Category: Global

Glob­al

Khimki Forest update and list of contractor offices

Rus­si­a’s Khim­ki For­est is not the peace­ful place it used to be, back when it was a 200-year-old oak for­est known for its eco­log­i­cal impor­tance to the Moscow region.

Rus­si­a’s Khim­ki For­est is not the peace­ful place it used to be, back when it was a 200-year-old oak for­est known for its eco­log­i­cal impor­tance to the Moscow region.

Today, it is filled with the roar of bull­doz­ers, and the screams of activists at night. For the last week, the Khim­ki For­est defenders…have been tak­ing turns camp­ing out to defend the for­est from ille­gal cut­ting. Each night, they put their lives at risk and every day they have expe­ri­enced esca­lat­ing vio­lence, includ­ing vio­lent attacks by pri­vate secu­ri­ty forces and unknown thugs. There have been injuries too—broken noses, head traumas—but it is not for naught. They have been some­what suc­cess­ful in stop­ping the log­ging, at least tem­porar­i­ly.

“Dear all, as I sus­pect­ed, many bad events hap­pened. When it got dark, they turned on the har­vester. They moved fast into the dip of the clear­ing. We ran after them from the camp. The secu­ri­ties did not let us go, they caught us by clothes and pushed us. But we went fur­ther and fur­ther, though slow­er. Then the har­vester start­ed to fell down the trees. We rushed through the guards to it. On a nar­row place the guards stopped us again. We called Russ­ian media, the mem­bers of the Pres­i­dent Coun­cil, the deputies, and of course the police.…”

Read more.

Police deten­tions, evi­dence gath­er­ing, video and fur­ther aggres­sion and videos.

Back­ground.

How we can sup­port the defend­ers includ­ing links to offices of the French con­struc­tion com­pa­ny involved.

ELF ACTIONS IN SOLIDARITY WITH MARIE AND ERIC, RUSSIA

report­ed anony­mous­ly:

“ ‘For me sol­i­dar­i­ty is a con­stant pro­pos­al to strug­gle, is the con­tin­u­a­tion and the devel­op­ment of the rev­o­lu­tion­ary action for which the com­rade was cap­tured’ — Gerasi­mos Tsaka­los, Con­spir­a­cy Cells of Fire

Sol­i­dar­i­ty with Marie Mason and Eric McDavid — ELF actions in Moscow region of Rus­sia

report­ed anony­mous­ly:

“ ‘For me sol­i­dar­i­ty is a con­stant pro­pos­al to strug­gle, is the con­tin­u­a­tion and the devel­op­ment of the rev­o­lu­tion­ary action for which the com­rade was cap­tured’ — Gerasi­mos Tsaka­los, Con­spir­a­cy Cells of Fire

Sol­i­dar­i­ty with Marie Mason and Eric McDavid — ELF actions in Moscow region of Rus­sia

01.06 we torched elec­tri­cal mea­sur­ing and con­trol devices in 2 under­ground ser­vice booths of a water com­mu­ni­ca­tion sys­tem that brings hot water to a mil­i­tary intel­li­gence site in Butovskiy for­est. To add to the fact that this infra­struc­ture serves mil­i­tary per­son­nel, more than 800 trees were cut dur­ing earth­works for this water sup­ply line to even appear in the for­est. To ham­per ser­vice brigades fur­ther, we also spiked the road they use for main­tain­ing the sys­tem.

05.06 we torched an exca­va­tor at a high­way con­struc­tion site west of Moscow (Voloko­lam­sk direc­tion).

06.00 and 10.06 we expro­pri­at­ed some con­struc­tion equip­ment and destroyed geol­o­gists’ mea­sure­ment posts in the glades of Butovskiy for­est.

11.06 we broke into yet anoth­er under­ground ser­vice booth and put to fire all the dig­i­tal and ana­logue devices and tools inside.

We ded­i­cate these attacks to Marie Mason and Eric McDavid. We don’t have an hon­our of per­son­al acquain­tance with them, but their ded­i­ca­tion to pro­tect­ing our Plan­et and con­scious choic­es they’ve made not only to act, but also to stand their ground in the wake of state repres­sions, inspire us and help us to con­tin­ue on our path.

For Earth Lib­er­a­tion! For Human Lib­er­a­tion!

