Thursday, June 11, 2009
Today the world’s media carry the story of the Peruvian Congress having suspended the destructive decrees that caused a non-violent, yet forceful uprising by indigenous peoples organising to defend the Amazon from the oil and gas industry. It is not a victory – merely one less defeat! The forest continues to be destroyed. Drilling, pumping, spilling roads building and Christian conquest of hearts, souls and minds through concerted violence, repression, manipulation, false promises (“Jesus will buy you a fridge and a car”) and disrespect for the inhabitants of what was once the world’s largest (rain) forest, but which is now better described as a region threatened by destruction, deforestation, desertification, in brief, death. However, at least, for now the attempt to accelerate further the destruction has been pushed back, but not stopped. The struggle continues…..
June 11, 2009
World Briefing | The Americas
Peru: Decrees to Open Jungle Area to Investment Are Suspended
By SIMON ROMERO
Congress temporarily suspended two decrees issued by President Alan García that had helped set off recent protests by indigenous groups fearful of large oil and logging investments in the Peruvian Amazon. The decrees would open vast jungle areas to investment and allow companies to bypass indigenous communities to get permits for projects. The protests resulted in repression by security forces and apparent reprisals by Indians last week that left dozens dead.
See also: Top name brands implicated in Amazon destruction, New Greenpeace report shows how the cattle industry in Brazil is feeding demand for raw resources and “Slaughtering the Amazon”
1 Comment | 
Amazonia, Direct Action, News, Peru, Road Protest, capitalism is murder, colonisation, dark forces, ecological justice, people power, rain forest | Tagged: amazon, amazonia por la vida, News, not a victory, Peru, Peruvian Congress, Politics, repression | 
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Monday, June 8, 2009
colonos is reproducing here a text by Ben Powless on rabble.ca, including the “INTERNATIONAL DENUCIATION of President Alan García Pérez of Peru and his admistration” by the COORDINATING BODY OF ANDEAN INDIGENOUS ORGANZIACIONES – CAOI.
We have received various notices from people in the Amazon reporting about 10 – 40 indigenous protesters having been shot dead.
Photo by Marijke Deleu (upsidedownworld.org)
Here goes:
50 days of protest and one massacre in the Peruvian Amazon
I’m writing this right now from Peru after having taken part in a 5 day Indigenous Peoples Summit held in Puno, Peru in the high Andes. Read the rest of this entry »
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Amazonia, Anti-capitalism, Anti-militarism, Ecuador, Peru, South America, anti-terror laws, ecological justice, environmental destruction, human rights violation, indigenous movements, indigenous rights, rain forest | 
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Tuesday, January 20, 2009
Action Alert: Ask the Ecuadorian Government to Protect Human Rights During Upcoming Anti-Mining Demonstrations
The Ecuador Solidarity Network, an organization based in Canada and the United States, is joining human rights and indigenous peoples organizations in calling on President Rafael Correa to respect human rights during nation wide protests against large-scale mining that will begin on Monday January 19th.
The protests will spread from the Amazon and reach Quito, Ecuador’s capital, on January 20th. Anti-mining protests earlier this month were met with police violence in the Southern provinces of Azuay, Loja, Zamora Chinchipe and Morona Santiago. A number of activists were beaten and detained, and one leader was critically injured after being shot in the head.
The Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (CONAIE) and a number of farmer and environmental organizations are protesting against the recent approval of a mining law by Congress, opening the country to large-scale metal mining. Canadian mining companies would benefit from many of the concessions. The CONAIE and other organizations contend that the new law will allow large-scale mining in protected areas and contaminate critical community water supplies. The CONAIE is also protesting against government plans to drill for oil in the Yasuni National Park, the rainforest home of two indigenous communities in voluntary isolation.
Following recent statements from the Permanent Assembly for Human Rights (APDH) and the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (CONAIE), the Ecuador Solidarity Network calls on activists around the world to support the human rights of protesters demonstrating against large-scale metal mining in Ecuador. The CONAIE emphasizes that the demonstrations will be peaceful and calls on President Correa to not use police or military forces against protesters.
E-mail President Rafael Correa and President of Congress Fernando Cordero and ask that the government take preventative action to ensure that protesters’ human rights are respected. We also denounce any attempt by right-wing organizations in the U.S. or Canada to opportunistically use the upcoming mobilizations to attack President Correa for motives that have nothing to do with indigenous rights or environmental protection.
