Long Walker Lewis 'Mucaw" Jefferson, Quechan, on the southern route was found dead
From Randy:
Our Brother Lewis "Mucaw" Jefferson from Fort Yuma passed away November 26th 2008. He was a staff carrier on the southern route of the Longest Walk 2, a messenger for the Quechan People, and my very good friend. I am devastated, as I am sure others will be too. I just talked to him 2 days ago, and he was talking about coming up to visit me. As my tears tumble down-~Randy "IN$URGENTE" Blakeley~
(Source: The Sun (Yuma, Ariz.)
News article:
Imperial County sheriff’s officials are investigating the death of a man whose body was found early Wednesday morning next to railroad tracks near Yuma.
According to Charles Lucas, supervising deputy coroner with the Imperial County Sheriff’s Office, the cause of the death is pending an autopsy, but the body has been identified as 21-year-old Lewis Jefferson of Bard.
“Preliminary information indicates he was struck by a train. The incident is still under investigation,” Lucas said.
Quechan elder Preston Arrow-Weed told The Sun that the victim is his grandson,a young traditional singer and aspiring spiritual leader. Arrow-Weed said that his grandson, who went by his traditional name “Mucaw,” had filed to run for a seat on the tribal council in the upcoming election.
Lucas said the the incident happened at about 4:30 a.m. on the Quechan Reservation next to the tracks by the old agriculture inspection station, near the Ocean-to-Ocean Bridge.
Jefferson was known in the Quechan Tribe for his traditional singing, as well as for taking part in long walks supporting various issues. He walked from here to Gila Bend in support of the Peace and Dignity Project, according to Arrow-Weed.
More recently Jefferson made local headlines for walking from Flagstaff to Washington, D.C., with The Longest Walk 2. Arrow-Weed said Jefferson participated to bring attention to preservation of American Indian sacred sites.
Copyright © 2008 Freedom Communications, Inc.
Posted on November 26th, 2008 by hunwut
Local tribal members taking part in The Longest Walk
BY DARIN FENGER, SUN STAFF WRITER
May 17, 2008 - 2:08PM
Armed with a tin can rattle in his hand and the traditional songs of family and tribe in his heart, a young Quechan man is delivering a message to Washington, D.C. completely on foot.
Lewis Jefferson, who will turn 21 on the road next month, started walking east in late March. That's when the budding traditional singer joined a small band of folks dedicated to spreading the word
about protecting the sacred lands of native people.
Together Jefferson and his comrades make up The Longest Walk 2, a historic march spanning San Francisco to Washington, D.C., that began in early February and is expected to end in late July.
Jefferson, a member of the local Quechan Indian Tribe, joined the walk March 22 in Flagstaff. Since then he's made a few phonecalls back to his grandfather, a tribal elder who says he couldn't be more proud of Jefferson's political and spiritual path.
"He is out there representing all of the Quechan people," said Preston Arrow-Weed, both an elder and traditional singer. "Can you imagine carrying the songs of over 3,000 people? There is a lot of responsibility on his shoulders."
Jefferson, who often goes by the native name
"Mucaw" that Arrow-Weed gave him at birth, has been singing with the grandfather and other elders since Jefferson was just a tyke. Elder Milton Jefferson Sr. recalled: "He would stay up all night and sing with us, even when he was just 9!"
In videos documenting The Longest Walk 2 young Jefferson can often be heard singing away as the group proceeds through town
after town. "He's told me on the phone, 'Grandpa I've sang through the wind, I've sang through the rain and I've sang through the snow,'" Arrow-Weed said. "He said he's always worried about
the spirit of the people. He says there are ups and downs, sometimes it seems like they lose direction or sometimes they lose their goal, but they always come back again. He always says 'We're going to make it!'"
Although Jefferson is walking in support of sacred sites in general Arrow-Weed said his grandson is also voicing his protest against the Quechan tribe building a casino on land many elders consider highly sacred.
"When he left he told me, 'I want to prove to the world that Quechans are not traitors,'" the grandfather said, "He said, 'The Quechan are not going to give up their sacred land.'"
The
Sun was not able to reach Quechan Tribal President Mike Jackson Sr., who did return calls to his office. Jackson has told The Sun in the past: "We will not destroy our heritage for the casino. We've told our people that from the beginning. We're not here to destroy our past, but to make for a future."
The Longest Walk 2 follows in the same footsteps of a similar walk held 30 years ago. The walk is broken up in south and north routes and is open to people of any ethnic background who care about the environment and sacred sites.
The event is organized by famed American Indian activist Dennis Banks, best known for co-founding the American Indian Movement.
The movement's mission statement sums up their vision this way:
- "We walk with the message: All Life is Sacred, Save Mother Earth."
- "We shall walk for the Seventh Generation, for our youth, for peace, for justice, for healing of Mother Earth, for the healing of our people suffering from diabetes, heart conditions, alcoholism, drug addiction, and other diseases."
