Tuesday, October 29, 2013
Protest Planned to Stop Further Desecration of Burial Sites on Black Mesa
What: Rally Against the Theft of Antiquity, Stop Peabody’s Restraint on Black Mesa Navajo History.
When: October 30, 2013 - 11AM-2:30PM
Where: Museum of Northern Arizona's Colton House, Flagstaff, AZ (3101 N Fort Valley Rd) 86001
Why: Millions of Indigenous remains, artifacts, and sacred objects have been desecrated by Peabody Energy's coal mining at Black Mesa, Arizona. All these are being withheld in vaults at closely associated universities. Peabody's recent expansion plan threatens to further desecrate hundreds more ancient sites.
Flagstaff, AZ - Concerned Diné (Navajos) and other indigenous rights supporters will be holding a protest to expose Peabody's deliberate process of confiscating Indigenous History. More: http://intercontinentalcry.org/protest-planned-stop-desecration-burial-sites-black-mesa/
When: October 30, 2013 - 11AM-2:30PM
Where: Museum of Northern Arizona's Colton House, Flagstaff, AZ (3101 N Fort Valley Rd) 86001
Why: Millions of Indigenous remains, artifacts, and sacred objects have been desecrated by Peabody Energy's coal mining at Black Mesa, Arizona. All these are being withheld in vaults at closely associated universities. Peabody's recent expansion plan threatens to further desecrate hundreds more ancient sites.
Flagstaff, AZ - Concerned Diné (Navajos) and other indigenous rights supporters will be holding a protest to expose Peabody's deliberate process of confiscating Indigenous History. More: http://intercontinentalcry.org/protest-planned-stop-desecration-burial-sites-black-mesa/
Monday, October 28, 2013
Uranium, water, and the future of the Black Hills
Today marks the beginning of the water permit hearings for the proposed Dewey-Burdock Project, Powertech’s proposed uranium mine in the southern Black Hills here in South Dakota. You can read the water rights permit applications here, the groundwater discharge permit application here, and the consolidated case webpage here.
There are so many problems with this proposed mine, it is hard to pinpoint just one major issue. But the amount of water being requested by Powertech might just qualify.
More: http://legislation.dakotarural.org/2013/10/28/uranium-water-and-the-future-of-the-black-hills/
There are so many problems with this proposed mine, it is hard to pinpoint just one major issue. But the amount of water being requested by Powertech might just qualify.
More: http://legislation.dakotarural.org/2013/10/28/uranium-water-and-the-future-of-the-black-hills/
Tribal Leader Registration for the 2013 White House Tribal Nations Conference
Announcement from the White House
Tribal Leader Registration for the 2013 White House Tribal Nations Conference
Tribal Leader Registration for the 2013 White House Tribal Nations Conference
On behalf of President Obama, the White House Council on Native American
Affairs cordially invites each federally recognized tribe to send ONE [emphasis added]
representative to the 2013 White House Tribal Nations Conference.
The Conference will be held at the Department of the Interior's Sidney R. Yates
Auditorium. Only tribal leaders authorized by their tribe as the designated
representative to the White House Tribal Nations Conference are permitted to
register. Register here: http://www.whitehouse.gov/webform/2013-White-House-Tribal-Nations-Conference
- DATE: Wednesday, November 13, 2013
- LOCATION: Department of the Interior, 1849 C Street NW, Washington, DC 20240
Please register by 10:00pm ET on
Friday November 1, 2013. Please ensure your e-mail address is correctly entered as your confirmation and all further instructions will be sent via
e-mail.
The Conference's Breakout Sessions will be built around the input
received from tribal leaders so please list below the two topics you would most
like to see covered during these sessions.
Celebrate South Dakota statehood by letting Leonard Peltier go
October 28, 2013
Celebrate South Dakota statehood by letting Leonard Peltier go
by Steve Hickey, State House District 9
Celebrate South Dakota statehood by letting Leonard Peltier go
by Steve Hickey, State House District 9
It’s hard to throw a party when some in the room don’t share your excitement, or worse, when they resent the occasion or even your very existence.
There is so much to celebrate in South Dakota’s 125 year state history and yet there are painful atrocities in our past and lingering present issues we ought not ignore.
Revisiting them can facilitate healing. If not this year, when?
We share this state with Native Americans who have a very legitimate historical and ongoing beef with us wasi'chus. When Governor Daugaard announced he was setting up a commission to plan our statehood celebrations, he asked for public input to solicit ideas of things we could include. It provoked this September 18 tweet from me:
For the last number of weeks I’ve given prayerful thought as to what might constitute a meaningful gesture. Since the offenses are by and large justice-related, key pardons come to mind. What if we let Leonard Peltier go free? In native circles here and far abroad, Leonard Peltier has become a modern symbol of a couple centuries of horrific Indian injustices by our government.
Sick and now just shy of seventy, he’s not hurting anyone and since his kangaroo trial nearly forty years ago, reasonable doubt has surfaced that he ever did. At best he was convicted on circumstantial evidence and since his incarceration several decades ago, the case against him has been seriously compromised. In 1986, the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals acknowledged there had been the fabrication of evidence, withholding of exculpatory evidence, coercion of witnesses, improper conduct by the FBI and willful illegality on the part of the government. His trial is certainly one of the lower moments in American justice.
