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By Maria Aguiar

This July I was privileged to attendthe Encounter of the Peoples of theWorld, a grassroots gathering hostedby the autonomous indigenous com-munities of Chiapas, Mexico.Thesecommunities have spent the last 13years developing concrete alternativesto the crushing impacts of NAFTAand other “free” trade agreementsthat have caused such devastation inthe Mexican countryside.

One strategy has been to build a kindof globalization from below, based onrelationships with other grassrootsmovements from within Mexico andaround the world.This work is espe-cially exciting because it has broughttogether movements that have oftennot worked together before.

Campesinos and indigenous commu-nities often find themselves competingfor scarce resources in the country-side, in this case with the Mexicangovernment fanning the flames ofconflict.The government is not verytolerant of the autonomy that thepeople of Chiapas have establishedand has been trying the well-worntactics of repression and divide-and-rule to weaken both communities.

What do you do when faced withthreat? You invite friends from nearand far to learn about your work andculture and to be spokespeople foryour cause around the world.Thisyear’s Encounter was attended by

representatives of an important ally ofindigenous people, the Via Campesina,the world’s largest movement of peas-ants and small farmers, farm workersand other rural producers.The Viadelegation included leaders fromorganizations in Bolivia, Brazil, Canada,the Dominican Republic, Honduras,India, Indonesia, South Korea, Spain,Thailand and the United States.

Typical of such movement-inspiredgatherings, the Encounter had formaldiscussion and presentations inter-spersed with cultural performancesand freewheeling conversations.Young people were everywhere andthe highlight of the gathering wasthe Via Campesina’s address to anaudience of over 1,000 indigenousand international guests.

Soraia Soriano, from Brazil’s LandlessWorkers Movement (MST), spokeabout how the Chiapas women’s workon education and health care closelymirrored that of her community inSão Paulo. With appallingly fewpublic resources, both communitiesmust care for their children throughhome-grown programs.

Building autonomy was a powerful,recurrent theme.The Chiapas com-munities presented how they’verecaptured traditional governingstructures and used them, for exam-ple, to extend agroecological prac-tices into their food production.Like Soraia, other Via delegatesshared stories of building vibrant

local economies against long odds.

This Encounter is one step in adynamic alliance-building process.In October, indigenous leaders fromboth sides of the border will gatherin Northern Mexico to put headstogether about territorial defense anddevelopment. In December in Chiapas,indigenous women will meet withwomen peasant leaders from aroundthe world to plan for deepening gen-der equity in their communities.

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A Movement of MovementsWeaving a Common Dream

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Detail, poster from Chiapas. Sunflowers havebeen important crops and cultural symbols for indigenous peoples in the Americas forthousands of years.

g r a s s r o o t s o n l i n e . o r g

InsideLetter from the Director . . . 2

Towards a Green Food System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

Diverse Movements Working Together . . . . . . . . . 3

How You Can Help . . . . . . . 4

Continued on p.2

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A personal highlight of the Encounterfor me was when Kalissa Regier, ayoung woman farmer from Canada’sNational Farmers Union broughteveryone to their feet with a haunt-ingly beautiful song about life on theCanadian prairie. A local womanremarked that while she didn’t under-stand the lyrics she felt the song andunderstood that Kalissa loved herland as much as she loved her own.

Grassroots is honored to support thehard work that enables these move-ments to dream together, as well astheir individual efforts at buildingautonomy and self-sufficiency thatare the building blocks of thatdream. ■

This summer the forests of Chiapas,Mexico were buzzing with excite-ment about a visiting internationaldelegation. Folks who know some-thing about Chiapas know that inter-national delegations visit it almost asroutinely as they do UN headquarters.So why all the fuss now?

This time the visitors were peasantand small farmer representatives fromAsia, Europe and the Americas, allmembers of Grassroots’ partner, theVia Campesina, who were invited toChiapas by the autonomous indige-nous communities in the state.Theywere paying a return visit, havinginvited indigenous communitiesworldwide to their Nyéléni Forumfor Food Sovereignty in Mali,Africain February.

I’m excited about this because, morethan an exchange of pleasantries,these exchanges between members of the world’s peasant and indigenousmovements represent a meeting of the minds and of strategies inresponse to the growing impact ofcorporate globalization and “freetrade,” including the potentiallycrushing results of the gathering“Green Rush” for ethanol.

Here at Grassroots, we saw early on(and closely followed) the beginningsof this convergence in Mexico andCentral America.A process of infor-mation sharing and strategy meetingsbegun in 1997 resulted, in July 2004,in the formation in Honduras ofMOICAM (Indigenous and CampesinoMovement of Mesoamerica) to coor-dinate regional opposition to “freetrade” agreements and to advocate for comprehensive agrarian reform,indigenous autonomy, human rightsand food sovereignty. Earlier,

Mexicansformed theAMAP(MexicanAlliance forPeoples’ Self-Determination) to dolikewise.

I see the campesino and indigenousmovements as the most dynamicsocial and economic justice move-ments in Mesoamerica today.Independent yet intersecting, theyare jointly addressing political,economic and social inequities thatare exacerbated by globalization.

Both organize against and challenge:the opening up of the agriculturalsector through “free trade” agreementslike CAFTA; the privatization ofpublic goods such as water, land andservices and their takeover by multi-national corporations; the destructionof biodiversity and exploitation ofmineral resources; and U.S. foreignand military policies in the regionthat support corporate agendas.

