indigenous

By Zig Zag - Warrior Publications, June 22, 2014

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are not the official position of the IWW (or even the IWW’s EUC) and do not necessarily represent the views of anyone but the author’s.

With the federal government’s approval of the Enbridge Northern Gateway pipeline on June 17, 2014, there arose a chorus of angry disapproval from many people in BC. Some talked about waging a “war against Enbridge,” while others proclaimed the beginning of the “battle.” Predictably, the political parties opposed to the Conservative government promised to put a stop to Enbridge, if elected. Those who have worked to oppose Enbridge over the past 5 years renewed their pledges to carry out court cases, referendums, voting campaigns, as well as civil disobedience.

In fact, the “Hold the Wall” campaign initiated by the Yinka Dene Alliance claims that over 22,000 people have pledged to do just that, “using all lawful means.” But what if a court decides its unlawful to “hold the wall”? Those with perhaps the most realistic grasp of the situation have renewed their calls for direct action, if and when necessary, to physically stop the construction of the pipelines.

Clearly there are mixed messages being transmitted.Direct Action

Many people are talking about the necessity for direct action. Direct action is one of those terms used by so many different groups, in so many different ways, that its real meaning has become blurred.

Direct action means taking action to directly stop, delay or disrupt an activity. Here are some basic examples:

• A road block against logging trucks, and which effectively stops logging from occurring, is a form of direct action.
• A protest in a city street against logging is not a form of direct action, unless that protest manages to disrupt the offices of the logging corporation, for example.
• A banner drop is not a form of direct action, unless the banner disrupts or delays some type of activity.
• Standing on the side of a road with picket signs is not direct action, but standing in the road and blocking industrial machinery from reaching its destination is.

Eric Trenbeath - Moab Sun News, August 20, 2014

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are not the official position of the IWW (or even the IWW’s EUC) and do not necessarily represent the views of anyone but the author’s.

Tribal representatives from the Colorado River Indian Tribes (CRIT), as well as from the Ute and Goshute tribes, expressed their concerns about a proposed nuclear power plant near Green River at a public meeting that took place at the Moab Arts and Recreation Center (MARC) on Monday, August 18.

Close to 50 local residents turned out to hear what they had to say.

The representatives traveled from as far away as Parker, Ariz., to gather information, tour the site of the proposed nuclear facility, and to express their concerns about river contamination and water over-consumption on the Green River, the largest tributary of the Colorado River.

“I have concerns about this,” CRIT council representative Johnny Hill said. “Our water is very precious. It's more precious than gold. This is our agriculture, our income, our beef, our chicken, our food.”

CRIT is a geo-political organization made up of four separate Indian tribes who live on the Colorado River Indian Reservation that straddles the lower Colorado River in Arizona and California. Agriculture makes up a large portion of their economy, and it is dependent on irrigation water from the Colorado River.

“Taking care of this river is very important to us,” CRIT council representative Amanda Barrera said. “We hold seniority rights to it. We are here to educate ourselves and take information back to our people.”

Forrest Cuch, a Ute Indian from the Uintah Basin, said he came down, “to join my native brothers and sisters to oppose the nuclear power plant.”

Cuch said that he has already seen too much destruction from the oil and gas industry in the Uintah Basin, and that the risk for catastrophe with a nuclear power plant is too high.

“They had the ocean in Fukishima,” he said. “Imagine polluting the Colorado River.”

Staff Report - Native News Online, August 21, 2014

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are not the official position of the IWW (or even the IWW’s EUC) and do not necessarily represent the views of anyone but the author’s.

