Navajos Launch Direct Action Against Big Coal

Photo by Black Mesa Water Coalition

Photo by Black Mesa Water Coalition

Photo by Black Mesa Water Coalition

27 June 2013 Navajo Nation members launched a creative direct action Tuesday to protest the massive coal-fueled power plant that cuts through their Scottsdale, Arizona land.

After a winding march, approximately 60 demonstrators used a massive solar-powered truck to pump water from the critical Central Arizona Project (CAP) canal into barrels for delivery to the reservation.

Flanked by supporters from across the United States, tribe members created a living example of what a Navajo-led transition away from coal toward solar power in the region could look like.  

Participants waved colorful banners and signs declaring ‘Power Without Pollution, Energy Without Injustice’.

“We were a small group moving a small amount of water with solar today,” declared Wahleah Johns with Black Mesa Water Coalition. “However if the political will power of the Obama Administration and SRP were to follow and transition NGS to solar all Arizonans could have reliable water and power without pollution and without injustice.”

The demonstration was not only symbolic: the reservation needs the water they were collecting.

While this Navajo community lives in the shadow of the Navajo Generating Station—the largest coal-powered plant in the Western United States—many on the reservation do not have running water and electricity themselves and are forced to make the drive to the canal to gather water for cooking and cleaning.

This is despite the fact that the plant—owned by Salt River Project and the U.S. Department of Interior—pumps electricity throughout Arizona, Nevada, and California.

Yet, the reservation does get one thing from the plant: pollution.

The plant is “one of the largest sources of harmful nitrogen oxide (NOx) emissions in the country,” according to the Environmental Protection Agency.

While plant profiteers argue it brings jobs to the area, plant workers describe harrowing work conditions. “We are the sweatshop workers for the state of AZ, declared Navajo tribe member Marshall Johnson. “We are the mine workers, and we are the ones that must work even harder so the rest don’t have to.”

These problems are not limited to this Navajo community. Krystal Two Bulls from Lame Deer, Missouri—who came to Arizona to participate in the action—explained, “We’re also fighting coal extraction that is right next to our reservation, which is directly depleting our water source.”

The action marked the kickoff to the national Our Power Campaign, under the banner of Climate Justice Alliance, that unites almost 40 U.S.-based organizations rooted in Indigenous, African American, Latino, Asian Pacific Islander, and working-class white communities to fight for a transition to just, climate friendly economies.

Elsipogtog Blockade Halts Seismic Testing

25 June 2013 Community Member Hit by Car, Sovereignty Summer Campaign Calling for National Solidarity Actions

25 June 2013 Community Member Hit by Car, Sovereignty Summer Campaign Calling for National Solidarity Actions

By Sunday, June 23rd, SWN Resource Canada’s highly contested and protested seismic testing along highway 126, in Kent County, New Brunswick, had almost wrapped up.

But the seismic test along the highway is only one of several planned testing lines, and the company’s attempts to begin another line of seismic testing – this time along the back roads of Kent County – was yesterday halted in its tracks by community members living in the vicinity of Browns Yard.

SWN’s seismic testing of the back roads areas of Kent County – conducted with All-Terrain Vehicles known as ‘Bombadiers’, and dynamite charges – is slated to be extensive, with approximately 150kms of testing expected to take place.

Yesterday’s resistance, conducted firstly by local families and the action group known as ‘Upriver Environment Watch’, suggest that SWN’s task in the woods of New Brunswick, where there is local knowledge, deep forests and intense opposition to the testing, will be a tough slog indeed.

At about 2pm, an SWN-contracted truck with a trailer parked itself along highway 490. The truck was abandoned by the SWN-contracted workers, but it was an announcement of their presence to the vigilant community.

A small group of local familities – about 15 people in all, including young children – then gathered. A Bombadier, two geophones, a surveyor’s tripod and a SWN antenna, were spotted. Whoever had positioned the equipment had done so on a private piece of land adjacent to the dirt highway.

The driver of the Bombadier approached the surveying equipment, potentially to recover it from the gathering crowd, only to be chased away from the equipment by the crowd. The driver sped south along a dirt road and did not return to the scene.

An SWN-contracted security truck appeared on the scene about ten minutes later. The driver of the truck did not speak to the gathered crowd, but as he was driving away he struck local resident Dave Morang hard enough with his driver’s side mirror to bend the mirror backwards. The driver did not stop.

Morang, injured, requested that an ambulance needed to be called. An Emergency Response team later took Morang to hospital on a spinal board and a stretcher. His condition is currently unknown.

“I can’t believe they didn’t stop,” Morang told the Halifax Media Co-op before the ambulance arrived. “They hit me hard enough with his mirror that it bent it. He would have known that. How many laws can they break?”

About 20 minutes later, RCMP appeared in force, with 26 officers and 14 cars and paddy wagons stationing themselves along the dirt road. The call through social media, however, had beaten them to the punch, and by the time they arrived the gathered crowd had swelled to about 100 non-Indigenous and Indigenous people.

RCMP consulted for about twenty more minutes, before apparently deciding that the best course of action would be to pick up SWN’s antenna and geophones. Photographs indicate that SWN’s equipment appears to have been somehow bent and otherwise broken.

With nothing left to do, and with a gathered crowd which now included Chief Aaren Sock of Elsipogtog First Nation, the police packed up and retreated down the dirt road from which they had appeared.

Chief Sock, whose band council late Saturday night issued a Band Council Resolution inviting United Nations Observers to Elsipogtog, was not impressed with SWN’s unwanted incursions into Kent County, or the arrests of his people while in ceremony.

“Message for SWN: You’re not welcome in my territory,” Sock told the Halifax Media Co-op. “Nothing personal.”

After the RCMP departed with SWN’s equipment, those gathered continued to cheer and drum. They then began to slowly trickle back to their respective communities.

It was later discovered that SWN’s abandoned truck – the original sign of their presence – had had its windows smashed, doors dented and bumpers knocked off. As of press time, it is not known how this damage might have happened.

A packed community hall meeting in Elsipogtog, open to the general public, took place later in the evening. The topic of the meeting was not only how to stop SWN, but how to get shale gas out of New Brunswick, and all of the Maritimes. With UN observers now in place, representatives from various Warrior societies from across the Maritimes have been welcomed to Elsipogtog. They were greeted at the meeting with a standing ovation.

Local man Dave Morang was injured by an SWN-contracted security truck, who failed to stop after hitting him. [Photo: Miles Howe]
Police removing SWN equipment, which seems to have been bent somehow.[Photo: Miles Howe]
RCMP moving SWN equipment. [Photo: Miles Howe]
Not sure how this happened. SWN-contracted truck gets trashed. Last seen being towed away.[Photo: Miles Howe]

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Cross Posted from Idle No More

This is an official notice and “Call Out” to all Idle No More & Defenders of the Land – Sovereignty Summer – activists, allies and supporters, and partnership organizations to act in aid and in the defence of grassroots Elsipogtog First Nation, families, community members, and supporters near Moncton, New Brunswick.

In the last few weeks, Elsipogtog First Nation community members and allies have taken peaceful action to prevent seismic testing vehicles and workers from testing for shale gas deposits for purposes of resource exploitation on Indigenous territories.

The protestors have remained strong and peaceful for numerous days and the RCMP have become more aggressive and violent; arresting a man as he held a sacred pipe in his hand, as well as arresting community members at the site of the sacred fire. SWN contractors have also threatened to run over Mi’kmaq youth at the site.

In total, this past weekends Aboriginal Day’s 12 arrests brings the total number of arrestees to 29 from both the Mi’kmaq and non-Indigenous communities at the location of a sacred fire being kept (located at the junction of highways 126 and 116 west) in Kent County near Moncton. These arrests included the arrest of a eight and a half month pregnant Mi’kmaq woman as well as local man, Dave Morang. Mr. Morang was injured by an SWN-contracted security truck, who failed to stop after hitting him.This peaceful resistance is on-going to prevent SWN Resources Canada from fracking in the immediate area.

INM organizers have been in contact with Elsipogtog First Nation community members and have requested further support.

Sovereignty Summer Campaign-Idle No More & Defenders of the Land

Charges Dropped Against Honduras Dam Opponent

Members of COPINH, an indigenous campesino movement defending lands and rivers in Honduras against dams and other threats

Members of COPINH, an indigenous campesino movement defending lands and rivers in Honduras against dams and other threats

June 25 2013

After an eight-hour hearing on June 13, a court in Santa Bárbara, the capital of the western Honduran department of the same name, suspended a legal action against indigenous leader Berta Isabel Cáceres Flores for the alleged illegal possession of a weapon. According to Cáceres’ lawyer, Marcelino Martínez, the court found that there was not enough evidence to proceed with the case. Cáceres, who coordinates the Civic Council of Grassroots and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras (COPINH), is now free to travel out of the country, although the case could still be reopened. Representatives from some 40 organizations came to the city on June 13 in an expression of solidarity with the activist.

