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The new Political Constitution of the State—signed into law by President Evo Morales with indigenous and military parade in the city of El Alto in tow—is the fruit of a torturous road, filled negotiations and accords, errors and a few deaths. Beginning Saturday February 7th, it is the foundation of the relationship between Bolivians and the State, among persons and among groups. 61.43% of the people’s votes in the recent referendum said clearly: it shall be so.
If there is one thing that has characterized the struggles of the political movements below and on the left, in contraposition to the politics above and on the right, it is the massive participation of women “without quotas and without percentages.”
In regards to the announcement of the participation of the President of the Republic of Ecuador, Rafael Correa, in the World Social Forum the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (CONAIE) declares its OPPOSITION and REJECTION of the presence of Rafael Correa in a space which has historically been used for the creation of alternatives and to guarantee the rights and lives of the [Indigenous] Peoples. It cannot be a pulpit for a President with positions full of racism, machismo, paternalism, discrimination, sexism and violence.
Yes, without a doubt, it is necessary to recreate community and not just praise the existing ones or make them static in maps (key flaw of the new constitution, but for reasons opposite than what the other team argues). Ethics, logic, the relationship with the earth and the pacha, ways of talking with animals and plants, of organizing the ethics of the social world, of creating politics without separating them from ritual, etc., exist (if not, where would I be getting this from? Surely not from the anthropologists’ books)
Fifteen years ago, any army indigenous ared with wooden rifles changed this history of Mexico. The Zapatistas have passed the test of time’s passage but they confront numberous obstacles in their search to create new forms of doing politics that are outside the realm of institutions and parties.
What if, for example, we allowed our imagination to fly through a kind of virtual test: the day after Yes or the day after No, what would you do? Would the world end? Would Pachamama have a tummy ache?
Speech given on January 3, 2009 in the First Festival of the Digna Rabia (Dignified Rage), organized by the Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN) and the Other Campaign and carried out in CIDECI-Universidad de la Tierra de San Cristóbal de Las Casas, Chiapas January 2 – 5, 2009.
© Nicolas Pousthomis de [Sub].
This year the confrontations became much more acute: the most visible were between the government and prefecture and civic members. The non-presence of the state in regions such as the city of Santa Cruz became evident. The military and police could do little more than attempt to avoid the violent events. The dimensions of this “state crisis” was finally clear for all to see when, on August 15, the Santa Cruz chief police was beaten severely by members of the rightwing group Santa Cruz Youth Union, or UJC as the news cameras rolled. Beyond the state’s crisis, confrontations were taking place on the grassroots level, in the streets. Increasingly violent clashes were taking place between people from assailant groups and low income neighborhoods in Santa Cruz, Tarija, Beni, Pando and Chuquisaca.
© Nicolas Pousthomis de [Sub].
In September, after years of agressions by the civic movement and Santa Cruz departmental government, residents of a neighborhood named Plan 3000 decided to defend themselves and to go on the offensive. The rebellious and poor area, filled with immigrants and indigenous, became a new space of resistance and struggle against the Santa Cruz elites.
Now you can do it too! Try your luck hitting President Bush in the head with your shoe.
About 250 employees of Republic Windows and Doors plant in Chicago, IL began an occupation of the plant on Friday, Dec. 5, the last scheduled day of the plant’s operation. The workers, members of the United Electrical Workers Union Local 1110, were not given the legally mandated 60-day prior notification of the plant´s closing; also the plant´s management and owners did not show up to a meeting with the workers scheduled for Dec. 5. The workers decided to occupy the plant.
Understanding recent events is very difficult due to a tangle of disputes and long histories that come together in previously unheard-of ways. This essay seeks to schematically display the events that culminated in the massacre of El Porvenir in Pando and identify the actors in the conflict.
Without a doubt, the indigenous struggle of the people in Bolivia is powerful, but at the same time we have a government that has again ceded to a right-wing that has been defeated morally, politically, and ideologically.
While I walked along avenues blocked by stones and tree trunks, the look of El Alto residents was confident, sure of itself, it might even be said that it was an intimidating look.
We are not liars, we are not savages, we are not irrational. The government says we are being manipulated by “dark forces,” that FARC has infiltrated our organization and movement. We state through our actions that we are not terrorists, that we are not with the insurgency, that our struggle is legitimate, it is autonomous. Stop shooting, stop robbing, stop burning and lying. Stop using your public power to exercise terror against the people. You’re wrong. Respect and listen. It is the only way.
There are conflicting reports on a violent incident in Peru’s Amazon jungle region in which both police officers and indigenous protesters were killed. The authorities, who describe last Friday’s incident as a “clash” between the police and protesters manning a roadblock, say 22 policemen and nine civilians were killed. But leaders of the two-month roadblock say at least 40 indigenous people, including three children, were killed and that the authorities are covering up the massacre by throwing bodies in the river.
The immigration of thousands of Oaxacans to the United States beginning in the 1970s as well as the lack of government attention given to their native communities has led the Indigenous Front of Binational Organizations (Frente Indígena de Organizaciones Binacionales, FIOB) to develop communication strategies that serve as tools to further the binational defense of the participating indigenous communities’ rights.
