indigenous rights

Report exposes risk to shareholders when indigenous rights are ignored. Are extractive companies operating on indigenous land overvalued? Indigenous Rights Risk Report.

First Peoples Worldwide released its Indigenous Rights Risk Report at the The SRI Conference on Sustainable, Responsible, Impact Investing. The report analyzed 52 U.S.-based extractive companies listed on the Russell 1000® Index and assessed 370 oil, gas and mining sites located on or near Indigenous Peoples land. The results are eye opening. 92% of the sites posed a medium to high risk to shareholders. This is concerning given that only 5 of the 52 companies had an Indigenous Peoples policy for productively engaging Indigenous communities, leaving shareholders exposed to considerable risk. You can view the full report online at www.firstpeoples.org/indigenous-rights-risk-report.

One of the companies First Peoples assessed was Southwestern Energy, which on October 6, 2013, a stock analysts said: “looks like a great long-term investment” and “it is a low political risk company.” Less than two weeks later, on October 17th, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) arrested about 40 Elsipogtog and Mi’kmaq First Nations tribal members and activists, using rubber bullets and pepper spray. The protestors had been blockading the road to SWN Resources Canada, a subsidiary of Southwestern Energy, since June. Southwestern Energy had requested "a permanent injunction to prevent protests against its bid to explore for gas," claiming the blockade was costing them $60,000 a day. However, the injunction was denied on October 22nd. There is no timetable for when the blockade and Southwestern Energy's losses will end.

Given this rosy stock forecast in the face of these troubling events, are traditional approaches to assessing the risk of oil, gas, and mining operations located on or near Indigenous Peoples land relevant anymore? First Peoples does not think so and has proposed a new risk assessment tool in its new Indigenous Rights Risk Report.

In the report, First Peoples rated the above-mentioned Southwestern Energy site a "High" risk. "Traditional financial analysis is no longer enough to predict the risk of an oil, gas or mineral site that is on or near Indigenous land," says Nick Pelosi, First Peoples' Corporate Engagement Associate. "The risk of not respecting Indigenous Peoples' rights must be considered for an accurate risk assessment."

Southwestern Energy is not alone. Nearly all of the companies in the study had a medium to high-risk profile. Of the companies that had over ten sites operating on or near Indigenous land (25 percent of our sample), 92 percent had at least one high-risk site and 23 percent had over five high-risk sites. Take into consideration that only 5 of those companies have an Indigenous Peoples policy, the vast majority of companies are flying blind when it comes to operating on Indigenous land, thus exposing their investors and shareholders to incredible risk.

The risk of not respecting Indigenous Peoples' rights is only going to increase. First Peoples president and co-founder Rebecca Adamson forecasts a confluence of events that will make the extraction of oil, gas and minerals from Indigenous land riskier in the future. She says, "First, Indigenous Peoples have more rights enshrined at the international and national level, and are exercising them more effectively than ever before. Second, as extractive industries search the globe for oil, gas and minerals, they are finding them increasingly on or near Indigenous land. And third, digital media is allowing Indigenous Peoples and their allies to access and share information more easily, giving them the ability to tell their story and conduct advocacy campaigns on a global scale that can directly impact the profitability and value of a company."

Therefore, it is more critical than ever for investors and shareholders to be able to access unbiased information about Indigenous Peoples and from Indigenous Peoples so they can make sound investment decisions. First Peoples hope this report will be a risk analysis tool for investors and shareholders as they make investment decisions in the extractive industry. Ideally, it will also act as a platform for Indigenous Peoples and investors to collaborate together on shareholder action campaigns that drive policy changes companies need to make to respect the rights of Indigenous Peoples and maximize shareholder returns.

View the full report online at http://www.firstpeoples.org/indigenous-rights-risk-report.

Australian Citizenship Pledge

'From this time forward
I pledge my loyalty to Australia and its people,
whose democratic beliefs I share,
whose rights and liberties I respect, and
whose laws I will uphold and obey.'

