Petition to Supreme Court to protect San Francisco Peaks

Tribes & Environmental Groups Petition Supreme Court in Appeal to Protect Religious Freedom & Environmental Integrity of Sacred Mountain

By Klee Benally
indigenousaction@gmail.com
http://www.savethepeaks.org/
Photo by Chuck Seiverd

FLAGSTAFF, AZ – On Monday, January 5th 2009, Tribes & environmental groups in Arizona filed a unified petition for the U.S. Supreme Court to hear appeals in a precedent setting legal battle to protect religious freedom and the ecological integrity of the holy San Francisco Peaks.

The slopes of the holy San Francisco Peaks, located in Northern Arizona, have been at the center of a historical and lengthy battle that has pitted economic interests on public lands against environmental integrity, public health and cultural survival. Arizona Snowbowl, a small private ski business that leases land from the U.S. Forest Service, is attempting to expand current development and use millions of gallons of recycled sewage water to make fake snow.

“This is an important case for the Supreme Court to hear. The Supreme Court, in a split decision, previously deprived Native Americans of First Amendment rights vis-à-vis sacred sites under the control of the federal government.” said Howard Shanker, who represents Navajo Nation, Havasupai Tribe, White Mountain Apache Nation, Yavapai-Apache Nation, Sierra Club, Center for Biological Diversity, and the Flagstaff Activist Network. “This case represents the last, best chance for Native Americans to have some substantive protection of sites that they hold holy or sacred through application of existing law.” stated Shanker.
”In a country that supposedly values the free exercise and accommodation of all religion, it is unconscionable that Native American religious and cultural beliefs have essentially been relegated to second-class status by the federal government. The Supreme Court now has an opportunity to right this wrong.” Shanker said.

Tribes' primary arguments have focused on religious freedom issues by utilizing the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), which they had hoped would provide the necessary legal protection where other laws such as the American Indian Religious Freedom Act have failed.

“The proposed development at Snowbowl, particularly the use of treated sewage effluent for snowmaking, would have profound effects upon the ability of several tribes to engage in vitally important religious practices at the sacred San Francisco Peaks.” said Jack Trope of the Association on American Indian Affairs who is working together with DNA Legal Services, representing the Hualapai Tribe, Navajo medicine practitioner Norris Nez and Hopi spiritual practitioner Bill Preston. “The en banc panel of the Ninth Circuit’s narrow interpretation of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act in this case, which rejected the claims of the tribal plaintiffs, conflicts with the intent of Congress and the interpretation of the law by other Circuits. For these reasons, we have asked the Supreme Court to review this case in order to clarify the law and interpret it in a manner that would require the government to show a compelling interest in this case (and similar cases) before it can implement its land management decision. We do not believe that the government can show that approval of the Snowbowl development is in fulfillment of a compelling governmental interest.” Trope said.

The Forest Service manages the San Francisco Peaks as public land and has faced multiple lawsuits by the Navajo Nation, Hopi, White Mountain Apache, Yavapai Apache, Hualapai, and Havasupai tribes, as well as the Sierra Club, Flagstaff Activist Network, Center of Biological Diversity, and others after it initially approved the proposed ski area development in 2005.

In a recent ruling, a 9th Circuit Court “en banc” panel overturned another 9th Circuit decision protecting the holy place. The divided en banc panel found that using recycled sewer water to make snow for skiing on an admittedly sacred site posed no 'substantial burden' on the Plaintiffs' exercise of religion in this case. According to the Court, the "only effect of the proposed upgrades is on the Plaintiffs' subjective, emotional religious experience. That is, the presence of recycled wastewater on the Peaks is offensive to the Plaintiffs' religious sensibilities…the diminishment of spiritual fulfillment – serious though it may be – is not a 'substantial burden' on the free exercise of religion." The Court dismissed Plaintiffs' religious beliefs as calling them mere "damaged spiritual feelings."

