And now:Ish <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
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From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Mon, 10 May 1999 19:56:03 EDT
Subject: Can you post to the web site?-UMC News Release
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
NEWS RELEASE
United Methodist UN Representative Presents Testimony on
Religious Intolerance and Native People
April 14, 1999
Contact: Shanta M. Bryant (202) 488-5630
A United Methodist representative to the United Nations and a Native
American representative submitted April 13 oral testimony on indigenous
people and religious intolerance in the United States to delegates of the
55th Session of the UN Commission on Human Rights in Geneva, Switzerland.
"The United Methodist Church prays for a rule of law for all peoples based
on
respect for justice, human rights, religious freedom and tolerance," said
Liberato Bautista, General Board of Church and Society's assistant general
secretary of the United Nations Office.
Bautista gave the testimony with Peggy Francis Scott of the Dineh Nation
(Navajo) in Arizona, following a report from Abelfattah Amor, an UN Special
Rapporteur on Religious Intolerance. Amor, a Tunisian national, presented
the
commission with a report linking human rights violations and religious
intolerance in the United States, China, Pakistan, Iran, Greece, Sudan,
India, Australia and Germany. Several countries and non-governmental (NGO)
delegations, including the World Council of Churches, spoke from the floor.
In early- February 1998, Amor investigated charges of religious and human
rights violations by the US government against the Dineh people in Black
Mesa, located in the northeastern region of Arizona. The special rapporteur
is an independent expert that reports only to the Commission and the UN
General Assembly.
The complaint, filed by several members of traditional Dineh people to
the
UN Human Rights Commission, accused the United States of destroying 4,000
ancient Anasazi ruins and sacred burial sites. Additionally, the complaint
charged that US federal laws have denied them access to water, legalized
the
confiscation of their livestock,
prevented the gathering of firewood to heat their homes and prohibited
any
housing improvements.
Thom White Wolf Fassett, general secretary of the General Board of Church
and
Society, led an interfaith delegation of non-governmental organizations,
which included Bautista, to meet with Amor during the Feb. visit to Black
Mesa, the Dineh tribal land. United Methodist Bishop William Dew (Phoenix
Area) and Thomas Butcher of the Desert Southwest Annual Conference joined
Fassett. The NGO representatives were invited by the traditional Dineh
to
witness the onsite visit of Amor.
"[Amor's] visit in Black Mesa is historic and symbolic in that, at a low
point in the struggle of our people, he lifted our hopes, awakened our
dreams, and lent an understanding ear to our prophecies," said Scott. "But
more remains to be said about the Dineh situation."
US Public laws 93-531 and 104-391, also known as 'relocation laws,' have
forced the traditional Dineh off their ancestral lands, relocating more
than
12,000 Dineh since 1974. Today, only 3,000 remain in the area.
In the commission report, Amor observed that the US Supreme Court's
jurisprudence points to "no enforceable safeguards for worship at sacred
sites."
Scott noted that the Dineh's ancestral land has also been threatened by
the
coal mining practices of multinational corporations and urged US government
to enforce laws protecting their land, including the Native American Grave
Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) and the Antiquities Act. "The
unsustainable environmental practices of runaway multinational mining
corporations inflict environmental racism upon us," said Scott.
"The US government must recognize that no territorial settlement should
ever
deprive Indigenous Peoples of their right to remain on their traditional
land
or to practice their religion thereupon," Scott asserted. "Our land is
sacred
and we do not believe it should be expropriated from us. The US government
cannot and must not subordinate our survival as a people to economic
interests whose dividends we do not partake from."
Asserting the United Methodist policy supporting the 'needs and aspirations'
of America's native peoples as they struggle for their survival, Bautista
indicated that the denomination supports the mandate of the Special
Rapporteur on Religious Intolerance. He also urged the Human Rights
Commission to extend the mandate of the investigation of religious
intolerance in the United States.
