VivirLatino

Living & Luchando la Vida Latin@

G8/G20 Summits Begin

June 25th, 2010

It’s been a busy time around here with all the conferences (AMC and now the USSF) and now the G 8 and 20 summits are blasting off with rounds of protests. I was most interested to hear about this protest, which involved (as near as I can tell) indigenous peoples and immigrants.

Via BChannelNews.tv

In the days leading up to the G8/G20 Summits, activists and community organizers have been co-ordinating events and actions around Themed Days of Resistance, which highlight different issues each day, as a build-up to the Days of Action that are scheduled for June 25-27.

The theme for June 24 was Indigenous Sovereignty and the streets of Toronto saw a First Nations led march of over 1500 people.

Later in the day a press conference was held, and members of Defenders of the Land and No One is Illegal (two groups involved in the march) spoke to reporters in front of the three kilometre, $5.5 million security fence that has encircled the area around the summit site in downtown Toronto.

Here’s another good one:

We’ll be keeping our eyes out for more interesting news, let us know if you’re at the protests!

So You Wanna Be Indigenous, Taino Edition

November 14th, 2009

When I was in 7th grade I had to do a project on an Indigenous community for school. I’m sure the project was assigned to me sometime between Columbus Day and Thanksgiving the way these projects tend to be. I chose the Tainos, the indigenous people of the Caribbean and specifically what is now Puerto Rico. I chose the Tainos not because I identified as Taina or even as Rican at the time but because growing up I can remember Puerto Rican coloring books telling me of my Indigenous heritage and I remember being told that my great great grandmother was a Taina. I remember feeling shocked and angry when in my research I read over and over how the Taino were extinct. How could that be? It didn’t make sense to me historically. I thought of stories I was told of people hiding from the Spanish in the mountains and intermarriage. Does intermarriage/mestisaje = extinction?

It would be for another 5 or 6 years until I really thought about it again. As I claimed my Puerto Rican identity and became an activist I wold come into contact with Ricans claiming Taino. My new found political identity made this complicated for me and now, settled nicely into my identity as Rican via Queens, NYC, it’s an issue I struggle with. There is a resurgent movement of Ricans claiming Taino. As the mother of an Indigenous daughter I think about self-identification and when it crosses the lines into appropriation. Can a colonized person appropriate from their own history/bloodline? I know I don’t feel comfortable claiming Indigenous Taina, even if I can pull the stereotypical great great grandmother that many people do.

I would love to hear people’s thoughts on this.

Via / Literanista

Peruvian police accused of massacring indigenous peoples in Peru

June 11th, 2009

A great interview from Democracy Now! about the incidents in Peru and the U.S. role in shaping the violence:

AMY GOODMAN: On Sunday, Peruvian President Alan Garcia defended the police actions and lashed out against the deaths of the policemen. He blamed, quote, “foreign forces” for the violence and spoke of a, quote, “conspiracy” to stop his government from exploiting natural resources.

PRESIDENT ALAN GARCIA: [translated] These death mongers would like the world to denounce hundreds of natives being killed. But what has been found are dozens of police with their throats slit. That’s the truth when one talks of the facts of these deaths. And you might ask why they are our police deaths, if they are the one who are armed. The explanation for all of this, you come to understand, is a will for dialogue on the part of these humble policemen, who had no desire to fire their weapons.

AMY GOODMAN: Peruvian President Alan Garcia defending the police actions against indigenous protesters last week. Over the weekend, Garcia, a free trade advocate, said 40,000 natives did not have the right to tell 28 million Peruvians not to come to their lands. Anyone who did so, he warned, would lead Peru into, quote, “irrationality and a backwards primitive state.”

Since April, indigenous groups have opposed new laws that would allow an unprecedented wave of logging, oil drilling, mining and agriculture in the Amazon rainforest by blocking roads, waterways and oil pipelines. President Garcia’s government passed these laws under “fast track” authority he had received from the Peruvian congress to facilitate implementation of the US-Peru Free Trade Agreement.

Friday’s clashes followed a governmental decision to reject congressional attempts to overturn some of the laws.

The role of U.S. in Peru clashes

June 9th, 2009

peruindigenous Being in the U.S. affords me certain privileges, namely allowing me to be unaware of how laws of the U.S. affect citizens in other countries. I knew on some level what the fighting in Peru was about (corporate versus indigenous nations versus Peruvian government), but of course, the role of the U.S. is so hidden from people in the U.S., we don’t see it until we are told.

From msnbc.com:

The strikers’ demands are the same as those of the protesting Indians: that Congress revoke laws to promote oil and natural gas extraction, logging and large-scale agriculture on traditional Indian lands. Garcia decreed the laws to comply with a new U.S.-Peru free trade agreement.

