Report: Hundreds killed while defending environment, land rights

Ambriosio Vilhalva, a Guarani warrior and leader recently stabbed to death in Brazil.

Study says activists in more danger as competition for natural resources intensifies, partly due to climate change

by Renee Lewis, Al Jazeera, April 15, 2014

Hundreds of people have been killed while defending the environment and land rights around the world, international monitors said in a report released Tuesday, highlighting what they called a culture of impunity surrounding the deaths.

Defend the Territory PDF

Tactics and Techniques for Countering Police Assaults on Indigenous Communities

A 24 page, 8×11, PDF document.  Download: Defend the Territory PDF Zine 

From the introduction: Communities that are effective in carrying out resistance will inevitably face some form of state repression, most often carried out by police forces. This text is intended as a review of tactics and techniques that have been used in countering police assaults on crowds and communities.

For police, these types of assaults are referred to as “public order” or “crowd control” operations. Communities targeted by such operations may face riot cops as well as armed tactical units, dog teams, armoured vehicles, the use of chemical agents and baton charges.

Brazil: land disputes spread as Indians take on wildcat miners

Munduruku Indian warriors stand guard over an illegal gold miner who was detained by a group of warriors searching out illegal gold mines and miners in their territory near the Caburua river, a tributary of the Tapajos and Amazon rivers in western Para state January 20, 2014.

By Lunae Parracho and Caroline Stauffer, Reuters, Feb 17, 2014

As Brazil struggles to solve land disputes between Indians and farmers on the expanding frontier of its agricultural heartland, more tensions over forest and mineral resources are brewing in the remote Amazon.

Brazil: Munduruku People Kick Miners Off Indigenous Territory, Seize Equipment

Munduruku warriors on their way to evict miners from their territory, Feb 2014.

by Larissa Saud, Terra Magazine
Translated from Portuguese by Thomas Walker / Earth First! Newswire, Feb 3, 2014

Night had hardly arrived when indigenous Munduruku people landed on the bank of a mine on Tropas River, a tributary of Tapajós river, in a region west of Pará.  From the five speedboats, all of them full, came warriors and children, all with one objective: to drive out illegal miners from Munduruku land.

Grassy Narrows First Nation on alert for logging

Grassy Narrows youth blockade logging trucks, 2002.

Longest running First Nations blockade effectively stopped logging since December 2002

By Crystal Greene, CBC News, Feb 03, 2014

The Asubpeeschoseewagong First Nation (Grassy Narrows) is on alert for logging trucks to come in April 2014.

Grassy Narrows is the home of the longest running First Nations blockade in Canada. Its original Slant Lake blockade site, about 100 km north of Kenora, Ontario, started on December 2, 2002.  

Zapatista Communities Celebrate 20 Years of Self-Government

Zapatistas march on Dec 21, 2012, in Chiapas.

by Laura Carlsen, Yes Magazine, Jan 17, 2014

There are two tests of social change movements: endurance and regeneration. After two decades, Mexico’s Zapatista movement can now say it passed both.

Thousands of Zapatistas turned out this month to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the 1994 uprising of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN). At the New Year festivities in the five caracoles, or regional centers of Zapatista autonomous government, veterans and adolescents not yet born at the time of the insurrection danced, flirted, shot off rockets, and celebrated “autonomy”—the ideal of self-government that lies at the heart of the Zapatista experience.

Mexico: First Statement from the Self-Defense Group of Aquila, Michoacán

Self Defence Group of Aguila, in the Michoacan state of Mexico, January 2014.

From the Self-Defense Group of Aquila, Michoacán to the general public:

Aquila, Michoacán, January 18, 2014

Today, the residents of the municipal seat of Aquila, tired of the extortions, rapes, killings, kidnappings and all sorts of criminal acts committed by the Knights Templar; given the complete abandonment of the citizenry by the municipal and state governments who for 12 years did not provide the security needed for our people to have a peaceful and dignified life; we have decided to organize our self-defense group in order to expel organized crime from our town, and we invite the rest of the people of the municipality to rise up against crime, so they never again feel fear or pay protection fees.

Crises in First Nations communities leave legacy of pain, fear

Canadian soldier and warrior face off during 1990 Oka Crisis.

Post-traumatic stress and its effects linger years after conflict

By Martha Troian, CBC News, Jan 20, 2014

Oka, Gustafsen Lake, Burnt Church, Ipperwash and Elsipogtog are just a few of the communities where often violent conflicts have taken place between Indigenous people, law enforcement agencies and government.

Chile: Mapuche burn forestry company helicopter

Happy New Year: Forestry company’s helicopter after arson attack, Dec 31, 2013.

Mapuche Resistance Defies the State of Siege

The Women’s Coordinating Committee for a Free Wallmapu [Toronto], December 31st, 2013

What can only be described as an act of defiance against the State of Siege imposed by the Chilean State was carried out this morning (December 31st), against the Chilean occupation and its Capitalist plunder in the province of Malleco.

Arson Attacks in Wallmapu unleash Government and Police Hysteria

Arson of house in Mapuche territory, Chile, on Dec 27, 2013.

The Women’s Coordinating Committee for a Free Wallmapu [Toronto]December 30, 2013

At least three sabotage attacks against the Chilean occupation have occurred in the last week including the arson of a private get-away cottage in Lleu-Lleu; a corporate management house in Vilcun; and a logging encampment in Lumaco. This has unleashed the hysterical reaction of the Chilean government and the police apparatus in the area, as well as the rage of the corporate elite have begun to criticize their own government for the failure of repressive policies against the Mapuche movement.