Major Earthquake in Nepal has Caused Great Suffering and Destruction
by La Vía Campesina
MAJOR EARTHQUAKE IN NEPAL HAS CAUSED GREAT SUFFERING AND DESTRUCTION
[1]
LA VIA CAMPESINA SOLIDARITY MESSAGE AND CALL FOR SUPPORT
(Thursday, 30 April 2015) - La Via Campesina wants to express its
solidarity and support with the peasants and all people in Nepal after
the terrible recent earthquake. Nepalese authorities estimate that
almost 10.000 people may have died, and many more wounded. We are deeply
saddened by this tragedy that has taken place as well as by the
suffering of all the people that lost relatives, friends and their
homes. We are especially aware that suffering is made worse in remote
rural villages where the situation is critical. These areas cannot be
reached by regular transport, making it difficult to organize support.
Beyond the enormous sadness of the beloved that did not survive this
disaster, the people of Nepal face a huge task in re-building their
houses and infrastructure over the coming months and years. The role of
social organisations is crucial - they should play a key and leading
role in this process.
La Via Campesina has set up a direct communication with its local
member, the All Nepalese Peasants' Federation (ANPFa), who is now
collecting the information, has set up an information desk, and is
organizing the relief and support in the rural areas. We will give them
all the support they need in this difficult task. It is crucial that
social organisations like ANPFa receive all support they need in order
to organise themselves and organize the support for the communities they
work with. We will be in close contact over the coming days and try our
best to respond to the needs for support that ANPFa will communicate to
us.
If you or your organisation wish to support or express solidarity with
our sisters and brothers in Nepal, you can write to ANPFa at
anpfa(a)anpfa.org.np with copy to secretariatlvcsouthasia(a)gmail.com and
viacampesina(a)viacampesina.org
CONTACT ANPFA
Balram Banskota
Deputy Secretary General
All Nepal Peasants Federation (ANPFA)
Madan Nagar- Balkhu
Kathmandu-Nepal
Email: balram(a)anpfa.org.np, anpfa(a)anpfa.org.np
CONTACT SOUTH ASIA REGION LA VIA CAMPESINA
Yudhvir Singh yudhvir55(a)gmail.com
Shanta Manavi shanta(a)anpfa.org.np
Regional secretariat: secretariatlvcsouthasia(a)gmail.com
For information in French please write to
annelies.schorpion(a)viacampesina.org
For information in Spanish please write to boa.monjane(a)viacampesina.org
--
Links:
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[1]
http://viacampesina.org/en/index.php/actions-and-events-mainmenu-26/natur...
9 years, 8 months
Final declaration of the 6th Congress of CLOC Via Campesina
by La Vía Campesina
FINAL DECLARATION OF THE 6TH CONGRESS OF CLOC VIA CAMPESINA [1]
[2]On the International Day of Peasant Struggles and after a march
through Buenos Aires streets from the US Embassy, an imperialistic
symbol, to the Argentinean Rural Association, a symbol of agribusiness
in the country, the organizers shared the final statement of the 6th
Congress of the Latin American Coordination of Countryside Organizations
(CLOC-Via Campesina) which you can read below. The document is a result
of eight days of debates and was read by representatives of the Youth
Assembly of CLOC.
_"Each person shines with his or her own light. No two flames are alike.
There are big flames and little flames, flames of every color. Some
peopleâs flames are so still they donât even flicker in the wind,
while others have wild flames that fill the air with sparks. Some
foolish flames neither burn nor shed light, but others blaze with life
so fiercely that you canât look at them without blinking, and if you
approach you shine in the fire"._
EDUARDO GALEANO
In Argentina, the homeland of Che Guevara, Evita, Mercedes Sosa, 200
years after the Congress of Free Peoples called by Artigas which
prompted the first Agrarian Reform in Latin America, 10 years after the
defeat of the FTAA in Mar del Plata, we are holding the 6th Latin
American Congress of Countryside Organizations.
We are the CLOC-VC, an organized expression of peasant men and women,
native peoples, afro-descendants and rural workers.
CLOC is the flame, the light and the actions of Via Campesina in Latin
America. We emerged from the heart itself of the 500-year process of
indigenous, peasant, black and popular resistance, which gathered the
historical peasant movement and the new movements emerging as a response
to the dismantling processes imposed by neoliberal policies.
We gather strength, experience and struggles and we build proposals
according to the new political moments, highlighting that the agrarian
issues are relevant for the society as a whole, and as such, we need to
face it with an alternative and popular power strategy.
