Indigenous Peoples and Human Rights

December 31, 2011

Chief Terrance Nelson: Undeclared Economic Sanctions in Canada

Chief Terrrance Nelson
Photo Wayne Glowacki
Undeclared Economic Sanctions in Canada

By Chief Terrance Nelson
December 31st 2011
Censored News
http://www.bsnorrell.blogspot.com

Attawapiskat First Nation has done a fantastic job of creating debate on the First Nation housing crisis in Canada. The problem is most people still have no idea why there is a housing crisis and why there is extreme poverty on First Nation communities. The Government response was to impose further economic sanctions on Attawapiskat by putting the First Nation into Third Party Management. The Prime Minister had to justify the action by pushing out misinformation that racists in Canada love to hear.
Quoted in a Canadian Press article is the opening volley of the Conservative Government response to the Attawapiskat accusations in the recent media war. 
“Prime Minister Stephen Harper says he's not happy that millions of federal dollars have not alleviated the housing crisis in the Northern Ontario native community of Attawapiskat.”
"This government has spent some $90 million since coming to office just on Attawapiskat," he told the Commons on Tuesday. "That's over $50,000 for every man, woman and child in the community.
Good trick. The Canadian Press article generated over 400 comments at one newspaper and a lot of it was extremely racist. Most people assumed that the money went directly to every man, woman and child in Attawapiskat and of course the trick is not to provide the information that this $50,000 per person money did not come in one single lump sum check. “Since coming to office” is not explained. It means divided by six years. So, if my math is correct, the government spent approximately $8,333 per person per year or roughly $700 per month per person. So, did the money actually go the individuals on reserve or to the white people who provide services to the people of the First Nation. Unless you pour through the First Nation audits, you never get to know where the $90 million was spent, so it is easier for most people to just believe that the Chief and Council misspent the money or went on a cruise with it.
The Government is trying to justify keeping First Nation housing funding to around $400 million per year for all 633 First Nations across Canada. Our national organization the Assembly of First Nation states that we need 80,000 new houses for the 633 First Nations in Canada. That is not counting renovations. At a minimum cost of $150,000 per house for northern First Nations not including water and sewer, the price tag for all present day new housing on reserve is around $120 billion. That’s the price today just for housing. Government funding of $400 million per year for housing will take 300 years to meet the present day new housing needs of First Nations.
Let me explain to those willing to research for more than a little sound bite why individuals on reserve can’t own their own house and why there is extreme poverty on reserve.
Section 89 of the Canadian Indian Act.
The Canadian Indian Act put in place by the British in 1876 still operates in restricting indigenous people’s human rights. Under Canadian law, First Nation people cannot get a mortgage on reserve without the express written permission of the Minister of Indian Affairs.
W.H. Jennings on Canadian Business Law, Eleventh printing 1963, explains Section 89;
Indians
When living on a government reservation, an Indian is a ward of the Crown and is protected in the following manner;
1) He is not legally bound in a contract-not even for necessaries.
2) As in the case of a minor, such Indian may hold the other party to the contract.
3) No contract to dispose of or to place a mortgage against the property of an Indian is binding.
4) All personal property of an Indian is free from seizure for debt, but the unpaid seller may take security on any article purchased for any part of the price which is unpaid.

OTHER PARTIES HAVING LIMITED POWERS

In addition to minors, insane persons, intoxicated persons and Indians, two other classes have limited power to contract.

They are:

1) Limited companies
2) Alien enemies

Jenning’s book was written in 1963, the wording maybe different today but the impact of Section 89 in 2011 is exactly as described by Jennings fifty years ago.

According to Canadian law, reservations are government lands, not First Nation property. An “Indian” living on a government reservation is a ward of the Crown. No matter how old you are, you are a child in the eyes of the law. What Bank or financial institution is going to lend money to a child or an alien enemy? The land cannot be pledged, it cannot be used to get loans. Under Canadian law, individuals on reservations are not allowed to access banks and financial institutions without the express written permission of the Minister of Indian Affairs. No matter how well you take care of the public house you live in, it cannot increase in value because it cannot be sold on the open market. Reservations are under economic sanctions but no one in Canada will admit that. Individual rights are restricted by Canadian law.

The First Nation Chiefs and Councils are stuck delivering public housing to individuals on reserve with the permission of the Minister of Indian Affairs through Ministerial Guarantee of the loans. What Indian Affairs does in working with Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation in providing the housing loans to First Nations is to restrict Shelter Allowance to First Nation Governments. First Nations governments get less than the cost of providing shelter to their tribal members.

Most First Nations are facing anywhere from 60 to 95% unemployment in their communities. The feds even if their public announcements endorse water and sewer and adequate housing for First Nations, privately, they see it different. They see increasing welfare rates if they build housing in isolated communities in the north. If they provide housing in the northern communities, they are stuck with dramatically increasing financial responsibilities for those First Nations with no end in sight.

Provinces are in a bind. Generally, provincial policies have always been that the First Nations are a federal responsibility. Problem with that provincial policy is that First Nations people are being forced off reserve into the cities and onto provincial systems. In Roseau River Anishinabe First Nation shelter allowance from Indian Affairs is around $300 per month for a person on welfare. How do you build and maintain a house at 40% of the cost of delivering a proper housing program? The answer is you don’t and if you believe the Government, Chiefs and Council are mismanaging housing money.

What are the solutions?

Solution one, don’t wait for government.

Solution two, take control of your own wealth.

Keewatin Tribal Council in northern Manitoba consisting of 11 First Nations are living in a similar housing situation as Attawapiskat yet their region sends $4 billion a year to the south in money generated from their lands and natural resources. So, Harper sent $90 million to Attawapiskat in six years but what did Attawapiskat and other First Nations in northern Ontario send south in terms of money generated from their lands and resources? Did they get a share of the billions of dollars generated by Hydro One? Did Hydro One pay First Nations for the electricity sold to Americans? Did the gold mines, timber companies or any of the industry that mines 60 different metals and minerals in Canada pay indigenous people for their property?

If indigenous people got 10% of the wealth generated from their historical lands, they could pay for their own housing, their own schools, their own health centers and they could look after themselves without the immigrant governments telling them how to live. As long as indigenous people continue to live under the Canadian Indian Act, they will continue on government funding and having to be accountable to the immigrant governments. If indigenous people want to break out of the economic sanctions, they need to bypass the immigrant governments and immigrant financial systems. With the world passing 7 billion people, the fight in Canada between indigenous people and the immigrant governments will be about who controls natural resources. Foreign governments and foreign business are still waiting for the indigenous people of Canada to wake up.

The largest trade relationship in the world is between Canada and the United States. Americans in huge financial trouble gives Canadian indigenous people leverage. Declared trade between Canada and the United States was $4.5 trillion in the last decade. With the Tarsands of Alberta being a global issue and the United States getting 98% of the oil produced in Canada, Indigenous people in Canada will have to make a stand if they want real changes to their lives. If you read the comments regarding Attawapiskat, you will quickly realize the magnitude of the hatred against indigenous people that has allowed the over 600 murdered and missing indigenous women in Canada to become a reality.

