Editor’s Note: This video report was originally published by People’s Dispatch.
As Panamanians enter week three of national strike against the cost of living crisis, the government has responded with heavy repression. On July 19, the anti-riot units brutally repressed the protesters, who have been blocking the Inter-American highway over the past three weeks. However, within hours, the protesters returned to block the road.
Ronaldo Ortíz of the National Front for the Defense of Economic and Social Rights (FRENADESO) spoke to Peoples Dispatch about the ongoing struggle and attempts to negotiate with the government on their demands.
Tens of thousands of Czech people protested October 28, demanding the current government resign and sanctions against Russia end / credit: Screenshot from video
Editor’s Note: This article originally appeared on Antiwar.com.
Amid ever escalating tensions over the West’s proxy war in Ukraine and the devastating inflation ripping Europe apart, Czech protesters gathered October 28 in Prague demanding the coalition government’s resignation, the Associated Press reports.
The rally saw tens of thousands of citizens condemning their government’s support for Kiev, including the provision of heavy weapons, as well as sanctions on Russia. A smaller, similar rally was held in Brno, the country’s second-largest city.
The demonstrators’ slogan was “Czech Republic First.” As with other recent protests throughout the continent, the left and right are uniting in their opposition to the West’s economic and proxy warfare against Russia.
One speaker said “Russia’s not our enemy, the government of warmongers is the enemy,” according to the AP.
Protesters “repeatedly condemned the government for its support of Ukraine and the European Union sanctions against Russia, opposed Czech membership in the EU, NATO and other international organizations,” the report said.
Leaders in Prague dismissed the protests. Interior Minister Vit Rakusan tweeted “[w]e know who’s our friend and who’s bleeding for our freedom,” adding “we also know who’s our enemy.”
The Washington-led sanctions blitz has cut Europe off from cheap Russian gas upon which it has long relied. In the Czech Republic, energy, housing, and food prices soaring. The inflation rate is 17.8 percent.
Similar protests are occurring in Italy, Germany, and France. “Strikes and protests over the rising cost of living proliferate, ushering in a period of social and labor unrest not seen since at least the 1970s,” the New York Times reported earlier this month.
In September, Prague saw massive demonstrations of 70,000 people, again from the left and right, protesting against NATO’s proxy war in Ukraine and rising energy prices caused by the sanctions campaign. Those protesters also called for the resignation of Prime Minister Petr Fiala’s center-right coalition government. “We intensively support the justified fight of the Ukrainian people,” Fiala has declared.
Wow. Absolutely massive protest in Prague, Czech Republic today demanding an end to anti-Russia sanctions. pic.twitter.com/GtjHWdEhl4
Connor Freeman is the assistant editor and a writer at the Libertarian Institute, primarily covering foreign policy. He is a co-host on the “Conflicts of Interest” podcast. His writing has been featured in media outlets such as Antiwar.com, Counterpunch, and the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity. He has also appeared on “Liberty Weekly,” “Around the Empire” and “Parallax Views.” You can follow him on Twitter at @FreemansMind96.
Israeli military personnel push a Jewish activist from the United States amid a Palestinian-led protest on June 10 against the seizure of the Masafer Yatta region in the West Bank / credit: Emily Glick
MASAFER YATTA, OCCUPIED WEST BANK—On Tuesday, the Israeli military started training in Masafer Yatta, a rural, arid enclave south of the occupied West Bank city of Hebron. This comes after more than two decades of Palestinians using legal avenues to try to stop the seizure of their land.
The military training has involved the army sticking shooting targets onto tractors, windows and barrels of hay.
My voice shakes in this video. Tons of Israeli soldiers just started "training" in Masafer Yatta. They're driving war tanks near a school, as children watch, terrified, they're placing targets on cars and windows, they're doing this to evict us in the most brutal way possible. pic.twitter.com/kWV7JWEraB
Expected to last a whole month, this is the first such military training exercise in the Palestinian community in 20 years, and comes as Masafer Yatta is experiencing the largest mass expulsion of Palestinians since 1967.
Today the military launched its training in Masafer Yatta, which is planned to last a whole month, by positioning targets, pictured here, on the vehicles and property of Palestinians from the community of al-Majaz.
