Chief Raoni and the Kayapo under attack (Amazon Watch News)

[auroraglacialis]

I think low tech resistance can go a long way. Have you seen the movie "Coconut Revolution" - These people managed to fend off mining corporations to deforest and dig up their island for many years, making slingshot guns, using coconut oil to drive cars and sustain themselves, capturing weapons of the enemy,... very fascinating and I think more analogous to what is happening here than Vietnam. Its not an outright war yet there and I seriously doubt that any other government would look away if they use Napalm and Agent Orange on indigenous peoples in this century. If not looking away would be enough to stop it is another matter, but I think that they have much less violent yet still effective tactics these days to get indigenous peoples off the land if they want to. Just look at Australia. You just have to destroy the livelyhood of the population by depriving them of their ability to feed themselves, then you come in and offer them food and medicine, but only if they come to villages you build and then with medicine and food comes alcohol and drugs and within a few years you can claim that these people are all just lazy drunkards who beat their wives and start to move these people that now cannot resist anymore into settlements under the pretense to care for them. That is how it is done these days, not with Napalm.
So I guess to fend of armed thugs of farmers, miners, loggers - the indingeous people can (but should not have to!) use low tech armed resistance. Especially as the encroachment on their lands is not exactly legal. Against the government it would be a lot harder, especially because they are not actually fighting with armed thugs but with politics, buerocracy, propaganda, social engineering, deception and if all that fails with armed thugs - erm I meant to say police forces.