O’odham to National Guard: ‘We Do Not Want You On Our Lands’

By Ofelia Rivas, O’odham, Censored News

Ofelia Rivas, traditional O’odham living on the border, released a statement to the National Guard, who are to arrive on the US/Mexico border in Arizona on Monday.

To the United States National Guard arriving in O’odham Lands,

We are not compliant people, we are people with great dignity and confidence. We are a people of endurance and have a long survival history. We are people that have lived here for thousands of years. We have our own language, we have our own culture and traditions.

You are coming to my land, you may find me walking on my land, sitting on my land and just going about my daily life. I might be sitting on the mountain top, do not disturb me, I am praying the way my ancestors did for thousands of years. I might be out collecting what may be strange to you but it might be food to me or medicine for me.

Sometimes I am going to the city to get a burger or watch a movie or just to resupply my kitchen and refrigerator. Some of us live very much like you do and some of us live very simple lives. Some of may not have computers or scanners or televisions or a vehicle but some of us do.

The other thing is that some of us are light-skinned O’odham and some of us are darker-skinned O’odham. Some of us spend a lot of time indoors or outdoors. Sometimes my mother might be of a different Nation (refers to different tribal Nation) or sometimes our father is Spanish or we may have some European grandmother or grandfather.

If you want to question who we are, we all have learned to carry our Tohono O’odham Nation Tribal I.D. Card. It is a federally-issued card which is recognized by the federal government which is your boss. This card identifies us and by law this is the only requirement needed to prove who we are. We do not have United States passports because most of us were born at home and do not have documents, but that does not make us “undocumented people.” Your boss, the Department of Homeland Security, and the government of the Tohono O’odham Nation have negotiated an agreement which is, our tribal I.D. card is our identification card and no other document is required.

The O’odham, (the People) as we call ourselves, have been here to witness the eruption of volcanoes that formed the lands we live on. We have special places that hold our great-great-great-great-great great grandparents remains, our lands are a special and holy place to us. Some of us still make journeys to these places to pray. Some of these places hold holy objects that maintain specific parts of our beliefs. When you see us out on the land do not assume we are in the drug business or human smuggling business. Sometimes we are out on the land hunting for rabbits or deer or javalina to feed our families. We may be carrying a hunting weapon please do not harm me, my family loves me and depends on me.
When you are out on our land, be mindful that you are visitor on our lands, be respectful, be courteous and do not harm anything.

Sometimes you may see us gather all night long, dancing and sometimes we are crying loudly, do not approach us or disturb us in anyway, we are honoring a dead relative and preparing them for burial. Sometimes we are conducting a healing ceremony out on the land, do not approach us or disturb us. Sometimes we may be singing and dancing all night long, these are our ceremonies that we have conducted for thousands of years. We are not behaving in a suspicious nature, this is our way of life.

As original people of the lands we honor everything on our lands and we regard all as a part of our sacred lives, do not kill any plants and animals or people on our lands. Do not litter our lands with your trash. When we visit other peoples lands and cities and homes we do not litter or leave behind trash.

We might be driving our cars, sometimes old, sometimes very new, do not try to run us off the roads or tailgate me. I value my life and my family, I might have a newborn in my car or my grandmother or my mother and father, my brothers and sister or my aunts and uncles or my friends. These are all important people to me and I do not want to see them hurt or dead.

If I seem like I do not understand what you are saying, please call the Tohono O’odham Police and ask for an O’odham speaking officer to come and assist you. I might be laughing at you if you talk to me in English, I don’t know what you are saying and I am laughing out of nervousness and fear because you are armed.

Reclaiming Land and Dignity on Easter Island

From Intercontinental Cry

For the past two weeks, 500 Indigenous Peoples in Rapa Nui–a place more commonly known as Easter Island–have been occupying more than two dozen buildings over a land dispute that dates back to 1888.

In 1888, the remote island, known around the world for its monumental statues, called Moai, was annexed by a naval Officer, and turned into a province of the Chilean state.

