Tuesday, March 14, 2017

Abya Yala: Message to the Native Nations Rise March



Continental Commission Abya Yala 
Message to the Native Nations Rise March on
Washington, D.C.

March 10, 2017



Good greetings of solidarity, strength and common purpose from the Original Nations of the Continental Confederacy of the Eagle and Condor of the Great Turtle Island Abya Yala.  In these times of great turmoil, open and undeclared warfare across the globe, we stand with all of you and in solidarity with the fight at Standing Rock to protect and defend the Missouri River Watershed and in affirmation of the Right of Self Determination of Indigenous Peoples as Original Nations of Mother Earth.

The struggle at Standing Rock to stop the Dakota Access Pipeline is emblematic of the continental struggle of our Water Protector Nations as we defend our territories and Indigenous Peoples from the assault of the neoliberal economic development projects of extractive industry facilitated by the corrupt systems of complicit colonizer governments and global financial systems that have no regard for the sacredness of the natural world.

We as Original Nations of Indigenous Peoples of the Great Turtle Island Abya Yala must continue to work to strengthen our alliances and collective strategic actions across the continent and beyond into the global fight for Climate Justice, and the Rights of Mother Earth.


The Continental Commission Abya Yala made three visits to the Standing Rock camps since September of 2016. Acting as International Indigenous Human Rights Observers, we were there on December 4th, and again on February 22-23, when the Oceti Sakowin Camp was dismantled by agencies of the state police, National Guard, and tribal police.  As the camp was being leveled, we took position on the promontory overlooking the confluence of the Cannon Ball and Missouri Rivers, at the Sacred Site of the International Spiritual Monument at Standing Rock.

The monumental efforts of the Oceti Sakowin Dakota Nakota Lakota, the Water Protectors, the allies and supporters from around the world who rallied at Standing Rock to prevent the Dakota Access Pipeline from being finalized across the Missouri River are of such a magnitude that the entire world is called to acknowledge the historic nature of the Promontory of Standing Rock as an International Spiritual Monument, dedicated to World Peace and Peace with Mother Earth.


The battle at Standing Rock has brought us to a turning point and simultaneously a defining moment in the relationship between our Original Nations of Abya Yala [Americas] and the constituencies, congregations, and corporate cartels of the settler state systems of America that have normalized the colonization and genocide of our Indigenous Peoples under the mantle of the Doctrine of Discovery of Christendom for over five centuries.

Many prayers have been laid down, many prayers have been uplifted to the Creators calling upon the Divine Powers for vision, strength, and healing to overcome the dehumanizing and racist relic of the Doctrine of Discovery of Christendom as it has come to be applied in US law and practice in this hemisphere.  Specifically, it was in the SCOTUS Lone Wolf v. Hitchcock (1903) case where the dogma of Plenary Power became the juridical perfume for the racist psychology of white supremacy rooted in the medieval pathology of the Doctrine of Discovery.

The Lone Wolf v. Hitchcock case provided the legaloid theory to normalize in the 20th century context the history of American projections of continental colonization and empire.  A fundamental to the tenet of the theory was the presentation of the American Indians as inferior in race, culture, and religion in the mind of white Christian America.  In the words of US Supreme Court Justice Edward White:

"It is to be presumed that in this matter the United States would be governed by such considerations of justice as would control a Christian people in their treatment of an ignorant and dependent race. Be that is it may, the propriety or justice of their action towards the Indians with respect to their lands is a question of governmental policy, and is not a matter open to discussion in a controversy between third parties, neither of whom derives title from the Indians."




We know that the legaloid principle of plenary power of the US political apparatus over Indigenous Peoples is the basis for the actions by President Trump upon taking office in January 2017 when he authorized the permit for the Dakota Access Pipeline to drill under the Missouri River above the confluence with the Cannon Ball River, upstream from the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation.

We all know this, and all delegations attending the events in Washington, DC this week have denounced the unethical and illegal violations of law and basic human dignity that the current Trump administration in the national capitol has exemplified in overt complicity and collusion with the corporate cartels of the Dakota Access Pipeline.


