Mapuche: Declaración de guerra a la República de Chile

¡MARICHIWEU!
Órganos de Resistencia Territorial

ORT-CAM.

¡ Territorio y Autonomía a la Nación Mapuche !

Prisionero federal 89637-132

  Saber que Wallace Black Elk estaría presente fue un factor decisivo para aceptar la invitación de pasar un mes acampando en una montaña de Michoacán.
Llegué al DF y de allí a una casa en las afueras de Morelia donde me preguntaron algunos datos personales. Al día siguiente me tocó compartir el espacio de una camioneta con un nativo purepecha, un yaquí, un alemán y un vasco rumbo a la montaña
Había alrededor de ochenta personas de diferentes países, la mayoría pertenecientes a naciones nativas americanas.
Allané el terreno, armé la carpa, tiré mi mochila dentro y antes de acostumbrarme al aire seco y polvoriento me encontré cargando un poste que formaba parte de la estructura de un enorme tipi (esas tiendas indias que se ven en las películas del lejano oeste). Dos días después arribó Alce Negro Wallace, líder espiritual Lakota (esos a los que en las mismas películas donde vemos los tipis llaman Siux).
El abuelo, así le llamaban, aprovechaba la soledad que reinaba en la cocina, muy temprano a la mañana, para desayunar. Ese era el momento ideal para escucharlo. Con voz grave que golpeaba fuerte las consonantes y entre chistes que tenían como protagonistas a los “batas negras” (sacerdotes católicos) dijo: “voy a hablar de Wounded Knee”.
En 1890, alrededor de 400 hombres del séptimo de caballería de Estados Unidos rodearon un campamento lakota con órdenes de escoltarlos hasta un tren que los llevaría a Nebraska. Aquel encuentro se resolvió con 25 soldados y casi 300 lakotas muertos entre los que se cuentan mujeres y niños.
Pero Wallace situó su relato en 1973 cuando el Movimiento Indio Americano (AIM) ocupó durante 71 días el pueblo de Wounded Knee en Pine Ridge para protestar por los continuos abusos a manos del FBI y una suerte de grupo paramilitar pro asimilación llamados Guardians Of the Oglala Nation (GOONs). “Los días de hacer tratados con los indios terminaron en 1871, hace 102 años” decía la carta enviada por Richard Nixon. A cambio de la negociación esperada por el AIM, el gobierno estadounidense creó el programa COINTELPRO de contrainsurgencia que dio comienzo al denominado “reino del terror”. Para 1975 los muertos del movimiento sumaban 69 y los acusados de conspiración y terrorismo 700. Ese mismo año, dos agentes del FBI ingresaron a la reserva y, en un incidente poco claro, fueron abatidos por disparos de escopetas.
Según las autoridades, más de 400 nativos participaron de la balacera a la que se sumaron funcionarios del Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) y los mencionados GOONs en aopyo al FBI. Fueron detenidas cuatro personas, uno de ellos es Leonard Peltier, quien luego de un juicio confuso y sin pruebas firmes, en una revisión del juicio a pedido del Comité de Defensa un fiscal de EEUU admitió que “no podemos comprobar quien le disparó a los agentes” fue condenado a dos cadenas perpetuas.
Peltier lleva 30 años en prisión, donde mantuvo contacto con otros presos políticos como el puertorriqueño Rafael Cancel, condenado a 25 años por actuar en contra de que su país fuera Estado Libre Asociado, y del periodista miembro del Partido de las Panteras Negras Mumia Abu-Jamal, también condenado a cadena perpetua.
El 12 de setiembre, Leonard Peltier cumplió 63 años.
Nelson Mandela, Rigoberta Menchú, el Arzobispo Desmond Tutu, el Reverendo Jessie Jackson, Amnistía Internacional, el Alto Comisionado para los derechos humanos de la ONU, el Parlamento Europeo y el Centro Kennedy para la Memoria de los Derechos Humanos son algunos de los que solicitaron al Gobierno de EEUU el indulto del activista. En el año 2000, el ex mandatario Bill Clinton afirmó en un programa de radio que liberaría a Peltier pero, después de una marcha en la que participaron 500 agentes del FBI en contra de la clemencia, se arrepintió.