- ELF-Rus­sia, Infor­mal Anar­chist Federation/ Inter­na­tion­al Net­work of Action and Sol­i­dar­i­ty”

Indigenous groups lead blockade against gas hub in Australia

13.6.11
More than 70 pro­test­ers are still block­ing the main access road to the site of Woodside’s pro­posed LNG precinct at James Price Point, 60km north of Broome.

A con­voy of Wood­side con­trac­tors has returned to Broome and no work will be car­ried out today, The West Aus­tralian under­stands.

13.6.11
More than 70 pro­test­ers are still block­ing the main access road to the site of Woodside’s pro­posed LNG precinct at James Price Point, 60km north of Broome.

A con­voy of Wood­side con­trac­tors has returned to Broome and no work will be car­ried out today, The West Aus­tralian under­stands.

A new block­ade was set up on the cor­ner of the Man­ari Road, clos­er to the Broome town site, pre­vent­ing con­trac­tors’ access since 5am today.

The pro­test­ers have blocked the road, which leads to Broome’s icon­ic Willie Creek Pearl Farm, but are allow­ing vehi­cles not asso­ci­at­ed with land clear­ing at James Price Point through the block­ade.

Sev­er­al local indige­nous women have been lead­ing the block­ade and are refus­ing to allow vehi­cles down the road.

Janet and Rowe­na Puer­tol­lano said Wood­side and the WA Gov­ern­ment should be con­sult­ing the entire Broome and Kim­ber­ley com­mu­ni­ty about the gas precinct, and not just the Goolarabooloo/Jabbir Jab­bir tra­di­tion­al own­ers of the area.

Both women say they are descen­dants of Jab­bir Jab­bir peo­ple, but were not allowed to vote in the recent bal­lot which approved the devel­op­ment in exchange for $1.5 bil­lion in ben­e­fits over the life of the project.

Janet Puer­tol­lano said that if her fam­i­ly had been includ­ed in the group it would have changed the out­come.

Last week for­mer Kim­ber­ley Land Coun­cil exec­u­tive direc­tor Wayne Bergmann con­demned the pro­test­ers for their “hooli­gan tac­tics” dur­ing the week.

The Kim­ber­ley Land Coun­cil and Wood­side have been con­tact­ed for com­ment.

Kachin rebels oppose dams on Chinese border

10th June 2011
The pro-inde­pen­dence group denounces the pop­u­la­tion’s lack of involve­ment in the con­struc­tion of new hydro­elec­tric plants. They have blocked the work, but have with­drawn their mili­tias after the pay­ment of a “tax”. Envi­ron­men­tal­ists fear pos­si­ble dam­age to the ecosys­tem.
Update 15.6.11:

10th June 2011
The pro-inde­pen­dence group denounces the pop­u­la­tion’s lack of involve­ment in the con­struc­tion of new hydro­elec­tric plants. They have blocked the work, but have with­drawn their mili­tias after the pay­ment of a “tax”. Envi­ron­men­tal­ists fear pos­si­ble dam­age to the ecosys­tem.
Update 15.6.11:
Burmese rebels say they have destroyed sev­er­al bridges in the north of the coun­try to pre­vent attacks by the army.

The rebels, from Kachin state, said they had blown up two bridges in neigh­bour­ing Shan state.

The Thai­land-based Kachin News Group report­ed that the destroyed bridges were on a major trad­ing route into Chi­na.
…

The Kachin pro-inde­pen­dence move­ment is oppos­ing the con­struc­tion of a series of hydro­elec­tric dams along the north­ern bor­der between Myan­mar and Chi­na. This is revealed by sources close to the eth­nic rebel group which, despite sign­ing a peace agree­ment with the Burmese jun­ta in 1994, exer­cis­es sub­stan­tial con­trol over the area and fre­quent­ly engages in armed clash­es with gov­ern­ment troops.

The Kachin denounce their lack of involve­ment in the agree­ment, signed in 2007, between the rul­ing dic­ta­tor­ship and exec­u­tives of the multi­na­tion­al Chi­na Datang Cor­po­ra­tion; the agree­ment pro­vides for the con­struc­tion of nine hydro­elec­tric plants along the Chi­nese bor­der.

