China Stakes Its Claim in Latin America

Raúl Zibechi

“The United States is no longer our privileged partner. Now the privileged partner is China.”

— Ecuadorian Foreign Minister Ricardo Patiño stated at the close of the third summit of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) in Costa Rica on January 29.

“China is willing to work with Latin American and Caribbean states in the long term and with a strategic outlook, in order to build a new platform for collective cooperation between both sides.”

— President Xi Jinping stressed at the opening of the first China-CELAC forum in Beijing on January 8 (Xinhua, January 8, 2015).

Montevideo, Uruguay.

The Beijing Declaration, signed by the 33 foreign ministers of CELAC, provides a five-year plan for cooperation and agrees to hold a second meeting in Chile in 2018.

The two meetings were interrelated. The Chinese government announced its intention to double bilateral trade with the region to $500 billion by 2025. Looked at carefully, that’s not so much, given that bilateral trade increased 22-fold from 2000 to 2013, making China go “from a minor to central player in foreign trade in the region,” as evident in the CEPAL report from the first CELAC-China forum.[1] In a speech at the forum, President Xi declared that China will invest $250 billion in the region in the next decade, which will focus not only on primary resource extraction as before, but also infrastructure (transport, railways, ports and roads), technology projects, and research and development.

CEPAL’s executive director Alicia Bárcena stressed that “China can become a great alternative for the region [Latin America and the Caribbean] this year,” characterized by a drop in commodity prices and a very modest growth rate expected to be only 2% (Xinghua, January 31, 2015). In Bárcena’s opinion, China is changing its model, which enables new and better opportunities for the region: “China was a country of high [foreign] investment and low [domestic] consumption; now it is lowering investment and increasing its consumption. That means that Chinese investment will be looking for where to invest, and Latin America is one of those places.”

CEPAL’s director of international trade and integration Osvaldo Rosales stressed China’s commitment to upholding a relationship “of equality, mutual benefit, and a model of open and inclusive cooperation,” which should translate into a central aspect for development in Latin America and the diversification of its exports (Xinhua, January 13, 2015).

In search of raw materials

As recently as four years ago, relations between Latin American counties and China were focused on Asian interest in the purchase of raw materials: oil, hydrocarbons, and minerals. In some cases China overtook large sums to ensure its oil supply, as in the case of Venezuela, turning the axis of exports from the US to the Asian giant.

Between 2005 and 2013, [Venezuela] received $50 billion, mostly in exchange for oil, but also as credits for housing and infrastructure construction (Valor, April 4, 2013). Other sources claim that the oil credits total $40 billion (Econochina.com, January 11, 2015). Oil and mineral negotiations have been similar for Ecuador: fresh money in exchange for commodities, which allows governments without access to international credits cash, to be able to roll out the state machinery. In this case, $8 billion.

According to vice president Jorge Glas, “China lends without IMF conditionality,” ensuring the relationship is not conditioned, and more diversified, including support for a refinery in the Pacific and at least seven hydroelectric plants (Econochina.com , January 26, 2015).Thus the Asian country has been ensured a steady flow of raw materials, on which its booming industry and its increasingly better-nourished population depend. Two bits of information: GDP per capita grew from $205 in 1980 to $4289 in 2010; 46% of GDP is industrial.

For this reason, 83% of acquisitions by Chinese companies in Latin America were centered on energy and natural resources. China consumes 36% of the global oil exports, 19% of the mineral exports, and 20% of fuel exports. It is the world’s leading consumer of aluminum, copper, tin, zinc and soy, and second in sugar and oil. This enormous scale of consumption shapes imports and trade relations with Latin America.

Industrial growth translates into changes in its export patterns. China reports strong growth in the sale of capital goods and research and development intensive products, to the point that it accounts for 20% of global capital goods exports.

This type of trade (raw materials for manufactured goods) consolidates historical imbalances affecting the region. According to CEPAL, the export canasta of Latin American countries to China is far less sophisticated than to the rest of the world. In 2013, primary products accounted for 73% of exports from the region to China, compared to only 41% of shipments to the world. In contrast, manufacturing accounted for only 6% of sales to China compared to 42% of the world. In turn, 92% of imports from China are manufactured goods, compared to 69% from the rest of the world. All countries in the region export fewer products to China than to other destinations. In 2013 Uruguay exported 1387 different products to CELAC countries, 434 to the US, 1024 to Europe, and only 106 to China. Brazil and Mexico, countries with more diversified exports, had a similar pattern: almost 4000 products sold to CELAC countries compared to just 1000 to China.

The truth is that until now, in the model of China’s trade relations with Ecuador and Venezuela–two key partners–little has changed from trade patterns installed during the colonial period.

Broad spectrum alliances

A modern 27-story tower topped by a rectangular arch, nestled in the heart of Puerto Madero, is the first sight for travelers arriving by ship to the Buenos Aires port. At the top of the green building, four letters are visible: ICBC, which stands for the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China. [The bank’s] portfolio took over Standard Bank, which occupied the building until 2011. It is the world’s largest bank in terms of market capitalization, profitability, and customer deposits. It is also the most valuable brand in the financial sector worldwide. ICBC Argentina inherited U.S.-based Standard Bank’s 103 branches in 17 provinces and three thousand employees, a million customers, and more than 30,000 companies, coming in at seventh in the ranking of private banks in Argentina (Crónica, April 8, 2013). In some way it symbolizes a presence that goes far beyond those of open pit mining and massive soybean imports.

In 2010, there was a shift in China-Latin America relations. In the two decades prior, around $7 billion foreign direct investment from China came to the region. But that year recorded $14 billion in Chinese foreign direct investment, focused on two oil industry acquisitions: SINOPEC in Brazil and CNOOC in Argentina.

High levels of Chinese direct investment kept coming in the last few years, mostly centered on mining and hydrocarbons but with a tendency to diversify. This year China financed the purchase of trains by Argentina for $10 billion (Valor, 14 September 2014).Investments in manufacturing have concentrated on Brazil. The trend is to install a plant after years of exporting their products to the country, according to CEPAL, to circumvent import restrictions. The inauguration of the first Chery factory in Brazil is going to open a new chapter. It will produce 150,000 vehicles per year with three thousand employees, export to the entire region, and open a technology research center in Jacareí, Sao Paulo state.

We are witnessing a process of diversification, still incipient, that is leading Chinese capital to turn to infrastructure, services, and manufacturing. In Ecuador, mining and oil investments tack on contracts in public safety, public health, road safety and water. There are 20 Chinese companies with projects in ten sectors of the economy, funded by Eximbank and the China Development Bank (Planv.com, December 27, 2014). The Integrated System of Citizen Safety taken on by the Chinese technology company CEIEC installed hundreds of cameras on roads and in cities, with images linked and integrated with a network of institutions ranging from fire stations and police to emergency services and transit, as well as GPS systems and cameras in 55,000 buses. Chinese company CAMEC constructed the four largest hospitals on the coast (in Guayaquil, Portoviejo, and Esmeraldas), and provided 200 ambulances to the public health system. In the coming years, Chinese funding is, after long comings and goings, expected to put the Pacific refinery, the Quito metro, and more than 200 schools in place.