Cáceres was arrested along with COPINH radio communicator Tómas Gómez Membreño on May 24 when a group of about 20 soldiers stopped their vehicle and claimed to find a pistol under a car seat [see Update #1178, where we gave the date incorrectly as May 25]. Cáceres and Gómez Membreño had been visiting Lenca communities that were protesting the Agua Zarca hydroelectric project. The leader of the military patrol, First Battalion of Engineers commander Col. Milton Amaya, explicitly linked the arrests to the activists’ political work: the Honduran online publication Proceso Digital reported that Amaya “accused Cáceres of going around haranguing indigenous residents of a border region between Santa Bárbara and Intibucá known as Río Blanco so that they would oppose the building of the Agua Zarca hydroelectric dam.”

According to SOA Watch—a US-based group that monitors the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHINSEC), formerly the US Army School of the Americas (SOA)—Amaya has studied at the school on two occasions. (Proceso Digital 5/26/13; Adital (Brazil) 6/14/13; Kaos en la Red 6/14/13 from COPINH, Radio Mundo Real, Honduras Libre, Derechos Humanos; SOA Watch 6/21/13)

Update on Belo Monte Dam Struggle

In the late morning of June 4th, two air force planes descended upon the capital city of Brasília, carrying aboard an unusual group of passengers: over 140 indigenous people, ma

In the late morning of June 4th, two air force planes descended upon the capital city of Brasília, carrying aboard an unusual group of passengers: over 140 indigenous people, mainly members of the Munduruku tribe from the Tapajós River – including leaders, warriors, women and children – along with a small number of representatives of Xingu tribes – Xikrin, Arara, Kayapó. For the indigenous delegation, the purpose of the trip, negotiated during the latest occupation of the Belo Monte Dam site, was to meet with Minister Gilberto Carvalho, General Secretary of the President’s Office, to discuss their demands for consultations and consent regarding a series of mega-dams on the Tapajós, Teles Pires and Xingu rivers, planned and, in some cases, under (illegal) construction.

Munduruku child

Munduruku child
By Jamilye Salles

During a four-hour meeting held the same day, the Munduruku voiced their concerns and outrage over threats posed by the federal government's ambitious dam-building spree in the Xingu and Tapajós basins, authorized without any process of free, prior and informed consultations and consent, as mandated by the Brazilian Constitution and international agreements such as ILO Convention 169. At the end of the meeting, the main proposal put forward by Minister Carvalho was to organize another meeting in a Munduruku village after a period of 30 days. As Carvalho left the meeting, he stated unequivocally to a group of reporters that while open to dialogue with indigenous peoples, the "government is not going to give up on its projects.” Interestingly, the Minister was referring to proposed mega-dams such as São Luiz do Tapajós whose environmental impact and economic viability studies have yet to be finalized and approved.

“What the government wants, we do not want. They want to say that they will build dams on our land and then see what we want in return. And we do not want anything in return. We want our river free and our nature preserved" stated indigenous leader Valdenir Mundurukú."The Minister says he wants to consult with indigenous peoples, but that the government's decision to build the dams has already been made. What kind of consultation is that?"

Minister of the General Secretariat of the Presidency of Brazil, Gilberto Carvalho, speaks to Munduruku Indians during a meeting at the Planalto Palace

Minister of the General Secretariat of the Presidency of Brazil, Gilberto Carvalho, speaks to Munduruku Indians during a meeting at the Planalto Palace
REUTERS/Ueslei Marcelino

Carvalho's advisors attempted to convince the indigenous delegation to return home to the state of Pará the following morning, arguing that this was part of the agreement around their trip to Brasília and that planes were awaiting them at a nearby air force base. Munduruku and Xingu leaders responded that there had been no such agreement, and they did not intend to return to their villages without concrete results from their time in Brasília.

The next morning, the Munduruku and Xingu representatives assembled in the Praça dos Três Poderes, adjacent to the Presidential Palace, Brazilian Congress and Supreme Court. There, they were greeted by leaders of the Terena people, who had traveled to Brasília to demand the demarcation of their lands and a full investigation into the killing of Osiel Gabriel, a Terena killed by the federal police in a land conflict involving ranchers in the state of Mato Grosso do Sul. As the Terena leaders departed for a meeting with the Minister of Justice, the Munduruku and Xingu representatives proceeded in the direction of the Presidential Palace with the goal of delivering a letter to President Dilma Rousseff that included a request for a meeting. However, a large security force assembled a barricade, physically preventing the indigenous people from reaching the entrance to the palace. The letter to Dilma was never delivered. The delegation then walked to the main entrance of the Brazilian Congress where they personally delivered a letter to Representative Padre Ton, chairman of a congressional caucus in support of indigenous peoples.

Munduruku child at demonstration in front of Presidential Palace

Munduruku child at demonstration in front of Presidential Palace
By Brent Millikan

Following the decision to extend their stay in Brasília, the indigenous delegation was informed by Minister Carvalho's staff that his office would not provide additional lodging, food or transportation in Brasília. As a result, the delegation moved to a compound on the outskirts of Brasília operated by CIMI, one of the progressive arms of the Catholic Church that supports indigenous peoples. After a few days, they needed to find another place to stay because the CIMI compound was already reserved for a large event. The new President of FUNAI (the government organization tasked with indigenous affairs), Maria Augusta Assirati, told CIMI and the indigenous delegation that her agency would resolve the problem. When a solution failed to materialize, the Munduruku and Xingu representatives decided to occupy FUNAI headquarters in the center of Brasília.

The Munduruku and their Xingu allies staged a protest outside the Ministry of Mines and Energy

Munduruku protest outside the Ministry of Mines and Energy
By Brent Millikan

The Munduruku and their Xingu allies subsequently staged an impressive protest at the entrance of the Ministry of Mines and Energy – de-facto headquarters of the Brazilian dam industry – that included singing and dancing. The delegation formally requested meetings with Joaquim Barbosa and Felix Fischer, chief justices of the Federal Supreme Court (STF) and Superior Court of Justice (STJ), respectively, to discuss outstanding lawsuits regarding lack of prior consultations in the cases of Belo Monte and the Tapajos dams. Neither request was granted.

On June 12th, Brazil's most well-known indigenous leader,Chief Raoni, traveled to Brasília to show solidarity with the Mundurukú, one of the main outcomes of a meeting just organized among the Kayapó of the Xingu Basin. In the past, the Kayapó and Mundurukú occasionally engaged in conflicts, which made Chief Raoni’s presence an even more historic event, uniting communites with a common goal of defending their territories and rights against destructive dam projects.

Munduruku warrior in front of Brazilian Congress

Munduruku warrior in front of Brazilian Congress
By Brent Millikan

Throughout their stay in Brasilia, the Munduruku and Xingu representatives insisted that the government honor the issue of consent: i.e. that the federal government should listen to indigenous peoples and respect their decision. This is precisely what the administrations of Lula and Dilma Rousseff have not done, blatantly flouting the Brazilian Constitution and international agreements regarding indigenous peoples' rights while intervening in federal courts to ensure the rule of law is not upheld.

Last Thursday, the Munduruku and representatives from the Xingu returned to the state of Pará after nine days in Brasilia, vowing to continue the struggle. "Our fight has just begun. We're returning to our communities where we will strengthen ourselves and create alliances with other indigenous peoples so that, together, we can fight this desrespect of the federal government for our culture, our beliefs and our rights” stated Valdenir Mundurukú, shortly before the group embarked on air force planes for the long voyage home.

Honduras Targeting Indigenous Dam Opponents

21 June 2013, On Friday, May 24, Berta Caceres, the General Coordinator of the Indigenous Lenca organization COPINH, and Tomas Gomez of COPINH’s community radio station, were traveling on rural dirt roads to reach the Indigenous Lenca community of Rio Blanco when they were stopped by 15-20 soldiers. The whole area had been militarized just two weeks before in response to the area-wide mobilization against a hydroelectric dam being illegally built in the Indigenous Lenca community of Rio Blanco. The First Battalion of Engineers, commanded by an SOA graduate, occupied the area to protect the interests of the company and enable dam construction to continue in direct violation of ILO Convention 169 and the will of the communities in the area.

Despite the military’s presence, evictions, sabotage to COPINH’s vehicle, death threats against community leaders, and intimidation, the resistance to the dam continued to grow as the Rio Blanco community neared 2 months of blocking the dam entrance. When Berta and Tomas drove the winding dirt roads to Rio Blanco on May 24, as they had many times before in COPINH’s now well-recognized vehicle, the military was waiting for them. They were on an isolated dirt road, where anything that occurred would be the word of at least 15 soldiers against that of Berta and Tomas. The COPINH leaders were ordered to stop and get out of the car. The soldiers proceeded to search their vehicle in detail, even poking their fingers in the engine, and found nothing. However, that did not matter in their pre-planned operation to criminalize Berta and weaken the struggle against the Agua Zarca dam: they simply claimed to have found a gun and then called the police, who took Berta and Tomas to jail. Berta was arrested and kept in jail overnight, finally being conditionally released after dozens of international phone calls inquiring for her safety. But first, she was charged with “illegally carrying weapons,” a charge that can result in time in prison. Subsequently, she was also charged with attempting against the internal security of the state of Honduras.