"It's important we make people more aware," said Vernon Smith, another Quechan elder, who added that a group of elders plan to meet up with the walkers in D.C. "If we were 20 to 30 years younger we'd be out there, too."
Arrow-Weed responded with the comment that elders sometimes need to let the younger ones step up to new duties in order to learn and grow. "There is a certain time when you have to turn
things over," Arrow-Weed said. "Now is the time."
While most participants at least aim to complete the entire walk many people simply join the journey for a segment of the route or just for the bit that passes through their community. Arrow-Weed described how the walkers are often treated, most often in reservation towns, to a political rally to share their stories or to spiritual ceremonies for sharing prayers.
See the walkers' faces and hear their stories yourself. Go to http://www.thelongestwalk.org/ and follow along through photos, videos and diaries as the walkers make their way down the road.
Several other Quechan walkers originally at Jefferson's side have since returned home. But he's about to have some familiar faces arrive on the scene. Three fellow tribal members
plan to meet up with the south route June 10 in Louisiana.
Billy Rea, a 28-year-old traditional singer, will be marching with his mother, but he says he'll be out there on the highway with his 2-year-old son in his heart.
"I'm doing this for my son as much as I am for my people," Rea explained. "When he grows up I want him to have his culture and his traditions because it's going to keep him on the Red Road, on the right path. I want, when he grows up older, that there will be sacred lands here for him."
Rea grew up in San Diego, but came to the Quechan reservation when he was 10 and began learning traditional ways from his grandmother. Years of drugs and gangs, however, led him in and out of prison and
he was most recently released just two months ago. But he says that it's now time to dedicate his life to something healthier, joining the tribal elders in their fight to preserve an ancient way of life. Rea added that through The Longest Walk, he also wants to set a good example for his friends, both here and back in prison.
"I have a lot of friends and a lot of them are corrupted, but they are part of our people, too," he said, explaining that he tries to include friends in traditional ceremonies like sweatlodges or
singing. "I try to teach them. I take them out fishing, starting them out with something small. I'm just trying to teach them the little bit I know."
His friends in prison are planning to hold sweatlodges in Rea's honor while he's doing the walk.
Yolanda Escalanti, a Quechan woman who has recently taken to studying traditions with her tribal elders, is another walker who will soon join Jefferson. "Our sacred sites are diminishing and they have no meaning to a lot of people, especially our own younger generations. We need to change that," Escalanti said. "This walk is also important because people say that Native Americans are considered politically weak. This is our chance to change that and take our message to congress."
Escalanti and Rea's mother plan to start training for their long trip by walking at the Quechan Diabetes Walking Park.
Escalanti isn't a singer or music maker, so instead of a musical instrument, she plans to carry something else on The Longest Walk. "I'm going to carry a picture of my great-grandmother," she said with clear pride. Escalanti's great-grandmother was involved in the tribe's fight years ago to save another local sacred site - Sleepy Hollow. The late matriarch even took her fight in person to the courts of San Diego.
"I think if she was alive she would say, 'You are doing the right thing. Keep fighting for our
land,'" Escalanti said. "So that's what I'm going do to and they're not going to stop us."
December 2, 2008
December 1, 2008
Mohawk Nation News: Canada spies on Ongwehonwe
CANADA SECRET SERVICE SPYING ON ONGWEHONWE
DESPERATE FOR SOMETHING TO DO?
Or is the colonial hierarchy cracking up?
DESPERATE FOR SOMETHING TO DO?
Or is the colonial hierarchy cracking up?
Nov. 30, 2008. As we are seeing more and more clearly everyday, Canada has always been a totalitarian for-profit enterprise even though it tries to masquerade as a democracy. Canada is a Euro colonial settler state that governs by passing race laws. Every now and then declarations of legal rights are made to make things look kosher. But when push comes to shove, these are ignored. Things are done at the point of a gun by open terror and genocide.
What information could the Canadian Secret Intelligence Service [CSIS] possibly be looking for in Mohawk communities? How many dogs we have running loose? How many rusted cars and old fridges are standing in our yards? We notice they don’t want to report on how bad our water is, or how corrupt the band council is or about the lack of funds for our education, medical care and housing. So what’s happening?
Whatever anyone says, CSIS covertly sneaking into our communities can’t be for “national security”. We’ve never been a military threat to Canada. CSIS is coming in as an agent of confusion to “terrorize” us! What have we got that would scare anyone? Except, of course, for THE TRUTH!!! The land every Canadian stands on and all the resources in it belong to us. That’s why they’re trying to brainwash us and the Canadian people.
Everyday we are seeing more cracks in the broken “democracy” called “Canada”. We Mohawks are targeted because we ask too many questions. We are always challenging their actions and asking them to prove the legality of what they’re doing. They want a “white” nation. The colonists associate “Indians” with a certain degeneracy of intellect, morals, self-restraint and political values. That was their excuse for stealing our resources.
