Indigenous Peoples and Human Rights

November 27, 2008

Black Friday protest of Emeryville Shellmound desecration

By Brenda Norrell
Censored News

SAN FRANCISCO -- Morning Star Gali said Shellmound Walkers will protest the Emeryville shopping center built on Ohlone graves on Friday, Nov. 28. Friday is known as "Black Friday," the largest shopping day of the year.

"People are shopping on the graves of our ancestors," Gali said, as Native Americans departed from the Alcatraz Sunrise Ceremony on Thursday.

Shellmound Walkers will leave the Intertribal Friendship House in Oakland Friday morning and walk to Emeryville, across from San Francisco. The protest will be at Shellmound Drive and Ohlone Way in Emeryville. The mock Shellmound there is "very disrepectful," she said

Gali said the walkers message to shoppers on Black Friday is, "Don't shop on our graves. Don't continue to desecrate these burial sites."

Listen to today's brief interviews, conducted after the Alcatraz Sunrise Gathering
Morning Star, audio one, Shellmound history

http://censored-news.blogspot.com/2008/11/listen-morning-start-shellmound-walkers.html

Morning Star, audio two, Shellmound protest in Emeryville
http://censored-news.blogspot.com/2008/11/audio-morning-star-shellmound-protest.html
Photo Brenda Norrell

Long Walkers at Intertribal Friendship House

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By Brenda Norrell
OAKLAND, Calif. -- Long Walkers from the northern route 2008 at the Intertribal Friendship House in Oakland on Thursday, after the Alcatraz Sunrise Gathering: Paul, Tomas, Sage, Shaleen and Aislyn. The five month walk began in February of 2008 at Alcatraz and concluded in Washington D.C. in July 2008. Some of the Long Walkers are now on the Shellmound Walk, which will protest the desecration of the Ohlone Shellmounds. A shopping center in Emeryville was constructed on Ohlone graves. The protest on Friday comes as the Shellmound Walkers conclude a two week walk. Photos Brenda Norrell

Mohawk Nation News: Is this Palestine or soon-to-be-Ongwehonwe communities

DID YOU VISIT YOUR RELATIVES TODAY? IS THIS PALESTINE OR SOON-TO-BE-ONGWEHONWE COMMUNITIES?

MOHAWK NATION NEWS

No v. 25, 2008. It’s called “warehousing of surplus humanity." All humans are equal. No one can decide that we are surplus. The object is to remove the target people from existence. This is real, folks!

First, the territory of the targets is occupied. Their communities, work, education, finances and colonial apparatus are controlled by the outside forces. The agenda is carried out by the bureaucrats and military. They are trained in oppression using non-lethal weaponry to stay within the bounds of the UN human rights conventions.

A fascist state needs an uneducated non-resisting people. To achieve this, lots of interference in every day life, schooling and economy are priorities. The youth are specially interfered with. Places of work, schools or commerce are not set up within the communities forcing them to work or attend school or shop outside.


The target group is usually isolated from anybody who could help them. They are demonized. There is a media blackout so that the perpetrators can “warehouse” other victims later on who will be unprepared and unable to defend themselves.

Eventually walls are put up around the targets with checkpoints everywhere. Food and essentials are stopped from going in and out. Electricity is turned off. Water is undrinkable. The bus breaks down. Detours are set up everywhere forcing them to spend hours to carry on their normal lives. “Flying [mobile] check points” are set up everywhere on a permanent or temporary basis. They can arrive and stay for minutes or hours at any place anytime. Anybody can be arrested for going to meetings to discuss their plight.

The situation gets worse. Blockages of the community become more often and more severe. Sometimes nothing goes in or out. Electricity is cut off more often so that raw sewage flows in the streets. Houses can’t be heated. Refrigerated food goes bad.

To instill fear schools, institutions, hospitals and even homes are threatened or burnt down or trashed. Teachers, workers and service providers stop giving services “to protest the blockades” or “dangers” they are forced to work in. Papers, books and communications are kept out or controlled. No one gets trained to be a doctor or professional which are necessities in such communities. 90% have no job. It comes to a point where some families can only send one child to school or out to work. Each family is allowed one member to have a job.

Because of the system of checkpoints and walls, workers and students have to leave home and live near schools or their place of work to avoid 4 hours a day of travel which normally takes 20 minutes.

