Human Rights Training in Canada, where KI chiefs were imprisoned in 2008

KITCHENUHMAYKOOSIB INNINUWUG (KI) where six chiefs went to prison for defending the land from drilling

Human Rights Training for Indigenous Peoples, First Nations and Community Members“Using the United Nations system to defend Indigenous Peoples’ Human Rights and hold Countries Accountable”
August 25 – 27, 2008
Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug (KI) Nation, Ontario Canada
KI Community Hall


TRAINING TOPICS PRESENTERS INCLUDE:
• Overview of UN and OAS Human Rights • Ron Lameman (Beaver Lake Cree, Canada),Systems and opportunities for involvement Executive Director, Confederacy of Treaty 6 • Human rights mechanisms including the UN First Nations, IITC Board of Directors Committee on the Elimination of Racial • Francisco Cali (Mayan Nation, Guatemala), Discrimination, Human Rights Council, Member, UN Committee for the Elimination of Special Rapporteurs and Committees Racial Discrimination, IITC Board President • How to do a human rights complaints/urgent • Strategies for Implementing the UN  Ben Powless (Mohawk Nation, Canada),Environment, Subsistence/Food Sovereignty International Youth Representative and • Free, Prior and Informed Consent Activist Translation: Eno Chapman and Bruce Sakakeep
For more information contact:
Laura Calmwind, (416) 986-9856, laura@coo.org

http://www.kitchenuhmaykoosib.com/

Longest Walk in DC, photos by Morning Star Gali

Longest Walk in D.C. Photos by Morning Star Gali. Please double click to enlarge. More photos at: http://www.longestwalk.org/

Publishing Censored News

The uncensored online news revolution

By Brenda Norrell
Censored News
It has been hard to keep up with all the censored news lately, there's so much of it. It is good to see the Mohawk women speaking out, as Canada emerges as a forerunner in the violations of human rights and attacks on Indigenous Peoples. Four countries -- Canada, the United States, New Zealand and Australia -- failed to vote in favor of the U.N. Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. After the adoption of the Declaration, New Zealand police launched a brutal attack on the Maori leaders of the sovereignty movement. The abuses of Indigenous Peoples in all four countries span the centuries. In Australia, children were stolen, raped and disappeared. In Canada and the United States, children were tortured, raped and murdered in Canada's residential schools and U.S. boarding schools.
But the brutality is not restricted to history. Today, Native people are ticketed by police and sent to prison at far greater rates than non-Natives for the same offenses. The prisons are filled with Native youths.
The US military deploys schemes of manipulation and false patriotism, relying on the high rates of unemployment and lack of opportunities in this racist society, to send Native youths to their deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan. They are deemed expendables by the US government, just as Indigenous lands are deemed "sacrifice zones" for coal mining, power plants, oil and gas drilling and toxic and nuclear dumping. This is the reason for publishing Censored News.
Read more uncensored news at:
U.N. OBSERVER & International Report at the Hague/
Uncensored international news, including coverage of US torture and the need for President Bush to be held responsible for war crimes
Mohawk Nation News
Following the best writer's advice, "Write what you know," no one does it better than Kahentinetha Horn and the Mohawk grandmothers who publish Mohawk Nation News
Narco News/
Covers the reality of the US backed drug trafficking in the Americas, focuses on Mexico, Central and South America, including coverage of the Zapatistas and Indigenous Peoples resistance, with upcoming coverage to include the US presidential race ...
CounterPunch Widely read alternative daily news, high quality columns; "Slow Food Nation Gains Momentum," and "The Anthrax Cover-Up" are among the latest columns.
Pechanga Net
Victor Rocha, Pechanga Indian Nation, publishes what others fear, or can not publish because of their advertisers or publishers, in Indian country (See Native News category)
Indymedia Self published alternative news from around the world
Looking for someone or an issue on Censored News? Try the "search" in the upper left corner of this blog.There's also a "Blog archive" on the left side.

Shelley Brant: Open letter to Canada and First Nation Leaders

An Open Letter to Canada and All First Nation Leaders…..

