Category Archives: Indigenous peoples

Kelly Fraser, Inuit singer-songwriter, dies at 26

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Fraser, from Canada, gained attention for Inuit-language cover of Rihanna’s Diamonds and advocacy for indigenous culture

Kelly Fraser, a Canadian pop artist who gained attention for an Inuit-language cover of Rihanna’s Diamonds, part of her advocacy efforts for her indigenous culture, has died. She was 26.

Thor Simonsen, Fraser’s friend and producer, said he was told the day after Christmas by the singer-songwriter’s family that she had died. The family declined to release details, including the cause of death, Simonsen said.

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Indigenous people outraged at Canada police’s possible use of lethal force

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A Guardian report revealed an RCMP strategy document calling for ‘lethal overwatch’ in a January raid

Indigenous people across Canada, and members of the Canadian parliament, have expressed outrage following revelations by the Guardian that the Royal Canadian Mounted Police prepared for the possible use of lethal force against Indigenous land defenders in northern British Columbia earlier this year.

The Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs, which represents more than 150,000 First Nations people in the province of Manitoba, issued a scathing statement concerning an RCMP strategy document which said that “lethal overwatch” would be required during the 7 January raid.

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Exclusive: Canada police prepared to shoot Indigenous activists, documents show

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Notes from strategy session for raid on Wet’suwet’en nation’s ancestral lands show commanders argued for ‘lethal overwatch’

Canadian police were prepared to shoot Indigenous land defenders blockading construction of a natural gas pipeline in northern British Columbia, according to documents seen by the Guardian.

Notes from a strategy session for a militarized raid on ancestral lands of the Wet’suwet’en nation show that commanders of Canada’s national police force, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), argued that “lethal overwatch is req’d” – a term for deploying snipers.

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Indigenous boy, 15, murdered on Brazil’s Amazon border

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Erisvan Soares Guajajara’s body was found with knife wounds in Maranhão region

A 15-year-old indigenous boy has been murdered in Brazil on the edge of a heavily-deforested indigenous reserve in the state of Maranhão, on the fringes of the Amazon.

The murder, the fourth from the Guajajara tribe in recent weeks, came as a wave of racist abuse against indigenous people swept social media in the state.

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Activists protest at ‘sidelining of social justice’ at UN climate talks

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Campaigners frustrated at how women and indigenous people have struggled to have voices heard

Youth climate activists have called for a global strike on Friday to protest that human rights and social justice have been sidelined at the UN climate talks in Madrid, where governments look set to wrap up two weeks of negotiations without a breakthrough on the pressing issue of greenhouse gas reduction.

Campaigners have been frustrated not only at the slow progress of the talks but also that groups representing women, indigenous people and poor people have struggled to have their voices heard within the conference halls where the official negotiations are taking place, even while 500,000 people took part in a mass protest in the streets outside last Friday.

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Greta Thunberg labelled a ‘brat’ by Brazil’s far-right leader Jair Bolsonaro

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  • Swedish activist tweeted about murders of indigenous people
  • President laments press attention for ‘pirralha [little brat]’

Brazil’s far-right president Jair Bolsonaro has derided Greta Thunberg​ after the teenage climate activist added her voice to growing international condemnation of a surge of anti-indigenous violence in the Amazon.

Related: Amazon indigenous leaders killed in Brazil drive-by shooting

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Middle Earth: the fight to save the Amazon’s soul – video

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In the heart of the Amazon rainforest, an alternative climate conference is taking place that brings together youth activists, indigenous leaders, scientists and forest dwellers. In a region known as Middle Earth, they are building a new alliance and demonstrating that the rainforest is central to life on Earth, even though Brazil backed out of hosting this year's official UN climate talks after the election of Jair Bolsonaro as president

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‘Fire is medicine’: The tribes burning California forests to save them

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For millennia, native people have used flames to protect the land. The US government outlawed the process for a century before recognizing its value

When Rick O’Rourke walks with fire, the drip torch is an extension of his body. The mix of diesel and gasoline arcs up and out from the little wick at the end of the red metal can, landing on the ground as he takes bite after bite out of the dry vegetation in the shadow of the firs and oaks.

“Some people are like gunslingers and some people are like artists who paint with fire,” he says. “I’m a little bit of both.”

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Bolivia’s interim president’s indigenous-free cabinet heightens polarization

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  • Rightwing Christian Jeanine Áñez vows to ‘pacify’ country
  • Disrespect for indigenous Wiphala flag stokes outrage

Bolivia’s controversial new interim president has unveiled a new cabinet which critics say could further increase polarization in the country still deeply split over the ousting of her predecessor, Evo Morales.

To the applause of military top brass, lawmakers and senators, Jeanine Áñez vowed to “reconstruct democracy” and “pacify the country” at a late-night ceremony in the “Palacio Quemado” (Burnt Palace) presidential building.

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Money and maps: is this how to save the Amazon’s 400bn trees?