Ten­sion broke out two weeks ago over the refusal on the part of Chi­nese author­i­ties to pay a sort of “con­struc­tion tax” to the lead­ers of the eth­nic rebels; in response, the rebels sent mili­tia groups to the con­struc­tion sites to block work on the dams. Tarpein 1 and Tarpein 2 are the first two in a series of nine dams planned by the Burmese ener­gy min­istry, in col­lab­o­ra­tion with Chi­nese com­pa­nies. They take their name from the riv­er that runs through the north­ern city of Momauk, and once they begin func­tion­ing, they will pro­vide 240 and 168 megawatts respec­tive­ly.

Sources close to the pro-inde­pen­dence move­ment con­firm that the work resumed a week ago, after the pay­ment of 1.5 mil­lion yuan (a lit­tle more than 220,000 dol­lars) by exec­u­tives of the con­struc­tion com­pa­nies. The agree­ment was over­seen by the new com­man­der of the north­ern brigade, Gen­er­al Soe Win, who medi­at­ed between the par­ties, per­mit­ting work to resume.

In addi­tion to the eco­nom­ic inter­ests and con­trol of the ter­ri­to­ry involved, the Burmese-Chi­nese project has unleashed protests from envi­ron­men­tal­ists who are afraid of seri­ous reper­cus­sions for the envi­ron­ment. “The fear”, reveals envi­ron­men­tal expert Naw La in inter­view with the Irrawad­dy, “is that the local pop­u­la­tion is not being involved in the project, and must pay the con­se­quences. The ben­e­fits will go only to the Burmese gov­ern­ment and to the Chi­nese com­pa­nies, while the inhab­i­tants of the vil­lages will suf­fer seri­ous dam­age from defor­esta­tion and flood­ing”.

The most impor­tant of the nine hydro­elec­tric plants being built is the one in Myit­sone: it will be locat­ed 42 kilo­me­ters north of Myitky­i­na, cap­i­tal of the state of Kachin, and will pro­duce about 3,600 megawatts of elec­tric­i­ty.

A recruit­ing dri­ve in recent years by the Kachin rebels has increased their strength to about 7,000 men, accord­ing to Aung Kyaw Zaw. This would seem no match for Myanmar’s army which, with hun­dreds of thou­sands of sol­diers, is one of the largest forces in South­east Asia.

But the Kachin know the ter­rain well and have a rep­u­ta­tion as able jun­gle war­riors going back to World War II, when they allied them­selves with the Unit­ed States and Britain and ter­ri­fied Japan­ese sol­diers by cut­ting off their ears as tro­phies.

“Our strat­e­gy is gueril­la war­fare,” said Brang Lai, who is an aide to Gun Maw, one of the Kachin’s senior lead­ers. “We don’t have suf­fi­cient sup­plies but our spir­it is the most impor­tant thing.” The Kachin have laid land mines in the path of the gov­ern­ment army, he said.

He did not rule out mak­ing tar­gets of Chi­nese projects in the area, such as the gas pipeline, which is under con­struc­tion. “Until now we don’t have the inten­tion to dis­rupt the gas pipeline,” Brang Lai said. “We are wait­ing for the Chi­nese response.”

Chi­nese invest­ment in north­ern Myan­mar has increased man­i­fold in recent years, includ­ing plan­ta­tions, jade mines and infra­struc­ture projects. The fight­ing com­pli­cates Chi­nese efforts to fos­ter a peace­ful bal­ance between the cen­tral gov­ern­ment and the rebels.

The fight­ing in the Kachin areas is the most seri­ous out­break of vio­lence since clash­es in August 2009 when Burmese gov­ern­ment troops defeat­ed the Kokang, an eth­nic Chi­nese rebel group, send­ing thou­sands of refugees flee­ing into Chi­na.

Back­ground

Protestor stops coal train in Australia

9.6.11
A Green­peace activist had halt­ed a Hunter Val­ley coal train by bolt­ing a steel box to the lines and lock­ing him­self inside.

The bright yel­low met­al box which is paint­ed with “pol­lu­tion tax col­lec­tion point” con­tains Green­peace activist Erland How­den, the ABC reports.

9.6.11
A Green­peace activist had halt­ed a Hunter Val­ley coal train by bolt­ing a steel box to the lines and lock­ing him­self inside.

The bright yel­low met­al box which is paint­ed with “pol­lu­tion tax col­lec­tion point” con­tains Green­peace activist Erland How­den, the ABC reports.

The box stopped a coal train leav­ing BHP Billiton’s Mt Arthur coal mine, which man­aged to halt just 70 metres before it.