Our Congress has taken place in a time where contradictions and the
class struggle are reflected in the attacks of capital that promotes new
wars, oppression and conspiracy against the peoples, for instance the
direct attack against Venezuela by declaring it a risk for US security,
but also with the different destabilizing coup strategies implemented by
an alliance of large communication, business and financial groups that
aim to undermine the sovereignty of our peoples and prevent progressive
governments of the region from taking action.
Recognizing the advance of regional and continental processes of
integration such as UNASUR, ALBA, MERCOSUR and CELAC, the 6th Congress
welcomes the solidarity and unity of Latin American and Caribbean
countries and organizations that supported Cuba´s position and
denunciation of the US blockade and the campaigns against their people,
an attitude that encourages us to continue building the Motherland of
Bolivar, San Martin, MartÃ, Sandino and Chavez.
We reject patriarchy, racism, sexism and homophobia. We struggle for
democratic and participatory societies, free from exploitation,
discrimination, oppression, and exclusion of women and young people. We
condemn all forms of domestic, social, work and institutional violence
towards women.
We raise the flags of our women colleagues: peasant and popular feminism
is part of our strategic horizon for a socialist transformation.
The work to strengthen our organizations, especially at grassroots
level, will continue being at the center of our priorities. We are
committed to strengthen the participation and integration of young
people in all organizational processes.
We reclaim Integral and Popular Agrarian Reform, peasant and indigenous
agroecological farming as essential elements of our path towards food
sovereignty and cooling down the planet, ensuring access to land and
water for women, young people, landless workers and ensuring the
recovery of territories by native and afrodescendant peoples. We also
struggle for the recognition of the social function of land and water,
and the prohibition of all forms of speculation and land grabbing
affecting them.
We are committed to continue defending and keeping alive our peasant and
indigenous seeds, to recover them in the hands of communities so as to
reproduce and multiply them based on our peasant systems. We will not
hesitate in the struggle against all forms of privatization and
appropriation of seeds and life forms.
We need to defeat the agricultural model imposed by agribusiness
corporations that is supported by international financial capitals and
is based on GM monocultures, the massive use of agrotoxics and the
displacement of peasants from the countryside. In addition, this model
is responsible for the food, climate, energy and urbanization crises.
We call people to continue struggling for a world free from GMOs and
agrotoxics that pollute, make ill and kill our peoples and Mother Earth.
We will resist together with the people and communities against
extractivism, megamining and all megaprojects threatening our
territories.
We celebrate la Via Campesina´s achievement of putting the Declaration
on the Rights of Peasants in the agenda of the United Nations Human
Rights Council and demand governments to ratify our positions. We call
our organizations to turn the declaration into an instrument for the
struggle of rural peoples and the society as a whole.
The future becomes a fertile place when hundreds of children gathered at
the 1st Children´s Congress delivered their message in favour of peace
and protection of our Mother Earth.
Our children are the future, and the present shines with the strength of
young people. Our main tools are capacity building, education,
communication and mass mobilization, unity and alliances among peasants,
native peoples, afrodescendants, rural and urban workers, students and
popular sectors organized to conform a force that is capable of
achieving the changes we are fighting for. We are living in
unprecedented and complex times, determined by a new correlation of
forces among capital, the government and popular forces. The
imperialistic capital is now under financial and transnational control,
so we need to identify ourselves with SOCIALISM as the only system
capable of reaching the sovereignty or our countries, highlighting the
values of solidarity, internationalism and cooperation among our
peoples.
AGAINST CAPITALISM AND IN FAVOR OF THE SOVEREIGNTY OF OUR PEOPLES: THE
AMERICAS UNITED CONTINUE STRUGGLING!
Links:
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[1]
http://www.viacampesina.org/en/index.php/news-from-the-regions-mainmenu-2...
[2]
http://www.viacampesina.org/en/images/stories/newsfromregions/foto%20decl...
9 years, 8 months
April 17: Farmers mobilise around the world against Free Trade Agreements and for food sovereignty
by La Vía Campesina
APRIL 17: FARMERS MOBILISE AROUND THE WORLD AGAINST FREE TRADE
AGREEMENTS AND FOR FOOD SOVEREIGNTY [1]
PRESS RELEASE—LA VIA CAMPESINA
(Zimbabwe, Harare, April 17, 2015) Today thousands of women and men
farmers of the international peasant movement La Via Campesina mobilize
worldwide against Transnational Corporations (TNCs) and Free Trade
Agreements (FTAs) which affect peasant and small-scale agriculture and
national food sovereignty. Since April 17, 1996 [2][1] La Via Campesina
celebrates this day as a global day of action with allies and friends.
