Tag Archives: protests

by GJEP | 2011-02-08 · 12:47

Z Magazine: Outrage at the UN Cancun Climate Talks

The February edition of Z Magazine features an article by Global Justice Ecology Project Co-Directors Anne Petermann and Orin Langelle titled, “Activist Outrage at the UN Climate Conference: World Carbon Trade Organization vs. the People and the Planet”

Cover photo: Langelle/GJEP-GFC

The article describes in detail the positions of many of the climate justice and environmental justice organizations that were present at the UN Climate Convention in Cancún, Mexico. It also discusses the concerted effort by the UN Climate Convention to shut down dissent as well as the actions taken by organizations and governments to respond to this silencing.

From the article:

During protests against the WTO (World Trade Organization) meetings in Cancún, Mexico in September 2003, Lee Kyung Hae, a South Korean farmer and La Via Campesina member, martyred himself by plunging a knife into his heart while standing atop the barricades at Kilometer Zero. Around his neck was a sign that read, “WTO Kills Farmers.”

At that time, activists around the world were rallying under the umbrella of the global justice movement. Now the umbrella is the climate justice movement. But the root cause of the problem is the same-the neoliberal oligarchy: i.e., the corporate and government leaders bent on ruling the world and running it into the ground.

In 2003, Robert Zoellick was the U.S. trade representative who tried to force unjust trade policies down the throats of so-called “developing countries” under the auspices of the WTO. Today he is the president of the World Bank and is forcing unjust and ineffective climate policies onto the developing world under the auspices of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Convention (UNFCCC)-aka the World Carbon Trade Organization, as it was called by Silvia Ribeiro of the conservationist ETC Group in an article she wrote for La Jornada, Mexico’s largest leftist newspaper.

The UNFCCC 15th Conference of the Parties (COP15) in Copenhagen in 2009 exposed the true nature of the UN Climate body as it amassed the forces of the Danish Police to beat down any unpermitted protests against its inaction. When Barack Obama waltzed in with his secretly negotiated Copenhagen Accord after months of UN climate negotiations, developing countries were outraged and the Accord was not adopted.

In November-December 2010 in Cancún, the UN Climate Conference (COP16) took it even further. They laid to rest any notion that the negotiations were either democratic, multilateral, or consensus-based. Countries that had opposed the Copenhagen Accord were bribed, blackmailed, or cajoled into going along with the so-called “Cancún Agreements.” When Bolivia alone refused to go along with a text they saw as ineffective and anti-democratic, they were ignored and consensus was declared.

You can read the rest of the article by clicking here.

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Tagged as COP-16, protests, UN Climate talks, z magazine

by GJEP | 2010-12-18 · 12:08

Lunacy at the Moon Palace: Aka: The Cancun Mess(e)

By Anne Petermann, Global Justice Ecology Project Executive Director

Mexican RoboCop Poses for Photos in Cancun. Photo: Langelle/GJEP-GFC

Global Justice Ecology Project Co-Director/strategist Orin Langelle (on assignment for Z Magazine) and I arrived in Cancun for the UN Climate Conference the day after U.S. Thanksgiving to a hotel infested with Mexican federales. “You’ve GOT to be kidding me,” was our immediate reaction. We dodged their chaotically parked armored vehicles and jeeps to enter the hotel, where we found hoardes of uniformed officers armed with automatic weapons everywhere we went. The breakfast room, the poolside, the beach, the bar. Walking out of our room (which was surrounded on both sides federales) I literally bumped into one.

Most of them were mere youths who, judging by the way they carelessly swung their weapons around, had not had sufficient gun safety courses… Orin nearly collided with the barrel of one at breakfast one morning—its owner had it lying casually across his lap as he ate as though the deadly weapon was a sleeping cat. When we were walking around that first day, we happened upon the bizarre scene above. A photo shoot of fully armed robocops posing in front of a giant fake Christmas tree.

Absurd? Yes. But not nearly as absurd as the events that unfolded at the Moon Palace—home to the UN Climate Conference (COP16)—over the next two weeks.

Once upon a time at these climate talks, organizations and Indigenous peoples’ groups roamed freely. They could wander around at will—even into the plenary, where the high level ministers were negotiating the fate of the planet. No more. The open range is now fenced off. What precipitated such a radical change? The overreaction of those in power to that strange and wondrous thing known as protest.

