News & Updates

June 19, 2009

Washington, D.C.—After two years of brutal government repression and destruction of their homeland, the Ngöbe Indians of western Panama won a major victory yesterday as the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights called on Panama to suspend all work on a hydroelectric dam that threatens the Ngöbe homeland. The Chan-75 Dam is being built across the Changuinola River by the government of Panama and a subsidiary of the Virginia-based energy giant AES Corporation.

June 19, 2009

After months of protests by Indigenous Peoples and weeks of violence, Peru's Congress has revoked laws that would have opened Indigenous lands in the Amazon to development. The controversial laws, passed to implement a free trade agreement with the US, were revoked by a margin of 82-12 after a five-hour debate. Hailing victory, Amazonian Indian groups said it was an "historic day". Read more

June 11, 2009

The Kenyan police actions against Samburu communities in northern Kenya that began in February resumed on June 5 and 6, after Borana and Somali raiders tried to take the few remaining cattle of a party of Samburu at a river crossing. Because the police confiscated almost all their animals in the earlier assaults, the Samburu were desperate to keep the few calves left to them, and they fought with the raiders and took their weapons. That conflict left nine people dead.

June 08, 2009

The continuing protests by Indigenous Peoples in the Peruvian Amazon (see the action alert on our home page)exploded into violence over the weekend, leaving both protestors and police dead. The government has now imposed a military-enforced curfew on the state and has arrested more than 70 Indigenous people. For more information go here.

May 27, 2009

The National Native Language Revitalization Summit that Cultural Survival co-organized this May was by almost any measure, a great success. Nearly 300 people from across Indian Country gathered for three days of eduction, advocacy, and celebration. Read more.

May 21, 2009

The UN Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms of Indigenous Peoples has issued a hard-hitting report on the hydroelectric dam being built across the Changuinola River in western Panama, which threatens the homelands of the Ngöbe people and which Cultural Survival has been working to stop since 2008.

April 29, 2009

Kenya's government has accepted an initial deal to lease land to Qatar that endangers the lifestyles of the pastoral Orma and Pokomo peoples.  Kenya may lease 40,000 hectares of land, in the biologically diverse Tana river delta, to Qatar for biofuel production.  The land, however, is owned by the locality and has been used by the Orma and Pokomo people for pasture land and fishing ground for centuries.  To read the complete article, please click here. 

April 06, 2009

On March 30, more than a hundred Panamanian police officers in riot gear leveled a Naso village in response to a peaceful protest by Naso and Ngöbe villagers who oppose hydroelectric dams that threaten their homelands. Hundreds of people were left homeless and destitute.

March 27, 2009

Cultural Survival has just received this note from a Samburu resident of Archer's Post, Kenya, who is writing about the attacks by police and military in his region (see the news story elsewhere in the Cultural Survival news section). Acute military attacks have stopped for now, but the police still have a heavy presence in the area, and the people still have no cattle and no other food source. And, as the note suggests, the police continue to abuse villagers. Here is the note from Benson Lelukai, of Archer's Post:

March 27, 2009

Cultural Survival and the National Alliance to Save Native Languages are organizing the National Native Language Revitalization Summit in Washington D.C. this May 11th-13th.