The over 60-year-old U.S. embargo against Cuba is the longest-lasting regime of sanctions in history. Join CoDev, local unions, and solidarity activists in calling on the City of Vancouver to oppose the cruel and unjust blockade against the Cuban people!
Café Etico News - Spring 2022 Edition
Cafe Etico’s Nicaraguan partners are proud to share with our friends and neighbours through the Community Giving program.
An Invitation to Celebrate May Day in Cuba
Workers and friends of the world:
The Workers Central Union of Cuba (CTC) and the Cuban Institute of Friendship with the Peoples (ICAP) together with political, mass and social organizations, invite you to attend the activities for International Workers' Day.
We call for the International Meeting of Solidarity with Cuba led by the motto "United, those who love and create", as a worthy tribute to our National Hero José Martí on the 170th anniversary of his birth, the 63rd anniversary of the Triumph of the Cuban Revolution and the legacy of Commander in Chief Fidel Castro Ruz, paradigm of international solidarity.
Cuba moved towards normality from November 15, 2021, opening its borders, restarting the school year and economic activities; being the first country in Latin America and the Caribbean and the second in the world that has immunized almost 90 percent of its population against COVID-19 and the only one that has been able to carry out a massive vaccination campaign in children as young as two years of age.
These celebrations are characterized by the decisive contribution of workers in the country's economic and social strategy; thanks to the valuable effort of our scientists and health professionals devoted to saving lives with our own medicines and vaccines; the Cuban people’s dignity, resistance, and international solidarity developed from the vision of our historical leader of the Cuban Revolution, Fidel Castro Ruz.
The Meeting will take place from April 30 to May 2, 2022, including participation in the central activities at the Plaza de la Revolución, aimed at continuing to demand the end of the genocidal and criminal economic, commercial and financial blockade imposed by the US government against Cuba for more than six decades, intensified by the application of 243 measures by the Trump administration and maintained by the current Biden government, causing negative impacts on the well-being of the people, the workers and their families.
The friends of Cuba will be able to denounce the extraterritorial nature and violation of international law of the blockade, which constitutes the main obstacle to the economic and social development of the country, and is the most flagrant and massive violation of the Cuban people’s human rights.
It will also be a right moment for participants to learn about the Cuban reality and exchange about the situation that the world is experiencing in the face of the impact of the multidimensional crisis, worsened by the COVID-19 pandemic and neoliberal policies, which put the market above the life of human beings, instead of prevailing cooperation and solidarity.
With joy, we will celebrate International Workers' Day raising the flags of unity in diversity, as a strategic weapon against Yankee imperialism and its allies, to preserve peace, closely linked to development, defending the achievements of the world trade union movement, and the just causes of our peoples.
We, Cuban workers appreciate the firm solidarity expressions from friends around the world, we ratify that, despite the economic and financial restrictions, we will continue to actively participate in the construction of a sovereign, independent, socialist, democratic, prosperous and sustainable society.
Resist, create and win!
Long live May Day!
Long live international solidarity!
Long live workers’ unity worldwide!
National Secretariat of the Workers Central Union of Cuba
Cuban Institute of Friendship with the Peoples
February – 2022
Become a Partner in Solidarity...Giving Monthly
Monthly donation is a simple concept — a donor decides how much they want to contribute each month and that amount is debited from their bank account or charged to a credit card kept on file. It’s easy. It’s effortless and best of all, you never have to answer member renewal requests as you are an automatic member. You will continue to be one until you change your monthly donor status.
At CoDev, an astonishing 86.4% of our members are monthly donors, or Partners in Solidarity. Why? One of our members, Julia MacRae offers this answer:
“For me, being a monthly donor is important because for so many of our Southern Partners it is crucial to be able to rely on stable funding over a period of time. It’s important for me to be part of the other end of that story. CoDev leads the way on how to do international solidarity.”
In addition to knowing that you are providing solid and sustaining donations to CoDev, as a Partner in Solidarity, you are entitled to special opportunities not afforded regular members: a special quarterly newsletter from our Executive Director, meetings with our Latin American partners (via Zoom), invitations to special events and more.
And here’s more from a long-time monthly donor to CoDev, Julia Goulden:
As one of the founding members of CoDev, I recognize the uniqueness of our organization. In 1985 when we launched CoDev there was no other international solidarity organization based in Vancouver; everything was situated in Ontario or Quebec. Also, at the time, we wanted an organization that reflected solidarity between BC women and labour organizations with counterparts in the South.
Our partnership model is unique.
I’ve always been proud of the work of CoDev. I will continue to support CoDev through our monthly giving plan. As well I have left a bequest for the Solidarity Fund in my will that will help in the support of CoDev into the future. CoDev is still a unique organization that supports community and labour solidarity here in BC and with our Southern partners.
If you are a current Partner in Solidarity, we thank you. If you would like to become a monthly donor, please email: cpandini@codev.org (Cindy) with any questions or to get the process started.
No matter how you choose to support CoDev, we are deeply grateful for your solidarity.
Donate to Support Women’s Healthcare in Guatemala!
