Panamanian Indigenous
University Students
Demand Rights
University students from
Panamanian indigenous
communities denounced
the privations their
regions are suffering
and demanded more access
to land and respect for
their cultural
traditions.
The demands were
contained in a
declaration issued at
the end of a meeting at
the University of Panama
to commemorate the 515th
anniversary of
Christopher Columbus's
arrival in the Americas.
The participants at the
meeting denounced "the
extermination and
expropriation policies
implemented by mining,
hydroelectric and
tourist transnational
companies, which
continue to plunder the
territories" of their
peoples.
We demand that laws
guarantee the
territorial autonomies
of the indigenous
peoples, particularly
the collective lands of
Embera Wounann, Nazo and
Bribri, whose
territories have not
been legalized.
In that regard, they
rejected the presence of
the tourist
transnational company
Damani Beach in the
region of Ngobe Bugle,
and ARDAN International
Group S.A. in Kuna Yala,
which want to take hold
of indigenous
territories.
They also rejected US
and Canadian mining and
hydroelectric
transnational companies.
The indigenous
university students
reaffirmed their
identity, culture and
spirituality over the
past 515 years of
resistance, as well as
their history, values
and languages.
The Ngobe, Bugle, Bri
Bri, Bokota Nazo, Teribe,
Kuna, Embera and Wounann
peoples do not want to
be marginalized or
assimilated, the
declaration stressed. |
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