Skip to content or view mobile version

Home | Mobile | Editorial | Mission | Privacy | About | Contact | Help | Security | Support

A network of individuals, independent and alternative media activists and organisations, offering grassroots, non-corporate, non-commercial coverage of important social and political issues.

Mapuche Woman coming to London

rueda mapuche | 06.05.2008 10:58 | Culture | Social Struggles | London | South Coast

Against the increasing proliferation of dams in Patagonia but trying to build up new autonomous farms and communities.




MAPUCHE WOMAN MOIRA MILLAN TOURS EUROPE IN FIGHT AGAINST DAMS AND CORPORATE PROJECTS IN PATAGONIA


As part of the constant looting currently occurring in Patagonia (a region in southern Argentina and Chile), more and more companies are getting ready to viciously extract the region’s raw materials. From Argentina’s oil wells to mining operations taking place all along the Andes, aluminium smelters and even a nuclear waste deposit make a devastating panorama.

The system's insatiable appetite for energy is also making Patagonian rivers a tempting feast for dam building companies. The hunger for electricity has led to the rise of over 20 dam projects alongside Chile and Argentina which are currently menacing farmers and indigenous people. Among them are the Mapuche, who will see rivers and their ecosystems devastated, as well as their lands flooded. They, along with other indigenous communities and farmers, will be forced to leave their homes in the name of “symbols of progress and development".

Moira Millan is a Mapuche woman who lives in Corcovado, Patagonia, in Argentina. In 1999, she, along with her family and the help from other communities, formed the Mapuche community, Pillan Mahuiza on 150 hectares of land which had been abandoned by the police. This land, previously and still belonging to her ancestors, became the starting point of the reconstruction of a culture and a cosmogony that respects every aspect of nature and the living forces within it. Far from thinking of themselves as land owners, the Mapuche believe they themselves are ‘owned’ by the land, and on this basis, they have been building a new alternative to the capitalist system and its depredation.

But things have not been easy for Pillan Mahuiza whose members have been threatened with eviction and even had death threats from the police and the government. Surrounded by powerful neighbours known as the new terratenientes (large-scale landholders), such as George Soros, Benetton, Perez Companc, Jeremy Irons, Ted Turner, as well as multinational corporations currently extracting natural resources. Pillan Mahuiza is a small but powerful point of light, autonomy and independence ‘amidst some of the most prominent members of the global corporate machine currently occupying their land and extracting its resources.

The difficult reality faced by the Mapuche only makes Pillan Mahuiza stronger. Alongside other Mapuche communities from both sides of the Andes, they are creating a network of resistance and autonomy, based on the fundamental recognition that we must re-think how we live if life on our planet is to be sustained.


Flooding the alternative


The small village of Corcovado and its inhabitants, including Pillan Mahuiza, are currently under threat due to a project which plans on building anything from one to a whole set of six dams in Río Corovado and Río Hielo. The project will be financed mainly by the Spanish group Santander (who own Abbey National in UK) providing electricity to mine companies that have been exploring the region for years and oil wells which, being almost empty, are demanding more energy. These companies include, among others, the Canadian Barrick Gold and Brazil’s Petrobras..

Representing her community and the autonomous group Patagonia sin represas (Patagonia without dams), Moira Millan is touring Europe to create new and necessary links with autonomous groups that are trying to build a new way of living, which values include a sustainable approach and a respect to the enviromment. Paradoxically, this approach has a thousand-year-old history, during which the Mapuche have tirelessly resisted colonist invasions and the greed that accompanies them.


Moira Millan will be presenting a video following by a discussion at LARC on Tuesday 6th May at 7.30 there will be food on donation.
As well she will be at 88 London Road Squat in Brighton on Wednesday 7th May at 7.30





rueda mapuche

Upcoming Coverage
View and post events
Upcoming Events UK
24th October, London: 2015 London Anarchist Bookfair
2nd - 8th November: Wrexham, Wales, UK & Everywhere: Week of Action Against the North Wales Prison & the Prison Industrial Complex. Cymraeg: Wythnos o Weithredu yn Erbyn Carchar Gogledd Cymru

Ongoing UK
Every Tuesday 6pm-8pm, Yorkshire: Demo/vigil at NSA/NRO Menwith Hill US Spy Base More info: CAAB.

