UPDATED: Peltier, 'My Life is My Sundance' Theater

Photo: Lakota actor Doug Foote in theater production, Leonard Peltier: "My Life Is My Sundance" in Boulder. (Photos by Keith and Dayna)
Slide show: http://www.slide.com/r/uNLGRS0wuT83pyBGFKdkH9KQ19zDR6F2?referrer=emcd
LPDC WEBSITE: http://www.leonardpeltier.net/

Contact for play: Producers Cathie and Paul Soderman: warriorartists@aol.com http://www.warriorartists.com/

.

UPDATE: Message from Harvey Arden

"Everyone's delighted this old whiteman will take Leonard's bullets. What a way to go!"

Responding to questions about the theater production, Harvey said:

"No, the play wasn't cancelled. It had 12 wonderful performances. It HAS been attacked by at least one FBI surrogate and remains unmentioned (as yet) in the national press, though was well-reviewed by press in Boulder & Denver when it played. We're hoping to take it on the road. It WAS mentioned in NDN journalist Brenda Norrell's new website CENSORED -- which features NDN subjects the corporate media conveniently ignore, as they've ignored Leonard for decades, except for an occasional hatchet job. There was, however, no cancelling or censoring of the production of MY LIFE IS MY SUN DANCE. Every performance brought audiences to tears, outrage & inspiration; I myself have never seen a theater audience more profoundly moved or shaken; sustained standing applause for Lakota actor Doug Foote's incandescent performance were powerful experiences in themselves. I doubt there's anything on Broadway today even remotely as moving as this play. Are there other theaters withthe grit and integrity to stage Cathie Quigley-Soderman's wondrous production? There's already an offer for a potential London production. We'll see. I'd rather see a major production here in the States touring every regional theater in the land. Leonard has a rare parole hearin in December \'08 (the last was in 1993, next--if needed--in 2017.). Pulitzer-Prize-winning (ha!) production of this amazing piece of theater could help win Leonard's freedom, just as Hurricane Carter's movie did for him. Leonard's 63rd birthday will be September 12; two weeks later I myself will turn 72. I have a dream: walking at Leonard's side as he walks out of prison a free man. If he's assassinated at that moment -- as some in e-mails to me have hopefully suggested will happen -- I would be honored to take the bullets for him. So would many tens of millions of other decent people around this indecent planet we've created. May Creator watch over the two of us -- and over the many many millions of us. Let decency reign. Free Leonard Peltier!"

--Harvey Arden

.

About Lakota actor Doug Foote

http://www.indianz.com/

Doug Foote who is Lakota from the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation in South Dakota, plays the lead in the Theatre 13 production. It's his first speaking role and he feels honored to fill the shoes of the activist.
"What has he done, and what he has fought for, I too have been through that," Foote told The Denver Rocky Mountain News. "I am very honored and humbled to play that part of Leonard Peltier."
Foote served a tour of duty in Iraq. He suffered a knee injury when an improvised explosive device went off. He's a fancy dancer and a drummer who hopes to return to his tribe to work as a youth counselor.
Foote is part of an all-Native cast for "My Life Is My Sun Dance." The play is set inside Peltier's prison cell, where he is serving two life terms for the June 1975 murders of two FBI agents on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota.
Get the Story:Actor feels honor taking Peltier role (The Denver Rocky Mountain News 3/15)Username: indianz@indianz.com, Password: indianz

Seven Days (The Colorado Springs Independent 3/15)

.

Special thanks to Steph for permisssion to publish this review:

Transcendent Magic:
The world premiere of "My Life Is My Sun Dance",
A play written by Leonard Peltier with Harvey Arden

© by Stephanie M. Schwartz, Freelance Writer email: SilvrDrach@Gmail.com
Member, Native American Journalists Association (NAJA)
Photos © Keith Rabin, Evergreen Colorado March 2007

Boulder, Colorado March 16, 2007

Live theater can be magic. The goal of actors and directors is to perfect illusion onstage so as to transport the audience into their world; to become one with them, to care about them. Those moments are sometimes rare but always beautiful. The illusion of theater, perfected as an art, becomes true magic.

