Chris Leith’s 73 Brithday Party.

At the Prairie Island Community Center at 6:00 on July 2, 2008. Please bring a dish to pass.

See you there.

Sharon

Crystal Shawanda Amazing Artist.

Hello,

I just wanted to take a minute of your time to introduce one my favorite new artist. Her name is Crystal Shawanda and she is truly an amazing talent! 

Crystal pours her heart & soul into her music, because it is her lifeline.  A Native American, Crystal grew up on the Wikwemikong Indian Reserve in Ontario , Canada .  Her last name, “Shawanda” literally translates to the album title, “Dawn of a New Day” – and a new day is what music has given Crystal .   CLICK BELOW TO READ MORE

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Big Mountain, Black Mesa Elder Faces Threat of Her Ceremonial Lodge.

From: “Black Mesa Indigenous Support” <blackmesais@riseup.net >

Please Forward Widely to Everyone You Know!

URGENT! PLEASE ACT NOW!  Big Mountain, Black Mesa Elder Faces Threat
of her Ceremonial Lodge/Home being dismantled while Peabody Coal
Company is pushing their massive coal-mining expansion plans on the
sacred ancestral homelands of the Dine’ (Navajo) & Hopi peoples of
Black Mesa, AZ.  Your voices are urgently needed before these two
very important deadlines close!

PEABODY COAL COMPANY ‘S PLANS UNDERMINES PLANETARY LIFE SUPPORT
SYSTEMS BY ACCELERATING ECOLOGICAL & CULTURAL COLLAPSE! We cannot
allow a small cartel of energy corporations and their financial
backers to knowingly de-stabilize our planet’s climate and devastate
whole communities & ecosystems for their own personal gain. This may
turn out to be the most devastating crime ever perpetrated against
humanity, the planet and future generations. We are at a critical
juncture. Indigenous and land-based people globally have maintained
the understanding that our collective survival is deeply dependent on
our relationship to the Earth.

Please, act now in support of the communities on the front lines of resistance!

Big Mountain, Black Mesa Elder Faces Threat of her Ceremonial
Lodge/Home being dismantled on her ancestral homeland. Elder Served
Notice That Rebuilding Ceremonial Lodge is Illegal.

On Wednesday, May 20th,Traditional elder and resister to relocation
laws, Pauline Whitesinger was served notice that her recently rebuilt
ceremonial lodge was illegal and under threat to be dismantled. She
was ordered to halt all construction of her earthen lodge, called a
hogon, as it is being prepared for an upcoming ceremony. She is
refusing to cooperate and is requesting assistance to finish her
ceremonial hogon.
Whitesinger, in her mid-eighties and living alone, has been an active
resitor to the U.S. Government’s laws and efforts to relocate her
off of her traditional homeland. She has also been an outspoken
opponent to the existing coal mine on her homeland of Black Mesa,
owned by Peabody Coal, as well as current plans for expansion of the
strip mine, construction of pipelines and the mining of the area’s
aquifers, stating that “Our very mother is being carved up there (at
the coal mine)…if the mine is further permitted or expaanded, the coal
company will eventually kill her.† This recent BIA funded action is
an affront not only to this elder and her people but to all advocates
of the indigenous lifeways that maintain the health of the planet.

Read the report in full:
http://sheepdognationrocks.blogspot.com/

WHAT YOU CAN DO!

*  Volunteers are needed right now to stay with Pauline to assist her
with herding sheep,  to monitor for more threats,  and to complete the
hogon.
*  Demand that Pauline be left alone on her ancestral homeland. Send a
letter on her behalf TODAY! For more information and where to send
comments and/or demands:
http://sheepdognationrocks.blogspot.com/

———————————————————-
URGENT ACTION ALERT! On May 23, 2008 the Office Of Surface Mining
(OSM) opened a 45 day public comment period concerning the proposed
Black Mesa Project: Peabody Coal Company’s massive coal-mining
expansion plans on the sacred ancestral homelands of the Dine’
(Navajo) & Hopi peoples of Black Mesa, AZ.  Peabody Coal’s plans
would devastate whole communities & ecosystems and de-stabilize our
planet’s climate for their own personal gain. Your voices are
urgently needed before the comment period closes July 7, 2008!

Please send a letter to OSM to Protect the Indigenous ancestral
homelands of Black Mesa!
    Stop Predatory Development and Catastrophic Climate Change!
Support a Community-Led Just Transition to a Green Economy!
No to mining fossil fuels!
    No to Peabody’s Preferred Alternative B.
    Yes to The People’s Preferred Alternative C which is a ‘No
Action’. (No dirty coal mining expansion!)

