing of raw
material for agrofuels on the lands of local communities, aimed
at supplying markets for unsustainable consumption, at the expense
of sacrificing our heritage and territories.” They ask, in exchange
“for a rural policy enabling local communities to remain in their
territories and strengthen their traditional ways of production
and food sovereignty.” For this to be possible it is necessary
to “recognize and respect the rights of the local communities
over their territories and heritage and give reparation to the
country’s victims of the oil palm agro-industrial model.”
At
the moment of publishing this bulletin we receive the sad news
of yet another victim: on October 14, a communal leader from the
Curvarado area, WALBERTO HOYOS RIVAS, was shot dead by the paramilitary
who serve agroindustry interests encroaching on communal lands
for the expansion of oil palm plantations in the area.
By Raquel Nuñez, WRM, e-mail:
raquelnu@wrm.org.uy, based on both declarations.
index
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Why certification of agrofuels won't work
Arguments in favour of certification often explain that a company
wanting to sell its products as sustainably produced has to have
some way of proving this. A consumer who wants to buy socially
and environmentally friendly products needs a label that they
can trust on the products. When the problem is framed in this
way, certification seems to be the obvious answer. But the certification
of timber products provides three lessons that are important in
any consideration of whether certification of agrofuels might
help to prevent the worst excesses of a destructive industry.
First, the certification system has to be credible. The standards
have to be clear and have to be interpreted consistently by third
party certifiers. To prevent a conflict of interest in the assessment,
there has to be no commercial relationship between the certifier
and the company being certified. In the timber sector, no certification
system has achieved these basic requirements.
The products have to be tracked from where they are grown to where
they are sold. The problems of developing a rigorous chain of
custody control for timber products was pointed out in a 2007
report by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development.
Part of the problem, notes OECD, is that "Wood is processed
into many different products and sourced from many different wood
species, origins and owners." Paper mills, for example, can
source their wood chips from a wide range of sources (from thinnings
from thousands of different forestry operations, waste from a
range of sawmills and from recycling schemes). In order to accommodate
the industry, in 2004, the Forest Stewardship Council amended
its chain of custody certification. The new “mixed sources” label
allows FSC's logo to appear on products that contain as little
as 10 per cent FSC-certified material.
A label that guarantees that only a small percentage of the product
comes from well-managed sources, doesn't indicate the percentage
that is actually certified and relies on companies to confirm
that the rest is not from destructive monocultures or clearcut
forests, is guilty of misleading consumers.
The second lesson is that even if a perfect certification system
were to be developed (which has not so far happened), there is
nothing to prevent the industry from setting up its own, far weaker,
certification scheme. FSC, PEFC, CSA, SFI, AFS, MTCC, LEI, CERFLOR,
Certfor – as this alphabet soup shows, this is precisely what
has happened with the certification of timber products. NGOs who
have spent the last fifteen years wrapping their heads around
the pros and cons of the various schemes can tell the difference.
Consumers cannot.
Third, while a voluntary certification scheme can reward companies
that meet its standards by giving them a “green seal”, certification
can do nothing to prevent the worst companies from continuing
their destructive operations. In theory, if a consumer only buys
agrofuel credibly certified as coming from well-managed operations
then that consumer will be avoiding buying products that come
from vast, chemical-soaked, monoculture plantations. But buying
certified agrofuel does not prevent the destruction, because one
consumer buying certified products does nothing to prevent others
from buying uncertified products.
There is no evidence that any of these lessons from certification
of wood products are being applied in the certification of agrofuels.
The Roundtable on Sustainable Biofuels, run by the Ecole Polytechnique
Federale de Lausanne in Switzerland, is drawing up "sustainability
standards for sustainable biofuels" and is currently inviting
comments on "Version Zero" of its draft standard. Sitting
on the Steering Board is Heiko Liedeker, who was FSC's director
from 2001 to 2008. Liedeker consistently ignored reports from
WRM and other NGOs explaining how FSC certification of industrial
tree plantations was undermining local struggles. Other Steering
Board members include oil company representatives, Cameron Rennie
of BP, Julio Cesar Pinho of Petrobras and Paloma Berenguer of
Shell.
