On June 26, 1975, the FBI raided the Jumping Bull compound at Pine Ridge Reservation in Oglala, S.D. Native American activist Joe Stuntz and two FBI agents died in the firefight. American Indian Movement warrior Leonard Peltier was framed up by the FBI and continues to be imprisoned. 

Below is Peltier’s message to this year’s #LeonardPeltierDay commemoration, held annually since 1999 on the anniversary of Pine Ridge events. Every day needs to be Leonard Peltier Day until he is free. 

Hau Mi Kolas!

Welcome to the 20th Annual Commemoration! First, let me recognize and thank the Commemoration Committee for organizing this annual event for the past 20 years. Thanks to all, I commend you for all your hard work and dedication. I know it is due to the love of our people that you have done such an awesome job. I know that every year it’s a struggle, but you so generously give of yourself and make it look easy. Again, I thank all of you.

In my mind, I can see you all gathered under the shade, visiting with each other, some exhausted from the walk, some catching up on the latest gossip from the past year! Through it all, I hope everyone is doing okay, the adults and children are well and especially the Elders. 

With news of the bad weather, I worry about your safety. I know there are parts of the United States that have been struck by tornadoes and hurricanes, causing horrible damage. Some communities looked like they were hit with bombs. Unfortunately, some people lost everything, including some lives. I spoke with Chase Iron Eyes and Eileen Janis after hearing of all the flooding, but it was too early to tell how much damage was done. At that time, they didn’t know if any lives had been lost but knew all of the main roads were under water, with some areas unreachable where a lot of the people live. They said the phones were out in some areas so they couldn’t call. All we were able to do is pray and ask people who were able to help. 

I felt bad because being locked in a prison cell, all I could do was pray. For those of you who remember, you know I would have been one of the first ones in there, doing whatever I could do, even if it was just ordering the younger guys. You know, all joking aside, I would have been there, helping! We know prayer isn’t enough to rebuild our communities, we have to unite and work as one. That’s the only way.

I haven’t heard anything from my grandchildren. Is their home okay and are they okay? Maybe somebody can let me know.

While I have your attention, I want to send out a huge thank you to the many young people who are supporting this commemoration. As adults and grandparents, we can NEVER allow our history to die. Also, to the Elders who were so much a part of the struggle but have passed on, who were only guilty of being Lakota and were wanting what was promised to our ancestors, we give them a big shout out! They faced down fear and were willing to give their freedom or their lives because of the great love for you and our future generations. The Elders of my generation did the same for us. We will never forget the courage our people had in fighting against the greatest odds in the history of the world for us, the Native people and our freedoms. We remember them ALWAYS in our prayers and in our songs. 

Please remember, even though some have passed many decades or centuries ago, their spirit is with us. When you mention them in your songs and prayers, they will respond to you in your dreams. Crazy Horse, Geronimo, Sitting Bull, Tecumseh, Chief Seattle, Dragging Canoe! Remember them when you are in ceremonies or sitting in the inipi. My Elders told me, don’t ever forget our culture or our people who have passed on. Remember the people who stood up in the 60’s and 70’s and fought the government attempt to terminate us. Our people stood up to regain sovereign rights and to honor our treaties. The courage it took was no different than what was fought in the past. We were able to stop termination but the battle continues.

I’m also hearing some good things. I heard that in 2018, more Native students graduated from high school than any other time in history! Also 2019 was a record-breaking year for Native students enrolled in colleges! We all know, our future battles will be fought with the pen and in the courts, so we need to be prepared! Our Warriors are going to look just a little bit different, wearing their degrees! Our ancestors have not sacrificed in vain! 

But we still have a lot of problems to solve. I’m hearing our communities are being infested with drug users and abusers. I can’t stand the thought of our little babies being hurt by parents so drugged up, they don’t even know what they are doing. Some of these babies go to bed with their little bellies empty, some get molested or sexually assaulted because the parents are too busy looking for their next high and not taking care of their children. Some of these kids take their own lives, rather than continue to live like this. 

We have to remember that children are the most sacred gift Wakan Tanka has given us and yet some of them are treated so badly. We as Native people MUST find a way to stop this! We are better than that and we are stronger than that. We have to be stronger than ever because this drug problem is destroying our families and our communities. We have to unite to stop this enemy, our babies are counting on us!

I’m not trying to be depressing, I’m trying to light a fire in all of the Warriors gathered here today. We can’t wait for someone to solve our problems. We have work to do, let’s get at it!

