Dorreen Yellow Bird has a message for Rob Port, banned by the Turtle Mountain Chippewa:
"Stop blogging Rob Port, until you have some facts.
"The 15 hours Port spent on the Turtle Mountain reservation gave him a lopsided view of the Turtle Mountain Chippewa. Port gathered a whole group of people into one bundle, tied a dirty, lazy knot around them and tossed them into the national spotlight," Yellow Bird writes.
Yellow Bird says Port needs to rethink his "backhanded bigotry."
read the story:
http://www.grandforksherald.com/articles/index.cfm?id=38587
May 21, 2007
Indigenous speak out for sacred water at United Nations
Tibetan monks at UN session
Photo Alyssa Macy/Indigenius Media
NEW YORK -- Indigenous Peoples spoke out in defense of the sacredness of water, the women who carry it and humanity's right to pure water, during the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues.
Tia Oros, delivering a collective statement said, "Although we do not always know when we will walk into the prayers of our ancestors, here we have done just that.
"Many thousands of our ancestors have prayed for peace and rain. And, for many decades our relatives throughout the world have dreamed, worked and bled for the creation of this Forum, to have our voices and concerns heard by the world community in this House of Mica, this place recognized by our Hopi brother, the late Thomas Banyaca, at the opening of the International Year of the World’s Indigenous Peoples in 1993.
"For all of them, and for the generations yet to come, we support the immediate adoption of the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples as adopted by the UN Human Rights Council last year, and we offer these recommendations."
COLLECTIVE STATEMENT
Intervention to the Sixth Session of the
United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues
Submitted by the Seventh Generation Fund for Indian Development
May 17, 2007
Protection of Water: WATER IS A HUMAN RIGHT
Thank you, Madame Chair, for the opportunity of addressing the United Nations Per
manent Forum on Indigenous Issues. My name is Tia Oros and I am of the A:shiwi People/Zuni Nation. The Seventh Generation Fund for Indian Development, an Indigenous Peoples’ organization working directly with grassroots Native communities to design and implement ecologically harmonious strategies for sovereignty, human rights, environmental justice, cultural revitalization, and sacred sites protection for Indigenous Nations, submits this intervention on Agenda Item 4b, under the mandated area of Environment, with the following signatories: The Zuni Tribe of the Zuni Indian Reservation, American Indian Law Alliance, Laguna Acoma Coalition for a Safe Environment, Tonatierra, Native Youth Coalition, Indigenous Network on Economies and Trade, Tatanka Oyate, Andes Chinchasuyo, Maya Vision, Western Shoshone Defense Project, Buffalo River Dene Nation, Mainyoto Pastoralist Integrated Development Organization, Bangsa Adat Alifuru from Maluku, Indigenous Peoples’ Council on Biocolonialism, Te Runanga Kaimahi, Kaimahi Maori o Aotearoa of the New Zealand Council of Trade Unions, Indigenous Environmental Network, Resisting Environment Destruction on Indigenous Land (RedOil), Winnemem Wintu Tribe, Te Hau Takitini o Aotearoa, Nihiyaw Cree Society, Council of Grandmothers, and Indigenous Peace Action.
For the last two years our organization has addressed the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues regarding the Protection of Water, and it is an honor to do so again. At this time, I urgently reiterate the critical significance of protecting Indigenous Peoples’ full, unencumbered access to clean Water on our territories. This is crucial for all aspects of our health: physical, cultural, and spiritual. Water is boundless. Water is Life.
Although we do not always know when we will walk into the prayers of our ancestors, here we have done just that. Many thousands of our ancestors have prayed for peace and rain. And, for many decades our relatives throughout the world have dreamed, worked and bled for the creation of this Forum, to have our voices and concerns heard by the world community in this House of Mica, this place recognized by our Hopi brother, the late Thomas Banyaca, at the opening of the International Year of the World’s Indigenous Peoples in 1993. For all of them, and for the generations yet to come, we support the immediate adoption of the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples as adopted by the UN Human Rights Council last year, and we offer these recommendations.
Recommendations:
1. We again urgently appeal to the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues to request the immediate appointment of a United Nations Special Rapporteur for the Protection of Water and Water Catchment Areas in order to gather testimony directly from Indigenous Nations of the world targeted
for or impacted by Water privatization, diversion, toxic contamination, dams, pollution, commodification, non-sustainable energy development and other environmental injustices that damage natural, potable and accessible Water supplies on which Indigenous Peoples rely for spiritual and nutritional sustenance. We recall that this recommendation was carried forth by the Permanent Forum to the Economic and Social Development Council when we first requested this in 2005, and we respectfully request that this compelling concern is recognized and advanced once again.
2. We ask that the Special Rapporteur for the Protection of Water and Catchment Areas critically review and assess Water allocation, access policies and regulations that affect the rights of Indigenous Nations, the health of our Peoples and that of future generations. This should be done to identify protective and preventive and restorative mechanisms to restore our Waters and assure that Water is accessible to our Peoples, as well as to repair our diverse ecosystems that rely on the health of natural Water flows where they have been damaged.
3. Our Peoples have a right to say no to any development project on our territories. We call upon the Permanent Forum to strongly advocate for the free, prior and informed consent of Indigenous Peoples in regard to any development on our territories by any outside entities, including the World Bank and States, whose actions may impact or abrogate our aboriginal and/or treaty rights including right of access to clean, potable Water for all aspects of our life.
4. Further, we ask that Nation-States’ reports to the United Nations contain a focus on Water and also that they include direct participation by Indigenous Peoples in the development of those reports.
5. We recommend that the Permanent Forum take immediate steps in the Commission on Sustainable Development to protect Water from privatization, and from bi-lateral and multi-lateral governmental agreements and other incursions onto our territories that affect the integrity of our Waters, impoverish our Nations and impose additional hardships on Indigenous Peoples, particularly on Indigenous women.
6. We fully support the Indigenous Women’s Caucus statement and its recommendations in light of the unique and essential relationship between women and Water.
