The People's Record

Guatemala declares emergency after Canadian private-interests  spark protests as they try and destroy the lives of Guatemalans, despite loud & clear objections
May 3, 2013

The Guatemalan government has declared a state of emergency in four areas after clashes between police and anti-mining protesters in the south-east of the country. The interior ministry banned public gatherings and sent troops to four towns near a controversial silver mine.

Residents fear the Canadian-owned mine will drain their water supplies. They have not consented to the construction of the mine, have been ignored, and have taken to the streets in desperation to stop the Canadian private-interests from destroying their lives.

Protests have turned increasingly violent after it gained an operating permit in April. One police officer was shot dead on Monday, according to local media, and six protesters were reportedly wounded by gunfire from security guards a day earlier.

In another confrontation, protesters captured 23 police officers who were later freed, according to La Hora newspaper.

The owner of the Escobal mine, British Columbia-based Tahoe Resources, tried to frame the protesters as “aggressors armed with machetes, turned hostile”, and security guards fired tear gas and rubber bullets in response to the public’s cry for autonomy. The capitalist Tahoe Resources outright lied when they tried to claim that complaints that the mine could affect the springs were “totally unfounded”.

The mine, which is not yet operating, is in the district of San Rafael Las Flores, about about 70km (40 miles) east of Guatemala City.

The corrupt government said on Thursday it was outlawing gatherings in the towns of Jalapa and Mataquescuinlta, and the areas of Casillas and San Rafael Las Flores. A decree allows them temporarily to make detentions, conduct searches and question suspects outside the normal legal framework.

Source

No Consent = No Mine

Even if the government tries to lock the people in their houses, the people have been abundantly clear – they do not want this Canadian capitalist ruining their lives & their communities. They decide. Not lawmakers. Not Canadian capitalists. The community has a choice and they have chosen to protect their homes or die trying. Support them in any & every way you can!

270+ arrested in Montreal over freedom of assembly rally
April 6, 2013

At least 279 protesters have been arrested in central Montreal during a rally against police tactics as police claimed the assembly was illegal, local media reported quoting law enforcers.

Protesters began gathering at Place Émilie-Gamelin on Friday evening, the Montreal Gazette website reports. Shortly afterwards police officer announced, via loudspeakers, that the demonstration was illegal.

Montreal police said three people were arrested for assault, while the rest were detained for illegal assembly, according to CBC News. No injuries were reported.

The protest was organized by the Anti-Capitalist Convergence (the CLAC) to contest a controversial bylaw.

The demonstration sought to “assert our opposition to bylaw P-6” in a year “marked by an escalation of police repression against political protesters in Montreal,” the CLAC said in a statement issued before the protest.

Bylaw P-6 requires groups to provide police with an itinerary of their demonstration beforehand. Otherwise police can declare the gathering illegal. The law also prohibits to wear masks at gatherings. The legislation carries a fine of CA$637 for the first offense.

In early March some 250 protesters were arrested in Montreal for violating P-6, as they gathered for an annual march against police brutality.

The P-6 bylaw was adopted following the surge in mass protests in Montreal in 2012. The city saw numerous massive student demonstrations last year as thousands protested tuition hikes. Some of the protests turned violent.

Source

Idle No More supports Nishiyuu Walkers
March 27, 2013

As the bears are coming out of hibernation so is the Idle No More movement in Hastings County. On Saturday, March 23 the group held its first fundraiser of the season at a residence on Hastings Street South. The group plans to continue raising awareness throughout the community of aboriginal and environmental issues of concern to the region and the planet.  

“There are so many eco-conscious people in the area,” said Idle No More Hastings County organizer Theresa Eagles.

“Friday was International Water Day, today is Seedy Saturday and tonight is Earth Hour. Earth Day is almost here. There is so much going on locally and globally at the moment, and really we are all working for the same things: a cleaner environment, better food and clean water.”

The funds raised by the garage sale was used to send members of the Idle No More Hastings County group to Ottawa on Monday, March 25 to welcome a group of Cree youth activists who have been walking from their reserve in northern Quebec all the way to Parliament Hill. “People need to know that Idle No More Hastings County is not going anywhere but it’s all about the walkers right now,” said Eagles.

The local Idle No More group has been focusing their time and energy of late on helping the walkers, who are referred to as Nishiyuu, achieve their goal by bringing awareness to their campaign. What makes the quest of the Nishiyuu even more remarkable are the ages of the organizers. Six of the original seven individuals who started the quest are under 20 years of age with the exception of their adult guide Isaac Kawapit. The original six youth are Geordie Rupert,  Travis George, Stanley George Jr.,  Johnny Abraham,  David Kawapit and Raymond Kawapit. Eagles, who has been in contact with the original seven Nishiyuu, said that as the group nears Parliament Hill their numbers have now grown to exceed 300 individuals. “They have come on such an incredible journey,” Eagles said. 

“I am honoured by them and humbled by them. These young people are walking more than 1,500 kilometres. There is one young walker who is just four years of age named David who has been walking for the final 100 kilometres. It’s truly amazing.”

Their walk began from their homes in Whapmagoostui, Que., on the coast of Hudson Bay back on Jan. 16. 

The Nishiyuu claim that their quest is driven by their desire to make the world a better place for others. 

Their goal is to protect the people, their cultural heritage, and the land. 

Throughout their journey they have stated that they are guided by their ancestral teachings of courage, honesty, humility, compassion, respect, sharing and wisdom.

