And now:Ish <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
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From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Full-name: Yonagadoga
Message-ID: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: Tue, 10 Aug 1999 11:31:53 EDT
Subject: Report From UN Indigenous Conference
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Report From UN Indigenous Conference
Lakota drums called together hundreds of people to the North Plaza of the
United Nations building in New York City on Monday Aug. 9, 1999.
The drummers were a delegation accompanying Dr. Arvol Looking Horse, 19th
Generation Keeper of the White Buffalo Calf Pipe, who had traveled from South
Dakota to perform the sacred Pipe ceremony to open The International Day Of
the World's Indigenous People.
Dr. Looking Horse address the crowd on the significance of the Pipe
ceremony, and the importance of bringing our minds and our intent into accord
through this ceremony, that we might better use the opportunities presented
by the United Nations through this conference.
After filling Pipe, and offering at to the four winds and to the spirits
of the ancestors, Dr. Looking Horse invited those people who had come to
represent their tribal nations to enter the circle and be part of the
ceremony. Deputy Principal Chief Brian Wilkes entered the circle on behalf
of the Southern Band of the Cherokees.
A special Prayer was said to the memory of one of the founders of the
United Nations conference on indigenous peoples, Ingrid Washinawatok El-Issa,
who was murdered by terrorists in Colombia this spring.
The first working event was a dialog all on indigenous people and their
relationship to land, moderated by Ms. Esmeralda Brown. Some of the attendees
had worked for years to be able to attend, either because of the cost of
travel to New York, or because of the difficulty some Nations create for
indigenous people trying to get exit visas. In some countries, it is almost
impossible for native people to get exit visas unless they first renounce
their tribal affiliation.
Perhaps the most significant comments came From Mr. Alfredo Sfeir-Younis
the representative of the World Bank. Most indigenous people view the World
Bank as the cause of the economic an environmental devastations they've
endured in recent decades, and were quick to express this sentiment to Mr.
Sfeir-Younis. He agreed that it is time for the World Bank to consider
direct funding of projects among the indigenous peoples, rather than working
through the governments and corporations whom these people often distrust
intensely.
The conference continued to one Tuesday with workshops on human rights
focusing on strategies for lobbying.
The surprise of a conference came from Alfred Boneshirt, a Lakota from the
Rosebud Reservation. When President Clinton visited Pine Ridge this summer,
Mr. Boneshirt and his friends displayed a large banner that read "End Lakota
Ethnic Cleansing". President Clinton met with his delegation later, and was
asked to sign the banner. Since the statement on the banner is in the form
of an instruction, Mr. Boneshirt contends that it now constitutes a
presidential order, and he displayed the banner as evidence. He then asked
which UN office would be responsible for seeing to it that this executive
order was enforced by the U.S. Justice Department and appropriate
international agencies in the wake of a series of unexplained and largely on
investigated killings of Lakota men in South Dakota. Mr. Boneshirt further
contended that he signed banner constitutes an instruction the U.S. Attorney
General Janet Reno to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate these
murders, and the apparent failure of local and state and federal police
agencies to adequately investigates the murder of native people.
Alfred Boneshirt and his delegation received the only standing ovation of
that conference.
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Reprinted under the Fair Use http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.html doctrine
of international copyright law.
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Tsonkwadiyonrat (We are ONE Spirit)
Unenh onhwa' Awayaton
http://www.tdi.net/ishgooda/
UPDATES: CAMP JUSTICE
http://shell.webbernet.net/~ishgooda/oglala/
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