Protectors ready to defend Winnemem Wintu ceremony May 25, 2012

War Dance underway: Protectors ready to defend Winnemem Wintu Coming of Age Ceremony

Update: Photos and videos: Winnemem Wintu close McCloud River during War Dance:
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2012/05/28/18714272.php
By Brenda Norrell
brendanorrell@gmail.com
Censored News
http://www.bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2012/05/protectors-ready-to-defend-winnemem.html

H’up Chonas (War Dance)
Thursday afternoon, May 24 – Sunday May 27, 2012
McCloud Bridge Campground on the McCloud River, Shasta-Trinity National Forest north of Redding, Calif.

The Winnemem Wintu H'up Chonas (War Dance) is underway and the protectors are present, ready to defend the right of the Winnemem Wintu to hold their Coming of Age Ceremony.
Winnemem Wintu said they are holding the War Dance, H’up Chonas "to protect our ceremony in the traditional way and to show we are willing to die to protect our women from harassment."
On the scene Friday night, Govinda of Earthcycles, said, "Every five hours or so they do another War Dance, young men dancing while the woman sing. I can hear the drum, and the dancing in the background, as the wind blows, across the water with the five or six mountain tops that surround us here."
With US surveillance from above by helicopter and plane, and park rangers on the ground, yesterday and today, supporters have arrived from across the northwest, representing a number of action organizations. They are prepared to defend and protect the right of Winnemem Wintu to carry out their Coming of Age Ceremony here.
The US Forest Service has refused the Winnemem Wintu a permit. The Coming of Age ceremony includes swimmming across the water and in past years, there has been harassment and vulgar behavior directed at those in ceremony by the boaters (see video below.)

Screen capture: Watch video below.

Regional Forester Randy Moore missed the May 1 deadline to respond to the request for a mandatory river closure for 16-year-old Marisa Sisk’s Coming of Age ceremony."

Please contact the Forest Service and let them know the world is watching:
Contact Randy Moore at:
 rmoore@fs.fed.us or 707-562-8737
Please keep your messages respectful and peaceful.
Here's the latest radio news reports from supporters at the scene:
http://www.radio4all.net   http://www.radio4all.net/responder.php/download/60271/67159/80629/?url=http://www.radio4all.net/files/govinda@earthcycles.net/1081-1-2012-05-24-garymckenty.mp3

http://www.radio4all.net/responder.php/download/60271/67159/80630/?url=http://www.radio4all.net/files/govinda@earthcycles.net/1081-1-2012-05-24-gary-theshift.mp3
Support and food needed:
http://www.bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2012/05/help-winnemem-wintu-protect-ceremonies.html
.

VIDEO:
http://www.youtube.com/winnememwintu

Mohawk John Kane on sovereignty and the UN agenda: 'We aren't jilted lovers'



John Kane, Mohawk, on sovereignty: "This isn't about a broken promise. We aren't jilted lovers."

By Brenda Norrell
Censored News
http://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2012/05/mohawk-john-kane-on-sovereignty-and-un.html

Amnesty International slammed the United Nations in its 2012 report for its failures, saying it ignores human rights when issues stand in the way of profit. The report comes after criticisms from Native Americans who say the recent UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Peoples focused on rhetoric and academia, while ignoring issues which threaten their survival.

Amnesty International said the UN is failing its purpose. “The language of human rights is adopted when it serves political or corporate agendas, and shelved when inconvenient or standing in the way of profit.”

During recent sessions for testimony to the UN Rapporteur on Indigenous Peoples in the US, Native Peoples said the process of testifying was so formal and expensive that it excluded most grassroots Native people.

Further, Native people questioned what will become of their testimony and whether it will simply be reduced to a short and meaningless summary and then filed away.

Ofelia Rivas, O'odham, said traditional and ceremonial O'odham elders were not invited or on the speakers list at the Tucson session. However, a non-O'odham, misusing a sacred name of the O'odham in the name of his organization, was on the speakers list.

