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Tag: Indigenous people

  • Apaches tell court copper mine would harm sacred sites

    Apaches tell court copper mine would harm sacred sites

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    PHOENIX — A Native American group that’s trying to stop an effort to build one of the largest copper mines in the United States told a full federal appeals court panel Tuesday that the project would prevent Apaches from exercising their religion by destroying land they consider sacred.

    U.S. federal government plans for a land swap that will allow Resolution Copper to build the mine will destroy the land in eastern Arizona known as Oak Flat, “barring the Apaches from ever accessing it again and ending their core religious practices forever,” said attorney Luke Goodrich, arguing for the group Apache Stronghold.

    “We asked the court today to recognize the obvious — that when the government destroys a sacred site, religious liberty law has something to say about it,” Goodrich, vice president and senior counsel at the nonprofit legal institution Becket Law, said in a prepared statement distributed after the hearing in Pasadena, California. “A win for Apache Stronghold will be a win for people of all faiths.”

    The Apache group is seeking to halt the land swap while the case plays out in court. The panel of 11 judges on the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals is expected to issue a decision in the next few months.

    Apache Stronghold sued the U.S. government under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act to protect the place tribal members call Chi’chil Bildagoteel, an area dotted with ancient oak groves and traditional plants the Apaches consider essential to their religion.

    An environmental impact survey for the project has been pulled back while the U.S. Department of Agriculture has consulted for months with Native American tribes and others about their concerns.

    But U.S. government attorney Joan Pepin told the judge Tuesday that the Forest Service expected the environmental analysis could be republished as early as this spring, setting in motion the land swap, which would have to be completed within 60 days.

    Pepin argued that the act of Congress that approved the exchange giving the Oak Flat to Resolution Copper land supersedes the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which prevents government agencies from placing a “substantial burden” on the practice of religion.

    The land transfer was a last-minute provision included in a must-pass defense bill in 2014. The swap would give the mining company 3.75 square miles (9.71 square kilometers) of national forest land in exchange for eight parcels it owns in other parts of Arizona.

    Resolution Copper, a joint venture of global mining firms Rio Tinto and BHP, has said it continues to address concerns raised about the project, but noted there is significant local support for the mine. Rio Tinto has headquarters in Australia and the U.K, while BHP is based in Australia.

    It says the project has the potential to supply enough copper to meet up to one-quarter of U.S. demand, adding up to $1 billion a year to Arizona’s economy and creating thousands of local jobs.

    A smaller 9th Circuit panel previously ruled 2-1 that the federal government could give the Oak Flat land to the mining company for the project. The court later agreed to let the larger panel hear the case.

    Apache Stronghold members traveled from Arizona for the hearing, stopping at cities along the way to draw attention to the case. They gathered Monday at a community arts center in the Los Angeles neighborhood of Boyle Heights.

    “Oak Flat is where my people have come to connect with our Creator for millennia, and we have the right to continue that sacred tradition,” Wendsler Nosie Sr. of Apache Stronghold said in a statement released after the hearing. “Today we stood up in court for that right, determined to stop those who think that our place of worship can be treated differently simply because it lacks four walls and a steeple.”

    The Poor People’s Campaign, environmental groups and the National Congress of American Indians are among many groups backing Apache Stronghold’s fight.

    The Notre Dame Law School Religious Liberty Clinic filed a “friend of the court” brief and Stephanie Barclay, director of Notre Dame’s Religious Liberty Initiative, participated in oral arguments.

    The Religious Liberty Clinic at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota, also submitted a brief.

    St. Thomas law professor Thomas Berg called it the most important Native American religious liberty case in 15 years.

    “It could change the legal test used throughout the Ninth Circuit, which likely has far more sacred sites on federal land than any other part of the country,” Berg said in a written statement.

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  • Haaland criticized over ‘difficult’ choice on Willow project

    Haaland criticized over ‘difficult’ choice on Willow project

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    WASHINGTON (AP) — In early March, President Joe Biden met with members of Alaska’s bipartisan congressional delegation as they implored him to approve a contentious oil drilling project in their state. Around the same time, Interior Secretary Deb Haaland held a very different meeting on the same topic.

    Gathering at Interior headquarters a half-mile (0.8 kilometers) from the White House, leaders of major environmental organizations and Indigenous groups pleaded with Haaland, the first Native American Cabinet member, to use her authority to block the Willow oil project. Environmental groups call the project a “carbon bomb” that would betray pledges made by Biden — and Haaland — to fight climate change and have mounted a social media #StopWillow campaign that has been seen hundreds of millions of times.

    The closed-door meeting, which was described by two participants who insisted on not being identified because of its confidential nature, grew emotional as participants urged Haaland to oppose a project many believed Biden appeared likely to approve even as it contradicted his agenda to cut planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions in half by 2030.

    Haaland, who opposed Willow when she served in Congress, choked up as she explained that the Interior Department had to make difficult choices, according to the participants. Many Native groups in Alaska support Willow as a job creator and economic lifeline.

    Less than two weeks later, the Biden administration announced it was approving Willow, an $8 billion drilling plan by ConocoPhillips on Alaska’s petroleum-rich North Slope.

    Haaland, who had not publicly commented on Willow in two years as head of the U.S. agency overseeing the project, was not involved in the announcement and did not sign the approval order, leaving that to her deputy, Tommy Beaudreau.

    In an online video released Monday night, 10 hours after the decision was made public, Haaland said she and Biden, both Democrats, believe the climate crisis “is the most urgent issue of our lifetime.″

    She called Willow “a difficult and complex issue that was inherited″ from previous administrations and noted that ConocoPhillips has long held leases to drill for oil on the site, in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska.

    “As a result, we have limited decision space,″ she said, adding that officials focused on reducing the project’s footprint and minimizing impacts to people and wildlife. The final approval reflects a substantially smaller project than ConocoPhillips originally proposed and includes a pledge by the Houston-based oil company to relinquish nearly 70,000 acres (28,000 hectares) of leased land that will no longer be developed, she said.

    The video had received more than 100,000 views by Friday.

    Haaland declined to be interviewed for this story. But in a statement, the department said Haaland had been “actively involved” in the Willow decision from the start and met with Alaska Natives on both sides of the issue, conservation and other groups and members of Congress.

    Dallas Goldtooth, a senior strategist for the Indigenous Environmental Network, called it ”problematic” that Haaland’s video was the Biden administration’s primary voice on Willow. Biden himself has not spoken publicly on the project.

    “They use people of color for cover on these decisions,″ said Goldtooth, a member of Mdewakanton Dakota tribe.

    The White House pushed back on the idea, saying in a statement Friday that as interior secretary, “of course the video came from her.″

    But Haaland’s body language — at times looking away from the camera — made her appear “very uncomfortable” in the two-minute video, Goldtooth said.

    Haaland’s statement “did not seem to be a wholehearted defense of the decision,″ said Brett Hartl, government affairs director of the Center for Biological Diversity, another environmental group. “It was almost an apology.″

    Allowing Haaland to be the administration’s public face on Willow strengthens Biden’s expected reelection run by allowing him to avoid public scrutiny on an issue on which some of his most ardent supporters disagree with him, environmentalists said.

    “It’s clear-cut D.C. politics,″ Goldtooth said. “I’ve seen this play run before,″ including when former Biden environmental justice adviser Cecilia Martinez was put forward to address tribal concerns about two other energy projects, the Dakota Access and Line 3 oil pipelines in the upper Midwest.

    Asked about Willow on Thursday, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters that the oil company “has a legal right to those leases,” adding: “The department’s options are limited when there are legal contracts in place.”

