WIKI: Iceland's support of Indigenous Declaration an 'impediment' to US relations

Iceland's support of the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples was an 'impediment' to US/Iceland relations at the United Nations

Article copyright by Brenda Norrell
Censored News http://www.bsnorrell.blogspot.com

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The United States scrutinized Iceland's support of the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, according to new cables released by Wikileaks. The US cables reveal the behind-the-scenes maneuvers of the United States, the last country in the world to support the Declaration.

US Ambassador Ambassador Carol van Voorst said Iceland's support of the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples was an "impediment" to full cooperation between the US and Iceland at the United Nations.

Van Voorst said Iceland is the only country in the Nordic that does not have Indigenous Peoples. Iceland officials, however, said they would join other Nordic countries in support of the Declaration, Van Voorst wrote to the US State Dept.

"The Declaration on Rights of Indigenous Peoples presents the main impediment to full Icelandic cooperation with the U.S. in Geneva," Van Voorst said. Van Voorst found support in Iceland to bolster the US position that the the text of the Declaration "was seriously flawed," in 2006.

Van Voorst, who served as US Ambassador to Iceland from 2006--2009, describes meetings with Iceland Embassy officials in 2006, stating that Icelandic officials indicated agreement on most key issues for the June 19-30, 2006, first session of the UN Human Rights Council (HRC).

"The Declaration on Rights of Indigenous Peoples may prove to be a sticking point, as Nordic solidarity dictates that Iceland should not openly oppose what has been a Norwegian priority," Van Voorst said in the cable on June 16, 2006.

Although Icelandic officials "expressed sympathy with US views," they also "outlined the potential problems," with the Declaration on Rights of Indigenous Peoples. The meeting included Iceland's Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) Political Department Human Rights Officer Ingibjorg Davidsdottir and Permanent Secretary Gunnar Snorri Gunnarsson.

Gunnarsson "emphasized establishing effective HRC processes and maintaining a lean agenda, and outlined the potential problems with the Declaration on Rights of Indigenous Peoples."

Iceland, according to the Van Voorst, wanted to avoid country-specific trouble at the UN Human Rights Council, like that of Arab countries and Israel. "Iceland MFA officials agree that the first session of the HRC must avoid the rancor of the organization's predecessor body by eschewing country-specific resolutions such as those that the Organization of the Islamic Conference may intend to raise against Israel."

Van Voorst called Iceland's support of the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples an "impediment."

"The Declaration on Rights of Indigenous Peoples presents the main impediment to full Icelandic cooperation with the U.S. in Geneva. While Davidsdottir personally shares our concern that the Declaration's text is seriously flawed, she and Gunnarsson asserted that Iceland's equities lie with following the Scandinavian lead in supporting the document. Iceland is the only Nordic country without an indigenous population," Van Voorst wrote.

Van Voorst also said new Foreign Minister Valgerdur Sverrisdottir is a "neophyte," and will follow others lead. "As Sverrisdottir, who comes from six years at Iceland's Ministry of Industry and Commerce, is a foreign affairs neophyte, we expect her to accept the MFA career officials' advice on what positions Iceland should take at the HRC.

"Unfortunately, that is likely to include going along with the other Nordics in their outreach to indigenous peoples."

In a second cable four months later, the US points out the "US-Australian-New Zealand position" in regards to the Declaration.

Ultimately, these three countries, and Canada, were the only countries in the world who voting against the UN General Assembly's adoption of the Declaration. The UN adopted the Declaration on Sept. 13, 2007. Since then, all four countries have issued statements of support, with the US and Canada issuing limitations on their support.

Before the UN vote, in a second cable from Iceland dated October 31, 2006, US Ambassador Van Voorst, again expressed concern over Iceland's support. This time, the concern was over procedural irregularities of the draft Declaration.

"Allowing that Iceland's lack of indigenous people left the GOI with few equities on the matter, Davidsdottir (protect) said that as a matter of human rights law she personally shared many of the USG's concerns regarding the draft declaration. She added that the procedural irregularities in the draft's progress through the UN system left her uneasy. However, the GOI was firm in its desire to stand with the other Nordic states, and would vote for the declaration's adoption when the matter came to the floor," Van Voorst said in the Oct. 31, 2006 cable.
Cable 6/16/2006
http://wikileaks.ch/cable/2006/06/06REYKJAVIK218.html
Cable 10/31/2006
http://wikileaks.ch/cable/2006/10/06REYKJAVIK405.html

Letters give voice to Dakota prisoners

150 Year Old Letters Give Voice to Dakota Prisoners
Listen and read article at Minnesota Public Radio: http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2011/01/19/dakota-tribe-letters

Navajos join legal action against Navajo power plants pollution

 Grassroots Navajos join legal action to halt pollution from Navajo power plants near Shiprock, N.M., and Page, Ariz.

