Indigenous Border Summit welcomes extraordinary speakers and Blackfire
The Indigenous Peoples' Border Summit of the Americas II welcomes extraordinary speakers from the Americas, including Bill Means, Lakota, and board members of the International Indian Treaty Council. Delegations of Mohawks include the Mohawk Women Title Holders from Quebec and Ron Lameman from Six Nations.
Indigenous border rights of mobility, human rights and the United Nations are among the topics at the summit, Nov. 7 - 10, 2007 at San Xavier District on the Tohono O'odham Nation (near the Tucson International Airport and South Tucson.)
Mike Wilson, Tohono O'odham who puts out water for migrants, will speak on humanitarian aid. Lenny Foster, Navajo, will speak on Native prisoners' rights and focus on Leonard Peltier. Speakers include Karen Lowe, Tohono O'odham Nation ecologist, speaking on the border and the environment; Margo Tamez speaks on women and children at the border; Jay Johnson Castro on the imprisonment of migrant children in Texas and protests of the border wall in Texas.
Other speakers' presentations will focus on militarization of the border, human rights abuses and new border policies. The United Nations requested that the border summit be held for a second year, following the successful summit in 2006. Time is reserved each day for testimony from Indigenous Peoples living in border regions.
The Indigenous Border Summit will be webcast, Nov. 7 - 10, at http://www.earthcycles.net/
Blackfire will perform at the Indigenous Peoples' Border Summit of the Americas II, Saturday night, November 10, 2007. The Border Summit welcomes Blackfire, the Navajo family band whose voices have proclaimed Indigenous Peoples' rights around the world.
Camping is available on site. Breakfast and lunch are provided each day at the four-day summit, hosted by San Xavier District with support from the International Indian Treaty Council.
PROVISIONAL AGENDA
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 7th
6 am – Sunrise Ceremony
7 am – Breakfast
9 am – Introductions, Human rights, Indigenous Peoples and impacts current Border policies
12 pm – Lunch
1 pm – Humanitarian Aid and saving lives along the Border
3:30 pm – Break
4 – 5 pm – Indigenous Peoples' Rights and the Border: Human Rights, Treaty Rights and Rights to Traditional Lands and Territories
6 pm -- Dinner
7 pm -- Oral Testimony
THURSDAY NOVEMBER 8th
6 am – Sunrise Ceremony
7 am – Breakfast
9 am – Immigration/Indigenous Traditional Mobility
12 pm – Lunch
1 pm - HUMAN RIGHTS TRAINING:
The UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples: a new international framework for upholding our human rights
Current Review of the US by the UNCERD: "Using the UN to hold the US Accountable for Racism towards Indigenous Peoples"
Other international developments to defend the Human Rights of Indigenous Peoples Questions and Discussion.
Presenters: Bill Means, Lakota and cofounder of IITC, Andrea Carmen, Yaqui and executive director; Ron Lameman, Six Nations; Francisco Cali, IITC Board President
6 pm – Dinner- on your own
7 pm - Oral Testimony
FRIDAY NOVEMBER 9th
6 am – Sunrise Ceremony
7 am – Breakfast
9 am – Implications on Lands, territories, and national resources & environment: Karen Lowe, Tohono O'odham Nation ecologist
12 pm – Lunch
1 pm – Religious/Cultural/Spiritual Rights, traditional mobility, ceremonial practices and sacred sites: Delegations of Mohawks, including Kahentinetha and Katenies of the Mohawk Women Title Holders from Quebec
Ron Lameman from Six Nations
3:30 pm – Break
4 pm – Women/Children and the Borders: Margo Tamez
6 pm – Dinner – on your own
7 pm Oral Testimony
SATURDAY NOVEMBER 10th
6 am - Sunrise Ceremony
7 am – Breakfast
9 am – Humanitarian Aid: Tohono O'odham Mike Wilson
10 am - Detentions and prisons: Lenny Foster, Navajo, Native inmates rights, including ceremonial rights, focus on Leonard Peltier
Texas: Imprisoning migrant children and border wall protest: Jay Johnson Castro from the Texas border
11 am – Oral Testimony
12 pm - Lunch
1 pm – Conclusions, Summaries, Recommendations & Resolutions
2 pm – Break, dinner on your own
7 pm – Concert: BLACKFIRE
This is an alcohol-free and drug-free event.
Indigenous Border Summit responds to human rights crisis
Indigenous Peoples' Border Summit of the Americas II, Nov. 7 -- 10, focuses on human rights and right of mobility
SAN XAVIER, TOHONO O'ODHAM NATION -- A human rights crisis for Indigenous Peoples living along borders in the Americas threatens their survival, with rapidly expanding militarization and new laws which limit their mobility in their ancestral territories.
Responding to this crisis, the San Xavier District of the Tohono O'odham Nation will host the Indigenous Peoples Border Summit of the Americas II, Nov. 7- 10, with support from the International Indian Treaty Council.
Mike Flores, Tohono O'odham summit organizer, said, "It is necessary for Tohono O'odham and other Indigenous Peoples of the border regions to collectively address the adverse impacts that are increasingly occurring on tribal lands. The Border Summit of the Americas II will provide us the opportunity to do just that."
San Xavier District Chairman Austin Nunez joins Flores in welcoming Indigenous Peoples to the Border Summit on Tohono O'odham land, located near South Tucson.
