Indigenous Peoples Prayers and Protest in Copenhagen

You Tube video link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UDjf5errEOI&feature=player_embedded

Indigenous Environmental Network
Social Media Release

Indigenous Peoples at Copenhagen Climate Talks Deliver Peace Prize Message to Obama at US Embassy: Procession, Prayer & Protests

“Indigenous rights and knowledge are the foundation for addressing climate change”

12.10.2009 –
Contact: Indigenous Environmental Network: +45-526-85596
Jihan Gearon, Native Energy Campaigner + 45-52685594
indigenous.environmental.network@gmail.com

Copenhagen, Denmark – Indigenous Peoples from across North America and their allies from around the world gathered at the US Embassy in Copenhagen today to deliver a message to President Obama as he traveled to Oslo to accept his Nobel Prize. The delegation of Native Americans, Alaska Natives, and First Nations Peoples is in Denmark this week for the historic COP 15 Climate Talks, and is calling for a climate deal that includes a moratorium on all new exploration of oil, gas, coal and uranium as a first step towards the full phase-out of fossil fuels and a just solution to the climate crisis.

“The United States is importing millions of barrels of oil from the Canadian Tar Sands, which is contributing to the genocide of the Dene and Cree nations of Northern Canada and to the destruction of Mother Earth” said Susana Deranger, a grandmother from Fort Chipewyan in Northern Alberta. “Last summer, there was a flock of ducks that landed on a tailings pond of Tar Sands dirty water, and they all died. This is the water that is poisioning our people. There are clusters of rare cancers that are concentrated in our communities and killing our people. Obama, we urge you: End Envirionmental Racism – Climate Justice now!”

The events this morning included a solemn procession to the US Embassy, and a traditional prayer led by Sarah James, a Gwich'in Alaska Native elder, who is in Copenhagen to tell the world about the impacts of climate change on her homelands, such as melting permafrost and forced relocation. After the blessing, Native American, First Nations, and Alaska Native Representatives spoke about the Presidents Nobel Prize.

“When Obama was campaigning, he captured the hearts of young people and he promised us change,” said Kandi Mossett of North Dakota, Tribal Campus Climate Challenge Organizer for the Indigenous Environmental Network. Through tears of frustration she added, “But we are learning that for Native communities, when it comes to reining in oil companies or commiting to fight climate change, he is just another politician who goes back on his word. And on these issues, his decisions are matters of life and death for our people.”

After the speeches, a smaller group attempted to cross the street to deliver a message to US ambassador in Denmark for President Obama, who will be in Copenhagen next week for COP 15. After some tense negotiations with police, the party was allowed to approach the embassy and delivered a large hand-written scroll, which included the Indigenous Environmental Network’s positions for the COP 15 negotiations:

“We strongly call for a moratorium on all new exploration for oil, gas, coal and uranium as a first step towards the full phase-out of fossil fuels, without nuclear power, with a just transition to sustainable jobs, energy and environment...We oppose false solutions to the crisis: These include nuclear energy, geo-engineering techniques, so-called clean coal, and the carbon market.”

The US Embassy representative accepted the scroll and agreed to deliver it to the Ambassador. The Indigenous Delegation closed their event with prayer, and traveled to the Bella Center where Obama’s speech was broadcast live.

“In his acceptance speech, President Obama remarked that ‘Our actions matter, and can bend history in the direction of justice,’” said Jihan Gearon of Fort Defiance Arizona/Navajo Nation, Native Energy Organizer with Indigenous Environmental Network. “Mr. President – we implore you to come to Copenhagen to make history with a just climate agreement that upholds the rights of Indigenous Peoples and takes decisive action to keep fossil fuels in the ground.”

Indigenous Environmental Network: Indigenous Peoples empowering Indigenous Nations and communities towards sustainable livelihoods, demanding environmental justice and maintaining the Sacred Fire of our traditions. www.ienearth.org

The Indigenous Environmental Network is in Copenhagen for the duration of COP 15.
Copenhagen Media Line: +45-526-85596

Canadian Youth to Harper: Halt Tar Sands:

You Tube Video Link:
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SUCKERS

SUCKERS: CounterPunch's website of the Day:
http://broadsides.org/suckers.htm

Obama Administration Approves Oil Drilling in the Arctic:
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http://www.aclu.org/blog/national-security/framework-impunity
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Obama Administration Approves Oil Drilling in Arctic

Arctic oil drilling plan approved
10 Dec 2009, 7:08 PM
Photo: Inuit/Red Oil

By Red OIL

COPENHAGEN -- Alaska Natives from the Chukchi Sea, in Copenhagen for the Climate Talks, are reeling today after an announcement that the Obama administration has approved Royal Dutch Shell Plc's (RDSa.L) plan to drill for oil off Alaska's northwest coast as early as next summer. In a move revealing of the US agenda at Copenhagen, the Department of the Interior has endorsed drilling for fossil fuels in the climate-effected ecosystems of the Arctic, where global warming already impacts Alaska Natives and entire villages are in danger of losing their lands and way of life.
Interior Secretary Ken Salazar addressed the COP 15 conference on Thursday at 12:45 local time at the US Center Meeting Room in the Bella Center.
"Shell says 'the Chukchi Sea could be home to some of the most prolific, undiscovered hydrocarbon basins in North America,' but we're here to remind Salazar and Shell that it is our home and our lives that will be devastated by the drilling," said Faith Gemmill, Executive Director of REDOIL, who is attending the Copenhagen Climate Talks. "More fossil fuel drilling will only bring more pollution to the Chukchi Sea, and ultimately, more devastating climate change to the world. Salazar should know: We must leave those fossil fuels in the ground and invest in real renewable solutions that uphold Indigenous Peoples rights."
The effects of global warming in Alaska include thawing permafrost, melting sea ice, declining fish populations, migratory and habitat disruptions of key subsistence resources -- all direct, disruptive impacts that Alaska Natives are already experiencing. Alaska Native communities are struggling with forced relocation as coastlines no longer protected by sea ice erode, and are now, in essence, "climate refugees."
"As Alaska Natives, our ancestral ways of life and homelands are imperiled by devastating proposals for fossil fuel drilling and development," said Colleen Swan of Kivalina, a community located adjacent to the Chuckchi Sea who is in Copenhagen this week on her first international journey. "These fossil fuels are carbon that will compound climate change, and the ecological devastation we see is also compounded by the impacts of climate change, and so it is a lose-lose. That's why we are here in Copenhagen to tell the world our story, and demand real action by the Obama Administration."

