April 4, 2008 by Rudolph Ryser.

The United Nations has convened and scheduled numerous meetings to address remedies to reduce the effects of Global Warming and needed human adaptations in response to impending climate change. The latest of these meetings has just ended in Bangkok, Thailand under the name: Adhoc Working Group - Climate Change.

States’ governments are beginning to consider new laws, regulations and policies aimed at ensuring their prosperity even as they tentatively take steps to reduce the adverse effects of Global Warming.

While states’ governments act through their multi-lateral organizations and in their own legislatures Fourth World nations prepare to complain about the adverse affects of Global Warming at the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues beginning April 21 in New York City. The United Nations Permanent Forum meets as a side bar while others make decisions that directly affect the health, wealth and security of Fourth World peoples. Meanwhile, Fourth World peoples remain on the sidelines complaining about the serious threats and adverse affects of global warming caused by the very industrialization that ravaged Fourth World territories throughout the 19th and 20th centuries.

Despite the fact that 80% of the world’s biodiversity remains located in Fourth World territories, states governments and multi-lateral organizations act as if there are no Fourth World peoples who must be active participants in the global dialog. Fourth World peoples are the key to green territories remaining in the world. Again, despite this fact, Fourth World peoples have remained sidelined either by choice, temperament or simple exclusion.

When the Biodiversity Convention of 1994 was negotiated the same thing happened. Instead of seating themselves in the negotiating hall Fourth World peoples met in a facility more than a kilometer from the assembly hall holding the state “deciders”. The result of that Convention has been the decision of states’ government to share in the benefits of Fourth World nations’ resources without the consent of those nations.

The Kyoto Protocols didn’t include discussions about or by Fourth World peoples and their territories, yet the conclusion was for states’ governments to benefit from the green Fourth World territories without the consent of Fourth World nations.

The Climate Change negotiations just ended in Bangkok, Thailand have set an ambitious agenda intended to lead up to a new international agreement on global warming. The agenda themes for new negotiations will focus on adaptation, mitigation, research & technology, finance and “a shared vision for long-term cooperative action.” Three more meetings are scheduled for 2008 and probably four more in 2009.

The Bangkok meeting importantly decided to include “forest-related activities as a major emphasis for carbon emissions reductions.”

Now the stage is set for the states’ governments….but, notice that Fourth World nations are no where to be seen even though their forests, their jungles, their oceans, and soils are the most important part of carbon emissions sequestration debate.

Fourth World nations have very hard choices to make not only in the face of climate change, but in the face of disenfranchisement at the hands of states’ governments. Fourth World nations must stop complaining and take action to demand seats at the negotiating table. Proactive initiatives are necessary. Asking for sympathy from the very states that reap benefits from Fourth World territories without the consent of nations has not worked and won’t work.

The very existence of more than 500 million Fourth World peoples depends on the nations taking the initiative to shape the dialog and the direction of global climate change negotiations. Failure to do so means that Fourth World nations will accept the confiscation of their lands, their resources and their way of life or an untimely end at the hands of industrial pollution produced by a greedy and ignorant commercial system. The hard choice now is to act proactively and vigorously. Complaining at the lower steps of the United Nations achieves nothing.

Copyright 2008 Center for World Indigenous Studies

Technorati Tags: climate change, Fourth World, global warming, negotiations

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March 17, 2008 by Rudolph Ryser.

Guest Contributor: Dr. Amy Eisenberg

{Editor: An Open Letter to the Director of the United Nations Office of the Commissioner on Human Rights by CWIS Associate Scholar Dr. Eisenberg offers an important plea for UN intervention.}

His Excellency Louise Arbour
High Commissioner for Human Rights
UNOHCHR

Dear High Commissioner Arbour and Partners in International Human
Rights protection,

I hope this message finds you and your good staff very well. I am deeply concerned about what is befalling the Tibetan people of Tibet. I visited Tibet in 2006 right before the Tibetan ani was shot dead by the Chinese near Nangpa Pass. I was serving as an International Expert in China where I conducted UNESCO-LINKS and UNDESA project research through the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues with the Kam Ethnic minority and relevant ministries responsible for ethnic development.

