Environmental activists' slay linked to ODA review

http://www.malaya.com.ph/jun16/metro3.htm

June 16, 2006
MALAYA

Environmental activists' slay linked to ODA review

INTERNATIONAL environmental groups are set to raise the issue of environmental activists' slaying during the quarterly meeting in Tokyo on June 19 between the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs and non-government organizations.

The environmentalists said they will bring up the issue with Japanese authorities when the latter review their support and funding for projects under the Official Development Assistance (ODA), especially in areas where such killings have taken place.

Hozue Hatae, Friends of the Earth-Japan campaigner, said environmental compliance and social acceptability are requirements in reviewing such projects. Hatae noted that 61 percent of the ODA loans to the Philippines come from Japan.

Clemente Bautista, national coordinator of the environmental group Kalikasan-PNE said 15 of the almost 700 victims of killings since President Arroyo came to power in 2001 are environmental activists. "They actively campaigned against environmentally destructive projects such as large-scale mining, commercial logging and mega dam project," he said.

Bautista said the most recent victims were environmental activist Marcus Bangit of the Cordillera People's Alliance who campaigned against large-scale mining in Kalinga Province; and peasant leader Jose Doton who opposed the San Roque multi-purpose dam project and the Agno River integrated irrigation project at the boundary of Pangasinan-Benguet.

The International Rivers Network, a US-based NGO that opposes destructive dam projects, said the international community of NGOs is very concerned with the rise on human rights violations against political activists, media people and environmental workers in the Philippines. – Reinir Padua