Peaceful Societies

Over the past week, several news stories from India have focused on the consequences, and possible causes, of the earthquake that devastated the Dzongu Lepcha Reserve and nearby mountain valleys of Sikkim on September 18th.

Sikkim map One story described the damage to the historic Tholung monastery, remotely situated a long hike from the nearest road, up a rugged valley in the Dzongu. There were no casualties at Tholung—the monks and students managed to get out of the buildings in time, and they are now at the nearest village, Lingzya. But they are concerned about the ancient manuscripts that remain there.

Chewang La, the head monk of the monastery, told a reporter in Lingzya that the relics of Guru Lhatsun Chhenpo, and other treasures that are hundreds of years old, are now in considerable danger since they may be exposed to the weather. “The monastery is still inaccessible because of the numerous landslides on the way,” he said.

Yishey Doma, an expert on the Buddhism of Sikkim, said that the monastery houses the relics of Gyalwa Lhabtsun Chhenpo, a 17th century monk. It also houses some relics from Guru Padmasambhava, patron saint of Sikkim, who visited the area in the 8th century. According to Doma, “Tholung relics have great religious significance as they consist of priceless sacred texts, ancient Buddhist paintings (thanka), the personal effects of Lhabtsun Chhenpo, sacred jewels, clothes and sacred objects.”

Trekking up to the Tholung Monastery has been developing into a popular tourist activity, a “showpiece of Dzongu eco-tourism,” says Mika Lepcha, president of a local NGO that promotes tourism in the region. Tholung also runs a monastic school located at Lingzya which was severely damaged by the quake. A huge boulder crashed down the mountainside and smashed the prayer room of the school, narrowly missing three students when it crushed a large prayer wheel. The walls of the classroom were destroyed.

The October 8th issue of Tehelka Magazine, posted to the Web on September 30th, published a lengthy article analyzing the possible causes of the earthquake. Environmentalists and Lepcha activists charge that the construction work for the huge hydropower dams on the Teesta River and its tributaries have prompted the geologically unstable region into seismic activity. Government officials and corporate managers building the dams are denying the charges. Tehelka investigated the issues.

Tehelka’s journalist, Shailendra Pandey, visited the construction zone of one of the large Teesta dams, located in the mountains north of Chungthang, Lachen, and Lachung. Teesta Urja Pvt, Ltd, the consortium of firms that is building the hydropower project, has used its helicopters to fly selected journalists north to see the devastation—and the 14.6 km water diversion tunnel, part of the hydropower development. The corporation points out proudly that it was not damaged by the earthquake.

Critics of the construction work for the 1,200 MW project are blaming the tunneling and earthworks for causing the tremors. Sikkim’s Chief Minister, Pawan Chamling has dismissed any such connection as “rumors.” The company is letting public agencies use its machinery to help clean up the roads and aid in the disaster relief.

The Lepchas are not the only ones to have suffered from the effects of the quake. Outside laborers from other parts of India, workers on the dam projects, also suffered. A worker named Sandeep, part of the construction crew for the Teesta Urja project, says he saw huge rocks plunging down on the houses where he and the other workers were living. He was not injured, so he had to walk out. Only those who were injured were airlifted out by helicopter.

“Now I just want to go home to Siliguri [a city in West Bengal 37 kilometers south of Darjeeling],” he said. “I swear I will never come back.” Another worker from Lachen trekked all the way to Mangan and reported that 15 people were cremated at the site of the dam construction. Teesta Urja officials denied that any of its employees had been killed, even as others were counting up the bodies of workers before they were cremated.

The Tehelka Magazine journalist visited a similar project, a 510 MW power plant on the Teesta near Dikchu. Debris from landslides, logs, and silt have accumulated at the completed dam, threatening its stability and eroding the banks of the river. With 30 dams planned for the fast-flowing Teesta over its 112 km length, Pandey calculates, the government is planning a dam for every 3.7 km of river.

Mr. Pandey alleges that the government of Chief Minister Chamling has been as opaque as the construction company in explaining the causes of the disaster. Opposition to the Chief Minister’s party, the Sikkim Democratic Front (SDF), is weak, so the only significant challenges to the policy of filling wild valleys with dams have come from environmentalists and Lepcha activists.