Tucson is traditional O'odham territory.

Others questioned the paternalism of the United Nations.

John Kane, Mohawk and host of Lets Talk Native Pride radio, questioned the focus of the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, and the pattern of Natives asking the UN to recognize Indian treaties and sovereignty.

"We aren't jilted lovers," Kane said.

Kane said, "For weeks we have heard nothing but the UN this and the UN that; the DRIP (Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples), the "Special Rapporteur," the Permanent Forum. All for what? So we finally can have our issues, Native issues, heard by the WORLD, the international community, responsible nations. And what do we talk about? Access to sacred sites, a 500 year old decree by the Vatican and, of course, treaties."

"The single biggest problem on Native lands is poverty! All social ills come back to this. Can some of it be traced to the Discovery Doctrine or other means of stealing our lands? Sure. But today's genocidal policies are specifically about denying our own economic development."

Kane points out Native sovereignty was never surrendered.

"It is not a question of asking the international community to honor or recognize Native sovereignty. The question is where, when and how was there ever a legal or internationally recognizable transfer of our sovereignty to the US, Canada or anyone else. If we start with the premise that our sovereignty WAS recognized, the only way it could not STILL be is that if there was some legal act of subjugation. Let the US or Canada produce their treaty that establishes that transfer of authority. Our sovereignty is NOT a treaty right and it was not surrendered in one either.

"This isn't about a broken promise. We aren't jilted lovers. We are not begging for the international community to respect us or feel sorry for us. Our sovereignty is an internationally recognized authority to 'carry ourselves.' We aren't asking a favor of the world. It is the legal and moral obligation of other nations to acknowledge that America's 'Final Solution' has failed. We are still here and although it is argued that some of our distinction has faded (and how could it not have in light of US and Canadian policies?), our sovereign birthright has not." Read more: http://letstalknativepride.blogspot.com/

Meanwhile, the session of the UN Rapporteur in Tucson was held at the University of Arizona, which is boycotted by many Native Americans.

During the session, Rivas said she has boycotted the university because of its involvement in the development of spyware targeting Indigenous Peoples on the border.

San Carlos Apache Wendsler Nosie did attend the session, but pointed out when he testified that he had boycotted the university for 19 years. Nosie said the university had him arrested during protests to protect sacred Mount Graham from the construction of telescopes. After years of protests and court cases, the telescopes were put on the sacred mountain by a consortium headed by the University of Arizona and the Pope.

Others at the Tucson session questioned the sponsorship by the Ford Foundation, whose board members include a member of Goldman Sachs.

In its new report, Amnesty International also questioned the motives of the United Nations, pointing out opportunists and financial profiteers.

“In the last year it has all too often become clear that opportunistic alliances and financial interests have trumped human rights as global powers jockey for influence in the Middle East and North Africa,” said Salil Shetty.

“The language of human rights is adopted when it serves political or corporate agendas, and shelved when inconvenient or standing in the way of profit.”

Read Amnesty’s new report:

Amnesty 2012: No longer business as usual for tyranny and injustice: http://www.amnesty.org/en/news/report-2012-no-longer-business-usual-tyranny-and-injustice-2012-05-24
Watch John Kane television interview:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UDT-NpgoqjA&feature=youtu.be

Rising Tide and Indigenous: Shell harbinger of death



Photo by indyrikki

Rising Tide, First Nations and Inupiat confront Shell at annual general meeting at The Hague and in London: Halt poisoning Native people and the earth

By Rising Tide London
Posted at Censored News
http://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2012/05/rising-tide-and-indigenous-shell.html



