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MAKING CONTACT Transcript: #06-99 Whose Wealth: Indigenous Resources and Corporate Greed Phillip Babich: Welcome to Making Contact, an international radio program seeking to create connections between people, vital ideas and important information. This week on Making Contact: Winona LaDuke: You know, they say, "If you Indians would go out, get yourselves jobs, you’d feel a lot better, you know." And I said to these guys, "The problem is you are telling us to go out and get our bootstraps, pull them up, get our boots on, and we’ll feel better. The problem is that you have our boots." Phillip Babich: On the White Earth Reservation in Minnesota, only ten percent of the land is owned by the Native Americans who live there. Private companies, such as the paper giant Weyerhaeuser, have managed to capitalize on the area’s resources, reaping profits while the residents of the reservation remain impoverished. In other parts of the world, multinational companies are exploiting oil-rich regions in indigenous communities, spawning environmental devastation and political repression. On this program, we take a look at indigenous land rights and corporate interests. I’m Phillip Babich, your host this week on Making Contact. Across the United States, Native American land is used for dumping garbage and toxic waste. Also private companies engage in extensive mining, logging, and drilling operations. Few Native Americans are seeing any financial benefit as a result. But many of them are living with chemical exposure and endemic poverty. On the White Earth Reservation in Minnesota, home to about five thousand Anishanabe Indians, efforts are underway to buy back some of the land. Native Americans there hope to protect their communities against further encroachment from private interests, and to create economic development projects that will raise their standard of living and preserve their culture. Winona LaDuke founded the White Earth Land Recovery Project. She’s an outspoken human rights activist who also founded the Indigenous Women’s Network. In 1996, LaDuke was Ralph Nader’s running mate on the Green Party ticket in the presidential election. In December 1998, she spoke at the Mario Savio lecture series in Berkeley, CA, an event paying tribute to the pivotal figure of the free speech movement, Mario Savio. What follows is an excerpt from that talk. LaDuke begins by speaking about poverty on the White Earth Reservation. Winona LaDuke: My reservation is not unlike many other Indian communities in this country. Very little land is left in many of our reservations. My reservation today: ninety percent of the land is held by non-Indian interests. Ninety percent of my land held by non-Indian interests. Why is that? You know, the relationship is between wealth and poverty. Our wealth has become our poverty. The greatness of our land--forty-seven lakes, forests, great pine forests--the beauty of our land coveted by others. The vast majority of our people are landless. Three-quarters of all tribal members do not live on the reservation. Refugees in our own land. Every social and economic problem you could have, we have it. You know, the statistic--if you want to be at the bottom or the top--wherever you don’t want to be--is where we are. Whether it’s unemployment: sixty-five percent; arrest rate: seven times that of non-Indians; diabetes rates: forty percent; everything you don’t want we got in our community. Why is that? When I was asked to talk to the Rotary Club in this border town to my reservation ("border town," that means a town that was built on my reservation--you know, amassing the wealth. I go talk to those people and they say --this room entirely full of men-- they said . . . they said a lot of things. They said, "I knew an Indian once…" I’ve always liked that phrase, "I knew an Indian once." It makes me want to say, "I bet you did. You know, I knew a white guy once too." This is how prejudice is repeated though. You understand what I’m saying--they come up with these things: "I knew an Indian once . . . He did not have a job. He did not want to work." Well, there you go. I knew several white people like that as well. You know, they say, "If you Indians would go out, get yourself jobs, you’d feel a lot better." And I said to these guys, "The problem is you’re telling us to go out and get our bootstraps, pull them up, get our boots on, and we’ll feel better. The problem is you have our boots." That’s the reality. That is what is structural poverty. When ninety percent of your land is held by someone else. So we struggle to get back our land, people went all the way through the courts. I am someone who tried the justice system and I have come to terms with the fact that they call it the "just-us" system for a set of reasons. I went all the way through the court system and the courts basically slapped me in the face along with all the other Indian people on White Earth Reservation. They said, "We