The targets are constantly reminded they are being watched. The police or special army units walk into their homes, at 2:00 am, without knocking, ask for ID and then take them to the police station. They study the personality of the targets and look for collaborators or spies to work with them. They take unflattering pictures after the interrogation or torture so the targets look like criminals.

Nighttime is the worst time. The targets are kept awake. They could be taken away at any moment. Soldiers come inside, point guns and start beating anyone in their sight. They yell, “Give me your ID." People are forced outside without shoes or proper clothing. Hundreds of their community members are on their knees in the streets, sometimes until 3 am. Names are called out by the police on speakers. Some are taken away and interrogated for 5 hours and asked if they saw anyone throw stones or speak badly of them. This excuse is usually bogus.

There are 7 to 8 hour waits at the checkpoints. Students or workers can only go home once every 6 to 7 months to visit their family. They have to sneak there and sometimes have to hide out all night. They can’t use the main roads and are forced to go into the woods or mountains. All of these atrocities are video taped by the oppressors with cameras everywhere. These are for study, training, propaganda and their own perverted pleasure.

The students or workers have to leave 2 hours before class or work to go 5 minutes away. Everybody is fingerprinted at the checkpoints. All their bags are checked. Their iris is scanned and their biometric identification with all manner of information and misinformation is scanned.

Curfews are set up throughout the communities and towns. Mobile military checkpoints are put on tanks and jeeps with snipers watching over them. Communities, schools or institutions are closed down at will. The strategy is to make sure students cannot study or people cannot work, meet or move around. If they object, the children, women and men can be “detained” or beaten or even shot.

The main gates have high security electronic doors. There are “blind” checkpoints where military jeeps suddenly appear and demand IDs. People are forced to wait for minutes or hours. No one can complain during this examination. The police or military can invade the community or shoot and throw tear gas at anytime if they perceive a security threat. Anyone can be jailed. Young men are in put in prisons. Beautiful young girls are forced to take off all their clothes and crawl on their hands and knees through the checkpoints. They are made to eat food that is forbidden by their culture or they are allergic to.

Palestinians say this is how they are being treated by the Israelis. Canadian police and military are being sent to Israel for training on “crowd control." Many of these fascist tactics were used on us during the 1990 Mohawk Oka Crisis. 5,000 Canadian soldiers surrounded three of our communities [Kanehsatake, Kahnawake and Akwesasne] behind razor wire and fully armed troops. It was because we opposed the desecration of our burial and ceremonial sites. We were surrounded by walls of police, soldiers, armaments and checkpoints for 78 days. We had to wait for hours to get through them while suffering specially designed humiliation from the soldiers and police.

Canadian soldiers went into Mohawk homes purportedly looking of weapons. They smashed everything and even s--t on the floors. Many of us were arrested for no reason or for “political activities”, which is called “administrative detention."

Canada is no goody-goody! Canada collected much secret “information” about us. They refuse to disclose it because their misconceptions and misinterpretations could be challenged. Prime Minister Stephen Harper wants to change the laws so that the youth as young as 14 years old can be sent to adult prisons! This looks like it’s aimed at our Ongwehonwe youth.

How can such cruel conditions be created by members of a well- educated nation whose ancestors were subject to unspeakable abuse? Canada is bringing back these practices that originally came from here. The South Africans learned “apartheid” from Canada. Laws and policies were passed here to mistreat and demoralize us and cut down our population. The colonial strategy included genocide, the pass system and mental and moral abuse. Hitler praised Canada and the U.S. for their thoroughness in getting rid of the “Indian problem”. He copied the reservation and residential school systems for his concentration camps. Like Canada he tried to instill hopeless, to break down our spirit and to kill us off. It will never work. We will always be here on our land.

