Miguel Facussé died in June of this year. He was considered one of the richest men in Honduras and the 11th richest in Central America. His death ensured his impunity for various crimes. He made his money swindling banks and other companies and used his influence in the government to have agrarian laws changed in order to swindle, intimidate, and usurp land from peasant farmers in various sectors throughout Honduras.
“Just so that it’s very clear and you aren’t misled about what we say and don’t say. Our idea isn’t to promote voting. Nor is it to promote abstention or casting blank votes. Nor is it to impose our thinking on others… For us, Zapatistas, what we’re interested in is knowing how to resist and confront the many heads of the capitalist system that exploits us, represses us, disappears us and steals from us… it is the people themselves who are going to make the changes that are truly necessary. That is the only way that a new system of government is going to exist.”
The largest protests – and by far the longest-lasting – against Rafael Correa’s government have been raging all over Ecuador since August 13th, when hundreds of thousands of people in a national strike called by the Indigenous People’s organizations and Labor Unions, took to the streets in Quito and other parts of the country. The goal was to vociferously show their discontent with a number of government policies and demand reforms.
Despite progress with Cuba, the Obama administration has done little to dispel doubts about Washington’s intentions towards its neighbors to the south.
“We say that every square meter of land that is worked with agro-ecology is a liberated square meter. We see it as a tool to transform farmers’ social and economic conditions. We see it as a tool of liberation from the unsustainable capitalist agricultural model that oppresses farmers.” – Miguel Ramirez, National Coordinator of the Organic Agriculture Movement of El Salvador.
After it was revealed that the Pará state government had authorized forest management plans inside of the Maró Indigenous Territory, Borari and Arapium indigenous groups have been accused of being “fake Indians.” The case underscores the importance of the self-identification of indigenous communities.
“After 10 years I am stepping down as an editor at Upside Down World. Unfortunately, other commitments have made it impossible for me to put the time and energy into this that I had in the past. Working on the editorial collective all of these years has been one of the most rewarding and meaningful experiences in my life.” – Cyril Mychalejko
Franco-Brazilian academic and journalist Manuela Picq has been arrested at an Indigenous march in Ecuador and is facing deportation. She was accompanying her partner at the march and pursuing journalistic investigation of the Indigenous movement. Update August 17th: Today a judge ruled Manuela Picq will not be deported from Ecuador.
Francisca Ramirez, coordinator with the National Council in Defense of Our Lake, Land, and Sovereignty, takes a deep breath. “I was born in Fonseca. I live in Fonseca. I want to die in Fonseca.” If the canal partnership between Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega and Chinese billionaire Wang Jing comes to fruition, her future home is uncertain.
Ecuador’s Indigenous movements have launched an uprising to challenge the government’s opposition to bilingual education and its support for an extractive-based economy.
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