Listen to Keith Secola and Charlie Hill at AIM-West Reunion

By Brenda Norrell

SAN FRANCISCO -- Listen to Keith Secola and Charlie Hill, with the best sounds and the best comedy in Indian country, at the AIM-West 40-year reunion. Listen to "Comedy Indian Style," and Keith Secola on Earthcycles: http://www.earthcycles.net/mendo/
Earthcycles broadcast the reunion live in San Francisco, which included Bill Means, Madonna Thunder Hawk, Clyde Bellecourt, Pat Bellanger, Lehman Brightman, Lenny Foster, Mike Flores, 'Berkeley Beyond Borders,' and others. Listen to the speakers and Earthcycles interviews from the three day conference in San Francisco: http://www.earthcycles.net/mendo/
Listen to KPFA on Alcatraz Island during Thursday's sunrise gathering:
http://kpfa.org/archives/index.php?arch=29630
Photo Brenda Norrell

Paul Owns the Sabre: Carrying the torch with art

By Brenda Norrell
OAKLAND, Calif. -- Paintings by Paul Owns the Sabre, Lakota from Cheyenne River, S.D., went on display Sunday at the Intertribal Friendship House in Oakland, Calif. Owns the Sabre spoke on the cultural genocide underway in the United States and the horror of boarding schools for Indian people. Owns the Sabre said he will hold a special giveaway and give all his paintings away, as they were not done for money. He encouraged Indian youths to learn their songs and their language, and to do their art. The reception included a meal of buffalo stew and fry bread and songs by the All Nation Singers. Among the guests were Long Walkers Harry, Aisyln, Tomas and Brenda, who accompanied Owns the Sabre on the Longest Walk northern route across America in 2008. In a tribute to Owns the Sabre, it was pointed out that he had undertaken a lifetime of walks and runs across America. The show of paintings continues through Dec. 13. Photo Brenda Norrell

Shoshone Grandmothers to Barrick Gold: 'This is Treaty Land!'

Article and photo by Lisa Wolf
Censored News
http://www.bsnorrell.blogspot.com
Photo: Shoshone Bernice Lalo protesting on Mount Tenabo/Photo Lisa Wolf

CRESCENT VALLEY -- Western Shoshone protested Barrick Gold and demanded a halt to the destruction, as Barrick rips up the pine trees on sacred Mount Tenabo by the roots.
Writer Lisa Wolf conveys the comments of Shoshone to the perpetrators of genocide on this sacred mountain. As Barrick's global assault on Indigenous territories continues, the Shoshone have filed a court action to halt the desecration now underway on Mount Tenabo.
The Western Shoshone grandmothers told the Barrick employee, “This is our treaty land. It was a treaty made with the federal government. It was not made with a foreign nation. And it is a foreign mining company that has come into our country and is destroying our mountain, our land, our food, our medicine and they have no respect.”
Shoshone Elder Bernice Lalo said, “I came here because from our beliefs that we practice here on the land, we’re protesting because they will be destroying the pine trees which is very important to the land. We’re protesting because this is our land. No two ways about it; and when they come and destroy things, they’re destroying our spirituality, our ways, our beliefs” for “our children, our children’s children. So, we’re all here to protest that” because “it can’t go on. It’s perpetrating genocide against the Native American people. And we are not the only Native people suffering this distress. It is happening world over; but we happen to be Western Shoshones and this is our land and we’re protesting the poisoned water, the destruction of the land, the road we’re standing on here, the big machines: everything that the mining industry stands for. They say they’re doing it responsibly, but they’re not because when they leave the Western Shoshone people will still be here and the land will be barren.” Lalo said, “They reclaim something, but only with weeds and mounds like a big burial ground and that’s what they’re leaving us. And they’re never going to clean it out.”
Carrie Dann told Fennemore, “We want the tree cutting stopped now,” explaining, “That’s our food.”
Mary Gibson asked the Barrick employee, “What are you leaving for your grandchildren? Where is your heart? Where is that? Do you understand how important this is? This is our life.”
Dann said, “When you destroy the earth, where is the food coming from?”
One of the Grandmothers suggested, “You guys go and tear down the Vatican, the Mormon Tabernacle” which “actually have things stored. Because that’s what you’re doing to us for gold.” Read more of the Western Shoshone comments to the perpetrators of genocide:
http://censored-news.blogspot.com/2008/11/shoshone-grandmothers-to-barrick-gold.html

Solidarity: AIM-West Reunion week wraps up

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The AIM-West 40-year reunion concluded Friday night with a concert in San Francisco. Photo Brenda Norrell. (Double click to enlarge.) Listen to three days of audios, including speakers, interviews and the sounds of Keith Secola and Charlie Hill:

http://www.earthcycles.net/

Video: AIM-West Reunion wraps up with Dr. Loco and Rockin' Jalapenos

At the AIM-West Reunion, Dr. Loco and the Rockin' Jalapenos were a rockin' finale to a great week of events in San Francisco. The Bob Young Project also performed for the incredible concert. Brief video by Brenda Norrell. (Click arrow to watch.)

Western Shoshone protest Barrick Gold on Mount Tenabo photos

Western Shoshone protest Barrick Gold's destruction on sacred Mount Tenabo on Wednesday. Shoshone call for help to establish an encampment.

Article by Brenda Norrell

Photos by Lisa Wolf
CRESCENT VALLEY, Newe Sogobi (Nevada) -- While most Americans enjoyed Thanksgiving this week, Western Shoshone protested the devastation on their sacred Mount Tenabo, as Barrick Gold ripped out pine trees by the roots on this ceremonial mountain for gold mining.
As Barrick Gold continues its practice of genocide, targeting Indigenous Peoples territories around the world, Barrick is destroying Mount Tenabo for one of the United States largest open pit gold mines. The Cortez Hills Expansion Project is at the flank of the mountain where Shoshone carry out sweatlodges and other ceremonies. (See protest photos at http://www.bsnorrell.blogspot.com/ )
Shoshone called for help and an immediate encampment to protect sacred Mount Tenabo.
Earlier this week, several Western Shoshone tribes and non-profit indigenous and environmental organizations filed a restraining order in the federal District Court in Reno against the construction of the proposed mine site.Unable to wait for the hearing that is scheduled for early next week and the mine’s continual slaughter of the pinion forest, the Western Shoshone grandmothers and supporters traveled to the site demanding Barrick to stop cutting the trees.
"As heavy machinery used to tear out the pinion trees came to halt upon the arrival of the Shoshones, Barrick Gold employees ignored the Shoshone’s demand that they cease the clear cutting. They witnessed piles of pinion and other trees strewn across the landscape and unfenced polluted ponds," Western Shoshone said in a joint statement.
“Today we went to a war zone, a war zone against the trees by the Barrick Gold Company. If people can eat or drink gold to sustain life, maybe we can call it a sacrifice of the life of trees, trees that gives us pine nuts and other medicinal uses,” stated Carrie Dann, Western Shoshone grandmother and executive director of the Western Shoshone Defense Project.The Western Shoshone had lived in the area of Mount Tenabo since the beginning of time.
Today it is the homelands to local Shoshones and continues to be the home to Shoshone creation stories, spirit life, medicinal foods and plants as well as a site for spiritual and ceremonial practices. Mount Tenabo is in the heart of Western Shoshone territory and is part of the ancestral lands that has been identified and recognized as Western Shoshone territory through the ratification of the Treaty of Ruby Valley between the Western Shoshone and the United States.
“The mining company and the Bureau of Land Management are trespassing on the Western Shoshone treaty land and are destroying our mountains, trees, food, medicine and leaving dirty polluted water ponds that are wide open making it unsafe to the birds and animals. Why doesn’t the mining company go dig up the Vatican or the Mormon Tabernacle instead of Western Shoshone lands, I’m sure they will find gold there, because this is what you are doing to our mountains and trees," said Mary McCloud, Western Shoshone grandmother.
Earlier this year, Barrick attorneys halted release of a book exposing the global genocide and atrocities of Barrick Gold. The book launch for Noir Canada: Pillage, corruption et criminalité en Afrique, edited by Alain Denault and the Collectif Ressources d'Afrique out of Montréal, was halted when the authors and publishers (Édition Écosociété) received letters from a law firm representing Barrick Gold, according to the Dominion in Canada.
Barrick has also sued The Guardian and The Observer over published articles about the Bulyanhulu massacre in Tanzania.
The book exposes Barrick's advantageous mining contracts, partnerships with arms dealers and mercenaries in the Great Lakes region, miners buried alive in Tanzania, an "involuntary genocide" by poisoning in Mali, brutal expropriations in Ghana, using people from the Ivory Coast for pharmaceutical testing, devastating hydroelectric projects in Senegal and the savage privatization of the railway system in West Africa.
For more information, or to help, Western Shoshone: Western Shoshone Defense Project

So-Ho-Bi (South Fork) office: 775-744-2565 (fax and phone) Main office:P.O. Box 211308Crescent Valley, NV 89821

Newe Sogobi775-468-0230775-468-0237 (fax)

Read statement:

http://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2008/11/western-shoshone-devastation-and.html

Black Friday protest of Emeryville Shellmound desecration

By Brenda Norrell
Censored News

SAN FRANCISCO -- Morning Star Gali said Shellmound Walkers will protest the Emeryville shopping center built on Ohlone graves on Friday, Nov. 28. Friday is known as "Black Friday," the largest shopping day of the year.

"People are shopping on the graves of our ancestors," Gali said, as Native Americans departed from the Alcatraz Sunrise Ceremony on Thursday.

Shellmound Walkers will leave the Intertribal Friendship House in Oakland Friday morning and walk to Emeryville, across from San Francisco. The protest will be at Shellmound Drive and Ohlone Way in Emeryville. The mock Shellmound there is "very disrepectful," she said

Gali said the walkers message to shoppers on Black Friday is, "Don't shop on our graves. Don't continue to desecrate these burial sites."

Listen to today's brief interviews, conducted after the Alcatraz Sunrise Gathering
Morning Star, audio one, Shellmound history
http://censored-news.blogspot.com/2008/11/listen-morning-start-shellmound-walkers.html

Morning Star, audio two, Shellmound protest in Emeryville
http://censored-news.blogspot.com/2008/11/audio-morning-star-shellmound-protest.html
Photo Brenda Norrell

Long Walkers at Intertribal Friendship House

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By Brenda Norrell
OAKLAND, Calif. -- Long Walkers from the northern route 2008 at the Intertribal Friendship House in Oakland on Thursday, after the Alcatraz Sunrise Gathering: Paul, Tomas, Sage, Shaleen and Aislyn. The five month walk began in February of 2008 at Alcatraz and concluded in Washington D.C. in July 2008. Some of the Long Walkers are now on the Shellmound Walk, which will protest the desecration of the Ohlone Shellmounds. A shopping center in Emeryville was constructed on Ohlone graves. The protest on Friday comes as the Shellmound Walkers conclude a two week walk. Photos Brenda Norrell

Mohawk Nation News: Is this Palestine or soon-to-be-Ongwehonwe communities

DID YOU VISIT YOUR RELATIVES TODAY? IS THIS PALESTINE OR SOON-TO-BE-ONGWEHONWE COMMUNITIES?

MOHAWK NATION NEWS

No v. 25, 2008. It’s called “warehousing of surplus humanity." All humans are equal. No one can decide that we are surplus. The object is to remove the target people from existence. This is real, folks!

First, the territory of the targets is occupied. Their communities, work, education, finances and colonial apparatus are controlled by the outside forces. The agenda is carried out by the bureaucrats and military. They are trained in oppression using non-lethal weaponry to stay within the bounds of the UN human rights conventions.

A fascist state needs an uneducated non-resisting people. To achieve this, lots of interference in every day life, schooling and economy are priorities. The youth are specially interfered with. Places of work, schools or commerce are not set up within the communities forcing them to work or attend school or shop outside.


The target group is usually isolated from anybody who could help them. They are demonized. There is a media blackout so that the perpetrators can “warehouse” other victims later on who will be unprepared and unable to defend themselves.

Eventually walls are put up around the targets with checkpoints everywhere. Food and essentials are stopped from going in and out. Electricity is turned off. Water is undrinkable. The bus breaks down. Detours are set up everywhere forcing them to spend hours to carry on their normal lives. “Flying [mobile] check points” are set up everywhere on a permanent or temporary basis. They can arrive and stay for minutes or hours at any place anytime. Anybody can be arrested for going to meetings to discuss their plight.

The situation gets worse. Blockages of the community become more often and more severe. Sometimes nothing goes in or out. Electricity is cut off more often so that raw sewage flows in the streets. Houses can’t be heated. Refrigerated food goes bad.

To instill fear schools, institutions, hospitals and even homes are threatened or burnt down or trashed. Teachers, workers and service providers stop giving services “to protest the blockades” or “dangers” they are forced to work in. Papers, books and communications are kept out or controlled. No one gets trained to be a doctor or professional which are necessities in such communities. 90% have no job. It comes to a point where some families can only send one child to school or out to work. Each family is allowed one member to have a job.

Because of the system of checkpoints and walls, workers and students have to leave home and live near schools or their place of work to avoid 4 hours a day of travel which normally takes 20 minutes.

The targets are constantly reminded they are being watched. The police or special army units walk into their homes, at 2:00 am, without knocking, ask for ID and then take them to the police station. They study the personality of the targets and look for collaborators or spies to work with them. They take unflattering pictures after the interrogation or torture so the targets look like criminals.

Nighttime is the worst time. The targets are kept awake. They could be taken away at any moment. Soldiers come inside, point guns and start beating anyone in their sight. They yell, “Give me your ID." People are forced outside without shoes or proper clothing. Hundreds of their community members are on their knees in the streets, sometimes until 3 am. Names are called out by the police on speakers. Some are taken away and interrogated for 5 hours and asked if they saw anyone throw stones or speak badly of them. This excuse is usually bogus.

There are 7 to 8 hour waits at the checkpoints. Students or workers can only go home once every 6 to 7 months to visit their family. They have to sneak there and sometimes have to hide out all night. They can’t use the main roads and are forced to go into the woods or mountains. All of these atrocities are video taped by the oppressors with cameras everywhere. These are for study, training, propaganda and their own perverted pleasure.

The students or workers have to leave 2 hours before class or work to go 5 minutes away. Everybody is fingerprinted at the checkpoints. All their bags are checked. Their iris is scanned and their biometric identification with all manner of information and misinformation is scanned.

Curfews are set up throughout the communities and towns. Mobile military checkpoints are put on tanks and jeeps with snipers watching over them. Communities, schools or institutions are closed down at will. The strategy is to make sure students cannot study or people cannot work, meet or move around. If they object, the children, women and men can be “detained” or beaten or even shot.

The main gates have high security electronic doors. There are “blind” checkpoints where military jeeps suddenly appear and demand IDs. People are forced to wait for minutes or hours. No one can complain during this examination. The police or military can invade the community or shoot and throw tear gas at anytime if they perceive a security threat. Anyone can be jailed. Young men are in put in prisons. Beautiful young girls are forced to take off all their clothes and crawl on their hands and knees through the checkpoints. They are made to eat food that is forbidden by their culture or they are allergic to.

Palestinians say this is how they are being treated by the Israelis. Canadian police and military are being sent to Israel for training on “crowd control." Many of these fascist tactics were used on us during the 1990 Mohawk Oka Crisis. 5,000 Canadian soldiers surrounded three of our communities [Kanehsatake, Kahnawake and Akwesasne] behind razor wire and fully armed troops. It was because we opposed the desecration of our burial and ceremonial sites. We were surrounded by walls of police, soldiers, armaments and checkpoints for 78 days. We had to wait for hours to get through them while suffering specially designed humiliation from the soldiers and police.

Canadian soldiers went into Mohawk homes purportedly looking of weapons. They smashed everything and even s--t on the floors. Many of us were arrested for no reason or for “political activities”, which is called “administrative detention."

Canada is no goody-goody! Canada collected much secret “information” about us. They refuse to disclose it because their misconceptions and misinterpretations could be challenged. Prime Minister Stephen Harper wants to change the laws so that the youth as young as 14 years old can be sent to adult prisons! This looks like it’s aimed at our Ongwehonwe youth.

How can such cruel conditions be created by members of a well- educated nation whose ancestors were subject to unspeakable abuse? Canada is bringing back these practices that originally came from here. The South Africans learned “apartheid” from Canada. Laws and policies were passed here to mistreat and demoralize us and cut down our population. The colonial strategy included genocide, the pass system and mental and moral abuse. Hitler praised Canada and the U.S. for their thoroughness in getting rid of the “Indian problem”. He copied the reservation and residential school systems for his concentration camps. Like Canada he tried to instill hopeless, to break down our spirit and to kill us off. It will never work. We will always be here on our land.

Karakwine & MNN Staff Mohawk Nation News www.mohawknationnews.com
www.mohawknationnews.com Katenies20@yahoo.com kahentinetha2@yahoo.com
Note: Your financial help is needed and appreciated. Please send your donations to PayPal at www.mohawknationnews.com, or by check or money order to “MNN Mohawk Nation News”, Box 991, Kahnawake [Quebec, Canada] J0L 1B0. Nia:wen thank you very much.
Go to MNN “Turtle Island” category for more stories; New MNN Books Available now! Purchase t-shirts, mugs and more at our CafePressStore http://www.cafepress.com/mohawknews; Subscribe to MNN for breaking news updates http://.mohawknationnews.com/news/subscription.php; Sign Women Title Holders petition! http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/Iroquois

THE OTTAWA PLANNERS. Public Safety [Danger]: Minister Peter “Pumpkin-Eater-and-Trough-Licker” Van Loan; Suzanne “Hurts-to-be-Herself” Hurtubise DM 613- 991-2895; Myles “Away-from-Reality” Kirvan ADM 613- 990-2633, 613-949-0322; Chantal “Dirty-Fingers-in-Every-Pie” Bernier ADM Community Safety [Endangerment] and Partnerships (613) 993-4325; Scott “ODB” Broughton Sr ADM Emergency [Mis]Management and National [In]Security (613) 991-2820; Lynda “Useless-Forked-Tongued-Drone” Clairmont ADM, same as “ODB” (613) 990-4976; Daniel “Pepsi-and-May-West” Lavoie DG Communications (613) 990-2743; Elisabeth “Botox-from-Head-to-Toe” Nadeau ADM, Corporate Theft (613) 990-2615; Kristina “Fingers-Getting-Itchier-and-Itchier-to-push-the-Trigger” Namiesniowski ADM Strategic Policy (613) 949-6435; Eva “Nosey-Nit-Picker” Plunkett Inspector Field “General” of CSIS (613) 949-0675; Richard “Diarrhea-Mouth” Wex ADM Policing, Law Enforcement & Interoperability (613) 990-2703. The biggest safety risk for us Ongwehonwe is this ADM cabal of agents; Health Canada, partners with the US through the Canada-US Joint Radiological Response Plan, under the Federal Nuclear Emergency Plan, Foreign Affairs & International Trade Minister Lawrence “Chinese-Food-Glutton-at-Taxpyers-Expense” Cannon 613-992-5516 Fax 613-992-6802 Cannon.L@parl.gc.ca.

Western Shoshone Devastation and Destruction on Mount Tenabo

Contact: Carrie Dann, Western Shoshone grandmother, (775) 468-0230

Western Shoshone Grandmothers Day of Resistance –
Devastation and Destruction Witnessed
By Western Shoshone Defense Project

(November 27, 2008, Crescent Valley, Newe Sogobi (Nevada). Western Shoshone grandmothers and other Western Shoshone supporters gathered in solidarity yesterday to oppose the clear cutting of pinion trees at the spiritual Mount Tebano where Barrick Gold Company is planning one of the country’s largest open pit gold mines known as the Cortez Hills Expansion Project at the flank of the Mountain. Earlier this week, several Western Shoshone tribes and non-profit indigenous and environmental organizations have filed a restraining order in the federal District Court in Reno, NV, against the construction of the proposed mine site.

Unable to wait for the hearing that is scheduled for early next week and the mine’s continual slaughter of the pinion forest, the Western Shoshone grandmothers and supporters traveled to the site demanding Barrick to stop cutting the trees. As heavy machinery used to tear out the pinion trees came to halt upon the arrival of the Shoshones, Barrick Gold employees ignored the Shoshone’s demand that they cease the clear cutting. They witnessed piles of pinion and other trees strewn across the landscape and unfenced polluted ponds. “Today we went to a war zone, a war zone against the trees by the Barrick Gold Company. If people can eat or drink gold to sustain life, maybe we can call it a sacrifice of the life of trees, trees that gives us pine nuts and other medicinal uses,” stated Carrie Dann, Western Shoshone grandmother and Executive Director of the Western Shoshone Defense Project.

The Western Shoshone had lived in the area of Mount Tenabo since the beginning of time. Today it is the homelands to local Shoshones and continues to be the home to Shoshone creation stories, spirit life, medicinal foods and plants as well as a site for spiritual and ceremonial practices. Mount Tenabo is in the heart of Western Shoshone territory and is part of the ancestral lands that has been identified and recognized as Western Shoshone territory through the ratification of the Treaty of Ruby Valley between the Western Shoshone and the United States. “The mining company and the Bureau of Land Management are trespassing on the Western Shoshone treaty land and are destroying our mountains, trees, food, medicine and leaving dirty polluted water ponds that are wide open making it unsafe to the birds and animals. Why doesn’t the mining company go dig up the Vatican or the Mormon Tabernacle instead of Western Shoshone lands, I’m sure they will find gold there, because this is what you are doing to our mountains and trees, stated Mary McCloud, another Western Shoshone grandmother.
Western Shoshone Defense Project
So-Ho-Bi (South Fork) office:
775-744-2565 (fax and phone)
Main office:
P.O. Box 211308
Crescent Valley, NV 89821
Newe Sogobi
775-468-0230
775-468-0237 (fax)

Western Shoshone call for immediate encampment

WESTERN SHOSHONE ALERT:
By Brenda Norrell

MOUNT TENABO, WESTERN SHOSHONE TERRITORY --Western Shoshone are calling for immediate support and an encampment to protect the trees being ripped out by the roots for gold mining by Barrick Gold on sacred Mount Tenabo. Western Shoshone protested the destruction today and halted the damage for three hours. "They are piling up the trees like dead bodies," one of the Shoshone said. Western Shoshone Bill Larson urged supporters to come immediately and bring water, food, warm clothing, blankets and firewood for an encampment.

For support and media interviews:

Carrie Dann, Western Shoshone grandmother, 775-468-0230

Dan Randolph, Great Basin Resource Watch, 775-722-4056

Julie Cavanaugh-Bill, Western Shoshone Defense Project, 775-744-2565 or

wsdp@igc.org

Photo: The late Corbin Harney.

Western Shoshone statement:

Western Shoshone grandmothers resistance

AIM West Reunion: Mohawk Mark Maracle audio

Click on filename "Mark Maracle Wed AIM" to listen to audio. Audio Brenda Norrell

Lehman Brightman at AIM West Reunion

Lehman Brightman at AIM West Reunion. Click arrow to watch. Brief video by Brenda Norrell. Listen live at Earthcycles: http://www.earthcycles.net

Live from the AIM West Reunion in San Francisco

At the AIM West Reunion, Lenny Foster, Dine', and Agnes Faye Williams, Seneca, on Earthcycles radio. Listen to archives from the AIM West 40 year reunion.
Listen to archives, click on "AIM Treaty Council Shellmound Walkers"
http://www.earthcycles.net/

Welcome to AIM West's Unthanksgiving

At the AIM West Reunion Unthanksgiving, Wednesday, Nov. 26, at the San Francisco Baha''i Center. Charlie Hill, Keith Secola, Bill Means, Madonna Thunder Hawk, Clyde Bellecourt, Pat Bellanger, Mike Flores, Lenny Foster and more. Live on http://www.earthcycles.net/ and 104.1 FM local San Francisco. Photo Long Walker Pegge cooks the turkey. Brenda Norrell

Shoshone Grandmothers Plan Resistance Day on Proposed Mine Site

Contacts:
Carrie Dann, Western Shoshone grandmother, 775-468-0230
Dan Randolph, Great Basin Resource Watch, 775-722-4056
Julie Cavanaugh-Bill, Western Shoshone Defense Project, 775-744-2565 or wsdp@igc.org

Restraining Order Requested – Shoshone Grandmothers Plan Resistance Day on Proposed Mine Site

Photo: The late Mary Dann with sister Carrie Dann/WSDP

From Shoshone Grandmothers

CRESCENT VALLEY, Newe Sogobi ( Nevada). As the holidays approach and the world watches President-elect Obama and the bailouts; back in Nevada, home state of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, it’s business as usual. Late yesterday, attorneys for several Western Shoshone tribes and non-profit indigenous and environmental organizations filed a request in the federal District Court in Reno, NV seeking a restraining order against the construction of one of the country’s largest open pit gold mines on the flank of spiritual Mt. Tenabo. The mine company has already begun demolition of the pinyon forest with heavy machinery on the site ripping out trees at a reported rate of 30 acres per day. As they await a Court hearing and feeling compelled to take immediate action, tomorrow, a group of Shoshone grandmothers will travel to the proposed mine site to conduct a day of Resistance to the destruction of the area and the approval of the mine by the United States. Mt. Tenabo is a well-known home to local Shoshone creation stories, spirit life, medicinal, food and ceremonial plants and rocks and continues to be used to this day by Shoshone for spiritual ceremonies and cultural practices. Over the years, tens of thousands of individuals and organizations from across the United States and around the world have joined with the Shoshone and voiced their opposition to this mine –in fact, the mine is being referred to as the “most opposed mine in the world”.

“We want them off this mountain, this is a spiritual genocide what’s going on; destroying our mountain is destroying our beliefs. Removing water is death to the mountains. No way. We will take whatever action we need to – we’re going through the U.S. courts and we will stand on this Mountain in support of her and call on those people around the world to stand with us in solidarity.” Stated Carrie Dann, Western Shoshone Grandmother, Executive Director of the Western Shoshone Defense Project and recipient of the Right Livelihood Award (the alternate to the Nobel Peace Prize).

Barrick Gold Corporation, the world’s largest gold mining company, headquartered in Canada, plans to construct and operate the mine, known as the Cortez Hills Expansion Project. The area is located entirely within the territory of the Western Shoshone Nation, recognized in the 1863 Treaty of Ruby Valley. The Mine would blast and excavate a new massive open pit on Mount Tenabo over 900 acres in size, with a depth of over 2,000 feet. It would include several new waste disposal and processing facilities (including a cyanide heap-leaching facility), consisting of approximately 1,577 million tons of waste rock, 53 million tons of tailings material, and 112 million tons of spent heap leach material. The Mine would include an extensive groundwater pumping system to dewater Mount Tenabo and associated water pipelines that will transport the pumped water away from Mount Tenabo. In total, the mine would permanently destroy approximately 6,800 acres land on and around Mount Tenabo, over 90% of which is classified as federal “public” land.

In 2002 and 2003 the BLM conducted a series of armed seizures in the same area, of the Dann family’s cattle and horses, claiming the Danns were “trespassing” on public lands. The Danns, along with other Western Shoshone, have challenged the U.S. claims to their ancestral and treaty lands as recognized by the 1863 Treaty of Ruby Valley, which recognized Western Shoshone rights in much of Nevada. These legal battles went all the way to the Supreme Court, and on to International Fora. In March 2006 the Western Shoshone received a ruling from the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, CERD, a treaty body set up by the United Nations and ratified by the United States in 1993.

The Decision issued by CERD, and reconfirmed this year, urges the United States to immediately freeze, desist and stop any further actions against the Western Shoshone peoples, including legislative efforts to privatize their land. CERD ordered the United States to stop immediately and initiate dialogue with the Western Shoshone. The Decision specifically mentioned Mt. Tenabo and the destruction of Western Shoshone lands by mining corporations.

“In the 1800’s, the U.S. sent in the Calvary to remove the Indians and to kill off our sources of food, such as the Buffalo. Now here they are, just days before Thanksgiving in 2008, destroying our Mountain of life and the pinyon trees which are our food. This is happening today and it’s outrageous.” Says Joyce McDade, Western Shoshone grandmother.

Barbara Ridley, another Western Shoshone grandmother participating in the resistance states: Who’s Thanksgiving is this anyway? What have we got to celebrate? There’s no Thanksgiving for our people – they tell us we don’t have our land but we still use it for our foods, plants and ceremonies. This mountain is very important to us and people should respect our request to leave it alone.”

The plaintiffs are being represented in court by Roger Flynn of the non-profit legal firm, the Western Mining Action Project, which specializes in mining law. The Grandmothers’ Resistance Day will take place of the South Flank of Mt. Tenabo at the proposed mine site beginning at approximately 11:00 a.m. on Wednesday, November 26th.

For more information on the Western Shoshone land rights issues, Cortez Hills Project, Mount Tenabo, and the legal challenge go to www.gbrw.org and www.wsdp.org.

Protesting US torture in Fort Huachuca

Protesting US torture training at Fort Huachuca Army Intelligence Center in Arizona, in November 2008. Photo credit and more information: http://www.tortureontrial.org/

Drum song at the AIM West Reunion

TOP PHOTO: At the AIM West 40 year reunion, youths from DQ University sang the AIM song on Monday. Listen live at http://www.earthcycles.net/ and in San Francisco on 104.1 FM this week. The singers included Shaleen and Ed, both Long Walkers on the northern route in 2008. Bottom Photo: DQ activist with Tony Gonzales and Mike Flores listening to drum song. Photos Brenda Norrell

Open Letter from Leonard Peltier to Barack Obama

Open Letter From Leonard Peltier to Barack Obama

From Leonard Peltier

I have watched with keen interest and renewed hope as your campaign has
mobilized millions of Americans behind your message of changing a
political system that serves a small economic elite at the expense of the
peoples of the United States and the world. Your election as president of
the United States, where slaves and Indians were long considered less than
human under the law, will undoubtedly constitute a historic moment in race
relations in the United States.

