Open letter from Cauca in Colombia to Obama

An Open Letter from the Association of Indigenous Councils of Northern Cauca, ACIN, to U.S. President-Elect Barack Obama

Santander de Quilichao, Cauca, Colombia
Dear Mr. President-Elect,

First, please accept our sincerest congratulations. We congratulate you for having won because of the noblest aspirations of your people. We believe your election expresses the deep desire for change felt by the majority of the American people: change in the economy and society, change in international relations, and from there, we hope, a change in the relation between the United States of America and the indigenous peoples of the world.
During your historic campaign, you publicly noted some of what Colombians currently face: you acknowledged the murders of trade unionists by the regime and stated your reservations about a Free Trade Agreement with Colombia, which our people have decided against through a democratic referendum, about which we have written before. We thank you for this, and now want you to know about the specific situation facing Colombia's indigenous peoples.
In the past six years we have lost 1,200 people to assassinations by armed groups, both legal and illegal: right-wing paramilitaries, guerrillas, police, and members of the Armed Forces. These murders have created insecurity, and this insecurity has been used to strip us of our rights with what we call the 'Laws of Disposession', legislation and other institutional norms that legalize the loss of our lands, our fundamental freedoms, and our rights. These 'Laws of Disposession' dispose of Colombia's mines, hydrocarbons, water resources, intellectual property, and national parks â€" all of these are brought under the ultimate rule of the Free Trade Agreement with the US. The FTA will mean that if Colombia tries to change the laws to allow its people to share in its resources, or take any independent action, then we will be obliged to compensate investors. We will have to submit our laws to international arbitration outside our own legal jurisdiction.
But in our view, the ultimate law is respect for life. In our view, the FTA puts commercial logic above the respect for life itself, not to mention international humanitarian law, and agreements such as the ILO's Covenant 169, and the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Worldwide. These covenants, as well as the respect for life, have to date been ignored by the government of our country, as well as by your government.
Unfortunately both of our governments, yours with Plan Colombia, and ours with the so-called 'Democratic Security' policy, have done great harm to indigenous peoples and to Mother Earth, while multinational corporations have profited from the petroleum and gas contracts, mining concessions, privatizations, and low wages.
We hope that you will contribute to change all this. We hope that you will listen to our words. We have lost many lives defending these words. Words that we have walked and words we have backed up with our civil resistance. These are the words that we have shared throughout Colombia since October 10th, through the Minga of Resistance, a national mobilization we convened as indigenous peoples, in association with other peoples and processes.
We believe that the spirit of change in your people cannot be contained. We believe it is a powerful force and we hope it will join with the force of our words and with the need for change that has been crying out throughout Latin America. We invite you to come to listen to these words here in Colombia, and we are ready to articulate them there, if you invite us. Here or there, it is the same planet and our mission is the same: to protect it, to save us all.
Finally, we call on you to join with us in fulfilling our responsibilities to Mother Earth and to history. The first one, our collective Mother, has given all of us life. The second one, History, has reflected our growing pains and our errors. History has not matured into systems that reconcile it with the rhythms, pulses and mandates of Nature. We believe the very reason human beings and our societies exist is to create the harmony between History and Mother Earth.
As children of Mother Earth, we speak to you as to a brother or sister. As indigenous, we speak to you as peoples, obliged from creation to seek harmony between History and Mother Earth. To reconcile ourselves with nature is not an option, but an imperative. By transforming life into merchandise, by making sacred the accumulation of wealth, by enshrining greed, we believe our societies have entered a crisis, including the economic crisis currently faced by your country. The destruction of our peoples in Colombia is a consequence of that Historic error that has placed greed before life.
Brother President-elect Barack Obama, we do not write to ask or demand anything for ourselves, because we know that the death of our peoples and the destruction of our cultures for greed, signifies the beginning of the end for Mother Earth itself.
Before we disappear with our collective Mother, we have decided to speak and to walk our words. In the name of life, of change, let us listen to one another and make the effort to find a way to create harmony between our peoples and life. Let us create the conditions for new History. One where the sacred ends of promotion and protection of Life and Beauty can never again be transformed into means for private accumulation of power at the service of greed.
We await you.
With great respect,
Association of Indigenous Couincils of Northern Cauca ACIN -Cxab Wala Kiwe-Territory of the Great People- Cauca, Mother Earth, November 10th, 2008 Santander de Quilichao