When the journalist visited Lingza, the village at the end of the road in the Dzongu Reserve, SDF operatives were advising the local Lepcha not to discuss any possible objections they might have to dam construction projects with reporters. They even objected to the journalists speaking with the Lepcha.

Tengdup Lepcha, a 70-year old man, spoke with Mr. Pandey anyway. He told him that his grandson now takes care of his paddy fields and cardamom trees. He said he had never seen anything like the devastation from the earthquake, which flattened several villages within a hour’s walk from Lingza.

The Tehelka Magazine story concludes with details about the corruption of the Chamling government, the local cadres that support his schemes, and the opposition from anti-dam activists like Dawa Lepcha, who have been struggling for four years to stop the destruction with only limited success. The damages from the earthquake, added to the devastation from the dams and the entrenched corruption of government elites, threaten to blight the natural wonders of Sikkim and undercut the strengths of the Lepcha people.

Three years ago, the Kerala state government agency for tribal affair, KIRTADS, opened a renovated ethnological museum, which features displays that include various Kadar artifacts—some ornaments, household objects, photographs and one of their huts. The museum is located about 7 km from Kozhikode, also known as Calicut, a city of one million people. The museum staff hope their exhibits will help educate the people of Kerala about the minority peoples in the state.

Mani Bhooshan, Director in Charge of KIRTADS (the Kerala Institute of Research Training and Development Studies of Scheduled Castes and Tribes) told a reporter last Thursday that the agency has begun mapping tribal lands in the forests of the state in order to develop better geographical information about the traditions, cultures, and living conditions of the indigenous societies.

Last week’s news report indicated that the Kadar were one of the first of the 38 tribal peoples in Kerala to be included in the new mapping effort. The pilot project has used GIS technology, in combination with traditional knowledge, to produce, so far, maps of five tribes.

The mapping should make detailed information about the Kadar, and the other four societies, more accessible. It should also allow better access to information about the ecology of the interior forest areas of the state, particularly the flora and fauna. It also should help the vulnerable indigenous societies become more sustainable, according to the news story.

The director of KIRTADS indicates that the agency plans to submit a proposal to the state government requesting more funding so it can continue mapping the remaining tribal groups.

Though the news story last week carefully did not suggest that the mapping would help the tribal peoples gain better control over their lands, one might speculate that such a goal could be a subtext of the project.

The protests by Nubians in Aswan three weeks ago evidently produced concrete results. The Egyptian government has granted them some significant concessions, and made promises to develop resettlement villages along Lake Nasser. The decision by the Essam Sharaf government has revived the morale of the Nubian people.

Shortly after the end of the protests, which began on Sunday, September 4th, and lasted most of the week, the Prime Minister visited Aswan and met with 15 delegates representing Nubian clans, tribes, and elders. The meeting included the Governor of Aswan, Mustafa El-Sayed, a politician whom many Nubians consider to have been the major impediment to realizing their dream of returning to the banks of the Nile.

Nubians charge that he has granted concessions to non-Nubian businessmen to develop enterprises along the lake. The Nubians feel that the lands along the lake shore should be theirs, not the property of outsiders.

Sharaf announced that he was forming a new Supreme Authority for Nubian Affairs to look into the recommendations promoted by a ministerial committee which had been established to investigate the issues raised by the people. The Nubian representatives apparently were pleased by the Prime Minister’s proposals, for they expressed satisfaction with what they heard and pledged to work with him to provide a better future for their people.

Nubian activist Ibrahim Abdin told Al-Ahram Weekly, “Sharaf was understanding and sympathetic to many of our demands. Nevertheless, there were a number of differences in opinion on several key issues. But, the meeting between Sharaf and the representatives of the Nubian people was generally amicable and fruitful.”

He went on to say that the talks with Sharaf “were frank and candid.” But the Nubians are still somewhat skeptical about the intentions of the government, though it does appear as if the Prime Minister may really try to repair the harm that the Nubian community has suffered over the years.

It seems, at least to Al-Ahram Weekly, as if, finally, the government of the nation has taken seriously the demands of the Nubians that they be allowed—helped—to return to their homeland.

