Global Minga Round-up (AKA Mobilisation in Defence of Mother Earth and the Peoples)

Octo­ber 12 (the 517th anniver­sary of Colum­bus’ land­ing in the West­ern Hemi­sphere) marked the first day of the Glob­al “Minga”/Mobilisation in Defence of Moth­er Earth and the Peo­ples, called by the IV Con­ti­nen­tal Sum­mit of Indige­nous Peo­ples Abya Yala. Ral­lies, protests and oth­er actions are being car­ried out around the world in response to the call, includ­ing (infra­struc­ture-relat­ed actions high­light­ed):

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 http://www.movimientos.org/defensamadretierra/show_text.php3%3Fkey%3D15924&rurl=translate.google.ca&usg=ALkJrhgIwwHDwwtuTEeL6TgbGl3sC3Ef7g” target=“_blank”>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.

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).

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.