Indigenous rights Archive

Saving a sacred tradition in Wirikuta: How you can help

By
Tracy Barnett
Published: December 31, 2010Posted in: AJAGI, Featured, Huichol lands, Indigenous rights, Mexico, WhyTags: , , , , , ,
Saving a sacred tradition in Wirikuta: How you can help

REAL DE CATORCE, San Luis Potosí, México – Rodolfo Cosio prays he’s not the last generation of a dying tradition.

As a jicarero, he is one of the keepers of the ancient pilgrimage of the Wixaritari or Huichol people of western Mexico. Each year he travels to the sacred sites of his ancestors in the five directions, offering up prayers and ceremonies that his people believe are essential to balancing the energies of an increasingly endangered planet.

Each year he explains to his children the importance of living a simple life, of maintaining the traditions, of fasting and pushing oneself far beyond the limits of comfort to keep the ceremonial fires burning as his ancestors have done for more than 1,000 years. He prays this won’t be the last year his people will receive the teachings of their sacred plant, hikuri, or peyote.

Just a few months ago, Cosio and other members of his community received the news that Wirikuta, the most important of their five pilgrimage sites in the state of San Luis Potosí, near the UNESCO-recognized site of Real de Catorce, has been concessioned to a Canadian mining company for a silver mine – despite the fact that the mining concessions lie within a federally protected cultural and natural preserve. The news was met at first with shock and disbelief.

“What they are talking about means the annihilation of our culture,” Cosio said. “It’s like a spiritual death for us.”

At the heart of Wirikuta is Leunar, or Cerro Quemado, the site where the sun rose for the first time, according to Huichol tradition. The region is home to several sacred springs, where their ancestors are buried and important ceremonies must be conducted each year. Here is the desert where they collect the sacred hikuri that they use for their prayers and ceremonies. And here will be the site of Mexico’s next resource battle, as the Wixaritari are not likely to let their ancient ceremonial site be mined without a struggle.

Santos Carillo de la Cruz, a Wixaritari leader, at Real de Catorce, Wirikuta.

The Wixarika communities published a call for support from the international community in September. Since that time, they appointed AJAGI, the Jalisco Association in Support of Indigenous People, to lead their legal defense, and AJAGI has joined with several organizations throughout Mexico to create a coalition called the Frente en Defensa de Wirikuta, or the Wirikuta Defense Front. AJAGI has supported the Wixarika communities for two decades in reclaiming their lands from illegal invasions and in a wide range of development projects.

Those organizations are now working together on the legal challenge and are organizing to raise awareness about this threat and to build an international campaign to support the Huicholes in their efforts to protect their sacred sites.

“In the face of these enormous challenges that humanity is confronting right now with environmental destruction, climate change and industrial contamination, we cannot let economic ambition carry us to the extreme of destroying sacred places of such great spiritual, cultural and environmental value, even disregarding laws and the most elemental of human rights,” said Carlos Chávez, founder of AJAGI. “We must support this cause, which is the cause of all humanity, because to do otherwise would bring us one step closer to the cancelation of our future.”

In this excellent video interview, recorded at the recent Call of the Eagle – Vision Council gathering by Leticia Rigatti and Ryan Luckey of the Común Tierra project, Huichol marakame (medicine man) Julio Parra shares his thoughts about the proposed mine in Wirikuta. For a version with English subtitles and blog entry, and to learn more about Común Tierra, check out their website here.

How you can help

There are several ways you can support the Huichol people in their struggle to protect their culture and their traditional pilgrimage site.

First, you can join the Wirikuta Defense Front by dropping a line to AJAGI1@prodigy.net.mx and asking to be added to the mailing list. If you want to receive information in English only, please specify. Also, please indicate if you have particular skills that you can share: translation, background in environmental sciences or other relevant skills, connections with organizations that might be able to write a letter in support or help in other ways. The group is in the process of translating Spanish-language materials into English; please let us know if you’d like to help. Meanwhile, the Spanish-language blog is SALVEMOS WIRIKUTA (Let’s Save Wirikuta) and there’s also a SALVEMOS WIRIKUTAFacebook page. Also, the Wixarika Resource Center has a Wirikuta page with frequent updates here.

Second, you can organize a letter-writing campaign among your friends and contacts to Mexican officials; personal letters sent through the mail are the most effective, but if you prefer, there is a website where you can just fill out a form and press “send.” Cultural Survival, an international organization dedicated to raising awareness about indigenous rights, has launched an international letter-writing campaign with a sample letter and addresses here, as well as an alert that lays out the issues in detail. Rainforest Rescue has another that goes to even more public officials. Please do both.

* Sign the petition.

Meanwhile, the Wirikuta Defense Front is working to bring international pressure on the Mexican government to shut down the mine before it starts. The group is working to raise the money to send a delegation of Huicholes to Canada to lobby against the proposed mine at the company’s Canadian headquarters, through its stockholders and through the Canadian government.

If you are interested in contributing to the Wirikuta Defense Front to help with this and other expenses related to stopping the mining operations in Wirikuta, please make a tax-deductible contribution to The Esperanza Project via the Paypal link on its website, with WIRIKUTA in the special instructions space, or through the AJAGI bank account in Mexico, c/o CARLOS CHÀVEZ REYES, at HSBC, Branch # 00701, Account #02132 00403 92525 721.

Most importantly, help spread the word – and join Rodolfo and his people in their prayers for a healthier, happier and more balanced planet for us all.

From Sierra to Sea: Huicholes make their mark in Cancun

By
Tracy Barnett
Published: December 16, 2010Posted in: Climate Change, Featured, Indigenous rights, Mexico, Mining, Spiritual, WhyTags: , , , , ,
From Sierra to Sea: Huicholes make their mark in Cancun

By Tracy L. Barnett

CANCUN – “Arriving at the ocean is very important; you can’t just walk up to it like it’s a common thing,” Antonio told us as we bumped along through the night on our way to Isla Blanca. “We consider the sea to be sacred; we come from the sea. We have to ask permission to be here.”

That’s how I found myself standing at the edge of the gleaming surf, saying a prayer of gratitude and tossing a chocolate cookie along with a 5-peso coin into the Caribbean along with my prayer. Antonio made an eloquent petition to the great spirits of the ocean and of the five directions sacred to the Wixarika people, asking for special attention during the climate summit proceedings – that everything go well for all of humanity, for those attending the COP-16 events, and for all the Earth.

The candle was offered to the sea as well, and a last gleaming spark scooted downwind along the edge of the surf: earth, wind, fire, water. There couldn’t have been a more perfect way to begin our mission, or the first visit to the Yucatan for all five of us.

Antonio Candelario had been chosen to represent the Huichol or Wixarika community of Santa Catarina at the COP 16 events, along with Rodolfo Cosio, a jicarero or carrier of the ancient pilgrimage tradition of his peoples. Jesus Lara, a leader in the neighboring Wixarika community of San Sebastian, had been chosen as well. The Wixarika delegation was rounded out by Tunari Chavez, a technical advisor with the Guadalajara-based Jalisco Association in Support of Indigenous Peoples, known by its Spanish acronym AJAGI, and me, a journalist who is accompanying the organization.

