Between November 22 and 25, spokespersons for nearly 30 Guatemalan organizations and representatives of more than 50 organizations from Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, Brazil, Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador, Colombia, Panama, Nicaragua, Honduras, El Salvador, Mexico, among others, held the II Abya Yala Soberana Meeting.
The self-convened event, under the title: Peoples and communities on the move, challenges of decoloniality for Good Living, brought together close to 200 people, who with reflective merriment shared their dreams and projects from their territories with a continental perspective.
Peoples and communities on the move in current geopolitics
The first day they addressed the situation of peoples and communities on the move within the framework of current geopolitics.
Both in the conferences and in the working groups, it was verified that the participants in the Meeting “are determined to continue making history as determining subjects in the sociopolitical dynamics of the Continent.” [1]
Challenges of decoloniality for peoples and communities on the move
The second day was focused specifically on the issue of decoloniality as a challenge in the work and projections of peoples and communities on the move. [2]
Variables such as racism, sexism, classism, nation states, extractivism, imperialism…, were addressed from different territories.
Ramón Grosfoguel was categorical in reiterating that: “Decoloniality has to be anti-imperial. It cannot be that actors are sneaking into our struggles, even dressed as indigenous, but pro-imperial,” said the Puerto Rican professor.
Katya Colmenares, for her part, left the idea fixed: “The new subjects of decoloniality are not, nor will they be new. They have ancient roots. The community anchored around the defense/reproduction of Life is and will be the decolonial subject,” she stated.
“The colonial fact imposes patterns of male colonial domination in our towns, in this sense decoloniality must be constitutively anti-patriarchal, anti-impatial and anti-capitalist,” said Karina Ochoa.
Other topics discussed at the meeting were: progress and challenges of plurinationality in different countries [3]the processes of good living in and from the different towns of the Continent [4]the different struggles of women [5]and the urgent need to move from social or union struggles to sociopolitical struggles through their own political instruments.
Own political instruments and plurinationality
The meeting raised the urgent need to move from the social and cultural struggles undertaken by communities and peoples of the Continent to sociopolitical struggles.
For this, according to the experiences of Bolivia, Guatemala, Panama, Chile, among others, it is important to build their own political instruments (own political organizations) to dispute power at the polls, and from the spaces of power to promote processes of structural change and plurinational proposals. :
“To undertake the processes of structural and plurinational change in the different countries, the peoples and communities in movement need to collectively build our political instruments to access decision-making spaces, through the ballot box and the streets, and accelerate the processes of profound changes, through processes of original, popular and plurinational constituent assemblies. Without renouncing collective actions in fact to exercise our collective rights.” He mentions the Declaration of the II Meeting. [6]
In the cases of Bolivia and Ecuador, reflection was made on their advances, and challenges of the implementation of plurinationality. In the cases of Guatemala and Chile, countries where plurinationality is still a proposal for the next processes of constituent assemblies, the need to conceive plurinational states with unfailing territorial autonomy was raised. [7]
“Plurinationality is our political commitment to build new plurinational states, new laws, institutions and life projects that make possible a balanced coexistence among all the beings that cohabit in the cosmic community. For this we must strengthen our organizational, training, intercultural communication, and articulation processes in and from our territories in a constant manner.”, indicates the Declaration in relation to plurinationality.”
Commitments and solidarity with the peoples in struggle
The event concluded with three concrete commitments of collective actions for the year 2023: Carry out a simultaneous public demonstration, in the different territories and countries of the Continent, rejecting the violent dispossessions in the territories, denouncing the agents of imperialism, and summoning the peoples to agree and build multinational states that promote good living on the Continent.
Organize in Guatemala a decolonial training space for communities, peoples and organizations of Abya Yala Soberana.
Accompany the electoral processes of the different countries with international electoral observers from Abya Yala Soberana.
“We ratify our political will to strengthen ABYA YALA SOBERANA as a space for anti-colonialist and decolonial, anti-patriarchal, anti-neoliberal, anti-capitalist, anti-imperialist articulation, and in defense of our common home, Mother Earth.
We commit ourselves to strengthen the knowledge and collective spirituality of our ancestors so that they survive in the hearts of the peoples for the balance in our Pachamama.
Solidarity actions with all the peoples standing in the fight for the defense of our Mother Earth, Life, the territories, collective and individual rights in the different territories.”, concludes the Declaration of the II Meeting of Abya Yala Soberana.
In this way, the space of Abya Yala Soberana, which emerged at the initiative of communities organized in resistance in Guatemala, in 2020, [8] held its II Continental Meeting, and in the following days it will hold its virtual assembly to evaluate said event and advance in the realization of the agreements. It is important to indicate that the first day of the II Meeting (November 22) was exclusively dedicated to the meeting of communicators and journalists from the Continent to follow the agenda and struggles of the peoples in and from the territories. [9]
[1] See,
[2] See,
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[9] See,