The box mea­sures 1.5 metres by 2.5 metres and is bolt­ed to rail line from the inside.

Accord­ing to the ABC, How­den said he is ready to stay inside the box for the next three days.

The move is part of a wider Green­peace protest against min­ing indus­try attempts to halt the car­bon tax. Pro­mo video

Watut river communities ‘riot’ against Harmony and Newcrest mining in Papua New Guinea

June 4 – Riots have report­ed­ly bro­ken out against the Aus­tralian based min­ing com­pa­ny, New­crest Min­ing, and Har­mo­ny Gold of South Africa in the Bulo­lo Dis­trict of Morobe Province, Papua New Guinea.

June 4 – Riots have report­ed­ly bro­ken out against the Aus­tralian based min­ing com­pa­ny, New­crest Min­ing, and Har­mo­ny Gold of South Africa in the Bulo­lo Dis­trict of Morobe Province, Papua New Guinea. The vio­lence has been sparked by the long out­stand­ing griev­ances of the com­mu­ni­ties down stream of the Hid­den Val­ley mine over min­ing pol­lu­tion and sed­i­ments which affect the lives of thou­sands of peo­ple who say they do not ben­e­fit one way or anoth­er from the oper­a­tions of some of the worlds biggest min­ing com­pa­nies.

Com­mu­ni­ties have, since 2009, been rais­ing issues regard­ing tox­ic sed­i­ment build up caus­ing dam­age to food gar­dens, wash­ing away foot­bridges, die back of veg­e­ta­tion, the death of aquat­ic organ­isms, health and hygiene com­pli­ca­tions in com­mu­ni­ties, loss of nav­i­ga­tion on water routes, loss of clean water and recre­ation­al areas, loss of eco­nom­i­cal land and hunt­ing sites, destruc­tion of secret (sacred) sites and destruc­tion of a pri­ma­ry income source – alu­vial gold.

Ear­li­er last month, Papua New Guinea Min­ing Min­is­ter, John Pun­dari, tried to address the com­mu­ni­ty griev­ances but this proved to be in vain as the meet­ing under­stand­ing sign by par­ties includ­ing Hid­den Val­ley Joint Ven­ture (HVJV), ‘a two face min­ing com­pa­ny’ com­pris­ing New­crest and Har­mo­ny, was not imple­ment­ed and HVJV and Papua New Guinea’s Min­er­al Resources Author­i­ty (MRA) failed to imple­ment the under­stand­ing.

Local com­mu­ni­ties say they served 24 hours notice on MRA to address their con­cerns on June 2nd but by 4pm local time on June 3rd there was no answer.

While the Watut Riv­er com­mu­ni­ties griev­ances were not addressed, HVJV staff silent­ly went on the com­mu­ni­ties land to col­lect water sam­ples for analy­sis.

Ear­li­er this year, the com­mu­ni­ty based orga­ni­za­tion, the Union of Watut Riv­er Com­mu­ni­ties, attempt­ed to enter into the Min­ing Lease and HVJV MoU cov­ered area with its own chemist to col­lect sam­ples but per­mis­sion was reject­ed by the min­ing com­pa­nies.

Yes­ter­day a vehi­cle belong­ing to the New­crest and Har­mo­ny was smashed by frus­trat­ed com­mu­ni­ties. Two Roy­al Police Con­stab­u­lary offi­cers who were pro­vid­ing secu­ri­ty and pri­vate escorts to the min­ing com­pa­nies have also being accused by local peo­ple.

Local peo­ple say more riots are expect­ed today between the gov­ern­ment offi­cers, min­ing com­pa­ny and the PNG police force on one side with the rur­al min­ing affect­ed com­mu­ni­ties on the oth­er.

They also say police this morn­ing sent a warn­ing that they would burn vil­lages hous­es if there is any more trou­ble.

A road block­ade is expect­ed to start today.

Bauxite mining halted in Indian region

Ranchi, June 4: Min­ing, dis­patch and trans­porta­tion of baux­ite from Pakhar mines in the Nax­alite-hit Kisko police sta­tion area of Loharda­ga dis­trict have come to a grind­ing halt since Wednes­day evening after a group of rebels torched six vehi­cles.

