From: mim@nyxfer.UUCP
Newsgroups: soc.culture.african.american
Date: 28 Dec 92 20:58 PST
Subject: 500 Years of Resistance
Nf-ID: #N:Zi1iwB4w165w@nyxfer.uucp:-1422436149:000:8007
Nf-From: nyxfer.uucp!mim    Dec 28 20:58:00 1992


Subject: 500 Years of Resistance
From: nyxfer!mim (Maoist Intl'ist Mvmnt)

 
Via The NY Transfer News Service * All the News that Doesn't Fit
 
from the Maoist Internationalist Movement (MIM)
 
MIM Notes, Issue 69: October, 1992


     500 Years of Resistance to Colonization and Imperialism

                             by MC86

Throughout the continents called by the Kuna people "Abya-Yala,"
people are celebrating the first 20 days in October with more than
100 events and demonstrations dedicated to reaffirming 500 years
of mass resistance to capitalist might. The burning issues of the
movement concern what forms of independent power and leadership
the revolutionary masses can best use to achieve national
liberation.

The First Continental Gathering of Indigenous Peoples in Quito,
Ecuador in 1990 set in motion a political rolling stone that has
swept through Latin and North Amerika -- leaving in its wake a
heightened debate among grassroots and sectarian activists. The
common theme of the 500 Years Movement is exposure of the vile
pirate Cristobal Colon's invasion of Haiti in 1492 as the model
for 500 years of capitalist "development." The common debate is
about the most effective way forward.

Defining victory

Prompted by fear of a massive civil disobedience campaign planned
for October 12, the government of Spain and the Amerikan
Quincentenary Commission cancelled a three-ship reenactment of
Colon's "discovery" scheduled for San Francisco Bay. The C.D. was
planned by a coalition of anarchists, communists, Maoists,
environmentalists, social-democrats and indigenous groups --
momentarily united around the single issue of disrupting the
neo-colonialist pageantry.

A spokesperson for the National Committee to Free Puerto Rican
Prisoners (NCFPRP) calls the cancellation of the ship's visit "a
victory." NCFPRP and the American Indian Movement (AIM) are joined
in a broad 500 Years coalition sponsoring _The International
Tribunal of Indigenous Peoples and Oppressed Nations_, October
1-4, as well as numerous cultural events, marches and rallies. The
Tribunal has prepared a detailed 40-page indictment of Amerikan
imperialism to be juried by people such as Ramsey Clark, former
Attorney General of the United States.

Cultural nationalism vs. sectarianism

According to a spokesperson for the Coordinating Body of
Indigenous Organizations and Nations of the Continent (CONIC),
indigenous people must "organize around their traditional
cultures" as a means of resistance. CONIC says it strives to
provide the "means of communication" for the 39 million indigenous
people of 1,000 nations in Abya-Yala.

CONIC is a typical split from the indigenous-inspired movement
that originated in Quito, an outgrowth of the antagonism over the
"usurpation" of the Quito movement's direction by "parties and
syndicalists of the [urban] left."(1) The CONIC spokesperson told
MIM that, "Just because a person has read one book by Marx does
not mean they know better than us how to achieve our own
liberation."

The Kuna Nation in Panama states, "We do not tolerate those
non-indigenous organizations that want to capitalize on the 500
Years campaign for political purposes. They want to use indigenous
peoples without understanding and recognizing the nature of our
struggles ... our continent will be free only when all sectors are
free."(2)

Learning from experience

On December 16 of last year, 20 members of the indigenous
community "El Nilo" in northern Columbia were "massacred by
landlords at a routine planning meeting."(3) On February 27,
Salvadoran police, accompanied by "three representatives of the
United Nations Observation team, reporters from a local television
station, and a group of local landowners arrested 60 Indian men,
women and children of the Corte Azul Cooperative, [ripped up their
crops, and destroyed their tools and homes]."(4)

Most of the organizations affiliated with the 500 Years movement
call for "land reforms" blessed by parliaments. In December 1991,
the National Organization of Indigenous Peoples of Columbia (ONIC)
negotiated six points in the new Columbian Constitution
"recognizing" the legal and cultural "autonomy" of indigenous
peoples within their current reservations inside Columbia. This
temporarily put an end to indigenous-led mass demonstrations.(5)

Maoists recognize that capitalist states are only capable of
accomplishing land distributions that are in the interests of the
propertied classes. Actual redistribution of land to the tiller
was best practiced in China -- when China was socialist -- and it
is currently practiced in the liberated base areas of Peru
administered by the People's Guerrilla Army of the Communist Party
of Peru (PCP).(6)

MIM believes that it is a very good thing for diverse groups to
unite in exposure of patriarchal imperialism's exploitative
history and the horrible global war it currently wages.
Establishing communications networks between oppressed groups,
sharing experience, plotting against the oppressor's institutions
-- all of these are positive steps when practiced on a mass scale.

But to set no higher goal than co-existence with imperialism will
perpetuate imperialism for another 500 years. History demonstrates
that the actual achievement of national liberation from
imperialism has been brought forth only by organized and
disciplined armed forces of the people guided by the science of
revolution and the lessons of all the revolutions to date.

Revolutionary example in Peru

The bright star in our hemisphere is the Maoist-led revolution in
Peru. The PCP cuts no deals with capitalism. The PCP knows that
the United Nations is an unalterable and vicious enemy of the
people. The PCP recognizes that political power does not grow from
Constitutional amendments or the "right" to starve in one's own
language on a reservation. The backbone of the Maoist movement in
Peru has always been the revolutionary indigenous people of the
Andes region.

The essence of all "rights" is the power to enforce them. The
Arawak and Taino peoples exterminated by Columbus learned this
quickly. As their repeated offers of friendship were betrayed, the
Tainos took to the hills and began slaying the Spanish invaders.
Ultimately, the nations of Abya-Yala were defeated by an advanced
system of production and millions of European settlers who
invented a system of "property-rights" to cloak genocide.

In 1992 we have choices for political organization that were not
available to the Tainos and the Arawaks.

A dominant trend in the 500 Years Movement is represented by the
Organization of Indigenous Nationalities of Columbia (ONIC) which
says, "We have to generate many alternatives such as appropriation
of technology, credit possibilities, adaptation of an economy
proper to us. We want a strong United Nations presence so that
human rights violations can be watched carefully. We want
protection."(7)

Bearing these friendly criticisms of the 500 Years Movement in
mind, MIM urges our international readership to be out there in
force during October agitating amongst all the trends for the
self-determination of the oppressed and indigenous nations of
Abya-Yala while organizing a revolutionary Maoist movement in your
own country.


Notes:

1. See MIM Notes # 63 & 64.
2. SAIIC Newsletter 1991, p. 26.
3. SAIIC press release 12/18/91.
4. SAIIC Newsletter 1992, p. 24.
5. SAIIC Newsletter 1992, p. 21.
6. Write to MIM for information on the revolution in Peru.
7. SAIIC Newsletter 1992, p. 12-13.

                              -30- 

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