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American Indian Movement of Colorado

Spirituality • Self-determination • Solidarity • Sobriety
Colorado AIM home page

Tuesday, February 28, 2006

Winona LaDuke @ Regis University on March 13

Winona LaDuke will be speaking at Regis University(Denver, CO) on March 13. at 8:00 p.m.

Here is the flyer
Winona.pdf

March for sacred sites and immigrant rites



We are asking all allies to support the following march. The support suggestions are in the notice.

MARCH FOR SACRED SITES * IMMIGRANT RITES!
The week of March 25th the Northern Arizona University Chapter of M.E.Ch.A. El Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano@ de Aztlán (the Chican@ Student Movement of Aztlan) will be hosting the M.E.ch.A. National Conference bringing together nearly 1,000 students from around the country.

Every year, M.E.ch.A. marches on an issue(s) that the local chapter has been engaged with.This year we will be marching to protect the San Francisco Peaks and the human rights of immigrants.

We will be gathering at 3:00 PM, Saturday March 25th at the Aquatic Center of Northern Arizona University.  There will be places for commercial buses, vans, and other transportation to park.

If your organization would like to be sponsor e-mail: youth@savethepeaks.org

We are planning a regional mobilization to march to the City Council of Flagstaff to show them that struggling peoples stand together for dignity and respect.

This year the movement to protect the San Francisco Peaks from the desecration of Arizona Snowbowl has grown, as has the movement to protect the rights of immigrants in a climate of racist anti-immigration laws, people, and institutions.

Voices from the reservations, barrios, big cities, and border towns will be heard not in the hundreds, but in the thousands.  We will speak of a new day, of change, of respect for our Earth, of respect for the San Francisco Peaks and other sacred sites that are being desecrated, of the right to move freely from place to place without discrimination and exploitation, of balanced relations between people, of a world where many worlds can fit.

The same system that desecrates sacred sites is also the same system that denies human rights.

We are asking for Nations, institutions of faith, businesses, Chapter houses, grassroots movements, academic departments, student groups, and others to sponsor this event and help mobilize and do outreach locally in their communities.

Spread the word, organize caravans to Flagstaff, contribute financially, and post everywhere.
March for Sacred Sites!
Stop Snowbowl!
March for Immigrant Rights!
Stop Racist Immigration Laws!

From the mountains of the Southwest,
Supporters of the Peaks! Supporters of Human Rights!
M.E.ch.A.,
Youth of the Peaks,
E.C.H.O.E.S.
Save the Peaks Coalition
4th World Entertainment
Indigenous Action Media
Native Movement
www.nativemovement.org/march

Monday, February 20, 2006

Another Native blogger

Check out this blog

Voice of a Native Son
The Sober Observations of a Two-Spirited Black Indian living under European Occupation in North America.

Angry Indian Link

Wednesday, February 15, 2006

New Voice Emerging- Press Release

Native Youth Media Coalition- Press Release
February 15, 2006- For Immediate Release
 
New Voices Emerging
 
“ If you desecrate and destroy the Peaks, you’re doing away with a way of life. When is that going to be understood? That’s killing Native American Nations. That’s killing us.”
-Joe Shirley Jr. Navajo Nation President
 
The San Francisco Peaks are sacred to more than 13 Indigenous Nations. They are located just outside of Flagstaff, Arizona. Presently, a Ski Resort called Arizona Snowbowl is disrespectfully located on the Peaks. There is an on-going battle to stop the Arizona Snowbowl from expanding its resort. Arizona Snowbowl plans on desecrating the Peaks using reclaimed waste-water to make artificial “snow” on this Holy and Sacred Mountain. Not only is it a powerful spiritual place, it is also the home to more than 200 species of mammals and birds that are dependant on the regions unique environment.  The Youth of the Peaks are standing up for the preservation of this mountain.
 