Sangcho Lepcha, a resident of the village of Bey in northern Sikkim, was preparing momos, a type of Nepalese dumpling, when he felt the earth quaking. “I heard something that sounded like an explosion. The house started shaking and I rushed to get my child who was sleeping in the next room. By the time I got there, the house had collapsed,” he recalled, as he spoke about the nightmare on Sunday evening, September 18th. Five members of his family, and two other people in his village, were killed.

Sikkim map Many other Lepchas, as well as others in Sikkim and surrounding areas, were killed and injured by the earthquake. It caused landslides, which cut the main north south road in Sikkim between Mangan and Chungthang. It also closed 42 other roads according to the government website on September 25th. As always when these tragedies occur in mountainous areas, initial news reports were sketchy because of the difficulty of getting access to remote villages.

The epicenter of the quake, which measured 6.9 on the Richter scale, was located near the border with Nepal in northern Sikkim, northwest of the state capital of Gangtok—in the heart of Lepcha territory. It was the most severe earthquake in Sikkim in 20 years. Tremors were felt widely in northern India, as far as the capital of Delhi, and in neighboring countries.

At first, rescue operations were hampered by rain as well as the landslides. Initial reports were that at least 26 people had been killed and that damages may amount to one lakh crore rupees (about 20 billion US dollars). Pawan Chamling, the Chief Minister of Sikkim, said at a news conference that he would be asking the national government in Delhi to assist the state in rescue and rebuilding operations.

Landslides blocked rescuers from reaching the remote villages of the Lepcha and Bhutia peoples. In one village, for instance, Tashi Lepcha and Sonam Lepcha were buried inside their Maruti 800, a Suzuki model car that is manufactured in India. In another village, many people were still buried as of Tuesday, according to local residents.

Army helicopters have been able to reach some areas and provide emergency assistance, but several regions are completely inaccessible. The Chungthang area of northern Sikkim is cut off, as is the Dzongu Lepcha Reserve. People were killed by the landslides plunging down mountains because there was no way they could avoid the falling rocks in the darkness.

The two major buildings of the Rumtek monastery, located about 24 km from Gangtok, were both heavily damaged. The Karma Shri Nalanda Institute, which is part of the monastery, has been forced to move its young monks outdoors, since the buildings are unsafe. One young monk told a reporter that even a mild earthquake would bring the buildings down on top of them.

By Thursday, authorities were estimating that it would take about three or four weeks before the road from Mangan to Chungthang could be reopened. Essential supplies will have to be airlifted into Chungthang by helicopter until then. Chungthang has an army base, so there are some stocks of essentials available in that town to help tide people over. The community is largely populated by Lepchas.

A politician from the Chungthang area, Mr. T. W. Lepcha, told a reporter that the state would be airlifting 300 quintals (30,000 kg.) of rice to help feed people until the road can be reopened. Mr. Lepcha said that many stretches of the highway had been eliminated by the earthquake, and at least 22 bodies had been recovered.

Nine Lepcha villages with at least 1,000 residents in the Dzongu Reserve remained cut off from outside rescue and relief workers. As of Thursday, the death toll had climbed to 74 in Sikkim, 15 in West Bengal state, plus nine others in India, seven in China, and one in Bhutan—117 in all.

The dead are not all Lepcha. Many are outside workers hired to construct one of the large hydropower dams being built in the Teesta river basin. The company involved with the construction project said the workers were not killed by the collapse of a tunnel, but by landslides caused by the earthquake.

Officials are quite worried about the survivors in the nine Dzongu Lepcha villages. K.S. Topgay, a spokesperson for the government of Sikkim, said that many homes were simply wiped away. Sikkim government personnel are penetrating into these villages on foot to help out, as are hundreds of members of the National Disaster Response Force.

In Bey, where Sangcho Lepcha lost five members of his family, other houses were also destroyed by falling boulders. Many people were injured. Sangcho Lepcha was knocked unconscious for a period of time but when he came to, he crawled into a nearby cave for the night. Then he and about 50 other villagers walked for seven hours to reach another village.

