| | |  Editorials | Issues | July 2008 
8,000-mile Longest Walk II Reaches Destination in D.C.
 Yaynicut Franco & Klee Benally - SFBayView
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| | Harry Belafonte raises his fist in a power salute to Dennis Banks and all the walkers at the D.C. rally celebrating the completion on Friday, July 11, of the Longest Walk II as House Judiciary Chair Congressman John Conyers reads the Manifesto for Change listing the conditions the walkers found along their 8,000-mile northern and southern routes. | 
| | Dennis Banks speaks at a press conference on the steps of the California Capitol in Sacramento on Feb. 12, the second day of the Longest Walk II. | 
| | Young people took on much of the leadership of the Longest Walk II. These walkers are heading out on the Northern Route from Sacramento on Feb. 12, the second day of the walk. They write in the manifesto: “As the youth of the Seventh Generation, we seek to bring our traditions together and hold them close to our hearts so that the young people may benefit from our cultural knowledge. Without this our heartbeat is lost.” | | |
Washington, D.C. – The answer to one of the biggest questions in Washington, D.C., has been manifesting for over five months and more than 8,000 miles that span the sacred grounds of living sovereign nations. The question: What steps can be taken to make it known that “All Life Is Sacred; Save Mother Earth”?
One hundred seventy-five days – 4,200 hours – ago, walkers from all over Indian country as well as international allies embarked on a journey that carried them through rain, snow and even a tornado.
Two paths were taken to make the journey, both a Northern and Southern route, in order to bring awareness to and address environmental and sacred sites protection, cultural survival, youth empowerment and Native American rights.
Thousands of walkers, from newborn babies to elders in their 90s, representing more than 100 nations joined the walk along the way. The Navajo (Dine’ Nation), Hopi, Apache, Havasupai, Tunica-Biloxi, Anishinaabeg, Wintun, Hualapai, Lakota, Six Nations, Ute, Washo and many others as well as representatives from New Zealand, Germany, Japan, Italy, Holland and Poland comprised the diverse walkers. As they walked they picked up more than 8,000 bags of trash on the roads they traveled.
At 2 o’clock Friday the Longest Walk reached the steps of the U.S. Capitol. Walk representatives met with House Judiciary Chair Representative John Conyers, D-Mich., to deliver a Manifesto for Change along with the original manifesto from the 1978 Longest Walk, which had initially been refused by Congress. Legendary leaders Dennis Banks and Harry Belafonte led a prayer ceremony at the Capitol steps.
The Manifesto for Change is the testimony on the conditions of Indigenous communities collected by the walkers along both routes. The manifesto is the result of this five-month journey to gather support for a call to action to protect sacred sites, clean up Mother Earth and deliver the voice of the people to Congress and demand that Congress act.
“We have witnessed the desecration of sacred sites by the United States government, corporations, developers and individual citizens,” said Jimbo Simmons, Northern Route coordinator for the Longest Walk II and representative of the American Indian Movement. “We have also seen extreme pollution of our lands by littering, coal fired power plants and toxic waste dumps. We have seen extreme poverty and religious persecution and heard testimony of denial of religious freedom to prisoners.”
The walkers were inspired by the spirit of resistance that supported them in many communities, like the Carson City Indian Colony in Nevada where they were warmly welcomed after walking through the snow, and Oklahoma where the Muskogee Cherokee Iowa Nation butchered a buffalo and commended the efforts of the walkers.
“Most of these issues are identical to those encountered by the original Walk in 1978,” said Yaynicut Franco. “Both Manifestos attest to the affirmation of the sovereignty and ongoing resistance of Indigenous peoples. The lack of responsible action will no longer be tolerated. The Manifesto is a demand for immediate responsible action.”
Yaynicut Franco can be reached at LW2southernroute@gmail.comThis e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it . For a wealth on information on this historic achievement, visit www.longestwalk.org.
Manifesto for Change: ‘All Life Is Sacred’
Prologue
Thirty years ago, on July 22, 1978, the Longest Walk issued a manifesto to the members of Congress: “Affirmation of Sovereignty of the Indigenous People of the Western Hemisphere.” This manifesto was a result of a five-month walk across the United States of America to gather support that halted legislation aimed at abrogating over 371 treaties signed between various Native American Nations and the U.S. government.
This journey took us through 13 states and over 18 mountain ranges. We crossed the Mississippi and the Ohio rivers and over the Sierra Nevada and the Blue Ridge Mountains. As we traveled, our hearts and minds were turned towards urgent concerns from community people along our way. These concerns became the framework and foundation for the manifesto. Issues of major concern were the desecration of Native American spiritual sites, contamination of land, water and air, nuclear development, acid rain and other problems plaguing Mother Earth. In addition to the environmental concerns, we listened to stories of many human rights violations such as physical abuse by police, forced sterilization, housing and employment problems, prison abuse, racially discriminatory practices in the court system and the illegal imprisonment of Leonard Peltier.