Yet symbolism alone will not bring about change. Our young people, black
and Native alike, suffer from police brutality and racial profiling,
underfunded schools, and discrimination in employment and housing. I
sincerely hope your campaign will inspire some hope among our youth to
struggle for a better future. I am, however, concerned that your recent
statement on the Sean Bell verdict, in which the New York police officers
who fired 50 shots at a young man on the eve of his wedding were acquitted
of criminal charges, displays a rather myopic view of the law. Until the
law is harnessed to protect the victims of state violence and racism, it
will serve as an instrument of repression, just as the slave codes
functioned to sustain and legitimize an inhuman institution.

As I can testify from experience, the legal institutions of this nation
are far from racial and political neutrality. When judges align with the
repressive actions and policies of the executive branch, injustice is
rationalized and cloaked in judicial platitudes. As you may know, I have
now served more than three decades of my life as a political prisoner of
the federal government for a crime I did not commit. I have served more
time than the maximum sentence under the guidelines under which I was
sentenced, yet my parole is continually denied (on the rare occasions when
I am afforded a hearing) because I refuse to falsely confess. Amnesty
International, South African Bishop Desmond Tutu, the Dalai Lama of Tibet,
my Guatemalan sister Rigoberta Menchu, and many of your friends and
supporters have recognized me as a political prisoner and called for my
immediate release. Millions of people around the world view me as a symbol
of injustice against the indigenous peoples of this land, and I have no
doubt that I will go down in history as one of a long line of victims of
U.S. government repression, along with Sacco and Vanzetti, the Haymarket
Square martyrs, Eugene Debs, Bill Haywood, and others targeted by for
their political beliefs. But neither I nor my people can afford to wait
for history to rectify the crimes of the past.

As a member of the American Indian Movement, I came to the Pine Ridge
Oglala reservation to defend the traditional people there from human
rights violations carried out by tribal police and goon squads backed by
the FBI and the highest offices of the federal government. Our symbolic
occupation of Wounded Knee in 1973 inspired Indians across the Americas to
struggle for their freedom and treaty rights, but it was also met by a
fierce federal siege and a wave of violent repression on Pine Ridge. In
1974, AIM leader Russell Means campaigned for tribal chairman while being
tried by the federal government for his role at Wounded Knee. Although
Means was barred from the reservation by decree of the U.S.-client regime
of Richard Wilson, he won the popular vote, only to be denied office by
extensive vote fraud and control of the electoral mechanisms. Wilson's
goons proceeded to shoot up pro-Means villages such as Wanblee and
terrorize traditional supporters throughout the reservation, killing at
least 60 people between 1973 and 1975.

It is long past time for a congressional investigation to examine the
degree of federal complicity in the violent counterinsurgency that
followed the occupation of Wounded Knee. The tragic shootout that led to
the deaths of two FBI agents and one Native man also led not only to my
false conviction, but also the termination of the Church Committee, which
was investigating abuses by federal intelligence and law enforcement
agents, before it could hold hearings on FBI infiltration of AIM. Despite
decades of attempts by my attorneys to obtain government documents related
to my case, the FBI continues to withhold thousands of documents that
might tend to exonerate me or reveal compromising evidence of judicial
collusion with the prosecution.

I truly believe the truth will set me free, but it will also signify a
symbolic break from America's undeclared war on indigenous peoples. I hope
and pray that you possess the courage and integrity to seek out the truth
and the wisdom to recognize the inherent right of all peoples to
self-determination, as acknowledged by the United Nations Declaration on
the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. While your statements on federal Indian
policy sound promising, your vision of "one America" has an ominous ring
for Native peoples struggling to define their own national visions. If
freed from colonial constraints and external intervention, indigenous
nations might well serve as functioning models of the freedom and
democracy to which the United States aspires.

Yours in the struggle.

Until freedom is won,

Leonard Peltier
# 89637-132
U.S.P. Lewisburg,
P.O. Box 1000,
Lewisburg, PA USA 17837

AIM West 40 Year Reunion underway in San Francisco

Bill Means, cofounder of the International Indian Treaty Council, live today on Earthcycles web radio, and 104.1 FM in San Francisco. Listen live at http://www.earthcycles.net/
Photo Brenda Norrell

Earthcycles live from San Francisco

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

SAN FRANCISCO -- Earthcycles will broadcast live from the AIM-West 40 year reunion this week, beginning 10:30 am on Monday, Nov. 24, 2008. Producer Govinda Dalton and cohost Brenda Norrell will broadcast at http://www.earthcycles.net/ and on local 104.1 FM in San Francisco.
American Indian Movement members gather all day on Monday at the San Francisco main library, with Bill Means and Madonna Thunder Hawk. AIM-West continues on Tuesday and Wednesday at the Baha'i Center, with an Unthanksgiving Feast on Wednesday. Everyone is welcome.
The Alcatraz Island Sunrise Ceremony, hosted by the International Indian Treaty Council, will be at first light on Alcatraz Island Thursday morning. On Friday evening, AIM-West hosts a fundraiser concert.
Meanwhile, the Shellmound walkers and Peace Walkers are on a two week walk in the Bay area. The Shellmound walkers will be at the Intertribal Friendship House in Oakland on Thursday at 10 am.
Earthcycles will feature interviews from throughout Indian country, including Western Shoshone fighting Barrick Gold's plan to carve out their sacred Mount Tenabo. Local guests include supporters of the Berkeley City Council and its passage of the "No Border Wall" resolution. The issues of the Longest Walk will also be in focus, including protecting Mother Earth from power plants and mining, climate change, militarization of the US borders and the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
From across Indian country, Paiutes are fighting to maintain their gathering and hunting rights; Kickapoo are struggling for their water rights; Navajos are fighting the Desert Rock power plant and the decades long devastation from relocation and coal mining. All along the border, Indigenous Peoples are struggling to survive as federal laws are voided to build the border wall. Meanwhile, private prison profiteering results in more migrants and American Indians in prisons. Sacred places are targeted for destruction as mining increases and corporations and political pirates seize federal and Indian lands in secrecy.
All across Indian country, more people are homeless and hungry, while tens of thousands of wild horses are targeted to be killed who once roamed on lands seized for gold mining and oil drilling.
Dalton and Norrell were cohosts of the Longest Walk Talk Radio across America, from Alcatraz to DC, for five months during 2008. The archives of interviews and songs are at http://www.earthcycles.net/
This week's schedule:
Monday all day, Nov. 24, 10: 30 am to 5:30 pm: Location – San Francisco Public Main Library, 100 Larkin Street. All welcome, press invited. Bill Means and Madonna Thunder Hawk. Issues from the south, national concerns, Treaty Rights, green economy, Mother Earth and UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
Tuesday all day, Nov. 25, 10 am to 5 pm: Location – San Francisco Baha’i Center, 170 Valencia Street (between 14th Street and Dubois Street). Land struggles today; Sacred sites; Manifesto for Change; fishing rights, subsistence gathering; political prisoners.
Wednesday, Nov. 26, noon to 6 pm: SF Baha’i Center, Unthanksgiving Dinner, Special human rights awards. Keith Secola, Phoenix! Fancy Dancers, Medicine Warriors and All Nations Singers. Lehman Brightman, Patricia Bellanger, Little Wolf Bellecourt, Yvonne Swan, Charlie Hill and Max Gail.
Thursday Sunrise, Nov. 27: International Indian Treaty Council, Alcatraz Island Sun Rise Gathering. Boats leave from Pier #31. Hornblower Tours (415-981-7625) Booths open 4:30 am or purchase online (recommended) http://www.alcatrazcruises.com/ Last boat over 6 am; return at 9 am. Shellmound Walkers at the Intertribal Friendship House in Oakland at 10 am.
Friday Night Nov. 28: Fundraiser concert AIM-WEST. SF Baha’i Center, 6 pm to 10 pm: Dr. Loco and Rockin’ Jalapenos, The Bob Young Project, $10-20 slide scale.
Information: http://www.aimwest.info/
AIM-WEST INFO: Tony Gonzales – 415-577-1492; Volunteer to help: Peggy Lemke 408-625-0986; John Powers – 415-559-9724 and Mark Anquoe 415-566-5788
Photo: Earthcycles radio bus at the culmination of the Longest Walk in DC, July 2008. Photo Brenda Norrell

Barriere Lake Algonquins: Taking Back the Airwaves

Collectif de Solidarité Lac Barrière
www.solidaritelacbarriere.blogspot.com
barrierelakesolidarity@gmail.com

Barriere Lake Solidarity presents: Taking Back the Airwaves
For many years Barriere Lake has experienced the loss of their land, language and culture. In 1961 they were squeezed onto a 59-acre reserve, in the 1970s they were forced to attend Residential School and since 1993 they have been fighting to have agreements with Quebec and Canada that promise the co-management of their traditional territory honoured.
It's time Barriere Lake took something back…
Join Barriere Lake Solidarity in helping Barriere Lake TAKE BACK THE AIRWAVES.
Where: Independent Media Centre, 2035 St. Laurent
When: November 29th, 7pm (Film Screening) & 9pm (Dance Party)
FILM: A Little Bit of So Much Truth ************** DANCE: DJ Aaron Maiden & DJ Medja
Cost: $5-10 sliding scale or DONATE AM/FM RADIO
* Barriere Lake Radio t-shirts, drinks and snacks available
Barriere Lake Algonquins, with support from the Barriere Lake Solidarity Collective,
are in the process of starting up a 15 watt FM radio station: Mitchikinabiko'inik Nodaktcigen (Radio Barriere Lake) on the Rapid Lake Reserve. The community is working to raise $3,000 needed to get this project off the ground. The primary aim of the project is to serve the Barriere Lake community, with the intention of strengthening language, autonomy, culture and traditions.

For more information: barrierelakesolidarity.blogspot.com
Email: barrierelakesolidarity@gmail.com


---------------------------------------------------------------------
Reclamons les ondes!

SAMEDI, le 29 novembre, 19h00 (Projection de films) et 21h00 (fête avec dj's)
Centre des médias indépendants, 2035 St-Laurent, 2e étage

Film: Un poquito de tanta verdad (espagnol, sous-titré en anglais),
Danse: DJ Medja et DJ Aaron Maiden

Entrée: $5-10 (selon vos moyens) OU par don d'un radio AM/FM

*T-shirts, boissons, et collations sur place

Les algonquins de Lac Barrière, avec le soutien du Collectif de solidarité avec Lac Barrière, sont en train d'établir une station de
radio FM de 15 watts : Mitchikinabiko'inik Nodaktcigen (Radio Lac Barrière) sur leur réserve, Rapid Lake. La communauté travaille pour
ramasser $3 000, le monant nécessaire pour mettre en pied le projet. Le but principal du projet est de servir la communauté de Lac
Barrière, avec l'intention de renforcer leur langue, autonomie, culture, et traditions.
Collectif de Solidarité Lac Barrière
****************************** *************
www.solidaritelacbarriere.blogspot.com
barrierelakesolidarity@gmail.com
514.398.7432
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To post to this group, send email to barrierelake-organizing@googlegroups.com
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For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/barrierelake-organizing?hl=en
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Leonard Peltier Day of Justice, Fargo, ND, Nov. 28, 2008

'DAY OF JUSTICE' scheduled for Friday, November 28th at the Fargo Federal Courthouse.

On Friday November 28th, the Leonard Peltier Defense Offense Committee will hold a demonstration called “Day of Justice” at the Fargo Federal Courthouse 110 Quentin N Burdick, 655 First Avenue North, Fargo North Dakota.

The “Day of Justice” will increase awareness about the case of Leonard Peltier and the fact that he has been imprisoned for 33 years. Not only was he convicted based on coerced statements, and false evidence Peltier has spent more time in prison for aiding and abetting than any reasonable person can justify. The “Day of Justice” is a call to action for concerned citizens to question why Peltier is serving two life sentences and has been imprisoned for more than half of his life.

The “Day of Justice” is about how laws designed for everyone are not equally applied. The US Bureau of Prisons is not following the law in regard to releasing Leonard Peltier on parole. Legally Peltier should have been released after serving 20 years; at the most he should have served 30 years, under United States Code Title 18 Sections 4205 and 4206 respectively. If justice is blind then the “Day of Justice” asks why Leonard Peltier is still in prison today. All people should be aware of the ability of this bureaucracy to ignore laws and hold model citizens long after the law states a release is due. Public Law 98-473 further states prison resources are, first and foremost, reserved for those violent and serious criminal offenders who pose the most dangerous threat to society of which Leonard Peltier is neither violent nor dangerous.

Featured speaker for the “Day of Justice” is Russell Means, a member of the Lakota Oglala Nation. Means has been on the forefront of organizing for the American Indian Movement since the early 1970’s. Means has acted in a number of movies produced in Hollywood, written an autobiography and led a delegation from the Republic of Lakotah to secede from the United States in December 2007. More information about Means can be found at his official websites of www.russellmeans.com and www.russellmeansfreedom.com.

Participants at the “Day of Justice” will hear from other speakers on the subject of Leonard Peltier’s case and how they can help seek justice for all political prisoners. Drum groups and musicians are also invited to be part of the program which is still growing. The “Day of Justice” will also include an event at Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota and possibly more locations worldwide. The Turtle Mountain Tribal Council recently passed a resolution demanding the release of Leonard Peltier to their custody immediately. The “Day of Justice” calls for the US Bureau of Prisons to recognize the sovereignty of Turtle Mountain and let Leonard Peltier go home now.

Contact persons are: Betty Ann Peltier-Solano and Kari Ann Cowan at (701) 235-2206; the website of the LP DOC is www.whoisleonardpeltier.info.

COINTELPRO: They Got Shut Down for Standing Up

COINTELPRO: They Got Shut Down for Standing Up

by Karima Amin
Sent in by Leonard Peltier Defense Offense Committee

From the late 1950's into the 1970's, the F.B.I. conducted a series of actions in a counterintelligence program (COINTELPRO) designed to disrupt, discredit, and destroy certain individuals and groups in this country. The Communist Party, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (N.A.A.C.P.), the Black Panther Party, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (S.C.L.C.), the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (S.N.C.C.), the Black Liberation Army (B. L. A.), the Socialist Workers Party, La Raza Unida ("the Unified Race"), MOVE, the American Indian Movement (A.I.M.) and others were among the targets. Dedicated activists who fought for justice were arrested for their political beliefs, tried in criminal courts, and incarcerated with exorbitant and punitive sentences. These political prisoners were effectively shut down for standing up. Though some of them still strive for justice behind bars, COINTELPRO has taken a toll on their lives.

During COINTELPRO's heyday, the F.B.I. didn't hesitate to use thuggery, unauthorized wiretapping, warrantless break-ins and searches, harassment, burglaries, manufactured evidence, witness tampering, infiltration, and even murder to neutralize the aforementioned organizations and their individual members. In 1971, F.B.I. agents, convicted for counterintelligence crimes, were pardoned by President Ronald Reagan. Their targets are still in prison, having now spent decades (30-plus years) behind bars. Approximately 100 men and women in the U.S. are political prisoners, for having taken a stance or expressing a view that the government deems objectionable. They dared to stand up, speak out, and struggle for the liberation and self-determination of oppressed people. The U.S. government does not recognize the designation of political prisoner; in the government's view, they are merely dissidents.

In the past, Prisoners Are People Too has presented programs on COINTELPRO, the San Francisco 8, Jalil Abdul Muntaqim, Mumia Abu-Jamal, and MOVE. Several PRP2 members have voiced their support for political prisoners: Lynne Stewart and Robert Seth Hayes. Unfortunately, the names of these individuals are rarely mentioned in the "real world" and their stories are even more rarely told. Most of us can't name five U.S. political prisoners and far too few of us are actively engaged in supporting/defending a political prisoner. Further, we make the mistake of assuming that what happened to them could never happen to us. In fact, nothing could be further from the truth. Nowadays, "The Patriot Act" and "Homeland Security" make it all the more likely for any one of us to come face-to-face with Amerikkka's ugly side. While alleging "freedom and justice for all", this country ignores the shameful realities of incarceration and rampant injustice for individuals and organizations that participate in the kind of revolutionary direct action that is needed to make changes in government or social conditions. F.B.I. agents who engaged in illegal activity through COINTELPRO, got a proverbial "slap on the wrist" and nothing changed. Political prisoners, their families, and communities have suffered for nearly forty years.

On Monday, November 24, 2008, at 6:30-8:30pm, at the Pratt-Willert Community Center, at 422 Pratt Street in Buffalo, Leonard Peltier's story will be told. Leonard Peltier was a COINTELPRO target because of his involvement with the American Indian Movement (A.I.M.). In 1977, this Native American activist was convicted and sentenced to two consecutive terms of life imprisonment for the murder of two F.B.I. agents who died during a 1975 shoot-out on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, near Oglala, South Dakota. Leonard and his supporters believe that he did not receive a fair trial and that his conviction and imprisonment were results of his activism. He is currently imprisoned in a federal penitentiary in Lewisburg, PA. The documentary film, "Murder on a Reservation", from the Arts and Entertainment Channel's "American Justice" series will be screened. In the film, Leonard Peltier, F.B.I. representatives, and witnesses to the incident that led to the agents' death, tell their stories.

Our guest speaker will be Mr. Michael Kuzma, a Buffalo, NY defense attorney who has supported Leonard Peltier for several years. Mr. Kuzma practices in NY as well as the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd, 8th, and 10th Circuits. He is seeking to obtain the release of 140,000 government documents concerning Leonard Peltier. Mr. Kuzma joined the legal profession believing that the law is a tool to bring about social, political, and economic change. He further believes that what happened to Leonard Peltier could happen to any one of us.

This program is sponsored by The Circle of Supporters for Reformed Offenders and Friends of BaBa Eng. For more information: 716-834-8438 or karima@prisonersarepeopletoo.org.
IPF WEBSITE:
http://users.skynet.be/kola/index.htm
and
www.myspace.com/leonardpeltierisinnocent
IPF e-mail:
ipforum@skynet.be
Also, please visit the website of the
Leonard Peltier Defense Offense Committee (LPDOC):
http://www.whoisleonardpeltier.info/
LPDOC e-mail:
contact@whoisleonardpeltier.info

ALERT: Barrick Gold ready to carve up Western Shoshone sacred mountain

Thanksgiving the “Cortez” Way - U.S. Ignores Western Shoshone Objections – Barrick Gold Readies Itself to Carve up Mount Tenabo Spiritual Area

By Timbisha Shoshone, Western Shoshone and Great Basin Resource Watch
Photo by Erin Hetherington/Oxfam
http://www.bsnorrell.blogspot.com/

November 20, 2008
RENO and CRESCENT VALLEY, Nev. -- Last week, after years of determined opposition from Western Shoshone, the U.S. Department of Interior, through its Bureau of Land Management (BLM), approved one of the largest open pit cyanide heap leach gold mines in the United States on the flank of Mount Tenabo – an area well-known for its spiritual and cultural importance to the Western Shoshone.

The area is home to local Shoshone creation stories, spirit life, medicinal, food and ceremonial plants and items and continues to be used to this day by Shoshone for spiritual and cultural practices. Over the years, tens of thousands of individuals and organizations from across the United States and around the world have joined with the Shoshone and voiced their opposition to this mine. The mine has been referred to as one of the most opposed mines in the world and indeed the level of public opposition is unprecedented for the BLM.

With the threat of mine construction beginning as early as this week, the South Fork Band Council of Western Shoshone, the Timbisha Shoshone Tribe, the Western Shoshone Defense Project, and Great Basin Resource Watch, today filed a complaint in the Reno Federal District Court seeking declaratory and injunctive relief to stop the mine.
Barrick Gold Corporation, the world’s largest gold mining company, headquartered in Toronto, Canada, plans to construct and operate the mine, known as the Cortez Hills Expansion Project. The Project area is located entirely within the territory of the Western Shoshone Nation, recognized in the 1863 Treaty of Ruby Valley. The Mine would blast and excavate a new massive open pit on Mount Tenabo over 900 acres in size, with a depth of over 2,000 feet. It would include several new waste disposal and processing facilities (including a cyanide heap-leaching facility), consisting of approximately 1,577 million tons of waste rock, 53 million tons of tailings material, and 112 million tons of spent heap leach material. The Mine would include an extensive groundwater pumping system to dewater Mount Tenabo (in order to keep the open pit and mine workings dry during mining) and associated water pipelines that will transport the pumped water away from Mount Tenabo. In total, the mine would permanently destroy approximately 6,800 acres land on and around Mount Tenabo, over 90% of which is classified as federal “public” land.
“How are we, as a nation, showing our values, if we allow a transnational corporation to destroy this ‘church’ for all time, just to get 10 years worth of gold.” Says Larson Bill, Vice-Chairman of the South Fork Band Council. “There are dozens of active gold mines on Western Shoshone lands already, there is no need for this one, which is clearly immoral and irresponsible. The public should be aware that Nevada is not a waste land, but is the home of ranchers, sportsmen, fishermen and homesteaders that have enjoyed the lands alongside the Shoshone people for generations. We have been clear in our opposition to this mine and while Barrick tries to cloud the real issues with gifts and money, we continue to oppose this project – they have not bought our people, the traditions nor the lands of the Shoshone.” he adds.
The proposed mine area has been found by the BLM, in repeated ethnographic studies, as being of extreme spiritual and cultural importance to the Western Shoshone. One report says: “Mt. Tenabo is … considered a traditional locus of power and source of life, and figures in creation stories and world renewal. As the tallest mountain in the area – the most likely to capture snow and generate water to grow piñon and nourish life – it is literally a life-giver. Water is to earth what blood is to the body, and these subterranean waterways are likened to the earth’s arteries and veins.”
Carrie Dann, a world renowned Western Shoshone elder, and recipient of the Right Livelihood Award (known as the “alternative Nobel Peace Prize”) has been among those to lead the fight to protect Mount Tenabo from mining for over 15 years. “Mount Tenabo should be left alone – no further disturbance. This mine will drain the water from Mount Tenabo. They will be sucking the water out of the mountain forever. The destruction of the water is like the destruction of the blood of the earth; you are destroying life of the earth and the people and wildlife that depend on it. Dewatering is taking the life of future generations. Water is sacred, all life depends on it,” says Carrie Dann.
“Next week we celebrate Thanksgiving - The question that the courts and the people of this country need to ask themselves is will we continue to tolerate these violations against the First Peoples of this land or will we finally turn the tide of injustice and protect these sacred areas?” Says Julie Cavanaugh-Bill, Consultant to the Western Shoshone Defense Project.
“None of us are opposed to mining, if it is done responsibly, however this project is as irresponsible as it gets. The BLM has a legal responsibility to protect the air, water, and ecological values of the area as well as the religious freedom of Western Shoshone, and to fully analyze the impacts of a proposed project. In each case, this mine would clearly violate the law.” Says Dan Randolph, Executive Director of Great Basin Resource Watch. “This is an example of how the Bush Administration is rushing to protect their corporate friends in their last few months in power. The BLM denied requests to extend the comment period on the Environmental Impact Statement not only from us, but also from several Western Shoshone tribal governments. Therefore, we are forced to now turn to the courts to stop this project. We know that Barrick will begin work on the mine as soon as they can, to cause enough harm in an attempt to make the religious rights arguments moot, and the BLM and Bush Administration appear to be more than willing to help them in every way possible.”
The plaintiffs are being represented in court by Roger Flynn of the non-profit legal firm, the Western Mining Action Project, which specializes in mining, public land, and environmental law.
For more information on the Cortez Hills Project, Mount Tenabo, and the legal challenge go to http://www.gbrw.org/ and http://www.wsdp.org/
For Immediate Release:
Contacts:
Larson Bill, South Fork Band Council of Western Shoshone, 775-744-2565/775-397-6726
Dan Randolph, Great Basin Resource Watch, 775-722-4056
Julie Cavanaugh-Bill, Western Shoshone Defense Project, 775-397-1371

Reno Gazette: Western Shoshone file suit to stop gold mine

Appeals Court: Shell's Arctic Drilling Plan Illegal

Shell Oil’s Arctic Offshore Drilling Plan Illegal says 9th Circuit Court of Appeals

By REDOIL

Censored News

http://www.bsnorrell.blogspot.com

photo http://www.alaskawild.org/

SAN FRANCISCO -- The U.S. Department of Interior’s Minerals Management Service (MMS) illegally approved plans by Shell Offshore Inc. to drill for oil in the Beaufort Sea off the north coast of Alaska according to a Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruling. The court previously blocked activity under Shell’s exploration plan while it considered arguments that the plan presented substantial risks to polar bears, endangered whales, and subsistence-hunting communities.

Today’s order sends Shell’s drilling plan back to MMS to meet legal obligations to fully analyze and disclose impacts from drilling on the rapidly changing Arctic environment.

A coalition of Alaska Native organizations and conservation groups sued to halt drilling because large-scale industrial activities threaten endangered bowhead whales, polar bears and other marine animals in coastal waters just off the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

“We are very pleased that our case prevailed today,” Faith Gemmill, Executive Director of the REDOIL Network commented. “We strongly opposed the plan due to our relevant concerns related to the violation of subsistence rights of Inupiat by the proposed offshore development of the Beaufort Sea . The plan to drill offshore has been on a fast track without proper review of the impacts to the bowhead whale and Inupiat subsistence way of life which is so interconnected with the ocean. This victory upholds the inherent subsistence right of the Inupiat way of life.”

“Today’s decision shows that our system works. MMS is now required to complete environmental review, as required by the law,” said Betsy Beardsley of the Alaska Wilderness League. “This review is essential. New data shows that a large portion of Alaska ’s bowhead population, currently listed as endangered, uses the area Shell wants to drill.”

The Arctic is undergoing major shifts due to climate change. Summer sea ice is retreating rapidly – reaching record minima during the past two summers. The changes raise major concerns about the survival of wildlife – such as the polar bear – that call the Arctic home. In spite of these dramatic, observed changes, however, the Bush administration charged ahead, opening this fragile environment to oil and gas activity, without following environmental laws.

“If polar bears and other ice-dependent species are to survive as the Arctic melts in the face of global warming, we need to protect their critical habitat, not turn it into an industrial zone,” said Rebecca Noblin of the Center for Biological Diversity.

Robert Thompson, Kaktovik resident and REDOIL member states: “It is a relief that the Court at least makes MMS go back and analyze the potential impacts of Shell’s plan. Noise and traffic from drilling has the potential to harm our subsistence way of life. The costs of drilling in the Beaufort Sea will lie with the local communities of the North Slope . Shell Oil consistently has not answered our questions. Offshore drilling plans and Arctic Refuge development are interrelated issues. It is my hope that the ocean and the land will be saved for future generations of Inupiat.”

Shell had been granted permission by the MMS to drill as many as twelve wells over the course of three years using multiple drill ships, ice breakers, supply boats, and aircraft. During the first year of the plan, Shell had proposed to drill wells in an area important to migrating endangered bowhead whales and to subsistence harvest of Inupiat villages along the Beaufort Sea .

“This is yet another signal that the Obama Administration needs to revisit the nation’s energy policy,” said Whit Sheard, Alaska Program Director for Pacific Environment. “We simply can’t allow giveaways to Big Oil, such as the 70 million acres offered in the Arctic, to pass for an energy policy—especially in an area where our addiction to fossil fuels is already endangering wildlife and threatening traditional communities.”

“This decision shows oil companies can't get away with killing animals and destroying communities’ sources of food without owning up to it. This type of devastating oil exploration just isn’t worth it,” said Charles Clusen, director of the Alaska project for the Natural Resources Defense Council.

“This decision confirms the Bush administration rushed to approve Shell’s drilling plan without doing a full review of impacts to endangered whales and the subsistence way of life of people in the region,” said Eric Jorgensen of Earthjustice.

Groups challenging the permit were the Alaska Wilderness League, Sierra Club, Natural Resources Defense Council, Pacific Environment, Center for Biological Diversity, and Resisting Environmental Destruction on Indigenous Lands (REDOIL), all represented by Earthjustice. The North Slope Borough and Alaska Eskimo Whaling Commission also challenged the drilling plan.

Please repost and distribute statement.

Mohawk Nation News: Secret Military Exercises Report

PAINT BALL GAME GONE WILD!
SECRET MILITARY EXERCISES NEAR MOHAWK COMMUNITIES?
[In-depth Report]

Photo 1: Fort Bliss, Texas.

Photo 2 map: Northcom map removed from web shortly after being posted by the Pentagon.

Mohawk Nation News

Nov. 19, 2008. If Canada is such a peace loving country, why is it saber rattling and playing war games like "Vigilant Shield 09"? Huge military exercises are taking place on Turtle Island this month. These are being run by "NorthCom" and "NORAD" [North American AeroDefence Command]. NorthCom works with "Canada Command" and coordinates civil incidents through the U.S. Department of Homeland Security DHS. This has nothing to do with Afghanistan. It has to do with "civil" control, not democracy. The Canadian part is called "Determined Dragon, Trillium Response". [What bunch of jerks made this one up? Sounds like some kind of teenage fantasy video? These guys are scary!]

In the U.S. during a "disaster or emergency" JTF-CS operates within a Department of Defense chain of command that begins and ends with the President of the U.S. Canada is on this dog chain. In other words, it gave up its independence. Civilian agencies, including "State, local, territorial, and tribal [band] governments, and private sector owners and operators of critical infrastructure," would be controlled by the military. They define the "disaster" that will lead to world domination.

What's going on here? Details are scarce, especially on the Trenton Air Force Base aspect which is near the Mohawk community of Tyendinaga. Another exercise is going on in Hamilton, near Six Nations. Another in Thunder Bay. Are there others? Is it a coincidence that these are mostly next to Ongwehonwe communities?

