Caribs Celebrate Amerindian Heritage Week in Trinidad

Ameridian Heritage Week Ceremony, Arima, Trinidad

Trinidad and Tobago (UCTP Taino News) – October 14 thru 19 2007 is designated Amerindian Heritage Week in the “Twin Republic” of Trinidad and Tobago. Celebrations, ceremonies, and educational activities are being led and organized by the Santa Rosa Karina (Carib) Community with the support of the government of Trinidad.

Some highlights of the week long celebration include ceremonial processions, ceremonies, crafts exhibitions, visits to sacred and historic sites, meetings with high-level government officials, and a meeting of the Caribbean Organization of Indigenous Peoples (C.O.I.P.).

In solidarity with the Santa Rosa Carib Community, indigenous delegations representing Guyana, Surinam, Belize, Venezuela, Dominica, Puerto Rico and from as far as Canada are participating in the celebration.

Under the leadership of Chief Ricardo Bharath-Hernandez, the Santa Rosa Community continues to raise the prominence of Trinidad’s indigenous descendants. At last year’s celebration the government announced the formation of a cabinet committee to review and issue recommendations regarding the island’s Indigenous Peoples. The committee, which includes government and Santa Rosa Community representatives has recently submitted its first report.

During a speech given in Arima this week, Chief Bharath-Hernandez stated that while the community appreciates the government’s support “much more needs to be done”. The Chief then referred to their Community’s outstanding land-base issue and their desire for an official holiday to recognize the contribution of the Twin-Island Republic’s Indigenous Peoples.

Arawak Master Woodcarver Names Son After Bolivian President

Pakuri Territory, Guyana (UCTP Taino News) – Internationally renowned master woodsculptor, Foster Simon of Pakuri Lokono Arawak Territory (St. Cuthberts Mission) celebrated the September birth of his newborn son by naming the child “Evo” Simon after President Evo Morales Ayma of Bolivia.

President Morales is hailed as the hemisphere’s first “full-blooded” indigenous Head of State in over 450 years of the European and neo-colonial occupation of the Americas. Many Indigenous Peoples throughout the Caribbean and the Americas consider President Evo Morales to be “their President”; he is a well-respected and revered personage among First Nations of the Hemisphere.

Foster Simon’s wooden sculptures form part of the Presidential collections of Guyana, Venezuela, and Bolivia. One of Simon’s most recent art works was presented to Bolivian Ambassador Reynaldo Cuadros who received the unique piece on behalf of President Morales. The work was gifted to the Ambassador by Simon’s brother-in-law, Damon Corrie (Arawak), who was invited to make the special presentation at the Presidential Palace in La Paz during a session of the Organization of American States held there in April 2007.

Photo: Proud Arawak parents, Margaret and Foster Simon with new

baby "Evo Simon" in Pakuri Territory, Guyana

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See related stories at:

Caribbean and North American Indigenous Peoples present sacred gifts for

President Evo Morales Ayma of Bolivia.
http://uctp.blogspot.com/2007/04/caribbean-and-north-american-indigenous.html

Bolivians mark Columbus Day and Indians' return to power
http://uctp.blogspot.com/2006/10/bolivians-mark-columbus-day-and.html

President of Bolivia Meets with Indigenous Leaders in New York
http://uctp.blogspot.com/2006/09/president-of-bolivia-meets-with.html

An announcement from the Transform Columbus Day Alliance (TDC):

The Rocky Mountain News made a public records request and received all our TCD Defenders' summons and complaints from the police. They have posted them all as PDFs on their website, redacting only social security numbers.

This means people's home addresses and other personal info, including their charges and the terms of their arrests, are now on the web. This is legal, but extremely invasive; the Rocky doesn't do this for all arrests.

This is a special act of nastiness towards us.

Arrests are public information, but this is highly irresponsible journalism, and clearly part of the Rocky's ongoing malevolence towards this alliance, the American Indian Movement and Indian people generally.

Call or email the Rocky Mountain News and demand they remove this information from their websites. It serves no public need and is clearly intended as a form of harassment of our defenders and their families.

