Colorado AIM Youth Expelled/Reinstated at UN Meeting

Native Students Confront Racism at University of Denver

Dear Relatives,

Last month, two University of Denver Greek Life organizations hosted a piercingly offensive Cowboys and Indians theme party where students donned phony headdresses, face paint, loincloths, and all manner of stereotypical viciousness.

Photos of the festivity (some which are attached to this email) surfaced the next day on Facebook. It wasn't long before the photos made their way into the possession of the Native Student Alliance.

After weeks of correspondence with the director of student activities at DU, the school and the Greek Life organizations – Lambda Chi Alpha and Delta Delta Delta – have agreed to publicly apologize to the members of the Native Student Alliance.

Yet we, the members of NSA, believe that they should not only apologize to us, but to the American Indian community at large for their arrogance and ignorance.

Hence, we invite you to come to the University of Denver this Wednesday, March 28 at 4 p.m. at Driscoll Green, which is a open space between the Sturm College of Law and Sturm Hall, located at 2255 East Evans Avenue, Denver, CO 80210.

For more information, please email Viki Rey Eagle, co-chair of the Native Student Alliance at Viki.eagle@gmail.com.

Thank you for time and consideration. We hope to see you Wednesday at 4 p.m.

Kindly,

The Native Student Alliance at the University of Denver

Indians protest against Ecuador mining projects

QUITO, Ecuador (AP) 22 March 2012 — More than 1,000 indigenous protesters reached Ecuador's capital Thursday after a two-week march from the Amazon to oppose plans for large-scale mining on their lands.

The protesters were joined by thousands of anti-government protesters in Quito, and some of the demonstrators clashed with police outside the National Assembly. Police repelled rock-throwing young men using tear gas and charging at the demonstrators on horseback.

Police said at least four officers suffered minor injuries in the violence.

The indigenous protesters were joined by students, activists and government opponents who criticized President Rafael Correa for signing off on plans for mining projects including open pit mines that are to extract copper and other minerals from the traditional lands of the Shuar Indians in southern Ecuador.

Thousands of Correa's supporters gathered in parks and plazas for a counter-demonstration to show their support for the government's policies, some of them in front of the president's palace.

Correa's supporters chanted: "The coup-plotters won't pass! They'll bump into the people!"

The leftist president addressed a crowd of supporters at a park, saying the government is willing to talk with indigenous leaders despite the disagreements.

"We've told them: They want to talk, perfect, but with the good-intentioned, good people. For that, they don't need marches. We're always open to dialogue," Correa said. He called the protesters "counterrevolutionaries."

"If they want to beat us, they should do it in elections," Correa said in a radio interview.

The president said the government took measures to ensure security and the right of his opponents to protest peacefully. Hundreds of police officers stood watch at both demonstrations.

"But if there is an act of violence... clearly it will be from infiltrated opposition groups," Correa said, adding that he thought the indigenous protesters had failed to rally much of a crowd.

Correa, whose spending on social programs has helped boost his approval ratings above 70 percent, has supported large-scale mining projects saying they represent a financial boon for the country.

The march was organized by the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities, the country's indigenous umbrella group.

Delfin Tenesaca, one of the group's leaders, said that if the president is truly willing to have a dialogue, he should receive the protesters. "He should also eliminate all mining contracts in order to respect the constitution, which prohibits all types of mining in parks, ecological reserves and water sources," Tenesaca said.

The indigenous group's president, Humberto Cholango, told reporters: "We want peace and no more insults by the president."

"We want Ecuador to know that there are people here who are willing to question and tell the president his mistakes," Cholango told the Ecuadorean television channel Ecuavisa.

The protest march began on March 8 in the Amazon town of El Pangui, about 350 kilometers (215 miles) south of Quito. The marchers took a winding route, hiking about 700 kilometers (435 miles) to reach the capital.

