Canadian faces two years prison for lawful attempt to arrest U.S. war criminal G.W. Bush

Former US Attorney-General Ramsey Clark to Speak at the University of Calgary’s Peace Consortium in Defence of Splitting the Sky The Man Who Attempted a Citizens’ Arrest on George W. Bush

Joshua Blakeney
Media Coordinator of Globalization Studies
University of Lethbridge

“George Bush hasn’t suffered at all over the monumental suffering, death, and horror he has caused…no matter how many American soldiers have died on a given day in Iraq (averaging well over two every day), he is always seen with a big smile on his face that same or next day”

Vincent Bugliosi, The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder, 2008

Ramsey Clark will arrive in the Canadian oil-patch city of Calgary, Alberta, Canada, this coming June 6th and 7th, mounting pressure on attempted a citizen’s arrest on George W. Bush on March 17, 2009 when the former US president was addressing an audience of business people at the TELUS Convention Centre in the downtown of Calgary.2

In his March 2010 trial STS invoked the Crimes Against Humanity and War Crimes legislation, which was enacted by the Canadian parliament in 2000, to submit to the court that he was implementing the law by seeking to apprehend Bush, and was unjustly arrested by police who were in effect “aiding and abetting a credibly accused war criminal.”

Former US Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney came to Calgary to attempt to testify in the March trial but was prevented from doing so as the judge shut down the trial earlier than anticipated. Instead McKinney spoke at the University of Calgary in support of Splitting the Sky.3

It is hoped by supporters of justice that the arrival of Ramsey Clark in Calgary will help to publicize this unprecedented case in Canadian legal history, the knowledge of which the state and their media accomplices have made a concerted effort to suppress and censor from the public domain.

Ramsey Clark has a long history of being a thorn in the side of those political elites who would seek to apply the law expediently rather than unanimously. Born in Dallas, Texas, the son of prominent jurist Tom C. Clark, Ramsey Clark witnessed as a young man the Nuremberg trials following World War II. Clark would go on to graduate from the University of Chicago law school and become Attorney General of the United States under the administration of Lyndon Johnson.

Clark has worked tirelessly throughout his career as an outspoken civil rights attorney advocating for many prominent activists and political dissidents. After the 1971 Attica Prison debacle Clark replaced William Kunstler as Splitting the Sky’s legal advocate. STS’s charges were acquitted as a result of Clark’s relentless advocacy.

On April 3, 2010 Clark was elected at a meeting of over 150 lawyers, legal scholars and human rights campaigners, to be the chairperson of a new international campaign to investigate the alleged crimes against humanity committed by the Bush regime.

Global Research reported: “Ramsey Clark emphasized that it is the imperative responsibility of the American people to relentlessly pursue this investigation, and to seek prosecution and indictment inside of the United States…Ramsey Clark made the point that all the war crimes and crimes against humanity flow from the commission of the most supreme crimes which he identified as the Crimes against Peace. This was the finding at the Nuremberg trial, and it is enshrined in the Nuremberg Principles.”6

Clark’s reference to precedents set at Nuremberg, a German city, encourages those of us who would like to see Calgary’s image in the world evolve from one of Harperite cowboys and vulture-capitalists into a city where law enforcement agencies set precedents in human rights jurisprudence and international law with the support of the polity’s residents.

Perhaps such a paradigm shift would ignite a necessary atonement for the state-endorsed despoliation of the Indigenous Peoples of the region’s ancestral resources, lands and waters which has been unpardonably gifted to mainly Texas-based oil and gas conglomerates.

How Judge Manfred Delong will be influenced by Clark’s arrival in Calgary is yet to be seen. Will Judge Delong compound the Culture of Impunity afforded to credibly accused war criminals emanating from Anglo-America - which the Harper-minority government and their equivalents around the world have supported - by “setting an example” and sentencing STS to spend two-more years of his life behind bars and burdening him with a fine of up to $5000? Or will he realize the broader implications of this trial and dismiss the case before the court that STS “obstructed a police officer”?

The more citizens who mobilize in solidarity with STS the less able the state and their media accomplices will be to sweep the profound juridical questions being raised by STS, Clark and others, under the carpet.

The proceedings are as follows:

Ramsey Clark arrives in Calgary, June 6, 2010. He will speak at the University of Calgary, Murray Fraser Hall Room 164, 4pm – 6.30pm.

The sentencing of Splitting the Sky commences on June 7, 2010 at the Calgary Courts Centre.

——————-
1Vincent Bugliosi, “The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder.” 2008. excerpt quoted: http://www.prosecutionofbush.com/excerpt3p1.php

2Anthony Hall, “Bush League Justice: Should George W. Bush Be Arrested in Calgary Alberta to be Tried for International Crimes?” Voltairenet. March 9, 2009. http://www.voltairenet.org/article159233.html and Gail Davidson, “Barring Bush From Canada: Time for the Law to Step in.” Global Research.ca http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=15733

3Anthony Hall, “Cynthia McKinney Meets Splitting the Sky.” Global Research.ca. March 14, 2010. http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=18115

4“Chaos Mars Saddam Court Hearing.” BBC News. Monday, 5 December 2005. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4498102.stm

5 Josh Davidson, “Ramsey Clark Speaks Out Against War at College.” The Independent. March 19, 2003. http://independent.gmnews.com/news/2003-03-19/Front_page/013.html

6“Ramsey Clark Chosen to Head Commission to Investigate Bush Crimes.” Global Research.ca. April 14, 2010. http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=18610

http://thetyee.ca/Blogs/TheHook/Aboriginal-Affairs/2010/03/23/FilmPanel/
Public hearings on mine proposal will include Tsilhqot’in documentary
By Andrew MacLeod March 23, 2010

Taseko Mines Ltd. has failed in its bid to prevent a documentary about the Tsilhqot’in people’s connection to Teztan Biny, or Fish Lake, from being shown at a public hearing on a mine proposal southwest of Williams Lake.

The federal review panel this morning dismissed Taseko’s motion that last week asked that the film Blue Gold: The Tsilhqot’in Fight for Teztan Biny (Fish Lake) not be shown at the public hearing, said Jay Nelson, a Victoria lawyer acting for the TNG, in an email. “It held that its rules of procedure did not prohibit presenting information in this form,” he said.

A lawyer acting for Taseko did not respond to a message by posting time. The submission to the panel said Blue Gold is a “propaganda film, produced to influence the opinions or behaviour of people, by providing deliberately biased content in an emotional context,” the Tyee reported.

The film’s director, Susan Smitten, said she laughed when she heard the company’s lawyer had called the film “propaganda.”

“The film’s power comes in its authenticity,” she said. It was made as a way to help the Tsilhqot’in people express what the threatened lake means to them, she said. “They come from a position of love.”

Views of Blue Gold tripled the day after Taseko asked that the film be kept out of the hearing, she said. Filmed in two days with a budget under $10,000, it has been watched by people around the world, she said.

The film can be seen on the Hook or on Vimeo. It will be shown during the panel’s evening hearings on March 24.
————-
Andrew MacLeod is The Tyee’s Legislative Bureau Chief in Victoria.

[Editor’s Note: The following letter was sent to the Editor of the Quesnel Cariboo Observer by myself after reading the front page article in their March 18, 2010 edition headed: “Public support key to mine project’s success.” (See article below as well)

The story covered an “appeal” given to the Quesnel Chamber of Commerce by Taseko Mines Limited vice president Brian Battison concerning Taseko’s controversial “Prosperity” copper-gold mine slated for development in what is known as Tsilhqot’in Traditional territory, aka the Chilcotin area of B.C. located south west of Williams Lake, B.C.

The one major monkey wrench which Taseko Mines attempts to downplay while waxing eloquent to Quesnel Chamber of Commerce members about money and jobs and progress is the blatant fact that in order to build their mine they would have to destroy a lake (Fish Lake, also known as Tetzan Biny in the native tongue), held sacred by the indigenous residents in an area of B.C. still as yet unceded to the provincial or federal governments in any title settlement.

The letter, to date, has not been published by the Observer and considering its length may not appear in full should it actually be published. As such I decided to make it an Open Letter to Taseko Mines Limited so that the general public would have online access to its contents.

Interested and concerned supporters of the Tsilhqot’in people are asked to pass it along to their friends and associates.

***Further note as of March 25th: The Quesnel Cariboo Observer published the letter in full in their March 25th edition. It can be found at http://www.bclocalnews.com/bc_cariboo/quesnelobserver/opinion/letters/89209507.html “The only true way to prosperity for everyone.”

I am most appreciative of the fact that this mainstream newspaper has given my pro-Tsilhqot’in perspective coverage in their pages. Big thanks to Editor Autumn MacDonald.]

——————

Open Letter to Taseko Mines Limited: Destruction of Fish Lake in Tsilqot’in Territory

By Arthur Topham

March 19, 2010

To:

Russell Hallbauer
President, CEO and Director

Ronald Thiessen
Chairman of the Board and Director

C/O

Investor Relations
Brian Bergot
Direct: (778) 373-4545
Email: BrianBergot@tasekomines.com

Taseko Mines Limited
#300 - 905 West Pender Street
Vancouver, BC, Canada
V6C 1L6

From:

Arthur Topham
4633 Barkerville Hwy
Quesnel, B.C.
V2J 6T8

Phone: 250-992-3479
Email: radical@radicalpress.com

March 19, 2010

Editor
Quesnel Cariboo Observer
newsroom@quesnelobserver.com

Editor:

Re: Public support key to mine project’s success, Observer, March 18/10

Your article states that Taseko Mines Limited vice president spoke of many things but he might as well, as the Walrus in Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking Glass, have spoke of “shoes – and ships – and sealing wax – of cabbages – and kings – And why the sea is boiling hot – and whether pigs have wings.”

All Battison’s talk of “employment” and “millions in capital investment” and “sustainability” and “relationships” sounds no different than what the Walrus stated to the Oysters prior to gobbling them up for lunch.

The “key,” unlike what Taseko is proposing, is not “public support” for a flawed project but the realization, by all the players in this deceptive deal, that the land in question is legally in the hands of the Chilcotin people and that they, and they alone in the final analysis, have the last word in whether or not a mine will manifest within their traditional, unceded territories. Anything else is subterfuge and within the same realm of fantasy as the Mad Hatter in Alice in Wonderland.

Taseko is saying, “Essentially we’re building another Gibralter in the Cariboo,” but my response to that disingenuous statement would be: Actually, no. Due to the manner in which this process is being steam-rollered through the negotiations process what Taseko is laying the foundations for is another Oka Uprising or, an example more close to home, another Gustafsen Lake stand-off, like what we witnessed back in 1995 out of 100 Mile House when the former NDP government and the Canadian military attempted to lie to the public via the media and violently remove a small group of native Sundancers from off of their traditional territory.

For Prosperity the sacrifice of a relatively small lake, Fish Lake (Tetzan Biny in the native language), is not a big deal compared to their gargantuan plans for the future. This may seem quite normal to them seeing as they don’t live in the area or have any historic or spiritual ties to the land there, but for the people of the Tsilhqot’in Nation this small, unassuming and placid lake symbolizes the essence of all that composes their culture, history and way of life.

When Battison stated that, “some First Nation chiefs have expressed ’strong and inflexible’ positions on Prosperity. Opinions, he said, they are ‘entitled to hold,’” we come to the crux of the issue; one that Battison and others would rather not acknowledge and deal with.

When he speaks of “some” First Nations chiefs he is referring to ALL the First Nations chiefs within the surrounding, unceded territories where the proposed Prosperity mine would be located if it were to ever materialize.

Fish Lake is located deep within the Tsilhqot’in Nation’s traditional, unceded territory. As Black’s Law Dictionary clearly states, unceded means the land has never been yielded or assigned or granted by the Tsilhqot’in government to either the federal or provincial governments in any legal and binding treaty. As such it is still legally in possession by the people who have lived in the area for thousands of years.

While this is, admittedly, a rather inconvenient truth for both levels of government and for the corporation that is desperately attempting to circumvent these established facts in order to build their mine it nonetheless is the actual reality rather than what all the rhetoric coming from Taseko’s vice president Brian Battison would have the gullible public believe.

It would be a grave error on Battison’s part to think that the adamant position of all of these chief’s is merely “opinion” that they are “entitled to hold.” Far from it. Their position is backed by history, tradition and legal precedent and for all of the public relations scamming that’s occurring in the media the facts still remain: the land belongs to the Tsilhqot’in Nation and it is up to them whether they wish to allow corporate interests to destroy what they claim is a sacred lake. No outsiders have the legal or moral right to question the position taken by the chiefs. Taseko knows this. The Campbell government knows this. The Federal Conservative government knows this. And you can be bloody sure that the mainstream media also knows it yet refuses, as is their duty and responsibility to the public, to inform readers of this fact of life.

The Campbell government giving Prosperity the “go-ahead” is meaningless within the context of treaty rights and traditional ownership of the land in question.

Another fact, not mentioned, is that no outside body thus far has been able to buy off any of the chiefs and thus create the typical “divide and conquer” scenario among the local chiefs. This is a great problem for both government and Taseko as it’s normally par for the course that they manage to produce a red apple here or there to complete the signing and give-away process regardless of what the people themselves desire.

The abject failure by government, Taseko, the media and the dumbed-down public to concede the fact that the land is still owned and controlled by the Tsilhqot’in people and that they are fully within their legal rights to oppose this massive deception called “Prosperity,” will ultimately result in a clash if blindly pursued; one bound to explode into hatred and violence and potential bloodshed if these government and corporate entities don’t get a grip on the actual gravity of the situation.

The people of the Chilcotin territory are peace-loving and fair-minded but they are also extremely cognizant of the history of their people and past attempts by government to deceive them and exploit their territories. They have proven themselves to be a people strong enough and courageous enough to stand up for their land, their culture and their spiritual values. It would therefore, as I’ve already stated, be a remarkably foolish error to try and force this project upon a people who have stood in defiance of subjugation since the European settlers first set foot in their territory.

All the talk therefore about “working with” First Nations; providing “employment” and “partnerships” and “opportunities” for “training” and “advancement” is nothing but smoke and mirrors that the chiefs and the people they represent see through.

It’s time we stopped promoting all the feverish pitch for Taseko along with the selfishness and greed and lying and started respecting the wishes of our first people. That is the only true way to prosperity for everyone.

Arthur Topham

Cottonwood, B.C.

————————–

Quesnel Cariboo Observer
Public support key to mine project’s success

By Autumn MacDonald - Quesnel Cariboo Observer
http://www.bclocalnews.com/bc_cariboo/quesnelobserver/news/88493392.html

Published: March 18, 2010 

He spoke of employment, hundreds of millions in capital investment, sustainability and relationships.

