By Portia K. Skenandore-Wheelock
Impunity Watch Reporter, North America

NICARAGUA — A $50 billion, 172-mile canal is expected to be built by a Chinese firm across Nicaragua with the purpose of connecting the Caribbean Sea with the Pacific Ocean. The Panama Canal already accomplishes this but Nicaraguan officials say the canal is crucial to increasing global trade and the new canal can accommodate larger tankers, which the Panama Canal cannot, even with its current expansion. The proposed canal would be three times as long as the Panama Canal and twice as deep. The Nicaraguan government estimates that the revenues created by the project will be almost five times the country’s GDP and will pull more than 400,000 people out of poverty by 2018. The new canal would be an alternative to the Panama Canal, which is 102 years old and handles five percent of global maritime trade. The deal between Nicaragua and Wang Jing of HKND Group would give the firm consortium rights to operate the canal for 116 years. The company broke ground in 2014 but has made little progress since. There are suspicions that the firm may not have enough money to complete the project. There are also concerns that there may not be enough transport demand to support a second canal, especially one with numerous geographical barriers.

Nicaraguan farmers, environmentalists, and human rights groups are protesting construction of the canal. A coalition of farmers gathered 28,000 signatures in opposition to Law 840, which grants concession for the canal project. Both indigenous and peasant farmers are concerned the canal will ruin their crops, require evictions, and destroy the graveyards where their ancestors are buried. Rural residents like 39-year-old Francisca Ramirez are coming together to defend their rights, “I will not allow this area to be destroyed by a project which will only benefit a few, but will harm a vast number of people.”

The International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) says the canal is a threat to people, forests, and to Cocibolca Lake, Central America’s main fresh water reserve. So far, up to 120,000 peasants have no place to relocate to and they were given insufficient compensation for being forced off their land. President of FIDH Dimitris Christopoulos said, “Respecting nature and the rights of rural communities is not a luxury. It’s a duty. These projects will have a dramatic impact on the environment and on human rights. It is unimaginable to sell off territory as such. The government must back out.” The report cites environmental problems with hydrocarbon pollution, salinity, and turbidity. The report also says the canal deal breaches Nicaragua’s constitution and is denying citizens their rights to property, adequate housing, food, and water.

For further information, please see:

Amnesty International – “We Have Hope, we Have Human Rights, we will win This Fight” – 16 October 2016

BBC – Nicaragua Canal Scheme ‘Must be Dropped’ – 14 October 2016

Humanosphere – Nicaragua Canal: Rights Groups Protest Project That may Have Already Failed – 17 October 2016

Sky News – Nicaragua Canal Poses ‘Unimaginable’ Threat to Human Rights – 14 October 2016

 

by Portia K. Skenandore-Wheelock
Impunity Watch Reporter, North America

SAN SALVADOR, EL SALVADOR – Judge Jorge Guzman Urquilla in El Salvador has accepted a request filed by Dr. Maria Julia Hernandez Legal Defense agency, the Center for Justice and International Law, and the Association to Promote Human Rights of El Mozote to reopen one of the worst massacres to occur during the country’s civil war in the village of El Mozote.

At least 500 people were killed by the army within three days in December 1981, according to a postwar UN truth commission. Victims’ rights advocates say the number of those killed is much more, closer to 1,000. El Mozote villagers were mostly evangelical Christians that were trying to remain neutral in the war but soldiers suspected them of sympathizing with the rebels and attacked. The army dumped many of the bodies in a small church and burned them. The UN truth commission report found Col. Domingo Monterrosa, commander of the Atlacatl battalion, operations chief Col. Armando Azmitia, and six other officers responsible. In 1984 Monterrosa and Azmitia died when a bomb went off in their helicopter. The US government had trained the Atlacatl battalion that was involved in the killings. The army and the US initially denied that any massacre had taken place, but human rights advocate Ovidio Mauricio has said, “the forensic evidence…is overwhelming” and that in just one grave forensic experts found “136 skeletons of girls and boys, with an average age of six years.”

