Category Archives: Indigenous peoples

Canada: sloppy police work and racism marred inquiries into Indigenous deaths

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Independent Canadian investigators call for reinvestigation of 14 deaths of Indigenous people in northern Ontario

A group of independent investigators have called for the reinvestigation of the sudden deaths of 14 Indigenous people in a north Ontario city, after finding that the original inquiries were hampered by sloppy police work and a legacy of institutional racism.

The team have examined hundreds of deaths between 2003 and 2017 in Thunder Bay, the largest city in the northern reaches of the province – and one where the police force has long faced allegations of racism within its ranks.

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‘Consent was never given’: indigenous groups oppose restarting Guatemala nickel mine

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An investigation appears to show company employees discussing how to smear local opponents of the Central American nickel operation

A decision to restart operations at one of Central America’s largest nickel mines is being questioned by campaigners, after an investigation appeared to show the company co-opted indigenous leaders and smeared potential opponents.

In 2019, the Fenix project in eastern Guatemala was the subject of an investigation carried out by the Guardian and other media, organised by French consortium Forbidden Stories.

In that investigation, residents alleged that the mine – which is owned by Solway, a company based in Switzerland – was to blame for failing crops, polluting the lake and pressing local authorities to quash dissent.

As a result of a new investigation by the same consortium, the Guardian visited local communities in El Estor, the municipality surrounding the mine, in January this year and heard from residents and community leaders that claim little has changed.

“They said that there would be development [building schools and hospitals], that there would be a change in El Estor, when really there is none,” said Cristobal Pop, 45, the president of the artisan fishers’ union.

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Sydney is no place to build a Māori meeting house – it is disrespectful to Aboriginal people | Morgan Godfery

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Marae embody deep connections to the land and are a statement of indigeneity – but Māori aren’t indigenous in Australia

When most New Zealanders hear the term “marae” they think of the typical Māori meeting house.

The angular facade, decorated in red and white carvings, and the open space for the “encounter” where guests arrive in the warmth of welcome, in the grief of a tangi (funeral), or in the uncertainty of a disagreement.

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‘For our grandchildren’: the man recording the lives of Paraguay’s vanishing forest people

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Mateo Sobode Chiqueno’s lifelong project compiling cassettes of the Ayoreo people’s stories, songs and struggles to survive is now the subject of an award-winning film, Nothing but the Sun

In a tattered cardboard box in Mateo Sobode Chiqueno’s home, hundreds of plastic cassette cases contain four decades of memories. “Here in my house, I have more than 1,000 cassettes of Ayoreo histories and songs,” says Chiqueno, who keeps them alongside his tape recorder at his wooden shack in Campo Loro, Paraguay. Many of the voices belong to people who are dead.

Chiqueno began compiling his interviews with the Ayoreo, hunter-gatherers of the Chaco Forest, in 1979, after seeing missionaries using tape recorders to document their experiences. His tapes partially preserve a fast-disappearing culture.

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Night-time attack on controversial Canadian gas pipeline site

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Police release video of attack on workers’ equipment at camp of Coastal GasLink, a 400-mile pipeline opposed by First Nation groups

Police in Canada have released footage of axe wielding attackers as they investigate a “calculated and organised” night-time raid on a remote work camp.

Up to 20 people are believed to have attacked Coastal GasLink’s pipeline construction camp last week on Marten Forest Service Road in British Columbia.

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Indigenous nations sue North Dakota over ‘sickening’ gerrymandering

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The suit charges that diluting Indigenous power violates their voting rights and will handicap tribe members who run for office

Days before a new legislative map for North Dakota was set to be introduced in the state house, leaders of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa and Spirit Lake Nation sent a letter to the governor and other state lawmakers urging them to rethink the proposal.

“All citizens deserve to have their voices heard and to be treated fairly and equally under the law,” they wrote, arguing that the proposed map was illegal, diluting the strength of their communities’ voice.

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Ideas to change the world: Margaret Atwood talks to seven visionaries fighting for a brighter future

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The author’s hand-picked panel share their ideas on music, mushrooms, zombies and more

What do you get when you bring together some of the most revered thinkers, most progressive-minded activists and one of the most celebrated novelists writing today to discuss the immense challenges we face? A debate about the Spice Girls, of course! For the Guardian’s Saturday magazine, Margaret Atwood wanted to gather some of her favourite experts from around the globe, to ask how they see the world we live in – and what they believe is key to creating the future they want to see.