When new Australians pledge their loyalty to Australia, it is not some token spiel, it is a solemn oath!
Personally I have never had to take this pledge, because I was born here. But I would be happy to take it without hesitation. My loyaty to Australia, its people, its values, its laws are unequivocal.

Australian citizenship is a privilege, highly valued and sought after globally. It is not a right.
Citizenship comes with prerequisite conditions and performance conditions. With those privileges come responsibilities.

Foreigners are welcome* as Australian citizens according to Australian conditions:

# be law abiding
# respect Australian liberties and rights
# respect and share Australia's democratic beliefs
# speak, read and write English
# proactively assimilate and integrate
# accept Australian traditional culture
# rescind any cultural mores that irreconcilably conflict with Australian values.

[*Subject to Australia's carrying capacity and commensurate with adequate Federal Government infrastructure investment.]

Breach those conditions and your citizenship should be made null and void. Commit a serious crime and you shoudl be automatically deported, and barred from ever returning to Australia. This clause needs to be enshrined into Australian law and I call on it to be the basis for a Conditional Citizenship Bill to be put before the Australian Federal Parliament.

Australia must control who comes to this country, else all Indians, Asians, East Asians, Africans, Europeans, Brits, Russians, Kiwis and Americans could argue a self-serving entitlement to swamp Australia. Bugger that! That would be unjust on Australia and Australians - a fairness justification any country would stand by. As if Australian Aborgines haven't suffered from successive waves of colonising immigrants from the British torrent and then succumbed to British authorised foreign herds every since?

If one looks at the facts, Australia has and is being overwhelmed by immigrants. The problem is pathogenic and it skyrocketed exponentially after Whitlam's multiculturalism manifesto of 1973.

Some of these immigrants are committing serious crimes once in Australia. Immigrants who have a record of criminality and foreigners visiting Australia who then commit serious crimes while they are here are rightly automatically deported.

So why should similar serious crimes be immune from deporting the perpetrator simply by Australia's honourable process of residency or citizenship? Answer: It shouldn't!

Such defence of citizenship has no basis for someone who has breached the conditions of citizenship, flouted Australian laws and cause serious crime in Australia. Once convicted they deserve to be deported to their country of birth.
Simple rule, Fair rule. Try doing same overseas. Name one country that would be more lenient than Australia for such crimes by 'new' citizens!

Apply this rule universally and I challenge that any genuine injustice could emerge.

Australian citizenship is a world-leading privilege and don't millions of humans around the planet well know it?
But if all of India's and China's now millions of educated were deemed eligible to migrate to Australia what would protect the incumbent local Australians from beingh overrun?

Only birth rights present the fairest universal test. Else Australia risks being overrun by the world's populations that have a life less ideal than Australians.

Economic immigration is a form of human gravity. Humans flow to the attractive countries of least resistance. And at present our ethnic-biased Laboral governments keep the immigration door open despite no local electoral mandate permitting the bastards on Capitol Hill to do so.

To reiterate, the simply test ought to be that if one is not born in Australia, one's citizenship privilege is conditional on performance. If you commit a serious crime in your new host country - then simply that is a fundamental breach of your citizenship conditions and you have voided your privilege and entitlements.
Of course your offspring cannot if they were born here.

So-called 'naturalised citizens' agree to comply with the "same duties and obligations as those who were born in Australia.
If they breach those duties and are permitted to stay in Australia, then what message does that send to wannabe 'crims' overseas?

And think about it. This rule is not just for Australia. It should be universal. The only losers are the criminals.
With all the ethics in Australian gaols, it is about time they were deported and Australian draft and vote for a Conditional Citzenship Bill - foreigners are welcome as Australian citizens according to Australian conditions - be law abiding, speak English, procatively assimilate, accept Australian traditional culture, and rescind any cultural mores that irreconcilably conflict with Australian values.

Simple, fair and just...and I encourage other countries to do the same.

