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| Blackfeet Councilman Marvin Weatherwax speaking at the UN Indigenous Peoples Forum/Image by Censored News |
Blackfeet to United Nations -- United States is the Greatest Offender of Native Rights
By Brenda Norrell
Censored News
NEW YORK -- Blackfeet Councilman Marvin Weatherwax, Jr., told the United Nations, "Today there is no greater offender to tribal rights than the U.S. Department of Justice which repeatedly fails to protect our tribal communities in egregious violation of the government's treaties and trust duties."
Councilman Weatherwax, chairman of the Coalition of Large Tribes, delivered a powerful address to the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues.
The United States has failed to ensure Navajo water rights, plans to put a copper mine in the epicenter of San Carlos Apaches ceremonial place at Oak Flat, and treats Native people with hostility along the Canadian border.
The Department of Justice has taken the position in federal court that the United States bears no responsibility for the rape of a Northern Cheyenne woman in her home by an on-duty federal law enforcement officer.
The United States' failure to provide for the safety of the people is evident in the epidemic of missing and murdered Native people.
Describing the horrific discovery of remains of Native children in boarding schools, and the widespread abuse, he said this cultural genocide has resulted in inter-generational trauma.
As required by law, the land these boarding schools were built on must be returned to Native people, beginning with the Rapid City Indian boarding school.
"It is required by law and long overdue."
Read Chairman Weatherwax's written statement:
Students at the Rapid City Indian School in Rapid City, South Dakota, in the early 1920s. Photo by The Burke Library Archives (Columbia University Libraries) at Union Theological Seminary, New York
Copyright Censored News.
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