Dr. Leo GABRIEL Speaker, Counter-summit "Enlazando Alternativas 2", Vienna
CV
| Studied law and political science at the University of Vienna and political anthropology in Paris where he represented the foreign students during the 1968 movement. | |
| Since 1970 he lived for many years in Latin America. From 1972-76 extensive travelling through South America as a documentary filmmaker of social movements in Colombia, Peru, Bolivia and Argentina. In 1978 he founded an independent press agency (Agencia Periodistica de Información Alternativa - APIA) in Nicaragua for the German speaking media. Since 1986 Dr. Gabriel became the scientific director of the Ludwig-Boltzmann-Institut für zeitgenössische Lateinamerikaforschung (Institute for contemporary studies on Latin America) in Vienna and guest professor at the universities of Zurich, Managua and Mexico. Between 1992 and 1996 he was editor in chief of "Nueva Tierra Nuestra". The scientific and journalistic work of Dr. Gabriel is focused on the organizing processes in Central and Southamerican indigenous and peasant cultures and their contribution towards the structuring of a Latinamerican Civil Society. More recently his harsh criticisme of the consequences and dangers of the globalisation of transnational capitalisme lead him to the outline of a globalized struggle for participatory democracy. 1998 he founded the so called Clean Clothes Campaign in Austria. He participated in the constitution of the first World Social Forum in january 2001 in Puerto Alegre and from 2002 on in the European Social Forum of Florence, Paris and London. Today he is one of the principle organisers of the "Summit of Alternatives" which is going to take place from may, 10th to 13th 2006 simultaneously with the presidential summit between heads of State of Latin America, the Caribbean and the European Union. From 2001 to 2005 he was the coordinator of LATAUTONOMY (www.latautonomy.org). |
Publikationen
| His main books are "Mexico: between myth and revolution" (1974), "Central America: the rebellion of cultures" (1985), "Alternatives to Neoliberalism in Latinamerica" (1991), "The Global Incorporation and the Resistance against Neolibaralism in Latin America" (1997)and "The politics of self reliance - Latin American proposals for a new democracy" (2005) | |
| He is also the author of a great number of documentary films for German, Swiss and Austria TV stations (e.g. "Senderos - the Odyssee of the Indians in Central America", "The boat of hope" on an Ecological Mouvement in the Northeastern part of Brasil, "Children of war in El Salvador", "Cachoeiras - the world of the indians on the Upper Rio Negro" etc.), also about Kazakhstan and Chechnia as part of a serie called "The broken mirror". Under this socioanthropological perspective he also produced a documetnary on the war in Afghanistan, the Israeli occupation of Palestine and on Iraq just before the war. Presently he finishes a documentary on indian autonomy processes in Latin America. |
