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 International Call for Action to Commemorate Chico, Eldorado and Dorothy
Monday 22nd of december 2008 it is 20 years ago since the rubber tapper, trade unionist, workers party politician and environmentalist Chico Mendes was killed in Xapuri in Amazonia. In connection to World Social Forum in Belem in Amazonia in January 2009 we call upon people to commemorate the struggles in Amazonia and the activists killed including 19 landless MST members in Eldorado do Carajas on the 17th of April 1996 and the Catholic nun and protector of the righs of poor farmers and nature, Dorothy Stang 12th of February 2005.  
We call upon organisations to put up the IN MEMORIAM Chico, Eldorado and Dorothy banner on their website with a link to http://www.aktivism.info. Here you can find a 2 page leaflet pdf file for download with information about Chico Mendes, Eldorado do Carajas and Dorothy Stang as well as the movements in the Amazon region and their successful struggles against the racism, growing social inequalities and environmental destruction of the present wold order. Here are also links to more information on the murdered activists and their movements and more general background. We ask for help to translate the leaflet into other languages and hope that organisations are willing to be part of this comemory action between 22nd of December 2008 until 17th of April 2009, International Peasant Struggles Day. When you put up a banner on your website or translate a text, please inform us:
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Friends of the Earth Sweden
Association Aktivism.info
Links
General background on the issues of importance to environmental, peasant, indigenous and solidarity movements you find in the Malmö-Belem newspaper produced by Friends of the Earth Finland and Sweden in cooperation with Via Campesina and Friends of the Earth Europe and Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam: http://www.foeeurope.org/trade/events/ESF/Index.htm
On agrofuel in Latin America and how it causes environmental and social destruction: http://www.foeeurope.org/agrofuels/fuellingdestruction.html
The strength of the Amazonian movements and their political comitment to solve todays most pressing issues can be seen in many fields. To those interested in climate issues there are at least two documents of importance:
The declaration of forest peoples, Manaus 2008: “Climate Change and Forest Peoples: Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD) and the Rights of Indigenous and Traditional Peoples”
htttp://www.edf.org/documents/8253_ManausDeclaration.pdf
Bolivian president Evo Morales on climate change November 2008: Save the Planet from Capitalism
http://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2008/12/evo-morales-on-climate-change-save.html
Cambio climático: Salvemos al planeta del capitalismo
http://museocheguevaraargentina.blogspot.com/2008/12/evo-morales-clima-cambios-bruscos.html
Links to international organisations you find here:
FoE International, http://www.foei.org
Via Campesina International, http://viacampesina.org
WSF: http://www.forumsocialmundial.org.br
More information about Chico Mendes, Eldorado do Carajas and Dorothy Stang and the Amazonian movements in the links below:
Chico Mendes, the rubber tappers and Conselho Nacional dos Seringueiros, CNS:
Chico Mendes Vive! Also on rubber tappers, in English, Spanish and Portuguese including information on activities to comemorate the 20th anniversary of his death: http://www.chicomendes.org
General on Chico Mendes in Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chico_Mendes
Interesting documentary on the struggle of the rubber tappers through history and Chico Mendes: http://www.chicomendes.com
CNS started in 1985 by rubber tappers and is today a national organization that represents extraction workers and small farmers gathered in associations, cooperatives and unions. They are rubber latex tappers, collectors of palm tree nuts, babacu coconut crackers, workers in charge of agricultural and forest projects and medicine herbs and oil extraction workers.
http://www.chicomendes.org/ing/entidades/cns.php
http://www.extrativismo.org.br/
Eldorado do Carajas and Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra, MST:
About the massacre in Eldorado do Carajas and the International Day of Peasant Struggle you find more material here:
MST on 17 of April: http://www.globalexchange.org/countries/brazil/3880.html
IPS on the background and activities 2001: http://www.commondreams.org/headlines01/0418-02.htm
Via Campesina on 17th of April activities globally: http://www.viacampesina.org/main_en/index.php?option=com_content&task=blogcategory&id=26&Itemid=33
Amnesty on the massacre in Eldorado do Carajas: http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/asset/AMR19/001/1998/en/dom-AMR190011998en.html
Witness on Eldorado do Carajas and MST with video:
http://www.witness.org/index.php?option=com_rightsalert&Itemid=178&task=story&alert_id=27
MST started in 1984 It is one of the strongest popular movements In Brasil and is an example also for the rest of the world. You find more material here:
Official website: http://www.mst.org.br
Articles in english on MST by the US support group: http://www.mstbrazil.org/?q=about
International links and resources on MST: http://www.mstbrazil.org/?q=links
Swedish MST website: http://www.mstse.org
On Dorothy Stang:
General on Dorothy Stang: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorothy_Stang
By the brother David Stang: http://society.maryknoll.org/index.php?module=MKArticles&func=display&feature=1&id=103
Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur, Ohio: http://www.sndohio.org/dotstang.htm
Website with the story, photos and information about a documentary on Dorothy Stang: http://www.studentnunamazon.com
Missionaries have often been pioneers in solidarity work to help oppressed people, at times in opposition to the church or the government. Already in the 16th century church people protested against the treatment of Indians in Americas. 1653 was the first still active North-South development organisation set up by the Catholic Church in Montreal to organise literacy education in Brasil. In the following centuries people of different faith have initiated support of oppressed people and started resistance against imperialism as well as been central in initiating solidarity movements in modern times as the Danish women missionaries that started organising solidarity with India in 1917, Gunnar Helander who started the struggle against Apartheid in 1941 and became central in the antiapartheid movement or Chico Whitaker, whose life time church activism against oppression also made him central in initiating World Social Forum. Believers in other religions have made as important contributions as those that believe in Christianity. Among them Sheth haji Habib, an Indian muslim that initiated the modern non-violent mass disobedience movement against imperialism and racism on 11th of September 1906 in South Africa helped by the hindu Gandhi, an initiative that inspired so many more non-violent struggles in the world by religious persons like Martin Luther King as well as many secular radical pacifists and antiimperialists.
