A small group of rice farmers illegally occupying indigenous lands in the Brazilian state of Roraima have recently turned violent in an effort to resist their eviction.

Survival International explains in a recent release that at least one person has been injured, a local Indigenous Leader in the community of Barro, after the farmers threw a home-made bomb into his home. The farmers have also set up roadblocks and burned at least three bridges leading into Raposa Serra do Sol indigenous territory.

Home to the the Makuxi, Wapixana, Ingarikó and Taurepang, the People have been struggling for the last 30 years to reclaim their land from the farmers, an effort that’s repeatedly turned violent. But in April 2005, as noted here last January, Brazil’s President signed a law ordering the removal of all non-indigenous people from Raposa Serra do …

Kristin Bricker (mywordismyweapon.blogspot.com) reports that on Tuesday, April 1, “the Chiapas government freed thirty political prisoners in response to years of protests for their freedom, but not before giving some of them one last thorough beating.”

According to the recently released, while they were en route to a government press conference “the police beat them… until their heads and arms were purple and they were bleeding. Their wrists were bound tightly with tape, cutting off circulation to their hands. After the press conference, the police loaded them back into a government vehicle, beat some of them again, and told them they were going to be returned to jail, but then released them.”

Belonging to a variety of organizations,”including EZLN bases of support, adherents to the Zapatistas’ Other Campaign, an evangelical Christian organization, and the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD in its …

Amnesty International warns that two human rights defenders, Georges Kapiamba and Prince Kumwamba, both from from Katanga, a southern province in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), have received several threats related to their human rights work since the evening of April 3.

Along with other activists, Georges Kapiamba and Prince Kumwamba have been planning to visit the town of Kilwa in Katanga province, the scene of a massacre by government troops in October 2004. Amnesty explains that “the visit [is] on behalf of an Australian legal firm pursuing possible compensation claims in the Australian courts against an Australian/Canadian mining company, Anvil Mining.”

For background and more information, visit www.raid-uk.org, and www.abc.net.au/4corners/ to watch the Kilwa Incident. Also see www.friendsofthecongo.org for general human rights news related to the Congo.

Amnesty asks you to send an appeal to authorities …

The following 40-minute video is a segment from last year’s “Mato Paha-Bear Butte Spiritual Forum,” an event that brought together Traditional Healers (Medicine Men) and Spiritual Leaders from many Tribal Nations to provide ancestral teachings about the spiritual significance of Mato Paha. It was the first time in decades that such a gathering took place.

Bear Butte is held sacred by the Cheyenne, Arapaho, the Sioux nations, as well as to the Kiowa and Arapaho, among others.

The Lakota believe it to be “the most powerful land mass in their religion. They consider Bear Butte sacred for its location near the Black Hills and due to the fact that one can find the seven sacred elements – land, air, water, rocks, animals, plants, and fire – surrounding the Butte. The Lakota believe that Bear Butte is most sacred when worshippers pray there with the Lakota Sacred White Buffalo Calf …

The Western Shoshone Defense Project (WSDP) informs us that a public comment period will close next week, April 10th, on a proposal by the U.S. Department of Energy to increase nuclear weapons development at the Nevada Test Site, said to be ‘the most heavily-nuked region on the planet.’ The Test Site is located within the Treaty-recognized territory of Western Shoshone lands and has long been protested by Western Shoshone and their supporters.

Please take a moment in the next few days to submit your comment. You can find out how to do so near the bottom of the WSDP Press Release…

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
NO PEACE OUT WEST - U.S. PLANS MORE NUCLEAR WEAPONS ON SHOSHONE LAND:
INDIGENOUS LEADERS, CITIZENS AND SCIENTISITS AGREE - NO NEW NUKES

Comment Period Nearing end

April 3, 2008, 22:42 p.m. (PST) (Newe Sogobe (Lee, Nevada)): With …

Black Mesa Indigenous Support (BMIS) sends an update on the struggle of the Traditional Dineh residents of Black Mesa, reminding us that the US still intends to relocate the Dineh and destroy their homelands.

For more information and to learn how to help, please visit www.blackmesais.org, and www.blackmesawatercoalition.org

FIRST NATIONS, FIRST RESISTANCE—
SUPPORT THE STRUGGLE FOR SURVIVAL AT BIG MOUNTAIN, BLACK MESA, AZ.

On behalf of their peoples, their ancestral lands, and future generations, more than 350 Dineh residents of Black Mesa continue their staunch resistance to the efforts of the US Government– acting in the interests of the Peabody Coal Company—to relocate the Dineh and destroy their homelands. This land is the basis for the Black Mesa peoples’ traditions, livelihoods, and spirituality.

At this moment the decision makers in Washington D.C. are planning ways to seize tribal lands to extract mineral resources. The …

Well, it turns out the “media release” sent out by Rights Action on Tuesday, April Fools’ Day, was indeed a joke.

I was really hoping it wasn’t. In fact I was eager to applaud the Canadian mining company for pledging to take what would have been an near-unprecedented step… One that may very well have started a trend throughout the so-called business community.

So then, in part, I guess the Joke’s on me and anyone else who believed Goldcorp had the guts. But I don’t we’re the April Fool in this little funny. Now, that title is reserved for Goldcorp — and the government of Canada who invests in the company using the Canadian Pension Plan — and all the individual shareholders who comfortably sit in the dark, waiting to get paid.

Photo by Clearly Ambiguous,
republished here

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