UN carbon scam threatens Indigenous lands and forests

UN admits carbon reduction scheme threatens Indigenous lands and forests, proceeds regardless

From Earth Peoples:
Sept. 27, 2008 - On the third day of the General Assembly's 63rd Session, the United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and the Prime Minister of Norway launched the United Nations REDD program, a collaboration of FAO, UNDP, UNEP and the World Bank.
The inclusion of forests in the carbon market, or REDD (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation) has caused anxiety, protest and outrage throughout the world since it was created at the failed climate change negotiations in Bali and funded by the World Bank.
An estimated 60 million indigenous peoples are completely dependent on forests and are considered the most threatened by REDD. Therefore, indigenous leaders are among its most prominent critics.
The International Indigenous Peoples' Forum on Climate Change declared that: '...REDD will steal our land... States and carbon traders will take control over our forests.'It is alarming that indigenous peoples' fears and objections have now been confirmed by the UN-REDD Framework Document itself.
On page 4 and 5 it blatantly states that the program could "deprive communities of their legitimate land-development aspirations, that hard-fought gains in forest management practices might be wasted, that it could cause the lock-up of forests by decoupling conservation from development, or erode culturally rooted not-for-profit conservation values."
It is further highlighted that "REDD benefits in some circumstances may have to be traded off against other social, economic or environmental benefits."
In carefully phrased UN language, the document further acknowledges that REDD could cause severe human rights violations and be disastrous for the poor because it could "marginalize the landless and those with communal use-rights."
This is tantamount to the UN recognizing that REDD could undermine indigenous peoples and local communities rights to the usage and ownership of their lands.
Could it be that the UN is paving the way for a massive land grab?

To see photos from the protest against REDD and the World Bank in Bali: http://www.globaljusticeecology.org/gallery.php

To watch the video from the protest against REDD at the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UtORVi7GybY

PROJECT CENSORED 2009: An article by Censored News on the carbon scam, selected as one of the most 25 most censored issues, is a selection of Project Censored 2009. An update on the carbon scam by Brenda Norrell appears in the new book, Project Censored 2009. "Indigenous peoples continue to expose carbon credits as a scam for profiteering corporations and the World Bank, fueled by the easily manipulated news media. While carbon brokers become millionaires, the reality of the carbon credit scheme hits indigenous peoples around the world with full force, particularly in South America, India, and Africa," the update states.

More info: Indigenous Environmental Network (http://www.ienearth.org)

Censored News (http://www.bsnorrell.blogspot.com)

Earthcycles (http://www.earthcycles.net)

Information Package on: UN - REDD NEWS from the United Nations 63rd General Assembly currently in Session

From Earth Peoples

The UN-REDD Programme was officially launched during the High-Level event on the Millennium Goals on 25 September 2008 at UN Hqrs in NYC. UN-REDD is the United Nations Collaborative Programme on Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation in Developing Countries.Framework Document by FAO, UNDP, UNEP http://www.undp.org/mdtf/UN-REDD/docs/Annex-A-Framework-Document.pdf

A Press Conference took place at the United Nations on 24 September 2008
UN Press release http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2008/sgsm11812.doc.htm

United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) Press Release http://www.unep.org/Documents.Multilingual/Default.asp?DocumentID=545&ArticleID=5930&l=en
UN - REDD and Indigenous Peoples
Various Indigenous representatives are opposed to UN-REDD. On 25 April 2008, the last day of the 7th session of the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues at UN Hqrs in NYC, the Indigenous Caucus of the Americas attempted to present a statement against REDD.As the Caucus was called out of order by the Chair, a protest ensued and Caucus members threatened to walk out. Security was called. A peacefully outcome resulted when the Chair allowed the Caucus representative to read the statement.
To watch the video (by Filmmaker Rebecca Sommer) from the protest against REDD at the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UtORVi7GybY
28 September 2008 - Compiled by Marie-Danielle Samuel, Main Rep. to UN
YACHAY WASI, NGO/UN ECOSOC & DPI, NYC and Cuzco, PERU "Yachay Wasi means House of Learning in Quechua"Luis Delgado Hurtado, PresidentLa Conquista 3ra puerta (Saphi)Cuzco, PERU Phone: 51-84-315815Marie-Danielle Samuel, Vice President708 West 192nd Street # 6BNew York, NY 10040 USAPhone: 212-567-6447Fax: 917-529-0922 Email: yachaywasi@nyc.rr.com
http://www.yachaywasi-ngo.org Yachay Wasi is in Operational Relations with UNESCO

