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Friday, November 13, 2026
News and Views from the Global South
Indigenous Rights
RIGHTS-PERU: Activists Urge Obama to Use Trade Pact as Leverage
The United States government is coming under intense pressure from rights organisations and environmental groups to redefine its trade pact with Peru, a tool that they charge the government in Lima is using to justify oppression against the indigenous population.
PERU: Families of Dead Native Protesters Tell Their Stories
Sobbing, an indigenous woman dressed in black cries out as she sees us arrive: "My son, my son, they have killed my son!" She is Andrea Rocca, the mother of Felipe Sabio, a young man who died in a clash between police and indigenous protesters in the northern Peruvian region of Amazonas.GUATEMALA: Crisis Hits Local Governments in Pocketbook
Incomplete infrastructure works and development projects and dismissals of teachers and municipal employees are some of the consequences of the global economic crisis in rural Guatemala, due to the central government’s decision to cut the budget for the country’s 333 municipal administrations.
Q&A: “The Order Was to Kill Us”
The Peruvian government described the recent deaths of police officers in clashes with indigenous protesters in the country’s Amazon rainforest as "genocide" at the hands of "extremist savages."CHILE: Mixed Reception for Indigenous Protection Code
Although it is still in the process of being drafted, a "code of responsible conduct" promoted by the Chilean government to regulate public and private investment in indigenous areas has already drawn resistance.SOUTH AMERICA: Calls for Justice for Peru’s Native Peoples
Social organisations in South America are backing the struggle against opening up Peru’s Amazon jungle to mining and oil companies, which resulted in clashes in which at least nine indigenous people and 25 police officers died.
PERU: Native Protesters Search for Their Dead
Indigenous people taking part in protests near this town in the northern Peruvian province of Amazonas that ended in a bloody clash with the police last week are now focusing on drawing up a list of the dead and missing, amidst a climate of fear and mistrust.
PERU: ‘Police Are Throwing Bodies in the River,’ Say Native Protesters
There are conflicting reports on a violent incident in Peru’s Amazon jungle region in which both police officers and indigenous protesters were killed.ENVIRONMENT-COLOMBIA: Coal Mine Hurts Highlands Lake, Farms
Protests by indigenous farmers in the Colombian village of Cuayá, 75 km north of Bogotá, have failed to bring to a halt the unregulated extraction of coal, which has had disastrous environmental effects on Lake Suesca, 3,000 metres above sea level.
Q&A: “Indigenous Women Are Growing in Numbers and Influence”
The Canadian province of British Columbia is home to more than 200 native communities, or First Nations, ranging from about 20 people to over 3,000. As their size and level of remoteness varies, so does their economic development.HEALTH-BOLIVIA: Subsidy to Cut Maternal-Child Mortality
A new Bolivian government programme will provide special payments to pregnant women and mothers with children up to the age of two, with the aim of cutting the country’s maternal and infant mortality rates.BRAZIL: Public Health Embraces Herbal Medicines
Handed down from generation to generation, traditional knowledge about medicinal plants has reached state laboratories in Brazil through a programme that has already identified 71 native and exotic species for producing herbal medicines.MEXICO: Indigenous Rape Victims Fight Military Impunity
The aberrations of Mexican justice were clearly visible in the cases of rape and torture allegedly committed by soldiers in 2002 against two indigenous women, Inés Fernández and Valentina Rosendo. But their experiences are not exceptional in rural areas of the southern state of Guerrero.COSTA RICA: Indigenous People Sidelined in Plans for Dam
The Diquís dam, the largest hydroelectric project in Central America, is worrying indigenous communities because Costa Rica’s state power company has excluded them from the decision-making process, in spite of international treaties that stipulate that they must be consulted.COSTA RICA: Indigenous People Sidelined in Plans for Dam
The Diquís dam, the largest hydroelectric project in Central America, is worrying indigenous communities because Costa Rica’s state power company has excluded them from the decision-making process, in spite of international treaties that stipulate that they must be consulted.
Q&A: How an Alcohol Ban Revived an Aboriginal Community
In 2007, a group of aboriginal women from Fitzroy Crossing in Western Australia decided that the only thing that could save their community from going under was to impose a complete ban on the sales of takeaway alcohol.
SCIENCE: Questions Surround Mexican Genome Project
In Mexico scientists are seeking volunteers who are obese, diabetic or suffering from cancer or other diseases, in order to study their genes. The results will help fill in a genetic map of the Mexican population.RIGHTS: Indigenous Lands Plundered in Oil and Gas Rush
Leaders of the world’s 370 million indigenous peoples who are attending an international meeting here this week say they want governments to stop oil and gas corporations from further extraction on their lands.PHILIPPINES: Fish Farming to Reduce Protein Deficiency in Uplands
Like most upland dwellers in the Philippines, the Higaonon indigenous people in the southern town of Sumilao are living in extreme poverty. There are no jobs available and members of the tribe barely scrap by on subsistence farming, mainly root crops.
PERU: Microbusiness Helps Women Weather Crisis
Microenterprise is an escape valve for social tension at times of crisis, and microbusinesses do a better job of weathering the storm than bigger companies because they are used to overcoming difficulties – a positive effect that is further multiplied when it involves women.
PERU: Talks Fall Flat; Indigenous Protests Rage On
The Peruvian government resumed talks with indigenous groups after a violent crackdown on protests left 10 injured and around 20 under arrest. But the dialogue has not yet brought results, and the demonstrations against decrees that affect indigenous lands and the rainforest continue, while a state of emergency remains in place in several Amazon regions.« Previous Page — Next Page »
The planet's roughly 350 million indigenous peoples took notable steps on the international stage in the last decade. They got the world's governments to agree to create a body to represent them at the United Nations, the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, and to appoint a special rapporteur responsible for their human rights. In 2007 a Universal Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples was approved by the UN. Yet the living conditions of most "tribal", "aboriginal", "native" or "first" peoples remain precarious. IPS, with its network of contributors at the UN and linked to indigenous communities worldwide, is committed to tracking the world community's efforts to do justice to the rights and aspirations of these peoples, with a special current focus on Latin America's 40 million rural indigenous peoples.
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