Across the Americas

November 20, 2008

Congresswoman
NANCY PELOSI
Speaker of the House of Representatives

The network of Colombian organizations that have signed this letter would like to express our thanks and recognition of your concern for and interest in Colombia, in particular in relation to human rights, as expressed by your decision to postpone indefinitely the debate in the US Congress around the Free Trade Agreement (FTA).

Translation of the Final Working Document from the Social and Community Minga in Colombia

November 21, 2008
Bogotá, Colombia

The Minga LIVES, may the MINGA LIVE! We call for a Colombia of the people without owners; all the wisdom, all the pain, all the experience, all the words, all our grandmothers and our memories guide us. We are going to live because we are forever tired of the pain, death and greed of those that
continue to rob us of a life of peace.

Written by Daniel Denvir, 12 December 2008 *

Rafael Correa declared on Friday that Ecuador would not make a $30.6 million interest payment on $510 million in bonds due in 2012, calling the debt illegal.

The default on the Global Bonus 2012 bonds means that Ecuador is also defaulting on Global 2015 and 2030 bonds. The default totals $9.937 billion, 19 percent of the country's GDP. Ecuador has assembled a legal team to fight expected lawsuits and hopes to use the default as leverage to renegotiate the debts.

By James Cockcroft
Counterpunch, Weekend Edition, November 28-30, 2008

Indigenous peoples in Indo-Afro-Latin America, especially Bolivia and Ecuador, are rising up to take control of their own lives and act in solidarity with others to save the planet. They are calling for new, yet ancient, practices of plurinational, participatory, and intercultural democracy. They champion ecologically sustainable development; community-based autonomies; and solidarity with other peoples locally, regionally, and internationally – what they describe as “unity in diversity.” Their values are often different than those of the United States or Europe. One indigenous leader has stated: “We give what money we have not to banks to collect interest but to others – and their gratitude is the interest we receive.”

By Mario Murillo (Bogotá, Colombia; October 14, 2008)

As I write this, over 12,000 indigenous activists and representatives of other popular and social sectors of southern Colombia are urgently congregating in the "Territory of Peace and Coexistence" in La Maria Piendamó, in Cauca, confronting a massive presence of state security forces who have been ordered to dislodge them.