The 8th Mesoamerican Forum Of The Peoples

Friday, April 8th – Sunday, April 10th, 2011
Minatitlán, Veracruz, México

For the compañeros and compañeras in the struggle for a world free of domination, and for those who have been assassinated by the repressive state forces and oligarchies of our lands.

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That capitalism and its prevailing neoliberal model in the Mesoamerican region has imposed free trade agreements with the United States, Commercial Partnership Agreements with Europe, and that these predatory politics of imperialist countries have only brought more misery to our people.

That for ten years, transnational corporations with the complicity of the region’s oligarchies have launched a major offensive to appropriate and privatize our natural (biodiversity, arable land, water, forests) and strategic resources (minerals, various energy/fuel sources) of our rural communities, metropolitan populations, and the garífuna and indigenous peoples through Plan Puebla Panamá – now called the Mesoamerican Integration Project – as a strategy to undermine what little sovereignty the people have, with the collaboration of their rulers.

Therefore, the organizational and political advancement of our peoples has become an urgent necessity given the repressive politics of regional and U.S. oligarchs. We must better prepare ourselves to confront the criminalization of popular movements and the militarization of our lands.

The history of Mesoamerica can be characterized by the plunder, injustice and violence that has weighed on our original peoples since the European invasion more than 500 years ago and has repeated itself up until the Honduran military coup in 2009. Since that time, this history, which is ours, has been marked by the struggle of the peoples. Today, we continue struggling against the capitalist projects of death put forward by the great imperialist powers.

Therefore:

The 8th Mesoamerican Forum will occur in the midst of this serious crisis of the dominant system, with its escalating tide of repression and violence against our peoples from Panama to Mexico. The evidence is palpable: assassinations, torture, disappearances, intimidation and violations of human rights.

With ten years of articulating popular resistance through the Mesoamerican Forum, our principal objective will be to reorganize ourselves with better organizational processes in order to confront capitalist and patriarchal domination, with political actions that contribute to a social transformation in favor of those who are poor and from below.

The peoples of Mesoamerica have not remained silent in the face of this invasion. Since 2001, in the city of Tapachula, Mexico, we convened and carried out the first Mesoamerican forum, using as a name the Forum for information, analysis and proposals of Mesoamerican Social and Civil organizations. To date there have been seven Mesoamerican forums in Mexico, Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador, Costa Rica and two in Nicaragua.

Now more than ever we are obligated to link all of our efforts in the struggle for the construction of political, social and economic alternatives. This means a plan of action that allows us to jointly confront neoliberal capitalism.

We will have work groups around the following themes:

– The crisis of global capitalism and the opportunities to dispute its hegemony and social transformation:

• Financial, ecological and climate, and systemic crises.
• Free trade in the context of the crises.
• Alternatives and the responses from social movements
• Immigration amidst global disorder

– The struggle for the defense of food and energy sovereignty, in defense of the land, communal property and popular alternatives:

• Food and energy sovereignty
• Mining and the destruction of the environment
• Indigenous and peasant community resistance in response to the construction of dams
• Community (rural and city) defense of water
• Biofuels
• Community struggles against monocultures
• Indigenous and peasant communities’ proposals for self-sustaining food production

– Patriarchal violence and domination:

• Violence against women, youth, children and gender-based discrimination
• The situation of Mesoamerican youth
• Self-sustaining women’s projects (rural and city)
• Legal abortion
• Sexual diversity
• Secular states
• Coexistence of various spiritualities in thought and action

– The militarization and criminalization of social protest:

• Militarization (Fourth Fleet, Southern Command, bases)
• Anti-terrorist legislation
• Drug-trafficking and violence against the peoples
• Litigation against protests and social movements

For more information, write us at the following email:

foromesoamericano@gmail.com
and
http://foromesoamericano.codigosur.net

We also invite you to participate with your products, videos, publications, and crafts at the Mesoamerican Fair (Tianguis). As well, there will be a:

Note – Participants are reminded to bring a sheet or thin blanket, personal hygiene articles, toilet paper and light clothing (we expect a temperature of around 35 degrees Celsius). Food will be provided by the organizers (bring a plate, cup, and spoon). There are no funds for transportation and everyone must cover their own travel expenses. Dormitories will be provided with the solidarity of the organizing communities or unions, but bring linens, sleeping bags, cardboard boxes or sleeping mats.