Please send emails to:
Presidencia de la República, Presidente Rafael Correa:
presidencia @ presidencia . gov . ec
Presidencia Legislativa, Presidente de la Comision Legislativa y de Fiscalizacion, Fernando Cordero Cueva:
presidencia @ asambleaconstituyente . gov . ec
Please send a carbon copy of the messages to
ecuadorsolidarity @ gmail . com
Media Contacts:
Ecuador: Jennifer Moore, Ecuador Solidarity Network (593) 8-877-8928 / jenmoore0901 @ gmail . com
Canada: Jamie Kneen, Mining Watch (613) 761-2273
3 Comments | 
Amazonia, Anti-capitalism, Anti-militarism, CONAIE, Capitalism, Ecuador, Environmentalism, Green Politics, Rafael Correa, Road Protest, asamblea constituyente, climate change, ecological justice, enclosure, environmental destruction, grass-roots, human rights violation, indigenous movements, nature, rain forest, revolution, yasuni | 
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Friday, October 31, 2008
Leave a Comment » | Amazonia, Rain Forest Flowers, Rio Napo, rain forest | Tagged: amazon, Amazonia, dark times, flower, photo, rain forest flower, smile | Permalink
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Thursday, October 9, 2008
A video, embedded below, is circulating the ayahuasca surfers’ realm. It shows, whether true or not, a jaguar feeding on the ayahuasca vine. The jaguar is a very centrally important figure in the cosmovision of many Amazonian ayahuasca cultures, the observations of which continue to spawn many speculations about the various practices and myths around the jaguar (and ayahuasca).
A very early observation states that:
“Ingestion of Ayahuasca usually induces nausea, dizziness, vomiting, and leads to either an euphoric or an aggressive state. Frequently the Indian sees overpowering attacks of huge snakes or jaguars. These animals often humiliate him because he is a mere man. The repetitiveness with which snakes and jaguars occur in Ayahuasca visions has intrigues psychologists. It is understandable that these animals play such a role, since they are the only beings respected and feared by the Indians of the tropical forest; because of their power and stealth, they have assumed a place of primacy in aboriginal religious beliefs.
In many tribes, the shaman becomes a feline during the intoxication, exercising his powers as a cat. Yekwana medicine men mimic the roars of jaguars. Tukano Ayahuasca-takers may experience nightmares of jaguar jaws swallowing them or huge snakes approaching and coiling around their bodies … shamans of the Conibo-Shipibo tribe acquire great snakes as personal possessions to defend themselves in supernatural battles against other powerful shamans.
The drug may be the shaman’s tool to diagnose illness or to ward off impending disaster, to guess the wiles of an enemy, to prophesy the future. But it is more than the shaman’s tool. It enters into almost all aspects of the life of the people who use it, to an extent equalled by hardly any other hallucinogen. Partakers, shamans or not, see all the gods, the first human beings, and animals, and come to understand the establishment of their social order.”
Did the shamans learn from the jaguars to use the plant? Is there a cosmic connection, therefore, through the ayahuasca between the jaguar and people that live with the cats and the ayahuasca plant?
The Jaguar Theory notes that:
Read the rest of this entry »
2 Comments | Amazonia, Ayahuasca, Ecuador, Environmentalism, Green Politics, Life, Psychedelic, Psychedelics, South America, capitalism is murder, climate change, colonisation, entheogenic, grass-roots, logging, nature, rain forest, shaman | Tagged: Ayahuasca, climate change, drugs, jaguar, jaguar and ayahuasca, jaguar eating ayahuasca, knowledge, myth, practice, purge, reality, science, spirituality, traditional knowledge | Permalink
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Saturday, September 27, 2008
Don Mamallacta Vicente is a yachak in his 80s. Yachak is the Kichwa word for shaman or natural healer. Another term often used in the region is curandero or ayahuasquero.
His healing powers and energies are from a different time and age and he here (Sat 14 Jun 2008) speaks about his extraordinary life as a shaman, – including paddling for a year, leaving behind a wife on the border only to find her married to another shaman, who was out to kill him, upon returning from collecting salt on the Marañon river, deep in the Peruvian jungle, far away; then finding a new wife and altogether fathering ten children and healing many peoples lives throughout his own.
There are three parts:
(Don Vicente – Speaking of his life: Part I)
Read the rest of this entry »
2 Comments | Amazonia, Ecuador, Life, Rio Napo, South America, entheogenic, kichwa, rain forest, shaman | Tagged: Ecuador, napo, Ayahuasca, shaman, vicente mamallacta, yachak, kichwa, indigenous, medicine man, don vicente, healing power, powerful, ancient tradition, ayahuasquero | Permalink
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Thursday, May 22, 2008
Six months before the colonos blog came into being the article below – here translated into English – was written in Castellano. It is about what we have been labelling corridors (or interoceanic corridors) or the Manta-Manaus commodity highway. In this article a much more comprehensive perspective is offered – and shows how big, concerted and damaging to the continent and the rest of the world that this global capitalist project is.
Get the whole article in .pdf format.
