Update on the mining evictions....
Ok, if you all remember watching the video or reading the blog abuot the violent mining evictions here in Guatemala, perhaps this will come of interest to you. The Canadian embassy is trying to portray the videographer and photojournalists as liars, and it´s such a ridiculous accusation that I can hardly believe it. I know both Steven and James, and I´m furious. Here´s a letter about it. Please read it.
February 28, 2007
A Public Letter To:
Peter MacKay, Minister of Foreign Affairs
James Lambert, Director General, Latin America and Caribbean Bureau, DFAIT
Kenneth Cook, Canadian Ambassador to Guatemala
RE: Canadian ambassador to Guatemala spreads misinformation about film
documenting indigenous Mayan Q'eqchi' communities forcibly evicted on
behalf of nickel mining company Skye Resources
We, the undersigned, write with deep concern over the recent conduct of
Canadian ambassador to Guatemala, Kenneth Cook. Ambassador Cook has
been misinforming people about the work of Canadian doctoral student
Steven Schnoor, who has been in Central America for several months
conducting CIDA-funded research, in collaboration with Rights Action and
various Guatemalan organizations and communities. The ambassador's
allegations also prejudice public perception of the territorial claims
of indigenous Mayan Q'eqchi' communities affected by Canadian mining
company Skye Resources.
Multiple sources, including Guatemalan church leaders, have now attested
that ambassador Cook has been engaging an active campaign of
disinformation to discredit what Schnoor has brought to light in his
recent work, which examines the conduct of Canadian mining companies
operating in Central America, and traces complicity in human rights
violations by such companies.
On January 8th and 9th of this year, Schnoor, Canadian journalist Dawn
Paley and photographer James Rodriguez were present near the town of El
Estor in eastern Guatemala during the forced evictions of several Mayan
Q'eqchi' communities that had been residing on lands claimed to be owned
by the Guatemalan Nickel Company -- a subsidiary of Canada's Skye
Resources. The evictions were illegal, destructive and violent. Close
to seven hundred police and soldiers -- many of whom were heavily armed
-- encircled the communities as workers paid by the mining company
destroyed people's homes. The army's involvement in internal policing
is illegal under the 1996 Guatemalan Peace Accords. Skye Resources
claims that the evictions were peaceful and that the forces that carried
them out were unarmed.
Schnoor captured the evictions on video, and produced a 9-minute
documentary that refutes the company's claims. This video, which has
now circulated widely on the internet, shows some of Rodriguez's photos
of heavily armed soldiers running through the woods, as families watch
their homes being burned to the ground. Also in the video, a Mayan
Q'eqchi' woman furiously rails against the injustice of the situation as
she and her family watch their home being dismantled by company
employees, all the while surrounded by hundreds of police. The video is
available at the following link:
http://www.rightsaction.org/video/elestor
Paley's article on the evictions, "This is What Development Looks Like,"
is available at http://www.dominionpaper.ca /articles/899, and
Rodriguez's photographs of the evictions are available at
http://mimundo-jamesrodriguez.blogspot.com/2007_01_01_archive.html.
In what can only be seen as an apparent effort to defend Skye's position
and discredit the long-standing land claims, development and human
rights needs of impoverished local Mayan Q'eqchi' peoples, ambassador
Cook has been repeatedly spreading misinformation about Schnoor's video.
Multiple sources attest that Cook has been insisting that the video
lacks credibility for the following reasons:
1. The photographs shown in the video were not actually taken at the
evictions; rather, they are actually old photographs -- from as far back
as the Guatemalan internal conflict -- that have been used many times
and in different places.
2. The impoverished Mayan Q'eqchi' woman who rails against the
injustice of the forced evictions was actually an actress from the town
of El Estor whom Schnoor paid to "perform" in this manner.
These accusations are extremely serious and entirely, unequivocally
false. They discredit the legitimate voices of the Mayan people
depicted in the video, and depict Schnoor as a manipulative
propagandist. They deny the ugly reality on the ground, and imply that
the indigenous peoples' voices of resistance and the images of the
illegal evictions cannot possibly be real.
On Thursday, February 21st, Schnoor wrote an e-mail to ambassador Cook,
insisting that the allegations are false and asking that Cook provide an
account for why he, as a high-ranking representative of the government
of Canada, would make such egregious statements. Schnoor respectfully
asked Cook to cease making misrepresentations that cast aspersion on his
work and interfere with his constitutionally guaranteed rights of
freedom of expression.
