- Details
-
Published: Tuesday, 02 March 2021 16:31
CNCA
Today the Federal Court of Canada hears a case alleging that the Canadian government is improperly withholding information about its diplomatic interventions on behalf of a Canadian company accused of human rights abuse at its mine in Guatemala.
The lawsuit, filed by Shin Imai, York University law professor and co-founder of the Justice & Corporate Accountability Project (JCAP), is supported by several civil society organizations. It asks the court to order Global Affairs Canada to remove the redactions on 20 pages of documents the department disclosed in response to an access-to-information request.
Hidden in those documents are details about Canadian officials’ communications with Goldcorp, the Guatemalan government and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) after the commission called for Goldcorp’s Marlin mine to be shut down in 2010. The commission made the unprecedented request in response to evidence that Indigenous communities had not been consulted about the mine and concerns that its operations were contaminating their water resources.
Read more ...
- Details
-
Published: Tuesday, 23 February 2021 08:15
GuapinolResiste
Read complete bill, refering to arbitrary detention of Guapinol River Defenders and illegal mining in Carlos Escaleras National Park here.
Introduction comes as Honduran President Is Investigated by U.S. Federal Prosecutors for Drug Trafficking, Corruption
Washington, D.C. – Oregon’s U.S. Senator Jeff Merkley, and Senators Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and Richard Durbin (D-IL) today led a group of eight lawmakers in introducing the Honduras Human Rights and Anti-Corruption Act of 2021—legislation that lays out a comprehensive framework for combating corruption, impunity, and human rights violations in Honduras.
Read more ...
- Details
-
Published: Monday, 22 February 2021 16:00
PBI
Brent Patterson
On the morning of February 22, Libertad para los defensores de Guapinol (Freedom for the defenders of Guapinol) tweeted: “Minutes from the start of the trial of Jeremías Martínez, one of the 8 defenders of water and life.”
Jeremías is one of the defenders who has been imprisoned for protecting the Guapinol River from being polluted by the Inversiones Los Pinares mine.
He has introduced himself as follows:
“I’m Jeremias & I’m 64 years old. I’m a father and a member of a peasant enterprise of the Unified Peasant Movement of Aguan (MUCA). I have been in jail since December 8, 2018, for defending the Guapinol and San Pedro rivers in Honduras.”
Read more ...
- Details
-
Published: Monday, 15 February 2021 16:39
NACLA
Beth Geglia and Andrea Nuila
It’s almost like an insult that this is happening to us now, after so much sacrifice to develop the community to the point it’s at today,” Venessa Cardenas explains, in Crawfish Rock, Roatán, as she remembers her grandmother who passed away last May at 90 years old. “She was the one who fought for us to have the road, the school, water, all of the basic projects… the government has never given us anything that we didn’t fight for. She gave everything for this community. She’s the reason me and my family are so firm.”
Venessa’s community is located between two tourism projects—Pristine Bay and Palmetto Bay—on the Honduran island of Roatán, where she serves as vice-president of the patronato, the community governing council. Her family has been in Crawfish Rock for five generations and seen different kinds of tourism investment come to the island over the years. But recently, Crawfish residents learned that their municipality was ground zero for a new enclave model that has allowed a group of investors from the Washington DC-based firm NeWay Capital to establish an independent governance system as an experiment with privatized jurisdictions.
Read more ...
