Dear Friends and Supporters,

Today, a group of Cascadia Earth First!ers and Rising Tide members took action against the continued liquidation and destruction of Oregon’s Elliott State Forest. Using sky pods, bipods, road blockades, overturned cargo vans, lock downs and many other beautiful installations, the road to Umpcoos Ridge timber sale has been occupied, held and reclaimed for the forest, the people and future generations.


For decades this forest near Coos Bay has been hammered, managed as if it was a piggy bank, smashed in an unsuccessful attempt to fund public schools.

Some of Oregon’s (and the world’s) last native forests, old growth, and future old growth forests are on the chopping block in the Elliott. A lawsuit has been filed against the current management plan for sanctioning the killing of endangered spotted owls. That lawsuit has been ignored. Community groups have resisted the extraction for years and have been ignored.

But the blockade stands, and WE CAN HOLD THE ROAD, but NOT WITHOUT YOUR HELP! Please take some time to protect your public land!

How to help:

First, call Oregon Land Board members Kate Brown and Ben Westlund and tell them you support the blockade! Ask them to cancel the current timber sales in the Elliott State Forest, set the area aside as a biodiversity and carbon reserve and make up the lost revenue by revoking the Timber Harvest Tax exemption for private land owners of over 5000 acres.

Second, JOIN US! Bring all you need to be self sufficient in the woods for as long as you plan to stay and come to the Elliott! (directions at bottom)

Third, if you can’t come, please donate to the cause on our web site: www.ForestDefenseNow.org (but make sure you call the land board first, the success of this action depends on everyone showing support)


Directions:

Go West towards Reedsport on Highway 38
Turn Left on Loon Lake Road
Pass Camp Creek Road, take first right (unmarked)
After 100 feet on unmarked road you will see Cougar Pass Road sign
This road becomes 7000. Follow 6.7miles to site. Careful of multiple forks, stay on road more traveled. Look for Free State on right.

Fall Creek Timber Project Occupied by Forest Activists

author: Cass K. Dia e-mail:e-mail: ForestDefenseNow@gmail.com
Do you remember the days of Fall Creek, Warner Creek, the first Cascadia Summers? Do you remember the lands that were saved by the direct efforts of concerned citizens? We remember, and it is within that greater tradition of non-violent forest defense that we now come to you proclaiming that a resurgence has begun. As of June 1, 2009 tree-sits have been deployed within the Fall Creek Project planning area in defiance of Bureau of Land Management (BLM) propositions to clearcut 400 acres in the area.

Cascadia Summer 2009

As of June 1, 2009 tree-sits have been deployed within the Fall Creek Project planning area in defiance of Bureau of Land Management (BLM) propositions to clearcut 400 acres in the area. This action is taken as an escalation of the Cascadia Summer campaign against the Western Oregon Plan Revisions (WOPR) and corruption within the highest levels of the BLM. Perhaps the BLM will listen to these events, as they did not listen to the more than 30,000 Oregonians who filed formal protest against the WOPR. These are public lands and we will not sit back and watch the continuing devastation caused by government incompetence and corporate manipulation. As far as the economy is considered, do not be deceived, you will find no jobs on a dead planet.

The WOPR, a Bush-era plan, will increase BLM logging by 436% in a time when timber prices have bottomed out. 70% of these new cuts would be clearcuts and 100,000 acres of old growth would be cut. Approximately 40,000 rural Oregonians live within one half-mile of BLM land and the security of their homes, drinking water, and local economies is under assault by this illegal plan. Boom and bust timber economics have failed and it is time for affected communities and environmentalists to move forward together toward a timber industry that can meet our mutual needs indefinitely.

Accusations of corruption are well grounded in fact, with the Oregon BLM having been found guilty of breaking federal law by 9th Circuit federal courts in at least six separate cases involving timber sales in southern Oregon since 2004. Continuing with this trend the WOPR is being challenged in court as it violates the Endangered Species Act, the Oregon Clean Water Act and the Oregon Salmon Plan as well as contradicting greenhouse gas reduction targets that the Governor and legislators signed into Oregon law in 2007. The BLM and their big business collaborators have hijacked the forest management process. These are our forests by law and we won't let them be stolen without a fight.