Narrative Justification:
Indigenous Peoples know Water as the sacred source and essence of all Life imbued with a spirit and a consciousness. The vitality of Water to our communities is expressed in a rainbow of songs, stories, and ceremonies, holding a special place in our cultures for the continuation of an Indigenous worldview that affirms the vital link of Water to life everlasting. And yet, springs from which our ancestors emerged from within the womb of Mother Earth, precious watersheds that feed our lakes and enable life, and rivers that carry our prayers to the forever after, are being destroyed. Privatization of Water and our other resources places them in the control of multi-national corporations, shortsighted governmental development policies, and the unrelenting encroachment by non-indigenous settlements, forcing us into poverty and pushing us further to the edge of existence, where we are already barely holding on by our fingertips for survival.
Environmental injustice including the ongoing invasions onto Indigenous territories, and the attendant wrongful taking of our natural resources, particularly the nearly unhindered exploitation and commodification of Water, obstruct critically needed access to our Waterways and threaten the survival of Indigenous Peoples and of our distinct cultures. These assaults have direct and tremendously destructive impacts and further impoverish our already vulnerable, besieged Peoples. Although North America is widely assumed to be a region of universal affluence, there are many thousands of Indigenous Peoples and communities, throughout the continent, who have no meaningful system of protection against the wrongful diversion, privatization, and oppression of our Water resources. In fact, many of us are dying of thirst.
Madame Chair, and esteemed members of this Forum, Indigenous women throughout the world who often have the primary responsibility of locating and carrying water for their families, and may risk their lives to do so now find only dust instead of water. In too many places, a polluted stream is our only source of Water. We hunger and can no longer plant our gardens, not because we have forgotten how to nurture life from a seed, but because without access to Water, our crops cannot flourish, and we cannot thrive without them. A child dies every eight seconds for lack of access to clean Water and many victims are our own, Indigenous children. The unquenchable greed of States, corporations, settlers, and other invaders, whose unrelenting actions on our lands constitute a Water war against Indigenous Peoples, are killing us all – violating our ecosystems, condemning our peoples, obliterating our futures.
What were once rich landscapes awake with forests and gardens, rivers and cornfields, alive with animals and birds, and a harmonious diversity of Indigenous cultures, are quickly becoming parched lands that only our tears can soften today. Let us dry our eyes and take action on the recommendations as offered. Water is a human right. Our children, those generations yet to be born, and all of our relations, are the ultimate casualties of this conflict. I urge you all to take immediate action on this most urgent matter. Thank you for your kind attention. Elahkwa.
(Photo above/California coast/Brenda Norrell)
Hopi and Japanese Say Water Has Intelligence
by Brenda Norrell
News from Indian Country, January, 2004
KYKOTSMOVI, Ariz. -- Hopi members of Black Mesa Trust said water carries intelligence. Hopi and Japanese are discovering what Hopi and other Indigenous peoples have always known, "Water is alive."
Vernon Masayesva, executive director of Black Mesa Trust, recently visited Japan and met with Shinto priests and researcher Dr. Masaru Emoto, chief of the Hado Institute in Tokyo and author of Message from Water.
During the Hisot Navoti (knowledge of ancestors) water conference at the Hopi Veterans Center, Hopi revealed knowledge of water shared by Hopi and Japanese.
Masayesva showed amazing film footage, revealing startling transformations in water crystals when exposed to music and written words. Emoto's photographs reveal water crystals, under high magnification, have drastically different forms from different water sources. Further, Emoto shows that water changes its expression as a result of human actions.
When water is exposed to the music of Mozart and Beethoven, crystals expand and become more beautiful. These crystals resemble diamonds, with flower buds blossoming on their points, as the music plays.
Emoto explains that water carries and responds to the vibrations of music. He reveals even more amazing research, showing water responds to the written word.
When clear tubes of water are placed over positive and negative words, the structure of water crystals change. Water crystals increase in beauty when placed over the word "peace," but are transformed to dark and ugly crystals when placed over the word "war."
When water is placed over the word "let's," the crystals expand and increase in beauty. However, when water is placed over the word "must," the crystals become ugly with a dark green center. Emoto says water is letting us realize the hidden power of words.
During the gathering for the defense of pure water, Jerry Honawa, Hopi elder, said, "Water has intelligence."
Speaking of water, Masayesva said, "If you are happy, you will have happy crystals; if you are angry, you will have angry crystals." Masayesva also shared the history of the Hopi people, revealing their destiny intertwined with the earth and its mysteries.
"According to Hopi, long ago there was nothing but water from the beginning of time. This is what we call the First World of Hopi. "Life was created from water, from the land, from the sun."
When life was first created, it was beautiful, a perfect circle. On Hopiland today there are areas of perfect seashells, proof that this land was once underwater as Hopi are told. There are perfect fossils here, he said.
"Where does coal come from? It comes from plants. Everywhere you go, you see dinosaur tracks. This must have been a beautiful place at one time."
In the First World, there was balance, harmony and peace. This balance and harmony, however, was destroyed in the Third World because of man and his greed. The ancestors began searching for a safe place to begin a new life. Bird was sent out and returned with news of this place.
"Through the bamboo, they entered the new land,” Masayesva said. "It is a metaphor, we don't really know, but we came from somewhere where there was bamboo." When the people arrived in this new land, they thought they had left evil behind them. But after a child died, they realized that evil had come with them. Those with the two hearts had come. "Evil is necessary to understand what good truly is," Masayesva said.
The people knew they had to learn from the destruction of the Third World and not return to those ways. They wanted to create a new way of life. The Hopi people were not led by politicians, they were led by priests, often the poorest man in the village who denied himself everything for the benefit of his children.
In this new place they found a man who grew beautiful corn. It was Ma'sau, guardian of the land. Ma'sau said it is a harsh land, but if the people were willing to live Ma'sau's way of life, they could stay here.
Ma'sau told the people, "If you follow this way of life, you can stay here forever." Ma'sau showed the people corn, a gourd of water and planting stick. "He said if you decide to stay here you must help me take care of this land, then you can stay."
Ma'sau told them that others are coming. "They will claim everything when they come, even the oceans, the air and the stars." Ma'sau told the Hopi people to migrate to the four corners of the world, then return here to Black Mesa. The gourd to carry water was also a revelation, showing that water here is not infinite, it is limited.
