ARGENTINE – Yesterday ended the 35th Plurinational Meeting of Women, in the Argentine province of San Luis, territory of the original Ranquel, Comechingón and Huarpe peoples.
This meeting has been held every year since 1986, and since 2015 it has had the presence and participation in workshops and talks of the Kurdistan Women’s Movement. This year, Mahsa Amini’s name was read on several flags and the slogan “Jin Jiyan Azadi” (Woman, Life, Freedom) was chanted multiple times.
With this multinational flag, the Kurdish issue multiplied in the streets and in activities. At the opening ceremony, Dilda Roj, representative in Latin America of the Kurdistan Women’s Movement, spoke on stage, denouncing the Turkish state’s attacks against the Kurdish people. In this sense, she shared a video of one of the commanders of the Free Women’s Units (YJA Star), who reported on Turkey’s use of prohibited chemical weapons against guerrillas. At the closing of her speech, thousands of people chanted the slogan “Jin Jiyan Azadi”.
In addition, within the more than 100 workshops that were held, the Feminisms, Transfeminisms, Women and Indigenous Diversities Workshop from Abya Yala to Kurdistan was held. The workshop was repeated on Saturday and Sunday.
On the second day of the meeting, the Abya Yala Assembly was held, where women and dissidents shared the resistance of the territories occupied by the different states. There, the colonial practices that have been sustained for centuries were denounced, as well as the extractivism carried out by the different states. “We demand that our ancestral territories not be violated by the military. Enough of sexist violence and genocide”, shouted the original women.
In this space, a new intervention by Dilda Roj took place, who reiterated the denunciations of the use of chemical weapons against the guerrilla forces by the Turkish fascist state. She also expressed her solidarity with the Latin American feminist movement.
In the same space, an Iranian woman named Diba appeared, who spoke about what is happening in that territory after the murder of the Kurdish Mahsa Amini by the police. There she reported that the protests are a response to colonialism that has been sustained for years and assured: “This is a fight against the Islamic State, not against Islam.”
All the women and dissidents who passed through these spaces called for justice to achieve the release of the Mapuche sisters imprisoned, repressed and detained by the Argentine state last week in their recovery of ancestral lands. “The machis are not terrorists or criminals, they are defenders, guides, healers, wise advisers and we respect their authority because that’s the way it is and that’s the way it will be, as agreed,” Guatemalan leader Lolita Chávez intoned loudly and angrily.
Edition: Kurdistan Latin America