Two-time SOA graduate Col. Milton Amaya, the Commander of the First Battalion of Engineers, made accusations about Berta Caceres to the press, resulting in several news articles that claim the well-known social movement leader was illegally armed. This is part of a broader strategy by the military and Honduran oligarchy to criminalize and defame social movements by painting them as armed or operating outside the law.

In the case of COPINH, the criminalization and defamation of Berta Caceres by the military was aimed at breaking the community’s resistance to the hydroelectric dam – thus enabling powerful multinational interests to profit from the Rio Blanco community’s carefully stewarded natural resources.  Confidential sources reported that the company felt that by “taking her (Berta) down, the others will break.” In a telling indication of the true motives behind Berta’s arrest, the Honduran daily newspaper El Tiempo reported that Col. Amaya “accused Caceres of rallying the Indigenous population of the area known as Rio Blanco… to reject the construction of the Agua Zarca hydroelectric dam.”

The powerful interests behind the project and their influence in the Honduran government was evident when the prosecutor against Berta was changed from the local office in Santa Barbara to the National Procuraduria General de la Republica, which requested that Berta be imprisoned while awaiting trial. However, what the powers at be didn't count on was the widespread support for Berta Caceres by Honduran social movements and international organizations. On June 13, outside the courthouse where a hearing against Berta held, representatives from over 40 organizations gathered to demand an end to the criminalization of Berta and COPINH. Nobel Peace Prize winner Adolfo Pérez Esquivel held a press conference in Argentina and organizations and individuals from across the Americas contacted the Honduran government and released statements calling for Berta's freedom.

On June 13, the hearing dragged on, with two recesses, the second postponing the resolution to the end of the day. However, those gathered outside the courthouse to demand Berta's freedom refused to leave. It was reported that representatives of the companies building the hydroelectric dam had gone drinking with the judge in the days prior to the hearing, but this time their efforts to sway the easily corruptible Honduran justice system were not enough. There was no evidence against Berta, numerous irregularities in her arrest, and the two soldiers who testified about supposedly finding a weapon contradicted each other several times in their testimony.

In the Honduran judicial system, lack of evidence isn't a problem when there is a political motive for a conviction, but this time it seems the political cost of locking up a widely known and respected leader with support from across the continent was too much. After taking recesses to surely consult with the powers at be, instead of ordering a trial and sending Berta to prison in the meantime, the judge “provisionally dismissed” the charges. Those standing vigil outside the courthouse celebrated the news of Berta's freedom and the failure of the military's efforts to jail her. The provisional part means that the prosecutor has 5 years to present new evidence but is clear to all involved there will be national and international pushback to any attempt to fabricate charges.

However, the powerful interests behind the project are not giving up. Following the court's decision not to jail Berta, there were new death threats against her and other COPINH and community leaders. It is reported that someone was paid to murder Berta this week and there are indications they may try to criminalize other leaders. The First Battalion of Engineers continues to occupy the zone, literally protecting corporate interests rather than the population. COPINH has denounced that soldiers have even driven company machinery to try to custodian the machinery past the Indigenous Lenca community's blockade. On June 11, when many in the community were away for a mobilization, soldiers and police physically destroyed the roadblock. They then attempted to accompany employees of DESA and SINOHYDRO past the blockade but the small group of women and children present refused to let the company in. On June 16, community members report that 150 soldiers and police arrived at the Rio Blanco blockade, several traveling in company vehicles as they often do. Again the community refused to move, refusing to let the company advance in illegally building a dam in their territory.

The Indigenous Lenca communities are up against very powerful interests who want their territory – in violation of their right to the land that has belonged to their community for centuries, which they have carefully stewarded and plan to pass onto their children. One of the principal investors in the dam is the Honduran Bank FICOHSA, whose president is Camilo Atala, is an extremely powerful businessman identified as one of the “intellectual authors and financers of the coup d’etat.” FICOHSA also exercises significant political power because they purchased Honduras’ internal debt after the 2009 military coup. The World Bank and Central American Bank for Economic Integration are also key investors. A Chinese state company, SINOHYDRO, which is the largest hydropower company in the world is working on the project. As Berta Caceres explains, "we are confronting an oligarchic, banking, financial, and transnational power, as well as the State of Honduras itself and its repressive forces, which have historically aligned themselves with the interests of multinational corporations."

The criminalization and militarization faced by COPINH and the Indigenous communities of Rio Blanco takes place in the context of increasing criminalization of Honduran social movements, especially those who are defending their natural resources as the right-wing government ushered in by the military coup literally sells off the country to multinational corporations and the Honduran oligarchy.

Take action: Click here to e-mail the World Bank, the US Embassy in Honduras, and the Honduran authorities, urging them to end the militarization and criminalization of the Rio Blanco struggle and respect for ILO Convention 169 and the right of the Indigenous Lenca communities of Rio Blanco to decide whether or not they want a hydroelectric dam built on their territory.

The Intensification of Independence in Wallmapu

mapucheThe Intensification of Independence in Wallmapu

mapucheThe Intensification of Independence in Wallmapu
Critical Reflections on a Solidarity Trip to Generate Electricity in one Mapuche Community in Struggle

John Severino

Introduction

In the last decade, an increasing number of Mapuche communities have carried out the “productive recovery” of their lands. Using direct action to take back their traditional territory from whomever has usurped it—usually logging companies or latifundistas—they take this land out of the capitalist market and put it to a traditional use for local needs, either through farming, grazing, or forest commoning. While this line of struggle has been hugely successful, inspiring other communities to begin forcefully taking back their own lands, those that have ejected the usurpers and asserted their claims to the land have often faced new problems.

After a community successfully reclaims its lands, repression usually decreases and quality of living improves, leading to a different atmosphere in which the struggle is less conflictive. In this new, more comfortable atmosphere of struggle, certain recuperative ideas can sneak in. One of these is the temptation to put newly acquired lands to economically productive use, out of a desire to achieve a higher standard of living along Western lines.

Closely related to the infiltration of a capitalist worldview, principally seen in the desirability of jobs and money, is the influx of evangelical Christianity. Evangelical churches are recruiting aggressively in South America, and their presence is always accompanied by a decrease is solidarity, an extension of the capitalist worldview, and a greater vulnerability to resource extraction and other development projects. Specifically in Wallmapu, evangelicals often work as snitches and they aggressively demonize the Mapuche culture. Communities in which the Christians have not yet taken root have a clear and effective solution—burn down the churches—but communities with an already significant Christian presence have lost their togetherness after the more conflictive moments of struggle passed and Christians could begin pushing for a successful reintegration into winka society or simply ignoring the earthly reality of social conflict.malleco

Another major problem stems from the lack of access to electricity and water. Most Mapuche communities steal their electricity from existing power lines. But in the depths of the forestry plantations that occupy the greater part of Mapuche lands, there are no power lines to pilfer from. What’s more, the exotic, genetically modified pine and eucalyptus planted in straight rows in a nearly endless monoculture (the World Bank labels these as “forests” in its development statistics) dry up the water table. In other words, many Mapuche communities have successfully kicked out the logging companies or big landlords, only to find that they could not have electricity and water in their newly reclaimed lands. Taking advantage of the vulnerable situation, logging companies and NGOs used charity to discourage resistance, building infrastructure projects to reward non-conflictive communities.

To overcome this obstacle, some Mapuche communities in struggle have begun looking for ways to set up their own water and electricity infrastructure. In the furtherance of this goal, one community invited a handful of gringo anarchists with the necessary skills and resources to help them set up an electricity generation system that could subsequently be recreated in other communities. This article is about that collaborative project.

The Community

We can call the community where the project took place Lof Pañgihue. The people of Lof Pañgihue lost their lands, along with the rest of the Mapuche, in the 1880s during the surprise invasion by Chile and Argentina. As with other lof, many che were killed, and others became refugees, eventually moving to the cities. A few were able to remain in the lof and rebuild, though their herds and the best of their lands had been stolen from them. The rewe, ayllu rewe, and fütal mapu with which the Mapuche had traditionally come together for ceremonies or defensive warfare had disintegrated.