The findings of our five-month journey of 1978 were very disturbing and deeply painful when looking at the state of Native America. Now it is 30 years later and we are on a similar journey that has taken us through 26 states. What we have come to understand alarms us greatly. Many of the same issues that were presented to the Longest Walk in 1978 are ongoing issues that have not changed or that have even worsened.
This year, the Longest Walk II trekked over 8,000 miles on a Northern and Southern route carrying the message “All Life Is Sacred.” The messages and prayers of the Walk are fundamentally about the collective survival of all human beings and all life, from sage to buffalo, rivers to mountains. This is our Mother Earth and our environment – an environment that includes us all. In the words of Anishinaabeg environmentalist Winona LaDuke, “The survival of Native America is fundamentally about the collective survival of all human beings. The question of who gets to determine the destiny of the land – those with the money or those who pray on the land – is a question that is alive throughout the society.”
For over 500 years, those holding economic power backed with weaponry have imposed upon us their agenda. Only a few centuries ago, Indigenous Peoples still lived in almost all of the ecosystems on the planet; today, Indigenous Peoples only have legal rights, in many cases with restrictions and conditions, to some 6 percent of the lands on Mother Earth. We are troubled by this and feel that there must be a systemic radical change so that those who pray on the land and those who have lived on the land for thousands of years determine the destiny of their lands.
Colonization and the Right to Decide
The genocidal foundations for the legal framework regarding Native peoples in the United States were established in a series of Papal Bulls issued by the Vatican in the 1400s, formulated during and after the Crusades. Non-Christians were considered enemies and thus conquest, colonization and exploitation were promoted in their territories. A series of United States Supreme Court decisions in the 1800s were founded upon this framework, known as the “Doctrine of Discovery.” “Ultimate dominion” was granted over all “discovered” lands unoccupied by Christians, and Native Americans were stripped of their “rights to complete sovereignty, as independent nations.” The Supreme Court then decided that the original inhabitants and nations of the United States are subject to the federal government’s absolute legislative power, “plenary power,” established in 1820s and ‘30s, circumventing the terms of Nation-to-Nation treaties signed by the United States and many Native American Nations.
The United States government has a similarly shameful record in terms of international indigenous rights, refusing to ratify the International Labor Organization’s Convention 169 on the Rights of Indigenous and Tribal Peoples in Independent Countries and most other international agreements regarding indigenous rights and human rights in general. Along with the governments of Canada, Australia and New Zealand, the U.S. government recently voted against the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, after over a decade of creating obstacles to the advancement of the declaration. At every step of the way, the U.S. government has attempted to veto any initiative that might lead to the recognition of past and/or ongoing genocide. Furthermore, it continues to refute concepts such as the right to free, prior and informed consent.
The right of Native communities and Nations who live and pray on the land to determine the destiny of their lands and to protect their own territory must include the right to free, prior and informed consent (FPIC) in good faith. The people who will be directly or indirectly affected by any “development” project must have veto power, be it in regards to uranium mining or the construction of a cultural or language center, for example. The lack of control over our own lands troubles us and we demand our rights to territory, which inherently includes sovereignty over land, natural resources and community management and policy.
The right to FPIC is included in the recent U.N. Declaration on Indigenous and Tribal Peoples in Independent Countries, which the U.S. has not ratified. However, the Inter- American Human Rights Court also recognized this right in November 2007, when the court issued a precedent-setting judgment for the hemisphere in a case of the indigenous Saramaka people versus Suriname. The court considered that, “regarding large-scale development or investment projects that would have a major impact within Saramaka territory, the State has a duty, not only to consult with the Saramakas, but also to obtain their free, prior, and informed consent, according to their customs and traditions.” Although the United States government has not recognized the jurisdiction of the court, the judgment will be used in cases concerning Indigenous Peoples for the interpretation of Article 21 (“the Right to Property”) of the American Declaration of Man, which the U.S. has ratified by virtue of belonging to the Organization of American States (OAS).
Thus, the government of the United States has an international legal obligation to consult with the Dine’, Western Shoshone and all other sovereign Nations before even granting a permit, license or concession for a large-scale investment or development project affecting Native territory. Faced with the longstanding and continuing violation of the right to meaningful consultation and consent, indigenous communities and Nations throughout the hemisphere have been standing up to reject destructive development projects in a myriad of ways: sacred runs and walks, prayers, petitions, voting, marches, protests, resistance camps, community-led consultations and moratoriums, and legislative reforms and proposals.
Ongoing Colonization of Mother Earth’s Sacred Places
In the words of Western Shoshone grandmother and activist Carrie Dann, “To a traditional Indigenous Person, land means life. All the things that you have – they all come from this earth. Today they call those things resources. Today those resources are taken in the name of economy, in the name of money. Who does that? Multinational corporations ... Soon as they take the resources out, they will be gone.”
