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Small-Scale Miners Face Crackdown as Foreign Companies Set Sights on Colombia

By Leah Gardner | Upside Down World | April 11, 2012

Police arrived at the Santa Isabel mine in Colón-Génova on February 21, 2012. The officers asked these local miners to attend a meeting to see if they could sort out their licensing request; However, when the roughly twenty-five miners arrived, they were read their rights and arrested.

About a week later, a report ran on television stating that police had arrested a group of illegal miners in Colón-Génova who were making over 150 million pesos ($CAD 84,500) per month and using their earnings to fund the FARC and Los Rastrojos, a paramilitary group.

The miners say they were shocked. “It’s ridiculous,” says Ferney Gamboa, one of those arrested. “A person here makes between 320,000 and 480,000 pesos ($CAD 180 -270) per month.” Miners then invest earnings into their farms and families, he adds. “We have no contact with armed groups.”

This assertion has been backed by local officials. Pedro Vincente Obando, the Secretary of the Governor of Nariño, said at a conference on March 27, 2012 that the charges were “false and dangerous.”

A Mining Country

Miners and the Comité de Integración del Macizo Colombiano, (Committee for the Integration of the Colombian Massif – CIMA), a rural social movement allied with the miners, believe that this is part of a federal government strategy to phase out informal mining and pave the way for foreign multinationals.

“We are seeing the criminalization of artisanal mining in this country,” says Luz Mila Ruana, an organizer for CIMA in Nariño. She adds that a subsidiary of the South Africa-based mining company AngloGold Ashanti has begun preliminary exploration activities around the Santa Isabel mine.

Miners say that while being accused of funding illegal armed groups was a shock, the arrival of police wasn’t much of a surprise. They have been waiting for nearly a year to submit their license application, but have been held up by administrative delays.

The Instituto Colombiano de Geología y Minería (Colombian Geology and Mining Institute – Ingeominas), the government body responsible for processing applications, stopped accepting requests for the legalization of traditional mines in 2011 after it reportedly received an overwhelming number of applicants. “Now they are saying we can submit in April,” says Gamboa. He doesn’t seem convinced.

Meanwhile, news of ‘illegal’ miner arrests is common in the Colombian media. Since the adoption of a new mining code in 2001 and new policies meant to crackdown on informal mining, the Colombian government has given unlicensed operations until 2012 to obtain the proper paper work or face arrest.

The national government has made illegal mining a political and military priority, arguing that unlicensed operations cause environmental damage and contribute to the ongoing internal conflict by financing armed groups. In November 2011, officials said they had closed 329 unlicensed gold mines, arresting 1,228 people.

Miners and CIMA organizers are convinced that these policies have little to do with the environment or national security, and much to do with the federal government’s plan to turn the country into a large-scale mining giant by 2019.

The CIMA and Canadian non-governmental organizations focusing on mining are quick to point out that the 2001 mining code was written in consultation with Canadian and Colombian mining companies — a process that was funded in part by a grant from the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA).

Since its adoption, foreign mining company royalty rates have dropped from 10% to .4%. Simultaneously, the number of mining permit requests and concessions have increased dramatically, with Canadian companies making up a large portion of mining exploration investment.

The vision of Colombia as an untapped haven for large-scale mining stands in stark contrast to the reality, in which millions of small and artisanal miners are already working throughout the country.

The nearly one-hundred men and women working at the Santa Isabel mine have been doing so with the permission of the local land owner for nearly forty years. Miners here work in small teams to extract tiny particles of gold from rocks dug out of shallow holes in the mountainside. To do this, they use water and large wooden sluices which hark back to the days of the California gold rush.

They do not use toxic chemicals, but many small-scale operations — and all large-scale ones — in the country do use toxins.  It is no wonder then that Colombia has some of the highest levels of mercury contamination in the world.

Ferney Gamboa argues that compared to his operation, a massive gold mine in the area would be far more detrimental to the environment. “A large-scale mine will have a much larger impact. These companies use cyanide and huge amounts of water.”

A Country in Conflict

As for the funding of armed groups, CIMA organizers believe that large-scale development projects pose the highest risk to empowering illegal actors. In 2007, Chiquita Brands pled guilty to violating US anti-terrorism laws after admittedly making payments to the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC), a right-wing paramilitary group. A civil suit brought by families of the victims of paramilitaries is still ongoing. Drummond Ltd., an American coal mining company is currently facing a trial in the US for the same issue, while British Petroleum (BP) settled out of court with victims of paramilitaries that it allegedly funded in 2009.

Paramilitaries are notorious in Colombia for murdering community leaders and appropriating land through terror tactics. After a deeply flawed demobilization process between 2003 and 2006, these groups are still active today, although under different names. Colombia still contains the second largest internally-displaced population in the world, behind Afghanistan, with 87% of displaced people originating from mining and energy-producing regions.

The Colombian military is also present in extractive zones, with 30%, or 80,000 members, of the country’s public forces dedicated to protecting oil and mining industry infrastructure. This has also created problems for small scale miners and farmers. In 2006, military troops killed Alejandro Uribe and Carlos Mario García, miners who were outspoken critics of foreign extractive companies active in the Bolivar Department, including AngloGold Ashanti. The army claimed that the two men were guerrilla fighters killed in combat, an argument rejected by local communities and dismantled by investigative journalists and rights groups like Amnesty International.

This confusion between civilians and guerrilla fighters is not out of the ordinary in Colombia. The Coordinación Colombia Europa Estados Unidos (Colombia Europe United States Coordination – CCEEU) reports that 535 civilians were victims of unlawful killings by Colombian public forces between January 2007 and July 2008. In 2008, the false positive scandal revealed that military troops had murdered scores of poor urban youth and farmers, and then dressed the bodies up to look like guerrilla fighters in order to inflate the military’s combat success rate.

‘False positives’ pervade the Colombian prison system as well. The Comité de Solidaridad con los Presos Politicos (Political Prisoners Solidarity Committee – CSPP), a national advocacy group for political prisoners, estimates that 60% of the 7,500 prisoners in the country detained for political crimes associated with the armed conflict are actually social movement and union leaders who have been falsely accused.

