Congressional Apology to Native Americans Is Just Cheap Talk

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
October 8, 2009

Apology Op-Ed
Robert T. Coulter
Executive Director, Indian Law Resource Center
www.indianlaw.org



‘No Thanks’ to Congressional Apology

This week the U.S. Senate passed a resolution apologizing to Native Americans for the wrongs done by citizens of this country. Robert T. Coulter, Executive Director of the Indian Law Resource Center, says what happened is a failure on the part of Congress to really acknowledge what it has done in the past.

The Senate has just passed a resolution that apologizes to American Indians and other Native Americans for the wrongs done by citizens of this country. But a genuine apology means you won’t do it again, and this resolution does nothing at all to stop or correct the on-going wrongs that the federal government inflicts on Indian and Alaska Native nations. Unfortunately our government still takes Indian land without paying for it, still refuses to account for the Indian money it holds, still violates its treaties with Indian nations without making amends, and still maintains a body of policy and law that is so discriminatory and racist that it should have been discarded generations ago.

To make a real apology, Congress needs to stop doing the things that it is apologizing to Indian nations and other Native peoples for. Americans generally do not know that the federal government continues to treat tribes and Alaska Native nations this way, and the evidence is that the public does not support or condone this mistreatment.

It is astonishing to most Americans that the federal government is still taking Indian land and resources – without due process of law and without fair market compensation, sometimes with no compensation at all. Of course, the Constitution says that Congress may not take anyone’s property except with due process of law and with fair market compensation. But these rules are not applied to most land and resources owned by Indian tribes, and the government takes the land and resources at will. Obviously, this is wrong. Today, the government is trying to drive Western Shoshone Indians off their homelands in Nevada without a semblance of due process and with a payment of about 15 cents per acre. This is gold mining land, but that doesn’t make it alright to take it from its Indian owners. There are other present day cases. A few years ago, Congress confiscated part of the reservation that was shared by the Yurok Nation in California and turned it over to another tribe. Congress gloated at the time that it could do this without paying compensation because of Congress’ so-called “Plenary Power” over Indians and their property.

A few years ago, Congress passed a law that orders a fund of money belonging to nine Western Shoshone tribes to be taken from the tribes and handed out by the Interior Department to some but not all individual tribal members. The bill was passed over the objections of most of the tribes.

The Interior Department still will not fully account for Indian funds that it holds. This national shame is reported regularly in the press. The Department is defying the law, as it has done for generations. The United States still insists that Indian tribes and in some respects Indian individuals, are in a state of permanent, involuntary trusteeship, with the federal government as trustee. No one else in the US is subject to such unaccountable “trusteeship.”

Congress today insists it can put Indian nations and tribes out of existence at any time. Indian nations and tribes still have no real right to exist in US law. The threat of termination is very real. Some small Native tribes in Alaska have recently heard this threat from congressional sources.

Congress also insists that it may freely violate treaties made with Indian nations. Sadly this is not a thing of the past. It does this today – regularly. Treaties are contracts, and the government cannot freely violate its contracts with others, but it does so – often – in the case of Indian treaties.

The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights of the Organization of American States, an international legal body that is officially recognized and supported by the United States, recently concluded that US policies regarding Indian lands are discriminatory and constitute a violation of human rights. But the Bush Administration defied the Commission and the present Administration is still refusing to change the discriminatory laws it applies to Indian tribes.

This on-going pattern of lawless and arbitrary congressional power over Indians has resulted in a negative, risky, unpredictable business climate on Indian reservations that inhibits needed economic development.

To be clear, many of the things Congress is considering apologizing for are still being done to Indian and Alaska Native tribes and to Native Hawaiians as well. Sadly, the United States, especially the US Congress, has never given up its insistence on treating Indian and Alaska Native nations with injustice and discrimination. This is not only wrong but very bad public policy and wholly out of keeping with American values.

Congress should conduct hearings and adopt a resolution promising never again to take Indian or tribal property without due process of law and fair market compensation. The resolution should promise that Congress will never again terminate any Native American tribe or its government and never again violate or abrogate a treaty with an Indian nation without making full compensation and correcting all resulting harm to the Indian nation. Congress must examine and change all federal laws, regulations, and courtmade law that deprive Indian nations and tribes of constitutional rights. Congress must pass legislation to assure that the government accounts fully for the Indian money and property it holds.

Without such commitments from Congress, an apology will be just another offense against Native Americans. Until the government changes its ways, things cannot be expected to improve much in Indian country. This is a good time to make the changes.
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Source: Indian Law Resource Center

Native Rights News is making this material available in accordance with the Fair Use Doctrine codified at Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107: This article is distributed without charge or profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information. Distribution of this material is for research and educational purposes that will promote social and economic justice and benefit society.
____________
Native Rights News (NRN) is published by the Alliance for Indigenous Rights, a nonprofit corporation owned and operated by Temple Beit Shem Tov as part of its Peace and Justice Ministry.

Social Justice and Food Security at Heart of Bolivian and Venezuelan Land Reform Measures

Chávez and Morales Force Sweeping Land Reform Measures

Analysis by Adam Kott and David Rosenblum Felson

The Cutting Edge News
May 5, 2009

Latin America’s battalion of left-leaning leaders has been in full voice as they turn to achieve the land reform goals of the Bolivarian Revolution. This oft-quoted but somewhat vague social ideal is loosely centered on populist measures such as the equitable distribution of private land and the abatement of poverty. The tenets of this revolution are best seen today at work in Venezuela and Bolivia, where Hugo Chávez and Evo Morales attempt to achieve their objectives through vigorously promoted land reform initiatives.

Historically, much of the land parcels in these Andean nations has been under the tight control of a relatively select few multinational corporations, as well as elite European-descended land-holding families. Many of the latter were for decades, often sanctioned by corrupt officials to use coercion or other unscrupulous practices, including counterfeit land titles, to wrest land with murky legitimacy from the indigenous population. Today, leaders like Chávez and Morales are striving to rectify history’s injustices by returning the property back to its original owners. These grassroots initiatives on the part of the indigenous have been controversial, to say the least, and have repeatedly brought both nations to the brink of class warfare.

Repercussions of the January 25th Referendum

Since the enactment of the January 25, 2009 constitutional referendum, in which 61 percent of Bolivians voted in favor of ratifying, President Evo Morales has initiated a series of measures aimed at improving the rights of the 4 million indigenous peoples who make up nearly two-thirds of his country’s total population.

In addition to increasing the autonomy of provincial governments, as well as granting designated indigenous representation in congress, the referendum results also will limit individual private landholdings. This stand-off undoubtedly will perpetuate an already existing tense situation between the wealthy landowners of the eastern lowlands and the pro-indigenous Morales administration. The United Nations Development Program (UNDP) stated that in the eastern region of Bolivia, 25 million hectares (62 million acres) of top-quality agricultural land is managed by a mere 100 select families. The remaining 5 million hectares (12 million acres) of arable land in the country are shared among 2 million campesinos.

Now coming off a big win, Morales will have the theoretical ability to remain in power until 2014, which is not likely to diminish the opposition’s hostility towards him, but rather intensify it. In this milieu, social harmony is bound to be more difficult to obtain. This is due to the deeply rooted social conflict which for years has been besieging Bolivia and the growing political and economic influence being sought after by the indigenous majority. Whereas a triumphant Morales and his indigenous supporters may view the new constitution as an egalitarian and empowering document, the white Europeanized opposition understandably perceive it as discriminatory and insensitive to their special needs. One thing is for certain, land distribution in this Andean nation has long been a source of strained relations between the indigenous majority and the elite minority.

Morales, of the Aymara ethnic group, appears determined to drastically restructure and democratize Bolivia’s historically unequal agrarian land holding patterns. "The concentration of land in Bolivia appears to be among the worst in the entire world," contend Mark Weisbrot and Luis Sandoval of the Center for Economic and Policy Research. "The largest farms, although only 0.63 percent of the total, encompasses more than 66 percent of all agricultural land. At the other end of the spectrum, 86 percent of farms account for just 2.4 percent of agricultural land, and many other rural farmers own no land at all."