Since 1940, it is estimated that over half of all uranium extracted has been mined from Indigenous lands, including within the Navajo Nation. Indigenous territory is the source for approximately half of all the gold and copper currently being mined around the world. The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estimates that mining has contaminated parts of the headwaters of over 40 percent of watersheds in the Western Continental U.S. alone, and over 500,000 abandoned mines in 32 states have yet to be reclaimed.
Other destructive industries – coal, nuclear power and energy production in general, the military industry, logging, large-scale enclave tourism etc. – are also disproportionately located on reservations and Native territory. In many cases, Native and other marginalized communities and lands are subject to environmental racism, which is the intentional targeting of Native or other ethnic minority communities essentially to be sacrificed for the benefit of another, whether for a ski resort or for a nuclear waste dump. It greatly troubles us that the destruction of Native American territory and the desecration of sacred sites by those who do not live or pray on the land continue after more than 500 years.
In 1978, the original Longest Walk raised awareness about the threat to the San Francisco Peaks, a sacred site to over 13 Nations throughout the Southwest and culturally significant to another 22 or more Nations. This sacred mountain has significant spiritual and cultural values; it is the home of deities, the origin of human beings, the place of creation and emergence, and a place in which special offerings are made and rare medicinal herbs gathered. The holy mountain is a single living entity in which the health of the whole is dependent on the well being of each individual part.
Thirty years later, the San Francisco Peaks are still threatened by the Arizona Snow Bowl ski resort, which is attempting to expand and utilize treated sewage effluent to make artificial snow. Snow Bowl operates the ski area by a permit issued by the U.S. Forest Service, which supports snowmaking and the plan to clear cut, grade, stump and smooth more than 100 acres of rare alpine ecosystem. The plan includes 14.8-mile long pipeline from Flagstaff to a 10-million-gallon storage pond used to create 205 acres of tainted snow. A study of Flagstaff’s “reclaimed water” known as the Endocrine Disrupter Screening Project found the presence of human and veterinary antibiotics, caffeine, codeine, oral contraceptives and other hormones, steroids, anti-seizure medication, solvents, disinfectants, flame retardants, moth and mosquito repellants, wood preservatives and cancer-causing agents such as Afrizine. And the list continues. As many Natives consider the Holy Mountain to be living, such contamination is clearly unacceptable.
All along its journey, the Longest Walk 2 encountered many rivers, lakes and streams affected by the contamination caused by the logging industry. This industry affects the environment in multiple ways. In Virginia, the Occaneechi Saponi Tribe identified both logging and the logging industry’s reforestation practices as major problems. Local Tribal members compared the devastation of the loggers to that of a bomb detonation. They denounce the fact that non-indigenous tree species are being preferred by the industry over native species, to the extent that Virginia and other states are rapidly becoming one big pine plantation.
Undermining Sacred Sites
Many sacred sites are being destroyed and threatened all over Turtle Island by the mining industry. The mining industry has caused irreversible destruction to many Native sacred sites, while others, including Horse Canyon in Western Shoshone territory and the trail of sacred sites in Quechan territory, are currently under threat. These mining practices affect the trees, mountains, water, air and all life. The controversial Pebble Mine proposed by Northern Dynasty Minerals would completely destroy a vast area of Native villages as well as crucial salmon habitats near Lake Iliamna in Alaska. This proposed mine would be one of the biggest gold and copper mines in the world. Plans for the Pebble West area alone would include a two-mile wide, several thousand foot deep pit and would generate some 2.5 billion tons of waste material to be stored in huge dammed artificial lakes. One version of an Alaska Clean Water Initiative proposed by a local coalition would effectively prohibit all large-scale mining in Alaska and would thus prevent such an ecological cataclysm.
In the Black Mesa region in northeastern Arizona, home to both the Dine’ and Hopi Nations, the Peabody coal mine is using the sole source of potable water, the Navajo Aquifer, to mix with pulverized coal and transport this “slurry” through 273 miles of pipeline to the Mojave Generation Station. Since the coal mine’s operations began in 1973, there have been numerous breaks in the pipeline, resulting in hundreds of tons of coal slurry flooding and contaminating previously pristine lands and streambeds as well as sacred groundwater. Peabody’s plans to expand the coal mine at Black Mesa threaten to displace more Dine’ families. Since 1974, over 14,000 Dine’ families have been forcibly removed from their ancestral homeland. Further, re-opening the mine would take the Coconino Aquifer over 200 miles away and deplete the Dine’ community’s local water source. Emergency meetings and actions have been frequent since late June 2008. At that time, the Office of Surface Mining rejected the request from Hopi, Dine’ and non-Native people and organizations for a suspension or extension of the public commenting period for the Black Mesa Project draft Environmental Impact Statement. The coal mined on sacred tribal grounds such as Black Mesa is generating power for cities, while many of the families living in Black Mesa and other areas do not have access to electricity or potable water.