“And the key to it all is public support,” he said.

“Let your voice be heard.”

Taseko Mines Limited vice president Brian Battison appealed to Chamber of Commerce members Wednesday, first running through the company’s operations at Gibralter, then moving onto one of the most talked-about mining opportunities in the country: Prosperity, one of the largest undeveloped copper-gold deposits in Canada.

“Essentially we’re building another Gibralter in the Cariboo,” he said.

To do so, the company needs manpower – and a lot of it.

“Seven hundred construction jobs over a two-year period [to build it],” Battison said, using point-form to highlight economic benefits.

“Operating jobs, as many as 500 for 20 years, 1,200 additional indirect jobs.”

The operation also requires $800 million in capital investment and $200 million in spending every year, totaling $5 billion over the 20 plus life-span of the mine.

“All of this effort, all of this spending, all of this employment, all of this opportunity will contribute significantly to the future and sustainability of regional communities in the Cariboo-Chilcotin and the central interior,” he said.

Of course, he said, it comes at a cost.

Developing Prosperity means the draining of Fish Lake, average depth of 12-feet and home to rainbow trout.

“We wish it were otherwise,” he said.

“We searched hard for a different way, a way to retain the lake and have the mine. But there is no viable alternative.”

Because the deposit and the lake sit side-by-side.

“It is not possible to have one without the loss of the other,” he added.

However, he said, they can compensate for the loss by building a new lake and creating new fish habitat.

“The Cariboo-Chilcotin region covers an area of 80,262 kilometres or 20 million acres” Battison said.

“The area directly impacted by Prosperity totals 5,420 acres.”

Battison explained some First Nation chiefs have expressed “strong and inflexible” positions on Prosperity. Opinions, he said, they are “entitled to hold.”

“Our belief is that many First Nations people themselves hold other views, views that are more flexible, thoughts that are more progressive, ideas that look to the future with hope and optimism,” he said.

“They believe that not all change is bad.”

Battison said the company believes there exists the ability to combine the historic First Nation traditions and ancient practices with the benefits of full participation in modern society.

Recently, the provincial government gave the go-ahead to Prosperity, stating the project has no adverse environmental impacts, except that of Fish Lake.

The provincial environmental assessment certificate also outlines a number of commitments Taseko must fulfill.

These include working with First Nations, providing opportunities for employment, promoting partnerships with First Nation neighbours and providing opportunities for training and career advancement for employees.

Starting Monday the federal evaluation begins. A three-member panel is flying into Williams Lake. The process includes a 29-day review, 17 of those will be spent in First Nation communities.

“The public needs to make their views known,” Battison said.

“The key to this project’s success is community impact. The first meeting we had in the provincial process, more than 500 people attended. It had an impact.”

Because the reality of resource development today, he said is “people need to fight for it.”

Public hearings begin March 22 in Williams Lake, 10 a.m.

Those wishing to present to the panel are requested to register by contacting the panel manager Colette Spagnuolo, 1-866-582-1884 or e-mail, prosperity.review@ceaa-acee.gc.ca .

Residents can also outline their comments on the project at the above e-mail address.

————————

STS Versus the War Criminals © Edna Spennato 2010.

Photomontage made on 17 March 2010

Mundo dos Sonhos
World of Dreams

Hi friends,

Just to let you know that a new photomontage has been posted at Mundo dos Sonhos, in support of the trial last week in Calgary, BC, of the veteran Mohawk activist, Splitting the Sky, who attempted to arrest the war criminal, GW Bush, when he came to Calgary a year ago.

Some interesting links and audio and video footage are included in the blog post.

With love

Edna

March 18, 2010

Splitting the Sky Versus the War Criminals

Edna Spennato

On 17 March 2009 in Calgary, Canada, Splitting the Sky (aka John Boncore) was arrested and charged with obstruction (as he fully expected) when he tried to serve George W. Bush with a citizen’s warrant, and to arrest him to stand trial for war crimes and torture. In doing so, he sacrificed himself for ALL of us who are concerned with Truth, Peace and Justice. His trial took place on 8 and 9 March, and judgment will be passed on 7 June 2010.  The trial was closed down by the state after 2 days, though he was originally given 5 days to present evidence of war crimes and torture, as well as the involvement of the Bush regime in the events of 9/11, to justify his actions under the legal principle of “civil resistance”.

STS needs our support… Updates on the trial at his home page and blog.

Listen to STS – Anthem for Dissent

Citizen’s Arrest of George W. Bush for War Crimes – The Trial of “Splitting the Sky”

by Prof. Anthony J. Hall

Who and What is on Trial?

When Splitting the Sky broke through police lines in his attempt to conduct a citizen’s arrest of former US president George W. Bush, the Mohawk freedom fighter pierced a thick wall of tyranny. He broke through a tight phalanx of state protection for the perpetrators of war crimes, crimes against humanity, and crimes against the peace.

With his courageous act, Splitting the Sky announced the unwillingness of millions of global citizens to tolerate any longer the culture of impunity that places a small, interlinked global plutocracy above the law….

Read in full here.

9/11 Truth is “Splitting the Sky”

by Peter Zaza

…John Boncore was born in Buffalo, New York on January 7, 1952. His Mohawk name, Dacajeweiah, translated into English means “Splitting the Sky”. From the age of seven he endured many years in New York foster homes and youth detention centres where he was ill-treated. Eventually he would become the only man convicted as a ringleader of the infamous 1971 Attica State Prison rebellion in upstate New York, in the course of which 43 inmates were killed. This event has inspired several movies — “Against the Wall” (1994) starring Samuel L. Jackson, and “Attica” (1980) starring Morgan Freeman — and documentaries including “Attica” (1974), and “The Ghosts of Attica” (2001). He was listed by former UN Ambassador Andrew Young of the Carter administration as the number one political prisoner in the USA in 1975.

Splitting the Sky founded an organization to unite all Indigenous Peoples into a great confederation called the League of Indigenous Sovereign Nations of the Western Hemisphere (LISN). In 1995 he was the Sun Dance Chief at Gustafsen Lake, British Columbia, during the Gustafsen Lake Standoff, which was precipitated by a rancher who attempted to evict the Sun Dancers from what he claimed was his property. The incident turned into a major protest against the occupation of unceded native land. Splitting the Sky was an outspoken critic of the government’s handling of the incident and was among those who raised the question of so-called “Aboriginal Title” under international law. Specifically, aboriginal title is enshrined under the Royal Proclamation of 1763, which is validated as an aboriginal right in section (35) of the Canadian Constitution.

On September 10th, 2001, Splitting the Sky and his family were checking out of the Marriott Hotel one block from the World Trade Center in New York. Had he stayed an extra day or two, as was originally planned, he and his family might have suffered the fate of 400 others at that location who lost their lives during the 9/11 tragedy. As if by some intuition, he and his wife decided to cut short their stay and get out of New York City. While many researchers for 9/11 Truth deal with the never ending incongruities and falsehoods of the government’s story regarding 9/11, or the various examples of forensic evidence proving controlled demolition, Splitting the Sky has studied the complex web of people and organizations he believes to be the authors of this crime. Through careful deconstruction of the financial entities involved, as well shining the light on those specific figures who occupy the principle seats of power within those structures, he follows the age old maxims of criminology which compel us to “follow the money”, as well as determine “who benefits”….

Read in full here.

Wednesday, March 10, 2010

Cynthia McKinney Meets Splitting the Sky – Calgary, Mar 9th, 2010 See here
14 part video playlist (90 minutes) at the above link will stream all 14 segments consecutively. Teaser at this link.

———-

Edna Spennato
Earth Heal Geoharmonic Research Project
Founder of Earth Heal, healing facilitator, writer, artist
Based in Cape Town, South Africa and Alagoas, Brasil

Earth Heal Blog: http://earthheal.blogspot.com/
Photomontage: http://mundosonhos.wordpress.com/

(Editor’s Note: The following Two Part interview with Splitting the Sky aka John Boncore took place via telephone conversation back in September of 2000. Due to the limited extent of the newspaper’s coverage back during that period the interview did not make it onto the Internet. Today, with Splitting the Sky back in the news online after his dramatic attempt this past September to make a citizen’s arrest of the War Criminal, ex-President of the USA, George W. Bush in Calgary, Alberta, it seems appropriate to re-issue this dramatic activist’s interview with Radical Press.

Readers are bound to find it an exciting, informative, provocative, highly enlightening and spell-binding expose of a life of one of today’s foremost radical activists. Ed.)

———

A Radical Interview with John Splitting the Sky, Gustafsen Lake Defender

Vol. 3 No. 3 The Radical October, 2000

By Arthur Topham

©RadicalPress.com

Part One

(The Radical is most appreciative for having the opportunity to present the following interview with John Splitting the Sky Hill. As readers are about to realize Mr. Hill has led a most remarkable life; one fraught almost from the onset with challenges, dangers and responsibilities that the average person would cringe at the thought of having to endure.

For all of John’s trials though, he has emerged- tempered by the fires of life- as a leading spokesperson for native sovereignty issues and a living example of the persevering spirit of resistance that has kept the aboriginal people of this continent strong.

This interview will be covered over the next two issues of The Radical due to it’s length.

In short it’s an abbreviated odyssey, an epitomizing epic of one man’s struggle to maintain his dignity and spirit in a world where native traditional values are no longer given the respect and honour that they once knew. John Splitting the Sky Hill’s story of how he survived a brutal prison system in New York state only to end up playing a major role in the Gustafsen Lake Stand off during 1995 will surely come as a major surprise to readers who only heard the one-sided reports that came from the corporate press during that time.

It’s a riveting tale with a message as relevant today as it was almost thirty years ago. Ed.)

RAD:   John it’s now been almost 10 years since the Oka uprising occurred and 5 years since the stand-off at Gustafsen Lake just west of 100 Mile House, B.C. The  incident at Gustafsen Lake in many ways marked a turning point here in British Columbia for the manner in which our provincial government conducted itself toward native disputes. You and Wolverine, aka William Ignace or Jonesy were to play some major parts at Gusfafsen Lake. Hopefully this interview will allow Radical readers to gain a much clearer insight into what was going on behind the corporate media’s blockade of information that the general public were subjected to back then. But prior to getting into that I would like to ask you if you could talk about your own personal history and how it was that a native rights activist like yourself, originally from New York state, USA ended up running a Sundance ceremony at Gustafsen Lake.

While in Vancouver for the Under the Volcano festival in mid-August I heard

you speaking in a workshop. At that time you mentioned that you had been directly involved in the infamous Attica Uprising in New York back in 1971 and ended up being the only player in that incident that did time. Let’s begin then with some background on how it was that at the ripe old age of 19 you became involved in one of America’s most bloody uprisings of the last century.

StS:   Well, at the time of this talk I’m 48 years old and I’ll be 49 next January. I was born in Buffalo, NY. My mother is from the Mohawk Nation in Branford, Ontario and so my roots are basically here in Canada. As well my Grandmother was a Cree woman from Fort Qu’Appelle,  Saskatchewan. So like I said my roots are in Canada but my mother married my father who was from Buffalo, NY. He passed away though in 1957. He worked for U.S. Rubber and had been commissioned by the company, along with ten other men, to spray paint one of their utility tanks, these massive tanks that they had at the plant there. They had been told by the company that they didn’t need gas masks but all the eleven men ended up dying from toxic inhalation.

RAD: Oh, Christ!

StS:  And so eleven of them died and it wasn’t too long after that the child welfare department in Buffalo came and snatched up me and my sisters and put us into the foster care system.

RAD:  How old would you have been then?

StS:  Well I was 7 years old then and my sisters were like 6, 5, 4 and 3 respectively. And from that point on we were all separated into different foster homes.

I then went through a number of boarding school situations and orphanages. The boarding schools were like the residential schools here in Canada in fact the residential schools pretty much got their ideas from the boarding schools in the states.

So having gone through those schools for a number of years and resisting the kind of abusive treatment and brutality that existed within these joints I began to gain a reputation for being what you would say was an “incorrigible” person. I detail a lot of this information in my soon to be released Autobiography of  Splitting the Sky Along With My Wife Sandra Bruderer subtitled: From Attica to Gustafsen Lake.

(more…)

Fish Lake: Tsilhqot’in gold stays in the ground
by Carmen Nunez

March 13, 2010

To:
Prosperity Review
prosperity.review@ceaa-acee.gc.ca

Hello.

I’ve received an email indicating I could send you an email to express my views on the proposed project of a gold mine at Fish Lake.

First of all, whatever information you or the other members of the panel, the people of Williams Lake, and the investors are receiving from the people of Taseko Co. is bound to be incomplete and biased.  I have seen published that they went through with all required consultation with first nations in this area and that is just not true.  I live in one of the Tsilhqot’in communities and I know for a fact that there has been no consultation and indeed very little interaction with the people of these reserves.

It is very angering to read in the newspaper how the proposed project is being described, it is being described as something that is going to happen: “So sorry we have to destroy Fish Lake, we’ll do it with sadness, and this is how much money we’ll be making….”  The people of Taseko are assuming that their project will go through, and such an assumption is quite an insult because it implies they are turning deaf ears to the protests of the Tsilhqot’in people.

The statements about environmental impact are also quite ridiculous: “There will be no major impacts except for the destruction of Fish Lake”.  That is like saying “It is not dark, only there is no light” or “We’re not going to hurt you, only hit you,”  I don’t know and I don’t know anybody who knows what the studies of environmental impact were like:  Who conducted them?  For how long?  What is the design of those studies? What data was collected and how was it analyzed?  As a biologist, I know that to calculate the potential damage of a “development” to an ecosystem is an enormously complex task that would require large sums of money and a lot of people working on it for a long time to have some tentative answers.  So, the absolute statement “There will be no major impact” is to me obviously dishonest.  I think that whatever studies were conducted have to be published in their entirety. It is only fair that the information is made public so that authentic questions can be asked.  What’s the use of holding panels for people to ask questions when nobody really knows how decisions are being made?

It is also very angering how Taseko Co. has been pushing to sell the idea of the mine to the people of William’s Lake, with presentations, biased media, and even ads in the radio saying how the mine will save this region from the economic recession, how it will make things right….  That’s inaccurate, it’s nothing but marketing.

