Bringing the Fight over Bolivia’s TIPNIS Road to Washington, DC

Bolivian indigenous leaders denounce human rights violations in Isiboro-Sécure case in Washington

(This blog post also appears at Amazon Watch’s Eye on the Amazon blog.)

Subcentral TIPNIS leader Fernando Vargas Mosua and Adolfo Chávez, president of the Confederation of Indigenous Peoples of Bolivia (CIDOB), addressed the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) on Friday, March 15. The hour-long hearing was the culmination of a weeklong trip aimed at putting the Isiboro Sécure situation on the hemispheric human rights agenda. The visit came in the third year of high-profile campaign to prevent the Bolivian government from building a highway through the Isiboro-Sécure National Park and Indigenous Territory (TIPNIS; past coverage).

Since their march to La Paz in 2011, residents of TIPNIS have experienced restricted freedom of movement. Military detachments, variously labeled an “environmental brigade,” an anti-narcotics measure, and part of “integrating the territory under state control,” restrict access and have hampered the activities of external organizations. Boat fuel, the essential ingredient of mobility on the rivers, has been tightly regulated as a “narcotics precursor.” Meanwhile the Bolivian government backed its own parallel leadership for CIDOB and assisted in evicting Adolfo Chávez and the rest of its elected officers from their headquarters in Santa Cruz. Domestic and Amazon Basin-wide indigenous organizations continue to recognize his leadership.

At the headquarters of the Organization of American States, the indigenous representatives offered a wide-ranging presentation concerning all of the events since the inauguration of the Villa Tunari–San Ignacio de Moxos highway project. Adolfo Chávez introduced his compatriot and to ask that indigenous and individual rights be protected by the IACHR. Fernando Vargas described the territory and the project and presented the struggle of his people as a defense of the territory, of their rights, and the natural environment. “We cannot be accomplices,” he said, “to the destruction of the environment and global warming.”

The leaders called the IACHR’s attention to a series of violations of the collective and individual rights of the sixty-four indigenous communities. Their community structures, including local traditional leaders called corregidores and the territorial organization Subcentral TIPNIS, have been bypassed by the government as decisions are made about the route for a Cochabamba-Beni highway. Police officers and military troops attacked and imprisoned hundreds of members of a pro-TIPNIS indigenous march on September 25, 2011. Despite formal complaints and the presentation of forensic reports on injuries to seventy protesters, the official investigation into abuses that day remains stalled.

At the conclusion of the 2011 march, the government capitulated and passed Law 180, designed to permanently protect the territory as an “intangible zone.” However, a December 2011 agreement between the government and the indigenous communities to implement the law was never put into effect. Instead, the government has unilaterally declared that “intangibility” means that nearly all economic activities – including eco-tourism, sustainable nut and cacao harvesting, and other projects previously approved – must be suspended until the communities accept the construction of the highway.

In 2012, the Bolivian government approved a Law 222 allowing for a community consultation on the future of the territory. However, the terms of this consultation were never coordinated with the local indigenous organization, despite an order from the Plurinational Constitutional Tribunal that the consultation would only be legal if agreed to. The government’s consultation went ahead despite multiple institutions complaining that it failed to meet the most basic of international standards. The “consultation” was accompanied by the public bestowing of gifts and development assistance that were explicitly conditioned on acceptance of the highway. Late last year, a joint survey team led by the Catholic Church and the Permanent Assembly for Human Rights, found that the consultation was neither free, nor informed, nor prior – the essential conditions of its legitimacy.

Fernando Vargas sought the Commission’s presence to clarify the facts, its intervention to maintain in force Law 180, and its determination that the Bolivian government’s obligations to protect the TIPNIS indigenous’ collective rights have not been met.

The Bolivian government brought a sizable delegation to the Commission, led by Minister of Government Carlos Romero. For its part, the Bolivian government’s presentation reviewed another version of the TIPNIS story that focused on who should represent the interests of the indigenous community. Most of its allotted time was given to pro-government indigenous leaders, Melva Hurtado, Pedro Vare, Carlos Fabricano, and Gumercindo Pradel. Respectively, they come from the parallel CIDOB leadership elected while the 2012 indigenous march was still in La Paz, a Beni indigenous organization, and communities on the Sécure River and in the colonized zone of TIPNIS who are affiliated with the coca grower’s movement. . The strategy of the government had two sides: bringing these allies to speak on one hand, and on the other hand treating their demands as totally independent of its campaign to promote the highway. In response, Adolfo Chávez offered another point of view by saying that these figure’s presence was the best illustration of the division among indigenous communities created by the government, and of the lack of respect it has for indigenous people’s own processes of self-government.

