PHOTO-ESSAY

RIGHTS ACTION FUND-RAISING NEWSLETTER - September 2011
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Some of the people, their stories & the struggles
That we support with your trust and donations

Sept_11_Funds_1
(Photo @ Grahame Russell, September 2011)

On the left, Diodora Hernandez, her daughter Maria and grand-daughter.  In the back, Maria Cuc Choc.  Diodora, a Mayan Mam campesina (subsistence level farmer), lives with her daughter, grand-daughter and husband, in the Mam territories of San Miguel Ixtahuacan, western Guatemala, in the shadow of Goldcorp’s gold mine.

In July 2010, Diodora was shot point blank in her right eye (now, she has a prosthetic eye); the bullet exited by her right ear.  Miraculously surviving the attempted assassination, and - though missing an eye and deaf in her right ear - Diodora still refuses to sell her plot of land to Goldcorp.

Though the truth is finally being told, no justice has been done for the attempt on Diodora’s life, neither in Guatemala, nor in the Inter-American Commission of Human Rights, nor in Canada.

In September 2011, Maria Cuc Choc – Mayan Qeqchi campesino from eastern Guatemala - traveled to San Miguel Ixtahuacan to visit the gold mining harmed communities.  She came here, along with indigenous women from throughout Guatemala and with representatives from the Council of Canadians, Rights Action and the Forum on Water and Gender.

Maria is the sister of Ramiro Choc, a community leader who is a political prisoner, in jail on trumped up charges.  She is the sister-in-law of Adolfo Ich, a community leader who was assassinated on September 27, 2009 by private security guards in the hire of the Guatemalan Nickel Company (CGN), then wholly owned by the Canadian company HudBay Minerals.

Maria also leads the struggle to seek truth and justice for 11 Mayan Qeqchi women of the remote community of Lote 8 who were gang-raped in January 2007 by private security guards hired by HudBay Minerals (CGN), as well as police and soldiers, as part of a brutal and illegal forced eviction attempt.

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Sept_11_Funds_2
(Photo @ http://www.resistenciahonduras.net/)

On September 7, 2011, “Emo” (Mahadeo Roopchand Sadloo Sadloo) was assassinated in Tegucigalpa, Honduras.  For many, Emo was one of the symbols of the Honduran “Resistance” (the National Front of People’s Resistance) that has peacefully and courageously opposed the military backed Honduran regime since the June 2009 military coup that ousted the elected government of President Zelaya.

Since that time 100s of Hondurans have been assassinated, across the country, as the Honduran regime using systematic State repression to try and crushing the amazing “Resistance” movement.  Emo’s assassination was a direct and very public message to the Honduran people by the regime – on-going efforts to terrorize and silence the Resistance and the Honduran people.

Witnesses report that Emo was in his tire repair shop when a man approached him and, without saying a word, shot him at least 6 times.  Emo was taken to the Hospital Escuela, where he died soon after.  In the emergency room, former First Lady Xiomara Castro de Zelaya declared: “They have killed a symbol of resistance.  Do not come to me and say this is a common crime, this is a political crime".

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Sept_11_Funds_3
(Photo @ 2007, Gwendolyn Meyer)

Since the taking of this photo in 2007, young Lesly Yaritza died of health complications caused in all probability by Goldcorp Inc’s cyanide-leaching, open-pit / mountain-top removal mine in the Siria Valley, central Honduras.

Over the years, Rights Action – bringing delegations of North Americans, donors, journalists – to the forcibly relocated community of Nueva Palo Ralo de San Jose.  This photo was taken in 2007, when we spoke with Lesly’s mother, Carla, to learn of the health situation of her then two year old daughter, Lesly Yaritza.

Lesly’s father worked for 7 years in the mine, dealing directly with dangerous chemicals.  Since birth, Lesly’s motor skill abilities were impaired.  At the age of three, she could not walk; she could not support herself standing or even hold her upper body upright while sitting.

The community of Nueva Palo Ralo drank water for close to 4 years from a well that Goldcorp/ Entre Mares dug for them, after forcibly relocating them from the original hoem community.  It turned out that the water was contaminated with dangerous levels of heavy metals.  In 2005, Goldcorp/ Entremares abruptly shut down the well and locked it.  No follow-up studies on the water have been permitted.  

