Territory, Autonomy and Defending Maize

This interview with Also Gonzales was given to Carlos Santos in May 2004, when Aldo was participating in the seminar on “Food Sovereignty and Biodiversity,” in Montevideo, to mark Biodiversidad’s tenth anniversary. Biodiversidad (www.grain.org/biodiversidad) is GRAIN’s sister magazine. It is published in Spanish and has a Latin American focus. It is published in the January 2005 issue of SEEDLING (www.grain.org).

Aldo Gonzalez is a Zapotec indigenous and community leader from Guelatao in the Sierra Juarez mountain range of northern Oaxaca, Mexico. Aldo is director of UNOSJO, a grassroots campesino organisation in the Sierra Juarez. UNOSJO provides technical assistance and consultation to small farmers with the goal of promoting sustainable rural economies that are based on respect for indigenous culture. It plays a vital role in educating local communities and collaborating with national and international organisations about the threat of GM maize.

“We are heirs to a great treasure that is not measured in money and that they want to take away from us. This is no time to beg for alms from the aggressor. Every Indian and every peasant knows about the transgenic contamination of our maize and we proudly declare: I plant and will continue to plant the seeds that our grandparents bequeathed to us, and I will assure that my children, their children and the children of their children continue to grow them. I will not allow them to kill the maize, because our maize will only die the day the sun dies.”