REDOIL is a network and movement of Alaska Natives who are challenging the fossil fuel and mining industry and demanding our rights to a safe and healthy environment conducive to subsistence. The REDOIL network consists of grassroots Alaska Natives of the Inupiat, Yupik, Aleut, Tlingit, Gwich'in, Eyak and Denaiana Athabascan tribes. We aim to address the human and ecological health impacts brought on by the unsustainable development practices of the fossil fuel and mining industry. REDOIL strongly supports self-determination rights of tribes in Alaska, as well as a just transition from fossil fuel and mineral development to sustainable economies, and promotes the implementation of sustainable development on Alaska Native lands. Visit: http://www.ienearth.org/redoil


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Indigenous Peoples protest at US Embassy Copenhagen

Nikke Alex's photos sent via phone from Copenhagen

DEMOCRACY NOW!

Indigenous Activists March on US Embassy in Copenhagen Urging Obama to “Stop the US Energy Industry’s War on Native Peoples and Lands”
Shortly before President Obama received his Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo, a coalition of North American indigenous groups marched to the US embassy in Copenhagen calling on Obama to stop what they described as the war on native peoples and lands waged by the US energy industry. Speakers at the protest included Faith Gemmill from Arctic Village, Alaska and Clayton Thomas-Muller of the Canadian-based Indigenous Tar Sands Campaign. [includes rush transcript]
Filed under Copenhagen Climate Summit
AMY GOODMAN: Shortly before President Obama received the Nobel Peace Prize today, a coalition of North American indigenous groups marched to the US embassy here in Copenhagen, calling on Obama to stop what they described as the war on native peoples and lands waged by the US energy industry.
Speakers at the protest included Faith Gemmill of Arctic Village in Alaska—she works with the group Resisting Environmental Destruction on Indigenous Lands—and Clayton Thomas-Muller of the Canadian-based Indigenous Tar Sands Campaign.
FAITH GEMMILL: We’re here today to send a message to the US government that no longer can their energy policy and their unsustainable development practices threaten the future of indigenous peoples. This is what’s happening in America. All these indigenous communities are under threat by fossil fuel extraction and the fossil fuel issues that affect us, the energy issues.
Alaska is ground zero for US energy policy. Many of our indigenous homelands, our ancestral territories, are under threat, and it threatens the very existence of our communities. We live a subsistence way of life that’s very, very much connected to our homelands. And for us to live that way of life, our homelands have to be intact.
CLAYTON THOMAS-MULLER: You know, today President Obama accepts his Nobel Peace Prize, when we all know that it’s just representing such immense hypocrisy, with calling out 30,000 US troops to continue to go into Afghanistan and oppress peoples in the Middle East.
The administration continues to oppress indigenous peoples and racialize communities in the United States and in Canada through their energy and climate policies. So we’re here in Copenhagen at the United Nations international climate negotiations to call out the US government and their little bully brother, the Darth Vader of Copenhagen, the Canadian government, in their ridiculous and oppressive energy policies and to say we want a just and clean future, a new economic paradigm that doesn’t sacrifice our communities at the altar of irresponsible policies for the economic benefit of the select few who pull the political strings.
AMY GOODMAN: The indigenous activists then delivered their letter to the US embassy in Copenhagen.
INDIGENOUS ACTIVIST: …the United States respect the rights of indigenous peoples and that they endorse the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
TERENCE McCULLEY: As you know, the United States has a very large delegation here at COP15. The United States is committed to active participation in this dialogue. I have a Cherokee background myself, and it’s an honor for me to accept your statement, which I will ensure gets to the ambassador.
AMY GOODMAN: Indigenous leaders delivering a letter to the US embassy in Copenhagen. They delivered it to Terence McCulley, the chargé d’affaires of the embassy.
Related stories
•“We Are Having a Hard Time Surviving” Gwich’in Elder Sarah James on How Climate Change Is Altering Life in the Alaskan Arctic
•Amidst Uncertainty on US Role in Upcoming Climate Talks, 350.org Holds International Climate Action Day in 170 Nations
•Naomi Klein on Climate Debt: Why Rich Countries Should Pay Reparations To Poor Countries For The Climate Crisis.
•Climate Countdown: Largest Climate Summit in World History Opens in Copenhagen
•Ahead of Copenhagen Talks, Tens of Thousands Protest Across Europe Calling for Climate Justice

Australian Aboriginals Voices at Climate Change Film Festival in Copenhagen:
http://thegovmonitor.com/world_news/australia/australias-indigenous-voices-on-climate-change-to-appear-at-copenhagen-film-festival-18530.html

VIDEO: Brazil's Indigenous: Climate Change



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