Grassroots Natives end century of censorship in Indian country

The people bring an end to a century of media control and censorship

Six Nations shut down developer Jan. 15. Photo Wesley Elliott

By Brenda Norrell
Censored News
http://www.bsnorrell.blogspot.com

TUCSON -- Grassroots First Nations and Native Americans delivered a final blow to a century of censorship in Indian country this week, as they provided their own news coverage. The news that was once censored can be censored no more.

Dramatic photos from the Six Nations as they shut down a developer, and photos of First Nations lying on the railroad tracks during the rail blockade in Canada, combined with the voices of Navajos exposing the coal mines that are killing their people. A hidden video from No More Deaths volunteers exposed a US Border Patrol agent removing life saving aid on the Arizona border, where Border Patrol agents continue the abuse of Tohono O'odham and other Indigenous Peoples.

Grassroots people served a final smash to the last blocks of the wall of censorship.

Rail Blockade in Manitoba this week

The voices, actions and news coverage of the people tumbled down the media barricades which have kept the news in Indian country controlled by the media owners, their advertisers and politicians, for the past century.

In Canada, the fearlessness of First Nations marked a turning point, as trains were halted and traffic halted at border crossings. In sub-zero temperatures, Whapmagoostui First Nation youths began trekking 1,100 kilometers to Ottawa in solidarity with Idle No More.

This week, the American Indian Movement in Michigan helped shut down the Detroit border bridge, following an earlier march by thousands of Mohawks and other First Nations through the Akwesasne and Cornwall border crossing which closed the border for five hours.

Kahentinetha of Mohawk Nation News wrote,  "Canada is the third biggest country in the world. The oligarchs cannot make war without our resources. The shareholders of the country corporations illegally sell our raw materials to each other."

Gitwangak Warriors Rail Blockade on Tuesday

Terrance Nelson, First Nation Roseau River Ojibway, said, after this week's rail blockade, "We can stop all trains in Canada if we had to. If we are forced to do this, our slogan will be Not one toothpick."

Nelson said that today, Saturday, Jan. 19, the people would call on Mother Earth and sing the song of the Dakota 38 who were hanged in Minnesota.

Leonard Peltier, imprisoned, issued a statement supporting Idle No More and Attawapiskat First Nation Chief Theresa Spence. "If we don’t have healthy water, healthy air, healthy food, and healthy children we will not have a healthy future. That is the law," Peltier said.

On Pine Ridge, Lakotas, Dakotas and supporters organized the "Warrior Up Resistance Tour," which begins Sunday night, Jan. 20, at 6 pm on Pine Ridge in South Dakota. Olowan Martinez, Lakota activist, Waziyatawin, Dakota scholar and activist, T.R. McKenzie, Deep Green Resistance and Latino Activist and Queen Sacheen, Coastal Salish activist will be joined by the Savage Family, Indigenous Hip Hop, at the Billy Mills Center.

Youths trekking to Ottawa Photo: Eli

On the Navajo Nation, Robyn Jackson is among the young Dine' speaking out against the three power plants on the Navajo Nation, with the coal mines and poisoning ash ponds that are poisoning and killing the people.

"This is our home. This is our land, our air and our water. As our stories explain, we were put here by the Holy People. We were told that this would be our home to take care of," said Jackson, the daughter of Dine' environmental activist Leroy Jackson, found dead in 1993, as he struggled to protect the old growth forests on Navajoland.

Navajo and Hopi youths in Flagstaff, Arizona, continued their cutting edge news coverage of efforts to protect sacred San Francisco Peaks from the sewage snow which began blowing at Arizona Snowbowl. Native Americans and global activists continued to push for a global boycott of Arizona Snowbowl ski resort.

Grassroots radio online carried the message of Dine' Bidziil, "One mind, one voice, and one prayer," and an interview with Dine' Norman Patrick Brown, preceding the gathering on Saturday, Jan. 19, in Window Rock on the Navajo Nation.

The humanitarian aid organization No More Deaths released a hidden video of a US Border Patrol agent removing blankets and food left for migrants at Arivaca, as temperatures dropped below freezing and to all time lows.

Hidden video

The latest hidden video from the Arizona border comes after another hidden camera exposed a US Border Patrol agent destroying life saving water on the Arizona border. In October in Nogales, Arizona, a US Border Patrol agent fired through the international border and repeatedly pummeled a Mexican teen with bullets, after someone threw rocks at the agent. Sixteen-year-old Jose Antonio Elena Rodriguez was murdered. 

On the Tohono O'odham Nation, the US Border Patrol continues to abuse, beat, and spy on O'odham, as the US Border Patrol seizes tribal land in Pisinemo District for a massive US Border Patrol complex. The US is constructing more spy towers on O'odham land, as agents point spy cameras at O'odham homes. Tohono O'odham human rights activists say the Tohono O'odham elected government has been coopted by the US, and joins with the US Border Patrol to target and stalk O'odham human rights activists. 