Foreign multinationals deny contributing to or benefiting from the conflict in Colombia.  In response to small-scale miners fears of displacement in Colón-Génova, a spokesperson for AngloGold Ashanti Colombia states: “In the Department of Nariño, AngloGold Ashanti Colombia has built a good relationship based on support and collaboration with legal mining cooperatives, such as those established in Cumbitara and Los Andes Sotomayor, for example.”
The Colombian government maintains that it promotes partnerships between small-scale miners and multinationals, and that along with passing new regulations it is providing support to small mining operations to improve their standards.

Although some mining cooperatives have taken advantage of these arrangements, there are still many small-scale miners in Nariño who fail to see how new government policies can benefit them. “It’s hard to tell which is better, having the license or not,” says one owner of a licensed mine in the municipality of Sotomayor. “Once you have the license, the next step is keeping it.”

He argues that even with help from the Colombian government to improve their lighting system, new regulations like requiring owners to pay into workers compensation will be close to impossible to meet.

In Colón-Génova, miners are resolved to peacefully defending their livelihoods despite the challenges ahead.  They are currently working together with movements like the CIMA to fight what they believe was an illegal arrest and to legalize their mine once and for all.

Leah Gardner is an independent journalist focusing on human rights and corporate accountability. She currently lives in Colombia.

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April 11, 2012 Posted by | Economics | , , , , | Leave a comment

Colombia: Obama’s Bloodiest Betrayal?

Obama Poised to Give Presidential Seal of Approval to Gross Labor Rights Violations in Colombia

By DANIEL KOVALIK, GIMENA SANCHEZ-GARZOLI & ANTHONY DEST | CounterPunch | April 11, 2012

On November 9, 2011, the family of Juan Carlos Galvis – a prominent union leader with Sinaltrainal and personal friend of ours – was subjected to a violent home invasion by two presumed paramilitaries.  The intruders entered the Galvis home while Juan Carlos and his son were away and assaulted his wife, Mary, and his two daughters, Jackeline and Mayra.  They grabbed Mayra, a child with Downs Syndrome, and put a gun to her head, threatening to kill her if Mary did not tell them the whereabouts of Juan Carlos and his son.  They then bound and gagged Mary and Jackeline, again asking them to say where Juan Carlos and his son were. The assailants then proceeded to spray paint Mary and Juan’s faces on a wedding photo the family had posted on the wall. Before leaving the home, they stole two laptops, some USB memory drives, documents, and trashed the house. The traumatic attack left Mayra in shock for days and unable to speak.

The family was forced to flee to another town where they are now hiding. Their fears are well founded. Two of Juan Carlos’ Sinaltrainal colleagues, John Fredy Carmona Bermudez and Luis Medardo Prens Vallejo, were killed in recent months.

All in all, 30 unionists were killed in Colombia last year. The National Labor School (ENS) reports that 4 have already been killed this year, and other trade union movements have reported additional murders (e.g., Justice for Colombia has reported 6). Such killings have made Colombia, where around 3,000 unionists have been killed since 1986, the most dangerous country in the world to be a trade unionist, and if the assassination rate this year continues as it has thus far, Colombia will most certainly retain this notorious distinction.

Meanwhile, the Colombian government has done nothing effective to prosecute those responsible for such anti-union violence, with the UN recently reporting that Colombia’s rate of impunity for such crimes remains at 95% – meaning that only 5% of the union killings have ever been successfully prosecuted.

It was these two factors – the unprecedented rate of union killings and the high rate of impunity for these killings – that led Barack Obama in 2008 to declare in his third debate with John McCain that he opposed the Colombia Free Trade Agreement (FTA).

While being a trade unionist in Colombia is dangerous, those that are unionists are the few that can more freely organize. Under the Alvaro Uribe Velez Administration the “associative labor cooperatives” (CTAs) model proliferated throughout Colombia. This union-busting model that precludes direct contracts between workers and companies gravely debilitates working conditions, salaries, and occupational safety protections. Workers have risked losing their meager livelihoods by holding stoppages to obtain direct contracts that are more likely to guarantee their basic labor rights.

In April 2011, Presidents Obama and Santos presented a Labor Action Plan designed to address anti-union violence, prosecute anti-union crimes, do away with labor inter-mediation, and improve conditions for workers in the port, sugar, oil palm, and other sectors. Since the LAP was signed, Colombia has played the game of appearing to comply with the LAP while at the same time undermining its purpose. It has met surface requirements like setting up the Labor Ministry, passing legislation, and fining abusive companies.

While the number of trade unionists killed has gone down (and of course, as Father Javier Giraldo opined some time ago, there are indeed many less unionists to kill), the security climate and death threats against them have not changed. This leaves the possibility that the number of murders and attacks could flare up once the FTA moves forward. The murder of trade unionists and labor activists is often spun to be unrelated to their labor rights activities—robbery, jealous lovers or links to narcotrafficking are the reasons used to whitewash the murders. For example, Hernan Dario, a lawyer who represented the largest public sector union in Valle del Cauca (Sintraemcali) and several labor activists in the sugarcane sector, was murdered. His name was subsequently dragged through the mud based on unsubstantiated allegations linking him to drug dealers. This tactic was utilized in order to create an environment of confusion and impede actions for justice in this case.

Last year, Colombia passed a law that supposedly banned CTAs, yet the reality is that this only restricts them by name since other forms of labor inter-mediation, including the Simplified Stock Companies, shell companies, and supposed “union contracts,” have replaced them. In the sugar and port sectors, leaders of work stoppages and those affiliated to trade unions are rarely rehired through these new contracts. The Ministry of Labor and the labor inspectors designated by the LAP are not effectively intervening to remedy these situations. Over 70 Afro-Colombian port workers in Turbo who attempted to form a union in October 2011 have been fired. Those workers were given an ultimatum—sign a letter stating they will not affiliate with a trade union or enjoy unemployment.

