Thursday, June 19, 2003

2 Indian Issues QUOTE  OF THE DAY "People talk peace. But men give their life's work to war. It won't stop 'til there is as much brains and scientific study put to aid peace as there is to promote war." - - Will Rogers (Cherokee) JUNE 19th IN HISTORY: 1985 -- El Salvador: Contingent of armed gunmen opens fire on an outdoor restaurant in a posh district of San Salvador known as the Zona Rosa. 13 killed, including four US Marines & two US businessmen. A radio broadcast of June 24, Radio Venceremos, says, "If U.S. Army members & CIA agents died in San Salvador, it was because they came to attack our people. No one had summoned them; they died as a result of the interventionist policy carried out by President Reagan, whose intervention grows day by day. Reagan will have to assume full responsibility for his deeds." RHINO HERE: 2 Indian issues. Feather Indians I mean as opposed to Dot Indians. Just like in "The Holy Land" of the Middle East, North America is also teeming with Holy places, where miracles have occurred and people have made pilgrimages to express gratitude and to ask forgiveness or for healing. This Friday has been deemed a National Day of Prayer for Sacred Places. The Sacred Places Protection Coalition will observe Friday, June 20, 2003 as a National Day of Prayer to Protect Native American Sacred Places . Observances will be held on the West Lawn of the U.S. Capitol from sunrise to midday and in at least 10 other locations around the country including Phoenix, Albuquerque, Boulder, Sacramento, New York, and several sites along the Missouri River. For more details you can find a press release issued by the Morningstar Institute at http://www.sacredland.org/Prayer_Day.html THE BOTTOM LINE goes south to Guatemala where 200,000 people were killed over a 36 year civil war, and where many atrocities were committed on Mayan Indian people by government troops trained and armed by the U.S. Graduates of the infamous School Of The Americas reaching out into the highland villages one by one, finding the community leaders and killing them in front of their families and friends, making a statement to the people, keeping them down. Political pressure on the Indians lightened some after the devastating earthquake, world wide attention & international relief agencies all around. But when Ron Reagan & Alex Haig took office, 1980, & General, Haig, as Secretary of State, says "Human rights will not be a priority in this administration", well, the Guatemalan Generals & their "White Hand" night striking death squads intensified, killing Indians. Now, 2003, in comes Efrain Rios Montt, former Guatemalan dictator, who wants to run for President. This is an important read whether you know the Guate history or you need to. Here's several links for more info on Sacred Site Protection. These were compiled by Toby McLeod of the Sacred Land Film Project. For even more insight into the Sacred Sites struggle, see their documentary, "In The Light Of Reverence." Legislation Re-Introduced to Protect Sacred Lands Rep. Nick Rahall (D, WV) has re-introduced The Native American Sacred Lands Act (H.R. 2419) , to counter growing threats to holy places like Medicine Lake and Indian Pass in California, and Zuni Salt Lake in New Mexico. The bill would create a process by which Native Americans can petition federal land management agencies to withdraw sacred lands from development, and go to court to seek protection if the land managers fail to protect culturally significant places. Rahall is the ranking Democrat on the House Resources Committee, and the bill's future is uncertain. The draft legislation is not perfect but it is an important first step, and along with the oversight hearings currently underway in the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs, H.R. 2419 demonstrates that enforceable sacred land protection is once again a Congressional priority. Concerned citizens should keep the pressure on! Write your Representatives and ask them to co-sponsor H.R. 2419 and hold hearings to seek additional input from Native American leaders to make The Native American Sacred Lands Act a strong and effective law. For more information see the entry dated June 11, 2003 in the "What's New" section of our Web site. http://www.sacredland.org/new.html Zuni Salt Lake and Ocmulgee Old Fields Listed as Threatened On May 29, the National Trust for Historic Preservation announced its new list of America's 11 Most Endangered Historic Places. Topping the list are two landscapes sacred to native peoples: Zuni Salt Lake in New Mexico, which is threatened by the Salt River Project's proposed coal strip-mine, and Ocmulgee Old Fields, a national monument in Georgia, where ancestral mounds may soon be destroyed by highway construction. For more information see the entry dated May 29, 2003 in the "What's New" section of our Web site. http://www.sacredland.org/new.html California Coast Sacred Site Protection Moves Forward In the first step towards reactivating a state sacred lands bill , the California State Assembly passed AB 974, the California Coastal Act Amendment . The bill provides for the planning and regulation of development within the coastal zone, and would require an area containing a sacred site identified in consultation with the Native American Heritage Commission and appropriate local Native Americans, to be protected against significant disruption. The bill now goes to the State Senate for hearings. To read the bill, visit : http://www.assembly.ca.gov/acs/acsframeset2text.htm . Christopher (Toby) McLeod Sacred Land Film Project P.O. Box C-151 La Honda, CA 94020 USA http://www.sacredland.org a project of Earth Island Institute Our documentary film on threatened sacred places, In the Light of Reverence is distributed by Bullfrog Films: 1-800-543-3764 7:49:49 AM    comment

RHINO'S BOTTOM LINE - Former Dictator Tests U.S. Tools for Democracy RHINO'S BOTTOM LINE *Former Dictator Tests U.S. Tools for Democracy U.S. diplomats can't seem to control their paternalistic instincts when it comes to certain Latin American elections. The temptation to take sides is just too great--especially when a man like Efrain Rios Montt, the former Guatemalan dictator, is gunning for the presidency. By Kevin Sullivan Washington Post Foreign Service Monday, June 16, 2003; Page A16 SANTA ANITA LAS CANOAS, Guatemala -- Jose Lorenzo Nicho can still picture the soldiers tying 14 men to fence posts at dawn. Before they drew their rifles and executed them, they tortured the suspected guerrillas all night. Nicho, 56, said he remembers hearing their screams, including the cries of his two brothers that echoed around this mountaintop village and still haunt survivors 21 years later. That massacre, on Oct. 14, 1982, was one of hundreds committed during this country's 36-year civil war, in which more than 200,000 people were killed by military or paramilitary forces. The majority of the victims were poor Mayan Indians killed in the government's often indiscriminate "scorched earth" anti-insurgency campaign in rural communities like this one. Efrain Rios Montt, the former army general who was dictator for 16 months in 1982-83 at the height of the violence, is now running for president, reopening national wounds seven years after U.N.-brokered peace accords ended the war... ENTIRE ARTICLE AT: Former Dictator Tests U.S. Tools "RHINO'S BLOG" is the responsibility of Gary Rhine. (rhino@kifaru.com) Feedback, and requests to be added or deleted from the list are encouraged. SEARCH BLOG ARCHIVES / SURF RHINO'S LINKS, AT: http://www.rhinosblog.info RHINO'S OTHER WEB SITES: http://www.dreamcatchers.org (INDIGENOUS ASSISTANCE & INTERCULTURAL DIALOG) http://www.kifaru.com (NATIVE AMERICAN RELATIONS VIDEO DOCUMENTARIES) Articles are reprinted under Fair Use Doctrine of international copyright law. http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.html All copyrights belong to original publisher. 6:21:22 AM    comment

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