South America

Amazon Leaders issue ultimatum to Canadian company

Submitted by FdN on Sat, 09/05/2009 - 07:23

Leaders from the Awajun and Wampis People, in the Cordillera del Condor region of Peru, issued an ultimatum on Aug. 25 giving Dorato Resources Inc. 15 days to leave their territory. The Awajun and Wampis say that Dorato, a Canadian-owned mining company, entered their territory without their expressed consent. And now they want them out. As noted on the WW4Report, the ultimatum follows a recent gathering of Awajun and Wampis leaders in the town of Imacita, Amazonas. A resolution (ES) was authored at the end of the gathering, which formally rejects Dorato’s presence.

Brazil: Missionaries want law to legalize child theft from indigenous people (protest campaign)

Submitted by FdN on Wed, 05/06/2009 - 06:46

”Experts put the Problems of natives, above all the wide-spread alcoholism, outbreaks of violence and incest, down to the injustice suffered over generations in boarding schools.” (sh/dpa/Reuters)

There seems to be no learning progress in Christian missions up to this day, undeterred, they still continue their criminal craft against indigenous peoples. The Christian-American sect “Youth with a Mission” in Brazil has now tabled a draft law, which is to allow the stealing of children from indigenous families by the state.

Brazilian court ruling backs Amazon reservation

Submitted by rains on Fri, 03/20/2009 - 14:04

Brazil's Supreme Court sided Thursday with Amazonian Indians in a land dispute that some have called critical for determining the future of the rainforest that sprawls the size of Western Europe.

The court ruling upholds the Raposa Serra do Sol reservation for 18,000 Indians who lay claim to their ancestral land, despite a handful of large-scale farmers who also occupy the territory in the northernmost reaches of Amazon jungle bordering Venezuela.

At least 20 indigenous Awa Killed by FARC Guerrillas

Submitted by FdN on Tue, 02/10/2009 - 20:24

Members of the indigenous Awa in southwestern Colombia have reported that as many as 20 people were killed last week by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). No less then a massacre, the Awa say FARC entered two separate villages between February 4-6, and began to accuse them of collaborating with the Colombian army. The guerrillas then started to bring people into their homes and execute them ‘as a lesson’ to the rest of the village. The events weren’t made public until yesterday, after a small group of Awa successfully fled from their village and informed the government of what was happening. An official immediately traveled to confirm their reports. Among the victims are two Women and 3 Children between the ages of 3 and 6.

SOS Amazon! – World Social Forum Lends Indigenous Leaders and Supporters Opportunity to Defend Amazon Rainforest

Submitted by FdN on Wed, 02/04/2009 - 09:21
BELEM, Brazil- As world leaders focus on severe economic crisis in their homelands, an estimated 100,000 activists travelled from all over the world to attend the World Social Forum in Brazil. Critical environmental impacts in the Amazon rainforest regions brought Indigenous tribal representatives from across Latin America, environmentalists and supporters together for the multi-day event. One full day during the World Social Forum will focus on issues impacting the Amazon rainforest and the resident tribal nations who dwell there. Led by Indigenous people from all across Latin America, over 1000 participants formed a human banner, using their bodies, to draw attention to the increasingly precarious situation of the Amazon rainforest. The wording was formed around the massive silhouette of an indigenous warrior taking aim with a bow and arrow. photo courtesy of Lou Dematteis/Spectral Q.

A land grab in Colombia

Submitted by rains on Wed, 01/21/2009 - 13:09

THE TRANSNATIONAL mining company, Muriel Mining Corp., has illegally entered the Colombia's Jiguamiandó River Basin to exploit the subsoil resources of the Cerro de Carreperro Mountains without properly consulting indigenous and Afro-descendent communities.

This violates the Colombian Constitution of 1991, International Labor Organization (ILO) Resolution 169 and Colombia's Law 70 of 1993, as well as subsequent declarations and decrees, according to the Embera and Afro-Colombian communities living in the region.

Acts of Sabotage Carried Out Against the Main Voice of the Nasa People of Northern Cauca

Submitted by FdN on Thu, 12/18/2008 - 14:23

We are the victims of an integral plan of aggression that clearly emanates from all the armed actors operating in our territories. In the name of the struggle of the people for a country without owners, we reject these actions, come from where they may! We call your attention to events that occurred on Saturday, December 13th, in the mountain of Munchique de los Tigres, in northern Cauca, where the small shed housing the transmission equipment and the antenna of ACIN’s community station Radio Pa’yumat was ransacked and damaged. The perpetrators stole the copper wires that protect the equipment, causing severe technical damage in all the transmission equipment of Radio Pa’yumat, the voice of the Nasa people.

loggers attack indigenous Amazonians

Submitted by rains on Fri, 07/11/2008 - 08:11

Indigenous peoples in the Peruvian Amazon are being killed and having their houses burned to the ground by illegal loggers, according a statement from the International Indigenous Committee for the Protection of Peoples in Voluntary Isolation CIPIACI. The loggers have invaded the Murunahua Territorial Reserve, a remote area near the Brazilian border set aside in 1997 for uncontacted indigenous peoples, and built an illegal network of roads, the statement charges.

Uncontacted Indian tribe found in Brazil's Amazon

Submitted by rains on Mon, 06/09/2008 - 08:47

An Indian tribe that has had no formal contact with Western civilization has been located in a remote Amazon region, federal authorities said Friday.

The Metyktire tribe, with about 87 members, was found last week in an area that is difficult to reach because of thick jungle and a lack of nearby rivers some 2,000 kilometers (1,200 miles) northwest of Rio de Janeiro, said Mario Moura, a spokesman for the Federal Indian Bureau, or Funai.

The tribe is a subgroup of the Kayapo tribe, and lives on its 4.9-million-hectare (12.1-million-acre) Menkregnoti Indian reservation, Moura said.

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BRAZIL: Indigenous Groups Defend Constitutional Right to Land

Submitted by admin on Sun, 04/06/2008 - 20:49

MIRANDA and ANTONIO JOAO, Brazil, Feb 29 (IPS) - Thousands of indigenous people in the west-central Brazilian state of Mato Grosso do Sul are living in precarious camps or small overcrowded reservations, lacking the land they need to grow the food needed to overcome high levels of malnutrition.

But despite government recognition of their ancestral land, their claims are tied up in court. Meanwhile, their community leaders face the threat of being killed for attempting to secure respect for indigenous people’s constitutional right to their traditional lands.