CENSORED NEWS: September 2008

Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Indigenous Peoples celebrate failed scam 'bailout'

INDIGENOUS CELEBRATION OF FAILED U.S. “BAIL-OUT” OF WALL STREET
WE ARE HOPING THAT COLONIAL LAND SCAMS ON TURTLE ISLAND WILL COLLAPSE FOR GOOD
MOHAWK NATION NEWS
Sept. 30, 2008. All is not lost. There is a good side to the economic “melt down” of the bankers’ attempts to continue their enslavement of the people. Thanks to the senators who refused to bail out these crooks, maybe we can save the planet. The U.S. dollar is going south hot on the heels of the U.S. reputation. These swindlers believe that anyone who doesn’t have independent wealth has no claim to even the smallest crust of bread. The indigenous way is that nature provides to all. We have a right to the food we need.
We never surrendered our territories. Every square inch of Turtle Island is Indigenous. We are so glad the gluttony for our territories and resources may come to an end. We Indigenous are still here to issue our warnings. European colonial incursion into Onowaregeh, Turtle Island, began with fraud and continued for 500 years, to the peril and detriment of the Indigenous peoples.
Read article:
http://censored-news.blogspot.com/2008/09/indigenous-celebration-of-failed-us.html

Monday, September 29, 2008

Sounds of the Longest Walk Northern Route

Sounds of the Longest Walk

By Brenda Norrell
Censored News
http://www.bsnorrell.blogspot.com/

There's about 500 audios from the Longest Walk northern route from the talk radio show on Earthcycles http://www.earthcycles.net/ In honor of those who walked, here's a few of the best days of interviews and songs.

--Fallon Stillwater, Paiute Shoshone, with songs by Miwok walkers and Savage family CD:

http://www.earthcycles.net/journal/index.php?24 .net/journal/index.php?24
Paiute tanning and gathering with Wesley Dick:
http://www.earthcycles.net/journal/index.php?23

--Longest Walk, Lake Tahoe to Cave Rock, Nevada
http://www.earthcycles.net/journal/index.php?18

--Ute Indian Museum in Montrose, Colorado, songs and talk by Montrose mayor:
http://www.earthcycles.net/journal/index.php?47

--Colorado: Ben Carnes, interviews on Leonard Peltier; interview with 1978 walker David Velarde, 3/30/2008:
http://www.earthcycles.net/journal/index.php?56

--Sand Creek Memorial: Remembering the massacred Cheyenne and Arapaho:
http://www.earthcycles.net/journal/index.php?60
Marty Chase Alone, Oglala, representing the Red Cloud people and a Tiospaye of the Big Road Band, "Wiping the tears," at Sand Creek:
http://www.earthcycles.net/journal/index.php?63

--Yankton SD. hog protest, with Lakota songs
http://www.earthcycles.net/journal/index.php?82

--Cimarron, Kansas: Govinda's pick of a great cow song, "Cows are fun ..." since this is slaughterhouse and feedlot country. This is one of the best shows. There's an interview on Maori Sovereignty with Sharon Heta and Michael Lane walkers from New Zealand. It includes an interview with walkers Sony and Justin, who talk about Kansas, cows and rain:
http://www.earthcycles.net/journal/index.php?68

--Walkers respond to attack by Columbus, Ohio, police, and AIM song at Ohio Capitol:
http://www.earthcycles.net/journal/index.php?105 earthcycles.net/journal/index.php?105
More walker comments on police attack, from camp at Raccoon State Park:
http://www.earthcycles.net/journal/index.php?113

--Interviews with Navajo, Lakota, Menominee, Euchee and other walkers on May 6, 2008, Knob Noster State Park, Missouri:
http://www.earthcycles.net/journal/index.php?87

--International Indian Treaty Council Human Rights Forum, with comments by Andrea Carmen, Lenny Foster, Ute youth walker Adriano Buckskin and others, in Illinois:
http://www.earthcycles.net/journal/index.php?88

--The AIM song led by Calvin Magpie, Cheyenne Arapaho, powwow songs and talk, at the Cahokia Mounds Powwow in Illinois on May 10, 2008
http://www.earthcycles.net/journal/index.php?89

--Songs and speeches on the steps of the Pennsylvania State Capitol at Harrisburg, including Mohawk and Tuscarora drum song, on June 30, 2008:
http://www.earthcycles.net/journal/index.php?118 118 ournal/index.php?118

--Craig Luther, Navajo, sings at Greenbelt Park, Maryland (by the tree 2008-7-10); Shoshone: Darlene Graham, Shoshone speaks on traditional healing and Janice Gardipe, Paiute and Shoshone, sings a

n honor song for the walkers:
http://www.earthcycles.net/journal/index.php?125

Listen to Keith Secola's NDN Cars online. Secola was among the performers at the Longest Walk Concert in DC:
http://www.secola.com/

Earthcycles is produced by Govinda Dalton. Longest Walk talk radio cohost is Brenda Norrell. Photos: Photo 1: Carl Bad Bear Sampson drumming outside Newmont Mining at Longest Walk prayer and protest in downtown Denver/Photo Brenda Norrell. Photo 2: Michael Lane with daughter/Photo Brita Brookes. Photo 3: Luv the Mezenger arrested by Columbus, Ohio, police who attacked Long walkers unprovoked/Photo Marie Littlemoon. Photo 4: Longest Walk northern route at Cahokia Mounds/Photo Brenda Norrell. Photo 5: On the steps of the Pennsylvania State Capitol/Photo Brenda Norrell. Photo 6: At the drum, Janice Gardipe, Paiute Shoshone, with Darlene Graham, Western Shoshone/Photo Brenda Norrell.

Sunday, September 28, 2008

Mohawks on Bailout: Chicken S--ts are Coming Home to Roost

WATCH OUT INDIGENOUS PEOPLE: THE CHICKEN S--TS ARE COMING HOME TO ROOST
WALL STREET SCAM ARTISTS HAVE DAMN NEAR DEPLETED THE U.S. TREASURY
MOHAWK NATION NEWS
Sept. 28, 2008. Who will control “Wall Street”, which some are now calling “Wail Street”? It’s the age old battle over control of the eastern part of Onowaregeh, Turtle Island, known as Haudenosaunee [Iroquois] territory. “Wall Street” is at the end of Manhattan Island. It was the dividing line between the Dutch colony and the Indians. This is where trade and commerce took place between us and our European visitors. It became the financial capital of the world for goods, money, buying and selling. We never surrendered our land. Every inch of soil they stand on is ours. We hold it for the benefit of future generations. Those latte-guzzling Armani suits don’t think about this. That $24 payment to somebody for our island is another white man’s delusion.
The big gambling houses that buy and sell stocks in New York City are in jeopardy. The U.S. corporation known as the “government” is extracting $750 billion of the taxpayers’ money to pay off these thieving loan sharks. Of course, it must be remembered that the people of U.S. and Canada have made their money through the exploitation of Indigenous resources and destruction of our environment.
The “bail out” looks like a way to get control of Indigenous territory by grabbing our land in lieu of unpaid housing mortgages and businesses of the unsuspecting U.S. people. There is very little public outcry over this highway robbery except on the internet. These obscene carpetbaggers make the robber barons look like boy scouts. In this credit and borrowing “shake down” the oligarchs hope to snatch $4 trillion worth of our real estate. It’s illegal. It’s fraud. It’s a power grab. The outcome will be financial tyranny on the populace.
Read article:
http://censored-news.blogspot.com/2008/09/mohawks-on-bailout-chicken-s-ts-are.html

UN carbon scam threatens Indigenous lands and forests

UN admits carbon reduction scheme threatens Indigenous lands and forests, proceeds regardless

From Earth Peoples:
Sept. 27, 2008 - On the third day of the General Assembly's 63rd Session, the United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and the Prime Minister of Norway launched the United Nations REDD program, a collaboration of FAO, UNDP, UNEP and the World Bank.
The inclusion of forests in the carbon market, or REDD (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation) has caused anxiety, protest and outrage throughout the world since it was created at the failed climate change negotiations in Bali and funded by the World Bank.
An estimated 60 million indigenous peoples are completely dependent on forests and are considered the most threatened by REDD. Therefore, indigenous leaders are among its most prominent critics.
The International Indigenous Peoples' Forum on Climate Change declared that: '...REDD will steal our land... States and carbon traders will take control over our forests.'It is alarming that indigenous peoples' fears and objections have now been confirmed by the UN-REDD Framework Document itself.
On page 4 and 5 it blatantly states that the program could "deprive communities of their legitimate land-development aspirations, that hard-fought gains in forest management practices might be wasted, that it could cause the lock-up of forests by decoupling conservation from development, or erode culturally rooted not-for-profit conservation values."
It is further highlighted that "REDD benefits in some circumstances may have to be traded off against other social, economic or environmental benefits."
In carefully phrased UN language, the document further acknowledges that REDD could cause severe human rights violations and be disastrous for the poor because it could "marginalize the landless and those with communal use-rights."
This is tantamount to the UN recognizing that REDD could undermine indigenous peoples and local communities rights to the usage and ownership of their lands.
Could it be that the UN is paving the way for a massive land grab?

To see photos from the protest against REDD and the World Bank in Bali: http://www.globaljusticeecology.org/gallery.php

To watch the video from the protest against REDD at the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UtORVi7GybY

PROJECT CENSORED 2009: An article by Censored News on the carbon scam, selected as one of the most 25 most censored issues, is a selection of Project Censored 2009. An update on the carbon scam by Brenda Norrell appears in the new book, Project Censored 2009. "Indigenous peoples continue to expose carbon credits as a scam for profiteering corporations and the World Bank, fueled by the easily manipulated news media. While carbon brokers become millionaires, the reality of the carbon credit scheme hits indigenous peoples around the world with full force, particularly in South America, India, and Africa," the update states.

More info: Indigenous Environmental Network (http://www.ienearth.org)

Censored News (http://www.bsnorrell.blogspot.com)

Earthcycles (http://www.earthcycles.net)

Information Package on: UN - REDD NEWS from the United Nations 63rd General Assembly currently in Session

From Earth Peoples

The UN-REDD Programme was officially launched during the High-Level event on the Millennium Goals on 25 September 2008 at UN Hqrs in NYC. UN-REDD is the United Nations Collaborative Programme on Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation in Developing Countries.Framework Document by FAO, UNDP, UNEP http://www.undp.org/mdtf/UN-REDD/docs/Annex-A-Framework-Document.pdf

A Press Conference took place at the United Nations on 24 September 2008
UN Press release http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2008/sgsm11812.doc.htm

United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) Press Release http://www.unep.org/Documents.Multilingual/Default.asp?DocumentID=545&ArticleID=5930&l=en
UN - REDD and Indigenous Peoples
Various Indigenous representatives are opposed to UN-REDD. On 25 April 2008, the last day of the 7th session of the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues at UN Hqrs in NYC, the Indigenous Caucus of the Americas attempted to present a statement against REDD.As the Caucus was called out of order by the Chair, a protest ensued and Caucus members threatened to walk out. Security was called. A peacefully outcome resulted when the Chair allowed the Caucus representative to read the statement.
To watch the video (by Filmmaker Rebecca Sommer) from the protest against REDD at the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UtORVi7GybY
28 September 2008 - Compiled by Marie-Danielle Samuel, Main Rep. to UN
YACHAY WASI, NGO/UN ECOSOC & DPI, NYC and Cuzco, PERU "Yachay Wasi means House of Learning in Quechua"Luis Delgado Hurtado, PresidentLa Conquista 3ra puerta (Saphi)Cuzco, PERU Phone: 51-84-315815Marie-Danielle Samuel, Vice President708 West 192nd Street # 6BNew York, NY 10040 USAPhone: 212-567-6447Fax: 917-529-0922 Email: yachaywasi@nyc.rr.com
http://www.yachaywasi-ngo.org Yachay Wasi is in Operational Relations with UNESCO

Saturday, September 27, 2008

Arrest made in murder of 'Sally' Grace Eiler

Police in Mexico arrest alleged killer of US woman
The Associated Press
Sunday, September 28, 2008
MEXICO CITY: Authorities in southern

Oaxaca state said Saturday they have arrested a man who allegedly raped and killed a U.S. woman.
Omar Yoguez Singu, 32, told police he had consensual sex with Marcella Grace Eiler, 20, of Eugene, Oregon, and then killed her with a machete after an argument on Sept. 15, Oaxaca State Attorney General Evencio Ramirez said.
Eiler's badly decomposed body was found Wednesday in a shack 80 miles (130 kilometers) south of Oaxaca City, near the town of San Jose del Pacifico.
Ramirez said Singu was turned over to police on Wednesday in Mexico City by friends who first beat him up after he confessed to the crime.
Eiler's father, John Eiler, of St. Louis, Missouri, said his daughter was a dance teacher and social activist in Oaxaca City, where she had lived on and off for the past three years.
"She was really trying to spend her energy as an observer for an indigenous rights organization," John Eiler said in a telephone interview.
Eiler had traveled to San Jose del Pacifico to dance at a fundraiser, said Miguel Cruz of Oaxaca's Popular Indigenous Council, an organization with which he said Eiler had worked since 2007.
She also had lived for about a month with the family of a witness in the killing of Bradley Roland Will, a volunteer for Indymedia.org, Cruz said. Will was fatally shot in October 2006 in Oaxaca City while filming protests by activists demanding the ouster of the state's governor.
Will's family said last year that they believed state officials were probably involved in his killing. State investigators arrested two town officials in 2006 but later released them after then-state Attorney General Lizbeth Cana suggested Will may have been shot by a protester.
Cruz said Eiler had complained that police in civilian clothes often sat in a parked car outside the witness's family's house and that they followed her.
Calls to Oaxaca's state police department were not answered Saturday.
"We're asking authorities to conduct an efficient and transparent investigation and that they not taint her image because she dedicated herself to defending the rights of women and of indigenous people," Cruz said in a telephone interview.
John Eiler said his daughter's remains would be cremated and returned to the United States.
Read previous articles about Sally's murder at: www.narconews.com/

Sally's murder: 'Meant to terrorize a population'

Hasta Siempre Sally Grace: Another US Activist Murdered in Oaxaca
by Kristin Bricker
Narco News

In my memories of Sally Grace, she looks just like the photograph of her that her friends published along with the communique denouncing that she was raped and murdered--laughing and smiling with a camera in her hand ...
Sally's raped and decaying body turned up in a cabin 20 minutes outside of San Jose del Pacifico. A neighbor noticed the smell and called the police.
According to the friend who identified the body, her face was unrecognizable: it was black as if it had been burned, and all of her hair was gone as if it had been ripped out. But Julieta Cruz recognized Sally's tattoos.
Read article in Narco News:
http://narcosphere.narconews.com/notebook/kristin-bricker/2008/09/hasta-siempre-sally-grace-another-us-activist-murdered-oaxaca

Friday, September 26, 2008

O'odham and American: New film is portrait of post 9/11 America

'I am an American,' documents post 9/11 racism, discrimination and patriotism in US

Article and photo by Brenda Norrell
Censored News
http://www.bsnorrell.blogspot.com

TUCSON -- Cynthia Weber's new film, "I am an American," screened tonight in Tucson. The film is a portrait of post 9/11 America, revealing the lives of migrants and Minutemen; patriots and political refugees.
"I am an American," shares the voices of US servicemen who were honored to be Americans, and others who either fled America or were brutalized and criminalized by systematic hatred and racial prejudice. Fathers, mothers and children tell their own stories.
"It does show the faces of true Americans. We are not all white, elite people," said Ofelia Rivas, Tohono O'odham and founder of O'odham Voice Against the Wall. Rivas is featured in the film and her comment came after screening the film for the first time Friday night.
The film profiles range from Katrina victims pondering their status as refugees in their homeland, to a Chinese Muslim army chaplain prosecuted

as an enemy combatant.
Shanti Sellz, humanitarian lending aid to migrants on the Arizona border with No More Deaths, describes her arrest for helping save the lives of migrants.
With these voices, the film documents the post 9/11 hysteria which resulted in prosecution of the innocent, the inhumane police and court actions and US violations of human decency. However, it also gives the Minutemen and a proud soldier, fast tracked to citizenship, a voice.
Weber, a US citizen who makes her home in England, showed the film as a fundraiser for Derechos Humanos, No More Deaths and O'odham Voice Against the Wall. The screening was at the Armory building downtown.
In the film, Ofelia Rivas, interviewed at her home on Tohono O'odham land, describes the violations of human rights and dignity carried out by the US Border Patrol on a regular basis. Rivas describes how many O'odham, including herself, were born at home and do not have birth certificates. She also described how an agent pointed a gun at her head and demanded she identify herself as an American citizen.
Rivas said O'odham want others to know this: "We do live on both sides of that border and we do continue to cross."
During the screening, Rivas spoke on how the US/Mexico border wall has become a barrier for ceremonies and violated the religious rights of the O'odham, who have lived in this territory since time immemorial.
After the screening, Rivas said it is good that this film is carrying the O'odham voice

to England and elsewhere. Rivas said the film shows the diversity of people in America.
"Maybe people can see what is happening to the original people," Rivas said in an interview with Censored News.
"It does show the faces of true Americans. We are not all white, elite people."
Although the US claims to guarantee the rights of its citizens on paper, Rivas said that is not always the reality.
During this election year, there is a great deal of attention on voting. Rivas, however, said it takes more than just casting a vote to bring about a change. She said people must stand up for their rights and take action.
"We can't just allow this United States government system to push us around any more."
Crossing the US/Mexico border, which divides O'odham communities, is now more difficult than ever; traditional O'odham find it difficult to find help anywhere.
"We have not received any kind of assistance from the Tohono O'odham Nation as traditional people," she said in the interview.
Rivas said the O'odham traditional crossing has been cut off by the US vehicle barrier constructed by Homeland Security. Now, the elders returning form ceremonies are subjected to harassment by the US Border Patrol. Now, O'odham must travel long distances to border crossings. The agents always consider O'odham elders as "suspects," as drug dealers or smugglers. The elders are fearful and must repeatedly endure rude agents.
"It is not a good situation when we have just been to ceremonies."
Rivas said the earth is going through a healing now and there has been a lot of rain. She said there are many changes, including changes in nature.
"If we don't follow our traditional ways, we are in for a lot of problems."
"I just encourage people to remain strong."
AUDIO: Listen to Ofelia Rivas react to the new film:
--Click on link below
--Click on file name "Ofelia Rivas" in white box
http://censored-news.blogspot.com/2008/09/audio-ofelia-rivas-oodham-voice-against.html
AUDIO: Cynthia Weber's describes the origin of the film:
http://censored-news.blogspot.com/2008/09/audio-race-and-america-filmmaker.html
About the film, "I am an American" by Cynthia Weber
Interviewed in the film:
-Iraq war veteran Guadalupe Denogean, who became a "fast-tracked" US citizen
-Iraq war resisters Phil McDowell and Jamine Apointe, who are seeking political refugee status in Canada
-Peace activist Fernando Suarez del Solar, who refused posthumous US citizenship for his soldier son Jesus who was killed in Iraq
-Undocumented immigrant Elvira Arellano, who until July 2007 was in sanctuary in a US church fighting deportation so she could remain with her US citizen son Saul
-The founder of the Minuteman Civil Defence Corps, Chris Simcox, who organises civilian patrols along US borders
-Human-rights activist with the No More Deaths group, Shanti Sellz, who with Daniel Strauss was arrested for transporting undocumented immigrants to a hospital
-Indigenous-rights activist Ofelia Rivas, who is fighting the construction of the US-Mexico border fence that will divide her nation
-Indigenous-rights activist Jose Matus, who heads the Indigenous Alliance Without Borders project
-Hurricane Katrina evacuees Greg and Glenda Avery, who have at times been treated more like "refugees" than US citizens in their own country
-US army Muslim chaplain James Yee, who was detained by the US government as an enemy combatant.
Weber says, "What I hope my films express is how these US Americans live their differences in an often less-than-tolerant and increasingly disunited nation."
ICEHOUSE GALLERY IN PHOENIX: "I am an American"
http://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/locations/icehouse-7693/
Art installation: Sept. 29 to Oct 17, 2008

PHOTO 1: Ofelia Rivas, Tohono O'odham, founder of O'odham Voice Against the Wall, talks with Cynthia Weber, producer of the new film, "I Am an American." Photo Brenda Norrell. Photo 2: Shanti Sellz, No More Deaths humanitarian/Photo "I am an American." Photo 3: Ofelia Rivas at the border vehicle barrier constructed south of Sells, Arizona, on Tohono O'odham Nation land in 2007. Photo Brenda Norrell.

Activist Marcella Sali Grace raped and murdered in Oaxaca

Justice for our sister Marcella Sali Grace!
Version en espanol sigue despues del link.

"She was a champion for indigenous rights and helped me raise money for indigenous peoples in Mexico. She was a women rights and indigenous rights activist and such a great person." -- Navajo friend
Oaxaca de Juarez, Oaxaca. Thursday, September 25
Justice for our sister Marcella Sali Grace!
Brother and sisters,
Our hearts are full of sadness and rage because our sister Sali was brutally raped and murdered 20 minutes from San Jose del Pacifico and up to this moment the Oaxacan Attorney General's Office, as is its custom, is not doing anything regarding the fact that there exist witnesses who have information to identify those responsible.
Marcella Sali Grace was born in the United States, with a big heart in solidarity with just causes. She had many friends because she was always inclined to help, using her artistic talents to paint a banner or a wall or doing Arabic dance to raise funds for the struggle, or putting on punk shows, or giving self-defense courses for women because she knew very well how the men accosted them. This was one of her struggles, that women were free and respected. Sali was so involved in the struggle that she was an international accompanier of brothers and sisters who felt harassed by the bad government of Ulises Ruiz Ortiz.
Read more at: http://www.narconews.com/

Melendez: Media downplays Hurricane Ike

Steve and Cheryl Melendez at the American Indian Genocide Museum: Recovering from Hurricane Ike, Alabama Coushatta also hit

By Steve and Cheryl Melendez

indmuseum@yahoo.com

Photo NPS/Chickasaw help Texas Alabama -Coushatta Nation

HOUSTON -- Finally , after two weeks we have electricity today. Many more are still without it. Phones and cell phones were not working . The hurricane brought down so many trees. There were trees on houses, on cars , on light poles and lying across the streets. That was the scene in my neighborhood and repeated throughout Houston and other cities. The aftermath of the storm left the city without power, water and public transportation. Houston and other areas have issued mandatory curfews. We have waited in FEMA lines for ice, food and water. Neighborhood Kroger opened this past week and we were allowed in five at a time. The line hooked around the store parking lot. No meat, dairy, bread. We were given only 10 minutes to get in and out. The gas stations had petrol, but could not run due to no source of power. When one station opened up the line was hours long. They limited the gas to only $20.00 worth if you were the lucky one to get it.

These have been conveniences and neccessities that we have come to depend on. But , thank God we still have our house. House, we have some roof damage. Fence blew out in the back yard. Had to throw away refrigerated foods, but again we are the blessed ones. So, many are now without a home to return to. Galveston, Crystal beach, Boliver, Gilcrest, High Island , Chambers county hit so hard. Gilcrest only one house remains after the hurricane. Nearly 400 people have been reported missing. Some of our friends have lost their homes.

The national news is not reporting this fairly and has been making this sound like a minor event. No Hollywood stars coming out to fundraise for our coastal communities. Many folks are permanent residents and these were not all vacation homes for the rich. Galveston has many poor people and the city depends on summer tourism.

This hurricane also affected the Texas Alabama Coushatta Reservation, the Woodlands, and ended up as a tropical storm knocking out power, and causing floods in Cincinnati , Ohio; caused 70 mile hour winds across the Canadian border. Hurricane Ike was so big it took up half of the Gulf of Mexico.

In all people are making do. Neighbors helping neighbors. Strangers becoming friends. Hope sustains us.
http://www.chron.com/hurricane/ike/

Photo National Park Service: An NPS bucket truck with a crew of four from Chickasaw NRA has arrived in the park and will be assisting Big Thicket and Lake Meredith saw crews with clearing priority access areas. Road clearing to oil and gas wellheads is continuing. The Central incident management team continues to assist the Alabama-Coushatta Tribe of Texas with support. Randy Larrabee from Chickasaw NRA is on site and is now conducting FMSS assessments and entering data. Forty-four people are currently committed to help.

Thursday, September 25, 2008

Alcatraz Sunrise October 13, 2008

Please double click on image to enlarge.

Bailout protest: 'Lunatics are running the asylum'

In front of the federal building today in Tucson, protesters demanded "No Bush Bail Out." (Photo copyright Brenda Norrell) Listen to today's protesters below.