We were there, primarily, to get the word out about the Canadian silver mining operation that is poised to break ground in Wirikuta, the most sacred site of the Wixarika people, the place where, according to their tradition, the sun was born. This site is in some ways the center of their universe, the destination of an annual pilgrimage conducted for hundreds, perhaps thousands of years, which culminates in a series of ceremonies convoking the ancestral spirits and balancing the energies of the entire planet. First Majestic Silver Corp. of Canada has been granted 22 mining concessions, for a total of 6,326 hectares, much of which lies in a federally protected ecological reserve and the UNESCO-recognized architectural treasure of Real de Catorce.

We arrived in Cancun on the evening of Dec. 3 and were met at the airport by Jack and Belem, a delightful young couple who opened their home and their hearts to us during our week in Cancun. After dinner we piled into the back of their ample van, which was to serve as our transport throughout the event, and headed to Isla Blanca, a natural preserve far removed from the towering hotels and touristic chaos of Cancun.

The next morning began bright and early with an interview at the Via Campesina camp, one of a number of sites with a full schedule of activities presenting a counterpoint to the official COP 16 summit. We began with an interview with Chilean journalist Paulina Acevedo, which quickly turned into a press conference with half a dozen journalists from Notimex to alternative media outlets attracted by the beautiful canvas we carried, designed with traditional Wixarika art, saying “NO a la Mineria en Wirikuta.”

From here we attended the opening ceremonies at the Via Campesina, a beautiful Mayan ceremony involving the lighting of candles in a giant mandala at the front of the stage, and an invocation the four directions.

Our delegation attracted attention wherever they went, and it wasn’t long before Elizabeth Press from Democracy Now stopped Jesus and Antonio for an interview.

“As indigenous people from Sierra, we are protectors of the environment,” Antonio said. “We are appealing to the world on behalf of life for all of humanity. But these people who know so much and have the latest technology don’t realize that they have broken the womb of Mother Earth through exploiting oil, mining, cement making, building highways, deforestation.”

The story and video can be found here.

This was followed by a meeting at the Radisson Hotel with the official delegates of the Congress of Indigenous Peoples for the COP 16, where the Wixarika delegation added their thoughts to the discussion of the official statement that this group was preparing to deliver at the official climate summit.

The day ended with two more interviews – first, with Emily Hunter of MTV-Canada, and second, with Maricarmen Wister of TV Cable.

Sunday began with another pair of interviews, this time in the very different hotel district of Cancun.

“We’re not in Mexico anymore – we’re in Miami,” marveled Rodolfo, looking out the back window at the skyscrapers receding into the background.

The first interview was with Isaias Perez from El Universal, followed by Adolfo Cordova Ortiz from Reforma. It was quite late by the time these interviews ended and the program was light so the compañeros accepted an invitation to see a cenote, a beautiful formation of clear water and stone characteristic of the region, before ending the day with a meeting at another site prepared for the climate event, Villa Climatica, where we were able to reserve a space for a presentation on Monday evening.

Meanwhile we learned that a rock concert would be occurring there later in the evening with none other than the famous classic rock group El Tri, and most of the party opted to attend. It was a grand event with thousands cheering their support for the Madre Tierra. Rodolfo and Antonio stood back and observed the spectacle, arms crossed, for the most part impassive – although Rodolfo occasionally picked up the infectious rhythm, the dangling chakiras of his traditional hat keeping time with the beat.

Monday morning we sought out another site, the Espacio Mexicano por Dialogo Climatico, where a series of events on Forests, Food Sovereignty and Indigenous Peoples was to occupy the day. We met with one of the organizers, Carlos Beas of MAIZ, who invited the delegation to have a representative on the panel. Rodolfo represented the group with a 10-minute presentation on the Wixarika people and the situation in Wirikuta, along with leaders such as Roly Escobar Ochoa of Guatemala, Sandy Gauntlett of New Zealand, and Ben Powless of the First Nations of Canada.

Afterwards we organized a meeting with Francisco “Chico” Mateo of the Departmental Assembly of Communities of Huehuetenango, who shared the story of the indigenous Maya communities’ resistance to the mining concessions granted by the Guatemalan government, and the experience of the neighboring department of San Marcos, which is the site of the highly destructive and controversial Marlin Mine owned by the Canadian transnational Goldcorp.

The delegation was interviewed by Robert Free Galvan and Brenda Norrell for an article which appeared in Censored News.

The day ended with an excellent presentation by the Wixarika delegation, in English and Spanish, with audiovisuals and traditional Wixarika music, at the Villa Climatica.

Tuesday was a day of mobilization in Cancun. More than 10,000 marched in different zones of the city for most of the day; we joined Via Campesina, where peasant farmers from Bolivia, Guatemala and Mexico joined their indigenous compatriots, waving flags of all colors and chanting slogans like “Zapata vive! La lucha sigue! (Zapata lives; the struggle continues),” and “Obama! The world is not a plaything!”

Rodolfo and Jesus paused to pose with a stilt-walker and a bus with a mural on the side featuring a mountain closely resembling Wirikuta’s Cerro Quemado.

The compañeros fielded multiple interviews throughout the march, including with Pacifica Radio, Telesur and the Yomiuri Shimbun from Japan.

Wednesday was the final day, with panels on the menace of mining throughout Latin America, at which Tunuari presented a short report of the situation in Wirikuta. Meanwhile, other anti-mining battles in El Salvador, Guatemala, Bolivia and Peru unfolded.

Tunuari next did an interview with Eugenio Bermejillo of the Latin American Network of Community Radio Stations.

The delegation escaped for a brief trip to the beach and a celebration of what may be the Wixarika delegation’s first and only trip to the Yucatan. Jesus and Rodolfo donned the snorkeling gear and went off in search of manta rays and sea urchins, while Antonio contented himself with paddling in the shallower waters.


The evening ended with yet another interview with Matilde Perez of La Jornada and a fandango of traditional jarocho music from Veracruz.

The farewell was bittersweet; our flight was scheduled the same day as Bolivian president Evo Morales’ speech at the Via Campesina, and the compañeros longed for just one more walk along the beach. But duty called, and amid goodbye hugs and photographs, we made our way home.


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One of Rodolfo’s presentations – other videos will be uploaded soon.

Eagle and condor meet in visionary gathering of souls

By
Tracy Barnett
Published: November 26, 2010Posted in: Climate Change, Ecovillages, Featured, Food Security, Forest protection, Indigenous rights, Mexico, Organic agriculture, Permaculture, Recycling, Reforestation, Spiritual, Watershed protection, WhyTags: , , , , , , , , ,
Eagle and condor meet in visionary gathering of souls

By Tracy L. Barnett

CHALMITA, Mexico State, Mexico – Long before the sun appears over the towering white cliffs all around us, this temporary village comes to life. The guardians of the ceremonial fire are stoking the flames for the temezcal; the kitchen crew is chopping and peeling and stirring; smoke is rising from the women’s tipi. Suddenly the resonant call of the conch rings out over the valley, calling us to the salutation of the sun, and the cry of an eagle pierces the air like a blessing.

We are gathered in this enchanted valley for the Call of the Eagle, the tenth intercontinental gathering of a group of dreamers and doers who are quietly changing the world from the inside out: the Consejo de Visiones – Guardianes de la Tierra (Vision Council – Guardians of the Earth).

Some 500 visitors from as far as Australia and as near as neighboring Chalmita – filmmakers and farmers, psychologists and shamans, artists and teachers, spiky-haired punks and lyrical poets – are learning to live together under the blue skies and bright stars of an itinerant ecovillage conceived more than a decade ago under the banner of the Rainbow Caravan for Peace and the Mexican Bioregional Movement. By the end of the week, this event will have touched the lives of more than 1,000.