Reclaim Power March in Copenhagen. Photo: Langelle/GJEP-GFC

The UN Climate Secretariat and their security enforcers view protest as a bull views a red cape. They go blind with rage, lashing out at whomever is in their line of sight. When hundreds of non-governmental organizations (NGOs), Indigenous peoples and Party delegates marched out of the UN Climate Conference at the Bella Center in Copenhagen in December 2009, the Secretariat responded by stripping every participant of their right to participate in the talks. But before the protest even started, entire delegations of Friends of the Earth and other groups that had committed the sin of unpermitted symbolic protest earlier in the conference were barred outright from entering the Bella Center.

Since then, the UN Climate Secretariat has been scheming and conniving how to control these rogue factions and cut off any protest before it can begin. At the interim UN climate meeting in Bonn that I attended last May, they had a special meeting to discuss “observer” participation in the climate COPs. As a spectacular indication of the absurdity to come, when Friends of the Earth prepared an intervention (a short statement) for this meeting to emphasize the importance of observer participation to the UN Climate Conferences, they were prohibited from reading it…

So in Cancun, the UN Climate Secretariat contrived an elaborate set of demobilization tactics to curtail any potentially unruliness. In addition to the highly visible force of federales, they devised a complex obstacle course for conference participants.

Anyone not rich enough to stay on the luxurious, exclusive grounds of the Moon Palace resort and (highly toxic) golf course—in other words, developing country parties, most NGOs, Indigenous Peoples and social movements—was treated to a daily bus ride from their hotel to the Cancun Messe (no, seriously, that’s what they called it) that lasted anywhere from 45 minutes to 2 hours, depending on how badly the federales had bottlenecked the highway. Once in the Messe, we had to go through a security check point and a metal detector, pass through a building and emerge from the other side to wait for a second bus (bus #9) to take us on another 20-25 minute ride to the Moon Palace. Then in the evening, the process was reversed.

The Moon Palace itself was split into three sections—the Maya building, which housed the plenary session and the actual negotiations, the Azteca Building, where those not permitted into the negotiations (that is, most of the NGOs, IPOs and all of the media) were allowed to use computers and watch the proceedings on a big screen.

The media were given their very own building—the Nizuk building, which was yet another 10 minute ride from Maya and Azteca. As you might imagine, it was virtually empty, as most of the media based themselves out of the Azteca to be closer to the action.

I had the pleasure of being a guest on Democracy Now! on the morning of December 9^th, which meant finding my way to Nizuk, where the show was filmed live daily at 7am. I left my hotel at 5:15am to catch a 400 peso cab to the Cancun Messe (no cabs allowed to go to the Moon Palace), then catch a bus to Nizuk. I got there with 20 minutes to spare.

Democracy Now! and the other live broadcasts (their neighbor was Associated Press and around the corner was Al Jazeera) were filmed outside on the balcony. While Amy Goodman interviewed me, her hair whipped in the gusty breeze. A loud generator hummed nearby. I wondered what they would do if they got a big rainstorm. (By the way, if you’d like to watch that interview, which was all about REDD [the Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation scheme], click here)

But all of this nonsense was a mere inkling of what was to come. One of the first real tests of the Secretariat’s demobilization strategy came on Tuesday December 7^th, when Global Justice Ecology Project hosted a press conference that turned into a spontaneous march. Our press conference was scheduled on the day that La Via Campesina (LVC) had called for the “1,000 Cancuns” global actions on climate, one of which was to be a mass march in Cancun itself. The press conference morphed into another “1,000 Cancuns” protest inside the very walls of the Moon Palace.

GJEP had made the decision to turn the press conference over to LVC, the Indigenous Environmental Network and youth so they could explain the “1,000 Cancuns” actions in the context of the silencing of voices occurring in the Moon Palace. UN Delegates from Paraguay and Nicaragua also participated to express their solidarity with the day of action. I moderated the press conference and introduced it by invoking the name of Lee Kung Hae, the South Korean farmer and La Via Campesina member who had martyred himself by plunging a knife into his heart atop the barricades in Cancun at Kilometer Zero during the protests against the World Trade Organization in 2003. At that time, it was the global justice movement. Now it is the climate justice movement. But really it is the same—the people rising up against the neoliberal oligarchy: i.e. the elite corporados bent on ruling the world and running it into the ground.

Mass action against the WTO in Cancun in 2003. Photo: Langelle/GJEP

Back in 2003, Robert Zoellick was the U.S. Trade Representative who tried to force bad trade policies down the throats of so-called “developing countries” during the meetings of the World Trade Organization. Today he is the President of the World Bank, and is trying to force bad climate policies down the throats of the developing world under the umbrella of the UNFCCC, aka the World Carbon Trade Organization.

