SECOND CONTINENTAL SUMMIT OF INDIGENOUS PUEBLOS AND NATIONS OF ABYA YALA (THE AMERICAS)

Declaration of Kito

From the heart of the world, in the place of the upright sun, following the First Summit of Teotihuacan, on the 25th day of the month of July 2004, the indigenous pueblos and nationalities of Abya Yala self-convened and reunited in the Second Continental Summit, organized by the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (Confederación de las Nacionalidades Indígenas del Ecuador -- CONAIE), Organization of Quichua Nationalities of Ecuador (Organización de las Nacionalidades Quichuas del Ecuador -- ECUARUNARI) and the Coordinator of Indigenous Organizations of the Amazonian Watershed (Coordinadora de las Organizaciones Indígenas de la Cuenca Amazónica -- COICA), with the participation of delegates from 64 indigenous pueblos and nationalities, express our words.

We are original pueblos of Abya Yala (the Americas). Our ancestors and grandparents taught us to love and venerate our fertile Mother Earth, to live in harmony and liberty with the natural and spiritual beings which exist in her. The political, economical, social and cultural institutions which we have are the heritage of our ancestors and are the basis for our future.

The valleys and steppes, the jungles and deserts, the snow-capped peaks, the oceans and rivers, the eagle and condor, the quetzal and hummingbird, the puma and jaguar, have been testaments to our collective sociopolitical systems based in human and environmental sustainability.

We were dispossessed from our original territories by colonizers and nation-states; divided to guarantee political control and pushed into inhospitable areas. The territories which we inhabit today are characterized by the conservation of biodiversity and the existence of natural resources which are being coveted by multinational corporations, for which we are newly suffering eviction.

National governments following the lines of the IMF, World Bank, and IADB, are devastating us with the payment of the external debt and are reversing our collective right to the earth, modifying legislation to permit the privatization thereof, and allowing association with companies and individual appropriation.

We denounce the national governments of the Americas who are employing ever more violent repression characterized by the violation of our human rights and our rights as pueblos; the criminalizing of our acts of defense of life and our spiritual ceremonies; paramilitarization; evictions from our lands and military occupations; the co-optation and corruption of local authorities and leaders; the promotion of projects which attempt to "compensate" the harm which transnational corporations are committing; the supposed profit-sharing; forced migration; and promoting the division and armed confrontation between communities in order to impose their exclusive, racist, and oppressive policies.

We oppose emphatically the establishment of plans such as the Regional South American Infrastructure Integration (Integración de Infraestructura Regional Sudamericana -- IIRSA); the Plan Puebla Panamá (PPP); the Plan Patriota; Plan Colombia; Plan Dignidad, Plan Andino, the creation of military bases; as well as the establishment of the FTAA and other Free Trade Agreements, which are propelled under the mark of the World Trade Organization and for the extractive countries of the world; the only thing they intend is the creation of infrastructure for the circulation of their merchandise, the extraction of natural resources of our lands and territories, and protection of the transnationals. We characterize this as plans of invasion for plundering, destruction, and death.

We reject plans for territorial legislation, prospecting and exploitation of minerals and hydrocarbons, establishment of Natural Protected Areas and tree farms; payment for environmental services, privatization of water and air, fumigations, establishment of patents for natural and cultural resources, and the use of transgenic seeds which is taking place in our territories, as these things are oriented only towards guaranteeing the reproduction of grand transnational capital, to the detriment of our lives.

We denounce that the national states of the Americas are characterized by the violation of national and international juridical instruments to the detriment of the collective rights of pueblos, like the Convention 169 of the OIT, of which we demand the immediate ratification for all the countries of the Americas and the rest of the world.

We remand the Organization of American States, for their lack of initiative to modify the American Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous "Populations" in conjunction with the participation and decision of the indigenous pueblos.

We remand the system of united nations for not having stood up for the indigenous populations for a decade; they still have not realized the action necessary for approve the universal declaration of the rights of indigenous pueblos.

Against this situation of eviction which characterizes the existence of our pueblos:

We resolve

To create a permanent space of linkage and interchange, where experiences and proposals converge, so that our pueblos and nationalities may confront together the policies of neoliberal globalization.

To outline a common agenda of actions and mobilizations which manifest our rejection of this model of exclusivity, and of united and concerted action to which we agree to participate against such organisms.

To establish alliances with other sectors of society, especially social movements, which permit us to confront the policies which oppress us.

To demand the unconditional liberty of indigenous leaders and authorities unjustly detained for the defense of their lands and the exercising of autonomy; and, the reparation -- such as indemnity to the families -- for moral damage caused to indigenous pueblos and nationalities by the assassinations perpetrated against their inhabitants.

To demand from the national states the inconditional repatriation of genetic and cultural resources which have been extracted legally or illegally from our lands and territories; the restitution of dispossessed territories; the free transit of indigenous peoples in their territories when compromised by national boundaries, and indemnity to the pueblos affected by the impacts of such evictions, such as the restitution of the initial areas of their lands and territories; the unrestricted respect of the territories of our indigenous pueblos and nationalities, especially those who have not yet been contacted or who live in voluntary isolation.

We demand that governments resolve all the conflicts caused by the exploitation of natural resources and the lack of guaranteed life and land when state and transnational policies are executed, as is the case with Sarayaku, Raposa Sierra del Sol, Plan Colombia, Río Pilcomayo, Montes Azules, Camisea, the case of gas in Bolivia and Margarita, and Ashánica.

To participate in International Forums such as the World Social Forum and the Social Forum of the Americas with common proposals which reflect the position of the indigenous movement.

To be in solidarity with the CONAIE against the grave attack brought against them by the ecuadorian government of Colonel Gutiérrez which tries to undermine their struggle for the construction of a plurinational state.

To be in solidarity with the pueblo of Venezuela and president Hugo Chávez, which have been characterized by the defense of their national sovereignty, against the grave attack launched against them by the United States; additionally we make a call to action against the referendum set for the 15th of August of 2004.

To be in solidarity with the Cuban pueblo for their permanent anti-imperial struggle.

Above all we affirm:

That the territories we inhabit are ours for good, by history and inalienable right, unprescribable and without embargo.

That we possess our own models which guarantee the reproduction of our pueblos and nationalities in harmony with nature, having as their base our ancestral cultural inheritance.

That we do not need legal recognition to create autonomous spaces which permit us to exercise free determination for our pueblos and nationalities.