Another Bey villager, Aprilmit Lepcha, said of Sangcho that he is still in shock. “He does not even know that his family members have been cremated. He stays silent most of the time,” the man said.

Deodat Mukankusi told a reporter, “we fled our small village in the woods when men carrying weapons invaded it.” She and about 800 other Mbuti have been forced by the seemingly endless fighting in their original home, the Ituri Forest, to migrate to a refugee camp at Kanyaruchinya, south of Goma, in South Kivu Province of the Democratic Republic of Congo.

There they endure difficult living conditions—a complete lack of health care, no fresh water, inadequate housing, little food. They are finding it hard to survive, since they face indifference from the government, local organizations, and international NGOs. Ms. Mukankusi and her husband have seven mouths to feed, but he has not been able to find any work and she is only able to secure a little income by making clay pots to sell. She has to go 80 km to obtain the clay for her pottery work. The cost of the transportation eats into her profits.

A local administrator admits that the pygmy peoples have no experience living in mainstream Congolese society, so they are left behind. But Ndeze Paul, the administrator of Bwisha in Rutshuru territory, blames that condition partly on the Mbuti. They previously wanted to live by themselves in the forest, he says.

The Mbuti claim that they are widely discriminated against. Other Mbuti in different refugee camps in the Goma region, such as Mugungu, Hewa Bora, and Shasha, have made similar points. The story is depressingly familiar. The women complain that they are not permitted to use local hospitals, which forces them to turn to traditional medicines when they become ill or when their time comes to deliver babies.

Kahindo Motogari, another pygmy woman, told the reporter, “we also want to live like others, we are not animals, we can live together in peace if for once we’re given [the] chance.” She makes reasonable requests of their government—access to a maternity hospital and schools for their kids.

Mark Lattimer, Executive Director of Minority Rights Group International, says that most of the major NGOs are sympathetic to the problems of the Mbuti. But, he believes, they have to try and deliver services to all the peoples in the Congo—they can’t just pick and choose the individual groups they will assist. He adds that ending discrimination by the local Congolese people will not be easy.

The Congolese “are happy just to ignore the Bambuti, because they’ve had such a subservient role” in society, Mr. Lattimer says. “They very rarely will come and demand their share.” He continues that the Mbuti have a history of being attacked, of being picked on, maginalized, and discriminated against, and they have come to accept a second class social status.

The pygmies in Kanyaruchinya have formed their own organization, the Maison d’Accueil et d’Encadrement des Pygmées de Grands-Lacs, MAEPYGL, to try and help them rebuild their lives. Its mission is to gain access to the same rights as other Congolese citizens.

The governments of North and South Kivu acknowledge that they provide no assistance to the Mbuti. The Minister for North Kivu, Mutete Mundenga, admitted that the government has not given the pygmies much assistance. He did say that it had given them land because it was concerned about the discrimination they face. He is optimistic, in fact, and acknowledges that the pygmies are citizens of the country. “They have a right to life, education and to benefit from all rights according to the constitution,” he said. He plans to personally investigate at the end of the month.

Mr. Lattimer believes that the governments of South and North Kivu Provinces are keys to any progress, though the involvement of the major NGOs will also be important. But he says that a full resolution of the problem will depend on the continued concern and involvement of the pygmy peoples themselves. People become concerned, he thinks, interest flares, but then time passes and everything goes back to the way it was before.

Jean-Marie Bauma, a 40-year old man, has to support nine people who live with him in a small, shabby house. When it rains, the entire house is flooded. He has five small, school-age children who are unable to get any education because the family does not have the funds to pay school fees. The future looks bleak to him, and to the other Mbuti in the refugee camp.

Three months after some Schwartzentruber Amish lost their case in the Kentucky Court of Appeals, they were sentenced to jail—for refusing to overlook their religious beliefs and mount orange triangles on their buggies. The story about a Graves County, Kentucky, judge putting people in jail for their religious convictions made international headlines.

The issue began three years ago, when a group of Schwartzentruber Amish men in western Kentucky were convicted of a misdemeanor in a lower court. They refused to abide by regulations that required them to mount garish, bright orange, slow moving vehicle triangles on the backs of all their horse-drawn buggies when they were traveling on public roads. Other Old Order Amish are quite willing to use the safety triangles.

