 |
| Debra White Plume, Lakota, arrested at the White House in Sept. protesting tarsands and Keystone pipeline. Photo Tarsands Action |
1 May 2012
Testimony of Debra White Plume, Oglala Lakota from the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, Pine Ridge, South Dakota at Sinte Gleska University on the Rosebud Indian Reservation.
Mitakuye na Oyate kin na Mr. Anaya, iyuskinya cante waste nape ciyuspape. Cante mawaste lel wahi. Wasicu caje kin Debra White Plume. Ite Sica Tioyspaye ematanhan.
Translation: My relatives, the people, and Mr. Anaya, I shake your hands with a good heart. I come here with a good heart. My English name is Debra White Plume, I come from the Red Cloud Family.
I speak for Owe Aku, Bring Back the Way, a grass roots Oglala Lakota non-governmental organization, and do work at the direction of the Black Hills Sioux Nation Treaty Council. I speak as a Grandmother, as the lead plaintiff against the world’s largest uranium producer, Cameco, Inc., and as an activist.
Mr. Anaya, I give you good greetings and acknowledge your presence here on Lakota Homelands in your role as Special Rapporteur for the United Nations and in your very serious responsibility to express the voice of Native Nations peoples across this land to gather information and report on the American governments’ treatment of our people regarding the conditions our people live under and experience on the historical basis that becomes transformative to the daily experience of today’s modern society.
As you know, our people have made the Ft Laramie Treaties with the United States. Our ancestors retained a Homeland for us to live on undisturbed. However, once the United States “discovered” gold in our Territory, they broke the Treaty, they broke their word, and they broke international law.
The United States allowed and allows, supported and supports corporate encroachment onto our Homelands to get at the gold in our sacred Black Hills. The Homestake gold mine corporation and later the uranium mining corporations were and are allowed to come here to our Homelands to extract minerals and metals for private profit and then to leave their mess behind when they have mined out their profits.
The mining fouled and fouls our sacred water and lands. This relationship between the United States government and corporations continues to this day.
There are uranium, oil, and gas corporations here now, and more want to come. We did not invite them.
America welcomes Canadian-owned Cameco uranium corporation, TransCanada oil pipeline corporation, and PowerTech uranium corporation to come and obtain permits to mine uranium and slurry oil in our Territory against our wishes, this extraction and pipeline threatens our Oglalla Aquifer, which gives 2 million people drinking water and irrigates the worlds bread basket.
We have not given our free, prior and informed consent as required by the Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples adopted by the United Nations General Assembly, we know not everyone is satisfied with the Declaration, but it is a minimum standards document.
Our lands, waters, and peoples have been under constant assault by government sanctioned Fat Taker corporations since the formation of the Settler Nation. Around here, the deadly radioactivity unleashed by uranium mining corporations contaminants our sacred ground and surface waters, and the in situ leach mining method of mining is permitted to store forever, deep underground, toxic waste as an unlicensed nuclear waste dump. This is all occurring 30 minutes from our southern border on the Pine Ridge and within Treaty Territory.
The United States federal Indian policy does not recognize but instead violates the Ft Laramie Treaties. This practice allows corporations to come to our land, make profit while contaminating our Homelands and our People, who are sick, suffering and dying from the impacts of mining and United States government practices.
United States federal Indian policy does not, does not increase health care budgets or environmental protection budgets to alleviate deadly mining impacts to our people and coming generations.
Testimony of Debra White Plume, Oglala Lakota from the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, Pine Ridge, South Dakota at Sinte Gleska University on the Rosebud Indian Reservation.
Mitakuye na Oyate kin na Mr. Anaya, iyuskinya cante waste nape ciyuspape. Cante mawaste lel wahi. Wasicu caje kin Debra White Plume. Ite Sica Tioyspaye ematanhan.
Translation: My relatives, the people, and Mr. Anaya, I shake your hands with a good heart. I come here with a good heart. My English name is Debra White Plume, I come from the Red Cloud Family.
I speak for Owe Aku, Bring Back the Way, a grass roots Oglala Lakota non-governmental organization, and do work at the direction of the Black Hills Sioux Nation Treaty Council. I speak as a Grandmother, as the lead plaintiff against the world’s largest uranium producer, Cameco, Inc., and as an activist.
Mr. Anaya, I give you good greetings and acknowledge your presence here on Lakota Homelands in your role as Special Rapporteur for the United Nations and in your very serious responsibility to express the voice of Native Nations peoples across this land to gather information and report on the American governments’ treatment of our people regarding the conditions our people live under and experience on the historical basis that becomes transformative to the daily experience of today’s modern society.
As you know, our people have made the Ft Laramie Treaties with the United States. Our ancestors retained a Homeland for us to live on undisturbed. However, once the United States “discovered” gold in our Territory, they broke the Treaty, they broke their word, and they broke international law.
The United States allowed and allows, supported and supports corporate encroachment onto our Homelands to get at the gold in our sacred Black Hills. The Homestake gold mine corporation and later the uranium mining corporations were and are allowed to come here to our Homelands to extract minerals and metals for private profit and then to leave their mess behind when they have mined out their profits.
The mining fouled and fouls our sacred water and lands. This relationship between the United States government and corporations continues to this day.
There are uranium, oil, and gas corporations here now, and more want to come. We did not invite them.
