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Naomi Klein: Obama Is Beginning to Sound Like a Climate Leader, When Will He Act Like One?
As scientists warn 2015 is on pace to become the Earth’s hottest year on record, President Obama has unveiled his long-awaited plan to slash carbon emissions from U.S. power plants. Under new Environmental Protection Agency regulations, U.S. power plants will be required to cut emissions by 32 percent from 2005 levels by 2030. In addition, new power plants will be required to be far cleaner, which could effectively prevent any new coal plants from opening. But does the plan go far enough? We speak to Naomi Klein, author of the best-selling book, "This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate," which is out in paperback today.
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: As scientists warn 2015 is on pace to become the Earth’s hottest year on record, President Obama has unveiled his long-awaited plan to slash carbon emissions from U.S. power plants. During a speech at the White House, Obama said no challenge poses a greater threat to future generations than a changing climate.
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: Climate change is no longer just about the future that we’re predicting for our children or our grandchildren; it’s about the reality that we’re living with every day, right now. The Pentagon says that climate change poses immediate risks to our national security. While we can’t say any single weather event is entirely caused by climate change, we’ve seen stronger storms, deeper droughts, longer wildfire seasons. Charleston and Miami now flood at high tide. Shrinking ice caps forced National Geographic to make the biggest change in its atlas since the Soviet Union broke apart. Over the past three decades, nationwide asthma rates have more than doubled, and climate change puts those Americans at greater risk of landing in the hospital. As one of America’s governors has said, we’re the first generation to feel the impact of climate change and the last generation that can do something about it. And that’s why I committed the United States to leading the world on this challenge, because I believe there is such a thing as being too late.
AMY GOODMAN: Under new Environmental Protection Agency regulations, U.S. power plants will be required to cut emissions by 32 percent from the 2005 levels by 2030. In addition, new power plants will be required to be far cleaner, which could effectively prevent any new coal plants from opening. President Obama defended the regulations, which are expected to be challenged in court.
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: Right now our power plants are the source of about a third of America’s carbon pollution. That’s more pollution than our cars, our airplanes and our homes generate combined. That pollution contributes to climate change, which degrades the air our kids breathe. But there have never been federal limits on the amount of carbon that power plants can dump into the air. Think about that. We limit the amount of toxic chemicals like mercury and sulfur and arsenic in our air or our water, and we’re better off for it. But existing power plants can still dump unlimited amounts of harmful carbon pollution into the air. For the sake of our kids and the health and safety of all Americans, that has to change. For the sake of the planet, that has to change.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: As President Obama spoke, the impacts of extreme weather could be seen across the globe. In California, more than 9,000 firefighters are battling more than 21 active wildfires. In Japan, temperatures topped 95 degrees on Monday for a record fourth day in a row. Heat records are also being broken across the Middle East. In one Iranian city, the heat index reached 164 degrees last week. Temperatures have been regularly topping 120 degrees in Baghdad and other Iraqi cities.
Meanwhile, a group of scientists, including former NASA scientist James Hansen, have warned that sea levels could rise as much as 10 feet before the end of the century unless greenhouse gas emissions are drastically reduced. The rise would make cities such as London, New York and Shanghai uninhabitable.
AMY GOODMAN: To talk more about climate change and President Obama’s plan to cut emissions, we’re joined by Naomi Klein, author of the best-selling book, This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate, which is out in paperback today. She recently spoke at a Vatican climate change summit organized by Pope Francis. Naomi Klein joins us from Washington, D.C.
Naomi, welcome. Your assessment first of President Obama’s plan that he unveiled yesterday at the White House?
NAOMI KLEIN: Well, good morning, Amy. It’s great to be with you, and Nermeen.
So I think that what we’re seeing from Obama is a really good example of what a climate leader sounds like. You know, everything he’s saying is absolutely true about the level of threat, about the fact that this is not a threat for future generations, it is a threat unfolding right now around the world, including in the United States. It’s a threat that is about people’s daily health, with asthma levels, and also about the safety of entire cities, huge coastal cities. So he’s doing a very good job of showing us what a climate leader sounds like. But I’m afraid we’ve got a long way to go before we see what a climate leader acts like, because there is a huge gap between what Obama is saying about this threat, about it being the greatest threat of our time, and indeed this being our last window in which we can take action to prevent truly catastrophic climate change, but the measures that have been unveiled are simply inadequate.