Bolivian Land Reform

In the first of what would be a number of attempts at reorganizing land usage patterns, former president, Victor Paz Estenssoro, led the fight to enact the 1953 Agrarian Reform Law. The measure, which is largely seen as an underlying cause for the present tension over land ownership, granted indigenous peoples modest plots of land while massive landholdings were bestowed upon the non-indigenous fraction of the population in an attempt to develop the country’s fading agricultural sector. According to a 2007 COHA report by research associate Laura Starr, "the Bolivian reform being promoted at that time affected 32 million hectares (79 million acres) of land, which were distributed to 40,000 medium and small-sized family farmers. At the same time, more than half a million indigenous and peasant families divided up only about 4 million hectares (10 million acres), almost exclusively in the less favorable western highlands of the country." In 1996, former president, Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada, initiated a would-be land reform measure that defined itself as seeking to boost national productivity levels. As a result of the law, land had to serve a social or economic purpose.

Douglas Hertzler, a highly-regarded anthropologist working in Bolivia, asserts that, "the law made large speculative landholdings subject to redistribution to the landless, but it failed to establish adequate criteria to regulate this process, so that land redistribution did not move forward." Initially paying little attention to the strong opposition movement emanating from the eastern provinces, Morales now appears eager to make lasting changes to Bolivia’s traditionally preferential and asymmetrical land distribution policies.

According to the World Bank, the richest 10 percent of Bolivians consume 22 times more than the poorest 10 percent. Morales observed this during a speech he gave in March to a group of Guaraní Indians, "Private property will always be respected but we want people who are not interested in equality to change their thinking and focus more on country than currency." He continued, "Today, from here, we are beginning to put an end to the giant landholdings of Bolivia." That same day, Morales granted over 38,000 hectares (94,000 acres) of land to indigenous communities. But lowland elites, like Ronald Larsen, have vehemently opposed such measures. Larsen, an ardent opponent of Morales’ policies, purchased vast land holdings in the southeastern region of the country. Although he has spent the last 40 years working the land, recent Morales-inspired measures may well lead to the expropriation of the majority of it. "They’re taking it away over my dead body," said Larsen.

The January constitutional referendum curbs landholdings to 5,000 hectares (12,400 acres) as well as requires land to serve at all times a social or economic function. While Morales’ latest initiatives certainly have provoked uproar as well as praise, the efficacy of such reforms remains a serious question. Meanwhile, Bolivia is not the only country in the region attempting to overhaul its land tenure system.

A Look at Recent Venezuelan Land Reform Attempts

It was soon after Chávez took office in 1999 that he began to reorganize Venezuela’s agricultural land use policy under the label "Vuelta al Campo" (Return to the Countryside). This should come as no surprise, as Venezuela has had a long history of unbalanced land ownership. For example, in 1937, large haciendas of 1,000 hectares or more were owned by only 4.8 percent of landowners, but comprised 88.8 percent of all cultivatable land. In 2001, Chávez initiated progressive legislation entitled the "Law on Land and Agrarian Development." This measure allowed for the Chávez government to seize large tracts of land and redistribute them as it deemed appropriate. The measure was enacted by the government in an attempt to bridge the vast inequality gap in Venezuela, a nation where much of the wealth traditionally remained in the hands of a select few.

According to the CIPE Development Institute, prior to the 2001 reforms, 5 percent of the Venezuelan population owned 80 percent of the land. What is more shocking is that 60 percent of agricultural laborers have no ownership over the land they work. As a result, since the passing of the law eight years ago, Venezuelans have witnessed tensions rise between the landed elites and the landless working-class population.

President Chávez worked quickly to redistribute land holdings once land reforms had been passed. In 2003, he assigned his older brother, Adán Chávez, to head the process. Adán enacted the "Plan Ezequiel Zamora," which, over a one year period, redistributed nearly 1.5 million hectares of land to 130,000 families. Over the next year, the Chávez government distributed another 500,000 hectares to poor farmers throughout the nation.

While there has been a degree of success in the implementation of land redistribution programs, it has come at no small cost. Campesino leaders who have been trying to enforce the new land reform measures for years, have had to face violent oppression at the hands of the land owners and their private forces. According to Venezuela Analysis, more than 200 rural leaders have been murdered since the reforms passed, and the true number may be twice that figure. The murders are thought to have been carried out by thugs hired by the elite, whose land is now under threat of seizure by the government. These forces are often unorganized, but nonetheless, have been able to bring terror to Venezuela’s countryside much like the paramilitary vigilante forces that were formed to protect threatened land barons in Colombia.

Chávez’s Recent Initiatives

In the past several months, Caracas has been unusually active in putting its mind to accumulating land for redistribution and for public infrastructural purposes. In an unusually forceful manner, the government’s National Land Institute (INTI) recently expropriated one parcel of over 2,800 hectares (7000 acres) with the help of National Guard troops for fear that recent clashes between the entrenched landowners and the landless peasants would spiral out of control. In some cases, such land holdings have been largely idle despite their rich soil and great potential for agriculture. Despite ample arable land, Venezuela has historically imported the majority of its food supplies. With the advent of its growing wealth from oil drilling royalties, Venezuela shifted away from using its landholdings for subsistence agriculture in favor of growing cash crops. This meant that while the middle class could readily pay for imported produce, the same could not be said about the poor. Thus, characteristically, land has been held by affluent Venezuelans as a symbol of prestige rather than a source of food production.

A 2005 BBC report made the point that the Chávez administration, "insists it is impossible for Venezuela to grow enough food for the poor, as long as so much land is in the hands of so few." This is a principal force behind Venezuela’s current land redistribution initiative. The government is now in the process of taking over some of Venezuela’s largest and most profitable farms as well as estates that have been either ignored or underused. Venezuela’s president undoubtedly has the best of intentions in carrying out these actions, most notably the creation of sustainable development. This effort is in stark contrast to the current agricultural situation in much of the nation, where international companies, such as Ireland’s Smurfit Kappa have grown crops on Venezuelan acreage that didn’t offer long term sustainability, but drained the soil of precious minerals. After taking control of 1,500 hectares (3,700 acres) that belonged to the Dublin based group, Chávez explained, "We are going to use all the eucalyptus wood sensibly and harvest other things there, beans, corn, sorghum, cassava and yam."

Despite his push for land reform, Chávez has not found universal solidarity behind it within his United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV). Governor of the state of Portuguesa, Wilmar Castro, a member of PSUV, has publicly criticized recent expropriations of land for use by landless peasants, blaming the government for its failure to redistribute land through proper legal channels. Governor Castro’s policy is strongly at odds with federal law that allows peasants to utilize unoccupied private land. Another incident that shows the increasingly fractured nature of Venezuelan society occurred on April 17. Authorities in the state of Portuguesa evicted more than sixty landless farmers and three INTI workers from privately owned land that state officials had marked for appropriation and redistribution. With local authorities completely disregarding the policies emanating from Caracas, it is unclear how Chávez will be able to enforce his policies at the provincial level.

If the state achieves its goal, land that has been expropriated will be turned over to what, in many cases, are newly formed agrarian communes that will specialize in cultivating crops native to the region. Such measures will ensure the long-term viability of the land, encourage the employment of local campesinos, and supply food to subsidized markets all over the country. According to a 2006 report entitled "Land Reform in Venezuela," Chávez also hopes to build a food processing plant and research center on some of the expropriated government land to ensure that Venezuela’s facilities remain on par with other agricultural nations in the region.

Food security has been a recent hot-button issue in Venezuela. Under Article 305 of the constitution, the president has the authority to seize any land he sees fit if it is in the interest of food security. This was most recently reflected when Chávez ordered the expropriation of U.S. food giant Cargill on claims that the company was selling rice at prices that exceeded the legal limit for the country. Chávez has good reason to be worried about his nation’s food supply, as it currently imports 70 percent of Venezuelan food that is consumed from abroad. With rising import costs, it has been wise of him to bolster Venezuela’s self-sufficiency by allocating unused land to farmers who have a demonstrated zeal for producing crops. A 2005 land reform law decreased the amount of idle land one could hold. As a result of this, one could allow high quality land to be idle only if it was 50 hectares or less in size, which cut the original figure that one had to meet in half. The limits on unused, low quality holdings were also lowered, decreasing from 5000 hectares to 3000 hectares. Any idle lands above these two limits were subject to peasant invasion and eventual redistribution by the National Land Institute.