Source

Police violence meets anti-police brutality protesters in Montreal
March 15, 2013

A few hundred protesters gathered at the corner of Ontario St. and St. Urbain St., just north of the Service de Police de la Ville de Montréal headquarters to protest against police brutality. The annual demonstration, now in it’s 17th consecutive year, started somewhat unusually, with the SPVM blocking every road leading out of the corner in an attempt to halt the march from beginning.

The demonstration was declared illegal almost immediately after its start around 5 p.m., due to organizers failing to provide an itinerary for the demonstration.

Arrests began when the crowd had yet to leave the square, resulting in a brief brawl and at least one injured protester.

As the police unblocked St. Urbain St., the crowd marched south but were forced to disperse into various groups—before making it one block down the road.

A few firecrackers were lit by protesters but the crowd was less violent than in previous years, when marches had quickly devolved into riots.

Different crowds throughout downtown were kettled, stopping the hundreds of protesters from ever regrouping. Police were reluctant to let any one out of the blockades.

For the next three hours the fractured demonstrations were broken up by SPVM officers blocking multiple street corners, forcing protesters into smaller groups, where they were then kettled and arrested.

Some protesters were released, though those who were not were identified and brought into busses to be taken to an undisclosed location.

Because of the immediate kettling, there was significantly less damage sustained than last year, when multiple store and car windows were smashed throughout the downtown core.

During one larger kettle, one injured SPVM officer was put into an ambulance on a stretcher, which elicited some cheers from the crowd. Many protesters were injured before, or during arrest, but as of now it is unknown as to how many injuries were sustained.

Last year’s demonstration saw 226 arrests. At press time, the Montreal police have announced more than 250 arrests took place Friday—most falling under article P-6, which bans the wearing of masks and requires protest organizers to provide the route of the demonstration.

Source

New research: 3,000+ deaths linked to Indian residential schools
February 18, 2013

At least 3,000 children, including four under the age of 10 found huddled together in frozen embrace, are now known to have died during attendance at Canada’s Indian residential schools, according to new unpublished research.

While deaths have long been documented as part of the disgraced residential school system, the findings are the result of the first systematic search of government, school and other records.

“These are actual confirmed numbers,” Alex Maass, research manager with the Missing Children Project, told The Canadian Press from Vancouver.

“All of them have primary documentation that indicates that there’s been a death, when it occurred, what the circumstances were.”

The number could rise further as more documents — especially from government archives — come to light.

The largest single killer, by far, was disease.

For decades starting in about 1910, tuberculosis was a consistent killer — in part because of widespread ignorance over how diseases were spread.

“The schools were a particular breeding ground for (TB),” Maass said. “Dormitories were incubation wards.”

The Spanish flu epidemic in 1918-1919 also took a devastating toll on students — and in some cases staff. For example, in one grim three-month period, the disease killed 20 children at a residential school in Spanish, Ont., the records show.

While a statistical analysis has yet to be done, the records examined over the past few years also show children also died of malnutrition or accidents. Schools consistently burned down, killing students and staff. Drownings or exposure were another cause.

In all, about 150,000 First Nations children went through the church-run residential school system, which ran from the 1870s until the 1990s. In many cases, native kids were forced to attend under a deliberate federal policy of “civilizing” Aboriginal Peoples.

Many students were physically, mentally and sexually abused. Some committed suicide. Some died fleeing their schools.

One heart-breaking incident that drew rare media attention at the time involved the deaths of four boys — two aged 8 and two aged 9 — in early January 1937.

A Canadian Press report from Vanderhoof, B.C., describes how the four bodies were found frozen together in slush ice on Fraser Lake, barely a kilometre from home.

The “capless and lightly clad” boys had left an Indian school on the south end of the lake “apparently intent on trekking home to the Nautley Reserve,” the article states.

A coroner’s inquest later recommended “excessive corporal discipline” of students be “limited.”

The records reveal the number of deaths only fell off dramatically after the 1950s, although some fatalities occurred into the 1970s.

“The question I ask myself is: Would I send my child to a private school where there were even a couple of deaths the previous year without looking at it a little bit more closely?” Maass said.

“One wouldn’t expect any death rates in private residential schools.”

In fact, Maass said, student deaths were so much part of the system, architectural plans for many schools included cemeteries that were laid out in advance of the building.

Maass, who has a background in archeology, said researchers had identified 50 burial sites as part of the project.

About 500 of the victims remain nameless. Documentation of their deaths was contained in Department of Indian Affairs year-end reports based on information from school principals.

The annual death reports were consistently done until 1917, when they abruptly stopped.

“It was obviously a policy not to report them,” Maass said.

In the 1990s, thousands of victims sued the churches that ran the 140 schools and the Canadian government. A $1.9-billion settlement of the lawsuit in 2007 prompted an apology from Prime Minister Stephen Harper, and the creation of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

The research — carried out under the auspices of the commission — has involved combing through more than one million government and other records, including nuns’ journal entries.

The longer-term goal is to make the information available at national research centre.

Source

These estimates are extremely low. These attempts to Christianize & “civilize” this group of children irreversibly scarred thousands of people in Canada, stripping them of their language, traditions & heritage. 

Sadly, Canada isn’t the only country that had these kinds of schools; so did the US. I’d recommend reading “Ojibwa Warrior” by Dennis Banks for more on the boarding schools Indian children were sent to in order to become “civilized.”

Chief Theresa Spence to end hunger strike Thursday
January 23, 2013

Attawapiskat Chief Theresa Spence will end her six-week-long hunger strike on Thursday morning, CBC News has learned.

