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 […]
Journalism by Jacob Lyng
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The American Borderlands and the Rights of the Child
// jaco // Esperanza Project Tags: Detebtion Camps, International Law, Tornillo, U.S.-Mexico Border No Responses
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 […]
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War, Petroleum, and Profit
// jaco // IC Magazine Tags: Amazon Watch, Mining, Petroleum, U'wa No Responses
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 […]
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The legacy of Berito Cobaria
// jaco // IC Magazine No Responses
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 […]
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They say the land is dead, but it lives yet
// jaco // IC Magazine Tags: Colombia, Rivers, Venezuela, Water Protectors No Responses
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 […]
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The Guardians of Mother Earth
// jaco // IC Magazine Tags: Colombia, FARC, U'wa, U'waa No Responses
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 […]
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Pedro Canché: the Maya journalist running circles around Mexican media
// jaco // IC Magazine No Responses
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 […]
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Ecuador’s Indigenous Uprising
// jaco // IC Magazine Tags: Ecuador No Responses
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 […]
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A Massacre, An Oil Multinational and Chief Ompore’s Last Smile
// jaco // Chekhov's Kalashnikov Tags: Amazon, Oil, Waorani No Responses
Chief Ompore couldn’t stop smiling as he watched photos of Amazonian animals get projected across the Town Hall wall of Yarentaro – a remote village in Ecuador’s Yasuní National Park inside what oil companies call “Block 16.” It was the 14th of December 2012 and the Spanish oil giant RepSol that administers the petroleum block […]
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A Hidden Tragedy Translated: The Censored Book That Broke Ecuador’s Heart
// jaco // Chekhov's Kalashnikov Tags: Ecuador, Oil, Waorani No Responses
Published on Chekhov’s Kalashnikov: “At the end of march this year, 2013, in the jungles of Ecuador’s northern orient, a great massacre of uncontacted indigenous was committed.” opens the book A Hidden Tragedy. “Accomplished in a way that was abusive and cruel. Those eliminated, above all, where women and children.” Seventeen minutes before the book […]
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How Colombian Farmers Sparked a Movement that Brought the Government to its Knees
// jaco // Chekhov's Kalashnikov No Responses
Published on Chekhovs Kalashnikov: Its not every Sunday that the priest of a rural Colombian city called Tunja begins his sermon with a story of an illiterate Indian girl who grew up in the shadow of the British Empire. The 8th of September was not a normal Sunday. For the three weeks previous farmers from […]
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Vilma Vargas Uncensored: the Caricaturist drawing circles around Ecuador´s attacks on freedom of expression
// jaco // Chekhov's Kalashnikov No Responses
Published on Chekhov’s Kalashnikov: What happens to a democracy when its journalists and artists are too afraid to criticise those in power and express themselves freely? This is one of the questions we ask Vilma Vargas – a rising talent in the Ecuadorian art scene who was twice selected for the “World Press Cartoon” in […]
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Luis Xavier Solis on the 55,140 refugees in Ecuador less famous than Julian Assange
// jaco // Chekhov's Kalashnikov No Responses
Today on Chekhov’s Kalashnikov we are going to talk with Luis Xavier Solis Tenesaca who works for the Comittee of Human Rights of Orellana in the Ecuadorian Amazon. This organization which works closely with UNHCR is in charge of protecting and defending some of the worlds most vulnerable and forgotten people – refugees that have […]