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AIM WEST
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Dept. of State UN Declaration |
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Wednesday, 09 June 2010 20:08 |
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The Department of State has created a new website to enable public input during the U.S. review of its position on the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. On April 20, 2010, United States Permanent Representative to the United Nations Ambassador Susan E. Rice announced at the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues that the United States has decided to review the U.S. position on the Declaration.
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Last Updated on Wednesday, 09 June 2010 20:15 |
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SB 1070 Arizona |
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Thursday, 20 May 2010 16:42 |
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First Nations United
All Saints Church
3044 Longfellow Avenue South
Minneapolis, MN 55407
www.firstnationsunited.com
PRESS RELEASE
April 26, 2010
"While the power of the Europeans has continued, I see the other part of the Ghost Dance prophecy coming true today. So-called 'Hispanics,' with faces that sure look like Indians to me, are returning to repopulate North America. We cannot always speak to each other because we have learned the languages of different colonial powers. But these Indians have as much right to come and go on our land as the geese when they migrate north and south. No one would dare to ask them for their passports and visas as they cross manmade borders.
Instead of seeing 'Hispanics' as outsiders who do not belong here, we need to start seeing them as ancestors of the original inhabitants of these lands. They are the living fulfillment of the Ghost Dance prophecy."
-Chief Billy Redwing Tayac, Piscataway Nation
First Nations United, an Indigenous organization largely made up of members of the Red Lake/Ojibwe and Dakota nations, would like to formally express its outrage and disagreement with the SB 1070 ("Support Our Law Enforcement and Safe Neighborhoods") Bill passed last week by the state of Arizona. This bill is extremely detrimental to the indigenous communities (including indigenous peoples of Latin American origin), which reside in the state of Arizona as well as those who live throughout the country. The language of the bill states that if there is "reasonable suspicion" that a person is an illegal immigrant, a "reasonable attempt shall be made, when practicable" to check for documents. Such language purposefully promotes the racial profiling of brown-skinned people, and in particular, of people of American indigenous background. As an indigenous organization, which stands for the civil and human rights of indigenous peoples throughout the continent, we are concerned that this bill will promote the unfair and discriminatory arrests, prosecution, and deportation of people of American indigenous descent-not only of those who belong to federally recognized tribes, but also of the hundreds of thousands of indigenous people who have migrated from South/Central America and Mexico to what is now called "the United States." Indigenous peoples across the continent do not recognize the borders established by the settler colonialist state on our lands, and, we do not agree with the malicious and dehumanizing way in which the settler colonialist government wants to enforce them.
As an Indigenous organization, we recognize that indigenous peoples from Latin America have every right to migrate up and down the continent as they please and as they have done through trade and communication routes since time immemorial. The native peoples of the continent should be the ones establishing immigration laws and enforcing them. However, because we were disempowered through genocide and colonization, and because we have consistently treated "foreigners" in a more humane and hospitable way, we respect peoples' rights to migrate. If we did enforce such power, only tribal identifications from throughout the continent (including documentation identifying peoples from Latin American indigenous ancestry) would be recognized as legitimate, and we could very well racially profile people of Caucasian descent as the true and eternal foreigners.
As the first peoples of this continent, we pose this question to Governor Brewer, Senator Russell Pearce, and law enforcement in the state of Arizona, "Who are you to check for documents?" We remind them that the power they have taken to legislate was established by an immigrant and illegal settler colonialist government, which has consistently relied on the genocide and mistreatment of the original peoples of this continent.
First Nations United greatly objects to SB 1070 and denounces Governor Brewer, Senator Pearce, and the State of Arizona as anti-Indigenous, cruel, and racist. We call for an Indigenous boycott of the State of Arizona until this bill is repealed or found unconstitutional as it will gravely violate the civil and human rights of indigenous people in the state and throughout the country.
FIRST NATIONS UNITED
--
Gabriela Spears-Rico
Doctoral Candidate
Dep't of Comparative Ethnic Studies
University of California, Berkeley
506 Barrows Hall
Berkeley, CA 94720
(510) 643-0796 [Tel]
(510) 642-6456 [Fax]
"What I treasure most in life is being able to dream. During my most difficult moments and complex situations, I have been able to dream of a more beautiful future."
