LASNET Latin Fiesta!

Latin American Doco Film Nights – Fourth Cycle

LASNET upcoming events

Campaña ¡No a la Guerra de las Multinacionales!

Via: SINALTRAINAL

Por Soberanía, Democracia, Paz, Bienestar e Integración  Latinoamericana.Colombia atraviesa por una de sus crisis más severas. Los que tienen el poder y nos gobiernan ejercen la explotación, expropiación, represión y opresión más brutal sobre las mayorías a quienes han hundido en el hambre, la desnutrición, la precarización, la pobreza y la indigencia.

Dueños y representantes de multinacionales y de potencias extranjeras, oligarcas, políticos de ultraderecha y militares se asociaron con los paramilitares para crear un régimen de terror y controlar a la población en medio de la corrupción, que ha tocado a todas las esferas del Estado burgués. Casi la mitad del parlamento, un buen número de gobernadores, alcaldes, concejales y diputados que representan a los partidos políticos de ultraderecha –el Conservador, la U, el PIN, Cambio Radical y en menor medida el Liberal- han sido procesados por vínculos comprobados con esos grupos terroristas. Igual sucede con un ingente número de militares, que va desde generales como Rito Alejo del Río, Faruk Yanine y Mario Montoya hasta soldados, pasando por directores del DAS, organismo al servicio del presidente de la república, convertido por la administración Uribe en una agencia del paramilitarismo y de persecución a cuanto contradictor encontraron. Los hechos comprueban, como lo afirmó el jefe de las AUC Salvatore Mancuso, que esta es una política de Estado, impuesta por quienes lo controlan.En nombre de la salvación de la “democracia y la patria”, en los últimos años los narcoparamilitares asesinaron al menos a 300.000 colombianos, de los cuales 4.000 eran dirigentes sindicales, desaparecieron a 50.000, desterraron a 5 millones y amenazaron otros tantos, en una orgía de muerte sin precedentes. Las fuerzas armadas de la oligarquía igualmente no sólo se ligaron profundamente al paramilitarismo, como lo atestiguan los testimonios de los jefes de esas bandas, sino que ejecutaron por mano propia a más de 2.000 colombianos.

El presente régimen ha ampliado la militarización del país hasta convertirnos en el segundo con más gasto militar en el mundo con respecto al PIB, sobrepasa el 6%, el primero en la relación población/efectivos de las fuerzas armadas -1,1%-, y el tercero en ayuda militar de Estados Unidos después de Israel y Turquía. Con esa desproporcionada fuerza, pretende, sin ningún miramiento, perpetuar su guerra contra la población.

Dicha política, denominada por sus voceros “seguridad democrática, cohesión social y confianza inversionista”, arrojó inmensos beneficios a capitalistas extranjeros, oligarcas criollos –reunidos en los más grandes grupos financieros: Empresarial Antioqueño, Sarmiento Angulo, Bolívar, Santodomingo y Ardila Lülle-, narcoparamilitares, políticos corruptos, sus consejeros y familiares, terratenientes y al reducido círculo de contratistas del Estado.

Ejemplo de ello es que los banqueros se ganaron durante el pasado gobierno alrededor de 80 millones de millones de pesos. Las empresas extranjeras sacaron del país más de 6 mil millones de dólares anuales y el pago de deuda nacional sobrepasó los 16 mil millones de dólares anuales. Terratenientes y narcoparamilitares concentraron la tierra a tal punto que hoy el 0,6% de los propietarios posee casi el 70% de ella. Los ricos han centralizado aun más la riqueza en estos últimos años, haciendo de Colombia el segundo país más desigual del mundo.

Los narcoparamilitares legalizaron sus fortunas y se asociaron con dueños de  multinacionales y capitalistas financieros, industriales, comerciantes y terratenientes para compartir el poder, conformando una siniestra alianza que hundió al país en la violencia más extrema. Tan sólo en 2005, año de la ley de impunidad, denominada de justicia y paz, introdujeron al país alrededor de 20 mil millones dólares, los cuales fueron a parar a distintos sectores de la economía nacional, especialmente a la banca y a la bolsa de valores. Desde entonces, en un mundo en crisis económica, sus ríos de dinero no han parado de entrar. Prueba de ello es la fuerte revaluación, la inmensa liquidez y utilidades de los bancos y la gran oferta de dinero de particulares que llega a la bolsa de valores cuando persiste una fuerte recesión global.