Writing this blog post from San Cristobal de las Casas, in the Mexican state of Chiapas brings to mind one of the most hopeful attacks on this neoliberal paradigm—the uprising of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN) on January 1, 1994—the day the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) went into effect. The Zapatistas took up arms against NAFTA saying it would be a “death sentence” to the Indigenous peoples of Mexico. Indeed, in order to be accepted into NAFTA, Mexico had to re-write Article 27 of the Mexican Constitution. Article 27 was implemented to protect Mexican communal lands and came out of the Mexican Revolution led by Emiliano Zapata in the early 1900s. But communal lands and free trade do not mix. Edward Krobaker, Vice President of International Paper, re-wrote Article 27 to make it favorable to the timber barons. Then it was NAFTA, today it is REDD—but the point is the same—it’s all about who controls the land. The Zapatista struggle was and is for autonomy, which has been an objective of Indigenous communities for centuries.

But I digress. Back to the press conference. Pablo Solon, Bolivia’s charismatic Ambassador to the UN was supposed to be one of the speakers at the press conference but got tied up and could not get there. Activists from Youth 4 Climate Justice requested to speak after yet again being denied an official permit to protest, and later turned the press conference into a spontaneous march. If they would not be given permission to protest then they would do so without. Democracy is a messy thing.

Tom Goldtooth of IEN Speaks to the Media. Photo: Langelle/GJEP-GFC

The youth delegates marched out the press conference room chanting “No REDD, no REDD!” The rest of us joined them but stopped on the front steps of the building when Pablo Solon suddenly joined the group. In the midst of a media feeding frenzy, he proclaimed Bolivia’s solidarity with the LVC march happening in the streets. Behind him people held banners from the press conference. Following Solon’s speech, Tom Goldtooth, the high-profile Executive Director of the Indigenous Environmental Network, and one of the most vocal Indigenous opponents to the highly controversial REDD scheme, spoke passionately to the crowd. When he was done, the youth delegates resumed their chanting and marched toward the Maya building where the negotiations were occurring.

Then UN security moved in. They had to contain this anarchic outbreak before it spread through the halls and infected the delegates. The three youths, deemed to be the leaders of the unrest, had their badges confiscated and were loaded onto a security bus to be removed from the premises. Other observers, not understanding the nature of this bus (it looking like all of the other buses), got on believing it would take them back to the Messe where they could then take yet another bus to join the LVC march. This included three people accredited to participate by Global Justice Ecology Project. They were removed from the UN grounds and dropped off.

The UN also stripped Tom Goldtooth of his accreditation badge for the terrible crime of giving a powerful interview to a hungry media. Another of our delegates was de-badged for filming and live-streaming video of the spontaneous protest onto the web. Another lost his badge merely for getting on the wrong bus. Others for the outrageous act of holding up banners.

We did not learn that Tom and others had been banned from the conference until the next morning, when they attempted to enter and the security screen beeped and flashed red. Alarmed and outraged, representatives from Friends of the Earth International, the Institute for Policy Studies, and I took the bus over to the Moon Palace to meet with NGO liaisons Warren and Magoumi.

The encounter was immensely frustrating. We staunchly defended Tom Goldtooth and his right to speak publicly to the media. We also defended the right of our delegate to film the protest. I also spoke up in defense of the three de-badged youth leaders, explaining that this was their first Climate Conference and they should have been given a warning (as was the norm in Copenhagen) that if they continued the protest, they would lose their accreditation. In one ear and out the other… Magoumi responded that the youth’s delegation leader should have informed them of the rules, and besides, she pointed out, if someone was committed murder, would they get a warning that if they did it again they would get arrested? (Really… that was her response!) Our retort that chanting and marching could hardly be equated with murder was waved off by Magoumi as though we were a swarm of gnats.

In the end, Tom got his badge back after pressure was put on the UNFCCC by country delegations. But he lost one whole day of access to the talks. Several of the other delegates never got their badges back. Security had deemed them “part of the protest,” and there was no opportunity for appeal.

For GJEP, the repressive actions of the Climate COP had to be answered with action. We were prepared to put our organizational accreditation on the line. Someone had to stand up for the right of people to participate in decisions regarding their future.

Occupation of the Moon Palace. Photo: Langelle/GJEP-GFC

Six of our delegation (including our Board member Hiroshi) were joined by four more youth delegates plus representatives from Focus on the Global South and BiofuelWatch to occupy the lobby of the Maya building. We locked arms in a line, blocking access to the negotiating rooms. All but three of us wore gags that read “UNFCCC”. Those of us without gags shouted slogans such as, “The UN is silencing Indigenous Peoples!” and “The UN is silencing the voices of youth!”—in both English and Spanish.