Article and photo by Brenda Norrell
Censored News
TUCSON – Protesting outside the federal building in downtown Tucson, Attorney Bill Risner and other protesters called for no, “Bush Bail Out” on Thursday. Stating the frightening prospect of John McCain becoming president, Risner said McCain may very well have mental problems and Sarah Palin has already failed the test of sanity.
Risner said the US financial bailout for the “Bush gang of criminals” is a frightening possibility.
“If Obama wins, his hands are tied," Risner said on the street in front of the federal building, surrounded by bailout protesters.
Risner said the Obama administration would find it difficult to fund heath care and other services for the American public, since the current administration is bent on giving away money to hedge funds and billionaires.
If McCain wins the presidency, the outcome would be truly frightening for America, he said.
“I do believe they are capable of anything. These guys killed 3,000 people at the World Trade Center. If you will commit that crime, you will do anything.”
Risner said the Bush criminal gang is afraid of any power that will bring them to justice. Further, Risner said McCain is uninterested in facts or the government.
Risner said McCain may very well have "some sort of mental problems" and Palin certainly does. McCain's "vice president wants to bring Jesus back by starting a war in the Middle East so that Armageddon happens quickly," he said.
Risner also pointed out that Palin believes that what happens in the Middle East is the “will of God.”
“She is really a wacko.”
Risner said Palin’s comments about God and the Middle East “qualifies one for insanity in that office.”
“Lunatics are running the asylum.”
Standing outside the federal building, which includes FBI offices, Risner said the crowd came to protest the bailout of the “Bush criminal gang of Wall Street buddies.”
Risner said Bush is taking “everyone to the cleaners” before he gets out of office.
Referring to the financial collapse of US corporations, Risner recalled that Bush earlier described the economy as a “House of cards.” Risner said now the house of cards should be allowed to fall, so a new foundation can be built. Borrowing another trillion only means “digger yourself deeper into the hole.”
“They are for sure not telling us what the real reasons are, or what the endgame is.”
“They all got over-extended,” Risner said of the corporations, pointing out how companies have been borrowing money and then couldn’t come up with the money when it was necessary.
One of the results of the current crisis was that mortgages were bundled and the bottom group of buyers was sure to lose.
Risner joined other protesters to make one point: In the end, the bottom line is the American taxpayer is sure to lose.
"It is a big money grab. Bush hoped to get it with no strings attached," said Jackie, a woman who has spent two days here protesting the bailout.
Jackie said the rich are the first to get bailouts, while average Americans struggle to pay their mortgages. She joined protesters holding signs saying, "Bail out main street first."
As for the rich, who don't even know how many homes they own, Jackie said, "Let them empty their pockets first."
Listen to interviews on Censored News:
--Click on link below
--When webpage opens, click on "Bill Risner" (or "woman protester") in the white box to listen
If you have problems, e-mail me for the downloads: brendanorrell@gmail.com
Bill Risner's interview today:
http://censored-news.blogspot.com/2008/09/blog-post.html
Protester Jackie's comments:
http://censored-news.blogspot.com/2008/09/woman-protester-in-tucson-no-bush.html
http://censored-news.blogspot.com/2008/09/woman-protester-no-bush-bailout-part-ii.html

Congress urged to ensure protection of sacred lands

Tribal Nations, Native Rights Organizations, and Social/Environmental Justice Allies call on Congress and administration to immediately address Tribal Sacred Lands protection

By Coalition of Native groups

Photo: San Francisco Peaks/Save the Peaks

INDIAN COUNTRY — Tribal Nations, Native rights organizations, and social/environmental justice allies are calling on the U.S. Senate Indian Affairs Committee and other Congressional Committees to conduct hearings concerning federal land management practices that threaten or destroy Tribal sacred lands.
The Advocates for the Protection of Sacred Sites, The Save the Peaks Coalition, Indigenous Environmental Network, International Indian Treaty Council, Seventh Generation Fund, Vallejo Inter-Tribal Council, and Morning Star Institute have joined together to address the lack of federal government cooperation and consultation with Tribes in balancing destructive corporate development of Tribal ancestral lands and honoring Tribal rights and needs. The groups are also calling on the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation to investigate federal government non-compliance with Tribal consultation requirements and to assist in immediately remedying the problems.
“Corporate development of federal lands that overlap sacred Tribal ancestral lands not only further the desecration and destruction of sacred places and areas which Indigenous Peoples have traditionally used and safeguarded, but harm longstanding and positive Tribal social and cultural structures, increase threats to endangered and threatened species, and cause environmental destruction,” stated Mark LeBeau, Co-Chair of the Advocates for the Protection of Sacred Sites. “The protection and preservation of sacred places are essential to the practice of Indigenous Peoples’ freedom of religions, a fundamental human right which is recognized by both federal and international law.”
The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples was adopted by the UN General Assembly on September 13, 2007. This Declaration represents the dynamic development of international legal norms and sets an important standard for the treatment of Indigenous Peoples by states. It is a significant tool towards eliminating human rights violations against the planet's 370 million Indigenous Peoples and assisting them in combating discrimination and marginalization. Article 12 of the Declaration affirms that “Indigenous peoples have the right to manifest, practice, develop and teach their spiritual and religious traditions, customs and ceremonies and the right to maintain, protect, and have access in privacy to their religious and cultural sites.”
“Congress and the Advisory Council for Historic Preservation must intervene where the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and other federal agencies have fallen short in their fiduciary responsibilities to federally-recognized Tribes, including working cooperatively and constructively with Tribes to resolve disputes,” said Radley Davis, Co-Chair of the Advocates for the Protection of Sacred Sites.
On July 11, 2008, more than 1,000 Native rights and environmental justice advocates arrived in Washington, DC after walking across the US to raise awareness about key issues affecting Native peoples and the environment. The successful journey, known as the Longest Walk 2, delivered a 30-page manifesto and list of demands to Congress, which included the protection of sacred places and climate change mitigation.
House Judiciary Chair, US Representative John Conyers (D-MI) promised representatives from the Longest Walk 2 that their issues would be addressed but set no timetable. "The Committee on the Judiciary will hold hearings on each one of these items that you have outlined here," stated Rep. Conyers.
Tribal Nations and Native rights organizations are aware of hundreds of threatened sacred places throughout the US and are highlighting two critical threatened sacred places as evidence for immediate political action: The Medicine Lake Highlands located in California and the San Francisco Peaks located in Northern Arizona.
The Medicine Lake Highlands, northeast of Mt. Shasta, are sacred to the Pit River, Wintu, Karuk, Modoc, Shasta, and other Tribal nations. The Pit River people believe that the Creator and his son bathed in the lake after creating the earth, and then the Creator placed healing medicine in the lake. In the 1980s the BLM gave energy development leases in the Highlands to developers, without first conducting adequate environmental review and consulting any of the Tribes that would be affected by the projects. Developers such as Calpine Energy Corporation have used any tactic that money could buy to try to achieve their goal of building massive power plants in the sacred Highlands to harness geothermal energy, including activating teams of lawyers, lobbying state and federal representatives, buying-off some adversaries, and information spinning.
“The developers are attempting to move ahead in spite of the fact that project-drilling in the Highlands would likely release dangerous chemicals, including arsenic, chromium, and hydrogen sulfide, into the surface and ground waters that Californians and all other living things in this region rely upon,” stated James Hayward, Co-Chair of the Advocates for the Protection of Sacred Sites. “This proposed project must be stopped and the US government must assist in this effort.”
In November 2006, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the federal agencies neglected their fiduciary responsibilities to the Pit River Nation by violating the National Environmental Protection and the National Historic Preservation Acts and that the agencies never took the requisite “hard look” at whether the Highlands should be developed for energy at all. As a result, the court rejected the extension of leases that would have allowed Calpine to build geothermal plants and ordered judgment in favor of Pit River. Now BLM and Calpine are at it again as they prepare to attempt to conduct geothermal resource exploration in the sacred Glass Mountain region of the Highlands. BLM contends that the ruling was not explicative enough and so it is moving forward with the exploration. The Advocates for the Protection of Sacred Sites strongly oppose BLM’s reinterpretation of the ruling and will stop the agency.
Louis Gustafson, Citizen of the Pit River Nation, says, ''The government has agreements not to bomb holy mosques when they're at war, but we have to go through all these hoops just to protect our holy place.''
Arizona’s San Francisco Peaks are recognized internationally as a sacred place. The Peaks are a unique ecological island and are held holy by more than 13 Native American Nations. Arizona Snowbowl Ski Resort, located on the holy Peaks, is attempting to expand development, clear-cut acres of old growth trees, and make fake snow from treated sewage effluent, which has been proven to have harmful contaminants. The US Forest Service manages the San Francisco Peaks as public land and has faced multiple lawsuits by the Navajo Nation, Hopi, White Mountain Apache, Yavapai Apache, Hualapai, and Havasupai tribes, as well as the Sierra Club, Flagstaff Activist Network, Center of Biological Diversity, and others after it initially approved the proposed ski area development in 2005.
On August 8, 2008 the 9th Circuit of Appeals overturned a previous court ruling stopping the proposed development. The case is expected to be appealed to the Supreme Court.
"We have no guarantee for the protection for our religious freedom when it comes to government land use decisions," stated Klee Benally of the Save the Peaks Coalition. “This case underscores the fact that we need legislative action to ensure protection for places held holy by Native American Tribes. Federal land management policies are inconsistent when addressing Native American religious practice relating to sacred places. From the San Francisco Peaks, Medicine Lake Highlands, Yucca Mountain, Bear Butte, Mt. Taylor, Mt. Graham and the hundreds of additional sacred places that are threatened or are currently being desecrated, we need consistent protective action now.”
“The corporate projects proposed in the Medicine Lake Highlands and on San Francisco Peaks must be stopped. Key federal lawmakers and administration officials must work more rigorously with Tribes to ensure adequate cooperation and consultation on proposed projects that overlap Tribal sacred lands,” stated Radley Davis. “Our call for hearings is a critical measure that must be taken seriously to ensure that balancing corporate and agency development of Tribal ancestral lands and the needs and rights of Indigenous Nations are honored.”
Please fax a brief letter to Senate Indian Affairs Committee urging that a hearing be held on these issues as soon as possible. The Committee fax number is 202-228-2589.
Contacts: James Hayward, Redding Rancheria/Advocates for the Protection of Sacred Sites, 530-410-2875; Klee Benally, Save the Peaks Coalition,928-380-2629; Radley Davis, Pit River Nation/Advocates for the Protection of Sacred Sites, 530-917-6064; Mark LeBeau, Pit River Nation/Advocates for the Protection of Sacred Sites, 916-801-4422; Andrea Carmen, International Indian Treaty Council, 907-745-4482; Chris Peters, Seventh Generation Fund, 707-825-7640; Tom Goldtooth, Indigenous Environmental Network, 218-751-4967; Wounded Knee, Vallejo Inter-Tribal Council, 707-556-8776; Suzan Shown Harjo, Morning Star Institute, 202-547-5531

'I Am American' film in Tucson

Five years after 9/11, Weber began on-camera interviews with US citizens of various ages, races, religions, sexes and ethnicities caught up in the security and immigration crossfire of the ‘war on terror.’ The result is a fascinating series of portraits that illuminate and refigure national ‘stories’of US identity, citizenship, tolerance, and patriotism.

Join us for campus and community screenings this month, where Professor Weber will be present to introduce and discuss the film.

Thursday, September 25, 6:00 pm 305 Harvill Building, 1103 E. 2nd St., University of Arizona

Free and open to the public - Sponsored by the Department of Political Science

Friday, September 26, 6:30 pm Armory Park Ballroom, 220 S. 5th Avenue, Tucson Everyone Welcome! $5.00 suggested donation

All proceeds will benefit Derechos Humanos, No More Deaths, and O’odham Voice Against the Wall
Posted by University of Arizona Women's Resource Center Blog

Taco sale: Navajo mother's home burns to ground

NAVAJO TACO/FOOD SALE/ART SALE DENVER
SATURDAY SEPTEMBER 27, 2008
Begins 9:00 AM
WILL ALSO HAVE NAVAJO SKIRTS & OUTFITS AVAILABLE FOR THOSE WHO WANT TO STRUT THEIR STUFF AT THE NEXT EVENT ; 4547 W DAKOTA AVE CROSS STREETS UTICA & ALAMEDA AVE ONE BLOCK SOUTH LOCATION IS RIGHT BEFORE ALAMEDA AVENUE & SHERIDAN BLVD ANY QUESTIONS PLEASE CALL 303-862-4097
ALL PROCEEDS WILL BENEFIT A NAVAJO FAMILY IN NEED.
This was posted by Susan Yazzie several weeks ago. I am sending to all in the community to let you know what happened to her sister’s family, very unfortunate. Please send prayers for the youngest son still in the hospital trying to recover with most of his body had been severely burned. To Native Community:
My name is Susan Yazzie and I am writing to you on behalf of my sister Jenny. She lives on the Navajo Reservation in Arizona, with five boys. On Saturday morning, Saturday August 23, 2008, between 1:00-3:00 am in Seba Dakaii, her 5 bedroom trailer home was burned down to the ground, nothing was salvageable. Not only did they lose their home, but 3 boys were flown to Phoenix Burn center. As of now Keeto, 14, is released leaving Manuel, 15, still in the hospital. Keefred, 17, is in severe condition from smoke inhalation and recovering from the burns. My sister is a single parent who strives to work hard to support her kids. The fire has left nothing but ashes and memories for the family. The home is a total loss and all personal possessions, including clothing, furniture and so on were destroyed. Therefore they have no home to live in for the present being.
I am asking some help for her and her children. If you can offer something please contact me at 303-862-4097. Much needed items right now are clothing and perhaps gift cards from Walmart or other stores. Food items and volunteers for taco sale are welcome and needed.
Please contact Susan asap.
Donations needed for the taco sale: Lettuce, tomatoes, cheese, onions, salsa, baked goods/ cookies, muffins, cakes, candy, soda pop/cans, bottled water, dried beans, aluminum foil, paper plates

Pointe-au-Chien appeal for help after Ike and Gustav

Louisiana Coastal Tribes Appeal for Help After Ike and Gustav Devastate Lower Bayou Indian Communities
Pointe-au-Chien Tribal members in front of home damaged by storms. Tribal Communities Dealt Blows after Gustav and Ike Hit Gulf Coast. For the second time in three years, tribes in South Louisiana face back-to-back catastrophic hurricanes. In South Louisiana, the lower bayou Indian communities of Pointe-au-Chien Indian Tribe, the Isle de Jean Charles Band of Biloxi-Chitimacha, the Bayou Lafourche Band of Biloxi-Chitimacha, and the Grand Caillou/Dulac Band of Biloxi-Chitimacha face tough times. Three years after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita dealt devastating blows, Hurricanes Gustav and Ike ravaged the small fishing communities. Hurricane Gustav destroyed tribal buildings, tribal homes, and left some tribal members homeless. Some members are living in homes that are not habitable. Hurricane Ike, a category 2 storm passing 275 miles to the West, caused a 6-8 foot storm surge in lower Pointe-au-Chien and Isle de Jean Charles. Almost every home in the tribal communities has some damage, and the tribal communities of the Grand Caillou/Dulac and Bayou Lafourche Band of Biloxi-Chitimacha are also facing similar problems. Tribal leaders assessed that more damage was caused to their communities during Ike and Gustav than during the 2005 hurricane season. The devastation to the tribal communities results from years of neglect. Unfortunately, the Pointe-au-Chien Indian Community and the Isle de Jean Charles Indian Community are exposed to the elements. With no levee and no coastal restoration projects planned to protect the Community, the Pointe-au-Chien, the Isle de Jean Charles, and other communities, these small tribal communities face hard times. Their current situation was exasperated when the Mississippi River was rerouted, the barrier islands were not protected, and the oil companies arbitrarily and systematically cut canals resulting in increased salt water intrusion. Because the Terrebonne Barrier Islands are disappearing, the tribal homelands of the Pointe-au-Chien and the Isle a Jean Charles Indian Tribes are now the barrier Islands, resulting in more damage and flooding during each hurricane season. After three weeks, tribal communities finally have electricity and water to start the clean-up process. Some houses, however, cannot be repaired or cleaned. Because it took so long to start the clean-up process, some families face mold and mildew. Insurance companies told tribal members to wait to clean up until they can investigate. "It's a big mess," said Chief Albert Naquin of Isle de Jean Charles, "and we are going to need a lot of help to clean it up." Chairman Charles Verdin of the Pointe-au-Chien Indian Tribe is concerned about the impacts the storms will have on fishermen, who have been unemployed for the past month—the height of the shrimping season. Most families work during this time period and save funds to last throughout the winter, with the loss of their stored food supply from their freezers, the loss of additional food supply and income, and rebuilding, this is going to be a tough winter. Louisiana officials traveled to Washington D.C. this week to request funding for the State, but the Louisiana tribes need community-wide rebuilding relief to sustain their communities. In the past, relief funds for rebuilding and repair have not been sufficient and tribal members who theoretically should have benefited from state-wide programs for rebuilding have been denied assistance because tribal members live on "family property." Further, the State provided a white paper on coastal restoration needs, which focused primarily on already funded projects and repair of levees that were breached. Tribal burial grounds and traditional hunting and fishing areas are also left exposed and tribal leaders fear will ultimately be lost to the Gulf of Mexico. The lack of federal status impacts the ability of the tribes to receive aid from the federal government or from having a real voice in recovery and relief in the South Louisiana region. Through the Louisiana Coastal Tribes Coalition, bayou Indian tribes are working together on emergency response and rebuilding efforts. After the 2005 hurricanes, the LCTC was able to coordinate with the Mennonite Disaster Service to build five homes in four tribal communities. LCTC is coordinating clean-up and rebuilding efforts across four Indian communities. The Tribes are hoping to coordinate long-term recovery and coastal restoration efforts in order to protect the culture and way of life of the tribal people of South Louisiana. At the same time, the bayou tribes need to raise over $500,000 to pay for experts and research to assist in their petitions for federal acknowledgment which are due to the federal government soon. All fundraising efforts, however, have been impacted by these storms. To learn how to volunteer or to donate, please visit the http://www.lctci.com/, or http://pactribe.tripod.com/. Donations can be made directly to the Pointe-au-Chien Indian Tribe at PO Box 416, Montegut, LA 70377. The Louisiana Environmental Action Network, http://www.leanweb.org/., is working directly with the tribes to provide much-needed supplies. Only donations to the Coalition, the Coalition's member tribes, or organizations working directly with the tribes, are guaranteed to reach those impacted.

Wednesday, September 24, 2008

World Can't Wait: Bush protest at the UN

By Debra Sweet
The World Can't Wait
Yesterday, George Bush spoke to the General Assembly of the UN. NY1 reported, "Protesters staged a rally at Dag Hammerskold Plaza, across from the U.N., during Bush's appearance. They called on the president to withdraw troops from Iraq and not attack any other nation.'We're here to demand there be no attack on Iran, that the U.S. pull out of Iraq, and not attack Pakistan or Afghanistan,' said protest organizer Debra Sweet. 'He has broken the Geneva Conventions. He shredded our Constitution and he sent the same military members back to an illegal and immoral war, three, four, five times,' said Elaine Brower, whose son is fighting in Iraq. 'And I think it's time that people call him on it.'Matthis Chiroux, above left, spoke to the press, explaining why he refused "stop-loss" orders to go to Iraq after he had been discharged from the Army. He had done a tour in Afghanistan, ready to "kill terrorists," but changed his mind after being there. He's now a member of Iraq Veterans Against the War. After Matthis spoke, he was the staged "victim" of a waterboarding demonstration. We all had a chance afterward to talk to the international press about the crimes of the Bush regime, and to challenge the people present to act against these crimes.Since Bush was speaking to the United Nations about why he's sending more troops to Afghanistan, it's interesting that on the same day, the US government said they would not be making public the National Intelligence Estimate about Afghanistan. Canada and the Netherlands are reportedly about to pull their troops out, but as we have noted, Obama and McCain, both say they will be sending more troops there.
CHEERS! Yesterday, members of Veterans for Peace climbed onto a ledge at the National Archives, and stayed for 24 hours, fasting. Those who participated were Those Board President Elliott Adams, Board Member Ellen Barfield, staff member Doug Zachary, Kim Carlyle, Diane Wilson, and Tarak Kauff.
Debra Sweet, Director, The World Can't Wait - Drive Out the Bush Regime

Ana Romero, dead in a Kentucky jail cell

Ana Romero died while in a Franklin County, Kentucky jail, awaiting deportation to her home country of El Salvador. Ana spent the last nine months in jail awaiting deportation back to El Salvador, back to see her two sons. But Thursday, August 21st Blanca and Mario received a call saying Ana was dead after she was found in her jail cell, with a sheet wrapped around her neck.
Two and a half weeks later, there’s still no preliminary autopsy report from the Franklin county coroner and Blanca and Mario say no one’s telling them much of anything.
They also say Ana would never have committed suicide. Now, family members, advocates and concerned individuals are circulating a petition to demand justice for Ana.
We demand justice and a transparent investigation into the circumstances surrounding Ana Romero’s death. We demand a full reporting of all the information learned, so that her family and loved ones can get an honest and complete explanation of how and why she died in the Franklin County jail and so they may have spiritual closure. We demand moral, decent, and humane treatment for all persons in jail, regardless of their legal status, national origin, skin color, or language. We demand the due process rights guaranteed in United States Constitution.
Finally, we ask all public officials involved in this situation, from the federal government, to the Kentucky state government and all other state governments, to the county and city governments all over this land to implement a moratorium on the raids and deportations of immigrants until such time as we obtain a fair, humane, and comprehensive immigration reform that our country so badly needs.
End the raids, end the injustice - SIGN THE PETITION!

Houma Indian Chief: Hurricane relief report Sept. 20, 2008

Messages from the Houma Principal Chief Brenda Dardar Robichaux
Week of 9/14 - 20/08
Outreach efforts are continuing throughout tribal communities, although some communities are still under a look and leave order. Last Sunday was spent assessing flood damage with a group of us traveling by boat down Shrimper’s Row in the Dulac community. We drove until the water was too high to go any further and then launched the boat from the side of the highway.Shrimpers Row, a roadway along which most of our Tribal Citizens live, was covered with water. Although there was enough water on the road to run the motor, most of the time one of our group pulled the boat through the sometime waist deep muck which covered much of the area.It was heartbreaking to see caskets that had floated from a local cemetery. A group of caring citizens towed the caskets back to the flooded highway and tied them to a tree to prevent them from floating away again. We met a family of three paddling down the bayou. They mentioned that they had spent the storm in their home until the water had gotten too high and then had to evacuate to their grandmother’s home which was elevated. They also mentioned that there were 4 other children at her home, all under the age of eight.
Read report:
http://censored-news.blogspot.com/2008/09/houma-indian-chair-hurricane-relief.html

Photo: Hurricane Gustav damage/United Houma Nation photo

Tuesday, September 23, 2008

An interview with Yaqui Jose Matus

Crossing the border has become more difficult for ceremonial leaders, like the Yaqui from Sonora, Mexico, who lead the Deer Dances and other ceremonies in Arizona. Meanwhile, Homeland Security seeks to seize the private land of the Lipan Apache in Texas for the border wall. Listen to today's interview with Jose Matus, Yaqui ceremonial leader and director of the Indigenous Alliance without Borders. (Photo: Jose Matus at migrant rights march at Democratic National Convention in Denver/Photo Brenda Norrell)

LISTEN: By popular demand, I've converted the file to a mp3. Hope it plays easier.

Click on link below. Then click on "Jose Matus" and "open:"

http://censored-news.blogspot.com/2008/09/listen-interview-with-yaqui-jose-matus.html

If you have problems, I'll send you the download: brendanorrell@gmail.com )

D-Q Unity Benefit Festival

(Please double click on image to enlarge.)

