global south

Marcia Ramirez and other local residents from Intag confront private security forces, most former military, Dec 1, 2006. (Photo: Liz Weydt)

By Jennifer Moore
Briarpatch Magazine
May/June 2010

Marcia Ramírez hopes to set a precedent in Canadian courts that will benefit peasant farmers and indigenous peoples across the Global South.

A community leader in her mid-20s, Ramírez is one of three Ecuadorian plaintiffs suing the Toronto Stock Exchange for over $1.5 billion. The lawsuit alleges that violence in their rural community could have been avoided had the TSX not listed the Copper Mesa Mining Corporation (formerly Ascendant Copper), which is also named in the lawsuit. The TSX Group and TSX Inc. are accused of causing or materially contributing to alleged violence committed by the company in response to local opposition to an open-pit copper mine. An environmental impact study had indicated that the mine would displace several communities and jeopardize the health of forests and rivers in the northwestern valley of Intag. The defendants have vigorously denied the allegations.

“I ask the noble people of Canada,” Ramírez stated in her comments when the civil suit was filed in March 2009, “that you demand from your elected authorities significant changes in your national legislation so that what has happened with Copper Mesa in Intag will never happen again, not in Intag nor in any other part of the world.”

The TSX is a principal source of global mining financing today and specializes in services for junior mining companies like Copper Mesa. According to the Mining Association of Canada, 55 per cent of the world’s publicly traded mining companies were listed on the TSX at the end of 2008, far more than any other stock exchange. Canadian stock exchanges also provided 31 per cent of the world’s mining equity and handled 81 per cent of financing transactions for the global mining industry between 2004 and 2009.

In Latin America, a prime target for Canadian mining investments, Canadian-listed companies operate roughly 1,400 projects and have been the focal point of widespread protests and human rights abuses throughout the region. Just in the past year, anti-mining activists have been reported killed in Mexico, El Salvador and Guatemala in presumed relation to Canadian projects. In Argentina and Honduras, Canadian operations have led to complaints of water scarcity, contamination and illness. In Peru, a Canadian mining oper­ation has provoked opposition among northern Amazonian peoples who question why a national park intended to protect their territory was reduced by half, giving miners access to pristine forests in headwaters of great importance to them. Alleged human rights violations and abuses by such companies are seldom investigated and almost never brought to justice.

"Mining companies are prohibited here," reads the sign. "We don't sell our lands, we defend them."

As a result, Canadian mining companies have developed a reputation for human rights violations and environmental devastation that even the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racism has complained about. Members of the Canadian Network on Corporate Accountability were also dismayed when the government released a belated response to a series of public recommendations on the Canadian overseas extractive industry in March 2009 that only reaffirmed its commitment to the status quo: voluntary Corporate Social Responsibility guidelines. The government’s position “falls far short of international human rights norms,” said Amnesty International. KAIROS, a faith-based organization advocating for human rights, ecological and ecumenical justice, complained that Canada leaves “mining-affected communities with no recourse.” MiningWatch added that the government’s complaint mechanism “undermines the principle of independent fact-finding.” One survey of Canadian mining companies has also demonstrated that adherence to international standards by our overseas extractive industry is “inordinately” low, especially among junior mining companies.

In other words, voluntary principles are not enough.

Intag, Ecuador, says no

The Ecuadorian community of Intag has a long history of opposition to large-scale copper mining, beginning with the expulsion of a Japanese mining company in the 1990s. In 1997, Bishi Metals left the area when locals balked after obtaining a copy of its environmental impact assessment, which detailed how its projected open-pit mine would cause deforestation, dry up rivers and displace at least four local communities.

Following this victory, Intag continued organizing, aware that although Bishi was gone, the copper remained. Various initiatives were undertaken to demonstrate that Intag could live without mining, including a local conservation organization, an ecotourism project, a women’s committee, a committee of all the rural parishes in the valley, a coffee co-operative, a community newspaper, a local radio station and a community development association.

By the time Copper Mesa acquired mineral rights in Intag in 2004, it was local organizations rather than the technical challenges of working in the remote area that would prove to be its greatest obstacle. As a result of the strong collective response, the company never managed to get a drill in the ground.