The Assembly of First Nations, the NDP caucus, and the Liberal caucus have all signed a declaration from Spence. Interim Liberal Leader Bob Rae, who was in Sarnia Wednesday, will also signing the 13-point declaration.

Michèle Audette, president of the Canadian native women’s association, said there will be a press conference tomorrow morning.

Spence, who has been subsisting on fish broth and medicinal tea since Dec. 11, has been examining ways to return to her home and nurse herself back to health, multiple sources told The Canadian Press.

The northern Ontario First Nations community chief has been engaged in her protest for six weeks, camped on an island in the Ottawa River not far from Parliament Hill, in an effort to convince the country’s top leaders to take First Nations concerns seriously.

Rae brings with him a reputation as a firm but approachable and respectful mediator in tricky situations such as the Burnt Church aboriginal fishing dispute in 2000. Fiddler is from the same region as Spence and is known as a practical, sharp thinker. A delegation that includes Rae and Alvin Fiddler, northern Ontario deputy grand chief at Nishnawbe Aski Nation, has been working closely with Spence to hash out a dignified solution.

As well, a delegation from Attawapiskat is about to head to Ottawa to ask their chief to end her hunger strike. Attawapiskat’s acting chief, Christine Okimaw-Kataquapit, and an elder are leaving for Ottawa on Wednesday afternoon and plan to meet with Spence in the morning.

Kataquapit told CBC Radio she will present a letter signed by all band councillors in Attawapiskat.

The letter states that community members feel she has made her point and it’s time to come home. The letter also expresses concern for Spence’s health.

Declaration calls for many actions

Rae and Fiddler, along with Spence and a couple of her closest confidantes, have been working the phone lines to craft a declaration of the chief’s concerns that would be signed by supporters. They also hope to design a ceremony to mark what her protest has accomplished, and define a process that will allow Spence a recovery.

A draft copy of the declaration, obtained by CBC News, states that Spence and Robinson would continue their hunger strike unless they could be assured that commitments made by Prime Minister Stephen Harper on Jan. 11, in the meeting with national AFN Chief Shawn Atleo and other First Nations chiefs, are followed though and implemented as quickly as possible.

Earlier, Michelle Audet, President of the Quebec Native Women’s Association, told CBC that Spence wanted the NDP and the Liberal party to sign the declaration, as well as chiefs, and national native organizations

The declaration also asks for:

• An immediate meeting between the Crown, the federal and provincial governments, and all First Nations to discuss treaty and non-treaty-related relationships.
• Clear work plans and timelines, and a demand that the housing crisis within First Nations communities be considered as a short-term immediate action.
• Frameworks and mandates for implementation and enforcement of treaties on a nation-to-nation basis.
• Reforming and modifying a land-claims policy
• A commitment towards resource revenue sharing, requiring the participation of provinces and territories.
• A review of Bill C-38 and C-45 to ensure consistency with constitutional requirements about consultation with aboriginal peoples.
• Ensure that all federal legislation has the consent of First Nations where inherent and Treaty rights are affected
• The removal of funding caps and the indexing of payments made to First Nations.
• An inquiry into violence against indigenous women.
• Equity in capital construction of First Nation schools and additional funding support for First Nation languages.
• A dedicated cabinet committee and secretariat within the Privy Council Office responsible for the First Nation-Crown relationship.
• Full implementation of the United Nations declaration of the rights of indigenous peoples.

Push for another meeting with Harper, GG

Thursday is the the day Spence and the Assembly of First Nations had asked Harper and Gov. Gen. David Johnston to hold a broad meeting with the country’s chiefs, partly to commemorate the first anniversary of last year’s Crown-First Nation gathering, which was supposed to have reset relations between the two sides.

Harper and Johnston have not agreed to that meeting, but several chiefs are expected to come to Ottawa day anyway, Ontario Grand Chief Stan Beardy said earlier this week.

Speaking Wednesday from Cambridge, Ont., where he made an auto-industry announcement, Harper said that a date for a meeting has not been set. He stressed the need for aboriginal people to be able to participate in the economy.

“Those opportunities exist with resource development in remote areas with the shortage of labour the Canadian economy’s going to be experiencing and I want to see aboriginal people, particularly young aboriginal people, take full advantage of those opportunities,” Harper said.

Opposition Leader Thomas Mulcair, speaking from Baie-Saint-Paul, Quebec, said Wednesday that he plans to work with the AFN and Atleo.

“We continue to hope that as discussions move on we can see rather rapidly an end to the hunger strikes because we’re worried about people’s health,” he said.

Mulcair has not visited with Spence since she began her hunger strike, but he noted that about 20 NDP MPs had met personally with her.

There’s a growing list of politicians and First Nations leaders anxious to see Spence end her protest. They have been careful, however, to leave the final decision up to her.

Instead, they are telling Spence how they count her victories: Greater national awareness of First Nations issues; a meeting between the AFN, Harper and several cabinet ministers; and a commitment to modernize treaties and aboriginal rights, with negotiations between chiefs and the top levels of government.

They also say Spence’s resolve helped galvanize thousands of protesters across the country under the Idle No More banner.

Spence protest put spotlight on band’s finances

Spence’s protest attracted unwanted attention, too: Much publicity surrounded a government-ordered audit of her band’s finances that showed a lack of proper documentation for about $100 million in funding.

Rae, the Assembly of First Nations, Spence’s spokesman and Fiddler would not comment Tuesday when contacted by The Canadian Press.

Women chiefs have been instrumental in keeping Spence’s spirits up, say insiders.

