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

…

On Saturday, January 12, seven indigenous people from Raposa Serra do Sol land were detained and abused by Brazil’s Federal Police after inspecting and promoting cultural awareness among tourists at Caracaranã Lake, an area that’s frequently promoted in tourist packages.

According to a recent statement by CIMI, the “tourists leave a lot of garbage, offend indigenous people who live there, play music at maximum volume until late at night and bring and consume alcoholic beverages inside indigenous areas. For this reason, indigenous communities decided to promote awareness among …

In response to the increased aggressions of Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI)-affiliated armed groups against the community of Bolom Ajaw in the region of the Agua Azul river, civil organizations and members of the Other Campaign in Chiapas have set up an observation camp in the Zapatista community.

The armed group wants to evict/displace the community from their land, because they say it used to be a privately owned tourist and resort area. In 1994 the Zapatista reclaimed the land…

To assist the community, “the Center for Political Analysis and Social and …

On July 16, violence again broke out in Oaxaca—by the same forces that carried out the widespread torture, illegal detentions and assassinations in 2006. This time, as noted by Rights Action, it was in the name of protecting tourism. The Oaxaca Solidarity Network (OSN info@oaxacasolidarity.org) has sent out the following information regarding the attacks.

July 16, 2007 — URGENT ACTION
REPRESSION AGAINST POPULAR MOVEMENT OF OAXACA

This Monday, June 16th at approximately 11:30am, “security” officers with the Mexican Army, Federal preventative Police, Federal Agency of Investigation, Preventative Police and the Oaxaquan Municipal Police, …

Living on their Traditional lands along the Coast of the State of Sonora, Mexico — the Seri are one of the few People who have managed to remain fundamentally separate of Mexican society. But there’s a plan in the works now to carry forward a tourist development being likened to Cancun and Acapulco. Maybe it will encroach on Seri land, maybe it won’t.

What do the Seri have to say about it? “One recent afternoon, an SUV full of non-Seris rolled toward Punta Chueca. Three young boys waited at the …

The following is some news, as sent out by www.rightsaction.org

AMBUSH OF GARIFUNA YOUTH FROM COMMUNITY OF SAN JUAN TELA

This past April 14 in the entry to the community of San Juan Tela, Durugubuti, young women, Keydi Jorleny Marin, Yerli Isolina Ellis, Yanaira Briyed Lambert, Eusebia Guillen, Joselyn Lizet Rivas were ambushed. The last mentioned is the daughter Jessica Garcia, President of the Patronata (development committee) of the community of Durugubuti, who has been constantly threatened for her position in the defense of her community’s territory.

According to the Preventative …

This scene of environment, social and developmental carnage in Mamallapuram is in no way special or unusual. It is being re-enacted globally on a massive scale and is typical of the way in which so-called ‘tourism development’ is carried out. Local communities are rarely consulted and even more rarely have a say in whether or not development takes place. The results?

The price of tourism
By Pamela Nowicka - www.newint.org
April 02, 2007

Mamallapuram, Tamil Nadu, South India: Kumar takes a small plaster elephant from the rows displayed on the glass cabinet of his shop. He starts drawing lines on the floor with …

Chile’s Indigenous Pehuenches turn to tourism in Alto Biobio
By Beatrice Karol Burks
March 16, 2007

Chile’s indigenous Pechuence population – which lost part of their ancestral homelands when Spanish utilities company Endesa built two major dams, the Pangue and the Ralco, on the Biobío River in the 1990’s – have turned to ecotourism as a means to protect both their rapidly disappearing culture and their livelihoods.

The new initiative, “Horse riding and Walking Along the Old Paths,” is financed by Chile’s National Environment Commission (CONAMA) and the United Nations Development Program and offers trekking – on horseback or foot – through 200 kilometers …

The following report was put together by Grahame Russell, info@rightsaction.org, January 2007
***

THE STUDENT OF TORTURE GETS TORTURED
(Testimony, Tlaxiaco, Oaxaca, December 19, 2006)

In the city of Tlaxiaco, one victim of illegal detention and torture after another speaks to our emergency human rights delegation. Some stop in the middle of the hard parts to cry; some listening cry. Hard stories.

Cuitlahuac Santiago Mariscal, a teacher with the SNTE (Sindicato Nacional de Trabajadores Educativos), stands before us. ‘I am doing my thesis at the UNAM (National Autonomous University of Mexico) on the systemic use of torture by Mexican ’security’ forces. …

Mali’s Indigenous Dogon Tribe Struggles With 21st Century
By Naomi Schwarz
January 4, 2007

Dogon Country — Halfway up a cliff in southern, central Mali, the sounds of a modern Dogon village float up from the brush-filled plain below. To reach the tiny, isolated villages of the Dogon, most foreign tourists must travel on foot.

But that has not seemed discourage people from making the trek. Today, Dogon country is one of Mali’s major tourist attractions. As a result, the past century has seen significant changes in the social organization and material culture of the Dogon.

Once an animist culture, the Dogon fled to this …