The ultra-conservative Amish group argued that their religious beliefs in modesty forbid them from using the bright signs, though they expressed a willingness to use other, less colorful, warning devices. The state refused to compromise. The Court of Appeals agreed with the state’s assistant attorney general, who had argued in court that it was not so much an issue of religious freedom as one of public safety.

Last week, it was finally time for the Amish to face the consequences of their beliefs. Nine men faced Judge Deborah Hawkins Crooks in her courtroom. The courtroom was packed with Amish people. All were ready to go to jail for their beliefs. The judge told Moses Yoder that he owed $158.00 in court costs and fines. “Mr. Yoder, do you intend to pay that amount?” she asked him. He quietly shook his head. Paying the fine, the nine men say, would show that they agreed with the law, which they feel violates their beliefs.

The judge sentenced him to four days in the county jail. The eight other men were similarly sentenced to between three and 10 days in jail, depending on the amounts of the fines they were refusing to pay. Their fines ranged from $148 to over $600.

Levi Zook commented that he did not think it was fair to put people in jail for adhering to their convictions. “But that’s what we’ll do if that’s what it takes to abide by the biblical laws,” he added before the hearing began. In fact, a friend of Mr. Zook’s paid his fine for him in order to help him out, because one of Zook’s children is ill with cerebral palsy. The other eight men reported to the county jail.

Judge Crooks indicated that sentencing the men was not her favorite thing to do, but she said she did not have the option of picking and choosing the cases she would hear. She expressed the hope that it was time to move forward. She said that there are 44 other cases involving the same charge on her docket at this time, and she set trial dates for a number of them. Some of those cases include the same men just sentenced to jail. The nine Amish men have appealed to the state Supreme Court, but that court has not yet decided whether it will hear the case.

Ananias Byler, an Amish man who is waiting for his own trial on the charge of not using the safety triangle, said he was more than willing to sit in jail rather than violate his beliefs. William Sharp, an attorney from the American Civil Liberties Union of Kentucky who has been defending the Amish men, expressed his disappointment at the course of justice in the state. He had been arguing that the case should be delayed, pending the outcome of the appeal to the supreme court.

When the men reported to the jail, their request that they be allowed to wear their own, traditional dark clothing was denied, but the jail had secured conservative, dark jump suits for them, so they would not have to wear the standard issue, bright orange jump suits that other prisoners are required to use.

The next day, Jacob Gingerich, a 39-year old farmer, woke up for the first time in his life in a place where he was unable to see the sunrise. He spoke to a reporter in the jail’s visitor center about the night he and the other seven men had spent on mats in a windowless common room. “I feel like I’m in a place where I don’t need to be,” he said. But he added, “we’re going to stand up for what we believe.” The men had spent the night in prayer and rest.

Dressed in his grey jumpsuit, he expressed appreciation for the jail officials who had secured the conservative colored garments. He spoke of his problems with being in jail. He has some tobacco that needs to be harvested, and while a couple of his sons can help, the rest are too young and are in school. As soon as that chore is done, he said, he needs to start harvesting some corn.

Nubian demands for the right to relocate to their historic lands on the banks of the Nile—admittedly now on the banks of Lake Nasser, south of the Aswan High Dam—took a new, and more violent turn last week. Sparked by the new spirit of protests in Egypt since the revolution early this year, some Nubians are getting increasingly strident in their demands.

On Sunday last week, protesters continued repeating demands that they have made off and on since they were relocated to Aswan and Kom Ombo when the High Dam was constructed in the early 1960s—that the resettlement communities they have lived in for nearly 50 years are inadequate. Many then wanted, and their descendants still want, to relocate to Nubian communities located above the lake. They hope to be able to recreate a life based, as their old one was, on fishing and farming. The protest last week has been the fourth since the revolution.

They were angered by a planned visit of Egyptian Prime Minister Essam Sharaf to Aswan, since he expected to hold a closed meeting with only 30 chosen representatives of the Nubian community. The protesters demanded an open meeting with him. They staged a sit in at the garden of the headquarters of the Governate of Aswan. They demanded that the Governor, Mustafa El-Sayad, be removed. They accused the governor of making false promises and insulting them. In essence, they feel he ignores their demands.

