The People's Record

March Against Monsanto Kansas City. Photo Credit: Megan Smith

Indigenous protestors file suit in Brazil after violent eviction in Rio
April 4, 2013

More than a week after the Brazilian Police’s Shock Battalion evicted indigenous and allied protestors using tear gas, pepper spray and batons from a contested site in Rio de Janeiro near one of the country’s top sports stadiums, attorneys for the Tamoio Movement of Original Peoples (TMOP) have filed suit at the Federal Public Ministry to halt the eviction and prevent the demolition of the old museum.

On March 22, close to 200 agents of the Shock Battalion marched into the area and attacked the gathered protestors with tear gas and pepper spray, forcing the removal of the last residents of the Aldeia Maracana and arresting at least six indigenous people from the area.

The TMOP, representing the various Indigenous Peoples who have been settling around the former Indian Museum in Rio de Janeiro, filed the lawsuit and issued a press statement on Monday, April 1^st. In their statement the TMOP gave an overview of their activities in the area and their negotiations with local and federal authorities.

The conflict over the site dates back to 2006 when Indigenous Peoples began to occupy the area around the museum which had been closed and abandoned, by building huts and reclaiming the area for its historical and spiritual significance to indigenous people in Brazil. The former Indian Museum sits on property next to the Maracana Stadium, one of the sites for the upcoming 2014 World Cup soccer games.

Since the occupation, the TMOP asserted that indigenous activists have developed programs for use in local schools and universities for the purpose of “…deconstructing the distorted history of our peoples in the majority of textbooks…” as well as start to build a small community dedicated to preserving indigenous history and culture. The community members of the TMOP are from the Pataxo, Tukano, Guarani, Puri, Apurina, Tupinamba, Kaingang and Satere-Mauwe peoples and they refer to their settlement as the Maracana Village.

The press statement also noted the reaction of the Indigenous Peoples to the actions of the Shock Battalion troops.

“We want to reaffirm that we repudiate the barbaric and inhuman way that we were treated by Military Police by order of the government, disrespecting that which was established in the document of reintegration… While the military police used pepper spray, tear gas bombs, rubber bullets and sonic weapons against us, all we had to defend us were only our maracas and our songs evoking our ancestors.”

The TMOP activists also said that they were approaching various government officials, such as the Minister of Agriculture, to negotiate a way of preserving the contested area to include a possible indigenous reference center.

They also noted that, “…the property of the old Indian Museum, located in the historic center of resistance Tupinambã¡ and Tamoia against the Portuguese invasion… There were the spirits of our ancestors and it was time to return home.”

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Democracy@Work: A Movement toward democratic workplaces
Ricahrd Wolff on raising money to start WSDEs
February 28, 2013

Where would WSDEs obtain the money needed to start and/or later grow their enterprises? Existing WSDEs have answered that question practically in a variety of ways. In addition, we can suggest still other ways that could be established. The problem of raising the money needed to start or grow a workers’ cooperative or self-directed enterprise is solvable. Of course, each WSDE will need to locate and access money resources and not every WSDE’s efforts to do so will be successful. That was always true for capitalist enterprises as well. Financing issues are always enterprise problems, but they are not an insurmountable barrier for transition to a WSDE-based economy.

Here then is a discussion of some ways WSDEs have raised money. One widespread practice is to require each worker in a WSDE to contribute a kind of entry fee in cash that becomes part of the capital of the enterprise. Other known sources for capital are local or regional social institutions (such as municipal or regional governments, religious establishments, non-governmental community centers and organizations, foundations offering grants or loans, trade unions, and political parties). Federal or central governments have also provided such capital. Thus, for example, under Italy’s Marcora Law since 1985, lump sum grants for establishing worker cooperatives may be chosen by unemployed workers (with certain conditions) in lieu of weekly unemployment compensation checks.

As is clear already above, the provision of money to WSDEs can take the form of grants, investments, or loans. Grants refer to provisions of money to WSDEs for which grantors do not expect a cash return. Grantors motivation is support for social transition to a greater number and/or greater social influence of WSDEs. In contrast, investments are motivated by desire for a cash return with or without the additional motivation of support for such a social transition. WSDEs could allow common shares to be purchased by such investors and could pay dividends to their owners. Of course, in a WSDE it would be the workers, in their collective capacity as their own board of directors, who would determine whether to pay a dividend and at what rate. WSDEs could likewise issue preferred shares paying fixed dividends and bonds paying fixed interest rates. WSDEs could also borrow from banks.

