An illustration of the Great Lakes region, through which Enbridge Energy’s Lines 3 and 5 carrying tar sands oil flows / credit: Bill Krupinski
Editor’s Note: Members of Toward Freedom‘s Board of Directors are involved in struggles while they serve on TF‘s working board. Board President Rebecca Kemble spent the summer in central Minnesota, where a struggle against pipelines carrying oil derived from Canadian tar sands has taken place. Enbridge Energy is a Canadian multinational corporation running tar sands pipelines through the United States for export because it has not been able to get permission to build them in Canada. However, all of the land through which Enbridge’s Pipeline 3, known as “Line 3,” passes either is 1854 or 1855 Treaty Territory. The Obijwe people ceded the territory to the U.S. government in exchange for the rights to hunt, fish and gather on those lands in perpetuity. Line 3 also plows through hundreds of wild-rice beds. Northern and central Minnesota, as well as northern Wisconsin, are the only places where wild rice grows. The plant is sacred to the Anishinaabe peoples (made up of the Ojibwe, Ottawa and Pottowotami nations) of the Great Lakes region. The U.S. government initiated the 1854 and 1855 treaties to avoid costly military campaigns for land conquest. Since they were written, these treaties have been broken multiple times. In the last several decades, the Ojibwe people have been successfully asserting their treaty rights in federal courts. The White Earth Band of Ojibwe recently sued Minnesota’s Department of Natural Resources for permitting Line 3 and, in so doing, failing to protect the state’s fresh water. Manoomin (wild rice) is named as a plaintiff in that case. (In Ecuador and New Zealand, rivers have been named plaintiffs.) At least 6 active and autonomous “No Line 3” camps have occupied central Minnesota over the past summer. Some have been established as direct-action camps, while others are cultural and educational camps.
Monday, October 12, marked Indigenous People’s Day, which kicked off a series of daily protest actions in Washington, D.C. While U.S. President Joe Biden issued a proclamation Monday affirming Indigenous sovereignty, the federal government continues to allow violations of Indigenous sovereignty, such as in the form of pipeline projects.
For the first time since the 1970s, Indigenous people occupied the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs this week in Washington. A group called People vs. Fossil Fuels stated in a press release 130 people were arrested.
Restoration of 110 million acres (450,000 km2) of land taken away from Native Nations
Bring Home Our Children Buried At Your Residential Schools
Restoration of treaty-making (ended by Congress in 1871)
Establishment of a treaty commission to make new treaties (with sovereign Native Nations)
Land Back
Water Back
Honor the Treaties
No new leases for oil and gas or extractive industry on public lands
Free, Prior, and Informed Consent
Reclaim and affirm health, housing, employment, economic development, and education for all Indigenous people
Restoration of terminated rights
Repeal of state jurisdiction on Native Nations
Federal protection for offenses against Indians
Below is a series of photos Rebecca Kemble captured over the summer.
Sunset on the Shell River in 1855 Treaty Territory, now within the U.S. state of Minnesota. The treaty created the Leech Lake and Mille Lacs reservations in northern Minnesota, while ceding territory to the U.S. government but retaining rights to hunt, fish and gather food. The river is home to many plant, mollusk, fish, insect, bird and animal species, including the endangered Higgins’ Eye Pearlymussel and many beds of wild rice. The historic drought of the summer of 2021 reduced the water flow to between 10 percent and 25 percent of its normal rate. As a consequence, it was possible to walk down many miles of the river bed. Enbridge Energy drilled under the river in five locations using Horizontal Directional Drilling methods. Throughout the summer of 2021, Honor the Earth, an Indigenous-led nonprofit that has provided grants to more than 200 Indigenous organizations, sponsored an Anishinaabe culture and education camp at the Shell City Campground on the shores of the Shell River. The Anishinaabe people are indigenous to Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan and Ontario. Over the course of the summer, thousands of people visited the camp, participating in river monitoring and cultural activities, and learning about Anishinaabe culture, history and the 1855 Treaty between the Upper Mississippi Ojibwe and the U.S. government.
