The longest walk reached D.C. on June 11th after five months walking across the US. Congratulations, friends.
Seth Mydans has a good piece on the inequality inherent in Cambodia’s current economic ‘progress,’ and specifically on the continuing landgrabs and dispossession that feeds this progress. Read it in its entirety, or at least skim this snippet:
In a recent report, Amnesty International estimated that 150,000 people around the country were now at risk of forcible eviction as a result of land disputes, land seizures and new development projects.
These include 4,000 families who live around a lake in the center of Phnom Penh – Boeung Kak Lake – that is the city’s main catchment for monsoon rains and is now being filled in for upscale development.
“If these communities are forced to move, it would be the most large-scale displacement of Cambodians since the times of the Khmer Rouge,” said Brittis Edman, a researcher with Amnesty International, which is based in London.
This is why I kept hearing normal, everyday Cambodians tell me over and over again, “We want a second Pol Pot; one who won’t kill us, and give us enough to eat.”
យើងចង់បានប៉ុលពតទីពីរ អត់សម្លាប់យើង ឱ្យញ៉ាំគ្រប់គ្រាន់
That statement horrifies most. Can we wrap our heads around it?
Details Are Sketchy refers to a deeply wrong, but hilarious, missionary movement in Cambodia – give World Wrestling Federation toys to kids in order to learn Christian scripture! As DAS characterizes it, Jesus loves a cage fight.
Currently in the running for the BEST DAMNED COMMERCIAL in Thailand (the Thais really know how to put together a good commercial), is this one, about how Sylvania lightbulbs have eradicated the fear of ghosts. It’s practically a 47-second-long legendarium of ‘real ghosts,’ all of which I know about in Cambodia (except for the guy flying around – who’s he?). The last one is a pet (Khmer: ប្រេត) – a hungry ghost. Soooo-weeet! via Neatorama
“Walking for the Earth”
For the last five months, several hundred Native Americans and their supporters walked coast-to-coast through 26 states, gathering on-the-ground testimonials about pressing environmental and cultural concerns.
Arriving in Washington, D.C., July 11, after walking more than 8,000 miles along two routes from San Francisco, the Longest Walk 2 coalition, representing more than 100 Native American Nations, delivered a 30-page manifesto and list of demands to Congress, which included climate change mitigation, environmental sustainability, the protection of sacred sites, and items regarding Native American sovereignty and health.
“As we walked through this land we were horrified to see the extent in which Mother Earth has been raped, ravaged and exploited,” noted the Manifesto for Change.
The trek commemorates the 1978 Longest Walk, a similar campaign that led to the defeat of 11 anti-Native American bills pending in Congress and the passage of the American Indian Religious Freedom Act.
To read the rest of this article, see http://www.indypendent.org/2008/07/18/walking-for-the-earth/
Thanks for this. I’m hopeful that indigenous rights can come to the fore again in American politics. In solidarity,
Erik