Warren and Magoumi were on the scene in a flash and I heard them directly behind me trying to get me to turn my attention to them. Magoumi was tapping my shoulder while robotically saying over and over, “Anna…Anna…Anna…Anna…is this you ignoring me Anna? Anna…Anna…” (not sure why she insisted on pronouncing the silent “e” in my name.) When I continued yelling slogans, she changed tactics and walked directly in front of me. “Anna, come on, let’s take this outside. We have a place where you can do this all day long if you want to. Anna…Anna…Anna…” I have to admit to being slightly rattled by having to do my shouting directly over Magoumi’s head, but fortunately, she is quite short.

GJEP Board Member Hiroshi Kanno is Manhandled by UN Security During GJEP's Occupation of the Moon Palace. Photo: Langelle/GJEP-GFC

The scene had become another feast for the media, but after about 10 minutes, I could sense them tiring of the same old shots, so it was time to move. As soon as we made a motion toward the door (arms still locked), security was on us in a flash and used pain compliance tactics on the two people who bookended our interlocked line—including our 73 year old Board member Hiroshi. Surprise surprise, once we got outside we were not escorted to their designated “protest pit” where permitted protests were allowed to occur, as Magoumi had promised, but rather forced onto a waiting bus and hustled off the premises. Jazzed with adrenaline, we all felt pretty damned good about what we had just done and the coverage we got—even when the UN security guard on the bus pointed out that if we had done that protest in Germany we would have been arrested. “You’re lucky this is Mexico,” he sneered. Indeed I have been threatened with arrest by German police for holding up paper signs protesting genetically engineered trees outside of a UN Convention on Biological Diversity meeting in Bonn. German police have even less sense of humor than UN security. None-the-less, those of us on the bus felt elated for taking action—for standing up for the voices of the voiceless.

You can view Orin’s photo essay from the Moon Palace Occupation by clicking here

Democracy Now! covered the silencing of voices at the Climate Conference in a feature that included our action and a youth action that followed later in the day. During the latter, the media nearly rioted when a Reuters photographer was grabbed and beaten by UN security on one of the buses. DN! ran the feature on Monday, December 13^th following the end of the talks. You can watch that coverage here

I have not yet heard from Magoumi or Warren if Global Justice Ecology Project has lost its accreditation to participate in future UN Climate COPs. Or if any of us will be allowed to enter its premises in the future. But those conferences are such energy-sucking, mind-numbing, frustrating clusterf#*ks that if we are not allowed back in, I can’t say I will have any regrets.

Next year’s climate COP will take place in Durban, South Africa, where the UN will face off with the social movements who, against all odds, brought down Apartheid.

Now THAT will be something…

African Country Delegates Protest Unjust Climate Policies in Copenhagen in December 2009. Photo: Langelle/GJEP-GFC

Signing off from San Cristobal de las Casas, near Zapatista rebel held territory in Chiapas, Mexico.

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Filed under Actions / Protest, Climate Change, Posts from Anne Petermann, UNFCCC

Tagged as action, activists, cancun, Climate Change, Climate Justice, COP-16, la via campesina, mexico, protest, protests, UN Climate talks, UNFCCC

by GJEP | 2010-12-09 · 09:58

In Cancun, protest breaks out against REDD

Cross-posted from The Hindu

Meena Menon

Members of La Via Campesina and other groups condemn market-based solutions

Two protesters from environmental groups hold up a banner against the REDD plus proposal, outside the U.N. Climate Change Conference in Cancun, Mexico, on Tuesday.

CANCUN: Hector Rodriguez, who runs an alternative radio station in Cancun called Reptil, decided on a novel way to protest the commercialisation of forestry.

As hundreds of people marched to the venue of the United Nations Climate Change Conference on Tuesday, Mr. Rodriguez walked up to the posse of Mexican policemen with riot shields and launched into an impassioned plea to help Mother Earth.

“Help, help me,” he pleaded to the policemen, who quickly moved back, unsure of how to react. Hector’s clothes literally made a statement. The white cloth that barely covered him screamed: ‘No to REDD’ and ‘No to capitalism of forests.’ The protest, organised by La Via Campesina and other groups with an estimated 3,000-5,000 people, was against market-based solutions to climate change and opposed Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD) plus, a proposal that seeks to help people manage forests and sequester carbon, among other things.