The Dine’ Nation is plagued with environmental destruction from the approximately 60,000 oil wells in the San Juan basin to the three coal strip mines and two existing coal-fueled power plants to the dangerously high air pollution in the region. An EPA report stated that in the year 2000 alone, the existing power plants and coal mines in the county released 13 million pounds of toxic chemicals, including sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide and airborne mercury. In fact, the highly visited Four Corners area has been declared a National Sacrifice Area by the National Academy of Science. With new uranium mines being proposed in the face of existing radioactive uranium mine contamination and many seriously ill Dine’ uranium mineworkers, the Navajo Nation recently publicly banned any further uranium mining in Dine’ territory. However, plans for coal-fueled power plants such as Desert Rock continue.
In the windy desert, the Longest Walk II gathered at the Dooda Desert Rock resistance camp. “Dooda” means “No” in the Navajo language, in reference to the grassroots resistance campaign against the proposed Desert Rock coal-fired steam-electric power plant in Chauco Rio, New Mexico. The Dine Power Authority and Houston-based Sithe Global Power are waiting on the air permit decision from the EPA for the project which would, according to local Dine’ activists, generate air pollution equivalent to 12.5 million cars. The EPA has one year to determine whether or not to grant a permit, according to federal law; however, the application was made in 2004. At the beginning of June, the EPA filed a consent decree in court declaring that a decision will be made by July 31, 2008, after publishing the file and soliciting public comment. Dine’ elders in the areas most directly threatened began organizing in opposition to the proposed power plant in 2003 and the Dooda Desert Rock Committee was created in 2004. A resistance camp has been present near the proposed power plant site for the several years. The basis of their opposition includes environmental and health concerns, in addition to the principal concern that the proposed site for the plant is directly adjacent to a sacred burial ground.
Dangerous Grounds
Just over two months after visiting Dooda Desert Rock and walking through the Navajo Nation, the Longest Walk II walked to the Y-12 National Security Complex just outside of Oak Ridge, Tennessee. Managed for the National Nuclear Security Administration by Babcock and Wilcox Technical Services Y-12, a private corporation, the complex has been using uranium from the Navajo Nation, among other places, for decades. Posted signs in front of Y-12 informed us, “The Electromagnetic Separation Plant was a Manhattan Project facility built in 1943 to separate U-235 from U-238. Material for the first atomic bomb was produced here. In place of unavailable copper, nearly 14,000 tons of silver was borrowed from the U.S. Treasury for use on the manufacturing equipment.”
Activists involved with the Oak Ridge Peace and Environmental Alliance (OREPA) have been holding weekly vigils in front of the Y-12 National Security Complex for the last seven years. Others have been doing the same every Monday morning for the past five years to pray and protest war and its effects on the environment. The bombs constructed at the Y-12 complex and elsewhere were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan by the United States at the end of the Second World War. The devastation and loss of life deeply sorrows us; millions of women, children and men died a terrible death. The groundwater, soil and air were contaminated with poisonous radioactive waste and subsequent generations have been affected. Since then, Article Nine of Japan’s Constitution has eliminated the army and prohibits the country from going to war again. However, the Japanese government is attempting to mislead the public in order to remove Article Nine because war is a lucrative business.
Here on Turtle Island, literally hundreds of these bombs have been dropped on a Nation much closer to home. In fact, the most bombed nation on earth is the Western Shoshone Nation. Despite the Treaty of Ruby Valley between the sovereign Western Shoshone Nation and the U.S. government, some 90 percent of the treaty lands are now covered by U.S. government claims. Among these is the huge Nellis Air Force Base in southern Nevada, home to nuclear, biological and chemical warfare testing. From the 1950s continuing through today, there have been over 1,000 nuclear explosions at the Nevada Test Site, located within Nellis and the Western Shoshone territory. Underground plutonium testing continues at the base. After Sept. 11, 2001, a new facility for biological and chemical weapons testing was built on the same base. Plans for the detonation of 700 tons of explosives with a nuclear atomic warhead detonation device in June 2006 were postponed several times due to massive opposition and finally cancelled in July 2007. The exercise at the Nevada Test Site, named “Divine Strake,” would have been the largest open-air chemical explosion ever carried out by the Pentagon.
As human beings continue to destroy Mother Earth through nuclear proliferation and testing in addition to other forms of pollution, all living beings are feeling the adverse effects. Species are declining at a pace so rapid that we have not seen such a rate since the extinction of dinosaurs. We are facing an unprecedented biological collapse: Three fourths of the world’s species of birds are either threatened by extinction or declining in population, and 29 percent of our freshwater species have been lost in the past 35 years. One fourth of land species have declined, 28 percent of marine life has declined and biodiversity as a whole has plummeted by almost one third in the past 35 years (to 2005). Due to the non-regulation of international waters, we are approaching the collapse of the world’s fisheries. The rate of extinction is up to 10,000 times faster than what scientists consider “normal.” While the human population has doubled in the last 40 years, animal populations have been declining. This decline has been in large part caused by humans and is linked to climate change due to global warming, pollution, the destruction of animals’ natural habitat, the spread of invasive non-native species, the over-exploitation of species with over-fishing, and over-cultivation.
