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20 Major Wins For Indigenous Rights In 2025

So far, 2025 has been a powerful year for Indigenous rights. Over the past 6 months we have seen many hard-fought victories and long-awaited acts of justice for Indigenous Peoples across the globe. While these wins vary in scale and geography, a common thread runs through them all: Indigenous leadership. Whether resisting oil drilling in the Peruvian Amazon, overturning mining projects in Arizona, or securing court protections for uncontacted peoples in Colombia and Ecuador, these movements reflect a resurgence of Indigenous authority in matters that directly affect their survival and future.

Attacks With Bombs Shake Colombian Municipalities

On Tuesday, Cali Security Secretary Jairo Garcia confirmed that three bomb explosions targeting police stations in the city left at least two people dead and 36 wounded, including three minors. To ensure proper care for the victims, Cali’s Health Department issued a hospital alert across the city’s public and private networks, activating blood banks and special patient transport. One of the bombs, placed on a motorcycle, was detonated in the Melendez neighborhood, another in the Manuela Beltran neighborhood, and a third in the Los Mangos district. “They want to take us back to 1989. We won’t allow it. Long live Colombia!” said Cali Mayor Alejandro Eder.

How The Rights Of Nature Movement Is Reshaping Law And Culture

The mountain dominates the western coast of New Zealand’s North Island, also known as Aotearoa. Its peak is like the center point of a sundial, the shadows on its slopes telling time. The cloud formations drift in and out, shaping the weather. There are several Māori stories related to the creation of Aotearoa’s geography. One tells of four mountain warriors who lived in the interior of the North Island: Tongariro, Taranaki, Tauhara, and Pūtauaki. Two of them, Tongariro and Taranaki, were in love with a maiden mountain, Pīhanga, and they fought a mighty battle over her affections. Taranaki was defeated, and in shame and sadness, he left the center of the island.

Activists Mobilize In Colombia’s Cities In Support Of Petro’s Labor Reforms

Supporters of Colombia’s President Gustavo Petro have organized the first community council meetings that seek to muster popular support for a referendum on labor reforms. Petro called on the people to organize the assemblies after the Senate sunk the referendum in what the government called a fraudulent vote on Thursday. In the same session, the Senate voted to revive the labor reforms that had been killed by its social policy committee in April. Cheered on by the president, dozens of supporters of the labor reform organized the first meetings in the cities of Bogota, Medellin and Cartagena over the weekend. Petro is expected to address tens of thousands of followers in Barranquilla on Tuesday.

Social Uprising In Colombia: Four Years Later, Impunity Reigns

Social organizations in Columbia demand a Truth Commission to investigate the crimes committed by the Colombian State, to compensate the victims, and to guarantee that repression will not be repeated. Four years after the social uprising in Colombia, impunity reigns. Four years after the social outburst that shook Colombia between 2019 and 2021, which turned particularly intense 2021, a deep open wound persists that has not yet been addressed with the seriousness that it deserves. The massive mobilization days, largely led by excluded youth and historically marginalized sectors, represented a turning point in the country’s recent history: not only due to the magnitude of social protest but also because of the severity of the state’s response.

Inside The Indigenous ‘Land Back’ Movement In Colombia

Sharing a border with Ecuador and Peru, the southern Colombian department of Putumayo takes its name from the Quechua term for “gushing river.” For some, its landscapes are a sacred doorway to the Amazon rainforest, a world unfathomably greater than the human. For others, however, this land looks more like oilfields and military bases, optimized waterflood assets and strategic trafficking corridors. This difference in worldview is at the heart of peacebuilding in Putumayo and the Indigenous struggle to reclaim ancestral territories across the Amazon basin.

Colombia’s President Petro: ‘I Cannot Recognize Elections In Ecuador’

Amidst the irregularities that characterized the second round of general elections in Ecuador, held last Sunday, April 13, Colombian President Gustavo Petro has announced that he “cannot recognize the [results of the] elections in Ecuador,” regarding the irregularities that have characterized the second round of general elections in Ecuador, held last Sunday, April 13, and the count tallied by the National Electoral Council (CNE). Petro justified his stance by citing irregularities highlighted by the Organization of American States (OAS) and the state of emergency decreed by the then-president and reelection-aspiring candidate, Daniel Noboa, in seven provinces of the country—where more than half of the electoral roll is concentrated, with leftist orientation—hours before the vote.