Re-mapping Latin America’s Future
IIRSA: Integration Custom-Made for International Markets (#1)
Raúl Zibechi | June 13, 2006
Translated from: IIRSA: la integración a la medida de los mercados
Translated by: Nick Henry
Americas Program, Center for International Policy (CIP)
The project for Integration of South American Regional Infrastructure (IIRSA, by its initials in Spanish), is swiftly but silently moving forward. IIRSA is the most ambitious and encompassing plan to integrate the region for international trade. If completed in full, the project would connect zones containing natural resources (natural gas, water, oil, biodiversity) with metropolitan areas, and both of these with the world’s largest markets.
Read the rest of this entry »
1 Comment | Amazonia, Anti-capitalism, Napo-Ucayali corridor, Rafael Correa, South America, UNASUR, capitalism is murder, corridors, dark forces, deception, environmental destruction, human rights violation, indigenous movements, latin american integration, manta-manaus, rain forest | Tagged: Amazonia, business as usual, environmental destruction, IIRSA, napo, Neo-socialism, South American Regional Infrastructure, UNASUR | Permalink
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Saturday, May 10, 2008
I recently had the rare opportunity of coming face-to-face with a Dragonfly in the rain forest near Loreto in the Napo region of the Ecuadorian Amazon – this is what it looked like (click on pix to see a slightly bigger version or ask for originals, if you have a good idea for using them):
and coming up close to the bugger…
—– great pattern, init?!?!?
This is a link to a 1200×803px JPEG shot of the Dragonfly – cropped a bit and compressed with The GIMP:
and also an un-cut 1024×768 on MyShutterSpace:
2 Comments | Amazonia, Ecuador, Photography, Photos, South America, photo, rain forest | Tagged: alien, dragonfly, insect photo, myshutterspace, photo, Photography | Permalink
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Tuesday, May 6, 2008
Interview with Marlon Santi, New President of Ecuador’s Indigenous Confederation
Written by Patricio Zhingri T.
Thursday, 17 January 2008
And so it goes, that history repeats itself and the day after the revolution anyone is a conservative, I think Hannah Arendt once wrote. The morning after in Ecuador – after the floods – and we know which way the wind blows. For that we don’t need a weather man.
Here is, however, what CONAIE’s new president, Marlon Santi, reckons about the Correan revolution and the reconstructive Constituent Assembly – well no news there, really, it is business as usual:
“PZT: As the new president of CONAIE, how would you evaluate the first year of this government?
MS: Proposals from the Indigenous movement and other social sectors from the coast, highlands, and Amazon are not present on the national government’s political agenda. Nor are they on the agenda of the Constituent Assembly. The government says a lot and they say that they are going to open petroleum explorations, that they are going to privatize water, rivers, páramos (high communal grasslands). Nothing has changed. The only change is when the Indigenous movement rises up, because even in light of this we have made some advances in Collective Rights and other demands. Rafael Correa has not recognized the demands of Indigenous nationalities and peoples, and he should do so.
PZT: How will the government of Indigenous Nationalities and Peoples act with the current government of Correa?
Read the rest of this entry »
Leave a Comment » | Amazonia, Anti-capitalism, CONAIE, Capitalism, Ecuador, Environmentalism, Globalisation, Green Politics, Marlon Santi, Miriam Cisneros, Neo-socialism, Politics, Rafael Correa, South America, capitalism is murder, constitutent assembly, ecological justice, environmental destruction, grass-roots, indigenous movements, people power, rain forest, revolution, sarayaku | Tagged: CONAIE, Ecuador, indigenous struggle, Marlon Santi, social change | Permalink
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Wednesday, April 30, 2008
We watched Leonardo DiCaprio’s “11th hour” last night (you might be able to watch it here or via quicksilversreen.com and read more about it here) and although it was by no stretch of the imagination a very good film on any terms (structure, presentation of material, cinematography or in terms of delivering a profound radical political message) it was still a positive surprise. But hey! what would you expect, come on, be honest?
In the critical (mainstream environmentalist?) words of Rikke Bruntse-Dahl, writing for smartplanet.com:
“The overall message was that we’ve forgotten that we’re part of nature and even though the Earth as such will survive, it will not be a pleasant — or indeed habitable — place to be if we don’t start looking after it and each other. While it’s undoubtedly a good message, which we’d like as many people as possible to hear, the film itself is just not up to scratch.