By these means, WSDEs would secure financing in ways similar to how capitalist enterprises have been doing so, but with these key and major differences. No matter how money is secured, the internal organization of the WSDE cannot be compromised since its existence and indeed growth is the premise and purpose of securing the money. Thus, if common shares were sold by a WSDE, the purchasers would not have the right that they enjoy in capitalist systems, namely to select by voting who will be on the board of directors of the WSDE. That is because the constituting definition of WSDE is that only the workers and all the workers comprise the enterprise’s decision-making board of directors. In short, providers of money to WSDEs would need to accept the operating principles governing WSDEs.

Many providers of money capital to WSDEs have accepted those principled conditions. Indeed, as the example of the Mondragon Cooperative Corporation shows, when WSDEs grow large enough, they can establish and grow their own bank subsidiaries or allied bank enterprises – themselves also WSDEs. Needless to say, banks organized as independent WSDEs or as subsidiaries of non-bank WSDEs will all the more readily facilitate and broaden access to money for further WSDE growth and expansion.

We may also suggest further ways in which money could be raised for WSDEs. If supported by strong political organizations in economies where capitalist enterprises still predominate, financing for WSDEs might become a major political objective of those organizations. For example, during recurring capitalist downturns, high unemployment could be addressed by suggesting a government employment program focused on providing the money (and perhaps also the technical and managerial supports) for WSDEs as the best way to revive employment. Italy’s Marcora Law provides one effective model for doing this. Others might entail building on existing initiatives such as Small Business Administrations , Women’s Business Administrations and Minority-led Business Administrations that exist in various forms in many countries. They enable certain kinds of businesses to get special government supports (grants, below-market-rate loans, technical assistance, preference in government purchasing, and so on) because the growth of those businesses is thought to be a worthwhile social goal. A political movement supporting the growth of WSDEs could ask that they be accorded the same sorts of special government supports for parallel reasons.

An example of such reasons is that the increase of WSDEs would provide all workers with a real freedom of choice. Workers could compare and choose between employment within capitalist enterprises or within WSDEs. In capitalist countries today no such choice exists for the vast majority of workers. Consumers too would have a new choice available to them: they could purchase goods and services from capitalist or from WSDE sources. They could support the organization of production they prefer (much as many can now choose according to country of origin, physical ingredients, and whether “fair trade” has been observed in exchanges prior to the act of purchasing the final product).

Of course, the history of nearly all successful WSDEs shows that self-financing was often important. That is, net revenues of a WSDE were partly used to enable growth of that enterprise and/or provision of money to another WSDE. Where a country or a region had a significant tradition of other kinds of cooperative enterprises (credit unions, purchasing coops, sales coops, ownership coops, and so on), it might well be possible to appeal successfully to them for money provision to establish or grow WSDEs. The grounds for such appeals would be twofold: (1) to extend the cooperative principle governing those other enterprises into the process and organization of production itself, the hallmark of WSDEs, and (2) to thereby strengthen the larger cooperative movement for all its component parts. For example, WSDEs could join or partner with credit unions, while credit unions might find ways to help finance WSDEs premised on such partnerships, etc.

Final thought: establishing WSDEs might also become a policy of new social movements. Partnerships between such movements and WSDEs might well strengthen them both.

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Posting this because I’ve been thinking about how best to raise initial funds for a Workers’ Self-Directed Enterprise – I hope to be able to start the process in the next 12-18 months.

Thousands of people are marching on Spain’s parliament to protest austerity measures imposed by the government.
February 23, 2013

Saturday’s protest comes on the 32nd anniversary of a failed attempt by the armed forces to overthrow the government. Several protest groups joined forces under a single slogan called “Citizens’ Tide, 23F,” referring to the Feb. 23, 1981 attack by armed forces on Spain’s parliament.

Organizers say that Spain today “is under a financial coup” and have called on people to march to parliament to protest austerity measures and what they say is government favoritism toward financial institutions at the expense of ordinary citizens.