Intag, December 1, 2006: in response to local resistance, the heavily armed security forces spray tear gas at close range and fire shots at close range, injuring one man in the leg.

According to Polivio Pérez, president of the Community Development Council for the rural parish in which Copper Mesa’s project is situated, “the company came in trying to buy support and divide the communities” in an effort to weaken local resistance. When it could not gain enough support, he continues, “they tried to enter by force.”

Prior to listing the company in 2005, the TSX was warned that violence and human rights abuses could result from facilitating access to capital. Human rights abuses had already been documented by the well-respected Ecumenical Human Rights Commission in Quito (CEDHU), including physical mistreatment, death threats, persecution, slander, false charges against community leaders and intimidation. Such concerns motivated the county mayor to write a letter to the finance and audit committee of the TSX urging them not to list the company. The company’s own prospectus, which the stock exchange requires of companies before they are listed, also indicated “the potential of further escalating violence” given existing problems with its community relations in Intag.

It was no surprise, then, that things heated up once the company was listed and started raising funds.

The worst incident, both Ramírez and Pérez agree, occurred in December 2006 when heavily armed security guards were hired to reach the company’s mineral claims and set up camp.

Villagers blocked the only access road to the potential mining site with a single-link chain and stood guard. A sign posted on a nearby tree read: “Mining companies are prohibited here. We don’t sell our land, we defend it.”

The residents, including men, women and children, refused to let the private security agents pass. But the guards were impervious to their arguments and began to fire their weapons and to spray Ramírez and others at close range with tear gas. Israel Pérez, the third plaintiff in the case and Polivio’s brother, was shot and injured in the leg.

In response, local residents successfully carried out a peaceful citizen’s arrest and the guards were held in a local church for several days until local authorities arrived. “Despite being assaulted with tear gas and bullets,” says Polivio Pérez, “we were able to demonstrate once again the strength of our local organization and our decisiveness [against mining] here.”

The incident was captured on film by two German journalism students and is featured in Malcolm Rogge’s 2008 film Under Rich Earth. Ultimately, government authorities suspended the project and declared that they were unable to process the company’s environmental impact assessment.

Months later, after company directors had been personally informed about the December events and persisting tensions, individuals believed to be linked to the company assaulted and uttered death threats against Polivio Pérez. The statement of claim for the lawsuit alleges that the directors could have done more to avoid further confrontations, such as actually signing and implementing the “Voluntary Principles on Security and Human Rights” that the company publicly purported to respect.

Challenging Canada’s “judicial paradise”

The Toronto-based Klippenstein legal firm, best known for its defence of the Dudley George family against the province of Ontario, is representing the Ecuadorian villagers in their suit against the TSX and Copper Mesa. Their lawsuit, Murray Klippenstein says, seeks “the same level of corporate accountability that is expected in all other areas of Canadian life.” He anticipates a tough battle.

In 1997, the last time a mining company was sued in Canada, the plaintiffs were told to go elsewhere. Twenty-three thousand Guyanese villagers filed a class-action lawsuit against Cambior after the collapse of its tailings dam at the Omai Mine, which polluted their water supply. But the Quebec Superior Court ruled that it was not the best jurisdiction for the case. When the suit was later filed in Guyana, it was dismissed and the plaintiffs were ordered to pay the defendant’s legal costs.

In order to address jurisdictional issues, explains Klippenstein, the Intag lawsuit focuses on decisions that stock exchange and company executives made in Ontario, “rather than on the finger that pulled the trigger in Ecuador.”

This aspect of the legal strategy appears to be working. The Toronto lawyer says that the TSX and Copper Mesa have decided not to challenge the Ontario court jurisdiction. This puts them one step ahead and potentially trims years off the time they might have spent in legal battles before going to trial.

However, it is not just the reticence of Canadian courts to deal with cases of abuse beyond our own borders that this case aims to confront, but also the skittishness of an entire industry to subject itself to legal oversight.