Arrest made in murder of 'Sally' Grace Eiler

Police in Mexico arrest alleged killer of US woman
The Associated Press
Sunday, September 28, 2008
MEXICO CITY: Authorities in southern Oaxaca state said Saturday they have arrested a man who allegedly raped and killed a U.S. woman.
Omar Yoguez Singu, 32, told police he had consensual sex with Marcella Grace Eiler, 20, of Eugene, Oregon, and then killed her with a machete after an argument on Sept. 15, Oaxaca State Attorney General Evencio Ramirez said.
Eiler's badly decomposed body was found Wednesday in a shack 80 miles (130 kilometers) south of Oaxaca City, near the town of San Jose del Pacifico.
Ramirez said Singu was turned over to police on Wednesday in Mexico City by friends who first beat him up after he confessed to the crime.
Eiler's father, John Eiler, of St. Louis, Missouri, said his daughter was a dance teacher and social activist in Oaxaca City, where she had lived on and off for the past three years.
"She was really trying to spend her energy as an observer for an indigenous rights organization," John Eiler said in a telephone interview.
Eiler had traveled to San Jose del Pacifico to dance at a fundraiser, said Miguel Cruz of Oaxaca's Popular Indigenous Council, an organization with which he said Eiler had worked since 2007.
She also had lived for about a month with the family of a witness in the killing of Bradley Roland Will, a volunteer for Indymedia.org, Cruz said. Will was fatally shot in October 2006 in Oaxaca City while filming protests by activists demanding the ouster of the state's governor.
Will's family said last year that they believed state officials were probably involved in his killing. State investigators arrested two town officials in 2006 but later released them after then-state Attorney General Lizbeth Cana suggested Will may have been shot by a protester.
Cruz said Eiler had complained that police in civilian clothes often sat in a parked car outside the witness's family's house and that they followed her.
Calls to Oaxaca's state police department were not answered Saturday.
"We're asking authorities to conduct an efficient and transparent investigation and that they not taint her image because she dedicated herself to defending the rights of women and of indigenous people," Cruz said in a telephone interview.
John Eiler said his daughter's remains would be cremated and returned to the United States.
Read previous articles about Sally's murder at: www.narconews.com/

Sally's murder: 'Meant to terrorize a population'

Hasta Siempre Sally Grace: Another US Activist Murdered in Oaxaca
by Kristin Bricker
Narco News

In my memories of Sally Grace, she looks just like the photograph of her that her friends published along with the communique denouncing that she was raped and murdered--laughing and smiling with a camera in her hand ...
Sally's raped and decaying body turned up in a cabin 20 minutes outside of San Jose del Pacifico. A neighbor noticed the smell and called the police.
According to the friend who identified the body, her face was unrecognizable: it was black as if it had been burned, and all of her hair was gone as if it had been ripped out. But Julieta Cruz recognized Sally's tattoos.
Read article in Narco News:
http://narcosphere.narconews.com/notebook/kristin-bricker/2008/09/hasta-siempre-sally-grace-another-us-activist-murdered-oaxaca

O'odham and American: New film is portrait of post 9/11 America

'I am an American,' documents post 9/11 racism, discrimination and patriotism in US

