NEWSINDIGENOUS RIGHTS

By Sasha Kinney and Abubakar El-Amudy

The community of Lamu is fighting to have its voice heard in the development of a massive new infrastructure project, which threatens to destroy their idyllic and historic island off the coast of Kenya.  Corporations and the Kenyan government are pushing forward with plans to develop the large port and a host of related infrastructure.  Despite its dire environmental consequences, the project has gained momentum due to significant profit prospects and vague promises of economic development.

In May, Vietnamese authorities responded to a land rights protest by the Hmong minority group in northern Vietnam with a harsh crack down. They detained over 100 people, and hundreds more have been reported in hiding.

In response, Bruce Thao launched a petition calling on the US State Depart to speak out about this human rights violation, successfully mobilizing first hundreds and then thousands of people to speak up for the Hmong.

I asked him a few questions to help get a better picture of the situation, and it became clear that this recent crack down is just the most recent incident in a multi-generational pattern of persecution. He told me, “My parents are Hmong refugees who fled Laos during the Vietnam War. They've endured war, migration, and refugee camps. I have also worked with Hmong in Thailand and have seen first hand the level of discrimination and high levels of poverty the Hmong live in in Southeast Asia as a result of being ethnic minorities, and particularly given our alignment with the United States during the Vietnam War. I can never turn my back on my people."

I was teaching my daughter to grind traditional medicines near our sacred Puberty Rock when the boaters intruded upon our ceremony site.

Their beer-infused shouts echoed across the McCloud River canyon, and as they passed they called us “fat Indians”, chugged alcoholic drinks in our sacred space, and even flashed us.

Recreational boaters had been interfering for the full four days of my daughter’s Bałas Chonas, or Coming of Age ceremony, but now Marine was about to complete the ceremony by swimming across the river where her tribe would receive her as a woman.

As the Spiritual Leader of the Winnemem Wintu, I was supposed to be laying down blessings. I was supposed to be in a ceremonial state of mind, but instead I was furious at the thought of my daughter having to enter the water with those people on it.  How would you react if a band of motorcyclists barreled through your daughter’s christening?

Last week, Change.org member Lindsey Hancock’s petition, which asks that a Native American burial site not be disturbed, started to gather a bit more steam, and a few of the petitioners started to hear back for the officials they are asking to step in and stop the quarry threatening the site. So I got in touch with her and she told me a little bit more about what motivated her to step and start her first petition on Change.org.

How did you first hear about the quarry?

I first heard about the quarry after reading an article by expert Richard Thornton. I periodically receive e-newsletters from People of One Fire, a national alliance of Muskogean scholars.

What motivated you to get involved?

International campaign successfully encourages German National Railways (Deutsche Bahn) to withdraw from supportive role in the construction of an Israeli train from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem that crosses Palestinian villages in the Occupied Territories.

German National Railways (Deutsche Bahn) has announced that it will no longer participate in the construction of a high-speed Israeli train line from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem as the route passes through occupied Palestinian territory yet is intended for the exclusive use of Israeli citizens.

The news comes after an international campaign let by German, Palestinian, and Israeli activists calling on the Deutsche Bahn Group to withdraw from the project, which activists claim violates international law.

The line is set to cut travel time between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem to 28 minutes and is scheduled for completion in 2017. Deutsche Bahn was consulting with Israel Railways on the electrification of the route. According to a report in Der Spiegel, Germany’s Federal Transport Minister Peter Ramsauer told Deutsche Bahn CEO that the project was politically “problematic” and violated the “terms of international law.”

With only 150 signatures sent to Georgia legislatures, a local Native American tribe has successfully used Change.org to get a discriminatory bill dropped!

One of the Creek Tribes, the Kialegee Tribal Town, wanted to come home. Then the Georgia State Legislators tried to prevent Indian Tribes that are recognized by the state from acquiring land for purposes other than casinos.

After the legislators got over 100 e-mails through this Change.org campaign, the House Judiciary Committee signed off the bill as "died in committee."