According to Minister of Agriculture and Lands, Elias Jaua, land reform already has allowed for a massive increase in national food production. Almost 1 million hectares (2.47 million acres) of the redistributed land are now producing food for domestic consumption, including meat, grain, and vegetables. This staggering amount accounts for nearly 90 percent of the total land appropriated for redistribution.

If those whose lands were expropriated by the government wish to legally challenge the authorities, they will face a long and arduous process. According to Cort Greene, a Latin American political analyst, in 2005 the government legalized preemptive occupation by giving the peasants who storm large estates cartas agrarias. Such documents dictate nothing in terms of formal ownership rights, but nonetheless grant peasants the right to use the land and profit from it until all legal disputes are finalized. The distribution of these cartas essentially ignores prior legal contracts and land deeds and grants the property to whoever professedly will make the best use of it.

The Future of Land Ownership

Having never fully recovered from the declination brought about by the Spanish conquest, the indigenous of South America have, to a large degree, experienced systematic inequality, often being viewed as little better than chattel. The issue of land reform is not peripheral to this process. In Bolivia, two-thirds of the land is owned by one percent of the population. Prior to Morales’ recent reforms, indigenous peoples, who represent the country’s clear ethnic majority, controlled under 10 percent of the land.

In contrast to Bolivia, the indigenous population of Venezuela only accounts for a mere 2 percent of the total population. While Chávez has not made land reform an entirely indigenous-focused issue, he certainly has done his part in trying to ensure that Venezuela’s first people get their due compensation. However, many of Venezuela’s indigenous do not think of land as a top priority, and disagree with policies emanating from Caracas. In a January 15 article in the Economist titled "Venezuela’s Indigenous People: A Promise Unkept," Rosario Romero, an indigenous Yukpa, explains, "Invasions are very bad. The ranchers worked for what they have." She adds that, contrary to what radical Yukpa leaders say, her parents never suggested these lands were theirs. Romero’s perspective offers an interesting look into the dichotomy that helps explain Venezuela’s land reform. Although she may have a minority opinion, it is important to note that there is more to this issue than meets the eye.

Yet Chávez and Morales are not the only Latin American governments reworking land titles. The Movimiento Sem Terra, or Landless Peasants Movement, established in 1980, has attempted to dramatically alter Brazil’s historically unjust system of land distribution. At times, however, the movement’s supporters have had to pressure an occasionally reluctant Lula administration. Moreover, in 2008, Raul Castro initiated a land reform program that sought to redistribute unutilized state-owned land to cooperatives.

Land reform historically has been one of the fundamental activities on any "must" list of progressive governments. In an attempt to secure a guaranteed food supply, former Chilean president, Salvador Allende, initiated a sweeping land reform. This came at a time when only 8 percent of Chile’s gross national product (GNP) came from the countryside. From 1971 to 1972, 3,282 farms were expropriated by the Allende administration. While the reform initiatives were largely popular, they did polarize the electorate into two bitterly divided sides. Harvard research fellow, Thomas John Bossert argues that, "the revolutionary effect of such [agrarian] reforms is usually seen as coming not from beneficiaries of the reform, but rather from those frustrated by the failure of the reform to grant them land."

Both Chávez and Morales have taken worthy first steps towards a less discriminatory distribution of land, but both leaders still have much work yet to be done with those who they have since agitated. Nevertheless, a wave of optimism has swept across the affected region, where steps have been taken to grant more equitable land rights to a rural population which historically has been discriminated against. While Chávez and Morales are gaining political capital by distributing land to the masses, they also risk alienating some of the most productive sectors of society. In the end, and with the best of intentions, they may be doing harm to both of the countries’ long-term political and economic stability. But the concern of an equitable reform of the land remains an issue calling out for redress.

Adam Kott and David Rosenblum Felson are Research Associates at the Council on Hemispheric Affairs.
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Copyright © 2007-2009 The Cutting Edge News

Native Rights News is making this material from The Cutting Edge News available in accordance with the Fair Use Doctrine codified at Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107: This article is distributed without charge or profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information. Distribution of this material is for research and educational purposes that will promote social and economic justice and benefit society.
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Native Rights News (NRN) is published by the Alliance for Indigenous Rights, a nonprofit corporation owned and operated by Temple Beit Shem Tov as part of its Peace and Justice Ministry.

Indigenous Peoples Educate, Inform & Warn at Largest Climate Change Demonstration in U.S. History

First Nation Delegates Deliver Letter to Senator Kerry in Advance of Visit from Canadian Environment Minister

More than 12,000 young people from all corners of the continent gathered in Washington, D.C. over the weekend to take part in today’s second Power Shift Conference.

The blizzard pounding the nation’s capitol apparently has not cooled the ardor of the young climate activists, who seek to change Washington’s "business as usual" attitude toward climate change and clean energy.

Various groups have scheduled more than 350 lobbying meetings with U.S. Congressmen and Senators and their staffs. An estimated 2,500 demonstrators organized by Capitol Climate Action, successfully blocked the five gates leading to the Capitol Power Plant.

Activists targeted the plant as a symbol of what is wrong with government because it burns coal and natural gas and is used to heat the Capitol’s buildings. No arrests were reported, and after four hours, the activists declared victory and raised the blockade.

Among the activists were Indigenous Peoples delegations sent by several Canadian First Nations and Native American tribes from Alaska and the "lower 48" states. One of the major purposes of the Indigenous delegations was to educate, inform and warn both the young climate activists and members of Congress about the catastrophic effects the extraction and burning of fossil fuels is having on their people and their environments.

Jessica Lee, in a post to the Indy Blog this morning reports:

"You have come here to have a voice about the environment. Our ancestors have been telling the government for 200 years to protect the environment," said Travis Brown, a student at Haskell Indian Nations University in Lawrence, Kansas, to a room of more than 175 students who attended a workshop titled, "Decolonizing Our Minds: How Colonization Affects Us Today." Brown noted that native communities across the continent are being adversely impacted not only by mineral and fuel extraction companies, but now are also suffering the effects of climate change on the landscape and eco-systems. "Our people are at the risk of being exterminated."

"Representatives from several Arctic region indigenous communities explained about how the effects of climate change — which are more extreme at the earth’s poles — including melting sea ice, eroding shorelines, thawing tundra and changes to fish, seal, whale and caribou migrations are threatening their entire way of life."

And Mike, in a post to the Environmental Age Dot Com blog, also this morning, reports:

"A delegation of Indigenous youth from Alberta went to Senator Kerry’s office outlining the devastation that is tar sands and rallied with supporters today ahead of Canad’s Environmental Minister, Jim Prentice’s visit to Capitol Hill today and tomorrow.

"They hand delivered a . . . letter express[ing] concern that Canada's Environment Minister Jim Prentice will misrepresent the disastrous environmental and human rights record of the tar sands to US Congressional leaders."

Following is the letter.

March 2, 2009

Senator John Kerry
Chairman of Foreign Relations Committee
218 Russell Bldg.
Second Floor
Washington D.C. 20510

Dear Senator Kerry,

Please allow us to present you with a different perspective on Canada’s tar sands than you are likely to hear from Canadian Minister of the Environment, Jim Prentice.

We came together this year at the Powershift gathering in Washington, DC, as members of Beaver Lake Cree Nation, Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation and Lubicon Cree Nation to share our stories with 11,000 youth from across North America. We came with messages of destruction and devastation wrought by the tar sands in our communities, but also feelings of hope that together we can contribute to building a more sustainable world for our communities and future generations. These ideas of a greener sustainable world are familiar to us as an ancient First Nations way of life.

Dangerous toxic chemicals used in the extraction of tar sands are contaminating water systems stretching all the way to the arctic basin and adversely affecting communities along the way including Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation. Expansion of the tar sands is a direct attack on who we are as a people. Many First Nation peoples believe in the medicine wheel with four elements: earth, water, air and fire—three are polluted by these projects. Destroying these elements destroys who we are. The tar sands are killing us.

