6-1 Poisons and Peripheral People: Industrial Hazards

EDITOR'S NOTE - 6.1

With the publication of this issue, the Cultural Survival Newsletter will become the Cultural Survival Quarterly. The name change reflects the expansion of the format as well as our attempt to provide more in-depth analysis about situations critical to the survival of specific tribal societies or ethnic minorities throughout the world. CS depends on our readers to provide us with articles,…

Poisons and Peripheral People - Part III: Industrial and Mining Hazards in the Third World

During the last decade, the adoption of adequate - in some cases, quite minimal - pollution control laws and occupational health standards in the US has spurred the wholesale exodus of many hazardous industries abroad. Productions processes that are illegal in the US are not wanted here, but the products are. Thus while industrial plants and raw materials must be shipped abroad, often production…

The Possibilities of Uniting Indians and the Left for Social Change in Nicaragua

I agree with the need to support the Nicaraguan people against U.S. imperialism and against colonialism generally. I agree with the need to stand in solidarity with revolutionary process. The Sandinistas are trying, according to their definitions, to act in a principled fashion as regards the problems on the Atlantic Coast. The Sandinistas have admitted that they have made mistakes in the past in…

The AMAX - Molybdenum Tailings Controversy

The Kitsault molybdenum deposit, in northwest British Columbia, is located at the head of Alice Arm, a fjord that leads into the mouth of the Nass River. This river in turn feeds into the Portland Canal Fjord which flows into the Pacific. The Nishga Indians are dependent upon the Nass watershed and these coastal fjords for their livelihood. The Climax Molybdenum Corporation of BC, Ltd. (a…

THE AKAWAIO

The status of the Upper Mazaruni Hydro-electric project is still unknown. If completed, this project could lead to the relocation of some 4000 Indians in Guyana's Rupinuni region. There are four reasons why the project is in question. The World Bank has commissioned an independent study of the hydro-electric potential of various sites in Guyana. The findings from this report will be available by…

Reserves for the Nambiquara

In the Fall of 1981, FUNAI (Brazil's National Indian Foundation), in an official resolution [portaria], proposed the establishment of three Indian reserves in the Guaporé Valley. These reserves - of 29,580; 243,000; and 68,000 hectares - were to be set aside for nine local groups of Nambiquara Indians. On 22 January 1982 Coronel Paulo Moreira Leal announced that the internal recommendations to…

Haitian Immigration Update

Alcius spends his days in a special wing of the Federal Correctional Institute in Lexington, Kentucky, isolated from the rest of the prison population. He passes his time sitting, watching from the windows of a room that is as small and barren as his life has become. His crime? Alcius is a Haitian refugee - one of 200 held at the Lexington facility. Deprived of any opportunity to use their skills…

El Salvador's Indians

In late January 1932 Jose Feliciano Ame, the cacique or local Nahuatl leader of Izalco, was publicly hanged in a small plaza opposite the Church of the Assumption. Salvadoran soldiers then rounded up hundreds of other Izalco citizens. Those identified as "Indians," either by their dress or their physical features, were bound together, marched behind the church, and shot. Similar executions…

Diamonds are Forever - but Aboriginal Land Rights?

On 7 November 1979, Jimmy Smith, the manager of the Dunham River Lease (an Aboriginal-owned and controlled cattle station), along with Kim Akerman, the anthropologist for the Kimberley Land Council (KLC), and Peter Bindon from the Human Studies section of the Western Australia (W.A.) Museum flew over the Glen Hill region near Lake Argyle to investigate some newly-built roads there. It was thought…

Nahual-Pipil: "Muy Político"

The idea that a language may have political significance is not new. Some scholars define a language as a dialect with an army. When cultural survival is in question the importance of language has long been recognized. Britain, in trying to control Ireland, outlawed the use of Gaelic. In the Western hemisphere, indigenous languages generally have not been threatened so directly. Although…

Language Policy and Oppression in South Africa

South Africa is a multi-lingual society that has some unique linguistic problems because of its policy of apartheid. On one level, there are tensions between its two official language groups, Afrikaans and English. On another level, there are linguistic tensions between the ethnic Europeans and the black majority, mostly in regard to language instruction in schools. This issue was the spark that…