Monday, September 22, 2008

Street Medics harassed by police and FEMA during Hurricane Ike relief

UPDATE TUESDAY: Street Medics Illegally Detained and Harassed by FEMA in Hurricane Relief Campaign First Hand Accounts
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
by Petros Evdokas, ttetpos@yahoo.com
Portland Street Medics member
You might be aware of the situation that evolved on Sunday, September 21st during which a mission of volunteer Street Medics from Colorado arrived in Galveston, Texas, to provide free medical care to the communities struck by the hurricanes. The mission was oriented with a special interest to address the needs of indigenous, poor and undocumented people whose needs are in general ignored by "official" rescue operations. Also, these are communities of people who often have good have reasons to avoid or hide from such "rescue" operations, especially if they are occurring under martial law and in conjunction with immigration Police.
Instead of being integrated by authorities into the efforts, or at least left to their own devices in order to provide help to people, the Street Medics were detained in dubious circumstances, harassed, threatened with arrest and physically removed from the area by Police.
Please see a first hand account from one of the Street Medics published this morning - the Medic speaking here is Zoe Hallez Williams, known to the wider Medics family as "Zoe the Medic":
"...[The agent] spoke for well over 30 minutes about how no one needed our help and our training was worthless. He stepped outside and locked us in the room with the paramedic supervisor. She informed us that FEMA credentials would be required to enter any area hit hard by the Hurricane and that no one needed help–quite contrary to reports coming from undocumented workers fleeing FEMA and the rest of the federal government....Moments later a State Trooper and Galveston Police vehicle arrived. Three officers were on scene. The trooper approached, demanded to see IDs and credentials and informed us we were being detained and potentially arrested because we did not work for FEMA. While he ran our IDs another officer began to document our vehicle. The officers were abrasive, rude and...":From:"How did we get to Shrimper’s Row?"
http://streetmedic.wordpress.com/2008/09/23/how-did-we-get-to-shrimpers-row/
The first breaking out of the Street Medics story in alternative media yesterday is here:Street Medics Harassed by Police & FEMA during Hurricane Ike Relief
http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2008/09/379931.shtml
Mainstream and establishment media are still ignoring or burying the news about FEMA harassment of Street Medics, even though a few days ago the media themselves were targeted when the iron curtain of the military police state came down on them as the area over Galveston and Bolivar in Texas were declared to be a "no fly zone" (just like Iraq before the US invasion) by a source within the shadow Government which even the Governor of Texas was not at liberty to name. Mainstream media complained about this illegal restriction of Constitutional liberties - you might have seen that report by ABC here:
http://abclocal.go.com/ktrk/video?id=6391294 or here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=arptvzj5bEE
Our colleagues, the three Street Medics who were targeted by this harassment in the Galveston incident are exceptionally well-trained healthcare workers. Two are veterans of the grassroots relief efforts after Katrina, plus all of them are recent veterans of the tremendous organizational challenge faced by Street Medics in Denver during the Democratic National Convention protests - they had helped put together and operate a network and support mechanism of Street Medics that aimed to ensure our safety and liberty as we provided medical care to people who were injured by Police or became ill in the streets, in the parks and in jail during the events there in late August.
Skills among them include First Responder training and certified nurse's aid skills - the latter means providing some very personal care to people who are unable to take care of themselves; it is the most crucial work in health care which usually no one wants to do, and which very few are capable to do with the right attitude. First Responder skills include assessing and handling unexpected medical emergencies in both wilderness and urban settings.
The most important part of the Street Medics training is a set of skills, social and personal values and principles which is only taught and learned among Street Medics who are active within the Peace and Justice wings of the liberation movement: how to provide first aid and some forms of aftercare in settings where there is conflict, disaster, or danger, in situations where conventional ambulances, emergency medical technicians, paramedics, rescue workers are unable, unwilling or not allowed to go. These situations include riots, street conflicts, scenes of mass violence, or large assemblies such as marches, parades, demonstrations, etc.
Street Medics abide by a code of ethics which is far more stringent, mindful, all-embracing and inclusive than Corporate or State- sponsored paramedic teams are expected to have: we embrace anti-authoritarian principles, awareness of oppression, we are guided by the politics of solidarity and community self-organizing in everything we do, with special attention to how racism, sexism, homophobia, issues of gender and sexual identity politics play a tremendous role in all sorts of interactions within health care and first aid. That's why our charter as Street Medics comes from the liberation Movement's counter-institutions powered by the people and not from Capital or the State.
It's also the reason why the Corporate State opposes our presence and interferes with most of our operations wherever it gets a chance.
Things You Can Do To Help
If you're into writing letters or making phone calls to officials, politicians, policy makers, media please help us by doing exactly that.Here's some contact information:
The Texas Division of Emergency Management5805 N. Lamar Austin, Texas 78752(512) 424-2138(512) 424-2444 or 7160 FAX
www.txdps.state.tx.us/dem/
Contact the National Offices of FEMA here:
FEMA-Correspondence-Unit@dhs.govTelephone: 1 (800) 621-FEMA (3362)TDD: 1 (800) 462-7585Fax: 1 (800) 827-8112
You can also help us by distributing this story plus all the related materials on this page to online open publishing sources, media contacts, email lists of organizations and friends in your address book.
Helping with Supplies and Finances
Money and Supplies are crucial to the rescue efforts. Please keep visiting these pages for the updated list of needed supplies and ways to send them: http://streetmedic.wordpress.com/2008/09/14/hurricane-relief/and http://streetmedic.wordpress.com/
Right now the best we have is this announcement:"Please contact us at zoethemedic@gmail.com for a mailing address for donations or to set up a pick up." More instructions and specifics will follow as things get better arranged.
Due to the illegal harassment by authorities, the Street Medics were forced to move the relief operation to another hurricane-struck area in Dulac, Louisiana.
The new location they're in is between normality and disaster. According to Bryan Garcia, one of the Street Medics, some services exist in Dulac, some don't. Food is still being distributed in the streets, there's piles of mud and filth around, phone reception is tricky, a few miles down the road there's no electricity, and some places still don't have water. Postal deliveries are not necessarily normalized for every location there, but our friends are going to make some arrangements and we'll have a way for deliveries established hopefully soon.
The Colorado Street Medics' long journey to setting up clinic in Dulac is documented in a series of updates just posted on their website, http://streetmedic.wordpress.com/ but the team's access to the Internet is not guaranteed and updates may be irregular.
The new location in Dulac was worked out in co-operation with the Four Directions Indigenous Solidarity Network: http://www.eswn.org/ whose network in Dulac operates a grass roots backyard Free Store, a community center from which basic supplies are distributed to the community. Here's a link to an eight minute video about the Free Store and its role in community-based grass roots relief efforts. The video is a brilliant mix of documentary and visual poetry that captures the spirit of co-operation, community pride and love in action that flows out of the Four Directions Free Store in Dulac:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8633161211427080212
And a related update from the Street Medics:
http://streetmedic.wordpress.com/2008/09/24/the-free-store/
At this point, the two most important necessities are:- to help create a political climate that generates a "Hands Off the Street Medics" safety net and support network, so that illegitimate authorities will think twice before interfering again with the relief efforts,and,- to ensure a steady stream of supplies and money to the mission so that it will be able to address the health needs of the indigenous, poor and undocumented people in the community. This is the population toward whom the Street Medics intend to give their primary attention.
Please give your political and material support generously to this volunteer mission. It's the real thing: worthy, honourable, indispensable.
Petros Evdokas volunteer, Portland Street Medics
http://petros-evdokas.cyprus-org.net/Another-sort-of-Introduction.html___________
Some Related Materials
How did we get to Shrimper’s Row?
http://streetmedic.wordpress.com/2008/09/23/how-did-we-get-to-shrimpers-row/
Four Directions Indigenous Solidarity Network: http://www.eswn.org/
Accomplishments in Louisiana http://www.eswn.org/success.html
Portland Street Medics http://street-medics.portland-or.net/
Arrested Street Medic Speaks - Press Release http://colorado.indymedia.org/node/1147____________
Previous post on Censored Blog:
The Colorado street medics; Jaime (from Kansas), Brian, and Zoe, who served the people at the Democratic national convention, recently traveled to do hurricane Ike relief work.
"Street Medics Harassed by Police & FEMA during Hurricane Ike Relief"
http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2008/09/379931.shtml

Ancestors Reburial at Tsewhitzen

ANCESTORS REBURIAL
by Daughter of Tse Whit Zen
It is hard to explain what the last five years have been like for the Elwha People. The Tsewhitzen village has been in existence since at least 2,700 years. Just how many more years was never determined because excavation had been stopped by the Elwha Tribe.The Washington State Department of Transportation had chosen Port Angeles as the site to build a graving yard to repair the aging Hood Canal Bridge. The City of Port Angeles and Washington State and the Elwha Tribe knew the village was there ...
Tribal members were hired to dig up the remains of their own ancestors. They worked hard to stay ahead of the State’s voracious machines. Some of the graves were from the smallpox and influenza times. We were reminded that at one time this government tried to kill all of the First Peoples of this land.Our Elders began having strokes and heart attacks. Some fell. Tribal members began having episodes of grief and anger.
Read article:
http://tsewhitzen.blogspot.com/
COMMENT
Monica,
Thank you for the Tsewhitzen notice and link to your Blog where you tell the story of the unconscionable desecration of your family. I congratulate you and your supporters for the strength and commitment to the Ancestors.
My very best to you,
"Rudy" Rudolph C. Rÿser, PhD Chair of the Board Center for World Indigenous Studies
Olympia, Washington USA chair@cwis.org
http://www.cwis.org/

Sunday, September 21, 2008

Indigenous Peoples battle for their lives, and others, on US borders

Mike Wilson, Tohono O'odham, replaces missing water tanks for migrants on the southern border, while Mohawk publisher Kahentinetha Horn recovers on the northern border

By Brenda Norrell
Censored News
http://www.bsnorrell.blogspot.com
BABOQUIVARI DISTRICT, Arizona – Mike Wilson, Tohono O’odham, has replaced two of his humanitarian water stations on the Tohono O’odham Nation. Wilson was ordered by Baboquivari District Chair Veronica Harvey to remove his water stations in August.

“No one should die for want of a cup of water,” Wilson said, after replacing two of the water stations that vanished last week. Wilson said he will continue to pursue dialogue with Tohono O’odham officials, but he will not back down on the right of the dying to water.Wilson did not remove his water tanks as ordered, but respectfully declined when the district order was delivered by tribal police. However, upon return to the water stations in Baboquivari District in September, he found three of the stations had been removed. Wilson replaced two of the stations.

Wilson pointed out the large number of migrants dying here in the desert. By US Border Patrol statistics, 83 migrants died during the first half of 2008 on the Tohono O’odham Nation. However, Wilson says the number is actually greater. Wilson maintains the water stations with Tohono O’odham David Garcia. Wilson also searches the O’odham desert for bodies, like two Mayan women from Guatemala who died walking to a better life with their children. The children survived.

During the Indigenous Peoples Border Summit of the Americas in 2006 and 2007, Wilson and other Tohono O’odham were joined by Mohawks from the north to demand a halt to the militarization of the US borders. Mohawks, including Kahentinetha Horn, publisher of Mohawk Nation News, observed the arrests of Indigenous Peoples on Tohono O’odham land and were outraged at the treatment of Indian people.

Then, in June, Kahentinetha was beaten by Canadian border guards and suffered a heart attack in a police stress hold.

Now, recovering, Kahentinetha, who filed suit, said the stress hold was intensified as she was having a heart attack in police custody in a deliberate attempt to kill her.

Like Wilson, Kahentinetha and Katenies, Mohawk Nation News editor also beaten during the attack by border guards in June, said they will not back down on their demands for a halt to the militarization of their lands, carried out by corporate profiteers under the guise of national security.

On the southern border, Tohono O’odham Nation Chairman Ned Norris, Jr., has not made a public statement concerning the demand by Harvey for Wilson to remove his water stations. However, Chairman Norris did testify in Texas concerning the violations of federal law by Homeland Security and the border wall contractor Boeing.

Chairman Norris, testifying to a joint Congressional subcommittee in April, said human bone fragments were found in the tracks of machinery undertaking border wall construction in Arizona. Further, Norris pointed out that Homeland Security violated federal laws which protect endangered species and cultural artifacts.

However, Chairman Norris did not point out that O’odham ancestors were dug up from their graves, and later reburied, on the western portion of Tohono O’odham land in 2007 during border wall construction by Boeing.

Meanwhile, Wilson said he will continue maintaining his water stations, including those in Baboquivari District and one across the international border in Sonora. Mexico.

“It is a crime against humanity,” Wilson said of the Tohono O’odham Nation’s failure to respond with water for the dying.

Photo 1: Mike Wilson in Baboquivari District at his water station/Photo Brenda Norrell
Photo 2: Kahentinetha in a Canadian hospital after suffering a heart attack in a police stresshold at the Canadian border. Photo Sagowaiaks.

Saturday, September 20, 2008

Longest Walk northern route photos by Janice Trytten

Longest Walk drum at Greenbelt Park, Maryland. Photo 2: Paul Owns the Sabre at camp in Greenbelt Park, Maryland. Photos copyright Janice Trytten jtrytten@cinci.rr.com. Please double click on images to enlarge.
See more of Janice's photos on three more pages: Page One:

http://censored-news.blogspot.com/2008/09/longest-walk-northern-route-photos-by.html

Photos Page Two:

http://censored-news.blogspot.com/2008/09/janice-tryttens-long-walk-photos.html

Photos Page Three:

http://censored-news.blogspot.com/2008/09/long-walk-northern-route-photos-by.html

Friday, September 19, 2008

Epilogue from Denver: Spirit of Resistance is Alive

Article and photos by Brenda Norrell
http://www.bsnorrell.blogspot.com/

DENVER -- When I went to the Democratic National Convention, to cover the political prisoners rally and march, I didn't realize I would witness the police provocation and arrests of a new wave of political prisoners during the week. The peoples' crime was to be peace activists, or merely to be present in the streets during the convention. Lucky for me, I couldn't afford to make it to the Republican National Convention in Minnesota. No doubt I would have been arrested with the other media in the streets, photographing unprovoked police brutality.
At the political prisoners rally in Denver, members of the American Indian Movement, Black Panthers and Mexican American rights movements, made a bold statement that the oppression, torture and surveillance of the US government here and abroad has not silenced their voices.
Dressed in orange jumpsuits and hoods, another group brought the spirit of Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo, the reality of US torture, kidnapping and murder of detainees, to the streets of Denver.
At the Republican convention, police were even more out of control than in Denver, arresting and jailing more than 800 people, including journalists and medics. Today, Democrac

y Now! announced that charges were dropped against host Amy Goodman, among the journalists arrested at the Republican convention.
The St. Paul City Attorney’s office announced Friday it will not prosecute Goodman and her fellow staff, Sharif Abdel Kouddous and Nicole Salazar. St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman also issued a statement Friday that "the city will decline to prosecute misdemeanor charges for presence at an unlawful assembly for journalists arrested during the Republican National Convention."
The announcement came two weeks after the conclusion of the Republican National Convention where over 40 journalists were arrested.
Goodman said, “It’s good that these false charges have finally been dropped, but we never should have been arrested to begin with. These violent and unlawful arrests disrupted our work and had a chilling effect on the reporting of dissent. Freedom of the press is also about the public’s right to know what is happening on their streets." Goodman pressed for a full investigation of law enforcement activities.
Goodman was arrested while asking police to release Kouddous and Salazar who had been violently arrested while reporting on street demonstrations. After being handcuffed and pushed to the ground, Goodman reiterated that she was was a credentialed reporter. Secret Service then ripped the credential from around her neck, according to Democracy Now!
During demonstrations on the first day of the convention police used pepper spray, rubber bullets, concussion grenades and force against protesters and journalists. Several dozen demonstrators were arrested, as was a photographer for the Associated Press. The YouTube video of Goodman’s arrest was viewed over 830,000 times.
Along with the journalists, medics were arrested and jailed at the RNC, including the Portland Street Medics who served during both conventions, working days and nights to serve the people. Meanwhile, back in Denver, the political prisoners march and rally did not disappoint. As the people marched from the civic center to the federal courthouse through downtown, the crowd grew by hundreds. Their voices rose up through the high rises. The police on the scene at the courthouse, from Aurora, Colorado, pulled their weapons on the people. This was followed by a legal observer yelling at the officers to put their weapons away. Eventually the police did.
One after another, in front of the federal courthouse, the people told how people of color in this country -- black, American Indian and Chicano -- are targeted by police and repeatedly are the victims of manufactured evidence.
Further, people of color are given longer prison sentences than whites in this country, a fact verified by statistics of the ACLU. In American Indian bordertowns, being targeted by police is called "DWI: Driving While Indian." Those speeches can be heard at http://www.earthcycles.net/, including Ben Carnes, Choctaw, reading a statement written by Leonard Peltier. The voice of Mumia Abu Jamal was heard from Death Row.
In this age of electronic surveillance, out of control police and Nazi-style prisons for profit based on incarcerating migrants and other people of color, the people took to the streets and let their voices be heard. In this way, the cold, iron doors were opened for truth and freedom.
The Recreate '68's "Freedom March and Rally for Human Rights and Political Prisoners," speakers were: Pamela Africa of MOVE Organization; Ben Carnes for the Leonard Peltier Defense; Rosa Clemente, US Vice Presidential Candidate for the Green Party; Kathleen Cleaver of The Panther Nine from San Francisco; King Downing, National Coordinator of the ACLU's Campaign Against Racial Profiling; Jenny Esquiveo, spokesperson for Eric McDavid, political prisoner; Chairman Fred Hampton Jr., Prisoners of Conscience Committee and Mumia Abu Jamal, current political prisoner recorded from Death Row. They were joined by Cha Cha Jimenez, founder of the Young Lords, Puerto Rican Resistance Prisoners; Ricardo Romero, National Coordinator for the Mexican Liberation Organization; Natsu Saito, author, activist, and human rights scholar, Guantanamo Inmates and a spokesperson for the Cuban Five.
In this era of George Bush, secret renditions and Abu Ghraib, the spirit of resistance lives.

Arizona: Say 'No' to US torture

Southwest Weekend of Witness
HUNDREDS OF PEOPLE WILL JOIN TOGETHER IN SOUTHERN ARIZONA ON NOVEMBER 15 & 16 TO SAY 'NO' TO TORTURE

Save the dates ... plan to join us!
Saturday, November 15
Tucson, Arizona
Plan for Action: Civil Initiative to Stop the Training and Practice of Torture will be held from 10 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Pima Community College, Downtown Campus. We will work together on a plan for beyond the weekend that will accomplish this goal, followed by:Sign makingAn evening programProcession to federal building for a vigil
Sunday, November 16
Sierra Vista, Arizona
10 a.m. - 3 p.m. An anti-torture rally with music and speakers at Veteran's Memorial Park, ending with a procession to and presence across the street from the main gate of Ft. Huachuca. Ft. Huachuca is the home of USAICS, the U.S. Army Intelligence Center and School, and has a long history of complicity in U.S. crimes of torture. The torture manuals used at the School of the Americas came from Ft. Huachuca.
For several years, in solidarity with the annual vigil and action at Fort Benning, Georgia to close the U.S. Army's School of the Americas (now the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation) there has been a growing grassroots demonstration at the gate of Fort Huachuca to protest our country's slipping standards on torture, being practiced in our name and with our tax dollars in places like Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo. The November 2008 demonstration at Ft. Huachuca will take place the week before the Ft. Benning vigil and action.
If you have questions, please write to southwestwitness@gmail.com and someone will get back to you as quickly as possible. Updated information will be posted at http://southwestwitness.org/
To find out more about the November 21-23 vigil & action at Ft. Benning, visit http://soaw.org/
(Photo: Saying 'No' to US torture at Tucson courthouse. Photo Brenda Norrell)

Lehman Brothers: Deadly stocks

By Brenda Norrell
BLACK MESA, Arizona -- After Arlene Hamilton purchased stocks in Lehman Brothers, so the Navajo, Hopi and Lakota delegation could address stockholders in 2001, Arlene called me. Arlene said she had been threatened and believed she would be killed. She also said authorities had rifled through her papers at her Navajo weaving project office in Flagstaff, Ariz. Shortly afterwards, Arlene was killed in a car wreck near Kayenta, Arizona. Roberta Blackgoat, longtime Navajo resister of relocation, died at Arlene's memorial in San Francisco.
That same year, 2001, Cate Gilles, longtime news reporter on Black Mesa, who covered other Indigenous issues, was found hanged in Tucson. We were all friends with the Navajo environmentalist Leroy Jackson, cofounder of the Dine Citizens Against Ruining our Environment. Leroy was found dead in 1993, after his life was threatened for protecting the grandmother pines from logging.
Since that time, the Navajo Nation Council and Navajo President Joe Shirley, Jr., have continued to press for mining leases, including the controversial Desert Rock power plant. The energy leases and revenues largely pay the salaries and travel expenses of the 88 council delegates and tribal president, while a large number of Navajos, including elderly, live without running water and electricity.
While many Navajos live with the pollution of the power plants in and around Navajoland on Black Mesa, Page and in the Four Corners region, they haul water and their children and grandchildren read by lantern light, when they can afford to buy it.
This is one of the most censored stories. The US government formed the Navajo and Hopi tribal councils to approve energy leases. Peabody Coal orchestrated the so-called Navajo Hopi land dispute. As a result more than 12,000 Navajos were relocated to make way for Peabody's coal mining. There were decades of suffering, with Navajo elderly sick without medicines on Black Mesa. Some Navajos died from broken hearts when they relocated.
It is with gratitude that I publish this and recognize my Navajo and Hopi friends who patiently educated me about these facts over the past 29 years. For me, it began with a comment from my friend Louise at Big Mountain, talking about Peabody Coal. "The corporations lie you know."
Perhaps we will never know exactly what led to the deaths of all these heroes, our friends, but there is always justice in time.
--Brenda Norrell
Censored News

Previous article: Navajo, Hopi and Lakota warned Lehman Brothers
A delegation warned Lehman Brothers of the spiritual consequences of mining coal on sacred Black Mesa, after Lehman Brothers Holdings, Inc., acquired the financial interests of Peabody Coal:
http://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2008/09/navajo-hopi-and-lakota-delegation.html

Thursday, September 18, 2008

Morning Star: Standing with the oaks

Memorial Oak Grove Press Release
From the Oak Grove Tree-sit Community 9/17/08

Article by Morning Star Gali
Photos by Brenda Norrell (Longest Walk Feb. 2008)
BERKELEY, Calif. -- Through the last 21 months this community has shown endless resilience, determination, compassion, and courage in the face of brutality and political repression. I'm endlessly thankful for the thousands of people who have raised their voices with us. I believe that these last 2 years will be remembered as a turning point for all who are fighting to defend the Earth and with it the lives of our children. We have learned that fear--of violence, of authority, of the future--is a prison we create for ourselves. We have learned that cooperation and love transcends race, gender, class, and all the other artificial classifications that are imposed in order to keep us divided. We have learned that this Earth is not inherited from our ancestors, but is on loan from our children.

We protected the Grove for as long as we did because it was a memorial to what we have

lost. 95% of North America's native forests are gone. The Grove was a poignant reminder of how much wild habitat our culture has destroyed in order to develop nuclear technology and orchestrate a legal system under which the most cruel and voracious war criminals are considered President. If we continue this current rate of consumption, we face worldwide economic and ecological collapse. As a society we have a desperate need to open up a conversation about how to rehabilitate our land if we hope to live to see our grandchildren. It was common among many Native societies for people to make decisions based on how their children would be affected 7 generations later. I feel that we need to study this wisdom deeply or our species will go the way of the carrier pigeon who were once so numerous their numbers blacked out the sun for days at a time as their flocks enveloped the skies.

If we could use even a tiny percentage of resources that the University of California devotes to the development of nuclear weapons, we could vastly improve the lives of impoverished people in our community and throughout the world. The University is a huge machine devoted to profiting off and perpetuating war. A lot of their most flaunted "achievements" are concerned with the destruction of habitat and the consolidation of political power within the military industrial complex. It is when this abuse is too flagrant that we are obligated as conscientious citizens to take direct action against injustice. It is because we are deprived of even the most cursory democratic input that we must take matters into our own hands and tell them "Enough is enough!"

At the Grove I have learned that humans do not have a monopoly on language. Trees speak very, very quietly so that you have to put your ear close to hear them, but what they told me is unmistakable. They said, "Our brothers the squirrels, the turkeys, the deer, the foxes, the chickadees, the hawks, the raccoons, the bluejays will have nowhere to go if we are gone. And then our human relations will be left alone with no air to breathe or food to eat."

At times I feel overwhelmed at the magnitude of destruction that has been caused, and it's easy to feel powerless because we have all been robbed of an ecological heritage so vast we may never understand what this continent looked like 516 years ago. But it also gives me a feeling of great freedom because even the smallest acts of love can have an enormous rippling effect. The tree-sit has touched all of us in one way or another, and my experiences here will inspire me to fight for the Earth until I die.

This place is important to many Native Americans because the soil contains the bones of their ancestors. But the University continues the 500-year-long tradition of genocide against indigenous people. They have denied requests to repatriate the 13,000 remains of Native Americans held at the Phoebe Hearst museum and they continue to deny the Native community proper access to their burial grounds. Some attempts to lay down ceremonial offerings have been met by University police with arrests and even shoving a mother with her 2-month old infant in her arms. There are clearly racist policies intending to suppress Native cultural and religious practice, and should be recognized as a hate crime.