Masayesva said the colors of the corn represent the colors of all mankind, yellow, purple, red and white. The sweet corn also represents the ancestors and the purple the heavens. Corn, too, gave Hopi a new way of life, and meant that the people no longer had to search for food every day, leaving them free for other things.
The planting stick represents tools or technology, which can be used for good or for destruction. There was a time when smallpox nearly eliminated the Hopi people, with only 300 Hopi surviving, Masayesva said technology can prevent and cure illness today, but it threatens to end humankind with the production of nuclear bombs. Nuclear power and travel to distant planets have resulted in dangerous "god-like powers."
The waters--aquifers, springs, lakes, rivers, oceans and glaciers-- work in harmony to sustain life. Hopi believe the aquifers breathe, breathe in rain and snow and breathe it out. The springs are the breathing holes. Humankind is a participant in water-life; mankind's thoughts influence whether the rain and snow comes.
Of the world's water today, Masayesva said 97 percent is seawater and 2 percent is bound in glaciers. Only1 percent is available for drinking.
However, America is a nation of waste. "We are a throwaway society. We think we are never going to run out of anything."
Masayesva said the people must honor their trust as guardians of the water and land.
"If we don't, we will break the circle."
©News From Indian Country January 12, 2004.
"Indigenous leaders bring eco-sense to UN"
www.oneworld.net
http://us.oneworld.net/article/view/149394/1/4536
Return to Censored homepage
http://www.bsnorrell.blogspot.com/
Photo Alyssa Macy/Indigenius Media
NEW YORK -- Indigenous Peoples spoke out in defense of the sacredness of water, the women who carry it and humanity's right to pure water, during the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues.
Tia Oros, delivering a collective statement said, "Although we do not always know when we will walk into the prayers of our ancestors, here we have done just that.
"Many thousands of our ancestors have prayed for peace and rain. And, for many decades our relatives throughout the world have dreamed, worked and bled for the creation of this Forum, to have our voices and concerns heard by the world community in this House of Mica, this place recognized by our Hopi brother, the late Thomas Banyaca, at the opening of the International Year of the World’s Indigenous Peoples in 1993.
"For all of them, and for the generations yet to come, we support the immediate adoption of the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples as adopted by the UN Human Rights Council last year, and we offer these recommendations."
COLLECTIVE STATEMENT
Intervention to the Sixth Session of the
United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues
Submitted by the Seventh Generation Fund for Indian Development
May 17, 2007
Protection of Water: WATER IS A HUMAN RIGHT
Thank you, Madame Chair, for the opportunity of addressing the United Nations Per
manent Forum on Indigenous Issues. My name is Tia Oros and I am of the A:shiwi People/Zuni Nation. The Seventh Generation Fund for Indian Development, an Indigenous Peoples’ organization working directly with grassroots Native communities to design and implement ecologically harmonious strategies for sovereignty, human rights, environmental justice, cultural revitalization, and sacred sites protection for Indigenous Nations, submits this intervention on Agenda Item 4b, under the mandated area of Environment, with the following signatories: The Zuni Tribe of the Zuni Indian Reservation, American Indian Law Alliance, Laguna Acoma Coalition for a Safe Environment, Tonatierra, Native Youth Coalition, Indigenous Network on Economies and Trade, Tatanka Oyate, Andes Chinchasuyo, Maya Vision, Western Shoshone Defense Project, Buffalo River Dene Nation, Mainyoto Pastoralist Integrated Development Organization, Bangsa Adat Alifuru from Maluku, Indigenous Peoples’ Council on Biocolonialism, Te Runanga Kaimahi, Kaimahi Maori o Aotearoa of the New Zealand Council of Trade Unions, Indigenous Environmental Network, Resisting Environment Destruction on Indigenous Land (RedOil), Winnemem Wintu Tribe, Te Hau Takitini o Aotearoa, Nihiyaw Cree Society, Council of Grandmothers, and Indigenous Peace Action.For the last two years our organization has addressed the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues regarding the Protection of Water, and it is an honor to do so again. At this time, I urgently reiterate the critical significance of protecting Indigenous Peoples’ full, unencumbered access to clean Water on our territories. This is crucial for all aspects of our health: physical, cultural, and spiritual. Water is boundless. Water is Life.
Although we do not always know when we will walk into the prayers of our ancestors, here we have done just that. Many thousands of our ancestors have prayed for peace and rain. And, for many decades our relatives throughout the world have dreamed, worked and bled for the creation of this Forum, to have our voices and concerns heard by the world community in this House of Mica, this place recognized by our Hopi brother, the late Thomas Banyaca, at the opening of the International Year of the World’s Indigenous Peoples in 1993. For all of them, and for the generations yet to come, we support the immediate adoption of the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples as adopted by the UN Human Rights Council last year, and we offer these recommendations.
Recommendations:
1. We again urgently appeal to the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues to request the immediate appointment of a United Nations Special Rapporteur for the Protection of Water and Water Catchment Areas in order to gather testimony directly from Indigenous Nations of the world targeted
for or impacted by Water privatization, diversion, toxic contamination, dams, pollution, commodification, non-sustainable energy development and other environmental injustices that damage natural, potable and accessible Water supplies on which Indigenous Peoples rely for spiritual and nutritional sustenance. We recall that this recommendation was carried forth by the Permanent Forum to the Economic and Social Development Council when we first requested this in 2005, and we respectfully request that this compelling concern is recognized and advanced once again.2. We ask that the Special Rapporteur for the Protection of Water and Catchment Areas critically review and assess Water allocation, access policies and regulations that affect the rights of Indigenous Nations, the health of our Peoples and that of future generations. This should be done to identify protective and preventive and restorative mechanisms to restore our Waters and assure that Water is accessible to our Peoples, as well as to repair our diverse ecosystems that rely on the health of natural Water flows where they have been damaged.