Tapping into Climate Change
The United States had already reached its peak for the domestic production of oil in 1970, causing the U.S. to look for foreign reserves of oil to meet the rising demand of oil consumption. On June 30, 2008, the price of oil peaked at over $143 a barrel. Rising gas prices reflect the global peak of oil. Oil production in 33 of the 48 largest oil production countries is declining and the majority of these countries have passed their individual oil production peaks. Whether we have already reached the peak of the world’s oil supply or are quickly approaching it, the simple fact remains that oil is a finite resource. As oil reserves wane, the U.S. is forced to take it from unconventional sources such as heavy oil, tar sands, deep-water oil fields and natural gas liquids, many of which involve difficult energy-intensive extraction processes.
If we continue our practice of over-dependence on oil, we will be witnesses to a catastrophic food shortage. The process of spraying oil-based pesticides on our crops and the oil that it takes both to produce the packaging food is prepared in and to transport that packaging to the food and grocery store requires an immense amount of oil. As global supply continues to dwindle, the energy that we have relied on for so long and has allowed us to over-populate this planet will suddenly become very scarce, forcing us into a food crisis the magnitude of which the world has never seen. We have already witnessed food riots in several developing nations in 2008 as a result of this.
Oil production and consumption have been major contributing factors to climate and weather changes due to global warming. When Hurricane Katrina made landfall, it devastated different Houma Indian settlements in lower Plaquemines, lower St. Bernard and lower Jefferson parishes. Over 3,500 members of the Houma Nation were affected by the hurricane. Some were left homeless and many homes were completely destroyed. After being impacted by Katrina, many Houmas were affected by Hurricane Rita as well. Their lack of federal recognition created obstacles and delays in the delivery of emergency aid after the two hurricanes.
Repeatedly, members of the United Houma Nation have voiced their deep concern for continued loss of land due to soil erosion. Dams on the Mississippi stop the free flow of water that once added much needed sediments that helped create and sustain land. Another cause of erosion of land is the oil rigging in the Bayou. The residents of Jean Charles Island, the majority of who are members of the Houma Nation, are particularly affected by land loss. A Houma citizen, Michael Billiot, remarked on how soil erosion is affecting the island by stating, “In one generation much of our island will be gone.” The Louisiana wetlands and coastal lands are rapidly disappearing. These wetlands host great biodiversity and species that are not naturally found elsewhere. According to a U.S. Geological Survey, the southeast coast of Louisiana has lost an average of 34 square miles of land per year for the last 50 years.
We have walked across this country to awaken the people of the United States and its government leaders to the damage that has been done to our Mother Earth and to offer some viable solutions to sustain and heal her. Since the dawn of the industrial revolution, technology has evolved in leaps and bounds. Yet these industries have failed to see the serious long-term environmental impact. The time is now for the discussion of the contamination of our air, water and soil. Now we must listen to our Mother Earth and help her heal.
We seek to mitigate the effects of global warming. By reducing our consumption to the real needs of our communities and converting to alternative fuels and small-scale energy generation projects using solar, wind and hydropower, we can decrease the damage being done to our air, water, lands and health.
Throughout our walk, we cleaned up highways daily. The southern route of our journey picked up an average of at least 20 bags of trash a day. While recycling remains an option for most Americans, a few cities, such as Pittsburgh, San Diego and Seattle, have mandatory recycling programs. In some cases, as with polystyrene (Styrofoam), nonrecyclable plastics which are some of the country’s most over-produced and over-abundant disposable packaging are also some of the most costly to clean up. Before recycling, we must reduce and re-use and look critically at the creation of waste and the use of resources by corporations versus communities. We also seek to clean the pollution which we had such a major role in creating.
Draining Our Future
The 2001 Indigenous Declaration of Water declares: “As Indigenous Peoples, we raise our voices in solidarity to speak for the protection of Water. The Creator placed us on this earth, each in our own sacred and traditional lands, to care for all of creation. We stand united to follow and implement our knowledge, laws and self-determination to preserve Water, to preserve life.”
Water covers over 70 percent of Mother Earth, but 97.5 percent of this is seawater and much of the fresh water is in glaciers, permafrost and groundwater. Less than 1 percent of the world’s water is accessible for humans to drink and over half of it is polluted and unsuitable for human consumption. Water sustains life; it is sacred, yet in today’s world it has become just another commodity with a cash value in the global marketplace. Water rights are usurped and the water itself is contaminated. Destructive industrial projects such as mines, large dams and large-scale agricultural plantations using toxic chemicals, bottled water, nuclear power plants and weapons testing all desecrate the sacred waters of our planet.
In Native and Indigenous territories both locally and worldwide we are witness to the increasing scarcity of fresh waters and lack of access to drinking water. As Indigenous Peoples, we have set examples for sustainable ways of living and have showed our hosts and others new ways of living to promote more spiritual and environmental growth for a healthier Mother Earth. Before European contact, all “waste” on Turtle Island was biodegradable and returned to nourish the Earth. Now this cycle has been altered and, as Nations of people who live in harmony with Mother Earth, we are guiding others along the path to restore this balance.
