thank you very much for this invitation to come join you tonight this is a subject that's near and dear to those of us who have had a connection with chapters for a long time somewhere was an incredible  man bishop an activist for indigenous rights it was hard to lose him but we all die and it was his time to go but he left with us an incredible legacy of work with the indigenous people of chiapas accompanying them in their struggles and it's something that continues to feed our spirits and our hearts as we work to advance the rights of indigenous people in so thank you for the invitation as they said i'm jeannie berwick and a group of us founded one equal heart foundation i left some just little carts information cards back there it has a trivia quiz on the back that we've used  in the university setting but you might find it fun and please take a look at us on our website and if you're interested in being in touch and being part of our community we hope that you will join our list serv and get announcements  about activities that we may be planning one of the things that we're doing is in january of two thousand and fourteen which pet they will talk about there's going to be an indigenous congress on mother earth in numbers of indigenous leaders and so they're all preparing they've been spending this year preparing for that congress and we thought well let's do some of our own preparations so we had a discussion about genetically engineered foods and in particular its impact on indigenous people and katie one of our interns is back there she helped organize that at seattle university we're having this tonight which is sort of focused on the indigenous congress and some will rescind general and then in january we're going to have a talk around table discussion at our office and maybe in some other places on eco tourism who actually benefits from a co toryism what is it and how can we know that we're really traveling and spending our money in green places so that will be our topic for january and then a group of us a small group of us is going to observe the indigenous congress and we'll come back and report on that in february  call heart and our activities that we're rolling out over the next few months i'm also going to be meeting a group i hope down in chop us in february after i get to come out of the indigenous congress so without further ado i want to introduce our guests because you want to hear from them and not from me so as we said who is the director of the jesuit mission of buncha haun which has a sister organization which is the center for indigenous rights the jesuit mission has been working in this area for fifty five years almost and has been a great promoter of indigenous rights but i want to make it really clear that it's not been on the half of the indigenous people but with them the idea is that we don't they are the subjects of their own reality and of their own future and so the jesuit mission does what we call a company meant they walk with the people the indigenous people in chiapas as they define their struggles and their priorities and work on solutions to their problems that's the spirit that our foundation takes as well as a long term a company meant relationship oriented relationship with the partners and shop us the other the women here are also very important pettis is in the back she is a woman indigenous woman and she's the first to be the coordinator of our he sustainability programs or processes as we like to call them in chiapas comes from a particular group of cells from she loan and from a very small community up in the mountains she's been working for to ten years at the center for indigenous rights started out mainly with advocating for women and working with them on forming groups where they learn how to advocate for themselves so we're very happy to have her she brings her ten month old baby  she's asleep now but she's a very joyful child the last person from chop us is mughal e only evil ali is originally from guadalajara mexico which is not another state and but she's been working in this area for twelve years she was the former coordinator daughter has now taken her place and remains  on staff to do a lot of community based curriculum development so we won't be able to talk about that that's a whole other topic but all the trainings are done in such in the language and the curriculum has didn't developed in the cell tall language and magali has been a part of that team to develop those leadership training process season curriculum so we're happy we what i like to say is that we've got sort of a three a really great team we've got someone who's got a lot of ground experience who happens she's also indigenous magali who's got that academic systemization curriculum orientation and then pepe who is a very visionary a committed long term leader  we're really happy with the combination so we hope you'll enjoy them as well thank you for listening to me and i'm going to turn it over to  there are three main points that we're going to cover tonight in the work of someone  the first two i'm just going to touch i'm just going to nowt so i'm not going to talk about them it church which is a church that is of the people and by the people with a link to the universal church the second point so i'm going to talk to you now about the option for the poor in the struggle for peace with justice and dignity through nonviolence that faith that someone else faith demanded so this was a struggle that was incept not inseparable from the faith that somewhere reese had and was absolutely rooted in the commitment to justice with dignity for indigenous and this is a nonviolent violent sense of nonviolence that arises out of our faith in jesus and joyfully devotes itself to them this is the local church that has opted in recent decades to take its place on the margins of society and with the poorest people and later he returned to this idea in two thousand it and jesus was maybe the only one who could opt about where he was born but he didn't choose to be born into a privileged class or as part of the roman empire what he chose was to be born into a world of poverty piece so at the end of this interview that we're quoting what he said was we are on the side of the abandoned of the indigenous of the marginalised people who are at the bottom of society this y so it's not just a sociological option for the poor or even a psychological one it's a theological decision an option to work and be a target of the poor live either so it's not enough to sort of be with the poor that's it's not that that's a bad thing but it's more about that you actually joined the struggle that you are with them in the struggle in his letter he said this struggle means not just opposing war or simply taking a pass of this position but it's a comprehensive stance we must go beyond questioning the neoliberal capitalist system and question the justification for violence so i'm a little head of that you keep going i'm having trouble translating and staying on the on the top solve and it's the end of the day so i appreciate your patience this is what you conclude after thinking about all this is that this is an act of nonviolence that is a real alternative when we talk about building a society where everyone has a place without having to sacrifice anyone to preserve peace and order systemic vision for peace to take assume the role of mediator between the easy the army for the for national liberation and the mexican federal government he so he said quote feeling great