Mientras tanto, las empresas multinacionales, gigantescos conglomerados que actúan en todo el planeta, con capitales originarios principalmente de Estados Unidos, Europa y Japón y cuyos dueños son los mismos de los 30 bancos, aseguradoras y fondos de inversión más poderosos del mundo, se tomaron nuestros mercados y fuentes de materias primas agrícolas, minerales y energéticas, controlan la tecnología e infraestructuras y monopolizan las finanzas. Se  transformaron así en dueños de la industria, el comercio y los servicios, acelerando el proceso de transnacionalización, reprimarización y financiarización. Se aliaron con la oligarquía criolla y los narcoparamilitares para “limpiar” los territorios de donde extraen carbón, petróleo, gas natural,  níquel, oro, platino y plata y quitarles la tierra a campesinos, afrodescendientes e indígenas a fin de expandir los cultivos de palma africana, banano y caña de azúcar.

Patrocinaron el plan Colombia, que ha costado a los colombianos cientos de miles víctimas y 10.000 millones de dólares en compra de armamento para “asegurar” las zonas donde penetran dueños de multinacionales, capitalistas y terratenientes a asentar sus explotaciones.

Imponen tratados de libre comercio que sólo favorecen sus intereses. Así profundizarán su control sobre la nación, obtendrán enormes ventajas comerciales fiscales y laborales y garantizarán la toma de nuestra biodiversidad, agua, fuentes de energía y  materias primas. Pretenden que todo asunto interno pase por la imposición de los poderosos Estados imperialistas y dirimir cualquier controversia entre el Estado colombiano y sus conglomerados en la Cámara de Comercio Internacional, la asociación privada más fuerte de cuantas existen en el globo.

Realidad tan cruda obliga a trabajadores, campesinos, pobladores, afrodescendientes, indígenas y a quienes queremos una Colombia mejor a desarrollar una gran campaña de denuncia, movilización y educación para mostrar el verdadero rostro de los dueños de las multinacionales y de los que soportan su política en Colombia. Invitamos, pues, a todos a aunar esfuerzos para coadyuvar a transformar nuestra nación mediante su participación en este tipo de iniciativas.

Ante este difícil contexto, la movilización se hace urgente y necesaria. Avanzar en el desarrollo de las campañas globales ¡Para que Nestlé respete la vida y la soberanía alimentaria¡, “Sodexo Explota”, ¡Porque amo la vida no consumo Coca Cola¡ y Contra la violencia ejercida por Kraft Foods, nos permite abonar el camino de la Colombia que queremos.

Jornada por la Defensa de Nuestra Nación y Nuestros Derechos

Sinaltrainal Presente

International Day of Action Against Multinational Corporations – 23 July

Friday, July 22 · 5:00pm – 7:30pm  Saturday, 23 July, 2pm-5.30pm,

State Library, CBD, Melbourne  GPO, Melbourne

Bring you flags, demands and ideas

All welcome

Corporations around the world act as a law unto their own. We see this play out in our myriad struggles. Many people are continuing the fight against the domination corporations exercise over peoples’ lives, and we ask that you join us on this day to take a public stand against the devastation these amoral corporations are inflicting on us and other oppressed peoples.
…
Multinational Corporations act only to benefit the privileged few at the expense of the majority; to reinforce exploitation of poor people, smash unionism and undermine workers rights, terrorise and murder union activists, displace and assimilating Indigenous communities, and trash our natural resources and environment.