Prime Minister Harper is taking a wrong approach in his statements to Parliament. Feeding the hatred against indigenous people in Canada is not a good approach. Unless we all try to understand the underlying reasons why indigenous people in this country are in the situation they are in, we are headed to a drastic confrontation, one where it is not so clear, who will win. Housing on reserve is only a symptom, it is not the problem. The problem is undeclared economic sanctions and if indigenous people want a solution, they are going to have to think outside the box. Reading the 400 plus comments on the article on Attawapiskat makes me wonder if Prime Minister Harper is doing this deliberately and if he knows the consequences of his statements.

Chief Terrance Nelson
204-451-0740
chieftnelson@rrafn.com

President Obama signs Indefinite Detention Bill into Law

Denver political prisoners rally 2008
Photo Brenda Norrell
President Obama Signs Indefinite Detention Bill Into Law


December 31, 2011
By ACLU
Posted at Censored News
http://www.bsnorrell.blogspot.com
WASHINGTON – President Obama signed the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) into law today. The statute contains a sweeping worldwide indefinite detention provision. While President Obama issued a signing statement saying he had “serious reservations” about the provisions, the statement only applies to how his administration would use the authorities granted by the NDAA, and would not affect how the law is interpreted by subsequent administrations. The White House had threatened to veto an earlier version of the NDAA, but reversed course shortly before Congress voted on the final bill.

“President Obama's action today is a blight on his legacy because he will forever be known as the president who signed indefinite detention without charge or trial into law,” said Anthony D. Romero, ACLU executive director. “The statute is particularly dangerous because it has no temporal or geographic limitations, and can be used by this and future presidents to militarily detain people captured far from any battlefield. The ACLU will fight worldwide detention authority wherever we can, be it in court, in Congress, or internationally.”

Under the Bush administration, similar claims of worldwide detention authority were used to hold even a U.S. citizen detained on U.S. soil in military custody, and many in Congress now assert that the NDAA should be used in the same way again. The ACLU believes that any military detention of American citizens or others within the United States is unconstitutional and illegal, including under the NDAA. In addition, the breadth of the NDAA’s detention authority violates international law because it is not limited to people captured in the context of an actual armed conflict as required by the laws of war.

“We are incredibly disappointed that President Obama signed this new law even though his administration had already claimed overly broad detention authority in court,” said Romero. “Any hope that the Obama administration would roll back the constitutional excesses of George Bush in the war on terror was extinguished today. Thankfully, we have three branches of government, and the final word belongs to the Supreme Court, which has yet to rule on the scope of detention authority. But Congress and the president also have a role to play in cleaning up the mess they have created because no American citizen or anyone else should live in fear of this or any future president misusing the NDAA’s detention authority.”

The bill also contains provisions making it difficult to transfer suspects out of military detention, which prompted FBI Director Robert Mueller to testify that it could jeopardize criminal investigations. It also restricts the transfers of cleared detainees from the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay to foreign countries for resettlement or repatriation, making it more difficult to close Guantanamo, as President Obama pledged to do in one of his first acts in office.

Save the Peaks Caravan and Rally Jan. 2012


______________________________________________________________________

Forest Service risks safety of children’s health by allowing sewage effluent snow on San Francisco Peaks !

  Human health impacts of wastewater snowmaking to be heard at 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco, CA

From: Jeneda Benally ______________________________________________________________

What:             COURT DATE, CARAVAN, PRESS CONFERENCE, RALLY

When:             Saturday, January 7th, 2012 Caravan launches from Flagstaff.

                        Monday, January 9, 2012 – Court Hearing (see schedule of events below)

Where:           Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals

                        95 Seventh Street, San Francisco, CA

           
Who:   The Save The Peaks Coalition

Why:   The San Francisco Peaks, a holy mountain near Flagstaff AZ, are in danger of  being used as a toxic recreation area exposing citizens to hazardous contaminants!

Citizens are fighting the United States Forest Service in a legal battle to protect children from hazardous endocrine disruptors and to protect this sacred site from desecration. On January 9th, 2012 The Save the Peaks Coalition et al vs. the United States Forest Service will be heard by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco, CA. The case argues that under the National Environmental Policy Act and the Administrative Procedure Act, the Forest Service failed to adequately consider the impacts associated with ingestion of snow made from reclaimed sewer water in its Environmental Impact Statement. 
The Forest Service approved reclaimed sewer water for the use of snowmaking at a local Northern Arizona ski resort in 2004. The reclaimed sewer water in question is from Flagstaff's Rio de Flag Sewage Plant. Since May, the owners of Arizona Snowbowl, with the support of the  U.S. Forest Service and the Flagstaff City Council, have already laid 7 miles of a 14.8 mile wastewater pipeline and have clear-cut over 50 acres of rare alpine forest.
According to Howard Shanker, attorney for the Save the Peaks Coalition and the other plaintiffs, “The Forest Service failed to adequately consider the impacts of potential human ingestion of snow made from reclaimed sewer water as required by applicable law. Our government should not be approving such projects without some sort of understanding of the anticipated impacts. By approving treated sewage effluent for snow making without adequate analysis, the government essentially turns the ski area into a test facility with our children as the laboratory rats. That is unconscionable.” Mr. Shanker, a former congressional candidate in Arizona Congressional District 1, represented a number of tribes and environmental organizations in prior litigation over Snowbowl’s proposed expansion and threatened use of treated sewage effluent.
"It is deplorable that the United States Forest Service would allow known endocrine disruptors to come in to contact with our most vulnerable citizens, our children", states Berta Benally, a plaintiff in the case. "At one point DDT, BPA and asbestos were all considered safe. Years later, after many people have suffered, we now sadly know that they are hazardous!"
The Save the Peaks Coalition is planning a caravan to the San Francisco Court of Appeals on January 9th. Anyone interested in participating can call 928-380-8014 or email savethepeakscaravan@yahoo.com.
SCHEDULE OF EVENTS

January 9th

7:00  AM,  Sunrise Gathering/Ceremony *Photo Opportunity*

                                    To Be Determined, San Francisco 

8:00 AM,  March to Courthouse *Photo Opportunity*

                                    95 Seventh Street, San Francisco

9:00 AM,  Prayer Vigil at Courthouse *Photo Opportunity*

                                    95 Seventh Street, San Francisco

DOJ: Arpaio's crimes

SEIU photo
DOJ internal letter reveals crimes of America's most racist sheriff Joe Arpaio

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

PHOENIX -- The US Department of Justice has documented racial profiling against Latinos and unconstitutional policing by the Maricopa County Sheriff Department and Sheriff Joe Arpaio, known as the most racist sheriff in America. In an internal letter to the Maricopa County Sheriff's Department, the DOJ describes systematic racism and a failure to protect Arizona citizens.

