Socialism, What It Is and Why We Need It

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Shark is Free!! A Thank You From His Family

Shark is Free!

Update June 24th 2009

Out on Bail of 2500.$

Release Conditions, also next appearance in Kamloops court is set for September 9th 9:30 am fro pre sentence  report.

Condition 1 : You shall keep the peace and be on good behavior.

Condition 2: You shall report on person to a bail supervisor at # 102-455 Columbia Street, Kamloops, BC as soon as you are released from custody and after that you shall report as and directed by the bail .

Condition 3: When first reporting to the bail supervisor, you shall inform him/her of your present residential address and telephone number and you shall not change your address or telephone number at anytime with out first providing written notice to the bail supervisor.

Condition 4: You are prohibited from entering within a 10 km radius of the Administrative Offices of the Sun Peaks Resort at Sun Peak’s, BC

Condition 5: You are prohibited from the wearing camouflage clothing or gear when involved in protest activities.

Condition 6: You are prohibited from masking your face at anytime while you are involved in protest.

Note the protest conditions for identification of protesters watch out for the Media they could have hours of video footage to be used in court.

Kukstem From Secwepmeculcw Shark and Miranda and little warriors.

Native Youth in Canada Arrested for Protecting Sacred Land

June 23, 2009
For Immediate Release

NATIVE YOUTH MOVEMENT
INTERNATIONAL STATEMENT

This is a personal message to the World.  My name is Kanahus Paltki (Pellkey).  I am a Secwepemc & Ktnuxa woman and mother of three freedom babies and Warriors.  I am writing to anyone that will listen.  My family and community here in the Secwepemc Nation have been forced into federally controlled Indian Reservations, we call these “concentration camps“.  The barbed wire fences are invisible and phsycological warfare by the enemy of KKKanada has forced our people in these prisons using their military and police to create fear in my Peoples to even leave.  Our Territory is large, the size of what the invaders call present-day Florida.  We have never or ever will surrender or treaty our lands with any invader government.  Our lands and Territory are being destroyed and contaminated by every industry immaginable.  As a way to get organized and fight back, the Secwepemc youth in our community formed the Secwepemc Native Youth Movement (NYM). In May of 2001, we called on NYM from other Indigneous Nations, to come and help us to take action against the invader governments of british columbia and KKKanada.  We took over the government offices of the British Columbia Assets and Lands Corporation (now Land and Water BC Inc.) to demand the governments stop the theft of our land, by selling and leasing lands to investors worldwide, in particular at Skwelkwek’welt (where Sun Peaks Resort Corporation, a japanese company, was devouring our lands, mountains and water).  Land that is Secwepemc land.  We took over the offices for 3 days and brought this message to an International level.  There were 16 of us that were arrested there, one of them was Shark, Joseph Romandia.  And he is the purpose of this message.

Shark continued to help us, the Secwepemc Peoples, fight for our land at Skwelkwek’welt, the mountains behind the current-day concentration camp.  This area is our moose hunting grounds, where we collect our medicines when we are sick, where the women pick berries and harvest wild greens, this area is Sacred to our Peoples and sustained our Peoples forever.  Sun Peaks continues to expand its all-season resort and mega real estate projects into untouched traditional food harvesting areas and changing the landscape forever.  In the summer of 2001, the Elders requested the youth to build a Cultural Teaching Center for the community on the top of the next mountain plotted for ski runs, this mountain was known to our Peoples as “Moose Medows” an important hunting area.  A traditional underground pithouse was under constuction, when the governments and Sun Peaks destroyed the only road to the site, by digging massive trenches, 20 feet deep and 10 feet wide, with massive 5 feet bolders across the road, in order to cut off access to our Elders and community to the site.  In response to this we decided to take action and block access to their road.  We blocked the main road into Sun Peaks Resort the next day to bring attention to what we have to go through to just live on our Lands, out of the concentration camp and back onto our Territory.  That the governments of bc and KKKanada will colaborate with industry, and go by any means to force the Natives off our own land and back to the concentration camp.  But it’s not that easy.  So they charged us all.  I escaped their clutches for one year and a half until they captured me and my 3-month old baby. They denied me bail…and I was sitting in a KKKanadian prison cell, for fighting for our Land and Freedom.  There were other Secwepemc youth and Indigenous youth from other Nations that were captured by KKKanada for their involvement in the blockade of the Sun Peaks Resort.

My mother, twin sister, cousins and comrades were also captured and most served real jail time in a KKKanadian prison.  Now almost 8 years from the day of the Sun Peaks roadblock, they captured the last Skwelkwek’welt defender, Shark.  He was captured on May 21, 2009 and he is now being held without bail in a prison cell in Kamloops, british columbia, KKKanada.

