UCTP Appoints Second Liaison Officer in Connecticut

UCTP President R. Borrero and
UCTP Liaison Officer Angel Ortiz

West Haven, Connecticut (UCTP Taino News) – On December 31, 2015, Angel Ortiz was appointed a Liaison Officer in the State of Connecticut by the President of the United Confederation of Taino People, Roberto “Múkaro Agüeibaná” Borrero following final approval by the UCTP’s Governing Board. Liaison Officers serve as focal points for the Confederation in their designated areas of responsibility. Angel Ortiz now serves in this distinguished post along with Hector Baracutey Gonzalez. 

Ortiz is a Borikén Taino born in the city of Ponce, Puerto Rico. He is a member of Taino iukaieke Guainia and has resided in Connecticut since 1985. Oritz has a Bachelors Degree in Counseling, and has worked with patients suffering from Mental Health illness. He currently serves in the United States Team Coast Guard / Department of Homeland Security as Seaman, working on Search and Rescue Operations for Sector Long Island Sound; and represents the United States Coast Guard Academy in New London, Connecticut, as Academy Admissions Partner. Oritz currently lives in West Haven with his wife Carmela. 

UCTPTN 01.17.2016

Taino Among honorees at Gerald Ford Presidential Library and Museum

Grand Rapids, Michigan (UCTP Taino News) - Representatives of the United Confederation of Taino People, Monika Mamona Ponton-Arrington and R. Múkaro Borrero, were among the honored recipients of the Golden Rule International Award on August 30, 2013. This prestigious humanitarian honor was presented to these individuals, who for the organizers exemplified the Golden Rule – “treat others the way you want to be treated” - and demonstrated a sincere commitment, working toward a culture of peace, harmony, and constructive dialog among peoples.

The awards were presented by the Interfaith Peace-Building Initiative (IPI), a United Nations accredited non-governmental organization, and the Committee Leaders of the Golden Rule International. The event was held at the Gerald Ford Presidential Library and Museum in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

Ponton-Arrington stated, “It was an honor to be among so many distinguished humanitarians from around the world, and it was truly a humbling experience to be included among this esteemed group.” Ponton-Arrington also accepted the awarded on behalf of Borrero. 

Monika Mamona Ponton-Arrington, Cedric Blackeagle, Audrey Blackeagle, and his mother Mrs. Mary Blackeagle at the Gerald Ford Presidential Library and Museum

Other award recipients included Claudia Sanchez (Michigan), Michael Daniels (Michigan), Cedric Black Eagle (Crow Nation, Montana), John Hulet (Michigan), Karen Spano, Jose Milla French (Honduras),  Jorge Mejia Sequiera (Honduras), Valentin Rey Molina (Michigan), Dr. Pepe Ramnath (Florida), Dr. Brian Walter (Michigan), Dr. Stacey LeMay (North Carolina), Dr. Martin Williams (Nebraska), James Garner (California), Krysten Cathers (California), Jorge Pena (California), and Dr. Kevin Storr (Texas). The award recipients are now designated as Goodwill Ambassadors for Golden Rule.

Ambassador Clyde Rivers, the North American Division Leader for the Golden Rule International said, “The aim of the Golden Rule International is to establish cultures of peace around the world.” Dr. Rivers, who was the event's host and Master of Ceremonies, is also the Ambassador at Large for the Republic of Burundi. 

Additional presentations were made on behalf of Kayiwa International University in Uganda, which awarded Honorary Doctorate Degrees to former Crow Nation Chairman Cedric Black Eagle and Roberto Múkaro Borrero of the United Confederation of Taino People.

The Golden Rule International Award is now established in 120 nations of the world. Golden Rule International continues to seek out top achievers that “live the Golden Rule in their everyday life.” This is a global ethic that the leadership of the Golden Rule International Award, such as Patron, and current President of Ethiopia, Girma Wolde and Ambassador Mussie Hailu have embraced and are promoting globally. Golden Rule International is also affiliated with the Interfaith Peace-Building Initiative (IPI), African Union, the United Nations as well as the United Religions Initiative (URI).