Beaver Lake Cree Nation is also being encroached upon by rapidly expanding tar sands infrastructure and development. Natural gas wells used to power oil production in the tar sands are almost literally in the community’s backyards. Pollution from these projects adversely affecting peoples’ health, way of life and violate established treaty rights. Animals are dying, disappearing, and being mutated by the poisons dumped into our river systems. If there is no fish, we cannot fish, if there is no more game, we cannot hunt. Our traditional lands and water houses our culture. They are one and the same. Once we have destroyed these fragile eco-systems we will have also destroyed our peoples and trampled our treaty rights.

Construction of the Transcanada North Central Corridor pipeline, set to cross through the traditional territory of Lubicon Lake First Nation without the consent of the community is an outright violation of human rights and inherent rights of the community as Indigenous peoples. With oil and logging already impacting this territory, expansion of oil infrastructure will continue to wreck havoc on the land and displace even more wildlife.

Our communities are looking for energy solutions that provide a healthy sustainable community for our future generations. The sustainable future for First Nations in Alberta, Canada and the United States of America alike, cannot be achieved by further exploiting one of the dirtiest, most energy intensive and destructive sources of oil on the planet. It's time we focus our efforts on building a clean sustainable future that puts our people to work in a safe, green energy economy.

Senator Kerry, we urge your leadership in the Congress to:

• 
  Respect and recognize established treaty rights during the Clean Energy Dialogue: These discussions will surely frame the future of energy in our countries. They will also determine the whether culturally significant and bio-diverse regions of our respective countries, as well as the livelihoods of the Indigenous peoples that inhabit this turtle island, are preserved.
• 
  Focus the Clean Energy Dialogue on renewable energy and energy efficiency: The main focus of the dialogue should be on clean energy efforts and include wind, solar, and other renewable fuels and on transportation solutions such as electrified transportation and high speed rail.

Sincerely,

Melina Laboucan-Massimo, Lubicon Cree Nation
Gitz Crazyboy, Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation
Myron Lameman, Beaver Lake Cree Nation

cc:
Minister Jim Prentice
Secretary Steven Chu
Secretary Kenneth Salazar
Secretary Hillary Rodham Clinton
EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson
CEQ Chair Nancy Sutley
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News Sources: Environment News Service, The Indypendent, The Environmental Age Dot Com

Image Source: Capitol Climate Action

Native Rights News is making this material from the news oganizations and blogs listed above available in accordance with the Fair Use Doctrine codified at Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107: This article is distributed without charge or profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information. Distribution of this material is for research and educational purposes that will promote social and economic justice and benefit society.

Twelve Months of Broken Promises Since Rudd's Apology to the Stolen Generations

Australia Day: a racist celebration

By Simon Butler
Source: Green Left Online, 4 February 2009

Members of Tasmania's Aboriginal community didn't mince their words about how they feel about the celebration of Australia Day.

"You stole our land, you stole our rights and we won't celebrate invasion day", the protesters chanted as they marched through the streets of Hobart. Symbolically, they carried three coffins with them to the steps of the state parliament on January 26.

The following day, the Hobart Mercury reported that the Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre state secretary, Nala Mansell-McKenna, told the crowd that celebrating Australia Day on January 26 was undeniably racist.

She compared the offence many Indigenous people feel regarding Australia Day to the imaginable offence were Aboriginals to "celebrate" on Anzac Day.

According to the Mercury Mansell-McKenna said: "There can never be reconciliation between white and Aboriginal Australians while Australia Day is celebrated on January 26 … To us it marks the start of assimilation, land theft, murder, poisoning and death — how can any reasonable person celebrate that?"

Just minutes after he became the 2009 Australian of the Year, Aboriginal leader Mick Dodson used his first public address to also criticise the celebration of Australia Day. He said that for many Aboriginals January 26 is not a day for celebration but "a day of mourning" and "the day in which our world came crashing down".

Australia Day is marked as Invasion Day or Survival Day by many Aboriginal Australians and their supporters, Dodson pointed out. He called for a "national conversation" about changing the day to a more appropriate date. He also said the issue of compensation to the Stolen Generations still needs to be addressed — an option already dismissed by the federal ALP government.

The government hurried to rule out any idea of changes to Australia Day. "To our Indigenous leaders, and those who call for a change to our national day, let me say a simple, respectful but straightforward no", said PM Kevin Rudd on January 26, in reply to Dodson's speech.

A racist celebration

Worldwide, Australia is one of only two countries colonised by Europeans that celebrate its national day on the anniversary of white settlement. The other country is the apartheid state of Israel, whose national day coincides with the commencement of Israel's ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people in 1948.

Australia has little to be proud of in maintaining January 26 as a national holiday. It marks the beginning of a brutal invasion and genocide carried out against the original inhabitants.

For decades, Australian authorities subjected Indigenous people to systematic discrimination and the theft of their land. These policies were considered justified on the patronising and racist assumption that Aboriginal people constituted an inferior, dying race.

In 1901, attorney-general and future prime minister Alfred Deakin even called for Aboriginals subjected to Australia's apartheid-like laws to be grateful: "if [Aboriginals] be a dying race, let us hope that in their last hours they will be able to recognise not simply the justice, but the generosity of the treatment which the white race, who are dispossessing them and entering into their heritage, are according them."

Abandoning January 26 as a national celebration would be a progressive step — part of a bigger campaign for full equality and justice for Australia's Indigenous people.

The racism associated with Australia Day is not only a thing of the past. It also plays a role in stoking racist nationalism among white Australians today. This year, hundreds of white youth rampaged in the Sydney suburb of Manly on January 26, targeting non-white shopkeepers, in their own, appalling assertion of "Aussie pride".

AAP's Justin Vallejo reported that the white rioters attacked and injured an 18-year-old Asian woman, a Sikh taxi driver and an Asian shopkeeper in scenes that had "the potential to resemble Cronulla Beach in 2005".

Nina Burridge, an academic at the University of Technology, witnessed the Manly riots. She ridiculed police suggestions that racism was not a factor in the rampage, telling the January 27 Sydney Morning Herald there was definitely "an underlying element of racism dressed up as nationalism".

In the weeks after the racist Cronulla riots in 2005 — involving hundreds of white Australians rampaging through the suburb indiscriminately attacking non-whites — the ABC's 7.30 Report interviewed some of the participants.

Being part of riots "was better than Australia Day", said one unrepentant racist. "I went home at 10 o'clock at night and my eyes were like this. I had the best time of my life. Not because we were there fighting Lebos, but just the atmosphere, you know. Everyone has had enough of them."

Broken promises

Along with its racist and nationalist associations, there is a further reason why the ALP government should move Australia Day. It was one of the election promises made at its 2007 national convention. The 2004 convention had also adopted this policy.

Chris Graham, from the National Indigenous Times, explained in a January 22 editorial that the ALP went into the 2007 election with a policy of implementing the recommendations of a report from the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation. One of those recommendations is to move Australia Day to a less offensive day.

Graham labelled Rudd's refusal to implement his own party's policy as consistent with his entire first year in office, "which is littered with broken promises to Aboriginal people". He listed some of these broken promises.

Before the election, Labor promised to boost funding to Aboriginal legal aid but actually cut funding in its first budget. Labor attacked the previous government for not bridging the Indigenous health gap, yet since taking office it too has failed to make up the funding shortfall.

In opposition, the ALP promised to revitalise Indigenous languages and endorse the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. In government, it has backed away from both of these things.

Labor professed to be critical of the Howard government's NT intervention and promised a review if elected. The review went ahead but Labor simply ignored the major recommendations: the intervention continues largely unchanged.

Rudd has also broken a pre-election pledge to respond comprehensively to the Bringing Them Home report into the Stolen Generations. A major recommendation of the report was compensation, yet as PM, Rudd has ruled out any compensation scheme.

On February 13, it will be 12 months since Rudd made the moving apology to the Stolen Generations, raising hopes of real change among many. The reality of his government's record since then led Graham to conclude: "Labor is the party that says one thing, and does another. It is the party that pretends to be the friend of the blackfella, but stabs him the back regardless of whether or not he's looking."

Alternatives

According to the January 27 NIT, Dodson has proposed February 13 — the anniversary of the apology — as one alternative date for Australia's national day. Mansell-McKenna has also raised the idea of shifting the holiday to that day.