Near the starting point of the march, the government has authorized open pit mines. Under a contract signed by the president this month, Chinese-owned Ecuacorriente will begin stripping copper as early as next year from a hillside in Shuar country whose reserves are estimated at 2.1 billion kilograms (4.7 billion pounds).

The Indians hold title to their traditional lands, but the government maintains mining rights and isn't legally bound to obtain the communities' consent to begin mining projects.

While contracts specify that 10 percent of the royalties should benefit local communities, activists say that can't compensate for harm to Amazon forests and watersheds.

The protesters, from various indigenous groups, also express concern about plans for more oil drilling in the country and a proposed gold mining project in the Amazon that aims to tap an estimated 6.4 million ounces of recoverable gold reserves, currently worth $10.6 billion.

Hatuey Lives! - 500 Years of Indigenous Resistance

Hatuey monument in Cuba

FEBRUARY 01, 2012
23
Hatuey's Rebellion
Indigenous Resistance - February 2, 2012
by WILLIAM LOREN KATZ
This February 2nd stands as the 500th anniversary of the death of Hatuey, an Indigenous American fighter for independence from colonialism not mentioned in the same breath as Patrick Henry, George Washington, and Thomas Jefferson. However, Hatuey deserves recognition as their earliest ideological ancestor and great forerunner.

Little is known about Hatuey, a Taino Cacique [leader], not his date of birth, nor exactly when he first led his forces into battle. But key elements of his story have come down to us from Bishop Las Casas, the Dominican Priest, who became Spain’s “Defender of the Indians.” On February 2, 1512, Las Casas was in Cuba when Hatuey died at the hands of the European invaders.

Hatuey’s armed resistance began on the island of Hispaniola [today Haiti and the Dominican Republic] during the age of Columbus. It probably increased after 1502 when a fleet of 30 Spanish ships brought over the new Governor Nicolas de Ovando, hundreds of Spanish settlers and a number of enslaved Africans to pursue Spain’s search for gold.

But oppression rarely goes as planned. Before the year was over Governor Ovando complained to King Ferdinand that the enslaved Africans “fled among the Indians, taught them bad customs, and could not be captured.” The last four words reveal more
than his problem with disobedient servants or his difficulty of retrieving runaways in a rainforest. Ovando is probably describing the formation of the first American rainbow coalition: Hatuey and his followers are greeting and embracing the runaway Africans as allies.

After about a decade of armed resistance in Hispaniola, in 1511 Hatuey and 400 of his followers climbed into canoes and headed to Cuba. His plan was not escape but to mobilize fellow Caribbean islanders against the bearded intruders, their lust for gold, and the slavery, misery and death their invasion brought.

In Cuba Hatuey’s clear message was recorded by Las Casas: the intruders “worship gold,” “fight and kill,” “usurp our land and makes us slaves” For gold, slaves and land “they fight and kill; for these they persecute us and that is why we have to throw them into the sea….”

Hatuey’s forces had no sooner begun to mobilize Cubans when well-armed Spaniards under Diego Velásquez landed in Cuba. (One was Hernán Cortés who would conquer Mexico.) Hatuey’s strategy to attack, guerilla fashion, and then retreat to the hills and regroup for the next attack, kept the Spaniards pinned down at their fort at Baracoa for at least three months.

But finally a Spanish offensive overwhelmed Hatuey and his troops. On February 2, 1512, Hatuey was led out for a public execution. Las Casas described the scene:

“When tied to the stake, the cacique Hatuey was told by a Franciscan friar who was present . . . something about the God of the Christians and of the articles of Faith. And he was told what he could do in the brief time that remained to him, in order to be saved and go to heaven. The Cacique, had never heard any of this before, and was told he would go to Inferno where, if he did not adopt the Christian faith, he would suffer eternal torment, asked the Franciscan friar if Christians all went to Heaven. When told that they did he said he would prefer to go to Hell.”



As the first freedom fighter of the Americas, Hatuey not only united Africans and Indigenous people against the invaders, but in bringing his fighters from Hispaniola to Cuba, he initiated the first pan-American struggle for independence from colonialism.

