AIM Film Fest Best Doc 'Hawaii, A Voice for Sovereignty'

Best Documentary Award by AIM International Film Festival 'Hawaii, A Voice For Sovereignty' By AIM West

http://www.aimwest.info

The long awaited efforts to bring the American Indian Movement (AIM) International Film Festival to San Francisco was finally held on Monday and Tuesday, October 11 -12, 2010. The film festival, the first hosted by AIM-WEST, an affiliate organization in the bay area, ended on a high five, or hang ten, whichever! It was also deemed an important educational alternative to the stories typically associated with Columbus Day and what it means to Indigenous Peoples throughout the Americas during this period. The Best Documentary Award that was selected by the judges committee went to “Hawaii, A Voice For Sovereignty”. It was accepted by Ms. Catherine Bauknight, film maker and Director.

The intensity projected in the documentary, made in 2009, ‘What Happen to the Land Happens to the People’ is the first of its kind to feature the native Hawaiians journey to sustain their culture, spirituality, and connection to the land. This modern epic documentary, filmed over four years, contains rare interviews with Native Hawaiians in their homes, at sacred sites, in mountains and the rain forests. Along with the voices of the people of the land, Professor Haunani-Kay Trask, and other Hawaiian leaders, take us into rarely seen ancient lifestyles where spirituality, culture, and care for the land form a sacred bond between humankind and the natural world. They reveal their quest to secure their Hawaiian rights as the host culture, and their economic, social, and ecological future. By bridging their ancient knowledge with modern technologies such as wind, solar, and wave renewable energy and agricultural land systems they move towards their goal of sustainability.

The award presented by Master of Ceremony, Mr. Bill Means, to Ms. Bauknight, is a cherished photo of AIM Minister of Culture, Floyd Red Crow Westerman (1988 Dances with Wolves), in his memory of promotion of cultural rights, and the quest for sovereignty, exemplify the legacy and spiritual movement of resistance, and the fight for self-determination found among Indigenous peoples throughout the globe. Also present with the award in photo (Neil Whitelaw, photographer) is Bill “Jimbo” Simmons, movie presenter, Aleck Cheney, producer, Antonio Gonzales, AIM-WEST Director, Venezuela Consulant Martin Sanchez, and Tomas Reyes, AIM-WEST Community Volunteer Coordinator.

The AIM film committee wishes to thank everyone who contributed to the success of this event. We especially took advantage of the this year’s occasion which coincides with the United Nation’s theme of “Indigenous Peoples and film making” declared at the 2010 International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples held in New York. We are optimistic this can become an annual film festival. We also wish to inform Indigenous and non-Indigenous film-makers alike, worldwide, about the great opportunity they have to educate the general public and non-governmental organizations by producing these themes and to showcase the wide spectrum of struggles on a myriad of issues they are going through on their lands. Many times these valuable films shot with perception and detail, are lost or have a difficult time in their countries exposing or revealing the burning challenges they wish to project, on a daily basis. This is their chance to reveal the truth in the search for justice.

And finally, AIM-WEST wishes to extend a cordial salute in solidarity with the 35th Anniversary next month of the American Indian Film Festival held in SF, and its director, Mr. Michael Smith, with respect for their many hard years of commitment to quality films depicting American Indians in the film industry in both Canada and the United States. Your dedication in this endeavor over the years has paved the way, and provided the necessary means to fulfill a need by bringing together all the continents, where real Indigenous peoples can see for themselves how they continue to thrive and practice their traditional and cultural way of life.

Thank you once again, ALL My Relations,

Antonio Gonzales
AIM-WEST Director
www.aimwest.info

415-577-1492

MNN: Long Ago Before Colonial Borders

LONG, LONG AGO, BEFORE COLONIAL BORDERS
Mohawk Nation News

http://www.mohawknationnews.com/

MNN. October 10, 2010. During the French and Indian Wars in the 1750s, the invaders came up against the Mohawk “Keepers of the Eastern Door” who told them to go home. In order to occupy land the legal occupants had to be killed off. The colonists started a genocide campaign beginning with the Mohawks.

As a story goes, once upon a time in present day New York State, a French troop came across a lone Mohawk Warrior standing on top of a cliff waving at them. The troop commander told three of his men, “Go up and kill him’.

They climbed up. Behind the bushes a big fight broke out. The commander waited. They never returned. Eventually the Mohawk Warrior appeared on top of the mountain and waved to the troops below. Aghast, the commander ordered another 10 soldiers to, “Kill him once and for all”.

They went up. Another noisy fight ensued. None returned. Once again, the Mohawk Warrior stood on top and waved to them with a big smile.

Finally the commander ordered the rest of his troops to go up and “Finish him off”, to return and tell him what happened.

Another huge fight took place with lots of yelling and screaming. This time one badly wounded man came down the hill. “What happened?” asked the commander.

The soldier said, “That Warrior wasn’t alone. He had a Mohawk woman behind him!” and then passed out. The Mohawk Warrior stood at the top of the cliff and waved at them to leave.

Indigenous women continue to be the foundation of our communities. Presently 550 have disappeared without a trace. Canada refuses to investigate, callously calling us “sexual objects” and “street workers”.

Our women are not protected by police, politicians and upper levels of society for a reason. Possibly these girls have too much information on the underbelly of the ruling class and their fascination with abusing children, particularly Indigenous.

It seems the Canada Border Services Agents CBSA and law enforcement want to arrest and criminalize our men who protect our women and children.

Border guards leer at Mohawk girls and our young men. Perverted Border guards are known to put their hands in the pants of the adolescent boys and grab their genitals. Cavity searches are going to become common to intimidate and psychologically subjugate people.

