The Indigenous Summit started with an inaugural panel, starting with the local mayor welcoming is to Iximché. Blanca Chancoso from the Continental Council made a call for Indigenous peoples to be treated as citizens and members of a democracy. She rejected war making, militarization, and free trade pacts. Our world is not for sale, she declared. Bush is not welcome here. We want, instead, people who support life. Yes to life. Imperialism and capitalism has left us with a historic debt, and they owe us for this debt. People are creating alternatives.

The Bolivian foreign minister, speaking in the name of president Evo Morales, declared that we have to protect sacred places, and move according to natural laws. Today Bolivia is in charge or recuperating its natural resources. We want to get rid of the rotten system and construct alternative powers.

Joel Suárez from the Americas Social Forum then announced that the Third Americas Social Forum will be held in Guatemala in 2008, and that to be successful it needs an Indigenous and female face. He called on the Indigenous Summit to support the ASF. The ASF hemispheric council is meeting in Guatemala this week as well.