More Than 900 Environmental Advocates Slain in a Decade as Concern for our Planet Grows

A participant at Earth Day celebrations at Union Square in New York City carries a sign protesting killing, April 22, 1970.

Stephen: I would say this is a very conservative global figure. It also doesn’t include the deaths from any environmental battle losses nor the many animals and plants who’ve also perished.

By Denis D. Gray, The Associated Press – April 14, 2014

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BANGKOK (AP) — As head of his village, Prajob Naowa-opas battled to save his community in central Thailand from the illegal dumping of toxic waste by filing petitions and leading villagers to block trucks carrying the stuff — until a gunman in broad daylight fired four shots into him.

A year later, his three alleged killers, including a senior government official, are on trial for murder. The dumping has been halted and villagers are erecting a statue to their slain hero.

But the prosecution of Prajob’s murder is a rare exception. A survey released Tuesday — the first comprehensive one of its kind – says that only 10 killers of 908 environmental activists slain around the world over the past decade have been convicted.

The report by the London-based Global Witness, a group that seeks to shed light on the links between environmental exploitation and human rights abuses, says murders of those protecting land rights and the environment have soared dramatically. It noted that its toll of victims in 35 countries is probably far higher since field investigations in a number of African and Asian nations are difficult or impossible.

“Many of those facing threats are ordinary people opposing land grabs, mining operations and the industrial timber trade, often forced from their homes and severely threatened by environmental devastation,” the report said. Others have been killed over hydro-electric dams, pollution and wildlife conservation.

The rising deaths, along with non-lethal violence, are attributed to intensifying competition for shrinking resources in a global economy and abetted by authorities and security forces in some countries connected to powerful individuals, companies and others behind the killings.

Three times as many people died in 2012 than the 10 years previously, with the death rate rising in the past four years to an average of two activists a week, according to the non-governmental group. Deaths in 2013 are likely to be higher than the 95 documented to date.

The victims have ranged from 70-year-old farmer Jesus Sebastian Ortiz, one of several people in the Mexican town of Cheran killed in 2012 while opposing illegal logging, to the machine-gunning by Philippine armed forces of indigenous anti-mining activist Juvy Capion and her two sons the same year.

Brig. Gen. Domingo Tutaan Jr., who heads the Philippine military’s human rights office, told the Associated Press that a military investigation showed the three died in crossfire as troops clashed with suspected outlaws. “We don’t tolerate or condone human rights violations and we hope Global Witness can work with us to pinpoint any soldier or officer involved in those killings,” Tutaan said.

Brazil, the report says, is the world’s most dangerous place for activists with 448 deaths between 2002 and 2013, followed by 109 in Honduras and Peru with 58. In Asia, the Philippines is the deadliest with 67, followed by Thailand at 16.

“We believe this is the most comprehensive global database on killings of environment and land defenders in existence,” said Oliver Courtney, senior campaigner at Global Witness. “It paints a deeply alarming picture, but it’s very likely this is just the tip of the iceberg, because information is very hard to find and verify. Far too little attention is being paid to this problem at the global level.”

Reports of killings, some of them extensive, from countries like Central African Republic, Zimbabwe, and Myanmar, where civil society groups are weak and the regimes authoritarian, are not included in the Global Witness count.

By contrast, non-governmental organizations in Brazil carefully monitor incidents, many of them occurring in the Amazon as powerful businessmen and companies move deeper into indigenous homelands to turn forests into soya, sugar cane and agro-fuel plantations or cattle ranches. Clashes between agribusiness and the Guarani and Kuranji people in the Amazon’s Mato Grosso do Sul province accounted for half of Brazil’s killings during 2012, the report said. Human rights groups and news reports say killings are often carried out by gunmen hired by agricultural companies.

In Thailand, Sunai Phasuk of the U.S.-based Human Rights Watch echoed the report’s assertion that an “endemic culture of impunity” was prevalent, and that governments and their aid donors must address this.

