http://melina_lm.tigblog.org/ What's on the minds of young leaders from around the globe? en-us http://melina_lm.tigblog.org/post/595935
Canada's tar sands consist of huge deposits of heavy crude oil mixed with sand and clay in the province of Alberta and represent the biggest oil reserves outside of Saudi Arabia. The ecological footprint of approved projects in the tar sands and its infamous tailings ponds already represents an area the size of Vancouver Island. In the years to come it will grow to an area 90,720 square kilometers in size with 20-30 % being stripped mined and the other 70-80% being developed by a process called SAG-D which requires immense amounts of water and energy as well as the building of thousands of miles of roads and pipelines. The use of water in the process of extracting the tar sands and upgrading the bitumen for transport is of particular concern. If the current development continues at the same pace the tailings ponds will grow to a combined size comparable to Lake Ontario.

The Athabasca Chipweyan First Nation and the Mikisew Cree First Nation are two of five Aboriginal communities within the Athabasca tar sands development zone that comprises approximately 60% of the First Nation population in the region. "Residents of my community have for the past thirty years recognized the impacts from industrial development on our lands, water, air, wildlife and most recently the health of our people. The devastation of our homelands in this short period of time is perplexing to my people since it is only a fraction of the time that these impacts have occurred compared to the thousands of years we have inhabited these lands." says George Poitras, former chief of the Mikisew Cree.

Chief Allan Adam of the Athabasca Chipweyan First Nation is also concerned about President Obama meeting with Harper. Joining forces with environmental organizations and Mikisew, Chief Adam says, "Obama must ask Canada to clean up its tar sands and to respect the rights of our aboriginal First Nations. Both the federal and provincial governments of Canada have failed our aboriginal community for the sake of money, for the sake of corporate interests, and for the sake of increasing energy exports to the US. We are seeing disheartening toxicity levels in our animal life and have now received confirmation of unacceptable cancer rates."

"There are many political layers surrounding a campaign towards a bi-national energy and environmental policy between Canada and the US. The rapid expansion of the tar sands infrastructure results in a road of destruction directly affecting the rights of First Nations, American Indians and Alaska Natives on all sides of the political borders," added Thomas-Muller.

The tar sands expansion has an infrastructure with many connecting and supplying pipelines and associated projects that are needed to transport fuels for the production of tar sands bitumen and to move crude oil to the lower 48 of the US for refining. This involves some massive new pipeline projects to Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, Illinois, Wisconsin, Oklahoma, Louisiana, California, Pennsylvania, Texas and elsewhere including efforts to send the crude oil to existing refineries in Ontario and Quebec. The Canadian government is further compounding land and water rights issues with the approval and construction of expansion projects infringing into traditional territories in Northern Saskatchewan as well as Alberta. The projects for the delivering of this crude oil include major pipeline construction in traditional aboriginal territories in Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, British Columbia and US States. The bulk of these projects are raising questions of adequate consultation with the First Nations and American Indian communities.

"The Alberta government's approval of the NCC pipeline directly infringes upon our inherent rights as aboriginal peoples especially since we, the Lubicon Cree have never ceded our rights to the land," relates Melina Laboucan-Massimo who is Lubicon Cree. "We already have logging and conventional oil exploitation taking place on our territory, how much more can the land or our people take?

Prior agreements between the Bush administration and Harper have been made to retrofit over forty oil refineries, double some in size and with some plans to build new refineries in the US to prepare for the export and processing of Canadian tar sands crude oil. American Indians in the US are afraid Canadian export of more crude oil will result in an increase of cancer clusters in the communities that live next to these refineries. "We have on our reservation, on our Ponca land in north-central Oklahoma, a ConocoPhillips refinery which has been here for over 50 years," explains Casey Camp-Hornik, a member of the Ponca Nation who works with the Coyote Creek Center for Environmental Justice. "This company is active in the oil sands in Canada and making plans to ship this dirty oil to its refinery next door to our Ponca territories to be refined. Our people already have cancer, asthma and other health effects from the petroleum infrastructure in our homeland."