The case of Argentina is, from the point of view of diversification, the most emblematic along with Brazil. In mid-2014 Cristina Fernández began a rapid rapprochement with China that gelled in the Supplementary Agreement of Cooperation in Infrastructure, approved by Senate in late December. China will have priority in areas such as energy, mining, agriculture, and industrial park development, plus tax advantages and direct public works concession without competitive bidding (Estado de Sao Paulo January 18, 2015). As part of the agreement, China approved a swap for $11 billion that increased Argentine international reserves and will be used for the construction of two hydroelectric dams in Santa Cruz province and plenty of railway equipment, including cars to renovate dilapidated trains.

During Crisitina Fernández ‘s visit to China in early February, she agreed to support the construction of the fourth and fifth nuclear plants, in both cases with Argentine components (70% and 50% ). The president stressed that “Argentina wants to increase currency swap with China, welcomes Chinese auto and telecommunications companies to build factories in the country, and hopes for the participation of more Chinese companies in the exploitation of potassium and lithium resources in Argentina” (Xinghua, February 5, 2015).

A new beginning

That agreement has triggered strong criticism in Brazil, as Argentina is the main market for Brazilian industry. “It was a Brazilian strategic failure,” said Klaus Müller of the Brazilian Association of Machinery and Equipment Industry. “The loss of a market for Brazilian products in Argentina to the Chinese will increase now, to the detriment of domestic industry” (Estado de Sao Paulo, January 18, 2015). Argentine imports of Brazilian products fell 25% in 2014. In the area of machinery, the Brazilian fall was 34%, compared with a 14% increase in Chinese imports. Brazilian business believes that 2014 was “the year that China’s influence on Argentina became more visible” (Valor, September 14, 2014).

The truth is that the diversification of Chinese investment “to sectors other than extractive industries such as manufacturing, services and infrastructure” as promoted in CEPAL discourse, cannot move forward without conflict. Three quarters of Argentine exports to China are soybeans, and only 13% are processed soybeans. More than 70% of exports from Brazil (sixth industrial power in the world) to China are soybeans and iron ore. Changing this pattern will not be simple.

Niches of real cooperation in the area of defense, however, are being generated. Venezuela developed a factory for small satellites (of up to a ton in weight) with China. In October of last year, Venezuela commission the construction and launch of the third satellite, “Antonio José de Sucre,” which will be its second intelligence satellite after “Francisco de Miranda” (launched in 2012), and the “Simón Bolívar” telecommunications satellite (launched in 2008). This year the Center for Space Research and Development in Puerto Cabello will open, where satellites will be designed, assembled, integrated, and verified for use in low orbits (defensa.com, February 2, 2015).

There is a link between Chinese companies and the integrated defense system of Brazilian Amazonia, as well as with other defense matters with several countries in the region. In the same vein, China has just offered offshore patrol vessels to Argentina and Uruguay at prices well below those of Western countries, in addition to offering training and combat aircraft to Bolivia, Venezuela and Ecuador.

In her recent visit to Beijing, Argentine president signed “broad and ambitious defense agreements” that may influence the choices Argentina’s neighbors make in the future (defensa.com, February 2, 2015). Perhaps defense offers opportunities for relationships different from those Latin American countries have had with developed countries, for those who are just markets for their products.

“China is becoming a world leader in technological innovation,” says Brazilian professor of economic policy José Luis Fiori, one of the most incisive geopolitical analysts (Outraspalavras, June 4, 2013). Following the example of the United States seven decades ago, “this advance is based on military research” as “dual” technologies–applicable to both civil and military industry–are developed. This indicates that China has left behind the period in which it grew through the copy of Western technologies. Chinese advances in microelectronics, computers, telecommunications, nuclear and solar energy, biotechnology, and aerospace show that cutting-edge research and innovation cannot be left in the hands of the market. Something similar happened with the United States before becoming an empire. Cooperation in such sensitive areas as the most advanced technologies can be a test to see if the Asian power that seeks to relieve the empire carries state relations capable of changing historical inequalities.

Barbie the Spy!

Alfredo Lopez

For many people reading this, there are at least two concepts that will offend.

One is surveillance, about which we’ve written often on this site. The other is the Barbie doll: the ubiquitous toy that has for decades molded girls’ (and boys’) concept of “the perfect female” as having an impossible-to-achieve figure derived from sexist fantasy and has taught them that their lives should be about dressing up and attracting the attention of a boring male named “Ken.”

There are, of course, many other offensive things going on in the world but these two catch the writer’s attention because, in a new version of this product toy-maker Mattel Inc. is introducing to the market this Fall they are combined. Barbie, the girl you can never be (and shouldn’t ever want to be), is now a spy.

The company introduced its new doll, called “Hello Barbie,” at a February trade fair in New York and…well, you can’t make this stuff up.

This doll can converse with you (or with your child unless you play with dolls) and record the answers. It then transmits these answers to a data-bank at the company’s headquarters and stores them under the child’s name and other personal information, then analyzes this data and responds to it…immediately or months later. Given a little time, it will have profiled your child and turned her into an information gathering source.

For example, during the demonstration at the toy fair, the Washington Post’s Sarah Halzak reports, “…the Mattel representative chatting with Hello Barbie mentioned that she liked being onstage. Later in the conversation, when the Mattel representative asked Hello Barbie what she should be when she grew up, the doll responded, ‘Well, you told me you like being onstage. So maybe a dancer? Or a politician? Or how about a dancing politician?'”

While being a “dancing politician” might land someone in the Congress these days, the possibilities for more serious abuse abound. Children talk about their lives and the lives of their families. They often lack the boundaries about what is personal or private. In fact, if the doll’s owner happens to belong to an activist family, she and her siblings and friends could become a potential source of information about activities, movements, meetings…all the stuff the National Security Agency captures email, texts and phone conversations to find out.

Mattel insists that protective measures will be in place. It claims it will turn the data-gathering capability on only after parents have signed some kind of, probably on-line, agreement and it will never use the data for marketing purposes or anything intrusive. The company says that it’s only seeking this information to improve its product — kind of like turning its entire customer base into a focus group.

“Mattel is committed to safety and security, and Hello Barbie conforms to applicable government standards,” the company said in a statement.

That’s precisely what many privacy advocates like the folks at the Campaign for aommercial-Free Childhood are worried about.

Even parents who are aware of the impact of privacy issues, and many probably aren’t, would likely find it difficult to refuse to approve the chat capability. After all, how do you explain to a daughter why she can’t talk with her doll like many of her friends are doing?

Even more troubling, we have dolls in millions of family homes recording and transmitting information in line with the “guidelines” of the most advanced and intrusive information gathering government in the world: a government that has treated the Constitution like a bad joke. This is the company’s “assurance”?

While there are legal and moral issues involved in using this technology and a conversation with a child to improve a product, as Mattel claims it will do, the bigger worry is what it isn’t saying it will do.

Will there be a strict policy about how this information will be used or who it will be provided to? For example, say members of this family are now on the NSA’s watch-list, which just about every activist in this country now is. Would Mattel resist if the government says it wants the tapes of Barbie conversations to learn what kids may know about what their parents are doing or where they are going (information a child might speak about) or if it wants to insert probing questions into the doll’s conversation to get that kind of information?