STAY POSTED UNTIL FURTHER DIRECTION COMES FROM THE COMMUNITIES WHO ARE
ON THE FRONT LINES OF RESISTANCE!  A SAMPLE LETTER WILL BE POSTED OUT
IN THE NEXT COUPLE DAYS. (Visit http://www.blackmesais.org and other
websites listed below for a sample letter &/or for additional info.)

The Black Mesa Project Environmental Impact Statement (BMP-EIS)
outlines harmful impacts to every level of the ecological and cultural
systems on Black Mesa and has global repercussions. If we don’t stop
these plans, Peabody will have the green light to:

* Lock in mining rights until the coal runs out or until 2025!

* Substantially accelerate global warming and cause an ecological  meltdown.

* Destroy thousands of acres of canyon lands, vanishing indigenous
vegetation and shrines or burials.

* Blast the land for coal & deplete air quality, increasing the health
risk of the local residents and their livestock.

* Deplete an underground source of water that residents depend on to
survive by pumping massive amounts of water.

* Uproot & relocate families from their ancestral homelands where the
coal mining expansion are.

* Sacrifice human dignity and planetary health for elite profit!
Peabody would cause many more problems than what is reflected here.

HERE’S HOW YOU CAN SEND YOUR COMMENTS: (STAY POSTED FOR A SAMPLE
LETTER SOON!) You can send as many
comments as you want on different issues, as long is it’s before the
deadline on July 7, 2008. Your comments must directly address
components of the EIS. Alternative C, (No Action), is our preferred
alternative. Alternative B is Peabody Coal’s preferred alternative.
Stay posted for a sample letter or write your own. At the top of your
letter or in the subject line of your e-mail message, indicate: “BMP
Draft EIS Comments.” Include your name and return address in your
letter or e-mail message.

The Draft Black Mesa Project Environmental Impact Statement for
Peabody Coal’s preferred Alternative B is available for review on
OSM’s Internet Web site at:
http://www.wrcc.osmre.gov/WR/BlackMesaEIS.htm

*EMAIL: BMKEIS@osmre.gov. You should receive a confirmation that OSM
has received your e-mail comment, or contact (303) 293-5048.

*WRITTEN COMMENTS sent by first-class or priority U.S. Postal Service:
    Dennis Winterringer, Leader, Black Mesa Project EIS,
    OSM Western Region, P.O. Box 46667,
    Denver, Colorado 80201-6667.

  *COMMENTS DELIVERED by U.S. Postal Service Express Mail or by
courier service:
    Dennis Winterringer, Leader,
    Black Mesa Project EIS, OSM Western Region,
    1999 Broadway, Suite 3320,
    Denver, Colorado 80202-5733.

FURTHER INFO:
The Black Mesa Water Coalition has additional information about
protecting Black Mesa and is spearheading the Just Transition
Campaign, “an innovative plan to transition tribal economy,
employment, and energy off fossil fuel extraction and onto a
sustainable renewable energy path”.
Visit http://www.blackmesawatercoalition.org to learn more and to show
your support.

Black Mesa Indigenous Support will have updated to share as community
organizers issue new info. BMIS is requesting funds for Dine’
community organizers to visit their relatives and organize meetings to
protect Black Mesa.  http://www.blackmesais.org

Sierra Club Environmental Partnerships Program:
http://www.sierraclub.org/partnerships/tribal

    Peabody coal company, like most corporations mining the Earth for
profit, is rooted in sacrificing human dignity and planetary health
for elite profit and is out of alignment with common sense values. Its
roots remain sunk deeply in the history of colonial genocide,
corporate power grabs, and ecological devastation.

http://www.blackmesais.org
.
.
.
.
.
.
Tom B.K. Goldtooth
Executive Director
Indigenous Environmental Network
PO Box 485
Bemidji, MN 56619 USA
Email: ien@igc.org
Web: www.ienearth.org

Congratulations To Dr. Waziyatawin, Historian

Dr. Waziyatawin joins UVic’s Indigenous Governance Program on July 1 as the Canada Research Chair in Indigenous Peoples.

MEDIA RELEASE

June 10, 2008

INDIGENOUS HISTORIAN AWARDED UVIC’S NEWEST CANADA RESEARCH CHAIR

An historian who studies how settler societies have impacted Indigenous societies and how Indigenous nations can recover their traditional values is the University of Victoria’s newest Canada Research Chair.