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This tenth gathering is a very special event for many reasons, chief among them that it is seen as the fulfillment of an Inca prophecy. When the Eagle and the Condor fly together, according to the prophecy, this will signal the dawn of a new era – the Eagle representing the North, and the Condor representing the South. Here in this sacred valley, lying in the shadow of an ancient pyramid amid the fertile Bosque de Agua, a high-energy group of visionaries, artists, and activists from North and South has come full circle.
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Fourteen years ago, a now legendary group of them, led by among others Alberto Ruz Buenfil, otherwise known as the Subcoyote – cousin of Fidel Castro and son of the archaeologist who discovered Palenque’s fantastic hidden treasures – set off from this region for an epic journey that was to create the foundation for an intercontinental environmental, spiritual and social movement. After holding the first intercontinental congress of the Vision Council, they headed off in a bus painted like an ear of corn through the Zapatista territory of Chiapas, through the volcanic highlands of Central America and the tropical lowlands of Amazonia all the way to the tip of the continent in Patagonia. Using theater and the arts to plant seeds of hope, peace and sustainability in conflict zones, indigenous villages and crime-ridden barrios, they connected and nurtured social movements throughout the continent.

Their second international event, the Call of the Condor in 2002, brought some 1,300 activists and artists to the Sacred Valley of Machu Picchu in Peru to begin the work of consolidating a vision for a transition to a new age. The third, Call of the Hummingbird, was held in Brazil in 2005 and drew more than 1,500.

Now, after 13 years, that caravan has finally come back to its roots, and the seeds they planted here in Mexico and across the continent have come full bloom in an astounding event that is awakening even the most cynical and reserved among us. Tears flow freely in the circles of dance, in the darkness of the temezcal, in the embraces of long-lost friends who have only just met.

But this is far from a feel-good encounter group. In fact, it’s far from anything I’ve experienced. These folks are facing the future with their eyes wide open, painfully aware of the resource and climate crises that loom on the horizon. It’s also not a hand-wringing session. No one here is waiting for government to resolve these pending crises, although government leaders are here to participate in the forums, workshops and demonstrations in areas encompassing ecology, health, spirituality, appropriate technology, and education among many others. Local schoolchildren, too, are brought in to participate in panels teaching self-reliance; local youth participate in forums organizing political and social action preparing for turbulent times in a post-petroleum world. Gaia University is here, sharing a revolutionary model for participatory education, granting diplomas, bachelor’s and master’s degrees while its students are engaged in planetary transformation.

One team is building an oven from mud and bricks, while another is building a solar clock; another group is learning about native herbal healing techniques, while still another is raising the ceremonial tipi that will be the headquarters of a powerful women’s healing circle, and another is discussing strategies for protecting this valley, a strategic but highly vulnerable center for water conservation. Another initiative is gathering momentum to support the Huicholes in a struggle to save their most sacred site, Cerro Quemado in Real de Catorce or Wirikuta, from a transnational mining operation.
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Sacred rituals from the world’s great traditions mingle with dance and creations of art and song to raise the energy throughout the week to a level I never thought possible. Activities run from sunup to 3 a.m., but sleep seems superfluous.

The culmination of the event comes after an all-night vigil to greet the dawn; a spectacularly feathered and painted group of Aztec dancers await us around a blazing fire, and a mandala of dance and rhythm and song erupts.
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As I sit down to try and put this phenomenon to words, I recall those of Coyote Alberto as we stood together on the last day.

“It’s all so perfect,” I told him. “My only regret is that it’s just impossible to put into words.”

He laughed knowingly – the author of several books about the caravan and its Rainbow Warriors, and now involved in a project to bring the lessons of the caravan home in Mexico City, he has struggled with this problem daily.

“Nobody believes you when you try to explain it,” he said. “They say, ‘You’re just writing what you want it to be.’ There’s no way to explain – you just have to live it.”

Never has a human being lived his words more authentically, more powerfully, more beautifully than the man at the heart of this vision turned reality. I can do no better than to end with some of those words, which Alberto shared with us during the closing ceremony.

“Two hundred years ago these lands were the scene of bloody battles; much blood was shed among our grandfathers and grandmothers to make a step forward in the process of evolution, of growth, toward our liberty as individuals, as a people, and as a nation…. A hundred years ago, again in these lands, much blood was spilled once again among our people, with the same goal, to be able to walk with a bit more liberty, a bit more strength.

“Today we are here together for the same cause, but together we are creating our own liberty, not just for Mexico but for the entire planet. Two hundred years ago we began the process of our independence. Today, what we have realized is that we are interdependent. Everyone for everyone… independence doesn’t exist. We are creating a planetary nation, interdependent.

“This day will be carried in the hearts of each of us as we take one more step on this road to liberty, this road toward dignity and justice. Everyone is responsible for everyone else. Our commitment is to this struggle, no longer with weapons of war but with weapons of dance and music, art and ceremony and ritual.

“If a hundred years ago a process of revolution began, today we also come to take a new step forward; we come to celebrate a re-evolution. We are standing here today, people from all over the planet, and each of us carries with us all our ancestors, all our traditions, all our grandparents, all those who struggled in the past to create a better future. Each one of you is the fruit of all the blood that was shed in these struggles, so that today we could be here present, celebrating, together in the same circle, with one heart and with one vision, on this day.

“Our grandparents spoke of prophecies. Today they are watching, and they see in us the ones they were waiting for.”


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Amazonian healer jailed for possession of traditional medicine

By
Tracy Barnett
Published: November 13, 2010Posted in: Colombia, Featured, Houston, Indigenous rights, Spiritual, WhyTags: , , , , , , , ,
Amazonian healer jailed for possession of traditional medicine

By Tracy L. Barnett
Images courtesy of Eduardo Santamaría and Celina De Leon
Free Taita Juan campaign

Editor’s note: Charges were thankfully dropped last week and Taita Juan has been freed. Angela Dodge, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Houston, told the Houston Chronicle on Tuesday that the felony charge against Juan Agreda-Chindoy, 42, was dismissed “in the interest of justice.”

One of my most profound experiences on my journey through Latin America – and indeed, in my life – was an invitation to attend an indigenous ceremony last month with three shamans of the ancient Amazonian tradition of yagé, or ayahuasca.

This herbal medicine, used throughout the centuries by traditional peoples in Brazil, Colombia, Peru and Ecuador for religious and healing purposes, produces powerful visions – considered by modern science to be hallucinations, but by its native practitioners to be a window onto another dimension.

I felt tremendously honored to witness and participate in a millennial tradition that has been jealously guarded for centuries, to enter that sacred world with these wise souls and to be granted a new perspective on myself, my work and the world around me. It’s a memory I will cherish always.

So it was with no small sense of dismay that I returned to civilization to discover that just two days after my initiation into this ancient world, another Amazonian shaman was being detained at the airport in my hometown of Houston. Taita Juan Bautista Agreda Chindoy was ultimately charged with possession of a controlled substance – DMT, the active ingredient in ayahuasca, designated a Class 1 Drug. Ayahuasca is a controlled substance in Colombia, as well, but certain individuals are authorized to use it, and Chindoy, a fourth-generation medicine man, is one of those individuals.

Unfortunately, as Chindoy was to discover, that authorization is not recognized in the United States.
Chindoy is a widely respected community leader who is in the process of establishing a traditional healing clinic in his village of Sibundoy in the Putumayo region of Colombia. He was on his way to Oregon to visit with some of his followers, individuals who had traveled to his village to receive his treatments.