Queensland Aboriginal leader and Socialist Alliance member Sam Watson also supports the call to change the date of Australia Day. According to another January 27 NIT report Watson argued: "It needs to be [changed] because January 26 is only the day in 1788 when the First Fleet arrived to set up the colony of New South Wales. It's got nothing to do with Aboriginal people or the nation of Australia as it stands today."

Watson's suggestion for an alternative date was June 3 — the day the Mabo decision recognising native title was handed down in 1992.

The January 27 Mercury also reported Tasmanian Aboriginal leader Michael Mansell has a third alternative proposal for moving Australia Day — the day should coincide with the future date when the government finally signs a treaty with Aboriginal people.

Another view is held by South Australian Aboriginal elder Aunty Josi Agius who argued that she doesn't believe Australia Day should be changed, but felt strongly that the government still had to do more to recognise the struggle of Indigenous people.

According to ABC Online, Aunty Josi said, "Australia Day is good for non-Aboriginal people and for us it's our survival day. Another day for Aboriginal people should be brought in, or the government should do something to recognise us."

Debate and discussion within and without the Indigenous community will widen in the context of Dodson's remarks. But this discussion must be combined with ongoing campaigns in solidarity with Indigenous people, taking up government attacks.

Watson told the ABC on January 26 that he hoped Dodson would continue to use his position to speak out for Indigenous rights. Many others will also need to speak out and take action.

Despite the apology, despite the rhetoric, despite the awarding of Australian of the Year to an Aboriginal leader … the Rudd government is systematically attacking the rights and past gains of Indigenous people.
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Copyright 2009 Simon Butler

Native Rights News is making this material from Green Left Weekly available by permission of the author as expressed through the copyright policy statement of Green Left Weekly. This article is distributed without charge or profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information. Distribution of this material is for research and educational purposes that will promote social and economic justice and benefit society.

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Posted By Perry Chesnut, Editor NRN to Native Rights News at 2/03/2009 10:51:00 AM

Indian Control of Indian Education

Dizzy Decentering the Center: How?

Opinion and Commentary

By Sharilyn Calliou

Thinking Aloud About Theorizing Indigenous Ed

I read a blog entry that had me revisit need to understand cultural/political standpoint when I use authority of position to deliver curriculum (any subject, any grade, etc.). [1] What acts of praxis to transform schooling for students of First Nations ancestry? I asked this question throughout a career as classroom teacher. It is a centuries long struggle of resistance to assert independence of thought, historical record, identity, protocols and et cetera. This is a given for all indigenous peoples, whether Dené, Mohawk, Cree or Mi'kmaq. For indigenous peoples the classroom has not been a tame environment, but rather an environment to tame. Thus, a new generation of educators emerged at 1972. [2]

Praxis: 'Hands On' Tradition

Their/our modern roots are grounded in the policy statement Indian Control of Indian Education [ICIE], issued by the National Indian Brotherhood in 1972. [In 1982 the NIB became the Assembly of First Nations.] This does not imply that self-determination was new. By 1970, the Dené were developing a statement of inherent independence, with assertion that 'We the Dené of the N.W.T. insist on the right to be regarded by ourselves and the world as a Nation.' This was unanimously accepted and declared in 1975. [3]

There is a history of self-determination: students ran away from or parents/guardians kept children out of residential schools; communities continued to use heritage languages; leadership signed (or not) treaties as Nations; leadership sustained traditional acts, for examples, of political governance, art, healthcare, spirituality, environmentalism, agriculture. These acts of Ancestors produced concrete examples about how we live today because of the strength of cultural knowledge (now called Traditional Indigenous Knowledge [TIK] in modern lit).

These acts are praxis; a term, first used by Ancient Greeks to describe the 'acts of free men'. The emphasis is on men in Ancient Greek culture, unlike Mohawk or Cree understandings of women as equal, although role differentiation is understood. For Marxists, the term meant that people act to change/transform the world and not just theorize. For educators, Friere brought us critical pedagogy to deconstruct oppression by the oppressed. [4] I have lived long enough to understand more deeply that we do not save the culture but it is the culture that saves us.

For indigenous peoples, praxis is the 'acts of free people', self-determination a Gift of the Creator. No one can take away a gift of the Creator ― although some may try again and again. Does indigenous praxis suggest anarchy? I was asked this once. 'No,' I said, 'Aboriginal communities were not lawless.' Then I would be asked, 'What is self-government' As an academic, I could recite text and chapter. More now I recall the words of an Elder who repeated what he heard from an Elder senior to him. He said, 'See that little bird up in the tree. See it sit. See it fly away? That is self-determination.' Another Elder once remarked, 'Every time you decide to get out of bed in the morning that is self-government.'

Self-Government and Staying Focused

For me, life in classrooms became assertion rather than resistance. One of the goals of ICIE is reinforcement of identity (NIB, 1972, p. 3). But do we have to resist to be, or can we just be?

Resistance can keep us very busy. Better to talk Cree or Mikmawisimik than write about saving a language? [5] Use time to scour for thought-speak from our voices and not too handily rely on Gramsci's theory of hegemony? I lived the experience of the business of busyness (Smith, 2003) when living in Hungary the summer of 1984. I needed to experience standing in line-ups for food and basic toiletries and to observe how newspapers were not read but deconstructed. Marketing could take a full day. As I stood in line, the exhaustion helped me understand how I might tire of resistance, struggle and praxis. Yet, the Magyars persevered to reclaim traditional territory and preserve their language, despite a few generations forced to speak-write-read Russian.

Life in classrooms today continues to be self-surveillance about whose knowledge, tradition, history, standpoint takes precedence. Given what First Nations Ancestors survived, it is good to revisit Indian Control of Indian Education, policy adopted in 1973 for students of indigenous Ancestry within the borders of Canada.

ICIE (1972)

In 1972, we used 'Indian'; we still do in particular circumstances. In 1974 the Canadian School Trustees adopted ICIE stating, 'any transfer of educational jurisdiction from the federal [Canada] to the provinces must be done with prior consultation with Indian peoples,' and school must be a place where Aboriginal students 'learn their own language, history and culture in the classroom, with curricula revised. [6, 7] This is policy of Assembly of First Nations and Canadian government.

So when I/we wonder about how I/we will transform the classroom today (whether bush camp or post-secondary lecture hall), it is sometimes good to reread the policy adopted on behalf of parents/guardians, youth and children.

The policy is in play so we can act as our Ancestors did. My think of this post reminded me of Kirkness' (1998) recipe that First Nations need to cut the shackles, cut the crap and cut the mustard. [8]

ENDNOTES

[1] Thank-you TH for post. Made brain work. I refer to:
http://twinkleshappyplace.blogspot.com/2009/01/kaupapa-maori-theory-theorizing.html

[2] See: Calliou, S. (1999). Activism and self-determination in First Nations education (1972-1988). In J. Hylton (Ed.). Aboriginal self-government in Canada (2nd Edition, Chpt. 8). Sask, SK: Purich Publishing Ltd.

[3] Full text: http://www.denenation.com/denedec.html. By 1970, parents of Rae-Edzo reclaimed the elementary school because they knew they would provide a more relevant education, including heritage language. There is a checklist for teacher self-assessment. See: http://www.newteachersnwt.com/culture_based_education2.html

[4] Freire, P. (1969). Pedagogy of the Oppressed. This idea discussed previously; e.g., Sartre described 'digestive' or 'nutritive' aims of education, where knowledge is fed by teachers to 'fill them out'. Sartre, J.P. (1947, Paris), Une idée fundamentale de la phénoménologie de Husserl: L'intentionnalité, Situations 1.