Visitors arriving at Shell City Campground learned about 1855 Treaty Territory and their responsibilities under those treaties. Treaties are not just about Indigenous people—they are agreements between sovereign nations and must be upheld on both sides. The U.S. Constitution calls treaties “the supreme law of the land” and the U.S. Supreme Court has upheld the rights of Indigenous people to hunt, fish and gather in territories where treaties have reserved those rights, including 1855 Treaty Territory in central Minnesota. What good is a right to hunt, fish or gather if there is no game, fish or plant food to harvest? This is the basis for opposing extractive industries in Tribal territories: It destroys the basis for practicing Indigenous ways of living.
Rays of the sun seem to pull the canoe forward as a camper returns from an evening paddle.The break in the trees is the Enbridge easement in Wadena County, Minnesota, where Line 3 will cross under the Shell River. The light green vegetation on the water’s edge is a wild-rice bed.The endangered Higgins’ Eye Pearlymussel was found in the Shell River near the Enbridge escarpment. The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources refused to send staff to the river to confirm their existence.Higgins’ Eye Pearlymussel found in the Shell River on the Enbridge easement.University of Minnesota students testing water temperatures in the river above the location where Enbridge installed Line 3.Law enforcement arrived on the Enbridge easement as scientists conducted water monitoring experiments. An easement is the point at which a jurisdiction grants an entity permission to cross. Enbridge has reimbursed Minnesota law-enforcement agencies over $2 million for policing its property over the past year, and it has participated in coordinated trainings and intelligence sharing. Enbridge pipes ready to be welded and trenched into the ground in Wadena County, Minnesota.Honor the Earth applied to the City of Park Rapids, Minnesota, to participate in their Fourth of July parade. The application was denied and it was informed it would be forcibly evicted if it tried to join. Water Protectors with signs, banners and life-sized puppets watched the parade from a side street and joined in at the end. They were followed by police and sheriff cars, but they were not evicted.Mavis Mantila, enrolled member of the Keweenaw Bay Indian Community and public-school teacher, stands by a giant sturgeon puppet during the Park Rapids Fourth of July parade.
Honor the Earth delegation joins a Fourth of July parade in Park Rapids, Minnesota, as police and sheriff cars follow.
Honor the Earth Executive Director and White Earth tribal member Winona LaDuke at the end of the Park Rapids Fourth of July parade.After the parade, water protectors marched to local Enbridge offices in Park Rapids.Park Rapids police guarding Enbridge property. Water protectors were ordered off the property.A sign left behind on the Enbridge entrance’s sign reads, “Who Profit$ Who Dies?”Chelsea Fairbank, completing her Ph.D. in anthropology at the University of Maine, installs an Honoring Water art project at the Shell City Campground in July, 2021. The project is based on her doctoral research that focuses on large-scale fossil-fuel extraction sites, and the peoples impacted in these zones.
Part of the Honoring Water project includes the press release from the 1855 Treaty Authority that announced the White Earth Band of Ojibwe’s formal declaration of the Rights of Manoomin (wild rice) in their territory.Page 2 of the Rights of Manoomin press release.Kiley Knowles (right) of the Obijwe nation and Nova Dakota of Dakota/Tla-o-qui-aht ancestry on a horse named Bud at Shell City Horse Camp.Dakota singer Hoka Wicasa spent the summer teaching songs and ceremonies to Ojibwe youth at the Shell City Horse Camp.Jim Northrup III, a Fond du Lac Ojibwe member, teaching youth how to erect a tipi at the Shell City Horse Camp. Sawyer, 12, tries his hand as a rope runner. Rope running requires walking the rope around tipi poles to secure them together at the top, where the poles meet. This helps create the structure for a tipi, a traditional shelter for Indigenous peoples mainly of the plains and prairies of North America. Sasha Richards leads riders as she carries water through downtown Park Rapids on one leg of the Line 3 Nibi (Water) Walk that began at Lake Superior in Wisconsin and went 359 miles to the Red River in North Dakota. Kiley Knowles carries the staff behind her.Teenagers Kiley, Iris and Sasha ride the Nibi Walk route in Hubbard County, Minnesota.Riders crossing a Line 3 site in Hubbard County, Minnesota.Signs at the camp read, from left to right, “From the Bronx to Shell River: Defend the