Assembled at the Federal University of Acre campus in the city of Rio Branco, between July 23 rd to 25th 2014, in a tribute to the resistance of the peoples of Amazonia, the signatories of this letter manifest their most vigorous condemnation of the brutal and insane murder of Palestinian children, women and men in Gaza.
With unacceptable omission of the UN and the complicity of the United States government, the State of Israel violates the most basic principles of human rights, killing or wounding the Palestinian civilians brutally, cynically and cowardly.
International mainstream media, turning everything into show, announce Israel´s defensive war against Arab terrorist groups. By doing so, they produce a hoax in order to hide the planned genocide against the Palestinian people and explain irrational as well as unjustifiable bombardments on schools, universities, hospitals, public buildings and residential areas, indiscriminately hitting the defenseless and fragile Palestinian population.
With the same indignation we denounce the Brazilian state´s authoritarian approach, criminalizing social movements trough grotesque processes as well as attacking freedom of opinion and expression all across the country - an example of what happens with social activists in the city of Rio de Janeiro. What takes place in the larger Brazilian cities is the expansion of the same violence that has long reached indigenous peoples and rural communities throughout Amazonia, the northeast as well as other more distant locations.
Currently, we live in times of attempts that aim at silencing the voices and movements which oppose the vested interests of big capital worldwide. We live in times in which a rationality is being imposed, that devastates lives as well as transforms nature into a mere commodity - indifferent to cultures, values, knowledge and ecosystems. The totalitarian mercantilization of everything and the erasure of opposing voices are in tune with, and at service of the interests of the economic megablocs all over the planet.
Mercantilization - and its totalitarian logic - has invaded science too. The hegemonic science as "science of capital," seeks to legitimize the process of accumulation of collective resources, heritage as well as popular and traditional knowledge, the hearts and minds of entire peoples. Territories in their materialities and imaterialidades are "scientifically" cataloged and made available to accumulation, while the people living from the land, forest and water see and feel the "progress of science" cutting them off their territories, land, body and life. "Scientists" from around the world team up with capital. We need other sciences, by women and men of integrity standing in everyday struggle and resistance, to apply the kind of wisdom that makes life happen, and that makes us understand live as this simple and extraordinary experience, which capital insists to usurp and kill by applying its science of progress.
In the face of the logic of "progress that kills and destroys" we raise our voices and our knowledge in order to build a "Vivir Bien" (to live well), as proposed in the constitutions of Bolivia and Equador, a world in which "many worlds fit" as the Zapatistas from Mexico persist in reaffirming. We join the struggle for justice, democracy and freedom, the right to the whole land, in a broad international solidarity of women and men who rise up and challenge the totalitarian order. In these struggles we are all Mundurucu, Kayapó, Tenharim, Guarani-Kaiowa, Achuar, Ese eja, Jíbaro, Omagua, Madija, Mashco Piro, Matsés Marubo Huni Kui, Apurinã, Nahua, Vacacocha, Huaorani, Shuar, Mapuche, Palestinians and many other peoples and groups fighting against the destruction of their cultures, languages and territories.
Amazon border, Brazil-Bolivia-Peru, July 25, 2014.
Amyra El Khalili - Rede RECOs/ Mulheres pela Paz
Ana Patrícia Chaves Ferreira - COMIN
Abrahan Cuellar Araujo - FOBOMADE - Bolívia
Andres Bustamante - FOBOMADE - Bolívia
Barbara Silva - Militante da comunicação comunitária na Pan Amazônia
Cristiane Faustino - Rede Brasileira de Justiça Ambiental
Diego Cardona - CENSAT Agua Viva - Amigos da Terra Colômbia
Elder Andrade de Paula - NUPESDAO -UFAC
Edna Castro - UFPA
Geovane da Costa Souza - MAB-RO
Gerson Rodrigues Albuquerque - ADUFAC
João Silva Lima - ADUFAC
Jones Dari Göettert - ADUFGD
José Alves da Silva - STTR de Xapuri
José Alves - GEPEA - UFAC
keã Huni Kui - Comunidade Huni Kui Hené Bariá
Lindomar Padilha - CIMI-AO
Lucia Ortiz - Amigos da Terra Brasil
Luiz Zarref - MST
Luis Fernando Heredia - CIPCA- Bolívia
Luis F. Novoa - UNIR
Marcio Santana de Lima - MAB-RO
Maria de Jesus Morais - GEPEA -UFAC
Maximiliano Ochante Saune- UNAMAD-Peru
Michael Franz Schmidlehner - Amazonlink
Ninawa Huni Kui - FEPHAC
Pedro Casanova - As. FADEMAD-Peru
Raimundo G. C. Neto - CEPASP/MAM
Raquel Ishii - ADUFAC
Simeon Velarde - Vanguardia Amazónica - Peru
Winnie Overbeek - Movimento Mundial pelas Florestas Tropicais