Free Trade Agreements promote TNCs and a capitalist industrialised mode
of production heavily reliant on agrochemicals. These have increased the
displacement, expulsion, and disappearance of peasants. Free Trade
Agreements put profit over all other rights and concerns. Currently, the
most significant FTAs in history are being negotiated by the European
Union, the United States, and Canada. These agreements, if finalised,
will liberalize trade and investment markets in favour of transnational
companies (see tv.viacampesina.org/April-17th [3]).
With hundreds of actions at local and global level (see our regularly
updated MAP [4]) in all continents, La Via Campesina reasserts the
importance of local struggles and at the same time underlines the need
of a global resistance and organization between the cities and the rural
areas. Actions such as land occupations, seed exchanges, street
demonstrations, food sovereignty fairs, cultural events, lobby tours and
debates will be carried out until the end of the month as part of these
global days of action. This year in Europe, various actions are being
organised against Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP),
Comprehensive Trade and Economic Agreement (CETA), Trade in Services
Agreement (TiSA) in Germany, Switzerland and Belgium; in Asia, a mass
rally to reject the negotiation of Trans-Pacific Partnership (TTP) by
Japanese government is being organised in Japan and South Korea; in
South America, a big march (over 1,500 people from all continents) is
being organised in Argentina during the CLOC-Via Campesina (Latin
American Coordination of Rural Organizations) congress in Buenos Aires.
La Via Campesina denounces laws and interests that affect the peasant
way of life, an important heritage of the people at the service of
humanity. The movement promotes food sovereignty to end hunger in the
world and promote social justice.
Instead of a gloomy future based on free trade and big business, La Via
Campesina believes the time has come for an economy based on equity that
will restore the balance between humanity and nature. Agrarian reform
and sustainable agriculture are at the heart of this way of living based
on peoples' Food Sovereignty.
FOR INTERVIEWS PLEASE CONTACT:
Ndiakhate Fall, CNCR - Senegal (French): + 221 77 550 89 07
Marina dos Santos, Landless movement, Brasil (Spanish) +54 92615717585
Yudhvir Singh, BKU, India (English) +54 92615717585
· Register your actions by sending us information about the planned
events to our mail: lvcweb(a)viacampesina.org
· Please also send us pictures, videos, posters, flyers etc. We will
publish them together with a map of all actions on www.viacampesina.org
[5]
-------------------------
[6][1]On April 17, 1996 in Brazil, military police forces assassinated
19 peasants in Eldorado dos Carajás (Pará). The farmers were members of
the Movement of Rural Landless Workers (MST). On that day, 1500 men and
women occupied and blocked the highway BR-150 in Eldorado dos Carajás
with the goal of putting pressure on the state and federal government to
carry out agrarian reform. Around 4PM 155 military police forces of the
state surrounded the MST demonstrators, throwing tear gas and they fired
guns at them. Therefore, in addition to the 19 massacred, three more
died later and 69 were injured. State authorities, police, the army and
landowners were responsible in the planning and execution of this
massacre.
Links:
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[1]
http://viacampesina.org/en/index.php/actions-and-events-mainmenu-26/17-ap...
[2]
file:///C:/LA%20VIA%20CAMPESINA%20WORK/2015%20URGENT%20WORK/April%2017%202015%20press%20releaseIsa%20and%20NN%20edited2242.docx#_ftn1
[3] http://tv.viacampesina.org/April-17th-International-Day-of?lang=en
[4] http://viacampesina.org/map/17april/2015/
[5] http://viacampesina.org/
[6]
file:///C:/LA%20VIA%20CAMPESINA%20WORK/2015%20URGENT%20WORK/April%2017%202015%20press%20releaseIsa%20and%20NN%20edited2242.docx#_ftnref1
9 years, 8 months
New publication - Seed laws that criminalise farmers: resistance and fightback
by La Vía Campesina
NEW PUBLICATION - SEED LAWS THAT CRIMINALISE FARMERS: RESISTANCE AND
FIGHTBACK [1]
LA VIA CAMPESINA | GRAIN
Media release - 8 April 2015
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Peasant seeds - the pillar of food production - are under attack
everywhere. Under corporate pressure, laws in many countries
increasingly limit what farmers can do with their seeds. Seed saving,
which has been the basis of farming for thousands of years, is quickly
being criminalised.
What can we do? A NEW BOOKLET [2] and poster from La Via Campesina and
GRAIN documents how big business and governments are moving to stop
farmers from saving and exchanging their seeds, and shows how farmers
are fighting back.
Control over seeds must remain in peasants' hands. This is the
principle, based in the production process, that guarantees the food
sovereignty of rural communities and urban populations against
multinationals and their enormous profits. Over centuries, peasant
farmers have created the thousands of varieties of crops that are the
basis of the world's food supply and diversified diets, says La Via
Campesina's Guy Kastler.