The Ministry is not even intervening to implement the International Labor Organization’s (ILO) recommendations as mandated by the Labor Action Plan. The case of 51 fired public sector workers of EMCALI is just one of many examples. Rather than implement the ILO’s March 2012 recommendations to rehire the workers, authorities proceeded to evict the workers who held a hunger strike in Cali last week. These victims of Colombia’s unjust labor practices, all of whom have been unemployed since 2004 since they were blacklisted for standing up for labor rights, are not even permitted to protest.

Some of the workers who would most benefit from effective implementation of the Labor Action Plan are Afro-Colombians. Most Afro-Colombian workers, who make up an estimated 25% of Colombia’s population and a disproportionate number of the country’s over 5.2 million internally displaced, work in sectors where labor rights standards are weakest. As such, many are not able to freely exercise their right to unionize, and if they try to do so face death threats or impoverishment. Many Afro-Colombian workers describe their situation as “modern day slavery.”

Afro-Colombian dockworkers in Buenaventura, a key port for the FTA, work in one of Colombia’s most abusive environments. In this port, Afro-Colombians come to work in hazardous conditions for 24 to 48 hours straight, often sleeping on the containers. The demanding environment obligates them to stay inside the port complex for an entire week without the possibility to return home. Healthcare is often reserved for the more privileged individuals working in offices, and workers who are hurt or disabled are often fired. Those attempting to organize are threatened or denied employment. It took a work stoppage in January 2012 for some of these workers to receive direct contracts. The majority of port workers continue to be employed through intermediaries, and those with the direct contracts have low salaries and are prohibited from unionizing. Only today, after months of pressure, has the Ministry of Labor opened up an investigation into some of these abuses.

Still, despite continued anti-union violence, the high rate of impunity, serious impediments to union organizing, and the dire conditions faced by workers, President Obama is now poised to announce at the Summit of the Americas that Colombia has complied with the Labor Action Plan. Working conditions and protection for trade unionists in Colombia do not reflect the U.S. government’s evaluation of the Labor Action Plan. If Obama goes ahead with his plans in Cartagena to green light the FTA, Colombian and U.S. workers will lose their last bit of leverage to stem the tide of anti-union violence and defend the rights of Colombia’s most vulnerable populations.

Daniel Kovalik is general counsel of the United Steelworkers. 

Gimena Sanchez-Garzoli and Anthony Dest work for the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA)

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April 11, 2012 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Economics, Progressive Hypocrite, Subjugation - Torture | , , , , | Leave a comment

Maxing Out

Toward a Maximum Wage

By JOHNNY E. WILLIAMS | CounterPunch | April 10, 2012

Tackling income inequality through the minimum wage alone is an inadequate way to counter the economy’s anti-egalitarian tendencies. The minimum wage exists because the federal government recognizes the economy undervalues the average worker’s contribution and fails to provide a fair livable wage. Conversely, the economy’s overvaluing a few people’s contribution is also in need of governmental oversight. Since the government believes the economy is not a reliable gauge for determining how little is too little, it cannot assume the “market” is capable of determining how much is too much. Given this it is incumbent on the federal government to implement an income ceiling to eliminate the extreme income disparity between top and average wage earners.

Before dismissing the maximum wage idea outright, consider President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s call for 1942 maximum wage of $25,000 a year (in 2012 dollars $364,000) as a means to fuel economic growth and reduce income inequality. In a recent Le Monde Diplomatique article Sam Pizzigati of the Institute for Policy Studies revealed that two short years after President Roosevelt’s proposal, Congress increased the top tax rate to 94% for individual incomes over $200,000 (in 2012 dollars $2.6 million) The 94¢ tax on every dollar over the $200,000 limit helped initiate the longest period of economic growth for the middle class in U.S. history. This tax rate remained in place until President Lyndon Johnson dropped it to under 70% in the late 1960s. About two decades later President Reagan reduced the rate to 50% and then to 28% in 1988 before it settled at today’s 35% rate. But this tax rate overstates the rich’s tax burden given that most of their income [tax payment] comes from the 15% capital gains tax on profits acquired from buying and selling stocks, bonds and assets. This tax rate is about the same as that for working Americans earning between $50,000 and $75,000 before itemized deductions and exemptions.

Opponents of the maximum wage assert that cutting the top tax rates rather than increasing them will spark revenue and job growth. Their “trickle down” rationale assumes that making the rich richer will create good paying jobs, making working people more prosperous. But the trickle down approach and other piecemeal provisions like the minimum wage, earned income tax credit, and other minimalist economic programs and policies have proven ineffective in reversing the growth in income inequality over the last four decades. The ineffectiveness of such programs and policies is apparent in Emmanuel Saez’s recently released study showing that during the current recession one-percenters captured 93 percent of the income growth in both 2009 and 2010. In real dollar terms this means that the bottom 90% income on average declined $127 while the top 1% income increased $106,000.

One the best and most proficient ways to restart job growth and alleviate poverty and inequality, the imposition of a maximum allowable wage tied to minimum wage and enforced through a progressive income tax. The maximum is set at a specific multiple (maybe twenty five times) of the minimum wage, so that all income over the multiple limit is subject to a 95% to 100% tax. Limiting and linking average and top wage earners in this way will help Americans clearly see that poverty and suffering is necessary for an individual to accumulate wealth.

The fact is that income and wealth inequality impedes economic recovery, and efficiency and stability because it weakens demand for goods and services. By implementing a maximum wage the government could generate billions in revenue that can be invested in health, education, technology and infrastructure maintenance in ways that ensure the economy is sustainable, productive and efficient.

Europeans, especially those dealing with economic austerity measures, are already debating how to enact a maximum wage policy to ameliorate economic calamity. The idea of the maximum wage is also starting to resonate in the United States with a public that is increasingly aware of the destructive and anti-democratic consequences of lopsided disparities in income and wealth. This emerging awareness encourages people to question and challenge the legitimacy of economic values and a political system that, as Martin Luther King, Jr. put it: “permit necessities to be taken from the many to give luxuries to the few.”

Johnny E. Williams is an Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology at Trinity College.    

