The One Thing Pope Francis Could Say That Would Truly Stun Congress

by Jon Schwarz
The Intercept

There are many things Pope Francis could say in his Thursday address to Congress that would make them uncomfortable. Rep. Paul Gosar, a Republican Catholic from Arizona, has already announced that he’s refusing to attend because the Pope may urge action on global warming. The Pope could also strongly criticize capitalism, as he did in great detail in his 2013 apostolic exhortation The Joy of the Gospel.

But the Pope’s critique of the world has an even more radical component, one that’s gotten little notice in the United States -- maybe because it’s so radical that many Americans, members of Congress in particular, might not even understand what he’s saying.

And what Francis is saying is that capitalism and our growing environmental disasters are rooted in an even older, larger problem: centuries of European colonialism. Moreover, he suggests this colonialism has never really ended, but merely changed forms -- and much of U.S. foreign policy that’s purportedly about terrorism, or drugs, or corruption, or “free trade,” is actually colonialism in disguise.

That’s a perspective that no one in Congress -- from Ted Cruz to Bernie Sanders or anyone in between -- is going to get behind.

The Pope’s most extensive denunciation of colonialism is probably his speech last June at the World Meeting of Popular Movements (an event nurtured by the Vatican at the Pope’s initiative) in Santa Cruz, Bolivia. It’s genuinely startling. Read this and try to imagine what would happen if it were spoken at the U.S. Capitol:

The Earth, entire peoples and individual persons are being brutally punished. And behind all this pain, death and destruction there is the stench of what Basil of Caesarea called “the dung of the devil.” … Once capital becomes an idol and guides people’s decisions, once greed for money presides over the entire socioeconomic system, it ruins society, it condemns and enslaves men and women …

Let us always have at heart the Virgin Mary, a humble girl from small people lost on the fringes of a great empire. … Mary is a sign of hope for peoples suffering the birth pangs of justice. …

[W]e see the rise of new forms of colonialism which seriously prejudice the possibility of peace and justice. … The new colonialism takes on different faces. At times it appears as the anonymous influence of mammon: corporations, loan agencies, certain “free trade” treaties, and the imposition of measures of “austerity” which always tighten the belt of workers and the poor. …  At other times, under the noble guise of battling corruption, the narcotics trade and terrorism -- grave evils of our time which call for coordinated international action -- we see states being saddled with measures which have little to do with the resolution of these problems and which not infrequently worsen matters.

Moreover, the location of the event and the Pope’s speech was certainly not random. Bolivia today is an international symbol of both the evils of European colonialism and resistance to it, with history running from the founding of La Paz in 1548 to right now.

For instance, while it’s almost completely unknown in Europe and the U.S., an estimated eight million indigenous Bolivians and enslaved Africans died mining silver for Spain from the Bolivian mountain Cerro Rico -- or as it’s known in Bolivia, “The Mountain That Eats Men.” Potosi, the city that grew up around Cerro Rico, is now extraordinarily polluted, and the mountain is still being mined, often by children. On the conquerors’ side of the ledger, Potosi was the source of tens of thousands of tons of silver, leading to the Spanish phrase vale un potosi -- i.e., worth a fortune. (Some also believe the U.S. dollar sign originated from the design of coins minted there.)

More recently, in a faint echo of Potosi, the International Monetary Fund tried to force the Bolivian city of Cochabamba to lease its water system to a consortium of international investors. Enormous, successful protests helped make then-Congressman Evo Morales famous -enough so that he went on to become Bolivia’s first-ever indigenous president.

Morales kicked out the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency in 2008, and now the U.S. has secretly indicted several Bolivian officials connected to his administration -- under, as the Pope might put it, “the noble guise of battling the narcotics trade.” The U.S. also appears to have been behind the forcing down of Morales’ presidential plane as it flew across Europe from Moscow, because the U.S. believed Morales might have had Edward Snowden onboard.

This history is why the Pope could tell Bolivians, “I do not need to go on describing the evil effects of this subtle dictatorship: you are well aware of them.”

And whether white people are ready to hear it or not, Bolivia’s experience is the norm across the planet, not the exception. It’s why President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner of Argentina said what happened to Morales’ plane was “the vestiges of a colonialism that we thought was completely overcome.” Or why most of the world sees the Israel-Palestine conflict as not about democracy vs. terrorism, but about colonialism. Or why it sees the Trans-Pacific Partership as not about free trade vs. protectionism, but about colonialism. Or why it saw the invasion of Iraq as not about weapons of mass destruction, but colonialism.

