Archives – Page 42 – Upside Down World

Ecuador – The Yasuní and the Current State of Affairs: Economics, Regulation, and Opposition

May 8, 2014 Eduardo Gudynas, Translated by Danica Jorden 0

Denying the referendum means that a progressive government, when forced to seriously discuss its appetite for petroleum or mining, must shed its clothes and reveal its most intimate mercantile thoughts. Public debates on oil exploration in the Amazon promoted through public referendum could raise discussion about issues much more far-reaching than the government’s petroleum strategy. There would rapidly also be discussion about development, government practices, etc., revealing their contradictions.

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Hands Off Venezuela! What Has Been Happening Since February and Why It Matters

May 7, 2014 Susan Spronk 0

Not only does Venezuela give us much to learn from this creative experiment with “twenty-first century socialism,” but it also continues to play a crucial role in Latin America and the rest of the world—opening spaces for the election of left governments and inspiring extra-parliamentary movements that demand radical social change. However, it is important to recognize that as with any socialist experiment, it has been riddled with contradictions and tensions. Nonetheless, the Bolivarian revolution is worth defending because of its importance to the region and its worth in its own right.

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A Reading on Ecuador’s Return to the World Bank

May 6, 2014 Alberto Acosta, Translated by Danica Jorden 0

In 2008, the government of President Correa suspended servicing part of the foreign commercial debt, but not the entire debt. This suspension of payments, or moratorium, was marked by a clear and preconceived programmatic position to seek out better conditions for renegotiating the debt, not because it was impossible to service. However, there are backward steps now being taken, a long way off from the transformative alternatives that were proposed in the beginning.

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Venezuela: Petro-‘Socialism’ in its Labyrinth

May 5, 2014 Raúl Zibechi 0

Economic crisis, product shortages, and polarization paint a scenario in which the continuity of the Bolivarian movement is at stake. So is the sovereignty of a country that dared to challenge its dependence on a superpower that considers the Caribbean a “closed sea to which the United States holds the key.”

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Peru’s Conga Mine Conflict: Cajamarca Won’t Capitulate

May 1, 2014 Lynda Sullivan 0

The fight over the Conga mining project is one of Peru’s largest current social conflicts. Today, the local population continues resisting the imposition of one of Latin America`s largest gold mining projects – Minas Conga. The situation remains tense, and the resistance continues, but with an intensified sense of urgency because as the battles are won and lost, many feel that the conflict is nearing its conclusion.

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Impunity and Dispossession in Mexico: San Sebastián Bachajón on the Anniversary of the Assassination of Juan Vázquez Guzmán

May 1, 2014 Jessica Davies 0

In San Sebastián Bachajón, Chiapas, Mexico, the impunity given to the attackers has not stopped the ejidatarios’ (common landholders’) resistance to the dispossession of their lands. In recognition of the first anniversary of the assassination of community leader and defender of the land, Juan Vázquez Guzmán, “Two Weeks of Worldwide Action: Juan Vázquez Guzmán lives! The Bachajón struggle continues!” have been called, from Thursday, April 24 to Thursday, May 8, 2014. As part of this initiative, the screening of the video “Bachajón – Dispossession is death, Life is resistance” is being promoted internationally.

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The Politics of Pachamama: Natural Resource Extraction vs. Indigenous Rights and the Environment in Latin America

April 25, 2014 Benjamin Dangl 0

On the conflicts between the politics of extraction of natural resources among countries led by leftist governments in Latin America, and the politics of Pachamama (Mother Earth), and how indigenous movements have resisted extractivism in defense of their rights, land and the environment.

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Guatemala: Suppressing Dissent at Home and Abroad

April 25, 2014 Patricia Davis 0

The steps the Guatemalan government is taking to stifle dissent are careful and calculated. Last year the government filed 61 unsubstantiated criminal complaints against human rights defenders, holding some leaders for months on charges ranging from usurpation to terrorism. Most of those targeted were indigenous leaders defending their land from transnational companies that are erecting large-scale mining projects, plantations of sugar cane and palm oil, and hydroelectric dams without the consent of communities.

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Honduras: The Deep Roots of Resistance

April 23, 2014 Alexander Main 0

The FNRP emerged out of the opposition to the coup and quickly developed into the largest social movement in Honduran history. Loosely organized into collectives at the local and regional level, the resistance includes a rainbow of movements: union activists, teachers, lawyers, artists, indigenous and Afro-indigenous villagers, small farmers, LGBT activists, and human rights defenders, with ideological tendencies ranging from the center left to the far left.

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The Struggle Over Sumak Kawsay in Ecuador

April 22, 2014 Carlos Zorrilla 0

“In its most general sense, buen vivir [Sumak Kawsay] denotes, organizes, and constructs a system of knowledge and living based on the communion of humans and nature and on the spatial-temporal harmonious totality of existence. That is, on the necessary interrelation of beings, knowledges, logics, and rationalities of thought, action, existence, and living. This notion is part and parcel of the cosmovision, cosmology, or philosophy of the indigenous peoples of Abya Yala.”

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