In his presentation, Minister Romero denied that any highway project yet exists in TIPNIS, continuing to claim that Segment Two of the highway is entirely independent of Segments One and Three. With the annulling of the government’s contract with the Brazilian construction firm OAS, he said, the project which had begun is now “merely a possible road” in the future. Therefore, he claimed, the 2012 consultation is now a “prior consultation” as required by international standards. He said the current government is more indigenous than any previous one, describing the representation of indigenous people in the national executive and legislature and the titling of Native Community Lands like TIPNIS.

With a session of just one hour, and the lengthy presentation by the government (finally cut short by the Commission), little time remained for questions from the dais. But two members of the commission offered some. What was the form of environmental impact statement generated before the consultation process? What were the norms that regulated that consultation? What was the specific evaluation offered by the indigenous of the likely environmental and social impact of a highway?

The Bolivian indigenous leaders brought with them abundant documentation ranging from their legal title to the territory to detailed community-by-community documentation of the flawed consultation process of the government. They extended an invitation to the Commission to visit the territory and to take a stand on the legality of government actions over the past two years. A full response from the Commission is expected in the months to come.

During their trip, the indigenous leaders also aired their concerns with the American Bar Association,  American diplomatic officials, legislators in the House and Senate Human Rights caucuses, and Georgetown Law School.

Bolivian Constitutional Tribunal shakes up MAS executive with rulings, comments

In a very busy Wednesday, Bolivia’s Plurinational Constitutional Tribunal struck down a longstanding law criminalizing “contempt” toward public officials and limited the scope of an anti-corruption law; rounding out the court’s surge into the headlines, justice Gualberto Cusi made biting comments on the government’s failure to abide by the court’s ruling on the TIPNIS consultation.

Contempt law ruled unconstitutional: The Tribunal found, in Judicial Ruling 1250/2012, that the law prohibiting contempt (“desacato” ) towards senior public officials through defamation is an unconstitutional violation of the freedom of expression. The court advised public officials that they may use civil court procedures to deal with slander, and nullified the law in its entirety. Numerous opposition figures, including the center-left Mayor of La Paz, Luis (Lucho) Revilla, and the right-wing Governor of Santa Cruz, Ruben Costas, have been indicted under this very broad statute following complaints from the governing Movement Towards Socialism party.

The “Marcelo Andrés Santa Cruz” Anti-corruption Law cannot be applied retroactively: In the first legislative session under the new Constitution, the Movement Towards Socialism supermajority wasted no time in approving a new law criminalizing corruption. The law allows for severe penalties against officials who took bribes or other compensation to change policies. It was designed to give the government room to revise contracts and licenses approved under improper influence, and to recover fortunes which had been pilfered from the government. However, it was also referred to as the “Guillotine Law” (including by the Vice President) for its ability to end the political careers of past government officials. On Wednesday, the court sharply limited this aspect, finding that the law may not be applied retroactively “when the sanction [it imposes] is more severe or the act being judged would not have constituted a crime when it was carried out.”

Gualberto Cusi speaks out on TIPNIS: The Constitutional Tribunal had already ruled on the TIPNIS consultation, insisting that any process establishing the will of the communities in the Isiboro-Sécure National Park and Indigenous Territory about the proposed Villa Tunari–San Ignacio de Moxos highway, which would cut through the region and accelerate already serious deforestation, must occur in a mutually agreed framework. Justice Gualberto Cusi—the judge who received the most votes in last year’s judicial election—denounced the current consultation process as a “disaster” that violates the indigenous inhabitants’ rights. Further, the justice suggested that the TIPNIS indigenous may need to look outside Bolivia for protection of their rights: “I believe that in Bolivia, no[, nothing can be done.] It will have to be the indigenous who appeal these acts to international tribunals. Yo creo que en Bolivia no (se puede hacer algo), tendrán que ser los indígenas quienes apelen a estos hechos en tribunales internacionales.” The most likely forum for international appeals is the Inter-American Court on Human Rights, which has been a pathbreaking forum for indigenous rights.

None of these rulings would be particularly exceptional for a high court around the world, but this particular high court is in its first year, and came out of a controversial nominating and election process which was boycotted by multiple opposition forces. For it to strike down major laws embraced by the governing party and publicly embrace human rights standards around freedom of expression, indigenous consultation, and ex post facto laws makes this something* of a Marbury v. Madison moment for the new court.

