Latin America and the Caribbean


60 years after the agrarian reform in Cuba

The communications team of the 8th Continental Congress of the Latin American Coordination of Rural Organizations (CLOC-La Vía Campesina) interviewed Rafael Santiesteban, head of the National Association of Small Farmers (ANAP), present at the Congress. The event took place on June 28 in El Laguito, in Havana, Cuba. Santiesteban reflected about the importance of the first law on Agrarian Reform…

7th Congress of CLOC celebrates 25 years of peasant unity

From our territories: Unity, struggle and resistance for socialism and peoples´ sovereignty” is the slogan of this 8th Congress. 400 people are participating in it, including Latin American and Caribbean delegates, representatives of La Vía Campesina Romania, Congo, Nepal and North America, in addition to guests and allies from different countries. Nury Martínez, of Fensuagro (Colombia), member of the Political Commission…

LATIN AMERICAN PEASANT YOUTH CALLS FOR UNITY BETWEEN THE COUNTRYSIDE AND THE CITY

The 7th Continental Congress of the Coordination of Rural Organizations (CLOC-La Vía Campesina) began on June 25 in Güira de Melena (Artemisa, Cuba) with peasant youth as protagonists as they carried out their 5th Assembly. This meeting took place at the “Niceto Pérez García” Center of the National Association of Small Farmers of Cuba (ANAP). 100 delegates from 19 countries…

European Union – Mercosur Agreement “will weaken” regional integration

This week there was a new round of negotiations and in light of the potentially imminent conclusion of negotiations for a Free Trade Agreement between Mercosur and the European Union, social movements and organizations gathered in the Continental Day for Democracy and against Neoliberalism expressed their rejection to the agreement and demanded an immediate end to the negotiations. To analyze…

REITOCA COMMUNITY FACES REPRESSION OVER RESISTANCE AGAINST HYDROELECTRIC DAM

Since January 2018, the population of Reitoca, a municipality of Francisco Morazan department, Honduras, is controlling the territories of the high areas of the town, where they set up a campsite to prevent a hydroelectric dam from being built on Petacón River. In the afternoon of Wednesday 24, police officers and members of the Tigre security forces came to forcibly…

“Peasants are the ones who are standing up to a rise of fascism”

April 17 marks the International Day of Peasant Struggle to remember the 19 peasants  of the Landless Rural Workers Movement of Brazil who were murdered in 1996 in the “Massacre of Eldorado dos Carajas”. That day, tens of police officers attacked 1500 landless peasants in Eldorado dos Carajás. Since then, every April 17, there are thousands of demonstrations around the…

CALL FOR INTERNATIONAL DAY FOR PEACE IN COLOMBIA

The leader of the Association of Rural Workers of Nicaragua (ATC) Fausto Torres, called for an “International Day for Peace in Colombia” and urged governments to demand Colombian president Iván Duque to advance in the fulfillment of the Peace Accords signed in 2016 by the State with the former Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). “Solidarity is crucial. It depends on peasant…

Relatives of people disappeared by the dictatorship in Uruguay launch software to recover military files

“We want to have a basis of information about the recent past without intermediaries”, said Patiño about LUISA* (Spanish acronym for Reading Together to Interpret Files), a software that aims to voluntarily recover the illegible texts of the files created by the military intelligence during the Uruguayan civic-military dictatorship (1973-1985). Any person, anywhere in the world, can participate in this…

PHOTO GALLERY OF 3RD SOLIDARITY MISSION OF VÍA CAMPESINA TO COLOMBIA

We can still hear the echoes of the 3rd Solidarity Mission of Vía Campesina to Colombia that aimed to verify the fulfillment of the Peace Accords signed between the government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) in 2016. The Mission came to an end on Tuesday with a press conference in the capital city, Bogota. Peasants from 17…

Canada refuses to hear appeal regarding environmental crimes committed by Chevron

The Global Campaign to Reclaim Peoples´ Sovereignty, Dismantle Corporate Power and End Impunity , a global network of over 200 organizations, movements, trade unions and communities affected by transnational corporations worldwide, regrets the decision of the Supreme Court of Canada of April 4th and demanded, once again, the establishment of a UN Binding Treaty on transnational corporations and human rights.…