The rights of Indigenous people and Haiti’s food riots
Thursday’s episode of Democracy Now is something everyone should watch. There were two very important issues covered:
The first was about the United states’ role in Haiti’s food riots:
“As people around the world continue to protest the soaring prices of basic food items, the World Food Program has described the crisis as a silent tsunami. The head of the Food and Agriculture Organization blamed the current global food crisis on “inappropriate” policy decisions over the past two decades. Nowhere is this more clear than in Haiti, where hungry people are rioting in the streets because they cannot afford to buy rice. Haiti imports most of its rice from the United States, which in turn remains heavily subsidized. We speak with human rights lawyer, Bill Quigley.”
The other dealt with the UN Forum on Indigenous Issues and climate change:
“Representatives of the world’s 370 million indigenous people are
gathered at the United Nations this week to demand that their voices be
included in future talks on climate change. Over 3,000 delegates are
attending the seventh session of the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous
Issues. We speak with Casey Camp-Horinek, a member of the Ponca Nation
of Oklahoma”