The main focus is "Communications Interoperability" to coordinate various agencies: the military, Joint Task Force JTF, army, navy and air force; all police agencies, RCMP, OPP, CBSA, "Aboriginal" police, municipal police; emergency responders, ambulances, fire trucks, rail security and select government bureaucrats; and the effected private sector such as nuclear reactors. "Interoperability" means coordinating all their goons and thugs to have "Joint War Games".

It looks more like an exercise designed to set up the infra structure needed to impose "martial law". Communications and radio frequencies will come under one command. The new device called the "Incident Commanders" Radio Interface looks like a cigar box, about 5" x 8" x 2". It can be held by one wired-up adolescent to receive and send messages to all these agencies during an emergency, natural or man-made disaster, including a "terrorist attack". But who and where are the terrorists? The only scary guys in the neighborhood is them!

NORAD is the North American AeroDefense Command, a U.S.-Canada control center based in Colorado, that is supposed to warn of an attack by aircraft or missiles. ProjectHAARP is the Pentagon-run "High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program" with plans to heat the earth's ionosphere, using high frequency radio waves. How do we know they haven't already been doing this? The military can send signals to nuclear subs and spy deeply underground [www.haarp.net]. This is based near Anchorage, Alaska where military exercises are going on too. E Systems which is owned by Raytheon has the defense contract to run this. [They're the biggest arms makers and dealers in the world.]

It's all scripted. The U.S. has a "Hollywood Style" National Training Center NTC in California and Joint Readiness Training Center JRTC in Louisiana. They're not teaching peace. They're teaching warfare against Iraq and Afghanistan and whoever else gets in their way. Hi fi simulations are created, complete with mock towns and actors portraying natives and insurgents. One actor even dresses like a "tribal sheik". Bombs are exploded and rockets stream in from the countryside. Civilians scream and scatter. The victims wear gory make up to simulate bloody wounds and morbid deaths. Injured civilians are left behind by the soldiers. The soldiers secure the town before going in to meet with the "regional governor", supposedly "to win over the locals" but actually to get information from him in exchange for money. The young natives are taken away to Abu Ghraib for questioning. [It has already been established that the methods used there include torture and death]. Observers judge and grade each performance. Our question is who are the "traitors" who help them set up these scenarios?[www.worldpoliticsreview.com] Are these same guys writing the script for Bin Laden and Al Qaida too? Meanwhile the Taliban will just have to keep on improvising!

In Canada in the 1990s, after the Mohawk-Oka Crisis, a mockup of the Mohawk community of Kahnawake was created at a New Brunswick army base to help soldiers practice warfare on us. Who played the Mohawks? Who played the cowardly treasonous band council? It gets worse! In Saskatchewan the target at the police shooting range was a stereotypical Indigenous woman.

Doing so many exercises in our communities is meant to desensitize us to the presence of armed soldiers over, around us and in our back yards. We forget the danger. We'll be close targets when the guns are turned on us.

Even more sinister is that these exercises can act as a cover for "real"/pretext events such as 911, the London bombings and the Oklahoma City bombing. It was hard to sort out what was real and what was an exercise. Cities where exercises have taken place such as Seattle are considered as being "prepped" for martial law.

These exercises involve hundreds of people, dozens of vehicles, boats, UAVs, helicopters and planes. Thunder Bay is the furthest inland port where large ships can load and unload and where rail and truck lines meet. Right now nuclear reactors are arriving here on their way to the Alberta oil sands. Rumors abound that these exercises will involve a simulated nuclear attack. At the same time US exercises are taking place in Alaska near the HAARP weather modification installation and in California where wild fires are now raging.

The Thunder Bay exercise will combine a severe weather event and emergency situations to create various scenarios. The first part will be an incident with a container ship along the federal port. Simulated will be collapsed buildings, human casualties, and toxic spills. The second will involve a rail incident. Simulated will be a response to a train fire/explosion and resulting toxic spill. Of course, they're trying to recruit Ongwehonwe for the military because they want "expendable" people to do their dangerous work.

For this, National "Defense" [offense?] will transport the Toronto Heavy Urban Search and Rescue group to Thunder Bay on a Globemaster aircraft: between 400 and 550 military personnel from the Immediate Response Unit (IRU) and 63 Domestic Response Company to arrive on 22 Nov. 2008 and leave by 25 Nov. 2008.

Involved may be the local civilian authorities such as "primary responders", provincial authorities, imbedded media, the Coast Guard (to provide fire fighting and power generation), the RCMP and Naval Reserve divers. Included are "personal development activities"! [Steve Carroll, National Defence, 416-633-6200 ext. 5808, Fax: 613-631-5349 Carroll.SL@forces.gc.carefer to CEAR 08-01-39685]

Our Haudenosaunee territory includes many "strategic infrastructures" such as nuclear reactors, nuclear waste stockpiles, chemical factories, rail hubs and harbors. The Great-Lakes St. Lawrence is a major industrial area. The military needs the nuclear stockpile. By the way, whatever happened to the 500 tons of yellowcake that was dumped off in Montreal harbor last July 2008? It was in the papers. Then we never heard about it again.

Government agencies and actors roped into this "war movie" include Public Safety, Health Canada and Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade. Guess what? Indian Affairs is in there like a dirty shirt? Why? This is coming right out of our budget for desperately needed clean water, housing, education and medical care. The "chain of command" starts at the Pentagon. Peter "Flat-Foot" Fisher of the Aboriginal Policing Directorate at Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness Canada is the link to the "aboriginal police" involved in the exercise [613-990-2666 fax: 613-991-0691].

The recent horrific crash that killed three non-natives at the Cornwall Ontario border checkpoint in Akwesasne last week was a similar multi-"service" operation, by the Canada Border Services Agency CBSA, the Ontario Provincial Police OPP, the RCMP and the Akwesasne Mohawk Police. The guys on steroids with guns and fast cars are obviously trying to take control.

The Mohawk Police were chasing and ramming the van driven by the 21 year old non-native youth that ended in a dramatic fiery fatal crash. The cops created the kind of catastrophe they say they are protecting the public from. Two days later, while military exercises were going on in Hamilton, there was another strangely similar high speed chase of a non-native into the 6 Nations community which ended up in a crash and shoot out. Is this coincidence or was it planned?

We're still waiting for answers at Akwesasne. Why didn't ambulances and nearby fire trucks take action immediately? Why did the Mohawk cops go straight for the load of cigarettes and not help the victims? Why were witnesses told to stop talking to the media about anything they saw? Was this staged to make an excuse to bring in the outside colonial agencies that don't have jurisdiction but we can't seem to get rid of? Watch out! They might be installing surveillance devices everywhere, like they did in Kanehsatake, or planting weapons to come in and raid us.

What's going on? Are these lunatics trying to bring martial law into our communities because the colonists are saying we can't handle the bedlam they're creating? The fascist method is to isolate and eliminate the source of greatest resistance to their plans. Let's face it, folks, right now one of the main resisters is the freedom loving Ongwehoneh. The military interest in us could have something to do with the fact that all the land and resources of Turtle Island belong to us. In the US militant groups are getting more scared and more armed. Frightened people with guns is a dangerous scenario! Nobody wants that.

Iako'ha:kowa & MNN Staff - Mohawk Nation News www.mohawknationnews.com kittoh@storm.ca, Katenies20@yahoo.com, kahentinetha2@yahoo.com

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Sign Women Title Holders petition! http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/Iroquois

FEDERAL PARLIAMENT STARTS NOV.18. EMAILS FOR MP'S:
VanLoan.P@parl.gc.ca, clabchuk@greenparty.ca, Baird.J@parl.gc.ca,
Clement.T@parl.gc.ca, leader@greenparty.ca, Cannon.L@parl.gc.ca,
Barbot.V@parl.gc.ca, Sorenson.K@parl.gc.ca, Dewar.P@parl.gc.ca, Khan.W@parl.gc.ca,
Patry.B@parl.gc.ca, ThibaLo@parl.gc.ca, ChongM@parl.gc.ca, TrostB@parl.gc.ca,
BigraB@parl.gc.ca, CardiS@parl.gc.ca, LafraM@parl.gc.ca, CulleN@parl.gc.ca,
GallaC@parl.gc.ca, HawnL@parl.gc.ca, McTeaD@parl.gc.ca, AlghaO@parl.gc.ca,
AnderDa@parl.gc.ca, BevinD@parl.gc.ca, DebelC@parl.gc.ca, OuellCh@parl.gc.ca,
CrowdJ@parl.gc.ca, ChowO@parl.gc.ca, LunnG@parl.gc.ca, BerniM@parl.gc.ca,
StrahC@parl.gc.ca, MilliP@parl.gc.ca, Hill.J@parl.gc.ca, MacKay.P@parl.gc.ca,
Bell.C@parl.gc.ca, Kramp.D@parl.gc.ca, Brown.G@parl.gc.ca, DelMastro.D@parl.gc.ca,
Dewar.P@parl.gc.ca, Coderre.D@parl.gc.ca, DionS@parl.gc.ca, Comartin.J@parl.gc.ca,
Oda.B@parl.gc.ca, OConnor.G@parl.gc.ca, Solberg.M@parl.gc.ca, Atamaa1@parl.gc.ca,
blackd@parl.gc.ca, Black.D@parl.gc.ca,
Ambrose.R@parl.gc.ca, Toews.V@parl.gc.ca, Emerson.D@parl.gc.ca,
Blackburn.J@parl.gc.ca, Hanger.A@parl.gc.ca, McDonough.A@parl.gc.ca,
Paradis.C@parl.gc.ca, Moore.J@parl.gc.ca, Mulcair.T@parl.gc.ca,
Duceppe.G@parl.gc.ca, Barbot.V@parl.gc.ca, Layton.J@parl.gc.ca,

Some contacts and provocateurs of our misery: Governor General GG Michaelle "Haitian-Against-the-Nation" Jean info@gg.ca;
Prime Minister Stephen "Corporate-Hatchet-Man" Harper, (613) 992-4211 Fax: (613) 941-6900, Harper.S@parl.gc.ca;
Peter "Electro-Magnetic-Slime-Bucket-Bully" MacKay, Minister of National Defence and Minister for the Atlantic Gateway, (613) 992-6022 Fax: (613) 992-2337, MacKay.P@parl.gc.ca, Constituency office (902) 863-7005 Fax: (902) 863-7006, (902) 752-0226 Fax: (902) 752-0284, (902) 885-3490 Fax: (902) 885-3179;
Peter "Pumpkin-Eater-and-Trough-Licker" Van Loan, Minister of Public Safety, Constituency Office T 905-898-1600 or 1-877-738-3748, F 905-898-4600, vanlop1@parl.gc.caor VanLoan.P@parl.gc.ca, Parliament Hill Office 613-996-7752 F 613-992-8351, vanloan.p@parl.gc.ca;
Mugger Chuckie "Wants-to-show-the-world-how-to-attack-Ongwehonwe-children-women-men" Strahl Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern
Development and Federal Interlocutor for Métis and Non-Status Indians
StrahC@parl.gc.ca, 819-997-0002, Fax 819-953-4941; Telephone: (613) 992-2940 Fax:(613) 944-9376;

THE OTTAWA CABAL. Public Safety [Danger]: Minister Peter
"Pumpkin-Eater-and-Trough-Licker" Van Loan;
Suzanne "Hurts-to-be-Herself" Hurtubise DM 613- 991-2895;
Myles "Away-from-Reality" Kirvan ADM 613- 990-2633, 613-949-0322;
Chantal "Dirty-Fingers-in-Every-Pie" Bernier ADM Community Safety [Endangerment] and Partnerships (613) 993-4325;
Scott "ODB" Broughton Sr ADM Emergency [Mis] Management and National [In]Security(613) 991-2820;
Lynda "Useless-Forked-Tongued-Drone" Clairmont ADM, same as "ODB" (613) 990-4976;
Daniel "Pepsi-and-May-West" Lavoie DG Communications (613) 990-2743; Elisabeth "Botox-from-Head-to-Toe" Nadeau ADM, Corporate Theft (613) 990-2615;
Kristina "Fingers-Getting-Itchier-and-Itchier-to-push-the-Trigger" Namiesniowski ADM Strategic Policy (613) 949-6435;
Eva "Nosey-Nit-Picker" PlunkettInspector Field "General"of CSIS (613) 949-0675;
Richard "Diarrhea-Mouth" Wex ADM Policing, Law Enforcement & Interoperability(613) 990-2703.
The biggest safety risk for us Ongwehonwe is this ADM cabal of agents.

Health Canada, partners with the US through the Canada-US Joint Radiological Response Plan, under the Federal Nuclear Emergency Plan;
(no current contact info available for Minister Leona Aglukkaq)
Foreign Affairs Lawrence "Chinese-Food-Glutton-at-Taxpyers-Expense" Cannon613-992-5516Fax 613-992-6802; 819-441-2510Fax: (819) 441-2680; (819) 281-2626Fax: (819) 281-2755 Cannon.L@parl.gc.ca;
Minister of International Trade and Minister for the Asia-Pacific Gateway Stockwell Day Telephone: (613) 995-1702 Fax: (613) 995-1154
EMail: Day.S@parl.gc.ca


LINKS:
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2008/10/410779.html
http://tinyurl.com/4x8o8p
http://www.topix.com/forum/source/eureka-times-standard/T3SKIPLLRMPUSTFAC
http://www.northcom.mil/News/2008/110508.html
Monday, November 10, 2008, US NORTHCOM Exercise Vigilant Shield 09
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2008/11/13-0
http://policechiefmagazine.org/magazine/index.cfm?fuseaction=display_arch&article_id=1162&issue_id=42007
CAP (Civil Assistance Plan) at www.canadacom.forces.gc.ca/docs/pdf/cap_e.pdf
Joint Task Force-Civil Support(JTF-CS) http://www.jtfcs.northcom.mil/
Exercise Trillium Response 08 http://www.ceaa.gc.ca/050/Viewer_e.cfm?CEAR_ID=39685
http://www.defenseindustrydaily.com/Canada-to-Spend-C-500-Million-on-CFB-Trenton-05059/
http://www.reach.net/~bqac/ The Bay of QuinteAeromodellers
http://www.defensetech.org/archives/cat_training_and_sims.html
http://www.firerescue1.com/fire-products/communications/interoperability/press-releases/240205-Army-National-Guards-Civil-Support-Teams-Gain-First-Response-Interoperability-with-Other-Agencies/
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/ops/northern-edge-2007.htm
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/ops/ex.htm
US Military Exercises: The Mindset: The more you sweat in peace time, the less you bleed in combat.
National Response Plan; Civil Assistance Plan; Canada-U.S. Combined Defense Plan(CDP); C-AT's "Incident Commanders' Radio Interface" Equipment; Communication interoperability, IACP State and Provincial Police Division(S&P); Canada Command Direction for Domestic Operations;

ASK THE POLITICIAN ABOUT: rerouting 401 traffic in Toronto; evacuations; Lake Ontario ships, subs and planes, UAVs; dangers of fires and smoke; how many soldiers? how many US?; how many cops and others?; telecommunications: controlling the airwaves, radio "Incident Commanders"; Radio Interface from a "cigar box"; are the Mohawks a "trial run" or something bigger like martial law?; what are the
"terrorist" scenarios?; are they part of the weather, hurricane or earthquake scenario?; what are "Critical Infrastructure Protection", like nuclear reactors, oil refineries, etc.; What do drugs & cigarette busts have to do with it?; do exercises demonstrate US flexing, resolve and capability to protect U.S. military power & national interests?; how do they feel about complaints to try to prevent a "false flag"or "pretext" event like 911 or the London bombings?; "Exposure to live ammo so that the participants handle it with a fear and reverence..." http://www.ceaa.gc.ca/050/Viewer_e.cfm?CEAR_ID=39685

Algonquins arrested at barricade

Six arrested at highway blockade
Algonquins seek action on elections, land-use claims
Canwest News Service
Published: 7 hours ago
"One (arrested protester) was bleeding very bad ... another was slapped to the ground and her face hit the concrete," Matchewan said. "We were being pushed into our community, people were being pushed off the highway."
Matchewan said Chief Benjamin Nottaway, author of a letter to Premier Jean Charest on Monday condemning the action of the police during a previous barricade protest, was among six people arrested.
Read article:
http://www.canada.com/montrealgazette/news/story.html?id=fd382dd9-4d74-44ee-84c7-99ae70417a26

Police arrest five Algonquins defending land, including chief

Wednesday, November 19, 2008
SQ riot squad arrest 5 Algonquins, including Acting Chief Benjamin Nottaway

By Barriere Lake Defenders of the Land
Kitiganik/Rapid Lake, Algonquin Territory / - SQ officers and a Riot Squad arrested five Barriere Lake Algonquins, including a targeted arrest of Acting Chief Benjamin Nottaway, after forcing community members off highway 117, during their fourth in a series of blockades over a period of seven hours.
"Chief Nottaway sent a letter to Premier Charest on Monday requesting that the government resolve political issues through negotiations rather than police violence," said community spokesperson Norman Matchewan."Blockades are a tactic of last resort. For two decades now all we've asked is that Quebec and Canada honour signed agreements but they prefer to play with our lives."
As the community was pushed off the highway for the last time at 2:30 pm, riot police broke out of formation to chase and arrest Acting Chief Nottaway. His was the second targeted arrest of the day. Community youth spokesperson Marylynn Poucachiche, mother of five and organizer of the community school, was arrested at one of the morning blockades after being reassured by police that no arrests would be made since protesters had agreed to leave peacefully.
One community member was pushed to the ground and kicked by several SQ officers before being arrested.
"The police dragged him with his head on the ground all the way to the police car," said one community member.
Another woman from the community fell while being pushed back onto the access road leading to the Barriere Lake reserve, and hit her head. She was subsequently arrested.
Media Contacts: Norman Matchewan, Barriere Lake spokesperson: 819 – 435 – 2171, 514 - 831 - 6902
Marylynn Poucachiche, Barriere Lake spokesperson: 514 - 893 - 8283, 819 - 860 - 3860
Norman Young, Grand Chief of the Algonquin Nation Secretariat: 819 - 627 - 6869

Bahe Katenay: On Big Mountain, building the earth lodge

By Bahe Katenay
Sheep Dog Nation Rocks

Published with permission

Navajo Big Mountain matriarch Pauline Whitesinger stands next to her earth lodge that began collapsing in late 2007. Photo copyright Bahe Katenay.

BIG MOUNTAIN, Black Mesa (Arizona), November 18, 2008 – A nice peaceful morning in the Dineh resistance stronghold known as Sweet Water was again disrupted by a uniformed officer from the Office of Hopi Lands. This officer who had a badge that indicated he was with the Hopi tribal police claimed he was not serving a “noticed” on behalf of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, nor the U.S. government. The small 82 year old matriarch, Pauline Whitesinger, was trying to speak in the Dineh language to the thick and tall Indian officer that cannot understand Dineh and who was ‘assigned’ to meet with (grandma) Pauline about her “unauthorized” reconstruction of a traditional earth lodge.
He had photo-copies of Pauline’s earth lodge with some additional documents that he referred to as ‘complaints’ from a recent officer that discovered this construction in May 2008. As another Dineh gentleman showed up at the scene, the officer immediately walked over to seek a translator –something he should have seek within his own law enforcement department. The officer only wanted two questions answered:
‘Why is she building this hogan without Permission?’
‘What is she going to do with this hogan or why does she need it?’
The Dineh gentleman attempted to clarify the issues by asking if the tribal police agency keep a record of conversations made with Grandma Whitesinger or other documents related to her position about residential rights that she has been denied. The officer had no knowledge about recent records or about the history of this resister’s position toward the relocation and the land-partitioning policies throughout the 30 plus years, or throughout all the years that equaled this young officer’s age.
“Why she does this without permission is because she does not recognized the authority of the U.S. government or (your) alien and foreign authority,” the Dineh man clarifies.
“Grandma, here, still recognizes the supreme authorities of the local deities and she also honors her ancestors’ legacies. She truly and deeply believes that is where she receives the ‘official’ authorization to rebuild this traditional lodge.”
The translator adds, “The hogan is part of her ancient culture and it is necessary to her being. Not only is it for ceremonial purposes but it is her home where she will be warmer in the winter as opposed to that cinderblock and un-insulated house. There, you have heard the same repeated answers to your same concerns!”
The officer who seemed to be wasting his time by bringing up the same concerns and question asked as he tried to keep his authoritarian composure, “What do you mean ‘alien’?!” The translator’s reply again is rhetorical, “Well, since you are not here on behalf the feds or the BIA, are you here on behalf of the traditional Hopis?”
As if he had to answer that question, the officer explained, “The traditional Hopis are all gone!”
The translator reassures, “Your official duty today is alien because of that, because you represent something alien and a traditional Hopi would not tell us that we, Dineh, exist without permission…”
“No, (we) are a ‘new’ generation,” states the young but determined and armed officer.
Still at ease, the translator wishes no further dialogue concludes, “Yeah, a ‘new’ generation with alien-forms of idea and perceptions…”
Grandma Pauline who hates these sorts of police visits tells the translator, “I like to hear a summary of what you two have said to each other, but I also want to say this to him. Since May of this year your fellow officers and perhaps, you yourself as well would drive by slowly or sometime they would stop along that road, there. Then, very recently when I asked some helpers to begin working on the roof of the lodge, a ranger truck parked on that road and they seemed to be looking through binoculars. After all the prowling around and all this time, you finally come to me asking two questions.
“Leave the lodge alone! Let me dwell here freely! My only intention is to exist here as my forefathers have and I don’t intend to bother you.”
A Commentary with Recommendation:
After the lost deputy left, Grandma Pauline made further comments about the state of society, Chief Loner wonders also: “Where is that activism? Especially, indigenous activisms like AIM or other urban Indian bands of activist? Is activism only a fashion or an expression trend?”
This grandmother matriarch has stood her ground out in the remote country of Big Mountain for over thirty years. Now, it really seems that society sees her the same way the oppressors does, “those lawless Navajos.” Members of society who expressed humanitarian thought through Gandhi or MLK, or those who recently ‘voted’ to put colour in the White (marble) City of the district of Columbus do not seem to care about spirituality and ancient culture.
Does (it) only come down to fulfillment? Like, “I have voted and I won so, my efforts were fulfilled.”
There is evidence that the traditional Hopi resisters to modernization have questioned the state of society and perhaps, they felt that society has no time for ancient cultural and spiritual ways. So, as long as one, individual traditional life knows they have fulfilled their spiritual obligation and if the rest of the community chose to adapt to the “new generation,” an individual traditional life will conclude it has fulfilled his or hers.
Society and non-Indian activism are more into an eco-management mentality by addressing institutional-designed environmental policies and questions. The old Indian traditions of land base society are now obsolete. Pauline Whitesinger in her remote corner of the universe somehow and always know about the state of the world politics without going on the internet or reading bibles on how to be an activist and to have ‘love.’
Grandmother Pauline who is still strong said something that was quite shocking, “I don’t care anymore. I will build that lodge and (they) can come out with their heavy machine and level the hogan! I don’t care anymore because I’m old and cannot maintain my herd of sheep and goats, and (they) can haul all them away, too. At least, I may have fewer worries and just sit in this little house everyday and look out onto the empty lands.”
Grandma’s final comment about that morning’s disruption was that the ranger-police was actually not wasting his time:
“He is the initial point of a plan. What will follow after today’s visit might become a stupid move for them. All these years the United States has been trying to make the so-called, ‘Navajo-Hopi Land Dispute’ happen…”
© Sheep Dog Nation Rocks 2008

“Once social change begins, it cannot be reversed. You cannot uneducated the person who learned to read. You cannot humiliate the person who feels pride. You cannot oppress the people who are not afraid anymore. We have seen the future, and the future is ours!”
--Cesar Chavez, (activist & educator)

Barriere Lake Algonquins erect second barricade, call for help

By Barriere Lake Defenders

Briefing package click

Censored News

http://www.bsnorrell.blogspot.com/
Wednesday, November 19, 2008

NEWS ALERT

Noon, Wednesday, November 19, 2008

Kitiganik/Rapid Lake, Algonquin Territory / - The Barriere Lake Algonquins have blocked highway 117 by gathering in the middle of the road, after Quebec police dismantled their log blockades earlier in the day, and have now been put on notice that the Riot Police will arrive momentarily.Community spokesperson Marylynn Poucachiche has been arrested for obstruction and mischief and is currently detained.

Kitiganik/Rapid Lake, Algonquin Territory / - This morning at 7:30am, Barriere Lake community members of all ages and their supporters once again peacefully blockaded highway 117 outside their reserve, demanding that Quebec and Canada send in negotiators rather than resort to police violence. During the Algonquin's first blockade on October 6th, 2008, Quebec police used tear gas and "pain compliance" techniques against a peaceful crowd that included Elders, youth, and children, arrested nine people, and hospitalized a Customary Councillor after hitting him in the chest with a tear-gas canister, drawing criticism from international human rights groups, the Chiefs of Ontario, and the Christian Peacemakers Team. [ http://blip.tv/file/1391794 ]
The Algonquins promise to maintain the blockade until Canada and Quebec commit in writing to honour their agreements and Canada appoints an observer to witness and respect the outcome of a new leadership selection in Barriere Lake in accordance with their Customary Governance Code.
"Instead of doing the dirty work of the federal government, Quebec should implement its agreements and immediately lobby the federal government to deal fairly with our community," said Norman Matchewan, a community spokesperson on-site at the blockade. "Charest's brutal treatment of our community shows his government has absolutely no respect for the rights of Indigenous peoples, which should be an urgent matter of debate during the provincial election."
Barriere Lake wants Canada and Quebec to uphold signed agreements, dating back to the 1991 Trilateral Agreement, a landmark sustainable development and resource co-management agreement praised by the United Nations and the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples. Canada has been in breach of the agreement since 2001. Quebec signed a complementary Bilateral agreement in 1998, but has stalled since two former Quebec Cabinet Ministers, Quebec special representative John Ciaccia and Barriere Lake special representative Clifford Lincoln, made recommendations for the agreement's implementation in 2006.
"To avoid their obligations, the federal government has deliberately violated our leadership customs by ousting our Customary Chief and Council," said Matchewan. "In what amounts to a coup d'etat, they are recognizing a Chief and Council rejected by a community majority. The Quebec government is cooperating with the federal government because they are using the leadership issue as an excuse to bury the 1991 and 1998 Agreements they signed with our First Nation."
In November 2007 the legitimate leadership of Barriere Lake had issued a ban on new forestry operations in the Trilateral Territory until Quebec implemented their agreements, but the province and forestry companies have used the leadership change as an opportunity to cut new logging roads [in preparation for logging operations] without permission from the legitimate Barriere Lake representatives.
On March 10th, 2008, for the third time in 12 years, the Government of Canada interfered in Barriere Lake's internal customary governance. They rescinded recognition of the Customary Chief and Council and recognized individuals whom the Barriere Lake Elder's Council says were not selected in accordance with their Customary Governance Code.
"The federal government pretends this is simply an internal issue," says Marylynn Poucachiche, another Barriere Lake spokesperson on-site. "But we can only resolve the situation if the federal government appoints an observer to witness a new leadership selection that is truly in accordance with our Customary Governance Code, promises to respect the outcome, and then stops interfering in our internal affairs."
In 2007, Quebec Superior Court Judge Rejean Paul issued a report that concluded that the current faction recognized by the federal government was a "small minority" that "didn't respect the Customary Governance Code" in an alleged leadership selection in 2006 [2]. The federal government recognized this minority faction after they conducted another alleged leadership selection in January 2008, even though an observer's report the government relied on stated there was no "guarantee" that the Customary Governance Code was respected [3].
The Algonquin Nation Secretariat, the Tribal Council representing three Algonquin communities including Barriere Lake, continues to recognize and work with Customary Chief Benjamin Nottaway and his Council.
In Montreal at noon, supporters of Barriere Lake will rally in front of the office of Premier Jean Charest at the southeast corner of McGill College and Sherbrooke.
Media Contacts:
Norman Matchewan, Barriere Lake spokesperson: 819 – 435 – 2171, 514 - 831 - 6902
Marylynn Poucachiche, Barriere Lake spokesperson:514 - 893 - 8283, 819 - 860 - 3860
Norman Young, Grand Chief of the Algonquin Nation Secretariat: 819 - 627 - 6869

Barriere Lake Algonquins: Taking a Sovereign Stand

Call for Support from the Algonquins of Barriere Lake to Defenders of the Land

By Barriere Lake Defenders

Photo 2008: Police fire tear gas at Algonquins at Barriere Lake

(Nov. 18, 2008) In the upcoming week, the Algonquins of Barriere Lake will be taking action on our traditional territory. We realize that many of you have consensus decision making processes that may take time, but we are urgently requesting your community's support in the form of endorsements and a letter sent to key government officials on the day-of or in the days following our actions.
We are demanding that Canada and Quebec honour our signed resource co-management deal, the Trilateral and Bilateral agreements, and that Canada appoints an observer to witness and respect the outcome of a new leadership selection in Barriere Lake in accordance with our Customary Governance Code in order to normalize our leadership situation and our relations with the government.
The Government of Canada and the Government of Quebec have replaced our Chief and Council because our leaders were continuing to demand that they honour the agreements they entered into with our First Nation. This is a repeat of what they tried to do to us in 1996-1997, when the Canadian government recognized and tried to impose a minority faction on us. To prevent future interference in our customary governance, we codified our customs at the time into Mitchikanibikok Anishinabe Onakinakewin (the Barriere Lake Customary Code), but this has proved little deterrent to more government meddling. But our Customary Chief and Council continue to be recognized by our Tribal Council, the Algonquin Nation Secretariat.