I mean, if we look at what kind of emission reductions this is going to deliver, we’re—you know, when you talk about emission reductions, we don’t look at just one sector, just at electricity generation; you have to look at the economy as a whole. And what climate scientists are telling us is that relatively wealthy countries, like the United States, if we are going to stay within our carbon budget and give ourselves a chance of keeping warming below two degrees Celsius, which is already very dangerous but is what the United States negotiated, under Obama—when they went to Copenhagen in 2009, they agreed to keep temperatures below two degrees warming, and, in fact, we’re still on track for more like four degrees warming—if we were to stay below two degrees, we would need to be cutting emissions by around 8 to 10 percent a year. Those are numbers from the Tyndall Centre on Climate Research in Manchester. And this plan would lower emissions in the United States by around 6 percent overall—I’m not just talking about the power sector, but overall emissions by 6 percent by 2030. So compare what we should be doing—8 to 10 percent a year—with 6 percent by 2030. That’s the carbon gap, and it’s huge.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: And so, Naomi Klein, in your view, why did President Obama choose to focus so much on the power sector and not on other equally important sectors?
NAOMI KLEIN: Well, look, it is an incredibly important sector, as he says. It’s just that we have to do it all. And I think that this should be seen as a victory for the grassroots social movements that have been fighting dirty coal plants in their backyards, and the clean coal—the campaign that the Sierra Club has led over years now to shut down hundreds of coal plants. So this should be claimed, I think, as a grassroots victory. This phase of the plan is better than the last draft, in some ways, in that it’s less of a gift to the natural gas sector and has more supports for renewables. It also has more supports for low-income communities for energy efficiency. It’s inadequate, but it’s still better than the last draft. There are parts of the plan that are worse than the last draft, because of pressure from industry and from states that are very reliant on coal.
But that’s at—you know, the problem is not that this plan itself is bad. If this was announced in Obama’s first year in office, I would be the first to celebrate this and say, "OK, great. So now let’s bring on a carbon tax. Let’s prevent leasing of new oil and gas and coal on public lands. You know, let’s do the rest of the package. Let’s have huge investments in public transit, and we’ll really be on our way." But at the end of his two terms in office, or coming near the end, you know, frankly, this does not buy a climate legacy. It’s not enough, because it isn’t in line with science, and it also isn’t in line with technology. I mean, the team at Stanford University under Mark Jacobson is telling us that we could get to 100 percent renewables, powering our entire economy with renewables, in two decades. So, if the scientists are telling us we need to do it, and the engineers are telling us we can do it, then all that’s missing are the politicians willing to introduce the bold policies that will make it happen. And that’s what we’re missing still.
AMY GOODMAN: Naomi Klein, during his speech Monday, President Obama also talked about his visit to the Arctic at the end of the month.
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: I’ll also be the first American president to visit the Alaskan Arctic, where our fellow Americans have already seen their communities devastated by melting ice and rising oceans, the impact on marine life. We’re going to talk about what the world needs to do together to prevent the worst impacts of climate change before it’s too late.
AMY GOODMAN: So that’s President Obama. Can you talk about what’s happening in the Arctic and the activism that’s going on, from Portland, Oregon, to Seattle, Washington, to prevent what President Obama has allowed—drilling in the Arctic?
NAOMI KLEIN: Well, it’s extraordinary, actually, that he would be announcing this now, because what the world needs to do to save the Arctic, for starters, is to declare a moratorium on Arctic drilling. And the U.S. could be leading that effort, bringing together all Arctic nations to agree that this is untouchable, this is a no-go zone. And because that leadership is not there, and because indeed Obama has—is opening up the Arctic to drilling for the first time—we know that Shell has drilling rigs there right now, that they began the very preliminary stages of drilling on Thursday—and because his administration has failed to provide leadership on such a basic issue, I mean, Amy, it is the definition of insanity, it would seem to me, to be drilling in the Arctic for oil that is only available because Arctic ice is melting and it’s now passable and ships are able to go there and do this.
The CEO of Shell, a few days ago, talked about how they are expecting to find oil underneath that melting ice that is an even bigger deposit than there is off the Gulf of Mexico. He described it as a huge play, but more significantly, he described it as a long-term play. It’s unfortunate that the oil and gas industry describes all of this, you know, in the language of games, because obviously it’s not a game, but they call it a play. And he says that they don’t expect this to be in production until 2030. I mean, that is really striking, because by 2030 we should be really winding down our reliance on existing oil and gas infrastructure, not ramping up and opening up whole new fossil fuel frontiers.