The DOJ has listed a long list of crimes and civil rights violations by patrol officers and jail personnel. The DOJ describes the discirmination against Latinos and the racial supremacy that dominates Arizona police departments. The DOJ describes Maricopa County Sheriff supervisors who mock Latinos with cartoons.

While obsessed with racial discrimination, the Maricopa County Sheriff's Department failed to properly investigate 432 sexual abuse and child molestation cases. The facts are stated in the DOJ's Dec. 15, 2011, internal letter.

The DOJ said inmates in Maricopa jails are punished because they do not understand English commands and Latinos are stopped at traffic stops four to nine times more frequently than non-Latinos.

The DOJ said the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office has compromised its ability to protect its citizens.



However, after listing the crimes of Arpaio and the Maricopa County Sheriff's Department, it remains to be seen if this is just more US political grandstanding or whether Arpaio and the racist officers of Maricopa County will be prosecuted by the Department of Justice.

Will Arpaio and his officers receive the same cruel and unjust imprisonment they have delivered to people of color?

Read letter: http://cryptocomb.org/mcso_findletter.pdf

December 30, 2011

Traditional O'odham: Halt mining genocide in Quitovac, Sonora

 
O'odham protest toxic dump in
Sonoita, Sonora. Photo Ofelia Rivas.
O'odham fight mining in ceremonial Quitovac, Sonora

"Quitovac is an ancient O’odham village and is the location of a profoundly sacred ceremonial site continually inhabited by our people for thousands of years.
This site is also biologically sensitive significance, as it is a precious fresh water spring-fed lagoon in the middle of the Sonoran desert.
The impact of the water and air of this ceremonial site by an open pit mine and contamination from its operations would devastate the spiritual well-being of the O’odham and be a cultural and environmental disaster is an act of genocide." -- O'odham Rights Cultural and Environmental Justice Coalition

O'odham need support letters in opposition of the open pit mining by Silver Scott Mines, Inc. on O'odham cereminial grounds in Quitovac. Also, O'odham seek travel funds to Mexico to meet with officials. (PayPal and mailing address at O'odham Solidarity Project: http://www.solidarity-project.org/ )

Spanish/English letter to Silver Scott Mines
O’odham Rights-Cultural and Environmental Justice Coalition
            oodhamrights@gmail.com   520-395-7910   P.O. Box 1835, Sells, AZ.   85634

Diciembre 2 de 2011
Lic. Rafael Carlos Quiroz Narváez
Delegado Regional de PROFEPA
Hermosillo, Sonora
Lic. Abigail Galvez
PROFEPA
PRESENTES
  En nombre de las comunidades O’odham de Sonora, México, y O’odham de Ali Jegk, en la Nación Tohono O'odham en los USA, escribo a ustedes de la manera mas atenta para solicitar su crucial ayuda en la defensa y protección de una sitio ceremonial con alta importancia cultural y por demás sagrado para nuestra gente localizado en las inmediaciones de Quitovac, Sonora, México. Las operaciones de la mina a cielo abierto que la compañía Scott Silver Mines Inc. pretende desarrollar cerca de dicha localidad, impactarán de manera negativa no sólo la salud de los O'odham que allí residen sino también, destruirán el delicado entorno ecológico de la zona.
Quitovac es una antigua aldea O’odham, y en sus inmediaciones se encuentra un sitio ceremonial profundamente sagrado para nosotros, y el cual ha sido utilizado por nuestro pueblo de manera continua durante miles de años. Este sitio posee además una invaluable significancia biológica, ya que el ojo de agua que alimenta su laguna sostiene una inmensa cantidad de vida en esta parte del desierto de Sonora.
El impacto que una mina de cielo abierto traerá sobre la calidad del agua y del aire de este centro ceremonial, así como la contaminación resultante de sus operaciones diarias devastarían no solo el bienestar físico y espiritual de los O’odham, sino un desastre ambiental (y social) que raya en genocidio.
Dado que la PROFEPA, institución que ustedes tiene a bien representar, es responsable de la impartición de justicia ambiental, siendo confiada por mandato legal para ejercer su compromiso con el medio ambiente, y dado que los pueblos indígenas somos parte del entorno natural, los apremiamos de la manera mas atenta para que hagan todo lo posible por evaluar y detener el enorme impacto social y ecológico que implica el proyecto minero a cielo abierto de la Silver Scott Mines, Inc. y que se constituyan en nuestros aliados para la protección de las tierras tradicionales de los O’odham y de este fundamental sitio ceremonial.
Sin mas, quedo respetuosamente en espera de su respuesta.
Atentamente
Ofelia Rivas, Cu:Wi I-gersk Comuidad y Ali Jegk Comunidad
O’odham Rights-Cultural and Environmental Justice Coalition
Bradley Angel, Executive Director
Green action for Health and Environmental Justice
Traditional O’odham Leaders, Governors of O’odham communities in Sonora, Mexico
-Ali Jegk community of Gu-Vo District of the Tohono O’odham Nation   
cc.
C.P. Leonel Coronado Mendoza
Director de CCDI Caborca
Sonora, Mexico
L.C.I. Griselda Veronica Leyva Egurrola
Regidora Etnica Tohono O´otham
H. Caborca, Sonora
Reenviado a:
Traditional O’odham Governors Resolution
Ali Jegk Community Resolution
Articles of Silver Scott Mines, Inc

O’odham Rights-Cultural and Environmental Justice Coalition
            oodhamrights@gmail.com   520-395-7910   P.O. Box 1835, Sells, AZ.   85634
December 2, 2011
Lic. Rafael Carlos Quiroz Narváez
Delegado Regional de PROFEPA
Hermosillo, Sonora
Lic. Abigail Galvez
PROFEPA

Greetings,
On behalf of the O’odham (peoples) Sonora, Mexico and O’odham from Ali Jegk community of the Tohono O’odham Nation, I am writing to request your assistance to defend and protect our cultural significant and sacred ceremonial site located in Quitovac, Sonora, Mexico. The Silver Scott Mines Inc. proposed open pit mine operations will detrimentally impact not only the health of the O’odham but will also destruct the sensitive ecological environment within the area.
Quitovac is an ancient O’odham village and is the location of a profoundly sacred ceremonial site continually inhabited by our people for thousands of years. This site is also biologically sensitive significance, as it is a precious fresh water spring-fed lagoon in the middle of the Sonoran desert.
The impact of the water and air of this ceremonial site by an open pit mine and contamination from its operations would devastate the spiritual well-being of the O’odham and be a cultural and environmental disaster is an act of genocide.
As the PROFEPA is charged with the responsibility to upholding environmental justice and is entrusted by legal mandate to exercise its commitment to the natural environment and the Indigenous peoples are of the natural environment, we respectfully request that you do everything possible to stop this proposed open pit mine operations by Silver Scott Mines, Inc. and protect the traditional O’odham lands and sacred ceremony site.
Respectfully,
Ofelia Rivas, Cu:Wi I-gersk Community and Ali Jegk Community                            
O’odham Rights-Cultural and Environmental Justice Coalition
Bradley Angel, Executive Director
Greenaction for Health and Environmental Justice     
Traditional O’odham Leaders, Governors of O’odham communities in Sonora, Mexico
Ali Jegk community of Gu-Vo District of the Tohono O’odham Nation                    
                                                           
