Monday, December 23, 2013

Declaration of IV Continental Indigenous Summit Abya Yala

IV Continental Indigenous Summit Abya Yala
Puno, Peru May 28-31, 2009
The Mama Quta Titijaja Declaration
October 12-16, 2009 Global Mobilization in Defense of Mother Earth and Her Peoples!
Gathered at the Main Paqarina of the Mama Qota Titijaja Lake, Lake of the Grey Stone Puma, 6500 delegates from organizations representing the Indigenous Peoples from the 22 countries of Abya Yala along with our relatives of peoples of Africa, United States, Canada, the Polar Circle and other parts of the world, with the participation of 500 observers from various social movements, we resolve:
To proclaim that we are witness to a deep crisis of Western capitalist civilization that superimposes upon itself to encompass the environmental, energy and cultural dimensions, the policies of social exclusion and even famines, and that as an expression of the failure of Euro-centrism and a colonialist definition of modernity that was born from ethnocide is now carrying the whole of humanity to slaughter.
To offer an alternative of life to the civilization of death, regenerating our roots as Peoples of the Earth in order to project ourselves to our future, guided by our principles and practices of equilibrium between men and women, Mother Earth and spirituality, cultures and peoples, all of which we call Good Living / Living Well. We are a diversity of thousands of civilizations with over 40 thousand years of history, which were invaded and colonized by those who, just five centuries later, are leading us now to a planetary suicide. We are called to defend our food sovereignty by giving priority to native crops, domestic consumption and communitarian economies. Our mandate is to empower our organizations so that they can improve our strategies for Living Well, and to exercise these strategies through our community governments.
We shall build Communitarian and Pluri-National States based on the principles of Self-governance and the Self-determination of all Peoples and the reconstitution of the original nations and their territories. Such states must implement legislative, judicial and electoral systems and public intercultural policies which empower the political representation of the Indigenous Peoples without intervention from political parties. We must continue to fight for new Constitutions in all those countries that still do not recognize the plural nationality of states. The Pluri-National States shall be not only for Indigenous peoples but also for all excluded peoples. With Everything for Everyone, we make an open call to all social movements and social leaders for an intercultural dialogue, conducted with respect and horizontally structured, in order to overcome verticality and invisibility.
We shall reconstitute our ancestral territories as a source of our identity, our spirituality, history and our future. We the Indigenous Peoples and our territories are a single complementary entity. We reject all forms of land division, privatization, concession, predation and pollution from extractive industries. We demand the Free, Prior and Informed Consent, in public and in our own languages, conducted in good faith, and through representative organizations of our peoples, not only regarding specific projects but also development policy and plans. We demand the decriminalization of the coca leaf.
We ratify the organization of the Minga (traditional indigenous collective communal organization) of the Global Mobilization in Defense of Mother Earth and Her Peoples against the commercialization of life (including land, forests, water, seas, agro-fuels, external debt) and environmental pollution (extractive transnational, international financial institutions, GMOs, pesticides, toxic consumption), as well as the criminalization of the Indigenous and social movements - which will to be implemented from October 12 to 16, 2009.
We shall construct a Climate Justice Tribunal to place on trial the transnational corporations and the complicit governments that are predators of Mother Nature, plundering our natural resources and violating our rights, as the first step towards an International Court of Environmental Crimes.
We shall organize an Alternative Summit in Defense of the Mother Earth during the Convention on Climate Change in Copenhagen of December 2009, in order to push for effective actions to address the reality of climate disaster, such as the linking of Indigenous territorial rights with the Good Living model and the principle of Free, Prior and Informed Consent as necessary strategies to save the planet.
We shall confront the criminalization of the practice of our indigenous rights, militarization, imposition of foreign military bases, forced displacement and genocide among our peoples, through social alliances that must generate broad mobilization for the amnesty of all our leaders and authorities on trial and imprisoned, especially for the fighters for freedom and for life who are in prisons of the United States (Leonard Peltier) and around the world. We affirm our support and shall expand on the demands presented before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (Western Shoshone). We support the call promote the international trial of the governments of Colombia, Peru and Chile.