-Rigoberta Menchu Tum
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Last Updated on Friday, 21 May 2010 00:03 |
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FBI loses trial against former American Indian Movement member Richard Marshall |
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Wednesday, 19 May 2010 14:57 |
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FBI loses trial against former AIM member Richard Marshall
BLOG POST posted on May 12, 2010 by oshipeya
Blog posts are the work of individual contributors, reflecting their thoughts, opinions and research.
FBI loses trial against former American Indian Movement member Richard Marshall
Richard Marshall found not guilty of Anna Mae Pictou Aquash murder
Vancouver resident John Graham's trial set for July 6
By Oshipeya
Coast Salish Territory, Vancouver, Canada
May 12, 2010
An all-White jury in Rapid City, South Dakota, took less than two hours on April 22 to return a not-guilty verdict in the trial of former American Indian Movement (AIM) member Richard Marshall (of the Lakota Nation) in connection to the murder of fellow AIM member Anna Mae Pictou Aquash. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) claimed Marshall supplied the gun used to kill Aquash.
Aquash was a Mi’kmaq from Nova Scotia and a skilled organizer and warrior with AIM who was targeted and threatened with death by the FBI. When her body was found on the Pine Ridge reservation in South Dakota in February of 1976, the FBI tried to cover-up her identity and true cause of death by having her buried as an unknown “Jane Doe” who had supposedly died of exposure, despite an obvious bullet hole wound to her head. A second autopsy requested by family members revealed the murder. At the time, an FBI-supported death squad made up mostly of reservation police officers had killed some 60 members of AIM and traditional Lakota people on Pine Ridge. Other death squad murders had also been passed-off as death by exposure by the FBI’s pathologist and were not investigated.
As Aquash’s murder was exposed, the FBI told the media that AIM might have killed her because they suspected she was an informant. This was despite the fact that AIM never harmed confirmed FBI informants such as Douglass Durham, who had been AIM’s head of security.
One Pine Ridge cop and death squad member, Duane Brewer, even admitted in an interview that his fellow cop and death squad member, Paul Herman, may have killed Aquash. Herman had killed a teenage Lakota girl, Sandra Wounded Foot, in the same way, shooting her in the head and dumping her body in a remote part of the reservation. Instead of being charged with murder, Herman was charged with voluntary manslaughter and only sentenced to 10 years in prison for killing Wounded Foot. Herman was one of the cops on the scene when Aquash’s body was found.
The FBI’s case against Richard Marshall faltered at trial when their star witness, Arlo Looking Cloud of Pine Ridge, who was convicted in 2004 of aiding in the murder of Aquash, repeatedly contradicted his prior statements to law enforcement officers and those made by other people during his 2004 trial. He also admitted to repeatedly lying to law enforcement, as well as years of drug and alcohol abuse. Additionally, government offers of reduced jail time for testifying against AIM members were revealed.
The jury also did not believe the testimony of two paid FBI informants, journalist Serle Chapman and former AIM member Darlene Ecoffey (formerly Kamook Banks or Darlene Nichols), who had obvious financial motivation to lie about others. Nichols has been married for several years now to the primary investigator of the case, cop and former death squad member Robert Ecoffey.
Vancouver resident John Graham, a Southern Tutchone Nation member originally from the Yukon, is facing trial in July over the Aquash murder. He was formerly Richard Marshall’s co-accused but had his case separated and moved to South Dakota State court because the US federal government was shown by his lawyer to not have jurisdiction over him regarding a crime allegedly committed on the reservation. Graham’s new co-accused is fellow former AIM member, Thelma Rios, and the trial is scheduled to start July 6.
Arlo Looking Cloud has been expected to be the government’s star witness against Graham as well, but his total lack of credibility as further shown in Marshall’s trial brings into question how effectively the FBI will be able to use him from now on. A tape recorded conversation released to Graham’s defense also revealed that when asked who he should blame for the murder, Looking Cloud was explicitly told by Nichols to point the finger at Graham, further illustrating the FBI’s frame-up attempt.