Canada sets us up as targets because they want to divert attention away from their economic and social problems. They need someone to blame. They want the public to believe we are dangerous. Never mind that their government rakes in millions from cigarette taxes. They spin it as the murky world of “contraband”. They make it sound like it’s a crime for us to support our families by legally selling tobacco.
Their border is the “apartheid wall”. Their border guards routinely harass us and even try to kill us when we try to travel on our territory. Canadian agencies refuse to investigate these criminal acts. All their police, the OPP, RCMP, Canadian Border Services Agency and the colonial Akwesasne Mohawk Police, claim it’s not their jurisdiction.
We are denied due process when they assault us. Two Mohawk women have been declared as “non-residents” of Canada in order to make them pay for the Crown’s defence in the law suit they filed against Canada for not investigating border brutality! [M. Mireille Tabib, Oct. 23, 2008, Kahentinetha & Katenies v. The Queen T-1309-08]. If Kahnawake and Akwesasne are not part of Canada, then why haven’t they removed the illegal border control at Akwesasne? On the one hand, they say Akwesasne is in Canada so they can put their border there. On the other hand, they’re saying it’s not so they can force us to pay thousands of dollars to make border guards accountable for the assaults and crimes against us. Canada has plans to build a great big international high tech border installation at Akwesasne. We don’t want it.
When three non-native people recently died in a botched border operation at the very same spot in Akwesasne, all those self same police services were stumbling all over each other to investigate. What’s the deal? The safety of ”white” people is precious? Ongwehonwe safety doesn’t matter?
Presently Cree elder, David Ahenakew, is on trial for the third time because of some ill-considered private comments he made about the Jewish genocide in World War II. Remember, he didn’t kill any Jews. When he served in the military, he took part in the operations that freed people and helped stop abuse. The genocide against our own people is generally ignored. Why the double standard? Why is he being prosecuted with so much vengeance when Canadian border guards can attempt murder with impunity?
These incidents just nibble at the internal conflicts raging within the colonial government apparatus. The Maher Arar and Omar Khadr cases, the extensive secret military exercises in November 2008 near so many Ongwehonwe communities, and so many other disturbing developments suggest that we are being prepared for totalitarianism or martial law. All it will take now is a pretext to bring it in. Another 9/11!
When the hierarchical colonial system is threatened, it resorts to “fratricide” to clean out its ranks. The higher ups become paranoid. They start getting rid of their underlings who they fear want to replace them or expose them. We certainly are not in these kinds of positions nor do we want to be. We’d rather stand back and watch the poisoning and beheadings going on in the palace, so to speak.
Canada is still trying to look calm while it screams hysterically from within. They don’t want people to smell the blood beforehand. To divert attention they’re looking for those with opinions different from theirs to start imprisoning and shutting them up.
The state is using slander and historical distortion to defame us and get the media to suppress discussion of the real issues. The current attempt to purge the Mohawks is based on false claims that we are likely to sabotage Canada. Nothing could be further from the truth. We’ve always stayed in our own boat according to the Two Row Wampum Accord. We have never committed any violence against Canada. In fact, we have defended Canada several times, going back to the War of 1812 right up to World War II. Of course, if our historic ally chooses to attack us, we will always defend ourselves.
The violent and unfounded fantasies about us serve someone’s purpose. People get a chance to use lethal weapons when Canadian agencies send in cops and spies instead of talking with us on a straightforward and honest nation-to-nation basis. CSIS is Canada’s secret police look for demons and devils they can finger for purging. We’ve been told actions of this kind must have ministerial approval. Who is the prime sinister?
Canada is ruining its international image because of the abuse and needless suffering that it causes to all Ongwehonwe. Up to now they’ve kept a lot of their skeletons in the closet to make it easier for CSIS to set us up. CSIS defames us by playing on the active imagination of a gullible public.
CSIS has been sent in to corrupt our “leadership”. They should know by now that we have none. Who is active in our Men’s Society? Who is the intelligentsia? [As if we aren’t all intelligent] They are trying to make us mistrust each other. They want to turn us into “fifth column” communities. They think they can get away with it because we are a minority. They figure no one will help us when we’re attacked.
The young and the vulnerable are targeted. When they’re snatched, the cops force them to “confess” to anything regardless of the truth. Some of their lines are: “Either you comply with us or we’ll charge you”. “How well do you know your community?” “Who are you related to?” “Someone told me this, is it true?” “Do what I say or I”ll break your arm”. Their old favorite, “Who are your leaders?” CSIS wants to have us charged with “counter revolutionary crimes” based on their racist colonial laws or those they intend to create!! Yes, we don’t like the colonial Canadian system as it has been shown to us.
