Talk:Aché

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It's impossible to support Stroessner in just about anything, but the language - the diction, the connotations - in this article is simply not encyclopedic. Sources quoted are clearly far on the left. Zafiroblue05 06:08, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

I've revised the article and amplified sources. Care to make specific additional suggestions? --Carwil 18:07, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] NPOV cleanup

This article is part of the NPOV backlog. Since the disputed text seems to have been edited, and there has been no discussion suggesting further disagreement, the tag is removed. If you disagree with this, please re-tag the article with {{NPOV}} and post to Talk. -- Steve Hart 20:22, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

This article is mainly left wing propaganda written by Phillippe Edeb, a French ex-anthropology graduate student who failed to obtain his Ph.D. degree after many years of study in the 1980s and 90s. "Piragi" is his Ache "nickname" and not part of his legal identity. He was evicted from several Ache communities in the 1980s and 90s and later formed the puppet organization "LINAJE" in order for he and some foreign compatriots living in the capital city to "represent" the Ache (through the use of a couple "puppet Ache representatives") to the outside world (and become the middlemen in all funded Ache development projects which they claim must be approved and directed by them). LINAJE has been rejected by the Ache who instead formed their own pan tribal organization "ACA" (Associacion de Comundades Ache) with an elected leadership that represents the tribe. The community of 4 Ache families that was founded by LINAJE (Kuetuvykue) is not legally recognized nor do they have any land of their own, but instead they are squatters on a small corner of a Ava Guarani community. The Ache population currently contains about 1500 individuals distributed in 6 communities, none of which are affiliated with LINAJE.

There is virtually nothing in this article about the Ache or their culture and the author avoids mentioning most of the important anthropological writtings on the Ache. I suggest the reader consult the 100+ published journal articles and 2 books by Kim Hill, Magdlena Hurtado, Kristen Hawkes and HIllard Kaplan (all full professors at US universities) and their students. Hill has worked with the Ache for 30 years, speaks the language fluently and knows all individuals in the population personally. He has also spent more than 1000 days in the forest trekking with nomadic Ache bands living entirely from hunting and gathering.

The article by LINAJE is full of erroneous assertions begining with the incorrect interpretation of the Guarani term for the Ache tribe ("Guajagi", in earliest Jesuit documents, is derived from a common Guarani term used to refer to enemy tribes). The alleged history of Ache genocide presented here is based on Mark Munzel's reports which were full of distortions, exaggerations, and in some cases intentional fabrication (Munzel once published photos of Ache children swimming in a creek with a caption indicating that they were bodies floating downstream from a massacre). Details of the Ache history are presented in Hill and Hurtado's mongraph, "Ache Life History". The truth is that the Paraguayan rural population without help nor interference from the Paraguayan government killed and enslaved Ache indians from the time of conquest until the early 1970s. Ache indians also killed peasants and loggers whenever possible. This was part of a war of conquest which is exemplary of the sad history of the Americas and not unique to Paraguay. The same types of events took place in a half dozen Latin American countries during the 20th century and have continued much more recently in some countries (such as Brazil). Although the deculturation of the Ache was a goal of both government officials and missionaries in the early contact period, much of the change experienced since the 1970s was instigated by the Ache themselves, who have little interest in returning to the old ways of their ancestors. Likewise, many negative features of the Ache contact history were due to Ache cultural traits (such as abandoning orphaned children, or killing them)which have since been modified.

The current situation of the Ache can only be understood in the context of their traditional hunting and gathering lifestyle which is not described in this article. The Ache in some communties continue to hunt and gather regularly while those in others (such as the LINAJE puppet community) never enter the forest. The Ache work with a variety of individuals and organizations to gain legal land title, conserve natural resources, and develop a sustainable economy. Despite considerable outside help the Ache continue to experience extreme poverty, and problems with education and health. They have obtained some employement acting as forest guides and park guards, and did indeed participate in research to census forest animals and plants as a way of managing these resources in areas where they have legal extraction rights (two articles about this were published in the journal "Conservation Biology"). The suggestion that this constitutes "biopiracy" is a pathetic attempt by left wing organizations to discredit successful conservation NGOs who refuse their agenda (mainly the critics simply want a piece of the action -- $$ flowing through their organizations rather than other NGOs that dont share their agenda. The conservation research that the Ache participated in, and which provided good employment to several Ache families, was encouraged and supported by the Ache communities themselves. When that research terminated in 2003 the Ache immediately requested that new sources of funding be sought out in order to continue biological research of their forest environment.

69.254.150.25 18:27, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Axxn 12:05, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

It is not Strossner, but NTM which destroyed the Ache.