Read the rest of this entry »
2 Comments | Capitalism, Direct Action, Ecuador, Globalisation, Green Politics, Life, Napo-Ucayali corridor, Neo-socialism, Philosophy, Photography, Photos, Politics, Tree Hugging, bio-fuel, capitalism is murder, colonisation, ecological justice, ecuador and china, food aid, greenwash, indigenous movements, keep the oil in the soil, latin american integration, logging, magic, manta-manaus, media distortions, private property, propaganda, property and persuasion, rain forest, state of exception, strategy of tension, sub-empires, the moon, with god on our side, world domination disorder, yasuni | Tagged: 11th hour, critique, documentary, leonardo dicaprio | Permalink
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Monday, March 24, 2008
Dan Collyns for BBC News writes about the struggle of the Achuar in Peru that their “story is an emblematic case of resistance for indigenous Amazonians and is unprecedented in Peru“. The article provides a little bit of information, but it is not contexualised very well. There is a similar struggle fought by the Cofan in Ecuador which also only gets minimal time and attention in the mainstream media – and also generally only reported on in isolation. Between the territories of the Cofan and the Achuar lies the Yasuni National park, about which much has been written in this blog. While we keep compiling more comprehensive information and try to tie these obviously mutually relevant scenarios together, we seem to be waiting in vain for editors of the environmental sections of what is left of a critical voices in the corporately led world of media to bring stories that connect these struggles with the “leave the oil in the soil” proposal and the general discourse of climate change.
Leave a Comment » | Amazonia, Coca to Iquitos, Collective Bio-Cultural Heritage, Ecuador, Environmentalism, Globalisation, Green Politics, Napo-Ucayali corridor, Neo-socialism, Peru, South America, Tree Hugging, achuar, capitalism is murder, cofan, corridors, eco-socialism, ecological justice, enclosure, environmental destruction, grass-roots, indigenous movements, keep the oil in the soil, latin american integration, logging, rain forest, yasuni | Permalink
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Monday, March 24, 2008
These are the conclusions of a report on the “IMPACT OF CLIMATE CHANGE MITIGATION MEASURES ON INDIGENOUS PEOPLES AND ON THEIR TERRITORIES AND LANDS”, by the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues’ Seventh session, New York, 21 April -2 May 2008 on the Special Theme: “Climate Change, bio-cultural diversity and livelihoods: the stewardship role of indigenous peoples and new challenges” with regard to the Implementation of the recommendations on the six mandated areas of the permanent Forum and on the Millennium Development Goals (Download the full E/C.19/2008/10 report here: unpfii-report-on-climate-change.pdf):
Read the rest of this entry »
1 Comment | Amazonia, Collective Bio-Cultural Heritage, Ecuador, Environmentalism, Globalisation, Green Politics, Life, Marlon Santi, Miriam Cisneros, Napo-Ucayali corridor, Neo-socialism, News, Philosophy, Politics, Rio Napo, South America, UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, UNASUR, ecological justice, environmental destruction, grass-roots, greenwash, indigenous movements, keep the oil in the soil, latin american integration, logging, manta-manaus, mapuche, parque de la papa, people power, rain forest, sarayaku, shaman, shipibo, yachak, yasuni | Permalink
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Monday, January 7, 2008
2 Comments | Amazonia, Ayahuasca, Coca to Iquitos, Life, Peru, Psychedelic, Psychedelics, Rio Napo, South America, Spiritual, entheogenic, indigenous movements, magic, miracle, myth, rain forest, shaman, shipibo, yachak | Permalink
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Friday, December 7, 2007
A grassroots summit.
On November 16, indigenous, mestizo and African-Ecuadorian community leaders, farmers, environmentalists, activists, and individuals affected or concerned about the environmental situation in Ecuador gathered at the Catholic University in Quito for the First Summit of Communities Criminalized for Defending Nature.
Over recent years, violent confrontations, repression and human rights violations have increasingly characterised environmental conflicts in all parts of the country. The summit was organised by a variety of social movements in order to publicly highlight political, juridical, and extra-judicial persecutions and abuses of social and environmental activists.
Testimonies of persons jailed, criminalised, shot and stories of those assassinated were shared and collected and the social, political and economic reasons and consequences of the persecutions analysed. The global nature of repression against movements opposed to environmentally and socially damaging projects was emphasised, and the summit declared solidarity and support for all social and environmental grassroots movements worldwide.
The summit participants later marched to hand members of the National Constitutional Assembly a petition for amnesty for the over 200 community leaders currently imprisoned for the execution of their right to protest and to live in a healthy environment. The petition also demanded an end to the ceaseless violations of human rights and community rights to ancestral land generated by mining, oil exploitation, logging, hydroelectrical power stations, and shrimp farming.
(Freely translated and abridged from Javier Mazeres’ article of the same title, published in the newsletter of the Catalonian Association Ali Supay – www.alisupay.org)
Leave a Comment » | Amazonia, Anti-militarism, Capitalism, Ecuador, Environmentalism, Globalisation, Green Politics, News, Politics, Rafael Correa, South America, asamblea constituyente, constitutent assembly, ecological justice, grass-roots, indigenous movements, people power, police brutality, police state, police violence, rain forest, state of exception, strategy of tension | Permalink
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