Even if you are of the opinion this guy killed two FBI agents, and there is no evidence he pulled the trigger or even had the gun, my plea to let him go is an appeal to the fact that these murders were in the midst of a civil war-like situation aggravated by FBI agents terrorizing the Pine Ridge reservation in the wake of Wounded Knee II. Certainly, as a judge stated in 1992, the government is “equally responsible” for the death of its own agents.
My appeal is also in consideration of that fact that there were more than a couple hundred natives mysteriously murdered during this period of time in hits and drive-bys—- some would say plausibly committed by U.S. Marshalls, tribal police, state-sanctioned paramilitary GOON squads, white vigilantes and government agents. If we are judging people on circumstantial evidence as we did with Peltier, why stop with him?
Letting Peltier go is not about what he did or didn’t do, it’s an acknowledgment and admission of so much that “we did do” and so much that we have done.
Recently I've floated this idea with elected officials in our state. I'd like to think Senators Johnson and Thune, Congresswoman Noem, Governor Daugaard and my colleagues in the South Dakota legislature would join me in formally seek Presidential clemency for Leonard Peltier. Only President Obama can make this happen and he could do it today. If our Great Chief in Washington is truly empathetic toward the plight of the REDSKINS, he will do it.
We can’t go back and fix Wounded Knee I, but it’s still not too late to redress Wounded Knee II. If we want to move into a new era, we need to let go of some things from the previous one. Time to let Leonard Peltier go and let that wound heal.
_____________________________________
An addendum for my conservative friends: Every ammo-stocking, liberty-loving conservative in South Dakota fearing the Federal government (NSA overreaches, enemy lists, infringements by law enforcement and the like) needs to look past their Indian animosities for a moment and take a long hard look at what happened to Leonard Peltier. Martin Niemöller’s line comes to mind and so I’ll redact it for use here… first they came for [Leonard Peltier] and I did not speak out… then they came for me and there was no one left to speak for me. Yes, the genocide of American Indians does warrant a likening to the eradication of the Jews.
Source: http://www.voicescarryblog.com/celebrate-south-dakota-statehood-by-letting-leonard-peltier-go/
In response:
"Free Leonard Peltier," Says SD Republican
Revisiting them can facilitate healing. If not this year, when?
We share this state with Native Americans who have a very legitimate historical and ongoing beef with us wasi'chus. When Governor Daugaard announced he was setting up a commission to plan our statehood celebrations, he asked for public input to solicit ideas of things we could include. It provoked this September 18 tweet from me:
SD seeks ideas to celebrate statehood. Giving the Black Hills back ain't happning but how about a meaningful reparation gesture of some sort.
@stevehickey
For the last number of weeks I’ve given prayerful thought as to what might constitute a meaningful gesture. Since the offenses are by and large justice-related, key pardons come to mind. What if we let Leonard Peltier go free? In native circles here and far abroad, Leonard Peltier has become a modern symbol of a couple centuries of horrific Indian injustices by our government.
Sick and now just shy of seventy, he’s not hurting anyone and since his kangaroo trial nearly forty years ago, reasonable doubt has surfaced that he ever did. At best he was convicted on circumstantial evidence and since his incarceration several decades ago, the case against him has been seriously compromised. In 1986, the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals acknowledged there had been the fabrication of evidence, withholding of exculpatory evidence, coercion of witnesses, improper conduct by the FBI and willful illegality on the part of the government. His trial is certainly one of the lower moments in American justice.
Even if you are of the opinion this guy killed two FBI agents, and there is no evidence he pulled the trigger or even had the gun, my plea to let him go is an appeal to the fact that these murders were in the midst of a civil war-like situation aggravated by FBI agents terrorizing the Pine Ridge reservation in the wake of Wounded Knee II. Certainly, as a judge stated in 1992, the government is “equally responsible” for the death of its own agents.
My appeal is also in consideration of that fact that there were more than a couple hundred natives mysteriously murdered during this period of time in hits and drive-bys—- some would say plausibly committed by U.S. Marshalls, tribal police, state-sanctioned paramilitary GOON squads, white vigilantes and government agents. If we are judging people on circumstantial evidence as we did with Peltier, why stop with him?
Letting Peltier go is not about what he did or didn’t do, it’s an acknowledgment and admission of so much that “we did do” and so much that we have done.
Recently I've floated this idea with elected officials in our state. I'd like to think Senators Johnson and Thune, Congresswoman Noem, Governor Daugaard and my colleagues in the South Dakota legislature would join me in formally seek Presidential clemency for Leonard Peltier. Only President Obama can make this happen and he could do it today. If our Great Chief in Washington is truly empathetic toward the plight of the REDSKINS, he will do it.
We can’t go back and fix Wounded Knee I, but it’s still not too late to redress Wounded Knee II. If we want to move into a new era, we need to let go of some things from the previous one. Time to let Leonard Peltier go and let that wound heal.
_____________________________________
An addendum for my conservative friends: Every ammo-stocking, liberty-loving conservative in South Dakota fearing the Federal government (NSA overreaches, enemy lists, infringements by law enforcement and the like) needs to look past their Indian animosities for a moment and take a long hard look at what happened to Leonard Peltier. Martin Niemöller’s line comes to mind and so I’ll redact it for use here… first they came for [Leonard Peltier] and I did not speak out… then they came for me and there was no one left to speak for me. Yes, the genocide of American Indians does warrant a likening to the eradication of the Jews.
Source: http://www.voicescarryblog.com/celebrate-south-dakota-statehood-by-letting-leonard-peltier-go/
In response:
"Free Leonard Peltier," Says SD Republican
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