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Land Rights

Indigenous Peoples Call On Us To Heed Their Call To Save The Amazon

By: Maria Aguiar | January 27, 2009

Nikhil Aziz, Grassroots International's Executive Director is in Brazil this week attending the World Social Forum (WSF), which is happening in Belem in the Amazon region of Brazil. For four days before the WSF our partner, the Landless Workers Movement (MST) did a special site visit to show international visitors including members of media the destruction that has been brought about by the agribusiness expansion in the Amazon region. They traveled through the southern part of Para state and saw the impacts of mining, logging and hydroelectric projects on the Amazon and its people.
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Land Rights

Zapotec Indigenous People in Mexico Demand Transparency from U.S. Scholar

By: Saulo Araujo | January 22, 2009

The Union of Organizations of the Sierra Juarez of Oaxaca (UNOSJO) - a longtime partner of Grassroots International based in Mexico - denounced a recently conducted study in the Zapotec region by U.S. geography scholar Peter Herlihy. Prof. Herlihy failed to mention that he received funding from the Foreign Military Studies Office of the U.S. Armed Forces. The failure to obtain full, free and prior informed consent is a violation of the rights of indigenous communities as codified in the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples adopted by the United Nations in 2007. In addition, UNOSJO fears that this in-depth geographical mapping of indigenous communities may be used in some harmful manner by the military.
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Land Rights

Will the New “Green Economy” be Fueled by Unsustainable Agrofuels?

By: Maria Aguiar | January 16, 2009

In 2006 Grassroots International received a report from the Social Network for Justice and Human Rights (Rede Social), one of our Brazilian partners, about rapid expansion of agrofuels production based on large scale plantation-style cultivation of sugar cane for ethanol. We also heard from them about massive expansion of soy plantations and U.S.
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Land Rights

Solidarity Letter and Call to Stop the War in Gaza

By: Carol Schachet | January 12, 2009

The end of 2008 showed a new wave of violence against humanity with the Israeli war against the Palestinian people in the Gaza strip. The attack by Israeli forces starting on the 27th of December- under the pretext of a war against Hamas - have already killed hundreds of Palestinians and injured thousands of peoples, many of them women and children.

The war in the Gaza strip is destroying houses, schools, hospitals and also Palestinian farmland. Palestinian people in the Gaza strip are currently facing a lack of medicine, water, accommodation and food. Meanwhile, Palestinian farmers are not able to produce their own food. The situation is getting more tragic day by day.
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Land Rights

First day of the new year in Gaza

By: Carol Schachet | January 2, 2009

It's interesting how, at the most terrifying and horrific of times, we still manage to make light of the events, and even enjoy a dark sense of humor. Here are two recent personal examples from Gaza.

My 10-year-old cousin was eating a sandwich, when one of my younger brothers, 12, looked at him and, quoted a line from one of his favorite video games. In his dead-on imitation of the character's voice, he said to his younger cousin, "Enjoy it, it could be your last!" I looked at him for a second and began laughing almost hysterically at his imitation and the absurdity of the situation.
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Land Rights

Grassroots International Condemns the Bombing in Gaza

By: Carol Schachet | December 31, 2008

*Donate to Grassroots International's emergency relief campaign for Gaza.

Grassroots International joins our partners in Palestine and Israel and thousands of peaceful activists worldwide to call for an immediate ceasefire and an end to the siege of Gaza , especially the violent attacks on Palestinian civilians including women and children, and the resumption of negotiations for a lasting and just peace in the region. We call for an immediate end to all attacks on civilians on both sides.
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Land Rights

Sharing a Glimpse of the Life of Civilians in Gaza under Israeli Fire

By: Carol Schachet | December 30, 2008

Long-time Grassroots International ally, the Democracy and Workers' Rights Center has been monitoring the Israeli military operation against the Gaza Strip, which began on December 27, 2008. Based in Ramallah, DWRC has maintained daily contact with its Gazan colleagues and their families, hoping that they will all remain safe and unharmed. Below is their reflection and a call to action.
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Land Rights

Statement by Prof. Richard Falk

By: Carol Schachet | December 30, 2008

The Israeli airstrikes on the Gaza Strip represent severe and massive violations of international humanitarian law as defined in the Geneva Conventions, both in regard to the obligations of an Occupying Power and in the requirements of the laws of war.

Those violations include:
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Land Rights

A Psychological Siege

By: Carol Schachet | December 17, 2008

Israel's siege on Gaza, now in its 19th month, has wreaked havoc on all aspects of life and significant attention has been paid in particular to the economic consequences of border closures and the blockade. However, an overlooked epidemic threatens the social and familial ties that bond the 1.5 million Palestinians in Gaza. Living under a constant state of crisis in which their livelihoods have been denied, the people of Gaza's once exemplary resilience and determination are giving way to an unfathomable sea of depression and psychological illnesses.
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Land Rights

Time for a New “New Deal” on Human Rights

By: Salena Tramel | December 11, 2008

Sixty years after the UN General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, we at Grassroots International recognize that more often than not the reality has failed the vision put forth in that document. Our commitment to defending land, water, and food as the most basic of human rights is reflected throughout the 30-article treaty. Globally, people in all corners of the world currently experience a quadruple crisis that includes food, finance, energy, and the environment. From Latin America to the Middle East, our partners and allies are facing serious threats to their lives and livelihoods. Policies and actions of governments and corporations represent the grave violations of the core principles of the treat
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Land Rights

