Part of a drumline at the July 24 protest in front of the Philippine consulate in New York City to counter the new Philippine president’s State of the Union Address / credit: Cygaelle Bergado
NEW YORK CITY–Hours before Philippine President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos, Jr., gave his first State of the Nation address on July 24, Filipino people throughout the world protested, holding their own “People’s State of the Union Address,” or PSONA.
“The Marcos-Duterte oligarchic symbiosis represents one of the biggest barriers for progress in the Philippines,” Gabriel Rivera told Toward Freedom amid a crowd of about 200 Filipinos who had gathered outside the Philippine consulate in midtown Manhattan, just a few blocks from the United Nations.
As a drumline’s rhythms echoed through the city streets, Filipinos spoke out against Marcos and his vice president, Sara Duterte, both of whom had been elected to office in the island nation on May 9.
Part of a drumline at the July 24 protest in front of the Philippine consulate in New York City to counter the new Philippine president’s State of the Union Address / credit: Cygaelle Bergado
The families of Marcos and Duterte have been accused of violating human rights. That includes during the 1972-81 Martial Law Era under Marcos’ father, Ferdinand Sr., and during former President Rodrigo Duterte’s War on Drugs, which has killed over 6,229 alleged drug users since 2016. Rodrigo is the new vice president’s father.
“Two historically violent dynasties with no regard for human rights or the rule of law have just been seated on the two highest positions in the land,” said Rivera, a member of the Malaya Movement, a progressive Filipino organization advocating for human rights in the Philippines. “I am terrified to even imagine how this could affect generations of Filipinos to come.”
To counter the violence in their homeland, grassroots Filipino organizations from the Northeast Coalition to Advance Genuine Democracy, such as Migrante, GABRIELA, Malaya Movement, Anakbayan and Bayan, assembled for the New York City rally. This rally was one of many held around the world for PSONA, an annual global grassroots event, during which Filipinos report on human-rights violations in their homeland to counter the Philippine president’s annual State of the Nation address that takes place on the same day.
A map of the Philippines, consisting of thousands of islands / credit: Google Maps
The Philippines is a U.S. ally that has waged a war on its own population, killing alleged drug addicts and traffickers. Since 2002, the United States has shipped almost $900 million in arms and has provided more than $1.3 billion in security assistance to the Philippines.
The scene at the July 24 protest held outside the Philippine consulate in New York City / credit: Cygaelle Bergado
In an interview with Toward Freedom, 25-year-old Momo Manalang denounced the disappearance of three Filipino women activists, allegedly abducted by the Filipino government. She demanded their return.
“Our movement is intergenerational, comprised of both martial-law survivors of families of those slain during the War on Drugs, which persists to this day under Bongbong Marcos,” said Manalang, a member of GABRIELA, a mass-based organization focusing on womens’ rights in the Philippines. “It is imperative as a diaspora to register our condemnation and call for the accountability of both regimes for their crimes against humanity.”
A.J. Santos, a migrant from the Philippines, recounted to Toward Freedom how these administrations have directly affected his family.
“My mom fought Ferdinand Marcos, Sr., during Martial Law and was even hunted by the military while her friends and comrades were tortured and killed,” said Santos, 38, of Migrante, a grassroots organization consisting of migrant Filipinos. “And Duterte, he killed five of my friends with his so-called ‘War on Drugs.’”
Protesters lined up July 24 behind Shirley Atienza of Filipino grassroots migrant group Migrante as she read aloud the demands to the Philippine government of the Northeast Coalition to Advance Genuine Democracy / credit: Cygaelle Bergado
Shirley Atienza, a New York-based Filipino migrant and Migrante member, read aloud the nine points of the “People’s Agenda for Change,” while protesters standing behind her held signs outlining each. In bold black paint, they read:
Regulate prices
Revive local agriculture
Enact land reform and national industrialization
Defend and promote human rights
Defend freedom of press + speech
Institute a democratic, ethical and accountable government
Provide free health care and basic social services
Uphold national sovereignty and independent foreign policy
Ensure country’s natural wealth and resources
A Filipino protester at the Philippine consulate in New York City wears an effigy to call out human-rights violations in the Philippines / credit: Cygaelle Bergado
A protester had adorned cardboard signs to their body in an effigy that listed human-rights violations committed in the Philippines. Painted to look like flames, the signs read:
“Extreme inflation & economic crisis,”
“2.9 million unemployed,”
“Forced migration/separated families,” and
“Selling out to foreign interests.