Masayesva: Congressman defending Black Mesa

Rep. Raul Grijalva Stands Up for Hopi People, Resources, Sovereignty
By Vernon Masayesva

KYKOTSMOVI, Ariz. (Nov. 9) – Rep. Raul Grijalva, R-Ariz., has sent an urgent letter to U.S. Secretary of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne requesting that he direct the Office of Surface Mining, Reclamation and Enforcement to stop work on the Black Mesa Project draft environmental impact statement.
Black Mesa Trust Executive Director Vernon Masayesva lauded the representative's effort to ensure that the Interior Department meets its trust responsibility to Native peoples. "Rep. Grijalva has seen into the heart of this issue and taken a stand to defend our interests and rights, especially our right to protect the N-aquifer underlying Black Mesa from further corporate abuse."
In his letter, Grijalva told Kempthorne that allowing continued access to the aquifer for coal mining "would result in irreparable damage to the sole source of drinking water for many Hopis and Navajos. Moreover, past water withdrawals from the Navajo Aquifer have already caused sacred Hopi springs to dry up, irreparably harming the tribal communities."
He also pointed out that "there is no actual proposed project involving Black Mesa Mine to be analyzed" since the only customer for the coal (Mohave Generating Station in Laughline, Nev.) shut down in 2005. Grijalva wrote, "the pending EIS [is] not only premature, but in direct conflict with the requirements of the National Environmental Policy Act."
The Black Mesa Project DEIS proposes to combine the Kayenta Mine and the Black Mesa Mine (both on Black Mesa in northern Arizona, deep in the Navajo and Hopi reservations) and to resume coal mining at the Black Mesa Mine, which has been shut down since Mohave Generating Station. The Office of Surface Mine suspended work on the DEIS in May 2007 when Southern California Edison stopped funding because it had not found buyers for the Mohave Generating Station who would restart the power plant. In May 2008 OSM reopened the comment period on the DEIS until July 7. OSM states on its website that the agency plans to issue the final environmental impact statement this month.
In the letter Grijalva reminded Kempthorne that the Hopi government is in disarray at the moment and, therefore, "no one has the authority to consult with OSM and make decisions on behalf of the Hopi Tribal Council on matters related to the mining and water withdrawals on Black Mesa."
In conclusion, Grijalva said, "I believe a delay in processing the EIS is warranted and ask that the process be delayed until OSM can determine the actual purpose and need of this project" and until the Hopi tribal government "is again intact."
Masayesva and other Hopi tribal members expressed their gratitude to Grijalva for his support of the Hopi people, defense of their natural resources and respect for the tribe's sovereignty and right to self-determination.

Pine Ridge: 2,500 without power in disaster

By Tamra
NDN News
I spoke with the Director of Red Cross Richard Smith, this morning. Here is an update on what is happening on Pine Ridge.
The Tribe has set up a official command structure at the Crazy Horse School. Anyone that needs assistance in the districts, or if you know anyone that is stranded and needs help, contact Monica, she is the Incident Commander at this time.
Monica Perkildsen
605-441-5712 (cell)
They also now have a generator and have phones up and running at Crazy Horse School.
605-462-6784 or 605-462-6756
There are 2,500 people still without power, and it appears that it will not be restored this week.
I have spoken with Monica, she is working with the Tribal Council to get a official press release out in the next couple days. They will address all of their direct needs in that release. She will keep me posted on new developments.
They are sending all the supplies donated from Red Cross to all of the outer districts in need.
Fox News is on the way there right now to cover the story, so it will be on local news this evening.
They are still trying to assess the damage and any needs on Rosebud and Cheyenne River. So, no news there as of yet.
That's all the info that I have at the moment. Will keep you posted on whatever new developments I am made aware of.
In peace & solidarity,
Tamra
http://www.ndnnews.com/
http://www.protectsacredsites.org/
http://www.protectbearbutte.com/
PROTECT BEAR BUTTE!
"Providing news and information about Native American Issues & Causes"
"Helping to make a difference for our people in Indian Country, one day at a time. What will you do today to help make a difference?"
"Our sacred lands are all that remain keeping us connected to our place on Mother Earth, to our spirituality, our heritage and our lands; what’s left of them. If they take it all away, what will remain except a vague memory of a past so forgotten?"