3. Our Peoples have a right to say no to any development project on our territories. We call upon the Permanent Forum to strongly advocate for the free, prior and informed consent of Indigenous Peoples in regard to any development on our territories by any outside entities, including the World Bank and States, whose actions may impact or abrogate our aboriginal and/or treaty rights including right of access to clean, potable Water for all aspects of our life.
4. Further, we ask that Nation-States’ reports to the United Nations contain a focus on Water and also that they include direct participation by Indigenous Peoples in the development of those reports.
5. We recommend that the Permanent Forum take immediate steps in the Commission on Sustainable Development to protect Water from privatization, and from bi-lateral and multi-lateral governmental agreements and other incursions onto our territories that affect the integrity of our Waters, impoverish our Nations and impose additional hardships on Indigenous Peoples, particularly on Indigenous women.
6. We fully support the Indigenous Women’s Caucus statement and its recommendations in light of the unique and essential relationship between women and Water.
Narrative Justification:
Indigenous Peoples know Water as the sacred source and essence of all Life imbued with a spirit and a consciousness. The vitality of Water to our communities is expressed in a rainbow of songs, stories, and ceremonies, holding a special place in our cultures for the continuation of an Indigenous worldview that affirms the vital link of Water to life everlasting. And yet, springs from which our ancestors emerged from within the womb of Mother Earth, precious watersheds that feed our lakes and enable life, and rivers that carry our prayers to the forever after, are being destroyed. Privatization of Water and our other resources places them in the control of multi-national corporations, shortsighted governmental development policies, and the unrelenting encroachment by non-indigenous settlements, forcing us into poverty and pushing us further to the edge of existence, where we are already barely holding on by our fingertips for survival.
Environmental injustice including the ongoing invasions onto Indigenous territories, and the attendant wrongful taking of our natural resources, particularly the nearly unhindered exploitation and commodification of Water, obstruct critically needed access to our Waterways and threaten the survival of Indigenous Peoples and of our distinct cultures. These assaults have direct and tremendously destructive impacts and further impoverish our already vulnerable, besieged Peoples. Although North America is widely assumed to be a region of universal affluence, there are many thousands of Indigenous Peoples and communities, throughout the continent, who have no meaningful system of protection against the wrongful diversion, privatization, and oppression of our Water resources. In fact, many of us are dying of thirst.
Madame Chair, and esteemed members of this Forum, Indigenous women throughout the world who often have the primary responsibility of locating and carrying water for their families, and may risk their lives to do so now find only dust instead of water. In too many places, a polluted stream is our only source of Water. We hunger and can no longer plant our gardens, not because we have forgotten how to nurture life from a seed, but because without access to Water, our crops cannot flourish, and we cannot thrive without them. A child dies every eight seconds for lack of access to clean Water and many victims are our own, Indigenous children. The unquenchable greed of States, corporations, settlers, and other invaders, whose unrelenting actions on our lands constitute a Water war against Indigenous Peoples, are killing us all – violating our ecosystems, condemning our peoples, obliterating our futures.
What were once rich landscapes awake with forests and gardens, rivers and cornfields, alive with animals and birds, and a harmonious diversity of Indigenous cultures, are quickly becoming parched lands that only our tears can soften today. Let us dry our eyes and take action on the recommendations as offered. Water is a human right. Our children, those generations yet to be born, and all of our relations, are the ultimate casualties of this conflict. I urge you all to take immediate action on this most urgent matter. Thank you for your kind attention. Elahkwa.
(Photo above/California coast/Brenda Norrell)
Hopi and Japanese Say Water Has Intelligence
by Brenda Norrell
News from Indian Country, January, 2004
KYKOTSMOVI, Ariz. -- Hopi members of Black Mesa Trust said water carries intelligence. Hopi and Japanese are discovering what Hopi and other Indigenous peoples have always known, "Water is alive."
Vernon Masayesva, executive director of Black Mesa Trust, recently visited Japan and met with Shinto priests and researcher Dr. Masaru Emoto, chief of the Hado Institute in Tokyo and author of Message from Water.
During the Hisot Navoti (knowledge of ancestors) water conference at the Hopi Veterans Center, Hopi revealed knowledge of water shared by Hopi and Japanese.
Masayesva showed amazing film footage, revealing startling transformations in water crystals when exposed to music and written words. Emoto's photographs reveal water crystals, under high magnification, have drastically different forms from different water sources. Further, Emoto shows that water changes its expression as a result of human actions.
When water is exposed to the music of Mozart and Beethoven, crystals expand and become more beautiful. These crystals resemble diamonds, with flower buds blossoming on their points, as the music plays.
Emoto explains that water carries and responds to the vibrations of music. He reveals even more amazing research, showing water responds to the written word.
When clear tubes of water are placed over positive and negative words, the structure of water crystals change. Water crystals increase in beauty when placed over the word "peace," but are transformed to dark and ugly crystals when placed over the word "war."
When water is placed over the word "let's," the crystals expand and increase in beauty. However, when water is placed over the word "must," the crystals become ugly with a dark green center. Emoto says water is letting us realize the hidden power of words.
During the gathering for the defense of pure water, Jerry Honawa, Hopi elder, said, "Water has intelligence."
Speaking of water, Masayesva said, "If you are happy, you will have happy crystals; if you are angry, you will have angry crystals." Masayesva also shared the history of the Hopi people, revealing their destiny intertwined with the earth and its mysteries.
"According to Hopi, long ago there was nothing but water from the beginning of time. This is what we call the First World of Hopi. "Life was created from water, from the land, from the sun."
When life was first created, it was beautiful, a perfect circle. On Hopiland today there are areas of perfect seashells, proof that this land was once underwater as Hopi are told. There are perfect fossils here, he said.
"Where does coal come from? It comes from plants. Everywhere you go, you see dinosaur tracks. This must have been a beautiful place at one time."
In the First World, there was balance, harmony and peace. This balance and harmony, however, was destroyed in the Third World because of man and his greed. The ancestors began searching for a safe place to begin a new life. Bird was sent out and returned with news of this place.
"Through the bamboo, they entered the new land,” Masayesva said. "It is a metaphor, we don't really know, but we came from somewhere where there was bamboo." When the people arrived in this new land, they thought they had left evil behind them. But after a child died, they realized that evil had come with them. Those with the two hearts had come. "Evil is necessary to understand what good truly is," Masayesva said.
