We were not making anything wrong. Moreover our activities were legal and largely - maybe too much - opened to the public. Still, there was a problem. We represented a large and growing network of people and organizations dedicated to the environment, peace and international solidarity. This was disturbing someone somewhere in a period where a new wave of neoliberalism was blowing in Europe and in the world.

As a result, we had to face a huge disparagement campaign where we were targetted as terrorists, drug abusers, criminals. We had to be considered as a dangerous sectarian group animated by evil spirits who were threatening the Grandeur of civilization. The message was clear. We had to disappear and/or to take a low profile.

One day, I received a call from Piel. He was in Paris and told me that members of his staff had decided to move to Brussels because there were new developments for the Sahelian Front (see Chapter 5). It was followed by a visit of a delegation of representatives from West Africa. The idea was that we could help them to raise funds from Brussels where the European Commission had its headquarters. I was there and could give a hand.

For that purpose, a charity was created in Senegal. SOS Deserts was a division of United Peoples aiming at finding solutions to stop deforestation and desertification worldwide. 

I understood that United Peoples was a highly political organization. What emerged, through Piel's words, was the story of a collective effort led at a grassroots level by representatives of indigenous peoples and social minorities all over the world to recover whatever had been taken from them: values, traditions, beliefs, land, culture, identity, spirituality, ways of living, thinking and acting.

In the seventies, there had been a growing public interest in Europe for the First Nations in America associated with the take-over of Alcatraz in 1969, the Trail of Broken Treaties in 1972, and the occupation of Wounded Knee in 1973. It was AIM’s moment of glory. Later in the eighties, when environmental activists started their lobby for the protection of the Amazonia and tropical forests, the voice of indigenous and tribal peoples  was once again being expressed through the media.

These were signs that indigenous peoples were giving historical continuity to their struggle for survival. Many of them wanted to continue being themselves in the contemporary world. On the one hand they were launching an SOS; on the other hand they were confirming their availability to join forces with those people and organizations in industrialized countries who were sharing the same preoccupation for the future of mankind.

For some analysts, there was a feeling that soon the concept of Nation State would be called in question. It would then be confirmed some years later with the breakdown of the Soviet Union and end of the Cold War. The result was a growing social polarization and more power to transnational corporations and financial institutions. 

It was told that United Peoples represented the symbol of indigenous and small peoples’ universal struggle for political justice and cultural dignity - without regard to color, race or national boundaries. For time immemorial, it had been a driving board that helped them to “resist the evils” of colonialism and imperialism, and to evolve their own cultural notions of a "good life".

Around eight thousand years BC, peoples speaking Indo-European and Semitic languages were experimenting with animal domestication and agriculture. It led them to accumulating goods and building permanent settlements like towns and cities. Then, they created politically centralized systems that generated inequalities between people. They competed for glory and power, fought each other, made new alliances, in the name of God, Progress, Civilization, Modernity. 

This was the cultural shift that led to the irrepressible advance of invading civilizations against local and self-reliant communities all over the world. 

For a long period of time United Peoples had hibernated like seeds beneath the snow. Then in 1936 indigenous leaders of the world met in a Pacific island where they decided what policies to implement in order to contrast the rise of new radical political ideologies like fascism, nazism and stalinism. The Gandhian movement was indicated by Piel as one stream of United Peoples. Later, during the Cold War, the organization would support movements for liberation, civil rights, regional and ethnocultural autonomy throughout the world.

In 1984, Piel traveled to Japan. He participated in the congress of Hakuba for The Protection of Life on Earth. As a result, we were told that he had been nominated chairman of the World Council of Peoples - a segment of  United Peoples. His duty was to establish a headquarters for the organization in Europe and start mobilitating people and resources to fight desertification and deforestation in the world.

During the period from 1985 to 1988, Piel made an  attempt to establish United Peoples in Brussels. In his efforts, he was fully supported by members of The Tribe who gave him a precious assistance. These were very hard times and the project failed. Some facts - mostly distorted - were described by the media. A book called "The Micmac of the Secret Services" was published in Belgium. It added in more confusion about Piel's identity and integrity. For those who lost their trust, only the future may tell us if his detractors were right or wrong.

From my point of view, what happened in Brussels at that time was quite simple. For years Piel had built up a network of contacts and influences in Europe. The capital city of Belgium had become a strategic place. It was chosen to receive the headquartes of United Peoples organization. Some estates were bought at this effect and a small activity was started. Initiatives benefiting directly people in the South and in connection with the Sahelian Front were effectively financed. 

At one moment, it happened that Piel played an active role against the takeover of the Société Générale de Belgique by De Benedetti and associates. He was then also involved in a story of promissory notes - including a sum equivalent to millions of US dollars to be dedicated to civil operations - that was very clouded. 

In November 1998, he was suddenly arrested and incarcerated in the penitentiary of Saint-Gilles in Brussels. The police broke into UP offices and arrested other persons. Personal and official documents were brought to unknown locations. An heavy pressure was made on employees, volunteers and working partners. Still the grounds for the arrest were unclear and in the end Piel was released after some months. He was then invited to leave the country. 
 

During these three years  my main focus was on food strategies and forest people's rights. I also developed a critical understanding of development co-operation policies. My efforts were concentrated on the vision I had to bringing together development and environmental activists, scientists and farmers, students and young people, from both North and South hemispheres. I thought such contacts were necessary to better assess our differences and similarities and to create a framework for mutual understanding and respect.

In connection with the Sahelian Front and SOS Deserts, I was working part time to support the struggle of the indigenous peoples in Ecuador and part time on the organization of an international conference arranged  in Amsterdam in 1988 by the Foundation for Cultural Co-operation between ACP and EEC countries. With the group of Friends of The Earth I was leading in Brussels we also were actively involved with the preparation of the first special session to be held in the European Parliament in 1987 on the future of rain forests. 

Looking back at that period, it helped me to understand how important it is to work on a human scale. I learned that working in networks and supporting concerted local actions to oppose global powers which threaten people's basic rights brings some results. For any activist, it is very easy to fall in a provincial localism or to be trapped in the global arena where the corporate powers dominate. However, forging solidarity and partnership between real men and women acting locally within their communities gives a full sense to a "we" actively constructed. It's almost impossible to win the war but the friendship and spiritual connections that come with the vision and struggle for positive changes in the world are real foundations on which to build.

For me these were exciting times. I met and worked with interesting people, including green activists and scientists like Vandana Shiva and Paul Duvignaud, diplomats like Raymond Chasles and Ousseynou Niang, international experts like Hugues Dupriez, Etienne Leroy, spiritual leaders and philosophers like the Dalai Lama and Raimon Panikkar. But overall, it was the friendship and time shared with grassroots activists like Demba Mansare from West Africa and Leonardo Viteri from Ecuador that I appreciated the most.

Demba has built up the first farmer organization in Senegal and works extensively in Senegambia and Guinea Conakry. Leonardo was president of the National Confederation of Indigenous Peoples and still today does important work  defending the rights of his brothers and sisters in the Amazonian region.