Backed by Interpol, the European Union through EL PACCTO 2.0, and a Dutch police unit specializing in environmental crime, “Operation Guyana Shield” involved over 24,500 checks on people and vehicles across remote border areas, and resulted in 198 arrests. Officers seized large quantities of cash, unprocessed gold, and mercury, as well as firearms, drugs and mining equipment. Authorities said organized crime networks behind these operations are linked to a major Guyanese gold exporting firm. The operation signals a new enforcement posture, marked by deeper cross-border collaboration to disrupt transnational networks that evade jurisdictional boundaries and exploit enforcement gaps across the Amazon border region.

“The surge in international gold prices in recent years has resulted in increased gold mining, making it the fastest-growing revenue stream for organized crime groups,” Interpol Secretary General Valdecy Urquiza said. Commenting on the collaborative nature of the operation, he continued: “At Interpol, we are committed to working with our partners to disrupt those networks and prevent more damage to this remote and environmentally fragile region.”

Authorities also seized over $60,000 worth of cylinders of mercury, which is commonly used in illegal gold mining to separate gold ore. It is extremely toxic and harmful to both the environment and human health, and can have devastating consequences for both when improperly transported and stored. Officers working on the border between Brazil and Guyana also intercepted a bus carrying undocumented migrants, including minors, who they believe to have been exploited for child labor or sexual abuse.

The Operation Guyana Shield task force was based out of Brazil’s International Police Cooperation Center (CCPI) for Amazonia in Manaus, and was comprised of officials from all four participating jurisdictions. The operation represented a single, coordinated push to disrupt organized crime networks in the Guyana Shield region, which is routinely plagued by illegal gold mining, cross-border smuggling, and related crimes that exploit remote borders and weak or uneven enforcement capacities.

With enforcement actions increasingly shaped by shared intelligence and coordinated deployments, officials framed Operation Guyana Shield as a test case for sustained regional cooperation against organized crime.

From JURIST, Jan. 23. Used with permission.

Photo: IBAMA via Flickr

Bouterse was initially convicted in 2019 for his role in the murders, following the overturning of a law pushed through by members of Bouterse’s political party to grant immunity to suspects in the December Murders. The amnesty law was protested within Suriname and internationally, with human rights organizations unanimously condemning its passage in 2012. The Netherlands, which exercised colonial rule over Suriname until 1975, immediately suspended 20 million euros in development aid to its former colony.

The amnesty law was eventually overturned by a court ruling. In November 2019, a Surinamese military court handed down a 20-year sentence to Bouterse for the murders. He appealed in January 2020 and remained free while awaiting the outcome of the case. The new decision taken by the High Court on brings an end to the lengthy legal battle.

Under Suriname law, Bouterse has the right to petition his successor, incumbent President Chan Santokhi, to seek clemency. It appears unlikely that a petition for clemency will be granted, however. In an interview with the Dutch television program Nieuwsuur following the decision, Santokhi insisted that it is inevitable that Bouterse will be imprisoned. “There is no other choice,” he remarked. “The laws of the country must be followed.”

Five other suspects have been sentenced in connection with the killings, with an additional two convicted, though they are believed to have fled Suriname. The Dutch embassy in Paramaribo has issued a warning about the possibility of unrest within the country following the ruling.

From Jurist, Dec. 22. Used with permission.

Photo of Fort Zeelandia, where the murders took place, via Wikimedia Commons

The Surinamese Interior War was a conflict waged in the inland rainforest of the South American nation and former Dutch colony between 1986 and 1992. During the war, the Surinamese National Army fought the Jungle Commando guerillas, killing hundreds of civilians and displacing thousands. The Jungle Commando won a base of support among the interior’s Maroon population, giving an ethnic cast to the conflict.

The suspect, who was not named, is accused of violating Article 8 of the Criminal Law in Wartime Act for the killing of people not partaking or no longer partaking in combat. The Netherlands’ Public Prosecution Service believes he was a member of the infantry of the National Army of Suriname during the war, and told others that he killed several people in June 1987.