An oil refinery is being proposed to be built on the land of the Three Affiliated Tribes of Fort Berthold in North Dakota. The crude oil that will feed this refinery is coming from the tar sands in Alberta. Kandi Mosset, tribal member of the Three Affiliated Tribes says, "Canada will be shipping its dirty oil to my people. We're not going to get the energy, only the pollution. Our Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara people are already experiencing disproportionate environmental fallout from oil development and from the burning of lignite coal in power plants that surround our lands. Several community members, including myself, are tired of being sick and are tired of seeing everyone, even babies, dying from unprecedented rates of cancer. We are taking a stand and fighting back, not only for our own lives but for the lives of those who cannot speak for themselves and we will not stop fighting until we have a reached a true level of environmental and climate justice in our Indigenous lands. We hope Obama tells Canada to stop shipping its dirty oil to the US. People have told me the reason that Canada is not meeting its Kyoto Protocol target commitments to reduce its greenhouse gases is because of the tars sands. Climate change is affecting my community, something has to change."

"Our Alaska Native subsistence way of life has been under constant threat by oil and gas development since the discovery of oil in Prudhoe Bay. REDOIL has consistently objected to the subsistence rights of our communities being eroded to satisfy the high fossil fuel consumption needs of the US. We strongly oppose the proposed Alaska natural gas pipeline that will link the gas fields of the North Slope to the tar sands development in northern Alberta. We should have a Canadian-US energy policy that does not put Native communities in peril," says Faith Gemmill, Executive Director of Resisting Environmental Destruction on Indigenous Lands (REDOIL) based in Fairbanks, Alaska.

Dene, Cree and Métis communities of Canada and other Native communities being affected by the tar sands infrastructure want to look beyond the dependence on a fossil fuel regime and be visionaries and doers on supporting the development of clean production and clean renewable energy within their lands.

The Indigenous Environmental Network working in alliance with the First Nations and Métis of the community of Fort Chipewyan located downstream of the tar sands development zone are looking for solutions to provide a healthy sustaining community for their future generations. "The sustainable future for First Nations in Alberta and Canada isn't going to be sinking all our eggs into one of the dirtiest, most energy intensive and destructive sources of oil on the planet," said Eriel Deranger, Dene campaigner with the Rainforest Action Network, based in Edmonton. "It's time we focus our efforts on building a clean sustainable future with our people working in a safe, green energy economy."]]> Fri, 20 Feb 2009 13:28:00 EST http://melina_lm.tigblog.org/post/595935 43.6666667 -79.416666743.6666667-79.4166667 http://melina_lm.tigblog.org/post/595933
On behalf of the team that constitutes Tlachinollan, I am writing to ask for your help with an Urgent Action for RAUL LUCAS LUCIA and MANUEL PONCE ROSAS, two Indigenous human rights defenders and leaders of the Organization for the Future of the Mixteco People (OFPM) - which works in coordination with the Organization of the Me Phaa Indigenous People (OPIM) - who have been disappeared since February
13th.

The disappearance took place on Friday, February 13th around 1:35p.m. when three armed men who identified themselves as police officers, entered the public event that Raul and Manuel were attending, proceeding to take them away by force. Since that moment, they have been disappeared, without any authority having responded for them. For
these reasons we are incredibly worried for their safety and physical and psychological integrity.

Attached is a sample letter which can be used, although original letters tend to be more effective. The sample contains a brief summary of the case. Please send letters to each of the authorities listed at the end of the sample letter. We greatly appreciate your solidarity.

Warm greetings and for more information,

Jane Jones
Collaborator with the International Area
Centro de Derechos Humanos de la Montaña
(Human Rights Centre of Montaña)
Tlachinollanjanetlachinollan@gmail.com

********************

DATE/NAME


Dear (name),

We/I am writing (from NAME OF ORGANIZATION if aplicable) to express my/our concern for the security of RAUL LUCAS LUCIA and MANUEL PONCE ROSAS; two human rights defenders of the the Organización para el Futuro del Pueblo Mixteco (OFPM) who were arbitrarily detained in a public event in Ayutla de los Libres on February 13th by three men who identified themselves as police officers. They have been disappeared.

