Unfinished Business

The vital thread of social continuity from the Civil Rights era to the present is a lifeline linking researchers, analysts and organizers worldwide. That thread, embodied by Human Rights leaders, includes scholars and colleagues of the Center for World Indigenous Studies (CWIS) whom were directly involved in struggles from North America to South Africa. As First Nations around the globe implement laws consistent with the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, this Human Rights network is called upon to take care of this unfinished business.

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Double Standards

When it comes to the home countries of some Nobel Peace Prize Laureates, i.e. Elie Wiesel, Aung San Suu Kyi and Barack Obama, there is a giant blind spot toward their own human rights violations. Whether based on religious, ethnic or political bigotry, this conscious disavowal betrays their stature.

Givers and Takers

My piece de resistance — Netwar at Cherry Point — turns one on April 1st.

This case study about the dark side of white power on the Salish Sea focuses on fossil fuel export versus indigenous peoples, or perhaps better stated — Wall Street versus human rights.

For some, the beloved San Juan Islands beckon as paradise in a world of total chaos. For Warren Buffett, BP and other major energy investors, they are collateral damage in the pursuit of oil portfolio profits.

Taking the Offensive

In his op-ed End the Struggle, Dr. Rudolph C. Ryser says indigenous nations have one final chance to go on the offensive against state kleptocracy, or “the struggle” is over.

Apartheid Approval

The U.S. Senate vote to suppress campus criticism of Israel passed unanimously on December 1. Responding to pro-Zionist organizations like AIPAC and ADL, the Senate attack on free speech seeks to use the Department of Education and Department of Justice to punish proponents of equal civil rights for Palestinians in Israel, and those advocating for a human rights boycott against the Israeli Apartheid State.

Jurisdictional Dispute

The Standing Rock Sioux tribe cleaned up at the UN in Geneva, gaining the support of the High Commissioner for Human Rights and the Special Rapporteur on the right to peaceful assembly under international law. Meanwhile, state police and national guard continue to use “rubber bullets, teargas, mace, compression grenades and bean-bag rounds.”

Inherently Human

In 1975, the Tse-shaht tribe (part of the Nuu-chah-nulth first nation and the Wakashan language group on Vancouver Island) hosted the inaugural meeting of the World Council of Indigenous Peoples. That conference led to the establishment of the Center for World Indigenous Studies in Olympia, Washington in 1979, and to the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in 2007. As the ‘catalyst for the contemporary global indigenous rights movement’, the 1975 gathering–led by Chief George Manuel (founder of the Center for World Indigenous Studies)–was a historic event in the reemergence of indigenous governance, and in the development of the international regime first established by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted by the UN in 1948.