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April 10, 2012 Posted by | Economics, Timeless or most popular | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Saudi Arabia gets two million acres from Sudan for tax-free farming

Sudan Tribune | April 9, 2012

KHARTOUM – A prominent Saudi businessman announced last week that the Sudanese government agreed to give his country two million acres of land as a farming investment that would allow the Arab Gulf state to ensure safe and steady food supply.

The chairman of the Jeddah Chamber of Commerce Saleh Kamel told the Saudi-based al-Sharq newspaper that the project, if successful, may allow Riyadh to achieve a food surplus that can be exported elsewhere.

Kamel disclosed that Khartoum will make the farmland a free zone that is not subject to any form of taxation or duties and is not covered by Sudanese laws.

The world’s largest oil exporter would no longer need to import food from Argentina, North America and Australia when the plantation scheme becomes fully operational, he added.

Since the 2007-2008 global food crisis, Saudi Arabia has been encouraging private and public firms to invest in farm projects abroad. In 2008, the government there also abandoned a 30-year self-sufficiency in wheat programme.

Saudi Arabia wants to build stocks of basic commodities such as wheat, rice, oil and sugar to avoid the implications of rising global food prices and also to meet the needs of a population that is growing at a rapid pace.

The government-owned Saudi Industrial Development Fund (SIDF) offers credit guarantees to companies wishing to invest in farming projects abroad.

Kamel explained the choice of East Sudan for launching the project is due to its proximity to Port Sudan which allows the products to be easily shipped to Saudi Arabia just across the Red Sea. He said that he would discuss the matter with the Saudi ministers of agriculture and finance.

“The return [on investment] of agriculture in Sudan will reach 15% of the capital in the first year, a return that is more than good and better than investing in any another business sector” he said.

It remains to be seen whether the Saudi farming venture will be successful. Saudi businessmen, including Kamel, have complained in the past that investing in Sudan faces too many hurdles.

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April 10, 2012 Posted by | Economics | , , | Leave a comment

Why Campaigning for Democrats Cripples Unions

By SHAMUS COOKE | CounterPunch | April 9, 2012

As labor leaders across the U.S. shift resources away from defending workers and into Obama’s re-election campaign, millions of organized and non-organized workers remain unemployed and hopeless. Contrary to the “optimistic” government jobs numbers, the jobs crisis grinds onward. Some labor leaders will argue that getting Obama elected is the first step towards addressing the jobs crisis, but they know better.

The recent so-called JOBS Act that passed with strong Democrat and Republican support will create zero jobs — the law’s intent is to lower regulations for banks and corporations, in an attempt to boost their profits. The JOBS wording was used for popularity’s sake, requiring heavy doses of deceit.

A similar-minded jobs project was put forth by Obama earlier in the year, when he appointed “experts” to his Council on Jobs and Competitiveness. But the Council was front loaded with CEO’s and bankers, with only two labor reps, who allowed themselves to be used to obscure the real intent of the project. Richard Trumka, President of the labor federation AFL-CIO, was one of the token labor leaders on the council, who only later partially redeemed himself by denouncing the Council’s job-creating recommendations (predictably, one of the key “job creating” ideas was to lower corporate tax rates).

Millions of union and non-union workers have seen their lives worsen under Obama while he promotes the above stunts that are intended to serve the wealthy and fool everybody else.

These millions of workers will now be subjugated to pro-Obama door knockers and phone callers from labor unions who will ignore the above facts while trying to put a pro-worker face on the pro-corporate president. Workers will not be so easily fooled, their paychecks — or lack thereof — speak stronger truths than can any pro-Obama campaigner.

The key irony is that the more forward-looking labor unions have already realized that they need the support of non-unionized workers if their movement is to survive. To this extent both union federations — AFL-CIO and Change to Win — have put tremendous resources towards community outreach and organizing. But such efforts can be wasted when unions pursue policies that working people not only disagree with, but denounce.

Non-unionized workers will only actively support labor unions when they are inspired to do so; if the non-union community trusts labor to fight for their interests, they will fight alongside unions in the streets. However, when unions have to skew the facts to encourage votes for Obama, they lose crucial trust with the broader community.

Trust was also lost when working people witnessed many unions publicly supporting Obama’s health care plan, which forces millions of non-union workers to buy shoddy corporate health insurance they cannot afford. Labor’s kid glove handling of Obama’s anti-public education policy is also high on the list of examples where unions weakened their community status by attaching themselves to the Democrats’ pro-corporate polices.

Shockingly, the largest teachers’ union, National Education Association, has endorsed Obama’s campaign even though the NEA President, Dennis Van Roekel, summarized teachers’ experience with the Obama Administration by saying, “Today our members face the most anti-educator, anti-union, anti-student environment I have ever experienced” — an environment directly encouraged by Obama’s deceitfully named “Race to the Top” education program.

Obama has yet to promise unions or working people anything in the upcoming election. Whoever wins the Presidency will immediately continue serving the corporations with varying degrees of public enthusiasm — the only real difference between the two parties.

Labor leaders are not stupid. They recognize these facts, but have absolutely no idea what to do about it. So they do what they’ve done for decades; align themselves with the Democrats in the hopes that they will be rewarded for their servitude. But the crumbs of gratitude stopped trickling down years ago, and what little remains on the workers plate is now being targeted by both Democratic and Republican politicians who insist on ever more concessions.

The Democrats’ policies signify a clean break from labor unions, an alliance that was always at the indirect expense of the rest of the working class. As long as unions were treated fairly, many labor leaders turned a blind eye to policies that affected non-union workers, creating a suicidal distance between the organized and non-organized.

Now it’s labor unions that are on the menu; Democratic governors on a state by state basis have wrenched major concessions from public sector unions, substantially weakening them and reducing their numbers. This, combined with mass unemployment and Race to the Top, amounts to a concerted anti-union agenda.

Labor leaders solution to this crisis is to raise money and volunteers…to elect Democrats.

Labor’s real power will thus remain unused. The inherent power of unions lies in their numbers, organization, and ability to collectively assert themselves in the workplace and streets. This is how labor became strong; the mass strikes and street demonstrations that built the labor movement created an organizational power that neither Democrats nor Republicans dared touch. President Eisenhower and Nixon, for example, refused to confront unions for fear of the repercussions.  Unions were not given this power by compassionate Democrats in past generations; power was forcibly taken from the Democrats.