Dr. Waziyatawin (pronounced Wah-ZEE-yah-tah-ween) joins UVic’s Indigenous Governance Program on July 1 as the Canada Research Chair in Indigenous Peoples.

“Through years of collaboration with Indigenous peoples in Canada and elsewhere, UVic has become a North American leader in research related to governance and developing an understanding of how to redress the ways that Indigenous peoples have been historically treated by the rest of society,” says Dr. Howard Brunt, UVic’s vice-president research. “This Canada Research Chair will build on those strengths.”

The Canada Research Chairs program is designed to attract the best talent from Canada and around the world, helping universities achieve research excellence in natural sciences and engineering, health sciences, and social sciences and humanities.

Waziyatawin, who is a Wahpetunwan Dakota from southwestern Minnesota, says that UVic’s Indigenous Governance Program was the only one in North America that she was interested in joining. “What drew me is the program’s intellectual commitment to Indigenous liberation and its dedication to personal decolonization and social action,” she says.

Waziyatawin’s research interests include Indigenous women and the struggle for social justice, the recovery of Indigenous knowledge, and truth-telling and reparative justice. She holds an MA and PhD in American history from Cornell University, and spent seven years teaching history at Arizona State University before leaving in 2007 to work as an independent scholar.

Waziyatawin is the author, editor or co-editor of four books, including In the Footsteps of Our Ancestors (2006) and Indigenizing the Academy: Transforming Scholarship and Empowering Communities (2004), which addresses the contemporary issues that Indigenous people face at all levels of the academy.

“My work is grounded in Indigenous world views and values, especially from a Dakota perspective,” she says. “That perspective has fostered my deep respect for Indigenous knowledge and ways of being that can be seen in all of my research and writing.”

Waziyatawin’s research frequently challenges the institutions and systems of “settler society” which, she says, continue to oppress Indigenous peoples in North America. British Columbia is no exception, she notes.

“Obviously, each Indigenous nation is unique with its own distinct culture and relationship to the land, but the historical experiences of Indigenous peoples on both sides of the Canada-US border are remarkably similar,” she says.

“I am most interested in how colonialism has impacted Indigenous societies and how we can continue our resistance while maintaining or recovering the ways of being that allowed us to live sustainably for thousands of years prior to invasion.”

The latest round of Canada Research Chairs was announced in Ottawa today. Also included were two UVic chair renewals: Dr. Neena Chappell, Canada Research Chair in Social Gerontology, and Dr. Sara Ellison, Canada Research Chair in Observational Cosmology. The renewals are for seven- and five-year terms respectively.

—30—

Media contacts:

Waziyatawin is currently in Minnesota but available for phone interviews at 320-564-4241 or by email at waziyatawin@gmail.com;

Valerie Shore (UVic Communications) at 250-721-7641 or vshore@uvic.ca

UVic Communications Services, PO Box 1700 STN CSC Victoria, BC V8W 2Y2 Tel. (250) 721-7636 Fax (250) 721-8955 E-Mail: ucom@uvic.ca

–
Waziyatawin, Ph.D.

From Chris Mato Nunpa

Subject: [oceti_sakowin] VISIT/Ihantunwan Dakota/Resistance/Hog Farm

Hau Mitakuyapi, "Hello my relatives"
    Owasin cantewasteya nape ciyuzapi do!  "With a good heart, I greet all of you with a handshake."
    I just returned from a visit to the Ihanktunwan Dakota Reservation, May 01-03, 2008.  The purpose of the visit was to stand in support and solidarity with the Ihanktunwan against the hog farm that will soon start operations.  However, it rained on Fri 5/02 so there was no standing and watching the invaders build their pig farm.  I wish to share some thoughts, observations, and reactions…

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KFAI Radio Talk Show With Chris Spotted Eagle.

Indian Uprising is a one hour public and cultural affairs program concerned with sober and meaningful issues by, for and about Indigenous people.

(Indian Uprising on Sunday 7-8pm)

Program producer, Chris Spotted Eagle, is a long-time resident and activist in Minneapolis. He was a TV producer at Twin Cities Public Television. Spotted Eagle said, “regular programming about Indian issues on any radio station here in the Twin Cities was nonexistent. Indian Uprising is filling that historical gap.”

