A New Year's Message - David Swallow Speaks To Lakota Youth! - A Plea To P-E Obama To Free Leonard Peltier

A Call To Young Warriors - To All Young People
Lakota Spiritual Leader and Head Man, David Swallow, Speaks to Lakota Youth

by David Swallow,
Lakota Spiritual Leader and a Headman of the Lakota Nation
Edited and Published by Stephanie M. Schwartz,
Member, Native American Journalists Association (NAJA)
© December 27, 2008 Porcupine, South Dakota

Young American Indians today suffer from many problems of the modern world. Alcohol and drug abuse, early pregnancies, gangs, and psychological disorders are everywhere on the Reservations. However, a lot of the development of these issues can be historically traced back to World War II or shortly before.

The 1924 Indian Citizenship Act created a special kind of dual citizenship which made American Indians into citizens of the United States (for the first time) as well as citizens of their own sovereign nations. Finally, Indians could vote. But also, for the first time, they could be drafted into the military.

The young Lakota Warriors looked at the military as a way to prove themselves as warriors. They believed it was an honorable extension of the traditional warrior ways.

So, young American Indians went off to World War II. After 100 years of forced boarding schools which resulted in generations of young Indians losing their sense of identity, family and traditions, the military became like the family they had never been allowed to have. They were grouped into companies which lived together and fought together and bonded with each other as a unit, as a family.

When the young warriors came home, they often became lost. With their military family no longer existing, gangs began to form to take their place. An example is the Hell’s Angels, the famous motorcycle gang, which was started in the late 1940’s. It is commonly believed to have been founded by ex-members of famous military fighting units of the same name.

Then, in 1953, long after Prohibition had ended, President Eisenhower made it legal to sell alcohol to American Indians for the first time. This changed the lives of all Indian people.

In his grandfathers’ day, the Lakota warrior came from a good family where he had been taught good behavior, good manners, respect for all life and good relationship with all living things. His parents never lied to him and he never lied to anyone. He was reliable and practiced honor and respect with a clean mind.

Even with all those qualities, he still had to qualify to be a member of a warrior society. He had to prove himself. It wasn’t just about fighting. But when he did fight, even then he practiced respect. He never mutilated another warrior.

The young warrior also never stole from his own people. He never beat-up or took advantage of his people. He never practiced sexual assaults on anyone.

The young warrior knew his real purpose was to protect his people and their lives. He knew his purpose was to protect the c’anunpa carriers, the sacred pipe carriers, and the holy men and spiritual leaders. He also listened to and learned from the holy men and spiritual leaders. He not only respected and protected life but he also learned to practice compassion. He acted with honor.

The young warrior knew that if he did all this, life would be beautiful and all would live in harmony.

But with the effects of alcohol, drugs, and the continuing policies of the Federal government towards the Plains Tribes, most of this has become lost and forgotten.

These policies aren’t so different from those practiced against other ethnic groups throughout history. The Irish, the Italians, the Jewish, the Gypsies, and many others all experienced what was called ethnic cleansing. But, for the American Indian, the policies still continue today.

These policies try to force us to live in ghetto housing called Cluster Housing. These policies have taken away our traditional foods that kept us healthy. These policies have created a private state prison system that makes money on incarcerating our young people rather than rehabilitating them. These policies have kept my children, my grandchildren and nephews and nieces, from learning how to survive and live from the land.

These policies and politics have created the “haves” and the “have-nots”, a two-level society of extremes on the reservation favoring corruption and nepotism in BIA and reservation government relationships.

We have no YMCA. Many have no job or any possibility of a job. We have no vocational training centers. We have no residential treatment centers for children and teens as an alternative to jail like they have in the cities.

Hope is hard to find. So belonging to a gang has become the only way for many of our young people to feel good, to feel needed and wanted.

Now, they say the Lakota are “Third World Welfare Recipients.” But worse is the fact that our young people steal from each other. Our people shoot and hurt each other. They practice deceit and abuse our girls. Elders now live in fear. The traditional values of the Lakota warrior no longer exist. They have become lost to alcohol and drugs and gangs.

So today, I am calling on all young Lakota warriors and young Lakota people. We need you to help save the future generations to come. Not me, not Grandpa, I don’t need saving. But your children and your grandchildren do.

Get back into your own traditional spirituality and traditional ways and values. Those hold the answers for you. Those will guide you and help you to know who you are more than any gang ever could. And it will be you who will bring the harmony back to our lives.

It will be you who will bring back hope to our People.

Ho he’cetu yelo. I have spoken these words.

David Swallow, Wowitan Yuha Mani
Porcupine, South Dakota - The Pine Ridge Reservation

This article may be reprinted, reproduced, and/or re-distributed unedited with proper attribution and sourcing for non-profit, educational, news, or archival purposes.

Stephanie M. Schwartz may be reached at SilvrDrach@Gmail.com
View other publications of Stephanie M. Schwartz at

-Stephanie M. Schwartz
Freelance Writer and Editor www.SilvrDrach.homestead.com
Member, Native American Journalists Association (NAJA)
President, Link Center Foundation http://www.linkcenterfoundation.org/

An Open Letter to President-Elect Obama On Leonard Peltier

Dear President-elect Obama:
A Great Act of Mercy by you can help heal the still raw wounds of Indian people and their continuing confrontation with the 'Dominant Society' of the United States. I don’t know if you know the Leonard Peltier case personally; nor will I argue it here.

Please talk to Secretary Bill Richardson and Sen. Inouye about this great injustice now in its 33rd year; they both know it well. Leonard was 31 when he was framed; he's now 64. A poll a couple of years ago asked thousands of people, "Who Is the Greatest American Indian in History?" The winner, yes, was Leonard Peltier. Crazy Horse, as I recall, was 2nd; Sitting Bull, 3rd. All Lakota ('Sioux') incidentally.

Mr. President-elect, I ask from my deepest heart that you grant a brief audience to me and Chief Arvol Looking Horse, 19th-Generation Keeper of the Sacred White Buffalo Pipe of the Great Lakota Nation, so that we may deliver a message to you on behalf of millions of good souls around the earth who plead for Leonard’s freedom, who see Leonard’s freedom as The Sign that Democracy and Love and Prayer and Justice still have a meaning in America.

I would welcome the presence of VP-elect Biden, Sec.-designate Hillary Clinton (and Bill, of course), Gov. Bill Richardson, Sen. Inouye, your new FBI director and any other persons you'd like to be on hand. I also ask to have Leonard Peltier himself standing beside me in the Oval Office as I read his words—words Leonard would read to you himself if his locked jaw would allow him to. Leonard also asks me to invite Mumia Abu Jamal--another political prisoner, to whom we also ask you to grant executive clemency. Freeing these two men would be an act of intrinsic greatness, I daresay a Holy Act.

Mr. President-elect, we await your strong hand in bringing these enormous and glaring injustices to an end.

Respectfully,
(signed) Harvey Arden
www.mylifeismysundance.com

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Pine Ridge Reservation: WWII 'Dirty Bomb' Genocide

From Hiroshima To Iraq: A Suicidal, Genocidal & Omnicidal Course
By Leuren Moret
12-28-08

EXCERPT:
Genocidal Racism

From the beginning of the Atomic Age, the genocidal aspects of racism were part of the legacy of the Manhattan Project. Native Americans were heavily exposed to uranium mining, nuclear tests, and permanent uranium contamination of their groundwater and reservations from mining. Henry Kissinger expressed U.S. National Security Policy very plainly over concerns about Pacific Islanders exposed to US nuclear tests in the Pacific:

"There are only 90,000 people out there. Who gives a damn!" --Henry Kissinger

PINE RIDGE RESERVATION: WW II "DIRTY BOMB" GENOCIDE
On June 22, 2004, a secret meeting was held, by representatives of the NRC and the Department of Defense (DOD), with Lakota tribal members of the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota.

A small muckraker newspaper editor discovered that drums of uranium and unexploded bombs were on the Badlands Bombing Range after the DOD had completed a $2.5 million cleanup of the range. The large drums had "1945" stamped into the metal, were full of gunshot holes and were full of "natural uranium."

At the meeting, a representative from the NRC was there with DOD Officers, and the Lakota tribal members present were informed that the drums had natural uranium in them. When the Lakotas asked what they were doing with the drums, they were told by NRC/DOD officials that the drums had been piled up and shot at, or sacks of uranium hung from drop towers were shot at, to study the dispersal patterns of the uranium "downwind, downstream, and in the groundwater".

A Native American village was a few miles downwind and downstream from the uranium drums and drop tower experiments, and the tribal members in the village had been drinking the groundwater from wells in the village. This Army experiment was conducted without informing them and without their consent.

The editor had first heard about the story from a military officer, and about a planned meeting "with an NRC representative from Utah". When the editor made a call to the NRC headquarters in Washington DC, trying to find out where and when the meeting was, he was told "We don't have anyone in Utah" and that "the DOD has jurisdiction there [Badlands bombing range], we wouldn't send anyone."

