Zapatistas Announce Intercontinental Summit

Zapatistas select Yaqui to host Intercontinental Summit
By Brenda Norrell
http://www.bsnorrell.blogspot.com/

RANCHO EL PENASCO, Sonora, Mexico – Indigenous Peoples from Mexico and the United States met with Subcomandante Marcos and Zapatista Comandantes to establish the Indigenous Intercontinental Conference for 2007.
The Intercontinental gathering will be held in the Yaqui community of Vicam in Rio Yaqui, Sonora, on the northwest coast, Oct. 11 – 14, 2007.
Comandante David, Mayan from Chiapas, welcomed the world’s Indigenous Peoples to the intercontinental gathering.
“At this moment, we want to let the Indigenous Peoples of Mexico, Canada, the United States, Central America, South America and the whole world know what we are planning,” Comandante David said in an interview here, speaking in Spanish.
“The object of this meeting is to meet one another and to come to know one another’s pains and sufferings. It is to share our experiences, because each tribe is different.”
Juan Chavez, Purepecha elder from Michoacan, said the conference would expose the treatment of Indigenous Peoples, organize resistance in defense of Mother Earth and ask the question, “What are we, as Indigenous Peoples, struggling for?”
“The answers will come in the gathering as we talk with one mind and one heart. Our brothers and sisters will be together, speaking to one another with one heart,” Chavez said in an interview.
The declaration for the Indigenous Intercontinental Conference, signed April 22, states that it has been 515 years since the invasion of ancient Indigenous territories and the onslaught of the war of conquest, spoils and capitalist exploitation.
Now, there is a new war of neoliberal extermination, which continues the destruction of Indigenous communities. Despite the long history of domination, Indigenous resistance has kept Indigenous communities alive and fighting for survival.
The Indigenous struggle was uplifted by the emergence of the EZLN, Zapatista Army of National Liberation, in the year of 1994.
The national governments of the Americas have always sought to divide Indigenous communities through the establishment of borders, reservations and legislation to fragment and neutralize Native efforts of autonomy.
However, with unity and knowledge, the struggle for liberation will be strengthened. This struggle must be known to the world, so that all people who are honest in the fight for democracy and freedom will become companions in the struggle, the declaration states.
Marcos, speaking of the need to arise in defense of Mother Earth, told Indigenous gathered here of his recent trip to support the fishing rights of the Cucapa and Kiliwa Peoples in Baja California, Mexico.
Marcos spoke of the assault on Indigenous Peoples in the Americas by corporations and governments. Holding an eagle feather given to him by the Kiliwa, Marcos said the eagle, like the Kiliwa, are at risk of becoming extinct.
Marcos held private meetings with Indigenous to organize the intercontinental conference and listen to concerns of Indigenous Peoples from different regions of Mexico and the United States.
Sharing concerns over environmental damage, hazardous dumps and the loss of languages, lands, traditions and culture were O’odham from Sonora, Yaqui from Rio Yaqui, Sonora, Mayo from Sinoloa and Raramuri from Chihuahua in Mexico. Coming from the United States were O’odham, O’otham, Navajo, Apache and Hopi.
At the heart of this gathering was the outdoor kitchen with two roaring fires, where Yaqui, O’odham and Mayo women prepared Sonoran tortillas and huge pots of soups, beef and beans. O’otham from Salt River in Arizona brought buffalo meat. Zapatista youths from Tucson, Ariz., brought chocolate cakes and others brought watermelons, papayas and pineapples.
The American Indian Movement provided security at the planning session, with AIM security guards around the clock at the entrance gate. Closer to the highway, there were up to a dozen vehicles of local and federal Mexican police and undercover officers.
Although Mexican police attempted to intimidate Indigenous Peoples by questioning them when they arrived, AIM security demanded the police halt the intimidation, which they did. While traveling in northwest Mexico, undercover police continuously followed Marcos and the Comandantes.
Marcos first came to Rancho el Penasco, south of Magdalena, in October of 2006, for the listening session with O’odham during the Other Campaign. Marcos and 10 Comandantes returned on April 8 enroute to the Cucapa Peace Camp to uphold fishing rights. Marcos and members of the Zapatista delegation returned for the Intercontinental summit planning session here April 21 –22.
With its flock of sheep and historical memorabilia, the biodiversity ranch, with a hotel/hostel and campground, has been made available to the Zapatistas by the owner.