Last night, in a small blackbox theater on an upper floor of the Boulder [Colorado] Museum of Contemporary Art, an audience of ab My Life Is My Sun Dance, was a book published in 1999 by the Native American political prisoner, Leonard Peltier, with Harvey Arden as his editor. It is a collection of Peltier’s essays, poems, and reflections on his life and his work from within prison walls, his love for his People and cultural traditions, and his understanding that through forgiveness, through “forgiving the unforgivable”, comes healing; that forgiveness and fair treatment is the real power within each person.

Peltier’s words were originally adapted to solo readings by his editor, devoted friend and supporter, Harvey Arden. Now, in 2007 and ever-more timely, the words have been adapted to stage by Harvey Arden, Cathie Quigley-Soderman, and Doug Foote, directed by Quigley-Soderman, and produced by Warrior Artists Productions along with the Museum’s internal Theater 13. The production stars Lakota actor, Doug Foote, as Leonard Peltier, and features Doug Foote’s Good Feather Drum/Singers (Robert Ironshield, Nick Foote, and Mark Silentbear). Intermission speakers and singers vary by performance.

Those are the facts. But what the facts don’t depict was last night’s opening night performance. Transcendent magic. A performance so profound, so powerful, that it brought the audience to tear-flowing, stunned silence followed by a standing ovation. That 71 year old Harvey Arden stood during intermission, with a talking feather in his hand and tears in his eyes as he spoke authentically of the real power and tragedy of Leonard Peltier, was enough to touch the hearts of everyone there. Southern Cherokee singer JD Nash stopped in for one night, one intense song, giving his own searing message of choice and hope as a gift to the audience. Cast singer Mark Silentbear offered up his own composition, Peltier, as a haunting, evocative memory while the Good Feather Drum, singing and playing from time to time, brought the reality and the beauty of the Lakota Traditional Ways alive. Moreover, the “technicals” were superb with the so-brief historical film clips, back-lit shadow work, and the unique lighting techniques which brought attention and emphasis to the riveting words.

But it was Doug Foote, Wiyaka Waste, from the Standing Rock Lakota Reservation of South and North Dakota who created the greatest miracle. A champion Fancy Dancer and Ceremonial Singer, fluent in his Lakota language, not long back from being injured during two Tours of Duty in Iraq, Foote is new to lead-acting but obviously not new to pain, individual or collective or cultural. Doug Foote walked onto that stage but, as was witnessed by everyone there, a gripping, indisputable metamorphosis took place. As spirit flowed through him, the face, the body language, the soul became Leonard Peltier. Rarely does an actor obtain this level of transcendence. But Doug Foote not only managed it but merged the audience right along with him, into the prison cell, the life, into the heart, the song, and into the forgiveness of Leonard Peltier.

It all started during the time of the horrific 1970’s Reign of Terror on the Oglala Lakota Sioux Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota, an infamous time of great violence and mutual corruption between tribal officials and U.S. government employees. Two FBI agents were killed during a gun battle on Reservation land on which numerous Lakota men, women, and children were camped. A Lakota man was also killed but his death has never been investigated. Leonard Peltier was convicted of murdering the two FBI agents after everyone else was acquitted as having acted in self-defense. His was the sole conviction, a conviction based on untruth and hate, a vendetta.

The United States Courts have since admitted that Peltier’s conviction of murder was based on incomplete, misleading, withheld, and out-right fraudulent evidence. The U.S. Prosecutor has even conceded they do not know who actually shot the two FBI agents.

It was the Freedom of Information Act which allowed Peltier’s attorneys to discover the lies, manipulation, and deceit perpetrated in his original trial. Yet, a new trial was denied with the accusation that Peltier, by virtue of his presence at the time of the gun battle, had “aided and abetted” even though that was never defined as to how he might have aided and abetted anything. Clearly, the government’s “own” had been killed and someone must pay. Peltier didn’t shoot those FBI agents but he has sacrificed for it with his life’s years.

For 31 years, exactly one-half of his lifetime now, Peltier has been behind prison bars. Over and over, misconduct and malfeasance on the part of the legal system seems to have permeated every facet of Leonard Peltier's life in prison and his court case. Yet he remains a model prisoner, establishing numerous humanitarian projects within the prison system as well as back on the Pine Ridge Reservation.