About fifty-five thousand Indian people live in Minnesota with over half living in the Twin Cities. Ojibwe people are the largest group in the state with Dakotah being second. Other Native people from Nations throughout the U.S., including Alaska live here too.

http://www.kfai.org/node/125

Zeezibahkwat - Maple Sugar Bush (Syrup)

History of Maple Sugar and Maple Syrup

Once a staple of American life, the sweet products of the maple tree are now specialty items. Over the years, the price of cane sugar fell dramatically, and now cane sugar is the variety most Americans use every day. The popularity of maple syrup keeps Vermont sugarhouses going. As anyone who has ever tasted it knows, genuine maple syrup has a taste and texture that the imitations just cannot match. (In Quebec, cheap imitation maple syrup is called "sirop de poteau" or "pole syrup", suggesting that it was made by tapping telephone poles. We couldn’t agree more.)

Here is an interesting article on the making "Zeezibahkwat" or Maple Syrup

also called "Ziinzibaakwad" and "Sinzibukwud"

Please click the photos below to enlarge

 

Medal of Honor finally bestowed upon Sioux soldier

Master Sgt.Woodrow Wilson Keeble receives award posthumously
WASHINGTON - A Sioux warrior received overdue recognition from the president of the United States.

On March 3, Army Master Sgt. Woodrow Wilson ”Woody” Keeble, who passed away nearly 26 years ago, became one of a select few to receive the Medal of Honor during an overflowing White House ceremony packed with tribal dignitaries, military leaders and proud family members. Keeble is believed to be the first Native person of full Sisseton-Wahpeton ancestry to be given the award.
While American Indians as a group have long been recognized as having an above-average commitment to serving in the American armed services, fewer than 10 individual Indians have received the Medal of Honor, the highest award for valor bestowed by the American government for action against an enemy force.
A pride-filled Russell Hawkins, Keeble’s stepson who is also of Sisseton-Wahpeton descent, was in attendance in the East Room to accept the medal from an apologetic President George W. Bush. Also in attendance were Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, as well as South Dakota Sens. Tim Johnson and John Thune, Democrat and Republican, respectively; Rep. Stephanie Herseth Sandlin, D-S.D.; and former South Dakota Gov. Bill Janklow, a Republican.
Bush admitted openly that the recognition of Keeble’s courageous acts during the Korean War should have been bestowed many years ago - long before Keeble’s death in 1982. However, due to a series of bureaucratic blunders, and perhaps racism, the president said the honor did not come until this year.
”On behalf of our grateful nation, I deeply regret that this tribute comes decades too late,” Bush said at the ceremony. ”Woody will never hold this medal in his hands or wear it on his uniform. He will never hear a president thank him for his heroism. He will never stand here to see the pride of his friends and loved ones, as I see in their eyes now.”
Bush described the long time it took the military man to be recognized as a ”terrible injustice,” but added that Keeble ”believed America was the greatest nation on Earth, even when it made mistakes.”
Keeble’s family and friends explained after the ceremony that tribal members and politicians from the Dakota region had long been pushing for Keeble’s strategic military efforts during the Korean War to be properly recognized.
In October 1951, Keeble saved the lives of fellow American soldiers by fending off several Chinese enemies on a steep hill, while he himself was wounded as a result of two rifle shots to the arm and a grenade exploding near his face.
”Soldiers watched in awe as Woody single-handedly took out one machine gun nest, and then another,” Bush recalled during the ceremony. ”When Woody was through, all 16 enemy soldiers were dead, the hill was taken, and the Allies won the day.”
Keeble, who was known by his fellow soldiers as ”Chief,” first saw intense combat during World War II, for which he earned his first Bronze Star and the first of his four Purple Hearts. An athletic man, Keeble was being recruited by the Chicago White Sox before he was first called to duty. Later, with Keeble’s opportunity to play professional baseball having passed, he returned to service as a master sergeant.
”There were terrible moments that encompassed a lifetime, an endlessness, when terror was so strong in me, that I could feel idiocy replace reason,” Keeble once said of his service, according to the Army. ”Yet, I have never left my position, nor have I shirked hazardous duty. Fear did not make a coward out of me.”
Army men twice recommended that Keeble receive the Medal of Honor in the 1950s, but their applications were apparently lost by the military both times. When family members tried to renew the effort to get Keeble his award in the 1970s, they were told by Pentagon officials that the legal deadline had passed. He was instead given the Distinguished Service Cross, the Army’s second-highest commendation.
Later, family members renewed their attempts, but were told that it would take an act of Congress for Keeble to receive the award. After many pleas from tribal members, the four current U.S. senators from North Dakota and South Dakota introduced legislation to award Keeble the medal. President Bush ultimately signed the legislation in 2007, which paved the way for the Department of Defense to recognize Keeble’s bravery.
”Master Sgt. Keeble’s family first contacted me in 2002 and I have been fighting ever since to get him the recognition he deserves,” Johnson said in a statement. ”The Keeble family, the Sisseton-Wahpeton Oyate, and all the people of the Dakotas today have reason to celebrate and remember his service and valor.”
Kurt Bluedog, a great-nephew to Keeble, said after the ceremony that he’d like to believe that racism wasn’t involved in his uncle’s slow-to-come recognition, adding, ”I think this kind of thing happens more often than we think.”
Hawkins also discounted racism, saying that he didn’t think Keeble would have said the missing papers were a case of discrimination. ”He didn’t see racial colors,” Hawkins said. ”He didn’t see racial barriers.”
Family members now plan to display the Medal of Honor in a public place, such as a museum or the North Dakota National Guard armory. They hope it will be viewed as a symbol of pride for the Sisseton-Wahpeton people, as well as all American Indians.
Hawkins said he accepted Bush’s word that the ceremony was an attempt to ‘’set things right” and that his stepfather knew that he had ”done right.”
After his service in Korea, Keeble returned to North Dakota, where he worked as a counselor until suffering a series of strokes. Living in poverty in his later years, he was forced to pawn all of his military medals. He died in 1982 at age 65 and is buried in Sisseton, S.D.
During the White House ceremony, a chair decorated with an Army uniform once worn by Keeble was displayed prominently beside a chair bestowing the red shawl of his late wife, Blossom Iris Crawford-Hawkins.

