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Forced evictions in Guatemala: whose land is it anyway?

Gavin Simpson · 18:10 · Guatemala , Canada

Land ownership and occupation are complex and highly contentious issues in many parts of Latin America, and the tropical, resource-rich plains of northeastern Guatemala are no exception. On the one hand, legal title to land is generally brokered in formal processes between governments and private buyers. On the other hand, indigenous peoples who have lived in an area for several generations see themselves as having a traditional or ancestral entitlement to remain there. The following video, released by the pressure group Rights Action, shows how a Canadian mining company recently called in state prosecutors and armed law enforcement officers to move indigenous peoples off land it had bought from the Guatemalan government:

The villagers being forcibly removed here are indigenous Mayan Q’eqchi’ peoples, who claim this territory near Lake Izabal as part of their ancestral lands. They want to carry out arable farming, as their forefathers had done peacefully on these plantations until the 1960s. The indigenous perspective on mining is generally negative, fearing harm to the environment and destruction of the local culture and communities.

However, beneath these same lands lie rich seams of nickel, a metal whose scarcity on the world market has this week caused its value to reach a record high…

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Syrian Blogsphere: Free Kareem echoes, Expats living in Syria and Certifying your Documents

Yazan Badran · 13:56 · Middle East & North Africa

Earlier this week, the Syrian Blogsphere responded collectively to the sentencing of Egyptian blogger Kareem Nabeel Sulaiman, with a joint statement, started on Levantine Dreamhouse…

We, as a community of Syrian bloggers, condemn the arrest and sentencing of Egyptian blogger Abdel Kareem Nabil Soliman for the peaceful expression of his dissenting views. We ask the Egyptian government to reconsider its decision to arrest and prosecute Abdel Kareem. The stated reasons for their action include the preservation of the public peace and state security, and the prevention of incitement against Islam. We contend that his arrest will achieve neither. Silencing such dissenting voices as Abdel Kareem’s, serves only to strengthen the hands of extremists who will not shy away from violence to achieve their goals. Moreover, we remind the Egyptian government that his arrest and prosecution violates at least two articles of the 1948 United Nations universal declaration of human rights to which Egypt was a signatory.

The statement was republished on many other Syrian blogs, and will stay on the main page of Syria Planet -Syrian Bloggers Portal- for a week.
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Uganda: The Last King of Scotland, Cessation of Hostilities Agreement Expires, and It is a Sin to Buy a Yellow Humvee

Joshua Goldstein · 13:33 · Sub-Saharan Africa

On Sunday Evening at the Kodak Theatre on Hollywood Boulevard in Los Angeles, an emotionally shaken Forrest Whitaker accepted an Academy Award for Best Actor for his role in The Last King of Scotland, a film set in the frightful times of the Ugandan despot Idi Amin.

In February, the grand opening of the film took place in Kampala. The New York Times sent an outside correspondent to cover the event, and wrote in a front page article calling Uganda “one of the safest and most stable countries in Africa.” This week, the Times published this response from Patty in Nairobi:

In “A Film Star in Kampala, Conjuring Amin’s Ghost” (front page, Feb. 18), you note that Uganda is now “one of the safest and most stable countries in Africa.” That may be true in southern Uganda, but it is a very different reality for the Acholi people in the marginalized north. In Uganda, only half the population lives in a part of the country where it’s secure enough to film a Hollywood picture. We should not forget the other half.

In Kampala, Moses Odokonyero, a journalist at the independent Uganda Daily Monitor and blogger at sub-Saharan African Roundtable, describes a first hand encounter with Amin's machinery of torture, as told by an Anglican Archbishop who was condemned for speaking out against the regime. Odokonyero then goes on to draw parallels between the Amin regime and the Museveni's behavior in suppressing Kizza Besigye, his main opponent in the last presidential election:

Museveni, like Amin, shot his way to power after a five-year guerilla struggle that he and his supporters call a revolution. One of his favorite topics, besides the media, is past leaders whom he baptized “swines” several years ago. But how different is he from the “swines?” Uganda has greatly changed since the Amin days: people don’t disappear as often and crudely from the streets, and there has been an improvement in press freedom and freedom of speech which is commendable. But stories of illegal detentions, people being tortured in the most gruesome of ways, including allegedly tying stones on their testicles, are still heard of, only this time they take place in “safe houses.”

