REAL DE CATORCE, San Luis Potosi, Mexico – A quiet but excited buzz hums through the streets of this normally sleepy ghost town turned tourist attraction. Hotels that languished for months are filled to bursting and people are camping on every spare piece of real estate. Everyone is awaiting the arrival of hundreds of Wixarika pilgrims from their homelands in the Western Sierra Madre – a historic mass pilgrimage to connect with the spirits of their ancestors and to pray for the renovation of the fading candles of life that reside in this place, the depleting water supply and the continued equilibrium of all life on Earth.

The Wixarika, more commonly known by their Spanish name, the Huicholes, hope to gain some insights in a historic “spiritual consultation” regarding the threats to their most sacred site, Wirikuta. The Huicholes have made their millenial pilgrimages to Wirikuta since the beginning of their history, and see it as their holiest altar of prayer, the place where they come to hunt their sacramental cactus, the peyote, and the place where the sun was born; but this protected reserve is the target of Canadian mining companies and agroindustrial businesses that see it as a resource to exploit.

This UNESCO-recognized natural and cultural reserve is also home to some of the world’s richest silver veins, exploited for centuries by the Spaniards and then left to languish – until now, when new mining methods and rising silver and gold prices have made the area attractive once again to the mining industry. But besides the cultural significance of the site, the region is also one of the most biodiverse desert regions on the planet and home to a number of endemic and endangered species.

I arrived last night in this picturesque colonial mountain town in the company of Carlos Chavez, coordinator of the Wirikuta Defense Front, and got a quick debriefing from Mercedes Aquino, who is heading up the local support effort. Tensions have risen here for the past year since First Majestic Silver Corp. announced plans to open a silver mine, with those who depend on the tourism industry at odds with those who hope to make a living from the mines.

Organizers were worried yesterday about reports that pro-mining forces were gathering and possibly mounting an unfortunate response to the event, but Mercedes was breathless and glowing when we arrived; she and several others went on the air on the community radio station to head off a possible confrontation, explaining the purpose of the pilgrimage and putting people’s fears to rest. And this morning, priests all over the diocesis are urging their parishioners to exercise tolerance and support the pilgrimage in their own way tomorrow night, praying along with the Huicholes from their own homes for water and for life.

“We explained that the Huicholes are coming here to pray for life, to pray for the water, as they have for centuries. And just as they began to arrive, it began to rain. It’s like a miracle, really.”

Like all of northern Mexico, Wirikuta is suffering the worst drought in more than 70 years; the rains never came to Wirikuta this year, and the crops all failed. Many locals are hoping the proposed mines will provide much-needed employment, despite concerns that it will contaminate and deplete the scarce water reserves. So the timing of last night’s cloudburst, and the predicted rain of the next few days, is really quite remarkable.

Organizing the support for this pilgrimage has been a tall order the Wirikuta Defense has had to fill; from the moment the Huicholes made the decision to make this pilgrimage, just a few weeks ago, it has fallen to the small, unfunded and overworked defense group to try and pull together the logistics and smooth things over in the local communities. Somehow they managed to raise most of the nearly half-million pesos necessary to rent buses, buy food and firewood and pull together a thousand other details, and now about a dozen buses filled with Huicholes, in addition to countless individual bands, are making their way here from hundreds of ceremonial centers spread out over the Wixarika territories some 400 miles to the west. Their plan is to converge on the Cerro Quemado, the sacred mountain where they believe the sun was born, on the night of Feb. 6, where they will hold an all-night ceremony of prayer.

Anthropologist Paul Liffman, author of Huichol Territory and the Mexican Nation, called the pilgrimage “unprecedented in recent history – maybe unprecedented, period.” Normally the pilgrims organize their annual journeys to Wirikuta individually, and each of the more than 500 ceremonial centers sends their own group of maraka’ames (shamans) and jicareros (guardians of the sacred sites) over the course of the year. This mass pilgrimage and ceremony is a response to what they see as a mortal threat to their culture, Liffman said. It’s also a result of the logistical and financial support of the civil society and a growing awareness of the media.

Meanwhile, Chavez takes the long view. “What we’re seeing here is a concentration of the challenges that humanity is facing everywhere,” he said. “It’s going to be extremely important that a sustainable alternative livelihood is provided to the local communities,” he said. “What we’re hoping for and working towards is a big project of restoration – this is such an important area and we can make of it an example of sustainable development for the world.”

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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.

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.

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.

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:

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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.

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

SAN ISIDRO, Cabañas, El Salvador – I came to this quiet mountain community last week for a commemoration ceremony for three anti-mining activists who were killed here last year in the wake of ongoing protests against the operations of Canadian mining company Pacific Rim.