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Sept_11_Funds_4

On March  28, 2011, Miriam Miranda - a Garifuna-indigenous and pro-democracy leader from the Caribbean north coast of Honduras - was shot point blank in the stomach with a tear-gas canister, and then illegally detained by police, during a peaceful protest in the Garifuna community of Triunfo de la Cruz, in Tela Bay.

Since the June 28, 2009 coup d'etat, repression against OFRANEH (of which Miriam Miranda is the General Coordinator) has worsened.  For more than two decades, OFRANEH and the Garifuna communities along the north coast, including 5 communities in the Tela Bay area, have been under systematic threats of expulsion as a result of the financial and business interests of the global tourist industry, including international “development” [sic] institutions (including the World Bank and the IDB), the Honduran economic elites, Italian and Canadian tourism operators and investors, and the military and police that are all associated with the construction of the mega tourist projects.

This repression and violence has only increased since the 2009 military coup; already two old Garifuna villages – Rio Negro and Barra Vieja – have been physically disappeared, their populations forced out, so as to expand upon mega-tourist projects.

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Sept_11_Funds_5
(Photo @ Grahame Russell, September 2011)

For the first time in public, German Chub – a Mayan Qeqchi man from the nickel mining harmed community of El Estor - speaks of how he was shot, point blank, by a private security guard hired by the Guatemalan Nickel Company (CGN), then wholly owned by the Canadian company HudBay Minerals.  (See 1st photo and commentary above)

Like Diodora Hernandez (in the 1st photo), German was left for dead, and yet miraculously survived.  Today, he remains paralyzed from the waist down.  For close to 18 months, he was in and out of hospitals and rehabilitation centers, supported by a network of courageous and caring Guatemalans and North Americans.

In this photo, German tells his story to indigenous women from throughout Guatemala and representatives from the Council of Canadians, Rights Action and the Forum on Water & Gender.  Though the truth is finally being told, no justice has been done for the assassination attempt on German’s life, neither in Guatemala, nor in the Inter-American Commission of Human Rights, nor in Canada. 

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TO MAKE TAX-DEDUCTIBLE DONATIONS
for indigenous and campesino people and organizations (like the people, their families and organizations in the photos above, and described below) working for community-controlled development, environmental justice, human rights and justice in Guatemala and Honduras, as well as in Chiapas and El Salvador, make check payable to "Rights Action" and mail to:

UNITED STATES:  Box 50887, Washington DC, 20091-0887
CANADA:  552 - 351 Queen St. E, Toronto ON, M5A-1T8

CREDIT-CARD DONATIONS:  http://rightsaction.org/contributions.htm
DONATIONS OF STOCK:  info@rightsaction.org

THANK-YOU FOR YOUR DONATIONS & TRUST
Receiving donations from individuals and private foundations in the USA and Canada, Rights Action continues to support and work with amazing people and groups in Guatemala and Honduras, as well as in El Salvador and Chiapas.

We are clear in our vision that these are “our” problems we are struggling to transform and remedy, not “their” problems alone.

Please send us your questions, comments, suggestions, …

Annie Bird (annie@rightsaction.org)
Grahame Russell (info@rightsaction.org)

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RIGHTS ACTION FUND-RAISING NEWSLETTER
September 2011

NO MORE POLITICS & BUSINESS AS USUAL
WITH WAR CRIMINALS & REPRESSIVE REGIMES
(This is how the unjust global economy works)

Dear friends & supporters,

Above and below, our September 2011 fund-raising letter.  Please read and re-post and distribute this information, widely, to any interested folks, potential donors and organizations.

IN THIS NEWSLETTER

 

It is not easy, but it is necessary to keep on struggling and working for the rights and well-being of a majority of Guatemalans and Hondurans, who continue to live in conditions of exploitation and poverty, racism and repression.  They live in violent, unjust societies dominated by wealthy minority elites linked to their own militaries, and linked to the governments of the USA and Canada and to a host of American and Canadian businesses and investor interests.

Thank-you for your donations and trust as we pursue this aim and struggle of creating a local-to-global economic and political order based on mutual respect and benefit, based on equality inside and between nations, and based on living in harmony with Mother Earth.