Today a statue in Cuba celebrates Hatuey as a national hero, its first great liberator. He was more than that. He was the first of the heroic American freedom fighters whose contributions led to 1776, to the revolution in Haiti, and to Simon Bolivar who also sought to liberate all of the Americas from Spain.

One could argue that Hatuey was the first to have ignited the American spirit of liberty and independence that would circle the globe for the next five hundred years.

First Nations in Occupied Canada to Defend Their Territories Against Canada and Oil Corporations through "an unbroken wall of opposition"

Describing their opposition to Enbridge’s Northern Gateway project as an unbreakable wall, native leaders say they will physically block the project if regulators allow it to proceed. Announcing their alliance under the "Save the Fraser[River] Declaration" read full Declaration here, First Nations across British Columbis affirmed their opposition to the Gateway pipeline.

Indigenous peoples, such as the Yinka Dene Alliance and Coastal First Nations, have said they will not support the project under any circumstances."We have banned oil pipelines and tankers using our laws, and we will defend our decision using all the means at our disposal," said Chief Jackie Thomas of Saik'uz First Nation, a member of the Yinka Dene Alliance. “I am going to stand in front of bulldozers to stop this project, and I expect my neighbours to join me,” Thomas said on Thursday when asked what will happen if regulators approve the proposed pipeline.

The declaration is another political blow to the Canadian energy sector and Canada's right-of-center Conservative government after Washington decided last month to delay approving a pipeline carrying oil sands crude to the Gulf Coast.

It adds to the uncertainty over Enbridge Inc's planned C$5.5 billion Northern Gateway oil pipeline, which would move 525,000 barrels a day of tar sands-derived oil 1,177 km (731 miles) to the Pacific port of Kitimat, British Columbia.

Aboriginal groups, also known as First Nations, say they fear the consequences of a spill from the pipeline, which would pass through some of Canada's most spectacular mountain landscape. They also oppose the idea of shipping oil from British Columbia ports.

"First Nations, whose unceded territory encompasses the entire coastline of British Columbia, have formed a united front, banning all exports of tar sands crude oil through their territories," more than 60 aboriginal groups said in a statement.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper says the Northern Gateway - which would open up a new supply route to Asia - is important for Canada, especially after the United States delay to approval of TransCanada Corp's Keystone XL pipeline.

Washington announced the delay after a high-profile protest campaign against oil sands crude, which requires large amounts of energy to produce.

Aboriginal opposition is one of the biggest risks to Enbridge in its efforts to move Northern Gateway forward. The company has offered native groups equity stakes in the pipeline as well as large sums of money for community development.

Enbridge spokesman Paul Stanway said the affair had to be handled by government and regulators rather than by the company. "This is a ban that would have serious implications for the entire province of British Columbia," he said.

For more information: Save the Fraser River

Colorado AIM members at Obama confrontation, Denver, October 26th, 2011

Colorado AIM members, Scott Jacket, Sky Morris, and Tessa McLean express their opposition to Keystone Pipeline at Obama rally. These three young Colorado AIM leaders had just been removed by the Secret Service after raising their banner during Obama's speech inside the arena. (photo: Carol Berry, Indian Country Today)