The Chilean government was giving away Mapuche lands, and many gringos came and set up large estates on which the Mapuche had to labor as peons. The struggle in the early years was focused on survival, retaining their language and spirituality, and resisting the landlords. In the days of Allende and Pinochet, the Mapuche linked their struggle with the leftist anticapitalist movement in force at the time, often joining armed struggle groups like MIR and Mapu-Lautaro. Around that time, several thousand people were living in Lof Pañgihue on just about a hundred acres of land. A large amount of land was nationalized by the Allende government as part of a program to eventually give it to poor people (Mapuche and winka) on an individualized commodity basis. The Pinochet government, however, gave this land to the logging companies, and Lof Pañgihue was soon surrounded by pine plantations.

recuperacionproductiva2In the early ’90s, many Mapuche embarked on an autonomous line of struggle, increasingly rejecting the leftist mode of struggle that had utilized the Mapuche as footsoldiers, or the Marxist analysis that insisted on branding them as peasants who had to join the international proletariat in order advance and liberate themselves.

The people of Lof Pañgihue occupied about a thousand acres that had been usurped by various latifundistas, using sabotage, attacks on police guardians, and constant pressure to eventually get the landlords to give up their claims. They also built houses and began farming or grazing on the recovered land. More recently, they began recovering another thousand acres currently usurped by a logging company. They have been cutting down pine for use as firewood and replanting native trees. With the return of the native trees, mountain lions, native birds, and other forms of life have also started to come back, including medicinal plants that the machis gather for traditional cures.

Multiple members of Lof Pañgihue have been imprisoned, and others face an array of minor and serious charges, in retaliation for their struggle. The police maintain a constant level of repression against the community, and they have also destroyed houses, stolen tools, tear gassed babies, shot rubber bullets at the elderly, and beaten, harassed, and arrested their weichafe, werken, and longko.

represion_mapucheIn the face of the repression, a neighboring community gave up on land recovery actions, even though many in the community still did not have any land. In another controversial decision, they also accepted a charity project from the logging company that brought water to the village. But after just a couple years, the pipes broke, and the community has neither the know-how to fix them, nor the money to pay for replacement parts. That enforced dependence is a built-in part of charity. The logging company rewarded the community for giving up its struggle, but it was not so stupid as to hand out a reward that would permit any degree of independence. They did not involve the community in building the infrastructure, nor did they use cheap local parts that could be easily replaced.

The major obstacle faced by Lof Pañgihue is the lack of water. Thanks to all the pine plantations, the middle of the valley where they and the other community are located goes bone dry in the summer. No water for drinking, no water for the animals, no water for the crops. There are year-round streams at the edge of the valley, but no power lines to steal electricity from. They don’t need a lot of electricity, since they are not pursuing a Western model of development, but having radio and telephone is not only a major convenience, but a way that different communities stay in contact and spread the word about repression. And, let’s not romanticize, the occasional washing machine is seen as a big plus.

If they can relocate their homes and gardens to the riparian side of the valley, leaving their current site for grazing, and if they find a way to generate power, then they will have land, electricity, water, their dignity, and a way forward in the struggle, whereas the community that accepted charity and made peace with the State will only have electricity and half the land they need.

The Anarchists

We got the invitation through a Mapuche friend we had worked with on our previous trip to Wallmapu. Having been their guest, and having collaborated on land recovery, translation and diffusion about their struggle, prisoner support, and other projects, we had a personal basis of trust, solidarity, and friendship. Without that, they never would have thought of contacting us when they learned that a nearby community needed to find a way to generate its own electricity.

The next step was finding comrades who were interested in the project and had the needed skills. We prepared for several months making arrangements, getting resources together, and practicing techniques for the fabrication of different generation systems.

We also talked about our expectations and desires for the trip.

A clear priority for everyone involved was a total rejection of charity. We did not see ourselves as privileged people going to help underprivileged others, nor as allies to the Mapuche struggle. The only reason we considered going was because the Mapuche were struggling for their freedom, and we as anarchists were involved in a distinct but interconnected struggle for our own freedom. This was, in a sense, the “community of freedoms” Fredy Perlman writes about.

The purpose of the project was to deepen the relationship of solidarity between different people in struggle. We were being invited because of specific skills some of us had, but we had no illusions about being unique in that regard. Only because the Mapuche had created such a potent, insightful struggle was this project even possible. It is no coincidence that none of us had ever set up an electricity generation system before; never before had doing so held revolutionary implications. We wanted learning on this trip to go both ways, and we knew that it would. Speaking for myself, the conversations and experiences I had on the previous trip to Wallmapu, the worldview and the vision of struggle I encountered, forever altered my own practice as an anarchist.woodgasifier

Because it was impossible to communicate directly with the people in the community until we arrived, when planning the trip we decided we should begin with a conversation about our goals, motivations, and expectations. We would not get distracted by the technical details, as important as they were. We were not going to set up a generation system in a village, we were going to deepen our relationships. The material infrastructure was an anchor that would permit the intensification of anticapitalist relations, and a point of leverage for the liberated social relations to push back against the imposed capitalist social relations.

As such, success for the project could be defined as the following:

1: forming relationships that would enable mutual solidarity

2: working together with peñi and lamuen in a collective process to install one or several models of electricity generation using local materials, with an emphasis on passing on skills, such that the model could be recreated without external aid and set up in other communities in struggle.

In other words, if we effectively set up an electricity generation system in a community and left, and the people there did not know how to make another one on their own, the project would have been a failure for us.mapuche-15

The Project

Solely on a technical level, the project was fairly complicated. The plan was to fabricate one system that would use wood chips to create power, and one or two run-of-river systems that would use pressurized water to turn a drive shaft and generate electricity.

Logistically, it became even more complicated. We needed to get a workshop space, an arc welder, a gas welder, an angle grinder, a drill, a metal lathe, a dozen hand tools, and a hundred other items that would constitute the primary materials. We had to get the materials as cheap as possible, in local stores and junkyards, so we could be sure that the peñi and lamuen could replicate everything after we had left. Then we had to build everything with Mapuche comrades so that they would learn the process. And we had to do all this in a context of constant repression, with new arrests and raids happening every week, some of them directly impacting on the project. The possibility of being arrested, deported, and banned from Chile hung over us throughout the entire project, should the state decide to define what we were doing as a political activity. The Chilean constitution prohibits foreigners from participating in political activities, and the state’s repression against the Mapuche specifically aims to isolate—one community from another, and all of Wallmapu from the outside world. To us, the project was not at all a “political activity,” in fact it went far deeper, and precisely for that reason we had to be extremely careful and low key.

A couple of friends took us out to Lof Pañgihue for the first time. The police seemed to know we were coming and controlled us near the entrance to the community, but that was hardly unexpected, given the level of surveillance they use against the Mapuche struggle.

The initial conversation between us and the longko and several werken and lamuen of the community went as well as we could have hoped. They explained their struggle to us, and the history of their community: the loss of their land with the Chilean invasion, further losses during the Pinochet dictatorship, the manipulations of their Marxist allies, the autonomous path of their struggle, the beginning of forceful land recoveries, the repression, the lack of water, the dependence on state electricity infrastructure.

Then we explained why we were there, that we were anarchists fighting against the State, that we respected the Mapuche struggle and wanted to create stronger connections of solidarity, that we came to help them set up a system for generating electricity but it was absolutely important for us not to create dynamics of charity. We recognized that we would be gaining a great deal from them, and learning things that would be helpful for our own struggle.

They thanked us for coming and asked us what models we were proposing to build. The only models for ecological electricity generation that they had had contact with were wind and solar, which in their region were only ever used by rich landlords.

We explained the two systems and their benefits. They were much better suited to the region, geographically and climatically, then wind or solar. They were more discreet, harder for the police to find and destroy during a raid, and cheaper to replace should they be broken. They would not hurt the land: the wood system only released as much carbon as the trees serving as fuel had taken out of the atmosphere, meaning as long as they weren’t deforesting their land there would be no net pollution. The only other waste product was charcoal which could serve as fertilizer. And the water system only required a small stream running down a slope. The stream would not have to be extensively dammed or diverted, and all the water taken from it would be returned to it. Both systems could be made with materials available in the stores and scrapyards of the nearest city.

We told them we had raised the money for all the costs of installing an electricity generation system, but to expand that system to meet the needs of the whole community, or to set one up in another community, they would have to meet those costs. However both models were designed to be highly economical and durable. The most expensive, inaccessible part was the alternator in the water system and the generator in the wood system, but the cost was not too great for a whole community to assume.

They liked the proposal, and they took us out to the site to make sure the geography and the available water supply were adequate. Then we had lunch together and talked a while about our respective struggles. In the evening we made ready to head back to the city, where other Mapuche comrades were looking for tools and a workshop. The werken from Lof Pañgihue said they would hold an assembly for the whole community to decide on our proposal, but he was sure everyone would be excited about it, as they had been talking about the need for such a project for some time. They would call us soon with confirmation and measurements from the site so we could start getting materials, and then they would arrange to send some people to the city to work alongside us and learn how to build these systems.

The day could hardly have been more fortuitous, but we encountered an early problem that would later create serious difficulties. Although we had been preparing on our end for months, because of limited and insecure communication, preparations in Wallmapu had not been able to move forward. The community had been able to send out its request, but had not been able to get detailed information about the specific proposal in order to start preparing. The logistics on this project were far more complicated than on the project three years ago, requiring local knowledge and very specific skills, and we did not have the direct connections to begin organizing those logistics until we arrived in Wallmapu. But as they say, sometimes you need to do something before you can get the skills and resources you need to be able to do it. This was definitely the case with our project.