Sacred,” “Welcome the Lummi Nation” and “Love Water: HonorEarth.org” Banners at Shell City Campground welcoming the House of Tears Carvers from Lummi Nation on their Red Road to DC journey.Honor the Earth Executive Director Winona LaDuke and Board President Oneida tribal member Paul DeMain join House of Tears carver Sit ki kadem and painter Siam’el wit of Lummi Nation on a stop at Shell City Camp. This was part of the Red Road to DC 20th anniversary Totem Pole journey to protect sacred sites.House of Tears Carvers painter Siam’el wit gives Jim Northrup III a blanket at the end of the honoring ceremony at Shell City Camp.Water protectors and Red Road to DC tour denizens at Shell City Camp.White Earth Tribal member and RISE Coalition co-founder Dawn Goodwin (second from right) serves an Enbridge representative with a cease-and-desist order for work on Line 3 under the Mississippi River. The order was from the White Earth Tribal Council. However, Enbridge did not acknowledge it as it wasn’t signed by a U.S. judge. Clearwater County Sheriff Darin Halverson (second from left) flanks the representative while White Earth Tribal Council member Raymond Auginaush, Sr. (center) accompanies Dawn. Dawn and others established Camp Firelight near the headwaters of the Mississippi River at Coffee Pot Landing in Clearwater County, where Enbridge had set up pumping and drilling stations to bore under the river. Pipeline 3 is set to travel under the river, a cause for concern as it violates the sovereignty of Ojibwe people in the 1855 Treaty Territory and could pollute water for 20 million people who live downstream when the pipeline leaks. Pipeline leaks are common in the United States.A confrontation with an Enbridge representative and a county sheriff.Dakota singer Hoka Wicasa sings as youth runners from Standing Rock, Cheyenne River and Lower Brule Lakota-Dakota-Nakota Nations in North and South Dakota approach an Enbridge work site near Camp Firelight. They ran 1,100 miles from Mobridge, South Dakota through North Dakota and along the pipeline route across Minnesota from North Dakota to Wisconsin, stopping at all of the water protector camps across the region. Youth runners count coup on Enbridge at Coffee Pot Landing in Clearwater County, Minnesota. Counting coup is the warrior tradition of winning prestige against an enemy in battle. It involves shaming the enemy, and persuading the enemy to admit defeat without having to kill them. These victories may then be remembered, recorded and recounted as part of the community’s oral, written or pictorial histories.Runners placed a red prayer tie on the barbed wire that surrounds the Enbridge work site. Enbridge workers can be seen in the background.Women of Camp Firelight on the bridge across the Mississippi River awaiting the departure of the youth runners from camp.Pumping station on the shores of the Mississippi River at Coffee Pot Landing in Clearwater County, Minnesota, taking water for Horizontal Directional Drilling activities. The Minnesota DNR permitted Enbridge to withdraw nearly 6 billion gallons of water for pipeline construction and testing activities at the height of a historic drought. They were initially permitted to take 500 million gallons, but later the permit was amended for an additional 5 billion gallons. This was done without consultation with the Tribes. Enbridge easement on the wetland crossing the Mississippi River. Earlier in the summer, thousands of people gathered here and some occupied and held this site for 8 days during the Treaty People Gathering. In the course of the summer, drilling activities produced at least 6 “frac-outs” at this location, which meant drilling fluid spilled into the river and wetlands. Wetlands are a crucial feature of the environment and are home to many species. The photographer’s canine companion, Makwa, and husband, Adam Chern of Madison, Wisconsin, walk on the Mississippi River Bridge near Camp Firelight and Coffee Pot Landing in Clearwater County, Minnesota. The sky is hazy from nearby wildfires caused by record high temperatures and drought. The Camp Firelight kitchen. Many resources were needed to sustain the camp throughout the summer. Much of it was funded by tribal members and camp visitors, as well as from donations.Signs at the camp read, “Honor Treaties” and “Caution: Treaty Rights in Progress.” Enbridge drilling and pumping worksite near Coffee Pot Landing on the Upper Mississippi River.RISE Coalition co-founder Dawn Goodwin sits on the bridge across the Mississippi River awaiting news of the 7 Camp Firelight water protectors who had been arrested while praying on the easement the day before.Seven Camp Firelight arrestees were released from Becker County jail on August 4. RISE Coalition