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Alarmed by the impact of logging, indigenous Peruvians are using satellite mapping to manage their land

The first thing Ramón heard about the deal was the televisions. A number of families from the Asháninka indigenous group had received them from outsiders, in exchange for land. Loggers were interested in the mahogany, oak and tornillo trees that grow to impressive heights in this part of the rainforest around Cutivireni in central Peru.

The loggers had other means of persuasion, besides bribery. They might offer to build a school or a meeting house in exchange for timber. When the work ran over budget, they would demand money – and since the Asháninka had none, they would take more trees to service the debt, according to Adelaida Bustamante, the community treasurer. And if that failed, they used violence. In 2014, four forest defenders from the Asháninka were murdered for their campaign to keep loggers off their land (Ramón asked me not to use his real name).

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Forest guardians: the Asháninka of Peru – in pictures

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In an area of the Amazon vulnerable to illegal loggers, Cool Earth, a UK-based charity, is working with the Asháninka people to reduce deforestation. Photographer Alicia Canter travelled to Cutivireni in central Peru

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Brazilian ‘forest guardian’ killed by illegal loggers in ambush

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Paulo Paulino Guajajara was killed by armed loggers in the Araribóia region in Maranhão

A Brazilian indigenous land defender has been killed in an ambush by illegal loggers in an Amazon frontier region.

According to a statement by the Brazilian Indigenous Peoples Association, Paulo Paulino Guajajara was shot and killed inside the Araribóia indigenous territory in Maranhão state. Another tribesman, Laércio Guajajara, was also shot and hospitalised and a logger has been reported missing. No body has yet been recovered.

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‘Unprecedented’ murder charges for loggers in deaths of indigenous activists

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Two timber executives and three loggers charged in shooting deaths of activists who battled illegal logging in Peruvian Amazon

Prosecutors in Peru have charged five men in the timber industry with the 2014 murders of four indigenous activists who had battled illegal logging in the Amazon jungle.

Two timber executives and three loggers have been charged with the shooting deaths of the activists, the prosecutor Otoniel Jara, who works in Peru’s remote Ucayali region, told the Associated Press on Wednesday.

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Canadian elections: can Justin Trudeau hold on to power? – video explainer

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The Canadian prime minister’s progressive shine is looking tarnished and shop-worn as the country heads to the polls on 21 October  –  and Justin Trudeau is now in the fight of his political life.

In 2015, Trudeau was a proudly progressive candidate who promised to fight the climate crisis, repair a broken relationship with indigenous people and resettle Syrian refugees, but fours years of scandals have left young voters uncertain of Trudeau’s promise to do politics differently, as the Guardian’s Canada correspondent, Leyland Cecco, explains

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Indigenous protesters converge on Quito as Ecuador president moves out

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Masked and stick-wielding protesters hurled stones and battled with security forces, who responded with tear gas

Thousands of indigenous protesters have converged on Ecuador’s capital after anti-government demonstrations and clashes prompted the president to move his besieged administration out of Quito.

On Tuesday afternoon, one group of protesters burst through security lines and briefly surged into the country’s National Assembly, before they were forced out by police firing tear gas. The legislature was not sitting at the time.

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Brazil’s uncontacted tribes face ‘genocide’ under Bolsonaro, experts warn

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Letter says groups are in danger amid Jair Bolsonaro’s efforts to overturn existing policies to protect indigenous people

Brazil’s last uncontacted tribes face “genocide” thanks to Jair Bolsonaro’s efforts to overturn existing policies to protect the country’s indigenous people, a group of leading experts have warned in an open letter to the far-right president.

The alert came after one of the country’s leading experts on isolated and recently-contacted indigenous people was abruptly dismissed from Brazil’s indigenous affairs agency, with no reason given.

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Captain Cook’s legacy is complex, but whether white Australia likes it or not he is emblematic of violence and oppression | Paul Daley

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British and Australian regret over Cook’s treatment of Indigenous people would go a long way to enhancing understanding of the continent’s shared history

The British government has issued an oh-so-carefully worded expression of “regret” for the killing of Māori in Aotearoa, today’s New Zealand, at the point of first contact during Lieutenant James Cook’s “voyage of discovery” 250 years ago.

Regrets! The old empire certainly has had cause for a few when it comes to the violence it has meted out to the indigenes of the places it took during Britain’s colonial expansion.

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‘War for survival’: Brazil’s Amazon tribes despair as land raids surge under Bolsonaro

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Activists say onslaught has intensified as illegal loggers and land-grabbers take the president’s verbal offensive against indigenous communities as a green light to act

More than 30 bullet holes told Awapu Uru-Eu-Wau-Wau a sinister tale.

“Their message is that they’re going to finish us off, isn’t it?” the village chieftan said as he examined the pockmarked sign warning outsiders to stay off the giant Amazon reserve he calls home.

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Māori anger as Air New Zealand seeks to trademark ‘Kia Ora’ logo

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Airline accused of lack of respect for indigenous language by seeking to protect image of the greeting, also the name of its in-flight magazine

New Zealand’s national carrier, Air New Zealand, has offended the country’s Māori people by attempting to trademark an image of the words “kia ora”; the greeting for hello.

The airline applied in May to trademark the image showing the greeting, which is also the name of its in-flight magazine.

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