We know that Canada thinks that our land, cultures, bodies and minds must be sacrificed for the colonists to remain dominant and for their system to continue to function. Canadian occupation of our land and the usurpation of our resources are illegal under international law. One of their frequent tricks is to get someone to invite us somewhere and then set up a “disappearance”. Rumor has it that now that we’ve been declared “insurgents” a secret military tribunal has been set up to try us. Bye bye habeas corpus! Is Canada getting dangerously edgy about having their “turf” stepped on by the real owners, us? Well, CSIS, you’ve been hung out on the clothesline to dry and your brown-laced underwear is flapping in the wind. What are you trying to prepare us for? The “final solution”? Genocide?
Iako’ha:kowa & MNN Staff – Mohawk Nation News www.mohawknationnews.com kittoh@storm.ca Katenies20@yahoo.com kahentinetha2@yahoo.com
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THE OTTAWA PLAYERS. CSIS: http://www.csis-scrs.ca/; Manon Berube – Media 613-231-0100;Public Safety [Danger]: Minister Peter “Pumpkin-Eater-and-Trough-Licker” Van Loan; Suzanne “Hurts-to-be-Herself” Hurtubise DM 613- 991-2895; Myles “Away-from-Reality” Kirvan ADM 613- 990-2633, 613-949-0322; Chantal “Dirty-Fingers-in-Every-Pie” Bernier ADM Community Safety [Endangerment] and Partnerships (613) 993-4325; Scott “ODB” Broughton Sr ADM Emergency [Mis]Management and National [In]Security (613) 991-2820; Lynda “Useless-Forked-Tongued-Drone” Clairmont ADM, same as “ODB” (613) 990-4976; Daniel “Pepsi-and-May-West” Lavoie DG Communications (613) 990-2743; Elisabeth “Botox-from-Head-to-Toe” Nadeau ADM, Corporate Theft (613) 990-2615; Kristina “Fingers-Getting-Itchier-and-Itchier-to-push-the-Trigger” Namiesniowski ADM Strategic Policy (613) 949-6435; Eva “Nosey-Nit-Picker” Plunkett Inspector Field “General” of CSIS (613) 949-0675; Richard “Diarrhea-Mouth” Wex ADM Policing, Law Enforcement & Interoperability (613) 990-2703. The biggest safety risk for us Ongwehonwe is this ADM cabal of agents;
Health Canada, partners with the US through the Canada-US Joint Radiological Response Plan, under the Federal Nuclear Emergency Plan; Foreign Affairs Lawrence “Chinese-Food-Glutton-at-Taxpyers-Expense” Cannon 613-992-5516 Fax 613-992-6802; 819-441-2510 Fax: (819) 441-2680; (819) 281-2626 Fax: (819) 281-2755 Cannon.L@parl.gc.ca; Minister of International Trade and Minister for the Asia-Pacific Gateway Stockwell Day.
Evo Morales on climate change: Save the Planet from Capitalism
Tom Goldtooth, director of the Indigenous Environmental Network, said the following letter was forwarded to IEN during the COP14 UNFCCC meeting in Poznan, Poland. This statement indicates a growing global resistance to carbon markets as solutions towards addressing climate change/globalwarming (i.e. RED/Ds, forest carbon offsets, carbon trading, etc.) IEN has a delegation at this United Nations meeting on climate. 
Save the Planet from Capitalism
By Evo Morales Ayma, President of Bolivia
Save the Planet from Capitalism
By Evo Morales Ayma, President of Bolivia
AP photo
Sisters and brothers:
Today, our Mother Earth is ill. From the beginning of the 21st century we have lived the hottest years of the last thousand years. Global warming is generating abrupt changes in the weather: the retreat of glaciers and the decrease of the polar ice caps; the increase of the sea level and the flooding of coastal areas, where approximately 60% of the world population live; the increase in the processes of desertification and the decrease of fresh water sources; a higher frequency in natural disasters that the communities of the earth suffer[1]; the extinction of animal and vegetal species; and the spread of diseases in areas that before were free from those diseases.
One of the most tragic consequences of the climate change is that some nations and territories are the condemned to disappear by the increase of the sea level.
Everything began with the industrial revolution in 1750, which gave birth to the capitalist system. In two and a half centuries, the so called “developed” countries have consumed a large part of the fossil fuels created over five million centuries.
Competition and the thirst for profit without limits of the capitalist system are destroying the planet. Under Capitalism we are not human beings but consumers. Under Capitalism mother earth does not exist, instead there are raw materials. Capitalism is the source of the asymmetries and imbalances in the world. It generates luxury, ostentation and waste for a few, while millions in the world die from hunger in the world. In the hands of Capitalism everything becomes a commodity: the water, the soil, the human genome, the ancestral cultures, justice, ethics, death … and life itself. Everything, absolutely everything, can be bought and sold and under Capitalism. And even “climate change” itself has become a business.“Climate change” has placed all humankind before great choice: to continue in the ways of capitalism and death, or to start down the path of harmony with nature and respect for life.
In the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, the developed countries and economies in transition committed to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by at least 5% below the 1990 levels, through the implementation of different mechanisms among which market mechanisms predominate.