Ranchi, June 4: Min­ing, dis­patch and trans­porta­tion of baux­ite from Pakhar mines in the Nax­alite-hit Kisko police sta­tion area of Loharda­ga dis­trict have come to a grind­ing halt since Wednes­day evening after a group of rebels torched six vehi­cles.

“Min­ing and trans­porta­tion activ­i­ties have been put on a halt since June 1. Around 25 rebels owing alle­giance to the CPI(Maoist) burnt down three trucks, an SUV and two earth-mov­ing equip­ment around 5.30pm and par­tial­ly destroyed anoth­er vehi­cle. They also fired in the air and beat up the dri­vers and helpers,” offi­cer in charge of Kisko police sta­tion Munu Tudu told The Tele­graph.

The vehi­cles belonged to a con­trac­tor and pri­vate oper­a­tors work­ing for Hin­dal­co Indus­tries Lim­it­ed — an Aditya Bir­la Group com­pa­ny.

.… Hin­dal­co gen­er­al man­ag­er (per­son­nel and admin­is­tra­tion) R.B. Singh said the com­pa­ny was suf­fer­ing huge loss­es because of the shut­down.

“We sup­ply around 1,000 tonnes of baux­ite from Pakhar, with more than 100 trucks ply­ing dai­ly. Every­thing has now come to a stand­still,” Singh said.

http://revolutionaryfrontlines.wordpress.com/2011/06/06/india-red-terror-hits-lohardaga-bauxite-mines/

Peru: 10,000 Aymaras Protesting against Transnational Mining Company

31st May 2011
For the past three weeks, more than 10,000 Indige­nous Peo­ple, most­ly Aymaras, have been protest­ing against the oncom­ing San­ta Ana sil­ver mine in south­east­ern Peru near the bor­der with Bolivia.

31st May 2011
For the past three weeks, more than 10,000 Indige­nous Peo­ple, most­ly Aymaras, have been protest­ing against the oncom­ing San­ta Ana sil­ver mine in south­east­ern Peru near the bor­der with Bolivia.

The Indige­nous peo­ple are con­cerned that pol­lu­tion from the new mine would threat­en their liveli­hoods and con­t­a­m­i­nate local rivers and lakes. For those rea­sons, the pro­test­ers want to see the Peru­vian gov­ern­ment revoke the min­ing license it grant­ed to the com­pa­ny behind the min­ing project, Canada’s Bear Creek Min­ing Cor­po­ra­tion. The pro­test­ers are also call­ing for a def­i­nite ban on all min­ing in the region.

The mas­sive protest, for which the Aymara and some Quechua have set up a sequence of block­ades along a 300km stretch of road on both sides of bor­der, was fac­ing a media black­out until this past week­end.

On May 27, a num­ber of gov­ern­ment build­ings in the Peru­vian bor­der town of Puno were loot­ed and set ablaze.

That seemed to give the media what they need­ed; how­ev­er, the orga­niz­ers of the protests are insist­ing that they aren’t respon­si­ble for the vio­lent lash out. Rather, they say, it was brought on by indi­vid­u­als who have infil­trat­ed the protests.

In hand with the lack of media cov­er­age, the police and mil­i­tary pres­ence through­out the protest has been almost non-exis­tent. On May 28, Reuters report­ed that Pres­i­dent Gar­cia has indeed autho­rized the mil­i­tary to “main­tain order”, but so far they haven’t tried do so.

That’s part­ly because of the sheer scale of the protest; but more­so because of the upcom­ing pres­i­den­tial elec­tion in Peru, which is set for June 5. Accord­ing to Reuters, Gar­cia has stat­ed that he won’t give the order to stop the protests until after the elec­tion con­cludes.

There was, how­ev­er, at least one vio­lent con­fronta­tion before the protest was in full swing. As not­ed on the WW4 Report,

At least one is report­ed dead in Peru’s south­ern region of Puno after the Nation­al Police fired on pro­test­ers April 26, the sec­ond day of a 48-hour civ­il strike or paro called by campesino groups to demand a halt to local min­ing and petro­le­um leas­es. The deceased, iden­ti­fied as María Choque Limache, 61, died after inhal­ing tear gas as police broke up a protest at the vil­lage of Yohoro­co, in Huacul­lani dis­trict of Chu­cuito province, accord­ing to Wal­ter Adu­viri Cal­isaya, pres­i­dent of the Puno Front for the Defense of Nat­ur­al Resources. Nation­al Police com­man­der Jaime Cordero Ayala denied this ver­sion of events, insist­ing she had not been at the protest and had died of nat­ur­al caus­es.

