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Honduran Women Speak Out Over Sweatshops

They work upward of 12 hours a day, often six or seven days a week. They are allowed two timed bathroom breaks per shift. If their demanding production requirements are not met, they do not get paid for their overtime.

And they receive the equivalent of 15 cents for each shirt they make -- shirts that retail for $40 and more in the United States.

Three Honduran women who worked in factories in their country producing clothing for several large U.S. companies brought their stories to Brattleboro Union High School on Wednesday.

Speaking through an interpreter, the three women told stories of long hours without pay, unrealistic production goals and the threats and acts of violence that they and others at the factories endured when they spoke up against the treatment.

"These women did not make enough money to afford the clothes they produced," said Charles Kernaghan, the executive director of the National Labor Committee for Worker and Human Rights. "The clothes they wear are second-hands from the United States.

"After we wear them and throw them away they get sent back to Honduras and sold to the people who made them originally," he added.

Martha Iris Alberto Lorenzo, a single mother, was fired from the AAA factory, which produces clothes for Nike, Adidas and Hanes. She was fired after organizing a peaceful sit-down that closed the factory in response to a wage reduction.

Fabia Gutierrez, another former factory worker, is now the president of a labor federation and leader of the Regional Maquila Union Coordinating Body, a coalition of unions in Central America and the Caribbean.

Lydda Eli Gonzalez worked at Southeast Textiles S.A. in Choloma, Honduras, where she produced clothes for Old Navy, Polo and other companies. She and 15 others were fired for attempting to form a union.

Gonzalez received international attention recently when she came forward with the sweatshop allegations, asking that hip-hop mogul Sean "P. Diddy" Combs, work to change the conditions at the plant.

Approximately 80 percent of the clothing produced at the factory, according to Gonzalez, is for the Sean John line, owned by Combs. The other 20 percent is for Rocawear, a line owned by rapper Jay-Z and music producer Damon Dash.

"In Honduras, we workers never imagined that they (the shirts) could cost so much," said Gonzalez in a written statement. "We produce more than a thousand of those shirts a day, and just one shirt would pay more than my wage for a week!"

Combs, who is worth an estimated $400 million and performed on rap hits such as "Mo Money, Mo Problems," has denied any knowledge of the abuses at the factory, but promised an investigation. A call to the Sean John Co., in New York City was not returned Wednesday.

Steve Hawkins, the factory owner who moved the operations from North Carolina several years ago, told the Associated Press that the allegations were groundless and that Gonzalez was fired for her poor production skills.

On Wednesday, the three women, along with members of the school's Child Labor Education and Action group, students working with the School for International Training to educate the public on abusive child labor practices, fielded questions from the public

In the audience were approximately 40 students from the Dover Elementary School from teacher Sue Newman's class, who have been working with CLEA on a number of projects.

The students asked questions concerning the retribution that workers face in the factories, how fast they have to work, the country's social system, why large companies pay their workers so little and what people can do about the abusive and illegal practices.

The answers gave a glimpse into the lives of people who work only to survive.

Gonzalez's testimony alleged that workers at the plant are ridiculed and insulted by plant owners and that female workers have to take mandatory pregnancy tests. If they are pregnant, they are fired, she said.

"We have no health care," she stated. "For the last two years our factory has not paid the Social Security fees, and because of this, we have no access to health care. This is illegal."

At the Southeast Textiles factory, workers make the equivalent of between 75-90 cents an hour, explained Gutierrez, which is above the country's minimum wage of 55 cents an hour.

Still, the increased pay at the factory does not make ends meet, she said. A livable wage for the workers would be around $1.02 an hour, she explained, although that would still make budgets difficult to meet.

"They want dignity," she said. "Inflation (in Honduras) is zooming up but the wages are flat or sinking."

Rep. Bernard Sanders, I-Vt., who joined the three women at BUHS on Wednesday, condemned the alleged abuses at the factory, blaming them on trade agreements such as the North American Free Trade Agreement, passed more than nine years ago.

Such trade agreements are unfair to foreign workers who work for low pay in dangerous environments at the cost of fewer U.S. manufacturing jobs, he said.

Sanders, who was preparing to leave on a trip to Mexico to tour alleged "sweatshops" in the country, said the agreements need to be ended and fairer agreements need to be made.

"In a world in which we have great new technology and workers are more productive than ever, why is it that wages in the U.S. and in countries such as Honduras are going down?" he asked.

When asked why Congress hasn't taken notice of the human rights atrocities carried out by U.S. companies in other countries, Sanders said that some of his colleagues, and President Bush, are friends with those factory owners.

But more and more, Sanders said, politicians on both sides of the political fence are beginning to recognize that the current trade agreements are not working for Americans and others in foreign countries.

"The momentum is with us," Sanders said.

Gonzalez said she is not pushing for Combs to pull out of the factory she once worked at, as the more than 400 other workers there need the jobs.

She just hopes that pressure from Combs will improve the conditions there.

"There is too much injustice in the factory, and that is why I came here, to ask Mr. Combs and the American people for help, in the name of all the workers," she explained. "We sew your clothing. Please demand that the companies treat us with respect."

Molly Ernst-Alper, a senior from Brattleboro and the co-chair of the school's CLEA group, said one of the only ways to combat these rights abuses is through education.

