Donne senza confini

FORGOTTEN POPULATIONS

The history of the humanity has always been marked by bloody struggles among invaders and invaded. Whole cultures and etnie have disappeared, Atzechi, Incas, Maya, cancelled by the hate and by the yearning of wealth of the Spaniards.
To distance of hundreds of years the events keep on being repeated with the difference that the people that risk the extinction and the usurpation of their earths, are able now at least to count on the global information and on the support of the international solidari

Today the native of Guatemala have voice thanks to the struggle completed by the Nobel for the Peace Rigoberta Menchù that she has entered to belong to the new government of Berger. Thanks to this nomination, Rigoberta has started a process of historical justice, verifying the responsibilities of crimes against her people she is made spokesman of their problems and territorial claims.
Tibet that also struggle for its own cultural claim trying to withstand the Chinese colonization, they can count on an important international solidarity that will probably help Tibet to find a solution.
But what happens to that people that cannot count on an international resonance for their problems? I made this question to myself a few months when on the Italian newspapers the name of the "Mapuches" has appeared, autochtonous population that occupied (before the spanish invasion) the territories among Argentina and Chile. Suddenly their problems have jumped on the Italian newspapers following the controversies been born with the Italian entrepreneur Luciano Benetton owner of the Company de Tierras Argentinas. The problem has risen when Benetton has won the cause against the couple of country mapuche Rosa Nahuelquir and Atilio Curinauo that they vindicated the ownership on the 385 hectares of earth purchased by the entrepreneur trevigiano. The mapuche family has been sent away with the strength and accusation the family Benetton to have used the local police against them and to have destroyed their house, the cultivations and provoked the death of the animals.

(mapuche's women)
We have to say that the family Benetton purchasing in 1991 the Company de Tierras Argentinas, they have also purchased the problems of it.
The Company was born in 1881 when the two bloodthirsty Argentinian generals Roca and Uriburu exterminated big part of the mapuches and sold those earths to a british company. After 100 years Benetton has regularly purchased those earths for the breeding of the essential sheep for the wool production. The Mapuches have always lived those earths and don't have titles of ownership. The Nobel Prize for the Peace argentinian Adolfo Perez Esquivel is made mediator on the delicate matter. Benetton has responded to the accusations with a letter sent to the italian daily paper La Repubblica where he declares to feel himself with clean conscience. "I have purchased the earths according to the Argentinian laws and I have created wealth and jobs in a poor territory". Should not be the local population to establish if a foreign investor take advantages to the local economy? The Mapuches want their earths.
Esquivel has told to Benetton "not always what is legal it is correct and not always waht is correct it is legal."
The Italian entrepreneur has not ignored the message and after all he could not. The "responsibility of enterprise" has always been his strong point, the group is hocked not to exploit the juvenile manpower in Turkey, to regularly pay and fairly its own workers in foreign countries. Benetton advertising made by Oliviero Toscani have always wanted to transmit the respect of the ethnic differences, the integration, the equality. For this reason on wednesday 29 th december 2004 in Rome, with mayor Walter Veltroni's presence, of Adolfo Perez Esquivel, of Gianni Minà, a meeting is developed between the representative mapuches and Luciano Benetton. He said prepared to surrender the 385 hectares vindicated by the family pact mapuche that the ground is found to the borders of its ownership and not to the inside. It can seem iniquitous that Benetton pay the injustices completed by the argentinians in the past and in fact the President Kirchner said prepared to also find a solution for the other vindicated earths. The Argentinian government cannot refuse to develop a role in the delicate situation. The argentinian generals divided the earths of the mapuches and Benetton is paying the bill. The same problems are found in Brazil with farmers Sem Terra movement. The Brazilian general in more recent times have divided the enormous Brazilian latifundia sending away the country population that has returned now to vindicate their earths and the government of Lula has already declared an agrarian reform before the end of the legislature.
Probably also the matter Mapuche will have an happy ending thanks to the international mobilization but many other people that fight for the survival exist and that they can count only on no government organizations as Survial to have at least a legal support.
The tribes of Papua island are living a destiny similar to that Tibetan with the difference that nobody speaks of them. In 1977 was launched "Operation Annihilation", military aggression, bombardments, rapes against the tribal villages. Today the government Indonesian aim to "indonesizzare" the tribal people favoring the mixed marriages.
In Paraguay the Ayoreos lived, last Indians of the south america. Recent are the news of the few remained Ayoreos, in escape in the forest because the bulldozers of the international companies are cutting trees in their territories. Here are the words of Parojnai Picanera, Ayoreo, "we thought that the bulldozers could see us and that they saw our gardens, we have been forced to leave our houses and to run, run.. ".
Identical problems have to face the Arara in Brazil. The deforestation of the Amazonian forest and the construction of the Transamazzonica, have cancelled their territories. Being a nomadic population and hunters, they don't have earths anymore where to hunt and now their only salvation is that the government recognizes at least a protected area.
The Boscimanis in Botswana have been deported by their government that it had taken accords with the multinational De Beer to sell that territories rich in diamonds. Now 50 boscimanis are opposed to the forced deportation and they keep on living in the reserve of the Kalahari Centrale but in dramatic situations, forced to suffer oppressions of the government officers.
The same is happened for the Ogoni on the delta of the Niger in Nigeria. The Shell was interested to the enormous layers of oil and in accord with the government they have made to deport the population. The struggle has been violent, the leaders of the Ogoni as well as writer and political man, Ken Saro Wiwa has been killed in 1995. The event caused more than few problems to the Shell. I asked explanations on the ethical behavior of the Shell in the delta in the Niger. In a week I directly received a deriving packet from the Shell in Nigeria where the multinational exposed me that the initial contrasts with the local population were by now old. Now the Shell had built schools, hospitals, childcare facility and servant job for the Ogoni. They had attached me graphic and statistics that showed how much childish mortality was decreased thanks to the Shell and the investments that had completed in the region. Extinguished the lights on that part of world today we returns to speak of Ogoni introduced by Amnesty International on the occasion of the anniversary of the death of Ken Be Wiwa. In 2003 they are recorded over 1000 victims. Amnesty is worried for the fact that the civil rights and political, as those economic, social and cultural are violated and ignored is from the government that from the working multinationals in the Country. Yet do they exist of the normative ones of the U.N. on the responsibility of the enterprises transnazionali respect to the human rights but who worries to make to respect those normative? As I have confirmed more times I believe that the only weapon both that to invest in the formation of the managers of the tomorrow, that they could have an ethical conscience to transmit inside the firms. To such intention the development in the last years of courses of "ethical finance" in the Universities should be a good beginning for a different future where the human rights are put in the foreground.
I don't want to conclude this article with negative news because happy ending histories exists. In Australia the aboriginal Martus have gotten for law the ownership on 136.000 km2s of ancestral earth.
It deals with the most important recognition of "native title" enacted thin to today. Many Australian aborigines lived in government fields. They have been transferred in the strength beginning from the years '50. Out of their habitat and with the intent to be saved themselves from the desperation and from the alcohol that it reigns in these installations, in the years '80 the Martus have started to return in the desert vindicating their earths. Thanks also to Survival today they finally have what they required.
The hope and the future of the populations forgotten on this planet it also depends from us, it is important not to extinguish the reflectors on these angles of world.
For the one who wants to have more information on the population forgotten of the world, you can consult the web site of Survival www.survival.it.

Federico Bastiani