The people knew they had to learn from the destruction of the Third World and not return to those ways. They wanted to create a new way of life. The Hopi people were not led by politicians, they were led by priests, often the poorest man in the village who denied himself everything for the benefit of his children.
In this new place they found a man who grew beautiful corn. It was Ma'sau, guardian of the land. Ma'sau said it is a harsh land, but if the people were willing to live Ma'sau's way of life, they could stay here.
Ma'sau told the people, "If you follow this way of life, you can stay here forever." Ma'sau showed the people corn, a gourd of water and planting stick. "He said if you decide to stay here you must help me take care of this land, then you can stay."
Ma'sau told them that others are coming. "They will claim everything when they come, even the oceans, the air and the stars." Ma'sau told the Hopi people to migrate to the four corners of the world, then return here to Black Mesa. The gourd to carry water was also a revelation, showing that water here is not infinite, it is limited.
Masayesva said the colors of the corn represent the colors of all mankind, yellow, purple, red and white. The sweet corn also represents the ancestors and the purple the heavens. Corn, too, gave Hopi a new way of life, and meant that the people no longer had to search for food every day, leaving them free for other things.
The planting stick represents tools or technology, which can be used for good or for destruction. There was a time when smallpox nearly eliminated the Hopi people, with only 300 Hopi surviving, Masayesva said technology can prevent and cure illness today, but it threatens to end humankind with the production of nuclear bombs. Nuclear power and travel to distant planets have resulted in dangerous "god-like powers."
The waters--aquifers, springs, lakes, rivers, oceans and glaciers-- work in harmony to sustain life. Hopi believe the aquifers breathe, breathe in rain and snow and breathe it out. The springs are the breathing holes. Humankind is a participant in water-life; mankind's thoughts influence whether the rain and snow comes.
Of the world's water today, Masayesva said 97 percent is seawater and 2 percent is bound in glaciers. Only1 percent is available for drinking.
However, America is a nation of waste. "We are a throwaway society. We think we are never going to run out of anything."
Masayesva said the people must honor their trust as guardians of the water and land.
"If we don't, we will break the circle."
©News From Indian Country January 12, 2004.
"Indigenous leaders bring eco-sense to UN"
www.oneworld.net
http://us.oneworld.net/article/view/149394/1/4536
Return to Censored homepage
http://www.bsnorrell.blogspot.com/
May 20, 2007
UPDATED: North Dakota racism has familiar smell
By Brenda Norrell
http://www.bsnorrell.blogspot.com/
After Rob Port was banned by the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa in North Dakota, it was interesting to see the support Port received from some editors of North Dakota newspapers.
It had a familiar smell.
Racism was common in newspaper rooms in New Mexico and Arizona in the 1990s.
During the early 1990s, I worked as a staff reporter for the Farmington Daily Times in New Mexico. I was based in Shiprock, N.M., on the Navajo Nation.
A group of Navajo teens at a convenience store were attacked and beaten with baseball bats by a group of white Farmington teenagers.
The Daily Times editors knowingly published articles which distorted the facts and made it appear that the victims were responsible for those beatings.
The Navajo teens had broken bones. This was neither the first time, nor the last, that American Indians were beaten by Farmington teenagers. It was what Navajo Genevieve Jackson called "a rite of passage" for white Farmington teenagers. Three of the torture murders of Navajos in Farmington in the 1970s are described in the book, "The Broken Circle," by Rodney Barker. The beatings and murders continue.
When I made a formal complaint to the editors of Farmington Daily Times, about the facts being distorted and the teen victims being blamed, I was fired.
I reported the situation to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights in Denver. The Civil Rights Commission was holding hearings at the time on bordertown racism; it became part of the submitted testimony.
The institutionalized racism was intense.
The Farmington Police Department was monitored by the U.S. Civil Rights Commission for decades. Like in the Dakotas, Indians were stopped by police far more often than non-Indians. But even non-Indians who came to the defense of Indians were targeted by police. One non-Indian Farmington resident testified to the Civil Rights Commission that Farmington police stopped him dozens of times, for the purpose of harassment, after he reported police for beating an Indian man. (I've included a link below to the most recent Commission report on Farmington.)
Eventually, the Daily Times was sold and gained new management.
However, the racism and distortion of the facts concerning the beating of the Navajo teens by white teens with baseball bats was not just a singular incident at the newspaper.
The Daily Times staff meetings were often plagued with racist insults toward American Indians, derogatory racial slurs voiced by some of the staff reporters and editors.
Hopefully, things in Southwest newsrooms have changed for the better.
North Dakota is now in the spotlight, with exposure that the sayanything blog, which Port moderates, is a forum for racism and hatred.
It is interesting to follow the press coverage on this issue, since editors and wire reporters don't seem to have read the tribe's resolution or sought out Chippewa tribal members for their responses, which is normally done in news stories.
UPI's current wire story doesn't include a single comment from a Chippewa tribal member or a quote from the tribe's resolution. At least in this case, it appears that UPI doesn't believe it is important to get the Indians' side of the story.
The sad part is that violence begins with thoughts. The good part is that things usually change when people speak out for truth and justice.
--bn
UPI's one-sided story:
http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/Top_News/2007/05/18/nd_tribal_leaders_banish_man/2629/
"The Farmington Report, Civil Rights for Native Americans 30 Years Later"
US Commission on Civil Rights
http://www.usccr.gov/
Original post: "Chippewa insulted by banned author"
http://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2007/05/chippewa-insulted-by-banned-author.html
Turtle Mountain Chippewa resolution posted at:
http://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2007/05/comment-about-chippewa-banning-rob-port_17.html
Return to Censored homepage:
http://www.bsnorrell.blogspot.com/
http://www.bsnorrell.blogspot.com/
After Rob Port was banned by the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa in North Dakota, it was interesting to see the support Port received from some editors of North Dakota newspapers.
It had a familiar smell.
Racism was common in newspaper rooms in New Mexico and Arizona in the 1990s.