Marchers decried “the pressure of financial markets” and corruption in government and the country’s banking system, and called on lawmakers to find alternatives that won’t “give away” the welfare state.

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Striking workers at the Vio.Me factory in Thessaloniki, Greece who have not been paid since May 2011 have decided to restart production under workers’ control on February 12, 2013 (tomorrow). 

With unemployment climbing to 30%, workers’ income reaching zero, sick and tired of big words, promises and more taxes, unpaid since May 2011 and currently withholding their labour, with the factory abandoned by the employers, the workers of Vio.Me. by decision of their general assembly declare their determination not to fall prey to a condition of perpetual unemployment, but instead to struggle to take the factory in their own hands and operate it themselves. Through a formal proposal dating from October 2011 they have been claiming the establishment of a workers’ cooperative under full workers’ control, demanding legal recognition for their own workers’ cooperative, as well as for all the others to follow. At the same time they have been demanding the money required to put the factory in operation, money that in any case belongs to them, as they are the ones who produce the wealth of society. The plan that was drawn up met with the indifference of the state and of trade union bureaucracies. But it was received with great enthusiasm by the world of the social movements, which, through the creation of the Open Initiative of Solidarity in Thessaloniki and afterwards with similar initiatives in many other cities, have been struggling for the past 6 months to spread the message of Vio.Me across society.

Now it’s time for worker´s control of Vio.Me.!

The workers cannot wait any longer for the bankrupt state to fulfil its gratuitous promises of support (even the 1000-euro emergency aid promised by the Ministry of Labour was never approved by the Minister of Finance). It’s time to see the Vio.Me. factory –as well as any other factory that is closing down, going bankrupt or laying off its workers- reopened but its workers, and not by its old or new bosses. The struggle should not be limited to Vio.Me., in order for it to be victorious it should be generalized and spread to all the factories and businesses that are closing down, because only through a network of self-managed factories will Vio.Me be able to thrive and light the way towards a different organisation of production and the economy, with no exploitation, inequality or hierarchy.

When factories are closing down one after another, the number of the unemployed in Greece is approaching 2 million and the vast majority of the population is condemned to poverty and misery by the governing coalition of PASOK-ND-DIMAR, which continues the policies of the preceding governments, the demand to operate the factories under workers’ control is the only reasonable response to the disaster that we experience every day, the only answer to unemployment; for that reason, the struggle of Vio.Me. is everyone’s struggle.

We urge all workers, the unemployed and all those who are affected by the crisis to stand by the workers of Vio.Me and support them in their effort to put in practice the belief that workers can make it without bosses! We call them to participate in a nationwide Struggle and Solidarity Caravan culminating in three days of struggle in Thessaloniki. We urge them to take up the struggle and organize their own fights within their working places, with direct democratic procedures, without bureaucrats. To participate in a general political strike in order to oust those who destroy our lives!

Aiming to establish worker’s control over factories and the whole of production and to organize the economy and society that we desire, a society without bosses!

It’s Vio.Me.’s time. Let’s get to work!
Paving the way for workers’ self-management everywhere!
Paving the way for a society without bosses!

Open Initiative of Solidarity and Support to the struggle of the workers of Vio.Me.

From http://www.viome.org/

Chilean government to prioritize constitutional recognition of indigenous
January 22, 2013

After the various Mapuche summits, President Piñera announced that the constitutional recognition of indigenous peoples would be a new priority of the government.

President Sebastián Piñera recently announced the reactivation of the project for a constitutional recognition of Chile’s indigenous peoples, as well as the creation of a council representing the different ethnic groups of the country.

This commitment marks an effort of the government to resolve the ongoing Mapuche conflict. The government, said the president, will declare the constitutional recognition a “legislative urgency”.  The bill has already been approved by the Senate, however, the impact of the initiative will be more symbolic than truly effective.

“I have decided to make the constitutional recognition and the creation of a council for indigenous peoples a priority. This council must be truly representative of their history, their traditions, their culture, but above all, will allow them to raise their own voices about their future,” Piñera stated.

In addition to these institutional reforms, he also emphasized that a plan would be put in place in order to encourage the economic and social development of the La Araucanía and Biobío regions. This plan, in La Araucanía, is already bearing fruit, according to the president.

