Indigenous Peoples and Human Rights

May 31, 2012

Australian Aboriginal speaks out for Wikileaks Julian Assange




Wikileaks exposed attacks on Indigenous Peoples
By Brenda Norrell
Censored News
http://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2012/05/australian-aboriginal-speaks-out-for.html
May 31, 2012 Breaking news, check back for updates


In Melbourne, Australia, Aboriginal elder Robbie Thorpe, Krautungalung of the Gunnai Nation, rallied in support of Wikileaks Julian Assange, who continues to battle for his freedom. Wikileaks has exposed how the US and Canada targeted Indigenous Peoples.
Thorpe, longtime activist for aboriginal land rights and human rights, referred to Assange as "my brother."
"I'm prepared to go to jail for Julian, we need to rise up! Get up!"
"Assange is exposing the truth. Secrecy is a weapon of mass destruction in Australia," Thorpe said in Melbourne on May 31, during one of the global rallies in support of Assange.
The US diplomatic cables exposed by Wikileaks revealed how US ambassadors spied on Indigenous Peoples and promoted mining in their homelands. The mining is resulting in widespread assaults, homelessness, poisoning of the land, water and air, and deaths during Indigenous village protests.


Indigenous battle Newmont Mining
Today in Peru, Indigenous battle Newmont Mining, which mines copper and gold in Peru. Newmont has also targeted Western Shoshone lands in Nevada and northern Canada for mining. Newmont currently has 14 open pit gold mines and four undergound gold mines in Nevada.
In Australia, Newmont currently has massive gold mines in Western Australia and the Northern Territory. Aboriginal people are fighting widespread attacks by mining companies, including uranium mining that poisons water sources.
Wikileaks exposed five country anti-Indian mining coalition
The Wikileaks cables exposed the fact that the United States was part of a five country coalition to promote mining and fight against Indigenous activists in Peru. 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, according to the cables.
Below are the top six ways that the United States and Canada worked against Indigenous Peoples, as revealed by Wikileaks and researched by Censored News. The US and Canada engaged in espionage, while violating Indigenous autonomy, self determination and dignity.
Anonymous exposed Mexico manipulating climate facts to promote coal mining
Following the release of the Wikileaks cables, Anonymous hacked the e-mails of Mexico’s mining industry Camimex. Those e-mails revealed that the government of Mexico is manipulating climate change facts in order to protect coal mining and other dirty industries from taxation.
In the Camimex member e-mails, First Majestic Silver Mining of Canada is exposed in the state of Durango, Mexico. The company targeted the sacred lands of the Wixarika, Huicholes, with silver mining. The Wixarika's sacred place is where Wixarika pray for all mankind to keep the world in order and balance. Read more: http://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2012/02/hacked-e-mails-reveal-mexico.html
Wikileaks cables, research by Censored News
The top six ways that the US and Canada worked against the rights of Indigenous Peoples:

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 five country 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.

Video of Robbie Thorpe at Dec 2010 support for Julian Assange.

2 comments:

ceberger said...

This article worths translating into french . I am asking authorizatoin to post a translation on this blog:
http://dveloppementetpaixqubec-rivesud.blogspot.ca/

Gene Bergeron
Here is my FB add:
http://www.facebook.com/gene.bergeron.12

Censored News, publisher Brenda Norrell said...

Please feel free to translate into any language and share. (This applies to all articles at Censored News. Like minded websites, without advertising, are encouraged to translate and share the articles with author and Censored News credit. Please get permission from photographers to repost photos.) brendanorrell@gmail.com