Most recent­ly, on May 29, the pro­test­ers reject­ed a deal to stand down in exchange for a 12-month mora­to­ri­um on min­ing. Nego­tia­tors for the pro­test­ers ini­tial­ly agreed with the offer, but the pro­test­ers them­selves said they won’t set­tle for any­thing less than a defin­i­tive ban on min­ing which must be rat­i­fied through a pres­i­den­tial decree.

Video 1and 2

Inner Mongolians protest against Coal extraction

May 28, 2011

Chi­na: Inner Mon­go­lia: street protests against Chi­nese abus­es

Bei­jing – Protests are spread­ing in Inner Mon­go­lia, as demon­stra­tions spread fol­low­ing the death of two local herder lead­ers opposed to envi­ron­men­tal destruc­tion due to coal min­ing.

Yes­ter­days, protests were held in two towns in Inner Mon­go­lia, the South­ern Mon­go­lian Human Rights Infor­ma­tion Cen­tre (SMHRIC) said.

May 28, 2011

Chi­na: Inner Mon­go­lia: street protests against Chi­nese abus­es

Bei­jing – Protests are spread­ing in Inner Mon­go­lia, as demon­stra­tions spread fol­low­ing the death of two local herder lead­ers opposed to envi­ron­men­tal destruc­tion due to coal min­ing.

Yes­ter­days, protests were held in two towns in Inner Mon­go­lia, the South­ern Mon­go­lian Human Rights Infor­ma­tion Cen­tre (SMHRIC) said.

It has been dif­fi­cult for the for­eign press to reach the area, but pic­tures were sur­faced online show­ing hun­dreds of pro­test­ers march­ing through the coun­ty seats of Huveet Shar Ban­ner (coun­ty) and Left Ujum­chin Ban­ner.

The pro­test­ers car­ried ban­ners bear­ing Mon­go­lian slo­gans includ­ing ‘defend the rights of Mon­gols’ and ‘defend the home­land.’

Six more protests are planned in oth­er areas of Inner Mon­go­lia from Fri­day to 2 June, SMHRIC said. Using online social net­work­ing, Mon­go­lians were invit­ed to fur­ther gath­er­ings in Alshaan Left Ban­ner on Fri­day, Ordos City on Sat­ur­day, and Tongliao on Sun­day.

Protest first broke out on Mon­day in Xil­in­hot, the admin­is­tra­tive cen­tre of Xilin-Gol, when hun­dreds of eth­nic Mon­go­lians gath­ered in from of a gov­ern­ment build­ing after a Mon­go­lian herder leader was killed by a coal hauler dri­ven by eth­nic Han Chi­nese. Mer­gen, that is the herder leader’s name, was try­ing to stop coal-haul­ing lor­ries from tak­ing a short­cut across frag­ile graz­ing land

Pho­tos show­ing his body were post­ed online. They show his head, crushed under the wheels of a 100-tonne coal hauler dri­ven by two Han Chi­nese dri­vers on 10 May, and his body, dragged by the lor­ry for 150 metres.

On Tues­day, more than 2,000 peo­ple, most­ly stu­dents, took to the streets in protest, demand­ing Chi­nese author­i­ties respect the rights of Mon­go­lian herders to their land and lifestyle.

Indige­nous Mon­go­lians have com­plained for a while that Chi­na is only inter­est­ed in the region’s min­er­al resources, espe­cial­ly coal. For them, min­ing and indus­tri­al devel­op­ment is destroy­ing graz­ing land, under­min­ing the tra­di­tion­al herd­ing econ­o­my, already under stress from expand­ing deser­ti­fi­ca­tion and lack of rain.

Shen Wenyin, deputy chief of the Xilin­gol League gov­ern­ment, said on Tues­day night that the two Han Chi­nese dri­vers, Li Lin­dong and Lu Xiang­dong, had been arrest­ed by police. He did not com­ment the protest.

He did how­ev­er con­firm that res­i­dents in the Abag min­ing area tried to stop oper­a­tions at a near­by coal mine on 14 May because of noise, dust and water pol­lu­tion.

