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For Immediate Release
April, 17 2019, 12:00am EDT
Contact:
Diana Duarte, MADRE, media@madre.org, (917) 740-0684
Kandi White, Indigenous Environmental Network, Kandi@ienearth.org, (701) 214-1389
Global Indigenous Women's Delegation Visits North Dakota to Share Strategies to Oppose Mega Oil and Gas Projects, Impact on Women and Girls
Fort Berthold, ND
A delegation of Indigenous women climate defenders from Colombia, Guatemala, Israel, Kenya, Nepal and Nicaragua arrived today in North Dakota to visit the Fort Berthold Reservation where they will meet with local leaders who are confronting the devastating impact of oil and gas mega-projects on their communities, particularly on Indigenous women and girls.
The delegation, organized by MADRE and the Indigenous Environmental Network, is an opportunity for Indigenous women leaders challenging extractive industries and resource exploitation in their own communities around the world to learn from local leaders working on the Fort Berthold Reservation--home to the Three Affiliated Tribes of the Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara nations. Here, they will share stories and discuss strategies for opposing the devastation and displacement wrought by extractive industries worldwide.
"Indigenous Peoples around the world facing off against mining and other harmful mega-projects in their own communities are deeply inspired whenever Indigenous Peoples rise up against these environmental threats," said Lucy Mulenkei, one of the delegates and the Executive Director of the Indigenous Information Network in Kenya. "We know for-profit extractive industries continue to threaten the land and well-being of people in this region--and in our own--with a disproportionate impact on Indigenous Peoples, particularly women and girls."
"Opportunities like this are necessary in the work of Indigenous Women to foster the building of lasting relationships as we help each other face urgent issues in our communities and come together to tackle them at the local to the international level," added Kandi White, Indigenous Environmental Network Native Energy & Climate Campaign Director.
"Indigenous women the world over have been identifying solutions to address the harm that has been wrought by extractive industries and resist the continued devastation of Indigenous livelihoods and lands," says Yifat Susskind, MADRE Executive Director. "We are grateful to be able to bring together a delegation to center and connect the voices and urgently-needed strategies of Indigenous women leaders powering environmental justice movements in the US and around the world. We know their solutions can and must inform relevant policy, including the Green New Deal that the US Congress is currently debating."
The delegation is meeting with Fort Berthold Protectors of Water & Earth Rights (Fort Berthold P.O.W.E.R.), local youth group members of Descendants Alliance, and other local Indigenous leaders and activists.
After visiting North Dakota, the delegation will travel to the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues taking place in New York from April 22-May 3, 2019 where they will share concrete policy recommendations and a joint statement on how to best confront extractive industries and their harmful effects on Indigenous communities around the world.
All international delegates (see below), as well as MADRE and IEN representatives, are available for interviews. Photos available upon request. Delegates include:
Lucy Mulenkei (Kenya). Lucy is the Executive Director of the Indigenous Information Network (IIN) in Kenya. A Maasai from Kenya, she has been working both as a chairperson and coordinator of the African Indigenous Women Organization in the East African Region for the past several years.
Yasso Kanti Bhattachan (Nepal). Yasso belongs to the Thakali Indigenous community. She is a founding member and advisor of the National Indigenous Women's Federation (NIWF), Nepal, and one of the leading Indigenous women activists and scholars of Nepal.
Rose Cunningham (Nicaragua). Rose, a Miskito leader and expert in popular education, international labor law, and the rights of migrants, refugees, and displaced persons, is the founder of the organization, Wangki Tangni. She served as an officer of the Organization of American States for 10 years and has been instrumental in raising awareness about violence against Indigenous Women at the UN.
Ana Ceto Chavez (Guatemala). Ana, an Indigenous leader from the Ixil region of El Quiche, is the coordinator of MUIXIL, an organization that promotes and defends the human rights of Indigenous women and their communities. The first Indigenous woman in her community to receive a law degree, she is a strong advocate of restitution and recognition from the Guatemalan government for the genocide of Indigenous Peoples.
Remedios Uriana (Colombia). Remedios is an Indigenous leader who has worked extensively on behalf of the rights of children and Indigenous women of the Wayuu People. She is currently part of the Gender Group of the Colombian Commission for the Clarification of Truth, Coexistence and Non-Repetition.
Sana Ibn Bari (Israel). Sana is a Bedouin activist and advocate for women's rights. An attorney by training, she is responsible for overseeing the rights of the Naqab-Negev Arab Bedouin in the Arab Minority Rights Unit at the Association for Civil Rights in Israel. Sana has participated in several delegations to the UN, representing the Naqab Arab Bedouin community.
MADRE is an international women's human rights organization that partners with community-based women's groups to advance women's human rights, challenge injustice and create social change in contexts of war, conflict, disaster and their aftermath. MADRE advocates for a world in which all people enjoy individual and collective human rights; natural resources are shared equitably and sustainably; women participate effectively in all aspects of society; and all people have a meaningful say in policies that affect their lives. For more information about MADRE, visit www.madre.org.
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Special Counsel Jack Smith's announcement on Monday that he was dropping his case regarding President-elect Donald Trump's alleged handling of classified documents and election subversion was not unexpected, as U.S. Justice Department policy dictates that a sitting president can't be prosecuted while in office.