Getting involved in a discussion about the content of the principles
and criteria for agrofuel certification may seem like an important
thing to do. If the standard is weak enough it will allow the
certification of almost any agrofuel plantation. But getting involved
in the writing of the standards is to miss the point. The standards
will do nothing to prevent the abuses carried out by the worst
agrofuel plantation companies. The Roundtable on Sustainable Biofuels
will provide a way for Europe and North America to claim that
their demand for agrofuels is somehow sustainable. It is little
more than a green fig leaf allowing business as usual to continue.
Discussions about “sustainable agrofuels” distract us from working
towards genuine ways of reducing carbon emissions such as demanding
tough legislation on energy efficiency and massive state investment
in improved building standards, public transport, high voltage
direct current electricity grids and solar and wind power.
Trying to persuading consumers to buy “sustainable agrofuels”
may sound like a first small step towards bigger steps, which
will eventually lead to real change. But the reality is that certifying
agrofuels helps greenwash a hugely destructive industry and impedes
the development of urgently needed structural changes.
By Chris Lang, http://chrislang.org
index
COMMUNITIES AND FORESTS
- Ghana: Newmont Mining Corp. threatens Ajenjua Bepo Forest and
neighbouring communities
The US-based Newmont Mining Corporation, one of the world's largest
producers of gold, has plans to place an open pit gold mine in
the Ajenjua Bepo Forest Reserve in the Birim North District in
the Eastern region of Ghana.
The organization No Dirty Gold informs that the projected mine
would occupy an area 1.65 miles long (2.6 km) and a half mile
across (0.8 km), and would create waste piles 60-100 m high. The
mine would destroy an estimated 183 acres (74 ha) of forest in
the reserve.
Mining is a short-term activity with
long-term effects and when it takes place in forest zones, it
is a factor of forest destruction and degradation from the prospecting
phase –when routes of access are open, camps and auxiliary facilities
are established, geophysical works are carried out— to the exploitation
phase, with great elimination of vegetation that not only affects
the habitat of hundreds of species but also the maintenance of
a constant flow of water from the forests towards other ecosystems
and urban centres.
A self-perpetuated dumping of acid toxic material is generated
that can go on for hundreds or even thousands of years. Furthermore,
the small particulates of heavy metals that with time separate
from the waste, are disseminated by the wind, landing on the soil
and in the beds of watercourses, slowly integrating the tissues
of living organisms, such as fish.
Water is manifold affected: by the consequent erosion and silting
produced by excavation, by the acid drainage that contaminate
it, by the forest destruction that disturbs rainfall patterns.
The threatened Ajenjua Bepo forest is critically important to
several neighbouring communities that fear
the project may displace them or ruin the crops that they rely
on. According to No Dirty Gold, community groups in the area “including
the Concerned Farmers Association at New Abriem, have protested
against Newmont's mining plan and the inadequate compensation
Newmont has offered for ruining their lands and livelihoods. They
have gathered over 200 petition signatures to present to the Ghanaian
government. ‘We have been spending sleepless nights thinking about
the trauma of relocation, loss of farmlands and livelihood, new
diseases especially the upsurge in malaria cases as a result of
the open pits and other stagnant pools of water in the open trenches
that will be created in the area by Newmont Ghana Gold Limited,’
said Akosua Nsia of Yayaaso, one of the communities in the mine's
direct footprint area.” (1)
International support came from over 6000 signatures from more
than 50 countries across the world “urging the Government of Ghana
to resist any attraction to grant license to any mining company
to undertake mining in the controversial Ajenua Bepo Forest or
any other forest in the country.” (2)
The signatories denounce that permitting mining in the Ajenua
Bepo Forest would displace over a thousand people from their homes
and at least 8,000 people would lose their land. “The available
information on the probable impacts of the mine indicate that
the mine’s impacts on biodiversity, forest cover, water quality,
and communities would be extremely serious. Over a quarter of
the forest in the Reserve would be destroyed, as would habitat
for many Endangered and Vulnerable species, and wastes and toxic
chemicals would threaten the water supply. Thousands of people
and important cultural sites would be displaced.”