From that point on, the Indigenous population was confined to the Hanga Roa settlement and the rest of the island was used as ranch land until 1953. 13 years later, in 1966, the Rapa Nui were given formal Chilean citizenship and the island was opened to the public for the first time.

In the years that followed, much of Easter Island was protected by the Rapa Nui National Park, aUNESCO World Heritage site; and, in 2007, a constitutional reform gave the island the status of a “special territory”, which granted the Indigenous People at least a degree of internal sovereignty.

Despite the gradual–or, at least, partial–restoration of their freedoms and rights, the Rapa Nui are deeply troubled over the “uncontrollable influx of tourists and settlers” on the island; and the fact that the Chilean government appears to be taking their ancestral lands to build more and more state office buildings.

The protest itself was sparked when the newly-elected Chilean President Sebastian Pinera appointed Pedro Edmunds Paoa to be the new Governor of Easter Island. According to theGuardian, Paoa is “suspected of plotting land deals” on the island.

After the protesters made their move, Paoa Impressively offered to resign from his position; and the government, also impressively, opted for a more reasoned approach. Instead of just simply attacking them, such as when the Mapuche attempt to reclaim some their own land,the government sent in a team of negotiators to begin addressing the Rapa Nui’s concerns.

Negotiations appeared to be going well. As reported by the Santiago Times. “The government on Friday [August 6]… issued a proposal to resolve the land issues. The proposal, signed by Interior Minister Rodrigo Hinzpeter, was given personally to Rapa Nui representatives by Celis. It proposes creating a committee to resolve the land issues, the protestors’ request for special status for the island, and their request for immigration regulation. The group would be made up of representatives from government ministries and the Rapa Nui community.”

But then, just one day after the government offered its proposal, Celis, who is the Valparaiso Regional Governor [Easter Island falls with the Valparaiso Region of Chile] callously sent a team of police officers to the Island, according to the Times-Herald Record, with authorization to use force against the peaceful, unarmed indigenous protesters.

So far, the police have acted strictly as observers; however there is a grave risk–and an even greater concern among the Rapa Nui–that the police will make a move if the protesters don’t leave the buildings by Monday, August 16. And in any case, the negotiations have been completely stalled.

With the deadline fast approaching, on Friday, August 13, the Rapa Nui parliament took things down an unexpected path. Representing almost half of the island’s indigenous population of 5,000, the Parliament issued a letter to the Pacific Island Forum and President Pinera, requesting the Rapa Nui’s right to secede from Chile.

The letter proposes that the island, situated on the southeastern point of the Polynesian triangle, would be better off if it was an official part of Oceania.

The government is attempting to downplay the request; nevertheless it is timely, given the fact that so many Rapa Nui may be brutally assaulted just two days from now, because they decided to occupy a handful of buildings on their ancestral land which is, as the same time, being inundated by settlers and tourists who went to get a glimpse into the history of the not-so-extinct Rapa Nui.

Enbridge Representatives are Issued a Final Trespass Notice by the Likhts’amsiyu Clan of the Wet’suwet’en Nation

“There will NO PIPELINES like Enbridge, the KSL Looping Project, Kinder Morgan, or Pembina pipelines going through our territories!”

by HEREDITARY CHIEFS OF THE LIKHTS’AMISYU CLAN

Smithers, BC, August 24, 2010: The Enbridge Pipeline Gateway representatives Michelle Perret and Kevin Brown came into Smithers Town Council to provide an update on the Michigan Rupture, as well as an update on the progress for their plans to construct the proposed Enbridge Gateway Pipeline. The pair was was forced a quick exit from the public meeting following their presentation.

