Wikileaks exposed attacks on Indigenous Peoples
By Brenda Norrell
Censored News
http://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2012/05/australian-aboriginal-speaks-out-for.html
May 31, 2012 Breaking news, check back for updates
In Melbourne, Australia, Aboriginal elder Robbie Thorpe, Krautungalung of the Gunnai Nation, rallied in support of Wikileaks Julian Assange, who continues to battle for his freedom. Wikileaks has exposed how the US and Canada targeted Indigenous Peoples.
Thorpe, longtime activist for aboriginal land rights and human rights, referred to Assange as "my brother."
"I'm prepared to go to jail for Julian, we need to rise up! Get up!"
"Assange is exposing the truth. Secrecy is a weapon of mass destruction in Australia," Thorpe said in Melbourne on May 31, during one of the global rallies in support of Assange.
The US diplomatic cables exposed by Wikileaks revealed how US ambassadors spied on Indigenous Peoples and promoted mining in their homelands. The mining is resulting in widespread assaults, homelessness, poisoning of the land, water and air, and deaths during Indigenous village protests.
Indigenous battle Newmont Mining
Today in Peru, Indigenous battle Newmont Mining, which mines copper and gold in Peru. Newmont has also targeted Western Shoshone lands in Nevada and northern Canada for mining. Newmont currently has 14 open pit gold mines and four undergound gold mines in Nevada.
In Australia, Newmont currently has massive gold mines in Western Australia and the Northern Territory. Aboriginal people are fighting widespread attacks by mining companies, including uranium mining that poisons water sources.
Wikileaks exposed five country anti-Indian mining coalition
The Wikileaks cables exposed the fact that the United States was part of a five country coalition to promote mining and fight against Indigenous activists in Peru. In Peru, a core group of diplomats from U.S., Canada, U.K., Australia, Switzerland and South Africa formed an alliance with mining companies to promote and protect mining interests globally, according to the cables.
Below are the top six ways that the United States and Canada worked against Indigenous Peoples, as revealed by
Wikileaks and researched by Censored News. The US and Canada engaged in
espionage, while violating Indigenous autonomy, self
determination and dignity.
Anonymous exposed Mexico manipulating climate facts to promote coal mining
Following the release of the Wikileaks cables, Anonymous hacked the e-mails of Mexico’s mining industry Camimex. Those e-mails revealed that the government of Mexico is manipulating climate change facts in
order to protect coal mining and other dirty industries from
taxation.
In the Camimex member e-mails, First Majestic Silver Mining of
Canada is exposed in the state of Durango, Mexico. The company targeted
the sacred lands of the Wixarika, Huicholes, with silver mining. The Wixarika's
sacred place is where Wixarika pray for all mankind to keep the world in order
and balance. Read more:
http://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2012/02/hacked-e-mails-reveal-mexico.html
Wikileaks cables, research by Censored News
The top six ways that the US and Canada worked against the rights of Indigenous Peoples:
1. The United States worked behind the scenes to
fight the adoption of the
Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous
Peoples. In Ecuador, the US established a program to dissuade Ecuador
from supporting the Declaration. In Iceland, the US Embassy said Iceland's
support was an "impediment" to US/Iceland relations at the UN. In Canada, the US
said the US and Canada agreed the Declaration was headed for a "train
wreck."
2. The United States targeted and
tracked Indigenous
Peoples, community activists and leaders, especially in Chile, Peru and
Ecuador. A cable reveals the US Embassy in Lima, Peru, identified Indigenous
activists and tracked the involvement of Bolivian President Evo Morales,
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, Bolivia Ambassador Pablo Solon, prominent
Mapuche and Quechua activists and community leaders. President Chavez and
President Morales were consistently watched, and their actions analyzed.
Indigenous activists opposing the dirty Tar Sands were spied on, and other
Indigenous activists in Vancouver, prior to the Olympics.
3. The United
States was part of a
five country coalition to promote mining
and fight against Indigenous activists in Peru. A core group of diplomats from
U.S., Canada, U.K., Australia, Switzerland and South Africa formed an alliance
with mining companies to promote and protect mining interests globally. In other
illegal corporate profiteering, Peru’s government secretly admitted that 70-90
percent of its mahogany exports were illegally felled, according to a US embassy
cable revealed by Wikileaks. Lowe's and Home Depot sell the lumber.
4.
Canada spied on Mohawks using illegal wiretaps. Before
Wikileaks hit the headlines, it exposed in 2010 that Canada used unauthorized
wiretaps on Mohawks.
Wikileaks: "During the preliminary inquiry to Shawn
Brant's trial, it came out that the Ontario Provincial Police, headed by
Commissioner Julian Fantino, had been using wiretaps on more than a dozen
different Mohawks without a judge's authorization, an action almost unheard of
recent history in Canada."
4. The
United States and Canada tracked
Mohawks. In one of the largest collections of cables released so far
that targeted Native people and named names, the US Embassies in Montreal and
Toronto detailed Mohawk activities at the border and in their communities.
5.
The
arrogant and insulting tone of the US Embassies and
disrespect for Indigenous leaders is pervasive in US diplomatic cables. The US
Embassy in Guatemala stated that President of Guatemala, Álvaro Colom, called
Rigoberta Menchu a "fabrication" of an anthropologist and made other
accusations. Menchu responded on a local radio station that Colom was a
"liar."
6.
The collection of DNA and other data, makes it
clear that US Ambassadors are spies abroad. US Secretary of State Hillary
Clinton states that the Intelligence Community relies on biographical
information from US diplomats. In cables to Africa and Paraguay, Clinton asked
US Embassy personnel to collect address books, e-mail passwords, fingerprints,
iris scans and DNA.
“The intelligence community relies on State reporting
officers for much of the biographical information collected worldwide," Clinton
said in a cable on April 16, 2009. Clinton said the biographical data should be
sent to the INR (Bureau of Intelligence and Research) for dissemination to the
Intelligence Community.
Meanwhile, the US was part of a five country team
that supported mining as Indigenous Peoples were dying to protect their
homeland.
The arrogance of the US and its cheerleading for corporate copper
mining in Peru is obvious in two cables just released from Wikileaks. The
diplomatic cables reveal the US promoting multi-national corporations, while
targeting Indigenous activists and their supporters.
The cables reveal that a
core group of diplomats formed an alliance with mining companies to promote and
protect mining interests globally. The diplomats were from the U.S., Canada,
U.K., Australia, Switzerland and South Africa.
Read more at
http://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2011/02/wikileaks-peru-us-ambassador-targeted.html
The
US spied on the Mohawks in Canada, as revealed in these diplomatic cables
released by Wikileaks. Canadian border guards admitted that they feared the
Mohawks:
http://censored-news.blogspot.com/2011/05/wikileaks-cables-on-mohawks.html
Wikileaks
exposed the fact that not only were Indigenous Peoples spied on globally by the
US State Department, but those who supported them were also spied on. Actor and
activist Danny Glover was the focus of at least five US diplomatic cables.
Video of Robbie Thorpe at Dec 2010 support for Julian Assange.