“Puedo decirles, como hombre que ha pasado gran parte de su vida en un agujero de piedra y acero, que agradezco inmensamente y me asombra por completo esa atención de un mundo exterior que con la mayor frecuencia olvida a quienes nos encontramos entre estas paredes.” Leonard Peltier.


El Fuego Sagrado

Ecuadorian Assembly Approves Constitutional Rights for Nature

Josh Brandon

Way to go Ecuador! Most of us would assume that nature has a natural right to exist. Now in Ecuador, this right could finally be codified in law. The articles listed below, were passed on July 7 of this year by the 130 member Ecuador Constitutional Assembly elected nation wide to review the constitution and will be voted on by public referendum next month. If only Canada could be so bold. If we had such a constitution, people could sue Monsanto for contaminating our fields and GE would be banned for "altering our genetic patrimony".

Ecuador: Nature Has Rights

Art. 1. Nature or Pachamama, where life is reproduced and exists, has the right to exist, persist, maintain and regenerate its vital cycles, structure, functions and its processes in evolution. Every person, people, community or nationality, will be able to demand the recognitions of rights for nature before the public organisms. The application and interpretation of these rights will follow the related principles established in the Constitution.

Art. 2. Nature has the right to an integral restoration.
This integral restoration is independent of the obligation on natural and juridical persons or the State to indemnify the people and the collectives that depend on the natural systems.
In the cases of severe or permanent environmental impact, including the ones caused by the exploitation on non-renewable natural resources, the State will establish the most efficient mechanisms for the restoration, and will adopt the adequate measures to eliminate or mitigate the harmful environmental consequences.

Art. 3. The State will motivate natural and juridical persons as well as collectives to protect nature; it will promote respect towards all the elements that form an ecosystem.

Art. 4. The State will apply precaution and restriction measures in all the activities that can lead to the extinction of species, the destruction of the ecosystems or the permanent alteration of the natural cycles.

The introduction of organisms and organic and inorganic material that can alter in a definitive way the national genetic patrimony is prohibited.

Art. 5. The persons, people, communities and nationalities will have the right to benefit from the environment and form natural wealth that will allow well-being.

The environmental services cannot be appropriated; its production, provision, use and exploitation, will be regulated by the State.

'Public organisms' in Article 1 means the courts and government agencies, i.e., the people of Ecuador would be able to take action to enforce nature rights if the government did not do so.'

 

Message from Mumia Abu-Jamal to his supporters : Ona Move !

I would just like to send a few words, and my sincere thanks, to all of you. To all of you who, from all corners of the globe and from so many countries, have united to protest and march in your hundreds, thousands, and millions... I salute you and thank you. It is your generous and committed support which keeps me going. And this is why we will not stop there. The fight for life and liberty continues, against all the odds. While we are fighting on, all the old injustices are re-emerging... Injustices of all kinds continue to exist. But with your help, we will keep on fighting together to win. Thank you !

Mumia Abu-Jamal, from Death Row, SCI Greene, Waynesburg, Pennsylvania, USA.

Free Mumia !

By Michel Taube, Spokesperson for the organization "Together against the Death Penalty"

Now more than ever before, the fate of Mumia is in our hands. Thanks to the representations of his lawyer, Robert Bryan, the Federal Court of Appeal has agreed to consider the defence arguments. There is renewed hope in this possibility of a new trial and Mumia's release.

At this crucial time, the fight must not lose impetus due to lack of funds to defend him and to give the widest possible publicity to his struggle against injustice, racism and the death penalty. The starting point for the international mobilization is France. It is in France that his defenders will find the strength to achieve his freedom.

For it is definitely Mumia's release we are fighting for here. As far back as 2000, a report by Amnesty International highlighted the numerous procedural errors and the serious violations of the rights of the accused which tainted his trial. When the constitutional rights of a defendant are violated to such an extent by the judicial process, we can ask no less than Mumia's release, supported this time round by the proof of a new and fair trial.

Beyond being a political militant, Mumia is a victim of the US "killing machine", as witnessed by recent heartless and cruel decisions by the Governor of California, Arnold Schwarzenegger, to allow the executions of Stanley "Tookie" Williams and an old, blind and mentally impaired prisoner [Donald Beardslee] to go ahead. This is the bloodthirsty reality of the death penalty in the United States.