As they made their way to the presenter’s area, they were greeted with members of a Wet’suwet’en group singing a Wet’suwet’en  War Song. Despite opposition from the Mayor, the singers continued until the Enbridge presenters were seated. The Enbridge representatives began their presentation by minimizing the recent Michigan pipeline spill and explained their plans regarding mitigation measures Enbridge will be employing for their proposed Gateway Pipeline project. Many people in the crowd of about 70 people sat and stood in disbelief and disgust as Enbridge’s numbers did not match the numbers which were widely publicized on national news coverages on the recent spill. The floor was then open for questions. Two questions from town council came forward related to the measures Enbridge is taking in their new plans for their Gateway project, which were answered with standardizedand rehearsed replies with absolutely no substance.

As the Enbridge representatives were being thanked by the Mayor for coming, the Likhts’amisyu hereditary chiefs Hagwilakw and Toghestiy stood up and took the floor. They began to explain the Likhts’amisyu opposition to the proposed project and the Wet’suwet’en Jurisdiction and Authority over their unceded lands.

Toghestiy made the following statement: “We cannot be clearer about our position, there will NO PIPELINES like Enbridge, the KSL Looping Project, Kinder Morgan, or Pembina pipelines going through our territories! Enbridge ignored our last statement at the Hudson’s Bay Lodge (on December 9, 2009) where they were warned not to trespass onto Wet’suwet’en territories ever again. Because of your return, we are issuing each of you an eagle feather for trespass. This is the last warning that you will receive. If you are caught trespassing with plans to come onto our territories again, you will be dealt with according to Likhts’amisyu Law. Municipalities, Provincial Governments, and Federal Governments have no jurisdiction or authority over our unceded lands. The jurisdiction and authority belong to the title holders of the Wet’suwet’en House Groups and Clan Groups and nobody else.”. A crowd of 30 Wet’suwet’en people holding banners and signs and about 20 supporters (some dressed in hazmat suits) applauded.

When questioned by media after the presentation about what Likhts’amisyu Law will be evoked, Toghestiy answered, “Our Likhts’amisyu elders and hereditary chiefs will convene and decide how we will deal with this if it is ignored again. For now, Enbridge had just better abide to Wet’suwet’en Law.”

Hagwilakw stated, “We as humans on this earth are fragile and the environment that we know and love is fragile. We cannot risk the destruction and contamination of this eco-system. When I stated that ‘We cannot be bought,’ I truly feel that people should unite, and not be bought out by these industry giants. We are truly blessed with the environment that we have. It must not be looked at as a resource. The bottom line is, consultation is not about ‘telling’ us your plans. Say NO to Enbridge and other forces who threaten our ecosystems.”

Haudenosaunee Unity Statement

From the traditional government of the Six Nations Haudenosaunee Confederacy.

August 18, 2010 – Today, an historic meeting was held in Rochester, NY of the leaders and representatives of the Haudenosaunee Territories of the Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, Seneca and Tuscarora Nations.

Our Nations came together to re-affirm the ancient unity of the Haudenosaunee and with the common goal of defending our Treaty protected sovereign right to the free use and enjoyment of our lands, free from intrusion and interference by foreign governments.

This meeting is in response to the latest attack on our sovereignty and our rights by NY State in its most recent attempt to illegally impose its taxation on our territories, which is merely the latest attack on our rights.

The state is acting in violation of our treaties, from the Two Row Wampum treaty of 1613 to the 1794 Treaty of Cananadigua, and in violation of the UN Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and the US Constitution.

Our leadership has agreed to meet again, to unify and to the stand against New York State’s latest efforts to erode our sovereignty and is committed to work towards a proactive plan to address this latest attempt to infringe on our historic right to trade and our right to control our own economies.

DIA Proceeding with Privatization of Indian Reserves

The war by the colonial state to destroy the last remnants of indigenous communal lands continues.

From Defenders of the Land.

Please find attached 2 versions of letters being sent to a select group of First Nations who are listed in one of the attached tables.

DIA, along with some First Nations collaborators from the usual federal stable of “national institutions” are asking certain Chiefs and Councils to participate in an interview process to help DIA with their goal of privatizing Reserve lands.

Juxtapose this effort with the lack of federal effort to honour the spirit and intent of historic treaties; reform their land claims and self-government policies and return stolen lands and resources to First Nations.