Given the weak reporting requirements for listing on the TSX and the lack of relevant legislation in Canada, author Alain Deneault calls Canada a “judicial paradise” for our overseas mining industry. “Listing on the Toronto Stock Exchange,” writes Deneault, who co-authored an exposé of Canadian mining abuses in Africa entitled Noir Canada, “is a way of seeking shelter in one of the more permissive stock exchanges in the world, while taking advantage of the reputation of the rule of law in Canada – all the while knowing that one is outside of state control and regulation when operating overseas.”

The Toronto Stock Exchange openly markets itself to companies hoping to work in areas with weak governmental institutions and vulnerability to conflict and violence. Its own online promotional materials give the example of the Democratic Republic of Congo as one potential site for which it can help companies raise financing.

In other words, the Intag lawsuit is just the tip of the iceberg. Just as Klippenstein’s legal team will argue that members of Copper Mesa’s board of directors and the TSX had significant prior indications that further violence and human rights abuses could result from listing Copper Mesa Mining, it is highly possible that a plethora of other such cases exist for which this lawsuit could set an important precedent. Coincidentally, the same year that Copper Mesa was listed, La Presse reported that another junior mining company was allegedly implicated in the massacre of about 100 Congolese civilians.

Great expectations

MiningWatch Canada is a coalition of 18 faith, social justice, indigenous and union organizations. Communications and Outreach Coordinator Jamie Kneen told Briarpatch that if the lawsuit succeeds it could really “open the door” for other communities that have been harmed as a result of Canadian mining operations. From the Congo to Papua New Guinea to Guatemala, people who have faced illegal land appropriations, forced relocation, water contamination, threats or even murder could sue.

The lack of suitable mechanisms for addressing such disputes in Canada has also drawn the attention of parliamentarians and legal experts. Recently, Supreme Court Justice Ian Binnie, speaking at the 2008 Canadian Bar Association conference, urged Canada to draw up new legislation that would provide a forum for foreign citizens and companies to have such cases heard. In the spring of 2009, two Members of Parliament initiated attempts at legislative reform by tabling private member’s bills. NDP MP Peter Julian’s Bill C-354 aimed to replicate the U.S. Alien Tort Claims Act, which allows foreign citizens to fight global human rights violations in U.S. courts, while Liberal MP John McKay’s Bill C-300 would make public financing for the extractive industry subject to government oversight. Up against a fierce industry lobby and government opposition, both bills were stalled when Parliament was prorogued.

“It’s not fair,” says Ramírez, “that a foreign company comes onto our land and violates our rights, when all we want is to live in a clean environment and to defend our water and our land.” She hopes, after the procedural battles are over, for a cathartic day in court when “the stock exchange will listen and understand that we’ve been hurt by a company of theirs.”

Ramírez, the other plaintiffs and the legal team will face a tough fight. But the underlying principle of their case is straightforward, says Klippenstein: “You shouldn’t harm somebody and you shouldn’t use your money to hire someone whom you know is likely to do harm” – a golden rule that Canadians would likely agree to in any other circumstances.

However, only time will tell whether Canadian courts are prepared to hear Ramírez’s voice and those of many others calling for a 180-degree turnaround in a sector rife with human rights and environmental abuses.

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By Todd Gordon
Briarpatch Magazine
May/June 2010

Canada has been active indeed on the world stage of late, but hardly as the force for good many Canadians imagine their country to be. Since June 2009, Canada has supported a coup in Honduras; three Salvadoran activists who were organizing against Canadian mining company Pacific Rim Mining Corporation have been assassinated; one activist in Mexico has been assassinated for opposing yet another Canadian mining company, Blackfire Exploration; Foreign Affairs and International Trade has refused to advance a law to impose human rights standards on Canadian companies operating abroad; and Canada has taken a lead role in the free-market-oriented reconstruction of Haiti after the devastating earthquake in January, which follows Canada’s participation in the 2004 coup against Jean-Bertrand Aristide and the imposition of an aggressive neo-liberal regime on the country. At the same time, of course, the Canadian military has been participating in the ongoing occupation of Afghanistan, propping up a profoundly corrupt regime whose members include warlords with atrocious human rights records.