I’m going to sign off now, I know you all want to eat and enjoy the day visiting with each other. Thank all of you for being here, for those of you who walked, those of you making sure everyone had water, those of you driving cars and those leading the way to the Jumping Bull homestead. To the cooks, thank you, I’m sure everything was real tasty! Thank you for letting me have a part of this day.

Doksha,
In the Spirit of Crazy Horse,
Leonard Peltier

Perhaps you have heard the term “Two Spirit” used along with lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and other terms. If you are not Indigenous, this may have made you think that “Two Spirit” refers to Indigenous people who are lesbian, gay or bi. But being Two Spirit does not necessarily mean that someone is lesbian or gay since it does not refer to sexual preference.

“Two Spirit” is a pan-Indian umbrella term that describes Indigenous people who have mixed or non-binary gender roles. The term first began to gain popularity in the late 1980s and is now used widely throughout Canada and the U.S., and other Indigenous people, such as the Zapotec in Mexico, also recognize the concept.

While the term is relatively new, the concept has existed among hundreds of Indigenous Nations for thousands of years. Some Native Nations have terms for up to 4 or 5 different genders, for instance. Two Spirit people are considered to be nonbinary and to hold sacred elements of both feminine and masculine within them.

These Indigenous understandings came long before and exist outside of the “LGBTQ” terminology that is often used now. A Two Spirit person may be lesbian or gay, but being lesbian or gay does not necessarily make someone Two Spirit.

Two Spirit people have existed for thousands of years. Many tribal nations understood that there were people who were not part of a male/female binary. In fact, some nations believed that there were multiple genders, not just two.

Traditionally, in many tribal nations, Two Spirit people were held in high esteem. They were leaders, warriors, medicine (spiritual) people. They often played a special role with youth, including adopting children and giving special sacred names to babies.

When the Christian Europeans invaded, however, they held Two Spirit people in extreme contempt. Two Spirit people were often killed or forced to hide who they were. The Christian missionaries did their best to teach Indigenous people that being Two Spirit was sinful and wicked, and settler colonial laws and customs forbade the existence of people who were not specifically male or female.

Because of this repression, more and more Native people turned away from their ancient understandings — but not all. However, it became more difficult for Two Spirit people to be who they are, and in many places they had to function in an underground way.

Challenging disrespect

By the 20th century, some Two Spirit people from reservations left for the cities where there were lesbian and gay communities. Some of them founded urban Native groups, such as Gay American Indians (GAI) in San Francisco, and many of them faced anti-Indigenous racism in the cities, as well. Sometimes white people even told them that Native people could not possibly be lesbian or gay or Two Spirit due to some bizarre stereotypical views held by non-Natives. It could be difficult for Two Spirit people to feel completely at home anywhere.

But increasingly, more and more Two Spirit people have let their families and tribes know who they really are. If they are not treated with respect, they challenge this, especially when it was their own tribal tradition to honor Two Spirit people.

During the 2016-2017 Standing Rock encampments to stop the Dakota Access Pipeline, Two Spirit people banded together and worked on many projects. Two Spirit people at Standing Rock played a very important spiritual role and tried to do everything in a good way to bring healing to the thousands of people gathered there.

With leadership provided by people like Candi Brings Plenty, this was a very important step forward in the overall Native struggle. When some Native people at camp were not accepting of them, others strongly challenged this and reminded everyone of their traditional cultures.

Sometimes non-Native people refer to themselves as Two Spirit. That is disrespectful, since it is an appropriation of a distinctively Indigenous concept and term.

During this month of June 2019, and throughout the year, Pride parades and powwows will celebrate Two Spirit people, from Saskatoon to the Bay Area to the Navajo Pride Parade. Honoring Two Spirit people is an important part of decolonization — washing settler colonial ideas out of our brains and returning to deeper understandings that existed long before the rise of patriarchy, capitalism, settler colonialism and the European invasion of Indigenous lands.

New York — On April 28, Lenny Foster, a longtime American Indian Movement activist and former director of the Navajo Nation Corrections Project, spoke on “Native American Issues and Leonard Peltier” at The People’s Forum.

Foster, a member of the Diné Nation, participated in the occupation of Alcatraz, the Wounded Knee uprising and many other historic events. He described his history working with the International Indian Treaty Council as part of his support for Indigenous justice.

After opening with a prayer, Foster spoke about the frame-up of political prisoner Leonard Peltier following a gun battle at the Pine Ridge reservation in 1975. One Indigenous person and two FBI agents were killed.

The FBI went to great lengths to set up Peltier. He was illegally extradited from Canada to face a trial filled with constitutional violations. Documents proving FBI misconduct have become public since Peltier’s sentencing. Yet more than four decades later, he remains in prison, suffering poor health.