The heavily guarded road leading to the venue, Moon Palace, was barricaded. A helicopter circled over the march. However, small groups protested along the road. Posters reading ‘The Earth is not for sale,’ ‘life or death,’ and ‘No to REDD,’ reflected some of the themes of the protest. ‘Let’s change the system, not the climate,’ said the others.

Social movements and civil society representatives, together with Bolivian Ambassador Pablo Solon and Chief Paraguayan Adviser Miguel Lovera, joined the small farmers, indigenous people, women, environmental groups and other activists who marched for hours in the blazing sun. The march ended in a meeting of sorts. The Mexican authorities had lined up large numbers of federal policemen along the way to Moon Palace.

Meanwhile, at a press conference at Moon Palace, La Via Campesina, Mr. Solon, Tom Goldtooth of the Indigenous Environmental Network, Ricardo Navarro of Friends of the Earth International and others condemned the “false solutions and backroom deals” in the negotiations currently under way. They called for worldwide actions for climate solutions based on traditional indigenous knowledge, community-based practices and human rights.

The press conference ended with Luis Henrique Moura of MST, the landless workers’ movement of Brazil, leading the group in the chant: ‘Globalise the struggle, globalise hope!’ The group staged a small protest there, shouting ‘No REDD, no REDD.’

“We have called for 1,000 Cancuns around the world today,” said Josie Riffaud of La Via Campesina, referring to the need for grass-roots communities to take the lead in proposing solutions to the ecological crisis. “The first of these took place this [Tuesday] morning inside the Moon Palace.” A small tableau was created at Cancun Messe, also a conference venue, highlighting the consequences of not addressing climate change.

Anne Petermann of Global Justice Ecology Project referred to Lee Kyung Hae, the South Korean farmer and La Via Campesina member, who took his life during protests against the World Trade Organisation here in 2003, wearing a sign saying ‘The WTO Kills Farmers.’ “Then we were fighting against the World Trade Organisation,” she said. “Today, we have to fight the World Carbon Trade Organisation.”

Representatives of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America which comprises nations of South America and the Caribbean (ALBA) countries also expressed their solidarity with the people.

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Tagged as cancun, Climate Change, Climate Justice, COP-16, protests, REDD

by GJEP | 2010-05-11 · 15:44

Earth Minute on KPFK Los Angeles

Global Justice Ecology Project Partners with KPFK Los Angeles’ Sojourner Truth Show: Features Call for Emergency Gulf Oil Spill Actions This Friday 5/14/10

Listen to today’s “Earth Minute” commentary about the call to action:

Earth Minute 5/10/10

Prior to the UN Climate Talks in Copenhagen last year, Global Justice Ecology Project teamed up with Pacifica’s KPFK Radio station in Los Angeles for a series of interviews during the climate talks. Every day during the two weeks of the climate conference, GJEP’s New Voices on Climate Change program organized daily 15 minute interviews for KPFK’s Sojourner Truth Show, hosted by Margaret Prescod.

We are now collaborating with the Sojourner Truth show for 12 minute interviews every Thursday. We have also recently added a new “Earth Minute” feature. The Earth Minute is an ecological news commentary written and recorded by Global Justice Ecology Project, that airs every Tuesday.

For more on why taking action is important, listen to last Thursday’s Sojourner Truth show, which focused on the gulf oil spill.

The show includes interviews with Dune Lankard, a member of the Eagle Clan from Alaska’s Copper River Delta and expert on the legacy of the Exxon Valdez oil spill; Glen Smith, a local fisherman from the Gulf; impacted members of the Indigenous Houma Nation of the Gulf coast; an activist who works in African American communities along the Gulf; and analysis from an expert on peak oil.

To listen, click the link below:

http://archive.kpfk.org/parchive/mp3/kpfk_100506_070030sojourner.MP3
(after last minutes of Democracy Now!)
http://archive.kpfk.org/parchive/mp3/kpfk_100506_080030uprising.MP3

(conclusion in beginning of this link)

For more information on Rising Tide North America’s call for an emergency “Day of Action, Night of Mourning Against Offshore Drilling” this Friday May 14, go to http://www.actagainstoil.com/

Visit our Website

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Tagged as activists, Climate Change, Climate Justice, protests

by GJEP | 2009-12-17 · 17:48

Climate Justice Action Press Release and Video

CLIMATE JUSTICE ACTION

PRESS RELEASE
17th December 2009
Contact international media: +45 50669028
Contact Danish media: +45 41294994
media@climate-justice-action.org

VIDEO RELEASED OF COPENHAGEN OBSERVERS AGGRESSIVELY INTIMIDATED BY POLICE
Video came to light today of COP15 delegates being aggressively intimidated by police. (1) http://bit.ly/6DOBHe

Many delegates who marched out of the UN talks during Wednesday’s protests were intimidated and threatened with arrest by Danish police, preventing them from joining a People’s Assembly outside the conference.