Activists from all over the country will be coming to Oregon this summer to join us in this Cascadia Summer, our season of resistance. We have numbers, we are organized and we are bringing forest defense to a BLM project near you. Our immediate message to the BLM is stop the WOPR and cancel the Fall Creek Project. We must also make clear that these are symptoms of a greater problem and if mismanagement of public lands remains the status quo, we shall continue to agitate. We invite folks out to visit the sits, or just to come to Eugene and partake in a Cascadian forest defense movement that breathes once again.

Contact ForestDefenseNow@gmail.com with questions or comments.

homepage: homepage: http://ForestDefenseNow.org

BreaktheChains.info: Parole Hearing for Peltier on July 27

BreaktheChains.info: Parole Hearing for Peltier on July 27

May 6, 2009 International Day of Action: "No Toxic Dump or Border Wall on O'odham Lands!"

May 6, 2009

Reports from the May 6, 2009 International
Day of Action: "No Toxic Dump or Border Wall on
O'odham Lands!"

Activists in San Francisco, Phoenix and Tucson hold solidarity protests in support of the traditional O'odham urging an immediate hault to the plans for a toxic dump near the O'odham sacred site of Quitovac as well as a hault to the building of the border wall across O'odham lands

CCR Decries Immunity for Torture, Secrecy

CONTACT: press@ccrjustice.org

April 16, 2009, New York – In response to President Obama’s decision to guarantee immunity to CIA officials who carried out the drowning torture known as waterboarding, which his attorney general has classified as torture, the Center for Constitutional Rights issued the following statement:

“It is one of the deepest disappointments of this administration that it appears unwilling to uphold the law where crimes have been committed by former officials. Whether or not CIA operatives who conducted waterboarding are guaranteed immunity, it is the high level officials who conceived, justified and ordered the torture program who bear the most responsibility for breaking domestic and international law, and it is they who must be prosecuted. In the president’s statement today, the most troubling contradiction is the contrast of the words, ‘This is a time for reflection, not retribution,’ followed shortly by, ‘The United States is a nation of laws.’ Government officials broke very serious laws: for there to be no consequences not only calls our system of justice into question, it leaves the gate open for this to happen again.”

Since the first days of the public revelations regarding the Bush administration’s torture program, the Center for Constitutional Rights has made efforts to hold high level officials and their lawyers accountable for their crimes. CCR, along with the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR) and the International Federation of Human Rights (FIDH), has tried three times, twice in Germany and once in France, to bring criminal cases in Europe against former Defense Secretary Rumsfeld, former CIA director George Tenet, and former White House Counsel/Former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales as well as the other lawyers who were part of the conspiracy that authorized the torture program in Guantanamo, Iraq, secret CIA sites, and elsewhere. The German case is still pending. CCR also has torture cases pending in U.S. courts.

For more information on the German case, click here. For a fact sheet on prosecutions and accountability for torture and other war crimes, click here.
Attached Files

* Bybee Torture Memo (August 1, 2002)
* Bradbury Torture Memo 1 (May 10, 2005)
* Bradbury Torture Memo 2 (May 10, 2005)
* Bradbury Torture Memo 3 (May 30, 2005)


The Center for Constitutional Rights is dedicated to advancing and protecting the rights guaranteed by the United States Constitution and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Founded in 1966 by attorneys who represented civil rights movements in the South, CCR is a non-profit legal and educational organization committed to the creative use of law as a positive force for social change.

For More Background Information on Torture please see the following resources from ProCon.org:

What is the definition of torture?

Has the United States condoned the use of torture tactics on prisoners captured in Iraq?

Background information on waterboarding (PDF format 2.3 MB)

BreaktheChains.info: Terrorism charges against RNC Eight dropped

BreaktheChains.info: Terrorism charges against RNC Eight dropped

BreaktheChains.info: Sara Jane Olsen Scheduled for Release... But Not Without a Fight

BreaktheChains.info: Sara Jane Olsen Scheduled for Release... But Not Without a Fight