and Camp Firelight co-founder Nancy Beaulieu is second from right. The night before, Clearwater County Sheriff deputies arrested the seven in Clearwater County. They they were transported by a Polk County vehicle, booked into jail in Pennington County system and physically taken to the Becker County jail. More than 900 arrests of water protectors along Line 3 took place in the past year.One of several water meters installed on Park Rapids fire hydrants to serve Enbridge’s water needs. The city of Park Rapids sold 6 million gallons of water to Enbridge for their camp and construction operations. This was done without the knowledge or consent of the Park Rapids City Council or residents. Because of drought conditions, the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources ordered them to halt the sales. One of the many frac-out sites outlined with wooden stakes along Line 3.No Line 3 banner on the Enbridge easement by the Welcome Water Protector Camp on the Mississippi River on Aitkin County, Minnesota.Honor the Earth is focused on building a just transition away from fossil fuels through tribal business development. Winona’s Hemp & Heritage Farm grows hemp and other food, and distributes “pipeline-free” wild rice harvested by Ojibwe people from the region. Akiing 8th Fire Solar is another business started by Honor the Earth as part of its just transition activities. “Black Snake Killer” hand drum resting against a tree at the Martin Luther King Jr. Recreation Center in St. Paul, Minnesota, at the end of the Treaty People Walk for Water. Dozens of walkers departed from Camp Firelight on August 7 and walked 259 miles to St. Paul, arriving on August 25. Walkers were joined by others at the recreation center for the final mile-and-a-half walk to the State Capitol. They marched in silence in honor of the thousands of children’s remains found in residential boarding schools over the summer, and for all missing and murdered Indigenous relatives. Crane puppets flowing silently through the streets of St. Paul.Crane puppets flowing silently through the streets of St. Paul.Hoka Wicasa holds feathers, sage and a hand drum depicting a jaguar eating the heart of a priest in front of a hearse and the Cathedral of Saint Paul at the end of the Treaty People Walk for the Water on August 25. Kaylee Moody and Joe Morales (Yaqui), organizers of the Treaty People Walk for Water, on the final stretch of the 259-mile walk.Ojibwe women Winona LaDuke and Tania Aubid on the Treaty People Walk for Water. Last winter, Winona and Tania established a prayer lodge and the Welcome Water Protector Camp on the shores of the Mississippi River in Aitken County, Minnesota. They have been arrested numerous times protecting the water from Enbridge’s construction activities over the past year. In their defense, they argue their treaty rights to hunt, fish and gather in their territories supercede a foreign oil company’s right to destroy the land and water upon which those rights depend.Dozens of tipis were erected on the Minnesota State Capitol grounds during the week of August 23.In anticipation of Indigenous people arriving on his doorstep, Governor Tim Walz shut down the Minnesota State Capitol for a week and installed concrete barricades and fencing. Hundreds of law enforcement officers patrolled the grounds for that week.Walkers were honored with songs at the Minnesota State Capitol at the conclusion of the Treaty People Walk for Water.Water walkers and other Indigenous elders were honored with blankets at the Minnesota State Capitol at the end of the Treaty People Walk for Water on August 25.Treaty People Walk for Water organizer Joe Morales (Yaqui) embraces fellow water protectors at the conclusion of the 259-mile walk.Medicine Wheel banner depicting Ojibwe sacred foods—wild rice, strawberries and blueberries—at the Minnesota State Capitol after the Treaty People Walk for Water on August 25.
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.
A panel of environmental and human rights activists acted as judges in a People’s Health Tribunal organized by African communities impacted by the operations of extractive corporations Shell and Total Energy. Supported by organizations like Medact, We the People, the People’s Health Movement, #STOPEACOP, and others, they found the corporations guilty of harming the health of people across Africa. Nnimmo Bassey, Jacqueline Patterson, Kanahaus Manuel, and Dimah Mahmoud condemned Shell and Total’s activities, stating that they were “extremely harmful to the livelihoods, health, right to shelter, quality of life, right to live in dignity, quality of environment, right to live free of discrimination and oppression, right to clean water, and right to self-determination.”