What if the government tells the company to turn the doll on for certain households even if there is no parental consent? Or what if the doll’s programming allows it to pose more invasive questions exploring the child’s and family’s life — like a skilled interrogator in a stupid little prom dress? Is that an information-gathering opportunity anyone believes that the “vacuum it all up” NSA is going to pass up?

Would this company whose product has done so much over the years to entrench the sexist and self-hating image of women that is prominent in this society actually stand up to the government, when giant telecoms and computer makers like Verizon, Google, Microsoft and Apple have not?

Perhaps most important: is children’s play supposed to be about information-gathering? What kind of society allows a company to use child play in that invasive and abusive way?

When Mattel releases this product the Fall, the marketing will be over-whelming. Mattel is struggling; its profits tumbled 59 percent in the fourth quarter of 2014. This could well be the product the company is hoping will bring back the black ink. That means your children, particularly girls, will be exposed to the continuum of coaxing to pressure that is modern marketing and advertising in this country. That’s tough to resist, particularly for a youngster.

Police state surveillance now involves our children.

(Thanks to Maritza Arrastía for bringing this one to our attention.)

Life Under ISIS

Patrick Cockburn

It is one of the strangest states ever created. The Islamic State wants to force all humanity to believe in its vision of a religious and social utopia existing in the first days of Islam. Women are to be treated as chattels, forbidden to leave the house unless they are accompanied by a male relative. People deemed to be pagans, like the Yazidis, can be bought and sold as slaves. Punishments such as beheadings, amputations and flogging become the norm. All those not pledging allegiance to the caliphate declared by its leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, on 29 June last year are considered enemies.

The rest of the world has watched with fascinated horror over the past eight months as Isis, which calls itself Islamic State, imposed its rule over a vast area in northern Iraq and eastern Syria inhabited by six million people. Highly publicised atrocities or acts of destruction, such as burning to death a Jordanian pilot, decapitating prisoners and destroying the remains of ancient cities, are deliberately staged as demonstrations of strength and acts of defiance. For a movement whose tenets are supposedly drawn from the religious norms of the 7th century CE, Isis has a very modern and manipulative approach to dominating the news agenda by means of attention-grabbing PR stunts in which merciless violence plays a central role.

These are not the acts of a weird but beleaguered cult, but of a powerful state and war machine. In swift succession last year, its fighters inflicted defeats on the Iraqi army, the Iraqi Kurdish Peshmerga, the Syrian army and Syrian rebels. They staged a 134-day siege of the Syrian-Kurdish city of Kobani and withstood 700 US air strikes targeting the small urban area where they were concentrated before finally being forced to pull back. The caliphate’s opponents deny it is a real state, but it is surprisingly well organised, capable of raising taxes, imposing conscription and even controlling rents.

Isis may be regarded with appalled fascination by most people, but conditions inside its territory remain a frightening mystery to the outside world. This is scarcely surprising, because it imprisons and frequently murders local and foreign journalists who report on its activities. Despite these difficulties, The Independent has tried to build up a complete picture of what life is like inside the Islamic State by interviewing people who have recently lived in Sunni Arab cities like Mosul and Fallujah that are held – or, in the case of Ramadi, the capital of Anbar province, 80 per cent held – by Isis.

Christians, Yazidis, Shabak and Shia, persecuted by Isis as heretics or idolaters, fled or were killed last year, so almost all of those interviewed are Sunni Arabs living in Iraq, with the exception of some Kurds still living in Mosul.

The aim of the investigation is to find out what it is like to live in the Islamic State. A great range of questions need to be answered. Do people support, oppose or have mixed feelings about Isis rule and, if so, why? What is it like to live in a place where a wife appearing on the street without the niqab, a cloth covering the head and face, will be told to fetch her husband, who will then be given 40 lashes? How do foreign fighters behave? What is the reaction of local people to demands by Isis that unmarried women should wed its fighters?  More prosaically, what do people eat, drink and cook, and how do they obtain electricity? The answers to these and many other questions show instances of savage brutality, but also a picture of the Islamic State battling to provide some basic services and food at low prices.

A point to emphasise is that none of those interviewed, even those who detest it, expect Isis to go out of business soon, although it is coming under increasingly effective pressure from its many enemies. These include the US, Iran, the Iraqi army, Shia militias, Iraqi Kurdish Peshmerga, Syrian Kurds and the Syrian army, to name only the main protagonists. Anti-Isis forces are beginning to win significant victories on the battlefield and the odds are heavily stacked against the Islamic State. Over the past week some 20,000 Shia militiamen, 3,000 Iraqi security forces, 200 defence ministry commandos and 1,000 Sunni tribesmen have been fighting their way into Tikrit, Saddam Hussein’s home town.

“The numbers are overwhelming,” said General Martin Dempsey, Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, claiming that there are only “hundreds” of Isis fighters pitted against this massive pro-government force, although other reports suggest it may be closer to 1,000.

The fall of Tikrit would be a serious reverse for the Islamic State, though it is easy to exaggerate its impact. Isis claims that its victories are divinely inspired, but it has never felt duty-bound to fight to the last man and bullet for its every stronghold. It describes its strategy of fluid manoeuvre as “moving like a serpent between the rocks”. Long a purely guerrilla force, it is at its most effective when it launches unexpected attacks using a deadly cocktail of well-tried tactics such suicide bombers, IEDs and snipers. These are accompanied by well-made films of atrocities broadcast over the internet and social media, directed at frightening and demoralising its enemies.

Isis may be retreating, but it can afford to do so, since last year it seized an area larger than Great Britain. Its strength is not just military or geographical but political – and this is a point raised by many of those interviewed. The dislike and fear that many Sunni Arabs feel for Isis is balanced and often outweighed by similar feelings towards Iraqi government forces. At the heart of the problem is the fact that last year Isis seized the leadership of the Sunni Arab communities in Iraq and Syria through its military victories.

So far no credible Sunni alternative to Isis has emerged. An assault by Iraqi government, Shia militia or Kurdish Peshmerga on Mosul would probably be resisted by the Sunni Arabs as an attack on their community as a whole.

“The Kurds cannot fight for Mosul alone because they are not Arabs,” says Fuad Hussein, chief of staff of Kurdish President Massoud Barzani. “And I don’t think the Shia militias would be willing to fight there; and in any case, local people would not accept them.”

If no alternative to Isis emerges for the Sunni to rally to, then all the six million or so Sunni Arabs in Iraq may be targeted as Isis supporters, regardless of their real sympathies. In the long term, Isis could turn out to be the gravedigger of the Sunni Arabs in Iraq, where they are 20 per cent of the population, by stoking the hostility of the other 80 per cent of Iraqis, who are Shia or Kurds.

The Islamic State was declared in the weeks after the capture of Mosul, Iraq’s second city, by Isis on 10 June 2014. It was only then that countries around the world began to wake up to the fact that Isis posed a serious threat to them all. Reorganised under Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in 2010 after the death of the previous leader, Isis took advantage of the Syrian uprising of 2011 to expand its forces and resume widespread guerrilla warfare. Sunni protests against mounting repression by the Baghdad government transmuted into armed resistance. In the first half of 2014 Isis defeated five Iraqi divisions, a third of the Iraqi army, to take over most of the giant Anbar province. A crucial success came when Isis-led forces seized the city of Fallujah, 40 miles west of Baghdad, on 3 January 2014 and the Iraqi army failed to win it back. This was the first time that Isis had ruled a large population centre and it is important to understand how it behaved and how and why this behaviour became more extreme as Isis consolidated its authority. The stories of two men, Abbas (generally known as Abu Mohammed) and Omar Abu Ali, who come from the militant Sunni strongholds of Fallujah and the nearby town of al-Karmah, explain graphically what happened during those first crucial months when Isis was in power.