CENSORED NEWS: O'odham: Militarization and border abuses accelerate

CENSORED NEWS: O'odham: Militarization and border abuses accelerate

CENSORED NEWS: Leonard Peltier, message before transfer

CENSORED NEWS: Leonard Peltier, message before transfer

CENSORED NEWS: Evo Morales on climate change: Save the Planet from Capitalism

CENSORED NEWS: Evo Morales on climate change: Save the Planet from Capitalism

BreaktheChains.info: Leonard Peltier: A new spirit of hope

BreaktheChains.info: Leonard Peltier: A new spirit of hope

CENSORED NEWS: O'odham on alert: Drug violence targets O'odham pilgrimage

CENSORED NEWS: O'odham on alert: Drug violence targets O'odham pilgrimage

Update: Mohawks Kahentinetha and Katenies beaten by gang of border officers

By Brenda Norrell
Human Rights Editor
U.N. OBSERVER & International Report at the Hague

www.unobserver.com
AKWESASNE -- Mohawk grandmothers Kahentinetha Horn and Katenies were in custody at the US/Canadian border on Saturday, June 14, 2008, when the two women were handcuffed and beaten by gangs of officers and border patrol agents. Eight officers beat Kahentinetha, 68, and five officers beat Katenies. Kahentinetha, publisher of Mohawk Nation News, suffered a heart attack and is in a Canadian hospital. Katenies was released from jail Monday evening and is in seclusion. Katenies, in a telephone interview on Tuesday afternoon, described the police attack on the women at the border. Katenies said the women were returning to Canada from a visit in the US, when they were stopped at the border. After the women showed their Haudenosaunee identification, they were told the IDs were not sufficient and they were detained.

Katenies was told she had an earlier warrant. She had refused to recognize the authority of the Canadian government over her. In the earlier case she had stopped at a border check and was granted permission to pass, but border agents later claimed she was not cleared to pass. When she refused to recognize the authority of the Canadian government over her, a warrant resulted.

On Saturday, when Katenies refused to get out of the car, five huge Canadian officers and border agents jumped on her, dragged her out and threw her to the concrete, grinding her chin into the concrete.

"I went down so fast, they had knees in my back and kidneys. They were like a football team on me and they acted like they had no boundaries."

"They told me if I didn't cooperate, they would break my arms."

As officers attacked Katenies, Kahentinetha was on her cell phone calling family members and authorities for help. When Kahentinetha refused to hang up, eight officers attacked her.

Katenies was placed in a cell and could hear the officers bring in Kahentinetha. Katenies could hear Kahentinetha yelling for them to loosen the handcuffs. By the screams of pain, Katenies said it sounded like the police were continuing to tighten the handcuffs as Kahentinetha cried out.

Kahentinetha was handcuffed in a stress hold. The handcuffs cut off Kahentinetha's circulation and she suffered a heart attack.

A family member arrived at the same time and was able to get an ambulance immediately for Kahentinetha and she was transported to a hospital.

Katenies was transported to jail in Cornwall, where she remained from Saturday until Monday evening. Katenies said the two women were not charged, but were told they would be charged later.

Kahentinetha remains in the hospital, with family present, and her condition is not known.

A member of the Mohawk Warrior Society said, "They did this because we have the greatest weapon, the truth, and what Kahentinetha writes is the truth. They are terrified of the truth. What they are trying to do is provoke the Mohawks." He said ultimately what they want is to provoke the Mohawks into a confrontation so the Mohawks who are resisting will be shot and killed. He said the plan was to assassinate Kahentinetha.


www.mohawknationnews.com

Urgent Zapatista communique following repulsion of Mexican Army troops

Urgent Zapatista communique following repulsion of Mexican Army troops by a Zapatista village on June 4, 2008. Escalation is feared. The following is a communique by the Zapatista Good government Council in La Garrucha.

The Road to the Future Good Government Council denounces the military incursion of 200 soldiers, along with local, state and judicial police into the Zapatista towns Hermenegildo Galeana and San Alejandro, in La Garrucha Caracol.

Please stay alert for a global call out for action in solidarity with the EZLN!!