Shark is my family.  He is married to my cousin and is the father of her 5 children.  He is a part of our family, community and Nation.  He sacrificed his time and Freedom to come and help our People fight for our land.  This message is so that World will know that we are still fighting, that KKKanada is also an occupying and invading government that violates every Human and Indigenous right there is.  We are Freedom Fighters, We are Warriors, We are Women, We are Children, We are Elders, We are the Indigenous Peoples of the Land, We are Hunters, We are Healers, We are the Survivers and we will continue to fight against KKKanada and their oppressive occupation and destruction of our Lands and Territories.

We need support and those that can take this message and make it yours, to spread this message around the World thirteen times.  To let this message travel with the winds, in your prayers.

Shark’s next court date is Wednesday, June 24th, 2009 at the Kamloops court house.  Come and stand with his family.  For those that can’t physically make it, show your support by writing Shark. (he has since been released)

Any donations for the legal defense, please contact us at: resistance515@hotmail

NYM Communications
NATIVE YOUTH MOVEMENT
FIGHT FOR LIFE, LAND & FREEDOM
WARRIORS UNITE WORLDWIDE

SHUT DOWN THE 2010 OLYMPICS
SHUT DOWN THE TAR SANDS
NO CP RAIL OR TRANS CANADA HWY EXPANSION – LET OUR ANCESTORS REST
FREE SHARK!

Indigenous Summit calls for end to Cuba Blockade and Israeli troops out of Palestine