It is not clear on when the Supreme Court will decide whether it will hear the case or not.
Pending a decision, Snowbowl is legally barred from development on the holy mountain.

While the current appeal focuses on RFRA, many citizens and environmental organizations continue to be concerned with potential health implications of the use of recycled sewage water upon the fragile mountain ecosystem and the untested impacts that would occur if humans ingested the artificial effluent snow.

“This case should concern everyone who values religious freedom, human rights, public health and environmental integrity.” said Klee Benally, a volunteer with the Save the Peaks Coalition. “This issue also isn't just about one mountain, there are a number of sacred places located on public lands that are being threatened by development right now; Mt. Tenabo in Nevada, Medicine Lake in Northern California, Bear Butte in South Dakota, Mt. Taylor in New Mexico, for example. We are asking for everyone to call their Congressional representatives to hold hearings and to enact new legislation that guarantees protection for Native American sacred places.”

The City of Flagstaff still maintains a contract with the ski area to sell up to 180 million gallons of treated sewage effluent during the winter seasons. Without the contract for the treated sewage effluent, it would not be possible for the business owners of Snowbowl to attempt their desecration.

“A ski area should know better than to attempt to make fake snow from treated sewage effluent and dominate Mother Nature in the high desert, especially in the face of global warming. It's not only unsustainable, it's insane.” said Rachel Tso, a volunteer with the Save the Peaks Coalition.
“The question is, what do we value more: a healthy community, ecological integrity and the cultural survival of more than 13 Indigenous Nations, or the interests of a single for profit private ski business?”

For more information and to read the Petition for a Writ of Certiorari, visit: http://www.savethepeaks.org/
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United Native Americans: Unite for freedom from oppression

By Quanah Parker Brightman

Vice President United Native Americans, Inc.

United Native Americans, Inc Supports World Peace. US support of Israel Must Come to An End. Israel has received US financial and military assistance in a combined total of about $3 billion, divided into $1.2 billion in economic assistance and $1.8 billion in military aid.

Since 1948 the Indigenous People of Gaza have had Jews Illegally Occupy their Home Land. Now is The Time For All The Indigenous Peoples Around Mother Earth to Unite In order to Achieve Freedom From All Forms of Oppression.

Photograph of the protest against the Israeli massacre of Palestinians in Gaza, held on Dec. 30, 2008 in San Francisco as part of the National Day of Action.
http://i163.photobucket.com/albums/t291/LehmanBrightman/640_free_palestine_protest_12_30_2.jpg Respectfully,
Quanah Parker Brightman
Vice President of United Native Americans, Inc.

Aboriginal News Service: End the Genocide in Gaza

Intelligent Aboriginal News Service Statement on the Gaza Crisis in Occupied Palestine

Aboriginal News Service (IANS) Statement on the Gaza Crisis in Occupied Palestine
1.6.2009

“Total war is no longer war waged by all members of one national community against all those of another. It is total... because it may well involve the whole world.”

Jean-Paul Sartre

As Indigenous people fully conscious of our own respective colonial circumstances and those of other similarly repressed and oppressed peoples, we, the undersigned, maintain that the latest saturation bombing and subsequent ground invasion of a Palestinian refugee concentration camp is not just and that the continued IDF occupation extends this grave injustice. The defenceless people of The Gaza, a refugee district of Occupied Palestine, have been mercilessly attacked by the State of Israel under the auspices of national “self-defence.” This is clearly a false pretence, as it is now known that the Israeli intelligence and military services secretly planned this attack more than six months ago as part of “Operation Cast Lead”,[1] a covert programme of anti-Palestinian propaganda, premeditated sabotage of the Hamas government during the U.S.-sponsored June 2007 truce agreement and extensive ethnic terrorism directed against the refugee Arab Palestinian population of The Gaza. It is also now common knowledge that the Israeli Defence Forces have begun using cluster bombs, denatured uranium and the horrible chemical weapon, white phosphorus, a compound that burns human beings on contact.[2]

