from the zapatistas:

TO HONEST MEDIA

TO HUMAN RIGHTS BODIES

INDIGENOUS PEOPLES OF MEXICO

THE OTHER CAMPAIGN

THE NATIONAL LIBERATION ARMY ZAPATISTA

TO OAXACA, MEXICO AND THE WORLD

Partners, companeros:

The attacks aagainst the community of San Juan Copala Triqi – now displaced from their village by the evil government and their henchmen – is aimed at women and men who have good heart enough to denounce the evil and powerful ambitions which know no limits, and who do not consent to become dispersed from their community, the people of Copala, even outside of their land, are still being massacred by paramilitaries in the service of this damned capitalist system, who have the nerve to denounce these people as being on the left.

Yesterday afternoon, as they walked to peer Copala, Yosoyuxi Teresa Ramírez Sánchez and Serafin Ubaldo were brutally murdered, and comrade Jordan Ramírez González was seriously wounded (and later died). The latest reports we have is that Jordan could not be treated at the Hospital of criminals Juxtlahuaca,  because the gunmen were outside. Not satisfied with that, the armed men went on patrol, looking for our friend to finish him off while the police do nothing. This is because Jordan was a committed comrade and he was the last to leave Copala on 19 September. First, he wanted to be sure none of his companions were left behind, only then did he decide to leave.

paraphrased from rough translation, from  Oaxaca: New Aggression In San Juan Copala: 2 Killed And One Seriously Injured – Indigenous Peoples Issues and Resources

more:

Environmental Activist Bernardo Vásquez Sánchez Murdered in Oaxaca

for more on the background of this campaign of terror, see previous post:

 International Day of Action in Solidarity with the Autonomous Municpality of San Juan Copala, Oaxaca, Mexico

Hello Vermont Workers, Farmers, Environmentalists, Abenaki, and Revolutionaries!!!

My name is Luke Willard. I’m the Chairman of the Vermont Commission on Native American Affairs, a Firefighter and Rescuer, and I’m a Conservation Organizer for the Vermont Sierra Club and the Nulhegan Abenaki Tribe in the Northeast Kingdom. Just over a year ago, I was here to celebrate the state recognition of the Nulhegan, of which I am a member, and Elnu Abenaki tribes, and I’m very happy to report that I will be here again six days from now to celebrate the state recognition of two more tribes… the Koasek and the Missisquoi!

As a Conservation Organizer, it is my job to work at the grassroots level to encourage communities to create their own Town and Tribal Forests. We call it the OUR Forests OUR Future initiative… and we do not stand alone! So I give a shout out to the Vermont Workers Center, the AFL-CIO, 350 Vermont, and many others.

So what is Our Forests Our Future? My people have known for centuries that the land we walk upon is a gift. From this land, my people were able to meet their every need while maintaining the health and beauty of the land we call N’dakinna in the Abenaki language. Today, most know it as the Green Mountain State… Vermont. Unfortunately though, this gift has been taken for granted.

Greedy corporations, self interested out-of-staters, and even some Vermonters who have traded in their birthright for real or imagined swollen bank accounts, do not see the majestic mountains, and miles of forests. They do not see the herbs of spring, the bounties of late summer, and the colors of autumn. They do not hear the ripples of a mountain stream, the call of the loon, or the wind as it dances with leaves of a giant Vermont maple. They do not benefit from growing organic vegetables or the blessing of a deer or moose who sacrifices itself to complete the circle of life. They only see potential development, dollar signs, a place to put their pollution, and an investment in vacation home development for the wealthy who reside in lands far south of these green and rugged hills. These people, the enemies of Vermont’s working families, only hear what they want to hear. They only see the alleged benefit from the gain of elitist non-productive economic and political power, and they seek to exchange that which could serve the community, for the destruction that can only result from their personal gain. This is the challenge set before us as we, today, declare that a healthy and vibrant forest, a clean and sustainable environment, is a basic birth right of all Vermonters!