This place is important to many people because it was a whisper of what we have lost in the war against the Earth. Let's work together to find new ways to organize our society, because this current economic system is poisoning everything we need to survive. We have to organize ourselves at the community level and learn how to live respectfully with the Earth. Self-sufficiency is the most direct path to creating the change we wish to see in the world. We started this work at the Oak Grove Tree-sit, but it is by no means finished. The struggle to defend what is left of the natural work needs to continue with all of us asking ourselves, "What can I do for the land that gives me life?" I ask myself this every everyday. Today the answer is, "Keep loving, keep fighting."
===
Morning Star Gali
http://www.ifhurbanrez.org/

Wednesday, September 17, 2008

Cameco continues to target Lakota territory for uranium mining

Cameco, the Canadian company that mysteriously received 550 tons of yellow cake supposedly from Iraq, to Montreal, continues to target Lakota territory for uranium mining

NRC Sets Hearing Date for Cameco, Inc. In Situ Leach Uranium Mining License Renewal
(Sept. 17, 2008) By Ow Aku (Bring Back the Way)
PINE RIDGE, South Dakota -- The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has set Sept 30-Oct 1, 2008 for the hearing date for petitioners to intervene in the 10 year license renewal proceeding for Cameco, Inc.’s In Situ Leach uranium mine near Crawford, Nebraska. A four judge panel of the Atomic Licensing Board has been established and will convene at Chadron, Nebraska State College in the Student Center. The hearing is open to the public.
It takes many generations for the adulterated water to recover so that it can once again be used for traditional medicines and ceremonies, and for drinking and irrigation, causing environmental and cultural impacts, lack of environmental justice, depletion of the aquifer at a time of drought, and economic detriments to property owners as a result of the lowering of the water table.
Read article:
http://censored-news.blogspot.com/2008/09/cameco-continues-to-target-lakota.html
For more info visit www.bringbacktheway.com, www.savecrowbutte.org, www.uraniumisnotmyfriend.org

Tohono O'odham water stations removed:'Crime against humanity'

NewsHour: Mike Wilson, Tohono O'odham, said the act of removing three of his water stations was a crime against humanity
NewsHour
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/updates/social_issues/july-dec08/waterstations_09-16.html
On Aug. 31, Tohono O'odham tribal members Mike Wilson and David Garcia were ordered by tribal official Veronica Harvey to take down water stations for migrants passing through Tohono O'odham reservation on the Arizona-Mexico border.
The pair of humanitarian aid workers refused. But when they returned to the border area days later, they found three of their water stations had been removed.
"It's unconscionable that the Tohono O'odham tribal council not only does absolutely nothing to prevent migrant deaths but are now confiscating my water stations," said Wilson. "That's the situation that I'm in."
-- By Tristan Ahtone, National Minority Consortia
Read article:
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/updates/social_issues/july-dec08/waterstations_09-16.html

Mohawks: Assaults at border ignored by mainstream media

HOW DO WE DEFEND OURSELVES FROM “OUT OF CONTROL” CORNWALL CANADA BORDER GUARDS?
Another assault at border - Important trial ignored by mainstream media
Mohawk Nation News
Sep. 17, 2008. “Harassment at the Canada-US border is an every day occurrence”, said Ia:hawi, a 44-year old mother of seven. On December 18, 2006, she went to the Canada Customs House on Cornwall Island to deliver a notice for a friend who had been falsely pulled over and accused of running the port. He told the agents to “F--k off” and then left. He’s lived there all his life and his id showed he was “Indian”.
The purported U.S.-Canada border cuts right through the middle of the Akwesasne “Indian” community. There are 5 colonial jurisdictions – U.S. , Canada , New York State , Ontario and Quebec . The situation is hell for the community members. They have to cross several times a day and go through almost daily brutality by the Canada Border Services Agents CBSA.
About 3 years ago Ia:hawi was 7 months pregnant. She was pulled over for a “routine check” and held in the holding cell. She had nothing to eat, got stressed out and started going into labor. She called for help. They told her to sit there and wait. All she could do was lay on her back on the bench with her feet on the wall to prevent her baby from coming prematurely. Eventually they deported her to the U.S. and ordered not to return to Canada . CBSA separated her from her family for a whole year.
Read article ...
http://censored-news.blogspot.com/2008/09/cameco-continues-to-target-lakota.html

Solidarity with the Nations of Indigenous Peoples of Bolivia

NAHUACALLI
Embassy of the Indigenous Peoples
Izkalotlan, Aztlan
Solidarity with the Nations of Indigenous Peoples of Bolivia
September 16, 2008
The page of history has turned and the era of decolonization for our continent Abya Yala is now in the birth pains of a new reality for all our relations. The cry across the continent is for liberation in fulfillment of the promise expressed by the principles of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, adopted by the UN General Assembly on September 13, 2007. The UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples establishes a historic tipping point, the Magna Carta of the Indigenous Peoples globally which became national law within the Republic of Bolivia on November 7, 2007 as a consequence of the leadership of President Evo Morales Ayma.
Read more ...
http://censored-news.blogspot.com/2008/09/solidarity-with-nations-of-indigenous.html

Monday, September 15, 2008

Paying the price of the border wall in human lives

Paying the Price of the Border Wall in Human Lives
Article and photo by Scott Nicol

In 2007 a U.S. district court ordered a halt to construction of the border wall through the San Pedro Riparian National Conservation Area. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff responded to the ruling, “I have to say to myself, ‘Yes, I don’t want to disturb the habitat of a lizard, but am I prepared to pay human lives to do that?’” He then waived 19 federal laws, using the unprecedented power granted him by the Real ID Act to override the judge’s order, and immediately resumed construction of the border wall through the last free-flowing river in southern Arizona. This past April he issued another Real Id Act waiver, which swept aside 36 federal laws to enable the construction of walls called for by the Secure Fence Act along the southern border.
Read more ...
http://censored-news.blogspot.com/2008/09/paying-price-of-border-wall-in-human.html

Sunday, September 14, 2008

Navajo, Hopi and Lakota delegation warned Lehman Brothers of consequences of mining sacred Black Mesa

By Brenda Norrell
UN OBSERVER & International Report

NEW YORK -- A delegation of Navajo, Hopi and Lakota warned Lehman Brothers stockholders of the dire consequences of their actions in 2001. In a rare move, censored by most media, the Navajo, Hopi and Lakota delegation warned Lehman Brothers, after it acquired the financial interests of Peabody Coal, of the spiritual consequences of mining coal on sacred Black Mesa and the aftermath of Peabody Coal's machinations that led to the so-called Navajo Hopi Land Dispute.
Lehman Brothers is now in the midst of financial collapse, with its bankruptcy producing a rippling effect throughout the world's economy.
At the time of the Lehman Brothers stockholders meeting in 2001, Arlene Hamilton bought two shares of stocks in Lehman Brothers to pave the way for the delegation to address the stockholders. Hamilton said her life was threatened because of this action. Shortly afterwards, Hamilton was killed in a car crash. Longtime Navajo relocation resister Roberta Blackgoat died in California, where she had gone to attend Hamilton's memorial.
A traditional Hopi was among those addressing the Lehman Brothers stockholders. His admonitions followed those of the late Hopi Sinom elders Thomas Banyacya and Dan Evehema, among the Hopi elders who warned of dire consequences, including natural disasters and worldwide consequences, if Peabody mined coal on Black Mesa and Navajos were relocated from this sacred region. The Hopi Sinom never authorized the establishment of the Hopi Tribal Council, which they referred to as a puppet government of the United States.
The traditional Hopi in the delegation told stockholders, "Lehman Brothers, even though we are just a few here, we speak for the Creator, who is the majority.“Therefore we demand you stop the Peabody coal mining and the slurry. We demand again,” said the Hopi elder who asked that his name not be published in the media.
"Traditional and priesthood people don't want this mining. The Hopi prophecies say that we have to protect land and life. If we don't protect our beautiful Earth --our Heaven, our Mother, we will suffer with her." He told stockholders that Hopis never signed a treaty with the United States and the current Hopi Tribal Council is not legitimate since it was created by less than 30 percent of the people.
Referring to the beginning of the turmoil, he said, "John Boyden was a lawyer who worked for Peabody Coal. He was instrumental to the creation of the Hopi Tribal Council.
"Our ancestors warned that someday this would happen. White men will say that it is our own people that sold this land. I will not accept this.
"Our roots are rooted in our villages and it goes up to the whole universe. If we break these roots the world will get out of balance.
"I pray for you and hope that we open your eyes and you find the majority in your heart.”
Roberta Blackgoat, longtime resister and sheepherder from Cactus Valley, told stockholders the region of San Francisco Peaks is holy to the Navajo people. Mining in the area of this sacred mountain is the same as desecrating an altar and church. It is making the people sick."We can not go away to other places," Blackgoat said, adding that livestock confiscation is “starving the people.”
"When you have a pinprick on your finger, just take it off and the pain will go away. But there are too many pins on the Mother Earth. Barbed wire is all over the country, dividing the people."
Blackgoat was among the families resisting forced relocation. After Peabody orchestrated the so-called Navajo Hopi Land Dispute, more than 12,000 Navajos were relocated to make way for Peabody's coal mining. Senator John McCain, R-Ariz., was among those responsible for Navajo relocation.

Leonard Benally, Navajo from Big Mountain on Black Mesa in Arizona, said the delegation told Lehman Brothers that it is time to transform operations to renewable forms of energy, including solar and wind power.
"It was like opening this marble door to the Lehman Brothers. We got our foot in there. They were willing to listen. By going there, the delegation touched their hearts.” Benally said the delegation also dispelled myths.
"They say it's a land dispute, but it is not. The traditional Hopi and Navajo are standing together, they are the original inhabitants of Black Mesa. We are the caretakers."Benally said the people have been struggling for 32 years because of the turmoil created by Hopi and Navajo tribal leaders intent on making money from the 92 billion tons of coal beneath the ground at Black Mesa. But, he said, the resistance actually goes back 500 years to the Spanish invasion, followed by the European invasion. Finally there was the Kit Carson invasion.
"That's when the people were put in the death camps."
While Navajos were incarcerated at Fort Sumner, he said, "The military made promises, mountains of promises they never kept."While the Navajo Nation government in Window Rock celebrated Sovereignty Day in April (2001), Benally said tribal leaders force their own people to suffer respiratory disease and death from coal mining, sacrificing them for mining royalties.
"Sovereignty Day? That's a joke. For us, we live it. They oppress their own race. They make them bleed."In the 1970s, the Four Corners region was considered a National Sacrifice area, but Benally said it is time to change that classification to a National Historic Site.
"The sacredness is still here. Mother Earth is still here. She still breathes. As long as the air blows, the rivers run, Indigenous people will be out here."
Benally said the Navajo, Hopi and Lakota delegation moved in solidarity with the Zapatistas whose caravan through Mexico gave them hope in 2001.
"We felt the wind, it came from the South. It is telling the Indigenous people to rise up for their beliefs, their culture. These things are not being respected by anyone but the Indigenous people."
In New York, Joe Chasing Horse, Sundance Chief at Big Mountain, addressed the protest rally and spoke to Lehman Brothers Merchant Banking Fund stockholders.“You have taken all of our land, now we have come to show you how to take care of it,” Chasing Horse said.
“The traditionalists have the wisdom, we are the wisdom keepers.”
Glenna Begay, Navajo protesting in New York, said, "I traveled 3,000miles to be here and to voice my concern about what's happening to us out there on the land. I want the mining to stop."
Louise Benally of Big Mountain said, "We need to hold the owners accountable by letting them know the hardship we live with every day."
Arlene Hamilton, coordinator of the Weaving for Freedom project and wife of Leonard Benally, personally bought two shares in the corporation to ensure entrance into the stockholders meeting. She and Benally negotiated with Lehman Brothers to allow the elders time to address stockholders.
"These were some of the richest men and women in the world. The delegation was so beautiful, and so with the truth. Their presence was holy."
Back in Flagstaff in 2001, Hamilton said Lehman Brothers and Peabody Coal now have the opportunity to make a difference in the future of mankind.
"We want the dehumanizing and militarizing to stop. There is a lot of suffering going on. We want to make sure the ceremonies are not surrounded by guns and the people have clean drinking water.
“There is no life without water." Hamilton said Navajo elders resisting relocation often become dehydrated during the hot summer months because of the scarcity of clean water, while Peabody Coal pumps 10,000 gallons of water a minute to slurry coal.She has taken human rights concerns to Peabody management for years, but she said they have done little to improve the quality of living as promised.
"It's really just diversion and distraction while the people are suffering out there. Everything is based on making way for mining."
The delegation presented a list of demands to Lehman Brothers, demanding that Peabody leave the water and coal alone because they are the lungs and liver of Mother Earth. They called for a halt to mining and the initiation of a solar project, availability of clean drinking water, and a halt to military over flights and the intimidation of elders and youths by armed rangers.
Hamilton said the Weaving for Freedom project is a collective of Dine' weavers in resistance struggling for religious freedom to practice their ancient craft while protecting their sacred land. Hamilton said, "This work is very risky now. We protect each other by traveling in large groups." Leonard Benally said, “The whole thing is about materialism, money. In our culture, money doesn’t matter. It is about how you live in harmony with nature, in harmony with your prayers.
“That’s why we are fighting for our lands, even though the media and politicians are telling us we don’t have a right to exist."
Meanwhile, Bill Ahearn, spokesman for Lehman Brothers, said the protesters were welcome to speak at the meeting but said the firm would be unable to help them. He said the issues must be resolved by the tribes and BIA.
"We're very sympathetic and we feel badly for them, but there's nothing we can do for them because it's not a problem with us."

Read: Hopi statement to Lehman Brothers
Listen to Democracy Now! Navajo, Hopi and Lakota delegation to Lehman Brothers in 2001
(PHOTO 1: Robeta Blackgoat protesting Black Mesa coal mining and slurry in Flagstaff, shortly before her death./Photo Brenda Norrell
PHOTO 2: Navajos from Big Mountain protesting coal mining in front of the Navajo Nation Council chambers in Window Rock, Arizona. The photo was taken by Cate Gilles, longtime news reporter who exposed the destruction of coal mining on Black Mesa. Cate was also among the first to expose the dangers of uranium mining in the Grand Canyon. Cate was found dead, hanged with a dog chain, in Tucson in August of 2001.)
Sri Lanka Guardian: Navajo, Hopi and Lakota warned Lehman Brothers

Long Walkers northern route hospitalized

Article and photos By Brenda Norrell

A special measure of love and respect goes out to three Long Walkers on the northern route who were hospitalized following the Longest Walk, from Alcatraz to DC, which culminated on July 11, 2008, in DC.
Marie Littlemoon, who served as cook, driver and walker beginning in California, was hospitalized last week in intensive care. She is now on oxygen 24 hours a day, following the walk and her efforts that left her body depleted. This photo was taken a few days before she was hospitalized in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado. Here's a message from Marie to the Long Walkers. "Hey, you guys, I would love to hear from you. I miss you. Love you guys, Marie."
Marie can be reached at lilmoon2@netzero.net

Art Woosley, Pennsylvania coordinator for the Longest Walk Northern Route, has been transferred from a hospital to a convalescence home, following a serious illness. Art, who hopes to be home later this month, helped make Pennsylvania a wonderful stay for the walkers, including a governor's proclamation which resulted in open and free access to the state's parks for camping.
Still recovering, Art asks for help in locating his van, which was used by the Longest Walk northern route in Pennsylvania. It is a 1997 white GMC window van. Art can be reached on his cell phone at: 717-480-2487. Art is photographed standing before the Pennsylvania State Capitol in Harrisburg, where walkers held prayers and a rally. Art hosted all of the northern route walkers to lunch at a restaurant after the capitol rally. Art is a longtime supporter of American Indian rights and freedom for Leonard Peltier. Art welcomes calls from the Long Walkers: 717-480-2487
Janice Gardipe, Paiute and Shoshone, from Reno, Nev., collapsed as the Longest Walkers walked from the White House to the Capitol in DC. Janice was hospitalized and missed all the final events in DC. The good news is that she returned home safely to Nevada. Janice said today that her knee has healed from the fall, without surgery. She can be contacted at gardipejan@yahoo.com

Janice is photographed here the day before the final walk in DC, singing a traditional song for northern and southern route walkers at Greenbelt Park, Maryland.
From the extreme cold and steep climbs in the Sierra Nevadas and Rocky Mountains to the non-stop rain and frequent tornadoes through the Midwest, to the heat and humidity of the east, the walkers endured many obstacles, including the rugged life of camping across America and times when there was little food. Tents and sleeping bags were often too thin for the cold or soaked with rain and food donations were sometimes sparse, but they made it. On the northern route, walkers usually walked about 16 miles a day, most often through cold or rain. Miguel from Tucson ran 40 miles one day carrying out a special commitment. Rebecca Duncan walked up the steep 11,000-foot Monarch Pass in the Colorado Rockies with her 10-year-old granddaughter.
Congratulations to all of the walkers and supporters of the Longest Walk northern route, southern route and Peoples Walk, who walked their prayers for Mother Earth, sacred places, Indian rights and their own families, across America.
Censored News would love to hear from you. Please feel free to send a comment or update: brendanorrell@gmail.com
Listen to the Longest Walk northern route, 500 audios and five months across America, at: http://www.earthcycles.net/

Friday, September 12, 2008

'Salvage,' directed by Sheila Tousey and written by Diane Glancy

Native Voices at the Autry Presents the World Premiere of Salvage by Diane Glancy, directed by Sheila Tousey

October 31 through November 23
Fridays & Saturdays at 8 pm
Saturdays & Sundays at 2 pm
General Admission $20 / Autry Members $12
LOS ANGELES — Native Voices at the Autry proudly presents the world premiere of Salvage by Diane Glancy (Cherokee), a taut, suspenseful drama about a hard-working family whose lives are turned upside down by a deadly accident. The play was developed and is being produced with funding from the Multi-Arts Production Fund ( MAP ).

Native Voices’ play development for Salvage spans two years and includes Ms. Glancy’s participation in the 2007 & 2008 Playwright Retreats and several play readings (some with the play’s title as Plymouth Dodge DeSoto). Salvage was also selected for the Public Theater’s Native Play Festival last year and had a reading at the La Jolla Playhouse in 2008.

Inside the Checkpoints: The good news and the bad news

Inside the Checkpoints
by Jay J. Johnson-Castro, Sr.

Naco, Arizona border wall/Photo Jay J. Johnson-Castro, Sr.

Judge Dismisses Lawsuit Against Secretary Michael Chertoff, filed by the US-Mexico Border Plaintiffs, ruling in favor of the Federal Government

When it comes to the border wall there is no end of the bad news.
So, the Bad news first. Because the people who reside in Texas along the Mexico border put up a wall of opposition to the building of a Berlin-like wall through their communities, on April 3, the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, Michael Chertoff waived 36 Congressional Acts passed over 109 years by the people’s Congress. Those very same laws were in place to protect the people and our great land from such flagrant violations of the earth and humanity. Chertoff waived those laws in order to build an “iron curtain” of “apartheid” through a community and a culture of Americans.
That did not stop sincere citizens from expressing their horror over such an assault. From El Paso to Brownsville, the people of Texas, who reside in friendship with their family and neighbors along the Mexico border, have stood their ground in the face of an overt assault on their border community.

DQ University occupation calls emergency meeting Sept. 14, 2008

EMERGENCY MEETING at D-Q University
Sunday, September 14, 2008, 5:00 p.m., in the dining room
This urgent message is being sent out to all individuals and organizations who support the ongoing occupation at D-Q University. Yesterday, the water in the buildings at the school was been shut off. The electricity has already BEEN off, for the last five months. The school's board of trustees shut it off in an attempt to break the back of the student-led occupation. The board's program failed. Now, in the Fall of 2008, the D-Q University'board of trustees is split into two factions. As a leadership circle, the board is in shambles. The board is telling the general public that D-Q University is "open," but the board isn't telling the whole truth; namely that the board has turned the water and the electricity off (AGAIN) in a cold-booded campaign designed to force the American Indian and Mexica people who are living at the school out of "California's Only Tribal College." This deplorable situation cannot be allowed to drag on and on, into next winter and beyond.
THE TIME HAS COME FOR THE PEOPLE TO DECIDE WHAT WE'RE GOING TO DO ABOUT IT
Please come to this very special gathering. Everyone's ideas and energy are very critically neeeded to head off this looming crisis.
-- B R I N G S O M E F O O D, T O S H A R E --
For more information, contact Steve at: thegreatlizardking@yahoo.com

Breaking the chains of centuries of slavery in Bolivia

Breaking the chains of centuries of slavery in Bolivia
By Kenneth T. Tellis
Today in Bolivia there is an on-going struggle between the Indigenous people of South America against their White Masters. The Aymara, the Guarani and the Quechua are all ancient Bolivians who were driven off their lands by the invading Spaniards that made them slaves. The slavery of centuries of White domination in Bolivia came to an end with the election of Evo Morales himself a native Bolivian. The passage of laws by the Bolivian government has returned to native Bolivians their lands, and this has caused the rich land-owners and the business elites, all of who was White or from outside Bolivia fear that they no longer can lay down the law. These enslavers of Bolivia’s natives sought to hold a referendum to separate and create their own country from the richest province of Bolivia, aided by corporate America. But that plan has failed because it was illegal to begin with. Of course the U.S. corporations were against Evo Morales because he was bringing in laws that returned to the native Bolivians their lands from which they were driven off centuries ago. Now the Aymara, the Guarani and the Quechua Indians are building their own villages and beginning to farm on lands that were theirs long before time. It is in this spirit that the Bolivia will progress and take its place among the emerging nations of South America. That under the leadership of Evo Morales the native peoples of Bolivia will once again hold their heads up high and become part of the New and Vitalized South America. Let there be hope for the Aymara, the Guarani and Quechua Indians in a South America that is vibrant and growing stronger each and every day. The examples of Hugo Chaves and Evo Morales should be there to guide them to a prosperous and glorious future. The Bolivian peoples have taken the first step into the 21st century and let there is no turning back for them. My brothers and neighbours in South America, you are on the way up, and let nothing stop you now.
Kenneth T. Tellis

Thursday, September 11, 2008

Vernon Masayesva: Holding US responsible for cultural bias on Black Mesa

Black Mesa Project Environmental Impact Study Culturally Biased
By Vernon Masayesva
FLAGSTAFF, Ariz., Sept. 10—Any Hopi, Tewa or Navajo who is knowledgeable about their traditions and worldview about humankind's relationship with nature will quickly note the conspicuous absence of that knowledge in the on-going Black Mesa Project environmental impact statement proceedings.
The Office of Surface Mining (OSM), the lead agency in the EIS process, is treating the Hopi, Tewa and Navajo worldview as if it does not exist—and even if it does, it is not science, but mythology.
Western science operates by taking things apart and analyzing the pieces. It has produced enormously important technological and medical advances. Because of this worldview, Western societies are generally able to control their environments and provide greater human comfort.
Traditional science operates by seeing the whole and studying the interaction of the parts. It has sustained Native peoples and cultures for millennia against near overwhelming odds. But, because of this worldview, traditional peoples often find themselves ill-prepared to protect their own best interests.Western science looks at the world in which we live, separates the human from the environment, and then studies the parts—the air, the water, the land, the animals—as if they had little to do with one another. The world is one in which the human is separate from the rest of the nature. The world is mechanistic and the human runs it.
Traditional science looks at the world in which we live, recognizes the essential connection of all of the parts—the air, the water, the land, the other animals, and the human—and from it develops culture and a way of being. The world is sacred and the human is its steward.
In recognition of the disadvantage under which Native America operates in this regard, the federal government recognizes a special trust responsibility with regard to the indigenous peoples of the United States. It has promised to take special care, to be sure the peoples are not cheated or taken advantage of in their dealings with the dominant culture they find so foreign. More often than not, however, the government of the United States has failed to meet even the most fundamental fiduciary and social responsibilities one legitimately expects of a trustee.Regrettably, this is now happening on Black Mesa in Northern Arizona, sacred homeland of the members of the Hopi Tribe and the Navajo Nation.
OSM, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and all the cooperating agencies involved in processing the Peabody application for Black Mesa Project life-of-mine permit have failed and are failing to analyze the Peabody mine plan from a trustee's point of view. Instead, they are focused on technicalities, as regulators should be.This cultural imperialism has many negative implications. It violates Hopi and Navajo religious freedom, the first Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, the American Indian Religious Freedom Act, and human rights in general.
For this reason alone the Black Mesa Project EIS is fundamentally flawed and must be disapproved.
Such violation must not continue. The U.S. Office of Surface Mining, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the Secretary of the Interior must be called to account, must be required to enforce the spirit and the letter of law intended to protect not only our natural resources but also our religious sites, our identity and authenticity as discrete peoples within a pluralistic state, and our inalienable right to self-preservation as unique individuals and cultures.

Mohawk Nation News: Six Nations call out for help!

SIX NATIONS: Call-out for help! Arrest of two activists - Police ‘target' Indigenous youth - bring food and phone cards. People as witnesses needed at both construction sites (ASAP) and at the courthouse today and tomorrow. To get to the construction site take the 403 west towards London , Ontario , exit off Oak Park Road . Turn left and drive over the 403. The construction site is immediately on the right hand side. Brantford City Court is on 44 Queen Street .
Mohawk Nation News
Sept. 11, 2008. Two native activists were arrested Wednesday in a traffic stop by up to a dozen Ontario Provincial Police and Brantford city police officers. The 19-year-old son of “Boots” was arrested, along with an unnamed “young offender”. The police have disregarded the presumption of innocence by calling them “offenders”.
Boots has been living in a teepee in front of these fraudulent development projects. He is trying to remind them that we own the territory. It is a project of the “First Northwest Business Park Ontario” [John Jones 905-363-3086, jjones@firstgulf.com www.firstgulf.com; Head Office, Century Point Corporate Center, 6860 Century Ave., E. Tower, Suite 1000, Mississauga Ontario L5N 2W5 905-814-6860].
Brantford is giving illegal building permits to international corporations to build on our territory, such as: -
-“Hampton Inn Hotels” which is part of the Hilton chain [we need CEO name, headquarters address and contact information];ampton HotH
-“Fen Ridge Court” [we need CEO, address and contact info]; and -Kingspan Insulation, Dublin Road, Kings Court Co., Cavan, Ireland, registration #70776 Ph. +353(0)42 9698000 admin@kingspan.ie, CE Gene M. Murtagh, Irish Stock Exchange info@ise.ie.
These companies have illegally laid claim to Haudenosaunee Territory . Some have represented that our unceded land is their collateral to raise funds on various stock exchanges. We have put them all on notice that the land is ours. They should be charged with fraud because of this knowingly willful violation of our rights and misrepresentations of their holdings in the public market. Unfortunately, the state authorities are complicit in the fraud. The city of Brantford issues the illegal permits.
Boots’ son has a bail hearing this morning, September 11th at the Brantford Court . The other youth is up for bail tomorrow at 9:00am. Both are charged with “mischief”.
Janie Jamieson gave the following report: “Today [September 10] at approximately 11:00am my one-year old son and I were leavingthe “King and Benton” site of illegal construction site in Brantford , Ontario . My sister followed with the two youth. I stopped at a sign and then proceeded through. In my rear view mirror I could see my sister following close behind.
Then I saw a non-Native man with a closely shaved head pullingon her truck door with one hand while violently punching the window with a closed fist. I feared she was under attack by “skinheads” as there were several unmarked cars blocking her in.
I went ahead and turned around. When I got back all vehicles were gone, including my sister. I turned right. The same men were parked there but had changed into OPP vests and belts loaded with weapons. There were approximately 8 cruisers marked “OPP” and “ Brantford City Police”. They were surrounding my sister and the two youth who were being handcuffed.
I told the police that according to our law our youth are under the authority and jurisdiction of the Ongwehonwe women and that our youth had EVERY authority to uphold our traditional laws. The police were told to cease and desist their armed invasions and kidnapping of our children. These tactics constitute declarations of war.
The cops said everything they were doing was "standard police practice" [in dealing with Indigenous people]. Why do they bother to wear uniforms? Are there any real “skinheads”? Or are they all cops trying to an end run around the law they swore to defend? Five officers then began searching my sister's truck for "weapons".
I put tobacco in the hands of the youth and told them to hold onto it. The police tried to stop me. The youth held onto it and were placed in separate cruisers and taken to the Brantford Jail.
Bawa Construction (Hampton Inn & Suites) has resumed illegal construction on our unsurrendered territory despite being warned by us to stop.
At no point have any of our people stepped out of the Kaianarekowa. The developers and the police continuously ESCALATE intercultural hostility by targeting our children, women (mothers and grandmothers) and men to protect the finances of local and international corporations.
We ongwehonwe will continue to uphold our great-great-grandchildren's right to exist.
MNN Mohawk Nation News Staff www.mohawknationnews.com katenies20@yahoo.com
Please Note. Legal actions have to be taken to protect our rights. We have no funds. If you can donate anything to our cause, it will be greatly appreciated. Donate to PayPal, www.mohawknationnews.com, or “MNN Mohawk Nation News”, Box 991 , Kahnawake [ Quebec , Canada ] J0L 1B0. Nia:wen.
http://www.reclamationinfo.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?p=2368#p2368
Splitting the Sky, a Mohawk activist, actor and author will be one of the featured speakers at the March on Ottawa this Thursday, September,11, 2008. It is a commemoration of the massacre of thousands of people at the Twin Towers in New York city on September 11th, 2001. Mohawk ironworkers were some of the construction workers on the Twin Towers and continue to be concerned about this issue. Come hear the arguments to substantiate the allegations.
http://www.marchonottawa2008.org/ www.splittingthesky.net
Posted by MNN Mohawk Nation News
www.mohawknationnews.com
Contact: katenies20@yahoo.com kahentinetha2@yahoo.com

