Newsletter no 19 - Territorial defence

Community struggles for the defence of their territories Landgrabbing continues unabated worldwide.
When GRAIN started investigating the issue we highlighted the fact that at the same as certain governments were invoking their commitments to resolve food security they were also attempting to take control of increasing amounts of land across the world. Very quickly various financial groups (including various pension funds) jumped to the centre of the negotiations, exposing the speculative (...)

We, the common people
It has never been as clear that peoples and communities, the common people, continue to exist – at the same time as the “dominant” systems of the world become more and more desperate to control them. We are speaking of the people who protect, save and guard their native seeds and who in the widest sense grow food for their own communities across the world. The people who live in resistance and demand with increasing strength their own autonomous governments in order to (...)

Box 1 –The Permanent People’s Tribunal in Mexico “Free trade, violence, impunity and the rights of peoples”
The Permanent People’s Tribunal (TPP from its Spanish name) was born as the Russel Tribunal, established to judge the crimes of the United States in Vietnam. In subsequently judged the dictatorships of the CONO SUR and was converted into the “permanent tribunal” where peoples could express in their own terms the aggressions they had suffered, be recognised as active subjects in the trial (...)

Resistance in Cambodia Ms Oum Sophy, one of the leaders of the Lor Peang land struggle, Cambodia.
Since 2006, residents of Lor Peang village in Kampong Tralach District, Kampong Chhnang province in Cambodia have been embroiled in a land dispute with KDC International, a powerful private company owned by Ms Chea Kheng, the wife of Mines and Energy Minister Mr Suy Sem. Since mid July 2014, the village has been occupied by military police and KDC International is building a wall around the (...)