The lineup included bestselling author Raj Patel, dubbed the “rock star of social justice writing”; Senator Yvonne Boyer, the first Indigenous person appointed to the Canadian senate from Ontario; Akala, a writer, musician and poet; the excellently named Merlin Sheldrake, an expert on fungi; Kate Fletcher, whose speciality is sustainable fashion; Jessie Housty, a young Indigenous activist with a focus on decolonisation and community; and Yasmeen Hassan of Equality Now, which works to combat gender discrimination. The panel, hand-picked by Atwood, reflects the many disparate subjects the author is passionate about, and she was as keen to hear from them as they were to understand her vision and ideas.

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Greta stands with Sami and Navalny on trial again: human rights this fortnight – in pictures

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A roundup of the coverage of the struggle for human rights and freedoms, from Myanmar to Mexico

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Greta Thunberg condemns UK firm’s plans for iron mine on Sami land

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Beowulf Mining ‘hopeful’ for decision on mine in Sápmi despite opposition from activist, UN and Swedish church

A British company has fallen foul of Greta Thunberg, Unesco, Sweden’s national church, and the indigenous people in the north of the country over plans for an open-pit mine on historical Sami reindeer-herding lands.

The clamour of opposition was voiced as Beowulf Mining, headquartered in the City of London, suggested it was “hopeful” of a decision within weeks of a 5 sq mile iron-ore mine in an area where Sami communities have lived for thousands of years.

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The Hawaiian elders awaiting trial for protesting the world’s largest telescope

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More than 30 elders were arrested on Mauna Kea in 2019 in dramatic scenes, but many are still waiting for their day in court

On a cold morning in July 2019, more than 30 Native Hawaiian elders gathered on top of a mountain, committed to getting arrested.

“I wasn’t afraid,” says 83-year-old Maxine Kahaulelio. “The moment when the kahea [the call] went out, they said the big machines were coming and they were going to start the desecration … We stood there from 2:30 in the morning … freezing, 9,000 feet above sea level. They had all their gear but we didn’t have anything, just blankets and sweaters.”

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New Zealand Māori party calls for a ‘divorce’ from Britain’s royal family

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Party co-leader Rawiri Waititi said the move was ‘an opportunity to reimagine a more meaningful and fulfilling partnership’

The Māori party of New Zealand has called for a “divorce” from the crown and removal of the British royal family as New Zealand’s head of state.

The call came on the 182nd anniversary of the signing of the treaty of Waitangi, or Te Tiriti o Waitangi, New Zealand’s foundational legal document.

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Misinformation and distrust: behind Bolivia’s low Covid vaccination rates

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About half the country’s population is yet to receive a single dose of vaccine, despite availability

In a vaccination centre in El Alto, Bolivia, the staff bagged up in protective gear far outnumbered the few people sitting in plastic chairs waiting for their injection. A young doctor reeled off a list of all the vaccines available: Sinopharm, Sputnik, Pfizer, Moderna. What’s lacking is demand. They see 100 people on a good day.

South America, once the region most afflicted by the pandemic, is now the most vaccinated in the world. But this turnaround doesn’t extend to Bolivia, where roughly half the population is yet to receive a single dose – even though the state has had all the vaccines it needs since October.

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Illegal logging threatens Cambodia’s indigenous people, says Amnesty

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Country’s ‘corrupt’ approach to conservation leaves protected forests facing ‘oblivion’, human rights watchdog warns

Rampant illegal logging of protected forests is threatening the cultural survival and livelihoods of indigenous people in Cambodia, according to Amnesty International.

Members of the Kuy people, one of the largest of Cambodia’s 24 indigenous groups, told Amnesty how deforestation in two protected forests, along with government restrictions on access have undermined their way of life and violated their human rights.

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‘Fifty years of resistance’: Aboriginal Tent Embassy began with an umbrella and became a symbol of sovereignty

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1972 was the first time many saw First Nations people confront the establishment. Now elders say it’s a legacy for future generations

In the middle of the night, four young Aboriginal men pitched a beach umbrella on the lawns opposite Parliament House and sat down. When dawn broke on 26 January 1972, a police officer came over to ask how long they intended to stay.

“Until we get land rights,” one of the four, Billy Craigie, told the officer.