Foster explained that Peltier asks his supporters to protect the earth and defend the rights of others, as well as to pass on the tradition of activism and mentor youth everywhere.

Foster closed the well-attended program by performing an AIM song.    

NYC Free Peltier, the Jericho Movement, the ProLibertad Freedom Campaign and NYC Anarchist Black Cross sponsored the event. Readers can contact nycfreepeltier@gmail.com for further information on how to support Leonard Peltier. Outside New York, visit the Leonard Peltier Defense Committee.

This spring, extreme weather devastated reservations in several Midwest states. Pine Ridge, Rosebud, Cheyenne River, Ponca, Standing Rock and several more reservations were all impacted by blizzards and flooding.

While farming and other communities in the region have been hard-hit, already strapped reservations — and, in particular, Pine Ridge in South Dakota — are bearing the greatest burden from the record flooding.

On Pine Ridge, home of the Oglala Lakota (Sioux) Nation, families were stranded for weeks as already poor roads became and stayed impassable. More than 1,500 people were displaced, and it will take millions of dollars to repair the damaged infrastructure. Hundreds of people ran out of food and drinking water while waiting for help.

Four deaths that occurred as a result of the flooding have now been confirmed on Pine Ridge.

Pine Ridge tribal chair Julian Bear Runner as well as the state of South Dakota pleaded for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to provide help. “Rather than declaring emergencies that don’t exist, President Trump needs to pay attention to the ones that do,” said Oglala Tribal Chair Julian Bear Runner, in a statement referencing Trump’s declaration of a national emergency on the U.S. border with Mexico. “I call upon him to send us help before lives are further disrupted.”

But the U.S. government refused to declare a state of disaster, just as they had failed to help Pine Ridge after a destructive July 2018 hailstorm that brought tornado-like winds and hailstones the size of softballs, damaging about 550 houses there.

The Oglala Lakota of Pine Ridge did not sit idly by awaiting help from an uncaring government. “Rez aid” — sometimes jokingly referred to as “Rez Cross” — was in high gear, with Native people and others working round the clock for weeks to deliver water, food and other desperately needed items on foot, on horseback, on farm equipment and any way they could get to some of the most heavily flooded areas.

Puerto Rico, New Orleans, Haiti and other places have also been devastated as a result of climate change, and the U.S. government has largely turned its face away from their suffering, too — the same U.S. government that has money to support Zionist repression of Palestinians and money to rebuild a Catholic church in France.

One effect of this has been to increase solidarity among the many impacted communities. For instance, during a national news appearance, San Juan’s mayor, Carmen Yulín Cruz, referenced the situation at Pine Ridge and FEMA’s failure to provide for communities of color.

On the front lines resisting pipelines

In the midst of the flooding crisis, Trump issued a presidential permit to allow the Keystone XL pipeline (“KXL”) to cross the Canadian border into the U.S. “Trump’s decision to ram KXL through while our families suffer feels like being kicked while we’re down,” Bear Runner said.

The Trump administration is doing its best to increase the impact of climate change, grabbing lands wholesale for exploitation and ramming through multiple pipeline projects. Vulnerable communities in the U.S. and worldwide are directly impacted by climate collapse. The massive use and extraction of fossil fuels directly link to the flooding, droughts and other extreme weather that are felt broadly.

Attorney Chase Iron Eyes, public relations director for the Oglala Sioux Tribe, said that “Trump’s insistence on circumventing court decisions designed to reign in oil pipeline development on, or near, Sioux tribal land is particularly egregious given our current suffering.” He continued, “Mr. Trump apparently has no respect for scientific or Indigenous perspectives on what is causing these super storms, and he has no respect for the rule of law.”

Indigenous people — at the front lines of the resistance to pipelines — are particularly targeted everywhere. In the U.S., corporations do not want to see a recurrence of the type of resistance that occurred at Standing Rock against the Dakota Access Pipeline, where thousands joined to protect the water and more than 800 people were arrested, with the stiffest sentences imposed on Indigenous water protectors such as Red Fawn Fallis.

The energy corporations have directly colluded with police forces and private security firms as well as legislators and regulators. According to In These Times, energy companies have sponsored bills in at least seven states to criminalize resistance to their corporate terrorism, and at least eleven more such bills have been introduced.

In South Dakota, while Oglala homelands were still underwater, Gov. Kristi Noem signed into law two bills designed to help the state government police what are expected to be massive, Indigenous-led demonstrations against KXL construction. One of the laws creates new civil penalties for “riot boosting,” which would apply not only to so-called “riot” participants but to anyone who “directs, advises, encourages, or solicits other persons participating in the riot to acts of force or violence.”