The validity of Graham’s extradition from Vancouver to a South Dakota prison was recently called into question by his lawyer when a government document was newly revealed advising prosecutors that in this case they did not have federal jurisdiction, which they willfully ignored and concealed from the defense.
AIM member Leonard Peltier was extradited from Vancouver to the US based on fraudulent affidavits in 1976 and has made several public statements on the Aquash and Graham case and its connection to his own (which can be found at ourfreedom.wordpress.com). Peltier has said that he never took seriously the rumor that Aquash was an informant and that he believes she was killed because she was a skilled organizer and leader for indigenous people.
In 2009, then government attorney Marty Jackley admitted to the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals that the government might not be able to prove who pulled the trigger in the murder of Aquash. Jackley has since become the Attorney General of South Dakota.
The FBI is clearly trying to smear AIM and indigenous resistance while covering up their own deadly campaign of repression.
Graham’s family and legal defense campaign are in desperate need of funds to pay Graham’s lawyer and the expenses of witnesses to travel to South Dakota.
For more information see the following websites:
http://ourfreedom.wordpress.com
http://www.grahamdefense.org
To send funds in support contact:
grahamdefense(at)hotmail.com
Fran Asp
15 Firth Road
Whitehorse, Yukon
Y1A 4R5
Canada
Tel: (867) 633-3513
* Secretary Treasurer (sister of John Graham),
John Graham Defense Committee.
To write to John in prison:
John Graham
Pennington County Jail
307 St. Joseph Street
Rapid City, SD 57701
USA
Article references:
The Life and Death of Anna Mae Aquash by Johanna Brand
Court Docket at http://grahamdefense.org/courtdocs/index.htm
Kevin McKiernan interview of Duane Brewer, quoted by Ward Churchill:
http://books.google.ca/books?id=nrCWZZJD48MC&pg=PA249
Rapid City Journal & Black Hills Fox News
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Last Updated on Wednesday, 19 May 2010 15:44 |
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Arizona law draws widespread indigenous opposition |
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Wednesday, 05 May 2010 14:40 |
Arizona law draws widespread indigenous opposition
Originally printed at http://www.indianco untrytoday. com/home/ content/92502024 .html
PHOENIX – A controversial new state anti-immigration law has many American Indians alarmed that tribal sovereignty has been violated, with the looming possibility that individual liberties will be threatened.
The law, S.B. 1070, makes it a crime to be in Arizona illegally, and it requires police to check suspects for residency paperwork. It also bans people from soliciting work or hiring day laborers off the street. The state’s legislature passed the bill in late-April, with Republican Gov. Jan Brewer signing it into law shortly thereafter.
Republican supporters have argued that the measure is necessary to protect the nation’s borders by reducing illegal immigrants and the burden they place on taxpayers. Some believe that drug cartels and crime will also be combated.
Those ideas have been widely controversial, with many progressive groups, Hispanics, and the Obama administration protesting the law. The main questions center on what factors police will use to decide if a person should be required to show paperwork.
Racial profiling is a top concern, and lawsuits to challenge the law’s legality are certain.
As the debate has progressed, Native American perspectives have also quickly become part of the mix. Many observers have noted that it was the indigenous people of North America who welcomed European immigrants to the continent hundreds of years ago.
The Inter Tribal Council of Arizona has been one of those leading the charge, sending a letter that urged the legislature and governor not to pass the law.
“We have a range of concerns, including tribal sovereign nations not being recognized as able to define and protect their own borders as they see fit, and the possibility that tribal citizens will be profiled by police,” said John Lewis, director of the organization.
Lewis and other ITCA staffers traveled to Washington after the law passed to educate national policy makers about their concerns. Various Native American groups are calling on tribes and Indians to oppose the measure, hopefully to get it repealed.
“This impacts all indigenous people, and the lawmakers need to know it,” Lewis said. “America’s boundaries are not tribal boundaries.”
Lewis noted that some tribes, including the Tohono O’odham Nation and the Pascua Yaqui Tribe, are on and near the U.S.-Mexico border.
