UN: Mining industries increase sexual violence in Indian country

Mandan, Hidatsa, Arikara land, North Dakota 2011
Photo Brenda Norrell

James Anaya:

Oil and gas industry and mining increasing sexual violence and birth defects in Indian country

By UN Special Rapporteur for Indigenous Peoples, James Anaya

International Expert Group Meeting on the theme: “Sexual health and reproductive rights: articles 21, 22(1), 23 and 24  of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples”

Mohawk Nation News 'Palest'Indian Issue'

PALEST’INDIAN ISSUE

Posted on January 22, 2014

MNN. Jan. 22, 2014. The common denominator of the corporations called “Canada” and “Israel” is, they are both founded on crimes against humanity bordering on genocide. 

“Corporatist dating service was right. We have so much in common!”

Canadian CEO Harper falsely claims to speaks for the majority of Canadians while giving unequivocal support for Israel’s war policies. His election is being proven to be fraudulent, achieving only 30% of the popular vote. It reminds us of what Joseph Stalin said in one of Harper’s favorite books: “It matters not who wins the election. Only who counts the vote”.  

Court rules in favor of Native Youths attacked in Flagstaff Arizona

Racism in Flagstaff Arizona

Court rules in favor of Native Youths attacked at Flagstaff Dew Downtown event 

City council and mainstream media continue to ignore racist attack

By Indigenous Action Media
Posted at Censored News
French translation Christine Prat

FLAGSTAFF, Arizona — A Flagstaff Judge ruled today that Snowbowl ski area supporter Lindsay Lucas, must pay restitution for assaulting two Native Youth at a Flagstaff event called Dew Downtown on February 9, 2013.

“I’m pleased to report that the Judge was in our favor. It’s been a very long year of constant continuances. We’ve all suffered emotionally as a family from this ordeal," said Leslyn Begay, Diné (Navajo) mother of the two boys who were 11 and 13 when assaulted. "It’s nerve wrecking walking into the judicial system not knowing what to expect. As a Diné and person of color you worry it may not go in your favor," Ms. Begay said.

John Kane '30 Years and $33 Million'

John Kane and Frank Ettawageshik, one of the conference
co-chairs and former chairman of Little Traverse Band
of Odawa Indians. Frank was moderator of the
"Inherent Sovereignty" panel. Photo courtesy John Kane.

30 Years and $33 Million

By John Karhiio Kane (Mohawk)

Censored News

It's not a prison sentence. It just feels like one. And I’m sure it feels the same to many others. It’s the cost for gaining “recognition” by the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs. And $33 million is what it cost the Shinnecock people. 
However, as exorbitant ­– and unbelievable – as this sounds they are actually the lucky ones because unlike most that file a petition for federal acknowledgement these guys actually got something out of it. In my opinion, it wasn’t much but at least it was something.
After what is almost a lifetime for most Native people, the Shinnecock — who trace their origins back thousands of years on Long Island, New York — officially got recognized as "a tribe, band or nation of Indians under federal jurisdiction." 

Australia spy photos: Australia stalked Aboriginal activists

Australian Intelligence Surveillance Photo: Aboriginal actor Zac Martin, Mascot Airport on departure to China

Gary Foley with Dennis Walker

'Persons of Interest' Australia stalked Aboriginals

By Brenda Norrell

Eddie Mabo

Censored News

Australian Aboriginals were secretly photographed under surveillance by the government of Australia. Now, the spy photos of Aboriginal land rights activists, authors, playrights and artists are the subject of a photo exhibit.

"The 70 photos of people such as author Frank Hardy, Aboriginal activists Eddie Mabo and Gary Foley, film critic David Stratton and actor Bob Maza, among a range of Australians who went on to become prominent in public life," Business Insider reports.

Torres Strait Islander Eddie Mabo's Aboriginal land rights struggle and love for his homeland resulted in reshaping Australian laws. Mabo passed to the Spirit World in 1992.

Gary Foley, Gumbainggir from New South Wales exposed Aboriginals deaths in custody. Foley worked with the "style and language" of the Black Power Movement in America. Robert 'Bob' Lewis Maza was an actor and playwright, whose father was a Murray Islander and mother was Aboriginal Yidinjdji.

Bob Maza

Damien Minton Gallery announced that the photos will be viewed for the first time. These are previously secret ASIO, Australian Security Intelligence Organisation, images sourced by the creators of the documentary series, Persons of Interest, Smart Street Films, Haydn Keenan and Gai Steele.

The director of the documentary series, Haydn Keenan, said the photos are “… images with no author, created by the State, of those who threatened it. They are secret political images, stolen to gain power over the subject. Here is a machine aesthetic. No artful frame or composition proposed, but uncannily appears.”

The gallery said the photographs were created as documents and records of surveillance by secret ASIO operatives going about their work monitoring the activities and meetings of people who the state considered to be ‘a person of interest’.

Images that once served a functional purpose are for the first time displayed in a gallery context, crossing the boundary into the ‘aesthetics of surveillance’.

Viewers can now frame references, contexts and narratives beyond the intent of the anonymous ‘authors’ who were on secret official duty.

"The cinematic quality of the selected images trigger references into the world of dangling Hitchcock like suspense or even the mundane recording of everyday activity echoed in the genre of ‘vernacular photography,'" the gallery said.

There’s a paradox to an exhibition of ASIO photos in an art gallery, because they are not art, filmmaker Haydn Keenan told Business Insider.

“They were taken not with the intention of becoming history, but that’s what they are. And the artistic aesthetic is unintentional. The object of the photo is to identify the subject and those associated with them,” Keenan said. “One of the objects of secretly obtained photos is to gain political power over someone without them knowing it. There is a strange theft of identity involved.”

ASIO spy photo: Ningla A'Na director Alessandro Cavadini is captured at Sydney airport filming an Aboriginal delegation leaving for China. On his right is Carolyn Strachan and actor Zac Martin. The numbers at the top are for identification purposes and generally indicate that the person has an existing ASIO file.
.

From 'Persons of Interest': Image collected by ASIO from magazines, newspapers are catalogued and people identified. Generally numbers on the image indicate the person already has an intelligence file. Here an Aboriginal group from Queensland are an interesting cross section of Christian and community based older activist with the young Dennis Walker (seated). Walker would become the Minister for Defence in the Black Panther Party of Australia (BPPA) and one of the most radical advocates of black self determination in Australia,. He was one of a group of young Aborigines who rejected the pacifist ideologies of the older generation and drew heavily on international liberation movements and organisations like the Black Panthers in the U.S.

Persons of Interest: "From it’s inception in 1949, ASIO kept track of all Aborigines involved in political activities. Whether they were associated with the Communist Party or Christian groups their interests were common – equity for Black Australia."

Below: Spying on Aboriginal Tent Embassy

On 26 January 1972, four Aboriginal men -- Michael Anderson, Billy Craigie, Tony Coorey and Bertie Williams -- arrived in Canberra from Sydney to establish the Aboriginal Embassy by planting a beach umbrella on the lawn in front of Parliament House (now Old Parliament House). The Embassy was established in response to the McMahon Coalition Government's refusal to recognise Aboriginal land rights. 

THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS

Exhibition dates: Wed 22 January to Sat 1 February 2014

View the artworks

http://damienmintongallery.com.au/artists/asio-through-the-looking-glass

Australian surveillance photo: Bobbi Sykes and Paul Coe, Moratorium for Black Rights, 1972 corner of George & Bathurst Sts.