But for corporations who want to impose laws that will give them
complete control of land, farming, food and the profits that could be
made from this sector, these time-tested practices around seeds are an
obstacle.
For La Via Campesina, the law should instead guarantee the rights of
peasants to conserve, use, exchange, use and sell their seeds and
protect them from biopiracy.
Big business is carrying out, with the support of governments, a global
legal offensive to gain complete control over seeds. This includes not
only privatising seeds through new laws, but giving themselves new
rights to physically search farmers' homes and destroy their seeds, says
Camila Montecinos of GRAIN.
Seed laws are evolving and becoming more aggressive in response to new
demands from the seed and biotechnology industry. So-called free trade
agreements, bilateral investment treaties and regional integration
initiatives are hardening 'soft' forms of ownership rights over seeds.
And laws strengthening intellectual property rights over seeds are being
reinforced by other regulations that are supposed to ensure seed
quality, market transparency, prevention of counterfeits, and the like.
What is at stake is the very basis of peasant farmers' existence.
Social movements worldwide, especially peasant farmers organisations,
have resisted and mobilised to prevent such laws being passed.
Corporations and governments rely on secrecy and lack of transparency
because they know that an informed citizenry will reject the
privatisation of seeds.
This booklet will strengthen the resistance by ensuring that as many
people as possible - especially in the rural communities that are most
affected - understand these industry-backed laws, their impacts and
objectives, as well as the capacity of social movements to replace them
with laws that protect peasants' rights.
CONTENTS
1. How seed laws make farmers' seeds illegal
2. African seeds: A treasure under threat
3. The Americas: Massive resistance against "Monsanto laws"
4. Asia: The struggle against a new wave of industrial seeds
5. Europe: Farmers strive to rescue agricultural diversity
DOWNLOAD THE NEW PUBLICATION HERE [2].
_ __ ___
CONTACTS
LA VIA CAMPESINA
Guy Kastler (French) +33 46 891 2895
Andrea Ferante (English, Spanish) +39 348 018 9221
GRAIN
Renée Vellvé (English, French) +33 67 507 3468
Camila Montecinos (Spanish) +56 22 222 4437
_ __ ___
NOTE TO EDITORS
This booklet is accompanied by
* an infographic explaining actions farmers & others can take to
defend their seeds [3]
* a map and table tracking changes to seed laws around the world [4]-
published by GRAIN
Links:
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[1]
http://viacampesina.org/en/index.php/main-issues-mainmenu-27/biodiversity...
[2]
http://viacampesina.org/en/images/stories/pdf/2015-Seed%20laws%20booklet%...
[3]
http://www.grain.org/article/entries/5150-infographic-stop-seed-laws-that...
[4]
http://www.grain.org/article/entries/5153-map-seed-laws-around-the-world
9 years, 9 months
Declaration of the Global Convergence of Land and Water Struggles
by La Vía Campesina
Declaration of the Global Convergence of Land and Water Struggles [1]
Published on Saturday, 04 April 2015 13:27
RIGHTS TO WATER AND LAND, A COMMON STRUGGLE
_Dakar to Tunis: Declaration of the Global Convergence of Land and Water
Struggles (Tunis, 28 March 2015)_
We, social movements, grassroots organizations and civil society
organizations engaged in the defence of the rights to land and water,
gathered in October 2014 in Dakar at the African Social Forum. We are
fighting and protesting against natural resource grabbing, especially
water and land grabbing of our Commons, and against the systematic
violations of the associated human rights. Sharing our ideas led to
acknowledgement of the essential linkage between our struggles, given
the inextricable nature of land and water grabbing. We met again at the
World Social Forum in Tunis in March 2015 to continue this dialogue with
movements and organizations from all over the world in order to broaden
this convergence.
To date, more than 200 million hectares of land have been grabbed
globally by private firms, governments, elites and speculators, often
with the support of the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the
G8 and other institutions and consortiums. The minority's appropriation
of our Commons leads to concentration, forced evictions and the
oppression of peoples. This is implemented in the name of environmental
protection, the prevention of climate change, the production of "clean"
energy, mega-infrastructure projects and/or so-called development, often
promoted by Public-Private partnerships, such as the New Alliance for
Food Security and Nutrition in Africa. Entire areas and territories are
thus dispossessed and local populations evicted, while the loss of
identity and ecosystems makes life impossible! Communities whose rights
and dignity have been abused find themselves with broken up families, or
obliged to become refugees, forced to migrate, lose their rights, and
are impoverished and starving. It is estimated that 3.000 persons die
each day due to lack of water. The access to and management of spaces of
community life are destroyed by military and armed groups that
perpetuate war and occupation, criminal State authorities, supported by
economic, financial and political elites. This undermines local food
systems and many local producers who feed the majority of the world's
population. When people resist they are criminalized, jailed and killed.
