from,Star BurdickAim Santa Barbara May 2 at 10:35am
To theOriginal Peoples of the Fourth World and all International PressServices:
At high noon today US Army helicopters of the USSeventh Cavalry air division attempted to land their Blackhawk aircraftupon Lakota Sacred Burial grounds in South Dakota. The presence ofmilitary aircraft from this unit... See More is a sad and insultingreminder of the slaughter of more than 300 American Aboriginals onDecember 29,1890 when soldiers of the US 7th Cavalry gunned down morethan 300 Aboriginal Minneconjou Lakota refugee children, women, infantsand the elderly at what is now called Wounded Knee in South DakotaIndian Country. The military then left the bodies of their victims todecay unburied in the driving snow.
According to reports fromIndigenous Rights Movement Radio host Wanblee this afternoon, Lakotaresident Theresa TwoBulls was given less than 24 hrs notice that threeUS Army 7th Cavalry helicopters would make a landing on the sacredburial grounds at Wounded Knee. As of this writing, the US military wasconfronted by angry but peaceful and steadfast community resistance asthe Aboriginal people of the area have so far, according to reports fromLakota people on the ground, managed to prevent the aircraft fromtouching Indigenous ground.
For all American Aboriginals of theAmericas, this is a sacred area. This is the place where the promise of apeople died while fleeing from a genocidal US military unit hell-benton liquidating the continent of its Indigenous population. There hasnever been any official apology offered for this massacre and themilitary awards bestowed upon the genocidal aggressors involved in thisconflict still stand, as does a physical monument in honour of the USArmy killed during Custer’s “last stand” against a defiant and unitedIndigenous resistance to their own demise.
The history of the US Army7th Cavalry is important to understanding the level of violence usedagainst Indigenous peoples. It is important to remember that after theUS Seventh Cavalry officially ended the "Indian Wars" at home, they werethen dispatched to do battle against Indigenous Filipinos struggling tomaintain their hard-won national independence from the colonialistSpanish. In other words, the US War Department sent this very same unitto do overseas what was done here to the Indigenous peoples of theAmericas. In this historical light, it is only logical for Indigenouspeoples to assume that the Obama administration is attempting to make apolitical point out of this spectacle. Only, what sort of message areyou sending by insulting and humiliating a people already suffering fromfive centuries of continuous pro-Europocentric, anti-Indigenousgenocide?
This domestic military action is a deliberate insultand an obvious message of ongoing colonialism, state-sponsored racismand apathetic Indigenous genocide to all Indigenous peoples across theFourth World; to the whole of the Lakota/Dakota Nation; and to theIndigenous residents of Pine Ridge and Wounded Knee. The symbolism ofdispatching the Seventh Cavalry to Wounded Knee in an attempt to landweapons of mass destruction on Aboriginal sacred ground tells us howlittle this government, and this particular administration, respects thepeople of Indian Country and our significant historical perspective assurvivors of the racist Euro-settler xenophobic purges waged against theIndian in the Americas.
To make matters worse, this action comes onthe heels of newly-passed legislation in Arizona state that requires lawofficers to racially-profile anyone they believe “looks”, “sounds” or“dresses” like an illegal immigrant, a thinly veiled “race law” thatdirectly effects both our Indigenous sisters and brothers native toOccupied Mexico as well as the Native American population of Arizona inthe United States. Given that most Indigenous peoples of the Americasshare the same general physiotype and more often than not, similarSpanish last names, the passage of this guideline will without a doubtlead to widespread abuses against that state’s brown-skinned population.The legal door now opened, Texas and other states led byneo-confederate constituencies are moving to pass their ownanti-immigrant/anti-Indigenous directives that will broadly effectanyone and everyone who could be perceived by the colonial Europeanmajority as a “foreign invader”.
The Obama administration hasshown America and the world that they are no different than any otherprevious US government in their view that the American Indian on bothsides of the US border is nothing more than a prop or a tool to bedisplayed only when it is useful to promote the “contemporary” 21stcentury neo-colonialist capitalist agenda. The Obama administration, anoffice headed by a man of African descent, has shamed itself and allthose who have supported his candidacy in arrogantly dismissing thememory of our people interred at Wounded Knee by rubbing the militarymight of the historically anti-Indigenous 7th Cavalry in our faces byforcibly entering Indian Country in an attempt to land their machines ofwar on top of the bodies of our ancestral dead.
Clearly, the culturewar against the American Indian is not over. Welcome to the newAmerican century.
Pass this on We must get the word out.....Leteveryone know..Contact the your local media....Tell them the the LocalMedia in (Rapid City, SD) havent even mentioned this in the news...Sotypical for rapid city SD media...and if they did post it, it would notbe the truth..I tried to contact the Rapid City Urinal....LOL. They wontreturn my calls or post any of the comments I have made in defence ofour people.
James ( Magaska) Swan
AIM Black Hills South Dakota
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