We demand an immediate International Tribunal to try of the government of Alvaro Uribe Velez, for committing genocide against Colombian Indigenous peoples; the Chilean State for enforcing an antiterrorism law resulting in the persecution and prosecution of the Mapuche peoples just demands and for crimes against Mapuche leaders and the militarization of the Wallmapu territory. We call for Trial of Alan Garcia for the legislative auto-coup that included 102 pro-FTA legislative decrees, which privatize Indigenous territories resulting in the prosecution and persecuting over a thousand innocent community leaders
We determine to implement our rights, demanding that all member states of the UN to legislate the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples with the status of national law, following the leadership from Bolivia, Australia, Mexico, Venezuela, among other countries. Such implementation policies must include as well the Right of Communication of the Indigenous Peoples. If President Barack Obama truly wants to make changes to avert the disaster of imperialism, he should start at home - and pass into law the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in the United States.
We resolve to mobilize our organizations in defense of the struggle of the Amazon Indigenous Peoples in Peru against the externally imposed rules that privatize their collective territories and natural resources. Their struggle is our struggle. We call to organize strikes during the first week of June 2009 in front of every Embassy of Peru in each of our countries, demanding peaceful resolution and not repression for our brothers and sisters. In that regards the Indigenous and Campesino (farm worker) organizations of Peru agree to hold an immediate National Uprising of the Peoples of Peru in June 2009 demanding the repeal of the anti Indigenous decrees resulting from the U.S.-Peru Free Trade Agreement.
We reject the Free Trade Agreements with United States, Europe, Canada, China and other countries which have destroyed our economies, as new instruments of subjugation of our Peoples and plunder of Mother Earth. We reject the tactics of the European Union along with the dictators of Peru and Colombia that would destroy the Andean Community in order to impose their Free Trade Agreement.
We resolve to mobilize our organizations and the social movements of our countries in defense of the liberation process initiated in Bolivia, and reject any coup, separatist movement, racist acts and assassination attempts from the local Euro-American oligarchy supported by the U.S. empire. We reject as illegitimate the political asylum granted by the Peruvian government to Bolivian accomplices of genocide. With this in mind, we now agree to hold the V Summit of Indigenous Peoples of the Abya Yala in 2011, in the Qollasuyu region of Bolivia.
We commit to strengthen our own bilingual and intercultural education systems and Indigenous health care models, to advance in the decolonization of cognition, in particular to stop the practice of biopiracy by defending the special status of our intellectual heritage as Indigenous Peoples within a collective and transgenerational natural framework.
We support of the struggle of the peoples of the world against imperial powers, including calling for the end of the embargo against Cuba, the de-occupation of Palestinian territories by Israel, and on behalf of the collective rights of the Masai, Mohawk, Shoshone, Same, Kurdish, Catalan and Basque peoples among others.
We determine to construct paradigms of alternative living to address the crises facing Western civilization and its schema of colonial modernity, initiating a Forum on the Crisis of Western Civilization, Decolonization, Good Living among others topics, to be held in Cusco, Peru on March 26 to 28, 2010.
We shall globalize our struggles through the organization of the First Summit of Indigenous Communications in 2011, in Cauca, Colombia; the First Indigenous Summit on Water; the Summit of Indigenous Communicators, and the II Continental Summit of Indigenous Women by 2011, within the trajectory of the V Summit of Indigenous Peoples.
We shall constitute a Coordinating Body of the Indigenous Peoples and Nationalities of the Abya Yala, in order to continue the process of conformation from the bottom up, creating organizing committees of Indigenous women, adolescents, children, youth and communicators, with particular focus on the regional integration of Abya Yala North [North America]. This Coordinating Body of Abya Yala shall monitor the Organization of American States (OAS) and the United Nations, in order to overcome their domination by imperial powers, and to realize the formation of the United Nations of the Abya Yala and the World.
The Land does not belong to us, we belong to the Land!
The Condor and the Eagle fly together again!
Mama Quta Titijaja, May 31, 2009