DIA, Manny Jules, Tom Flanagan, et al, all collaborating to privatize your reserve. Better wise up before your last bit of reserve land is gone, along with your traditional territory.

65 First Nations to be considered

33 First Nations to be considered

Letter to Chief – Introduction

Letter to Chief – once accepted

Grassy Narrows Clan Mothers block MNR Enforcement Team

IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Monday August 23, 2010

Slant Lake, Asubpeeschoseewagong - The site of Grassy Narrows’ high profile logging blockade will see action again today as grassroots women block passage for Ministry of Natural Resources (MNR ) enforcement officers interfering with back-road repair work by the northwestern Ontario First Nations community.  The community was repairing washouts and beaver damage to nearby back-roads to facilitate their ongoing use and enjoyment of their traditional territory.  The MNR has visited the repair work three times and have said to the workers they will be watching them closely, threatening to stop the work.  This time the community has resolved not to allow that and blocked MNR access at Slant Lake, allowing repairs to proceed.

“We the Anishinabek have never given up jurisdiction on our natural territories,” said Judy Da Silva, a Grassy Narrows mother, blockader, and traditional healer.  “We agreed to share the lands with the newcomers, but we will never give up our inherent right to use and protect the land, water and the forests.”

The roads require repairs because the MNR has not conducted maintenance on the back road network since 2002 when grassroots women and youth put their bodies on the line to block logging machinery from further destroying the forests their community depends on. Previously the back roads had been maintained by local contractors through Provincial subsidies provided to the logging industry.

The blockade, now in its eighth year is the longest running blockade in Canadian history.  Logging trucks feeding Weyerhaeuser’s Trust Joist mill, and Abitibi pulp and paper mills shifted their clearcut logging operations to other parts of the territory until June 2008 when AbitibiBowater bowed to pressure and surrendered their license to log on the Whiskey Jack Forest.  However, Weyerhaeuser continues to seek access to wood clearcut on Grassy Narrows Territory and the MNR has threatened to resume logging as early as September.

The back roads are used by Grassy Narrows members to access hunting, trapping, wild rice picking and berry picking areas, and for access to the Ball Lake fishing lodge.  For generations the lodge has been a key source of employment for the community, but since the mercury poisoning of the English-Wabigoon River System the lodge has had minimal economic development benefits for the small indigenous community.

“The MNR attempt to stop maintenance of the roads is an attack on our community’s self sufficiency,” said Roberta Keesick, a Grassy Narrows grandmother, trapper, and blockader.  “It is another attempt by the Province to assert unilateral control over the Territory in violation of our inherent and treaty rights.”

For more information, and to arrange interviews contact:

RiverRun2010@gmail.com

Indian Affairs Imposes New Chief and Council on Barriere Lake

From Intercontinental Cry.

Indian and Northern Affairs Canada (INAC) went ahead this week with its draconian drive to impose a new Chief and Council in the Algonquin community of Barriere Lake.

According to Barriere Lake Solidarity, the government received somewhere between six and ten nomination mail-in ballots from a community of more than 450 people.

In effect, less than 2 percent of the community took part in the imposed election; But as far as INAC is concerned, six to ten was more than enough. On Monday, they declared that the new Band Council Chief was Casey Ratt, one of the Algonquins at the center of the community’s long-standing leadership dispute.

However, the acclaimed Chief has refused the position, stating that he does not want to “break ranks with the community’s broad opposition to the Indian Act band elections” says Barierre Lake Solidarity in a recent press release.

“The overwhelming majority of our community remains opposed to the Indian Act band election regime. Almost two hundred people signed a resolution in May rejecting it and supporting our traditional selection process. Does the Minister of Indian Affairs really think that the consent of a handful of people can let them get away with eradicating our system of government?” says Tony Wawatie, a spokesperson for the Algonquin community. “The government has lectured us about democracy. But how can this be democratic if it goes against the will of our entire community? This looks more like tyranny.”

