Press Release  

Five Hundred official delegates from the following groups: ECUARANI (Ecuador), CONACAMI (Peru), CONAMAQ (Bolivia), ONIC (Colombia), and CITEM (Chile are participating in the First Congress of the  Andean Coordinating Committee of Indigenous of Indigenous Organizations (Quechua, Kichwa, Aymara, Mapuche)

The event is taking place in the auditorium of the National University of San Antonio Abad in Cuzco. On the morning of Saturday July 15th, the groups gathered at the Plaza de Armas while shouting out the names of Kawsachun Tupak Amaru and Kawsachun Micaela Bastidas. They participated in a symbolic march that ended at Sagsa Waman, an Incan holy place where a ritual ceremony of re-uniting and brotherhood between the Andean indigenous communities was carried out.

The congressional inauguration took place in the auditorium of the National University of San Antonio Abad in Cuzco, where coordinating politician Humberto Cholango of the Coordinating Community declared:

"After 514 years of the creation of artificial borders and our fragmentation, we once again reunite and reaffirm our common brotherhood to discuss, analyze and propose our political initiatives, which include the development our own economy and the restoration and valuation of ancestral knowledge and wisdom which continue to be valid. In this way, we follow the example of Tupak Amaru, Micaela Bastidas, Ruminahui, Atahualpa, Bartolina Sisa, and other heroes who fought for the liberation of our peoples."

He also declared, "They have taken away our lands, gold and silver, but have not been able to separate us from our roots. Still, the giant multinational companies are trying to take away our natural resources, the water, biodiversity, oil, and gas they ‘discover' in our ancestral territories, and for this reason, we must organize to defend our rights, if necessary with our blood we will defend our way of life with dignity and sovereignty.

At the end of the afternoon, the first conference was held on "the Current Situation of the South American Nationalities and Communities" with help from Blanca Chancoso of Ecuador, Boaventura De Sousa Santos of Portugal, and Utilia Ines Lux of Guatemala who is part of the Permanent Forum of the United Nations. Of the conclusions discussed at the meeting, we emphasize the following:

1. Free Trade Agreements are neocolonial mechanisms that lead to the continued plundering of our oil, gas, water, and displacement of indigenous people that maintains us in a situation of misery and poverty.
2. We want to establish a political agenda not only for indigenous communities, but for all of society, without the interference of corrupt neoliberal governments who sell out our country.
3. We need a new coming together on ancient paths of unity and political struggle, for the construction of a new continent without looting, criminalization, militarism, or corruption.
4. We also wan to combine a system of self-government with cultural and intercultural identity with our own forms of social mobilization and political struggle at the institutional level, of both local and international nature.

In this context, on Sunday July 16^th we are holding the Second Conference on Opportunities and Wishes of the Nationalities and Indigenous  

Press Bulletin of the National Organizations which are part of the Andean Coordinating Committee.

Cuzco Peru, July 16^th, 2006
Communications Commission
ECUARANI
National Confederation of Kichwa Peoples of Ecuador