How Latin America’s Indigenous groups are showing solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza

Latin America’s Indigenous communities, such as Bolivia’s, show solidarity with the people of Palestine and call on their leaders to push for the dignity and self-determination of the Palestinians. (Supplied/AP, Juan Karita)
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Updated 02 January 2024
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How Latin America’s Indigenous groups are showing solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza

  • After centuries of persecution and dispossession, Indigenous communities say they recognize the plight of Palestinians
  • In Brazil, Colombia and Mexico, Indigenous groups have joined protests and written letters to condemn Israel’s war in Gaza

SAO PAULO: Demonstrations have taken place in several of Latin America’s biggest cities against Israel’s ongoing military operation in Gaza since the war broke out in the Palestinian enclave in October.

Indigenous peoples have been among the protesters, with many of them issuing public letters in support of the Palestinian people.

In Bogota, Palestinian organizations and Colombians have staged a number of demonstrations that have included Embera Indigenous activists.

Inhabitants of the Choco region in northern Colombia and adjacent areas since time immemorial, the Embera have been displaced by the armed conflict between left-wing guerrillas, right-wing paramilitary groups and the army.

They have called on the government to ensure a safe territory for them in their region.




Aid officials say conditions in Gaza are worse and calls for unhindered aid deliveries. (AFP)

At some marches, Embera activists have walked side by side with supporters of the Palestinian cause and have carried Palestinian flags.

Other Indigenous nations have also expressed solidarity with Palestine, such as the signatories of a public letter of support to Colombian President Gustavo Petro, who since the start of the Gaza conflict has sided with the Palestinians, leading to fierce criticism from his opponents.

The letter was published in November by the Regional Indigenous Council of Cauca — known by the Spanish acronym CRIC — which gathers eight Indigenous groups in southwest Colombia.

On Dec. 4, CRIC published another letter that read: “We want to express our total and deepest solidarity to the Palestinian people, who have been suffering for 56 days a true genocide at the hands of the Zionist State of Israel.”

The letter added that Israel is using the conflict with Hamas as an excuse to kill Palestinian civilians, especially women and children, in violation of international law. It accused the UN, especially the Security Council, of ignoring the crisis.

“The struggle and resistance of the Palestinian people is the struggle of all Indigenous peoples,” the letter read.

“As Indigenous peoples, we fully identify with the suffering of the Palestinian people, because it reminds us of the genocide that we ourselves have experienced.”

Israel mounted its military campaign in Gaza after the Palestinian militant group Hamas launched an unprecedented cross-border attack on southern Israel on Oct. 7, killing some 1,200 people, most of them civilians, and kidnapping 240 others.




In Bogota, Palestinian organizations and Colombians have staged a number of demonstrations. (Supplied)

Although Israel enjoyed initial sympathy from the international community, its response in Gaza, which has resulted in more than 21,000 deaths, according to the Hamas-run health ministry, has seen public opinion swing in favor of the Palestinians.

Many critics of Israel have argued that its treatment of the Palestinian people in Gaza and the West Bank, the continued illegal occupation of Palestinian land by Jewish settlers, and the failure to create an independent Palestinian state provoked the Hamas attack.

Some have even accused Israel of using the conflict to drive the Palestinian people out of Gaza altogether so that Israelis can settle the land in their stead — a narrative all too familiar to Latin America’s Indigenous communities.

Israel itself has denied these accusations, insisting it does not intend to reoccupy the Gaza Strip and merely seeks to eliminate the threat posed to its security by Hamas and to rescue the hostages.

Jhoe Sauca Gurrute, a member of the Kokonuko people and one of CRIC’s leaders, told Arab News that many Indigenous groups have collaborated to gather donations and send them to Palestine in recent weeks.

“Israel is trying to exterminate the Palestinians. That’s not only a physical attack, but also a spiritual and cultural one. They want to erase the Palestinian identity,” he said, adding that the Colombian media portrays Palestinians as the villains.

“The far right uses the media to attack President Petro as well due to his support for Palestine.”




Organized Indigenous groups have also been taking part in protests. (Supplied)

Sauca said many Indigenous nations still struggle for their traditional territories in Colombia. “There are 115 different peoples in our country, and many of them are only now recovering their identity after decades of forced silence. The fight for Indigenous territories is continuous,” he added.

Organized Indigenous groups have also been taking part in protests against Israel’s attacks in Mexico’s capital and other cities.

Soledad Ortiz Vasquez, a municipal agent in the city of Santa Maria Yosoyua in the southern state of Oaxaca, is one of the Indigenous leaders who have been promoting the participation of such groups in pro-Palestine marches.

