by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Jan 13, 2014 | Indigenous Autonomy, Lobbying
By Natalia Ruiz Diaz / Upside Down World
The Sawhoyamaxa indigenous community in Paraguay have spent over 20 years fighting to get back their land, which they were pushed off by cattle ranchers.
They started the new year by collecting signatures to press Congress to pass a bill that would expropriate their ancestral territory from ranchers, in order for the state to comply with a 2006 ruling by the Inter-American Court of Justice ordering the restitution of their land.
“More than 20 years after being expelled from our ancestral land and living [in camps] along the side of the road, watching the cows occupy the place where we used to live, we decided to return because that land is ours,” the Sawhoyamaxa said in a message accompanying the petition drive.
“Che rohenói, eju orendive, aldeia unida, mostra a cara” (I am calling you, come with us, the people united, show your face) thousands of people sang at the “Todos con (everyone with the) Sawhoyamaxa” intercultural festival in Asunción in mid-December.
The event launched the start of their new crusade demanding enforcement of the Inter-American Court sentence, which ruled that they be given back their territory and that they be provided with basic services, such as medical care and clean water.
The “Che rehenói” chorus was heard over and over again in a mix of Guaraní (one of Paraguay’s two official languages, along with Spanish) and Portuguese, sung by the hip hop ban Brô MC’S, whose members belong to the Jaguapirú Bororó indigenous community from Brazil.
The goal set by the Sawhoyamaxa leaders is to gather 20,000 signatures, to pressure Congress to approve the expropriation of the land.
The epicentre of the community’s two-decade struggle is the Santa Elisa settlement, where the largest group of families are camped out along the side of the road 370 km north of Asunción en Paraguay’s semiarid Chaco region.
They are living “in extreme poverty, without any type of services, and waiting for the competent bodies to decide on the land claim they filed,” according to the 2006 Court ruling.
The Sawhoyamaxa form part of the Enxet linguistic family. There are 19 indigenous groups belonging to five language families in Paraguay, spread out in 762 communities mainly in the east of the country and the Chaco region, a vast dry forest area.
According to the 2012 census, 116,000 of Paraguay’s 6.7 million people – or 1.7 percent of the population – are indigenous, with over half of that group belonging to the Guaraní people. However, the overwhelming majority of the population is “mestizo” – people of mixed European (principally Spanish) and native (mainly Guaraní) descent.
The Sawhoyamaxa, who had no title deeds to the land where they had always lived, were displaced from their land, which was taken over by large cattle ranchers.
“They don’t want us to progress in our way of life,” the leader of the community, Carlos Cantero, told IPS. “We want the land to dedicate ourselves to our ancestral activities, like hunting and gathering in the forest.”
He was referring to the powerful cattle industry, which has successfully lobbied to block implementation of the 2006 binding sentence handed down by the Inter-American Court, an autonomous Organisation of American States (OAS) body.
Cantero said it was important for the situation to be resolved immediately because “there is still a little forest left on our land, some swamps and streams; but if the state does not take a stance on this soon, those reserves are going to disappear.”
Cattle ranchers have steadily advanced on Paraguay’s Chaco region, where in November 549 hectares a day were deforested, according to the local environmental organisation Guyra Paraguay.
The Chaco scrub forest and savannah grassland, which covers 60 percent of Paraguay but accounts for just eight percent of the population, makes for good cattle pasture.
Since the 19th century, the worst dispossession of indigenous people of their lands in this landlocked South American country occurred in the Chaco, especially after the 1932-1935 Chaco War with Bolivia, when the government sold off huge tracts of public land to private owners.
Today, less than three percent of the population owns 85 percent of Paraguay’s arable land, making this the Latin American country with the greatest concentration of land ownership.
The Sawhoyamaxa community is fighting for 14,404 hectares of land.
In a largely symbolic move, when the final deadline set by the Inter-American Court expired in March, the native community began to “recover” their land, setting up small camps on the property to which they are waiting to be awarded a collective title.
