Western Shoshone tour in Ireland

Congratulations to newlyweds Larson Bill and Julie Cavanaugh-Bill of the Western Shoshone Defense Project, currently in Ireland

Photo: Larson Bill, Western Shoshone, videotapes gold mining operation near sacred Mount Tenabo on Western Shoshone land. Below: Julie Cavanaugh talks with Tom Goldtooth during the Indigenous Environmental Network Conference on Western Shoshone land in July. Photos Brenda Norrell

From: Derry, Northern Ireland

10th October, 2008.
Shoshone Indigenous Rights in the U.S., fostering links with Ireland, a Film & Discussion Tour
Watch "Our Land, Our Life," online, 25 minute version of the 74 minute film on You Tube

Representatives from the U.S.-based Western Shoshone Defense Project will begin a week long speaking tour in Ireland this month. Larson Bill, Western Shoshone leader and community planner and Julie Cavanaugh-Bill, Irish descendant and Western Shoshone Defense Project advisor, will travel to the Academy for Irish Cultural Heritage, University of Ulster, Derry (22nd October), the Irish Centre for Human Rights, National University of Ireland Galway (23rd October) and Erris in the Gaeltacht of Co. Mayo, (24th–26th October) where they will participate in Afri’s ‘Pipelines and Profits: People Under Pressure’ Hedge School, and meet community members opposing Shell’s attempt to build a controversial gas pipeline. During the tour Larson and Julie will talk about the struggle of the Western Shoshone, recent international successes and the need for indigenous-rights based protection of the environment, cultures and spiritual areas worldwide. The new award-winning film documenting the Western Shoshone struggle, American Outrage, will precede discussions.

The Western Shoshone struggle is well known and based on a decades long challenge to the US government’s assertion of federal ownership of nearly 90% of Western Shoshone lands. The land base covers approximately 60 million acres, stretching across what is now referred to as the states of Nevada, Idaho, Utah and California. Western Shoshone rights to the land - which they continue to use, care for, and occupy today - were recognized by the United States in 1863 by the Treaty of Ruby Valley. The U.S. now claims these same lands as “public” or federal lands through an agency process and has denied Western Shoshone fair access to U.S. courts through that same process. The land base has been and continues to be used by the United States for military testing, open pit cyanide heap leach gold mining and nuclear waste disposal planning. The U.S. has engaged in military style seizures of Shoshone livestock, trespass fines in the millions of dollars and armed surveillance of Western Shoshone who continue to assert their original and treaty rights. Both the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of all forms of Racial Discrimination have ruled against the U.S. on several occasions, but the Shoshone continue to suffer from ongoing harassment by federal officials and massive expansion by transnational corporations.

Larson Bill, Community Planner for the WSDP and 25 year elected leader said before leaving the U.S.: “We are pleased to be able to meet with people across Ireland to discuss these issues that affect all of us around the world. It is through traditional knowledge and teachings that we will protect our spiritual areas and learn more about our original relationships to the earth and to each other as we take on some of the largest industries in the world.”

“We believe the connection between the struggles of the Irish peoples and the Indigenous peoples of the United States is very important. Similarities in colonization, struggles against spiritual, cultural and environmental destruction, as well as an undying spirit and connection to the land make us natural allies. We hope that this preliminary trip will open avenues to building stronger alliances and future delegations both to Ireland and to native territories in the U.S.” Added Julie Cavanaugh Bill who has worked in both legal and staff capacities for the Western Shoshone for over ten years.

Cathal Doyle an indigenous peoples rights advocate acting on behalf of the Irish Centre for Human Rights and a doctoral student in law at the University of Middlesex points out that “The struggle of the Western Shoshone reflects a global pattern of expropriation of indigenous peoples lands and resources. In the past this was as a result of colonization. Today it continues unabated through the activities of transnational corporations, particularly those in the extractive sector. At its core is a lack of respect for indigenous peoples’ rights. In 2007, the United Nations adopted the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, laying out the minimum standards for their cultural survival. The Shoshone, together with many of the world’s 350 million indigenous people, now demand that governments and corporations make these rights a reality”.

For further information contact:
Julie Cavanaugh Bill (U.S.) +1 775-744-2565 (wsdp@igc.org) or
Cathal Doyle (Ireland) +353 86 85 45 414 (doncathal@gmail.com)
See Western Shoshone Defense Project website http://www.wsdp.org/
The Mayo Gaeltacht / official Irish speaking region, consists of approximately 11,000 people representing in the region of 11% of the total Irish speaking population remaining in Ireland. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaeltacht
Afri (Action From Ireland, an Irish NGO) will hold a Hedge School (Scoil Chois Claí) on the theme of ‘Pipelines and Profits: People Under Pressure’ with participation from the Western Shoshone Defense Project as well as people from Ecuador, Nigeria and France from the 24th to the 26th October. For more information see http://www.afri.ie/pdf/hedge-school-2008.pdf. For an overview of the campaign opposing Shell’s proposed project in north Co. Mayo see http://www.corribsos.com/