Demilitarization Censored: Pacific Islanders withdraw support for Indigenous World Conference

"What happens at the UN when indigenous peoples even attempt to speak to the issue of demilitarization? We are forced to leave the "process" with the one thing we cannot even consider bargaining away: our conscience." -- Noho Hewa

Statement by Kalamaoka’aina Niheu

Ohana Koa-NFIP
Censored News

Aloha kakou,

It is with great sadness and outrage to find at the 11th hour that Paragraph 21 regarding Demilitarization has been removed from the Outcome Document.

For this reason, Ohana Koa –Nuclear Free and Independent Pacific can no longer consent to our participation in the High Level Plenary Meeting (HLPM) also known as the World Conference on Indigenous Peoples (WCIP).

At every stage in the process on the road to the HLPM, demilitarization has been a critical demand for the different regions throughout the world. Its removal at this stage indicates a gross disregard for one of the key issues facing our community and an indication of the lack of strength of this document.

Military violence, occupation, transport, storage, practice, and construction have been the cornerstone for the destruction of all Indigenous Peoples. For what reason have we been forced to watch as our culture, lands, and peoples are destroyed and abused for economic gain? Because political power grows out of the barrel of their guns.

Listen: Are Indigenous Issues sold out at the UN?

Indigenous Peoples' summit pushed out of the spotlight

Updated 29 September 2014, 11:54 AEST

During a frantic week in New York when world leaders gathered to discuss climate change and the security situation in Syria and Iraq, a meeting of the World Conference of Indigenous Peoples has largely slipped under the radar.

Indigenous Peoples' summit pushed out of the spotlight (Credit: ABC) 

Many of the delegates wanted to be involved with the climate discussions, which they consider to be vital to the future of their peoples, but conveners controversially ruled out climate change from the agenda, as well as the thorny issue of demilitarisation.

Kalama Oka Aina Niheu from Hawaii is a member of the Pacific Caucus and she says there is growing concern that the landmark United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples is in danger of being sold out.

http://www.radioaustralia.net.au/international/radio/program/pacific-beat/indigenous-peoples-summit-pushed-out-of-the-spotlight/1373249

Presenter: Richard Ewart

Speaker: Kalama Oka Aina Niheu, member, Pacific Caucus

US Gunrunning to Cartels: Four facts mainstream media doesn't want you to know

Arizona police circulated ATF Project Gunrunner 'Weapons of Choice' in 2008

By Brenda Norrell
Censored News

When US Attorney General Eric Holder resigned, the Blaze reported that it was in response to the fact that a federal judge ruled that Fast and Furious documents must be released.

Still, the mainstream media is scratching itself, and refusing to report on the ATF gunrunning weapons to the cartels.

Here's four facts that the media, and the US government, don't want you to know:

1. Gunrunning to cartels began in 2005 in Texas:
A Department of Justice report in 2010 states that Project Gunrunner began in Laredo, Texas, during the Bush administration in 2005. 
http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/i/msnbc/sections/news/OIG_report.pdf
More http://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2012/09/project-gunrunner-enters-oz-phase-with.html

2. Tucson's Operation in 2006:
Although the news media has focused on the ATF’s Fast and Furious, another operation, Operation Wide Receiver, allowed guns to “walk” into Mexico during the Bush administration, 2006 -- 2007, according to a Tucson gun seller who kept a lengthy journal.
http://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2011/10/tucsons-wide-receiver-gunrunners-during.html

3. US Army and Navy were on Arizona police e-mail about gunrunning in 2008:
Anonymous' Lulzsec hacked the Arizona police departments and a Project Gunrunner brochure was exposed and posted online. (See photo above.) ATF's Project Gunrunner Weapons of Choice was dated as revised in 2008 and shows photos of the automatic weapons, which the US allowed to "walk" across the border. The e-mail containing the brochure was circulated by e-mail from an Arizona police officer to US army and navy personnel.
http://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2012/06/project-gunrunner-collapsed-media-cant.html

4. US public showed little compassion for the death of Mexican citizens
There was no public outcry in the US after the US gunrunning to cartels was first exposed, even though innocent bystanders were often killed with those weapons in Mexico. The outrage came only after US Border Patrol agent Brian Terry was killed with one of the weapons in southern Arizona in 2010. A second US federal agent, ICE agent Jaime Zapata, was killed with one of the weapons in northern Mexico in 2011.

Tribunal on Indian Boarding Schools Wisconsin Oct 22 -- 25, 2014

Devastating Effects Of Boarding Schools On Indigenous 

Peoples: Second Annual Tribunal On The Abuse Of 

Indigenous Human Rights

October 22 - 25

AN INVITATION

---

You’re invited to attend our forum focused on the experiences of Native children who were forced at early ages to attend Indian boarding schools.  This Tribunal is scheduled for October 22 through the 25th, 2014, at the Radisson Hotel and Conference Center, in Oneida, Wisconsin.