* The analogy is inexact since a Constitutional Tribunal began operation in 1999.

Divides, Smoke, and Mirrors: The new chaotic scene around TIPNIS and CIDOB

• Please forgive the past three months of quiet on this blog. My April and May were filled with organizing around May Day and the Free University in New York City. June saw a succession of alternately joyous and traumatic personal events. Through it all, I’ve been microblogging at @CarwilJ on Twitter; so please turn there for updates.
• On two of this blog’s central fixations, Bolivian indigenous movements and contentious protests, this months have been anything but silent in the real world. It would be futile to try to summarize the past 90 days, but you might want to turn to these excellent English-language sources: Andean Information Network on the May protest wave (1 | 2) and on the police protests-turned-mutiny: May 30 | June 25. A compilation of coverage of the Ninth Indigenous March and the TIPNIS conflict is at Dario Kenner’s Bolivia Diary. The blog’s own articles on TIPNIS often provide a great deal of depth.

If there is one defining new aspect of Bolivian political protest in Evo Morales’ second term (since January 2010), it has been counter-mobilization. With the political right thoroughly defeated, many tensions emerged within the grand coalition of social movements that lent their votes and their marching feet to defend the government for the previous four years. When these groups took to the streets (or, as often happens, took over and shut down the streets) with demands that were unpalatable the government, one way for the Morales administration to resist has been to mobilize other sectors in return. Counter-mobilization within the grassroots is sometimes successful, and sometimes only delays negotiations and concession, but it always comes with a price, damaging previous alliances and increasing distrust among former allies.

Since last October’s Eighth National Indigenous March won a law prohibiting construction of the locally-opposed Villa Tunari–San Ignacio de Moxos Highway through the Isiboro–Sécure National Park and Indigenous Territory, the Morales government has shifted counter-mobilization into high gear on this issue. From December to February, the organization CONISUR—consisting of the now vastly outnumbered indigenous residents of Polygon 7, an area of TIPNIS colonized for coca—led its own march for the highway. Morales conceded to this march a new consultation process, which the Subcentral TIPNIS opposes. In the process, it became clear that CONISUR communities are themselves engaged in coca growing on private plots of land; the organization affiliated itself with the Six Federations of coca growers and was expelled from the lowland indigenous confederation CIDOB.

In March, local TIPNIS organizations rejected the “prior” consultation and began preparations with CIDOB and the highland traditionalist movement CONAMAQ for a Ninth National Indigenous March, in defense of TIPNIS and advancing other indigenous demands. The government began conceding local demands to regional indigenous organizations in April in a bid to lessen support for the march. Indigenous solidarity and the need to advance local agendas for territory, rights, and material support have been put at odds during this process. Still, of the eleven or twelve regionals that signed agreements, just five distanced themselves from the march (count per Emily Achtenberg) and some of their prominent leaders marched anyway.

Since the march began, however, divisions within the CIDOB umbrella have deepened into an institutional crisis. Led most visibly by Rosendo Alpiri, president of Central de Pueblos Étnicos de Santa Cruz (CPESC, the regional organization for Santa Cruz department), leaders who stayed at home during the march have begun a contest for power over CIDOB. In early June, nine regional leaders met and officially suspended CIDOB President Adolfo Chávez. Chávez deemed the meeting illegitimate and CIDOB Vice President Nelly Romero accused the government of intervening in CIDOB’s affairs.

This week, with over 1200 CIDOB and CONAMAQ marchers still encamped in La Paz, the pro-government CIDOB dissidents have begun a Grand National Assembly of Indigenous Peoples (GANPI), a congress that is traditionally the highest decisionmaking body in the organization. The Asssembly of the Guaraní People and the Indigenous Organization of Chiquitanos are both boycotting the gathering. Early signs indicate that the Assembly will fully adopt the government agenda: reintegrate CONISUR and its leader Gumercindo Pradel into the organization, and (one presumes) accept the government’s proposal for consultation in TIPNIS. Meanwhile, Adolfo Chávez and the camped marchers also continue to act as CIDOB. (Mass marches are a longstanding CIDOB tradition, and involve creating a self-organizing community that essentially represents the organization for the period of the march.) Chávez himself returned to Santa Cruz this week and (according to Santa Cruz daily El Día) is currently occupying his own headquarters along with a group of followers. Rosendo Alpiri pledges to install the new leadership in the headquarters and has invited President Morales to attend.