THANK-YOU KAREN & UNTIL SOON
After 3 years of great work, activism and commitment with Rights Action in Guatemala and Honduras, we say thank-you very much to Karen Spring, who returns to Canada to complete her studies.  We wish Karen all the best, and look forward to many more years of good work and struggle for another world is necessary and possible. (spring.kj@gmail.com)

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… please join a

DELEGATION TO HONDURAS & GUATEMALA
January 2012 (exact dates TBD)

MINING, BIOFUELS & MILITARIZATION:
US MILITARY AID & CANADIAN-AMERICAN ECONOMIC INTERESTS

DELEGATION LEADER – Annie Bird
Led by Annie, co-director of Rights Action since 1995, this trip to will enable participants to learn first-hand about community development and indigenous and human rights struggles, about the unjust global “development” model, and about how to be involved, in North America, with political and legal activism in support of global justice and equality.

Over the past five years, Guatemala and Honduras have seen a surge of investment in sugar cane and African palm plantations spurred by international financing mechanisms promoting biofuel production.  In a similar way, mining companies are taking advantage of benefits provided by so-called “free trade” agreements to use destructive extraction techniques which endanger communities and destroy watersheds.

This has generated land conflicts, evictions of indigenous and campesino communities, destruction of food production, undermining food sovereignty.  The response has been militarization with police, military and private security contractors, generating the highest levels of human rights abuses that the region has seen for decades.

Fenix nickle mine in El Estor (formerly owned by HudBay Minerals), Cerro Blanco gold mine in Asuncion Mita (owned by Goldcorp Inc), Chabil Utzaj sugar cane company in the Polochic Valley, are just a few of the projects that campesinos and indigenous communities are resisting in Guatemala.  In the wake of the June 28, 2011 military coup in Honduras, the United States is promoting the remilitarization of Central America through the Central American Regional Security Initiative.

FOR INFORMATION
Annie Bird, 202-680-3002, annie@rightsaction.org

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… please join a

DELEGATION TO GUATEMALA
March 10-17, 2012

DAMS, MINING & AFRICAN PALM PRODUCTION * versus *
COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT, ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE & HUMAN RIGHTS

DELEGATION LEADER – Grahame Russell
Led by Grahame, co-director of Rights Action since 1995, this trip will enable participants to learn first-hand about community development and indigenous and human rights struggles, about the unjust global “development” model, and about how to be involved, in North America, with political and legal activism in support of global justice and equality.

“CHIXOY” HYDRO-ELECTRIC DAM -- 30th ANNIVERSARY OF THE RIO NEGRO MASSACRES
The timing of this delegation over-laps with the 30th anniversary of the March 13, 1982 “Rio Negro” massacre – one of 5 massacres that killed some 450 Maya Achi villagers, to help make way for the construction of the “Chixoy Dam”, a “development” project of the World Bank and Inter-American Development Bank in partnership with the Guatemalan military regimes of the day.  We will visit with surviving family and community members in the remote mountainous village of Rio Negro.

NICKEL MINING & PRODUCTION OF AFRICAN PALM & SUGAR FOR DIESEL BIO-FUEL -– REPRESSION & FORCED EVICTIONS OF MAYAN QEQCHI PEOPLES
The delegation will also visit with Mayan Qeqchi communities suffering repression and illegal evictions at the hands of nickel mining companies (going back almost 40 years), and producers of African palm trees and sugar for production of diesel bio-fuel.

COST - US$750
This covers: 7 nights of hotel; 2 meals a day for 7 days; transportation in-country; trip organization, guiding, translation; honorariums for some people & communities we meet with.  Participants pay for their own travel to and from Guatemala.

DATES
Arrive in Guatemala City on Saturday March 10; depart on Saturday March 17. (There are no delegation activities planned for these dates)  If delegates want to come earlier or stay later, to see more of Guatemala, that is obviously their decision.

FOR INFORMATION
Grahame Russell, info@rightsaction.org, 860-352-2448

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COMMUNIQUE

COUNCIL OF CANADIANS & RIGHTS ACTION DEMAND
SHUTDOWN OF GOLDCORP MINE IN GUATEMALA

(September 2011)  The Council of Canadians joins Rights Action and the community of San Miguel Ixtahuacan in calling for the immediate closure of Goldcorp’s controversial Marlin Mine in Guatemala.