Based on the current presidential race, I’d estimate that the U.S. political system will have the maturity and grace to hear this in maybe 300 years. And if the Pope brings any of this up at the Capitol, it’s safe to say he’s not going to be invited back.

Decline of a tribe: and then there were five

by Guy Adams

The Independent

The last surviving members of an ancient Amazonian tribe are a tragic testament to greed and genocide

They are the last survivors: all that's left of a once-vibrant civilisation which created its own religion and language, and gave special names to everything from the creatures of the rainforest to the stars of the night sky.

Just five people represent the entire remaining population of the Akuntsu, an ancient Amazonian tribe which a generation ago boasted several hundred members, but has been destroyed by a tragic mixture of hostility and neglect.

The indigenous community, which spent thousands of years in uncontacted seclusion, recently took an unwelcome step closer to extinction, with the death of its sixth last member, an elderly woman called Ururú.

Considered the matriarch of the Akuntsu, and shown in these pictures (which were taken in 2006, and are the most recent images of the tribe), Ururú died of old age, in a hut built from straw and leaves, on 1 October. News of her death emerged last week, when the tribe was visited by human rights campaigners, who have spent the past decade campaigning to preserve their homeland from deforestation.

"I followed the funeral," says Altair Algayer, a local representative of Funai, the Brazilian government agency which protects Indian territories. "She died in a small house. We heard weeping and rushed over, but she had already died." Ururú's death means the entire population of the Akuntsu now consists of just three women and two men. All of them are either close family relations, or no longer of child-bearing age – meaning that the tribe's eventual disappearance is now inevitable.

The slow death of this indigenous community is far more than an unfortunate accident, however. Instead, it represents the long-planned realisation of one of the most successful acts of genocide in human history. And the fate of the Akuntsu is seen by lobby groups as an object lesson in the physical and cultural dangers faced by undiscovered tribes at so-called "first contact".

Much of the Akuntsus' story is – for obvious reasons – undocumented. For millennia, they lived in obscurity, deep in the rainforest of Rondonia state, a remote region of western Brazil near the Bolivian border. They hunted wild pig, agoutis and tapir, and had small gardens in their villages, where they would grow manioc (or cassava) and corn.

Then, in the 1980s, their death warrant was effectively signed: farmers and loggers were invited to begin exploring the region, cutting roads deep into the forest, and turning the once verdant wilderness into lucrative soya fields and cattle ranches.

Fiercely industrious, the new migrant workers knew that one thing might prevent them from creating profitable homesteads from the rainforest: the discovery of uncontacted tribes, whose land is protected from development under the Brazilian constitution.

As a result, frontiersmen who first came across the Akuntsu in the mid-1980s made a simple calculation. The only way to prevent the government finding out about this indigenous community was to wipe them off the map.

At some point, believed to be around 1990, scores of Akuntsu were massacred at a site roughly five hours' drive from the town of Vilhena. Only seven members of the tribe escaped, retreating deeper into the wilderness to survive.

Those seven were not formally "contacted" until 1995, when Funai investigators finally made it to the region and were able to have a 26,000-hectare area of forest protected for them. They included the late Ururú, who was the sister of the tribe's chief and shaman, Konibú.

"We know little of what Ururú's life was like," says Mr Algayer, who was among the Funai team that first discovered the tribe. "In the 14 years that we have been with her, she was a happy, spontaneous person ... She recounts that she had four children who were all shot dead during the massacre. We don't know who her husband was or how he died."

One other member of the group of seven, known as Babakyhp, was killed in a freak accident in 2000, when a tree blew over in a storm and landed on her hut. The others, who still survive, are Pugapía, Konibú's wife, who is roughly 50 years old, their daughters, Nãnoi and Enotéi, who are around 35 and 25 respectively, and a cousin, Pupak, who is in her forties.

Evidence of their suffering is visible in bullet wounds which both Konibú and Pupak showed to cameramen making a documentary about their struggle – Corumbiara: they shoot Indians, don't they? – that was filmed over the last 20 years and has just been released in Brazil.

It is also evident in a simple fact: on its own, the Akuntsu gene pool cannot allow it to survive another generation. Since tribal custom will apparently not allow outsiders to marry in, it is therefore effectively doomed.

The Akuntsu story is not unique. Even if they escape persecution, communities that have never encountered the outside world often face tragedy. Typically they lose between 50 and 80 per cent of their population in a matter of months, since they have no immunity to common diseases.

Ancient ways of life are also frequently corrupted by the arrival of outsiders. Though indigenous tribes rarely have much interest in material possessions, and often don't understand the concept of money, their traditional clothes and rituals are vulnerable to change.

