Another anti-mines banner, this one reading  “No New Mines on Apache Land! Ya Basta!” was hung in Tucson, AZ on October 16 (this time from the  “Snake Bridge” over Broadway Boulevard). It was in opposition to the proposed mine in Superior, Arizona on sacred Apache land.

Also in Tucson, activists held a Fair Trade fair. In Tucson and New York City, activists distributed information on the connection between the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and swine flu.

Prior Action Roundups:

More from the Week of Action (Oct 15)

Week of Action Continues (Oct 12)

tucson no mining banner oct14 09

More actions from the Minga (Global Mobilization in Defense of Mother Earth and the Peoples):

Phoenix, AZ — The week was kicked off with a protest at Arizona State University against the recognition of “Columbus Day,” along with education about the true  (genocidal) nature of Columbus. The rest of the week consists of a media initiative to spread the truth about Columbus Day. It will culminate on Friday with a mass march to protest the racist and human rights-abusing policies of Maricopa County Sherriff Joe Arpaio.

Tucson, AZ — A banner was suspended from a downtown bridge in opposition to mining (possibly a reference to planned copper mines in Arizona).

For earlier or upcoming actions and events, see below. The mobilization continues through Friday! Note also that infrastructure-related actions and events in this post and the one below are now highlighted. We will maintain this practice throughout the week.

Labrador, Canada: Inuu elder and activist Elizabeth Penashue launched a week-long walk along the Mitsa-Shipu (Churchill River) from Happy Valley-Goose Bay to Gull Island, in opposition to the proposed Lower Churchill Hydro Project. If built, the two dams would  cause vast environmental devastation and irreparable loss of Innu land, history and culture.

USA: The Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador (CISPES) is holding a weeklong mobilization against the North American and Central American Free Trade Agreements (NAFTA/CAFTA) and against gold mining in El Salvador. Events are planned for Seattle, Olympia, Portland (OR), San Francisco, Washington (DC), Milwaukee, Los Angeles, Boston, New York, Baltimore and Philadelphia. Find out more information here.

On October 16, the Durango, Colorado chapters of Earth First! and Root Force are presenting the Beehive Design Collective on their True Cost of Coal graphic tour.

London, England: Protests were held at the Colombian, Peruvian and Spanish embassies, the UK Foreign Office and the Department for Energy and Climate change, demanding and end to EU-Latin America free trade agreements and an end to UK agrofuel subsidies.

Melbourne, Australia:  A Latin American Solidarity Network space was launched at Trades Hall. A documentary film night will be held October 15.

Guatemala: Social movements marked the Minga with a nonviolent demonstration. An assassin dressed in  black fired on the crowd, killing a 19-year-old and seriously injuring a 16- and a 65-year-old.

Colombia: More than 25,000 indigenous People have begun to March to the city of Cali to protest for respect for their territory and against the harmful social policies maintained by the Uribe government. The protesters are expecting to arrive on October 16. 115 indigenous councils have ceased ongoing dialogues with the government for the occasion. (For updates, keep an eye on: www.cric-colombia.org, www.onic.org.co). Approximately 2000 Uwa have also begun an “armed strike” in opposition to Ecopetrol, who has been exploiting natural resources from their ancestral sanctuary for the past 13 years.

Paris, France: Social groups have organized a week of solidarity actions for the Minga, including public debates, forums, a one-day festival, and protest rallies in support of Indigenous Peoples.

Argentina: A Global Week of Action against Debt and International Finance Institutions (IFI’s) is running in conjunction with the Minga. Opposing the new agreement between the Government and the International Monetary Fund, participants will be rallying for climate justice (October 13), rural women and the repudiation of debt (15 October), food sovereignty (16 October) and the eradication of poverty (October 17). A memorial was also held on October 11, honoring the martyrs of resistance.

Cuba: A one day event commemorating the tenth anniversary of the Cry of the Excluded was held in Havana.

Bolivia: The First hearing of the International Court of Climate Justice will be running at the Universidad Mayor de San Simón in Cochabamba, from October 13 to 17. The event will be transmitted LIVE on the internet. An Assembly of Social Movements will also be held in Cochabamba on the 15th, immediately followed by a Regional Meeting Against Climate Change.

Peru: Delegations from around the country marched to the headquarters of the UN in Lima on October 12, to present a series of demands and proposals by indigenous peoples to stop global warming. This will be followed by 3 days of workshops led by indigenous communities.

Other events, including festivals, workshops, protests, Ceremonies and other actions are taking place in Spain, Ecuador, Uruguay, Brazil, and elsewhere.

Via Campesina has also called for an International Day of Action Against Multinational Corporations for the final day of the Minga: October 16, 2009.

Defenders of the Land, a cross-Canada network of First Nations in land struggle, is also putting together a week of educational events on Indigenous Rights and struggles, from October 25-31, 2009.

More information and reports are available (in Spanish) here.