Cabañas, the second-poorest department in the country, was a guerilla stronghold during the war and the site of several massacres. These days it’s a quiet backwater of subsistence agriculture whose barely pronounceable capital city, Sensuntepeque, is home to about 35,000 people.

That quiet was broken in 2005 with the arrival of Pacific Rim, which came bearing promises of economic development and something the previous corporate-friendly ARENA government termed “green mining.” The same party that had held power since the war, when it ran the death squads that imposed a reign of terror on the populace, granted the company exploration permits, provoking widespread dissent.

Tiny El Salvador, with the densest population in Latin America and a looming water crisis, is not an appropriate place for mining, opponents argued. The current president, FMLN leader Mauricio Funes, ran his campaign as an anti-mining candidate, and once in office, he declared the country off-limits to mining. Pacific Rim responded with a $77 million lawsuit against the country under the Central American Free Trade Agreement.

I arrived in San Isidro to find Father Neftali Ruíz at the head of the march for justice, with Father Luis Quintanilla and Bishop Gabriel Orellana not far behind. They were wearing white robes with colorful scarves influenced by El Salvador’s indigenous past, much like the vestments worn by Archbishop Oscar Romero and the four Jesuit priests who were assassinated during the civil war for their defense of human rights. Those priests’ garments, some of them bullet-ridden and stained with blood, are on display in a museum in San Salvador. But these fathers showed the truth in the Romero quote on banners and T-shirts all over the country: “If I die, I will be reborn among my people.”

Father Neftalí was an animated young man who rallied the crowds as they arrived at the Central Plaza. Later I was shocked to learn that he, too, has been receiving death threats.

“Que Viva Marcelo Rivera!” he cried. “Long live Marcelo Rivera, who still walks among us! Long live the martyrs of Cabañas!”

Marcelo Rivera was a teacher, an artist and a community leader who was outspoken in his opposition to Pacific Rim’s mining operations. He mysteriously disappeared a year ago, on June 18, 2009, and his body was found eight days later at the bottom of a well, with obvious signs of torture. Local authorities dismissed the incident as common delinquency, and to date, no one has been charged with his murder.

The cultural center where Rivera once taught has been renamed in his honor, and repainted with a mural featuring his face and the words, “Those who die for life cannot be called dead.”

In December, following Rivera’s death, two other anti-mining activists were murdered in Cabañas, including Dora Alicia Recinos, who was eight months pregnant at the time.

Friday’s march culminated with an outdoor interfaith religious service officiated by Catholic, Anglican and Lutheran ministers. The service was held in front of the cultural center, with Rivera’s somber face in the background like a benevolent ghost.

“We are here to honor the memory of our martyrs,” began Father Neftali. “They deserve all of our honor and respect because they gave their lives just like Jesus Christ, to defend their people and future generations…We are here to celebrate their lives and to bring together the people who believe in the God of life and who also believe another world is possible.”

Lutheran minister Carlos Najera Medardo Gomez then came forward. “Satan is acting to destroy the plan that God has for each of us to have a life with dignity,” he said. “Destroying nature so that a few can fill their pockets with money is not justice… The only thing the poor have is the land, and if that is taken, they have nothing.”

Father Quintanilla, whose life was also threatened last year by two hooded assailants, took up the words of the prophet Isaiah, who told of an honorable man who was murdered and his case was not taken seriously by the authorities.

“Marcelo Rivera was kidnapped, tortured, killed and then found, and the authorities say it’s common delinquency,” said Quintanilla. “But the antecedents that mark the disappearance of Marcelo are not being taken into account: that Marcelo confronted an imperialist system imposed on this place, governed by the right wing in service to Pacific Rim.

“Nevertheless the Word of God gives us the courage to continue in the struggle. They sacrificed the life of little Manuel, still in the womb of his mother, Dora. In the hole of a rock they have found gold and they want to worship it…. They want to destroy our environment. But we must be attentive to discover and unmask the lies that threaten our land and our people.”

And Bishop Orellana of the Renovated Anglican Church read the story of Cain and Abel from the book of Genesis. The words of God rang out as an accusation to a modern-day Cain: “What have you done? The voice and the blood of your brother cries to me from the earth.”

After the Mass, I visited with Vidalina Morales, one of the leading opponents of Pacific Rim, who had marched in protests and raised her voice alongside Marcelo Riveras. Morales is no stranger to violence, having fought with the guerillas for 12 years, and her tiny frame belies the steely strength in her voice as she lays out her case against mining in tiny, overpopulated El Salvador. Wells and springs are already drying up in the communities uphill from the company’s exploration wells, she says, and the mining hasn’t even begun.