During the early 1990s, I worked as a staff reporter for the Farmington Daily Times in New Mexico. I was based in Shiprock, N.M., on the Navajo Nation.
A group of Navajo teens at a convenience store were attacked and beaten with baseball bats by a group of white Farmington teenagers.
The Daily Times editors knowingly published articles which distorted the facts and made it appear that the victims were responsible for those beatings.
The Navajo teens had broken bones. This was neither the first time, nor the last, that American Indians were beaten by Farmington teenagers. It was what Navajo Genevieve Jackson called "a rite of passage" for white Farmington teenagers. Three of the torture murders of Navajos in Farmington in the 1970s are described in the book, "The Broken Circle," by Rodney Barker. The beatings and murders continue.
When I made a formal complaint to the editors of Farmington Daily Times, about the facts being distorted and the teen victims being blamed, I was fired.
I reported the situation to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights in Denver. The Civil Rights Commission was holding hearings at the time on bordertown racism; it became part of the submitted testimony.
The institutionalized racism was intense.
The Farmington Police Department was monitored by the U.S. Civil Rights Commission for decades. Like in the Dakotas, Indians were stopped by police far more often than non-Indians. But even non-Indians who came to the defense of Indians were targeted by police. One non-Indian Farmington resident testified to the Civil Rights Commission that Farmington police stopped him dozens of times, for the purpose of harassment, after he reported police for beating an Indian man. (I've included a link below to the most recent Commission report on Farmington.)
Eventually, the Daily Times was sold and gained new management.
However, the racism and distortion of the facts concerning the beating of the Navajo teens by white teens with baseball bats was not just a singular incident at the newspaper.
The Daily Times staff meetings were often plagued with racist insults toward American Indians, derogatory racial slurs voiced by some of the staff reporters and editors.
Hopefully, things in Southwest newsrooms have changed for the better.
North Dakota is now in the spotlight, with exposure that the sayanything blog, which Port moderates, is a forum for racism and hatred.
It is interesting to follow the press coverage on this issue, since editors and wire reporters don't seem to have read the tribe's resolution or sought out Chippewa tribal members for their responses, which is normally done in news stories.
UPI's current wire story doesn't include a single comment from a Chippewa tribal member or a quote from the tribe's resolution. At least in this case, it appears that UPI doesn't believe it is important to get the Indians' side of the story.
The sad part is that violence begins with thoughts. The good part is that things usually change when people speak out for truth and justice.
--bn
UPI's one-sided story:
http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/Top_News/2007/05/18/nd_tribal_leaders_banish_man/2629/
"The Farmington Report, Civil Rights for Native Americans 30 Years Later"
US Commission on Civil Rights
http://www.usccr.gov/
Original post: "Chippewa insulted by banned author"
http://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2007/05/chippewa-insulted-by-banned-author.html
Turtle Mountain Chippewa resolution posted at:
http://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2007/05/comment-about-chippewa-banning-rob-port_17.html
Return to Censored homepage:
http://www.bsnorrell.blogspot.com/
May 18, 2007
In Focus, Gros-Ventre in Montana
Please keep James Main, Sr., White Clay People (Gros-Ventre) in Montana, in your thoughts and prayers. James, like his father Tom Main, has served Indigenous Peoples all his life. He recently returned home after open heart surgery, but is now again hospitalized. The Mains will be in focus in an upcoming series. (James Main on Big Warm Creek, May 2007. T-shirt reads, "Sure you can trust your government, just ask any Indian." Photo by Brenda Norrell.)MNN: NAFTA Super Autobahn, the Road to Hell
IS “NAFTA SUPER AUTOBAHN” THE ROAD TO HELL?
Kahentinetha Horn
Mohawk Nation News
May 18, 2007
The Bush Administration is planning to build a huge Highway from Mexico to Canada. The NAFTA Super “Autobahn” will be a four football fields wide car-truck-train-pipeline corridor from Mexico to Canada. It will be a 10-lane limited-access road with tolls. Jerome R. Corsi of “Human Events” has written extensively about this project which is being done on the quiet.The NAFTA autobahn is mainly going to transport our resources from one million square miles of unsurrendered Indigenous land in the northern part of Turtle Island, through the U.S and Mexico to the countries of the Pacific rim.Then the road will bring containers from the Far East to enter the United States through the Mexican port of Lazaro Cardenas, bypassing the Longshoreman’s Union on the docks of the west coast. The Mexican trucks, without the involvement of the Teamsters Union, will drive on what will be the nation’s most modern highway straight into the heart of Turtle Island. [See attached map]. We see more containers on trains that are miles and miles long coming from California ports heading east. The west coast is one of the places where they want to put unions out of business.So who benefits? Not the Mexicans! Maybe not even the Americans! Certainly not the Indigenous land and resource owners!The northeastern route will go along the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence River, right through Haudenosaunee territory. Mega bridges to the northern reaches are already planned, one from Kahnawake to Montreal, one over the Ottawa River at Kanehsatake and another from Cornwall over to Akwesasne. Once again we Mohawks are in the way.The Mexican trucks will cross the border in fast lanes, checked only electronically by the new “SENTRI” system. The first customs stop will be a Mexican customs office in Kansas City, known as a “Smart Port”, built for Mexico by U.S. taxpayers. Containers from the Far East can be transferred there to trucks going east and west.Super roads are not a new idea. In 1933 