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| Marlon Santi, Ecuador, President CONAI, speaker at the Rights of Mother Earth Gathering at Haskell, Kansas Photo Stephen Leahy |
By Brenda Norrell
Children of the jaguar
Marlon Santi, President of the Confederation of IndigenousNationalities of Ecuador (CONAIE,) described the difficult struggle to forceoil companies out of his homeland in Ecuador.
“This struggle is not easy, it is difficult. We have had tosuffer personally,” Marlon said, adding that now voices have joinedtogether from the north and south.
“We do not want this generation to be enslaved again,” Santisaid, pointing out that an Indigenous Nation without land can not exist. IndigenousPeoples that lose their language, lose their history. He said his peoples’architecture and science have been described as “ruins” by scientists, andstill his people have overcome these oppressors.
“If we remain silent, we will be obliterated,” Santi said,pointing out that the unity of Indigenous Peoples will overcome the lies,hypocrisy and violations of the rights of the people and Mother Earth.
Santi said Indigenous Peoples in Ecuador have joined marches from theAmazon, and as far away as the UN climate conference in Copenhagen, against miningon Indigenous lands. They have marched against the current “green” scam ofREDD, (Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation.)
Oil industry trucks responsible for children deaths in NorthDakota
Native Americans at the Haskell gathering, struggling to protect their people, and theland, air and water from destruction in the United States, included KandiMossett, Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara from North Dakota.
Mossett said semi-trucks of the oil and gas industry haveresulted in the deaths of seven children and youths in the past the threeyears, including two children who were three and five years old. Still, electedtribal politicians and the Interior Department are pushing for more drilling ontribal lands, and less regulation of fracking. The land, air and water arealready devastated, poisoned with widespread pollution and degradation at FortBerthold, known as the Three Affiliated Tribes.
North Dakota is among the windiest states, still the oil and gas industrycontinues to be the focus. “It is all about oil. People are dying where I comefrom, literally being killed by semi-trucks,” said Mossett, staff member of theIndigenous Environmental Network.
By recognizing rights of nature in its constitution, Ecuadorand a growing number of communities in the United States are basing their environmentalprotection systems on the premise that nature has inalienable rights, just ashumans do. This premise is a radical but natural departure from the assumptionthat nature is property under the law, conference organizers said.
Native Voices: The power of place, spirit and memory
Anishinaabe Renee Gurneaushared how a dream led her to better understand the Creation Story and the realityof being part of the Earth and feeling its pain. Gurneau is the formerpresident of Red Lake Nation College in Red Lake, Minn.
Gurneau described how today is the time of the Seventh Fire,urging the people to rely on the strength from millenniums of ancestors carriedin their DNA.
Haskell professor Dr. Daniel Wildcat encouraged a newdialogue, based on spirit, power and place, and a renewal of the ancestral waysof life.
Rueben George, Sundance Chief and Member of theTsleil-Waututh First Nation in northern Vancouver, BC, is the grandson of ChiefDan George. George began with thanks to the stewards of this land andcaretakers of this land.
Rueben said his grandfather shared with him how to be a human being. Hisgrandfather said, “We are the last of the human beings to follow this way oflife.”
Mona Polacca, Havasupai/Hopi, spoke about the foundation oflife. From the first water inside the mother’s womb, to the prayer upon whichlife depends, Polacca spoke of the spirituality of life.
Dine’ Robert Yazzie of the Dine’ Policy Institute, former Navajo Supreme Courtjudge, shares a Declaration of the Dine’ elders, the Roots of Dine’ Law. Yazzieshares the power of prayer, and the power of names and language, at the Rightsof Mother Earth Gathering in the Dine’ and English languages.
“There are still Holy People around. We still see the Holy People speakingto us through water, and through fire,” Yazzie said. Yazzie urges thoselistening to concentrate on the language and use your own indigenous thinking.The Declaration is in Title 1 of Navajo Nation Code adopted on Nov 8, 2002.
The Roots of Dine’ Law describes how the Holy People sang songs and offeredprayers and the earth and universe came into being, along with water, sacredmountains, air and plants. Fire, light and sacred stones came into being withresilience.
“This is the foremost, fundamental law set in place for us.”
Theft of Navajo and Hopi water rights underway by Arizona Congressmen
As Indigenous Peoples met in Kansas, Navajos and Hopis protested Arizona Senators John McCain and Jon Kyl in Tuba City, Ariz., on the Navajo Nation, and their scheme to steal Navajo and Hopi water rights to the Little Colorado River.
Supai/Hopi Mona Polacca pointed out in Haskell that the senators scheme to steal Navajo and Hopi water rights was created to benefit the Salt River Project which operates the Navajo Generating Station on the Navajo Nation. It is one of the dirtiest coal fired power plants in the US and a major cause of greenhouse gases.
The senators are also seeking water for other polluting industries downstream in Phoenix and Tucson, where residents continue to live lavish lifestyles, with golf courses in the desert. The US House is now fast tracking this water theft scheme, HR 4067, sponsored by Rep. Ben Quayle.
At Haskell, conference organizers said the earliest rights of nature laws recognized the right forecosystems to exist and flourish, organizers said.
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