Kawsachun News was recently in Desaguadero, Peru, to speak to participants of the general strike against the parliamentary coup that took place against ousted President Pedro Castillo.
Peoples Dispatch reported state forces killed 17 people January 9 in Juliaca, Peru, bringing the total during this unrest to 46 deaths, as of the last available press reports.
Clau O’Brien Moscoso, a member of the Black Alliance for Peace Haiti/Americas Team, is in Peru reporting from the ground. She spoke to Kawsachun News on January 12.
Here is some of her video documentation of the national strike.
BAP Haiti/Americas Team member Claudia O'Brien Moscoso (@PiolinSghost) has been in the streets of Lima with the masses of #Peru's people, who have been protesting the parliamentary coup of @PedroCastilloTe. Check this thread for her documentation. https://t.co/DgNJcLgN46
The documentary, “Ferguson Rises,” produced by Mobolaji Olambiwonnu and Films With A Purpose studios, is an important examination of how a global movement, Black Lives Matter, was sparked.
The opening scenes of happy, playing, gleeful children, mommies and daddies, and families doing what families do… abruptly cuts to a black screen and the sound of the shots that ended Michael Brown, Jr.’s life on August 9, 2014, in Ferguson, Missouri. From there, the documentary goes on to provide important details about the growing unrest in the small, predominantly Black community that led to the Black Lives Matter movement.
Poster of film, “Ferguson Rises (2021)
The film examines how Ferguson police called for backup from 15 police departments in the Saint Louis area to deal with a crowd that had formed after police had left Brown’s body uncovered and decomposing in the sweltering heat for more than four hours. They did that faster than how long they took to call a coroner to cover the 18-year-old’s body.
The filmmaker also casts a lens on Ferguson’s smallness. The city has just 20,000 residents and is almost 70 percent Black. It is so small that Michael Brown, Sr., knew some of the police officers on the scene and went to high school with them. Yet, they ignored him when he asked if the person lying dead in the street was his son. Michael Brown, Jr.’s mother, Lezly McSpadden, not only was ignored when she arrived on the scene—she was callously disrespected.
Whether Brown stole cigars in a convenience store as well as whether he had his hands up when police officer Darren Wilson encountered him are accurately contextualized in the documentary. The film sheds light on the then-police chief, Tom Jackson, repeatedly stating to the media Wilson was not aware of Brown’s possible involvement in the incident at the convenience store. This, of course, would call into question what reason Wilson had to stop Brown. Jackson went on to change his story.
Still from film, “Ferguson Rises” (2021) / credit: fergusonrises.com
The irresponsibility, sensationalism and outright dishonesty of the media is on full display in the documentary. In one clip from CBS This Morning, the lower-third graphic on the screen read, “Missouri Riots,” but the footage showed Brown’s mother and neighbors crying and emotional at the scene of his shooting. No footage of actual riots.
In chronicling the growth of the Black Lives Matter movement, the documentary provides key moments in that timeline that were known only to the residents of Ferguson. They begin with an elder U.S. Army veteran walking the streets of Ferguson the day after the shooting, waving a U.S. flag, reciting with emotion the words to the spiritual song, “Oh Freedom.”
Extensive coverage of eight hours of protests shown in the documentary were uneventful. That is, until Ferguson police brought in riot gear and military equipment to assault residents because, as one man in the film commented, police wanted to stop them from marching to the police station. Yet, CNN and other media outlets throughout the country falsely conveyed the first night of protests was violent because of residents’ actions.
Still from film, “Ferguson Rises” (2021) / credit: fergusonrises.com
The reality of two Fergusons—one Black and one white—is well conveyed in the documentary. Several white residents appeared to dismiss the anger of Black residents, with one white man reducing the protests to “tantrums.” Their cluelessness continued with comments about how the “community has been portrayed to the outside world” and how “the phrase ‘Black lives matter’ doesn’t sit well with a lot of white people” because “all lives matter.” The willful obtuseness is enraging, but this is the reality of how our struggle is viewed.
Yet, a few white residents recognized the centuries-long rift in Missouri that led to that horrible day in Ferguson. The white pastor of the African Methodist Episcopal church sees the protests as a spiritual battle between heaven and hell, good and evil. A former Ferguson police detective recognizes the racism in the police force, even though he excuses cops using tear gas on protesters. Then we hear from a white resident who was going to move out of town until he drove by the scene of Brown’s murder and realized just how horrible the murder of the young man was and how traumatizing it must have been for the embattled community to have to see Brown’s body decomposing in the street.