But the example of Trump is only the most recent and best example of the underlying racism inherent in the national psychology and cultural mythology of the Master's Narrative that defines the context of the American "experiment" in democracy, namely the racist and now internationally repudiated Doctrine of Discovery of Christendom.  The plenary power doctrine is racism legalized. It is American Apartheid.


The Lone Wolf decision also was explicit in characterizing the spirituality of the Original Nations as an inferior cultural expression in the eyes, mind, and heart of the US American Settler State constituencies, congregations, and corporate cartels who continue to collude and collaborate to perpetuate the framing of the fight at Standing Rock as a domestic issue, one that will be resolved within the "national" procedures of law and justice to provide a just resolution of the issues in dispute.  We all know, whether we are willing to admit it or not, that this is NOT THE CASE.



“Being that the issues in dispute involving the Dakota Access Pipeline are being contested within the ancestral homelands of the Oceti Sakowin, referenced in the Treaty Stipulations of the 1851 and 1868 Fort Laramie Treaties with the US Government, should justice be the goal it becomes paramount and inescapable that these Treaty Issues must be first addressed in a competent legal venue of International Law.

Any domestic court of the US legal system, or any subdivision of the US government for that matter such as the EPA or the Army Corps of Engineers would simply not have purview over these international issues, as they lie completely within the realm of International Law, and therefore until the 1851 and 1868 Fort Laramie Treaties are integrated into the global framework of International Law of Treaties and Agreements on a par as a legitimate International Instrument within the United Nations system, there will never be a chance for the just resolution of disputes among the parties to the Treaty as is now being made visible to the world in the standoff at Standing Rock.”



Domain without Eminence 

The entirety of global society is actual witness to the immoral, unethical, and illegal machinations of the present executive office of the US government that has ignored the basic principles of due process and environment justice to collude with the Dakota Access Pipeline corporate cartel in complicity and business partnership Energy Partners Limited to allocate the final permit to drill under the Missouri River just upstream from the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation.  Yet what has yet to be revealed is how the US government also colluded to force owners of fee simple property title along the route of the Dakota Access Pipeline to surrender their Individual Right of Denial of Consent under the threat of Eminent Domain.

Any claim by the US federal system of state sovereignty to eminent domain through out the DAPL route in the Dakota Treaty Territories requires validation of the transfer of such purported sovereign land right under the terms of the Louisiana Purchase, which in turn requires the acknowledgement in international law of the Third Treaty of San Ildefonso (1800) where Spain ceded to France its claims in the territory once again based upon the allocations by the Vatican State under the Papal Bulls Inter Caetera (1493) specific to the Royal Crowns of Christendom. US Supreme Court Justice Ruth Ginsberg Justice Ginsberg as recently as 2005 cited the Discovery Doctrine in the case City of Sherrill v Oneida Indian Nation of New York to affirm the fundamental and definitive nature of the Discovery Doctrine of Christendom to the fee title system of land tenure within the bounds of US property law and political processes.


It deserves clarification that the US government federal system of state sovereignty is composed of the three levels: Overarching is the plenary power of the national federal government superstructure composed of all the 50 states collectively, each one of the states individually, and then finally the federally recognized and domesticated "Native American Tribes" of elective systems established under the 1934 Howard Wheeler Act.  The Native American Tribal Council system is an expression of US jurisdiction based on the Commerce Clause of the US constitution.  For this reason, it would be illogical and impossible for a US Federally Recognized Tribal entity, as a domestic dependent political apparatus of "American" Indians to have the international legal position necessary in order to bring the Oceti Sakowin Treaty Issues forward into international venues with any degree of competence or confidence that this was being done to bring justice to the Treaty disputes in question.


Furthermore, we can not be deluded and expect that the lower level US courts might at least address these issues of dispute involving Treaty Territories and the settle state systems of land tenure, law and justice, without prejudice.  In terms of the issues of fraudulent and criminal actions of collusion and complicity involving Treaty Territories and the settler state systems of land tenure in conflict such as the case at Standing Rock in the battle to stop the Dakota Access Pipeline, it is well to recall the case of Delaware Nation v. Pennsylvania (2004).  Perhaps in the most honest and legally correct decision in ruling involving these issues the case was ruled nonjusticiable, although it acknowledged that Indian title appeared to have been extinguished by fraud. 


