insurrección

Indigenous governor murdered in Colombia

Raul Mendoza, leader and indigenou governor of Cauca department, in Colombia, was murdered on Sunday. The Indigenous Regional Council of Cauca reported the incident, saying the work carried out by Mendoza will not stop and that “we won’t be silenced, and we will not stop walking”.

In Uruguay, the Union of Workers of the Wood Industry (SOIMA) has denounced to the Ministry of Labour and Social Security, anti-union acts carried out by a company which works for Forestal Oriental, from the Finnish group Botnia.
These persecuttion acts involve fifteen unionized workers from the outsourcing company Rencal, based in Tacuarembó, in the north of Uruguay.

Uruguayan rural workers reject project to reduce labor day

The Uruguyan House of Representatives will vote a bill on the rural labor day on Wednesday. The bill was drafted by the Ministry of Labor and Social Security and was sent to Parliment in November of 2007 and it has been endorsed by all the political parties.

The National Union of Rural Workers (UNATRA) rejects the government’s bill, mainly because they consider that it leads to making the eight-hour workday flexible and it allows for businessmen to avoid paying extra hours.

Several people died in Honduras after an attack against peasants living in Guadalupe Carney community, near Puerto de Trujillo.

According to Prensa Latina news agency, Rafael Alegria, counselor of the Coordinating Committee of Peasant Organizations, said the attack had been carried out by gunmen paid by estate owner Henry Osorto, who claims the property of the lands donated by the municipality, which have been occupied by nearly 560 families for twenty years.

The construction of Salvajina reservoir over 20 years ago, and the planned deviation of the Ovejas river concerns the afro-Colombian communities of three municipalities of Valle del Cauca region.
These plans of electricity generation, distribution and commercialization are promoted by the Empresa de Energía del Pacífico (EPSA). In November of 2000, 62.4% of the shares of the company was acquired by Spanish group Union Fenosa, which is under scrutiny for its actions in the countries where it operates.

The EU's excluding policy on immigration from Third World countries to the 27 member countries of the European bloc, has had a devastating effect on a sensitive aspect of Brussel's strategy in Latin America: association agreements. The so called “Return Directive” was rejected by the Latin American governments and parliaments given the recent call off of the negotiations with the Andean Community of Nations (CAN) facing the signing of Association Agreements.

The publicized “Brazilian miracle” of ethanol production from sugar cane is partly explained by the bad working conditions of the employees working in the crops and in the industrial phase.

A slave watchdog in Brazil exposed the “degrading conditions” under which the workers of Cosan group work. Cosan is the world’s largest sugar cane ethanol producer. “The worst working conditions in sugar cane fields in 2008 were registered in Piracicaba, where Cosan Group has most of the cultivations”, the Worker’s Defense Office reported.

The publicized “Brazilian miracle” of ethanol production from sugar cane is partly explained by the bad working conditions of the employees working in the crops and in the industrial phase.

Paraguay´s outgoing administration is being questioned because they are not following the ruling of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights which established that by mid July the government should return lands and compensate the members of an indigenous community who inhabit the country.

In 2005, the Court set up a deadline of three years in which Paraguay should identify the ancestral lands of the Yakye Axa indigenous community, and return their lands without demanding any economic compensation.

Venezuela condemns, together with other Latin American governments and social organizations, the European ruling that allows for the imprisonment of illegal immigrants for up to 18 months. Venezuelan President, Hugo Chávez, stated that those of the 27 countries of the EU which decide to apply the “Return Directive” will not obtain oil from Venezuela. In addition, he rejected the extractive investments carried out by corporations from the EU in Latin America and the Caribbean.