The well-documented crimes of corporations such as BHP, Rio Tinto, Barrick Gold, Coca-Cola, Fonterra, Chiquita Brand, Monsanto, Drummond, Nestle, and BP, amongst others is hardly complete; thus, LASNET continues with the initiative to develop an International Multinational Monitor, and we invite everyone interested to join us in developing this initiative in order to watch and denounce multinational behaviour against people. Particularly those engaged in the oppression and abuse of people around the world, firms such as Motorola involved who have supported the Israeli apartheid regime through providing guided munitions and surveillance technologies used against the Palestinian people; or in Colombia like Chiquita Brands involved in supporting paramilitaries as with the US courts cases against this company and Coca-Cola due to their involvement in the repression against SINALTRAINAL, Colombia’s food industry union.

SINALTRAINAL, as one of the organisations who have created this day, send the following invitation:

“July22: Day of action against transnational corporations

Dear comrades, as in past years, we invite you to join us on July 22. That day was established as the World Day against Coca Cola during the Social Forum in Porto Alegre in 2003.

Since then, July 22 has been a day of activities to show and alert about the power and impact of transnational corporations on the planet. There are many examples and many areas where these policies are manifested, environmental issues, labor rights, human rights, war, terror, destruction, dependency, etc.

At this moment there are thrown 6.5 million liters of crude oil every day into the gulf of Mexico, destroying life in this Caribbean area by BP, who did not take the necessary measures for the exploitation of oil in the deep sea. This same company lays off workers and destroys the environment in Colombia. Other companies such as Shell, BHP Billiton, Fonterra, Drummond, Chiquita Brands, among others, also apply anti ethical and criminal behaviour.

There are campaigns against Coca Cola, OXI, Repsol, and Nestlé; against the latter, because of labor problems, death and persecution of trade unionists in Colombia and its contribution to environmental damage and the destruction of forests in Indonesia where they grow palm oil for their products.

The companies from the chemical-pharmaceutical sector appropriate the wisdom of native peoples to feed their pharmaceutical research and create genetically modified plants to ensure the sale of their medicines and their pesticides. Many countries are now indebted in their effort to buy antiviral drugs against the swine flu, product of the widespread panic released to ensure the profit of European and American laboratories. Auto companies refused to produce cars more compatible to environmental concerns. Banks manage the world and blackmail companies to ensure their profits and keep their power in the world.

These are only some examples showing the role of transnational corporations. This serious situation is not product of an individual company, but it is the functioning, the purpose of capitalism which brings with it destruction, violence and death to maximize profits and control the markets. The economic crisis that currently afflicts us is a clear expression of the voracity of the system, which now seeks to resolve it through greater exploitation of the workers, making them poorer and violently plundering the natural resources.

“Let the rich pay for the crisis” is the slogan of the majority of the current struggles where popular sectors and workers defend their rights.

We invite the social and human rights organizations and all those affected by the policies of the transnational corporations, to adhere to the great International Day to be held in different countries on July 22, as an expression of protest against exploitation, poverty, hunger, war, so that we do not become the ones who pay for the crisis. We invite you to incorporate in your action agendas July 22.

Sindicato Nacional de Trabajadores del Sistema Agroalimentario (SINALTRAINAL) de Colombia”

With this protest we are calling to stop Multinational corporation involvement in violence against people around the world especially in Colombia, Mexico, Palestine, and even in Australia.

We acknowledge, and support, the proliferation of local struggles for workers rights/community power, autonomy and self-management, for freedom from corporate domination and devastation. We should be able to work and create spaces for these different actions, and to make concrete, living social manifestations of community and workers’ self-management.

More Info:

call                   0425 539 149          or                0414 970 410
write to: lasnet@latinlasnet.org
visit: http://observatoriointerna​cionalcpm.wordpress.com/
http://www.latinamericanso​lidaritynetwork.org/
http://www.latinlasnet.org​/

Mexico Solidarity Seminar – 21 July

Mexico Solidarity Seminar

Thursday, 21 July

Latrobe University City Campus

215 Franklin St, City

Melbourne

6:30 doors for a 7pm start

Food and drinks will be available

Entry by donation – with all proceeds going to support human rights and popular organisations in Chiapas and Juarez.

Everyone welcome

The Latin American Solidarity Network (LASNET), in conjunction with the Latin American Solidarity Society at Latrobe University, is proud to present the Mexican Solidarity Forum with activist and academics interested in Mexican people situation. Since 1996, LASNET has been working in solidarity with the Zapatista movement and for peoples’ human rights in Juarez.

