Indigenous struggles
April 4, 2013 -- This statement in support of the Indigenous protest movement Idle No More is published in the Spring 2013 issue of Union Farmer Quarterly, the official publication of Canada’s National Farmers Union (NFU), an affiliate of La Via Campesina. The text is taken from John Riddell's site.* * *
Our common land, our common ground
With a January 15 media release, we made public our support for the Idle No More movement, saying:
“The NFU is proud to declare its solidarity with Idle No More, which is bringing people together from across Canada to stop the Harper government from riding roughshod over our collective rights. We want a better Canada.”
Click image for the original Spanish edition of the Manifesto of Isla
del Sol. The cover shows Morales arriving at the Island of the Sun in a
replica of the balsa rafts that Andean peoples used for centuries on
Lake Titicaca.
[For more on Evo Morales and Bolivia, click HERE.]
January 15, 2013 -- Climate and Capitalism/Life on the Left, posted at Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal with permission -- On December 21, 2012, at a solstice celebration in Lake Titicaca, high in the Andes, Bolivia's president Evo Morales introduced the Manifesto of Isla del Sol. His talk, translated below, includes the full text of the manifesto.
Trade unionists joined a march in Doha for action on climate change to demand improved human rights for migrant workers. Photograph: Karim Jaafar/AFP/Getty Images.
Statement by the international peasant movement La Via Campesina,
December 7, 2012 – As the climate negotiations come to a close, the industrialised countries insist on inaction for the next decade, finding even more ways to escape their historical responsibility, create more carbon markets including one on agriculture and to keep business as usual of burning the planet.
While governments continue to prioritise the interests of industry and agribusiness, peasant farmers continue producing to feed the world’s people and the planet.
Rafael Correa speaks at a rally in support of his re-election in next year's poll, Quito, November 10.
By Federico Fuentes
November 11, 2012 -- Green Left Weekly -- While European governments continue to impose policies aimed at making working people pay for a crisis they did not cause, the Ecuadorian government of Rafael Correa has taken a different course.
“Those who are earning too much will be giving more to the poorest of this country”, a November 1 Reuters dispatch quoted Correa as saying. He was announcing a new measure to raise taxes on banks to help fund social security payments.
Ecuador’s banking sector has registered US$349 million in after-tax profits, a November 8 El Telegrafo article said. “The time has arrived to redistribute those profits,” said Correa.
Reuters reported that by lifting the tax rate on bank holdings abroad and applying a new tax on financial services, the government hopes to raise between $200 million and $300 million a year.
The proceeds will fund a rise in the “human development bonus payment” from $35 to $50 a month. About 1.2 million Ecuadorians receive the payment, mainly single mothers and the elderly.
Grant Brookes.
By Grant Brookes
November 7, 2012 – Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal – The following talk was presented to a Socialist Alliance public meeting in Melbourne.
Tihei mauriora!
Ko Ranginui kei runga
Ko Papatūanuku kei raro
Ko nga tangata kei waenganui
Ko Grant Brookes ahau
Ko Helen toku mama
Ko Don toku papa
Na Ōtepoti ahau
Na Koterana oku tipuna
Ko nga kaimahi o te ao taku iwi.
When a Maori person rises to talk in formal occasions, they often announce their speech, with tihei mauriora! – translated literally, “sneeze of the life spirit”. It is then customary to recount one's ancestry and tribal connections. So I said, Ranginui the sky father above, Papatūanuku the earth mother below, the people in between. I am Grant Brookes. My mother is Helen, my father is Don. I am originally from Ōtepoti/Dunedin. My ancestors are from Scotland. Being Pakeha, or a New Zealand European, I have no Maori tribal connections, so I say, the workers of the world are my tribe.
Jose Chala Leblanch In Wilcannia, with his local footy jumper. Photo shared by Jose Chala Leblanch.
See also "Los! Hau Bele! -- `Yo! Si Puedo' comes to Timor Leste: Cuba assists the eradication of illiteracy". For more examples of revolutionary Cuba's internationalism, click HERE.
By Fred Fuentes
September 29, 2012 -- Green Left Weekly/Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal -- Sixteen Aboriginal adults in the remote Australian town of Wilcannia, in outback New South Wales, are the first graduates of a groundbreaking trial literacy program that would not have been possible without the help of a tiny Caribbean country — Cuba.