Native Americans

Chevron Vs. Filmmaker

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Seth Myers: This week, Arizona signed the toughest illegal immigration law in the country which will allow police to demand identification papers from anyone they suspect is in the country illegally. I know there’s some people in Arizona worried that Obama is acting like Hitler, but could we all agree that there’s nothing more Nazi than saying "Show me your papers?"

California Court Okays Discrimination Against Section 8 Tenants

Remember Donald Sterling, the NBA team owner and Los Angeles mega-landlord who has been sued multiple times for outrageous housing discrimination, most recently by the U.S. Department of Justice? Sterling is back in the news this week, again for discrimination in his role as landlord. This time, however, Sterling convinced a California Court of Appeal that it was just fine for him to discriminate against a Section 8 tenant. At this point, anyone who still believes in the myth that judges are “liberal activists” needs to have his or her head examined.

Judge Wanger Affirms Flows to Protect Central Valley Salmon

by Dan Bacher

Environmentalists, fishermen and the Winnemem Wintu Tribe scored a legal victory on March 31 when a federal judge affirmed restrictions on Delta pumping to protect imperiled Central Valley salmon populations.

In a rebuke to junior water rights holders, Judge Oliver Wanger of the Eastern District of California refused to grant the Westlands Water District and its co-plaintiffs a temporary restraining order on the biological opinion of the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS). The opinion includes seasonal water flows required to protect Sacramento River endangered spring-run Chinook salmon and Central Valley steelhead in the California Delta, according to the Planning and Conservation League (PCL).

Despite claims to contrary from the plaintiffs, the Judge found that the NMFS opinion, expressed in written comments to the Delta Flow Criteria Proceeding as the absolute "…minimum flows necessary to avoid jeopardy," was based on the best available science and takes the human impacts of seasonal flow regimes into account.

The Karuk Tribal Council on January 28 voted unanimously to sign the Klamath Basin Restoration Agreement and Klamath Hydroelectric Settlement Agreement.

Karuk Tribe

P R E S S R E L E A S E

For Immediate Release: January 28, 2010

For more information: Craig Tucker, Klamath Coordinator, Karuk Tribe, cell 916-207-8294

Click the picture to see how they did it 55 years ago

Honduras: Military Coup Engineered By Two US Companies?

By John Perkins

August 07, 2009 "Information Clearing House" -- I recently visited Central America. Everyone I talked with there was convinced that the military coup that had overthrown the democratically-elected president of Honduras, Manuel Zelaya, had been engineered by two US companies, with CIA support. And that the US and its new president were not standing up for democracy.

Earlier in the year Chiquita Brands International Inc. (formerly United Fruit) and Dole Food Co had severely criticized Zelaya for advocating an increase of 60% in Honduras’s minimum wage, claiming that the policy would cut into corporate profits. They were joined by a coalition of textile manufacturers and exporters, companies that rely on cheap labor to work in their sweatshops.

Memories are short in the US, but not in Central America. I kept hearing people who claimed that it was a matter of record that Chiquita (United Fruit) and the CIA had toppled Guatemala’s democratically-elected president Jacobo Arbenz in 1954 and that International Telephone & Telegraph (ITT), Henry Kissinger, and the CIA had brought down Chile’s Salvador Allende in 1973. These people were certain that Haiti’s president Jean-Bertrand Aristide had been ousted by the CIA in 2004 because he proposed a minimum wage increase, like Zelaya’s.

I was told by a Panamanian bank vice president, “Every multinational knows that if Honduras raises its hourly rate, the rest of Latin America and the Caribbean will have to follow. Haiti and Honduras have always set the bottom line for minimum wages. The big companies are determined to stop what they call a ‘leftist revolt’ in this hemisphere. In throwing out Zelaya they are sending frightening messages to all the other presidents who are trying to raise the living standards of their people.”

A Few Thoughts on the Coup in Honduras

It is impossible to imagine that the US was not aware that the coup was in the works. At minimum, the US could have flexed its tremendous economic muscle before the coup and told the military coup plotters to stand down.

By Jeremy Scahill

There is a lot of great analysis circulating on the military coup against Manuel Zelaya in Honduras. I do not see a need to re-invent the wheel. (See here here here and here). However, a few key things jump out at me. First, we know that the coup was led by Gen. Romeo Vasquez, a graduate of the US Army School of the Americas. As we know very well from history, these “graduates” maintain ties to the US military as they climb the military career ladders in their respective countries. That is a major reason why the US trains these individuals.