By Brenda Norrell 
Censored Newshttp://www.bsnorrell.blogspot.com

TUCSON -- Cynthia Weber's new film, "I am an American," screened tonight in Tucson. The film is a portrait of post 9/11 America, revealing the lives of migrants and Minutemen; patriots and political refugees.
"I am an American," shares the voices of US servicemen who were honored to be Americans, and others who either fled America or were brutalized and criminalized by systematic hatred and racial prejudice. Fathers, mothers and children tell their own stories.
"It does show the faces of true Americans. We are not all white, elite people," said Ofelia Rivas, Tohono O'odham and founder of O'odham Voice Against the Wall. Rivas is featured in the film and her comment came after screening the film for the first time Friday night.
The film profiles range from Katrina victims pondering their status as refugees in their homeland, to a Chinese Muslim army chaplain prosecuted as an enemy combatant.
Shanti Sellz, humanitarian lending aid to migrants on the Arizona border with No More Deaths, describes her arrest for helping save the lives of migrants.
With these voices, the film documents the post 9/11 hysteria which resulted in prosecution of the innocent, the inhumane police and court actions and US violations of human decency. However, it also gives the Minutemen and a proud soldier, fast tracked to citizenship, a voice.
Weber, a US citizen who makes her home in England, showed the film as a fundraiser for Derechos Humanos, No More Deaths and O'odham Voice Against the Wall. The screening was at the Armory building downtown.
In the film, Ofelia Rivas, interviewed at her home on Tohono O'odham land, describes the violations of human rights and dignity carried out by the US Border Patrol on a regular basis. Rivas describes how many O'odham, including herself, were born at home and do not have birth certificates. She also described how an agent pointed a gun at her head and demanded she identify herself as an American citizen.
Rivas said O'odham want others to know this: "We do live on both sides of that border and we do continue to cross."
During the screening, Rivas spoke on how the US/Mexico border wall has become a barrier for ceremonies and violated the religious rights of the O'odham, who have lived in this territory since time immemorial.
After the screening, Rivas said it is good that this film is carrying the O'odham voice to England and elsewhere. Rivas said the film shows the diversity of people in America.
"Maybe people can see what is happening to the original people," Rivas said in an interview with Censored News.
"It does show the faces of true Americans. We are not all white, elite people."
Although the US claims to guarantee the rights of its citizens on paper, Rivas said that is not always the reality.
During this election year, there is a great deal of attention on voting. Rivas, however, said it takes more than just casting a vote to bring about a change. She said people must stand up for their rights and take action.
"We can't just allow this United States government system to push us around any more."
Crossing the US/Mexico border, which divides O'odham communities, is now more difficult than ever; traditional O'odham find it difficult to find help anywhere.
"We have not received any kind of assistance from the Tohono O'odham Nation as traditional people," she said in the interview.
Rivas said the O'odham traditional crossing has been cut off by the US vehicle barrier constructed by Homeland Security. Now, the elders returning form ceremonies are subjected to harassment by the US Border Patrol. Now, O'odham must travel long distances to border crossings. The agents always consider O'odham elders as "suspects," as drug dealers or smugglers. The elders are fearful and must repeatedly endure rude agents.
"It is not a good situation when we have just been to ceremonies."
Rivas said the earth is going through a healing now and there has been a lot of rain. She said there are many changes, including changes in nature.
"If we don't follow our traditional ways, we are in for a lot of problems."
"I just encourage people to remain strong."
AUDIO: Listen to Ofelia Rivas react to the new film:
--Click on link below
--Click on file name "Ofelia Rivas" in white box
http://censored-news.blogspot.com/2008/09/audio-ofelia-rivas-oodham-voice-against.html
AUDIO: Cynthia Weber's describes the origin of the film:
http://censored-news.blogspot.com/2008/09/audio-race-and-america-filmmaker.html
About the film, "I am an American" by Cynthia Weber
Interviewed in the film:
-Iraq war veteran Guadalupe Denogean, who became a "fast-tracked" US citizen
-Iraq war resisters Phil McDowell and Jamine Apointe, who are seeking political refugee status in Canada
-Peace activist Fernando Suarez del Solar, who refused posthumous US citizenship for his soldier son Jesus who was killed in Iraq
-Undocumented immigrant Elvira Arellano, who until July 2007 was in sanctuary in a US church fighting deportation so she could remain with her US citizen son Saul
-The founder of the Minuteman Civil Defence Corps, Chris Simcox, who organises civilian patrols along US borders
-Human-rights activist with the No More Deaths group, Shanti Sellz, who with Daniel Strauss was arrested for transporting undocumented immigrants to a hospital
-Indigenous-rights activist Ofelia Rivas, who is fighting the construction of the US-Mexico border fence that will divide her nation
-Indigenous-rights activist Jose Matus, who heads the Indigenous Alliance Without Borders project
-Hurricane Katrina evacuees Greg and Glenda Avery, who have at times been treated more like "refugees" than US citizens in their own country
-US army Muslim chaplain James Yee, who was detained by the US government as an enemy combatant.
Weber says, "What I hope my films express is how these US Americans live their differences in an often less-than-tolerant and increasingly disunited nation."
ICEHOUSE GALLERY IN PHOENIX: "I am an American"
http://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/locations/icehouse-7693/
Art installation: Sept. 29 to Oct 17, 2008

PHOTO 1: Ofelia Rivas, Tohono O'odham, founder of O'odham Voice Against the Wall, talks with Cynthia Weber, producer of the new film, "I Am an American." Photo Brenda Norrell. Photo 2: Shanti Sellz, No More Deaths humanitarian/Photo "I am an American." Photo 3: Ofelia Rivas at the border vehicle barrier constructed south of Sells, Arizona, on Tohono O'odham Nation land in 2007. Photo Brenda Norrell.