The mining project comes at a time when a grim picture of mining
impacts in Ghana has been exposed by Ghana's Commission on Human
Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ) in a report that found
evidence of “widespread violations of human rights of individual
members of communities and communities’ collective rights” and
“widespread pollution of communities’ water sources, deprivation
and loss of livelihoods.” (3)
(1) Akyem Proposed Mine, Ghana, No Dirty Gold,
http://www.nodirtygold.org/ghanaakyem.cfm
(2) Ghana: 6,000 Signatures against Mining Concession, Selorm
Amevor, Public Agenda,
http://www.ghanaweb.com/public_agenda/article.php?ID=11743
(3) The State of Human Rights in Mining Communities in Ghana,
http://www.nodirtygold.org/HumanRightsInGhanaMiningCommunities.pdf
index
- India: the Police and the Forest Department attack women that
fight for their lands
In yet another incident, the tribal and dalit women of village
Harna Kachar, Sonbhadra district of Uttar Pradesh, had to bear
the brunt of atrocities by the Police and the Forest Department.
A mob of more than 300 that included Police, Forest Department,
revenue officials and dominant sections of the village participated
in the attack where more than 20 women were injured. They were
ruthlessly beaten by sticks, their belongings --clothes, utensils,
grains, cycles, livestock, etc-- were looted, and around 100 of
their huts were lit on fire. This atrocity was inflicted on tribal
and dalit women after the implementation of the historical 2006
forest rights act.
Just in a span of one month this is yet another incident of caste
clash instigated by the Forest Department and the Police so that
the tribals are not able to form their organization and struggle
for their lost land rights. In August 2008, more than 300 huts
of tribal and dalit people were razed to the ground by setting
them on fire by a particular caste group known as Yadavs under
the instigation of the Forest Department and the Police. A strong
action was taken by the District Magistrate and the instigator
Yadavs were booked under the Scheduled Caste & Schedule Tribe
Act. The Police and the Forest Department were desperate to take
revenge of this defeat.
The clash with women has been going on since the Police and the
Forest Department built up pressure on women to evict tribals
from the 150 acres of occupied land that tribal people claim belong
to them. In one of these clashes, a policeman snatched the saree
(Indian women dress) of one of the women. A newspaper reported
that women got angry and used their sarees as weapons, in almost
a half naked protest where they opened their sarees and threw
them at the Police force who had to run away. But on 24th September
2008, the Police force came prepared –with only two Police women
as a token presence- and started abusing women and beating them.
Women had already pushed their men away and took a frontal position
to face the Police force. The Police and the Forest Department
started setting their huts on fire and then attacked and stripped
the women.
The struggle for forest land has been going on in this area since
the last few years where the tribal and dalit people and other
poor sections under the leadership of women are asserting their
rights and demanding their land back which had been illegally
taken over by the Forest Department after independence. The struggle
was further intensified after the enactment of Forest Rights Act
2006 and last year a big movement was launched in this region
where thousands of acres of land are in possession of tribal people.
This has created a big debate on the issue of land reform in this
region where especially the upper caste, landlord dominant sections,
feudal lords, industrialists, land mafias and mining lobby have
felt threatened. They are using all measures to sabotage this
movement.
The land dispute in this area is famous at the national level.
All the committees formed to solve the disputes have enumerated
in detail how the tribal land was robbed off in this area. These
reports also mentioned how the tribal lands were transferred to
the outsiders which still hold them. Later on, various commissions
have also reported the root cause of evolution of Maoist activities
in land disputes and non implementation of proper land reform
and appropriation of land by the land lords, feudal lords and
upper caste sections of society. However the movement around land
has done a heavy churning in this region.
The spontaneous movement launched by poor people of this area
has become a challenge to the authority of the administration
especially the Police and the Forest Department who want Maoist
activities to continue, as it is easy for them to crush the movement
with the excuse of a law and order problem and also because there
are lot of funds for elimination of Maoists. This movement has
reduced the Maoist activities and the administration now has to
face the uncomfortable matter of having to address –against their
wishes- the land and forest issues.