feel bad." So we look around and we say, "Well, we do not have our land." The courts say, "Well, it’s too bad you people don’t have your land, but we aren’t going to give it back to you." That’s kind of a summation of the court decision. I could sit here and I could wait for the government to fix it. I could wait for my tribal government to fix it. And you know what? -I would still be waiting. That is the reality. I would still be waiting; and I’m not a very patient person. So we create this project, White Earth Land Recovery Project. Our goal--it may take us fifty years, it make take us a hundred years - is to seek return of public landholdings as a start. A third of my reservation is held by public agencies: federal, state, and county governments. Tamarack National Wildlife Refuge, huge other areas carved out of my reservation. I think it is a reasonable request: return of public landholdings within Indian reservations to Indian communities. Reasonable request. Does not involve displacement of a single non-Indian landholder. Involves transferring back of assets which were essentially stolen in the first place. That’s what we seek. It’s gonna take a long time. The government is easy to take things, reluctant to return. But we will work on it. So, we acquire parcels of land, piece by piece--thirteen hundred acres so far, mostly maple sugar bush areas -that’s maple syruping areas- organic raspberry farms, a lot of cemeteries. Indian cemeteries we buy back. We work on culture, environment, to preserve our language, preserve our eco-system . What is the relationship of this to the overall struggle? The struggle of the free speech movement? These other movements? —We’re all part of the same struggles. The struggles to make a collective better for our communities, a better for all. Sometimes I wonder . . . I feel like this society is largely caught up with the struggle over the rights of the individual. It is sometimes easier to secure the rights of the individual than the rights of the collective. I don’t know how else to say it, but you gotta engage in this discussion: about what it means to relinquish the illusion of power. That’s what it’s about. Relinquish some of that. We have power over that land and we don’t want those other people to have that. Get down to what that’s about--what fears that’s about, what that’s about in yourself. I have to say, one of the challenges in the progressive movement in this country -one of the challenges for all of us- is to deconstruct colonialism in our heads. I’m hopeful about that process. Why? Because at a certain point, I think that everyone figures out who their allies are. And if you can’t drink the water, if you can’t breathe the air, all these things -- this is not about people of color doing this. This is about people of extreme privilege who made choices that affected all of us. My suggestion to you is that it’s systemically flawed. The paradigm is flawed and the system is flawed. That’s what I suggest. What do I mean? Simply stated, it’s two different world views. I believe that this is a struggle today between industrial and indigenous or industrial and landbased. I believe that is the conflict in the world today. It’s not a conflict between the left and the right, the republicans and the democrats -god, no one believes that’s true- the communists and the capitalists -it’s not. It’s between people who live on the land and resonate from the land and industrialism. Industrial society. The predator and the prey. That is the relationship that has been carved out -hammered out- over five hundred years and accelerated with the more petroleum and fuel we inject. We’re totally a society of junkies--electrical junkies. What do they say? A fifth of the income in this country: directly for energy. Shoot it into your veins. Get goin’ faster. Largest energy market in the world? -Right here. And it just accelerates faster and faster and faster. It’s artificially hyped. After all, you and I are not so big. We are some place between a mountain and an ant. But, yet we have this gift of reason. Remember that it is possible to make change. Phillip Babich: Winona LaDuke, speaking at the Mario Savio lecture series. She was recorded by Amy Pomerlau. A current hotspot in the struggle for Native American land rights is in Minnesota. A highway project is threatening a site sacred to the Dakota people. According to Jim Anderson, cultural chairman of the Mandota Dakota Community, the State Department of Transportation wants to build the road to shorten travel time to the colossal Mall of America, the gargantuan shopping center which has drawn world attention. Jim Anderson: You’re seeing an amusement park under glass and anything materialistic that you could ever desire is there. For material things, they’re willing to sacrifice sacred things. And that’s blasphemy. Spirituality of the modern day person -because of how they’ve been educated and their reality- what’re important to them are money and materialistic things. And