Welcome New CoDev Team Member
CoDev is pleased to welcome Natalie Illanes Nogueira, the new Human and Labour Rights Program Director who joined us in early January, 2022.
Natalie is a Brazilian and Bolivian Quechua warmi (woman) living in Canada for the past 9 years. Her trajectory led her to study social sciences in Brazil and community work in Canada. Natalie’s commitment to Human and Labour Rights and Indigenous and Latin American liberation, come from birth and nothing makes her happier than doing work in solidarity with these powerful and vibrant communities. Natalie had an active role in two unions, being union steward and union president with Workers United Canada Council Local 2864. Throughout her time in Canada, she has done frontline and grassroots work, as well as strategic development and lobbying work because she believes that both need to go hand in hand for social change to be achieved.
”I am very happy to join CoDev’s team as the Human and Labour Rights Program Director-- being able to put together the People of the Eagle, the People of the Quetzal and the People of the Condor, through our very special model of international collaboration and solidarity.”
Sounding the alarm: Canada must address a growing crisis in Guatemala
Photo: Jackie McVickar
November 24, 2021
As our new Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly assesses priorities for Canada’s foreign policy, it’s crucially important that Guatemala be on the agenda.
The Central American country was cause for extreme concern during decades of armed conflict and genocidal violence by the army that saw 200,000 mostly Indigenous Mayan people killed or disappeared and another 150,000 forced into exile, many of them in Canada.
Today, we are once again witnessing a desperate exodus, as a growing number of Guatemalans feel they have no choice but to flee the devastation of climate change, deterioration of their livelihood, violence and pervasive insecurity. Add to that an assault by the State on human rights defenders and organizations that have sought to protect land, Indigenous territory and the rule of law for all.
It is imperative that Canada speak out visibly and consistently to support civil society leaders and organizations in Guatemala that are under increasing attack. It is also imperative that Canada work with international allies to stop a return to terror and impunity.
In recent weeks, Canadian organizations received urgent calls for solidarity from El Estor in eastern Guatemala. In July 2019, the country’s Constitutional Court ordered a suspension of operations at the notorious Fenix nickel mine, formerly Canadian-owned and long accused of violating Indigenous rights. Last month, President Alejandro Giammattei decreed a state of siege and sent in heavily armed security forces to quash a peaceful protest by community members against the mine’s continued operation. Human rights organizations documented excessive use of force by security forces, injuring women and children. Fear spread as the homes of Mayan Q'eqchi' community leaders were raided and journalists threatened.
The situation in El Estor is only the latest in a pattern of repression and persecution of people who speak up for Indigenous rights and the environment in areas where mines and hydroelectric projects have obtained permits to operate. Guatemala has a pattern of issuing such permits - many to companies with Canadian financial backing - despite clear corporate failures to comply with environmental assessment requirements, engage in meaningful consultation or obtain the free, prior and informed consent of affected Indigenous peoples.
Economic imperatives behind Canada’s promotion of Canadian mining projects must not trump international obligations to protect human rights and threatened human rights defenders. As an endorser of the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, Canada knows only too well what those obligations are.
Meanwhile, the situation is becoming ever more dangerous. Guatemala was the world’s seventh-deadliest country for land and environment defenders in 2020.
Smear campaigns and unfounded criminal charges are also used to attack Indigenous rights defenders, human rights activists and their supporters, to paralyze their efforts.
Disturbingly, prosecutors, judges and magistrates are now being criminalized, too. Those targeted include members of the Human Rights Prosecutor's Office, the Special Prosecutor's Office against Impunity, magistrates of the Constitutional Court, judges of higher-risk courts, and tribunals involved with emblematic cases of serious human rights violations and large-scale corruption investigations.
In May, a former analyst with the International Commission against Impunity, who worked on the so-called La Línea bribery-to-avoid-taxes case against former President Otto Pérez Molina, was arrested along with the former head of the Tax Administration Superintendency. Both remain in preventive detention where they have received threats and are in a high-risk situation, made worse because they investigated many of the people detained in the same place.
Equally alarming is the transfer last month of Hilda Pineda, head of the Human Rights Prosecutor’s Office, to a new office investigating crimes against tourists. Ms. Pineda worked on conflict-era crimes, including the genocide case against former dictator Efraín Ríos Montt, won the conviction of two military officials in the landmark Sepur Zarco sexual violence case and advanced other important cases that led to the conviction of high-level military officials for crimes against humanity. Tellingly, the Office from which Ms. Pineda was moved also oversees units investigating current violations against human rights defenders and journalists.
A dangerous backslide is clearly underway. What is at stake is nothing less than the independence of the judiciary, the right to due process, and the right to protect human rights, Indigenous territory and the environment. UN and OAS experts are sounding the alarm. Will Canada do the right thing and unequivocally prioritize the defense of justice, human rights, the rule of law and hope in Guatemala?
Written by the Americas Policy Group and published in the The Hill Times on November 24, 2021.
CoDevelopment Canada is a member organization of the Americas Policy Group (APG), a national network of over twenty Canadian civil society organizations working for human rights and social and environmental justice in Latin America and the Caribbean.
