New York, July 28 (RHC)-- Prominent U.S. professor Noam Chomsky said Indigenous people in Latin America were the ones fighting back against decades of corporate exploitation.  In a recent interview, Chomsky said: “Indigenous communities have begun to find a voice for the first time in countries with large Indigenous populations like Bolivia (and) Ecuador.”

“That’s a tremendous step forward for the entire world.  It’s a kind of incredible irony that all over the world the leading forces in trying to prevent a race to disaster are the Indigenous communities.”

Noam Chomsky said that countries such as the U.S., Canada and Australia are suffering from “self-inflicted wounds” due to their history of oppression against Indigenous people and first nations.  He further stressed that the world is “facing potential environmental catastrophe and not in the distant future,” but the only communities standing between humankind and the realization of such a catastrophe is the world’s Indigenous people.

“All over the world, it’s the Indigenous communities trying to hold us back: First Nations in Canada, Indigenous people in Bolivia, Aborigines in Australia, tribal people in India.  It’s phenomenal all over the world that those who we call ‘primitive’ are trying to save those of us who we call ‘enlightened’ from total disaster.”

Chomsky’s comments come as many Indigenous groups across Latin America are becoming more involved in the continent's politics while also pushing back against global corporations who for decades have exploited their lands and resources for profit due to Western and U.S. influence in the region.