Latin America: Second Chance for Indigenous People After 'Lost Decade'

MEXICO CITY (IPS) - Tensions between indigenous people, governments and transnational corporations will grow in the second International Decade of the World's Indigenous People, which began in 2005, say experts.

Against that backdrop, some of the 840 indigenous groups in the Americas could even disappear, they warn.

"Indigenous people today are living in a period characterised by the most unbridled imperial capitalism ever, with weakened states that are at the service of transnational interests," José del Val, head of the Mexico Multicultural Nation University Programme (PUMC) and former director of the Inter-American Indigenous Institute, told IPS.