Tyranny indeed. The government used an obscure provision from the Indian act known as Section 74 which let them impose an election regardless of what the community wants and regardless of their supposedly-protected constitutional rights; for instance, their right to self-government, which is defined in section 35 of the Canadian Constitution Act.

“The decision to impose section 74 band elections is an attack not only on our traditional system of government, but on our culture, language and way of life, which are all connected to our traditional system of government,” says Marylynn Poucachiche, another community spokesperson. “We will not accept it. Until our basic and legitimate rights are respected, we will escalate our actions, including not allowing any resource extraction within the Trilateral Agreement Territory.”

Publicly, INAC says it was compelled to use Section 74 because of the ageing leadership dispute between Casey Ratt and Norman Matchewan. The department says it simply had ‘no choice’, and that it was in the community’s best interests.

But this claim of goodwill and benevolence is more for ‘hearts and minds’ than anything else. After all, the government has been talking about a change in leadership since at least 2002, years before the dispute began.

Ernesto Aguilar on Colombia, the FARC, and a Future Without Imperialism

Mural of South America's "Liberator" Simon Bolivar and FARC-EP founder Manuel Marulanda

The following editorial is from Ernesto Aguilar’s personal blog. H/t to comrade Josh Sykes of The Marxist-Leninist for making me aware of it.

In August, Juan Manuel Santos ascended to Colombia’s presidency. His election is not unusual for Colombia, which has been under U.S. influence for many years. Previous president Alvaro Uribe stood against the South American popular upsurge, led by Hugo Chavez in Venezuela, but which runs strong throughout the rest of the continent. This clash was in spite of Chavez’s many overtures to help previous Colombian leaders bring the armed opposition factions to the negotiating table. Egged on by the Bush Administration, Uribe opted for force over diplomacy. With such proving to be a largely failed strategy, and U.S. as well as Colombian resources for fighting a civil war drying up, where the nation goes from here is anyone’s guess.

Unionized Staff at Alaqsite’w Gitpu School Gear Up For Strike

From the Public Service Allaince of Canada. This appeared on the site of the Halifax Media Co-Op.

istuguj First Nation – The unionized staff at Alaqsite’w Gitpu School in the Mi’gmaq First Nation of Listuguj voted strongly in support of a strike at a meeting this month. Workers will be in a legal strike position on August 26.

“A strike is always a last resort, but this employer has given the union no choice,” says Jeannie Baldwin, Public Service Alliance of Canada Atlantic Regional Executive Vice-President.

Bargaining between the union and band council members began in 2008. To date the parties have signed off on all articles with the exception of wages. Talks broke down when the employer tabled a zero per cent wage increase, after which the Union of Listuguj Employees applied for conciliation. Negotiations have been facilitated by a conciliator since May 2010.

At conciliation, the Union agreed to a one-year contract and a zero per cent wage increase. This was met with a counter from the employer of a ten per cent cut in wages and lay-offs.

“We are alarmed by the employer’s position,” says Patsy Mallaley, President of the Union of Listuguj Employees.  “We feel that the school staff and this community’s students deserve much better. “

The union represents 53 teaching and non-teaching employees at the Alaqsite’w Gitpu School in the Mi’gmaq First Nation of Listuguj in Quebec. 87% of school staff is made up of First Nation Members who teach 260 students from kindergarten to eighth grade. The school offers courses in three languages – French, English and Mi’gmaq.

The Union is asking parents and community members to contact their band council and ask that the employer return to the table with a fair and respectful offer.  School is scheduled to resume on August 27.

The Union of Listuguj Employees (ULE) is a direct chartered local of the Public Service Alliance of Canada which represents 172,000 workers from coast to coast.

PSAC’s involvement with Aboriginal workers began in the 1970s, when the Union first assisted public sector workers in the North in negotiating collective agreements. By the late 70s, PSAC represented the majority of the employees of territorial governments.