Indeed, a group of Manitoba women chiefs has just wrapped up a visit to Spence, and has issued a call for female chiefs to come to Ottawa on Thursday to support the Cree leader.

“We share Chief Spence’s deep concern for the future of our nations and echo Chief Spence’s call for restoring our relationship with the Crown to reflect the original spirit and intent of the treaties,” said a statement from Chief Betsy Kennedy of War Lake First Nation.

Atleo due to return to duties

While Spence’s protest may be forging a bond among First Nations women leaders, her refusal to budge over the past few weeks has divided the Assembly of First Nations and prompted questions about the leadership of Atleo.

Atleo attended the meeting with Harper on Jan. 11 even though the Governor General was not included in the meeting, as Spence had demanded. She boycotted the meeting, as did many chiefs from Manitoba, Ontario and other parts of the country.

Atleo has been on sick leave ever since, but issued a statement on Monday saying he would be back at work with a united AFN later this week.

Source

Northern Ontario chromite mining has first nation worried for water safety
January 2, 2013

Water has consumed the daily routine of Chief Eli Moonias, and it’s making him visibly agitated.

His small, fly-in reserve in Northern Ontario has had a boil-water advisory for seven long years, and there is no end in sight.

Now he feels the long-term quality of the water that surrounds his reserve may well be at risk, too.

Mining companies have flooded into the James Bay lowlands, into the area now dubbed the Ring of Fire. They’ve found an enormous expanse of chromite, enough nickel for a mine and other metals that may hold potential in future years.

The mining holds the promise of thousands of jobs over the next decade, if not longer – as long as the proposals can pass environmental muster and garner the support of the region’s first nations. But chromite also poses significant challenges to the environment that can be difficult to manage.

“We know we’re going to get some benefits once they start development. We know that in some ways, we’ll be involved as well. The issue is the environment,” says Mr. Moonias.

He looks at development in the oil sands and hears about the inedible fish and the poisoned Athabaska River. He vows never to let anything like that happen to the Albany and Ogoki rivers that flow through the muskeg and meet at Marten Falls.

“It’s not only fish, it’s the animal kingdom. It’s not only us, it’s everybody. It’s the planet. You can’t jump [with] a careless plunge into development. You have to know what you’re doing to your future.”

It’s no surprise that water is constantly on his mind. It’s also on the mind of the first nations protesters who have taken to the streets in cities across Canada and blocked roads over the last few days in the Idle No More effort.

“The protection of water is a sacred obligation to indigenous people. Without clean water, life will cease to exist. Our obligation to protect water is an overall respect for life itself,” said Chief Isadore Day of the Serpent River First Nation, near Elliot Lake, in an e-mail as he wrapped up a weekend protest that briefly shut down the Trans-Canada Highway.

Protection of water is a large part of what has driven his people into the streets, Mr. Day said. Ottawa’s latest omnibus bill changes the Navigable Waters Act to remove federal oversight from all but a few of Canada’s lakes and rivers – without consulting the people whose health and livelihoods depend on them.

“This is why our people are opposed to the omnibus bill; it blatantly disregards water,” Mr. Day said.

Every indigenous community in the world has protocols that impose a responsibility to protect water, he added.

In remote Marten Falls, it’s the concern about what will happen to the water that stands between Mr. Moonias and full-out support for mining activity.

“We don’t want to shoot ourselves in the foot,” he says.

Chromite mining is new to Canada. Proposals by Cliffs Natural Resources would see open-pit mining as well as underground operations over the next 30 to 40 years. Environmentalists fear contamination of the nearby waterways as well as toxic residues and disruption of wildlife, including endangered species, but Cliffs says it can keep a tight lid on any damage.

And then there’s the need for a transportation corridor to ship the ore off to the Sudbury area for processing. Environmentalists are worried a proposed 350-kilometre road through the pristine boreal forest and over several major waterways will bring pollution and wildlife disruption.

Both the mines and the corridor need to pass provincial and federal environmental assessments in order to get the green light. Several first nations are fighting the process in court, asking for public hearings and a regional examination of the cumulative effects of current and future projects.

But ironically, a road of some sort may help with Marten Falls’ short-term drinking-water concerns. The band wants the road to be rerouted so that it would actually go through the community, connecting it to the outer world by land year round for the first time. Marten Falls also wants to be involved as a partner in the financing and building of such a road.

The result would be ready access to the community, bringing in cheaper supplies and professional help that Marten Falls requires frequently to keep its water system in good shape.

Mr. Moonias is convinced it’s the high cost of flying in bottled drinking water that is prompting the federal government to suggest a quick but insufficient fix to the local water system. The filter in the existing system has a hole in it and mounting pressure could push the tank to blow – a danger to the people who work there.

“Here’s our problem. The band has been allowed water from town since 2005. Now they want to come in here and install reverse osmosis so they don’t have to buy the water. They want to do it the cheaper way,” Mr. Moonias said.

“Why try to cover a festering wound with an adhesive?”

The plant was built in 1986 and upgraded in 1997, but local officials say it was done on the cheap. The filter has never done an adequate job, and water quality results have been hit and miss. That led Health Canada to slap on the boil-water advisory in 2005.

The federal government’s response is to pay for a study of the issue and look to the recommendations about whether to build a new water plant or simply try to repair the existing system.

In the interim, Ottawa is suggesting a temporary reverse-osmosis system that would provide drinkable water but would require residents to walk down to the plant and carry it home in buckets. Mr. Moonias has said no to that idea, just as his community vows to say no to any mining activity that does not protect the waterways.