And so this is what I mean about how Obama does not deserve to be called a climate leader simply because he has introduced what is a pretty good plan for cutting emissions from coal-fired power plants. I’m not saying that’s not important. It’s a step in the right direction. But simultaneously, he’s taking some significant steps in the wrong direction with Arctic drilling, with—you know, he’s overseen an explosion of fracking for gas. He’s still waffling on the Keystone XL pipeline. You know, he’s opened up new offshore oil and gas leases. So, you know, when you take one step in the right direction and five steps in the wrong direction, you’re going in the wrong direction. You’re not going in the right direction. And we have to be honest about this, despite the fact that he’s under huge fire from the coal lobby right now.
AMY GOODMAN: This issue of the activists who have been trying to stop the drilling—
NAOMI KLEIN: Yeah.
AMY GOODMAN: —that the Obama administration has provided license for—I mean, what was it? Forty people—
NAOMI KLEIN: Yeah, in Portland.
AMY GOODMAN: Forty people were—40 people were hanging from the bridge. You had all these kayaktivists outside. Can you talk about how it is he can announce—as they are all being taken away, as activists are charged for doing the activism they do, he’s announcing he’s going to the Arctic.
NAOMI KLEIN: Well, you know, frankly, if we want to look for climate leaders, climate leaders are the people who rappelled down from that bridge in Portland. Climate leaders are the people who have been taking to their kayaks in Portland, in Seattle, you know, 21-year-olds who have been trying to stop Arctic drilling with their bodies, they feel so passionately about this. People stayed on that bridge, hanging from that bridge, in order to block Shell’s icebreaker, for 40 hours, and they did so despite the fact that Shell had gone to the courts and got an injunction and they were being threatened with huge fines. That is real leadership. That is real, moral action, standing up in the face of huge amounts of money and power and might-makes-right logic.
And we’ve seen this all over the Pacific Northwest. It’s one of the ironies of the extreme energy era that we’ve been living in this past decade or so, where North America has been in the midst of this extreme energy frenzy, with fracking, mountaintop removal and tar sands oil. In order to get this stuff out, it’s required that the oil and gas and coal companies build all kinds of new infrastructure in the Pacific Northwest, which is the part of the United States that is probably most environmentally aware, even militant. It’s where a lot of the tree sits began. You know, you think about Portland and the history of anti-logging activism, tree sits. In that part of the world, there are a lot of people with deep history in this kind of activism. And Shell, I think, you know, just in order—just logistically, in order to get to the Arctic, they needed to use various ports in the Pacific Northwest as a parking lot for their machinery and also to get repairs done. And, you know, the Pacific Northwest has given them a very, very, very hostile welcome and made it clear that they don’t want to be a gateway to this, frankly, suicidal action of drilling in the Arctic.
AMY GOODMAN: Just to be clear, to clarify this point, explaining what the activists were doing, the Greenpeace activists spending 40 hours suspending from a bridge in order to block the icebreaking ship commissioned by Shell from leaving for the Arctic, hundreds of activists gathering on the bridge in kayaks in efforts to stop Shell’s plans to drill in the remote Chukchi Sea. They did temporarily stop the ship—
NAOMI KLEIN: Yeah.
AMY GOODMAN: —but then, ultimately, the ship made its way and is now making its way to the Arctic.
NAOMI KLEIN: They stopped the ship for 40 hours. And, you know, I think sometimes this can be seen as a sort of a stunt or a token action, but it really isn’t. You know, I was speaking with Annie Leonard, the executive director of Greenpeace, yesterday, and the really significant part of this is that there is a very small window when it is possible to do this drilling for Shell, because the period where the Arctic is sufficiently ice-free is just a few months. They have until late September to do this. So every day that they’re delayed is one less day when they’re able to look for this deposit that they claim is going to be a game-changing play. So this is more than token activism. Anything that slows them down is really significant. And these really are heroes.
AMY GOODMAN: And Hillary Clinton and President Obama’s position on Keystone XL?
NAOMI KLEIN: Well, Hillary, first of all, she was asked about drilling in the Arctic, and she said she was skeptical of it, which some people claimed as, you know, it was Hillary coming out against Arctic drilling. I think it’s Hillary understanding that this is a very unpopular position. But just saying that you’re skeptical or have doubts, which is another phrase she used, is not anything that she can be held accountable to. That’s language that is slippery enough to get a glacier through, Amy. It’s not a straight-up "no." She’s also refused to comment, as you mentioned, on the Keystone XL pipeline.
