Atlantic Regional Solidarity Network Annual Gathering 2013!

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Atlantic Regional Solidarity Network Annual Gathering

November 29, 30, and December 1, 2013

If you are interested in issues that affect Latin America and the Caribbean, this is the gathering for you. Activists and interested participants from around the Maritimes gather to meet, network, plan and strategize on issues in these regions and explore what is going on, how we are affected and what we can do about it. It’s a great weekend to find ways to get connected with global solidarity and social change. 

This year's theme is Media in the Global Economy: Corporate Media, Human Rights Defenders, and Growing Alternatives. We will be exploring the mass media’s role in shaping perceptions and politics, how it is affecting the work of human rights defenders in Latin America as well as looking into the role that alternative media plays in struggles both here and in Latin America. We will be welcoming Haitian writer and activist Jean St. Vil as well as investigative journalist Dawn Paley as resource people throughout the weekend, and a full agenda for the weekend will follow soon. 

Please mark the dates on your calendar and join us! All are welcome!

The last day to register is November 15^th, 2013, but bursaries are limited so apply early!

 

For more information or to register, please contact Kirk Morrison at kirkus_morrison(at)hotmail.com.

The Atlantic Regional Solidarity Network (ARSN) Stands in Solidarity with Indigenous and Settler Peoples United Against Fracking in New Brunswick

The Atlantic Regional Solidarity Network (ARSN) is a network of people and organizations in Atlantic Canada who work in solidarity with the people of Latin America and the Caribbean according to their wishes and needs in the struggle for self-determination, peace and justice. ARSN is committed to working for changes in Canada which will be beneficial that struggle. This includes supporting the struggles of Indigenous nations and other communities in Canada in their defence of their territory and the earth for the benefit of all.

The Atlantic Regional Solidarity Network stands in solidarity with Elsipogtog Mi'kmaq First Nation and the grassroots Indigenous people of Wabanaki as they assert their legal Aboriginal rights and responsibilities to their traditional territory and resources by opposing shale gas exploration, and supports the coalition of Mi’Kmaq, Maliseet, Passamaquoddy, Acadian and other Maritimers gathered around the Sacred Fire in Kent County, New Brunswick engaged in non-violent defence of Mother Earth.

ARSN calls on Canada and New Brunswick to recognize and respect Indigenous rights to self-determination, including the right of Indigenous peoples to free, prior and informed consent regarding all decisions that affect them, their territories, and resources. We also condemn federal and provincial government’s failure to respect and adhere to the Aboriginal and Treaty rights of Indigenous communities in Canada, the criminalization of non-violent defenders that has taken place to date, and the unequal application of the law to indigenous peoples opposed to shale gas exploration in New Brunswick.

July 6, 2013

http://arsncanada.blogspot.ca/

Action Request: Help Spread the Truth about Honduras

Please read this brief update and action request below from the Friendship Office.

Suggestion for Canadian action:

Take a moment to call or write to your MP (to find out your MP's contact information, go to http://www.parl.gc.ca/Parlinfo/Compilations/HouseOfCommons/MemberByPostalCode.aspx?Menu=HOC) and:

- Express your concern over these recent killings, for the campesino communities that Mr. Trejos represented, and for the lives of all who work for truth and human rights in Honduras, and ask what the Canadian government is doing to protect human rights defenders in Honduras.

- Ask your MP to contact Minister of State for the Americas Diane Ablonczy and urge Canada to publicly suspend all political and economic support for Special Development Regions (known as "Charter" or "Model" Cities) in Honduras, which have been linked to recent attacks.

- Add your own concerns!

If you e-mail your MP please Cc:
-Minister of State for the Americas Diane Ablonczy Ablonczy.D@parl.gc.ca
-Foreign Affairs Critic for the Official Opposition Paul Dewar paul.dewar@parl.gc.ca
-Human Rights Critic for the Official Opposition Wayne Marston wayne.marston@parl.gc.ca

                      

September 27, 2012 

                                                                                                   

Dear Friends,  

We write at this moment to ask for your help. Those who struggle in defense of human rights in Honduras, already shaken by months of relentless violence, are now reeling from the recent murders of two prominent human rights lawyers.

On September 22, Antonio Trejo-Cabrera, a courageous attorney representing peasant groups in land conflicts in the Aguán region of Honduras, was gunned down. Trejos had recently presented a constitutional challenge to the highly contested "model cities" venture advanced by corporate investors and the Honduran government. Trejo planned to travel to Washington D.C. in coming weeks to testify at the Inter American Commission on Human Rights with peasant leaders. He had received death threats in the months leading up to his killing.

Two days later, Manuel Díaz-Mazariegos, a public prosecutor with the human rights division of the Attorney General's office, was gunned down. In 2008, Díaz Mazariego had participated in a hunger strike against corruption and for transparency in the Attorney General's office.