The huge profits of elites are thus built on the systematic violation of
human rights of the majority of peasant farmers, informal settlement and
slum dwellers, fisher folk, pastoralists, indigenous peoples and
communities, nomads, rural and urban workers and consumers, especially
youth and women, who are dispossessed of their land and livelihoods
through violence, intimidation and torture. Land grabbing always goes
hand-in-hand with water grabbing, and takes different forms: cases of
unsustainable water-consuming farming, through the privatization and
management of water utilities (stealing this vital resource from those
who are unable to pay for it), contamination of aquifers caused by
unregulated mining, the change of river courses and waterways through
the construction of dams and the resulting eviction of communities, the
militarization of access to water points, the dispossession of
pastoralists and fisher communities of their livelihoods through
practices such as coastal sand mining.
The criminalization of activists fighting for the protection of the
Commons has become widespread, albeit hidden by the authorities. Land
and water resources are increasingly scarce, and therefore critical to
the security of societies and the sovereignty of States. However, the
scarcity underpinning the water, land and food crises is not a given; it
is a political, geo-strategic and financial construct.
In response to these threats to our lives and wellbeing, we are fighting
back, asserting our rights and providing real solutions. We believe that
peoples' access to and control of land and water is essential to peace,
to stopping climate change, as well as to fulfilling fundamental human
rights and guaranteeing a dignified life for all. Equal distribution of
land and water, and gender equality are central to our vision of food
sovereignty, based on agroecology (as outlined in the Declaration of the
International Forum for Agroecology in Nyéléni, in February 2015), local
food systems, biodiversity, control of our seeds, and respect for
natural water cycles. This vision applies to rural, urban and peri-urban
populations and includes respectful producer - consumer relationships of
mutual solidarity and cooperation.
OUR SOLIDARITY, GROUNDED IN OUR COMMITMENT AS ACTIVISTS, IS BUILT UPON
THE FOLLOWING PRINCIPLES AND CONVICTIONS THAT UNIFY OUR STRUGGLES:
* That the human rights to water, food and land are fundamental, and
crucial for life. All people, men, women, adults, children, rich, poor,
rural and urban dwellers, are entitled to them.
* That water and land are not only vital natural resources, but are
also part of our common heritage, whose security and governance must be
preserved by each community for the common good of our societies and the
environment, now and for future generations.
* Water, land and seeds are Commons, and not commodities.
* We recognize that States are legally and constitutionally mandated
to represent peoples' interests. States are therefore duty-bound to
oppose any policy and international treaty that undermines human rights
and their own sovereignty, such as Investor-State Dispute Settlement
schemes as included in the Transatlantic Trade and Investment
Partnership and the majority of investment treaties.
* Land water management policies should promote the achievement of
social justice, gender equality, public health and environmental
justice.
* We take a firm stand against foreign occupation and domination in
all forms.
We therefore jointly with civil society organisations from around the
world,
PLEDGE TO:
* Raise awareness, educate and organize communities in rural and urban
areas in order to build a strong and united movement struggling for the
recognition and enforcement of our human rights to food, water and land
and territories
* Always defend the right of citizens and communities to free, prior
and informed consent and full participation in the governance of natural
resources in citizens' legal institutions
* Build synergies between civil society actors across constituencies
struggling against land and water grabbing in order to build national
and regional platforms that support the building of an international
convergence of land and water struggles
* Reclaim our lands, waters and seeds; reclaim the legitimate
political spaces that we as rights-holders have fought for, such as the
Committee on World Food Security and Nutrition; and oppose co-optation
of our language in a way that supports false solutions such as "climate
smart agriculture"
* Express our solidarity with and support for human rights defenders
and those who resist land and water grabbing, especially when they are
criminalized
* Oppose national policies and international treaties promoting the
privatization and commodification of natural resources, as well as land
and water grabbing, including prepaid meters, automatic tariff
adjustments and the Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) between the
EU and ACP countries, for both goods and services
* Denounce the World Bank's "business" climate ranking and
biodiversity offsetting systems, that are drafted solely to support
speculation and foster land and water grabbing, while completely
neglecting human rights and social and environmental standards.