    Goldtooth and others involved in the Willow fight say the project was largely advanced by Beaudreau, Haaland’s deputy, who grew up in Alaska and has a close relationship with the state’s two Republican senators. Beaudreau is especially close to Sen. Lisa Murkowski, a former Senate Energy chair who has cooperated with Biden on a range of issues. Murkowski played a key role in Haaland’s confirmation, and she and Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia teamed up to get Beaudreau installed as deputy after they objected to Haaland’s first choice, Elizabeth Klein.

    Murkowski told reporters this week that she and other Alaska officials had long realized that the decision on Willow was likely to be made by the White House, despite repeated comments from Jean-Pierre that the decision was up to Interior.

    The senator, who personally lobbied Biden on Willow for nearly two years, said she reminded him, “Cooperation goes both ways.″

    Despite the White House involvement, Haaland has been faulted for the decision to approve Willow. New Mexico’s senior Democratic senator, Martin Heinrich, singled her out for criticism in a rare rebuke of a fellow New Mexico Democrat. Haaland represented the state in Congress before becoming Interior secretary.

    “The Western Arctic is one of the last great wild landscapes on the planet and as public land it belongs to every American,” Heinrich said in a statement. ”Industrial development in this unspoiled landscape will not age well.″

    Rep. Melanie Stansbury, D-N.M., who holds Haaland’s former seat in Congress, said she joined millions of people, “including Indigenous leaders, scientists and lawmakers, in opposing the Willow Project.″ She urged the Biden administration to reconsider the project and its consequences for global climate change.

    Native American tribes in the Southwestern U.S. have been watching Willow closely, concerned about any implications it could have for development in culturally significant areas, including the Chaco Culture National Historical Park in northwestern New Mexico.

    A federal appeals court has ruled that the Interior Department failed to consider the cumulative effects of greenhouse gas emissions that would result from the approval of nearly 200 drilling permits near the Chaco site.

    Haaland, a member of the Laguna Pueblo, visited Chaco in 2021 and told tribal leaders that the Interior Department’s Bureau of Land Management would work toward withdrawing hundreds of square miles from development. She also committed to taking a broader look at how federal land across the region can be better managed while taking into account environmental effects and cultural preservation.

    Mario Atencio, of Diné CARE, a Navajo environmental group, said he understands that the Interior Department faces pressure from GOP lawmakers to increase drilling, as well as conflicting court rulings on a pause ordered by Biden on oil leasing on public land.

    “We’re very aware that it’s a game of inches sometimes, and there’s a little discretion in some places, and we are just trying to have just as much visibility as the oil and gas industry has,” said Atencio, who is Navajo.

    The Willow project has divided Alaska Native groups. Supporters call the project balanced and say communities would benefit from taxes generated by Willow. But City of Nuiqsut Mayor Rosemary Ahtuangaruak, whose community of about 525 people is closest to the proposed development, opposes the project and worries about impacts on caribou and her residents’ subsistence lifestyles.

    Hartl, of the biological diversity group, said Willow was approved by the White House for clear political reasons. “They cared more about Lisa Murkowski’s vote than frankly they did the climate,″ he said.

    ___

    Associated Press writer Susan Montoya Bryan in Albuquerque, N.M., contributed to this story.

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  • Major oil project approval intensifies Alaska Natives’ rift

    Major oil project approval intensifies Alaska Natives’ rift

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    ANCHORAGE, Alaska — The Biden administration’s approval this week of the biggest oil drilling project in Alaska in decades promises to widen a rift among Alaska Natives, with some saying that oil money can’t counter the damages caused by climate change and others defending the project as economically vital.

    Two lawsuits filed almost immediately by environmentalists and one Alaska Native group are likely to exacerbate tensions that have built up over years of debate about ConocoPhillips Alaska’s Willow project.

    Many communities on Alaska’s North Slope celebrated the project’s approval, citing new jobs and the influx of money that will help support schools, other public services and infrastructure investments in their isolated villages. Just a few decades ago, many villages had no running water, said Doreen Leavitt, director of natural resources for the Inupiat Community of the Arctic Slope. Housing shortages continues to be a problem, with multiple generations often living together, she said.

    “We still have a long ways to go. We don’t want to go backwards,” Leavitt said.

    She said 50 years of oil production on the petroleum-rich North Slope has shown that development can coexist with wildlife and the traditional, subsistence way of life.

    But some Alaska Natives blasted the decision to greenlight the project, and they are supported by environmental groups challenging the approval in federal court.

    The acrimony toward the project was underscored in a letter dated earlier this month written by three leaders in the Nuiqsut community, who described their remote village as “ground zero for industrialization of the Arctic.” They addressed the letter to Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, a member of New Mexico’s Laguna Pueblo and the first Native American to lead a Cabinet department.

    They cited the threat that climate change poses to caribou migrations and to their ability to travel across once-frozen areas. Money from the ConocoPhillips project won’t be enough to mitigate those threats, they said. The community is about 36 miles (58 kilometers) from the Willow project.

    “They are payoffs for the loss of our health and culture,” the Nuiqsut leaders wrote. “No dollar can replace what we risk….It is a matter of our survival.”

    But Asisaun Toovak, the mayor of Utqiaġvik, the nation’s northernmost community on the Arctic Ocean, told the AP that she jumped for joy when she heard the Biden administration approved the Willow project.

    “I could say that the majority of the people, the majority of our community and the majority of the people were excited about the Willow Project,” she said.

    Willow is in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska, a vast region on Alaska’s resource-rich North Slope that is roughly the size of Maine. It would produce up to 180,000 barrels of oil a day, the use of which would result in at least 263 million tons (239 million metric tons) of greenhouse gas emissions over 30 years, according to a federal environmental review.

    The Sovereign Iñupiat for a Living Arctic, Sierra Club and other groups that sued Tuesday said Interior officials ignored the fact that every ton of greenhouse gas emitted by the project would contribute to sea ice melt, which endangers polar bears and Alaska villages. A second lawsuit seeking to block the project was filed Wednesday by Greenpeace and other environmental groups.

    For Alaska Natives to reconcile their points of view with one another, it will take discussions. “We just continue to try to sit at the table together, break bread and meet as a region,” said Leavitt, who also is the secretary for the tribal council representing eight North Slope villages.

    “I will say the majority of the voices that we heard against Willow were from the Lower 48,” she said of the contiguous U.S. states, excluding Alaska and Hawaii.

    ConocoPhillips Alaska said the $8 billion project would create up to 2,500 jobs during construction and 300 long-term jobs, and generate billions of dollars in royalties and other revenues to be split between the federal and state governments.

    The project has had widespread support among lawmakers in the state. Alaska’s bipartisan congressional delegation met with Biden and his advisers in early March to plead their case for the project, and Alaska Native lawmakers also met with Haaland to urge support.

    Haaland visited the North Slope last fall, just hours after state Rep. Josiah Aullaqsruaq Patkotak, a whaling captain along with his brother on their father’s whaling crew, harvested a roughly 40-ton (36-metric tons) bowhead whale and spent hours pulling it on the ice from the Arctic Ocean at Utqiaġvik. He left the ice around 7 a.m. to be ready to meet with Haaland just two hours later.

    For him, the juxtaposition of those activities on the same day underscored the dual life led by Alaska Natives on the North Slope and highlights the choices that communities make every day for their survival.

    “That’s the walk our leaders have to walk,” said Patkotak, an independent who supported Willow. “We maintain our culture and our lifestyle and our subsistence aspect where we’re one with the land and animals, and the very next hour you may be having to conduct yourself, you know, in a manner that you’re playing the Western world’s game.”