But government watchdogs said the developing was no less "troubling," and vowed that Trump must ultimately face accountability.
"At least for now, Trump may escape justice for his role in trying to overturn the 2020 election, fomenting the January 6 insurrection, and improperly handling classified documents," said Lisa Gilbert, co-president of Public Citizen. "But his ability to escape prosecution does not retroactively validate his illegal, unconstitutional and democracy-destroying activities. They were heinous and unconscionable acts that literally cost lives and threatened the peaceful transfer of power."
"If not the courts, history will judge them appropriately," said Gilbert.
In his motion to dismiss the case, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, Smith wrote that "the government's position on the merits of the defendant's prosecution has not changed. But the circumstances have."
" Donald Trump aims not just to excuse but to normalize all this behavior. Permitting him to succeed would enable a slide into authoritarianism. The American people must not let that happen."
Former Labor Secretary Robert Reich wrote in his Substack newsletter that regardless of DOJ policy, the filing was "a grave mistake," because Smith did not specify that the prosecution of Trump would be restarted after the president-elect leaves office.
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While Smith left the door open to once again bring charges against Trump in 2029, he "should have put the responsibility for avoiding the rule of law squarely on Trump," wrote Reich.
Legal analyst Barb McQuade added that Smith's tactic leaves the possibility that "there may be no appetite" to refile charges regarding eight-year-old allegations after Trump leaves office.
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An estimated 130,000 children under the age of 10 have been trapped in areas of northern Gaza almost entirely cut off from aid assistance, food and medical supplies for 50 days, a major humanitarian group said Monday.
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Earlier this month, Joyce Msuya, Acting Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator for the United Nations, warned that the Israeli offensive in the area that began in early October was "an intensified, extreme, and accelerated version of the horrors of the past year." Local health officials in Gaza say that the death toll for the entire enclave has surpassed 44,000 since October 7 of 2023.
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Save the Children's warning comes not long after the Famine Review Committee released an alert stating that "there is a strong likelihood that famine is imminent in areas within the northern Gaza Strip."
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Harris' death inspired tributes from an array of Democratic politicians and progressives, who remembered the former senator's outspoken support for working people and his championing of Indigenous rights.
Harris was voted into the Senate to replace Sen. Robert Kerr (D-Okla.) in 1964 after Kerr died of a heart attack. He began as a close ally of President Lyndon Johnson, supporting U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War and Johnson's Great Society programs aimed at reducing poverty.
But he "underwent a dramatic passage from moderate-conservative to liberal ideas," as The New York Times reported, embracing a "new populism" that was centered on promoting racial equality and a redistribution of economic and political power and fighting against the exploitation of workers. He also gradually changed his stance on Vietnam, calling for troop reductions and eventually a full withdrawal of the U.S. military in the region.
In 1967 he was a member of the Kerner Commission on Civil Disorders, convened to determine the root cause of riots in Black communities across the country. He concluded that "entrenched racism" was to blame.
He was also credited with sponsoring a bill that pushed President Richard Nixon to return Blue Lake, a site that was sacred to the people of the Taos Pueblo tribe, to them.
"In Senator Harris, Oklahoma sent a public servant to Washington, D.C. who gave voice to those in need, lifted up those the economy left behind, was a champion of civil rights, and was a friend to Indian Country," said Chief Chuck Hoskin, Jr. of the Cherokee Nation.
"His story is one that too few people know—the story of an Oklahoman who championed working families and fought for justice and equity at every turn."
Running for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1976, Harris called for higher taxes on the richest Americans and lower taxes for the rest of the country, stricter regulations on large corporations, a "moral" foreign policy, abortion rights, and "community control" of police forces.
Columnist John Nichols of The Nation said Harris adopted the slogan "No More Bullshit" during his presidential campaign.
Harris' presidential bid, said journalist Ryan Grim of Drop Site News, "was a road-not-taken that would have led to a much better world than we have now."
Harris told the Times in 1975 that the issue he was most concerned with was "privilege."
"The fundamental problem is that too few people have all the money and power, and everybody else has too little of either," he said. "The widespread diffusion of economic and political power ought to be the express goal—the stated goal—of government."
Harris' campaign garnered enthusiastic support from many voters, with the former senator taking aim at "the superrich, giant corporations" and leading efforts to gain the confidence of blue-collar workers, farmers, poor Black and white voters, and unemployed people.
"Those in the coalition don't have to love one another," Harris said. "All they have to do is recognize that they are commonly exploited, and that if they get themselves together they are a popular majority and can take back the government."
After his presidential run, Harris became a political science professor at the University of New Mexico at Albuquerque and left politics to raise chickens on a farm in Corrales, New Mexico.
In conversations with Axios reporter Russell Contreras in his later years, Harris expressed frustration with the Democratic Party, saying leaders didn't discuss poverty as much as they should.
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"We are grateful to see national media highlighting the life and legacy of former Senator Fred Harris," said the Oklahoma Democratic Party. "His story is one that too few people know—the story of an Oklahoman who championed working families and fought for justice and equity at every turn."
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