Oxfam America Blog

Today we are sharing a new video about Cleofé Neyra, a farmer in Peru’s northern province of Piura. In 2005 she participated in a demonstration against an illegal mining exploration operation in an environmentally sensitive area of her community and was abducted and tortured, and eventually released after three days. She and the 27 others who survived this ordeal (one man died) asked the government to investigate the police and mine security officers allegedly involved and prosecute those responsible for these human rights violations. Instead, prosecutors charged the campesinos who organized the demonstration with terrorism.

There’s nothing like an unjust terrorism accusation to shut someone up, especially in Peru, but the government finally agreed to investigate more thoroughly when someone leaked photos taken of the detainees to Peru’s National Human Rights Coordinator. The images showed farmers bound, gagged, hooded, and in one case dead. The resulting report and publication of these photos brought some attention to this case. Read the rest of this entry »

Ever stop to consider where the money you spend gassing up your car actually goes? It is surprisingly hard to find out. We’ve just released a short animation “Follow the money” to raise awareness about how important it is for people to know where the money generated by resources like oil or gas goes and the need to use resource revenues to help poor communities.

Check it out and share it with your friends. And if you want to make sure that companies and governments have to disclose where all the money goes, join our effort to pass the Energy Security Through Transparency Act of 2009 (S. 1700).

A few years ago I actually attempted to “follow the money.”  I walked into the town hall of  Sadiola, Mali—a community near the border of Senegal—and asked the mayor how much money Sadiola got from the gold mine in town, which produced about half a million ounces of gold that year. The government of Mali owns part of the mine, and Balla Sissoko—the mayor—said that the government gave the town about US$500,000 each year, but he did not know what portion of those funds were generated by payments made by the mining company to the central government.

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Photo: David Stubbs / Oxfam America

Sometimes it’s the small details that can make a photo compelling. In the above image from Peru, the visual beauty of the blue sky constrasts starkly with the reality of the subject matter: the barbed wire, chain-link fence, and plateaus of digging around a mineral mine in Cerro de Pasco, Peru.

Photo: Rebecca Blackwell / Oxfam America

Members of a village savings group in Mali. Rebecca Blackwell’s photo beautifully captures the graphic details of the vivid fabrics that the women are wearing, as well as this gesture of welcome and respect that the women use to begin their meetings.

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An activist in Ghana shows a copy of the 2006 Minerals and Mining Act, which allows citizens the right to fair, adequate, and prompt compensation if their land is seized for the purposes of mining. Photo by Chris Hufstader/Oxfam America

Today is International Human Rights Day, when we consider for a moment the UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights. This was adopted by the UN in 1948, and established basic rights as universal, a key concept for the world as it moved into a crucial period of post-war rebuilding, Cold War, and decolonization. It is a relatively brief document (as human rights instruments go), just 30 Articles. In the preamble it calls on the member nations of the UN to take “progressive measures…to secure their universal and effective recognition and acceptance.”

I looked around on our web site for examples of people who are claiming and defending their rights, to serve as examples of why basic human rights are still essential to fighting poverty 61 years later. Here are just three:

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Author Peter Maass. Photo by Maura Hart/Oxfam America

I’m just finishing reading an excellent book by investigative journalist Peter Maass called Crude World: The Violent Twilight of Oil. It’s about the world’s dependence on oil: the pollution, corruption, compromised ethics, and tragedy of poverty in countries rich with the stuff. “Just as every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way, every dysfunctional oil country is dysfunctional in its own way,” he writes, and his book is indeed a catalog of dysfunction and unhappiness. Read the rest of this entry »

Father Marco Arana of Peru. Photo by Jessica Erickson/Oxfam America.

 Over the past few years I have written several pieces (on this blog and in our magazine) about Father Marco Arana of Cajamarca, Peru. He’s one of about 30 people who TIME says are making a difference and is part of their “Heroes of the Environment” special section in the magazine this week.

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If you’re an Oxfam supporter, you’re probably a fan of good movies about challenging subjects.  If so, it’s time to get yourself to a theater to see “Crude” a new documentary about oil production in the Amazon. A hit at the Sundance Film Festival earlier this year, the film follows two lawyers — an American and Ecuadorian — and their 16-year-old suit against Chevron, which alleges environmental damages in the northeast Amazon region of Ecuador.

Cancer survivor Maria Garofalo reflected in the stream behind her home in the Ecuadorean Amazon. From the film Crude, directed and produced by Joe Berlinger. Photo Credit: Juan Diego Pérez.

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