Demonstrations—regularly met with violence from soldiers and Israeli settlers—have occurred almost weekly since Israel’s Supreme Court rejected a petition in May against the expulsion of more than 1,000 Palestinians.
For example, on June 10, the Israeli army attacked a Palestinian-led protest. Soldiers beat protesters, fired tear gas that burned demonstrators, threw stun grenades and detained Israeli solidarity activists. More than 200 Palestinians, Israelis, and Jews from both the United States and the United Kingdom protested as part of the “Save Masafer Yatta” campaign.
“Our protests show the racism in how the Israeli army treats us,” said Basil Adra, an activist from the village of Tuwani in Masafer Yatta. “Soldiers who claim that they are not allowed to stop settlers from committing violence against us are then very aggressive towards protesters.”
Israeli military personnel push Palestinians and solidarity activists protesting on June 10 the seizure of the rural West Bank enclave of Masafer Yatta / credit: Emily Glick
The Culmination of a Decades-Long Legal Battle
In the 1980s, the Israeli army declared all 19 villages in Masafer Yatta as “Firing Zone 918,” a closed military training site. By 1999, the Israeli military rounded up more than 700 residents into trucks and expelled them off land they had cultivated for generations.
In response to the forcible transfer, the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI) in the year 2000 filed petitions with the Israeli Supreme Court on behalf of residents. The court then granted an interim injunction, permitting residents to temporarily return to their homes.
A 2012 state attorney decision allowed four villages—Tuba, Sirat ‘Awad Ibrahim, Sarura and Mufaqara—to remain based upon the Israeli Defense Ministry’s position that the land wasn’t needed for military training. Despite the decision, settler violence and land theft have plagued these villages.
From there, the high court continued hearings on various petitions for years. But last month, the court dismissed residents’ petitions. In its ruling, the court determined the Palestinian inhabitants—who live nomadically and depend on shepherding for their livelihoods—were not permanent residents when the military declared the area a firing zone.
The recent court opinion has given the army the green light to demolish eight villages and displace the Masafer Yatta residents once again.
The residents, along with ACRI, petitioned the Supreme Court on Sunday for an additional hearing and interim order to stop military training in Masafer Yatta.
“It is to be hoped that the high court will accept the request for additional hearing and reverse the ruling that war crimes can be committed under the court’s purview,” ACRI attorneys Dan Yakir and Roni Pelli said.
Israeli military personnel push solidarity activists on June 10 amid the Palestinian-led protest in the West Bank enclave of Masafer Yatta / credit: Emily Glick
From Quiet Grazing Lands to an ‘Army Base’
Since the court ruling, residents say Masafer Yatta feels like it has transformed into the equivalent of a military base. Temporary army checkpoints have been established at entrances of the area’s eight villages deemed the firing zone. Soldiers with assault rifles strapped to their chests patrol the area daily—delivering demolition orders, as well as carrying out arrests and nightly raids. Military jeeps packed with soldiers roam the rocky terrain.
The Israeli military has already started carrying out demolitions since the court ruling.
BREAKING Imminent threat to the entire community of Khalet a-Thab’a in Masafer Yatta. From Sunday June 19, all but three of the village’s structures are at risk of being destroyed.
In May, 19 structures such as houses, tents, animal pens and water tanks were demolished. That left 45 people homeless in the villages of Al-Fakheit and Al-Mirkez. This month, the army bulldozed tents belonging to 21 residents of these villages, which they had set up after their homes were destroyed. On Thursday, all but three buildings in the village of Khalet a-Thab’a received demolition orders that can be enacted beginning Sunday.
Even areas of Masafer Yatta not part of the firing zone are at risk of being razed. The Israeli Civil Administration, which governs activities in the West Bank, issued on Thursday a demolition order for Palestinian activist group Youth of Sumud’s guest house and community center.
Just now the Israeli civil administration accompanied with army raided Tuwani village delivered a final demolition order for Youth Of sumud center in the village in Masafer Yatta /South Hebron Hills . #SaveMasaferYattapic.twitter.com/cJsLEsr0YZ
“This center, which we worked for years to complete, is a big step for the people of Masafer Yatta to organize and protect our lands. We use this place to host internationals, hold meetings and organize community gatherings,” Sami Huraini of Youth of Sumud told Toward Freedom. “This demolition order isn’t just about the Youth of Sumud—it is about crushing organizing efforts in solidarity with the vulnerable communities in the 918 firing zone.”