The late Pope John Paul II, the Dalai Lama, Amnesty International, International Indian Treaty Council, the UN Commission on Human Rights, the UN High Commissioner on Human Rights, Sister Helen Prejean, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Coretta Scott King, Mikhail Gorbachev, Gloria Steinem, Wilma Mankiller, Rigoberta Menchu Tum, Robert Redford, Barbra Streisand, The Rev. Jesse Jackson, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, National Congress of American Indians, the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Center for Human Rights, the Human Rights Commission of Spain, the Belgian Parliament, the European Parliament, and a host of other notables all have worked, petitioned, and pleaded for his release.

Yet, still, the United States government bows to the pressure of vengeful FBI protests and demonstrations and allows this man, now 62 years old and in ill health, to continue to be unfairly imprisoned.

If the FBI had hoped to send a “message” to indigenous people with his imprisonment, they were successful. But it isn’t the message of fear they intended. In truth, for the American Indian Nations as well as the world at large, the continued imprisonment of Leonard Peltier has shown that the best of humanity is found right in himself, in the nobility of a spirit so confronted with the treachery and ugliness of life that it has transcended and become a beacon and message of hope, courage, and integrity for his People and for all people. Leonard Peltier has become the Nelson Mandela of America.

For more information on Leonard Peltier, visit the website of the Leonard Peltier Defense Committee, www.leonardpeltier.net
For more information on Harvey Arden, visit his website, www.haveyouthought.com
For more information on Warrior Artists Productions, visit their website at www.warriorartists.com Additional photos may be seen at www.SilvrDrach.homestead.com/Schwartz_2007_Mar_17.html
Stephanie M. Schwartz may be reached at SilvrDrach@Gmail.com
The written words of Stephanie M. Schwartz may be viewed at www.SilvrDrach.homestead.com

Canada's Military Plots War Crimes Against Indigenous People

CANADA’S MILITARY PLOTS “WAR CRIMES” AGAINST INDIGENOUS PEOPLE

Mohawk Nation News
March 27 2007

It looks like the psychotics from the U.S. have hijacked Canadian policy taking Canada back to medieval blood lust. A 250-page field manual on counterinsurgency is being put out by Canada's Department of National Defense DND for its soldiers and officers. Jon Elmer of Global Research wrote on March 25, 2007, about these new methods of fighting insurgents like the “Taliban”, the “Chechnyans” and the “Mohawk Warrior Society”. Wait a minute, that’s us!

Let’s not kid ourselves. The main purpose of an army is to shoot and kill. Does Canada ’s Parliament or the Canadian people know about this genocidal action that is being done in their name? Since when is it legal to make plans to attack us?

If the DND see us as foreign insurgents, they obviously recognize our independent nationality. So when did they attempt to negotiate with us on a nation-to-nation basis? Under international accords that Canada has signed all countries must resolve differences by diplomatic means. War and the use of weapons to dominate are illegal.

Why are weapons being pointed at us? We are defenseless. Why are we being compared with the Taliban who have rockets, artillery and modern weapons to blow up U.S. , Canadian and British tanks that are inches thick?

These infiltrators and hijackers of Canadian institutions are attempting to break the old treaties of peace between us. Our historic alliances are well documented.

Certain individuals acting on behalf of the multinational corporations and banks want to send in the military to kill us and complete the theft of our land. These are worth billions in real estate development and extraction of resources. People and resources are not the property of multinational corporations and banks. Slavery was declared illegal 150 years ago. They think every person who is different is an enemy that they can spy on, create problems for and eliminate.

Public Security Minister Stockwell Day and Prime Minister Stephen Harper have to be brought before the International Criminal Court in The Hague to be prosecuted for proposing war crimes against us. We want to take our complaints to the Mohawk Nation, to the Confederacy, to the Canadian people, to the United Nations and to the world.

We are being called “terrorists”. We see a lot of people being killed in Afganistan , Iraq and elsewhere. Are they planning to bring this kind of violence here?

We are always ready to talk with the colonial governments even when they put a gun to our heads. For 500 years we have extended our hand of friendship to them. We believe that people should live in peace and friendship and to look at people as equals. The majority of Canadians want to learn about peace from us and to understand democracy better. Canadian Governor General Michaelle Jean, where are you? You are evading your duties to us.