And let me say, you know, Hillary Clinton’s plan, green energy plan, that she unveiled a few days ago—we’re going to get more details soon—is surprisingly bold. There’s parts of this that the plan really gets right, in terms of the speed with which she’s promising to roll out renewable energy. She’s getting the yes part of this equation pretty close to right, in the sense that we need supports for renewable energy. But it’s not enough, because if you look at a country like Germany, they have introduced a bold plan to support renewable energy, and in fact Germany now has what Hillary Clinton is promising she would do in the U.S., which is it has 30 percent of its electricity coming from renewables, but Germany’s emissions are not going down fast enough, and in some years they’ve even gone up. And that’s because in Germany that yes to renewable energy hasn’t been accompanied by a no to fossil fuels. They’ve allowed a continued mining at very high rates of dirty coal, of lignite coal, the dirtiest coal on the market, and they just export it, if they don’t have a market for it in the U.S.
And, you know, this is the problem with Hillary. She is willing to say yes to green technology, green jobs, but she is showing no signs of being willing to say no to the oil and gas lobby, which we know is funding her campaign significantly. So, as secretary of state, we know that there was quite a revolving door between the oil and gas lobby and her people at State and on her previous campaign staff. And I think there’s real reason for concern about whether or not she would be willing to stand up to the oil and gas lobby on Keystone, on Arctic drilling, on any of these other issues.
AMY GOODMAN: We’re going to break, and when we come back, we want to ask you, Naomi, about what happened at the Vatican. You were there over July 4th weekend, one of the people—keynoters of this conference led by Pope Francis. This is Democracy Now! We’re speaking with Naomi Klein. Her book, This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate, is out in paperback today. Back with her in a moment.
Naomi Klein on Visiting the Vatican & the Radical Economic Message Behind Papal Climate Encyclical
Following the publication of Pope Francis’ encyclical on climate change, a major conference on climate change was held at the Vatican. Speakers included our guest, Naomi Klein, author of "This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate.” We speak to Klein about her trip to the Vatican and the importance of the pope’s message – not only on climate change, but the global economy.
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: Our guest is Naomi Klein, journalist, best-selling author. Her most recent book is This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate, out today in paperback. A documentary film directed by Avi Lewis based on This Changes Everything will be released in the fall.
Naomi, you have recently returned from the Vatican. Can you describe that experience? What were you doing there?
NAOMI KLEIN: So I was there at a conference that was convened by Cardinal Peter Turkson. And Cardinal Peter Turkson is—has been doing a lot of the speaking on the encyclical. It wasn’t convened by Francis, just to set that record straight. It was convened by the Cardinal Turkson’s office and also by the organization representing Catholic development agencies. And it was part of the rollout for the climate change encyclical. The organizers described what they were doing as building a megaphone for the encyclical, because they understand that it’s words on a page unless there are groups of people around the world who are amplifying that message in various ways. So there were people from around the world.
There were people there, for instance, from Brazil, who were talking about how the movements there that have been fighting large dams, oil drilling, fighting for more just transit, are going to be putting huge resources behind popularizing the climate change encyclical, buying radio ads, producing videos, creating teaching materials for every chapter of the encyclical, and really using it as an organizing tool. That was one of the things I was really struck by while I was there, was just how ready particularly the movements in Latin America are to operationalize the encyclical, if you will.
And they also talked about not wanting it to be domesticated, was a phrase I heard a lot, domesticated by the church. You know, there’s a way in which you can just take this document that is, you know, almost 200 pages and just take out the safest parts of it—you know, "Oh, we’re against climate change, and we all need to kind of hold hands." But, in fact, if you read the document, it’s very clear in calling for a different economic model, and it’s a challenge to what Pope Francis calls our throwaway culture. So they want to make sure that the parts of the encyclical that really do represent the deepest challenge to our current economic system and represent the most hope for the people who are excluded from the benefits of that economic system are really highlighted.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Well, last month, Pope Francis went on a tour of South America in his first foreign trip after unveiling the historic encyclical urging climate action. In Ecuador, he reiterated his call for social justice and environmental preservation.
POPE FRANCIS: [translated] The goods of the Earth are meant for everyone. And however much someone may parade his property, it has a social mortgage. In this way, we move beyond purely economic justice, based on commerce, toward social justice, which upholds the fundamental human right to a dignified life. The tapping of natural resources, which are so abundant in Ecuador, must not be concerned with short-term benefits.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: That was Pope Francis speaking in Ecuador. Naomi Klein, could you talk—you’ve mentioned in the past the significance of the pope’s origins in Argentina and the particular form that Catholicism took in Latin America. Could you talk about the significance of that and the kind of turn that you witnessed at the Vatican in the focus of this new pope and the church under his leadership?