Interview with CoDev's New Executive Director
Welcome Deanna! The CoDev team is so happy that you have joined us as the new Executive Director. We’d love for the members to learn a bit more about you.
Q. When you saw the posting for CoDev Ed, what first sparked your interest?
Deanna Fasciani, Executive Director
I was not actively looking for another job at the time, and it was actually a friend of mine who sent me the link to the CoDev job posting. I had first heard of CoDev when I was pursuing my undergraduate degree at SFU, but I did not know at that time that CoDev was not - and is not - a conventional “development” NGO. International solidarity is its mission, not charity. This is powerful and transformative stuff. When I read the job posting, it hit me hard, the sense that this organization unifies my passion and affinity for Latin America, Labour, and women-led organizing for social and economic justice. As soon as I saw the posting, I thought, “That’s me!”
Q. Tell us a bit more about your experience with the labour movement here in BC.
My first experience with the formal labour movement took place while I was a teaching assistant at my university in the late 2000s. The university was reportedly laying off several dozen workers, all unionized with CUPE, and my union responded with a public action that impressed upon me a profound appreciation for solidarity and labour organizing. Years later, I started working for a new student society at another university and reached out to the United Steelworkers to unionize our site. The Steelworkers responded swiftly and with unreserved support. This was a formative period. I became a Shop Steward and Unit President and helped bargain two solid collective agreements. Through the Steelworkers, I got involved with the BC Federation of Labour and became a facilitator for the Alive After Five (Occupational Health & Safety) and Labour Education programs. Later, I became a BCGEU member once I started working in public service for a Member of the Legislative Assembly of B.C. During this time, I served as a Steward, Local Executive Member (Equity), and Bargaining Committee member. I am now a proud member of CUPE 1004 and am, on the daily, given the opportunity to engage with dedicated solidarity activists from various unions across Canada and strengthen solidarity-based partnerships between these unions and their Latin American counterparts, many of which, themselves, are made up of labour activists. I learned early on that workers who have unity and show unity are a force to be reckoned with.
Q. What challenges are you most excited about tackling at CoDev?
CoDev has 36 years of history on which to reflect and from which to draw inspiration. I’m impressed by how deep our relationships go and by how committed our leadership, staff, and members have been to the Latin American organizations at the forefront of progressive social change in the region. The need for this solidarity has not diminished since 1985. Many of our Latin American partners are confronting climate change, the COVID-19 pandemic, repressive regimes, and Neoliberal economics head on. One challenge involves engaging new Canadian partners into this international solidarity-building project and nourishing these ties through the exchange of knowledge, skills, and experiences. I want to reconnect a number of past Canadian partners with our Latin American partners and welcome new Canadian partners so that the transformative work being carried out in Latin America is further uplifted.
I am a big believer in intergenerational movement-building and sharing institutional memory. I want to ensure that the organizational knowledge of CoDev’s long-time champions – board directors, partners, members, and staff – is shared with newer arrivals to the fold. This is a challenge that will require both an organization-wide approach and community reach.
Q. We know it’s early days, but where do you see CoDev in the next 3-5 years?
I like to plan and not predict. COVID-19 has hit our Latin American partners hard. It’s placed a heavy toll on their personal lives and impacted their capacity to carry out their critical work in the ways that they had originally planned. But our Latin American partners are resilient, creative, and resolute, and their socially transformative projects will forge ahead. Solidarity will continue to be paramount, and CoDev will still have a key role to play here. This past year and a half has also challenged CoDev to adapt our activities. Our events and main means of public engagement have gone virtual, and all project monitoring and delegation visits to Latin America and visits to Canada by our Latin American partners are not currently possible due to COVID-19. If the pandemic subsides across the region in the next 3-5 years, I would love to see these exchanges resume, as such interactions have really helped foster long-lasting relationships and facilitated the learning process.
Q. What are you most interested in learning during your tenure at CoDev?
I want most to learn lessons and best practices from CoDev’s partners, my colleagues, our leadership, and our members. Our Latin American partners have founded, elaborated, and refined best practices for movement-building and community and labour organizing over the span of successive generations. These are the experts on the conditions in which they work. Our Canadian partners link the struggles and advancements here to the struggles and advancements in Latin America – these connections excite me in all their potential and proven successes. My co-workers bring their own experiences, expertise, and expansive skillsets to CoDev. CoDev’s board directors have each chosen to bring their leadership to CoDev, and each has their own reasons for answering the call and contributions to bring to the table. The CoDev membership and community has seen the organization grow and adapt, pivot and advance.
Q. What would you like the members to know about you and your plans as Executive Director?
My plans are informed by both my values and my understanding. As I learn, my plans will alter, but they will always be developed in reference to the organization’s mission, with the collective in mind, and in partnership with our leadership and my peers. Current plans involve our efforts to deepen our existing relationships with our Canadian partners and find new counterparts for our Latin American partners
Q. Next September, when we meet again for a year-in-review interview, what would you most like to have accomplished?
By next year, I hope to have introduced new Canadian partners to the really exciting work being done in Latin America. Facilitating these solidarity bridges is up there on my to-do list.