Secondly, the US has a fairly significant military presence in Honduras. Joint Task Force-Bravo is located at Soto Cano Air Base, Honduras. The base is home to some 550 US military personnel and more than 650 US and Honduran civilians:

They work in six different areas including the Joint Staff, Air Force Forces (612th Air Base Squadron), Army Forces, Joint Security Forces and the Medical Element. 1st Battalion, 228th Aviation Regiment, a US Army South asset, is a tenant unit also based at Soto Cano. The J-Staff provides command and control for JTF-B.

The New York Times reports that “The unit focuses on training Honduran military forces, counternarcotics operations, search and rescue, and disaster relief missions throughout Central America.”

Significantly, according to GlobalSecurity, “Soto Cano is a Honduran military installation and home of the Honduran Air Force.”

This connection to the Air Force is particularly significant given this report in NarcoNews:

The head of the Air Force, Gen. Luis Javier Prince Suazo, studied in the School of the Americas in 1996. The Air Force has been a central protagonist in the Honduran crisis. When the military refused to distribute the ballot boxes for the opinion poll, the ballot boxes were stored on an Air Force base until citizens accompanied by Zelaya rescued them. Zelaya reports that after soldiers kidnapped him, they took him to an Air Force base, where he was put on a plane and sent to Costa Rica.

A delegation of Klamath River Tribes, fishermen, and conservationists returning to the Berkshire Hathaway annual shareholders' meeting in Omaha, Nebraska for the third year will host a press conference to talk about what has changed since their last trip to the meeting. The conference is scheduled for Friday, May 1, 9 a.m. to 11 a.m. in the Winnebago Room, (3rd floor), Downtown Omaha Doubletree Hotel, 1616 Dodge Street, Omaha, NE, 68102

Klamath River Advocates Ask Warren Buffett to Close the Deal
by Dan Bacher

Klamath Basin tribal members, commercial fishermen, recreational anglers and river advocates have traveled to Omaha, Nebraska for the past two years to educate shareholders of Berkshire Hathaway Corporation about the urgent need to remove the Klamath River dams owned by its subsidiary, PacifiCorp, during the company's annual shareholders meeting. This weekend they will ask Warren Buffett, the owner of Berkshire Hathaway and the richest man in the world, to "open the river" and "close the deal" in order to restore salmon and steelhead to the river above the dams.

Last year over 30 Klamath Basin activists attended the shareholders meeting. Several members of the group spoke before the crowd of over 35,000 shareholders urging Warren Buffett to remove his dams on the Klamath River, while others unfurled banners during the meeting.

Winnemem Wintu Tribe Holds War Dance Before Launching Federal Lawsuit
By Dan Bacher

Arrayed in traditional regalia, over two dozen members of the Winnemem Wintu Tribe held a war dance along the banks of the American River on the evening of April 19 and morning of April 20 to bring attention to decades of injustice and destruction of their cultural sites by the federal government.

Male dancers in traditional feathered headdresses, accompanied by female singers in white dresses, performed the ancient ceremony around a sacred fire to the steady beat of a wooden drum.

This news advisory is updated to include the exact times and locations for the Winnemem Wintu War Dance, March and Press Conference.

Dan

We apologize for the inconvenience, but the site of the war dance had to be changed due to political issues. This is the last change we promise:)

The place is Camp Pollock - street address is 1501 Northgate Blvd, Sacramento. Attached is a site map (we are in "Miwok" adjacent to the fire area).

Karuk Tribe
P R E S S R E L E A S E
For Immediate Release: March 3, 2009

For more information:
Craig Tucker, Spokesman, Karuk Tribe, cell 916-207-8294

Recreational Miners attack traditional indian salmon fishing

Miners file vengeful petition asking state officials to shut down Karuk Tribe’s last dip net site

Happy Camp, CA – Since the arrival of miners in the mid 1800’s the Karuk Tribe has lost nearly everything. Once the lone occupants of over 1.4 million acres of the Middle Klamath Basin, the Karuk had over 100 villages and associated fishing sites. A peaceful society blessed with an abundance of acorns, fish, and game, early observers described the Karuk as the wealthiest people in North America. Today, nearly 90% of Karuks living in ancestral territory live below the poverty level and Tribal members have access to only one fishery. Yesterday, a recreational gold mining club called The New 49ers challenged the Tribe’s right to fish there.

Klamath Price Cap Bill Passes OregonSenate Committee Today
by Dan Bacher

Oregon SB 76, the Klamath Price Cap Bill introduced by Governor Ted Kulongoski, passed the Senate Natural Resources Committee on a 4-1 vote today. It will likely be considered by the full Senate early next week, according to Craig Tucker, spokesman for the Karuk Tribe.

SB 76 would cap PacifiCorp’s CA and OR ratepayers’ financial liabilities associated with Klamath River dam removal at $200 million. This money would be collected over the course of the next 10 years and used to remove dams in 2020 if PacifiCorp and Klamath stakeholders can reach a final dam removal agreement this summer.