Now -- Wowaglake MMIW and MMIP 2024 Conference Rapid City, South Dakota

Wowaglake MMIW and MMIP 2024 Conference co-hosted by Oglala and Rosebud Lakota Nations, today in Rapid City, South Dakota

Warriors for a New Generation: Indigenous Youths at the U.N. Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues

Morgan Brings Plenty, Cheyenne River Lakota. Screenshot by Censored News.

Warriors for a New Generation: Indigenous Youths at the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues

By Brenda Norrell, Censored News, April 17, 2024

NEW YORK -- Indigenous youths from around the world challenged corporations and institutions -- rising as warriors, defenders and changemakers that are honoring Mother Earth and protecting future generations, at the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues on Tuesday, the second day of the two week forum.

Energy Transfer's lawsuit against Greenpeace is an attempt to silence the voices for Mother Earth, and Indigenous who are battling the Dakota Access Pipeline, said Morgan Brings Plenty, Cheyenne River Lakota, speaking at the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues.

Blood Memories: Indigenous Women on the Frontlines Empower with Words and Action

Dr. Michelle Cook, Dine', human rights lawyer and founder of Divest Invest Protect, speaks on divestment and a just transition during the first of two panels on Wednesday evening.

Indigenous Women Upholding Indigenous Rights and Leading Climate Solutions

By Brenda Norrell, Censored News, April 17, 2024

NEW YORK -- Indigenous women around the world are battling fossil fuels, mining, exploitation and oppression. The abuse of Mother Earth is directly connected to the violence against Indigenous women.

Women's Earth and Climate Action Networks International hosted Indigenous women on panels during the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues on Wednesday.

Osprey Orielle Lake, WECAN executive director, opened the session calling for a ceasefire in Gaza, an end to the oppression, and return of the hostages.

"The killing must be stopped now," she said.

Indigenous women speak on the struggles, from the battle to halt the Mountain Valley  pipeline and protect their burial places, to Anishinaabe protecting the water and animals around the Great Lakes and the battles against mining in the Amazon, Ecuador, Colombia, Brazil and Peru.

Casey Camp-Horinek, Ponca, human rights defender.
https://www.facebook.com/watch/live/?ref=watch_permalink&v=1397554700910117

Casey Camp-Horinek, Ponca, spoke to the hearts of women.

Casey said when she looks out at those gathered here, she thinks of the Ponca song, "My Mother, You're Good." She sings this song, and then remembers.

Casey remembered her mother who was kidnapped when she was six years old and taken away to boarding schools, away from her people, her language and rivers. The children who were kidnapped and taken to those boarding schools were tortured, and suffered physical, sexual, mental and spiritual abuse -- but they survived.

"Many came back crippled in the minds and the hearts."

Their DNA and their blood memories meant that they remembered what it means to be Ponca.

As a child, Casey tried to understand how to live in a square house, instead of a round home. She heard some people speak of their religion and say the words, "God fearing," but her mother said, "God loving." When others said everything was a resource and for sale, her folks felt everything was the source of life. 

"It was our joy, our honor to care for the children to raise," she said. And they understood that the community gardens were for all people.

With the changing times, the sacred way of life today means that the people know what the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples is, and they know how to use it, and how to demand those rights.

Casey said this is a time for the people to arise, and share the teachings of their  people, and to help with the re-balancing. It is time to uphold the men, which has been out of balance, because they have forgotten their sacred duties because of their depression.

Calling on the women to arise and fulfill their destinies, with the empowerment that runs through their bloodlines, she said, "We know who we are as Ponca."

"I'm very proud to be here today," she said, thanking the organizers of the event.

Premiering a new video, "Indigenous Knowledge is a Climate Solution," Casey shares the history and culture of her people.

Dr. Michelle Cook, Dine', human rights lawyer and founder of Divest Invest Protect, spoke on a just transition, pointing out that with the transition to the green economy, there are the challenges of critical minerals located on Indigenous lands.

Women continue to be affected by the onslaught of colonization and invasion, she said.

Credit Suisse, one of the funders of the Dakota Access Pipeline, collapsed last year. It was this battle for divestment that led her to organize Indigenous women's delegations through Europe and to the United Nations in Geneva. There they met with banking and financing executives.