In 1988, the PSAC members working for the Inuvik Housing Authority held the longest strike in PSAC history. The strike lasted four months and created new jurisprudence for the Canada Industrial Relations Board.

PSAC also represents language teachers, teaching and education assistants and administrative assistants who work at Six Nations schools and many other Aboriginal workers in communities across the country.

Li Minqi on Recent Chinese Strikes

Paul Jay of the Real News Network interviews Li Minqi of the University of Utah about Chinese workers’ strikes and the changing political economy of China.

For a review of Li’s book The Rise of China and the Demise of the Capitalist World Economy, seeComments on The Rise of China and the Demise of the Capitalist World Economy by Li Minqi.

The Emperor’s Old Clothes

The authors: Frances Widdowson (left) & Albert Howard (right)

For those who are not aware (I am thinking in particular of my comrades and readers in the United States) Widdowson and Howard are a pair of “academics” in Canada who simultaneously attempt to pass themselves off as Marxists while at the same time gleefully joining up with the centuries old colonial-imperial project in putting an end to indigenous peoples as distinct cultural and national entities.

The represent mechanistic Stalinist stageism and unilineal cultural evolution at its worst. They and their work is both an insult both to the 500 year old indigenous resistance to colonialism as well as the legitimate Marxists and socialists who have been there standing side-by-side with indigenous warriors. Anyone seriously concerned with the construction of another world, one not based on colonialism-imperialism, racism and capitalism would do themselves some good by recognizing Widdowson and Howard for what they are, agents of the colonial order in sheep’s clothing.

I have posted reviews of this book before, but I feel the need to do it again because the book is still circulated, still sold at Chapters-Indigo book stores (in the fucking “aboriginal” section!), and still being held up as a worthwhile work.

In the second of two reviews of the 2009 book I am posting today, radical socialist author Peter Kulchyski reviews the work. This appeared in Canadian Dimension magazine, the leading leftist magazine in Canada.

It’s hard to know where to begin with this book, which purports to be a kind of “expose” of the use of Aboriginal traditional knowledge in policy making and ranges far afield into a critique of the idea of Indigenous rights and a survey of problems in the fields of Aboriginal healthcare, education, self-government, land claims, and so on. I had previously written these authors off as “kooks” from the far political right wing; but now they have been embraced by certain prominent left academics and have themselves started to gloss their opinions with Marxist rhetoric. Their work does an enormous disservice to the growing movement of socialist activists and theorists in Canada who are engaged in the real work of decolonization, and could potentially set back a growing oppositional movement for years. So, at a time when crises are escalating and the demands on our time are high, I’m forced to sit down and read this. What follows will not be pleasant.

The authors tout their experience working with the government of the Northwest Territories as a basis that inspired the study, beginning with an anecdote from their time there. I, myself, would not be so proud of working as a bureaucrat for a colonial institution. The two have no actual community-based experience that they refer to, and may very well have never spent a night in an Aboriginal community.

The agenda of the book is to attack the notion of Aboriginal rights in favour of a notion of universal human rights. The book dismisses Aboriginal culture as “primitive” and outdated, and relies on the evolutionary anthropology of a century ago. Its particular target is traditional knowledge — especially traditional ecological knowledge, which they argue does not exist except as forms of local knowledge that people from any culture can have.

Redressing Racist Academics, Or, Put Your Clothes Back On, Please!: A Review of Widdowson and Howard’s, Disrobing the Aboriginal Industry

For those who are not aware (I am thinking in particular of my comrades and readers in the United States) Widdowson and Howard are a pair of “academics” in Canada who simultaneously attempt to pass themselves off as Marxists while at the same time gleefully joining up with the centuries old colonial-imperial project in putting an end to indigenous peoples as distinct cultural and national entities.

