By Blood and Fire
Before dawn on the Dec. 21, 2016, dozens of police raided the headquarters of the Shuar Federation (FISCH) in the Ecuadorian Amazon and arbitrarily detained its president, Agustin Wachapá. The indigenous leader was thrown to the ground and repeatedly stamped on and ridiculed beneath the boots of police in front of his wife. The police then razed the Shuar Federation’s office—turning
The American Borderlands and the Rights of the Child
Published on Esperanza Project: On Christmas Eve, 2018, in a remote corner of the Texan desert, Esperanza Project editor Tracy Barnett interviewed activists organizing a creative resistance against the detainment of thousands of youths at the now defunct Tornillo Child Detention Center. It was deep in winter and the wind bit at the chain-link fence as she spoke with El
War, Petroleum, and Profit
This is the final installment of “The Guardians of Mother Earth,” an exclusive four-part series examining the Indigenous U’wa struggle for peace in Colombia. The vast wetland savanna called Los Llanos stretches thousands of miles into Venezuela but it begins on the U’wa’s traditional territory at the base of the foothills below the cloud forests and paramos surrounding the sacred mountain
The legacy of Berito Cobaria
Published on IC Magazine: This is the third installment of “The Guardians of Mother Earth,” an exclusive four-part series examining the Indigenous U’wa struggle for peace in Colombia. In the cloud forests on the eastern cordillera of the Colombian Andes there is no internet, and phone reception is limited to a few lookouts on the craggy cliffs above the tree line.
They say the land is dead, but it lives yet
Published on IC Magazine: This is the second installment of “The Guardians of Mother Earth,” an exclusive four-part series examining the Indigenous U’wa struggle for peace in Colombia. Nestled below the snow-capped mountains on the eastern cordillera of the Colombian Andes is the town of Güicán, known internationally to hikers as the gateway to Colombia’s magnificent Cocuy National Park. To the
The Guardians of Mother Earth
Published on IC Magazine: This is the first installment of “The Guardians of Mother Earth,” an exclusive four-part series examining the Indigenous U’wa struggle for peace in Colombia. On September 23, 2015, in the Palace of Conventions in Havana, Cuba, his excellency Juan Manuel Santos, the President of the Republic of Colombia, and Commander Timoleon Jimenez, Chief of General Staff of
Pedro Canché: the Maya journalist running circles around Mexican media
Published on IC Magazine: Five days ago, the tropical island of Holbox, off Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula, caught fire. Reports of smoke billowing over the uninhabited southern tip of the island were first shared over social media on Saturday afternoon, Sept. 17, while Pedro Canché, known across the Yucatan as "the Maya journalist", prepared to interview Carlos Joaquin, the Governor-Elect of the
Ecuador’s Indigenous Uprising
Published on IC Magazine: As Andean winds carry mild amounts of ash from the mouth of the Cotopaxi volcano toward the Ecuadorian capital city of Quito, 500 kilometers away, a State of Emergency is in full effect. The government declared the State of Emergency last week purportedly in response to Cotopaxi’s eruption. However, many indigenous protesters, currently mobilized in an ongoing