The Lakota Indians contacted the DOD trying to find out the location of the meeting, and a woman on the phone at the DOD told them "there was not a meeting", but when the editor stated the name of the military officer who had informed him, the woman at the DOD broke down and told him where the meeting was.

The whole affair was an NRC, DOD, Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA), Parks Service, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) nexus of lies, intrigue, and cover-up of a horrendous WW II experiment to study uranium as a genocidal weapon used on unsuspecting Native American communities.

The 1943 Groves memo recommending developing uranium as a radioactive poison gas weapon, as well as the 1950 U.S. Army pamphlet on nuclear weapons makes it very clear that the Army was fully aware of the danger of internal uranium exposure, which exposes the genocidal intent of the Badlands experiments on the Lakotas.

The Badlands experiments would have provided excellent data on the genocidal effects of the new NWO effort to promote in situ leach mining of uranium, which poisons the environment, especially rivers, lakes, and groundwater.

EXCERPT:
IN SITU LEACH MINING: NWO URANIUM GENOCIDE

The new and improved NWO genocide agenda marches more efficiently into the future, with the introduction of in situ leach (ISL) mining:

ISL uranium mining involves massive pumping of oxygenated water into aquifers to dissolve and strip uranium from sandstone particles at the bottom of the aquifer. The process removes most of the uranium and then pumps toxic water back into the aquifer where it can mix with drinking water aquifers, rivers and streams.

The mined water is then stored above ground in evaporation ponds or dumped into a deep disposal well under the drinking water aquifer.

Uranium Resources, Inc. (URRE) is a uranium mining corporation with large holdings in Texas and New Mexico, and ties to international mining interests:

Since its incorporation in 1977, URI has produced over 7 million pounds of uranium [3,490 tons of DU] by in situ recovery (ISR) methods in the state of Texas where the Company currently has ISR mining projects. URI also has 183,000 acres of uranium mineral holdings and 100 million pounds [49,850 tons of DU] of uranium in New Mexico.

How many hundreds of billions of gallons of precious groundwater have been contaminated in two arid states, the cost that is never factored into the mining process. That is the highest cost, passed on to the public and the environment.

Foreign mining companies (almost all owned by City of London international financiers through "fronts") using ISL on Indigenous lands, guarantees an escalation of the extermination of Indigenous people.

At Pine Ridge and other reservations in South Dakota, and for tribes in Nebraska, the Native Americans face a greater threat than before with new in situ leach mining that threatens to further poison their aquifers and rivers.

A new ruling on a relicensing application by Cameco Corporation, the largest uranium mining company in the world, came out in favour of the protesting Native Americans:

Following the recent Sept 30 [2008] hearing, the ALB [Atomic Licensing Board of the NRC] judges admitted nine contentions including the:
-failure to disclose non-radiological impacts,
-failure to consult regarding cultural resources,
-failure to disclose impact on surface waters, including The White River,
-failure to disclose fractures and faults connecting the mined aquifer and drinking aquifers,
-failure to disclose that wastes are released on-site,
-failure to include recent research,
-failure to account for the value of non-degraded wetlands, and
-failure to disclose foreign ownership.

On the issue of foreign ownership of the mine and the concealment of that fact, the Commission ruled, "its resolution in this proceeding is potentially fatal to Crow Butte's proposed renewal of its license. The Board is of the opinion that it is in the best interest in the management of this proceeding that this issue be segregated from the other contentions and briefed on the merits up front."

"Here at Pine Ridge, we have widespread Arsenic contamination and a rate of diabetes 800 times the national average, so it is clear to me that we have to continue to fight to make the water safe for our children and grandchildren," says Lakota Activist, Alex White Plume.

"We will appeal aspects of the Board's ruling such as their refusal to admit our contention about the spiritual value of pristine water for traditional Lakota medicines and cultural ceremonies such as the inipi (sweat lodge)"

Foreign ownership in the eyes of the court is a legitimate legal challenge to relicensing, but health issues and cultural practices and values are not. As a consequence of such bias in JudeoMasonic U.S. courts, the health effects have been genocidal. Studies have shown that populations exposed to environmental uranium, below the EPA drinking water standard, have increased infertility, reproductive cancers of the breast, ovaries and uterus, and caused large increases in diabetes.

Poorly controlled diabetes during pregnancy, has been found to contribute to foetal malformations. Exposure of the pregnant female to xenobiotics such as uranium oxide can cause embryonic death, lethal foetal malformations or birth defects. Biochemical abnormalities in the foetus can cause an increased risk of cancer development if the mother has been exposed to certain compounds.

KOYAANISQATSI
ko.yaa.nis.qatsi (from the Hopi Language) n. 1. crazy life. 2. life in turmoil. 3. life out of balance. 4. life disintegrating. 5. a state of life that calls for another way of living.

The Hopi believe this is the Fourth World. There were seven worlds created at the beginning. The first three were each destroyed in turn because the humans inhabiting them had diverged too far from their original sacred path of connectedness with and respect for all life on Mother Earth. Their prophecies (see Book of the Hopi by Frank Waters) describe the possibility of such a destruction of the Fourth World (in the forms of uranium mining, the existence of power-lines, and the atomic bomb):

If we dig precious things from the land, we will invite disaster. Near the Day of Purification, there will be cobwebs spun back and forth in the sky.

A container of ashes might one day be thrown from the sky, which could burn the land and boil the oceans.

http://www.rense.com/general84/occd.htm

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Lakota Win Standing In Cameco Inc. Nuclear Fight

Submitted by Western Shoshone Defense Project
By Alex White Plume
http://www.unobserver.com/
Water Protectors and Human Rights Activists Granted Standing to Oppose the World’s Largest Uranium Producer Transnational Corporation: Cameco, Inc.

PINE RIDGE SD -- An Atomic Licensing Board (ALB) judges’ panel of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) ruled in favor of petitioners who filed interventions in the 10-year license renewal of Cameco, Inc.’s In Situ Leach (ISL) uranium mine near Crawford, Nebraska.

The petitioners include individuals from Nebraska and the Pine Ridge (SD) Indian Reservation; as well as the Oglala Sioux Tribe; the Oglala Delegation of the Black Hills Sioux Nation Treaty Council; the Lakota nongovernmental organization Owe Aku (Bring Back the Way), and the environmental group Western Nebraska Resources Council.

“This is a huge victory for us,” says Debra White Plume, representing the Pine Ridge based nongovernmental organization Owe Aku, and a member of the Oglala Sioux Tribe.

ISL uranium mining involves massive pumping of oxygenated water into aquifers to dissolve and strip uranium from sandstone particles at the bottom of the aquifer. The process removes most of the uranium and then pumps toxic water back into the aquifer where it can mix with drinking water aquifers, rivers and streams.

The mined water is then stored above ground in evaporation ponds or dumped into a deep disposal well under the drinking water aquifer.

On July 28, 2008, thirteen individuals and groups filed to intervene in the license renewal. A petition was also filed in November 2007 to intervene in the North Trend Expansion of the same Crow Butte uranium mine.

Plaintiffs oppose the renewal and expansion of the Crow Butte mine’s license because of suspected contamination of drinking water sources with Arsenic, Radium, Thorium, and heavy metals due to the mixing of the mined water with community groundwater.

Further threats are presented by spills and leaks into the White River, which flows from the ISL mine towards Chadron, NE and Pine Ridge Indian Reservation and which cuts through the land of several of the Petitioners.

Plaintiffs said that threats to public health and safety exist due to the faults and fractures that link the mining site and drinking water aquifers and that the license application is missing key information, such as the fact that the Crow Butte mine is wholly-owned by a Canadian corporation and that foreign ownership of the mine is not allowed by the Atomic Energy Act of 1954.

Following the recent Sept 30 hearing, the ALB judges admitted nine contentions including the failure to disclose non-radiological impacts, failure to consult regarding cultural resources, failure to disclose impact on surface waters, including The White River, failure to disclose fractures and faults connecting the mined aquifer and drinking aquifers, failure to disclose that wastes are released on-site, failure to include recent research, failure to account for the value of non-degraded wetlands, and failure to disclose foreign ownership.

On the issue of foreign ownership of the mine and the concealment of that fact, the Commission ruled, “its resolution in this proceeding is potentially fatal to Crow Butte’s proposed renewal of its license. The Board is of the opinion that it is in the best interest in the management of this proceeding that this issue be segregated from the other contentions and briefed on the merits up front.”

David Frankel, attorney for Consolidated Petitioners, says that briefs on the issue of foreign ownership and concealment are due by end of December, with responses in January, and a decision about 30-45 days thereafter. If the Commission rules against the company on the foreign ownership issue they will either lose their license and start 20 years of full time water restoration or sell the mine to a US company.

“I am glad that the court ruled in our favor, I know we still have a lot of work ahead of us in exposing what’s been going on at the mine and undoing the damage that the mine has already caused to our water supply. Cameco must take responsibility for the damage that their mine caused, and pay to repair that damage.