cc.
C.P. Leonel Coronado Mendoza
Director de CCDI Caborca
Sonora, Mexico
L.C.I. Griselda Veronica Leyva Egurrola
Regidora Etnica Tohono O´otham
H. Caborca, Sonora
Attachments;
Traditional O’odham Governors Resolution
Ali Jegk Community Resolution
Articles of Silver Scott Mines, Inc
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mientras los lideres tradicionales O’odham representan de comunidades O’odham del norte de Sonora, México, Ellos son reconocidos como los representantes oficiales autorizados por las comunidades miembros y
Mientras los lideres tradicionales O’odham  han discutido la propuesta de Silver Scott  Mines Inc., de llevar a cabo operaciones mineras cerca de la comunidad de Quitovac, Sonora, México y 
Mientras los lideres tradicionales O’odham como una organización oficial reconocida representando a la comunidad O’odham de Quitovac, Sonora, México están indignados de que el gobierno mexicano no a informado apropiadamente a la región afectada por los planes de considerar la propuesta de Silver Scott Mines Inc., y,
Mientras los lideres tradicionales O’odham están opuestos a cualquier disturbio de la tierra en proximidad cercana a los territorios ceremoniales en Quitovac, Sonora, México
Ahora por tanto sea este resuelto, que los lideres tradicionales O’odham después de haber discutido la propuesta de Silver Scott Mines, Inc., y después de considerar los impactos perjudiciales que las operaciones de minería van a causar sobre el medio ambiente y ecosistema, se oponen fuertemente  a la propuesta de operación de Silver Scott Mines Inc., y, 
Sea además resulto,  que los lideres tradicionales O’odham responsabilizan al gobierno general de Mexicano, y al gobierno del estado de Sonora a que hagan cumplir las leyes de protección cultural y de medio ambiente de México a que conduzca una evaluación transparente del impacto y un Studio de impacto del medio ambiente y cultural, permitiendo a la comunidad de Quitovac y sus representantes tomar una decisión informada con respecto a la propuesta, y
Sea finalmente resuelto, que los lideres tradicionales O’odham también responsabilizan al gobierno Mexicano, ambos federal y estatal a su mandato de responsabilidad de  comunicación abierta con la representación O’odham en el estado de Sonora, México y al  apoyo de decisiones con el mejor interés de los O’odham, los pueblos originario de la tierra
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Silver Scott Announces Acquisition of the Quitovac
Mining ConcessionILTON HEAD, S.C., Feb. 10, 2011 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ -- Silver Scott Mines, Inc. /is

 pleased to announce the Company has acquired the Quitovac property mining concessions. The



Quitovac concessions have been an historic gold mining property.
The project is an open pit heap leach type deposit where the Company expects low capex
($1.1M) and extraction costs ($400 /oz). There is an existing historic resource in excess of
120,000 ounces at 1.35 g/t gold. Grades on average in excess of 1 g/t are present with some
impressive intervals such as 20m of over 7 g/t gold.
Silver Scott intends to continue to explore the property with our geologists expecting the project
resource to grow as exploration proceeds, up to 400,000 ounces. Over the next eighteen months,
the Company plans to increase the resource and prep the property for production.
The Quitovac property is positioned in a newly emerging gold region within northwest Sonora
State, Mexico; an area similar in structural style to the Basin and Range Province of the
southwestern United States. The Quitovac property is located approximately 45 kilometres south
from the town of Sonoyta near the Arizona/Sonora boundary and consists of 13 contiguous land
titles (both exploitation and exploration), covering 2,484 hectares.
Silver Scott purchased the Quitovac property from Cuesta Del Cobre, S.A. de C. V. for $300,000
cash plus a value added tax of 16% and a Net Smelter Return Royalty of 10% for the first
100,000 oz and 6% of further production.
John Ryan, CEO of Silver Scott Mines, Inc. commented, "We are excited with the addition of the
Quitovac property in that it brings to Silver Scott its largest single resource to date. Silver Scott's
goal is to push ahead with exploration and drilling to further increase the known resource. We
believe this resource will provide highly profitable production for the next several years at current
gold prices. We feel our entry into this project was both timely and at an excellent buy-in price."
Mel Hedrick, COO of Silver Scott Mines, Inc. also remarked, "Quitovac has been a very
productive gold mining asset in the past having produced in excess of 100,000 ounces under
previous operators. The mine is located in 'elephant country,' with numerous known mineral
resources nearby, and additional major discoveries being made in the nearby Herradura Mine
Complex."
Additional information on the projects and the management and consulting team will be
forthcoming in future news releases.
For further information please contact:John Ryan
Silver Scott Mines, Inc.



13 Bow Circle #147
Hilton Head, SC 29928
1.404.418.6203 phone
1.843.842.7248 fax--

Censored News Top Stories Dec. 2011


Louise Benally, Navajo of Big Mountain,
at protest of Salt River Project
which operates one of the Navajo Nation's
three coal fired power plants.
Censored News Top Stories, Most Accessed, for December 2011

Censored News Person of the Year: The Indigenous Woman
http://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2011/12/censored-news-person-of-year-indigenous.html
Arizona: Louise Benally upstages Obama
http://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2011/12/arizona-navajo-louise-benally-upstages.html
O'odham pepper sprayed in Phoenix at ALEC protest
http://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2011/11/oodham-pepper-sprayed-in-phoenix-alec.html
Washington: Lakota Leaders  to Obama: 'NO' Tarsands
http://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2011/12/washington-lakota-leaders-to-obama-no.html
Today's top story:
Wikileaks revealed US espionage of Indigenous Peoples
http://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2011/12/wikileaks-revealed-us-espionage-of.html

December 29, 2011

Wikileaks revealed US espionage of Indigenous Peoples in 2011

Best of the Best 2011 #1 Wikileaks revelations

Wikileaks exposed US espionage of Indigenous Peoples
By Brenda Norrell
Censored News
http://www.bsnorrell.blogspot.com