“After long years of stagnation, La Araucanía has begun growing and creating jobs. Its unemployment rate has dropped to 6 percent.”

“We believe that Chile is a multicultural country. Among these various cultures, there is one that deserves special recognition: the culture of our indigenous peoples, who were here long before the Spanish conquistadors arrived,” the head of state highlighted.

At the same time, a new meeting was taking place in Temuco between Minister of Social Development Joaquín Lavín, Minister of the Interior Andrés Chadwick, and representatives of the Mapuche communities. The indigenous leaders questioned the government members about their representation, and the ability of the National Corporation for Indigenous Development (Conadi) to satisfy their demands, such as the creation of an Indigenous Ministry.

Minister Chadwick said that the information gathered through the different summits would allow the government to start working on reforms. However, he dismissed the possibility of an Indigenous Ministry, because “the existence of a state within another state is impossible”.

“Nobody can pretend that a dialogue will solve all the current problems,” he concluded.

Source 

It’s annoying how he said “I have decided,”… like it wasn’t that the Mapuches demanded recognition and built a movement around it or that the state was scared of Coordinadora Arauco-Malleco but instead, that he decided to ‘give’ constitutional rights. I wonder if it’s a translation thing or if he’s really just a prick. 

The United States & Canada even more-so have such tremendous responsibility to empower the communities our entire history has been built on the genocide of, and all we do instead is stifle, starve and subject. 

Walmart protests gains momentum as hundreds of thousands demand action on the retail giant profiting from death
January 19, 2013

This week, thousands across the United States put pressure on retail giant Walmart to stop selling assault weapons and ammunition.

According to an earlier report by The Huffington Post, Walmart is facing “increased criticism for continuing to sell assault weapons” in the wake of the tragic shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., last month.

On Jan. 15, dozens of activists and gun violence survivors gathered for a rally at a Walmart store in Danbury, Conn., and delivered four petitions. With a total of more than 300,000 signatures, the petitions called for the world’s largest retailer to stop selling and advertising assault weapons in stores.

“Walmart is making it easy and appealing to purchase an assault weapon. Assault weapons cause mass murder and should be left for law enforcement and military. Civilians do not need to have any assault weapons in their homes,” writes one Change.org petition. “Advertising is something that creates wants and needs. To create a want for such a weapon only promotes violence.”

More than 113,000 people have signed the Change.org petition so far.

According to a Friday news release, thousands more have stepped forward in the past few days to demand that Walmart pull assault weapons and ammunition from its shelves.

“Since the petition delivery on Tuesday, more then [sic] 10,000 people have taken to Walmart’s Facebook page to register their voices and urge Walmart executives to honor their 2004 pledge and stop selling assault weapons and ammunition,” the release said. “Additionally, organizers from SumofUs.org, MomsRising and Courage Campaign report that more than 2,500 Walmart customers have placed calls to Walmart corporate headquarters in Bentonville, Arkansas urging the company to stop selling assault weapons in all of their stores. More calls are expected today and throughout the weekend.”

In an earlier statement printed by Reuters, a Walmart spokesman said that the company has been “very purposeful about striking the right balance between serving… customers that are hunters and sportsmen and ensuring that [the retailer sells] firearms in the most responsible manner possible.” He added that assault weapons are sold only at “locations with a high concentration of hunters and sportsmen.”

After the Sandy Hook tragedy, Walmart reportedly pulled the Bushmaster Patrolman’s Carbine M4A3 Rifle from its website. The Bushmaster rifle, a military-style assault weapon, was one of the guns used by the Newtown school shooter.

But Walmart is said to sell “more firearms and ammunition than any national competitor,” and the retailer has continued to stock its shelves with other assault weapons.

A representative for Walmart declined to comment to HuffPost.

The National Rifle Association (NRA), the country’s largest gun rights group, has long been a vocal opponent of most gun control measures, including a ban on assault weapons. In December, the NRA responded to the Sandy Hook tragedy by suggesting that all schools in the U.S. should have armed guards. “The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun,” said NRA Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre during the group’s post-Sandy Hook press conference.