The facts are that there is a crisis in the world right now that has to do with scarcity of fresh water.  Even right in William’s Lake fresh water is being rationed and people experience shortages and having low quality water.  Water is undoubtedly the most precious resource to human and non human populations on this planet and as pollution and climate change get worse clean fresh water will become more and more precious.  In that context it makes absolutely no sense to risk contaminating the pristine, unspoiled precious water bodies of the Chilcotin wilderness.  The lakes and the rivers here are all clean, perfect and abundant in life-giving water.  People here have known the lakes in this area to be sacred; made up of healing waters and if you have ever come to swim in the Chilcotin or Taseko rivers or to dive into Chilko lake or Fish Lake then you will know exactly what that means.

Healing waters, sacred waters are infinitely more precious and important than jewelry and 20 years of nine to five jobs. The development of the mine would not only have the impact of annihilating all life in Fish Lake and destroying a site that is sacred for the people who know it as their home and the heritage of their ancestors, it would also have the impact of destruction of all the trees that would need to go to make way for the roads, power lines, and traffic of machinery in and out of the mine site.  It would have the impact of air, soil, and noise pollution being produced continuously at a place that is now blessedly silent and at peace.  It would have the impact of scaring off the wild game on which wild predators and traditional hunters rely for food.  It would have the impact of depriving the already unfairly harassed and persecuted grizzly bears of a micro habitat that is ideal for them and sustains their life.  It would have the impact of creating an influx of foreigners to an area that is now still relatively autonomous and the safe haven for a people who are made to feel out of place anywhere else.

Tsilhqot’in people have lived in this beautiful and magnificent pristine wilderness for at least ten thousand years.  In all those years there has been no destruction of the land because it has been preserved and loved by the people.  The land as it is, the wild nature, the landscapes, the wildlife all have a profound and personal meaning to the Tshilhqot’in people. This is their home and the home of their ancestors; it is their place in a way that no immigrant to this land could possibly understand.  The colonial government is foreign to this place, and as a foreigner, it doesn’t recognize the value of what is here.  Where Taseko Co. and the government of BC see only dirt, minerals, trees to be cut, animals to be killed, and people that get in the way of progress, the Tsilhqot’in people see their history, their mother, their brothers, and the sacrifice of their leaders to protect the land.

Already during the years of the gold rush there was a huge pressure to rip through the sacred land of the Tsilhqot’in territory. There was the insatiable push of greed and the colonizers did all they could to wipe out the Tsilhqot’in population.  They spread smallpox deliberately; they pushed the indigenous people to their death and then claimed their land as theirs.  They killed off as many people as they could and then settled right there and set up their ranches or sold the land to other ranchers for a handful of cents.  They had the intention of “developing” this area, of mining for gold, and if they had succeeded what is now Vancouver would be at Bella Coola and this whole area would be urbanized, or in other words, lost (no more wild game, no more traditional hunting, no more fishing, no more clean water, no more views of wild nature to put one’s heart back in place).

The only thing that stood between that insatiable greed and the actual realization of their horrible vision were the Tsilhqot’in survivors, the Tsilhqot’in warriors who fought back to protect their land, their place, their right to live, and the lives of their children and grandchildren.  Many were killed, and seven leaders were deceived, betrayed, and hung by what is now “the province of BC”, but still their actions resulted in those greedy plans being postponed… Until now.

“The province” never gave up their desire to extract the gold from the heart of the Chilcotin range. What is happening now is not a new story, it is merely the continuation of what is traditionally known as the Chilcotin war.  The push for Taseko Mining Co. to move in here like it’s theirs is another advance of the drive for colonization and the annihilation of the Tsilhqot’in people.  It is a provocation for war, as clearly as anything can be and for people here, the protection of the land is a matter of life or death.  There are elders already saying, “I will die to protect Fish Lake”.  Why?  Because Fish Lake means everything.  Fish Lake means the Tsilhqot’in nation is still a free nation. It means the Tsilhqot’in people still have their land to rely on; they can still fish and hunt and live off the land; they can still gather as they have for thousands of years; they can still honor and respect as sacred what their ancestors honored and respected as sacred for thousands of years.

This area is still Tsilhqot’in land. As soon as you cross the so-called Fraser River coming this way you feel this area belongs to the people of  the Tsilhqot’in.  You can feel in these communities the independence and lifestyle of the people is still protected. There is still traditional fishing and hunting. There is still a connection to the land, knowledge of the land. There are still not that many foreigners to disrupt the familiarity and peaceful pace of life out here.

The presence of a mine deep in the heart of the Chilcotin area would shatter that peace and familiarity, that sense of autonomy and power, and the bonds and workings within the communities.  A mine would bring with it truckloads of workers with their accompanying alcohol, drugs, garbage, racism, appropriation of the land, prostitution and so on.  Fences would go up and the traditional ways of sharing the land would be impeded.  People from here would no longer have the power and freedom to go anywhere they please within their territory.  What is now a perfectly beautiful and sacred site would be an enormous dump, a scar, a symbol of greed and unnecessary exploitation of the land, yet another case of rape of the mother of us all (the Earth).

Would the Tsilhqot’in elders have their traditional gathering at “Prosperity Lake”? Tsy’los watches over Fish Lake. Would he rather watch his people participate in the exploitation of the land or would he like to watch them honor mother Earth and gather to celebrate and enjoy what she offers?

All of this might sound like nonsense to investors and stockholders who can only think in terms of money, costs and profit.  It might sound like nonsense to people in the cities, people who have never come to see Fish Lake; to people who have no connection to this land whatsoever, but it is not nonsense to the people who live here.  I live here and I can say in all sincerity I genuinely love this land. I love this place as it is and I appreciate and cherish the Tsilhqot’in communities and people just as they are. No amount of money can pay for the loss of beauty, for the loss of freedom, for the loss of wild nature.  The toxic waste that a gold mine can produce doesn’t miraculously disappear, it is made to stay. It stays.  The fallen trees stay gone, the fish stay gone, the wild game stay gone and there is no money or gold that could bring them back.

If the waters of the Chilcotin river become polluted there will be no money that could clean them.  No more healing waters; no more jumping in to feel born again; no more fishing for salmon like the ancestors did.  No more fishing nets; no more missing work to stay home and cut up all the fish you caught the night before; no more hunting for moose and sharing the meat with all your neighbors. That has no price.  It can’t be said or understood in terms of money for money is only an illusion anyway.  What good is money if you can’t drink from the river right in front of you?  What good is money if you have to stay thirsty when you’re out in the bush, lest you poison yourself by drinking up uranium or some other heavy metal from a creek nearby? What good is money if you can’t share with your children the teachings and activities that your grandparents shared with you? A gold mine out here is just not worth it.

Artist: Robin Koni

It is not worth it for any Tsilhqot’in person immediately and it also not worth it for anyone else ultimately.  People would get the chance to be miners and ruin their health while selling their soul for twenty years and then what?  What after the mine?  Would Taseko Co. continue to pay the workers’ salaries after the mine is closed?  Would any of the locals of the Chilcotin-Cariboo be a millionaire by the time the mine closes down?

Only the stockholders of Taseko Co. would be millionaires, everyone else is just a means to make them so. The fact is that the people of the Chilcotin-Cariboo would benefit more from conserving their most precious asset: wild nature.  Money could be invested in projects of eco-tourism, sustainable agriculture and sustainable energy. There are many ways in which the economy of this region could be revitalized.

Really, there is no need to damage this planet any more. There is no need to generate any environmental damage in this area. There is no need for any more abuse and damage to first nations people.  Nobody needs gold to live. A gold mine is not a human necessity and we can all live without it. That is a fact.

We can choose to walk down a path that leads us to justice, peace, and harmony. There is no need to repeat the patterns of greed and mindless destruction that have already caused so much damage to ecosystems and to people all over the world.  I say end the gold rush already, end the greed, end the illusions.  Clean water is truly precious. The pristine and unspoiled water bodies of the Chilcotin range are its true wealth.

Tsilhqot’in gold stays in the ground.

Thank you, and please share this with as many people as you can.
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Carmen Nunez can be reached at sersuave@gmail.com

Calgary Police “taking down” Splitting the Sky while attempting to make a citizen’s arrest of War Criminal George W. Bush in Calgary, Alberta on September 17, 2009. 
________________________________________________________________________________

Arthur Topham RP Publisher

March 10, 2010

Editor’s Note:

It’s fairly evident from the manner in which this case was handled that the Zionist-controlled media in Canada and elsewhere doesn’t want the issue of Bush the Barbarous brought to the attention of the general public. A protracted trial in which credible authorities might offer evidence in the defense of the accused and, God forbid, Splitting the Sky is given an opportunity to actually voice his convictions, is not the Zionist way of doing business. Better to just quash the whole damn thing and once the issue has filtered out of the public’s mind then bring in a ruling further down the road to tyranny and censorship.

Splitting the Sky

It’s my humble, yet considered opinion, that Canada’s judiciary, like the msm, is so infiltrated, permeated and manipulated by these Zionist/Jew lobbyists and their lawyer henchmen and women, that our courts today are as likely to spawn honest and just decisions as the Zionist-controlled msm is likely to present information that hasn’t first been run through the Orwellian Double Speak wringer prior to general publication.

Both these institutions (and others) bear witness to the fact that our civil and legal infrastructures are firmly in the hands of foreign, seditious entities who are using them for power and control and manipulation of the collective mindset of the Canadian public while their subsidiary organs of control, i.e. the multinational corporations, be they oil or ag or pharma or cult or whatever, drain this country of its natural resource wealth and human potential.

Due to the Zionist’s inordinate and immoral power via their financial and media influences men like Anthony J. Hall are forced to equate the machinations of the courts and the police and media to secondary and tertiary linguistic labels such as “oil conglomerates” all in order to escape the deadly-poisoned arrows of the Zionists who let fly their “anti-Semitic,” “racist,” and “hate”-tipped barbs at anyone who comes near to calling a spade a spade or a Zionist a Zionist.

War Criminal psychopath G.W. Bush, like his War Criminal psychopathic partner in crime, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, are mere puppets to the Israeli Jew lobby; flunkies and lackeys and cretins of the most despicable type who, under their false pretense of being “Christians,” carry out the dirty work of slaughtering the sons and daughters of American and Canadian citizens in imperialist wars of aggression against innocent foreign nations all for the benefit of these Zionist interlopers who haunt and invade our very lives via their omnipresence throughout the media and Canada’s judiciary.

More than just a touch of levity as War Criminal Harper reaches out to G.W. Bush
_________________________________________________________________________

Well, these traitorous intruders have been releasing their bolts of vituperative lightning at me, my family and my publishing business for over two years in a relentless attempt to silence my voice and the voices of countless others whose opinions and views I carry via RadicalPress.com and the Yahoo group site known as Anti-Zionist Canada. For the Full Monty on the complaint case involving RadicalPress.com and B’nai Brith Canada please see: http://www.radicalpress.com/?page_id=995 . They literally hate to see views and opinions and ideas and truths that conflict with their own morbid, draconian and hate-filled mission of destroying every nation state on the face of this globe in order to replace them with their “International” aka Zionist New World Order template of global governance.

What should have been a media bonus for the 911 Truth movement and the supporters of Palestinian sovereignty and a solid, direct hit on the forces of darkness that now control the global political and financial marketplace of ideas and opinion has once again been nullified and thwarted thanks to the machinations of those within the system as it now exists.

If we are ever to gain ground in this protracted battle with the Zionist forces we’re going to have to sooner than later face the fact that we must call these misfits by their real name and publicly identify them and the organizations through whom they operate in order to infiltrate our governmental, civic and social/cultural structures. Pussy-footing around this salient and critical factor because of fear and doubt will only prolong the time when the shyte must  inevitably hit the proverbial fan and all fecal hell breaks loose.

Let us try our best in the interim time period to keep Splitting the Sky’s courageous efforts alive.

Shine your Light for Love, Peace & Justice for All,

Arthur Topham
Publisher/Editor
The Radical Press
Canada’s Radical News Network
“Digging to the root of the issues since 1998″
http://www.radicalpress.com
radical@radicalpress.com

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BE SURE TO WATCH THESE VIDEOS OF CYNTHIA MCKINNEY & STS SPEAKING AT THE UNIVERSITY OF CALGARY

Cynthia McKinney Meets Splitting the Sky at University of Calgary’s Peace Consortium (Part 1)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qzDuXTFOR8g&feature=related

Cynthia McKinney Meets Splitting the Sky at University of Calgary’s Peace Consortium (Part 2)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=emO-EuF3-9Y&feature=related

_____________________________________
http://truthjihad.blogspot.com/2010/03/splitting-sky-case-shut-down-interview.html

Catch my live interview with Splitting-the-Sky, Cynthia McKinney, and Anthony Hall coming up at 2 pm Central!  http://www.noliesradio.org

Kevin Barrett
http://www.truthjihad.com
Author, Questioning the War on Terror: A Primer for Obama Voters: http://www.questioningthewaronterror.com

Bush League Justice in Judge Manfred Delong’s Calgary Court

Anthony J. Hall
Professor of Globalization Studies
University of Lethbridge
10 March, 2010

Judge Manfred Delong shut down the trial of Splitting The Sky versus George W. Bush on the second day of proceedings. The court denied STS his frequently emphasized request to have two witnesses give evidence in his defense. Those witnesses were myself and Cynthia McKinney. The trial came to an end just as Ms. McKinney arrived in Calgary from London. The US-based oil conglomerates active throughout Alberta form the core business constituency of the Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who represents a Calgary riding in Parliament.

The court accepted two documents as evidence for the defense. One is Gail Davidson’s widely disseminated legal opinion for Lawyer’s Against the War. STS and I studied this document closely in the days leading up to my friend being arrested for his arrest attempt. LAW’s legal opinion highlighted some of the evidence, statutes and treaties to brand Bush as a “credibly  accused war criminal” that should not be allowed  into Canada. Prior to Bush’s touching down in Calgary to address an audience of oil executives, Davidson’s documentation was distributed widely to officials of the Harper government and Canada’s Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

The other exhibit for the defense was my own paper that I originally presented at an invited academic venue at the University of Winnipeg. It has been published under a variety of titles on the Internet, including at Global  Research.ca, 911 Blogger.com, 9/11 Truth.org and Voltairenet in both French and English. My initial title for it is “Bush League Justice: Should George W. Bush Be Arrested in Calgary Alberta and Tried for International Crimes?”