Hitler and the Nazis finished the German “autobahn” during the Third Reich. It linked north and south Germany. It was promoted as creating jobs. It was actually built mostly by Russian prisoners of war. The military was involved in the planning to provide mobility for the movement of their troops and weaponry. They were designed with auxiliary airports with aircraft hidden in tunnels or camouflaged in nearby woods. [We don’t know what military auxiliary will be built alongside the NAFTA autobahn].In the end the German autobahn was useless during most of the war due to a shortage of gas and lack of trucks. Tanks and trucks were hard on the fragile surface. Much of the road was bombed. The bulk of the military traffic, men and material ended up being transported by rail. Eisenhower was inspired by the German Autobahn and created a U.S. interstate highway system in 1956.The concession for the tolls on the Texas portion of the NAFTA Autobahn was leased to a Spanish firm, “Cintra Concesiones de infra”. Rudy “911” Giuliani’s law firm represents Cintra exclusively. The state of Texas was paid $2.1 billion up front and $700 million yearly for 50 years. “Rudy Guiliani Capital Advisors” has been bought out by “Macquarrie”, an Australian Consortium which leases and operates U.S. and Canadian toll roads. It can be presumed that the whole corridor will be a private toll road which will need a private military force to protect it.“Euro Money Seminars” of the UK is teaching state and local U.S. governments how to lease public assets such as highways, water works, prisons and schools to international investment groups. One of Giuliani’s firms, “Giuliani and Partners”, has a component for leasing out private police forces.President Bush does not appear to be anxious to secure the Mexican border. Maybe he has to create express lanes first for the Mexican trucks that will be bringing containers into the heart of the U.S., to bypass U.S. union workers on the docks or in the trucks. 90% of trucking is now non-union because of government union busting.The only places where the unions are still strong are in major financial industrial cities like New York, Boston, Pittsburgh and Chicago. For example, fabricated steel coming in from non-union fabricators have to go to New Jersey, reload onto union trucks and then are driven into New York City by the Teamsters Union.It’s to kill off whatever is left of the unions. It’s to steal our resources. It’s to stop indigenous protest. It’s to eliminate anyone who wants to prevent the reestablishment of the oligarcic cultural elite who want to treat the rest of us like slaves.To get the public’s [forced] “cooperation” of those cities and towns that are in the way of the corridor, large corporations are being shut down, such as Domtar in Cornwall Ontario and General Motors in Massena New York. A few hundred million dollars has been taken out of the economy on both sides of the Canada-U.S. border. Lost jobs will lower house and property values which can then be grabbed cheaply or easily expropriated by NAFTA under the “eminent domain” stealing act.The public is mostly unaware of the coming North American Union that is planned for the United States, Canada and Mexico. Various U.S. government and state agencies and scores of private NGOs (non-governmental organizations) are working behind the scenes to create this highway. The U.S. government has set up an office in the Department of Commerce called the “SPP Office” for “Security and Prosperity Partnership”. The SPP Agreement was signed by Bush, President Vicente Fox, and then-Prime Minister Paul Martin in Waco, Tex., on March 23, 2005.CN Rail and CP Rail in Canada are part of this. Let’s see how lucrative it is for them to steal our resources and to cooperate with multinational corporations and the governments they control. As of February 2007, the President and CEO of CN make more than the directors and senior management who make 2.2% of all outstanding shares. This is about $30 million. You can bet that when dividend time comes, they won’t be eating Kraft Dinner like the Indigenous people they stole the land and trust funds from to build the rail empire.CN has had record profits on the backs of employees who were fired thus resulting in safety issues. A newly appointed vice-president and chief safety officer was created to address derailments and toxic spills. Many railroad engineers have died due to poor maintenance all in the name of $$$.This autobahn will not benefit Turtle Island. It is a corridor to carry resources that are being stolen from us. It is transported through the U.S. to Mexico and then put it on ships to China and elsewhere. It appears like the U.S. public will not get anything out of it either. The investors and profiteers use U.S., Mexican and Canadian fronts on their various boards.Until 1999, the land in the north of Turtle Island was administered by the Canadian government. Then a “government” was set up similar to a band council, with no authority over resources. This control is still held by the federal government which can make deals to sell it all off to multinational corporations.This is a stupid plan. How will they defend such a long road? These extremes of self-centered despotism are not new. They have risen many times before. 2000 years ago the Han Dynasty in China forced people to do a lot of road work for almost nothing. The penalty for arriving late for work was death. Finally, when a river flooded and the people could not get to work on time, they rebelled and brought the dynasty down. Despotism always falls down in the end. This senseless project is doomed from the start. In the meantime the people will suffer a lot while the abuse builds itself up to the breaking point.If this megalomaniac nonsense isn’t questioned right now people can go through decades or even a century of suffering. The U.S. was founded on egalitarian principles they learned from the Haudenosaunee/Iroquois. The U.S. constantly forgets its inspirational sources. When Europeans arrived on our shores they were huddled masses yearning to be free. They were dirty, malnourished and abused. Now they abuse us.It’s time for everyone to throw off the shackles of abuse. We have to assert our rights, participate, share and laugh. We were not born to be slaves to corporate greed.