Grassroots’ Mesoamerica programseeks to support and strengthen bothof these movements individually andtogether in order to: defend resourcerights and food sovereignty; push forindigenous self-determination andhuman rights; and challenge U.S.-led“free trade” agreements andcorporate-led globalization.

We can only do this thanks to yoursupport.This September, the UnitedNations adopted the Declaration onthe Rights of Indigenous Peoples!It took 25 years but it’s an importantvictory.We need more of them.

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The Problem: Corporate agriculture is unhealthyfor the environment and for ruralpeople and urban communities

One person dies of starvation every3.6 seconds. Of those experiencinghunger in the world, almost 80 per-cent are farmers and farm workers.

In the United States alone, 67 millionbirds are killed each year by chemicalpesticide poisoning. The same chem-icals poison rivers, create giant deadzones in the oceans and threatenthe health of farm workers and consumers around the world.

In the last 100 years, 75 percent ofcrop diversity has been lost. Today,just three crops—rice, wheat andcorn—provide 60 percent of ourplant-based diet.

The Solution: Build a green farming system thatputs food and families first

Read Grassroots’ report, Towards aGreen Food System to find out howfood sovereignty can save the environment and feed the world:

www.grassrootsonline.org/towards-green-food-system

Letter from the Director . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Movements continued from p.1

Converging Streams Mesoamerica’s Campesino and Indigenous Movements

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All Together

Family farmers, fisher folk, indigenous peoples, landless peoples, ruralworkers, migrants and pastoralists of the Via Campesina and their allieswere joined by consumer, environmental and urban organizations likeFriends of the Earth and Food and Water Watch at the World Forum onFood Sovereignty in Mali earlier this year. They came together to buildthe foundation for a just and healthy farming and food system, Africanfarmers working with American environmentalists, European activistsand Asian organizers.

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WHAT WOULD HAPPEN IF, instead of competingfor scarce resources in a race to the bottom, farm workers,small farmers, pastoralists and indigenous people organizedand worked together? What if they joined forces with envi-ronmentalists and consumer groups to demand support forenvironmentally-friendly farming techniques that reducepesticides and chemical fertilizers, creating healthier workingconditions, protecting the environment and producinghealthier food for their communities, all while providing thepeople who grow and harvest the food with sustainablelivelihoods? What if women and youth and rural andurban movements joined the struggle to put forth a newvision for community and economic development with respectfor human rights? You don’t have to imagine, because it’s happening around the world.

This September, dozens of women leaders from the member organi-zations of the Via Campesina in Central America met in El Salvador.In an atmosphere of political repression and violence against womenin much of Central America, it’s noteworthy that indigenous andcampesino women are participating in the political process at all.But, even more remarkably, these women are leading internationalcampaigns against unfair trade agreements, loss of biodiversity andthe encroachment of genetically modified crops.

Peer learning and alliance building doesn’t just happen at internationalmeetings. Some of the most important movement building work takes placeat the community level. The education work of our partners combines technicaltraining in topics like agroecology with leadership and organizing training.In the northeast of Brazil, youth members of ASSEMA (the Association in theSettlement Areas of the State of Maranhão) are learning ecologically-friendlycultivation techniques which they will share with their neighbors to build localautonomy and economic independence.

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See more photos online at www.grassrootsonline.org.

Federal, State and Corporate Employees Can Give to Grassroots at WorkPlease make a workplace donation to Grassroots this year and encourage your co-workers, friends and family members to do the same by sharing this issue of Insights.

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State or Corporate employees should look for Grassroots International underIndependent Charities of America.

Thank you for continuing to support Grassroots’ ground-breaking socialjustice work throughout the world.

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Board of DirectorsClark Taylor, ChairAlejandro Amezcua

Dan Connell, EmeritusJudith Lockhart-Radtke

Rev. Devin S. McLachlanShalini Nataraj

Luis PradoKatherine Yih

Robert M.WarrenNikhil Aziz, Executive Director, GRI

StaffMaria Aguiar, Director of Global Programs

Saulo Araujo, Program AssistantNikhil Aziz, Executive Director

Jennifer Lemire, Program CoordinatorJake Miller, Communications Coordinator

Orson Moon, Administrative DirectorDaniel Moss, Director of Development

and CommunicationsLaura Sampath, Institutional Coordinator

Corrina Steward, Resource Rights SpecialistMarty Wrin, Development Assistant

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Remember the Pig!THE ENDANGERED CREOLE PIG IN HAITI IS A HAUNTING ANDINSPIRING CASE. It shows what’s wrong with the United States government’sofficial development policy and what’s right about Grassroots International’s bottom-up approach.

Misguided U.S. policies wiped out the Creole pig two decades ago—along withthe life savings of Haitian farmers. Grassroots International has worked withHaitian partners to distribute 2500 breeding pigs to 400 cooperatives.

Each pig means that the human right to food is more secure for another family.Those families form part of a powerful movement guaranteeing land and waterand a chance to make a dignified living.

Can you please help this movement grow, guarantee sustainable livelihoodsand set right U.S. policies that undermine family farmers everywhere?

Thank you for making a contribution to Grassroots International today.