Read more:

http://censored-news.blogspot.com/2008/11/algonquins-of-barriere-lake-taking.html

Cheney indicted for prison profiteering

Cheney and former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales indicted for criminal conspiracy in private prison profiteering, resulting in prisoner assaults

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

WILLACY COUNTY, Texas -- US Vice President Dick Cheney was indicted today for a prison profiteering scheme and charged with abuse of prisoners. Cheney invested millions in the Vanguard Group, an investment management company with interests in the prison companies in charge of detention centers. Former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales was also indicted in the prison profiteering scheme, resulting in ongoing prisoner assaults and at least one murder.
Human rights activists urged a probe into prison profiteering after the private prison corporation GEO Group and CCA (Corrections Corporation of America) began receiving numerous federal contracts to build detention centers. GEO's new contracts included migrant prisons in Laredo, Texas and Jena, Louisiana.
Human rights activists said the fever-pitched racism mounted in the US was induced for the purpose of prison profiteering by US officials reaping enormous profits. The increased arrests of migrants resulted in profits and a long list of new prison construction contracts for the GEO Group, formerly Wackenhut, both with a long history of assaults and murders in prisons.

A Texas grand jury indicted Cheney today and accused him of at least misdemeanor assaults of inmates by allowing inmates to assault fellow inmates. Gonzales was charged with having used his position to stop investigations into assaults committed in a prison for profit in Willacy County, Texas. Both Cheney and Gonzales were charged with engaging in organized criminal activity.
Last month, a Willacy County grand jury indicted the GEO Group, on a murder charge in the death of a prisoner days before his release in 2001. The indictment alleged the GEO Group allowed other inmates to beat Gregorio de la Rosa Jr. to death with padlocks stuffed into socks. The death happened at the Raymondville facility. A jury ordered the company to pay de la Rosa's family $47.5 million in a civil judgment in 2006. The Cheney-Gonzales indictment refers to the de la Rosa case.
Human rights activists protested both Raymondville and Hutto prisons in southwestern Texas in recent years. At Hutto, migrant women and children were abused. ICE refused to allow a UN Rapporteur into Hutto.

During the Bush-Cheney regime, prisons of torture and prisons for migrants became synonymous with the name GEO, from Guantanamo to migrant prisons in the south and along the southwest border.
Cheney said Guantanamo was vital in 2005 and detainees could expect to be treated better here than "by virtually any other government on the face of the earth."
Geo was awarded a contract for the continued management of the Migrant Operations Center in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, in Nov. 2, 2006. Recently, GEO received a contract for a migrant prison in Jena, La. GEO also received a contract for housing "criminal aliens" in the US, as stated on the GEO website.
GEO's migrant prisons were not restricted to the US. GEO also assumed a management contract in the Campsfield House Immigration Removal Center in England.
GEO was not the only one profiteering. The Wackenhut Corp. was also profiteering from transporting migrants from the border after their arrests. The two companies split in 2003.
All along the border, while GEO was building prisons, GEO's other half, Wackenhut Corp., was profiteering from the arrest of migrants from the borders. The United States Customs and Border Protection agency entered into the contract with Wackenhut Corp., which is now the domestic subsidiary of the U.K.-based security giant Group 4 Securicor, to transport migrants from the borders.
It comes as no surprise that the Vanguard Group is also currently a major shareholder in Halliburton, the longtime war profiteer in Iraq. Cheney's investments in the Vanguard Group are estimated at between $25 and $86 million, since exact numbers have not been released.

While the US filled its prisons with migrants, with a price on their heads, the number of Native American prisoners soared.
The US Department of Justice recently released a study showing that Native American inmates in Indian country jails increased by 24 percent between 2004 and 2007. The figures for Native Americans in all facilities -- tribal, federal and state -- increased 4.5 percent. Suicides, attempted suicides, deaths and escapes were cited as the result of deteriorating prison conditions.

Human rights activists hope the indictments of Cheney and Gonzales are the first of many indictments of the Bush-Cheney administration.

Alberta Tarsands: Genocide and biological warfare

IEN Conference: Mining impacts in Western Great Lakes

The Indigenous Environmental Network Welcomes You

THE LAND, SKY, WATER, AND CULTURE
MINING IMPACTS ON TRIBES IN THE WESTERN GREAT LAKES REGION BLACK BEAR HOTEL AND CONFERENCE CENTER FOND DU LAC INDIAN RESERVATION, CLOQUET, MINNESOTA

NOVEMBER 19, 20, 21, 2008

Numerous ferrous and non ferrous mines, mining proposals, and abandoned mines ring the Western Great Lakes Region. We are pleased to sponsor this conference in order to bring to you a broad spectrum on information on the impacts of mining gathered locally as well as the shared experience of others who have had mining activity in their communities. Welcome and please do enjoy the conference. Opening Reception 6:00 pm Otter Creek Room and key note address by Winona LaDuke, Executive Director, Honor The Earth, 7:00 pm. A special Thank You to the Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa, The Lannan Foundation, and the Western Mining Action Network for their generous efforts and support to make this conference possible.
Read more, with schedule:
http://censored-news.blogspot.com/2008/11/ien-conference-mining-impacts-in.html

Photo by Jim's public online Picasa gallery

Watch the Tar Sands Video:

"Tom Goldtooth: No new Tar Sands approval"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LOr2vEuurN0

In this video, Mike, from the Tarsands at Fort Chip in Canada, is already burying family members with cancer. Mike speaks of the pollution and destruction from the mining of the heavy crude oil known as tarsands.

“It is slow industrial genocide. It is another form of biological warfare.

"As a martyr, I will stand and fight and die until the end. I have no choice. I will take my shield and fight and when I go, someone else will take up my shield where I left off and take up my fight.”

"The best we can do is to bring the whole world to our doorsteps and fight together."

Tom Goldooth, director of the Indigenous Environmental Network, “We have a monster, we have a monster amongst our people. Not only our First Nations, but all citizens of Canada.”

“We have a monster that has no respect for humanity. We have a monster that is killing people and gorging on the heart and spirit of the people who have lived here since time immemorial. We have to kill this monster that feeds on the sacrednesss of Mother Earth."

Standing with solidarity with the Dene, Cree and Metis, he said, "We need to stand up and speak for them who can not speak for themselves, the animals, and fish, the trees and the birds."--excerpts from the video

Quanah Brightman: Time for action at DQ University

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LISTEN TO THE TRUTH BEHIND INDIAN GAMING
It would be nice if some of the money went towards The One And Only Tribal College In CALIFORNIA: D-Q University

By Quanah Parker Brightman

http://ia341025.us.archive.org/0/items/DailyDigest013108/2008_01_31_gaming.mp3
Lehman L. Brightman National President of United Native Americans, Inc, Native American activists, speaks about the need to support D.Q. University:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ccoVAHgaL8k
DQU is a Best Described as a "Dog With Fleas" The Number One Issue is Accountability. The Board of Trustees has a History of Corruption. Even Now with GSA Ready to Set In and Take Back the 643 Acres of Land, No One In Indian Country Wants To Roll up their Sleeves and Help Rebuild this Sacred Place. Most People are Unaware of The Fact That DQU is The Home of The Longest Walk 1978, Which Saved ALL 389 Treaties From Being Abrogated. We Would Not Even Have Casinos' or The MONEYS That CASINOS' Bring To Our Communities Today if Not For DQU and The Longest Walk 1978. It's Sad that We Have Lost Over a BILLION ACRES OF Our Own LAND Across Turtle Island, And These Greedy Gaming Officials Here In California Don't Want To Invest In Our Peoples Decolonization. They Would Rather Control Our People With a Monthly Check To Sit On Their Butts and Drink Their Lives Away.
I Think it's Time JUSTICE is Served Out at DQU. We Must Clear DQU's Name By Serving Indian Justice. I Think it's Time "WE" The Indian Community set up an Indian Tribunal to Hold All The Peoples Who Have Hurt DQU's GOOD NAME Throughout the Year's Accountable For Their Actions. Then and Only Then Will DQU Be Able to Move Forward to a Brighter Future.
Respectfully, Quanah Parker Brightman
United Native Americans Inc.
Fighting for Natives Since 1968.
Join us at http://www.myspace.com/unitednativeamericansinc

Censored News welcomes readers from around the world

The World is Watching
By Brenda Norrell
http://www.bsnorrell.blogspot.com/

SAN FRANCISCO -- A warm welcome to our readers from around the world. Our latest readers are from Benin in West Africa, Morocco, Latvia, Serbia, Ghana, Poland, Malta, Korea and Thailand. All together, readers from 70 countries have viewed Censored News this week. Special thanks to all the contributors!
A very special thanks to the U.N. OBSERVER & International Report at the Hague, for publishing Censored News articles, and to Paul Rafferty for his longtime support.
Thanks also to Victor Rocha at Pechanga Net and Narco News, Counterpunch and Indymedia for publishing the truth. Mohawk Nation News is peerless in the industry, published by resolute women warriors.
The Mohawk Nation News publisher, editors and writers, all Mohawk women, have been beaten by border guards, arrested, followed and harassed by police. Publisher Kahentinetha Horn continues to recover from a heart attack induced by the stresshold of Canadian border agents.
Since Saturday, Nov. 15, Censored News was visited by thousands of readers from 70 countries, from all regions of the earth, from Poland, Bolivia, Vietnam, Croatia, Italy and Turkey to Yemen, Russia and China. Welcome to our readers from Norway, Singapore, Philippines and Kazakhstan. Click on the country counter, on the left, for more details.
I began Censored News because of the censorship of news of Indigenous Peoples and international human rights. What began as alarm when I worked for the national news media, turned to horror in recent years as some of the editorial staff at Indian Country Today, where I served as a longtime staff reporter, manipulated the facts, censored the content and distorted the truth.
Now, Earthcycles producer Govinda Dalton, from northern California, and I are gearing up for the weeklong radio talk show in San Francisco. The live show, which will also be archived, will cover the weeklong AIM-West 40th year reunion; the Alcatraz Island Sunrise Gathering hosted by the International Indian Treaty Council on Nov. 27; the Shellmound and Peace Walkers arriving from their two week walk to the sacred shellmounds.
We'll be following up on the issues revealed on the Longest Walk, northern route across America, including protection of sacred places, climate change, mining and the destruction of Indian country lands, air and water.
We'll have interviews with all the great people attending for the week. Listen Nov. 24 -- 28, 2008, at http://www.earthcycles.net/ We will also be broadcasting live all week on a local FM radio station in San Francisco. If you would like to be a sponsor of a radio show segment, please contact govinda@earthcycles.net/
We will also be linking with other Native radio stations to provide coverage around the United States and globally on the Internet.
On this page for Censored News readers, there's an archive of articles on the lower left, and a blog search for key words, above on the left. On Censored News Page 2, there's the full-text of articles which might not be elsewhere on the web, in large text.
Please keep in your thoughts that Mohawk Nation News and Censored News are both advertising free news sites, with no source of revenue, and depend on reader's donations to survive. Both are labors of love, published by women, from the northern and southern borders. Both have PayPals on their websites.
Thanks to all of you!--Brenda

Mohawks: Border police action causes elderly deaths

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BIG F--K UP AT AKWESASNE. GANG WAR BY CBSA, RCMP, OPP & MOHAWK POLICE ENDANGER LIVES AND VIOLATES HAUDENOSAUNEE JURISDICTION

MOHAWK NATION NEWS
Nov. 17, 2008. On Friday night November 15, 2008 around 8 p.m., an elderly couple, both 77, was returning from a trip to Montreal. They had to go through the Akwesasne Cornwall Island border checkpoint, a few minutes away from their home in Massena, New York. After crossing the bridge from Cornwall, they approached the intersection of International and Island roads just before the Canada Customs building, before heading to the U.S. Customs. Meanwhile the Akwesasne Mohawk Police were chasing a 21 year old non-native youth in a minivan on the Island. The youth from St. Jean sur Richelieu, Quebec, sped through the stop sign at the intersection and smashed into the car of the elders. All three were killed in the crash and resulting fire.

Island Road passes through a residential part of Akwesasne known as “Kawehnoke”. It has no lights, no sidewalks, and the posted speed limit is 40 km/h.

The cops set up this lethal event with their usual disregard for the right of Indigenous peoples to live in peace and quiet. Their internal investigations will probably show that the cops and border guards were following “standard procedure” when they created this deadly catastrophe.

The youth was flagged as a “cigarette smuggler” by the Canada Border Services Agency CBSA and undercover intelligence that were in the community in unmarked cars and just standing around. He crossed the bridge over to Cornwall. There, RCMP and OPP were waiting for him. The youth saw them, turned around and headed back over the bridge to Kawehnoke, chased by the OPP and the RCMP. They called off their chase and told the Akwesasne Mohawk Police to take over, according to Ron Moran, President of the Customs & Excise Union.

The Mohawk police claimed they had called off the chase. Witnesses said the cop car lights were still flashing when they came down the hill in pursuit; after the mortal impact, the police ran to the van going after cigarettes; and they made no attempt to rescue the elders. A witness tried to open their car door. It was jammed. The car was already on fire and then became engulfed in flames.

The border agents and cops at this checkpoint are well-known for their lack of judgment, their brutality and their cavalier approach to the law. They have been violently attacking the Mohawks who have to go through this checkpoint on a daily basis. They use the “Akwesasne Residents’ Lane” that is supposed to make movement easier for residents as target practice. On June 14 2008 CBSA attempted to murder two grandmothers they had pulled over. One suffered a trauma induced heart attack. The two women tried to get the RCMP and OPP to investigate the attempted murders. Both agencies said they had no jurisdiction. It was the responsibility of the Akwesasne Mohawk Police, who have done nothing.

All these agents, CBSA, OPP, RCMP and Akwesasne Mohawk police, “without jurisdiction”, are fighting their gang wars in Akwesasne! We have documentary proof that all of these agencies claim they have no jurisdiction here. In fact, Madam Mireille Tabib of the Federal Court of Canada has recognized that Akwesasne is not part of Canada [Kahentinetha & Katenies v. The Queen, T-1309-08, October 23, 2008].

Guess who’s investigating this one? The OPP and the RCMP! Though they have no jurisdiction, they think they can perpetrate crimes! It looks like the families of these three victims could launch a big lawsuit against this IBET posse [Integrated Border Enforcement TaskForce]. Maybe Homeland Security should get involved as the elders are U.S. citizens. Sgt. Kristine Rae told the Ottawa citizen that the Akwesasne Mohawk Police Service asked the OPP to investigate the collision.

The Special Investigations Unit SIU, an Ontario civilian law enforcement agency, usually investigates any incident involving police that results in serious injury or death. The Akwesasne Mohawk Territory is out of the SIU's jurisdiction. The almost death and serious injury of the two women caused by the CBSA doesn’t count! They only investigate the death and injury of non-Ongwehonwe by their agents!!! It’s called racism!

Policing is supposed to be a service requested by the people to take care of issues within the community. These four colonial mob agencies have brought their violent conflicts to our community without our consent because they think it’s a “no man’s land” for the colonizers and they can get away with it. The truth is that it’s the Haudenosaunee peoples’ jurisdiction. These mobs serve “outside racketeers” and extortionists who try to impose non-Ongwehonwe mayhem. They are “tax” extortionists with guns who rob on behalf of the colonial state. Some surmise that they may have been trying to rob the youth, grab his load and sell it themselves. Then they put these kids through their court system.

Everyone knows that cigarettes are legal. We are free to trade as we always have been since time immemorial. Neither the youth or the 77-year old couple deserved to die. What did the “border squatters” who have set up their illegal shop in the middle of our community want? To extort a share of our legitimate commerce! The colonial society has deliberately debilitated us so that we have no economy. It’s no coincidence that Canada created a situation that killed old people. It’s a culture that disrespects elders. It claims us as citizens but it has taken the Old Age pensions from our elders here.

We Mohawks feel deeply saddened by the tragedy that took place in our midst. We are outraged by the remorseless gangsterism of the colonial thugs that caused it. These hoods knew this poor young guy was not a native. They set him up because he was alone and unprotected. He died because of a failed economy and having no prospects in his own society. Poor people buy the cigarettes because they can’t afford the state taxes used to support their parasitic government officials. There is hardly anything left over for proper education or health care for their people.

These thugs should leave Akwesasne. They are now using twisted logic to try to blame us for their gangland style “hit”. They claim it all happened because we didn’t support them! What a bunch of sickos! The only involvement of our people were the witnesses who tried to save the lives of the victims. People were out and about. The Mohawk Police officers showed no common sense when they conducted this lethal high speed chase through the middle of our community.

Anger and frustration about the accident and the chase is simmering across Akwesasne and beyond. If Canada wants to call trade in our cigarettes contraband, that’s their business. It doesn’t make it so. We think their gang wars are to get a piece of the action, as they see it. We don’t want any part of them. We want them to get their fake border, goons and dangerous behavior out of our community. If they want to do s--t like this, let them do it in their own bedroom community. We’ve had enough.

All these people were killed over a load of cigarettes. Their creed is commercial greed before human life! The blame for this tragedy can only be laid at the feet of all these criminal entities, CBSA, OPP, RCMP and the Akwesasne Mohawk Police. http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/new ... 92d2f37511

Karakwine & MNN Staff – Mohawk Nation News www.mohawknationnews.com
Katenies20@yahoo.com kahentinetha2@yahoo.com

Note: These challenges of CBSA abuses at the border require support and money. Your financial help is needed and appreciated. Please send your donations to PayPal at www.mohawknationnews.com, or by check or money order to “MNN Mohawk Nation News”, Box 991, Kahnawake [Quebec, Canada] J0L 1B0. Nia:wen thank you very much.

Some of the ‘borderline’ culprits involved: Prothonotary Mireille Tabib, 284 Wellington TSA-6032, Ottawa ON Canada K1A 0H8 613-992-4238 Fax 613-952-3653; Phil Fontaine of the AFN is a partner in CBSA’s Sustainable Development Strategy 2007-9; Chris Kealey, Canada Customs Excise, Immigration Taxation Board, CBSA Media Relations 613-991-5197; President CBSA 613-952-3200, 613-957-0612, CBSA-ASFC@Canada.gc.ca; National Aboriginal Initiative CHRC 204-983-2189 1-866-772-4880 info.com@chrc-ccdp.ca; Canada Customs Port of Entry at Cornwall Island Ontario; Gaetan Cousineau, Quebec Human Rights presidence@cdpdj.gc.ca; Akwesasne Mohawk Police 613-575-2250 ex 2400; Mohawk Security at the border 613-932-5183, 613-575-2340; Lance Markel, District Director CBSA 613-930-3234, 613-991-1214; Brent Lafave, Investigator CBSA; Susan St. Clair, Canadian Human Rights Commission, 344 Slater, Ottawa 613-995-1151, 1-888-214-1090, 613-943-5188; CBSA National Spokesperson 613-957-6500; Quebec Media Relations CBSA 514-350-6130; Chief Mohawk Council Akwesasne 613-575-2250 nbenedict@akwesasne.ca; Minister Stockwell Day, Ottawa 613-995-4432; Melissa Leclair Communications Pub. Safety 613-991-2863.

Go to MNN “Border” category for more stories; New MNN Books Available now! Purchase t-shirts, mugs and more at our CafePressStore http://www.cafepress.com/mohawknews; Subscribe to MNN for breaking news updates http://.mohawknationnews.com/news/subscription.php; Sign Women Title Holders petition! http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/Iroquois
Posted by Brenda Norrell at 10:24 AM READ ARTICLE
http://censored-news.blogspot.com/2008/11/mohawks-mohawk-police-cause-elderly.html/

US Torture Protested at Fort Huachuca

THREE BARRED FROM FT. HUACHUCA AS 200 RALLY AGAINST TORTURE AND CRUEL TREATMENT OF "TERROR WAR" PRISONERS

By Jack and Felice Cohen-Joppa
Photos by Jim Haber

SIERRA VISTA, Ariz. -- More than 200 people rallied against torture on Sunday, November 16, 2008, at Veterans Memorial Park in Sierra Vista, Arizona. The group then processed two miles through the city to the main gate of Ft. Huachuca, home of the U.S. Army Intelligence Center where interrogators are trained.
Soon after the procession arrived opposite the entrance to the Fort, three people crossed the street and entered the base to deliver messages to base Commander Major General John Custer and his soldiers, opposing the cruel treatment and abuse of detainees from the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Sr. Megan Rice, 78, from Las Vegas, Nevada; Fr. Louie Vitale, 76, from Oakland, California (in "Torture is Wrong," photo on right) and Dennis Duvall, 66, from Prescott, Arizona, were quickly stopped and taken into custody. They were released within the hour with a formal letter barring them from entering the base for one year. A base spokeswoman told reporters, "We're trying to keep this as low key as possible."
Franciscan Fr. Vitale, a former provincial of the order's Santa Barbara province, was arrested during a similar protest at the Fort in 2006. Together with co-defendant Fr. Steve Kelly, he had served a five month prison sentence for trespass and failure to obey an officer.
Two of three people arrested at the Fort in November, 2007, returned to join this year's demonstration. Fr. Jerry Zawada and Betsy Lamb had both served two months in prison awaiting trial.
Speakers at the rally included torture survivor and Colombian refugee Hector Aristizabal and retired U.S. Army Col. Ann Wright.
The procession was led by musicians Francisco Herrera, Jose Serrano, Ted Warmbrand, Chet Gardiner and Terry Pawlowski, along with people carrying large, colorful butterfly puppets. The puppets represented transformation from a nation that sanctions cruelty and torture to a world that embraces hope for humanity.
The demonstration concluded with a stop at the nearby office of CACI, a private military contractor implicated in the abuse of Iraqi detainees, and currently contracted to write manuals and teach interrogation.
Sunday's rally and procession capped a weekend of events that began in Tucson. Event coordinator Rev. Ken Kennon noted that the "Southwest Witness to Stop Torture is a regional action in solidarity with the campaign to close the School of the Americas/Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation at Fort Benning, Georgia, where the testimony of torture survivors has informed us and moved us to action."
Thousands of people will gather at Ft. Benning this coming weekend, November 21-23, for the annual vigil to close the School of the Americas. Human rights abuses in Latin America, including torture and murder, have been carried out by graduates of the school. The torture manual which was used at the School of the Americas came from Ft. Huachuca.
A statement written for the Ft. Huachuca demonstration follows this press release.
For more information see http://tortureontrial.org/, http://southwestwitness.org/ and http://soaw.org/
Why We Protest at Ft Huachuca
A Statement of Southwest Witness Against Torture / October 2008

Gandhi teaches us that nonviolence needs to be practiced in places of institutionalized violence.
We practice nonviolence at Ft. Huachuca - headquarters of U.S. Army military intelligence training - to protest the policy of cruelty our country has carried out against captives in the so-called "War on Terror."
We practice nonviolence at Ft. Huachuca to open dialogue with soldiers and commanders about their rights and obligations to report cases of torture and cruel treatment. We call on enlisted personnel to speak publicly about their training and any abuses they have observed.
We practice nonviolence at Ft. Huachuca to protest our government's increasing use of private contractors - with little to no oversight or accountability - both as instructors and as part of interrogation teams in the field.
We practice nonviolence at Ft. Huachuca to call for civilian, human-rights centered oversight of all interrogation training and practice, which must include absolute prohibition of cruel treatment and command responsibility for any violation of this prohibition.
Our nonviolent presence joins growing, deepening movements throughout the world calling for an end to war and torture everywhere. We act in solidarity with the campaign to close the School of the Americas/Western Hemispheric Institute for Security Cooperation at Ft. Benning, Georgia, where the testimony of torture survivors has informed our outrage and moved us to action. We know that torture diminishes the humanity of both perpetrator and those who are tortured. It damages the very soul of our country.
We are told that basic training in military interrogation at Ft. Huachuca respects the Geneva Conventions and follows the U.S. Army Field Manual. Yet, despite the efforts of many honorable soldiers and commanders who respect human rights, this training has been inadequate to prevent abuses of prisoners in U.S. custody at Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib and other military prisons and secret detention centers around the world.
What is being taught in the field and in advanced courses about interrogation? What is happening in this dark space between training and the field? Has the policy of cruelty practiced by some U.S. military, CIA, FBI, and private agencies been integrated into military doctrine and advanced training? Does such activity take place at Ft. Huachuca?
We understand that secrecy and deception are part of the nature of military intelligence. We challenge this institutionalized silence, because torture and cruelty betray not only the Constitution of the United States, but who we are as a people. In a democratic society, such silence must not prevail.
To break this silence, interrogators and all other personnel (including private contractors) must be taught when and how to resist illegal orders that violate the laws of war, the Geneva Conventions and the United Nations Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment. They must be taught their obligation to speak out against such orders, and to report abuses to their superiors. And they must receive guarantees that speaking out will not lead to retaliation or punishment.
Ft. Huachuca's role in past military involvement in torture training must also be brought to light. Such involvement includes the creation of notorious manuals used at the School of the Americas to teach Latin American military personnel how to torture. Undoubtedly, records about past and contemporary use of torture exist at Ft. Huachuca. We call for the release of all such information, both past and present.
It is time for a light to shine on the darkness that has been hidden behind the walls of Ft. Huachuca.
Monsignor Oscar Romero of El Salvador said, "Love begins where violence ends." To end the violence of torture and war we will stand at the gates of Ft. Huachuca. Together let's build a world without torture.
http://censored-news.blogspot.com/2008/11/three-halted-at-fort-huachuca-torture.html

Spy drones over the border

The name of the US drone, 'Predator,' reflects what the United States has become

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

TUCSON -- The bad news is that the Border Patrol has four drones flying out of Fort Huachuca over the US/Mexico border for surveillance. One drone has already crashed near Nogales and these unmanned aerial planes, provided first by Israel's Apartheid spy technology maker, Elbit Systems, are a risk to the lives of those on the ground in Arizona.
The good news is that Airforce pilots are not flying over in their planes. Airforce pilots in Tucson were so eager to smuggle cocaine in uniform, that the FBI halted Operation Lively Green. More than 50 Army, Navy, Marine and National Guard soldiers have been sentenced for smuggling cocaine for cash, from Nogales to Phoenix.
Again, the bad news is that the Arizona National Guard soldiers are commanding an armed, remote controlled aircraft in Iraq from Tucson, drug central.
From Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, a unit controls the MQ-1B Predator, used for armed reconnaissance, surveillance and targeting in Iraq, according to the National Guard.
If drug-running soldiers weren't bad enough, now comes the news that the drones are being used by the US to spy on civilians at the US/Mexico border.
"The Reaper/Predator B UAV´s robotic killing machines are currently in operation with the USAF, US Navy and the Royal Air Force. In addition non military users of the Predator B include: NASA and Homeland security though the US Customs and Border Protection agencies," reports Michael Webster.
Webster continues to say that the drones used by FEMA and disaster management is troubling.
"Predator B carries out 'targeted assassinations' of 'terrorist suspects' across Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan. The deployment of the robotic killing machines in the United States for 'disaster management' is troubling to say the least and a harbinger of things to come."
If you've got the stomach for it, read more about spooks and drones over the US/Mexico border here.
As the US pours millions into spy technology, one has to wonder why there is so much crime ignored in Tucson. In 2008, there was a serial murderer, raping and murdering homeless women in Tucson. These women were raped and murdered on streets I walk down. There was little mention of this serial murderer in the news.
I wonder if any of those millions of dollars of spy technology, aimed at keeping us all safe, is ever used to keep the streets of Tucson safe.
Back at Fort Huachuca, the drones are part of the Army Intelligence Center there. This is the same place that produced the torture manual, exposed in 1996, of the School of Americas. The manual was used to train Latin military leaders, which led to the torture, rape and murder of thousands of people, including Indigenous Peoples, in Central and South America in the 80s and 90s. Corporations, under the cloak of US firepower and torture, reaped the benefits in land and resources.
Fort Huachuca is now being protested because of its training which resulted in torture in Abu-Ghraib. Read article on torture protest.
The news that Fort Huachuca now has four more drones, spy drones over the border, can not be good news.

American Indian Film Festival award winners 2008

THE 33rd ANNUAL AMERICAN INDIAN FILM FESTIVAL ANNOUNCES AWARDS WINNERS

By Cindy Benitz
Photo: Best film, Before Tomorrow

SAN FRANCISCO -- The American Indian Film Institute (AIFI) and Title Sponsor, the Seminole Tribe of Florida, are proud to announce the winners for the 33rd annual American Indian Film Festival. The award winners were presented at the annual American Indian Motion Picture Awards Show on Saturday Nov. 15 at 6:00p.m at the historic Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco.
The American Indian Motion Picture Awards Show, (established in 1978), has recognized excellence in American Indian cinematic achievement, making the annual awards show one of the most prominent Indian Country and Native Cinema showcases.
Outstanding performances varied across the talent venue, on awards night which included:
new country music artist Crystal Shawanda, You Can Let Go (single) -Dawn of a New Day CD; recording artist Shea Keck along with Grammy award winner Micki Free; violinist Swil Kanim and Raven dancer Gene Tagaban; Yaaw Tei Yi Tlingit Dancers from Juneau, AK; comic Charlie Hill; and singer Claude McKenzie.
Best Film: Before Tomorrow, Director: Marie –Helene Cousineau and Madeline Piujuq Ivalu, Canada
Best Director: Georgina Lightning, Older than America, USA
Best Actor: Trevor Duplessis, In a World Created By a Drunken God, Canada
Best Actress: Candace Fox, Moccasin Flats: Redemption,Canada
Best Supporting Actor: Wes Studi- Older than America, USA
Best Supporting Actress: Misty Upham- Frozen River,USA
Best Documentary Feature: River of Renewal, Director – Carlos Bolado, USA
Best Documentary Short: Byron Chief- Moon: Grey Horse Rider, Directors: Philip Szporer and Marlene Miller, Canada:
Best Live Action Short: Niigaanibatowaad: Front Runners, Director –Lori Lewis, Canada
Best Animated Short: By the Rapids, Director – Joseph Lazare, Canada
Best Music Video: You Can Let Go, Director: Margaret Malandruccolo, USA
Best Public Service: Modern Day Warriors, Director –Jenni Monet, USA
Cindy Benitez, Public Relations, American Indian Film Institute, 333 Valencia Street, Suite 322, San Francisco, CA 94103, Fax: 415-554-0542, email: publicrelations@aifisf.com, www.aifisf.com

Russell Means: Lives still at risk from blizzard

Russell Means: Twelfth Day of Snow Emergency
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By Brenda Norrell
Censored News
http://www.bsnorrell.blogspot.com/

PINE RIDGE, S.D. -- Russell Means at the Republic of Lakotah said the blizzard is threatening Lakota lives on Pine Ridge. Amanda Milk, in her eighties, has no legs and is a dialysis patient. She has been snowed in and presummed dead.
"Many hundreds of American Indians are still snowbound and without electrical power or water on Pine Ridge Indian Reservation," Means said today, Monday, Nov. 17, 2008. Sofia Romero, age 98, is also snowed in, with no power, no water and her food situation is unknown. Emme Zimiga, age 96, is snowed in, with no power, no water, and the food situation is unknown.
In Hisle, there are 38 households, with an average of 17 persons per household, still snowed in with out power or water. In the Lost Dog Community, there are five families snowed in, with no power, no water, and their food situation is unknown.
The Lacreek Electric Association reports that over 1,000 power distribution poles were broken by the storm and have been replaced. However, dozens more are still down, while repair efforts have been diverted to the some of the main distribution lines still partially inoperative.
Means said, "The Red Cross effort is vehemently incompetent."
The American Red Cross sent a contingency of one volunteer, Monica Turkleson, who departed the Reservation prematurely on Saturday, November 15th. "Ms. Turklesonʼs 'aide' consisted of'nothing and her behavior was reported as impatient, rude and racist," Means said. Means suggests that this organization change its name to the “White Cross.”
Read more ...