TOWARDS A NEW DAWN
RESISTANCE CARACOL

ROAD TO THE FUTURE
GOOD GOVERNMENT COUNCIL

CHIAPAS, MÉXICO

JUNE 4, 2008

DENUNCIATION

ACT OF PROVOCATION

From the Road to the Future Good Government Council (Junta de Buen Gobierno El Camino del Futuro)

To the people of Mexico and the world, to the comrades in the Other Campaign in Mexico and the world, to the national and international news media, to human rights defenders, to the honest non-governmental organizations

The Road to the Future Good Government Council makes the following denunciation:

1. A column was sighted consisting of a military convoy and public safety police, municipal police, and judicial agents at 9:00 in the morning southeastern time; there were 2 big trucks and 3 small trucks of soldiers, 2 public safety trucks, 2 municipal police trucks, an anti-riot tank, and a truckload of judicial agents.

2. All in all there were around 200 provocateurs.

3. Before entering the town of Garrucha, the headquarters of the Caracol, about 30 meters from the edge of the town, 3 trucks from the convoy stopped and 4 soldiers got out of a truck as if to outflank the town of Garrucha by using the road to our collective cornfield. The people reacted and organized themselves to eject the convoy. The soldiers immediately got back in their truck and continued along the road. Those in front were intimidating the people, taking photos and filming them as they waited for the other provocateurs.

4. Arriving at the spot where the soldiers from Patiwitz were stationed, another military convoy joined the column, which continued on its way to engage in another provocation.

5. They arrived at Rancho Alegre, a community known as Chapuyil.

6. They got out of the trucks and headed for the town of Hermenegildo Galeana, where all the people are Zapatista support bases, accusing the townspeople of growing marijuana in their fields.

7. People throughout the Zapatista area of Garrucha, including the autonomous authorities, are witness to the fact that no such fields exist. The Zapatistas here work in their cornfields and banana plantations. They are willing to struggle for freedom, justice, and democracy and resist any provocation whatsoever.

8. Around 100 soldiers, 10 public security police, and 4 judicial agents headed for the town of Galeana. All the repressors painted their faces to confuse people and to avoid being recognized in the hill country. They walked for a while on the road and then went into the hills on their way to the town.

9. The federal column was guided by a person named Feliciano Román Ruiz, who is known to be from the Ocosingo municipal police.

10. The townspeople of Galeana --men, women, girls, and boys—organized themselves to eject the troops, come what may.

11. They met up with the troops in the middle of the road and the melee began. All the Zapatista women, men, boys, and girls told the soldiers in no uncertain terms, "Go back to where you came from, you aren't needed here. We want freedom, justice, and democracy --not soldiers."

12. The soldiers said, "We came here because we know there's marijuana here and we're going on ahead come hell or high water." That's when the people took out their machetes, shovels, rocks, slingshots, ropes and whatever was at hand, and drove them back.

13. The soldiers said, "Well, this time we're not going any further, but we'll be back in two weeks and we're going in there come hell or high water."

14. They took another road down to the village of Zapatista support bases called San Alejandro where 9 vehicles with 40 soldiers and 10 policemen were waiting for them.

15. On their way down, they trampled the cornfield, which is the town's only food source.

16. In the Zapatista town of San Alejandro, the 60 repressive agents took up their positions, ready for a confrontation.

17. The people reacted and used everything at hand to drive back the federal forces.

18. Soldiers from Toniná, Patiwitz, and San Quintín participated in the confrontation.

19. People of Mexico and the world, we want to tell you that it won't be long before another confrontation occurs, provoked by Calderón and Juan Sabines and Carlos Leonel Solórzano, the municipal president of Ocosingo, who'll call out their dogs from all the forces of repression. We are not drug dealers. As you know, we are brothers and sisters of Mexico and the world. It's clear that they're coming for us Zapatistas. All three levels of the bad government are coming after us, and we're ready to resist them if that's what's necessary, just as our slogan says: We'll live for our homeland or die for freedom.

20. People of Mexico and the world, you know that our struggle is a peaceful, political one. As it says in the Sixth Declaration of the Lacandon Jungle, it's a peaceful, political struggle known as the Other Campaign. Just look where the violent provocation is coming from.

21. Comrades of the Other Campaign in Mexico and other countries, we ask you to be on the alert because the soldiers said they'll be back in two weeks. We don't want war. We want peace with justice and dignity. But we have no other choice than to defend ourselves, resist them, and eject them when they come looking for a confrontation with us in the towns of the Zapatista support bases.

22. All we can tell you is to look and see where the provocation is coming from. We're now informing you of what's going on, hopefully in time.