'Here at Pine Ridge, we have widespread Arsenic contamination and a rate of diabetes 800 times the national average, so it is clear to me that we have to continue to fight to make the water safe for our children and grandchildren,” says White Plume.

“This is about the Human Rights of my clients and their future generations to have clean drinking water,” said Bruce Ellison, attorney for White Plume and Owe Aku.

ISL mines owned by Cameco, Inc. in Nebraska, Wyoming, and Canada have all had major spills and leaks and were recently fined for permit violations ($1.4 mm in WY and $100,000 in NE). Cameco polluted Lake Ontario from its plant in Port Hope, Ontario which has been discharging Uranium, Arsenic and Radium into Lake Ontario.

Petitioners asserted claims that Cameco does not consider the environmental benefits of the ecosystems that are being damaged. The Board admitted the contention regarding wetland impacts and the economic value of the environmental benefits from those wetlands in a non-degraded condition.

“We will appeal aspects of the Board's ruling such as their refusal to admit our contention about the spiritual value of pristine water for traditional Lakota medicines and cultural ceremonies such as the inipi (sweat lodge)," says Frankel.

The Petitioners expect Cameco to file for license amendments to expand the current mining area to include another two uranium mines, the Three Crow and the Marsland Expansions, and say they will oppose these two applications as well.

Contact Katya Kruglak at 703.304.5075.

Censored blog:http://www.bsnorrell.blogspot.com/
Posted by Brenda Norrell

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A Nice Story For Christmas About -

An Eagle Named Freedom And A Man Named Jeff
Submitted by Ken Hughes
Freedom and I have been together 10 years this summer. She came in as a baby in 1998 with two broken wings. Her left wing doesn't open all the way even after surgery, it was broken in 4 places . She's my baby.

When Freedom came in she could not stand and both wings were broken. She was emaciated and covered with lice. We made the decision to give her a chance at life, so I took her to the vets office. From then on, I was always around her. We had her in a huge dog carrier with the top off, and it was loaded up with shredded newspaper for her to lie in. I used to sit and talk to her, urging her to live, to fight; and she would lay there looking at me with those big brown eyes. We also had to tube feed her for weeks.

This went on for 4-6 weeks, and by then she still couldn't stand. It got to the point where the decision was made to euthanize her if she couldn't stand in a week. You know you don't want to cross that line between torture and rehab, and it looked like death was winning.

She was going to be put down that Friday, and I was supposed to come in on that Thursday afternoon I didn't want to go to the center that Thursday, because I couldn't bear the thought of her being euthanized; but I went anyway, and when I walked in everyone was grinning from ear to ear. I went immediately back to her cage; and there she was, standing on her own, a big, beautiful eagle. She was ready to live. I was just about in tears by then. That was a very good day.

We knew she could never fly, so the director asked me to glove train her. I got her used to the glove, and then to jesses, (straps to tether the bird) and we started doing education programs for schools in western Washington . We wound up in the newspapers, radio (believe it or not) and some TV . Miracle Pets even did a show about us.

In the spring of 2000, I was diagnosed with non-hodgkins lymphoma. I had stage 3, which is not good (one major organ plus everywhere), so I wound up doing 8 months of chemo Lost the hair - the whole bit. I missed a lot of work. When I felt good enough, I would go to Sarvey Wildlife Care Center in Arlington, Washington and take Freedom out for walks. Freedom would also come to me in my dreams and help me fight the cancer.

This happened time and time again.Fast forward to November 2000, the day after Thanksgiving, I went in for my last checkup. I was told that if the cancer was not all gone after 8 rounds of chemo, then my last option was a stem cell transplant. Anyway, they did the tests; and I had to come back Monday for the results. I went in Monday, and I was told that all the cancer was gone.

So, the first thing I did was get up to Sarvey and take the big girl out for a walk. It was misty and cold. I went to her flight and jessed her up, and we went out front to the top of the hill. I hadn't said a word to Freedom, but somehow she knew. She looked at me and wrapped both her wings around me to where I could feel them pressing in on my back (I was engulfed in eagle wings), and she touched my nose with her beak and stared into my eyes, and we just stood there like that for I don't know how long. That was a magic moment. We have been soul mates ever since she came in. This is a very special bird.

On a side note: I have had people who were sick come up to us when we are out, and Freedom has some kind of hold on them. I once had a guy who was terminal come up to us and I let him hold her. His knees just about buckled and he swore he could feel her power course through his body. I have so many stories like that. I never forget the honor I have of being so close to such a magnificent spirit as Freedom.

Hope you enjoy this.

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Redford's Reprieve For Utah - SUWA Also Fights For Utah - Christmas Is For Everyone

REPRIEVE FOR UTAH'S REDROCK WILDERNESS!
Dear Bobbie,
Democracy is working: We have just won an eleventh-hour reprieve for Utah's Redrock Wilderness!

Over the past two weeks, you helped us spark a national outcry against the Bush Administration's plan to auction off pristine wildlands near Arches and Canyonlands National Parks to oil and gas speculators.

Then, last Wednesday, the Natural Resources Defense Council filed suit to block this outrageous giveaway of our public lands.

The very next day, Bush officials agreed to a last-minute deal that could save these 100,000 magnificent acres from destruction -- pending a federal court's decision.

Under the deal, the Bureau of Land Management went ahead with its auction of the wildlands on Friday. However, they will NOT issue the leases to the winning bidders until a federal court considers our case in January. The bottom line: no oil or gas company will get their hands on our public lands unless and until a federal judge says they can.

We are going to get our day in court with the Bush Administration, and you can be sure that NRDC will go all out to prevail on that court to save these wilderness treasures for the American people.

It's our land, it's our legacy, and we intend to keep it for our children and grandchildren.

I will be sure to keep you updated as this courtroom drama unfolds next month. In the meantime, I want to thank you again for making your voice heard and supporting NRDC in this campaign to save America's Redrock canyonlands.

This distressing attack on our natural heritage during the holiday season is a welcome reminder that we must never take that birthright for granted. No one can quantify the beauty of wildness, or put a price on silence and solitude. We are indebted to those previous generations who, in their wisdom, fought to preserve this precious legacy. Now it is our turn to fight.

I want to wish you and yours a very happy holiday season.

Sincerely,
Robert Redford
TrusteeNatural Resources Defense Council

P.S. NRDC will be working through the holidays to prepare for this courtroom showdown that is less than 30 days away. If you want to help wage this legal fight, please make an online tax-deductible gift now. Thank you.

SUWA FIGHTS WITH REDFORD
Dear Bobbie
SUWA (Southern Utah Wildeness Alliance) is leading the effort to block the Bush administration from opening millions of acres of redrock wilderness to oil and gas development -- and we’re succeeding!

Just last week SUWA, with our coalition partners, filed litigation that could save 100,000 acres of Utah wilderness from destruction. Already we’ve reached a deal with the BLM that temporarily prevents the agency from issuing leases on 80 contested parcels, including land adjacent to national parks, for 30 days (until January 19). This will give U.S. District Court Judge Urbina time to hear our case Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance v. Allred.

And we’ve already mobilized substantial national news media attention and grassroots support on this issue, culminating last Friday with a demonstration outside the Utah BLM lease sale auction. To learn more about the issue click here.

The terrible lease sale is just a hint of much greater damage to come- unless we stop the root of the problem, the underlying Bush plans for 11 million acres of Utah public lands. These leave landscapes like Labyrinth Canyon, Cedar Mesa, Desolation Canyon, and the Dirty Devil River open to off road vehicles and dirty fuels development.

There are terrific opportunities ahead with the Obama administration - but first we must stop the Bush administration’s last minute gifts to the oil and gas industry.

Your support makes our work possible. And now, thanks to a generous SUWA member, your donation counts even more. Every donation we receive before December 31, 2008, will be matched up to $100,000! Please click here to make a donation.

Thanks for all your support and work towards protecting the redrock!

Happy holidays and New Year,
Scott GroeneExecutive Director

CHRISTMAS IS FOR EVERYONE
By Ken Hughes
There are as many stories as there are story tellers about where and when Christmas was first celebrated. The first Christmases celebrated in the Americas were probably by Native Americans and the Catholic Priests who came with the Spanish Explorers years before the pilgrims landed on the eastern shores of America.

The problem with chronicling the history of Christian events is because it's always done with an agenda in mind. Native Americans didn't need a day set aside to celebrate. They celebrated the events of the moment. When something good happened they celebrated. When something bad happened, they had ceremonies for the bad times as well. Could anything be more Christ like?

Christmas is celebrated in almost every part of the world. If not the Christian Christmas, then some form of celebration that closely resembles it is held at specific times of the year. More than celebrating the birth of Christ, Christmas is a time to honor the savior's words and deeds as well as the other faiths honor their deities in the same manner at nearly the same time each year.

Prior to their conversion to Christianity, Native Americans didn't honor mythical Gods, they honored things they could see and feel and touch. The Indian learned that all things had meaning and to pay attention to each of them in the same the same way the white man paid attention to the words on the paper they carried with them at all times. The white man trusted his papers more than he trusted nature. The Indians knew better than to trust the white man’s paper.