"Welcome," Nunez said, "Our community is pleased to be hosting this year's conference."
The Border Summit will host a human rights workshop by the International Indian Treaty Council. The summit will be broadcast live on the Internet at http://www.earthcycles.net/ as was done in 2006.
From the southern Andes to the northern Arctic, corporations intent on seizing natural resources have increased the oppression and displacement of Indigenous Peoples, resulting in their forced mobility across national borders. Further, free trade agreements, mining and exploitative development have forced Indigenous Peoples into exile in the Americas, displaced from their lands where they farmed, hunted or fished for survival.
In the United States, corporate profiteering for private migrant prisons, experimental spy technology, poorly trained border agents, privatized security and new laws for immigration threaten the right of mobility in ancestral territories. The human rights crisis at the southern border of the United States and Mexico has resulted in over 4,000 migrant deaths in recent years, including deaths of women from Guatemala on Tohono O'odham tribal land in Arizona who died walking with their children in 2007. Migrants, including Indigenous Peoples from Mexico and Central America, die of dehydration and severe temperatures while walking in search of a better life. The Border Summit speakers will include Tohono O'odham Mike Wilson, who puts out water for migrants on tribal land. "No one should die for want of a drink of water," Wilson said.
The privatization of prisons, including the T. Don Hutto Residential Center and Raymondville migrant tent encampment, both near Austin, Texas, reveals the sinister motivation of profiteering from the plight of migrants. Hutto imprisons migrant and refugee infants and children. Speakers will include Jay Johnson-Castro, Sr., of Texas, among those organizing protests against the prisons and border wall. In May, the United Nations Special Rapporteur for migrants, Jorge Bustamante, was denied entrance into Hutto, and Johnson-Castro helped organize the human rights protests that followed.
The border wall and border vehicle barriers along the southern border have resulted in the removal of ancestors' remains of the Tohono O'odham and Kumeyaay from their final resting places. Further, the barrier wall on Tohono O'odham land is a barrier interfering with an ancient annual ceremony.
Since ceremonial leaders from Mexico often lead ceremonies in the United States, new immigration laws threaten the survival of ceremonies, culture and languages. Because many Indian people are born at home, or lack funds for visas and passports, crossing the border has become a harsh ordeal.Further, at both the northern and the southern borders of Canada and Mexico, federal border agents ransack and violate ceremonial items.
Speakers on the right of mobility at the northern border include a delegation of Mohawks from Turtle Island. With the increased militarization and surveillance at the borders, the dangers from speeding border agents, aerial vehicle crashes and abuse and harassment by border agents increase. Women, children and elderly along the border are most often the victims of oppression and suffer most often from the lack of food, safe drinking water and medicines.With the militarization and oppression increasing for Indigenous Peoples around the world, the Border Summit of the Americas invites Indian people to offer their testimony while receiving information and training on human rights.
The International Indian Treaty Council will present a human rights training, following the United Nations adoption of the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. The US will be examined by the UN Committee for Racial Discrimination (CERD) Committee in March of 2008, in Geneva, Switzerland.
"This workshop will provide information as to how Indigenous Nations, tribes and organizations can use this historic opportunity to inform the CERD Committee on the true state of racial discrimination in this country and how it affects Indian Nations, Peoples and communities. This information will be very important to help the UN CERD experts get a more accurate picture of racial discrimination in the US and hold the US accountable to their obligations under international human rights law," IITC said.
"An additional focus will be on strategies to defend our human rights, border rights, and protecting our sacred sites and traditional land rights using the newly-adopted UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples from the local to the international levels."
The human rights workshop presenters will be Bill Means, Lakota cofounder of the Treaty Council; Andrea Carmen, Yaqui and Treaty Council executive director; Ron Lameman, Confederacy of Treaty 6 First Nations, and Francisco Cali, CERD Member and Treaty Council board president.
Treaty Council presents human rights training during Border Summit
Human Rights Training
Using the United Nations to hold the US accountable for Racism towards Indigenous Peoples & Strategies for Implementing the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples
You are invited!
The International Indian Treaty Council (IITC) will conduct a workshop focusing on holding the United States' accountable to its legally binding obligations under the International Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Racial Discrimination (CERD).
The US will be examined by the CERD Committee in March of 2008, in Geneva, Switzerland. This workshop will provide information as to how Indigenous Nations, tribes and organizations can use this historic opportunity to inform the CERD Committee on the true state of racial discrimination in this county and how it affects Indian Nations, Peoples and communities. This information will be very important to help the UN CERD experts get a more accurate picture of racial discrimination in the US and hold the US accountable to their obligations under international human rights law.
An additional focus will be on strategies to defend our human rights, border rights, and protecting our sacred sites and traditional land rights using the newly-adopted UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples from the local to the international levels.
PRESENTERS: Bill Means (Introduction & MC); Andrea Carmen (IITC Executive Director); Ron Lameman (Confederacy of Treaty 6 First Nations), Francisco Cali (CERD Member, IITC Board President)
This workshop is being held in conjunction with the Indigenous Peoples' Border Summit of the Americas II" from November 7-10, 2007 which will be held at the San Xavier Community Center, 2018 W. San Xavier Rd, Tohono O'odham Nation. For more information on the Indigenous Peoples' Border Summit.
Indigenous Border Summit Website:
http://indigenousbordersummitamericas2007.blogspot.com
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