Western Shoshone tour in Ireland

Congratulations to newlyweds Larson Bill and Julie Cavanaugh-Bill of the Western Shoshone Defense Project, currently in Ireland

Photo: Larson Bill, Western Shoshone, videotapes gold mining operation near sacred Mount Tenabo on Western Shoshone land. Below: Julie Cavanaugh talks with Tom Goldtooth during the Indigenous Environmental Network Conference on Western Shoshone land in July. Photos Brenda Norrell

From: Derry, Northern Ireland

10th October, 2008.
Shoshone Indigenous Rights in the U.S., fostering links with Ireland, a Film & Discussion Tour
Watch "Our Land, Our Life," online, 25 minute version of the 74 minute film on You Tube

Representatives from the U.S.-based Western Shoshone Defense Project will begin a week long speaking tour in Ireland this month. Larson Bill, Western Shoshone leader and community planner and Julie Cavanaugh-Bill, Irish descendant and Western Shoshone Defense Project advisor, will travel to the Academy for Irish Cultural Heritage, University of Ulster, Derry (22nd October), the Irish Centre for Human Rights, National University of Ireland Galway (23rd October) and Erris in the Gaeltacht of Co. Mayo, (24th–26th October) where they will participate in Afri’s ‘Pipelines and Profits: People Under Pressure’ Hedge School, and meet community members opposing Shell’s attempt to build a controversial gas pipeline. During the tour Larson and Julie will talk about the struggle of the Western Shoshone, recent international successes and the need for indigenous-rights based protection of the environment, cultures and spiritual areas worldwide. The new award-winning film documenting the Western Shoshone struggle, American Outrage, will precede discussions.

The Western Shoshone struggle is well known and based on a decades long challenge to the US government’s assertion of federal ownership of nearly 90% of Western Shoshone lands. The land base covers approximately 60 million acres, stretching across what is now referred to as the states of Nevada, Idaho, Utah and California. Western Shoshone rights to the land - which they continue to use, care for, and occupy today - were recognized by the United States in 1863 by the Treaty of Ruby Valley. The U.S. now claims these same lands as “public” or federal lands through an agency process and has denied Western Shoshone fair access to U.S. courts through that same process. The land base has been and continues to be used by the United States for military testing, open pit cyanide heap leach gold mining and nuclear waste disposal planning. The U.S. has engaged in military style seizures of Shoshone livestock, trespass fines in the millions of dollars and armed surveillance of Western Shoshone who continue to assert their original and treaty rights. Both the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of all forms of Racial Discrimination have ruled against the U.S. on several occasions, but the Shoshone continue to suffer from ongoing harassment by federal officials and massive expansion by transnational corporations.

Larson Bill, Community Planner for the WSDP and 25 year elected leader said before leaving the U.S.: “We are pleased to be able to meet with people across Ireland to discuss these issues that affect all of us around the world. It is through traditional knowledge and teachings that we will protect our spiritual areas and learn more about our original relationships to the earth and to each other as we take on some of the largest industries in the world.”

“We believe the connection between the struggles of the Irish peoples and the Indigenous peoples of the United States is very important. Similarities in colonization, struggles against spiritual, cultural and environmental destruction, as well as an undying spirit and connection to the land make us natural allies. We hope that this preliminary trip will open avenues to building stronger alliances and future delegations both to Ireland and to native territories in the U.S.” Added Julie Cavanaugh Bill who has worked in both legal and staff capacities for the Western Shoshone for over ten years.

Cathal Doyle an indigenous peoples rights advocate acting on behalf of the Irish Centre for Human Rights and a doctoral student in law at the University of Middlesex points out that “The struggle of the Western Shoshone reflects a global pattern of expropriation of indigenous peoples lands and resources. In the past this was as a result of colonization. Today it continues unabated through the activities of transnational corporations, particularly those in the extractive sector. At its core is a lack of respect for indigenous peoples’ rights. In 2007, the United Nations adopted the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, laying out the minimum standards for their cultural survival. The Shoshone, together with many of the world’s 350 million indigenous people, now demand that governments and corporations make these rights a reality”.

For further information contact:
Julie Cavanaugh Bill (U.S.) +1 775-744-2565 (wsdp@igc.org) or
Cathal Doyle (Ireland) +353 86 85 45 414 (doncathal@gmail.com)
See Western Shoshone Defense Project website http://www.wsdp.org/
The Mayo Gaeltacht / official Irish speaking region, consists of approximately 11,000 people representing in the region of 11% of the total Irish speaking population remaining in Ireland. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaeltacht
Afri (Action From Ireland, an Irish NGO) will hold a Hedge School (Scoil Chois Claí) on the theme of ‘Pipelines and Profits: People Under Pressure’ with participation from the Western Shoshone Defense Project as well as people from Ecuador, Nigeria and France from the 24th to the 26th October. For more information see http://www.afri.ie/pdf/hedge-school-2008.pdf. For an overview of the campaign opposing Shell’s proposed project in north Co. Mayo see http://www.corribsos.com/

ACLU: Ojibwe dead because he was an Indian

David Croud, 29, father of four, died on Oct. 18, 2005, because he was an American Indian

"The lawsuit alleges that witnesses saw two police officers ram Croud against a stone wall before one officer threw him to the ground. 'Multiple witnesses classified Croud’s behavior before he was thrown to the ground as not in any way aggressive … A witness said that while Croud was on the ground, police kneed him in the kidneys and pushed his face on the sidewalk, clearly trying to hurt him,’, the lawsuit states."