A British military man once remarked: Mohawk men allow themselves to be dragged around by their women, but in no way did it emasculate them. In fact, they became great warriors.

We were the canary in the mine. The behavior that the indigenous people have withstood for centuries is now going to become mainstream for everyone.

Kahentinetha, MNN Mohawk Nation News
Kahentinetha2@yahoo.com For more news, books, to donate/legal fund and to sign up for MNN newsletters go to www.mohawknationnews.com Other articles in category “Border”.

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VIDEO: Protect Sacred Land

Thank you to Ola Cassadore-Davis, Apache, and the Seventh Generation Fund!

Navajo Water Rights Talking Points

Talking Points on the proposed Northeastern Arizona Indian
Water Rights Agreement, Legislation 0422-10
Dated October 19, 2010
Photo: Navajo elder drinking contaminated water/Photo Forgotten People1. The Navajo Nation Council should vote No on the proposed Northeastern Arizona Indian Water Rights Agreement, Legislation 0422-10 until the Navajo Nation government installed in early 2011 can take up the settlement negotiations from an honest and fully informed perspective and a quantitative analysis is done of present and future needs for domestic use, large-scale agricultural projects and livestock.
2. There is not only no use of our Treaties in the 400 pages of the proposed Arizona Water Settlement, there is actually no mention whatsoever of either of our Treaties in the proposed settlement agreement.
3. The Navajo Nation is a federally recognized Indian Tribe, having two Treaties with the United States, dated 1849 and 1868 and is the only one of the 22 Arizona Indian Tribes that has a Treaty with the United States but the treaties are not mentioned in the Settlement.
4. The Settlement does not recognize the purposes of the Navajo Indian Reservation, as identified in the 1849 and 1868 Treaties as a "permanent home" specifically for agricultural purposes, with the 1849 Treaty referring to Navajos receiving "implements," which means farm implements, and the 1868 Treaty referring to "cultivating the soil," "seeds and agricultural implements," "farming and mechanical pursuits," and "sheep, goats, and cattle," and also encouraging us to "settle permanently" on our Reservation.
5. No "permanent home" of a people can exist without productive agriculture, and the Navajo People have always been and generally continue to be an agricultural people, while also engaging in many other ways of making a living.
6. Indian Tribes with Treaties rely on those Treaties as the most important foundation of their Indian reserved water rights, which are sometimes referred to as ''Winters Rights."
7. Indian reserved water rights are not lost by non-use, meaning tribes have ongoing rights to use water in the future that they have never used in the past as long as that water is appropriately quantified in the legal process and reasonably serves the purposes of the Reservation.
8. Productive agriculture requires large amounts of water, and agricultural tribes such as ours, with agricultural and permanent home purposes for our Nation, must have full and fair reserved water rights to support their agricultural and other uses, and not just rights limited to past and present uses.
9. In the 1960s and 1970s the Navajo Nation discussed claiming as Winters Rights as much as "two thirds of the annual flow of the Colorado River," which amounts to about ten million acre feet.
10. In 1997, Stanley Pollack publicly announced to a water rights meeting in Santa Fe, New Mexico that the Navajo Nation's basic surface water rights to the Colorado River System in the States of New Mexico, Utah, and Arizona must begin at no less than five million acre feet.


11. The proposed water settlement in its Part 4 even waives our past uses and prior rights to irrigation water in the Little Colorado River drainage, ownership rights that are likely worth $160,000,000 (at the low ownership value of $4,000 an acre foot) and which would otherwise be automatically reserved for us, and ignores values of waived rights and the compensation we should receive if we do not get the water and at our Winters Rights priority.
12. The provisions of the Settlement that address the Little Colorado River and groundwater have too many difficulties with their details for us to cover those provisions in this urgent resolution, but among those are a lack of specific information regarding construction of retentions structures with and without Hopi Tribal Consent, related capital improvement funds, a lack of quantification and specifics for large-scale agriculture, irrigation, livestock development and improvement of the range.
13. The carrot they are using to get support for the Settlement purports people will get piped water without appropriations earmarked in an economic climate with competing interests for funding needed.
14. Climate change is not considered. For the first time, federal estimates issued in August indicate that Lake Mead, the heart of the lower Colorado basin’s water system has the lowest 11-year average in the 100-year-plus recorded history of flows on the basin. The reservoir is now less than 15 inches above the all-time low of 1,083.2 feet set in 1956.
15. Exercise hozho go caution and care when a proposed Settlement is being rushed for a vote with language as follows:
The Settlement, Exhibit 14.1.1 states: Waiver and Release of Claims for
Water rights, Injury to Water Rights and Injury to Water Quality, by the
Navajo Nation on behalf of itself and its members and by the United States
acting in its capacity as Trustee for the Navajo Nation and its members
2.0 WAIVER AND RELEASE OF CLAIMS. 2.1 Except as provided in
3.0 hereof, the Navajo Nation, on behalf of itself and its
Members, and the United States acting in its capacity as trustee for the
Navajo Nation and its Members pursuant to the authorization set forth in
Section of the Act, hereby waive and release any claims against the State,
the Hopi Tribe, or any other person, entity, corporation or municipal
corporation under Federal, State or other law for all:
2.1.1 Past, present and future claims for Water Rights for Navajo Lands
arising from time immemorial.
16. The Settlement is a recipe for economic and political termination of our tribe.
17. Water is the most precious resource of all. Water is life. Please urge the NNC to vote against the proposed Northeastern Arizona Indian Water Rights Agreement, Legislation 0422-10 until the Navajo Nation government installed in early 2011 can take up the settlement negotiations and a quantitative analysis is done of present and future needs for a growing nation to fulfill its purpose affirmed in our treaty rights.