Scott and several Dineh members were part of the general board's delegation
to the UN Commission on Human Rights. The General Board of Church and
Society is registered at the United Nations as an international NGO in
consultative status with the UN Economic and Social Council.
=====================================
What follows are two different interventions-the first includes Leonard
Benally and the second Peggy Francis Scott.
=====================================
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Mon, 10 May 1999 19:55:52 EDT
Subject: Can you post this to the web site?-Item 15 English
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Oral Intervention of the General Board of Church and Society of
The United Methodist Church
Submitted to the 55th Session of the UN Commission on Human Rights
Geneva, Switzerland
April 19, 1999
Item 15: Indigenous Issues
Read by Rev. Nathaniel Orteza, United Methodist Church and Leonard Benally,
Big Mountain Community
Dear Madam Chair,
I am speaking on behalf of the General Board of Church and Society of
The United Methodist Church. At its 1988 General Conference, The
United Methodist Church mandated the Church to "take the necessary
measures...to undo and correct the injustices and the
misunderstandings of the last 500 years...." This call helped our
Church to learn "the shameful stealing of the Native`s land and other
goods and the cruel destruction of their culture, arts, religion, the
environment, and other living things on which their lives depended."
(1996 Book of Resolutions, The United Methodist Church, p. 416).
Unfortunately, this characterization of the colonial enterprise
continues to this day and age in the life of the Dineh.
Mr. Leonard Benally continues my statement and then I will conclude:
Madam Chair, I wish to bring to your attention an urgent crisis facing
the traditional Dineh, the Navajo people living in what is known as
Hopi Partitioned Land (HPL) in the Black Mesa region of Arizona in the
US. On numerous occasions the forced relocation of the Dineh has been
reported to this Commission. We wish to address here today several
new developments demonstrating the US role in conducting gross and
systematic violations of laws enshrined in US, international, and
customary laws dealing with Indigenous peoples.
In 1996, US Congress passed a law requiring our final eviction by
February 1, 2000. Some of our people were offered leases that allowed
us to remain as tenants upon our own ancestral lands with no civil
rights and without a means of survival. Those who refused to sign,
and the thousands of us that the government does not count, face
forced eviction in the next 10 months. Eviction notices came together
with the confiscation of our livestock, the main source of our
livelihood.
Madam Chair, resistance to impoundments is met severely. Rena Babbitt
Lane, who lost livestock in a confiscation on Monday, February 22 of
this year, on previous occasions had her hand broken and beat up by
Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) law enforcement officers when she tried
to stop an impoundment. Many relocation reisters continue to be
beaten and/or arrested. Past confrontations have been about minor
issues such as access to grazing areas. The current campaign is for
the permanent elimination of our herds and the ultimate removal of our
people. For the last four years, the US has been training local
police in weapons and tactics which will be used in the eviction
campaign over the year. This has raised the level of tension and
desperation among our people.
It is time the United States focused attention to its own marginalized
peoples living in conditions not unlike many Third World countries.
For over three decades, the US has forbidden us to make any repairs on
our homes, even to repair broken windows. Some of us have been forced
to take shelter in bunkers dug into the earth. Water sources are
fenced, capped off and dismantled, denying us access to water.
Firewood is confiscated in winter and law enforcement officials harass
and threaten us with eviction and jail sentences. There are many of us
who are targeted for attacks who are over the age of 65, some even 90.
We live in terror, not knowing our fate the next morning.
Madam Chair, children and women, especially the elderly, are
most vulnerable. The education of our children are interrupted. The
situation has not afforded our children a conducive environment both
to learn and to live a culture of peace and experience a regime of
human rights. The Dineh are a matriarchal society, one of the few
remaining in the world. Our survival and existence lie in our Dineh
women and children.
