Colombia has had a difficult political history, full of covert and shifting alliances. But if you look at the bigger history, a clear picture arises: landowners, liberal and conservative politicians, drug cartels, foreign multinationals and the United States all work together to keep Colombians in a stranglehold. The country is a fascist narco-state not afraid to shoot civilians and protesters in the street.

Those resisting this tangled web of the narco-state can count on police brutality, sexual violence, fascist death squads or untimely disappearances. Since the eighties, the state promoted and financed right-wing paramilitary groups to quench civilian unrest and political dissidents. Nevertheless, unrest remains abound: the last five years Colombia has seen mass protests every year. Though the country made global headlines last year by electing its first left-wing president Gustavo Petro, it is doubtful wether a socialist democratic can really produce the structural change that Colombia needs to oust fascism from its borders.

Antifa Bogotà

The dangerous and paramilitary fascism of Colombia is one of the reasons why the antifascist scène in Bogotà is mostly an underground movement, often switches names and banners to remain anonymous. GRABO (Grupo de Resistencia Antifascita Bogotà) is one of these groups. They don’t pretend to change the world or revolutionize Colombian society, but they resist the dominant catholic ideology that imposes patriarchy, heteronormativity, monogamy and authoritarianism on society.

With support of Het Actiefonds, GRABO launched a propaganda campaign in the capital. They spread informative posters around the city that combat fascist lies on a diverse range of topics. Het Actiefonds is proud of their work. No pasarán!

Since 2020, Mexico is constructing a 300 km railway in the isthmus of Oaxaca that will connect two port cities: Coatzacoalcos on the Atlantic coast and Salina Cruz on the Pacific coast. This megaproject is accompanied by a gas pipeline and several industrial parks flanking the railway. These parks manufacture products at a low cost for export between the two port cities.

The aim here is obvious: in order to boost Mexico’s economy and to consolidate its place in the global capitalist economy, The Corredor Interoceánico (interoceanic corridor) should transform the isthmus into an international trade hub akin to the Panama canal. The railroad will facilitate transport of goods and products across the strip of land, reducing travel time between the two ports to 24 hours. The intermediary industrial parks will make Tehuantepec a ‘new global factory’. The 300 km trajectory has become a symbol of neoliberal capitalism, destroying nature and livelihoods in order to amass more capital for the lucky few.

Construction workers already blocked access to the supervision site in order to demand better working conditions. The president Manuel López Obrador reacted by stating that the profit generated by the megaproject will serve to finance the pensions of the workers, and for some reason, of the armed forces too.

Indigenous communities are ignored

But there is one group that the authorities refuse to negotiate or cooperate with: the Indigenous communities living on the isthmus. They are now being threatened with eviction, their livelihoods and culture are under attack by the railroad that aims to transform their ancestral grounds in a giant industrial complex. They have been continually misinformed by the authorities about the scope of the project, and are refused an audience to express their concerns. Their rights have been trampled, since they should be consulted on activities taking place on their lands.

The Union de Communidades Indigenas de la Zona Norte del Istmo decided to fight the megaproject with non-violent direct actions. They use sit-ins, blockades, protests and other means to block and impede the construction of the railways. More than a thousand bodies strong, they succeed in hampering the construction schedule for now, but it’s a tough fight. Once again, the rights of Indigenous communities and of the surrounding nature are disregarded when neoliberal elites see a chance to make more money. They even go so far as claiming that the corridor is actually good for the economy of the local villages.

Het Actiefonds is proud to support these Indigenous communities in their struggle against global capital and colonialism. As the Indigenous activist Juana Ramírez Villegas states: I invite my brothers and sisters from different parts of the world to defend their territory, to not be defeated, to organize themselves and to make their struggles visible. It is time to defend our territory that represents the life and the future of our sons and daughters.”