Abbas is a 53-year-old Sunni farmer from Fallujah. He recalls the joyous day when Isis first entered the city: “At the beginning… we were so happy and called it ‘the Islamic Conquest’. Most of the people were offering them feasts and warmly welcoming their chief fighters.”

Isis told people in Fallujah that it had come to set up an Islamic state, and at first this was not too onerous. A Sharia Board of Authority was established to resolve local problems. Abbas says that “everything was going well until Isis also took Mosul. Then restrictions on our people increased. At the mosques, local imams started to be replaced by people from other Arab states or Afghanistan. During the first six months of Isis rule, the movement had encouraged people to go to the mosque, but after the capture of Mosul it became obligatory and anybody who violated the rule received 40 lashes.” A committee of community leaders protested to Isis and received an interesting reply: “The answer was that, even at the time of the Prophet Mohamed, laws were not strict at the beginning and alcoholic drinks were allowed in the first three years of Islamic rule.” Only after Islamic rule had become strongly entrenched were stricter rules enforced. So it had been in the 7th century and so it would be 1,400 years later in Fallujah.

Abbas, a conservative-minded community leader with two sons and three daughters in Fallujah, said he had no desire to leave the city because all his extended family were there, though daily life was tough and getting tougher. As of this February, “people suffer from lack of water and electricity which they get from generators because the public supply only operates three to five hours every two days”. The price of cooking gas has soared to the equivalent of £50 a cylinder, so people have started to use wood for cooking. Communications are difficult because Isis blew up the mast for mobile phones six months ago, but “some civilians have managed to get satellite internet lines”.

However, it was not harsh living conditions but two issues affecting his children that led Abbas to leave Fallujah hurriedly on 2 January this year. The first reason for flight was a new conscription law under which every family had to send one of their sons to be an Isis fighter. Abbas did not want his son Mohamed to be called up. (Previously, families could avoid conscription by paying a heavy fine but at the start of this year military service in Isis-held areas became obligatory.)

The second concerned one of Abbas’s daughters. He says that one day “a foreign fighter on the bazaar checkpoint followed my daughter, who was shopping with her mother, until they reached home. He knocked on the door and asked to meet the head of the house. I welcomed him and asked, ‘How I can help you?’ He said he wanted to ask for my daughter’s hand. I refused his request because it is the custom of our tribe that we cannot give our daughters in marriage to strangers. He was shocked by my answer and later attempted to harass my girls many times. I saw it was better to leave.” Abbas is now in the Kurdistan Regional Government area with his family. He regrets that Isis did not stick with its original moderate and popular policy before the capture of Mosul, after which it started to impose rules not mentioned in sharia. Abbas says that “we need Isis to save us from the government but that doesn’t mean that we completely support them”. He recalls how Isis prohibited cigarettes and hubble-bubble pipes because they might distract people from prayer, in addition to banning Western-style haircuts, T-shirts with English writing on them or images of women. Women are not allowed to leave home unaccompanied by a male relative. Abbas says that “all this shocked us and made us leave the city”.

A more cynical view is held by Omar Abu Ali, a 45-year-old Sunni Arab farmer from al-Karmah (also called Garma) 10 miles north-east of Fallujah. He has two sons and three daughters and he says that, when Isis took over their town last year, “my sons welcomed the rebels, but I wasn’t that optimistic”. The arrival of Isis did not improve the dire living conditions in al-Kharmah and he didn’t take too seriously the propaganda about how “the soldiers of Allah would defeat [Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-] Maliki’s devils”. Still, he agrees that many people in his town were convinced by this, though his experience was that Saddam Hussein, Maliki or Isis were equally bad for the people of al-Kharmah: “They turn our town into a battlefield and we are the only losers.”

Al-Kharmah is close to the front line with Baghdad and endures conditions of semi-siege in which few supplies can get through. A litre of petrol costs £2.70 and a bag of flour more than £65. Omar tried to buy as much bread as he could store to last his family a week or more “because even the bakeries were suffering from lack of flour”. There was constant bombardment and in February the last water purification plant in town was hit, though he is not clear if this was done by artillery or US air strikes: “The town is now in a horrible situation because of lack of water.”

Omar spent five months working for Isis, though it is not clear in what capacity, his main purpose being to prevent the conscription of his two sons aged 14 and 16. Rockets and artillery shells rained down on al-Karmah, though Omar says they seldom hit Isis fighters because they hid in civilian houses or in schools. “The day I left a school was hit and many children were killed,” he recalls.

He says US air strikes and Iraqi army artillery “kill us along with Isis fighters. There is no difference between what they do and the mass killings by Isis.” Omar had been trying to flee for two months but did not have the money until he managed to sell his furniture. He is now staying outside Irbil, the Kurdish capital, where his sons and daughters work on local farms which “is at least better than staying in al-Kharmah”.

He says the Americans, Iraqi government and Isis have all brought disaster and lists the wars that have engulfed his home town in the past 10 years. “All of them are killing us,” he says. “We have no friends.”

Oil, Presidents, Congress, and Cocaine

Mateo Pimentel

“U.S. support for the Government of Colombia (GOC) is designed to attack every element of the drug trade and to assist the GOC to re-establish government control and the rule of law in areas threatened by drug-related violence.”

– Fact Sheet, Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, US Department of State, Washington, DC, August 12, 2002

“The experience that we have gathered through Plan Colombia together with the United States is something that we have the obligation of sharing with our brothers in Central America who are going through difficult times. So that is the reason why we have decided to strengthen and improve joint assistance mechanisms for these countries.”

– President of Colombia, Juan Manuel Santos, speaking at a Presidential Press Conference with US President Barack Obama in Cartagena, Colombia, 15 April 2012

From Threat to Ally

The Colombian people yet again weather their state’s close alignment with Washington and her interests. A unique history sustains the growing relationship. In cold war times, Colombia assumed Washington’s anticommunist bent. It granted primacy to America’s crusade against drugs within its own sovereign territory. In the early 1950s, Colombia was the only Latin American nation to send troops to aid the US in its Korean war. In 1961, at the Punta del Este Conference, Colombia promoted Cuba’s expulsion from the Organization of American States (OAS), flaunting its pro-American orthodoxy. Colombia’s leaders have gone so far as to assume the “security doctrine” developed by Washington Southern Cone militaries. President George W. Bush at one point recognized Colombia as America’s “strongest regional ally in the war against terrorism.” Obama furthers the legacy by deepening economic ties with free trade. Colombia has also signed other agreements with the US apropos intelligence sharing, and Washington has appointed specific diplomats for each branch of its armed forces to Bogota’s American embassy.