El Paso and Berlin: Stop Apartheid and Border Wall

IN THE 19TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE BERLIN WALL FALL:
STOP THE CONSTRUCTION OF THE BORDER WALL!


By Carlos Marentes
Censored News
EL PASO & BERLIN -- On November 9, 1989, the German people knocked down the Berlin Wall. The Berlin Wall had been erected on August 13, 1961 diving the people of Berlin into two sectors. One sector was controlled by US and its allies and the other was controlled by the Soviet Union. German people was not free to cross from one sector to another. Families and friends were separated by the wall. The wall lasted 28 years. During this period of time, about 5000 escape attempts were made to reunite with relatives, friends or to seek better economic opportunities. Close to 300 persons died attempting to cross the wall.

The Berlin Wall was considered an offense to humanity. All the so-called democratic governments denounced the wall and demanded their removal. In June 26, 1963, during a visit to Germany, president John F. Kennedy said in his popular “Ich bin ein Berliner” speech:

“Freedom has many difficulties and democracy is not perfect, but we have never had to put a wall up to keep our people in...”

“While the wall is the most obvious and vivid demonstration of the failures of the Communist system, for all the world to see, we take no satisfaction in it, for it is, as your Mayor has said, an offense not only against history but an offense against humanity, separating families, dividing husbands and wives and brothers and sisters, and dividing a people who wish to be joined together...”

Many years later, another American president, Ronald Reagan, visited Germany and in a very passionate speech made the following plea:

“Behind me stands a wall that encircles the free sectors of this city, part of a vast system of barriers that divides the entire continent of Europe. From the Baltic, south, those barriers cut across Germany in a gash of barbed wire, concrete, dog runs, and guard towers. Farther south, there may be no visible, no obvious wall. But there remain armed guards and checkpoints all the same--still a restriction on the right to travel, still an instrument to impose upon ordinary men and women the will of a totalitarian state. Yet it is here in Berlin where the wall emerges most clearly; here, cutting across your city, where the news photo and the television screen have imprinted this brutal division of a continent upon the mind of the world...”

“...we believe that freedom and security go together, that the advance of human liberty can only strengthen the cause of world peace...”

“...Gorbachev, if you seek peace, if you seek prosperity for the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, if you seek liberalization: Come here to this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!...”

(Remarks at the Brandenburg Gate West Berlin, Germany, June 12, 1987)

Nineteen years later, taking advantage of the lack of historic memory of the American people, it's our own government building a wall in the same totalitarian spirit of the Berlin Wall. This time the wall is in the US-México border. The border wall will separate the border community in the same manner that the Berlin Wall divided the German people for 28 years.

This wall is also an attack to the freedom and peace of our border community. The border wall will separate a border community composed by the cities of El Paso, Texas and Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, and many rural communities on both sides of the Río Grande River. The wall will bring more violence and intolerance and will also cause an irreparable ecological disaster to our already deteriorated environment.

The mere fact that the construction of the wall is estimated at more than 7.5 million dollars per mile, is also an offense to El Paso, the fourth poorest city in the nation and the poorest city in the state.

For this reason we have been fighting against this wall for many years. We have marched, protested, celebrated faith and indigenous ceremonies, held community meetings, and many cultural events against the construction of the wall. This has been a hard fight. We have been arrested and harassed by the local police, the sheriff department, the Border Patrol and the racist thugs of Kiewit Corporation, the construction company in charge of erecting the wall. But we are not afraid and we will not be intimidated. On the contrary, every time we are more committed to continue our fight against this atrocity of the Bush administration.

Today we celebrate the 19th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. We celebrate this occasion by stating our conviction that we will stop the construction of this atrocity in our border community. We also understand that the political situation may be changing, therefore we also celebrate the 19th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall with a new slogan:

President Obama, stop the construction of this wall!