My people, the Abenaki, also know that this planet is changing. Our climate is changing. But as we adapt to these changes, it is necessary for us to lend a hand to our four-legged friends so that they may adapt to our changing environment by establishing forested migration corridors particularly in the northeast so that animals have a safe route from the spine of the Green Mountains to the vast forests of northern New Hampshire, Maine, and Quebec. We propose doing so through the creation of a mosaic of new town and tribal forests!

But let us not forget the two-legged creatures… you and me. Moms, Dads, Grandmothers, Grandfathers, and our greatest resource… our children. In exchange for our stewardship… yours and mine… Town forests and tribal forests can provide clean air to breath and clean water to drink. They can also provide essential food and medicines that haven’t been poisoned by synthetic fertilizers, hormones, and genetically modified organisms… Firewood for the disadvantaged and/or elderly… Cooperative maple sugaring… and a place for teachings our children the simplicity of sustainable living and stewardship!

Last year, over 1500 people signed our petition for the creation of new town forests. These petitions were delivered to the Governor and leaders of the Vermont General Assembly. We are pleased to report that this year the Governor is supporting increased funding for the Vermont Housing and Conservation Fund. This year, though, we are circulating a new petition… one that will demonstrate Vermont’s overwhelming support for Tribal Forests! It is our intention, this summer, to deliver this petition to the Governor, and to work with the administration to secure the first true and new Abenaki forest in over 200 years!

After 400 years of oppression, genocide, eugenics, and the near eradication of our culture and our people, it is time that the first Vermonters, the original Vermonters, the Abenaki, win back a meaningful piece of what was once all ours! We demand tribal-communal lands that we can hunt, fish, gather wood, and medicine. We demand a return of those tools of nature which were stolen from us generations ago. We do not stand before you today asking that we be become a ward of the state. No my fellow Vermonters; we stand before you today to demand that we be allowed the resources to not only safeguard our environment, but also to take care of our own people!! We are here today to declare that the time has come to establish Abenaki Tribal Forests in the Great State of Vermont!

Let me be as clear as I can… We do not seek acceptance or recognition from a federal government which is marred in blood, war, imperialism (both abroad and at home), corruption, inaction, and failure. We do not seek rights to gambling or other vices. We simply seek to work with the State of Vermont in setting aside lands which we can preserve in its natural state, and work according to our traditions; those which predate 1492 and 1791. We seek a place in these Green Hills that we can, again, call our own!

And here, we know we are not alone. We have been working with the Vermont Sierra Club and others represented in this crowd today to achieve these goals. We understand that our battle will only be won through a grand and united Popular Front composed of all those individuals and organizations who are gathered here today in solidarity! And in turn, we, the Nulhegan Abenaki, look forward to working with you to see that Vermont Put’s People and The Planet First!

So, as the sun goes down over this failed empire of greed, we, the Abenaki people, the People of the Dawn, reach out our hand in friendship to all Vermonters; be they the sons and daughters of the Green Mountain Boys, the grandchildren of Quebecquoi immigrants, or more recent arrivals. Together we are Vermont Strong and together we will win!

The Awá are one of only two nomadic hunter-gathering tribes left in the Amazon

Logging companies keen to exploit Brazil’s rainforest have been accused by human rights organisations of using gunmen to wipe out the Awá, a tribe of just 355.

It is a scene played out throughout the Amazon as the authorities struggle to tackle the powerful illegal logging industry. But it is not just the loss of the trees that has created a situation so serious that it led a Brazilian judge, José Carlos do Vale Madeira, to describe it as “a real genocide”. People are pouring on to the Awá’s land, building illegal settlements, running cattle ranches. Hired gunmen – known as pistoleros – are reported to be hunting Awá who have stood in the way of land-grabbers. Members of the tribe describe seeing their families wiped out. Human rights campaigners say the tribe has reached a tipping point and only immediate action by the Brazilian government to prevent logging can save the tribe.

