United Nations Hears Testimony on Violations of Indigenous Rights by Governments, Police

By Brenda Norrell
Censored News

GENEVA -- The United Nations heard testimony from Indigenous Peoples around the world, on the devastation from mining, ongoing genocide, and murder by federal agents and militarized forces, during this week's session of the Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in Geneva.

"There is no greater offender of tribal rights than the U.S. Justice Department," said Lisa White Pipe, Lakota, Sicangu Rosebud council member, representing the Coalition of Large Tribes, chaired by the Blackfeet Nation.

Native Hawaiians want the US military off their lands, and training exercises in the Pacific shut down. An aquifer has been poisoned in Honolulu, and unexploded ordinances left behind make lands inaccessible.

The Pacific Indigenous Women's Network urged the United Nations to join the effort for the US military to cease operations in Guam. Guam has been occupied by the U.S. military without the free, prior and informed consent of Indigenous People.

In Guam, the U.S. military is an "imperial hammer" that ensures the oppression of Indigenous People in its acts of global domination. Toxic pollution, and the threat of a nuclear attack, are the results of the presence of the U.S. military.

Around the world, Indigenous Peoples are under attack by military forces.

Indigenous from Peru described "systematic violations of human rights." The military is attacking, torturing, and killing, those who are isolated and have marched against the current government. More than 40 people, including Indigenous children, have died since protests began in Peru in December. The current disputed president of Peru authorized the arrival of U.S. military forces in Peru, in June, now being used against Indigenous Peoples.

Deskaheh Steve Jacob opened the session with a prayer. Jacob said he will not address the United Nations until the Haudenosaunee is recognized as a government.

During the special session on fishing and rights, the Expert Mechanism chair stated that Indigenous Peoples have the right to engage freely in all their traditional and other economic activities and practices.

Chief Bob Chamberlin, chair of the First Nation Wild Salmon Alliance, described the ancestral right to fish, the struggle against government regulations, and how the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples ensures rights in his territory in BC, Canada. Chamberlin spoke on how fishing is interwoven with food sustainability and climate change.

Masaki Sashima, president of the Raporo Ainu Nation in Japan, spoke of the sweetness of salmon fishing. Today, very few salmon migrate up the Urauchi Tone-gawa River.

"Still, to us, they are precious salmon, we have inherited from our ancestors."

"We hope more wild salmon will come to us one day."

The details of murder and destruction were heard from North America.

Native Americans described the devastation of boarding schools and the desecration of lithium mining, which is falsely proclaimed as green energy. Lithium Americas of Canada is now digging into the burial place of Paiute massacred at Thacker Pass in Nevada. Copper mining targets Apaches' ceremonial place of Oak Flat in Arizona.

The excessive force of federal agents, and the cruelty of imprisoning children in the United States, were also documented.

Raymond Mattia, Tohono O'odham, was shot seven times, blasted by a firestorm of bullets, by a crowd of U.S. Border Patrol agents. Raymond was murdered on the front steps of his home on the Tohono O'odham Nation on the Arizona border. Indigenous children are dying in U.S. Border Patrol custody.

The United States government's surveillance towers are also increasing on the U.S.-Mexico border. The integrated fixed towers were constructed by Israel's Elbit Systems, including 11 towers on the Tohono O'odham Nation.

In Mexico, Indigenous Peoples are struggling to defend their ancestral land while their territory and natural goods face severe threats.

Adriana Garcia, representing the threatened people of the Priority Ecological Community, PEC, described the devastation underway by the construction of the tourist Mayan Train, Tren Maya, in Indigenous lands in the region of Cancun in southeast Mexico.

Indigenous youth from Russia urged the United Nations to hold Russia responsible for its unprovoked attack and war crimes in Ukraine.

Indigenous young men from the poorest ethnic communities in Russia are being forcibly mobilized, used as "fodder" by Russia for its military, and are being killed, said a young Russian woman now living in exile.

The full coverage is at Censored News in the three-part series:

Censored News Part I: U.N. Hears of Devastation for Indigenous Peoples, and Stories of Hope
https://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2023/07/united-nations-hears-of-devastation-for.html

Censored News Part II: Impact of Militarization on Indigenous Peoples: Murder with Impunity from Peru to the Tohono O'odham Nation
https://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2023/07/indigenous-peoples-under-attack-by.html

Censored News Part III: Defending Sacred Places and Sacred Rights at the United Nations
https://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2023/07/defending-sacred-places-and-sacred.html

Copyright Censored News

Top photo: Steve Jacobs, Haudenosaunee