Prosecution of Prajob’s suspected killers, Sunai said, was a “welcome rarity” in a country where investigations have been characterized by “half-hearted, inconsistent, and inefficient police work, and an unwillingness to tackle questions of collusion between political influences and interests and these killings of activists.”

“The convicted tend to have lowest levels of responsibility, such as the getaway car driver. The level of impunity is glaring,” he said.

After Prajob’s murder, villagers lived in fear but in the end decided to sue the illegal dumpers and landfill owners, said the victim’s brother, Jon Noawa-opas.

“Prajob’s death has led us to fight for justice in this town,” he said. “We can be disheartened and we were, but we also know that we have to do the right thing for our community.”

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WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama is once again faced with the complicated reality of following through on his tough warnings against overseas provocations as the White House asserts that Russia is stoking instability in eastern Ukraine.

Obama has vowed repeatedly to enact biting sanctions against Russia's vital economic sectors if the Kremlin tries to replicate its actions in Crimea, the peninsula it annexed from Ukraine, elsewhere in the former Soviet republic. Despite those warnings, Russian President Vladimir Putin appears to be testing Obama's limits, instigating protests in eastern Ukraine, the White House says, and massing tens of thousands of troops on the border, but so far stopping short of a full-scale military incursion.

"They have been willing to do things to provoke the situation that no one anticipated," Matthew Rojansky, a regional analyst at the Wilson Center, said of Russia. "It's such a high-stakes, high-risk situation, and here they are right in the middle of it."

For Obama, the U.S. response to the chaos in Ukraine has become more than a test of his ability to stop Russia's advances. It's also being viewed through the prism of his decision last summer to back away from his threat to launch a military strike when Syria crossed his chemical weapons "red line" — a decision that has fed into a narrative pushed by Obama's critics that the president talks tough, but doesn't follow through.

While there has been no talk of "red lines" when dealing with Putin, Obama has said repeatedly that the Kremlin's advances into eastern Ukraine would be a "serious escalation" of the conflict that would warrant broad international sanctions on the Russian economy. But perhaps trying to avoid another Syria scenario, White House officials have carefully avoided defining what exactly would meet Obama's definition of a "serious escalation," even as they make clear that they believe Russia is fomenting the violence in cities throughout Ukraine's vital industrial east.

"We are actively evaluating what is happening in eastern Ukraine, what actions Russia has taken, what transgressions they've engaged in," White House spokesman Jay Carney said Monday. "And we are working with our partners and assessing for ourselves what response we may choose."

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Ukrainian Army troops receive munitions at a field on the outskirts of Izyum, Eastern Ukraine, Tuesd …

As with the situation in Syria, Obama faces few good options as he watches Russia destabilize Ukraine, the former Soviet republic that has sought greater ties with Europe.

There's little appetite in either the U.S. or Europe for direct military action, and the White House said Monday it was not actively considering sending Ukraine lethal assistance. That's left Obama and his international partners largely reliant on economic and diplomatic retaliation.

The president has wielded some of his available options since the situation in Ukraine devolved in late February, but those actions so far have had little success in stopping Russian advances.

Obama's initial warning that Putin would face "costs" if he pressed into Crimea was largely brushed aside by the Russian leader, who went so far as to formally annex the peninsula from Ukraine. Economic sanctions on several of Putin's closest associates followed, as did Russia's suspension from the exclusive Group of Eight economic forum, but neither appears to have discouraged Moscow from making a play for eastern Ukraine.

On Friday, the U.S. slapped sanctions on more individuals connected to the Crimea takeover, and White House officials are weighing another round of targeted penalties against additional Russian and Ukrainian citizens.

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Map of Ukraine (130x115 mm) (AFP Photo/S.Ramis/A.Bommenel, pld/jfs)

But tens of thousands of troops massed on Russia's border with eastern Ukraine, Obama is facing calls from some Republicans to take tougher action now. Tennessee Sen. Bob Corker, the top Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, sent Obama a letter over the weekend calling on the administration to immediately ratchet up economic penalties against Moscow.