By Shelley Brant
Tyendinaga Mohawk Territory
August 6, 2008

The recent questionable killing of yet another First Nations man, Craig McDougall 26 by police in Winnipeg has led me to write this letter:
How many more inquiries and bodies is it going to take???? How many more unimplemented recommendations???? How many more police lies and cover-ups supported by the governments in this so called great country before people wake up to the truth????? How many more planted weapons in the media and on our own people?????
This is the list of First Nations people killed by police across Canada and some have led to inquiries and some haven’t and is probably not even a complete list:
Frank Paul, a 47-year-old Mik’maq man - Vancouver- Vancouver police officer dragged the man, soaking wet and unconscious, from the downtown holding cells and dumped him in an alley across town. - Paul had died of hypothermia accelerated by acute alcohol poisoning. Dudley George, aged 38, - Ipperwash - Ontario - was killed by a police sniper during a Native land protest at Ipperwash Provincial Park. Craig McDougall 26 - Winnipeg - shot 4 times by police while on a cell phone with his girlfriend.Matthew Dumas, an 18-year-old Anishnabe, - Winnipeg - was pepper-sprayed, shot twice and killed by a Winnipeg Police officer.Dennis St. Paul - Norway House Cree Nation reserve - Winnipeg - shot and killed by the RCMP.Donald Miles - Winnipeg - shot and killed by police.Howard Fleury - Winnipeg - shot and killed by police.John Joseph Harper - Winnipeg - shot and killed by police.Helen Betty Osbourne 16 - The Pas- police complicity in the murder case of Cree teen The Pas Manitoba.Neil Stone child 17 - Saskatoon - inquiry was released, stating that the Saskatoon police investigation into the 1990 freezing death of the 17-year-old - Saskatoon.Rodney Naistus and Lawrence Wegner - Saskatoon- whose bodies were also found on the outskirts of town in February, 2000 Geronimo Fobister at the Anishnabe - Ontario - reserve of Grassy Narrows Lorraine Jacobsen 40 - British Columbia - on a Kwagiutl reserve at Alert Bay - shot and killed by police.Gerald Chenery, a Nisga’ man - Vancouver - was shot 12 times and killed by two Vancouver cops Michael Langan , Metis 19 - Winnipeg- Death by police taser
You stepped into Iraq with the U.S. because of a dictator who was killing his own people, yet there is no difference between mustard gas and police bullets, they are both a permanent means of death, which makes you no better!!!!!
Perhaps someone should invade Canada and come to the aid of the First Nations people in this country who are at the mercy of it’s governments and their police forces, just as Canada comes to the aid of people in other countries for the same reasons.
I will say right now that I am ashamed to live in a country so full of hatred and racism, to the point where you can’t even trust the very people who are suppose to protect you which are the police not to shoot to kill because you are a First Nations person. There is case after case after case of First Nations people being killed by police who lie and cover up their deaths, only for the ugly truth to come out later yet they get exonerated and you would like people to think these are isolated incidents. They are not, they are country wide and you turn a blind eye because it might stain your quaint reputation. Well I am here to tell you: your secret is out and now we know why the U.N Declaration of Indigenous Rights did not get signed by Canada don’t we. It’s because in Canada we are not considered humans so therefore why should we have any rights that might empower us??????
It is quite apparent that the lives of First Nations people mean nothing in this country and I am ashamed to say it also doesn’t mean a lot to the Native leaders of this country either. If it did the people would not be left on their own to speak out on police killings or attempts, yet they remain silent, all except one group decrying the deaths of two recent First Nations men in Winnipeg. My point???? This going on all across Canada and where is the public outcry from the First Nations leaders???????? It’s going on right here in Ontario, where is the public outcry from the First Nations leaders?????? Have we become so colonized and politicized that the human lives of our own people boil down to who they are???? Does one life means more than another????? Are we so afraid that we might not get a vote or that the government might deny us something that we can’t even speak out and stand up for what is wrong in this country together, even when life and death is at stake?????? Silence means consent as far as I am concerned and if we have lost the meaning and value of human lives, the lives of our own people then we have completely lost who we are as a people. We might as well quit the nation talk and quit the cultural talk and quit the talk about who we are as a people because they are just words, your actions as leaders of all the nations across this country tell me there is nothing left worthy of fighting for. The only things left are an illusion and come from the outside, which has no meaning when it comes to being a First Nations person in this country. I will stand here today and say that I am no longer proud to be a Mohawk woman whose leaders can’t even stand up and do what’s right for their own people and that goes for the rest of the leaders across the country too.
I hang my head in shame at both this country and the First Nations leaders it has produced who would rather be silent than stand together with their own people who are systematically being killed by the police in this country!!!!!!!!!
Canada you can take your apology and stick it where the sun don’t shine because they are just mere words that mean nothing and perhaps in another 100 years rather than do something about the deaths of First Nations people at the hands of police now, you can apologize again!!!!!!
Shelley Brant
Tyendinaga Mohawk Territory