[5] Mikmawisimik, is an Algonquian language spoken by 8000 Indians in the Canadian Maritimes (particularly NS) and a few US communities. . . . Mi'kmaq is written alphabetically today, but in the past it was written in pictographs, which predate European contact.' Jesuit missionaries modified to teach Christian prayers. Micmac hieroglyphics do not resemble Ancient Egyptian or Mayan. Mi'kmaq is not linguistically related to Ancient Egyptian or other Semitic languages. See: http://www.native-languages.org/mikmaq.htm

[6] http://www.sicc.sk.ca/saskindian/a74jun23.htm

[7] Re. history of overturn of use of 'Indian', the Hon. F.A. Calder, Nisgha, spoke as elected MP in Canadian Parliament, 'This may be the time to mention that the native people of Canada do not appreciate being lumped together as a faceless body known as Indians. We would prefer to be recognised by our own distinctive national, linguistic, and cultural characteristics'. See:
http://qp.gov.bc.ca/hansard/30th2nd/30p_02s_730215p.htm

[8] Kirkness, V.J. Aboriginal education in Canada: A retrospective. (1999). Journal of American Indian Education. Vol 39(1). Special issue #2. Available @
http://aboriginaleducation.epsb.ca/documents/kirkness.pdf

Editor's Note:
Dr. Sharilyn Calliou, is a status band member of the Michel First Nation, located in Treaty 6 Territory, Canada and is descended from the Mohawk, Cree and Lakota Peoples. A career teacher, she has served in many capacities in inner city schools, as well as in an on-reserve isolated northern community. She received her Ph.D. in Curriculum & Instruction from the University of British Columbia, where she taught in the Native Indian Teacher Education Program and Ts''kel, First Nations Graduate Studies in Education. Doctor Calliou has been published in English Journal, the Journal of Native Education (Canada) and the Canadian Journal of Community Education. Her daily blog Word Zoo can be found at http://wordzoo.spaces.live.com/?_c11_BlogPart_pagedir=First&_c11_BlogPart_BlogPart=blogview&_c=BlogPart&partqs=amonth%3d1%26ayear%3d2009

__________________________________________________________
© Sharilyn Calliou. 20 January 2009. All rights reserved. May be reproduced for educational use but NOT commercial use.

Native Rights News is publishing this article with express permission of the author without charge or profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information. Distribution of this material is for research and educational purposes that will promote social and economic justice and benefit society. The image used in this article was obtained from the Visual Resources Database of the Minnesota Historical Society and is published in accordance with the Fair Use Doctrine codified at 17 U.S.C. Section 107 of the United States Copyright Act.

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Posted By Alliance for Indigenous Rights to Native Rights News at 1/30/2009 10:35:00 AM

Thanksgiving: A National Day of Mourning for Indians

Thanksgiving: A National Day of Mourning for Indians
Published Nov 24, 2008 9:19 PM

Following are excerpts from a statement written by Mahtowin Munro (Lakota) and Moonanum James (Wampanoag), co-leaders of United American Indians of New England. Read the entire statement at http://www.uaine.org/.


Every year since 1970, United American Indians of New England have organized the National Day of Mourning observance in Plymouth at noon on Thanksgiving Day. Every year, hundreds of Native people and our supporters from all four directions join us. Every year, including this year, Native people from throughout the Americas will speak the truth about our history and about current issues and struggles we are involved in.

Why do hundreds of people stand out in the cold rather than sit home eating turkey and watching football? Do we have something against a harvest festival?

Of course not. But Thanksgiving in this country—and in particular in Plymouth—is much more than a harvest home festival. It is a celebration of pilgrim mythology.
According to this mythology, the pilgrims arrived, the Native people fed them and welcomed them, the Indians promptly faded into the background, and everyone lived happily ever after.

The pilgrims are glorified and mythologized because the circumstances of the first English-speaking colony in Jamestown were frankly too ugly (for example, they turned to cannibalism to survive) to hold up as an effective national myth.

The pilgrims did not find an empty land any more than Columbus “discovered” anything. Every inch of this land is Indian land. The pilgrims (who did not even call themselves pilgrims) did not come here seeking religious freedom; they already had that in Holland.

They came here as part of a commercial venture. They introduced sexism, racism, anti-lesbian and -gay bigotry, jails and the class system to these shores. One of the very first things they did when they arrived on Cape Cod—before they even made it to Plymouth—was to rob Wampanoag graves at Corn Hill and steal as much of the Indians’ winter provisions of corn and beans as they were able to carry.

They were no better than any other group of Europeans when it came to their treatment of the Indigenous peoples here. And, no, they did not even land at that sacred shrine called Plymouth Rock, a monument to racism and oppression which we are proud to say we buried in 1995.

The first official “Day of Thanksgiving” was proclaimed in 1637 by Governor Winthrop. He did so to celebrate the safe return of men from the Massachusetts Bay Colony who had gone to Mystic, Conn., to participate in the massacre of over 700 Pequot women, children and men.
About the only true thing in the whole mythology is that these pitiful European strangers would not have survived their first several years in “New England” were it not for the aid of Wampanoag people. What Native people got in return for this help was genocide, theft of our lands and never-ending repression. We are either treated as quaint relics from the past or are, to most people, virtually invisible.

When we dare to stand up for our rights, we are considered unreasonable. When we speak the truth about the history of the European invasion, we are often told to “go back where we came from.” Our roots are right here. They do not extend across any ocean.

National Day of Mourning began in 1970 when a Wampanoag man, Wamsutta Frank James, was asked to speak at a state dinner celebrating the 350th anniversary of the pilgrim landing. He refused to speak false words in praise of the white man for bringing civilization to us poor heathens. Native people from throughout the Americas came to Plymouth where they mourned their forebears who had been sold into slavery, burned alive, massacred, cheated and mistreated since the arrival of the Pilgrims in 1620.

But the commemoration of National Day of Mourning goes far beyond the circumstances of 1970.

Can we give thanks as we remember Native political prisoner Leonard Peltier, who was framed up by the FBI and has been falsely imprisoned since 1976? Despite mountains of evidence exonerating Peltier and the proven misconduct of federal prosecutors and the FBI, Peltier has been denied a new trial.

To Native people, the case of Peltier is one more ordeal in a litany of wrongdoings committed by the U.S. government against us. While the media in New England present images of the “Pequot miracle” in Connecticut, the vast majority of Native people continue to live in the most abysmal poverty.

Can we give thanks for the fact that, on many reservations, unemployment rates surpass 50 percent? Our life expectancies are much lower, our infant mortality and teen suicide rates much higher than those of white Americans. Racist stereotypes of Native people, such as those perpetuated by the Cleveland Indians, the Atlanta Braves and countless local and national sports teams, persist. Every single one of the more than 350 treaties that Native nations signed has been broken by the U.S. government. The bipartisan budget cuts have severely reduced educational opportunities for Native youth and the development of new housing on reservations, and have caused cause deadly cutbacks in healthcare and other necessary services.

Are we to give thanks for being treated as unwelcome in our own country?
When the descendants of the Aztec, Maya and Inca flee to the U.S., the descendants of the wash-ashore pilgrims term them “illegal aliens” and hunt them down.

We object to the “Pilgrim Progress” parade and to what goes on in Plymouth because they are making millions of tourist dollars every year from the false pilgrim mythology. That money is being made off the backs of our slaughtered Indigenous ancestors.

Increasing numbers of people are seeking alternatives to such holidays as Columbus Day and Thanksgiving. They are coming to the conclusion that if we are ever to achieve some sense of community, we must first face the truth about the history of this country and the toll that history has taken on the lives of millions of Indigenous, Black, Latin@, Asian, and poor and working-class white people.

The myth of Thanksgiving, served up with dollops of European superiority and manifest destiny, just does not work for many people in this country. As Malcolm X once said about the African-American experience in America, “We did not land on Plymouth Rock. Plymouth Rock landed on us.” Exactly.

