HREV presents documentary on the NASO people
Los Naso, un pueblo en resistencia from Otramérica TV on Vimeo.
The Naso, one of Panama’s original peoples, have for centuries been fighting for their survival and for decades to safeguard their territorial, cultural and political rights by securing a state-recognised Comarca (indigenous region). Human Rights Everywhere (HREV) presents a new documentary on this people and their struggle.
On 28 August, the Naso people elected a new king, their leader, after years of internal disputes fuelled by the government and big business, and resistance in the face of the advance of cattle-ranching and energy companies.
The conflict has not ended because the faction which lost the vote, the one closest to the Colombian multinational Empresas Públicas de Medellín (Medellín Public Enterprises) and the Government, wishes to challenge the electoral process. This fight for the leadership has not happened by chance. The territory in which about 3,500 Nasos survive is coveted by many. Located within La Amistad National Park (shared between Panama and Costa Rica), the Naso’s territory finds itself part of the ‘pie’ of the Central American Electric Interconnection System (promoted by Plan Puebla-Panama-Colombia, now the Mesoamerica Project) and this original people has become an awkward host which insists on fighting to preserve its way of life and to protect the natural environment of its sacred river: the Teribe.
HREV has accompanied the Naso communities in their struggle over the last three years and, as a result of its collaboration with a team of volunteers from Multimetraje (led by the Spanish documentary filmmakers María Hernández Herrera and José Olmedo Menchén) now presents this 26- minute documentary which shows the biggest threats faced by this original people at risk of extinction.
The accounts given by Naso leaders, such as the king, Valentín Santana, Adolfo Villagra, the late Esteban Durán and Emilia Gamarra, and analysis by Osvaldo Jordán (of the Alianza para la Conservación y el Desarrollo – Conservation and Development Alliance) is interspersed with explanations of the Naso way of life, the community’s opinion of the megaprojects affecting them and footage of the resistance of this people who, in 2009 and 2010, took their fight to the country’s capital.
Enjoy the film and spread its impact!
Los Naso, pueblo en resistencia
Click to share thisClick to share this