That's all we have to say.

RESPECTFULLY YOURS,

La Junta de Buen Gobierno
Elena Gordillo Clara Claribel Pérez López
Freddy Rodríguez López Rolando Ruiz Hernández

Ohio Police Attack Long Walkers

By Brenda Norrell

COLUMBUS, Ohio – Unprovoked Columbus, Ohio police attacked Long Walkers, by first pointing a taser at the head of Michael Lane and then forcing Luv the Mezenger to the ground and handcuffing him.

The Longest Walk Northern Route was walking this prayer through Columbus on Monday, June 2, when police squad cars and arrest wagons arrived. Without discussion of the purpose of the prayer walk, or verifying that the Ohio Department of Transportation had been notified of the prayer walk, police attacked the walkers.

Michael Lane, who arrived on the walk with his wife, Sharon Heta, Maori, and their children from New Zealand, was targeted by police with a taser.

As dozens of police came at the walkers, a police officer held a taser three feet away from Lane’s head.

Luv the Mezenger from Los Angeles went to the aid of Lane. At that point, police officers threw Luv on the ground and handcuffed him. Luv has been on the walk since it left California in February, walking on snowshoes over a stretch of the Sierra Nevada Mountains.

Lane, who has a law degree from the Arizona State University, said the worst part of being targeted by a police officer with a taser was that it terrified his daughters who only knew that a gun was being pointed at their father’s head.

Across the continent, police-induced deaths from tasers have increased.
Luv suffered minor injuries from the police attack. Police made no arrests.

Govinda Dalton, broadcasting on the live Longest Walk Talk radio on Earthcycles web radio, said, “They came to arrest the walkers with paddy wagons without even having a discussion as to what the walk is about, or the fact that the Ohio Department of Transportation has already been contacted.”

The harassment by Ohio police continued, Tuesday, June 3, when police ordered Longest Walk drummers off an area at the Ohio State Capitol. However, the Long Walkers continued with their press conference and aired statements on their loud speaker at the capitol.

It has been almost four months since the prayer walk began on Alcatraz, on Feb. 11. Up until June 2, there had been no attacks on the walkers. In fact, the majority of the governors in the states that the northern route has walked through have issued proclamations of support for the Longest Walk 2.

The Longest Walk 2 for Mother Earth and protection of sacred places is being walked thirty years after the original 1978 Longest Walk, a prayer walk for Indian rights and the recognition of the inherent sovereignty of Indian people and Indian Nations.

Earthcycles’ Longest Walk Talk Radio has archived 400 interviews with walkers and people along the route since the walk left Alcatraz, on issues all across America.

The radio topics, voiced by people across America, have included the rise of the police state in the United States, the targeting of American Indians by city, state and federal police, the rise of xenophobia and the television-fueled, fear-mongering by the Bush administration. As a result of the fear-mongering, the Bush administration has found it easy to void federal laws, including waivers of more than 30 federal laws to build the US/Mexico border wall and seize private lands by way of eminent domain for the border wall. Across America, people are alarmed that the rights guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution, including free speech, have been violated.

On the Yankton Indian Nation, about 50 South Dakota police units recently swarmed a group of Yankton peacefully standing in defense of their sovereign land from a corporate hog farm under construction near the Head Start. About 40 Dakota from Yankton were arrested in two waves of arrests. The arrests and construction are now being challenged in court, but the construction of the disease-producing hog farm has accelerated.

The radio topics include global climate change, nuclear testing and gold mining on Western Shoshone lands and violations of treaty rights. Another issue is the loss of Paiute traditional hunting and gathering rights. Scientists are battling Paiutes for 10,000 year old Spirit Cave Man. Paiutes have gone to federal court in an effort to rebury the remains with respect. In Kansas, the Kickapoo are a nation without water and having to haul all their water.

Other interviews focus on the proliferation of censored news concerning Navajo coal mining and relocation, Nazi-type forces at the US/Mexico border and the destruction of Tohono O’odham ancestors’ remains for the border wall. The news has also been censored on ceremonial and religious rights denied to Native inmates in U.S. prisons.