On March 28, renowned Guatemalan anthropologist and activist Rigoberto Quemé Chay finished a series of lectures in the Los Angeles area at the Harriet Tubman Center for Social Justice.

Quemé Chay was the first Indigenous mayor of Quetzaltenango, Guatemala, and has dedicated his life to the empowerment of the oppressed communities and groups that have been victimized in many different ways by centuries of colonialist domination and the diseases that come from it, like racism, displacement, land theft and assimilation.

Speaking to a packed room, the researcher for El Centro Universitario del Occidente and the University of San Carlos mentioned the fascist trend that has gained traction in the Americas. Repudiating it, Quemé Chay emphasized the lack of unity on the left as one of the things that facilitates the counterrevolutionary developments in Latin America. This has also exacerbated the suffering of Indigenous peoples, who continue to be murdered at a high rate.

According to Quemé Chay, many of those who hold leadership positions on the left put their own views and pride ahead of the struggle of Indigenous peoples and other oppressed groups. This lack of support and solidarity results in distrust of the left by oppressed groups.

Further, he added, we must reverse the process of assimilation that was so successfully pushed down people’s throats. Many people don’t know the history of their ancestors, their culture or their language, which makes the fight of Indigenous peoples in Guatemala and around the planet much harder.

Quemé Chay condemned capitalism, its oligarchies and neoliberalism. His message was: Unite to defeat them all and implement a system that gives priority to the needs of living beings over profits.

The series was convened by El Coletivo Guatemalteco-L.A. and organized by S.O.A Watch-L.A, AIM SoCal, Radio Justice, the Socialist Unity Party and Struggle-La Lucha newspaper.

According to a statement released by the Defense Department, an additional 3,750 U.S. troops will head to the U.S./Mexico border for 90 days to aid in placing razor wire as well as with mobile surveillance operations.

This increased militarization of the border with troops, Border Patrol and other agents is not just a publicity stunt by the Trump administration, as some media are styling it. The military presence is a threat to the thousands of refugees who seek to enter the U.S. and to people in the U.S. who want to open the borders and support the refugees.

The troop increase also comes at a time when the labor struggle has intensified in the maquiladoras (factories in Mexico run by foreign companies, many of them from the U.S.) in cities just over the border such as Tijuana, Ciudad Juárez and Matamoros in northern Mexico.

Maquiladoras employ over a million workers, often in sweatshop conditions. In Matamoros, 25,000 striking workers from 48 plants recently won their demands for “20/32,” receiving a 20 percent pay raise and a bonus of 32,000 pesos. Workers elsewhere in the region are also walking out to demand higher wages.

The governors of New Mexico and California have both publicly stated that they will not let National Guard troops from their states participate in the border buildup, but many other states are collaborating.

While the Democrats are talking a big game about how they refused to capitulate to Trump’s border funding demands, they have in fact aligned themselves with the agenda of keeping Brown and Black people from entering the country through the southern border.

The congressional “compromise” agreement reached in mid-February in hopes of preventing another partial government shutdown includes $1.375 billion in new fencing along the border, including 55 additional miles of barriers. The “smart barrier” proposal will fill the pockets of high-tech and military contractors. Both capitalist parties have also agreed to an increase in the number of detention beds.

Some Democrats hypocritically supported this while simultaneously touting the “Green New Deal” plan. Yet the federal government is waiving dozens of laws protecting the air, habitat and wildlife in order to build these destructive barriers.

On Feb. 14, the White House announced that Trump would sign the compromise package, then issue an executive order declaring a “national emergency” to bypass Congress and fund a border wall anyway.  

U.S. continues to kidnap refugee children

Meanwhile, refugee families entering the U.S. continue to be separated and imprisoned every day.

The federal government does not know how many children are in custody. Earlier this month, the Trump administration admitted that it is not keeping track of all the children, that they may not be reunited with their families, that there are thousands more than they had originally estimated, and that they are continuing to separate families. Attorneys involved in lawsuits over this crime estimate that more than 10,000 children have been separated from their families.

Some in the media and government point to the admission of not keeping sufficient track of the children as incompetence on the part of the Trump administration and their hired hands who enforce these policies. But if anyone actually wanted to do so, it would be relatively easy to keep track of the children and families in this age of computerized databases.

The Trump administration and its henchmen may very well be intentionally choosing not to keep track of the children. In a particularly vicious display of their imperial power, they are traumatizing and terrorizing the families as a “deterrent” to their crossing the border. Children are moved around like chess pieces, sometimes thousands of miles away from family members.