The OFMP, like the Organizacion del Pueblo Indigena Tlapaneco (OPIT) comes from the Organizacion Independiente de Pueblos Mixtecos y Tlapanecos (OIPMT). It has its base in Ayutla de los Libres and is dedicated to the defense of the indigenous communities of the region and to denouncing the attacks and violations of human rights as well as expanded its work to the creation and management of productive projects which aid in the improvement of the economic conditions and nutrition of the indigenous peoples of this region.

Raul Lucas Lucia is the President and Manuel Ponce Rosas is the Secretary of the organization. Lucas Lucia has suffered a series of threats for his work in denouncing multiple cases of human rights violations by the Mexican Army, highlighting acts of illegal searches, detentions and interrogations, amongst others. He suffered interrogation and illegal detention by members of the Mexican Army on October 18th, 2006. On February 15th, 2007, he was the target of an ambush by unidentified persons who left him with a bullet wound in his neck which almost cost him his life.

On February 13th, 2009, at approximately 1:15p.m., Raul Lucas Lucia and Manuel Ponce Rosas were at an event to which they were invited by Guadalupe Castro Morales, the Councilor of Indigenous Affairs, wife of Raul, for the inauguration of the construction of some offices for the General Secondary Schools, in the city of Ayutla de los Libres, Guerrero. This event was to take place in the supervision zone of Secundarias, located on the highway Ayutla-Tecoanapa.

At the above-mentioned event were also present the Director of Public Works of the Municipality of Ayutla de los Libres, Guerrero, the Director of Public Safety of the same municipality, Luis Jose Sanchez Hernandez, as well as a commission of Councilors and one teacher. The inauguration event began approximately at 1:30p.m., with the participation of 35 people, between guests of the Municipality and other teachers. It must be pointed out that before the event began, the Director of Public Safety, along with 25 Preventive Police officers were securing the area, but when Guadalupe Castro Morales, in her role as Councilor, began to speak, she noticed that the Director received a phone call and immediately left along with his officers in the direction of the centre of the city of Ayutla.

Minutes later, at about 1:35p.m., three subjects carrying heavy arms entered the event and went towards where the President and the Secretary of the Organizacion para el Futuro de los Pueblso Mixtecos, Raul Lucas Lucia and Manuel Ponce Rosas, were sitting. They both shouted “police” and were immediately assaulted by blows to the head in order to overpower them and practically drag them out of the event.

Lucas Lucia and Ponce Rosas were taken against their will into a vehicle which was already on and had a driver waiting in it. The vehicle took off at high speed with Manuel, Raul and their captors in the direction of the Ayutla-Acapulco highway. Since that moment, the whereabouts of the Secretary and the President of the indigenous organization are unknown.

It is important to mention that around 2:30p.m., Mrs. Guadalupe Castro Morales received a call on her cell phone which was coming from the cell phone of the missing Manuel Ponce Rosas. When she answered, a male voice told her “Don’t start ‘fucking around’, stay quiet or else we’ll kill your husband, this is happening to them for defending Indians”. Mrs. Castro attempted to dialogue with them to ask that they not harm the men and let them free, however, the man hung up.

Between the afternoon of the 13th and Saturday the 14th, Guadalupe Castro Morales observed on two occasions, a pair of strange persons who stopped on the corner in front of her house. For fear that she was being observed or that her house would be entered, she felt it necessary to temporarily leave her home.

It is important to also mention that on February 13th, Guadalupe Castro went to the office of the Public Ministry of the Common Jurisdiction of the Prosecutor of Guerrero, in Ayutla, to denounce the forced disappearance of her husband. However, personnel of the Prosecutor refused to open an investigation into the crimes committed and only opened a Ministerial act numbered ALLE/SC/03/AM/015/2009 so that there would be a legal antecedent. This act, however, does not open up an investigation.

The refusal to open a Preceding Investigation (Averiguación Previa), shows the inefficiency of the existing resources, since in the State of Guerrero, there exists the Law to Prevent and Sanction the Forced Disappearance of People which establishes that the said human rights violation is a crime and as such, the Prosecutor is obligated to investigate it.