    He invited Haaland to view the bowhead whale that they harvested, but when Patkotak couldn’t provide a street name of where she would go, her security didn’t allow it. “Well, it’s on the ice, there are no street names,” he said.

    Patkotak met again with Haaland this month in Washington, D.C., where he extended an invitation to leaders in the White House to visit Utqiagvik, “because it’s our duty to tell our story so that we’re able to strike that balance of both worlds.

    “That’s a reality for us,” he said.

    ___

    Brown reported from Billings, Montana.

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  • Major oil project approval intensifies Alaska Natives’ rift

    Major oil project approval intensifies Alaska Natives’ rift

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    ANCHORAGE, Alaska — The Biden administration’s approval this week of the biggest oil drilling project in Alaska in decades promises to widen a rift among Alaska Natives, with some saying that oil money can’t counter the damages caused by climate change and others defending the project as economically vital.

    Two lawsuits filed almost immediately by environmentalists and one Alaska Native group are likely to exacerbate tensions that have built up over years of debate about ConocoPhillips Alaska’s Willow project.

    Many communities on Alaska’s North Slope celebrated the project’s approval, citing new jobs and the influx of money that will help support schools, other public services and infrastructure investments in their isolated villages. Just a few decades ago, many villages had no running water, said Doreen Leavitt, director of natural resources for the Inupiat Community of the Arctic Slope. Housing shortages continues to be a problem, with multiple generations often living together, she said.

    “We still have a long ways to go. We don’t want to go backwards,” Leavitt said.

    She said 50 years of oil production on the petroleum-rich North Slope has shown that development can coexist with wildlife and the traditional, subsistence way of life.

    But some Alaska Natives blasted the decision to greenlight the project, and they are supported by environmental groups challenging the approval in federal court.

    The acrimony toward the project was underscored in a letter dated earlier this month written by three leaders in the Nuiqsut community, who described their remote village as “ground zero for industrialization of the Arctic.” They addressed the letter to Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, a member of New Mexico’s Laguna Pueblo and the first Native American to lead a Cabinet department.

    They cited the threat that climate change poses to caribou migrations and to their ability to travel across once-frozen areas. Money from the ConocoPhillips project won’t be enough to mitigate those threats, they said. The community is about 36 miles (58 kilometers) from the Willow project.

    “They are payoffs for the loss of our health and culture,” the Nuiqsut leaders wrote. “No dollar can replace what we risk….It is a matter of our survival.”

    But Asisaun Toovak, the mayor of Utqiaġvik, the nation’s northernmost community on the Arctic Ocean, told the AP that she jumped for joy when she heard the Biden administration approved the Willow project.

    “I could say that the majority of the people, the majority of our community and the majority of the people were excited about the Willow Project,” she said.

    Willow is in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska, a vast region on Alaska’s resource-rich North Slope that is roughly the size of Maine. It would produce up to 180,000 barrels of oil a day, the use of which would result in at least 263 million tons (239 million metric tons) of greenhouse gas emissions over 30 years, according to a federal environmental review.

    The Sovereign Iñupiat for a Living Arctic, Sierra Club and other groups that sued Tuesday said Interior officials ignored the fact that every ton of greenhouse gas emitted by the project would contribute to sea ice melt, which endangers polar bears and Alaska villages. A second lawsuit seeking to block the project was filed Wednesday by Greenpeace and other environmental groups.

    For Alaska Natives to reconcile their points of view with one another, it will take discussions. “We just continue to try to sit at the table together, break bread and meet as a region,” said Leavitt, who also is the secretary for the tribal council representing eight North Slope villages.

    “I will say the majority of the voices that we heard against Willow were from the Lower 48,” she said of the contiguous U.S. states, excluding Alaska and Hawaii.

    ConocoPhillips Alaska said the $8 billion project would create up to 2,500 jobs during construction and 300 long-term jobs, and generate billions of dollars in royalties and other revenues to be split between the federal and state governments.

    The project has had widespread support among lawmakers in the state. Alaska’s bipartisan congressional delegation met with Biden and his advisers in early March to plead their case for the project, and Alaska Native lawmakers also met with Haaland to urge support.

    Haaland visited the North Slope last fall, just hours after state Rep. Josiah Aullaqsruaq Patkotak, a whaling captain along with his brother on their father’s whaling crew, harvested a roughly 40-ton (36-metric tons) bowhead whale and spent hours pulling it on the ice from the Arctic Ocean at Utqiaġvik. He left the ice around 7 a.m. to be ready to meet with Haaland just two hours later.

    For him, the juxtaposition of those activities on the same day underscored the dual life led by Alaska Natives on the North Slope and highlights the choices that communities make every day for their survival.

    “That’s the walk our leaders have to walk,” said Patkotak, an independent who supported Willow. “We maintain our culture and our lifestyle and our subsistence aspect where we’re one with the land and animals, and the very next hour you may be having to conduct yourself, you know, in a manner that you’re playing the Western world’s game.”

    He invited Haaland to view the bowhead whale that they harvested, but when Patkotak couldn’t provide a street name of where she would go, her security didn’t allow it. “Well, it’s on the ice, there are no street names,” he said.

    Patkotak met again with Haaland this month in Washington, D.C., where he extended an invitation to leaders in the White House to visit Utqiagvik, “because it’s our duty to tell our story so that we’re able to strike that balance of both worlds.

    “That’s a reality for us,” he said.

    ___

    Brown reported from Billings, Montana.

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  • Lula meets with Indigenous in Brazil’s Amazon, pledges lands

    Lula meets with Indigenous in Brazil’s Amazon, pledges lands

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    RAPOSA SERRA DO SOL INDIGENOUS TERRITORY, Brazil — On his first trip to Indigenous land in the Amazon rainforest since taking office, Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva expressed support for creating new territories for those communities, but stopped short of announcing any demarcations.

    Wearing white cap and dark shirt in the heat, Lula addressed some 2,000 Indigenous people who painted their faces, wore traditional feather headdresses and sang songs to welcome him Monday to the Raposa Serra do Sol region bordering Venezuela and Guyana.

    He said he wants quick demarcation of their lands “before other people take over, invent false documents” to claim ownership rights. That has been a common occurence throughout Brazil’s history, which prompted the start of demarcation processes over a half century ago.

    “We need to quickly try to legalize every land whose (demarcation) studies are almost finished so the Indigenous can take the land that is theirs,” Lula said at the 52nd general assembly of the Indigenous peoples of the State of Roraima.

    Yet Lula stopped short of actually announcing any new designations that are much anticipated by Indigenous people and rights activists. Many already had their hopes dashed that new demarcations would take place in the first 30 days of his administration, which began Jan. 1.

    Their movement has pressured Lula to demarcate 13 new Indigenous territories that have cleared all regulatory steps and require nothing more than presidential approval to be official. Doing so would mark a sharp change in policy from the previous administration of Jair Bolsonaro, who did not demarcate any land for them during his presidency.

    Some of the territories pending a presidential authorization began their demarcation processes decades ago.

    Lula authorized the demarcation of Raposa Serra do Sol in 2005, during his first term as president. Different from other reserves in the Brazilian Amazon, Raposa Serra do Sol is mostly tropical savannah. It is home to 26,000 people from five different ethnicities.

    Since receiving its protected status, it has been a scene of conflict between rice farmers and Indigenous people and has had sporadic violence, making the territory something of a case study in the challenges of protecting land that is increasingly under pressure from without.

