‘Our Governments Are Killing the Earth.’ Brazilian Indigenous Leader

Benki Piyãnko in his village, Apiwtxa, explaining about his work with agroforestry systems

Deforestation in the Amazon

Benki Pyãnko is a community leader from Apiwtxa, an Ashaninka community situated in the Amazonian state of Acre, Brazil. He has led projects to defend his community from deforestation and to defend Ashaninka rights and culture in the indigenous territory of Terra Kampa do Rio Amônia.

His community’s sustainability projects were awarded an Equator Prize by the U.N. in 2017.

As TIME reported in its recent special climate issue, the fires from the Amazon seen across the skies of Brazil in August “helped illuminate something the world can no longer ignore.” On the front lines of the fight to protect the land is 46-year-old Benki Pyãnko, who has experienced these significant — and devastating—changes to the environment firsthand.

A ambassador of the Ashaninka people, Pyãnko has led environmental and reforesting projects in his community of Apiwtxa, inhabiting the indigenous territory of Terra Kampa do Rio Amônia in the Brazilian state of Acre, located close to the border with Peru and covered by the Amazon rainforest.

This Australian documentary is about the indigenous Mundruku tribe and their efforta to stop illegal deforestation in the Brazil’s Amazon rainforest. Altogether the Amazon is home to 300 indigenous tribes. All are threatened by multinational mining, agricultural and logging interests. This film also looks at the big threat to their way of life posed by the election of right wing populist Jair Bolsonaro as president.

There are around 3,000 Ashaninka people living across four indigenous land areas in Brazil, and over 120,000 Ashaninka living over the frontier in Peru. Pyãnko’s Apiwtxa community won the United Nations Equator Prize in 2017, a prize honoring indigenous communities, for its reforesting initiatives and defense of Ashaninka rights and culture.

As part of the Flourishing Diversity Summit at University College London, Pyãnko was one of several indigenous leaders invited from around the world to gather and share their experiences of protecting their environments. TIME spoke with Pyãnko about the solutions that indigenous people can offer to tackle climate change, and what lessons the rest of the world can learn from them.

Where we live, there is still a great deal of richness as far as forests, animals, plants. These species still exist because of the way we guarded and tended the forest since around 1986 when we began this work of preservation.

Our people still maintain our culture very protectively and very well, but with all that we have protected, we also carry great worry, because of all that surrounds us where we live. People who use the forest hunt animals to a great extent, take part in logging activities, and deforest the forest to make way for pastures.

Our rivers cannot exist without the forest, our animals cannot live without the forest, and we ourselves depend on these plants and animals for our consumption, for our existence.

Deforesting was one of the greatest catastrophes that happened in our territory. People felled our forests, and that made our rivers very dry. There were many species of fish that disappeared, as the forest has been cut down, many kinds of animals also disappeared, or disappeared from that region at least. We have experienced a lot more heatwaves now, almost unbearable heatwaves.

see also> Their duplicity was on display at the recent G7 conference, where the countries’ leaders collectively promised to donate $20 million to fight the Brazilian inferno. That’s about as effective as arming the firefighters with toy squirt guns. .. Most of the fires were deliberately ignited, and will continue to be ignited after the current blazes are extinguished, regardless of the amount ostensibly contributed for firefighting. continues here..Deliberate deforestation of Amazon rainforest exposes anti-climate capitalism

There would be rains during the summer time as if it were winter time, and also dryness during the rainy season. There’s been growing lightning storms and hurricane storms that would come and uproot many trees. We had great floods that caused many animals to die, and even people. Because of climatic changes, there are many species of trees whose fruits are borne before the correct time of the year.

All the people who live in the forest realize that over the last 30 years, the changes have been very significant.

It is man who has been perpetrating all this disaster. We see mining and oil business coming into our area and invading our rivers. There were gold mines, with many areas of the forest burned or logged, and we have seen many industries moving into the area that pollute the air, significantly. We see all the rubbish created by these industries, not only plastic but also cans and all the waste being thrown in our rivers.

Human Rights Watch on Tuesday published the 165-page report “Rainforest Mafias: How Violence and Impunity Fuel Deforestation in Brazil’s Amazon,” outlining the ways gangs exhibiting this illegal, criminal behavior not only threatens the world’s largest rainforest but also the people who live in and around it.

All our worry about the destruction that is happening makes us take our message as indigenous peoples to the whole world, speaking about these problems. Our environment, our natural fruits, animals and plants are the security of our lives.

And if we don’t take care of all these species, of this richness of nature, we are heading towards a great catastrophe that may affect us in a very deep way. That’s why my work as a leader is to try to show people how we can change this attitude, and we can change all of this.

That’s why I have come out of my village to go outside and show to other people with my projects what can be done to protect our environment. MORE

Freedom could be Soon for Mumia Abu-Jamal?!!

Prison Radio | September 16, 2019 Freedom is now in sight. New evidence, recently found, and suppressed for decades could be the key to relief for Mumia Abu-Jamal.