"Write letters to these companies and tell them as a consumer that you do not agree with their practices," she said. "Tell them that you support good jobs for the people who produce their products."

Sanders remarked that he was upset that only one media outlet turned out for Wednesday's press conference to meet the three women. The lack of media attention on such illegal labor practices is one of the many reasons that the abuse is still so prevalent, he said.

"In my view it is an extremely important story," he said.

Vermont Reformer
13 November 2003
Daniel Barlow

http://www.globalexchange.org/campaigns/sweatshops/1262.html

Sweatshops and Globalization

http://www.uiowa.edu/ifdebook/issues/globalization/readingtable/sweatshops.shtml

Hillary Clinton and the Coup in Honduras

Mrs. Clinton met with Mr. Zelaya, and he reportedly annoyed her when he summoned her to a private room late in the night after her arrival and had her shake hands with his extended family.

In a Coup in Honduras, Ghosts of Past U.S. Policies

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/30/world/americas/30honduras.html

Pro Hugo Chávez Article in The New York Times

The Nepalese Maoist smiled as he glanced around the lobby of the Hotel Alba Caracas. To his left, West African delegates to the World Meeting of Intellectuals and Artists in Defense of Humanity chatted in French. To his right, the Egyptian author of a book on President Hugo Chávez puffed on a cigarette.

“This has been a most enjoyable forum, allowing us to learn from the glorious heritage of socialist revolution in Latin America,” said the Maoist, Chandra Prasad Gajurel, 60, a Politburo member of the Communist Party of Nepal, which put an end to that country’s monarchy in elections this year.

Mr. Gajurel joined some 200 other leftist thinkers from around the world who convened here for a few days in October to discuss transitions toward socialism, even as many people in advanced Western countries were losing sleep over the spreading financial crisis of global capitalism.

In hotel corridors where oilmen in business suits once hatched deals over glasses of whiskey, delegates in Birkenstocks and guayaberas discussed Marx and Antonio Gramsci, the leftist Italian writer. Such meetings have become a staple of life in Caracas, with Mr. Chávez’s government flush, at least for now, with petrodollars that can be used to attract sympathetic members of the chattering classes the world over.

Officials here have organized international encounters for philosophers, women’s rights advocates, the government spokesmen of nonaligned countries, poets and, in September, specialists in body painting.

Another event, Venezuela’s annual international book fair, began with fanfare here last week with the theme, “The book in the construction of Bolivarian socialism.” That was a bit toned down from the previous year’s fair, which had delegates pondering the question, “The United States: a possible revolution?”

Amid all the variety, few of these conferences offered as much optimism about shifting international events as the meeting for intellectuals a few weeks ago, which involved guided tours of Caracas’s slums for the delegates and panel discussions examining the evolving financial crisis.

“We must help the current capitalist model collapse, for on its own this will not happen,” José Déniz Espinós, an economist from Madrid, told attendees. “I do not know of one system that has collapsed on its own. For this reason, we must not succumb to euphoria.”

The conference, like most of the others, was held in the Alba, a luxury hotel taken over by the government last year from the Hilton chain. It is this country’s equivalent to the Hotel Habana Libre in Cuba: a drab complex once associated with American power that serves as a symbol of revolutionary change.

Not far from the welcome stand in the hotel lobby, the Alba’s curio shop featured souvenir statues of Mr. Chávez for 315 bolivares, about $147 at the official exchange rate (about twice the black market rate).

Those on a tighter budget could also stroll outside, where sidewalk vendors could regularly be found hawking a range of Chávez-emblazoned knickknacks for under $10. For the more daring, there were T-shirts championing Ilich Ramírez Sánchez, the Venezuelan terrorist known as Carlos the Jackal, who is serving a life sentence in France.

“It is wonderful to be in Caracas,” said Mostapha el-Gammal, 56, an Egyptian and author of a new book, “Chávez: Charisma, Revolution, Dialectics.” “The city has some nice nature, and less traffic than in Cairo.”

Revolutionary tourism notwithstanding, Mr. Gammal said a highlight of his trip was the opportunity to debate his book, which he said the Venezuelan government was planning to translate from the Arabic and publish here. “Is Chávez a mere populist or a genuine revolutionary?” he asked, rhetorically, in an interview. “I dismiss the first idea.”

And he got a call-out from Mr. Chávez himself when the president addressed the conference. “Chávez spoke my name into the microphone and told me, ‘Thank you,’ ” said Mr. Gammal, beaming.

Venezuela’s government also earns high marks from some foreign scholars for its creation of the Miranda International Center, a policy research outfit in a high-rise across the street from the Alba, and for prizes like the Liberator Prize for Critical Thinking. Franz J. Hinkelammert, a German-born theologian living in Costa Rica, was the first winner of the $150,000 prize in 2006.

The conferences, the prizes, the slum tours with a government security detail: it is all too much for Mr. Chávez’s doubters, people like Fernando Mires, a Chilean historian and philosopher who was here for a separate conference at the Central University of Venezuela.

On his way out of town, Mr. Mires, 65, was detained by security forces and exhaustively interrogated about his visit before he was allowed to board the plane. Mr. Mires, an outspoken critic of Mr. Chávez, who described the incident in an article in a local newspaper, said he viewed the conference at the Alba with resignation.