The Supreme Court ruling in July declaring El Salvador’s amnesty law unconstitutional has former military men and the current government, which grew out of the rebel Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front, concerned that those involved on both sides of the conflict could face prosecution and the decision could create social conflicts. The Inter-American Court of Human Rights ruled that El Salvador should pay reparations to the victims and in 2012 the government accepted the ruling and apologized for the massacre.

For further information, please see:

BBC – El Salvador Judge Reopens El Mozote Massacre Investigation – 2 October 2016

Deutsche Welle – El Salvador to Reopen Prove Into 1981 Massacre – 2 October 2016

The Guardian – El Salvador Judge Reopens Case of 1981 Massacre at El Mozote – 1 October 2016

The News Tribune – Judge Orders Reopening of El Salvador Military Massacre Case – 1 October 2016

Telesur – Salvadoran Judge Reopens Investigation of El Mozote Massacre – 2 October 2016

 

by Portia K. Skenandore-Wheelock
Impunity Watch Reporter, North America

UNITED STATES — The United Nations Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent has released their final report based on a visit to the United States in January. A five-member group chaired by Filipino law professor Ricardo A. Sunga III made the trip to evaluate the human rights situation of African Americans. The report concludes that “Contemporary police killings and the trauma that they create are reminiscent of the past racial terror of lynching” during the 19^th and 20^th centuries and calls on the government to do more to protect its citizens. The Equal Justice Initiative, a non-profit organization, reported in 2015 that 3,959 black people were killed in lynchings between 1877 and 1950.

The report has been released while two days of protests and a riot over the shooting of Keith Scott are taking place in Charlotte, North Carolina. Last Friday another incident occurred in Tulsa, Oklahoma where an officer fatally shot an unarmed black man.

The report states, “the legacy of colonial history, enslavement, racial subordination and segregation, racial terrorism and racial inequality in the United States remains a serious challenge, as there has been no real commitment to reparations and to truth and reconciliation for people of African descent. Impunity for state violence has resulted in the current human rights crisis and must be addressed as a matter of urgency.” The UN group says these killings go unpunished due to a number of factors. The initial investigations are often conducted by the police departments where the alleged perpetrators are employed, prosecutors have wide discretion over the charges, and the use of force is only subject to domestic standards, not to international standards.

The UN group recommends that the US create a national system to track excessive use of force and killings by law enforcement officials, end racial profiling, and have federal and state laws that recognize the negative impact of enslavement and racial injustice. The report finds education accompanied by acts of reconciliation key to improving race relations and the trust between African Americans and law enforcement officials. The report is being debated at the UN Human Rights Council on Monday.

For further information, please see:

Mint Press News – UN: Police Killings of Black Men Are Modern-Day Lynchings – 24 September 2016

PressTV – US Police Killings Redolent of Lynching: Report – 23 September 2016

Reuters – U.S. Police Killings Reminiscent of Lynching, U.N. Group Says – 23 September 2016

RT – Police Killings of Black People Reminiscent of Lynchings – UN Working Group – 23 September 2016

 

by Portia K. Skenandore-Wheelock
Impunity Watch Reporter, North America

MEXICO CITY, MEXICO — Chief of the Criminal Investigation Agency Tomás Zerón de Lucio resigned his position on Wednesday, without citing a reason for stepping down.

Zerón was in charge of investigating the disappearance of 43 students from Ayotzinapa, a radical teaching college, who have not been seen since September 2014. Zerón has been heavily criticized for his handling of the case and parents of the students have been vocal in their complaints. The government has said the students were arrested by municipal police in Guerrero state in the town of Iguala on September 26, 2014 and handed over to a drug trafficking gang. The government asserts that the gang killed the students and incinerated their bodies at a garbage dumpsite. Lab results proving this type of incineration impossible were released a day before Zerón’s resignation.

Two independent international investigations have dismissed the government’s claims. Zerón’s handling of the crime scene has been under investigation since April after a report made by a panel of foreign investigators and legal experts. Information had been revealed with video and image evidence that Zerón had visited the site of the alleged incineration with one of the accused gang members a day before crime scene evidence was found. Zerón failed to note this visit in any of the official records.

