Q’orianka Kilcher is half Peruvian Indian on her father’s side, of Quechua/Huachipaeri descent.  Kilcher talks about the Peruvian Indian protests and how she’s helping them.

from the LA Times:

Late last week, Q’orianka and her mother flew to Peru, which in recent days has been the scene of violent clashes between police and Amazon indigenous groups, who are protesting the turning over of tribal lands to oil drilling, logging and mining. The clashes have left more than 30 people dead and brought severe criticism of President Alan García, who is pushing to open the Amazon for commercial development, over his government’s handling of the affair. Under domestic and international pressure, last week Peru’s Congress suspended the pro-development decrees that sparked the protests, but the situation is far from resolved.

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http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/photo_galleries/article6487646.ece

morningyerba:

“The Jungle Is Not For Sale”

Iranians aren’t the only ones protesting these days.

Ever since last year, Peru’s Amazonian indigenous peoples have been resisting President Alan Garcia’s plan to grant corporate access to their traditional lands for greater development of oil, gas, logging and biofuel crops. click onto the link to see their photos.

Read more about this issue here in the Guardian

“…These native lands are the entitled properties of the Amazon people, and to sell them off without even consulting us is a violation of our ancestral rights. This is why we rioted on August 9. Well, how would you feel if all of a sudden some authority came to tell you that you had to get out of your house because a rich company wanted to settle there, and you had to find yourself another place to live?…”

-Saul Puerta Peña, of the Peruvian indigenous association AIDESEP

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via www.villageearth.org

Protests have ended today after more than a week of armed blockades on roads and energy installations. More than 60 ethnic groups have come together in solidarity leaving behind their political divisions and organizational alliances to form a unified front against the state and the allied oil companies. The President of ODDPIAP (Organization for the Defense and Development of the Indigenous Peoples of the Peruvian Amazon) has said this is a fight for everything.

“We are tired of being silent against the abuses of the government such as recent legislation passed which makes it easier for foreign companies to buy up indigenous lands in the Amazon. And over 70% of Amazon lands are now in the hands of oil companies. Over 1500 police have been deployed to Camisea, Bagua, and Marañon. Government helicopters have been circling locations taken over by indigenous protesters. The government had declared a state of emergency and had given permission for police to shoot protesters on the spot, but we indigenous peoples think this cause is worth dying for and are not scared anymore.”

Roads and rivers have been blockaded, oil pipelines were closed, oil operations have been occupied, and major industry was blocked from river travel between, in and around Iquitos and Pucallpa, the two major urban centers of the Peruvian Amazon.

What the indigenous front is asking for is direct dialogue with Alan Garcia, President of Peru, and his administration and the repeal of a number of destructive laws. The President claims that bringing industry and foreign investment into the furthermost reaches of the Amazon will bring people out of poverty. This is a clash between two different development paradigms. Many indigenous peoples have already determined their own development path and it does not include the wide-scale exploitation of resources and the industrial take over of their lands.

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Several hundred tribespeople today staged a protest against FTSE-100 company Vedanta, as it bids massively to expand its controversial aluminium refinery in Lanjigarh, Orissa.

The refinery occupies land belonging to the Majhi Kondh tribe, and lies at the foot of the Niyamgiri hills, home of the isolated Dongria Kondhs. Both tribes took part in the protests.

The refinery has already been condemned by government officials for regularly breaching safety standards, and emitting ‘alarming’ pollution. Over a hundred families lost their homes to their refinery. Many more lost their farm land and with it their food-security and self sufficiency.

via (Survival International | Tribes stage mass protests against British mining company Vedanta)

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http://www.reznetnews.org/article/nebraska-beer-sales-natives-protested-30860

deltafoxtrot:

About two dozen protesters gathered at the state Capitol to protest beer sales to American Indians in the northwest Nebraska village of Whiteclay.

There are four beer stores in the town, which is within walking distance of the reservation. They sell about 11,000 cans of beer a day, mostly to residents of the reservation, where alcohol is not allowed.

The gathering and Indian prayer ceremony at the Capitol preceded a screening of a recently released documentary, “The Battle for Whiteclay.”

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lalilster:

(courtesy of NACCS-Chicana listserve)

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Tribe vows to fight mine with axes and arrows | Intercontinental Cry

“One of India’s most isolated tribes, the Dongria Kondh, is preparing to stop British FTSE 100 company Vedanta from mining aluminium ore on their sacred mountain, after police and hired thugs forced protesters to dismantle a barricade over the weekend,” reports Survival International.

“About 150 people had blocked the road in Orissa state on Wednesday [October 8] after hearing that Vedanta intended to start survey work for a planned aluminium mine which would destroy an ecologically vital hill, and the Dongria Kondh’s most sacred site. Vedanta employees visited the blockade repeatedly, threatening the protestors. On Friday the villagers gave in and took down the barricade, but about 100 are still at the side of the road, blocking traffic when Vedanta vehicles approach,” Survival continues.

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http://www.indiancountry.com/content.cfm?id=1096417695

Volunteers staged another blockade aimed at keeping beer out of the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, where alcoholism is rampant. This time, tribal police cooperated.

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http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/World-News/Native-Americans-Descend-On-Washington-DC-After-Five-Month-Walk/Article/200807215031407?lpos=World%2BNews_0&lid=ARTICLE_15031407_Native%2BAmericans%2BDescend%2BOn%2BWashington%2BDC%2BAfter%2BFive%2BMonth%2BWalk

Along the way they have picked up 3,800 bags of trash and gathered a list of American-Indian worries - everything from concern about burial grounds under threat in Kentucky to fears about the future of the Arizona Mountains threatened by ski resort development.

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