Today is time to reinforce our solidarity work with Mexico and we call on all people interested to join us in our effort because justice, dignity, peace and peoples’ rights cannot wait any longer.

Because the only struggle lost is the one that is abandoned.

¡Para todos, todo!,  For all, everything!

Main speakers

Ralph Newmark, Director of The Institute of Latin American Studies( ILAS) at Latrobe University.  He will present an overview and introduction on Mexico situation.

Silvia Rosas, A Mexican Journalist living for the past few years in Australia.

Mexico has been caught in the middle of a spiral of violence since 2006. Roughly 35,000 persons, including numerous reporters, have been killed since then.

According to statistics from the National Human Rights Commission, about 70 journalists have been killed in Mexico during this period, while another 13 remain missing.

In addition, this organization reports 21 attacks on media facilities and says that since 2005 has received 473 general grievance complaints from journalists and human rights defenders.

However, the journalists have declared that the main obstacle to investigating crimes against journalists is state authorities’ lack of collaboration and transparency, as well as reticence from the victims’ families due to distrust of the authorities.

As result, Mexico is considered the most dangerous place in the Americas to be a journalist and the third in the world after Pakistan and Iraq.

Colm McNaughton is a multiple award winning radio documentary producer who focused on unfolding events on the Mexico / US border.

His radio documentary ‘La Frontera’ (available at:http://www.abc.net.au/rn/360/stories/2010/2844252.htm) recently won a silver medal at the New York Radio Festival 2011.

He will speak about the his experiences on the border as well as explaining his understanding of unfolding events in the region.

Rodrigo Rojas, LASNET activist

Will present the solidarity work for Mexican people and follow up discussion on what we can do from Australia to continued helping Mexican people in their struggle for human rights and social justice.

Why is so important to support the people of Mexico Today?

Sociologist and nationally syndicated columnist John Ackerman borrowed a phrase from Argentina’s recuperated factory movement to sum up his proposal for the movement: “Que se vayan todos” (“they all must go”), referring to Mexican politicians.  “We have to demand the immediate ouster of all high-ranking officials who are involved in this criminal war at the federal and state levels,” argues Ackerman.  “Beginning with, of course, [Secretary of Public Security] Genaro García Luna, [Defense Secretary] Guillermo Galván, and Calderón (current President).  These politicians have spent enough time in office, and they’ve demonstrated that they are incapable of assuring social peace.”
When Felipe Calderón declared war on organized crime, some towns racked by violent cartel rivalries initially welcomed the military’s presence.  However, it quickly became apparent that the military brought more chaos and abuses, not law and order. “The military doesn’t solve anything because it commits a lot of abuses,” a farmer from Galeana, Chihuahua, told Proceso reporter Marcela Turati.  ”They beat people, steal vehicles, rob from houses.  Their trucks look like moving companies, they drive around loaded with so much furniture.”

Moreover, nearly every sector of Mexican society has confirmed its participation in the protests: labour, indigenous peoples, students, journalists, intellectuals, opposition politicians, feminists, artists, drug war victims and their family members, former political prisoners, Mormons, sex workers, autonomists, peasants, communists, marijuana legalization advocates, migrants in Mexico, Mexican immigrants living abroad, Catholic church leaders…even the commanders of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN) have ordered Zapatistas to take to the streets to “end Calderón’s war.”

Extract from EZLN April 2011 Communique:

SISTERS AND BROTHERS:
COMPAÑERAS AND COMPAÑEROS:

THE PSYCHOTIC MILITARY CAMPAIGN BY FELIPE CALDERON HINOJOSA, WHO HAS TURNED THE STRUGGLE AGAINST CRIME INTO A TOTALITARIAN ARGUMENT TO DELIBERATELY GENERALIZE FEAR IN THE WHOLE COUNTRY, IS CONFRONTED NOW WITH THE DIGNITY OF THE ORGANIZED VOICES OF RELATIVES OF THE VICTIMS OF THIS WAR.