“Yesterday it was Mugabe or Castro; today it’s Chávez,” Mr. Mires said in a telephone interview. “Many of the attendees to these events are emerging from political frustration and see a chance for their ideas in an impoverished country that has been democratized through intimidation.”

Still, some in attendance at the Caracas conference seemed prepared to cast a critical gaze on their host, but maybe with a wink.

“It’s admirable, but there are also so many questions to see whether this process is sustainable,” Vinod Raina, a theoretical physicist from India, said of Mr. Chávez’s Venezuela. “The important point is that he has taken on the mantle of crystallizing forces in opposition to the empire.”

Caracas Journal
Venezuela Positions Itself as a Salon for the Left
Simon Romero
The New York Times
11 November 2008

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/11/world/americas/11venez.html?partner=rss&emc=rss&pagewanted=print

Ronald Larsen: Racist, Anti-Indigenous, Secessionist U.S. Rancher in Bolivia

In his native Montana, Ronald Larsen's current legal straits might be the stuff of an old-fashioned Western movie: A cattle rancher who believes the government and its allies are unfairly trying to seize his land, and picks up a rifle to signal his displeasure. But in contemporary Bolivia, where Larsen makes his home, his recent clash with the authorities is but another instance of rising tension over land-ownership between, on the one hand, left-wing President Evo Morales and his supporters among Bolivia's indigenous population, and on the other, political opponents backed by the country's wealthy eastern elite.

"A small group of ranchers is preventing us from carrying out rightful land reform in the eastern region of Santa Cruz," says Bolivia's Vice Minister of Land, Alejandro Almaraz, who accuses Larsen of attacking his convoy this spring. "U.S.-born Ronald Larsen is leading this violent resistance." But critics counter that Morales is hyping the case to build support ahead of Sunday's referendum in Santa Cruz, where opposition parties are pressing for autonomy from the central government — and ahead of a constitutional referendum later this year on changes that include capping the amount of land that can be owned by a single individual in Bolivia.

Both the autonomy and land-reform issues have sparked violent unrest over the past year, pitting the largely white farmers and ranchers of Bolivia's more affluent lowland east against the impoverished indigenous majority who back Morales, himself an Aymara Indian and the nation's first indigenous President. Little surprise, then, that a national furor has erupted over a confrontation involving government officials and Larsen, 64, who along with his two sons, owns 17 properties totaling 141,000 acres throughout Bolivia, three times as much land as the country's largest city. (Larsen insists his holdings amount to less than 25,000 acres.)

Last month, when Almaraz and aides tried to pass through Larsen's Santa Cruz property — they insist it was the only route by which to reach to nearby indigenous Guarani residents to whom they were delivering land deeds — witnesses say the caravan was fired on by Larsen and his son Duston, 29. The incident was followed by two weeks of rancher roadblocks and violent protests that left 40 indigenous people injured.

Larsen, who arrived in Bolivia in 1968, told a La Paz newspaper that Almaraz's vehicle had entered his property at around 3 a.m. Almaraz, he said, "had not presented any identification. He was drunk and being abusive ... I quieted him with a bullet to his tire. That's the story." But the government insists this wasn't Larsen's first run-in with Almaraz: the rancher is accused of kidnapping the vice minister for eight hours in February. The two alleged incidents prompted the government to file a criminal complaint of "sedition, robbery and other crimes" against Larsen and his son two weeks ago. Prosecutors have yet to decide whether to press formal charges. Neither father nor son has responded publicly to the accusations, and neither responded to repeated requests by TIME for comment.

U.S.-educated Duston Larsen, referring to Morales' efforts to empower Bolivia's indigenous, wrote on his MySpace page in 2007, "I used to think democracy was the best form to govern a country but ... should a larger more uneducated group of people (70%) be in charge of making decisions, running a country and voting?" The fact that Duston, in 2004, won the Mr. Bolivia beauty pageant, in the eyes of many government supporters, puts him in the company of the country's European-oriented elite. (That same year, Miss Bolivia, Gabriela Oviedo, also from the country's east, suggested Bolivia shouldn't be considered an indigenous nation: "I'm from the other side of the country. We are tall, and we are white people, and we know English.") Morales backers say it is precisely this disdain for the indigenous that is driving what they call the secessionist agenda behind Sunday's autonomy referendum — which is not legally sanctioned by the National Electoral Court or recognized by the Organization of American States. But autonomy supporters say they're only seeking states' rights on questions such as taxation, police and public works. "This is a historic demand based on long-standing differences with a La Paz-based central government," says Edilberto Osinaga, managing director of the Chamber of Eastern Farmers.

Autonomy is favored by more than the two-thirds of Santa Cruz voters needed to pass, according to polls, and Governor Ruben Costas, a staunch Morales opponent, said recently that it would "give birth to a new republic." He has since denied that he implied a separatist movement for Santa Cruz or the other three eastern states: Beni, Pando and Tarija, which will hold similar votes this summer. But critics say the remark betrayed an underlying goal of the country's eastern elite: gaining total control over Bolivia's vast natural gas reserves and its most fertile land.

Conflict over land is also at the heart of the clash over a new draft constitution restricting an individual's land holdings to just under 25,000 acres — a profound challenge to the ownership pattern in a country where 10% of the population controls more than 90% of arable land. "This is an extremely problematic proposal," says Osinaga. "You impose those kinds of limits and watch how fast the economy crumbles and poverty grows."