'Laboral'* invitation of hoards of foreign populations from 'contra-cultural' societies is directly displacing the lesser numbers of traditional Australians (those born here and with traditional ancestral origins in Australia). It is a repeat of British colonisation of Australia that directly displaced Australia's Aboriginal people. It is what the Dutch immigrants did to the native South Africans under Apartheid. It is what the Chinese immigrants have done to the indigenous Fijians.

It is immigration history repeated!

The Laboral policy of immigrant favouritism is 'reverse racism'. It is discriminatory against local people and their traditional way of life, their values and their rights. It is a form of 'cultural treason' against the incumbent population.

Then when an immigrant gets into a position of influence (management, politics) favouritism to the immigrant's countrymen and women is ignored by Australia's anti-discrimination laws. Australia has one rule for immigrants, another rule for traditional Australians who feel unjustly targeted by the various laws that favour immigrants. These laws treat traditional Australians as if we are inherently racist. But by such favouritising and by immunising immigrants from racism rules, Australia's anti-discrimination laws have become a passive form of reverse racism.

The tragedy to all parties (locals and immigrants alike) is that the unjust discrimination felt by traditional Australians is causing local disaffection, understandably. But what conveniently goes unmentioned by supporters of cultural immigrants to Australia, is the aggressive intolerance of foreigner cultures by the countries of origin of many Australian immigrants cultures - Indian intolerance of Christians and China's intolerance of Falun Gong are classic examples.

Traditional Australian are feeling marginalised in their own native country. That disaffection and sense of injustice is steadily converting tolerant easy-going Australians, like myself, into angry resentful protectionists. The vocal outrage is perceived as racist, but it is an early cry for justice by disaffected locals. Reverse racism risks inciting reactionary racism. It throws civilised tolerance out the window and descend humanity into its primitive mode of protecting its own clan. It is a slippery slope.

Once reactionary discrimination takes a cultural hold amongst a local population united against a perceived threat of invading immigrant culture, local attitudes become entrenched. Human history has many stories of such and many quite recent and close to home.

One shouldn't have to sign a declaration of accepting cultural diversity of foreigners if that cultural diversity is open ended without parameters and that policy does provide for Australian cultural values and standards to prevail. Yet it has become standard policy for Local and State governments to mandate all public servants comply with accepting cultural diversity - willy nilly!

I shouldn't have to speak Mandarin to get a job in North Ryde. Immigrants should though have to accept Australian values and social standards by living in Australia - equality of women, free speech, reward based on merit (no chronyism), fair pay for a fair day's work (no slavery), highs standards of hygiene, etc.

Australian social values and standards were once common sense and taken for granted, but with so many arriving with different values and standards, Australia has got to the point of needing its social values and standards protected in legislation - an Australian Values Act.

Cronulla in 2005 was a warning to governments. Heed it and curb the immigration and listen to us locals! Yet in the government of our modern society, especially across Australia, members of parliament are naive, and untravelled idealists who invariable tow their Party's line and whom hold no experience or qualifications in sociology. We are ruled by incompetents of dangerous naivety.

GEERT WILDERS (witnessing the Dutch experience):

“People are waking up. They see that we are losing our identity, that neighborhoods are unsafe, that women are shouted at and hassled in the streets, that schools are unsafe. If my party were extremist, we’d be at the margins and we’d be getting 1.5 or 2 percent of the vote.

We’re not. In Holland, fortunately, we don’t have many racists. The Dutch are a very tolerant people. We have no problem to be tolerant of the tolerant, but we should be intolerant of the intolerant.

Source: ‘The Jerusalem Post’: What does the rise in support for your party say about Holland?'

Source: http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/250038/what-wilders-trial-means-editors

Nationalism is a domestic reaction to foreign invasion (be it militarily or by mass immigration) and the consequential displacement of the local population - real or perceived.

Foreigners visiting are guests and are welcome. But foreigners arriving as permanent settlers threaten to compete with the territory and rights of the local ancestral population - again, real or perceived. So any immigration program warrants prior approval by the local population, and sensitive and respectful settling, adjustment, communication and time and space for assimilation to integrate.