A journalist who became the voice of the voiceless, a radical fighter for a society based on equality and fraternity, and today the symbol of a relentless fight against the death penalty, Mumia Abu-Jamal stands for an image of America with which we can all identify.

We support the initiatives of the Joint National Committee "Together we will save Mumia" and we appeal to your generosity to provide Mumia Abu-Jamal with the means of defending his innocence and regaining his freedom.

Translator's Note : For further information about Mumia and the death penalty, see : http://www.mumia2000.org http://www.worldcoalition.org http://www.amnesty.org.uk/news/press/13826.shtml

In light of illegalization of the Basque organizations Herri Batasuna, Euskal Herritarrok and Batasuna by the Spanish government, a new coalition called Autodeterminaziorako Bilgunea (AuB) has been formed. The banned organizations which have been the political representatives of the national and social liberation movement in the Basque Country for the past 25 years are now unable to run candidates in elections. In the 1999 municipal elections, 1,000 Batasuna members were elected as councillors. The AuB will be running candidates in the next municipal election. Shunpiking/Mac-talla is posting below an interview conducted in April, 2003 with one of its representatives JosŽ Ramon Etxeberria who explains why the AuB was formed and its political program.

* * *

Question: Why was Autodeterminaziorako Bilgunea (AuB) created and what is its objectives?



JosŽ Ramon Etxeberria: For a start, because we saw that we needed a new political tool to work for the future of the Basque Country. Our people have known a lot of social and political changes these last years, and we think that we have reached a historical crossroads again. We think that this special situation deserves reflection and new efforts from all of us, mainly because we see that the political moment of the majority of Basque society situated around leftist values and self-determination has come. Autodeterminazioaren Bilgunea is here in order to gather and organize this social majority, overcoming the present political mixture and division. We are born with the objective of being the political reference of this new age that is spreading in the Basque Country. The name itself explains it: Self-determination is what unites us. Our target is to stimulate the popular dynamics so as to achieve the recognition of self-determination and to make it definitive. This is precisely the most important duty for this new era, and we will face all the different challenges keeping this objective inmind, in the most suitable way each time.



In addition to this, we think we also have something to do with the uniforming and globalizing model which neo-liberalism imposes on us, as people and as committed individuals in Europe and throughout the world. On the one hand, it is our duty to achieve the economic, social, cultural and institutional means that the Basque Country needs so that it has its own place in that globalization, which we dislike and is imposed on us, and on the other hand, it is our duty to root out economic imbalances, injustices and impositions, inside our societies and between the peoples, in the Basque Country and internationally. This is also going to be one of the main targets of Autodeterminaziorako Bilgunea.



Q: What is the political balance achieved by Autodeterminaziorako Bilgunea-AuB?



JRE: For centuries, the Basque Country has been refused its collective rights as a people, either by force of weapons or by foreign laws. The different political regimes have been unable to change the hard situation our people are suffering. In Spain and in France, in a dictatorship or in a democracy, the Basques have had no rights. In either situation, all have been refused to us. The assimilation process which the Spanish state started 25 years ago in South Basque Country and autonomism has not fulfilled its objectives, and we think that the phase of servitude to the state is over forever.



We must praise all the efforts made by Basque society for years and years, centuries, in one way or another, to keep the Basque Country alive, and specially those made by the most committed part of Basque society, the Independentist Left. Thanks to the position of the Independentist Left, and under the influence of the work done with the other sectors, the popular majority in favour of the Basque Country has been completed now, the social conditions to self-determination are settled. Unfortunately, there is in our country some who despise the ability and courage of our society and who have turned their back on the political elaboration in favour of the recognition of self-determination. These sectors, after having supported autonomism for 25 years, still nowadays reject the new model that a real political change can be brought into the Basque Country and are working in opposition to the popular sectors which are struggling for it. Their aim is to get a new state pact, in order to achieve their political stability and to continue managing their economic, cultural and political interests. They place their projectabove the project of society once and again.



Q: What is the basis and aims of Autodeterminazioaren Bilgunea-AuB's proposal?



