The Western Shoshone Defense Project (WSDP) informs us that a public comment period will close next week, April 10th, on a proposal by the U.S. Department of Energy to increase nuclear weapons development at the Nevada Test Site, said to be ‘the most heavily-nuked region on the planet.’ The Test Site is located within the Treaty-recognized territory of Western Shoshone lands and has long been protested by Western Shoshone and their supporters.

Please take a moment in the next few days to submit your comment. You can find out how to do so near the bottom of the WSDP Press Release…

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
NO PEACE OUT WEST - U.S. PLANS MORE NUCLEAR WEAPONS ON SHOSHONE LAND:
INDIGENOUS LEADERS, CITIZENS AND SCIENTISITS AGREE - NO NEW NUKES

Comment Period Nearing end

April 3, 2008, 22:42 p.m. (PST) (Newe Sogobe (Lee, Nevada)): With gold prices soaring sky-high and the general public watching Presidential candidate antics, there’s more than just gold rush fever threatening the air and water out West. Under the radar screen, a public comment period closes next week, …

Black Mesa Indigenous Support (BMIS) sends an update on the struggle of the Traditional Dineh residents of Black Mesa, reminding us that the US still intends to relocate the Dineh and destroy their homelands.

For more information and to learn how to help, please visit www.blackmesais.org, and www.blackmesawatercoalition.org

FIRST NATIONS, FIRST RESISTANCE—
SUPPORT THE STRUGGLE FOR SURVIVAL AT BIG MOUNTAIN, BLACK MESA, AZ.

On behalf of their peoples, their ancestral lands, and future generations, more than 350 Dineh residents of Black Mesa continue their staunch resistance to the efforts of the US Government– acting in the interests of the Peabody Coal Company—to relocate the Dineh and destroy their homelands. This land is the basis for the Black Mesa peoples’ traditions, livelihoods, and spirituality.

At this moment the decision makers in Washington D.C. are planning ways to seize tribal lands to extract mineral resources. The coal companies are funding both the Republican and Democratic parties because they have huge interests at stake. Presidential candidate John McCain recently sponsored forced-relocation legislation targeting these Dineh families; Peabody Coal, the world’s largest coal company, currently has plans to …

Well, it turns out the “media release” sent out by Rights Action on Tuesday, April Fools’ Day, was indeed a joke.

I was really hoping it wasn’t. In fact I was eager to applaud the Canadian mining company for pledging to take what would have been an near-unprecedented step… One that may very well have started a trend throughout the so-called business community.

So then, in part, I guess the Joke’s on me and anyone else who believed Goldcorp had the guts. But I don’t we’re the April Fool in this little funny. Now, that title is reserved for Goldcorp — and the government of Canada who invests in the company using the Canadian Pension Plan — and all the individual shareholders who comfortably sit in the dark, waiting to get paid.

Photo by Clearly Ambiguous,
republished here under a Creative Commons License

Follow-up to the April Fools day “media release” from Goldcorp

From Rights Action

Dear friends,

We write in response to a large number and wide range of responses to the April Fools day “media release”. (Below, …

Survival International reports a Brazilian judge has affirmed the rights of the Enawene Nawe in the Rio Preto, an area of huge economic and spiritual importance to the People.

Each year the Enawene Nawe spend several months there, trapping and smoking fish for the community, while performing an elaborate ritual “called ‘yankwa’ where foods are exchanged to placate the ‘yakairiti’ spirits. Enawene Nawe elder Kawari explains, ‘All this land [the Rio Preto area] belongs to the yakairiti - our ancestral spirits. They own the rivers, the fish and the trees. If you finish these off, the yakairiti will take vengeance and will kill all the Enawene Nawe.’”

Over the last ten years, cattle ranchers have been progressively invading and deforesting the region, even using violent and intimidating tactics to try and force the Enawene Nawe out of the area. In fact, not two weeks ago a group of armed men walked into the ongoing fishing camp and threatened the Enawene Nawe unless they left.

Last year the cattle ranchers obtained an injunction which banned the Enawene Nawe from setting up …

In a curious and surprising turn of events, Goldcorp has announced they are temporarily suspending mining operations in Honduras (the San Martin mine in the Siria Valley) and Guatemala (the Marlin mine in the Mayan territories of San Miguel Ixtahuacan and Sipakapa).

What do you think, folks, is it an April Fools’ joke? Of course, I say that tongue in cheek, but with the way Goldcorp (along with nearly every other mining company in Canada) seems to operate, it honestly wouldn’t surprise me. Yuck. Yuck. Yuck.

April 1, 2008. For Immediate Release

From Rights Action

In a notable turn of events, Goldcorp Inc. announced it is temporarily suspending its mining operations in Honduras (the San Martin mine in the Siria Valley) and Guatemala (the Marlin mine in the Mayan territories of San Miguel Ixtahuacan and Sipakapa).