Reactions to the NRA’s position have been mixed. Though many were critical of the gun lobby’s response, the group has reportedly welcomed more than 250,000 new members since the Newtown shooting.

“[Walmart should] stand up to the NRA and listen to their customers and stop selling these guns,” Kaytee Riek, campaign manager at SumofUs, which organized one of the four petitions delivered to Walmart, told The Huffington Post earlier this week.

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Tens of thousands of people march against the government today (October 23, 2012) in Budapest!

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“The year 2014 can bring a change of fortune,” (former Prime Minister) Bajnai, 44, told about 25,000 opposition demonstrators in central Budapest about 2 km (1.2 miles) from the pro-government rally. 

“This government has broken, systematically, vertebra by vertebra the backbone of Hungarian democracy,” Bajnai said. “The state has become a tool for corruption. This government is a government of failures, therefore, this government must go,” he added, laying the foundations of a centrist opposition alliance that he said would formulate an agenda in the period ahead.

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Student leaders Camila Vallejo (vice president of the University of Chile Federation) & Noam Titelman (president of the Catholic University Student Federation) will receive the 2012 Letelier-Moffitt Human Rights Award for organizing the largest protests in Chile since the Pinochet era.

A massive student movement has taken over the country in times of unlimited privatization of schools and universities. The award is given by the Institute for Policy Studies and named for the Chilean diplomat Orlando Letelier and his colleague Ronni Karpen Moffitt, who were murdered in Washington by agents of the U.S.-backed Pinochet regime in September 1976.

We had the opportunity to hear Camila & Noam speak yesterday along with CUNY & Quebec student leaders. It was incredibly inspiring to listen to the struggles of other students across the world & to learn how to move forward in the global fight for education. 

We’ll have more on the student leaders coming soon!

Russel Tribunal on Palestine Part V: A Plan for Justice for Palestine

October 8, 2012

After two days of witness testimonies from Palestinian justice activists, international law experts and former United Nations officials, the Russell Tribunal deliberated on a worldwide plan of action to combat the oppressive Israeli occupation of Palestine. 

Through a process of information dissemination via social media, expansion of the international boycott, divestment and sanctions campaign and a comprehensive reform of the United Nations, the jury panel noted these strategies were crucial in a time that is “apocryphal” for Palestinians. 

“Citizens around the world are rising up and taking control,” said Michael Mansfield, jury member and human rights lawyer. “Some are in response to outrageous economic conditions, some in response to outrageous political conditions. We must remove the yolk of oppression on which Palestinians have been settled on.”

A massive social movement for Palestine

As comparisons to the South African apartheid were noted during the tribunal proceedings, a similar plan of action followed. An international awakening of outrage through unfiltered truth about the Israeli occupation would be a fundamental beginning of a greater mobilization. 

Especially in the United States where Israeli lobbyists, such as the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, have become influential in American foreign policy, the spread of information about the Palestinian struggle will be the turning point from complacency to action. 

“Israel has deprived Palestine of a functioning identity,” Mansfield said. “There cannot be justice without truth.”

A younger generation must spearhead the movement and use social media to magnify the daily horrors of Palestine’s open-air concentration camps: home demolitions, polluted water sources, restricted access to schools and hospitals and constant harassment and violence from Israeli police. 

Worldwide movements for justice assisted in freeing South Africa from its apartheid regime, and an international outcry and condemnation of illegal settlements and human rights violations, too, will create a threatening shift to the state of Israel and its supporters.

“We need to spread these findings because it reveals the truth and the complicity of the US and the UN,” said Roger Waters, jury member and founding musician of Pink Floyd. 

Boycott. Divest. Sanction.

Not only do those with a Zionist agenda benefit from the oppressive Israeli apartheid, but many corporations are profiting from the murder and terrorization of Palestinians in the occupied territories. 

Companies, such as bulldozer manufacturers Catepillar, technology company Intel and drug manufacturers TEVA, have all been manufacturing supporters and profited in the millions by the occupation. 

The tribunal expressed support and great confidence in the abilities to politically and financially pressure corporations, universities and international governments through a global Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign. 

In 2005, the Palestinian movement for justice expanded in a different direction when an overwhelming majority of Palestinians issued a BDS call. 