This edition of the People’s Health Tribunal was built as activists witnessed extensive greenwashing by the oil and gas industry at COP 27 in Egypt last year. In response, they became even more determined to support the struggles of communities in Africa who are affected by the corporations who attempted to gaslight the public at COP 27.
However, governments in the Global North, where most extractive corporations have their headquarters, still choose to ignore the destruction caused by these industries. In 2022, Shell made a profit of $40 billion, while Total Energy ended the year with US$36 billion in profits. These profits came at the expense of the health and lives of people living in regions where these corporations operate.
Uprooting Set the Ground for Total’s LNG Operations in Mozambique
Decades of exploitation of African land have resulted in devastating consequences, including air pollution, water contamination, deforestation, violence, land grabbing, and forced migration. People in the Niger Delta and Mozambique experience these things daily. Omar Elmawi, who provided an overview of Total’s impact on Mozambique communities, emphasized that in the current situation, “everyone loses, except Total.” Elmawi said he believed that African countries must take control of their own resources and development to make sure that justice is restored.
In Mozambique, Total Energy’s plan to construct an onshore liquefied natural gas (LNG) facility led to the displacement of hundreds of families dependent on farming. Total’s plans also decimated traditional fishing activities, leaving people destitute. Instead of providing the uprooted communities with adequate living conditions and compensation, the company’s plan resulted in people being left without shelter, living in refugee camps, and exposed to violence.
At the same time, pointed out Elmawi, the company was not shying away from tax evasion, bleeding even more resources out of the country and leaving Mozambique without necessary means to build essential infrastructure.
Similar experiences were echoed by activists from Uganda and South Africa, who bore witness to the baleful behavior of Total Energy and Shell in the face of the communities which they so violently entered. The testimonies also highlighted the environmental impacts being shouldered by the same communities, as floods and storms regularly devastate local food production.
Shell Operations in the Niger Delta
Shell has been furiously extracting resources in the Niger Delta for over 60 years, attracting more companies to exploit the region due to its rich reserves. Videos from villages in the Niger Delta clearly show oil contamination of water sources, while Shell ignores the grievances raised by the communities. With Shell’s arrival, people’s health deteriorated, in addition to the environmental devastation caused by oil and gas extraction. People began suffering from previously uncommon diseases, including blindness, respiratory problems, and kidney disease, according to one of the testimony-givers.
However, the people of the Niger Delta aren’t asking for charity or pity; they are determined to fight for justice and see Shell restore the land it has devastated. In the light of that, Shell’s announcement of divesting from operations in the Niger Delta is seen as inadequate by community members. They view it as an attempt to evade responsibility for the damage caused over the years. After all, they pointed out, Shell would not be giving up on their business—they would be simply selling their assets to someone else.
The judges stressed the need to establish infrastructure for a reparative justice process to achieve true reparation for affected communities. They also called for Shell and Total Energy to halt all plans for expanding existing fossil fuel extraction sites, implement a permanent moratorium on exploring new sites, and cease supporting violence against communities through military, paramilitary groups, or private security forces.
In order to achieve that, it is necessary to constantly bear witness about the destruction caused by extractive corporations. By doing that, the people who spoke about their experiences during the People’s Health Tribunal showed extreme courage and deserved respect, said Nnimmo Bassey. “Staying alive and speaking out is the best we can do,” he said.
People’s Health Dispatch is a fortnightly bulletin published by thePeople’s Health Movement and Peoples Dispatch. For more articles and to subscribe to People’s Health Dispatch, clickhere.
Dilio Muelas Morales, 62, a traditional doctor of the Misak Indigenous community in Colombia, inside the ‘Michaya,’ where he receives patients / credit: Antonio Cascio
BOGOTÁ, Colombia—The center of this South American capital city filled out on August 6 with Indigenous peoples, Afro-Colombians and peasants dressed in traditional attire to carry out the spiritual inauguration of recently elected President Gustavo Petro. The event took place a day before the official inauguration and was accompanied by rituals, songs and speeches.
For the first time in decades, fear does not reign among the vulnerable and historically abandoned sections of society. Representatives of these groups saluted the president during the inauguration.