Humans are territorial by nature. Foreigners visiting are guests and are welcome. But foreigners arriving as permanent settlers can threaten to be competition with the local population - again, real or perceived. So the immigration process demands local acceptance and careful and respectful settling, adjustment, communication and time and space for foreigner assimilation with the local ancestral population.

History has shown that over time, foreigners can become accepted by the local population if assimilation is carefully managed in small doses over time. The rate needs to be evolutionary not revolutionary.

Britain's foreign invasion of Australia never respected or tried to assimilate with the local Aboriginal peoples. It is a lesson of history still not learnt in Australia.

When many foreigners arrive as permanent settlers, ancestral locals feel their territory and rights naturally threatened, like all territorial animals.

When social pressures ensue (higher costs of living, higher rents, higher house prices, jobs filled by immigrants, increased unemployment, congestion of public infrastructure - roads, public transport, schools, hospitals, child care, migrant favouritism in the workplace) such domestic fears are confirmed. Resentment then builds.

Mass immigration is by definition non-military invasion. Nationalism is a domestic reaction to foreign invasion. Stop the mass immigration and nationalism pressures subside. Read history and learn from it. Nationalism is always just below the surface in any established identifiable community.

Australia's open-door policy on immigration is driven by the short-term published yet narrow economic benefits and lobbied by those who stand to personally gain financially. But Australia's open-door policy on immigration is ignorant of the social consequence and longer term capital burden of requisite infrastructure.

Australia's LibLab politics of mass immigration is set to fuel fervent nationalism for years to come. Sydney's Cronulla Riot of 2005 was one of unchecked localised domestic resentment to foreigners.

The riot was a spontaneous groundswell by local juveniles defending their traditional beach turf from a perceived invasion of gangs of arrogant Middle Eastern immigrants muscling in. It was classic tribal territorial reaction and a regrettable chapter in Australian history. Since that ugly time, the relationship between the two groups has cooled due to concerted efforts by all parties to work together. But the underlying cause of the riot was the Immigration Department's abandonment of assimilation.

The Cronulla Riot was a warning to all national governments who choose to narrow-mindedly ignore the domestic social implications of uncontrolled mass immigration and who abandon immigration assimilation principles. If perpetuated, mass immigration and the displacement it causes to traditional populations may in future be more co-ordinated and organised.

Our politicians do not study social history and they are the cause of the problem, not the immigrants themselves. Australia should learn from the Fijian experience of mass immigration by Indians, which ended up outnumbering the indigenous Indo-Fijians. indigenous Fijian Commodore Frank Bainimarama stated that:

" his main reasons for overthrowing the Qarase government were that it was corrupt, and that it was conducting racially discriminatory policies against the country's Indo-Fijian minority. In a speech publicly announcing the coup, he stated that Qarase's policies had "divided the nation now and will have very serious consequences to our future generations".
[Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Bainimarama#Explaining_the_coup]

It is critical for social cohesion in any country, Australia, Fiji, New Zealand or anywhere that immigration is carefully planned, implemented and monitored and that assimilation is effective through to full integration. For governments to abandon its core protective responsibility of the ancestral rights of its citizenry is unpalatable in its social consequences.

Sitting Bull (c. 1831 – December 15, 1890) was a Hunkpapa Lakota Sioux holy man who led his locally indigenous people as a war chief during years of resistance to migrant colonisers in what is now South Dakota, USA.]
Read about the Native Americans

Cultural assimilation is about respecting and adopting the prevailing local ways of a place - language, laws, social values, behavioural standards, customs, intermarriage, and spatial distribution across the community, etc. Assimilation is a gradual change process.

Australia's most excessive immigration Prime Minister on record, Kevin Rudd, just gone, by allowing 300,000 immigrants into Australia in 2008 denied any chance of assimilation.

The idiom 'When in Rome, do as the Romans do', is an instructive guide applicable to any land - Australia, Kosovo, Mongolia, Tibet, Saudi Arabia, not just for visitors, but especially for immigrants. A country has no obligation to change and adapt to suit those from foreign soils. Indeed, immigrants have an obligation to be humbly grateful to their new host country and their new hosts. That gratitude deserves the respect of accepting the local ways, not seeking to change them.