Longest Walk photos by Takeo Koshikawa

Photos by Takeo Koshikawa. The Longest Walk in D.C. Long Walkers celebrate to the sounds of Keith Secola's NDN Kars; activist and actor Danny Glover on Longest Walk drum; Shannon Rivers from Gila River as master of ceremonies at the powwow and concert in D.C. More photos at: www.longestwalk.org/ (Please double click on photos to enlarge)

Who's pushing dope to destroy Indigenous youth?

WHO’S PUSHING DOPE TO DESTROY INDIGENOUS YOUTH?
By Karakwine and MNN Staff

Mohawk Nation News
http://www.mohawknationnews.com/

Aug. 4, 2008. Drug abuse in Indigenous communities is not random. Someone wants us to be pacified and to push us to have a total social breakdown. They want our brains, morals and ambition destroyed. They want our Indigenous youth to be criminalized and minimized. Drug abuse creates misfits and society dropouts who are supposed to be discarded and discredited. It stops us from campaigning for our social and political rights. The colonists want us to shut up. They don’t want to acknowledge their obligation to us. They don’t want to admit they are on stolen land. It’s an old strategy. Going back to the 1830s Britain was the world’s major drug trafficker. The Europeans were jealous of the Chinese. They had so many beautiful items like silk, porcelain, spices, etc. Britain only had wool to trade, which the Chinese did not need. The Europeans had to get silver to trade with China. They also had tobacco from Turtle Island. To increase demand for tobacco they cut it with opium from India. Before long, huge numbers around the trading ports in Canton [the modern city of Guangzhou] were addicted. Silver began draining out of China and ruining the economy. The Chinese emperor passed a law forbidding the import of opium. They wrote to Queen Victoria asking her to control her nationals and stop the illegal trade. The Chinese announced all opium would be seized and burned. U.S. traders ignored the ban and brought in a shipment to Canton. It was confiscated and burned in public. The Americans got the British to declare war on China. The “Opium War” was to defend the “right” of drug dealers. The Chinese were not warlike. They did not have a big army to defend themselves from the British. The British won the war and forced the Chinese to give them a lot of land around Hong Kong. This has since been returned to them. China was forced to make opium legal along with unrestricted propagation of Christianity. The affect was devastating. A lot of research was done on how a few were able to defeat a population of millions through drugs. In the end the Chinese regained their independence. We Indigenous People of Turtle Island are in the midst of this same kind of struggle. Shouldn’t we ask why is the U.S. in Afghanistan? It is the source of over 90% of the world’s opium! Does somebody want the whole world to be stoned! In the 1940’s, British writer Aldous Huxley, who wrote “Brave New World”, went to the U.S. He recruited Allen Watts who became the guru of a nationwide Zen Buddhist cult in California in the 1950s and 1960s. He founded the “Pacifica Foundation” which sponsored two radio stations that pushed the “Liverpool sound”. This was the British imported “hard” rock twang of the Rolling Stones, the Beatles and the Animals. They also pioneered “acid rock” and eventually “psychotic punk rock”. In 1943 LSD was developed by Albert Hoffman, a chemist at Sandoz A.B. – a Swiss pharmaceutical owned by banker, S.G. Warburg. [He’s a Federal Reserve shareholder]. British and U.S. intelligence were directly involved. The book “Aquarian Conspiracy” described how new age philosophy was blended with the promotion of the drug culture. “The introduction of major psychedelics in the 1960s was largely attributable by the Central Intelligence Agency CIA’s investigation for possible military use”. It was codenamed “MK Ultra”.In the 1960s kids in the U.S. were protesting against the Vietnam War. The U.S. establishment did not know what to do. On May 4, 1970, the National Guard shot four kids at Kent State University in Ohio. They were protesting against the U.S. invasion of Cambodia ordered by President Nixon. The shooting was meant to quell the demonstrations against the war. It didn’t work. To divert the youth, a humongous drug movement was started. The 1968 mega concert at Woodstock in Sullivan County New York was part of the drug and “free love” movement sponsored by companies like Capitol Records. In New York City the “Ed Sullivan Show” displayed