But initially, back in the city, things went fast. Other Mapuche comrades who were friends of the friends we made last time helped us find the cheapest shops and the best junkyards. It helped immensely that several of them were welders, mechanics, or other technical workers, so they had all the necessary tools and knew where to get things we never could have found in a month.

Shortly, we got confirmation from the community that they wanted to work with us to realize this project, but they had to delay a bit before they could come to the city. So we waited. Days turned to a week before they told us they would not be able to come. Repression clearly played a role in this, but it also made us worry that the project would not be fully participatory, that it might slip across the line from solidarity to charity.

pacosWe had not wasted the entire week, since we continued getting to know the comrades in the city, sharing meals with them, learning the local histories of struggle, sharing stories about our own battles. But there was no way around the fact that our time there was limited, and with one week less, we were beginning to lose the chance at the nice leisurely pace we had originally envisioned.

Discussing it with everyone involved, we decided to start fabricating the systems with a couple peñi from the city who were already experienced welders or builders. They would then be able to show others how to make the systems.

Still, we had vastly different rhythms. The peñi worked full time, and sometimes on weekends too, and they also had a completely different concept of punctuality. It soon became clear that to get done in time, we would have to do a lot of the fabrication ourselves, and then on our relatively short time together focus on practicing vital techniques and explaining the overall process of fabrication.

It was far from ideal and all the delays and time alone made us entertain serious doubts. Were we giving more importance to this project than our Mapuche comrades? Was the shared participation we were striving for a lie? So we (this being the reduced group of gringo anarchists) talked it out and decided that if the promised participation was not forthcoming, we would leave the two generation systems half-finished and head for home. It was neither an ultimatum nor a surrender, just the recognition that letting solidarity devolve into charity would be the worst possible outcome of the trip. It was far better, from the perspective of anti-State struggle, to leave half-completed systems rather than fully completed systems, because that meant that the generation systems would only ever be more than semi-expensive junk if the people they were intended for learned how to finish making and installing them.

Fortunately, we were able to have a heart-to-heart with a couple of the peñi in the city, both of whom helped set us straight. Having a heart-to-heart conversation about the possible failure of a major project is no easy matter, especially when there are huge cultural differences and the other people involved, while friends of friends, were total strangers until a few weeks earlier. The outcome underscores the importance of good communication and solid relationships based on friendship. The “dead time” we had spent waiting for the chance to get to work, and instead hanging out with new friends and getting to know one another, was more important in the end than the technical work on the systems, as the latter would have failed without the former, and the former—the good relationships—opens a whole world of possibilities and other projects.

The comrades we spoke with clarified for us how little detailed information had gotten through before our arrival, making it impossible to prepare in advance. They told us how enthusiastic many of them were about this project, and how such a project constituted an important and needed step forward in their struggle. They reiterated how they had limited time, and while they were fully committed, could not help out more than a few days a week, which just didn’t mesh with our schedule of coming for a month and working every day. And they clued us in that Mapuche from the countryside operated on a completely different calendar and there was absolutely no way around that. While those who lived in the city might say 8 and arrive at 10, the Mapuche from the countryside would say Monday and arrive on Wednesday.

Being told that it was a question of different rhythms helped us understand the difficulties we had been having and feel good about the time that had gone by, since we had no desire to impose our pace. The local rhythm will always take precedence over whatever expectations of rhythm outsiders may bring with them. In short order we saw ample proof that the Mapuche comrades in no way lacked commitment, and it was in fact still their initiative.

But the fact that we so closely approached defeat, in my mind, was perfect. It forced us to draw a line, to define victory, and we decided it was better to accept failure than to declare a false victory.

Shortly thereafter, a couple peñi from the community arrived, helped us get a few more materials that had so far eluded us, and took us and the equipment back to the lof. We worked feverishly the next few days, as we had pushed back our timeline considerably and our return dates were approaching. But the work in Lof Pañgihue was incredibly inspiring. We woke up every morning while the stars were still out, the lamuen set up a cooking fire, we discussed the day’s work together, and some of us cooked or acquired materials while the rest of us labored together along the river bed, speaking in a mixture of Spanish, English, and Mapudungun, digging, building frames, reworking the turbine, and installing the electronics. When it got dark, we would stop, but the conversations about the project and about our larger struggles would go on over supper and until midnight.

At the end of it all, seeing the pulleys connected to the alternators begin to turn, that unassuming circular motion was one of the most beautiful sights.

Affinity and Difference

When working together with anarchists from another country, you typically find that you speak the same revolutionary idiom and share an overwhelming affinity which is put into sharp relief by certain cultural and historical differences, which often prove useful for self-reflection by the contrast they provide.

Working together with Mapuche who are struggling for full independence, the gulf is even wider. Our histories share few common reference points (though these are of extreme importance), our worldviews are different, and we communicate within distinct idioms of struggle. The strong points of affinity capable of bridging this difference have all the more meaning, and reflect on anarchist ideas about decentralized global struggle.

Neither the Mapuche nor their struggle are homogenous; however in general they have chosen to frame both of these as unified entities. Some Mapuche believe in political parties, in NGOs, or in Marxist dogma about economics. But one aspect of their shared framing of the struggle is a focus on the communities and the land. This is the center of the Mapuche struggle, where communities are regaining their land, and it is precisely where leftists, NGOs, and political parties have the least hold. The former are all given a niche by the institutions of the State, whether the media, the universities, or the development funds, meaning they tend to only have a presence in the cities.

Among the Mapuche in the communities, or those in the nearest cities who focus on aiding the rural struggle rather than leading it, there is a clear tendency to reject the State, capitalism, Christianity, and the entire Western worldview, including the pernicious narrative of progress.

Many peñi and lamuen we met had a crystal clear view of what was going on in Bolivia and how much it represented what they wanted to avoid. The “plurinational state” of the indigenous Evo Morales had recognized various indigenous peoples within Bolivian territory, putting their rights down on paper, and this had changed absolutely nothing. Legal recognition meant nothing as long as they did not have their land. But “having their land” in the Western sense was also meaningless, because it would only imply individualized title to a commodity that had to be put to productive use on the market in order to be maintained.

The Mapuche are the “people of the land.” In their idiom, as with many other indigenous peoples, “having land” is interchangeable with “belonging to land.” It cannot be just any land, divided into parcels. It must be the land with which they have a historical, spiritual, and economic connection. Mapuche land recovery is an assault on authority at the most fundamental level, because it destroys the very meaning of the capitalist idiom, denying the Western construction of the individual, and insisting on the inalienability of person and environment.

This is a more fleshed out, studied view of what anarchists were going for when they first took up the call, “land and freedom.” It is no coincidence that anarchists, open to the possibility of learning from other struggles rather than imposing a unifying dogma, adopted this slogan in part from indigenous people fighting in southern Mexico in the days of Zapata and Magon. Marxists, meanwhile, declared such a posture to be reactionary, believing that agriculture had to be industrialized and taking for granted, therefore, the alienation between person and land.

At a panel discussion about repression in the communities, the Mapuche youth organizing the event hung a banner over the speaker’s table that read: Wallmapu liberado, sin cárcel ni estado. “Wallmapu freed, without prison nor state.” They have living memory of a stateless, decentralized society, and with this memory as a lens, all coercive institutions, from prisons to schools, appear as building blocks of their colonization.represionchileno

Given the importance of these affinities, along with the sincerity and dedication of the Mapuche I have met and the resilience of their struggle, I am inclined to pay attention to the differences. Not because I think we can or should copy the Mapuche struggle, nor out of a romanticized idea that their struggle has no failings. But it is a powerful, inspiring struggle, and the differences between their version of a stateless struggle and our own cannot help but aid us in reflecting on our own strategies.

A couple of the people we got to know in Lof Pañgihue were remarkably upfront with their criticisms, though they made it clear that those criticisms came from a place of respect. They praised Chilean anarchists for their consistent, disinterested solidarity with the Mapuche struggle, and noted that they were piqued when they saw that anarchists were fighting against the State, placing bombs, and going to prison; clearly these were committed enemies of the established order. However, they did not have a clear idea of what the anarchists were fighting for. Those who had spent time in the city had seen anarchist social centers and libraries, but what were the anarchists actually trying to create?

All the major leftist anticapitalist groups in earlier decades had used the Mapuche as footsoldiers and “the Mapuche conflict” as a mere source of discontent. It became clear to many that should the Marxist guerrillas ever win, they would only impose a new Western order on Wallmapu, as had happened to every other indigenous nation when Marxists had taken over. For them, independence specifically meant not being subordinated to a state.