There were Chinese informants planted in the streets and monasteries of Lhasa therefore it is no surprise how rapidly the Chinese military took action today in
Lhasa. Tibetan people were watched and heavily scrutinized by Chinese informants and were imprisoned and severely punished. They are forbidden to have a photo of the Dalai Lama or speak his name in public. They love him very much and hope he returns to them. They are not free in their own land. They suffer daily because of Chinese abuses and racism toward them, which is very sad and unfortunate. I saw Chinese physically abusing Tibetan people while in Lhasa. I witnessed a Han boy who was abandoned by his parents. I took him to the local police as he was living outside of a monastery and the kind Tibetan people were assisting him with food, clothing and blankets.

I saw a Chinese man robbing a Tibetan woman. I saw a Chinese woman brutally beating a Tibetan worker at Norbulingka because she came late and wanted more tickets for her group of 7. The Tibetan man never fought back. The violent woman broke her umbrella by severely beating this man. I broke up the abuse and reported this to the police and the office at Norbulingka and documented this in writing however
nothing was done. Many Chinese are unfortunately very disrespectful of Tibetan people. I witnessed drunken Chinese men beating impoverished Tibetan people on the streets of Lhasa. I broke this up and informed the police. This is not acceptable for Chinese to enter the Tibetan holy land and impose their smoking, drinking, loud firecrackers and prostitution. I stayed in a Chinese hotel in Lhasa, which was filthy and disgusting. People had defecated in the shower room. Where is the pride and care? I left the hotel and went to stay at a Tibetan establishment, which was very clean, secure and inexpensive. Why should the Chinese be permitted to behave this way in the Tibetan holy land? It is a desecration of Tibetan culture and Tibetan life ways. This is not right and needs to be examined. There must be certain laws set down but the Chinese government feels that it makes the laws and denies the value of Tibetan faith. This is a core problem. They have destroyed so many holy places, which hurts all of us in a diverse and rich multicultural world. The Chinese are developing unsustainably and consider economics their focal point.. I saw this with my own eyes. I was awarded an International Expert Friendship Award by the Chinese government of Hunan for my contributions to Education for Sustainable Development and assisting the orphans
and poor and homeless elders of China.

Many Chinese behaviors in Tibet are not acceptable. While in Nepal in 2006, I informed the UN Peacekeepers that assistance is needed in Lhasa because of the Chinese abuses I witnessed in my travels there. There must be a time of healing and mutually respectful dialogue and genuine respect. Many Chinese believe that they are racially superior. This is a fallacy, which the government is perpetuating. Too many innocent people have been hurt and killed in Tibet. I urge UNOHCHR to please take action to keep the peace. The Chinese almost confiscated our legitimately purchased train tickets to Tibet. My friend from Australia lost his ticket to Chinese police because this teacher in China was traveling alone to Tibet. These Chinese policies are unethical. People are bought and sold on the streets and pay offs are common. It is a disgrace. Why should China have the privilege of hosting the international peace games? I am boycotting them and Chinese goods.

Dalai Lama is a peaceful and honest man. He is certainly not responsible for the violence. He calls for peace, respectful dialogue and calm. We suffer when our Tibetan people are hurt and are not living in freedom and peace and have to flee their homes and live in refugee communities. Tibetan people have the right to live in peace and freedom in their sacred lands.

Please help the Tibetan communities now. I fear that more lives will be taken by the Chinese military by its brute force and ideology of superiority and that they have a right to harm innocent peacefully protesting people. I am strongly opposed to violence. My family survived the Holocaust but many members that remained in Poland did not. I cannot accept the Chinese policies toward the Tibetan people, who keep
our world in balance with their prayers.

I urge the UNOHCHR to please enter Tibet and assist to keep peace. Many Chinese are unethical and very disrespectful of Tibetan prayers and culture. They walk counter clockwise around the holy Johkang Temple when it is clear and respectful to walk clockwise. Many Chinese ignore this custom and defy this by walking counter clockwise. This is culturally insensitive and disrespectful. This is the problem: Widespread disrespect by Han Chinese toward Tibetan people and their cultural norms and traditions. The Chinese government perpetuates this norm.

Dalai Lama is not a separatist as he is portrayed. I shared with my ethnic minority graduate students at Jishou University in Hunan his teachings. They did not know that he was awarded a Nobel Peace Prize. They are kept ignorant and uninformed. This is not fair to the ethnic peoples of China. They should have the right to read and see and hear international news that is not screened through biased Chinese media.