Under its current land reform program, the Morales government has already given landless Bolivians deeds to 25 million acres (10 million hectares). Some analysts suggest that staging the autonomy referendums is simply a political device to give the easterners greater leverage in pressing Morales to renegotiate constitutional changes. Others fear the rising tension points to that classic Western movie resolution: a violent showdown.

US Rancher in Bolivia Showdown

Jean Friedman-Rudovsky/La Paz
Time Magazine
02 May 2008

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1737244,00.html?loomia_si=t0:a3:g2:r1:c0.127237

"Our Elders Say that She is Dying"

 

...

Hundreds of Indians from Mexico, the United States and Canada gathered to ask forgiveness from what they call "our Mother Earth" and explore traditional solutions to environmental pollution in what they call a critical moment for the planet.

North American Indians assembled in the shadow of ancient Mayan pyramids Monday discussed how their tradition wisdom could help save the planet, and were told that even indigenous cultures have struggled with environmental abuse.

More than 200 leaders from 71 American Indian nations in Mexico, the United States and Canada came together in this Mexican jungle to find indigenous solutions to pollution and ecological problems threatening the planet.

"Our Mother Earth is being polluted at an alarming rate, and our elders say that she is dying," said Raymond Sensmeier, a Tlingit leader from Yakutat, Alaska. "The way the weather is around the world ... a cleansing is needed."

The conference began with a pre-dawn ceremony that included fire, copal incense, chants in Lacandon Maya and blasts from a conch shell.

Speakers reminded attendees that even Indian cultures have battled with environmental abuse and pointed to theories that deforestation contributed to the collapse of the Maya who built the temples at Palenque.

"As we stand here, very near Palenque, I am mindful that some scholars have suggested that environmental stressors contributed to the decline of the Mayan civilization," said U.S. Environmental Protection Agency regional administrator Elin Miller. "The planet-wide stress on the environment today means that collaborative efforts ... are not just good things. They may well be essential for our survival."

But, as Bill Erasmus, a representative of the indigenous people of Canada's Northwest Territories noted, "part of our role is to wake up the world. It is very obvious to us all that the climate is changing."

Mexico's environment secretary, Juan Elvira Quesada, said the gathering is meant "to present the teachings of the original peoples of North America."

"In this way, the indigenous communities can become the natural guides to restoring balance and harmony in the world," he said.

The lessons they have to teach are simple — based on reviving Indian notions about ownership, use, compensation and respect.

"I sometimes talk to scientists," said Sensmeier, "and they compartmentalize things, put things in boxes and disconnect them, and doing so promotes disharmony and imbalance."

...

Kuetlachtli Texotik, a Nahuatl healer from Mexico whose name means "Blue Wolf," agreed.

"Our grandfathers taught us to have an integrated vision," he said. "The important thing is to look for balance. We should take care of what does not belong to us, for the future, because it is only ours temporarily."

Indian cultures also have concrete examples to share.

Kayum Garcia's Lacandon people plant small dense, rotating fields of jungle-friendly crops in southern Mexico and avoid pasture-hungry cattle, helping preserve the jungle without cutting it down.

...

Mark Stevenson
Associated Press
10 March 2008

Source: Native Times [print edition]

Venezuela Hosts Indigenous Congress, Gives Land Titles to Indigenous (2007)

Coinciding with the launch of the First International Congress of the Anti-imperialist Indigenous Peoples of Latin America (Abya Yala), yesterday, in San Tomé, Anzoátegui state, Venezuelan vice-president Jorge Rodriguez, together with Nicia Maldonado, the Minister of Popular Power for Indigenous Peoples, handed over eleven housing and land titles recognizing indigenous ownership of various indigenous groups throughout the country.

Minister Nicia Maldonado assured that along with the recognition of land titles, the government will provide financial support for projects of integral development and housing for the indigenous communities of Pumé, Yaruro, Kariña and Warao, the first peoples of the states of Apure, Anzoátegui, and Bolívar.

She also said that during the past eight years the Venezuelan government has handed over nine-hundred thousand hectares of land titles to the indigenous peoples of various regions of Venezuela.

The minister said that 2,205 indigenous communities representing more than forty different groups had been identified at a national level, including 26 communities in urban zones and that the delivery of resources for the development of projects would come through financing plans presented by the Indigenous Communal Councils throughout the country.

The minister confirmed that the National Registrar of Indigenous Communal Councils had reached 800 and of these, 520 had so far received financing from the national government for various development projects. She added that financial resources would be made available for the other 280 Communal Councils.

She explained that the Chavez government has encouraged a process of “dignification of the original peoples of the country,” through incorporating them into the education missions, Robinson, Ribas and Sucre, as well as programs of social production such as Mission Vuelvan Caras, now called Mission Ché Guevara, among others.

Maldonado also emphasized that the Constitution of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela “rescued the dignity and rights of the original peoples,” through the Organic Law of the Indigenous Peoples.

Anti-Imperialist Indigenous Congress Opens

The First International Congress of the Anti-imperialist Indigenous Peoples of Latin America (Abya Yala), also opened yesterday in San Tomé. Minister Maldonado said the conference, while promoting cultural diversity, had an “integrationist and unifying character” with the aim of creating a front against the political hegemony of the US imperialism.