Coalition of Clean Air Groups Bring Actions Against Federal Government For Failure to Protect People and National Parks

Federal agencies fail to meet legal duty to reduce air pollution in national parks and wilderness areas across the country
Press statement(WASHINGTON, DC) — Today, a coalition of clear air advocates is acting to compel the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI), and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to fulfill their obligations to protect the nation’s largest and most scenic national parks, wilderness areas, and wildlife refuges from unhealthful haze pollution that dirties the sky and drastically reduces visibility.

“Every year, millions of visitors to our national parks and wilderness areas are unable to see the postcard views because they have been obscured by haze pollution,” said NPCA Clean Air Counsel Stephanie Kodish. “More than 30 years ago Congress committed to restore clean, clear air to America’s most prized national parks and wilderness areas. But EPA has repeatedly escaped its duty to regulate polluters by missing deadlines to develop and implement meaningful plans to reduce air pollution that makes people sick and skies look more like muddy water than the crystal-clear views they once were.”

“Americans go to national parks to breathe clean air, not choke on soot and smog,” said Earthjustice Attorney David Baron. “It's time for the states and the EPA to clean up the air in parks and wilderness areas as required by the Clean Air Act. Leaving our mountains and canyons buried under filthy haze is not an option.”

The first of the two legal actions that are being filed today seeks to enforce EPA’s obligation to require national park polluters to clean up. The Clean Air Act requires EPA to finalize state plans to substantially reduce haze pollution in all protected national parks, wilderness areas and wildlife refugees by January 15, 2011. But, EPA has failed to finalize a single state’s haze reduction plan, missing more than 50 regulatory deadlines. Today’s action, the filing of formal notices of intent to sue, is an effort to ensure EPA complies with the Clean Air Act’s Regional Haze program and move clean air plans forward after decades of delay. NPCA, Powder River Basin Resource Council, Montana Environmental Information Center, Grand Canyon Trust, Sierra Club, Environmental Defense Fund, WildEarth Guardians, San Juan Citizens Alliance, Our Children’s Earth, and Plains Justice are collaborating to bring this action.

In addition, NPCA, Grand Canyon Trust, Sierra Club, Dooda (NO) Desert Rock, To Nizhoni Ani, WildEarth Guardians, Northwest Environmental Defense Center, Washington Wildlife Federation, San Juan Citizens Alliance, and the Center for Biological Diversity have joined to file an “unreasonable delay” lawsuit against DOI and USDA. The lawsuit is in reaction to the failure by these agencies to find that pollution from Navajo Generating Station in Page, Ariz., TransAlta/Centralia power plant in Centralia, Wash., and Four Corners Power Plant in Fruitland, NM devastate air quality in gems such as Mesa Verde National Park in Colorado, Mount Rainier and Olympic National Parks in Washington, and Grand Canyon and Petrified Forest National Parks in Arizona. These petitions ask DOI, and in the case of Four Corners USDA, to protect public lands by certifying that specific large, outdated coal-fired power plants are causing haze pollution in these national treasures. To date, little progress has been achieved with the two agencies regarding a formal certification of visibility impairment around these sites.

"It is the Navajo people living near [the Four Corners coal-fired power plant] who suffer the effects of this pollution," said Elouise Brown, president of Dooda (No) Desert Rock- an organization of indigenous people working to protect people from the harm done by coal’s pollution. "This air pollution causes respiratory problems like asthma, emphysema and bronchitis, it aggravates heart disease and it damages lung tissue. The air we breathe has been polluted by coal-fired power plants for far too long."

“Through the Regional Haze program, state and federal agencies have an unprecedented opportunity to ensure healthier air and clearer scenic vistas by requiring affordable and routine controls that reduce air pollution from industrial sources like coal-fired power plants,” Kodish added. “The regional haze program was designed to reduce pollution and restore pristine visibility to national parks and wilderness areas. The Federal government must swiftly act to enforce this program.”

“Our Rocky Mountain highs are increasingly under siege from haze, especially here in Colorado, yet it's a problem we can easily solve,” said Jeremy Nichols, Climate and Energy Program director for WildEarth Guardians. “With sensible plans to limit air pollution, we can finally protect parks, people, and our cherished western landscape.”