Honoring Australia's Patrick Dodson: Renewal and Justice

Change Robed in Justice
Australia's Indigenous National Leader Emerges as Patrick Dodson is awarded Sydney Peace Prize
By the Westender, Brisbane's Urban Voice

It was not the honour of the Sydney Peace Prize that conferred the status of 'national leader' on Patrick Dodson, the platform simply gave him the opportunity to demonstrate his mantle. Like the vibration of the yidaki around the islands of the Arafura sea - his speech rang out. "Our nation, Australia, now has the chance to construct a new society built on equality and justice and in harmony with the land and its people. It is not an impossible task provided that we have the love and enthusiasm to begin the journey – the rest will follow." Patrick Dodson
As America elected its first African American President, Australia’s national Aboriginal leader spoke for the first time at the Opera House last night. The packed concert hall witnessed something special. It is ironical but not surprising that today’s Australian media, transfixed by Obama, let the event go by without acknowledgement. Perhaps it will be Obama himself and other world leaders who will now recognize that Australia has a co-leader.
Read news article with acceptance speech:
http://www.westender.com.au/news/231
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Indigenous Peoples Challenge Harper's Canada

National Gathering of Indigenous Peoples Challenge Harper Government in Winnipeg

By Defenders of the Land
Photos by Ben Powless
Censored News
http://www.bsnorrell.blogspot.com


WINNIPEG -- Grassroots activists, elders, and elected leaders from First Nations fighting for self-determination and protection of land and resource rights presented a letter to Prime Minister Stephen Harper at the Conservative Party's national policy conference in Winnipeg today. The Indigenous spokespeople have come to Winnipeg from communities across Canada to form a network dedicated to fighting for recognition of and respect for Indigenous rights, and deliver their message to Prime Minister Harper."Canada, along with the United States and New Zealand, is one of three countries that have voted against the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. We call on Canada to join the vast majority of nations who have adopted this declaration," said Art Manuel, of the Indigenous Network on Economies and Trade. Read article:
http://censored-news.blogspot.com/2008/11/defenders-of-land-challenge-harpers.html
Photo Milton Bornwithatooth negotiates with RCMP security guard to deliver the letter to Prime Minister Stephen Harper. Photo by Ben Powless.

INDIAN POWER, United Native Americans

Quanah Brightman

Quanah Brightman, son of Lehman Brightman who founded United Native Americans in the 60s, will be among the guest during the weeklong AIM-West 40th year reunion in San Francisco, Nov. 24 -- 28. Brightman joins speakers on Wednesday, Nov. 26, at the San Francisco Baha’i Center. Keith Secola, Phoenix!, Medicine Warriors, All Nations Singers, Patricia Bellanger, Little Wolf Bellecourt, Yvonne Swan, Charlie Hill with Max Gail, will be at the event, noon to 6 pm.
Listen to audio of the early history at:
http://www.myspace.com/unitednativeamericansinc
From Quanah Brightman:
United Native Americans, Inc. (or U.N.A.) was formed in 1968 in San Francisco, California to promote the General Welfare of Native Americans. There are no paid staff or officers in U.N.A. and all work is donated. U.N.A. is not funded and exists solely on the support derived from membership dues, the sale of U.N.A. Merchandise, Tee Shirts, buttons, bumper stickers, and Posters, plus the few donations that have been received.
U.N.A was founded by Indians for Indians and is controlled by Indians. U.N.A. has been Labeled a "Militant" organization because of it's Aggressive Stand it has taken and because of the slogan it stresses--"INDIAN POWER", which is defined as Self-Determination, the Right to Run your Own Affairs and to Direct your Own Destiny, which is something Indian People Definitely Need. U.N.A is Definitely an Action Organization and if this means "Militant" then we are Militants. We as Native Americans, in order to perpetuate our Heritage, Exercise Constructive Leadership, and to perfect a Native American Organization which will Respond to the Needs of Native Americans.
U.N.A. Strives to Improve Indian Image.
U.N.A. has been one of the Strongest advocates to improve the "Negative" image of Indian People, and has been critical of the "Movie Industry" for their Exploitation of Indians, and the Stereotype they have created of the "drunken, inarticulate, savage." U.N.A. is also doing intensive work in the literary field, searching out Books and other Literature that add to this "negative image" of Indian People.
U.N.A. Testifies In Congress.
In 1968, Senate Sub-Committee Hearings on Indian Education held in Washington D.C., U.N.A. National President, Lehman L. Brightman gave some very damaging evidence against the Bureau of Indian Affairs boarding schools and their policy of taking young Indian children way from their parents and placing them in 'off-reservation" boarding schools, thousands of miles away from their homes. Mr. Brightman called Indian Education under the Bureau of Indian Affairs a "National Disgrace."
U.N.A. Investigates Indian Boarding Schools.
U.N.A. has tried to act as a "watch dog" over the governmental agencies that control Indian affairs, and has been extremely critical of the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the U.S. Public Health Service for their lack of Aid and callous treatment of Indian people. Since 1968, U.N.A. has investigated four of the Bureau of Indian Affairs Boarding Schools because of complaints of "brutality, - lack of food, -overcrowded living quarters, and to find out why these four high schools were not state accredited." The four government boarding schools investigated by U.N.A. were: Sherman Institute in Riverside, California, --Stewart Institute in Carson City, Nevada, -- Pierre Indian School in Pierre, South Dakota and Phoenix Indian School in Phoenix, Arizona."
U.N.A. Investigates Indian Hospitals.
Due to other complaints by Indian people of "poor medical service and other wrong doings," U.N.A. investigated two Indian hospitals run by the U.S. Public Health Service and exposed the "outrageous practices" to the public and Federal Authorities. The Hospitals investigated by U.N.A. were: Phoenix Indian Hospital in Phoenix, Arizona and the Indian Hospital on the Cheyenne River Sioux Reservation in Eagle Butte, South Dakota.
Services Provided by U.N.A.
The duties and services provided by U.N.A. are many and varied. U.N.A. provides the security of knowing that someone cares and will go to bat for them when all others won't. We fully realize that Indian people alone cannot rise out of this pit of poverty and neglect and it will take the combined efforts of Indians and Sympathetic non-Indians. For this reason U.N.A. accepts non-Indians as associate members who desire to help and their "expertise" in the fields of 'Law", Education, Medicine, etc, can be put to good use.
The cost of joining U.N.A. is Twenty Dollars a Year for Indians and Twenty-Five Dollars a Year for Non-Indians as associate members. Each membership will include a U.N.A. Tee Shirt and all other Mechanics produced by U.N.A.
For more information: qbrightman75@hotmail.com
United Native Americans,Inc.
Lehman L. Brightman: National President
2434 Faria Ave
Pinole, California 94564
Unitednativeamericansinc@gmail.com
(510)785-8160

Native American Heritage Month: Sharing in Michigan

Michigan Ojibwe Language Teachers & Students Walk Their Talk!

By Brita Brookes
Well it's been a busy past few weeks for the Anishinaabemowin Students and Community in Michigan who are planning and participating in Native American Heritage Month activities.
Both the University of Michigan and Eastern Michigan Universities conducted Native American Month workshops, panels and events recently.
Last week at the University of Michigan, "Wiping the Tears of Seven Generations" a Documentary about the Bigfoot Memorial Ride was shown to students and community. This movie was followed up with the annual Fall Feast where all students, community and faculty bring traditional foods and have dinner.
Among the guests at the Ann Arbor Fall Feast that was held at Trotter House, was visiting lecturers Ada Deer and David Cornsilk. The following Monday at the University of Michigan, there was an Indian Activist, Law and Tribal Government symposium panel which included Menominee Nation activist and professor Ada Deer, Cherokee Nation activist David Cornsilk and Michigan State Law School Professor and Tribal Law expert Matthew Fletcher.
Wrapping up a busy week of culture and language, the University of Michigan Language students hosted an event at the University Of Michigan Exhibit Museum Of Natural History. Students and Language professors Howard Kimewon and Margaret Noori hosted "The Three Fires of Michigan: Natural History from a Native American Perspective" exhibition which occurred on every floor of the four story museum.
Hundreds of area elementary school kids visited the museum to learn and participate in teachings about the Native American perspective on Natural History. The excited school children learned traditional dancing, songs, heard stories, held regalia items carefully, constructed turtles, made birch bark scrolls, handled copper and salt minerals, heard about the four directions, names for the clans, how Indians were here first and learned the story of the Creation of Turtle Island from Ojibwe language student Mike Zimmerman.
In the large meeting room, children sat on the floor around Kimewon and quietly listened to his stories about birch bark canoes and hunting. This traditional storytelling was done in both the Ojibwe language and English. Many of the ongoing themes that the children related easily to were that of recycling, protecting and respecting each other and nature.
By the end of the day, one could hear the children in the hallways saying loudly and proudly "Migwetch Howard!" and "Migwetch Meg" after learning the Ojibwe word for "Thank-you." Good work University of Michigan! Go Blue! Eastern Michigan University also joined in the celebrations and held its own panel entitled "Sharing Our Lifeways" which included three traditional fluent Ojibwe language speakers and one language and spiritual revitalization advocate.
The focus of the panel was to highlight the preservation of the traditional language and teachings for the good of all of society. Kimewon, who participated in the panel spoke of his life growing up on the Wikwemikong Unceded Reserve and how he spoke the language growing up and how he speaks to and teaches the students at both Eastern Michigan and University of Michigan now. All panelists agreed that one of the key ways to keep the language going was to teach the new mothers the language so they can then teach their children.
Eastern Michigan also held its annual Fall Feast at the campus Student Center, where students, community and faculty enjoyed the drums by "Blue Lake Singers" and had one spontaneous Two-Step dance break out in the Dining Room to the amusement of all participating.
Eastern Michigan will be ending its festivities for Native American Heritage Month with a lecture by writer Shirley Cheechoo (Cree). Shirley Cheechoo began directing films in 1998, after working as an actor and playwright of notable plays such as "Path with No Moccasins" (1991).
Cheechoo teaches drama workshops to Native youth across Ontario, and has founded a touring youth drama company, the Debahjehmujig Theatre Group, which often performs in the Ojibwe language. She has won first prize awards for her works at numerous film festivals including Montreal's First Peoples Festival, the Santa Fe Film Festival, and the American Indian Film Festival of San Francisco.
-- Brita V. Brookes"Creative Ideas At Work"
More photos at:
http://britabrookesphotgraphy.wordpress.com/http://www.myspace.com/missbinthed

Western Shohsone battle gold rush

Caretakers of the Land

Western Shoshone wage battle against modern gold rush
by Meg Hewings
The Dominion
Excerpt: Not only has the US government used Shoshone lands to test hundreds of nuclear weapons, dispose of thousands of metric tonnes of radioactive waste, and proposed Yucca Mountain as a national dumpsite for (even more) deadly nuclear waste; modern corporate gold mining, including many Canadian operations, now threatens to gouge the heart right out of Western Shoshone territory.
“Two years ago they counted over 260,000 abandoned mines in Nevada – and that’s not counting new ones opening up,” says Larson Bill, Vice-Chairman for the South Fork Shoshone community and Community Organizer for the Western Shoshone Defense Project (WSDP), established to protect, preserve and restore Shoshone – or as they are also known, Newe – rights and lands for present and future generations.
Despite their small staff, the Defense Project’s office is abuzz with activity, work and noise on this day, as most. Even so, Bill manages to remain measured and thoughtful on the phone as he explains the tribe’s latest struggle.
These days he and the WSDP are busy trying to stop the Federal Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and the US government from permitting Canadian-owned Barrick Gold Corporation, now the world’s largest gold-mining company, from mining on or any nearer to Mt. Tenabo, a sacred mountain to the Western Shoshone and fundamental to Newe worship.
“Mt. Tenabo, the proposed site for Barrick’s latest expansion project, is home to Shoshone creation stories,” says Julie Cavanaugh-Bill (formerly Fishel), lawyer for the WSDP. What the mining company is planning is akin to razing churches or mosques, according to the WSDP.
Read article http://www.dominionpaper.ca/articles/2218

Longest walkers and fearlessness

Here's a photo worth taking another look at. The walkers on the Longest Walk northern route stand before Newmont mining in downtown Denver, in solidarity with the Western Shoshone, and Indigenous Peoples all over the world, fighting the gold mining that is destroying their lands and coring out their mountains. Although Newmont had already called the police when this photo was taken on March 24, 2008, the walkers stood resolute and fearless. There were no arrests, and a resolution was delivered to Newmont. It remains a stellar moment. Photo Brenda Norrell
Read more about this day

Pine Ridge: 11 days later, some power restored after blizzard

Eleven Days Later, Disaster finally coming to a close for Pine Ridge Reservation
by: Tamra Brennan
http://www.ndnnews.com/

Photo: Keloland TV
November 15th, 2008
The power was restored today, in the community of Wanblee on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. As of this afternoon the communities of Potato Creek and N. Allen were still without power, however it is expected to be restored by no later than Sunday. Read article:

http://censored-news.blogspot.com/2008/11/pine-ridge-blizzard-emergency-11-days.html

Bush, Sr., reaped huge profits from Native and federal land scams

President George Bush, Sr., reaped huge profits from Western Shoshone lands and other Native lands, with title transfer scams

Setting fire to California lands led to cheap land transfers
Photo: National Geographic

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Here's excerpts from, "Bush family cleaning up on transfer of public lands to private hands," by Wayne Madsen of the Online Journal.

http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_3748.shtml

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"President George H. W. Bush, is reaping windfall profits from the transfer of title of public federal and state lands to private hands. The elder Bush, according to our sources, has a vested financial interest in land title companies that specialize in the transfer of public lands to private interests.
"The land-grabbing scheme primarily involves the transfer of federal lands, including Native American lands and national forest system lands, in the Rocky Mountain West, state lands in Texas, and both federal and state lands in California, Mississippi, and Florida to private entities. The scheme is also at the center of the scandal surrounding jailed GOP lobbyist Jack Abramoff who conspired to privatize federal lands and assets around the country to benefit his corporate clients.
"In 2004, under pressure from Abramoff and the White House, Senators Harry Reid (D-NV) and Jim Gibbons (R-NV) shepherded the passage of the Western Shoshone Distribution Act, which was quickly signed by President George W. Bush. The act settled federal violations of the Ruby Valley Treaty of 1863 with the Shoshones and compensated them a mere $135 million for 24 million acres of Shoshone land illegally seized by the federal government in Nevada, California, Utah, and Idaho. The Shoshones cried foul, saying their land is rich in gold reserves. Gibbons, who is now governor of Nevada, instantly moved legislation to privatize the former Shoshone lands. Reid, Gibbons, and Senator John Ensign (R-NV), all received lucrative cash contributions to their campaigns from Abramoff clients.
"WMR has also learned that the Bush administration ordered a number of California and other Western state forest wildfires purposefully set with the intention of damaging and destroying federal and state forestlands, thus making them ripe for exploitation and sale to private interests."

Twentieth news reporter murdered in Mexico

By Brenda Norrell
Photos: Armando Rodriguez; Below: Murdered Indigenous radio reporters in Oaxaca, Felicitas Martinas Sanchez, 20, far left, Teresa Bautista Merino, 24, third from left. Photo Indymedia.
CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico -- CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico -- News reporter Armando Rodriguez was the fifth reporter to be murdered in Mexico this year, and the 20th news reporter to be murdered in Mexico since 2000, when he was gunned down as he took his child to school on Thursday, Nov. 13, 2008. These numbers increase when the number of independent journalists murdered are added to the list of media assassinated in Mexico.
Rodriguez, a reporter for El Diario, the largest privately-owned daily in Ciudad Juarez, across the border from El Paso, Texas, was shot dead outside his home. Rodriguez, a crime specialist for the past 14 years, was leaving his home to drive his eight year old daughter to school when an unidentified gunman ambushed and shot him dead at point blank range before running to a nearby vehicle where accomplices were waiting, Reporters without Borders said.
Editor of El Diario, Pedro Torres, told Reporters Without Borders that Rodriguez had received a threatening message on his mobile phone in February 2008 telling him to “tone it down." As a result, he was transferred to El Paso for two months for his safety but on his return he had insisted on resuming work without any special protection. Carlos Huerta Munoz, a reporter on the local daily El Norte, pointed out that Rodriguez had on the previous day reported on the killing of two local police officers. A severed head had also been found on November 6, on a monument in the Journalist’s Square in the centre of Ciudad Juarez, which the city’s media took to be a direct threat against them.
The number of reporters murdered this year is even higher than reports often show, because of those murdered working in independent media.
In April, two Indigenous Triqui women who worked at the community radio station La Voz que Rompe el Silencio, "The Voice that Breaks the Silence," in the autonomous municipality of San Juan Copala of the Mixteca region, were murdered on their way to Oaxaca city to participate in the State Forum for the Defense of the Rights of the Peoples of Oaxaca. Three other people were injured. Teresa Bautista Merino, 24, and Felícitas Martínez Sánchez, 20, were shot and killed.
The women had departed from the radio station, which is part of the Network of Indigenous Community Radio Stations of the Southeast (Red de Radios Comunitarias Indígenas del Sureste), around 1:00 PM. They were travelling in a truck on their way to Oaxaca city, and were ambushed on the outskirts of the community Llano Juarez, according to independent media reports.
Two journalists were murdered in Oaxaca during a major wave of protests against state governor Ulíses Ruiz Ortíz in 2006. Indymedia reporter and U.S. citizen Bradley Will, and Raúl Marcial Pérez, an indigenous community leader and columnist for the regional daily El Gráfico, were murdered. No one has been brought to justice for their murders.
The death squads of the Zetas, trained at the US School of the Americas, are now carrying out murders for Mexican drug cartels and hired as killers in Iraq.
Read more: http://www.narconews.com/
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Dakota: Minnesota racism didn't vanish on election day

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From Chris Mato Nunpa

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Hi All,
I thought some of you might be interested in Nick Coleman's article on the Dakota Commemorative March and Waziyata Win, my younger daughter, and the 71 plus comments which clearly indicate there's a long way to go. White America may be ready to elect a black man as president of the U.S., but are they ready to acknowledge the truth about what really happened in this state of Minnesota and in the United States?
Is white America ready to admit the massive land theft, the broken treaties, the genocide of the Dakota People in Minnesota and of the Indigenous Peoples of the U.S.; the suppression of languages, the suppression of religions, etc. etc. etc.?
Chris Mato Nunpa

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Winona LaDuke joins Shellmound Walkers

Winona LaDuke is in the San Francisco Bay area, where the American Indian Film Festival honored Floyd Westerman on Thursday night. Tonight, LaDuke joined Shellmound and Peace Walkers to kick off the Shellmound Walk. LaDuke's home burned to the ground a week ago. Photo Morning Star Gali.

Read more about this year's Shellmound Walk

Shell Mound Kickoff Dinner with Winona LaDuke

Shell Mound and Peace Walk kicks off with dinner with Winona LaDuke in Oakland

By Johnella LaRose

OAKLAND -- On Friday, November 14, participants of the Sacred Sites/Shell mound Peace Walk will gather for a kickoff dinner to start their two-week, 250-mile walk around the San Francisco Bay. Traditional Native American leaders and the Nipponzan Myohoji Buddhists will lead the walk. We will walk and pray with our ancestors in areas where shell mounds and sacred sites have been desecrated by development. The November 14 dinner will feature Winona LaDuke, Native American leader, activist, and director of Honor the Earth, prayers, Native American drumming and prayers. The walkers will gather at Sogorea-te'-Glen Cove in Vallejo at 8am on November 15 to start walking. Local native people have been fighting for years to protect this burial ground and sacred site from development. Walkers will then travel on to Pt Pinole, El Cerrito, Alameda, Oakland, Hayward, Fremont, San Jose, and up to San Francisco to end with an educational picket at the Huichiun Shell mound in Emeryville on November 28 where a shopping mall complex was built on top of a series of shell mounds and burial sites. Each day of walking begins with a prayer circle. Participants then walk with sacred staffs as they travel through the Bay Area past dozens of sacred sites, Ohlone village sites, and visit many of the hundreds of huge shell mounds that used to dominate the Bay area. The largest of the shell mounds were as tall as 3 storey buildings and 300 feet in diameter. We stop to honor our ancestors and pray at the destruction of these sites. Along the way we are fed and housed by various community groups, churches, and a Sikh temple. This year is the culmination of four years of Sacred Sites/Shell mound Peace Walks. Read article and schedule

Photo slide show of 2007 Shellmound Walkers

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A stinking corpse: US deceit and theft of Navajo water rights

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

Today I received one of the most important documents that I've ever received as a journalist in Indian country. It details the loss of Navajo water rights, the role of non-Indian attorneys and how uninformed non-Indian journalists come to Indian country and follow the mandates of those they believe to be the "good guys." Too often, the "good guys" are actually driven by politics and personal motives.
The document is "Navajo Water Rights: Truths and Betrayals," written in response to an article published in High Country News and Navajo Times, written by Matt Jenkins.
Among the authors of "Navajo Water Rights: Truths and Betrayals," is Former Navajo Chairman Peter MacDonald.Many years ago, in the 1990s, I was a stringer for Associated Press and covered federal courts. During the federal trial of Former Navajo Chairman Peter MacDonald, I realized that the US government would stop at nothing to remove him from office and put him in prison.
"Why?" I asked a Navajo businessman, during a court recess in Prescott, Arizona. "Was it about oil and gas, or coal?" No, the Navajo businessman said. "It is about the water."
Now, a decade and a half later, I read and understand the importance of Navajo water to the United States, in this document. Navajo water and the electric power made with it, light up the Southwest cities. While the people of the Southwest light up, water their lawns and golf courses and turn on their water faucets, many Navajos haul their water and read by lantern light.
It is a long and corrupt history of US colonialism and deceit, a history with truths now being revealed like maggots on a rotting corpse. From the formation of the Navajo Tribal Council, as it was called then, to sign energy leases in the early Twentieth Century, to the current day machinations to usurp Navajo water rights and resources, the ploys of the United States government and its agents is a long and nauseating history of deceit, which includes the murderous legacy of the Long Walk.
Read for yourself, "Navajo Water Rights: Truths and Betrayals." Water attorneys will gain a great deal from the analysis of Indian water rights.
Hopefully, journalists and editors will discover red flags and avoid condescending and inaccurate articles in the future.
As George Orwell said, "In a time of deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act."
Thanks to all of you out there devoted to this revolutionary act of truth-telling.

Read "Navajo Water Rights: Truths and Betrayals"
http://censored-news.blogspot.com/2008/11/navajo-water-rights-truths-betrayals.html

Double click on image to enlarge. Original image by Norman Rockwell.

Incredible interviews at Incredible Records in Sebastopol

Article and photo by Brenda Norrell

SEBASTOPOL, Calif. -- If there's nothing you love more than photos of the 60s and 70s music makers and stories of Buffy Sainte Marie, Abbie Hoffman, Wavy Gravy, Bob Marley and all the others, then you'll love today's talks with Jonathon Lipsin, the icon who owns Incredible Records & CD's in downtown Sebastopol, north of San Francisco. This photo, held by Lipsin, is an unpublished photo of Buffy Sainte Marie with Abbie Hoffman, Bob Wier and Jesse Jackson. Buffy was censored out of the music business in the US after "Universal Soldier," because of the power of song during the Vietnam War. Photo copyright Brenda Norrell. Listen to a few of Lipsin's memories ...

Interviews at Incredible Records, six brief audios

Incredible Records store, audio six
Incredible Record store, audio five
Incredible Records store, audio four
Incredible Records store, audio three
Incredible Record store, audio two
Incredible Record store, audio one

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Winona LaDuke's home burns to the ground

From: AgnesFaye
Friends,
This past weekend, Winona's house had an electrical fire and the house burnt to the ground. No one was hurt. While the house and its contents are gone, the blessing is that all five kids and three grandchildren are safe. I'm writing to you because I know Winona won't ask for help, and I also know she really needs our support.
Winona bought her house about 20 years ago and it was filled with art, books, music, photos and other collectibles that reflected her story and the story of her family.
What will be most missed are these memories, and we can recreate some of them. Photos: One positive thing about being a public figure is that lots of folks have photos of you and your children. We have a good collection at Honor the Earth but I'm asking if you could go through your pictures and send photos you have of the family, especially the kids. Wasey and Ajuwak were born before the digital age so a lot of the photos of them growing up are gone. Photos would mean a lot.
Movement T-shirts and Art: The kids all had an amazing collection ofmovement t-shirts that comprised the bulk of their wardrobe. Winona basically shopped for her kids at the events she attended around the world. If you have any political message shirts or shirts from historic activist events in sizes Small, Large or X-Large, I know the kids would cherish them.
Zapatista shirts are a favorite.
Also gone is Winona's amazing collection ofposters and art from decades past. I know she would appreciate any no-nukes, safe energy, anti-colonial, no-gmo and Native activist art.Books: Winona had a library that fed her mind and soul, and that she often turned to for research material.
If you can send books, fiction andnon-fiction, she can begin her collection again.
Lastly, Winona has a newborn grandson, Little Crow, who along with her twotoddler grandchildren lost all of their clothes and blankets. These are the things -- photos, t-shirts and art, books and baby/toddlerclothing that I think would be most helpful right now, and would touch the family most.
Winona and the kids are renting an apartment in Detroit Lakes and will be staying there over the winter while envisioning building a new home. Right now, the best shipping address is White Earth Land Recovery/Honor the Earth office up in Callaway:
Winona LaDuke White Earth Land Recovery Project
607 Main Avenue
Callaway, MN 56521
I am so appreciative to have all of you to turn to for support. I send warm thoughts and love your way, and deep thanks that we all have such a wonderful circle of family and friends. Faye AgnesFay@aol.com

Food donations needed for AIM-West Reunion week

AIM-West needs the following food and equipment donations for the weeklong 40th anniversary week in San Francisco, Nov. 24 -- 28, 2008

Serving: Paper and plasticware (750 of each of dinner plates, forks, spoons, knives, hot and cold cups not larger than 10 ounces); 50 small desert plates; 1,000 napkins; coffee filter, regular round; 3 rolls paper towels; scrubber and new sponge for dishes; dish detergent.
Electric: 2 to 3 power strips; 2 to 3 extension cords.
Staples: 15 pounds of coffee; 1 large box of tea; 5 pounds of sugar; 1 extra large creamer; 5 pounds of honey; 20 sets of salt and pepper; one box of salt and one large pepper for kitchen; cans of tuna; 10 packages of dry bread stuffing mix; 1 gallon can kidney beans; 1 dozen eggs; 1 gallon mayonnaise (not salad dressing); 2 to 3 large salad dressings; 3 large (Costco size) bags of chips; 1/2 case of condensed milk; 1 large powdered rubbed sage for seasoning.
Drinks: Juice for 250 people; bottled water, milk; name-brand sodas for concert event; snacks you would want to eat at a concert.
Coolers: 2 to 5 gallon coolers.
Perishables: 20 loaves of bread 200 dinner rolls; 50 pounds of potatoes cut; 7 stalks celery; 10 medium onions (yellow or white); 10 pounds of cheese; 10 pounds of cheese; 10-pound sliced cheese and sliced beef bologna; other cold cuts; 6 very large bags of salad; 10 heads of lettuce; fresh zucchini and yellow squash; 1 pound fresh snap peas; 8 pounds white mushrooms; 1 pound raw sunflower seeds; croutons for salad for 100 people; 2 large red onions.
Contact Pegge Lemke: peg.lem@gmail.com
Reunion site on Monday, November 24: San Francisco main library, 100 Larkin Street (across from City Hall); Tuesday, Nov. 25 and Wednesday, Nov. 26, daylong gatherings, and Friday night concert at Baha'i Center, San Francisco, 170 Valencia Street.