This truth is kept concealed from the current generation of union members, many of whom are miseducated into believing that their power is limited to electing Democrats. No other belief is as dangerous for the labor movement, which would immediately benefit from de-funding the Democrats and using the money to educate and organize their members to fight in the workplaces and streets for the many pro-worker demands, like a massive federal jobs program, that will otherwise remain “off the table” in Congress.

Shamus Cooke is a social worker, trade unionist, and writer for Workers Action (www.workerscompass.org)

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April 9, 2012 Posted by | Economics, Progressive Hypocrite | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Brazilian Judge Suspends Dam License, Upholds Indigenous Rights

ENS | April 5, 2012

BRASILIA, Brazil  – A federal judge has suspended the construction license of the Teles Pires hydroelectric dam in the Brazilian Amazon, saying the permitting process violated the rights of indigenous people protected under the Brazilian Constitution.

In her ruling, Judge Celia Regina Ody Bernardes, a federal judge in the state of Mato Grosso, sided with federal public prosecutors and public prosecutors from Mato Grosso and the state of Pará who argued the dam would cause “imminent and irreversible damage to the quality of life and cultural heritage of indigenous peoples of the region.”

The dam would flooding a series of rapids on the Teles Pires River known as Sete Quedas, or Seven Waterfalls, the spawning grounds of fish of great importance to the indigenous residents.

The judge ordered the immediate suspension of all activities in dam construction, “especially explosions of boulders in the region of Sete Quedas.”

A recent declaration by indigenous peoples cited in the lawsuit states, “Sete Quedas is a sacred place, where the Mae dos Peixes (Mother of Fish) and other spirits of our ancestors live – a place known as Uel, meaning that it should not be messed with.”

The 1,820 megawatt capacity dam has been under construction since August 2011 on the Teles Pires River, a major tributary of the Tapajos River in the heart of the Brazilian Amazon.

The dam is one of six large hydropower projects planned for the Teles Pires River, which forms the border between the states of Mato Grosso and Pará.

In her decision, Judge Bernardes concluded that prior to greenlighting dam construction, the federal environmental agency IBAMA failed to consult with affected indigenous communities, despite serious threats to their “socioeconomic and cultural well-being.”

She ruled that this constitutes a violation of the Brazilian Constitution and ILO Convention 169, which Brazil signed in 2004.

In addition to its importance for the physical survival of indigenous peoples, Sete Quedas holds tremendous cultural significance. The lawsuit argues that the dam construction site is “a sacred area relevant for the beliefs, customs, traditions, symbolism and spirituality of indigenous peoples. As a cultural heritage site, it is protected by the Brazilian Constitution and international agreements.”

Other threats to indigenous peoples provoked by dam construction, cited in the lawsuit, include conflicts associated with a massive influx of migrants to the region, land speculation, illegal deforestation, predatory fishing and illegal exploitation of mining resources. The prosecutors argued that, given a delay of almost 20 years in the demarcation of the Kayabi territory, such threats are even more severe.

Taravy Kayabi, a leader of the Kayabi people, said, “While the federal government stalls in implementing laws that protect the rights of indigenous peoples, it is pressuring us to accept the dams. But we know the compensation they are offering will never substitute places that are sacred to us, such as Sete Quedas, that hold the cemeteries of our ancestors and that should be preserved.”

“Sete Quedas is also the spawning grounds of fish that are an important source of food. They talk about fish ladders, but where have these ever worked? Kayabi asked.

“The government needs to look for alternative ways to generate energy that don’t harm indigenous peoples and their territories,” he said.

Civil society groups and leaders of the Kayabi community welcomed the news of the the suspension of dam construction, but warned against a possible overturning of Judge Bernardes’ restraining order.

Brent Millikan, director of the Amazon Program at International Rivers, based in California, says he has seen it happen before.

“What we’ve seen over and over again, in cases such as Belo Monte, is that the President’s office politically intervenes in regional federal courts to overturn decisions against violations of human rights and environmental legislation, using false arguments, such as an impending blackout at the national level if dams aren’t immediately constructed,” he said.

“Of course, this is ludicrous,” said Millikan. He says indigenous peoples and human rights groups in Brazil and around the world” are calling on the government of President Dilma Rousseff “to change course and respect the country’s constitution and rule of law.”

Copyright Environment News Service (ENS) 2012. All rights reserved.

April 8, 2012 Posted by | Economics, Environmentalism | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Britain’s Mad-house Foreign Policy

By Stuart Littlewood | Palestine Chronicle | April 4, 2012

My local MP, Henry Bellingham, is a Foreign Office minister whose responsibilities include the United Nations, the International Criminal Court and conflict resolution.

I take this to mean he’s tasked with keeping the British Government on the straight-and-narrow as regards international law, with ensuring dutiful conformity with the UN’s Charter and numerous resolutions, with saving our warmongering hotheads from the calaboose in The Hague, and with treading the path of peace at all times.

The International Criminal Court is, to say the least, challenging. The world is crawling with high-ranking war criminals but the ICC in its 10 year history has delivered only one verdict. As if to underline the Court’s utter uselessness as an instrument of justice, the ICC prosecutor has just rejected a bid by the Palestinian Authority to have the war crimes tribunal investigate Israel’s conduct during ‘Operation Cast Lead’ in Gaza.

His excuse is that the status granted to Palestine by the United Nations General Assembly is that of “observer”, not a “Non-member State”. The fact that more than 130 governments and certain international organisations, including United Nation bodies, recognise Palestine as a state makes no difference.

Let’s see how quickly the UNGA, with Mr Bellingham’s help, can get their skates on and straighten out the simple matter of Palestine’s status so that Israel’s strutting psychopaths can finally be brought to book.

Hague’s Threats Costing Us Dear

A recent Reuters article, “Iran sanctions bring unintended, unwanted results” by their Political Risk Correspondent Peter Apps, points to Western sanctions against Iran having so far failed to deter Tehran from pursuing its nuclear programme and generating instead unexpected side-effects and posing new problems.