Danish police were filmed as they surrounded and attacked official delegates who were attempting to join activists and other accredited observers to form a Peoples’ Assembly calling for climate justice.
Kevin Smith from Carbon Trade Watch, who was hit by the police on the bridge, said: “We were trying to reach the point where the Peoples’ Assembly was being held in order to have a discussion about the need for real alternatives to the false solutions being promoted inside the climate talks. It’s hugely shaming for both the UN and the Danish government that they are willing to use batons, pepper spray, police dogs and tear gas to try and stop these critical discussions from taking place.”

Camila Moreno, a representative from Brazil for the Global Justice Ecology Project: “It was a trap. They knew it, they never had any intention of allowing us to get to our friends on the other side of the bridge. It was a combination of the Danish police and the UN.”

Eriel Tchekwie Deranger from the Indigenous Environmental Network said: “They didn’t want information from those on the inside being conveyed to those on the outside, especially by strong voices from the global South.”

Dorothy Guerrero, Focus On The Global South representative from the Philippines, said: “The restriction on our movement hindered the Peoples’ Assembly, which was an alternative space from the official agenda. For many of us from the South we are used to seeing that in our own countries, but for a country that has a reputation like Denmark it is quite shocking. The fact that they are shutting people out is in many ways like shutting out the majority voice.”

ENDS

NOTES
(1) Footage available on youtube http://bit.ly/6DOBHe
Video by Jess Worth from the New Internationalist
For high quality footage, contact Climate Justice Action on +45 50669028

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Tagged as activists, Climate Change, Climate Justice, cop-15, copenhagen, Copenhagen/COP-15, human rights, police, protests

by GJEP | 2009-12-16 · 15:42

December 16th Reclaim Power Action for Climate Justice at the UN Climate Conference in Copenhagen

Photo: Langelle/GJEP-GFC

Wahu Carra, of the Kenyan Debt Relief Network and the Peoples Movement on Climate Change speaks to reporters prior to the Reclaim Power march at the Bella Center. Photo: Petermann/ GJEP-GFC

Reclaim Power marchers attempt to cross the bridge to join the peoples’ assembly. Photo: Petermann/ GJEP-GFC

Danish Police attempt to push back the Reclaim Power marchers using batons to hit people. Photo: Petermann/ GJEP-GFC

Danish Police rough up a reporter. Photo: Petermann/ GJEP-GFC

The police move in and violently repel the Reclaim Power marchers from the bridge. Photo: Petermann/ GJEP-GFC

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Filed under Actions / Protest, Climate Change, Climate Justice, Copenhagen/COP-15, Photo Essays by Orin Langelle

Tagged as activists, Climate Change, Climate Justice, cop-15, Copenhagen/COP-15, Corporate Haven, police, protests

by GJEP | 2009-12-14 · 14:02

Canadian First Nations People Protest the Tar Sands in Copenhagen

December 14, 2009

Canadian First Nations at COP 15 Roll Out the Welcome Mat for Stephen Harper in Rally at Canadian Embassy

“Hey Harper: Climate Commitments = Shut Down Tar Sands”

Copenhagen, Denmark – Indigenous Peoples of Canada and their allies from around the world are in Copenhagen for the UN summit on climate change. Today they rolled out the “welcome mat” for Prime Minister Stephen Harper near the Canadian Embassy in Copenhagen. This action was part of a global day of action against the Canadian tar sands. The tar sands are the largest and most carbon intensive industrial project on the planet. Indigenous leaders of communities impacted by the tar sands and allied campaigners contend that Canada hasn’t kept Kyoto commitments and hasn’t ratified the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) because of the half-trillion dollar investments the massive tar sands development represents.

In a gesture of hospitality for the Prime Minister and an act of solidarity with communities directly impacted by the tar sands, Indigenous representatives and their allies delivered a gift basket full of Treaties for Prime Minister Harper to honor and/or sign in Copenhagen. These included important documents such as the Kyoto Protocol, First Nations Treaties and the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

Indigenous Peoples' protest tar sands and they were stopped one half block short by police from going to the Canadian Embassy in Copenhagen. They rally did occur. There were no arrests/ photo: Langelle/GJEP-GFC

“As Indigenous People, we are here at the international climate negotiations to speak about threats to our cultural survival and the direct life-threatening impacts of climate change in our communities,” said Clayton Thomas Muller, Tar Sands Campaigner of the Indigenous Environmental Network. “Canada has been blocking the climate negotiations and hasn’t kept Kyoto commitments or ratified the UNDRIP because of the tar sands.”