Mohawks: Spies for foreign powers forfiet birthright

CSIS SHOPS FOR MOHAWK “STOOL PIGEONS” IN KAHNAWAKE

MOHAWK NATION NEWS

Nov. 11, 2008. A “stool pigeon” is an information “carrier pigeon” inside a community. They give intelligence about us to our enemies, like police, government, social scientists or academics who pretend to study us. Let’s not forget those “5th column” scumbags - the band or tribal councils and “aboriginal” police forces - that have been forced on us by our enemies. We Mohawks are officially number 3 on the “terrorist” list put out by Public Safety & Emergency Preparedness Canada, after Alqaeda and the Tamil Tigers. Doesn’t it look like the state is setting us set up for something?
The Canadian Secret Intelligence Service CSIS didn’t want to twiddle its thumb. It’s picking on us to justify its existence, or they’re very bored. They are recruiting informants among our people. A CSIS woman, Nancy Demarais, called Tewhonwasonte. He writes a column for the Kahnawake Eastern Door newspaper and is a member of the 207 Long House where some of the traditional people meet.This CSIS Wanna-be “Mata Hari” with a bag of money wanted a secret rendez-vous with Tewhonwasonte in a restaurant outside the community. She wanted to talk about ‘Mohawk’ stuff, like the tobacco industry and especially about our sister community of Tyendinaga.
It was a thinly veiled attempt to gain “strategic” information about us. In exchange Mata Hari offered to give him some “interesting” information. “I think you will have a smile on your face," she said.
Read article ...
http://censored-news.blogspot.com/2008/11/mohawks-spies-for-foreign-powers.html
Related article: Amnesty International to Canada: Excessive force and snipers directed at Tyendinaga Mohawks

AIM-West: No one is illegal, We are all one river

No one is illegal -- Somos un solo rio/We are all one river"
By Brenda Norrell
http://www.narconews.com/
Photo Longest Walk 1978 by Takeo Koshikawa

SAN FRANCISCO -- AIM-West is hosting the 40th Anniversary Reunion of the American Indian Movement, Nov. 24 -- 28. With the theme, "No one is illegal -- Somos un solo rio/We are all one river," the topics include the militarization of the US borders, treaty rights, protection of sacred places, international Indigenous rights and religious freedom for prison inmates.

Bill Means, cofounder of the International Indian Treaty Council, is among the featured speakers at the sunrise gathering on Alcatraz Island on Thursday, Nov. 27. The weeklong AIM-West reunion includes Native Americans who have made history in the struggle for Indigenous Peoples rights, including Madonna Thunder Hawk, Manny Pino, Lenny Foster, Mike Flores, Charlie Hill and Patricia Bellanger.

The theme is “SOMOS UN SOLO RIO!” We Are One River, and “No One is Illegal!” This includes recognition of Indigenous Nation’s inherent right to self-determination, honor and respect for treaties ratified by the US Congress, protection of sacred sites, freedom for political prisoners, and the encouragement for the U.S. to adopt the United Nations General Assembly Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. The discussions include strategies for the “Manifesto for Change”, Green power and Red Power, a sustainable future, and taking a stand in solidarity with our relations from Mexico, Central and South America.

During the organizing session in San Francisco on Tuesday night, Tony Gonzales said the reunion, which includes speakers, concerts and an Unthanksgiving Feast, offers the opportunity to focus on the direction and needs of the future. Pegge Lemke said, following the US elections, it is important to remember that it is the people who hold the power. Lemke said it is the people who have "the power to empower others to return to a more natural way of life and live in balance and rhythm."

Earthcycles web radio returns to the air live, to cover the week's events, Nov. 24 -- 28. Earthcycles producer Govinda Dalton, and cohost Brenda Norrell, will be in San Francisco for the week to host the live show. Dalton, who lives in northern California, and Norrell, based in Tucson, were cohosts of the Longest Walk Talk Radio, on the five-month walk across America. Native Americans walked from Alcatraz to DC for sacred places and protection of Mother Earth, from February through July of 2008.

The same issues covered by the Longest Walk Talk Radio will be highlighted in the weeklong, on-air coverage, including the proliferation of coal mines, power plants and drilling in Indian country; the militarization of the US borders and the oppression and violations of human rights of Indigenous Peoples around the world.

Brief audio interviews are now available from Tuesday night's planning session, with Tony Gonzales, Mark Anquoe, Kiowa from Oklahoma, and Pegge Lemke, who was also a Long Walker. Pegge also encourages Native American Indian Nations to rescue and adopt wild horses, because the US government is now considering euthenasia for the horses. Pegge urged Indian Nations to develop programs for their youths with these horses, preserving Native horse culture. The audios are at http://censored-news.blogspot.com/

AIM-West said in its announcement that AIM founded or inspired organizations including American Indian OIC (Opportunities Industrialization Center), Legal Rights Center, Little Earth of United Tribes Housing, Native American Community Clinic, Migizi Communications and Indian education that began with Little Red School House and Heart of the Earth Survival Schools in Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota.

AIM members brought the plight of Indian people to the attention of the world community through the creation of the International Indian Treaty Council (IITC), a United Nations non-governmental organization based in San Francisco. The IITC was founded in 1974 at a gathering by the American Indian Movement in Standing Rock, South Dakota attended by more than 5,000 representatives of 98 Indigenous Nations throughout the Americas. In 1977, the IITC became the first organization of Indigenous Peoples to be recognized as a Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) with Consultative Status to the United Nations Economic and Social Council, AIM-West said.

Despite the history and the accomplishments, AIM is difficult to identify for some people. It seems to stand for many things at once-the protection of treaty rights and the preservation of spirituality and culture. But what else?

"Unlike the American civil rights movement, with which it has been compared, AIM has seen self-determination and racism differently. Desegregation was not a goal. Individual rights were not placed ahead of the preservation of Native Nation sovereignty. At the 1971 AIM national conference it was decided that translating policy to practice meant building organizations—schools and housing and employment services," AIM-West said.

Over the years, as these organizations have grown, they have continued to serve the community from a base of Indian culture.

"Before AIM in 1968, culture had been weakened in most Indian communities due to U.S. policy, the American boarding schools and all the other efforts to extinguish Indian secular and spiritual life. Now, many groups cannot remember a time without culture. This great revival has also helped to restore spiritual leaders and elders to their former positions of esteem for the wisdom and the history they can teach. All of these actions are in concert with the principles of AIM and came into being at this time in history because Indian people have refused to relinquish their sovereign right to exist as free and non-colonized people," according to the statement.

AIM-WEST was established to bring about awareness on issues that concern or affect Indians of the Americas on a daily basis. Further, it advocates for communities to establish strategic processes, procedures for standard setting, and for the betterment and well-being of all Indigenous peoples. AIM-WEST addresses issues implicit in international laws and standards related to human rights, the environment, and promotes and show cases cultural and traditional events to complement the diversity of Indigenous peoples representative from throughout the Americas and Pacific region. It is common knowledge San Francisco is that microcosm of the new American Indian merging together in mainstream USA today, AIM-West said.

The general public is invited to attend. The press and media welcomed. Wheel chair accessible. Broadcast daily on www.earthcycles.net and on local SF radio FM 104.1

Contact: Tony Gonzales – 415-577-1492; Volunteer to help: Peggy Lemke 408-625-0986; John Powers – 415-559-9724 and Mark Anquoe 415-566-5788
Schedule of events for the Anniversary AIM West 40th Anniversary Reunion (updated Nov. 12)
eltony@earthlink.net
www.aimovement.org/
AIM-WEST, a San Francisco community based human rights and cultural education non-profit organization, an affiliate of the American Indian Movement, cordially invite you to the 40 Year Anniversary Reunion of the American Indian Movement in the CITY November 24-28, 2008. Please mark your calendars.
Monday, Nov. 24: Location – San Francisco Public Main Library, 100 Larkin Street, across from City Hall.
Time: 8 am registration is on-going. Public meeting opens at 10:30 am until 5:30 pm. The press is invited.
Master of Ceremony: Mr. Bill Means with Madonna Thunder Hawk.*

Opening prayer and introductions: California Native Nation’s representatives, speakers, AIM special guests, and film and slide-show presentation.

Panel discussion on where the Movement is today and primary issues of attention: Immigration and welcoming our relations from the South, National concerns, Treaty Rights, “Green Economy” and Mother Earth, and the recently adopted “UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples”.

Tuesday, Nov. 25: Location – The San Francisco Baha’i Center, 170 Valencia Street (between 14th Street and Dubois Street). Solidarity statements and topics will include Land struggles today; Sacred Sites; “Manifesto for Change”; Fishing Rights and subsistence gathering; Political Prisoners.
Time: 10 am to 5 pm (coffee and snacks will be provided)

Wednesday, Nov. 26: Location - The San Francisco Baha’i Center, Unthanksgiving Dinner, Special Human Rights Award night. The theme, “The Eagle invites the Condor to eat turkey!” Potluck and speakers and performers; Keith Secola, Phoenix! Also Fancy Dancers “Medicine Warriors” and “All Nations Singers”.
Special guests; Lehman Brightman, Patricia Bellanger, Little Wolf Bellecourt, Yvonne Swan, Charlie Hill, with Max Gail, and much more fun!
Time: 10 am bring food to share and help with setting up tables, chairs, (volunteers needed).
12 noon to 6 pm – Open prayer, drum, dancers, MC introduction, feast and awards.

Thursday, Nov. 27: Free time for AIM conferees! Everyone invited to attend the Annual UnThanksgiving Alcatraz Island Sun Rise Gathering. Boats leave from Pier #31. Call Hornblower Tours at 415-981-7625 for price and schedule of departures; booths open 4:30 am. To purchase tickets in advance (advised!) go to www.alcatrazcruises.com The event is broadcast live 6 am to 8 am from “The Rock” by AIM-WEST, on Pacifica Radio KPFA 94.1 FM. All boats return by 9 am. Have a good day!

Friday, Nov. 28: Fundraiser concert for AIM-WEST at the Baha’i Center with Dr. Loco and Rockin’ Jalapenos, The Bob Young Project, including local and known music performers. Prices $10-20 slide scale. Time: doors open 6 pm to 10 pm. (Support the local advocacy in the bay area!)

For more information or to make a donation on-line: www.aimwest.info or call 415-577-1492.
The entire event will be broadcast live at www.earthcycles.net
For San Francisco local radio listeners dial 104.1 FM
Be informed, stay tuned, AIM high!
Thank You All My Relations!
Wheelchair accessible
More information: Tony Gonzales (415) 577-1492 or visit http://www.aimwest.info/
Listen live at Earthcycles, http://www.earthcycles.net, Nov. 24 -- 28, 2008.

Uranium's 'Poison Wind,' film Flagstaff Nov. 15, 2008

Norman Brown's "Poison Wind," presents history of Navajo uranium miners. Gallup Independent article.
Please double click to enlarge.

Audios in San Francisco: AIM-West Welcome to 40th Anniversary

Article and photo by Brenda Norrell

SAN FRANCISCO -- Listen to interviews from tonight's planning session for the 40th Anniversary of the American Indian Movement, as AIM-West prepares for a week of events, Nov. 24 -- 28. Listen to tonight's interviews with Tony Gonzales, Mark Anquoe, Kiowa from Oklahoma, and Pegge Lemke, who was also a Long Walker. Pegge also encourages Native American Indian Nations to save wild horses and develop programs for their youths.

Audios at http://censored-news.blogspot.com/

Tony Gonzales: Welcome, AIM West 40th Anniversary
Audio Mark: Welcome 40th Anniversary AIM West
Audio Peggy: 40th Anniversary AIM West

More information: Tony Gonzales (415) 577-1492

Schedule: http://www.aimwest.info/

Listen live at Earthcycles, http://www.earthcycles.net/, Nov. 24 -- 28, 2008

Photo: During the planning meeting for AIM-West's 40th Anniversary, Tony Gonzales

receives a photo by photographer Kerry Richardson of a 1992 meeting of the International Indian Treaty Council in Marin County, Calif., attended by Rigoberta Menchu, Bill Means and others. Photo copyright Brenda Norrell

Earthcycles, live from San Francisco Nov. 24 -- 28, 2008

By Brenda Norrell
Censored News
SAN FRANCISCO -- Earthcycles web radio returns to the air live during November. From Monday, Nov. 24, through Friday, Nov. 28, Earthcycles will broadcast live from San Francisco, with coverage of the events of 40th anniversary of the American Indian Movement AIM-West, the International Indian Treaty Council and Alcatraz Island.
Earthcycles producer Govinda Dalton, and cohost Brenda Norrell, will be in San Francisco for the week to host the live show.

Dalton, who lives in northern California, and Norrell, based in Tucson, were cohosts of the Longest Walk Talk Radio, on the five-month walk across America. Native Americans walked from Alcatraz to DC for sacred places and protection of Mother Earth.
The same issues covered by the Longest Walk Talk Radio will be highlighted in this month's weeklong, on-air coverage, including the proliferation of coal mines, power plants and drilling in Indian country; the militarization of the US borders and the oppression and violations of human rights of Indigenous Peoples around the world.
As we plan our programming, we would like to hear from you. Please contact us if you have interviews or issues to include.
Listen to Earthcycles and the Longest Walk five-month series at:
http://www.earthcycles.net/
In solidarity, Brenda Norrell
brendanorrell@gmail.com

http://www.bsnorrell.blogspot.com/

Photo: Earthcycles bus in DC near the US Capitol, when the Longest Walk arrived in DC in July of 2008. Photo Brenda Norrell

Six days later, Pine Ridge declares disaster

Six days after the disaster, Oglala President Steele declares Pine Ridge a disaster area
KOTA Radio
Audios at: http://www.kotaradio.com/news.asp?eid=5002&ID=1221
On Monday, the Oglala Sioux Tribe president John Yellow Bird Steele declared Pine Ridge a disaster area. Hundreds there are without power and many are stranded in their own homes.In Wanblee, an emergency operation center set up at the Crazy Horse School is running on generators where 250 people have been stuck since Wednesday night.
Susan Thundershield and her 9 grandchildren have been sleeping on the gym floor for the past 5 night (audio.)
But, things aren’t much better for those able to stay in their homes, like Delane Moves Camp. (audio)
Food and water are in short supply and providing help has been a struggle, with the Red Cross making a couple of visits and volunteers from Minnesota trying to bring food on snowmobiles.
Relief worker Phyllis Wilcox said they’re desperately seeking donations. (audio)
Mount Rushmore Superintendent Gerard Baker said park service staff will deliver firewood to the area.
Note from Censored News: Please keep in mind if you donate through the Red Cross, to hold the Red Cross responsible. During Hurricane Katrina, millions of dollars in donations from Indian Nations to the US Red Cross never reached the Houma Indian Nation in Louisiana. None of it ever reached the Houmas.)

Protecting Bear Butte from biker bars and helicopter rides

By Tamra Brennan
Protect Sacred Sites

Protect Sacred Sites Indigenous People, One Nation, a grass roots organization, spent the entire summer educating bikers headed for the 2008 Sturgis Rally, regarding the significance of Bear Butte.
You might ask yourself, why educate bikers about a sacred site? The beginning of August each year, 500,000 bikers invade the small town of Sturgis, South Dakota. Sturgis is located eight miles west of Bear Butte, a sacred site to the Plains Tribes. With the rally growing each year, the concert and bar venues are encroaching directly upon the mountain. One of the largest concert venues Glencoe's Rockin the Rally, is located just one mile south of Bear Butte. Just a mile to the north, sits the worlds largest biker bar, Broken Spoke Campground. Both arrived in the summer of 2006.

We are continuing the campaign, Bikers for Bear Butte, in which we spent months emailing over 6,000 fliers to biker groups, organizations, clubs, chapters, vets clubs and individuals all across the country. We posted on every major biker message board. The campaign response was positively overwhelming, with support from the bikers for our cause. The bikers themselves even posted the flier on some sites, suggesting to their friends to help support our plight to Protect Bear Butte.

Once the Sturgis Rally arrived, we spent the entire week walking around the Rally passing out fliers and talking with Bikers. Again, the support for our cause was incredible. We spoke to bikers that heard about it from other Bikers, and supported our cause. There was a couple I spoke with that traveled across country and heard about it from other bikers at a rest stop in Iowa! So, we knew the campaign was working! We gained support from National Biker Clubs, such as Soldiers for Jesus. We spoke with many bikers that remembered receiving the flier in the email, prior to the Rally. So, the word was spreading in the biker community, with a positive reaction.

Many of the bikers that we spoke with, previously were not aware that Bear Butte was a sacred site. They were surprised that there was no information about this anywhere else. The Department of Tourism and the City of Sturgis, make no effort to inform visitors of this information. This is why educating the bikers about the cause is so critical, they just do not know! We are pursuing discussions with the SD tourism industry about adding a clause to their brochures and literature, acknowledging Bear Butte as a sacred place.

The new attack against Bear Butte, that we faced this year was helicopters. Four separate campgrounds were scheduled to fly during the Rally. The Broken Spoke Campground, initially stated that they would offer their guests flights OVER the mountain, if that's what they requested and if it was not illegal. We fought against this for a couple months prior to the Rally, working directly with FAA, we were able to put a stop to it. During the Rally, we were able to speak directly with two of the helicopter pilots, after FAA spoke with them, again asking them to please not fly over Bear Butte. They understood our plight and agreed to respect our requests.

On the first day, Glencoe's Rockin the Rally hosted the group KISS at their concert venue, one mile from Bear Butte. This concert brought tens of thousands of people down highway 79 headed right towards Bear Butte. Traffic was gridlock from I90 thru Sturgis, all the way out to highway 79, three hours of solid traffic. The helicopters were flying over the traffic on highway 79. The same evening, Buffalo Chip which is located at the junction of highway 79 & 34, was hosting Senator McCain in addition to Kid Rock. Between these two venues, it was absolute chaos around Bear Butte.

We spent all year working on our upcoming educational documentary, for the protection of sacred places focusing on Bear Butte, in addition to other locations and desecration of burial grounds. We filmed the entire rally, the traffic and interviewed many of bikers. The documentary will be released the beginning of next year and is called "On Sacred Ground."

Education is a critical tool, towards creating awareness regarding the protection of all our sacred places. We must educate the public in order to help make the difference.

The next liquor license renewal hearing at Meade Country Commissioners will be held on December 2nd, 2008. In the next couple weeks, we will be posting a request for opposition letters for the general public and supporters to send in, requesting to deny these licenses.

Our organization has recently secured and hired a local attorney, we will be pursuing legal actions in the very near future.

Thank you everyone for your continued efforts to Protect ALL of our Sacred Places!

Protect Sacred Sites Indigenous People, One Nation is a grass roots organization, working towards the protection of sacred sites across the country. Our organization has been actively involved with the ongoing struggle to Protect Bear Butte for several years. We are continuing these efforts, our organization is currently leading the campaign regarding the new developments and further expansions at Bear Butte.

For more information please visit our main website at http://www.protectsacredsites.org/ and our dedicated website for Bear Butte at http://www.protectbearbutte.com/. You can email us at Tamra@ProtectSacredSites.org

Stop Torture weekend: Fort Huachuca in Arizona

HUNDREDS EXPECTED FOR TORTURE PROTEST AT FORT HUACHUCA

United States citizens from at least fifteen states, including all the Southwestern States, are expected to gather for the largest annual Southwest Witness To Stop Torture on November 15-16 in Tucson and Sierra Vista, AZ.
Southwest Witness will engage in peaceful nonviolent action at Fort Huachuca
• to protest the practice of cruelty our country has carried out against captives in the so-called “War on Terror”;
• to open dialogue with soldiers and commanders about their rights and obligations to report cases of torture and cruel treatment;
• to challenge our government’s increasing use of private contractors, with little or no oversight, both as instructors and as part of interrogation teams in the field.
• to call for independent civilian human-rights commission oversight of all United States interrogation training and practice.
A No to Torture Rally at Veterans Memorial Park in Sierra Vista beginning at 10 a.m. on November 16, will be followed in the early afternoon by a peaceful march and vigil to the main gate of Fort Huachuca and a nearby office of a corporate contractor. Speakers will include torture survivors and U.S. military veterans.
The weekend witness begins the day before in Tucson with participants discussing “How can we stop torture?” and building a plan of action; a Theater of the Oppressed evening of poetry, music and drama; followed by a No to Torture Candlelight Procession and Vigil to the Tucson Federal Building.
Additional related events include a Friday evening book reading from Dissent: Voices of Conscience by author Colonel Ann Wright, US Army ret., at a Tucson bookstore and a Sunday evening concert by Francisco Herrera, a peace and justice movement legend in the Bay Area.
Details of time and place for these related events can be found at southwestwitness.org
Southwest Witness to Stop Torture is a regional action in solidarity with the campaign to close the School of the Americas/Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation at Fort Benning, GA, where the testimony of torture survivors has informed us and moved us to action.
More information at http://www.southwestwitness.org/

Indigenous Holiday Market & Concert in Oakland

Host:
SNAG Magazine and IFH
Location:
Intertribal Friendship House

523 International Blvd., Oakland, CA US

View Map
When: Friday, December 5, 7:00 PM to 11:30 PM
FREE EVENT!! Support local artists! Forget the Mall: Buy Your Beautiful Affordable Handmade Holiday Gifts Here! LIVE PERFORMANCES: Audiopharmacy, Jeremy Goodfeather, Quese IMC, Brwn Bflo, Sista Hailstorm! DJ's Wonway and Offerings! Youth Performances & Guest Poets!TRADITIONAL DANCE/MUSIC: Medicine Warrior Dancers, Robinson Rancheria Pomo Dancers, All Nations Drum & Hoop Dancer Sage Romero! ART GALLERY with Native artists! Sustainable and Organic FOOD by Indigenous Permaculture! LIVE MURAL Created on-the-spot with Youth Participation Provided by Visual Element Program of East Side Arts Alliance! It's a FREE THANK YOU PARTY FOR THE commUNITY! ALL AGES/ NO DRUGS NO ALCOHOL EVENT! FIND OUT MORE AT SNAGMAGAZINE.COM.

Open letter from Cauca in Colombia to Obama

An Open Letter from the Association of Indigenous Councils of Northern Cauca, ACIN, to U.S. President-Elect Barack Obama

Santander de Quilichao, Cauca, Colombia
Dear Mr. President-Elect,

First, please accept our sincerest congratulations. We congratulate you for having won because of the noblest aspirations of your people. We believe your election expresses the deep desire for change felt by the majority of the American people: change in the economy and society, change in international relations, and from there, we hope, a change in the relation between the United States of America and the indigenous peoples of the world.
During your historic campaign, you publicly noted some of what Colombians currently face: you acknowledged the murders of trade unionists by the regime and stated your reservations about a Free Trade Agreement with Colombia, which our people have decided against through a democratic referendum, about which we have written before. We thank you for this, and now want you to know about the specific situation facing Colombia's indigenous peoples.
In the past six years we have lost 1,200 people to assassinations by armed groups, both legal and illegal: right-wing paramilitaries, guerrillas, police, and members of the Armed Forces. These murders have created insecurity, and this insecurity has been used to strip us of our rights with what we call the 'Laws of Disposession', legislation and other institutional norms that legalize the loss of our lands, our fundamental freedoms, and our rights. These 'Laws of Disposession' dispose of Colombia's mines, hydrocarbons, water resources, intellectual property, and national parks â€" all of these are brought under the ultimate rule of the Free Trade Agreement with the US. The FTA will mean that if Colombia tries to change the laws to allow its people to share in its resources, or take any independent action, then we will be obliged to compensate investors. We will have to submit our laws to international arbitration outside our own legal jurisdiction.
But in our view, the ultimate law is respect for life. In our view, the FTA puts commercial logic above the respect for life itself, not to mention international humanitarian law, and agreements such as the ILO's Covenant 169, and the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Worldwide. These covenants, as well as the respect for life, have to date been ignored by the government of our country, as well as by your government.
Unfortunately both of our governments, yours with Plan Colombia, and ours with the so-called 'Democratic Security' policy, have done great harm to indigenous peoples and to Mother Earth, while multinational corporations have profited from the petroleum and gas contracts, mining concessions, privatizations, and low wages.
We hope that you will contribute to change all this. We hope that you will listen to our words. We have lost many lives defending these words. Words that we have walked and words we have backed up with our civil resistance. These are the words that we have shared throughout Colombia since October 10th, through the Minga of Resistance, a national mobilization we convened as indigenous peoples, in association with other peoples and processes.
We believe that the spirit of change in your people cannot be contained. We believe it is a powerful force and we hope it will join with the force of our words and with the need for change that has been crying out throughout Latin America. We invite you to come to listen to these words here in Colombia, and we are ready to articulate them there, if you invite us. Here or there, it is the same planet and our mission is the same: to protect it, to save us all.
Finally, we call on you to join with us in fulfilling our responsibilities to Mother Earth and to history. The first one, our collective Mother, has given all of us life. The second one, History, has reflected our growing pains and our errors. History has not matured into systems that reconcile it with the rhythms, pulses and mandates of Nature. We believe the very reason human beings and our societies exist is to create the harmony between History and Mother Earth.
As children of Mother Earth, we speak to you as to a brother or sister. As indigenous, we speak to you as peoples, obliged from creation to seek harmony between History and Mother Earth. To reconcile ourselves with nature is not an option, but an imperative. By transforming life into merchandise, by making sacred the accumulation of wealth, by enshrining greed, we believe our societies have entered a crisis, including the economic crisis currently faced by your country. The destruction of our peoples in Colombia is a consequence of that Historic error that has placed greed before life.
Brother President-elect Barack Obama, we do not write to ask or demand anything for ourselves, because we know that the death of our peoples and the destruction of our cultures for greed, signifies the beginning of the end for Mother Earth itself.
Before we disappear with our collective Mother, we have decided to speak and to walk our words. In the name of life, of change, let us listen to one another and make the effort to find a way to create harmony between our peoples and life. Let us create the conditions for new History. One where the sacred ends of promotion and protection of Life and Beauty can never again be transformed into means for private accumulation of power at the service of greed.
We await you.
With great respect,
Association of Indigenous Couincils of Northern Cauca ACIN -Cxab Wala Kiwe-Territory of the Great People- Cauca, Mother Earth, November 10th, 2008 Santander de Quilichao

Masayesva: Congressman defending Black Mesa

Rep. Raul Grijalva Stands Up for Hopi People, Resources, Sovereignty
By Vernon Masayesva

KYKOTSMOVI, Ariz. (Nov. 9) – Rep. Raul Grijalva, R-Ariz., has sent an urgent letter to U.S. Secretary of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne requesting that he direct the Office of Surface Mining, Reclamation and Enforcement to stop work on the Black Mesa Project draft environmental impact statement.
Black Mesa Trust Executive Director Vernon Masayesva lauded the representative's effort to ensure that the Interior Department meets its trust responsibility to Native peoples. "Rep. Grijalva has seen into the heart of this issue and taken a stand to defend our interests and rights, especially our right to protect the N-aquifer underlying Black Mesa from further corporate abuse."
In his letter, Grijalva told Kempthorne that allowing continued access to the aquifer for coal mining "would result in irreparable damage to the sole source of drinking water for many Hopis and Navajos. Moreover, past water withdrawals from the Navajo Aquifer have already caused sacred Hopi springs to dry up, irreparably harming the tribal communities."
He also pointed out that "there is no actual proposed project involving Black Mesa Mine to be analyzed" since the only customer for the coal (Mohave Generating Station in Laughline, Nev.) shut down in 2005. Grijalva wrote, "the pending EIS [is] not only premature, but in direct conflict with the requirements of the National Environmental Policy Act."
The Black Mesa Project DEIS proposes to combine the Kayenta Mine and the Black Mesa Mine (both on Black Mesa in northern Arizona, deep in the Navajo and Hopi reservations) and to resume coal mining at the Black Mesa Mine, which has been shut down since Mohave Generating Station. The Office of Surface Mine suspended work on the DEIS in May 2007 when Southern California Edison stopped funding because it had not found buyers for the Mohave Generating Station who would restart the power plant. In May 2008 OSM reopened the comment period on the DEIS until July 7. OSM states on its website that the agency plans to issue the final environmental impact statement this month.
In the letter Grijalva reminded Kempthorne that the Hopi government is in disarray at the moment and, therefore, "no one has the authority to consult with OSM and make decisions on behalf of the Hopi Tribal Council on matters related to the mining and water withdrawals on Black Mesa."
In conclusion, Grijalva said, "I believe a delay in processing the EIS is warranted and ask that the process be delayed until OSM can determine the actual purpose and need of this project" and until the Hopi tribal government "is again intact."
Masayesva and other Hopi tribal members expressed their gratitude to Grijalva for his support of the Hopi people, defense of their natural resources and respect for the tribe's sovereignty and right to self-determination.

Pine Ridge: 2,500 without power in disaster

By Tamra
NDN News
I spoke with the Director of Red Cross Richard Smith, this morning. Here is an update on what is happening on Pine Ridge.
The Tribe has set up a official command structure at the Crazy Horse School. Anyone that needs assistance in the districts, or if you know anyone that is stranded and needs help, contact Monica, she is the Incident Commander at this time.
Monica Perkildsen
605-441-5712 (cell)
They also now have a generator and have phones up and running at Crazy Horse School.
605-462-6784 or 605-462-6756
There are 2,500 people still without power, and it appears that it will not be restored this week.
I have spoken with Monica, she is working with the Tribal Council to get a official press release out in the next couple days. They will address all of their direct needs in that release. She will keep me posted on new developments.
They are sending all the supplies donated from Red Cross to all of the outer districts in need.
Fox News is on the way there right now to cover the story, so it will be on local news this evening.
They are still trying to assess the damage and any needs on Rosebud and Cheyenne River. So, no news there as of yet.
That's all the info that I have at the moment. Will keep you posted on whatever new developments I am made aware of.
In peace & solidarity,
Tamra
http://www.ndnnews.com/
http://www.protectsacredsites.org/
http://www.protectbearbutte.com/
PROTECT BEAR BUTTE!
"Providing news and information about Native American Issues & Causes"
"Helping to make a difference for our people in Indian Country, one day at a time. What will you do today to help make a difference?"
"Our sacred lands are all that remain keeping us connected to our place on Mother Earth, to our spirituality, our heritage and our lands; what’s left of them. If they take it all away, what will remain except a vague memory of a past so forgotten?"

