December 14, 2014
McCain's new mode of genocide: Theft of Apache sacred land for copper mining
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| Photo by Sandra Rambler, San Carlos Apache "We need the water for our beloved children and grandchildren and all those who are yet to be born." |
By Brenda Norrell
Censored News
Sen. John McCain's new mode of genocide is no where more obvious than in the slick theft of Apache sacred lands for the benefit of a foreign corporation for copper mining. Of course, McCain's theft of sacred lands in Arizona is nothing new, nor is the complicity by the corrupt media who are in the saddle with fellow politicians and corporate bedfellows.
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| Apaches protest Resolution Copper Photo by Sandra Rambler, San Carlos Apache |
With deception and spin, McCain and his team of thieves hid away the theft of Oak Flat, sacred lands of Apache, in the National Defense Authorization Act passed by the Senate on Friday, after being passed by the House. McCain and his fellow thieves in Congress have duped the public once again. And they all came out smiling.
The snakes used similar spin and deception for the so-called Navajo Hopi land dispute, which was actually to clear Navajos off their land at Black Mesa for Peabody Coal. The coal fuels one of the world's dirtiest coal-fired power plants, Navajo Generating Station, on the Navajo Nation in Arizona.
The stench of this government and media deception is also found in the secret files of the United States internment camps where Aleuts were forced to live, and many died of starvation and disease, during World War II. Even in the mid-Twentieth Century, the US government carried out a secret program of sterilizing American Indian women in Indian Health Service hospitals.
The deceptions are also obvious in the United States destabilization of Mexico by providing assault weapons to the drug cartels. The ATF's gunrunning, including Project Gunrunner, Fast and Furious and Operation Wide Receiver, began under the Bush administration in Texas in 2005, according a US Justice Dept. document.
Around the world, the US military's agenda is to provide weapons and whatever is needed for guerrillas, regardless of whether they are on the side of good or not. This fact is made clear in the US Army manuals. The purpose is to destabilize countries from within, which gives the US the advantage and enriches the US corporate war profiteers. It also creates homelessness for the dispossessed, who become migrants, and can once again be turned into profit by private prisons in the US.
Perhaps America is too busy shopping at Walmart -- which has made slaves of their employees while the owners became billionaires -- to care about the Obama administration killing innocent women and children with drones, as they strike without individuals being charged or given trials.
Perhaps Americans are too busy doing their holiday shopping to care that Indigenous Peoples defending their lands around the world have been assassinated in 2014 by mining companies and others.
Perhaps Americans are all satisfied with the watered-down US torture reports, media cover-ups of police murders of blacks, and dull TV news and national radio programs claiming there is no racism in America.
Perhaps one of the saddest of all of the news items in 2014 was the lack of it. As national reporters for Indian country news continued to stay home and plagiarize, they let the coyotes and snakes run free in Congress.
McCain, once again, is the darling of the coyotes and snakes.
Also see:
In their own words: Apache elders talk about Oak Flat
http://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2014/12/apache-elders-words-on-theft-of-sacred.html
Ecuadorian Indigenous leader protesting mining murdered enroute to climate summit
http://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2014/12/indigenous-leader-enroute-to-un-climate.html
Indigenous Peoples assassinated defending their lands
http://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2014/12/indigenous-leaders-assassinated.html
Petition to White House
Hidden in the defense bill was a package granting illegal land swap near Superior, Ariz., for the benefit of a foreign company Rio Tinto PLC who seek to mine copper.
Resolution Copper -- a Rio Tinto venture with BHP Billiton Ltd. -- would be given more than 2,000 acres of federal land in return for more than 5,000 acres of company land.
Conservation advocates and American Indian groups, particularly the San Carlos Apache Tribe, have for years been trying to block the swap, saying the mine would damage natural resources and culturally sensitive areas. A site called Apache Leap in the Tonto National Forest has been of particular concern.
More on these stories at Censored News www.bsnorrell.blogspot.com
Zapatistas Moises: De Ayotzinapa, del Festival y de la histeria como método de análisis y guía para la acción
De Ayotzinapa, del Festival y de la histeria como método de análisis y guía para la acción. Subcomandante Insurgente Moisés
EJÉRCITO ZAPATISTA DE LIBERACIÓN NACIONAL.
MÉXICO.
Diciembre del 2014.
A l@s compas de la Sexta nacional e internacional:
Al Congreso Nacional Indígena:
A los familiares y compañeros de los asesinados y desaparecidos de Ayotzinapa:
Hermanas y hermanos:
Compañeros y compañeras:
Hay muchas cosas que queremos decirles. No las diremos todas porque sabemos que ahora hay asuntos más urgentes e importantes para todas, todos y todoas. Pero como quiera son muchas cosas y es larga nuestra palabra. Así que les pedimos paciencia y una lectura atenta.