It’s a message that resonates throughout his small community.

“I’m scared they’ll ruin the environment, the river,” said Janet Coaster, a hall monitor at the local elementary school. “The animals will be poisoned and we won’t be able to eat them.”

Source

We are all children of the earth.

Idle No More.

Victoria, BC

Manitoba elder to join Spence in Ottawa as hunger strike continues
January 1, 2013

Chief Garrison Setee of Manitoba’s Cross Lake First Nation says an elder from the band is going to Ottawa to continue his hunger strike in solidarity with Chief Theresa Spence.

Setee says he’s accompanying Raymond Robinson, who began his hunger strike 10 hours after Spence launched hers nearly three weeks ago.

The 51-year old is calling on Prime Minister Harper to withdraw the recent omnibus legislation, Bill C-45.

Robinson says he’ll continue his hunger strike until the prime minister and governor general meet with him and Spence.

Setee says it’s a sad day in Canada’s history when First Nations people are ready to sacrifice their lives to get the government to work with First Nations leadership to recognize, respect and honour their treaty rights.

A visibly weak Spence made a brief appearance on Sunday as a parade of politicians and protesters turned up the volume to demand action from the Harper government.

She acknowledged the support of the growing Idle No More movement, which has held demonstrations in cities across Canada in recent weeks.

Her teepee is situated on an island in the frozen Ottawa River looking up at Parliament Hill.

Source

It must be noted that Idle No More has spread across the United States and has received messages of support  from activists in Palestine as well!

Palestinians in solidarity with Idle No More & indigenous rights

Indigenous people have risen up across Canada in the Idle No More movement, a mass call for Indigenous sovereignty, self-determination and rights, against colonization, racism, injustice, and oppression. As Palestinians, who struggle against settler colonialism, occupation and apartheid in our homeland and for the right of Palestinian refugees – the majority of our people – to return to our homeland, we stand in solidarity with the Idle No More movement of Indigenous peoples and its call for justice, dignity, decolonization and protection of the land, waters and resources.

We recognize the deep connections and similarities between the experiences of our peoples – settler colonialism, destruction and exploitation of our land and resources, denial of our identity and rights, genocide and attempted genocide. As Palestinians, we stood with the national liberation movement against settler colonialism in South Africa, as we stand with all liberation movements challenging colonialism and imperialism around the world. The struggle of Indigenous and Native peoples in Canada, the United States, have long been known to the Palestinian people, reflecting our common history as peoples and nations subject to ethnic cleansing at the hands of the very same forces of European colonization.

The Indigenous resistance across Canada includes struggles against the ongoing theft of indigenous lands, massive resource extraction and environmental devastation (including tar sands and pipelines), the continuing movement of survivors of the genocidal residential school system, and movements to demand an end to the colonial and gendered violence against Indigenous women.

The Canadian government, reflecting its own settler colonial nature, was one of the earliest and strongest supporters of the establishment of Israel as a settler colony on Palestinian land and has since that time been a steadfast backer of Israeli wars, occupation, colonization, and oppression against our people. Canada has done so alongside the United States, which shares the same settler colonial nature, legacy of genocide, and massive support for Israeli occupation, colonization and apartheid.

Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s government has pronounced itself “Israel’s best friend,” supporting its assaults on Lebanon and Gaza and consistently attacking Palestinian rights both on the international stage and within Canadian borders. At the same time, it has embarked on a program of refugee and migrant exclusion, cuts to refugee health care, attacks on workers’ rights, support for massive resource extraction and environmental devastation – and attacks on Indigenous rights and sovereignty on treaty and unceded land. Harper and his government’s expansive praise for Israeli settler colonialism and apartheid is simply the other side of the same coin that attacks Indigenous self determination and plans massive resource extraction on Indigenous land.

We salute the Idle No More movement and the unity of indigenous people around its calls for justice, as well as the courageous hunger strike of Chief Theresa Spence. We note that this movement belongs to all Indigenous people and was launched by youth and women. Our struggle as Palestinians is the same – rooted in all of our people and finding its greatest strength in youth and women’s leadership.

Now is the time – from Canada/Turtle Island to Palestine, we must all be “Idle No More” , and take a stand: against colonialism, against occupation, and for self-determination, sovereignty, rights and justice for Indigenous peoples.

Source

Click on the link above to see the organizations, including various BDS campaigns, & individuals, including Leila Khaled, who have signed on to this statement supporting the Idle No More movement.

Idle No More sweeps Canada & beyond as aboriginals say enough is enough
December 23, 2012

The second wave of Idle No More protests swept across Canada on Friday December 21, with support events held across the U.S. and as far away as Europe and New Zealand, less than two weeks after the movement burst onto the political scene on December 10.

Indigenous activists used social media websites to organize round dances, highway blockades, protests and ceremonies from east to west of the country, as Attawapiskat First Nation Chief Theresa Spence entered her 10th day of a hunger strike that she has vowed to see through to the end.

Thousands of people turned out for social media-organized flash mobs—seemingly spontaneous assemblies in malls and other public places—in B.C., Alberta, Saskatchewan, Ontario and beyond, and rallies criticized not only the federal omnibus budget bill C-45, which passed into law this week, but also the wider living and rights conditions that aboriginal peoples are subject to.

Ryerson University Indigenous Governance professor Pamela Palmater, Mik’maq, attended the 4,000-person rally on Parliament Hill, the largest of the Idle No More events.