    Bolsonaro’s relentless push to legalize mining on Indigenous territories rekindled long-standing divisions among Raposa Serra do Sol’s local communities about the best path forward for their collective well-being. He visited an illegal gold mining camp in the same Indigenous territory in October 2021 and openly encouraged the activity, despite criticism from local Indigenous leaders.

    Preparations for Lula’s arrival at Raposa Serra do Sol began shortly before dayreak in the Amazon, with Indigenous people of different groups waking early to gather at a community center for their final rehearsal of songs and dances for the president. People of different ages wearing straw skirts lurched backward and forward as drums and chants resounded. Other Indigenous people were back at their tents preparing breakfast for the members of their groups.

    Indigenous leaders, including Osmar Lima Batista of the Macuxi people, Letícia Monteiro da Silva of the Taurepang people, and Adailton Waiwai of the Waiwai people, told The Associated Press at the meeting that they expect better days compared with the prior four years, when they believed they did not have a friend in the presidential palace.

    All agreed that Lula’s first visit to the region since 2010 was not enough, however.

    Davi Kopenawa, leader of the Yanomami people, took the microphone during the gathering to tell Lula that his people’s needs are greater than those of four years ago.

    “After we take the gold miners out, we need to recover our Indigenous health care system, which was destroyed,” Kopenawa said. “We need to save the children we have left. I don’t want more children dying. We need hospitals in our community. Disease is still strong in the Amazon.”

    “I don’t want mining on Yanomami lands and in the Raposa Serra do Sol territory,” he added. “Mining kills us, it kills people in the city, the river, the water of the forest. We don’t need heavy mining at our home.”

    Lula said in his speech that his administration will definitively expel gold miners from Indigenous lands — as it has already begun working to do in the Yanomami territory.

    “That gold doesn’t belong to anyone. It’s there because nature placed it there. It’s on Indigenous land,” Lula said.

    The president was accompanied by Sonia Guajajara, his minister of Indigenous peoples, and Joenia Wapichana, who heads the Indigenous affairs agency.

    Lula said there will be a meeting involving leaders of countries of the Amazon rainforest — Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Venezuela.

    ___

    Savarese reported from Sao Paulo.

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  • Mexican president posts photo of what he claims is an elf

    Mexican president posts photo of what he claims is an elf

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    Mexico’s president has posted a photo on his social media accounts showing what he says appears to be a mythological woodland spirit similar to an elf

    ByThe Associated Press

    February 25, 2023, 7:20 PM

    MEXICO CITY — Mexico’s president posted a photo on his social media accounts Saturday showing what he said appeared to be a mythological woodland spirit similar to an elf.

    President Andrés Manuel López Obrador did not seem to be joking when he posted the photo of an “Aluxe,” a mischievous woodland spirit in Mayan folklore.

    López Obrador wrote the photo “was taken three days ago by an engineer, it appears to be an aluxe,” adding “everything is mystical.”

    The nighttime photo shows a tree with a branch forming what looks like a halo of hair, and what may be stars forming the figure’s eyes.

    López Obrador has long expressed reverence for indigenous cultures and beliefs. Engineers and workers are in the Yucatan peninsula, constructing a tourist train that is the president’s pet project.

    According to traditional Mayan belief, “Aluxes” are small, mischievous creatures that inhabit forests and fields and are prone to playing tricks on people, like hiding things. Some people leave small offerings to appease them.

    The ancient Mayan civilization reached its height from 300 A.D. to 900 A.D. on the Yucatan Peninsula and in adjacent parts of Central America, but the Mayas’ descendants continue to live on the peninsula.

    Many continue speaking the Mayan language and wearing traditional clothing, while also conserving traditional foods, crops, religion and medicine practices, despite the conquest of the region by the Spanish between 1527 and 1546.

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  • Rights to ‘Crying Indian’ ad to go to Native American group

    Rights to ‘Crying Indian’ ad to go to Native American group

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    Since its debut in 1971, an anti-pollution ad showing a man in Native American attire shed a single tear at the sight of smokestacks and litter taking over a once unblemished landscape has become an indelible piece of TV pop culture.

    It’s been referenced over the decades since on shows like “The Simpsons” and “South Park” and in internet memes. But now a Native American advocacy group that was given the rights to the long-parodied public service announcement is retiring it, saying it has always been inappropriate.

    The so-called “Crying Indian” with his buckskins and long braids made the late actor Iron Eyes Cody a recognizable face in households nationwide. But to many Native Americans, the public service announcement has been a painful reminder of the enduring stereotypes they face.

    The nonprofit that originally commissioned the advertisement, Keep America Beautiful, had long been considering how to retire the ad and announced this week that it’s doing so by transferring ownership of the rights to the National Congress of American Indians.

    “Keep America Beautiful wanted to be careful and deliberate about how we transitioned this iconic advertisement/public service announcement to appropriate owners,” Noah Ullman, a spokesperson for the nonprofit, said via e-mail. “We spoke to several Indigenous peoples’ organizations and were pleased to identify the National Congress of American Indians as a potential caretaker.”

    NCAI plans to end the use of the ad and watch for any unauthorized use.

    “NCAI is proud to assume the role of monitoring the use of this advertisement and ensure it is only used for historical context; this advertisement was inappropriate then and remains inappropriate today,” said NCAI Executive Director Larry Wright, Jr. “NCAI looks forward to putting this advertisement to bed for good.”

    When it premiered in the 1970s, the ad was a sensation. It led to Iron Eyes Cody filming three follow-up PSAs. He spent more than 25 years making public appearances and visits to schools on behalf of the anti-litter campaign, according to an Associated Press obituary.

    From there, Cody, who was Italian American but claimed to have Cherokee heritage through his father, was typecast as a stock Native American character, appearing in over 80 films. Most of the time, his character was simply “Indian,” “Indian Chief” or “Indian Joe.”

    His movie credits from the 1950s-1980s included “Sitting Bull,” The Great Sioux Massacre,” Nevada Smith, “A Man Called Horse” and “Ernest Goes to Camp.” On television, he appeared in “Bonanza,” “Gunsmoke” and “Rawhide” among others. He also was a technical adviser on Native American matters on film sets.

    Dr. Jennifer J. Folsom, a journalism and media communication professor at Colorado State University and a citizen of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma, remembers watching the public service announcement as a child.

    “At that point, every single person who showed up with braids and buckskins, on TV or anywhere in the movies, I glommed on to that because it was such a rare thing to see,” said Folsom, whose areas of study include Native American pop culture. “I did see how people littered, and I did see how the creeks and the rivers were getting polluted.”

    But as she grew up, Folsom noticed how media devoted little coverage to Native American environmental activists.

    “There’s no agency for that sad so-called Indian guy sitting in a canoe, crying,” Folsom said. “I think it has done damage to public perception and support for actual Native people doing things to protect the land and protect the environment.”

    She applauded Keep America Beautiful’s decision as an “appropriate move.” It will mean a trusted group can help control the narrative the ad has promoted for over 50 years, she said.

    The ad’s power has arguably already faded as Native and Indigenous youths come of age with a greater consciousness about stereotypes and cultural appropriation. TikTok has plenty of examples of Native people parodying or doing a takedown of the advertisement, Folsom said.

    Robert “Tree” Cody, the adopted son of Iron Eyes Cody, said the advertisement had “good intent and good heart” at its core.

    “It was one of the top 100 commercials,” said Robert Cody, an enrolled member of the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community in Arizona.

    And, it reminded him of time spent with his father, said Cody, who lives at Santa Ana Pueblo in New Mexico.