Above: Bobbi Sykes (with Gordon Briscoe) addresses a protest at the Aboriginal Tent Embassy, Canberra, July 1972. Below: The Aboriginal Tent Embassy, Parliament House in 1972. Images: Ken Whittington/National Archives Australia

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‘The treeline is out of control’: how the climate crisis is turning the Arctic green

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In northern Norway, trees are rapidly taking over the tundra and threatening an ancient way of life that depends on snow and ice

Altafjord is a wide expanse of black water on the edge of the Barents Sea, ringed with mountains. Alta is a relatively large town in the Finnmark province, the crown of the horse’s mane that forms Norway’s jagged coastline and Europe’s northern shore. Here at sea level the most northerly trees in Europe are moving upslope, gobbling up the tundra as they go. The people and animals that live here are trying to make sense of the rapid changes with a mixture of confusion, denial and panic.

Dawn at 70 degrees north during winter lasts nearly the whole day. The sun never rises, the day is permanently on the verge of breaking. It is disorienting. On the way to city hall from the guesthouse, I spied few pedestrians. Alta is a town built along American principles – that is to say a town built for a world in which petrol is cheap and cars are taken for granted. It is a landscape of shopping malls, gas stations and spaced-out residential suburbs. Normally at this time of year it isn’t safe to be outside for long without wearing animal skins, but on the day of my visit it was only -1C.

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Shock in Colombia over murder of 14-year-old indigenous activist

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Breiner David Cucuñame was shot dead while on patrol with the unarmed group Indigenous Guard

A 14-year old indigenous activist has been murdered in Colombia, prompting horror and shock at the latest in a spate of killings of environmentalists and social leaders in the South American country.

Breiner David Cucuñame was shot dead on Friday while on patrol with the Indigenous Guard, an unarmed group which seeks to protect indigenous lands from incursions by the country’s many armed groups.

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‘This alert is her scream’: new system would help locate missing Indigenous women

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A program in Washington state is intended to trigger an effective search and raise awareness of the problem

Four years ago, Debra Lekanoff was busy traveling across the nation in her role as governmental affairs director for the Swinomish Tribe when her daughter came to her, worried.

The 14-year-old had just learned some of the troubling details of the crisis of missing and murdered Indigenous women and was concerned that her mother, who is Alaska Native and tended to travel alone, might one day not make it home.

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‘Babies here are born sick’: are Bolivia’s gold mines poisoning its indigenous people?

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The government has been criticised for apparent inaction as evidence mounts that mercury contamination is causing illness in fishing communities

Outside a small brick house shared by four families, Daniela Prada, who is heavily pregnant, gathers guava leaves to make a tea for her two-year-old son.

“My baby gets sick a lot,” she says, boiling a pot of water in her outdoor kitchen. “He always has diarrhoea and last night he had a fever. Most of the time I give him natural medicine.”

In an identical house nearby, town leader Oscar Lurici says fevers are a part of life in Eyiyo Quibo village on the Beni River in northern Bolivia. People of all ages suffer from debilitating head and body aches, bouts of vomiting and diarrhoea, memory loss and tiredness. Some children show signs of cognitive development delays.

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Desmond Tutu’s funeral and Kazakhstan clashes: human rights this fortnight – in pictures

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A roundup of the coverage of the struggle for human rights and freedoms, from Mexico to Hong Kong

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Rocky road: Paraguay’s new Chaco highway threatens rare forest and last of the Ayoreo people

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Forced from their homes by missionaries, the Ayoreo cling on in the Chaco. Now the Bioceanic Corridor cuts through the fastest-vanishing forest on Earth, refuge of some of the Americas’ last hunter-gatherers

In 1972, Catholic missionaries entered the Chaco forest of northern Paraguay and forced Oscar Pisoraja’s family, and their nomadic Ayoreo people, to leave with them. Many perished from thirst on the long march south. Settled near the village of Carmelo Peralta on the Paraguay River, dozens more died from illnesses. Still, the survivors kept up some traditions – hunting for armadillos; weaving satchels from the spiky caraguatá plant. “We felt part of this place,” says Pisoraja, now 51.

Today, his community – and other indigenous peoples across the Chaco, a tapestry of swamp, savanna and thorny forest across four countries that is South America’s largest ecosystem after the Amazon – are confronting a dramatic new change.

Mario Abdo Benítez, Paraguay’s president, and Reinaldo Azambuja Silva, governor of Mato Grosso do Sul state in Brazil, at the site of a new bridge across the Paraguay River, due to be completed in 2024

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