Their fight for the return of their ancestral lands dates back to the early 1990s. After exhausting all legal recourse available in Paraguay, they took the case to the Inter-American Human Rights Commission in 2001, which referred it to the Court.
The Sawhoyamaxa case is one of three in which the Inter-American Court has handed down rulings against the Paraguayan state in defence of the country’s native people. None of the resolutions has been fully complied with.
After the 2006 sentence, the government attempted to acquire the land in question in order to live up to the resolution and return the property to the native community. But it failed, due to the refusal by the rancher who holds title to the property, Heribert Roedel, whose 60,000-hectare estate includes the land claimed by the Sawhoyamaxa.
“The other route for expropriation is through the legislature, for which a bill was introduced, currently being studied in the Senate,” said Oscar Ayala, a lawyer with Tierraviva, which supports indigenous communities in Paraguay.
This local non-governmental organisation and Amnesty International Paraguay are the main civil society supporters of the cause of the Sawhoyamaxa.
The bill Congress is debating was presented by the government in August for the expropriation of the land, in order to fulfil the Inter-American Court order.
According to Ayala, there is a more positive environment than in the past. “The impression we have is that there is greater openness” for an eventual solution and for justice to be done in the case, he said.
On Dec. 18, the Senate commission for audit and oversight of state finances pronounced itself in favour of expropriation of the land.
“This first favourable ruling is a good indicator; these questions are always complex because caught up in the middle is that deeply rooted economistic view of land, but in this case those issues are no longer in debate,” Ayala said.
The bill will now go to the agrarian reform and finance commissions and then on to the Senate floor, before being sent to the lower house.
Some 120 families – around 600 people, half of them children and adolescents – are living in the Santa Elisa settlement.
The Court also ordered the state to provide food and healthcare assistance to the community. But while the situation in this respect has improved in the new settlements, much more needs to be done.
“We have a health promoter but no health post,” Cantero said. “The worst affected are the children, who are suffering from dehydration because of the bad quality of the water.”
The settlements receive clean water every month, but it is not enough, and they depend on rainwater, which is scarce in the semiarid Chaco.
To find a solution, Sawhoyamaxa men and women have been knocking on doors everywhere, showing people papers that describe the history of their community, their struggle, and the Court ruling, in search of support.
“We won’t stop until we are living on our land; our very survival depends on that,” Cantero said.
From Upside Down World: http://upsidedownworld.org/main/paraguay-archives-44/4629-sawhoyamaxa-battle-for-their-land-in-paraguay
by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Dec 16, 2013 | Colonialism & Conquest, Indigenous Autonomy
By Diana Parker / Mongabay
Nearly 150 homes were reportedly destroyed in the latest incident in a long-standing conflict between indigenous Batin Sembilan residents and former Wilmar unit PT Asiatic Persada.
Indonesian security forces allegedly stormed several villages inside a Sumatran palm oil plantation concession last weekend and earlier this week, accompanying company staff and hired thugs accused of destroying dozens of homes and looting residents’ property.
Witnesses said the raids began when members of the Indonesian military (TNI) and the police mobile brigade (Brimob) descended on Padang Salak hamlet in Bungku village at 4 p.m. on Dec. 7 together with PT Asiatic Persada personnel and local thugs paid by the company.
“That day [Dec. 7], they destroyed the homes of [Padang Salak residents] Budi and Peheng,” Norman, a resident of nearby Pinang Tinggi hamlet, told Mongabay-Indonesia by phone on Monday. “The next day, they returned and destroyed around 50 homes of residents.”
Norman estimated that as many as 1,500 staff, thugs and security forces were involved in the raids on Saturday and Sunday, a figure also reported in multiple Indonesian news outlets covering the attack.
According to a report on Monday by the Indonesian news portal beritasatu.com, some residents tried to stand their ground but were overwhelmed by the size of the mob. At one point on Sunday, according to the report, the clash came to blows and security forces fired shots into the air.
Norman also told Mongabay-Indonesia that police and military had fired shots during the conflict and that company security officers and thugs armed with knives and machetes had tried to attack residents.
Around 70 residents who had tried to fight back to prevent the demolition eventually fled.