So, as of this week there will be a “new CIDOB” and an old one. Right on cue, the Morales government has demanded that the new CIDOB as well as CONISUR be present in any new negotiations with TIPNIS leaders. The government invitation to dialogue now extends to TIPNIS leader Fernando Vargas and Ninth March leader Bertha Bejarano, both of whom have voiced outrage at the recent maneuvers within CIDOB. As Bejarano puts it: The new Grand National Assembly of Indigenous Peoples “is not organic [i.e., representative of the organization] and is a response to the government’s intention to create parallel organizatins and disregard the organic structure of the principal indigenous organization in the country, for entirely political reasons: seeking to construct a highway through TIPNIS and destroy the largest ecological reserve in the country [es inorgánico  y responde a la intención gubernamental de crear organizaciones paralelas y desconocer la estructura orgánica de la principal organización indígena del país para fines enteramente políticos que buscan construir una carretera por el Tipnis y destruir la mayor reserva ecológica del país].”

It’s one thing to deploy a strategy of countermobilization when two groups have very different interests around an issue. For example, it’s no surprise that coca growers who hope to expand their plots into the Isiboro-Securé National Park and Indigenous Territory along the highly disputed Villa Tunari–San Ignacio de Moxos Highway have marched in support of it.  It’s something very different when countermobilization takes the form of attempting to split, or even break up organizations, bringing down any leader who challenges the government line. When governments stop taking seriously the independence of social movement organizations and instead demand that movement leaders toe the government line, you no longer have what Bolivian Vice President Álvaro García Linera promised would be “a government of social movements.” Instead, you have a corporatist system, a return to the days when presidents like Hugo Banzer headed the national peasant organization and essentially negotiated with themselves.

The tactics for outside control of grassroots organizations are such a big issue that protections against them are written into international indigenous rights standards. The right to “free, prior, and informed consent” by indigenous peoples over projects and  policies that affect them and their territories requires that indigenous peoples’ own freely chosen institutions be the vehicle for that consent. To waver from this requirement, to “persuade” with large gifts, to station troops within communities, or to implant leaders chosen from outside, invalidates the “free”-ness of any consultation process. (Those of us who have been involved in indigenous solidarity for a long time have seen this strategy deployed by governments hostile to indigenous rights and resource extraction companies seeking local cover for their projects. For a detailed example, it’s worth reading about how oil giant ARCO helped to create the indigenous organization DICIP when it grew tired of being criticized by the Organization of Indigenous Peoples of Pastaza, OPIP, in Suzana Sawyer’s book Crude Chronicles.) Unfortunately, tragically, the Evo Morales government, which has long identified with indigenous peoples, is now deploying every one of these tactics in the TIPNIS conflict.

TIPNIS Corregidors plan national march, local resistance

Update, 29 March: My full English translation of Resolution 1 now appears after the jump.

The traditional leadership of 40 or 41 communities in the Isiboro Sécure National Park and Indigenous Territory (TIPNIS) met this past weekend in Gundonovia, a community inside TIPNIS. With their offer to Evo Morales to attend and negotiate rejected, the meeting focused on their strategy to respond to the after-the-fact consultation law (Law 222) passed in January.

Two key decisions emerged from this weekend. First, TIPNIS communities will participate in a Ninth National Indigenous March, under the leadership of the Confederation of Indigenous Peoples of Bolivia, which is set for April 20, and whose starting point and route will be chosen in a CIDOB meeting on March 25–26. Second, the TIPNIS communities are essentially declaring Law 222 null and void for being passed without their consultation, for violating the constitution, and being destructive to their rights. Or, in the words of their resolution:

To reject Law 222 and to emphatically reject its implementation, for being a norm that was not consulted and that is illegal and unconstitutional, which violates the rights of indigenous peoples, the territorial and collective rights established in various national and international norms that form part of the Constitutionality Block established in the [Bolivian] Political Constitution of the State.

Further, the assembled indigenous communities rejected both the new government military presence in TIPNIS and the strategy of official gift-giving that seems to be a campaign to approve the road. They contrast the process with the national and international norm of free, prior, and informed consent:

That this law [222] was not previously consulted with the three peoples who inhabit TIPNIS; is not free, but rather is being imposed by force; is not informed, insofar as there is manipulation of information concerning the reach and effects of this law, which are hidden by the state; and that same state never shared with us all the information about this project, and does not deal in good faith because the State seeks to include persons who have renounced their rights to decide over [the fate of] the lands collectively titled to the communities of TIPNIS, and finally does not seek any accord or consent.