"We’ve drawn a line in the dirt, and it happens to be our dirt," said Wallace Seabolt of The Georgia Tribe of Eastern Cherokee, who started the petition. "We don’t ask anything except to be allowed to practice out culture, our traditions, and to share that... I think Change.org is really great. I’ll be in touch if there are any more things we need to work on.”

These tribes are recognized by Georgia and the bill (SB 62) would have unconstitutionally placed a severe hardship to require them to wait until the General Assembly is in session to get approval for a purchase or transfer of land. Local Native American activists argued, successfully, that such a policy would constitute illegal interference over American Indian tribes and violate the American Indian Civil Rights Act of 1968, Subsection 1302(8).

A big congrats to everyone involved, and thanks for taking action!

Today is the third anniversary of Ramiro Choc's arrest.

The prominent Guatemalan indigenous leader was detained on February 14, 2008 on bogus charges of kidnapping, land theft, and aggravated robbery. The reason? Among many other things, Ramiro helped to found Encuentro Campesino, a peasant movement that has been agitating for indigenous rights against wealthy land owners and the Guatemalan state.

Today marks the day when Ramiro is finally eligible for parole. But what was supposed to be a day of thoughtful fasting and hopeful petitioning for Ramiro's release will now be spent in a desperate search to locate three other Encuentro Campesino leaders that have disappeared.

"I am Ramiro Choc, kidnapped by the government of Guatemala since February 14, 2008, through today and until who knows when they free me, but what is certain is that I am suffering the worst tortures that they can do to me."

Three years ago, on February 14, 2008, Guatemalan indigenous rights leader Ramiro Choc was pulled off a bus and nearly executed by six armed military soldiers. When plans fell through for his less-than-legal disposal, he was taken to a judge in Guatemala City. He has been detained in a prison ever since and sentenced to six years in prison on unfounded charges of aggravated robbery, land stealing, and kidnapping.

Over a year ago, the British Natural History Museum and the government of Paraguay started planning a scientific expedition into the largely uncharted territory of the Gran Chaco to study the area's biodiversity.

That all sounds lovely until one realizes that such an expedition would put researchers in direct contact with isolated indigenous tribes, putting their lives and territory at risk.

With the help of Jess Leber over on the Environment Blog and hundreds of readers like you, last month the Paraguayan indigenous rights non-profit Iniciativa Amotocodie was able to get the mission suspended. The overwhelming success of the campaign to protect 'uncontacted' Ayoreo Indians from exploitation and foreign disease won it a place on Change.org's Top 10 Victories of 2010.

But apparently no good deed goes unpunished in Paraguay. As a thank you for their work protecting vulnerable indigenous peoples, Paraguayan authorities broke into the offices of Iniciativa Amotocodie and stole their stuff.

Not-So-Breaking-News! Environmental destruction and climate change hurts the poorest and most marginalized portions of the globe most directly and severely.

Chances are that droughts, floods, severe storms, soil degradation and water contamination aren't at the top of the average person's concerns, but poor farmers in places like Indonesia, Sudan and Bolivia deal with these realities daily. The number of people displaced by climate change has risen to nearly 200 million, worse than any migration crisis to date.

Yet developed countries and large corporations have taken over the climate change debate, excluding those most affected from participating in finding a solution. Bigwigs sit in air conditioned conference rooms brainstorming ingenious panaceas to our climate crisis that avoid making us change anything about our production or consumption behaviors.

Via Campesina, the international peasants movement, demands that world leaders take a different approach to climate change - transforming peasants from the victims of the vast problems with our climate to the center of finding solutions. As the 16th Conference of the Parties (COP16) of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (this year's equivalent of last year's Copenhagen) gathers in Cancun from November 29 through December 10, Via Campesina is devising their own sort of conference. Their campaign, "Thousands of Cancuns" encourages activists from across the globe to push for alternative ways to cut emissions and nurse our planet back to health.