America welcomes Canadian-owned Cameco uranium corporation, TransCanada oil pipeline corporation, and PowerTech uranium corporation to come and obtain permits to mine uranium and slurry oil in our Territory against our wishes, this extraction and pipeline threatens our Oglalla Aquifer, which gives 2 million people drinking water and irrigates the worlds bread basket.
We have not given our free, prior and informed consent as required by the Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples adopted by the United Nations General Assembly, we know not everyone is satisfied with the Declaration, but it is a minimum standards document.
Our lands, waters, and peoples have been under constant assault by government sanctioned Fat Taker corporations since the formation of the Settler Nation. Around here, the deadly radioactivity unleashed by uranium mining corporations contaminants our sacred ground and surface waters, and the in situ leach mining method of mining is permitted to store forever, deep underground, toxic waste as an unlicensed nuclear waste dump. This is all occurring 30 minutes from our southern border on the Pine Ridge and within Treaty Territory.
The United States federal Indian policy does not recognize but instead violates the Ft Laramie Treaties. This practice allows corporations to come to our land, make profit while contaminating our Homelands and our People, who are sick, suffering and dying from the impacts of mining and United States government practices.
United States federal Indian policy does not, does not increase health care budgets or environmental protection budgets to alleviate deadly mining impacts to our people and coming generations.
The United States government blatantly continues to violate our Treaties and their own water laws while our people are dying. A long time ago, our ancestors said the Settler Nation could use as much of our land as was between the wheels of the wagon train and allowed them to pass through our Territory. However, greed overtook the Settler Nation.
Now today the United States government’s federal Indian policy lumps all Native Nations together, and calls us American Indians. This attacks our dignity and this de-humanizes us, and we find it ludicrous that this young United States Settler Nation government wants to dominate our ancient Peoples and Nations and observe the new map they have drawn that not only ignores Treaty Territory but also ignores the ancient maps of our Lakota Nation: the Mother Earth map and the Star Nation map ...that correspond with each other and that guides us to be Lakota people and Lakota Nation. All lands inside our maps have been under constant attack since the Settler Nation became greedy Fat Takers.
In Wounded Knee in 1890 the 7th Calvary of the United States used gatling guns to massacre unarmed men, women, and children. Today it is the United States federal Indian policy that is the gatling gun the American government is using against our people. The death may be slower, but it is just as sure.
We want to honor the two items our people carried onto our Homelands in the Treaty Era, the Star Nation map and the Mother Earth map. These were the two items we brought with us, to what American calls Prisoner of War Camp 344, and what is now known as the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation.
Mr. Anaya, I ask you to keep this message clear, do not pretty up my testimony. I am saying that America is committing ethnocide against our way of life, eco-cide against our Mother Earth, and genocide in our Lakota Homelands. Our Human Rights are being violated and our Inherent Right to live as Lakota People and Nation is being violated as well. Without access to our lands and waters we cannot live our collective Inherent Rights to be who we are.
We must have our lands. Share this message with the world. The United States Supreme Court agreed our Territory was stolen by the United States and was the ripest, rankest case of land theft in the United States of America’s history and thus awarded us millions of dollars. Tell the world we refused the money. We want our lands and our waters. We want our Treaties upheld. We must have our lands.
Wioweya Egna Najin Win miye. Lila wopila, mitakuyepi na Mr. Anaya.
Translation: I am Stands Among the Colors of the Sun Woman. I thank you, my relatives and Mr. Anaya.
Now today the United States government’s federal Indian policy lumps all Native Nations together, and calls us American Indians. This attacks our dignity and this de-humanizes us, and we find it ludicrous that this young United States Settler Nation government wants to dominate our ancient Peoples and Nations and observe the new map they have drawn that not only ignores Treaty Territory but also ignores the ancient maps of our Lakota Nation: the Mother Earth map and the Star Nation map ...that correspond with each other and that guides us to be Lakota people and Lakota Nation. All lands inside our maps have been under constant attack since the Settler Nation became greedy Fat Takers.
In Wounded Knee in 1890 the 7th Calvary of the United States used gatling guns to massacre unarmed men, women, and children. Today it is the United States federal Indian policy that is the gatling gun the American government is using against our people. The death may be slower, but it is just as sure.
We want to honor the two items our people carried onto our Homelands in the Treaty Era, the Star Nation map and the Mother Earth map. These were the two items we brought with us, to what American calls Prisoner of War Camp 344, and what is now known as the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation.
Mr. Anaya, I ask you to keep this message clear, do not pretty up my testimony. I am saying that America is committing ethnocide against our way of life, eco-cide against our Mother Earth, and genocide in our Lakota Homelands. Our Human Rights are being violated and our Inherent Right to live as Lakota People and Nation is being violated as well. Without access to our lands and waters we cannot live our collective Inherent Rights to be who we are.
We must have our lands. Share this message with the world. The United States Supreme Court agreed our Territory was stolen by the United States and was the ripest, rankest case of land theft in the United States of America’s history and thus awarded us millions of dollars. Tell the world we refused the money. We want our lands and our waters. We want our Treaties upheld. We must have our lands.
Wioweya Egna Najin Win miye. Lila wopila, mitakuyepi na Mr. Anaya.
Translation: I am Stands Among the Colors of the Sun Woman. I thank you, my relatives and Mr. Anaya.
No comments:
Post a Comment