A member of the Mixtec people, she is a feminist leader and one of the heads of the Observatory of the Peoples’ Human Rights, an international organization founded in Mexico that monitors and denounces human rights violations of Indigenous groups.

“For Indigenous peoples, territory is something sacred. Our rivers, mountains, woods and lands are sacred,” Ortiz told Arab News.

“That’s why our struggle is the same struggle of several peoples in the world, including the Palestinians.”

She said “genocide” is being committed in Gaza, and Mexico’s Indigenous peoples repudiate the indiscriminate killing of civilians by Israel.

“For years, they’ve been limiting Palestinian lands with walls and fences. It’s like apartheid. And now the Israelis want them to go away. That’s not fair,” Ortiz added.

In Mexico, the Mixtec and many other Indigenous nations live in communal lands, but such territories have for decades suffered pressure from mining and agribusiness interests, leading several groups to organize resistance.

“For many years, past administrations have conceded licenses for gold, silver and coal mining endeavors in our territories. Some of them caused irrecoverable damage to Indigenous lands,” Ortiz said.

That is the case in Magdalena Ocotlan, a city in Oaxaca where a Canadian mining company polluted nearby rivers and groundwater, she added.




Palestinians who fled their houses due to Israeli strikes shelter in a tent in Rafah. (Reuters)

“In other regions, paramilitary groups have taken control over large areas and expelled the Indigenous villagers. We’ve always needed to struggle for our territories. We’d give our lives for them,” she said.

In Brazil, various Indigenous groups have expressed solidarity with the Palestinians, such as the Guarani Kaiowa from Mato Grosso do Sul state, who released a video in which activists salute Gazans in their original Guarani language.

“They (the Palestinians) have the same right to struggle that we, the Guarani Kaiowa, have. Long live Palestine,” they say in the video.

In Porto Alegre, capital of Rio Grande do Sul state where a large Palestinian community lives, protests against Israel have been promoted almost every week since October. Members of the Kaingang Indigenous people have been present at every march.

“The situation in Gaza became unbearable. Obviously people would react. That’s what happened,” said Odirlei Fidelis, an activist who lives in the Kaingang village of Van Ka, located in the rural area of Porto Alegre.

The identification of Brazilian Indigenous groups with the plight of the Palestinians is natural, he added.

“We face the same kind of discrimination that they face every day. We’re confined inside our territories and there are no policies to help us. Our rights and our sovereignty are violated all the time,” he said, adding that like the Palestinians, the Brazilian Indigenous peoples have to “ask the oppressor’s authorization to do anything they need.”

Even the insufficient lands granted to the Kaingang have been coveted by big landowners, who at times manage to persuade Indigenous leaders to occupy part of them, weakening the collective organization and creating divisions among the villagers.

Last week, Fidelis recalled, the Brazilian Congress annulled the vetoes that had been imposed by President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva in a bill concerning land grants for Indigenous peoples.




Indigenous nations have also expressed solidarity with Palestine. (Supplied)

The bill establishes that only the Indigenous groups that occupied their traditional territories in 1988, when the Constitution was promulgated, have the right to be granted their lands now by the government.

Lula tried to impede the bill’s approval, but the agribusiness bloc in Congress was stronger and formed the majority.

Critics of the bill say it contradicts the dispositions of the Constitution and ignores the fact that many Indigenous peoples were violently displaced from their territories, so they could not occupy their traditional lands as they wished to.

“We’ve been defeated. Although Lula defends our interests, we felt that his administration failed to fight for us as much as possible in that case,” Fidelis said.

Many Kaingang groups have been living in roadside camps, waiting for a land grant. “We’re peaceful, but we’ll keep fighting for our rights. We’re oppressed every day. We feel like Palestinians, surrounded by Israelis. We’ll resist like them,” Fidelis said.


Two Egyptian pilots killed in helicopter crash in Suez: army

Updated 2 sec ago
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Two Egyptian pilots killed in helicopter crash in Suez: army

The Egyptian air force operates aircraft from various countries

CAIRO: Two Egyptian air force officers were killed on Tuesday when a helicopter crashed during a training exercise, the military said.
The helicopter went down near a key air base in the town of Shalufa, in Suez province, “due to a technical malfunction,” military spokesman Gharib Abdel Hafez said in a post on his official Facebook page.
He did not specify the manufacturer or model of the aircraft.
The Egyptian air force operates aircraft from various countries, including France, Russia and the United States.
In November 2022, the military said a fighter jet had crashed during a military exercise but it reported no casualties.
In December 2019, an aircraft crashed during a training exercise. The pilot ejected safely.