Will some of the children never be returned to their families? That is quite plausible. Jonathan White, who is supposedly leading the Health and Human Services Department’s efforts to reunite migrant children with their parents, papered over the fact that some children are not being reunited with their families by saying that removing children from “sponsor” homes to rejoin their parents would further traumatize them. This is a cover to rationalize keeping the children in foster homes or putting them up for adoption.

The majority of the refugee families are Indigenous. This theft of Indigenous children to “save” them is reminiscent of longstanding government policies that forced Indigenous children in the U.S. and Canada into adoptions and residential schools and that continue to feed them into the foster care system.

With international adoptions in Guatemala and some other countries largely off-limits to U.S. prospective adoptive parents due to a history of coercion and other issues, concerns grow that adoption mills such as Bethany Christian Services — an international agency with close ties to the family of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos — are seeking to profit from this new pool of refugee children, enabled by the supposed inability of authorities and agencies to keep track of the whereabouts of refugee families.

Border resistance continues

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detainees themselves are doing what they can to resist the nightmare in which they find themselves, including the “El Paso 9,” hunger-striking Sikh men detained by ICE who have been placed in solitary confinement and are being brutally force-fed.

In Texas on Feb. 4, excavating equipment rolled into the area of the National Butterfly Center in preparation for construction of a border barrier there. The Butterfly Center is seeking a restraining order since any barrier will be highly destructive to butterflies and many other species of life.

In the same area, Carrizo Comecrudo Indigenous people and allies marched in protest on the Rio Grande levee where the wall will be built. “We’ve had enough. They are digging up our people and any time that you dig anybody up and you put them somewhere else, that’s just ethnic cleansing all over again … genocide,” according to tribal chairman Juan Mancias.  

The Carrizo Comecrudo and allies are currently establishing camps on the riverbanks near several ancestral areas, including a graveyard in danger of destruction. Local police and the FBI are reportedly trying to undermine this peaceful resistance.

The Indigenous Tohono O’odham nation continues to oppose any plans for border walls or other barriers. Their reservation is roughly the size of Connecticut and straddles the colonial border. Around 2,000 of their tribal members live on the Mexican side. The increased Border Patrol and military presence has made simple things such as visiting relatives and friends much more difficult.

Washington, D.C. — On Jan. 18, the first ever Indigenous Peoples March gathered in Washington, D.C. The march started at the U.S. Department of the Interior and ended on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, where a rally went on for the rest of the day. Speakers at the rally included Indigenous activists and tribal elders from all over the country. Struggle-La Lucha activists also attended to show solidarity with the Indigenous community.

The atmosphere was somber, but simultaneously filled with a spirit of empowerment and political resilience. The historic gathering was a sign that the struggle for Indigenous liberation will continue, speakers said, as it has since the first European colonizers landed on the shores of Turtle Island, also known as North America.

It’s difficult to capture the day’s energy in words. However, the message of the march was abundantly clear: Indigenous people will never stop fighting for their lands, for the thousands of murdered and missing Indigenous women, girls and Two-Spirit people (MMIWG2S), or for their very right to exist.

Photos: Emma Rose

Millions around the world were outraged by the scene of white teenagers wearing “Make America Great Again” caps harassing Native elder Nathan Phillips (Omaha Nation) as he was drumming and singing. It was captured on video after the Indigenous People’s March in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 19. Among other things, the racists circled around him and did “tomahawk chop” moves, mocked him and chanted “Build that wall!” referring to Donald Trump’s anti-migrant obsession that has furloughed federal workers and cut off government services for over a month.

These would-be Hitler Youth are students at Covington Catholic High School in Kentucky, an institution with a history of racist outrages and priest sex abuse scandals. They came to Washington to attend an annual right-wing rally against women’s reproductive rights, the so-called March for Life, held on the anniversary of the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion.

Now, a racist backlash has set in, attempting to paint the Indigenous elder as the provocateur and the MAGA teens as victims of “fake news.” The charge is led by the white supremacist in chief, whose White House press secretary told reporters, “We’ve reached out and voiced our support” to the Covington students.

For an eyewitness account of the incident by a participant in the Indigenous People’s March, read “Staring Down the Smug Face of American Violence.”

Here’s my personal reaction to what happened.

As a Native woman watching the video of Lekshi (Uncle) Nathan Phillips, I felt proud. I knew that Lekshi is not only an elder who deserves to be respected. He is a warrior and has lived an activist’s life.

I knew my beloved Lekshi was a water protector to the very end of the Standing Rock anti-pipeline uprising and that he participated in many other struggles to defend our people. He was a Vietnam era veteran of the Marines, though he did not get shipped to Vietnam. But he is a warrior for his people. I felt proud watching him sing and drum in the face of those Covington kids mocking his song.