IHANKTONWAN, SOUTH DAKOTA – ­ TransCanada faces yet another hurdle in its effort to build the Keystone XL pipeline. A coalition of long­existing pipeline fighters in South Dakota have come together to extend their share division of protecting the land, the water and the peoples of the area. An alliance of Protect the Sacred Movement of the Ihanktonwan/Yankton; the Bridger Spiritual Camp, Pte Ospaye; the Lower Brule Spiritual Camp, Wiconi Un Tipi; the Rosebud Spiritual Camp, Oyate Wahacanka Woecun; Dakota Rural Action; and the Indigenous Environmental Network are launching No KXL Dakota, a united effort to fight the Keystone XL pipeline.

Before TransCanada can build within state borders, the company must certify its permit, proving it still meets the original permit conditions. The coalition is preparing to fight the permit certification at the South Dakota Public Utilities Commission, and expects the company to file for certification this year.

“Oceti Rising,” says Faith Spotted Eagle, with Protect the Sacred, “is reaffirming our sovereignty as nations and strengthening our protection of Mother Earth. Water is life, Mni Wiconi. Oceti means fire and could also represent unity between non Native and Natives in protecting their homefires.”

By Mining Slave | The National aka The Loggers Times - Papua New Guinea Mine Watch, August 22, 2014

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are not the official position of the IWW (or even the IWW’s EUC) and do not necessarily represent the views of anyone but the author’s.

I WISH to express my views and concerns about expats being the lawmakers of PNG.

I am a mine worker and worked with most expats during my years in several underground mines for the last 10 to 20 years.

I have noticed that they seem to be above the laws of this country which the department of foreign affairs has put in place to guide those expats who later become elected leaders in PNG.

There are also regulations where the departments of mining and petroleum have put in place to guide both expats and PNG nationals.

Most expats come into the country to work, they bring in their family members and use the nationals to train them and in return, they start to criticise and threaten us to get us sacked.

For instance, if a national supervisor makes a single mistake or does not want to follow an idea of an expat to get a job done which is unsafe, they start to kick him or her out because they come in groups and once it comes to decision making, they all come in to compromise in favour of one single expat, even the so-called manager falls into his favour.

The correct procedure is, the expat or national supervisors should contribute ideas to get a job done safely, or if the expat’s ideas are unproductive, the nationals use their own ideas so the job is done safely because in any mine you go around the world, safety is the number one priority.

Please, can the departments or foreign affairs and immigration or our leaders look into this issue because we do not want to be slaves in our own land or spectators of resource development on our land.

We have enough experienced underground miners.

Press Release - Wild Idaho Rising Tide, August 16, 2014

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are not the official position of the IWW (or even the IWW’s EUC) and do not necessarily represent the views of anyone but the author’s.

On Saturday, August 16, and during the previous week, grassroots groups are holding a coordinated day of peaceful actions, to protest the passage of coal trains through interior Northwest communities [1, 2].  From Montana and Wyoming to Oregon and Washington, proposals to bring more polluting coal trains through the region impact dozens of communities along rail lines, who are organizing to protect their towns from coal exports.  This summer, 350-Missoula, Blue Skies Campaign, Indian People’s Action, Wild Idaho Rising Tide, and other organizations are together catalyzing this movement against dirty energy in new and bolder ways, evident in this regional day of action.

As inland Northwest citizens largely dismissed by the federal and state regulatory processes that determine the fate of three proposed coal export facilities at Cherry Point and Longview, Washington, and Boardman, Oregon, we stand in solidarity with Northwest tribes and climate activists resisting these West Coast ports and Powder River Basin coal mines that despoil native lands and watersheds and ultimately global climate [3].  While Oregon agencies deliberate their possible issuance of key permits allowing financially risky, Australia-based Ambre Energy to begin construction on the controversial Morrow Pacific coal train terminal dock and warehouses at Boardman, we support friends among the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation, who rejected  the companies’ bribes of up to $800,000 per year to partner in and benefit from building this Coyote Island Terminal and shipping 8.8 million tons of coal per year down the Columbia River [4, 5].