Kahentinetha Horn,MNN Mohawk Nation News;
kahentinetha2@yahoo.com & katenies20@yahoo.com;
for updates, workshops, speakers and to sign up, go to www.mohawknationnews.com;
please sign the Women Title Holders petition; for sale “Rebuilding the Iroquois Confederacy” and “Warriors Hand Book” ($10 USD each postage included)[http://MohawkNationNews.com/news/singlenews.php?lang=en&category=48&newsnr=464]
Kahentinetha Horn
Mohawk Nation News
May 18, 2007
The Bush Administration is planning to build a huge Highway from Mexico to Canada. The NAFTA Super “Autobahn” will be a four football fields wide car-truck-train-pipeline corridor from Mexico to Canada. It will be a 10-lane limited-access road with tolls. Jerome R. Corsi of “Human Events” has written extensively about this project which is being done on the quiet.The NAFTA autobahn is mainly going to transport our resources from one million square miles of unsurrendered Indigenous land in the northern part of Turtle Island, through the U.S and Mexico to the countries of the Pacific rim.Then the road will bring containers from the Far East to enter the United States through the Mexican port of Lazaro Cardenas, bypassing the Longshoreman’s Union on the docks of the west coast. The Mexican trucks, without the involvement of the Teamsters Union, will drive on what will be the nation’s most modern highway straight into the heart of Turtle Island. [See attached map]. We see more containers on trains that are miles and miles long coming from California ports heading east. The west coast is one of the places where they want to put unions out of business.So who benefits? Not the Mexicans! Maybe not even the Americans! Certainly not the Indigenous land and resource owners!The northeastern route will go along the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence River, right through Haudenosaunee territory. Mega bridges to the northern reaches are already planned, one from Kahnawake to Montreal, one over the Ottawa River at Kanehsatake and another from Cornwall over to Akwesasne. Once again we Mohawks are in the way.The Mexican trucks will cross the border in fast lanes, checked only electronically by the new “SENTRI” system. The first customs stop will be a Mexican customs office in Kansas City, known as a “Smart Port”, built for Mexico by U.S. taxpayers. Containers from the Far East can be transferred there to trucks going east and west.Super roads are not a new idea. In 1933 Hitler and the Nazis finished the German “autobahn” during the Third Reich. It linked north and south Germany. It was promoted as creating jobs. It was actually built mostly by Russian prisoners of war. The military was involved in the planning to provide mobility for the movement of their troops and weaponry. They were designed with auxiliary airports with aircraft hidden in tunnels or camouflaged in nearby woods. [We don’t know what military auxiliary will be built alongside the NAFTA autobahn].In the end the German autobahn was useless during most of the war due to a shortage of gas and lack of trucks. Tanks and trucks were hard on the fragile surface. Much of the road was bombed. The bulk of the military traffic, men and material ended up being transported by rail. Eisenhower was inspired by the German Autobahn and created a U.S. interstate highway system in 1956.The concession for the tolls on the Texas portion of the NAFTA Autobahn was leased to a Spanish firm, “Cintra Concesiones de infra”. Rudy “911” Giuliani’s law firm represents Cintra exclusively. The state of Texas was paid $2.1 billion up front and $700 million yearly for 50 years. “Rudy Guiliani Capital Advisors” has been bought out by “Macquarrie”, an Australian Consortium which leases and operates U.S. and Canadian toll roads. It can be presumed that the whole corridor will be a private toll road which will need a private military force to protect it.“Euro Money Seminars” of the UK is teaching state and local U.S. governments how to lease public assets such as highways, water works, prisons and schools to international investment groups. One of Giuliani’s firms, “Giuliani and Partners”, has a component for leasing out private police forces.President Bush does not appear to be anxious to secure the Mexican border. Maybe he has to create express lanes first for the Mexican trucks that will be bringing containers into the heart of the U.S., to bypass U.S. union workers on the docks or in the trucks. 90% of trucking is now non-union because of government union busting.The only places where the unions are still strong are in major financial industrial cities like New York, Boston, Pittsburgh and Chicago. For example, fabricated steel coming in from non-union fabricators have to go to New Jersey, reload onto union trucks and then are driven into New York City by the Teamsters Union.It’s to kill off whatever is left of the unions. It’s to steal our resources. It’s to stop indigenous protest. It’s to eliminate anyone who wants to prevent the reestablishment of the oligarcic cultural elite who want to treat the rest of us like slaves.To get the public’s [forced] “cooperation” of those cities and towns that are in the way of the corridor, large corporations are being shut down, such as Domtar in Cornwall Ontario and General Motors in Massena New York. A few hundred million dollars has been taken out of the economy on both sides of the Canada-U.S. border. Lost jobs will lower house and property values which can then be grabbed cheaply or easily expropriated by NAFTA under the “eminent domain” stealing act.The public is mostly unaware of the coming North American Union that is planned for the United States, Canada and Mexico. Various U.S. government and state agencies and scores of private NGOs (non-governmental organizations) are working behind the scenes to create this highway. The U.S. government has set up an office in the Department of Commerce called the “SPP Office” for “Security and Prosperity Partnership”. The SPP Agreement was signed by Bush, President Vicente Fox, and then-Prime Minister Paul Martin in Waco, Tex., on March 23, 2005.CN Rail and CP Rail in Canada are part of this. Let’s see how lucrative it is for them to steal our resources and to cooperate with multinational corporations and the governments they control. As of February 2007, the President and CEO of CN make more than the directors and senior management who make 2.2% of all outstanding shares. This is about $30 million. You can bet that when dividend time comes, they won’t be eating Kraft Dinner like the Indigenous people they stole the land and trust funds from to build the rail empire.CN has had record profits on the backs of employees who were fired thus resulting in safety issues. A newly appointed vice-president and chief safety officer was created to address derailments and toxic spills. Many railroad engineers have died due to poor maintenance all in the name of $$$.This autobahn will not benefit Turtle Island. It is a corridor to carry resources that are being stolen from us. It is transported through the U.S. to Mexico and then put it on ships to China and elsewhere. It appears like the U.S. public will not get anything out of it either. The investors and profiteers use U.S., Mexican and Canadian fronts on their various boards.Until 1999, the land in the north of Turtle Island was administered by the Canadian government. Then a “government” was set up similar to a band council, with no authority over resources. This control is still held by the federal government which can make deals to sell it all off to multinational corporations.This is a stupid plan. How will they defend such a long road? These extremes of self-centered despotism are not new. They have risen many times before. 2000 years ago the Han Dynasty in China forced people to do a lot of road work for almost nothing. The penalty for arriving late for work was death. Finally, when a river flooded and the people could not get to work on time, they rebelled and brought the dynasty down. Despotism always falls down in the end. This senseless project is doomed from the start. In the meantime the people will suffer a lot while the abuse builds itself up to the breaking point.If this megalomaniac nonsense isn’t questioned right now people can go through decades or even a century of suffering. The U.S. was founded on egalitarian principles they learned from the Haudenosaunee/Iroquois. The U.S. constantly forgets its inspirational sources. When Europeans arrived on our shores they were huddled masses yearning to be free. They were dirty, malnourished and abused. Now they abuse us.It’s time for everyone to throw off the shackles of abuse. We have to assert our rights, participate, share and laugh. We were not born to be slaves to corporate greed.
Kahentinetha Horn,MNN Mohawk Nation News;
kahentinetha2@yahoo.com & katenies20@yahoo.com;
for updates, workshops, speakers and to sign up, go to www.mohawknationnews.com;
please sign the Women Title Holders petition; for sale “Rebuilding the Iroquois Confederacy” and “Warriors Hand Book” ($10 USD each postage included)[http://MohawkNationNews.com/news/singlenews.php?lang=en&category=48&newsnr=464]
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