As we walked through this land, we were horrified to see the extent to which Mother Earth has been raped, ravaged and exploited. What gave us great hope in the face of this destruction is seeing the positive initiatives that some communities, individuals and certain governmental individuals and bodies are creating to help protect and restore the natural balance of Mother Earth.
On the tribal level, Red Willow Education and Training facility run by the Taos Pueblo initiated and operates a community garden and greenhouse. The building, which also services as an education center for Native youth, is powered using localized sustainable energy sources. They utilize innovative clean technology for their heating system. In an effort to conserve water, they use drip irrigation and water catchments to water some of their ancient orchards. They also have a farmers’ market that connects urban natives with natives living in the Pueblo and helps provide them with an organic, localized food source.
As humans we are headed on a path towards extinction due to our high use of nonrenewable energy and our unsustainable lifestyle. We need to consider the effects of all of our actions on the seventh generation. At the rate we are heading, our youth are in danger of inheriting depleted oil fields, nuclear waste storage tanks, and polluted lands and water. We are greatly troubled by the state of environmental distress we find all around us. We must recognize the urgency of positively changing our impact in order to survive as a people and to enable all life to survive and flourish.
The Borders Crossed Us
There is a prophecy that states that North Native Americans (represented by the Eagle) and South Native Americans (represented by the Condor) will come together to unite as our ancestors once did, without borders. The Eagle is said to have vision and the Condor to have spirit. Together, they become as one stronger being. The illegal borders that divide the U.S., Canada and Mexico also divide our lands and peoples. These borders create false illusions and impose fake identities on all peoples of the western hemisphere.
The U.S. continues to use its war machines and technology to create environmental and human suffering by imposing one of the largest walls that is dividing two countries. This country demands democracy and freedom in other countries and yet does not practice it in its so-called immigration policies.
North, Central and South America are one continent, one land. We reject the occupiers’ borders imposed on this land, the divisions and false labels. Border policies inhibit the free flow of Indigenous people, break the cultural continuity and integrity, and prevent the cultural healing and regeneration of our indigenous cultures. As Indigenous People, we do not believe in borders. Therefore, we should not be forced to adhere to such brutal policies. Native peoples of this continent are ostracized, imprisoned, beaten, separated from their family members and killed by the border patrol, ICE, Minutemen and other governmental agencies. The O’dham reservation is a federally recognized sovereign nation and the U.S. has no right to impose its own immigration policies upon the O’dham Nation. The O’dham are constantly harassed and community members have been killed by the border patrol. Their land has been invaded with SUVs, helicopters, guns, vigilantes, pollution and more. The O’dham Nation spans the illegal border and the wall inhibits the O’dham on the Mexican side from visiting their relations on the U.S. side of the border, as well as U.S. doctors and hospitals.
Policies, laws, actions and the economic systems of the colonizing countries all form systems through which they attempt to destabilize our indigenous social systems, maintain instability in our social systems and keep our people in a state of flux so that they can be used when and as desired by the colonizers. For example, illegal wars, such as the illegally U.S. funded wars of the 1980s in El Salvador and Nicaragua, trade agreements such as NAFTA and other policies force our people from their land to the colonizers’ cities, as well as forcing them northward to seek survival working as cheap labor in the colonizers’ economic systems. In times of recession, immigration laws are passed and enforced to cruelly force our people back southward across borders. We reject the racialized manipulation of Native peoples and the ideological borders that play a critical role in this manipulation.
We are also troubled by the poverty level in Native American communities and around the world. Of the 2.1 million Native Americans, 400,000 Natives living on reservations have the highest rate of poverty, unemployment and illness of any ethnic group in the United States. Almost one third of Native people live in poverty, over two times the rate of U.S. citizens in general, and the suicide rate is three times higher than the national rate. Native children are five times more likely to live in foster care. The Pine Ridge reservation in South Dakota is one of the poorest areas in Turtle Island, with a 30 percent homelessness rate and 80 percent in a state of unemployment.
How Many Miles Must We March?
As with the ongoing extreme poverty in Native communities, the repression and criminalization of Native Americans continues today. Thirty years ago, we raised the issue of Native American political prisoner Leonard Peltier, who is currently still serving two consecutive life sentences. In the 1978 Manifesto we raised several issues about his case that have yet to be resolved. To begin with, the conviction itself was based on hearsay and sworn affidavits, which were later proven to be erroneous and fabricated. Another concern has been the ballistics test, with which the government testified that the bullets that killed the FBI agents matched the rifle purportedly belonging to Leonard Peltier. However, a trial document clearly reveals that there was no evidence whatsoever to show that the bullets were from Peltier’s weapon because the rifle in question was destroyed in a fire and no ballistics could be performed.