NAOMI KLEIN: Sure, Nermeen. Yeah, it was definitely striking that a lot of the people who are real players in the Vatican right now come from the Global South. As you mentioned, Pope Francis is from Argentina, and he is the first pope from the Global South. And Cardinal Turkson is originally from Ghana and is talked about as potentially going to be the first African pope. And you see the influence. There are a lot of people who have a history with liberation theology around this pope. He doesn’t come from that particular tradition, but there’s clearly an influence, because before he became pope, he worked with the Latin American Council of Bishops, which—you know, the form of Catholicism in Latin America is one that is more influenced by indigenous cosmology than perhaps in North America, and definitely in Europe, precisely because the genocide of indigenous people in Latin America was far less complete.
So, the first phrase of the encyclical, the first paragraph of the encyclical quotes Francis of Assisi, referring to the Earth as "sister" and as "mother," and then goes on to talk about Francis—Francis of Assisi, not Pope Francis—and it’s significant that Pope Francis chose the name Francis, the first pope in history to choose that as his name—how we ministered to plants and animals, and saw them as his brothers and sisters. And obviously, in there, you have echoes of indigenous cosmologies that see all of creation as our relations. And while I was at the Vatican, I did ask and, before and afterwards, talked to different theologians about whether there is any precedent for a pope talking—using this language of Mother Earth so prominently, and nobody could think of a single example of this. So, I think what is significant about it is that it is very much a rebuke to the worldview that humans have been put on Earth to dominate and subjugate nature. That is very clear in the encyclical. And the major theme of the encyclical is the theme of interdependence.
You also mentioned—or you played that clip where Francis talks about natural resources as being something that everybody has a right to. And this, of course, is a challenge to a pretty basic principle of private property under capitalism, that if you buy it, it’s yours to do with whatever you want. And that’s something else that’s very strong in the encyclical, is the idea of the commons, that the atmosphere is a commons, that water is a right. And I do think that you can see the influence of Pope Francis’s many years in Argentina. You know, he ministered in the outskirts of Buenos Aires, and that’s somewhere where I spent some time doing reporting and filmmaking. And the outskirts of Buenos Aires, they have had one of the most catastrophic experiences with water privatization, where a French water company came in and put in the pipes, but then refused to put in the sewers. So every time it rains, there are these huge floods, and there’s even cases of bodies being washed up in the streets and in people’s basements, so—which is simply to say he knows of which he speaks. I mean, he has seen a very brutal form of deregulated capitalism introduced in the Southern Cone of Latin America, and he also understands that this is a form of capitalism that, in that part of the world, was imposed with tremendous violence.
AMY GOODMAN: Naomi Klein, as we wrap up, very quickly, the pope is coming to the United States in September, but before that, he will go to Cuba first. Can you talk about the significance of the Cuba trip, and then, within the presidential race here, the pope landing in the United States?
NAOMI KLEIN: Well, I think the timing of this trip is obviously going to be very awkward for several Republican candidates who are Catholic and understand that this is a very, very popular pope. He’s particularly popular among Latinos, and that’s a really coveted voting bloc. So, you know, picking a fight with this pope is not a very smart political move if you’re running for office right now.
And I met somebody while I was—I can’t use his name, because it was just—it wasn’t an interview situation. But I met a fairly prominent Catholic, while I was at the Vatican, from the United States, from a major U.S. organization, who said, "The holy father isn’t doing us any favors by going to Cuba first," by which he meant that there are a lot of people talking about how this pope is sort of a closet socialist, and by going to Cuba first, he was reinforcing that narrative. So I think for conservative Republican Catholics, the fact that this pope is going to Cuba first, but also because he has said such critical things about deregulated capitalism and everything he’s saying about climate change, is putting them into, frankly, uncharted territories. They really don’t know how to navigate these waters.
AMY GOODMAN: It’s President Obama’s birthday today. Do you have any particular birthday wishes for him?
NAOMI KLEIN: Amy, I had no idea. Thanks for telling me. And I wish him a very happy birthday.
AMY GOODMAN: Naomi Klein, we want to thank you for being with us, journalist, best-selling author. Her most recent book is called This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate. It’s out in paperback today. And she’s got a documentary film coming out. It’s directed by Avi Lewis, based on This Changes Everything. It’s out in the fall. She also, together with Avi Lewis, made The Take, about Argentina. Her past books, No Logo and The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism.
