It is not a ghost that is moving the across Andean Region. We are men and women with our feet firmly planted on the ground, because we are part of the land and that is why we defend it: our territories, which are threatened by multinational mining companies, by states, by large landowners allied with the U.S. empire.  In a word, we defend our right and the right of everyone to life.

Self-determination, an essential right of international coexistence, is threatened in Bolivia, where the triumph of the Yes vote in a recall referendum triggered the anger of the oligarchies and autonomic movements, which aim to fragment the country and overthrow the government of Evo Morales Ayma.  The brutally racist, violent onslaught, with armed gangs in the style of the Hitlerite hordes, was immediately responded to by international solidarity, whose main expression was the International Solidarity meeting in Santa Cruz from October 23 to 25.

For decades the Indigenous People of Colombia have resisted the looting of their territories and a war being waged on them, which serves as a pretext for the criminalization of their demands, as expressed in killings, torture, stigma, militarization, disappearances, arrests and trials.  Therefore on October 4 ^th, they decided to start a                      
Minga (1) of Indigenous and Popular Resistance which was cruelly repressed by the government of Álvaro Uribe, who has been accused of genocide by the Permanent Peoples' Tribunal. Here too the Indigenous peoples responded from across the continent, with their most active solidarity.

In Peru, in July 2007, Alan García's government paved the way for the annihilation of indigenous communities with the issuance of 11 legislative decrees that exacerbate the criminalization of protest. At the end of that year, he asked Congress for authority to issue rules to implement the Free Trade Agreement signed with the United States. All 102 legislative decrees severely violated the collective rights of indigenous peoples and constitute a legislative coup d'etat.

The response was the articulation of a Platform of Struggle whose main point is to demand the repeal of those legislative decrees.  They gave rise to a national strike on July 8 and 9 and the pressure tactics are continuing.  The struggle in the Amazon region was able to win the repeal of two decrees, but there are 100 left that must follow suit.

Behind all this, are the same actors and the same purpose: transnational companies, the U.S. empire and--in the case of Colombia and Peru--the States that act as puppets of these interests.  The goal remains the same: the plundering of natural assets and the extermination of Indigenous Peoples, which are an obstacle to their extractive economic model.

It is the Conquest once again.  But like the one 516 years ago and throughout these centuries, they have met with and will continue to encounter the resistance of Indigenous Peoples that maintain our roots and cement them in the future.  Because the Indigenous Peoples have moved from resistance to propositions.  Our proposals are in opposition to the global crisis of neoliberalism and the threat and carnage that global warming, a consequence of its production model, poses to the very survival of the planet.  Because the consumerist world has no alternative to save it.

Our proposals are summarized in one: respect for the life of all: men and women, Mother Earth and everything that she shelters.  To do this we take up our principles and practices of fairness, complementarities and reciprocity, to build Plurinational Communitarian States that express and promote our diversity as one of our highest values. And that offer Good Living as a guarantee of survival for all mankind.  (Traducción: ALAI)

Lima, November 2008

- Miguel Quispe Palacín, General Coordinator of Andean Coordinating Body of Indigenous Organizations - CAOI - http://www.minkandina.org

(1) Minga: collective community work.