US soldier injured during Gaza pier operation has died: military

Updated 15 min 56 sec ago
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US soldier injured during Gaza pier operation has died: military

  • “It is with great sadness that we announce the passing of Sgt. Quandarius Davon Stanley,” Captain Shkeila Milford-Glover said
  • In addition to the injuries, the project faced other problems starting in May, when the pier was damaged by bad weather and had to be removed for repairs

WASHINGTON: An American soldier has died after being injured during Washington’s problem-plagued operation to establish a temporary aid pier on the coast of Gaza, the US military said Tuesday.
The pier effort aimed to boost deliveries of desperately needed humanitarian assistance into the war-wracked Palestinian territory as Israel held up shipments by land.
But the effort ran into repeated weather issues and the United States ended it in mid-July, some two months after its installation.
“It is with great sadness that we announce the passing of Sgt. Quandarius Davon Stanley, a recently retired motor transport operator,” Captain Shkeila Milford-Glover, spokesperson for the 3rd Expeditionary Sustainment Command, said in a statement.
She did not say when Stanley died or what kind of injury he had sustained, specifying only that the soldier had been receiving treatment in a long-term care facility.
He was one of three US military personnel who suffered non-combat injuries at sea during the pier operation.
The two others suffered minor injuries, a sprained ankle and a hurt back, the military said in May.
In addition to the injuries, the project faced other problems starting in May, when the pier was damaged by bad weather and had to be removed for repairs.
It was then reattached on June 7, but was moved to Ashdod on June 14 to protect it from anticipated high seas — a situation that was repeated later in the month.
US President Joe Biden announced the pier project during his State of the Union address in March as Israel held up deliveries of assistance by land, and the Pentagon has said it helped push the Israeli government to open more aid routes.


Japanese prime minister praises Saudi Arabia’s role in addressing the Gaza crisis

Updated 31 min 34 sec ago
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Japanese prime minister praises Saudi Arabia’s role in addressing the Gaza crisis

  • PM Ishiba made the remarks during a telephone summit with Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman
  • Ishiba stated that he would like to strengthen the strategic partnership between Japan and Saudi Arabia

TOKYO: Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba hailed “Saudi Arabia’s leadership on Gaza” and expressed his determination to continue working with the Kingdom to bring stability to the Middle East.

Ishiba made the remarks during a telephone summit with Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman on Tuesday, during which he expressed his hope that Saudi Arabia would continue to play a leading role in stabilizing the global oil market.

The Foreign Ministry in Tokyo said the crown prince expressed his wish to deepen cooperation with Japan in various fields, including politics, economics, security, and potentially technology transfer and cultural exchange.

Ishiba said he would like Japan and Saudi Arabia to expand cooperation to areas including clean energy, advanced technology, and entertainment.

With 2025 marking the 70th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries, Ishiba reiterated his commitment to peace and stability in the region. He stated that he would like to strengthen the strategic partnership between Japan and Saudi Arabia and work even more closely together to promote these values. The crown prince also affirmed his commitment to these goals, stating that Saudi Arabia attaches great importance to its relations with Japan and welcomes further cooperation.

The Foreign Ministry added that both leaders shared their concerns about conflicts in the Middle East and the need for all parties involved to exercise maximum restraint. Ishiba said he appreciated Saudi Arabia’s leadership on Gaza, and the two leaders agreed to continue working closely together to achieve stability in the Middle East.


Syrian state media: Israel attacked town near Lebanon border

Updated 32 min 41 sec ago
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Syrian state media: Israel attacked town near Lebanon border

DAMASCUS: An Israeli strike hit a Syrian town near the border with Lebanon on Tuesday, Syrian state media said, less than a week after deadly strikes on the same area.
“An Israeli aggression targeted the industrial zone in Al-Qusayr” in Homs province, the official SANA news agency said. There was no immediate news of casualties or damage.

Since the beginning of the Syrian civil war in 2011, Israel has carried out hundreds of strikes in Syria mainly targeting army positions and Iran-backed fighters including from Hezbollah.
The Israeli military has intensified its strikes on Syria since it launched its war on Hezbollah in neighbouring Lebanon.
Israeli authorities rarely comment on the strikes, but have repeatedly said they will not allow arch-enemy Iran to expand its presence in Syria.


Health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza says war death toll at 43,391

Updated 05 November 2024
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Health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza says war death toll at 43,391

  • The toll includes 17 deaths in the previous 24 hours

GAZA STRIP: The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said on Tuesday that at least 43,391 people have been killed in the year-old war between Israel and Palestinian militants.
The toll includes 17 deaths in the previous 24 hours, according to the ministry, which said 102,347 people have been wounded in the Gaza Strip since the war began when Hamas militants attacked Israel on October 7, 2023.