Most significantly, they formalized a pledge to resist the law’s implementation from their communities, warning that “vessels and means of transport … will be subject to decommissioning and consequent destruction by the corregidors and communal authorities.”

The meeting was slightly smaller than expected for two reasons: difficulties in representatives of 15 communities arriving due to government restrictions on boat fuel (the government classifies it as a “cocaine precursor” and obstructed sale) and other unspecified pressures from the government. TIPNIS leaders expect these fifteen communities to fully participate in the march and local resistance. The remaining eight communities seem on the verge of ending collective land rights, dividing up their territory, and joining the cocalero-union affiliated communities in CONISUR.

full resolutions (in Spanish) after the jump

Indigenous survey tour reports broad local opposition to highway in TIPNIS

As the Bolivian government sat down with CONISUR in La Paz, there was a crucial missing party: the Subcentral TIPNIS, the titleholder to the collective lands that make up all of the Isiboro Sécure National Park and Indigenous Territory except for the colonized Polygon 7. The Bolivian government was unwilling to formally exclude the Subcentral and its national parent organization, CIDOB, but instead invited it to send representatives within 48 hours (CIDOB did offer to meet in Trinidad, in 20 days). The Subcentral’s absence from these negotiations is perhaps the most enigmatic aspect of the latest turn of this kaleidoscopic conflict, but it has a simple, practical explanation.

While CONISUR marchers advanced towards La Paz, the Subcentral TIPNIS and CIDOB were on their own tours through the communities of the National Park. One delegation headed by CIDOB President Adolfo Chávez travelled the Isiboro River; a second, headed by Subcentral President Fernando Vargas visited communities on the Ochoa River; and a third went along the Sécure River. Last week they made a preliminary report that 32 of the communities they visited were firmly against the proposed Cochabamba–Beni highway crossing through TIPNIS, three others supported the road, while Oromono and Ushve, located in the north section of the territory were divided on the issue. The Subcentral-CIDOB tours also are laying the groundwork for a new national march (CIDOB’s Ninth National March) in protest of the highway. Fernado Vargas reported that there are 31 communities left to visit, eight of which are in the colonized southern region.

The results so far refute claims by the MAS government that CIDOB and the Subcentral lack contact with base communities, and far surpass the government’s assertion that they represent just 20 of the 64 communities in TIPNIS. The logistical coordinator of last year’s march has also confirmed that residents of 64 communities participated in the long trek to La Paz, although some may have joined after the march’s departure from Trinidad due to organizational difficulties. The results are also consistent with radio-transmitted interviews with TIPNIS communities conducted by the Erbol community radio network following the passage of Law 222.

The logistics of this poll are also a reminder of the existing methods of transport inside of TIPNIS and of the pace required for a comprehensive consultation of its communities on anything. River transport is the predominant form of contact between TIPNIS communities, one which is adapted to the landscape and geographic placement of communities. While proponents of the interdepartmental road have suggested that access to health, education, and development will come from ending TIPNIS communities’ isolation, the road will not in fact reach most communities directly. Indeed, when the pro-road CONISUR marchers met with Evo Morales, [he rebuffed their requests for local branch roads] that will connect their communities to the highway, citing a lack of funds. Accessible health care and education require not a highway (which will also bring deforestation and increased narcotrafficking), but meaningful state investment in facilities that are accessible by the TIPNIS indigenous’ own highways, the rivers that flow through the Territory.

TIPNIS: Government to authorize not-so-prior consultation

Following the arrival of the CONISUR march in La Paz, the governing MAS party shifted its public position towards being an arbiter between indigenous groups in TIPNIS. After welcoming CONISUR march, President Evo Morales and MAS legislative leaders backed away from CONISUR’s proposal to simply revoke Law 180 protecting TIPNIS. Instead, they coalesced around a new legislative initiative: a “prior consultation” law on the issue.

Prior consultation is a fundamental principle of indigenous rights, and an important part of the environmental review process. In the case of the Villa Tunari–San Ignacio de Moxos Highway, currently under construction, consultation with indigenous communities has been anything but prior. Indeed, no consultation was pursued at all on Segments I and III of the highway, despite some complaints from the Multiethnic Indigenous Territory I, which is crossed by Segment III. Negative environmental reviews were avoided by the firing of Vice-Minister of the Environmental Juan Pablo Ramos in 2010, and the official responsible for TIPNIS in the National Protected Area Service, Vladimir Ortolini, in October 2011.