The anarchists had only been around for a short time in Chile, eight years in their estimation. Because it was not clear what the anarchists wanted, they were cautious that they might also be fighting for power. Should they ally with anarchists and win, would the anarchists accept that they did not have any say on what happened in the lands south of the Bío Bío river, or would they also try to impose on the Mapuche territories? Did the anarchists have an answer for the “Mapuche conflict” or would they respect Mapuche autonomy?

They did not understand why solidarity events at the anarchist social centers often turned into parties. What did the parties have to do with the struggles or prisoners they were supporting? Mapuche solidarity events often focus on letting people know why they are struggling, and the rightness of their struggle, or on holding a ceremony that would bring newen to their prisoners.

They also asked why so many anarchists were vegans, not seeing a connection between respecting animals and not eating them. Fortunately, most of the anarchists they had met, in addition to being vegans, held strong criticisms of civilization. I worry that, had their prior experience been with leftist anarchists who believed in the narrative of civilization and progress, they might never have reached out to us. As it was, none of us were vegan, and all of us were critical of civilization, so we got along just fine.

Then there were a couple specific grievances they had, both relating to Chilean anarchists. One was an occasional imposition of rhythms, as when a group of masked anarchists started smashing banks at a Mapuche solidarity demo in Santiago. The Mapuche were not opposed to smashing banks, quite the contrary, but they did object to what seemed like anarchists trying to speed up their struggle.

mapu-luchaThe other grievance related to a video they had seen on TV of a Santiago anarchist transporting a bomb which blew up prematurely. The surveillance video portrayed the anarchist catching on fire, and his comrade running away and leaving him there. The Mapuche would never abandon a comrade like that, they said. They attributed it to inexperience on the anarchists’ part. One question they asked us frequently was how long we had been involved in the struggle and what had made us become anarchists.

A Mapuche friend who was close enough to not have to worry about politeness chided us anarchists for not having newen. This will be an especially difficult difference to explain, especially since the closest analog to newen among North American anarchists is “woo” or “magic,” and the concepts seem completely different in practice. Suffice it to say that a comparison would be misleading. In my experience the Mapuche are very matter-of-fact about newen. Beyond simply rejecting a mechanical, scientific view of the world, as do many anarchists, the Mapuche live out a different worldview that is firmly anchored in the totality of their economic, spiritual, and physiological life, and therefore they do not relate to newen as a performance in an alienated spiritual sphere.

I will point to a few other differences pertaining directly to the Mapuche vision of struggle that I think can be instructive for anarchists.

The Mapuche in struggle are far from pacifist. On the contrary, sabotage, direct action, self-defense, and the attack are assumed as an integral part of their struggle, and the topic of burning things down is a constant source of mirth and laughter, exactly as it is with anarchists (which is surprising, given that humor is often the first thing not to translate). The similarity ends there. Not every Mapuche is expected to be a weichafe, or warrior, and the weichafe are not the central participants in the struggle. The weichafe are not more important than the machis, the werken, or the weupife. On the contrary, the weichafe are at the service of the community, and their activity is in a certain sense meant to complement and be guided by the activity of the rest of the community.

presosmapucheThe Mapuche have a lot of prisoners, and they do an excellent job of supporting those prisoners. But they do not fall into presismo, or a detached focus on their prisoners, an activity that certain anarchist circles present as the most radical. On the contrary, their focus remains on the struggle that resulted in people falling prisoner in the first place. The assertion that a powerful struggle supports its prisoners can be taken in two directions, after all. Supporting prisoners so that the struggle will be stronger, or strengthening the struggle so that the prisoners will be supported.

Connected to the Mapuche success in supporting their prisoners and resisting heavy state repression, at least in my mind, is the long-term view that the Mapuche typically take. One can often hear the phrase, “We have been struggling for over 500 years, and we may have to struggle 500 more.”

This is interesting because the historical referent that frames this view—colonization—should be equally important to people of European descent and to anarchist theory itself. The State swelled exponentially with the early beginning of capitalism. What the Spanish state tried—and failed—to do to the Mapuche had already been done across Europe. The alienated worldview that anarchism has struggled with for its entire history, sometimes discarding it, sometimes reifying it, comes down to the separation of land and freedom which is the essence of colonization and all the political movements against colonization that have won freedom without land and land without freedom.

The same long view that could allow us to make historical sense of this alienation can also give us the patience to weather repression. As urgent as a particular case of repression may feel, we will not answer the broader questions of repression in our lifetimes, but we also do not face them alone: we have gone through all of this before.

A common criticism that anarchists might have of the Mapuche struggle has to do with gender. But this criticism should be put into perspective. As a friend in the project aptly put it, “Our opinion about gender in Mapuche society doesn’t matter.” It would also be wrong to assume that our opinion is entirely external. In fact, it was a criticism shared by several Mapuche comrades, although they tended to frame it in a different way.represion

We were able to talk frankly about gender with several of the lamuen and peñi we were closer with. Many of them said that the machismo of Chilean society had rubbed off on the Mapuche, which was traditionally not a patriarchal society. However, accepting that assertion requires allowing for a distinction between patriarchy and gender binary. In Western history, patriarchy and gender binary are largely inseparable. But are we willing to assert this as a global truth? Mapuche society is built around a traditional division of gender, but this division constitutes two autonomous spheres of activity, rather than a hierarchy. In practice, women are full participants in the Mapuche struggle. Some spaces of this struggle are mixed, others are separate, but none are made invisible or subordinate. The question that we as outsiders are unable to know is, what happens to those Mapuche who do not accept their assigned role?

Gender roles are gradually changing within the Mapuche struggle but, for better or for worse, the rhythm, form, and ends of that change are not necessarily recognizable to a feminist mode of struggle.

What Made This Project Possible

I hope comrades will take it as a matter of high standards and not self-congratulation if I describe this project as a great success that goes far beyond the complacency and repetition of most anarchist projects. It was not a success because those who made it happen are particularly successful anarchists; on the contrary, we probably aren’t. It was a success because we were able to identify our weaknesses and find comrades with the skills necessary to shore up those gaps.

In order to encourage better anarchist projects, I wanted to identify the prerequisites for making it happen. Although the project was a joint affair with Mapuche comrades, I can only talk about our side of things.

The most vital element were relationships of friendship and solidarity. These could only form face to face, sharing moments of struggle and of daily life. This is an indictment of the superficial solidarity of communiques, or the abstract solidarity of NGOs, both of which commit to the idea of a distant struggle, and are therefore incapable of enabling a solidarity intense enough to challenge our practice. The relationships that enabled our project could only form in a healthy way if people on both ends were committed to their own autonomous struggles, but willing to find points of contact and affinity between those struggles. This is an indictment of ally politics. Someone who is only an ally can never offer anything more than charity. Those who believe they are so privileged that they do not have their own reasons for fighting have nothing to offer anyone else. But we also had to recognize the fundamental difference of the Mapuche struggle, staying true to our beliefs but not trying to impose them.territoriorecuperado

Personal relationships created the possibility for a deeper solidarity, but technical skills were necessary for transforming that solidarity into an intensification of the struggle. Liberal arts education is a wasteland that imprisons North American anarchists. Without technical skills, we condemn ourselves to an anarchism of abstraction, incapable of rising above dependence on the structures of dominant society.

No one on this trip had the skills necessary to complete the project. But together, and with a lot of help from the peñi we worked with, we were able to pull it off by the skin of our teeth. This gave us the confidence and the experience to do something like this again. The rural Mapuche had the experience of building their own houses, and a couple of us had learned welding or at least a very basic familiarity with hand tools through squatting or an interest in tinkering. This might have barely been enough to construct one of the simpler water systems. But the more complex of the systems we were working on would have been entirely out of our reach had one of the comrades not had an attribute rare among anarchists these days: years of experience working in a factory. These extensive technical skills, however, would have been inadequate without the aid of those practiced at adapting to chaotic situations and scarce materials. Working in a factory, in the end, is nothing like working in the field. So the technical genius of the anarchist factory worker who participated on the project was completed by the practical genius of the Mapuche comrades who were used to making everything out of nothing. And finally, until all anarchists are polyglots, translation will be a necessary skill for international projects like these. However, translation alone can only enable projects centered on propaganda.

101_1357The skills we are talking about, in other words, go far beyond hobbies. We are talking about years of experience to acquire abilities that most of us lack, in order to overcome very immediate limitations to our struggle.

Finally, this project relied on a strategic projectuality. This means identifying our weaknesses and crafting projects that might overcome them, projecting ourselves into the breaches where our struggle might be overwhelmed in the near future. This is the opposite of doing for the sake of doing, or carrying out a predetermined and repetitive set of activities, which is how many anarchists spend their time.

The Mapuche had identified their lack of land, and they began to recover that land. Only within the situation they had created were we able to work on such a project together and learn things that may be useful in addressing weaknesses we face on our own turf.