WE CALL ON INTERNATIONAL GOVERNMENTAL ORGANIZATIONS, STATES AND LOCAL
AUTHORITIES TO:
* Recognize the indivisibility of human rights and their international
obligations towards their realization, especially for vulnerable and
marginalized groups, women and youth. They must systematically apply the
human rights approach, stop violations and prevent and prosecute human
rights abuses
* Implement adequate policies of agrarian reform, land reform, genuine
land restitution, equitable redistribution and sustainable management of
land, water and other natural resources
* Adopt coherent policies including on development that benefit
communities' empowerment rather than economic and geopolitical interests
* Respect, protect and fulfil the human right to water and sanitation
that was recognized and made explicit by the UN General Assembly
resolution 69/2010, and adopt the constitutional and legislative
regulatory frameworks that guarantee everyone the availability and
accessibility of water and sanitation, as well as the effective
justiciability of the human right to water
* Recognize, respect and protect the collective customary rights
regulating the access, security and governance of land and water, our
Commons, by ensuring women's rights
* Strictly uphold their obligations not to recognize illegal
situations, including and especially prohibited acts by occupying
powers, and not to cooperate or transact with any parties that engage
in, or benefit from illegal situations
* Guarantee peoples' free, prior and informed consent and full
participation when decisions are made about the management of land,
water, and other natural resources. And not just hear us, but address
our demands, including our right to say No to land and water grabbing
* Implement the International Labour Organization Convention 169 on
the Rights of Indigenous and Tribal Peoples and the UN Declaration on
the Rights of Indigenous Peoples
* Explicitly endorse the promotion of human rights, including the
human rights to water, food and land, as part of the Sustainable
Development Goals of the UN post-2015 Agenda
* Implement the CFS/FAO Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of
Tenure of Land, Fisheries and Forests, and the FAO Guidelines for
Securing Sustainable Small-Scale Fisheries immediately and with our full
participation as rights holders; and enact national laws that make their
provisions upholding peoples' rights fully justiciable
* Support and adopt the UN Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and
other People working in rural areas as currently being developed in the
Human Rights Council
* Adopt and implement a Binding Treaty to prevent and prosecute crimes
committed by transnational corporations and other business enterprises
* Adopt the relevant measures and instruments of international law,
especially in the framework of the International Covenant on Economic,
Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) of the United Nations, in order to
effectively strengthen the human right to water and sanitation, and to
clarify and specify its content and States' obligations, and to prevent
any form of water grabbing
We call upon civil society, social movements, grassroots organizations,
workers' unions and NGOs of the world to engage in this discussion, to
strengthen this declaration and support its claims by all available
means. We need to foster the solidarity of our struggles, including the
struggle for our rights to the essential resources required for life, we
need to make civil society's voice heard in the negotiations towards the
adoption of the Sustainable Development Goals of the UN Agenda
post-2015, in the application of international and regional guidelines
on land and natural resources, and the COP 2015 in order to stop climate
change.
As we continue to build this convergence, we recognize and appreciate
our diversity, and welcome diverse initiatives that are emerging and
which we will debate and discuss. To do this we commit to disseminating
this declaration widely. We will take it to our territories and
communities in order to involve them further in the process of shaping
this Convergence.
_ Water and land: same plight same fight!_
Tunis, 28 March 2015
Download the PDF Declaration [2]
Links:
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[1]
http://viacampesina.org/en/index.php/main-issues-mainmenu-27/agrarian-ref...
[2]
http://viacampesina.org/en/images/stories/pdf/2015-04-Dakar%20to%20Tunis%...
9 years, 9 months
La Via Campesina extremely concerned about Yarmouk Palestinian Refugee Camp situation
by La Vía Campesina
La Via Campesina extremely concerned about Yarmouk Palestinian Refugee
Camp situation [1]
Published on Tuesday, 07 April 2015 17:45
LA VIA CAMPESINA RELEASE, APRIL 7TH, 2015
_La Via Campesina is extremely concerned about the situation in the
Yarmouk Palestinian Refugee Camp in southern Damascus_
La Via Campesina has been watching recent reports of the invasion of the
Palestinian refugee camp Yarmouk by extremist armed forces with great
concern. It comes at a time when the camp is suffering from a two-year
siege on it. We are extremely worried about the well being of our
friends and partners in the food sovereignty projects on the ground, who
have been targeted by armed forces. The recent targeted execution of
civil society activist Firas Al Naji--a founder of food sovereignty
projects in Yarmouk (which aim to ease the suffering of a community
living with severe malnutrition due to the siege), among other
initiatives--is a dark example of the grave situation that civil society
faces. We are also deeply concerned for the safety of Abdullah Al
Khateeb and other human rights rights defenders targeted by militant
groups. The threat against all of these active members of civil society
is massive, and we do not want to stand quietly aside while they and
their community are targeted.