Now with Segments I, III, and a small portion of Segment II under construction, the government proposes a public consulatation with indigenous peoples inside of TIPNIS. The consultation is to be authorized under a new law, which has already passed the Senate and has been reviewed without change by the Chamber of Deputies’ Constitution Committee. The consultation will be organized by the independent electoral branch of the Bolivian government, be conducted under the norms and procedures of indigenous governance, and take place in five languages. The issues at hand are:

• “Consideration and definition of whether the Isiboro Sécure Indigenous Territory and National Park is an intangible zone, and about the construction of the Villa Tunari – San Ignacio de Moxos highway.” Consideración y definición sobre si el Territorio Indígena y Parque Nacional Isiboro Sécure – TIPNIS, es zona intangible o no, y sobre la construcción de la carretera Villa Tunari – San Ignacio de Moxos;

• “Consideration and decision concerning the safeguard measures for protecting the Isiboro Sécure Indigenous Territory and National Park, as well as those measures to prohibit and remove immediately illegal settlements within the demarcating line, and to determine the measures to maintain the zoning specified in the TIPNIS management plan.” Consideración y decisión sobre las medidas de salvaguarda para la protección del Territorio Indígena y Parque Nacional Isiboro Sécure – TIPNIS, así como las destinadas a la prohibición y desalojo inmediato de asentamientos ilegales, dentro de lal ínea demarcatoria, y determinar los mecanismos para mantener la zonificación establecida en el Plan de Manejo del TIPNIS.

In effect, this gives TIPNIS indigenous communities, from the Subcentral and CONISUR a round of consultation, lasting up to 120 days. There have been no statements offering to suspend construction during this time. These issues are precisely those addressed by last October’s Law 180, and agreed between the Subcentral and the government in late November. Apparently, that agreement will go unimplemented.

Evaluations of the law

The proposed consultation has been widely critiqued for its timing, which clearly is not prior to the project in question. The Andean Information Network argues that this model for consultation is “potentially viable,” but comes too late for TIPNIS where “it is improbable that this initiative will alleviate tensions or resolve protracted friction.”

The Subcentral TIPNIS and CIDOB are not impressed by this new consultation, and are preparing to re-mobilize should it pass. Yolanda Herrera, president of the Permanent Assembly for Human Rights in Bolivia; the Bolivian Forum on the Enviornment; and Adolfo Moye of the Subcentral have all spoken out against the proposed law. Human Rights Ombudsman Rolando Villena warned that the “unilateral” drafting of the law would “increase the resulting divisions within the lowland indigenous movement and affect its unity and strength, as well as [unleash] a series of probable conflicts at the national level” “aumentar los eventuales desencuentros al interior del movimiento indígena de tierras bajas y afectar su unidad y fortaleza, además de una serie de probables conflictos a nivel nacional.”

Left by the wayside again are alternate proposals for the highway route. As has been noted here before, leaving Segments I and III in their current locations makes a deforestation-inducing route through TIPNIS inevitable. However, numerous engineering groups have proposed alternate routes for a Cochabamba–Beni highway, and will do so again tonight in La Paz (webcasted, even). In the US context, where environmental impact assessment (but not prior consultation) has long been a required part of every “major Federal action” (under the National Environmental Policy Act), the presentation of genuine alternatives is the required first step for meaningful assessment. Bolivia would do well to follow that model.

Indigenous Organizations Denounce Conisur March

The following is a 6 January 2012 pronouncement by the indigenous peoples of the Isiboro Securé National Park and Indigenous Territory, of Beni, and of the lowlands as a whole, denouncing the pro-highway march, defining their relation with CONISUR, and critiquing how the march was organized. In Spanish only for now.

“Ante una difusión mal intencionada de una marcha de pueblos indígenas contra los acuerdos del TIPNIS,La Ley N’ 180 y la representación de los comunarios de los Pueblos Indígenas, las organizaciones del movimiento de las Tierras Bajas dirigidas por la CIDOB [Confederación de Pueblos Indígenas de Bolivia], e integradas por la CPEM-B [Confederación del Pueblo Etnico Mojeño–Beni]. CPIB [Confederación de Pueblos Indígenas de Beni]. CMIB [Confederación de Mujeres Indígenas de Beni]. G.C.T.s. (Gran Concejo de Tsimane). [Subcentral] TIPNIS. Sub central Sécure. hacen conocer a los ciudadanos bolivianos:”

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