The flames were surrounded by cardboard replicas of gas cans that read, “Corrupt family dynasties own all the land, make all the laws,” “US tax $$ funds Philippine Drug War,” and “Historical revisionism & fake news.”
At the top of the protester’s head sat a gas can that read “Marcos.” Draped around their back was the Filipino flag. As participants gathered to smash the gas cans, the crowd recited, “Makibaka! Huwog matakot!” (Struggle! Do not be afraid!) and other revolutionary Filipino chants, cheering for the downfall of Marcos and Duterte.
Being oceans away from their home country doesn’t stop these Filipino revolutionaries from fighting. At least not Theo Aguila, a 25-year-old organizer from Anakbayan, a mass organization consisting of Filipino youth and students.
“It is through action both here and [in] the Philippines that we may enact change for our motherland.”
Cygaelle Bergado is the Summer 2022 Claudia Jones Editorial Intern for Toward Freedom. She can be followed on Twitter at @cy_bergado.
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.
Editor’s Note: This article originally appeared in Peoples Dispatch.
This October marks the third anniversary of the 2019 popular protests in Iraq. On Tuesday, October 25, a large number of people gathered in the Tahrir square in capital Baghdad and paid homage to the people who were killed in the protests. They raised slogans in support of what has been termed by the protesters as the Tishreen movement.
The countrywide protests in 2019, rooted in the long-term grievances of people against successive governments, went on for months. Before the global COVID-19 outbreak forced them to end, the protests were successful in forcing the then government led by Adil Abdul Mahdi to resign, putting the ruling classes on the defensive and pressing for reforms.
Caretaker prime minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi, who came to power in May 2020 after months of uncertainty, had promised to deliver on some of the major demands raised by the protesters, including rebuilding the economy and punishing those guilty for the deaths of over 600 people including protesters and others.
Three years down the line and with a new government on the horizon, none of these promises have been met. This is likely to lead the vast majority of pro-reformers pushing for their demands in the coming days.
Economic and Political Aspects of the Protests
The 2019 protests were one of the largest in Iraq’s history since the 2003 U.S. invasion. Long-term grievances regarding inefficiency of successive administrations and the widely perceived corruption among the ruling establishment were at the center of the public anger. In their slogans, the protesters repeatedly denounced the failure of the system created under the supervision of the US occupation in tackling the issues faced by the people, such as rising poverty, unemployment, and basic services delivery.
At the time of the protests, the official rate of poverty in the country of approximately 40 million people was rising. Even before the pandemic hit in 2020, the poverty rate had risen to above 31 percent. Oil-rich Iraq witnessed an unprecedented rise in poverty during the COVID-19 outbreak. While the government claimed that the poverty rate was coming down after the pandemic, a large number of Iraqis are still forced to live a life as paupers.
Since oil revenues make up the bulk of Iraq’s federal budget–around 96 percent–the economy remains vulnerable to market fluctuation.
Iraqi youth, who make up the majority of the population, were at the center of the 2019 protests. The unemployment rate among the youth–fresh graduates from the university and others–was above 40 percent at the time of the protests.
The majority of Iraqis were forced to live without the basic amenities such as power, sanitation, and health care. Protesters claimed that these failures on the economic front were the result of inefficiency and corruption of the ruling elite. They also pointed to structural reasons such as the system of Muhasasa or sectarian quota based on distribution of political posts for this inefficiency and corruption.
Failure to Address Demands for Structural Changes
The protests were not limited to Baghdad but spread across all urban centers in the country, particularly in the southern regions. The protesters raised the demands of more jobs, better governance and systemic changes, including ending the sectarian quota system and all kinds of external intervention in Iraqi affairs.
Instead of taking initiatives to address the issues related to structural reforms, the ruling class announced fresh national elections in October 2021, a year before schedule.