How did these misguided sickos manage to infiltrate the DND? They are not following the legal agenda set by the Canadian people. They want peace.

We are trying to stop the subversion of law and order, to get Canada to obey its own laws, agreements, promises, treaties, laws of nations and the Charter of the United Nations. We have a legitimate government. We are not a line of ducks to be shot at in the amusement park.

The manual says, “Insurgent wars are characterized by their tendency to be local and often popular movements, rather than the traditional military conflicts between states. This type of irregular warfare has confounded U.S. and NATO forces in Iraq and Afghanistan respectively” and “successes are few and far between”. The U.S. and Canadian armies need practice so they are bringing the same blood bath here. They want more chances to reach for their guns and riot gear to confront us. Does nothing embarrass them?

We can tell this use of us as targets has already started. A few months ago Tyendinaga was suddenly swarmed by a long line of army trucks filled with troops. They claimed to be lost! Yeh!

In 1939 Europe saw the result of excessive militarism. It caused a war in which over 60 million were killed. Now these kinds of men want to “goose step” into our communities. They’re mesmerized by the movies glamorizing mercenary killings and the “History Channel’s” portrayal of Hitler, the Nazis and the Fascists in Europe and the U. S.

Gen. David Petraeus is the original author of the manual being used to divert the Canadian military from its original protective role. He took command of U.S. forces in Iraq in early 2007. Did his methods work? No way! Violence breeds violence. Yeh! Now they’re trying to get out because they’re getting their asses kicked. The average U.S. citizen has had enough. They don’t want anybody killed on any side. This Svengali has seduced the gullible minds at DND who can apply his failed schemes in Canada and elsewhere.
Maj. D.J. Lambert, the lead author of the DND version, points out that “Canadian Forces are actively engaged in various levels of confrontation with at least three ongoing insurgencies -- in Afghanistan , in Haiti and with domestic indigenous organizations in Canada , such as the Mohawk Warrior Society”. Government policy has pushed our people into poverty, starvation and death in the streets of Winnipeg and other Canadian cities. Why are they going after the weak?
Canada calls us their “citizens” but treat us like foreign insurgents. They are working against the Supreme Court of Canada which has told them time and time again they must treat Indigenous People with respect. DND covert actions are undermining this relationship by treating us as enemies.
The manual states, “Indigenous resistance in Canada are insurgencies because they are animated by the goal of altering political relationships with both the Canadian government and at the local level -- within indigenous reservations themselves -- "through the threat of, or use of, violence". We want to maintain the true relationship between us and the colonist as one of friendship. This definition of insurgency is so broad that any democratic action qualifies. We have made no threat of violence against the Canadian state. ”Canadian Forces have been used by the federal government in high-profile land confrontations with indigenous communities and protestors in standoffs with the Mohawks of Kanehsatake in 1990 and with the Ojibway at Ipperwash in 1995”. According to the DND, the military were at Ipperwash. This means the sniper who killed Dudley George might have been a soldier and not an Ontario Provincial Policeman. Is this why Corporal Deane and two other OPP key witnesses died in mysterious car crashes when they were just about to appear as witnesses at the Ipperwash Inquiry?

In our peaceful demonstrations at Kanehsatake, Gustafsen, Ipperwash, Six Nations, Grassy Narrows , and other places our legal rights were violated. Some lost their lives. The inquiries prove that. We know they want to provoke a confrontation to justify killing us. We won’t give them that.

In the January 12th 2004 covert operation at Kanehsatake, the government sent in heavily armed mercenaries to knock out the citizens’ police commission. The disinformation campaign made the weapons look like a Mohawk arsenal when in fact they were all supplied by the federal government.

”Canadian generals such as Leslie, Chief of Staff Rick Hillier and retired Maj. Gen. Louis MacKenzie have been outspoken critics of the Canadian military as merely a neutral middle-power and "blue-helmeted" peacekeepers”. This is what the Canadian public wants! The Canadian army is preparing to become the aggressors delivering death sentences to defenseless civilians, including infants and children, without so much as a charge or trial. These overgrown school yard bullies are still trying to play “paint ball” except they want to kill real people. Why should Canadian taxpayers pay for these “recreatech parties”?