With this, Palestinian reporters are being targeted and international reporters barred at the Gaza border by the IDF, humanitarian aid is prevented from reaching the injured and dying and Norwegian medics have told Iran’s Press TV some of the victims wounded since the IDF began its bombardment of The Gaza on December 27 carry traces of depleted uranium within their bodies.[3]

These actions constitute nothing less than war crimes and crimes against humanity. Since The Nakba of 1948, the Palestinian people have been subjected to enforced dislocation, ethnic discrimination, randomised racist settler violence and indiscriminate aggression by the Israeli Defence Forces, conditions intended to bring upon them emotional suffering and a reduction in their number. Under established international law, these actions and the recent bombing and invasion of The Gaza by the part of the State of Israel undoubtedly amount to the moral and legal crime of genocide. Relevant transgressions of the established charter of the United Nations include and in particular the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (General Assembly resolution 260 A (III), 1948, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (General Assembly Resolution 217 A (III), 1948), the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (General Assembly Resolution 2200 (XXI), 1966), the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (General Assembly Resolution 2200 (XXI), 1966) and the rights to liberation of international Indigenous-internal colonies, (General Assembly Resolution 1541(XV), 1966).

In addition, in recognition of the Nuremberg Principles established in 1944, the State of Israel, (as well as the United States) is also responsible for crimes against humanity, war crimes and the ongoing genocide of indigenous Arab Palestinians since 1948. The injustice of these goals has been compounded by the vicious execution of the Israeli Defence Forces war plan of widespread destruction and terror characterized by an appalling disregard for human life and property. As concerned members of the Fourth World and as Indigenist news journalists, we believe it is the moral responsibility of the United Nations, as the representative body of the world community, actively and without delay move to end this war. The violence unleashed by the Israeli invasion of The Gaza has resulted in the deaths of hundreds of Arab Palestinians and has left thousands of other civilians critically wounded.

We the undersigned implore the world community to act according to the charter of the United Nations and without delay end this genocide against the Palestinian people! We demand that President-Elect Barack Obama and the U.S. Congress officially condemn the actions of the State of Israel and immediately establish a suspension of military and financial aid to the Israeli government to limit their ability to expand this atrocity of human rights against the Palestinian people any further.

Signed,

Rev. Sequoyah Kofi-Ade bin-Tomas / Occupied North America: http://angryindian.blogspot.com/

Ojibway Migisi Bineshii / Occupied North America: http://ojibwaymigisibineshii.blogspot.com.

Sina Brown Davis / Kulin Nations, Occupied Aboriginal Australia: http://uriohau.blogspot.com/

Brenda Norrell / Occupied North America: http://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/

Ridwan Laher / Republic of South Africa: http://ridwanlaher.blogspot.com/

Notes:

[1] The Invasion of Gaza: “Operation Cast Lead”, Part of a Broader Israeli Military-Intelligence Agenda, Michel Chossudovsky, Global Research, Monday, Jan 5, 2008

[2] White phosphorus (WP) is a flare- and smoke-producing incendiary weapon,[1] or smoke-screening agent, made from a common allotrope of the chemical element phosphorus. White phosphorus bombs and shells are incendiary devices, but can also be used as an offensive anti-personnel flame compound capable of causing serious burns or death.

[3] Press TV – “Depleted uranium found in Gaza victims’ - Sun, 04 Jan 2009 13:16:21 GMT
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Where are the FBI files concerning Myrtle Poor Bear?

