indigenous

SERGIO DE CASTRO SANCHEZ
Originally published in Spanish on oaxacalibre.org and in Rojo Y Negro, newspaper of the CGT
Translated by a comrade of Capital Terminus Collective

Protesters from the Achuar Indian communities in the northern Peru forest have won an agreement for an Argentine oil drilling firm to stop dumping toxic waste into the rainforest. The Native Federation of the Corrientes River brought jungle operations of Pluspetrol Norte to a standstill, demanding a clean-up of the harmful waste produced by 30 years of drilling in the area.

Members and supporters of the Asamblea Popular de los Pueblos de Oaxaca (APPO) have been injured by police gunfire in an incident on October 10th outside the Department of Civil Protection. Part of an APPO 'mobile brigade', the group had spent the day painting slogans and peacefully occupying government premises when they were attacked.

Seven hundred Peruvians have occupied oil facilities in the rainforest territories of Loreto, on the border with Ecuador, halting production. After 30 years of drilling, protesters are demanding that steps be taken to stop the Argentinian company Pluspetrol from continuing to dump one million barrels of untreated toxic waste each day.

Scabs, coppers, strikes and footy

The Revolution was the period which saw the Mexican state begin its transformation from an oligarchical-landowners' government to the one-party corporatist model which survived for so long

If women, of all the subordinate groups in a society dominated by rich white males, were closest to home (indeed, in the home), the most interior, then the Indians were the most foreign, the most exterior. Women, because they were so near and so needed, were dealt with more by patronization

The American victory over the British army was made possible by the existence of an already- armed people. Just about every white male had a gun, and could shoot. The Revolutionary leadership distrusted the mobs of poor. But they knew the Revolution had no appeal to slaves and Indians. They would have to woo the armed white population.

Arawak men and women, naked, tawny, and full of wonder, emerged from their villages onto the island's beaches and swam out to get a closer look at the strange big boat. When Columbus and his sailors came ashore, carrying swords, speaking oddly, the Arawaks ran to greet them, brought them food, water, gifts. He later wrote of this in his log:

Mining giant Freeport-McMoran have violently cleared roadblocks thrown up by locals in protest at the company’s exploitation of Papua’s vast mineral resources and treatment of the indigenous population.

INTRODUCTORY NOTE: This article was written for the Italian journal RIFF-RAFF published in Padova, Italy. Revised versions have also been published in STUDIES IN POLITICAL ECONOMY and in CANADIAN DIMENSION. THE CHIAPAS UPRISING AND THE FUTURE OF CLASS STRUGGLE IN THE NEW WORLD ORDER by Harry Cleaver, University of Texas at Austin hmcleave@mundo.eco.utexas.edu

For a long, long time many activists have recognized two things: first, that capitalism operates on a global level and second, that to achieve enough power to overthrow capitalism the working class must find ways to organize its own struggles at the same level.

The Zapatistas And The Electronic Fabric Of Struggle(*)