In the Censored News pick for the Best of the Best in 2011, Wikileaks claims first prize. Wikileaks exposed the US corporate schemes, espionage, promotion of mining and efforts globally to halt passage of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
Wikileaks revealed extensive espionage of Indigenous Peoples, including the Mapuche and Mohawks, and Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and Bolivian President Evo Morales, who ushered in a new Indigenous global rights campaign.
The release of the US diplomatic cables of the US State Department confirmed that the US feared the power of Indigenous Peoples, specifically their claims to their traditional territories, a right stated in the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Further, the Declaration states the right of free, prior and informed consent before development proceeds and protects intellectual and cultural property rights.
Here's the top six ways that the United States and Canada, as revealed by Wikileaks, worked against the rights of Indigenous Peoples, by engaging in espionage and the promotion of mining, while violating Indigenous autonomy, self determination and dignity.
1. The United States worked behind the scenes to fight the adoption of the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. In Ecuador, the US established a program to dissuade Ecuador from supporting the Declaration. In Iceland, the US Embassy said Iceland's support was an "impediment" to US/Iceland relations at the UN. In Canada, the US said the US and Canada agreed the Declaration was headed for a "train wreck."
2. The United States targeted and tracked Indigenous Peoples, community activists and leaders, especially in Chile, Peru and Ecuador. A cable reveals the US Embassy in Lima, Peru, identified Indigenous activists and tracked the involvement of Bolivian President Evo Morales, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, Bolivia Ambassador Pablo Solon, prominent Mapuche and Quechua activists and community leaders. President Chavez and President Morales were consistently watched, and their actions analyzed. Indigenous activists opposing the dirty Tar Sands were spied on, and other Indigenous activists in Vancouver, prior to the Olympics.
3. The United States was part of a coalition to promote mining and fight against Indigenous activists in Peru. A core group of diplomats from U.S., Canada, U.K., Australia, Switzerland and South Africa formed an alliance with mining companies to promote and protect mining interests globally. In other illegal corporate profiteering, Peru’s government secretly admitted that 70-90 percent of its mahogany exports were illegally felled, according to a US embassy cable revealed by Wikileaks. Lowe's and Home Depot sell the lumber.
4. Canada spied on Mohawks using illegal wiretaps. Before Wikileaks hit the headlines, it exposed in 2010 that Canada used unauthorized wiretaps on Mohawks.
Wikileaks: "During the preliminary inquiry to Shawn Brant's trial, it came out that the Ontario Provincial Police, headed by Commissioner Julian Fantino, had been using wiretaps on more than a dozen different Mohawks without a judge's authorization, an action almost unheard of recent history in Canada."
4. The United States and Canada tracked Mohawks. In one of the largest collections of cables released so far that targeted Native people and named names, the US Embassies in Montreal and Toronto detailed Mohawk activities at the border and in their communities.
5. The arrogant and insulting tone of the US Embassies and disrespect for Indigenous leaders is pervasive in US diplomatic cables. The US Embassy in Guatemala stated that President of Guatemala, Álvaro Colom, called Rigoberta Menchu a "fabrication" of an anthropologist and made other accusations. Menchu responded on a local radio station that Colom was a "liar."
6. The collection of DNA and other data, makes it clear that US Ambassadors are spies abroad. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton states that the Intelligence Community relies on biographical information from US diplomats. In cables to Africa and Paraguay, Clinton asked US Embassy personnel to collect address books, e-mail passwords, fingerprints, iris scans and DNA.
“The intelligence community relies on State reporting officers for much of the biographical information collected worldwide," Clinton said in a cable on April 16, 2009. Clinton said the biographical data should be sent to the INR (Bureau of Intelligence and Research) for dissemination to the Intelligence Community.
 Meanwhile, the US was part of a five country team that supported mining as Indigenous Peoples were dying to protect their homeland.
The arrogance of the US and its cheerleading for corporate copper mining in Peru is obvious in two cables just released from Wikileaks. The diplomatic cables reveal the US promoting multi-national corporations, while targeting Indigenous activists and their supporters.
The cables reveal that a core group of diplomats formed an alliance with mining companies to promote and protect mining interests globally. The diplomats were from the U.S., Canada, U.K., Australia, Switzerland and South Africa.
Read more at http://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2011/02/wikileaks-peru-us-ambassador-targeted.html
The US spied on the Mohawks in Canada, as revealed in these diplomatic cables released by Wikileaks. Canadian border guards admitted that they feared the Mohawks:
http://censored-news.blogspot.com/2011/05/wikileaks-cables-on-mohawks.html
Wikileaks exposed the fact that not only were Indigenous Peoples spied on globally by the US State Department, but those who supported them were also spied on. Actor and activist Danny Glover was the focus of at least five US diplomatic cables.

Mohawk Nation News: The Wild, Wild West

THE WILD WILD WEST

By Mohawk Nation News
http://www.mohawknationnews.com


MNN.  Dec. 29, 2011.  Western society prefers artificial interaction with inanimate objects.   

The globe is the resort of their rulers. We are all supposedly here for their use.  70% of the people in the Western Hemisphere are not needed by their industrial-war machine. 

Central Control activates their resort. They write the scenario, then act it out and force others to act in it. 

It’s all unnatural. Their script is boiling down to killing and having sex with androids and outdrawing everybody in a gun fight. This production is here!   

Animals are kept in cages and zoos. They can be eliminated, like the 65 million buffalo were by Secretary of interior General Sherman after the Civil War.

The rulers believe they control everything through money and technology, which is unravelling. 

The masses are becoming unmanageable.  The rulers need our minerals and resources to make weaponry to kill, maim, threaten and control the masses.  The James Bay Ring of Fire in northern Ontario is being wrecked to dig up diamonds to reinforce tanks and weapons.

The rulers’ weapons are operated by members of the masses. The rulers make their weapons and ammunition. It’s a symbiotic relationship. 

Both aren’t sure where they’re going, like ships with full sail and no rudder.

Some see a growing darkness of extinction. The control center is being hacked into.  The ruling class occupiers will be gone from Great Turtle Island.  The masses need to get their orders.  From who and how?  The masses panic.  They are conditioned to be obedient, instructed and submit to hierarchy.  As they don’t know how to work together, share equally or listen to each other, they try to take each other out.

Batteries turn the power on temporarily.  The greatest fear of secrecy is shining the light on the dark. 

The Indigenous never died out.  We come from the earth and will always be here.  They can’t belong and uncomfortable with real humans.  

The rulers are escaping the environmental devastation they’ve caused here, taking their international travelling road show with them.  The masses want something new to follow. Think matriarchy!

The doors are electrically powered.  The hordes try to follow their rulers, but they’re locked in. The bunkers need oxygen, workers and managers to tell them what to do. 

The masses try to escape, trampling each other. 

The occupation is over. The rulers try to plant computer chips in the masses to keep them here. 

Is history repeating itself, reprogramming their people and killing those they don’t want? 

This abnormal scenario was not meant to go on indefinitely?  !

Einstein said, “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results”.  Being out of touch with the natural world, they have no answers and make the same mistakes.  The results look fatal.

Food is scarce.  They’re trapped by the dysfunctionalcontrol center.  The masses run crazy.  Their hierarchical masters are gone.   

The rulers’ greatest fear is the masses will find out they are all the same.  The masses are beginning to cast them down from where they came.  Some bosses try to continue the illusion. They need submissive masses, who will do the work, push their wheelchairs and clean their bunkers.

