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Kairos Times: June-July 2007. Vol. 6, #5
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| If any of you happens to see an injustice, you are no longer a spectator: you are a participant. And you have an obligation to do something. |
--June Callwood, rest in peace |
In this edition:
- Your invitation to KAIROS’ 2007 regional meetings!
- KAIROS calls for a National Strategy to Reduce Poverty in Canada
- The G8 fails the planet
- Coming together to call for mining regulation: KAIROS Partner Tour and Advocacy Day
- Climate Change: It's not going away! KAIROS to launch "Re-Energize" Campaign in Fall 2007
- KAIROS acts on behalf of victims in their lawsuit against Talisman Energy
- Update on the Campaign to Stop the Killings in the Philippines
- KAIROS to host migrants’ justice gatherings
- Raising the alarm in the DRC: Increasing violence and displacement in Eastern Congo
Your invitation to KAIROS’ 2007 regional meetings!
Interested in KAIROS or community-based social justice but don’t know how to take that first step? Make plans to come to our fall regional meetings.
Every fall the KAIROS grassroots network gathers to make plans for the coming year and to welcome anyone who wants to get involved with justice work. Whatever your background, age or faith, you’re most welcome to come to these retreat-style meetings. Just download the flyer at
http://www.kairoscanada.org/e/network/RegionalMeetingsFlyer_2007.pdf and get in touch with the contact people listed. Share it around! Travel costs and registration fee assistance are available so please don’t hesitate to ask.
For more information on the KAIROS network, contact Julie Graham, Education and Network coordinator, at 1 877 403 8933 x233
Top
of pageKAIROS calls for a National Strategy to Reduce Poverty in Canada
On May 30, 2007, KAIROS joined with five other national faith-based organizations in calling on federal political party leaders to include in their party platforms a commitment to develop and implement a strategy to reduce poverty in Canada. See http://www.kairoscanada.org/e/media/letters/ltrPMPovertyPlatform0706.pdf
In their joint letter to party leaders, the groups lament the persistence of poverty in Canada, and point to the success of poverty reduction strategies in both Ireland, where poverty has been reduced from 15% to 6.8%, and Quebec, which has achieved a 40% reduction in its child poverty rate since 2000.
Representatives of KAIROS, Citizens for Public Justice, the Commission on Justice and Peace of the Canadian Council of Churches, Street Level: the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada’s National Roundtable on Poverty and Homelessness, Campaign Against Child Poverty, and Faith and the Common Good plan to meet with officials from all parties in June.
The six organizations co-organized a “From Vision to Action” in November 2006, a national forum aimed at building a faith-based movement for a Canada without poverty.
Mark your calendars for October 17, when KAIROS, member churches and other groups will call for action on poverty. Resources for congregations and small groups will be available over the summer. In the meantime, take a look at the church-based group Micah Challenge’s Blow a Whistle on Poverty: http://www.micahchallenge.ca/whistle.htm
For more information, contact
Michael Polanyi, Canadian Social Development program coordinator,
at 1 877 403 8933 x237
The G8 fails the planet
KAIROS joined with some of Canada's leading environmental and international development organizations in issuing a strong call to Prime Minister Harper on climate change. In a letter signed by KAIROS, the Canada Climate Action Network, the David Suzuki Foundation, Greenpeace, and several other organizations, the Canadian government was asked to endorse a German proposal at the annual G8 meeting to limit global warming to as far below 2 degrees C as possible.
Despite global pressure for a strong statement with firm targets for emissions reductions, the final statement from the G8 promised only to "seriously consider" a proposal to halve emissions by 2050, in effect a commitment to continue talking about taking action, rather than any binding proposal. The Harper government has avoided setting firm targets on climate change and Canada's record in meeting its Kyoto commitments is among the worst of all Kyoto signatories.
KAIROS has made energy justice a major focus of its next four year program and will be launching a number of initiatives over the next year to reduce fossil fuel use in Canada. KAIROS energy justice work integrates work on climate change, energy and conflict, corporate responsibility and Aboriginal rights.
For the full text of the letter, http://www.kairoscanada.org/e/media/letters/ltrPMG8ClimateChange070604.pdf For further information, contact Dale Hildebrand, Team Leader for Human Rights and Peace-building and also Coordinator of the staff team working on energy justice, at 416-463-5312 ext. 235.
See KAIROS analysis of the G8’s June 2007 Summit at http://www.kairoscanada.org/e/media/statements/stmG8failsHumanity.asp and also http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=57&ItemID=13004 for an excellent commentary from a Southern perspective on the G8, climate change, and economics.
Coming together to call for mining regulation: KAIROS Partner Tour and Advocacy Days
On Monday, May 28, the work of our network, partners, and staff came together in a meeting on Parliament Hill when we presented Helena Guergis, Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs and International Trade, with almost 5000 copies of our "Counting on Water" action, which calls on our government to create binding legislation holding Canadian mining companies accountable for human rights and environmental abuses committed when they operate overseas.