One community member was seriously injured when his hand was cut, Norman said, adding that several motorbikes owned by residents were also destroyed and a box containing cash and jewelry was stolen.
On Sunday, some members of the community living inside the concession reportedly responded by burning a guard post and company warehouse in Padang Salak. Two residents were arrested after the incident, and, as of Dec. 14, remain in detention. Norman added that police were also attempting to arrest community leaders.
Troubled history
These evictions are the latest incident in a more than 25-year conflict between PT Asiatic Persada, which until earlier this year was owned by palm oil giant Wilmar, and the indigenous Batin Sembilan community living inside the company’s concession in Jambi province on the island of Sumatra.
Wilmar had earlier been accused of destroying the homes of 83 families living inside the concession in 2011 following another violent clash – also involving Brimob forces – over allegations that members of the community were stealing palm fruits from the company.
After the 2011 incident, human rights groups helped the community file complaints with the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) and the World Bank Group’s private sector lender the International Finance Corporation (IFC) – both of which have standards in place designed to prevent member companies or borrowers from violating the rights of local communities.
Wilmar is a member of the RSPO and received financing from the IFC, and in response to the complaints the IFC’s Compliance Advisor Ombudsman eventually stepped in to mediate talks between the company and members of the affected community.
However, earlier this year, Wilmar sold PT Asiatic Persada to two non-RSPO companies that do not receive IFC financing – meaning they are not bound by the same commitments to resolve the dispute. One of the buyers, PT Agro Mandiri Semesta (AMS), is a unit of the Ganda Group, a business group owned by Ganda Sitorus, the brother of Wilmar founder Martua Sitorus.
The IFC formally withdrew from the case in October after the new owners decided not to continue the IFC-mediated talks. Now it appears that PT AMS is resorting to the same tactic used by Wilmar in 2011 and forcibly evicting residents.
Evictions continue
According to multiple reports from victims and members of Suku Anak Dalam 113 – a group composed of members of the indigenous Batin Sembilan community who claim to hold the rights to over 3,500 hectares of land inside the concession – the evictions continued throughout the week and into the next weekend as company personnel and hired thugs, escorted by government security forces, destroyed homes and drove residents from at least two more hamlets in the concession.
Basron, a 41-year-old resident of Pinang Tinggi, was in his home on Wednesday morning at 10 a.m. when he felt his house shake. He went outside to see his home surrounded by plainclothes thugs and PT Asiatic Persada employees wearing green shirts, escorted by several TNI and Brimob members.
“We are from the integrated team,” a member of the mob said, according to Basron. “Quickly clean up your things. All the homes will be evicted today.”
Basron told Mongabay-Indonesia that the thugs and company personnel were armed with sharp weapons such as knives, axes and machetes, while military and police carried firearms. They had driven to the hamlet in dozens of Mitsubishi pickup trucks, also bringing heavy equipment including an excavator, which they used to destroy the homes.
In total, Basron estimated around 700 people came as part of the “integrated team,” splitting into several groups to carry out the evictions. Each group was composed of dozens of thugs and PT Asiatic Persada employees and escorted by police and military personnel.
After removing his possessions, Basron watched as a member of the team used the excavator to destroy his home. Once the house was destroyed, he said they instructed him to quickly clean up the debris.
“If it’s not clean, we will come again tomorrow. We will burn it all,” they said, according to Basron.
Basron said they also looted his livestock, taking away a chicken and several other birds worth Rp 600,000 ($50). Other Pinang Tinggi residents also reported members of the eviction team stealing livestock, cash and other valuables.
“My cash box was filled with Rp 6 million and they dismantled it and took what was inside,” Daim, another Pinang Tinggi resident, told Mongabay-Indonesia, while showing the broken box.
“Diesel fuel and oil, they spilled,” Daim added. “If they had been able to lift it, they would have even taken my generator.
Victims also reported having their cell phones destroyed when they tried to photograph the evictions. “Don’t take pictures of our actions,” an integrated team member allegedly told Meldi, a 25-year-old Pinang Tinggi resident, shortly before destroying his phone.
