 |
||||||||||||||||||
|
Translated from Original Spanish
"The world is wide and uninformed." (Ciro Alegria)
In all the Latin America continent with the complicity of the multi-national enterprises, they are looting the lands of the native peoples and expelling the communities, through the political repression and the army. It is the drama in which they live since hundreds of years ago, and it is not only from the conquistadores. The governors, landowners and actual accomplices, on the pretext that they don't have title that may prove their ownership of the lands, occupied through generations, expel them and condemn to an indigence without respecting the sacred lands of the communities where their ancestors rest. This Land sees them be born and see them die, embrace them in their bowels and protect like seed to see them be born again in the new generations. In Argentine, the Native Peoples are becoming aware of their situation and are organizing themselves in the social, cultural and juridical resistance, claiming to the authorities the respect to the National Constitution Art. 75 subsection 17 and of the Convention 169 of the ILO, on Indian and Tribal Peoples. Unfortunately, in this country there does not exist clear policies in defense of the habitat and rights of the Native Peoples, in order to protect the environment and avoid the destruction of the eco-system. It provokes irreparable damages with the floods and with monocultures, mainly of transgenical soybeans and the utilization of agrochemical products, which destroy the biological cycle. To this devastation there are added the mining enterprises for the exploitation of gold in open-pit mines and the removal of millions tons of land and the use of mercury and cyanide, provoking the contamination of the water vein, the environment in general and leaving deserts in many extensions of lands The petroleum enterprises with their policy of indiscriminate exploitation extract the petroleum, but always with damage to the lands and expelling the Indian communities. The provincial governments such as Salta, Formosa, Jujuy, Misiones, and Patagonia provinces, etc., and we could say in all the country, will continue violating the rights of the native peoples to their identity, cultures and values, and conquer them to the merciless loot from their lands. In this country there are citizens of first and second class, but they don't want consider the Indians as citizens and subjects of right. In the Province of Misiones, the government snatches from them the lands for giving to the chain of Hilton hotels, violating the legal rule with total and absolute impunity. In the same way, the governors of Salta expels the Indians for giving the lands to North American foreign enterprises that plant transgenical soybeans. In Patagonia, big landowners have taken possession through the complicity of the governments, of lands belonging to communities of the Mapuche Peoples, who were expelled and do not have any right facing always helpful justice, dependent on political power. At the recent meeting of the Native Peoples in the Convention Center in Posada, Misiones, the brothers and sisters of various villages have indicated strongly and precisely their rights and claimed to the government the fulfillment of its obligations towards its peoples. The officials of the national government, Vice-Minister of Social Development, as the president of INAI (National Institute of Indian Affairs) walked out from the meeting instead of staying there for the debate of ideas and proposals, that which proves the lack of respect and responsibility with the native peoples, provoking the logical protests of the peoples. The actual situation tends to make worse the hunger, the malnutrition and the increase of the infantile mortality in the communities and it makes their situation untenable to live. The actual officials and politicians extort them with packages of food, which are alms, utilized for dividing and confronting with the communities. The Indians are those exiled from their own lands. The Parliament, up to now, comes delaying the sanction of the law that impedes the sale of lands of the communities. It is a duty of the national government and of provincial governments to watch over the respect of the rights of the Native Peoples. The Indian brothers and sisters do not want alms. They claim their rights violated by the State and the landowners. It is necessary to denounce, both on national and international level, those who are responsible for the plundering to which they submit the peoples. There exist lights of expectation; various peoples go uniting themselves and putting in common their necessities in order that the world may not be wide and uninformed. They fight for recovering their rights, their values and identity. For making feasible what they promote the Advices of Oldmen, who transmit to the new generations the memory of their people and the necessity to know that; "If you don't know to where you go, return for knowing from where you come". To resist is to live as free men and women. Buenos Aires, September 6, 2005.
|
|||||||||||||||||
| All Rights Reserved. Contact: office@peaceproposal.com | ||||||||||||||||||