This action was part of two weeks of public engagement across Canada, where we discussed what it means when a Canadian mining company comes to town in Mexico, the Philippines, Colombia, India, and throughout Africa. Partners, and KAIROS staff met with communities in Alberta, British Columbia, Ottawa and Montreal. They also gathered with church leaders in Ottawa to meet with politicians from all four parties, bureaucrats, and the media
The tour and the advocacy days in Ottawa tell us that while this issue is on the public agenda, there is still much to be done. Canada has yet to implement the recommendations of the recent Advisory Group Report of the National Roundtables on Corporate Social Responsibility and the Canadian Extractive Industry in Developing Countries. Put forward as a consensus from the mining industry and civil society, these recommendations, while not all that we hope to see, could be one concrete step towards binding legislation. If you haven't already done so, please take part in our urgent action on this topic: http://www.kairoscanada.org/e/urgent/uaRoundTableReport.asp
Many thanks to everyone who signed an action sheet, wrote a letter, or talked with their MP in the last year, and to the network members who hosted and attended events in Calgary, Red Deer, Grande Prairie, Kamloops, and Vancouver, and who tried valiantly in Parksville-Qualicum but were let down by aircraft failure!
We are grateful for the strong presence of partners Joan Carling and Chandu Claver of the Cordillera Peoples' Alliance in the Philippines, Rafael Epaiyu of the National Indigenous Organization of Colombia, Ana Maria Alvarado from Cerro de San Pedro, Mexico, Thabo Madihlaba from South Africa, and Ravi Rebbapragada of Mines, Minerals, and People in India. We regret that Hubert Masoka Tshiswaka from the Democratic Republic of Congo was unable to obtain a visa to undertake this important work. KAIROS also thanks the Bishop Sue Moxley from the Anglican Church of Canada, Archbishop Roger Ebacher of the Catholic Archdiocese of Gatineau, and United Church General Secretary Nora Sanders, for giving the strength of their and their churches' voices to the advocacy days.
For more information, contact Campaigns Coordinator Sara Stratton at 1-877-403-8933 x 241.
Climate Change: It's not going away, and we're going after it! KAIROS to launch "Re-Energize" Campaign in Fall 2007
Climate change is just one expression of how our addiction to oil is killing people and the planet. Our dependence on fossil fuels also deepens human rights abuses, creates conflict, and causes economic inequality. It doesn't have to be this way. There are alternatives. We can build a just and sustainable energy policy, beginning with our own lives. This fall, KAIROS launches Re-Energize: Time For A Carbon Sabbath, a three-year campaign for personal, community, and political change. We'll have loads of fun, engaging, and practical things to do as we strive together to change ourselves, change our churches, and change our world.
Want to get involved? Attend a KAIROS regional meeting this fall,
stay tuned to the KAIROS website, or contact
Campaigns Coordinator Sara Stratton at 1-877-403-8933 x 241.
KAIROS acts on behalf of victims in their lawsuit against Talisman Energy
Outraged by the Canadian government's intervention in the Presbyterian Church of Sudan's lawsuit against Talisman Energy, 14 Canadian law professors, 3 current and former MPs, and KAIROS submitted a brief in US court on June 8th urging the judges to allow the case to proceed See http://www.kairoscanada.org/e/countries/sudan/AMICIBrief.pdf for a copy.
Talisman is being sued by the plaintiffs for allegedly allowing Sudanese troops to use its oil facilities in southern Sudan to launch an ethnic-cleansing campaign in the late 1990s. The Canadian government is arguing that US courts do not have universal jurisdiction, even for crimes against humanity, war crimes and genocide, and that the case infringes on Canadian sovereignty. But their argument is inconsistent with both international and Canadian domestic law.
For example, Canada is currently prosecuting Désiré Munyaneza, a Rwandan, in a Montreal court for actions that took place in Rwanda during the genocide. In other words, the Canadian government acknowledges – in this case at least-- the existence of universal jurisdiction in relation to the worst violations of human rights.
At stake in the Talisman case and Canada’s response to it are critical questions of human rights and justice, including: Who holds corporations to account for violations of human rights? Where can victims seek redress when their rights are violated by a Canadian corporation operating outside the country?
KAIROS is calling for the government to withdraw its intervention and to allow the case to proceed. We are also calling for binding legislation to hold all Canadian companies operating overseas accountable to human rights and environmental standards. See more at: http://www.kairoscanada.org/e/corporate/mining/index.asp
To find out more, please email John Lewis, Program Coordinator for International Human Rights or phone at 416-463-5312 ext. 224.