I could offer many more examples of Canada’s retrograde behaviour around the world. But these cases should suffice in challenging the notion that Canada is a benign force on the international stage or that its bad behaviour is restricted to a few isolated cases. What we see instead is a systemic pattern of self-interested, violent and destructive behaviour that cries out for a deeper analysis.

To make sense of Canada’s increasingly aggressive foreign policy and to comprehend the wreckage that Canada and its business interests are leaving in their wake as they stampede through the Third World, it’s important to grasp the significant transformations Canadian capitalism has undergone over the last 20 years of neo-liberal entrenchment. Canada, we must finally recognize, is an imperialist power; members of its ruling class think and act like imperialists. Support for coups and violent conflicts with local communities aren’t accidents, nor should the Left expect a change in policy without serious popular mobilization.

A mere middle power?

Many Canadians who take for granted that the United States is an imperial power are still reluctant to describe Canada in the same way. The U.S. is indeed the global superpower, and has a long history of invasions and support for reactionary regimes abroad to protect its own interests. Given the prominent role it has played in international affairs since the Second World War, its actions draw a great deal of scrutiny and criticism. But imperialism isn’t the sole domain of superpowers. No one would claim that Britain was the only imperialist nation when it was imposing its empire around the globe a century ago, even if it was the most powerful such force.

Rather, imperialism is about relations of power and domination in which countries (usually) of the Global North systematically drain the wealth and resources of the South via economic, political and military means. It’s driven by the contradictory dynamics of capitalist accumulation – particularly the overaccumulation of capital, in which too many factories, big box stores, mines, etc. are created to be deployed profitably – that underlie the economy’s recessionary tendencies and create constant pressure on companies to expand geographically in search of new markets. Imperial relations, in other words, are embedded in the system of global capitalism. They transcend superpowers, however important the latter are in setting and enforcing the rules of the game.

So how does Canada fit into this picture?

Canada isn’t some mere middle power riding the coattails of our superpower neighbour. That view of Canada was never really accurate, even before the dawn of the neo-liberal age. Canada has always had a self-interest to promote; Canadian capital has always had a controversial presence in the Third World, whether in banking in the Caribbean, manufacturing in apartheid South Africa or mining in General Suharto’s Indonesia. But the neo-liberal era, with heightened competition among multinational corporations and the aggressive market liberalization imposed on the Third World by the North (including Canada) has seen an unprecedented international expansion of Canadian capital.

The best measure for assessing the degree of Canadian capital’s penetration of third world markets is foreign direct investment. Foreign direct investment is cross-border investment (usually by multinational corporations) that represents at least 10 per cent of equity in the targeted asset, whether it be a factory, mine or newly privatized utility. It’s an important indicator of foreign penetration of national economies because 10 per cent equity typically gives the investor some degree of managerial control. Often, though, the equity stake is much higher than 10 per cent. Foreign direct investment has been a driving force behind neo-liberal globalization. It has increased significantly in the last 20 years, more rapidly in fact than the world economy as a whole. As many observers point out, foreign direct investment is one of the principal ways by which capital from the North has gained economic power and influence in the South during the neo-liberal period.

Canada is now one of the world’s major foreign direct invest­ors. By 2007, the cumulative stock of Canadian direct investment had reached $514.5 billion, and Canadian investors were active in 150 different countries. Over the last several years Canada has consistently ranked in the top 10 of the world’s biggest foreign investor nations in absolute terms. Among G8 nations, Canada has the fourth highest ratio of outward direct investment stock to gross domestic product. But it’s not just the growth of Canadian direct investment that’s important here: the global distribution of these investments has changed in important ways in the last couple of decades, expressing shifting preoccupations of Canadian capital.

