Tara Tidwell

Managing Editor

Cultural Survival Quarterly

 

PRESS RELEASE

 

Date: November 25, 2002

 

Contact:    Tara Tidwell

                617.441.5408

                ttidwell@cs.org

Cultural Survival Quarterly

Winter 2003 Issue - Available December 15

 

Indigenous Responses to Plan Colombia

Guest Edited by Theodore Macdonald and David Edeli

 

As battles rage in the Andean region among paramilitaries, the Colombian military, and guerilla groups such as the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), indigenous people who live at the center of the conflict find themselves fighting for their own lives. The Winter 2003 issue of Cultural Survival Quarterly is an unprecedented collection of narratives from the indigenous people who witness the consequences of the Plan Colombia anti-drug policy first-hand. They tell stories of horror in the face of militarization and crop fumigation, and of successful cultural and political resistance. The narratives are supplemented by analytical articles covering the major factors of Plan Colombia, making this issue a must-read for any decision-maker, activist, or scholar concerned about the U.S.-funded drug policy in South America.

 

EDITORIAL LINEUP
Narratives translated from interviews with indigenous leaders from throughout the Andean region:

- Armando Valbuena, president of the National Indigenous Organization of Colombia

- José Soria, president of the Organization for Indigenous Peoples of the Colombian Amazon

- Leónida Zurita Vargas, a leader of the Bolivian coca-growers movement, president of the women’s branch of the
   Federation of the Cochabamba Tropics, and president of the Six Federations of the Tropics of Cochabamba

- Maria Eugenia Choque & Carlos Mamani, directors of the Center of Aymara Studies, La Paz, Bolivia
- Carlina Urdaneta, leader of the Network of Indigenous Guayú Women and member of the Plan Colombia Working
   Group of the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Venezuela

- Edwin Vasquez, Huitoto Indian from the Peruvian border

- Sebastiao Manchineri, president of the Coordinating Body for the Indigenous Organizations of the Amazon Basin

- Additional anonymous narratives from indigenous leaders in Putumayo and Ecuador border regions.

Analytical articles:

- Voices of the Unvanquished: Indigenous Responses to Plan Colombia. By Theodore Macdonald & David Edeli

- The Battle for Putumayo. By Kyle Richardson

- Advocates or Obstacles? NGOs and Plan Colombia. By Nataly Fletcher

- Spraying Crops, Eradicating People. By Judith Walcott

- Indigenous Voices in Washington, D.C. By Betsy Marsh

- Innovative Resistance in Cauca. By Joanne Rappaport

- The Ones Who Preserve our Identity: Women, Children, and Plan Colombia. By Katrina Kosec

- Colombia’s Expanding War. By David Edeli & Kyle Richardson
Also in this issue:
- The Massachusetts Connection: Colombia Indigenous Bring Coal Mine Concerns to U.S. By Aviva Chomsky
- Mohawk Family Hopes to Reclaim Identity in Canadian Court. By Celeste Mackenzie
- Our Culture is Our Resistance. A photo essay of clandestine grave exhumations in Guatemala. By Jonathan Moller

 

For more information or advance orders contact:

Sofia Flynn, Publications
Cultural Survival
215 Prospect Street
Cambridge, MA 02139

t: (617 441-5406
f: (617) 441-5417
e-mail:
sflynn@cs.org

 

Cultural Survival Quarterly is the award-winning magazine of Cultural Survival, the international human rights organization that promotes the voices and visions of the world’s indigenous peoples. For more information, write to the address above, or see our website at www.cs.org