Most of the rituals we celebrate have been passed down from post Neanderthal times and so it is with all the other tribes of the world. Since the beginning of time man has been aware there are things more powerful than himself. There are forces that can't be explained so they are assigned as historical events and we figure it gives them more credibility. It's seems to be - “just in case we are wrong, we're covered”.

Christmas is the most celebrated holiday on earth and more than half who celebrate aren't even Christians. It works for them and it works for me, lets hope it works for everyone.

A Merry Christmas to all.
Ken Hughes [aka] Chica Tibu

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'Navajo Nation In Danger Of Losing $3.5 Million'

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Bank Calls Loan On Navajo's BCDS - 'One Brown Girl' Seeks Writers

JPMorgan Chase Calls Loan Leaving Navajo Nation $2.2 Millon In Hole

By Kathy Helms - Gallup Independent
Dine Bureau
WINDOW ROCK – JPMorgan Chase has called the loan on Biochemical Decontamination Systems Manufacturing Inc., leaving the Navajo Nation less $2.2 million in its Navajo Dam Escrow Account, according to Budget and Finance Committee Chairman LoRenzo Bates.

“They made the call on it, they issued the demand, and they took it,” Bates said Thursday evening from Las Vegas. The loan first came due on Sept. 28, however, JPMorgan granted a 60-day extension and it expired Nov. 28.

Bates said money from the Business and Industrial Development Fund could have been used to pay the $15,000 monthly interest payment, as has been done in the past to prevent the bank from calling the loan, but that didn't happen. The Economic Development Committee previously had directed the Division of Economic Development to cease making interest payments on the loan from the fund.

According to Controller Mark Grant, who also was in Las Vegas, the Navajo Nation received a demand letter on Monday. “I got a phone call saying we got this letter and JPMorgan is demanding the collateral. We released the funds to JPMorgan on Tuesday. Everything was ready to go, we just needed the final word on it.

“Now the Navajo Dam Escrow Account is reduced by $2.2 million. We've also got the $1.2 million for the egg farm that we received a letter on. We haven't released the money yet. We probably will do that next week,” he said. Between the two loans, the Nation could lose $3.4 million of the $6.5 million balance.

Daniel Lopez of Dine Poultry Products Inc. told Budget and Finance last week that they had submitted all documents and were in a holding pattern waiting on the Bureau of Indian Affairs to sign off on a $7.7 million loan guarantee to fund the table eggs project.

Bates said Thursday, however, that BIA is not expected to sign off on it. He said that while the company has been providing an expense report, “the report is not detailed, and that's what BIA wanted.”

Grant told Budget and Finance last week that they had received a call from Wells Fargo Bank in Farmington informing them that Native American Bank had sent a letter asking them for the collateral of $1.2 million from the Navajo Dam Escrow Account. “They indicated that the loan was in default and that they were, at that point, calling the collateral,” he said.

Budget and Finance plans to rescind the resolution that allowed the egg farm to get the $1.2 million. “What that will do is it will prevent them from drawing any more down on it,” Grant said. Collateral for the loan originally was approved at $3 million.

“What we need to do is next time we have a loan, to put some control measures on it so we can monitor the disbursements out of the loan – something that would give us some oversight over the use of the fund. We failed to do that on this loan. Now we know.”

A special audit review report in May by the Office of the Auditor General found that BCDS was in debt approximately $4.7 million, which included the $2.2 million loan and money owed to the state of New Mexico and the IRS. Auditors' analysis of bank activities found that former CEO Hak Ghun intermingled his personal funds with corporate funds.

“Based on our interviews with the former CEO, he acknowledged treating the corporate bank accounts as his own personal checking account. Over the four year-period, we identified over $3 million of personal expenses paid out of the BCDS checking accounts,” senior auditor Alfreda Lee told Budget and Finance in May.

“Personal expenses include casino, golf, vehicles, cash, over-the-counter withdrawals, personal loans repaid, checks issued to relatives, and unknown payees for a total of $3,085,017,” she said.

Hak Ghun left the company and was last known to be living in Torrance, Calif. At the time, he still held stock in the company, though the Navajo Nation became majority owner in 2004 after a total investment of $311,290 from the Business and Industrial Development Fund.

One Brown Girl Is Seeking Writers
Hi there -
I'm looking for a female Native American blogger who might be interested in contributing to the OneBrownGirl.com Web site every now and then by writing a short blog entry (subject will be provided).

Thanks!
Tracey
http://www.onebrowngirl.com/

OBG, A MOVEMENT CELEBRATING CULTURAL DIVERSITY
OneBrownGirl.com is seeking 2-3 writers from various cultural backgrounds for its online blog and Ask OBG page. Topics for 300-350 word blogs will be provided for bi-weekly posting. Must have a background and/or interest in various cultures & traditions. Someone who travels worldwide would, of course, be an asset.

While writing experience is preferred, it is not mandatory. If interested, send a 250 word writing sample to Bloggin4OBG@onebrowngirl.com by January 30, 2009. Sample must speak specifically to the OBG mission. Be creative! Small stipend will be paid. No phone calls please.

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'Navajo In Danger Of Losing $3.5 Million'

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Professor Robert J. Miller
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The Red Road - Profiles Of The First Nation Urban Native

Submitted by a Canadian DU poster
By MARK BONOKOSKI, Sun Media

“The aboriginal people of Canada are still seen as a problem to fix rather than an asset to this county.”— Rene Dussault, co-chair of 1996 Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples

It was an exhaustive report, five volumes of research, investigations and recommendations conceived in the wake of the anger and bloodstains of the Oka crisis of 1990.

It was 4,000 pages in length, its estimated cost to taxpayers pegged at $13,000 a page and, according to critics, it was the 15th such report since Confederation.

Co-chairs Rene Dussault, a jurist on the Quebec court of appeal, and George Erasmus, former National Chief of the Assembly of First Nations, believed the commission’s plan, if implemented over its proposed 20-year period, would reduce the social and economic gap between aboriginals and non-aboriginals by 50%.

Instead, like its predecessors, it gathered dust on a shelf.

In Canadian aboriginal teachings, the First Nations preferred path of life would see them on a gentle journey down the Red Road, its tenets telling them to “go gently upon Mother Earth” and remember “we are part of the earth and it is a part of us ... for all things are connected.

”The Red Road today, however, increasingly leads First Nations people to Canada’s cities and towns. More than half — 56% in fact — of this country’s aboriginal people now live in urban communities, according to 2006 Census data, up from 50% a decade earlier.

But instead of a harmonious journey embracing traditional values, too many become lost and, caught between two worlds, fall prey to conflict, trauma, abuse and worse.

The path is strewn with family and domestic abuse, homelessness, murdered and missing women, poverty and prostitution, unacceptable high school drop-out rates, too frequent seizure of children by children’s aid societies, over-representation in a justice system where discrimination is systemic as well as health and social issues that range from chronic alcoholism and drug addictions to almost rampant diabetes and spikes in HIV infection.

Problems that have been generations in the making, intergenerational trauma that began long before the Indian Act, continues today beyond the residential school tragedy of forced assimilation.

In a series of articles, this newspaper will look at issues affecting one of the largest unofficial Native reserves in Canada — the Greater Toronto area.

It will not be a perfect portrait. In fact, this series, will likely fail miserably in the eyes of many — just as many government, public inquiries, commissions and social service agencies have failed miserably in the eyes of many over many years. Hopefully it will also open eyes that were previously shut.

And it is critically important that something be done, that the problems are at least broadly acknowledged, and that we begin to address them.

A dozen years ago, the royal commission co-chaired by Rene Dussault called for sweeping changes to the relationship between Canada and its aboriginal peoples. The key recommendations were as follows:

— The Queen and Parliament should issue a royal proclamation acknowledging mistakes of the past and committing governments to a new relationship;
— The creation of an aboriginal parliament, to be known as the House of First Peoples;
— The creation of an independent lands and treaties tribunal to decide on land claims, and to ensure that treaty negotiations are conducted and financed fairly;
— Government spending of $1.5 billion to $2 billion annually for 20 years to improve aboriginal housing, health, education and employment;
— Two new federal departments to replace the Department of Indian and Northern Affairs. The new departments would be called the Aboriginal Relations Department and the Indian and Inuit Services Department;
— The Canadian Human Rights Commission be authorized to inquire into the relocation of aboriginal communities and to recommend remedies to address the negative effects of relocations;
— Federal, provincial and territorial governments commit themselves to training 10,000 aboriginal professionals in health and social services.

What followed, in truth, was inaction.

According to Rene Dussault, “none of the big ticket items that could have changed the future have ever been implemented ... not a one.”

Having retired from the bench in May, Dussault was reached last week at the Quebec City law offices of the Montreal-based firm, Heenan Blaikie.

“The large issues have never ever been addressed,” he says. “You cannot erase 125 years of history in three years of work but, looking back over the 12 years since the report was tabled, and you see a lack of political will still exists.