Take a stand against the unjust prosecution of activists in Mexico

By: Carol Schachet | December 4, 2008

Families in Campeche, Mexico are being pushed to the edge of desperation. Privatization schemes and mega-projects - like the construction of large hydroelectric dams and massive agrofuels plantations - threaten their access to basic food and water resources. Now, simply for opposing the policies that jeopardize their livelihoods, activists face increasing repression and unjust prosecution, often without access to legal resources for their defense. Please lend your voice now to call on Mexican authorities to stop the unjust prosecution and repression of resource rights activists.
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Land Rights

Brazilian Supreme Court Justice Sets Precedent in Ruling on Grassroots Grantee

By: Carol Schachet | September 3, 2008

Recently Grassroots International made a grant to the Indigenous Council of Roraima through Caritas Brasil in support of their struggle to gain legal recognition of the 6,500 square mile Raposa Serra do Sol indigenous territory, in Brazil’s northern Roraima state. In what may set a significant precedent, one of Brazil’s Supreme Court justices ruled in favor of the Indigenous Council.
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Land Rights

Women and the Food Crisis

By: Blair Rapalyea | August 7, 2008

Since I started my internship with Grassroots International in May, I have come to realize the true magnitude of the food crisis. The way that the economic system produces and distributes food is leaving far too many people hungry and jobless. Throughout my research, I studied the effect that the crisis has had on women, and I believe that their role, though historically overlooked, is crucial to finding a sustainable solution. I believe, along with everyone at Grassroots International, that women's economic and land rights are not just rights that they deserve as people, but steps that must be taken in order to bring the world out of the food crisis.
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Land Rights

Abolish the MST, or the Unproductive Latifundos?

By: Frei Betto | July 11, 2008

In late June, Grassroots partner, the Landless Workers Movement (MST) made public a document they got a hold of that showed the intention of the Rio Grande do Sul state Public Ministry to "dissolve" the MST. The document is based on a meeting, on December 3, 2007, during which the state Public Ministry decided: to outlaw any mobilization of landless workers, including marches and walks, to intervene in settlement schools, to criminalize leaders and members, and to "deactivate" all the encampments in Rio Grande do Sul.
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Land Rights

Livelihood Rights: The Right to Exist

By: Saulo Araujo | July 11, 2008

Members of Grassroots International's partner La Via Campesina -- an international network of peasants, indigenous peoples, fishers, pastoralists, women, and youth -- gathered in late June in Jakarta, Indonesia to defend their right to exist, and called for a UN Convention on the Rights of Peasants. (Below, see their final declaration)
Under intense threat from the expansion of agro-fuels in South America and Indonesia, militarization in Colombia and South Korea, and increasing food prices, rural families are voicing a predicament that affects all communities.
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Land Rights

The Hidden Face of the Global Food Crisis

By: Carol Schachet | June 25, 2008

About 1000 small farmers of the International movement Via Campesina, men and women from 25 different countries and 12 Indonesian provinces gathered today in Jakarta to claim the right to farm their land, the right to eat and to feed their families and communities.
They opened a five-day International Conference on Peasant Rights aiming at attracting world attention to the fate of small producers. Peasants represent almost half of the world population and are the backbone of the food system. However, their rights are systematically violated.
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Land Rights

Bill Clinton: Brazilian Landowner

By: Grassroots International | May 6, 2008

A rich, influential citizen of the United States or Europe—say, Bill Clinton or Bill Gates—buys land in Brazil, either as an individual or a partner in a company. They want to invest in agrofuels, and figure that crops can be grown on their new land for fuel (and profit). But as a result, the price of land rises in Brazil; peasants and other low-income workers can no longer afford to buy land. And they have no say in how the land purchased by foreigners is used.
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Land Rights

Gaza from Below

By: Carol Schachet | May 2, 2008

No protected person may be punished for an offence he or she has not personally committed. Collective penalties and likewise all measures of intimidation or of terrorism are prohibited.
- Fourth Geneva Convention, article 33
Nonviolence. Opportunity. Innovation. In the wake of the recent escalating violence and food insecurity in Gaza, our grassroots partners have redoubled their quest for social change and sustainability in one of the most troubled places in the world. We are humbled by their laudable tenacity in the face of massive obstacles.
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Land Rights

One-State or Two-State?

By: Assaf Kfoury | March 24, 2008

This week Palestinians around the world are commemorating Land Day (begun in 1976) to mark their attachment to, and dispossession from land -- the fundamental issue of the Palestinian/Israeli conflict. Former Grassroots International Board chair Assaf Kfoury reflects on the re-emergence of the one versus two states debate.
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Land Rights

Brazilian Peasant Women Embody the Spirit of International Women’s Day

By: Carol Schachet | March 7, 2008

In celebration of International Womens Day on Saturday, we at Grassroots would like to honor 900 peasant women who bravely seized and occupied a vast corporate tree farm in southern Brazil that they believe symbolizes the type of development that is destroying their communities and Mother Earth itself.
It could not have been easy.
The women, members of the Via Campesina, staged thetakeover just before dawn on Tuesday, then proceeded to cut down the corporations trees and plant native trees in their place. At least 50 women were injured by rubber bullets and other material when police forcefully removed them from the 5,200-acre farm. Hundreds of them were reportedly arrested.
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