As Palestinian refugees--thus declared stateless persons by many
nations--they are not granted the protection they should rightfully have
in their host countries. As Palestinian refugees in Syria, being
displaced yet again, their rights as stateless persons have deteriorated
even further.
In the case of Yarmouk, which is a southern suburb of the Syrian
capital, the UN body that is meant to maintain and provide relief
services to the Palestinian community, UNWRA, has not been able to
fulfill its basic obligations to the camp's Palestinian residents. This
has been the case for almost two years, ever since the regime-enforced
siege was imposed on the camp. Meanwhile the entire population of the
area--not only Palestinians--is left isolated and without any relief
from the international community.
This two-year siege prevents people from entering or leaving the camp,
and prevents access to food and medical care. Since September 2014 a
drought situation was created inside the camp by turning off the water
supply. Thus the humanitarian situation has grown extremely dire for the
camp's remaining 18,000 inhabitants. This siege is completely illegal
according to international humanitarian law and has to be considered a
war crime.
As a peasants' movement and a movement for food sovereignty rights, we
are deeply concerned about this continued violation of the rights of
Syrians, all of them, facing the criminal strategy of "starve or
surrender" in many areas around Syria. With almost 200 deaths caused by
starvation, Yarmouk is one of the most strikingly outrageous examples of
this method to try to break entire communities. We reject the use of
hunger and food as a weapon against people, by any armed forces.
In light of the new developments inside Yarmouk, with the invasion of
the "Islamic State" and its attacks against Yarmouk's residents making
the humanitarian situation even more dire, we call on the international
community and especially the UNWRA to do everything they can to protect
the people in Yarmouk.
We urgently call for:
* Safe passage for all of Yarmouk's residents in and out of the camp
without facing the danger of arrest by forces on the ground,
* Full protection for all those leaving the country, a protection
which includes the right to leave and open-border-policies by other
states,
* That the UNWRA will bring immediate supplies of food, water and
medical aid for besieged southern Damascus residents,
* That all Palestinian parties make a collective effort to defend the
rights of those trapped in and around Syria,
* That the International Committee of the Red Cross support entry of
medical supplies and food to all residents of the area, restore
functioning hospitals that due to the siege have almost collapsed, and
to ensure safe passage!
Organize protests in your cities for solidarity with the people in
Yarmouk and to demand that the international community, UNWRA and the
International Committee of the Red Cross use their mandate and do
anything they can to protect the people in the Yarmouk camp.
Please write to:
- UNWRA, go to http://www.unrwa.org/contact [2]
- The International Committee of the Red Cross: Fax: +41 22 733 20 57,
or go tohttps://www.icrc.org/eng/who-we-are/contacts/index.jsp [3]
Download PDF Yarmouk Camp Release for circulation here [4]
Links:
------
[1]
http://viacampesina.org/en/index.php/main-issues-mainmenu-27/human-rights...
[2] http://www.unrwa.org/contact
[3] https://www.icrc.org/eng/who-we-are/contacts/index.jsp
[4]
http://viacampesina.org/en/images/stories/pdf/2015-04-07%20Release%20on%2...
9 years, 9 months
La Via Campesina Declaration on Migration and Rural Workers
by La Vía Campesina
La Via Campesina Declaration on Migration and Rural Workers [1]
Published on Thursday, 02 April 2015 15:28
[2]MARCH 25, 2015 – WORLD SOCIAL FORUM TUNIS 2015
The migration of peoples across arbitrary barriers is an integral part
of human history. Rooted in the search for better living conditions,
this movement of peoples from one place to another was later transformed
into a social, economic, and political process that has largely served
to benefit ruling elites - the slave traders of the past and the
multinationals of the present. Today, as capital demands exceptional
freedoms for itself - combined with greater restrictions on the poor -
wars, social exclusion, economic injustice, and the global climate
crisis are forcing millions of human beings to seek refuge across
internationally imposed boundaries.
As financial capital and agribusiness concentrates its power and
holdings - diminishing opportunities for diversified and sustainable
smallholder farming - precarious livelihoods continue to aggressively
push a growing number of rural people off their farms and into the city.
Neoliberal policies, free trade agreements, the development of
industrial agriculture, the concentration of production areas… all have
destructive effects on the environment, biodiversity, the climate and
local, especially peasant, economies. These aggressive policies that
impose a development model based on the exploitation of resources, the
grabbing of the commons, the stealing of agricultural lands and the
exploitation of peasants as well as that of women and men who work the
land, have a particularly harsh effect on peasant communities. Ruined
people have no other option to leave family, land and community to seek
the means of survival some place else, in the big cities or in any
countries.