    “I remember a lot, even when he went on a movie set to finish his movies and stuff,” Cody said. “I remember going out to Universal (Studios), Disney, places like that.”

    His wife, Rachel Kee-Cody, can’t help but feel somewhat sad that an ad that means so much to their family will be shelved. But she is resigned to the decision.

    “You know, times are changing as well. You keep going no matter how much it changes,” she said. “Disappointment. … It’ll pass.”

    ___

    Tang is a member of The Associated Press’ Race and Ethnicity team. Follow her on Twitter at @ttangAP.

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  • Alaska Native leaders, US senators back major oil project

    Alaska Native leaders, US senators back major oil project

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    JUNEAU, Alaska — Alaska’s Republican U.S. senators and several Alaska Native leaders on Tuesday urged the federal government to approve a major oil project on the petroleum-rich North Slope, casting the project as economically critical for Indigenous communities in the region and important for the nation’s energy security.

    The Biden administration “damn well better not kill the project, period,” Sen. Lisa Murkowski told reporters on a video conference.

    The U.S. Bureau of Land Management earlier this month released an environmental review for ConocoPhillips Alaska’s Willow project that listed as a preferred alternative an option calling for up to three drill sites initially, compared to the five that had been favored by the company. It is an option project proponents, including Alaska’s bipartisan congressional delegation, have expressed support for. But Murkowski and Sen. Dan Sullivan said any further limiting of the project could kill it.

    The Bureau of Land Management noted its listing of a preferred alternative “does not constitute a commitment or decision.” The U.S. Interior Department said separately that it had “substantial concerns” about the project and the report’s preferred alternative, “including direct and indirect greenhouse gas emissions and impacts to wildlife and Alaska Native subsistence.” The Bureau of Land Management falls under Interior.

    Sullivan has said Willow could be “one of the biggest, most important resource development projects in our state’s history.” He last week urged state lawmakers in Alaska’s capital to pass a resolution expressing support for the project and to get involved in litigation that is likely to arise from whatever decision is rendered by the federal government. A decision could come in early March.

    Taqulik Hepa, director of the Department of Wildlife Management for the North Slope Borough, said taxes levied on oil and gas infrastructure have enabled the borough to invest in public infrastructure, support local schools and provide police, fire and other services.

    Hepa said the borough and its residents are “keenly aware of the need to balance responsible oil development and the subsistence lifestyle that has sustained us.” She said the borough has demanded this balance be achieved in its dealings with government agencies and oil companies for decades.

    Nagruk Harcharek, president of the group Voice of the Arctic Iñupiat, whose members include leaders from across much of the North Slope, said there is “majority consensus” in the region in favor of the project, calling Willow a “lifeline” for residents. He said there are limited economic development opportunities in the region, which makes approval of the Willow project important.

    Sullivan, in a speech on the U.S. Senate floor last week, said the voices of those who support the project aren’t being given enough attention. He complained that national media outlets find “the one who’s against it and quote her.”

    City of Nuiqsut Mayor Rosemary Ahtuangaruak said there are “many who would like to say everybody in Alaska supports oil and gas development. Well, for our village, this development is in the wrong area.”

    Nuiqsut is about 36 miles (58 kilometers) from the Willow project.

    “Our concerns are real. It’s about our way of life, the life, health and safety of our village,” she said.

    Environmentalists have raised concerns that approval of the project would lead to further development and say it’s inconsistent with President Joe Biden’s climate goals.

    Biden earlier this month said the U.S. would need oil “for at least another decade.″ Murkowski said there is a move to transition toward a “different energy future” but said Biden needs to “recheck his facts, respectfully.”

    “We are decades, decades away from a time that we would be beyond oil resources,” she said. “The need is very, very much still there.”

    She and Sullivan have said resource development should be done in places with environmental standards like Alaska.

    The proposed Willow project is in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska. ConocoPhillips Alaska has said it could produce up to 180,000 barrels of oil a day at its peak. It is expected to create up to 2,500 jobs during construction and an estimated 300 permanent jobs, along with generating billions of dollars in revenues for federal, state and local governments, the company has said.

    ___

    Associated Press reporter Mark Thiessen contributed to this report from Anchorage, Alaska.

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  • Australia adds $300 million in funding for Indigenous pledge

    Australia adds $300 million in funding for Indigenous pledge

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    CANBERRA, Australia — Fifteen years after the Australian Parliament’s historic apology to its Indigenous people for past wrongs, the government on Monday announced 424 million Australian dollars ($293 million) in new funding to improve the lives of Australia’s original inhabitants.

    In 2008, a newly elected center-left Labor Party government apologized to the Indigenous population for “laws and policies of successive Parliaments and governments that have inflicted profound grief, suffering and loss on these our fellow Australians.”

    The focus of the apology was the so-called Stolen Generations — 100,000 children who were taken from Indigenous mothers under assimilation policies throughout most of the 20th century.

    The apology was accompanied by the ambitious pledge to close the gap in life expectancies between Indigenous Australians and the wider population within a generation.

    Key measures of disparities between the Indigenous population and others have been tracked annually in Closing the Gap Reports to identify and reduce a range of disadvantages. The report shows gaps widening in some areas, including with increasing rates of suicide and incarceration among Indigenous people.

    Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, whose Labor government was elected in May after nine years in opposition, told Parliament the new funding reaffirms “Closing the Gap as a top priority for my government.”

    Indigenous people, accounting for 3.2% of Australia’s population in the 2021 census, are the most disadvantaged ethnic group in country. They die younger than other Australians, are less likely to be employed, achieve lower education levels and are overrepresented in prison populations.

    “These aren’t gaps, they’re chasms,” Albanese said of measures of Indigenous disadvantage.

    On top of the AU$1.2 billion ($830 million) in Indigenous spending announced in October, the new funding includes AU$150 million ($104 million) over four years to provide clean drinking water to Outback Indigenous communities.

    AU$22 million ($15 million) would be spent over five years on combating family violence. Indigenous women and children were 34 times more likely to experience family and domestic violence than other Australians, the government said.

    In three years immediately before the apology and the Close the Gap pledge, Indigenous men died 11.4 years before the average Australian man and Indigenous women died 9.6 years younger than other Australian women, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics.

    A decade later, that gap had narrowed to 8.6 years for men and 7.8 years for women, the bureau’s latest data shows. Indigenous men have a life expectancy of 71 years and Indigenous women 75 years.

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  • Indigenous senator quits party over Australian referendum

    Indigenous senator quits party over Australian referendum

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    CANBERRA, Australia: — An Indigenous senator in Australia quit the minor Greens party on Monday in a disagreement over a referendum to be held this year that would create an Indigenous Voice to Parliament.

    Sen. Lidia Thorpe’s resignation illustrates deep divisions among Indigenous Australians on the referendum and increases the difficulty for the government in getting legislation through the Senate.

    The Greens have suggested they will support a referendum likely to be held this year that would enshrine in the constitution a body representing Indigenous people to advise Parliament on policies that effect their lives. It would be known as the Indigenous Voice.

    Thorpe had argued that Australia should first sign a treaty with its original inhabitans that acknowledged that they had never ceded their sovereignty to the British colonists.

    She said after quitting the Greens that the party’s support for the Voice was “at odds with the community of activists who are saying treaty before Voice.”

    “This country has a strong grassroots black sovereign movement full of staunch and committed warriors and I want to represent that movement fully in this Parliament,” Thorpe told reporters. “It has become clear to me that I can’t do that from within the Greens.”