Lekshi Phillips was taken from his family when he was a child, growing up without his nation around him. He turned to alcohol, but then he also became sober nearly 40 years ago. He lost his beloved wife a few years back to cancer. His life is like so many Indigenous lives, full of the pain caused by racism, and also full of love for his people. He worked for many years to help Native youth and make things better for them.

In Native political prisoner Leonard Peltier’s statement of support, released Jan. 22, he tells us that the song that Nathan Phillips sang in order to defuse the situation in Washington is a Northern Cheyenne song that has been used for decades as an American Indian Movement (AIM) honoring song. It is an old Cheyenne song that was later used in memory of Raymond Yellow Thunder, an Oglala elder who was murdered by whites in Gordon, Neb.

The kind of taunting and disrespect seen in the video is not new to Indigenous peoples. We are disrespected on a daily basis. In all too many areas, we have cans and other items hurled at us from the windows of passing vehicles. We are taunted by offensive costumes at Halloween, stereotypical roles in the media, and the use of sacred Native imagery and racist mascots for sports teams. We are taunted with erasure. This disrespect is a key part of settler colonialism and capitalism.

The march that Lekshi Phillips participated in celebrated Indigenous solidarity, part of a effort to remind the U.S. government that we are still here. This march and the issues it raised were largely ignored by mainstream media such as CNN. They silence us. Think about how rarely you hear an Indigenous person actually speaking about our issues on television. So why does the bourgeois press make this the big news out of Indian Country that they decide to notice, when there is so much going on in Native communities?

News agencies need to hire more Native journalists who could cover our stories from our perspective — like our missing and murdered Indigenous sisters and the fight to free our Brother Leonard Peltier, who has been wrongly imprisoned for 44 years now. But now they will devote countless hours to featuring the “brave” young men from Covington Catholic who somehow were “assaulted” by an elder with a hand drum, smearing Nathan Phillips while continuing to silence Indigenous voices and issues.

The Catholic Church is also in this up to its ears. It is the same church that converted millions of Indigenous people at the point of a sword. They ran the missions in California that enslaved Native peoples, even making a saint out of Junípero Serra. Their priests and nuns ran many of the residential schools across North America where thousands of Indigenous children were abused and beaten for speaking their languages. The Catholic Church sent known pedophile priests to parishes on reservations, not caring what happened to our children. It is the same church that has refused to rescind its racist Doctrine of Discovery.

Some people have suggested that the Covington bigots be punished by doing community service at a reservation. Personally, I do not think Indigenous people are a teaching moment for white people. It’s not a punishment to do community service at a reservation. Nor should it be our job to teach them to have respect for other humans.

Fourteen people were arrested on Jan. 7 on the Gidimt’en clan territory that is within the homeland of the Wet’suwet’en Nation in what is called “British Columbia” by the Canadian settlers.

Elders were at the Gidimt’en checkpoint, women holding eagle feathers against the guns and hard faces of the Mounties as they invaded. The media were blockaded for hours, all electronic communications cut off.

As the militarized Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP or “Mounties”) continued their invasion, they headed toward the nearby Unist’ot’en territory — another of the clans with hereditary chiefs within Wet’suwet’en.

The Unist’ot’en chose to bring down their blockade temporarily out of concern that the unarmed people there would be hurt, vowing to continue to resist the Coastal Gaslink pipeline and all of the pipelines slated to go through Wet’suwet’en territories.

The “crime” that led to the RCMP raid was the resistance of the five traditional clans of the Wet’suwet’en Nation to TransCanada’s Coastal GasLink pipeline. Their stolen lands are unceded, not subject to any treaty, and they do not consent to the destruction of their lands. Canada fundamentally seeks to exploit and destroy the lands and protect corporate profits.

Across Canada, Indigenous people and allies have come out to defend the Wet’suwet’en. They delay traffic on streets and highways, march, and demand that Canada back down from its doomed and destructive love affair with oil and gas extraction.

Pipeline fighters have confronted Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau directly, calling him a liar and making it difficult for him to attend some of his meetings. The Union of British Columbian Indian Chiefs has strongly condemned the RCMP’s tactics of “intimidation, harassment, and ongoing threats of forceful intervention and removal of the Wet’suwet’en land defenders from Wet’suwet’en unceded territory.”

Outside Canada, what is happening in Wet’suwet’en homelands is not as well known. Yet actions have taken place in some U.S. cities, including New York, San Francisco, Seattle, Boston and other locations, and internationally, too.