“Nothing has been done by various governments. The aboriginal people of Canada are still seen as a problem to fix rather than an asset to this country."

And that is disappointing. The plan is still workable, but it needs the political will of all parties and all governments.

“A great deal of money is being spent today handing (individual) crises across the country, but little is being invested, and little emphasis is being placed, on the building of capacity — on education, on social problems, et cetera — that will enable young aboriginals to succeed.

“There is no balance there,” he says. “Twelve years have passed and we still don’t have an overall plan.”

As a visible minority in cities, urban aboriginals are nonetheless all but invisible.Instead, they tend to scatter.

Estimates of the actual number of aboriginal people living in the Toronto area range from 40,000 to 80,000 and higher.

Across the country, the cities with the largest aboriginal populations, as reported by Statistics Canada (2006), are Winnipeg (68,380), Edmonton (52,100), Vancouver (40,310), Toronto (26,575), Calgary (26,575), Saskatoon (21,535), and Regina (17,105).But these numbers aren’t considered accurate.

Over the course of researching and investigating this series, some incredible people have shared their stories and, to a one, have been brutally honest — many divulging truly personal and tragic aspects of their lives because those deep and often dark details are important to “their story” and their peoples’ story.Each stands on its own but, as more of them unfold, they begin to entwine with the thread that runs through them all.

Only then do they become whole, the sum of their parts producing a map of the Red Road, and the forced detours that took its followers on an ugly journey that no government apology could ever truly amend.

http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Canada/2008/12/05/7760681.html

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'Seminole Council Member Pleads Guilty To Obstruction Of Justice'

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Life Threatening Temps of -60 Degrees Plague South Dakota - Words From Jeanne - Robert Redford Sounds Off!

By Tamara Brennan
NDN News
www.NDNnews.com
December 14, 2008
Heating Crisis a major issue on the Rez!!! URGENT HELP NEEDED!

South Dakota has been hit with yet another blizzard last night. This severe storm has brought low temperatures of -35 degrees with the wind chill factor. Tonight's low is expected to be -60 degrees in many areas of Western South Dakota. These temperatures are expected to last through Tuesday evening, with more snow expected over the next few days. The rest of this week, evening temperatures will be around zero, or just above.

Many of you are aware of the blizzard that slammed Western South Dakota on November 5th. Over two thousand power poles were broken, leaving hundreds of people on the Pine Ridge and Rosebud Reservations without power and heat for up to two weeks.

That blizzard left snow drifts of up to twenty feet in some areas, leaving roads impassible for days. See our press release Eleven Days Later, Disaster finally coming to a close for Pine Ridge Reservation and all of the posts and updates regarding the blizzard on our blog post entitled "Blizzard slams South Dakota Rez's" http://www.blogger.com/

Since that last blizzard, hundreds of people were left low or without propane. Now another storm blasts through, this time with even worse life-threatening temperatures. The National Weather Service states that a person could suffer from frostbite within ten minutes or less in these temperatures. At -60*F, it takes only one minute for exposed skin to become frostbitten. There are many people on the reservations that do not have adequate heating and are suffering horribly in these brutal temperatures.

Link Center Foundation (LCF), a non profit 501C3 organization, is desperately seeking funding for emergency heating assistance for the elders, the disabled, and/or the seriously ill on the Reservations. Also, there are often children found in the homes of elders. According to statistics, nearly 60% of the elders are raising their grandchildren or great-grandchildren.

Since the blizzard in November, Link Center Foundation has received a enormous amount of requests for heating assistance. LCF has successfully funded 132 families in need so far this year. However, as of today, they still have 130 approved applications still pending on a waiting list and more applications are arriving every day. Tragically, LCF has run out of funds even though winter has only just begun. Some assistance has come in from other organizations such as NAMA (the Native American Music Association). However, with the enormous number of requests pouring in, even that hasn't been able to cover the needs. Funding is the major challenge.

The first day of Winter has not officially arrived yet; it is still ten days away and we have already been faced with two blizzards and brutally extreme temperatures. South Dakota can receive snow up until May. The first snow this year was the beginning of October. Eight months of cold and snow is going to make for a horrific and very long winter this year.

How many people can withstand -60*F temperatures in sub-standard housing with inadequate or little heating? Well, this is what many elders, disabled, and folks with small children are being faced with this year.

The Pine Ridge Indian Reservation is located within three counties. Shannon County is one of the poorest counties in the country. Pine Ridge is the second largest Reservation in the United States, roughly the size of the State of Connecticut. The unemployment rate is approximately 80-85% and the median income is about $3,500.00 a year. To make matters worse, heating costs have risen approximately 33% this year.

Nearly 60% of the homes on Pine Ridge are significantly sub-standard. Many are over-crowded and without proper heating, insulation, running water, sewer, or electricity.

How can you help?
Please consider making a contribution (tax deductible), to Link Center Foundation for heating assistance for the elders, the disabled, and the seriously ill. No amount is too small (or large!). If you can send $10 or $20 dollars, every dollar can help make a difference.

The Holidays are upon us, many of you will be out shopping for your loved ones soon. Here is a creative idea to help: Instead of buying yet another toaster, sweater or video game for your family members, how about making a donation to LCF on behalf of your loved ones! You can give them a card, saying that they helped provide heat to a family in need on the Reservations in South Dakota.

It's a great way to help, and you are able to provide a life-saving gift to the people. I am sure your loved one would be thrilled that they were able to help someone in this way. You can also take it one step further and make a family decision for everyone to take their gift money and make a donation on behalf of your entire family!

Please visit LCF's website for additional information at http://www.blogger.com/ or email admin@linkcenterfoundation.org

You can easily and securely make your donation on your credit card or bank debit card right on the Link Center Foundation website!

Or you can mail donations to the following address at:
Link Center FoundationMailing Address:
P.O. Box 576 –
Firestone, CO 80520-0576

Shipping Address:
117 Jackson Drive –
Firestone, CO 80520
Local Phone: 303-833-6520
Toll-Free Phone: 888-220-1653

Thank you all for your continued help and assistance with this winter crisis on the rez.

More From Dr. Jeanne Bedell-Mashkikinabinais
HUD doesn't have enough funding on the SD reservations to maintain these homes to the standards they need or maybe the money gets used for something else for the tribes, I have no idea. A lot of these homes, including adopted ones, have black mold on them as they were originally made from poor quality materials.

Many Natives already owe money for heating because the money they originally got for heating assistance was not enough to meet their needs when the gas prices were astronomical. NOW, they are getting hit really hard. Even I still owe now close to $300 from an old gas bill and wonder when and how I am going to pay this with the unemployment crisis!

HUD does not approve of “do it yourself” home improvement measures for their homes and you can be evicted if you try to improve them even though the house may be poorly insulated and maintained or falling apart because these are not tribal owned homes. THEY BELONG TO THE GOVERNMENT!!!!

So - what can the new Housing Director do to take care of this problem on Indian reservations????

After the last blizzard, people were without power ten days and over 600 poles were down. Another blizzard just came and today without the wind blowing it is –16 degrees. That’s all I can say. We ought to all go back to building our own tipi's, but then again - where would anyone find clean water?

Any story on this tragic issue would be a good one to send to the Obama Transition Team or Congress to help us out, since they are now bailing out banks and corporations - Jeanne.

A Letter From Robert Redford
Bobbie, we only have a few days left to mobilize one million Americans against the Bush-Cheney plan to auction off America's Redrock wilderness to oil and gas speculators.

Please FORWARD my message to everyone you know and help block this outrageous giveaway of our natural heritage. Thank you for doing your part to save this natural treasure. --
Robert Redford

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Dear Friend,
No one voted on Election Day to hand over Utah's Redrock wilderness to oil companies.

But the Bush Administration cynically chose that very day to advance an outrageous plan that will sell off leases for some 160,000 acres of spectacular Utah canyonlands to oil and gas speculators.

While America was voting for Barack Obama and his vision of a clean energy future, Bush and Cheney's underlings were conspiring to plunder one of the crown jewels of our natural heritage for their fossil fuel cronies.

Please register your own opposition right now:
http://www.nrdconline.org/ct/Z73_MLS13PJm/

The auction of Redrock country will take place on December 19. At stake are world-renowned vistas near Canyonlands and Arches National Parks, as well as near Dinosaur National Monument. The highest bidders will earn the right to turn vast tracts of pristine wilderness into industrial wastelands.

It's bad enough that Bush officials went behind the backs of the American people with this disastrous scheme. But what's worse, they didn't even tell their own National Park Service until after the fact.

In my mind, this theft of our heritage goes beyond the cynical-- it's criminal. What will be left to give to our children and their children if we allow this administration, in a parting shot, to destroy our legacy of public lands for short-term gain?

I hope you're as angry as I am about this blatant land grab, because we've got to stop it -- and we have to act fast. The NRDC Action Fund is mobilizing more than one million Americans in an outpouring of protest over the coming days.

