Monthly Archives: February 2012

The old west had a lot more than just cowboys. There were also traders… pelts, jewelry, and buffalo come to mind. Our buffalo is wood… present in large quantities where the ¨lazy¨ Indians have failed to exploit it to date.

A grown man cries in front of a small audience, covering his face in unnecessary shame. His name is Diogracias (literally, GaveThanks). The audience is composed of pastors and church leaders from several Wounaan communities along with Ricardo Esquivia, a conflict resolution specialist and lawyer from Colombia. Diogracias is trying to recount a recent visit to his family´s communal lands, last year virgin forest, this year pillaged and burned by Latinos to extract the precious rosewood, legally prohibited to harvest but easy enough to get out of the country with a bribe. Big money. Black market.

These people talk of hopelessness now with good reason. They began with their local mayor trying to solve the problem peacefully when it started this summer. Two months later, no solution, tensions are high, they´ve climbed the political ladder and found corruption in the highest ranks, promises from national ministers, helicopter flyovers, and still… the destruction continues. Apparently, the loggers now have legal documents to take out wood that is illegal on land that belongs to someone else.

The loggers have money. One of them was shot. Now their chainsaws are accompanied with high-powered arms. They have entered town and threatened the people. The people are afraid to go out of town and harvest their food… and now, they´re hungry, scared, and angry.

If it were not for the guidance of some church elders, there would already have been more bloodshed. The communities, Río Hondo and Río Platanares, have set an ultimatum for March 15th. Please pray for this situation.

We all know stories of the Wild West, the vast and primitive frontier sparsely inhabited by misunderstood natives and conquered by the brave, pioneering settlers. That began at least 200 years ago, much longer if you consider that what is now the East was once ¨West¨, and it is considered history, although the repercussions are very much felt today. Here in Panama, it is happening today, and all the tales that you can imagine in the history books come to life.

2 days ago Jerónimo Rodríguez Tugrí, of the Ngäbe people, was shot dead by police in San Felix, Panama, a long way from where we are. So just like in days of old, the cowboys have a consolidated government and armed forces while the indigenous do not… nor did these indigenous brandish bows and arrows or arms of any kind. It was a passive protest. We happen to be staying in the city fairly close to the presidential grounds and were witness to 2 days of protests in the streets. ¨President Martinelli is an assassin!¨… ¨The community is not for sale!¨ were amongst the slogans shouted by the crowd of mostly indigenous with some educated Latinos.

The Ngäbe lands are on the other side of the country from us, but there are even more difficulties with the Emberá, Wounaan, and Kuna tribes where we work.  In the Platanares and Hondo rivers, an invading Latino logger was shot in the leg recently by community members. Others Latinos were kidnapped and held in hopes of resolving the differences. Considering the history, it will be an uphill battle for the indigenous to maintain what is rightfully theirs. Please pray for them.

I received a call from Erik this evening. He is my trusty informant amongst other things. Recently, our neighbors (literally… most of the people that live in our immediate vicinity in Catrigandí) were ordered by the government to leave the land they were working after the rice harvest. What they call ¨national land¨ actually belongs to the Kuna (of course they know this). These neighbors are not landless peasants… they already have farmland which they are destroying with bad farming practices. Nevertheless, true to their nature, they went the other way down the road and invaded some other ¨national land¨. So Erik informed me that if we want to come home, we should drive through at night, because that is our only hope of getting by the road block that the Indians are doing in protest of our neighbors attempted real estate acquisition.

Sometimes I´d like to saw our house into pieces and tote it down the road to live with the Indians again… but I guess we´re here for a reason.  … We leave this Sunday for Yaviza (the end of the road) and then upriver to visit communities. Thank you for your prayers.

Love in Christ,

alan

ps here´s a video of the protest in Casco Viejo next to the President´s House and for those in a lighter mood… Kalea picking coffee from a tree I pruned behind the house.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iUFN02MhF_c&rel=0]

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Xi_PYENa54&rel=0]