…WE CALL ON OUR COMPAÑER@S OF THE OTHER CAMPAIGN IN MEXICO AND THE WORLD, INDIVIDUALS, GROUPS, COLLECTIVES, ORGANIZATIONS, MOVEMENTS, AND ORIGINAL PEOPLES ADHERENTS TO THE SIXTH DECLARATION OF THE LACANDON JUNGLE, TO JOIN THE RIGHTEOUS DEMAND OF THIS NATIONAL MARCH TO THE DEGREE OF YOUR POSSIBILITIES AND CONDITIONS, BE IT ACCOMPANYING THE MAIN MARCH, WHICH STARTS IN THE CITY OF CUERNAVACA, MORELOS, ON MAY 5, 2011, IN MEXICO CITY ON MAY 8, 2011, OR BETWEEN MAY 5 AND 8, 2011, IN YOUR LOCATIONS, WITH SILENT MARCHES WITH BANNERS AND POSTERS, DEMONSTRATIONS, CULTURAL ACTS, ETC., WITH THE FOLLOWING SLOGANS:

END CALDERÓN’S WAR!

From the mountains of the Mexican Southeast.
FOR THE CLANDESTINE INDIGENOUS REVOLUTIONARY COMMITTEE – CENTRAL COMMAND OF THE ZAPATISTA ARMY OF NATIONAL LIBERATION(EZLN-Mexico)

Subcomandante Insurgente Marcos.
Mexico, April 2011.

More Info:

call                0425 539 149         or               0414 970 418        

write to: lasnet@latinlasnet.org

visit: http://observatoriointernacionalcpm.wordpress.com

http://www.latinamericansolidaritynetwork.org

http://latinamericansolidarity.wordpress.com

http://latinamericansolidarity.blogspot.com/ 

http://www.latinlasnet.org

Rally for Democracy & Sovereignty in Latin America (Melbourne) / Stop the Coup – 2 years on: Zelaya Returns. National Day of Action (Sydney)

Simultaneous rallies will occur in Melbourne & Sydney on Sunday, 26 June 2011 to mark the 2nd anniversary of the coup in Honduras.

SYDNEY:

Sunday, 26 June 2011 – 12 to 1 pm

Iberoamerican Plaza, next to Central Station (Chalmers St exit);

Program
Speakers:
Santiago Reyes, Honduran exile ex unionist who works with FNRP
Lee Rhiannon Greens Senator Elect
Union and Ambassadors TBC
Artists:
Rima – Soul Beats
Jorge Martínez – Garifuna percussion
Solidarity Choir
Street theatre – El Generalito.
CDs….from Honduran Artists in Resistance – Café Guancasco, Karla Lara, etc…

please invite individuals and organisations in your networks to be part of this.

As part of a network of people and organisations working to grow and link in with global movements struggling for a better world, we call on you to join with us to help build an international solidarity movement. Corporate and governmental powers continue to attempt to normalise the attack by global neoliberal capitalism against our communities, living and working conditions and welfare by the prevalence of privatisation, casualisation of labour and the plunder of natural resources. Military intervention and state repression form part of the arsenal of those advocating a neoliberal agenda. When these policies and practices go unchallenged this is a defeat for humanity.

In Honduras, the illegal coup continues and the current repressive Lobo puppet regime obtained power on 27 January 2011 through an illegitimate, illegal and repressive election. The illegal coup in Honduras took place on 28 June 2009.

Today in Honduras , weekly political killings continue. Just in May 2011, local TV news reporter Hector Medina was murdered by hit men for his courageous journalism work critical of landholders and council corruption. Another journalist Luis Mendoza was also killed. Organised farmers José Lemus and Henry Rony Diaz were assassinated, farmer Francisco Pascual was disappeared and an unidentified farmer’s body was found as well. The regional secretary of the National Farmers Association of Honduras Dennis Lara was also killed, as was Sixto Ramos, Coordinator of Popular Organisations of Aguán. 19 year old musician of the Resistance Juan Angel Sorto was also assassinated.