More than a thousand delegates of first peoples from 22 different countries participated, including Chile, Ecuador, Peru, Mexico, Bolivia, El Salvador, Canada, Colombia, Costa Rica, Argentina, Guyana, Suriname, Paraguay, San Vicente and the Grenadines, Brazil, Honduras, United States, Uruguay, Panama, and Venezuela.

The Venezuelan delegation included representatives of forty different indigenous groups, first peoples form the states of Anzoátegui, Amazonas, Apure, Bolívar, Delta Amacuro, Monagas, Sucre, and Zulia, as well as members of Indigenous Communal Councils from diverse regions throughout the country.

The first day of the congress covered issues of empowerment of indigenous people, through the articulation of their demands at a national level and expressions of communal power such as the Communal Councils in Venezuela, as well as the importance of promoting and strengthening cultural diversity and preserving indigenous languages, and the Bolivarian Alternative for the peoples of the Americas (ALBA).

The indigenous peoples of the Americas will also share their experiences of US imperialism, privatization of land and resources and struggles against privatization and for the recognition of land rights. Also to be discussed at the conference is the concept of 'Indo-American socialism', the discourse of Socialism of the 21st Century, and more specifically the Bolivarian Revolution in Venezuela, including the “five constituent motors” for pushing the revolution forward, and the role of indigenous peoples within the revolution.

The conference also provided space to discuss strategies and articulate anti-imperialist proposals to create a better world, including the proposal to form a Continental Anti-imperialist Indigenous Council and a proposal to create an Indo-American Indigenous Network of Alternative Communication.

“We are going to celebrate this congress with the aim of going towards the formation of a Continental Anti-imperialist Indigenous Council, constructing 'Indo-American' socialism and the Bolivarian Alternative of the peoples of the Americas,” declared Maria Caicuto, the vice-minister for the communal indigenous territory of the Deltas, Mountains, Coasts and Mangroves.

The closing of the conference coincides with the International Day of Indigenous Peoples on Aug 9.

Kiraz Janicke
Venezuela Analysis
8 August 2007

http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/news/2543

Declaration on Indigenous Peoples’ Rights to Genetic Resources and Indigenous Knowledge

ce399. 2006

Convened at the Sixth Session of the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues
May 14-25, 2007
New York, New York

We, the undersigned Indigenous peoples and organizations, having convened during the Sixth Session of the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, from May 14-25, 2007, upon the traditional territory of the Onondaga Nation present the following declaration regarding our rights to genetic resources and indigenous knowledge:

Reaffirming our spiritual and cultural relationship with all life forms existing in our traditional territories;

Reaffirming our fundamental role and responsibility as the guardians of our territories, lands and natural resources;

Recognizing that we are the guardians of the Indigenous knowledge passed down from our ancestors from generation to generation and we reaffirm our responsibility to protect and perpetuate this knowledge for the benefit of our peoples and our future generations;

Strongly reaffirming our right to self-determination, which is fundamental to our ability to carry out our responsibilities in accordance with our cultural values and our customary laws.

Strongly reaffirming our commitment to the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples as adopted by the Human Rights Council, including, Article 31, which establishes that:

1. Indigenous peoples have the right to maintain, control, protect and develop their cultural heritage, traditional knowledge and traditional cultural expressions, as well as the manifestations of their sciences, technologies and cultures, including human and genetic resources, seeds, medicines, knowledge of the properties of fauna and flora, oral traditions, literatures, designs, sports and traditional games and visual and performing arts. They also have the right to maintain, control, protect and develop their intellectual property over such cultural heritage, traditional knowledge, and traditional cultural expressions.

2. In conjunction with indigenous peoples, States shall take effective measures to recognize and protect the exercise of these rights.

Recalling the Declaration of Indigenous Organizations of the Western Hemisphere, Phoenix, Arizona (February 1995), which asserted, "Our responsibility as Indigenous peoples is to ensure the continuity of the natural order of all life is maintained for generations to come...We have a responsibility to speak for all life forms and to the defend the integrity of the natural order. …We oppose the patenting of all natural genetic materials. We hold that life cannot be bought, owned, sold, discovered or patented, even in its smallest form."

Recalling the Beijing Declaration of Indigenous Women, issued at the United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing, which stated that “We demand that our inalienable rights to our intellectual and cultural heritage be recognized and respected. We will continue to freely use our biodiversity for meeting our local needs, while ensuring that the biodiversity base of our local economies will not be eroded. We will revitalize and rejuvenate our biological and cultural heritage and continue to be the guardians and custodians of our knowledge and biodiversity.”

Recalling the Ukupseni Declaration, at Kuna Yala, Panama, 12-13 November 1997, which declared that “We reject the use of existing mechanisms in the legalization of intellectual property and patent systems use of existing mechanisms including intellectual property rights and patents to legalize the appropriation of knowledge and genetic material, whatever their source, and especially that which comes from our communities.”

Recalling the INTERNATIONAL CANCUN DECLARATION OF INDIGENOUS PEOPLES at the 5th WTO Ministerial Conference - Cancun, Quintana Roo, Mexico, (12 September 2003), which stated, “Stop patenting of life forms and other intellectual property rights over biological resources and indigenous knowledge. Ensure that we, Indigenous Peoples, retain our rights to have control over our seeds, medicinal plants and indigenous knowledge.”

