Members of Grassroots International's partner La Via Campesina -- an international network of peasants, indigenous peoples, fishers, pastoralists, women, and youth -- gathered in late June in Jakarta, Indonesia to defend their right to exist, and called for a UN Convention on the Rights of Peasants. (Below, see their final declaration)

Under intense threat from the expansion of agro-fuels in South America and Indonesia, militarization in Colombia and South Korea, and increasing food prices, rural families are voicing a predicament that affects all communities.

Our partners in Guatemala have told us: the current food crisis will continue unless we guarantee the land, water and seeds rights of communities necessary to grow food. The same message is being echoed in Brazil, Mexico and many neighborhoods in the U.S.

In two separate statements, Guatemala's National Peasant and Indigenous Coordination (CONIC) and Brazil's Small Producers Movement (MPA) put forth food sovereignty as a solution to the crisis: the right of communities to produce food for local markets and for consumers to have access to local healthy foods. Both organizations denounce the expansion of industrial agriculture and growing control of agribusinesses for contributing to the hunger of urban and rural communities.

As the heads of states meet with the Secretary General in Rome this week to discuss world food security in the light of climate change and bioenergy, Palestinians are experiencing a different dimension of the food crisis. Food is of the most basic of all human rights, and in much of the Palestinian context, is being systematically denied to civilians.

Our partners in the West Bank and Gaza recently released a call to action, which we have reproduced here. We have also posted a copy of the open letter to the conference organizers referenced below.

Maude Barlow – world-renowned water activist and author of Blue Gold – was recently awarded the Citation of Lifetime Achievement by the Canadian Environment Awards. Grassroots International was honored to have her as our keynote speaker for our 20th anniversary celebration, at which time we awarded her a global activist prize.

I'd like to take a minute to congratulate Maude, and to encourage you to read about her achievements over the past two decades. Thank you Maude for your inspiring leadership in the water justice movement and for struggling tirelessly (and joyfully) for water for all!

Food Riots and a Fast

I have had the privilege of accompanying some of the largest and most dynamic social movements in Latin America over the course of my work at Grassroots International. In early 2001, we struggled with how to share the news of the agrarian reform and land rights struggles of our partners in Brazil and other Latin American and Caribbean countries in ways that would resonate with folks here in the United States. What we came up with back then was to connect land rights with food rights.

More recently the right to food has been the daily bread of the news media as the sharp increase in food prices have resulted in food riots in Africa, Asia and Latin America. In the US, the working poor are suffering hunger in silent resignation.

The other night I went to listen to Sandy Tolan read from his book The Lemon Tree. Grassroots International’s friend Hilda Silverman, a long time activist for Palestinian rights who sadly passed away recently, had invited Sandy to Cambridge.

The Lemon Tree: An Arab, A Jew and the Heart of the Middle East is an agonizingly beautiful, sad and yet even hopeful story of two people and two peoples, two nations and one land. Listening again, as I have before, to the stories of partition, independence, refugees and war, I was overcome with emotion and my thoughts wandered as they have often during such times to my own India-Pakistan. And I had to remind myself that this was Palestine-Israel.

No protected person may be punished for an offence he or she has not personally committed. Collective penalties and likewise all measures of intimidation or of terrorism are prohibited.

                                                                     -  Fourth Geneva Convention, article 33

Nonviolence.  Opportunity.  Innovation.  In the wake of the recent escalating violence and food insecurity in Gaza, our grassroots partners have redoubled their quest for social change and sustainability in one of the most troubled places in the world.  We are humbled by their laudable tenacity in the face of massive obstacles.

President Bush's FY2009 budget request to Congress includes $2.55 billion in military aid to Israel, a 9% increase from 2007. This increase is the first installment of a ten-year plan to increase military aid to Israel by 25%, totaling $30 billion over the next decade.

Call the Senate Appropriations Committee today, April 9, at 202-224-7363 and let them know that you oppose this budget request. It violates the U.S. Arms Export Control and Foreign Assistance Acts. Click here to act now.

From Jacmel on the tropical blue Caribbean coast we drove up into the southern mountains to Cap Rouge. The main road had been washed away by floods and the route we took was a deeply potholed mix of dirt and gravel making for a very bumpy ride. We were in a rented SUV but saw scores of mopeds (mini motorcycles) carrying anywhere from 3 to 5 people along with their goods navigating the steep climb up the mountains with far more dexterity and speed than us.

We have documented several cases of land conflicts in Brazil, a country of considerable territorial dimensions. Land conflicts are not the only contradiction in the largest South American economy. Brazil is also facing a growing problem of water conflicts, despite the fact that Brazil holds 8% of the world’s freshwater reserves.

Free translation from the Landless Workers Movement (MST’s) website