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Violence Returns to East Timor

Preetam Rai · 11:35 · East Asia

lingua → fr · zht · zhs

Violence broke out yet again in East Timor as international security forces tried to capture rebel leader Alfredo Reinado. Reinado, the former leader of military police was implicated in the violence last May and was detained but managed to escape from prison in August with some of his followers. The fighting took place in mountainous region (to the south of East Timorese capital Dili) that the rebels were using as a base. Dili was also rocked by violence when supporters of the rebel leader clashed with the international peacekeepers in Dili last night.

Tumbleweed in Asia, a long time East Timor resident currently out of the country writes about the latest round of violence in East Timor.

to watch Timor slide back once again into chaos has been like observing a piece of bean curd slide slowly down a slanted plate, inching downwards, slowed only by its wetness, and then suddenly last night, that piece of curd gained momentum and hit the bottom with impact, shattering into million pieces of useless fluffy curd.

Dili-gence, a Dili resident writes about his experience

At about 3:45am, I woke … extremely tired … then heard the unmistakable sound of gunshots. I heard about 5 to 10 over the next half hour, then it went quiet until the choppers fired up.

This morning, there was active trade of information by phone as a lot of expats heard gunfire and it certainly put the wind up the locals. The phone wires were probably running hot as many expats were trying to work out what was happening.

Rumors and uncertainty have fueled violence in the past. Tumbleweed is concerned about her contacts in East Timor
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Brazil: Rolling Stone and the Marketing Hackers

Jose Murilo · 00:01 · Americas

One of the more dynamic segments in the Brazilian blogosphere is that of the marketing blogs. Stirred by a local advertising industry that regularly tops the most prestigious creative awards, and by the promise of interesting job posts at the big agencies, many young talented internauts are exploring blogging tools as a way to participate in the lively conversation focused on the content of marketing and advertisement campaigns. This particular setting was shaken last week by what at first seemed to be just another saucy new campaign fueling the debate, but later turned into a ‘cease and desist' charge from Rolling Stone magazine over the use of its logo by some Brazilian blogs displaying pieces of what was supposed to be the magazine's new marketing campaign. The case has puzzled local bloggers as Rolling Stone has recently launched a Portuguese edition of the worldly famous magazine in Brazil, and an apparently unreasoned attack on blogs would surely not be a proper approach to promote the brand locally. But some rough edges in the message delivered by the ‘coexist‘ campaign, developed by the Brazilian agency DM9DBB and recently published [leaked?] by many blogs in different countries, can be the cause of the overreaction displayed by the magazine headquarters.

Me admira uma revista que se diz tão antenada, jovem, rebelde, moderna e blábláblá, resolva ameaçar um blog por “uso não autorizado de seu logo”. Até porque, eu não fiz uso nenhum. Quem fez foram outros. Não quero fazer o velho discurso de “internet: uma terra sem lei”, todos sabemos que não é bem assim. Mas será que o pessoal da Wenner Media acredita mesmo que será capaz de controlar e proibir a propagação de informações? Bem, vão nessa pessoal, desejo boa sorte, porque vocês terão um trabalho árduo pela frente. Eu, como não tenho cacife para enfrentar esses tiranossauros, irei tarjar o logo deles no post: Rolling Stone | Coexist. (ainda estou pensando se irei mesmo) Abaixo, um trecho do e-mail que recebi da Rolling Stone agora pouco. Logo agora, que estava pensando em assinar a versão nacional da revista. Fica pra próxima.
I am writing to advise you that the use of our logo in these images is unauthorized. The logo is a registered trademark of Rolling Stone LLC of which the unauthorized use of our logo appears in these images.
Rolling Stone ameaça blogs - Brainstorm#9

I am admired by the fact that such a tuned in, youthful, rebellious, modern and blabla magazine decides to threat a blog for the ‘non-authorized use of their logo'. In fact I have made no use at all. Others did it. I don't want to get back to the old line of the ‘Internet as a lawless land', as we all know that this is not the way things are. But do these guys at Werner Media really believe they will succeed in controlling and prohibiting the dissemination of information on the web? Well, go ahead folks, I wish good luck as you've got a hard task ahead. As I don't have the backbone to face those tyrannosaurs, I will cover their logo in the post: Rolling Stone | Coexist. (I am still thinking if I will really do it). Below, a piece of the e-mail I received from Rolling Stone a few moments ago. Funny that it all happened right when I was starting to think about subscribing the magazine's Portuguese edition. I will pass it for now.
“I am writing to advise you that the use of our logo in these images is unauthorized. The logo is a registered trademark of Rolling Stone LLC of which the unauthorized use of our logo appears in these images”.
Rolling Stone ameaça blogs - Brainstorm#9

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