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UPDATE: Pablo Solon comments on the current crisis in Bolivia

Several week ago, the Council of Canadians and the Blue Planet Project signed an open letter expressing concern to the Bolivian government given their plans to build the Villa Tunari-San Ignacio de Moxos highway through the Isiboro Sécure National Park and Indigenous Territory without consulting local indigenous communities.

Over the past several days, a crisis has been deepening in Bolivia. The Interior Minister Sacha Llorenti – after being heavily criticized for a police crackdown on the protest march against the highway – resigned, as has Defence Minister Cecilia Chacon. The deputy Interior Minister has also resigned, and the director of Bolivia’s migration agency Maria Rene Quiroga too.

In an open letter to Bolivian president Evo Morales, former Bolivian ambassador to the United Nations Pablo Solon writes, “One cannot speak of defending Mother Earth and at the same time promote the construction of a road that will harm Mother Earth, doesn’t respect indigenous rights and violates human rights in an ‘unforgivable’ way.”

“The Eighth Indigenous March has some incoherent and incorrect demands such as those related to hydrocarbons ant the sale of forest carbon credits that look to commodify Mother Earth (known as REDD). However, their concern for the impacts of the construction of this road is just.”

“Thousands of the delegates of five continents who participated in the first World Peoples’ Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth are deeply upset by the Bolivian government’s actions. The conflict in TIPNIS should never have happened.”

Solon concludes, “In order to stop the manipulation of the Right who wish to use this protest to return to the past, we must be even more consistent in defending human rights, indigenous peoples’ rights and the rights of Mother Earth. It’s not too late to resolve this crisis if we suspend permanently the construction of the road trough the TIPNIS, bring to justice those responsible for the repression to the indigenous march, and open up a broad and participatory national and regional debate to define a new agenda of actions in the framework of the Living Well.”

For additional background on the crisis related to the highway in Bolivia, please see http://canadians.org/blog/?p=10704.