When we come back, another journalist has been killed in Mexico, along with four women, in Mexico City. We’ll go to Mexico City. Stay with us.
Are Journalists & Activists Safe Anywhere in Mexico? Protests Erupt over Killing of 5 in Mexico City
In Mexico City, thousands of protesters are continuing to denounce the murder of photojournalist Rubén Espinosa. Espinosa, who worked for the leading newsmagazine Proceso, was killed by gunmen alongside human rights activist Nadia Vera and three other women in an apartment in Mexico City Friday. Both Espinosa and Vera had been working in the southern state of Veracruz, which has seen increasingly deadly violence against journalists and activists. According to human rights groups, Espinosa’s murder signals a new level of violence against Mexican journalists, as he may be the first to be killed while in exile in Mexico City. We go to Mexico City to speak with Sebastián Aguirre of the human rights organization Article 19 and Laura Carlsen of the Center for International Policy. We also speak to Andalusia Knoll, a freelance journalist who has been reporting on social movements and human rights violations in Mexico for five years.
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: In Mexico City, thousands of protesters are continuing to denounce the murder of photojournalist Rubén Espinosa. Espinosa, who worked for the leading newsmagazine, Proceso, was killed by gunmen alongside human rights activist Nadia Vera and three other women in an apartment in Mexico City on Friday. Both Espinosa and Vera had been working in the southern state of Veracruz, which has seen increasingly deadly violence against journalists and activists. According to human rights groups, Espinosa’s murder signals a new level of violence against Mexican journalists, as he may be the first to be killed while in exile in Mexico City. In his final interview, he told the outlet Rompeviento about his exile.
RUBÉN ESPINOSA: [translated] I had to leave due to intimidation, not because of a direct threat, per se, but out of common sense. There had just been an attack on students, who were brutally beaten with machetes and everything, and so we cannot, in this situation, do less, with any kind of threat or intimidation, because we do not know what will happen. In Veracruz, there is no rule of law.
AMY GOODMAN: Rubén Espinosa is at least the 12th journalist who has worked in Veracruz to be killed since 2011.
For more, we go to Mexico City, where we’re joined by two guests. Sebastián Aguirre is with the human rights group Article 19 and helps run its Program for the Protection and Security of Journalists. We’re also joined by Laura Carlsen, director of the Mexico City-based Americas Program of the Center for International Policy.
Here in New York, we’re joined by Andalusia Knoll, freelance journalist who has been reporting on social movements and human rights violations in Mexico for five years. She spoke to Rubén Espinosa last week, right before he was killed.
I want to start in Mexico City with Sebastián. You helped to get Rubén Espinosa to Mexico City to be in exile from the violence and the threats against him in Veracruz. Can you tell us what you understand happened?
SEBASTIÁN AGUIRRE: Right. Well, the case of Rubén, you’ve got to understand it in the general context of violence that happens in Veracruz against the press. Just 14 journalists have been murdered since 2010, and there’s been absolute impunity in all of those cases. So, the founded fear of Rubén was certain that he had a legitimate threat against him, therefore he had to move out of Veracruz. We helped him, when he established in Mexico City, and we tried to encourage him to enter the federal mechanism of protection for human rights defenders and journalists. But there is—you’ve got to understand that there’s also mistrust from the public towards the institutions. In Mexico, there’s a lot of mistrust in the capacity and the way that journalists are going to be protected, so a lot of journalists are not trusting the institutions that could actually protect them. And that was the case of Rubén.
AMY GOODMAN: And, Laura Carlsen, it’s not only Ruben who was killed. Can you talk about the four women who were murdered with him, and who it’s believed killed them?
LAURA CARLSEN: That’s right. It’s very important to keep that in mind, because, of course, the question of the attack on freedom of expression in the case of the photojournalist, Rubén Espinosa, is very important, but Nadia Vera was a human rights defender in Veracruz. She worked with Yosoy 132, the student organization there, and she also had experienced threats and attacks on her. In fact, just eight months before her assassination, she videotaped a message, as well, that said, "I hold responsible the governor of the state of Veracruz, Javier Duarte, for anything that could happen to me and my family." She had reason to believe that she was under threat, and now she’s been assassinated, as well.
We also know the name of one other woman, Yesenia Quiroz, and there are two other women whose names either are unknown or have not been released. But this is very important to take into account. The Front for Freedom of Expression is calling for the investigation to include the possibility that we’re looking at crimes of femicide, because there is some indication that the assassinations were accompanied by rape and sexual torture of the women, and to also include the fact that we’re looking at attacks not only on a journalist, but on a woman human rights defender.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Well, let’s turn to a clip of the human rights activist, Nadia Vera. She was speaking to the outlet Rompeviento.