The Youth of the Peaks was formed in the spring of 2005. Since their birth they have respectfully built a strong movement of Indigenous Youth to stand up and protect the sacred San Francisco Peaks against the destruction by Arizona Snowbowl and the City of Flagstaff. The Youth of the Peaks made a callout to Elders and Young people from all over Arizona to come to the New Voices Emerging Summit held in Flagstaff, February 10-12th. The Youth of the Peaks organized the summit to bring Youth and Elders together for two days to build alliances, dialogue, plan and strategize around the issue of protecting the Peaks.
 
Over 70 youth attended the summit. There was a beautiful presence of youth groups supporting the struggle, such as, T.R.U.T.H.F.U.L. from Hopi, The Indigenous Youth Alliance (IYA) from Gila River/Phoenix, the Native Youth Media Coalition, E.C.H.O.E.S from Flagstaff, and the Native Movement Collective. By the end of the Summit, strong alliances were created amongst the youth who now felt as family.  Leaving back to their own communities the youth did not say good-bye,  rather they said,  "we will stop the snowbowl! ". The weaving of their collective strength has begun and their determination continues. 
 
“This is what it takes to talk to the earth, so that it can understand you. These ways are being forgotten, that’s why were where we are. And in some cases, they are not forgotten, but they are being forced to not be practiced. This is what they are doing to you, by denying you this sacred sight. We don’t need to tell no white man in a black gown that this is our sacred sight…we don’t’ ”
-Dine Elder

“Us as youth we have concerns too, especially as Indigenous Youth, who hold these peak’s sacred. The people need to know that it’s not just the Elders, the Medicine men, and the older ones who are concerned about this mountain, its also us youth.” – Youth of the Peaks
 
“ We need to help the future generations that are to come. What our future people are going to be like depends on what we as people are going to be, what we are going to do. I’m here for my people, I’m here for all people…” -Young woman from T.R.U.T.H.F.U.L.

“ The Youth of the Peaks and other organizations here at the summit really have a long-term vision, not just in terms of a plan… but really what we are engaged in is a process of building hope... of cultivating hope...” – Youth of the Peaks
 
Get involved in the struggle to protect the San Francisco Peaks!
Stop Snowbowl!
 
For more information on the ongoing battle to protect the San Francisco Peaks:  www.savethepeaks.org
 
For more information on Youth of the Peaks: www.savethepeaks.org/youth

Monday, February 13, 2006

Evo Morales - Indigenous Revolutionary

By ROGER BURBACH
http://www.counterpunch.org/burbach02112006.html

Evo Morales is just an inspirational symbol for his people? Think again. Bolivia's first Indian president has shown political acuity in his early days in office, skillfully maneuvering and sticking to his radical program for transforming the country while keeping adversaries at home and abroad at bay.

On Feb. 6, just 15 days after his inauguration, Morales called for the mobilization of the country's peasant organizations to shield his government against efforts by "some transnational corporations" to destabilize the country to stop the "nationalization" of energy resources. The plot, he said, had been detected by the armed forces.

A day after swearing in, Morales shook up the Bolivian high command by choosing a low-ranking general to head the military, effectively forcing higher-ranking generals to resign. The move was a key move, as the Bolivian armed forces have a long history of intervening in Bolivian politics.

Morales also called on peasant and other popular organizations to rally behind his call for the election of a constituent assembly in early July, to draft a new constituent for Bolivia. "The oligarchs," he said, "should not be given time to breathe" as the country tries to reshape its basic institutions.
For entire article go to: www.counterpunch.org/burbach02112006.html

Thursday, February 09, 2006

February 9, 2006
An American Indian's View of the Anti- Muslim Cartoons
Such Depictions Have Been Used as a Weapon Against Oppressed Peoples for Centuries
By ROBERT ROBIDEAU
Reading the first news reports about the cartoons depicting Muhammid as a terrorist reminded me of the unfriendly media that printed the then Attorney Gerneral of for South Dakota, William Janklows` vigilante order, "The only way to deal with the Indian problem in South Dakota is to put a gun to the AIM leaders' heads and pull the trigger." Such ethnically hostile and abusive reporting by mainstream media was what helped to kill more than 60 American Indians and assault hundreds more during the federal governments reign of terror that occurred between 1973 and 1975 on the Pine Ridge Oglala Lakota reservation.
The old adage that was popularized in Hollywood westerns," White man speaks with forked tongue" had a special meaning. It denoted the deceit of European settlers who often lied to North American Indian people as they stole coveted lands and nearly decimated them as a people. The recent split tongue approach used in defending Danish racist cartoons as freedom of speech must be loudly condemned as just more attacks on the rights of Muslims to defend their lands, culture and self determination.

