June 30, 2010 by Jay Taber.

The Southwest Tribal Summit, organized by the San Carlos Apache, has issued a report to the UN Human Rights Council documenting violations by the US Government. In the 125 page report, the indigenous nations at the summit took particular note of the degradation of their natural resources by corporations the federal government exempts from laws meant to protect the environment. As San Carlos Apache Chairman Nosie observed, “We need to start taking things into our own hands.”

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June 28, 2010 by Jay Taber.

David Parker presents an ethnic cleansing photo essay from Palestine.

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June 27, 2010 by Jay Taber.

In its coverage of the G20 Summit in Toronto, The Guardian notes that coercing consensus is an oxymoron, and that by contesting the legitimacy of Canada, indigenous activists comprise an antithesis to the global elite. As Canada pursues a new era of resource colonisation against the backdrop of cultural genocide, the indigenous resurgence is proving formidable. As Defenders of the Land spokesman Arthur Manuel remarked, “If they will not live up to their responsibilities, we will contest their legitimacy.”

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June 26, 2010 by Jay Taber.

Among all the horrors that afflict indigenous communities worldwide, the trafficking of women and children for the business of sexual exploitation (prostitution) has to be one of the worst. While this oppression is not limited to indigenous societies, they are particularly vulnerable as their cultures collapse due to the effects of such things as colonization, neocolonization, globalization, environmental degradation and militarism.

Melissa Farley, Ph.D., a CWIS associate scholar based in San Francisco, is someone who has been doing something about this crime against humanity. Her nonprofit Prostitution Research & Education is collaborating with the Minnesota Indian Women’s Sexual Assault Coalition to document the harms (starting with colonization and today with cutbacks in urgently needed social supports) and the current needs of Native American women trafficked for the purpose of prostitution.

After years of research documenting harms perpetrated against those in prostitution with an ongoing focus on indigenous women, Farley along with many other groups is seeking accountability from Craigslist for facilitating online trafficking of women and children.

When Farley was doing research in 2006 on domestic and international trafficking in the United States, I helped put her in touch with an expert on the subject my partner Paul de Armond met through the Public Good Project network, who in turn helped make her report to the US State Department’s Trafficking in Persons Office a success. At the time, I was duly impressed by Dr. Farley’s diligence; that has not changed over time. In 2007, a book, Prostitution and Trafficking in Nevada: Making the Connections, was published which used some of the valuable information our colleague provided her.

Coalition Against Trafficking Women (CATW) and Prostitution Research & Education (PRE) are planning a  protest July 8 at the Craigslist San Francisco headquarters. For more information see this announcement.

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June 24, 2010 by Jay Taber.

Speaking at the 2010 Wolfe Tone commemoration, Sinn Fein MP Michelle Gildernew observes that achieving justice demands an end to partition in Ireland and Palestine.

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June 23, 2010 by Jay Taber.

Utilizing the Mitchell Principles determined during the Northern Ireland peace process, a new Basque alliance has agreed to pursue an independent Basque state.

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June 22, 2010 by Jay Taber.

Assembly of First Nations National Chief Shawn Atleo says the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples is a standard of achievement to be pursued in a spirit of partnership and mutual respect. As an international human rights instrument, UNDRIP, says Atleo, sets standards that can increase the collective strength of indigenous nations throughout North America, which in turn can encourage the governments of Canada and the US to uphold their treaty obligations.

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June 21, 2010 by Jay Taber.

The Canadian government has launched an attack on the Algonquin. Invoking a law last used eighty-six years ago against the Haudenosaunee, Ottawa is determined to eliminate traditional governance, which poses an obstacle to state-supported industrial projects in unceded indigenous territories.

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June 20, 2010 by Rudolph Ryser.

New York Times columnist Frank Rich wrote,  “If Americans abhor poorly regulated deep-water oil drilling, wait until they get a load of nuclear waste on land with no regulatory agency in charge at all.” (Sunday, 20 June 2010, “Clean the Gulf, Clean House, Clean Their Clock”) While Rich was mainly concerned with motivating the Barak Obama Administration to act forcefully and fully in response to the British Petroleum Corporation oil gusher disaster in the Gulf of Mexico a major issue floating under the radar is the amount and extent of industrial waste and pollutants corporations deliberately dump onto the lands and territories of indigenous peoples and in their waters and air.  Indigenous peoples world-wide received vast quantities of industrial waste, pollutants, spills and cast-ways–produced by companies operating under the sanction of states’ governments. Indigenous peoples are left to suffer: environments and bodies chronically ill and left to die.

Oil is a huge culprit. In the jungles of Ecuador Texaco dumped huge quantities of oil and waste in rivers and streams and on the ground about which a massive law suit is now being waged by indigenous peoples. In the river delta in southern Nigeria Shell oil and other oil companies have been having “accidents” resulting in the spoliation of river systems, land and villages giving rise to violent responses from MEND and other groups seeking to stop the damage and recover wealth that has only benefited the wealthy. In Indonesia oil has been the focus of great controversy due in part to “spills,” and, of course, in US Alaska oil waste has contributed to the chronic health problems of indigenous people there too.

Nuclear waste has been buried and stored in indigenous territories to.  The Yakama Nation (along with the Nez Perce and Umatilla) have been contending with the largest dump of high level and low level nuclear waste for three generations in northwest United States.  The Shoshone have also faced nuclear waste problems throughout their territory in wester US states.  Similarly Aboriginal peoples in Central Australia, Polynesia islanders, Marshall Islanders, people of Palau and also peoples in the Russian Federation and the Peoples’ Republic of China must contend with the adverse effects of nuclear waste.

Agricultural chemicals made illegal in the United States (DDT for example) have simply been dumped by chemical companies into countries with no regulation harming the health of indigenous people picking fruit and harvesting vegetables in Mexico, Central America, African States and South America.

Pharmaceutical corporations are dumping vast quantities of their chemicals and unused products into Third World Countries with indigenous peoples lands and water ways becoming polluted by the excretion of their products into untreated sewer systems that flow onto indigenous lands and into rivers and streams.

Electronic equipment waste (computers, ipods, telephones, televisions, etc) is piling up (as if to be recycled) in Indigenous peoples’ territories–out of site and out of mind.  This calamity is further complicated by so called recyclable plastic bottles and bags that now litter indigneous territories.

While it is certainly true that metropolitan populations suffer from pollutants and hazardous waste, Indigenous peoples end up receiving the bulk of these industrial products quickly killing and for the most part imparting chronic health conditions that kill slowly.

Indigenous peoples produce none of the things that now pollute their territories, air and water.  Like carbon dioxide that pollutes the air and now threatens drastic changes in the climate, the waste of “civilization” threatens a long period of slow death in Indigenous territories.

I have long called for Indigenous peoples to be seated at the tables of negotiations where their concerns are being discussed.  There can be no greater urgency than that which compels us to organize regional meetings and eventually global agreement on the prevention, control and management of “waste and pollution produced by civilization.”

hazardous waste, oil pollution, pollution, nuclear waste

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June 19, 2010 by Jay Taber.

The Dominion’s Dawn Paley looks at the fighting spirit of grassroots indigenous activism, and the potential for the anti-globalization movement to benefit from mutual effort.

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