Land Rights

France Abandons Airport After Decade Of Squatting Protest

January 23, 2018 By Kim Willsher, The Guardian Resist! Environment, Food and Agriculture, Land Rights

The French government has abandoned plans for a new €580m (£513m) airport in western France, a sensitive decision that past governments had shirked for decades, but announced campaigners who have occupied the site must leave. The prime minister, Édouard Philippe, said hundreds of people squatting on the site of the proposed new development in the village of Notre-Dame-Des-Landes have until spring to leave. Up to 300 people who call themselves “resistants” are living on the land earmarked for the airport having declared it a ZAD – Zone à Defendre – and have vowed not to go quietly. In attempt to dislodge the occupiers – also known as zadists – in 2012, named Opération César, resulted in clashes between them and 2,000 gendarmes, and the government backing down in the face of public opposition to the scenes of violence.

Colombia: Paramilitaries Kill Land Rights Activist

December 11, 2017 Staff, telesurtv.net Educate! Activists, Colombia, Human Rights, Land Rights, Murder

Hernan Bedoya was the second activist from the group, Communities Constructing Peace, Conpaz, to be killed in 10 days. Another land rights activists, Hernan Bedoya, was killed by hired paramilitary members in a rural sector of the Choco Department in Colombia. Bedoya was the second activist from the group, Communities Constructing Peace, Conpaz, to be killed in 10 days. The Gaitanist Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, AGC, took responsibility for shooting Bedoya 14 times as he was traveling home by horse. The Colombian human rights groups, The People’s Defense and the Intercelestial Commission for Justice and Peace in Colombia, announced the killing on their twitter accounts and called for authorities to “quickly investigate” the killing. The AGC continually threatened the Conpaz activist since 2015 for his work in trying to protect Conpaz members’ communal lands from the company, Association of Agroindustrial Campesinos, Agromar, an industrial African palm and banana producer and exporter.

Brazil: Tribe Defy Miners

November 1, 2017 Staff, survivalinternational.org Resist! Brazil, Indigenous Peoples, Land Rights, Mining

By Staff of Survival International - The Waiãpi tribe in Brazil have defied a hostile government to defend their land rights. The tribe has circulated a powerful open letter in which they state: “We’re against mining because we want to defend our land and forest. We believe the land is a person”. The letter was written in response to the Brazilian government’s attempt to open up the Amazon forest around the tribe’s land to large-scale mining. Following a global outcry by indigenous peoples and campaigners, the government backed down. However, given the power of Brazil’s notorious agribusiness lobby, the Waiãpi are on the alert. In the letter they vow to defend their territory at all costs against mining interests. The tribe say mining will not bring benefits to them. They are concerned about conflict and disease brought by an influx of outsiders, and the opening up of their land to destructive economic interests such as hydro-electric dams, ranching and gold mining. This small Amazon tribe knows the devastating impacts of highways and mining. Sporadic contacts with outsiders hunting wild cats for their pelts and groups of gold prospectors in the latter part of last century introduced fatal diseases like measles to which the isolated Waiãpi had no resistance. Many died as a result.

Armed Police Descend On Water Protectors At DAPL Site

November 3, 2016 Nadia Prupis, www.commondreams.org Resist! #NoDAPL, Land Rights, Police, Protests, Repression

By Nadia Prupis for Common Dreams - Police descended on water protectors in North Dakota on Wednesday, as images on social media showed a dramatic standoff along a creek that borders a construction site for the long-opposed Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL). Jordan Chariton, a political reporter with The Young Turks network, posted this video dispatch after covering events just east of the main camp, where Standing Rock Sioux tribal members and their allies were set upon by law enforcement officers in full military gear

Woman Arrested On Own Property After Her Land Was Stolen By DAPL

November 1, 2016 Whitney Webb, www.trueactivist.com Resist! #NoDAPL, Dakota Access Pipeline, Land Rights

By Whitney Webb for True Activist - Once again, the repression of those against the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) is heating up, with 127 activists arrested in North Dakota over the weekend. However, North Dakota isn’t the only place where protests over the Dakota Access pipeline are coming to a head. In Iowa, farmers have had their land seized by the company behind the pipeline, Energy Transfer Partners, through the use of eminent domain.

Leader Of Honduran Campesino Movement Assassinated

October 21, 2016 Nika Knight, www.commondreams.org Resist! Assassination, Honduras, Land Rights

By Nika Knight for Common Dreams - Amnesty InternationalJose Angel Flores, president of the Unified Campesinos Movement of the Aguan Valley, or MUCA, had been under police protection since March, teleSUR reported, after the Inter-American Commission of Human Rights ordered the Honduran state to protect him from death threats in 2014. Former MUCA president Johnny Rivas, who hosts a radio show on the local station Radio Progreso,blamed "death squads chasing peasant families fighting for land rights" for the murder.

Environmental Official Shot Dead In Brazil

October 17, 2016 Nika Knight, www.commondreams.org Resist! Brazil, Environment, Land Rights

By Nika Knight for Common Dreams - An environmental official well-known for his aggressive enforcement of deforestation laws in his city in the Brazilian Amazon was gunned down in front of his family late Thursday, city officials reported Friday. Two men shot the official, Luiz Araujo, seven times as he drove up to his home, local police told the Associated Press. "[T]wo men fled on a motorcycle without taking anything, leading to speculation that they were paid assassins," the Los Angeles Times reports.