Send your own message of opposition immediately:
http://www.nrdconline.org/ct/Z73_MLS13PJm/

Tell the Bush Administration that you will not allow it to destroy one of the most beautiful places on Earth.

We'll automatically send copies of your message to your two senators, your representative and to the Obama transition team,which has signaled their opposition to this disastrous attack on our Redrock heritage.

The Bush Administration is racing to complete the auction of our lands before Inauguration Day, which will make sales difficult to reverse.

We must fend off this land grab now -- before the oil and gas companies can lay claim to the spoils.

Those spoils include stretches of Desolation Canyon, which has been proposed for national park status. Bush's own Interior Department describes the canyon as "a place where a visitor can experience true solitude -- where the forces of nature continue to shape the colorful, rugged landscape."

The very idea of oil and gas operations invading these remote sanctuaries -- which have remained untouched for millennia -- is deeply upsetting. Once the dirty deed is done, our wilderness can never be restored. That's why I'm asking you to help us sound the alarm and organize now.

Tell the Bush Administration to cancel the Redrock auction:
http://www.nrdconline.org/ct/Z73_MLS13PJm/

Remind them that we the people are the rightful owners of this majestic wilderness and that we won't stand for its destruction.

And thank you for joining with me and the NRDC Action Fund tosave these beautiful wildlands for all future generations.

Sincerely,
Robert Redford
NRDC Action Fund

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'Poison Wind' - Film History of Uranium Victims - AZ Tribes For Grijalva - Sec. Of The Interior

‘Poison Wind’ Presents Oral Hstory Of Uranium Vctims
Gallup Independent
By Kathy Helms
Diné Bureau

WINDOW ROCK — It has been nearly two years to the day that Jenny Pond first came up with the idea of “Poison Wind,” an oral history on the effects uranium mining has had on indigenous people of the Southwest.

Co-produced by Pond and Navajo filmmaker Norman Patrick Brown, the documentary was screened as the official selection of the 33rd Annual American Indian Film Institute Film Festival in San Francisco. It has aired in New Mexico, Texas and Colorado and twice in German, including Oct. 26 at the Nuclear-Free Future Award ceremony in Munich along with the acclaimed documentary, “The Return of Navajo Boy,” by Jeff Spitz of Chicago.

Pond said she was inspired to make the film when she and her husband went down to the village of Supai to spend the weekend in the Grand Canyon for his 60th birthday. Supai, the tribal center for the Havasupai Tribe, is located in Havasu Canyon, a southwestern branch of the Grand Canyon accessible only by foot, horseback, or helicopter.

“At the end of the weekend we were waiting for the helicopter to take us out with a group of other people. I walked off in the middle of the village and as I was standing there, a man walked up to me and he said, ‘What do you do?'

“I said, ‘You mean for a living?’ He said "yes." And I said, ‘Well, if I’m lucky I work in film and TV.’ He said, ‘I had a feeling I should speak with you. Did you know that there are leases being sold for uranium mining here at the Grand Canyon?’

“I live in Arizona, I read the news a lot, my dad was a news man, but I just never heard about this,” she said.

She gave Damon Watahomigie, or “Supai Waters,” her phone number, flew out of the Grand Canyon and called Manuel Pino, a long-time anti-nuclear activist from the Pueblo of Acoma, whom she has known for about 20 years.

“He said, ‘You’ve got to call Norman — Norman Patrick Brown.’ So I called him and we just followed it. It was like it was leading us, and it all started in the bottom of the Grand Canyon with Supai Waters saying to me, ‘What do you do'?” That was two years ago.

Brown, who also appears in “Poison Wind,” says he believes the film “gives an intimate look into the hardships of the people who mined underground, the cancers that they’ve contracted, the radiation exposure and how it has impacted their lives. Probably one of the strongest points of the film is having the people talk about what uranium mining has done to them and their families.”

Another important thing about “Poison Wind,” he said, “was letting industry know that regardless of their attempts to stop the Diné Natural Resources Protection Act of 2005, it’s only going to make our resistance even stronger.

In a lot of ways, I think the film educates people who are not familiar with the nuclear process, that we’re at the ‘front end’ of the nuclear fuel chain.

“The thing about the video also is it seemed to develop itself. There was a spiritual aspect that permeated the film. It was with us all the time, this spiritual awareness that life is sacred. We looked at the land and we looked at the people and the cultures. There are different types of people in the video. There are pueblo miners, Navajo miners and Hispanic miners.”

Brown said attempts to stifle Navajo’s ban on uranium activities is secondary to the main point. “The ban is not really an act of sovereignty, it’s a declaration of independence. No matter what the courts say, no matter what the corporations say, those are all secondary. We already made a decision, no ifs, ands or buts. It’s ‘Hey, look, what part of ‘No’ don’t you understand?’

”If there is an attempt of physical bringing any type of uranium development on Navajo, he said, “I believe people will rise up. I believe they will not allow it.”

Pond acknowledges that the film, which was funded using her husband’retirement money, is not very balanced as far as the uranium industry goes. “It’s really all one-sided. I figure if somebody else wants to make that film, they can, but I’m not going to do that. This is what I need to do.

“I don’t think there is any better way than to present these oral histories of people that are dying,” she said.

ARIZONA TRIBES BACK GRIJALVA
Indian Country Today
Editor’s note: The following is an open letter to John Podesta, Chair, Obama-Biden Transition Team.

We are writing in support of the appointment of Congressman Raul Grijalva as the new Secretary of the Department of the Interior. He is well respected by the tribal community and has worked diligently for his constituents – many of whom are tribal members – over the past six years. He has created an open and working relationship with tribal governments in Arizona and the Department of the Interior would be fortunate to have his leadership.

Congressman Grijalva currently serves the 7th Congressional District in the State of Arizona, which covers the southern and southeastern part of the state. Within his district are seven sovereign tribal governments. They include the Tohono O’odham Nation, Pascua Yaqui Tribe, Gila River Indian Community, Ak-Chin Indian Community, Cocopah Tribe, Colorado River Indian Tribes and the Quechan Tribe.

As leadership of our respective tribes, we know that Congressman Grijalva has been a strong and consistent supporter of tribal issues. He has also taken a lead role in championing issues of importance to tribes, such as reforming mining laws, utility clarification, homeland security and others. We strongly encourage you to consider Congressman Grijalva as the next Secretary of the Department of the Interior. Thank you for your consideration.

– Ned Norris Jr., Chairman, Tohono O’odham Nation
– William Rhodes, Governor, Gila River Indian Community
– Sherry Cordova, Chairwoman, Cocopah Tribe
– Peter Yucupicio, Chairman, Pascua Yaqui Tribe
– Daniel Eddy Jr., Chairman, Colorado River Indian Tribes
– Delia Carlyle, Chairman, Ak-Chin Indian Community
– Mike Jackson Sr., President, Quechan Tribe

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Link Center Foundation And NAMA Join Efforts To Aid Tribal Elders - ATT: Obama Transition Team

Collaboration Brings Hope -
by Stephanie M. Schwartz,
November 29, 2008

Collaboration Brings Hope, "as funding allows" -
Link Center Foundation's long-standing Emergency Heating/Utility Assistance Program for the elders, disabled, and seriously ill residents of the Lakota (Sioux) began a collaborative effort with NAMA, the Native American Music Association (which produces the Native American Music Awards known as Nammys) to better serve the elders and disabled on the Lakota Reservations with their emergency heating needs.

In a winter which has already produced a blizzard of mammoth proportions, there is an urgent and ever-greater need to act now to find funding for this winter-long assistance program. With unemployment reaching up to 85%, a 33% increase in fuel costs, and average monthly incomes roughly $350 or less, the elderly and disabled are the most at-risk population.

To make matters even more serious, according to the last census, nearly 60% of all elders are raising grandchildren or great-grandchildren in their home. However, the key phrase, "as funding allows," influences everything (including hope). Unfortunately, the national economy has been on a downward spiral and donations to non-profits reflect that condition. Giving to worthy causes has diminished everywhere. Nonetheless, the critical life-threatening needs still exist on the reservations.

This collaboration of Link Center Foundation and NAMA seeks to better provide a little hope and emergency assistance with the help of contributions from the public. No amount is too small. Link Center Foundation (http://www.linkcenterfoundation.org/) is a small, grassroots all-volunteer 501c3 non-profit organization in Colorado.

It has been working to help on the Lakota reservations of South Dakota since 2000. Its formal Emergency Heating/Utility Assistance program has been active since 2005. It seeks to serve all 9 Lakota (Sioux) Reservations in South Dakota as funding allows. Ninety-five percent of all donations to the EmergencyHeating/Utility program are used solely for that program (propane, electricity, and/or wood) and the remaining 5% covers bank and credit/debit card processing fees and other necessary operating costs.

NAMA, the Native America Music Association,(http://www.nativeamericanmusicawards.com/) is also a 501c3 non-profit organization and is located in New York City.

Responding initially to the mammoth blizzard and crisis conditions in early November 2008, NAMA wishes to continue to help provide emergency winter heating assistance to the elders and disabled on the Pine Ridge and Rosebud Lakota (Sioux) Reservations for the winter of 2008-2009.