Rulers need a game plan. 

“We shall deceive them into accepting laws that will steal the little freedom they have left”.  

Countries are escaping their clutches, starting with Iceland, then Greece, Spain, Portugal, Ireland, Europe and now the rest of the world.

The rulers and their agents leave behind confused technicians, dazed agents and damaged masses.  The air conditioners are off.  They melt in the heat.  The elite and agents sit in the hovercraft floating above the ground. They shoot at and set fire to the land and then float away.

Yogi Berra said, “It’s tough to make predictions, especially about the future”. 

We’re burning tobacco and singing: Just give me a home where the buffalo roam, where the deer and the antelope play; where seldom is heard a discouraging word, and the skies are not cloudy all day. 

MNN Mohawk Nation News Kahentinetha2@yahoo.com  For more news, books, to donate tomaintain the website [PayPal] and to sign up for MNN newsletters go to www.mohawknationnews.com  More stories at MNN Categories “COLONIALISM/ART/CULTURE”.  Address:  Box 991, Kahnawake [Quebec, Canada] J0L 1B0

Store: Indigenous authors – Kahnawake books – Mohawk Warriors Three – WarriorsHand Book – Rebuilding the Iroquois Confederacy.

Category:  World – Colonialism - Great Turtle Island – History – NewWorld Order – courts/police Economics/trade/commerce – Land/environment – art/culture. 

Tags: North American Indians – Turtle Island – Indian holocaust/genocide – NAUNorth American Union – History Canada/US – United Nations – Cointelpro -colonialism.

December 28, 2011

Native America Calling featuring most censored Native newsmakers 2011

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

Update: Native America Calling featured Frontline Warriors
Go to link:
http://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2011/12/frontline-warriors-on-native-america.html

Native America Calling will host the most censored Native American newsmakers of 2011 on Friday, Dec. 30. Guests will include the Censored News Person of the Year: The Indigenous Woman.
Debra White Plume, Lakota from Pine Ridge, S.D., who fought the Tarsands Keystone XL pipeline this year, will be among the guests on the live radio show hosted by Harlan McKosato, Sac and Fox. 

White Plume, activist and grandmother, was among those arrested at the White House in September and also fights uranium mining on Lakota lands.

Klee Benally, Navajo, is also a featured guest. The protests to protect sacred San Francisco Peaks in Arizona, and the lockdowns to heavy equipment, were the most accessed articles at Censored News in 2011. Native photographers, Youths of the Peaks, provided Censored News with photos of the lockdowns and protests as those happened.

Native American women continue to take the lead in their home communities in the struggle for justice, from Ofelia Rivas, on O'odham lands, to Louise Benally at Big Mountain on Navajoland, to Kahentinetha Horn, publisher of Mohawk Nation News.

In the news this year, Wikileaks exposed US spying on Indigenous Peoples from Mapuche in South America to the Mohawks in Canada.

Further, Wikileaks exposed the role of the US in promoting mining while Indigenous Peoples were dying to protect their lands in Peru. Both Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and Bolivian President Evo Morales were targets of US State Department spying.

In the US, hacktivists Anonymous exposed Arizona police files revealing white supremacists and off duty Marines patrolling the Arizona border with assault weapons. Meanwhile, the militarization of the border continues, with drones overhead, and Border Patrol agents abusing Indian people in their homelands.

In the original, breaking news category, Censored News published a diagram of the new $1.5 billion spy towers being planned for the Tohono O'odham Nation, following the boondoggle of the previous $1 billion spy towers on the Arizona border that didn't work.

Censored News also published an Attorney General report showing that Project Gunrunner began in 2005 in Texas under the Bush administration. An ATF brochure of assault weapons of Project Gunrunner in 2008 that were allowed to "walk" to drug cartels in Mexico, was also published. It was exposed when Lulzsec hacked the Arizona police files.

The US/Mexico border series at Censored News followed the Protect the Peaks articles and was the second most accessed group of articles this year.

Throughout Indigenous lands in the Americas, Indian people continue to fight the environmental genocide of coal-fired power plants, uranium mining, silver and gold mining, and oil and gas drilling. Wikaritari (Huicholes) battle silver mining on their sacred lands in Mexico. On the Blood Reserve in Canada, women stood in front of oil and gas trucks to stop the destruction.

Throughout Indian lands, the battle continues for clean drinking water, the protection of the aquifers and to halt the theft of Indian water rights.

In the US, Northern Paiute Wesley Dick, Kwassuh, led a battle against the Nevada Game and Fish Department and won, after he was charged while gathering (tules) cattails for traditional crafts.

In Phoenix in November, Navajo and O'odham led protests against ALEC, the American Legislative Exchange Council, corporate profiteers coopting the state legislature. Private prison profiteers, who pack their jails with migrants, American Indians and other people of color, are among them.

The ALEC protests included an action at the Salt River Project, which operates one of the Navajo Nation's three coal-fired power plants. The protesters were pepper sprayed by police at the Scottsdale resort where the conference was held. O'odham veteran David Ortega was hospitalized.

Racism continued, from violent beatings of Indian people by white supremacists, to the censorship of their voices in the newsrooms.

Join us on Friday, Dec. 30, 2011. Listen online at http://www.nativeamericacalling.com 
1 pm Eastern; noon Central; 11 am Mountain; 10 am Pacific.

Top stories 2011:

#1: Locked Down: Protest halts destruction on San Francisco Peaks
http://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2011/06/locked-down-protest-halts-snowbowl.html
#2: Lakotas to Diane Sawyer: Let Lakotas tell their story
Updated with video from Lakota teens: ‘We are more than that’
http://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2011/10/lakotas-to-diane-sawyer-let-lakotas.html
#3: Hacked data reveals US Marines as contract killers
http://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2011/06/hacked-data-reveals-us-marines-contract.html
#4: Video: Who shot Scott Olsen at Occupy Oakland?
http://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2011/10/video-who-shot-scott-olsen-at-occupy.html
#5: Neo Nazis and militia show up armed at Occupy Phoenix
http://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2011/10/neo-nazis-show-up-armed-to-counter.html
#6: Video: Police beating Berkeley students, young women:
http://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2011/11/video-police-beating-berkeley-students.html
#7: Tucson: Hackers reveal data targeting ethnic studies
School cop reports ethnic studies
http://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2011/06/tucson-hackers-reveal-data-targeting.html
#8: Flagstaff police attack and arrest Protect the Peaks marchers
http://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2011/06/tucson-hackers-reveal-data-targeting.html
Top story now:
Anonymous on a holiday roll with Stratfor and the hashtag subpoena:
http://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2011/12/anonymous-on-holiday-roll-with-stratfor.html
Top stories in December:
Censored News Person of the Year: The Indigenous Woman:
http://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2011/12/censored-news-person-of-year-indigenous.html
Obama’s nearly secret meeting with Native American leaders:
http://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2011/11/obamas-nearly-secret-meeting-with.html
O’odham Pepper Sprayed in ALEC protest
http://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2011/11/oodham-pepper-sprayed-in-phoenix-alec.html
Censored Person of the Year: The Indigenous Woman
http://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2011/12/censored-news-person-of-year-indigenous.html
Navajo Louise Benally upstages Obama
http://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2011/12/arizona-navajo-louise-benally-upstages.html
Ute Tribe urges investigation of Maori pepper sprayed by police
http://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2011/12/censored-news-top-stories-for-2011.html
De-Occupy O'odham Lands: In Defense of the Land and Peoples
http://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2011/12/de-occupy-oodham-lands-in-defense-of.html
Washington: Native Leaders to Obama: 'NO' to Tarsands Pipeline:
http://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2011/12/washington-lakota-leaders-to-obama-no.html
The American Indian Genocide Museum: The Confederate Flag, Buffalo Soliders at Wounded Knee and Clarifying History
http://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2011/12/washington-lakota-leaders-to-obama-no.html