Until 2006, greenhouse effect gases, far from being reduced, have increased by 9.1% in relation to the 1990 levels, demonstrating also in this way the breach of commitments by the developed countries.
The market mechanisms applied in the developing countries[2] have not accomplished a significant reduction of greenhouse effect gas emissions.
Just as well as the market is incapable of regulating global financial and productive system, the market is unable to regulate greenhouse effect gas emissions and will only generate a big business for financial agents and major corporations.
The earth is much more important than stock exchanges of Wall Street and the world.While the United States and the European Union allocate 4,100 billion dollars to save the bankers from a financial crisis that they themselves have caused, programs on climate change get 313 times less, that is to say, only 13 billion dollars.
The resources for climate change are unfairly distributed. More resources are directed to reduce emissions (mitigation) and less to reduce the effects of climate change that all the countries suffer (adaptation)[3]. The vast majority of resources flow to those countries that have contaminated the most, and not to the countries where we have preserved the environment most. Around 80% of the Clean Development Mechanism projects are concentrated in four emerging countries.
Capitalist logic promotes a paradox in which the sectors that have contributed the most to deterioration of the environment are those that benefit the most from climate change programs.
At the same time, technology transfer and the financing for clean and sustainable development of the countries of the South have remained just speeches.
The next summit on Climate Change in Copenhagen must allow us to make a leap forward if we want to save Mother Earth and humanity. For that purpose the following proposals for the process from Poznan to Copenhagen:
Attack the structural causes of climate change
1) Debate the structural causes of climate change. As long as we do not change the capitalist system for a system based in complementarity, solidarity and harmony between the people and nature, the measures that we adopt will be palliatives that will limited and precarious in character. For us, what has failed is the model of “living better”, of unlimited development, industrialisation without frontiers, of modernity that deprecates history, of increasing accumulation of goods at the expense of others and nature. For that reason we promote the idea of Living Well, in harmony with other human beings and with our Mother Earth.
2) Developed countries need to control their patterns of consumption - of luxury and waste - especially the excessive consumption of fossil fuels. Subsidies of fossil fuel, that reach 150-250 billions of dollars[4], must be progressively eliminated. It is fundamental to develop alternative forms of power, such as solar, geothermal, wind and hydroelectric both at small and medium scales.
3) Agrofuels are not an alternative, because they put the production of foodstuffs for transport before the production of food for human beings. Agrofuels expand the agricultural frontier destroying forests and biodiversity, generate monocropping, promote land concentration, deteriorate soils, exhaust water sources, contribute to rises in food prices and, in many cases, result in more consumption of more energy than is produced.
Substantial commitments to emissions reduction that are met
4) Strict fulfilment by 2012 of the commitments[5] of the developed countries to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by at least by 5% below the 1990 levels. It is unacceptable that the countries that polluted the planet throughout the course of history make statements about larger reductions in the future while not complying with their present commitments.
5) Establish new minimum commitments for the developed countries of greenhouse gas emission reduction of 40% by 2020 and 90% by for 2050, taking as a starting point 1990 emission levels. These minimum commitments must be met internally in developed countries and not through flexible market mechanisms that allow for the purchase of certified emissions reduction certificates to continue polluting in their own country. Likewise, monitoring mechanisms must be established for the measuring, reporting and verifying that are transparent and accessible to the public, to guarantee the compliance of commitments.
6) Developing countries not responsible for the historical pollution must preserve the necessary space to implement an alternative and sustainable form of development that does not repeat the mistakes of savage industrialisation that has brought us to the current situation. To ensure this process, developing countries need, as a prerequisite, finance and technology transfer.
An Integral Financial Mechanism to address ecological debt
7) Acknowledging the historical ecological debt that they owe to the planet, developed countries must create an Integral Financial Mechanism to support developing countries in: implementation of their plans and programmes for adaptation to and mitigation of climate change; the innovation, development and transfer of technology; in the preservation and improvement of the sinks and reservoirs; response actions to the serious natural disasters caused by climate change; and the carrying out of sustainable and eco-friendly development plans.
8) This Integral Financial Mechanism, in order to be effective, must count on a contribution of at least 1% of the GDP in developed countries[6] and other contributions from taxes on oil and gas, financial transactions, sea and air transport, and the profits of transnational companies.
9) Contributions from developed countries must be additional to Official Development Assistance (ODA), bilateral aid or aid channelled through organisms not part of the United Nations. Any finance outside the UNFCCC cannot be considered as the fulfilment of developed country’s commitments under the Convention.
10) Finance has to be directed to the plans or national programmes of the different States and not to projects that follow market logic.
11) Financing must not be concentrated just in some developed countries but has to give priority to the countries that have contributed less to greenhouse gas emissions, those that preserve nature and are suffering the impact of climate change.
