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Moira Mil­lán is one of the women lead­ers in the Mapuche peo­ple’s fight for the land and for free­dom. She is one of the impor­tant peo­ple rep­re­sent­ing the Mapuche wom­en’s move­ment. Pro­tec­tors of nature and his­tor­i­cal resis­tants against the Incas and the Span­ish col­o­niz­ers, the Mapuche are an “autochto­nous peo­ple” of the South-Amer­i­can con­ti­nent. Their pres­ence on these lands goes back sev­er­al thou­sand years. Yet their legit­i­ma­cy is con­stant­ly brought in ques­tion by the Chil­ian and Argen­tin­ian gov­ern­ments, lead­ing to mas­sacres and mas­sive delocalizations.

Moira and her friends recent­ly called for sup­port. We relayed their call on Kedis­tan.

Here is Moira Mil­lan’s video in Castil­lian, and its trans­la­tion below.

On March 20th, we are begin­ning a march toward Buenos Aires for the recog­ni­tion of ter­ri­cide as a crime, a crime against humanity.

Peo­ple from 36 of the indi­ge­neous peo­ples of Argenti­na will begin this his­tor­i­cal march on Sun­day March 21st,  aim­ing to raise pub­lic aware­ness on the impacts of the cur­rent devel­op­men­tal mod­el on the environment.

An impor­tant seg­ment of human­i­ty has come to real­ize that we can­not go on liv­ing the way we do now. Thus, the project aims at  con­sti­tut­ing a great car­a­van which will make its mass arrival in Buenos Aires on May 25th, day com­mem­o­rat­ing Argenti­na’s first cry of independence.

This great march which will begin in North­ern and South­ern Argenti­na will car­ry his­tor­i­cal con­no­tions since a doc­u­ment will be hand­ed over to the gov­ern­ment of this coun­try demand­ing that ter­ri­cide or dam­ages to the envi­ron­ment be legal­ly con­sid­ered as a crime against humanity.

This would con­sti­tute a nov­el prece­dent for the world because, up until now unfor­tu­nate­ly, ter­ri­cide firms and gov­ern­ments pay noth­ing for the irre­versible dam­ages cause to the Mapu1, to the Pacha2 and to oth­er pop­u­la­tions. This would thus allow the pos­si­bil­i­ty of bring­ing a judi­cial instru­ment to bear on the prob­lem, judg­ing, sanc­tion­ing and con­demn­ing these firms and these governments.

The term “ter­ri­cide” is a con­cept encom­pass­ing the effects against the envi­ron­ment, the dam­ages to the indi­ge­neous nations’ cul­ture and the dete­ri­o­ra­tion in these pop­u­la­tions’ out­look on the world.

Ter­ri­cide is a con­cept that syn­the­sizes the indi­ge­neous peo­ples’ cos­mo­vi­sion, a tridi­men­sion­al out­look on life, for prac­ti­cal­ly noth­ing is acknowl­edged of our ances­tral medecine, our spir­i­tu­al­i­ty. What we con­sid­er our phi­los­o­phy, such as the cos­mo­vi­sion, is not for­bid­den but nei­ther is it acknowledged.

The for­est fires occur­ring these days are one of the main fac­tors moti­vat­ing the reac­tion of native com­mu­ni­ties. They have not only affect­ed the res­i­dents but also the ecosys­tems in these regions.

Tak­ing into account all the blazes, approx­i­mate­ly 60 000 hectares have been burned  down. Hun­dred of fam­i­lies have lost their homes and there are also the dead and the dis­ap­peared to take into account. It is terrible.

The arrival of this march in Buenos Aires is planned for May 25 as it aims to coin­cide with the date on which the rev­o­lu­tion and inde­pen­dence will be com­mem­o­rat­ed in this country.

To fol­low the action:
• Movimien­to de Mujeres Indi­ge­nas por el buen vivir Face­book, Twit­ter @mmindigenas , Insta­gram @mmujeresindigenas
• Moira Mil­làn Face­book, Twit­ter @millan_moira, Insta­gram @moiraivanamillan


Translation by Renée Lucie Bourges
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Le petit mag­a­zine qui ne se laisse pas caress­er dans le sens du poil.