Families of the students held a press conference Thursday in response to Zerón’s resignation. They are critical of his appointment to another high-level government job on President Peña Nieto’s National Security Council. “Instead of punishing him they have given him a prize. It doesn’t change anything. We are going to continue taking to the streets to demand the return of our children alive, and to demand the truth,” said Hilda Hernández, a mother of one of the missing students. The families have been preparing a protest for September 26, the second anniversary of the students’ abduction.

For further information, please see:

BBC News – Mexico Missing Students Inquiry Boss Quits – 15 September 2016

New York Times – Top Investigator in Case of Missing Students in Mexico Resigns – 14 September 2016

PanAm Post – Lead Investigator in Mexican Student Massacre Steps Down – 15 September 2016

Vice News – Mexico’s Botched Investigation of 43 Missing Students Leads Chief Investigator to Resign – 15 September 2016

 

by Portia K. Skenandore-Wheelock
Impunity Watch Reporter, North America

UNITED STATES — On Friday prisoners in 40 prisons in at least 24 states went on a coordinated strike, refusing to do their assigned jobs, and are demanding an “end to prison slavery.” This is one of the largest prison strikes attempted in decades. The date of the start of the strike coincides with the 45^th anniversary of the 1971 Attica prison uprising. The Industrial Workers of the World’s Incarcerated Workers Organizing Committee (IWOC) and the Free Alabama Movement organized and announced the strike in a statement, “Slavery is alive and well in the prison system, but by the end of this year, it won’t be anymore. This call goes directly to the slaves themselves.”

As state budgets have been cut the over 2 million prisoners in the United States have been a source of cheap, and in some states free, labor. New work programs have prisoners repairing public plumbing, doing underwater welding, cleaning up roadkill, and maintaining public spaces. Prisoners’ jobs also go beyond public works and services. Corporations, such as Starbucks, Wal-Mart, Victoria’s Secret, McDonald’s, IBM, and AT&T, have tapped into prison labor by making deals with both private and public prisons. Prisoner laborers make 12 to 40 cents per hour yet the annual dollar value of their work output is estimated to run in the billions. “We want people to understand the economics of the prison system. It’s not about crime and punishment. It’s about money,” says Melvin Brooks-Ray, founder of the Free Alabama Movement and an inmate for 17 years.

Since labor law does not consider prisoners employees, they are not allowed to unionize. IWOC is trying to change that and encourages prisoners to join without charging union dues. IWOC’s site says, “You cannot change this situation through a grievance process that doesn’t work…or through courts that are clearly against you…or through petitions to lawmakers who don’t care about you because you don’t vote…or through hunger strikes against prison officials who want you to starve…or through letters to newspapers who have ignored this situation for decades.”

Prisoners in different states have other demands beyond fair wages for their work, such as an end to long-term solitary confinement policies, poor healthcare, poor quality of food, violent attacks, overcrowding, fairer parole policies, and reinstating educational courses for high school diplomas. “Different prisoners have different goals and aims, it’s looking like it’s going to be a state-by-state thing,” said Brianna Peril, co-chair of IWOC and a former prisoner. In response to these non-violent strikes, many prisons are engaging in lockdowns and barring prisoners’ access to communication.

For further information, please see:

Democracy Now! – Nationwide Prison Strike Launches in 24 States and 40 Facilities Over Conditions & Forced Labor – 9 September 2016

The Guardian – Inmates Strike in Prisons Nationwide Over ‘Slave Labor’ Working Conditions – 9 September 2016

The Independent – Inmates Launch Massive Nationwide Strike to Protest ‘Modern Slavery’ in US Prison System – 9 September 2016

Vice News – Prisoners all Over the US are on strike for ‘an end to prison slavery’ – 9 September 2016

Wired – How to Organize the Largest US Prison Strike Ever…From Inside Prison – 9 September 2016