Due to the finiancialization of the rental housing market, rents are linked to inflation. Every year, the government specifies the maximum rent increase. In 2022 it was 2.3% for the social rental sector and 3.3% for the free sector. Tenants with a family income of up to €75,000 can count on an income-related rent increase of up to €100 per month. However, tenants are not obliged to actually pay this, but many individual tenants do not know how to object to the increase collectively and effectively.

The “We Refuse the Rent Increase!” campaign seeks to change this. Because rent increases occur every year, their campaign is a yearly effort.

Campaign

“We Refuse the Rent Increase!” informs people about their rights and the possible strategies to legally refuse their rent increase and provides a detailed step-by-step plan as a tool for tenants. In this way, tenants can take matters into their own hands and easily refuse rent increases. In webinars and local meetings, they mobilize people to actively participate in collective nationwide rent increase refusal.

solidarity network

Every year the campaign organizes a national action meeting and several local flyer actions. When a large group of tenants sign up from the same region, a local solidarity network is created in which tenants can share their concerns and problems and actively support each other. By acting together and sharing appropriate knowledge and previous experiences with each other, people are reassured. Thus, they build a sustainable solidarity network of rent increase refusers as well as systemic change. The step-by-step plan that has proven effective increases the pressure on landlords and politicians to actually freeze or lower rents.

5-year rent freeze

The political goal is a five-year freeze (2022- 2026) on rents without inflation correction. After more than 10 years of rent increases above inflation, housing should become affordable again and no one should fall into poverty due to excessive housing costs. Houses are for people, not for profit. The demand for rent freezes for the next five years has been presented by the campaign to Minister Hugo de Jonge, together with affected tenants.

Meanwhile, sustainable solidarity networks of and for tenants continue to emerge, with the intention of collectively refusing rent increases each year and also highlighting the option of going on a rent strike.

Are you a tenant and want to have a weapon of direct action in your own hands against the government and landlord? Join “We refuse the rent increase,” read more about their actions and follow the step-by-step plan to refuse your rent increase!

Het Actiefonds  is proud to support this campaign because: first food, then rent!

Action

Building a colourful blockade, some 40 activist of Debt for Climate Switzerland (DfCS) effectively blocked the entrance of the airport, preventing WEF guests to easily get to their limousine taxi to Davos. Also blocking the main road to the airport, they aimed to disrupt the timetable of the WEF, as speakers and panellist got stuck at the airport. The guests, arriving from all over the world, were confronted directly with their own destructive impact on the world. Because the world cannot afford the 1% anymore, DfCS held up a mirror for those arriving at the airport. Several activist from the Global South were present, giving talks about how their countries suffer the most from WEF devastating policies.

Because the eyes of the world are on Davos during the WEF, Debt for Climate used this attention to address WEF’s harmful policies. Their action was reported on by several big international media. With over 100 articles in different media worldwide, Tweets by Green Pease International and a livestream that was watched over 100 000 times, their action was a big success.

This action was part of a series of three actions around the WEF. The other actions took place in Zurich and Davos, where two Congolese activists from Debt for Climate were invited. In public lectures, workshops and in panel discussions they discussed how the climate crisis is already causing loss and damage in the Global South and in what way the demands of the Debt for Climate campaign can bring about social and environmental justice.

WEF and Climate Debt

As research by the UN Environment Program and Oxfam has shown, the richest 1% is most responsible for climate-change-driving overshoot emissions. The Global North countries are responsible for 92% of excess emissions, while they only represent 40% of the global population and suffer the least from the climate crisis. However, it is the multinational companies located in the Global North that are polluting the most. While the emissions of normal civilians in Europe are decreasing since the 1990’s, the emissions of the top 1% are still increasing. And this one percent, the political and financial global elite that meets during the WEF, is most responsible for the climate crisis while suffering the least from it. Through their individual emissions and professional decisions, they prevent active reparations and solutions for the global South, where the climate crisis is most felt. It is simply fair that rich polluters present at WEF pay for the damage they are causing in other parts of the world.