    Another high-profile Indigenous Sen. Jacinta Nampijinpa Price has also spoken out against the Voice, arguing it would divide the nation along racial lines. Her conservative party, the Nationals, took an official position in November to oppose the referendum, prompting a senior lawmaker and Voice advocate Andrew Gee to quit the party.

    Bipartisan support has long been regarded as a prerequisite for a referendum’s success. But despite the divisions, an opinion poll published by The Australian newspaper on Monday found 56% of respondents in favor of the Voice. Opponents accounted from 37% and 7% were undecided.

    The survey of 1,512 voters nationwide was conducted from Feb. 1 to 4. It had a 3 percentage point margin of error.

    Indigenous people accounted for 3.2% of Australia’s population in the 2021 census. Indigenous Australians are the most disadvantaged ethnic group in Australia. They die younger than other Australians, are less likely to be employed, achieve lower education levels and are overrepresented in prison populations.

    Greens leader Adam Bandt and his deputy Mehreen Faruqi said they were sorry Thorpe had decided to leave their progressive party.

    Bandt said he had told Thorpe that the party’s constitution allowed her to take a different position on the Voice from her colleagues.

    Pakistan-born Faruqi said she and Thorpe had worked together as “strong allies against white supremacy and racism in all its forms.”

    “I know that we will continue to work together, this work of decolonization, as well as working for climate justice,” Faruqi said.

    Thorpe said she would continue to work with the Greens on their climate policy. The Greens want Australia to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 75% below 2005 levels by the end of the decade.

    The center-left Labor Party government enshrined in law a 43% target after it was elect in May last year.

    Labor has relied on the Greens’ 12 senators to pass legislation through the upper chamber that the conservative opposition party opposes.

    With the Greens’ support, Labor had only needed to enlist the vote of a single unaligned senator. With Thorpe’s departure, Labor now will need the support of two unaligned senators.

    Bandt said the government would continue to rely on the Greens to get its legislative agenda through the Senate.

    “The situation remains now still more or less the same in the Senate. The Greens are central in the balance of power in the Senate,” Bandt said.

    Thorpe has proved a radical and divisive element in the Senate. She was criticized for referring to the then-British monarch during a Senate swearing in ceremony in August last year as “the colonizing, her majesty Queen Elizabeth II.”

    She resigned as the Greens deputy leader in the Senate in October over what Bandt called a “significant lack of judgment” in failing to declare an intimate relationship she had with a former president of a biker gang.

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  • Tribe asks to take over former boarding school in Kansas

    Tribe asks to take over former boarding school in Kansas

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    FAIRWAY, Kan. — The Shawnee Tribe is asking to take over ownership of a historical site in Kansas that might contain unmarked graves of Native American students.

    The tribe released an architectural survey Tuesday that found the three buildings remaining at the Shawnee Indian Mission in Fairway, Kansas, need millions of dollars in repairs, The Kansas City Star reported.

    The site, formerly known as the Shawnee Indian Manual Labor School, was one of hundreds of schools run by the government and religious groups in the 1800s and 1900s that removed Indigenous children from their families to assimilate them into white society and Christianity.

    It is owned by the Kansas Historical Society. The city of Fairway manages daily operations.

    In October, state officials announced that they planned to conduct a ground study to search for unmarked graves on the 12-acre (4.86-hectare) site. That process stalled after the Shawnee Tribe said it had not been consulted enough and raised questions about the proposed study.

    Tribal leaders contend that state and Fairway officials have not properly maintained the site.

    The Oklahoma-based tribe commissioned the study from Architectural Resources Group last year because leaders are “concerned about the future of this historic site,” Chief Ben Barnes said in a statement Tuesday.

    “Over the last year, we have had numerous conversations with the city and state about the need to save this special place,” Barnes said. “When it became clear that there was no plan in place, we began conversations about the possibility of the Shawnee Tribe assuming responsibility for restoring and repairing this site.”

    Officials with the Kansas Historical Society and the city of Fairway rejected the suggestion that the site be transferred to the tribe.

    Patrick Zollner, acting executive director of the Historical Society, said the organization has already made several improvements, is planning more restoration work and remains committed to telling the history of the site.

    In a statement released Tuesday, Fairway officials questioned whether the tribe had the resources to pay for needed renovations and repairs. They also questioned what the tribe would do with the land, and said the city and state may not have any authority over how the land was used.

    Tribal leaders estimate the repairs would cost up to $13 million. If given ownership, the tribe said it would repair the buildings in multiple phases while meeting historical preservation requirements.

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  • MGM Resorts sells land that was site of Las Vegas massacre

    MGM Resorts sells land that was site of Las Vegas massacre

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    LAS VEGAS — MGM Resorts International has closed on the sale of land on the Las Vegas Strip that was the site of the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history, the company announced Friday.

    CEO and President Bill Hornbuckle disclosed the news to his staff in a letter Friday.

    The 15-acre Village property was purchased by the Three Affiliated Tribes of the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation based in central North Dakota.

    Concertgoers at the Route 91 Harvest Festival gathered there on Oct. 1, 2017, when a gunman opened fire from his hotel room above. He killed 58 people. Two more died later of their injuries. More than 850 people were hurt by the time the gunfire stopped.

    The site has remained unused and largely unchanged since the shooting.

    Last August, MGM Resorts donated two acres on the northeast corner of the property for the permanent memorial after a survey conducted by Clark County found that a majority of respondents wanted the tribute built at the site of the shooting.

    Planning for the memorial has been underway since late 2019, but it could be years before the final tribute is unveiled.

    The sale does not include the two acres.

    Hornbuckle says he knows the location means a great deal to many. But the Tribes “have demonstrated that they care about our community, its future and, of course, its past,” he wrote.

    The Three Affiliated Tribes is made up of the Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara Nation. They are also known as the MHA Nation.

    Representatives for the Tribes did not immediately return a message from The Associated Press seeking comment.

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  • Biodiversity talks in final days with many issues unresolved

    Biodiversity talks in final days with many issues unresolved

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    Negotiators at a United Nations biodiversity conference Saturday have still not resolved most of the key issues around protecting the world’s nature by 2030 and providing tens of billions of dollars to developing countries to fund those efforts.

    The United Nations Biodiversity Conference, or COP15, is set to wrap up Monday in Montreal and delegates were racing to agree on language in a framework that calls for protecting 30% of global land and marine areas by 2030, a goal known as “30 by 30.” Currently, 17% of terrestrial and 10% of marine areas globally are protected.

    They also have to settle on amounts of funding that would go to financing projects to create protected areas and restore marine and other ecosystems. Early draft frameworks called for closing a $700 billion gap in financing by 2030. Most of that would come from reforming subsidies in the agriculture, fisheries and energy sectors but there are also calls for tens of billions of dollars in new funding that would flow from rich to poor nations.

    “From the beginning of the negotiations, we’ve been seeing systematically some countries weakening the ambition. The ambition needs to come back,” Marco Lambertini, the director general of WWF International said, adding that they needed a “clear conservation target” that “sets the world on a clear trajectory towards delivering a nature positive future.”

    Canada’s Minister of Environment and Climate Change Steven Guilbeault expressed more optimism. Guilbeault told The Associated Press Saturday morning that he has heard “few people talk about red lines” and that means “people are willing to talk. People are willing to negotiate.”

    “I’ve heard a lot of support for ambition from all corners of the world,” Guilbeault said. “Everyone wants to leave here with an ambitious agreement.”

    Elizabeth Maruma Mrema, the executive secretary of the U.N. Convention on Biological Diversity, told reporters Saturday afternoon that she was encouraged by the progress especially around committing resources but that a deal had not been reached yet.