Meanwhile Arizona Border Patrol agents continue to be arrested for transporting drugs across the border and aiding cartels as "spotters" or lookouts.
More:
Six Nations shuts down developer
http://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2013/01/photos-six-nations-shuts-down-developer.html
Whapmagoostui First Nation youth trekking to Ottawa
http://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2013/01/whapmagoostui-first-nation-youth-are.html
Terrance Nelson 'We can stop all trains'
http://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2013/01/terrance-nelson-we-can-stop-all-trains.html
Warrior Up Resistance Tour Pine Ridge
http://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2013/01/warrior-up-resistance-tour-pine-ridge.html
Mohawk Nation News
http://www.mohawknationnews.com
Michigan AIM helps shut down Detroit bridge
http://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2013/01/photos-aim-of-michigan-helped-shut-down.html
Leonard Peltier's statement on Idle No More
http://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2013/01/leonard-peltiers-statement-on-idle-no.html
Calling on Mother Earth, prayers today of Dakotas
http://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2013/01/calling-on-mother-earth-prayers-and.html
Hidden Camera, Border Patrol removes blankets and food in freezing temps
http://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2013/01/hidden-camera-border-patrol-removes.html
Photos of First Nation rail blockades this week
http://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2013/01/rail-blockades-underway-across-canada.html
Dine' Bidziil, One mind, one voice, one prayer
http://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2013/01/dine-bidziil-one-mind-one-voice-one.html
Statement of Gitwangak Warriors on CN Rail Blockade
http://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2013/01/gitwangak-warriors-cn-rail-blockade.html
Indigenous Action Media
 http://www.indigenousaction.org/

Warrior Up Resistance Tour, Pine Ridge, Jan. 20, 2013

Warrior Up Resistance Tour
Jan 20, 2013 Billie Mills Hall
Pine Ridge, South Dakota, 6 pm
The Warrior Up Resistance Tour
Speakers and Musicians In Defense of Mother Earth
Who: Olowan Martinez – Lakota activist
Waziyatawin – Dakota scholar and activist
T.R. McKenzie – Deep Green Resistance and Latino Activist
Queen Sacheen- Coastal Salish Activist
Savage Family – Indigenous Hip Hop
Special Guest Speakers/Musicians
This tour will seek to bring knowledge to the people. It will tell the truth about this invader culture and its wholesale destruction of Mother Earth. In the end it will ask those in the audience if they will warrior up and fight back for Mother Earth. It will do this through speeches by people who are on the ground already fighting back and with Hip Hop music that promotes the same message.

Six Nations Shuts Down Developer, Video Photos

Equipment leaving from 2nd site shut down by Haudenosaunee Jan 2013

Haudenosaunee shutting down 2nd site.

Haudenosaunee deliver notice developer is shut down.

Photos by Wesley Elliott. Thank you for sharing with Censored News! 
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Six Nations, Ontario
Video published on Jan 18, 2013

Standing in the vicinity of Concession 3 Walpole and Cheapside Road, Haldimand County, Hazel Hill, board member of the Haudenosaunee Development Institute, describes how an Edmonton, Alberta based power corporation, Capital Power Corporation, known in Ontario as Capital Power GP Holdings Inc. and Capital Power L.P., has decided to ignore Native treaty rights in favour of the illegal construction of numerous wind turbines on Haudenosaunee land.
The HDI policies, as adopted in Council June 5, 2010, state:
We want the land that is ours. We are not interested in approving fraudulent dispossessions of the past. We are not interested in selling land. We want the Crown to keep its obligations to treaties, and ensure all Crown governments-federal, provincial and municipal-are partners in those obligations. We want an honourable relationship with Canada.
That relationship, however, must be based on the principles that were [set] in place when our original relationship with the Crown was created. That is the rule of law that we seek. It involves the first law of Canada-the law that Canada inherited from both France and Britain. It is the law of nations to respect the treaties, to not steal land, or take advantage of indigenous peoples by legal trickery. As the Supreme Court of Canada has frequently stated, where treaties are involved, the honour of the Crown is always at stake.
We seek to renew the existing relationship that we had with Crown prior to 1924. That relationship is symbolized by the Tehontatenentsonterontahkwa ("The thing by which they link arms") also known as the Silver Covenant Chain of Peace and Friendship. Our ancestors met repeatedly to repolish that chain, to renew its commitments, to reaffirm our friendship and to make sure that the future generations could live in peace, and allow the land to provide its bounty for the well-being of all the people. The Covenant Chain symbolizes our treaty relationship, also symbolized by Tekani Teyothata'tye Kaswenta (Two Row Wampum), which affirms the inherent sovereignty and distinctness of our governments. An essential part of the relationship is our commitment to resolve matters through good-faith negotiation between our governments, including consultation on any plans, which might affect the other government or its people. haudenosauneeconfederacy.com

'Idle No More' Round Dance New Mexico State Capitol

Jan 15, 2013 Photo Tina Garnanez

http://www.occupynewmexico.org/

Over 100 Native Americans, First Nations Canadians now residing in New Mexico, and non-native allies, including members of (un)Occupy Albuquerque, Occupy Santa Fe, and Occupy Taos, turned out despite freezing cold weather at the New Mexico State Capitol on Tuesday, January 15 to sing, drum, dance, pray and peacefully protest in solidarity with Chief Theresa Spence and what has now become the worldwide Idle No More movement for indigenous sovereignty and environmental justice. The 1/15 action coincided with opening day of the 2013 state legislative session at the Roundhouse, election of new House and Senate leadership, and Governor Martinez’s annual “State of the State” address. The sounds of prayer and protest were heard loud and clear on the other side of these doors (see image below) in the House chamber and gallery — where Gov. Martinez began her speech to a packed audience at about 2 pm, shortly after the conclusion of the Idle No More event. Note: So far we have not been able to confirm veracity of the rumor heard that noise from Idle No More was the cause for the hour-long delay of the Governor’s speech from 1 to 2 pm. This was the 9th documented Idle No More round dance to take place within New Mexico.