Got any more action reports or upcoming events? Let us know!

And remember, the mobilization goes through Friday, so there’s still time to plan an action.

Root Force logo

On May 31, the 4th Continental Summit of Indigenous Peoples Abya Yala (”America”) called for a Global Mobilization in Defense of Mother Earth and the Peoples from October 12-16, 2009, “against [pollution], the commercialization of life … and the criminalization of indigenous and social movements.”

“We the peoples and our territories are one entity. [We resolve] to reject all forms of land division, privatization, concession, predation and pollution from extractive industries.”

Root Force is supporting this call and encouraging people throughout the Americas and across the world to answer it with 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.

Background

On May 31, the 4th Continental Summit of Indigenous Peoples Abya Yala issued a closing declaration resolving, among other things:

“To proclaim that we are witnessing a deep crisis of the Western capitalist civilization — overlapping the environmental, energy and cultural crisis, social exclusion, and famines — as an expression of the failure of Eurocentrism and the colonialist Modernity that was born from ethnocide and which is now carrying all of humanity to its own slaughter.

“To offer an alternative lifestyle against the civilization of death, rescuing our roots in order to project ourselves to our future, with our principles and practices of balance between men, women, Mother Earth, spiritual beings, 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 to planetary suicide. …

“To confirm the organization of the … Global Mobilization in Defense of Mother Earth and the Peoples, against the commercialization of life (including land, forests, water, sea, agrofuels, external debt), pollution (extractive transnationals, international financial institutions, GMOs, pesticides, toxic consumption), and the criminalization of indigenous and social movements, to be held from October 12 to 16, 2009.”

Read the full declaration here.

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

More infrastructure fact sheets (labor, global warming, etc.)

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.

Root Force logo

We’re currently engaged in the process of adding lots of new material to our Organizing Resources page, so you should be sure to check it out! In addition, we’ve made a few minor updates to the site, including:

• Added more information to the entries on the Recommended Reading page. As part of the additions to our Organizing Resources, more direct action-related reading has also been added.

• Added a minor clarification regarding Hushmail’s limitations to the Secure Email page

a random smashed window

The Earth Liberation front has claimed responsibility for vandalizing the Chapel Hill, North Carolina home of Steve Jones, a board member of Bank of America.

Bank of America is a major funder of mountaintop removal coal mining, in spite of its December announcement that it would “phase out” funding many such projects.

In a communique reported by the North American Earth Liberation Front Press Office, the saboteurs said:

“Steve Jones, a member of the board of directors for Bank Of America, the United States’ primary investor in mountain top removal coal mining, had his house visited twice during the night recently.

“On the eve of the Summer Solstice, we visited him the first time, smashing the front window on the cute lamp in his driveway and leaving a sticker on the post to let him know why we’d visited. Also on this night we glued the locks and put stickers on a Bank Of America branch in his town. 2 weeks later, on the eve of the full moon we returned to his house and smashed to bits the rest of the lamp and splattered black paint all over the sign with his address/mail box and steps/walkway.

“Animal rights activists have long used red paint to mark murderers of many sorts; we chose black paint because it is black like the coal sludge that covers Tennessee, making the earth toxic in a disaster said to be worse than the Exxon Valdez spill. This disaster was uncommon only in that it got press coverage.

“It is black like the water that comes out of the taps when people in [affected] communities turn on their taps for water. And it is black like your heart. For the kids, for the bears, for the mountains, for the wolves, for the fish, for our mother, We will be back. ELF.”

Marcelo Rivera Mural

The Salvadoran anti-mines activist who we reported missing in late June is confirmed to have been tortured and murdered.

Community leader and activist Marcelo Rivera vanished from his community of San Isidro on June 18. On July 1, his body was found inside a dry well, with his belongings in an abandoned house nearby. DNA tests confirmed the body as his, and medical reports confirmed that he had been kept alive and tortured for several days before his murder. The pattern in this case is highly suggestive of the death squad killings that have plagued El Salvador and neighboring countries for decades.

The attorney general’s office quickly and conveniently concluded that there was no political motive to the killing and arrested four gang members as suspects. Officials claim that Rivera was drinking with the men and got into a fight with them and have closed the investigation. Fellow organizers, community members and family have rejected this narrative, insisting that Rivera was assassinated for his political work.

“To say that my brother died at the hands of gang members is not a credible story and it becomes an insult to our family,” said his brother, Miguel Rivera. “My brother was tortured; he was alive for 9 days after his disappearance. His trachea was broken with a nylon cord when they strangled him, forcing his arm toward his face. This is not the work of gang members; it is a crime of torture.”