Delong will deliver his ruling on June 7. The case for the prosecution both revealed and obscured much about the new police strategies being employed throughout North America to monitor, manage, divide and spin doctor demonstrators seeking to call attention to their political dissent. In my opinion the Crown’s chief agent of prosecution, Tracy Davis, acted more as an advocate and defender of the police rather than as a representative of the Canadian people through Her Majesty as she is required to do according the constitutional tradition of the British Commonwealth.
————–

Anthony J. Hall can be contacted at raprockprof@gmail.com

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Arthur Topham is a writer and the Publisher and Editor of RadicalPress.com living in the wilds of central British Columbia, Canada. He is currently involved in a sec. 13(1) free speech battle with Harry Abrams and the League for Human Rights of B’nai Brith Canada.

Arthur welcomes all feedback to his articles and can be reached at radical@radicalpress.com or via telephone at (250) 992-3479.

http://www.splittingthesky.net/
http://splittingthesky.blogspot.com/

Editor’s Note:

I first met John “Dac” Boncore, aka Splitting the Sky while covering the 11th Annual Under the Volcano festival in North Vancouver back in August of 2000.

On the Saturday prior to the main Sunday event in Cates Park Dac, as he usually goes by with friends, was giving a talk at the Brittania Community Centre on Commercial Drive in East Vancouver and I was there manning a booth and selling my alternative monthly newspaper The Radical.

Splitting the Sky’s talk centered on the events surrounding the 1995 shoot out at Gustafsen Lake. Since that time he’d spent the ensuing years doing extensive research and writing on the goverment and military involvement in the incident. As he said, “The RCMP – with the blessings of the provincial NDP’s Attorney General, and now Premier, Ujjal Dosanjh – moved in with 400 police with dog teams, airplanes, helicopters, armoured personel carriers, grenades, landmines, M16 and C7 assault rifles, hollow point bullets (prohibited by the Geneva Convention) and 50-calibre machine guns.”

They were out to kill Wolverine Ignace Jones and himself but their grandiose plot never worked out and now Dac was coming back to haunt them with their litany of lies and cover-ups all exposed in a new video he had just produced called, Above the Law - part 2.

I had not seen such a dynamic speaker/performer in years. Dac held his listeners spellbound as he retold the incidents at Gustafsen Lake with drama and precision of thought and humour. Here, I said to myself, is a man strong, proud and keenly aware of who he is and what he’s struggling for.After his talk we chatted and agreed to get in touch for an extensive interview which later appeared in a Two-part series in the October and November editions of The Radical. In my introduction to Part One of the interview I wrote:”The Radical is most appreciative for having the opportunity to present the following interview with John Splitting the Sky Hill. As readers are about to realize Mr. Hill has led a most remarkable life; one fraught almost from the onset with challenges, dangers and responsibilities that the average person would cringe at the thought of having to endure.

For all of John’s trials though, he has emerged – tempered by the fires of life – as a leading spokesperson for native sovereignty issues and a living example of the persevering spirit of resistance that has kept the aboriginal people of this continent strong.

                 Wolverine Ignace Jones
______________________________________________________

In short it’s an abbreviated odyssey, an epitomizing epic of one man’s struggle to maintain his dignity and spirit in a world where native traditional values are no longer given the respect and honour they once knew. John Splitting the Sky Hill’s story of how he survived a brutal prison system in New York state only to end up playing a major role in the Gustafsen Lake Stand off during 1995 will surely come as a major surprise to readers who only heard the one-sided reports that came from the corporate press during that time.

It’s a riveting tale with a message as relevant today as it was almost thirty years ago.”

Those who read Dac’s interview published by The Radical Press would not be surprised in the least that this same courageous person would take it upon himself to try and make a citizen’s arrest of the notorious War Criminal George W. Bush Jr. when he came to Calgary on September 17, 2009.

Tomorrow, March 8, 2010 in a law court in Calgary, Alberta Splitting the Sky will be on trial once again, this time as STS has stated, for performing an act which Canadian government authorities should have taken responsibility for fulfilling.

In a speech given at the December 5, 2009 forum hosted by Montreal 9/11 Truth Anthony J. Hall, Professor of Globalization Studies at the University of Lethbridge, Alberta Canada and a longstanding supporter of Splitting the Sky’s activism stated:

“When Splitting the Sky broke through  police lines in his attempt to conduct a citizen’s arrest of former US President, George W. Bush, the Mohawk freedom fighter pieced a thick wall of tyranny. He broke through a tight phalanx of state protection for the perpetrators of war crimes, crimes against humanity, and crimes against the peace.

With his courageous act, Splitting the sky announced the unwillingness of millions of global citizens to tolerate any longer the culture of impunity that places a small, interlinked global plutocracy above the law. By breaking police lines, the Attica brother and American indian movement activist scouted a route of liberation for those of us seeking to get out from under the weight of complicity in international crime committed in our name. We are deeply implicated in the state terror permeating the 9/11 wars because it is our tax dollars taht fund these imperial assaults.

Splitting the Sky’s action in Calgary highlights the abject failure of law enforcement agencies to do their job. It highlights the unwillingness of police and those who direct them to apply the law equitably and independently.

When he broke through police lines last March, Splitting the Sky built on the message of Muntadar Al-Zaidi, the Baghdad journalist who fired his shoes at the departing US President. Al-Zaidi’s symbolic shot was seen and applauded around the world. By dramatizing the role of so-called law enforcers as protectors of international crime, Splitting the Sky highlighted that many millions of global citizens have seen more than enough evidence to understand that Georg W. Bush and his war cabinet are credible accused war criminals. If we lived in a world where the integrity of law prevailed over the power of money, political corruption and military might, the Cheney-Rumsfeld-Bush syndicate of war profiteers would have been apprehended long ago to face charges in a properly constituted court of international law.

When Splitting the Sky presents himself this coming March to a provincial court in Calgary, Alberta to face criminal charges for obstruction of justice, who and what is really on trial? Whose sense of of justice was really obstructed? I predict that the light of future history will cast the trial of Splitting the Sky as an important point of departure for a process of people’s jurisprudence directed at bringing to justice those responsible for the highest order of international crime.”

Anthony J. Hall
_____________________________

Dac is in need of all the support he can get from everyone concerned with justice and with ridding the world of war criminals such as George W. Bush. Please contact his website or blog or write to him at splitting_the_sky@yahoo.com  .

Anyone living in the Calgary area please try to attend Splitting the Sky’s trial and lend him your moral and monetary support. STS has a wonderful wife and family who also need support.

——————

Arthur Topham is a writer and the Publisher and Editor of RadicalPress.com living in the wilds of central British Columbia, Canada. He is currently involved in a sec. 13(1) free speech battle with Harry Abrams and the League for Human Rights of B’nai Brith Canada.

Due to the nature of these sec. 13 “hate crime” complaints Arthur is under constant pressure to produce legal documents and maintain a livelihood at the same time. As such he is always in need of financial support to sustain this battle with the forces of repression and censorship involving both the Canadian Human Rights Commission and the CHR Tribunal. Any donations therefore would be most welcome. Please see the following url on the Home Page (upper right hand corner) http://www.radicalpress.com/?page_id=657 regarding donations. Also there is a “DONATE” button there for Paypal or here at https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=4466120 . Feel free to use any of them if you can help out. Thanks.

Arthur welcomes all feedback to his articles and can be reached at radical@radicalpress.com or via telephone at (250) 992-3479.

For the Full Monty on the complaint case involving RadicalPress.com and B’nai Brith Canada please see: http://www.radicalpress.com/?page_id=995

Tsilhqot’in chiefs protest Prosperity mine

By Erin Hitchcock - Williams Lake Tribune
February 16, 2010

http://www.bclocalnews.com/bc_cariboo/williamslaketribune/news/84423087.html

“The land is very vital to our people and where we make our livelihood. We want our waters to remain pure for the fish and for our people’s survival”  -Tl’esqox Chief Francis Laceese

Dozens of protesters held up signs on Highway 97 between McLeese Lake and MacAllister Thursday afternoon to show their opposition to the destruction of Fish Lake should Prosperity mine be built.
Among those protesting were Xeni Gwet’in Chief Marilyn Baptiste, ?Esdilagh Chief Bernie Elkins, Tl’esqox Chief Francis Laceese, Ulkatcho First Nation Chief Allen Louie, and Lhtako Dene Nation Chief Geronimo Squinas.

They, as well as members from First Nations communities and their supporters, displayed messages such as “Our lakes and our rivers are our life, Our elders won’t gather at a mine site, Our pristine lakes are the heritage for our children and grandchildren, You know you hit rock bottom when you’re a miner,” and “Water is more precious than gold.”

They were also protesting the B.C. government’s recent decision to grant Taseko Mines Ltd. an environmental assessment certificate for the mine following the provincial review process that was completed.

A federal panel is still reviewing the mine project and will hold public hearings beginning March 22 in Williams Lake.

If built, the copper-gold mine would be built about 125 kilometres southwest of Williams Lake at Fish Lake (Tetzan Biny), which First Nations chiefs say is sacred and in the Tsilhqot’in declaration of rights area.

As part of its Fish Compensation Plan, Taseko Mines Ltd. would build a new lake and fill it with fish to replace Fish Lake that would be compromised for the mine.

Laceese, holding a sign that read “Free the Tsilhqot’in you just might free Tibet,” said many Tsilhqot’in members and other supporters were demonstrating Thursday because they don’t want to see the mine go through.

“The land is very vital to our people and where we make our livelihood,” Laceese said. “We want our waters to remain pure for the fish and for our people’s survival.”

He said the protesters wanted to send a strong message to the government and the mining industry that the Tsilqot’in Nation is going to stand firm against the mine.

“We have a lot of allies that will be supporting us right across B.C. and right across Canada,” he said. “Our people are very concerned about this proposed mine and we can’t stand back any longer to let them just push it through and rubber stamp the whole process.”

Baptiste — with signs behind her that said “destroying Fish Lake not the answer” and “blue gold” — said the protesters were trying to get the attention of the world.

“We are looking to save our fish, our waters, the headwaters of the Taseko River and Taseko lakes, which are a part of that wild salmon run that is part of the Chilko run,” Baptiste said.

She said the protest would get more people to realize they do have a voice and that there are First Nations who are concerned.

She said the protesters gathered were a fraction of the Tsilhqot’in people who are concerned about their aboriginal right to hunt, fish, and gather food and medicines.

She added that the B.C. environmental assessment process is “a rubber stamp” process that has never turned down a mine.

Baptiste said a joint review panel process should have been used, not the B.C. environmental assessment process and the federal panel review process. A joint review process, she said, would have included First Nations, the provincial government, and the federal government.

“Through B.C. Supreme Court and our aboriginal rights and title case, this proposed mine is in our Eastern trap line in the declaration of rights area,” Baptiste said, adding that since the Tsilhqot’in Nation has never given up its rights or title, the mine should have been reviewed only under a joint review panel.

“Our land is not for sale, has never been for sale, as we have never entered into the treaty process, and we don’t intend to,” Baptiste said.

Brian Battison, vice president of corporate affairs, said all of the First Nations concerns will be addressed through the federal review process.

“Those questions may be asked and they’ll be addressed in the federal process as they were addressed in the provincial process,” he says.

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UBCIC’s Protecting Knowledge Conference site: http://www.ubcic.bc.ca/Resources/conferences/PK.htm

Follow UBCIC on Twitter at http://twitter.com/UBCIC

On behalf of my lovely wife Shastah and myself I want to take this moment to thank everyone who made our trip to the 24th annual George Orwell dinner in Victoria, B.C. a reality.

Travel from our relatively remote area of the province to the island is expensive and it was only due to the generosity of those who donated funds that we were able to attend this important gathering of free speech advocates from across Canada.

This was the second time that we were able to enjoy the fellowship of people on the front lines of those fighting to retain the right to speak out their truths in the face of a brutal and alarmingly dangerous force: the government of Canada and its bureaucratic agent known as the Canadian Human Rights Commission (CHRC).

Due to time restrictions at the moment I cannot elaborate on the meeting but will do so over the next while.

Arthur Topham

Pub/Ed

RadicalPress.com

Photo credit: WCWC

BC’s Rivers: Is Anyone Listening?

by Arthur Topham

May 1, 2009

The Royal Canadian Legion in downtown Quesnel was likely the most popular spot in town on Thursday evening, April 30th and considering that the Canucks were playing at the same time it was little short of a miracle that so many local citizens would have taken the time to leave their homes.

What could possible draw a near full house of hockey enthusiasts away from the tube on a week day evening other than a national emergency? Well, as Joe Foy of the Western Canada Wilderness Committee so aptly put it, there’s another emergency happening right here in B.C. that may be as critical and important to all British Columbians as any other crisis that the nation as a whole has ever faced.

And what on earth could be so important? As Foy went on to explain to a rapt audience of concerned listeners, that biggest scam being pulled off on the people of the province; one engineered by the very people elected to represents the interests of electors of British Columbia, was what the Save Our Rivers Society was here to explain to people.

That “scam”, as former Social Credit Environment Minister, author and renowned Vancouver radio broadcaster Rafe Mair told the audience (in no uncertain terms), is the total selling off by the Liberal government of Premier Gordon Campbell of BC’s public ownership of the streams and rivers that are the lifeblood and, as Rafe summed up in his provocative talk, the “soul” of this province’s geographic and ecological treasures; ones which make British Columbia the most beautiful and prized piece of real estate on the face of the planet and upon which all our other economic and social assets, as well as the free flowing vitality of the natural ecosystems, depend for their existence.

The Save Our Rivers crew from Left: Joe Foy - Western Canada Wilderness Committee, Melissa Davis - B.C. Citizens for Public Power, Rafe Mair - Save Our Rivers Society, Mike Bruce, Union Rep & MC
Photo credit: Radical Press
____________________________________________________________________________

Rafe Mair, now retired from politics and broadcasting and into the 78th year of his earthly sojourn, sporting a light beard, a jolly belly and a trusty cane, has been leading a a series of public awareness meetings throughout the province to try and drum up public awareness and interest in what he feels is an upcoming provincial election whose outcome could have a devastatingly negative impact on all future generations in the province should the Liberal Campbell government be returned to power and be given free reign to fulfill their self-chosen, hidden mandate to sell off BC’s rivers to foreign corporate interests.

Over a decade ago Mair published a book called Canada: Is Anyone Listening? in which he presented his views on the state of the country. Today, he could just as easily write another one, were there enough time, titled “BC: Is Anyone Listening?” On this night in Quesnel there were people listening and to put it mildly they weren’t impressed with what they were hearing.

Representing a non-profit, publicly funded organization called the Save Our Rivers Society, see http://www.SaveOurRivers.org , the former politician and broadcaster and now elder environmentalist and contributing writer to the online news site http://www.thetyee.ca , has been traveling around the province with an entourage of other public figures in a somewhat desperate attempt to alert voters to the real situation that exists regarding the state of our publicly owned utility known as BC Hydro and how it’s being hijacked by corporate interests and aided and abetted by the Campbell Liberal government in Victoria.