Impact of Blockade Against Cuba
The following is an analysis sent to CoDev from our Cuban partners in the Cuban Labour Central (CTC). It describes the economic and social impact of the tightened US Embargo that seeks to prevent countries from trading with Cuba
Impact of the Blockade Against Cuba, 2021
Translation by Carl Rosenberg
The U.S. blockade against Cuba over the last six decades has generated to date at least 144 billion, 413 million U.S. dollars’ worth of accumulated damages.[1]
The U.S. government’s policy of escalation of the blockade and its extraterritorial effects worsened during 2020, as did its goal of suffocating the Cuban economy on all fronts. In this context, the global pandemic of Covid-19 has generated notable challenges for Cuba.
The blockade has deliberately limited Cuba’s efforts to combat the pandemic and save lives of patients and health personnel, preventing them from obtaining mechanical lung ventilators, face masks, COVID-19 test kits, protective goggles, gowns, gloves and other supplies.
The blockade is compounded by a crusade on the part of the U.S. to discredit and place obstacles in the way of the international medical cooperation that Cuba offers, spreading calumnies and demanding that other countries refrain from requesting such cooperation, even in the middle of the health emergency created by the current pandemic.
2020
For the first time in six decades, this hostile policy has provoked losses greater than five billion US dollars a year.
During the administration of Donald Trump, the US enacted 243 new measures against Cuba, including changes in the regulations of the blockade, arbitrary decisions of the U.S. Treasury and Commerce Departments, fines, sanctions of international companies and vessels involved in the transport of fuel, inclusion of Cuban organizations and functionaries on arbitrary lists, and the introduction of legal processes under the Helms-Burton Law for the first time in 23 years.
Regarding the extraterritorial application of the blockade, the U.S. Office of Foreign Assets Control has imposed 12 penalties of over two billion, 403 million, 985 thousand and 125 dollars ($403,985,125) on U.S. organizations and third countries. Companies such as Amazon, BioMind America and General Global Assistance have paid millions to the Treasury Department of the U.S. in order to evade legal suits for supposed violations of the laws of the blockade.
Regarding remittances, the U.S. company Western Union has imposed a regulation that prevents remittances to Cuba from third countries. The sending of remittances to Cuba became complicated when the State Department included [Cuban state company] Fincimex and its unit American International Services (AIS) on its List of Restricted Entities and Sub-entities Associated with Cuba.
The tourism sector, one of the country’s most significant sources of income, was severely affected when the Department of Transport suspended charter flights between the U.S. and Cuba, with the exception of flights directed to Jose Martí International Airport of Havana, on which limits have also been imposed.
Furthermore, the Treasury Department has annulled authorizations achieved during the administration of Barack Obama, such as the import to the U.S. of alcohol and tobacco of Cuban origin, the authorization of persons subject to U.S. jurisdiction to participate in, or organize, work events in Cuba, and the possibility of travelling to Cuba to attend public performances, clinics, workshops and athletic competitions or non-athletic exhibitions. The Treasury Department also published a List of Prohibited Accommodations in Cuba, with more than 420 properties where persons subject to U.S. jurisdiction are prohibited from staying at or making reservations. Finally, the Treasury Department also denied Marriott International the renewal of its license to operate in Cuba.
The State Department included Cuba on a list of countries which supposedly do not “fully cooperate” with antiterrorist efforts of the U.S. and added Cuba to level 4 (“Do Not Travel”) of the system of U.S. Travel Alerts. Cuba was also included on a list of “foreign adversaries” supposedly involved in conduct hostile to U.S. national security.
A report issued by the Cuban government for the UN General Assembly estimates that, between April 2019 and March of 2020, the U.S. blockade caused losses of US $160,260,880 in the sphere of health; US $21,226,000 in the educational sector and US $428,894,637 in food and agriculture.
EXAMPLES IN THE SPHERE OF HEALTH
Due to the “chill effect” of the extra-territorial embargo, most international companies contacted by the public corporation Medicuba did not respond to requests for supplies, so Cuba was unable to acquire medication and equipment needed by its public health system. For example:
On July 16, 2019, Emirates Airlines denied boarding to the Indian manufacturer Apex Drug House for its shipment to Cuba of Cardidopa-levodopa medicine contracted, arguing that it could not transport goods destined for Cuba. The delay of the delivery of this resource led Medicuba to urgently search for other commercial alternatives. This medication is used to treat symptoms of Parkinson’s Disease such as muscular rigidity, trembling, spasms and poor muscular control.
On Aug. 30, 2019, Sanyzme Private Ltd. of India refused to accept shipping documents for a commercial operation of Medicuba related to the purchase of the medicine Progesterone 50 mg. which caused delays in delivery. Progesterone is utilized in the Assisted Reproduction Program to avoid premature birth or miscarriage, and for the treatment of premenstrual syndrome and hormonal imbalance of women, such as amenorrhea and abnormal uterine bleeding.