Those friends have retained a lawyer and launched a campaign to free Chindoy, which will be a complicated and time-consuming process, given the various agencies involved.

The friends have been advised not to discuss the case while it is pending, but have disseminated detailed information about the case, about Taita Juan and about ayahuasca at their website, www.freetaitajuan.org.
Chindoy is “one of the few remaining indigenous spiritual leaders in the world that holds the ancestral medicinal knowledge of an ecosystem that is rapidly disappearing,” the site says.

I reached his attorney, Kent Shaffer, who gave me an update on the case.

Chindoy was finally able to speak with his wife, Carmen, by internet phone 10 days after his imprisonment.

“They’re just amazed,” Shaffer said. “They can’t believe this is happening; it’s like a nightmare for them.”

Shaffer is working to establish Chindoy’s innocence under case law that allows for religious use of controlled substances, including a Supreme Court case involving ayahuasca.

“Where he comes from, he is authorized to use this medicine,” Shaffer said. “It was clearly not his intention to break the law; when the authorities asked if he had anything to declare, he said yes, I have ayahuasca with me,” and he took it out and showed them. He didn’t try to hide it.”

Shaffer was hopeful that Chindoy would be released within the next three to four weeks. Under a best-case scenario, he would be deported. Unfortunately, at that point he may need to go through another set of proceedings to be allowed to leave the country, as his entry with the substance was also a violation of immigration law. Chindoy’s supporters are now seeking supportive families or individuals in Houston who are willing to host him in case he is released on bond but not yet allowed to leave the country.

“The government’s got to understand that not everyone possesses drugs for the wrong reason,” said Shaffer. “This substance was not created in a lab, it was created by combining plants and vines together to make a tea for healing and spiritual purposes, and it’s been going on for hundreds of years in little villages all through the Amazon. Now he comes to us as a healer and all of a sudden he’s branded as a drug dealer.

“We’re trying to get the government to understand this is not a person who comes with bad motives at all. We’re trying to get them to consider the good work he’s been doing for decades.”

The prosecutor in the case, Rick Haynes, could not be reached for comment.

Taita Juan, as he is called by friends and followers – “Taita,” meaning “father,” is a title of respect for indigenous spiritual healers – is the father of four and the godfather of 20. In addition to his traditional medicine clinic, he has established an ethnobotanical garden of Amazonian healing plants to ensure that the native traditions are preserved and passed down to the next generation. In his village, he receives thousands of visitors around the world, some seeking healing, others doing research. He is also a highly skilled artist, and together with his wife, Carmen, he runs a store that markets indigenous artwork and crafts from the region.

“Taita has an incredible sense of humor and the warmth of his spirit and heart extends to those around him,” his supporters have written. “For all his contributions, Taita Juan is esteemed and loved by many.”

For more information, see www.freetaitajuan.org.

Saving paradise in the Maya Mountains of Belize

By
Tracy Barnett
Published: October 24, 2010Posted in: Belize, Featured, Forest protection, Indigenous rights, Watershed protection, WhyTags: , , , , , , ,
Saving paradise in the Maya Mountains of Belize

(Above: A forest ranger patrols the Central River in the Maya Mountains, Toledo District, Southern Belize (Photo by Chris Hamley)

By Lee McLoughlin

Editor’s note: I visited the Maya Mountains, San Miguel and San Pedro Colombia in March of this year and the natural beauty of the area took my breath away. I was distressed to hear of plans to build a hydroelectric dam here and had hoped the community organizing efforts had put a stop to it. Unfortunately, Lee McLoughlin of the Ya’axché Conservation Trust contacted me recently to let me know that the project is a destructive reality, and one that the community and the conservation trust have teamed up to fight. What follows is a guest article by Lee and three excellent videos sponsored by the Ya’axché Conservation Trust. – Tracy L. Barnett

MAYA MOUNTAINS, Belize – The Toledo District of southern Belize is blessed with rich natural and cultural resources. Along its spine runs the rugged Maya Mountains, a largely uninhabited refuge for a wide variety of threatened and endangered species including jaguar, Baird’s tapir, howler monkey and the iconic scarlet macaw. The Maya Mountains are part of the last remaining relatively intact block of forest within the region – The Selva Maya – stretching from Belize to Guatemala and Mexico.


Central River in Bladen Nature Reserve (Photo courtesy of Ya’axché Conservation Trust)

In addition to the Maya Mountains’ value as a conservation area for threatened, endangered and endemic species it also provides services such as clean air and of course fresh, limestone filtered water to rural communities. To help protect these freshwater resources a large portion of the Maya Mountains are under some form of protection. The most strictly protected area in this block is the Bladen Nature Reserve which is co-managed by Ya’axché Conservation Trust and Belize Forest Department. Bladen protects the headwaters of the Monkey River and the Central River (Rio Grande tributary) where the river drops through sinkholes and emerges out of springs as it makes its way through the underground limestone cave systems on its way through indigenous Mayan communities and then coastal Creole communities before reaching Belize’s World Heritage Barrier Reef. The communities of San Pedro Columbia and San Miguel, in the upper Rio Grande watershed, are particularly dependent on these rivers as a source of drinking water, for washing and for irrigation for subsistence agriculture.

In November of last year Ya’axché Conservation Trust discovered that Belize Hydroelectric Development (BHD) had conducted an illegal ‘feasibility study’ for a proposed hydroelectric dam within the pristine, strictly protected Bladen Nature Reserve. This development was taking place without any prior consultation with the communities that would be affected by the dam and in addition Ya’axché, as co-managers of Bladen, were not informed. The communities of San Pedro Columbia and San Miguel mobilized to form a commitee and numerous meetings were held to allow people to voice their opinions. People were overwhelmingly against the development, especially since the same company had previously established a dam on the San Miguel river on community land without any tangible community benefit. Ya’axché decided to take the community opposition a step further and is now involved in litigation against BHD and the Forest Department who granted them the permit.


Community meeting in San Pedro Columbia (Photo by Chris Hamley)

What this illegal development showed was a complete disregard for the human rights of the indigenous communities living downstream and the rich ecology of the Maya Mountains. Ya’axché realized that it was necessary to give a voice to those communities who would be most affected by developments such as this. To ensure this voice is heard Ya’axche requested permission from Ajax films to publicize ‘Saving Paradise’ and later collaborated with Ajax films to create ‘River to Reef’.

Saving Paradise from Ajax Films uploaded by Ya'axché Conservation Trust on Vimeo.

The first film, ‘Saving Paradise’, is the story of the opposition of Toledo communities to the proposed hydro dam and the five-day expedition to the site of the ‘development’ in the remote upper reaches of the Maya Mountains. It enabled the community members and Ya’axché to show those who could not make the long trek, the damage that had been caused by the developers. This included the bulldozing of a road, clearing forested slopes, blocking waterways and creeks and clearing helicopter landing pads. ‘Saving Paradise’ also shows the series of community meetings which followed the ‘feasibility study’ and particularly the passion and organization of the communities in opposition to this dam.

The second film, ‘River to Reef’, is all about the relationship of modern Belizeans to their water resources, it highlights the impacts that we have on our watersheds on individual, community and commercial levels. Importantly it not only demonstrates the negative impacts but also shows those committed individuals who are making small changes in their community to achieve healthy watersheds and coastal reefs for future generations. The film is currently being shown on Belizean Television, on the internet and, most importantly, in schools and communities.