Wednesday, October 16, 2013

Why we need a Canada-Quebec-Indigenous Social Forum


Forum in Ottawa on August 2014 !


Anger and discontent against the ruling Conservative government is on the rise
all across Canada. Human rights groups, women's organizations, cultural
associations, environment groups, labour, indigenous peoples, students, generally
civil society organizations feel threatened and angered by the government's
policies and actions. Protests for social and environmental justice are erupting all
over the country. Casseroles have been organized on the streets of many cities in
support of the student movement in Quebec. The youth across Canada are joining
hands with those from Quebec in challenging neo-liberal austerity policies. Mass
mobilizations were held against Bill 115 restraining the ability of teachers to
negotiate and strike in Ontario. Indigenous communities are also fighting
against the government to preserve their culture and defend their lands from
predatory mining and oil corporations.
Yet our movements continue to be fragmented and ghettoized. We must work
together and create a space for all these voices of dissent and strategize together
our progressive agenda to help build links and solidarity across movements and
issues.
A grassroots approach to building the Peoples Social Forum
The grassroots horizontal approach was taken while organizing a Social Forum
across Canada as a means of stimulating debate, discussion and furthering our
sense of community and collective action. The process of the social forum seeks
to reach out to a plurality of social movements, groups and progressive
institutions across Canada, Québec and Indigenous communities. The short term
goal being to build on existing struggles by forging a united and cohesive front
against the Conservative agenda of austerity and privatization but long-term to
help transform the current political, economic and social paradigm, by
employing creative resistance while proposing alternatives solutions.
The second General Assembly of the Peoples Social Forum held in Edmonton on
July 2nd and 3rd of this year ended with several important advances, in particular
the decision to hold the first Canada-wide Social Forum in Ottawa at the end of
August 2014. The Assembly unanimously agreed with the motion presented
jointly by the Ontario Federation of Labour and the Ontario Common Front, a
wide coalition of over a hundred unions and community groups.

The Edmonton assembly also saw the birth of a Labour Caucus which includes
Canadian and Quebec union activists. This confirms the widespread interest
among organized labour for the Social Forum and demonstrates the unity
potential of this process: the historical construction of an extra parliamentary
alliance between activists from Canada, Quebec and Native communities in order
to counter the neoliberal austerity programs promoted by governments and
corporations.
At present, the Forum General Assembly includes five caucuses (Labour,
Indigenous Peoples, People of Colour, Women, Quebec) as well as several
Regional Commissions (Montreal / Quebec, Ottawa, Toronto, Vancouver). A few
more are in the works, particularly in the Maritimes and the Prairies.
An Assembly of Social Movements to fight the right
The Edmonton meeting also reaffirmed the Forum's open and inclusive model of
organization whereby caucuses and regional commissions must be represented at
all levels of the structure, from the General Assembly down to the Working
Committees. These committees, as well as the Secretariat that will take charge of
logistics and day-to-day activities, will be set-up during the fall. Other caucuses
and/or commissions may be added as the need arises.
The next phase will also deal with the program. In keeping with the participatory
nature of the Forum, groups will be urged to propose self-organized activities
along the ten to fifteen overarching themes retained for PSF. At a later stage, a
system of convergence assemblies will be proposed in order to promote
collaboration between groups wishing to work on common issues. The Forum
will close with a central convergence meeting called the Assembly of Social
Movements where common statements and actions could be adopted.

These are the organizations that have joined the discussions

Alternatives; Canadian Autoworkers Union (CAW); Canadian Community
Economic Development Network; Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW);
Centrale des syndicats du Québec (CSQ); Centre d’écologie urbaine de Montréal;
Chantier de l’économie sociale; Coalition Against Israeli Apartheid (CAIA),
Toronto; Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union (CEP); Common
Frontiers; Confédération des syndicats nationaux (CSN); Conseil Central
Montréal métropolitain (CCMM-CSN); Conseil québécois des gais et lesbiennes;
Council of Canadians; Fédération des femmes du Québec; Fédération des
travailleurs et travailleuses du Québec (FTQ); Fédération interprofessionnelle de
la santé du Québec (FIQ); Fédération nationale des enseignants et enseignantes
du Québec (FNEEQ-CSN); Front d’action populaire en réaménagement urbain;
Indigenous Environmental Network; Indigenous Peoples Solidarity Movement;
Institut du nouveau monde; Latin American and Caribbean Solidarity Network;
Latin American Trade Unions Coalition; Montreal Labour Council (FTQ);
Ontario Federation of Labour (OFL); Occupy Toronto; Public Service Alliance of
Canada (PSAC); Quebec Native Women; Toronto Bolivia Solidarity; Toronto Stop
the Cuts;

www.peoplessocialforum.wordpress.com