Through negotiation the deposed president Zelaya returned to physically join in the resistance on 28 May 2011, estimates of the multitudes who arrived to welcome him range from hundreds of thousands to over a million (the population of Honduras is under 8 million). This is a time to maximise struggle, solidarity and demands, a time when there is a lot that could be won, and a lot that could be lost. A time to show that people around the world are looking and monitoring, and not sleeping.

The repression of the Honduran people cannot be left unchallenged. Therefore, we extend an invitation for you to stand with us in solidarity with the Honduran people in their demands for a grassroots democracy and against neoliberalist military rule.

To share ideas, provide support and/or be part of the organising process, please contact 0410584890 or latinamerica.emergency@gmail.com.

Sydney Coalition for Honduras
(Australians for Democratic Honduras, CFMEU, Latin American Social Forum, Search Foundation, Teachers Federation NSW)

Copinh organisation: ´We will not rest until all the coup structures that are in power today are dismantled. They are enjoying national and international impunity, against which we keep rising our struggle because we are a dignified people that is not disposed to give up. We don´t forget, forgive, or reconciliate.´ Copinh

Café Guancasco (popular band of Honduras resistance): ´Here they invent the laws to protect their interests, they take away our land, and sell us their ideas´

For more information:
http://www.sydney-says-no2honduras-coup.net/
http://artactionunion.blogspot.com/
http://therealnews.com/ – for recent videos on Honduras – Zelaya´s return, teachers, farmers, ..
http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=6635

Help us
http://www.sydney-says-no2honduras-coup.net/current-events.php

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=114147835339495

 

MELBOURNE:

 

Rally for Democracy and Sovereignty in Latin America

GPO Melbourne
cnr Bourke & Elizabeth Sts., City

12-3pm, 26/06/11

Bring your banners, messages and flags

-For real democracy; an end to the coup in Honduras as we acknowledge the second anniversary of the coup
-Defending Democratic changes in Peru.
-Stop peoples’ death in Mexico
-Mapuche self-determination and autonomy in Chile
-Freedom for indigenous and non indigenous political prisoners in Latin America now!
-Stop HidroAysén project in Chile: Patagonía Without Dams!
-No to the criminalisation of activists in Colombia
-No to US army bases in Colombia
-Stop US intervention in Latin America
-Justice for Guatemala and the whole of Central America
-Not to Australia-Colombia Free Trade Agreement
-Multinational Corporations out of Latin America

bring your messages and demands

In coordination with:
2nd anniversary of the coup in Honduras Rally to be held in Sydney, same time and day.

“Celebrating return of deposed President Manuel Zelaya to Honduras
Supporting the National Front of People’s Resistance – FNRP”

Organised and supported by:

Melbourne: Honduras Solidarity Coalition

Latin American Solidarity Network (LASNET)

Colombia Demand Justice Campaign Don’t Drink Coca-Cola!

Chilean Popular & Indigenous Solidarity Network

FoE Indigenous Campaign

For further info write to: lasnet@latinlasnet.org

https://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=220339037984209

URGENTE: DEFENSA MAPUCHE DE FRENTE Y REPRESIÓN POLICIAL EN TERRITORIO MAPUCHE DE XAPILHUE Y MAQUEWE

via: http://alianzaterritorialmapuche.blogspot.com/

Exigimos al gobierno y al intendente regional de turno para que abandone este tipo de practicas represivas contra el pueblo mapuche, especialmente contra la gente que ejerce el legítimo derecho a la protesta social frente a la política genocida que mantiene a hermanos nuestros encarcelados, alienta la construcción de un Terminal Aéreo que no nos sirve y subsidia al empresariado regional y forestal bajo falso pretexto de ayudar a nuestras comunidades.
 