The protest turned violent. Some people entered the building and torched it. They blocked traffic outside while those inside trashed the offices of the governor. The Nubians have been requesting—demanding—a cabinet decree so they could move to new communities along the lake shore. They also want to have their own representatives in the Egyptian parliament, a request that has not yet been implemented.

Protesters continued to burn tires and prevented fire engines from reaching the governor’s office building. Several employees suffered from smoke inhalation before military police could evacuate everyone.

The news caught the attention of Egyptian bloggers, some of whom commented in English. One, named Zeinobia, indicated that she learned the protesters only torched the building after the police reacted violently to their garden sit in. She decried the media focus on the burning building, and claimed that news reports have ignored decades of government refusals to act on the Nubian demands.

She did add, however, that the Aswan Governor claims the 30 Nubian representatives were chosen by the Nubians themselves. He says that his government is committed to building eight Nubian villages on Lake Nasser. Zeinobia adds that she fully supports the Nubian demands, which she sees as completely reasonable and best for all the Egyptian people.

The protests continued the following day, as demonstrators blocked highways in the Aswan area and continued to sit in before the Governor’s office. Also, they threw rocks at the building. They maintained their protests for three days.

There is little doubt that the rioting caught the attention of the Egyptian media and public. An opinion piece written by Gamal Nkrumah, published in Al-Ahram’s weekly online magazine for September 8 – 14, makes several suggestions. The author argues that the shoreline of the lake has receded over the years, so it makes good sense for the Nubians to start moving back to lands along the river that they were forced to leave in the 1960s. Some may of course wish to stay in Aswan or Kom Ombo, but others will want to relocate. They should be encouraged and supported.

Mr. Nkrumah writes that the Nubian protests point to “a need to encourage national and local authorities to see the development of Nubia as an opportunity for reconciliation and peaceful coexistence rather than something to be warded off at all costs. Nubians demand exclusive rights to their ancestral [lands], as well they should,” he suggests. The anticipation among the Nubians is of course fueled by the spirit of change that all Egyptians now cherish.

The article in the weekly magazine quotes Haggag Oudul, a prominent author and frequent spokesperson for the Nubian cause. He told the magazine that the government of ousted President Mubarak had repeated lies about the Nubians, telling the rest of Egypt that they were only interested in separating themselves from the nation. The government said these things to alienate moderate Nubians and to incite suspicion and hatred among ordinary Egyptians, he argues.

“I am an Alexandrian, born and bred in Alexandria even though I am ethnically Nubian. Egypt is my land of birth. There is no contradiction between me being both Nubian and Alexandrian and Egyptian. I have multiple identities and they are not conflicting or contradictory,” Oudul told the magazine. The magazine interviewed numerous Nubians during the week of protests and concluded that they are not at all interested in secession. But they want better representation and more recognition of their rights.

Oudul described the way other Egyptians are moving into their communities, but the Nubians want to retain their own ancient language and customs. He said the Nubian struggle is political, but it is also economic and cultural. “We demand our civil rights and liberties, including our right to speak and be educated in our own language,” he said. “Nubians are renowned for their hospitality,” he added.

Mr. Nkrumah, the journalist, concluded that Nubians just want recognition and respect as an ancient Egyptian society, one which is directly descended from the Pharaohs. He argued it is hypocritical to bring tourists to see the ruins of pharaohs when the original Egyptians, the Nubians, are living as outcasts in poverty.

Jumanda Gakelebone, a spokesperson for the San people, indicated that they are in a joyous mood, celebrating the opening of a new borehole for the community of Mothomelo. “Our dignity and right as a people has been restored,” he said. But, he added in a more somber spirit, it is also appropriate to remember those people who have died from dehydration in recent years before this water became available.

At 2:57 PM on Friday, July 29th, an NGO called Vox United announced on its website that drilling boreholes for the G/wi and G//ana communities had been successful. They hit good water at about 72 meters (236 feet). The website says that, “the water is clean, sweet and flows at 800 to 1000 liters per hour as tested by the drilling team.” The news release on the website indicates that drilling for water will be done next for Molapo and Gope, other San communities in the Central Kalahari Game Reserve (CKGR).