Karakwine & MNN Staff Mohawk Nation News www.mohawknationnews.com
www.mohawknationnews.com Katenies20@yahoo.com kahentinetha2@yahoo.com
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THE OTTAWA PLANNERS. Public Safety [Danger]: Minister Peter “Pumpkin-Eater-and-Trough-Licker” Van Loan; Suzanne “Hurts-to-be-Herself” Hurtubise DM 613- 991-2895; Myles “Away-from-Reality” Kirvan ADM 613- 990-2633, 613-949-0322; Chantal “Dirty-Fingers-in-Every-Pie” Bernier ADM Community Safety [Endangerment] and Partnerships (613) 993-4325; Scott “ODB” Broughton Sr ADM Emergency [Mis]Management and National [In]Security (613) 991-2820; Lynda “Useless-Forked-Tongued-Drone” Clairmont ADM, same as “ODB” (613) 990-4976; Daniel “Pepsi-and-May-West” Lavoie DG Communications (613) 990-2743; Elisabeth “Botox-from-Head-to-Toe” Nadeau ADM, Corporate Theft (613) 990-2615; Kristina “Fingers-Getting-Itchier-and-Itchier-to-push-the-Trigger” Namiesniowski ADM Strategic Policy (613) 949-6435; Eva “Nosey-Nit-Picker” Plunkett Inspector Field “General” of CSIS (613) 949-0675; Richard “Diarrhea-Mouth” Wex ADM Policing, Law Enforcement & Interoperability (613) 990-2703. The biggest safety risk for us Ongwehonwe is this ADM cabal of agents; Health Canada, partners with the US through the Canada-US Joint Radiological Response Plan, under the Federal Nuclear Emergency Plan, Foreign Affairs & International Trade Minister Lawrence “Chinese-Food-Glutton-at-Taxpyers-Expense” Cannon 613-992-5516 Fax 613-992-6802 Cannon.L@parl.gc.ca.

Western Shoshone Devastation and Destruction on Mount Tenabo

Contact: Carrie Dann, Western Shoshone grandmother, (775) 468-0230

Western Shoshone Grandmothers Day of Resistance –
Devastation and Destruction Witnessed
By Western Shoshone Defense Project

(November 27, 2008, Crescent Valley, Newe Sogobi (Nevada). Western Shoshone grandmothers and other Western Shoshone supporters gathered in solidarity yesterday to oppose the clear cutting of pinion trees at the spiritual Mount Tebano where Barrick Gold Company is planning one of the country’s largest open pit gold mines known as the Cortez Hills Expansion Project at the flank of the Mountain. Earlier this week, several Western Shoshone tribes and non-profit indigenous and environmental organizations have filed a restraining order in the federal District Court in Reno, NV, against the construction of the proposed mine site.

Unable to wait for the hearing that is scheduled for early next week and the mine’s continual slaughter of the pinion forest, the Western Shoshone grandmothers and supporters traveled to the site demanding Barrick to stop cutting the trees. As heavy machinery used to tear out the pinion trees came to halt upon the arrival of the Shoshones, Barrick Gold employees ignored the Shoshone’s demand that they cease the clear cutting. They witnessed piles of pinion and other trees strewn across the landscape and unfenced polluted ponds. “Today we went to a war zone, a war zone against the trees by the Barrick Gold Company. If people can eat or drink gold to sustain life, maybe we can call it a sacrifice of the life of trees, trees that gives us pine nuts and other medicinal uses,” stated Carrie Dann, Western Shoshone grandmother and Executive Director of the Western Shoshone Defense Project.

The Western Shoshone had lived in the area of Mount Tenabo since the beginning of time. Today it is the homelands to local Shoshones and continues to be the home to Shoshone creation stories, spirit life, medicinal foods and plants as well as a site for spiritual and ceremonial practices. Mount Tenabo is in the heart of Western Shoshone territory and is part of the ancestral lands that has been identified and recognized as Western Shoshone territory through the ratification of the Treaty of Ruby Valley between the Western Shoshone and the United States. “The mining company and the Bureau of Land Management are trespassing on the Western Shoshone treaty land and are destroying our mountains, trees, food, medicine and leaving dirty polluted water ponds that are wide open making it unsafe to the birds and animals. Why doesn’t the mining company go dig up the Vatican or the Mormon Tabernacle instead of Western Shoshone lands, I’m sure they will find gold there, because this is what you are doing to our mountains and trees, stated Mary McCloud, another Western Shoshone grandmother.
Western Shoshone Defense Project
So-Ho-Bi (South Fork) office:
775-744-2565 (fax and phone)
Main office:
P.O. Box 211308
Crescent Valley, NV 89821
Newe Sogobi
775-468-0230
775-468-0237 (fax)