Under the name of development

Dear Friends,
Below is a brief account IN ENGLISH of the plight
being suffered by the Naso Tjerdi Aboriginal
People's of Panama.
The NASO Indigenous peoples have always lived
along the Teribe River and San San River near the
Border of Panama and Costa Rica on the Atlantic
Caribbean Side in the Province of Bocas del Toro.

My deepest gratitude to Leila Shelton, for taking the
time to write in English and express so well the
suffering and helplessness to which Panamanian
National Police and the Landowners of Ganadera
Bocas S.A. are submitting the Naso Peoples abusing
their Ancestral Rights and Aboriginal International
Rights to which they are entitled.
Please read the account below, re-send to everyone
you know, and please help.... the lack of press
coverage has been deafening....

Thank you,

Carmencita Tedman MacIntyre
CODETIAGUAS Coordinator for the Defense of
Lands and Waters
(Coordinadora Para La Defensa de Tierras y Aguas)
Asociation Pro Defense of Hydrographic Basins
(Asociacion Pro Defensa de Las Cuencas
　Hidrograficas)
e-mail: macintyre@cwpanama.net


BY LEILA SHELTON-LOUHI:

There is a tragedy unfolding in the Republic of
Panama.
Copied below is an account written after listening
to eyewitness accounts which deeply impacted
those who heard them.

Help things change by bringing this unconscionable
21st century horror to the attention of others.

Unconditional disapproval from all corners of our
planet can make the difference.


By What Rights? Abuses In Panama.
(HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSES AGAINST DE NASO
　TJERDI ABORIGINAL PEOPLES OF PANAMA)




BY: Leila Shelton-Louhi, 24 April 2009

Stranded in the wilderness, the sounds of bulldozers
continuing, wiping out vegetation & trees that might
provide some measure of refuge and relief, evidence
of their existence being obliterated.

Another native mesoamerican homeland succumbs,
human beings dispossessed and left to their own
devices with the clothing on their backs and nothing
more.
No mercy, no compassion, no chance to run to the
fields to dig up the yucca and ñame, roots they’ve
planted to sustain them, no chance to cut down the
bunches of plantains or bananas, no chance.
Only terror as the government troops descend on
them, launching teargas. Many succumb in pain and
agony from its effects, especially the children.
None are allowed to escape.

Men,women and children, the elderly, cruelly forced
to watch as their homes with all their possessions,
their community center, their church and every other
structure is crushed by the machines.
They are forced to watch as holes are dug in the
ground, into which the debris is shoveled and covered
up, wiping out all traces of their existence and of this
crime, as the process of yet another human
holocaust evolves and repeats itself, moving through
the mountains, village by village.

This is not a story of another time and place.
This is Panama today… April 24th, 2009.
This is how the legal system works today for the
poorest of the poor in the mountains.
This is how land disputes and “inconveniences” to
“development” are handled for those who lived here
before Columbus showed his face around these
parts.
This is how it goes for the little guy when his
ancestral homeland becomes a “valuable resource”
in the sell-off underway of Panama’s land and natural
resources and just about anything, tied down or not.


This is the part no one wants to see and everyone
hopes to excuse with platitudes about “land rights”
and “investment opportunities”, and shrugs of
resignation.

This blatant violation of human rights cannot be
swept away no matter which government gave
what land to whom when and with which right
concocted to do that.

These matters need settling in courts.

The bulldozers were still at work, burying, hacking
at the newly-created modern wilderness – ensuring
that not a tree remained in it under which to take
refuge – when an international group of attendees
of the 5th Mesoamerican REDLAR Conference held in
Boquete, Panama arrived to investigate reports of
yet another attack on natives of the beleaguered
Nasso tribe.
(An account of that visit is on
www.ChiriquiNatural.com along with other
information and a translator.)
This is not the first community decimated;
it is the latest.
The hostile reception these visitors received from
the perpetrators was as palpable as the sorrow
and misery of their bewildered victims, deprived of
all tranquility and their ancient way of life.
(http://www.almanaqueazul.org/naso-desalojos/)

First we drive those whose ancestors were here
before ours into reservations, then we talk about
how wonderful it is to have “our natives” commune
with and preserve nature and all the ancient
knowledge mankind has been losing, then suddenly
they’ve served their purpose, provided their photo
ops, and it’s time to make a quick buck.

This is outrageous.
Attitudes of those thinking they are doing the
world a favor by banishing people from their
homeland, eradicating their “pagan” civilizations for
blocking “progress”, cannot be tolerated.
We cannot, by our inaction, support the effort to
sweep this “inconvenience” away.
Or, will we simply watch and wait?
...since, after all… they are “only indians”.

== From a Reader ==

My visit to your blog has left me feeling
impoverished.
Your description of the disposed in Panama is
most distressing.
Yet another example of man's inhumanity to man.
There are far too many.