Collaborating with Link Center Foundation's emergency heating program serves that purpose. NAMA's response has also initiated and coordinated numerous clothing drives to benefit both those reservations.

According to NAMA President, Ellen Bello, the inspiration for their entire organization was given by the youth on the Rosebud and Pine Ridge Reservations over 12 years ago. Therefore, through these programs, NAMA endeavors to come full circle and assist those who are most in need on those two reservations this winter.

As a point of information, Federal LHEAP and Tribal Assistance Programs each offer low-income families approximately $300 in fuel credit per year. With the current rate of propane at $2.20 per gallon, this provides only 136 gallons – about enough fuel for 2 to 4 weeks (depending on the weather).

Additionally, propane companies have raised their required minimum amounts of propane to be purchased before delivery to a home. Currently, the minimums for delivery are $125 to $355, depending on the company. This makes families struggle even harder to accumulate enough funds at one time to ensure a delivery.

To assist these elders, disabled, or seriously ill Lakota, donations may be made to either Link Center Foundation or NAMA through their respective websites (by secure credit card or bank debit card transactions) or by mail to either organization. Donations should to be marked "heating assistance program" in the memo section of any check.

Donations may also be made through Network for Good which is powered by GuideStar, the leading source of reputable information on United States Non-Profits. Simply visit their website, (http://www.networkforgood.org/) and type Link Center Foundation or Native American Music Association under "charity name."

Applications for the elders and disabled are available at the Link Center Foundation website and the NAMA website as well as at local centers on the reservations like the district CAP (Community Action Program) Offices on the Pine Ridge Reservation.

Applications are also available through Native Village Publications at their website (http://www.nativevillage.org/)

Link Center Foundation screens and processes all emergency assistance applications sent to both organizations. Then, Link Center Foundation and NAMA decide which applications shall be funded by their respective organizations. Each organization maintains and administers its own funds. All payments are made directly to the fuel vendors.

At the current time, approximately $150 worth of fuel is being allotted per qualified application, as funding allows. For propane users, this provides approximately 7-10 days of heat, depending on weather conditions.

Please join Link Center Foundation and NAMA in reaching out to those who need our help. Your contributions will provide a little extra hope and warmth for the elders, the ill, and disabled on the Lakota reservations. Help us work within the circle to make this a better world for all.

Link Center Foundation
Att: Emergency Heating/Utility Assistance Program
P.O. Box 576 –
Firestone, CO 80520-0576

Phone and FAX: 303-833-6520 Toll Free Phone: 888-220-1653
Website: http://www.linkcenterfoundation.org/
Email: admin@LinkCenterFoundation.org

Native American Music Association, Inc
Att: Winter Aid Relief
511 Avenue of the Americas #371 -
New York NY 10011
Phone: 212-228-8300
FAX: 646-688-6883

Website: http://www.nativeamericanmusicawards.com/ (click on "Special Programs")
Email: NAMMYS@aol.com

Stephanie M. Schwartz may be reached at SilvrDrach@aol.com-

Stephanie M. Schwartz
Freelance Writer and Editor _www.SilvrDrach.homestead.com_(http://www.silvrdrach.homestead.com/)

Member, Native American Journalists Association (NAJA)
President, Link Center Foundation _www.linkcenterfoundation.org_(http://www.linkcenterfoundation.org/)

ATT: Obama Transition Team - What is going on with Housing On The REZ???? This Makes No Sense At All!!!!!

Hi Steph - Just posted your Collaboration story with NAMA on Native Unity. Hope it beings out the desired results.

I hope during the warm months your groups will work on insulating homes on the Rez to enable people to use less fuel during the stormy, winter months and still be able to stay warm. Just a suggestion!!!!

Best
Bobbie

Greetings Bobbie,
Thank you for writing. It would be nice to do as you suggest but it is no easy feat.

First of all, if you're talking about the community cluster housing, by law no one is allowed to do anything to those homes except the Tribal Housing Authority.... whose waiting list is several years long. Since most of those homes were built in the 1960s-1970s, they're in very sad shape. But no one, not even those living in them, is allowed to do a thing to improve their condition. Many of the rest of the homes on the reservation, which are located out on the land, are used mobile homes (26% of all housing) or old cabins.

According to statistics, 59% of all the homes on Pine Ridge are significantly substandard.... 39% have no electricity, 60% are contaminated with a deadly variety of Black Mold, 33% lack basic water and sewage, some have no floors except for bare dirt, many lack central heating. Insulation is a rare commodity on the reservation.

You might care to read one of my articles about conditions on Pine Ridge....
http://silvrdrach.homestead.com/Schwartz_2006_Oct_15.html

Sadly, Link Center Foundation is a small, grassroots all-volunteer organization. We simply do not have the funding or resources to effect major changes in the housing conditions. All we can do is try to help a little.

But thank you for your ideas.

All best wishes, -steph

Stephanie M. SchwartzPresident, Link Center Foundation
http://www.linkcenterfoundation.org/

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Canada Secret Service Spying On Ongwehonwe - Part 2

Mohawk Nation News. Nov. 30, 2008. -
As we are seeing more and more clearly everyday, Canada has always been a totalitarian for-profit enterprise even though it tries to masquerade as a democracy. Canada is a Euro colonial settler state that governs by passing race laws. Every now and then declarations of legal rights are made to make things look kosher. But when push comes to shove, these are ignored. Things are done at the point of a gun by open terror and genocide.

What information could the Canadian Secret Intelligence Service [CSIS] possibly be looking for in Mohawk communities? How many dogs we have running loose? How many rusted cars and old fridges are standing in our yards? We notice they don't want to report on how bad our water is, or how corrupt the band council is or about the lack of funds for our education, medical care and housing. So what's happening?

Whatever anyone says, CSIS covertly sneaking into our communities can't be for "national security". We've never been a military threat to Canada. CSIS is coming in as an agent of confusion to "terrorize" us! What have we got that would scare anyone? Except, of course, for THE TRUTH!!! The land every Canadian stands on and all the resources in it belong to us. That's why they're trying to brainwash us and the Canadian people.

Everyday we are seeing more cracks in the broken "democracy" called "Canada". We Mohawks are targeted because we ask too many questions. We are always challenging their actions and asking them to prove the legality of what they're doing. They want a "white" nation. The colonists associate "Indians" with a certain degeneracy of intellect, morals, self-restraint and political values. That was their excuse for stealing our resources.

Canada sets us up as targets because they want to divert attention away from their economic and social problems. They need someone to blame. They want the public to believe we are dangerous. Never mind that their government rakes in millions from cigarette taxes. They spin it as the murky world of "contraband". They make it sound like it's a crime for us to support our families by legally selling tobacco.

Their border is the "apartheid wall". Their border guards routinely harass us and even try to kill us when we try to travel on our territory. Canadian agencies refuse to investigate these criminal acts. All their police, the OPP, RCMP, Canadian Border Services Agency and the colonial Akwesasne Mohawk Police, claim it's not their jurisdiction.

We are denied due process when they assault us. Two Mohawk women have been declared as "non-residents" of Canada in order to make them pay for the Crown's defence in the law suit they filed against Canada for not investigating border brutality! [M. Mireille Tabib, Oct. 23, 2008, Kahentinetha & Katenies v. The Queen T-1309-08]. If Kahnawake and Akwesasne are not part of Canada, then why haven't they removed the illegal border control at Akwesasne?

On the one hand, they say Akwesasne is in Canada so they can put their border there. On the other hand, they're saying it's not so they can force us to pay thousands of dollars to make border guards accountable for the assaults and crimes against us. Canada has plans to build a great big international high tech border installation at Akwesasne. We don't want it.

When three non-native people recently died in a botched border operation at the very same spot in Akwesasne, all those self same police services were stumbling all over each other to investigate. What's the deal? The safety of "white" people is precious? Ongwehonwe safety doesn't matter?

Canada is still trying to look calm while it screams hysterically from within. They don't want people to smell the blood beforehand. To divert attention they're looking for those with opinions different from theirs to start imprisoning and shutting them up. The state is using slander and historical distortion to defame us and get the media to suppress discussion of the real issues.

The current attempt to purge the Mohawks is based on false claims that we are likely to sabotage Canada. Nothing could be further from the truth. We've always stayed in our own boat according to the Two Row Wampum Accord. We have never committed any violence against Canada. In fact, we have defended Canada several times, going back to the War of 1812 right up to World War II. Of course, if our historic ally chooses to attack us, we will always defend ourselves.

The violent and unfounded fantasies about us serve someone's purpose. People get a chance to use lethal weapons when Canadian agencies send in cops and spies instead of talking with us on a straightforward and honest nation-to-nation basis. CSIS is Canada's secret police look for demons and devils they can finger for purging. We've been told actions of this kind must have ministerial approval.