On Dec. 3, 2019, the company Nutricia, invoking Title III of the Helms-Burton Law, refused delivery to the supplier of Medicuba of an order of nutritional supplements and foods for medical management of dietary disorders and illnesses. Nutricia is a multinational company established in the Netherlands, which operates through such well-known commercial trademarks as Nutricia, Cow & Gate, Milupa, SHS, GNC and Enrich.
In this period, Medicuba contacted 50 U.S. companies to investigate possibilities of importing medicine, equipment and supplies necessary for our public health system. The majority did not respond, and three of those that did (Waters Corporation, Dexcom and the U.S. affiliate of Koninklijke Philips N.V.) responded by arguing that they could not establish commercial ties with Cuban entities owing to the blockade.
Medicuba had hoped to order 80 kits of the laser system Excimer CVX-300 from Koninklijke Philips N.V. This system is utilized for coronary angioplasty, also called percutaneous coronary intervention, a minimally invasive procedure to open obstructed arteries in the heart. The company responded that it could not establish commercial relations with Medicuba due to regulatory restrictions and control of exports imposed by the U.S. government.
Likewise, Medicuba attempted to order from the pharmaceutical company Jansen, affiliated with Johnson & Johnson, Abiraterone acetate for the treatment of prostrate cancer resistant, but never obtained a response. Nor did the pharmaceutical company Pfizer offer a response when Medicuba asked for the medicine Palbociclib for the treatment of hormone-sensitive metastatic breast cancer. The same occurred with Sunitinib for the treatment for metastatic renal cell carcinoma, and Crizontinib, to treat lung cancer.
THE BIOPHARMACEUTICAL INDUSTRY
The research, development, production and marketing of products of the biopharmaceutical industry, a strategic sector of the Cuban economy, has suffered grave impacts from the blockade. Economic losses to the industry are estimated at US $161 million between April of 2019 and March of 2020. The intensification of the blockade in this period is not only limited to academic and scientific exchange, but also deprives the people of the U.S. from receiving the benefits of internationally recognized biotechnical and pharmaceutical products developed in Cuba.
FOOD AND AGRICULTURE
The Cuban business Bravo was unable to acquiring 2,700 tons of meat in the U.S. market at a price of 2,213 dollars a ton. The business was obliged to draw on other providers with higher prices, incurring additional costs of US $1,296,000.
Cuban food importer Alimport recorded significant impacts owing to having to pay higher prices for frozen chicken in markets geographically distant in comparison to the [U.S.] market.
In the factory of Los Portales, located in the province of Pinar del Rio, production was paralyzed for 77 days. Its warehouses were full of finished products, but lacked the necessary fuel for their delivery. The result was that at least two million boxes of refreshments and water were not produced and marketed, which amounted to a loss of 10 million, nine hundred thousand dollars.
Between the months of November and December of 2019, the lack of fuel affected the planting of 12,399 hectares of rice, 30,130 tons of [harvested] rice, more than 195 thousand tons of root vegetables. More than two million liters of milk and 481 tons of meat were not gathered, negatively affecting the feeding of the Cuban population.
EDUCATION, SCIENCE AND SPORTS
All educational levels were affected by the fuel shortage during the 2019-2020 school year, made it difficult to transport workers and students. Accordingly, student plans and programs had to be adjusted, as well as teaching schedules. Meanwhile, higher education saw impacts in access to technology and equipment for teaching and scientific research, and in lost income for services provided, among other factors which harm the development of academic and scientific activity in Cuban universities and research centers.
The US government’s financial persecution of banks in third countries that carry out transactions for Cuban institutions has made it difficult for Cuba to collect on international services it provides. For example, the Cuban sports trainer company Cubadeportes was unable to collect on half a million dollars in fees by the close of 2019, owing to the difficulties in accessing international financial transactions.
On April 8, 2019, the U.S. government announced its decision to cancel a December 2018 agreement between Major League Baseball (MLB) and the Cuban Baseball Federation (FCB), using the argument that current U.S. laws prohibit business with entities associated with the Cuban government. The announcement was made less than two weeks after the start of the 2019 baseball season, and only a few days after FCB made known the names of 34 Cuban players considered eligible to sign with the MLB.
IMPACT OUTSIDE CUBA
The U.S. government applied 17 coercive measures between 2019 and 2020 to prevent U.S. citizens and Cubans residing in the U.S. from returning to Cuba.
The U.S. has ignored the 28 resolutions adopted by the United Nations General Assembly condemning the blockade, as well as many voices inside and outside U.S. territory, which call for an end to this policy.
Cuban-American activist Carlos Lazo argues that the blockade limits his freedom since it prevents U.S. citizens from obtaining access to medicines produced by Cuban biotechnology and to the island’s markets. U.S. activist Angélica Salazar stated to Prensa Latina that the actions of the White House prevent her from carrying out her work in joint educational programs with the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Centre, the University of Havana, and the Casa de Las Américas.
In this context of particular complexity, Cuba and its people count on the support of the international community in their call for an unconditional end to this unjust policy.
[1] Translator’s note: Cuba uses the long-term billion—one million million—unlike Canada and other English-speaking countries, which use the short-term billion—a thousand million. In this translation, I have converted the figures involving billions into Canadian terms.