According to activist Omar Barghouti’s BDS: A Global Struggle for Palestinian Rights, “More than 170 Palestinian civil society groups, such as major political parties, refugee rights associations, trade union federations, women’s unions, NGO networks…called upon the world to impose broad boycotts and implement divestment initiatives against Israel similar to those applied to South Africa in the apartheid era.”

The BDS call would include a financial boycott of those companies profiting from the apartheid; an academic boycott on institutions that have maintained and supported Zionist colonialism in the occupied territories; a cultural boycott condemning the moral responsibility of universities and public intellectuals complacent with the illegal Israeli settlements; a divestment and disinvestment campaign from Israeli organizations; and a boycott of all Israeli-made products. 

Reform the UN to weaken US support, funding

An important step to restoring human rights to Palestine will to crush American financial and political support of Israel. 

The United States has given more than $115 billion to fund illegal Israel settlements in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, granting more than 60 percent of its foreign military aid to Israel alone. 

But much of the US’s critical Israeli support has manifested in the form of United Nations vetoes. When peacemaking proposals come through the UN, they require approval from the Security Council, made up of five permanent members: the United States, China, the Russian Federation, France and the United Kingdom. 

However, the United States has continually abused its Security Council veto power to shoot down proposals to punish Israel for its crimes against humanity and human rights violations. The US has used its veto power more than any other country – 82 times – of which half are used to Israel’s benefit. 

The tribunal advocates a comprehensive reform of the UN, including getting rid of the veto power, and expanding Security Council membership to other countries, as well as restoring existing powers of the General Assembly in a more democratic manner. 

Once the veto privilege is revoked, the General Assembly will have a great ability to refer Israel to the International Criminal Court for its implementation war crimes on Palestine.

“The Russell Tribunal declares its commitment to continue its work on Palestine by monitoring progress and disseminating information.” 

- Graciela

Check out our other posts on the Russell Tribunal here.  

Chinese workers protest Google’s Motorola layoffs

August 20, 2012

Chinese employees of Motorola are up in arms over talk of a 20 percent reduction in the company’s workforce by the group’s owners, Google.

Google bought Beijing-based Motorola Mobility Holding Company for around $12 billion last year and announced Monday that it would lay off around 4,000 workers, not all of them at the China facility.

Last week, about 100 Motorola workers from the company’s office in Nanjing protested outside the building, calling the pending global layoffs ”illegal.”  On Friday, an estimated 200 employees protested  in front of Motorola’s Beijing office. A staff member from the Nanjing Software Center, who asked to remain anonymous, told China Daily on Monday that official layoff notices and details of compensation packages would be released this week, giving the workers and the media a better sense of the downsizing to come.

“Any layoffs will place a huge burden on workers and their families,” the woman told the daily.“

If all the people are fired at the same time, it’ll be hard for them to find a job because the demand forsoftware engineers in Nanjing is limited.” The Nanjing site is the largest of Motorola’s three branches in China. The company employs over 500 software engineers. Local Chinese news reports have suggested that around 1,000 people cold be laid off from both the Beijing and Nanjing facilities.

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South Africans seek answers after deadly mine protest

August 19, 2012

South Africa is still reeling after a shootout between police and striking miners left 34 people dead last Thursday. That episode at a platinum mine rocked world markets. But in South Africa, the incident could also signal a major social shift in a nation that is still coming out of the shadow of apartheid.

“Violence.”  ”War.”  ”Massacre.”   

“I think this also provokes a crisis for who we are, the levels of inequality in our society, how is it that this brings to the fore so graphically how the third-biggest provider of platinum in the world, Lonmin, located in the JSE [Johannesburg Stock Exchange] and the London stock exchange, which pays its CEO and executives exorbitant amounts of money, and yet the very people who dig platinum out of the ground live in the most awful of conditions. The conditions, how women are treated, all of these things, suggest that this society is riven by inequality,” he said. “How can you, after 18 years after the democratic transition, not address the basic elements of this kind of stuff?”

Unrest began last week when 3,000 workers walked out over a pay dispute. Over the next few days, eight workers and two policemen were killed in clashes. The shootout on Thursday killed 34 more.