ACLU sues St. Mary’s, city over Croud’s death (MINNESOTA) -- The American Civil Liberties Union has filed a lawsuit contending that the city of Duluth and St. Mary’s Medical Center are responsible for the death of an intoxicated man who was taken into police custody and transported to the hospital, where he died six days later.
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Roberto Rodriguez: A Big Brother Migration Solution

Department of Homeland Security's ICE agents are still running amok terrorizing Mexican & Central American communities

COLUMN OF THE AMERICAS
A BIG BROTHER MIGRATION SOLUTION
OCTOBER 17, 2008
BY ROBERTO DR. CINTLI RODRIGUEZ
For perhaps at least the past generation, the so-called immigration debate has been code for scapegoating and getting rid of the "wetbacks" – which of course in this country is but another code word for Mexicans. Anybody brown, really. It could be called the hidden narrative, yet how hidden is it really? And yet, holding back the "brown hordes" is no longer the primary issue in regards to this debate. Make no mistake; hundreds of brown peoples are still dying in the inhospitable deserts, mountains and rivers along the U.S.-Mexico border. And the Department of Homeland Security's ICE agents are still running amok terrorizing Mexican & Central American communities. But the sad reality is that the mere existence of a "Homeland Security" apparatus tells us that even something bigger is amiss. Read column
Rodriguez, PhD, can be reached at: XColumn@gmail.com
Photo: Remembering the dead along the border, No More Deaths, in a memorial in Tucson, remembered Desconocido, hanged near Cowlic on the Tohono O'odham Nation, near the Arizona and Mexico border. Photo Brenda Norrell

Algonguins defending land

Support the Algonquins of Barriere Lake, traditional people who know how to survive off the land. They are defending their land. Photo: Algonquins running from police tear gas attack. Photo courtesy Barriere Lake community.

Despite the presence of several Hydro Quebec dams, the community is still powered by a diesel generator. Although $100 million in revenue is extracted from the Barriere Lake Algonquins' traditional territory every year, the community receives nothing, and employment opportunities are scarce. Many of those at the blockade had been sent to residential schools aschildren. There, they were abused physically and sexually, andpunished for speaking their mother tongue.
Inside the Barriere Lake Algonquins' blockade of highway 117

by Dru Oja Jay

Posted originally in The Dominion

I'm perched on an embankment overlooking Highway 117, an obscure but economically important link between Montreal and northern Quebec. To look at most maps, there's nothing here, five hours north of Montreal, well out of the cottage towns and ski resorts of the Laurentians and still two hours short of the cluster of resource extraction economies around Val d'Or. I'm in the middle of a four hour stretch where most travellers could be forgiven for thinking was nothing but a few hunting lodges, logging roads and Hydro Quebec turnouts.A girl, young enough that I have to bend down to hear what she's saying, climbs up the embankment and points at the highway."Look where we're colouring," she says. I look. In the middle of the highway... read more

Joanne Shenandoah in Seattle

Please double click image to enlarge.
Joanne's music:

http://www.google.com/musica?aid=AroH0dbr9_K&sa=X&oi=music&ct=result

Flood relief for Jumano Apache on Texas/Mexico border

What happens in a international border zone between the US and Mexico when the floods come?

PHOTO April Cotte: September 28 This picture is taken from Presidio, Texas looking into Ojinaga, Mexico. The bridge in the middle is the Port of Entry and you can see that the Mexico Customs building is under water. Quite a mess. Please see news summary below from newspapers and locals on what has happened and how we can help. I am heading down to Redford, Texas, 10/25 from Calif., to work for OB and be of service and invite others to join me volunteering in disaster relief esp. 11/8-12.

By April Cotte
There has been major flooding in Jumano Apache territory in the Junta de los Rios area in Presidio, Ojinaga and Redford following Hurricane Gustav early September. For some 22 days, one third of the city of Ojinaga was underwater, the port of entry was closed between the US and Mexico and many of the farms in Redford, Presidio, Ojinaga and all along the Rio Grande and Rio Conchas were flooded. Elders say this was bigger then the floods of 58 or 78. Until this week, hundreds of people were evacuated from their homes in Ojinaga, now they are cleaning up from flood damage. Read article