You don’t need to have met Dario Santillán to know him. And you should know him. Though notorious for his death, it was his grassroots leadership and solidarity work in his short life that defined him—qualities that live on in the social movements he helped to build.
During the annual June 30th observance of Guatemalan Armed Forces Day, thousands of people marched in San Juan Sacatepéquez from their rural communities to the central square in rejection to the newly assigned military brigade in the municipality. Solidarity groups from throughout the country supported their resistance against the militarization of their territory and the grave social conflicts created by the cement-mining license approved in 2007 for the powerful Guatemalan Cementos Progreso company.
June 18 marked the second mobilization under the banner “We Are All Barillas” in the department of Huehuetenango, Guatemala. Hundreds of community members, indigenous leaders and supporters from throughout the region traveled seven hours outside of the department’s capital to declare that the community of Santa Cruz Barillas would not be intimidated.
The international community, and especially the rest of South America, could play a key role in the crisis triggered in Paraguay by the impeachment of President Fernando Lugo and his replacement by Federico Franco, his vice president. […]
“It is vital that we rescue our indigenous identity”, expressed Harold Segura a member of the Association of Affected by the Quimbo Hydroelectric Project-Asoquimbo. “We were originally an indigenous reserve. We still have such a rich culture and territory, but with the Quimbo Hydroelectric Project on the river, petroleum company Emerald Energy in the Eastern Mountains and the Special Energy and Transportation Batallion ‘José María Tello’ next to us we are about to lose it all forever.”
Paraguayan President Fernando Lugo has just been removed from office by Congress through political impeachment, an express trial that lasted only 24 hours. This manoeuvre must be seen as a coup to the democratic process started in 2008. Social movements are protesting in front of Congress as well as in various parts of the country. This plot by the major Paraguayan political parties has to be interpreted as the last step of a process of political destabilization in the country started with the massacre of Curuguaty last June 15th.
The death of 18 people, among them 11 campesinos, occurred last Friday when police cleared, without prior dialogue, an estate occupied by landless campesinos in the northeast of Paraguay. “What happened was a slaughter of our comrades. Many lies are being told to discredit the campesinos, who are struggling to obtain their own land to work, who are fighting for the rights given to them by land reform,“ declared Damasio Quiroga, general secretary of the Paraguayan Campesino Movement.
Over five hundred Indigenous Peoples from Brazil and throughout the world gathered at Kari-Oca II, an encampment seated at the foot of a mountain near Rio Centro, to sign a declaration demanding respect for Indigenous Peoples’ role in maintaining a stable world environment, and condemning the dominant economic approach toward ecology, development, human rights and the rights of Mother Earth.
“[W]e don’t believe in a democracy of parties, where just a few leaders make all the decisions. We want a democracy of participation, a democracy where the people can make decisions about their own future.” – Oscar Olivera
Original reporting on organized crime and the drug war is dangerous and sometimes deadly in Mexico. The Mexican magazine Contralínea reports that 93 journalists have been assassinated and 16 disappeared since 2000. The U.S. and Mexican police, army and government have become the principle sources of information for what is taking place in increasingly violent areas throughout Mexico. […]
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