Xapilhue , territorio mapuche 9 de mayo 2011.
Las siete comunidades pertenecientes al territorio trapilhue-maquehue (Xapilwe-Makewe), de las comunas de Freire y Padre las Casas, y que históricamente vienen reclamando como propios los latifundios colindantes, entre ellos, el Fundo Maquehue de la estatal Universidad de la Frontera, denunciamos a la opinión pública:
 
En el día de hoy lunes 09 de mayo, a la hora en que aparece el sol, la tierra ancestral fue ensombrecida  por un contingente aproximado de 500 efectivos del Grupo de Operaciones Espaciales (GOPE) de la milicia policial e chile, premunidos del más variado arsenal de guerra (tanquetas, blindados, sub ametralladoras, gases lacrimógenos, entre otros elementos de ataque). De manera sorpresiva hicieron ingreso al camino principal que une a las comunidades con el señalado predio en disputa, para luego avanzar hacia el interior de las comunidades siguiendo los estándares propios y naturales de la famosa y tristemente célebre “represión a la chilena” conocida a nivel mundial y muy valorada por los regímenes “democráticos” de los últimos 20 años en tanto preciada herencia dictatorial.
 
Nuestra gente, al percatarse de esta nueva agresión, -especialmente los jóvenes weychafe- hicieron detener este avance bloqueando los accesos y los  propios caminos vecinales como mecanismo de defensa y protección a nuestros niños y mujeres que habitan el territorio, logrando que las fuerzas paramilitares chilenas retrocedieran hasta el puente del río Quepe. Luego de lo cual, el personal represor arremetió con todo y disparó toda  su variedad de  armamentos en contra de la gente mapuche, persiguiendo a nuestra gente hacia el interior de las comunidades, donde las balas alcanzaron a dos de nuestros jóvenes, quienes en este instante permanecen al interior de nuestras comunidades fuera de riesgo vital y en proceso de evaluación respecto de la evolución de sus lesiones, pero que se niegan a concurrir a un centro asistencial de salud chileno dado el carácter represor y delator que allí se ha presentado en situaciones anteriores similares.
 
Como resultado de su actuar, la policía detuvo en las cercanías del lugar a dos ciudadanas norteamericanas, a las que el Intendente chileno(Miguel Mellado) las presenta como supuestos actores intelectuales detrás de las reivindicaciones mapuche. Resulta burdo, irrisorio y repugnante este tipo de aseveraciones de la autoridad chilena, pero que entendemos dada su discapacidad intelectual e ignorancia supina sobre la historia de esta región mapuche. Es tanto su racismo que no pueden comprender que los mapuche no necesitamos digitadores ni animadores para saber de nuestro valor de weichan de defensa de nuestros derechos y de la tierra que ellos destruyen.  

A su vez, hoy a las 16. 00 hrs, en la tierra de Makewe, a 5 kms al sur de Temuco, el grupo armado chileno  en un número similar al de los hechos de la mañana intentó reprimir una pacífica manifestación mapuche en defensa del territorio invadido por los empresarios extranjeros a la ñuke mapu. Siguiendo el mismo modelo, los chilenos arremetieron en contra de las personas mapuche y en su persecución llegaron al interior de los terrenos donde se encuentran las viviendas mapuche, habitadas por niños, mujeres y ancianos. Nuestra gente intentó defenderse de la agresión y de ello resultó que la arremetida militarizada fue más violenta. Producto del cerco de la banda chilena armada en el sector no tenemos información hasta el momento sobre heridos y detenidos.
 
Exigimos al gobierno y al intendente regional de turno para que abandone este tipo de practicas represivas contra el pueblo mapuche, especialmente contra la gente que ejerce el legítimo derecho a la protesta social frente a la política genocida que mantiene a hermanos nuestros encarcelados, alienta la construcción de un Terminal Aéreo que no nos sirve y subsidia al empresariado regional y forestal bajo falso pretexto de ayudar a nuestras comunidades.Respecto a la invasión llamada aeropuerto de Quepe, señalamos y convocamos a todos a movilizarse de frente contra el invasor en cualquiera de sus formas,  pues no son los actos simbólicos sino las acciones reales las semillas de nuestra permanencia como nación y cultura.

La resistencia de nuestras comunidades, así como de aquellas movilizadas dentro o fuera del llamado de la ATM a nivel general, continuará.

Libertad inmediata a los Presos Políticos Mapuche en Huelga de Hambre
Marrichiwew
 
Territorio mapuche wenteche de xapilwe-makewe, 9 de mayo de 2011

Maria Paz Toro @ Melbourne May Day

Below is the video and an edited text of the speech Maria made at Sunday’s May Day events, Maria will again be talking this Saturday (7 May) at LASNET’s Community Solidarity Seminar on Latin America, clear your diaries!