these groups nationwide to promote the drug culture. For the U.S. to continue its warmongering it had to corrupt and destroy its opposition, the youth. According to recently released CIA documents, Allen Dulles, the then head of the CIA, purchased over 100 million doses of LSD – most of which flooded the streets of the USA during the late 1960s. [Illuminaticonspiracyarchives.com]. The plan is for every instinct for survival to be controlled by drugs. The drugs produced naturally by the body are being replaced by drugs being manufactured by the multi-national corporations. Today, as a result of 911, the climate of fear has been promoted over the U.S. and Canada. The kids are told that fear can be shut out by going into this false artificial world created by drugs, pills and music. The kids lose touch with reality and are not able to understand or cope with social abuse. Today multi-national corporations and pharmaceuticals have control of recording companies, music, radio stations, television programming, films, mainstream news [msn] and advertising [almost total mind control]. A common theme is U.S. based “ghetto rap”. They are producing these themes for the vulnerable minds of the young people to confuse and control them. The kids learn to switch into rap and drug culture talk. Computers, games and cell phones are programmed to take them into this world. It is normal for people to react when there’s a problem. Often they blame people improperly like their fathers, mothers, girlfriends, boyfriends or people around them. The drugs divert them so their critical thinking doesn’t develop to a level where they can understand complex issues. Drugs create a rift between older generations and young people and to break up families. When people are emotionally hurt by broken families, they can’t think straight. This leaves them insecure, paranoid and open to manipulation by big business. Drugs have replaced the residential school program as a means of committing genocide. The difference is that they’ve persuaded our youth to commit the crimes on themselves. Anyone who wants to get out of it can if they are determined. Elders are there to counsel them. While they are off the drugs they start talking to them and get them back into reality and with their families. After treatment they need help and support and to occupy themselves. It’s an uphill battle for these counselors. Drugs are being flooded into Indigenous communities to stop people from thinking or asking questions. The colonists want to be able to lure us into giving up everything we have. In the majority of cases the youth experiment with drugs and then reject it. They get on with their lives. The oldest and the youngest are not involved. Those escaping it are able to stay in school. They are taught to deal with enticement from other kids and dealers. In any society the youth in between are vulnerable. Many of our elders know there’s hope for this generation. Marijuana is many times more powerful than it was in the 1960s. Other drugs are even more dangerous. Some, like chrystal meth, cause brain damage after one shot. The teachers and medical personnel get children on Ritalin and other drugs. Some parents use it to shoot up. It’s vicious! Those Indigenous people who are bringing drugs into our communities have been colonized into wanting power and control over us. Thus, the push for more powerful drugs onto our people! For this plan to be effective, they need to keep us idle and spaced out. Some government or police agents or medical personnel who say they are fighting drugs are actually promoting drugs. The whole dirty business keeps a few people rich. In some cases the dealers are co-opt to become “snitches” in exchange for protection. They purportedly supply information on us and are free to provide drugs to the community to weaken and destroy us. They’re never busted when there’s a “crack down” or a raid! Why? There are people in every Indigenous community who are fighting it. The battle will be won. We have the power to say “no” when somebody offers us drugs. We have to finish school and get a job. We all have to help our communities. Our indigenous youth are smart, dignified, respectful of elders and not prone to act without thinking. We are not “terrorists”. We are builders. Our young people are relearning our languages, ceremonies and carrying them on. We are defenders of Turtle Island. That’s who we are! Karakwine and MNN Staff Contact katenies20@yahoo.com Mohawk Nation News
www.mohawknationnews.com/