The connections continue, but the Colombian state’s relationship with the US is not new. Riots in Panama caused the deaths of American citizens in 1857, which spurred the US to pressure New Granada (Colombia) for compensation. When securing British protection proved bleak, New Granada President Mariano Ospina Rodríguez made Washington a proposal: America should annex his entire republic. Frank Safford has argued that Colombia acted this way because it understood the US’ irrepressible expansionist mission. With the US-Mexican War and the “filibuster adventures in Nicaragua of the 1850s,” New Granada’s fate was perhaps already appeared sealed. The proposition for annexation was part of a larger vision for the transfer of power but without the gratuitous carnage. Ospina Rodríguez thought the US might bring stability, security, and prosperity. More than a century and a half later, the stability of Colombia’s institutions, its sustained economic growth, and incredible levels of violence (in recent decades) has presented Latin America with a very dismal and bloody kind of pro-American model indeed.

The presence of Colombia’s guerrilla forces, which dates back to the 1960s, has made the country a “convenient” workbench for testing US-sponsored counterinsurgency strategies. Counternarcotics policies took root in 1973, or as Peter Kingstone argues, the same year as neoliberalism’s advent in the region. Starting with Ronald Reagan’s 1986 prescription for a crazed, reactionary drug war, neoliberal economic policies alloyed counterinsurgency. This consummated the American approach to measuring security in Colombia. Until 1991, likeminded policies and agendas secured a popular perception of Colombia as a teetering democracy. The criminalization of social protest and political opposition also manifested, as well as the militarization of responses to social conflict. General military control of “public order”—rather than, say, civilian control—proved an issue. The 1991 Constitution may have replaced the “state of siege” in Colombia with a limited “state of emergency,” but there were no significant reductions in military might. Towards the end of the 1990s, Colombia’s internal warring continued to spread, and violence, coupled with the rise in cocaine production, gave Washington the excuse it needed to declare Colombia a “threat to regional security.” The specter of a threat made room for Washington’s contested ‘Plan Colombia’, an aid package that made Colombia the world’s third largest recipient of US military aid, the foremost recipient of direct US military training, and the cornerstone in Washington’s global counter-narcotics program.

The events of September 11, 2001, caused many changes in US foreign policy and security agendas that would affect Colombia and its neighbors. Terrorism became the greatest threat to US national security, and America’s subsequent war on terrorism erupted everywhere. Colombia’s 2002 lapse in relations with its guerrillas—namely the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (FARC)—and America’s domestic experience with 9/11 presented an opportunity for Washington to reconsider “counterinsurgency efforts” as already fundamental to America’s “global war on terror.” This convenient recalibration of the US-Colombian approach to security issues especially took root after Colombian President Alvaro Uribe’s successful election under the suspect aegis of “democratic security.”

Investing in America’s Drug War

When foreign policy analysts examine America’s war on drugs, the general focus pertains to areas of US national security interests, intermestic (international-domestic) issues, and domestic politics, or US state imperialism and economic interests. Some argue that policy, such as Plan Colombia, which Bill Clinton made law in July of 2000, cannot be understood through nation-state paradigms alone. The emerging consolidation of neoliberal state power in Colombia, the influence of transnational lobbying of US and Colombian public policy and administration, and the influence of transnational corporations are also important. Why? Because each of these other factors has been instrumental in the induction, manicure, and implementation of Plan Colombia.

The Plan consisted in US governmental contribution to both Colombia’s counternarcotics and development itineraries. It approximated $1.6 billion dollars for US financial and military assistance to Colombia’s government. It also provided a nominal portion for the country’s Andean neighbors. The aims of the package was precisely the reinforcement of Colombia’s military capacities and effectiveness in its war against guerrilla insurgency. Accordingly, US contributions emphasized and prioritized the militarization of counternarcotics efforts, contextualized by establishing the rule of law in those Colombian regions seen as vital to the successful outcome of America’s abortive drug war. Areas of considerable coca cultivation as well as the enduring, decades-long presence of the FARC, a 20,000-plus guerrilla force, became near-immediate targets. Overall, determining state authority and security in anti-drug missions complemented Colombia’s strategy for development. It placed emphasis on market solutions to problems such as poverty and inequality, which were endemic to rural departments.

Foreign investment faced open hostility in Colombia, and particularly in the extractive sector. So, private multinational firms came to depend on Colombia’s governmental security, providing “diplomatic support” to the Colombian government for its continued reproach of the guerrillas. Occidental Oil and BP, for example, lobbied the American Congress to increase military assistance to Colombia. Consequently, these firms made themselves elemental to “war system dynamics,” and, as Nazih Richani also argues, “the main financier of its different warring actors.” US policy on Colombia experienced dramatic changes within the first few years of the 21^st century, which directly resulted from multinational firms, their lobbying, and their interests. Obviously, multinational oil firms threw their support to Plan Colombia because of the increase in US military presence it portended. To fortify key areas and protect interest and property against guerrilla attacks, especially along the Colombia-Ecuador border, oil firms spent roughly $25 million lobbying Congress from 1995 to 2000 alone.

Colombian President Andrés Pastrana (1998 to 2002) reportedly met with George W. Bush (when governor) as well as oil and electric company executives in Houston, Texas. Researchers note that Pastrana made promises of large concessions for oil and gas firms—some of which belonged to Reliant Energy, a Bush campaign contributor. Reportedly, Occidental enjoyed close ties to the George W. Bush administration, and spent $1.5 million on US presidential and congressional elections from 1995 to 2000. The firm spent another $8.7 million lobbying US officials from 1996 to 2000, specifically in regards to Latin American policy. Oil and energy firms, such as ExxonMobil, BP-Amoco, Unocal, Texaco and Phillips Petroleum, spent some $13 million in the same period to achieve their desires for US policy on Colombia. Incidentally, US, Canadian, and British oil firm contracts have increased since 1999.

Presidential and Congressional Contributions

Towards the end of the 1990s, the US channeled resources through Colombia’s National Police. A Republican group in America’s Congress known as the “drug warriors” initiated the agenda. Of course, congressional politicians touted their claims for concern about America’s youth. They identified Colombian police (and military) as the best conduit for state intervention. American Congressional delegations even traveled and assessed military technology, weapons, and they underwent counternarcotics scenarios and operations firsthand. These excursions only increased America’s congressional emphasis on military expertise, and they framed the boundaries of policy debates afterwards. Congressional debate and praxis thus played a key role in US foreign policy on Colombia.

Congressional travel to Colombia did more than amplify America’s growing domestic concern with drugs; it provided a politically important opportunity for American policymakers who regarded the consumption of illicit narcotics to be an incredible threat to the nation. Military technology and training for counternarcotics operations quickly became the only apt response in their minds, and any headway on human rights legislation, or bureaucratic procedures, was condemned as moral heresy. A technological focus set the boundaries for policy debate, which muted dissent and mystified alternate possible policies. Material commitment in the ensuing transnational politics defined the solidarity of policymakers. Per usual, America justified its policy and actions due to the fact that it fancied itself an actor with moral license for direct intervention. But these transnational political projects clearly smacked of “neo-colonialism.”

It was Reagan’s 1986 National Security Directive 221 that formally declared drugs a threat to national security, following Richard Nixon’s declaration of the first ‘war on drugs’ in 1971. Militarized transnational law enforcement efforts made use of military equipment and technologies originally developed for the cold war, which obviously helped to justify their undergirding budgets. Prominent US military research hubs readily incorporated counternarcotics technologies into their agendas. Arms manufacturers and other corporations promoted and backed national conferences. Defense contractors saw their role expand and bleed out into developing counternarcotics and law enforcement hardware in an era the Wall Street Journal christened the “Cold War of the ‘90s.”