Activist Marcella Sali Grace raped and murdered in Oaxaca

Justice for our sister Marcella Sali Grace!
Version en espanol sigue despues del link.
"She was a champion for indigenous rights and helped me raise money for indigenous peoples in Mexico. She was a women rights and indigenous rights activist and such a great person." -- Navajo friend
Oaxaca de Juarez, Oaxaca. Thursday, September 25
Justice for our sister Marcella Sali Grace!
Brother and sisters,
Our hearts are full of sadness and rage because our sister Sali was brutally raped and murdered 20 minutes from San Jose del Pacifico and up to this moment the Oaxacan Attorney General's Office, as is its custom, is not doing anything regarding the fact that there exist witnesses who have information to identify those responsible.
Marcella Sali Grace was born in the United States, with a big heart in solidarity with just causes. She had many friends because she was always inclined to help, using her artistic talents to paint a banner or a wall or doing Arabic dance to raise funds for the struggle, or putting on punk shows, or giving self-defense courses for women because she knew very well how the men accosted them. This was one of her struggles, that women were free and respected. Sali was so involved in the struggle that she was an international accompanier of brothers and sisters who felt harassed by the bad government of Ulises Ruiz Ortiz.
Read more at: http://www.narconews.com/

Melendez: Media downplays Hurricane Ike

Steve and Cheryl Melendez at the American Indian Genocide Museum: Recovering from Hurricane Ike, Alabama Coushatta also hit

By Steve and Cheryl Melendez

indmuseum@yahoo.com

Photo NPS/Chickasaw help Texas Alabama -Coushatta Nation

HOUSTON -- Finally , after two weeks we have electricity today. Many more are still without it. Phones and cell phones were not working . The hurricane brought down so many trees. There were trees on houses, on cars , on light poles and lying across the streets. That was the scene in my neighborhood and repeated throughout Houston and other cities. The aftermath of the storm left the city without power, water and public transportation. Houston and other areas have issued mandatory curfews. We have waited in FEMA lines for ice, food and water. Neighborhood Kroger opened this past week and we were allowed in five at a time. The line hooked around the store parking lot. No meat, dairy, bread. We were given only 10 minutes to get in and out. The gas stations had petrol, but could not run due to no source of power. When one station opened up the line was hours long. They limited the gas to only $20.00 worth if you were the lucky one to get it.

These have been conveniences and neccessities that we have come to depend on. But , thank God we still have our house. House, we have some roof damage. Fence blew out in the back yard. Had to throw away refrigerated foods, but again we are the blessed ones. So, many are now without a home to return to. Galveston, Crystal beach, Boliver, Gilcrest, High Island , Chambers county hit so hard. Gilcrest only one house remains after the hurricane. Nearly 400 people have been reported missing. Some of our friends have lost their homes.

The national news is not reporting this fairly and has been making this sound like a minor event. No Hollywood stars coming out to fundraise for our coastal communities. Many folks are permanent residents and these were not all vacation homes for the rich. Galveston has many poor people and the city depends on summer tourism.

This hurricane also affected the Texas Alabama Coushatta Reservation, the Woodlands, and ended up as a tropical storm knocking out power, and causing floods in Cincinnati , Ohio; caused 70 mile hour winds across the Canadian border. Hurricane Ike was so big it took up half of the Gulf of Mexico.

In all people are making do. Neighbors helping neighbors. Strangers becoming friends. Hope sustains us.
http://www.chron.com/hurricane/ike/

Photo National Park Service: An NPS bucket truck with a crew of four from Chickasaw NRA has arrived in the park and will be assisting Big Thicket and Lake Meredith saw crews with clearing priority access areas. Road clearing to oil and gas wellheads is continuing. The Central incident management team continues to assist the Alabama-Coushatta Tribe of Texas with support. Randy Larrabee from Chickasaw NRA is on site and is now conducting FMSS assessments and entering data. Forty-four people are currently committed to help.