“Certainly, the only possible path to real transformation in the country will be achieved with articulated and respectful work between governmental bodies and our own forms of government,” said human-rights defender Marcela Londoño, while reading the popular mandate the collective handed to Petro.
The Indigenous and Afro-Colombian communities that campaigned in favor of center-left former militant Petro and the first Afro-Colombian woman vice-president, Francia Márquez, helped the pair win up to 99 percent of votes in some regions. Now, these oppressed communities see Petro’s proposal to reform healthcare—among other aspects of Colombian society—as aligning with their culture as well as their spiritual understanding.
“[Under the current system], health is seen as a business that does not value life,” said Mama Luz Dary Aranda, governor of the Guambia reservation in the Cauca department, in an interview with this reporter. “The proposal presented by Petro is the opposite.”
Colombian presidential candidate Gustavo Petro (right) announced in March Afro-Colombian activist Francia Márquez as his vice-presidential running mate on the Pacto Histórico ticket / credit: Twitter / Francia Márquez
‘Health for Life and Not for Business’
Petro’s campaign promoted the slogan, “health for life and not for business,” advocating a reformed healthcare system based on the principles of prevention, participation, decentralization and an intercultural approach. Part of the proposed solution would involve creating a National Health Council, with the participation of civil society including, academics, healthcare workers, patients, peasants, and Indigenous and Afro-Colombian peoples. Other proposals include ending EPSs (Empresas Prestadoras de Servicios or intermediary health providers); improving scientific investigation and technological development; investing in education; and fighting climate change, among others.
During the first healthcare meeting between Indigenous peoples and the Ministry of Health that took place on September 7, Minister Carolina Corcho ratified the compromise of working with the communities to develop the healthcare reform and announced future visits to continue the dialogue.
“The political will by the government of Gustavo Petro—and today more specifically by the Ministry—is very important for this [Indigenous health] system to become a reality,” said Polivio Rosales, senator of the Indigenous Authorities Movement political party.
Floresmiro Calambas, 53, head of the laboratory at the Sierra Morena natural medicine center, controls one of the machines that distills plants / credit: Antonio Cascio
Incorporating Indigenous Practices
Petro’s program could contribute to complying with the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) recommendation that health policies and programs should recognize and include traditional practices, such as medicine, to ensure the participation of the populations involved, as well as take into account respect for human rights, an intercultural approach, and gender equality.
After modernizing medicinal production and engaging government officials—among other actions—the Indigenous and Intercultural Health System (IIHS) was founded in 2014. Yet, such advances have been unequally implemented.
“Within the state’s policies, the Indigenous wisdom of health automatically becomes only an ancestral practice or a belief,” said Mama Ximena Hurtado, director of the Mama Dominga Hospital and health program coordinator on the Indigenous reservation of Guambia in the Cauca department. The title, “Mama,” is given to a woman who holds or has held a position within the Misak government. “Those words minimize our own science, and create a disadvantage and a barrier.”
In the days before and after Petro’s inauguration, he and a delegation of ministers held regional summits. The administration has prioritized historically abandoned regions, such as the Pacific, the Amazon and the island of San Andrés in the Caribbean Sea, where inequality as well as poor access to healthcare and education reign. Indigenous and Afro-Colombian peoples have participated in these summits.
The Sierra Morena center is not only based on maintaining and reviving Misak ancestral knowledge of natural medicine. One of the structures located in the center, the so-called “Casa Payan” or Payan House (which appears on the right in this photo), preserves the history and worldview of the Misak Indigenous people. The paintings that fill the walls of the three levels of the Payan House and the sacred objects that are preserved inside provide a pedagogical, didactic and historical memory function on Misak thought / credit: Antonio Cascio
Misak People Develop a Healthcare Model
Most Misak—around 21,000 people or 1.5 percent of the Colombian population—live on the Guambia reservation. It is located in the steep southwestern mountains of the Cauca region, a rich ecosystem characterized by moors, or high-altitude grasslands. This community has been leading nationally in developing a healthcare model, as well as in the recovery of traditional practices.
In the 1980s and 1990s, the Misak community began taking back ancestral territories through occupation and, later, by negotiating with the government. Within this land, they have set up the House of Medicine Sierra Morena and the Mama Dominga Hospital. The Payan House of Memory, a three-story building constructed according to Misak traditional architectural practices, preserves their history and knowledge.