Today

The political and economic factors that buoyed Plan Colombia continue into the second decade of the new millennium in US foreign policy. Gian Carlo Delgado-Ramos and Silvina María Romano argue that US policy in Latin America has hardly any roots in real diplomacy. The “openly democratic discourse” of the Obama administration, for example, springs from its outright military authority in Colombia, which strictly serves US economic interest and that of its allied elites in the region. Thus, governing US administrations only focus on specific issues (security, narco-insurgency, terrorism, etc.,) that will help America secure the free-market context for its access to strategic Latin American resources in the 21^st century, such as all the oil that sits beneath a sovereign and socialist Venezuela. The US specifically supports Latin American juntas with increased military presence in government to guarantee an “internal stability during a time of increasing violence” as Delgado-Ramos and Romano put it. Nevertheless, the consequences of this paradigm suggest a precarious balance between stability and instability, which makes the region dependent on the US in sinister ways that preserve the region’s status as “lifeline” for American wealth and power.

Women and Youth Fight for Freedom of Expression in Guatemala.

On February 25, 2015 the Guatemalan National Police and the Public Ministry once again raided two community radio stations, this time in Chichicastenango, Quiche, a popular tourist destination.. Radio Swan Tinamit and Radio Ixmukane both serve important audiences in Chichicastenango. Radio Swan Tinamit is mostly staffed by youth, and the topics they cover include the rights of Indigenous Peoples, youth participation in leadership, and Indigenous traditions, among others. Radio Ixmukane is mostly staffed by women, as the radio was founded as part of and is housed by Asociacion de Mujeres Ixmukane (Ixmukane Womens’ Association). Radio Ixmukane focuses on women’s rights, education on domestic abuse, and reproductive rights.

Persecution against community radio stations is an all too-common occurrence in Guatemala, and increasingly has been on the rise over the last two months. Cultural Survival's community radio partners in Guatemala have been organizing to defend their freedom of expression through community radio for over a decade. Community radio has been a vital presence in Indigenous communities in Guatemala since the 1960s. Indigenous Peoples in Guatemala rely on community radio to keep their cultures, languages, and traditions alive as well as to inform their communities about issues and events relevant to their lives. Community radio also serves the vital function of distributing content to listeners in their own language, reaching even the poorest areas where radio may be the only affordable form of communication. The right to this media is clearly defined by the Guatemalan Peace Accords, the Guatemalan constitution, and international human rights bodies  like the United Nations ,the International Labor Organization, and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, yet access to community radio remains restricted due to an outdated telecommunications law that the Guatemalan Congress refuses to change.

The first station to be raided on the 25th was Radio Ixmukane, located at the entrance of the town of Chichicastenango. No radio volunteers were on the premises when the police arrived. “They knocked and one of our coworkers, Carmen, went downstairs to see who it was. The police pushed her aside and entered the building aggressively,” said Maria, one of the workers at the Association. At the time of the raid only three people were in the building, all  women. The police and Public Ministry representatives pushed the door aside and entered the building looking for the radio cabin. “My coworker who opened the door was really scared. One of the policemen grabbed her and began to question her about the radio. He asked for her ID and even threatened her if she didn’t collaborate,” stated Maria. The police began confiscating radio equipment and documents belonging to the Association. “We were terrified, they were all men and very aggressive with us, treating us like we were criminals,” said Sandra, another member of the Association. “Our coworker who was harassed during the raid hasn’t come back to work. She had a nervous breakdown and is taking medication to deal with this experience,” Maria shared.

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Radio Swan Tinamit was raided the same day. This station was also founded as part of a project by a non-profit organization ADESCO, Asociacion para el Desarrollo Comunitario. Radio Swan Tinamit has wide coverage, reaching the most rural villages in Chichicastenango, and the majority of its programming is in K’iche, the local language. Operated by youth of the community, the station promotes youth leadership as well as maintenance of culture and language. “The doors to our building are always open to encourage people to stop by, but we had no idea we were going to be raided until we saw about 20 policemen entering our building,” said Gloria . “They acted as if they had been here before. They walked straight to the radio cabin and confiscated all our equipment but the worst was when they arrested one of the radio volunteers.”. The radio volunteer arrested was a young man, Oscar Mejia, who had begun volunteering at the radio only three days prior to the raid. “We are concerned for our friend. He said he will wait until we get him out, the right way, without having to plead guilty,but we don’t see much hope,” said Leticia, the Director of ADESCO.

Members of Asociación Sobrevivencia Cultural, Cultural Survival’s sister organization in Guatemala,  travelled to Chichicastenango, Quiche, to show support and speak with members of the two stations. “We are deeply concerned because the police are increasing the number of raids and becoming more aggressive towards radio volunteers,” said Anselmo Xunic, legal representative of Asociación Sobrevivencia Cultural. The two stations face huge barriers as they attempt to come back on the air, Swan Tinamit is concerned with getting its volunteer out of jail, while Ixmukane is trying to fight for the recovery of its equipment as well as the well being of their traumatized employee.

Only one community radio station in the history of Guatemala’s police raids on radios has succeeded in recovering its equipment after being raided and that was Radio Juventud in Sololá. Their story gives hope to stations like Ixmukane and Swan Tinamit and encourages community members to claim their rights and fight back against an unjust telecommunications law in Guatemala. The need for a revised telecommunications law is urgent in Guatemala.

Return of the Native: CPI-Maoist in Kerala

Bibhu Prasad Routray

On 7 December 2014, in the first ever incident of its type, personnel of Thunderbolt, the elite paramilitary commando unit of the Kerala Police exchanged fire with a six-member team of the Communist Party of India-Maoist (CPI-Maoist) at the Chappa forest area located on Kozhikode-Wayanad border. No casualties were reported as the Maoist team escaped following a 10-minute long encounter. In the subsequent days, small teams of Maoists vandalised forest offices at Wayanad and Palakkad and carried out an attack on a private quarry-cum-crusher unit in Kannur district.

On the basis of these three incidents, that occurring occurred within a span of two months (December 2014 and January 2015), it is difficult to conclude that Kerala could soon become a stronghold of left-wing extremists. However, what is undeniable is that the social conditions that allowed the rise of Naxalism in the late 1960s in Kerala continue to persist and are again being exploited by the extremists. Worse still, in spite of at least a two-year old input of the CPI-Maoist's foray into the region, the state administration has done little to meet the exigencies. 

Inspired by the Naxalbari uprisings, Kerala witnessed the first incident of left-wing extremist violence in the form of a raid on the Thalassery police station in North Malabar's Kannur district on 21 November 1968. The attack, however, ended in a failure. Of the 1000 Naxals and their sympathisers planned to take part in the raid, only 315 turned up. A lone grenade hurled at the police station failed to explode and as the sentry at the police station set off the alarm, the group fled.  

Two days later, however, a successful attack was carried out on the Pulpalli police wireless station that resulted in the killing of some police personnel. Other raids on the same day targeted estates of landlords in the Wayanad forests by armed peasants, workers and students under the leadership of Kunnikal Narayanan. Grains seized from the estates were distributed among the poor. However, most of the people who took part in the attack, including Arikkad Varghese and Philip M. Prasad, were arrested.