Please see our website of photos of our work in Asia with indigenous peoples of Tibet, Nepal and China by my team member, John Amato RN: www.pbase.com/jamato8

The Chinese have trashed Chomolungma by using the toilets as garbage dumps. They honk their horns excessively and speed on the unpaved road, which
frightens wildlife and impacts Tibetan horsemen and their pony carts leaving them in the dust. This is unethical and inappropriate for a protected area. I recommended that only emergency vehicles should be permitted at Base Camp.

Please enter Tibet to prevent the escalation of violence by the Chinese toward peaceful Tibetan people. Chinese have and will torture and kill Tibetan people. Their policies and human rights abuses are extreme and intolerable. We cannot stand by watching
and waiting. We need to enter and stand to protect the Tibetan people. This is very real and serious.

Justice needs to prevail. I am very concerned that we will wait too long as we did with Burma and Darfur. We must act early and prevent further abuse and damage. The Holocaust in Tibet is a reality. We saw the violent history and injustices by the Chinese and we do not want this to occur again.

I am available to assist immediately if I can help you. I have friends in Tibet, China and Nepal and in Tibetan communities of these countries and in the USA. We want peace and understanding and respect. Many Chinese regard money as more important than life and spirit. This is a problem that is very real. It is spoiling the opportunities for a better way. Tibet was a peaceful place and now there are fire crackers,
filth and prostitution. We cannot accept this in the holy city of Lhasa. It is sacred ground but many Chinese do not respect this.

We need your intervention now. I am here to assist and will go to Lhasa and China to speak with the leadership if I can help you. I speak fluent Mandarin and some Tibetan.

Thank you for your consideration. It is time to act for peace and equity. We must assure that Tibetan people will not be harmed by violence.

Technorati Tags: China, Tibet, UN High Commissioner

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March 17, 2008 by Rudolph Ryser.

The Peoples’ Republic of China aggressively conducts a policy toward Fourth World nations that can only be described as “genocidal.” China must be held accountable for its attacks on Tibetans seeking their independence from Chinese assimilation. China must be held accountable for its attacks on Uyghurs seeking an independent East Turkestan from Chinese assimilation. China must be held accountable for its provision of weapons and support to the Sudanese government attacks destroying in whole or in part the peoples of Dafur in western Sudan most of whom are living as refugees in eastern Chad. China must be held accountable for its use of petroleum in the delta region of Biafra southeast of Nigeria that destroys the life giving environment of the Ijaw, Ogoni, Ibbio and Igbo peoples. China has even threatened the thirteen tribes of Taiwan by demanding control over their territories.

China’s crony-capitalist mentality and policies hiding behind a one-party communist state are responsible for genocidal disasters that demand global sanctions. In Tibet, the Chinese government carries out the destruction of Tibet’s culture, Tibetan lives, and the ability of Tibetans to exist as a people by military means and an overwhelming transmigration program replacing Tibetans with Han Chinese. The recently opened railway from China to Tibet accelerates China’s deliberate efforts to destroy Tibet. The use of military attacks on Tibetans is clearly aimed at intimidating people into submission–not to mention the destruction of lives and property. China’s policy toward Tibet can only be described as the total destruction of Tibetan peoples, their culture and way of life–to commit genocide against the Tibetans.

My readers can help hold China accountable by logging on to FreeTibet. Do it NOW! Support the Tibetan Government NOW by logging.

You can hold China accountable by logging on to the East Turkistan Information Center and becoming informed about how the Uyghur people are defending against China’s assimilationist policies.

You can hold China accountable in Darfur and Biafra, Tibet and East Turkestan by contacting the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner on Human Rights demanding that the Commission on Human Rights condemn the government of the Peoples’ Republic of China for it aggressive policy of genocide! Demand that your government “Sanction China” for its genocidal policies.

When countries get a “pass” despite their blatant policy of genocide all of humanity is in danger. China is committing genocide. Athletes planning to participate in the China sponsored Olympics must “Sanction China” by withdrawing from participating in the Olympics. Ordinary citizens can “Sanction China” by boycotting products made in China…just read the lable and buy something else. Support with your money, your political will and your emails each of the peoples now under attack by China.

It is time that practitioners of Genocide suffer punishment. Once it was said, “Never Again.” Indeed governments have become the main practitioners of Genocide. Genocide is indeed being practiced with impunity. The people the world over must draw the line now and demand…no force…the issue…Genocide, Never Again!