“Being in Ottawa at the rally, amongst thousands of our brothers and sisters from indigenous nations all over Canada, dancing, singing and drumming was a spirit-filling moment for me,” she told Indian Country Today Media Network. “You could feel the pride in our peoples standing shoulder to shoulder to protect our future generations. The energy was palpable and you could feel that our ancestors walked with us. The wind blowing through our Nations’ many flags was symbolic of our collective strength. Despite the cold, snow and wind, the spirit that has been relit in our peoples has enough heat to keep us in this grassroots movement for the long haul.”

The mood was equally ebullient in Vancouver.

“Today my heart is full, because the shift is happening,” said Nuxalk and Six Nations artist Jerilynn Snuxyaltwa Webster, who raps under the name JB the First Lady. “Our people—our beautiful, indigenous people—are rising. I’m sick of colonization telling us that we are criminals, telling us that we’re no good, telling us that we don’t deserve what is ours. Stephen Harper: We’re coming together. It’s not just a flash mob. If our lady, Theresa Spence, passes away, we’re showing the entire country what kind of power we have.”

Webster added that the Idle No More phenomenon is not merely aimed at a particular piece of legislation or even just the government.

“This movement, this uprising, is not for the Canadian government to talk with us,” she told a crowd gathered in Vancouver, B.C. “It’s for us to come together to build unity, no matter what color the skin is, what your blood quantum is, what nation you come from, if you’re treaty or non-treaty, status or non-status, Métis or Inuit. Those are the boxes they put us in—they try to divide and conquer us, but they haven’t. We overcame acts of genocide; we are still here.”

Winnipeg, Manitoba, broadcaster and Anishnaabe musician Wab Kinew told Indian Country Today Media Network that Idle No More has grown from a reaction to Bill C-45, to a broader movement.

“Idle No More is definitely about indigenous rights, culture and sovereignty,” he said. “But the ideals that underlie it are ones that matter to all Canadians—they’re about rights, freedom, the environment, preserving a positive environment for our children.”

And while C-45—a sprawling piece of legislation that reduces the number of referendum votes needed to give up reserve lands for development, and that critics say guts waterways protection—may have sparked the protests, it has unmasked a much deeper dissatisfaction.

“There are so many tensions and issues in the aboriginal community, the indigenous community,” Kinew said. “Missing and murdered women, poor health outcomes, poor education, poverty, social issues, racism, and on and on and on. Bill C-45 was the match, but it landed on a tinderbox or powder keg. Now you’re seeing all these other issues come to the surface.”

The National Chief of the Assembly of First Nations welcomed the growing movement.

“The Idle No More effort is growing like wildfire across the country,” National Chief Shawn A-in-chut Atleo told ICTMN. “It’s really a grassroots effort. It’s First Nations and Canadians standing up, stepping forward, and saying that what’s happening in this country—overstepping aboriginal title and rights, treaty rights, basic human rights, and the right to life and dignity, this pattern of mistreatment of First Nations—has to end.”

Mohawk political analyst Russell Diabo said that Idle No More has indeed tapped into a wellspring of discontent.

“Instinctively, they know what’s wrong with what the Harper government’s doing—pushing this suite of legislation—and they’re reacting to it,” he told ICTMN. He added that he hoped aboriginals would use this momentum to educate themselves in depth about the issues they were protesting.

“There are certainly many more bills than C-45 that are amending the Indian Act and going to have an impact on aboriginal treaty rights for First Nations across Canada,” he said. “They need to be more articulate about how it really impacts them.”

Diabo, a policy advisor for several First Nations as well as editor and publisher of the newsletter First Nations Strategic Bulletin, warned that pending Indian Act amendments could lead to the “termination” of aboriginal title and rights by getting aboriginals to sign those rights away in negotiations with government. Rights would be further eroded by the introduction of individual, fee-simple land ownership on reservations.

“They’re still using the Indian Act as the main statute to control and manage Indians with these new amendments, but also they have policy initiatives,” Diabo explained. “Basically their policies are one-sided polices that the federal government has drafted to interpret Section 35 of Canada’s constitution about what’s on the table and what’s not on the table. They want to extinguish aboriginal title through these modern treaties.”

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The Red Square goes international: More than 5,000 people marched in Montreal rallying for free education during the international student strike this week. More than 65,000 students are on strike. 

The People’s Record Daily News Update - Whose news? Our news!

November 1, 2012 

Here are some stories you may not otherwise hear about today: 

• Pakistani political figure Imran Khan was stopped in an airport this week by immigration and was interrogated about his criticism of the U.S. led drone strike campaign in Pakistan. 

• Doctors are striking & held a march today in Cairo, Egypt in order to demand better health care. The April 6 Movement is among the many organizations who have expressed solidarity with the striking health care professionals. 

• The Mayor and other officials in the city of Somerville, Massachusetts have officially agreed to stop referring to human beings as “illegal” and instead will begin using the correct term, ‘undocumented’ after a group of young activists came before the Board of Alderman and told their stories. 

• A woman in Chapel Hill, North Carolina has filed a formal complaint after a police officer held her to the ground and senselessly beat her face. She now has a broken nose and a black eye but was charged with “resisting arrest” for not being docile enough while the police officer repeatedly punched her. 

• A new law that passed yesterday (Halloween) in Canada dictates that anyone wearing a mask during a protest could face up to 10 years in prison. 

• Both the Obama and Romney campaigns have been found to have leaked identifying data about users & campaign supporters to tracking firms. 

Follow us on Tumblr or by RSS feed for more daily updates. 

