Demonstrators against REDD and in favor of the defense to life from different organizations and countries joined La Via to defend the peasant production model which cools down the planet, contrary to industrial agriculture.

The march started at 8am and travelled from downtown Cancun to the place where the official negotiations are taking place, a luxurious hotel called “Moon Palace”. After miles on foot and by bus, the mobilization had to stop at about a quarter mile from the Moon Palace due to a police barricade that was set to prevent the demonstrators from reaching the official negotiations.

In an interview with Real World Radio, Alberto Gomez –La Via Campesina North America´s representative- said that besides the obstacles put by the Mexican government and the Police, the march was very successful and the movements weren´t intimidated by the fact that the official authorities didn´t respect their commitments to leave them move freely.

“The energy brought by the people to this march is huge, and we managed to break with all these problems. So we are here to get as far as possible and say to the governments: “Please, stop talking about businesses and start talking about the problem and alternatives to global warming!”, said Gomez.

The different organizations that joined the march of the peasant movement included environmentalist federation Friends of the Earth International, and the World March of Women. Miriam Nobre, coordinator of the March, said to Real World Radio that WMW was participating in the mobilization because they reject market-based solutions, land grabbing to produce agrofuels, the commodification of nature and the false solutions imposed by capitalism as a response to the crisis.

“We know that it is possible to find ways for people to live in a dignified way, with access to health, basic sanitation and other production models. So we are here, discussing about the transformation we want and how we want to achieve it”, she said.

Real World Radio also interviewed Medea Benjamin, co-founder of anti-war US group Code Pink: Women for Peace. She said that they were present in the march because “we want to have a world for our children and grandchildren”.

“We started out as an anti-war group, and we know that war can be the end of the planet, but we also know that climate change can be the same thing”, she said.

Benjamin also made reference to the US current administration, led by President Barack Obama.

“We had so much hope for Obama when he came in, we though that he was going to be the peace president, the green president, the civil rights president, and instead it´s been one disappointment after another”, said the activist, making reference to the raids by the FBI and the losses around peace policies.

Also, in terms of climate, she said that Obama has implemented policies that would have been the equivalent of George W. Bush, “where the US is really obstructing the entire world from moving forward”.

“So, we feel that it is very painful that when so many of us worked so hard to get a new president to see that is more of the same. Especially for young people in my country I think it is a tremendous disillusionment, and it means a great demobilization in the US, and that´s very disastrous because with the demobilization we see right wing groups like the “Tea Party” coming forward and claiming even the streets which should be for the progressives, so I think it´s time for the progressive movement in the US to really get back together”, she said.

Meanwhile, the member of Oilwatch and the Ecuadorian organization Accion Ecologica, Esperanza Martinez, said that the network was participating in the march to demand a discussion on the real solutions to climate change at the official negotiations.

“Spaces like Cancun come in a time where two different realities are confronted: on the one side, a tendency to look for more and more oil without respecting the limits of nature, an example of this being the BP oil spill, and the search for oil in the Arctic, in tropical rainforests, indigenous territories, protected areas; and on the other side, the big failure of the international negotiations where central issues are not discussed. Oilwatch believes that these types of spaces are crucial. The discussion should focus on attacking the expansion and dependence on fossil fuels, the discussions should focus on oil, not whether we will buy the absorption capacity in the South and create new ways of colonization. We need to confront the craziness around oil which is aiming at areas from where we will not be able to return”, said Martinez.

By the end of the March there was an Assembly of the Peoples, where peasants from all the American continent participated, in addition to allied organizations such as Friends of the Earth, Oilwatch, the National Assembly of Environmentally Affected People, the National Liberation Movement, the Mexican Union of Electricians, and even representatives of governments that respond to the demands of the movements, such as Bolivian UN Ambassador, Pablo Solon, and Paraguay President Advisor on Climate Change, Miguel Lovera, participated.

There, Real World Radio interviewed Paul Nicholson, member of the European Coordination of La Via Campesina, who considered the mobilization was highly successful. “La Via has been very brave in coming here, because the big and powerful NGOs didn´t want us here, marching alone, they wanted us to march with them, and we said “NO”. We are grown-ups and we defend what we want, and we clearly say No to REDD, this is not a “light” demand”, said the peasant leader, and added that he was very satisfied with the amount of people who joined the mobilization, and how it was developed in a peaceful way and with joy.

“We are the land, peasants, native peoples, we are the land. The ones behind the police barricade are in another planet. Even the name of the hotel where they are meeting means something, the are in the “Moon Palace”. There are in another planet, we are on Earth, and we demand solutions based on food sovereignty. They are talking about businesses, dirty businesses”, said the peasant leader.

He also highlighted that despite the attempt of demobilization by the authorities, the demonstrators were very brave and mobilized in a peaceful way, with joy and no tensions.

La Via Campesina´s march was held during a global day of action called by the movement to create “Thousands of Cancun” all over the world, with actions in 37 countries.

Photo: Real World Radio