One of the pro­test­ers, Yan Wen­long, 22, was killed when Sun Shun­ing, a work­er, drove a fork­lift truck into Yan’s car. Sun was arrest­ed for inten­tion­al homi­cide. Offi­cial sources said that the mine stopped oper­a­tions.

The wave of protests is increas­ing­ly tak­ing on an eth­nic con­no­ta­tion as indige­nous Mon­go­lians resent dom­i­na­tion by eth­nic Han Chi­nese who have become the largest eth­nic group in Inner Mon­go­lia, fol­low­ing a delib­er­ate immi­gra­tion pol­i­cy pur­sued by Bei­jing that includes tax and finan­cial breaks as well as oth­er advan­tages.

Eth­nic Mon­go­lians now num­ber only 6 mil­lion out of 23 mil­lion peo­ple in the province, a minor­i­ty in their native land.

Experts note that the sit­u­a­tion remained calm until recent­ly. Things began to change when large-scale envi­ron­men­tal degra­da­tion began to threat­en the local herd­ing econ­o­my. Action by eth­nic Mon­go­lian groups based abroad has also played a role.

From Sig­nal­fire

http://signalfire.org/?p=10797

Tension mounts as Brazilian Indians retake land

27 May 2011
A com­mu­ni­ty of Guarani Indi­ans in Brazil has retak­en part of its ances­tral land in an act of des­per­a­tion, hav­ing lived by the side of a high­way for a year and a half.

The Guarani marched back to their land last week, unwill­ing fur­ther to endure the appalling liv­ing con­di­tions they have been sub­ject to on the road­side.

27 May 2011
A com­mu­ni­ty of Guarani Indi­ans in Brazil has retak­en part of its ances­tral land in an act of des­per­a­tion, hav­ing lived by the side of a high­way for a year and a half.

The Guarani marched back to their land last week, unwill­ing fur­ther to endure the appalling liv­ing con­di­tions they have been sub­ject to on the road­side.

The Indi­ans of Laran­jeira Nan­deru com­mu­ni­ty had their lands stolen from them in the 1960s, to make way for cat­tle ranch­es. They returned to their land in 2008, but were evict­ed again in Sep­tem­ber 2009 – soon after, their vil­lage was bru­tal­ly attacked and burned down.

Since then, the Guarani have been liv­ing under tar­pau­lin sheet­ing, with lit­tle access to clean water, food, or med­ical care, and sub­ject to intense heat and flood­ing, by the side of a high­way. Large trucks and cars thun­dered past day and night, and one Guarani was run over and killed.

Faride, spokesman of the com­mu­ni­ty, told Sur­vival researchers before the reoc­cu­pa­tion, ‘Laran­jeira Nan­deru was my father’s land, my grandfather’s land, my great grandfather’s land… We need to go back there so we can work and live in peace… that is our dream.’

Watch a film clip of Faride talk­ing about his community’s land — http://assets.survivalinternational.org/flash/syndicated-player.swf' width='480' height='270' allowFullScreen='true' wmode='opaque' bgcolor='111111' allowScriptAccess='always' flashvars='config=http://assets-production.survivalinternational.org/films/412/config.xml' />”>
Some Guarani lead­ers who have led their com­mu­ni­ties’ reoc­cu­pa­tions of their land, such as the inter­na­tion­al­ly-renowned Mar­cos Veron, have been assas­si­nat­ed.

The com­mu­ni­ty is now urg­ing the gov­ern­ment offi­cial­ly to pro­tect their land so they are not evict­ed again.

The Guarani have a deep spir­i­tu­al con­nec­tion to their land, upon which they rely for their men­tal and phys­i­cal well-being.

Fol­low­ing the loss of almost all their land to ranch­es and soya and sug­ar­cane plan­ta­tions, thou­sands of Guarani are liv­ing in over­crowd­ed reserves, and some are camped by the side of high­ways.

Survival’s Direc­tor, Stephen Cor­ry, said today, ‘It is no sur­prise that hav­ing been forced to endure such pre­car­i­ous con­di­tions for so long, the Guarani have tak­en mat­ters into their own hands and returned home. This should sure­ly act as a wake-up call for the author­i­ties to pro­tect the land and remove the lurk­ing threat of anoth­er evic­tion. That is the least the Guarani deserve’.
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Down­load Survival’s report on the sit­u­a­tion of the Guarani, sent to the Unit­ed Nations last year. ( in Eng­lish and Por­tuguese pdf, 2.4 MB).