The represent mechanistic Stalinist stageism and unilineal cultural evolution at its worst. They and their work is both an insult both to the 500 year old indigenous resistance to colonialism as well as the legitimate Marxists and socialists who have been there standing side-by-side with indigenous warriors. Anyone seriously concerned with the construction of another world, one not based on colonialism-imperialism, racism and capitalism would do themselves some good by recognizing Widdowson and Howard for what they are, agents of the colonial order in sheep’s clothing.

I have posted reviews of this book before, but I feel the need to do it again because the book is still circulated, still sold at Chapters-Indigo book stores (in the fucking “aboriginal” section!), and still being held up as a worthwhile work.

In the first of two reviews of the 2009 book I am posting today, radical Mohawk academic Taiaiake Alfred reviews the work.

Disrobing the Aboriginal Industry: The Deception Behind Indigenous Cultural Preservation

From the excited, glowing reviews of Disrobing the Aboriginal Industry I had seen in The National Post, and as a critic of parasitic white lawyers and consultants, sell-out aboriginals, and collaborationist Aboriginal politicians, I was prepared for a hard-hitting critique and useful deconstruction of the complex of injustice that has been built up around Indigenous-state relations in Canada. Instead, I found a collection of distortions, omissions, and exaggerations, that provides a reading experience like that of slogging through an undergraduate essay by, say, a kid from Alberta ruminating on Québecois nationalism, or an Alabama schoolgirl writing on the root causes of black-on-black violence. What a disappointment.

Evidently, Widdowson and Howard get up in the morning and eat a dog’s breakfast of outmoded communist ideology and rotten anthropological theories washed down with strong racial prejudices inherited from their own unexamined colonial upbringings, all of which would turn anyone else’s stomach. Their ideas are, amazingly and unapologetically, the sort of “socialism from above” characteristic of 1930s vintage Stalinism listing upon a ragtag collection of theoretical frames which taken together form a methodological approach remarkable mostly for its inability, like the authors who employ it, to comprehend indigeneity outside of being the object of colonization and empire. To wit: elements of Darwinian evolutionary stages theory, bits of Hegelian historical determinism, and a reliably unsophisticated view of capitalism is a necessary destructive-progressive force leading to the realization of a communist utopia wherein exists a scientifically planned and state organized global society made up of human beings who are worthwhile only to the extent they are “productive”. Thus it is understandable how the authors can, or must, advocate for the destruction of the natural environment by industrial development, and why they must hate and seek to destroy the people most closely connected to and committed to the preservation of nature in the face of capitalist exploitation of the land: Indigenous people.

Two Takes on the Bolivian Uprising in Potosi

Indigenous Quechua protesters blockaded the main road between La Paz and Potosi on August 8.

The Andean countries in Latin America have been at the centre of attempts to form anti-neoliberal political alliances and put on the agenda a 21st century socialism. Bolivia has formed an important crucible for these struggles. The battles of miners in the 1980s, the coca farmers from the 1990s on, the water wars in Cochabamba from 2000, the struggles of the indigenous communities for sovereignty and control over resources, across decades, and the confrontations with the ruling classes in Santa Cruz, have all inspired the Left outside Bolivia. The Movement for Socialism-Political Instrument for the Sovereignty of the Peoples (Movimiento al Socialismo), or MAS, was founded in 1998 under the leadership of Evo Morales, in good part growing out of and as part of these struggles.

In the 2005 elections, Morales won the presidency and the MAS a majority in the Chamber of Deputies. The struggle for sovereignty, control over resources and against neoliberalism and U.S. imperialism had now entered into the struggle over the state. These political developments in Bolivia concretized linkages with Venezuela, and the basis for the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (Alianza Bolivariana para los Pueblos de Nuestra América, or ALBA). This has been crucial for building an anti-neoliberal politics, new ideological space for socialism and a counter to American imperialism. But like in Venezuela, the struggle against neoliberalism and the encrusted social structures and inequalities of dependent capitalism have not been so easily overturned. And in particular the existing bourgeois state and capitalist ruling classes in neither of these countries is simply stepping to the side. Indeed, in both cases there is a unique alignment of forces that is producing unprecedented forms of dual power. In this context, crucial social struggles are bound to break out over the gross inequalities of peripheral capitalism in an era of neoliberalism. In this context, these struggles escape conventional categorizations. They simultaneously reveal the contradictions of neoliberalism, in the stalemate in social power, and the still unfavourable international correlation of forces for socialist advance.

