Help the Shoshone Indian people!! sign this petition!! PLEASE!!

[azndndude]

Dear friend,

Last year, the US government was given a year-end deadline to respond to
the United Nations committee looking into charges of federal harrassment
of the Western Shoshone people. The US missed its deadline! Our friends at
Western Shoshone Defense Project have asked us to send along the
information below. You can help support the Western Shoshone by signing
Oxfam America's Petition (http://ga0.org/campaign/shoshone_petition). The
goal is 10,000 signatures by February 28. Tell your friends!

Miigwech,
Honor the Earth Board & Staff

I. Action
II. Background
III. For more information

I. Action

Sign the Petition: http://ga0.org/campaign/shoshone_petition

II. Background

US Fails to Respond to UN Request; Western Shoshone Petition for Public
Support
Posted: 4 January, 2006

The United States government has missed a year-end deadline to answer
questions posed by a United Nations committee looking into charges of
federal harassment of the Western Shoshone people.

But along with the Western Shoshone traditional government, the Western
Shoshone Defense Project is determined not to let the matter die. The
defense project is one of the local organizations with which Oxfam America
partners.

The Western Shoshone maintain that the US government, through a host of
measures including the seizures of livestock and the imposition of heavy
trespass fines as well as attempts to privatize large tracts of land to
multinational gold companies, is violating the rights of indigenous people
to their ancestral lands-some 60 million acres that stretch across Nevada,
Idaho, Utah, and California.

The Western Shoshone have now launched a nationwide petition calling on
the UN Committee for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, or CERD, to
act immediately to address the human rights violations the Western
Shoshone have long endured.

CERD was the committee that issued the list of 10 questions the government
failed to answer by Dec. 31. The questions are part of a request for
"urgent action," which, if accepted, would allow the committee to open an
investigation into US conduct regarding the land issues and the treatment
of indigenous people.

"CERD is going to get a lot of pressure from the United States to drop
this thing and not take it on as a formal urgent action before the full
committee," said Julie Ann Fishel, the land recognition program director
for the defense project.

The appeal to CERD is the latest step in a long-simmering dispute between
the Western Shoshone and the federal government. At issue is the Western
Shoshone's contention that the land is theirs-recognized as such by the
Treaty of Ruby Valley in 1863-and that federal agencies along with energy
and mining industries are trampling on the rights of indigenous people in
a scramble to access the valuable resources lying beneath the land.

Protection of the land is critical to the Western Shoshone's preservation
of their cultural and spiritual integrity. But among the threats it now
faces is a plan to store nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain and to conduct
open-pit gold mining at Mt. Tenabo, both areas that are spiritually
significant to the Western Shoshone.

"This is a critical land rights issue. The federal government needs to be
held accountable for violating treaties with Indian nations, as the
Inter-American Commission on Human Rights has clearly established," said
Oxfam America's Laura Inouye, referring to an earlier decision by that
body which found the US Bureau of Land Management had violated Western
Shoshone rights to due process, property rights, and equality. "A similar
finding by UNCERD will help the Western Shoshone press their case for
justice."

"This isn't just about Indians. It's about everybody," added Fishel. "It's
about land, clean water, clean air, and protection of significant areas.
This is about not allowing the US government to place corporate interests
before human rights and environmental concerns."

In August, a Western Shoshone delegation traveled to Geneva, Switzerland,
to speak with CERD members and present their case. Another delegation
plans to make a second trip to Geneva in March to present the petition in
person. The deadline for signing the petition is Feb. 28 of this year.

"If we can get to the heart of US treatment of indigenous people, and tell
the truth about that treatment, we're going to get to the core of cleaning
up social justice issues here and wherever US and corporate policies are
affecting peoples' lives," said Fishel.

III. For More Information

For more information: www.wsdp.org or call: 775-468-0230



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[Rick Myers]

1. Done

[Sydnie]

2. Done n/t

[napi21]

3. Hmmm. I guess they didn't donate to Abranoff?

I signed the petition, but I really do question if they just weren't cooperative with Jack! Didn't the others get at least most of what they asked for?

[azndndude]

5. They have no land, no casino's no money

[Rainscents]

4. Done!

[Fovea]

6. Done

n/t

[stillcool]

7. Done....n/t