    “The negotiating teams have more work to do. They have to turn promises made into plans, ambitions and actions,” she said.

    The ministers and government officials from about 190 countries mostly agree that protecting biodiversity has to be a priority, with many comparing those efforts to climate talks that wrapped up last month in Egypt.

    Climate change coupled with habitat loss, pollution and development have hammered the world’s biodiversity, with one estimate in 2019 warning that a million plant and animal species face extinction within decades — a rate of loss 1,000 times greater than expected. Humans use about 50,000 wild species routinely, and 1 out of 5 people of the world’s 8 billion population depend on those species for food and income, the report said.

    But they are struggling to agree on what that protection looks like and who will pay for it.

    The financing has been among the most contentions issues, with delegates from 70 African, South American and Asian countries walking out of negotiations Wednesday. They returned several hours later.

    Brazil, speaking for developing countries, said in a statement that a new funding mechanism dedicated to biodiversity be established and that developed countries provide $100 billion annually in financial grants to emerging economies until 2030.

    “You need a robust and ambitious package on finance that matches the ambition of the Global Biodiversity framework,” Leonardo Cleaver de Athayde, the head of the Brazilian delegation, told the AP.

    “This will cost a lot of money to implement. The targets are extremely ambitious and cost a lot of money,” he continued. “The developing countries will bear a higher burden in implementing it because most biodiversity resources are to be found in developing countries. They need international support.”

    The donor countries — the European Union and 13 countries — responded Friday with a statement promising to increase biodiversity financing. They noted they doubled biodiversity spending from 2010 to 2015 and committed to several billion dollars more in biodiversity funding since then.

    Zac Goldsmith, the U.K.’s minister for Overseas Territories, Commonwealth, Energy, Climate and Environment, acknowledged the focus cannot only be on popular protection measures like the 30 by 30 goal.

    “The 30-by-30 is a headline target, but you can’t deliver 30-by-30 without a whole range of other things being agreed as well,” he said. “We’re not gonna have 30-by-30 without finance. We’re not going to have it unless other countries do as Costa Rica has and break the link between agricultural productivity and land degradation and deforestation. And we’re not gonna be able to do any of these things if we don’t address … subsidies.”

    Even protection targets are still being squabbled over. Many countries believe 30% is an admirable goal but some countries are pushing to water the language down to allow among other things sustainable activities in those areas that conservationists fear could result in destructive logging and mining. Others want language referencing ways to better manage the other 70% of the world that wouldn’t be protected.

    Other disagreements revolve around how best to share the benefits from genetic resources and enshrining the rights of Indigenous groups in any agreement. Some Indigenous groups want direct access to funding and a voice in designating protected areas that impact Indigenous peoples.

    “Any protected areas that affect Indigenous peoples need to have the free prior informed consent of Indigenous peoples, otherwise there will be the same old patters of Indigenous peoples being displaced by protected areas,” Atossa Soltani, the director of global strategy for the Amazon Sacred Headwaters Initiative, an alliance of 30 Indigenous nations in Ecuador and Peru working to working to permanently protect 86 million acres of rainforest, said in an email interview.

    The other challenge is including language — similar to the Paris Agreement on climate change — that creates a stronger system to report and verify the progress countries make. Many point to the failures of the 2010 biodiversity framework, which saw only six of the 20 targets partially met by a 2020 deadline.

    “It’s very important for parties to see what others are doing. It’s important for civil society, people like you to track our progress or sometimes unfortunately lack thereof,” Guilbeault said. “It’s an important tool to help keep our feet to the fire. If it’s effective on climate. We should have it on nature as well.”

    ———

    Follow Michael Casey on Twitter: @mcasey1

    ———

    Associated Press climate and environmental coverage receives support from several private foundations. See more about AP’s climate initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

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  • Report: Native Hawaiians hit by missing and murdered scourge

    Report: Native Hawaiians hit by missing and murdered scourge

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    HONOLULU — The average profile of a missing child in Hawaii: 15 years old, female, from the island of Oahu and Native Hawaiian. That’s according to a report released Wednesday that says much more disaggregated racial and gender data is needed to combat the scourge of missing and murdered Native Hawaiian women.

    Key findings of the report, the first of its kind released by a task force created by the state Legislature last year to investigate the issue, include that more than a quarter of missing girls in Hawaii are Native Hawaiian and that members of the U.S. military play an outsized role in the sexual exploitation of children in the state.

    Similar studies have shown that Indigenous women in Canada and the U.S. mainland are murdered or go missing at rates disproportionate to their size of the population. While the disturbing trend held for Native Hawaiian girls, a comparable, reliable statistic for Native Hawaiian women eluded the task force because of lacking data, said Nikki Cristobal, the report’s principal investigator. The task force was created amid renewed calls for people to pay more attention to missing and killed Indigenous women and girls and other people of color after the 2021 disappearance of Gabby Petito, a white woman, triggered widespread national media coverage and extensive searches by law enforcement. Petito’s body was later found in Wyoming.

    One of the difficulties in addressing the issue, is that determining the true scale can be difficult because many cases have gone unreported or have not been well-documented or tracked. Public and private agencies also don’t always collect statistics on race. And some data groups together Native Hawaiians and other Pacific Islanders, making it nearly impossible to identify the degree to which Hawaii’s Indigenous people are affected. About 20% of the state’s population is Native Hawaiian.

    Several states formed similar panels after a groundbreaking report by the Urban Indian Health Institute found that of more than 5,700 cases of missing and slain Indigenous girls in dozens of U.S. cities in 2016, only 116 were recorded in a Justice Department database.

    Wyoming’s task force determined that 710 Indigenous people disappeared in that state between 2011 and September 2020 and that Indigenous people made up 21% of homicide victims even though they make up only 3% of the population. In Minnesota, a task force led to the creation of a dedicated office to provide ongoing attention and leadership on the issue.

    Agencies such as the state, police departments and the military need to do better at collecting and retaining disaggregated data, Cristobal said.

    “Native Hawaiian women and girls are displaced not only through violence, but also through data collection across departments and across islands,” she said.

    One of the more disturbing findings of the report was the role of servicemembers in the abuse of children. Publicly available data in 2022 showed that 38% of those arrested for soliciting sex online from law enforcement posing as a 13-year-old during undercover operations were active-duty military personnel, the report said.

    In response to a request for comment on the findings, a Department of Defense duty officer said late in the day Wednesday that the message was being forwarded to the right person.

    Violence such as “selling and buying girls for sex on military bases, hotels, game rooms, massage parlors and in our own communities,” impact Native Hawaiians at much higher rates than other populations, Cristobal said.

    The findings are startling but not new, said Khara Jabola-Carolus, executive director of the Hawaii State Commission on the Status of Women and the task force’s co-chair.

    “Instead, it vindicates and validates what Native Hawaiians, sex trafficking and gender-based violence service providers and feminist activists have been saying all along and have been told that they were exaggerating or manipulating facts or just simply providing an anecdote,” she said.

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  • Peru’s ex-president faced bigotry for impoverished past

    Peru’s ex-president faced bigotry for impoverished past

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    LIMA, Peru — When Pedro Castillo won Peru’s presidency last year, it was celebrated as a victory by the country’s poor — the peasants and Indigenous people who live deep in the Andes and whose struggles had long been ignored.

    His supporters hoped Castillo, a populist outsider of humble roots, would redress their plight — or at least end their invisibility.

    But during 17 months in office before being ousted and detained Wednesday, supporters instead saw Castillo face the racism and discrimination they often experience. He was mocked for wearing a traditional hat and poncho, ridiculed for his accent and criticized for incorporating Indigenous ceremonies into official events.