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Jake Fire Would Have Joined the National Day of Action

Thursday, May 29, 2008

The following letter by a Mohawk youth is being posted on the Day of Action:

Mohawk Nation News
Letter to the editor:

Jake Fire Would Have Joined the National Day of Action! Canadians are seeing the gruesome power of police officers. They have been given the right to carry deadly weapons as part of their arsenal to use during arrests. They carry 50,000 volt tasers, which recently caused the death of an immigrant at the air port in Vancouver, British Columbia. The Canadian public should be very concerned about that incident, since it was not an isolated one. On May 1, 1899, an Akwesasne Mohawk, Saiowisakeron, also known as “Jake Fire”, faced the barrel of a gun in the hands of an RCMP officer. The RCMP had been sent to arrest the Akwesasne traditional chiefs. Standing up for what was right, an unarmed Jake Fire was shot and killed by the RCMP officer. The RCMP officer shooting and killing Jake Fire is the kind of violence and aggression that the colonists use when dealing with Indigenous Peoples asserting our rights. Jake Fire was killed because he supported the traditional Iroquois government and though it was best for his people. At the time, the federal government wanted to impose the colonial band council system of governance. When the Mohawks of Akwesasne resisted the colonial band council style of government, they were coerced into obedience. This pattern has been followed over the centuries when Indigenous got in the way of the immigrants who were swarming all over Turtle Island. In the United States, whenever the settlers came against opposition from the Indigenous, the army was called in. Indigenous resisters were pushed onto uninhabitable areas of Turtle Island. In 1922 the RCMP raided the Six Nations as part of an Indian Affairs plot to overthrow the traditional govenrment. [Order in Council PC 1629, Sept. 17, 1924]. The Iroquois have always resisted being bulldozed into obedience by land developers, governments and police agencies. The most recent example of this brutal method to attempt to control Indigenous occurred in 1995 when an OPP sniper killed an unarmed Indigenous, Dudley George, at Ipperwash, Ontario. Canada and the provincial governments refuse to talk peacefully with the Indigenous people. Instead they arrest and jail, especially the youth. Jailing our people means that Indigenous across Canada are forced to take a back seat to ancestral land and resource theft. We are presently seeing the fast pace of urban development coming into conflict with the Indigenous. Land developers see no problem in going onto disputed Indigenous land to put up housing complexes and explore for oil that destroy the land. Reserves are the only lands left where the non-native are not supposed to encroach. This has not been stopping the developers from trying to enter them too. On May 29, 2008, the Indigenous are asking the Canadian public for support to inform the government that Indigenous Peoples must be dealt with fairly and equitably. This will be the second annual National Day of Action, and Indigenous will show the world that we still care about our rights. Support the cause since it is the future of Indigenous and non-natives alike that will be affected by the federal and provincial government’s response to Indigenous concerns.

Kanatase Horn
Mohawk Akwesasne
Kanatase_18@hotmail.com

Posted by MNN Mohawk Nation News, May 29, 2008. http://www.mohawknationnews.com/

Mass Graves of Residential School Children Revealed in Canada

Friday, April 18, 2008

http://www.hiddenfromhistory.org/
via Mohawk Nation News


Independent Tribunal Established

At a public ceremony and press conference held today outside the colonial "Indian Affairs" building in downtown Vancouver, the Friends and Relatives of the Disappeared (FRD) released a list of twenty eight mass graves across Canada holding the remains of untold numbers of aboriginal children who died in Indian Residential Schools.

The list was distributed today to the world media and to United Nations agencies, as the first act of the newly-formed International Human Rights Tribunal into Genocide in Canada (IHRTGC), a non-governmental body established by indigenous elders.

In a statement read by FRD spokesperson Eagle Strong Voice, it was declared that the IHRTGC would commence its investigations on April 15, 2008, the fourth Annual Aboriginal Holocaust Memorial Day. This inquiry will involve international human rights observers from Guatemala and Cyprus, and will convene aboriginal courts of justice where those persons and institutions responsible for the death and suffering of residential school children will be tried and sentenced. (The complete Statement and List of Mass Graves is reproduced below).

Eagle Strong Voice and IHRTGC elders will present the Mass Graves List at the United Nations on April 19, and will ask United Nations agencies to protect and monitor the mass graves as part of a genuine inquiry and judicial prosecution of those responsible for this Canadian Genocide.

Eyewitness Sylvester Greene spoke to the media at today's event, and described how he helped bury a young Inuit boy at the United Church's Edmonton residential school in 1953."We were told never to tell anyone by Jim Ludford, the Principal, who got me and three other boys to bury him. But a lot more kids got buried all the time in that big grave next to the school."

For more information: http://www.hiddenfromhistory.org/, or write to the IHRTGC at: genocidetribunal@yahoo.ca

Issued on Squamish Territory, 10 April, 2008, under the authority of Hereditary Chief Kiapilano ............. ......... ......... ......... ......... ......... .......

Press Statement:
Mass Graves of Residential School Children Identified – Independent Inquiry Launched

We are gathered today to publicly disclose the location of twenty eight mass graves of children who died in Indian Residential Schools across Canada, and to announce the formation of an independent, non-governmental inquiry into the death and disappearance of children in these schools. We estimate that there are hundreds, and possibly thousands, of children buried in these grave sites alone. The Catholic, Anglican and United Church, and the government of Canada, operated the schools and hospitals where these mass graves are located. We therefore hold these institutions and their officers legally responsible and liable for the deaths of these children.

We have no confidence that the very institutions of church and state that are responsible for these deaths can conduct any kind of impartial or real inquiry into them. Accordingly, as of April 15, 2008, we are establishing an independent, non governmental inquiry into the death and disappearance of Indian residential school children across Canada.

This inquiry shall be known as The International Human Rights Tribunal into Genocide in Canada (IHRTGC), and is established under the authority of the following hereditary chiefs, who shall serve as presiding judges of the Tribunal:Hereditary Chief Kiapilano of the Squamish NationChief Louis Daniels (Whispers Wind), Anishinabe Nation Chief Svnoyi Wohali (Night Eagle), Cherokee Nation Lillian Shirt, Clan Mother, Cree NationElder Ernie Sandy, Anishinabe (Ojibway) NationHereditary Chief Steve Sampson, Chemainus NationAmbassador Chief Red Jacket of Turtle Island.

Today, we are releasing to this Tribunal and to the people of the world the enclosed information on the location of mass graves connected to Indian residential schools and hospitals in order to prevent the destruction of this crucial evidence by the Canadian government, the RCMP and the Anglican, Catholic and United Church of Canada. We call upon indigenous people on the land where these graves are located to monitor and protect these sites vigilantly, and prevent their destruction by occupational forces such as the RCMP and other government agencies. Our Tribunal will commence on April 15 by gathering all of the evidence, including forensic remains, that is necessary to charge and indict those responsible for the deaths of the children buried therein. Once these persons have been identified and detained, they will be tried and sentenced in indigenous courts of justice established by our Tribunal and under the authority of hereditary chiefs.

As a first step in this process, the IHRTGC will present this list of mass graves along with a statement to the United Nations in New York City on April 19, 2008. The IHRTGC will be asking the United Nations to declare these mass graves to be protected heritage sites, and will invite international human rights observers to monitor and assist its work.

Issued by the Elders and Judges of the IHRTGC. Interim Spokesperson: Eagle Strong VoiceEmail: genocidetribunal@yahoo.ca pager: 1-888-265-1007IHRTGC

Sponsors include The Friends and Relatives of the Disappeared, The Truth Commission into Genocide in Canada, the Defensoria Indigenia of Guatemala, Canadians for the Separation of Church and State, and a confederation of indigenous elders across Canada and Turtle Island............. ......... ......... ......... ......... ......... .......

Mass Graves at former Indian Residential Schools and Hospitals across Canada

A. British Columbia
1. Port Alberni: Presby
terian- United Church school (1895-1973), now occupied by the Nuu-Chah-Nulth Tribal Council (NTC) office, Kitskuksis Road. Grave site is a series of sinkhole rows in hills 100 metres due west of the NTC building, in thick foliage, past an unused water pipeline. Children also interred at Tseshaht reserve cemetery, and in wooded gully east of Catholic cemetery on River Road.

2. Alert Bay: St. Michael’s Anglican school (1878-1975), situated on Cormorant Island offshore from Port McNeill. Presently building is used by Namgis First Nation. Site is an overgrown field adjacent to the building, and also under the foundations of the present new building, constructed during the 1960’s. Skeletons seen “between the walls”.

3. Kuper Island: Catholic school (1890-1975), offshore from Chemainus. Land occupied by Penelakut Band. Former building is destroyed except for a staircase. Two grave sites: one immediately south of the former building, in a field containing a conventional cemetery; another at the west shoreline in a lagoon near the main dock.

4. Nanaimo Indian Hospital: Indian Affairs and United Church experimental facility (1942-1970) on Department of National Defense land. Buildings now destroyed. Grave sites are immediately east of former buildings on Fifth avenue, adjacent to and south of Malaspina College.