Dr. Cook spoke of the need for healing and love, and the better treatment of women.

Speaking of the battle to stop the Mountain Valley gas pipeline in North Carolina, Dr. Crystal A Cavalier said, "It is a pipeline to nowhere."

Dr. Cavalier, Occaneechi Band of the Saponi Nation, said the pipeline is going through her peoples burial places and today they are unable to gather their medicines and fish. She is co-founder of 7 Directions of Service of Turtle Island. 

Majo Andrade Cerda, Kichwa, Ecuador, speaking on the defense of the Ecuadorian Amazon.

Majo Andrade Cerda, Kichwa, described her struggle to get an education and her current efforts, which now includes confronting Canadian officials for mining in Ecuador.

"Because we are saying 'No,' we are being criminalized," said Majo. The women are fighting the mining companies who are poisoning the rivers. She said mercury is not only poisoning the rivers, but it is a danger for women's bodies.

Majo is from the Kichwa People of Serena, and leader of economy and community development of CONFENIAE (Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of the Ecuadorian Amazon.)

Shirley Krenak, Krenak, said there were once 40,000 of her people, and today there are only one-thousand because of the crimes of the dictatorship era.

"My people don't rely on words, they rely on actions," she said, referring to the  apologies, and the acts of disrespect that follow. Shirley is a filmmaker, and founder of the Shirley Djukurna Krenak Institute, co-founder of ANMIGA, Brazil.

Krenak live in Brazil’s state of Minas Gerais, north ofof Sao Paulo. They survived massacres, beatings, torture and the taking of their land by Brazilian farmers. A natural disaster led to a dam breaking in 2015, resulting in mining waste, toxic sludge, flowing through and poisoning Krenak homeland.

Mining companies are poisoning the water in Colombia, and Indigenous children are in desperate need of water and food, said Luzbeidy Monterrosa, Wayuu, whose people live near the Venezuela border.

There is a high death rate for children, said Luzbeidy, a filmmaker and founder of Shinyak Kashikai in Colombia.

With the laughter and joy of being together, Osprey closed the gathering with these words, "We never forget that the women here are putting their bodies on the line."

Casey Camp Horinek, Ponca, spoke on the abuse her relatives endured in boarding schools. 

https://www.facebook.com/WECAN.Intl/videos/1397554700910117

Watch video of two panels:

https://www.facebook.com/WECAN.Intl

Please check back for more from these women.

Federal Judge Denies Restraining Order Filed Against Interior Sec. Deb Haaland by Tohono O'odham and San Carlos Apache Nations

Construction equipment at the site of work in the San Pedro Valley for the SunZia Southwest Transmission Project is shown on Oct. 29. Alex Binford-Walsh of Archaeology Southwest

Breaking News: Federal Judge Denies Restraining Order Filed Against Interior Sec. Deb Haaland

By Brenda Norrell, Censored News, April 17, 2024

TUCSON -- A federal judge in Tucson denied a restraining order sought against Interior Sec. Deb Haaland by the Tohono O'odham and San Carlos Apache Nations. Haaland is pushing another fake "green energy" project, and bulldozers are ripping through ancient sites, ceremonial places, and medicine gathering places, for transmission lines to take wind energy from New Mexico to California.

Federal Judge Jennifer Zipps denied an injunction to stop work on the SunZia transmission line. Zipps ruled on Tuesday that the tribes and others filing the lawsuit waited too long to file, and the Interior and BLM had fulfilled their obligations to prepare inventory and identify cultural resources.

Indigenous Youths Lead at U.N. Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues in New York

Anpo Jensen, Kiyuksa Tiospaye, Oglala Lakota of Pine Ridge, South Dakota, delivered the statement of the Global Indigenous Youth Caucus to the U.N. Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues.

Oglala Lakota Youth and the Global Indigenous Youth Caucus Lead at United Nations

By Brenda Norrell, Censored News, April 15, 2024

NEW YORK -- "We are witnessing the genocide and displacement of Palestinian people. We demand the right of return to their ancestral homeland," the Global Indigenous Youth Caucus told the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues as it opened its session on Monday.

Representing the seven regions of the world, the youths expressed gratitude to their elders for their defense of ancestral homelands, and recognized the role of forced removal of Indigenous children from their families, in disregard for the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.