pain in my gut and knowing that violence is not the way out and keeping in mind that there is only one mediator between god and the people i accepted the request from the land in the federal government to serve as mediator in the dialogue that both parties initiated so we wanted to make it really clear that having septic this responsibility is mediator he wasn't leaving behind his what he believed was god's the gospels preferential option for the poor and for indigenous people  when there's a disadvantage position of disadvantage between both parties  so with the goal of achieving this peace and justice with dignity take some world combined his faith his voice his strength his struggle in prayers not just as part of the catholic christian faith but  ecumenical way with various churches and religious traditions the anglicans the jews lutherans presbyterians buddhists methodists all that and women and men of good will so we have to know that knew that his faith in god and above all actions in god's name have various forms of expression there is not just a right religious expression of those of that faith and of that commitment to peace with dignity also sharing that those values right yes one it's one mission with a lot of perhaps a lot of different hearts lot of different expressions enough and so you're looking for ways for the poor to have life and have it in abundance in words yes but above all in action and also in the men and women migrants who come to this country although they don't know their own  us so the causes for all of that corruption and deterioration have historic roots but they also relate to the present moment they get deepened by an unjust economic system done so it's where the wealth is concentrated in a few hands institutions or organizations that have the control from the streets of manhattan and they're getting richer our co in the face of all this big capital fantasy of us so there's been so many deaths in mexico more than ninety thousand people that also mean all those people who are orphans without spouses without partners without sons and we know that through mexico drugs pass through and where do they arrive wouldn't be organized if it were if there weren't this sort of relationship between organized crime and local government that goes down to county state and federal governments so why is it that drugs get over the border so easily but migrants from central american all over latin america don't get through what what could that be nice there is corruption at every level all the sons and daughters here who have died as a result they don't somewhere i'm going to conclude with some inspiring words from don somewhere the peace that we seek cannot be separated from justice would have but there can be no peace without justice it requires free men and women to actively and creatively struggle through nonviolence for a more just and humane world it requires all of us as the mayan people say make god who is heart of heavens and heart of the earth a company and bless you many th justice and so i also imagine that people will have their own commentaries to make and maybe answer some of the questions so something else  for instance the theology of women from that the hand and heart of women  here we are lacking the word of women in the conversation about liberation theology  and how god was manifested in various people answered a question and then i said some other things that i wanted to say get this indigenous congress that's happening at the end of january in two thousand and fourteen actually marks the fortieth anniversary of the first congress which is in one nine hundred seventy four be agreements all from all these different indigenous groups that are meeting in advance of the congress now we're going to move on to the question about marking the twentieth anniversary of nafta both here and in mexico know so this is the question about do we put our resources towards mitigating the symptoms of poverty or towards the structural problems that cause poverty your group to  so i think this question approaches or touches on how the people can build their own autonomy and part power de mint and it's pretty complex the and it's this is what we do is with the with the resources that they are actually have the indignities indigenous people have  to empower the the people at certain at various levels so that they're self sufficient embodied our little power and power them so to actually work towards women having a position in the society where their word is respected and where they have a place that is important within the society  fear so for instance with health to have a system of health that that includes the resources that are there traditional medicine traditional plants with some perhaps support from outside but that it would be a system of their so to have the two systems positive law which is sort of the system of government or law in in mexico with the indigenous system so that they're not it's not optional but they're equal let's get on this embrace us so what's going on now is that they need to defend their territory so that these outside interests that want to do megaprojects don't come in and invade their territory communities and it's a whole this is me talking it's a whole movement in in chop us the had an armed resistance that lasted twelve days and i think one of the misnomers appears that they're armed it's an army that's armed and in fact they have respected the cease fire ever since it was announced in one thousand nine hundred four but what the have done in that in the last twenty years has really been to build a social movement of autonomy now  also other people building autonomy that aren't but that's where we are drawing from that experience of how how you build autonomy not waiting for a top down change in the law but how do you build it from the base  young and so this causes problems with nutrition and health beautiful beaches being the indigenous people have been to play displaced to faraway lands but you know it was an opportunity for mexico to engage in free commerce but it also meant that a lot of the people in the countryside suffered is this one those so these are two of the things that i can mention that we see in chap us a comment to hear that in terms of the mining question there's a couple of places both in central america and in chiapas of the canadian mining company called black fire and i think there is a site that something called black fire watch dot org and you can find out about what's happening some of the the mining interests have been stopped murder that they the government stopped put a stop to the mine course the mine is pushing for more and i think one of the things that i've learned about not is there's actually a provision in it where governments can sue other governments if they if their trade rights have been violated and get money damages so you're talking about country like el salvador a country like mexico that maybe we may think of being rich but certainly in shop as one of the poorest places in in mexico you have lawsuits happening against government officials who are actually enforcing environmental laws or local laws that protect populations or land and they have to pay money damages to these big corporations that say they buy lated nafta so there's a lot of work for us to do from here i think from an advocacy point of view and from a point of view of letting our voices be heard that we don't like these policies and we don't want to see them continued  very much for your patience