Following the success of the first two Mingas (Global Mobilizations in Defense of Mother Earth and the Peoples), American indigenous and social movements and their allies around the world have called a third mobilization for October 12, 2010.
“We the peoples and our territories are one entity,” the 2009 declaration read. “[We resolve] to reject all forms of land division, privatization, concession, predation and pollution from extractive industries.”
Global climate activists have joined the call, declaring that day a Global Day of Climate Justice.
As we did last year, Root Force is supporting the Minga and encouraging people throughout the Americas and across the world to take actions targeting the infrastructure of global trade. Infrastructure expansion projects such as highways, mines, power plants, pipelines and telecommunications cables form the front lines of the assault on indigenous peoples and the Earth. They are the backbone of the system that is killing our planet and enslaving its people.
For more information about the call to action and why we think infrastructure projects are appropriate targets, see below.
For help planning and publicizing actions, contact Root Force: rootforce [at] riseup [dot] net. You can find direct action, strategy and messaging resources here.
Send action reports to rootforce [at] riseup [dot] net. If you can’t pull together a direct action, consider holding events that promote anti-infrastructure organizing and action.
About the Minga
From the declaration:
WE CONVENE the Third Minga/ Global Mobilization in Defense of Mother Earth and the Peoples, against the commercialization of life (food, water, biodiversity, natural resources), pollution and depredation (by mining, fossil fuels, hydroelectricity, timber, ranching, biofuels, GMOs), consumerism and the criminalization of social movements; and for the recognition of ecological debt and the formation of an International Tribunal of Climate Justice.
On October 12, in every corner of the planet, those of us who want to save life will lift our voices against the capitalist aggression expressed in the plunder and commercialization of life. Because we know that other worlds are not only urgently needed, they are, above all, possible. And we are building them.
Objectives:
• The continuation of life, peace, ecodefense, natural resources, and spirituality linked to life and Mother Nature; water for future generations; and collective rights.
• To sensitize society to the necessity of coexistence with nature, in harmony and equilibrium. No to the privatization of nature with carbon trading.
• To sound the alarm over the imminent danger of the environmental catastrophe that threatens the planet and to call out those responsible: global capitalism, multinational businesses and complicity states.
• To demonstrate that it is possible to implement this change from the proposal and practices of the people, in harmony and reciprocity with Mother Nature, with Good Living, Plurinational States, and a model of integration based on equality, reciprocity and complementarity.
• To denounce neoliberal capitalism and the complicit governments that criminalize social protest to impose the plunder and depredation of Mother Nature.
• To urge amnesty for all leaders of indigenous, social, and environmental activists prosecuted for defending the rights of the people and of Mother Nature.
• To open the debate over the crisis of capitalist civilization, with the proposal of the indigenous peoples for averting climate catastrophe.
• No to the persecution of migrants: no one is a migrant on their continent of Abya Yala [America]; if some went in another direction, they went following the natural resources that had been stolen.Activities worldwide:
• Manifest the greatest diversity of indigenous organizations and social movements, presenting alternatives to stop global climate and environmental catastrophe.
• Memorial with concrete proposals to the Convention on Climate Change, Convention on Biological Diversity, UN, Interamerican Human Rights Commission and similar organizations on other continents.
• Mobilizations around the world (in urban and rural communities) for specific local and national demands and for common goals of the Global Minga.
• Demonstrations in front of local offices of the UN, transnational extractive industries (fossil fuels, mining, timber, water), biofuels and GMOs.
• Discussion forums and cultural and political seminars on the defense of Mother Earth and the people against the commercialization of life and against pollution and social criminalization.
• The implementation of Climate Justice Courts to ethically judge environmental crimes.
• Assemblies to articulate strategies for the World Climate Change Conference, COP 16 (Cancun, Mexico, November-December 2010).
Read the full declaration (in Spanish) here. Read about last year’s Minga here:
Take Action Oct 12-16: Global Mobilization in Defense of Mother Earth and the Peoples (Aug 19th, 2009)
UPDATED: Week of Action Continues (Oct 12th, 2009)
More from the Week of Action (Oct 15th, 2009)
A Few More Actions (Oct 19th, 2009)
Why Infrastructure?
There are three primary reasons to target infrastructure as a way to defend the Earth and support indigenous sovereignty.
1. Infrastructure projects devastate ecologies and communities, whether it’s the massive fish kills caused by dams and oil spills, the stripped land and poisoned air left by highways and mines, or the dislocation of poor, rural and indigenous peoples caused every time a new dam, road, mine or power plant moves in.
2. Infrastructure projects facilitate further exploitation above and beyond their immediate effects: a road brings loggers and missionaries; a power plant brings industry and sprawl.
3. Infrastructure forms the physical basis of the global economic system — a system that is killing our planet and cannot function without the continued dispossession of indigenous land and destruction of Earth-based cultures.
This civilization will not change its genocidal and ecocidal trajectory willingly, and the Earth cannot be saved by half-measures. The system must come down, and its reliance on infrastructure — especially the infrastructure of trade — is one of its greatest weaknesses.
Learn More
The Root Force Strategy (taking down the system by fighting infrastructure expansion)
Infrastructure and indigenous sovereignty
Infrastructure and the environment
Infrastructure and global warming
More infrastructure fact sheets
Take Action!
Join people around the world on October 12-16 to say NO to the commercialization of life and the criminalization of indigenous and social movements, and YES to a world based on respect for all life. Join Root Force in the struggle against the infrastructure of global trade, and help us demolish colonialism at its foundations.
For help planning and publicizing actions, contact Root Force: rootforce [at] riseup [dot] net. You can find direct action, strategy and messaging resources here.
Send action reports to rootforce [at] riseup [dot] net. If you can’t pull together a direct action, consider holding events that promote anti-infrastructure organizing and action.