The women who have been badly beaten in the incident are:
1. Manmati devi w/o Bhutan Kharwar
2. Tejmani devi w/o Mukund Chero
3. Tejmani deviw/o Rakesh urao
4. Jaso devi w/o Bigan Urao
5. Biswa devi w/o Jokhu Panika
6. Bachia devi w/o Rangilal Gond
7. Fulmatia devi w/o Lachuman urao
8. Indri devi w/o Birbal Gond
9. Kalpatia devi w/o Narayan Dusadh
10. Kalawati devi w/o Phulchand Urao
11. Phulkumari devi w/o Naresh Biyar
12. Bhukli devi w/o Ramkishun
13. Vidhyawati devi w/o Devchand
14. Asha devi d/o Lakku ( 10 month old child)
The officials who were involved in this attack :
1. Station Officer, Vindhamganj, Sheshdhar Pandey
2. Baleshwar Yadav, Forest inspector, Vindhamganj
3. Chandrika Prasad, Forest Inspector, Vindhamganj
4. Jhagro Ram, Forest guard, Vindhamganj
5. Santosh Kumar Tripathi, Forest Guard,Vindhamganj
6. Ashapati Ram, Forest guard, Vindhamganj
7. Ramesh Kumar Gupta, Forest guard, Vindhamganj
8. Premnath, Beat watcher, Vindhamganj
9. Subedar Bhargav, Mali, Vindhamganj
10. Jadunath Yadav, Pradhan pati, Harna Kachar
11. Ashok Yadav s/o Basdev yadav
12. Vivek s/o Bal Mukund
13. Keshwar s/o Prayag
14. Manmati w/o Ramgati gond.
We have demanded that:
1. A high level judicial enquiry should be set up on this matter,
in line with assurances made by District Magistrate Mr. Ajay Shukla.
2. All the officials in this incident should be punished and suspended.
3. The villagers who instigated this caste violence should also
be arrested and cases of Scheduled Cast and Scheduled Tribe Act,
human rights violation, women violence should be implicated.
4. The forest rights act 2006 act should be implemented in the
right spirit.
5. A high level dialogue should take place to resolve the matter
of land dispute in Kaimur region.
By Roma, NFFPFW (Kaimur) / Human Rights Law Centre, e-mail: romasnb@gmail.com/
index
- Mexico: Massacre of indigenous people and peasants safeguarding
their territories
The organization Maderas del Pueblo del Sureste, A.C. reported
in a recently issued communiqué that on 3 October, a brutal police
operation took place, violating the most basic human, individual
and collective rights, involving the federal and state police,
against the indigenous and peasant Tojolabal inhabitants of the
Miguel Hidalgo community, Municipality of Trinitaria, Chaipas.
Since 7 September, this community had been managing the Maya archaeological
and ceremonial site of Chinkultic.
This operation was carried out by hundreds of police officers
from the Ministerial Police, the Federal Investigation Agency
and the State Preventive Police, who entered the village with
vehicles, on horseback and on foot. They found resistance on the
part of men, women and children, to which the repressive forces
reacted – according to reports by journalists who witnessed the
operation – with brutality, “indiscriminately hitting children,
women and senior citizens, executing three seriously injured people
and murdering the driver who was taking them to the hospital in
Comitan.”
The repression against the Miguel Hidalgo community was added
to another repression that took place a few hours earlier, against
groups of indigenous Tojolabal people from the communities of
Santa Rita, Ojo de Agua, Nuevo Porvenir, Venustiano Carranza,
Antela, San Nicolás, Tierra Blanca and Nueva Rosita, who last
September had also peacefully taken over access of the National
Lagunas de Montebello Park. Up till then, the Park had been controlled
and managed by the National Commission for Natural Protected Areas.
The result of these disproportionate acts of violence against
the civilian population was at least six people dead, two dozen
injured in addition to the arrest of over fifty people.
With this repression the Mexican State (both federal and State
governments) has flagrantly violated not only the human individual
rights of those attacked regarding integrity and life – set out
in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and in the Inter-American
Convention on Human Rights and the International Pact on Political
and Civil Rights – but also their rights as indigenous people,
regarding their territory and to recover, safeguard and manage
their ancestral natural and cultural heritage, as recognized in
the United Nations Declaration on Indigenous Peoples’ Rights (article
11) and ILO Convention 169 (article 14), as has already rightly
been pointed out by the Fray Bartolome de las Casas Centre for
Human Rights and the International Commission for the Observation
of Human Rights (CCIODH).
