The Americas Policy Group (APG) held its general meeting on October 1 & 2, 2018 at the offices of Development and Peace in Montreal, where 35 members from 25 organizations attended. Throughout and after the meeting the APG decisively moved towards focusing its lens on impunity and human rights issues. Country level calls were undertaken following the meeting, leading to the APG to engaging advocacy priorities in Canada.

Notably participants engaged around the issue of leadership changes in Latin America, mainly in México, Colombia, Brazil, through taught provoking presentations by Pierre Beaudet, sociologist and professor of the UQO (Université du Québec en Outaouais), Alejandro Álvarez Béjar, socio-economist and professor of the UNAM (National Autonomous University of Mexico), and Luz Caicedo, Assistant Director and Co-Founder of Corporación Humanas—Colombia.

A discussion was also held on how we can advance our advocacy priorities in Canada with strategic insights from Emily Dwyer, Coordinator of the Canadian Network on Corporate Accountability (CNCA), Rachel Vincent, APG-co-chair and Director of Advocacy and Media at Nobel Women’s Initiative and Beth Woroniuk, Policy Lead at The MATCH Fund.

Finally, members strategized on how to best fight against impunity and for human rights in Mesoamerica with direct input from partners on the ground, including Félix Molina, Honduran radio journalist, Sandra Morán, Member of the Congress of the Republic of Guatemala and Luis Mejia Godoy, a well know singer-composer and social activist from Nicaragua.

A high level delegation of 3 Colombian social leaders will be in Canada from October 25 to November 9, 2018.  These leaders represent the Buenaventura Civic Strike Committee in Colombia’s principal Pacific port city.

In 2017, social organizations launched a remarkable three-week civic strike that forced the Colombian government to negotiate solutions to the city’s social and human rights crisis. Residents literally shut down Colombia’s most important trade route.

The strike won important concessions from the 3 levels government to improve community infrastructure and the collective rights and safety of the inhabitants. Yet threats against the community leaders continue to grow exponentially as plans to expand and modernize the port continue. While the Colombian government signed peace agreements in the autumn of 2017, violence against Indigenous and AfroColombian peoples continues throughout the country.

Canada signed the Canada-Colombia Free Trade Agreement in 2008.

Members of the delegation include:

• Maria Miyela Riascos: spokesperson for the Buenaventura Civic Strike Committee. In February 2018, she became one of several strike leaders to receive death threats.
• Victor Hugo Vidal: spokesperson for the Buenaventura Civic Strike Committee, former municipal councillor and an organizer of the Black Communities Process (PCN).
• Olga Araujo: human rights defender and popular educator for the Association for Social Research and Action (Nomadesc).

The delegation will be in the following cities:

• Regina, Saskatchewan – October 25-26, 2018
• Vancouver, British Colombia – October 27-30, 2018
• Ottawa, Ontario – October 31-November 3, 2018
• Montreal Quebec – November 4-6, 2018
• Toronto Ontario – November 7-9, 2018

The delegation is sponsored by the Americas Policy Group of the Canadian Council for International Cooperation (CCIC), Amnesty International (Canada), CoDevelopment Canada, Comité des droits humains en Amérique Latine (CDHAL), Canadian Union of Public Employees, Canadian Union of Postal Workers, Common Frontiers, InterPares, KAIROS, Public Service Alliance of Canada, Steelworkers Humanity Fund.

The Americas Policy Group (APG) welcomes in Canada Secretary-Designate Olga Sánchez Cordero, who will head the Secretaría de Gobernación of the New Mexican government of Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO). AMLO and its Cabinet will take office on December 1st.

Rachel Vincent and Steve Stewart, Co-chairs of the APG, on behalf of its entire membership, sent Secretary-Designate Sánchez a letter pointing out key issues for the New Mexican government and the future of the Canada-Mexico relationship.

Particularly, as eyes focus on the thousands of people now on the move to escape desperate circumstances in Honduras, the APG underscores in the letter the right to asylum for those in need of international protection and call for guarantees that no one is illegally returned to situations where they could risk serious harm due to violence.

The letter is available on its English and Spanish version below.

Download English version of the letter here.

[pdf-embedder url=”https://staging.cooperation.ca/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/APG-letter-to-Secretary-Designated-Sanchez-with-enclosure.pdf” title=”APG letter to Secretary Designated Sanchez with enclosure”]

Download Spanish version of the letter here.

[pdf-embedder url=”https://staging.cooperation.ca/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/APG-letter-to-Secretary-Designated-Sanchez-Spanish-with-enclosure.pdf” title=”APG letter to Secretary Designated Sanchez Spanish with enclosure”]