12) The Integral Financial Mechanism must be under the coverage of the United Nations, not under the Global Environment Facility (GEF) and other intermediaries such as the World Bank and regional development banks; its management must be collective, transparent and non-bureaucratic. Its decisions must be made by all member countries, especially by developing countries, and not by the donors or bureaucratic administrators.
Technology Transfer to developing countries
13) Innovation and technology related to climate changes must be within the public domain, not under any private monopolistic patent regime that obstructs and makes technology transfer more expensive to developing countries.
14) Products that are the fruit of public financing for technology innovation and development of have to be placed within the public domain and not under a private regime of patents[7], so that they can be freely accessed by developing countries.
15) Encourage and improve the system of voluntary and compulsory licenses so that all countries can access products already patented quickly and free of cost. Developed countries cannot treat patents and intellectual property rights as something “sacred” that has to be preserved at any cost. The regime of flexibilities available for the intellectual property rights in the cases of serious problems for public health has to be adapted and substantially enlarged to heal Mother Earth.
16) Recover and promote indigenous peoples practices in harmony with nature which have proven to be sustainable through centuries.
Adaptation and mitigation with the participation of all the people
17) Promote mitigation actions, programs and plans with the participation of local communities and indigenous people in the framework of full respect for and implementation of the United Nations Declaration on Rights of Indigenous Peoples. The best mechanism to confront the challenge of climate change are not market mechanisms, but conscious, motivated, and well organized human beings endowed with an identity of their own.
18) The reduction of the emissions from deforestation and forest degradation must be based on a mechanism of direct compensation from developed to developing countries, through a sovereign implementation that ensures broad participation of local communities, and a mechanism for monitoring, reporting and verifying that is transparent and public.
A UN for the Environment and Climate Change
19) We need a World Environment and Climate Change Organization to which multilateral trade and financial organizations are subordinated, so as to promote a different model of development that environmentally friendly and resolves the profound problems of impoverishment. This organization must have effective follow-up, verification and sanctioning mechanisms to ensure that the present and future agreements are complied with.
20) It is fundamental to structurally transform the World Trade Organization, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the international economic system as a whole, in order to guarantee fair and complementary trade, as well as financing without conditions for sustainable development that avoids the waste of natural resources and fossil fuels in the production processes, trade and product transport.In this negotiation process towards Copenhagen, it is fundamental to guarantee the participation of our people as active stakeholders at a national, regional and worldwide level, especially taking into account those sectors most affected, such as indigenous peoples who have always promoted the defense of Mother Earth.
Humankind is capable of saving the earth if we recover the principles of solidarity, complementarity, and harmony with nature in contraposition to the reign of competition, profits and rampant consumption of natural resources.
November 28, 2008
Evo Morales Ayma, President of Bolivia
Sisters and brothers:
Today, our Mother Earth is ill. From the beginning of the 21st century we have lived the hottest years of the last thousand years. Global warming is generating abrupt changes in the weather: the retreat of glaciers and the decrease of the polar ice caps; the increase of the sea level and the flooding of coastal areas, where approximately 60% of the world population live; the increase in the processes of desertification and the decrease of fresh water sources; a higher frequency in natural disasters that the communities of the earth suffer[1]; the extinction of animal and vegetal species; and the spread of diseases in areas that before were free from those diseases.
One of the most tragic consequences of the climate change is that some nations and territories are the condemned to disappear by the increase of the sea level.
Everything began with the industrial revolution in 1750, which gave birth to the capitalist system. In two and a half centuries, the so called “developed” countries have consumed a large part of the fossil fuels created over five million centuries.
Competition and the thirst for profit without limits of the capitalist system are destroying the planet. Under Capitalism we are not human beings but consumers. Under Capitalism mother earth does not exist, instead there are raw materials. Capitalism is the source of the asymmetries and imbalances in the world. It generates luxury, ostentation and waste for a few, while millions in the world die from hunger in the world. In the hands of Capitalism everything becomes a commodity: the water, the soil, the human genome, the ancestral cultures, justice, ethics, death … and life itself. Everything, absolutely everything, can be bought and sold and under Capitalism. And even “climate change” itself has become a business.“Climate change” has placed all humankind before great choice: to continue in the ways of capitalism and death, or to start down the path of harmony with nature and respect for life.
In the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, the developed countries and economies in transition committed to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by at least 5% below the 1990 levels, through the implementation of different mechanisms among which market mechanisms predominate.
Until 2006, greenhouse effect gases, far from being reduced, have increased by 9.1% in relation to the 1990 levels, demonstrating also in this way the breach of commitments by the developed countries.
The market mechanisms applied in the developing countries[2] have not accomplished a significant reduction of greenhouse effect gas emissions.
Just as well as the market is incapable of regulating global financial and productive system, the market is unable to regulate greenhouse effect gas emissions and will only generate a big business for financial agents and major corporations.
The earth is much more important than stock exchanges of Wall Street and the world.While the United States and the European Union allocate 4,100 billion dollars to save the bankers from a financial crisis that they themselves have caused, programs on climate change get 313 times less, that is to say, only 13 billion dollars.