Initially, the suspect’s lawyer invoked amnesty under terms of Surinamese law. This was rejected by the court on the basis that in exceptional cases, Dutch courts can overrule foreign amnesty provisions. The court determined that this case fell under the exception, due to the severity of the crimes involved.

From Jurist, Feb. 8. Used with permission.

Map: University of Texas

The incident took place Oct. 21, when two men entered Santa Maria in Traspontina Church near St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome, removed several of the Pachamama statues that had been on display there, and then threw them into the Tiber. The statues were subsequently recovered, and four days later Pope Francis issued an apology for the act, speaking in his capacity as Bishop of Rome. “As bishop of this diocese,” he wrote, “I ask forgiveness from those who have been offended by this gesture.”

The statues, identical carved wooden images of a naked pregnant indigenous Amazonian woman, had been used in several events and rituals during the Oct. 6-27 Amazon Synod, which brought together 185 bishops from across the Amazon Basin. In his statement, the Pope referred to the statues as representing Pachamama, the Earth Mother deity of many traditional peoples in South America. They had also been described during the Synod as representing “Our Lady of the Amazon,” suggesting an identification with the Virgin Mary. (Catholic News Agency, Oct. 25; National Catholic Reporter, Oct. 21)

Brandmüller was one of the four cardinals who in 2016 sent a letter to Pope Francis raising questions (or dubia, Latin for “doubts”) about his Amoris Laetitia (Joy of Love) document, which broached allowing divorced and remarried believers to receive communion. Earlier this year, Brandmüller joined with the other surviving “dubia cardinal,” Raymond Leo Burke of Missouri, to issue a letter asserting that the “horrible crime” of clerical sexual abuse of minors is part of the “plague of the homosexual agenda” that has “been spread within the Church…promoted by organized networks and protected by a…conspiracy of silence.” (Catholic News Agency, Feb. 20; National Catholic Register, Nov. 14, 2016)

The Amazon Synod—officially the Synod of Bishops for the Pan-Amazon Region—clearly represented an opposite current in the Church. Indigenous leaders from throughout the Amazon joined the bishops from Brazil, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Guyana, French Guiana and Suriname. Although only the bishops had voting power, the indigenous leaders—some in face paint and traditional headdresses—presided at rituals and consultations attended by the prelates. The Synod’s final document called for allowing married deacons to become priests, and said that the idea of ordaining women as deacons had been “very present” during their discussions

The document also invoked an “indigenous theology” and the need for an “Amazonian rite” in the Church. It set forth a proposed definition of “ecological sin,” as “an action or omission against God, against others, the community and the environment… It is a sin against future generations and manifests itself in acts and habits of pollution and destruction of the environmental harmony, transgressions against the principles of interdependence and the breaking of solidarity networks among creatures and against the virtue of justice.” It called for grappling with “the political and ethical dimension of our word of faith” in the face of the “prevailing destructive and extractive development model.”

“We denounce the violation of human rights and extractivist destruction,” the document stated. Making explicit reference to the threat of climate change, it called for a “a radical energy transition and the search for alternatives.”  (National Catholic Reporter EarthBeat, NPR, Oct. 26; Vatican News, Oct. 24)

Photo: National Catholic Reporter

Just before the Leticia summit opened, a group of international attorneys specializing in human rights and environmental law announced that they will file a complaint against Bolsonaro for crimes against humanity and the environment at the International Criminal Court in The Hague, Netherlands. The attorneys, including the former French ambassador for human rights François Zimeray, will seek to have Bolsonaro indicted for his failure to respond to the Amazon fires in a timely manner.

It was only under mounting international pressure that Bolsonaro announced that he would mobilize the army to fight the flames late last month. Brazil is named by human rights groups as the deadliest country in the world for land defenders, with at least 57 murdered last year, 25 of them in three massacres. Some legal scholars maintain that the fires themselves constitute a form of genocide against the Amazon’s indigenous peoples. (Colombia Reports, AFP, The Rio Times, EuroNews, Gizmodo, CNN)

Photo via Mongabay