“Fossil fuel extraction from the tar sands are killing our people with cancer, killing our culture by destroying our traditional lands, and killing our planet with CO2,” said Eriel Tchekwie Deranger, member of the Athbasca Chipewyan First Nation and Tar Sands Campaigner for the Rainforest Action Network. “It seems that Canada is more committed to fossil fuels than human rights or real action for the climate. Mr. Harper – We welcome you to Copenhagen because we want real action on climate, and that means shutting down the tar sands and a moratorium on new fossil fuel development.”

“The tar sands are a key reason why Canada has failed to take climate action. In the same timeframe that Harper promises to cut Canada’s emissions a paltry 3 per cent, tar sands emissions are expected to triple,” said Maude Barlow, national chairperson of the Council of Canadians.

Today’s action is part of a global day of action organized by a coalition of groups including: Indigenous Environmental Network, Rainforest Action Network, Council of Canadians, Indigenous Peoples Power Project, and UK Tar Sands Group.

Actions are occurring in tandem with the Copenhagen events in London (UK), Montreal, Toronto, Edmonton, Vancouver and all across North America.

About Indigenous Environmental Network: Indigenous Peoples empowering Indigenous Nations and communities towards sustainable livelihoods, demanding environmental justice and maintaining the Sacred Fire of our traditions. <http://www.ienearth.org/cits>www.ienearth.org/cits

The Indigenous Environmental Network is in Copenhagen for the duration of COP 15. Copenhagen Media Line: +45-526-85596

###

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Filed under Actions / Protest, Climate Change, Climate Justice, Copenhagen/COP-15, Indigenous Peoples

Tagged as activists, Climate Change, Climate Justice, cop-15, Copenhagen/COP-15, indigenous rights, protests, UN Climate talks, UNFCCC

by GJEP | 2009-12-12 · 21:00

Post #8 December 12, 2009

Photo essay of the 12 December March in Copenhagen continues after this blog post

Copenhagen Day of Action on Climate Change:

Energy in the Streets; Disappointment in the Negotiations

Late last night a draft text on the Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD) scheme was released. It was strongly condemned by NGOs from around the world. The text of this agreement gave mere lip service to Indigenous Peoples’ Rights and to safeguards against conversion of native forests to timber plantations, not including them in the legally binding body, but rather referring to them in a preamble.

This was no surprise to those of us who have been following REDD since it was formally announced at the UN Climate Conference in Bali, Indonesia in 2007. It was clear then that this was a bunch of greenwash aimed at enriching the world’s most notorious deforesters, while providing the impetus for a massive global land grab directed at the world’s remaining forested lands—most of which are in the territories of Indigenous Peoples.

Thus we were not shocked when, at the Climate Conference last year in Poznan, all references to Indigenous Rights and the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples were struck from the text by the gang of four: the U.S., Canada, Australia and New Zealand—who always seem to be the bad guys in these UN negotiations.

Nonetheless, for those of us who have been fighting to stop the rampant destruction of native forests for so many years, the total corruption of an agreement to ostensibly curb deforestation is a major kick in the gut.

So it was with REDD in mind that we joined the massive show of people rallying for real and effective action on climate change at Parliament Square in Copenhagen earlier this afternoon.

March organizers estimated the swarming crowd at 100,000. The police said 50,000. The reality being somewhere in the middle, it was certainly the largest protest against climate change ever to have taken place. And when coupled with the marches and protests in more than 100 other countries around the world, it was massive indeed.

Orin and I can attest to the impressive crowd as we crossed through it en route to find our allies in the “system change not climate change” bloc, on the exact opposite side of the square. After 15 or so minutes of squeezing through the crush of the crowd, we managed to find our way to the coffee cart where several of our friends were waiting in an impossible queue for something warm to drink. After waiting for what seemed like forever, with coffees finally in hand, we and our friends made our way in the direction of the “system change not climate change” sound trucks, which were to lead the bloc, but not before one of our German comrades warmed everyone’s coffee with a dollop of whiskey. “To help warm you up on the inside,” he explained.

Another U.S.-based colleague and I remarked that we had certainly never experienced THAT before at a U.S. protest!