River to Reef from Ajax Films uploaded by Ya'axché Conservation Trust on Vimeo.

For more information on the fight against the dam please check out the blog, Let Our River Flow. For more information about the activities and protected areas of Ya’axche Conservation Trust, including the 100,000-acre Bladen Nature Reserve and the 15,000-acre Golden Stream Corridor Preserve please visit the Ya’axche Conservation Trust website at www.yaaxche.org or write to cmichaelangelo@yahoo.com or nicrequena@gmail.com. And to lend your voice to the cause, write to Belize Prime Minister Dean Barrow at cabinet@btl.net, or call him at (501) 822-0399; and write a letter to the newspapers, Amandala (editor_amandala@yahoo.com) and the Belize Times, 3 Queen Street, PO box 506, Belize City, Belize.

And to close the subject with a smile, check out this short video by a group of Toledo High School students, Damn the Dam! It’s priceless.

Damn the Dam! from Ajax Films uploaded by Ya'axché Conservation Trust on Vimeo.

Why Big Oil doesn’t need to spill to kill

By
Tracy Barnett
Published: October 15, 2010Posted in: Featured, Forest protection, Indigenous rights, Peru, WhyTags: , , , ,
Why Big Oil doesn’t need to spill to kill

(Above: Arrows belonging to uncontacted peoples, believed to be Mashco-Piro. Taken during a FENAMAD trip to Tayacomme, Manu National Park, Peru. © FENAMAD


Jorge, Murunahua man, who was shot in the eye by loggers on first contact in 1996, Breu, River Yurua, Peru. © Survival International

By David Hill

Editor’s note: David Hill is a former researcher at Survival International, an organization that has taken the lead in defending the rights of the increasingly embattled indigenous people of the planet, especially those who have taken a stand in defense of their native land. For more information, to sign up for alerts and to lend your name to the cause, see www.survivalinternational.org.

PERUVIAN AMAZON – The tragic Gulf of Mexico oil spill, which led to the death of 11 people, has generated enormous concern about the environmental impacts of oil exploration and exploitation. But what about the social impacts? What about oil operations that can decimate whole groups of people? As reserves dwindle and prices rise, oil companies are moving into increasingly remote parts of the planet – some so remote, like the Peruvian Amazon, that they are inhabited by indigenous people who have no contact with the outside world.

These ‘uncontacted’ tribes, numbering an estimated 100 worldwide, are extremely vulnerable to any kind of contact with oil crews. The reason for this is simple: they have lived so isolated from other people for so long that they have not developed immunological defences against outsiders’ infections or viruses, including the common cold and flu. It doesn’t take much to start an epidemic: a brief encounter between an oil crew member and an ‘uncontacted’ man or woman, a hand on a shoulder, the exchange of a t-shirt. The fact is, colds kill.


These spears were left by the uncontacted Indians as a message to bar outsiders from entering.
© Marek Wolodzko/AIDESEP

This is no exaggeration. Time and time again first contact has wiped out 50% or more of entire Amazonian tribes. The Nahua, in south-east Peru, are one example. After first regular contact in 1984 following exploration by Shell on their land and the subsequent influx of loggers using the tracks and paths cut by Shell’s oil crews, more than half of the Nahua died in the next few years.

‘Many, many people died,’ remembers one of the survivors. ‘People dying everywhere. People left to rot along stream banks, in the woods, in their houses.’

Oil companies often acknowledge the danger their work poses to ‘uncontacted’ tribes, but continue to operate anyway. Shell did just that: ‘a cold could easily turn into pneumonia and be fatal,’ said one Shell plan. So too Mobil in the 1990s when they explored in Peru: ‘these populations are very susceptible to respiratory and Western diseases. . . for which they have no natural resistance.’ More recently, Barrett Resources admitted contact was ‘probable’ and could be ‘disastrous’, but that did not stop French company Perenco from taking over their operations, in northern Peru, in 2008.

Worse, some companies actually encourage their crews to establish contact with the tribes and even provide specific phrases to use. Some of these would be comic if the consequences weren’t so potentially tragic. Barrett recommended saying things like: ‘We are people just like you’ and ‘Is something disturbing you?’ Repsol-YPF, currently working in the same region, has suggested this: ‘Use a megaphone to inform the natives in the local languages why we are there and that it is not the company’s intention to interfere with their activities.’


Abandoned hut, believed to be Mashco-Piro, taken during FENAMAD trip to Tayacomme, Manu National Park, Peru. © FENAMAD

Other companies take a different tack and act as if the tribes didn’t exist. That is what Perenco has done. In a report to Peru’s Energy Ministry outlining the potential impacts of a pipeline it currently intends to build in northern Peru to help transport an estimated 300 million barrels of heavy crude oil from the Amazon to Peru’s Pacific Coast, there is plenty of detail about the ‘contacted’ indigenous people in the affected region, including village locations, potted histories, and even demographic statistics. And the two ‘uncontacted’ tribes who live there? No mention, absolutely no mention, of them at all.

Another tactic is to argue openly that the tribes really don’t exist, or that there is no evidence for them. ‘This is similar to the Loch Ness monster. Much talk but never any evidence,’ said a Perenco spokesperson when confronted by a British journalist last year. ‘We have to conclude that the existence of uncontacted tribes is extremely improbable,’ a spokesperson from Repsol-YPF, operating in the same region as Perenco, told Survival. ‘According to information provided to us by Repsol, there is no evidence of un-contacted people,’ said ConocoPhillips, Repsol’s partner in northern Peru.

The tragedy in the Gulf of Mexico led to renewed calls for offshore drilling to be banned altogether, so why not the deepest Amazon too? Ignore what the companies say. There is actually a huge amount of evidence for the existence of ‘uncontacted’ tribes in these regions, and by operating there the companies are, in addition to violating international law and the UN’s Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, exposing the tribes to unknown diseases which could decimate them. No rig explosions required. Big Oil doesn’t need to spill to kill.

Click here to join Survival International’s campaign to stop oil exploration on uncontacted tribes’ land in Peru.


Temporary shelters built by an ‘uncontacted’ tribe in southeast Peru. © ACCA/Survival

Social Forum shifts balance in Paraguay, Latin America

By
Tracy Barnett
Published: August 16, 2010Posted in: Climate Change, Featured, Food Security, Forest protection, Indigenous rights, Mining, Paraguay, Reforestation, Spiritual, WhyTags: , , , , , , ,
Social Forum shifts balance in Paraguay, Latin America

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ASUNCION, Paraguay – It was an historic moment for Latin America, and perhaps for the world: A former guerilla, a former priest and a former coca grower, now presidents of their respective countries, stood together and addressed the continent’s largest assembly of social organizations.

Paraguayan President Fernando Lugo, a former Catholic bishop whose election on April 20, 2008, signaled the end of a six-decade dictatorship, welcomed the Social Forum of the Americas to his country as a much-needed show of international support for his country’s fragile democracy. In addition to battling his own right-wing legislature, judiciary and mass media, the country’s first progressive president just last week began chemotherapy treatments for a newly diagnosed case of lymphoma. In perhaps the most emotional discourse of the entire forum, Lugo spoke from his heart.

“This privileged social forum is one of the lights we can raise like a torch to light the road to change in Latin America,” he said. “For the Paraguayan people, this is a sincere show of brotherhood …your presence is the force that will sustain us for the irreversible road to change in Paraguay.”