Colorado AIM and allies Confront Obama about Keystone XL

Yesterday, we had our action at the Obama speech on the Auraria campus. It was pretty awesome, as was the action on Tuesday, despite the cold and rain and snow. I want to acknowledge the leadership that was shown by Scott, Tessa and Sky, in the lead-up to today's action, and for the courage that they showed, in the face of the Secret Service and other police agencies. They stood for hours in the rain and snow with our banners and messages and bullhorns, outside of the Pepsi Center where Obama had his $5000 per person fundraiser, outside of Obama's hotel, stood in line for hours to get the tickets to get inside the Auraria event, They smuggled banners into the event, past Secret Service security, and raised the banners, and the Oglala Sioux, flag at the critical time. Also essential to the action locally were Robert Chanate (who was central to the organizing, and who held up the banner, too),Carol Berry, Jolynne Locust-Woodcock whose pictures of the event can be found on her Facebook page, and Lance Tsosie, an Indian student from DU. Several others who could not get into the event braved the snow to rally outside, including Viki Eagle and other DU students, Lizzie Kerplanek from CU-Denver and Colorado AIM, and especially to Kia Fathi, a strong and solid ally, who worked tirelessly to support this action. There were other AIM people who helped, too: Brenda Mitchell, Dave and Joylynne Woodcock, Frank who helped with security for us, Harrison Sadler, and Tessa's dad Jacob, mom Bernice, and sister Megan. Deb Freemont was in the event too, but got separated from us by the huge crowd. I also want to commend Steve Keith for creating a beautiful banner for us.

A special message of appreciation to Tom Poor Bear and his daughter, Evangeline, who drove down from Pine Ridge, and who were in there with us. Tom is a long-time AIM veteran of the Trail of Broken Treaties, Wounded Knee "73, Yellow Thunder Camp, Camp Justice, and many other AIM sponsored actions; he is now the Vice-President of the Oglala Sioux Tribe. Several other members of the OST Council said that they were going to join us, but Tom was the only one with the courage actually to show and confront Obama. He was also instrumental in shouting to Obama about honoring Indian treaties, stopping the Keystone XL pipeline, and respecting our mother the Earth. Also very important to the action was Jennifer Baker, an attorney from the Smith, Shelton and Ragona law firm, who is lead advisor to Tom on the Keystone pipeline impact on the Oglala Sioux Tribe. Jennifer hung in there with us through the actions on Tuesday night, and came into the Obama event, and help us hold up the Keystone banner.

The events above caused Obama to stammer, lose his place in his speech, pause, and then directly to respond to the messages that were shouted, and the message on the banners that were located right in front of him: "Honor Indian Treaties," and "Stop The Keystone Pipeline." Obama stopped and said that a decision had not yet been made, and he said, "I know your deep concern about it. We will address it." The Secret Service then surrounded our group and ordered us to stop shouting, and to take the banners down. When Sky told them that we weren't taking the banners down, they ordered us to leave the room, which we did, eventually.

In the news articles below, you can see that the fact Obama stopped his written speech, and responded to the Keystone issue, was a first. These stories were reported locally, nationally, and internationally -- including on Associated Press, Reuters, and in the New York Times, some links are below -- for more Google news search the terms "Obama, Denver, Keystone."

Indigenous Resistance to the Tar Sands - our local FB page:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Indigenous-Resistance-to-the-OIL-Sands-Denver/296999983643881


http://thehill.com/blogs/e2-wire/e2-wire/189955-obama-speech-interupted-by-anti-keystone-hecklers
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/10/26/us-obama-keystone-idUSTRE79P6OI20111026
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/26/keystone-xl-pipeline-obama_n_1033067.html

Show Obama: Indigenous Resistance to the Oil Sands Oct 25, Denver

Colorado AIM endorses, and will participate actively in, the rally below when Obama is in town next week.
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Indigenous-Resistance-to-the-OIL-Sands-Oct-25-Denver/296999983643881

WHEN: Tuesday, October 25, assemble @ 1:45pm
WHERE: Tivoli Commons on Auraria Campus (900 Auraria Pkwy, Denver, 80204)
WHY: TransCanada has proposed a pipeline, the Keystone XL pipeline to come down from the Alberta Tar Sands (the largest industrial project on earth) to Texas, passing many states, at least five reservations and the Ogallala Aquifer which serves water to eight states. The State Department and Obama are sitting on the pipeline proposal right now and will be approving/denying it in November. We will remind Obama of his 2008 campaign promises, we will remind him that We, the People, are concerned over the oil sands and the pipeline, over our land and water that our next generations must depend on, too. Thomas Poor Bear, the Vice President from the Oglala Sioux Tribe will be bringing a delegation from the Pine Ridge Reservation to join in this struggle, and we hope you will join, too.