This is another pivotal moment in the centuries-long defense of Indigenous sovereignty. Wet’suwet’en must be defended from the incursions of settler governments and corporations, just as the sovereignty of Standing Rock was defended in the #NoDAPL struggle.

Liberal government’s repression

Following the invasion of Gidimt’en and the arrests there, Wet’suwet’en chiefs entered negotiations with the RCMP under duress.

An agreement made to let Coastal Gaslink and the RCMP come onto Unist’ot’en territory in return for Wet’suwet’en members having full access to their territory was only supposed to be temporary, until a court hearing could take place. The RCMP has violated the agreement by establishing a police detachment on Wet’suwet’en territory without consent. As a result, solidarity actions need to continue to put pressure on Canada to back down.

Trudeau and his Liberal Party cabinet, as well as nearly all other elected officials in Canada, were silent when the RCMP raided. But make no mistake: the RCMP moved in with the full backing of Trudeau.

Although people in the U.S often think of Mounties as being rather cute and quaint, like the old cartoon character Dudley Do-Right, in fact, they are serving the Canadian government and corporations that seek to roll over Indigenous First Nations and their right to have the final say over what development will happen on their lands.

The RCMP was created as the North West Mounted Police in the 19th century to fight, kill, remove and imprison Indigenous peoples in western Canada and to suppress their ceremonies and cultures. Mounties continue to repress Indigenous resistance to this day.

Trudeau’s dealings with First Nations people are characteristic of the two faces of liberalism. On the one hand, he seems to be a caring young leader who loves to dress up in Indigenous garb and says he supports Indigenous people and reconciliation.

But then his other face is revealed: the ugly face of capitalism and settler colonialism. The right of Indigenous nations to “free, prior and informed consent” was one of Trudeau’s campaign promises, but in practice he and his government have not cared about consent since Canada’s economy is so heavily dependent on gas and oil.

TransCanada is pushing through the $4.7 billion Coastal GasLink pipeline to connect fracking wells in northeastern British Columbia with a liquified natural gas (LNG) export terminal on the province’s coast, altogether forming a $40 billion infrastructure project called LNG Canada. “LNG Canada represents the single largest private-sector investment project in Canadian history,” according to Trudeau.

TransCanada is also funding the Keystone XL and Energy East pipelines that have faced widespread opposition.

Wet’suwet’en law long predates Canada

The raided Gidimt’en checkpoint had only recently been established in solidarity with the longtime Unist’ot’en checkpoint, in place since 2009. The Unist’ot’en camp contains permanent structures erected in the path of multiple proposed pipelines. These buildings provide a place for people to stay and a barrier to protect the land and water, and also provide a place where people can come to heal at the land-based treatment center.

Fracked gas and tar sands pipelines have been planned without consent from the Wet’suwet’en’s five clans. They have never surrendered their lands or signed any treaties for their traditional territory, spanning 22,000 square kilometres in northwest British Columbia.

The Wet’suwet’en Nation has resisted the arm-twisting of corporations and the Canadian government. First Nations have often been subject to coercion, including incentives such as job creation and threats to cut off or divert desperately needed funds if consent is not given.

Canadian law had previously recognized the rights of the Wet’suwet’en hereditary chiefs and five clans, in addition to recognition of the government-sanctioned “Indian Act” band council chiefs. A Supreme Court of Canada ruling confirmed the land’s unceded status in 1997. Nonetheless, the British Columbia Supreme Court recently decreed that Coastal GasLink lines could pass through their lands.

More important, though, the Wet’suwet’en have their own laws. Their laws and systems of governance predate Canada by thousands of years. The people are the final word, not Indian Act band council chiefs.

Unist’ot’en spokesperson Freda Huson said: “I’m here now because this is my home, this is where I live. … The gate is for our protection. We had racists coming in and shooting rifles, ramming my gate with vehicles, and using explosives to blow up my gate. …

“All I am doing is living on my lands that my clan has title and rights to. You say reconciliation? This is not reconciliation. You’re treating my chiefs and us as criminals. We’re not criminals. This is our land.”

How you can support the struggle: Increase awareness of what is happening by posting on social media and attending and organizing actions in your area. Here is a list of Canadian embassies and consulates worldwide. Let them know that people everywhere support the Wet’suwet’en struggle.

Five terms to know regarding the Wet’suwet’en pipeline dispute

The U.S. federal government’s partial shutdown that began in December has resulted in 800,000 federal employees furloughed or working without pay. About a quarter of the federal government is without spending authorization from Congress.