Brenda Norrell has been a reporter in Indian country since 1982. During the 18 years that she lived on the Navajo Nation, she reported for Navajo Times, AP and USA Today. After serving as a longtime staff reporter for Indian Country Today, she was censored, then terminated, and created Censored News, now in its fifth year.
.

Photos Tucson Postal Workers March to Save Their Jobs




Photos by Brenda Norrell/Censored News
Postal workers in Tucson marched in downtown Tucson to save their jobs this evening. Protesting the announced closure of the Tucson mail processing plant, postal workers joined Occupy Tucson members and Veterans for Peace during the march. There is now a hearing underway: 6pm - Public hearing on the closure of the Tucson Mail Processing Plant at Leo Rich Theater in downtown Tucson.
(News media may use these photos/Credit Censored News)

Anonymous: Operation Free Palestine


Anonymous: Operation Free Palestine
https://thepiratebay.org/torrent/6918037

Dear Citizens of the world,
We live in the most troubled times! Ravaged by debt, enslaved by greed, and trapped by media lies! Our lives have become such a burden, that we forgo the very basic instincts of our being - to care for our fellow brothers and sisters, We must dare to speak out in support of the Palestinian people who resist and endorse the horrific existence brought upon them through our blood thirsty imperial crusade.

The people of Palestine wake up in fear everyday knowing it may be their last; they walk the streets with military tanks aiming at them, they have to go through military checkpoints every day just to get to school or work, they are denied their basic human rights, they are shot at from point blank range for peacefully protesting, innocent Palestinian children are used as human shields by the Zionist IDF soldiers.

We at Anonymous and TeaMp0isoN would like you to take a few minutes out from your busy lives and just imagine the following existence for you, your family or those you hold dear:

Imagine you wake up with no hope every day, imagine your very existence, the future of your children, even the future of your nation was decided by the bullets of an occupying force! Imagine your children growing up accepting death as an inevitable consequence of being who they are! Imagine accepting the indignity of being searched, denied the freedom of movement in your own country; imagine having to queue up at a check point with a terminally or fatally wounded child only to be told that a non medic has decided that you cannot pass, imagine having to take your child back home to watch them die knowing that there is nothing you can do! Imagine watching an illegal settler forcing you and your family from your home, imagine the authorities aiding them, imagine your children watching their children playing in the back yard - with their toys, imagine you having to live outside in a tent watching them redevelop your home! Imagine what you would say to your child when he/she asks why!

Imagine seeing F16's terrorise your children, imagine being unable to sleep, traumatised, scared, crying - imagine this happening every day! Imagine bombs tearing the limbs of your children, imagine seeing 1, 2, 3, 4 or more of your children laid out on the floor looking at you, fear stuck on their face, lifeless, not breathing, some seeming at peace, others ravaged by shrapnel, eyes missing, hands burnt, intestines slowly sliding out of an open wound, head missing, bits of their skull missing, imagine seeing your child in hospital screaming, crying, suffering, looking at you with pleading eyes, begging eyes to help take the pain away, imagine knowing there is nothing you can do because illegal weaponry like white phosphorus was cooking their insides.

just imagine what you would do!

Would you worry about your bills? Would you worry about your car, your TV, your trainers, your holiday? Would you buy the products that financed this suffering, Would you support the men and women who did this, Would you call them a defence force and the victims the terrorists? WOULD YOU?

that is EXACTLY what you are doing when you drink Coca Cola, eat a Big Mac or buy pampers for your baby and do you know about the other everyday Israeli products you purchase from which the profits gained are used to fund the suffering of the palestinian people. Do you realize the taxes that you pay feed the forces that traumatize the people of Palestine, Of course not you're more worried about not having free health care.

The people of Palestine have been robbed of their land and their freedom, the Racist Zionist state is killing innocent Palestinians using illegal chemical weapons, the governments of the world have ignored the war crimes committed by Israel, will you ignore these illegal methods and war crimes too?

Israel has been committing genocide, infanticide, and every day homicide since 1948 and the world and her citizens have been aiding and abetting and financing this! We are all complicit in the murder of the innocent! It's time to make a stand!

Anonymous, TeaMp0isoN and many other hacktivists from around the world have united, we may not be able to stop the Zionist regime, but the least we can do is raise awareness and educate people by defacing zionist websites, Operation Free Palestine is about educating the blind and terrorising the terrorist, the tables have turned, the time has come

Existence is resistance,

We are Legion.

We do not forgive.

We do not forget,

Expect us.

Dakotas ride for the ancestors to Mankato




.
Dakotos Ride for the Ancestors to Mankato
By KEYC TV
KEYC screen capture photos by Censored News
Posted at Censored News

149 years ago today 38 Dakota Indians were hung in Mankato.
It's a dark day in history but a group of American Indians are hoping to change that with a tradition that's about forgiveness.
The 330-mile ride started in South Dakota and ends here in Mankato, the site of the largest mass execution in America's history.
Miller says, "In the dream I see 38 of my ancestors being hung. The dream and I know that it came from the creator so I acted on it."
From Jim Miller's dream this ride was born... over 8 years ago.
Miller says, "our main goal is to do reconciliation."
Although the death of their ancestors is a difficult thing to accept they hope the ride helps with that reconciliation.
Peter Lengkeek says, "Those things that we felt take them use them in a GOOD WAY."
READ ARTICLE AND WATCH VIDEO:
http://www.keyc.tv/story/16395095/dakota-indians-ride-for-thier-ancestors-almost-150-years-later

December 27, 2011

Danny Glover at Leonard Peltier Walk for Human Rights



Chief Harry Kindness, Danny Glover and 
Dorothy Ninham Praying at Occupy Oakland
                                                      Photos by Arthur Jacob/AIM West 
Censored News
http://www.bsnorrell.blogspot.com

OAKLAND, Calif. -- Activist and actor Danny Glover joined the Leonard Peltier Walk for Human Rights at Occupy Oakland on Monday. Glover spoke at the press conference and committed to meeting the walkers at the end of the walk on May 18 in DC.
In an interview with Native News Network, Glover said, "I am involved because of the great injustice that was committed against Leonard Peltier. I believe he is innocent of the crimes for which he was convicted. During the trial there were at least 25 violations of the US Constitution committed against him. This is a travesty of justice," said Glover to the Native News Network.
“Then I think about the other injustices committed against Indians in this country,”
continued Glover. “I feel I have to lend my support.”
Read the story at Native News Network:
http://www.nativenewsnetwork.com/danny-glover-commits-to-meet-peltier-walkers-in-dc-may-18.html

Statement from Leonard Peltier: From Behind the Iron Door


Monday, 19 December 2011
Hau Kola.