In South Africa, considered one of Africa’s most stable nations, the Sowetan newspaper warned in an editorial that the nation could “see a snowball effect of this massacre.”

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Indigenous mobilization challenges Colombian government

August 13, 2012

Indigenous resistance in Colombia has become a social movement. Colombia’s right wing, U.S. supported government has to deal with that now, plus guerrilla insurgencies and agitation for negotiated peace. The indigenous, guerrillas and leftist opposition parties are all fighting against the take-over of land and subsoil resources by the wealthy few and the Colombian government which supports them.

Indigenous people from throughout Colombia and beyond gathered on August 9 in Popayán, capital of Cauca department in Colombia’s southwest. Some 15,000 indigenous people demonstrated in the streets the next day. Later, they later marched to an indigenous reserve 12 miles away. Students, small farmers, and Afro-Colombians were also on hand on August 12 -13 for the National Indigenous Encounter in Defense of Mother Earth, organized by the Regional Indigenous Council of Cauca.

Dora Muñoz of the Association of Indigenous Councils of North Cauca set the stage: “The indigenous of Cauca won’t leave our territory, nor are we going to allow indiscriminate exploitation of Mother Earth. [We want] to consolidate our autonomous territories and our own government…For us, Mother Earth is sacred, for the government and multinationals, it’s wealth.”

Cauca is rich in natural resources, coca plantations, and drug trafficking corridors. Pacifist Nasa indigenous people make up 95 percent of its population.

Also at issue for Nasa people, says CRIC, are unfulfilled promises regarding health and education; guarantees on human rights; prior consultation for government actions affecting the indigenous; lack of dialogue on peace; and, crucially, removal of armed combatants from their homelands.

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Photo source

The new face of protest: Radical, young and connected

August 13, 2012

Political scientists believe that the protest movement in Russia will undergo change with the gradual withdrawal of liberals and the appearance of new parties on the political stage. Economic factors could also play a role.

According to Igor Bunin, president of the Center for Political Technologies, Russia may soon experience the rise of a radical new breed of protester.

“On the one hand, it seems to me that the protest movement will be more radical, more social, younger and more ready for direct actions,” Bunin predicted.

Meanwhile, many members of the opposition will disappear from the street scene because they aspire to real participation in the election process.

The political opposition is made up of a mixed basket of characters, including Alexey Navalny, a political blogger and one of the leading figures of the protest movement; Boris Nemtsov, a former Deputy Prime Minister and co-chairman of the Republican Party of People’s Freedom, also known as Parnas; Sergey Udaltsov, political activist and leader of the Left Front movement; and Vladimir Ryzkhov, also a co-chairman of PARNAS and the founder of the Republican party – one of the oldest parties in the country.

Bunin believes the general atmosphere of future street protests may become more radical in nature.

“The spirit of the protest movement is now different from December 2011; this spirit is more of a spirit of social conflict and is more radical,” he warned. “The leaders are different, the liberal movement has become weak, while younger people – those who were born in the late 1980s – are now taking part in protests.”

Coincidentally, Russia is waiting for the verdict to be passed down on the members of the feminist punk band Pussy Riot, who were arrested in February for delivering a protest song on the altar of Christ the Savior Cathedral in central Moscow.

The members of the band, all in their 20s, face up to seven years in prison for “hooliganism motivated by religious hatred.”

Another analyst, Igor Yurgens, head of the Institute for Modern development, says the number of protest participants may increase if the economic situation in the country deteriorates sharply, which, he says, seems unlikely at the moment.

“The number of protesters will depend on the economic situation,” Yurgens said. “In my view, we now don’t have a situation where a sharp deterioration is anticipated, for example, a fall in the prices of our traditional exports.”

Meanwhile, the number of opposition protesters may decrease considerably due to the creation of new parties, he said.

“New political parties have been formed, and they will help to erode the base of the protest movement,” he said.

Concerning the choice of slogans used by the protesters, Bunin said the messages are politically ineffective and obsolete.

“I don’t see any new slogans,” he said.

He also believes that the number of future protesters is not expected to increase.

“I think the number will stay the same, up to 50,000 people per protest,” Bunin said. “Udaltsov’s plans to bring many more people are not feasible.”

However, the movement will not disappear altogether anytime soon, he added.

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