The center is located in Tuwani—the only village in Masafer Yatta with a zoning plan—meaning the law protects it from demolition. Sameeha Huraini, Sami’s sister who also is involved with Youth of Sumud, explained the Civil Administration gave the demolition order on the grounds the center is located outside of the zoning plan and on an archeological site—both claims are false, she said. The Israeli military and Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories, which oversees the Civil Administration, did not respond to requests for comment by the time of publication.
A stun grenade burned the pants and leg of an activist during a June 10 Palestinian-led protest against the seizure of the rural enclave of Masafer Yatta in the West Bank / credit: Emily Glick
‘Our Rights Have Become Dreams’
Army-enforced eviction isn’t Masafer Yatta’s only struggle. Several illegal, Jewish-only settlements encircle the region.
“Israeli illegal outposts inside Masafer Yatta are connected to resources and are not under imminent eviction,” said Ali Awad, a Palestinian activist from the village of Tuba. “Settlers in these outposts commit violence against neighboring Palestinians and work in tandem with the Israeli military to steal our resources and expel us from our homes.”
While the Palestinian villages are not connected to the electrical grid and water system, the illegal settlements are. Without these hookups, Palestinians are forced to survive on NGO-donated solar panels and expensive water tanks, which settlers often destroy and soldiers confiscate.
Israeli military personnel mingle on June 10 with settlers from the colony of Mitzpeh Yair / credit: Emily Glick
Awdah Hathaleen, a Palestinian activist from the village of Umm al-Khair in Masafer Yatta, lamented what will happen to his community if the army is successful in dismantling the eight villages.
“After that, what will be [the army’s] next mission? The other villages [in Masafer Yatta], and, unfortunately, my village will be one of them. Because if they succeed in this, they will just keep going,” Hathaleen told Toward Freedom. “We are humans. Humans who deserve basic rights. But our rights have become dreams. And now we have to work to make those dreams become reality.”
Jessica Buxbaum is a Jerusalem-based freelance journalist reporting on Palestine and the Israeli occupation. You can follow her on Twitter at @jess_buxbaum.
Indigenous people protesting on February 8 in the streets of Perú against the parliamentary coup that ousted President Pedro Castillo Terrones / credit: Clau O’Brien Moscoso
Editor’s Note: This article originally appeared in The Canada Files.
Two months on from the coup against Peru’s democratically-elected President, Pedro Castillo, Canada is providing key support for a regime responsible for the deaths of 58 civilians (as of February 6, 2023).
There is a dramatic contrast between Canada’s chummy relationship with Peru’s de facto authorities and its increasingly hostile treatment of socialist Nicaragua.
President Pedro Castillo’s December 7, 2022 ouster and political imprisonment was followed by threemassacres, with teenagers among the dead. 1,229 reported civilians have been wounded, according to Peruvian health authorities, and an unknown number of arbitrary and mass arrests.
Protests are ongoing, with 72 active roadblock points on national roadways, and an indefinite strike which began on January 4, 2023 in regions of southern Peru continues. A recent poll by the Institute of Peruvian Studies showed the Congress with 9 per cent approval rating and 71 per cent disapproved of Dina Boluarte’s presidency. The unrest ignited throughout the country in rejection of the removal and imprisonment of Castillo, and subsequent installation of Dina Boluarte, as well as in rejection of the right-wing Congress, has not gone unnoticed by Canada. Global Affairs Canada has published several travel advisories since the start of the anti-coup mobilizations.
Global Affairs warns of a “volatile” political situation and acknowledges “many casualties”, attributing deaths to “clashes between protestors and the security forces”. In December 2022, mobilizations intensified to the point where Canadians became stranded and at least four humanitarian flights were organized to evacuate Canadian nationals.