Accompanying Rafe with his traveling salvation show in favour of the salmon, the streams and the environment was Joe Foy, spokesperson for the BC based Western Canada Wilderness Committee, BC’s longstanding, dedicated and trusted environmental organization noted for numerous accomplishments in the way of protecting British Columbia’s eco systems and wildlife habitat from the devastating effects of overly zealous industrial logging and mining interests who tend, at times, to put the dollar and the interests of the corporate boardroom above the natural environment.

Also included in the list of speakers was Melissa Davis from BC Citizens for Public Power see http://www.citizensforpublicpower.ca who began the evening’s discussion with an introduction to her organization’s efforts over the past few years to draw public attention to the urgency of what has been taking place behind closed doors in Victoria with respect to the Liberal agenda for privatizing BC’s publicly owned natural resources.

Of particular note were Melissa’s comments regarding the broken Liberal promise in 2001 to “not sell or privatize BC Hydro’s dams, transmission lines, water resources, or other core assets” followed by a grim reminder that Bill 30 was brought in by the Liberals to usurp any democratic rights of local regional governments to enact rules for safeguarding their resources thus allowing foreign, corporate interests to prevail over indigenous decisions of local governments in their bid to gain control of all provincial rivers and streams.

Melissa Davis’s third point, one which the audience appeared to understand almost intuitively, was that the Liberal’s willing compromises to BC’s environment and its citizens by the relinquishment of the rights of public ownership of BC Hydro and introducing a private sector model of corporate control of public assets for stockholder’s profits over and above anything else, would automatically ensure that the price people are paying for their electrical needs would dramatically increase in the years ahead. Predictions went as high as a 25% increase in one’s power bill over the next 3 years, this on top of already substantial increases. Rather shocking to say the least! Melissa recommended going to the following website to view a map showing the rivers and proposed projects: http://www.ippwatch.com .

Rafe took to the podium after Melissa’s enlightening talk and opened his remarks with a rather choice anecdote. He had served as a cabinet minister in the Bill Bennett government of the 1970s, along with the Cariboo’s own Socred MLA of the time, the well respected Alex Fraser who had been Minister of Highways for many years and after whom the Alex Fraser bridge in the lower mainland is now named in fond remembrance.

Rafe told a little story about how when in cabinet meetings theywould try to guage public approval of their policies by media comments but that when Bill Bennett really wanted to know how the public were taking to their policies he’d always turn to Alex Fraser and say, “Alex, now what are the folks in “Queznelly” saying about all of this?” Alex would then inform them that they thought if was just a “bunch of bs” and that would settle the question then and there.

In some respects that is how Rafe proceeded in describing the selling out of the province’s rivers and streams and the people’s collective ownership of public utilities such as BC Hydro. He dispensed with all the bs that CanWest media, the Liberal government and the pseudo-”green” organizations are telling the people of the province and got down to the nuts and bolts of what is really taking place. It wasn’t a pretty picture.

“The massive destruction of our environment and the slow but sure death of BC Hydro have been planned and are being implemented without any opportunity for the public to be heard.”

“Why the lack of real consultation?”

“Where’s the proof that we need more power and, if we do, are there alternatives?”

“Experts tell us — so does BC Hydro, for that matter — that with conservation, upgrading present facilities and adding generators on existing dams plus taking back the power we’re entitled to under the Columbia River Treaty, we have no need for many years for more power. So why are going down the privatization route?”

“Why is BC Hydro not permitted to create any new power?”

“Why are we giving away to large corporations the hundreds of millions of dollars BC Hydro puts into the public purse every year to help with schools, hospitals and the like?”

“Why is BC Hydro forced by the government to enter contracts for energy with private producers which cost Hydro more than they can sell it for — buy high, sell low is a strange policy especially for a capitalist government!”

“Why are we approving intermittent power, which only can be produced during the spring run-off?”

“What will be the effect of NAFTA? Will it mean that any American company with rights on a river has all rights, including the right to export it?”

“Will it mean that as long as the American company uses the river, it can ignore the time limit in the lease? The answer to each is probably “yes.””

“Why are we disabling BC Hydro so that it must go broke under the proposed policy?”

All these explosive questions and more were given to the crowd of listeners who sat attentive throughout the whole presentation.

Photo credit: WCWC

The final speaker was Joe Foy of WCWC and he proceeded to pull the plug on privatization plans of the Liberal government. Speaking clearly and forcefully and with extreme knowledge and awareness of the various projects already on the go throughout the province, Joe assured the audience that these so-called “little mom and pop” power projects as the government likes to label them are anything but little and anything but benign when it comes to the extreme destruction of the natural environment and the fish and wildlife that will result from their construction. Using examples such as the Pitt River Project in the lower mainland Foy went on to explain how this environmentally friendly little private power venture would entail constructing close to 40 kilometers of pipelines and river and stream diversions which would reduce the levels of the free flowing waterways by up to 90% and that coupled with power lines and roadways criss-crossing throughout what is now virtually pristine wilderness areas.

In graphic detail and in cogent, convincing arguments Joe went on to expose the absolute insanity and irresponsibility of the Liberal government in determining in secret, private discussions with corporate interests this monumental scheme to steal from under the nose of an otherwise ill- and mis-informed public, the fundamental sources of the province’s wealth and future. When he was finished speaking the audience acknowledged his efforts with a rousing round of sustained applause.

Following the speakers’ presentations there was ample time given over to questions from the audience. One of the first persons to speak was a Chief from the Chilcotin who used the occasion of the meeting to further enlighten listeners as to the problems the First Nations people of the Nemaiah Valley were facing with a similar project by Taseko Mines which was threatening to destroy Fish Lake one of the water bodies the water in their indigenous territories. While it was slightly off topic in terms of the purpose of the meeting the speakers listened attentively to what the Chief had to say and were in full support of his position. To the credit of the Western Canada Wilderness Committee Joe Foy publicly stated, “We’d love to join you at Fish Lake.” He told the Chief that all they had to do was invite WCWC to lend their support and the environmental group would be there within days fully committed to helping the Chilcotin people in any way possible.

Another inquisitive listen asked Rafe Mair why it was that so many of the public were unaware of the issue and how come the mainstream media wasn’t drawing more attention to the subject. That brought a rather grimaced grin to the face of the elder Mair and he proceeded to give the Asper-controlled CanWest corporation a well-deserved tongue lashing pointing out that they have done nothing in terms of bringing this issue to the public’s attention and in fact everything to keep it hush hush or else misinformed by only presenting the government and corporate propaganda and those so-called “green” environmental lobbyists who have sold out and are now capitalizing on the issue by giving their tacit consent to the Liberal’s scheme. With the Province, the Vancouver Sun and the Victoria Times-Colonist all mum on the subject of selling off BCs public resources there’s little way for the public to know what is truly being implemented. That said, Rafe went on to tell the audience that they should visit the websites of those non-profit groups who were giving the rest of the story on this issue and also that they should write letters to their editors and to their MLAs and send information out to whatever lists and groups that people might be connected to on the internet. If the mainstream wasn’t going to cover the whole story then the alternative media and the people themselves could spread the word via the net.

The meeting ended at 9 pm as scheduled and the audience gave the presenters a long and hearty round of applause for having empowered them with new and vital information with which to deal with the problem. The final bonus of course for all of those who had sacrificed their time and left their televisions to attend the meeting was the announcement that the Canucks had been victorious!

Such is life in the Cariboo!
————

Arthur Topham is the publisher and editor of http://www.radicalpress.com an alternative, online news site located in central BC and in operation since 1998. He can be reached at radical@radicalpress.com .

Digging Up Trouble:
“Prosperity” Gold and the ongoing struggle to stop open pit mining in traditional Chilcotin territories.

This Notice once stood at the entrance into Nemiah Territory just after crossing the Chilcotin River.
______________________________________________________________________

[Editor’s Note: It seems like only yesterday that I recall putting together a two page article on the issue covered in this post but as I look back through the archives of The Radical, my once hard copy newspaper which first carried the story, I realize that it came out September of 1998 in Vol. 1, No.4. The headlines for the story originally read:

DIGGING UP TROUBLE
There’s something fishy going on in Nemiah Territory

In my introduction to the article I had written, “There is an area of rugged beauty and grandeur that exists in the Chilcotin region of British Columbia which Terry Glavin, in his book, Nemiah, referred to as “The Unconquered Country”. It is the traditional territory of the first people who inhabited the lands surrounding Chilko Lake, one of the most pristine and sacred spots left upon this ravaged planet. They are known in their own tongue as the Tsilhqot’in People of Xeni and to the rest of the world as as the Nemiah Valley Indian Band.

In August of 1989 the People of Xeni had published a document called The Nemiah Declaration. It contained eight Articles stating that within their defined territory known as the Nemiah Aboriginal Wilderness Preserve:

1.    There shall be no commercial logging. Only local cutting of trees for our own needs, i.e. firewood, housing, fencing, native uses, etc.

2.    There shall be no mining or mining explorations.

3.    There shall be no commercial road building.

4.    All-terrain vehicles and skidoos shall only be permitted for trapping purposes.

5.    There shall be no flooding or dam construction on Chilko, Taseko and Tatlayoko Lakes.

6.    This is the spiritual and economic homeland of our people. We will continue in perpetuity: a) to have and exercise our traditional rights of hunting, fishing, trapping, gathering, and natural resources; b) to carry on our traditional ranching way of life; c) to practice our traditional native medicine, religion, sacred and spiritual ways.

7.    That we are prepared to SHARE our Nemiah Aboriginal Wilderness Preserve with non-natives in the following ways: a) with our permission visitors may come and view and photograph our beautiful land; b) we will issue permits, subject to our conservation rules, for hunting and fishing within our Preserve; c) the respectful use of our Preserve by canoeists, hikers, light campers and other visitors is encouraged, subject to our system of permits.

8.    We are prepared to enforce and defend our Aboriginal rights in any way we are able.

Prior to and since this declaration was made, the Nemiah people have been constantly dealing with goverments and private interests who deem it to be their inalienable right to exploit the natural resources of this incredible territory for purposes of monetary gain. If it’s not the forest giants trying to clearcut the virgin old-growth timber then it’s the large mining consortiums eager to rip and tear the mountains apart in their unquenchable thirst for more gold.

It’s an old story, one that has many parallels…. I will assume readers will get the picture without repeating the whole original introduction.

This incident, which will be further explained in the introduction and article, sent to www.RadicalPress.com by Carmen Núñez and her husband Blaine will show that the battle to protect the sacred waters and land of the Tsilhqot’in Xeni is still not over even after 9 years of resistance. Please read through the thoughts and ideas presented by these two concerned people and do what you can to spread the word about what they are offering to the public. Ed.]

INTRODUCTION:

By Carmen Núñez

April 19, 2009

Hello everyone.  Respectful and well-meaning greetings to you all.

I have some texts to share.

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Splitting the Sky Arrested at Bush Protest in Calgary

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[Editor’s Note: I received an email from Splitting the Sky’s wife Sandra Bruderer on Tuesday, March 17th informing me that he had called her at 11:44 am to say he’d been arrested by Calgary police and was in jail. As Sandra said, “He was arrested this morning in Calgary for trying to break the police line and arrest former President George Bush for war crimes and crimes against humanity.”

He told his wife that the police could hold him for up to 24 hours.

She further stated, “There are people down there trying to get him released. One of them just called me to say that they have been told that Dac has been released but they don’t know where. They don’t see him and none of us have heard from him since. So we don’t believe that he has been released. The Calgary police is saying that he has been released but he hasn’t.

Tony [Hall] just called back to say that Dac is still in jail there as someone has been in to see him. He is being held till tomorrow and is being charged with assault. Dac’s lawyer Ramsey Clark has been notified. Dac said there were lots of cameras down there and something should be on the Calgary news tonight.

Arrest Bush!!”]

http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Politics/2009/03/17/pf-8783241.html

March 17, 2009
Protesters greet Bush in Calgary
By THE CANADIAN PRESS

George W. Bush will discuss his eight years in the Oval Office when he visits Calgary, Alta., Tuesday

CALGARY — The rage on the man’s face was evident as he berated police officers preventing him from entering the building where former U.S. president George W. Bush was making a speech Tuesday.

“There is a war criminal upstairs that has committed murder,” screamed the man, who identified himself only as Splitting the Sky. “If I try to get in there you will arrest me. What is wrong with you?

“I am going in there and make a citizen’s arrest,” he said as he attempt to push past police. “Arrest George Bush. Arrest George Bush.”

A few minutes later he was handcuffed and hustled past a long line of Calgary’s business elite waiting to get inside the Telus Convention Centre.

An unflattering photo of Splitting the Sky attempting to break through police lines outside the Telus Convention Centre in Calgary Tuesday March 17th to make a citizens arrest of War Criminal George W. Bush. He was arrested soon after.

__________________________________________________________________________
Protest organizers say at least four demonstrators were arrested at Tuesday’s event.

About 60 Calgary police officers were on duty outside to control between 200 and 300 people carrying signs that read “No to U.S. Crimes Against Humanity,” “Indict Bush For War Crimes” and “Canada Is Not Bush Country.”

Another sign read “Shoe Him The Door” — a reference to the Iraqi journalist who threw his shoe at Bush during a news conference in Baghdad in December.

Two Calgary men showed up at the demonstration to support the former U.S. president. Their signs read “The World Is Safer Because of George W. Bush.”

“Thank you, George Bush. Thank you, George Bush,” they chanted.

“He doesn’t sit down and negotiate with terrorists,” shouted one of the men, who identified himself as Merle.

“Try doing this in Cuba,” he said as he pointed to the jeering protesters.

There were shoes everywhere during the protest. A young woman wearing a hood, orange jumpsuit and a name tag that said “Club Gitmo” was pulling a shoe cannon along with a target festooned with pictures of Bush.

An obviously amused police officer told her to leave.

Some of those opposed to Bush’s visit have said he should be arrested as a war criminal because of alleged torture at military prisons in Iraq and Guantanamo Bay.

A protester chants slogans outside the venue where former U.S. President

George Bush was invited to speak to a crowd of Calgary business people on

Tuesday, March 17, 2009. (Jeff McIntosh / THE CANADIAN PRESS)

_____________________________________________________
Tuesday’s speech was one of the first public appearances Bush has made since leaving the presidency in January with a dismal approval rating and much of the blame for his country’s collapsing economy. The speech was closed to the media.