(c) 2008 Center for World Indigenous Studies

Technorati Tags: China, Tibet, Uyghur, Biafra, Darfur

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February 2, 2008 by Rudolph Ryser.

Kenya is aflame with internecine tribal warfare. Sudan is split between the Arab controlled government, the Dinka, Fur, Nuba, and Nubian peoples. Rwanda, Uganda, Ethiopia, the Congo, and Chad have been equally faced with violence and warfare. Namibia battles separatist tribes in the northeast, and Zimbabwe’s government promotes division and violence against Zimbabwe’s various peoples. Nigeria violently attacks and imprisons advocates of the Republic of Biafra lead by Igbo, Ijaw, and Ogoni nations.

Violence between indigenous nations in Africa’s states boils with vengeance. At the core of all of these conflicts are three major irritants: corrupt control over the state apparatus, uneven distribution of natural resource wealth and denial of access to land.

Most African states were officially decolonized in the 1960s and afterward. European colonial domination was replaced by neocolonialism and black African recolonization where corrupt tribal leaders, corporations and other financial interests maintained a grasp on natural resources (land, diamonds, oil, minerals, precious wood), made newly empowered African state leaders into corrupt puppets and impoverished millions of indigenous African nations. State boundaries were imposed on populations by those who thought the state system was good for Europe and would be good for Africa–they weren’t and aren’t. Whole peoples have been prevented from accessing their traditional territories and lands necessary for the the production of food and natural wealth.

Europe’s state system in Africa has fundamentally failed to benefit Africa’s hundreds of different nations. Corruption, the use of state force against differing nations inside the boundaries of a state, denial of access to life supporting land and denial of shared wealth are all symptomatic of failed African states. The states have been bankrupted while individual families and dominating tribes have been enriched.  The state system has failed!

Corporations have battered African natural resources by plundering raw materials and undermine social and cultural stability of tribal peoples through de facto slave trading. Single sources of wealth have contributed to impoverishment of whole peoples and enrichment of a few. The few control access to the natural resources and businesses deal only with them to gain access.  This imbalance reflects the blind profit motive that fails to recognize the social, cultural and economic imbalances caused by outside economic demands for energy, minerals, wood and even animal parts like ivory tusks from elephants and  the hands and feet of gorillas.

European-based land tenure systems have disenfranchised whole peoples and removed them from access to life-giving lands. The wealthy and the powerful control the best lands while nations starve. Lands that produce food are used to produce exports to other countries resulting in the enrichment of those who control the land.

Kenya is inflamed by the reality of corrupt states’ governments, the failure of fair natural wealth distribution and denial of land access. Kenya is only the most visible of festering violence being done in Africa.

How to remedy the current violence?  There is no way to stop the violence now. States will be broken up, violence will be done to businesses that steal raw materials (like Shell Oil experiences in the Delta Region of Nigeria), and land will be reclaimed through violence. The original nations of Africa cannot and will not be denied as the violence, the famine, the disease and hatreds gripping unstable and bankrupt states foretells. The state system will be replaced with something more appropriate to the history and realities of the African continent.

Africa’s indigenous nations have been too long denied their place in their own countries.  They have been denied the benefits of enormous natural wealth and life giving land and water.  Africa is not a poor place. It is a corrupted place that needs cleaning out.  The corrupt and bankrupt neocolonialism and black tribal recolonization must be replaced and apparently Africa’s original nations are now, however, chaotically, moving to reclaim their destiny.

(c) 2008 Center for World Indigenous Studies

Technorati Tags: kenya, Africa, corruption, recolonization, violence in Africa, wars

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January 21, 2008 by Jay Taber.

I remember the shocking real-time film from the siege of Sarajevo, as well as the attendant world outrage that led to UN and NATO engagement with Serbia. Reading yesterday’s post by Palestinian Red Crescent physician Mona El-Farra about the siege of Gaza by the State of Israel, I couldn’t help comparing the senseless brutality of ethnic cleansing in the two countries. As Dr. El-Farra observes, the collective punishment of denying food, water, medicine, and electricity to 1.5 million civilians does not create an atmosphere for constructive negotiation.

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January 15, 2008 by Jay Taber.