Canada expressed ‘deep concern’ in a tweet by Ambassador Louis Marcotte on the day of President Castillo’s removal and its recognition of Dina Boluarte, who was sworn in within hours of Castillo’s arrest, was made known shortly after. Foreign Affairs Minister Melanie Joly then ‘reiterated’ her administration’s “support for the transitional government of President Boluarte” during a call with Peru’s Foreign Minister, Ana Cecilia Gervasi.
Ottawa’s actions closely resemble those of 2019, when the Trudeau government and other CORE group members were first to recognize the coup regime of Jeanine Añez in Bolivia and silent before the brutal repression which accompanied the coup. The similarities between the two cases are countless and it’s worth noting that Canada has the same ambassador for both Peru and Bolivia.
Inter-American Commission on Human Rights
The state terror unleashed on protesters and civilians prompted an observation visit to Peru by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR). Canada acknowledged the visit and report to the Organization of American States (OAS) by the IACHR at a Special Meeting of the OAS Permanent Council. The IACHR is currently drafting the relevant report but published a press release on January 27, 2023, previewing its findings.
The Commission “condemned violence in efforts to disperse demonstrators” and “mass arrests” during the raid on the National University of San Marcos, in Lima. It noted reports of “excessive use of force by law enforcement” by civil society organizations, arbitrary arrests and complaints of “verbal attacks including the use of intimidating, derogatory, racist, and humiliating language” by police who impeded lawyers’ ability to access their clients. Amid reports of sexual violence by officers against women detainees, the IACHR stressed categorical condemnation of the practice as a tool to exercise control. The statement also issued a reminder on the rights of persons deprived of liberty.
Ottawa’s relative silence on the Peruvian state’s widely reported abuses is particularly eyebrow raising given Canada’s good graces towards the IACHR, which derives its mandate from the OAS — an intergovernmental body dominated by the United States and Canada.
OAS
The OAS has in no way contributed positively to the situation in Peru and should be investigated for its role in the December 7, 2022 coup. A High-Level Group delegation of the OAS Permanent Council visit just two weeks prior to Castillo’s ouster failed to avert the crisis. Castillo himself had gone directly to the Secretary General in search of support from the organization.
Fast forward to January 30, 2023, and with no end in sight for Peru’s turmoil, a Special Meeting of the OAS Permanent Council to address the situation was held, at the request of four member countries.
The brief remarks delivered before this council by Canada’s representative to the OAS, Ambassador Hugh Adsett, referred to the IACHR’s “conclusions” but avoided elaboration. Adsett offered no condemnation of the crimes committed against the Peruvian population, as Canada has on many other occasions, particularly when the OAS Permanent Council has met to address the political situations in Nicaragua and Venezuela. Adsett also participated in the gutting and re-writing of a draft declaration, which in its final version received the approval of all members of the aforementioned council, including the United States, the Peruvian regime itself, and with the blessing of OAS Secretary General Luis Almagro.
A call for prompt, supervised elections in Peru is central in the final document, as well as a call for the Peruvian Public Ministry to investigate, prosecute, and punish “those responsible for violations of human rights” — with no mention of security forces and their use of repression against the population. The “excessive use of force by security forces” was cited in the earlier version first drafted by Colombia and Antigua and Barbuda, but was modified in the carefully-worded final version. This version purposely omitted all reference to security forces and didn’t attribute violence or human rights violations to the state, leaving the declaration open to interpretation.
In the face of a mountain of irrefutable evidence of flagrant human rights violations by the Boluarte government, the OAS has expressed its “full support” for Peruvian President Dina Boluarte, a position it shares with Canada and the United States.
Canada and the OAS Target the Sandinista Revolution
During October 2022, just two months before the coup in Peru, Lima was the host of the OAS General Assembly. ‘Human rights’ in Nicaragua topped Foreign Minister Melanie Joly’s agenda at a peculiar time, given the absence of any significant political development in the Central American country that would warrant special attention.
Canada assumed the lead in the coordinated attack on Nicaragua’s Sandinista government in 2021, similar to the shift in U.S.-provided tasks in 2018 when then-Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland led the charge against the Bolivarian government of Venezuela through the now defunct ‘Lima Group’.