Meldi was still able to snap several photos of the raid using another cell phone, but villagers said they have little documentation of the evictions while they were taking place since they were told not to take pictures or use their phones.
Basron said the integrated team destroyed 109 homes in Pinang Tinggi on Wednesday. Another 31 homes were reported destroyed during evictions in Padang Salak on Dec. 7 and 8, while six homes were reported leveled in Terawang hamlet.
In total, victims said the teams destroyed 146 houses over three days. Reports also indicate evictions were carried out on Thursday, Friday and Saturday in Tanah Menang hamlet, where another 600 homes are located, however Mongabay-Indonesia has yet to confirm how many houses were destroyed in those raids.
From Mongabay: “Indonesian palm oil company demolishes homes and evicts villagers in week-long raid“
by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Dec 2, 2013 | Indigenous Autonomy, Obstruction & Occupation
By Murray Bush / Vancouver Media Co-op
COAST SALISH TERRITORY – Activists blocked access to the federal Port of Vancouver for an hour early this morning as part of an International Day of Action in Support of Elsipogtog Land Defenders in New Brunswick.
Access to the Port at the foot of Clark Drive was blocked for an hour. Traffic was backed up as far as as the eye could see. The adhoc coalition of activists blocked the road with a banner reading Solidarity with Elsipogtog and #ShutDownCanada. The group said it condemns fracking for poisoning water and boosting carbon emissions and decries “the brutality of the RCMP response, and their ongoing collusion with corporate interests.”
“We stand in solidarity with Land Defenders everywhere – from the Mi’kmaq in New Brunswick to the Unis’tot’en in British Columbia – who are fighting rampant and reckless resource extraction, which is the face of modern colonialism. We denounce the assertion that this destruction and the associated corruption, deceit, and violence are necessary. And today we shut down a key piece of the infrastructure of this ideological machine.”
The Mi’kmaq Territory encampment which saw standoff’s between Mi’kmaq peoples protecting water and RCMP protecting corporate interests, requested the global support. More support actions are planned in BC today including rallies in Vancouver and Victoria.
From Vancouver Media Co-op: http://vancouver.mediacoop.ca/photo/elsipogtog-solidarity-action-shuts-vancouver-port/20175
by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Nov 24, 2013 | Colonialism & Conquest, Indigenous Autonomy, Mining & Drilling
By Ron Corben / DW
A new report on minorities and indigenous people warns that the global ‘intensification’ in the exploitation of natural resources is leading to mounting conflicts for the world’s 370 million indigenous people.
The report for 2012 by the London-based human rights group, Minority Rights Group International (MRG), says indigenous peoples “in every region of the world” face the risk of being “driven from their land and natural resources.”
The land and resources are all “vital for their livelihoods, their culture and often their identity as a people,” Vital Bambanze, chair of the UN Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, said in the report.
From the Batwa of the Great Lakes region in Central Africa, and the Endorois and Ogiek in Kenya, to hill tribes in northern Thailand, Bedouin in the Middle East and Uighurs in China’s Xinjiang province – all “struggle to maintain their cultural integrity against their respective governments’ desire to put national development first,” Bambanze said.
Unprecedented demand for resources in Asia
The report says the unprecedented demand for natural resources across Asia is “feeding ethnic conflict and displacement and is a severe threat to the lands, livelihoods and the way of life of minorities and indigenous people.”
Carl Soderbergh, an MRG spokesperson, warns the situation faced by indigenous groups is deteriorating world-wide.
“In terms of the trends globally what has been happening over the last decade is that there’s been an intensification of the exploitation of natural resources pushing into areas populated by minorities and indigenous peoples,” Soderbergh told DW.
In regions such as Latin America, the issues faced by communities centered on mining and logging, in North America on tar-sands mining, there were conflicts over wind farms and iron ore mining in the Arctic, while in Africa, indigenous communities faced the leasing of thousands of hectares of land for corporations or foreign governments.
“All governments are chasing a dominant development paradigm in which today minorities and indigenous peoples don’t really have a place and that is a problem,” he said.