Presently reading The Heart of the Sky, Peter Canby’s account of his travels among the Maya of Chiapas and Guatemala, I was disturbed this morning to read in the news of the stepped up violence by military and paramilitary forces in Chiapas against Zapatista communities and sympathizers. I wonder if an international human shield can be mobilized in time to prevent new massacres?

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January 9, 2008 by Jay Taber.

Wampum recounts how Israel began 61 years ago by bombing hotels—long before it advanced to bombing refugee camps and other civilian terrain.

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January 7, 2008 by Rudolph Ryser.

The Financial Times, New York Times and BBC increasingly report stories about growing conflicts between Fourth World nations and powerful states like the United States, Britain and Russia. Reports that the United States military will expand its covert operations in the Pashtun tribal areas of Pakistan, NATO’s war against Pashtun forces in Afghanistan, British interventions in Kenya to tamp down conflicts between angry tribal peoples upset over a stolen government election, American military forces surreptitiously in Nigeria’s oil rich Delta Region taking on Ijawa forces while Russia’s state owned Gasprom meets in Ajuba to offer money that will give Russia control over oil in Ijawa, Igbo and Ogoni territories speak loudly about how Fourth World nations are on the front-lines of violent conflicts.

Pakistan is a classic example of a state essentially defined by the presence of Fourth World nations where military forces from the United States threaten violent confrontations. The Pashtun in the so-called tribal areas are the target. But a US intervention will cause an explosion of nations that will make Afghanistan and Iraq look small. The Pashtun, Baluchis, Sindhis and Punjabis were patched together to form Pakistan…a mistake to be sure. These peoples required totally different political options than the formation of a single state.

Russia is making a similar mistake by attempting to grab oil reserves in Nigeria’s Igbo, Ogoni and Igawa south threatening to control a major resources and contribute to destabilization in Fourth World nations. Playing a oil money game in an already highly unstable environment promises to contribute to greater violence there by inserting yet another state into the conflict between Nigeria’s government and these nations.

The United States complains about its security as a rational for intervening in Pakistan and the Pashtun territories.  Russia greedily reaches for control over oil to block US, EU, Indian and Chinese oil interests…threatening further destabilization.

Confrontations between state governments and Fourth World nations isn’t new. Virtually every state with nations inside attempt to use centralized state control to manipulate Fourth World peoples…witness Kenya.  What is increasingly new is the intervention of external states in direct confrontations with Fourth World nations.  The United States government is in the lead of such outside interventions in Afghanistan, the Philippines, Colombia, Nigeria, Pakistan, and Iraq just to name a few. External interventions to directly confront Fourth World nations appears to be stimulating a major part of the US government military realignment suggesting that we will see more violent confrontations involving conventional military forces from the United States, Russia, China and India in Fourth World territories.

What are these violent confrontations increasingly about? Control over land and industrially precious resources like oil, diamonds, and minerals, inside Fourth World territories is the central issue. Fourth World nation’s seeking to freely determine their own political future is a secondary rational for violent attacks.  The “war on terror” is transmogrifying into widening violent confrontations between states and Fourth World nations.

This is not necessary, but the military budgets of powerful states fire the fever. The biggest military in the world–the United States–is foremost among violent forces aiming to confront Fourth World nations.  As I have suggested on numerous occasions before, states need a Fourth World policy aimed at peaceful relations and non-violent political transformation. Less military and more diplomacy is necessary. States need to train their diplomats to understand the Fourth World.  Fourth World nations need to train their diplomats and political leaders to more effectively deal with states’ governments.

Escalation of violence is not the answer, but I fear that those with the guns will not listen.

(c) 2008 Center for World Indigenous Studies

Technorati Tags: Pakistan, military, Kenya, nations, states

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December 31, 2007 by Rudolph Ryser.

Virtually every Fourth World nation has experienced a form of climate change since the beginning of global colonization in the 11th century. It was then that Skanians (sometimes called Vikings) followed the westward currents in the north Atlantic to what became known as “new found land.” Changes brought on by colonizing populations in eastern Africa (Arabs), western India (Han Chinese), and the western and eastern coasts of the Western Hemisphere (English, Spanish, French, Dutch) slowly, but vigorously reduced the numbers of Fourth World peoples (disease) and changed the environment (introduced plants and agricultural practices). While Fourth World nations world wide “managed” lands, waters, jungles and forests through selective decisions, their “management” was and is in some parts of the world still aimed at balance between the needs and wants of the human beings and the capacity of nature to reproduce. An example of Fourth World knowledge needed to support human life is “inter-cropping,” a cultural process of selective interaction between humans and plant life and animal life that produces 40% more nutritious food than “row-cropping” introduced by European agriculturalists. “Inter-cropping” has the virtue of not requiring fertilizer, insecticides or herbicides while producing foods more nutritious that industrial agriculture.