Partial changes in the country’s electoral laws and introduction of the first past the poll system to replace the system of proportional representation were sold as fulfilling the demand for reforms in the political structure.
However, none of these addressed, even partially, the demands raised by the protesters. The U.S. troops were forced to end their operational presence but, in complete violation of the parliament’s resolution and popular demand, they still remain in the country.
The national elections of October 2021 saw a historically low participation rate with just about 40 percent of the electorate exercising their right to vote amid a call for boycott. This resulted in a situation where no political coalition or group was in a position to claim majority and form a new government for almost a year after the elections.
Mohammad Shia al-Sudani was finally approved as prime minister this week. He was designated to the post by Abdul Latif Rashid who was newly elected as president earlier this month. Al-Sudani’s appointment is expected to end the political uncertainty in the country for now. However, it may not mean an end to the political turmoil despite his promises to deliver on the economic front and tackle corruption.
A sign of the challenges ahead is the fact that disagreements and disputes over the nature of government as well as al-Sudani’s candidacy led to the killing of dozens of people this year.
A camp for the displaced in the vicinity of the Yemeni city of Ma’rib / credit: Norwegian Refugee Council
Editor’s Note: This article first appeared in People’s Dispatch and has been lightly edited.
On Tuesday, February 15, United Nations officials issued a stark warning that incessant war in Yemen and a funding shortage for various aid programs could drastically exacerbate the already dire humanitarian crisis in the country. UN special envoy Hans Grundberg and UN humanitarian chief Martin Griffiths, while speaking at the UN Security Council (UNSC), said 8 million Yemenis are at imminent risk of being cut off from vital humanitarian aid in March if the international community fails to secure the required funds for the aid programs to continue. Funding for the aid programs in Yemen has been steadily decreasing, with the UN humanitarian office stating that for the year 2021, its humanitarian plan was only able to secure USD $2.27 billion out of the required USD $3.85 billion, the lowest funding level since 2015.
The two UN officials also expressed alarm at the rapid escalation in the war in Yemen, ongoing since 2014. They highlighted the drastic rise in civilian casualties over the last few months and the growth in new combat areas in the country, which is likely to add to the death toll and suffering of the civilian population. Since the war erupted following the Houthi movement’s routing of the Western-backed government from most of north Yemen—including the capital, Sanaa—followed by the intervention of the Saudi-led alliance, over 377,000 people have been killed, as per the latest UN estimates. Tens of millions of Yemenis have also been internally displaced, with over 24 million—approximately 80 percent of the total population of 30 million—dependent on international humanitarian aid for their survival.
Yemen is highlighted in red / credit: Google
Grundberg was quoted by news outlets as telling the UNSC that a series of air bombings by the Saudi-led military coalition targeting a detention facility in Yemen last month was the “worst civilian casualty incident in three years.” He also noted an increase in such devastating air bombing campaigns by the coalition that target even civilian areas in Sanaa and the strategically important port city of Hodeidah. Over 650 civilians were either killed or injured by air raids, shelling, small arms fire and other forms of violence in January, in what officials claimed was “by far the highest toll in at least three years.”
Griffiths said that “the war is finding people in their homes, schools, mosques, hospitals and other places where civilians should be protected.” According to the officials, the retaliatory attacks by Houthis in Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates (UAE) also “indicate how this conflict risks spiraling out of control unless serious efforts are urgently made by the Yemeni parties, the region and the international community to end the conflict.” Griffiths told the UNSC that he is continuously trying to mediate between the warring parties to agree to de-escalate the conflict, with more consultations to start next week aimed at achieving a mutual ceasefire.
Previous funding cuts have already forced the UN World Food Program to reduce the amount of rations supplied to 8 million Yemenis in December last year. If the funding requirement is not met, the rations for millions of Yemenis could stop completely and around 3.6 million people will be at risk of not having access to safe drinking water and several other critical social programs on tackling gender-based violence, reproductive health, and other such issues. The UN may also have to cancel most of its humanitarian flights in Yemen in March due to the funding shortage. News reports state that while the UN has not yet released its humanitarian plan for Yemen for 2022, Sweden and Switzerland are poised to co-host a pledging event on March 16.
