2006, Energy genocide, backlash yield new peoples' movement in the Americas

Energy genocide, backlash yield new peoples' movement in the Americas

CASS LAKE, Minn. - The longtime exploitation of indigenous peoples' land and water resources in the Americas by governments and corporations has resulted in ''energy genocide'' for indigenous peoples; now, this energy genocide is unleashing an environmental movement, with Native people taking on governments and holding corporations accountable, according to the Indigenous Environmental Network.

Tom Goldtooth, executive director of IEN, said the seizure of land, mineral and water rights, particularly in Central and South America, has resulted in the rape, torture and murder of indigenous peoples.

Goldtooth said globalization, pushed by countries like the United States, has allowed U.S. corporations to come into the territories of indigenous communities of Central and South America in need of minerals, oil, gas, water, trees and the medicinal knowledge of indigenous peoples.

''This market-based system has created privatization of land and competition of natural resources, causing our indigenous brothers and sisters of the Latin American countries to organize and resist. Indigenous peoples are mobilizing against mining companies in Venezuela, Brazil, Colombia, Guatemala, Peru and Panama.

''There are wars fueled by mining companies such as Denver-based Newmont that cause mine workers to fight local communities, of which many are indigenous peoples,'' Goldtooth told Indian Country Today.

Where there is mining within remote rural communities in Latin American countries, he said, there are rapes and abuses of indigenous women.

''Racism is alive and well in many of these countries where tribal people are discriminated.''

Goldtooth said the result of this onslaught is indigenous people are mobilizing throughout the Americas and the world.

''Indigenous peoples throughout the world, and especially in the Latin American countries, have been increasingly mobilizing and building solidarity movements to establish their self-determination, control of natural resources and redefining the concepts of development.

''Our indigenous environmental and economic justice movement of the north has built networks with the indigenous struggles of the Latin America countries to mobilize a unified struggle to oppose an economic globalization agenda being pushed by countries like the U.S., Canada and other industrialized countries that are members of the World Trade Organization.''

Goldtooth said indigenous summits like the Second Continental Summit of Indigenous Peoples and Nationalities of Abya Yala held in Quito, Ecuador, in 2004 brought more than 800 indigenous peoples from 64 indigenous tribal nations and 25 countries from Canada to Argentina.

The summit, he said, was an expression of a mounting indigenous movement to consolidate their autonomy to engage in new strategies to fight to defend their rights, access to land, water and self-governance.

Faith Gemmill, coordinator of Resisting Environmental Destruction on Indigenous Lands, based in Fairbanks, Alaska, said indigenous peoples have disproportionately suffered the impacts of coal mining, uranium mining, oil and gas extraction, coal bed methane, nuclear power and hydropower development.

During the IEN's 14th annual Protecting Mother Earth conference, Gemmill facilitated a plen-ary session, ''Energy Genocide,'' exposing how energy industries have located on indigenous lands with few consequences for the resulting devastation or diseases.

Gemmill said indigenous peoples are organizing from the grass-roots level to resist a U.S./Canadian energy policy that is too expensive and environmentally destructive. The binational energy policy is the main cause of climate change and global warming, and violates traditional laws of indigenous teachings and beliefs, she added.

Resisting oil and gas expansion in Alaska, REDOIL is working with Alaska Natives to defend pristine regions and documenting the health problems from drilling on that state's North Slope.

During IEN's conference on Leech Lake Ojibwe tribal land July 5 - 9, indigenous activists gathered to create blueprints for achieving environmental, economic and energy justice, while working toward a just transition toward a clean and renewable energy future.

In Ottawa, joining the conference by telephone was Clayton Thomas-Muller, IEN Native Energy campaigner. ''Energy policy in North America is at the expense of the environment and the rights of indigenous peoples,'' he said.

''From the proposed nuclear waste dump in Skull Valley Goshute lands in Utah, to the proposed geothermal energy development by Calpine within the sacred Medicine Lake in northern California, to the road of destruction of oil and gas coming from Alaska, through the McKenzie River of the Dene Indians in Northwest Territories, down through the oil and tar sands of Alberta of Cree territories, bringing that crude oil right into a proposed oil refinery to be built at the Fort Berthold Three Affiliated Tribal lands in North Dakota, to the proposed Desert Rock coal fired power plant on the Navajo reservation, it adds up to a new form of energy genocide.''

In Alberta, Lisa Deskelni King, Athabascane Chipewyan First Nation and an environmental specialist with the Industry Relations Corporation in Fort McMurray, described Dene lands throughout Alberta and the Northwest Territories of Canada.

Like their Athabascan relatives, the Dine' or Navajos in the Southwest, the Dene in Canada have been devastated by energy development. The Dene lands are fragmented and destroyed by the tar sands development, one of the most energy-intensive oil extraction processes. It leaves behind environmental devastation. In the process, sand is mined and oil separated from the sand using fresh water from rivers and lakes.

King said the waste ponds created by this toxic process cover vast tracks of land in the heart of the Dene territory and can even be seen from outer space. Most of the oil taken from Dene lands is sold directly to the U.S. market.

Rose Desjarlais, Dene elder from Fort McMurray, Alberta, said the fossil fuel dependency of Canada and the United States is destructive to her people. The tar and oil sands development in Alberta uses great quantities of water, some from rivers, in the extraction of bitumen from the oil sands.

''This is a new frontier of oil production that in the long run doesn't help our people. Our leaders are selling out for money. What will money do when our forests and waters are gone? I have learned that this oil production contributes to global warming. It has to stop, but we need help,'' Desjarlais said.

''We are beginning to organize to fight the oil giants, from Suncor to Shell, who are expanding this road of destruction in our homelands.''

In North Dakota, the Fort Berthold Environmental Awareness Committee is a tribal grass-roots group of the Three Affiliated Tribes of Fort Berthold struggling to stop a proposed oil refinery and production facility. The facility would use the oil processed in Alberta which is devastating the Dene. Already on Fort Berthold, there are high levels of asthma and other respiratory and environmental health effects from coal-fired power plants.

From Manitoba, Carol Kobliski, member of the Nelson House First Nations, spoke of deceit and manipulation in the Wuskwatim hydro dam project being developed by Manitoba Hydro in Canada.

''We don't need any more large hydro dams in our lands. Right now Manitoba Hydro is telling our leaders that Wuskwatim is a once-in-a-lifetime deal too good to pass up and is the best we can expect or deserve. Our First Nations people need to make a stand. Manitoba Hydro is making its rounds once again on our First Nations communities to build more dams in our area.

''This time they are enticing our leaders with money to get what they want,'' Kobliski said.

The defense of sacred water has long been the focus of Josephine Mandamin, Anishinaabe elder and traditional water keeper with the group Biidaajiwun Inc. in Thunder Bay, Ontario. Striving to create reverence for water, the Anishinaabe's ongoing story of walking with water is seldom told.

Anishinaabe women and supporters have been walking around the Great Lakes carrying water in a copper bucket to highlight the issue and to show respect and care for water. They walked around Lake Superior in Spring 2003, around Lake Michigan in 2004, Lake Huron in 2005 and Lake Ontario in 2006, and plan to walk around Lake Erie in 2007.

An Anishinaabe prophecy states that ''in about 30 years, if we humans continue with our negligence, an ounce of drinking water will cost the same as an ounce of gold.''

Mandamin, a member of the IEN delegation to the 4th World Water Forum in Mexico City, said that for the Anishnaabe, the responsibility of taking care of the water belongs to the women.