En Espanol, Narco News:
http://www.narconews.com/Issue45/articulo2637.html

Reporter’s Notebook, the Zapatista Highway
http://www.bsnorrell.blogspot.com/

Free language translation online:
http://www.freetranslation.com/

Reporter's Notebook, The Zapatista Highway

Zapatistas in Sonora. Photo Brenda Norrell

Reporter's Notebook, The Zapatista Highway

By Brenda Norrell

April 23, 2007

RANCHO EL PENASCO, SONORA, Mexico -- The last thing you want to happen when you are returning from a Zapatista meeting with Subcomandante Marcos in Mexico, is for the van to die on the Mexican side of the border, and to have to push it back into the United States.

But that is what happened on our way back. With a great deal of laughter, Jose and Gregorio, joined by some good-hearted volunteers, pushed the van through U.S. immigration and we coasted into Nogales, Ariz.

It was the unexpected end to a wonderful weekend of the unexpected. It began in Tucson, Ariz., with the arrival of American Indian Movement security, O'otham from Salt River Pima and Gila River, Hopi-Zia Pueblo and Tohono O'odham. With the car packed with buffalo meat from Salt River Pima, we headed down, stopping in Sonora to buy watermelons.

At the Rancho Penasco biodiversity ranch south of Magdalena, there was a larger than usual buildup of undercover Mexican police, intelligence officers driving white and grey compact cars, at the entrance gate.

Arriving from the north and south were Indigenous from many tribes for the consultation with Subcomandante Marcos and Comandantes, to plan for the Indigenous Intercontinental Conference.

Cautious, I decided to spend the first night in a nearby hotel, so I could be in touch with the international press if there were problems with the Mexican police building up at the gate. As a news reporter staying alone at a hotel in Mexico, the worst thing that can happen is to look behind you in the hotel lobby and see a dozen cars of undercover Mexican police ready to check in at the same hotel. But that is what happened. I took an Extra Strength Tylenol and went to sleep on the mattress, which was actually a slab of granite.

Then, Saturday morning, something magical happened. Indigenous arrived from all over Arizona and northern and southern Mexico. Over the fire making tortillas, working 16 hours a day, were Yaqui women from Potam Pueblo, along with Tohono O'odham, Mayo and their friends from Sonora and Arizona. They cut buffalo meat, scrambled eggs, cut papayas and of course made large pots of coffee, washed enormous amounts of dishes and laughed.

At the gate, AIM security checked the identification of everyone who entered and halted the undercover Mexican police along the highway from intimidating people arriving.

Raramuri came from north central Mexico, Purepecha from Michoacan, Yaqui from Rio Yaqui Pueblos, Mayo from Sinoloa, O'odham from Sonora and Mayans from Chiapas. They were joined by San Carlos Apache, Navajo, Hopi, Salt River Pima, Gila River Pima and Tohono O'odham from Arizona.

From this gathering came a powerful force of love and joy. Crossing the border, the old van blew steam like a tired dragon as it limped back.

There was no surrender.

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--Brenda Norrell

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(Spanish) Declaration for the Indigenous Intercontinental Conference to be held in Vicam Pueblo in October, 2007:

http://www.encuentroindigena.org/

Zapatistas uphold Cucapa fishing rights on Colorado River Delta:

http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Apr07/Bacher21.htm

Return to homepage:

http://www.bsnorrell.blogspot.com/

Censorship of Indigenous Issues Increases

Censorship of Indigenous Issues Increases
Brenda Norrell
Human Rights Editor
U.N. OBSERVER & International Report
http://www.unobserver.com/layout5.php?id=3397&blz=2

Senecas Vote to Take Back NYS Thruway Land
http://www.wivb.com/Global/story.asp?s=6390296

For Immediate Release
Seneca Nation Takes On State of New York
(API)
Spring, 515 a.c. (after columbus; a.k.a. “April 19, 2007”)

http://www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/253942694

Unlike most “federally recognized Indian tribes” throughout the “United States”, the Seneca nation never acknowledged, accepted – and in fact rejected the illegal “1934 Indian Reorganization (IRA) Act.” The Seneca and other “Six Nations” Confederacy Nations and peoples claim the illegal act violates their Treaties (protected by Article VI of the United States Constitution which states “Treaties made with Indian Nations shall be the supreme law of the land, with the judges in every state bound thereby”).