It seems to me the consequences of sanctions were entirely predictable.

The expected loss of Iranian crude production has helped push oil prices to levels seen as threatening the global economy. And expert opinion seems to be saying that the ratcheting-up of economic pressure is not having the desired effect but simply increasing Tehran’s determination. “While Iranians may bear the brunt of the economic pain, people around the world are also feeling the knock-on effects of rising fuel prices that also drive food and price inflation.”

The message received is that whether sanctions work or not, “it may now be far from easy for Western states to significantly alter course to reduce or remove the restrictions, even if they want to.”

And Rosemary Hollis, head of the Middle Eastern studies program at London’s City University, is quoted as saying: “The terrible thing is that this is the moment there might be a possibility to at least begin to make progress. But we are going to miss it.”

The other day NASDAQ carried a Dow Jones report saying the head of the U.S. Energy Information Administration had joined a panel of energy experts in dismissing the idea that a “quick fix” could reduce US gasoline prices, suggesting instead that rising demand for oil around the world and supply concerns stemming from Iran sanctions were driving prices at the pump.

The sanctions, coupled with other geopolitical events such as Libya’s civil war, are a source of “grave concern” for the oil markets said Daniel Yergin, chairman of energy research organisation IHS CERA.

Hague led the charge on oil sanctions and the imposition of other measures to make economic life a misery. They are backfiring. So that’s another fine mess the Cameron-Hague foreign policy mad-house has got us into.

And Now a Legal Quagmire

The International Association of Democratic Lawyers in a statement issued 26 November 2011, said it was deeply concerned about the threats against Iran by Israel, the United States, and the United Kingdom.

Referring to the most recent report of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), IADL stated that:

(1) The threats by Israel, the United States, and the United Kingdom are unacceptable, and are dangerous not only for all the region but for the whole of humanity.

(2) Article 2.4 of UN Charter forbids not only use of force but also the threat of force in international relations, and that the right of defence settled by the Charter does not include pre-emptive strikes.

(3) While Israel, is quick to denounce the possible possession of nuclear weapons by others, it illegally has had nuclear weapons for many years; and

(4) The danger to world peace caused by nuclear weapons is so great as to require the global eradication of all nuclear weapons, and to immediately declare the Middle East a nuclear free zone and a zone free of all weapons of mass destruction, as required by UN Security Council resolution 687.”

What do UN Charter Articles 2.3 and 2.4 actually say?

• “All Members shall settle their international disputes by peaceful means in such a manner that international peace and security, and justice, are not endangered”, and
• “All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations”.

It sounds crystal clear. What is it about this that Messrs Hague and Cameron don’t understand?

Let’s look a little closer at the settlement of disputes, one of Mr Bellingham’s specialisms. Article 33 of the UN Charter requires that “the parties to any dispute, the continuance of which is likely to endanger the maintenance of international peace and security, shall, first of all, seek a solution by negotiation, enquiry, mediation, conciliation, arbitration, judicial settlement, resort to regional agencies or arrangements, or other peaceful means…”

I have asked the Government repeatedly, through Mr Bellingham, what efforts the Foreign Secretary made to meet and discuss with Iran’s ministers before resorting to economic ‘terror’ tactics.

• How many times has a British foreign secretary visited Tehran in the 32 years since the Islamic Revolution?

• Did Mr Hague go and talk before embarking on punitive sanctions?

He remains silent. Communication doesn’t seem to be Mr Hague’s strong point, except when lecturing. It was Hague’s decision to shut down the British embassy in Tehran and eject the Iranians from London. He had not in any case maintained a full diplomatic presence in Tehran and the embassy operated at chargé d’affaires level for several months after the previous ambassador left. Now we talk to Iran through a third-party country, Germany.

So much for his stated desire to improve relations, reach out and engage.

Negotiations in Bad Faith

I’m indebted to Dr David Morrison for reminding me that in 2003 the Foreign Ministers of the UK, France and Germany visited Tehran and initiated discussions with Iran on its nuclear programme. This of course was pre-Hague. In a statement issued at the time, the three EU states said they “recognise the right of Iran to enjoy peaceful use of nuclear energy in accordance with the NPT [Non-Proliferation Treaty]” – i.e. Iran had a right to uranium enrichment on its own soil like other parties to the NPT. This was repeated and confirmed at the Paris Agreement in 2004. Iran agreed “on a voluntary basis” to suspend all enrichment-related and reprocessing activities. The three EU states recognized the suspension as “a voluntary confidence building measure and not a legal obligation”.

However, proposals published by the UK, France and Germany the following year demanded that all enrichment and related activities on Iranian soil cease for good. In other words, Iran’s voluntary suspension of these activities was to be permanent. What had happened to the trio’s earlier commitment to “recognise the right of Iran to enjoy peaceful use of nuclear energy in accordance with the NPT”? Was Iran to be the only party to the NPT forbidden to have uranium enrichment on its own soil?

Yes. The West’s aim was to halt all enrichment in Iran. From now on Iran would be treated as a second-class party to the NPT, with fewer rights than the others.

Rewarding Evil in Our Name

As for the British Government’s enslavement to Israel, the following statement appears on the Foreign Office website:

“Israel is an important strategic partner and friend for the UK. The UK and Israel hold a number of important shared objectives across a broad range of policy areas and countries.

“These include: shared regional security concerns, including diplomatic efforts to deter Iran from pursuing nuclear weapons; international work to counter anti-Semitism; bilateral defence cooperation; academic, scientific and cultural partnership; the promotion of democratic governance, judicial independence and media freedom; and building and maintaining strong trade and financial links.”

Regional security concerns? This cosiness with a rogue military power in the most explosive region of the world actually undermines our national security.

Israel’s illegal and murderous blockade of Gaza, its closure of West Bank, the annexation of East Jerusalem, the relentless Juda-isation of the Holy City, the building of the Apartheid Wall, the demolition of Palestinian homes, and the illegality of the settlements… all demonstrate the lawlessness of the Israeli regime. In recent months, three internal EU reports by the EU Heads of Missions in the Occupied Territories have detailed shocking human rights violations committed by Israel

As for “democratic governance”, the Foreign Office surely knows that Israel pursues deeply racist policies and there is no such thing as justice for Palestinians who come before Israeli courts on trumped up charges, or are detained on no charges at all.