Update on the Campaign to Stop the Killings in the Philippines
Over 850 people involved in human rights work have been murdered in the Philippines since 2001, and the situation is growing worse. In response to a request from partners in the Philippines, thousands of Canadians signed a petition calling on our government to intervene with the Philippines government to stop the killings—many of which have been traced back to groups associated with the Philippine military. At the end of May, the petitions were tabled in the House of Commons by a wide range of supportive MPs. See pages 18-20 of the Hansard (the federal government’s daily recording proceedings) for a partial record of petition presentations by MPs. http://www2.parl.gc.ca/content/hoc/House/391/Debates/160/HAN160-E.PDF
In addition to the tabling of the petitions, a multi-party press conference was also held on Parliament Hill in efforts to raise awareness about the deteriorating human rights situation in the Philippines, and the role the Canadian government should play in pressuring the government of the Philippines to abide by its international human rights obligations.
A story in this month’s edition of the United Church Observer offers some personal reflections from partners in the Philippines: http://wwwucobserver.org/archives/june07_world.shtml During the recent Dirty Waters mining tour, KAIROS had the privilege of welcoming Dr. Clavier Chandu and Joan Carling, both human rights activists in the Philippines to Canada. Dr Chandu lost his wife to an attack clearly motivated by the couple’s human rights work, and Joan Carling remains vulnerable to threats on her life for her human rights and advocacy work.
A follow up action to the petition is underway on the United Church of Canada’s website: http://www.united-church.ca/en/getinvolved/takeaction/070510.
We thank all who distributed and signed the petition, and invite everyone to write a letter to Prime Minister Harper. Canadian mining companies are very active in the Philippines, and our bilateral trade with and assistance to the Philippines are extensive. Canada has a long standing relationship with the Philippines and we are now being asked to support our sisters and brothers as they continue to face grave threats to their lives simply because they dare to call for peace and a fair economy.
For more information on the Philippines and KAIROS’ human
rights and peacebuilding work with partners there, contact
Connie Sorio, Asia-Pacific global partnerships program coordinator
(1 877 403 8933 x 240) or Heather
Orrange, Human Rights Coordinator: Economy and Ecology, 1 877
493 8933 x226.
KAIROS to host migrants’ justice
gatherings
KAIROS refugees and migrants staff is at the Global Ecumenical Network (World Council of Churches) gathering on migrant workers and migration in Nairobi, Kenya. KAIROS will host two gatherings on migrants’ human rights, one in August in Montreal and one in October in Edmonton. For more information on these by-invitation gatherings, contact Alfredo Barahona, refugees and Migrants Program Coordinator, at 1 877 403 8933 x251.
Raising the alarm in the Democratic Republic of Congo
KAIROS is alarmed at the increasing levels of violence targeted at civilians in the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). In Kaniola, South Kivu province, 17 people were killed and dozens injured during a vicious attack the night of May 26/27th. Another 5 people were taken hostage. Among those dead, six were under 15 years old.
These murders, along with others, are thought to have been committed by the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), the Rwandan Hutu militia that has roamed eastern Congo since the genocide in 1994. Thousands of people have been displaced in recent months as the Congolese armed forces attempt to chase down the Rwandan rebels. About 6,000 people have arrived in areas on the border between North and South Kivu, according to the United Nations.
KAIROS supports the human rights work of our partner, Les héritiers de la justice, an organization of the Protestant churches working for peace and justice throughout the eastern DRC. (For further updates, visit our partner in the region's website at: http://www.heritiers.org/english/index.htm (Pour la version francaise, voir http://www.heritiers.org)
There are also disturbing reports of new waves of Tutsi fighters crossing into the DRC from Rwanda under the watchful eyes of members of the Congolese military. Observers in the region find the situation eerily reminiscent of the period prior to the outbreak of war in 1997, a war that cost 4 million lives in the DRC.
An appeal for help has been written by the Archbishop of Bukavu to address the alarming situation in which the people of Bukavu and the eastern DRC live, and the growing threat of a regional war. The Archbishop is sounding the alarm and asking for help from the international community. See the Appeal at our partner Africafiles' website.
To find out more, please email John Lewis, Program Coordinator for International Human Rights at or phone him at 416-463-5312 ext. 224.
Recommended reading:
Two pieces from our friends at Africa Files and their excellent monthly “At Issue E-zine”:
Oil in Africa: Heaven or Hell? http://www.africafiles.org/atissueezine.asp?issue=issue3
And a new commentary on Zimbabwe, a country facing a human rights
and economic crisis: http://www.africafiles.org/atissueezine.asp#art1
You’ve been reading Kairos Times, a monthly e-bulletin from KAIROS, the social justice organization of eleven Canadian churches and church agencies. Sign up for this free bulletin and occasional urgent actions or email us or call us toll-free 1 877 403 8933.
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