Chapter Three

Just got this historic document from Ben Powless who is secretary of this group and writing from Cochabamba

WORLD PEOPLES’ CONFERENCE ON CLIMATE CHANGE AND THE
RIGHTS OF MOTHER EARTH
INDEGENOUS PEOPLES’ DECLARATION

It's Earth Day and I wish I was in Cochabamba, Bolivia. More than 15,000 people from 125 countries, including a significant delegation from Canada, is meeting there for the first world people’s conference on climate change.  The mostly Indigenous government of Bolivia is now playing a leading role in making proposals to save the planet from the scourges of greed. President Evo Morales is bringing two major proposals, first a global referendum on the measures needed to resolve climate change and second an international climate court to hold climate criminals accountable before world public opinion. But if my experience means anything, it will be the dynamic of the conference that will have most impact .

Today is the opening of the First World People's Summit on Climate Change in Cochabamba, Bolivia.  Called by President Evo Morales after the failure of UN climate talks in Copenhagen, the Summit has attracted more than 50 countries and more than 10,000 delegates.  Nevertheless it is likely the North American mainstream media will ignore it.  You can follow the Summit live on internet tv, on alternative media rabble.ca and Democracy Now and in European media Guardian UK.

Below is a statement from the Independent People's Tribunal on Land Acquisition, Resource Grab and Operation Green Hunt in India.  I reproduce it here because so many similar struggles of Indigneous peoples to defend the earth against corporate greed and government collaboration are happening here in Canada and in the Americas.

The mills take from our forest, and then give us back disease and sickness and death. Our people have suffered for 40 years from mercury poisoning, and now this sickness is being passed on to our children in the womb. We must stop the mills from destroying our forests, our water, and our culture for the survival of all.'  ”  Judy Da Silva, a grassroots mother and blockader from Grassy Narrows.

It is International Women’s Day 2010, forty years after the Report of the Royal Commission on the Status of Women. A generation has passed, my generation. In some ways, there has been a revolution in the status of women since that time. 

Yesterday when I heard that Stephen Harper was suddenly taken with a desire to promote maternal health as the key issue for the G8, I have to admit to being perplexed.  I don't think I've ever heard Harper talk about women's issues. Behind the scenes his government, which of course means him, has not only cut funding to most women's groups and the most progressive NGOs like Alternatives and Kairos but have eliminated the word "equality" from their women's bureau.  Harper is no doubt that most anti-feminist PM we have ever had.

With the horror in Haiti, we could all use some good news that we will not hear about from the mainstream media.  On Thursday January 21, Aymara elders and Indigenous people from across Bolivia and the Americas will gather at the inauguration of  Evo Morales as leader of Abya Yala, the Indigenous name meaning Our America.  On the following day, he will be inaugurated as President of Bolivia for the second time.   Up until Evo's regime, Bolivia was the second poorest country in the Americas after Haiti. 

In all the midst of the tremendous and welcome attention to  the climate change conference in Copenhagen little attention has been given to a miraculous development in the Global South.   Not only has Evo Morales won an overwhelming majority as President of Bolivia but his party, the Movement towards Socialism (MAS) has won 2/3 of the Senate and a strong majority in the House basically destroying the strength of the right-wing parties.

On December 6, Bolivia will hold a general election where Evo Morales, the first Indigenous President in the Americas will no doubt be re-elected.  His party the MAS has recently released an election programme that Susan Harvie has kindly summarized and translated.  Bolivia is reinventing democractic socialism.  They are in the process of creating a plurinational state with equal rights for all nations and people, redistributing land, free health and education for everyone, what they call a pluri-economy that includes public, private, co-operative and communitarian.  In four years of power they have eliminated illiteracy, reduced extreme poverty by 6%, insituted a senior's pension for the first time, nationalized hydrocarbons and achieved a 6.5% economic growth.  They are showing at a government that acts in the interests of the majority really can succeed and that an alternative is truly possible.  The full list of achievements and election platform for the next four years is below: