Thousands reject the extractivist logic at the World Bank-IMF meeting in Peru

Waging Nonviolence: The annual governors’ meeting of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank opened on October 5 in Peru’s capital city. In the meeting, an estimated 800 representatives from 188 countries were negotiating the shape of the world’s soon-to-be renovated finance infrastructure.

While the international media focused on the official meetings, no news outlets outside of Latin America have mentioned the Plataforma Alternativa conference — a parallel three-day meeting organized under the theme “Belying the ‘Peruvian Miracle.’”

More than 1,200 people attended Plataforma Alternativa’s conference. Dozens of young volunteers zoomed through the marbled hallways of Lima’s Hotel Bolívar, which hosted the conference. Participants represented dozens of organizations and countries as diverse as the Netherlands, China, the United States, Belgium, Zimbabwe, Colombia, Indonesia, Spain, Mexico, the Philippines, Germany, Palestine and Argentina.

On Friday, an estimated 5,000 people marched across 70 blocks in Lima, from Plaza San Martín to the first of three police perimeters around the official conference. Groups at the protest included indigenous feminist organizations, the Lima-based Comando Feminista, Bloque Hip Hop, worker unions, the Peruvian Campesino Confederation, and dozens of others. Read more.

SANTA MARIA ZACATEPEC STATEMENT

Original Americas Program Translation 

Reunited on July 21st and 22nd at the base of the volcanoes - the guardians of our people - men and women from over a hundred organizations, networks, communities and groups from 14 states came together offer our voice to tell you that our country faces a serious danger.  The ruling government seeks to serve large multinational corporations and give our country to foreign interests and thus canceling our rights won by our peoples through long and heroic struggles.

More than a third of Mexican territory has been given to foreign mining companies.  The federal government currently imposes a series of measures that aim to exploit natural resources and the structural reforms imposed on labor, taxation, energy, agriculture and education, violate the rights of our people, of the workers and our national sovereignty. We protest strongly against the privatization of the energy sector.

We have agreed that, confronted by this serious situation, our priority is to build a unified movement to strengthen the struggles of our peoples because the isolation of resistance movements allows those in power to defeat us. It is essential to move forward in the coordination of the different struggles that take place across the country and therefore we make a call to the different movements to set aside differences and move forward in building a national platform that allows us to confront the serious dangers facing our people and our nation.

Murder of Anti-Mining Activists in Mexico a State Crime

Upside Down World

Source: Vancouver Media Co-op

Barzón leader and his partner shot to death in Chihuahua after harassment from people paid by Vancouver based company

CHIHUAHUA, MEXICO-The double murder of the leader of the Barzón, Ismael Solorio Urrutia, and his wife, Manuela Martha Solís Contreras, on Monday, October 22 at 2:30pm, has caused anger and indignation among the people of Chihuahua, Mexico.

The couple was shot while they were driving in Ismael's truck, at kilometre 26.5 of the highway between Ciudad Cuautémoc and Colonia Obregón. Faced with this state crime, activists from Chihuahua gathered in protest at the government buildings in Chihuahua City for an indefinite amount of time, demanding a face to face meeting with governor César Duarte, and demanding justice.

The double murder is the culmination of a multiple-week campaign against the diverse organizations that make up El Barzón. This campaign was denounced to the Secretary of Government one week ago by El Barzón and other community groups in Chihuahua. In the meeting with government representatives, activists told the Secretary of Government about the ongoing attacks on Ismael Solorio and his son, along with other Barzonistas who are opposing the installation of the El Cascabel mine in the ejído of Benito Juárez, in the municipality of Buenaventura, Chihuahua. El Cascabel is a subsidiary of Vancouver based mining company Mag Silver.  Read more. 

Across Latin America, quest for gold brings riches, conflict

By Tim Johnson | McClatchy Newspapers

MEXICO CITY — Steadily high prices for gold are having a dramatic impact on parts of Latin America, bringing a flood of foreign investment and stirring a gold bug among wildcat miners in the jungles.

Some of Latin America’s poorest nations – Bolivia, Honduras and Nicaragua – have seen their balance sheets strengthened by gold production, while major producers Peru and Mexico reap billions in foreign exports.

But even as miners unearth deposits of gold, they also open up veins of social discontent. Protests over gold mining have become the coin of the day in areas where villagers complain of water pollution, a lack of jobs and environmental devastation. Read more.