After more than four years of conflict with the government of Botswana, the San peoples living in the CKGR once again have their own drinking water, at least at the one fortunate community.

This has been a positive year for the San. On January 27th, the Botswana Court of Appeals, the highest court in the nation, ruled in their favor. The court said that the government had to stop hassling the San and allow them to regain access to drinking water. The nation’s High Court had decided in late 2006 that they had to be allowed to return to their homes in the CKGR, from which the government had removed them.

The Botswana government allowed them to return, but it decided to prevent them from reopening their old boreholes or drilling new ones. They could live out on the land if they wished, but they would have to do so without water. Over four years later, they finally won their case.

In June this year, Gem Diamonds, the mining firm that is opening a diamond mine near San communities in the CKGR, announced that it would be providing the funding and the technical expertise to reopen and drill new boreholes in order to provide the water the people need. It said that Vox United would be coordinating the consultations with the San communities and the drilling operations.

The announcement on the Vox United website went unnoticed for over a month until Survival International (SI) confirmed the news at the beginning of last week. It added the detail that a solar-powered pump had been installed, but, of more interest, is the record of the reactions in the nearby San community. “Bushmen are already returning to the area and have been bathing in the water.”

The announcement on the SI website includes a wonderful photo of a San girl holding a plastic water bottle—what else?—right in a tank of brownish water, a fantastic grin on her face. Two other girls hover happily in the background.

With the announcement from SI, the world suddenly paid attention. The New York Times called it “a significant victory against the government.” The New Age, a major newspaper from South Africa, quoted Jumanda Gakelebone as saying, “you have no idea how happy we are.” Gakelebone added, according to the online news report, “it’s still unbelievable that we now have a borehole in the CKGR where we can draw water and drink without worrying where the next drop would come from as was the case before.”

Carlos Morales Peña, assistant coordinator of OIPUS, is frustrated. The leader of the Piaroa organization has been trying for three years to get the government of Venezuela’s Amazonas state to respond to its requests for the demarcation of their lands in Autana municipality. The government does not answer.

Piaroa community of Venezuela Last week he told El Nacional, a major Venezuelan daily newspaper, that he, plus other indigenous representatives, went into the state Ministry of Environment on May 22, 2008, to file the proper papers. He says that they followed the requirements as set forth in the Organic Law of Indigenous Peoples and Communities. They delivered all the proper documents to the ministry in Puerto Ayacucho, the state capital.

At the time, he was told that the agency had a lack of resources to handle the request. He felt that the petition had been denied, but he wasn’t sure. On October 10, 2010, he held a meeting with Elias Jaua, Vice President of Venezuela. He gave the vice president some additional documents to buttress his case. So far, no response.

Autana is one of seven municipalities that constitute Amazonas State. Mr. Morales told the press that the national constitution establishes the right of indigenous communities to demarcate their lands, a right that is confirmed by the International Labor Organization. He urges a definitive answer from the government, and suggests that he might request an urgent audience with President Chávez to help resolve the issue.

Stanford Zent, in a helpful article published in 2009, explains that OIPUS, or the Organizaciones Indígenas Pueblo Uwottuja del Sisapo, is a political association that tries to represent the interests of the Piaroa in the Sisapo region of the state. It, and another comparable regional association, effectively replaced an earlier all-Piaroa parliament that had tried, but failed, to represent all of the Piaroa people.

Zent indicates that the Piaroa have since formed other, macro-scale indigenous federations, plus local, community-based, associations. All of these organizations, however, complicate the ability of the Piaroa to accomplish much within the complexities of their state politics.

McCombie Annanack’s mom had written on one of her care packages that he should “thaw some and keep some frozen for later,” but after he fried the Arctic char she sent him, he did the typical Inuit thing—he shared the rest with his college friends. Annanack, from the northern Quebec village of Kangiqsualujjuaq, is one of 17 new Inuit students to arrive at John Abbot College in Ste. Anne de Bellevue, part of metropolitan Montreal, in early August. A feature article on Saturday in the Montreal Gazette tells their stories.