Millions of people have grave concerns over being able to file for and continue to receive basic life-sustaining benefits such as Social Security and SNAP (food stamps). If the Grinch-like government shutdown stretches into February, nearly 39 million people may face severe reductions in food stamps, and the Department of Agriculture won’t even say how long it can keep paying out benefits for those who depend on the program each month.

All of this creates massive disruptions to people’s lives and wellbeing.

But even with such widespread fallout from the shutdown, there is a disparate impact on Indigenous peoples, as Trump and his cronies hold millions hostage unless funding is granted for some type of wall or barrier along the border between the U.S. and Mexico.

Indigenous people in the U.S. are always disproportionately impacted by any federal cutbacks and shutdowns because so many Native programs are funded by the U.S. government, often on a short-term basis rather than many months in advance.

Contrary to what some believe, these programs are not some kind of giveaway to Native peoples. They exist because of the historical settler colonial theft of nearly all Indigenous lands and resources and the way in which the U.S. government largely stripped Indigenous people of even basic resources required to feed and house themselves — including forbidding Indigenous people from hunting or fishing on their own lands.

Indigenous poverty persists because of this history and because of the ongoing colonialism and white supremacy that Native people continue to experience.

Attack on survival programs

The federal shutdown affects the Bureau of Indian Affairs and other departments that run or fund programs for Native nations.

Thousands of Indian Health Service (IHS) and other “Indian Country” employees have been working without pay since December. The IHS, urban Indian health programs and many others that provide direct services to tribal nations were already underfunded and are now facing large funding gaps.

Addicts may not be able to get services they need in the midst of an addiction crisis and Native treatment centers may need to shut down. Critically ill people and their families worry about whether they will be able to get the care that they need, in addition to tribal concerns about the availability of day-to-day services. Cash-strapped tribal governments are being forced to use their own resources to fill in the gaps as much as they can, but that is not sustainable.

Education, roads, the tribal justice system — all this and more are affected.

The shutdown also has a big impact on Indigenous women, who suffer the highest rates of sexual assault and domestic violence in the U.S. The Violence Against Women Act (VAWA), intended to help survivors of domestic abuse and sexual assault, expired with the government shutdown. Payments for programs are cut off until funding is reauthorized.

If Congress does not restore funding to food programs such as the Food Distribution Program on Indian Reservations, up to 100,000 tribal members may be negatively impacted. The consequences could last for months.

During the 2013 government shutdown, for example, FDPIR found that the demand for their food increased. Some FDPIR sites were forced to close, with food then left to rot in locked warehouses, while hungry people waited outside.

Even when funding was restored, the programs were so disrupted that many FDPIR program sites lacked access to fresh fruits and vegetables or adequate protein for 4 to 6 months afterward.

Who pays for border barriers?

As Chief Harold Frazier of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe recently said about Trump’s proposed border wall: “The President of the U.S. should quit trying to build a wall that would have been better served [if Indigenous people had put one up] at Plymouth Rock. … Indigenous people are not immigrants to this land.”

Indigenous peoples traveled freely for millennia, long before the current borders were set. The current border was established after the U.S. grabbed millions of acres of land from Mexico — all of it land that was originally stolen from the many Indigenous nations who were there first.

The vast majority of refugees who have been coming to the U.S. or attempting to do so in recent years are not “Hispanic”; they are Indigenous peoples. When Trump and others use vicious anti-immigrant rhetoric, they are targeting and scapegoating Indigenous humans. The wall meant to keep largely Indigenous people out of the U.S. is part of an overall attack on Indigenous peoples everywhere.

Why are so many refugees seeking to come to the U.S.? Because they are trying to escape the extreme poverty and violence caused in large part by U.S. policies in countries like Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, policies enacted by Republicans and Democrats alike.

Ultimately, Indigenous people are paying for U.S. border policies and barriers with their lives.

Indigenous children are losing their lives in the custody of U.S. Customs and Border Protection. Jakelin Caal Maquin, 7, and Felipe Gómez Alonzo, 8, both died in U.S. custody in December. Thousands of children and adults are locked up in barbaric conditions. Refugees have died in U.S. custody. We don’t even know exactly how many people die trying to cross every year.

We do know that the Border Patrol and other U.S. agencies (as well as racist vigilantes) engage in monstrous actions against those trying to cross, including destroying food and dumping out jugs of water that helpers leave in the desert, physically attacking refugees and, in recent times, spraying tear gas on people trying to cross near Tijuana.

Indigenous people also pay a high price because the borders are an attack on their sovereignty and lands. Some Native nations, including the Tohono O’odham, would have proposed border barriers running right through their lands without their consent, and any of the barriers would also have a devastating wildlife and environmental impact in the areas.