Those interviewed include Mohawks at the northern border, Navajo from Big Mountain, Arizona, Apache and Tohono O’odham from the southern border and Maori from New Zealand. Indigenous Peoples also discuss the continual oppression of Indigenous Peoples, particularly from the four countries who refused to vote for adoption of the U.N. Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

The United States, Canada, New Zealand and Australia did not vote for the Declaration, which was adopted by the U.N. in 2007 and recognizes Indigenous Peoples’ rights to their traditional territories. Following the U.N. vote, New Zealand police raided and arrested Maori in the sovereignty movement there and new mining and disease-producing energy developments proliferated in Indigenous territories around the globe.

The newest threat to Indigenous Peoples survival is carbon credits, a fictional concept which allows polluters to continue polluting. The carbon market is a scheme creating millionaires which has increased the attacks and displacement of Indigenous Peoples. The World Bank and corporations are seizing Indigenous’ lands for new projects, particularly in South America. Indigenous Peoples were assassinated in Colombia as land was cleared for a wind project.

On the Longest Walk Talk Radio, there are also interviews on the economic collapse and war profiteering in the United States, the proliferation of power plants to enrich Bush’s corporate donors, profiteering by private security contractors such as Blackwater and the rapid expansion and construction of private prisons to imprison migrants for profit. At the Hutto migrant prison in Taylor, Texas, women, children and babies are imprisoned. Women have been sexually assaulted and children are deprived and abused. The United States denied entry to the prison by a United Nations Rapporteur documenting abuses of migrants.

Another reality voiced on the radio talk show is the cost of the bogus war in Iraq. American Indians and people of color, along with poor whites, are considered expendables to die in Iraq.

Meanwhile, on the Longest Walk northern route, on Wednesday, June 4, the walkers were all safe and well, but with a great deal of wet camping gear, after another night of lightning and rain in an eastern Ohio campground. During the past four months, walkers have camped in below freezing temperatures in the west and then camped in weeks of rain and winds from tornados in the Midwest.

Walkers on the northern route converge with walkers on the southern route, now in Alabama, to march into Washington on July 11. A four day Cultural Survival Summit is planned for July 8 – 11 and rallies and events for July 12 – 13.

Listen to the latest interviews about the prayer walkers attacked by Ohio police:
www.earthcycles.net

Message from Leonard Peltier and the LPDOC

May 18, 2008

Greetings. We hope this message finds you well and in good spirits.

As many of you already know, due to recent circumstances beyond his control, Leonard Peltier has had no choice but to dissolve the Leonard Peltier Defense Committee. However, you should also know that Leonard's family has no intention of letting this occurrence prevent us from continuing our efforts on Leonard's behalf. Rather
than being defeated, this occurrence has strengthened our – and his -- resolve.

Today, we are very happy to officially announce that a new support organization has been established for Leonard -- the Leonard Peltier Defense Offense Committee (LPDOC), incorporated in the State of North Dakota. Details about the LPDOC will be released in the days and weeks ahead. We encourage you to often visit our Web site at
www.whoisleonardpeltier.info for all the latest information.

Supporters beware! The LPDOC is the only organization authorized to raise funds, by any means, for Leonard's legal defense and freedom campaign. Former Peltier resources -- web site addresses such as freepeltier.org, leonardpeltier.org, leonardpeltier.net, etc.,
selected MySpace pages, and the Freedom Walk at www.freedomwalk.com are no longer affiliated with Leonard Peltier or his network of family, friends and other supporters; and in no way do these Internet resources represent Leonard's views or contribute to Leonard's freedom campaign -- financially or otherwise. We request that you
immediately link instead to http://www.whoisleonardpeltier.info, as well as delete the Freedom Walk widget from your Web sites, blogs, and MySpace and Facebook pages.

All unpleasantness aside, as we make this new beginning, we hope you will recommit to the struggle and continue to walk with Leonard towards freedom. Join with us to bring Leonard home.

Please make note of and circulate the LPDOC's contact information:

Leonard Peltier Defense Offense Committee (LPDOC)
PO Box 7488, Fargo, ND 58106
Phone: 701/235-2206
E-mail: contact@whoisleonardpeltier.info
Web: http://www.whoisleonardpeltier.info

If you or others wish to receive e-mail updates from the LPDOC,
please visit our home page at http://www.whoisleonardpeltier.info
and enter your e-mail address in the "Receive Updates" text box
provided on the right sidebar. Please be patient as the program
adds your contact information to our listserv.

