Latin America: Indigenous Peoples

See also: Bolivia

Native peoples against ruling Latino elites and Western influences, 1960s to today.
 
An ongoing series of localised tensions and conflicts, in which native peoples have sought improved rights or greater power to influence their situations. This is largely a mindset-battle between native beliefs mixed with socialist ideas against Catholic and secular Latino forces, often backed by the West.
 
Such conflicts are not blatantly religious, especially since native faiths are largely not organised or religious as such. Native beliefs are often grafted onto Catholicism or other foreign ideas. The originis of these conflicts lie in the violent Conquistador invasions of the 1500s onwards, in which majorities of native peoples, whether city-dwelling or close to the Earth, were wiped out, and cultures were deliberately destroyed.
 
Before 1990 many such conflicts were implicated into Cold War geopolitics (as in Guatemala, Nicaragua and Peru). Since the 1980s the cocaine trade has played a significant part in Colombia and Mexico (major localised gangland wars currently in Mexico, and the Mayan Zapatista movements in south Mexico).
 
Since 1990 native movements have gained power and influence as right-left conflicts and US influence in South America have declined. Most conflicts are now pacified, except in Colombia, with a risk of conflict in Equador and Peru. However, indigenous rights are consistently overridden by development, population growth, large-scale agriculture and forestry and government policies.
 
Recent conflicts have included Mexico (Zapatistas), Guatemala (35 year civil war), Nicaragua, Colombia (multi-sided civil war), Peru (Shining Path and Tupac Amaru), Equador and NE Brazil (Catholics against African-originated Candomble).
 

Links:

Nativeweb: Abya Yala
Upside-Down World: Activism & Politics in Latin America
AGP: Colombia
Wikipedia: Indigenous Peoples of the Americas
Wikipedia: Indigenous Movements in the Americas
Indigenous Studies: South America