Author: ALAN BARBOUR
Nemonte Nenquimo: The indigenous leader named ‘environmental hero’
The continuing movement expanding indigenous and environmental rights in Latin America was highlighted with the awarding of the Goldman Environmental prize to Nemonte Nenquimo, a leader of the Waorani people in Ecuador. Ms. Nenquimo is the President of the Waorani of Pastaza region and a co-founder of the Ceibo Alliance, which works to protest the rights of indigenous people. She organized a successful lawsuit stopping the proposal to drill oil by the Ecuadorean government in the Waorani region. As a result of the successful legal action, 500,000 acres of land are now protected, and the local population must be consulted before any other projects in the region are considered.
The Waorani people had lived in isolation in Ecuador’s portion of the Amazon forest until Christian missionaries made contact in the late 1950s. Since that time, the Waorani have seen their territory shrink dramatically. The governments’ announcement to offer oil drilling leases in their remaining territory galvanized Ms. Nenquimo to organize the community and challenge the leases in the courts. The court ruled in the Waorani’s favor in 2019. She was recently named to Time Magazine‘s 100 most influential people in the world.
“The Waorani people have always been protectors, they have defended their territory and their culture for thousands of years,” Ms. Nenquimo told the BBC.
Environmental protections in Ecuador have been strengthening during the past few decades. In 2008 the government expanded the constitution to grant permanent legal rights to the environment. The constitutional changes stressed the importance of indigenous culture and populations in preserving and strengthening the environment and Ecuador. Ecuador was the first nation to grant such rights to environment. The recent ruling by the Ecuadorian court directed the National Assembly to pass a bill to guarantee the enforcement of the courts’ ruling. The ruling demonstrates tangible results from the Ecuadorian constitutional reforms.
The Goldman Environmental Prize was created in 1990 to honor and promote grassroots environmental action across the world. It often highlights individuals who have risked their lives in organizing their communities and nations to protect the environment. Five total winners are selected each year, one each from Africa, Asia, Europe, Islands and Island Nations, and North America. Previous winners include Berta Caceres from Honduras who was assassinated one year after receiving the award for her work in protesting the building of the Agua Zarca dam.
Though the Goldman Environmental Prize is based in San Francisco, the awarding of the prize to Ms. Nenquimo received little attention by most of the US media. Her selection, along with the other recipients, did receive significant coverage in Europe and in Latin America. She is the fourth Ecuadorian to receive the prize.
“About the Prize.” The Goldman Environmental Prize. Accessed December 9, 2020. https://www.goldmanprize.org/about/.
“Nemonte Nenquimo: The indigenous leader named ‘environmental hero’.” BBC. November 30, 2020. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-55122550.
Department of State report, “Political Violence in Argentina,” Confidential, June 16, 1975.[1]
Department of State report, “Political Violence in Argentina,” Confidential, June 16, 1975.[1]
In June of 1975, the US State Department expressed concern on the increasing level of rightwing violence in Argentina and the growing likelihood of a military takeover of the Argentine government. Detailing the violence and chaos of the government under President Isabelle Peron and her advisor Lopez Rega, the report makes clear that violence is escalating in Argentina and is unlikely to decline for some time. In the 1970s thousands of leftist terror bombings had created panic in Argentina and a violent response from both the government and rightwing terror groups.[2] To assess the violence, the report analyzed an article from the Buenos Aires Herald accounting for the deaths of 503 people since the start of Mrs. Peron’s presidency in 1974. The report broke down the sources of violence in Argentina into both leftwing terror groups such as the People’s Revolutionary Army or ERP and Montoneros who the US believed were inspired by Che Guevara, rightwing terror groups such the Argentine Anticommunist Alliance, and government police and military services. Based on the analysis of the newspaper article, the majority of the violence is being perpetrated by rightwing forces, with 190 deaths of leftist political figures. The violence is spread all across Argentine society with both workers, business leaders, police and politicians being subject to violence. The regular use of police killings of prisoners is highlighted along with the complete failure of the Argentine judicial system to maintain any sense of control or integrity. All of this leads the report to believe that a military coup is inevitable as Peron’s Argentine government has very little popularity. It is just a matter of time before the military builds enough public support to position itself to overthrow the government. That prediction would prove correct as the Argentine military did take stage a coup nine months after this report was written. In two additional sidebars, the report focused on US interests, which were primarily business centered, noting that the agitation from leftist groups maked it difficult for foreign investment due to worker conflict and targeted attacks on businessmen in Argentina. The second sidebar comments on the growing danger of human rights violations in Argentina and how regularly torture is used by the Argentine government. The report ends with the need to publicly reiterate US opposition to the use of violence and human rights violations. The report does not state that the US should apply any real pressure to the Argentine government to curb the violence, most likely because it still saw the threat of leftwing terror and political agitation as a hinderance to US interests in Argentina. In the end, this account of growing violence was just a foretaste of what would become Argentina’s Dirty War during the military dictatorship from 1976-1983.