Colombia is Rising Up
Colombia is in the throes of its worst social crisis in decades as citizens have maintained a national general strike for over six weeks now, despite attacks from Canadian and US-armed security forces that have killed dozens and wounded hundreds. CoDev partners NOMADESC, SINTRACUAVALLE and FECODE are either participating in the strike or are in the streets as human rights observers.
This new video provides a useful update in English on the situation.
CoDevelopment Canada’s Statement on Legal Proceedings Against Guatemalan Security Officials Accused of Crimes Against Humanity in the Case of the Military Dossier
As an organization that has supported human rights in Guatemala for more than 35 years, CoDevelopment Canada welcomes the opening of the trial of 12 former members of Guatemalan security forces accused in the kidnapping, torture and forced disappearance of 183 people between September 1983 and March 1985. These cases are recorded in the “Military Dossier,” a document leaked in 2005, in which Guatemalan security officials meticulously documented the fate of people abducted by military and police.
In 2012, the Guatemalan State was condemned by the Inter-American Commission of Human Rights for its role in the terrible crimes committed against the 183 people listed in the military dossier. We see the opening of the trial against the alleged perpetrators of these crimes as an important step toward breaking the wall of impunity that reigns in Guatemala.
At the same time, we view with concern recent backsliding in the area of human rights and transitional justice in the country, including: dissolution of peace institutions, cooptation of judicial bodies, amnesty initiatives for crimes against humanity, and attacks against prosecutors and human rights defenders.
CoDevelopment urges the Guatemalan State to take all measures necessary to protect Judges, prosecutors, and witnesses involved in this important trial.
We support the work of Prosecutor Hilda Pineda and Prosecutor Erick de León, as well as their teams from the Special Cases Unit of the Internal Armed Conflict of the Public Prosecutor's Office.
We support the family members who are plaintiffs in the process, and we call on the Guatemalan State to guarantee their physical integrity.
We urge the Guatemalan State to provide all necessary protective measures to guarantee the hearings conducted by Judge Miguel Angel Galvez.
We condemn the intimidation, threats and media smear campaigns that have occurred against organizations related to the case since the former military and police officers were detained May 27.
We urge the Guatemalan State to comply with international agreements and take steps to reveal the whereabouts of the 183 persons listed in the Military Dossier who were abducted and disappeared by state actors, and the prompt application of justice,
We express our solidarity with the families, organizations and individuals who fight and have fought for Memory, Truth and Justice in Guatemala.
CoDevelopment Canada statement on the recent identification of 215 unmarked graves at the Kamloops Indian Residential School
CoDevelopment Canada expresses its grief and horror at the discovery by the Tk'emlúps te Secwépemc nation of 215 unmarked graves believed to contain the remains of children interned at the Kamloops Indian Residential School, run by the Catholic Church on behalf of the Government of Canada. While we are saddened and horrified by the discovery, we are not surprised. Canada and the Catholic Church have for too long ignored the rights of First Peoples to access residential school records and receive an explanation as to the treatment and whereabouts of their children.
It has been 6 years since the Truth and Reconciliation Commission issued its final reports which noted inaction around the high numbers of children who were forcibly taken to residential schools and never returned home. The Commission urged the Canadian government to assist Indigenous communities search for their children. To date, there have been no such efforts supported by the Federal government. It was the Tk'emlúps te Secwépemc alone who hired a company to carry out a ground-penetrating radar examination of the old schoolgrounds.
CoDevelopment Canada (CoDev) is a defender of human rights across the Americas. CoDev has fiercely advocated for the release of abducted human rights defenders by various Latin American state security forces and has worked to discover the fate of those forcibly disappeared. We have accompanied indigenous communities and particularly indigenous educators in Latin America to support their struggles to develop education systems that reflect their practices and worldviews. CoDev is committed to do the same in Canada.
CoDev calls on the Catholic Church and any others to release records that reveal the fate of the children and those responsible for their mistreatment and death. What happened to the children at the Kamloops Indian Residential School and other residential schools is genocide, and the legacy of that continues through denial and inaction.
The Canadian government must:
Stop fighting residential school survivors in court. Provide access to information related to their tenure and mistreatment in the schools.
Stop fighting the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal (CHRT) ruling that provides Indigenous children with the same access to health, education, and other social services as non-indigenous children.
Stop resisting the CHRT ruling that orders Ottawa to compensate approximately 50,000 Indigenous children who were unnecessarily placed in child welfare and separated from their families and culture.
Greatly accelerate the execution of recommendations of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Six years since the Truth and Reconciliation issued its 94 Calls to Action the Canadian Government has only just begun to implement a small handful.
Closely linked to the inter-generational trauma and disempowerment that is the legacy of Canada’s Indian residential school system is the ongoing violence perpetrated against indigenous women, girls and two-spirited people. CoDev urges the Canadian government and all others, including media, health, education, and social services, to implement the 231 Calls for Justice included in the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls.