In China, investment in mining has forced herders off traditional grazing lands and ancestral villages in regions such as Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region, as well as in Tibet.
In Vietnam, over 90,000 people, mostly ethnic Thai, were relocated to make way for the Son La hydropower plant with Vietnamese scientists saying many were left without access to agricultural land.
Meanwhile, in Cambodia’s Prey Lang Forest region, home to the Kuy indigenous people, official land grants of tens of thousands of hectares of forest for mineral extraction, timber and rubber plantations have forced many people to give up their traditional livelihoods.
Conflict has also been evident in Indonesia in areas of increased palm oil plantation development and the mining industry in Papua.
Investment from China seen as a driver for economic growth
Nicole Girard, the rights group’s Asia Program Director, says levels of conflict over land is increasing in South East Asia, driven by foreign investment, including from China.
“It’s definitely increasing, the resource exploitation in indigenous people’s territories; in Southeast Asia, the economies of Laos and Vietnam are opening to more foreign investment, including lots of Chinese investment and including Burma,” Girard said.
Girard says the increased fighting in Myanmar’s ethnic controlled Kachin State over the past year is directly linked to conflict over resource investment largely by Chinese businesses.
Myanmar, led by the military-backed civilian government of President Thein Sein, has been undergoing reforms over the past year to improve its human rights situation. But Naw San, General Secretary of the Students and Youth Congress Burma (Myanmar) says despite steps to peace talks with ethnic groups in Myanmar, the development process is still not inclusive.
“We are still worried that, like in the past, investment and development projects will be dealt with by the central government and that there will be (no real) engagement or consultations with the process on the ground,” Naw San told DW.
“What the ethnic (communities) need now is national equality,” he said.
Two thirds of Indigenous People live in Asia
The Asia Indigenous People’s Pact (AIPP) Foundation, in a separate report, noted that two thirds of the world’s 370 million self-identified indigenous peoples live in Asia.
And those people, according to the AIPP Foundation, “are currently marginalized and subordinated economically, politically and culturally.”
They are “overrepresented among the poor, illiterate, malnourished and stunted,” it said.
AIPP’s report says for many in the region “militarization, (the) plundering of resources, forced relocation, cultural genocide and discrimination in everyday life are common experiences.”
The report pointed to the construction of dams in Asia, which since the 1960s, has led to “massive displacements, loss of livelihoods, and food insecurity of indigenous peoples in India, the Philippines, Laos and Malaysia.”
Bernice See, an AIPP coordinator, said governments give priority to economic ventures and investments over people’s rights.
See called on Asia’s governments to respect the UN’s Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous peoples and the provisions calling for the “free prior of informed consent from any development that comes into their territory.”
“These governments should have the moral obligation to respect these agreements. The declaration should be used as a framework for dealing with indigenous people,” she said.
From DW: http://www.dw.de/indigenous-peoples-threatened-by-resource-exploitation/a-16065981
by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Oct 29, 2013 | Indigenous Autonomy, Lobbying
By Latin American Herald Tribune
Brazil’s first regional federal court suspended the environmental permit for the massive Belo Monte dam project in Amazonia and ordered an immediate halt to construction, Efe learned on Monday.
Judge Antonio de Souza Prudente’s ruling came in response to a motion from federal prosecutors.
Work on what would be the world’s third-largest dam began in March 2011, despite opposition from indigenous people, farmers, fishermen and environmental activists.
Prudente’s decision is subject to review, but a environmental permit will not be issued until the project meets all the conditions laid down in the original permit.
The judge also urged consultation with the affected indigenous communities and threatened to fine the Norte Energia consortium 500,000 reais ($228,000) per day until it complies with his ruling.
The decision likewise bars Brazilian government development bank BNDES from signing any contracts with Norte Energia until the environmental issues are adequately addressed.
The $10.6 billion hydroelectric complex will flood a 503-sq.-kilometer (195-sq.-mile) area, affecting more than 60 communities.