Mexico’s Sheinbaum Calls On CELAC To End Blockade Of Cuba And Venezuela

At the 9th Summit of Heads of State and Government of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC), Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum condemned economic blockades against any country and singled out those imposed on Cuba and Venezuela by the United States. “We reject, as Mexico has historically done, trade sanctions and blockades…” said Sheinbaum. “No to the blockade of Cuba. No to the blockade of Venezuela,” the Mexican president stated during her speech at the summit, held in Honduras, on Wednesday, April 9.

Call For Permanent Mobilization In Support Of Social Reforms

In the midst of tensions with Congress over the shelving of labor reform, the president of Colombia, Gustavo Petro, said in Bogotá that a referendum had been launched to decide on the future of the reforms and that the people must remain in permanent and growing mobilization so that the parliamentarians serve them and not the powerful. In front of tens of thousands of people who filled Plaza Bolívar, in the historic center of the capital, the head of state said that the proposal for a referendum is essential to decide the fate of the social reforms presented by the Government of Change.

Trump Attacks Colombia; President Gustavo Petro Fights Back

Donald Trump has kicked off his second administration with a very aggressive foreign policy. Trump is threatening trade restrictions and sanctions on countries around the world, including 100% tariffs on BRICS countries, which now represent 55% of the world population. The US president wants to colonize Greenland. He also vowed to take over the Panama Canal. Invoking “Manifest Destiny”, Trump is even attacking Canada and Mexico, the two largest trading partners of the United States. When Trump selected neoconservative hawk Marco Rubio as his secretary of state, it was a sign that he would be focusing his attention on Latin America

Indigenous Runners Complete Journey For Mother Earth And Solidarity

Silvania, Colombia — On a warm but overcast afternoon, hundreds of Indigenous representatives and spiritual leaders gathered to witness a remarkable convergence of native nations from across the Americas. Serving as ambassadors and messengers, runners took off from Alaska and Patagonia, some covering up to 16,000 kilometers (10,000 miles) across treacherous landscapes in seven months. Along the journey, they collected sacred staffs imbued with prayers from almost 200 native nations. The runners, also known as chasquis, the name for messengers in the Inca empire, said they embarked on the journey to honor ancestral wisdom, restore balance with mother nature, strengthen the identity of Indigenous peoples, and promote global solidarity.

Petro Asks Biden To Pardon Colombian Political Prisoner Simón Trinidad

A few weeks ago, media reports revealed that the government of Gustavo Petro asked President Biden to pardon Simón Trinidad, a former Colombian guerrilla fighter who was sentenced to 60 years in prison in the United States after being captured in Ecuador in 2004 when he was on his way to meet with a United Nations delegate. According to the Colombian Executive, Trinidad’s release would contribute to building a reconciled Colombia after decades of civil war. It was even known that the Colombian ambassador in Washington, Daniel García, sent a note to the US government requesting the pardon.

Give The Gift Of Peace This Holiday! Free Simon Trinidad!

Known popularly as Simon Trinidad, he is a Colombian revolutionary and political prisoner of the U.S. held in the Supermax Prison in Florence, Colorado. The U.S. government extradited, held four trials, and now imprisons Trinidad under his birth name of Juvenal Ovidio Ricardo Palmera Pineda (BPO No. 27896-016). Simon Trinidad was a leader and peace negotiator for the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia—People’s Army (FARC-EP). Prior to that, he spent his life organizing people for progressive causes and social change, including with the Patriotic Union (UP) political party.

COP16 Ends Without Consensus On Financing For Nature Conservation

The COP16 biodiversity summit in Cali, Colombia, ended in disappointment this weekend, with countries failing to determine how to raise $200 billion a year in funding for conservation by 2030, reported Reuters. Originally intended as a check-in on countries’ progress with meeting the goals of the 2022 Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF), COP16 went into overtime Saturday as nations scrambled to reach a consensus while delegates dwindled along with hopes for a decisive conclusion. “I am both saddened and enraged by the non-outcome of COP16,” said Shilps Gautam, carbon removal financing firm Opna’s chief executive, as Reuters reported.

Latin American Governments Pay A Price For Challenging Israel’s Genocide

Governments in Latin America have been at the forefront of opposition to Israel’s genocide in Gaza, and several of those which have done so suddenly face new threats, even including attempted coups. Adrienne Pine, a professor at the California Institute of Integral Studies, said during a recent webinar hosted by the Nicaragua Solidarity Coalition that “anybody who stands with Palestine is going to be attacked in Latin America by the U.S. and by Zionists.” Recent events appear to show the truth of her remarks.

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Due to the attacks on our fiscal sponsor, we were unable to raise funds online for nearly two years.  As the bills pile up, your help is needed now to cover the monthly costs of operating Popular Resistance.

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