Last of Lakota Sioux Code Talkers Recalls WWII Service

By Greg Flakus, VoA News

They have been called the Greatest Generation for what they did to stop the Nazis in Europe and the Imperialist Japanese army in Asia and the Pacific. Veterans of World War II are said to be dying at the rate of 1,000 a day. Among those still with us are a few members of Native American Indian tribes, whose unique languages played a crucial role in the war effort. VOA correspondent Greg Flakus sought out one of them in Pine Ridge, South Dakota recently and filed this report about the last of the Lakota Code Talkers

September 27, 2007 - Pine Ridge, South Dakota - The language is Lakota, one of three dialects of the people collectively called Sioux, a tribe of hunters and warriors that once roamed all over the northern plains. The language is divided into three dialects - Dakota, Nakota and Lakota - but any person who speaks one dialect can understand the others.

Clarence Wolf Guts is an 83-year-old Lakota warrior whose ability to speak his native language played a role in defeating the Japanese in World War II.

“I helped win the war, I helped, me and my buddies,” he said.

With a surname that many non-Indians in the US military found amusing, Clarence Wolf Guts took his fair share of teasing, but he soon found himself assigned with other Lakota speakers to a special unit. The so-called code talkers would send and receive messages in their language. Similar programs were operated by the U.S. Marines using mainly Navajo speakers. The Japanese were never able to understand the messages.

It was dangerous work, often carried out near the front lines, where Clarence says he saw plenty of combat.

“We got shot at and we did some shooting ourselves. You know it is not easy shooting at another human being,” he said.

Until a couple of years ago most people who knew Clarence Wolf Guts on the Pine Ridge reservation had no idea that he had been a code talker because he seldom spoke about it. Former Pine Ridge neighbor Charles Trimble now directs the Institute of American Indian Studies at the University of South Dakota.

“We did not know it,” he said. “I did not know until a couple of years ago when I was reading something. He never talked about it. A lot of times veterans would come home, especially during World War II and you would very seldom, except when two or three got together, hear them talk about that-about the horrible things that happened around them or anything else.”

It would be difficult to form a Lakota code-talker unit today because most of the estimated 8,000 speakers are elderly people and few young Lakotas can speak the language fluently. But the university offers classes in Lakota for both Indian and non-Indian students and Trimble says this helps keep the language alive.

“I think it is important,” he said. “I think it is beautiful and I think it helps a person and, certainly, it keeps the tribe alive, as a tribe.”

Trimble says the story of the Lakota code talkers is an important part of the heritage that binds tribal members together.

“There are benefits to knowing you are an Indian and accepting it, being an Indian and being proud of it and understanding it,” he said.

Clarence Wolf Guts now lives in a retirement home in Pine Ridge. He says seeing the people of his country healthy and happy is the greatest reward he gained from his service in the war.

“When I see people laughing and having a good time I realize why we were over there,” he said. “We done it for the people and if they are happy, then I am the happiest person alive.”