This brutal repression and massacre constitute a despicable act
and a justified demand for justice and exemplary punishment is
compulsory, not only regarding the material authors but also and
more importantly, of the intellectual authors who gave the orders
at the highest level.
However, this is only a sample of the type and magnitude of the
interests behind the ambition to take over and privatize the indigenous
and peasant territories of Chiapas and the Southeast of the country,
rich in natural resources of a strategic nature (biodiversity,
genetic resources, uncontaminated fresh water and rivers potentially
producing hydroelectricity; wind – as wind energy – and forest
cover to capture carbon), and also possessing unsurpassed scenic
beauty and sacred ceremonial centres – not “ruins” - and archaeological
sites.
In this case, the brutality of the official operation in Chinkultic
would seem to be a sign that it was executed as an exemplary lesson,
with the aim of weakening and dismantling possible resistance
and further attacks by the Indigenous peoples, who – no matter
what their political affiliation: Zapatistas, Perredistas or Priistas/Panistas
– endeavour to autonomously defend, recover, safeguard and manage
their cultural and natural heritage. The aim would be to guarantee
multinational private investment (that is, among many others:
Monsanto; Sanofi Aventis; Glaxo; Ford Motors Co.; Iberdrola; Repsol;
Femsa-Cocacola; the Carso Group; and the Melia; Riu and Barcelo
chains of hotels) the “social and political tranquillity” it has
been demanding no doubt with increasing impatience.
For this reason, in this case -as in so many other similar ones
in Chiapas and the rest of the country- what are at stake are
not only the rights, territories and natural resources of the
struggling and resisting Indigenous peoples and communities but
the rights of the entire Mexican people and the very sovereignty
of our Nation.
Article based on information from: “Communiqué by Maderas del
Pueblo del Sureste, A:C.,” e-mail: m_a_zules@hotmail.com,
www.maderasdelpueblo.org.mx,
sent by Miguel Angel Garcia Aguirre.
index
COMMUNITIES AND TREE MONOCULTURES
- Brazil: Fisher-folk affected by Aracruz Celulose close the company’s
private port
A pulp mill seriously alters the micro-region where it is installed
and generates a series of problems that mainly affect traditional
peoples.
Aracruz Celulose S.A. (ARCEL) built the Barra do Riacho unit in
the State of Espirito Santo in a place that had previously been
the site of the indigenous village of Macacos. The building of
this pulp mill attracted a large number of workers from other
regions and states, causing much disruption in the neighbourhood
of Barra do Riacho, which was basically a fishing community located
one kilometre away from the mill. The neighbourhood suddenly grew
from 900 to 10,000 inhabitants and today, Barra do Riacho still
suffers from the consequences: a high rate of unemployment, child
prostitution and drug trafficking.
Added to this is the fact that in order to guarantee enough water
to supply the enormous consumption needed for the production of
pulp – a demand equivalent to the consumption of water in a city
of over 2 million inhabitants – ARCEL closed the outlet to the
sea of the River Riacho, diverting it in addition to four other
rivers in the region, thus resulting in sedimentation.
This caused enormous damage to the Barra do Riacho and Barra do
Sahy fisher-folk, who have repeatedly insisted that ARACEL address
their legitimate demands, but are persistently ignored by the
company.
Finally on 10 October 2008, over 100 fisher-folk from the Fisher-folk’s
Association of the Barra do Riacho and Barra do Sahy, closed for
the whole day access by land to the port of Portocel, ARCEL’s
private port preventing the entry of pulp for export.
The fisher-folk submitted a long list of claims to the company
and to the Municipality of Aracruz. Among these claims the main
one demands “the immediate opening up of the four water-gates
built [by ARCEL] on the river [Riacho] to increase its volume
of water, as this has decreased the amount of water in the river,
causing sedimentation and the blocking [by a growing sand dune]
of the river’s exit to the sea.”