The original solidarity trip three years ago was an attempt to overcome an identified weakness in the international relationships of US anarchists. That trip made it possible for Mapuche comrades to suggest the present project to us, allowing our solidarity to advance to a new level. This is an indictment of those anarchists who either travel for mere personal pleasure, or those who use the contacts they cultivate as a form of social capital to hoard.

When the Line between Self-Sufficiency and Sabotage Becomes Fine

Why is it that in a context of total alienation, projects that focus on self-sufficiency or going back to the land almost invariably entail a cessation of hostilities with the State and a recuperation by Capital? The answer is probably equally related to the implications of buying the land or space for one’s autonomy, and a spiritual acceptance of the a priori alienation between person and environment.

An attempted development on Mapuche lands burnt down.

An attempted development on Mapuche lands burnt down.

The Mapuche struggle involves the forceful recovery of land they uncompromisingly claim as theirs, and a way of being—by this I mean a seamlessly interlocked spirituality, economy, and social organization—that declares war on the alienation between person and environment. In this way of being, there is no dividing line between gardening, home-building, natural medicine, setting fire to logging trucks, clashing with cops, sabotaging construction equipment, or blocking highways.

Self-sufficiency signifies a contraction of one’s relationships and an avoidance of the lines of social conflict. One who is self-sufficient need not form relationships with others. But the claiming of space and the inalienability of one’s relationship to that space asserts an expansive web of relationships that we must defend in order to truly be alive.

In my free time in Wallmapu, I learned to harvest and thresh quinoa, to kill and gut a chicken, and to gather certain wild plants. In that particular context, these were not hobbies that might eventually be put to use in a strategy of avoidance. Capitalism has been very deliberate in deskilling us, which is a way of robbing us of the possibility of intimately relating with the world around us. “Relating with the world around us” is not a leisure activity, as the bourgeois imagination would have us believe. It does not mean (only) walking barefoot and spending time with nature, or playing games and having picnics in the park. It also means feeding ourselves, healing ourselves, housing ourselves, and a hundred other activities. Doing things directly always requires relating with other living beings rather than relating with commodities. Feeding ourselves, within an offensive practice that seizes space from the State, is not at all a form of avoidance, but an intensification of our freedom and our war on the State.

The people in Lof Pañgihue were very clear: being able to produce their own electricity would be a powerful form of sabotage against the State. Theirs was not a case of middle class people putting solar panels on their houses, selling the surplus back to the power company, and living with a cleaner conscience. It is a war to recover their territory, to kick out the State, the capitalists, and the Western way of life. If they end their dependence on the State’s infrastructure, not only have they intensified their practice of independence, they have also made that state infrastructure vulnerable to attack.

A logging truck in the Mapuche territories

A logging truck in the Mapuche territories

It is often said that there is no outside to capitalism. This is certainly true as far as capitalist projectuality is concerned, but the statement does not truly define our counter-activity unless we accept alienation as a physical feature of reality. Where land is being retaken as a part of ourselves, building the tools and developing the lost skills that allow us to relate directly to that land and to live as a part of it constitute a practice of independence from and against capitalism.

Our freedom is not merely a blank slate or the lack of imposition by the State. Freedom must be articulated ever more intensively, through the tools, skills, worldview, medicine, historical memory, food culture, and material anchors that constitute the becoming or the embodiment of that freedom.mapuche nation

Glossary

Bío Bío—a river that runs west from the Andes and empties into the Pacific at the modern day site of Concepción. For hundreds of years, this was the treaty-guaranteed northern boundary of the Mapuche territories.
che—person or people
gringo—European or North American
lamuen—sister or compañera
latifundistas—major landowners, a holdover from the colonial system of production
lof—a Mapuche village community
longko—the closest translation is chief, although not a coercive figure and only one of several vocational authorities at the community level
machi—medicine man, a spiritual leader and healer (can be man or woman)
mapu—land, earth, territory, or space
newen—force or strength, of the kind that flows from nature
peñi—brother or compañero
presismo—prisonerism, a dead-end practice of obsessively or ritualistically supporting prisoners, often in a fetishizing way
rewe—a voluntary aggrupation of lof in a contiguous local territory
Wallmapu—the Mapuche territories, or “all the lands”
weichafe—warrior
werken—literally a messenger, a community authority responsible for working on behalf of the community and maintaining connections with other communities
weupife—a person in a community responsible for maintaining and transmitting the collective historical memory
winka—literally “New Inca,” meaning white person or non-indigenous person

Indigenous Resistance, Arrests Continue Against Fracking in New Brunswick

10/06/13 Susanne Patles in prayer, as New Brunswick RCMP confer. (Photo: M. Howe)

10/06/13 Susanne Patles in prayer, as New Brunswick RCMP confer. (Photo: M. Howe)

ELSIPOGTOG, NEW BRUNSWICK – About 25 RCMP officers in uniform, along with about a dozen police cruisers, today continued to flank equipment owned by gas exploration company SWN Resources Canada as they proceeded with their seismic testing of highway 126 in Kent County, New Brunswick.   

Pushing the scattered crowd of Indigenous and non-Indigenous people back “50 metres distance” from the southward approaching seismic trucks – or ‘thumpers’ – the RCMP first arrested one demonstrator and chased another into the woods before arresting Susanne Patles.

Patles, a Mi’kmaq woman, had scattered a line of tobacco between herself and the approaching police, then proceeded to draw a circle of tobacco in the highway, where she then knelt and began to pray. After about two minutes, the police proceeded to arrest Patles. An officer Bernard noted that she was being charged with mischief.

Today’s two arrests follow another three made last Wednesday, when people again placed themselves in the path of SWN’s thumpers. Residents fear that the tests will lead to hydraulic fracturing – or fracking – of the area.

Lorraine Clair, arrested on Wednesday, continues to recover from nerve damage suffered from the rough treatment handed down on her by RCMP officers.

Resistance to SWN’s presence, which is located in a part of traditional Mi’kma’ki territory known as Signigtog – or district 6 – has so far been strong. Thumper trucks have for days now been met with people who object to fracking from the surrounding communities, as well as supporters from around the Maritimes who are now beginning to flock towards the focal point of the highway. 

Patles taken into custody. (Photo: M. Howe)

Patles taken into custody. (Photo: M. Howe)

 

Colombian Guerilla Group Holding Canadian Mining Executive Hostage Takes Aim at Ottawa

Guerrilla fighters from ELN in Colombia.10/06/13, A Colombia guerilla group is trying to draw Ottawa into its battle with a Toronto-based mining company which is quietl

Guerrilla fighters from ELN in Colombia.10/06/13, A Colombia guerilla group is trying to draw Ottawa into its battle with a Toronto-based mining company which is quietly trying to secure the release of one of its executives who has been held hostage since January.

The Ejercito de Liberacion Nacional (ELN) kidnapped Gernot Wober, 47, on Jan. 18, during an attack on the Snow Mine camp in Bolivar state, which sits in the northern part of the country. The guerilla group kidnapped five other people, including three Colombians and two Peruvians, who have all since been released.

The guerilla group says that Wober, the vice-president of Toronto-based Braeval Mining Corp, won’t be released until the company gives up gold mining concessions in the San Lucas mountain range which the ELN claims were initially given to local miners who live in the area.

In a statement issued Wednesday and posted on the guerilla group’s website, the ELN took aim at the Canadian government.

“The Canadian government should at least be concerned about whether its anti-corruption laws are being followed by Canadian companies in their foreign operations,” said the ELN. “Neither the Colombian nor Canadian governments have bothered to investigate our accusations about the dispossession of four mining concessions held by communities in the southern part of Boliver (state) by the Northern American company Braeval Mining Corporation.”

The ELN claimed the Colombian government was increasing military operations against the group to secure Wober’s release.

The ELN is the smaller of Colombia’s main guerilla groups. It’s estimated the ELN has between 2,000 to 3,000 guerilla fighters.

A spokesperson for Braeval said the company has been advised not to comment on the kidnapping.

Foreign Affairs emailed a statement to APTN National News saying federal government “officials continue to work closely with our partners on the ground.” The statement said officials are also in contact with Wober’s family.

“The government of Canada will not comment on efforts to secure the hostage’s release,” said the statement. “Due to privacy considerations, we cannot provide additional information about the situation.”

According to his on-line work history, Wober has extensive experience in the mining sector, including involvement in projects in the Yukon, the Northwest Territories, British Columbia and Manitoba.

The activities of foreign mining companies, including those based in Canada, have long been a point of contention among Indigenous and local communities in Colombia.

Under Canada’s free trade agreement with Colombia, Ottawa is required to present an annual report on human rights in Colombia every year. Last year’s report failed to report on human rights in the country.

The National Indigenous Organization of Colombia (NIOC) has called on Canada to pressure the Colombian government to respect Indigenous rights in its mining laws.

In a recent interview with Maria Patricia Tobon Yagari, a lawyer with the NIOC said that mining companies present a bigger threat than the armed groups because the firms fuel the violence.