Respecting locals, local rights and local values is akin to respecting one's elders - an underpinning principle of all human societies. Those that arrived first have highest moral claim. Nobody has greater right to a place than where they are born. No-one has control where one is born - as such birth rights morally prevail over non-birth (immigrant) rights; indigenous rights morally prevail over immigrant rights.

Where this lore has been savaged through human history is by the use of armed conflict.
That human history has been dogged with rape, pillage and plunder does not make it morally right that it should be repeated. Local rights morally prevail. This is a universal right deserving not just of the human world but also the natural world.

Immigrants rejecting cultural assimilation with the local population are unwelcome invaders by definition. Newcomers by rejecting adoption of the local culture, are disrespectfully asserting an unjustified claim to establish and impose a foreign culture. It is an invasion, albeit short of armed conflict, or what colonists euphemistically term 'annexing', but arguably that is one of the few differences.

Immigrants seeking 'a new life' in Australia or New Zealand have a moral obligation to respect and adopt the ways of life of the local inhabitants, not to impose their foreign ways of life upon their new hosts.

Both Australia and New Zealand immigration policies have historically performed a disservice to both the local population and immigrants alike, by abandoning immigrants in the assimilation process. By ignoring the full cost of assimilation under the cloak of multiculturalism, successive governments may have kept their quarterly cash books in the black, but let the social costs soar. Government immigration responsibility stops not at the airport arrivals gate but after assimilation.

The British were unwelcome invaders when Cook landed at Poverty Bay New Zealand in 1769 and then at Botany Bay, Australia in 1770. Subsequent exploitation, colonisation and mass murder in these islands by the invaders was wrong and immoral and indigenous generations have remained aggrieved and downtrodden ever since. Both histories are of violent invasions of native peoples lands. History cannot be undone, but must not be repeated. The current indigenous peoples remain complex open wounds awaiting healing.

With history unchangeable, it would take many more generations to come to achieve acceptable conciliation by the respective indigenous peoples. This unresolved conflict has a higher priority than adding to the problem with new immigration waves - and that is even if a genuine conciliation process was to start now.

But the national identity problem faced by both New Zealand and Australia stews at the psyche mainly because this process has not even started. It is symptomatic of the national immaturity of both nations.

Instead history has been successively repeated - immigrant wave after immigrant wave. The problems have been compounded because of the lack of assimiliation.
Enclaves of ethnic migrants have cemented themselves and more recently been exacerbated by short-sighted concepts of multi-culturalism, addressing skills shortages, fueling economic growth and allowing massive influx.

It is the disgrace of both these nations that generation after generation they shun conciliation with their indigenous, while generation after generation both nations perpetuate the fragmentation of their societies by encouraging migrants bringing 'old country' baggage with them. Seeking a 'new life' in a new country means just that!
Perhaps New Zealand as always leads Australia in some respect as it questions the 1840 multiple versions of the Treaty of Waitangi and M?ori-P?keh? relations in Aotearoa New Zealand. Australian Aborigines have not yet been offered a treaty. [Read More]

As the immigration wave cycle is allowed to continue without assimilation, the largest populations of the world will ultimately swamp both nations, overwhelming locals, local rights and local values, ultimately with their own. As both New Zealand and Australia are democracies, once the migrant number reach majority, migrants will be in politics and power. Locals will become downtrodden and ultimately extinct like the Thylacene and Moa.

Related articles and comments on CanDoBetter on this issue:

[image from Sheila Newman & wikipedia] ScienceDaily (Feb. 2, 2009) — "The Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) has released photos from the first large-scale census of jaguars in the Amazon region of Ecuador—one of the most biologically rich regions on the planet.
The ongoing census, which began in 2007, is working to establish baseline population numbers as oil exploration and subsequent development puts growing pressure on wildlife in Ecuador's Yasuni National Park and adjacent Waorani Ethnic Reserve. Together, these two protected areas make up some 6,500 square miles (16,800 square kilometers) of wilderness."