Sixteen years after his conviction, the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals raised the issue of the identity of the shooter. The government responded by saying they “did not know who the shooter was,” to which the judge angrily replied: “You said Peltier was the shooter in the summation of the Peltier trial. Now you say you don’t know who the shooter was.” As in 1978, today we once again raise the question of the conviction and we state again the evidence demonstrates that Peltier is innocent and was clearly targeted and convicted because of the political beliefs and actions of the American Indian Movement (AIM). Leonard Peltier should be immediately freed, as should all the wrongfully detained political prisoners in state prisons on Turtle Island.
Throughout the hemisphere and around the world, corporate globalization, U.S. foreign policy, trade agreements such as NAFTA and CAFTA, and the policies of U.S.-led institutions such as the World Bank and International Monetary Fund force people, especially Indigenous people, from their lands and push them north for economic survival. We are the Indigenous peoples of these lands and therefore assert our right to create policies that affect who enters our sovereign Nations and who is called an immigrant.
Protecting the Future Generations
The power of subjective imagery is incredibly influential on young minds. The images of the Washington Redskins, the Broken Bow Savages, Kansas City Chiefs, along with symbols and words accompanying them, impact and influence the mind to develop a racist biased opinion based on the artist’s rendition. We the people of Longest Walk II know that this racist misinterpretation of our peoples is not only ever-present in our society but in our own government-funded institutions as well. At the federal level, all negative and demoralizing stereotypes of our Native peoples and images must be immediately abolished. All mascots and names must be those of dignity, respect, empowerment and pride – values that should be taught and reinforced in the education system.
An example of indigenous-based learning is D-Q University (D-Q U), the country’s first Indigenous-controlled institution of higher learning outside of a reservation. Native Americans and Chicanos founded the university in 1971. Many amongst us feel strongly that D-Q University can be the solution to our problems as we move forth into the next generation. D-Q U has always had the potential and continues to be the epicenter for healing and sustaining Native ways. Indigenous education equals indigenous sovereignty.
As the youth of the Seventh Generation, we seek to bring our traditions together and hold them close to our hearts so that the young people may benefit from our cultural knowledge. Without this our heartbeat is lost. Having a center for cultural revitalization and providing a space to practice and teach these traditions was the purpose for the inception of D-Q University, home of the 1978 Longest Walk. We understand the importance of preserving sacred knowledge by looking ahead seven generations for our peoples.
The Native women of this hemisphere are still impacted by the same issues that were addressed in the Longest Walk Manifesto of 1978. The issues of forced sterilization and racism still impact Native Nations today. We are the life givers and our survival as Native Nations depends on the safety and choices surrounding our bodies. Due to colonization, Native women’s bodies are seen as subject to conquest. The U.S. governmental policies of forced sterilization, adoption, boarding schools and assimilation infringed upon the rights of Native mothers and hindered the self-determination of Native Nations. This self-determination must be extended to all Nations and all Native women.
In the 1950s, ‘60s, ‘70s and ‘80s, a whole generation of people were lost due to the forced sterilization of Native women. Many Indigenous peoples have been stripped of their culture and traditional ways by being forced into adoption and the foster care system. Their children and grandchildren, subsequently, are affected by the loss of language, culture and traditional ways. Many of these people, sometimes referred to as “stolen feathers,” feel a deep yearning to return to their ancestral ways. Sadly, their true identity and ancestral connections are masked by the colonial systems and they are unable to connect to their families and Nations. The separation of Indigenous children from their families and culture is still occurring in many places through outside control of child welfare services and foster placement. Taking children from their families is one of the many forms in which cultural genocide has been happening for over 500 years.
Protecting Our Ancestors
Ongoing cultural genocide also occurs with the disturbance, removal and retention of ancestral human remains and cultural objects. The Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act of 1990 (NAGPRA) requires entities that receive federal funding to notify, produce a summary and complete an inventory of all “cultural items” in their possession that have been found to be associated with Native Americans. In following this process, the next step is to consult with the respective tribes and repatriate those items. Federal agencies are required to follow the requirements provided in NAGPRA, but these requirements are often not closely enforced. Native American tribes can file a suit against any particular federal agency or museum, but only for the “cultural items” in which they are in pursuit. There is no real punishment for the federal agencies and museums that are not in compliance with NAGPRA.
We may turn to the case of the Glen Cove Burial Grounds in Vallejo, California, to demonstrate our concern for the pattern of ongoing desecration sites. Since about 1500 B.C.E., hundreds of various tribes would gather at this site of unity. Bones and ash and shellmound deposits have been found in mass quantity all along the pristine shores of Glen Cove. Many of these sacred items have been taken away to the University of California, Berkeley, collections. Furthermore, the Parks Department along with the city of Vallejo are currently accepting proposals to further the development of this sacred site, including plans for a public park with trails running throughout. The Glen Cove Burial Grounds is a place of great spiritual and historical significance, and we must work to end the disturbance of our ancestors by working to stop the proposed development. Moreover, the University of California, Berkeley, must be called upon to repatriate these ancestral remains and sacred objects.