The Seneca and Six Nations also expose Article 1, Section 2, Part 3 of the Constitution which prevents any “Indian” from paying taxes – a fact even most Americans fail to realize.

The Seneca believe the illegal 1934 act was an attempt to remove the female balance and representation they have always had within their nation governing and to place their nation and peoples under the authority of the president of the United States against their will.

The Seneca also reject the illegal 1924 “Indian Citizenship Act” which violates the Constitution, Seneca/u.s. Treaties, and attempts to make Seneca’s into “americans” as a means by u.s.government officials to steal and exploit Seneca resources and homelands.

The recently adopted 1988 “Genocide Convention Proclamation Act” by congress would also make violation of Seneca Treaties a violation of the crime of genocide – punishable by life in prison and a one million dollar fine, should a government or state official be charged and found guilty of the charges.

The unilateral act of congress in 1934 was an attempt to deny nationhood rights and prevents all Indigenous Red “Indian” Nations from the United Nations and international recognition by the community of world’s nations.

We demand the United States and their “state of New York” cease and desist from genocidal actions (forced taxation, illegal 1924 and 1934 acts against Seneca Nationhood, occupation of Indigenous lands, etc.) against the Seneca Nation and begin to once and for all honor each and every Treaty they made with the Seneca, thereby abiding by their own Constitution and laws.

We also demand the Seneca be recognized as an Indigenous Red Nation of Peoples and be allowed representation in the United Nations (UN) in New York City so that world peace can begin and the corrupt UN can be taken out of u.s. and corporation control and placed with the nations of the world – its supposed intention.
Scott C. Barta
www.1851Treaty.com


7 GENERATIONS, Native Perspectives On Caring For The Earth
"Sustaining Communities that Care for the Earth"
A lecture by Dr. Joseph Suina, Professor Emeritus of Education at the University of New Mexico and the former Governor of Cochiti Pueblo, NM.Saturday, April 21st, 7:00 p.m. University of Arizona Campus, CESL Auditorium (Center for English As A Second Language)1100 E James E. Rogers Way,Adjacent to and NE of AZ State MuseumFree and Open to the Public, sponsored by:Amerind FoundationTucson Audubon SocietySky Island AllianceUniversity of Arizona Department of AnthropologyFor more information please contact the Amerind Foundation at 520.586.3666 or amerind@amerind.org

Honor the Earth Concert with Indigo Girls in Flagstaff Calls for Safe Energy on Native Lands

On Tuesday night, May 22nd, the Grammy Award winning folk-rock duo, Indigo Girls (Amy Ray and Emily Saliers), will take the stage at the Pine Mountain Amphitheater in Flag staff for a special night of music with a message. The concert, entitled Honor the Earth, is a benefit designed to lend support to the Just Transition Coalition and their work to herald in a new, safe energy economy, one based on the vast renewable energy potential of Native lands. “We are excited to come and play in the Southwest - it's been too long. The grassroots organizing in this region is compelling and inspiring. In the midst of such a destructive energy paradigm, Native communities are working to affect positive change and provide an alternative,” said Indigo Girl Amy Ray.

“We understand that it will take all of us to fix the bind we are in. Not only do we want to do away with dirty forms of energy that exploit the land and its peoples, but also more than anything, we want to support a new plan that creates a vital economy for this region based on clean, renewable energy.”

“The tremendous work of the Just Transition Coalition to change the dynamics of energy development away from a reliance on fossil fuels and towards a renewable future offers a vital and positive vision for all of Indian country, and all of America,” said Winona LaDuke, Director of the Native environmental group Honor the Earth, which is sponsoring the concert.

The Just Transition Coalition emerged as a response to the closure of the Laughlin, Nevada Mohave Generating Station, dubbed the dirtiest coal plant in the west. In 1999, the Grand Canyon Trust, Sierra Club and other groups filed a lawsuit against Mohave’s primary owner, Southern California Edison (SCE), for Clean Air Act violations. That lawsuit resulted in a decree for SCE to retrofit Mohave or shut down by the end of 2005. The plant closed.