Oh, and we have another reason to celebrate today. For the fifth
consecutive year, Leonard has been nominated for the Nobel Peace
Prize! You can read the press release at http://www.whoisleonardpeltier.info/mediarelease20080518.htm.

At the Nobel Prize committee's request, we ask that you NOT write
letters in support of the nomination. The recipient of the 2008
Nobel Peace Prize will be announced later this year.

Sincerely,

Betty Ann Peltier-Solano, Coordinator



A MESSAGE FROM LEONARD PELTIER

Greetings Sisters, Brothers, Friends, and Supporters.

I have sad news. A long time friend and Elder from the Lakota Oglala Nation, Ellen Moves Camp, has passed on. Those of us who really knew her will dearly miss her as she was a big inspiration to all of us. She loved and fought for her People and the Nation without ever once that I know of complaining or asking for something for her personal use. She had good reason to fight against Dick Wilson and the corrupt government regime. She lost family members at the Wounded Knee massacre. Then in Wounded Knee in 1973, they killed her nephew Buddy Lamont. So, for now, I will say this to you,
Auntie Ellen... Soon I too will pass on. Remember me when I arrive wherever you're going, as I want to go there, too. Take care.

Well, the Leonard Peltier Defense Offense Committee (LPDOC) has officially opened. We have an office and family members and friends have volunteered to go in and get files set up and the office arranged for all the important work that needs to be done. Wow, I feel so good about this. In particular, I feel so good because so many Indians have come to my aid. Unbelievable. Thank you. For the past two or three years, people have been telling me that Indians don't support me anymore. Thank you, brothers and sisters, for proving those people wrong.

And the non-Indian supporters... Without the help you've been giving, we would not be this far along. Thank you for your loyalty. I love you all, too.

Politically we are as strong as ever. We'll become stronger, too.

How about this election? People want a change. That is all there is to it. Some politically influential friends tell me that drastic change is coming that will surprise even me. But we can't let our guard down. We have to keep pushing for change... for our tribal
sovereignty and cultural survival... for Mother Earth.

I can't tell you how much it means to me that so many young people are standing up, speaking up for the People. Also for the country, the whole world. The Struggle will continue and, to older people like me, that means so much. Thank you for your sacrifice.

So, we have a new office, address, and phone number. We have a new Web site, too. Let's rebuild... 10 times stronger than we were in 2000. Instead of a million hits to our Web site a day, let's make it 10 million. (smile)

To the support groups out there... I know you're still there. Let's do this! I know we can.

I'm asking everyone to give their full support to my sister Betty Ann and my niece Kari Ann. I am certain they're in the office for no other reason than to win my freedom.

I'll sign up for a parole hearing soon. Keep in mind that according to the laws in 1976, when I was indicted, I am eligible for mandatory release after 30 years. Under those laws, consecutive sentences aggregate together. So, kolas, this means I have served my time!!! So soon, then... if we work together as a team and don't let anyone
distract us.

Take care.

In the Spirit of Crazy Horse... Doksha (Later),

Leonard Peltier

Congressional, religious, cultural and academic leaders urge Supreme Court to hear challenge to border wall

April 18, 2008

Contact(s) Joe Vickless, (202) 772-0237
Cat Lazaroff, (202) 772-3270

WASHINGTON – Fourteen members of the House of Representatives, including seven committee chairs, have filed a friend-of-the-court brief with the U.S. Supreme Court supporting Defenders of Wildlife and The Sierra Club’s arguments that the waiver authority granted to the Bush administration under the REAL ID Act is unconstitutional, and that this case should be heard by the Supreme Court.

“The reality of the scope of power that the last Congress handed to the Bush administration under the REAL ID Act is starting to sink in with a lot of people, especially since the administration announced those unprecedented sweeping waivers on April 1,” said Rodger Schlickeisen, president of Defenders of Wildlife. “There was a huge ‘oops’ moment among some members of Congress. Offering their support for our constitutional challenge is one way that they can start reestablishing balance among the branches of government.”

