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Recorded at NITA
(Native Investment and Trade Association) Conference
Vancouver, BC, Canada March 22, 1996
 Leonzo Barreno: Jose, como
estas?
 Jose Molintos Menico: Si.
Leonzo: Nice pleasure to know you and meet you in this
kind of forum. I am just very interested in where are you from and dealing
with your people? Okay.
Jose: I came from the Cordillera region from the
Philippines, it is called Cordillera like the Spanish mountainous region
and the people there are called Igorots. Now they are called Cordillera
peoples and that is something like 200 kilometres from the capital of the
Philippines which is Manila, and you?
Leonzo: Well, actually, originally I am from Guatemala, a
Maya Quiche person. My group is the largest one of the Maya groups in
Guatemala. We are located close to Mexican border. Also the Cordillera
regions, in the mountains. We are…besides being the largest group, we form
part of the other 22 Indian groups, and together we have the majority in
Guatemala. It’s quite interesting, I think, to know that we have the same,
I guess, history in terms of colonialism under the Spanish. And the
Spanish also came to the Philippines.
Jose: Yeah, that’s right. The Spaniards stayed in the
Philippines for almost 300 years. That was from 1600 to the late 1800’s.
And after them came the Americans.
Leonzo: Well, the Spanish stayed like for 500 years
there, then the Americans also, so many influences in our countries. It is
quite…yes, we have come a long way of enduring those experiences and now
within ourselves sharing those stories of colonialism. But it is very
encouraging for our peoples, I guess, to see us and in some ways guess,
discuss these issues and maybe you can bring some news to your people of
what we have heard here and of course I will do the same. Do you think
that your people would be able to know more about what we had discussed
here in the forum?
Jose: Yes, our people are always been struggling with our
new colonisers, the government who took over from the foreign governments,
we call them still colonisers, because they treat us the same way as how
we were treated by the foreign colonisers. And we are happy to know that
we are not the only ones trying to struggle and trying to seek our
futures, exercising what we call our right to self determination and
perhaps could also share us more on what specific activities your people
do towards this end.
Leonzo: Yeah, lately, in the last couple of years, the
Maya people have achieved, I guess, probably the biggest victory of the
500 years that we have of inter-relationship with the colonisers and the
dominant societies. Last year the government and the guerrilla movement
signed an agreement which for the first time in history we are recognized
as peoples. That we exist, you know. And…just two weeks ago the government
finally approved, you know, the International Labour Organisation
Convention 169 which has been very controversial, I guess, in many
countries. And in our country, because we are the majority.
So the government was sort of very careful not to get into those matters,
but the pressure, you know, that our people have --- to do… now, they told
the government, listen, you know, this is something that you should
recognise, because we as people, we have the right to see for ourselves
and to finish this colonialism mentality of always looking after us and
always seeing us as children and treating us like, you know, as ecological
minorities, and I do not know lately what has been the achievements of
your people in the Philippines.
Jose: Yes, we too have been subjected to a lot of
oppression and negligence from our government. Oppression because they
consider our lands to be owned by the government, and in order that you
can legally make use of it is to get permits from them. You see, we have
been living or…we have been called forest and mountain brothers for a long
time and we are not used in getting a lots of permits from them, because
as indigenous people we have been nurturing our lands, our trees,
protecting them from a lot of destruction. We only get what we need, but
the government this time is in need of a lot of resources… try to enclose
and grab these lands from us, take away the trees, build dams, flood our
farms and have been displacing a lot of families. Like from where I come
from, some 300 families was moved from one place to the other and they
move to another place and again they are being threatened of being
relocated because of another dam project.
These are the things that have been done before and despite the promises
of the government to give us, or share with us the benefit, until now we
have not received these promises from the government and therefore we are
trying to unite with other indigenous peoples in the area. Well, projects
like this are being done and, as we have discussed a while ago, the most
successful opposition is done towards these kind of projects, is the Chico
Dam project, where something like 17 dams were planned to be built in the
area, will bring the same destruction and displacement to us and through
our own indigenous way of uniting, most of the indigenous people have
banded and opposed. They have fought peacefully, even our women have had
to drive away the engineers, the people who were going to build the dam by
facing them frontally, and because of that, some of the projects did not
push through, but the government did not end there. They used the military
against us. Most of our leaders have been arrested and some of them killed
and therefore some children, some of the youth have to join the armed
group in fighting the government towards this kind of project. It happened
some time in 1982 and we are trying to continue and struggle and doing it
in the legal forums. That’s why we have to go to the UN to lobby for a law
that will be beneficial to all indigenous people.
Leonzo: Well, I guess I found the same similarities when
it comes to…when people, I guess, get tired and they see that the voices
are not being heard many times they have chosen, you know, the path of
armed struggle. And sometimes, I guess, that has caused more problems than
benefits. But in the other hand, people have been in power and I do not
see much difference between the Philippines and Guatemala. Because there
are still militarism…and when you talk about Guatemala, I guess, about
indigenous people, you cannot separate the issue of exploitation with
militarism and now the multinational companies because it is a constant of
the dominant society changing faces and indigenous peoples have to be
always, to be expecting to what is coming next.