Photo by indyrikki

LONDON -- At the Shell annual general meeting link at the Barbican the suits on the Shell board were given a 3 hour grilling, with questioners focusing attention on its environmental and human rights crimes around the world. Spread throughout the auditorium, hooded London Rising Tide and friends grim Shell reapers stood silently awaiting direction from the board toward their next appointment with Shell induced death and environmental destruction.
The grim figures stood motionless for almost an hour while Messrs Ollila and Vosser, Chairman and CEO, attempted to defend Shell's ravenous pursuit of profit above all else at the expense of:
-- The pristine Arctic, where drilling and probably spilling will begin in the summer;
-- The Canadian boreal forest, where Tar Sands "extraction" has increased by 100k barrels per day
-- The once beautiful fish spawning grounds of the Niger Delta, now clogged with a "Deepwater Horizon's" worth of oil every year
They listened intently to Vosser spouting that so-called "ethical company status" was "very close to my heart and we are driving sustainability." We all know where its being driven. Remember climate change?
Shell and melting glaciers
Climate change may not be a fashionable subject these days, but it’s already claiming 300,000 lives a year. Glaciers are disappearing, sea levels are rising and extreme weather is becoming more extreme. As temperatures rise, we’ll see more flooding, drought, disease, famine and war, creating hundreds of millions of refugees  and destroying entire ecosystems and species.
We can’t  afford to forget about climate change – or the fact that companies like Shell are at the heart of the problem and a shift to Fossil Fuel Gas and land grabbing biofuels isn't helping!
Meanwhile outside, many more Shell Grim Reapers managed to gain entry into the lobby before being ejected by what one shareholder inside referred to as "over the top security." There they met with Occupy Shell Oil coffin bearers who had formed a solemn procession with the corporate body of Shell from St.Pauls Cathedral to be laid to rest at the feet of a 6 degree Celcius global temperature rise this century.
There among the shareholders, city cops and many private security and corporate spies, the Shell Reapers handed out leaflets to inform of impending Shell devastation, clutching with their bony fingers a "Shell Greenwash" banner. Most  passersby were happy to receive a leaflet from the Shell Spectres, with some even keen to ask questions.
Indigenous confront Shell at The Hague with its devastation

Native delegation at The Hague
Photo by Ben Powless, Mohawk

A delegation from Indigenous peoples attended Shell’s main annual general meeting in The Hague, Netherlands. They detailed the massive human and ecological rights violations and economic devastation that Shell's operations have brought to local communities. The tar sands development in Alberta, Canada covers an area the size of England, with toxic lakes so huge they are visible from space, leaking poisons into the local water supply. The effects that tar sands  are having on local First Nations communities are devastating. Not only are indigenous livelihoods and futures being  destroyed, but communities on land where tar sands extraction has been imposed are experiencing disturbingly high rates of rare forms of cancer and auto-immune diseases.
Shell tarsands poisoning Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation
Eriel Deranger, community member and spokesperson for the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation (ACFN), Alberta – an Indigenous community residing downstream from tar sands operations and who are currently suing Shell for violating past agreements - stated, “Tar sands extraction projects on our traditional lands are being approved at a pace that is both irresponsible and irreparably destructive. People in the community of Fort Chipewyan? are genuinely afraid. Our food and water sources are contaminated, resulting in a fear of eating traditional foods and eroding the continuation of our cultural and subsistence lifestyles. Yet Shell plans to aggressively expand its activities, doubling production. The Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation is calling on Shell to meet its past agreements and halt expansion until our broader concerns about the cumulative impacts of tar sands operations are addressed.”
Aamjiwnaang most polluted place in North America
Ron Plain, from Aamjiwnaang First Nation, Ontario – which has been called ‘the most polluted place in North America’ by the National Geographic Society, and the ‘the most contaminated airshed in Canada’ by the World Health Organization due to its proximity to ‘Chemical Valley’ where Shell’s and other tar sands operators’ refineries are causing serious health and reproductive impacts – said,  “Aamjiwnaang is the first community in the world to experience birth ratios of 2 girls to 1 boy due to endocrine disruption from the pollution. This is the first step towards extinction. Shell have admitted that their current facility, which is located at the fenceline of Aamjiwnaang, ‘could not meet today’s environmental regulations or standards.’ But Shell’s proposal for a new facility within Aamjiwnaang territory was recently denied by Canada for a whole host of environmental, social and other reasons. The corporate response to that set-back was to build onto the antiquated facility the equipment needed to process more tar sands bitumen.”
Shell plans to drill in Arctic this summerRobert Thompson, Chairman of REDOIL and an Inupiat from Kaktovik, a village on the edge of the Arctic Ocean in Alaska, where Shell plans to drill offshore in Arctic waters this summer, said: “Shell plans to drill in the Arctic this summer without the proven technology or infrastructure to deal with inevitable spills. They have not demonstrated the ability to clean up spills within or from under the ice or during storms. Our culture depends on a clean ocean, and we have subsisted in this region for 12,000 years. We oppose Shell’s plans that have the potential to destroy the culture of our people and will further push the planet into irreversible climate change.”
Mohawk Ben Powless: Shell is a corporate criminalBen Powless, a Mohawk from Six Nations in Ontario, representing the Indigenous Environmental Network, said, “Not only have Shell revelled in being a climate criminal, they have also been exposed as fighting the European Union’s proposed Fuel Quality Directive, in collusion with the Canadian government. Their continued environmental destruction and violation of Indigenous rights across Canada, Alaska and Nigeria show that Shell needs to change their operations or face increasing protest and opposition across the world. Our organization is supporting an Indigenous-led campaign against Shell’s extreme energy projects to bring together frontline impacted communities.”