NADIA VERA: [translated] How many journalists have been assassinated without anything happening? How many students? How many activists? How many human rights defenders have been assassinated or disappeared? We have an impressively high level of disappearances, right? But it also has to do with the type of characters we have governing.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: That was Nadia Vera speaking to Rompeviento. So, Laura Carlsen, could you give us some context here? Why is Veracruz such a dangerous place for journalists and for human rights activists? And what do you think is likely to happen now, given these awful murders in Mexico City of the four women as well as the journalist?
LAURA CARLSEN: Well, it is recognized as one of the most violent places in the country, and this has happened because there have been a series of crimes. The attitude of the governor—there have even been public declarations on his part, warning journalists, in effect. There’s an attitude that "I rule here, and I will not tolerate any kind of criticism or protest." Rubén Espinoza covered movements and covered his government coming in to repress many of those movements, often in a violent way. This, of course, affected his image, and apparently affected his personal ego, as well. And the main context here that you have is impunity, the absolute dysfunction in the system of justice. Once you send out a message that you can kill, a governor or a government in—which, by all indications, seemed to be involved in many of these killings—they’re the prime suspect—you send out a message that this can be done with impunity, then you’ve created a situation in which everyone—a human rights defender, a journalist, everyone who protests against that government—is in—is under threat.
There have been reports of surveillance. Rubén reported that he was under surveillance. And what’s really scary for many of us here in Mexico City now is that Mexico City was considered a haven. It was considered a refuge for people under threat. And the fact that he apparently, or at least possibly, was hunted down here in Mexico City and murdered in what’s considered a peaceful neighborhood within the nation’s capital, it shatters that, perhaps, myth of security that many of us had here.
So, we don’t know what will happen next. Of course, there’s a demand for a full investigation that takes into account all the possibilities here. There’s a lot of fear that the government will try to sweep this under the rug. There’s already talk that, "Oh, this was a robbery." Well, there aren’t these kinds of robberies, and there’s too many so-called coincidences in terms of the previous threats. And there’s talk that since he was unemployed, it isn’t related to his work as a journalist. But there will be a constant pressure from civil society to make sure that these political factors are given primary importance in the investigation and that the investigation goes as high up as it needs to go in terms of responsibilities.
AMY GOODMAN: Andalusia Knoll, I want to bring into the conversation. Andalusia, you chatted with Rubén Espinosa on Facebook right before he was killed. What did you talk about?
ANDALUSIA KNOLL: Yes. Actually, I have been reporting on the journalists, on the danger that they face in Veracruz, for the past three years. I traveled there a few years ago, and I met journalists that were just like myself, young journalists covering social movements, some covering drug trafficking, and they were—you know, I realized they were at—their lives were at risk. And so I started reporting on the situation. And then, this year, when Moisés Sánchez was killed, I started working on a documentary for Al Jazeera Plus and had just traveled to Veracruz to work on this documentary.
And then, right as our documentary was about to come out, I saw that Rubén Espinosa was in exile in Mexico City, and he is a friend of many of my friends. In Mexico, it’s so dangerous to be a journalist that we build networks, so we could support each other and be more secure. And so, he was friends of friends, and I reached out to him. And we talked about the documentary, and I said, "Thanks for sharing it." He said, "No, thanks to you for making it." And I said, "I don’t think we’ve ever met, right? We just have lots of friends in common." He said, "No, but I hope we meet. You know, being in this, it’s so difficult, and that this is where we need more solidarity from people." And we had made plans to hang out, you know, when I got back. And then, a day later, he was assassinated, with four other women.
I mean, this is—it leaves all of us in shock, that it’s not just journalists, it’s not just activists. This is anyone. Every single person I know in Mexico now feels so vulnerable that any dissenting voice can let you be killed.
AMY GOODMAN: Let’s turn to your documentary, Andalusia Knoll, made for AJ+. It starts with Jorge Sánchez, the son of Moisés Sánchez, the journalist, Moisés found decapitated earlier this year after reporting on corruption and violence in Veracruz for the weekly newspaper, La Unión. In this clip, we also hear from journalist Felix Marquez in a moment after this. It starts, though, with Moisés’ son, Jorge Sánchez.