JRE: First, commitment in favour of self-determination: Self-determination is the axis of the political change that the Basque Country needs, as it is what will bring into this country the guarantee for all civil and political rights. As time for self-determination has arrived for the Basque Country, we want to promote a real and dynamic process aiming at its recognition, planningdifferent dynamics, collaborating with all the individuals and movements that are working for it. Here, we want to emphasize the contribution of Udalbiltza, which gathers town councillors from all the Basque Country, both for its defence of the rights of our people and for the exemplary steps they have taken. Everybody can get, for example, the "Charter of the political and civil rights of the Basques" published by them for the International Conference held in the Basque Country in December 2002. a qualitative contribution, without a doubt.



Second, commitment to give the conflict a political solution: In this moment when the states only offer this people a situation of exception, a violation of their rights and the permanence of the conflict, we want to raise the peace flag and claim for itsnecessity. We need a peace based on freedom and justice, because it is vital that the pain suffered by this people during centuries end. That is the reason why we make ours what was said by the Lizarra Garazi Agreement, signed by the political, trade union and social majority of the Basque Country in 1998, during ETA's cease-fire: the Basque people must be given the right to speak and its decisions respected, demanding the way in favour of the dialogue between us all.



Third, commitment to confront fascism: When the winds of fascism are shaking our country from side to side, it is becoming more necessary than ever to give a strong and firm answer as a people. They want to destroy the heart and the future of the Basque Country, sentencing Basque society to living in a situation of exception. Thus, the police, judicial and political attacks have become the only axis of the State's policy. Autodeterminaziorako Bilgune-AuB is going to confront this situation, defeating the fascist strategy in our country, providing Basque society with the necessary means, supplying anybody in this country willing to work in favour of democracy.



Fourth, commitment in favour of change and equality: Just as we want a free Basque Country, we favour a new model of society, based on social justice and equality. We want to improve the living conditions of all the people who live in the Basque Country, and this is not only necessary but also possible provided that the wealth generated in our countryis shared in a suitable way and that we make a balanced exploitation of the resources of our country. We want to work in favour of equality, which is the first pillar of justice, in order to eradicate all discrimination of origin, gender or ideas forever.Solidarity among the different nations and peoples is our symbol.



Fifth, commitment in favour of the Basque language and culture: Like in the other areas, the pupils must have their own educational system, from the age of zero to university, so that in addition to being Basque all new generations own the Basque culture,a complete preparation and progressive social values. It is necessary to guarantee from now on the right of our people to live in Basque, starting from education but spreading to all social areas. Autodeterminaziorako Bilgunea-AuB will therefore submerge itself, speaking Basque, in the development of Basque culture, because this is the richest contribution we can make to universal culture.

Ten killed in Bolivia protests

By Eduardo Garcia and Carlos Quiroga
Saturday, 13 September 2008

Bolivia's leftist government declared martial law yesterday in an Amazon region where more than 10 people were killed in a wave of political violence sweeping the impoverished country.

In a decree, the government banned protests and meetings in the far-northern region and said anyone carrying weapons would be arrested. It said more bodies had been found following a clash on Thursday in which at least 10 people were killed.

"In Pando, it has been a real massacre," Government Minister Alfredo Rada told reporters. He did not give a new death toll from violent clashes between supporters of President Evo Morales and those of right-wing provincial governors, who oppose his socialist reforms.

The government announcement came as Morales held talks with one of his main political rivals in a bid to ease the crisis gripping the natural gas-rich country.

Anti-government protesters are still blocking roads in much of eastern Bolivia, causing fuel and food shortages in the opposition-controlled city of Santa Cruz.

Mario Cossio, governor of the gas-rich Tarija region and representing three other rebel governors who have so far rejected talks, offered an apparent olive branch before entering talks with Morales at the presidential palace in La Paz.

"We're here because of our clear will to establish a base for a process of dialogue which will pave the way for a pact, a national agreement, a process of national reconciliation," Cossio told reporters.

"This is the time for reconciliation, not later."

The governors are demanding autonomy for their regions and blame Morales for the recent violence and sabotage to pipelines that caused chaos in the natural gas industry, Bolivia's biggest source of income.

"We're open to dialogue not only with the governors, but also with the participation of mayors and different social sectors," Morales, who has angered opponents with plans to overhaul the constitution and break up ranches to give land to poor Indians, said before the meeting.

However, the president, who survived a recall election in August with 67 percent of the vote, said it would be difficult to reach an agreement.

....