“It’s not too late to turn back. Walk away,” the demonstrators yelled to some of the 1,500 guests invited to hear Bush speak to the Calgary Chamber of Commerce.

A couple of hundred people lined up early to go through a special security screening room before entering the hall where Bush was speaking.

A few said the former president has to take some of the responsibility for what has happened in the United States, but also has the right to talk about his administration.

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http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20090317/Bush_calgary_090317/20090317?hub=TopStories
Protesters greet George Bush in Calgary

Tue. Mar. 17 2009 8:08 PM ET

The Canadian Press

CALGARY – George W. Bush wooed a packed crowd at a private luncheon in Calgary with his trademark folksy charm, while hundreds of protesters outside hurled insults and shoes at the former U.S. president’s image.

Former U.S. president George W. Bush, left, speaks with former Canadian

ambassador to the United States Frank McKenna at an invitation-only event

on Tuesday, March 17, 2009 in Calgary. (AP / TinePublic, Ewan Nicholson)

______________________________________________________
Four demonstrators were arrested outside the downtown Calgary convention centre where Bush spoke for one of the first times since leaving office in January. At the time, he had a dismal approval rating and was blamed for his country’s collapsing economy.

“There is a war criminal upstairs that has committed murder,” screamed one man, who identified himself only as Splits the Sky. “If I try to get in there you will arrest me. What is wrong with you?”

Bush’s affable public persona, subdued by widespread criticism of his administration near the end of his time as president, was front and centre as he explained his eight years in the Oval Office.

In his 35-minute speech, he drew ties between his childhood in rural Texas and life in rural Alberta, including the common binds of community and family.

Bush poked fun at himself, but also grew serious when talking about Canada’s role in providing the U.S. with a secure source of energy.

He also admitted his administration spent its final days “bailing water” trying to deal with the financial crisis, and said while there’s no easy answer going forward, more government involvement is not the solution.

The event was closed to the media, but many of the 1,500 people who paid $400 a ticket to hear Bush speak stopped to offer their impressions. Few seemed annoyed by the fact the event started an hour and a half late due to tight security screening.

“He was very, very candid. He was witty and witty in a way that you would have to be intelligent to be that witty,” said Calgary Tory MP Lee Richardson.

“He seemed to have a remarkable grasp of events and issues that just didn’t come through as president.”

Brenda Kenny, president of the Canadian Energy Pipeline Association, said Bush emphasized the interconnected, open markets that tie Canada and the U.S. together.

Peter Yates, a lawyer who has dual citizenship and voted against Bush in 2004, admitted the former president is very personable and gave an entertaining speech.

“My feelings are still the same — he’s a folksy affable guy but I don’t agree with his policies.”

Most of the 400 protesters waiting outside showed their negative feelings for Bush.

Some of those opposed to Bush’s visit have suggested he should be arrested as a war criminal because of alleged torture at military prisons in Iraq and Guantanamo Bay. Many yelled at police officers for not arresting Bush on the spot.

Signs read “No to U.S. Crimes Against Humanity,” “Indict Bush For War Crimes” and “Canada Is Not Bush Country, as well as “Shoe Him The Door” — a reference to the Iraqi journalist who threw his shoe at Bush during a news conference in Baghdad in December.

A Protest sign that should have read: “Go To Jail Bush!!!”

___________________________________________________________
Two men showed up to support Bush, however. Their signs read “The World Is Safer Because of George W. Bush.”

“Thank you, George Bush. Thank you, George Bush,” they chanted.

The former president’s speech almost exactly marks six years since the invasion of Iraq, said organizer Peggy Askin, and it’s not OK to forget what happened in the ensuing years.

“He shouldn’t be able to go anywhere in the world and just present himself as a private citizen,” she said. “We do not have any use for bringing war criminals into this country. It’s an affront.”

One businessman in the audience said Bush implied he had some regrets from his time in office, although he didn’t give specifics.

“He admitted that maybe there were some things he could have done differently, but overall he made some sense with the reasons for doing it,” said George Fink, CEO of Bonterra Oil and Gas.

The 43rd president of the United States defended his reasons for military action in Iraq and Afghanistan, Fink said.

“He said if we were in his boots in 9-11, a short time after he got in, there was a big demand to do something, and he had to react and he reacted.”

Kenny said Bush seemed eager to explain his views, and he said he plans to write a book to show what happened during eight very challenging years.

“I wouldn’t say apologetic, I would say acknowledging that there was not always agreement and, frankly, just accepting that as a fact.”

The Globe and Mail reported on its website that besides defending his decision to invade Iraq, Bush said “risk takers,” not government, will solve the world recession and that he had positive things to say about current president Barack Obama.

“I love my country more than politics,” Bush said.

“He deserves my silence and if he wants my help he can pick up the phone and call me.”

On the economy, Bush even though he is a “free market guy,” he had to step in with a bail-out package in the waning days of his administration.

But he said the government can’t do it alone.

“It’s the risk takers, not the government, that is going to pull us out of this recession,” he said.

In a question and answer session, Bush defended the invasion of Iraq and the toppling of Saddam Hussein.

“The world is better off and the Iraqi people are better off without Saddam, no ifs, ands or buts,” he said.

There were shoes everywhere during the protest. A young woman wearing a hood, orange jumpsuit and a name tag that said “Club Gitmo” was pulling a shoe cannon along with a target festooned with pictures of Bush.

Protesters flung projectile footwear from the device at the massive photo of a smiling Bush, while others jeered and tossed sandals and boots by hand.

One of the arrested protesters was ticketed and released, said police. Three others were charged with more serious offences — one with breach of the peace and two with obstructing a police officer and resisting arrest.

Seventy-nine police officers were involved, but that included traffic members who closed off intersections for the president’s motorcade.

———–

THE ARROW LAKES INDIANS ARE RECOVERING FROM EXTINCTION

New Book Tells of a People Who Were Forgotten Until Their Ancestors Were Taken Away

Local author and artist Cliff Woffenden’s latest book is now published. The title Ghost Peoples is the story of the Arrow Lakes Indians. Cliff wrote this book to clear up the many misunderstandings about these people and their place in local and Canadian history.

In 1956 the Canadian government declared the Arrow Lakes Indian Band extinct. There was only one problem - they were still alive. But the government was about to begin negotiations with the USA for the Columbia River Treaty that would dam the Columbia and create a reservoir stretching from Castlegar in the south to Revelstoke in the north. This two hundred kilometer long lake would eventually wipe out all archaeological traces of a culture that had endured for over five thousand years.

To complicate matters, just when the last visible vestiges of their culture were disappearing from the landscape, the people came back to their home to request the return of the remains of their ancestors that were dug up by archaeologists and carted off to museums.

An interesting dilemma for the government. A rediscovery of a peoples’ identity. A clash between two worldviews. The return of the Sinixt Peoples has caused both elation and fear among members of the dominant society. Their return signals the end to the vacuum in our history and on our landscape. It also brings up the insecurities of a society that seems to fear the truth.

Ghost Peoples is the story of the Sinixt: their origins, their culture, their history and their present situation. This story is not one of blame but one that hopes to shine a light on a darkness that pervades our history so that it can be reconciled. Our story is not complete without the truth of our prehistory; our landscape is barren without its original inhabitants.

Ghost Peoples is published by Howling Moon Productions of Nakusp, B.C. CANADA

CLIFF WOFFENDEN - AUTHOR/ARTIST

_________________________________

Contact information: Cliff Woffenden

91 4th Ave NW,

Box 214, Nakusp, B.C. V0G 1R0

250-265-0122

woffend@telus.net
———–

Cliff has been researching the story of the Sinixt people for two decades and lives in Nakusp, B.C. He is available for comment at 250-265-0122 or woffend@telus.net

http://www.mohawknationnews.com/news/singlenews.php?en=en&layout=mnn&newsnr=679&backurl=%2Fnews%2Fnews3.php%3Flang%3Den%26layout%3Dmnn%26sortorder%3D0&srcscript=/news/news3.php  
Canada’s obscene part in Gaza atrocities
THE RULE OF WHAT LAW? – WEAPONS NEED TO BE BURIED
January 8, 2009

MNN. Jan 7, 2008. How many Palestinian infants, toddlers, children and schools have been bombed by the criminals in charge of Israeli forces in the last few days? What law are they following? An eye for an eye! A tooth for a tooth! This is primitive barbarity. The Israelis claim if they kill enough Palestinians, Hamas will stop sending in rockets. Conveniently overlooked is the fact that Israelis have built a wall around Gaza to control every Palestinian and everything that comes in and out of the ghetto to deliberately force the people into desperation. Also forgotten is that parts of the new smart bomb, GBU 39, designed for urban warfare, is made in Canadian facilities with the help of government tax breaks and Canada Pension Plan investments. This is obscene!

Gaza is occupied Palestinian territory. The Israelis and Americans toppled the democratically elected Hamas government because it couldn’t control them. The war is being waged on civilians who have no arms nor anywhere to hide. How noble is it for heavily armed Israelis to shoot fish in a rain barrel? The Palestinians have a right to live. They can only lob their homemade rockets into Israel. The Israelis attack them with illegal weapons. All weapons are illegal. Manufacturers should be prosecuted. The weapons collected and buried.

The United Nations is looking more like a bogus organization that serves the interests of a handful of war mongers who are trying to profit by setting up a New World Order. This is where the bankers and war mongers are the bosses and we are supposed to be their slaves. We fear the UN is setting up an “international department of Indian affairs” to control all indigenous peoples and resources worldwide.

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BEWARE “RAHNATAKIAS” –  CURE FOR OBAMA FEVER IS “INDIAN” HISTORY

MNN.  Jan. 21, 2009.  U.S. President Barack Obama slipped a subtle comment into his inaugural “mind control” speech on January 20th.   When Obama defined America as a nation of “Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus and non-believers”, he deliberately left out Indigenous peoples.  We have our value systems.  We have our knowledge.  He sneaked in the intention to ignore us when he said that “the lines of tribe shall soon dissolve”.  To Americans the word “tribe” means the Ongwehonwe.  We are the caretakers and trustees of the lands and resources of the world which the New World Order NWO or One World “Government” must steal to control the world.  Our role puts us squarely in the path of this grand scheme of a few bankers, the governments they control and their deadly enforcement agencies.

Colonial “band or tribal councils” will be put in charge of indigenous people where possible such as Iraq and Afghanistan.  Other Indigenous peoples will be “eliminated” or ignored.  It looks like this program will be run by the United Nations “International Department of Indian Affairs” on behalf of the NWO war mongers.

Obama’s main message is, “If you don’t do it the American way, we will crush you”.  It is all the more “devious” because it’s coming in this velvet glove that claims that it’s being done in a spirit of cooperation.  The real message is, “we will defeat you”.  A new disease is being spread called “Obama fever”.  The symptoms are flag waving, millions gathering and clapping like a bunch of trained seals and hypnotic sectarian rapping.  O-Ba-Ma, O-Ba-Ma!  The following are comments by “Native Pride” and MNN Mohawk Nation News:

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[Editor’s Note: A word of explanation as to why this article is now being posted on the site. It was a feature article that first appeared in the Jan/Feb 2001 edition of Canadian Dimension, a “left” magazine located in Winnipeg, Manitoba Canada. The reason for re-publishing it now is because it is relevant to an understanding of how the so-called political “Left” in Canada is controlled by the very same Zionist forces who are also in control of the Canada’s political “Right” wing parties in this country.

On one hand (or claw, if you prefer ) we have the Harper Conservatives and on the other the Zionist Jew Ignatieff Liberals along with their supposedly “socialist”, crypto-Zionist NDP and Bloc appendages.

By all outward appearances we have an ideological dichotomy but in actuality we have but two arms or tentacles stretching forth from the cephalopod source of all our discontent – political Zionism.

In order to show how this scenario unfolds in Canada it will be necessary to use this article as an example of how the Zionists infiltrate and eventually subordinate each and every movement in Canada that shows tendencies challenging to the Zionist ideology or critical of the ’state’ of Israel.

The article in question cannot be found by googling it and one cannot find it on the Canadian Dimension website. It’s fallen into the sink-hole of non-history because it no longer is useful to those who originally wrote and published it.  I have it here mainly for reference as it will be useful in further discussions.]

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DRY ROT: The Far Right Targets the Left

by Will Offley

Jan/Fed 2001 Vol. 35 No. 1
Canadian Dimension Magazine

Like most huge events in history, the fall of the Berlin Wall shook our world. In doing so it also changed the ground rules of politics.

Whether you call it paradigm shift or merely the temporary triumph of neoliberalism, the dust from the Wall’s collapse has clouded our vision for nearly a decade. Without exception, currents of the Left around the world have found themselves disoriented and scrambling to create a new vision and a new political framework within which to organize and to fight. This has not only been true for the traditional Communist parties, but for the non-Stalinist and anti-Stalinist Left as well.

The left has not yet been able to reconstitute a coherent vision of the new world we want to see issue from the ashes of the old, nor have we articulated the strategy or programme or organizations necessary to make that happen.  As a result, radical left politics have remained largely confined to “anti” politics for a decade or more: anticorporate, anti-globalization, anticapitalist.  We have remained locked down behind the relatively easy bulwark of what we’re against, rather than venturing out into the exposed and more dangerous terrain of defining what we’re for.  In addition, in some sectors there have been marked tendencies to view the capitalist system through the lens of conspiracism and irrationality, where plots and conspiracies replace class interests and mass politics as the motor forces of human society.

This weakening of its culture, institutions and politics have rendered some sectors of the broad left vulnerable to the conscious and organized predation being carried out in Canada by a specific current of the far right. In the U.S. this dates back as far as the Gulf War, where neo-fascist currents like the Larouche organization and Spotlight sought to attach themselves to the movement against the war.

Is the Canadian left immune from this sort of targeting?  No.

Is the situation any different now, a decade later?  Yes and no.

Yes, because Seattle has led to Washington, and from there to Philadelphia and L.A. and Windsor and Prague.  Quebec will be next, and it won’t be the end.  The rise of the struggle in the streets against globalization marks the end of ten years of demoralization and confusion.

There is a new dynamism and a new optimism, and if the path ahead is only partially visible, at least we’re collectively underway again.