I have visited the Holy Land several times and seen for myself the brutality of the illegal Occupation and the human rights abuses inflicted daily on the Palestinian people. Yet Britain fails to hold the state of Israel to the same standards of human conduct expected of the rest of the international community.

“We do not hesitate to express disagreement to Israel where we feel necessary,” says the Foreign Office. “Although we do not agree on everything, we enjoy a close and productive relationship. It is this very relationship that allows us to have the frank discussions often necessary between friends.” What claptrap. The UK Government takes no action whatever to hold the Israelis to account. On the contrary, it continues rewarding their endless crime-sprees and recently relaxed our Universal Jurisdiction laws to protect Israel’s war criminals from arrest.

It is an outrage that the British Government, which is supposed to work for us the British people, aligns itself in our name with such evil. This revolting intimacy with the thugs of the Israeli regime is the scandal of our times. Since 1948 what exactly have those “frank discussions” achieved? Has Israel ended its illegal occupation and stopped its murderous assaults? No. Has it lifted its blockade of Gaza and closure of the West Bank? No. Has Israel brought its huge nuclear arsenal and other WMDs under international inspection and safeguards? No. Is Israel nice to its neighbours? No.

And what are the Government’s sanctions against Iran going to achieve? The cruel starvation of another half-a-million children like before, in Iraq?

In the last 24 hours there has been uproar in the UK over Government plans to snoop on every household’s emails, website visits and other private online activity. This sneaky intrusion by officialdom is said to be necessary to the war on terror.

But the best and cheapest way of protecting our national security is simply to eject the madmen from the Foreign Office and stop pimping for the US and its mad-dog protegé.

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April 5, 2012 Posted by | Economics, Militarism, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes, Wars for Israel | , , , , | Leave a comment

Venezuela is the Fifth Happiest Country in the World

AVN / Press Office –  March 30, 2012

On Friday, the Washington Post highlighted a global happiness survey released last year by the polling firm Gallup, which found that Venezuela is the fifth happiest country in the world. According to the poll, 64 percent of Venezuelan respondents said their well-being was thriving.

The poll measured how people in 124 countries rated their lives at the current time and their expectations for the next five years.

Topping the list were Denmark (72 percent), Sweden (69 percent), Canada (69 percent), and Australia (65 percent). Finland is tied with Venezuela, sharing the fifth spot.

Venezuela is the Latin American country with the highest wellbeing, followed by Panama (11), Costa Rica (14), Brazil (15) and Mexico (19).

The classifications according to which respondents rated their wellbeing included “thriving,” “struggling,” or “suffering.” People who considered themselves to be thriving rated their lives a 7 or higher on a scale from 0 to 10.

According to the Post, the poll showed that the respondents with highest wellbeing also reported fewer health problems, less stress and sadness, and more happiness, respect and enjoyment.

Out of the 124 countries polled in 2010, the majority of residents in only 19 countries (mostly in Europe and the Americas) rated their lives “thriving.”

An article published on the Gallup website states that the list “is largely dominated by more developed and wealthier nations, as expected given the links between wellbeing and GDP.”

Nevertheless, it states: “Global wellbeing improved little between 2009 and 2010, remaining relatively steady when Gallup groups all these countries into four major global regions: Asia, Africa, the Americas, and Europe.”

Results have 95 percent confidence rate with a maximum margin of error of ±1.7 to ±5.7 percentage points.

Click here to see the poll results.

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April 4, 2012 Posted by | Economics | , , | Leave a comment

Pakistan to buy 1,100 MW of electricity from Iran: Gilani

Press TV – April 1, 2012

Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani has announced that Islamabad plans to purchase 1,100 megawatts (MW) more electricity from its western neighbor, Iran.

The electricity supplied from Iran to the Pakistani Balochistan Province would prove especially helpful in overcoming the country’s energy shortage, Gilani said during a meeting with the Iranian Vice President Mohammad-Javad Mohammadizadeh in Boao, China.

The Pakistani prime minister also expressed interest in buying oil, gas and electricity from Iran despite the US-led sanctions imposed against the Islamic Republic over Tehran’s nuclear energy program, Dawn News reported on Sunday.

On February 26, 2012, Iran doubled its power supply to the Makran region of Pakistan from 35 MW per day to 70 MW after the enhancement of transmission lines.

A spokesman for Pakistan’s Ministry of Water and Power told reporters that the daily 70 MW supply will meet the electricity demand of the Makran division for the next five years.

Iran is currently exchanging electricity with Afghanistan, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Iraq, Pakistan, Nakhichevan, Turkey and Turkmenistan.

Iran’s total power generation capacity stands at 63,403 MW while the total length of the power grid exceeds 780,000 km.

The Islamic Republic seeks to become a major regional exporter of electricity and has attracted more than USD 1.1 billion in investments to build three new power plants.

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April 1, 2012 Posted by | Economics | , , , , | Leave a comment

Open Letter to Richard Trumka, president of the AFL-CIO

By Ralph Nader | March 28, 2012

Dear Mr. Trumka,

You have come to your leadership position of our country’s labor federation of unions with 13 million members the hard way. Starting by working in the coal mines, then becoming a lawyer, heading the United Mine Workers, then becoming the Secretary-Treasurer of the AFL-CIO before assuming your present position in 2009, who can pull rank on you in the formal labor movement?

Yet, the AFL-CIO’s public leadership in three major areas has been far less effective than one would expect. I am referring to your less than assertive response to President Obama: 1) turning his back on raising the federal minimum wage; 2) failing to advance his card check promise to you in 2008; and 3) dropping the ball on backing long-overdue safety and health responsibilities of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA).

I say this with the awareness of your group’s public stands in favor of these three crucial matters to working families. But as you well know, there is a very marked difference between being on-the-record, as the AFL-CIO is, and being on-the-daily ramparts pushing these issues, as your organization is not.