Canadian tar sands declared illegal by Alberta residents
October 26, 2012

Fort Chipewyan is a small indigenous community on the edge of vast Lake Athabasca in Alberta’s remote north, accessible only by plane in summer and by snow road in winter. The town is directly downstream from the Alberta tar sands—Canada’s wildly lucrative, hotly debated, and environmentally catastrophic energy project.

Residents say that tar sands mining is not only dangerous but illegal because it violates the rights laid out in Treaty 8, an agreement signed in 1899 by Queen Victoria and various First Nations. Their legal challenge to the tar sands project could have a powerful impact on the legal role of treaties with First Nations people.

It should come as no surprise that Fort Chip’s relationship to the tar sands industry is a contentious one. Being first in line downstream means that residents are the first to feel the effects of pollution:poisoned water, air and animals. The deformed fish with bulbous tumors that residents pull from Lake Athabasca are legendary, as are the stories of Fort Chip’s abnormally frequent cases of rare forms of cancer.

The Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation (ACFN), many of whose members live in Fort Chip, responded on October 1 with a landmark constitutional challenge to Shell Canada’s expansion of its Jackpine tar sands mine. The challenge states that the expansion would be a further assault on their rights as First Nations people, which are federally protected under Treaty 8.

The Jackpine expansion, which will be reviewed at the end of the month, would destroy over fifty square miles of land and begin mining portions of the Muskeg River in Canada’s most important watershed. AFCN members point out that both the federal government and Shell have ignored their legal duty to consult with them. This time, they’re going to fight back.

“As long as the sun shines”

As indigenous people, the relationship with the land sustains the Chipewyan: the plants and medicines they gather, the moose and fish that form the basis of the traditional diet, the water from the lake, and the deep spiritual connection with this particular place. Land is the basis for culture and identity; when the land is destroyed, so are the people.

When the threats to health and traditional ways of life associated with tar sands mining are lamented, what’s often missing is the recognition that the mining is also in violation of Treaty 8. The Treaty, which covers an area twice the size of California within northern Alberta and neighboring provinces, guarantees basic rights such as health care and education, as well as the right to pursue traditional ways of living, including trapping, hunting, and harvesting.

If the government does decide to reduce the amount of land used for these activities, it has a duty to consult with and accommodate the affected First Nations. According to the treaty itself, this agreement will remain valid “as long as the sun shines, the grass grows, and the rivers flow.” So, forever—in theory.

Treaty 8—along with the ten other treaties that were signed a hundred years ago and supposedly guarantee the continuation of native ways of life—isn’t supposed to have an expiration date. But the treaty’s language begs the question: what happens when the sun no longer shines because it’s obscured by smog? When the grass has been turned into an open pit mine, and when the rivers no longer flow because that water is siphoned off for bitumen processing?

If the original signatories had known that this remote outpost would be turned into a smoke-belchingMordor, it would probably have raised some eyebrows. On both sides.

Wide repercussions for native land rights

Chelsea Flook of the Sierra Club, which works closely with AFCN, is hopeful about the case. No constitutional challenge based on Treaty 8 rights has ever been fully argued before a judge, she says. It’s a test case that, if successful, could set a precedent for stricter enforcement of treaty rights and change the way industrial development is regulated. More importantly, though, it would embolden indigenous groups all over the Canada to fight abuses by both industry and government.

For those of us in the United States, the gains and losses of a tiny native community, closer to the Arctic circle than most of us will ever get, may seem remote. But what’s at stake here isn’t just a few hundred people’s ability to hunt moose and conduct ceremonies in a particular spot. Both the U.S. and Canada share a history of colonizing what is essentially stolen land; our societies were built on a common system of disenfranchisement.

Honoring the treaties means honoring the most basic of agreements: the protection of a way of life—and, by extension, life itself. In the years since that day in 1899 when Treaty 8 was signed, every attempt to erase or assimilate indigenous people has been made, regardless of any commitment on paper. Native language and culture have been criminalized, children have been relocated to residential schools, and genocide has been a government policy. Industrial destruction of land is one final assault.

It’s a brutal and violent history, one that’s not taught in school. Coming to terms with our own past—as Canadians, as Americans, as colonizers—is unpleasant. It means seeing ourselves, here and now, in an unflattering light. Honoring agreements such as Treaty 8 means acknowledging all the ways these documents have been violated.

With this constitutional challenge, AFCN is forcing the Canadian government to look in the mirror. It’s a small step with huge implications, and a starting point for redressing more than a century of broken promises.

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The Quebec student protest movement & the power of radical imagination
August 23, 2012

It is precisely against the background of growing uncertainty, despair, diminishing expectations, state violence and the crushing policies of neoliberal austerity that young people in Quebec have organized a protest movement that may be one of the most “powerful challenges to neoliberalism on the continent.”(24) Thousands of students have raised their voices in unprecedented opposition to the ideology, modes of governance and policies of the neoliberal state. The initial cause of the protest movement began in response to an increase in tuition fees announced by the Quebec provincial government in March 2011. The tuition hike was “part of the government’s effort to advance neoliberalism in Quebec by introducing new fees for public services and raising existing ones.”(25) The government’s proposal included raising tuition by $325 per year over five years with the increased fees going into effect in September 2012. The hike amounted to a 75 percent increase over five years, rising from $2,319 to $3,793 by 2017.

In February 2012, after the government refused to negotiate with organizations representing student interests, the student leaders called for a strike. Tens of thousands of students responded immediately by boycotting their classes. Many of the province’s colleges and universities were shut down as a result.