Over the past 25 years, some 14,000 Dineh were forcibly relocated in
what the former director of the Navajo Hopi Indian Relocation
Commission, Leon Berger called, "a tragedy of genocide and injustice
that will be a blot on the conscience of this (US) country for many
generations." The current and sole site identified for our relocation
is the New Lands, an area near Chambers Arizona, too arid to support
our livestock. This land is contaminated by radioactive waste, the
largest spill in US history. The thousands moved into cities, for
which Dineh lacked survival skills, are thrust into a circle of
homelessness, illegal drug use, alcoholism, and suicide.
Madam Chair, we are participating in Madam Erica Irene Dae`s Land
Rights Study. Please note that the federal government is the legal
holder of land titles to the reservations. This arrangement has never
been to our benefit. It relegates us as "tenants at the will of the
government". Even with continuous use and habitation, Western legal
constructs have not conveyed any right for us to remain in our lands
for one more day, if the US federal government so chooses. We must
remain on these lands to pursue our traditional religion and way of
life. The planned evictions is a death sentence and the livestock
confiscations are a starvation tactic.
Madam Chair, I conclude with the urgent plea that you please convey to
US and UN authorities these urgent concerns of the Dineh. On our
part, we will inform the peoples of the world, from all of Creator`s
four directions, about their plight.
In the same vein, we wish to reiterate our support for your
appointment of a Special Rapporteur on Indigenous Peoples. We also
call for the Commission`s continued support of the Land Rights Study.
As we approach the mid-point of the Decade of the World`s Indigenous
Peoples, we urge you to look afresh at the Decade. Midway allows us
to build on successes and improve on weaknesses. The Decade`s
remaining half must augur well for the cause of Indigenous Peoples.
The establishment of a Permanent Forum of Indigenous Peoples and the
adoption of a final Draft Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous
Peoples is long overdue.
Thank you Madam Chair and distinguished delegates for this privileged
address to you.
The General Board of Church and Society (GBCS) is the international
public policy and social advocacy agency of The United Methodist
Church. It is an international NGO in consultative status (roster)
with ECOSOC. This statement is released on the approval of The Rev.
Dr. Thom White Wolf Fassett, General Secretary of GBCS. Only the
General Conference of The United Methodist Church speaks for the
entire denomination
=============================
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Mon, 10 May 1999 22:12:18 EDT
Subject: Post to Web-English version-Intervention-Item 11(e)
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Oral Intervention of the General Board of Church and Society
of The United Methodist Church
Submitted to the 55th Session of the UN Commission on Human
Rights
Geneva Switzerland
April 13, 1999
Read by Liberato C. Bautista and Peggy Francis Scott
Dear Madam Chair:
I am speaking on behalf of the General Board of Church and Society of
The United Methodist Church. Our church has a long standing commitment
to and solidarity with Indigenous Peoples and against religious
intolerance.
It is our church's policy "to support the needs and aspirations of
America's native peoples as they struggle for their survival and the
maintenance of the integrity of their culture in a world intent upon
their assimilation, Westernization, and absorption of their lands and
the termination of their traditional ways of life" (1996 Book of
Resolutions of The United Methodist Church, p.181).
Ms. Peggy Francis Scott continues my statement:
The traditional Dineh living in Black Mesa, a remote region of
northeastern Arizona, in the United States are a spiritual people
whose identity, ways of being, and ways of knowing and doing are
intimately bound to the land. Dineh religiosity is inseparably bound
to the land. Every fabric of Dineh daily life is intrinsically woven
to this land and the earth.
We come before you as a people proud of our tradition and our
religiosity. But we also come with wounded souls and broken spirits.
Our religious identities and constructions are intimately tied to the
land we live on. When our land is wounded, our religion is wounded.
When our spirits are broken, our spirituality is broken.