"Rather than wait for a Russian invasion of eastern Ukraine to implement additional sanctions, which seems to be U.S. policy at the moment, we must take action now that will prevent this worst-case scenario before it becomes a reality," Corker wrote.

Privately, some of Obama's advisers are also pushing for more robust penalties now to serve as a deterrent against a full-on Russian military incursion. But questions remain about Europe's commitment to take the kind of coordinated action that would stand the best chance of changing Putin's calculus.

Europe has a far deeper economic relationship with Russia than the U.S., meaning its sanctions would hurt Moscow more. But leaders on the still economically shaky continent fear that the impact of those sanctions could boomerang and hurt their own countries just as much.

European foreign ministers met Monday to debate whether additional sanctions should be enacted on Russia. A high-ranking European Union official said they did decide to sanction more Russians with asset freezes and visa bans, but they appeared to stop well short of targeting Russia's broader economy.

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Follow Julie Pace at http://twitter.com/jpaceDC

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Putin's latest test for Obama

The president faces the reality of following through on threats made in response to Russia's actions in Ukraine.
'High-risk situation'

IZYUM, Ukraine (AP) — Busloads of Ukrainian troops and a handful of tanks set up Tuesday outside an eastern city controlled by armed pro-Russian militiamen as the country's acting president announced an "anti-terrorist operation" to root out the separatists.

Much of the focus Tuesday was around the eastern city of Slovyansk, 160 kilometers (100 miles) from the Russian border, which has come under the increasing control of the gunmen who seized it last weekend.

An Associated Press reporter saw at least 14 armored personnel carriers with Ukrainian flags, one helicopter and military trucks parked 40 kilometers (24 miles) north of the city. Other heavy military equipment appeared nearby, along with at least seven busloads of government troops in black military fatigues.

"We are awaiting the order to move on Sloyvansk," said one soldier, who gave only his first name, Taras.

Two of the helicopters loaded with troops later took off and headed toward Slovyansk.

Russia's state RIA Novosti news agency reported that Ukrainian army troops wounded two pro-Russian militiamen Tuesday during a skirmish near a small airport in Kramatorsk, not far from Slovyansk. The report could not independently be confirmed.

RIA Novosti said the troops drove to the airport n an armored personnel carrier, started talking to the gunmen who control the site and a skirmish broke out. It did not elaborate.

The armed pro-Russian militias are occupying government, police and other administrative buildings in at least nine cities in Ukraine's Russian-speaking east of the country, demanding broader autonomy and closer ties with Russia. The central government has so far been unable to rein in the insurgents, and many local security forces have switched to their side.

Prior to the reported government offensive, roads into Slovyansk were dotted Tuesday with militia checkpoints, at least one with a Russian flag. Another bore a sign "If we don't do it, nobody will."

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Ukrainian Army troops receive munitions at a field on the outskirts of Izyum, Eastern Ukraine, Tuesd …

And the threat the Ukrainian military posed to the highly organized, pro-Russian insurgents was unclear. One video posted online late Monday showed a hapless Ukrainian tank stuck in the mud in a field reportedly outside Slovyansk. Residents chased it on foot, shouting "Who are you going to fire at?"

The government in Kiev, the capital, for days has been promising to deploy troops to root out the armed separatists, but until Tuesday there was little visible action.

Russia itself still has tens of thousands of troops massed along Ukraine's eastern border. Western governments accuse Moscow of fueling the unrest in eastern Ukraine and worry that any bloodshed could be used as a pretext for a Russian invasion, in a repeat of events in Crimea a few weeks ago.

Russia annexed Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula after seizing it last month following the ouster of Ukraine's pro-Russian president in February.

Backing up its claims that Russia was behind the unrest, Ukraine's security services on Tuesday identified one of the leaders of the pro-Russian operation in Slovyansk as a Russian foreign intelligence agent named Igor Strelkov. It said Strelkov also coordinated Russian troops in Crimea during the seizure of military facilities there.

In a phone call Monday, Russian President Vladimir Putin urged President Barack Obama to discourage the Ukrainian government from using force against protesters in the country's east.