Mother Nature recognised at law

In September 2008 Ecuador became the first country in the world to declare constitutional rights to nature, thus codifying a new system of environmental protection. Original Article source.

Reflecting the beliefs and traditions of the indigenous peoples of Ecuador, the constitution declares that nature “has the right to exist, persist, maintain and regenerate its vital cycles, structure, functions and its processes in evolution.” This right, the constitution states, “is independent of the obligation on natural and juridical persons or the State to indemnify the people that depend on the natural systems.”

Nature not just an object for economic appropriation

The new constitution redefines people’s relationship with nature by asserting that nature is not just an object to be appropriated and exploited by people, but is rather a rights-bearing entity that should be treated with parity under the law.

Mari Margil, Associate Director of the Environmental Legal Defense Fund, worked closely over the past year with members of Ecuador’s constitutional assembly on drafting legally enforceable Rights of Nature, which mark a watershed in the trajectory of environmental law.

Ecuador’s leadership on this issue may have a global domino effect. Margil says that her organization is busy fielding calls from interested countries, such as Nepal, which is currently writing its first constitution.

Flawed by failure to mandate indigenous community consultation

For all of the hope and tangible progress the Rights of Nature articles in Ecuador’s constitution represent, however, there are shortcomings and contradictions with the laws and the political reality on the ground. A fundamental flaw in the constitution also exists due to Correa’s refusal to include a clause mandating free, prior, and informed consent by communities for development project that would affect their local ecosystems.

“I expect them [the multinational extractive industries] to fight it,” says Margil. “Their bread and butter is based on being able to treat countries and ecosystems like cheap hotels. Multinational corporations are dependent on ravaging the planet in order to increase their bottom line.”

Mining treats countries and ecosystems like cheap hotels

Investigation of Texaco [Caltex in Australia] oil-exploration in the Amazon.

The new Mining Law, introduced by Ecuador’s own President Rafael Correa and backed by Canadian companies, which hold the majority of mining concessions in Ecuador, is a testament to Margil’s forecast. The Mining Law would allow for large-scale, open pit metal mining in pristine Andean highlands and Amazon rainforest. Major nationwide demonstrations are being held in protest, with groups accusing Correa of inviting social and environmental disaster by selling out to mining interests.

Carlos Zorrilla, executive director of Defensa y Conservación Ecológica de Intag, who has been a tireless defender of the environment against transnational mining companies, says that while the new constitution looks good on paper, “in practice governments like Correa’s will argue that funding his political project, which will bring ‘well being and relieve poverty,’ overrules the rights of nature.”

Yet even as Ecuadoran President Correa embraces the extractive economic model of development, the inclusion of the rights of nature in a national constitution sets inspiring and revolutionary precedent. If history is any indicator, Ecuadorians will successfully fight for the Rights of Nature, with or without their president.

U.S. Media: Update by Cyril Mychalejko

When Ecuadorians drafted and passed a new constitution, which gave nature inalienable rights, the US media largely ignored this historic development. In the case of the Los Angeles Times, one of the few mainstream outlets to cover the story, the newspaper’s editorial board trivialized the development (“Putting Nature in Ecuador’s Constitution,” September 2, 2008) by suggesting it sounded “like a stunt by the San Francisco City Council” and that it seemed “crazy.”

“As ecological systems around the world collapse, we need to fundamentally change our relationship with nature. This requires changes in both law and culture, and ultimately our behavior as part of nature,” said Mari Margil, Associate Director of the Defense Fund, who is disappointed in how the US media largely ignored the story.

In Ecuador, at the time of the constitutional vote, the optimism over how the “Rights of Nature” clauses would translate into policy was guarded.
“As exciting as these developments are, it was also inevitable that the people in power would, and will, find ways to circumvent, undermine, and ignore those rights,” said Carlos Zorrilla, executive director of Defensa y Conservación Ecológica de Intag.

