Two documents: THE FOURTH WORLD: SITE OF STRUGGLE AND RESISTANCE, STATEMENT TO THE WORLD SOCIAL FORUM and AMERICANA INDIGENISMO: Indigenous Peoples, the FTAA and the Fourth World, the introduction to a workshop to be held in Quebec City on April 19

Anti-FTAA teach in calendar - http://www.sommetdespeuples.org/en/calendrier/index.html

Calendar for OQP2001 - http://www.oqp2001.org/en/calendar.html

Porto Alegre 4th world statement - http://www.mob4glob.ca/fourth.html

THE FOURTH WORLD: SITE OF STRUGGLE AND RESISTANCE IN THE FIGHT AGAINST GLOBAL CAPITAL

STATEMENT TO THE WORLD SOCIAL FORUM

PORTO ALEGRE, BRASIL

January 19, 2001

The Fourth World is defined as the world of Indigenous people - the original peoples of the Americas and across the globe who have been marginalized in their own lands, excluded from civil society, denied economic opportunity, and stigmatized by the Myth of Conquest and the Doctrine of Discovery - who have fallen off of even the lowest rungs of the false ladder of economic determinism - called progress. The Peoples of the Fourth World, from the highlands of the Andes, to the tundra of the Arctic, to the jungles of the Amazon, to the outback of Australia, to the taiga of Siberia, as well as those lost in the desert of the streets of the great cities of the world; New York, Sao Paolo, Jakarta, Nairobi and so on, are the victims of globalisation and their communities are the sites of resistance to neoliberalism.

Under the neoliberal agenda the colonization of Indigenous peoples of the Americas that began over 500 years ago is about to become complete. The reality of Indigenous life is not that we cannot become well-functioning citizens of our respective states and the world but rather that in insisting on our right to be Indian that we become subversive.

That, in keeping our language we challenge the hegemony of American linguistic imperalism; That, in practicing our spirituality we assert our relationship to the earth in a way which challenges the right of mining and timber companies to rape and exploit her.

[...]

Finally we cannot forget our many brothers and sisters in the Fifth World. The Fifth World is the world of the displaced person - the world of the refugee. Whether displaced by war, by natural disaster, or by economic deprivation, this is the largest growing demographic segment in the world today. Many of these are Indigenous, many are not - either way we must stand shoulder to shoulder with them demanding humane treatment, sanctuary when needed, the observance of human rights, and dignity of life.

While there is much to say -many words yet to be spoken, many thoughts to be thought and many dreams to be dreamt we encourage the delegates at the World Social Forum not to forget the plight of the Original Peoples of the world, nor to ignore our wisdom and experience. We also ask you to heed the advice of our Elders and in your deliberations to make them as if you were thinking of seven generations to come with an open heart to the Creator.

Chi Meegwetch

Indigenous conference - http://www.mob4glob.ca/huron.html

AMERICANA INDIGENISMO: Indigenous Peoples, the FTAA and the Fourth World

The continuing violations since 1492 of the treaties, titles, jurisdictions and collective as well as individual rights adhering to Indigenous peoples of the Americas constitutes by far the most massive, ongoing instance of genocide, ethnic cleansing and ecocide in global history. Before the geopolitical map of the Americas can be changed yet again there must be major reforms at the domestic, hemispheric, international and supanational levels to stop such systematic and pervasive forms of crime against humanity.

There must be no institution of FTAA in ways that continue the illegal practises which began in 1493, when the Pope "donated" without Aboriginal consent all the Americas to the imperial governments of Spain and Portugal. Since that time the map of the Americas has been redrawn again and again without Aboriginal consent and in stark violation of the inherent rights of all peoples to self-determination as recognized and affirmed in many United Nations covenants. Hence no FTAA can be legitimate without major reforms directed at recognizing, inplementing, enforcing and safeguarding the existence of Aboriginal and treaty rights, including those rights invested in Aboriginal title. These rights, as well as the responsibilities which go with them, adhere to all Indigenous peoples by virtue of our diverse-yet-shared spiritual, social, cultural, economic, political and juridical roots since time immemorial in a hemisphere which the conquistadors and their descendants have chosen to identify as "America."

[...]

Our resistance movement continues and expands many of the principles and interpretations introduced by the Zapatista Liberation Army followingits assertions in Chiapas and throughout cyberspace beginning in January of 1994. It should be recalled that the Zapatistas announced theirpresence to the world the day that they North American Free Trade Treaty came into force. As the Zapatistas see it, NAFTA and the neo-liberalideologies it embodied continue and widen the legacy of the Columbian conquests that began in 1492.

The FTAA is best understood as a geographical and ideological expansion of NAFTA to hemisperic proportions. It also can be understood as an entrenchment of the Lockean obsession with the institutions of private property that lie at the basis of the American empire-- an empire that continued in a concentrated fashion many of the imperial incursions that started with the wrongful papal donations of our sacred hemisphere to Spain and Portugal in 1493. There is a direct genesis of history linking that primal appropriation at the beginning of the global expansions of European imperialism with our exclusion from the inner circle of those conspiring to impose the FTAA on our Aboriginal hemisphere without our Aboriginal sanction or consent.

"One of the most interesting things about revolution and

social change struggle is the relationship between external

and internal change. It’s not an either/or process. You are

transformed and opened to the possibility of who you can

become, in the process of getting involved in justice and

fairness for other people."

Bernadine Dohrn