Bolivian President Evo Morales, risen from the ranks of indigenous organizers and coca growers, called the moment a sign of the times. “Never in the ’80s or the ’90s would you have seen a president at any of these events – and now we are here to receive your solutions, to convert them into programs and projects to liberate our people.”

The relationship between the forum and the progressive governments of the South has been a reciprocal one, with presidents from Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez to Brazil’s Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva have used it to burnish their images with social movements. The World Social Forum was launched in 2001 in the neighboring country of Brazil as a counterpoint to the annual World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, and as a meeting place and incubator for social movements across the globe under the theme, “Another World is Possible.”

Over the years the annual event has drawn upwards of 100,000 participants and has become so unwieldy that some have dismissed it as little more than a feel-good talk session or a left-wing carnival. But to many here, the social forum has become a force to be reckoned with, and indeed, a current that has nurtured and informed the continent’s leftward shift over the past decade.

“Critics have said all along that the forum is just a gabfest,” said Marc Becker, longtime forum observer and Latin American historian. “But there’s no doubt in my mind that it’s fundamentally shifted the discourse from neoliberalism and the Washington consensus to an environment that has permitted the rise of the leftist governments we have today.”

Since its inception, the WSF has spun off numerous regional and thematic versions. This week’s gathering, launched Aug. 11 and running through Sunday (Aug. 15), was the fourth hemispheric gathering, and it drew more than 10,000 from all over the Americas and beyond. Its slogan, “Nuestra America está en camino” (Our America is on its way), reflected the optimistic view that significant progress has been made toward achieving that other possible world.

This year’s themes were many and diverse, ranging from climate change and food sovereignty to the impacts of an increasingly industrialized agriculture and the growing number and strength of U.S. military bases throughout the continent.

Whether the forum will manage to shift the debate at the global level remains to be seen, but there’s little doubt that it has had significant impact at the regional and certainly at the local level, and within the movements themselves.

Peruvian anti-mining activist Lourdes Huanca actually credits the connections she made at the forum with saving her life and that of other activists during a violent confrontation with the Peruvian government.

“We sent out an e-mail to the contacts we had made saying, ‘Help, they are killing us!’” she said. Via Campesina, a global peasant organization, sent a representative and others responded by putting pressure on the government, and the situation was resolved, she said.

Groups as diverse as the Via Campesina and the Latin American Network of Women Transforming the Economy (REMTE, by its Spanish acronym), some of whose feminist leaders hold multiple academic degrees, come together across borders to strategize on their own issues, and reach out to learn about the struggles of other groups, as well.

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Sonia Alvarez of the University of Massachusetts attributes the forum with giving women a much more prominent voice within social movements in the South; Gina Vargas, a fellow member of the Network, agreed.

“When Via Campesina first began having a presence here, the men would say, ‘Here we’ll have our meetings, and there the women will do their cooking,’” said Vargas. “We said, ‘Wait a minute!’”

As the Via Campesina women began to interact with strong women leaders, the power balance began to shift. This year, one of the most dynamic speakers from the central stage was Magui Balbuena, a campesina leader from Paraguay.

Nobel Peace Laureate Rigoberta Menchu, who was received with perhaps even more excitement than any of the presidents, joined a panel defining the concept of “buen vivir,” or living well – a counterpoint promoted by the new Latin American left as a counterpoint to the individualist striving for the better life promoted by industrialist societies, a striving that speakers said impoverishes the planet through mindless consumerism.

‎”Our elders taught us that what we can take with our hands is ours; what doesn’t fit is for someone else. It’s selfishness that caused us to take the rest and put it in a bag for ourselves – and that selfishness is destroying the world,” she said.

One area in which the forum has the potential for a greater global impact is in the area of climate change. Groups preparing for the upcoming climate talks in Cancun, a follow-up to Copenhagen, have been working behind the scenes since April’s WSF-styled People’s Climate Summit in Cochabamba to further the development of an International Court for Climate Justice. Their sessions laid the groundwork for a multifaceted approach in Cancun.

Back in Paraguay, it’s hard to measure the impact on local social movements, but farmer Braulio Anibal Avalos provided a little insight when he stopped me on the stairs after a workshop to tell me how excited he was.
“This forum has completely changed my way of looking at the world,” said Avalos, whose family has been involved since before his birth in a fight to reclaim their cooperative’s land after it was seized by the Paraguayan government for supposed subversive activity.
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Paraguay’s difficult past – first, a war with neighboring countries in which it lost more than half its territory, followed by the dictatorship – has made Paraguayans insular and isolated, he said.

“I’ve always been extremely nationalist because of our history,” he said. “But today, as I look around and discover the thousands of people from other countries who are struggling for a better world, I realize the fight is not just ours. I realize we are not alone.”

Here are a few images from the Fourth Social Forum of the Americas:


Created with Admarket’s flickrSLiDR.

Mining Real de Catorce: To destroy the sacred is the strategy

By
Tracy Barnett
Published: August 6, 2010Posted in: Featured, Huichol lands, Indigenous rights, Mexico, Mining, Spiritual, WhyTags: , , , , , , , ,
Mining Real de Catorce: To destroy the sacred is the strategy

By Tunuary and Cristian Chávez
Translated by Ken Hoyt

Editor’s note: I met Tunuary and Cristian Chávez and their father, Carlos Chávez, in February and March, when I accompanied Cristian and Carlos to Huichol territory and worked on a documentary about their work. Their organization, AJAGI (Jalisco Association in Support of Indigenous Peoples) has been at the forefront of the struggle to defend indigenous and environmental rights in Mexico and beyond. Here I republish with permission a translation of this article, which originally appeared in La Jornada of Jalisco.

A series of events in recent months has attracted international concern from civil rights organizations, the National Human Rights Commission, academics and members of the National Indigenous Congress, regarding harassment and destruction that has been directed toward indigenous peoples over their ancestral traditions and their sacred sites. Such things are happening throughout Mexico and in an especially alarming way towards the Wixárika (Huichol) people, who have denounced a series of attacks against their “other” fundamental territory—that which is spiritual and gives meaning to the framework of their internal politics and the fabric of their social organization, and defines their relation to the environment and other peoples.

It is a large territory, stretching from the sea to the desert in San Luis Potosi, where a group of jicareros* from the Wixárika community of Tuapurie-Santa Catarina Cuexcomatitlán were harassed by state police and municipal police from Station Fourteen while performing ancient rituals at the communal land of Las Margaritas. This harassment was described by the Indigenous National Congress as “an aggression against all peoples,” because it was an assault against something very fundamental—the collective spirit of a people.

However, this harassment is nothing new. Six years ago the intentions of the government of San Luis Potosi were made clear to the public, with their development plans to create corridors for mining production, agribusiness and sweatshops, megaprojects entirely upsetting the pilgrimage to sacred sites in the desert of San Luis Potosi. In parallel the government launched a campaign of criminalization and regulation of the ancient practice of collecting Hikuri (peyote).

The disintegration of collective land ownership through the Certification Program of Ejido Rights (PROCEDE) played a key role in this plunder, handing over huge areas of this great plain to multinational companies for use in agro-industrial production. The unaccommodating climate and soil will necessitate excessive use of agrochemicals and the overexploitation of aquifers.

Recently a new threat to Wirikuta ancestral territory arose in the form of a document presented by the transnational Micon International Limited, who published the results of mineral exploration carried out since July 2007 by Norvec, a Canadian mining transnational that has 22 mining concessions adjacent to each other and joined 6,326.58 hectares (translation from Diana Negrin of the Micon International Report) The geographical center of the concessions is the Cerro del Quemado or Leuna, the place where, according to Wixárika worldview, the Sun was born in the first times, where the ancestors walked creating the world and where today, Wixárika communities continue to make their pilgrimage recreating this ancient walk year after year.