Their troubles began in earnest in 1982 with the inauguration of a European Economic Community (EEC) and World Bank-funded programme to extract massive iron ore deposits found in the Carajás mountains. The EEC gave Brazil $600m to build a railway from the mines to the coast, on condition that Europe received a third of the output, a minimum of 13.6m tons a year for 15 years. The railway cut directly through the Awá’s land and with the railway came settlers. A road-building programme quickly followed, opening up the Awá’s jungle home to loggers, who moved in from the east.

It was, according to Survival’s research director, Fiona Watson, a recipe for disaster. A third of the rainforest in the Awá territory in Maranhão state in north-east Brazil has since been destroyed and outsiders have exposed the Awá to diseases against which they have no natural immunity.

“The Awá and the uncontacted Awá are really on the brink,” she said. “It is an extremely small population and the forces against them are massive. They are being invaded by loggers, settlers and cattle ranchers. They rely entirely on the forest. They have said to me: ‘If we have no forest, we can’t feed our children and we will die’.”

But it appears that the Awá also face a more direct threat. Earlier this year an investigation into reports that an Awá child had been killed by loggers found that their tractors had destroyed the Awá camp.

“It is not just the destruction of the land; it is the violence,” said Watson. “I have talked to Awá people who have survived massacres. I have interviewed Awá who have seen their families shot in front of them. There are immensely powerful people against them. The land-grabbers use pistoleros to clear the land. If this is not stopped now, these people could be wiped out. This is extinction taking place before our eyes.”

What is most striking about the Funai undercover video of the loggers – apart from the sheer size of the trunks – is the absence of jungle in the surrounding landscape. Once the landscape would have been lush rainforest. Now it has been clear-felled, leaving behind just grass and scrub and only a few scattered clumps of trees.

Such is the Awá’s affinity with the jungle and its inhabitants that if they find a baby animal during their hunts they take it back and raise it almost like a child, to the extent that the women will sometimes breastfeed the creature. The loss of their jungle has left them in a state of despair. “They are chopping down wood and they are going to destroy everything,” said Pire’i Ma’a, a member of the tribe. “Monkeys, peccaries, tapir, they are all running away. I don’t know how we are going to eat – everything is being destroyed, the whole area.

“This land is mine, it is ours. They can go away to the city, but we Indians live in the forest. They are going to kill everything. Everything is dying. We are all going to go hungry, the children will be hungry, my daughter will be hungry, and I’ll be hungry too.”

In an earlier interview with Survival, another member of the tribe, Karapiru, described how most of his family were killed by ranchers. “I hid in the forest and escaped from the white people. They killed my mother, my brothers and sisters and my wife,” he said. “When I was shot during the massacre, I suffered a great deal because I couldn’t put any medicine on my back. I couldn’t see the wound: it was amazing that I escaped – it was through the Tupã [spirit]. I spent a long time in the forest, hungry and being chased by ranchers. I was always running away, on my own. I had no family to help me, to talk to. So I went deeper and deeper into the forest.

via ‘They’re killing us’: world’s most endangered tribe cries for help | World news | The Observer.

Mine-related violence is certainly distressing but far from rare, extending from Chile to the Arctic. What is less ordinary is the extent and intensification of anti-mining mobilisation across Latin America. The past month in particular has seen a swell in protests defending land and water resources. Between World Water Day, annually celebrated on March 22, and the International Day of Peasant Struggles on April 17, this spring has seen resistance against mega-projects gain solid ground.

The incidents in Ocotlán, simultaneous with larger mobilisations in other locations, are indicative of a broader turn in which indigenous movements are leading coordinated efforts to defend natural resources. Indigenous movements may be locally rooted, yet as its contest reframes governmental agendas, it ineluctably impacts transnational politics as well.