“Most of us campesinos, we are barely growing enough food to survive,” she explained. “We can get by right now – but if they destroy our water, what will we do?”

I asked her if she’s ever afraid, and for a moment I saw the softer side of Vidalina.

“Of course I’m afraid – not for myself, but for my children, for my family, for those close to me,” she said, tears springing to her eyes. “In the end, if they want to do something to me, they’ll do it, and so be it. But I’ve seen this in the struggles against the people – they seek to hurt us in the deepest ways possible, so yes, I’m afraid. But at the same time the fear gives us strength to keep fighting – and we will keep on fighting because justice is on our side.”

Vidalina is one of the directors of ADES, an organization that was born of the need to resettle the people of Santa Marta, a whole town that fled to Honduras during the height of the war. Vidalina was one of those who, as a child, was forced to cross the border under horrendous conditions to save their lives.

ADES, the Association for Economic and Social Development, has expanded its mission to the whole department of Cabañas, and is involved in an impressive array of programs to improve the lives of its citizens. Resistance to the mining operations is something they see as key to promoting equitable and sustainable development.

“They say they are going to bring development, but development is a mirage,” said Nelson Ventura, another ADES staff member who has been active in the resistance. Ventura narrowly escaped an apparent attempt on his life when a man swung a machete at him from behind. He saw it coming in the rearview mirror of a nearby car and dodged the blow. But when he reported the incident to the authorities, they just laughed it off and said, “Oh, he was just trying to scare you.”

Despite the threats on his life, and the loss of his friends and fellow activists, Nelson, the father of four, feels more committed than ever to the cause.

“Sure, I’ve thought of leaving, but what would I do? I have to teach my children to walk in the road of dignity. They have the right to a clean environment. If you don’t stand up for your rights, you have nothing.”
He ends with a favorite quote from Bertold Brecht, made famous in a song by Cuban revolutionary songwriter Silvio Rodriguez:

“There are good men who fight for a day, better men who fight for a year, and even better men who fight for several years. But the ones who fight all their lives are indispensable.”

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SAN ISIDRO, Cabañas, El Salvador – Cabañas is the second-poorest department in El Salvador, at the heart of a region that was a guerilla stronghold during the war and the site of several massacres. I went there last week for a commemoration of the four anti-mining activists killed last year in the town of San Isidro, where the Canadian mining company Pacific Rim is planning an open-air mine.

Here is a podcast and images from my time in Cabañas – story to come.

Evening+Edition+El+Salvador

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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

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.

(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.

(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.

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SIPACAPA, Guatemala – For many Guatemalans, the very name of this town has become a symbol of the indigenous resistance to transnational mining operations that has swept this land in recent years.
Last week, on the fifth anniversary of an event that launched that resistance, hundreds have gathered to celebrate, but the mood was anything but celebratory.

Five years ago on this day, on June 18, 2005, the villages of this rural municipality held a series of community consultas, or plebiscites, expressing their unanimous rejection of the presence of international mining companies. The mostly Mayan residents of this region had just learned that their government had literally sold the land out from underneath them, granting hundreds of mining concessions to international corporations in the decade since the peace accords without consulting with them.

These consultas, the basis for the form of participatory democracy practiced by indigenous peoples all over the world, are required under international law, but the Guatemalan government had chosen not to observe that law. So the people decided to hold their own consulta, and their action inspired a movement. Sipakapa was the subject of a documentary celebrating the victory – “Sipakapa no se vende,” or “Sipakapa is not for sale.”

Growing like a quiet grassfire, the movement spread across the Guatemalan highlands, and now, an estimated 600,000 people have voted “NO” to the mining operations and to other transnational activities on their lands. The government has responded by declaring the consultas nonbinding, but the movement continues to grow, and it has been recognized internationally.

There was every reason to celebrate on this anniversary. After five years of struggle, indigenous Guatemalan voices were being heard around the world. The Interamerican Commission on Human Rights had just recommended that operations at the mine be suspended pending further study, following a University of Michigan investigation revealing elevated levels of contaminants in rivers and in the blood of nearby residents. Now, United Nations Special Rapporteur James Anaya, probably the world’s highest-ranking authority on indigenous rights, was touring the region, listening to the peoples’ concerns and expressing his support.

But on the day of the anniversary, a sea of grim faces gathered at City Hall and looked as their elected officials explained why they had accepted 8 million quetzales, the equivalent of $980,000 U.S., from Montana Exploradora, the Guatemalan subsidiary of the transnational mining company Goldcorp.

