WoGAN -- Worcester Global Action Network

Stop Seaboard Campaign

Campaign to support the Ava Guarani and Kolla people of northern Argentina

New Media and Documents:

• Stop Seaboard Campaing FLASH presentation!
  Download flash player for Macs OSX or later HERE
  Download flash player for Macs OS9 or earlier HERE
  Download flash player for PCs HERE
  
• A short quicktime video shot after WoGANers were arrested while crashing the Seaboard Shareholders meeting, April 2004: Go to the Indymedia article to Download it HERE
• A brief clip of the "Nuestra Tierra" street theater piece, performed (in English) in front of the Boston area Seaboard Corporation office in July 2004: Go to the Indymedia article to Download it HERE
• "Empire of the Pigs": an in-depth article from Time Magazine focusing on Seaboard's abuse of corporate welfare: Download the PDF file HERE
• Article about Ava Guarani on Znet: HERE
• Sample leaflets: General leaflet PDF format
  General leaflet Word .DOC format

SEABOARD CORPORATION and the BRESKY FAMILY (Seaboard Executives) are:

1. Being complicit in the displacement of the Ava Guarani and Kolla communities from Tabacal, Salta, Northern Argentina and allowing brutal repression of those re-occupying their native land;
2. Running a pork industry that is known for animal cruelty on a massive scale in their factory pork farms in the US; and
3. Making millions off of government subsidies / corporate welfare (public tax $) and tax cuts.

Who are we?

We are part of an international coalition called ALERTA SALTA, who is working in solidarity with the indigenous Ava Guarani and Kolla communities from Argentina.

Background info on the Ava Guarani and Kolla:
On the 16th of September, 2003, the community of Ava Guarani were evicted from their re-occupied land by a group of armed police, who hit, intimidated, and detained all 70 Guaranies, including pregnant women. The Ava, during the 1970's, were one of the many communities in Salta displaced by, and then forced to work in, the plantations and sugar factories of San Martin del Tabacal. The Guarani's fertile forest was destroyed to plant cash crops of sugar cane and GMO soy, replacing the traditional community production of corn, manioc, and local vegetables. In 1996, SEABOARD, a US corporation based in Kansas, bought the Tabacal sugar industry, which had originally displaced the Ava Guarani.

On March 3rd, the Tabacal factory also drove the Kolla from their homes using armed police, who burned their crops and nearly wrecked their homes. The Kolla spent months next to the highway, hungry and homeless, while police prevented them from retrieving anything from their homes or their crops. On March 5 Judge Cristina del Valle Barabar‡ Morales of Oran on judicial order announces that the eviction had been a legal mistake and that the Kolla were the rightful owners of the 500 hectares in Rio Blanco. The Kolla have legally returned to their land, although the police presence continues.

The Ava Guarani are demanding five thousand hectares of land for 150 families in La Loma, Hipolito Irigoyen. The Kolla demand the rights and respect of their 500 hectares of land for 70 families in Rio Blanco.

Letter from Ava Guarani to Seaboard

Read the letter here.
Lee la carta aqui (in Spanish)

ACTION REPORT FROM MARCH/RALLY

FRIDAY, JULY 30TH
RALLY AT SEABOARD CORP OFFICE
822 BOYLSTON ST (RT. 9) BROOKLINE

Action was organized in collaboration with the DNC to RNC march (DNC2RNC.org).

Over 100 people marched to the Seaboard Corp's office in Brookline, MA! Read a report of the action: HERE
Y AQUI en espanol

For more photos and a video clip:

• PHOTOS/TEXT
• VIDEO
• FEW MORE PICS

ACTION REPORT FROM SHAREHOLDERS MEETING, APRIL 2004

Action Report article

Video coming soon. For video, email Matt: teo@riseup.net

Background on the situation in Salta, Argentina:

In 1996 Seaboard Corporation bought the sugar plantation and refinery, San Martin de Tabacal, introduced new "efficient" technology, and fired 6,000 workers who remain unemployed. The sugar plantation has destroyed what was once the most fertile and ecologically significant forest in Argentina, to plant cash crops of sugarcane and soy, at the same time displacing the indigenous community from their homes and livelihood.
• When the Ava Guarani, of Hipolito Yrigoyen, reoccupied their ancestral land, La Loma, last September, 2003, they were violently evicted at gunpoint. When their complaint was not heard by the provincial government, they marched to the national capital where they have continued the legal process for ownership of the land.
• In March 2004, 37 families from the community of Banda Norte were forced to camp by the side of the road, after their homes and crops were bulldozed by the sugar company on an eviction order later nullified by a judge. However, the community is suffering the consequences of their crops lost (US$4,000 of damage) and defending themselves from the companyÕs offer to buy the land.
• The community of Banda Sur confronted the company bulldozers with a human barrier and machetes to prevent the destruction of their crops. They have organized a collective soup kitchen and rotating shifts for the human barrier. They are pursuing the legal process of recognized ownership of the 180 hectares where they live.

More information can be found here:

For news in Spanish on the situation in Argentina:
http://www.lavaca.org
http://argentina.indymedia.org/features/pueblos/
http://www.copenoa.org.ar

Past actions and articles in English about this campaign:

• Article about a large march to Seaboard office in Buenos Aires on March 11, 2004
• Photos and article from the first action at Seaboard's office in Boston area, March 18, 2004
• Message from Ava Guarani community
• This article in English
• http://www.autonomista.org/tabacal.htm

• More info on the situation in Salta, Argentina (mostly in Spanish):
  
• http://www.alerta-salta.org.ar
• Friends Of the Earth Int'l covered the July 30th action and have cyberactions/updates

For more on their abuse of corporate welfare, greed, and US pork industry, see the Time Magazine article:
http://www.factoryfarming.org/empirepigs.htm