As an organization, CoDevelopment Canada recognizes that we too must do more. CoDev staff, Board Directors, and members are committed to move forward with cultural humility and to educate ourselves about past and present indigenous peoples of Turtle Island: we commit to step up our work facilitating partnerships between indigenous peoples and communities in Canada and Latin America: and we commit to act when the Canadian government violates the rights of indigenous peoples across the Americas.
Resources and Actions for Indigenous Solidarity
Actions
Read and support Independent indigenous Media such as as Indiginews
Take the free course Indigenous Canada offered by the University of Alberta
To show your solidarity with an orange shirt and start conversations with your neighbours about why you are doing so.
Resources
Greetings to CoDev from our Latin American partners
As 2020 grinds towards its end, we have received many greetings from partners in Latin America to CoDevelopment Canada and our members and Canadian partners. In addition to warm wishes, our partners have shared striking photos and video clips that demonstrate the work they have achieved even under the challenging circumstances of the global pandemic. Achievements made possible, in part, due to the solidarity of our partners and members.
To share these with the wider CoDev family, we have assembled here in a collage of 2020 Greetings from Latin American partners.
Hurricane Devastation - Appeal for Support
#Giving Tuesday 2020
In mid-November, two powerful, contiguous hurricanes battered Nicaragua, Honduras, and Guatemala, leaving a trail of destruction in their wake. Eta and Iota generated mudslides and flooding, burying villages, flooding homes, and destroying crops. Government responses have been woefully inadequate and many of our Partners have been seriously affected.
CoDev is raising funds for these partners: Artesana, a Guatemalan organization supporting imprisoned women and their families, and the Honduran Women’s Collective, CODEMUH which accompanies workers in the country’s maquila (sweatshop) zones.
Artesana has borrowed a truck and is delivering donations of food, clothing and sanitary supplies (masks, hand sanitizer, basic medicines) to affected families of imprisoned women. Artesana’s share of the donations sent by CoDev will support the truck’s fuel costs and purchase additional emergency supplies.
Seventy homes of CODEMUH’s shop floor advocates have been submerged by the hurricanes. These women received little warning to evacuate and lost most of their belongings to the floods. CODEMUH will use donations to provide them with clothing, bedding, new mattresses, cooking materials, food, sanitary supplies, and tools for cleaning the mud and debris from their homes once the waters recede.
Exiled Honduran Teacher Thanks Canadian Supporters
In late October 2019, Honduran teacher activist Jaime Rodriguez was abducted, tortured, thrown off a bridge and left for dead. He survived, and when well enough to travel, went into exile in Mexico just before the Covid 19 pandemic began. CoDevelopment Canada called on supporters to help Jaime through these difficult months of exile. As organizations and as individuals you responded with an outpouring of solidarity. On November 26 2020, Jaime will take his chances and return to his country. This is his message to you:
Message of Thanks
On my first day of pedagogy class when I began my primary school teacher studies at the Western Normal School in La Esperanza, Intibucá, my teacher Marco Tulio, congratulated us all for choosing a profession that involves so much social commitment. At the time I did not grasp the significance of his statement, but little by little this noble profession taught me the realities of our children and youth, and they become a reflection of my own reality. This makes it easier to understand the commitment of teachers all over the world to defending the rights of the people; the right to health, water, land, the rights of women and, of course, the right to education.
There are consequences for struggling for a better future for our peoples and against policies of privatization and the looting of public resources. Various colleagues have given their lives for this in Honduras, and in almost every country of the Americas. In my case, it brought exile. But with exile came a wonderful experience of great learning.
Today I want to thank my fellow teachers, and others, in the republic of Canada, the teachers of Mexico, and educators from many countries of the Americas who supported and sheltered me with their solidarity. You, compañeros and compañeras, have shown me the true value of that word.
I want to give special thanks to CoDevelopment and the IDEA Network, to the BC Teachers' Federation and the Surrey Teachers' Association, to Steve, Maria Ramos and the teacher Dilcia Díaz – and to so many compañeros and compañeras who I have never met, and to whom I beg forgiveness for not naming, because that list would be very long.
I am returning to my country.
My commitment to free my homeland is today even stronger than before. I return bringing more experiences and the knowledge that, with your solidarity compañeros and compañeras, they will never break us.
But the repression will surely continue in Honduras, so I ask of you to simply follow the song of our resistance that says, “Promise me you will continue to fight.”
Gracias maestras y maestros
Jaime Rodríguez México City, November 25, 2020
Americas Policy Group Concerned About OAS Meddling in Human Rights Commission Appointment
Organization of American States (OAS) General Secretary Luis Almagro has increasingly sought to control what are traditionally arms-length institutions of the organization. Most recently, Almagro has meddled in the appointment of the Executive Secretary of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), an independent body of the OAS charged with investigating complaints of human rights violations committed by member states. The OAS Secretary General recently refused to ratify the Commission's recommendation to appoint Executive Secretary Dr. Paulo Abrão to a new term.