The resources for climate change are unfairly distributed. More resources are directed to reduce emissions (mitigation) and less to reduce the effects of climate change that all the countries suffer (adaptation)[3]. The vast majority of resources flow to those countries that have contaminated the most, and not to the countries where we have preserved the environment most. Around 80% of the Clean Development Mechanism projects are concentrated in four emerging countries.
Capitalist logic promotes a paradox in which the sectors that have contributed the most to deterioration of the environment are those that benefit the most from climate change programs.
At the same time, technology transfer and the financing for clean and sustainable development of the countries of the South have remained just speeches.
The next summit on Climate Change in Copenhagen must allow us to make a leap forward if we want to save Mother Earth and humanity. For that purpose the following proposals for the process from Poznan to Copenhagen:
Attack the structural causes of climate change
1) Debate the structural causes of climate change. As long as we do not change the capitalist system for a system based in complementarity, solidarity and harmony between the people and nature, the measures that we adopt will be palliatives that will limited and precarious in character. For us, what has failed is the model of “living better”, of unlimited development, industrialisation without frontiers, of modernity that deprecates history, of increasing accumulation of goods at the expense of others and nature. For that reason we promote the idea of Living Well, in harmony with other human beings and with our Mother Earth.
2) Developed countries need to control their patterns of consumption - of luxury and waste - especially the excessive consumption of fossil fuels. Subsidies of fossil fuel, that reach 150-250 billions of dollars[4], must be progressively eliminated. It is fundamental to develop alternative forms of power, such as solar, geothermal, wind and hydroelectric both at small and medium scales.
3) Agrofuels are not an alternative, because they put the production of foodstuffs for transport before the production of food for human beings. Agrofuels expand the agricultural frontier destroying forests and biodiversity, generate monocropping, promote land concentration, deteriorate soils, exhaust water sources, contribute to rises in food prices and, in many cases, result in more consumption of more energy than is produced.
Substantial commitments to emissions reduction that are met
4) Strict fulfilment by 2012 of the commitments[5] of the developed countries to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by at least by 5% below the 1990 levels. It is unacceptable that the countries that polluted the planet throughout the course of history make statements about larger reductions in the future while not complying with their present commitments.
5) Establish new minimum commitments for the developed countries of greenhouse gas emission reduction of 40% by 2020 and 90% by for 2050, taking as a starting point 1990 emission levels. These minimum commitments must be met internally in developed countries and not through flexible market mechanisms that allow for the purchase of certified emissions reduction certificates to continue polluting in their own country. Likewise, monitoring mechanisms must be established for the measuring, reporting and verifying that are transparent and accessible to the public, to guarantee the compliance of commitments.
6) Developing countries not responsible for the historical pollution must preserve the necessary space to implement an alternative and sustainable form of development that does not repeat the mistakes of savage industrialisation that has brought us to the current situation. To ensure this process, developing countries need, as a prerequisite, finance and technology transfer.
An Integral Financial Mechanism to address ecological debt
7) Acknowledging the historical ecological debt that they owe to the planet, developed countries must create an Integral Financial Mechanism to support developing countries in: implementation of their plans and programmes for adaptation to and mitigation of climate change; the innovation, development and transfer of technology; in the preservation and improvement of the sinks and reservoirs; response actions to the serious natural disasters caused by climate change; and the carrying out of sustainable and eco-friendly development plans.
8) This Integral Financial Mechanism, in order to be effective, must count on a contribution of at least 1% of the GDP in developed countries[6] and other contributions from taxes on oil and gas, financial transactions, sea and air transport, and the profits of transnational companies.
9) Contributions from developed countries must be additional to Official Development Assistance (ODA), bilateral aid or aid channelled through organisms not part of the United Nations. Any finance outside the UNFCCC cannot be considered as the fulfilment of developed country’s commitments under the Convention.
10) Finance has to be directed to the plans or national programmes of the different States and not to projects that follow market logic.
11) Financing must not be concentrated just in some developed countries but has to give priority to the countries that have contributed less to greenhouse gas emissions, those that preserve nature and are suffering the impact of climate change.
12) The Integral Financial Mechanism must be under the coverage of the United Nations, not under the Global Environment Facility (GEF) and other intermediaries such as the World Bank and regional development banks; its management must be collective, transparent and non-bureaucratic. Its decisions must be made by all member countries, especially by developing countries, and not by the donors or bureaucratic administrators.
Technology Transfer to developing countries
13) Innovation and technology related to climate changes must be within the public domain, not under any private monopolistic patent regime that obstructs and makes technology transfer more expensive to developing countries.
14) Products that are the fruit of public financing for technology innovation and development of have to be placed within the public domain and not under a private regime of patents[7], so that they can be freely accessed by developing countries.