Main number 303-954-5000
Main newsroom number 303-954-5201

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Related Article:

Protest lawyer cites international law
Gerash takes case in Columbus Day demonstrations
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/local/article/0,1299,DRMN_15_5719597,00.html

Related Archived Interviews Online:

Challenging Columbus Day: Denver Organizers Discuss Why They Protest the Holiday (Friday, October 6th, 2006)
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/10/06/1350258

Indigenous Activists Blast Columbus Day as "Propping Up of Racist Propaganda" (Monday, October 10th, 2005)
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/10/10/1335225&mode=thread&tid=25

Access, Benefit Sharing, and the Convention on Biological Diversity

Indigenous Latin American delegates reading the
statement of the International Forum on Biological Diversity
in Montreal, Canada. Photo: Earth Negotiations Bulletin

Montreal, Canada (UCTP Taino News) – Delegates from around the world are attending the fifth meeting of the Ad Hoc Open-ended working group on Access and Benefit Sharing of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) in Montréal, Canada. In relation to the CBD, the Working Group - convening from 8 – 12 October 2007 - is negotiating elements of an international regime on access and benefit-sharing. The items being discussed include access to genetic resources; fair and equitable sharing of benefits arising out of their use; measures to support compliance with prior informed consent (PIC) and mutually agreed terms (MAT); an internationally recognized certificate of origin/source/legal provenance of genetic resources; capacity building; and indicators for ABS.

Among the participants to this important session are representatives of Indigenous Peoples who are collectively represented by the International Indigenous Forum on Biodiversity (IIFB) and the Indigenous Women’s Biodiversity Network (IWBN). The effectiveness of indigenous participants is further increased as IIFB and IWBN proposals are backed by statements from indigenous regional caucuses that reflect the diversity of issues.

On the opening day of the session, both the IIFB and IWBN welcomed the recent adoption of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP). The IIFB recalled that the Declaration’s Article 18, which affirms Indigenous Peoples’ right to participate in decision making in matters that affect them and, along with IWBN, stressed that “without recognition of indigenous rights, especially “free prior and informed consent (PIC), there can be no access.”

In an interview with local media, Roberto Mukaro Borrero (Taino), a Caribbean indigenous representative attending the session stressed the importance of the meeting stating “Indigenous Peoples need to be aware of and continue to engage this process as states are attempting to codify ‘sovereign rights’ over genetic resources and derivatives.”

Borreo continued noting that “Indigenous Peoples who have been following this process since its inception remain very concerned that states are misinterpreting their rights over natural resources as state sovereignty does not amount to absolute political or legal freedom. The sovereignty of states is limited by the UN Charter and by international human rights law.”

While some states parties spoke out strongly with regard to the rights of Indigenous Peoples, not all state delegations were as supportive. Canada for example objected to citing the UNDRIP, pointing out that the declaration is not legally binding.

The Working Group continues its negotiations on ABS until Friday, 12 October. This meeting will tie into the session being held next week on the CBD’s Article 8j. This article which focuses on "Traditional Knowledge" specifically mentions Indigenous Peoples and the need for states to respect, preserve, and maintain indigenous knowledge, innovations, and practices.

Negotiations on the international ABS regime will continue at the Working Group’s sixth session to be held from 21-25 January 2008, in Geneva, Switzerland.

Columbus Day protest in Denver leads to arrests

By Keith Coffman

DENVER (Reuters) - About 75 protesters, including American Indian activist Russell Means, were arrested on Saturday after blocking Denver's downtown parade honoring the Italian-born discoverer Christopher Columbus, an event they denounced as "a celebration of genocide."

Police loaded protesters onto buses after they refused orders to disperse. Most will be charged with obstruction of a roadway or disrupting a lawful assembly, Denver Police Lt. Ron Saunier said.

Police delayed the parade's start for more than an hour as they tried to head off confrontations.

American Indian groups and their supporters have disrupted the city's annual Columbus Day parade every year for nearly two decades, leading to clashes with Colorado's Italian-American community over the century-old celebration, the longest-running such commemoration in the United States.

Columbus Day, marked this year on October 8, is an official holiday for most U.S. federal government workers, many public schools, state and local agencies and the U.S. bond market. It recalls the October 12, 1492, landing of Columbus in the Americas on his search for a naval route to India, an event that spawned an era of European interest in the New World.

Means, talking to Reuters before his arrest, said Columbus was the "first trans-Atlantic slave trader" after landing in the Americas in 1492. He said Columbus started centuries of oppression of native peoples.

"By all accounts, Christopher Columbus was personally responsible for thousands of deaths of the original inhabitants of this hemisphere," Means said.

Parade organizer George Vendegnia of the Sons of Italy said his group would honor Columbus' legacy until the U.S. Congress changed the holiday's name. Some cities including Berkeley, California, have already changed the name to "Indigenous People's Day."

"It's a day for us to celebrate our heritage," Vendegnia said.

Parade opponent Glenn Spagnuolo, an Italian-American, said Columbus' legacy should not be celebrated.

"To honor someone who, by his own writings, was a slave trader, is immoral," he said. "I don't see any of my Italian culture in celebrating the occupation and destruction of native cultures."

© Reuters 2007 All rights reserved