On the history of church and other voluntary development organisations one can read in:
The Politics of Altruism, A Study of the Political Behaviour of Voluntary Development Agencies, by Jörgen Lissner published by Lutheran World Federation 1977.
The Alms Bazaar: Altruism Under Fire-Non-Profit Organizations and International Development, Ian Smillie, published by ITDG
On Danish missionaries in India:
http://www.fredsakademiet.dk/library/dkpeace/dkpeace10.htm
http://www.dihrs.dk/artEn2.htm
On the Danish missionaries and the continued relationships between Indian popular movements and the Nordic countries 1917-2006: http://www.demokratiafoorumi.fi/Reclaim_Gandhi_by_Tord_Bjork.pdf
On Chico Whitaker and World Social Forum:
Towards a new politics – What future for the World Social Forum?
Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam Publication (P) Limited, Delhi, 2006
http://chicowhitaker.wordpress.com
On Sheth haji Habib and the 100 years anniversary 9/11 2006 of modern non violence mass movements:
http://www.folkrorelser.nu/nonviolence100/index.html
Other material:
How Friends of the Earth Sweden started its solidarity work for the Amazon.
In 1991 Tord Björk and Charlotte von Essen visited the rubber tappers head quarter in Rio Branco. The goal was to organise solidarity work with the popular movements in Amazonia in their struggle against repression and impunity for the murders of activists.
The result was a long term cooperation project between the rubber tappers organisation CNS, the human rights organisation SPDDH in Belem and Friends of the Earth Sweden. The aim was to educate more lawyers on human rights issues to enable more juridical support to the popular movements. Klaus Pontvik, chairman of FoE Sweden and born in Uruguay visited Rio Branco as well as Eldorado do Carajas were the project had one of its field work in the South of Para state in the early 1990s to develop the project further. In 1996 a larger Euro-Amazonian tour was prepared to start in late April.
Then the massacre in Eldorado do Carajas took place 17 of April some days before the tour should start. Participants in the human rights project could immediatly go to Eldorado do Carajas to begin the struggle to defend the rights of the families of the landless workers who had been killed. Across the Atlantic the solidarity tour went from Tanger in Marocco to the North of Sweden in April and May. An exhausting tour for rubber tappers that never before had seen the ocean, let alone snow which met the tour in the North of Sweden or light as during the day also at night close to the midnight sun. The tour met lots of interest. In Stockholm many hundreds turned up at a cermony where the 19 killed protesters in the Amazon, massacre was commemorated by speaches and 19 torches while also the successful struggle to defend the elm trees in the city center 25 years earlier was celebrated by showing an outdoor documentary of the Battle of the Elms, a joint celebration were rubber tappers protecting the trees in the Amazon and direct democracy activists protecting the trees in Stockholm from Alternativ Stad (today Friends of the Earth Stockholm) could join hands. The human right project in the Amazon continued with the help of Finnish organisations. It has until today built a bridge between popular movements in Brazil and Finland and Sweden. It was manifested on 17th of April 2008 when Friends of the Earth, Via Campesina and Latin American groups together with MST support groups, and FIAN in Sweden as well as Finnish sister organisations organised an action to protest against Stora Enso and support the MST occupation and struggle in the South of Brasil against the Finnish-Swedish corporation. It was followed at the European Social Forum in Malmö in Sweden 2008 where the landless movement MST was invited to bring witness to the social and ecological destruction of Finnish-Swedish forest companies and their mono culture plantations and discuss continued common action. |