UCTPTN 09.016.2013

UN spotlights film as a window into indigenous lives

United Nations - On the frozen Arctic, a hunter in search of seals watches in horror as one of his tribesmen murders another. Then the killer begs him to forget what he saw and help dispose of the body. Andrew Okpeaha MacLean’s short film, the first ever made in the Inupiaq language, asks what constitutes justice in an isolated community where everyone needs each other just to survive.

The 2008 prize-winning film Sikumi (On The Ice) offers an insight into a culture and a people largely unknown to the rest of the world, and it is also one of four films screened today in New York as the United Nations celebrates the International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples.

Indigenous filmmaking is the theme of this year’s Day and Mr. McLean hopes that films such as his own provide a chance for audiences worldwide to understand a bit more about peoples who find themselves frequently marginalized, dispossessed of their lands and impoverished.

“Online, in one day, half a million people saw the film,” he tells the UN News Centre. “And of those half a million people, maybe 99.9 per cent have never met an Inupiaq person… They didn’t get some deep education into what the culture is, but they got something. They got a taste. They got to hear the language they got to see the environment. They got to see a piece of what life up there is like.”

Sonia Smallacombe, an officer at the Secretariat of the UN’s Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, stresses that indigenous filmmaking offers not only an opportunity for audiences to learn about communities they never previously knew, but also for indigenous peoples to “get their voices out there into the public arena.”

By doing so, she explains, they can help countervail the often overly simplified portrayal of indigenous people in mainstream films that is used to “develop [detrimental] government policies on indigenous people.”

Mr. MacLean agrees. “I think that’s definitely accurate… It’s so amazing that film can do that for people and I think that it is a window that kind of goes both ways.”

The master of ceremonies at today’s celebrations in New York, which were attended by Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, was Roberto Múkaro Borrero, the Chairperson of the NGO (Non-Governmental Organization) Committee on the International Decade of the World’s Indigenous Peoples.

A former president of the United Confederation of the Taino People, who are based in Puerto Rico, he says that indigenous “film is really important because it allows us to transmit a story that few people have heard.”

Indigenous filmmakers say that while not all films about indigenous peoples made by outsiders are shallow, even those that are complex tend lack the type of accuracy that only indigenous people themselves can provide.

“I think it’s possible for outsiders to have a complex viewpoint and be an observer with a kind of integrity…but I don’t think it’s possible for an outsider to write something inside. I think it’s only so far that you can go unless you grew up within,” says Mr. MacLean.

“Historically, I think there are a lot of great films that have been done by people coming from outside of [indigenous] communities that have helped to raise a lot of awareness. But there is just another way of looking at things and to get at that, to get at the heart of community, these stories have to come from the communities themselves,” says Mr. Borrero.

Like the Taino people, the Inupiat also place a strong emphasis on community. Because “the landscape [in northern Alaska] is so harsh, the lifestyle is so harsh, people had to rely on each other to a pretty amazing degree,” says Mr. MacLean. “It may be that a hunter is unsuccessful for a couple weeks, and if his family is only relying on him, they’re basically going to starve. But the fact is that they can survive that because his neighbour went out and got himself a seal, so they don’t go hungry.”

However, Mr. MacLean worries that the Inupiat’s strong communal ties are being threatened by an “assault from mainstream culture.”

“We have Western culture – this juggernaut that’s just piped into our homes over TV and the Internet, this onslaught that fills our brain and our lives. I think it’s important that it become a two-way thing. I think instead of us just absorbing the culture of the mainstream, it’s important that we start to project our own culture out as well,” Mr. MacLean says.

It’s precisely that dynamic, the tendency of a dominant “mainstream” culture to absorb indigenous culture, that makes the right to self-determination so important, says Mr. Borrero. “When other people are allowed to determine your identity, to determine your history, you lose your rights. You lose that part of your selves that has been around even before some of these governments were formed," he says.

Article 3 of the UN Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples states that “indigenous peoples have the right to self-determination. By virtue of that right they freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development.”

The UN is intrinsic to protecting the rights of indigenous peoples, says Mr. Borrero.

“I think UN plays a critical role because it's an opportunity for indigenous people, like the Taino, to bring their story to the international forum. Oftentimes, local and state governments are unresponsive, and communities have no choice but to go outside those realms to try to seek a redress and seek assistance for problems.”

Source: UN News Centre