Still from film, “Ferguson Rises” (2021) / credit: fergusonrises.com
The documentary focuses on Michael Brown, Sr., and the trauma men endure when their children are killed. It also takes a look at residents’ clarity on the systemic nature of what they’re fighting against. They understand it is not about individual police officers or a few bad apples.
The end scenes, however, are a study in contradictions, with Cori Bush going from being a Black grassroots activist in Ferguson to an elected representative in the U.S. Congress. Meanwhile, a Black man named Wesley Bell was sworn in as Saint Louis prosecutor, but did not prosecute Wilson. Ferguson elected its first Black mayor six years after Brown’s murder, but the Time magazine cover featuring Alicia Garza, Opal Tometi and Patrisse Cullours as the faces of Black Lives Matter did not age well considering the enormous financial scandal that fractured the movement. Clips show Los Angeles and New York police departments announcing budget cuts. Yet, those cuts were miniscule compared to the total budgets of those police forces. Plus, claims of rising crime have fueled the rallying cry to “refund the police,” even though they were never “defunded.” Meanwhile, positive clips of Georgia politician Stacey Abrams and U.S. Vice President Kamala “The Cop” Harris, seem out of place for a documentary that for the most part condemns the system.
“Ferguson Rises” is a very good documentary. But the triumphant and hopeful end scenes are a sobering reminder that mere representation without radical or justice-focused politics often replicates the system.
Jacqueline Luqman is a radical activist based in Washington, D.C.; as well as co-founder ofLuqman Nation, an independent Black media outlet that can be found on YouTube (here andhere) and onFacebook; and co-host of Radio Sputnik’s“By Any Means Necessary.”
Protesters gathered outside Atlanta City Hall during Mayor Dickens’ January 31 press conference to cast doubt on his claims about reaching a “compromise” regarding “Cop City” / credit: Unicorn Riot
Editor’s Note: This article originally appeared in Unicorn Riot.
ATLANTA, United States—Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens announced Tuesday that the City of Atlanta and DeKalb County have reached an agreement regarding permitting issues that had previously slowed their plans to build an elaborate 85-acre police training facility in the middle of a forest in unincorporated DeKalb County, southeast of Atlanta. The training center, nicknamed “Cop City,” has sparked massive opposition; violent police repression of the movement against the project recently led to SWAT officers shooting and killing a protester.
Dickens’ announcement varied little from the Atlanta Police Foundation and the City of Atlanta’s previously stated plans. However, apparently responding to criticism from environmental groups and community members, the mayor attempted to reframe the project as environmentally beneficial to the South River watershed and surrounding forest.
“I know there have been questions about the environmental impact of this project, which is a focus of this agreement we’re announcing today with DeKalb County,” said Dickens. “The 85-acre facility will be constructed on a set of parcels owned by the city of Atlanta that totals more than 380 acres. The rest of the land, which is roughly 300 acres, will continue to be green space available to the public.”
Dickens claimed that the area slated for destruction by the city contains only “invasive species, soft woods, weeds, asphalt and rubble.” But those who have been to the forest, including several Unicorn Riot contributors, know that the 85 acres slated for destruction contain an actual, thriving ecosystem.
The mayor has deemed this new plan a “compromise,” but those protesting outside the press conference say no compromise has been reached with them.
“The city has lied about the Cop City acreage before,” wrote some of the protestors in a statement released by the Atlanta Community Press Collective. According to the group, the 85 acres includes only the footprint of buildings, not the entirety of forested acreage that will be destroyed by the project.
“In August 2021, when Atlanta City Council delayed their vote on Cop City, the APF claimed a similar ‘compromise:’ instead of clearing the 381 acres they are leased by the City of Atlanta, the APF would reduce the footprint of buildings and impermeable surfaces to only 85 acres, while more of the land would be cleared and turned into turf fields, shooting ranges, horse stables labeled ‘green space.’”
The $90 million, 85-acre “Cop City” facility will include a simulated city for officers to train in, a helicopter landing base, new outdoor shooting ranges and burn tower sites / credit: Atlanta Police Foundation
Jasmine Burnett, with Community Movement Builders, said that her group is not assuaged by promises of “green space” either.
“Our firm line is no cop city anywhere,” said Jasmine Burnett, Organizing Director at Community Movement Builders. “No destruction of the forest at all. I know, they’re trying to harp on the fact that it’s only 85 acres. And allegedly, the rest will be left for public use. But that’s 85 acres too much.”