Even just making a statement, however, took a back seat in your March 13, 2012 endorsement of Barack Obama for a second term as president. In what ways has Mr. Obama “moved aggressively,” as you declared, “to protect workers rights, pay, health and safety on the job?”

He has neither championed nor pressed Congress, when the Democrats were in control in 2009-2010, to give you card check which you have long-said was needed to reverse the serious decline and expand the ranks of organized labor by millions of workers (you told me this in 2004).

Second, Mr. Obama appointed an excellent head of OSHA and then betrayed OSHA – an agency that has estimated 58,000 workplace-related American deaths a year from disease and trauma! That is over 1000 people a week, every week, on the average.

Dr. David Michaels, Assistant Secretary of Labor and the head of OSHA, cannot get White House approval for issuing long-overdue standards or strengthening weak and outdated standards such as the woefully inadequate silica rule, to save American lives not threatened by terrorists, but by corporate negligence or worse. Why have you not exposed this reality in public? Has Mr. Obama, whom you have socialized with at White House viewings of the Super Bowl, ever invited you to come across Lafayette Square to discuss this serious ongoing, preventable tragedy?

Had he taken worker concerns seriously, he might have asked you why the AFL-CIO for many years, has retained at its large national headquarters so few full-time advocates on occupational health and safety? And you in turn might have asked him why his politicos are blocking Dr. Michaels and why he is content in having only $550 million for OSHA’s annual budget while the U.S. spent $675 million in 2011 paying corporate contractors to guard the overbuilt U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, Iraq. Are these the Obama “values” you extolled in your endorsement statement?

More dismaying is your touting Mr. Obama for aggressively protecting workers’ pay. By pushing for more NAFTA type “pull-down” trade agreements through Congress, and not moving to revise NAFTA as he promised in his 2008 presidential campaigns, he is undermining both workers’ pay and jobs. By totally abandoning his pledge made to over 30 million workers in 2008 that he would press for a $9.50/hour federal minimum wage by 2011, he left them defenseless with more debt and fewer necessities of life.

The AFL-CIO wants at the least to catch up to 1968 with an inflation-adjusted $10/hour minimum wage law. Where is the visible muscular campaign for such legislation? Keeping up with inflation for the federal minimum wage is historically supported by 70 percent of the people. That includes many Republicans and even Rick Santorum and, until his latest flip-flop, Mitt Romney. A $10 minimum wage, after years of windfall price increases and executive compensation windfalls at labor’s expense, would annually pump tens of billions of dollars into greater consumer demand by low-income families in this recessionary economy.

What is the AFL-CIO waiting for? Hundreds of non-profit organizations will follow your lead. Talk is not enough. Resources and muscular lobbying are required along with far more relevant and tough public advertisements than your members are seeing and paying for on TV these days. Enough, already, of the general feel-good mood spots on TV.

As someone who in earlier days had been a dig-in-your-heels labor negotiator in fights with management, what did you receive for millions of American workers in your early, blanket endorsement of Mr. Obama? No wonder he can get away with giving the trade union movement and unorganized workers the back of his hand. You have unnecessarily allowed him to believe that you have nowhere to go. This is another way of saying that the Republicans, by being worse than the bad Democrats, are holding the American labor movement hostage to the corporatist Democratic Party.

The AFL-CIO is in a deep, defensive rut when in these tough times it should be in an aroused, innovative state of high alert and aggressive action. Workers in the 1930s’ Depression were in worse shape than workers today, yet organized labor was more militant.

People inside and outside the AFL-CIO know the problems. They are: complacent bureaucratic rigidity, fractious relations between member unions over how supine they need to be to Obama and the Democrats (with their costly wars), the lack of union democracy and competitive elections both within member unions and at the AFL-CIO plus, except for a few unions like the California Nurses Association, a distinct lack of sustained fervor and money for organizing drives.

You know all this only too well. Yet, as a 14th Century Chinese philosopher once said, “to know and not to do is not to know.” Unless you shake the AFL-CIO up and reorder its priorities against the corporate state, expect another four years of an Obamabush Administration.

Sincerely,
Ralph Nader

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March 30, 2012 Posted by | Deception, Economics, Progressive Hypocrite, Solidarity and Activism, Timeless or most popular | , , , , , | Leave a comment

BRICS agree to local currency credits to ease dollar dependency

RT | March 29, 2012

The BRICS – Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa – have agreed to provide credit to each other in local currencies. Officials say the deal will facilitate economic growth in times of crisis.

­The currency swap deal is aimed at promoting trade and investment in local currencies as well as to cut transaction costs. It’s also seen as a step to replace the dollar as a reserve currency in trade between BRICS.

“The idea is in line with many interests and economic exigencies in the world economy,” Yaroslav Lissovolik, the chief economist at Deutsche Bank told RT. “The euro and dollar are no longer seen as unquestionable monopolies in the role of reserve currencies. Clearly the world needs more reserve currencies.”

The deal would also increase the BRICS influence on the international arena and will make their cooperation less sensitive to sanctions from the West, experts say.

“The BRICS countries are in the first rank to do the job that international financial system now needs. What the BRICS said was a very welcomed wake up call,” John Kirton, the Co-Director of the BRICS Research Group told RT.

Russia and China have been trading in the ruble and yuan for several years, now Russia plans to expand local currency settlement with India.

“With China it took us three years to (evolve) from initial conversations to trading in local currencies,” Vladimir Dmitriev, the chairman of Russia’ s VEB told reporters. “I think we will meet similar terms with India”.

Meanwhile the swap requires a lot of technical work by each country such as the synchronization of national banking legislation, according to Mr. Dmitriev.

The BRICS countries are also going to announce plans on a joint development bank which is considered a possible rival to the World Bank and the IMF. If established, it would function as a lending agency and would provide finance for joint BRICS projects.

“They made it very clear it would be built to benefit not only BRICS countries themselves, but developing countries more broadly,” said KIrton. “But the big message was to give the World Bank more resources, only then would they see how the BRICS bank would fit in the supplement what they’ve already got.”

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March 29, 2012 Posted by | Economics | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

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