The closure of the river mouth has left the families of fisher-folk
in a desperate situation because it prevents their boats going
out (and returning) to high sea, making subsistence increasingly
difficult for these people who depend on fishing. On the other
hand, the vessels loaded with pulp to produce disposable paper
in Europe, the US and Asia have not stopped leaving the port of
Portocel.
The fisher-folk demanded the presence of the city mayor, Ademar
Devens, who visited the site and on observing the situation of
the river mouth, decided to take the fisher-folk’s claims to the
company. The company informed the fisher-folk that it was prepared
to open the four water gates on the Riacho River provided the
tide went down, in the understanding that this would facilitate
the opening of the river mouth.
With the promise of opening the water gates, the fisher-folk decided
to withdraw until the result of a forthcoming meeting with the
municipality and the company, during which the situation would
be assessed and other claims would be discussed. Based on these
results they would decide whether to take further action. They
are tired of promises and measures that do not solve the problem.
It is ironic that the company asked for the fisher-folk’s “comprehension”
of the difficulties they are facing: lack of water at the mill
due to a prolonged drought in the region – a situation made worse
by the company’s own eucalyptus plantations - and a “difficult
financial situation” due to the increase in the dollar rate –
although it is public knowledge that ARCEL undertook financial
operations of a speculative nature, resulting in losses amounting
to millions of dollars.
And what about some understanding for the fisher-folk and the
distressing situation in which they have been left on not being
able to fish and address their basic needs?
Article based on information from: “Pescadores fecham porto de
exportação da Aracruz Celulose”(Fisher-folk close Aracruz Celulose’s
export port), Winnie Overbeek, Rede Alerta contra o Deserto Verde,
sent by the author, e-mail: woverbeek@terra.com.br; “Promises
of jobs and destruction of work. The case of Aracruz Celulose
in Brazil”, by Alacir De’Nadai, Winfridus Overbeek, Luiz Alberto
Soares, 2005, http://www.wrm.org.uy/countries/Brazil/fase.pdf
index
- Indonesia: Pulp mill impacts on health of local population
It has been 63 years after Soekarno-Hatta proclaimed the independence
of the Indonesia Republic on August 17, 1945. Every August especially
on the 17th, Indonesians all along the archipelago celebrate this
nation's anniversary.
Sadly, for people of Siantar Utara, in the Municipality of Toba
Samosir, Siruar region, North Sumatra, it will be somehow impossible
to have such a celebration. Almost all of the around 300 families
here suffer skin disease which is quite itching and painful. This
skin disease is suspectedly caused by the waste of the pulp mill
Perseroan Terbatas Toba Pulp Lestari (PT TPL).
Just recently, people of Siruar came to dialogue with PT TPL;
they came with their children who suffer suppurating skin disease
all along their body especially most at their hips.
With tears flowing down their eyes, Rev. Sumurung Samosir and
his wife Indira Simbolon witnessed the pain of these sisters and
brothers of Siruar. Dimpos Manalu, a social worker as well as
a young intellectual here in North Sumatra who is engaged and
works together with marginal people in the region was deeply sad.
The three of them couldn’t say a word in front of the suffering
of these people. There are babies with suppurating lumps on their
head; a middle-aged woman said that all the women in Siruar have
painful eczema but they are too ashamed to show it up. Suddenly,
in response to this statement another woman came up saying that
her husband also suffers itching skin disease mainly at his hip
and genitals.
Indira Simbolon could take a picture of a woman who badly suffers
painful itching skin disease all along her body: she has lumps
in her tight, hip, bottom, belly, chest, and back. Many men said
too they had painful itching lumps on their hips and genitals.
It came as an ironical fact indeed that just a few days ago the
Minister of Environment awarded a green-award to PT TPL which
means that the company has been managed in an environmentally
friendly way.
PT TPL representative Leo Hutabarat told me that the itching skin
disease of the people of Siruar has nothing to do with the company.
Isn't it weird that PT TPL did not bring a doctor to help the
people of Siruar? Doesn’t this mean that they admitted what they
try to deny? Since the beginning, PT TPL has not been consistent.