December 13, 2014
December 12, 2014
Canada Blocks NAFTA Investigation Into British Columbia Fish Farm Impacts on Wild Salmon
Canada Blocks NAFTA Investigation Into British Columbia Fish Farm Impacts on Wild Salmon
Decision Threatens Salmon Runs Along Entire Pacific Coast
MONTRÉAL— A petition by tribal, fishing and conservation groups calling for an investigation into Canada's failure to enforce laws regulating damage to wild salmon caused by aquaculture operations in British Columbia has been wrongly dismissed by the Commission for Environmental Cooperation, an environmental dispute body established under the North American Free Trade Agreement.Mexico joined Canada in blocking preparation of a factual record on whether Canada is failing to enforce its federal Fisheries Act by allowing wild salmon to be exposed to disease and parasites from industrial fish farms in British Columbia. The United States supported a NAFTA inquiry, stating that the process was wrongly terminated. "I am very disappointed that Mexico sided with Canada to block international inquiry into whether Canada has violated its Fisheries Act," said Alexandra Morton, an independent biologist who has helped expose Canada's failure to protect wild salmon from disease and parasites from industrial fish farms. "This politicized decision serves to shield the harmful effects of the Norwegian aquaculture industry from scrutiny. I think one day Canadians will be ashamed that they gave up wild salmon for this industry." "I am deeply disappointed in Canada continuing to put wild salmon at risk," said Kwikwasutinuxw Haxwa'mis First Nation Chief Bob Chamberlin. "This process may have ended but our struggle to safeguard wild salmon will not falter for a moment." "This NAFTA process is supposed to shine light on whether environmental laws are being enforced, but the process has become increasingly politicized and it's clear Canada does not want the facts revealed about the damage to wild salmon from industrial fish farms," said Jeff Miller with the Center for Biological Diversity. Canada has permitted more than 100 industrial salmon feedlots in British Columbia to operate along wild salmon migration routes, exposing valuable salmon runs to epidemics of disease, parasites, toxic chemicals and concentrated waste. Salmon feedlots are linked to dramatic declines in wild salmon populations worldwide and the spread of lethal salmon viruses and parasites. Scientific evidence of threats to wild salmon swimming through British Columbia waters from fish feedlots has been mounting, as has public concern that feedlots could spread epidemic diseases. These poor aquaculture practices jeopardize the health of every wild salmon run along the Pacific Coast, since U.S. and Canadian fish stocks mingle in the ocean and estuaries. Since the NAFTA petition was filed, the Canadian government's own "Cohen Commission of Inquiry"into the decline of sockeye salmon in the Fraser River issued a final report concluding that salmon farms have the potential for "serious or irreversible" harm to wild salmon through disease transfer. The commission recommended a freeze on new salmon farm licenses along part of the Fraser sockeye migration route until 2020. Yet in January 2014, without any response to the commission recommendations, Canada opened the British Columbia coast to more salmon farms. British Columbia tribal groups are now forming the First Nation Wild Salmon Alliance to demand that the Canadian government fulfill its duty to safeguard wild salmon and the environment. Background When a country that is signatory to the North American Free Trade Agreement fails to enforce its environmental laws, any person may petition the Commission for Environmental Cooperation for an investigation. Canada's Fisheries Act prohibits harmful alteration, disruption or destruction of fish habitat or addition of "deleterious substances." In 2012 tribal, fishing and conservation groups submitted a formal petition asking for investigation into Canada's failure to enforce the Fisheries Act. The petition documented pollutants, viruses and parasites from open-water industrial fish farms that are harming British Columbia's wild salmon runs. Earlier this year the Secretariat of the Commission for Environmental Cooperation recommended a formal investigation. More than half a million Atlantic salmon were culled and quarantined in May 2012 in British Columbia fish farms due to a viral outbreak. Recent research shows that a Norwegian strain of piscine reovirus appears to have entered British Columbia around 2007. This virus, known to spread easily and to be associated with a disease that weakens the heart muscles of salmon, has been identified in nearly all farmed salmon raised and sold in British Columbia. The Canadian Food Inspection Agency also revealed recently that there has been no follow-up testing on the deadly ISA fish virus, despite positive test results in samples of British Columbia farmed salmon. Canada and Mexico claimed to dismiss the NAFTA matter because of pending judicial proceedings that supposedly address the same issues regarding operations and impacts of salmon farms in British Columbia (Kwicksutaineuk/Ah-Kwa-Mish First Nation v. British Columbia and Morton v. Minister of Fisheries). The petition before the Commission addressed Canada's failure to enforce Fisheries Act section 35, which prohibits the harmful alteration, disruption or destruction of fish habitat, and section 36, which prohibits the addition of deleterious substances to fish habitat. The First Nation action filed in 2009 challenges Canada's failure to protect aboriginal fishing rights under section 35 of the Canadian Constitution Act, a separate matter. The Morton application for judicial review does not involve any arguments about sections 35 or 36 of the Fisheries Act. Rather, it challenges the legality of aquaculture licenses that allow companies to transfer fish with diseases or viruses into the marine environment. Therefore, neither proceeding addresses the concerns raised in the NAFTA petition. |
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Jeff Miller
Conservation Advocate
Center for Biological Diversity
(510) 499-9185
Zapatistas World Festival of Resistance and Rebellion against Capitalism
NOVEMBER 28, 2014
First World Festival of Resistance and Rebellion Against Capitalism
General Program
Inauguration: San Francisco Xochicuautla, Municipality of Lerma, Mexico State
Saturday December 20, 2014:
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