Ecuador: “CONAIE Supports the Impeachment of Lasso”

ALAILeonidas Iza Salazar, top leader of the Confederation of Indigenous Nations of Ecuador (CONAIE) The prestige of Leonidas Iza, president of CONAIE, far exceeds the indigenous peoples of Ecuador. We had a conversation with him about the struggles of the indigenous nations and nationalities, the current political situation in Ecuador, regional integration and the democratization…

Guatemala: Are We Headed Toward the Violent Darkness of the Past?

Ollantay Itzamná Mam woman. Community meeting In Guatemala and Peru, countries where the neoliberal system depredates every collective right as well as every defender of rights and journalists, in the name of democracy and development, the question resounds: Are we heading towards the dark dictatorial times of the last century? Not necessarily. We are not…

The West Papua Independence Movement is Making Itself Heard

Petr Konovalov On February 8, 2023 a plane belonging to the Indonesian airline Susi Air landed in the mountainous province of Papua Pegunungan, which is located in the Indonesian part of the New Guinea island. Soon, the six passengers of the plane and its pilot, New Zealander Philip Mertens, were taken hostage by members of…

Chile: Mapuche Hurt by Rejection of a Plurinational Constitution

Orlando Milesi Mapuche activist Maria Hueichaqeo stands in front of the ruca (traditional Mapuche circular house) built on the Antu Mapu campus, which serves as the headquarters for the work of the Tain Adkimn Mapuche Indigenous Association, aimed at raising awareness in Chilean society of the situation of indigenous peoples and of how the Chilean…

Tectonic Plates Move in the Peruvian Andes

Ollantay Itzamná The simultaneous, spontaneous and multitudinous social mobilization is not only against a usurper ruler such as Dina Boluarte, nor only against political corruption, but also against the neoliberal system that impoverishes the great majorities. In the end, these streets full of polychromatic wills express the dream or intuition of new horizons beyond impoverishing…

Religious Fundamentalism and Imperialism in Latin America

Tricontinental The entrance of the community building serves as a reminder and commemoration of the work and life of Archbishop Oscar Romero, Colonia Dolores, San Salvador, El Salvador. (Alison McKellar / Flickr)  The church is responsible for a litany of injustices — and today Christian rhetoric is used to defend a violent neoliberal capitalism. But…

What Lessons Can We Learn from the Coup d’Etat in Peru?

Ollantay Itzamná What is happening in Peru, with an undetermined number of assassinations, is evidence that the indigenous, peasant, native, or alimeñado are not, never were, citizens. They are “internal enemies” according to the Peruvian Creole State. The bloody disorder that occurred in Peru in recent days, as a result of the political chaos generated…

Peru: The Uprising of the Cholos

Rafael Bautista S. “I am a Cholo and don’t pity me, those are coins that are worthless nothing and that the whites give like those who give money. We cholos don’t ask for anything, because if we lack everything, everything is enough for us”. – Luis Abanto Morales The seigniorialist coup d’état carried out in…

National Day of Mourning 2022: From Landback to Bodily Autonomy, Indigenous Leadership is Key

Mahtowin Munro Indigenous people and supporters march through Plymouth, Massachusetts, on Nov. 24. Photo: Rachel Jones / UAINE Opening remarks at the 2022 National Day of Mourning in Plymouth, Massachusetts, on Nov. 24. Since 1970, Indigenous people and their allies have gathered at noon on Cole’s Hill to commemorate a National Day of Mourning on…

Ecuador’s Resistance Confronts Multinational Mining Monster

In the second chapter of filmmaker Oscar Leon’s series on Ecuador’s resistance, Leon travels to the rural Andean community of Buenos Aires to meet rural campesinos and indigenous citizens defending their land against multinational mining companies. The clash over land and resources goes to the heart of the conflict that paralyzed Ecuador’s society in the…

Chilean State to Address Historic Land Debt with Mapuche Indigenous Communities

Tanya Wadhwa Chilean President Gabriel Boric met with Mapuche leaders in the country’s Araucanía region on November 10 and 11. Following the meeting, he announced the creation of a special commission to return to the Mapuche communities the lands that they have historically laid claims to. The Mapuche Indigenous communities have been in conflict with…

Decolonizing RUNASUR: Trade Unions Challenged by Plurinationality

Ollantay Itzamná Mirada Abya Yala Plurinationality is related to political cultural identity, territoriality, Mother Earth. Trade unionism, to a large extent, are modern actors (associated individuals) who seek to improve their working life conditions, and to a large extent assume that this welfare is achieved within the framework of the nation state (lethal with the…

Honduras: Strategy of Expulsion through Threats to the Garifuna Communities of the Bay of Tela

BLACK HONDURAN FRATERNAL ORGANIZATION, OFRANEH COMMUNIQUÉ Garífuna Territory, October 24, 2022 WE DENOUNCE: that in recent days the Garifuna communities of Tela Bay (Triunfo de la Cruz, San Juan, Tornabé, Rio Tinto and La Ensenada) face a cruel and cowardly wave of threats, persecution and attacks against the leaders, mainly against the young “Leménigi Durugubuti”,…

The Grayzone Meets Ecuador’s Indigenous Resistance

In the latest installation of an ongoing Grayzone series, filmmaker Oscar Leon meets the leaders of an anti-mining and indigenous strike that paralyzed Ecuador for two weeks during June 2022. Leon visited two of the most representative towns of the Ecuadorian resistance and spoke to some of the key indigenous leaders to understand the issues…

Argentina: The Government Once Again Represses the Mapuche People

Alicia Blanco The operation this morning in Villa Mascardi (Image by Euge Neme/AlMargen) In the early hours of this morning (4), by order of the Ministry of National Security, a “unified command” made up of federal forces of prefecture, gendarmerie and federal police with the collaboration of the provincial police of Río Negro, advanced by…

The Colonial Left and Plurinationality

Ollantay Itzamná Guard of Honor. Guatemala Plurinationality as an ethical and political proposal overturns the philosophical element constitutive of modernity, which is being one as the perfect and desired being. From this idealization of being one is born in the political sphere the idea of a single God in heaven and a single King on…

Guatemala: Rallying for Plurinationality

Ollantay Itzamná Communities and peoples on the move in Guatemala City. In recent years, this category has begun to be reflected upon as a response to the civilizing project of modernity that, through nation states, has continued to colonize and dispossess the territories of the original peoples. Therefore, the idea of plurinationality is necessarily linked…

Ecuador: Key Aspects and Implications of the National Strike

Daniel Edgar The massive Indigenous mobilization and social uprising in Ecuador that paralysed the country for most of June, led by the largest and most powerful Indigenous organization in the country (CONAIE), was ended and the blockade of major roads lifted on the 30th of June after the government reluctantly decided to negotiate and subsequently…