by Bill Weinberg, The Progressive

The Newmont Mining Corporation, based in Colorado, has embroiled itself in a controversial project in northern Peru that locals say threatens their water and their future. Peasants and workers in the region have engaged in mass demonstrations and general strikes, and the president of Peru has responded by declaring a state of emergency. At stake is the economic model of aggressive resource extraction lubricated by the new free trade agreement with Washington.

Opposing the “Drug War” on Both Sides of the Border
 
by David L. Wilson, New York Indymedia
 
The well-known Mexican poet and author Javier Sicilia stood on the steps of New York’s Federal Hall a few feet from George Washington’s statue on a hot, humid Friday afternoon and pointed across Wall Street to the Stock Exchange. “That building,” he called out in Spanish, “is a symbol of the finance capital that launders money.”
 
Surprised tourists, office workers returning from lunch, and a contingent of police on motor scooters watched from the street below. “That building,” Sicilia went on, in the low-key style of someone more accustomed to poetry readings than to political speeches, “is a symbol of the finance capital that profits off narco-trafficking.”

First International People’s Health Tribunal Held in Guatemala

by Beth Geglia and Cyril Mychalejko, Toward Freedom

“A few years ago, our people, the people you can see around you, we began to realize what was happening,” Maudilia López told the hundreds gathered to attend the first ever People’s Health Tribunal in San Miguel Ixtahuacán, Guatemala. The event was packed, even as some attendees spilled out of the entrance of the crowded room, others shuffled to find a spot.

The International Peoples’ Health Tribunal (IPHT) took place on the second floor of the parish hall of San Miguel Ixtahuacán, a municipality in Guatemala’s western Highlands of roughly 60,000 people, a majority of whom are Maya-Mam. San Miguel Ixtahuacán is the main site of the Marlin mine, an open-pit gold mine that is one of the most important projects of Canadian mining giant Goldcorp Inc.

An Interview with Davíd Benigno Crispin Espinoza of the National Council of Ayllus and Markas of Qullasuyu (CONAMAQ)

by Bill Weinberg, Indian Country Today
 
With a second cross-country protest march by indigenous rainforest dwellers and their allies now advancing on La Paz, it is clear that Bolivia’s indigenous peoples are divided in their positions on President Evo Morales, a populist and declared socialist of pure Aymara descent. The first march called to protest the controversial new highway slated to cut through the Isiboro Sécure National Park Indigenous Territory (TIPNIS) in October saw police repression and counter-protests by supporters of the road project. Then, in January, pro-highway marchers—also mostly indigenous—held their own, smaller, march on La Paz. The government claimed this march as a mandate for the highway, and passed a law establishing norms for “prior consultation” with indigenous peoples in the project. The new march against the road is a clear rejection of this law.