And like you say, we are quite pleased of the victories right now, you
know, between the government and the left, what they have signed and also
the ILO Convention 169, but to implement what is in those papers that is,
I think, our biggest challenge, how we are going to pursue that and teach
the others, the other society that we, in fact, not only do we exist but
we have rights and also to encourage our people to defend those rights
because people have been subjected to so much pain and colonialism that I
guess to tell them, “Okay, you are going to lose the chains, you know, of
slavery”… it is going to be difficult, but I guess people will…have to be
encouraged, to learn that they have, that they have rights. So I guess the
international forums also offers us an opportunity to discuss these
issues, because, probably, 20 or 30 years ago, I could not have met you,
you know, because you were kept there in the Philippines and I was kept
there in Guatemala and you shut up because you have no rights. But today
we see that we can, you know, see each other, we discuss these things. The
most we discuss these issues I guess, that’s the best education you can
get, you know, between other people and listen to the community concerns:
regional, national, and knowing about the Philippines is very enriching to
me because sometimes, you know, coming from the other side of the world, I
don’t know much about the Philippines.
Jose: And listening from your experience and the
experience of other indigenous peoples we always renew our commitment to
this kind of struggle. And that we learn that it never ends and it has to
be continued and we have to be militant, even if there is what we call an
agreement already. There is still a need to have it be implemented. So
actually these are the things that we have to face and as I said, we are
very happy to see that other people are doing it, some succeed, while we
have not yet achieved that kind of success there is always hope that we
can also succeed
Leonzo: Yeah, there are many examples of success and, and
in Canada I guess, people have achieved many things…and I think it is
good, it’s very encouraging. This is quite different, you know, the
relation...the colonial relationships are really different, but we all
learn from all these experiences and it would be difficult, I guess, to
achieve what they have gained here, but we should continue in the path of
struggling as you said and be committed to it and to know that there is
always hope despite militarisation and despite of the exploitation that
still exist. Hope is there. And we always talk about the circle of life,
and we should continue talking about it. Strengthening that circle and
making sure that people will come to that circle, and understand that even
though militarism and the global market is kind of destroying, wanting to
destroy it, we are not allowing it, and so I hope you will take my message
to your people and I will take yours to mine. And tell them, “Oh yeah, I
met a Filipino brother.”
Jose: Maybe we should also share to our friends, because
what we are talking about is what we called a while ago as the Third World
situation. People from Canada and other countries like America, the
indigenous people here are quite better situation where they negotiate and
come up with written treaties. But in our place that is not how our
government deals with us. They always deal with us by force. And most
countries we have seen who are in this kind of situation, Third World
countries, are left with no choice, and that’s why a lot of us join the
armed revolution because the government do not give us that kind of space
where we could dialogue peacefully, it’s always…it’s always them trying to
impose what they want. Maybe some outsiders who view this kind of
development in Canada should not expect us to be doing the same. Until
such time that our governments will act like Canada and America in trying
to do it peacefully. Maybe that is the time that they can expect us also
to do the same.
Leonzo: Yeah, the colonial experience in North America,
that we call the First World countries, they even in this kind of forum
separate us, you know, cause, first in the morning, North America, New
Zealand and Australia were together, then we are together as the Third
World countries, but it is important, you know, that kind of mechanism…is,
is…put us different to them, you know. And yes, the colonialism part is
very different, but the one thing I want to understand and that I always
try to bring that to my students and people who I know, is that the
experience in Canada has been very, very dramatic in the sense of just 100
years ago colonialism here was destroying people’s lives in a way that
5-10 years ago, I didn’t know, you know, all the residential schools and
all the segregation and the reserves, the no compliance with the treaties,
you know, that was a very sad period in history of Canada, the United
States, New Zealand and Australia.
And so I guess when I talk to the people in the South, they feel like…I
think sometimes even grateful that it didn’t happen in our countries. We
say, okay, we get some violence and we know it is there. Sometimes I guess
the worst violence that you can go through is something called like
residential schools. You know, and Canada and United States went through
that process and it’s very, very sad to listen to those stories of very
old people today, you know, telling you this is what happening…and, yes,
and so much illness having, has gained in Canada and United States and
those First World countries, but I guess in other words, we are pretty
privileged, also that, I guess, repression, the advantage of repression is
that makes us come together and strengthen our identity and making sure
that we preserve our culture and that side is a positive side, when you
suffer so much repression you got to get together with your neighbour,
with your friend, you know, talk and get together, you know, because if
you are alone it would be easier and you could be left out and destroyed,
but…yeah, you’re right, when people get upset and desperate they choose
other patterns and that’s what’s happening in Mexico right now. The Mayan
people of Chiapas, they just got fed up of all that and I guess they are
trying to bring their rights forward and, you know, by other ways. The
armed struggle is an alternative, but other peoples also have the choice,
like you, they say peacefully you fought, you know, and stopped the Chico
project. And that’s what happened in Guatemala today, you know. There was
an armed, armed struggle but it didn’t succeed. So now the Maya are
choosing, using those legal tools that are there and say, “Okay, you are
going to sign it. Just sign it.” Yeah, I think I agree with, with us
continuing to all this and be committed and it is really has been a
privilege to know you Jose, and wish you the best in your journey.
Jose: And I hope to meet you again in some other future
forums where we can continue to share and learn from other’s experience.
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