For the complete article: http://www.counterpunch.org/robideau02092006.html

Thursday, February 02, 2006

The Trivialization of Indigenous Peoples' Liberation

The most significant recent development in the contemporary movement for indigenous peoples' liberation was the election last month of Evo Morales to the presidency of Bolivia. Morales' election could create an example and a model that advances hope for a freer future for all indigenous peoples. In typical fashion (no pun intended), the invader-society media marginalize and diminish the importance of the struggles of Native peoples. Below is the latest example from today's New York Times. The Times ignores Morales' message, diminishes his critique of globalization, brushes aside the resonance of his optimistic call for liberation for all oppressed people. Caring about the substance of liberation is too boring, insists the Times. Let us all, instead, focus on ... Morales' sweater.

The New York Times
February 2, 2006
The Fashion of the Populist

By JUAN FORERO
LA PAZ, Bolivia

EVO MORALES, the new president of this remote, often-overlooked country high in the Andes, is known as the leader of a powerful indigenous movement, a fiery street agitator and former coca farmer who in the coming months may challenge the United States on subjects like the drug war and globalization.

Lately, though, it is not just Mr. Morales's oratory or policies that are getting attention, but his clothing, especially the multistriped sweater he wore to meet world leaders last month during a tour of Madrid, Beijing and beyond, before his inauguration on Jan. 22. Copies of the sweater are flying off the shelves in La Paz, the capital, at $10 each.

Images of Bolivia's first indigenous president adorn T-shirts and flags, an online Bolivian store called BoliviaMall.com is selling striped sweaters worldwide, and reporters from Madrid to Mexico City are writing about Evo Morales as a fashion symbol.

"This week a new front-runner has emerged in the men's wear style stakes," The Guardian in Britain declared in a fashion article shortly before Mr. Morales's inauguration. "Evo Morales, president-elect of Bolivia, has been rigorously working what is known in the world of fashion as a 'signature look.' "

The question is: Will Mr. Morales, a strapping Aymara Indian with a Roman nose, an infectious smile and a shock of long black hair, catch on as a durable fashion influence?

Wednesday, February 01, 2006

Zionism and Manifest Destiny

Here is another article from our brother Bob Robideau. The original article may be found at http://www.counterpunch.org/robideau02012006.html

February 1, 2006

"God Given Right"
Palestine and Native America
By ROBERT ROBIDEAU

The recent election windfall victory of Hamas has sent shock waves through the United States and the European Union. They swiftly announced their threat to withhold $400 million in aide if Hamas refused to recognize the state of Israel and disarm.

Hamas, which has promoted itself as a militant alternative to the discredited Fatah government, now has to live up to its own rhetoric of providing an alternative to the long suffering Palestinian people.

Mr Zahar, the leader of Hamas who rose to power in 1989, reportedly said, "Spies and thieves must fear us," and "thieves are those who steal our land". As a member of the American Indian Movement, I know full well that the roads into the Americas were paved by thieves. It was A government spy sent to create internal disruption, who set the stage for the execution of Anna Mae Aquash, an icon in Indian country; and while over 150 government police terrorized communities on the Pine Ridge Oglala Lakota reservation in the summer of 1975, the federal government stole one eighth of the Pine Ridge reservation land.

The state of Israel sets on land that was originally Palestinian but Zionist movements in Europe and the United States claimed that the "land was given to them by God" and their belief that their race possessed some "natural superiority". Euro- Americas pray to "god and country" and teach their future generations to pray homage to the gangsters, outlaws and thieves who stole the country from Indian nations in god,s name.