Joe McGill and Ed Rendell, trial prosecutor and DA, respectively, manipulated evidence and framed Mumia Abu-Jamal for first degree murder in 1982.

Six boxes of undisclosed case files labeled “Mumia Abu-Jamal” were found in a furniture closet last December by new DA Larry Krasner. Here is the exculpatory “Brady” evidence that was inside:

A letter from a witness demanding his money.
Memo after memo to and from Joe McGill tracking the open cases of another key witness.
Handwritten notes on original files, closely tracking the race of jurors.

Now we know that for 37 years the District Attorney’s office actively lied. They scrubbed clean every single document production, during multiple appeals, for years. It is cliché and almost predictable: evidence “lost” in a storage closet for 37 years by evil absent-minded hoarders.

Make no mistake- this evidence would have directly challenged the only “witnesses” at trial who identified Mumia Abu-Jamal as the shooter of officer Daniel Faulkner on Dec. 9, 1981.

The testimony of these two witnesses was compromised, something the jury was kept from knowing. One witness had as many as 35 prior convictions and 4-5 open cases. Now we know the DA was monitoring those cases very closely asking to be advised when they were in court. The other witness to the shooting was driving a cab on a suspended license and was on probation for throwing a Molotov cocktail into a school for pay. The jury never heard this.

This information certainly would have challenged prosecutor Joe McGill’s statement to the jury that they had nothing to gain from lying. Remember this is a jury who asked for re-instruction on the charges and were wavering on a finding of 1stDegree Murder. Remember Albert “I am going to help them they fry the nigger” Sabo, was the judge. And Alfonso “I retired with full pay and was indicted” Giordano, a commander, was the highest ranking officer on the scene that night.

On July 3rd, 1982, this was not an open and shut case. The petition to the Superior Court also raises the reinstated appeal issues from the Castille decision handed down by Judge Tucker. These include claims of improper jury selection (Batson Claims), ineffective assistance of counsel, and errors of law made by the court in previous appeals.

Every time you see Joe McGill in the courtroom or at an FOP event, or you see Ed Rendell at a party or a campaign event, remember this- they were stepping on the scales of justice from the beginning.

Mumia came within 10 days of being executed because of this misconduct. I was there. I got that call from the strip cell. Mumia had nothing but an orange jump suit, a half a sheet of paper and the cartridge of a pen (so he could send another prisoner as a proxy to the law library). Before and after his two death warrants he was held in solitary confinement on death row for decades!

“Because Mumia has for thirty years been subjected to torture on death row and because he is innocent, justice for Mumia will not be served by life imprisonment, but by his release from prison.”

Fast forward to 2017: Common Pleas Court Judge Leon Tucker admonishes the District Attorney to produce all of the requested material from their files. Finally, having no faith in their review, he demands that they deliver all of their files to his chambers. There he found documents revealing the bias of PA Supreme Court Judge Castille that the DA had somehow “missed” – or willfully suppressed. After all that, in 2018, newly elected DA Larry Krasner* comes across six boxes of original trial material labeled “Mumia Abu-Jamal” in a storage closet. A week later they find hundreds of more boxes in that “storage cavern” […]

: “Because Mumia has for thirty years been subjected to torture on death row and because he is innocent, justice for Mumia will not be served by life imprisonment, but by his release from prison.”

*[In April 2019 Krasner withdrew his objection to Mumia’s appeal to the Pennsylvania supreme court: see The Intercept]

via Freedom in Sight for Mumia Abu-Jamal?

The Wrong ICE is Melting, The Wrong Amazon is Burning

note> This post was 1st made as a copiable flyer HERE

No Government Will Save the Planet for Us

by Crimethinc From September 20 to 27, tens of thousands will take to the streets to denounce the causes of climate change and call on governments to address what may be the most drastic crisis facing humanity in the 21st century.

These mass actions will showcase the growing anger of a new generation that has known nothing but crisis, war, and the threat of environmental collapse.

In case you're wondering why millions of people around the world are in the streets today #schoolstrike4climate #SchoolStrike pic.twitter.com/olMsG0M7jf

— theJuice 🌏🔥 (@thejuicemedia) September 20, 2019

We have prepared the following text as a flier encouraging climate activists to consider how to interrupt the causes of climate change via direct action rather than petitioning the state to do solve the problem for us. Please print these out and distribute them at climate protests and everywhere else you can. Continue reading “The Wrong ICE is Melting, The Wrong Amazon is Burning”

The Underground Free Women’s Movement (TJA) in Kurdish Turkey

After the Syrian Kurds’ fight for Kobane against ISIS in 2014-5, many across the world were suddenly made aware of the Kurdish women’s movement in Rojava, northern Syria. But it was already flourishing across the border in SE Turkey, where women joined in taking up the ideas of imprisoned Ocalan and intense cultural and political change to a horizontal anti authoritarian way of life was in full swing.