For many years after the war the code talkers were largely forgotten. But after military documents were declassified in the 1990s and a book came out about the Navajo code talkers, historians and news reporters sought out the surviving code talkers. There had been over a 100 of them from 17 tribes. Most of them have passed on now, but a few like Clarence Wolf Guts remain to tell the story of how they used their native tongue to help win a war.

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stanley crooks wins award chino turns over in grave!!!

NIGA HONORS SHAKOPEE CHAIRMAN CROOKSThe National Indian Gaming Association (NIGA) has honored Shakopee Chairman Stanley Crooks, long-time leader of the Minnesota Indian Gaming Association, with the 2005 Wendell Chino Humanitarian Award for extraordinary leadership. The award was presented April 14th in San Diego at a banquet concluding NIGA’s 14th annual trade show and conference.

The award is named for Wendell Chino, a legendary tribal leader who served as chairman of the Mescalero Apache for 43 years. He was known as a great warrior who fought for tribal sovereignty and accomplished much for his people.

Kurt Luger, executive director of the Great Plains Indian Gaming Association, presented the award. Luger’s association includes tribes in North and South Dakota, many of whom still live in desperate poverty. He said Crooks and the Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community have donated more than $40 million over the past five years to other tribes and tribal organizations, as well as Indian and non-Indian community groups.

“They have in a traditional way given millions of dollars to the neediest among us,” Luger said. “They pay attention to the voiceless. They help us with our economic development and community projects. And they do it quietly, without fanfare or expectation of anything in return.”

Glynn Crooks, Vice Chairman of the Shakopee Sioux, accepted the award on his cousin’s behalf. “What a great honor has been bestowed upon our Chairman,” he said. “I know he would want me to accept this award on behalf of our entire community. Stan would be the first person to tell you that it’s not about him as an individual.”

Stanley Crooks has won the respect of tribal leaders throughout the nation for his quiet generosity and his strong commitment to sovereignty, said NIGA Chairman Ernie Stevens, Jr. “Warriors help their people and give back to the community,” Stevens said. When we think about the true meaning of warrior, we think of Stanley Crooks.”

Crooks shared this year’s Wendell Chino Award with Richard Milanovich, Chairman of the Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians in Palm Springs, CA.

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i am sure Wendell Chino is turning over in his Mescalero grave!!!

Information about about Stanley Crooks Sr.

———————-
the following information comes from http://www.indiangaming.com/associations/Minnesota Indian Gaming Association (MIGA)
Stanley Crooks, Chairman
John McCarthy, Executive Director
8925 Cove Drive NE
Bemidji, MN 56601
Phone: (218) 751-0560
Fax: (218) 751-2541

www.mnindiangaming.comRegion Covered: Minnesota
Year Founded: 1988
Member Tribes: 9
Joint Conference with GPIGA: 2006 Date TBA
Great Plains/Midwest Tradeshow & Conference

The Minnesota Indian Gaming Association represents nine of the eleven gaming tribes in Minnesota . Its role is not to dictate policy to its sovereign members, but to provide a forum where tribes can exchange information and address shared concerns. MIGA also educates the public, the media and elected officials on tribal gaming, tribal governments and the nature of sovereignty. MIGA is fighting to maintain the current status of gaming in Minnesota, which is that the state does not allow for commercial gambling. The state currently only allows for government gambling, charitable, state-sponsored charitable and tribal gaming. We are opposed to any off-reservation expansion in gaming.
————————————

—————————————
The following comes from

http://www.cri-bsu.org/IA_web/htdocs/about/2002-annual-report.pdfAnd

http://www.cri-bsu.org/IA_web/htdocs/about/board.htmlChairman Stanley Crooks, Sr.
Shakopee-Mdewakanton Sioux Community
2330 Sioux Trail, NW
Prior Lake, MN 55372
Phone: (612) 445-8900
Fax: (612) 445-8906

—————————————

more to come soon, please ad any info you might have by clicking REPLY TO POST below!

Leonard Peltier (Ever-Growing) Gallery

Letter from Leonard Peltier, 25th Year Reunion of Incident At Oglala

Letter from Leonard Peltier
25th Year Reunion of Incident At Oglala
June 26, 2000

Greetings Friends and Supporters,

But please don’t understand my frustation for a lack of sympathy about the loss of the agents’ lives.  I do feel for the families of the agents because I know first hand what it is like to lose a loved one. I have lost many loved ones through the years due to senseless violent acts. If I had known what was going on that day, and I could have stopped it, I would have.