However, one has only to look at Seattle to see that the growth of far right currents within and alongside the left and progressive movements has increased visibly over the decade.  There are also indicators that point to a change – during the Gulf War, the far right was active on the fringes, but by Seattle it seemed to be active at the very centre of things.  While the young militants faced down the cops and the gas in downtown Seattle, on a leadership level elements of that movement were being increasingly compromised politically by a de facto convergence between Ralph Nader and the most important far-right leader in the United States, the semi-fascist Pat Buchanan.  Five months later during the April 16th mobilizations in Washington, Buchanan shared a stage with Teamster leader Jimmy Hoffa Jr. as an invited guest of the AFL-CIO.

Antiglobalist politics are not the exclusive preserve of the left. Though it springs from different roots, Buchanan’s opposition to globalization and free trade is as genuine as ours.  He just takes it in a direction diametrically opposed to everything else we stand for – protectionism, racism, exclusion.  Not only that, there have been plenty of examples this century to show the far right can be anti-corporate too.

Throughout the 1920’s Hitler’s Nazi Party contained a minority current led by Gregor and Otto Strasser that was inalterably opposed to the German trusts… as well as the Jews, the Communists, Social Democrats, gays and lesbians, unions, etc.

Nor is the far right confined solely to the hardcore neo-Nazism of the Heritage Front or the Northern Hammerskins.  It’s relatively easy to ward off the interventions of groups that put swastikas on their literature. It’s considerably more difficult when the politics of the groups in question are cloaked in progressive rhetoric and hidden behind coded language. Between Wolfgang Droege and Stockwell Day there is a whole swamp of currents and organizations – conspiracist, anti-Semitic, some with hidden fascist agendas, some totalitarian, some merely far right.

Some of these are targeting the left.  There is reason to be concerned.
Made for Each Other

Although they’re based at different ends of the country, they seem to be made for each other.

The Radical is a monthly tabloid published in Quesnel, B.C. since June 1998 by Arthur Topham, a self-described anarchist who regards himself as “a natural, sovereign and unique critter who doesn’t need any centralized forms of authority telling me how to run my life.”

Discourse and Disclosure is a more irregularly-published bimonthly, also a tabloid.  It has been put out by editor Sue Potvin since May 1996. Potvin, formerly a resident of Ottawa, now resides in Greenwood, Nova Scotia. Potvin is considerably less forthcoming about herself than is Topham.

Both publications share common positions on many different issues.  Both are opposed to globalization, the WTO, the MAI, NAFTA, the World Bank, the IMF, and now to the FTAA.  Both are opposed to the increasing corporate domination of the economy and most other sectors of everyday life.  Both have editorially supported the mobilizations against globalization, from Seattle to Prague.  Both have condemned NATO, and the West’s aggression against Yugoslavia.  Both oppose clearcutting and support many environmental causes.  Both are strongly supportive of Canadian nationalism.  Both have even run articles endorsing gay and lesbian rights, and have been outspoken in support of native struggles from Ipperwash to Gustafsen Lake. When you realize that each has survived hand-to-mouth for years, with very shaky finances, the announcement in the November 2000 issues of each publication that they were moving towards appearing as a joint publication makes a whole lot of sense.  The Radical is distributed widely throughout the hinterland of B.C; Discourse and Disclosure appears to have a broader national distribution.  Both share a number of regular contributors.  To move toward joint publication is a completely logical step in extending the reach of two papers which have essentially identical editorial approaches.

In fact, the similarities go far deeper, but this requires you to get out a fine-tooth comb and start a much closer examination of both publications.  Both papers are riddled with conspiracy theorists.  Both have supported the politics of David Icke, the new age anti-Semite who argues the world is being run by a conspiracy of blood-drinking lizards. Both regularly feature and support the activities of the far-right Detax movement.  Both exhibit numerous links to various prominent anti-Semites, militia supporters and white supremacists.  And because of these similarities both have become important vehicles in English Canada for the politics of the third position current of Canada’s far right, third position because this current of the right rejects capitalism AND Marxism.

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[Editor’s Note: This article is dated and appears here simply because the forum on which it was originally posted was destroyed by the malicious machinations of the Zionist B’nai Brith Canada censors. I’m posting it here for posterity and for future reference.]

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The Gitxsan: Betrayal of a Nation
by Arthur Topham
Jan. 27/2004

“We know that justice and generosity can flourish only in an atmosphere of trust. For if individuals and minorities do not feel protected against the possibility of the tyranny of the majority, if French-speaking Canadians or native peoples or new Canadians do not feel they will be treated with justice, it is useless to ask them to open their hearts and minds to their fellow Canadians.” - Pierre Trudeau, April 17, 1982

The irony contained in the Globe & Mail’s January 27, 04 front page story “PM’s Throne Speech has native focus”, I’m sure was not lost on the 50 Hereditary Chiefs of the Gitxsan Nation and their 5000 band members living in the north-western region of central British Columbia.

Just weeks ago, on the 14th of January, this same group of frustrated, disillusioned, yet determined people, filed a lengthy and controversial Complaint to the Canadian Judicial Council (CJC) and the federal Minister of Justice, Mr. Irwin Cotler citing a shocking list of grievances against an array of highly prominent B.C. judges, lawyers, law firms, politicians and corporations all linked to a host of crimes ranging from misconduct to deceit, bribery, corruption, obstruction of justice and complicity, the sum of which has devastated and endangered the 33,000 square kilometre area of their traditional lands.

First and foremost of the complaints is the conduct of B.C.’s Supreme Court Chief Justice Donald J. Brenner while presiding over the “restructuring” proceedings related to a large forest products company in Prince Rupert, B.C.; one in which the provincial government held controlling interest and declining revenues. That initial example, shown in great detail within the lengthy submission, exemplified at the onset the serious nature of the many other accusations of fault contained within the document, illustrating once again the seemingly endless challenges which have plagued the treaty process in B.C. for decades.

Readers may recall that it was this same First Nation that captured headlines across the country during the latter part of the Mulroney era when what the Claimants describe as “arguably the most important case in Canadian jurisprudence” the Gitxsan Wet’suwet’en land claims trial, known as Delgamuukw, finally concluded with judgment on March 8, 1991, after 374 protracted court days stretching over a three year period.

According to Ron Jackson and Robert Jackson, the two signatories of the Complaint representing the 50 Hereditary Gitxsan Chiefs and their people, the original Delgamuukw trial was a staggeringly complex and insidious deception that saw figures from all levels of government, the judiciary, industry and the media conspiring to foist upon the general public, and specifically the Gitxsan people themselves, a horrendous ‘legal’ hoax which would allow the B.C. government to further augment its power over the traditional territories of the Gitxsan Wet’suwet’en for the benefit of all vested interests except the indigenous inhabitants of the region themselves.
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An Alaska Native speaks out on Palin, Oil, and Alaska*

By Evon Peter
evonpeter@mac. com
Sept. 9, 2008
My name is Evon Peter; I am a former Chief of the Neetsaii Gwich’in tribe from Arctic Village, Alaska and the current Executive Director of Native Movement. My organization provides culturally based leadership development through offices in Alaska and Arizona. My wife, who is Navajo, and I have been based out of Flagstaff, Arizona for the past few years, although I travel home to Alaska in support of our initiatives there as well. It is interesting to me that my wife and I find ourselves as Indigenous people from the two states where McCain and Palin originate in their leadership.

I am writing this letter to raise awareness about the ongoing colonization and violation of human rights being carried out against Alaska Native peoples in the name of unsustainable progress, with a particular emphasis on the role of Sarah Palin and the Republican leadership. My hope is that it helps to elevate truth about the nature of Alaskan politics in relation to Alaska Native peoples and that it lays a framework for our path to justice.

Ever since the Russian claim to Alaska and the subsequent sale to the United States through the Treaty of Cession in 1867, the attitude and treatment towards Alaska Native peoples has been fairly consistent. We were initially referred to as less than human “uncivilized tribes”, so we were excluded from any dialogues and decisions regarding our lands, lives, and status. The dominating attitude within the Unites States at the time was called Manifest Destiny; that God had given Americans this great land to take from the Indians because they were non-Christian and incapable of self-government. Over the years since that time, this framework for relating to Alaska Native peoples has become entrenched in the United States legislative and legal systems in an ongoing direct violation of our human rights.

What does this mean? Allow me to share an analogy. If a group of people were to arrive in your city and tell you their people had made laws, among which were:

1. What were once your home and land now belong to them (although you could live in the garage or backyard)

2. Forced you to send your children to boarding schools to learn their language and be acculturated into their ways with leaders who touted “Kill the American, save the man” (based on the original statement made by US Captain Richard H. Pratt in regards to Native American education “Kill the Indian, save the man.”)

3. Supported missionaries and government agents to forcefully (for example, with poisons placed on the tongues of your children and withheld vaccines) convince you that your Jesus, Buddha, Torah, or Mohammed was actually an agent of evil and that salvation in the afterlife could only be found through believing otherwise

4. Made it illegal for you to continue to do your job to support your family, except under strict oversight and through extensive regulation

5. Made it illegal for you to own any land or run a business as an individual and did not allow you to participate in any form of their government, which controlled your life (voting or otherwise)

How would this make you feel? What if you also knew that if you were to retaliate, that you would be swiftly killed or incarcerated? How long do you think it would take for you to forget or would you be sure to share this history with your children with the hope that justice could one day prevail for your descendents? And most importantly to our conversation, how American does this sound to you?

To put this into perspective, my grandfather who helped to raise me in Arctic Village was born in 1904, just thirty-seven years after the United States laid claim to Alaska. If my grandfather had unjustly stolen your grandfathers home and I was still living in the house and watching you live outdoors, would you feel a change was in order? Congress unilaterally passed most of the major US legislation that affect our people in my grandfathers’ lifetime. There has never been a Treaty between Alaska Native Peoples and the United States over these injustices. Each time that Alaska Native people stand up for our rights, the US responds with token shifts in its laws and policies to appease the building discontent, yet avoiding the underlying injustice that I believe can be resolved if leadership in the United States would be willing to acknowledge the underlying injustice of its control over Alaska Native peoples, our lands, and our ways of life.

United States legal history in relation to Alaska Natives has been based on one major platform - minimize the potential for Alaska Native people to regain control of their lives, lands, and resources and maximize benefit to the Unites States government and its corporations. While the rest of the world, following World War II, was seeking to return African and European Nations to their rightful owners, the United States pushed in the opposite direction by pulling the then Territory of Alaska out of the United Nations dialogues and pushing for Statehood into the Union. Why is it that Alaska Native Nations are still perceived as being incapable of governing our own lands, lives, and resources differently than African, Asian, and European nations?

Let me get specific about what is at stake and how this relates to Palin and the Republican leadership in Alaska and across this country. To this day, Alaska Native peoples are among the only Indigenous peoples in all of North America whose Indigenous Hunting and Fishing Rights have been extinguished by federal legislation and yet we are the most dependent people on this way of life. Most of our villages have no roads that connect them to cities; many live with poverty level incomes, and all rely to varying degrees on traditional hunting, fishing, and harvesting for survival. This has become known as the debate on Alaska Native Subsistence.

As Alaska Governor, Palin has continued the path of her predecessor Frank Murkowski in challenging attempts by Alaska Native people to regain their human right to their traditional way of life through subsistence.

The same piece of unilateral federal legislation, known as the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (ANCSA) of 1971, that extinguished our hunting and fishing rights, also extinguished all federal Alaska Native land claims and my Tribe’s reservation status. In the continental United States, this sort of legislation is referred to as ‘termination legislation’ because it takes the rights of self-government away from Tribes. It is based in the same age-old idea that we are not capable of governing our people, lands, and resources. To justify these terminations, ANCSA also created Alaska Native led for profit corporations (which were provided the remaining lands not taken by the government and a one time payment the equivalent of about 1/20th of the annual profits made by corporations in Alaska each year) with a mission of exploiting the land in partnership with the US government and outside corporations. It was a brilliant piece of legislation for the legal termination and cultural assimilation of Alaska Natives under the guise of progress.

Since the passage of ANCSA, political leaders in Alaska, with a few exceptions, have maintained that, as stated by indicted Senator Ted Stevens, “Tribes have never existed in Alaska.” They maintain this position out of fear that the real injustice being carried out upon Alaska Natives may break into mainstream awareness and lead to a re-opening of due treaty dialogues between Alaska Native leaders and the federal government. At the same time the federal government chose to list Alaska Native tribes in the list of federally recognized tribes in 1993. Governor Palin maintains that tribes were federally recognized but that they do not have the same rights as the tribes in the continental United States to sovereignty and self-governance, even to the extent of legally challenging our Tribes rights pursuant to the Indian Child Welfare Act. What good are governments that can’t make decisions concerning their own land and people?

The colonial mentality in and towards Alaska is to exploit the land and resources for profits and power, at the expense of Alaska Native people. Governor Palin reflects this attitude and perspective in her words and leadership. She comes from an area within Alaska that was settled by relocated agricultural families from the continental United States in the second half of the last century. It is striking that a leader from that particular area feels she has a right, considering all of the injustices to Alaska Native people, to offer Alaskan oil and resources in an attempt to solve the national energy crisis at the Republican Convention. Palin also chose not to mention the connection between oil development and global warming, which is wreaking havoc on Alaska Native villages, forcing some to begin the process of relocation at a cost sure to reach into the hundreds of millions.

Our tribes depend on healthy and abundant land and animals for our survival. For example, my people depend on the Porcupine Caribou herd, which migrates into the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge each spring to birth their young. Any disruption and contamination will directly impact the health and capacity for my people to continue to live in a homeland we have been blessed to live in for over 10,000 years. This is the sacrifice Palin offered to the nation. The worst part of it is that there are viable alternatives to addressing the energy crisis in the United States, yet Palin chooses options that very well may result in the extinguishment of some of the last remaining intact ecosystems and original cultures in all of North America. Palin is also promoting off shore oil drilling and increased mining in sensitive areas of Alaska, all of which would have a lifespan of far fewer years than my grandfather walked on this earth and which would not even make a smidgen of an impact on national consumption rates or longer term sustainability. McCain was once a champion of protecting the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and it is sad to see, that with Palin on board, he is no longer vocal and perhaps even giving up on what he believes in to satisfy Palin’s position.

While I have much more to say, this is my current offering to elevate the conversation about what is at stake in Alaska and for Alaska Native peoples. Please share this offering with others and help us to make this an election that brings out honest dialogue. We have an opportunity to bring lasting change, but only if we can be open to hearing the truth about our situations and facing the challenges that arise.

Many thanks to all those who are taking stands for a just and sustainable future for all of our future generations.