“Companies like Goldcorp are tarring Canada’s reputation internationally,” says Council of Canadians chairperson Maude Barlow. “The federal government has promoted and supported the expansion of Canadian mining and investor interests around the world, without regard for human rights or environmental impacts. Enough is enough.”

On September 6-7, Barlow traveled with Grahame Russell, of Rights Action, and a group 14 others – including Mayan women from across Guatemala – to visit with Mayan Mam communities and families of San Miguel Ixtahuacan, in western Guatemala, who have been harmed by Goldcorp Inc’s mountain-top removal, open-pit, cyanide leaching gold mine.

The Council of Canadians and Rights Action are demanding:

 

“Impunity in Guatemala – from the local to the national levels – is a well-documented, devastating phenomenon that dates back generations, and continues today,” says Grahame Russell of Rights Action.  “However, the impunity with which Goldcorp operates is not only a Guatemalan phenomenon.  It is profoundly a Canadian phenomenon. The federal government must step in to prevent similar abuses of other Canadian mining companies.”

For the Council of Canadians and Rights Action, based on considerable investigation and documentation and based on the groups’ own investigations, there can be no question that Goldcorp has caused and is causing widespread harms and violations. These harms and violations have been caused directly and indirectly by Goldcorp Inc.’s cyanide leaching, mountain-top removal, open pit gold mine.

The Council of Canadians and Rights Action delegation was received by ADISMI (Association for the Integral Development of San Miguel Ixtahuacan), an organization of mining-harmed communities and people that, since 2004, has been at the forefront of denouncing and resisting the wide range of health and environmental harms and other human rights violations caused directly and indirectly by Goldcorp’s mine.

FOR MORE INFORMATION:
Dylan Penner, media officer, Council of Canadians, 613-795-8685, dpenner@canadians.org, Twitter: @CouncilOfCDNs, www.canadians.org
Grahame Russell, co-director, Rights Action, 860-352-2448, info@rightsaction.org, www.rightsaction.org, www.facebook.com/RightsAction

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YOUR FUNDS AT WORK

TO DATE IN 2011
We have channeled over $330,000
of your donations & grants
to our partner groups
for their projects & community defense struggles

EMERGENCY RESPONSE FUNDING
As is known, on an on-going basis Rights Action channels donations and grants to community organizations in Guatemala and Honduras (and in El Salvador and Chiapas, to a lesser extent) that are designing and carrying out their own community development, environmental defense, human rights and justice projects and struggles.

A hugely important part of this funding work is being able to provide funds, on short notice, to victims of repression and/or disasters.  Below, a summary people, families and organizations we have provided emergency funding to in 2011.

 

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NO MORE POLITICS AND BUSINESS AS USUAL
WITH WAR CRIMINALS IN GUATEMALA
(OR ANYWHERE)

Allegation Letter:  Submitted to Juan Méndez, United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture, Calling for Investigation into Genocide, Torture and Disappearances

With your trust and financial support, Rights Action has, since 1995, supported Guatemalans as they courageously work and struggle for memory and truth, and for justice for the genocide and other war crimes of the recent past.

Despite this amazing work, the leading candidate for the September presidential elections is ex-General Otto Perez Molina, … showing how little Guatemala has changed structurally.  Guatemala is still dominated and abused by the economic, political and military elites that were the intellectual authors of the State repression, terrorism and genocide of the 1970s, 80s and early 90s.

ALLEGATION LETTER:  On July 6, 2011, three human rights activists (Annie Bird, Rights Action; Jennifer Harbury, attorney; Kelsey Alford-Jones, Guatemala Human Rights Commission-USA) submitted a formal Allegation Letter to Juan Méndez, United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture.  The Letter calls for an investigation into the role that Guatemalan presidential candidate ex-General Otto Perez Molina played in the commission of genocide, torture and disappearances in Guatemala during the worst years of State repression and terrorism in the 1980s.

On August 22, 2011, the Letter was re-submitted along with the names of hundreds of people and organizations from many countries signing on, in support.

WATCH - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gdV1WJJEFHE&feature=email - a Democracy Now interview (in English and Spanish) with Francisco Goldman about how Otto Perez Molina is also accused of being one of the intellectual authors of the 1998 assassination of Bishop Juan Gerardi.