Navajo and Hopi communities have been hit hard economically by Mohave’s closure due to lost coal and water royalties, and lost jobs. The Just Transition Coalition’s plan is to replace lost revenues and employment by developing reservation-based renewable energy financed by pollution credits from Mohave’s closure.

When Mohave shut down, the plant stopped emitting over 40,000 tons of sulfur dioxide a year. Mohave owners can sell these allowances as pollution credits to other utilities that need them. Last year, because of the Just Transition Coalition’s work, the California Public Utility Commission required Southern California Edison to establish a separate account to track revenues from the sale of Mohave sulfur credits, which are estimated to be $20 million a year.

The Just Transition Coalition’s plan gives the California Public Utilities Commission an opportunity to restore some justice to the Navajo and Hopi communities and, at the same time, help California meet its renewable energy portfolio through the purchase of clean, tribally-produced energy.

For decades, cheap electricity for Californians came at the expense of Navajo and Hopi people, water and land. Mohave sourced all of its coal from the Peabody mine at Black Mesa. Peabody drew over 3 million gallons of water a day from the Navajo aquifer, which runs below Black Mesa, in order to pump coal through a 273-mile slurry that fed Mohave. As a result, wells and ancient springs have run dry, and cracks and fissures have appeared across Black Mesa, threatening the millennium old cultures of the Hopi and Dine that depend so heavily upon the aquifer for religious, cultural and day-to-day use.

“Energy does not have to come at the expense of a people’s ecosystem and culture,” LaDuke said, referring to the adverse impacts of energy exploitation on Navajo and Hopi communities. “We have a choice. We can either combust ourselves into oblivion or invest in renewable technologies that are culturally-based and sustainable.”

Funding from the Indigo Girls benefit concert will specifically support grassroots Native groups in the Just Transition Coalition, such as the Black Mesa Water Coalition, a group of young Navajo and Hopi activists. Enei Begaye, Executive Director of Black Mesa Water Coalition, states, “We have been a part of the Just Transition Campaign from the beginning because we believe this is a real plan for building wind and solar energy projects that will benefit Navajo and Hopi people as well as all other people around us. With this plan, our local tribal communities are leading the nation in developing a sustainable future!”

Outside of Black Mesa Water Coalition, other Just Transition members include Sierra Club, Grand Canyon Trust, Native Movement, Indigenous Environmental Network, To-Nizhoni Ani, Apollo Alliance, and Honor the Earth.

Indigo Girls will perform a show Monday night, May 21, at the Phil L. Thomas Performing Arts Center in Shiprock to benefit Navajo groups working to stop the Desert Rock coal plant.

For More Information:
Winona LaDuke, Honor the Earth, 612-879-7529 or
Andy Bessler
Sierra Club's Environmental Partnership Program
P.O. Box 38
Flagstaff , AZ 86002
928-774-6103
fax 774-6138
cell 928-380-7808

Natives Challenge Oil Drilling in Arctic

April 17, 2007

Native and Conservation Groups Challenge Oil Drilling in Arctic Ocean

FAIRBANKS , AK -A Native group and five conservation organizations filed challenges to the Bush administration's recent decision to allow Shell Offshore Inc. to drill several oil and gas exploration wells in the Beaufort Sea beginning in June 2007. Despite the threat oil drilling poses to the sensitive Arctic ecosystem, the federal Mineral Management Service (MMS) approved the plan through a rushed process without fully analyzing the potential impacts, and without conducting a public process under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). MMS flat out refused, for example, to consider the previously acknowledged potential for an accidental spill of crude oil.

”Given the resources at stake and the potentially devastating effects this drilling could have on bowhead whales, seals, birds and fish, it is unacceptable for the government to rush this through without a thorough public review of the impacts. The subsistence rights of the communities are being ignored and Shell's plans will violate their rights,” said Faith Gemmill of REDOIL (Resisting Environmental Destruction on Indigenous Lands). REDOIL members living in the villages of Nuiqsut, Kaktovik, and Barrow depend on the Beaufort Sea for their livelihood. “Why did MMS disregard this?”