To find out more about the Canadian Indigenous Tar Sands Campaign, see:
http://ienearth.org/tarsands.html
So, what else can we do about Shell in London?
Apart from street corner Petrol Garage blockades we can wage war on corporate branding. Join us to help kick Shell-out Sponsorship = buying us off . Shell's sponsorship acts as a greenwashed blindfold to prevent us seeing the ravages of frontier oil extraction boundaries being pushed. When we challenge this, we strike a blow at Shell’s brand, chip away at its power and move towards the day when Big Oil – like Big Tobacco – is no longer seen as socially acceptable. As we once kicked the tobacco companies out of our cultural institutions we must now do the same to the oil industry.

London Rising Tide,
 c/o 62 Fieldgate Street, London E1 1ES UK;
tel: 07708 794665
www.londonrisingtide.org.uk
On Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/people/Rising-Tide-UK/515246801http://www.twitter.com/RisingTide_UK
www.risingtide.org.uk
www.artnotoil.org.uk

www.fossilfoolsday.org

Native protesters shut down Enbridge hearing in Ontario

Feb. 2012 Enbridge protest BC

Led by Six Nations community members, Enbridge Line 9 hearings disrupted, shut down for half a day

Press statement
Posted at Censored News
http://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2012/05/native-protesters-shut-down-enbridge.html
May 23, 2012

LONDON, Ontario -- Dozens of environmental justice activists led by Indigenous activists from Haudenosaunee successfully “mic checked” a stop to Enbridge Line 9 hearings in London early Wednesday morning. Members of the National Energy Board had travelled to London to hear presentations from major oil conglomerates as well as environmental NGOs. After successfully disrupting meeting, Haudenosaunee representatives explained that they had not been consulted about the pipeline plans, which would negatively impact their lands.

“We are not only fighting for our rights but yours too,” said grandmother and long time Indigenous activist Ruby Montour, after members of the board and lawyers from the oil companies left the presentation room. “They need to be fair with our people, with you, your ancestors and your children. The environment is going to pay big time if these pipelines rupture and they need to listen to our concerns. They need to speak to us, the real people who need to be spoken to, whose treaties have been broken. They forced us to go to school, they forced us to learn, and we learned so now we know when they are lying or cheating. Well, they can’t anymore. They can’t force things on our lands.”

