Upside Down World
 
Saturday, 03 May 2014
Peru’s Conga Mine Conflict: Cajamarca Won’t Capitulate
Written by Lynda Sullivan   
Thursday, 01 May 2014 16:05

The fight over the Conga mining project is one of Peru’s largest current social conflicts.   Today, the local population continues resisting the imposition of one of Latin America`s largest gold mining projects – Minas Conga. The situation remains tense, and the resistance continues, but with an intensified sense of urgency because as the battles are won and lost, many feel that the conflict is nearing its conclusion.

 
The Politics of Pachamama: Natural Resource Extraction vs. Indigenous Rights and the Environment in Latin America
Written by Benjamin Dangl   
Friday, 25 April 2014 00:24

On the conflicts between the politics of extraction of natural resources among countries led by leftist governments in Latin America, and the politics of Pachamama (Mother Earth), and how indigenous movements have resisted extractivism in defense of their rights, land and the environment.

 
Honduras: The Deep Roots of Resistance
Written by Alexander Main   
Wednesday, 23 April 2014 18:02

The FNRP emerged out of the opposition to the coup and quickly developed into the largest social movement in Honduran history. Loosely organized into collectives at the local and regional level, the resistance includes a rainbow of movements: union activists, teachers, lawyers, artists, indigenous and Afro-indigenous villagers, small farmers, LGBT activists, and human rights defenders, with ideological tendencies ranging from the center left to the far left.

 
Commentary - Lies and Deceit: One Neighbor’s Deportation Sheds Light on the Inhumanity of US Immigration Enforcement
Written by Daniela Maria Ugaz   
Monday, 21 April 2014 14:51

I remember jolting awake at 6 AM. Still dark. Someone was banging on my neighbors' door. I could hear whispering, then screaming. When I opened my eyes, just like that, I made out two, three, four distinct voices. Months later, my neighbor, who I’ll call Beto, told me there must have been 10 to 12 police officers at his door that morning. They were definitely police and not Immigration.

 
National Congress of Brazil’s Landless Movement: Reinvention in Motion
Written by Raúl Zibechi   
Friday, 18 April 2014 11:51

After three decades of struggle for agrarian reform, Brazil’s Landless Movement paused during its 6th Congress to evaluate its experience and reflect on the new reality. The goal: to change while changing themselves.

 

 
Latin America - Economic Socialism in the 21st Century: Neoliberalism “Pure and Simple”
Written by Pablo Dávalos, Translation by Danica Jorden   
Tuesday, 15 April 2014 09:17

Maybe the real alternative is not financing development and redistributing income, but the very idea of development. What Latin Americans desire at this point in time is not development but escaping from it. The development model is more an ideological construct for the region’s elites and middle classes rather than for the peoples who are suffering it. It is a pretext to take control of natural resources at the commodities feast.

 
Colombia Approaches a Point of No Return in Loss of Biodiversity
Written by BLCC2014, Translation by Alexandra Quinn   
Saturday, 12 April 2014 12:23

Facing the reality of disappearing ecosystems, decreasing populations and the extinction of species that the country is dealing with, it is time for the Colombian State’s decision-makers to implement actions immediately in order to stop this devastation before it is too late, according to four environmental experts who have given recommendations from their fields in the program Su Madre Naturaleza [Your Mother Nature] by Canal Capital.

 
Colombia: ‘That is How Dead Guerillas are Made’, Through False Positives
Written by Ander Izaguirre-El País, Translation by Christina Hewitt   
Wednesday, 09 April 2014 10:25

“So you are the mother of the narco-guerilla commander,” the Ocaña District Attorney told her. “No, sir. I am the mother of Fair Leonardo Porras Bernal,” said Luz Maria Bernal. She replied that her son Leonardo, 26, had been born with mental disabilities and that he had the mental capacity of an eight year old. He could not read or write and had been certified as having a mental capacity of 53%.The right side of his body was paralyzed, including the hand which was allegedly used to hold the gun.

 

 
Impunity and Dispossession in Mexico: San Sebastián Bachajón on the Anniversary of the Assassination of Juan Vázquez Guzmán
Written by Jessica Davies   
Thursday, 01 May 2014 15:31

In San Sebastián Bachajón, Chiapas, Mexico, the impunity given to the attackers has not stopped the ejidatarios’ (common landholders’) resistance to the dispossession of their lands. In recognition of the first anniversary of the assassination of community leader and defender of the land, Juan Vázquez Guzmán, Two Weeks of Worldwide Action: Juan Vázquez Guzmán lives! The Bachajón struggle continues! have been called, from Thursday,  April 24 to Thursday, May 8, 2014. As part of this initiative, the screening of the video “Bachajón - Dispossession is death, Life is resistance” is being promoted internationally.