Canadian Forces will leave Afghanistan in February 2009. "Let's not kid ourselves," Gen. Leslie said. “The enormous resources invested by the government in the transformation of Canada 's armed forces are clearly not for Afghanistan alone. It is logical to expect that we will go somewhere fairly similar to Afghanistan and do much the same sort of activity." With the whole world trying to find peace, where does he expect to go?

Stockwell Day, the Minister of Public Security, is a Pentecostal minister. He is known as a “Pharisee”, one who poses as a minister. His proposal to kill off Indians is contrary to the beliefs he espouses. He studies the Bible just like George Bush and Condoleeza Rice, who are psychopaths, liars and killers. They have no human feelings. As soon as their prayers are over, they have no qualms about ordering their military machines to go on bloody rampages.

If they kill us, we want the whole world to know they carried out premeditated murder of innocent people. The war games have to stop. We have to look out for soldiers in our backyards or their overhead choppers. They’ve been caught sniffing around our communities. We are asking all peace loving people worldwide to send your protests about this war mongering and targeting of Indigenous people to the Canadian government [harper.s@parl.ca], the Governor General [gg@gc.ca], the Queen [press@royalcollection.org.uk] and the Canadian military [http://www.forces.gc.ca/].

Kahentinetha Horn
MNN Mohawk Nation News
http://us.f520.mail.yahoo.com/ym/Compose?To=Kahentinetha2@yahoo.com http://us.f520.mail.yahoo.com/ym/Compose?To=katenies20@yahoo.com
For updates, workshops, speakers, to sign up, go to
http://www.mohawknationnews.com/
Sign the Women Title Holders Petition.


-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


From the web:
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=ELM20070325&articleId=5175