But in order for us to bring reconciliation to what was a very difficult time we first must have justice. We must continue to ask when the lives of our people will be given the same respect and value as others.  When will they stop carelessly locking up our people without applying the scrutiny and care the judicial system is supposed to guarantee?  When will guilty beyond a reasonable doubt become a standard that applies to us?  When will our guilt have to be proven, rather than assumed?  We suffer equally, but we are not treated equally.  There is hope for a better future and for peace.  But in order for us to live in peace, we must be able to live in dignity and without fear.

In closing, I want to say that your voices are important and your involvement in the effort to gain my freedom is crucial.  You know the truth and only you can express the reality of those brutal times.  It is also important that you explain to the youth what we stood for and why, because they are our hope for the future.  They can carry out our dream for our people to have pride in their culture, good schools, food, and health care, and most importantly, justice.  Please know that I continue to be here for you too, although I am limited in what I can do from behind these walls.  However, I will continue to help in whatever I can from here.  The one thing my situation has brought me at least, is a voice, and my voice is your voice.  So please do not hesitate to write me or contact the LPDC to inform me of what is going on.

I am growing older now and my body is beginning to deteriorate.  I sometimes wonder just how much longer I will be with you all on Mother Earth.  I hope that it’ll be a while longer because I long to be with you, my family and friends, to share some time together.  If not, and I don’t make it home to you, I will always be with you in spirit, at every Sun Dance and Inipi Ceremony, remembering both the happy and the painful times we shared.

In the Spirit of Crazy Horse,

Leonard Peltier

Leanard Pelter: “My crime’s being an Indian. What’s yours?”

“My crime’s being an Indian. What’s yours?”  

Leonard Peltier turned 63 years old on September 12, 2007, an international day demanding the immediate, unconditional freedom of this Native American artist, writer, and activist––one of the most widely recognized political prisoners in the world.

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Harriet Nahanee dies. . .NYM press release March 2007

NYM press release March 2007

unceded Coast Salish Territory
nymchapter604(at)hotmail.com

March 30, 2007

Harriet Nahanee, a 73 year old Pacheedaht Grandmother, Elder, and Warrior passed away on February 24, 2007, in the manner that she lived her life. Standing strong defending Our Land and Our People. She died from pneumonia and undiagnosed lung cancer after serving 2 weeks in prison for her part in the 2006 blockade to defend Eagle Bluff, from the expansion of the Sea to Sky Highway, on her husband’s Skwxwu7mesh territory. The highway expansion is a key development project for the corrupt Vancouver/Whistler 2010 Winter Olympics.

In her lifetime, Harriet Nahanee was a loyal, supporter of AIM Warrior, Leonard Peltier, who was extradited from Vancouver in 1976, and convicted of the murder of 2 FBI agents. AIM had been actively supportive in the Lakota struggle to defend their communities in Pine Ridge from the FBI instigated war for the uranium in the Sacred Black Hills. The 2 FBI agents died in 1975 in a gunfight they started against an AIM family style camp. Since Leonard Peltier’s conviction, the truth has come out that the FBI fabricated testimony and evidence to extradite and convict Leonard Peltier of these murders.

Today, the FBI is attempting to pin Anna Mae’s murder on her trusted friend and comrade, former AIM member and Warrior John Graham. When Anna Mae’s body was found, the FBI attempted to cover-up her murder, but failed when a 2nd independent autopsy made the discovery of a bullet lodged in her head. Since that time, the FBI has worked hard over the years to pin Anna Mae’s murder on her own organization, AIM.

Since John Graham’s arrest in Vancouver in December 2003, for the 1st degree murder of Anna Mae, Harriet Nahanee, has stood by John through his 4 years of living under house arrest, and through his 2005 Extradition hearing that was approved. During Harriet’s last days in the hospital before she passed away, her close friend Jennifer Wade of Amnesty International visited her. Her last words to Jennifer were about her biggest concerns. First she brought up her 78 year old Eagle Bluff Comrade Betty Krawczyk, who is currently serving a 9-15 month sentence for her part in the blockade. Then Harriet brought up John Graham and his May 17, 2007 extradition appeal. Jennifer Wade reassured her that John’s loved ones, his supporters, and his lawyers would work hard to fight John’s extradition.

On behalf of Harriet Nahanee, a strong Pacheedaht Elder, who has passed away standing up for Our People, we ask that people look at the facts in this murder case, and to stand strong beside John Graham. This murder case has nothing to do with delivering justice for Anna Mae, and is only a part of the FBI smear campaign that is set out to destroy any pride Natives may have about the contributions made to Our People by the American Indian Movement.

