517 YEARS OF RESISTANCE 12th October 2009 is an international day of protest in solidarity with indigenous people and against global warming – a "Global mobilisation for Mother Earth"
Come and join us to support the "Minga" of indigenous resistance called by the Coordinadora Andina de Organizaciones Indigenas (CAOI). We support the struggle of Latin American native peoples and protest against the Free Trade Agreement with the European Union and agro-fuels.
At the Department for Energy and Climate Change we will join the Agro-fuels don’t ROC(k)! demonstration against renewable energysubsidies for Agro-fuels called by the Campaign against Climate Change, Biofuelwatch and Food Not Fuel.
NO TO EU FREE TRADE AGREEMENTS! The European Union (EU) plans to open up the Andean region’s services, natural resources and biodiversity to even greater despoliation by pushing through Free Trade Agreements that favour multinational corporations. The deals made behind closed doors by the governments of Colombia and Peru are a threat to Andean integration. The EU is trying to isolate the progressive governments of Bolivia, Ecuador and Venezuela. Alongside them are the indigenous peoples and their organisations who were never consulted over the negotiation process. Indigenous peoples do not recognise the EU agreements because they will destroy ancestral territorial rights and collective knowledge. The UK government is particularly responsible for this policy – the former EU Trade Commissioner was Peter Mandelson who has been replaced by another Labour politician, Baroness Cathy Ashton.
FOOD NOT FUEL! The UK government is diverting renewable energy subsidies to subsidise power stations that use agro-fuels. While the UK’s last but one factory producing wind turbines has closed and solar energy firms are struggling, vast "renewable energy" funding is going to agro-fuels which actually make global warming worse and threat food security around the world. In Colombia the cultivation of African Palm for agro-fuels is linked with displacement and violence, while destroying biodiversity and the fertility of the soil.
INDIGENOUS RESISTANCE – VIVA LA MINGA! The indigenous people have had enough; they will not put up with false promises, lies and trickery any more. They are out on the streets fighting: to "liberate Mother Earth" from the destructive alliance between multinational corporations and local elites, and for a dignified future for their children and their communities. They are a moral force rising from below to reclaim what is justly theirs, life itself.
MEETING POINTS
4:45 Colombian Embassy 3 Hans Crescent SW1 (Knightsbridge tube)
5:30 Peruvian Embassy 52 Sloane Street SW1
5:50 Spanish Embassy Chesham Place SW1
6:30 UK Foreign Office Parliament Street SW1 (Westminster tube)
7:00 Dept. for Energy & Climate Change 3 Whitehall Place SW1 (Charing X tube)
Bolivia Solidarity Campaign • Colombia Solidarity Campaign • Hands Off Venezuela • Latin American Workers Association • Movement of Ecuadorians in the UK • Polo Democrático (UK) • Rock around the Blockade • P&p Coordinadora Latino-Americana c/o PO Box 8446, London N17 6NZ