In the same manner, it is important to point out that Margarita Martin de las Nieves and Guadalupe Castro Morales submitted before the Seventh District Court, which is found in the city of Chilpancingo, Guerrero, an appeal for lack of communication, asking that their husbands who are disappeared be searched for in installations of the police and armed forces though the said appeal has thus far not produced any results in determining their whereabouts.

BEFORE THESE FACTS, WE DEMAND:

- (Before the State and Federal governments), the presentation of Raul Lucas Lucia and Manuel Ponce Rosas alive, with the preservation of their physical and psychological integrity.
- That the authorities which carry out justice start an effective, diligent and impartial investigation in order to sanction those responsible for the detention of Raul Lucas Lucia and Manuel Ponce Rosas as well as disclose their whereabouts.
- That protective measures be put in place for the relatives of Raul Lucas Lucia and Manuel Ponce Rosas in order to avoid an attack on their physical and psychological states.

Sincerely,
NAME





Please send copies to:

C. Eduardo Medina-Mora Icaza
Procurador General de la República
Procuraduría General de la República,
Av. Paseo de la Reforma Nº 211-213, Piso 16
Col. Cuauhtémoc, Delegación Cuauhtémoc, México D.F., C.P. 06500, MÉXICO
Fax:+52 55 5346 0908 (si responde una voz, digan: “me da tono de fax, por favor”)

General Guillermo Galván Galván
Secretario de Defensa Nacional
Manuel Avila Camacho, esq. Con Av. Industria Militar S/N
Col. Lomas de Sotelo
México DF
Tel: +52 55 5557 5571 5395 3663
dn_sdn@mailsedena.gob.mx

Lic. Zeferino Torreblanca Galindo
Gobernador del Estado de Guerrero
Palacio de Gobierno, Edificio Centro, piso 2, Ciudad de los Servicios
CP 39075, Chilpancingo, Guerrero, MÉXICO
Fax:+52 747 471 9956

Lic. Eduardo Murueta Urrutia
Procurador del Estado de Guerrero
Carretera Nacional México-Acapulco Km. 6+300
Tramo Chilpancingo-Petaquillos, Chilpancingo 39090, Guerrero, MÉXICO
Fax: +52 747 472 2328
cprocurador@pgjgro.gob.mx

Armando García Rendón
Presidente Municipal de Ayutla de los Libres
Palacio Municipal de los Libres, Gro.
Plaza Principal, C.P. 39200
Tel: (01-745) 455 02 21 (Ayuntamiento)
Fax: (01 745) 4-55-06-71


Enrique Jorge Alonso Garrido
Comandante de la novena Región Militar
Tel: (+52) (01) 744 444 4029


Centro de Derechos Humanos de La Montaña Tlachinollan.
Mina #77, Col. Centro, Tlapa de Comonfort, Guerrero, México.
C.P. 41304
Teléfono: (+52) (01) 757 476 12 20
Fax: (+52) (01) 757 476 12 00
Correo electrónico: cdhm@tlachinollan.org





]]> Fri, 20 Feb 2009 13:03:00 EST http://melina_lm.tigblog.org/post/595933 43.6666667 -79.416666743.6666667-79.4166667 http://melina_lm.tigblog.org/post/19299
Maybe if we all just tried a little harder to be more understanding despite differences, and instead decide to spread around a bit more joy, laughter and smiles... The world can be a beautiful place.]]> Thu, 09 Sep 2004 14:41:00 EDT http://melina_lm.tigblog.org/post/19299 43.6666667 -79.416666743.6666667-79.4166667 http://melina_lm.tigblog.org/post/16051
What is Kraft up to?

