Longest Walk for spiritual survival, Alcatraz to DC

Longest Walk 2

A SPIRITUAL WALK FOR Survival FROM ALCATRAZ to D.C.

By Longest Walk 2

SAN FRANCISCO -- On February 11, 2008, Longest Walk 2 participants will embark on a five- month journey across America to Washington, D.C. arriving on July 11, 2008. In commemoration of the 30th anniversary of the historic Longest Walk of 1978 that resulted in historic changes for Native America, hundreds of communities are participating in the Longest Walk of 2008 to raise awareness about issues impacting our world environment, to protect Sacred Sites and to clean up Mother Earth. The original Longest Walk of 1978 was conducted in response to proposed legislation in Congress that would have abrogated Native Treaties that protected our Native American sovereignty. It defeated those 11 bills and in the following month, the American Indian Religious Freedom Act (AIRFA) of 1978 was passed. As a result of The 1978 Longest Walk, Indigenous people were granted the federal legislative right to freedom of religion, a fundamental right guaranteed to all Americans under the U.S. Constitution."In 1978, our communities faced many hardships such as non-existing religious rights and criminalization of our people who fought for cultural survival, this is why the Longest Walk was necessary. As Indigenous Peoples in the United States, our environment and our cultural survival are directly correlated and are still imperiled today, this is why we must walk once again” states Jimbo Simmons of the International Indian Treaty Council. The Longest Walk 2 is an extraordinary grassroots effort on a national level to bring attention to the environmental disharmony of Mother Earth. The Longest Walk 2 intends to create educational awareness about the health and wellbeing of Our Mother Earth, The health and wellbeing of our people and communities and the protection and preservation of Sacred Sites. The message from the Longest Walk of 1978 will be carried and continued: “The Longest Walk is an Indian spiritual walk, a historical walk; and it is a walk for educational awareness to the American and the World communities about the concerns of American Indian people.” American Indian Movement Co-founder Dennis J. Banks states “From Alcatraz Island to Washington, D.C., through the elements of the seasons, we shall walk; nothing shall deter us from completing our mission: All Life is Sacred, Protect Mother Earth.” Longest Walk 2 is part of many communities ongoing commitment to protect sacred sites, cultural preservation, and to create awareness about the environment. We are walking to promote positive change in our world. The Longest Walk 2 invites veteran walkers that participated in the 1978 Longest Walk and reach out the new generations of the future to join us. The Longest Walk 2 will take two routes. The Northern route will travel the original route of 1978 across 11 states and 3,600 miles. The Southern route will follow the 2006 Sacred Run route across 13 states and 4,400 miles. Both routes will visit Sacred Sites across the Nation and promote educational awareness for Sacred Sites protection and preservation. The Southern route will be launching The Clean Up Mother Earth Campaign where Longest Walk participants will work together to clean up our country’s highways and roads by collecting debris found along the Longest Walk route.
For more information please visit: http://www.longestwalk.org/

Entire northern route schedule and call for help:
http://censored-news.blogspot.com/2008/01/longest-walk-2-route-feb-9-march-28.html
For Southern route: http://www.longestwalk.org

Lakota Oyate: Personal attacks reflect COINTELPRO

By Lakota Oyate Freedom Delegation

NOTE TO VISITORS AND INTERESTED PARTIES:

This is a time of transition for the Lakota oyate (people) as the realization of freedom is considered. It is unfortunate, but not unexpected that those involved with the Lakota Freedom movement have received slander, false personal attacks and threats from individuals both within and outside of Lakota. Regardless why these false attacks have occurred, we recognize these are the same tactics employed by the U.S. Government's COINTELPRO program to silence resistance to the genocide of First Nation's peoples. These attacks mean nothing to us, and we continue with the work under the guidance of the Elders and children to make wowasakeikcupi truly possible.

We believe in the traditional systems that persist within Lakota and believe the will of the Elders and the young people will be heard. We seek to empower all of the Lakota oyate to share their ideas, hopes, feelings and concerns in a good way, and believe this website can become one part of that. We ask individuals to cease with false personal attacks, slander and attempts to erode the advances of the Lakota Freedom movement. If concerns exist, we ask why individuals cannot have the integrity to address others directly with their questions instead of using COINTELPRO tactics to try and discredit people or a movement. Personal attacks create the appearance of COINTELPRO 'divide and conquer' activity whether it exists or not.

LAKOTA OYATE CONTACT INFORMATION

For General , e-mail us at: lakotafree@gmail.com

We suggest that all donations are held at this time until suitable systems can be put into place to receive them. For media interviews and scheduling, e-mail us at: lakotafree@gmail.com

Phone (828) 230-1404

Media may sign-on to our media listserve at the following address: http://mail.lakotaoyate.net/mailman/listinfo/medialist_lakotaoyate.net

