“In spite of government repression, if the people decide to bring the fight to the bitter end, it is possible to resist the pressure of mining and oil companies,” said Peruvian activist Yasser Gómez.
The Caravan for Peace with Justice and Dignity, headed by Mexican writer Javier Sicilia, travelled through southeastern Mexico and reached the heart of the territory controlled by the Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN), bringing a message of solidarity. […]
Sergio and I were sitting in torn-out bus seats under a hot January sky in Nogales, Sonora, talking about crawling through thorn bushes. About thirty other recently deported men and women were sprawled on the concrete, or slouching in other deconstructed pairs of once colorfully-patterned bus seats. Most carried plastic Homeland Security bags. Inside the bags were their effects, their pertenencias, which they had with them when they were arrested on one or the other side of the border.
Principe Gabriel Gonzalez has been persecuted for his work as a human rights activist with Colombia‘s Political Prisoners Solidarity Committee.
The communities of Guerrero and Michoacán are organizing to secure their territory by re-establishing their community police forces, guards, and traditional patrols. It all comes down to communities reclaiming their right to self-defense.
Dancing with Dynamite: Social Movements and States in Latin America is a road map, a call to action to break the simplistic dualities imposed by society and place our destinies into our own hands.
Mario Joseph (no relation), a prominent Haitian lawyer, told IPS, “In Haiti, one is a minor until age 18. That means that if a foreign soldier has sex with a minor, he is breaking Haitian law and the Haitian judicial system should judge him.” But under an agreement between MINUSTAH and the Haitian government, U.N. troops have immunity from the Haitian justice system and are supposed to be tried for transgressions in their home countries.
Due to the mainstream media neglecting Afro-Colombia music, there has for some time been little interest in their culture. According to festival director, Alberto Seviliano, Afro-Colombian music is never played on the radio, even in Cali where most the people are Afro-Colombian. This, he says, the festival wants to change.
Neoliberal free trade policies have been a big part of the reason that economic crises are taking place all over the world and have led to ever widening gaps between the rich and the poor. Colombia has the second largest gap between the rich and the poor in South America and the eighth largest worldwide, according to the World Bank’s World Development Institute. The FTA will make matters worse.
Just when the situation was supposed to improve based on the Cartagena Accords and when the presidents of Honduras and Colombia had declared that the promise to respect human rights is being kept, the bloody acts of recent days have revealed a regression, in particular because the campesino movement has been criminalized through allegations of ties with guerrilla forces trained and financed by foreign governments.
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