NATIVE PEOPLES STILL OPPRESSED
Injustice and oppression are still widespread at the end of the 20th century. For Native Peoples in the Americas, the legacy of violence and genocide begun by Christopher Columbus over 500 years ago still reverberates loudly:
·In Leavenworth, Kansas, Leonard Peltier, a Lakota native, sits in his 23rd year of imprisonment for the supposed murder of two FBI agents during the Pine Ridge Wounded Knee Uprising in 1973. After much investigation, the FBI has admitted that they do not know who killed both agents. Despite this admission, Peltier remains in prison.
·In Big Mountain/Black Mesa, Arizona, Native people fight government-supported efforts to remove them so that Peabody Western Coal Company can make huge profits from the exploitation of coal, uranium, and other natural resources underneath their land.
·In the Black Hills of South Dakota, non-Indian private and federal squatters still keep the tribal treaty lands away from the rightful owners and prevent Native freedom of religion.
·In Fort Reno, the Oklahoma congressional delegation is tying to wipe out legal rights of the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes to their Fort Reno lands, while a federal/private scheme is afoot to move 500 baboons onto the tribal land for "research."
·In Nevada, the Western Shoshone people continue to oppose the presence of the National Nuclear Test Site and the development of the only long-term High Level Nuclear Waste Repository on their land.
·In Tucson, Arizona, the University of Arizona is building telescopes and an observatory on Mt. Graham/Dzil Nchaa Si An, holy ground of the Apache Nation.
Native Americans suffer from continuing thefts of land and natural resources, from a violent crime rate 150% higher than that for the US as a whole, from one of the highest rates of arrest and incarceration, and from institutionalized disrespect through name-calling and stereotyping of Native Peoples in sports. Truly, the Columbus legacy is alive and thriving.
What has been done to those who are the original peoples of this land has been done in different forms to many of those who have lived here in recent times-African Americans, Mexicanos/Chicanos, Asian Americans, other Latino people and low-income European-Americans. But today, the growing power and greed of transnational corporations like Peabody Coal that are behind much of what goes on in Indian country, affect the vast majority of people in the United States and the rest of the world. They further corrupt the already imperfect institutions of "democracy" that still exist. They pollute our air, food, land, and water and are the primary cause of global warming that is already beginning to have devastating impacts worldwide. And they force workers to compete against fellow workers in other countries for the "right" to have low-wage jobs and terrible working conditions.
Leonard Peltier has written of what we must all do: "Speaking out is my first duty, my first obligation to myself and to my people. To speak your mind and heart is Indian Way. In Indian Way, the political and the spiritual are one and the same. You can't believe one thing and do another. What you believe and what you do are the same thing. In Indian Way, if you see your people suffering, helping them is an absolute necessity. It's not a social act of charity or welfare assistance; it's a spiritual act, a holy deed."
We will never be free in this country until we face up to the historic record, set it straight, and get it right. "Getting it right" means honoring, upholding and joining in solidarity with those who have much to teach us about living in harmony with the natural world, about working cooperatively for the good of all, and about steadfastness in struggle despite the most difficult conditions.
--Leonard Peltier Defense Committee, <lpdc@idir.net>, P. O. Box 583, Lawrence, KS 66044, (785) 842-5774