Concerned by the accelerated elaboration and negotiation of an international regime on access and benefit sharing under the auspices of the Convention on Biological Diversity and the nation-states who are Parties to the Convention failure, to date, to recognize the rights of Indigenous peoples to control access to, and utilization of, the genetic resources that originate in our territories, lands and waters.

Therefore, we urge the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues to

1. Prepare a legal analysis on States, peoples and sovereignty and their relationship, scope and application, to assist the parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity in understanding sovereignty in the context of the Convention and the role of sovereignty in developing an international regime on ABS;

2. Recommend to the Convention on Biological Diversity that, consistent with international human rights law, states have an obligation to recognize and protect the rights of Indigenous peoples to control access to the genetic resources that originate in their lands and waters, and associated traditional knowledge. Such recognition must be a key element of the proposed international regime on ABS.

3. Prepare a report on the social, cultural and economic impacts of commercialization of genetic resources and indigenous knowledge on Indigenous peoples.

4. Disseminate this Declaration and the above recommended reports to all relevant UN fora.

Indigenous Peoples and Organizations Supporting the Declaration on Indigenous Peoples’ Rights to Genetic Resources and Indigenous Knowledge

1. Andes Chinchasuyo, Ecuador
2. Traditional Circle of Indian Elders and Youth
3. Tonatierra
4. Rapa Nui Parliament
5. Indigenous Environmental Network (IEN)
6. International Indian Treaty Council (IITC)
7. Indigenous Peoples Council on Biocolonialism (IPCB)
8. Seventh Generation Fund for Indian Development
9. Native Women’s Advocacy Center
10. Native Women’s Association of Canada
11. South Asia Indigenous Women Forum
12. Indigenous Peace Commission, Nepal
13. Indigenous Women Republic Front, Nepal
14. American Indian Law Alliance
15. Fundación Cholsamaj
16. Centro de Estudios Integrados para el Desariollo Comunal
17. Centro de Proyectos para el Desariollo Comunal
18. Turaga Nation
19. Vanuatu Indigenous Peoples Forum
20. Columbia River Education, Economic Development
21. Diné Care
22. Dewan Adat Papua Jayapura
23. Juventud Indigena Argentine
24. Call of the Earth Llamado de la Tierra
25. El Molo People
26. El Molo Eco-Tourism Rights and Development Forum
27. Tatanka Oyate (Buffalo Nations)
28. Confederacy of Treaty 6 First Nations
29. Instituto Indígena Brasileiro para Propriedade Intelectual (INBRAPI)
30. Sutsuin Jiyeyu Wayúu –Fuerza de Mujeres Wayúu
31. Red de Mujeres Indígenas Wayúu
32. Consejo Nacional de la Mujeres Indígena
33. Tob Qom Choco Argentine
34. Chirapaq, Centro de Culturas Indígenas del Peru
35. Ecuador CONAIE
36. Consejo de Todo los Tierra – Mapuche Chile
37. Corporacion de Mujeres Mapuche
38. Federacion de Pueblos de Pichincha
39. Nacionalidad Waorani Del Ecuador
40. Asociacion de Comunidades Indígenas
41. Fundacion Para la Promocion del Concimiento Indígena
42. Luz y Vida, Ecuador
43. Cultural Conservation Act (CCA)
44. International Alliance of Indigenous and Tribal Peoples of the Tropical Forests
45. United Confederation of Taino People
46. Indigenous Peoples Caucus of the Greater Caribbean
47. Consejo General de Tainos Borincanos
48. Russian Association of Indigenous Peoples of the North (RAIPON)

http://www.ipcb.org/resolutions/htmls/Decl_GR&IK.html

Indigenous People's Council on Biocolonialsm

Venezuelans, Influenced by Cuba, Turn to Santeria

The man says he is possessed by a god. He shouts, his body trembles and he lifts a sacrificed lamb to his lips, drinking its blood from the jugular.

This initiation ceremony, seldom witnessed by outsiders, has become increasingly common in Venezuela, as the Afro-Cuban traditions of Santeria and other folk religions gain followers.

The rituals have become an attractive option for Venezuelans seeking a unique spiritual path, including healing ceremonies aimed at curing everything from illness to heartache. Some even believe certain gods will offer protection from Venezuela's rampant violent crime.

The surge in Santeria, which is practiced by many in Cuba, can partly be explained by the arrival of thousands of Cuban doctors in Venezuela. President Hugo Chavez has been providing Cuba with subsidized oil in exchange for thousands of physicians who come to the South American country to treat poor people.

Santeria priests are also making annual predictions for Venezuelans and issuing warnings -- just like Cuban "santeros" do in Havana. Last month, one group of priests said the gods have indicated the twice-divorced Chavez would be a more effective leader with a woman at his side.

It's a familiar pattern. Santeria has grown in popularity in New York, Miami and Puerto Rico in the past following influxes of Cubans, according to Margarite Fernandez Olmos, a professor at City University of New York who has researched the religion.

In overwhelmingly Roman Catholic Venezuela, many shops have sprung up in recent years selling roosters, goats and other animals to be sacrificed in Caracas' working class barrios. In the city's churches, believers can be seen in head-to-toe white, praying to their gods before statues of Catholic saints.