15) Encourage and improve the system of voluntary and compulsory licenses so that all countries can access products already patented quickly and free of cost. Developed countries cannot treat patents and intellectual property rights as something “sacred” that has to be preserved at any cost. The regime of flexibilities available for the intellectual property rights in the cases of serious problems for public health has to be adapted and substantially enlarged to heal Mother Earth.
16) Recover and promote indigenous peoples practices in harmony with nature which have proven to be sustainable through centuries.
Adaptation and mitigation with the participation of all the people
17) Promote mitigation actions, programs and plans with the participation of local communities and indigenous people in the framework of full respect for and implementation of the United Nations Declaration on Rights of Indigenous Peoples. The best mechanism to confront the challenge of climate change are not market mechanisms, but conscious, motivated, and well organized human beings endowed with an identity of their own.
18) The reduction of the emissions from deforestation and forest degradation must be based on a mechanism of direct compensation from developed to developing countries, through a sovereign implementation that ensures broad participation of local communities, and a mechanism for monitoring, reporting and verifying that is transparent and public.
A UN for the Environment and Climate Change
19) We need a World Environment and Climate Change Organization to which multilateral trade and financial organizations are subordinated, so as to promote a different model of development that environmentally friendly and resolves the profound problems of impoverishment. This organization must have effective follow-up, verification and sanctioning mechanisms to ensure that the present and future agreements are complied with.
20) It is fundamental to structurally transform the World Trade Organization, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the international economic system as a whole, in order to guarantee fair and complementary trade, as well as financing without conditions for sustainable development that avoids the waste of natural resources and fossil fuels in the production processes, trade and product transport.In this negotiation process towards Copenhagen, it is fundamental to guarantee the participation of our people as active stakeholders at a national, regional and worldwide level, especially taking into account those sectors most affected, such as indigenous peoples who have always promoted the defense of Mother Earth.
Humankind is capable of saving the earth if we recover the principles of solidarity, complementarity, and harmony with nature in contraposition to the reign of competition, profits and rampant consumption of natural resources.
November 28, 2008
Evo Morales Ayma, President of Bolivia
International Forum of Indigenous Peoples on Climate Change statement
Statement of the International Forum of Indigenous Peoples on Climate Change (IIPFCC) to the 29th Session of the Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technical Advice (SBSTA), during the 14th Session of the Conference of the Parties (COP14) of the United Nations Framework Conference on Climate Change (UNFCCC)
December 1, 2008
December 1, 2008
Photo by © Menuka Scetbon-Didi
Chair,
The International Indigenous Peoples Forum on Climate Change (IIPFCC), representing IPs from different parts of the world met from 27–29 November 2008 here in Poznan, Poland, to prepare for the Fourteenth Conference of the Parties to the UNFCCC.
We, the Indigenous Peoples have suffered the worst impacts of climate change without having contributed to its creation.
We must not be placed in the position of suffering from mitigation strategies which we believe have offered false solutions to the problem at hand. And even worse, many of the mitigation and adaptation schemes being discussed in UNFCCC and related processes threaten our rights and our very existence.
Mitigation projects, including REDD and CDM, implemented by Parties and private sector are carried out without the free prior and informed consent of Indigenous Peoples there by affecting our livelihoods and violating our human rights.
These projects are encroaching on areas of lands sacred to us, and producing the forced eviction of many of our brothers and sisters from their ancestral territories.
Furthermore, proposed ‘scientific’ mitigation and adaptation solutions, methodologies and technologies being discussed here and elsewhere do not reflect Indigenous Peoples’ cosmovision and our ancestral knowledge.
So-called ‘consultations’ with us, often only take the form of simply informing our communities. Consultations should not be limited to specific communities and organizations but should involve all affected and involved indigenous peoples, including our representative organizations.
We the Indigenous Peoples demand full participation in the implementation of all areas of work concerning Climate Change and Forests.
We put the following recommendations forward:
• To ensure a rights-based approach in the design and implementation of climate change policies, programmes and projects. In particular, the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples must be recognized, implemented and mainstreamed in all of the Convention activities;
• To ensure the right to Free Prior and Informed Consent in line with internationally recognized standards of good governance;
• To develop methodologies and tools for impacts and vulnerability assessments in consultation with indigenous peoples;
• To recognize and use traditional knowledge and integrating it with scientific knowledge in assessing impacts and coming up with adaptations;
• To ensure the proper capacity building of indigenous peoples in technologies for adaptation;
• To immediately suspend all REDD initiatives in Indigenous territories until Indigenous Peoples’ rights are fully recognized and promoted;
• To include indigenous peoples’ experts in the implementation of phase II of Nairobi Programme of Work;
• To set up a disaster reduction strategies and means to address loss and damage associated with climate change mitigation projects and policies, impacts in indigenous peoples territories;
Thank you.
Note: The International Forum of Indigenous Peoples on Climate Change (IIPFCC) is the Indigenous Peoples Caucus convened during the UNFCCC COP14. The Caucus represents Indigenous participants from the North and South.
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