“This generation has had the opportunity to receive both types of knowledge: The Western and the one taught here by the ‘shures’ and the ‘shuras’ (traditional doctors), which are transmitted from generation to generation and based on the knowledge about plants,” explained Floresmiro Calambas, in charge of the laboratory in the House of Medicine Sierra Morena.
Within the House of Medicine, the community has set up a medicinal garden with more than 200 species of plants that are processed in the laboratory to be distributed in the community. Misak people affiliated with the healthcare system can acquire natural medicines free of charge. Other services include midwifery, physiotherapy and care from a traditional doctor.
The Misak community also manages Mama Dominga Hospital, where locals can access basic health services.
“Many of our Indigenous people do not like to leave the territory for fear of how they will be treated or because they do not speak the language,” Mama Ximena said.
The availability of a healthcare model within the Misak territory guarantees wider coverage in the community, closing the healthcare gap other rural Indigenous and Afro-Colombian peoples have experienced.
Aranda argues respecting traditional knowledge while deploying Western practices, when necessary, is essential.
“Sometimes the national healthcare system wants to impose their institutional practices on us,” she said.
The Sierra Morena pharmacy sells products the Misak make in the natural medicine center / credit: Antonio Cascio
‘The Transition Will Be Difficult and We Understand It’
“As Indigenous Peoples, we see health as a whole,” said Alberto Mendoza, delegate of the Wayuu people, after the September 7 meeting. “For that reason, the lack of water or the consumption of low-quality water, as well as the absence of sustainability, impact the health of individuals, families and communities.”
During the Pacific region summit, Petro announced Márquez will facilitate regional equality. He committed to designating the first social expenditure to this region as it is the most unequal. Multidimensional poverty in the Pacific region—which takes into account access to health, education and employment—increased from 26 percent to 31 percent between 2019 and 2020.
Petro recognized during his inauguration speech that the government needs to secure resources to implement social reforms.
Congress members like Gustavo Bolivar recently have denounced the poor state of finances left by the previous president, Iván Duque. According to a report presented by the government transition team, the healthcare system has a budget deficit of 6.4 billion pesos (about $1.4 million) for 2022 and 4.6 billion (about $1 million) for 2023.
A tax reform has already been presented in congress that is expected to raise about 25 billion pesos ($5.76 million) over the next year to help execute social programs. The reform includes increasing personal income taxes for the top 2 percent, who earn more than 10 million pesos monthly (around $2,300). Fossil-fuel exports and sugar-based products also will be taxed. The latter tax is designed to reduce health problems associated with sugar consumption.
Aranda recognizes Petro’s proposal will take time.
“The transition will be difficult and we understand it,” she said. “But this is when new proposals will be needed and we believe we will be heard to present our proposals on Indigenous healthcare.”
The Misak, as is customary among Colombian Indigenous communities, gather to carry out work collectively, or in “minga.” The work takes place after members of the Sierra Morena center are free from their tasks. Here, they are packaging, for sale, quinoa flour, which serves as a food supplement for children / credit: Antonio Cascio
‘Food As Healthcare’
Indigenous communities understand health goes beyond the absence of an illness. To them, health is linked to the environment, their territory, agricultural practice and nature in general. A relationship that, according to Mama Ximena, previous governments have not understood.
“For us, for instance, food and food production are part of healthcare and, therefore, should be financed,” she said. “But [the Health Ministry] sees it as a responsibility of the Ministry of Agriculture.”
Petro’s health reform proposal, as well as a wide range of policies that address education, drinking water, the environment and climate change, align with the cosmovision (understanding of life) of Indigenous communities.
“It looks at how health can become a right,” Aranda said, “so that we all can live with dignity.”
Natalia Torres Garzongraduated with an M.Sc. in Globalization and Development from the School of Oriental and African Studies in London, United Kingdom. She is a freelance journalist who focuses on social and political issues in Latin America, especially in connection to Indigenous communities, women and the environment. With photographer Antonio Cascio, she founded the radio-photography program, Radio Rodando. Her work has been published in the section Planeta Futuro from El País, New Internationalist and Earth Island.