Santeria was born in Cuba among Yoruba slaves from West Africa. They were forbidden to practice their own religion, so they fused their beliefs with the Catholicism of their masters, starting a tradition that has spread throughout the Americas. Catholic leaders consider the rituals idolatrous, but have come to tolerate the popular practice.

Santeria has been present in Venezuela for decades, though some experts say it is more out in the open now due to the political situation.

"The current political ambiance created by a populist government with its emphasis on nationalism has made Santeria more visible," said Leslie Desmangles, a religion and international studies professor at Trinity College in Hartford, Conn.

Along with Santeria, Venezuela is home to other folk religions, such as the sect surrounding the Indian goddess Maria Lionza, which has also been flourishing.

Believers in Maria Lionza make quick dashes through highway traffic in Caracas to reach a statue of the goddess in a highway divider. They lay offerings of flowers, liquor or coins at the foot of the statue, which depicts the naked goddess riding a tapir, a jungle animal.

The Santeria movement nowadays cuts across racial groups and class lines, and includes lawyers and other professionals as well as the unemployed among its adherents. In spite of rapid economic growth propelled by Venezuela's oil industry, people here face problems, from crime to inflation.

"Santeria is on the rise because there are many people who need the help of higher powers to overcome their problems," said Belkis, a 51-year-old "santera" who declined to give her last name, saying true followers prefer anonymity.

She was among hundreds of white-clad believers who recently crowded into a Catholic church, praying before a statue of the Virgen de Las Mercedes, a manifestation of the Virgin Mary, who they said represents Obatala, a patriarch in the pantheon of Yoruba gods.

Some pay up to $7,000 for the years-long initiation process to become "babalaos," or Santeria priests. The Followers of Ifa, a Santeria association, says it objects to charging such sums, saying the religion is based on "humility, brotherhood and honesty."

One santero, a 40-year-old named Wilfredo who would not give his last name, said that while Santeria attracts many for positive reasons, there are those who use it for black magic "because they think they can go kill and rob and nothing will happen to them."

Black magic practitioners known as "paleros" are known to gather human bones from cemeteries in order to seal pacts with the dead, to call upon their spirits for vengeance. At least some of the grave- robbing that plagues Caracas' main cemetery is thought to be due to the paleros, who according to some Santeria followers offer up to $5,000 for a skull.

In contrast, those seeking enlightenment and healing often visit the mountains of Sorte in rural north-central Venezuela, a key site for followers of the Maria Lionza sect.

A poor 21-year-old woman, Andrea Gomez, came here to see a Maria Lionza priestess who leads healing rituals, hoping her wisdom could help improve a troubled relationship with her boyfriend and find a spiritual cure for what she called "psychological pregnancy" -- uncomfortable abdominal swelling in spite of the fact she wasn't pregnant.

The ceremony began as the "curandera" priestess offered Gomez a tea-like drink made with anise, and then gave her a cigar and asked her to chew it. It wasn't long before Gomez spat it out and vomited - - the first stage in the cleansing ritual.

Then she was led into a stream, where the priestess and her two helpers rubbed a concoction of herbs, stems and rum over her skin, and dunked her in the water.

Dressing her in a hospital robe, they led her to a large flat rock, on which they poured a trail of talcum powder to draw a door- like "portal" for spiritual healing. They asked her to lie inside the white lines on a bed of banana leaves, and lit candles around her.

The priestess prayed aloud, speaking in tongues for the spirit world. The healer closed her eyes and appeared to drift into a trance, then placed her hands on the woman's abdomen and forehead.

Afterward, Gomez was helped up by her brother and cousin, and she sat on a rock appearing tired and peaceful. The priestess told the woman not to speak, and announced to those who witnessed the hour- and-a-half ceremony that "the evil" was gone.

Jorge Rueda
Associated Press
9 February 2008

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4176/is_20080209/ai_n21416241/print?tag=artBody;col1

Guatemala Jails Five Paramilitaries for Massacre

A court in Guatemala has sentenced five former paramilitaries each to 780 years in prison for the 1982 murder of 26 indigenous Mayan villagers.

They received the maximum sentence of 30 years for each of the murders which took place during an infamous massacre of 177 women and children in Rio Negro.

The victims died refusing to move from the site of a new hydroelectric dam.

Guatemala was fighting a civil war at the time in which 200,000 people either died or disappeared.

The five former members of the Civilian Self-Defence Patrols force were also ordered to pay compensation to the relatives of the victims.

Their defence is expected to lodge an appeal against the sentences.

A sixth defendant in the trial, which began in 2004, was acquitted for lack of evidence.

Three paramilitaries were earlier convicted of a role in the massacre while warrants have been issued for three others.

May29.2008|
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/americas/7426800.stm

Sandino's "Vest Cut"

Augusto Cesar Sandino: Máximo Héroe Nicaragüense

Sandino publicly advocated the mutilation and beheading of Nicaragua's enemies, and Pedro "Pedron" Altamirano was his most accomplished machete wielder, famous for his "vest cut" - beheading followed by lopping off of both arms at the shoulder.

"There's No Rest for the Dead"

Managua, Nicaragua. 1978.