All this was suppressed in Turkey with Erdogan’s police and military crackdown in his bid to demonize the Kurds in a racist bid for dictatorial power. To his fury the revolution has continued and blossomed in liberated Rojava, with echoes in Europe and beyond, despite Turkish support for ISIS and Al Qaeda, the economic blockade and the 750km long wall.

Here we republish a great interview on the birth, growth and suppression of the Feminist movement in Kurdish Turkey (Nth Kurdistan).

Screenshot: Banner of the TJA website.

Interview with the Free Women’s Movement (TJA) in North Kurdistan

first published. Open Democracy • 31/10/2018 • Global Rights (some of photos/videos added by TheFreeOnline)

“Actually we have been calling our experience World War III. This is a war of destruction. The state does not call it a war, but this is the experience of those affected.”

After the Syrian Kurds’ fight for Kobane (a Kurdish city in northern Syria/Rojava) against ISIS in 2014-5, many across the world were suddenly made aware of the Kurdish women’s movement.

What has not reached us, however, is a much wider context that enabled the Kurdish women-fighters to confidently take up arms to defend themselves and their people. The unprecedented accomplishments of the Kurdish women predated Kobane and the war in Syria.

They are rooted in the evolution of Turkey’s Kurdish liberation movement, as it is represented by the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), and in the ideological shift of its leader, Abdullah Ocalan.

In what is regarded as a departure from the Marxist-Leninist perspective of national liberation, Ocalan developed a theory of democratic confederalism and democratic autonomy, making liberation of women into one of the central pillars of his struggle, alongside radical democracy and social ecology. The new ideology was first put into practice in Bakur (the Kurdish region in the southeast of Turkey) in the early 2000s and, despite continuing state oppression, the focus on and efforts towards women’s liberation within the movement brought visible results: a dramatic increase in women’s participation in the political and social life of the society, an evolution in their consciousness and the creation of various tools and spaces for their empowerment.

In Bakur, since the early 2000s, the Kurdish movement has been coordinating womens’ associations, women’s shelters, women’s local councils, cooperatives and academies, that have often functioned in cooperation with elected officials from the Kurdish parties in local government. Continue reading “The Underground Free Women’s Movement (TJA) in Kurdish Turkey”

Climate, Fires and Capitalism Wiping Out Indonesia’s Wonderful Animals

featured image: The Crested Macaque (YAKI) is on the critical extinction list

101 East investigates how the illegal wildlife trade is wiping out rare species on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi.

Monkeys, butterflies, bats, snakes and a dazzling assortment of birds – the forests on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi are known as the ‘Galapagos of Asia’

…… But for how much longer?

Humanity’s impact is now endangering the survival of Sulawesi’s creatures, many of which are found nowhere else in the world.

“80 to 90 percent of the wildlife in Sulawesi is facing extinction. We are sleepwalking into ecological disaster,” says Billy, who works at the Tasikoki Wildlife Refuge.

”The extinction of the animals is part of climate and environmental breakdown caused by rampant exploitation for personal and corporate profit, imposed from outside by a kleptocratic State. Autonomous government of the islands would grant a stake to local people, along with strict environmental controls and suppression of plundering Corporations”.

A range of animals, from orangutans, sun bears and birds to crocodiles, can be found at the refuge. All of them have been taken from traffickers or people who kept them illegally as pets.

But Billy says the demand for “bushmeat” poses the biggest threat to animals.

“Mostly they are being caught from the wild, from the forest, for bushmeat … to be served on a plate as food,” he says.

11/sept/2019.. Fire now ravaging Orangutan Forest again…HELP HERE/The centre of this recent fire outbreak is located in the Mawas Conservation Area in Central Kalimantan, home to thousands of plant and animal species, including around 2,550 wild orangutans.

At the Tomohon market, just about every kind of animal is for sale. Continue reading “Climate, Fires and Capitalism Wiping Out Indonesia’s Wonderful Animals”

Eric King beaten up: facing up to 20 more years in prison

[ for folks who are unaware Eric is an anarchist and anti-fascist prisoner who was sentenced to 10 years for an attempted arson, an action in solidarity with the Ferguson uprising in Kansas city. Throwing two Molotov cocktails into a state representatives office at night time. He has since remained outspoken against the prison system. Exposing abuses and standing tall in the face of constant attacks and oppression]

In august of last year Eric was dragged into a broom closet and attacked by Lt Wilcox at FCI Florence. Attacked because he is an anarchist and anti-fascist. It was timed to line up with the surgery for his wifes cancer. He was subsequently tortured and abused and never checked out medically despite being kicked in the head for 5 plus minutes. And tied to a 4 point restraint for 8 hours, having to urinate himself resulting in nerve damage to his wrists.

Since the indictment was filed (in May but conveniently they wait for the painful anniversary to serve indictment) he has been attacked twice at the orchestration of the BOP. Once being blatantly led into a fenced in area where a fash was waiting to attack while the guards watched and by putting someone who was known to have attacked the last cellmates in his cell. Not even talking about all of the other attempts. Continue reading “Eric King beaten up: facing up to 20 more years in prison”