Cumbre Indígena, el neoliberalismo en el banquillo

Escrito por Manuel Robles Sosa*, serviex@prensa-latina.cu

viernes, 05 de junio de 2009

05 de junio de 2009, 03:02Por Manuel Robles Sosa* Lima (PL).- Un nítido contenido antineoliberal tuvo la IV Cumbre Continental de Pueblos y Nacionalidades Indígenas del Abya Yala (antiguo nombre de América), celebrada en la ciudad peruana de Puno, a orillas del lago Titicaca, del 27 al 31 de mayo, la que además avanzó hacia formas más desarrolladas de organización. La cita, que congregó a más de seis mil delegados de 22 países latinoamericanos, así como delegados e invitados de Canadá, Estados Unidos, África y otros países, recogió ese contenido en su declaración final, aprobada por aclamación como síntesis de las deliberaciones. Un mensaje del presidente de Bolivia, el indígena Evo Morales, ayudó decisivamente a marcar la tónica del encuentro, al llamar a la lucha por la segunda y definitiva independencia y luchar contra el capitalismo, el neoliberalismo y los tratados de libre comercio. Esa lucha, explicó el texto de Morales leído por la dirigente campesina Leonilda Zurita, es consustancial a la defensa de los valores y los intereses de los pueblos originarios, así como a sus concepciones de convivencia respetuosa con la naturaleza y apego vital a la tierra. La declaración final señaló la “profunda crisis de la civilización occidental capitalista”, de carácter ambiental, energética, cultural, de exclusión social, y alimentaria, como expresión del fracaso del eurocentrismo. Tal crisis, para la Cumbre, evidencia además que ha fracasado la modernidad colonialista nacida desde el etnocidio -conquista europea de América- y que lleva a la humanidad entera al sacrificio. Como respuesta, los indígenas plantearon “ofrecer una alternativa de vida frente a la civilización de la muerte, recogiendo nuestras raíces para proyectarnos al futuro, con nuestros principios y prácticas de equilibrio entre los hombres, mujeres, Madre Tierra, espiritualidades, culturas y pueblos, que denominamos Buen Vivir/Vivir Bien”. Desde esa óptica, la declaración final propugna defender la soberanía alimentaria, priorizando los cultivos nativos, el consumo interno y las economías comunitarias, además de construir Estados Plurinacionales Comunitarios, basados en el autogobierno, la libre determinación de los pueblos y la reconstitución de los territorios y naciones originarias. Tras los ejemplos de cambios por la vía de asambleas constituyentes que han dado Bolivia, Ecuador y Venezuela, la Cumbre planteó asimismo luchar por nuevas constituciones en aquellos países que aún no reconocen la plurinacionalidad, para todos los excluidos, en un diálogo intercultural, respetuoso y horizontal, que supere verticalismos e invisibilizaciones. Sobre el derecho al territorio, la cita rechazó “todas las formas de parcelación, privatización, concesión, depredación y contaminación por parte de las industrias extractivas”. Exigió igualmente que los pueblos indígenas sean consultados previamente, sobre todo proyecto económico que los pueda afectar, y las políticas y leyes de desarrollo. También acordó impulsar un Tribunal Internacional de Justicia Climática, de carácter moral que juzgue a las empresas transnacionales, las cuales depredan el ambiente, y a los gobiernos cómplices, y posteriormente la Corte Internacional sobre Delitos Ambientales. Otro acuerdo de la Cumbre establece la creación de una Coordinadora del Abya Yala que vigile a la Organización de Estados Americanos y a las Naciones Unidas, para superar su subordinación al poder imperial y, de no lograrlo, construir la Organización de Naciones Unidas del Abya Yala y del Mundo. Los delegados rechazaron por otra parte la criminalización de las protestas sociales, la militarización, las bases extranjeras, los desplazamientos forzados y los genocidios. Más adelante anuncia juicios internacionales contra los gobiernos de Colombia, Perú y Chile, por el genocidio de los pueblos indígenas colombianos, por dictar normas privatizadoras anticonstitucionales y por reprimir a los originarios mapuche, respectivamente. El encuentro de solidarizó con la actual lucha de los indígenas amazónicos peruanos contra decretos gubernamentales inconsultos que, según los originarios, atentan contra la soberanía nacional y los derechos indígenas, y forman parte de las obligaciones del tratado de libre comercio (TLC) con Estados Unidos. Rechazó los Tratados de Libre Comercio de Estados Unidos, Europa, Canadá y otros países, por ser “nuevos candados de sometimiento y saqueo de la Madre Tierra”, y acusó a la Unión Europea y los gobiernos de Colombia y Perú de pretender destruir la Comunidad Andina de Naciones, por negociar por su cuenta TLCs con el bloque europeo, rechazados por Bolivia y Ecuador. SOLIDARIDAD CON CUBA En el plano internacional, la declaración final de la Cumbre planteó su respaldo a la lucha de los pueblos del mundo contra los poderes imperiales, mencionando en especial la demanda del cese del bloqueo de Estados Unidos contra Cuba. También anunció movilizaciones en defensa del proceso de cambio iniciado en Bolivia, y “rechazar los intentos golpistas, separatistas, racistas y magnicidas de la oligarquía y el imperio norteamericano” contra ese proceso y contra el gobierno del presidente Evo Morales. Condenó igualmente el asilo o refugio concedido por el gobierno peruano a tres ex ministros bolivianos acusados de genocidio y resolvió celebrar la V Cumbre en Bolivia, en 2011. Además, exigió el retiro de Israel de los territorios palestinos y demandó respeto a los derechos colectivos de los pueblos Masai, Mohawk, Shoshoni, Same, Kurdo, Catalán y Vasco, entre otros. *Corresponsal de Prensa Latina en Perú.

Indigenous Struggle in Palestine..!!

It’s been awhile since my last post, I’ve been working on keeping my head above water.  This last weekend I attended a conference on Palestine.  Hosted by Al-Awda (until return).  The focus of this conference was to discuss the current situation in Palestine and how they are addressing this human rights issue here in the U.S.

Historic Palestine

The Palestinian people are descendants of the original people from this region.  In other words they are an indigenous population.  Currently and for the past approximately 60 years they have been intensely fighting to maintain their homeland.  They have been facing extreme political and military pressure from the Israeli government to leave the area.

Thousands of Palestinian people are currently living as refugees in surrounding countries including the U.S.  It is really a challenging issue to deal with in the U.S.  If Americans Knew the truth concerning the situation much more people would be outraged.

I really began my journey concerning this issue about eight years ago when I first moved to the SF Bay Area.  I really knew nothing about this issue prior to this.  My impression of this topic was that it was just two ethnic or religious groups that have been fighting for centuries and nothing was ever going to change.

This could be the furthest from the truth.  I attended a presentation by  UC Berkeley professor Dr. Hatem Bazian at the Islamic Center in San Diego I learned that Jews and Muslims have not always been at odds with each other in the region.  The conflict really started when Zionist began to instigate a conflict and promote the occupation of Palestinian land.

Today the people need our support as indigenous people fighting to stay in their traditional territory.  The story really rings true in it’s relation to native people of this hemisphere.  Many of our ancestors and those of our relatives faced systematic extermination and relocation here in the U.S.  This is well documented by many scholars and other first hand sources.

Please take the time to learn more about this issue.  Solidarity among oppressed nations really builds strength for all of us.  Also see a current campaign by British Member of Parliment, George Galloway called VIVA PALESTINA.