“These actions simply ask EPA to follow-through with programs that will protect people from the dangerously harmful pollution that jeopardizes our health when coal is burned at power plants,” added Bill Corcoran, Western Regional Director for the Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal campaign. “The same pollution that literally makes it difficult for people to see our priceless natural treasures also ends up in people’s lungs. This is both harmful and preventable and we urge the EPA to act quickly to solve this problem.”

“We can clear the air in our nation’s parks. In Colorado, a bipartisan coalition has already come together to find solutions for reducing dangerous haze in areas such as Rocky Mountain National Park,” said Environmental Defense Fund Attorney Pamela Campos. “It’s time to work together to clean up all of our nation’s most treasured areas.”

“Coal pollution is ruining vistas in southwestern National Parks and poisoning waterways that people and wildlife depend on,” said Taylor McKinnon with the Center for Biological Diversity. “It’s long past time to begin a new era of clean energy in the southwest—one that doesn’t include coal.”

These legal actions, while far-reaching and important in impact, represent only a portion of the Clean Air Act’s provisions that have yet to be fully implemented. In the coming months, EPA is expected to finalize new regulations under the “good neighbor” provision of the act to reduce interstate transport of pollution to states that are downwind, and stronger air quality standards for ozone. The agency is also expected to soon propose a utility toxics rule that addresses mercury and other pollutants from coal and oil fired utility boilers. These actions complement the actions that are being sought by these legal filings and represent a great opportunity for putting the right policies in place to clean the air, restore our national parks and improve public health.

To see photos and additional information on how regional haze impacts views in our parks and wilderness lands, go to: http://www.epa.gov/visibility/monitor.html

CONTACTS
Stephanie Kodish, National Parks Conservation Association
(865) 329-2424, skodish@npca.org
David Baron, Earthjustice
(202) 667-4500 ext. 203, dbaron@earthjustice.org
David Graham-Caso, Sierra Club
(213) 387-6528 ext. 214, david.grahamcaso@sierraclub.org
Pamela Campos, Environmental Defense Fund
720-205-2366, pcampos@edf.org
Jeremy Nichols, WildEarth Guardians
303-573-4898 ext. 1303, jnichols@wildearthguardians.org
Taylor McKinnon, Center for Biological Diversity
(928) 310-6713, tmckinnon@biologicaldiversity.org

Tucson protest drones and depleted uranium: Three arrested on Martin Luther King Day

THREE ARRESTED AT DAVIS­ MONTHAN AIR FORCE BASE DURING TUCSON ANTI-WAR PROTEST HONORING DR. KING'S BIRTHDAY
By Nuke Resister
http://www.nukeresister.org/

Photo: Martin Luther King, Jr., in Selma, Alabama.