We found the Climate Justice Now! bloc with our allies, and ran into Melissa, a woman we had met fifteen years before during the struggle to save the ancient redwoods in California. She had worked with Judi Bari, our friend and colleague who had been blown up by a pipe bomb in 1990 for trying to stop the rampant logging of some of the oldest and most majestic trees on the planet—the 100 meter tall, 2,000 year old redwoods, being felled for hot tubs and outdoor furniture. Melissa was passing out stickers that elicited naughty giggles in nearly everyone who read them. They read “fck, fck, fck the system,”—a direct response to the very mainstream “tck, tck tck” campaign initiated by some of the larger NGOs.

The march consisted of numerous blocs, spread out over several kilometers. Orin and I made our way to the very beginning of the march, where the Indigenous Peoples’ delegation was leading the way. Orin photographed their delegation and we then gravitated to the side where we documented each bloc as it passed, waiting for our allies with the System Change bloc. The images he captured during the hour or more that the march flowed by are captured in the photo essay included here.

After an interminably long time, toward the end of the march we finally spied the sound trucks with the green banners that signified the beginning of the System Change bloc. We connected with some of our allies and photographed them moving by. After they had passed we walked toward the back of the bloc to see what else we could find, and just as we did, a mass of police vans moved in and blocked the street, cutting off a section of the march. Another cluster of police vans cut them off from the back. We tried to move in to take photos of the situation and document the preemptive roundup, but were roughly shoved back by police who quickly taped off the area. We watched the stand off for 40 minutes or so, alerting some of our allies to the alarming situation.

Hundreds of march participants flooded back to the scene of the round up, and we could here pounding drums along with the chant, “Let them go! Let them go!” echoing through the corridor of tall brick Danish buildings. They were not let go, and at last report, an estimated 700 had been arrested.

We unfortunately had to leave before the conclusion of the standoff because Orin had lost his official UN press credentials somewhere in the crush of people. Without them he would be unable to participate in the protests and other events planned inside the Bella Centre in the coming week. So we needed to get them replaced before the registration desk closed for the night. We found a running metro that delivered us to the Bella Centre. We managed to avoid the incredibly long line of unaccredited people shivering in the frigid Danish air through some evasive action that took us inside to the press accreditation line and resulted in Orin procuring a new badge in record time.

In the security line for the metal detectors, we bumped into another colleague who recounted to us her experience with nearly getting nabbed in the roundup. She told us she sensed something was up and literally ran ahead, just missing the advance of the police vans. She continued with the march, she told us, to the very end at the Bella Centre, but was prevented from entering the UN premises, even with her accreditation badge, because she was with the march. “So I climbed the fence,” she told us. “I was just too cold to wait any longer.”

So much for their security…

The metro ride back toward the hotel was hellish. The metro arrived at the Bella Center stop already crowded. We and about four others managed to smash ourselves on, thinking not one more person could possibly fit. We were proved wrong about 2 stops down where another half dozen people forced their way into our end of the car. By the time we got to the Christianshavn stop, we couldn’t stand it anymore and retreated to the street to find a bus. This stop was only a few blocks from where we had stood when the black bloc had been surrounded, and the police lights were still blazing. Realizing quickly that this meant no buses were to come, we waved down a cab and zoomed back to the hotel to sit down, finally, warm up and to complete our computer work for the day.

This is not the last, but the first big action this week. Tomorrow there is an action planned which intends to shut down the Copenhagen port, to call attention to the massive greenhouse gas emissions caused by the shipping industry. Nearly every day next week some action is planned and will reach a crescendo with the “Reclaim Power” action on Wednesday—the day that the high level ministers arrive—which is intended to occur both on the inside of the Bella Centre, as well as on the outside, with both sides to meet for a “Peoples’ Assembly” to discuss real and just solutions to the climate crisis.

The big challenge of that day is the fact that the UN Climate Secretariat has announced that they are severely restricting the access of NGOs to the Bella Centre—only allowing access to a privileged handful of “observers.”

Some of us believe that this signals the end of the UN Climate process. It has truly become the World Carbon Trade Organization and is behaving as such through meetings behind closed doors and absolute restriction of participation to only those chosen few, and their complicit, bleating, sheep-like media.

Now it is time for the people of the world who want to stop the oncoming train of climate catastrophe to stand up and “Reclaim Power.” We will be reporting from the Reclaim Power protests in Copenhagen this coming Wednesday.

Wish us luck.

Reporting from the streets of Copenhagen,

Anne Petermann, Executive Director, Global Justice Ecology Project