Debt for Climate Campaign

Debt for Climate is a grassroots, Global South-driven initiative connecting social & climate justice struggles by uniting labour, social and climate movements from the Global South & North. Their main goal is to cancel all debt that Global South countries owe to the IMF and the World Bank. Since the Global North owes the Global South a huge ecological debt, cancelling GS debts is a way of getting these countries out of the debt-trap. In stead of investing in fossil fuels to repay the debt, they can invest in projects that actually make their countries liveable in times of climate crisis and adapt to the impacts of this ongoing and developing crisis.

The Global North has built and keeps on building their wealth on the exploitation of countries in the Global South by plundering their natural resources, at the cost of the growing destruction and sacrifice of populations in countries of the global South.

Therefore, Debt for Climate demands that the richest countries of the Global North begin to pay their climate debt, by cancelling the illegitimate debts, often awarded illegally, that the Global South owes the IMF and the World Bank. You can read more about how exactly Debt for Climate proposes to work on climate and social justice by cancelling debts on their website or on their Instagram, Twitter or Facebook.

As a Global North group inside the Global South led “Debt for Climate”-campaign, the strategical role of Debt for Climate Switzerland is to raise awareness in Swiss society for this unequal division of debt, wealth and climate consequences, and to persuade the Swiss government to support the demand for unconditional debt cancellation for the Global South. They organise outreach events, carry out non-violent civil disobedience actions and draw media attention to their actions. To read more about their group and stay up to date on their actions, go to their website and follow them on Instagram, Twitter and TikTok.

The Shahuarmanga are an Indigenous community that resides in Pastaza, an Amazonian province of Ecuador. Tourism is currently their main strategy for conserving their culture and land. But fossil fuel companies are demanding to enter their lands in order to search for oil and gas. Not only is it ridiculous  to search for more fossil fuels in a time of climate breakdown, but to sacrifice other people’s livelihoods for it is simply revolting.

So, too, think the Shahuarmanga. Together with 33 other Indigenous communities, led by women, they stand their ground and resist these multinational polluters. They didn’t let themselves be intimidated, and organized protests and sit-ins around the province and in the capital of Quito to demand these companies desist their plans immediately. Digging machines were already approaching their holy lands, so there was no time to lose.

Successful campaign

The protests were organised swiftly and efficiently, and the results are cause for celebration. The Shahuarmanga succeeded in barring the petrol companies entry into their lands for now. The companies have issued a second demand, which they hope will be overturned this january. In any case, the Shahuarmanga won’t sit idly by, because this is their land, their culture and their livelihood put in the scale. Fossil fuel activities doesn’t just imply the destruction of the forest, but also the pollution of the rivers and the air, a biodiversity catastrophe, the exploitation of what they call Pachamama, Mother Earth.

Their resolve is strong. In their words: “[T]hanks to the support of the institutions that give us confidence and show us that we are not alone, we have the support, they give us strength to continue in this struggle of resistance. Since we are all resistance. We are land, we are river, we are seed.”

Het Actiefonds is proud to support the Shahuarmanga!

Uniting the fragemented resistance against animal industry, AniCA adresses a broad range of issues. The animal industry is not only violating animal rights, but is also a huge contributor to greenhouse gas emissions and has an enormous ecological footprint due to massive use of land, water, manure and antibiotics. The neocolonial production of fodder used to feed up the animals is causing deforestation and exploitation of local populations. Also in Europe, the animal industry barely provides for safe and sufficient working conditions in factories, especially during times of COVID. Additionally, the animal industry plays an important role in the emergence and dissemination of zoonoses, which caused the COVID pandemic and can bring about new pandemics in the future. 

Combining actions for climate justice, animal rights, workers rights and against possible future zoonoses, AniCA is a strong alliance of groups that have been organizing several effective actions. 

ACTION

AniCA organized a camp and mass action against the PHW Group, the largest poultry company in Germany. The program of the camp raised awareness about everything that is wrong with the animal industry. Farmers and citizens were invited to talk, exposing the exploitation of PHW of animals and humans alike. 

