Tag Archive for 'jurisdiction'Page 5 of 5

02
Apr

Enawene Nawe Indians win right to fish

Survival International reports a Brazilian judge has affirmed the rights of the Enawene Nawe in the Rio Preto, an area of huge economic and spiritual importance to the People.

Each year the Enawene Nawe spend several months there, trapping and smoking fish for the community, while performing an elaborate ritual “called ‘yankwa’ where foods are exchanged to placate the ‘yakairiti’ spirits. Enawene Nawe elder Kawari explains, ‘All this land [the Rio Preto area] belongs to the yakairiti - our ancestral spirits. They own the rivers, the fish and the trees. If you finish these off, the yakairiti will take vengeance and will kill all the Enawene Nawe.’”

Over the last ten years, cattle ranchers have been progressively invading and deforesting the region, even using violent and intimidating tactics to try and force the Enawene Nawe out of the area. In fact, …

Published on
April 2, 2008
  0 Comments 844 views

29
Mar

The Nukak Want to Live in Peace

The Nukak, one of the Amazon’s last nomadic Peoples, have once again been caught between the Colombian army and the left-wing FARC guerrillas.

According to a March 12 statement by Survival International, they were bombed “by the Colombian army in its attempt to fight the guerrillas who have violently taken control of much of the Nukak land. Many Nukak have fled their territory to a local town in recent days, and many more are expected to follow suit.”

This violence comes just months after many Nukak began returning to their territory, between the Guaviare and Inírida rivers, “hoping that the fighting which has wracked their remote rainforest had died down.”

Survival continues, “the bombings come after the recent assassination of a Nukak man called Monikaro by Battalion 44 of the FARC. Monikaro had fled Nukak land in 2004 after conflict between the …

Published on
March 29, 2008
  0 Comments 753 views

24
Mar

Project of Autonomy and Self-Determination for Kumiai and Cucapa

Last month, the Cucapa and Kumiai Indigenous Communities of Baja California, Mexico, announced a multilateral project dedicated to making themselves autonomous, self-sufficient, traditionally-governed Peoples.

As explained in a project overview (see below), years of colonial policies on part of the Mexican government have produced “the almost complete loss of our autonomy, of our natural resources, and our culture, principally our native tongues, and the destruction of the social fabric within our communities and our forms of internal organization.”

Their situation is getting to the point now, they added, where “we will disappear as Indian Peoples and that in a not too distant future we will be talked about like we talk today about the extinct Pericues, Waycuras and Cochimies, who inhabited the peninsula, if now, at this very moment, we do nothing to prevent this.”

Rather than wait for their own …

Published on
March 24, 2008
  3 Comments 810 views

20
Mar

The People of Kitchenuhmaykoosib won’t give up

Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug (KI) have responded to the recent sentencing of Chief Donny Morris and 5 other members of the community. In no uncertain terms, they will continue to struggle for their land and rights. See the full Press Release below.

PRESS RELEASE

March 20, 2008

Kitchenuhmaykoosib, Ontario - We are saddened today that our leaders have been jailed for contempt and they’re there for what they strongly believe – to protect Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug (KI) Homelands!

As a result of our community assembly on March 18, 2008, the present Chief and Council notably, Chief Donny Morris, Deputy Chief Jack McKay, Head Councillor Cecilia Begg, Councillors Samuel McKay and Darryl Sainnawap are still our leaders and are deemed equivalent as leaders in exile as expressed by the people of Kitchenuhmaykoosib. One band member, Bruce Sakakeep is also in jail for contempt as well.

The …

Published on
March 20, 2008
  2 Comments 898 views

19
Mar

Benetton Trying to Evict Mapuche from their Lands

On March 4th, the Italian textile consortium Benetton filed a lawsuit in an Argentinian court that seeks to evict a Mapuche community from the land known as “Santa Rosa.” In February of last year, the Mapuche reclaimed the land after being violently evicted 5 years earlier.

The company claims the tract of land should be returned to them because the Mapuche didn’t listen to the order of Provincial Judge Omar Magellan, who forbade the community from making changes (that irreparably damage) the land.

So what are the changes? A gate, a henhouse, an orchard, a lamb stockyard, a mud oven, a small bridge over a creek and a potato farm. Oh and they brought a horse too. In other words, they’ve done only what they need to sustain themselves on the land.

In any case, the community doesn’t seem all too …

Published on
March 19, 2008
  2 Comments 771 views

Video activism and the Chiapas Media Project

In the following presentation, Claudia Magallanes-Blanco from the University of Western Sydney talks about the role of video activism as a world-wide tool for empowerment and the Chiapas Media Project, a collaborative effort based in Mexico that provides indigenous Zapatistas in Chiapas and peasants in Guerrero with training and equipment to produce their own videos.

Since forming in 1998, CMP has distributed over 6000 videos, including: Zapata’s Garden, a film that looks at the society the Zapatista’s are building; …


I Am A Defender of the Rainforest

Known as ‘Soy defensor de la selva’ in Spanish, I am a Defender of the Rainforest is an award-winning documentary that was filmed, edited, and directed by members of the Sarayaku community in southern Ecuador.

The film shows how the …


Underreported Struggles #19, October 2008

In this month’s Underreported Struggles: 400,000 Guatemalans Reject Development Model, Philippines Indigenous People Unite for the Land, Riot Police Target Algonquin Blockade, Chagos Islanders Denied the Right of Return, and 17 other stories …


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