Pine Ridge Events printed one day before Peltier parole hearing

Anonymous account of ‘75 Pine Ridge Events printed one day before Peltier parole hearing

by Jon Lurie
Reprinted from The Circle

Pierpoint reveals little about her source, except that he “chose to step forward at this time only because of information released by the Leonard Peltier Defense Committee regarding the agents’ murders.” She doesn’t specify what information caused him to come forward. Pierpoint says that the 22 paragraphs of testimony were unedited. She states, “I did nothing to it. In order to not be biased, I didn’t alter what he says.”

“It looks like it’s madeup,” says Robert Quiver, a coordinator for the Lakota Student Alliance, an organization advocating non-violent change for the Great Sioux Nation. “If it wasn’t fake, the source was either FBI or GOON [Gaurdians of the Oglala Nation],” he says. The timing of the article, coming out one day before a scheduled Peltier parole hearing, further calls its motive into question, says Bruce Ellison, an attorney who has represented Peltier and other AIM members for over 25 years. Ellison may know more about FBI involvement on the Pine Ridge reservation than anyone outside of the Bureau. He says Pierpoint’s article “reads like an FBI press release. It looks like pure propaganda. It fills in all the holes in their case.”

Some of the piece’s more inflammatory statements include:

•“If the traditional people were being abused and persecuted, it was by AIM.”
(The historical record clearly shows that AIM was asked to come to Pine Ridge by traditional elders, and they were asked to stay by traditional elders.)

•“I mean if AIM can put out the execution of their own people and Anna Mae was not a narc like AIM branded her. If they wanted an example, they should have made an example out of Peltier. They should have executed him.”
(Despite numerous high-profile investigations into the Aquash case, there has never been a single indictment.)

•“There were so many bullet holes in the police vehicle that you couldn’t even begin to count. I stopped at 3,000.”
(Of the claim that there were over 3000 bullet holes in the agents’ car, Ellison says, “That’s ridiculous. I personally inspected every car that came out of here that day and there weren’t more than 150 bullet holes in all of them combined.”)

Sylvan Duez, International coordinator for the Leonard Peltier Defense Committee, says the Indian Country Today piece is particularly damaging to the cause of gaining Peltier’s freedom because it was printed in a Native publication. “We know the FBI will use this article against Leonard. They’ll say, ‘Look, it’s printed in an Indian newspaper – look what his own people think of him.’”

Duez says the article is full of journalistic mistakes. “Even the title was wrong. There were no events at Wounded Knee in ’75. Wounded Knee occurred in 1973. The Incident at Oglala happened near Oglala in 1975,” he says. Jennifer Harbury, one of Peltier’s attorneys, filed an ethics complaint with Attorney General Janet Reno on June 27, asking for a full investigation of allegations that a number of FBI officials made intentionally deceptive and inflammatory statements regarding the Peltier case, “with the object of depriving him of a full and fair consideration of his requests for clemency and/or parole.”

Pierpoint defends the article and the legitimacy of her source. “I knew he was credible because I’d heard the story before from other people,” she says. As for the timing of the story, she says the source came forward after the LPDC released the names of 64 victims of unsolved murders in South Dakota. “My research uncovered only five unsolved murders,” she says. “If this stuff had been going on everybody would have known about it. It would have been all over the nightly news, and it wasn’t,” she says. Pierpoint says she hadn’t followed the Peltier case very closely over the years, but then she “talked to the FBI and they enlightened me on some things. I also read a copy of the LPDC press kit,” she says. Pierpoint says she feels it’s important to remember, “Two people did die that day.”

“The FBI is always saying, ‘two people died that day,’” Ellison says. “I think it’s important to remember that three people died that day. What does that say when they can’t acknowledge the death of the Native American man who died? We should have the courage to look into dark moments in our history and see what the truth is.” “Almost all the dead out here are AIM people or their children and friends, yet the victims have been labeled as the violent ones,” says Ellison.

Ellison met with Indian Country Today editor David Melmer on June 23. “I talked with him about the facts, and the unprofessionalism of not checking the integrity of this so-called anonymous source,” he says. Ellison quotes Melmer as saying he printed the article because he was “trying to spark debate.” Ellison says Melmer offered to print a response.

David Melmer refused to comment on the record for this story. Indian Country Today Publisher and executive editor Tim Johnson did not return phone calls.