[1] “Department of State report, ‘Political Violence in Argentina,’ Confidential, June 16, 1975,” National Security Archive, November 11, 2020, https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/dc.html?doc=6020921-National-Security-Archive-Doc-02-Department-of.
[2] Alexander Dawson, Latin America Since Independence: A History with Primary Sources, (New York: Routledge, 2015), 288.
Seeking a national identity in Mexico
Tulane University Howard-Tilton Memorial Library. “Carvings at the base of the Cuauhtemoc statue.” The Latin American Library. https://digitallibrary.tulane.edu/islandora/object/tulane%3A10441.
The challenge of establishing a national identity has been foremost in the concerns of the state since Mexico’s independence in 1821. Various Mexican governments have worked hard to establish and foster a strong national identity that combines its history of advanced and powerful indigenous kingdoms and empires and its European heritage. Many governments have worked to idealize the legacy of the indigenous population, especially the heritage of the Aztec Empire.
Following the rise of Porfirio Diaz to the Presidency in 1876, highly visible efforts were made to connect the new President’s rule with the Aztecs fight for sovereignty of against foreign invasion. In the 1860s, Mexicans had successfully evicted the latest attempted foreign rule with the defeat of the French imposed Maximillian I. Diaz had been a leading general in this battle for liberation. The restored Mexican government embraced the idea of resistance and resilience with commemorations such as this statue of Cuahtemoc. The last Aztec Emperor, Cuahtemoc, had been tortured and executed by the Spanish in 1521. This photo shows one of the reliefs at the base of the statue. Here the brave and stoic Cuauhtemoc has his feet put to the fire by the Spanish Conquistadors who press in on him and appear to mock him. His resolve and resistance elevate the status of the Mexican people. Above the relief is the name of Coanacoch, one of the rulers of Texcoco who was also executed with Cuahtemoc. Along with the reliefs are other iconographic images tied to the Mexican culture imbedded in the base and mounted around it. The statue was placed along the Paseo de la Reforma, a central thoroughfare of Mexico City. The boulevard had originally been constructed by Maximillian I and following his overthrow, the Mexican government renamed it after the liberal economic and political reform movement of the 1850s. The Diaz government placed of the statue on the boulevard to tie together the la Reforma movement, Mexican nationalism, and his modernizing regime into the identity of the Mexican people. In focusing on the heroism of the indigenous people of Mexico, the government publicly declared support for the liberal vision of respect for all citizens.
Under Diaz’s rule, the government attempted to implement further liberal economic reforms to free up capital and labor for investment in the economy. The irony was at the same time the Diaz was promoting a unifying vision of Mexican national identity that celebrated the historic roots of the nation, his government was expropriating the land of indigenous peoples to establish massive export producing haciendas. The indigenous people were brutally forced into peonage to work for the hacienda owners producing cash crops. By the end of Diaz’ rule, more than 50% of the land was owned by 1% of the population. These liberal economic policies would devastate huge numbers of indigenous persons across Mexico. In a country where the vast majority of people were peasant farmers, 97% of the population owned no land.* The economic growth of Mexico was built on the exploitation of the rural poor and indigenous peoples this statue was meant to exalt. Thirty-five years of Diaz’s dictatorial rule would lead many of the indigenous people of Mexico to join in a violent revolt against Diaz that sparked the Mexican Civil War in 1911. Millions would die in the Civil War and renewed attempts to create a lasting unifying national identity would be necessary.
* Alexander Dawson, “Latin America Since independence,” (New York: Routledge, 2015), 121.