Decolonization and Self Determination

Colonization was declared illegal and established as a violation of International Law by United Nations General Assembly resolution 1514 (1960) which proclaimed, "All peoples have the right of Self Determination".  In 2007, with the adoption of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples the principle of equality in right of self-determination was extended to include Indigenous Peoples, "Indigenous Peoples, equal to all other peoples..."

What is necessary now, in order to fulfill our responsibilities as Original Nations of Mother Earth to the Future Generations and to the rest of the International Community is to move strategically and with independent coherent vision and integrity into the substantive and mandated protocols of decolonization at the continental level, such as are referenced in UN General Assembly Resolution 1541 (1960). We are called to live up to the responsibility of being a collective geo-political bloc in defense of the Sacredness of Water, and in protection of the watersheds of Mother Earth across our traditional territories.

Advancing now in common cause along as surviving Original Nations of Indigenous Peoples of the Great Turtle Island Abya Yala, it is with great interest and expectation that we have seen reported that one of the principle demands presented at the Native Nations March on Washington was the call to revoke the Doctrine of Discovery of Christendom within the context of US law and policy. In September of 2015, we also addressed this issue at the continental level, making known our position as Continental Commission Abya Yala in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania preceding the visit of Pope Francis to that city.

After Philadelphia, Continental Commission Abya Yala traveled to Chiapas, Mexico in February of 2016 and realized a similar indigenous led initiative to denounce the imposition of the precepts of the Doctrine of Discovery of Christendom as the fundamental basis for the purported claims to territorial jurisdiction of the federal system of states known as the Republic of Mexico.

In contrast to the mechanisms of the US Common Law precedents contextualized by the Johnson v. M’Intosh decision (1823), the institutionalization of the legal tenets of the Doctrine of Discovery in the Civil Law of Mexico derives from the concept of “Original Property of the State” inscribed in the Mexican Constitution of 1917

Yet, the ultimate effect of dehumanization, discrimination, subjugation, and violation of the collective ancestral territorial rights of the Original Nations of Mexico is the same as the case of the Oceti Sakowin Treaty Nations of the Dakota Territories, and all other Original Nations who have seen their territorial rights and Indigenous Nationhood subverted by the legaloid pathology of racial and cultural supremacy under the US framework of settler states, including the Kingdom of Hawaii.

In fact, it was the same year as Johnson v. M’Intosh, in 1823, that the US government appropriated to itself the role of DECIDER in terms of how the Doctrine of Discovery was to be subsequently implemented in this hemisphere. By proclamation of the Monroe Doctrine in 1823, the Uncle Sam claimed the power once franchised by the Vatican, and offered his “Big Stickgunboat diplomacy to back it up, in order to install and support the governments of Latin America that were best serving the corporate interests of transnational US business and international financiers. This is the same DAPL scenario of collusion, complicity, and corruption at the state level of North Dakota as it has been played out internationally across the hemisphere for over one hundred and eighty years.


One of the most recent and tragic examples of these policies occurred a year ago, when WATER PROTECTOR Berta Cáceres, an indigenous Lenca leader was assassinated in her home on March 3, 2016 for fighting to protect the Sacred Gualcarque River from the Agua Zarca hydroelectric mega-development dam project. She was leader of the Civic Council of Indigenous and Popular Organizations of Honduras (COPINH) a grass roots organization that continues to fight to have her assassination investigated by an independent international commission.

As Original Nations of Indigenous Peoples of Abya Yala, we share not only a commonality of blood and culture, we are also facing the same enemies.  We must unite the fight to protect the water and defend the land across the continent from the assault of the Dakota Access Pipeline corporations and their ilk that only seek to privatize, profit, and then leave our future generations to pay the externalized costs of their destruction of the environment and the natural world.