He might think of leaving work,
But no, he wouldn't like a shirk.
He'd much prefer to stay
And get his honest days pay.
He's got a life of work ahead,
There's no rest for the dead.
--Crass, Systematic Death (1981)

Your Tax Dollars at Work...(again)

...in El Salvador (1982)...

   

...and Iraq (2006) ...

...we thank you for your continued $upport.

His name was Khalid Waleed Ahmed. He was Sunni, 36 years old, married and having three kids, the youngest one was only 4 months years old. He was an engineer, working for a private company, and he lived in the Ur area in Baghdad. Thursday 23 February 2006 at 6:00 pm when he was having dinner, his house was raided by several men dressed in black. They came with many cars, and some of these cars were from the Iraqi police (as his brother said). They arrested him and also broke all the doors of his house. After three days they found him in the morgue in Baghdad.

Death Squads and Iraqi Police: Two Sides of the Same Coin

If the mainstream media would publish photos of the real war, as I’ve seen it, nobody would support this war. --Robert Fisk

Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional (FSLN)

click to enlarge

Wallpaper for your desktop.

Manson-Bush: Stencil Harkro Collective

click to enlarge

Time for an art break.

Very nice stencil art from the ´Stencil Harko´ Collective, San Cristobal de las Casas, Chiapas, Mexico.

Nazi-Bush? Manson-Bush? Marilyn-Bush? Or maybe Go To Hell, Gringos! would be a more appropriate title for this lovely piece of street art.

I was not able to locate a website for Stencil Harko, but they might be related to the Colectivo Zape, which does a similar type of political stencil art in Mexico.

Here´s another interesting site with some amazing stencil art, political or otherwise: The Stencil Archive.

Oaxaca Protests Erode Rule of Law

All full size versions of the above photographs have apparently been removed from the internet.

From the WaPo:

Policeman Manuel Dominguez is tied to a lightpost after residents of a neighborhood accused him of trying to burgle a house in the city of Oaxaca, Mexico on, Tuesday Oct. 24, 2006. "We haven't had time to check what happened to him," local police director Aristeo Lopez said Wednesday. Authorities have been kicked out of the center of the town once popular with tourists, located 350 kilometers (220 miles) southeast of Mexico City. Police occupy only a few neighborhoods, and have lost control of the city as a whole. Protesters are demanding the resignation of Gov. Ulises Ruiz, whom they accuse of rigging the 2004 election to win office and of repressing dissent with violence. (AP Photo/Eduardo Verdugo) (Eduardo Verdugo - AP)

From The Miami Herald International Edition:

With virtually no police in the streets, residents of this colonial town are stepping in to fill the void - often with brutal consequences

People accused of being thieves are tied to light posts and beaten, one home was torched and a man was stabbed to death with an ice pick as five months of protests erode the rule of law in what was once a major tourist destination.

The beating of Manuel Domín- guez was the latest example of how far Oaxaca has spun out of control as mobs of striking teachers, farmers and other protesters demand that Gov. Ulises Ruiz step down.

Late Tuesday, about 50 people stripped off Domínguez´s T-shirt, lashed him to a pole and beat him nearly unconscious. They accused Domínguez, who works as a security guard at a local jail, of trying to rob a house. The crowd left him tied up overnight, finally turning him over to the few police left in town early Wednesday.

For police commander Aristeo López, it was just another public beating. López acknowledged he still didn´t know how the guard was doing nearly 24 hours after the attack.

"We haven´t had time to check what happened to him," he said.

Because there are no police patrols, masked and armed pro- testers roam the streets, detaining anyone they suspect of criminal activity. Often, they grab young men accused of trying to commit various crimes, tie them up for hours and beat them.

The conflict comes at the end of President Fox´s six-year term, which has been marked by protests that spun out of control while the president has watched, reluctant to crack down for fear of provoking more violence.

Some teachers have defied the union and opened schools, but masked protesters often block children and their parents from returning to classes.

At the Francisco Zarco school, some parents armed with sticks and heavy metal pipes kept guard outside to keep protesters away.

Early this week at the same school, as a machete-wielding masked man kept children from entering, 8-year-old Luis Carlos Matus asked his mother: "Mama, don´t the protesters like children?"

Many worry they could become a victim. "We are afraid the protesters will get confused and kill us," said Ana María Cruz, interviewed outside the school.

On Oct. 5, a teacher opposed to the strike, Jaime René Calvo , was killed by two assailants who stabbed him with an ice pick. His attackers are still at large. Four others have been killed by police or armed groups.

In August, protesters set fire to a house after the owners began arguing with a demonstrator who was urinating outside the home. The demonstrator rallied a mob by accusing the occupants of the home of trying to attack him, and the crowd responded by torching the house. The occupants escaped unharmed, but the house was destroyed.

Protesters have "detained" about 20 policemen, beating them and accusing them of crimes before handing them over to authorities. Lino Celaya, state security secretary, said none of them was found to have broken the law.

The conflict seems to be far from over.

Protesters have pledged to block highways, beef up blockades and boycott commercial centers this Friday.

If Ruiz doesn´t step down, they say they will try to keep President-elect Felipe Calderón from taking office on Dec. 1.

Ruiz has refused to leave office.

Wire services
El Universal
Jueves 26 de octubre de 2006
Miami Herald, página 1

From the BBC, In Pictures Oaxaca Clashes