that’s so off-base; they’re losing everything if they let the things that give them life go for these things that have no life to them. Phillip Babich: In December 1998, more than six hundred law enforcement officers forcibly removed Native American and environmental activists who were squatting at seven homes on the sacred site. State officials said that it was the largest police action in Minnesota history. Anderson says that the police used what he termed "terroristic methods" to end the four-month-long occupation, a last-ditch attempt to stop the highway construction after the state denied the Dakota people their request to protect graves and the cultural heritage of the area under federal law. Jim Anderson: Historically it’s the biggest show of force since they forced the Dakota people out of the state in 1862. The front of the homes is where the sacred fire was burning; we had protected that and those people -nothing really happened to them because the eye of the public was on them. The people who were in the lock-down sites, once they were handcuffed and taken out of those sites, their eyes were forced open and pepper spray was sprayed in their eyes and noses, filling them up. And some of the people —They have a type of cream they use, pepper gel or something, and they opened their eyes, held them open, and rubbed it in there with two fingers of their gloved hand. The only reason for something like that is terroristic action, to penalize people. I think that they think -they know that we’re going to win this thing because what they’re doing is wrong. When they came in with six hundred troopers and terrorized us with weapons drawn, with the laser beams on, they were just trying to tell us to get out of there and never come back. They were terrorizing these young people to scare them into leaving the site and never returning. When they came into this encampment with their six hundred troopers, they not only brutalized young people, but they ruined sacred items there. They stomped on a drum and burned it. They burned teepees. They burned all our lodgepoles. They tore down our sweatlodge and they put out our sacred fire. And we had a permit from the fire department as a spiritual encampment with a sacred fire. And they still -they haven’t learned in five hundred years- they just keep coming in and destroying everything we have. Phillip Babich: According to local press accounts, highway construction is expected to start in summer 1999. Meanwhile, Anderson says, his organization is still pursuing other legal avenues. A similar situation occurred in Tennessee. A Wal-mart wanted to develop a rural piece of land that was culturally significant to local Native American tribes. The area, where vast herds of hunting game used to graze, was a sacred burial ground. Ric Brown is director of the Native American Spiritual Alliance in Nashville, which challenged Wal-mart’s plans. Ric Brown: We knew that there were grave sites there; people who had hunted the land had seen them. And so, once we got word that that was proposed to be developed, we started a campaign. The first thing we did was try to promote new legislation to make the desecration of Indian graves in the state of Tennessee a felony. Phillip Babich: But, those plans fell short. The Tennessee Department of Archaeology investigated Brown’s claims by taking earth samples and digging up Indian remains. The graves did not meet guidelines to fall under the Native American Grave Protection and Repatriations Act and state officials declined to give special consideration for the site, says Brown. Eventually, Wal-mart and its developer JDN Construction Company pushed through their plans for their new mega-store. In fact, the Tennessee State Department of Archaeology actually still possesses the remains of an untold number of Native Americans after it excavated the site. Brown adds that the new Wal-mart also has a local economic impact. Ric Brown: A Wal-mart will go into an area and cut the prices below Mom and Pop. In our situation here, it’s not just that they desecrated the Indian graves -which they did do- it’s that they just closed down all the little businesses around. There’s a Wal-mart not a mile away from where this one is built. There already was a Wal-mart. We held most of our protests at that Wal-Mart; those people that owned that shopping center were very much in favor of us trying to stop that Wal-mart, because once they moved the Wal-mart out of the Hillwood Plaza Shopping Center, they pretty much killed it. So, now there’s this huge piece of real estate up there that’s losing businesses left and right and, of course, they’re going to go down to the new Wal-mart Center. Phillip Babich: Ric Brown is director of the Native American Spiritual Alliance in Nashville. Shereen Meraji: You are listening to Making Contact, a production of the National Radio Project. This program can now be heard across the United States, in Canada, in Haiti, South Africa, and around the world on