The colonists, settlers and their descendants (or what I have come to describe as “eternal tourists” have continued to ravage the environment such that where ever the “eternal tourists” reside they denude the earth. They take what was green and produce what is brown or no longer life producing. Since the end of World War II the idea of “development” has accelerated the process of denuding the earth and fouling the air, waters and the land. The greedy presumption of “development” is that all living things (plants, animals, soils, water, air, etc) are “free for the taking.” This attitude naturally flows from the experience of the “eternal tourist.” A tourist “uses” and does not produce anything. The earth’s bounty, as it is described, clearly costs a great deal as evidence for global warming is beginning to demonstrate. Cutting forests to the ground, dumping waste into rivers, and spewing carbon dioxide along with other greenhouse gases into the air are directly responsible for the very serious challenge that is now coming to a head: major changes in the climate, water levels and food productivity.

Fourth World nations that remain faithful to dynamically and evolving cultures reside in regions of the world that are “green.” To the extent that these nations have prevented occupation by the “eternal tourist” they have managed to continue life in their lands.

The United Nations Development Program asserts that 80% of the world’s last remaining biodiversity is located in Fourth World territories. The connection between human cultures and living green regions in the world is stunning, but essential for all human beings to understand. Fourth World peoples are essential to the continuation of living environments in the world.

With the debate over Climate Change now opening following the Bali, Indonesia session in early December and continuing for the next five years (culminating in Copenhagen, Denmark) it is important that Fourth World nations sit with the world’s state government decision-makers, non-governmental organizations, corporations and others to produce a credible Copenhagen Protocol on Climate Change. Fourth World nations must now step up to the table and demand a place there next to other decision-makers.

The Kyoto Protocol failed to recognize the significant part Fourth World nations play in the health of the world’s environments. No nation was invited to contribute to the dialog. The consequence was that from 1998 to 2012 states’ governments could confiscate with impunity Fourth World territories as if these living regions were truly part of the debate. Only Fourth World nations can make decisions in relation to their territories. Sovereignty over these territories must be in each Fourth World nation. States’ governments are makers of the problem we call Climate Change. Fourth World nations have solutions to what is an old problem if they will be heard.

Fourth World nations must now become a part of the global dialog. Without their participation as active decision-makers, the Copenhagen Protocol on Climate Change will fail. All of humanity will suffer.

(c) 2007 Center for World Indigenous Studies

Technorati Tags: Climate Change, global warming, environment, kyoto, copenhagen

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December 19, 2007 by Jay Taber.

Training death squads at Fort Benning, Georgia that commit atrocities against indigenous peoples throughout Latin America is but one aspect of the US war against the Fourth World. Another aspect is supplying armaments to dictators that suppress the world indigenous movement.

According to Himal magazine, a new report has found that, out of the world’s top three weapons purchasers, two, once again, are Southasian. Both India and Pakistan again made the ignominious list, despite the warming of relations between the two countries in recent years. The third on the list is also unchanged: Saudi Arabia.

The report, by the non-partisan US-based Congressional Research Group, a division of the Library of Congress, found that, all in all, 60 percent of weapons sales last year went to developing countries, about USD 28.8 billion worth. This was a decline of about nine percent below 2005 levels, though the rankings of the top three purchasers remained the same.

Pakistan led the list off, having bought around USD 5.1 billion worth of weapons last year, followed by Saudi Arabia (USD 3.5 billion) and India (USD 3.2 billion). The study also reported that, yet again, the US was the world’s largest arms supplier, having sold around 36 percent of those weapons destined for developing countries, with a total worth of around USD 10.3 billion.

As the indigenous peoples of these countries — like those in Israel, Indonesia, and the Phillipines — struggle for basic human rights under international law, it is worth remembering that the United States of America has formally identified itself as an opponent of indigenous liberation.

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