NGO WORK

Repression for land and profits

Published

4 years ago

October 24, 2022

Over the past five years, at least two people from rural communities have been killed weekly in the struggles against land grabs, based on estimates by the Pesticide Action Network Asia Pacific (PANAP). More than eight are arrested and detained weekly, and more than two are harassed or assaulted.

On Sept. 2, Nigerian security forces and police arrived on a boat in the village of Agbede. They fired in the air to scatter the villagers and then burned at least nine houses.

On June 15, a violent confrontation between the Paraguay police and farmers in the town of Edelira ended with the killing of Édgar Centurión, a local farmer.

On June 12, the police arrested 91 people, including several members of a local peasant group, in Hacienda (a large estate or plantation) Tinang in a Philippine province. Eighty-three were detained and charged with trumped-up cases of illegal assembly and obstruction of justice, among others.

Systematic attacks

These attacks on rural communities are not isolated incidents of violence. They form part of the systematic repression of peasants fighting land grabs by big foreign corporations and the local elite.

The Agbede case, for instance, is tied to the ongoing land conflict between the local people and the Okomu Oil Palm Company (OOPC). The people claim that OOPC grabbed their lands and blocked their villages’ only public road. OOPC is a unit of the Socfin Group, a Luxembourg-based palm oil and rubber plantation operator notorious for its ruthless methods against local communities. Aside from Nigeria, Socfin units operate in Cameroon, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Côte d’Ivoire, and Cambodia, among others.

Meanwhile, a land dispute between some 80 farming families and an agro-livestock firm is the backdrop of Centurión’s killing. Armed with shotguns, the local police destroyed the homes and crops of the settlement where Centurión lived to clear the land for the company. When the farmers resisted, the police opened fire, resulting in the 29-year-old farmer’s death.

The mass arrests in Hacienda Tinang happened amid a nearly three-decade dispute over 200 hectares of land between 236 peasant beneficiaries of the government’s land reform program and an influential political clan, which includes the incumbent town mayor. The farmers and their supporters were doing a collective farming activity as part of the assertion of their right to the disputed land when the police dispersed and arrested them.

Two killings a week

Over the past five years, at least two individuals from rural communities have been killed weekly in struggles against land grabbing, based on estimates by the PAN Asia Pacific (PANAP). More than eight are arrested and detained, and more than two are harassed or assaulted weekly.

Under its No Land, No Life! campaign, PANAP has been monitoring cases of human rights violations (HRVs) against farmers, farm workers, indigenous people, and land activists. From January 2017 to the latest available data (as of Oct. 20, 2022), PANAP has monitored 417 cases of killings that resulted in 610 deaths. Of the victims, 238 or 39 percent were farmers.

During the same period, there were 260 cases of arrests and detention, with 2,565 victims, and farmers comprised 45 percent of the total. For threats, harassment, and assault, PANAP has monitored 127 cases with 719 victims, of whom 60 percent were farmers.

As the village of Agbede, the farming settlement in Edelira, and Hacienda Tinang show, these numbers represent the lives and aspirations of rural peoples violently crushed by powerful forces with vested interests in their lands.

More alarming is that, as these particular cases of political repression against peasants show, state forces are often involved. Of the land conflict-related human rights abuses where reports or accounts identified the perpetrators, the police, military, and state-sanctioned paramilitary groups were implicated in 133 cases of killings, 258 cases of arrests and detention, and 49 cases of threats, harassment, and assault.

Greater unrest amid crises

Peasant repression in the context of land conflicts and struggles is a global phenomenon that intensifies amid the worsening crises of the world economy and politics, hunger and food insecurity, and climate and environment.

As global monopoly capitalism navigates its latest bout with an economic crisis lingering since 2008, the world’s wealthiest capitalists are looking for ways to protect their investments and make more money. The financialization of the global economy allows them to turn to assets such as farmlands, even when the likes of giant property holder BlackRock or mega-billionaire Bill Gates have no interest in producing food or engaging in agriculture but merely hedge their other investments or squeeze profits from the land’s value and rent. Through various financial firms, Gates has amassed almost 98,000 hectares of farmlands in the US alone, worth more than USD 690 million.