In the case of the University of California, Berkeley, there are approximately 17,000 human remains in their collection. UC Berkeley has the largest human remains collection in the United States not currently in compliance with NAGPRA. The Anthropology Department’s Phoebe Hearst Museum staff have not completed inventories in consultation with tribes. Their collection has information pertaining to the place of origin of the human remains and cultural items. This means that in consultation with tribes, UC Berkeley should be able to tribally affiliate those cultural items. Instead, UC Berkeley classified approximately 7,000 human remains as culturally unidentifiable and has been negligent to notify and consult with tribes.
It pains us deeply that the sacred remains of our ancestors remain behind glass and on shelves. There must be stronger enforcement when it comes to repatriating the “cultural items.” More communication and cultural sensitivity needs to be implemented into NAGPRA; the consultation process should not be an interrogation of tribes. The theft of our ancestors’ remains and other cultural objects continues to cause great pain and sorrow to many Nations. This denial of sacred remains and other cultural objects affects our spiritual health and prevents the holistic healing we seek both for ourselves and our ancestors.
Nourishing Our Communities
The continued infringement on Native lands and rights has dramatically altered the health of Native People. Traditional ways of procuring and consuming food are rapidly disappearing. Quality of life for many people has directly altered as a result. Native people traditionally spent great amounts of energy and time hunting, gathering and farming as needed to sustain life. The Inupiaq of Alaska exerted tremendous amounts of energy to hunt whales. In the bitter cold the hunting parties numbering 12-25 would set out on their expertly crafted boats to pursue and capture the food essential for the rest of the community. It would then require the whole community to drag the massive mammal to shore and to skin and prepare for its consumption amongst the families.
This subsistence based way of life proved to be dually beneficial insofar as it resulted in fresh food in its most natural state as well as the essential exercise needed to promote strength, vitality and a sense of wellbeing and purpose. The relationship between the alarmingly high incidence of such diseases as diabetes, heart disease and cancer and the shift away from a subsistence lifestyle is all related. These diseases continue to grow both in scale and severity as genetically modified foods, foods grown by monoculture, and hormone and pesticide-laden foods become the norm.
Mentally and spiritually these changes have affected many Nations as well. Consider these Inuit who today face an alarming suicide rate. The suicide rate among Native people is the highest of all groups on Turtle Island, and the Inuit youth have the highest rate amongst all Native people. When we lose our sense of purpose and dignity, it is easy to slip into the path of self-destruction. This may lead to alcohol and drug abuse. The introduction of alcohol into our communities has been an effective form of cultural genocide for the past 500 years. We see a continuation of this process today with the ever-increasing use of such drugs as meth, heroin and cocaine. The path to healing lies in reconnecting ourselves to our ancestral ways. Only then can we heal our spirits and find pride and purpose in caring for our people.
There is no separation between our bodies and our Mother Earth. It is when we disconnect ourselves from her that sickness enters our communities. We have been stripped of our lands, which hold the sacred medicines we need to remain in balance and maintain true health. The environmentally disruptive practices of natural resource exploitation in its many forms have deprived us of our land to be used for nutrition and medicines. Hazardous sites such as nuclear power plants, toxic waste dumps and coal burning power plants are unequally forced upon native lands. These practices are the cause of many serious health problems and have contributed to the cultural genocide of our people. The violation of territorial rights has also proven decisive in denying access to traditional foods and plants for medicines. As an unacceptable alternative, governmental food programs have allocated to Native people foods devoid of nutrition, thereby contributing to the degradation of Native peoples’ health. It is not acceptable that the Native diet, once so vital, be demoted to such a sickly state. As we walked the many miles, we witnessed the same pattern of destruction repeated from coast to coast.
Our Footsteps Continue...
The walk has not always been without hardships, nor was it meant to be. As we followed the path of our ancestors who were forced to leave their sacred lands, we were reminded why we were inspired to take this journey. Many young people felt the calling of the walk; we left our families and jobs and the walk became our journey to give a voice to our Mother Earth. Our people have always found strength and inspiration from our ancestors. Our journey on the Longest Walk II has led us directly in the path of their footsteps, in some cases, as when we ourselves followed the Trail of Tears.
As our ancestors before us, we are deeply troubled by the misappropriation of our lands, resources and sacred sites. Their walk became our walk and our walk became an example to our future generations, those we are called upon to protect. We must never forget the Seventh Generation. We walk for our ancestors and our future. Along our journey, the courage and strength of our ancestors inspired us and became merged with our own, and perhaps one day this journey we have made and that of the future generations will be joined in this way. It is our hope that our journey be a calling and inspiration to all people. We must always remember that the voice and sacrifice of the Indigenous caretakers be remembered as a mother’s love for her child.
The complete manifesto can be found in pdf format at www.longestwalk.org/images/stories/LW2manifesto2008.pdf. It is all reproduced above except the title page, some introductory quotations, a prayer and acknowledgements. |
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