On request, we can email you the Allegation Letter, along with the 100s of sign-on persons and groups.  You can also find it at www.rightsaction.org.  Please re-send the Letter to your own organizations, listservs, social networks, etc, and please send copies to your own politicians and media.

THE UNDERLYING AIM to all of this is that of demanding and struggling for: No more business and politics as usual with war criminals in Guatemala (or anywhere).  This goes for governments, companies, investors, the World Bank, the United Nations, etc.

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NO MORE POLITICS AND BUSINESS AS USUAL
WITH REPRESSIVE, UNDEMOCRATIC REGIMES
IN HONDURAS
(OR ANYWHERE)

“CANADA IS BECOMING MORE GRINGO THAN THE GRINGOS”

On August 12, 2011, in front of the ExpoCentre in San Pedro Sula, Honduras, where Canadian Prime Minister Steven Harper signed a so-called “free trade” agreement with the Honduran regime, protesters held up signs: “Canadians Go Home”.

CANADIAN PRIME MINISTER ‘GREETED’ WITH RESISTANCE TO “FREE TRADE” AGREEMENT
On August 12, members of the Honduran Women’s Collective (CODEMUH), Council of Indigenous and Popular Organizations of Honduras (COPINH), Bishop Monseñor Luis Santos, Rights Action and female workers from Gildan’s sweatshops, met in the central plaza in San Pedro Sula to protest the arrival of Prime Minister Stephen Harper to sign the so-called “Free Trade” Agreement (FTA) with Honduran regime leader Pepe Lobo.

 

“CANADA IS BECOMING MORE GRINGO THAN THE GRINGOS”
Canada’s business and investment interests in Honduras have grown since the June 28, 2009 military coup that Canada and the United States (alone in the western hemisphere) supported, both directly and indirectly.

During a recent protest against Canadian tourism investments along Honduras’ north coast that are resulting in rights violations and forced displacements of Indigenous-Garifuna communities, a Garifuna woman said: “Canada is becoming more gringo than the gringos.”

After the June 28, 2009 military coup, the post-coup regime staged the November 2009 “elections” (that were fraudulent with widespread repression the day of the elections) and then staged the January 2010 installation of the current regime headed by Pepe Lobo.

What the coup achieved was the re-concentration of economic and political power in the hands of the undemocratic Honduran oligarchic elite, known as golpistas (coup perpetrators), who have long proven willing to accommodate American and increasingly Canadian investment and business interests, while exploiting and using repression against their own people.

The visit of Prime Minister Harper made a clear and dismal statement about Canada’s real interests in Honduras that have nothing to do with human rights and democracy.  Simply put, Harper’s visit was to promote Canada’s economic interests in Honduras – mining, maquiladora sweatshops, tourism, and ‘privatized’ model cities.  The FTA further entrenches the rights of Canadian investment and business interests.

CANADIAN MILITARY SUPPORT
As if human rights violations and health and environmental harms being caused by Canadian business and investment interests in Honduras were not enough, the Canadian government sent 150 Canadian soldiers to Honduras to participate in military training sessions.  As the Honduran people suffer the highest levels of State repression in recent decades, committed with impunity by the army, police and privatized security forces, Canada’s contribution to the reinforcement of Honduras’ armed forces is the last thing needed.

FORMAL INQUIRIES
Rights Action asks Canadians and Americans to join us in continuing to support courageous community based organizations in Honduras, resisting the repression and impunity of the military and police backed regime, seeking to restore their democracy and respect for the rule of law.

We also seek your support in demanding the establishment of Congressional and Parliamentary inquiries into Canadian and American post-military coup investment and business interests in Honduras, given that it is these economic interests that led the US and Canadian governments to effectively support the military coup and the repressive post-coup regime.

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TO MAKE TAX-DEDUCTIBLE DONATIONS
for indigenous and campesino people and organizations (like the people, their families and organizations in the photos above, and described below) working for community-controlled development, environmental justice, human rights and justice in Guatemala and Honduras, as well as in Chiapas and El Salvador, make check payable to "Rights Action" and mail to:

UNITED STATES:  Box 50887, Washington DC, 20091-0887
CANADA:  552 - 351 Queen St. E, Toronto ON, M5A-1T8

CREDIT-CARD DONATIONS:  http://rightsaction.org/contributions.htm
DONATIONS OF STOCK:  info@rightsaction.org

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