Rainforest Warriors: Human Rights on Trial PDF
Preview Rainforest Warriors: Human Rights on Trial
Rainforest Warriors PENNSYLVANIA STUDIES IN HUMAN RIGHTS Bert B. Lockwood, Jr., Series Editor A complete list of books in the series is available from the publisher. Rainforest Warriors Human Rights on Trial Richard Price UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA PRESS PHILADELPHIA • OXFORD Copyright © Richard Price All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations used for purposes of review or scholarly citation, none of this book may be reproduced in any form by any means without written permission from the publisher. Published by University of Pennsylvania Press Philadelphia, Pennsylvania - www.upenn.edu/pennpress Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Price, Richard, – Rainforest warriors : human rights on trial / Richard Price. p. cm. — (Pennsylvania studies in human rights) Includes bibliographical references. ISBN ---- (hardcover : acid-free paper) . Saramacca (Surinamese people)—Civil rights. . Saramacca (Surinamese people)—Legal status, laws, etc. . Human rights—Suriname. I. Title. F.SP .—dc Contents Preface vii Africans Discover America Land, Spirits, Power Earth, Water, Sky The Dam at Afobaka Rockets at Kourou Sovereignty and Territory The Aloeboetoe Incursion The Moiwana Massacre Trees Resistance Redux Initial Protests The Depredations Continue Judgment Day Pre-Hearing Pleadings The Hearing The Judgment American Dreams Developments on the Ground Broader Implications vi Contents Postface Notes References Cited Illustration Credits Acknowledgments Preface Th is book is about a people, their threatened rainforest, and their success- ful attempt to harness international human rights legislation in their fi ght to protect their way of life. It is part of a larger story that is unfolding all over the globe. It is meant to put on record a signal example, in the hope that it may help those engaged in similar battles elsewhere. It is also intended to help readers appreciate some of the oft en-hidden forces, and possibilities, shaping today’s world. A news article outlines the situation in Latin America: In Ecuador, the Shuar are blocking highways to defend their hunting grounds. In Chile, the Mapuche are occupying ranches to pressure for land, schools and clinics. In Bolivia, a new constitution gives the country’s indigenous peoples the right to self-rule. . . . Th e threats to Indian land have grown in recent years. With shrinking global oil reserves and growing demands for minerals and timber, oil and min- ing concerns are joining loggers in encroaching on traditional Indian lands. Th e Indian “revolt,” continues the writer, is “rippling up and down the Andes.” But that revolt—the insistence on long-ignored human rights—is also ongoing among non-Indians facing similar threats. Saramaka Maroons, the descendants of self-liberated African slaves who live in the rainforest of the Republic of Suriname, have been leading their own campaign for many years. In , when the Inter-American Court of Human Rights delivered a landmark judgment in their favor, their eff orts were thrust into the international spotlight. Two leaders of their struggle, Saramaka Headcaptain Wazen Eduards and Saramaka law student Hugo Jabini, were awarded the Goldman Environmental Prize (oft en referred to as the environmental Nobel Prize), under the banner of “A New Precedent viii Preface for Indigenous and Tribal Peoples.” Th ey were cited for “having guaranteed territorial rights not just for the Saramaka, but for all of the Maroons and indigenous people. . . . In addition, because the case was settled by the bind- ing Inter-American Court, Eduards and Jabini changed international juris- prudence so that free, prior and informed consent will be required for major development projects throughout the Americas. Th ey saved not only their communities’ , square kilometers of forest, but strengthened the pos- sibility of saving countless more.” Suriname has the highest proportion of rainforest within its national ter- ritory, and the most forest per person, of any country in the world. Th is book tells the story of the Saramakas’ battle to retain control of their own piece of that forest. Africans Discover America
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