Multi-national mining companies dangerously influence national laws

According to Zorrilla, a major disappointment has been President Rafael Correa’s new mining law.

“The law takes rights-to-nature loopholes and widens them so that giant dirt movers could easily drive through them,” said Zorrilla, who has been working with communities of Ecuador’s Intag region to resist mining and promote sustainable development. “To mention a couple of examples, the law does not prohibit large-scale mining in habitats harboring endangered species, nor the dumping of heavy metals in rivers and streams.”
See also,"Ecuador Rising"..

Indigenous leaders file law-suit

Indigenous leaders responded by filing a lawsuit before Ecuador’s Constitutional Court in March 2009, seeking to overturn the mining law, which they believe is unconstitutional. Article 1 of the “Rights of Nature” clauses states: “Every person, people, community or nationality, will be able to demand the recognitions of rights for nature before the public organisms. The application and interpretation of these rights will follow the related principles established in the Constitution.”

Regardless of the ongoing struggles to ensure that the true meaning and scope of the constitution is upheld, Dr. Mario Melo, a lawyer specializing in Environmental Law and Human Rights and an advisor to Fundación Pachamama-Ecuador, believes that the nature clauses which reflect the traditions of indigenous peoples could offer a path to an ecologically sustainable future.

Rights to nature = progress

“I consider that the recognition of the ‘Rights to Nature’ as a progress on a global scale and one that deserves to be globally broadcast and commented on as a contribution from Ecuador towards the search of new ways of facing the environmental crisis due to climate change.”

The struggles of Ecuadorian social movements and the Ecuadorian government to uphold the “Rights of Nature” and to create a new development model that places human beings as interdependent parts of nature, rather than dominant exploiters of nature, is something we should continue to monitor and learn from.

Source:
Upside Down World, September 25, 2008
Title: “Ecuador’s Constitution Gives Rights to Nature”
Author: Cyril Mychalejko
and
Project Censored
Student Researcher: Chelsea Davis
Faculty Evaluator: Elaine Wellin, PhD
Sonoma State University

06/06/09 PERU, At least 31 people have died in clashes in Peru between the security forces and indigenous people in the Amazon region.

Those killed included at least 22 tribesmen and nine policemen. The violence took place as security forces tried to end a road blockade. Demonstrators also were threatening to set fire to an oil pumping station of state-owned Petroperu unless the government told police to halt efforts to clear weeks of blockades of roads and rivers that have hurt food and fuel supplies.

The local indigenous population is upset at Government plans to open up much of the land in Peru's Amazonia region to oil and gas and to mineral exploration, even though much of the land is officially protected.

Local people say new laws will make it easier for foreign companies to exploit their land for natural resources.

President Garcia said that the protesters had threatened to cut the lines carrying natural gas out of the region. "What else can the government do but act with energy to impose order," Garcia said.

Alberto Pizango, the main indigenous leader, denied that Indians killed police, saying the protesters were unarmed. He called for international human rights groups to intervene.

The protesters want decrees signed by President Alan Garcia in 2007 and 2008 easing restrictions on mining, oil drilling, wood harvesting and farming in the Amazon rainforest overturned. A Duke University study published last year said contract blocks for oil and gas exploration cover approximately 72 percent of Peru's rain forest.

Critics say President Garcia’s policies favoring free-markets and foreign investments mainly benefit elites in cities and that the economic boom has not decreased poverty levels of the poor.

Over the past weeks protesters have taken over airports, blocked bridges and highways, prevented navigation along several rivers, and stopped oil extracted from the Amazon from being shipped out of the region.

This violence also has exposed the central government's lack of control over remote regions of the country. Indigenous land rights are being violated.

The indigenous groups were backed by the International Federation of Human Rights, which groups 155 human rights organisations from around the world.

Please take action to support indigenous people in Peru.

Visit Rainforest Portal

See also: "Thousands of indigenous Peruvians protest invasion of Amazon by oil, mining and agricultural companies" of 1 Jun 09, Resource boom threatens indigenous people, EcoEarth newsdesk.