“We are also calling for the charges to be dropped against all of the protesters who’ve been charged with any crimes, but especially the domestic terrorism charges,” said Burnett. “So yeah, ultimately, the fight to stop cop city continues beyond today, nothing has really changed except for the fact that they at the last minute made all of us come over here for a last minute press conference.”
Jaike Spottedwolf, who was also protesting outside City Hall during the press conference, echoed the concerns that the city continues to lie about the project. “We know how they operate,” they said. “We know that they’re going to get in there, start building and then take the whole thing down at that point, we won’t be able to fight anything.”
In the anonymous press release posted by the Atlanta Community Press Collective, the authors also pointed out that neither this current promise, nor past promises, have been legally binding. Those opposed to the project are concerned it could be nothing more than a ploy to distract opposition to the project.
“Nothing in the lease agreement was binding regarding this promise, and quickly the land disturbance permits shifted — nearly doubling to 171 acres,” the group wrote of the previous deal.
“Like all other points of ‘compromise,’ this has proved empty rhetoric to cover over the undemocratic railroading of this project on to un-represented, disenfranchised residents of Atlanta and Dekalb County. This is more backroom talk between powerful elites and their dark money contributors.”
The pro-“Cop City” press conference Atlanta officials held January 31 was overshadowed both inside and outside City Hall by protesters from the #StopCopCity movement / credit: Unicorn Riot
The announcement comes less than two weeks after police shot and killed forest defender Manuel “Tortuguita” Terán, claiming that Terán had shot an Georgia State Patrol trooper in the abdomen during a raid on the forest. Activist groups, however, have called that narrative into question, demanding the release of all information available on the incident to the family for an independent investigation. The trooper who killed Terán has not been named. Protest groups are demanding the release of his name.
During the press conference, neither the politicians nor the police chief mentioned Terán’s killing.
Manuel “Tortuguita” Terán was killed January 18 in a confrontation with Atlanta police
Recently, more than 1,300 climate justice groups have signed a statement calling for the immediate resignation of Mayor Dickens amidst growing controversy over the cop city project and Terán’s killing, according to the Atlanta Community Press Collective.
The ‘green space’ and eco-management aspects of the plan are not new innovations or concessions, but were presented by engineers in an October 26, 2021 meeting of the Community Stakeholder Advisory Committee (CSAC). (Recordings of CSAC meetings were first obtained and released by the Atlanta Community Press Collective).
In the October 2021 meeting, Lily Ponitz, a former environmental engineer serving on the committee as a concerned local resident, told the committee that areas slated for use as public parks include contamination that the Atlanta Police Foundation and the city of Atlanta instructed environmental contractors to ignore – allegations that were not challenged by either hired engineers on the call or the leaders and police officials on the committee. Ponitz was later unceremoniously kicked off the advisory committee due to her dissent regarding elements of the project.
Advisory Committee Chair Alison Clark, who was instrumental in removing Ponitz for her critical comments, is also President of the Boulder Walk Homeowner’s Association.
Here are comments from an exchange from October 21, 2021 meeting of the Atlanta Public Safety Training Center (APSTC) Community Stakeholder Advisory Committee (CSAC):
Bob Hughes [Project Manager working with Atlanta Police Foundation]: And I think it’s important to point out, because I know last time we there was some express about concern of making sure if there’s an environmental issue that needs to be cleaned up, that it’s addressed, that that this environmental study is not just inside the 85 acres that are the Police Foundation lease land, but we’re looking at everything outside of that so that, you know, if there’s something there, we want to know it.
And I think you all want to know, we all want to know that gets cleaned up.
Lily Ponitz:So that’s just where I actually don’t think what you’re saying is true. And I would like to see on a map exactly what areas you are defining in your environmental site assessment and what areas are in the plan for the site plan.
Alan Williams [Project Manager, Atlanta Police Foundation]:Well, our Phase One is in the public right now.
Lilz Ponitz: Yeah, I know. I’ve read it.
So what I’m saying is, there are areas in the site that you guys left out investigating and I understand APF [Atlanta Police Foundation] told you to do that or the city of Atlanta told you to do that. They’re your client. But what I’m trying to advocate for is a full assessment of the whole property to actually understand the contamination that has been put on the site by the City of Atlanta so that when you open up park spaces that have not been remediated we don’t have citizens who are coming into contact with contaminated soil and contaminated water like they already have been, honestly, with Intrenchment Creek. So that’s that’s just where, you know, really to prove what you’re doing, to prove that this is due diligence in the eyes of the concerned citizen. I’m asking for maps that show what areas did you leave out…?
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.