Latin American Indigenous People Fight New Plunder of Their Resources

[Judi Lynn]

By Fabiana Frayssinet

ISLA DE ASSUNÇÃO, Brazil , Mar 17 2018 (IPS) - Indigenous communities in Latin America, who have suffered the plunder of their natural resources since colonial times, are reliving that phenomenon again as mega infrastructure are jeopardising their habitat and their very survival.

On the island of Assunção in Northeast Brazil, the village of the Truká indigenous people was split in two when the flow of the São Francisco River was diverted.

“The Truká people have always been from this region. We are an ancient people in this territory. We have always lived on the riverbank fishing, hunting, planting crops. We did not need a canal,” lamented Claudia Truká, leader of the village in the municipality of Cabrobó, in the state of Pernambuco.

The transfer, officially called the São Francisco River Integration Project, seeks to capture the river’s water through 713 km of canals, aqueducts, reservoirs, tunnels and pumping systems.

More:
http://www.ipsnews.net/2018/03/latin-american-indigenous-people-fight-new-plunder-resources/