Canada: Counterinsurgency Manual Shows Military's New Face
by Jon Elmer

Global Research, March 25, 2007

IPS - 2007-03-22
Email this article to a friend
Print this article

TORONTO, Mar 22 (IPS) - Following closely behind their counterparts in the United States and Britain, Canada's Department of National Defence is preparing a comprehensive counter-insurgency field manual for its soldiers and officers. The manual will guide Canadian Forces doctrine and training well into the future, according to a draft edition obtained by IPS. A 250-page publication, the field manual outlines the principles and practices of fighting the kind of insurgencies that have come to define warfare for the Western powers in the 21st century, in places like Chechnya, Afghanistan and Iraq. The manual has been two years in development and is scheduled for release later this year. In it, insurgent wars are characterised by their tendency to be local and often popular movements, rather than the traditional military conflicts between states. This type of irregular warfare has confounded U.S. and NATO forces in Iraq and Afghanistan respectively, where growing insurgencies have taken a bloody toll on local populations as well as Western troops, and signs of success are few and far between. The increased prominence of the doctrine was recently on display when Gen. David Petraeus, author of the United States Army and Marine Corps counter-insurgency field manual, took command of U.S. forces in Iraq in early 2007. While perhaps as relevant as ever, counter-insurgency is not new a phenomenon, as the Canadian manual notes up front. Indigenous forces battled the Roman Empire in present-day Germany, Scotland and the Middle East two millennia ago. The British Empire fought insurgencies in 19th-century Afghanistan, as did the French in Algeria after World War Two. The U.S. withdrew from Vietnam in 1975 after a vicious decade-long counter-insurgency war against Vietnamese guerrillas. Maj. D.J. Lambert, the Canadian director of army doctrine and lead author of the manual, has cited several examples of historic Canadian counter-insurgencies, including battles with George Washington's U.S. forces or the Northwest Rebellion led by Louis Riel and the Metis in 1885. Presently, while Canada's Afghanistan mission dominates the attention and resources of the military, according to the manual, Canadian Forces are actively engaged in various levels of confrontation with at least three ongoing insurgencies -- in Afghanistan, in Haiti, as well as with domestic indigenous organisations in Canada, such as the Mohawk Warrior Society. Despite its "specific and limited aims", the First Nations rebellions in Canada are nevertheless insurgencies because they are animated by the goal of altering political relationships with both the Canadian government and at the local level -- within indigenous reservations themselves -- "through the threat of, or use of, violence", the manual states. In recent years, Canadian Forces have been used by the federal government in high-profile land confrontations with indigenous communities and protestors, including lethal standoffs with the Mohawk community of Kanehsatake in the 1990 Oka Crisis and with the Ojibway community at Ipperwash in 1995. Canadian Forces have been present in the Haitian capital, Port-au-Prince, since before the ouster of popularly-elected President Jean Bertrand Aristide in a military coup in February 2004. According to the draft manual, Canadian Forces have been "conducting COIN [counter-insurgency] operations against the criminally-based insurgency in Haiti since early 2004." Since the attacks on New York and Washington in September 2001, Canadian Forces have played a key combat role in Afghanistan, both in the U.S.-led Operation Enduring Freedom and the recent NATO mission to quell the growing uprising against the Western-backed government of Hamid Karzai. Today in Afghanistan, Canadian Forces from the Royal Canadian Regiment in Gagetown, New Brunswick are engaged in NATO's first major offensive of the season against what are broadly labeled Taliban insurgents. Code named Operation Achilles, the mission is characterised by NATO and Canadian officials as a pre-emptive attack on Taliban forces in Helmand Province who are reportedly preparing to launch a "spring offensive" against the presence of foreign troops. Maj. Gen. Ton van Loon, NATO's commander in Southern Afghanistan, said in a statement this week that Operation Achilles is the largest combined NATO-Afghan mission to date, involving 4,500 NATO troops and upwards of 1,000 Afghan National Army forces at its peak. Meanwhile, an Afghanistan-focused policy group, the Senlis Council, released the "alarming" results of a survey this week which polled 17,000 people in southern and eastern Afghanistan. The survey showed that one-half of respondents believe the Western-led war will fail to defeat the Taliban, and 87 percent of respondents believed that the tactics used by the Western forces in dealing with the insurgency were "not right". "The results from the survey are extremely alarming because they indicate that the international community is in serious trouble in Afghanistan," Senlis Council president Norine MacDonald said in a statement Monday. "A return of the Taliban into power would have grave consequences for both the people of Afghanistan and for global security." The counter-insurgency manual is one part of a significant modernising and restructuring of the Canadian Forces that the DND is billing as an effort to create a more effective force in fighting for Canada's "national interests" in the post-Cold War global order. But the changes are not only doctrinal; the intensity of the combat in Afghanistan is something Canadians haven't seen since at least the 1950s, when Canadian Forces fought in Korea. "It is a fascinating time to be a Canadian soldier," Lt. Gen. Andrew Leslie, head of the army, told journalists at a recent policy briefing at the Fraser Institute, a conservative research institute in Vancouver. "We are no longer a blunt instrument relegated solely to watching from the sidelines or inter-positioning ourselves between two formerly warring factions," Leslie said. Canadian generals such as Leslie, Chief of Staff Rick Hillier and retired Maj. Gen. Louis MacKenzie have been outspoken critics of the accuracy and utility of the long-fostered national self-image of the Canadian military as a neutral middle-power and "blue-helmeted" peacekeeper. While the Canadian Forces commitment in Afghanistan is currently slated to end in February 2009, "Let's not kid ourselves," Gen. Leslie said. The enormous resources invested by the government in the transformation of Canada's armed forces are clearly not for Afghanistan alone, he said, adding: "It is logical to expect that we will go somewhere fairly similar to Afghanistan and do much the same sort of activity." This story is part one of a two-part series on the transformation of Canada's military and humanitarian missions. With additional reporting by Anthony Fenton in Vancouver.
Global Research Articles by Jon Elmer

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

BLACKWATER NORTH OPENS NEAR CHICAGO

Read more about the rise of Blackwater mercenaries from author Jeremy Scahill:

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&rlz=1T4ADBR_enUS214US214&q=Jeremy+Scahill+Blackwater+mercenaries


Blackwater opens training facility near Chicago
http://www.blackwaterusa.com/training/bwnorth.asp


Press release: Training Schedule Now Available for Blackwater North

Blackwater North is now offering training courses in Mount Carroll, IL.
Mount Carroll, IL (PRWEB) March 20, 2007 -- Blackwater USA's newest facility, Blackwater North, is announcing its 2007 training schedule and enrollment instructions through its website. Students are now able to access the website and review a full training schedule and enrollment forms.
The website is available through http://www.blackwaterusa.com/ under "training."
Blackwater North is a full service training center providing safe and realistic training environments on eighty acres consisting of seven flat ranges, a known distance range, an unknown distance range, a combat town range, a climbing/rappelling/shooting tower, a dismounted course, and a confidence course. Staffed by fully vetted and screened instructors with military and/or law enforcement expertise, Blackwater allows for the most comprehensive training for government, military, law enforcement, peace support operations, and qualified civilian customers.
Blackwater USA stands in support of security, peace, freedom, and democracy everywhere.
For more information, please visit http://www.blackwaterusa.com/ or call (815) 244-2900.