Canada is ruining its international image because of the abuse and needless suffering that it causes to all Ongwehonwe. Up to now they've kept a lot of their skeletons in the closet to make it easier for CSIS to set us up. CSIS defames us by playing on the active imagination of a gullible public.

CSIS has been sent in to corrupt our "leadership". They should know by now that we have none. Who is active in our Men's Society? Who is the intelligentsia? [As if we aren't all intelligent] They are trying to make us mistrust each other. They want to turn us into "fifth column" communities. They think they can get away with it because we are a minority. They figure no one will help us when we're attacked.

The young and the vulnerable are targeted. When they're snatched, the cops force them to "confess" to anything regardless of the truth. Some of their lines are: "Either you comply with us or we'll charge you". "How well do you know your community?" "Who are you related to?" "Someone told me this, is it true?" "Do what I say or I"ll break your arm". Their old favorite, "Who are your leaders?" CSIS wants to have us charged with "counter revolutionary crimes" based on their racist colonial laws or those they intend to create!!

Yes, we don't like the colonial Canadian system as it has been shown to us. We know that Canada thinks that our land, cultures, bodies and minds must be sacrificed for the colonists to remain dominant and for their system to continue to function. Canadian occupation of our land and the usurpation of our resources are illegal under international law.

One of their frequent tricks is to get someone to invite us somewhere and then set up a "disappearance". Rumor has it that now that we've been declared "insurgents" a secret military tribunal has been set up to try us. Bye bye habeas corpus!

Iako'ha:kowa & MNN Staff - Mohawk Nation News
http://www.mohawknationnews.com/
kittoh@storm.ca
Katenies20@yahoo.com
kahentinetha2@yahoo.com

CSIS Turning To Natives In Search Of Information
JOE FRIESEN
From Saturday's Globe and Mail
November 29, 2008

Canadian spies are trying to recruit informants on a Quebec Mohawk reserve, telling their targets they're probing the national security threat posed by radical native groups and gathering intelligence on the murky, lucrative trade in contraband tobacco and online gambling.

Over the past 18 months, CSIS agents have approached several people with ties to the Kahnawáke Mohawk reserve south of Montreal and invited them to clandestine meetings.

According to the Mohawks who spoke to CSIS, the spies wanted information on native groups leading blockades in Ontario and were trying to assess the strength of political and religious factions within Mohawk communities. The spies said they did similar work in native communities across the country, raising the possibility that dozens of aboriginal groups are being assessed as potential threats to Canada's national security.

Former CSIS director Reid Morden said he was surprised to hear the spy agency is targeting natives. Such an initiative would have to have been approved at the ministerial level or higher, he said.

More, of course, at:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.2008 ...

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Canadian Secret Intelligence Service Spies On Mohawk Communitites

CSIS Turning To Natives In Search Of Information
By JOE FRIESEN
The Globe and Mail
November 29, 2008
Canadian spies are trying to recruit informants on a Quebec Mohawk reserve, telling their targets they're probing the national security threat posed by radical native groups and gathering intelligence on the murky, lucrative trade in contraband tobacco and online gambling.

Over the past 18 months, CSIS agents have approached several people with ties to the Kahnawáke Mohawk reserve south of Montreal and invited them to clandestine meetings.

According to the Mohawks who spoke to CSIS, the spies wanted information on native groups leading blockades in Ontario and were trying to assess the strength of political and religious factions within Mohawk communities. The spies said they did similar work in native communities across the country, raising the possibility that dozens of aboriginal groups are being assessed as potential threats to Canada's national security.

Former CSIS director Reid Morden said he was surprised to hear the spy agency is targeting natives. Such an initiative would have to have been approved at the ministerial level or higher, he said. “If they want to operate in what people would say are sensitive areas like churches or universities or, for that matter, the native community, unless it's changed dramatically since I was around, and I don't think it has, the service would have had to put up to the minister, or higher, the rationale for why they wanted to do this, because it obviously has attendant political risks.”

A Mohawk graphic artist said CSIS asked him what he knew about the blockades over land disputes in the Ontario communities of Caledonia and Tyendinaga. A young chief was asked about the possibility of a violent native uprising before last year's national aboriginal day of action. A youth worker was asked to identify a young man photographed in front of a cache of weapons in a Kahnawáke longhouse.

Each of them spoke to The Globe and Mail because they wanted to make it clear that they were not collaborating with the spy agency. They said that if the federal government wants to know what Mohawks are up to, it should engage in a nation-to-nation dialogue, not secret intelligence gathering.

“The best way to solve issues with native peoples is government to government. You don't have to send your spies after us,” said Thomas Deer, 32, the graphic artist who was approached by CSIS this month. “I felt I had a civic responsibility to my community and to my nation to let people know that CSIS is doing this, that CSIS is watching native people.”

CSIS said it would not comment on specific cases or operational practices.

“We do not collect information about specific communities in Canada,” a spokeswoman said in an e-mail. “We interview individuals to solicit facts, views and opinions in order to become better informed on potential threats to the security of Canada.”

Mr. Deer, a frequent contributor to websites that promote indigenous sovereignty, said a CSIS agent telephoned him at work on Nov. 3. The woman said he should not be afraid, but that she would like to meet with him and lay out her mandate at a Montreal café. Two days later, after consulting with a clan elder, he declined the invitation.

“They expressed their disappointment in me not meeting them, and then they turned to being a little threatening,” he said. “They said, ‘We've read your writings.…How do we know you're not a threat to Canada?'”

The agent then changed tactics, praising him as a level-headed person, someone to whom CSIS felt it could turn for advice, he said.“After she tried to smooth me over she did say she was interested in talking about Ontario … ‘Concerning the protests and blockades by certain people,' she said, ‘we don't need to mention any names. You know who we're talking about.'”

“I think she was referring to Shawn Brant,” Mr. Deer said. Mr. Deer has never met Mr. Brant, a Mohawk activist from Tyendinaga who led protests that blocked major roads and rail lines in Ontario last year. She also said she wanted to talk about the contraband tobacco trade, and guaranteed that he would leave the meeting with a smile on his face.

“I suppose that meant I would be rewarded for whatever information I gave them. Some kind of payoff,” he said.

The experience was unsettling, and Mr. Deer contacted the Kahnawá:ke newspaper, The Eastern Door, to report that CSIS was poking around the community.

Mr. Deer's story is not unique.

In the spring of 2007, when tensions between natives and Ottawa were rising before the national aboriginal day of action, two other young men were contacted by CSIS, and both met with agents.

John Dee Delormier, at 26 the youngest council chief ever elected in Kahnawá:ke, was initially reluctant to talk to CSIS. But after consulting his fellow chiefs, who wanted to know what CSIS was up to, he agreed to meet an agent at a Tim Hortons in suburban Montreal.

She wanted to talk about factions in the Mohawk community, including the three longhouses that act as a kind of parallel form of government to the band council on the reserve, and about the cleavage between supporters and opponents of the band-council system. She also asked about the sectarian differences of Catholics, Protestants and those who follow native spirituality.

CSIS said they wanted to know about contraband tobacco, a subject of long-standing interest to the RCMP, and Internet gambling. Mr. Delormier estimates that two-thirds of the world's Internet gambling sites are hosted by Web servers located in Kahnawáke, a practice Ottawa considers illegal but has been reluctant to tackle. He refused to discuss those subjects, he said.

She also asked him whether he thought a violent native uprising was possible.

“I said I don't understand that question. I don't know why you would ask that,” he said. “At that point she knew she wasn't going to get much from me and that was it. It's a little scary. Why would the intelligence agency of Canada be so interested in my community? What are they planning?”

In the same period, Katsenhakeron, a former Native Youth Movement organizer who asked to be identified by his Mohawk name, was working at the native friendship centre in Montreal when two women walked in, asked for him, and flashed CSIS identity cards. They wanted a confidential meeting, they said, and he met them later at a St. Hubert restaurant.“They were both very attractive. I was like, man, you guys are good spies. Playing right into my libido.”

They spent most of the meeting asking about threats to Canada, he said.

When they brought out a photograph, taken from the Internet, and asked him to identify a Mohawk man standing in front of more than a dozen automatic weapons and rifles, he refused to say any more.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.2008...

In The Next Edition of Native Unity – Mohawk Nation News Gives Their Side Of The CSIS Spying on Mohawk Communities.

CANADA SECRET SERVICE SPYING ON ONGWEHONWE –

Mohawk Nation News. Nov. 30, 2008. - As we are seeing more and more clearly everyday, Canada has always been a totalitarian for-profit enterprise even though it tries to masquerade as a democracy. Canada is a Euro colonial settler state that governs by passing race laws. Every now and then declarations of legal rights are made to make things look kosher. But when push comes to shove, these are ignored. Things are done at the point of a gun by open terror and genocide.

What information could the Canadian Secret Intelligence Service [CSIS] possibly be looking for in Mohawk communities? How many dogs we have running loose? How many rusted cars and old fridges are standing in our yards? We notice they don't want to report on how bad our water is, or how corrupt the band council is or about the lack of funds for our education, medical care and housing. So what's happening?

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