Madam Chair,
The traditional Dineh welcomes the report of Mr. Abdelfattah Amor
[Special Rapporteur on Religious Intolerance on his visit to the
United States early last year (E/CN.4/1999/58/Add.1)]. Mr. Amor
inscribed in his report some of the hitherto unheard voices, pleas and
dreams of Indigenous Peoples of the world. His visit in Black Mesa is
historic and symbolic in that, at a low point in the struggle of our
people, he lifted our hopes, awakened our dreams, and lent an
understanding ear to our prophecies. But more remains to be said about
the Dineh situation.
Mr. Amor is on target in his observation that the jurisprudence of
the US Supreme Court points to "no enforceable safeguards for worship
at sacred sites" (52-55). In our case, Dineh sacred sites intermingle
with our homes, livestock, and farms. Today, more than 12,000 Dineh
have been relocated from their homes, plucked away from their
livelihood and their sacred ritual and burial sites. Our religion
binds us inseparably to our land which we believe is sacred. Coal
mining violates the integrity of our land and therefore tears apart
every fabric of our religious identity. The Navajo relocation program
instituted by the US government deprives our people of ancestral lands
and their inherent property rights. It also severs our sacred ties to
our land and denies us the venue to practice our religious ceremonies.
The unsustainable environmental practices of runaway multinational
mining corporations inflict environmental racism upon us. Current US
governmental laws such as the Native American Grave Protection and
Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) and the Antiquities Act remain to be
enforced.
Madam Chair,
The US government must recognize that no territorial settlement should
ever deprive Indigenous Peoples of their right to remain on their
traditional land or to practice their religion thereupon. Our land is
sacred and we do not believe it should be expropriated from us. The US
government cannot and must not subordinate our survival as a people to
economic interests whose dividends we do not partake from. The tribal
councils operate on behalf of these economic interests more than in
support of Indigenous Peoples interests.
Our religious ties to our land requires that we remain its
caretakers. This is the instruction given to us by our Creator. We do
not want US governmental laws to deny us our religiosity. We are a
people who wish to be in community with other peoples of the earth.
We wish to manage the bounty of our land for ourselves and our
children's use. We, much like you, wish for a good education and a
religiously tolerant world for our children.
We wish for a life in which we are able to sustain our livelihood and
practice our religiosity, in order to live in peace, dignity,
security, and harmony. How we use our land and grazing areas must be a
decision our people make. The barbed wire fencing of our lands forces
us to live as prisoners and trespassers on our own ancestral land.
Mr. Bautista will conclude this statement:
Madam Chair,
We wish to draw your attention to the reference in the Report about
the Dineh being a "small religious minority in a democracy shaped by
the will of the majority." Why was "religious minority" used in the
same sentence as "democracy"? The Dineh are part of the US democratic
process, that is clear. They could be described as a minority within
that majority. But what is meant by describing the Dineh as a
"religious minority?" We ask, a religious minority of what majority?
Who is the religious majority in the United States? This reference may
serve to further marginalize the Dineh.
The United Methodist Church prays for a rule of law for all
peoples based on respect for justice, human rights, religious freedom
and tolerance. We therefore lend our continued support in
strengthening the mandate of the Special Rapporteur on Religious
Intolerance. We urge the Commission to mandate an extension of the
investigation of religious intolerance in the United States. In
addition, we support the recommendation of the Special Rapporteur to
change his title to Special Rapporteur for Freedom of Religion or
Belief. We further support the call of our colleague indigenous NGOs
for the appointment of a Special Rapporteur on Indigenous Human
Rights.
Thank you Madam Chair and distinguished delegates.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
The General Board of Church and Society of The United Methodist Church
777 United Nations Plaza
New York, New York 10017 USA
Tel: +212.682.3633 Fax: +212.682.5354
Web: www.umc-gbcs.org
The General Board of Church and Society (GBCS) is the international
public policy and social advocacy agency of The United Methodist
Church. It is an international NGO in consultative status (roster)
with ECOSOC. This statement is released on the approval of The Rev.
Dr. Thom White Wolf Fassett, General Secretary of GBCS. Only the
General Conference of The United Methodist Church speaks for the
entire denomination.
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