Following these raids, Naxal supreme leader Charu Majumdar sent a congratulatory message hailing the "heroism and courage displayed by the impoverished masses of Kerala" which he said "have raised a new wave of enthusiasm among the revolutionary people all over India." However, apart from the fact that arrests played a role in weakening the Naxal movement in Kerala, Majumdar's insistence on targeting the unarmed landlords and zamindars further divided the Naxals in the state. Leaders like Kunnikal Narayanan wanted to remain focused on attacking the police stations. 

Few more raids took place in the subsequent years. In 1969, a police station in Kuttiyadi was attacked, in which Naxal leader Velayudhan was killed. In 1970, Naxals killed a landlord in Thirunelly and looted grains from another landlord's house. 

The spike in extremist violence led the Congress party-led state government to launch an operation that led to several Naxal leaders being arrested. Prominent leader, 32-year old Arikkad Verghese, was killed in controversial circumstances. Such measures crushed the Naxalite movement in Kerala by 1976. Charu Majumadar's hope that the "heroic peasant revolutionaries of Kerala would lead the tens of millions of revolutionary people of India," failed to materialise.

The December 2014 and January 2015 incidents, have been interpreted as a resurfacing of left-wing extremism in the state after nearly four decades. Districts like Palakkad, Malappuram, Kozhikode, Wayanad, Kannur, and Kasaragod have been identified as areas of Maoist presence. State police sources indicate that these districts would link up the Eastern Ghats to the Western Ghats and provide the Maoists a safe route for movement of cadres and arms.

While these assessments could be true, what is being forgotten is that the CPI-Maoist has been building up its base in the tri-junction of Kerala, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu at least since 2011. The Kerala government had been alerted by the Ministry of Home Affairs in 2011 regarding the outfit's plan to develop the tri-junction into a ‘perspective area’ for their activities. However, riding on a lethargic state response, by 2012, the CPI-Maoist had prepared well for launching the second stage of its presence in that region by declaring the formation of the Western Ghats guerrilla zone in Dakshina Kannada. The outfit made an abortive bid to attack the Thirunelly police station on 18 February 2012 to mark the martyrdom of Arikkad Varghese. And yet, till the attack on December 2014 took place, the state administration did little in terms of a futuristic plan of meeting the extremist challenge.

In terms of human development indicators, districts like Mallapuram, Wayanad and Palakkad lie at the bottom, thus, constituting perspective areas for Maoist growth and operation. The CPI-Maoist is a far more organised and capable extremist outfit compared to the Naxals who were crushed in the 1970s. Kerala would do well to develop a synchronised plan of development and security to respond to the emerging threat.

Police State Canada?

Joyce Nelson

Back in 2006, the newly elected Prime Minister of Canada, right-wing Conservative Stephen Harper warned that “You won’t recognize Canada when I’m through with it.” After nine grueling years, that’s already true in many ways. But now, Harper is going even further in his re-make of the country. Under new and pending legislation, Canada is moving rapidly towards the creation of a police state, with major curtailments of civil liberties. In recent weeks, the Harper Conservatives have introduced and/or passed several pieces of legislation that run roughshod over Canadians’ Charter of Rights and Freedoms and Constitutional rights, giving draconian powers to the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS).

There’s Bill C-13, the highly unpopular online spying legislation, which received Royal Assent on Dec. 9, 2014. The Bill allows warrantless internet surveillance through the collection by CSIS of Canadians’ everyday internet use. The Bill contains broad new police powers, including several new warrants for surveillance, tracking and gathering of bank information. Bill C-13 has been vehemently opposed by more than 60 Canadian organizations. OpenMedia’s David Christopher says that “important parts of this legislation have already been ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court.” 

There’s Bill C-44, which expands the surveillance powers of CSIS globally, while granting anonymity protection to CSIS informants and allowing for new conditions under which Canadian citizenship can be revoked. This bill passed third reading on February 2 and is now with the Senate. The Canadian Civil Liberties Association (CCLA) has called this bill “highly problematic.”

There’s Bill C-639, introduced on Dec. 3, which impinges on the Constitutional right of assembly and would criminalize people exercising their democratic right to public protest. And there’s Bill C-51, the Anti-Terrorism Act 2015, introduced on Jan. 30, containing draconian measures that verge on the creation of a police state. These two bills are the focus in this article because they both refer to protection of “critical infrastructure.”

They are therefore crucial with regard to ongoing Canadian protests against tarsands export pipeline proposals: Enbridge’s proposed Northern Gateway pipeline (from Alberta to northern B.C.); Enbridge’s Line 9 reversal (from southern Ontario to Montreal); TransCanada’s proposed Energy East pipeline (from Alberta to New Brunswick); and Kinder Morgan’s proposed Trans Mountain pipeline expansion (from Alberta to southern B.C.).

Being In the Way

On December 3, Conservative Member of Parliament (MP) Wai Young (Co-chair of the Canada-China Legislative Association) introduced Bill C-639, a private member’s bill to amend the Criminal Code.

The Bill creates a new criminal office for anyone who “destroys or damages any part of a critical infrastructure; renders any part of a critical infrastructure dangerous, useless, inoperative or ineffective; or obstructs, interrupts or interferes with the lawful use, enjoyment or operations of any part of a critical infrastructure.” This amendment would criminalize peaceful and (currently) lawful protests if they interfere even temporarily with broadly defined “critical infrastructure.” The Bill imposes a mandatory minimum sentence of two to 10 years and fines of $500 to $3,000.

Bill C-639 defines “critical infrastructure” as “services relating to energy, telecommunications, finance, health care, food, water transportation, public safety, government and manufacturing, the disruption of which could produce serious adverse economic effects or endanger the health or safety of Canadians.” The bill received backing from Minister of Justice/Attorney General Peter MacKay, who said it would “help secure all facets of critical infrastructure.” 

Toronto lawyer Ed Prutschi told the National Post in December the fact that energy infrastructure was including in this definition has one obvious purpose: “It would have application for pipeline protests.” He noted that the legislation doesn’t necessarily require any damage to have been done, just that a person be in the way – as many people were during a protest in Burnaby, B.C. late last year against Kinder Morgan’s TransMountain pipeline expansion. As the National Post noted, Wai Young is the MP for the Vancouver South political riding, which is adjacent to Burnaby Mountain, where protests occurred.

From November 19 to 27, at least 100 protesters were arrested for crossing a police line in a municipal conservation area on Burnaby Mountain where Kinder Morgan crews have been doing preliminary work – even before approval of the pipeline project – in preparation for tunneling.

During Question Period on Dec. 8, New Democratic Party (NDP) justice critic Francois Boivin, MP for Gatineau, Quebec, called Bill C-639 “scary” and said it “bans protests” and “has obvious constitutional problems. It defines critical infrastructure as being just about anything. In this country, people have a right to lawful protest and assembly. Legal experts are already raising concerns about the constitutionality of Bill C-639.”

Borrowing Tactics from Dictators

The B.C. Civil Liberties Association (BCCLA) considers Bill C-639 a direct attack on the Canadian Constitution and Charter rights, and says the Harper government is “borrowing tactics from dictatorial governments.”

