New Internationalist – September 2019

In the News

WHO KNEW?

Governments are switching

off the internet with

increasing regularity,

according to the #KeepItOn

campaign. The internet was

shut down nearly 200 times

around the world in 2018 –

almost double the number

in 2017. Motives range from

masking state violence in

Sudan to stopping students

cheating during national

exams in Iraq and Algeria.

REASONS TO BE CHEERFUL

DOCKERS UNITE

Workers have been

bringing the moral

bankruptcy of

governments into

sharp relief by

disrupting the

arms trade. In

June 2019,

Marseilles

dockers

blocked a

shipment on suspicion that

a Saudi shipping container

was carrying ammunition

destined for the Kingdom’s

devastating war on Yemen.

Members of the CGT

union issued a statement:

they would never ship

‘any weapons or arms

whatsoever, for whatever

war they may be destined’.

It’s the second blow to

Saudi belligerence after UK

courts ruled arms sales to the

Kingdom unlawful in July.

Marseilles workers

weren’t alone in their

anti-war commitments. In

May, dockers in Genoa, Italy,

refused to load any military

equipment onto a Saudi

cargo ship.

LAMU BREATHES

After a three-year long

campaign to block the

building of Kenya’s first

coal-powered energy plant,

the country’s National

Environmental Tribunal

sided with activists and

denied a licence to would-be

developer Amu Power.

Officials said the Chinese-

backed project (profiled in

NI 515) failed to conduct a

BRAZIL

AT LOGGERHEADS

In May 2019, three per cent
of the dense rainforests that
make up the Jamanxim
National Forest in Pará, a
state in northern Brazil,
was razed by illegal loggers.
The area’s legal protections
have, until now, deterred the
most egregious logging. But
valuable hardwoods are being
felled at whirlwind pace, with
land cleared for cattle and soy.
The invasion left wastelands
twice the size of Paris in a
single month.
In the neighbouring Amapà
state in July, around 50
wildcat goldminers dressed in
military-style clothing entered
indigenous lands, where
1,200 people live in villages.
When they met 68-year-old
community leader Emyra
Wajãpi, they stabbed him to
death and left his body in a
river.
Brazilian newspapers have
implicated far-right President
Jair Bolsonaro’s plans to
legalize mining in Pará’s
reserves, and his general
cheerleading of mineral
extraction, for creating the
conditions in which these
violent incursions take place.
Local leftwing Senator
Randolfe Rodrigues said it
was the first ‘violent invasion’
of Amapà indigenous land

in three decades and called

Bolsonaro ‘responsible’ for

the killing. Bolsonaro briefed

reporters that there was no

evidence of murder, contrary

to earlier official reports.

According to images from

government satellites, Brazil

is losing forest at a faster rate

than any time in the last 10

years. Rainstorms during the

first half of the year slowed

incursions into the Amazon,

but the start of the dry season

brought a new phase of violent

skirmishes.

Bolsonaro has come up

against constitutional

obstacles as he has tried

to make law from blunt

campaign promises to open

up protected lands. In June,

he accused the Congress of

turning him into a ‘Queen of

England’ – a figurehead with

no real power – for curbing

his power to rule by decree.

Congress blocked attempts to

transfer the control of forest

reserves from the indigenous

agency FUNAI (The National

Indian Foundation) to the

pro-industry Ministry of

Agriculture, after Supreme

Court judges challenged the

legitimacy of the president’s

decree.

But those on the ground are

already fearful and exposed.

And FUNAI, the government

agency that enforces

protections, has been hobbled

by funding cuts of more than

40 per cent.

‘Environmental defenders,

especially indigenous

peoples who are defending

their territories, will face

even more serious threats

and violence if Bolsonaro

gives unregulated freedom

to investors who want to

exploit indigenous lands and

waters,’ says Victoria Tauli-

Corpuz, UN rapporteur for

Indigenous Peoples. The

stabbing of Emyra Wajãpi, she

said, ‘demonstrates the level

of impunity which can be

foreseen’.

MATTHEW PONSFORD

thorough assessment of the

plant’s impact on Lamu, an

archipelago in the country’s

northeast and UNESCO

heritage site.

For now, Lamu residents

are spared toxic air pollution,

further damage to the fragile

marine ecosystem and

polluting energy for decades

to come.

LET THERE BE LIGHT

A rural community in Bosnia-

Herzegovina is pioneering

the country’s first solar

energy co-operative after

raising $6,000 for ‘Solarna

Pecka’.

It’s another welcome

experiment in public

ownership: residents

will own the energy they

produce, which will flow from

solar panels on the roof of a

former school.

Local campaigners

stressed that the project is

a positive alternative to the

construction of the destruc-

tive Medna hydropower

plant on the nearby Sana

River – two birds, one stone.

HUSNA RIZVI

SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2019 13

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