[E-rundbrief] Info 968 - Cancun Climate Conference manifestations

[Matthias Reichl]

E-Rundbrief - Info 968 - Hermann Dworczak (A): Thousands 
demonstrated in Cancun (Mexico); La Via Campesina International:
ALBA Governments Join La Via Campesina to Denounce Elite 
Climate Talks; Cochabamba People’s Agreement is the peoples’ 
solution to the Climate Crisis.

Bad Ischl, 8.12.2010

Begegnungszentrum für aktive Gewaltlosigkeit

www.begegnungszentrum.at

================================================

THOUSANDS DEMONSTRATED IN CANCUN

Cancun,  Dec. 7th, 2010

Thousands  participated today Tuesday in a big international 
manifestation ( "demo" ) and criticized exploitation and the 
destruction of nature (" mother earth" ) through the 
capitalist model of production and consumption.  The march 
started at 10h and went for more than three hours through 
the center of Cancun.

The march had a lot of social and political currents. At the 
peak of the demo were campesinos of the region who protested 
against the existing agricultural system and demanded a 
fundamental change. They remembered the fight of the mexican 
revolution : "Zapata vive- lucha sigue" ("Zapata lives - the 
fight is going on").

They were followed by musicans wearing traditional costumes.

A lot of ambientalistas from Mexico and other Latin American 
countries - like Guatemala or Ecuador - were present.

One group came from the mexican trade union of the telefon 
workers.

Greenpeace was with an ice bear present- putting the finger 
on the danger when the polar ice is melting.

Many groups criticized the carbon trade and the selling of 
land to multis in the name of " saving nature ".

The international participation was astonishing: there were 
comrades from China (!) who argued that there is "only one 
planet " and criticized the policy of the chinese goverment. 
People came  from USA and Canada who supported the idea of 
the cumbre de los pueblos in  Cochabamba in this spring to 
make referenda- so that the peoples themselves and not the 
governments can decide about ecological measures.

 From Europe I could see participants from France ( Attac), 
Germany ( Friends of the Earth) and Austria ( Austrian 
Social Forum/ ASF).

The general mood of the manifestation was : not to wait what 
was going on in the Moon Palace where the official summit 
COP 16 is located; and that is not enough to make some 
modest " green modifications". That not nothing less than a 
" SYSTEM CHANGE" is necessary.

The march could even be broader. But Via campaesina decided 
to make its own manifestation.

Hermann Dworczak ( Austrian Social Forum/ ASF; 0043 / 676 / 
972 31 10 )

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Press release - La Via Campesina

ALBA Governments Join La Via Campesina to Denounce Elite 
Climate Talks;

Cochabamba People’s Agreement is the peoples’ solution to 
the Climate Crisis

(Cancún, 7 December 2010) La Via Campesina, the world’s 
largest movement of peasant and smallholder farmers, joined 
with Pablo Solon, Bolivia’s Ambassador to the United 
Nations, Tom Goldtooth of the Indigenous Environmental 
Network, Ricardo Navarro of Friends of the Earth 
International and a number of social movement 
representatives and government officials from the ALBA 
countries at COP 16 in Cancún today to condemn the false 
solutions and backroom deals being pushed in the 
negotiations, and to call for mobilizations and actions 
worldwide for climate solutions based in traditional 
indigenous knowledge, community-based practices, human 
rights and the rights of nature.

The group held a press conference in the Moon Palace, the 
opulent resort where the tense and difficult climate 
convention have moved into the high level phase of 
negotiations this week. The press conference ended with Luis 
Henrique Moura of MST, the landless workers’ movement of 
Brazil, leading the group in the chant “Globalize the 
struggle, globalize hope!” The group then all walked out of 
the building with youth from the U.S.-based Grassroots 
Global Justice Alliance leading chants of “No REDD, no REDD!”