 
Guatemala: Suppressing Dissent at Home and Abroad
Written by Patricia Davis   
Thursday, 24 April 2014 20:35

Last year saw the sharpest escalation in attacks on human rights defenders since Guatemala’s armed conflict ended in 1996. (Photo: Wikipedia)The steps the Guatemalan government is taking to stifle dissent are careful and calculated. Last year the government filed 61 unsubstantiated criminal complaints against human rights defenders, holding some leaders for months on charges ranging from usurpation to terrorism. Most of those targeted were indigenous leaders defending their land from transnational companies that are erecting large-scale mining projects, plantations of sugar cane and palm oil, and hydroelectric dams without the consent of communities.

 
The Struggle Over Sumak Kawsay in Ecuador
Written by Carlos Zorrilla   
Tuesday, 22 April 2014 16:29

"In its most general sense, buen vivir [Sumak Kawsay] denotes, organizes, and constructs a system of knowledge and living based on the communion of humans and nature and on the spatial-temporal harmonious totality of existence. That is, on the necessary interrelation of beings, knowledges, logics, and rationalities of thought, action, existence, and living. This notion is part and parcel of the cosmovision, cosmology, or philosophy of the indigenous peoples of Abya Yala."

 
Peoples’ Encounter in Resistance Against the Extractive Mining Model in Mexico
Written by James Rodríguez, MiMundo.org   
Sunday, 20 April 2014 21:32

The Mexican Network of Mining-Affected Peoples (REMA, for its initials in Spanish) and the Mesoamerican Movement against the Mining Extractive Model (M4) organized a three-day nationwide encounter in the Northern Sierra of Puebla where hundreds of mining-affected community members from numerous states participated in talks and workshops where experiences, strategies for the defense of the territory, and socio-environmental impacts were shared and exchanged.

 
Photo Essay: The Beehive Collective's First Tour in Colombia of the New Graphic Campaign ‘Mesoamérica Resiste’
Written by Polinizaciones   
Thursday, 17 April 2014 10:11

After nine years of research and illustration, the Beehive Design Collective launched their latest graphic campaign, Mesoamérica Resiste, in December of last year. Mesoamérica Resiste is the third installment in a trilogy about globalization in the Americas (following earlier graphics about the FTAA and Plan Colombia). This graphic campaign was directly researched with communities from Mexico, Central America, and Colombia who are impacted by the Mesoamerican Integration and Development Project, a neoliberal regional development plan formerly known as Plan Puebla Panama.

 
Ecuador: ¡Lo Logramos! Despite All Odds, Activists Present Signatures Needed to Save Yasuní
Written by Sofía Jarrín   
Monday, 14 April 2014 10:58

In August 2013, President Rafael Correa announced that the world had "failed us" for not giving Ecuador enough money to save Yasuní-ITT. When the deal went sour social, indigenous, and environmental organizations responded by launching a campaign to gather 600,000 signatures in six months, as stipulated by Ecuador's constitution, to push for a National Referendum and to let Ecuadorians decide the fate of Yasuní-ITT.

 

 
Canadian Corporation Plans Tar Sands Strip Mining in Trinidad and Tobago
Written by Macdonald Stainsby   
Friday, 11 April 2014 12:45

'Mining tar sand will destroy Govt' read the headline in April of 2012. The statement was made to Trinidad and Tobago's Express newspaper by well-known environmental campaigner Dr. Wayne Kublalsingh to the news that Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar had made statements about working with Canada's Harper Government to start development of tar sands for oil in Trinidad's southwest peninsula.

 
Defending the Earth in Argentina: From Direct Action to Autonomy
Written by Marina Sitrin   
Monday, 07 April 2014 13:27

Emilio Spataro, an organizer in Corrientes, has been active in various movements in Argentina since his teen years. He was a part of the popular rebellion in December of 2001 and the subsequent neighborhood assemblies, building occupations and horizontal self organized projects. Since 2009 he has been living in Corrientes, collaborating with territorially based movements.

 

 

"If the world is upside down the way it is now, wouldn't we have to turn it over to get it to stand up straight?" -Eduardo Galeano

En Español
La política de Pachamama: Extracción de recursos naturales contra derechos de los indígenas y el medioambiente en América Latina
 
Venezuela: El “socialismo” petrolero en su laberinto

 
Periodismo y Propaganda

 
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