A wave of sit-ins, meanwhile, has hit the eastern city of Horlivka, where a police station was seized Monday by unidentified gunmen. Outside the station, a sign pinned to a barricade of tires listed items required by protesters, including blankets, drinking water and tape to cover up windows smashed during the storming.

Anatoly Zhurov, a 53-year-old Horlivka resident, said the insurgents' goal was to resist the government in Kiev.

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Map of Ukraine (130x115 mm) (AFP Photo/S.Ramis/A.Bommenel, pld/jfs)

Elsewhere, the Interior Ministry said a police station in the eastern city of Kramatorsk that had been seized by pro-Russian gunmen was "liberated" Tuesday.

Ukraine's acting president, Oleksandr Turchynov, gave few details of the "anti-terrorist operation" to the parliament in Kiev, saying only that it would be conducted in a "responsible and balanced" manner. He blamed Russia for sponsoring the camouflage-wearing insurgents, who are often armed and move with a precision unlikely for local militia.

"(Russia wants) the whole south and east of Ukraine to be engulfed by fire," Turchynov said, adding the government operation aimed to "defend the citizens of Ukraine, to stop terror, stop crime and stop attempts to tear our country into pieces."

Russia strongly warned Kiev against using force against the pro-Russian protesters, saying that could prompt Moscow to walk out of Thursday's international conference on Ukraine in Geneva.

"You can't send in tanks and at the same time hold talks. The use of force would sabotage the opportunity offered by the four-party negotiations in Geneva," Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Tuesday.

"Ukraine is on the verge of a civil war, it's horrible," Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said in Moscow, adding that Ukraine's government must talks with all segments of its population

In a sign that Ukraine's economic situation is becoming even more dire, its central bank increased its benchmark interest rate by a whopping 7 percent to 14.5 percent.

Ukraine has relied on cheap gas supplies from Russia for years. Moscow raised the gas prices for Kiev in the past weeks, leaving Ukraine scrambling to pay the mounting gas bills as well as past bills that Putin now says adds up to over $35 billion.

In the wake of Moscow's threats to cut off energy supplies to Ukraine, the German utility company RWE AG said Tuesday it has started supplying gas to Ukraine via Poland and could sell it up to 10 billion cubic meters of natural gas a year. Ukraine consumes between 52 and 55 billion cubic meters of gas a year.

In Kiev, two pro-Russian politicians were attacked by pro-Western activists as tensions mounted over unrest in the east.

Oleh Tsaryov, a pro-Russian lawmaker and a candidate in the May 25 presidential elections, was beaten by dozens of enraged activists early Tuesday as he was leaving a television studio. The activists pelted him with eggs, shouted insults and then assaulted him.

The Ukrainian Prosecutor General's Office said it has opened a probe into the attack — as well as a criminal case against Tsaryov's calls to "encroach on Ukraine's territorial integrity." The lawmaker has met with pro-Russian protesters in Donetsk.

Another Russian-leaning politician and presidential hopeful, Mikhaylo Dobkin, was hit by green disinfectant and flour late Monday.

Moscow has accused the Kiev authorities of condoning such radicalism and says attacks against pro-Russian candidates show that the presidential election will not be fair or democratic.

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Peter Leonard in Donetsk, Maria Danilova and Nataliya Vasilyeva in Kiev, and Christopher Bodeen in Beijing contributed to this report.

Kiev mobilizes its troops as part of an "anti-terrorist" campaign against pro-Russian separatists. Gunfire heard at airport »

'Five stabbed to death at Canada house party'

1 hour ago

Ottawa (AFP) - Five people died overnight in a stabbing rampage at a house party held to mark the end of university classes in the Canadian city of Calgary, local media said Tuesday.

Police were reportedly called around 1:30 am to a home in a quiet suburban neighborhood where paramedics found three people dead. Two more died in hospital.

Public broadcaster CBC said all of the victims -- four men and one woman -- were in their late teens or 20s.

A suspect has been arrested after a chase involving police dogs, CBC said.

The first total lunar eclipse of 2014