    Protests against Castillo’s government featured a donkey — a symbol of ignorance in Latin America — with a hat similar to his. The attacks were endless, so much so that observers from the Organization of American States documented it during a recent mission to the deeply unequal and divided country.

    Castillo, however, squandered the popularity he enjoyed among the poor, along with any opportunity he had to deliver on his promises to improve their lives, when he stunned the nation by ordering Congress dissolved Wednesday, followed by his ouster and arrest on charges of rebellion. His act of political suicide, which recalled some of the darkest days of the nation’s anti-democratic past, came hours before Congress was set to start a third impeachment attempt against him.

    Now with Castillo in custody and the country being led by his former vice president, Dina Boluarte, it remains to be seen if she, too, will be subjected to the same discrimination.

    Boluarte, a lawyer who worked in the state agency that hands out identity documents before becoming vice president, is not part of Peru’s political elite either. She was raised in an impoverished town in the Andes, speaks one of the country’s Indigenous languages, Quechua, and, a leftist like Castillo, promised to “fight for the nobodies.”

    The Organization of American States, in a report published last week, noted that in Peru “there are sectors that promote racism and discrimination and do not accept that a person from outside traditional political circles occupy the presidential chair.”

    “This has resulted in insults toward the image of the president,” it said.

    After being sworn in as president Wednesday, Boluarte called for a truce with the lawmakers who ousted Castillo on charges of “permanent moral incapacity.”

    Peru has had six presidents in the last six years. In 2020, it cycled through three in a week.

    Castillo, a rural schoolteacher, had never held office before narrowly winning a runoff election in June 2021 after campaigning on promises to nationalize Peru’s key mining industry and rewrite the constitution, winning wide support in the impoverished countryside.

    Peru is the second-largest copper exporter in the world and mining accounts for almost 10% of its gross domestic product and 60% of its exports. But its economy was crushed by the coronavirus pandemic, increasing poverty and eliminating the gains of a decade.

    Castillo defeated by just 44,000 votes one of the most recognizable names among Peru’s political class: Keiko Fujimori, the daughter of former strongman Alberto Fujimori, who is serving a 25-year prison sentence for the murder of Peruvians executed during his government by a clandestine military squad.

    Keiko Fujimori’s supporters have often called Castillo “terruco,” or terrorist, a term often used by the right to attack the left, poor and rural residents.

    Once in office, Castillo went through more than 70 Cabinet choices, a number of whom have been accused of wrongdoing; faced two impeachment votes, and confronted multiple criminal investigations into accusations ranging from influence peddling to plagiarism.

    Omar Coronel, a sociology professor at Peru’s Pontific Catholic University, said while the corruption accusations and criticism of Castillo’s lack of experience have merit, they were tinged with racism, “a constant in any Peruvian equation.”

    “One can criticize his political inexperience, his clumsiness, his crimes,” Coronel said. But the way in which this was framed, that it was because Castillo was from a rural community with different customs, “is a deeply racist discourse and tremendously hypocritical,” because right-wing presidents have also faced corruption allegations.

    “Social media networks have been flooded with visceral racism during all these 17 months,” Coronel said.

    Some of Castillo’s remaining supporters have protested and blocked roads across the country since his arrest. They have also gathered outside the detention facility where he and Alberto Fujimori are held.

    “They have called him all sorts of discriminatory words,” Castillo supporter Fernando Picatoste said Friday outside the prison. “It’s a racial issue. In Congress, lawmakers, who supposedly have national representation, … have the audacity to insult the president.”

    ———

    Associated Press writer Franklin Briceño contributed to this report.

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  • Philadelphia ordered to remove box covering Columbus statue

    Philadelphia ordered to remove box covering Columbus statue

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    PHILADELPHIA — Philadelphia must remove the plywood box it placed over a statue of Christopher Columbus after 2020 protests over racial injustice, a judge ruled Friday.

    In her ruling, Judge Mary Hannah Leavitt said that if the city disagrees with the “message” the statue sends, it can add its own plaque with what it wants to convey.

    “More to the point, the City accepted the donation of the Columbus statue in 1876. It has a fiduciary duty to preserve that statue, which it designated an historic object in 2017. The Columbus statue is not City property as is, for example, a City snowblower,” the judge wrote.

    Kevin Lessard, spokesman for Democratic Mayor Jim Kenney, said the ruling disappointed officials but the city will respect the judge’s decision and remove the box as soon as it’s “practically and logistically feasible.”

    “We will also continue to explore our options for a way forward that allows Philadelphians to celebrate their heritage and culture while respecting the histories and circumstances of everyone’s different backgrounds,” Lessard said via email.

    The statue has been the subject of a long-running dispute between the city and the Friends of Marconi Plaza, where the likeness stands.

    It dates to 1876 and was presented to the city by the Italian-American community to commemorate the nation’s centennial, according to the 16-page ruling from the state’s Commonwealth Court.

    Supporters say they consider Columbus an emblem of the deep Italian heritage in the city. A message seeking comment on Friday’s ruling from the attorney representing the statue’s supporters was not immediately answered.

    Kenney has said Columbus was venerated for centuries as an explorer but had a “much more infamous” history, enslaving Indigenous people and imposing punishments such as severing limbs or even death.

    After protests about racial injustice began in June 2020 and some of them focused on the statue, Kenney ordered its removal, calling it a matter of public safety. But last year a judge reversed the city’s decision, however, saying it had failed to provide evidence that the statue’s removal was necessary to protect the public.

    The box covering the statue has been painted in green, white and red bands, mirroring the Italian flag, at the request of the city council member who represents the district.

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  • Extending Help to a Village of Hope—Puerto Esperanza

    Extending Help to a Village of Hope—Puerto Esperanza

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    Scientology Volunteer Ministers Amazon Goodwill Tour brings help to another indigenous Amazon community.


    Puerto Esperanza, Colombia, July 21, 2016 (Newswire.com)
    –
    On the banks of the Amazon River in Colombia in the village of Puerto Esperanza (Port of Hope), a bright yellow tent is attracting a lot of attention and visitors.

    The village curaca—the leader of the indigenous people of the region—invited everyone to attend the opening ceremony, where he welcomed the Volunteer Ministers to his community. He was joined by the director of Civil Defense of Nariño—the westernmost department or state of the country—and a local Christian pastor who gave the invocation.

    The Scientology Volunteer Ministers Goodwill Tour has by plying the Amazon for the past decade, bringing practical help to those living in villages and working with public officials, educators, civil defense and religious leaders to assist them to deal with the needs of those they serve.

    The Volunteer Minister program was created in the mid 1970s by Scientology Founder L. Ron Hubbard, who described the Volunteer Minister as “a person who helps his fellow man on a volunteer basis by restoring purpose, truth and spiritual values to the lives of others.”

    It is a broad initiative bringing effective physical and spiritual assistance to anyone, anywhere. Since its inception, hundreds of thousands have been trained in a wide range of skills that use Scientology fundamentals to alleviate physical, mental or spiritual suffering and improve any aspect of life—from communication and study to marriage and raising children.

    The training is open to anyone who desires to help others and empower them to overcome difficulties and change conditions for the better.

    Whether serving in their communities or on the other side of the world, the motto of the Scientology Volunteer Minister is “Something can be done about it.” The program, created in the mid 1970s by L. Ron Hubbard and sponsored by the Church of Scientology International as a religious social service, constitutes one of the world’s largest international independent relief forces.

    Source: ScientologyNews.org

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