‘Conga won’t go’ in Peru

On World Water Day, thousands of people gathered around the Blue Lagoon in the Peruvian highlands of Cajamarca to protect their water resources from mining exploitation and contamination. The Conga Mine, a $4.8bn project involving US-based Newmont Mining Corporation and Peruvian company Minas Buenaventura, would be the second largest gold mine in the world and affect five sources of drinking water.

Residents of Cajamarca have been insistently protesting the Conga Mine project, approved in 2010. Neither President Humala’s 60-day state of emergency and increased military presence nor the external review of the environmental impact study were able to undermine the intensifying civil unrest. In fact, mobilisations gained momentum since Cajamarca’s regional vice president, César Aliaga Díaz, issued regional ordinance 036, declaring the Conga project unviable, thereby lending official support to the mobilisations. The uncontroversial alliance between local protesters and Cajamarca’s government against the Peruvian state and international mining interests suggests a multi-layered, and certainly transnational, political scenario.

via The significance of indigenous mobilisations – Opinion – Al Jazeera English.

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Resilience in Ecuador

Ecuador’s March for Life, Water, and the Dignity of Peoples was as extensive as it was enduring, gathering marchers for more than 400 miles from International Women’s Day (March 8) to World Water Day. When CONAIE’s[Esp] president Humberto Cholando led thousands of indigenous peoples into the capital on March 22, thousands of non-indigenous protesters had also joined in. The government, in turn, organised pro-government countermarches, accusing the march of being fomented by prior coup participants, and to be supported by the country’s right for electoral motives.

Despite obstacles and shortcomings, this national mobilisation symbolises the re-unification of all indigenous groups in Ecuador around one common political agenda, echoing the massive mobilisations of the 1990s. Using the same slogan as the anti-Conga movement: “Life is worth more than gold,” the march emphasised protecting water and opposing mega-mining projects. The 19-point demand, however, was broader and included other issues, including opposing the expansion of oil frontiers and demanding labour rights as well as the respect of sexual rights.

This march did not achieve formal negotiations with the state. Yet it did achieve another important goal: to demand – and to practice – the de-criminalisation of social protest. In that sense, this mobilisation represents the resilience as well as the agility of an indigenous movement that has remained the leading force of opposition over the years, surviving political censorship and intimidation, as well its own internal fractures.

Thousands enter Guatemala City

Days after Ecuador’s march, more than 10,000 people entered Guatemala City – an impressive crowd for a capital of about one million inhabitants. The march lasted nine days, covered much of the country, and involved a diverse array of social sectors. Called the “Indigenous, Campesino, and Popular March for the defence, dignity and of the Earth and Territories”, this mobilisation was explicitly national and geared to address social concerns beyond indigenous concerns. The agenda encompassed land rights and territoriality as well as fundamental civil rights such as a Law for Community Media to legalise community radios. Just like in Ecuador, Guatemala’s anti-mining march is relevant because it is embedded in politics at large.

Leaders issued a declaration of the march for resistance and dignity in defence of the earth and territory, in which they demand, among others things, the cancellation of concessions for mining, petroleum and hydroelectric plants, and mono-culture agriculture – as well as the end to persecution and criminalisation of indigenous people fighting for their rights (eight indigenous women in San Miguel Ixtahuacán have arrest orders against them for speaking out against the Marlin Mine). Such forceful mobilisation convinced President Otto Perez Molina to negotiate the demands posited in the protesters official declaration.

TIPNIS redux

In Bolivia, indigenous mobilisation is also at a peak. The protests that brought international attention to the construction of a highway through the Indigenous Territory and National Park Isiboro Sécure (TIPNIS) are far from over. The 61-day march in the autumn of 2011 generated widespread support for originary peoples, pushing the government to abide by a law protecting the TIPNIS and interrupting the construction more than once. As conflict over the TIPNIS holds, political strategies grow increasingly complex, intricate, and transnational. The UN offered to mediate the stand-off, whereas the Brazilian National Bank for Social and Economic Development (which is financing most of the project) is demanding that the construction firm and the Bolivian government reframe the contract.