The Americas Policy Group (APG), a Canadian coalition of 27 organizations promoting human rights and equitable development in the Americas, is concerned that Almargo's interference in the appointment of the Commission's director undermines the ability of the IACHR to independently investigate human rights violations in the Americas. CoDevelopment Canada worked with other APG members to draft a letter of concern sent by the coalition to Canadian Foreign Minister François-Phillippe Champagne.
Please follow these links to read the APG's letter to Minister Champagne: IHRC Letter English
CoDevelopment Canada and Communities Resisting Racism
CoDevelopment Canada stands with and supports the black community and all racialized communities; every day, everywhere to end racism in all forms.
Recent deaths of members of the black community in the US and indigenous communities in Canada at the hands of law enforcement leave us heartbroken. Their lives, and the lives of black, indigenous and all peoples taken by violence, matter.
CoDevelopment Canada is founded on principles of social justice and global solidarity. We know that expressions of racism in the Americas are a result of colonization, and structural violence is prevalent throughout the Americas. Our partners in Latin America also fight these forces of oppression in their governments, institutions and societies.
We stand with black, indigenous, and all communities facing injustice. We pledge to continue to work to enforce international human rights and basic human dignity everywhere, especially in our own backyard.
Show your solidarity by supporting Canadian organizations working for Black and Indigenous communities.
https://blacklivesmattervancouver.comhttps://blacklivesmatter.ca/
https://www.hogansalleysociety.org/https://www.crrf-fcrr.ca/en/http://www.idlenomore.ca/
https://www.nwac.ca/https://www.ubcic.bc.ca/https://stopracism.ca/
CoDev, Cafe Etico & COVID-19
Special Message to CoDevelopment Canada’s Supporters, Members and Partners Regarding Operations During the COVID-19 Pandemic
Dear Friends,
In accordance with the advice of BC’s Public Health officer, CoDevelopment Canada is taking steps to maintain social distancing and reduce opportunities for the COVID-19 virus to spread. At the same time, we recognize the importance of maintaining support for our partners in Latin America who will face huge challenges in the coming months.
As of Monday, March 23, most CoDev staff will work from home. CoDev has set up remote computer connections for all staff and established an online meeting routine that should enable us to conduct most of our business this way. However, the CoDev offices will remain open with skeleton staffing, and orders for Café Etico can still be filled. The general office phone line will still be answered, and all staff will continue to regularly respond to messages sent to their CoDev e-mail addresses.
Office hours will remain 9 AM to 5 PM,Monday-Friday.
This work routine will remain in place throughout the pandemic.
We hope that these measures will serve to strike a balance between reducing the likelihood of contracting or spreading the virus, while maintaining much-needed solidarity with all our partners in Latin America and their struggle for social justice, human rights and sustainable and equitable development.
We thank you all for your patience and understanding in these challenging times.
Indigenous Guatemalan Activist speaks out about Vancouver Mining Corporation in Guatemala
Colombia: Teaching for Peace, Working for Human Rights
Labour and Human Rights Program director with NOMADESC staff
By Filiberto Celada (Human and Labour Rights Program Director, CoDevelopment Canada)
During CoDev’s Schools Territories of Peace Canadian teacher delegation to Colombia, I took some members of the delegation to observe a pedagogical encounter in Monteria, Cordoba province in Colombia’s Caribbean Region. Together with teacher delegates Anjum Khan and Susan Trabant, we travelled to the conference with John Avila, former director of the Colombian Teachers Federation’s (FECODE) Centre for Education Research and Development (CEID) and Jose Luis Ortega, executive secretary of the Córdoba Teachers’ Association’s (ADEMACOR) CEID.FECODE and ADEMACOR organized the conference entitled: Pedagogical Movement, School Territories of Peace and III Pedagogical National Congress and 2nd Provincial Encounter of Secretariats of Pedagogical Affairs – ADEMACOR 2019. Between 15-20 teachers attended this provincial encounter at ADEMACOR facilities where members of CEID and FECODE presented an analysis of the Schools as Territories of Peace program and the education policies and agreements with the Colombian Government. The last day of the encounter, 10 teachers presented and shared their alternative pedagogical experiences within 10 different schools.
It is important to highlight the fact that some teachers were presenting their alternative pedagogical experiences as part of their Master’s thesis in education. It was very motivating to witness that even that it was their own thesis, the teachers were open to share their methodology and results and welcomed their colleagues to use what they had developed in other schools without caring about copyrights.
After the Schools Territories of Peace Delegation was over, I traveled to the city of Cali in southwestern Valle del Cauca province to meet with CoDev partner NOMADESC (Association for Research and Social Action). While visiting Cali I was able to:
1) Introduce myself and meet with NOMADESC’s staff, explain CoDev’s model of partnership and international solidarity;
2) Meet with NOMADESC’s beneficiary population: members of the community of el Jarrillon and of Buenaventura;
3) Meet with NOMADESC’s Director Berenice Celeita to evaluate the project Comprehensive Defense of Life, Territory and Culture in Colombia.
4) Participate as International Observer in the National Congress of the Republic of Colombia’s session in the City of Santander de Quilichao in the department of El Cauca, organized by Senator Alexander Lopez due to the acts of genocide against the indigenous guard in Colombia’s Pacific coast.