On Sept. 14, 2009, the rights of the 22 concessions belonging to Norvec were purchased by an even larger transnational, First Majestic Silver Corp., who is seeking a monopoly on the production of silver in Mexico. First Majestic currently owns three operating silver mines in Mexico, La Encantada, La Parrilla, la mina de San Martin Silver Mines, and a project known as the Toro Silver Mine, and is now ready to exploit more than 13 million ounces of silver from Real de Catorce mining district.

Totally irresponsibly, and with disregard to the official designations as a Protected Natural Area as well as a UNESCO designated Historic and Cultural Heritage Site, along with those who call the area sacred, the Federal Attorney for Environmental Protection, the National Institute of Anthropology and History and the National Water Commission have all granted permits to the mining company to make their operation possible and have promised to pay $7,500 a year to communities as compensation for access their collective territories.

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This is a major threat to the environment and cultural practices of indigenous people of Mexico. Among other issues, the projected operating method of “open pit” — distinct from drilled shafts for the use of dynamite on surface, destroying entire hills while the crater is washed of minerals.

While this happens, the state continues to restrict and repress the Wixárika pilgrimage citing “harvest cuotas”, while peyote dealers operate with impunity as they process large quantities of the drug known as mescaline with the active complicity or disregard of government authorities, who in the media maintain an alleged war against organized crime, which in reality is a war against the people and militarizes and paramilitarizes the entire country.

The government’s supposed “concern” about crime has led to many instances of oppression such as that denounced by autonomous Wixárika community Bancos de San Hipólito, Durango. Recently during their ceremonial practice of the deer hunt, which is of tremendous religious importance, the Mexican Army cited their concerns about small arms to interrupt the ceremonial practice and confiscate the low caliber weapons that have always been used for this purpose.

What about the destruction of the sacred site known as Paso del Oso due to the illegal imposition of the highway project-Huejuquilla Amatitán-Bolaños in Jalisco, which today continues to be halted by legal processes and strong community mobilization by the Wixárika of Tuapurie.

The plunder dresses in very aggressive colors, on one hand unprecedented pressure was exerted for the implementation of multinational megaprojects by way of development plans and land ordinances. The violent aggression of paramilitary and narcoparamilitary groups and (with protection from State bodies) only grows in intensity. This is an attack on those that have maintained their indigenous identity for thousands of years, that which is tradition, the sacred sites and traditional practices.

Maybe it’s because global capitalist power knows that if the indigenous peoples have 80 percent of the natural resources necessary for global industrialization it is because they are one with nature, with the universe. And so that unity must be destroyed — and that is the official strategy.

* Jicarero is the name for those who are chosen to perform the sacred ritual each year of the pilgrimage to Wirikuta and the other sacred sites, and the collection of the Hikuri, or peyote.

tunuaryycristian@yahoo.com.mx

Cultural Survival: Using radio to preserve endangered cultures

By
Tracy Barnett
Published: July 14, 2010Posted in: Belize, Community Radio, Environmental education, Featured, Guatemala, Indigenous rights, Latin America, Mexico, Mining, Spiritual, WhyTags: , , , , , , , ,
Cultural Survival: Using radio to preserve endangered cultures

(Above: Concepción Aganel of Radio Niña in Totonicapan, one of the community radio stations fighting for legitimate status.)


Mark Camp, Operations and Interim Director, Cultural Survival

By Tracy L. Barnett

ANTIGUA, Guatemala – Between trips to the Guatemalan capital to stalk evasive Congress members and strategizing meetings with community radio activists from Huehuetenango to Lake Atitlan, Mark Camp is a tough man to slow down.

But I managed to catch up with him just as he prepared to pack up his big red truck and head north in his annual migration to Cultural Survival’s headquarters and his other home in Cambridge, Mass., to hear a little about what he’s been doing down here.

Cultural Survival is going on its fortieth year as the leading international organization in promoting indigenous rights and the preservation of indigenous cultures around the world. Mark, as its operations coordinator, can talk for a long time about needs assessments, political strategy, organizational development and the like.

But when he starts to talk about Miguelito, he really comes to life. Miguelito is the 8-year-old president of the youth auxiliary of Radio Sembradora, the community radio station of San Pedro La Laguna in Lake Atitlan, and in many ways he symbolizes the future of community radio and, indeed, the future of indigenous Guatemala.

Camp met Miguelito in a recent visit to the station, where Miguelito and his group of 8, 9 and 10-year-olds had created an alliance with local NGOs to organize a campaign to clean up Lake Atitlan. The iconic lake, once celebrated for its crystal-clear, volcano-encircled waters, has suffered epic proportions of wastewater and agricultural runoff, as well as a more visible problem: floating masses of plastic trash.

Miguelito’s group was broadcasting every Saturday morning, putting on a full lineup of environmental programming, encouraging listeners to fill up and bring in their plastic bottles to be used in building ecological housing.

“This guy’s going to be mayor one day,” Camp recalls with a chuckle.

Community radio in San Pedro and in towns and villages across the country has been giving voice to indigenous people young and old who are trying to preserve their environment, their cultures, their languages and their way of life, and Cultural Survival has tapped into this movement as a high-power way of supporting indigenous communities.

In Palin Esquintla, community radio helped to revive a culture and a language that was on the verge of extinction. In Sumpongo Sacatapequez, it brought a local musical tradition back to life. In town after town, community radio has given indigenous communities information about their rights, about their health, about local political and social issues, about their traditional teachings and much more – in their own languages.

Camp came to realize the potential of community radio when he was working on a publication for Cultural Survival called Voices, a publication aimed at disseminating information about indigenous rights and culture to indigenous groups around the world. The problem, he said, was that even with foundation funding, they were only reaching about 30,000 readers – less that a tenth of 1 percent of the 370 million indigenous people on the planet – and only in colonial languages – Spanish, English, French and Russian – not in their native languages.
Cultural Survival Quarterly, the organization’s venerable award-winning magazine, is an excellent publication, but it’s in English, and it’s mainly geared toward non-indigenous people.

Once the funding ran out, Camp was looking for other ways to get the message out among indigenous peoples.
“After thinking about it a very short while, the obvious choice is radio – and very local radio, because language in lots of indigenous communities is very local,” said Camp. “The people in the next alley might speak a different language – or at least a very different dialect. So we started thinking about community radio and how we could work with community radio stations to put more information on the air for indigenous listeners that might help them defend their own rights.”

In 2004 he began sounding out community leaders throughout Guatemala, and by 2006 they had found funding for a full-fledged Community Radio Project.

Access to community radio stations was one of the rights guaranteed to indigenous communities under the peace accords, but the government never followed through by setting up a system that would really give access to the communities. Frequencies were auctioned off to the highest bidders, and commercial radio operators were willing to pay sums that indigenous peasants would never dream of seeing in their lifetimes.

So the campesino groups decided to operate their stations anyway, and hundreds of them set up pirate operations in whatever facilities they could find and with whatever equipment they could cobble together. The stations were not technically legal, however, and they endured harassment from local government officials, raids on their stations, confiscation of their hard-earned equipment and even, in several cases, imprisonment of the broadcasters. Several associations of community radio stations had tried to get legislation passed that would solve the problem, but had failed. This was the situation when Camp came on the scene.