These financial groups and the capital they manage and represent invest in massive corporate plantations that concentrate lands, displace farmers, and commit violence against rural communities. For example, BlackRock and JP Morgan, along with other financial firms, have almost USD 13 billion in palm oil investments globally. Through his capital management firms, Gates also invests in palm oil, which one study shows is the commodity most exposed to land grabs.

These giant corporations even use the climate crisis they caused to justify more land concentration. They peddle so-called nature-based solutions (NBS) to address the climate crisis, such as through investments in biofuels, green finance, carbon credits, ecotourism, profit-driven conservation, and large-scale infrastructure supposedly for renewable energy.

PANAP has compiled 32 cases of NBS (ongoing or planned), which cover almost four million hectares, to highlight the extent of land grabbing and mass displacement among rural communities worldwide due to the supposed climate actions of monopoly corporations and their local agents. In just five of the NBS projects compiled from Cambodia, India, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Tanzania, the number of displaced or potentially displaced farmers and indigenous people could reach almost 300,000.

Land concentration is already very severe. In its 2020 report, the International Land Coalition noted that while small-scale farmers run 80 percent of farms, the largest one percent of farming enterprises manage more than 70 percent of farmlands worldwide.

With the wave of more monopoly capital pouring into farmlands through financialization and greenwashing, such concentration can only get even more intense in the coming years and fuel greater rural unrest. (RVO)

Original Source: Farm Land Grab

NGO WORK

EU: IPI welcomes action against 14 states over Anti-SLAPP Directive delays

Published

12 hours ago

July 27, 2026

witnessradio.org

EU states must introduce robust measures to protect journalists and media from vexatious litigation

The International Press Institute (IPI) today welcomes the infringement proceedings initiated by the European Commission against 14 EU Member States over their inaction or delays in transposing the Anti-SLAPP Directive.

The countries included are Austria, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia and Spain.

The EU infringement proceedings were initiated on 15 July, with letters of formal notice sent to these Member States for failing to notify about progress made in implementing the Directive. States now have two months to respond and update about measures taken or could eventually face legal action at the European Court of Justice.

The Anti-SLAPP Directive introduced EU-wide rules which protect journalists and civil society actors from manifestly unfounded or abusive civil proceedings with cross-border implications, including early dismissal tools and remedies for targets of SLAPPs. It was adopted in April 2024 and the transposition deadline was 7 May 2026.

Monitoring by IPI shows that while in some of the countries identified, such as Greece and Spain, steps have been taken to prepare for the transposition and bills are actively in development and reportedly close to being presented to or adopted by parliament.

In others such as Bulgaria and Portugal, initial work done to develop legislation has been delayed by institutional changes, changes in governments or political instability, though transposition work remains ongoing.

In other states, such as Italy and Hungary, little to no measurable progress has yet been made on transposition. However, with the new Tisza government in Hungary driving forward media freedom reforms, there is hope the new administration will introduce initial anti-SLAPP measures in the next legislative package identified for the autumn.

While Ireland has been actively working to tackle SLAPPs through legal reforms, and passed the Defamation Bill in 2024, further legislation is required to fully transpose the Anti-SLAPP Directive during its Presidency of the Council of the EU.

Although these 14 countries have been identified in the EU action, monitoring and analyses show that the overall picture for implementation of the Directive across the EU remains fragmented and uneven.

According to the European Anti-SLAPP Monitor, almost all EU Member States missed the May 2026 transposition deadline, with only a handful fully implementing on time.

IPI notes that even in those Member States where the Directive was implemented, such as Malta, these reforms only included minimum standards protecting against cross-border cases, and failed to include measures to safeguard against domestic SLAPPs.

In the wake of the EU’s opening of initial infringement action, IPI renews our call – made previously with Media Freedom Rapid Response (MFRR) partners – for Member States to demonstrate their commitment to media freedom by accelerating their legislative processes in protecting against SLAPPs. This includes the 14 countries identified by the EU Commission and those in which reforms have been presented but not yet adopted.

Crucially, legislative reforms should both fully reflect both the letter and the spirit of the Anti-SLAPP Directive and introduce the substantive and procedural safeguards set out in the EU and Council of Europe Recommendation on SLAPPs.

A model here should be Poland, where last month the President approved a law which covers both domestic and cross-border SLAPPs, ensuring implementation of both EU Directive and Council of Europe Recommendation.