The students all come from small communities where they know almost everyone else in town, and they will have adjustments to make in the huge city environment. They have different backgrounds, of course, and different hopes for the future. Annanack hopes to return to the north as a lawyer after he completes his education. His goal is to protect the Inuit. But at the moment, the young man—he is only 15—especially misses the country food, and really appreciated the care package.

Louisa Etok, also a new student, is five years older than Annanack. She worked at a daycare center for a year after completing high school, while he skipped two grades in his schooling. But she is also homesick. The malady hit a couple weeks ago while she was watching movies with her friends in the John Abbot dormitory where all the Inuit students stay. She got an intense bout of homesickness and called her mother, also in Kangiqsualujjuaq. Her mother urged her to stay at school and continue her schoolwork.

The Inuit students quickly form friendships with one another. It seems to help. They walk to classes together, eat together in the dorm, hang out in the living room, and take public transportation downtown with one another. The cook in the dorm, Tina Tupper, assumes the role of unofficial den mother. She listens carefully when the youngsters talk out their concerns.

Many of the students do not last long enough at John Abbot to graduate, much less to go on to a university. (Students in the province of Quebec graduate from high school one year sooner than in the rest of Canada, and some go on for two years to a college—equivalent to a junior college elsewhere—before they are then admitted to a university.) Johnny Padlayat, 20, has returned to John Abbot to see if he can make it through. He failed the intensive preparatory course and left a couple years ago, before the college courses even began.

He went back to his hometown and worked at a deadend job as a stock clerk for a while. He admits he did a lot of drinking and got into trouble. But his drinking days are now over, he says.

Stacey Kasudluak, an 18 year old from Inukjuak, also says she misses the country food of her hometown, particularly boiled seal and caribou. She makes it clear to the reporter that she wants to get her education so she can become a doctor. But she does not want to return permanently to the Arctic. “There are too many problems up there—alcohol and drug-related. I’m not surrounded by those problems as much here. Knowing I want to stay out of the North is keeping me motivated to stay here,” she told the Gazette. But she admitted she was nervous about all the work she would have to do at the college.

Dealing with culture shock will be a significant challenge for many of the students, according to Mike O’Connor, a counselor at John Abbot. The students tell him they feel more lonely in a city of three million than they did in a village of a few hundred. They have moved from a society that is community-focused to one which is totally individualistic and competitive. It’s hard for them. Also, they are not used to the heat of southern Canada, and the crowds of people bother them.

Three quickly failed in early August during the orientations and preparatory courses, and one other left for personal reasons. English is a second language for them, and their written English is not up to the standards of the college. Out of the 160 Inuit students who have arrived at John Abbot since 2003, only 20 have graduated. But Louise Legault, coordinator at the Aboriginal Resource Centre at the college, says that the numbers do not necessarily reflect the value of the experience. Some of the students go back to their home communities after only one year and are able to get good jobs as a result.

Of the 13 new Inuit students who remain, Sammy Adams, for one, is determined to graduate. He admitted that he fell asleep in one of his classes during the first week of school last week, but fortunately he had his sun glasses on so the instructor was not aware of it. He comes from Kuujuaq, the largest community in Nunavik, the Inuit territory of northern Quebec. Kuujuaq has 2,500 residents, about half the student population of John Abbot College.

He is particularly bothered by the crowds. “I miss being in a place with less people and fewer cars,” he says. Everybody talks all the time, he complains. He’s comfortable with quiet, and not used to the constant noise of the city. But after he graduated from high school in Kuujuaq, he got a job for a construction firm. His bosses urged him to go back to college. “They told me to continue my education—or they won’t hire me back,” he said in jest.

Sapina Snowball, a recent graduate of John Abbott, is ready to start her first semester at Concordia University in Montreal. She talked with some of the new students last week, who went downtown to meet up with her. She is from the same town as Louisa Etok, and is the same age. She gave some good advice to her friend. “Home will stay there forever and you won’t be here forever. Do your work, hand it in on time and make friends with your teachers,” she suggested. Solidarity among the Inuit students seems to be a key to their adjustments.

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