From Upside Down World: Translation by Christina Hewitt This editorial, published last week in Spanish by Guatemalan newspaper La Hora, denounces how the government of Otto Pérez Molina and complicit media attempted to criminalize anti-mining protests in San Rafael Las Flores by linking protestors to organized crime. To justify the state of siege in the [...]

From Great Plains Tar Sands Resistance: FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: On Monday, May 6th, TransCanada filed a suit to prevent individuals from resisting the construction of the southern leg of the controversial Keystone XL pipeline which is being built to transport diluted bitumen from the Athabascan Tar Sands project in “Canada” to refineries on the Gulf [...]

From International Rivers (links added): Eight days ago, representatives of eight indigenous groups from around the Amazon began an occupation of the construction site of the Belo Monte Dam. They are asking the government of Brazil to respect the legal requirement of prior and informed consultation of indigenous peoples and to immediately suspend construction, technical [...]

On April 27, security guards employed by Tahoe Resources shot and killed peaceful peaceful indigenous protesters against its Escobal silver mine in San Rafael Las Flores, Guatemala. The next day, protesters retaliated by taking 23 police officers hostage. A police raid to free the officers led to a shootout in which one police officer and [...]

From Rights Action: Six civilians were shot and wounded (2 seriously) on April 27, 2013 by Tahoe / Goldcorp security forces at Tahoe’s “San Rafael” mine site (municipality of San Rafael Las Flores, department of Santa Rosa, Guatemala).  The wounded are: Adolfo García, 57; his son Luis García, 18; Wilmer Pérez, 17; Antonio Humberto  Castillo, 48;  [...]

Even as Guatemala’s high courts go back and forth regarding the genocide trial of former president Efrain Rios Montt, indigenous Guatemalans are facing a new wave of repression as they continue to defend their lands from big infrastructure “development” and other exploitive  projects backed by multinational corporations. From Upside Down World: During the internal armed [...]

From Upside Down World: Written by Clayton Conn In 2001 and 2002 townspeople and ejidatarios of San Salvador Atenco, Mexico successfully halted a plan proposed by then President Vicente Fox to expropriate more than 1,100 hectares of their farmland and territory for the construction of an International Airport. Now in 2013, the deceased plan has [...]

From International Rivers: A federal appeals court (TRF-1) in Brazil has ordered the suspension of “Operation Tapajós,” a military and police intervention organized to control indigenous protests over technical studies on their lands in preparation for the controversial São Luíz do Tapajós Dam in the Amazonian state of Pará. Judge João Batista Moreira ruled that [...]

From National Geographic: Posted by Scott Wallace on April 11, 2013 Ashéninka indigenous leaders are calling on authorities to guarantee their safety after receiving alleged death threats from irate loggers whose wood was impounded this week at a sawmill in the timber hub of Pucallpa on the Ucayali River. National Police agents and investigators from [...]

From Indian Country Today Media Network: A 74-year old Inuit elder has ended a hunger strike and been released from jail after being arrested along with seven others protesting the controversial Muskrat Falls hydroelectric dam on the Churchill River in Labrador. But another of the arrestees says the protesters, who have been fighting for decades [...]