5. Mission: St. Mary’s Catholic school (1861-1984), adjacent to and north of Lougheed Highway and Fraser River Heritage Park. Original school buildings are destroyed, but many foundations are visible on the grounds of the Park. In this area there are two grave sites: a) immediately adjacent to former girls’ dormitory and present cemetery for priests, and a larger mass grave in an artificial earthen mound, north of the cemetery among overgrown foliage and blackberry bushes, and b) east of the old school grounds, on the hilly slopes next to the field leading to the newer school building which is presently used by the Sto:lo First Nation. Hill site is 150 metres west of building.

6. North Vancouver: Squamish (1898-1959) and Sechelt (1912-1975) Catholic schools, buildings destroyed. Graves of children who died in these schools interred in the Squamish Band Cemetery, North Vancouver.

7. Sardis: Coqualeetza Methodist-United Church school (1889-1940), then experimental hospital run by federal government (1940-1969). Native burial site next to Sto:lo reserve and Little Mountain school, also possibly adjacent to former school-hospital building.

8. Cranbrook: St. Eugene Catholic school (1898-1970), recently converted into a tourist “resort” with federal funding, resulting in the covering-over of a mass burial site by a golf course in front of the building. Numerous grave sites are around and under this golf course.

9. Williams Lake: Catholic school (1890-1981), buildings destroyed but foundations intact, five miles south of city. Grave sites reported north of school grounds and under foundations of tunnel-like structure.

10. Meares Island (Tofino): Kakawis-Christie Catholic school (1898-1974). Buildings incorporated into Kakawis Healing Centre. Body storage room reported in basement, adjacent to burial grounds south of school.

11. Kamloops: Catholic school (1890-1978). Buildings intact. Mass grave south of school, adjacent to and amidst orchard. Numerous burials witnessed there.

12. Lytton: St. George’s Anglican school (1901-1979). Graves of students flogged to death, and others, reported under floorboards and next to playground.

13. Fraser Lake: Lejac Catholic school (1910-1976), buildings destroyed. Graves reported under old foundations and between the walls.

Alberta:
1. Edmonton: United Church school (1919-1960), presently site of the Poundmaker Lodge in St. Albert. Graves of children reported south of former school site, under thick hedge that runs north-south, adjacent to memorial marker.

2. Edmonton: Charles Camsell Hospital (1945-1967), building intact, experimental hospital run by Indian Affairs and United Church. Mass graves of children from hospital reported south of building, near staff garden.

3. Saddle Lake: Bluequills Catholic school (1898-1970), building intact, skeletons and skulls observed in basement furnace. Mass grave reported adjacent to school.4. Hobbema: Ermineskin Catholic school (1916-1973), five intact skeletons observed in school furnace. Graves under former building foundations.

Manitoba:
1. Brandon: Methodist-United Church school (1895-1972). Building intact. Burials reported west of school building.
2. Portage La Prairie: Presbyterian- United Church school (1895-1950). Children buried at nearby Hillside Cemetery.
3. Norway House: Methodist-United Church school (1900-1974). “Very old” grave site next to former school building, demolished by United Church in 2004.

Ontario:1.
Thunder Bay: Lakehead Psychiatric Hospital, still in operation. Experimental centre. Women and children reported buried adjacent to hospital grounds.

2. Sioux Lookout: Pelican Lake Catholic school (1911-1973). Burials of children in mound near to school.

3. Kenora: Cecilia Jeffrey school, Presbyterian- United Church (1900-1966). Large burial mound east of former school.

4. Fort Albany: St. Anne’s Catholic school (1936-1964). Children killed in electric chair buried next to school.

5. Spanish: Catholic school (1883-1965). Numerous graves.

6. Brantford: Mohawk Institute, Anglican church (1850-1969), building intact. Series of graves in orchard behind school building, under rows of trees.

7. Sault Ste. Marie: Shingwauk Anglican school (1873-1969), some intact buildings. Several graves of children reported on grounds of old school.

Quebec:
1. Montreal: Allan Memorial Institute, McGill University, still in operation since opening in 1940. MKULTRA experimental centre. Mass grave of children killed there north of building, on southern slopes of Mount Royal behind stone wall.

Sources:- Eyewitness accounts from survivors of these institutions, catalogued in Hidden from History: The Canadian Holocaust (2nd ed., 2005) by Kevin Annett. Other accounts are from local residents. See http://www.hiddenfromhistory.org/ - Documents and other material from the Department of Indian Affairs RG 10 microfilm series on Indian Residential Schools in Koerner Library, University of B.C.- Survey data and physical evidence obtained from grave sites in Port Alberni, Mission, and other locations. This is a partial list and does not include all of the grave sites connected to Indian residential Schools and hospitals across Canada. In many cases, children who were dying of diseases were sent home to die by school and church officials, and the remains of other children who died at the school were incinerated in the residential school furnaces.

This information is submitted by The Friends and Relatives of the Disappeared (FRD) to the world media, the United Nations, and to the International Human Rights Tribunal into Genocide in Canada (IHRTGC). The IHRTGC will commence its investigations on April 15, 2008 on Squamish Nation territory.

For more information on the independent inquiry into genocide in Canada being conducted by the IHRTGC, write to: genocidetribunal@ yahoo.ca

10 April, 2008 Squamish Nation Territory (“ Vancouver, Canada ”)

Posted by Mohawk Nation News
poster: katenies
PR Photos hid the truth of genocide in residential schools:
Photo 1: Mi'kmaq girls in sewing class at the Roman Catholic-run Shubenacadie Indian Residential School in Shubenacadie, Nova Scotia, 1929: Library and Archives Canada Photo 2: A group of nuns with Aboriginal students - ca. 1890: H.J. Woodside/Library and Archives Canada

Mayan Land Title Case in Belize May Help Indigenous Peoples Elsewhere

In an article written by Kim Petersen and published yesterday in The Dominion, an independent Canadian newspaper, http://www.dominionpaper.ca/articles/1616, we have learned the following.

On October 18, 2007, the Supreme Court of Belize issued a ruling that will elicit cheers from indigenous peoples and activists around the world. By the same token, the ruling is sure to be seen as a dark cloud on the horizon by the governments of the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, the only four countries in the world to reject the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (DRIP), enacted by the UN General Assembly on September 13, 2007.

The ruling in Cal v. Attorney General is the first anywhere to cite DRIP, and holds that “Mayan rights to occupy their lands, farm, hunt and fish pre-date European colonization and remain in force today.” Supreme Court Justice Abdulai Conteh noted, “[A] mere change in sovereignty does not extinguish native title to land. … Extinguishment of rights to or interests in land is not to be lightly inferred.” The Supreme Court further held that "that the national government must recognize the indigenous Mayans’ customary tenure to land and refrain from any act that might prejudice their use or enjoyment of this land."

This ruling effectively puts an end to the Belize government’s granting of licenses to corporations and other concerns seeking to engage in logging, mineral extraction and hydroelectric development on Mayan land. Arguably, these companies will now be forced to negotiate directly with the Mayans who may or may not allow such operations. It is almost certain that Mayan values and culture will act as a moderating force upon any such ventures, ameliorating adverse impacts on the environment and ecosystems in Belize.

In what is perhaps the most troubling (for colonialist governments and multinational corporations) language in the ruling, Justice Conteh held that “British colonial and subsequent acquisition of land in Belize did not abrogate the Mayan people’s primordial rights to their land.” Citing Delgamuukw v British Columbia, Conteh said, “Indigenous title is now correctly regarded as sui generis.” In other words, indigenous title to land is unique, unlike any other claim of title to land. Essentially, the extremely long occupation and use of land by its original inhabitants confers title to them sui generis. This ruling means that a foreign government that seizes land from indigenous peoples by military force or acquires it by deception and fraud cannot convey clear title to its own citizens.

We may soon see cases brought in the U.S. and Canada, and perhaps Australia and New Zealand raising this very issue. Citing this case, tribes will demand that title to their traditional homelands revert to them because original title belongs to them sui generis, and a mere change in sovereignty does not defeat that title. Alternatively, this ruling could be used to support the filing of liens on existing landholders in the Lakota Nation, which has renounced its treaties with the U.S. government and reclaimed its sovereignty. See http://www.commondreams.org/news2007/1220-02.htm