Outstanding Column by Professor Richard Falk on Duplicity of U.S. in Invoking the "Rule of Law"

Missing the Point Twice: International Law as Empire’s Sunday Suit by Richard Falk click here for original blog

In a recent speech at the Harvard Law School, John Brennan, President Obama’s chief advisor on counterterrorism and homeland security, boldly declared: “I’ve developed a profound appreciation for the role that our values, especially the rule of law, play in keeping our country safe.” The most notable feature of the remarks that followed was the legal rationalization put forth for targeting killing of civilian terrorist suspects distant from ‘the hot battlefield’ even if not engaged in activities that could be reasonably viewed as posing an imminent threat to security of the United States.

In effect, post-9/11 American ideas of self-defense incorporate by stealth the Bush Doctrine of preemptive war used to justify aggression against Iraq in 2003, which had seemed discredited in international until quietly revived by the Obama presidency. The entire world is treated as part of the operational battlefield in the so-called ‘long war,’ and civilians, such as the religious ideologue Anwar al-Awlaki, killed on September 30, 2011 in a remote region of Yemen as if he was a soldier at war. This purported legalization of drone attacks carried out in foreign countries represents a unilateral extension of international law, as well as establishes a precedent that would not be tolerated if claimed by any country hostile to the United States. Involved here is the de facto amendment of the right of self-defense in a manner inconsistent with both the understanding embedded in Articles 2(4) and 51 of the UN Charter and of contemporary international law as interpreted by a majority in the International Court of Justice in the Nicaragua case decided in 1986. The United States now sets the new rules that override the old rules, and then limits their availability to others by restrictions based on geopolitical criteria of ‘friend’ and ‘enemy.’

All that Brennan offered in support of such an imperial claim was the assurance that the United States is careful in the execution of these attacks, seeking to minimize the risk of mistaken identity and taking steps to ensure that the attacks take place in situations where the risks of unintended ‘collateral damage’ are reduced to the minimum. The credibility of this reassurance is insulated from inquiry by secrecy, a total lack of transparency that is supposedly justified by the need to protect intelligence sources. There is also no independent post-attack independent inquiry as to whether the targeted individual might have captured rather than executed, whether there existed a sufficient threat of involvement in dangerous activities to warrant such at attack, whether the government of the country involved gave its consent voluntarily, and whether there is or should be accountability for errors. Such a procedure can only be understood as an effort to establish a system of imperial global governance in relation to the use of force. If this constitutes the way American ‘values’ deploy ‘the rule of law’ it would seem to reflect the most cynical reliance on ‘law’ as propaganda, while at the same time discarding the proper role of law as a constraint on violence. It is also relevant that the unusual amount of attention given to the al-Awlaki execution results from his American citizenship, which implies the regressive understanding of law that there are no grounds for a serious American concern if the target is non-American regardless of the innocence of the person or the fact that he or she are being killed in their homeland and citizenship. Such a world we are making for ourselves and others.

In March of 2011, in a spirited address to the American Society of International Law, Harold Koh, Legal Advisor to the Secretary of State, also spoke glowingly about the commitment of the United States during the Obama presidency of “living our values by respecting the role of law.” He went on to explain that this mean “following universal standards, not double standards.”