Once urbanized, our people are unlikely to find opportunities in our
countries and soon become the migrants of today, the cheap labor of the
corporate interests. In the most telling of cases, peasant farmers leave
family farming only to become the low-paid agricultural workers of
corporate giants Monsanto, Cargill, and DuPont. This occurs both
internally - within Mexico or Palestine for example - as well as
externally, as we cross borders to work for those who forced us off our
lands.
We of La Via Campesina, the world's largest social movement with
millions of peasants, women, youth, indigenous peoples,
afro-descendants, fisherfolk and - very often due to involuntary
displacement - migrants and rural workers, denounce the fact that we,
the poor majorities, are those who suffer most as climate change
provokes extreme climatic events across our territories. The term
"climate refugee" is now being used to describe those of us forced from
our lands by the global climate crisis, by an industrialized food and
social system that blames its victims and pardons its culprits.
To advance the struggle for Food Sovereignty and help bring an end to
the corporate control of the global food system, we declare that it is
necessary to:
* End all violence and repression against migrants perpetrated in the
context of the so-called "War on Terror". Remove the issue of migration
from the rhetoric around "threats" to national (or domestic) security
since these are different questions altogether;
* Stop the separation of undocumented migrant families, which has
provoked a crisis in childhood migration. Halt the confinement of
migrant children in detention centers, in unhealthy and inhumane
conditions that violate their most elementary rights. End the
deportation of all unprotected children;
* Protect all refugees through international institutions (such as the
UN) and NGOs of recognized moral authority (such as Amnesty
International), safeguarding their rights as refugees and providing
protection for all those living in refugee camps;
* Halt and revoke all policies that criminalize migrants, policies
that increase persecution, detentions, expulsions, and physical attacks.
States should be obliged to respect international agreements and, if
they have yet to do so, adhere to the International Convention on the
Protection of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families. Modify
all local and national legislation so as to comply with said agreements;
* Legalize "clandestine" migration so as to combat criminalization;
* Allow (or guarantee) to migrants access to the labor market under
conditions equivalent to workers 'national'.
* Oppose all temporary worker programs, which serve only to divide the
working class and weaken our organizations and struggles. With respect
to temporary agricultural workers (braceros, guest workers, contratados
de origen, etc.), these agreements serve only to benefit industrial
agricultural by providing it with cheap and docile farm labor;
* Organize all migrants, strengthening our rights to bargain
collectively and to strike. Practice solidarity on an ongoing, permanent
basis, firmly adopting the principle that "an injury to one is an injury
to all";
* Dismantle all free trade agreements, especially those with the
greatest impacts on collective resources, rural communities, and
indigenous peoples. Implement Food Sovereignty, in direct contrast and
in dispute with the corporate-controlled food system;
* Challenge the capitalist model of economic growth and so-called
"green" development, which does not address the causes of the climate
crisis, a crisis that is exacerbating the migration crisis. The results
of the climate crisis - extensive droughts, floods, avalanches,
earthquakes, tidal waves, etc., which are ever more frequent, are now
responsible for 25% of all involuntary migration worldwide, now
estimated at 210 million people [according to the International
Organization for Migration (www.iom.int [3])];
* Recognize the corporate causes of the global climate crisis and
force transnational corporations and their governments in the
industrialized nations to accept their responsibility in the surge of
climate refugees. At the national level, incorporate the victims of
environmental displacement into social development strategies that help
to organize and empower these peoples;
* Develop action plans with specific timeframes into national policies
of research and development, giving priority to sustainable peasant
agriculture as a viable option to combat the climate crisis and reduce
the impacts of environmental displacement;
* Bring Down All Walls: Mexico-USA, Melilla, Ceuta, Palestine (West
Bank), Western Sahara, etc., because they not only represent a barbaric
aggression against humanity, separating peoples, but also represent an
affront to nature. While existing geographic borders already contribute
to ecological disasters, new dividing walls only worsen the situation;
* End all wars of territorial occupation, the extraction of wealth and
the enslavement of indigenous peoples.
We are here in the World Social Forum 2015 in Tunis to let everybody
know, that this is our commitment and that we are ready to unite with
all the social and popular movements to build an international alliance
of peasants, migrant workers, indigenous peoples and social fighters for
a more humane, dignify and better world.
Links:
------
[1]
http://viacampesina.org/en/index.php/main-issues-mainmenu-27/migrations-a...
[2] http://viacampesina.org/en/images/migrants2o15.jpg
[3] http://www.iom.int/
9 years, 9 months