Despite political retaliation against protesters and harassment against leaders – such as against the president of the Bolivian Confederation of Indigenous Peoples (CIDOB), Adolfo Chávez, and the president of the TIPNIS, Fernando Vargas – coordination strengthened and even expanded to urban areas. In fact, Bolivia’s IV Indigenous National Commission just ratified the start of the IX March in Defence of the TIPNIS for April 25, from Chaparina to La Paz. It will reiterate resistance against the road construction through protected territories, as well as to defend natural resources at large, respect for constitutional rights, and insist on the democratic practice of consultation.

The various marches in defence of the TIPNIS evolved beyond a mobilisation for and by indigenous interests. It made tangible a national political discontent beyond protected territories, bringing international visibility to the internal fissures of the Morales government.

The smaller and larger indigenous mobilisations taking place simultaneously across Latin America are inevitably local, in that they contest projects in their communities, but they cannot be trivialised as isolated or anecdotal incidents. These mobilisations are of international relevance because they have successfully mobilised thousands of peoples, indigenous and non-indigenous, over long periods of time and across territories, crafting political demands, and often forcing governments to reframe policies. Most importantly, indigenous mobilisation has been able to bring environmental politics to the streets, turning natural resources, water, and consultation into public political issues. The growing constellation of mobilisations across the region points towards deeper societal changes in the making.

Only 400 members of the Jarawa tribe, who still hunt with bows and arrows, remain in the country’s Andaman Islands.

Al Jazeera’s Kathy Hearn reports on increased threats to their way of life caused by poaching, logging and tourism.

It is seldom noted anywhere in fact, be it in textbooks or on the internet, that Hitler studied America’s “Indian policy”, and used it as a model for what he termed “the final solution.”

He wasn’t the only one either. It’s not explicitly mentioned in the film, but it’s well known that members of the National Party government in South Africa studied “the American approach” before they introduced the system of racial apartheid, which lasted from 1948 to 1994. Other fascist regimes, for instance, in South and Central America, studied the same policy.

Noted even less frequently, Canada’s “Aboriginal policy” was also closely examined for its psychological properties. America always took the more ‘wide-open’ approach, for example, by decimating the Buffalo to get rid of a primary food source, by introducing pox blankets, and by giving $1 rewards to settlers in return for scalps of Indigenous Men, women, and children, among many, many other horrendous acts. Canada, on the other hand, was more bureaucratic about it. They used what I like to call “the gentleman’s touch”, because instead of extinguishment, Canada sought to “remove the Indian from the Man” and the Women and the Child, through a long-term, and very specific program of internal breakdown and replacement – call it “assimilation”. America had it’s own assimilation program, but Canada was far more technical about it.

Perhaps these points would have been more closely examined in American Holocaust if the film had been completed. The film’s director, Joanelle Romero, says she’s been turned down from all sources of funding since she began putting it together in 1995.

Perhaps it’s just not “good business” to invest in something that tells so much truth? In any event, Romero produced a shortened, 29-minute version of the film in 2001, with the hope of encouraging new funders so she could complete American Holocaust. Eight years on, Romero is still looking for funds.

American Holocaust may never become the 90-minute documentary Romero hoped to create, to help expose the most substantial act of genocide that the world has ever seen… one that continues even as you read these words.

i think these white folks in power here in the u.s. – and their “house servents” – have it backwards – they only worship satan, carnage, death, ruin, with money as their supreme godking…

I wasn’t suggesting the president’s not a Christian. I accept the fact the president’s a Christian. I just said that when you have a world view that elevates the world above man, and says that we can’t take those resources because we’re going to harm the Earth by things that are frankly just not scientifically proven, like for example the politicization of the whole global warming debate, I mean this is just all an attempt to centralize power and give more power to the government. This is not questioning the president’s beliefs in Christianity. I’m talking about the belief that man should be in charge of the Earth, and have dominion on it, and be good stewards of it.

via Santorum: Obama ‘Elevates the World Above Man’ – Politics – The Atlantic Wire.