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*This essay is a personal reflection and should not be attributed to my tribe or organization.

http://www.mohawknationnews.com

© MNN: Mohawk Nation News. Subscribe–Be Informed–Be Aware
05.03.2008 16:24:43
HOT FLASH! The Infinite “Red-X” discovers “Secret Instruction Manual:Advanced Strategies on Stealing Indigenous Resources”

– TWO DIRTY COLONIAL REPTILES – CHRIS “ODB” REID AND ROBIN “ROTTEN EGG” AITKEN CITED AS SLIMEY “AUTHORITIES”
MNN. Mar. 4, 2008. “All the tricks of the colonists are now revealed”, sayeth the infamous Indigenous sage, Red-X. “It’s a manual on how to cash in on our land and resources”. It was used at Dehcho and it looks like they’re using it at Sharbot Lake too. Here are some of the key hints on their dirty tricks and how to counter them.

Colonial Dirty Trick #1. Call it “democracy” and make sure you keep control. Invite the Indigenous to conferences on “self-governance”. Make sure they go to lots of fancy cocktail parties with open bars, with colonial big-wigs like Michaelle Jean and other “heavies. Give them tiaras to try on and a taste of “life in the fast lane”. Lead them down the garden path. Make sure they’re too drunk to notice they’ve sold out their people.

Colonial Dirty Trick #2. Make sure we are outnumbered three to one at every meeting. Red-X says, “Don’t go to Ottawa , Vancouver or Kingston or any big city. Hold them meetings at home in your tipi, longhouse or your condemned Indian Affairs bungalow with the cracked window panes and asbestos contaminated floors and walls”.

Colonial Dirty Trick #3. Put out colonial law as if it’s Indigenous law. Announce that Canada recognizes the rule of law and affirms “aboriginal” tradition. But ignore Indigenous legal processes. Only look at what counts according to the colonial Supreme Court.

The Red-X says, “Let’s take a look at how two colonial reptiles played out the “life and death” game against our people of the Northwest Territories”. Red-X goes on to reveal the “Colonial Cheat Sheet” used to try to pull the wool over our eyes.

CDT #4. Information is power – the colonists have two control strategies: collect, horde and keep it to themselves. When necessary they make it disappear. The other option is to put out a whole lot of lies, like false history and myth making.

CDT #5. Put some “heavies” at the table. The bigger the title, the longer the resume, the fatter, the better. At the talks with our Dehcho brothers and sisters, the “heavy”, Minister of Indian Affairs, Robert Nault, said, “The signing of these agreements is an acknowledgment of a new relationship between the Deh Cho, Canada and the GNWT”. What he really said was, “I hope I confused you because I’m f—king confused myself.”
Michael Nadli, a sell-out band councillor, said, “We look forward to Phase II to begin substantive negotiations on the more fundamental elements of Deh Cho Governance.” Translation: “I’m being played. They’re making me read a script I don’t understand”.

CDT #6. They try to use hierarchical colonial criteria with them sitting at the top seeing themselves with guns and money in hand. We are supposed to be down there somewhere out of sight. They never come right out. They always beat around the bush.

CDT #7. They design an extreme “offer-concession strategy” to bowl us over if we start kicking up a fuss or raise awkward questions, like, “How’re you gonna clean up your filthy mess?” That’s when they throw the chair back and pull away from the table. We can stop these sleazes even when they threaten to take the “bribe” money with them.

CDT #8. They will walk out if they lose “control”. That’s when you know the whole is falling. Translation: “We ain’t playing with you bad ‘Injuns’ anymore!”

CDT #9. Look for weaknesses. They may even use a “good cop” and a “bad cop” strategy to throw us off balance. We all know there’s no “good cop”. They’re all “bad”. They then threaten illegal injunctions, jail time and law suits. At the January 6, 2008 Kingston meeting “ODB” Reid’s pal, “Algonquin Would-be”, Robert Lovelace, was sent back in to talk to the Mohawks after the “carpetbaggers” walked out in a huff. Would- Be’s job was to side track the Mohawks with his “Cointelpro” charm. The next day these “air punching” carpetbaggers disappeared to a secret hideaway. The Mohawks found them and once again they slithered off into the darkness.

CDT #10. The carpetbaggers don’t like the people you bring along. They will suggest taking your sell-outs into another room to make a deal behind closed doors. ODB Reid was overheard telling “Need-to-be-Algonquin-to-settle-a-phony-land-claim” Lovelace, “The next time we should meet with George White of Frontenac Ventures alone with no lawyers”. They’re trying to make a deal on uranium mining on Haudenosaunee land at Sharbot Lake. When we tried to ask questions, they fled again with their coat tails flapping.

CDT #11. They want the same targets. In the 1990 Mohawk-Oka Crisis at Kanehsatake, we sent in different spokespeople every day. Alex Patterson and Bernard Roy, the negotiators for Quebec and Canada, got spitting mad. Their threats were ignored. They picked up their toys and left. Negotiations broke down.

CDT #12. “Don’t let the colonial agents stuff their side with ‘know-it-alls”. Warns the Red-X, “This does not intimidate us. We just have more foul smell to cut through. Just keep telling them this is all our land, we are sovereign and that they are trespassers”.

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http://thebirdman.org/Index/Jews/Jews-JWAG.html

The War That Dare Not Speak Its Name: The Jewish War Against Gentiles

By John “Birdman” Bryant

Tora! Tora! Tora! –The Japanese war cry during the WWII attack on Pearl Harbor

Torah and Talmud — The most sacred scriptures of Judaism, which are notable for their chauvinism and their many expressions of extreme hatred for gentiles

The last half-century has been witness to one of the most deadly wars in history — a war for the soul of Western civilization. It is deadly not because it is a shooting war — it isn’t, or at least not yet — but rather because it is a war whose purpose is the destruction of Western culture and the genocide of the white race. It is a war ostensibly being waged by the various racial, ethnic and sexual minorities of the planet which are overrunning national boundaries and cultural institutions and are outbreeding and downbreeding the white genome, but — while these groups may supply the front-line troops — the war is being directed and fueled by a single political minority, namely, the supporters of political liberalism, and more specifically by the ethnic group which — itself almost entirely liberal — funds and has significant control over this political minority, to wit, the Jews. This must be qualified, however, by saying that it is not the body of the Jewish people who are waging this war — most Jews, indeed, are probably not aware of it — but rather the ‘head’ which directs this body, namely, the Jewish establishment; that is, the worldwide collection of Jewish organizations which acts in concert to promote liberal/Jewish goals worldwide.

The unique thing about this war — what I shall call the Jewish War Against Gentiles, or JWAG for short — is that it is rarely recognized; and in the few cases where it is recognized, it is rarely spoken of for fear of encountering the ‘usual epithets’ (’racist’, antisemite’, ‘bigot’, etc) and other similar forms of condemnation normally reserved for flat-earthers, conspiracy theorists, pedophiles and other outcasts. This is not really surprising, however — after all, it is the ‘Jewsmedia’ which controls what is regarded as true or false, good or bad, hip or halt; and it is not in the Jewish interest that the war be named (much less discussed), because as long as gentiles cannot name it, they cannot fight back.

But there is another reason the gentiles cannot name this war, and that is because its battles are presented to us as morality plays, with white- hatted Jewish-fueled liberalism contending — not against the white race or Western civilization directly — but rather indirectly against ‘bigotry’, ‘racism’, ‘antisemitism’, ’sexism’, ‘discrimination’, ‘homophobia’, ‘xenophobia’, ‘handicappism’, ‘lookism’, ‘weightism’, and other similar isms, tions, and phobias which represent one of the most amazing collections of alleged evils ever assembled, not merely because no one ever thought of opposing them until recently, but because anyone seriously thinking of championing an opposition to them before the present day would have been regarded as out of his mind.

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[Editor’s Note: First they came for the radical shit-disturbing hippies and then they came for the native sovereigntists and everyone sat on their proverbial asses and said, “I ain’t one of those them!” Then they came for all the rest of the sleeping, apathetic sheep and all they could do was bleeeeeeet until they’d been shoarn and sent to the slaughterhouse. It’s time to get our act together folks and start doing something besides watching and moaning. Write ol’ Ernie an email and ask him what the hell is going on. I’m sure he’d have an answer for you. If you do get one please let us know here at Radical Press. Thanks.]

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Wednesday, January 30, 2008

WHO “CRASHED” MNN WEBSITE? WAS IT HURT FEEEELINGS OVER “NICKNAMES”

Kahentinetha Horn
“orakwa” orakwa@paulcomm.ca

MNNN. Jan. 30, 2008. The gross corruption revealed in “Access to Information” documents from Public Security and Emergency Preparedness Canada and Indian Affairs has not made the front pages of the corporate media. [Dossier No. 1336-A-2006-0034]. Instead they’ve temporarily sabotaged MNN. It appears to now be owned by 1599754 Ontario Limited!! How could this happen? How could we lose ownership of our website without our knowledge or consent. Ernie Hilts, the website host, at 705-429-4792 email ernie@9thdegree.biz won’t answer our calls or emails, that I never gave up ownership of my website. We can’t think of anyone who would have a motivation for doing this.

[“Canada’s ‘Indian Affairs’ financed war machine to attack Mohawks on Jan. 12, 2004” – Jan. 27, 2008].

We know that the Canadian government is riddled with corruption. They aren’t as careful to cover their tracks because they don’t see us as people. They think we are powerless, have no voice and are blind. They have secret meeting about us. We have no rights. They can plan to deprive us or even kill us.

The people written about are objecting to the nicknames we gave them, such as “ambulance chaser” and “turn coat”. They are not denying the factual substance of the information found in the documents we reviewed. None have expressed any concern for those who are suffering from poverty, poor health, inferior education and unemployment because they are withholding or diverting our funds.

None have called for an investigation. No criminal charges have been laid. This proves that Canada does not live by the rule of law. To them, as long as something is authorized by someone higher up, it’s legal even if it’s in blatant violation of their legal mandate set out for them by the laws passed by Parliament.

Back in 1978 when I was working for Indian Affairs in Ottawa, the Assistant Deputy Minister, Cam Mackie, had a Christmas party in his swank spacious office on the 21st floor. No Indians were invited. A fellow non-native employee invited me to go up there. Cam Mackie was walking around wearing a t-shirt with the message, “Let’s have an Indian Affair”. Honest to goodness! It was supposed to be a joke. Just reading it felt like a knife right in my gut. I was terrified for the future of my three little girls. How could I protect them as a single mother and a native woman?

“You are disgusting”, I said and went home to protect my little ones. My fear was real. Indigenous women are still being victimized. 500 are missing and not investigated. Everyone knew that it was open season on young native girls like Betty Osborne who had been raped and killed by four non-native young men. Everyone in the community knew. Nobody did a thing. It went unpunished for almost 20 years.

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[Editor’s Note: When John Graham first was arrested by Canadian authorities I knew that he didn’t have a hope in hell of receiving any justice from Canada’s court system. This so-called cheap imitation of a real justice system is nothing but a clone of the US system which has been infiltrated and controlled by traitorous Zionist elements for countless decades. Canada’s supreme court is no different. It contains at least 50% Zionists in its make up and behind the scenes lay numerous other Zionist lobbyists who ensure that THEIR agenda (i.e. that of the pseudo-American one) is ALWAYS met.

It was my contention from the start that the lawyers for John Graham should have brought the issue of this phony extradition legislation to the forefront of Graham’s defense strategy. They could have, with some honest effort, shown that this legislation was enacted purposefully in order to undermine Canada’s justice system. It’s the Zionist way of destroying a nation’s sovereignty and throwing its legal system into confusion and disrepute. Now we see the results of this infamy. But will people now stand up and turn their attention toward the real culprits in this melodrama? It’s high time we rid our courts of Zionist-traitors and put the independence of our nation back on track and working for Canadians rather than foreign elements.]

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The Canadian Supreme Court of Canada has denied the extradition appeal made by John Graham. On Thursday morning, John was moved from the North Fraser Pre-trial Centre in Port Coquitlam BC, to Rapid City South Dakota, where he has been indicted for first degree murder of Anna Mae Pictou-Aquash. Her body was found in 1976, in South Dakota.

On December 1, 2003, John was arrested in Vancouver, for indictments for the first degree murder of Anna Mae Pictou-Aquash. In January 2004 he began living under house arrest in Vancouver during his legal struggle against the extradition. In 2005 the BC Supreme court approved John’s extradition to South Dakota, based on positive identification of his photos, despite discrepancies in his height, weight and race. The Canadian/US Extradition Treaty does not challenge the evidence provided by the country seeking extradition. Despite the fact that 3 of the 4 testimonies the US provided proved faulty, this was not taken into consideration by the Canadian court. The fact that the US has no legal jurisdiction over indigenous nations, especially one currently occupied by British Columbia, was never brought up in court.

On June 26 2007, the BC Supreme Court dismissed his appeal and John Graham turned himself in. He was transferred to North Fraser Pretrial, a high
security facility where he waited for the appeal decision on the Supreme Court of Canada. We, his family, were granted one hour daily visits separated by glass. While in the pretrial center he was treated as though he’d already been convicted. He was not allowed to receive any books or put up pictures.

We were not contacted when John was transferred from North Fraser Pretrial to the airport and extradited to Rapid City SD. We were lead to believe the John Graham would receive a personal message and be able to set up a visit with the family before extradition. The family was not able to see John before he was taken away. We were not allowed to say our good byes or even give him his personal belongings.
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[Editor’s Note: I met Crystal Clear yesterday at the Quesnel Tillicum Native Friendship Center. She read me the following letter and said that she was sending it off to the R.C.M.P. Complaints Commission in Vancouver. She was not a happy camper. Her letter explains why.]

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To:
Commission for Public Complaints the R.C.M.P
102 – 7337 – 137 Street
Surrey, B.C. V3W 1A4
1-604-501-4080
Toll Free 1-800-665-6878

Welcome to our 74 Sherry tent. We have 74 sherry, 35 sherry, Lysol and Listerine. YOUR PREFERENCE; WE ALSO SUPPLY BAGS for when you feel like pinching THE HELL out of somebody! This will eliminate black eyes and broken bones and if you pass out, you can fall to the moss in our 74 Sherry tent. Our safe house would provide the big bad R.C.M.P.  more time to deal with the real problems other than picking us drunks up off the streets and sidewalks in Prince George, Dawson Creek, Fort McMurray, Edmonton and Quesnel. We drunks are everywhere and you will not stop US! GOOD LUCK.

Rather than throwing us in the drunk tank, tasering  and pepper-spraying us why don’t they tranquilize us like they do the animals? Do animals deserve better treatment than we do?

The R.C.M.P. loses our personal belongings such as identification, jewelry, clothing, prescription glasses, money – LOST or STOLEN?
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