Gaining Ground: The Indigenous Movement in Latin America
UnpublishedMarch/April
1996
Volume:
29
Number:
5
Article
Xavier Albó
Bolivia's indigenous peoples have already made significant strides in the national arena. To make further progress, they will have to go beyond the realm of eye-catching mobilizations and master the difficult art of the game of politics.
Stephan Schwartzman & Ana Valéria Araújo & Paulo Pankararú
At the height of Brazil's "economic miracle" in the late 1960s, a road project designed by the military government cut through the forest of the Panari indigenous people in the heart of the Amazon. Over two-thirds of the small community of 350 died, almost overnight, from the new diseases the whites brought.
Rosamel Millaman
Indigenous organizations in Chile, especially those representing the Mapuche nation, have been mobilizing against government plans to enter into the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). The Council of All Lands, a Mapuche nationalist organization, has called the treaty "a new form of colonial and neocolonial expansion- ism" that fundamentally undermines Mapuche self-determination.
Mario Murillo
Indigenous activism in Colombia has been remarkable, despite the small size of the country's indigenous population. The government's response, however, has been promises worth no more than the paper they're written on.
Nina Pacari
The "Integral Agrarian Law," presented by ONAIE, consists of five main points: * Existing demands for land should be processed quickly, systematically and fairly, and there should be equal access to land for all. Land con- flicts should be dealt with not violently, but through peaceful negotiations.
Nina Pacari
By linking the demands of Ecuador's indigenous population and non-indigenous popular sectors, the indigenous movement has moved to the forefront of the popular struggle. In June, 1994, a mobilization called by indigenous organizations in Ecuador shut down the country for two full weeks.
"With their seizure of half a dozen towns in Chiapas on New Year's Day, 1994, the Zapatista Army of National Liberation-a predominantly Maya guerrilla force-stormed onto the Mexican political stage, raising issues of democracy and justice that the national government had hoped could be forgotten. This February, the government and the Zapatistas signed an indigenous-rights accord which rec- ognizes the "autonomy" of Mexico's ten million indigenous citizens, and their rights to mul- tilingual education and "adequate" political representation.
Antonio Otzoy
Despite the contradictions that persist within the movement, Maya organizations are coming to realize that pan-Maya unity will strengthen their call for fundamental changes in Guatemala's economic and political system. In late 1994, over 150 Maya organizations came together to form the Coalition of Organizations of the Maya People of Guatemala (COPMAGUA).
Immigration Backlash Your report on the immigration backlash [Nov/Dec 1995] was intriguing, especially the argument made by Ratl Hinojosa and Peter Schey that low-cost Mexican labor is the key to economic renaissance for the United States as well as Mexico. I was surprised, however, by how the editors, in their intro- duction to the Report, reduced the entire immigration debate to "back- lash" and "folk myth," as if there were no intellectual room on the left to question the supposed bene- fits of rising immigration flows.
The Gap Allows Monitors into Maquiladoras NEW YORK, JANUARY 20, 1996 After months of controversy, the Gap has agreed to allow independent monitoring of labor conditions in factories where Gap clothing is produced. According to Central American and U.
A Beauty that Hurts: Life and Death in Guatemala by W. George Lovell, Between the Lines (Toronto, Canada), 1995, 161 pp.
DM
Lori Berenson in Context The story of Lori Berenson, the 26-year-old New Yorker convicted in January of "trea- son" for her involvement with the Ttpac Amaru Revolutionary Movement (MRTA) in Peru, res- onates with various associations for solidarity activists. Her life was not that different from friends of mine who dropped out of college a half generation ago to go to Latin America, or who spent their sum- mers picking coffee with a Sandinista brigade in Nicaragua.
Fred Rosen
This past September 14, a driz- zly Thursday pre- ceding Mexico's September 15-16 independence cel- ebration, a few hundred angry-looking pepe- nadores-garbage pickers who scavenge the huge dumps around Mexico City-came to the city's center to begin a three-day occupa- tion of the front steps of the Federal District's Legislative Assembly building. Shouting slogans of soli- darity and defiance, and singing spirited songs celebrating rebellious Mexicans, they began perhaps the thirtieth occupation of the year of those prominent steps.
John Lindsay-Poland
Negotiations over the fate of the bases have sparked a heated debate in Panama about the trade-offs between national sovereignty and the economic benefits of the U.S.
Kay Treakle
In early 1994, the Ecuadorian government announced the seventh round of oil leases to open up ten new areas of the Amazon for oil exploration and production. At the same time, the Ecuadorian Congress was discussing a legislative proposal devel- oped with advice from the World Bank to allow pri- vate-sector participation in the oil sector.