Wednesday, September 10, 2008

Six Nations: 'Skinhead' police attack, arrest youths

Sent: September 10, 2008 3:24
URGENT CALLOUT FOR SUPPORT - 6 NATIONS in BRANTFORD
URGENT CALL FOR SUPPORT
By Janie Jamieson
This morning, the Brantford Police arrested two young activists from 6 Nations, aged 17 and 19. The two were arrested in transit while trying to leave the campsite on Fen Ridge Court. Twenty cops in 8 unmarked cars pulled over the vehicle they were travelling in, and arrested the two teenagers who are currently in jail. Activists at the site in Brantford have asked for supporters to come to the site tonight and/or tomorrow.
The Hampton Inn site on Fen Ridge has been shut down completely for two weeks. It had also been shut down several times over the last few months by various representations from 6 Nations including Ruby and Floyd Montour, the Confederacy Council, the Men's Fire, and now grassroots activists including Boots Powless and a newly dubbed NYM-6 Nations. The current callout comes directly from the activists on site.
The group has maintained the site beside the Hampton Inn development site in a tepee for over 60 days, upholding the declaration put forward by the Men's Fire that these sites should be shut down pending settlement of outstanding land disputes. Further, all three sites that have been targeted from the base camp have been sited as posing ecological threats; the Fen Ridge industrial development area and the Oak Park Road development site are located in an environmentally sensitive area less than a kilometre from the Grand River.
A Callout for supporters to be physically on-the-ground as early as tonight has been issued from the camp. They are also asking for food and phone cards ("solo" brand).
To get to the site:take the 403 to Brantford, exit at Oak Park Road, turn right at the T junction off the exit, then take the first left onto Power Line Road; the site is down the road a few hundred meters, and should be evident across from the King & Benton site. Look for the tepee, Boots has asked people to meet there first.___________________________ _____________ ___
Wednesday September 10, 2008
BRANTFORD, Ont.
Today at approximately 11:00am my one year old son and I were leaving the King and Benton site in Brantford, Ontario. My sister left the site a few seconds behind me. Two youth were travelling with her. I stopped at the stop sign and then proceeded through. I checked my rear view mirror to see how far behind my sister was.
When I looked I saw a non-Native man with a closely shaved head pulling on her truck door with one hand while punching the driver's side truck window with his other hand. He had a closed fist and was hitting the window with full swings. With all the threats made against our people and the violence and abuse we survive, I thought she was under attack by a group of skinheads, as there were several unmarked cars blocking her in.
I drove up to a spot where I could safely turn around. When I got back to the corner all vehicles were gone. I turned right because traffic was slow in that direction. Sure enough, the same cars had her truck surrounded but now the skinhead that was viciously, forcefully trying to attack them earlier had on an OPP vest and a belt loaded with weapons.
By then there were approximately 8 cruisers both marked (OPP and Brantford City Police) surrounding my sister and the two youth. They had one youth handcuffed. Moments later they handcuffed the second youth.
I told the police our youth are under our authority and jurisdiction as Ogwehowe women and the police had no right or authority to kidnap our children on our own territory. The police were informed our youth had EVERY authority to uphold our traditional laws.
The police were then told to cease and desist their armed invasions of our people. They were also told the kidnapping of our children needed to stop as well. They were told they keep trying to escalate things with our people and the tactics they are using is nothing short of declarations of war.
We were told how everything they were doing was "standard". (Yes, even for an allegation of "mischief".) As hard as it was to believe it was standard police practice, I do believe it. It was almost a year ago 9 of our people were attacked at Stirling Street for upholding their land rights by 200 fully armed RCMP, OPP, OPP Riot Squad and the Hamilton City Police . The acceptable standard to deal with our people for minor offences was most recently set in 1995 in Stoney Point when Dudley George was murdered by a paid sniper.
While we were talking about 5 officers (without permission) began searching my sister's truck for "weapons".
I put tobacco in the hands of the youth and told them to hold onto it and not let it go. The police told me I couldn't do that and to get rid of it. The youth held onto it and were then placed in separate cruisers and taken to the Brantford Jail.
One youth may get out today. The other young man is up for bail tomorrow at 9:00am at the Brantford City Court on 44 Queen Street.
Also, Bawa Construction (Hampton Inn & Suites) has resumed construction despite being given several warnings they are building illegally on traditional territory in Grand River Country. I've been told construction will be shut down soon.
We are asking for support in the form of supplies and people both at the construction site (ASAP) and at the courthouse tomorrow. To get to the construction site take the 403 west towards London, Ont. Exit off Oak Park Road. Turn left and drive over 403. Construction site is immediately on the right hand side.
Boots Powless' son was one of the young men targeted and arrested today.
Our people have upheld their words regarding maintaining peace. At no point have any of our people stepped out of the Kaiienarekowa. The developers and the police continuously escalate events by targeting our children, women (mothers and grandmothers) and men. There is a consistent effort to attack our women and children to protect the finances of local and international corporations.
Just like the targeting of our people and constant attacks by fully armed civil servants continue, we, as ogwohwe will continue to uphold our great-great grandchildren's right to exist.
We are justified.
Janie Jamieson
Grand River Country

Portland Street Medics: Eyewitness to police brutality at RNC

Eyewitness: Police Brutality at the RNC - Street Medics
by R. Westlund, Petros Evdokas, and the Portland Street Medics
"... the pair of Portland Medics came across a man running backwards, wrapping a woman's cut open and bleeding hand while they both yelled for a medic. The medics took over the patient and the man disappeared into the crowd. The 20-second pause to attempt an evaluation of the patient's hand resulted in the police behind gaining ground and having a chance to deploy more chemical weapons. The medics began running again, patient in tow, one medic guiding her while the other finished the wrapping job on her hand. While doing this, the medics came upon a young man limping and yelling for help, 'I can't run! Help!'"
http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2008/09/379452.shtml

Tuesday, September 9, 2008

UC Berkeley: Grandmother oak fed to wood chipper

UC Berkeley feeds grandmother oak to wood chipper, destroys sacred grove and jails tree sitters

By Morning Star Gali
Photo by Brenda Norrell
Dear friends of the Memorial Oak Grove,
Today, after 648 days, the treesitters and the University of California reached an agreement that brought the Oak Grove treesit to an end.
The treesitters agreed to come down voluntarily, and University representatives agreed that they would make a public statement that the University will create new ways for the community to be involved in land use decisions going forward. What form precisely that will take is yet to be determined.
It is up to the community to ensure that the format is substantial, and that the community is involved in the beginning, brainstorm phases and on an ongoing basis with land use.
The University representatives and treesit supporters agreed that confrontations are in no one's best interest, and it is a mutually shared interest for real cooperation to take place.
The supporters of the treesitters have made a request for bail funds... please visit:http://oaksarrestees.org/click on "donate"or if you'd rather send a check, make it out to "Oaks Arrestees Defense Committee" and mail it to....Oaks Arrestees Defense Committes1610 North Normandie Avenue, #210Hollywood, California, 90027
Many brave souls are in jail right now, including the four treesitters who surrendered to the UC Police (Huck, Mondo, Shem, and Ernesto), as well several ground supporters who were arrested today.
Also, Native American leader and organizer Morningstar Gali requested that UC Police honor a prior commitment they made to allow the Native Community to enter the remains of the grove and place tobacco at the stump of the Grandmother Oak once the treesitters come down. Thus far, UC Police have refused to respond to this request. If you agree that UC Police should allow the ceremony to happen, please call the office of Chief of Police Victoria Harrison at 510-642-1133 to express your views, or send an email to vlh@berkeley.edu.
Furthermore, treesit supporters want the stump of the Grandmother Oak returned to the Native community so that they may create drums and other religious artifacts. If you agree, please state this desire as well when you contact Chief Harrison.
The Memorial Oak Grove is regarded as a sacred place to Native American people and is documented as such by UC Berkeley's own Anthropology Department. There is evidence of 2 shell mounds sites in the area, with 19 ancestral remains found within them. Along with UC Berkeley's attempt to develop on a sacred place, they are guilty of housing over 17,000 sacred remains and objects. UCB currently holds the largest human remains collection in the United States of which it is not in compliance with the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA)
Morning Star described the importance of this area, when the destruction began last week.
"I brought my five year old daughter and two month old son out today to bear witness to the massacre of sacred life," said Morning Star Gali of the Pit River Tribe and co-chair of Advocates to Protect Sacred Sites. "The cops responded by yelling to move them behind the median. I asked if they would stand by as complacent if it was their grandmother’s gravesites being desecrated. I want my children here to witness the destruction of sacred life and how important it is to protect it. I wanted them to witness the cops, arborists and UC Officials that participated and cheered as the trees came crashing down from bulldozers. This exhibits the ongoing Human Rights abuses committed by the University. They refuse to comply with NAGPRA by holding 13,000 of our ancestors remains hostage, they illegally reorganized NAGPRA with no tribal consultation and now they continue to desecrate sacred burial grounds."The Memorial Grove is a native Coast Live Oak ecosystem. Native oaks support the most complex terrestrial ecosystems in California. The California Native Plant Society CNPS has stated that the Memorial Oak Grove is “an important gene bank for the Coast Live Oak.” Every one of the oaks in the grove should be protect by law and the Berkeley Coast Live Oak moratorium forbids cutting mature Coast Live Oaks in Berkeley. UC refuses to recognize the law. The grove is also part of a National Historic Site. The Stadium and landscape is a memorial to Californians who died in World War I.
The treesitters say that they sincerely thank you for your love, your time, your letters, your food, your water, your witnessing, your words, your presence. We know many of you contributed deeply to this campaign in many ways, and many of those contributions have gone unrecognized and unseen. So know that whether your participation was visible or not, the treesitters say that your support for them -- and most importantly, for the trees -- is deeply appreciated.
This email list is obviously winding down, although it is possible that something new that relates to community relationships with UC could be created. Stay tuned for that.
If you're curious what ground supporters are up to now, you can reach them at 510 938 2109. And again, ground support says a way to help out those who have done so much is to visit:
http://oaksarrestees.org/
Sincerely,
Your friends from the Oak Grove

Photo: Long Walkers gathered with the grandmother oak for prayers at the beginning of the Longest Walk in Feb. 2008/Photo Brenda Norrell

Organizations ready lawsuits against police in convention cities

Published on Tuesday, September 9, 2008 by The Hill.com
Organizations Ready Lawsuits Against Police In Convention Cities
by Jordy Yager
Republished from Common Dreams:
www.commondreams.org/

Political activists and legal groups are preparing to file multiple lawsuits against the cities and police departments of Denver and St. Paul because of their treatment of convention protesters.
Police used tear gas and pepper spray to disperse protesters outside the Republican convention last week. Political activists and legal groups are preparing to file multiple lawsuits against the cities and police departments of Denver and St. Paul because of their treatment of convention protesters. (Times Online/UK)The groups say protesters demonstrating against the war in Iraq and other issues in both cities were mistreated and their civil rights were violated.
The National Lawyers Guild of Minnesota is preparing multiple suits against authorities in St. Paul on behalf of protesters, according to the group. They say protesters were illegally detained and their First Amendment rights were violated.
"Over the course of the week people here in the Twin Cities saw a level of police repression that was unheard of for us," said Jess Sundin, a spokesman for the Coalition to March on the RNC [Republican National Convention] and Stop the War. "But I was very impressed that people came out anyway and demonstrated tremendous strength and conviction."
She said she believed the thousands of delegates, politicians and members of the media who descended on the city last week heard their messages clearly.
More than 800 were arrested at the GOP convention in St. Paul - many fewer than the 1,800 arrested at the 2004 GOP convention in New York City.
Re-Create 68, a protest group in Denver, plans to file similar suits against Denver authorities. They also complain that detained protesters were held in extremely cold cells.
Far more people were arrested at this year's Democratic National Convention in Denver than in the previous convention in Boston. More than 150 people were arrested in Denver, compared to six in Boston.
Protest groups charged Denver authorities with using excessive force against protesters in several instances.
They cite the case of Alicia Forrest, who was arrested during a Denver protest. Video of Forrest being shoved to the ground by a policeman wielding a baton has been viewed over 328,000 times in a YouTube video taken by the Rocky Mountain News.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is planning to represent her in a lawsuit against the city and the police department.
Also in Denver, an ABC News reporter was arrested and charged with trespassing and interfering with official business as he and a camera crew attempted to take pictures of Democratic senators and donors leaving a private meeting at a hotel. He was released on $500 bond later that day and has continued to garner support from civil rights groups.
"Arresting a reporter for simply doing his job is both unconstitutional and un-American," said Anthony D. Romero, executive director of the ACLU, in a statement. "That free speech is curtailed during the Democratic convention underscores the need for continued protection of civil liberties, regardless of the party in power."
Tear gas, pepper spray and police in riot gear were a common sight at both conventions, but several instances of vandalism and property destruction added to the mayhem of the St. Paul protests. Anarchists and demonstrators broke from permitted marches and smashed store windows, lit fires in the street and damaged a police cruiser.
St. Paul police said while they hoped the week would have resulted in fewer arrests, they also had worried that more of the estimated 8,000 demonstrators would be violent.
"It's unfortunate, but on balance I think it's fewer than some people expected," said Tom Walsh, a spokesman for St. Paul police. "We had planned for much more violent activity [than occurred], but we were able to intervene."
One reason might be the aggressive actions police took in advance of the convention.
The weekend before the RNC began, police raided local houses and arrested at least five members of protest groups, such as the RNC Welcoming Committee. Police obtained items they said were to be used against police, including roofing nails, ropes, computers and cell phones. They also charged those arrested with conspiracy to riot.
Walsh said these arrests helped keep anyone from being seriously injured throughout the week. However, some groups, including the lawyers' guild, condemned the arrests, saying police seized everyday household items and claimed they were to be employed for mayhem.
No life-threatening injuries were reported in Denver, but the city's authorities did have a high-profile scare.
Days into the Democratic National Convention, police arrested three men whom they said made threats against Democratic presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama's (Ill.) life. Though arrested with guns and drugs, authorities have since dismissed the severity of the threats, saying that they were not "credible."
Charges against many protesters in Denver have been dropped, while most of those still faced with fines or court actions have posted bail. Charges included obstructing police, remaining in an unlawful assembly and throwing stones.
The ACLU of Colorado has written letters to the Denver City Attorney and the Denver Sheriff's department complaining about the conditions in which those detained were kept. They say police did not provide all of the arrested protesters with access to legal representation and kept them in uncomfortable physical conditions, including extremely cold holding cells.
"I'm thinking we should watch what we ask for, because in our early letters to the city we were emphasizing that they needed to think about air conditioning, and now we're complaining that there's too much air conditioning," said Mark Silverstein, legal director for the ACLU of Colorado, pointing to the irony of the situation.

© 2008 Capitol Hill Publishing Corp.
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Pointe-au-Chien tribal building blown off foundation by Gustav

Pointe-au-Chien, near Houma, La., ignored by media and hurricane relief efforts
Contact: Chairman Charles Verdin, Sr., (985) 856-5336
Secretary Michelle Matherne, (985) 594-3267
P.O. Box 416
Montegut, LA 703770

http://pactribe.tripod.com/

Photo: Community home with roof blown off by Hurricane Gustav/Photo copyright Joel Waltzer
September 8, 2008
Most of Louisiana's remaining Native Americans reside in four centuries-old communities in the southern-most ends of Terrebonne and Lafourche Parishes, such as Pointe-au-Chien (renamed "Chenes" by non-Indians). In this sleepy, modest fishing town, Indian French is the language most often heard, and generations of smiles and laughter almost always accompany a good pot of jambalaya or plate of soft shell crabs. Today, these unique communities, their language, Indian culture, lifestyle and even their identity as a separate people are deeply threatened. With the destruction of the barrier islands, and no levees protecting them, the Pointe-au-Chien people are under continual threat of harm from natural disasters.
On September 1, 2008, Hurricane Gustav ripped through these historic bayou towns with ferocious winds and a six foot storm surge. In its wake, Gustav left a trail of ripped roofs or crumpled houses, overlain with uprooted marsh and thick mud, unparalleled elsewhere in Louisiana. Almost all of these simple homes sustained major damage, from being pushed off their foundation to having their roofs ripped off. Generations of entire extended families have lost everything, with no monetary means to recover. In addition to housing damage, the Pointe-au-Chien Tribal building was blown off of its foundation.
If the Pointe-au-Chien and Isle a Jean Charles Indian communities are to survive, they need help in rebuilding and recovery efforts. To date, few elected officials and no agency representatives at any level have visited them. To date, no media representatives have been there to report on the devastation to the tribes. Unseen, and unheard, and without any utilities, their despair grows. Their immediate needs are simple: food and water to sustain them, tarps and screws to secure their roofs and walls (where possible), tools and supplies to muck out, and earth-moving equipment and roll-off containers to get the debris out. So far, only the Louisiana Environmental Action Network's disaster relief mission, the American Red Cross, and Four Directions Solidarity Network have delivered on some of these needs. The Tribe is working with the National Relief Charities to deliver needed supplies to the people. But greater assistance is needed in this devastated area.
At present, specific needs include generators and box fans, building supplies such as roofing paper, sheet metal and screws, water for cleaning and drinking, cleaning products, pressure washers, tarps, tools, first aid supplies, squeegees, shovels, storage containers and heavy duty garbage bags. In the medium term, they will need building materials to rebuild their homes, and personal items, furniture, clothes, refrigerators, freezers, and toys need to be replaced. Long term, the community will need assistance with storm hardening and surge protection, and for the government to get serious about coastal restoration in the Bayou Lafourche basin. Immediately, the Community could really use some energetic young people to help them muck out.
If you want to go there and assist with the clean up, please provide contact information to Joel Waltzer at joel@waltzerlaw.com. Donations can be made to the Pointe-au-Chien Indian Tribe, PO Box 416, Montegut, LA 70377, http://pactribe.tripod.com/, or the Louisiana Environmental Action Network's Gustav relief effort, by visiting its website at http://leanweb.org.html/. Donations made to either the Pointe-au-Chien Indian Tribe or LEAN are tax deductible.For more information: Chairman Charles "Chuckie" Verdin of the Pointe-au-Chien Indian Tribe, (985) 856-5336; or Marylee Orr, Director, LEAN, (225) 588-5059; or Joel Waltzer, tribal lawyer, (504) 430-0844.

Monday, September 8, 2008

An Alaskan Native speaks out on Palin, oil and Alaska

An Alaska Native speaks out on Palin, Oil, and Alaska
By Evon Peter
evonpeter@mac.com
Photo: Evon Peter with Long Walkers in Oakland in 2008/Photo Brenda Norrell
9/8/2008

My name is Evon Peter; I am a former Chief of the Neetsaii Gwich’in tribe from Arctic Village, Alaska and the current Executive Director of Native Movement. My organization provides culturally based leadership development through offices in Alaska and Arizona. My wife, who is Navajo, and I have been based out of Flagstaff, Arizona for
the past few years, although I travel home to Alaska in support of our initiatives there as well. It is interesting to me that my wife and I find ourselves as Indigenous people from
the two states where McCain and Palin originate in their leadership.
I am writing this letter to raise awareness about the ongoing colonization and violation of
human rights being carried out against Alaska Native peoples in the name of
unsustainable progress, with a particular emphasis on the role of Sarah Palin and the
Republican leadership. My hope is that it helps to elevate truth about the nature of
Alaskan politics in relation to Alaska Native peoples and that it lays a framework for our
path to justice.
Ever since the Russian claim to Alaska and the subsequent sale to the United States
through the Treaty of Cession in 1867, the attitude and treatment towards Alaska Native
peoples has been fairly consistent. We were initially referred to as less than human
“uncivilized tribes”, so we were excluded from any dialogues and decisions regarding our
lands, lives, and status. The dominating attitude within the Unites States at the time was
called Manifest Destiny; that God had given Americans this great land to take from the
Indians because they were non-Christian and incapable of self-government. Over the
years since that time, this framework for relating to Alaska Native peoples has become
entrenched in the United States legislative and legal systems in an ongoing direct
violation of our human rights.
What does this mean? Allow me to share an analogy. If a group of people were to arrive
in your city and tell you their people had made laws, among which were:
1. What were once your home and land now belong to them (although you could live
in the garage or backyard)
2. Forced you to send your children to boarding schools to learn their language and
be acculturated into their ways with leaders who touted “Kill the American, save
the man” (based on the original statement made by US Captain Richard H. Pratt
in regards to Native American education “Kill the Indian, save the man.”)
3. Supported missionaries and government agents to forcefully (for example, with
poisons placed on the tongues of your children and withheld vaccines) convince
you that your Jesus, Buddha, Torah, or Mohammed was actually an agent of evil
and that salvation in the afterlife could only be found through believing otherwise
4. Made it illegal for you to continue to do your job to support your family, except
under strict oversight and through extensive regulation
5. Made it illegal for you to own any land or run a business as an individual and did
not allow you to participate in any form of their government, which controlled
your life (voting or otherwise)
How would this make you feel? What if you also knew that if you were to retaliate, that
you would be swiftly killed or incarcerated? How long do you think it would take for you
to forget or would you be sure to share this history with your children with the hope that
justice could one day prevail for your descendants? And most importantly to our
conversation, how American does this sound to you?
To put this into perspective, my grandfather who helped to raise me in Arctic Village was
born in 1904, just thirty-seven years after the United States laid claim to Alaska. If my
grandfather had unjustly stolen your grandfathers home and I was still living in the house
and watching you live outdoors, would you feel a change was in order? Congress
unilaterally passed most of the major US legislation that affect our people in my
grandfathers’ lifetime. There has never been a Treaty between Alaska Native Peoples and
the United States over these injustices. Each time that Alaska Native people stand up for
our rights, the US responds with token shifts in its laws and policies to appease the
building discontent, yet avoiding the underlying injustice that I believe can be resolved if
leadership in the United States would be willing to acknowledge the underlying injustice
of its control over Alaska Native peoples, our lands, and our ways of life.
United States legal history in relation to Alaska Natives has been based on one major
platform - minimize the potential for Alaska Native people to regain control of their lives,
lands, and resources and maximize benefit to the Unites States government and its
corporations. While the rest of the world, following World War II, was seeking to return
African and European Nations to their rightful owners, the United States pushed in the
opposite direction by pulling the then Territory of Alaska out of the United Nations
dialogues and pushing for Statehood into the Union. Why is it that Alaska Native Nations
are still perceived as being incapable of governing our own lands, lives, and resources
differently than African, Asian, and European nations?
Let me get specific about what is at stake and how this relates to Palin and the
Republican leadership in Alaska and across this country. To this day, Alaska Native
peoples are among the only Indigenous peoples in all of North America whose
Indigenous Hunting and Fishing Rights have been extinguished by federal legislation and
yet we are the most dependent people on this way of life. Most of our villages have no
roads that connect them to cities; many live with poverty level incomes, and all rely to
varying degrees on traditional hunting, fishing, and harvesting for survival. This has
become known as the debate on Alaska Native Subsistence.
As Alaska Governor, Palin has continued the path of her predecessor Frank Murkowski
in challenging attempts by Alaska Native people to regain their human right to their
traditional way of life through subsistence.
The same piece of unilateral federal legislation, known as the Alaska Native Claims
Settlement Act (ANCSA) of 1971, that extinguished our hunting and fishing rights, also
extinguished all federal Alaska Native land claims and my Tribe’s reservation status. In
the continental United States, this sort of legislation is referred to as ‘termination
legislation’ because it takes the rights of self-government away from Tribes. It is based in
the same age-old idea that we are not capable of governing our people, lands, and
resources. To justify these terminations, ANCSA also created Alaska Native led for profit
corporations (which were provided the remaining lands not taken by the
government and a one time payment the equivalent of about 1/20th of the annual profits
made by corporations in Alaska each year) with a mission of exploiting the land in
partnership with the US government and outside corporations. It was a brilliant piece of
legislation for the legal termination and cultural assimilation of Alaska Natives under the
guise of progress.
Since the passage of ANCSA, political leaders in Alaska, with a few exceptions, have
maintained that, as stated by indicted Senator Ted Stevens, “Tribes have never existed in
Alaska.” They maintain this position out of fear that the real injustice being carried out
upon Alaska Natives may break into mainstream awareness and lead to a re-opening of
due treaty dialogues between Alaska Native leaders and the federal government. At the
same time the federal government chose to list Alaska Native tribes in the list of federally
recognized tribes in 1993. Governor Palin maintains that tribes were federally recognized
but that they do not have the same rights as the tribes in the continental United States to
sovereignty and self-governance, even to the extent of legally challenging our Tribes
rights pursuant to the Indian Child Welfare Act. What good are governments that can’t
make decisions concerning their own land and people?
The colonial mentality in and towards Alaska is to exploit the land and resources for
profits and power, at the expense of Alaska Native people. Governor Palin reflects this
attitude and perspective in her words and leadership. She comes from an area within
Alaska that was settled by relocated agricultural families from the continental United
States in the second half of the last century. It is striking that a leader from that particular
area feels she has a right, considering all of the injustices to Alaska Native people, to
offer Alaskan oil and resources in an attempt to solve the national energy crisis at the
Republican Convention. Palin also chose not to mention the connection between oil
development and global warming, which is wreaking havoc on Alaska Native villages,
forcing some to begin the process of relocation at a cost sure to reach into the hundreds of
millions.
Our tribes depend on healthy and abundant land and animals for our survival. For
example, my people depend on the Porcupine Caribou herd, which migrates into the
coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge each spring to birth their young. Any
disruption and contamination will directly impact the health and capacity for my people
to continue to live in a homeland we have been blessed to live in for over 10,000 years.
This is the sacrifice Palin offered to the nation. The worst part of it is that there are viable
alternatives to addressing the energy crisis in the United States, yet Palin chooses options
that very well may result in the extinguishment of some of the last remaining intact
ecosystems and original cultures in all of North America. Palin is also promoting off
shore oil drilling and increased mining in sensitive areas of Alaska, all of which would
have a lifespan of far fewer years than my grandfather walked on this earth and which
would not even make a smidgen of an impact on national consumption rates or longer
term sustainability. McCain was once a champion of protecting the Arctic National
Wildlife Refuge and it is sad to see, that with Palin on board, he is no longer vocal and
perhaps even giving up on what he believes in to satisfy Palin’s position.
While I have much more to say, this is my current offering to elevate the conversation
about what is at stake in Alaska and for Alaska Native peoples. Please share this offering
with others and help us to make this an election that brings out honest dialogue. We have
an opportunity to bring lasting change, but only if we can be open to hearing the truth
about our situations and facing the challenges that arise.
Many thanks to all those who are taking stands for a just and sustainable future for all of
our future generations,
*This essay is a personal reflection and should not be attributed to my tribe or organization

Yucca Mountain gets dangerous radioactive rubberstamp

BEYOND NUCLEAR NEWS BULLETIN (http://www.beyondnuclear.org/)
Sept. 8, 2008
Tel: 301.270.2209
Nuclear Regulatory Commission Dockets Yucca Mountain Application
Background: Today, after a three month long review, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) docketed, or accepted as complete enough to proceed, the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) application to build and operate a national dumpsite for high-level radioactive waste at Yucca Mountain, Nevada. After three decades of site studies, this action officially kicks off the Yucca Mountain repository licensing proceeding. The State of Nevada, and other dump opponents, will now have 60 days to intervene by submitting contentions to NRC citing legal or technical flaws with the proposal. Nevada is expected to submit hundreds of contentions. An NRC licensing board will decide which contentions will be granted a hearing. NRC’s licensing proceeding will last three to four years. It will then decide whether or not to approve the Yucca Mountain dump.