Last week, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, FARC, accepted responsibility for the brutal massacre of eight indigenous Awa in the southwestern department of Nariño, justifying their barbarity by saying the victims were “informants” for the Armed Forces operating in the region. The leadership of the Awa, as well as the National Indigenous Organization of Colombia, ONIC, say that the number of people killed in early February was actually 27, and that FARC was responsible every one of these deaths.
Imprisoned immigrants in the large prison complex outside the small West Texas town of Pecos have rioted twice over the past few months complaining about inadequate medical care. Their complaints, sparked by the death of a sick inmate in solitary confinement, echo a chorus of similar complaints around the country about medical care in immigrant prisons. Read the full story on the IRC Americas site.
Monday’s hearing in the Mohamed v. Jeppesen Dataplan “extraordinary rendition” lawsuit was a rude awakening for civil libertarians expecting the Obama/Holder Justice Department to make a clean break from Bush era policies on secrecy. Most lefty commentators greeted the news that DOJ will (at least for the time being) maintain the Bush administration’s position on the state secrets privilege with some mixture of disappointment, dismay, and alarm, and with good reason.
600 US born children have filed a lawsuit against Obama to stop the deportation of their undocumented immigrant parents, who mostly immigrated from Latin American countries. The children do not oppose President Obama, but rather are hopeful that he will exercise his authority to either adopt an Executive Order or promote immigration reform in Congress to cease this governmental policy of separating families.
The Union of Organizations of the Sierra Juarez of Oaxaca (UNOSJO) denounced a recently conducted study in the Zapotec region by U.S. geography scholar Peter Herlihy. Prof. Herlihy failed to mention that he received funding from the Foreign Military Studies Office of the U.S. Armed Forces. The failure to obtain full, free and prior informed consent is a violation of the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples adopted by the United Nations in 2007. Read the full story on Enemigo Común.
NYU profesor and co-author of “Revolutionary Horizons: Popular Struggle in Bolivia” speaks with the Real News about Bolivia’s new constitution and the meaning of the recent vote.
As witnesses to the impacts of extreme weather events from Hurricane Mitch in 1999 to the South Asian tsunami in 2005, and more “subtle” changes such as continued crop failure, loss of traditional sources of livelihood like fisheries and medicinal plants, water scarcity, and rising seas in coastal areas, people in the Global South experience climate chaos firsthand. The large-scale social mobilizations in these countries are driven by an understanding that the havoc wrought by climate change is an exacerbation of conditions in which they’ve been living for centuries under the ravages of resource colonization.
If President Barack Obama were to decide that “change” includes rewriting the United States constitution, he would probably find himself on the curb of Pennsylvania Avenue quicker than you can say Bill of Rights. But for left-wing Latin American Presidents, redoing national charters has become a norm. On Sunday, Bolivia became the most recent nation to be reborn.
As ground zero of the water war, how the issue plays out in post-Bechtel Cochabamba is a barometer of how it may play out elsewhere. In the years since Bechtel left, the gains of the water war have been difficult to consolidate, and Cochabamba has become a shining example of the massive challenges for a dry municipality in a deeply impoverished country to manage its water in a way that is both equitable and efficient.
Breaking America’s dependence on foreign energy supplies and suppliers who often don’t like the U.S. is a driving force behind the search for alternative fuels. But at Detroit’s International Auto Show this month, the excitement surrounding the Big Three’s announcements that they’re shifting from gasoline to voltage has been tempered by another realization: most of the lithium used to make the batteries for those cars is found in Bolivia, whose leftist President isn’t too fond of the U.S.
My brother Leonard was severely beaten upon his arrival at the Canaan Federal Penitentiary. When he went into population after his transfer, some inmates assaulted him. The severity of his injuries is that he suffered numerous blows to his head and body, receiving a large bump on his head, possibly a concussion, and numerous bruises. (Read the full letter on the AIM West website)
On a sunny morning this past February 25, Pablo, a neat, stocky 46-year-old, arrived at Miami International Airport from La Paz. He had a valid visa, a contract to work as a welder, and dreams of making enough scratch to grow his small business back home in Bolivia.
On Oct. 21, Bolivian President Evo Morales approved a law convoking a national vote on a new constitution in front of thousands of supporters in the capital La Paz. Seconds later, Morales seemed close to tears as he addressed the crowd and celebrated the passage of the document designed to empower Bolivia’s indigenous majority. Read the full story published in In These Times.
After the conclusion of negotiations Wednesday evening, the membership of Local 1110, more than 200 workers, met in the plant cafeteria to hear and consider the tentative settlement that had been worked out by UE negotiators over the past three days. The settlement was approved by a unanimous vote.
Since Gary Webb’s suicide four years ago, I have written annual retrospectives about the late journalist’s important contribution to the historical record — he forced devastating admissions from the CIA about drug trafficking by the Nicaraguan contra rebels under the protection of the Reagan administration in the 1980s.
Zapoteco is one of the oldest languages in Mexico and it is spoken in the three regions of Oaxaca. Linguist Angel Teodocio will give an introduction to this millenial language and its importance as a language still spoken in both Oaxaca and several US cities where Zapotec migrants are living.
Workers occupying the Republic Windows & Doors factory slated for closure are vowing to remain in the Chicago plant until they win the $1.5 million in severance and vacation pay owed them by management. Read the full report in Mrzine.
Download the proposed constitution that will be put to a vote on January 25, 2009. (Spanish language only)