The Garifuna, an Afro-indigenous community in Honduras, are standing up to government repression, corporate land grabs, and narco violence.
Photos: The Indigenous Fight for Lands and Cultural Survival in Honduras
read more
Indigenous Rights
A Canal at What Cost?
A proposed canal in Nicaragua would rival Panama’s as a link between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. But indigenous and environmentalist protesters are crying foul.
Berta Cáceres Is Still Alive
Honduran authorities want Berta Cáceres in prison. Even more, they want her dead. Berta, as she is fondly known by her many friends in Honduras and beyond, is a Lenca indigenous woman, and one of the founding directors of the National Council of Popular and Indigenous...
Defending Indigenous Lands in Honduras: A Photo Essay
All photos appear courtesy of the author, as well as another collaborator who cannot be named for safety reasons. For five months, Pedro Diaz and his daughter Iris—together with other members of the 400-family community of Rio Blanco, Honduras—have stood before this...
Hawaii: Head of the Tentacled Beast
The announcement of America’s “Asia-Pacific pivot” by its first Hawaiia-born president was highly fitting, since the Hawaiian Islands are at the piko (“navel” in Hawaiian) of this vast region. A less flattering metaphor for Hawaii’s role in the Pacific is what Maui educator and native Hawaiian activist Kaleikoa Kaeo has called a giant octopus whose tentacles reach across the ocean clutching Japan, Okinawa, South Korea, Jeju island, Guam—and, at times, the Philippines, American Samoa, Wake Island, Bikini Atoll, and Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands.
Mexico’s State of Impunity
When international human rights observers rounded a curve on a remote road in the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca, they found the way blocked by boulders. They decided going forward would be dangerous. But they didn’t know that going back would be deadly.
The Other Guantanamo
On the small, remote island of Diego Garcia, in the Indian Ocean halfway between Africa and Indonesia, the United States has one of the most secretive military bases in the world. From its position almost 10,000 miles closer to the Persian Gulf than the east coast of the United States, this huge U.S. air and naval base has been a major, if little known, launch pad for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. In the past year, the Bush administration has made improvements that point toward its use in a possible attack on Iran. The administration recently admitted what it had long denied and what journalists, human rights investigators, and others had long suspected: The island has also been part of the CIA’s secret “rendition” program for captured terrorist suspects.
Indigenous Womens Pushback
Indigenous activists are putting up a fight – against violence. At the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, activists are focused on passing a declaration that recognizes the right of Indigenous Peoples to their lands, territories, and resources. This organizing drive is seeking international legal protection from the violence done to Indigenous Peoples, which over the centuries has threatened their very survival. Indigenous women, meanwhile, are organizing against gender-based violence. This violence has derived not just from gender discrimination and subordination but also from the violation of the collective rights of Indigenous communities.