Radio for Peace International Shortwave. You can also hear us on the internet. If you want more information about the subject of this week’s program or you would like to learn how you can get involved with Making Contact, please give us a call. It’s toll free, 800-529-5736. Call that same phone number for tapes and transcript orders. That’s 800-529-5736. We also welcome comments and suggestions for future programs. Phillip Babich: In other parts of the world, the issue of indigenous land rights has taken on a horrifying dimension. In Nigeria, political repression and murder are commonplace where communities are struggling to protect their land, resources, and way of life from multinational mining, oil, and timber companies. In early January 1999, for example, at least 240 people in the Niger Delta were killed when soldiers opened fire on youth demonstrators who were protesting against multinational oil companies. Shell, Chevron and Mobil are among the major oil companies that operate in Nigeria. Human rights activists link these corporations to violent repression and murder carried out by paramilitary groups and the Nigerian military dictatorship. ? Human Rights attorney and environmental activist, Oronto Douglas, is deputy director of Environmental Rights Action in Nigeria. He was a member of the legal team that defended writer and environmental activist Ken Saro Wiwa, who was hanged along with eight others, by the Nigerian military regime in 1995. Douglas is an outspoken critic of Shell, Chevron, and other transnational oil companies for ties with the Nigerian military and policies leading to environmental and cultural devastation. As a result, he’s been arrested and tortured. At a recent speaking engagement in the United States, he talked about the history of corporate interests in Nigeria. Douglas grew up in the Niger Delta, a region where people understand that their own survival is dependent on the health of the land. He begins by describing the spiritual connection his people have with the environment. He says that the rivers are sacred, the animals deities. Oronto Douglas: As I was growing up, I noticed that my people don’t kill the chimpanzee. They don’t kill the crocodile. They don’t kill the parrots. And I asked questions and they say these animals are deities. There are vast areas of forest in my village they call "Sacred Forest." They say that our grandparents do visit there and stay there from time to time, so you don’t cut down the forests. There are rivers they say that they are sacred. When I look at this relationship between humanity and nature, I feel that there is a need that we must all stand up and protect. When these multinational companies come to the village, they have no respect for our forests. They have no respect for our waters. They have no respect for our people. Phillip Babich: According to Douglas, toward the end of the nineteenth century, corporations essentially "carved up" Africa and divvied up the continent’s resources. Nigeria’s attraction at the time was its palm oil. Oronto Douglas: If you look at a map of Africa, there are boxes and squares. And these boxes and squares were designed by corporate interests. The company that created Nigeria is called the Royal Niger Company. This was a company that was interested in palm oil. Palm oil is a fruit that you get naturally from the forest. It grows on palm trees that grow wild in the Guinea Coast, the area generally referred today as West Africa. When the Royal Niger Company came, the industrial revolution had started at the time. And they needed this palm oil for the making of all kinds of things: margarine, cream for people, oil in machines, and so on and so forth. So, it was a vital resource that they needed. The oil barons -the palm oil barons, at that time- set up huge cartels, lead by the Royal Niger Company. They had soldiers that were going from one ethnic nation to the other, subjugating them and forcing them to abide by imperial Britannic interests. In 1895, the people of Nembe of the Ilajeland ethnic nation decided to fight against the Royal Niger Company because, at this time, the Royal Niger Company was simply collecting the palm oil and sending it to Britain without paying for what they were taking from nature. The men extract the palm oil, give it to the women to take it to the depot, where these oils are taken into drums. And what the British did -the Royal Niger Company and the officials did- were: take the oil, rape the women, and sent them on their way without giving anything in return. And, in 1895, [the people of Nembe] actually approached a community called Bekekiri, where the depot was kept. They invaded that place and destroyed all the files and the drums. They did not attack any single European that was working for the Royal Niger Company. Their belief was that what was responsible for the oppression were the papers. They were illiterate. They thought that the papers that they were using, writing papyrus and the pen was