“We don’t get anything from this huge exploitation, which also poisons us. We’ve never seen any development and my community lives in poverty,” local Aguaruna leader Mateo Inti told The Associated Press in Bagua, the scene of Friday’s violence.

They also want Garcia and his Cabinet prosecuted for the bloodshed, which they say also killed 30 Indians. The government puts the civilian death toll at nine — outraging the Indian leaders who accuse police of burning and hiding more bodies.

“We’re not taking even one step back. We haven’t lost this fight,” protest leader Daysi Zapata said.

In a two page article, there is one sentence that details what all this has to do with the U.S.–or in other words, how U.S. style capitalism is killing people a world away from the U.S.–or, in other words, how people in other countries learn to “hate” the U.S.

Or, more bluntly, people don’t hate the U.S. because we’re ‘free’ and because of our ‘rights,’ they hate us because we create economic structures that destroy and violate their land, communities and peoples–all in the name of protecting and defending our ‘rights.’

On a tangent, this is what makes me think that maybe “ethnic media” has some legitimacy. I cringe at the name “ethnic media,” but if it is the only media that is attempting to do something as simple as explain what U.S. trade agreements are doing to the world–then maybe I can get over the name a lot faster than I thought I could.

Corporate media should be ashamed of itself.

Language, The Media, & Access to Power : Peruvian Congresswoman Hilaria Supa

May 4th, 2009

4370620090423082928 Via Global Voices comes the issue of language and power, specifically the criticism coming from a Peruvian newspaper that an indigenous congresswoman, Hilaria Supa, should not have her position because she doesn’t know proper Spanish.

El Correo de Lima wrote in a front page story:

Se trataba de Hilaria Supa, parlamentaria del Partido Nacionalista Peruano elegida por la región Cusco, y a decir de lo que descubrió una reveladora foto de Correo, sus limitaciones en cuanto a ortografía y sintaxis dejan mucho que desear. Las tomas obtenidas del cuaderno de notas de la mujer de 49 años hablan por sí solas.

My translation: This is about Hilaria Supa, Congresswoman form the Nationalist Peruvian Party chosen by the Cusco region, and based on a revealing photograph from el Correo, her limitations when it comes to her ability to spell and use of syntax, leave much to be desired. The images from a notebook of the writing of the 49 year old woman speak for themselves.

Indigenous peoples in Colombia still struggling with rebel violence

April 30th, 2009

22colombia2_600a The New York Times has a really important post up about the effect the ‘war on drugs’ in Colombia is having on the indigenous populations of the region.

Before the Embera Indians were displaced, the nation’s main rebel group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, admitted killing eight Awá Indians in February in Nariño, another department, accusing them of informing for the Colombian Army.

Late last year, tensions also flared in Cauca, a nearby province, after the husband of a Nasa Indian leader was killed at a military checkpoint, and it was reported that at least eight Nasa Indians had been assassinated. Nasa leaders said those responsible included both the FARC and paramilitary groups working with large landowners who oppose land reform demands.

Here in Chocó, the Embera fleeing during the first three months of this year almost equaled the 2,400 displaced in all of 2008, said Luis Enrique Murillo, the peace commissioner here. Many of their villages lie in areas long under the control of rebel groups, but are now in the cross hairs of the criminal armies trying to dislodge the guerrillas.

In recent years, we’ve been hearing story after story about how much better things are getting in Colombia–and no doubt they have been. But are things getting better at the expense of indigenous peoples? And do those of us who have the privilege of saying “Whew, things are so much better!” have the ethical right to look away from the violence still happening?

Evo Morales is more than just the first “Indio” to Run Bolivia

January 27th, 2006

There is much critical focus on Bolivia as it has just inaugurated its first indigenous presidente. Evo Morales is indeed the first Aymara to run the country that is about 80 percent indigenous. He also represents the industry that employs and feeds that majority, the coca industry. But the election of Evo is more that just about democracy at work, more than just about the majority who have been treated as minority in terms of capital and power taking their place. The election of Evo Morales combined with the presidency of Hugo Chavez in Venezuela and the election of Michelle Bachelet in Chile point to a growing move to the left in Latin America. But just because Evo Morales is one of the people doesn’t mean he has it easy, according to AlterNet:

Bolivia’s “right-wing movements, particularly those concentrated in Santa Cruz, Bolivia’s wealthiest province, where the energy and agricultural export businesses are based, may well encourage” a civil conflict with the Morales government if he doesn’t toe the line…His hands tied by corporate-designed “free-trade” deals and a load of debt, Evo Morales is caught between a rock and a very hard place.

Via / AlterNet