Arise! Various ways in which indigenous people are fighting back

New Internationalist, April, 2008

Zapatistas and others

No-one can accuse Mexico's indigenous activists of lacking imagination. These women from the '400 Pueblos' movement were difficult to ignore when, in May 2006, they donned masks of the then President Vicente Fox and marched naked through central Mexico to draw attention to a land conflict they were having with the Government. Indigenous Mexicans have drawn inspiration, over the years, from the Zapatistas, who in 1994 launched a dramatic uprising in the southern region of Chiapas. Today, 14 years on, the Zapatistas might not have achieved the revolution they dreamed of, but the 'liberated zones' carry on attracting people with a desire for indigenous rights and participatory democracy, and more equitable health and education systems. In 2007 an international meeting brought together 4,000 grassroots Zapatista activists and 2,000 delegates from 47 countries. Increasingly, non-Zapatista communities are drawn to the autonomous justice system imparted by the Good Government Committees which provide a free and impartial conflict resolution service, in your own language. Paramilitary groups, with links to the Mexican army, launch repeated attacks against the Zapatistas, but have so far failed to break the movement.

For more, go to The Zapatista Network www.zapatistas.org Or check out Zapatistas by Mihalis Mentinis (Pluto, 2006)

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Garden furniture for Europeans

Since 2001 the World Bank has financed forestry reforms in the DR Congo, to stimulate the exploitation of timber. This is responsible for the rapid deforestation of the Congo Basin, and is having a devastating effect on 300,000-400,000 indigenous people, says Pygmy Dignity spokesperson Adrien Sinafasi Makelo (below).

'The destruction of the forest is a real tragedy for Pygmies. The forest is our supermarket, our pharmacy, our school, our temple and our cemetery.'

He quotes a Pygmy villager from Yaimbo who says: 'Now everything is disappearing: the forest, the wild game, the caterpillars, the mushrooms, even the honey ... These things will not return. What will become of us and our children?'

Twenty-two million hectares of forest--almost the entire land surface of Britain--have been conceded to timber companies through 156 titles of which two-thirds--covering 15,416,252 hectares--are illegal. Both the World Bank and the Congolese Government have been breaking their own rules. The World Bank broke its moratorium on financing new forestry concessions by helping the multinational, Olam, which acquired 300,000 hectares. The Congolese forestry sector, gangrenous with corruption' according to the Pygmy spokesperson, has systematically violated the moratorium and its own laws over the years by granting new forestry concessions to European, Asian, US and other companies. The Bank's silence, according to Adrien Sinafasi Makelo, is tantamount to complicity.

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For four years the Pygmies, backed by the Rainforest Foundation and Greenpeace, complained to the World Bank. Finally, in October 2007, their complaints were upheld by the Bank's own Inspection Panel.

A meeting with Bank chief Robert Zoellick and other high-ranking officials followed.

'The management is embarrassed, abashed by the gap between its actions and its declarations of good intentions. It promises improvement in its Plan of Action.'

But it has yet to come up with what the Pygmies need, which is a plan that protects community rights, that is drawn up with their participation, and maintains a clear position on the moratorium.

'The next time you see an item made out of tropical wood that comes from the DR Congo, or are considering buying it,' suggests Adrien Sinafasi Makelo, 'say to yourself: "the survival--physical, cultural or spiritual--of thousands of Pygmies, extremely dependant on the forests, is every day sacrificed for the comfort of rich consumers of tropical timber from the DR Congo!"'

For a longer article by Adrien Sinafasi Makelo, go to www.newint.org/issue410/features/special/2008/04/01/congoart/

To support the campaign go to www.rainforestfoundationuk.org www.greenpeace.org

Divorcing the US

In December 2007 a delegation from the Lakota Freedom Movement announced that their nation was pulling out of all treaties signed with the US Government and was declaring independence, writes Shane Bauer. The new country, simply named Lakotah, would issue its own passports to anyone who wished to become a citizen--including non-natives--the only requirement being they give up their US citizenship. The country would be tax free, its political structure decentralized, and its borders would extend to the Lakota nation's pre-treaty territory, encompassing swaths of North and South Dakota, Montana, Wyoming and Nebraska. The 'face' of the independence movement is Russell Means, the controversial Sioux activist cum Hollywood actor with a reputation for dramatizing native desire for self-determination. His actions have ranged from running for President to heading an armed takeover of Wounded Knee which led to a 71-day standoff with the US Marshals and tribal police in 1973. From his Pine Ridge home of Porcupine, declared capital of the new republic, Means explains: 'In the 20th century we tried armed struggle again. It didn't work. We tried protesting. We tried petitioning. We tried voting for democrats. We tried the courts. We tried every way imaginable to try to get some kind of redress. We are at risk of disappearing as a people ... The colonial apartheid system does not work for us.'