These legalist sentiments were deemed by Koh to be so central to his argument as to be printed in bold lettering for emphasis.
What should strike any reasonably objective person is the crude hypocrisy of an American government official rejecting double standards while simultaneously engaging in political gymnastics to avoid acknowledging the unlawfulness of Israel’s behavior: the United States stands practically alone in the world in refusing to condemn Israeli settlements in occupied Palestine, in denying Palestinian statehood at the UN, in endorsing the collective punishment inflicted on the civilian population of Gaza for more than four years; in repudiating the recommendations of the Goldstone Report. Indeed, U.S. foreign policy toward Israel is the most glaring and punitive instance of double standards with respect to international law that exists in the world today. But it far from the only example. Other prominent instances exist in many crucial domains of global policy: as with the nuclear weapons states that maintain arsenals of weapons without accepting restrictions on their use and non-nuclear pariah states that under the geopolitically managed NPT regime are threatened with military attack for supposedly seeking such weapons; as with the identity of those political leaders and military commanders who are prosecuted for international crimes and those who enjoy a condition of de facto impunity; and as to states that could be invaded by reliance on the norm of ‘responsibility to protect’ and those against which such action is inconceivable however much the territorial population is confronted by dire threats to its wellbeing and survival.

I am less shocked by the behavior of the United States, which reflects its grand strategy, than by this insistence on stretching the meaning of the most fundamental legal rules and principles to satisfy foreign policy priorities. For esteemed international law figures such as Harold Koh, formerly a distinguished human rights scholar and dean of the Yale Law School, to make such bold assertions about the post-9/11 law, validating drone warfare, without even bothering to acknowledge doubts as to the wisdom and acceptability of such a course is to embrace jurisprudential nihilism in two senses—first, by undermining the authority of international law by showing that it can always be extended unilaterally to serve the interests of the powerful, and operates otherwise to discipline weak states; and secondly, by creating a precedent that will not be honored as ‘law’ if invoked by others- witness the hysterical reaction to the shaky claim that Iran was plotting the assassination of the Saudi Arabian ambassador to the United States. What is sauce for the geopolitical goose seems to be poison for the pariah gander!

There are respectable reasons to suggest that international law of war and peace that has evolved over the centuries to deal with conflict among states, and as such needs to be revised to take account of non-state actors and networks, as well as in response to the global horizoning of many interactions in the world of the 21st century. But there are no respectable reasons to contend that dominant states can exercise a military option wherever they choose, and then have the temerity to call this behavior ‘lawful.’

Michael Rosen, an ideological apologist for the executions of Osama Bin Laden and Al-Awlaki, writing in The American, the magazine published by the American Enterprise Institute (the right-wing think tank) put his support for drone military activity this way: “But in the civilized world..increasingly.. targeted by Islamist terror, we must continue to return fire by robustly targeting the terror masters.” At least such an assertion

does not pretend to provide an international law justification, although it does stretch the U.S. Congress’s 2001 Authorization of the Use of Military Force, designed to reach those involved in the 9/11 attacks, to validate the execution Al-Awlaki who has never been accused of having any relationship to 9/11. It also most unacceptably sets up this long repudiated moral contrast between ‘the civilized world’ and the rest that has so often in modern times been used to justify violence by the West against the non-West. I had hoped that the collapse of colonialism would have at least discouraged the use of such a tasteless rhetoric of comparison.

There is a final point. Living in a region that is subject to drone attacks as in the tribal areas of Waziristan is terrifying for the population as a whole. This ill-defined vulnerability helps explain the severe hostility to the United States that exists among the Pakistani people and led to a unanimous resolution adopted on May 14, 2011 by the Pakistan parliament demanding that the executive branch uphold Pakistan’s sovereignty by disallowing any future drone strikes on its territory, and if they continue to cut off NATO supplies destined for the Afghanistan War. Supporters of the resolution have sought implementation through the courts, and a Lahore judge has ordered Pakistan foreign minister to submit detailed responses to issues raised. It is one thing to assess the reasonableness and proportionality of a targeted killing, including by reference to collateral damage by reference to the person(s) targeted, but such an appraisal fails to take any account of the more pervasive and inevitable collateral damage caused by producing intense insecurity on the part of an utterly defenseless civilian population as a whole. As far as I have seen this latter dimension of state terror associated with these new modalities of surveillance, intelligence operations, and robotic militarism never considers the psychological harm being done to the people of the targeted country. This raises issues bearing on the right to life as a fundamental right of all persons under international human rights law.