Why is Australia helping to plunder Peru? The indigenous people in Peru are being dispossessed of their land by a corrupt government, and the mining companies with their "free trade" agreements are being supported by President Garcia! Mining is polluting the river water at Reque and there are no hospitals or doctors. The Napo river is being poisoned because of gold mining. Cocaine smugglers are also infiltrating this area. Human corruption and greed have no ends!

Indigenous people are up in arms against these multinational companies who want to remove them from their territories, destroy their rainforests and destroy their communities. What about human rights? This is shameful to Australia and APEC. BHP, Rio Tinto and other mining companies should get OUT of Peru₁. The people will get NOTHING and the money will go to the president and his corrupt ministers.

The land belongs to the indigenous people, They do not want "civilisation" or to get "integrated" into the economy - and participate in all the anarchy and corruption of Peruvian cities. Nothing is spent on the people of Peru. They have few hospitals, schools, housing, roads, transport and human rights are non-existent. How is Australia dealing with such a country? The indigenous people are willing to die for their land. They are being bribed and extorted to give up and leave, and the government is intimidating their leaders with fabricated "crimes". They have been accused of being "terrorists" but have the right to live in and defend their traditional land.

We should not be taking part in APEC (Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation)! What about human rights, and the environmental costs of destroying rainforest areas? This is NOT the way to prosperity. This is poison and evil. The indigenous people want their land and to live in peace.

It is shameful that APEC and Australia are making agreements with this corrupt Peruvian government. Money is the root of all evil.

Note: after I read this I did a Google News search to confirm what was written by Vivienne. I found only a small amount about mining in Peru. These stories, inclucing the one listed below, confirm what Vivienne. However, this story seemed to be in contradiction to a 'good news' story, Peruvian forest laws overturned of 29 Aug 08 by Rick Kearns. So I e-mailed Vivienne to ask if, perhaps, her bad news story was dated. She advised me that she got the information from a friend who is from Peru and reads the online newspapers every day. She advised me that "the President in Peru has the ultimate power and can go against congress - like a king. There is no accountability or no-one he has to answer to. He is totally unpopular except for a few richer people and there is no way to get rid of him. ... I don't usually take interest in human concerns as such as I am more interested in animal rights, wildlife and environment, but these indigenous people live in harmony with the environment and are totally innocent of all the corruption and anarchy of Peru. I can't help but feel sympathy for them and the rainforest that is their home! Very concerning. Now the government is trying to frame the leaders for tax evasion(!) ... . They are poisoning the rivers and the dolphins and fish are dying." - JS

Footnotes

1. ↑ See Mining giant defends against BHP 5Sep08 in the Herald Sun Asked if possible joint ventures included Simandou iron ore in Guinea, Oyu Tolgoi copper in Mongolia and La Granja copper in Peru, (Rio Tinto CEO) Mr (Tom) Albanese responded that he would consider "anything that provides a positive, value-adding proposition for Rio shareholders."

Other stories about Peru

Peruvian forest laws overturned of 29 Aug 08 by Rick Kearns in Indian Country Today, Indigenous protesters triumph as laws revoked in Peru AFP of 22 Aug 08, Seizing Native land in Peru, one parcel at a time Peru of 4 Jul 08 by Rick Kearns in Indian Country Today, Indigenous rebellion in the Amazon of 30 Aug 08 in Green Left Weekly

For a somewhat subtle and seemingly pro-indigenous-people article in favour of rainforest destruction read Peru's Battle Over Subsoil Threatens Tribes of 3 Sep 08

Other stories about Latin America

Morales funds three indigenous universities in Bolivia by Rick Kearns in Indian Country Today of 3 Sep 08.

More violence in Bolivia after referendum by Rick Kearns in Indian Country Today of 5 Sep 08.

Morales claims victory in Bolivian recall referendum AFP of 10 Aug 08.

Bolivia Nationalizes Pipeline AFP of 3 Jun 08.

Morales makes good on land reform promises by Rick Kearns in Indian Country Today of 18 Feb 08.