Campaigners now hope the fate of the tribe, which will be publicly highlighted by Ururú's death, will persuade the Brazilian people to further strengthen government protections for indigenous people.

Stephen Corry of Survival International, a human rights organisation that has been working with Funai, said: "The "Akuntsu are at the end of the road. In a few decades this once vibrant and self-sufficient people will cease to exist and the world will have lost yet another piece of our astonishing human diversity.

"Their genocide is a terrible reminder that in the 21st century there are still uncontacted tribes in several continents who face annihilation as their lands are invaded, plundered and stolen. Yet this situation can be reversed if governments uphold their land rights in accordance with international law.

"Public opinion is crucial – the more people speak up for tribal rights, the greater the chance that tribes like the Akuntsu will in future survive."

Indians and imperialism: why Bolivia and Peru’s war of words is turning nasty

by Andrew McLeod

from The Sunday Herald

Growing confidence of the tribes is spreading across South America

THE EXPLOSIVE confrontation between Peruvian President Alan García and the nation's native population, over plans by the government to open up tribal areas in the Amazon for oil exploration, has spilled over the country's borders. Accusations are flying that both Bolivia and Venezuela are fomenting unrest among Peru's indigenous peoples.

"Agitators and political leaders from Peru's rivals", García said, were trying to disrupt the country's free-trade agreement with the USA. García 's foreign minister even branded Bolivian president Evo Morales "an enemy of Peru".

The war of words between Peru and its regional rivals comes against a backdrop of violence inside the country.

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Clashes between police and indigenous demonstrators left at least 34 dead in Bagua on the main highway to the Peruvian Amazon from the capital, Lima. The escalation in violence is symptomatic of attempts by indigenous tribes across South America to redress what they see as 500 years of colonial subjugation and exploitation.

The ferocity of Indian resistance forced the congress to scrap the oil exploration laws and brought about the resignation of the prime minister, Yehude Simon. The interior minister, Mercedes Cabanillas, was also under pressure to step down over her handling of the crisis.

It is no secret that Morales, Bolivia's first indigenous president and an ally of Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez - himself half Indian - opposes any government that enjoys good relations with the US. Last year Morales accused Peru of allowing the Americans to set up a military base on its territory. The US said around 100 US soldiers were in Peru to do "humanitarian" work and there were no plans for a base.

Earlier this month Morales called on a congress of South America's Indians to move from "resistance to rebellion, from rebellion to revolution". Hailing Peru's about-turn over oil exploration and rejecting criticism that he was interfering in Peruvian affairs in a "messianic" drive to oust García from office, Morales said he did not see himself as a thorn in the side of his neighbours, but felt he had to speak out against economic and development policies "wherever they are destroying the environment, planet Earth, and as a result, humanity - this is not a private matter".

Peru has Latin America's fastest-growing economy but the crisis has threatened García's attempt to attract more foreign investment to a country rich in natural resources but where most people live in abject poverty.

Under special powers granted by congress, García last year issued decrees to implement a free-trade agreement with the US which the tribes feared would hand their ancestral homelands over to foreign oil and mining companies. Environmental and human rights campaigners claim the amount of Peruvian Amazon territory open to oil exploration would have risen from 13% to 70% had the oil laws been implemented.

While admitting he should have consulted more closely with Indian leaders, the president says the laws aimed to protect the tribes by shifting the region away from illegal logging and mining, coca-growing, and drug-trafficking.

Indian leaders are suspicious, citing last year's corruption scandal over the allocation of oil contracts that led to the resignation of García's entire cabinet. For centuries, international borders drawn up in post colonial times have meant little to the indigenous populations.

There was fresh evidence of this in the accusation by Peru's foreign minister, José Antonio García Belaunde, that Bolivian Indians had crossed into Peru in support of the Peruvian protesters.Unlike in the past, when indigenous movements were led by white urban intellectuals, the leaders of the protests are indigenous themselves.

They are also better organised. When one leader was granted asylum in Nicaragua, others quickly took his place.

The Indians have an ally in leftwing Peruvian nationalist politician Ollanta Humala, a retired military officer and losing candidate in the 2006 elections won by García in a run-off. A veteran of the 1990s war against the Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path) terrorists, he has embraced Chávez's "Bolivarian" vision of a united Latin America and is at odds with García in believing that regional integration must take precedence over agreements with the US.

García , in turn, has dubbed Humala a Chávez "pawn".

Andrew McLeod is a writer and analyst on Latin American affairs