In every dialogue where many people were involved they have talked
politely but in practice they are arrogant. They keep a distance
from the people around. Some journalists and I could see that:
we were standing close to the river bank where the company’s waste
is poured. An employee of PT TPL accompanied us and told us how
inconsistent the company has been. They throw their waste early
in the morning often when it is raining. They manage to make things
neat when they know that guests --especially from Jakarta-- are
going to come. They did their best so that the smell caused by
the PT TPL is not so bad. They bring doctors just when people
around are angry with the unbearable situation, especially the
impacts on health.
The water in the river where PT TPL throw their waste is brown-dirty
while at the other part relatively far away from this company,
it looks clean. The staff of PT TPL who came to talk with us said:
" Many fishes near PT TPL can suddenly die". "I
have been a farmer for a long time," said another person
from Siruar, " but I never saw banana die before producing
fruit." He pointed out to a banana which was almost dying:
"Look at those bananas. Their leaves are wilted while they
are still young."
People are powerless, and who cares? Those who work at the health
office are also civil servants and they do not report what is
going on with the impacts of PT TPL on the people’s health condition.
How come they keep silent?
PT TPL’s huge profits have been at the expense of the people.
Some important concrete actions should be implemented to tackle
this problem: the government should form an independent team to
research the skin disease of the people of Siruar while PT TPL
should acknowledge that their waste processing is not according
to a proper environmental conduct; maybe PT TPL should stop their
operations. The suffering of the people of Siruar is a human tragedy
that we all need to pay attention and to take action; we all who
side with them should take action and give them support.
By Gurgur Manurung, Environment scholar, doctoral student at Jogjakarta
National University, UNJ. E-mail: gurgurmanurung@yahoo.com
(This piece has been translated from Indonesian into English by
Limantina Sihaloho).
index
- Malaysia: Indonesian children and migrant workers enslaved in
oil palm plantations
Oil palm firms are making a fortune in Malaysia particularly with
the current agrofuel rush. But none of it goes to those who put
their blood and flesh to make the money come out from oil palm
plantations (see WRM Bulletin Nº 134). Migrant workers from Indonesia
appear to be among those who get the worst deal.
At least 103 oil palm plantations in Sabah employ about 200,000
legal migrants as well as 134,000 considered
illegal workers from Indonesia. An article from Erwilda Maulia,
published in The Jakarta Post on September 17, 2008, reports “slavery
practices” at oil palm plantations in Sabah, Malaysia. The National
Commission for Child Protection revealed that thousands of Indonesian
migrant workers and their children have been "systematically
enslaved".
Denunciation came from a group of local Indonesian teachers who
reported “an alleged case of child exploitation as well as several
cases of physical and sexual harassment of children of Indonesian
migrant employees”. They also said that “children between the
ages of six and 18 had to work for hours collecting sacks of oil
palm seeds scattered on the ground, in return for a minimal amount
of pay. The children were often forced to work by their own parents
or by plantation managers”, he added.
Arist Merdeka Sirait, a member of a fact-finding team sent to
plantations in Sabah said: “They are placed in isolated barracks
with no access to transportation, making it impossible for them
to leave the plantations. Nor do they have access to clean water,
lighting and other facilities."
The article reported him as saying that about 72,000 children
of Indonesian migrant workers at the Sabah plantations were forced
to work without regulated employment hours, meaning they were
made to work all day long. The children were not provided with
birth certificates or any other type of identity documents, effectively
denying their right to formal education, among other rights.
“We call this 'bonded labor' (a means of paying off debt by direct
labour rather than by currency or goods), and it is a modern kind
of slavery," Arist added. According to him, "Bonded
labor" was common at all the plantations, and Malaysian authorities
deliberately allow such conditions to persist.
It is very convenient for the ambitious corporations to have a
way of maintaining "illegal"
workers and by enslaving children of migrant workers they secure
a future low-paid labour force, just like their parents. To make
matters worse, "illegal"
workers are often extorted by Malaysian security officers who
check their documents, Arist denounced.
The bitter fruit of oil palm plantations seems to become even
more sour for the workers.
Article based on information from: “RI workers, children 'enslaved'
in Malaysia, commission says”, Erwida Maulia , The Jakarta Post
, 09/17/2008,
http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2008/09/17
/ri-workers-children-039enslaved039-malaysia-commission-says.html
index