Website: www.lakotaoyate.net

NAFTA, US spy dollars, cut Mexico off at the knees

NAFTA, US spy dollars, designed to cut Mexico off at the knees

By Brenda Norrell

http://www.bsnorrell.blogspot.com/

Photo: Tohono O'odham Mike Wilson/photo Brenda Norrell

GREEN VALLEY, Arizona – A panel of US/Mexico border speakers said that the North American Free Trade Agreement has benefited the United States, while forcing people in Mexico off their lands. The result has been a wave of displaced people crossing the US/Mexico border, with racist rhetoric and migrant deaths increasing in the United States.
“We have created a community of slaves,” said Delle McCormick, executive director of BorderLinks. McCormick pointed out that many Americans want migrants to come to the US, but for the wrong reason.
McCormick said many Americans want “slaves,” and do not want creative, intelligent, thinking people from Mexico to relocate here. Once here, they want migrants to be “invisible.”
McCormick joined a panel of speakers at the Santa Cruz Valley Border Issues Fair on Saturday, January 19. More than 400 residents from Green Valley and Tucson, primarily retirees and winter visitors, attended and praised the humanitarian efforts underway to save lives at the border and battle with education the growing migrant xenophobia in the United States.
McCormick pointed out that NAFTA was launched on January 1, 1994, with the promise of bringing Mexico into the modern world. But while the people of Mexico waited for their lives to resemble those on “I Love Lucy,” their worlds began to crumble.
While the United States talked about “equalized trade,” out of one side of its mouth, out of the other side, the US was calling for the closure of its borders.

The US sent big business to seize the lands of the poor in Mexico. Further, the big box stores like Wal-Mart were soon putting smaller, locally-owned stores out of business. At the sacred places, Indigenous Peoples were pushed away and vendors began selling “Made in China,” trinkets, slowing the demand for handcrafts.
McCormick said while Mexico cut funding for social services, it increased funding for trade-based corporations.
Meanwhile, in Chiapas, dams were built to provide electricity for the US corporations, pushing Mayans off their lands. Like never before, this began the exodus of Indigenous corn farmers, now displaced and bound on foot for the US, desperate to survive. Today, a higher percentage of people walking across the US/Mexico border come from Chiapas, since NAFTA has wielded its damage, she said.
McCormick pointed out that the people of Mexico, including the Zapatistas, have creative ways of emerging and developing a new economy.

What the United States needs to do, she said, is “Get out of their way.”
Mike Wilson, Tohono O’odham human rights advocate, urged those attending to apply political pressure on the Tohono O’odham Nation government and hold it accountable for the large number of people dying each year on O’odham lands, primarily from dehydration.

Wilson puts out water for migrants and searches for bodies at the request of family members.

“The Tohono O’odham Nation lacks the big picture, the world view," he said.
Wilson said the Tohono O’odham Nation is very responsive to the United States government and will not go against Homeland Security, especially if there is a threat of the loss of US funding.
Border speakers discussed the ways the United States government controls Mexico. In 2007, the United States provided funding to Mexico to spy on individuals. The $2.9 million DEA contract was to Verint Technologies in New York for spy technology for Mexico. The US contract provided for storing all phone calls for at least 25,000 hours, installation of 30 monitoring stations and cell phone location and tracking devices.
Mike Marizco, freelance journalist who publishes the Border Reporter online, pointed out that the US funding provided the FBI of Mexico with the ability to eavesdrop on all cell phone calls, e-mails, faxes and other communications.
One person attending the border fair suggested that what the US needs to do is what it does in other countries, and send money to refashion the economy of Mexico. But speakers said the real solutions remain in the creative endeavors of the people of Mexico themselves.
Speakers also pointed out that none of the front running US presidential candidates are proposing visas or alternative guest worker programs for migrants. Instead, the candidates, protecting their political images, are calling for more border security and border walls.

Further, speakers said with more funding for the so-called “war on drugs,” the US continues its role as imperialist nation with covert agendas.
Dr. Anna Ochoa O’Leary, lecturer, Mexican American Studies Research Center, spoke of the impact on women of separations and migrations. She said the United States is most often the source of problems in Mexico.
“Anytime you see the United States as a ‘savior,’ chances are we broke it first.”
Organizations working for positive change and delivering humanitarian aid at the border participated in the fair, including Border Action Network, BorderLinks, JustCoffee, No More Deaths, Derechos Humanos, Humane Borders, Samaritans, artists Valerie James & Debbi McCullough and border photographer Michael Hyatt.

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Photo: Tohono O'odham Mike Wilson at the border fair/photo by Brenda Norrell

Teton Sioux Nation Treaty Council responds to treaty withdrawal

By Charmaine White Face
Teton Sioux Nation Treaty Council, spokesperson

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The defense of the Black Hills, and other land under the Treaty of Fort Laramie of 1868 was put in the hands of Lakota traditional bodies and the Teton Sioux Nation Treaty Council created in 1893.
In response to the Press Release released in December by Russell Means in Washington D.C., the Teton Sioux Nation Treaty Council issued the following declaration:

"There is a provision within the Treaty of 1868 that our ancestors had included. Article 12 says the Treaty of 1868 could not be changed except by three-fourths of the (Lakota) male vote. This was done expressly to protect the people, the land, and our way of life.
Russell Means is only one man and has not received the 3/4 adult male approval. His efforts, however, remind the world that we still have an international treaty with the USA.
Sincerely, Charmaine White Face, Spokesperson,
Teton Sioux Nation Treaty Council."

Response to:
Republic of Lakotah focuses on Black Hills

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PHOTO: Fallen leaves cover the ground in the Black Hills National Forest. Photo by Bonnie Jones/US Dept Agriculture.