But now this land, rich in mineral deposits and rivers, is considered priceless. And Ricardo Martinelli, Panama’s authoritarian president who is a close friend of former Italian premier Silvio Berlusconi, wants it back.

His plan is to open the Ngabe heartland to foreign mining companies and push hydroelectric power projects onto an unwilling population. The problem is that the Ngabe have nowhere else to go. So the scene was set for a dramatic showdown, which started when the Ngabe closed the Pan-American Highway in Chiriquí province in the west of the country – bringing Panama to a standstill.

Their demand: an audience with the president. Martinelli’s response was extraordinary for this relatively peaceful country with a constitution that forbids the formation of an army. The police, who human rights observers say have become increasingly militarised since Martinelli became president three years ago, launched a vicious crackdown, cutting communications with the outside world, and allegedly shooting innocent bystanders as well as peaceful protesters.

Harrowing reports surfaced of rapes and the mistreatment of detainees, as scores of Ngabe men, women and children were arrested. At least two people were killed and many more were injured. The crackdown lasted for three days and proved so unpopular with Panamanians, that Martinelli was forced into negotiations with the Ngabe.

Opening fire

The talks were taking place at the National Assembly building in the centre of Panama City and dozens of Ngabe families had set up camp nearby to show support for Silvia Carerra, their elected leader who is known as the Casica.

It was here that my crew and I set up our camera on my first day in Panama to interview some of the people who had travelled hundreds of miles to make their point. We had just started to interview a young woman and child when gun shots rang through the air. The police had opened fire at the demonstrators. There were several shotgun injuries, none serious, but nasty all the same. It seemed inexplicable. Why fire into a crowd filled with women and children, particularly at a time when their leader was negotiating with the government?

It is possible that the government was never that keen to talk to the Ngabe in the first place and that this was an attempt to provoke a reaction which would force the cancellation of the talks. If that was the plan, it did not work. The Casica had no intention of letting the government set the agenda and the talks continued.

But as I flicked through the channels in my hotel room later that night I was given an insight into the less than perfect relationship between the government and the media here. Panamanian TV media carried the police’s version of events – that drunken Ngabe youths had gone on the rampage. It was a story that I knew for a fact was far from the truth.

from al jazeera - Panama: Village of the damned

The trucks of the oil and gas industry are responsible for the deaths of seven children and youths, while the oil and gas drilling is destroying the land, water and air at Fort Berthold, land of the Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara, in North Dakota. Still, Three Affiliated elected tribal politicians continue to push for more death and destruction.

Those oil and gas semi-trucks have resulted in the deaths of seven children and youths in the past the three years, including two children who were three and five years old.

Speaking at the Rights of Mother Earth Gathering, Kandi Mossett, Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara, said the energy companies are spending money on propaganda in North Dakota, and her people are dying.

“They have billions of dollars to run campaigns with their propaganda.” Mossett said even though North Dakota is among the windiest states, the oil and gas industry continues to be the focus.“It is all about oil. People are dying where I come from, literally being killed by semi-trucks.”

Mossett said seven youths have been killed in the past three years, and two of them were only three and five years old. (Listen to the video below.)

She pointed out that the US and tribal officials are now talking about expediting the process.

Mossett was referring to the push by tribal officials to Congressional committees to expedite the oil and gas industry that is destroying the land, poisoning the water and air and killing the people.

US Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar announced new initiatives in April to expedite the oil and gas industry, following a meeting with Chairman Tex Hall who has been pushing for more oil and gas drilling. Hall has also pushed to remove regulations for fracking.

The truth about the oil and gas expansion on tribal land in North Dakota, and the effect of tribal leaders pushing for more drilling, are among the most censored issues.

Listen to Kandi Mossett on this video from the open mic session at the gathering: