FIRE Covers 2nd Intercontinental Indigenous Summit & Social Forum of the Americas

Press Release #1

FIRE will cover two major events in Quito, Ecuador, designed to bring together multiple political and social movements, including the 2nd InterContinental Indigenous Summit of the Americas, and the Social Forum of the Americas.  Both events scheduled for late July, 2004, are expected to attract several thousand indigenous and other political activists, academics, NGO representatives and others from civil society to debate and design strategies on numerous themes related to globalization, free trade, diversity, violence and militarization, among others.  FIRE will focus its coverage in particular on women's and feminist perspectives on all issues discussed at these events.

Second InterContinental Indigenous Summit of the Americas

The 2nd Intercontinental Indigenous Summit of the Americas will take place July 21-25, will focus in particular on issues related to neoliberalism and free trade, including the imperialist strategies of the United States via Plan Colombia and free trade agreements including FTAA (Free Trade Agreement of the Americas).    The event is also designed to provide a forum for global and national resistance of indigenous peoples to design alternative proposals to the dominant economic globalization model.

  • Land, territories and natural resources
  • Autonomy and free determination
  • Diversity and pluri-culturalism
  • Indigenous knowledge and intellectual property
  • Indigenous rights and multilateral organizations
  • Nationalities and indigenous peoples, social movements and the World Social Forum
  • Gender and indigenous women's participation
  • Political participation and government alternatives
  • Militarization

Social Forum of the Americas

The Social Forum of the Americas is a regional event that is part of the World Social Forum process, and is designed to bring together numerous social and political movements of the Western Hemisphere to debate issues, and to design strategies, campaigns and action plans related to numerous themes.  The event is one of several regional events that follow the World Social Forums, which have taken place the past four years in Puerto Alegre, Brazil, and Mumbai, India.  It will also include a youth camp, numerous mobilizations and marches, and cultural activities and exhibitions.

The five themes of the SFA include:

  • The economic order:  The economic order, including free trade issues, human and environmental impoverishment and corruption;
  • The violent face of neoliberalism: The violent face of the neoliberal project, including imperial hegemony, militarism, strategic control over biodiversity, and sexist violence;
  • Power, democracy and the State:  building democracy, sovereignty and human rights in the current global power context and dynamics;
  • Cultures and communication:  resistance, memory, constructing identities; democratizing communication;
  • Indigenous peoples and African descendents:  territories, autonomy, diversity and multiculturalism; knowledge and intellectual property;

Gender is a transversal theme that will cut across the entire event, along with diversity.   

The site of Quito, Ecuador for the first Social Forum of the Americas was chosen deliberately as a symbolic recognition of the fact that Ecuador has a strong and vibrant indigenous peoples' movement, which grew out of centuries of resistance to oppression, and is one of the most organized movements of the continent.  The SFA is being organized by the Ecudaorian Chapter of the World Social Forum (WSF), and incorporates different sectors of the social movement, including indigenous peoples, campesinos, women, union workers, youth, LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered), environmentalists, human rights workers, churches, communications, and educational centers, among others. 

 

 

For more information on the World Social Forum, go to their website at: http://www.forumsocialmundial.org.br/home.asp

For questions or comments write to Radio Internacional Feminista/Feminist International Radio at: oficina@ radiofeminista.net.

 

 

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