Commentary from Kevin Kamps, Beyond Nuclear: “The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) today showed its blatant bias in favor of the proposed high-level radioactive waste dump in Nevada by docketing the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) license application before the pro-nuclear Bush administration leaves office. In record time, NRC rubberstamped DOE’s half-baked submission, despite its lack of a final repository design, waste transport-storage-burial canister design, and national routing plan for shipping the deadly wastes by road, rail, and waterway through 45 states.
“Despite DOE being nearly six years late in filing its still incomplete license application, NRC recently denied the State of Nevada’s humble and reasonable request for a mere six months to prepare contentions against the dump.

“Why is NRC rushing into the Yucca proceeding at breakneck speed, especially when the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has not even finalized radiation release regulations for the dumpsite?

“Nevadans know the reason better than anyone, that politics have long trumped science at Yucca Mountain. Interestingly, Nevada’s contentions against the dump are now due right around Election Day. If elected, Barack Obama has pledged to withdraw the Yucca license application. Even John McCain, who has consistently voted in favor of the Yucca dump, has indicated that burying radioactive waste in Nevada may not be the best idea after all. Politics singled out Nevada in the first place, kept the Yucca Mountain Project alive for two decades despite glaring scientific unsuitability, and ironically may now kill the dump in the end.”
For more information, see the Securing Nuclear Waste page on our Web site or call: 201.270.2209.
Kevin Kamps
Radioactive Waste Watchdog
Beyond Nuclear
6930 Carroll Avenue, Suite 400
Takoma Park, Maryland 20912
Office phone: (301) 270-2209
Cell phone: (240) 462-3216
Fax: (301) 270-4000
kevin@beyondnuclear.org
http://www.beyondnuclear.org/

NRC DOCKETS YUCCA MOUNTAIN APPLICATION,
ADOPTS DOE’S ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT STATEMENT
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has formally docketed the Department of Energy’s
license application for the proposed high-level nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain, Nev.
The agency staff has also recommended that the Commission adopt, with further supplementation,
DOE’s Environmental Impact Statement for the repository project.
The decision to docket the application follows the NRC staff’s determination that the
application, submitted June 3, is sufficiently complete for the staff to begin its full technical review.
Docketing the application does not indicate whether the Commission will approve or reject the
construction authorization for the repository, nor does it preclude the Commission or the agency
staff from requesting additional information from DOE during the course of its comprehensive
technical review.
Docketing the application triggers a three-year deadline, with a possible one-year extension,
set by Congress for the NRC to decide whether to grant a construction authorization. NRC officials
have stated that meeting this deadline is contingent on the agency receiving sufficient resources
from Congress.
After reviewing DOE’s Environmental Impact Statement and its supplements, the NRC staff
determined that it would be practicable for the agency to adopt the DOE report. However, the staff
is requesting that DOE supplement some aspects of its groundwater analyses. The staff’s report on
its adoption review will be available on the NRC’s ADAMS online document system at
http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/adams/web-based.html using access number ML082420342.
The NRC notified DOE of its docketing decision and adoption recommendation this
morning. A notice of docketing will be published soon in the Federal Register. A subsequent
Federal Register notice will provide an opportunity for interested parties to seek an adjudicatory
hearing before the NRC’s Atomic Safety and Licensing Board regarding the NRC’s adoption of the
Environmental Impact Statement or the substance of the license application.
###
News releases are available through a free listserv subscription at the following Web address:
http://www.nrc.gov/public-involve/listserver.html. The NRC homepage at www.nrc.gov also offers a SUBSCRIBE
link. E-mail notifications are sent to subscribers when news releases are posted to NRC's Web site.

U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
Office of Public Affairs Telephone: 301/415-8200
Washington, D.C. 20555-0001
E-mail: opa@nrc.gov
Site: http://www.nrc.gov
No. 08-164
September 8, 2008

Morning Star Gali: Berkeley City Council failed to halt massacre of sacred Oak Grove

By Morning Star Gali:
Dear Berkeley City Council Members,
I applaud you for unanimously passing the Berkeley No-Border Wall Resolution at the beginning of this year and for hosting the Lipan and Chiricahua Apache representatives with a reception to speak on demilitarization on Thursday August 28th.
However, I find it disturbingly shameful that although you take the stand of supporting the demilitarization of borders along the US-Mexico imposed boundaries and supporting the Indigenous People's of that territory-- you have failed to come out in public support or recognition of the local Indigenous struggles within your own city and community.
Last month I attended a Berkeley City Council hearing pleading for you to act on filing the appeal against UC Berkeley in support of the Memorial Oak Grove with its militarized border fences that are commonly referred to as Guantanamo Berkeley.
With your inaction you failed to support the demilitarization of the Memorial Oak Grove, which is regarded as a sacred place and documented by UC Berkeley's own Anthropology Department of which it disclosed evidence of 2 shell mounds sites with 18 ancestral remains found within them.
Along with UC Berkeley's attempt to develop on a sacred place, they are guilty of housing over 17,000 sacred remains and objects. UCB currently holds the largest human remains collection in the United States of which it is not in compliance with the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act. UC Berkeley is guilty of classifying approximately 7,000 human remains as culturally unidentifiable and has been negligent to notify and consult with tribes. The University of California has created self imposed borders that deny Indigenous Peoples consultation with tribal leaders and representatives.
I am a member of the National Native American NAGPRA coalition which has publicly stated that although they are culturally unidentifiable to UC Berkeley, this does not mean that they are culturally unidentifiable to us. We know that they are our ancestors and we have a duty to bring them home.
As city council members, the land that you help to govern is occupied Ohlone territory. The sacred places, remains, and objects of the Ohlone people are guaranteed no protection within the city of Berkeley as Ohlone people are not a federally recognized nation. From the Mission to the Gold Rush Era over 98% of California Indian people were brutally exterminated in the name of gold and greed. Although our numbers are low, we are actively fighting to protect our land and our way of life.
UC Berkeley has continued the genocidal practices that were perfected across turtle island from east to west and continues to be a major obstacle in the healing of our nations by holding our sacred objects and remains hostage.
City Council Members, You have failed to condemn UC Berkeley in its continued disregard and disrespect of Native Peoples and federal law. There has been a failure to support the sacred area of the Oak Grove, support the return of the 19,000 remains and publicly object to the illegal reorganization of NAGPRA. As these are all connected, they are a continued violation of our human rights as Indigenous Peoples.
Yesterday, we were not even allowed to hold a peaceful prayer gathering and put tobacco offerings down onto the earth in front of the grove. Although the UC Chief of Police was directly informed of the gathering and the intention to put prayers down, the UC Police responded by violently arresting one person and pushing and shoving me while I was holding my two month old son. While I was trying to put offerings down on the ground, they violently attempted to put their hands on him and threatened to pull him out of my arms.
I ask you, where is the support of the city council of the struggles of the local Indigenous peoples of this territory? Respectfully,
Morning Star Gali Citizen of the Achumawi band of the Pit River NationCo-Chair, Advocates to Protect Sacred Sites-- Morning Star Gali
www.ifhurbanrez.org

Ontario refuses to protect abused Mohawk grandmothers

ONTARIO PROVINCIAL POLICE REFUSE TO PROTECT ABUSED GRANDMOTHER AND INTIMIDATES MESSENGERS

Mohawk Nation News Sep. 8, 2008. Since the brutal June 14th 2008 beatings of Mohawk grandmothers, Kahentientha and Katenies, at the Cornwall Ontario checkpoint, there has been no public inquiry and no apology.

On Sunday, September 7, 2008, Kahentinetha asked two friends to present an affidavit she signed laying a formal complaint with the Ontario Provincial Police to investigate the assault by the Canada Border Services Agents CBSA. Apparently all Ontario police are required to accept and properly process complaints submitted by the public.

About 3:00 pm her friends arrived at the OPP station in Lancaster Ontario just over the border from Quebec . It was locked with a sign directing them to use a phone. They explained their business. Eventually “Sgt. Legault” opened the door and allowed them into a small waiting room. He said he needed to finish dealing with another matter and to “get his ducks in a row”.

Eventually he returned and said he had no jurisdiction “to accept the complaint because the Canada-U.S. border was under the authority of the Akwesasne Mohawk Police”. He insisted that if the messengers waited, he could call the Akwesasne police so they could come there and he could give it to them. It sounded like they were already on their way.

He demanded to know the names, addresses and birthdates of the messengers. He asked if they had a lawyer. He brought up Kahentinetha’s brother, “Frank Horn’s”, name, a lawyer who was a witness to the beating. As it wasn’t appropriate for the OPP to make decisions about a complaint they refused to accept, the messengers left. It looks like the OPP don’t want to get involved in this “hot potato”. Is this why the medics refused to check over Katenies after the brutal attack? In 2005 Teiohontateh was assaulted at the same border. The Akwesasne Mohawk refused to take her charges against the CBSA because they said, “We can’t”!!!

On the Trans Canada Highway 401, as they drove over the Quebec border a Quebec Police SQ car turned onto the highway and started to follow them. They were going 100 km per hour. Everyone else was passing them. The cop hung behind them for a while. Then he drove beside them and took a good look at them. He turned his flashing lights on and then sped away. A few minutes later he sped by in the opposite direction.

The following Affidavit to investigate the June 14, 2008 CBSA crimes against the Kanion’ke:haka grandmother was rejected by the Lancaster Ontario OPP:

“I, Kahentinetha, born on April 16, 1940, a resident of Kahnawake [ Quebec ], phone # 450-635-9345, a person of the Kanion’ke:haka/Mohawk Nation, report that a crime was committed and should be investigated by the Ontario Provincial Police OPP. Because of my physical condition as a result of the injuries inflicted on me, I was unable to lay this complaint until now. An illegal assault, arrest and detention by Canada Border Services Agents CBSA took place at the Cornwall Ontario Border control on Cornwall Island in the middle of the Akwesasne community on June 14th, 2008. I was seriously injured, suffering a heart attack. My personal possessions were taken and not returned.

I was crossing the said border with two other people. At approximately 2:00 pm we arrived at the Canadian border control. The border agent took our ID and told us to wait under the canopy. They returned to take my car keys. We sat there peacefully for an hour.

At approximately 3:00 pm, a platoon of about a dozen guards marched towards the car, all wearing leather gloves, flack jackets and all kinds of equipment hanging about their waists. Throughout the attack that followed, one officer, Maurice Saucier [Badge #16121] was on the cell phone directing operations.

The female passenger in my car, also a grandmother, was dragged violently from the back seat of the car by a gang of hefty young men and women. They knocked her down, pinned her to the ground, and forced their knees into her head and back. They handcuffed her and smashed and rubbed her face into the pavement. She received bleeding scrapes and bruises on her face, shoulders, arms and legs. She was taken into the customs building and later to Ottawa . No charges were read to her and her request for medical help was refused. She was held incommunicado for three days. She was not even allowed to call her mother to let her know where she was and to ensure the welfare of her family.

After this assault, I was ordered to get out of the car. I was afraid to get out because of what they had done to my friend. I heard Maurice Saucier tell the other agents to “Take her out”. I feared for my life if I got out of the car. I asked, “What have I done?” I was not informed of any legal charges against me.

Several agents started grabbing me and yanking me out of my car. I was thrown around, assaulted, handcuffed and imprisoned. In the cell, the attack continued. My shoes were taken. Some officers tightened the handcuffs on my wrists several times. This cut the circulation to my hands. Pain shot up my arms. I saw flashes of light and felt sharp pains in the middle of my chest and back. When I cried for help, the guards ignored me and tightened the handcuffs more. They yelled threats at me and kept ordering me to bend down. A man stood behind me and had his hands on my pants. I was afraid of being sexually assaulted. I received scrapes and bruises on my arms and legs.

I firmly believe I would have been killed if my brother, Frank Horn, who is a lawyer, had not appeared. He and his son happened to be waiting in the lineup at the border. When he asked to see me, they took off the handcuffs and offered me a chair to sit on. When he saw me, he immediately insisted on calling an ambulance. The Akwesasne police stood by and watched in silence.

The ambulance took me to Cornwall Community Hospital and later to the Ottawa Ontario Heart Institute. I remain ned in hospital for 5 days in the trauma unit and intensive care unit. The doctors told me I had a trauma induced heart attack. I was in excellent health before the attack by the border guards. Now my health is fragile. On June 30th 2008 I had a relapse and was hospitalized again.

Some of the CBSA officers involved in the attack had the following badge numbers: 17012; 16320; 16511; 16121; and 16275. My shoes and documents that were in the trunk of my car are missing.

I have never been contacted by any Ontario police or Canadian officials concerning an investigation of the illegal conduct that took place that day. To my knowledge no such investigation has ever taken place.

SIGNED this _____ day of September, 2008, at ____________________
by _____________________ Kahentinetha, at P.O. Box 991 , Kahnawake of Haudenosaunee Territory [ Quebec , Canada ] J0L 1B0 450-635-9345.
Address of Service: For the purposes of this proceeding only, service to be made care of Julio Peris, 625 Rene Levesque West, Suite 900, Montreal, Quebec H3B 1R2 – 515-933-4656 Fax 514-933-9587.
SWORN BEFORE __________________________
Address: ________________________________________
Date: ____________________

Posted by MNN Mohawk Nation News www.mohawknationnews.com Contact: katenies20@yahoo.com kahentinetha2@yahoo.com
Please Note. Legal actions have to be taken to protect our rights. We have no funds. If you can donate anything to our cause, it will be greatly appreciated. Donate to PayPal, www.mohawknationnews.com, or “MNN Mohawk Nation News”, Box 991 , Kahnawake [ Quebec , Canada ] J0L 1B0. Nia:wen.

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Swedish Ambassador responds to assassination of Guatemalan Indigenous anti-mining organizer

From: Carina Gustafsson
Answer translated into english:
Hi Carina. Thank you for your e-mail sent to ambassador Ewa Werner Dahlin, on August 13.
The situation for Human Rights defenders and Indigenous leaders have deterioated in Guatemala.
The detestable murder of mr Morales, is unfortunately one of several murders this year.
The Swedish Embassy works actively to excercise pressure upon the local authorities, to encourage them to solve cases, like the Morales case, and hold a high profile in general, when it comes toHuman Rights issues, in Guatemala. This occurs for instance through the Embassys work in a special EU-group ( consiting members from the EU Embassies who are represented in Guatemala, withspecial responsibillity for Human Rights issues) who follows up cases of threats andattacks against human rights defenders and Indigenous leaders. This EU group exercisepressure collectively towards the local authorities who are responsible.
With kind regards
Pontus Rosenberg
Segundo Secretario
Embajada de Suecia en Guatemala Tel: (502)-23847300Fax: (502)-23847350
In Solidarity -Carina Gustafsson, Sweden
----- Original Message -----
From: pontus.rosenberg@foreign.ministry.se To: 1073gustafsson@telia.com Sent: Monday, September 08, 2008 1:03 AMSubject: Re: Fw: ATTN: To the Ambassador of Sweden in Guatemala

Hej Carina,
Tack för ditt mail till ambassadör Ewa Werner Dahlin den 13:e augusti. Situationen för MR-försvarare och urfolksledare har försämrats i Guatemala. Det avskyvärda mordet på Morales är tyvärr ett av många mord detta år. Ambassaden arbetar aktivt med att utöva påtryckningar gentemot de lokala myndigheterna för få dem att klara upp fall som Morales' och har en mycket hög profil generellt när det gäller MR- frågor i Guatemala. Detta sker bl.a. genom ambassadens arbete i en särskild EU-grupp (med MR-ansvariga vid de lokalt representerade EU-ländernas ambassader) som följer upp fall med hot och attacker mot människorättsförsvarare och urfolksledare, och kollektivt utövar påtryckningar mot de lokala ansvariga myndigheterna.
Med vänliga hälsningar, Pontus Rosenberg ------------Pontus RosenbergSegundo SecretarioEmbajada de Suecia en Guatemala Tel: (502)-23847300Fax: (502)-23847350

"Carina Gustafsson" <1073gustafsson@telia.com> 2008-08-13 12:28
To: <ambassaden.guatemala@foreign.ministry.se>
cc: Subject: ATTN: To the Ambassador of Sweden in Guatemala

Dear Ambassador: Mrs Ewa Werner-Dalen,
It has been brought to our attention that a horrible crime has taken place, in Colotenango, Guatemala.
Antonio Morales, an Indigenous leader from the CUC ( Committe of Campesino Unity),CNOC and Maya Waqib Kej( three of Guatemalas most important indigenous organisations), was attacked and hacked to death, outside of his home in Tixel, on thursday morning August 7. Mr Morales was a Maya Mam Community leader, and his municipality of Cólotenango, became one of 26 municipalities to reject mining on their territory through a community referendum, one month ago. The assasination of mr Morales, occured one day before the International Day of Indigenous Peoples ( august 8). On this day, rural communities and organizations were planning mobilizations throughout the country and particularly in Western Guatemala, to voice their resistance against mega projects such as hard metal mining and hydroelectric dams, and defend their right to autonomy and self-determination. We are very concerned over the Guatemalan governments and the Canadian mining companies repression against anti mining activists, and strongly condemn this assasination. We ask that You, Mrs Ambassador, do what you can to find out who killed mr Morales, and adress the guatemalan authorities with our concern, so that justice can be done against those who are responsible for this assasination. We also call upon the Guatemalan authorities, and all nationstates, to respect the ILO Convention 169, along with The UN Declaration for Indigenous Peoples Rights, that were adopted by the majority of the UN General Assembly on september 13 in year 2007.
Respectfully Carina Gustafsson
Scandinavian Forum for Indigenous Peoples Rights Sweden
Please see statement from The Centre for Human Rights Legal Action: 1. ****HUMAN RIGHTS ACTIVIST IS ASSASSINATED****The Center for Human Rights Legal Action- CALDH- condemns the assassination of our compañero of the Maya Mam people, Antonio Morales, resident of the community Tixel, municipality of Colotenango, department of Huehuetenango, Guatemala. Four gunshots (to the left and right sides of his thorax, near his heart, and in his right arm) took Morales´ life in front of his house, on the Interamerican highway, near the Chanjon bridge.
Photo from:
http://patagonia-under-siege.blogspot.com/2008/01/anti-mining-environmentalists-win-big.html

Oppression at Republican Convention mirrors oppression in Iraq

By World Can't Wait
I wrote you last Wednesday after 4 days of house raids, mass arrests, tear gas, concussion grenades, and a growing array of "police-state" measures had been deployed against protesters at the Repubican National Convention in St. Paul. Worldcantwait.org is pulling together the whole picture, and Democracy Now covered many of the outrages. But I am still trying to adequately describe the suppression of speech that occured last week.
This thought, said to me in the chaos last week, sticks in my head. "If you have a doctrine of pre-emptive war on whole countries, you need pre-emptive suppression of protest at home." The $50 million operation run by Homeland Security and the Secret Service had a lot in common with how the US military views citizens in the Middle East: if they're on the street when we don't want them there, they are terrorists.
Fans & riot police after Rage Against the Machine show September 3.Thursday September 4, as the Republicans swaggered into the Xcel Center for their orgy of McCain love, a few hundred peace activists gathered on the lawn outside the Minnesota capitol, about a mile away. Most were sitting in the grass, listening to bands and speeches for a permitted rally. At 4:05 pm, 8 police on bikes sprinted into the crowd, threw their bikes down, and grabbed two men sitting on the lawn. Press and protesters surrounded them, and within 4 minutes, dozens of police of horses and riot police drove a wedge through the crowd, as cars and an ambulance drove onto the lawn, and the men were extracted and disappeared into cars. It was not impossible to know why they were taken, but it seemed to me the exercise was practice in crowd control, intimidation and provocation.40 minutes later, a loudspeaker was driven by police onto the lawn, drowning out the program on the stage. Police announced that the permit was over at 5:00 pm, and anyone on the lawn would be arrested. The crowd tried to leave together, marching toward the Xcel Center, but was forced by police onto a a bridge across the freeway, surrounded at both ends. Bulldozers with blades lowered were moved into place at one end, looming over the crowd, as if to sweep them up. Dump trucks blocked off streets. Police pulled on their gas masks. 400 people were arrested that night, bringing total arrests to over 800, including 102 outside the Rage Against the Machine concert (a wonderfully great show!) where police were a mile deep, and looking for any pretext to arrest.
Defending the people arrested in St. Paul will be the responsibility of this whole movement. While the crinminal charges are state of Minnesota, the direction comes from the federal government. These are charges criminalizing political activity.Democracy Now reports, "In St. Paul, Ramsey County prosecutors have formally charged eight members of the group RNC Welcoming Committee with conspiracy to riot in furtherance of terrorism. The eight activists are believed to be the first persons ever charged under the 2002 Minnesota version of the federal PATRIOT Act.
The activists face up to seven-and-a-half years in prison. According to the National Lawyers Guild, the criminal complaints filed by the Ramsey County Attorney do not allege that any of the defendants personally engaged in any act of violence or damage to property. Instead, authorities are seeking to hold the eight defendants responsible for acts committed by other individuals during the opening days of the Republican National Convention."CHEERS to IVAW! Inside the convention, Adam Kokesh interrupted McCain's acceptance speech about 20 seconds after he began, with a banner reading "McCain Votes Against Veterans" and "You Can't Win an Occupation". After 3 seconds, the hall erupted in chants of "USA!" drowing out McCain. The Iraq Veterans Against the War were all over Denver and St. Paul, demanding that the war and occupation be ended. See the video More on all of this coming soon! Thanks to the hundreds who wrote about Obama's acceptance speech. I've read all your comments and you'll be hearing back from me.
Debra Sweet, Director, The World Can't Wait - Drive Out the Bush Regime

Sunday, September 7, 2008

Most trees down in UC Berkeley grove

Most trees down in UC Berkeley grove
By Sean Maher
Oakland Tribune
Article Launched: 09/06/2008 12:00:56 PM PDT
BERKELEY — Four men sharing a single liter of water, high in a lone redwood, were the last holdout tree sitters in the grove near UC Berkeley's Memorial Stadium on Saturday, as contractors hired by the university cut down and began removing dozens of trees nearby.
The university launched the cutting Friday, taking a decisive step after nearly two years of conflict over what the grove protestors say was a Native American burial ground, a war memorial and a vital ecosystem — and where the school plans to build a new athletic facility.
Read article:
http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_10398691

Mohawk Nation News: Destruction of Indigenous youths by residential school sexual abuse

