Potoooooooo
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http://motherboard.vice.com/read/indigenous-tribes-vs-the-drug-cartels
Over the past few years, strangers have begun approaching youngsters in the Embera-Wounaan, an indigenous tribe in Panama, with an uncanny request. Carry a bag of rice across the jungle for us, and you’ll earn American dollars. It’s dead simple, they say. A four-hour trek across the jungle at night is worth $200 in cash, straight away.
A few took the offer, carried the bags, and got the bucks. But others alerted local community leaders. Word eventually reached 43-year-old Candido Menzua, cacique of the Embera-Wounaan.
“There are no rice plantations over there,” the chieftain explained. He ordered more stringent patrolling over the 430,000 hectares controlled by his people. This wasn’t the first and likely won’t be the last time the Embera have crossed paths with drug-traffickers, and, by now, he knows their trade.
The Embera-Wounaan’s case isn’t unique. For the past five years, forest communities throughout the region have been clashing with organized crime over their lands. Woodlands from Mexico to Panamá have been plundered and destroyed, with conflicts ranging from those rice bag parades at midnight to gunshots and murder in Michoacán, where locals stood up against cartels.
Over the past few years, strangers have begun approaching youngsters in the Embera-Wounaan, an indigenous tribe in Panama, with an uncanny request. Carry a bag of rice across the jungle for us, and you’ll earn American dollars. It’s dead simple, they say. A four-hour trek across the jungle at night is worth $200 in cash, straight away.
A few took the offer, carried the bags, and got the bucks. But others alerted local community leaders. Word eventually reached 43-year-old Candido Menzua, cacique of the Embera-Wounaan.
“There are no rice plantations over there,” the chieftain explained. He ordered more stringent patrolling over the 430,000 hectares controlled by his people. This wasn’t the first and likely won’t be the last time the Embera have crossed paths with drug-traffickers, and, by now, he knows their trade.
The Embera-Wounaan’s case isn’t unique. For the past five years, forest communities throughout the region have been clashing with organized crime over their lands. Woodlands from Mexico to Panamá have been plundered and destroyed, with conflicts ranging from those rice bag parades at midnight to gunshots and murder in Michoacán, where locals stood up against cartels.