Widely covered by the media in papers and on TV, the action was a big success. During a full day, the access to the central storage of the company was effectively blocked. 

Their action demanded of the PHW to protect workers in slaughterhouses and meat processing units from COVID and to make sure they receive sufficient health protection. During the pandemic, the animal industry was a big covid hotspot, in Germany and globally. 

A second demand was the banning of the import of animal fodder. For the production of animal feed, resources such as land and water are used that could be used directly for the production of food or for climate protection measures such as reforestation. A large share of the protein-rich animal feed fed in Europe originates from Latin America, where large areas of rainforest are being cleared.

A third demand was the shifting of the subsidies that are currently going into the animal industry to solidary and ecological agriculture.

AniCA believes in a common radical fight for emancipatory, solidary and sustainable alternatives to our current capitalist system.

Afraid of this united activist movement, PHW built a protective wall (as can be seen in this video) around their main seat in the days before the action, which shows that they take activism against the animal industry seriously and see it as a threat! 

Het Actiefonds is proud to support AniCA and their actions that scare the animal industry!

Context

Cambodia has been ruled by Hun Sen, the current Prime minister, since 1985. After seizing governmental power in 1997 and banning the main opposition party in 2017, Hun Sen’s rule is uncontested. He is known to violate human and environmental rights to benefit himself and a small elite, having abandoned the party’s anti-colonial and Marxist-Leninist roots. As the general elections near, it is likely that his government will not only maintain the status quo, but also become more violent. Examples of this include the recent jailing (for a second time) of one of the country’s most prominent trade union leaders, Chhim Sithor, as well as the attacks and threats targetting climate activists as the country is witnessing one of the world’s worst rates of deforestation.

Action

Unite for Freedom is one of the few groups trying to highlight abuses in Cambodia and reaching a large and vast public. This is a dangerous activity that requires strict anonymity, but also needs a network in order to collect news from all over the country. Despite these difficulties, their satirical cartoons have gone viral and sparked discussion on social media, while their videos reached over 15 million views.

Example

In the words of the collective: “we released this cartoon, depicting two HS: the one above angrily pointing at some Buddhist monks and young activists blessing a tree to try and stop it from being logged, and a second HS below, smiling with his thumbs up and calling the activities of the country’s most notorious logging tycoon try Pheap ‘development!’”

Against repression

Their project has the potential to play an important role in tackling state violence. Exposing state crimes is needed in any country that practices repression. For Unite for Freedom, Cambodia’s pro-democracy movement is lacking ideas, resources and humanpower. They fear that Hun Sen will continue to stay in power after the elections, and know that an actual liberation movement has to be build from within. Their aim is therefore for the platform to become a legitimate political force by organising mass protests in the streets and creating content on a regular basis that reaches millions of Cambodians.

Prospects

To achieve this, Unite for Freedom plans to release content more structurally and recruit and train new content creators in a way that is secure. In addition, they wish to travel to parts of the country where state crimes are generally poorly covered. As such, they want to make it possible for others to dare to resist the violence and exploitation that is happening in their country.

Prague is in dire need of an autonomous space where people can express themselves freely without the constraints of our profit-driven society. Ever since the eviction of the Autonomous Social Centre Klinika in January of 2019, there has been no such space in the Czech capital. Meanwhile, Prague is plagued by thousands of empty, decaying buildings and thousands of AirBnB flats and corporate offices. The center of Prague has become an unlivable place for local free-minded people.

The collectif Opravdu Dobré Squaty (really good squats) was inspired by the story of Klinika and other previous Czech squats and social centers and aims to mount their own.  The members wanted to establish a new social center in a relatively central district of Prague. The building they had in mind is owned by foreign investors and has been empty since the 90s.

Sadly, the possibility of immediate eviction by the police is very real in the Czech Republic. The ODS already took this into account, and managed to squat the building for five hours before being evicted. Be that as it may, they regard their action as a succes. According to them, even the act of transforming a decaying building into a radical space for just one day is commendable given the current climate in Prague.