Greetings my friends, relatives, relations, supporters.

I wrote a statement the other day sitting here in my cell and I know that no one really cares to read something that is 6 pages long. So this is my effort to shorten it a little bit.

The first subject I want to touch on is being in prison for 36 years is hell. There are some folks who are planning to walk across America starting in California going to Washington D.C. to bring attention to the injustice that faces Indian people in the judicial system of America and of which I am some of the evidence of that. But first of all what I really want to say is I really appreciate and love the people that do things like this for those of us who are imprisoned. And if walking across America sounds like a lot try standing in an 8 by 6 cell for 36 years. But I want you to know as terrible and painful as this is in a strange way I am honored that the most powerful government has considered me a challenge that they would violate all their own laws to keep me imprisoned. In my standing I have stood for what’s right. I have stood for the right of a people invaded by emissaries of the corporations they ultimately represent; the right of a people to defend themselves in whatever way necessary to defend their women and children and elders and life itself when attacked with deadly force by this government.

For some of you who may recently come in contact with my case, my case is one where an Indian community that had been continually terrorized by FBI and a goon squad funded by them on the reservation, had opposed the sale of 1/8th of the tribe’s mineral resources and land. On June the 26th 1975, they attacked the village of Oglala on the Pine Ridge Reservation. It started with two FBI agents in unmarked cars and unmarked clothing, firing into an enclave of dwellings. The two agents numbers soon swelled to 250. In the ensuing battle the two initial agents were killed and one young Indian man, Joe Stuntz, was murdered by the FBI, shot between the eyes. Ultimately some 30 of us escaped. Two men, Bob Robideau and Dino Butler that were captured before I was, were put on trial and all the evidence of that day was allowed to be presented in their defense. And they were acquitted by reason of self-defense; the jury said they had the right to defend themselves with deadly force. I had escaped to Canada and was later apprehended there, the government perjured testimony, and they got someone to lie to bring me back from there. I was put on trial and all the evidence used to convict me was later proven false in court, as well as the lie to extradite me. And the same evidence used by the defense in the first trial was not allowed. They ultimately got a conviction saying I was guilty of murder which was later amended to aiding and abetting.

Then later an individual whom some called Mr. X, on tape admitted he was the shooter. Bob Robideau one of the original two men acquitted by reason of self-defense later told retired FBI Agent Ed Wood he was Mr. X and that he had shot the agents. Bob feared for his life. Bob didn’t make his statement for many years. Bob did all that he could do to help me over the years and later started living in Spain. And then he made a statement to a few people that he was going to come back and speak more about being the shooter and being acquitted of the offense. And within about a month’s time he was found dead in his apartment in Spain. He supposedly fell out of bed and hit his head and died. Having said that, my main point is that where all the evidence was allowed to be presented Indian people were found not guilty rightfully defended themselves by reason of self-defense.

There has not been a violation of human rights by America that wasn’t first practiced on Native Americans. America’s first biological warfare was against Indian people with small pox and measles infected blankets, the first concentration camps were against Indian people where they took their land and rounded them up. And Lincoln known for being against slavery, had 38 Indian men hung in unison in Mankato Minnesota for rebelling in the starving concentration camp they were confined to and there were camps all across this nation for American Indian people. The first atomic bomb was dropped on Indian land polluting it and destroying the water tables. To this day the result of their digging for uranium still pollutes parts of the Navajo reservation. They practiced sterilization of our women up until the late 1950s and even into the 60’s. Up in Alaska they experimented with various forms of hepatitis on the native people there. The list goes on and on. Our people to this day suffer generational trauma as a result of the concentration camps and invasions and starvation and boarding schools that tried to destroy our culture. The death rate in the boarding schools was 50%.

To this day the unemployment rate for American Indians is 35%. What America calls “depression” has become a way of life for us. Bureaucrats scream and jump up and down about the Israelis right to claim their homeland, yet at the same time America still takes our land against our will, our homeland. The black hills of South Dakota was leased for 99 years the lease has been up for some 20 something years, but they will not return it. They have offered to pay some 3 billion dollars for the Black Hills. Why don’t they take that money and relocate the non-Indians from there? There have been people complaining of a mosque in the proximity of the former World Trade Towers yet our sacred hills have Abraham Lincoln’s face carved in the side of our sacred area, and George Washington who practiced a scorched earth campaign against our people in the East is there along with others.

I’m sorry if I’m getting carried away, I want America to be a great nation, but I want it to be fair to all people. We don’t ask for anything that wasn’t agreed to by this government,. There’s three hundred and seventy something treaties that cover most of our concerns. I apologize if in reading this in some way it hurts your celebration of the holidays. Its very difficult to not be negative when you are unjustly imprisoned for this long and every day you look through an iron door when the true enemies and terrorists are free to terrorize the poor and the oppressed of America. When the resources of America and the labor of its people is used to enhance the lavish lifestyle of some 2 to 3 % of the population that owns 96% of America’s wealth or I should say owns and controls 96% of America’s wealth then people like you and the people occupying Wall Street and walking across America are needed more than you would ever know.

I said I wouldn’t make this too long and it seems I have gone back on my work. However in closing I would like to thank the National Congress of American Indians for passing a resolution supporting me in my bid for freedom. And I would especially like to thank Lenny Foster who has served as a spiritual leader in prisons throughout America who presented the resolution to the National Congress of American Indians. I would also like to thank all the others, too numerous to mention, who has supported me for so many years. I guess in some off handed way I have learned to live and exist by my contact with them over the years. This struggle has been long and difficult and I know at times I have offended people and hurt their feelings and for that I am deeply regretful. But rest assured I appreciate all of you in the deepest sense of the word. And I pray that this Holiday season brings joy to you and your families. And there is no greater gift that we can give our children and our children’s children than freedom and a healthy earth.

I will close for now but unless they shut me up like they did Bob, you will hear from me again rest assured.

In the Spirit of Crazy Horse and all the others that have died for their people,

Sincerely, Leonard Peltier


More info: Official Site - Leonard Peltier Defense Offense Committee
www.whoisleonardpeltier.info