El Paso and Berlin: Stop Apartheid and Border Wall

IN THE 19TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE BERLIN WALL FALL:
STOP THE CONSTRUCTION OF THE BORDER WALL!


By Carlos Marentes
Censored News
EL PASO & BERLIN -- On November 9, 1989, the German people knocked down the Berlin Wall. The Berlin Wall had been erected on August 13, 1961 diving the people of Berlin into two sectors. One sector was controlled by US and its allies and the other was controlled by the Soviet Union. German people was not free to cross from one sector to another. Families and friends were separated by the wall. The wall lasted 28 years. During this period of time, about 5000 escape attempts were made to reunite with relatives, friends or to seek better economic opportunities. Close to 300 persons died attempting to cross the wall.

The Berlin Wall was considered an offense to humanity. All the so-called democratic governments denounced the wall and demanded their removal. In June 26, 1963, during a visit to Germany, president John F. Kennedy said in his popular “Ich bin ein Berliner” speech:

“Freedom has many difficulties and democracy is not perfect, but we have never had to put a wall up to keep our people in...”

“While the wall is the most obvious and vivid demonstration of the failures of the Communist system, for all the world to see, we take no satisfaction in it, for it is, as your Mayor has said, an offense not only against history but an offense against humanity, separating families, dividing husbands and wives and brothers and sisters, and dividing a people who wish to be joined together...”

Many years later, another American president, Ronald Reagan, visited Germany and in a very passionate speech made the following plea:

“Behind me stands a wall that encircles the free sectors of this city, part of a vast system of barriers that divides the entire continent of Europe. From the Baltic, south, those barriers cut across Germany in a gash of barbed wire, concrete, dog runs, and guard towers. Farther south, there may be no visible, no obvious wall. But there remain armed guards and checkpoints all the same--still a restriction on the right to travel, still an instrument to impose upon ordinary men and women the will of a totalitarian state. Yet it is here in Berlin where the wall emerges most clearly; here, cutting across your city, where the news photo and the television screen have imprinted this brutal division of a continent upon the mind of the world...”

“...we believe that freedom and security go together, that the advance of human liberty can only strengthen the cause of world peace...”

“...Gorbachev, if you seek peace, if you seek prosperity for the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, if you seek liberalization: Come here to this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!...”

(Remarks at the Brandenburg Gate West Berlin, Germany, June 12, 1987)

Nineteen years later, taking advantage of the lack of historic memory of the American people, it's our own government building a wall in the same totalitarian spirit of the Berlin Wall. This time the wall is in the US-México border. The border wall will separate the border community in the same manner that the Berlin Wall divided the German people for 28 years.

This wall is also an attack to the freedom and peace of our border community. The border wall will separate a border community composed by the cities of El Paso, Texas and Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, and many rural communities on both sides of the Río Grande River. The wall will bring more violence and intolerance and will also cause an irreparable ecological disaster to our already deteriorated environment.

The mere fact that the construction of the wall is estimated at more than 7.5 million dollars per mile, is also an offense to El Paso, the fourth poorest city in the nation and the poorest city in the state.

For this reason we have been fighting against this wall for many years. We have marched, protested, celebrated faith and indigenous ceremonies, held community meetings, and many cultural events against the construction of the wall. This has been a hard fight. We have been arrested and harassed by the local police, the sheriff department, the Border Patrol and the racist thugs of Kiewit Corporation, the construction company in charge of erecting the wall. But we are not afraid and we will not be intimidated. On the contrary, every time we are more committed to continue our fight against this atrocity of the Bush administration.

Today we celebrate the 19th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. We celebrate this occasion by stating our conviction that we will stop the construction of this atrocity in our border community. We also understand that the political situation may be changing, therefore we also celebrate the 19th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall with a new slogan:

President Obama, stop the construction of this wall!

Russell Means: International Disaster Declaration

INTERNATIONAL DISASTER DECLARATION
Contact: David Adams, Director of Communications, Republic of Lakotah
605-867-1025

STATE OF EMERGENCY: Oglala Sioux
Governor Michael Rounds of South Dakota has declared the State a disaster area. However, Indian Reservations are NOT included in the declaration. I, Russell Means, due to the total absence of Tribal Government and its leadership, and as candidate for Tribal President and Chief Facilitator of the Republic of Lakotah, am declaring an INTERNATIONAL STATE OF EMERGENCY. The reason for this declaration is two-fold:
1) The current life-threatening severe weather conditions and
2) The ongoing genocidal policies of the United States Government that still remain unaddressed:
• Unknown thousands are still stranded by high snow drifts for 3rd straight day.
• Unknown number of people without heat and/or electricity.
• Impassable road conditions preventing emergency services and propane deliveries.
• Confirmed fatality due to inability to get to dialysis treatment. Status of other dialysispatients is unknown.
• Second fatality bled to death due to no emergency services.
• Tribal President Steele and Vice President Brewerʼs whereabouts unknown as reported by Officers of the Bureau of Indian Affairs (B.I.A.).
• Officers rescue mother with new born and 2-year old child from heatless home.
• Tribal Police dispatch unable to determine road conditions.
• Wide-spread telephone service interruptions.
• Hardest hit is the eastern portion of the Reservation, which includes Pass Creek, Eagle Nest and Medicine Root Districts. Also Red Shirt Table, Cuny Table, Slim Buttes,Oglala and Porcupine communities.
• Unconfirmed reports of National Guard due to arrive today
Genocidal Results of the Failed American Indian Policies of the United States Government:
MORTALITY:
• Lakotah men have a life expectancy of less than 44 years, lowest of any country in the World (excluding AIDS) including Haiti.
• Lakotah death rate is the highest in the United States.
• The Lakotah infant mortality rate is 300% more than the U.S. Average.
• One out of every four Lakotah children born are fostered or adopted out to non-Indian homes.• Diseases such as tuberculosis, polio, etc. are present. Cancer is now at epidemic proportions!
• Teenage suicide rate is 150% higher than the U.S national average for this group.
POVERTY:
• Median income is approximately $2,600 to $3,500 per year.
• 97% of our Lakotah people live below the poverty line.
• Many families cannot afford heating oil, wood or propane and many residents use ovens to heat their homes.
UNEMPLOYMENT:
• Unemployment rates on our reservations are 80% or higher.
• Government funding for job creation is lost through cronyism and corruption.HOUSING:• Elderly die each winter from hypothermia (freezing).
• 1/3 of the homes lack basic clean water and sewage while 40% lack electricity.
• 60% of Reservation families have no telephone.• 60% of housing is infected with potentially fatal black molds.
• There is an estimated average of 17 people living in each family home (may only have two to three rooms). Some homes, built for 6 to 8 people, have up to 30 peopleliving in them.DRUGS AND ALCOHOL:
• More than half the Reservationʼs adults battle addiction and disease.
• Alcoholism affects 9 in 10 families.
• Two known meth-amphetamine labs allowed to continue operation. Why?
DISEASE:
• The Tuberculosis rate on Lakotah reservations is approx. 800% higher than the U.S national average.
• Cervical cancer is 500% higher than the U.S national average.
• The rate of diabetes is 800% higher than the U.S national average.
• Federal Commodity Food Program provides high sugar foods that kill Native people through diabetes and heart disease.INCARCERATION:
• Indian children incarceration rate 40% higher than whites.
• In South Dakota, 21 percent of state prisoners are American Indians, yet they only make up 2% of the population.
• Indians have the second largest state prison incarceration rate in the nation.
• Most Indians live on federal reservations. Less than 2% of Indians live where the state has jurisdiction!
THREATENED CULTURE:
• Only 14% of the Lakotah population can speak the Lakotah language.
• The language is not being shared inter-generationally. Today, the average age of a fluent Lakotah speaker is 65 years.
• Our Lakotah language is an Endangered Language, on the verge of extinction.
• Our Lakotah language is not allowed to be taught in the U.S. Government schools.

NCAI urges new means of protecting sacred places

By Brenda Norrell
U.N. OBSERVER & International Report

PHOENIX – The National Congress of American Indians urged the US Congress to create a statute that would protect Native American sacred places from the onslaught of development, intrusion and desecration and to strengthen existing laws to protect Native Americans' freedom of religion, in a resolution passed during its 65th annual convention.
The American Indian Religious Freedom Act was enacted into law 30 years ago in 1978 to protect the religious freedom of Native people. However, the Supreme Court ruled 20 years ago that neither the Act, nor the US Constitution, provided for a course of action to truly protect Native Americans right to worship in their traditional manner. The Supreme Court said Congress would need to enact a statute for that purpose. Congress has not done so.
The American Indian Religious Freedom Act states that "it shall be the policy of the United States to protect and preserve for American Indians their inherent right of freedom to believe, express, and exercise the traditional religions of the American Indian, Eskimo, Aleut, and Native Hawaiians, including but not limited to access to sites, use and possession of sacred objects, and the freedom to worship through ceremonials and traditional rites."
Native Americans say, however, there is no current mechanism to ensure protection of sacred places or religious rights in court. Further, they say there is too little prosecution of violators of sacred places, burial places and cultural items.
Recently, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act failed to protect two sacred places in court, San Francisco Peaks and Snoqualmie Falls. In the case of San Francisco Peaks, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed its earlier decision and ruled that sewage water could be used for snowmaking on the mountain sacred to 13 American Indian Nations. On this sacred mountain, one of Four Sacred Mountains to the Navajo or Dine’, medicine people hold ceremonies and gather healing plants. Hualapai and Hopi spiritual leaders were among those speaking out against the desecration.

Klee Benally, Navajo, with the Save the Peaks Coalition in Arizona said, "The struggle to protect Sacred Places from corporate interests is a critical struggle for a livable planet and our cultural survival as Indigenous Peoples. There are hundreds of threatened Sacred Places located on lands held by Federal Agencies such as the US Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management. We have no guarantees that these agencies will not allow desecration of Sacred Places because there are no laws that ensure their protection."

Benally saying there is an increasing hostility in the courts.
"Congressional action to protect Sacred Places is necessary because we have no religious freedom when it comes to Federal land management decisions. We keep ending up in courts that are historically hostile towards Indigenous Peoples rights. We have very little options, this is why we must also have a broad-based grassroots movement to take action and address this cultural and environmental crisis," Benally said.
NCAI said, “It is time for Congress to enact a right of action for tribes to defend sacred places. Unless tribes can sustain lawsuits, they will not have a seat at federal negotiation tables and agencies and developers will continue to disregard existing consultation requirements. Meaningful consultation and respectful negotiations can obviate the need for litigation. However, if negotiated accords cannot be reached, tribes must be able to protect their holy places in court.”
The NCAI resolution also pointed out that universities are violating Native American graves, in development and museum content.
The NCAI resolution said, “Burial places are also sacred places. At present, there are entities subverting existing laws designed to protect our burial places and our ancestors. These entities include, for example, prominent universities in the University of California system and other federal and federally-assisted educational institutions, museums and agencies.”
Although the resolution does not name the exact institutions, the resolution follows the action of the University of California-Berkeley which recently desecrated an Ohlone burial ground for development, destroying oaks that were hundreds of years old. UC-Berkeley has also been protested for callously storing thousands of Native American remains in a rodent-filled basement. The Smithsonian Institute is among the museums that have long housed thousands of human remains of Indian people, including Native American skulls collected by bounty hunters in racist studies of intelligence.
NCAI’s resolution fails to point out the recent violation of graves and US federal laws in construction of the US/Mexico border wall. On the western portion of Tohono O’odham land in Arizona, the graves of the ancestors of the Tohono O’odham were dug up by Homeland Security’s contractor Boeing, in secret. The remains were removed from O’odham land, before being returned and reburied. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff waived all federal laws to construct the border wall.
Across the United States, Native Americans, including the Paiutes struggling to rebury “Spirit Cave Man,” in Nevada, are engaged in lengthy court battles. The desecration at the University of California-Berkeley, the plight of Spirit Cave Man and the threat to sacred San Francisco Peaks were among hundreds of issues brought to the Longest Walk, as Native Americans walked across America in 2008, from Alcatraz to DC, for the protection of sacred places and Mother Earth.
As liquor bars and helicopter rides threaten sacred Bear Butte, Yankton Sioux are faced with a large scale hog farm in the middle of their community in South Dakota. A new wave of profiteering uranium mining threatens Lakotas and Navajos. With power plants, coal mining and oil and gas drilling increasing, and the Arctic ice melting, Native Americans walked across America for five months to signal the nation and the world of the danger, while offering prayers for protection.
While burial places are desecrated across the nation, Native Americans ask, “How would you like it if your grandmother was in a museum? How would you like it if your grandfather’s grave was dug up and robbed?”
On the national level, NCAI said that Native Americans must be involved in the federal consultation processes and serve on boards that govern land use.
Further, NCAI said the Native American Graves Protection Repatriation Act must be strengthened in several ways. First, NAGPRA’s definition of Native American needs to be clarified and state that “Native American” means “of, or relating to, a tribe, people, or culture that is or was indigenous to any geographic area that is now located within the boundaries of the United States.”
NAGPRA needs increased penalties for violations of burials and burial grounds, human remains and cultural items. NAGPRA needs to be specifically strengthened with tools for improved law enforcement and prosecutions, NCAI said in the resolution.
In related resolutions, NCAI passed resolutions supporting a moratorium on exploration and oil and gas drilling in the Galisteo Basin of New Mexico; supporting protection of the Zuni Salt Lake in New Mexico and supporting the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

The Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples was adopted Sept. 13, 2007, by the General Assembly of the United Nations.

In its resolution of support, NCAI said, "the declaration by the United Nations supports and reinforces the respect and protection of full self-determination rights by and on behalf of US Tribal Nations as well as the protection of tribal lands and treaties as a matter of international law and policy and is therefore in the vital interests of all US Tribal Nations."
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NCAI resolutions:
http://www.ncai.org/index.php?id=105&selectpro_resid=41

Photo: Snoqualmie Falls

Berlin Wall: Not in our backyard!

EL PASO -- As the anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall nears, we must take a closer look at the wall being built in OUR backyard and begin real discussion about what it means for our society.
Come out and participate in this FREE community event. Change happens if we participate.
When: Friday November 7, 2008
Time: 4-6pm
Where: Shawver Park (Yarbrough and
Border Freeway)
¡YA BASTA! ¡TODOS CONTRA EL MURO!

ACLU probe: Denver police staged protest at DNC

ACLU wants probe into police-staged DNC protest
By Felisa Cardona
The Denver Post

Photos: Colorado Legal Eagles

When a Jefferson County deputy unleashed pepper spray at unruly protesters on the first night of the Democratic National Convention, he did not know that his targets were undercover Denver police officers.
Now the American Civil Liberties Union of Colorado is questioning whether that staged confrontation by police pretending to be violent inflamed other protesters or officers during the most intense night of the four-day event.
The protest occurred Aug. 25 at 15th Street and Court Place near Civic Center. Police ultimately arrested 106 people, the highest number of arrests in a single day during the convention.
According to a use-of-force police report obtained by the ACLU, undercover Denver detectives staged a struggle with a police commander to get pulled out of the crowd without blowing their cover. The commander knew they were working undercover, and the plan was to pull them out of the crowd and pretend they were under arrest so protesters would be none the wiser.
A Jefferson County deputy, unaware of the presence of undercover police, thought that the commander was being attacked and used pepper spray on the undercover officers.
The report says that the commander and an undercover detective were sprayed, but it does not indicate how many others were affected. The report also doesn't say whether the pepper spray used on the undercover police was the first deployment of chemicals that night or whether the riot was already underway. Read article ...

http://www.denverpost.com/sports/ci_10920817

AIM West celebrates 40th Year Anniversary

AIMWEST
1668 Alabama Street
San Francisco, CA 94110
Mobile: (415) 577-1492
eltony@earthlink.net
http://www.aimovement.org/

http://aimwest.info

AIM-WEST, a non-profit organization based in San Francisco cordially invites you to attend The 40 Year Anniversary and Reunion of the American Indian Movement. This event will take place November 24-28, 2008 in San Francisco. Please refer to the attached announcement and www.aimwest.info for current updated information and locations:

Mon. Nov. 24, Time: 10 a.m.-5:30 p.m. Where: Main Library S.F. 100 Larkin St & Grove-(Civic Center Bart Station) Koret Auditorium all day, conferencing & strategizing for the future;

Tues. Nov. 25, Time: 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Where: Baha’i Center, 150 Valencia St., S.F.. Conferencing & strategizing for the future;

Wed. Nov. 26, Time: 12-6 p.m. Where: Baha’i Center, 150 Valencia St., S.F. UnThanksgiving Dinner, Ceremonies and Awards;

Thurs. Nov. 27, Time: 4-9 a.m. Where: S.F. Hornblower Tours Pier #31. Call 415-981-7625 or for advance tickets at http://www.alcatrazcruises.com/.

Fri. Nov. 28, Time: 6-10 p.m. Where: Baha’i Center, 150 Valencia St. S.F. Concert, fundraiser-Live Music.

The theme of this historic gathering is “SOMOS UN SOLO RIO!” We Are One River, and “No One is Illegal!” This includes recognition of Indigenous Nation’s inherent Right to Self-Determination, Honor and Respect for Treaties ratified by the US Congress, Protection of Sacred Sites, Freedom for Political Prisoners, and encourage U.S. to adopt the United Nations General Assembly “Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples”. Also for discussion are strategies for “Manifesto for Change”, Green power vs Red Power a sustainable future, and stand in solidarity with our relations from Mexico, Central and South America.

The AIM reunion includes invited speakers from California Indigenous Nations, congratulatory statements from Governments, liberation movement representatives, and community organizations welcoming the occasion in solidarity with the AIM leadership, its campaigns and events, and provide a direction for future activities and actions to consider.

The women and men of the AIM-the warriors, leaders, marchers, occupiers, and dancers-reflect the many faces of AIM, a forty year old struggle with its roots in a 516 year history of oppression. The names that sparked AIM are too numerous to be included here. Countless efforts contributed to AIM. Many whose stories are not told here have continued to inspire.

“Spiritually, culturally, socially, economically and politically across the country, we developed an indigenous philosophy for the Indian nation,” said Vernon Bellecourt, AIM spokesperson. “For the nation to heal, we had to start nurturing the roots. AIM developed the highway to get on if people want to get back to our traditional, spiritual way of life.”

AIM founded or inspired organizations including American Indian OIC (Opportunities Industrialization Center), Legal Rights Center, Little Earth of United Tribes Housing, Native American Community Clinic, Migizi Communications and Indian education that began with Little Red School House and Heart of the Earth Survival Schools in Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota. AIM members brought the plight of Indian people to the attention of the world community through the creation of the International Indian Treaty Council (IITC), a United Nations non-governmental organization based in San Francisco.

The IITC was founded in 1974 at a gathering by the American Indian Movement in Standing Rock, South Dakota attended by more than 5,000 representatives of 98 Indigenous Nations throughout the Americas. In 1977, the IITC became the first organization of Indigenous Peoples to be recognized as a Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) with Consultative Status to the United Nations Economic and Social Council.

Despite the history and the accomplishments, AIM is difficult to identify for some people. It seems to stand for many things at once-the protection of treaty rights and the preservation of spirituality and culture. But what else? Unlike the American civil rights movement, with which it has been compared, AIM has seen self-determination and racism differently. Desegregation was not a goal. Individual rights were not placed ahead of the preservation of Native Nation sovereignty. At the 1971 AIM national conference it was decided that translating policy to practice meant building organizations—schools and housing and employment services.

Over the years, as the organizations have grown, they have continued to serve the community from a base of Indian culture. Before AIM in 1968, culture had been weakened in most Indian communities due to U.S. policy, the American boarding schools and all the other efforts to extinguish Indian secular and spiritual life. Now, many groups cannot remember a time without culture. This great revival has also helped to restore spiritual leaders and elders to their former positions of esteem for the wisdom and the history they can teach. All of these actions are in concert with the principles of AIM and came into being at this time in history because Indian people have refused to relinquish their sovereign right to exist as free and non-colonized people.

AIM-WEST was established to bring about awareness on issues that concern or affect Indians of the Americas on a daily basis. Further, it advocates for communities to establish strategic processes, procedures for standard setting, and for the betterment and well-being of all Indigenous peoples. AIM-WEST addresses issues implicit in international laws and standards related to human rights, the environment, and promotes and show cases cultural and traditional events to complement the diversity of Indigenous peoples representative from throughout the Americas and Pacific region. It is common knowledge San Francisco is that microcosm of the new American Indian merging together in mainstream USA today.

The general public is invited to attend. The press and media welcomed. Wheel chair accessible.

Contact: Tony Gonzales – 415-577-1492
John Powers – 415-559-9724

Paul Owns the Sabre retrospective of life's work in painting

Article and photo by Brenda Norrell

SAN FRANCISCO & EADS, Colo. -- Paul Owns the Sabre, Miniconjou Lakota, born on the Cheyenne River Indian Nation in South Dakota, will have a retrospective of his life's work of paintings at the Intertribal Friendship House in Oakland, Calif. Nov. 28 -- Dec. 10, 2008. All are welcome. In this photo, Paul is reunited with his mother Thelma Franks of Denver, after 27 years, on the Longest Walk Northern Route in Eads, Colorado, in April of 2008. Paul said this reunion, and reconciliation, is important because so many Native families have been separated. Watch the brief video of their reunion. (Photo and video by Brenda Norrell) Click on link, then click on arrow to watch:
http://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2008/04/longest-walk-reunited-after-27-years.html

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Intertribal Friendship House
http://www.ifhurbanrez.org/

523 International Blvd, Oakland, CA 94606 (510) 836-1955 Get directions

Carter Camp: Update on Ahmbaska's condition

From Carter Camp
Wichita, Kansas

Ah-ho My Relations,
I wanted to write this update about Ahmbaska just before what we hope is his final operation. Since the last update I wrote Linda and I have stayed here in the hospital with Ahmby. It has been a long five weeks but the reward has been watching my son overcome in his fight for life and grow stronger every day. For the first couple of weeks it was touch and go, he could have died from his injuries then and I didn't want to leave his side for a moment. His head and brain were swollen and he was kept under sedation in a drug induced coma until the swelling could go down and he could heal somewhat. It worked and after two weeks they began to bring him up to consciousness every day to test his reactions and progress. Slowly but surly he improved until one by one they could take him off the various machines they were using to keep him alive. Tubes were removed and the biggie, his "ventilator" was finally taken off and he began to breath on his own. After that he was moved from the surgical ICU up to the intermediate care unit.

That was a big step for him (and us) and then we finally knew he was going to recover from his wounds. Then we had a setback, the surgery to replace his skull-piece failed because his brain re swelled when he was under sedation and it couldn't be done. Now it was back to the S-ICU and we began our journey all over again. This time wasn't as life threatening and after a few days he was moved up to the IMU again and began his recovery and healing. His head healed just fine again and he began therapy once again.

Here's the good news... Ahmbaska has regained all his mental faculties and has regained the full use of his arms and legs even though they are weak from being in bed for so long! I'm very happy to report that to all of you because I know everyone has been worried about how he would be post-surgery. Except for the accident itself, which remains fuzzy to him, his memory seems fine and he talks and thinks just fine also.

You guys know me and that I'm a believer in prayer so I truly believe that all of you, your prayers, thoughts and best wishes had a big effect on Ahmby's recovery. So many of you called and wrote about the ceremonies and prayers you were having on our behalf, I was overwhelmed with gratitude for each and every one. Some of the local skins here in Wichita fixed up a sweat lodge for me and allowed me to have some Inipi for him. This was a big thing to Linda and I as it gave us a place to pray too. I'm eternally grateful to everyone for all these efforts on our behalf, I hope one day I'll be able to shake each and every one of your hands and tell you personally how much you helped us get through this hard time.

On the more mundane side some of you have seen fit to help us out with money so we could stay here in a town where we have no support system or place to stay. You know, even though we had a cot in Ahmby's room we still had to eat a big mac every once in awhile:) and we had to buy the necessities of living for this past five or six weeks. Like everyone I hate to ask anyone for money or make a big deal of my needs, with good friends and family like you all I didn't have to, you took it upon yourselves to help and I truly appreciate your thoughtfulness. Without that and the support from our families Linda and I would have had a very hard time of it. We still have those needs and I'll put our address at the bottom of this update in case you care to help once more.

Today, this evening, Ahmbaska is going into surgery for another try at replacing his skull part which should finish his surgery and clear the way for him to be released from the hospital soon. He may have to go to a rehab place for awhile but we look forward to that part of the recovery. So I'm asking you all once more for your prayers and kind thoughts for my son. Shortly after sundown we'll be praying together as he is taken in for the operation and I know if you'll join me it will all come out ok and he'll begin his final road to good health.

Weebla-ha means thank you in my Ponca language, Wopila in Lakota. So I say WEEBLA-HA to all of you who have helped us through our trying time. Wopila for your powerful prayers and kind feelings for my son. On behalf of Linda and our whole family...
I remain your friend and relative, Carter Camp.

The address here is... Ahmbaska Camp, c/o Carter Camp, Room 1018, Wesley Medical Center, 550 N. Hillside, Wichita, Kansas 67214-4976.
--- First Message, on Fri, 10/3/08, Carter Camp wrote:
http://censored-news.blogspot.com/2008/10/carter-camp-ahmbaskas-condition.html

Leonard Peltier: A new spirit of hope

November 5, 2008
By Leonard Peltier

My Relatives and Friends,
Last night a change in this country took place that not too long
ago many people said would never happen. An African-American was
elected to the White House and by a major landslide, which gives
him a mandate by the public to fulfill his promises. This landslide
indicates the people have placed their hope with this man they call
their president for a change in this country.

HOPE. There have been times if I can even recall what it really
means to have hope that justice is right around the corner. I've
been mislead and disappointed so many times that I would soon
see justice and to have it denied upon a technicality in legal
appeals. Or like what happened eight years ago. Everyone placed
their hope and trust with a couple named Bill and Hillary, but we
were betrayed at the last minute. I know that many of my friends,
family and supporters were crushed. I began to feel the weight
and pressure of a lifetime being unjustly imprisoned began to
crowd me into a corner of my cell and then in my mind. But, it
was this thing that has been our battle cry for so many years,
"In the Spirit of Crazy Horse". I remembered what he stood for and
remained a warrior until his last breath. It is a strength that we
stand upon when we are right. We were right to be in Oglala and we
were right to be prepared to defend ourselves. What wasn't right is
that a jury never got to hear any of this testimony, and the rest
of the trial was a product of the fabrication and then manipulation
of the FBI. This spirit of Crazy Horse is a spirit of being in total
resistance to the wrongs perpetuated towards your people, community,
family and yourself. Some of us called it outrage, but that is just
merely an emotion without resolving the issue. It is when we make
a conscious choice to try and balance the wrongs in this society
that we are being compelled by this spirit of resistance to stand
in defense of the wronged.

That spirit cannot be conquered, and I refused to submit and give in
when it appeared there may be no hope. It was because of the letters
of support and encouragement from so many people that I continued
on for another eight years. And now people seem to feel there is
a change blowing in the wind and that the election of Obama is a
manifestation of that change.

I sincerely hope so, because I am now 64 years old and coming up
on my 33 year of being confined and fighting for justice and my
freedom, Obama may be my last chance at securing my freedom. If
there is one thing I learned from earlier campaigns on my clemency is
that he won't just be able to do it by himself. He is going to need
your support in the form of public opinion on the case. That isn't
going to happen until we can create education and awareness on the
circumstances of my case across this country and send letters. Be
a Branch Support Group to help create public opinion. My case
has to be a national issue on justice denied, it may sound easy,
but it isn't. The FBI has been an opposing force in attempting to
discredit my cause and that of Native people since they focused
their attention on the American Indian Movement in the 1970's. When
it appeared that Clinton might actually grant clemency, the agents
went and demonstrated at the White House and utilized their resources
to create doubt in the mind of Clinton.

So in the national awareness goals of the branch support groups it is
going to be your challenge to keep the public interest focused. It
is also another hope that with a whole generation of people who
were born after my wrongful conviction that there will be a renewed
source of energy and actions.

One point that I would like everyone to focus on right now is a
"30 year law" regarding my sentence and parole. At the time I was
convicted, the guidelines said:

"Any prisoner, .shall be released on parole. after serving thirty
years of each consecutive term or terms of more than forty-five years
including any life term, whichever is earlier: Provided, however,
That the Commission shall not release such prisoner if it determines
that he has seriously or frequently violated institution rules and
regulations or that there is a reasonable probability that he will
commit any Federal, State, or local crime." 28 U.S.C. section 28
U.S.C. 4206(d)

I've served more than 30 years of this sentence and have been
considered a model prisoner And the likelihood of committing any
crimes is non-existent due to my age and the humanitarian work I've
pursued to help my people since my incarceration. According to this
law, they have to grant me a parole to my next sentence. But as we've
learned from the past, we cannot take anything for granted so your
letters should be focused on this law to the parole commission and
congressional leaders. If the commission complies with the letter
and spirit of this law, we will have made a significant step towards
my freedom and we will need to maintain and increase this momentum.

The Committee and I have been discussing several ideas and projects
to make this a pro-active campaign. We are currently rebuilding the
former LPSG's into LPBSG's. This is necessary due to a breakdown
with the former Leonard Peltier Defense Committee. I had to turn
to my sister and niece to help me rebuild my defense committee
from scratch. We had no files, records, and merchandise. We have
not been able to make contact with the former coordinator of the
LPDC. We are still hoping to resolve this issue, but until then we
needed to keep moving with the campaign.

We still need all of our former contacts and supporters to reconnect
with us and to update the information so that my Committee can
handle correspondence and contributions. We need everyone who has
supported me to contact the LPDOC and sign onto our listserv so
that you can be updated with information on progress or activities
needed in my campaign.