The following account of Rivera’s life as an activist and the community response to his death comes from Claudia Rodríguez, Policy Director for the SHARE Foundation:

“Marcelo was an activist since his youth. In high school, he and his brother Miguel founded a community library in San Isidro; later they founded what it became the ‘Friends of San Isidro Association’ (ASIC), a hometown group with members in San Isidro and the United States. ASIC became the vehicle for community organizing in San Isidro. Through ASIC, residents work to improve their lives and defend their natural resources. They became unpopular with their municipal authorities when they opposed two of the main projects that the Mayor wanted to promote: a garbage dump and the development of the gold mining industry. Pacific Rim Mining Company’s main mining project in Latin American is El Dorado gold mine which happens to be in San Isidro, Cabañas. The mining company claims to have invested $77 million exploring the area; its managers hired workers and gained favors from the San Isidro mayor. ASIC, as part of the National Working Group against Metallic Mining in El Salvador (La Mesa), began a fearless opposition to the mining company. Marcelo was seen as the leader behind the community struggle.

“Moreover, Marcelo was politically active. In the January 2009 municipal elections, Marcelo, as an electoral volunteer supervising the voting centers, led a campaign to denounce and prevent the fraud that was about to take place in San Isidro when ARENA party members tried to bring illegal voters from the neighboring countries. As a result of the denunciation, the Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE) suspended the elections in the town for one week. The incumbent mayor won the elections in the midst of the fraud scandal. After these events Marcelo was the target of verbal attacks, harassment and defamation campaigns. An ARENA member even tried to run him over with a car.

“None of these threats were ever investigated by the police and are not being considered in the current investigation. … In the meantime Marcelo’s family, his community and the anti-mining organizations throughout the country are mourning Marcelo. Hundreds of people attended his funeral last Saturday, July 12, in San Isidro. The streets of the small town were filled with people in all directions. The youth painted a mural in Marcelo’s memory at the community library that he and his brother founded. He was a beloved leader, an incredible and inspiring person. Marcelo will live in the hearts and minds of the people who struggle for peace and justice; his memory will be present in those who work to protect their environment and to make the world a better place.

“As a sign carried by a group of youth read: ‘Marcelo, nobody will quiet your voice, nor end your struggle. We demand Justice! You can kill people but not their ideals.’”

Pascua River, Patagonia

International Rivers reports that blasting has begun on the first of five several dams slated for Chilean Patagonia:

“The Chilean energy company Colbún, controlled by the Matte Group and partner with Endesa in the HidroAysén mega-project, has initiated blasting at the site on the San Pedro River where they intend to build a 144 MW dam. …

“We received the news of the blasting yesterday from rafting guide and tourism operator Roberto Coronado, who said that he received a phone call from a Colbún executive that the river was no longer accessible to the boating community as blasting was to begin Wednesday at 1 PM.

” ”It was one of the worst things I’d heard in my entire life,’ said Roberto. ‘My family and I have been connected to the river our entire lives. I swear I cried yesterday afternoon, because this is just too much.’ “

International Rivers has a major campaign underway to stop the damming of wild Patagonia. As part of this campaign, the organization is pressuring Home Depot for its ongoing financial involvement with the main Chilean interest promoting the dams. Two direct actions against the company have taken place in the U.S. in recent months.

a coal train

From Erie Times-News:

“Pennsylvania State Police in Corry are looking for the person who tried to sabotage a railroad line.

“The incident was discovered Thursday when a train operator noticed that joint bars connecting sections of rail had been disassembled on the Western New York & Pennsylvania Railroad line about one-half mile east of Route 89 in Concord Township.

“Police said the sabotage could have caused a train to go off the tracks.”

traffic

Several items of transportation news:

• The Department of Transportation has approved a $386 million loan to the state of North Carolina for the construction of two new sections of the Triangle Expressway in the Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill area.

The Triangle Expressway will connect the area’s major highways with 18 miles of roads, including “the new Triangle Parkway extending 3.4 miles north from NC 540; the existing North Wake Freeway extending NC 540 south for 2.8 miles; and the new Western Wake Freeway continuing NC 540 south for an additional 12.6 miles.” The stated goals include improving access to I-40 and to downtown Raleigh, and thereby improving access to the area’s three major research universities and to Research Triangle Park, which houses roughly 160 companies and 40,000 high-tech workers.

• The Department of Transportation has issued $60 million in grants for the improvement of ferry service in 19 states and the U.S. Virgin Islands. All the projects are designed to deliver quick economic stimulus, serve “critical transportation needs,” and to be completed within 2 years. A complete list of grantees is available here.

• Government officials in Arizona and Nevada have proposed constructing a new interstate highway — I-11 — between Phoenix, AZ and Las Vegas, NV. The new highway would start from Interstate 10 in suburban Phoenix and follow what is currently US-93 to Las Vegas, with a detour around Boulder City. Although the idea is in preliminary stages — it has no funding, and Congress has not approved a new interstate — the state transportation agencies are building all new improvements along the route to federal interstate standards, just in case.

As with many other ambitious highway plans, funding problems may slow progress on the idea. Federal road funding comes from gas tax revenue, which has declined as people drive less and switch over to more fuel efficient cars.