A panel of qualified Native judges will be listening to the witnesses as they provide first hand testimony of the abuse and mistreatment they suffered at the hands of the federal government and religious institutions while being forced to live away from their families and Nations.  At the conclusion of the Tribunal, the Judges will issue an executive summary with their findings and recommendations.  The executive summary will be shared with Native communities.

Canada Attacks Indigenous Rights at UN

Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation at Peoples' Climate March, ahead of the UN Climate Summit in New York. Photo by Zack Embree.

Excerpt from Vancouver Observer:

In response to Canada's objections over the non-binding document on Indigenous rights, high-profile First Nations groups issued a strongly-worded joint statement condemning the federal government's stance:  

Indigenous peoples' organizations and human rights groups are outraged that the federal government used a high level United Nations forum on Indigenous rights as an opportunity to continue its unprincipled attack on the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

On Monday, the World Conference on Indigenous Peoples -- a high level plenary of the UN General Assembly in New York -- adopted a consensus statement reaffirming support for the UN Declaration.

Canada was the only member state to raise objections.

Chief Perry Bellegarde, Federation of Saskatchewan Indian Nations, said, "The World Conference was an opportunity for all states to reaffirm their commitment to working constructively with Indigenous peoples to uphold fundamental human rights standards. Alone among all the UN members, Canada instead chose to use this forum to make another unprincipled attack on those very standards."

The Outcome Document, the product of many months of negotiations between states and Indigenous representatives prior to the World Conference, calls on member states to take "appropriate measures at the national level, including legislative, policy and administrative measures, to achieve the ends of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples."

The Outcome Document also affirms provisions in the UN Declaration that decisions potentially affecting the rights of Indigenous peoples should be undertaken only with their free, prior and informed consent.

After the Outcome Document was adopted, Canada filed a two page statement of objections, saying that it could not commit to uphold provisions in the UN Declaration that deal with free, prior and informed consent (FPIC) if these provisions were "interpreted as a veto."

The notion that the Declaration could be interpreted as conferring an absolute and unilateral veto power has been repeatedly raised by Canada as a justification for its continued opposition to the Declaration. This claim, however, has no basis either in the UN Declaration or in the wider body of international law.

Read article in Vancouver Observer

First Nation groups condemn federal government's "indefensible attack" on Indigenous rights at UN meeting

http://www.vancouverobserver.com/news/first-nation-groups-condemn-federal-governments-indefensible-attack-indigenous-rights-un

Willie Nelson, Neil Young honored for Keystone pipeline fight!

(Photo above by Michael Friberg / Bold Nebraska

Bold Nebraska
Censored News

Willie Nelson and Neil Young honored by the Rosebud, Oglala, Ponca and Omaha Nations for their dedication to family farmers, ranchers and native families. The buffalo hide was hand-painted by artist Steve Tamayo and volunteers called "Pipeline Fighters" with symbols to tell the story of people killing the black snake which in tribal prophecy is believed to be the Keystone XL pipeline, a threat to land and water.

The "Harvest the Hope" concert featuring headliners Willie Nelson and Neil Young took place on Sept. 27, 2014 at the Tanderup farm near Neligh, NE.

Proceeds from the event will go to Bold Nebraska, the Indigenous Environmental Network, and the Cowboy & Indian Alliance, to fund the ongoing fight against the Keystone XL pipeline, and small, community-based clean energy projects on farms and tribal lands.

Willie Nelson and Neil Young at the press conference prior to the Harvest the Hope concert on September 27, 2014 (Photo by J Grace Young / Bold Nebraska)

Two music legends — Neil Young and Willie Nelson — performed a benefit concert on Sept. 27 on a farm near Neligh, Nebraska that is on the route of the proposed Keystone XL pipeline and also crosses the historic Ponca Tribe “Trail of Tears.”

Proceeds from the “Harvest the Hope” concert go to Bold Nebraska, the Indigenous Environmental Network and the Cowboy & Indian Alliance, to fund the ongoing fight against the Keystone XL pipeline, as well as a number of small, community-based clean energy projects on farms and tribal land. The afternoon concert will take place in a field on a farm owned by a family who are part of a strong collective of Nebraska landowners refusing to sell their land to TransCanada for the Keystone XL (KXL) pipeline, and a sacred tribal ceremony will be included in the day’s events.

The day-long event also featured performances from Native American hip-hop artist Frank Waln, performing with traditional hoop dancers the Sampson Brothers; Lukas Nelson and Promise of the Real with special guest Micah Nelson (sons of Willie!); and the “Stopping the Pipeline Rocks All-Stars,” some of the local Nebraska artists who recorded a benefit album in the solar-powered barn built inside the path of the Keystone XL pipeline last summer: The Bottle Tops, Dr. John Walker, Jack Hotel, and McCarthy Trenching.

Details on the concert:
boldnebraska.org/concert

Photo Mitch Paine
.