As third world economies were being pried open by the International Monetary Fund and World Bank in the 1980s and ’90s, Canadian investors began to exploit the cheap labour, natural resources and sale of public assets in the region at an unprecedented rate. In the early 1950s, the Third World received approximately 10 per cent of total Canadian direct investment stock, but this has increased sharply since the early 1990s; by 2007 it received over 27 per cent. Canadian investment in the U.S. similarly reflects the overall shift in investment destination: from 1990 to 2007, the share of Canadian direct investment in the U.S. fell from 60 per cent of total Canadian direct investment worldwide to 44 per cent, even though Canadian assets in the U.S. tripled in absolute terms. In 2007, among G8 countries Canada had the second highest level of direct investment in third world countries as a proportion of gross domestic product. At the same time, income from direct investment in the Third World as a proportion of total investment income earned abroad has risen significantly, from just under 25 per cent for the years 1973-79 to over 45 per cent for 2000-07. In 2007, total after-tax income from Canadian direct investment in the South reached $18 billion.

Canadian investment is particularly strong in banking and mining, and Canada’s mining industry is the largest in the world. But Canadian companies are also prominent in sweatshop manufacturing, hydroelectric development and telecommunications, among other industries.

This dramatic growth of Canadian investment in the Third World has had serious repercussions for the communities where the investment is undertaken. Across industries and across regions, Canadian companies, often with the diplomatic and financial support of the Canadian state, are actively displacing indigenous and subsistence communities, undermining unions and engaging in ecological destruction. As a result, they face stiff resistance wherever they go. Conflict with local communities is a common feature of Canadian investment in the Global South, and has become increasingly well documented.

The necessary violence of imperialism

Canadian foreign and military policy developments over the past 20 years have been shaped by the rapid growth of Canadian capital’s presence in the Global South and the ensuing conflicts with local communities and anti-neo-liberal governments. Canada’s ruling elites have a clear stake in ensuring that the Third World remains a safe place to do business. Their aim is to ensure – to use the language of Foreign Affairs and International Trade (DFAIT) and the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) – “stability,” “predictability” and “transparency” for Canadian investors. Not surprisingly, imposing liberalized market relations (which constitute “stability,” “predictability” and “transparency”) and exploiting the South have become a central goal of Canadian foreign policy, as evidenced in policy documents coming out of DFAIT and CIDA. This in turn entails a more aggressive attitude towards any country or organization deemed to be threatening Canada’s financial interests or the sanctity of liberalized free markets more generally.

The aggressive pursuit of one-sided trade and investment agreements that lock in corporate rights over and above the human and environmental rights of local communities is a good example. This has been most advanced in Latin America and the Caribbean, where Canadian direct investment in the South is the strongest. Canada has 10 bilateral investment treaties and free trade agreements with six countries in the region.

Another weapon in the Canadian foreign policy tool kit is aid financing. Canadian aid policy has little to do with altruism towards the world’s poorest. Canada still imposes structural adjustment measures as a condition of receiving its aid. In line with Canada’s investment patterns, furthermore, Stephen Harper’s Conservative government has shifted Canadian aid priorities away from Africa towards Latin America, where Canada has been funding such things as the neo-liberal reorganization of mining sectors (as in Peru) or the rewriting of mining codes to strengthen foreign investor rights (as in Colombia).

A supposed commitment to human rights and democracy promotion has also served as a useful cover for advancing Canada’s financial interests abroad. American writer William Robinson has discussed the move towards “democracy promotion” in American foreign policy in Latin America since the 1980s, coinciding with the emergence of liberal democracy in countries previously ruled by U.S.-backed dictatorships. American aid funding, typically channelled through the National Endowment for Democracy (and implemented by the International Republican Institute and the National Democratic Institute) goes to parties and organizations sympathetic to U.S. interests. For Canada, democracy promotion has in practice meant funding right-wing “civil society” organizations like those that participated in the coups in Venezuela in 2002 and Haiti in 2004.

The Harper Tories, following suit, have plans for a new democracy promotion centre to better focus its activities in this regard. This comes, furthermore, as the Tories push the state-funded and supposedly non-partisan Rights & Democracy (aka the International Centre for Human Rights and Democratic Development) further to the right with their recent appointments to its board of directors. Rights & Democracy was not a progressive organization to begin with, having supported the right-wing opposition to Aristide in Haiti. Now it will be even more staunchly in the pro‑imperialist camp, following the Tories’ appointment of Gérard Latulippe, the current resident director in Haiti for the National Democratic Institute, as its new president.