DESTRUCTION AND DEATH OF INDIGENOUS YOUTH THROUGH THE SCIENCE OF SEXUAL ABUSE – ANOTHER LOOK AT PEDOPHILIA IN CANADIAN RESIDENTIAL SCHOOLS.
By Karakwine & Mohawk Nation News staff
Sept. 7, 2008. Pedophilia is a violent sexual attack on children. Pedophilia is a covert criminal activity used globally by the elites. The clerical collar and the nun’s robes have been the perfect cover. It has long been a product of the strategies used by the elite to control and dominate the rest of the population. A small minority of human beings [2 to 3%] has no compunction about destroying and killing people to make it to the top of the European-style hierarchy. Governments, judiciary, the police and the Catholic and other Christian churches colluded in this well thought out system of debauchery. It did not happen randomly. Our children were snatched and put in residential schools, debased and many were killed.
The elite foisted their depravity on us to weaken and destroy us. These vulgar, immoral and violent acts were meant to bring down our normal healthy self-esteem for many generations to come. We were conditioned to blur the difference between lust and decency. As the owners of the land and resources they coveted, they needed to weaken us, turn us into victims and kill us off. They had to remove us so they could turn Onowaregeh/Turtle Island into a “terra nullius”, a land with no inhabitants.
The program for the mainstream public is different. They are being conditioned to accept treatment as cannon fodder for the irrational connivance of the elite. An example of conditioning is the 2007 Vanity Fair photos of adolescent actor, Miley Cyrus, and her father, Billy Ray Cyrus. This seductive photo of the girl lying across her father’s lap, both dressed provocatively, suggests that the public is being prepared to cross another moral line. Incest! As a 15 year old “commodity”, Miley Cyrus is a victim too! Even flesh colored baby diapers are designed to make little babies look naked. The internet is satisfying perverted lusts showing men having sex with babies. Babies are sacrificial lambs worldwide.
The top players in such a sick scenario are never caught or called to account. They have their “official” apparatus in place to protect themselves and their minions. Vile perversions are their drug of choice. George Bush Sr., an eastern establishment blue-blood, while he was U.S. President, was touched by a whiff of scandal involving young boys. [www.thelawparty.com/ FranklinCoverup/franklin.htm]
Whenever a scandal involving children breaks out, all avenues of inquiry are shut down. Only the low level perpetrators go to jail. The Detroux affair in Belgium is an example. [www.illuminati-news.com/2007/0724a.htm] That monster kidnapped and sodomized hundreds of children and murdered an unknown number. He had 7 villas in Belgium where he tortured, drugged and produced snuff and porn films. Then he killed the little girls and hid their bodies. His wife helped procure many of the children for him. He said at his trial in 2004 that he had accomplices among police officers, businessmen, doctors and high level politicians. None of the officials who perpetrated this perversion were touched. He, his wife and two accomplices are serving long jail sentences.
Dutroux is small potatoes compared to the murderous rampage carried out by the Canadian government, Catholic, Presbyterian, Anglican and United churches FOR OVER A CENTURY!!! Nobody went to jail for murdering over 50,000 Indigenous children in the residential school “torture dungeons”. Not one person! This is a perversion of justice. Our children were victims of medical experiments, rape, sodomy, starvation, floggings and strangulations. Children were coerced to kill other children and then bury them. Several skeletons of newborn babies were found in school furnaces.
The children were rounded up and sent to judges, police, politicians and professionals to be sexually exploited. The residential school program supplied our children in pedophile rings to men in high places who had a taste for very young brown skinned kids. In the book “Where Eagles Dare to Soar”, the author, Kevin White, said that they preferred to abuse our kids because they got a kick out of degrading our naturally healthy attitude about ourselves.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper did say, “Sorry” and then swept it all under the rug. The Canadian government seems to think that the reparation money they’ve paid out is the price they have to pay to continue raping us. In the subconscious minds of the elite, paying their victims is like going to a brothel and paying for sex. Our kids are in grave danger. In Vancouver and other western cities there are still streets where men go to have sex with little native children. Vancouver is turning into Canada’s Thailand where foreign men go on “sex junkets” for little brown skinned kids.
It is alleged that Boston Massachusetts is the pedophile capital of the U.S. This is where the Catholic church was exposed over priests abusing little boys for decades and being covered up and protected by the church. The church used religion as a sideline to carry out perversion, extract money from the people and to keep their flock dumbed down and forever victimized.
The establishment learn early the science of subjugating helpless kids and people. Normal humanity is systematically conditioned out of them and replaced with a cold merciless mindset. The ivy league schools where the upper crust send their children trains them to look down on those they think are the “unwashed masses”.
They are guaranteed top positions to run their criminal cartel. We all know how difficult it is for us “normals” to get a decent job in their hierarchy unless we are willing to become depraved. For most of us the glass ceiling is very low. We constantly hit our heads on it. It doesn’t matter how much formal education we get.
The set up is deliberate. The kids who have been escaping the social chaos caused by the residential school “brothel” program have been funneled into Canadian cities for decades. It was obvious that safe houses and hospices were needed for these extremely vulnerable young people. Instead of providing protection and support, officials turned a blind eye. They paved the way for pig farmers like Picton in Vancouver to snatch and “disappear” them on a massive scale over a long period of time. The cops also refuse to investigate the disappearance of over 500 Indigenous young women.
Child abductions and suffering of our children and our families appear to be a sexual turn-on for these degenerates. They thirst to subjugate the human race. The fact that drugs so readily come into our communities unabated points to the main culprit - the government. They want to help create a cowering and submissive Indigenous People. This goes against our natural order. In the long run it isn’t going to work. Many drug and alcohol riddled communities are now cleaning up.
The public were shocked when they learned the truth about the collusion between governments, police and the church. When will we see popes, presidents, Canadian prime ministers, top judges, top police, senators, members of parliament, all levels of clergy and CEOs go to jail, along with their many flunkies and henchmen?
The goal of this deluded scheme is to steal our territory and resources. To them the land owner has to be sexually subjugated and molested. Then in the perpetrators mind they now own the land. The idea is to degrade us so we will become degenerates. It is a deliberate way to destroy the race. We can see what’s going on. We are keeping an eye on our children.
Karakwine and MNN Staff contact: katenies20@yahoo.comMNN Mohawk Nation News
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Saturday, September 6, 2008

Berkeley tree sitters call for help

September 5th, 2008 Contact:
Marcella Sadlowski (562) 472-5276

UC Berkeley Begins Destruction of Native American Sacred Site

Indigenous Peoples Decry Human Rights Abuses. Tree Sitters Call for Support
(Photos by Brenda Norrell/
Longest Walk supports tree
sitters in Feb. 2008)
Update Sunday: Most trees down in UC Berkeley grove
Read news article:
http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_10398691
Tree Sitters call for help
By Marcella Sadlowski
(Sept. 5, 2008) BERKELEY-- University of California police moved in yesterday morning and cut many limbs and branches of a Redwood tree and cut down twelve Oak trees that have been protected by tree-sitting protesters for the last 21 months. Five people were arrested as they peacefully pleaded with arborists not to destroy the trees of the Memorial Oak Grove deemed a sacred burial site to Ohlone Indians.

Twelve trees were cut today and the University says they will continue cutting 46 over the weekend. Four protesters remain in a single Redwood tree in the center of the grove. Arborists trimmed most of the branches from the Redwood tree occupied by the four remaining tree sitters. Cutting the branches made it virtually impossible for the tree sitters to move from tree to tree. A spokesman for the campus said that within three days, the Univ

ersity would no longer honor its agreement to ensure they had adequate nutrition and water. The tree sitters currently only have one liter of water to share between four people as they sit in 90 degree heat.

The Memorial Oak Grove is regarded as a sacred place to Native American people and is documented as such by UC Berkeley's own Anthropology Department. There is evidence of 2 shell mounds sites in the area, with 19 ancestral remains found within them. Along with UC Berkeley's attempt to develop on a sacred place, they are guilty of housing over 17,000 sacred remains and objects. UCB currently holds the largest human remains collection in the United States of which it is not in compliance with the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA)
"I brought my five year old daughter and two month old son out today to bear witness to the massacre of sacred life," said Morning Star Gali of the Pit River Tribe and co-chair of Advocates to Protect Sacred Sites. "The cops responded by yelling to move them behind the median. I asked if they would stand by as complacent if it was their grandmother’s gravesites being desecrated. I want my children here to witness the destruction of sacred life and how important it is to protect it. I wanted them to witness the cops, arborists and UC Officials that participated and cheered as the trees came crashing down from bulldozers. This exhibits the ongoing Human Rights abuses committed by the University. They refuse to comply with NAGPRA by holding 13,000 of our ancestors remains hostage, they illegally reorganized NAGPRA with no tribal consultation and now they continue to desecrate sacred burial grounds."
The Memorial Grove is a native Coast Live Oak ecosystem. Native oaks support the most complex terrestrial ecosystems in California. The California Native Plant Society CNPS has stated that the Memorial Oak Grove is “an important gene bank for the Coast Live Oak.” Every one of the oaks in the grove should be protect by law and the Berkeley Coast Live Oak moratorium forbids cutting mature Coast Live Oaks in Berkeley. UC refuses to recognize the law. The grove is also part of a National Historic Site. The Stadium and landscape is a memorial to Californians who died in World War I.

The tree sitters are urging people to come and show support for the trees and bear witness to the University of California's blatant disregard to sacred sites and native ecosystems.

Hurricane Gustav hits Houma Indians, media again igrnores Houmas

Messages from the Houma Principal Chief Brenda Dardar Robichaux
http://www.unitedhoumanation.org/
Photos at: http://www.unitedhoumanation.org/?q=image/tid/14
9/6/08 Friday morning was the first day that I was allowed access to Isle de Jean Charles. A first responder brought me pictures the night before, but I had not yet seen the Island personally. So my husband Mike, my 11 year old daughter Felicite and I, wearing our rubber boots, headed to Isle de Jean Charles, one of the hardest hit communities.
Island Road, the highway that leads to the settlement, lay covered with dead trout, drum and red fish. We parked our truck at the beginning of the Island and walked several miles to the end. The pictures did not prepare me for what I was about to see. We witnessed homes off their foundations that had floated on levees and piles of rubble that were once homes. After years of coastal erosion and without a good protection levee this community was very fragile.
Hurricane Gustav showed no mercy. I became very angry that something had not been done sooner to protect the barrier islands that would have given my community a fighting chance. I remember stories told to me of how there were acres of land on which children played baseball, and pastures where horses roamed. To see the state of the Island now was overwhelming.
Of the 100 or so people who live on the Island we met with approximately 4 families. The rest had not yet returned to see the fate of their homes. We stopped at what was left of every home, walking through a foot of swamp mud and leaving contact information so that we could try to offer assistance.
As we approached the end of Island, we saw a stark contrast as camps owned my non residents were often left totally intact, without any visual signs of damage. We met one of the camp owners on his was out who exclaimed that although the hurricane was bad he thought it was going to be a lot worse. He must have repeated those thoughts a half dozen times. I could not believe what he was telling me. NOT THAT BAD…COULD HAVE BEEN A LOT WORSE…FOR WHOM? Surely not the residents of the Island!
As we continued to walk the next camp owners spoke from the balcony of his perfectly intact camp and expressed with pride how his camp has withstood the last three hurricanes without any damage because it is built with 32,000 wood screws. Our people can’t afford HOMES built with 32,000 wood screws. So we are left with homes totally destroyed and may have to consider relocating, leaving the land we love while non residents with resources can build CAMPS that will sustain hurricanes force winds and coastal erosion.
Why hasn’t something been done sooner to protect our community? Is it because the Island is a poor Indian community so it doesn’t matter what happens to us?
After we finished our assessment, we returned to Raceland to join tribal citizens, family and employees as they prepared the Old Store Relief Center. An afternoon rain shower proved too much for the hurricane damaged roof. The infamous Hurricane Katrina “blue tarp” will be put on the roof until it can be repaired.
9/5/08 It is now four days since the storm. Still no electricity and some areas are without water. We have been doing an in-depth review of the status of our bayou communities. We are heartbroken to discover that our communities of Isle de Jean Charles and Pointe au Chene have been virtually destroyed by this storm. The attached pictures will illustrate this point much better than any words can describe. For every picture of a home destroyed, a family has been displaced and its members left to contemplate their futures. In a conversation I had with someone from a national organization today, the haunting words were said “It looks like you dodged a bullet!”
I tried to refrain from over reacting to the comment as it was obvious that the local and national media do not consider us worth covering. Once again the United Houma Nation and its tribal citizens have been ignored and our People have been left to fend for themselves in the face of this overwhelming catastrophe. We offer thanks to the creator for all who have reached out to help us in our greatest time of need.Click this link to view the pictures: Gustav Damage
9/4/08 Wednesday, we traveled to St. Bernard Parish to assess Hurricane Gustav’s impact on this community. St. Bernard is still struggling to rebuild after Hurricane Katrina. Once again we witnessed downed power lines and trees with varying degrees of wind damage to homes and businesses.I become quite frustrated with my cell phone because I cannot receive or make calls. Everything is going to voice mail and I am unable to retrieve the messages. I am able to determine that many of the incoming calls are from tribal citizens and family who have evacuated. But I am unable to communicate with them.We hear news that Terrebonne Parish residents will be able to return home on Friday. I dread the moment when they will return to the community and realize the damaging effects Gustav has had on their homes and lives.
9/3/08 Although we were turned away by road blocks as we tried to gain access into Terrebonne Parish, waiting and wondering was no longer an option. Determined, eight of us decided to venture "down the bayou" in order to see if we could get through to our communities in Lower Lafourche Parish. We made it through two road blocks by showing my dad Whitney's driver's license providing proof that he lived in the community. Many stops were made along the way assessing the damages to our People's home and property and then calling the homeowner with the news.
Power lines and trees are down, but most homes are still intact with wind damage, no flooding. My dad offered praise and glory to the creator as he realized his fishing boat was spared any damage. Although a fellow tribal citizen and friend's boat didn't do as well and has some cabin damage. Our last stop was the Old Indian Settlement School which serves as the UHN tribal center. It too has roof damage but remains intact. The little building in the front built by volunteers in which we hope to house our future radio station didn't do so well and has extensive roof damage. Everyone breathed a sigh of relief that although there is wind damage, homes are left standing and can be rebuilt.
The next stop on our journey was to try to gain access to Grand Bois. We attempted to travel a wooded highway known as the Houma shortcut. After going approximately 10 miles around trees that lined the highway, one huge tree blocked the entire highway and forced us to turn around. So the damages to this community remains unknown to us.
We then made another attempt to gain access into Terrebonne Parish as we learned that Tier 2 people were being allowed into the parish. We made it through two road blocks and headed "down the bayou" to Dulac. Unfortunately, Hurricane Gustav was not as kind to this community. We traveled down the bayou on Grand Caillou Road and then made an attempt to head back up the bayou on Shrimpers Row but the road was impassable due to flooding, downed power lines and trees. With the smell of marsh water in the air, we traveled through water knee high in order to assess the flood damages. Some homes were flooded the extent depending on the elevation of the home with the lower level homes receiving the most damage. The extensive damages to this community were mostly caused by wind. We witnessed everything from minor wind damage to total loss of use, with most homes in need of major repairs. It is unknown when the People from this community will be allowed back home. The unavailability of re-entry causes a financial burden which has great cause for concern. It can be compared to an unplanned vacation with lodging, gas and eating expenses. With extensive power lines and trees down, throughout our communities, it will be quite some time before electricity is restored.
It's heartbreaking to see the Houma Nation community going through this again just three years after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.These images were taken as we assessed the impact of Hurricane Gustav on the Dulac community. Click this link to view the pictures: Gustav Damage
9/2/08 Hurricane Gustav has come and gone but his impact remains...to what extent is still uncertain. Our home has a minimal amount of damages with lots of downed trees. The Old Store which served as the center of our relief services in the aftermath of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita also suffered wind damage. My concern is to be able to repair the damages as soon as possible so that we may begin to provide relief services in the building. We are without electricity and have very limited cell phone services but do have Internet and e-mail. There is a TV being run by a generator with rabbit ears wrapped in foil but can only catch one channel. Although Hurricane Gustav made landfall in Terrebonne Parish, most coverage is about New Orleans again. We are very limited in the amount of accurate information on the damages to our tribal communities which is quite frustrating. We made an attempt to gain access to our communities to assess the damages but were turned away by road blocks. Power lines are still down making the highways impassable. We receive calls from tribal citizens who evacuated the area seeking information on when they can return and the extent of the damages. We have nothing to share at this time. The unknown is agonizing.
9/1/08 About 20 of my family and friends have chosen to ride out Hurricane Gustav with us at our home in Raceland. Our home is on a high ridge right across from Bayou Lafourche. Last night was a relatively calm night with little wind and rain. But that soon changed. We lost electricity at 6:05 AM and are using batteries and a generator to stay in touch with what is happening throughout our communities. The wind has picked up considerably here to about 85 MPH. Some of us are sitting on the back porch watching in amazement how huge oak trees can bend and not break while magnolia tree branches fall. Others are glued to the TV listening intently for word of where Gustav is headed and the impact he is having. The latest update is my worst fear for the Houma People as it is learned that he is approaching the bayous in Terrebonne and Lafourche parish. I feel we have done our best to make sure everyone has evacuated safely. The rest is out of our hands. Hurricane Katrina and Rita left Plaquemine and St. Bernard Parishes with barely a home left standing or livable. It has been a challenge to assist our People in these communities when there is nothing left to start with. Some are still living in FEMA trailers, with family and friends and a few are finally returning to a home. Terrebonne and Lafourche Parishes have been on the road to recovery for the past 3 years with lives just getting back to normal. My fear for the past three years has been “What if Terrebonne and Lafourche Parishes suffered total devastation as Plaquemine and St. Bernard Parishes? These are the communities with the highest concentration of Houma People. How would we recover knowing the challenges we still face in Plaquemine and St. Bernard?" I am paralyzed in fear that this is what is happening. The great people of the Houma Nation that I am so honored to represent, who have faced many challenges over the years are about to face one of our greatest challenges.As I sit and write the winds are blowing and Gustav is approaching. I pray for protection, strength and courage to face what lies ahead.
8/29/08 It's difficult to imagine that on the third anniversary of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, we are threatened with the possibility of being in the same position that we were three years ago. But please be assured we have learned many lessons, and we are better prepared than we were then. We are all keeping a watchful eye on Gustav and are aware of the impact he could have on our communities. We would urge each and everyone of you in the threat zone to evacuate if you are able to on your own or contact your local officials immediately if you need assistance. We have reached out and are coordinating with the local offices of emergency preparedness in all of our communities to ensure that they are aware of your needs. We are four days from expected landfall and realize that Hurricane Gustav's track can change many times. Please continue to check the web site. We will do our best to keep you updated and provide you with information as things progress. I pray the Creator blesses us with strength and courage during these difficult times.

Portland Street Medics victims of police brutality at Republican Convention

Portland Street Medics Victims of Police Brutality and Unjustified Arrests at RNC

by R.Westlund
ST PAUL --Four members of the Portland Street Medic Collective who had travelled to the RNC to provide medical care to the radical community were arrested on 9-1-2008. All are now released pending court dates in October.

Before the arrest, the medics were following an unpermitted march around the outskirts of the boundaries of the Excel Center. The march stayed mostly to sidewalks and utilized several pedestrian trails.

After heading nearly a mile down a bike trail with a river on one side and an impassable bank on the other side of the road, protesters found themselves under fire from police chemical weapons, having never received an order to disperse. The protesters and the medics fled back up the bike path while the onslaught of chemical weapons and differently-lethal weapons continued behind and next to the fleeing crowd. Police in riot gear ran past the tail end of the running group, continuing to launch weapons into the crowd, forcing those at the back to run through the already dispensed weapons.

The four medics helped with the evacuation of at least five patients, including one with a broken hand from being hit with police weaponry, one with an injured ankle from being hit with police weaponry who needed physical support to walk, and one who was blinded by pepper spray. This assistance left the medics at the very back of the crowd and among the worst victims of chemical weapons as they fled the scene.

At the corner of Ontario and Shepard the crowd was trapped in a park by lines of riot police and all people in the park, including those holding tickets to a concert and attempting to utilize the pedestrian bridges to get to the concert, were arrested. Those with misdemeanors were released later that night, while those being held on felonies were in jail for 48 hours.

Three of the Portland Medics, David Drew, Jr, Tracy Maier, and R. Westlund are charged with Misdemeanors in the 1st degree of "presence at an unlawful assembly and refusing to leave." They face 90 days in jail and fines up to $1,000. The fourth, A. Oliver Hayes, is charged with a Gross Misdemeanor in the 3rd degree of rioting, and faces one year in jail and a fine of $1,000.

Later in the week, a group of six medics, three of them from Portland, were again the targets of police misconduct. A group of 350 people were being detained and preparing to be arrested on a bridge. The group included some legal observers from the NLG and 12 Street Medics. Medic Dispatch received news that the legal observers in the group had been released prior to the arrest, so the six medics headed out to see if they could negotiate with the police for the release of the medics.

Upon arrival at the scene one of the Portland Medics spoke with an officer and received a phone number for "Watch Command" to begin negotiations. On the first phone call, the medic explained the job of the medics and explained that they were asking for the release of the medics detained on the bridge. The medic gave WC their full legal name and offered to provide proof of credentials as an EMT. WC offered to give the request to the commander at the scene and then call the medics back.

After a reasonable amount of time, the medic called WC back to check on the status. WC questioned the location of the medics, and the medic confirmed that they were at the scene of the arrest before ending the phone call to wait for further news.

The medic attempted to speak with two officers on scene, but neither would produce a supervisor to do the negotiations. Moments after the second attempt, while the Medic Liaison was making another call to WC, one of the Portland Medics was pulled out of the crowd of observers and drug into the street by four police officers. The medic's pockets were searched while the medic stated, "I do not consent to this search." While still searching this medic, the commanding officer led four more officers into the crowd and pulled out the Medic Liaison, who had been on the phone moments before. The first medic was released back into the crowd after their pockets were searched.

The second medic was questioned as to why they were carrying a backpack and hip pack. The medic explained their status as an EMT and allowed officers to take their registration card as proof. Officers explained, "You reached your hands in your pockets, and that makes us nervous, so now we have to check what you're up to." The medic repeatedly denied consent for the search but officers began opening the medic kits regardless. An officer asked, "Where did you get all this stuff? Did you steal it off the ambulance?" The medic responded, "I'm not going to answer any more of your questions until I speak to my lawyer." The officer replied, "In that case, you can pick your own shit up off the ground," and began opening Ziploc bags and dumping medical supplies on the ground.

During the search, officers repeatedly made threats about possible criminal charges against the medic, including "medical terrorism." Officers dumped the entire contents of both medical kits on the ground, purposefully stepped on the equipment, read all the aftercare flyers and made threats about "testing the pepper spray" on this medic, and searched the medic's body and clothing three separate times in an extremely rough and inappropriate manner. After running the medic's ID through the system, the officers ordered to medic to clean up all the supplies, and accused the medic of littering when a small packet of vitamins was overlooked on the ground. Once the supplies were repacked, the medic was free to go.

These police actions were not based on any reasonable suspicion of wrongdoing. The police were targeting the medics who were attempting to liaise with commanding officers and harassing them in order to reduce their power and prevent further negotiating tactics.