ODS wants a society based around solidarity in which human wellbeing is more important than money or property. It believes that creating autonomous islands in the current capitalist landscape is a first step in changing the world. In a space in where anyone can feel free to stay and express themselves without being discriminated in any way, people can challenge the current societal and cultural norms.

Europe’s migration policy is racist and deadly. The EU pours billions of euros into sending and preventing migrants into Europe, while deliberately keeping asylum centers and refugee camps in dire condition. Around the world, we see border walls being erected and the right to free movement, especially for those who need it most, drastically curtailed.

In the EU, the containment of migration implicates downright inhumane practices. Bulgaria uses EU money to imprison migrants in cages. Frontex conducts deadly and illegal pushbacks on the Mediterranean. Morocco drops migrants trying to enter Spain’s Melilla without a map or water in the Sahara. But the continent of universal human rights only talks about these rights when other countries do something wrong.

Amsterdam Light Festival

What better time to raise the hypocritical violations of the right to freedom of movement than during the Amsterdam Light Festival? While tourists and the Dutch gazed at the reassuring art in canal boats, Watch The Med held its international meeting weekend of the alarm phone group in early December. By attaching Led-light banners on the bridges of the Light route, Watch The Med demonstrated for those for whom a boat ride is definitely not a moment of relaxation and enjoyment, but a life-threatening and anxiety-inducing undertaking.

The action was well received by Light Festival visitors. Some boats sang the slogans on the banners, and others honked in solidarity. The organization of the festival, however, was less pleased. They let the police remove most banners from the route after a mere two hours.

Watch The Med

The alarm phone of Watch The Med takes emergency calls from migrant boats in the Mediterranean and informs the relevant coast guard to rescue them. Watch The Med documents all migrant emergencies on the militarized sea, including the number of people in distress, their exact location and whether the Coast Guard is making sufficient efforts to rescue the people.

Their essential work is on the edges of Fortress Europe. It is therefore all too easy for Europeans to know nothing about what is going on there, or to shrug their shoulders. With actions like these, Watch The Med brings the Mediterranean to the heart of Europe. Looking away is not an option. Stop the militarization of the Mediterranean. Let migrants through. A sea should not be a wall, but a bridge.

End Fossil: Occupy 

End Fossil: Occupy is a climate justice movement, occupying hundreds of schools and universities all over the world between September and December 2022. They will not give in until they achieve the end of the fossil fuel era!
Het Actiefonds supports several actions withing this movement and stands in solidarity with all occupation of End Fossil: Occupy. Het Actiefonds supported this action and the actions in the Netherlands.

Occupations in the Czech Republic

Univerzity Za Klima was founded in the spring of 2019 in response to the Fridays for
Future wave of high school climate strikes. They try to bring together students, members of the academic community and workers who are not indifferent to the future of the planet we live on. They see universities as important institutions that should set an example for social change and climate justice.

17 faculties in 11 universities were occupied from November 14th to November 17th 2022. The students, joinded by teachers, academics and other sympatisants demanded the university and the government to take concrete steps in the struggle against climate change as soon as possible in a time of multiple crisis.

During the occuption, alternative programs, workshops, lectures and film screenings were organised by the students, joined by professors who changed their courses into lectures about climate change. Sleeping quarters and an action kitchen were organised as well.

The actions took place in Prague, Brno, Ústí nad Labem, Hradec Králové and Olomouc. On the last day, the students organised a demonstration. In Brno, the students marched to the Faculty of Law of Masaryk University, to demand the end of the cooperation between the universtiy and Energetický a průmyslový holding (EPH), the largest energy group in Central Europe. In Prague, the students met with Prime Minister Petr Fiala and handed over their demands at the Government Office.

Het Actiefonds is proud to have supported this occupation and will continue to support the stuggle against climate change and stands in solidarity with all End Fossil: Occupy actions.