Cultural Survival’s goals were straightforward. First and foremost, the objective was to get all the community radio associations working together on a consistent piece of legislation guaranteeing each community the right to a radio frequency; second, workshops to teach radio volunteers how to generate high-quality content; third, to help the stations become financially self-sufficient; and fourth, workshops to help them with the nuts and bolts of running a professional radio station.

Three years into the project, the goals are well on their way to completion; most importantly, all the associations have agreed on the same piece of legislation and are working together, alongside Camp, for its passage. Camp is optimistic; all the major parties and many minor parties have signed on to the legislation, and folks at the grassroots, like Tino Recinos (see “Ex-Guerilla changes gun for microphone), are working hard to persuade the last holdouts.

A vote in the Guatemalan legislature is scheduled for Aug. 9, International Day of the World’s Indigenous People. Stay tuned to Cultural Survival’s page at www.culturalsurvival.org and to The Esperanza Project for news.

For excerpts from Mark Camp’s interview in Antigua, Interview with Mark Camp

Planting the Kingdom of God in Sibinal

By
Tracy Barnett
Published: June 30, 2010Posted in: Ecotourism, Featured, Guatemala, Indigenous rights, Mining, WhyTags: , , , , , , , , , ,
Planting the Kingdom of God in Sibinal

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SIBINAL, San Marcos, Guatemala – Juan Pablo Morales and Nate Howard come from vastly different religious traditions, social circumstances and geographies. But in the end, it was their faith that brought them together in their opposition to the mining industry, and in their project to provide economic alternatives in one of Guatemala’s poorest regions.

For Juan Pablo, it was his faith in a just and loving God; for Nate, it was a faith in the potential of humanity. And for both, as they work together to establish sustainable development options in a region slated for strip mining, it’s a faith that the people can find a way to earn a living from the land without destroying it.

“We are constructing the Kingdom of God among the poor in Guatemala,” Juan Pablo began, his smile as wide as a child’s. “Poverty is not part of God’s plan; poverty is the anti-kingdom. When I speak of the anti-kingdom, I am speaking of the forces of darkness, the forces of empire, of neoliberalism, which tend to flow from the North to the South.”

Juan Pablo speaks the language of liberation theology, an approach to Catholicism born in the deeply divided Latin American continent when brutal dictatorships held sway. Some religious leaders in those days saw the brutal repression coming from the government and chose to side with the poor; many paid with their lives. Eighteen priests and 150 catechists were murdered in Guatemala, according to Juan Pablo’s reckoning, and 400 villages were massacred.

“The Evangelicals are preaching the coming of the apocalypse – but we went through our apocalypse during those 36 years of war.”

The numbers are close to home for him; his brother was among those catechists who were killed. But far from driving him away, it left him with a commitment to follow in his brother’s footsteps. After four years of study he, too, became a passionate teacher of the Catholic faith, and soon he moved into a position with Caritas, a nonprofit Catholic organization serving the poor.

Nate is softer-spoken but no less passionate about the church’s calling to empower the poor. Like many Indiana natives, he was raised an Evangelical Christian, but drifted away from the faith in his youth. He studied at Indiana University and then Eastern Pennsylvania University, getting an MBA in international economic development. Now he is working for the Mennonite Central Committee, helping communities to build sustainable, locally based economic models.

His hands-on experience in Guatemala gave him a completely different view of economics from that he had learned from his economics textbooks.

“Economics is not a science; it’s really the study of human relations,” he says. “It’s about our relations with the earth and with each other; it’s about theology, ecology, sociology.”

He sees his work here as primarily supporting Juan Pablo and the villagers, rather than running the development project. “Our goal is to try to help people see themselves as powerful actors and to work together to see what’s possible,” he said on our bumpy chicken bus ride up the mountain.

Living and working in the San Marcos district in the mountainous western side of Guatemala, close to the Mexican border, has been an eye-opening experience for this Midwesterner. Economic opportunity is so limited here that about 70 percent of the male population of this region has migrated at some point to the United States, and the money they send back is what raises the standard of living above that of extreme and grinding poverty. Now, however, with the economic crisis and increasing anti-immigrant sentiment, more and more Guatemalan immigrants are finding themselves out of work; many are heading back home, some compliments of U.S. Homeland Security.

Nate and I rose at 4 a.m. this morning to catch a bus for the two-hour drive to the town of Sibinal, and from there we were going to climb a mountain to La Vega del Volcán and see the fish hatchery. But the top of the mountain is cloaked in a blackish grey, and as we order our eggs and black beans and coffee, Nate’s contacts in La Vega call to warn him that the village is being deluged in a downpour.

The sheer rocky climb is hard enough when it’s dry, Nate tells me, and Juan Pablo arrives and seconds his concern. “You can probably make it, but you will suffer,” he said. So I settle in for an interview instead.

What Nate and Juan Pablo are focusing on is a loosely organized network of cooperatives in several rural villages in the municipality of Sibinal. One is a trout hatchery in La Vega, where the clear, spring-fed mountain streams make this hard-to-cultivate species a natural. The hatchery has been such a success that the community is now working on Phase II, raising fingerlings to sell to surrounding communities.

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(Trout farm at La Vega del Volcán: Nate Howard photo)

Other agricultural projects, including potatoes and ornamental flowers, have helped diversify the regional market opportunities beyond subsistence maize and beans, and have brought in a little cash.

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(Flower farm at La Linea: Nate Howard photo)

But what has Nate most excited at the moment is the ecotourism project, which would take travelers on a variety of treks, most of them through the unspoiled wilderness of the Tacaná volcano on the border with Mexico.
After breakfast with Nate and Juan Pablo, they took me down to the municipal building to speak with local council members, and I fielded a lineup of rave reviews for their work.

“There’s been a lot of international aid organizations here over the years; they’ve spent millions of dollars, and little has changed,” said Elfego Zunún Ortiz, one of the council members. “But we’re seeing now how these folks are doing an extremely effective project without spending a lot of money, just by involving the people in the leadership and planning of the project – and we have great hope.”

Domingo Javier Godines, another council member, stressed the importance of sustainable development projects like these as an alternative to mining. “We see the mining as bringing development to the United States, to Canada, to Europe – but it brings very little development to us, the poorest people in Guatemala – just 1 percent of the profits stay in Guatemala,” he says.

I’ve heard the statistic many times and have verified it; as hard to believe as it seems, it’s true.

Godines went on to describe the scene at a mining project he’d visited in El Salvador. At the foot of the mountain, 35 communities had lost their water source – a situation he predicts will happen here if the mining is allowed to continue.

Howard, for his part, underscores the importance of these development projects as an alternative to the mines.

“We believe that this type of community organizing and economic development will have a major impact on how communities like Sibinal respond to mining proposals in the future,” he wrote in a recent report. “Why would the people of La Vega del Volcán consider selling their natural springs and land to a mining corporation if they are being used for their trout production and other sustainable agricultural enterprises? Why would the communities of Sibinal acquiesce to the destruction of the mountains and bird habitats that attract paying tourists to their villages?”

Why indeed. He’s shared a few photos with me, and it’s enough to make me return – when it’s not rainy season. I want to see this breathtaking beauty for myself, and I want more than anything for the group to be successful in preserving this spectacular corner of the Kingdom of God.

Meanwhile, for more information about the project, to book a trek, to contribute to the project or to volunteer, contact Nate Howard at natedavehow@yahoo.com.


Created with Admarket’s flickrSLiDR.

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