JORGE SÁNCHEZ: [translated] I’m Jorge Sánchez, son of Moisés Sánchez, the journalist who was assassinated on January 2nd, 2015. From a young age, he was interested in social activism as a way to inform the people. He used all the tools within his reach, one of which was the newspaper, La Unión.
MOISÉS SÁNCHEZ: [translated] News from the town hall of Medellín, here in the informative weekly, La Unión.
FELIX MARQUEZ: [translated] La Unión was created by Moisés Sánchez to share the stories that were not being published by the media outlets that are co-opted by the system. This is the kind of journalism that should exist, the ideal journalism, journalism that is connected to the people. We use the newspaper like a flag to spread the stories. I don’t think any of us studied journalism to cover the deaths of our colleagues. My idea is to do a series, to take the belongings of the journalists who have been assassinated and revive the essence of each of them, to search for the items that represent them, in this case Moisés Sánchez.
JORGE SÁNCHEZ: [translated] We have a loudspeaker that he used to use, a little one. We still have it here, the one that he brought to demonstrations. That’s what my father used to do, expose the corrupt acts of the police.
FELIX MARQUEZ: [translated] He would present evidence that the authorities of Medellín de Bravo weren’t doing their jobs well. There were various political personalities who didn’t like that.
JORGE SÁNCHEZ: [translated] He had been warned that the mayor was planning to scare him.
FELIX MARQUEZ: [translated] Moisés was kidnapped at night, right in front of his family, and then was assassinated.
JORGE SÁNCHEZ: [translated] According to his lawyer, the mayor has left the state. And there are many irregularities in the investigation. These are the same anomalies that exist in all of the investigations of journalists’ murders. The authorities don’t investigate. They don’t do their job. After this happened, the government brought these security agents, but it feels weird, because they’re the ones who didn’t do anything when they took my father away, and now the police are the ones taking care of us. One would think that the other people are the ones who should be locked away, not us. But this is how things work here. The criminals roam free, and we are the ones that have to be locked up.
FELIX MARQUEZ: [translated] Most people normally work to live. And here in Veracruz, it seems like the journalists are working to die.
JORGE SÁNCHEZ: [translated] If they have already told you that they are going to kill you, why do you keep on publishing? And he used to always say to us, "We can’t live with fear. If we live with fear, things are never going to change."
FELIX MARQUEZ: [translated] His family has been very active in demanding justice and punishment for those who are responsible.
JORGE SÁNCHEZ: [translated] In Veracruz, it is dangerous to tell the truth. I know that they are going to kill me. It is very clear. But the other option is to stay silent, and the situation will just repeat itself.
FELIX MARQUEZ: [translated] The struggle we must wage is behind the cameras, behind the pens. It is to inform society, our only boss, with the truth.
AMY GOODMAN: That was photojournalist Felix Marquez and, before that, Jorge Sánchez, the son of Moisés Sánchez, who was found decapitated earlier this year after reporting on corruption and violence in Veracruz for his weekly newspaper, La Unión. It was produced by our guest today, the independent journalist Andalusia Knoll. Sebastián Aguirre, you’re with Article 19, part of the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights that guarantees free press, freedom of expression. What are you demanding now in Mexico? What are you demanding of the president? And do you feel that he bears any responsibility here, President Peña Nieto?
SEBASTIÁN AGUIRRE: Well, there is definitely a response—our demands are very clear. It’s basically, do investigation of all aggressions against journalists all over the country, because it’s not only Veracruz. We can talk about Guerrero. We can talk about Oaxaca. We’ve documented seven murders just this year. And this year was an election year, so just imagine, when we are supposed, as a country, to practice democracy, we’re seeing such high violence against the press. So, our demands are quite clear: a full investigation to all aggressions against journalists. We have a special prosecutor—a prosecution for crimes against freedom of expression, which they have presented no results in the—ever. Not so ever. I wanted to say a day, but they haven’t presented any results of the murders of Moisés Sánchez, of the murders of Regina Martínez in Veracruz, as well. She used to be a colleague with Rubén in the Proceso magazine. So, our demands are quite clear: We want a full investigation. And I think, yeah, there is a responsibility from all parts of the government, the federal, the state and the municipal government, for the systematic impunity of crimes against human rights defenders and crimes against journalists. We can actually talk about a systematic impunity, because in Article 19, we documented 88 cases since 2000, and none of them have ended up in trial.
AMY GOODMAN: Sebastián, we’re going to have to leave it there, but of course we will continue to cover this. Sebastián Aguirre with Article 19; Laura Carlsen, Center for International Policy; and Andalusia Knoll, independent journalist. We will link to her piece at AJ+.
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