The BCCLA slammed Bill C-639 while its Executive Director Josh Paterson was in Bangkok, having been invited to a UN meeting. “We are at the United Nations to cry foul on Canada’s latest attempt to criminalize peaceful protest,” Paterson said in a news release of Dec. 15. “Now striking flight attendants and kids protesting pipelines on Burnaby Mountain could be considered criminals? Either of these lawful protests could count as a crime under this law if they interfere with something of economic value. That is simply ridiculous and it violates the fundamental freedoms of Canadians.”

The UN Special Rapporteur on the freedom on assembly and association is conducting a global investigation examining how the freedoms of peaceful assembly are being violated around the world to smooth the path for corporate resource development.

Paterson further stated, “We are meeting in Bangkok with representatives from non-democratic countries where protest is a serious crime. It is humiliated for Canada to be borrowing tactics from dictatorial governments.” He added, “Canada has not only broken with our own constitution in criminalizing protest, spying on First Nations, and denouncing community groups, it’s also breaking its international commitments to protect the freedom of expression and freedom of assembly of Canadians.”

RCMP Team

Justice Minister MacKay said in the Dec. 3 press release that Bill C-639 “is the product of extensive, cross-Canada consultation, consistent with our Government’s priority to create safer communities.” But the bill is obviously based on a March 2011 report written by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) Critical Infrastructure Intelligence Team, which consulted primarily with private energy companies.

The document, recently obtained by Carleton University criminologist Jeff Monaghan, warned, “Environmental ideologically motivated individuals including some who are aligned with radical, criminal extremist ideology pose a clear and present criminal threat to Canada’s energy sector…The Canadian law enforcement and security intelligence community have noted a growing radicalized faction of environmentalists who advocate the use of criminal activity to promote the protection of the natural environment.” This is the same RCMP Critical Infrastructure Intelligence team that spied on Quebec residents opposed to shale gas/fracking development, among others.

The RCMP report, and Wai Young’s proposed legislation – which she said she crafted at the urging of industry – dovetail with the Canada-U.S. Beyond the Border Action Plan. That Plan is the result of perimeter security and economic integration talks launched by Canada and the U.S. in 2010. The protection of shared critical infrastructure is listed as a priority in security documents on the government’s Beyond the Border website.

The documents state: “Canada and the United States share a significant quantity of critical infrastructure assets and systems, including pipelines, the electric grid, and transportation systems. It is imperative that our countries work together to protect these assets. To effectively do this, our governments will require a close collaboration with the private sector, as they own much critical infrastructure in question. It makes sense to start with a pilot project, in this case New Brunswick-Maine, to learn how best to work together on each of the elements.” 

That cross-border pilot project policing effort has been delayed since July 2013 because the U.S. requested that its cross-border police officers be exempt from Canadian law. Coverage by Canadian Press of internal RCMP briefing notes regarding this “sovereignty issue” temporarily stymied the project. 

But on October 28, 2014, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry was in Ottawa to express condolences for the loss of two Canadian soldiers killed in separate “lone wolf” attacks (deemed “terrorist”) in Canada. Kerry said the U.S. and Canada would “work quietly and carefully” to strengthen security between the two countries, “making certain that every possible stone is turned over, every possible policy is reviewed because our obligation is obviously to protect our citizens.” 

After Kerry’s October visit, the Harper government had apparently been waiting for the right time to introduce a “critical infrastructure protection bill.” That came during the Burnaby Mountain protests, leading to the tabling of Bill C-639.

Then came the Charlie Hebdo shootings in Paris on Jan. 7. Just weeks later, on Jan. 30, the Harper government introduced Bill C-51, the Anti-Terrorism Act 2015.

Bill C-51

The Canadian Civil Liberties Association says this bill “broadens CSIS’s powers significantly” and “may criminalize legitimate speech.” The bill authorizes CSIS to block Canadian websites, and it defines “terrorist propaganda” as “any writing, sign, visible representation or audio recording that advocates or promotes the commission of terrorism offences in general.” Because of the vagueness of the phrasing, the CCLA notes it could have a “potential chilling effect on academics and journalists and bloggers,” who could face up to five years in prison if their writing is judged to have somehow encouraged “terrorism.”

Bill C-51 vaguely defines “terrorism” as any “activity that undermines the security of Canada,” including “interference with critical infrastructure,” but also “interference with the capability of the Government of Canada in relation to…the economic or financial stability of Canada.”

C-51 exempts “lawful advocacy, protest, dissent and artistic expression” from being considered as threat to the security of Canada, but as a Globe & Mail editorial (Feb. 1) stated, “…how well do governments define those things in times of ‘great evil’?” 

The bill also lowers the threshold for “preventive arrests;” makes it easier to place people on no-fly lists; gives authorities the power to hold suspected “terrorists” without charge for seven days (instead of three); allows a judge to impose up to a year of house arrest on someone who has not been charged or convicted of any crime; and it allows CSIS agents to “disrupt” threats to Canadian security – a blatant extension of CSIS powers beyond intelligence-gathering and into policing.

Bill C-51 also allows people to be detained if they “may” have terrorist plans. As the BCCLA’s policy director Michael Vonn warned in a news release, “Criminalizing people’s words and thoughts is misguided and won’t make Canadians any safer.” Vonn and others have said the bill is likely unconstitutional.
In Parliament on Feb. 2, Green Party leader Elizabeth May asked Public Safety Minister Steven Blaney if the new anti-terrorism Bill C-51 “will apply to nonviolent civil disobedience, such as that against pipelines?” Blaney did not directly answer the question, saying only that terrorism “is a criminal act and those who goes [sic] against the Criminal Code will meet the full force of the law.” May told MPs they “must not allow the Conservatives to turn CSIS into a secret police force.” She has written that Bill C-51 is not about terrorism, it’s “about creating a secret police. It’s the death of freedom.”

Current Hearings

On March 10, the federal Public Safety Committee began hearings on Bill C-51, with dozens of witnesses scheduled to give expert testimony on the bill during nine meetings in March. The Harper government is hoping to pass the legislation before summer.

The B.C. Civil Liberties Association has just released (March 11) its “Six Things Protesters Need to Know about Bill C-51” – a useful warning for people across Canada. Their analysis notes: “When you think of being secure, you likely think of being safe from physical danger. But Bill C-51 defines security as not only safeguarding public safety, but also preventing interference with various aspects of public life or ‘the economic or financial stability of Canada.’ With this definition, a separatist demonstration in Quebec that fails to get a proper permit, a peaceful logging blockade by First Nations, or environmentalists obstructing a pipeline route could all be seen as threats to national security.” Whether or not a group is deemed a national security threat “may hinge on whether their cause is politically popular or in line with the views of the government.”

Regarding freedom of expression, the BCCLA states: “It’s unclear even to experts exactly what kinds of speech and protest activity may be considered threats to national security if the bill passes; the average Canada has little hope of feeling confident that their legitimate political activity hasn’t inadvertently crossed the line. Bill C-51’s expansive language means many Canadians will likely choose not express themselves – even in completely legal ways – rather than risk prosecution. Legitimate speech will be chilled, and our democracy will be worse off for it.”

Regarding “preventative arrests and detention,” the BCCLA notes, “Innocent people could be arrested and detained on mere suspicion of future dangerousness.”

Now we know why the Harper government has been building all those new prisons.