Sipacapa’s location at the edge of the highly productive Marlin Mine, along with its very visible role as a symbol of indigenous resistance made it a logical target for Goldcorp’s future investment, so it came as no surprise when the company began offering money to local officials for development projects, “no strings attached.” Until now, they had resisted.

Under the traditional form of government practiced here and in most indigenous communities, leaders are not authorized to make major decisions without involving the citizenry in public meetings – direct democracy at its most pure. In Sipacapa, some were saying, this had not happened.

Mayor Delfino Tema, dressed in white, was there to set the record straight. He explained to several hundred townspeople that municipal officials had accepted the offer only after consulting with local residents and hearing from several communities that they wanted to have access to the funds. Furthermore, the money will be administered by the company, not by the municipality, he said, to avoid the appearance of a conflict of interest.

“There are those who say we’ve already been dining on the money given to us by the company. Nothing could be further from the truth – we haven’t even seen the money,” he insisted. “The community rules, and we are going to do what you say. We’re going to decide together how to spend this money in community meetings that are open for all to attend. We are going to continue in the struggle against the mining company.”

Applause was polite but muted, and the crowd filed out of the municipal hall and made its way across town to the parish hall for the celebratory Mass and lunch. The muttering and the placards indicated there was widespread discontent.

Meanwhile, I took advantage of the moment to call aside Arcilia Cruz Carillo of the nearby town of Canoj – one of few women mayors in the region – to ask her thoughts about Tema’s comments. Tema, as municipal mayor, serves as the chief administrator for the entire municipality of Sipacapa, which includes Canoj and all the other towns and settlements throughout the region.

Carillo was not happy. “The truth is, it’s pretty confusing because our leaders first said no, then yes. We’re seeing our water contaminated, our community divided – so it’s pretty sad, but we’ve always been courageous in this struggle. We pray to God that this company take its money back and leave as soon as possible.”

It was standing room only in the Catholic Church, decked out in green satin for the occasion. I didn’t know what to expect; Father Mario had declined from speaking with me before the meeting, saying he was a recent arrival in the community, and my friends from COPAE said he’d been reluctant to get involved.

Nonetheless, it didn’t take long to realize that this would be no ordinary Mass.

Father Mario, robed in white, stepped quietly to the pulpit and took a cue from Jesus’ sermon to his disciples from the book of Luke.

“Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat; neither for the body, what ye shall put on. The life is more than meat, and the body is more than raiment. Consider the ravens: for they neither sow nor reap; and God feedeth them: how much more are ye better than the fowls? 


“Consider the lilies how they grow: they toil not, they spin not; and yet I say unto you, that Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.

Then he switched to Matthew, and things began to get interesting.

“No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. You cannot serve God and the mineria.”

Padre Mario was indeed taking a side.

“What is the kingdom of God?” he asked them. “Some say it’s the afterlife. I say it’s justice; that’s what we’re all looking for. But we all know the other god can be money, which can become an idol.”

He then delivered an eloquently rendered sermon that recalled Jesus warning his disciples of pending betrayal.
“We look for miracles at the last minute,” he warned. “A poor people is easy to buy; but the salaries will be carried to the cantinas, to dark places that divide my people.

“God created a garden, not a desert…what are you doing, my people?”

Communion was celebrated in silence; the closing prayer was prayed. But before we took our leave, Padre Mario opened the meeting for public comments.

“Remember our enemies are not of flesh and blood,” said Juan Montorroso of the Council of Pueblos of San Marcos, of which Sipacapa is a part. “They are the transnationals who are on top of us, manipulating us. The dignity of Sipacapa is worth much more than 8 million quetzales.

“Remember, the Spaniards deceived our grandfathers with a few pieces of gold. What will we tell our children and our grandchildren of the decision we are making right now?”

After the service, Montorroso reflected on the current situation in Sipacapa.

“This confusion is created by the company itself; it’s a part of their strategy,” he said. “They’re looking for multiple mechanisms to divide the community. But Sipacapa is a community with a great deal of dignity, and I think at the end of the day, they will reaffirm to Latin America and to the world that dignity is not for sale. “

A few scenes from Sipacapa’s celebration.

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HUEHUETENANGO, Guatemala – They arrived in pickup trucks, in school buses and on foot, resplendent in the vibrant purples and reds, blues and yellows of their native highlands. They came by the thousands to witness a day that would mark history for their people: a visit from James Anaya, the world’s highest-ranking indigenous advocate, U.N. Special Rapporteur for Indigenous Rights.

“There are some who believe the Mayans are gone, and all that remains are these ruins,” a man dressed in white was speaking from the stage. “We are here to tell them: we are alive, and we are hear to bring these monuments back to life.”

Listen to the podcast:
Evening+Edition+Mayans-1