Residents of four states will continue to work to stop coal exports by every means, including arrestable, nonviolent civil disobedience, as we pressure coal and railroad companies and political officials who support them.  With our protests, we honor the 71 brave Northwest activists who have endured arrest and citation during occupations of coal train tracks and public buildings in Bellingham, Washington (December 2011), White Rock, British Columbia (May 2012), Helena, Montana (August 2012 and September 2013), Spokane, Washington (June 2013), and Missoula, Montana (April 2014), as interior Northwest groups further coordinate regional demonstrations resisting coal export that started in January 2013 [6, 7].

By Amy Judd - Global News, August 9, 2014

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are not the official position of the IWW (or even the IWW’s EUC) and do not necessarily represent the views of anyone but the author’s.

VANCOUVER – The disaster at the Mount Polley Mine will have long-term consequences for years to come across the whole of the mining industry but specifically for Imperial Metals – the owners of the Cariboo mine and a major resource company in B.C.

Earlier this week the company took a huge hit on its stock price and on Friday, near Dease Lake at the Red Chris Mine, First Nations members blocked access to employees.

Red Chris is a five-hundred million dollar gold operation that has been front and center in B.C.’s resource sector for a decade.

By Crysbel Tejada and Betsy Catlin - Waging Nonviolence, May 8, 2013

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are not the official position of the IWW (or even the IWW’s EUC) and do not necessarily represent the views of anyone but the author’s.

On cloudy days, heavy smoke fills the air of Ponca City, Okla., with grey smog that camouflages itself into the sky. The ConocoPhillips oil refinery that makes its home there uses overcast days as a disguise to release more toxins into the air. These toxins are brimming with benzene — a chemical that, according to the Centers for Disease Control, can cause leukemia, anemia and even decrease the size of women’s ovaries. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, in 2008 the ConocoPhillips refinery released over 2,000 pounds of this chemical into the air in Ponca City.

“Of the maybe 800 of us that live locally, we have averaged over the last five to seven years maybe one funeral a week,” explained Casey Camp-Horinek, a Ponca woman and longtime activist. “Where we used to have dances every week, now most people are in mourning.”

The refinery is located only 1,000 yards behind Standing Bear Park, which is named after the Ponca chief who, in 1877, led his people on their Trail of Tears, from the Ponca homelands in northern Nebraska to present day Oklahoma. But the park is more than a memorial to the distant past. In 1992, the oil giant’s tank farm spilled and contaminated ground water in a nearby predominantly Ponca neighborhood. As a result, ConocoPhillips agreed to purchase the contaminated land and tear down the 200 homes that were on it. In its place, the company built Standing Bear Park — a bitter testament to the Ponca people’s history of forced relocation and genocide.

“We live in a situation that could only be described as environmental genocide,” said Camp-Horinek. Beyond the refineries, she explained, “We also have had the misfortune of living on top of a spider web of pipelines as a result of ConocoPhillips being here.”

Some of these pipelines are transporting Canadian tar sands bitumen, which carries chemicals such as natural gas, hydrogen sulfide, benzene and toluene. This highly toxic diluted substance runs through large pipelines such as Enbridge’s Pegasus line, which recently burst in Mayflower, Ark., and would also flow through TransCanada’s contested Keystone XL pipeline if completed.

“It will not only come through the original territory of the Ponca people [but] it will follow the Trail of Tears of the Ponca people from the 1800s,” said Camp-Horinek. “As a Ponca woman these things are not far removed from us. My own grandfather, my mother’s father, was on this Trail of Tears of the Ponca.”

By Lynda Sullivan - Upsidedown World, July 25, 2014

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are not the official position of the IWW (or even the IWW’s EUC) and do not necessarily represent the views of anyone but the author’s.

The Peruvian Congress approved a packet of laws on July 3 which critics say subjects the country to neoliberal reforms that threaten to undermine environmental and labor protections and is a gift to the extractive industry.