Where are the FBI files concerning Myrtle Poor Bear?

by Michael Kuzma, Esq.
(attorney for Mr. Leonard Peltier)

In 1976, American Indian Movement (AIM) activist, Leonard Peltier, was extradited from Canada to the United States to stand trial for the shooting deaths of FBI Special Agents Jack R. Coler and Ronald A. Williams that occurred at the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota on June 26, 1975. Peltier was extradited back to the United States based in large part on the affidavits of Myrtle Poor Bear. On October 25, 2000, in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, Poor Bear testified under oath before former Quebec Court of Appeal Judge Fred Kaufman that she agreed to implicate Peltier in the shooting deaths of the two FBI agents only after she had endured months of unrelenting harassment and threats from other FBI agents. Among other things, FBI agents told Poor Bear that they would take her child away from her and that she would be charged with conspiracy and face 15 years in prison if she did not cooperate. FBI agents coerced Poor Bear into signing affidavits, which indicated that she was Peltier’s girlfriend and that she saw him shoot Agents Coler and Williams. In 1978, the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit noted that, “The use of the affidavits of Myrtle Poor Bear in the extradition proceeding was, to say the least, a clear abuse of the investigative process by the FBI. This was conceded by government counsel on the hearing in this court.” See United States v. Peltier, 585 F. 2d 314, 335 fn. 18 (8th Cir. 1978).

Myrtle Poor Bear passed away on September 15, 2005 in Rapid City, South Dakota. On November 14, 2006, I submitted a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to FBI Headquarters for all records pertaining to Myrtle Poor Bear. By letter dated December 14, 2006, Mr. David M. Hardy, Section Chief, Record/Information Dissemination Section, Records Management Division, FBI, advised me that no records responsive to my FOIA request had been located by a search of the automated and manual indices of the central records system at FBI Headquarters. I treated this response, on the part of the FBI, as a denial of my FOIA request and filed an administrative appeal with the Office of Information and Privacy (OIP), U. S. Department of Justice. By letter dated April 5, 2007, Ms. Janice Galli McLeod, Co-Director, OIP, advised me that there were no responsive FBI Headquarters Office records. Ms. Galli McLeod, however, did inform me that a member of her staff found that the Minneapolis Field Office of the FBI might have records responsive to my FOIA request and that I should submit a new FOIA request to that office if I hadn’t already done so. A FOIA request was submitted to that office on April 20, 2007.

In a letter dated November 21, 2008, Mr. Hardy from the FBI claimed that, “A search of the indices to our central records system at FBI Headquarters reflected there were documents potentially responsive to your request. This office has attempted to obtain this material so that it could be reviewed for responsiveness. We were advised the records were not in their expected location and could not be located. Following a reasonable waiting period, another attempt was made to obtain this material. This also was met with unsuccessful results. Therefore, we are closing your request administratively.” The question now is, where are these FBI files? Who has them? If they are no longer in the possession of the FBI, when and under what authority were they transferred to another agency or individual? Perhaps the records have been destroyed? If so, by whom and under what authority?

The public has a right to know what is in the FBI files relating to Myrtle Poor Bear. It should be noted that this is not the first time that the FBI allegedly has not been able to find records that could prove to be helpful to Leonard Peltier. For example, in November of 2002, I requested all records relating to Leonard Peltier and RESMURS (RESMURS is the name the FBI gave to its investigation of the deaths of agents Coler and Williams) from the New York Field Office of the FBI. The FBI claimed that the material was “unavailable” and it had been placed on “special locate”. To date, these documents have not been found.

The FBI has and continues to vigorously resist efforts to make public all of its files relating to Leonard Peltier and RESMURS. The FBI cites national security concerns and other dubious reasons for refusing to release these documents. Documents, I might add, that should been released to Peltier defense attorneys over three decades ago. Why is there all of this secrecy when it comes to FBI documents pertaining to Leonard Peltier and RESMURS? What is the FBI afraid of? Why does the FBI continue to fight to prevent the full release of documents that are over one third of a century old? Could it be that these documents would reveal how FBI personnel as well as its informants and provocateurs set into motion the events that culminated in the deaths of Joe Stuntz Killsright, Jack R. Coler and Ronald A. Williams on that tragic day in June of 1975.

Michael Kuzma, Esq.
Buffalo, New York
January 3rd, 2009