Saturday, May 7;   11am – 5.30pm

La Trobe University – City Campus

215 Franklin St, Melbourne

May Day speech

1 May 2011, Melbourne, Australia.

Maria Paz Toro

Firstly, I would like to thank the traditional owners of this land, who give me the opportunity to speak today, to the Latin American Solidarity Network (LASNET) who invite me to Australia to share the struggles of our people, to the May Day Committee who organise this beautiful day of struggles and demands for workers’ rights in Australia, and the world and to all of those who consciously are here today.

Right now the most powerful people in the world, the millionaires and billionaires, are working against humanity anywhere you can imagine.   the women and men workers of the world are who are suffering the effects of these powerful capitalists, that without any respect for the dignity of men and women, today more than ever are violating rights and killing people and also violating everything that the earth gives as, exploiting national resources which their rudely extract, standing on the rights of all the people and communities if that is necessary.

Right now is when we should be fighting, just as much for the rights of workers and poor people in general, and urgently for the rights of indigenous people, recognising their existence and their autonomy – both cultural and territorial autonomy.

It is really urgent that we unite and we get organise, so as to not allow them to bringing more policies that fails to respect our rights and take away all our human rights.  We should not accept that multinational companies – big corporations use they political and economic power to enact laws that cause casualisation of the work force, subcontractors and flexibilise of the work force and the destabilisation for work.

Indigenous people, workers and poverty stricken people, we have to get organise to fight against imperialism, because everyday people are being marginalised and displaced, oppressed and moved into poverty.  As is the case of Chile, the Mapuche indigenous communities where the Chilean state rips away the land belonging to the indigenous people, forcing them to leave their lands and to emigrate to other parts of Chile.  That is why we have indigenous resistance, a resistance met with beatings from the police and the judicial system.  They even get to the point to put them in jail and sentencing them, even killing indigenous people right now, these days where supposed to be democratic.  All in order to not allow the Mapuche people to have their own culture and human rights, and they refuse to return their ancestral lands to them.

I like to bring a message to you from the people in Chile who are resisting and fighting in this environment of neoliberal capitalism in which they are trying to rip off all the natural resources and also the rights of indigenous people, I think we need to get together to make people listen to us.  Because in the same way that those who own things and who are the bosses and powerful in the communities get together to exploit us and keep us oppressed and silenced, we the workers, the students and everybody in the society, the one of us that want a more dignified and educated society, we have to get together to be united against this common enemy, the same way we are fighting in Chile – we would like to globalise the struggle and get together to organise resistance in order to sooner or later we can change things.

That is why comrades, men and women, we need to get together because unity is strength, and whenever you are triumphing soon we are triumphing as well, whenever you pushing for you claims, and showing a really organised struggle, the enemy will start to tremble, and little by little we will make change, and we will achieve the social and political rights we deserve.

We must never let them take away the land of aboriginal people, and militarise communities as they did on the Northern Territory in Australia, we should not believe the lies that fascist press putting out, as everybody knows, the main tool used for alienation is the main media and the press, that the rich control and make us believe or think what they want, for instance that Capitalism has a human face.

Don’t believe in that lies, keep a critical analyses of what happen in front of us, don’t wait to see with your very own eyes the poverty and unhappiness before you know if it’s really happening, we have to mobilise, don’t just stay looking at what’s happening and be confused.  In front of the crisis we are facing in the world, we have to become articulated and turned our anger into mobilisation.  We have to mobilise the ideas that we have, and we have to create spaces where people get organised and create people power.

Only the struggle and organisation will make us free!

We call for the unity with aboriginal people, Indigenous people, for those who are poverty stricken and the workers,

Viva el Che, viva Miguel, viva Sandino, viva Allende.

Long live the workers and people who fight for their rights and liberation!

Until victory forever!

Maria Paz Toro

SINTRACARBON – Amenazas, hostigamientos y agresiones contra dirigentes sindicales de Sintracarbón

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