Member States which continue to delay or fail to transpose the directive should face legal action from the Commission, which must use all tools at its disposal to help safeguard media freedom across the bloc.

IPI, which has advocated at the EU and national level for measures to protect journalists and media from SLAPPs, will continue to monitor implementation in collaboration with European partners, including through MFRR media freedom missions.

Source: ipi.media/

NGO WORK

No Heritage Without its People: Why Ngorongoro Cannot be a World Heritage Site and an Eviction Zone

Published

1 week ago

July 20, 2026

witnessradio.org

The Tanzanian government, under the guise of “conservation,” restricts Maasai livelihoods and denies access to essential services forcing Indigenous residents away from their ancestral lands and turning their heritage into a playground for safari tourists.

As the 48th Session of the World Heritage Committee begins July 19, UNESCO continues to legitimize the continued forced displacement of the Maasai from Ngorongoro. If UNESCO cannot ensure that the World Heritage designation protects the rights of its Indigenous custodians, then the Committee must remove the Ngorongoro Conservation Area from the World Heritage List.

Increased international pressure is imperative to hold UNESCO accountable and protect the lives and rights of the Maasai!

Read our Open Letter to the World Heritage Committee.

Source: oaklandinstitute.org

NGO WORK

Rush: Global Scramble for Minerals Wages War on People and Planet

Published

2 weeks ago

July 15, 2026

witnessradio.org

As governments and corporations scramble to secure critical minerals, a new Oakland Institute report exposes the forces fueling today’s unprecedented mining boom. RUSH: Global Scramble for Minerals Wages War on People and Planet dismantles the dominant narrative that massive amounts of minerals are needed for the energy transition, revealing instead a potent convergence of political, military, and corporate interests racing to control the resources that underpin modern warfare and artificial intelligence.

“Securing access to critical minerals is reshaping international relations and foreign aid as competition between the US and China becomes a new geopolitical battleground,” said Anuradha Mittal, Executive Director of the Oakland Institute. “The costs are being borne by communities around the world as this global race drives wars and violence, results in land grabs, forced displacement, devastating pollution, and the irreversible destruction of lands and livelihoods,” Mittal continued.

With the Pentagon shifting towards an “AI-first” warfighting stance, the US military-industrial complex is rapidly integrating tech and AI firms with a mutual interest in locking down critical mineral supplies. The report exposes key players positioned to profit from a resource boom already drawing trillions in investment. These include ventures tied to the Trump family, billionaire-backed outfits such as KoBold Metals, an AI-driven mining firm supported by Bill Gates, and defense-tech companies like Palantir and Anduril, among others.

To justify a massive scale up of mineral extraction, governments, corporations, and international financial institutions like the World Bank, frame critical minerals as indispensable to the green transition and as a pathway to prosperity for the Global South. However, RUSH documents that more than 70 percent of critical mineral demand today comes from industries unrelated to the energy transition, including the automotive, aerospace, military, communications, and technology sectors. Rapid growth in artificial intelligence, data centers, surveillance technologies, and military spending is expected to increase this demand massively.

“Renewable energy deployment, such as wind and solar, requires only a fraction of the minerals that corporations plan to extract in the coming decades,” said Andy Currier, Oakland Institute Policy Analyst and report co-author. “But growing military demand and stockpiling of materials like copper, lithium, nickel, and cobalt will undermine the energy transition, diverting critical resources away from urgently needed climate solutions,” Currier continued.

RUSH warns that the acceleration of resource extraction poses a catastrophic threat to both ecosystems and human survival. In response, Indigenous groups and frontline communities are leading a vital, global resistance to defend their territories. It is, however, undermined by a dangerous myth that expanding extraction is necessary to fix the climate crisis.

“The report issues a resounding call to challenge this false narrative to stop the untenable rush for minerals before it becomes an irreversible global catastrophe,” warned Oakland Institute Policy Director and report co-author, Frederic Mousseau. “The stakes could not be higher. If left unchecked, the global mining rush will trigger hundreds of new mines in a short period. The resulting human and planetary devastation will be at a scale never seen before – livelihoods will be destroyed, millions will be displaced, and environmental destruction will become irreversible,” concluded Mousseau.

Read the report

Source: oaklandinstitute.org