Every Tuesday, UK & worldwide: Counter Terror Tuesdays. Call the US Embassy nearest to you to protest Obama's Terror Tuesdays. More info here

Every day, London: Vigil for Julian Assange outside Ecuadorian Embassy

Parliament Sq Protest: see topic page
Ongoing Global
Rossport, Ireland: see topic page
Israel-Palestine: Israel Indymedia | Palestine Indymedia
Oaxaca: Chiapas Indymedia
Regions
All Regions
Birmingham
Cambridge
Liverpool
London
Oxford
Sheffield
South Coast
Wales
World
Other Local IMCs
Bristol/South West
Nottingham
Scotland
Social Media
You can follow @ukindymedia on indy.im and Twitter. We are working on a Twitter policy. We do not use Facebook, and advise you not to either.
Support Us
We need help paying the bills for hosting this site, please consider supporting us financially.
Other Media Projects
Schnews
Dissident Island Radio
Corporate Watch
Media Lens
VisionOnTV
Earth First! Action Update
Earth First! Action Reports
Topics
All Topics
Afghanistan
Analysis
Animal Liberation
Anti-Nuclear
Anti-militarism
Anti-racism
Bio-technology
Climate Chaos
Culture
Ecology
Education
Energy Crisis
Fracking
Free Spaces
Gender
Globalisation
Health
History
Indymedia
Iraq
Migration
Ocean Defence
Other Press
Palestine
Policing
Public sector cuts
Repression
Social Struggles
Technology
Terror War
Workers' Movements
Zapatista
Major Reports
NATO 2014
G8 2013
Workfare
2011 Census Resistance
Occupy Everywhere
August Riots
Dale Farm
J30 Strike
Flotilla to Gaza
Mayday 2010
Tar Sands
G20 London Summit
University Occupations for Gaza
Guantanamo
Indymedia Server Seizure
COP15 Climate Summit 2009
Carmel Agrexco
G8 Japan 2008
SHAC
Stop Sequani
Stop RWB
Climate Camp 2008
Oaxaca Uprising
Rossport Solidarity
Smash EDO
SOCPA
Past Major Reports
Encrypted Page
You are viewing this page using an encrypted connection. If you bookmark this page or send its address in an email you might want to use the un-encrypted address of this page.
If you recieved a warning about an untrusted root certificate please install the CAcert root certificate, for more information see the security page.

Global IMC Network


www.indymedia.org

Projects
print
radio
satellite tv
video

Africa

Europe
antwerpen
armenia
athens
austria
barcelona
belarus
belgium
belgrade
brussels
bulgaria
calabria
croatia
cyprus
emilia-romagna
estrecho / madiaq
galiza
germany
grenoble
hungary
ireland
istanbul
italy
la plana
liege
liguria
lille
linksunten
lombardia
madrid
malta
marseille
nantes
napoli
netherlands
northern england
nottingham imc
paris/île-de-france
patras
piemonte
poland
portugal
roma
romania
russia
sardegna
scotland
sverige
switzerland
torun
toscana
ukraine
united kingdom
valencia

Latin America
argentina
bolivia
chiapas
chile
chile sur
cmi brasil
cmi sucre
colombia
ecuador
mexico
peru
puerto rico
qollasuyu
rosario
santiago
tijuana
uruguay
valparaiso
venezuela

Oceania
aotearoa
brisbane
burma
darwin
jakarta
manila
melbourne
perth
qc
sydney

South Asia
india


United States
arizona
arkansas
asheville
atlanta
Austin
binghamton
boston
buffalo
chicago
cleveland
colorado
columbus
dc
hawaii
houston
hudson mohawk
kansas city
la
madison
maine
miami
michigan
milwaukee
minneapolis/st. paul
new hampshire
new jersey
new mexico
new orleans
north carolina
north texas
nyc
oklahoma
philadelphia
pittsburgh
portland
richmond
rochester
rogue valley
saint louis
san diego
san francisco
san francisco bay area
santa barbara
santa cruz, ca
sarasota
seattle
tampa bay
united states
urbana-champaign
vermont
western mass
worcester

West Asia
Armenia
Beirut
Israel
Palestine

Topics
biotech

Process
fbi/legal updates
mailing lists
process & imc docs
tech