In response to the murders, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights in Geneva stated:

"There is a menacing climate of insecurity and violence in Honduras, and human rights defenders have been targets of threats, harassment, physical assault and murder. The impunity that surrounds these violations is unacceptable. When the perpetrators know they are very likely to get off scot-free, there is nothing to deter them from killing off more of the country's finest human rights defenders."

Bertha Oliva of COFADEH (Committee of the Victims of the Detained and Disappeared of Honduras) issued an urgent plea to the international community:

"They want to paralyze us by picking us off piece by piece. I continue to trust in the people of Honduras, because they are wise. The people keep walking, demanding. It is clear where the repression comes from and who the repressors are. To stop us they will have to kill all of us. International solidarity to spread the truth about what is happening in Honduras will be key in this situation."

On October 3, 2012, the Commission of Truth will release its final report on the 2009 coup d'état and the crisis it has unleashed. Presentations will be made in three cities in Honduras.

You can also help "spread the truth about what is happening in Honduras."   Take a moment to call your member of Congress: (To find the name of your Representative in the U.S. Congress, go to http://www.house.gov/.  The Congressional Switchboard # is 202-224-3121.)   

- Express your concern over these recent killings, for the campesino communities that Mr. Trejos represented, and for the lives of all who work for truth and human rights in Honduras

-Ask your member of Congress to contact Hillary Clinton at the U.S. State Department and urge the U.S. to SUSPEND ALL POLICE AND MILITARY AID TO HONDURAS.

Thank you for helping to spread the truth.

Jenny Atlee

Original action can be found here.

2012 ARSN AGM

SAVE THE DATE!!!

Atlantic Regional Solidarity Network Annual Gathering

November 9-11, 2012

If you are interested in issues that affect Latin America and the Caribbean, this is the gathering for you. Activists and interested participants from around the Maritimes gather to meet, network, plan and strategize on issues in these regions and explore what is going on, how we are affected and what we can do about it. It’s a great weekend to find ways to get connected with global solidarity and social change.

This year's theme is Movements: North and South. We will be exploring movements of resistance and creative alternatives in Latin America and in Canada. We will explore movements in defense of territory (against mining and drilling), defending the right to education, labour organizing, and local economic development initiatives.  A full agenda for the weekend will follow soon.

Please mark the dates on your calendar and join us! All are welcome!

For more information or to register, please contact Brian O'Neill at oneillnatural(at)gmail.com

NEW DEADLINE! Honduras: Human Rights Accompaniment Training, June 2012 in Atlantic Canada

PLEASE NOTE: PROAH accepts applications on an ongoing basis from individuals who have been trained for human rights accompaniment in the recent past with organizations familiar to PROAH who have extensive experience in accompaniment work in a comparable context and fulfill the rest of the requirements mentioned above and in this PDF. Previously-trained volunteers who are accepted would not be required to participate in the June training in Canada, but would still have to participate in a week long in-country orientation. In-country orientations are scheduled to take place approximately every 6 weeks in Tegucigalpa. Contact Jenny Atlee at jennya@friendshipamericas.org for upcoming orientation dates.

The next training opportunity for people qualified and interested in doing volunteer human rights accompaniment work with the Honduras Accompaniment Project / Proyecto de Acompañamiento internacional en Honduras (PROAH) will be held in collaboration with the Maritimes-Guatemala Breaking the Silence Network (BTS) in Nova Scotia, Canada, from June 24-27, 2012. This training is for individuals who have not be previously trained or worked as human rights accompaniers in a context comparable to PROAH's work in Honduras. Application deadline has been extended to April 30, 2012.

PROAH accompaniers are required to have fluency in Spanish, previous relevant experience in a Latin American context, commit to a minimum of 3 months accompaniment with the project (with a preference for 6 months to a year), participate in a human rights accompaniment training before leaving for Honduras, and participate in an in-country orientation in Honduras, prior to beginning their work with the project.

BTS has many years of successful experience training and supporting human rights accompaniers to work in Guatemala, and collaborated in a joint training with PROAH for the first time in June 2011. The training program is three nights and three days long and will be mostly in English with some sections in Spanish. The cost of the training is currently estimated at $535 CAD, plus your travel costs to and from Tatamagouche, Nova Scotia, though the training committee is currently fundraising to reduce those costs. We encourage people to seek support from a Honduras/Latin America solidarity committee, church, union, community group, student association, etc. in their area to help cover training costs. (If you feel that costs are a serious impediment to your participation in this training, please get in touch with Jenny at jennya@friendshipamericas.org as soon as possible – the Friendship Office cannot provide full support for training costs but can help you explore other options.)

After reading this PDF, if you are interested in participating in this training as preparation for accompaniment work with PROAH in Honduras, or your group or organization is interested in sponsoring a volunteer accompanier, please contact Jenny Atlee at jennya@friendshipamericas.org for an application form and more information.

Application deadline is now April 30th, 2012. Space is limited. Additional information regarding volunteering with the Honduras Accompaniment Project is available here.