The different social organizations, movements and networks met on Monday morning in Cochabamba before the World Peoples Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth officially began. Several social movements and organizations – such as the Hemispheric Social Alliance, La Via Campesina, Our World is Not For Sale, Friends of the Earth, the Brazilian Network for the Integration of the Peoples – attended the meeting.

Before the assembly La Via Campesina carried out a mystica, which is an activity to create the proper atmosphere so that all the activists participate in the activity. Several representatives of social movements did presentations in a plenary session to later give way to those who wanted to speak. Finally it was decided to reconvene on Wednesday to define the actions towards Cancun.

In a speech before the plenary session, Cuban Joel Suarez, of the Convergence of Social Movements of the Americas (COMPA) talked about the origins and the process that led to this meeting of social movements. He said that in the January meetings in Sao Paulo and Porto Alegre, Brazil, there was consensus on the fact that the world is going through a systemic crisis of capitalism, which he described as a “racist, patriarchal and xenophobic” model, which seeks to get out of the crisis through “wars and overexploitation of natural resources like water and biodiversity”.

Sebastian Valdomir, from Friends of the Earth International, said that the social movements in Sao Paulo described the year 2010 as “key for the struggle”. “One of these battlefields is the multilateral debate on climate change”, said the Uruguayan environmental activist. He said that at the UN official climate negotiations, the industrialized nations put their interests before the global interests and that the Assembly was organized to put the peoples’ approaches first. Valdomir claimed that in the lead-up to Cancun, it is necessary to have several moments like the Assembly, but highlighted “an initial basic agreement: the capitalist system is the main cause of climate change”. He rejected the false solutions to the climate crisis and proposed the Assembly to call the people to action before and after the COP in Cancun.

Also, the international coordinator of La Via Campesina, Indonesian Henry Saragih, said the conference in Cochabamba is important “to continue the struggle for alternatives of the peoples and real solutions to climate change”. He added that food sovereignty is one of the main solutions and called on the international solidarity of the movements to create viable alternatives.

Alberto Gomez, of the The National Union of Autonomous Regional Peasant Organizations (UNORCA), and La Via Campesina Mexico, said that several commissions are being created to work towards the official summit in Cancun. He explained the idea of La Via Campesina is to organize joint parallel events, marches and mobilizations around the country, and not only in Cancun. “The COP 16 must mean massive movements for La Via Campesina in Mexico and worldwide”, he said.

Joint production by Real World Radio and Radioagencia Noticias de Planalto.

Photo: RMR and RNP