responsible. So, they destroyed the files, destroyed the drums, and went away singing and clapping that they had destroyed the instrument of oppression and never will it come back again. However, one month later, the Company invited the naval gun boats and then they invaded Nembe. Four thousand people were slaughtered, mainly women and children. The men who had the orders had said they had gone on to prepare with stones and clubs. The Company had guns; at that time, guns had been invented. So, the people were surprised that an instrument could kill a far. Phillip Babich: One century later, says Douglas, companies selling crude oil, not palm oil, now work with a military dictatorship to control Nigeria. One of the first oil companies on the scene was the Royal Dutch Shell Company, the parent company of U.S.-based company, Shell Oil, and the target of international campaigns challenging its environmental and human rights record. Royal Dutch Shell has been implicated in the hanging of writer Ken Saro Wiwa and eight other environmental activists in 1995. And, Chevron hired soldiers in May 1998 to brutally suppress a direct action demonstration when youth activists tried to take over an oil barge in the delta. Oronto Douglas: In 1995, it has changed. The resource is crude oil. The company is Royal Dutch Shell. The instrument of brutalization has remained military dictatorship. So, from 1895 to 1995, from palm oil to crude oil, from Royal Niger Company to the Royal Dutch Shell, the massacre and despoilation of the people have continued without any abatement. In 1995, you heard of what happened to Ken Saro Wiwa. Two thousand Ogoni people have been massacred. Nine, including the writer and environmentalist Ken Saro Wiwa, were hanged by the military dictatorship. Twenty-seven villages in Ogoni alone have been burned down completely. There are 80,000 internal and external refugees in that nation. Shell imports weapons, gives them to the military to invade communities. Chevron, on the twenty-eighth of May, hired soldiers to invade a direct action demonstration that was organized by the concerned Ilajeland community. One hundred twenty-one youths of Ikorigho decided that they must nonviolently take over a barge that was used by Chevron in oil exploration. Chevron has been polluting the waters, destroying mangrove forest, and causing great havoc on this community for decades. And they said, "Look, Chevron, come and talk to us." The reaction of Chevron was to hire soldiers to kill people. Two of those demonstrators were shot dead immediately. Fifteen were injured very seriously. And it is this game of violence that we are living with on a daily basis. Phillip Babich: Douglas, a spokesperson for the Ilajeland Youth Council, has called for the immediate withdrawal of multinational companies from the Ilajeland area of the Niger Delta. Oronto Douglas: When I come to the United States and I see the wealth and I see the freedom -we don’t want the kind of wealth you have, because the kind of wealth that is here is the wealth that destroys nature, that destroys our planet. It is not sustainable wealth. And it is not sustainable, because if you have to take oil from Nigeria and pollute the land and desecrate forests and subjugate a people, you are piling up huge ecological debts, which future generations of the American people will be called to pay. Why should you create problems for generations yet unborn? You are on this planet now; we are here now. Why must we create problems for those not yet born? Beyond one thousand years from now, why must they come at the bidding of our recklessness and our carelessness? I think the challenge before us is, how can we make these multinationals care? I have narrated how they created my country. I have narrated how they have continued to pollute and devastate our land. How can we bring these multinationals to account one after the other? Phillip Babich: Oronto Douglas is deputy director of Environmental Rights Action in Nigeria. He was recorded by Fred Cook. That’s it for this edition of Making Contact, a look at indigenous land rights and corporate interests. Thanks for listening. And special thanks this week to Eric Hamako, who provided production assistance. We had music this week from Michael Quijas and Babatunde Olatunji. Laura Livoti is our managing director. Peggy Law is executive director. Our production assistant is Shereen Meraji. Norman Solomon is senior advisor. Our national producer is David Barsamian. I’m your host and managing producer Phillip Babich. If you want more information about the subject of this week’s program, call the National Radio Project at 800-529-5736. Call that same phone number for tapes and transcripts. That’s 800-529-5736. Making Contact is an independent production. We’re committed to providing a forum for voices and opinions not often heard in the mass media. If you have suggestions for future programs, we’d like to hear from you. Our theme music is by the Charlie Hunter Trio. Bye for now. |