Due to oscillations in the flow of the Xingu River, guaranteed minimum capacity generation from the Belo Monte Dam will be 4,571 MW, or roughly 40 percent of its maximum capacity of 11,233 MW, according to government estimates.
The first regional court has already stopped work on Belo Monte on a previous occasion, in March 2012, but the Supreme Federal Tribunal overturned that ruling two months later.
From Latin American Herald Tribune: http://www.laht.com/article.asp?ArticleId=1128195&CategoryId=14090
by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Oct 4, 2013 | Colonialism & Conquest, Indigenous Autonomy, Obstruction & Occupation
By Ahni / Intercontinental Cry
Nearly 1,500 Indigenous Peoples from across Brazil on Wednesday occupied a central road in the federal capital Brasília known as the Esplanade of Ministries, paralyzing traffic in both directions.
A part of the National Indigenous Mobilization convened by the Articulation of Indigenous Peoples of Brazil (APIB), the protesters are trying to stop a legislative assault that threatens to severely undermine or extinguish Indigenous rights in the country.
As examined in “Indigenous April 2013: Declaration Of Indigenous National Mobilization In Defense Of Indigenous Territories,” this legislative assault consists of several bills and decrees, including:
Proposed Amendments to the Constitution (PECs) numbers 038/99, 215/00 and 237/13, Bill 1610/96, the bill for Complementary Law (PLP) 227/12, and the Portarias (ministerial orders) 419/11 and 7957/13.
- PEC 38 would give the Senate power to approve processes of demarcation of Indigenous lands, determining that “the demarcation of Indigenous lands or units of environmental conservation respect the maximum limit of 30% of the surface area of each state”;
- PEC 215 gives Congress exclusive authority to decide the boundaries of all Indigenous lands;
- PEC 237 permits the possession of Indigenous lands by rural producers;
- PLP 227 limits federal lands that can be used for demarcation;
- Portaria 419 intends to streamline the licensing of public projects by means of the reduction of Indigenous rights, of the rights of traditional communities and of the environment;
- Portaria 7957 creates the Environmental Operations Company of the National Force of Public Security to permit the use of military force against Indigenous Peoples who oppose the large-scale projects of the PAC (Program for Acceleration of Growth), especially hydroelectric dams;
- PL 1610, allows mining in Indigenous lands.
Prior to occupying the Esplanade of Ministries, the diverse group of protesters in Brasília, who represent more than one hundred ethnicities, attempted to enter the National Congress. The Indigenous Peoples were met with pepper spray.
During the confrontation, APIB reported that one Tupiniquim participant was wounded with a deep cut to the arm and was sent to the University of Brasília Hospital (HUB) for medical attention.
Rather than take the entire group of protesters on, government officials requested a meeting with a small committee of representatives.
There was no consensus among the leaders, says the APIB. Many declined the offer, “[insisting] that representatives of the government should come out of Congress and talk to all the Indigenous Peoples present.” However, a committee of 31 Indigenous leaders decided to meet with the acting President of the House, Andrew Vargas (PT-PR) to discuss PEC 215 and PLP 227.
At that point, “The Indigenous then decided to stop activity at the Axis Monument, above the Ministry of Justice. The car of government spokesman, congressman Candido Vaccarezza (of the Labor Party-PT of São Paulo), was stopped in the middle of the demonstration and Indigenous participants wrapped his car with toilet paper, and hung bills and coins on the windshield.”
APIB explains that “Vaccarezza is the chairman of the Joint Committee (House and Senate) of the proposed Supplementary Law Bill (PLP) 227, which deals with regulations to Article 6 of the Constitution, in relation to exceptions to the exclusive use of the Indigenous Peoples to their lands.”
At another point during the protest, “[four] large photos were the target of Indigenous arrows, one of President Dilma Rousseff, one of her chief of staff, Gleisi Hoffmann, and the other two, the president of the National Confederation of Agriculture (CNA) and Senator Katia Abreu. Following a ritual dance around the photos, they stepped on them.”
From Intercontinental Cry: http://intercontinentalcry.org/brazil-indigenous-peoples-occupy-esplanade-20268/