Just as there is no treaty provision in any treaty among our nations and the government states of the Americas that would allow the destruction of any part of Mother Earth, each and every one of the concessions allocated by these governments to the extractive industries and mega-development projects in our territories across Abya Yala is dependent for its legal validity on the legaloid fictions of the Doctrine of Discovery of Christendom, and the presumed succession to the purported jurisdiction of the political domains of Christendom in this hemisphere by ALL of the American States.

As Original Nations of Indigenous Peoples of Abya Yala, we have a common cause and a common case at the continental and international level.


In the spirit of this common cause and in light of the above clarifications we denounce as War Crime of International Aggression the acts of violence camouflaged as domestic police actions directed against the legitimate exercise of Self Determination of the Oceti Sakowin Water Protector Nations at the Last Child Camp, the Oceti Sakowin Camp, the Sacred Stone Camp (among others) at Standing Rock.

We, as Original Nations of Indigenous Peoples of the Great Turtle Island Abya Yala have determined to move forward from the International Spiritual Monument at Standing Rock with renewed inspiration, self-empowered by the resonance of our mandate as Water Protector Nations. Our Continental Confederacies of the Eagle and the Condor proclaim our nationhood as Water Defender Nations of Mother Earth: M'ni Wiconi, Water is Life - World Water One.

The tides of justice have not just turned.  The tides of justice have returned, and we as Original Nations of Mother have returned with them, to fulfill our responsibilities to protect the water and defend the territories of our watersheds of our traditional territories across the continent and the world.

We shall see you once again at Standing Rock in the spring.

TupacEnrique Acosta, Huehuecoyotl
TONATIERRA




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MANIFESTO

Abya Yala

In the Spirit of World Peace

In the Spirit of Peace with Mother Earth

In global acknowledgement of the INTERNATIONAL SPIRITUAL MONUMENT at STANDING ROCK, in the Oceti Sakowin Treaty Territories of the Dakotas, the Great Turtle Island Abya Yala;

In denunciation of the War Crime of International Aggression by agents of the United States government, and paramilitary police proxies of the Dakota Access Pipeline, Energy Transfer Partners, et al for the acts of violence camouflaged as domestic police actions at Standing Rock;

The denial of the Recognition, Respect and Guarantees of Protection for the Right of Free, Prior and Informed Consent of the Oceti Sakowin Dakota Nakota Lakota for the Dakota Access Pipeline Project DAPL is not only a moral, ethical, and legal issue but a DEMAND that this DENIAL OF CONSENT by the Original Nations of the Missouri River Watershed for the project be NOTED OFFICIALLY AS A FINANCIAL LIABILITY on the ledgers of the owner corporation Energy Transfer Partners and all DAPL investors and partners.

We call for the full, effective and immediate recognition, respect and international guarantees for the right of Free, Prior, and Informed Consent of Indigenous Peoples over economic development projects that impact our traditional territories.

In the spirit of equality of Indigenous Peoples, we call for the World Bank to acknowledge the criteria of Free, Prior and Informed Consent as a Rights Holder position, not a merely stake holder position, in the processes of consultation that may or may not eventually deliver an agreement of free, prior and informed consent for World Bank supported projects.

We call for the full and effective application of the appropriate and necessary protocols and procedures of DECOLONIZATION as have been articulated under UN General Assembly Resolutions 1514, and GA1541 with respect to the Right of Self Determination of the Original Nations of Indigenous Peoples of the Great Turtle Island Abya Yala, equal to all other peoples.

We demand for restitution of the Treaty Archive of primary source materials that was lent to UN Special Rapporteur Dr. Miguel Alfonso Martinez for the purposes of the UN Study on Treaties, Agreements and special arrangements completed in 1999.



#WorldWaterOne
www.www.www

Continental Commission Abya Yala

Secretariat: TONATIERRA

tonal@tonatierr.org

www.tonatierra.org

 Final Report by Special Rapporteur
Dr. Miguel Alfonso Martinez
United Nations Study on Treaties, Agreements and Other Constructive Arangements
 


1 comment:

  1. Mni Wiconi. Peace Waits. Standing Rock showed us the way.

    ReplyDelete