To be absolutely clear: all photographs in Schnoor's video were shot by
photographer James Rodriguez at the evictions near El Estor on January
8th and 9th, 2007. In fact, one particular photograph which Cook claims
to have seen many times before -- of an indigenous man burying his head
in his hand in a gesture of despair -- is currently on the cover of
Guatemalan magazine Este País (February 2007, Vol. 2, No. 8) for a
feature story on the recent evictions. Several more of Rodriguez's
photos from the evictions can be found inside the magazine. Dawn Paley,
the Canadian journalist who was also present at the evictions and was
also photographing the events, has photographs of the very same
individual. All are willing to testify and provide evidence that Cook's
allegations are entirely false and that all photographs included in the
video were indeed taken at the evictions.
Cook's allegation that the Mayan Q'eqchi' woman in the video was
actually a paid actress is so absurd that it almost might not merit a
serious response, were it not for the damage such a claim can do to
Schnoor's reputation, to say little of how insulting such a claim is to
the woman in question.
We hereby call upon the Government of Canada for an explanation, apology
and inquiry into this matter. We are very concerned that such behaviour
is symptomatic of a larger policy position which privileges Canadian
extractive industries operating abroad over concerns for the rights and
well-being of local communities.
Those familiar with Guatemalan history know that the country is infamous
for its record of repression, corruption and flagrant violations of
human rights. During the 36-year armed conflict, which officially ended
10 years ago, it is estimated that over 250,000 people were killed or
disappeared -- 80% of whom were indigenous people.
Canadian mining investment is implicated in this bloody history.
Subsoil rights to the lands where the recent evictions took place were
granted to INCO by a Guatemalan military government in 1965. INCO's
activities were facilitated by brutal and repressive military
dictatorships that massacred and repressed the local indigenous people.
Both the United Nations Commission for Historical Clarification in
Guatemala (CEH) and the “Nunca Mas” (‘Never Again’) report by the Human
Rights Office of the Archbishop of Guatemala, found INCO (through
EXMIBAL -- the Guatemalan mining company 80% owned by INCO) complicit in
grave human rights violations against opponents of the mining project,
including threats and assassinations.
It is within this historical context and through the recent illegal
evictions that Skye Resources advances its plans for the Fenix nickel
mine in the region. It does so despite local indigenous peoples' claims
that they were never previously and freely consulted, as required by the
International Labor Organization’s Convention 169 concerning Indigenous
and Tribal Peoples in Independent Countries, ratified by Guatemala in
1996. Furthermore, Skye has never produced property titles to many of
the lands it claims to own -- casting doubt upon the legality of the
recent evictions.
The serious human rights violations and developmental harms that for
decades have accompanied nickel mining near El Estor are but a few
examples amongst many -- from Guatemala to Ghana, from Colombia to the
Congo -- of the complicity of Canadian mining companies, the Canadian
government and by extension, the Canadian public, in political,
socio-economic and cultural rights violations. For years, Canadian
governments have promoted and funded harmful mining operations through
the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade (DFAIT), the
Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), Export Development
Canada (EDC) and the Canada Pension Plan (CPP). Many of the mining
activities supported are at complete odds with the locally-controlled
integral development envisioned by local communities and indigenous peoples.
We call upon Ambassador Cook to provide an account for why he made his
statements and to publicly retract them. We call upon the Government of
Canada for an inquiry into this matter, investigating the broader
implications of the ambassador's actions -- actions that are symptomatic
of Canadian government policy that privileges Canadian extractive
industries operating abroad over the human rights and development needs
of local communities. Cook's predecessor, James Lambert, also made
public statements defending Canadian mining investments while dismissing
concerns over human rights violations in the process.
We also add our voices to the others that are demanding the ratification
of binding legislation in Canada that would hold Canadian mining
companies and governmental institutions legally accountable for their
complicity in human rights violations abroad.
We look forward to hearing from you and will respond to any questions
you might have, provide further information about these issues and
participate in any hearings your offices and parties might organize.
Respectfully,
Steven Schnoor, independent filmmaker & PhD candidate, York/Ryerson
Universities
Dawn Paley, independent journalist
Grahame Russell, Rights Action co-director
James Rodriguez, independent photographer