The Minister of Economy and Finance Luis Miguel Castilla first presented to Congress on this packet of laws on June 25 in order for them to be debated and approved. This has led to an outcry by civil society,[1] as many have compared this law bundle to the neoliberal ‘paquetazos’ of the 1980s and 90s by the previous governments of Alan Garcia and Alberto Fujimori governments. President Ollanta Humala rejects this criticism.[2]

The term ‘paquetazo’ refers to a large bundle of laws supposedly aimed at reinvigorating the economy. In the days of the Garcia and Fujimori governments, the introduction of these paquetazos usually lead to hyperinflation, currency devaluation, extreme price hikes, and an increase in social conflicts and police repression.[3] President Humala’s current attempt to reinvigorate the economy centers round removing any obstacles for investing companies (mainly in the extractive industries), which critics say will irreversibly damage the environment and fuel more social unrest.

Despite the outcries and protests, the packet was approved with surprising ease.[4] Two of the few congress members to vote against the package were Verónika Mendoza and Rosa Mavila. Mendoza pleaded that, minimally, the chapter on the theme of the environment should be debated, revised, and corrected by the Commission of Indigenous People and the Environment. Mavila opposed the chapter on the environment and the rest of the reforms, because “it is a vision of total guarantee for extractive capitalism and nothing for the Peruvians, nothing for the people, and nothing for the workers.”[5]

By Rosalind Adams - Center for Public Integrity, July 22, 2014

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are not the official position of the IWW (or even the IWW’s EUC) and do not necessarily represent the views of anyone but the author’s.

BOGOTA, Colombia — Cesar Florez is often hesitant to answer his phone because there might be another death threat at the end of the line. Sometimes the threat comes in a phone call, other times in a text message or an email. In April, flyers were posted in the restroom stalls at Florez’s workplace, declaring him and his colleagues “permanent military targets.”

Until last month, Florez served as a local president of Sintramienergetica, a labor union in Colombia that represents the employees of Drummond Company, a U.S.-based coal-mining firm, in a country known for some of the world’s most severe violence against union leaders. Florez has been a Drummond employee for 17 years and active in the union for the last 14. Most recently, he worked as a marine operations technician in Drummond’s port near Santa Marta, where its coal is shipped out on barges.

But his position as a union leader has also meant he’s attracted a significant number of threats, including attempts on his life, which happen to spike around labor disputes, he said. In July 2013 the union went on strike, calling for a pay raise and to move from an hourly wage to a salary, among other demands. For 53 days the strike wore on amid tense negotiations, while the threats that Florez and his colleagues received only accelerated.

“They said if we didn’t lift the strike we’d be a target,” Florez said, describing some of the phone calls he received. “They said they already knew where my family was.”

Many of the written threats that Florez received bear the watermark of Los Rastrojos Comandos Urbanos, an active paramilitary group with ties to drug trafficking.

The Center for Public Integrity made numerous attempts to reach Drummond for comment on allegations that it has used the group to try to intimidate Sintramienergetica leaders like Florez; a spokesman said he could not respond to any questions on the matter. In a recent statement, the company’s lawyers asserted, “Drummond has never paid or otherwise assisted any illegal group in Colombia, whether paramilitary or guerilla [sic].”

Nonetheless, Drummond has been named in several lawsuits alleging financial ties to paramilitary groups since the mid-1990s.

Drummond — a closely held company based in Birmingham, Alabama, with revenues that reached $3 billion last year—has helped Colombia become the world’s fourth-largest coal exporter. Heman Drummond started the business in 1935 on the backs of mules that were used to haul loads of coal from its mines in Alabama. Under the leadership of his son, Garry, the company expanded, securing a contract to extract coal in La Loma, in the Cesar Department of Northeast Colombia in the late 1980s.

While its Colombian operations quickly became a significant revenue stream for the company, security issues and labor disputes have always been substantial obstacles for Drummond’s business. And, according to its workers, intimidation has become routine in a country where trade union leaders are often viewed as subversives.