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, …

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, …

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 …

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 …

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 …

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. …

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 …

In February we saw ‘civil society’ start to demand corporations abandon oppressive and destructive practices. Well, that trend continued through March; unfortunately, it seems to have been more chest pounding than anything… It was as if everyone sat around a campfire, talking about far off things while a fire raged a foot to their backside. Integrity what? Responsibility who? “No, no no. We’re not doing anything wrong. We’re not the problem. We’re not the enemy.”

And so, desperately clinging to myth and hypocrisy, the so-called business community pushed on, doing everything to …

Upside Down World has published a notable article by Ramor Ryan entitled “The Last Rebels of the Caribbean: Garifuna Fighting for Their Lives in Honduras,” in which he examines the history, life, culture and ongoing resistance of the Garifuna people in Honduras. Here’s the first quarter…

Garifuna Fighting for Their Lives in Honduras

They hang the man, and flog the woman,
That steals the goose from off the common;
But let the greater villain loose,
That steals the common from the goose.

-Anonymous protest poem from the 17th century

Enclosing the commons – the historical process of fencing off land

…

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, …