Western Shoshone welcomed at Indigenous Summit in Guatemala

Photo: Western Shoshone Larson Bill, documenting
gold mining in Western Shoshone territory, is among
Shoshone in the delegation to the Guatemala Summit.
Photo Brenda Norrell


Continental Indigenous Summit Abya Yala

Western Shoshone Nation Attends Historic Indigenous Gathering

Iximche , Guatemala - Arriving this morning in Guatemala City to attend the III Continental Indigenous Summit in Iximche, Western Shoshone National Council member Joe Kennedy established diplomatic precedent for the hemisphere by entering the Maya Territories on his Western Shoshone passport. The continental summit of Nations and Pueblos of the Indigenous Peoples of the continent Abya Yala (the Americas ) is now taking place at the sacred ceremonial precinct of Iximche, some 80 kilometers from Guatemala City . The event is being attended by indigenous delegations from Alaska to Argentina with over 2000 participants.Arriving in Iximche, Mr. Kennedy stated, "I feel good, and I feel honored that the Guatemalan authorities welcomed me into the country recognizing me as a Western Shoshone national. The Indigenous Peoples here are facing the same kind of issues we are facing in the north, and face the same threat by the multi-national corporations such as mining and environmental contamination. These affect the traditional foundation of our nations which is the land, the air, the water and spirituality."The III Continental Summit of Indigenous Nations and Pueblos of Abya Yala marks a new phase in the relationship between the nations of Indigenous Peoples and the government states of the Americas. One of the most telling examples of this fact is the presence of the minister of foreign relations for the Bolivian government, Mr. David Choquehuanca who on Monday addressed the inaugural session of the Summit Abya Yala in representation of President Evo Morales of Bolivia . President Morales himself is scheduled to arrive at the Summit Abya Yala on Friday to attend the official closure of the five day gathering. One of the specific proposals being brought forward to the summit is the delivery to Mr. Morales of an Archive of Treaties between the government states of the continent and the nations of Indigenous Peoples of Abya Yala."These treaties must be honored. They are supposed to be the supreme law of the land." said Mr. Kennedy, referring in particular to the Ruby Valley Treaty of 1863 which is the foundation of several legal victories by the Western Shoshone Nation in the international arena.The Western Shoshone won a victory on March 10, 2006 in a decision by the United Nations Committee for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) wherein the US government was urged to "freeze, desist, and stop actions being taken or threatened to be taken against the Western Shoshone peoples of the Western Shoshone Nation. The Western Shoshone delegation at the III Continental Indigenous Summit Abya Yala, which includes Western Shoshone members Sandy Dann and Larson Bill is to present before the summit on the implications of the CERD decision in terms of other Nations of Indigenous Peoples of the continent Abya Yala (the Americas )."The history of racial discrimination in terms of the relationship between our Indigenous Peoples and the government states has roots in the Doctrine of Discovery and the Papal Bull Inter Caetera of 1493," stated Mr. Kennedy. "It is time that the present governments step up to these historical injustices, and take action to stomp out all forms of racial discrimination."The Doctrine of Discovery is one of the items on the agenda of the continental issues to be addressed in Iximche, at the III Continental Indigenous Summit Abya Yala.###http://www.wsdp.org/
http://www.tonatierra.org
/http://www.iiicumbreabyayala.org/

Links to photos:
http://www.iiicumbreabyayala.org/galeria
http://www.servindi.org/archivo/2007/1869
http://picasaweb.google.com/marcbecker2/CumbreIndGena
http://www.tonatierra.org/

Rumsfeld torture case thrown out

Rumsfeld won't be prosecuted for torture: Prisoners were burned, shocked, locked in boxes:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070327/ap_on_go_ot/detainee_abuse_rumsfeld