The struggle in the city of Potosi in Bolivia, and the surrounding region, is revealing of all this and more, as the poorest region of Bolivia, the centre of mining and resident to mass indigenous and peasant communities. Potosi is also, of course, the historical silver mines ruthlessly exploited by European colonialists.

The Bullet, e-bulletin of the Toronto-based Socialist Project, here presents two takes on the struggle in Bolivia from two of the most important socialist commentators on Bolivia in English, Jeffery Webber and Federico Fuentes, both spend a great deal of time in the region as well as Bolivia.

America’s Addiction to Lynching Indians

Anna Mae and her husband

By Antoinette Nora Claypoole

The following is an overview of indictments regarding the death of Anna Mae Pictou Aquash (1945-1976), by Antoinette Nora Claypoole (Claypoole’s blog is an excellent resource for info on the case). This article is a little dated, coming from December 2004, but it is informative nonetheless.

Anna Mae was a Mi’kmaq woman from Nova Scotia who joined the American Indian Movement (AIM), and who became one of the male dominated organization’s most prominent female members. She was found dead in the early months of 1976. Today, over 30 years after her death, the Federal government has accused three Indians of complicity in her death. One, Arlo Looking Cloud, stands convicted of her murder, while another, Richard Marshall was acquitted this past July, after only two hours of deliberation by the jury. Looking Cloud had fingered Marshall and a third Indian of being Anna Mae’s killers (though he later recanted). John Graham, the third Indian, recently had Federal charges against him dropped. He now faces State charges.

The water though here is murky. Anna Mae’s death has, perhaps predictably, sown division within the remnants of AIM, and within Indian Country in general. John Trudell, former chairperson of AIM, fingers Dennis Banks, one of the founders of AIM, while Banks claims it was from Trudell that he first heard of Anna Mae’s death. Trudell, a man who lost his entire family in a mysterious house fire, long suspected to have been started by agents of the colonial state, even testified for the government at Looking Cloud’s trial.

For me, it comes down to a suspect confession by (an apparently intoxicated) Looking Cloud, whose story has changed repeatedly over the years, a complete lack of physical evidence linking any of the suspects to the murder, and an extremely suspicious initial handling of Anna Mae’s body by the FBI and BIA (When Anna Mae was found dead the initial medical examiner from the BIA missed the bullet hole in the back of her head and declared she had died of natural causes. She was quickly buried as a Jane Doe, and, in another suspicious move, her hands were cut off and apparently sent away for fingerprinting).

For me the evidence, or rather the lack thereof, should be left speak for itself. However, one of the saddest elements of this case has been the way that some residents of Indian Country have become completely convinced of the accused’s guilt, even going so far as to proclaim it to the world before the trials even began, again with only hearsay and no physical evidence.

In yet another sad move it is also often those Indians who have joined the government’s side that are the very same ones who also campaign for the guilt of Leonard Peltier, even trying to link him to Anna Mae’s case by saying that she was killed by AIM because she possessed knowledge of his guilt. Let’s never forget though that at Peltier’s parole hearing last summer, and for the last several years, the government has actually moved in the opposite direction, saying that they do not know who killed the agents that Peltier is in prison for killing, but rather that he is guilty by geographical association. If the government had evidence of Peltier’s guilt from the Anna Mae investigation, then why is it never presented?

I hope this post, and some others I will be posting today help to clear some of the misconceptions that currently exist over Anna Mae, Looking Cloud, John Graham and others.

Woman Rebel

This film is being shown tonight on HBO of all places. It chronicles the story of the women in the Nepalese Maoist’s People’s Liberation Army. The PLA is 40% women. If you have HBO, I suggest you watch it.