Archives – Page 34 – Upside Down World

Peru Plans to Abolish Iconic Amazon Indigenous Reserve, NGO Claims

September 19, 2014 David Hill 0

Plans are afoot to abolish a reserve for vulnerable indigenous peoples in Peru’s Amazon in order to exploit massive gas deposits and facilitate Christian evangelization, according to a report by Lima-based NGO Perú Equidad – Center for Public Policies and Human Rights. Established in 1990, what is now called the Kugapakori-Nahua-Nanti and Others’ Reserve (KNNOR), is officially intended to protect the lives and territories of indigenous peoples living in what Peruvian law calls “isolation” and “initial contact.”

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World Bank Tribunal Weighs Final Arguments in El Salvador Mining Dispute

September 17, 2014 Carey L. Biron 0

A multilateral arbitration panel in Washington, DC began final hearings Monday in a contentious and long-running dispute between an international mining company and the government of El Salvador. […]

Mayan Q’eqchí Communities Violently Evicted in Alta Verapaz, Guatemala

September 16, 2014 Jeff Abbott 0

“The government has declared us terrorists, but we’re not the terrorists,” said Telma Cabrera, a Committee for Campesino Development representative. “When they (the government) responds to the demands of the people, they respond with violence. And what peace is there when the government responds with violence?”

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Film Review: ‘Revolutionary Medicine – A Story of the First Garifuna Hospital’

September 13, 2014 Jim Sugiyama 0

Rudolf Virchow, a German doctor and one of the founders of social medicine, once stated, “Medicine is politics writ large.” In telling the story of the first Garifuna hospital, Revolutionary Medicine renders this wisdom both tangible and feasible. It should be required viewing for all medical students around the world. And for the rest of us, amongst the increasingly marginalized 99 percent, Revolutionary Medicine should rekindle the oft-forlorn hope of a better, fairer world, in the purest vision of Marx.

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Mayan People’s Movement Defeats Monsanto Law in Guatemala

September 11, 2014 Christin Sandberg 0

On September 4th, after ten days of widespread street protests against the biotech giant Monsanto’s expansion into Guatemalan territory, groups of indigenous people joined by social movements, trade unions and farmer and women’s organizations won a victory when congress finally repealed the legislation that had been approved in June.

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The Other Side of Human Rights in Argentina

September 10, 2014 Silvana Melo, Translation by Nick MacWilliam 0

The raid took place so quickly and brutally that they didn’t have time to gather their clothes, their tools, their plates and cups, in some cases, not even their IDs. Shanty houses were demolished. Their possessions were destroyed. They are perpetual victims of a State which sends them onto the streets, denies them decent housing – or housing at all – runs them off the land without their belongings so they end up under the bridges.

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The Conservative Restoration in Latin America

September 10, 2014 Emir Sader 0

Since the smooth, level path of military coups, in the style of past decades, is no longer possible, the Right turns to the electoral process, with great publicity apparatus, taking advantage as well of the private communications media as their essential weapon. […]

The Return of Social Conflict in Paraguay: Toward a New Articulation of Struggles

September 4, 2014 Raúl Zibechi 0

Two years after the fall of the Fernando Lugo government and one year after the rise of Horacio Cartes of the Colorado party, social movements show signs of rebuilding, with remarkable leadership of the campesino movement facing agribusiness and repression.

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Indigenous Anarchist Critique of Bolivia’s ‘Indigenous State’: Interview with Silvia Rivera Cusicanqui

September 3, 2014 Bill Weinberg 0

“I would say that the strength of Bolivia is not the state but the people. And the people have been strong and stubborn enough to be what they are, and to put their own desires as the terms and conditions of what is going to be the change. And that is what saves this process of Evo.” – Silvia Rivera Cusicanqui

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The World Bank And Inter-American Development Bank’s Chixoy Dam Project: Still Killing Mayan Guatemalans 32 Years Later

September 3, 2014 Grahame Russell 0

Francisca was an eye-witness to and survivor of the Chixoy Dam/ Rio Negro massacres, while Brenda was a child of survivors. The Guatemalan military massacred over 440 villagers from the Mayan Achi village of Rio Negro in 1982. Thirty-two years later, two more Mayan Achi women from Rio Negro were brutally killed, caused indirectly, but in effect by the violently imposed Chixoy hydro-electric dam project.

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