For more in-depth information, check out the website:
Say No To GMOs

There is also a book written by Jeffrey Smith called "Seeds of Deception"]]> Wed, 28 Apr 2004 17:06:00 EDT http://melina_lm.tigblog.org/post/16051 43.6666667 -79.416666743.6666667-79.4166667 http://melina_lm.tigblog.org/post/12210 Wed, 19 Nov 2003 14:18:00 EST http://melina_lm.tigblog.org/post/12210 43.6666667 -79.416666743.6666667-79.4166667 http://melina_lm.tigblog.org/post/12209 Wed, 19 Nov 2003 14:17:00 EST http://melina_lm.tigblog.org/post/12209 43.6666667 -79.416666743.6666667-79.4166667 http://melina_lm.tigblog.org/post/12204 Wed, 19 Nov 2003 13:03:00 EST http://melina_lm.tigblog.org/post/12204 43.6666667 -79.416666743.6666667-79.4166667 http://melina_lm.tigblog.org/post/10818 On the non-work related side of things, I was able to go a beach called Guaraju (about 1.5 hrs away) on the weekend. It was nice to get out of the city and the pollution and see nature and ocean. Oh yes, we also got a new team member here at GYAN, Diogo Andre, who many of you are going to meet, because he is going to Geneva next week and then training in TO. He has been a great addition to the team! Well, that is all for now on this side of the world. ]]> Fri, 05 Sep 2003 16:18:00 EDT http://melina_lm.tigblog.org/post/10818 43.6666667 -79.416666743.6666667-79.4166667 http://melina_lm.tigblog.org/post/10637 Fri, 22 Aug 2003 19:17:00 EDT http://melina_lm.tigblog.org/post/10637 43.6666667 -79.416666743.6666667-79.4166667 http://melina_lm.tigblog.org/post/10390 On the more local/community side of things. I was able to go to last Friday to a community near a favela (i.e. shanty town/slum). It was a placed called the Digital Garage. We were able to tour the school with a teacher who took us to each class room and we introduced ourselves to the students and teachers. I was able to talk a bit about the TakingITGlobal site as well as the Brasil country site. It was great to see a grassroots initiative first hand, where youth had an education opportunity that they would otherwise not have access to. I hope to go back and take pictures of this, especially when I have TIG promotion materials in Portuguese. From seeing the Digital Garage, I thought that the new TIG-ED platform would be relevant and helpful to the youth that take classes there. It is a possibility to connect these two iniatives.

As well, I was able to attend a gathering which is held every first Monday of the month. I was able to network with youth, however, it is still a bit difficult with the language barrier. Overall, people are nice and understanding with this. Also, I have been in contact personally with youth activists who have been able to give me a bit of insight of what they face here in Brasil in the area of social activism. I feel if the TIG website is used to its fullest potential, this can be used to benefit the networking capabilities of youth and youth serving organization throughout Brasil.
]]> Fri, 08 Aug 2003 18:11:00 EDT http://melina_lm.tigblog.org/post/10390 43.6666667 -79.416666743.6666667-79.4166667 http://melina_lm.tigblog.org/post/10215
Well, so far the experience in Brasil has been good. I arrived on Monday morning without much sleep as I flew all night, so it has taken a while to adjust. The first week went very fast. I was trying to absorb many things, and trying to get an idea of where GYAN is at right now in terms of what are the main focuses are etc. I attended many meetings with the staff as well as with the other organization that shares the office with GYAN. They are called Aracati, and they are very active here in Brasil.

I have met many interesting people at events i have attended outside of the office. People who work with other Indigenous organizations has been a highlight and I hope to go visit some of these communities.

As far as the progress in work is concerned, I have spent alot of time researching the various Latin American and Caribbean country sites. It appears that this region needs to be jump started (kinda of what Huss if facing). I believe that once the translated website is available, it will be alot easier to promote it. So I am in the process of writing an overview document.

I feel like things are still new and I am trying to focus on the task at hand without getting too overwhelmed, but I am happy about the months ahead and looking forward to see the progress that can be made!

Best Regards to Everyone!


p.s. sorry this is late, i was in a meeting all day friday so i could not post it. ]]> Mon, 28 Jul 2003 11:11:00 EDT http://melina_lm.tigblog.org/post/10215 43.6666667 -79.416666743.6666667-79.4166667 http://melina_lm.tigblog.org/post/9827 Sat, 05 Jul 2003 11:05:00 EDT http://melina_lm.tigblog.org/post/9827 43.6666667 -79.416666743.6666667-79.4166667