I will need everyone to work with my Committee and clear any action
with the appropriate people within the Committee. It is important
that we all work together cohesively, instead of scattering our
efforts or resources. We do not intend to discourage ideas or
creativity, but we would like to incorporate such ideas into a
unified larger effort and not act prematurely on some plans we may
have not disclosed due to timing or details being worked out.

Some of the projects we have discussed are conducting rides, walks,
runs and events across the country to create this awareness of my
case. We are initiating efforts to ask bands and artists to host
fundraisers in their area. We've talked about strategies we could
undertake to further my cause, but a lot will depend on how quickly
people come to form my BSG and start organizing in their area.

I also understand that some of us have personality issues with
other people. I hope that many of you can pray or find a way to
rise above this obstacle and work together for one common purpose. I
would like to see so many of my supporters come together in a show
of solidarity. If there really is a change in the air, we will
need each other to bring about change in so many other areas. For
me it has been about our culture and right to be who we are, but
foremost it has been the children and the next generation. WE were
supposed to leave a better world behind for them and how much have we
accomplished? I know that somehow and someway my sacrifice will not
be in vain and that the years I've endured this pain of loneliness
and suffering in confinement will make a better world for those
children and coming generations. That along with my freedom is my
hope, but I will not be able to fulfill it without you. So take a
few minutes and educate yourself on the injustices of my case. It may
shock and outrage you, but you can do something about it, so join us.

In the Spirit of Crazy Horse,
Leonard Peltier

Tyendinaga call out for help: Helicopters overhead

HELP NEEDED! STATE HARASSMENT AT TYENDINAGA – SLEEP DEPRIVATION AND ARREST THREATS FOR STOPPING MEGA JAIL – Mohawk Nation Meeting set for Sun. Nov. 9

MOHAWK NATION NEWS
Nov. 5th, 2008. Today army helicopters and fighter jets are flying over Tyendinaga. Troops or supplies are being dropped in nearby fields. Who gave the command? This is a public disturbance and it’s trespassing on Mohawk air space. Canada has no jurisdiction over us, on the ground or in the air. What makes a command legitimate? According to international law, it has to be rooted in institutions that respect the principle of human equality. The Mohawks of Tyendinaga did not call in those war planes. To make a commander’s order legal, it has to be authorized according to democratic laws passed by the people concerned. We know none of this happened.

The Mohawks are objecting to illegal actions that are being taken by colonial government agents. It is not legal for a military commander to use force to circumvent the law or the will of the people. Using war planes to create a disturbance in a civilian community is clearly illegal. The military is pitting adolescent adrenaline against innocent unarmed children, elders, women and men who just want to live quietly and decently.

We’ve seen this kind of deliberate skuzzy “black ops” attempt to harm family life. It was used at Kanehsatake and Kahnawake in 1990, Gustafsen Lake in 1995 and Burnt Church in the Nova Scotia fishing dispute. Has war been declared against us? Is there any legal justification for this deliberate assault on civilian life? It is a total disregard for the safety and protection of children.

Sending in colonized cops who happen to be “aboriginal” just doesn’t cut it either. Who are they taking their orders from? It’s not the people of Tyendinaga!

Canada is targeting us for opposing the misuse of public funds to build an expensive mega police station. The colonial Band Council put up half of our money ($1 million) for the unwanted cop shop without our consent. The Ministry of Public Safety and Security put up the other half. These millions are desperately needed to provide safe water, to address the toxic housing conditions and to stop the dangerous quarry operations. Inadequate construction caused houses to be abandoned because of mold. The water is undrinkable. It’s shocking to find these conditions in southern Ontario where settler communities enjoy one of the highest standards of living in the world. International standards on clean water, adequate housing, health care and safe communities is a fundamental right we are being deliberately deprived of.

“Build-All Contractors” quarry operations lacks rigorous environmental study and safety assessments that are standard features elsewhere. Nearby houses are having water problems and collapsed wells for the first time ever. 80 per cent of the community's wells are contaminated. The nearby Quinte Mohawk School has to provide bottled water for students because the tap water is toxic. The kids can’t even wash their hands because they could get sick if they put their hands in their mouth. Build-All Quarry is owned by Police Chief Maracle's brother, who is also trying to construct the new mega high tech jail.

Why is a second jail being build in the middle of Tyendinaga for jailing “outsiders”, as the chief said? It’s supposed to have a chopper pad on the roof! Who is this for?

On September 24th, 2008, the prefab mega jail was stopped after community members blocked it from its intended site. The people stopped another delivery attempt on Oct. 29th.

It appears that Tyendinaga Police Chief Ron Maracle is charging 30 men, women and youth who demonstrated against his super “police station” and his brother’s second dangerous quarry operation. He’s targeted Longhouse people who watch over corrupt Band Council operations and spending. Canada is trying to take out or neutralize anyone who defends the rights of the people.

Invitation wampums have been sent to every Mohawk community to come to Tyendinaga to take part in a council meeting on Sunday, November 9th at 10:00 am. Mediation strategies will be discussed to sit down with Canada peacefully, if possible.

As George Manual said, “I would rather leave my children with the legitimacy of the struggle than to leave them with a settlement they cannot live with”.

Karakwine & MNN Staff Mohawk Nation News www.mohawknationnews.com
Katenies20@yahoo.com kahentinetha2@yahoo.com

To help, please contact the Rotiskenrakete: 613-391-4055, 613-813-4053, 613-827-4991, 613-391-5132, 613-848-6968, 613-813-1017, email wasoonde3232@aol.com Friends, allies and supporters: witnesses bring cameras, camcorders, food, cells, phone cards and warm clothes, especially gloves. Directions: Trans Canada Highway 401 to “Marysville” exit, south on #49 to #2 then turn right into the community.

CONTACT: Peter Van Loan, Minister of Public Safety, Ottawa 613-944-4875 or 1-800-830-3118 fax: 613-954-5186 communications@ps.gc.ca;
Prime Minister Stephen Harper, 403-253-7990 fax: 613-941-6900 pm@pm.gc.ca Harper.S@parl.gc.ca; Public Safety & Emergency Preparedness cabal includes: Chantal “Dirty-Hands” Bernier, ADM, Chantal.bernier@psepc-sppcc.gc.ca 613- 993-4325; J. Scott “Mouthpiece” Broughton, Sr. ADM, 613- 991-2820; Diane “Clean-Blouse-and-Polished-Shoes” MacLaren, ADM, Policing, 613-990-2703; and Kristina “Who’s-Got-Her-Dirty-Finger-On-the-Button” Namiesniowski, ADM, 613-949-6435. These bureaucrats tell the Minister what to do and say and make all the plans; GG Michaelle Jean info@gg.ca; Prime Minister Stephen Harper Fax 613-941-6900 pm@pm.gc.ca ; Chuckie Strahl, Indian Affairs Minister, 819-997-0002, Fax 819-953-4941 strahl.c@parl.gc.ca; band council Mohawks of Bay of Quinte 613-396-3424 reception@mbq-tmt-org Fax 613-396-3627; OPP Eastern Regional Headquarters 613-284-4500 fax 613-284-4597 L.G. Beechey, Smiths Falls Detachment; Band Council Chief Chief R. Don Maracle, 613-396-3089, Cell 613-391-9249 RDONM@MBQ-TMT.ORG 613-396-3424 ext. 106 info@mbq-tmt.org

Some Ontario politicians.
Rick Bartolucci Minister of Community Safety and Correctional Services
rick.bartolucci@liberal.ola.org; Dave Levac Ministry of Community Safety and Correctional Services dave.levac@liberal.ola.org; Garfield Dunlop Critic, Community Safety and Correctional Services garfield.dunlop@pc.ola.org; Peter Kormos Critic, Community Safety and Correctional Services peter.kormos@ndp.ola.org; Brad Duguid Minister of Aboriginal Affairs brad.duguid@liberal.ola.org; Jeff Leal Minister of Aboriginal Affairs jeff.leal@liberal.ola.org; Norm Miller Critic, Aboriginal Affairs norm.miller@pc.ola.org; Gilles Bisson Critic, Aboriginal Affairs gilles.bisson@ndp.ola.org; dmcquinty.mpp@liberal.ola.org; randy@ruralrevolution.com, info@randyhillier.com, holland.m@parl.gc.ca, pm@pm.gc.ca, Reid.S@parl.gc.ca, Harper.S@parl.gc.ca, Nicholson.R@parl.gc.ca, Day.S@parl.gc.ca, ottawa@chuckstrahl.com, john.yakabuskico@pc.ola.org, jim.wilsonco@pc.ola.org, tim.hudakco@pc.ola.org, hhampton-qp@ndp.on.ca, pkormos-qp@ndp.on.ca, gphillips.mpp@liberal.ola.org; dramsay.mpp@liberal.ola.org, gilles@gillesbisson.com, mbryant.mpp@liberal.ola.org, leader@greenparty.ca, info@greenparty.ca, rlm@xplornet.com, lorraine.rekmans@greenparty.ca, jwarnock@ontarioeast.net, doherty@kos.net, hhampton-qp@ndp.on.ca, norm.sterlingco@pc.ola.org, president@lisamacleod.ca, ahorwath-qp@ndp.on.ca, joyce.savoline@pc.ola.org, dzimmer.mpp@liberal.ola.org, tabunsp-qp@ndp.on.ca, laurie.scott@pc.ola.org, robert.runcimanco@pc.ola.org,
toby.barrett@pc.ola.org, donna.cansfield@liberal.ola.org, michael.gravelle@liberal.ola.org,

We need to tell Canada and their agents to: (1) immediately stop their attacks, police brutality and trying to impose a prison on the Mohawks; (2) honor Indigenous rights and jurisdictions; (3) support the Mohawks struggle for self-determination; and (4) to get Canada and Indian Affairs out of Haudenosaunee Territory.

Go to MNN “Tyendinaga” category for more stories; New MNN Books Available now! Purchase t-shirts, mugs and more at our CafePressStore http://www.cafepress.com/mohawknews; Subscribe to MNN for breaking news updates http://.mohawknationnews.com/news/subscription.php; Sign Women Title Holders petition! http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/Iroquois
Note: These challenges of abuses at the border require support and money. Your financial help is needed and appreciated. Please send your donations to PayPal at www.mohawknationnews.com, or by check or money order to “MNN Mohawk Nation News”, Box 991, Kahnawake [Quebec, Canada] J0L 1B0. Nia:wen thank you very much.

US paid for border training in Israel for US and Canada

Mohawk Nation News today reports on Canada's training in Israel for border security. This follows the news that the University of Arizona has been co-opted by Homeland Security for dollars, placing Homeland Security agents on campus and designing lasers shot at migrants' arteries. The University of Arizona earlier violated the rights of Apache and other Native Americans who struggled to protect sacred Mount Graham from the desecration of telescopes, which was carried out by the university with backing from the Pope.

Recently, US Homeland Security paid for border security training in Israel, for both Canada and the United States. With Israel's history of Apartheid, the human rights travesties inflicted by Israel on Palestinians, and Israel's Apartheid border wall, this should alarm everyone in the world. The Mohawks, and others battling for true sovereignty and human rights, are among the first to be targeted.
Read more at
http://www.bsnorrell.blogspot.com/

Mohawks: Are Zionists backing enclaves for Mohawks?

ARE ZIONISTS BACKING A 4 PRONGED PLOT TO TRAP US IN PALESTINIAN-STYLE ENCLAVES?

Lobbying, Media Relations, Fund Raising & Government - for our land and resources

Mohawk Nation News
Nov. 4, 2008. Obama’s election can’t solve everything. Colonialism has left a complex and troubling legacy. We have to work together to solve it. There’s no quick fix. We have to stop the post-911 psychomania that has tried to make fascism a necessity?
Panic and fear produce strange reactions. After MNN’s November 1 story about training of Ontario police on Israeli security tactics, an MNN staff received a strange call from “Pres. and L. Bush” with no message. Another MNNer was followed by a strange “cop” looking woman and photographed. The colonial Mohawk police visited another staff member’s home with a bunch of papers in hand. Then a few choppers circled over Katenies’ house. Finally a strange wooden sculpture was left in front of the MNN publishers house. All within a 24-hour period.
In March 23, 2008, Stockwell Day, Minister of Public Safety & Emergency Preparedness, went to Israel to sign the Canada-Israel "Public Security" Agreement with Avi Dicter, Minister of Public Security of Israel. They plan to share technology, information and personnel in "border management and security; correctional services and prisons; immigration; money laundering [mostly theirs]; organized crime; terrorist financing and trafficking in persons". This makes it look like Israel is running Canada! Considering all the blood on their hands, does Israel really provide a good model for intercultural relations? U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff, Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice and other senior officials were there in “private meetings”. http://www.ps-sp.gc.ca/app_support/xml/ps_news_e.xml A week later Moshe Ronan, Chairman of the Canada Israel Committee, was with Avi Dicter in Israel. They got bombed which helped to justify the security agreement – in Canada! What kind of reasoning is this?

A few days later Ontario government announced it’s preparing to pass the “Photo ID Act” for June 2009. The new card will have a number tagged to a private data base. Some will be “flagged”, like Ongwehonwe, immigrants and “resisters of fascism”.

Day's Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness cabal includes: Chantal “Dirty-Hands” Bernier, ADM, Community Safety and Partnerships (613) 993-4325; J. Scott “Mouthpiece” Broughton, Sr. ADM, Emergency Management & National Security (613) 991-2820; Diane “Clean-Blouse-and-Polished-Shoes” MacLaren, ADM, Policing, Law Enforcement & Interoperability (613) 990-2703; and Kristina “Who’s-Got-Her-Dirty-Finger-On-the-Button” Namiesniowski, ADM, Strategic Policy (613) 949-6435. These bureaucrats tell the Minister what to do and say and make all the “Dr. Strangelove” plans.

Michel Chossudovsky of Global Research wrote in April 2, 2008, that Public Safety Canada works closely with the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA), The Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), Correctional Service Canada (CSC) and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) – who all work together trying to victimize the Ongwehonwe. [See Links #1 at end] Are they preparing to turn our communities into refugee camps like they’ve done in Palestine? The Ontario Mission went to Israel to study how to surround people with huge prefab walls, armed guards, electrical fences, high tech surveillance, super militarized checkpoints, to burn down crops and keep people from going to jobs, hospitals and schools often leading to death.
In 2005 nearly 35 Chiefs of Police, mostly from Ontario’s cities near Ongwehonwe communities, went to Israel to explore Israeli police procedures. The trip was initiated by Bernie Farber, and paid by the Canadian Jewish Congress, United Jewish Appeal Federation of Greater Toronto, Ontario Association of Chiefs of Police, Ontario Ministry of the Solicitor General (Monte Kwinter), the Israeli government, the police service boards, Canada Israel Committee and U.S. Department of Homeland Security through “Security Solutions International”. It looks like the U.S. has been hiding its duplicity by giving money to Security Solutions who then turn it over to the sponsoring organizations. They’re backs are still sore from patting themselves on how well they pulled this one over on the Canadian retardants.
Is getting control over policing and prisons part of the four prongs of the Zionist mission? The four cornerstones in Ontario are Bernie Faber, the media man; Monte Kwinter, the longtime Toronto MPP; Morris Zbar, the money manager for the United Jewish Appeal; and Eric Maldoff, Heenan Blaikie Montreal, the lobbyist with the Canada-Israel Committee. We know Eric and his style at Kanesatake and other Mohawk communities. He knows how to stir up trouble for us. Then he hides under a rock until the coast is clear, and gets well paid for it. [See link #2]
Susan Howard-Azzeh made a report on the complaint that was filed by the Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights Against Racism Canada to the Premier of Ontario Dalton “Chicken-Teeth” McGuinty, the Hamilton, Toronto, York Regional, Ottawa, Windsor police forces, Ontario Registered Lobbyists and the OPP.

Farber of the Canadian Jewish Congress, and his gang disrupted the September 21, 2005 public meeting to prevent information about Israeli police brutality against the Palestinians from being heard publicly. [See #3 Link].
Farber stood against a wall where he had a clear line of site with Police Services Board Chair, Bernie “Scaredy-Cat” Morelli. Farber gave signals to Morelli to “refrain” speakers from talking about "politics". A witness reported that his crowd continually disrupted the speakers with shouting and intimidation. During a slide presentation of photos of brutal Israeli police methods, his cohorts screamed, bellowed and stamped their feet like they were in a union hall meeting. A screeching woman stood up and blocked the images. Morelli cancelled the meeting, which might have been the plan. [See Link #4]
Bernie “Media Man” Farber likes to charge his critics with “anti-semitism”. These kinds of guys have all the money it takes to use Canadian courts as a tool to bully people and prevent legitimate criticism. Just by publishing this piece today, we are putting ourselves at risk. Are they going to try to “Ahenakew” us? Farber mercilessly attacked Indigenous elder, David Ahenakew, for privately muttering something critical about the Israelis. Meanwhile the corporate media has brushed aside complaints about defamatory statements made, on the record, to the press by Dick Pound in his official capacity as a member of the International Olympic Committee and the board of McGill University.

Monte “The Politician” Kwinter, a long time Toronto MPP seems to be the man who carries the Zionist message to the legislature.

Eric “The Lobbyist” Maldoff of the Canada Israeli Committee seems to be pushing all things Israeli.

Morris “The Money Man” Zbar of the United Jewish Appeal was Deputy Minister of Correctional Services. He sits on the Correctional Services Canada "transformation team" involved in setting up these Ongwehonwe “porta-prisons”, which can be quickly set up, dismantled and moved before anyone can complain about it.

The Canada Israeli Committee Board has some high flyers. Many are in “real estate” development on our territory that we never ceded. CIC has offices in Ottawa, Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver and Israel. [See Link #6]. See who CIC Board members are at the end of this article.
What do Israeli checkpoints have to do with Ontario lives? Unless that is what is being planned for us. If we don’t turn this around we may be left with no control our lives with devastating consequences, like no access to jobs, schools or hospitals and no way to defend ourselves.

Iakoha’ko:wa, Eagle Watch, Sharbot Lake MNN Mohawk Nation News www.mohawknationnews.com kittoh@storm.ca katenies20@yahoo.com kahentinetha2@yahoo.com
Go to MNN “Tyendinaga” category for more stories; New MNN Books Available now! Purchase t-shirts, mugs and more at our CafePressStore http://www.cafepress.com/mohawknews; Subscribe to MNN for breaking news updates http://.mohawknationnews.com/news/subscription.php; Sign Women Title Holders petition! http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/Iroquois
Note: These challenges of abuses at the border require support and money. Your financial help is needed and appreciated. Please send your donations to PayPal at www.mohawknationnews.com, or by check or money order to “MNN Mohawk Nation News”, Box 991, Kahnawake [Quebec, Canada] J0L 1B0. Nia:wen thank you very much.

#1 - http://www.publicsafety.gc.ca/prg/le/bs/index-eng.aspx
http://www.cbsa-asfc.gc.ca/whti-ivho/menu-eng.html
http://ogov.newswire.ca/ontario/GPOE/2008/06/03/c7937.html?lmatch=&lang=_e.html
http://www.mto.gov.on.ca/english/dandv/driver/enhancedcards.htm
http://www.ontla.on.ca/web/bills/status_of_legislation.do?locale=en
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=8530
(Official communique of Israel's Ministry of Public Security,
http://www.mops.gov.il/BPEng/MOPS+News/DicterWithCanadianMinister_30_10_07.htm )
http://www.publicsafety.gc.ca/media/nr/2008/nr20080323-1-eng.aspx
http://www.publicsafety.gc.ca/media/nr/2008/nr20080323-1-eng.aspx
#2 http://www.montrealmuslimnews.net/april23update.htm
#3 http://www.montrealmuslimnews.net/hamilton.htm and http://www.montrealmuslimnews.net/sept21speech.htm .
http://www.montrealmuslimnews.net/policecomplaint.htm. http://www.montrealmuslimnews.net/khaled.pdf )
http://www.montrealmuslimnews.net/policecomplaint.htm .
#4 http://www.montrealmuslimnews.net/hamilton.htm to prevent information from being heard publicly.
#5 - http://statismwatch.ca/2005/02/28/ontario-police-chiefs-travel-to-israel-to-study-police-tactics/
http://www.montrealmuslimnews.net/policecomplaint.htm
http://www.publicsafety.gc.ca/media/nr/2008/nr20080328-2-eng.aspx
http://www.skylinkgroup.com/default.asp Canadian Jewish Congress cjc.ca
Canada Israel Committee http://www.cicweb.ca/aboutcic/bod.cfm Quebec Israel Committee
http://www.qic-cqi.org/ (514) 934-0771 Téléc. : (514) 933-8211
#6 -http://www.cicweb.ca/aboutcic/bod.cfm

Canada Israeli Committee. Many of the members of the board are real estate tycoons who wheel and deal on our unsurrendered Ongwehonwe territories. CIC is a well-financed lobby group. They seem to like to brag, exaggerate and out-do each other. It looks like the kind of thing people do when they want to pad up their resumes. They set up organizations and then put themselves and each other on them:
Moshe Ronen, World Jewish Congress, Skylink Aviation, First Capital Realty Corporation with shopping centre portfolios; mosheronen@cicweb.ca;
Jason Caron, Heenan Blaikie LLP Montreal, Quebec-Israel Committee; jasoncaron@cicweb.ca;
David Kroft, Fillmore Riley LLP, Manitoba; davidkroft@cicweb.ca;
Marc Gold, Maxwell Cummings & Sons Holdings Limited, Professor McGill University. marcgold@cicweb.ca, Canada-Israel Committee, CJA, United Israel Appeals Federations Canada, Jewish Agency for Israel.
Ken Boessenkool, Hill & Knowlton Canada, a lobby for the military industry, advisor and strategist to Stephen Harper, C.D. Howe Institute “think tank”; kenboessenkool@cicweb.ca;
Father Raymond J. de Souza, Roman Catholic priest, Kingston, Ontario, columnist for National Post, Vatican press corps, chaplain, Queen's University, itching to become a bishop or cardinal. [When are they going to appoint a Jewish Pope?]; rjdesouza@sympatico.ca [See Link #5];
David Kroft, Fillmore Riley LLP, commercial litigation and insolvency law. Jewish Federation of Winnipeg, Liberal Party of Canada;
Michael Diamond, business consultant and investor;
Dr. Michael Elterman, clinical psychologist specializing in forensic evaluations throughout entire Pacific North West [where there are lots of Indigenous communities], Canadian Jewish Congress' Pacific;
Professor Karen Eltis, Hebrew University Jerusalem and Columbia University School of Law;
Barbara Farber, CEO Leikin Group, Ottawa-based real estate. Ottawa Jewish Community;
Len Farber, Ogilvy Renault, tax policy;
Paul Forseth, former MP, Canada Israel Friendship Group in Parliament;
Rob Gasner, Toronto, Re/max Realtron Realty Inc., residential and commercial re-sales. Canadian Jewish Congress – Ontario;
Brenda Gewurz, Proment Corporation, a residential real-estate company in Montreal. Hebrew Academy. CJA, Hillel, Jewish Community Foundation. Husband is a real-estate developer;
Paul Goldman, corporate and securities law. Goodmans LLP. BC Securities Commission. Writes on interjurisdictional and cross-border issues;
Cary Green, Verdiroc develops properties for residential, commercial, industrial and mixed-use projects [on Ongwehone land].
Alex Halpern, Canadian Federation of Jewish Students (CFJS) at McGill, United Israel Appeal Federations Canada (UIAFC);
Donna Holbrook, International Christian Embassy Jerusalem [ICEJ], AMEN (Anti-Semitism Must End Now), calls herself a Christian Zionist.
Claude Lajeunesse, President Aerospace Industries Association of Canada (AIAC), TD Meloche Monnex and Atomic Energy of Canada Limited (AECL). Canadian Liver Foundation to take care of those who get sick from nuclear radiation or drinking too much?;
Eric Maldoff, Heenan Blaikie Montreal, land claims negotiator, general destroyer of Ongwehone who foments trouble for us through his PMO and government connections;
Brian Morris, who works at the “apple tree” Morris & Morris L.L.P, B'nai Brith Canada;
Berl Nadler, McGill & Harvard Law Schools. Davies Ward Phillips & Vineberg LLP. UJA Toronto.
Joe Nadler, Reform Movement for Progressive Judaism. –
Nancy “meddlesome” Rosenfeld, runs Andrea and Charles Bronfman Philanthropies. Stephen R. Bronfman Foundation. Samuel and Saidye Bronfman Family Foundation. Special Advisor to Montreal Mayor Pierre Bourque [as any Montrealer will tell you, she must have given him some lousy advice]. Montreal YM-YWHA where she works out. Trans Canada Trail where she wants to jog.
Carol Ryder, White Iron Group of Companies.
Lisa Samson, Ottawa. Strategy Corp, public affairs and government relations. Key member of Conservative Party “war room” [war against us?] Frequent media commentator and blabbermouth for Conservatives;
Mark Waldman, Tacfast Systems International, global flooring [we all need something to stand on], Canadian Jewish Political Affairs Committee (CJPAC), Access Middle East and United Way. "Friends of America" to counter anti-American sentiment in Canada. [Has his work cut out for him]. Advisor to CIJA and Friends of Simon Weisenthal Centre that promotes history of holocaust guilt and Zionism.
Hymie Weinstein Q.C., Myers Weinberg LLP. Lectures Bar Admission Course, Winnipeg Police Academy, and National Criminal Law Program of Federation of Law Societies.
CIC Honorary Board
Brent Belzberg, Toronto. Torquest Partners Inc. Manages and mismanages over $700M private equity funds. CIBC director. Four Seasons Hotels. DayMen Lowepro. Canadian Council for Israel & Jewish Advocacy, "CIJA"; Harrowston Corp. (formerly First City Financial Corp.); First City Capital Markets; Tory, Tory, Deslauriers & Binnington.
Joseph Gabay, Sepharade Francophone, Hillel of the Federation Sepharadie Canadienne and Québec. He got some kind of Sepharade award. Teaches math at CEGEP Rosemont. Married to Dolly [is that the cloned sheep?];
Hon. E. Leo Kolber, P.C., Claridge Inc. CEMP Investments, trusts set up by the late Sam Bronfman. Fairview Corporation real estate. Cadillac Fairview Corporation. Senate of Canada [til he got too old and his snoring kept the other senators awake]. Revenue Committee of the Liberal Party of Canada [which could be one of the reasons they’re now broke].

Some Ontario politicians.
Rick Bartolucci Minister of Community Safety and Correctional Services
rick.bartolucci@liberal.ola.org; Dave Levac Ministry of Community Safety and Correctional Services dave.levac@liberal.ola.org; Garfield Dunlop Critic, Community Safety and Correctional Services garfield.dunlop@pc.ola.org; Peter Kormos Critic, Community Safety and Correctional Services peter.kormos@ndp.ola.org; Brad Duguid Minister of Aboriginal Affairs brad.duguid@liberal.ola.org; Jeff Leal Minister of Aboriginal Affairs jeff.leal@liberal.ola.org; Norm Miller Critic, Aboriginal Affairs norm.miller@pc.ola.org; Gilles Bisson Critic, Aboriginal Affairs gilles.bisson@ndp.ola.org; dmcquinty.mpp@liberal.ola.org; randy@ruralrevolution.com, info@randyhillier.com, holland.m@parl.gc.ca, pm@pm.gc.ca, Reid.S@parl.gc.ca, Harper.S@parl.gc.ca, Nicholson.R@parl.gc.ca, Day.S@parl.gc.ca, ottawa@chuckstrahl.com, john.yakabuskico@pc.ola.org, jim.wilsonco@pc.ola.org, tim.hudakco@pc.ola.org, hhampton-qp@ndp.on.ca, pkormos-qp@ndp.on.ca, gphillips.mpp@liberal.ola.org; dramsay.mpp@liberal.ola.org, gilles@gillesbisson.com, mbryant.mpp@liberal.ola.org, leader@greenparty.ca, info@greenparty.ca, rlm@xplornet.com, lorraine.rekmans@greenparty.ca, jwarnock@ontarioeast.net, doherty@kos.net, hhampton-qp@ndp.on.ca, norm.sterlingco@pc.ola.org, president@lisamacleod.ca, ahorwath-qp@ndp.on.ca, joyce.savoline@pc.ola.org, dzimmer.mpp@liberal.ola.org, tabunsp-qp@ndp.on.ca, laurie.scott@pc.ola.org, robert.runcimanco@pc.ola.org,
toby.barrett@pc.ola.org, donna.cansfield@liberal.ola.org, michael.gravelle@liberal.ola.org,

Alert: Tyendinaga Mohawks facing arrest

CONTACT THE FEDS: Back off Tyendinaga Mohawk Territory:
COLONIAL GOVERNMENT OUT OF FIRST NATIONS COMMUNITIES - Tyendinaga Support Committee
(November 5th, 2008) At present, Tyendinaga Mohawk community members are
being targeted for their opposition to an expensive new police station, paid
for in part by the Federal Government of Canada, as well as their opposition
to quarry operations where no adequate environmental assessments have taken
place.

The Band Council in Tyendinaga put up half the money ($1 million) for the
new cop shop, while the Ministry of Public Safety and Security put up the
other half of the funding. Plans were made for this roughly $1.9-million
facility, even though the money could have been spent to address the lack of
safe water on the Territory and poor housing conditions.

A month ago, on September 24th, 2008, the new police building was put on
hold after community members blockaded the intended site of the building.
Such demonstrations took place again last week. Now several dozen community
members are facing arrest and criminal charges.

It seems clear the the Canadian government is intent on ensuring this new
cop shop be implemented, in a community which has stood up for its people
and its land, time and time again.

Take a moment to call on the feds who are helping to make this police
station happen, and express your concern at their involvem