The European idea that they possessed a "God given superiority" not only had brought them into conflict with the Palestinian people, but also North American Indian Nations in the 1800s.

In contrast, Euro-Americans and Europeans began their westward expansion of North America under the banner of manifest destiny. A belief that they had a "divinely inspired mission" to expand. Euro-American expansion meant the thief and occupation of Native American Indian lands. A big part of William Henry Harrison´s responsibility, who as the Territorial Governor of Indiana, was to obtain title to American Indian lands so that white settlement could expand in the area, asked the Indiana legislature: "Is one of the fairest portions of the globe to remain in a state of nature, the haunt of a few wretched savages, when it seems destined, by the Creator, to give support to a large population, and to be the sea of civilization, of science, and true religion?" Isn't this the Zionist attitude toward Palestine?

The United States continued the European practice of recognizing only limited land rights of Native American Indians who they regarded as "savages" who stood in the way of Euro-American expansion. The same mentality has prevailed with Israel people in their dealings with the Palestinian people.

In the time of Manifest Destiny, this idea was clear and simple, "Indian Removal". The "Indian wars" between Native Indian Nations and Euro-American armies, which are now well recorded, ended in more then 300 treaties that won some tribes large sections of land, but today these lands have all but melted away into the hands of Euro-Americans.

Euro-American's believed that Native American Indians were "destined to melt and vanish before the advancing waves of Anglo-American power..." but the large land sessions won by the Tribes through treaty in fact allowed future generations to survive, even as their lands continued to be lost through one passage after another of Congressional Acts that swindled tribes out of millions of acres of land.

Today Native lands have become checker boarded with Euro-American ownership and continue to be subject to Congressional Acts to defraud Native people of even more land and the natural resources.

The Palestinian people continue to struggle through various groups like Hamas in self defense of their sovereignty and to keep their remaining lands. So too, has North American Indian people continued to struggle to keep what is left of their lands and recover stolen lands.

The Federal Government offers the Lakota Nations 100´s of millions for their sacred Black Hills, but the Lakota people have refused the federal paper dollars, firmly stating, "Our sacred land is not for sale!"

Of the numerous Native American Indian groups that have historically formed to confront the continued Euro-American intrusions into our lives and sovereign rights, the American Indian Movement (AIM) has become best known. Like the PLO, Hamas and other Palestinian liberation groups, we too were criminalized by the invaders and thieves who attempt to undermine our rights as a liberation group with aggression, violence and name calling. As with the Palestinians, we too will not be denied, through threats of violence, our right of self defense.

On September 2005 the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) launched a three day aerial attacks killing and wounding Palestinians in the northern Gaza Strip. An action by the Israel government to demoralize Palestinian victims through acts of terror are common tactics used by occupying forces.

For 30 years Congress has failed to fully investigate their law enforcement agency the FBI´s role in the "Reign of Terror" on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota that resulted in 240 assaults and 60 murders in a 3 year period. It also failed to investigate the gross misconduct of the FBI in the case of Leonard Peltier, a member activist of the American Indian Movement who has now spent 30 years in federal prisons for defending the lives of his people against the violent and aggressive attacks of the FBI. The order to eliminate Mr. Peltier was apparently authorized by the federal government.

If the United States and the European Union fail to buy Mr. Zahar out with "aid money", we can expect that they will use military units with similar powers given to law enforcement agencies here in the United States under the old Counter Intelligence Program (COINTELPRO) or the one now known as the Patriot Act to eliminate him in the name of God.

United States history attest to the genocide of North American Indians and most educated Euro Americans and Europeans would agree that a genocide has been committed on this continent in the name of God and riches, but when it comes to the Muslim world the racism is disgusting.

The "Gods" must be crazy to think that their programs of racism and genocide will stop freedom fighters around the world from carrying on with their struggles for liberation and self defense.

ROBERT ROBIDEAU is co-director of the Leonard Peltier Defense Committee. He can be reached at: americanindianm@telefonica.net