Corn Protesting Atlantic Coast Pipeline Harvested

October 15, 2016 Bob Stuart, www.dailyprogress.com Resist! Indigenous Peoples, Land Rights, Pipelines, Protests

By Bob Stuart for The News Virginian - STUARTS DRAFT — Corn planted on Stuarts Draft land in June to show opposition to the Atlantic Coast Pipeline was harvested Friday. The sacred corn -- called "seeds of resistance" -- rests on land that is part of the proposed path of the 600-mile natural gas pipeline. The pipeline path includes about 55 miles of Augusta County. Joining area groups opposed to the pipeline were Jane Kleeb, president of Bold Alliance, and Wes Mekasi Horinek of Bold Alliance.

Trial Begins For Two Land Rights Activists In Kazakhstan

October 15, 2016 Anastassiya Miller, www.wagingnonviolence.org Resist! Kazakhstan, Land Rights

By Anastassiya Miller for Waging Nonviolence - On October 12, a hearing against two prominent activists began in Atyrau, the oil capital of Kazakhstan. Max Bokaev and Talgat Ayan were arrested just after the first major rally against an unpopular land reform on April 24. The reforms would have increased the number of years that foreigners are allowed to rent agricultural land from 10 to 25 years, and enabled land to be sold or leased at auctions.

Supporting Standing Rock And Confronting What It Means Living On Stolen Land

October 14, 2016 Berkley Carmine and Liza Minno, www.wagingnonviolence.org Strategize! Land Rights, Pipelines, Sioux, Standing Rock

By Berkley Carmine and Liza Minno for Waging Nonviolence - A month after President Obama told the Army Corps of Engineers to pause construction on the Dakota Access oil pipeline, the Standing Rock Sioux and those supporting them still find themselves in a dire struggle to protect their water and land. With winter approaching, the 300 tribes that are now represented at the Camp of the Sacred Stone in North Dakota are preparing for a lengthy battle.

The Mapuche’s Cross-Border Struggle For Freedom And Autonomy

October 11, 2016 Alejandra Gaitan Barrera and Fionuala Cregan, www.intercontinentalcry.org Resist! Autonomy, Indigenous Peoples, Land Rights, Latin America, Self-Determination

By Alejandra Gaitan Barrera and Fionuala Cregan for IC Magazine - Ever since the incursion of rampant neoliberalism in Chile and Argentina in the 1970s and 1980s, the Mapuche territory or Wallmapu, located south of the Bio Bio River, has been subjected to immeasurable domination and constant exploitation at the hands of a diverse range of foreign and national economic interests. Megaprojects like hydroelectric dams, mining operations, oil extraction and forestry plantations embody some of the main threats to Mapuche self-determination and autonomy.

World Conservation Congress Approves Historic Measure

September 19, 2016 Hannibal Rhoades, www.intercontinentalcry.org Create! Indigenous Peoples, Land Rights

By Hannibal Rhoades for IC - In a landmark move that adds wind to the sails of indigenous struggles to protect sacred lands everywhere, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) has passed a resolution declaring that all protected areas and the sacred lands of Indigenous Peoples should be 'No-Go Areas' for destructive industrial activities like mining, dam-building and logging.

Dennis Banks On Standing Rock: Native People Are Guardians Of The Land

August 30, 2016 Staff, www.liberationnews.org Resist! Indigenous Peoples, Land Rights

By Staff of Liberation - Dennis Banks, Anishinaabe, born on the Leech Lake Indian Reservation and famed co-founder of American Indian Movement in 1968, is running for Vice President of the United States together with presidential candidate Gloria La Riva. He and La Riva are the candidates of the Peace and Freedom Party in California, and on the ballot in New Mexico, Colorado and Iowa for the Party for Socialism and Liberation. La Riva is on the ballot with Eugene Puryear in Washington State, New Jersey, Florida, Vermont and Louisiana.

Argentina’s Mapuche Community Stands Up To Benetton

August 22, 2016 Fionuala Cregan, www.truth-out.org Resist! Argentina, Indigenous Peoples, Land Rights

By Fionuala Cregan for Truthout - "They are afraid more people and more communities are going to rise up, because we have shown others what is possible," said Mirta Curruhuinca, a Mapuche woman from the Indigenous area of Lof Cushamen in Argentina. "And if more people rise up and recover their lands, there will be no way to stop them." The Mapuche have begun to reshape history by moving back onto the Patagonian land in the Chubut Province of Argentina that has been part of their ancestral history for more than 1,400 years.

Striking Colombian Campesinos Reach Deal With Government

June 13, 2016 Staff, www.telesurtv.net Resist! Colombia, Land, Land Rights, Strikes

By Staff of Tele Sur - The deal means the peasant organizations, which have been holding actions for two weeks, will suspend further protests. The government of Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos announced Sunday that it had reached a deal with striking peasants and that any further protest action would be suspended. The deal obliges the government to sit down and formally negotiate with the campesino movement.

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