Members of the House included on the friend-of-the-court brief are: Homeland Security Committee Chairman Bennie G. Thompson (D-Miss.), Energy & Commerce Committee Chairman John D. Dingell (D-Mich.), Transportation & Infrastructure Committee Chairman James L. Oberstar (D-Minn.), Education and Labor Committee Chairman George Miller (D-Calif.), Rules Committee Chairwoman Louise Slaughter (D-N.Y.), Veteran Affairs Chairman Bob Filner (D-Calif.), Intelligence Committee Chairman Silvestre Reyes (D-Texas), Congressman Solomon Ortiz (D-Texas), Congressman Sam Farr (D-Calif.), Congresswoman Sheila Jackson-Lee (D-Texas), Congresswoman Susan A. Davis (D-Calif.), Congresswoman Hilda Solis (D-Calif.), Congressman Raul M. Grijalva (D-Ariz.), and Congresswoman Yvette D. Clarke (D-N.Y.).

Two other amicus briefs were filed yesterday: One by a diverse coalition including the Tohono O’odham Nation, religious leaders, and historic preservation and conservation organizations, and a second by a group of 28 distinguished law professors and constitutional scholars.

To find the complete lists of groups and individuals included on those briefs, visit www.defenders.org/border.

“Groups that have been looking at this issue from many different perspectives are now coming together to focus on this unconstitutional waiver authority, which makes a travesty of basic constitutional principles,” added Schlickeisen. “People around the nation are joining together and acting to put a stop to the Bush administration’s relentless maneuvering to build a senseless wall.”

Learn more about what Defenders is doing to protect wildlife along the border.

Protect Sacred Sites: Stop Toxic Dumping on O'odham Lands

Dakota, Lakota and Nakota Blokcade Hog Farm: Many Arrested

There is a protest going on right now as we speak in Marty, South Dakota home of the Ihanktowan aka Yankton Sioux. There have been multiple arrests, including minors, as protesters seek to block front loader bulldozers from breaking ground on a new pig farm that will be occupied by thousands of pigs and their waste near a Head Start Program filled with Native children.

A man was struck by the metal scoop of the front loader (which is used to excavate tons of dirt) and was medically evacuated by ambulance. State Troopers have violated their jurisdiction by arresting protesters on a BIA controlled road which is considered Federal land and therefore off limits to State Agencies and Law Enforcement.

It was said that the arrests of the minors and others were conducted illegally by the State Police on the Federal Road and they were escorted to State Land nearby to receive their citations and were released. South Dakota Highway Patrol has informed the Officers that they are in fact in violation of their jurisdiction as this is being written and being told to stand down and not to detain anymore protesters. Dakota, Lakota and Nakota and other Native Activists including a AIM chapter are mobilizing to this spot to support and join their Indigenous Families to protect their Native children and community from this gross violation of Tribal Sovereignty and Basic Human Rights.

For more information please contact:

Kip Collins through his e-mail: keyawitko2676@yahoo.com

California: D-Q University Raided

California: D-Q University Raided

On March 31st at 9:45 am, the Yolo County Sheriff's Department raided D-Q University, California's only Tribal college. 18 elders, students and community supporters were arrested after police stormed onto campus with guns drawn. In a similar incident on February 20th, Sheriff's deputies came onto the sovereign campus and arrested three Native students.

On March 31st at 9:45 am, the Yolo County Sheriff's Department raided D-Q University, California's only Tribal college. 18 elders, students and community supporters were arrested after police stormed onto campus with guns drawn. In a similar incident on February 20th, Sheriff's deputies came onto the sovereign campus and arrested three Native students. Their court date will be on Wednesday, April 2nd at 7:30 am at the Woodland Courthouse. Supporters are asked to contact the CA Office of the Attorney General Jerry Brown in defense of the students and to denounce the abuse of power by the Board of Trustees and police.

D-Q U was born of struggle in the 70's when people occupied an abandoned Army facility and retained it for the purpose of providing traditional and formal education for Indigenous people. The Board of Trustees who legally preside over D-Q U have become corrupt, betraying the true purpose of the university and abusing their power. In 2005, D-Q U lost its accreditation and the board demanded the school be shut down. Students who condemn the board's negligence have been holding classes themselves and have taken up residence on campus. They are dedicated to protecting D-Q U for the benefit of future generations and the education of all Native people.

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