Mainstream media consistently sided with the Quebec government, downplaying the significance of the tuition increases - even as they pertained to those students who could least afford them and for whom it would have the greatest impact. Critics of the strike repeatedly drew the public’s attention to the fact that, even with the increase, tuition fees in Quebec would be among the lowest in Canada: “Average undergraduate tuition in Canada for 2011-12 is $5,366, but ranges widely from province to province. Quebec has the lowest fees, followed closely by Newfoundland and Labrador. Ontario has the highest average tuition, at $6,640 a year.”(26)However, it soon became apparent that the students viewed the tuition increase as only one symptom of an ailing and unjust social order about which they could no longer be silent.

The students preferred to speak for themselves rather than have others speak abstractly for them and about them, especially when it came to the material conditions of their own educations, their own futures. It is telling and will remain telling, that government officials and newspaper pundits responded with anxious indignation, as if wholly caught off guard by the simple fact that the students can speak - and speak intelligently, passionately and urgently about the most pressing issues facing themselves and their society. In a reversal of roles familiar to anyone who actually works in a classroom, the student also teaches the teacher. The first lesson to be learned from striking students was that the protests were about much more than fee structures. Yet, the government seemed unwilling to learn and its high-handedness touched a nerve in the larger social body of Quebec, activating new forms of dissent and solidarity.

What soon developed was a student strike of unprecedented proportions, involving more than 200,000 students and rallying many additional supporters for a mass demonstration on March 22, 2012. Moreover, as the strike progressed and expanded its base of support, over a quarter of a million joined the demonstrations on a number of occasions, and an estimated half-million people marched in Montreal on May 25, 2012. By July 2012, the Quebec student strike had emerged as not only “the longest and largest student strike in the history of North America,” but also “the biggest act of civil disobedience in Canadian history.”(27) 

The strike, which began as a protest against the provincial government’s plan to increase tuition fees, has developed into a popular uprising with tens of thousands post-secondary students and their supporters marching nightly in the streets of Quebec cities and in solidarity demonstrations across Canada.(28) Now a major broad-based opposition movement against neoliberal austerity measures, the Quebec student strike initiated one of the most powerful, collectively organized challenges to neoliberal ideology, policy and governance that has occurred globally in some time.

The initial phase of the movement focused almost exclusively on higher educational reform. The issues addressed in the early stage of the protests included a rejection of the province’s call for a tuition increase, a sustained critique of the underfunding of post-secondary education, a critical interrogation of the perils facing a generation forced to live on credit and tied to the servitude of debt and the opening up of a new conversation about the meaning and purpose of education - in particular, the kind of educational system that is free and removed from corporate influences and whose mission is defined around issues of justice, equality and support for the broader public good.

Students rejected the tuition hike by arguing that the increase would not only force many working-class students to drop out, but also prevent economically disadvantaged students from gaining access to higher education altogether. Expanding this critique, many students spoke of the tuition increase as symbolic of repressive neoliberal austerity measures that forced them to pay more for their education, while offering them a future of dismal job prospects when they graduated. Situating the protest against tuition hikes within a broader critique of neoliberal austerity measures, students were then able to address the fee hikes as part of the growing burden of suffocating debt, government funding priorities that favor the financial and corporate elite, the ruinous transfer of public funds into the reserves of the military-industrial complex and the imposition of corporate culture and corporate modes of governance on all aspects of daily life.

By stressing debt as an issue rather than focusing exclusively on tuition, students were able to highlight the darker registers of finance capital that increasingly closes off any possibility of a better life for themselves and everyone else in the future. Andrew Gavin Marshall has provided a theoretical service in highlighting the broader effects and politics of the debt crisis. He wrote:

Total student debt now stands at about $20 billion in Canada ($15 billion from Federal Government loans programs and the rest from provincial and commercial bank loans). In Quebec, the average student debt is $15,000, whereas Nova Scotia and Newfoundland have an average student debt of $35,000, British Columbia at nearly $30,000 and Ontario at nearly $27,000. Roughly 70% of new jobs in Canada require a post-secondary education. Half of students in their 20s live at home with their parents, including 73 per cent of those aged 20 to 24 and nearly a third of 25- to 29-year-olds. On average, a four-year degree for a student living at home in Canada costs $55,000 and those costs are expected to increase in coming years at a rate faster than inflation. It has been estimated that in 18 years, a four-year degree for Canadian students will cost $102,000. Defaults on government student loans are at roughly 14%. The Chairman of the Canadian Federation of Students warned in June of 2011 that, “We are on the verge of bankrupting a generation before they even enter the workplace.” The notion, therefore, that Quebec students should not struggle against a bankrupt future is a bankrupted argument.[29]

Connecting student opposition to the tuition hike with the broader issue of debt and the fact that “the average debt for [Canadian] university graduates is around $27,000” helped shift the focus of the strike - viewed by some critics as a narcissistic, collective temper tantrum by whiny students - to a much more public and broader set of considerations. In this instance, what was being implicated by the students calling for higher educational reforms, as Randy Boyagoda pointed out, was “a profound crisis of faith in the socioeconomic frameworks that have structured and advanced societies across North America and Europe since World War II [as well as] a rejection of the premise of the postwar liberal state: that large-scale institutions and elected leaders are capable of creating opportunities for individual citizens to flourish.”(30)

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As the spirit of resistance continues to grow in Quebec, I really hope that same defiance spills over to the United States. Especially considering how inflated tuition is & that student debt has surpassed $1 trillion, we really need to take a cue from those fighting austerity measures in Canada.