“Our tribes have much interaction with Mexico, through culture and life, and I’m not sure people realize that there’s an economic impact involved as well.”
Lewis and others believe that American Indians are likely to be unfairly targeted, based on their appearance and travel patterns. The American Civil Liberties Union has expressed similar concerns, and has vowed to monitor that aspect of the law.
“Even if they are just stopped for five minutes, that is five minutes too many if the rights of people have been infringed,” Lewis said.
Ian Record, an education manager with the Native Nations Institute, said he is concerned that he could be targeted, since his truck has a “Latinos for Obama” sticker on it.
“It’s scary that something like that could be a factor in you getting pulled over. My wife is Latina. We shouldn’t be afraid of that.”‘
Record noted that citizens of the Tohono O’odham Nation and the Pascua Yaqui Tribe have been strongly rallying against the law.
“It complicates things for tribal citizens, especially of those nations. It has to be greatly concerning to everyone that law-abiding citizens of those nations are likely to be pulled over,” Record said.
“The tribe’s sovereignty and the tribal citizens’ rights are obviously being harmed.”
Robert Warrior, the Osage president of the Native American and Indigenous Studies Association, echoed those issues in a letter to the governor April 24.
“Your action as chief executive of the state of Arizona will, when the law takes effect, give license to abuse by police and citizens, making ever more murky the possibility of working towards a just future for all people in the Americas,” wrote Warrior, director of American Indian Studies at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
“S.B. 1070 will have tremendous negative impact on indigenous people on both sides of the border between the United States and Mexico, and it ought to go without saying that some of the people most impacted by this invidious law are descended from peoples who lived in the Sonoran Desert centuries before anyone even thought of the United States. Regardless of proximity or descent, though, the new law is morally wrong and panders to the worst currents in U.S. politics.”
Warrior said in an interview that the regulation seems to be “myopic by design,” since it seeks to take complex realities and make them seem simple.
“Given that many thousands of indigenous people are from communities that have straddled the U.S.-Mexico border since long before that border came to be, I see this law as a tragic reminder of how polluted political culture in the U.S. has become.”
Warrior said tribal citizens throughout North America should see the situation “as a call to think about where we are headed as indigenous peoples whose right to exist predates the borders that now so often keep us apart.”
“We need a growing consciousness of what our persistence and presence means in the hemisphere. For those of us who are U.S. citizens, a law like this provides an opportunity to oppose the worst currents of U.S. political life and to stand in solidarity with those whose human rights are violated in the name of security.” . |
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Video of Alfonso Martínez. |
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Wednesday, 28 April 2010 17:21 |
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Enlace a video Homenaje a Alfonso Martínez.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CbjEaEC9l6g&feature |
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Last Updated on Sunday, 30 May 2010 03:51 |
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Breaking News
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The next AIMWEST meetings will be at City College of San Francisco: Mission Campus, 1125 Valencia Street, San Francisco, CA 94110-3026
Date: Sept 8 (2nd Wednesdays of the month) 6:00pm |
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42nd Annual AIM Reunion, June 3-5 2010 hosted by AIM Grand Governing Council, in Minneapolis, MN. AIM representatives came from across North America to talk about ways to jump-start communities into action; Alaska, California, Arizona, Idaho, Texas, Michigan, Utah, South Dakota, New Jersey, and Canada were there to make plans for the coming generations! All My Relations! Free Leonard Peltier! AIM High!
Pictures from the 42nd Annual AIM Reunion
Mark calendars now to attend International AIM Conference, hosted by AIM-WEST of San Francisco, November 22-27, 2010!
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United States re-examines opposition to UN DECLARATION ON THE RIGHTS OF INDIGENOUS PEOPLES read more |
News Article April 22, 2010 Jury acquits suspect in '75 SD (Pine Ridge) reservation slayingBy DAVE KOLPACK RAPID CITY, S.D. — A federal jury Thursday found a man not guilty in a killing on South Dakota's Pine Ridge Indian Reservation 34 years ago, during the height of the militant American Indian Movement. |
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