May Day 2010: US Army Blackhawk Helicopters Land at Wounded Knee

To the Original Peoples of the Fourth World and all International Press Services:

At high noon today US Army helicopters of the US Seventh Cavalry air division attempted to land their Blackhawk aircraft upon Lakota Sacred Burial grounds in South Dakota. The presence of military aircraft from this unit is a sad and insulting reminder of the slaughter of more than 300 American Aboriginals on December 29,1890 when soldiers of the US 7th Cavalry gunned down more than 300 Aboriginal Minneconjou Lakota refugee children, women, infants and the elderly at what is now called Wounded Knee in South Dakota Indian Country. The military then left the bodies of their victims to decay unburied in the driving snow.

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Return Bodies of Children or Face Liens, Occupations, United Church Officers Told

Video of delivery of letter (YouTube)

Toronto, Canada: Tuesday, February 9, 2010

Protesters issued a stern warning to top officials of the United Church of Canada today: repatriate the remains of children who died in their Indian Residential Schools immediately, or face church occupations, loss of revenue and even commercial liens on their income and property.

In a new tactic designed to heighten pressure on the church, the protesters, members of The Friends and Relatives of the Disappeared (FRD), entered the national headquarters of the United Church in Toronto and delivered a “Public Notice of Intent” letter to church officers that gave them seven days to begin returning the remains of children who died under their church’s care for a proper burial.

Cherokee tribes object to substation near Kituwah site

By Will Chavez, Staff Writer, Cherokee Phoenix

TAHLEQUAH, Okla. – All three federally recognized Cherokee tribes have objected to a power company’s plans to build an electricity substation close to the sacred site of Kituwah near Cherokee, N.C.

The Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians owns the 309-acre site, which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Duke Energy plans to build a substation, or tie station, to move electricity from one point to another by increasing or decreasing voltage south of the site.

The EBCI Tribal Council approved a resolution on Feb. 4 opposing those plans. The Cherokee Nation Tribal Council’s Rules Committee passed a similar resolution on Feb. 9 supporting the “preservation and protection of the ancient Kituwah mound.”

The CN resolution states: “Kituwah is the mother town of the Cherokee people and the most sacred site for all Cherokees no matter where they live, and the Cherokee Nation’s solemn responsibility and moral duty is to care for and protect the Kituwah site from further desecration and degradation by human agency in order to preserve the integrity of the most important site for the origination and continuation of Cherokee culture, heritage, history and identity.”

Click here to read the full article…

State of Emergency Declared on the Pine Ridge Reservation

From Kamora Herrington via Facebook:

A State of Emergency has been declared on the Pine Ridge Lakota “Sioux” Indian Reservation. People have died. Many more people are at risk of freezing to death. Another cold front is coming in, yet where is the national media coverage?

Does the ‘Lacreek Electric Company’ – a non-Indian utility often thought to be prejudice, care that people are suffering, since they are pulling meters every day? (which is illegal throughout the rest of the u.s. during the winter months).

What will Obama and the federal government do about this? While they dig out Haitians, indigenous people right here may freeze to death. What are we going to do about it?

Help put this message out for help. The children and families of the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation need our help now. It is urgent that all 40,000 residents of the Oglala Nation have electricity and propane.

Call For Support From Indigenous Resistance Communities of Big Mountain, Black Mesa, AZ

Immediate Call For Support From Indigenous Resistance Communities of Big Mountain, Black Mesa, AZ in their struggle for Life, Land and Dignity. January 18, 2010

Although there’s been a recent victory against the reopening of the Black Mesa Complex, the Kayenta mine is still operating and elders on the front lines fighting the continued impacts of coal mining and forced relocation efforts are still requesting support.

We are writing with a request for direct on-land support on behalf of families of traditional resistance communities of Black Mesa, AZ.. One of the Big Mountain elder matriarchs, Blanche Wilson, the mother of Mae Tso, who hosted the 2008 caravan, passed away yesterday. Please hold her and her family in your thoughts and prayers. Mae and Samuel, two of Blanche’s children, and elders themselves, are living alone at their homesite. They are in much need of support–they will need to take four days away from basic necessities and work for the traditional funeral. Additionally Mae injured her back on Christmas day and has been in pain for the last three weeks and at a limited work capacity; Samuel has been working double what he normally does. There are supporters there now until Wednesday the 20th. The funeral will be after that so, as mentioned, they really need the help at this time.