Taking no questions from the media, Goldcorp Inc. Chairman Ian Telfer and CEO Kevin MacArthur read from a prepared statement. They announced that they could no longer, in good conscience, continue to earn millions of dollars each from Goldcorp’s global operations, until they …

In February we saw ‘civil society’ start to demand corporations abandon oppressive and destructive practices. Well, that trend continued through March; unfortunately, it seems to have been more chest pounding than anything… It was as if everyone sat around a campfire, talking about far off things while a fire raged a foot to their backside. Integrity what? Responsibility who? “No, no no. We’re not doing anything wrong. We’re not the problem. We’re not the enemy.”

And so, desperately clinging to myth and hypocrisy, the so-called business community pushed on, doing everything to ensure you can keep getting toilet paper, cheese puffs, and semi-automatic machine guns.

As for the enemy? Those said to be unworthy and in the way? From Tasmania to Alaska and Peru to China, we continued to call the lie for what it is, and doing our best to live our own life.

Underreported Struggles for March
March 29
The Nukak Want to Live in Peace
The Nukak, one of the Amazon’s last nomadic Peoples, have once again been caught between the Colombian army and the left-wing FARC guerrillas. According to a March …

Upside Down World has published a notable article by Ramor Ryan entitled “The Last Rebels of the Caribbean: Garifuna Fighting for Their Lives in Honduras,” in which he examines the history, life, culture and ongoing resistance of the Garifuna people in Honduras. Here’s the first quarter…

Garifuna Fighting for Their Lives in Honduras

They hang the man, and flog the woman,
That steals the goose from off the common;
But let the greater villain loose,
That steals the common from the goose.

-Anonymous protest poem from the 17th century

Enclosing the commons – the historical process of fencing off land which had previously been in the public domain, for private use – is perhaps one of the most blatant expressions of the fundamental criminal nature of the capitalist state. Today it’s the voracious neo-liberal model which stalks the last pockets of community-held global territory for privatization - from Chiapas, Mexico, to the deep Amazon, to the Garifuna coast of Honduras, leaving no stone unturned.

“We have hundreds of kilometers of beaches that aren’t developed, and it’s a waste,” said the then Honduran Tourism Secretary, Ana Abarca in 2001. “We want strong

…

The Nukak, one of the Amazon’s last nomadic Peoples, have once again been caught between the Colombian army and the left-wing FARC guerrillas.

According to a March 12 statement by Survival International, they were bombed “by the Colombian army in its attempt to fight the guerrillas who have violently taken control of much of the Nukak land. Many Nukak have fled their territory to a local town in recent days, and many more are expected to follow suit.”

This violence comes just months after many Nukak began returning to their territory, between the Guaviare and Inírida rivers, “hoping that the fighting which has wracked their remote rainforest had died down.”

Survival continues, “the bombings come after the recent assassination of a Nukak man called Monikaro by Battalion 44 of the FARC. Monikaro had fled Nukak land in 2004 after conflict between the army, guerrillas and paramilitaries fighting for control of the lucrative coca crop, the raw material for cocaine. The Nukak’s land is also being eyed up as a potential site for palm oil plantations for biofuel, and for its known petroleum …

A group of Chippewa from Lac du Flambeau locked themselves inside the Tribal Council office yesterday morning to demand a federal investigation into the current Tribal government.

It wasn’t long before the police showed up — from nine different agencies. Fortunately they understood the action was peaceful and remained in the background during the lock-in, which lasted for about 14 hours.

Calling themselves Ginews (Ojibwe for Golden Eagles), the group said in a statement early on that the Tribal Council has abused their position to the point where everyone at Lac du Flambeau faces poverty. According to the Wisconsin Journal, they also formally rejected Victoria Doud as their tribal leader and demanded several reforms to correct and heal what the Tribal Council has done, seven members in particular.

“The repeated abuse of governmental power, the dictatorship of seven members of the Tribal Council and the rampant corruption of these seven council members has caused the Lac du Flambeau Indian Reservation to become a seat of poverty,” they said in the statement. “Over 100 tribal members have either lost their jobs or …

The Indigenous Environmental Network (IEN) just sent out a reminder that today, March 25th, is the final chance to submit comments regarding the Yukon Flats Land Exchange proposal by the Alaskan Native Regional Corporation Doyon and the Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS).

If it’s approved they will be able to “acquire” lands around Gwich’in villages, and “the FWS will also be able to purchase native lands in other wildlife refuges within the State with the proceeds, so this land trade is detrimental to other Native communities in the State of Alaska as well.”

You can submit on-line comments at: http://yukonflatseis.ensr.com/Yukon_Flats/Comments.aspx

Points to consider

The primary beneficiaries of this proposed land trade are Doyon, Limited, an Alaska Native Regional Corporation who will acquire what are now refuge lands to contract with multi-national oil companies for oil and gas development, and the Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) who will acquire Native lands around Gwich’in villages through the trade from wellhead taxes once multi-national oil companies are invited to lease and contract and production of oil and gas development begins …