“The presence of these miners have reinforced (the violence) because they have benefited from it. By using private security they have forced these Indigenous groups and Colombian campesinos to resist and it has increased the violence in the territories,” said Tobon Yagari.

Tobon Yagari was scheduled to appear on Parliament Hill on May 22 but her visa was initially denied by Ottawa.

Tobon Yagari said foreign mining firms have put pressure on the Colombian government to pass mining laws tailored in the interest of development.

“Of course Canadian miners have a large interest in getting legislation in their favour,” she said. “That is what is happening without our mining code and our situation in Colombia.”

Many Indigenous communities in Colombia are clinging precariously on the edge of extinction.

Of the 102 documented Indigenous nations in Colombia, 32 have populations under 500, 18 have populations of 200, while 10 have less than 100.

Tens of thousands of Indigenous people have been displaced from their territories which are often rich in minerals and hydrocarbons eyed by foreign mining firms.

Amnesty International has said it’s concerned about deepening ties between Canada and Colombia’s military as a result of the free trade deal.

“And recent changes to export controls in Canada to allow for the sale of automatic firearms to Colombia,” have added to list of problematic issues, said the international human rights organization.

The situation of Indigenous peoples in Colombia is so dire that the UN Special Rapporteur on Indigenous Peoples James Anaya has called for the UN special advisor on genocide to visit Colombia.

 

Indigenous Peruvians Protest State Oil Company Taking Over Their Land

Members of the Achuar indigenous people in the northern Peruvian Amazon have been protesting against Peru’s state oil company’s plans to enter their territory and exploit an estimated 42 million barrels of light oil.

Members of the Achuar indigenous people in the northern Peruvian Amazon have been protesting against Peru’s state oil company’s plans to enter their territory and exploit an estimated 42 million barrels of light oil.

A protest was held against Petroperu last month in an Achuar community called Wisum near the border with Ecuador, just 12 days after it was confirmed the company would take over operations in a concession called “Lot 64.”

Petroperu’s involvement in this region follows the decision announced last September by Canadian company Talisman to withdraw from “Lot 64″, after discovering oil but meeting opposition from Achuar living within the concession.

The recent protest could be considered extremely embarrassing for Petroperu since its acquisition of “Lot 64″ constitutes a return to upstream operations after a break of 17 years, according to Lima-based newspaper La Republica, which called the move “historic.”

The protest was held on Wisum’s landing strip and involved men, women and children from more than 20 Achuar communities, some of whom held signs reading “We reject Petroperu” and “No Petroperu: no to the sale of our Achuar territory.”

A statement by the Peruvian Federation of Achuar Nationalities (FENAP) reads:

Petroperu should not operate in Lot 64. As the owners of our territory, we are opposed to oil activities. We are informing the Peruvian state that the position of the Achuar people in the Pastaza region has not changed since the creation, without consultation, of Lot 64 in 1995. We will continue actively resisting any kind of oil operation on our ancestral territory which covers the large majority of the concession.

That followed a statement by another Achuar organization, Achuarti Iruntramo (ATI), which is based in Wisum and affiliated to FENAP, addressed to Peru’s president Ollanta Humala, Petroperu, various ministries and Congress expressing “our rejection of any kind of entrance of oil companies, even Petroperu, in the Achuar people’s ancestral territory”:

We’re aware of the Supreme Decree transferring Lot 64 from Talisman to Petroperu. We don’t want another buyer, even if it’s Petroperu. Ever since the creation of the concession in 1995, we have opposed all the companies here, beginning with Arco, then Occidental and most recently Talisman. Like we did for all of those, we will make it impossible for Petroperu to enter.

Both statements express concerns about the potential social and environmental impacts of oil operations.

“We’ve seen that the River Corrientes is very contaminated and know that Lot 1-AB has been declared a Zone of Environmental Emergency after years of complaints from our Achuar and Quechua brothers,” states FENAP, referring to a nearby oil concession. “We don’t want history to be repeated and so we don’t want any more companies coming here – whether national or international ones.”

“Our protest has many meanings,” says FENAP’s president, Peas Peas Ayui, speaking from San Lorenzo in the Amazon where FENAP has an office. “We’re not going to let any company enter. We are the owners. We are the original inhabitants. We want to live in peace. We have the right to stand up for ourselves and if Petroperu tries to enter we will fight very hard against it.”

However, according to Petroperu’s Juan José Beteta Herrera, the company will start operating as soon as it has met the environmental requirements stipulated by Peruvian law, which will include preparing an “Environmental Impact Assessment” of its planned operations.

“This will provide light crude for Petroperu’s refineries in Talara and Iquitos and return the company to upstream activities, which forms part of our strategy,” he says. “At the same time, it will bring social benefits to the communities currently involved in the area.”

Asked how Petroperu will respond to the Achuar’s protest, Beteta Herrera says the company will “continue with the community relations policy it has been implementing for the last 40 years along the route of the North Peruvian Pipeline.”

“Part of that policy is to maintain constant communication with the communities in the areas of our operations,” he says.

But Peas Peas Ayui says he has heard nothing from Petroperu since the protest in Wisum, and ATI’s recent statement claims the pipeline – an extension of which passes through “Lot 64″ – is contaminating their territory and threatening fish stocks.

US-based NGO Amazon Watch’s Executive Director Atossa Soltani says:

As a cornerstone of their strategy to strengthen Petroperu, Peru’s government has chosen Block 64 as a pilot project to showcase the company’s potential. But the overwhelming majority of the block is territory of Achuar communities that have repeatedly rejected any oil activity and have effectively expelled multiple transnational companies since 1995. How does Petroperu think they are going to be successful where Arco, Oxy, and finally Talisman have failed?

Having announced its discovery of oil in “Lot 64″ in early 2006, Talisman revealed it was pulling out on 12 September last year. Amazon Watch described it as a “major victory for indigenous rights” following “increased pressure by human rights groups and shareholders for operating without Achuar consent.”

But Talisman’s Phoebe Buckland calls it a “business decision.”

“Peru was part of our exploration portfolio and we have significantly reduced the exploration budget to focus on opportunities near our core areas,” she says now. “We are currently winding down operations in Peru.”

Shale Gas Truck Seized By Elsipogtog First Nation Warriors

A shale gas exploration company’s service vehicle was surrounded and seized by a group of self-described native warriors near Elsipogtog First Nation in so called “New Brunswick” on Tuesday, Royal Canadian Mounted Police say.

A shale gas exploration company’s service vehicle was surrounded and seized by a group of self-described native warriors near Elsipogtog First Nation in so called “New Brunswick” on Tuesday, Royal Canadian Mounted Police say.

The truck driver was confronted at a gas bar along Route 116 during the lunch hour, police said, referring to it as a peaceful incident.

RCMP would not confirm who owns the truck, but it has a Stantec logo on its doors. Stantec is a Fredericton-based engineering firm doing work for SWN Resources Canada, a major industry player in the province.

RCMP described the incident as peaceful.

Elsipogtog Chief Aaron Sock had said earlier in the day his council does not welcome SWN’s seismic testing in New Brunswick.

SWN spokeswoman Tracey Stephenson described the incident as a “security event” involving one of the company’s subcontractors.

The protest in Elsipogtog continued into the evening Tuesday at the local RCMP detachment, where the truck containing seismic testing equipment was taken after protesters had seized it at a gas station along Route 116 during the lunch hour.

About 65 people, including children, gathered around the truck in a bid to keep it from being moved from the RCMP parking lot.

 

“I think [SWN] should pack up their gear and go,” said John Levi, who led the protest.

“This is not going to end until they do that,” he said. “That’s our goal.”

Levi said he is not affiliated with the band chief and council, but was appointed a few days ago as a warrior chief for his traditional native territory.

He said he represents about 5,000 people in Elsipogtog and the surrounding area, including non-native groups who oppose the development of a shale gas industry.

“They broke the law a long time ago when they started this fracking in our traditional hunting grounds, medicine grounds, contaminating our waters,” Levi said.

Hydraulic fracturing, also known as hydro-fracking, is a process where exploration companies inject a mixture of water, sand and chemicals into the ground, creating cracks in shale rock formations.

That process allows companies to extract natural gas from areas that would otherwise go untapped.

Opponents of the process say it could have a negative effect on local water supplies and many of them have held protests across the province.

Fracking secrecy questioned

The Opposition Liberals argued Tuesday there will be too much secrecy surrounding shale gas development in the province.

They noted sections of the Oil and Gas Act will remain off-limits from the Right to Information law.

But the energy minister contends the exempt sections apply to the geophysical data companies will collect and it’s unreasonable to expect it would be made public.

“That information, the companies that are putting the investment into that research, they should have the opportunity to utilize that information to their advantage, for a reasonable amount of time, and that’s what the Oil and Gas Act says,” Leonard said.

The Liberals argue they want to make sure the public knows what chemicals are used by shale gas companies. The government says the list of chemicals will be released publicly.