"As a mother and a grandmother, I am concerned that the Arctic Inupiat whaling culture is at risk because the MMS insists rushing ahead with offshore oil plans. The government of the people, in helping the industry drill for oil at all costs, is disregarding the future of the Arctic people. They are doing this with an outdated Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) and without proper input from the public. The Arctic community revolves around the whaling way of life; there is not one facet of time in the Arctic that does not concern the catching of the whale. Considering the spills, its rushed process did not include a full analysis of the significant harms that can be caused by routine drilling operations in the Arctic environment. The drilling involves two massive drill ships accompanied by ice breakers, support vessels, and air support. This level of industrial activity in the Beaufort threatens the endangered bowhead whale. Considering the movement of the ocean ice, there is too big of a risk that an oil spill will occur, therefore creating a risk of destroying the Inupiat culture" states Doreen Simmonds, Inupiat resident of Barrow and REDOIL member.

Not only did MMS completely fail to analyze potentially devastating effects of Shell’s activities on polar bears and birds, including threatened stellers and spectacled eiders. Additionally, the constant air traffic associated with drilling can disturb caribou and interfere with the subsistence hunt.

"I am an Inupiat hunter and whaler. Due to the fact that there is potential for catastrophic results from Shell's activities on our subsistence livelihood, my people are very concerned about the plans that MMS agreed to without any public input, the Environmental Assessment (EA) was inadequate, and by law under NEPA-an EIS is required. There is a great lack of adequate spill response strategies in Shell's proposed plans, as well as the fact that no tests have been done in Arctic ice to provide data about toxic spills in our ocean and no answers provided when we ask how long would the toxins remain if spilled? All of our subsistence resources will be impacted from land to sea- from the caribou to the whale. Why are we given less voice than other peoples in the lower 48-where offshore plans have been cancelled due to the public outcry?," states Robert Thompson, Inupiat Resident of Kaktovik and REDOIL member.
"Clearly some folks in Washington fail to realize that what happens in the Beaufort Sea - where the government says Shell can drill - is 100 percent interdependent with what happens in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. If oil gets into the Beaufort Sea - animals in the Refuge will suffer. That's not acceptable, and it defeats the purpose of having a Wildlife Refuge at all, frankly," Chuck Clusen, Senior Policy Analyst at the Natural Resources Defense Council said.

The groups are also concerned about impacts of the drilling plan on sensitive areas like the nearby Coastal Plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. "Off-shore oil and gas activity creates a huge web of impacts not only limited to open-water. With daily helicopter flights, increased infrastructure on and off-land, stress to marine and terrestrial life from harmful seismic and other damaging exploration methods, and no proven methods for safe and effective clean up of an oil-spill disaster in arctic conditions, off-shore oil and gas activity in the Arctic Ocean is a serious threat to America's entire arctic coast line, and critical areas like the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge," said Betsy Goll, Arctic Environmental Justice Program Director of Alaska Wilderness League.

This ill-conceived drilling plan is just another illustration of this administration's rush to develop oil throughout the Arctic without regard to the needs of sensitive wildlife species and indigenous subsistence users. "Unfortunately, disregard for the significant impacts of oil development to endangered whales, critical habitats, and cultural sovereignty are standard protocol in the oil industry these days," said Whit Sheard, Alaska Program Director for Pacific Environment. "Shell's Sakhalin II in the Russian North Pacific has become one of the most controversial offshore drilling projects in the world and is a painful preview of what's coming to our Arctic coastline."

"In its rush to approve operations this year, MMS failed to meet its obligations under the law to take a hard look at all the impacts of oil drilling in this sensitive environment and on the people who depend on it," said Deirdre McDonnell, Staff Attorney at Earthjustice. "We filed these challenges to force the agency follow the law and involve the public in its decisions."The challenges were filed by the non-profit law firm Earthjustice with the Interior Board of Land Appeals and the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals on behalf of REDOIL, Sierra
Club, Center for Biological Diversity, NRDC, Alaska Wilderness League, and Pacific Environment.
Contacts:Faith Gemmill, REDOIL (907) 750-0188Robert Thompson, Inupiat (907) 640-6119Doreen Simmonds, Inupiat (907) 852-2554Betsy Goll, Alaska Wilderness League (907) 830-0184
Whit Sheard, Pacific Environment (907) 277-1029
Deirdre McDonnell, Earthjustice (907) 586-2751
Julia Bovey, NRDC (202) 289-2420