Since receiving the baton from Washington in 2021, Joly has made numerous statements aimed at Nicaragua’s democracy and has sought to escalate the regional and international campaign of aggression. This comes in addition to the illegal sanctions regime first introduced by Ottawa in June of 2019. According to Global Affairs, sanctions have been enacted “in response to gross and systematic human rights violations that have been committed in Nicaragua.”
The result of the October OAS General Assembly meeting in Lima was a strongly-worded resolution with a long list of action items to address a non-existent political and human rights crisis in Nicaragua.
Canada has arbitrarily and illegally imposed three rounds of unilateral sanctions against the country which has enjoyed years of political stability, and whose citizens feel the most peaceful out of all countries of the world, according to a Gallup poll.
Canada’s Interests in Latin America
Canadians ought to question why Canada is harassing a country at peace, with the lowest levels of violent and transnational crime in Central America while leading the world in gender parity, as it rubber stamps the excessive use of force and extrajudicial killings by the widely-hated regime in Peru.
The reality is that Canada never wanted Pedro Castillo in power to begin with and saw better allies in his neoliberal opponents. With CAD $9.9 billion in assets, Canadian companies are Peru’s largest investors in mineral exploration. The country’s mining and resource extraction firms are always attentive to political shifts in Latin America because of the direct effect of policy changes on their ability to operate and secure contracts. The ambassador himself made an appearance alongside his constituents of the mining industry, including Hudbay Minerals, at the Canada Pavilion at the PERUMIN 35 Mining Convention.
Post-coup, Louis Marcotte, Ambassador of Canada to Peru and Bolivia, was quick to meet with Peru’s Mining Minister, Oscar Vera Gargurevich, to promote investment by Canadian firms in mining and hydrocarbon, as well as in the development of electromobility. Vera Gargurevich confirmed his ministry’s participation in the infamous PDAC mining convention in Toronto, Ontario, to be held in March, where Peru will seek new foreign investors.
The president of the Peruvian delegation to PDAC 2023, Óscar Benavides, has said that his country’s representatives will be reassuring investors at the Toronto convention and explain the situation in his country and what’s being done to solve it.
Ottawa’s actions amid flagrant abuses by the Peruvian state are consistent with its track record of legitimizing unpopular neoliberal regimes despite overt and well-documented violent repression (Ivan Duque, Juan Orlando Hernandez, Lenin Moreno, Guillermo Lasso, Jeanine Añez). At the same time, it has worked to undermine the governments of Evo Morales, Daniel Ortega, Nicolas Maduro, and Manuel Zelaya, all of which guarded the sovereignty of their respective countries and resources against foreign exploitation. These leaders, through nationalization, have insisted that resources be used to the benefit of their own populations and not for corporate profits.
Similarly, Castillo ran on a campaign which promised to reassert popular control over Peru’s natural resources through nationalization. Despite the difficulties Castillo encountered once in office, his opponents feared that he would renegotiate contracts to the benefit of the Peruvian state over foreign companies—which would affect Canadian plunderers.
Canada Out of Peru
Canada is currently urging Peru to hold new elections which appear likely to be organized by an illegitimate administration and Congress, with involvement of the OAS. In any such scenario, Castillo’s former Peru Libre party may face obstacles in running a candidate, as the party continues to be a target of political persecution and media smear campaigns.
Despite the absence of rule of law and countless human rights violations, it’s unlikely that Trudeau will cease support for Peru’s unelected regime, particularly given his track record in propping up Jeanine Añez and the make-believe Juan Guaido administration. But like Añez, Boluarte could be swapped out any day. A more permanent enemy of the Peruvian people is the Canadian government, Trudeau himself and Canadian financiers in natural resource extraction, who unabated will continue to conspire and sacrifice lives, in order to plunder Latin America and the Caribbean.
However severe the situation becomes in Peru, declarations or intervention shouldn’t be welcome from the human rights-violating Canadian government, which in addition to its historical and ongoing crimes against Indigenous peoples, maintains death sanctions on two dozen countries, at the direction of Washington.
Camila Escalante is a Latin America-based reporter and the editor of Kawsachun News. Escalante was reporting in Bolivia through the year of resistance to the Añez coup regime, which culminated in the presidential election victory of Luis Arce in October 2020. She can be followed on Twitter at @camilapress.