Canadian pipeline company Enbridge Inc. is proposing the Line 9 Trailbreaker Pipeline to transport tar sands oil through some of the most important natural and cultural landscapes in eastern Canada.  Under the plan, Enbridge would pump corrosive tar sands oil – the dirtiest oil on the planet – through a pipeline that was built in 1975. Enbridge has taken the first step to implement this plan by recently filing a permit application with Canada’s National Energy Board.

“This project cannot go forward without the free, prior and informed consent of the Haudenosaunee who would be directly impacted by a pipeline rupture,” said Metis activist Sakihitowin Awasis who led the mic check that was repeated by over two dozen activists in the room. The Mic Check continued: “The people believe the NEB hearings are illegitimate, inaccessible and undemocratic”

“Pipelines have been stalled or stopped going westward through British Columbia, southwards through Texas (the Keystone XL) and are now being pushed eastward through Ontario. It will be met with similar resistance,” said organizer Toban Black outside the five star Hilton Hotel after the meeting was recessed.

Awasis was arrested by London police, held for over an hour and released with a trespass ticket.

The National Energy Board public hearing was shut down for half the day, after which only the press and the official intervenors were allowed to re-enter. After submissions from intervenors inside the room, the Board ruled that members of the public could re-enter if the intervenors vouched that the people coming in would not be disruptive.

Activists stayed outside and organized a People’s Hearing where statements were read by those gathered and others who had submitted their statements online http://peopleshearing2012.wordpress.com/line9/ .

For more information:
Wes Elliott, Six Nations - 519-757-5427
Toban Black, Rising Tide North America - 519-660-0872 (landline)
Kalin Stacey, Environmental Justice Ontario - 226-972-8497
http://peopleshearing2012.wordpress.com/line9/

Peoples Hearing

Mel Bazil’s statement

May 22, 2012

Hadi,
Our future here in Wet’suwet’en Territories are going to be 100% Pipeline and Offsetting Free. We do not support the following proposed or illegitimately approved pipelines (and their inevitable bitumen spills) to cross our territories: Apache Corporation’s Pacific Trails Pipeline, Endbridge’s Northern Gateway Project, Pembina Pipelines’ Dual Pipeline Project, and Kinder Morgan’s Transmountain Expansion and Reroute to Kitimat.
We do not see our people breaking the Natural Laws to promote Carbon, Boreal, or Biological Offsets so the destruction of others lands and waters is mitigated by false solutions. We say no to Offsetting! If Enbridge is planning to Offset their proposed RoW in our territories, we are educating our leaders regarding the falsity to the proposed solution that are Offsets and Carbon Markets.
We stand in solidarity with our neighbours in all directions who oppose all pipelines and who do not wish to see further destruction from Hydrofracturing and Tar Sands projects in the Horn River Basin and Lubicon Cree, Cold Lake, and Athabasca Dene Lands. We wish for a future of health for all peoples and pipelines and expanded oil and gas projects are not a part of that. We offer solidarity to all communities who are impacted by the proposal to reverse the flow of the decommissioned Trailbreaker Pipeline for the purpose of transporting bitumen and condensate to New Hampshire, Maine, Montreal, and the east coast.
We also say no to unwanted mining. We do not wish to see more oil and gas and military expansion being facilitated by mining for minerals that are not subscribed to by the peoples of these lands. Federal and Provincial Job strategy and civilization’s expansion are not welcomed in the face of global climate change, increasing health risks from ‘so-called-development’, and decreasing clean and healthy water sources.
It has been a long time coming, the vision of a world that does not seek to destroy and mitigate merely to continue with the destructive and short term world of civilized life in gluttonous cities and war torn histories. The vision of our world we seek involves Settlers and Indigenous Peoples minds bringing together a true relationship where construct laws can also reflect Natural Laws and conflicts are minimal and violence is stopped. The peaceful existence of our futures includes our taking back of our responsibilities to our future generations and our healthy world that no one can own, but can have a relationship with. Let’s do this! Good blessings to you all in your efforts and keep the faith strong!