Following Tucson's annual Martin Luther King, Jr. Day march on Monday, January 17, 10 people carried Dr. King's message to nearby Davis­ Monthan Air Force Base for a peace vigil to honor his legacy twenty years after the United States began its war against Iraq.
Three men ­ Dennis DuVall, John Heid, and Jean Boucher ­ walked into the base with messages for base personnel opposing depleted uranium munitions and armed drones.
They were stopped at the gate by military police who repeatedly asked the men to turn around and leave. When each of them declined, Tucson police were summoned. Duvall, Heid, and Boucher were arrested, taken into custody, and booked into the Pima County Jail on $185 bond, which they did not post.
Before walking onto base, Jean Boucher, a 46-year-old border educator and former mechanical engineer from Tucson, said, "I'm frustrated by the war-as-usual aspects of my country. President Obama's mandate, when he spoke last week in Tucson, that 'we should do everything we can to make sure this country lives up to our children's expectations' compels me to act. I do not believe that constant war lives up to the expectations of our nation's children."
Sixty-nine-year-old veteran Dennis DuVall, from Prescott, Arizona, went to Davis-Monthan Air Force Base to deliver a letter to Colonel Randy Inman. Inman is the newly installed commander of the 214th Reconnaissance Group, an Arizona Air National Guard unit that directs Predator drones on combat missions in Iraq and Afghanistan from control stations at Davis­ Monthan. DuVall's letter urged Col. Inman to end these military operations and stop bombing the people of Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. He wrote, "Blowing people apart with Hellfire missiles only unites people in outrage and incites more revenge, violence and retaliation. Drone air attacks do not prevent or eliminate terrorism. They are terrorism! ... As a veteran, and in the spirit of Martin Luther King, I would welcome the opportunity to enter into a dialog with you and your aircrews. As President Obama said in Tucson just a few days ago, 'Only an honest discourse and debate' can honor those who die in senseless acts of violence."
Tucsonan John Heid, a 56-year-old Quaker and Catholic Worker, also found Obama's challenge to be an added incentive for anti-war witness to honor the birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr. He explained, "Already two generations of U.S. and Iraqi children have grown up under war. What kind of legacy is this for the future generations? King's timeless vision summons us. Now Obama's recent summons 'to love' reinvigorates us. The children of the world are worthy of it. And they are waiting."
In their statement, the men also said, "Davis-Monthan has played a central role in the use of depleted uranium weapons in Iraq. Today we call upon General William M. Fraser III, Air Combat Command Leadership and Colonel John A. Cherry to comply with the recent United Nations mandate [1] to reveal the sites where the U.S. has fired depleted uranium shells in Iraq."
Their full statement and DuVall's letter appear below.
[Updates will be posted at http://www.nukeresister.org/].
[1] http://www.bandepleteduranium.org/en/a/364.html On December 8, 2010, 148 nations supported a United Nations General Assembly resolution calling on state users of depleted uranium weapons to reveal where the weapons have been fired when asked to do so by affected countries. The resolution was passed by a huge majority, with just four countries opposing the text. As with previous U.N. resolutions in 2007 and 2008, the U.K., U.S., Israel and France voted against.
Action Statement, January 17, 2011, Tucson, Arizona
The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy· returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.
- Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
An entire generation has grown up under the deep darkness of war. Across two decades thousands of U.S. and U.N. soldiers have been killed. Tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians. The wounded are innumerable. The cost immeasurable. The end nowhere in sight.
War is bipartisan. It knows no limits. And takes no sides. Everyone becomes its casualty. Its appetite insatiable. Its destruction total. War is perpetual. It cannot stop itself. "Only love can do that."
Today, our country commemorates the birth of Nobel Peace laureate Martin Luther King Jr. His words are as timely as the day they were first spoken. They echo across the decades. Clarion and compelling. Today, animated by Dr. King's words, we walk. Both on Tucson's public streets and where we are prohibited, at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base. We walk under the midday sun, pursuing an end to "a night devoid of stars."
We are mindful too that January 17 marks the 50th anniversary of President Dwight D. Eisenhower's farewell speech. We recall his indictment:
"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every missile fired signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. This is not a way of life at all in any true sense."
Davis-Monthan has played a central role in the use of depleted uranium weapons in Iraq. Today we call upon General William M. Fraser III, Air Combat Command Leadership and Colonel John A. Cherry to comply with the recent United Nations mandate to reveal the sites where the U.S. has fired depleted uranium shells in Iraq. Today we redouble our twenty year long call for an end to the war. Disarm and disclose!
With a spirit of nonviolence, we carry the U.N. resolution along with our own resolve in seeking the ways of peace to Davis-Monthan, at once both symbol and substance of our nation's commitment to the use of armed force, spending the hopes of our children. And Iraq's.
One step at a time we can usher in the light, ending this decades long darkness devoid of stars.
Letter Carried into Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, January 17, 2011
Dear Col. Inman:
At a time when Tucson is mourning senseless violence in its own community, we must also mourn the victims of the U. S drone attacks 7,000 miles away.
Tucson's complicity in the drone air war is another Tucson tragedy. The tragedy is that Arizona Air National Guard's 214th Predator Unit here at Davis-Monthan AFB is helping to murder hundreds of innocent people by remote control in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. By guiding "Hellfire" missiles to their targets in homes and villages, ANG's Predator Unit will typically kill 10-50 innocent people for each targeted victim. Even more tragically for the people of Arizona and aircrews of the 214th Predator Unit, international killing is a war crime! No U. S. court has ever ruled on the legality of "targeted assassinations" by drones.
Col. Inman, I urge you to end the military operations for the 214th Predator Unit and stop bombing the people of Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. Blowing people apart with Hellfire missiles only unites people in outrage and incites more revenge, violence and retaliation. Drone air attack do not prevent or eliminate terrorism. They are terrorism! I implore you to ground the 214th Predator Unit and use diplomacy and other nonviolent means for opposing terrorism. As a veteran, and in the spirit of Martin Luther King, I would welcome the opportunity to enter into a dialog with you and your aircrews.
As President Obama said in Tucson just a few days ago, "Only an honest discourse and debate" can honor those who die in senseless acts of violence.
Toward peace and a nonviolent world,
Dennis DuVall

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