Intercontinental Cry

As you may have heard by now, Canada may be going through a bit of a change next week. The Liberals, New Democrats, and Bloc Quebecois have signed an accord to vote down Canada’s minority Conservatives and form a coalition government led by the Liberal Party. If all goes according to plan, they will hand down [...]

At some point today, several Shoshone men will begin constructing a permanent arbor on the Southern flank of Mt. Tenabo, where they will camp and monitor the Canadian mining company Barrick Gold. The encampment was called on during last week’s protest, where Shoshone Grandmothers and their supporters attempted to confront Barrick Gold and bring an end [...]

The Meade County Commissioners (MCC) are about to hold a hearing for the renewal of liquor licenses at venues surrounding Bear Butte, a sacred place of prayer to over thirty Indigenous Nations across the Plains. The hearing will take place this coming Wednesday, December 3rd at 4:00. Your letters of opposition are urgently needed before Tuesday, [...]

In the month’s Underreported Struggles: Talisman decides to ignore warning from the Achuar to “get out now”; A spontaneous tribal uprising forms in West Bengal; Vedanta Resources gets chased away by more than 500 villagers; an indigenous movement takes shape in Canada; and 17 other stories… November 28 - Western Shoshone protest Barrick Gold on [...]

Eight Mayan Women is a story of continued resistance to the Canadian mining company Goldcorp. For the past three years the company has been extracting gold and silver in the municipality of San Miguel Ixtahuacan, Guatemala. The people of San Miguel have been opposed the operation, primarily out of a concern that it is [...]

November 28: The following article has had a significant update. For details, see the section “Response from Canada Post” A Canada Post employee has apparently refused to allow the distribution of a Health Canada advisory that warns of serious health concerns regarding the “Build All” open pit asphalt plant located near the Mohawk Territory of Tyendinaga. According [...]

The Western Shoshone Defense Project has sent out an update on Barrick Gold’s Cortez Hills Expansion Project and the effort to stop it. The company has indeed begun ‘construction’, ripping out trees at a reported rate of 30 acres per day. On Monday, attorneys for several Western Shoshone tribes and indigenous and environmental organizations filed [...]

Members of the Kainai First Nation in southern Alberta, and especially the Kainai First Nation Elders Association, are tired of having an irresponsible Band Council. They want leadership that can be held accountable for its actions, and who treats the community with respect. Right now the Chief and Council handles them as if they’re low-level employees [...]

The Minga LIVES, may the MINGA LIVE! We call for a Colombia of the people without owners; all the wisdom, all the pain, all the experience, all the words, all our grandmothers and our memories guide us. We are going to live because we are forever tired of the pain, death and greed of those [...]

In Ecuador, more than 10,000 indigenous people mobilized last week to protest a new water law introduced by government of President Rafael Correa, which they say could lead to privatization, pollution and depletion of this most precious resource. The protest took place on November 19, “two days after thousands of campesinos and coastal fishers staged nation [...]

In the following presentation, Claudia Magallanes-Blanco from the University of Western Sydney talks about the role of video activism as a world-wide tool for empowerment and the Chiapas Media Project, a collaborative effort based in Mexico that provides indigenous Zapatistas in Chiapas and peasants in Guerrero with training and equipment to produce their own videos. Since [...]

Mount Tenabo, an area of major cultural and Spiritual importance to the Western Shoshone People, is now facing imminent destruction. Last week the U.S. Department of Interior gave the Canadian mining company Barrick Gold approval to go ahead with its massive cyanide heap leach gold mine known as the Cortez Hills Expansion Project. As Explained in [...]

Quebec’s provincial police and riot squad have arrested five Barriere Lake Algonquins, including Acting Chief Benjamin Nottaway, during a series of roadblocks that were set up yesterday on highway 117. The initial roadblock was set up in the early morning by at least 70 Algonquins and 30 non-native supporters, with the hope of maintaining it [...]

What we are witnessing in the tribal belt of West Bengal is [an] historical moment. A long oppressed people have risen up and are daring to confront their oppressors and question the logic of “development” that destroys their lives and livelihoods.” In what started out as a protest against police brutality, on November 7 more [...]

The Assembly of Treaty Chiefs, which represents Chiefs from Treaty 6, Treaty 7 and Treaty 8 territories in Canada, have issued a unanimous resolution of support for the Lubicon Lake Cree Nation in their ongoing land rights struggle with TransCanada, the Alberta Utilities Commission, and the Provincial and Federal governments. “Notably, Treaty 8 covers the lands [...]

A Mapuche community organization in the Patagonia region of Argentina, has rejected a decision by the government to grant the state-owned company YPF-Pluspetrol rights to the Nirihuau hydrocarbon basin. The community, which gathers under the name Inkaial Wal Mapu Mew (We must defend the territory) “…issued a communique to reject the measure because it undermines their [...]

“All That Glitters Isn’t Gold - A Story of Exploitation and Resistance” is an hour-long documentary about the San Martin open-pit gold mine in the Siria Valley of Honduras, and the efforts of local indigenous communities to shut it down. Operating since 1998, the San Martin Mine has been a disastrous burden for the local population. [...]

Last week, a group of more than 500 villagers set up roadblocks in Orissa’s Puri district to protest the construction of “Dev Sanskrati Vishwavidyalaya” (Divine Culture University) a project funded by the rather-unenlightened company we know as Vedanta Resources. The villagers are angry that the institution, which will apparently establish “a Cultural Renaissance” in India, [...]

Organizers, leaders, and spokespeople from Indigenous communities involved in land struggles with the Canadian and Provincial Governments have assembled in Winnipeg for the Defenders of the Land Gathering, to share strategies and ideas for how to best achieve land rights and self-determination. The gathering runs from November 12-14th, 2008, and will feature presentations by members from [...]

On November 10th, the Association of Indigenous Couincils of Northern Cauca (ACIN) released an open letter to US President-Elect Barack Obama, hoping to shed more light on their struggle and foster a relationship that will ensure “Life… can never again be transformed into means for private accumulation of power at the service of greed.” With Obama’s [...]