FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: March 29, 2013
Contact: NnimmoBassey +216 21003908 nnimmo@eraction.org
Outraged by the rampant land grabs and neocolonialism of REDD (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest degradation), Africans at the World Social Forum in Tunisia took the historic decision to launch the No REDD in Africa Network and join the global movement against REDD.
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On January 30, a Dutch court ruled that the Anglo-Dutch transnational corporation Shell is responsible for polluting the Niger delta, affecting heavily the lives of people at Ikot Ada Udo in Akwa Ibom State. Shell must clean up the oil pollution, compensate those affected and prevent further leaks from occurring. This case is unique because for the first time a Dutch multinational had to respond in front of a Dutch court for the acts of one of its subsidiaries.
On 3 February 2013, at around 4 am, twelve police platoons entered Govindpur and Nuagaon villages in Jagatsinghpur district of Orissa (present Odisha) and started beating up sleeping women & children, injuring many of them seriously, and arresting people at random. They are demolishing the betel vines in the area - the traditional and one of the most viable local livelihoods.
“Live or drive, a choice has to be made”, a case study of Sime Darby operations in Liberia, basta! and Friends of the Earth France, athttp://www.bastamag.net/IMG/pdf/Rap_LiberiaEN.pdf
"Land grabbing for biofuels must stop”, a new report from GRAIN athttp://www.grain.org/e/4653
"Gentle Treasures: Stories of women against mining", launched in March 2012 by Alyansa Tigil Mina (Alliance to Stop Mining), commemorates the contributions of Filipino women to the struggle against large-scale mining and the promotion of human rights, at http://es.scribd.com/doc/96588780/Gentle-T
“Environmental crime: in pursuit of palm oil industry”, video on the business of palm oil in Liberia
On January 29, 2013, at about 4:30pm, a protest of peasants was violently repressed in South Sumatra by the Regional Police. About 25 people were beaten and arrested, peasants and also three activists including Anwar Sadat, Director of WALHI South Sumatra, the main environmental NGO of the country.
Please help release Anwar and the other arrested people by signing the On Line Petition: www.change.org/ReleaseAnwar
Since 1881, the Chilean state has attempted to “Chileanize” the Mapuche indigenous people, maintaining them in a state of permanent colonialism. The Mapuche people have responded with a long, hard-fought struggle of resistance and defence of their self-determination, as well as demanding the return of their ancestral lands which are currently under the control of large landholders and tree plantation companies.
Sombath Somphone, a farmer, scholar, scientist and community developer as well as a well-known activist in land issues and against mega-dams, has spent his life working for his people and country. He led several projects to improve food security through the use of low-cost and eco-friendly technologies and trained many people including women in participatory planning for integrated rural development as a means to tackle rural poverty.It was through this experience that Sombath came to believe that to alleviate poverty, development approaches must be multi-dimensional and multi-sectoral.
On January 25-27, 2013, social and political organizations and movements from numerous countries in Latin America, the Caribbean and the European Union gathered in Santiago, Chile for the Chile 2013 People’s Summit, held in parallel to the summit between the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) and the European Union (EU), and the CELAC Summit, also held in the Chilean capital.
Brazil’s Landless Workers Movement (MST) has announced, “We are beginning the year 2013 with several struggles, which represent MST’s response to the irresponsibility of governments. If we do not fight for agrarian reform, which is currently at a standstill, and for the punishment of murderer Adriano Chafik, who killed five landless workers and remains at large eight years later, it would be as if we ourselves were all dead.”