March: Friday 12 October 2012
1492… Start of the Genocide
We will march on 12 October to remember generations of resistance against all forms of colonialism and imperialism. Christopher Columbus did not ‘discover’ Latin America on 12 October 1492. That day was the start of an orgy of greed and genocidal violence that killed tens of millions of our ancestors. Colonisation started with the subjection and extermination of indigenous people, the enslavement of Africans,who were torn away from their families in a destructive assault on our sister continent.
Down with the Free Trade Agreements! Defend Food Sovereignty!
Today we confront a new wave of aggression, with multinational corporations seeking to exploit our labour and natural resources under the banner of ‘free trade’. Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) are regional or bilateral agreements to lower tariffs and guarantee profits for overseas investors. FTAs with Peru and Colombia are being voted on by the European Union. We call for rejection of these dirty deals between the oligarchies that rule us and the governments of rich countries, designed to profit big business at our expense. The FTAs will stimulate large scale production for international markets: mega-mining, biofuels, agrochemicals and transgenic crops. They will undermine local food production, wreck biodiversity and destroy our real wealth. Workers’ rights, the environment and our food sovereignty are at stake.
No to coups d’etat , whether military or ‘democratic
A new danger threatens the processes of change in Latin America. The US and its allies in the ruling class are carrying out a destablisation campaign against progressive governments. These attacks include the military coup in Honduras and an attempted coup in Ecuador. The recent parliamentary coup in Paraguay follows the same pattern. Paraguay’s elected president Lugo was dismissed in a mock political trial which violated all rules of legal procedure with no time or place to prepare his defence. This new way to circumvent the legitimate decision of the people is called a “soft coup”, and is used to threaten any government that challenges vested interests.
In Mexico, last July’s elections were fixed by the ‘winning’ candidate of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) by pressuring voters and buying votes, pushing the country back 70 years. Such deception is an intolerable abuse of democracy.
Gringo justice protects dictators, imprisons truth tellers!
We support the rights of sovereign nations, rights that have been violated so many times by Spanish, US and British interventions. The US grants political asylum to former military dictator Goni from Bolivia, but denies that Ecuador has the right to grant political asylum to Julian Assange. Wikileaks has exposed the wrongdoings of the US in Iraq, and its global network of detention and torture. We support publication of the secret operations of repression, we defend Bradley Manning facing trial in the US, and we defend Ecuador’s sovereign right to grant asylum. No more bullying!
For cultural resistance: Latin America – Abya Yala – Nican Tlaca.
This 12 October we are part of the ‘World March for Mother Earth, for Life, Water and the Dignity of the Peoples’. 520 years after the Spansish invasion, the struggle of the indigenous peoples continues in the search for plurinational and pluricultural states that respect, consult, and include the participation of indigenous people. This means:
- Defending Mother Earth (Madre Tierra-Pachamama-Tonantzin), the recovery of our lands and the rights of Nature, with implications for climate change;
- Defending the rights of indigenous people who have suffered racial, ethnic and economic discrimination ever since the Spanish arrived;
- Revaluation of ancestral wisdom and knowledge;
- Revaluation of our cultural identity, beliefs and cosmovision;
- Revaluation, recognition and making official our native languages.
The struggle of our original peoples is the demand for a state with social justice, defence of the life and dignity of all, for a communitarian system of life and production without exploiters and exploited; where ethics and morality come before consumerism, discrimination and with no social exploitation, nor exploitation of our natural resources.
¡Solidarity with the Resistance of the Peoples! ¡Abya Yala – Nican Tlaca!
PLATAFORMA MARCHA 12 de OCTUBRE
Convened by: Movimiento Micaela Bastidas (Perú, Colombia Solidarity Campaign, Movimiento Socio Político Marcha Patriotica, Campaña Latin American Perspective in Education, Biofuel Watch, Frente de Defenza de la Democracia (Paraguay), The Latin American Liberation Front, Latin America Workers Association, Cajamarca Solidarity Campaign, Enlace Internacional Mapuche, Movimiento Andino Jose Maria Arguedas-UK, independent friends, with others joining.
For more information email info@colombiasolidarity.uk
P & p Plataforma 12 de Octubre, PO Box 8446, London N17 6NZ