  “We have called for 1,000 Cancuns around the world today,” 
said Josie Riffaud of La Via Campesina, referring to the 
need for grassroots communities to take the lead in 
proposing solutions to the ecological crisis. “The first of 
these took place this morning inside the Moon Palace.”

  Anne Petermann of Global Justice Ecology Project opened 
the event by evoking the name of Lee Kyung Hae, the South 
Korean farmer and La Via Campesina member who took his life 
during mobilizations against the World Trade Organization 
here in 2003 wearing a sign saying “The WTO Kills Farmers.”

“Then we were fighting against the World Trade 
Organization,” Petermann said. “Today we have to fight the 
World Carbon Trade Organization,” said Petermann.

  “We see that the Mexican government is attempting to get 
an agreement out of Cancun, but with the spirit of 
Copenhagen, both in the process and in the content,” said 
Ricardo Navarro of Friends of the Earth International. “We 
are bearing witness to parallel meetings and secret 
negotiations.”

Mari Rose Taruc of the Asia Pacific Environmental Network 
spoke about the 1,000 Cancuns happening in the United 
States. “We have actions and events in over 30 states in the 
U.S. organized by people suffering impacts of pollution and 
climate change.”

Representatives of ALBA countries also expressed their 
solidarity with the people and condemned the moves of 
developed countries to avoid their historical responsibility 
and climate debt. “There is a lot of talk here in Cancun 
about money, about chainsaws and about plantations but there 
is little talk about forests or about the real work of the 
people who confront climate change everyday.” said Miguel 
Lovera, Chief Adviser of Paraguay. Paul Oquin, Head of the 
Nicaraguan delegation publicly expressed the support of 
Nicaragua and the ALBA countries to La Via Campesina and all 
the social movements in their struggle.

On the steps of the Moon Palace, together with the social 
movement representatives, Bolivian Ambassador Pablo Solon 
stated that what is most important is the struggle of the 
people and their demands for real solutions to climate 
change. “If the temperature increases to 4 degrees Celsius 
as we are seeing it now in the negotiations, we are going to 
see hundreds of thousands of people die. Every year, 300,000 
people die because of natural disasters caused by climate 
change. This will grow to millions if we do not have, here, 
a real agreement, instead of a Cancun-hagen”.

The press conference and action that followed was 
coordinated with a march of 5000 people in the streets 
outside led by La Via Campesina. Social movement and civil 
society representatives together with Bolivian Ambassador 
Pablo Solon and Chief Paraguayan Adviser Miguel Lovera then 
went outside to join the small farmers, indigenous people, 
women, environmentally affected peoples, environmental 
organizations and other social movements and activists who 
marched for hours in the Mexican sun, culminating in a 
People’s Assembly in the street.

“Today, there were 1,000 Cancuns all over the world and with 
this we are sending the message to the governments inside 
the negotiations that the people have 1,000 solutions to the 
climate crisis that uphold the rights of the people and 
Mother Earth,” stated Carlos Marentes of La Via Campesina.

CONTACTS

Alfredo Acedo: +55 39430712

Jeff Conant: +52 998 1657349

-- 

La Via Campesina

Via Campesina is an international movement of peasants, 
small- and medium-sized producers, landless, rural women, 
indigenous people, rural youth and agricultural workers. We 
are an autonomous, pluralist and multicultural movement, 
independent of any political, economic, or other type of 
affiliation. Born in 1993, La Via Campesina now gathers 
about 150 organisations in 70 countries in Asia, Africa, 
Europe, and the Americas.

International Operational Secretariat:
Jln. Mampang Prapatan XIV no 5 Jakarta Selatan, Jakarta 
12790 Indonesia
Tel/fax: +62-21-7991890/+62-21-7993426
Email: viacampesina at viacampesina.org


-- 

Matthias Reichl, Pressesprecher/ press speaker,
Begegnungszentrum fuer aktive Gewaltlosigkeit
Center for Encounter and active Non-Violence
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