Security for capital

Like any good imperialist the Canadian state has put a premium on building up its war-fighting capacity in recent years. The Liberal government under Paul Martin (with its junior coalition partner the NDP) and the Harper Tories both committed billions of dollars of increased military spending in order to hire more soldiers and create a more efficient war machine with the capacity to deploy rapidly around the world. While the occupation of Afghanistan was used as the pretext for these spending increases, the reality is that the majority of new purchases won’t be obtained until after the military’s presence in Afghanistan has been scaled down considerably, suggesting the Canadian ruling class is thinking well beyond Afghanistan with respect to its military planning.

Since the end of the Cold War, military and political leaders have consistently stated that the world is more insecure and unstable than it was previously, while most of the potential threats to Canadian security, they suggest implicitly or explicitly, emanate from the Third World. It would be very short-sighted to think that the central place the South has taken in military thinking is merely coincidental to Canada’s economic interests. These interests are the main reason Canada is engaged in the Global South in the first place. There is zero risk of Canada being invaded by a southern country, and other supposed threats military planners sometimes refer to – terrorism, disease and an influx of refugees – are overblown and little more than racist tropes designed to promote fear of the areas and people we exploit.

The military interventions in Haiti and Afghanistan have demonstrated Canada’s willingness to employ dramatic levels of violence in order to be taken seriously by friend and foe alike, and, particularly in the case of Haiti, to promote the interests of Canadian capital. The Canada-as-peacekeeper myth – which was always a problematic narrative on a number of counts – can’t be sustained in the face of such violent military occupations, a fact which Canada’s ruling elite is happy to stress to both Canadians and the rest of the world.

The responsibility of the Canadian Left

Ecological destruction, violent conflict with local communities, support for unsavoury regimes such as the Lobo government in Honduras or Álvaro Uribe in Colombia, opposition to progressive governments such as Chávez’s in Venezuela, and military engagements – none of these things are accidental or the result of a misinformed policy. They’re the product of strategic decision-making by Canadian business and political leaders about how to best protect their interests abroad. And there’s no reason to think Canadian leaders will change their behaviour of their own accord. It’s simply not in their class interest. Our task on the Left, then, is to build a deeper anti-Canadian-imperialist consciousness, while fostering stronger bonds of solidarity with movements in the South struggling against imperialism in general and Canadian imperialism in particular. Only with these steps will it be possible to sustain the kind of movement that can challenge the destructive power of Canadian capital and the state abroad.

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By Dave Oswald Mitchell
Briarpatch Magazine
March/April 2010

“At every women’s gathering the divisions of race, class, nationality and ethnicity erupt, tearing the unity that brings women together. . . . We can pretend that differences do not exist, or we can explore them, and in the process reformulate feminism itself. The latter is more difficult and painful, but indispensable, if sisterhood is to become more than a slogan.”

Asoka Bandarage, “Toward International Feminism,” 1994

“[A] vision of global feminism should be one which engages women at all levels of society in all aspects of their lives, encouraging productive diversity rather than homogeneity, while proposing a pro-active redistribution of power, rather than reactive critique of its current allotment.”

Renee Martyna, “Whiter Global Feminism?,” E-merge 2000

This issue of Briarpatch is about opening our activism to new voices and new perspectives. As Naomi Wolf recently observed, “our (Western) moment of feminist leadership is over now, for good reasons. . . . [T]he leadership role is shifting to women in the developing world.”

Read the rest of this entry »

Blind women line up at a hospital in Chitrakoot, Madhya Pradesh, India

By Heather Wardle
Briarpatch Magazine
March/April 2010

Over the past decade, much has been written about female literacy and how access to even a basic education can reduce poverty and improve the lives of women and girls. But for millions of women in the Global South, it is access to eye care that they need most.

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“…our (Western) moment of feminist leadership is over now, for good reasons. We know by now what our problems are as women in the West, and we know the blueprint for solving them. What we lack now is not analysis, but the organizational and political will to do so.

“So the leadership role is shifting to women in the developing world. Their agenda is more pressing, and their problems, frankly, are far more serious than ours - which makes it much more urgent for them to develop theories appropriate to the challenges they face.”