R. Westlund
Friday, September 5, 2008
______________

homepage: http://www.portland-or.net/street-medics/Donations-Portland-Street-Medics.html

Friday, September 5, 2008

Drop charges against journalists: 50,000 letters

September 4, 2008
Contact:
Nancy Doyle Brown,
Twin Cities Media Alliance, (612) 374-9380Jen Howard, Free Press, (202) 265-1490, x22 or (703) 517-6273
FRIDAY: Delivery of 50,000 Letters Demanding St. Paul Drop Charges Against Journalists
ST. PAUL, Minn. -- On Friday morning, local advocates and independent journalists will deliver more that 50,000 petitions to St. Paul City Hall calling on Mayor Chris Coleman and local law enforcement officials to drop all charges against journalists arrested while covering protests outside the Republican National Convention.
WHAT: Delivery of 50,000 letters demanding charges against journalists be droppedWHEN: Sept. 5, 10 a.m. CTWHERE: St. Paul City Hall, 15 Kellogg Blvd.WHO: Local advocates and independent journalists from KFAI Community Radio, National Lawyers Guild, Twin Cities Daily Planet, Twin Cities IndyMedia, Twin Cities Media Alliance and The Uptake.
On Monday, local law enforcement officials arrested Democracy Now! host Amy Goodman and two producers from her show, Associated Press photographer Matt Rourke and several independent videographers while they were covering protests outside the Republican National Convention. Other independent journalists have also been pepper-sprayed and even held at gunpoint during "pre-emptive" raids aimed at disrupting protesters.
"The targeting and harassment of journalists that we've seen during the RNC sends the message that the Twin Cities don't value the essential role that journalists play in a democracy," said Nancy Doyle Brown of Twin Cities Media Alliance. "From the pre-convention raids to the ongoing harassment and arrests of journalists, these have been dark days for press freedom in the United States. We're bringing Mayor Coleman more than 50,000 letters from people across the nation demanding that all charges pending against these journalists be dropped."
Following the arrests, Free Press, the national media reform organization, circulated a petition demanding that Mayor Coleman and local authorities immediately "free all detained journalists and drop all charges against them" -- garnering more than 50,000 signatures nationwide in less than two days. Their call has been echoed by groups including the Society for Professional Journalists, the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, Reporters Without Borders and the National Association of Hispanic Journalists.
Watch the video of Goodman's arrest: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oYjyvkR0bGQ
Watch other journalists being arrested, as recorded by The UpTake: http://theuptake.org/

Thursday, September 4, 2008

Amy Goodman: Police targeted journalists at Republican Convention

Why We Were Falsely Arrested
by Amy Goodman
September 4, 2008
ST. PAUL, Minn. - Government crackdowns on journalists are a true threat to democracy. As the Republican National Convention meets in St. Paul, Minn., this week, police are systematically targeting journalists. I was arrested with my two colleagues, "Democracy Now!" producers Sharif Abdel Kouddous and Nicole Salazar, while reporting on the first day of the RNC. I have been wrongly charged with a misdemeanor. My co-workers, who were simply reporting, may be charged with felony riot.
The Democratic and Republican national conventions have become very expensive and protracted acts of political theater, essentially four-day-long advertisements for the major presidential candidates. Outside the fences, they have become major gatherings for grass-roots movements - for people to come, amidst the banners, bunting, flags and confetti, to express the rights enumerated in the Constitution's First Amendment: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
Behind all the patriotic hyperbole that accompanies the conventions, and the thousands of journalists and media workers who arrive to cover the staged events, there are serious violations of the basic right of freedom of the press.
Here on the streets of St. Paul, the press is free to report on the official proceedings of the RNC, but not to report on the police violence and mass arrests directed at those who have come to petition their government, to protest.It was Labor Day, and there was an anti-war march, with a huge turnout, with local families, students, veterans and people from around the country gathered to oppose the war. The protesters greatly outnumbered the Republican delegates.
There was a positive, festive feeling, coupled with a growing anxiety about the course that Hurricane Gustav was taking, and whether New Orleans would be devastated anew. Later in the day, there was a splinter march. The police-clad in full body armor, with helmets, face shields, batons and canisters of pepper spray-charged. They forced marchers, onlookers and working journalists into a nearby parking lot, then surrounded the people and began handcuffing them.
Nicole was videotaping. Her tape of her own violent arrest is chilling. Police in riot gear charged her, yelling, "Get down on your face." You hear her voice, clearly and repeatedly announcing "Press! Press! Where are we supposed to go?" She was trapped between parked cars. The camera drops to the pavement amidst Nicole's screams of pain. Her face was smashed into the pavement, and she was bleeding from the nose, with the heavy officer with a boot or knee on her back. Another officer was pulling on her leg. Sharif was thrown up against the wall and kicked in the chest, and he was bleeding from his arm.I was at the Xcel Center on the convention floor, interviewing delegates. I had just made it to the Minnesota delegation when I got a call on my cell phone with news that Sharif and Nicole were being bloody arrested, in every sense.
Filmmaker Rick Rowley of Big Noise Films and I raced on foot to the scene. Out of breath, we arrived at the parking lot. I went up to the line of riot police and asked to speak to a commanding officer, saying that they had arrested accredited journalists.Within seconds, they grabbed me, pulled me behind the police line and forcibly twisted my arms behind my back and handcuffed me, the rigid plastic cuffs digging into my wrists.
I saw Sharif, his arm bloody, his credentials hanging from his neck. I repeated we were accredited journalists, whereupon a Secret Service agent came over and ripped my convention credential from my neck. I was taken to the St. Paul police garage where cages were set up for protesters. I was charged with obstruction of a peace officer. Nicole and Sharif were taken to jail, facing riot charges.
The attack on and arrest of me and the "Democracy Now!" producers was not an isolated event. A video group called I-Witness Video was raided two days earlier. Another video documentary group, the Glass Bead Collective, was detained, with its computers and video cameras confiscated. On Wednesday, I-Witness Video was again raided, forced out of its office location. When I asked St. Paul Police Chief John Harrington how reporters are to operate in this atmosphere, he suggested, "By embedding reporters in our mobile field force."
On Monday night, hours after we were arrested, after much public outcry, Nicole, Sharif and I were released. That was our Labor Day. It's all in a day's work.© 2008 Amy Goodman

Wednesday, September 3, 2008

Videos show attacks on street medics and journalists at Republican Convention

Update - Portland Street Medics Arrested at the Republican National Convention
by street.medix@portland-or.net

AP photo/St Paul Republican Convention

Wednesday, Sep. 3rd, 2008
In between explosions of concussion grenades and teargas clouds in Minneapolis-St. Paul, volunteer Street Medics from all over the country who have assembled there are continuing to provide much needed first aid and medical care to injured and frightened people everywhere in the city where lawful and peaceful assemblies, passersby, journalists and bystanders are getting attacked indiscriminately and without provocation by Police, National Guard and teams of unidentified Federal Agencies without badges or numbers.
Two raw, unedited video items that were just published provide an excellent documentation of the level of unprovoked and indiscriminate violence targeted against peaceful non-violent assemblies, against Street Medics, against legal observers and journalists:
-- Rubber bullets fired directly into a small crowd of peaceful people; Street Medics attacked:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9OnnUTK7QjI
-- Independent journalist caught in the middle of panic and mayhem during an attack with concussion grenades and teargas against a peaceful march:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W6L8J3L-2Kw
Starting at dawn on Tuesday, Portland Street Medics who were arrested while treating injured people at the RNC were being released one by one by the illegitimate authorities who had seized them. One of our colleagues is still in jail and has not yet been charged with anything. All of the arrests of Portland Street Medics are entirely illegal.
We have confirmed information that additional unidentified Street Medics have been seen in jail by other people, but no details about who they are or why they are being held.
The Portland Street Medics who were released are well, except for tiredness. We are not able to communicate with the one of our members who is still in jail to ascertain wellness - our colleague is being held in a situation where legal observers have repeatedly confirmed that people are being denied access to medical care and targeted with selective abuse. {Please see the statement from our lawyers below, titled "Over 300 Protesters, Bystanders, Medics and Media Arrested: Update from Coldsnap Legal Collective".}
All of the arrested Street Medics' personal items, money, medical supplies and tools were confiscated and are still not being released by Police despite repeated requests, even though the items in question are not relevant to any legal proceedings (they are not being held as evidence, nor are they proscribed materials). Seizure of these materials is an illegal tactic to prevent our members from providing first aid and medical care to the people who are now in the streets and parks in Minneapolis-St. Paul. This is in direct violation of the US Constitution which in the Fourth Amendment provides protection against unreasonable searches and seizures. {Please see the Constitutional reference from the Cornell Law School below.}
We are still in need of funds for bail, and for replacing lost medical supplies and tools for our volunteers. If you are able to give, please consider donating through this page (every little bit counts!):
http://www.portland-or.net/street-medics/Donations-Portland-Street-Medics.htmlor, please write to us about making alternative donation arrangements here:street.medix@portland-or.net
Some details
The Portland Street Medics who were arrested include a long-time Queer liberation and radical performance artist; two trained Emergency Medical Technicians (EMTs), one of whom is also a Wilderness First Responder; and a Nurse Practitioner in training, who is also an Herbalist with more than fifteen years clinical experience.
It's plainly obvious to everyone that our members, sworn to the primary directive of all healthcare workers to "First, Do No Harm", should have never been arrested and must be allowed and supported to return to their duties immediately without any interference whatsoever.
Contacting the authorities..has proven to be very difficult. As one of our supporters reports here,
http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2008/09/379093.shtml#315129
phone calls to the Ramsey County Jail, the Sheriff, and Mayor Coleman, are being redirected through a maze of sometimes incompetent, sometimes purposefully dysfunctional routes and individuals who are making the process of leaving messages and official complaints nearly impossible.
Still, we are asking people to please call these (new) numbers and to politely ask that:o- all Street Medics be released immediately and allowed to resume duties;o- all people who were arrested and are not being charged, to be released immediately;o- all personal items and medical supplies and tools that were confiscated from Street Medics to be returned immediately so that our teams can provide much needed care for injured and ill people in the streets and first aid stations all over Minneapolis-St. Paul.
Please call these numbers:St. Paul Police chief:651-266-5588
Help line:651-266-9333
Please send letters to:St. Paul Police Department
Chief John Harrington367 Grove Street
St. Paul, Minnesota 55101
Ramsey County Jail
Sheriff Bob Fletcher425 Grove Street
St. Paul, Minnesota 55101
Please keep distributing and re-publishing our updates
We really are grateful for all of your letters and phone calls of support. Without your love and care, none of our work would have been possible.
Portland Street Medics
http://portland-or.net/street-medics/
Resources and Related Materials
"Over 300 Protesters, Bystanders, Medics and Media Arrested: Update from Coldsnap Legal Collective"
http://twincities.indymedia.org/2008/sep/over-300-protesters-bystanders-medics-and-media-arrested-update-coldsnap-legal-collective
" US Constitution - Amendment IV:The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."
http://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/constitution.billofrights.html
Our previous Communique:
http://seattle.indymedia.org/en/2008/09/268617.shtml

Tohono O'odham District official orders life saving water tanks removed

Tohono O'odham official orders life saving migrant water tanks removed
Tohono O'odham Mike Wilson to hold press conference
By Brenda Norrell
SELLS, Ariz. -- A Tohono O'odham district official ordered Mike Wilson, Tohono O'odham, to remove his life saving water tanks in the Baboquivari District, near the US/Mexico border on Saturday. Baboquivari District Chairwoman Veronica Harvey ordered Wilson to halt and banned for life a group of visiting seminary students.
"Who will speak for the dead?" says Wilson, in response to the latest order. This is the latest attempt to halt Wilson's efforts and follows years of his water containers being slashed and vandalized.
Wilson, undaunted, will hold a press conference in Tucson on Thursday. "No one should die for a drink of water," says Wilson. The press conference is at 1 p.m. on Thursday, September 4, 2008 at the First Christian Church, on the corner of East Speedway and North Euclid in Tucson.
A high percentage of the migrants who die each year, die here in the Baboquivari District of the Tohono O'odham Nation. Many of the dead are Indigenous Peoples. An increasing number of the dead are Indian women walking with their children from Chiapas, Oaxaca and Guatemala, struggling to survive as corporations seize their land for industry and NAFTA cripples economies for the poor.
The Arizona Daily Star describes the order to remove the tanks:
http://www.azstarnet.com/metro/255748

Reservation ban of water for migrants is reported
By Brady McCombs
Arizona Daily Star
Tucson, Arizona Published: 09.03.2008
A Tohono O'odham tribe member who has been putting water in remote desert areas for the past seven years for the benefit of illegal immigrants says he has been told to stop.
The order was given Saturday morning while Mike Wilson was southwest of Sells on the reservation showing 11 non-tribal guests one of the four water stations he operates, Wilson said.
A Tohono O'odham police officer approached Wilson and said the district chairwoman, Veronica Harvey, had instructed her to tell Wilson to take down the water station and escort his guests off the reservation, Wilson said. He didn't take down the two 55-gallon water barrels but left with his guests, he said.
Tohono O'odham Chairman Ned Norris Jr. confirmed Tuesday that Baboquivari District leaders asked Wilson and his guests to leave, but he said he has no knowledge of the request to remove the water station.
Phone calls to Harvey requesting comment were not returned.
The tribe has a standing decision not to allow humanitarian groups to place water on the reservation. Norris, who became chairman after that decision was made, has said the decision falls to the reservation's 11 districts because it's a matter of local concern. He said the same thing about the reported decision to ask Wilson and his guests to leave on Saturday.
"The tribal constitution authorizes each district to govern themselves on issues of local concern," Norris said. "This, in their view, is an issue of local concern."
Wilson gave the following account of Saturday's events:
Early that morning, Wilson and the group were at one of his water stations east of the village of Topawa on Federal Route 10, commonly known as Fresnal Canyon Road. He was talking about the history of his work in maintaining the water stations to eight seminary students from Denver, their professor and two retired Tucson pastors, the Rev. John Fife and the Rev. Gene Lefebvre.
A tribal police officer drove up to the group and told Wilson that she had received a complaint about non-tribal members being in the Baboquivari District. She told him that the Baboquivari District is a restricted district, which means O'odham are required to notify the board and get permission before bringing in any non-tribal guests, the officer said.
Wilson said he had never heard of the rule.
Fife said the officer told them she needed to check on the matter with the district and waited for 15 to 20 minutes before delivering the order to remove the station and to leave. She told the group that the seminary students were banned for life, Fife said.
After Wilson refused to take down the water station, the officer told Wilson that the district would do it. But as of Sunday, all the water stations were still up, Wilson said.
He said he believes he upset Harvey by bringing out such a large group of visitors.
The seminary students and their professor had been in Southern Arizona for about a week studying border issues, Fife said. They went with Wilson to learn more about the illegal-immigrant deaths on the reservation, he said.
Fife, the retired pastor of Southside Presbyterian Church and a leader in the old Sanctuary Movement, doesn't understand why the Baboquivari District kicked the group off or why it asked Wilson to remove the water station.
Fife has spent time on the reservation in his many years involved with border issues, including an internship on the Tohono O'odham Reservation in 1963.
Wilson's four water stations are in the Baboquivari Valley, which is the deadliest corridor for illegal immigrants in the United States.
The corridor had claimed the lives of 229 border crossers from the beginning of fiscal 2000 through November 2007 — more than three times the average number of deaths in other segments of the U.S. Border Patrol's Tucson Sector, according to the Arizona Daily Star's analysis of 1,156 deaths recorded by the federal agency. Most immigrants died from the heat.
Seventy bodies of illegal immigrants were recovered on the Tohono O'odham Reservation in 2007, and 83 were found from Jan. 1 through June 12 of this year, the latest numbers available.
Wilson has experienced problems with his lifesaving efforts in the past.
From 2001 through 2003, the water jugs he placed in the desert were slashed by vandals on a continuous basis, he said. In September 2003, nearly a quarter of the 4,000 gallon jugs of water were slashed in one rash of vandalism.
Around 2003, he switched from water jugs to 55-gallon water barrels. In 2006, all eight barrels at the four stations were stolen.
"I'm upset that the Tohono O'odham Nation would continue in this — what I consider a crime against humanity," Wilson said. "That they would take down my water stations."
● Contact reporter Brady McCombs at 573-4213 or bmccombs@azstarnet.com

ww.azstarnet.com/metro/255748

(Photo: At the Indigenous Border Summit of the Americas II, Mike Wilson, Tohono O'odham shows the places on the map where migrants have died on Tohono O'odham land, primarily in Baboquivari District. Water jugs, slashed on Tohono O'odham land, are to his left. Photo by Brenda Norrell)

Riding out Gustav, message from Houma Chief Robichaux

Message from Brenda Dardar Robichaux,
the Principal Chief of the United Houma Nation
(a State recognized Tribe with communities within Terreboone and Lafourche parish).
9/1/08
About 20 of my family and friends has chosen to ride out Hurricane Gustav with us at our home in Raceland. Our home is on a high ridge right across from Bayou Lafourche. Last night was a relatively calm night with little wind and rain. But that soon changed. We lost electricity at 6:05 AM and are using batteries and a generator to stay in touch with what is happening throughout our communities. The wind has picked up considerably here to about 85 MPH. Some of us are sitting on the back porch watching in amazement how huge oak trees can bend and not break while magnolia tree branches fall. Others are glued to the TV listening intently for word of where Gustav is headed and the impact he is having. The latest update is my worst fear for the Houma People as it is learned that he is approaching the bayous in Terrebonne and Lafourche parish. I feel we have done our best to make sure everyone has evacuated safely. The rest is out of our hands.
Hurricane Katrina and Rita left Plaquemine and St. Bernard Parishes with barely a home left standing or livable. It has been a challenge to assist our People in these communities when there is nothing left to start with. Some are still living in FEMA trailers, with family and friends and a few are finally returning to a home. Terrebonne and Lafourche Parishes have been on the road to recovery for the past 3 years with lives just getting back to normal. My fear for the past three years has been "What if Terrebonne and Lafourche Parishes suffered total devastation as Plaquemine and St. Bernard Parishes? These are the communities with the highest concentration of Houma People. How would we recover knowing the challenges we still face in Plaquemine and St. Bernard?" I am paralyzed in fear that this is what is happening. The great people of the Houma Nation that I am so honored to represent, who have faced many challenges over the years are about to face one of our greatest challenges.
As I sit and write the winds are blowing and Gustav is approaching. I pray for protection, strength and courage to face what lies ahead.
United Houma Nation20986 Highway 1Golden Meadow, LA 70357Office: (985) 537-8867Fax: (985) 537-8812 Email: bdr@unitedhoumanation.org

Tuesday, September 2, 2008

Portland Street Medics arrested at Republican National Convention

Please do what you can to help the Portland street medics, my heroes at the Democratic National Convention, who worked long hours treating the injured, sometimes not even coming home at night, back to the home where we all stayed at night -- Brenda Norrell
PORTLAND STREET MEDICS ARRESTED AT RNC
http://twincities.indymedia.org/2008/sep/portland-street-medics-arrested-rnc
Minneapolis-St. Paul RNC
A number of Street Medics http://portland-or.net/street-medics/from Portland were arrested on Monday afternoon (Sep 1st) while tending to injured protesters. All of them belong to one affinity group which has been participating in the actions as a unit of Street Medics acting together.
About half were released by evening, while a few individuals among them are still being held. They have been singled out for "special procedures". Legal support and lawyers are trying to help out with their case as it seems to be a unique situation wherein the Street Medics might be charged with unusual (and outrageous) offenses.
If you have any funds to help with bail money and related expenses for the Street Medics, please email us at this address: street.medix@portland-or.net
Everything you give will go toward enabling us to continue doing much needed Movement work and providing essential community service.
Denver DNC
Street Medics from Portland constituted about one third of the total numbers of Street Medics at Denver during the week of activities there. Added to Street Medics from Olympia and Seattle, WA, our Medics from the NW constituted about one half of all the Street Medics in Denver. At the end of the week some of us continued on to Minneapolis-St. Paul while others returned to Portland.
During the week of protests in Denver we treated hundreds of injured people and took into our care an unexpected number of activists with additional health concerns, both related and unrelated to the events, plus tended to people with various illnesses as well as some difficult cases with chronic conditions.
We treated injuries from pepper bullets, pepperspray, beatings, strangleholds, clubbing, cuts, scrapes, bruises, handcuff injuries, exhaustion, dehydration, heat illness, exposure to the elements, asthma attacks, psychological emergencies, and some serious medical emergencies.
None of us were hurt or arrested, though most of us experienced the direct threat of both, frequently. A few of us sustained minor injuries from pepperspray, pulled muscles, sprains, and suffered exhaustion. Some of our Street Medics were temporarily detained by Police during raids and events on the streets but all in all most of those tense situations were resolved well.
We will issue another communique when we have more information to share with you.
Many thanks for your love and support for our work, and also for your letters and phonecalls with concern and care - it's your support that enables us to continue.
Portland Street Medicshttp://portland-or.net/street-medics/

Monday, September 1, 2008

Democracy Now! Amy Goodman arrested in St Paul

Update: Democracy Now! Amy Goodman and two producers arrested at Republican National Convention
By Brenda Norrell
Censord News
ST PAUL -- Democracy Now! host Amy Goodman and two Democracy Now! producers were arrested late Monday at the Republican National Convention, as journalists, filmmakers and bicyclists were roughly arrested prior to and during the first day of the convention. AP photographer Matt Rourke was also arrested while covering a protest.
Democracy Now! announced Tuesday that Goodman and producers Sharif Abdel Kouddous and Nicole Salazar have all been released from police custody in St. Paul following their illegal arrest by Minneapolis Police on Monday afternoon.
"All three were violently manhandled by law enforcement officers. Abdel Kouddous was slammed against a wall and the ground, leaving his arms scraped and bloodied. He sustained other injuries to his chest and back. Salazar's violent arrest by baton-wielding officers, during which she was slammed to the ground while yelling, 'I'm Press! Press!' resulted in her nose bleeding, as well as causing facial pain. Goodman's arm was violently yanked by police as she was arrested," Democracy Now! said in statement.
On Tuesday, Democracy Now! will broadcast video of these arrests, as well as the broader police action. These will also be available on: http://narcosphere.narconews.com/
"Goodman was arrested while questioning police about the unlawful detention of Kouddous and Salazar who were arrested while they carried out their journalistic duties in covering street demonstrations at the Republican National Convention. Goodman's crime appears to have been defending her colleagues and the freedom of the press," Democracy Now! said.
"Ramsey County Sheriff Bob Fletcher told Democracy Now! that Kouddous and Salazar were arrested on suspicion of rioting, a felony. While the three have been released, they all still face charges stemming from their unlawful arrest. Kouddous and Salazar face pending charges of suspicion of felony riot, while Goodman has been officially charged with obstruction of a legal process and interference with a 'peace officer.'
"Democracy Now! forcefully rejects all of these charges as false and an attempt at intimidation of these journalists. We demand that the charges be immediately and completely dropped.
"Democracy Now! stands by Goodman, Kouddous and Salazar and condemns this action by Twin Cities' law enforcement as a clear violation of the freedom of the press and the First Amendment rights of these journalists.
"During the demonstration in which the Democracy Now! team was arrested; law enforcement officers used pepper spray, rubber bullets, concussion grenades and excessive force against protesters and journalists. Several dozen demonstrators were also arrested during this action, including a photographer for the Associated Press.
"Amy Goodman is one of the most well-known and well-respected journalists in the United States. She has received journalism's top honors for her reporting and has a distinguished reputation of bravery and courage. The arrest of Goodman, Kouddous and Salazar and the subsequent criminal charges and threat of charges are a transparent attempt to intimidate journalists," Democracy Now! said.
Democracy Now! is a nationally-syndicated public TV and radio program that airs on over 700 radio and TV stations across the US and the globe.
The video of Amy Goodman's Arrest is at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oYjyvkR0bGQ
In other arrests, Associated Press photographer Matt Rourke was arrested. Rourke was swept up as police moved in on a group of protesters in downtown St. Paul. Rourke was being held on a gross misdemeanor riot charge, according to St Paul police. David Ake, an AP assistant chief of bureau in Washington, said he was concerned by the arrest of Rourke, a Philadelphia-based photographer.
"Covering news is a constitutionally protected activity, and covering a riot is part of that coverage," Ake said. "Photographers should not be detained for covering breaking news."

Videos: Journalists, filmmakers, bicyclists arrested at Republican National Convention

Videos: Journalists, filmmakers and bicyclists arrested at Republican National Convention
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Republican+National+Convention+arrests+2008&search_type=&aq=f
Massive police raids on suspected protesters in Minneapolis
by Glenn Greenwald
Protesters here in Minneapolis have been targeted by a series of highly intimidating, sweeping police raids across the city, involving teams of 25-30 officers in riot gear, with semi-automatic weapons drawn, entering homes of those suspected of planning protests, handcuffing and forcing them to lay on the floor, while law enforcement officers searched the homes, seizing computers, journals, and political pamphlets. Last night, members of the St. Paul police department and the Ramsey County sheriff's department handcuffed, photographed and detained dozens of people meeting at a public venue to plan a demonstration, charging them with no crime other than "fire code violations," and early this morning ... read article ...
http://cleveland.indymedia.org/news/2008/08/31683.php

Call for help: Six Nations under attack

CALL FOR HELP! SUPPORT SIX NATIONS AGAINST OPP ATTACKS – ARRESTS, BEATINGS, RANSACKING VEHICLES, ROADBLOCKS, THE WHOLE P&O CIRCUS!
Canadian police attack on unsurrendered Native land

Call to help 519-717-7043; 519-717-7099
Mohawk Nation News

Sept. 1, 2008. THIS IS A CALL FOR HELP. Three people are in jail. Five more are surrounded by cops. They need support and supplies. Directions: Take #403 to Brantford, exit at Oak Park Road, turn left at the T Junction; take the first right onto Fen Ridge; the site is across from the Proctor & Gamble distribution facility.
The OPP have created chaos at Six Nations – Again! Suddenly yesterday, on Sunday August 31, 2008, reports starting coming to MNN about harassments and arrests. Highway 6 was blocked. People are being stopped from going to their homes in the Six Nation communities by the Caledonians and the OPP. Everyone’s worried because school starts tomorrow. What’s happening?
In Haida Nation and Taku River Tlingit, the Supreme Court of Canada reminded Canadian governments they have a duty to consult and accommodate all indigenous people who are defending legitimate property rights. This applies to the OPP [Ontario Provincial Police]. This law is being systematically broken.
Brantford continues to give out illegal permits to foreign corporations. Mega projects continue to be started on unsurrendered Indigenous land. These corporations fraudulently use our land as collateral to raise money at stock exchanges around the world from an unsuspecting public. No charges have been laid against Brantford officials or foreign corporations for breaking the law. Instead the cops are being siked on anyone who attempts to defend our legal rights.
Yesterday, a man was grabbed by the cops from his van and held incommunicado for hours. His 14 and 16 year old sons were arrested. The cops ransacked another van looking for something to charge the driver with. Eventually they charged him for driving without a license. Two more youths were arrested. None of the parents were allowed to speak to their children.
Today, at 7:00 am. Labor Day, the OPP raided the demonstration at the illegal construction site of the Irish company, Kingspan. This had been shut down by Six Nations defenders. Two more youths were arrested, according to sporadic reports.
Why has this situation degenerated so three groups are blocking Highway 6: the OPP, the Caledonians and the Six Nations? Is this is Canada’s idea of consultation and accommodation?
Every inch of land in Canada is unsurrendered native land. Canada doesn’t want to face this. Our property rights are extremely well documented. That’s a problem for them. The rights Canada and Ontario have been violating at Six Nations were documented before either the Canadian state or the province of Ontario were founded. Canada is a product of fraud. Is that why they don’t want to sit down and work out a reasonable plan for peaceful co-existence?
So far Canada’s response has been violence. Bring out the guns and bats!
Canada and the world knows this is wrong. They have no choice but to deal with us, the landowners. We are the legal trustees of Onowaregeh, Turtle Island. Each time they hit us, they remind us of our duties. We struggle even harder to uphold them.
The use of force can never produce a legal result. The Supreme Court of Canada and international law agree with our law, the Kaianerehkowa/Great Law. The only legal way to solve problems is through discussions, negotiations and understandings.
Canada must start listening to our legal reasoning. The violence against Indigenous peoples has got to stop. We know what’s right and wrong. The more they beat us, the more they make it clear that they are wrong. They must back off, stop arresting us, stop beating us up and stop shoving their kangeroo court documents down our throats.
On Tuesday, at 9:00 a.m., some of our people will be brought into the Brantford Court. There is no proof that it has jurisdiction over our people and our land. Many Indigenous people have been asserting our law. They have refused to attorn to the court. They have declared that they stand on the law of the land, the Kaianerehkowa. Or they have demanded proof of the court’s jurisdiction.
So far Canada’s colonial courts have all refused to provide proof for their authority. They know they have none. So they find some way of putting things off. They don’t know what to do when indigenous people who have been accused for political reasons demand proof of their jurisdiction or evidence of the valid termination of our law. They know full well that we never gave our informed consent to become Canadians. We are not Canadians.

If you can, please come to witness the court proceedings and provide support. We need to tell Kingspan of Ireland, Hampton Hotels of the U.S. all the other shysters trying to trespass on our land to go away.
MNN Staff www.mohawknationnews.com