Below is a letter from the National Union of Autonomous Regional Peasant Organizations (UNORCA) to officials in Mexico. UNORCA members began a hunger strike last week to prevent Monsanto from large-scale planting of genetically modified corn. They have called for international support in their efforts to protect their the biodiversity of this essential seed and staple of their lives.
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Grassroots International supports hands-on solutions to some of the world’s most pressing challenges: hunger, violations of human rights, climate change and environmental degradation, and economic disparity. During the last year, Grassroots International and our global partners and allies – including small farmers, indigenous peoples and human rights activists – achieved some victories in their struggle to secure the human right to land, water and food for all. Below are just some of the highlights.
Local residents from San Dionisio del Mar (Isthmus of Tehuantepec, Oaxaca, Mexico) are protesting the construction of a huge wind farm in their community. Their prolonged and energetic resistance has been met with violent repression and even death threats made against several opposition leaders. To take action in support of the community, click here.
Today, 15 years to the day after the 1997 massacre at Acteal, the Zapatistas filled the streets of five Mexican towns in the state of Chiapas. According to La Jornada, around 6a.m. this morning, a large march of indigenous Zapatistas...
On May 1 of this year, my colleague Saulo Araujo (Program Coordinator for Latin America) and I spent the day with Rafael Alegría, a leader of the Vía Campesina based in Honduras. The video below offers some of his reflections.
Rafael’s message is clear:
They left San Vicente searching for a peaceful place to live, free of the oppressive British colonial powers. Three thousand women, men and children sailing atop the blue waters of the Caribbean Sea were thirsty and hungry. The sun over their heads was abrasive. Many perished before reaching the island of Roatan, Honduras, their new home. Today, many of their Garifuna heirs, an Afro-descendant population in the Caribbean coast of Central America, are still struggling for days of peace, like their ancestors envisioned some 213 years ago.
They left San Vicente searching for a peaceful place to live, free of the oppressive British colonial powers. Three thousand women, men and children sailing atop the blue waters of the Caribbean Sea were thirsty and hungry. The sun over their heads was abrasive. Many perished before reaching the island of Roatan, Honduras, their new home. Today, many of their Garifuna heirs, an Afro-descendant population in the Caribbean coast of Central America, are still struggling for days of peace, like their ancestors envisioned some 213 years ago.
Today [August 9] is the International Day of the World’s Indigenous People. The United Nations pronounced this day to promote and protect the rights of the world’s indigenous population. Today also gives us an opportunity to celebrate and recognize the achievements and contributions that indigenous people have made to improve world issues.
Grassroots International proudly supports indigenous organizations from Mexico to Brazil to Mozambique to Indonesia – groups engaged in ongoing organizing to protect their rights and the rights of Mother Earth.
Women in indigenous communities in Sololá, Guatemala and, for that matter, throughout the Mesoamerica region as whole rely on each other for everything. They work collectively to plant their crops and perform other tasks. They depend on each other to...
The women in Sololá, Guatemala keep a very neat garden. The plumb straight fence protects the garden from chickens and other intruders. The seedlings pop out in straight lines, as the gardeners had used a GPS to plant them. In...
Here comes the mine, again. Or in Spanish, Otra Vez la Mina. In this short video by the same name, the Peasant Unity Committee (CUC) denounces the use of publically funded police forces that are protecting the operations of...
The Latin America Bureau (LAB) interviewed Grassroots’ partner, Rafael Alegría in Honduras. Co-coordinator for the Via Campesina-Central America, Rafael joins hundreds of other peasants in occupying land to call attention to the need for agrarian reform. Below is the interview, which also appeared on the Via Campesina website.
By the Via Campesina
Thousands of Honduran farm workers have launched a co-ordinated land occupation, squatting on some 12,000 hectares nationwide and fuelling new tensions over land rights, authorities said.
After a successful campaign to protect womens land rights, Nicaraguas peasant women achieved another policy milestone. Along with urban-based womens organizations, they lobbied the National Congress to pass a new womens rights legislation. And they won. The legislation, yet to be signed into law, received broad congressional approval 84 votes in favor out, just seven votes shy of unanimous. Grassroots International joins our Nicaraguan partners and allies in celebrating another step forward toward womens rights and dignity. Once signed, the new law will provide stronger legal support in cases of violence against women within both domestic and public spheres, as well as the violence generated by economic injustices.
Despite being denied, again, title to the land on which they have labored, there is no quit in this group of women from El Estribo.
From her humble beginnings, Sayra never imagined the profound impact she would have on the global movement for food sovereignty.
In order to fix the broken food system, we need to de-colonize our minds. What do I mean about "de-colonize"? To understand that, do this short exercise. What comes to your mind, when you hear the word “Agriculture?” Is it a tree, a head of lettuce or vast endless fields somewhere in the US Midwest?
If the first thing came to your mind was a vast field of a single crop (such as endless rows of corn), you are certainly not alone. For decades, both consumers and farmers have been educated to think of agriculture as an industry of monocrops. The end of small, integrated farm plots (i.e. real food) coincided with the advent of industrial agriculture and the launch of the “Green Revolution.”
Amnesty International released a report on indigenous rights this week called “Sacrificing Rights in the Name of Development: Indigenous Peoples Under Threat in the Americas,” which exposes the impact of development projects throughout the continent. In its own words:
The La Parota mega-dam being constructed in Guerrero, Mexico will displace over 5,000 families and have an indirect impact on an additional 15,000 lives. That is unless the Assembly of Environmentally Impacted Communities (ANAA) has a say in the matter.
Along with the Council of Communal Land Owners and Communities Against Construction of La Parota Dam (CECOP) and, another Grassroots grantee, the Mexican Movement of People Affected by Dams (MAPDER), ANAA has advocated that the state and federal government withdraw its plans to build the dam.
